Claim System + Call for Help Code = Win

[Capn]

I'm sure we'd be perfectly happy if the entire playerbase understood how the claim system worked, and how Haste worked, and how a variety of other things worked if only because it would mean that pickup groups would be less likely to suck and 45 minute 18-man Orthrus zombies would be less likely to happen in the middle of Ukon farming.

That aside, we can both agree that the range of players who are now playing Endgame content has increased. Personally, I love the fact that content is more openly accessible to the playerbase. However, I feel that it can only hold up as an excuse for willful player ignorance for so long.

FFXI resources are nowhere near difficult to come by. The Wiki has more than enough general information about these systems for the people who bother to take a few minutes and read them. Myself and others have been repeatedly attempting to educate the populace whenever a particular issue is brought up. BG's Random Question Thread still exists, and is heavily moderated to prevent trolling of people seeking real information (Eg: People aren't going to crap on you unless you crap on them first, anyone asking a polite question will get polite answers. Though, asking questions that require a lot of typing and work to answer without doing even basic research on one's own is rarely appreciated).

The fact of the matter is, many FFXI players simply refuse to educate themselves and instead opt to be willfully ignorant of how the game works. Unfortunately, a side effect of making content more accessible is that these people are thrown into the ring with people who do understand the basics of FFXI gameplay. Are they more likely to screw up and be taken advantage of? Most definitely. But that's not anyone else's fault, most especially not the fault of the game itself.

I don't expect everyone to know how pDif, dDex, WSC, fStr, and the like work and interact with one another. But I do expect them to know that Haste and X-hits are important. If the claim system were remotely complex, I would be more forgiving of not understanding that too. Fortunately, the claim system is not remotely near complex. It is incredibly simple.

The last person to act on a mob has claim, period. If that person disengages the mob, the mob goes white, period. If you're not on the hate list when a mob is in active combat (eg, not passive/idle), you require two consecutive actions to take claim, period. Those 3 simple rules are all anyone ever needs know about the claim system.

I absolutely cannot advocate changing the rules of the game just because some people choose not to learn the basics of gameplay.

This... a million times this...

I think the problem is, that back in the good old king days... people decided to tell kings to eff off since it was... well... it was kings... lol... now with Abyssea, people have that king-ish content more available, more people are doing it... and complaining about the system.

When you finish learning the system, only then can you complain...

[Glamdring]

It was meant to be ironic. But saying that claim system mechanics were not relevant before Abyssea is plain ignorant. Claim system mechanics were, if anything, significantly more relevant in the days of World-Spawn HNMs than they are and will ever be in Abyssea.

Not true. Before Abyssea the consensus was that "the HNMLS were going to monopolize the NM, whoops, it's been up for .047 seconds, ___JacktardsLS got claim, see ya, we'll move to Orcish Overlord since these guys are stuck here, wait, we're not an HNMLS, we're not allowed to fight an HNM, let's just move to campaign."

Abyssea moved those HNMLS-types into direct competition with regular players in a general zone. Unfortunately, regular players refuse to relinquish all end-game type content to the exclusive use of those types, nor to become their mindless DD drones/stooges, thus we have conflict. If regular players would simply farm, pop and die within seconds to voluntarily surrender __NM to ___JacktardsLS as they are required to do according to the ___JacktardsLS Code of Conduct we wouldn't even be discussing this issue.

[blowfin]

Because they don't know how it works and refuse to take 5 minutes to educate themselves.

How are people supposed to know what to research before they are effected by it? They don't know how it works sure, but stating that people have refused to educate themselves on something that's never been an issue for them before is a bit silly.

[Karbuncle]

How are people supposed to know what to research before they are effected by it? They don't know how it works sure, but stating that people have refused to educate themselves on something that's never been an issue for them before is a bit silly.

Actually its not silly at all.

Its called being prepared. People do it all the time.

I know before any fight, I always look up a good strategy, what to expect, where/when to kite if neccessary, what TP moves to look out for, What Debuffs it can inflict, etc.

Basic things about the game. I would say "Knowing how to keep a mob red" would be "Basic education of the game". Especially if they're so afraid of "Vultures", you think they would research a way to keep mobs red. It just seems like a basic preventative measure.

