Question for Devs regarding cleave

[Kikorimo]

I was just returning to play after being offline for some time to focus on college when I noticed this:
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[NA]Action against RMT Activity Involving Power Leveling

We are currently investigating players who advertise power leveling services via Shout/Yell, collect gil from the participants, and then use that gil to engage in RMT-related activity. Our investigations thus far have revealed that these players regularly advertise in the Jeuno area and we have responded by terminating the FINAL FANTASY XI service accounts of those found guilty of this behavior.

Please be aware that advertising in such a manner in itself can be disrupting to other players and we may take action against players who continuously advertise for the above kind of parties. This also includes behavior that helps facilitate such activity. Please take caution in not supporting RMT-related activity.

In addition, if you witness other players engaging in this behavior, please report the details to the Special Task Force via the Square Enix Support Center.

Square Enix Support Center
http://support.na.square-enix.com/ffxi/
[Contact] > [Report to Special Task Force] >　[Witnessed RMT related activity in-game]

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this matter.
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While I like that RMT are still tasting the fiery wrath of the banhammer, what concerns me is that the post seems somewhat vague. I have participated in non-RMT parties that power leveled people who paid us gil for compensation for our time so that we could afford to buy some better gear in the past. (In other words, no RMT involvement at all, we were just working to make our characters better by performing in game work for in game rewards, similar in concept to simply doing a quest.) However, it sounds like this post is saying that doing this in the future will cause non-RMT to be banned as well. So, I am asking for clarification on this from the development team/GMs. Does Square Enix intend to ban non-RMT players for requesting in game compensation for time and effort spent? :confused: I myself don't feel Fell Cleave party shouts to be any more disrupting than shouts to put together Voidwatch parties or any of the other random server banter. Heck, I would have thought that was the original purpose of shout (to put together groups, make known an offer for item/service, etc...) and that chat filters were added for a reason.

Thanks for your time, and clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

(Banning for making use of shout to put together parties is silly in my opinion though...)

[Kincard]

I'd like some clarification too. It strikes me as odd that the STF/Dev Team is apparently against a specific type of party itself rather than just RMTs doing it, since if someone is legitimately doing it, it's just another way to make gil in-game. Isn't all that different for mercing out a NM kill or some other service.

[Demon6324236]

I am also curious about this. I have not cleaved myself in some time, however with how it was made to sound, I fear if I were to do it again, or my ls members were to cleave, we may be reported, and even banned, for trying to help fund a Relic, or just generally help out fellow LS members. (It sounds as though FCs may be reported in general, with or without shouts.)

[Kincard]

I just don't get why they're actually suggesting it's disruptive to people to advertise for cleaving when it's really no different from shouting multiple times to form a voidwatch group or to sell something.

For the record, I don't even cleave except when I'm trying to farm some dark rings on my own so this doesn't really affect me, it just seems like a double standard to me.

[Kjara]

About time they'd do something like that. I've been struggling to get any kind of EXP activity going since Fell Cleave burns started. Dominion pages parties are pretty much dead, took me two weeks to get a GoV EXP party going in Crawler's Nest. The top of luck is to see an La Theine shout every few days.

Wish I knew where people got all this money to pay FC burns. I never had that much and if I ever will I definitely wouldn't spend it to EXP, which is something that shouldn't be done by afking (thus the word 'experience'). Because of these activities newcomers are getting pushed away from the game because they don't have the gil to pay burning nor can find someone to exp with.

As I've said in other posts, I think SE should just make Fell Cleave magical damage and nerf it. That would solve the problem once for all. Other activities such as farming dark rings or empyrean boots can be done without it just fine (Personally I do it as blue mage). Let's see if this banhammer brings some life back in previous exp areas.

[Caketime]

An adjustment at this point to Fell Cleave would be exclusionary to anyone who didn't jump on the FC alliance bandwagon months ago, nerfing it to uselessness would only inspire some people to quit playing, and shoehorn others into a cycle of boring gameplay for minimal reward due to there being no alternative. Personally I prefer being able to suit up SCH and just spam buffs at my WAR buddy while he wrecks everything in front of him. It's much faster than waiting around for hours trying to set up a PT.

[Kincard]

About time they'd do something like that. I've been struggling to get any kind of EXP activity going since Fell Cleave burns started. Dominion pages parties are pretty much dead, took me two weeks to get a GoV EXP party going in Crawler's Nest. The top of luck is to see an La Theine shout every few days.