There is a line to be drawn, but learning the basics of keeping your mob from going unclaimed seems like something people would want to do, especially with all the hate/knowledge of "Vultures" camping ???'s etc.

[Frost]

Because they don't know how it works and refuse to take 5 minutes to educate themselves.

Not my fault. Not the "vulture"'s fault. Certainly not the game's fault.

Their fault.

Except....

People know EXACTLY how it works, and that's why we're complaining. In some cases the current claim system is working contrary to the spirit of the game. Knowing that a DC'ing tank that's auto-attacking a mob and will unclaim the mob when he fully DC's and trying your hardest to pull hate off THE TANK in 30 seconds when it's been well established just so it doesn't happen are two different things. Just because YOU KNOW how it works doesn't mean you can stop it. And just because IT DOES HAPPEN, doesn't mean it's right.

I stand by my original statement this really only became a problem once SE started saying "Hey it went unclaimed, sucks to be you." Back in my HNM days that wouldn't fly... One could easily site racism because the GMs conveniently only popped up when a JP groups' Fafhogg was "stolen", but I'll lean on the side of coincidence... This IS a new thing, and it's been amplified by population density on both sides of the proverbial fence. There's more HNMs being fought and there's more people stealing pops since they believe SE is giving the "The Right" to take anything that goes unclaimed.

Had SE done anything in the past, fewer people would slide their moral flexibilities to the side of theft.

Which is ironic for SE considering you need to confirm 62,000 times to do anything in this game, and yet a monster can go unclaimed without any effort on the part of the group? Really?

[rog]

It takes a minute to dc, not 30 seconds. If you cannot pull hate off someone in a minute, you deserve to lose it.

[Frost]

It takes a minute to dc, not 30 seconds. If you cannot pull hate off someone in a minute, you deserve to lose it.

If you want to get nit-picky then I'll say, there's times where you just can't move the mob...

And no, no one deserves to have anything stolen from them. No one "deserves" to lose the work they put into something when the other 17 people are in complete control.

Hell, if you instated a process as suggested, there's no down side to it. Leaving it the way it is only leaves the door open for theft. Given the two options, which is more fair to the entire gaming populace? One that allows people to steal form one another? Or one that opens up content for people of all skill levels without the fear of theft and having their work go to waist because someone has an oversized sense of self-entitlement?

[Greatguardian]

How are people supposed to know what to research before they are effected by it? They don't know how it works sure, but stating that people have refused to educate themselves on something that's never been an issue for them before is a bit silly.

That only holds true for the first time someone has run into trouble with the claim system. If they lost a claim and did not know why, and then didn't bother to try and learn why that happened, they cannot blame the game if they lose claim a second or third time.

All it comes down to is the simple fact that people have absolutely no basis upon which to complain about a game system when they have not even attempted to learn how said game system even works.

I am not going around slamming people who lose their claims on NMs and calling them ignorant. I am replying to a mass of people who are posting on these forums, bashing the current state of the claim system and demanding change to it, without even trying to understand it first. There is absolutely no excuse for that.

Most of these people would have been much better off simply saying "This happened. Why did I lose claim? Do DoTs not hold claim? I thought my WAR voked the mob, does that not work either?" instead of creating page-long whine-posts, GM threats, blaming "Abyssea" for "Changing how claims work", and accusing everyone but them of Hacking and Botting.

[Frost]

Except people know how the claim system works and that's why they want it changed....

Your logic is akin to saying "If people knew how bullets worked, they wouldn't get shot".

[Hoshi]

I'm curious about something I've seen stated several times in these mob going white threads. Has the claim system been the same since the game started? I could have sworn it worked differently up until 2008 or so... back when we used to steal claim on NMs by curing a player in the other ally and then having someone do something to gain a ton of hate like invincible. You also used to be able to reclaim a monster you had hate on much the same way... it happened at countless khims and maybe an ixion or two. I know they changed monster hate in 07 or so... I guess around the time they made it so that mobs would no longer wait at the zone to decimate whoever entered the zone next (and the whole anti-MPK thing).