At least on Leviathan, Dominion parties arn't formed in town anymore, they're basically permanently going on in Altepa and you just go there, flag up, and you'll get picked up.


Wish I knew where people got all this money to pay FC burns.

Pretty much any endgame activity? Also, before blinkers were nerfed, a lot of the time you'd get back a huge chunk of the money you spent through cruor. Paying cleavers 100k/hour meant that in that hour you only needed to get something like 40k cruor to get it back, which isn't that unfeasible.

Since blinker nerfs people join cleaves far less often, but honestly spending a few hundred thousand gil to wake up to a new fully leveled job isn't really a big deal to a lot of players.

[lllen]

An adjustment at this point to Fell Cleave would be exclusionary to anyone who didn't jump on the FC alliance bandwagon months ago, nerfing it to uselessness would only inspire some people to quit playing, and shoehorn others into a cycle of boring gameplay for minimal reward due to there being no alternative. Personally I prefer being able to suit up SCH and just spam buffs at my WAR buddy while he wrecks everything in front of him. It's much faster than waiting around for hours trying to set up a PT.

What has happen is that we have a whole generation of players who do not know about the ole time parties mainly because there are none any more. I partied some of my jobs, but I remember soloing Blm up when no one wanted the job in party its not fun, omg if I ever see another pet rabbit...lol. I love Abyssea, the ability to get the jobs up fast is great, I then learn how to use them, skill up, gear them etc...that is fun. Eliminating FC parties is not the answer, people will find another way to do it and as they are not privy to the ways of the old FFXI it won't be 6 man parties in the Dunes, Quifim or bird merit parties.

Its scares me that SE is going after the FC, they don't have a good track record when it comes to banning. I have spent years getting my guy to the level she is now, I don't want to loose it because my best friend a War decided to FC to make money for a relic and I am leveling off of him. I already stopped gardening, what next?

[Demon6324236]

As I've said in other posts, I think SE should just make Fell Cleave magical damage and nerf it. That would solve the problem once for all. Other activities such as farming dark rings or empyrean boots can be done without it just fine (Personally I do it as blue mage). Let's see if this banhammer brings some life back in previous exp areas.Gimp 1 form of FC, people will find another. Be it WAR FCing with Staff using Cata, using GA with FC, using BLU with CW. The only way to stop it, is destroy Abyssea's xp system, which destroys its light system somewhat, and would never be done.

[Kikorimo]

About time they'd do something like that. I've been struggling to get any kind of EXP activity going since Fell Cleave burns started. Dominion pages parties are pretty much dead, took me two weeks to get a GoV EXP party going in Crawler's Nest. The top of luck is to see an La Theine shout every few days.

Wish I knew where people got all this money to pay FC burns. I never had that much and if I ever will I definitely wouldn't spend it to EXP, which is something that shouldn't be done by afking (thus the word 'experience'). Because of these activities newcomers are getting pushed away from the game because they don't have the gil to pay burning nor can find someone to exp with.

As I've said in other posts, I think SE should just make Fell Cleave magical damage and nerf it. That would solve the problem once for all. Other activities such as farming dark rings or empyrean boots can be done without it just fine (Personally I do it as blue mage). Let's see if this banhammer brings some life back in previous exp areas.

Nerfing cleave would do nothing because AoE exp burns have been around for years, even before level 80+ and fell cleave. Remember summoner burns? There is also Aeolin edge and Cataclysm burns as well as blu "cleave."
Just my 2 cents in regards to the "nerfing one weaponskill will solve all the problems" train of thought. Fell Cleave is currently just the most popular method is all.

[Waldrich]

We're waiting for a contrete answer.
we are hoping the answer isn't one of the various dig-up-past-posts to know what you want to know kind of answer.

[tyrantsyn]

I thought it was pretty clear, I've seen these cleave party shout's go on for days. And while I don't think of them as disruptive or annoying as much. They do pretty much show up constantly. I'm pretty sure tho if you decide to do a shout for a paid cleave party the GM's aren't going to come down on you with the band hammer. It's those guy's who have been literally shouting all day and all night there looking at.

[Alhanelem]

I was just returning to play after being offline for some time to focus on college when I noticed this:
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While I like that RMT are still tasting the fiery wrath of the banhammer, what concerns me is that the post seems somewhat vague. I have participated in non-RMT parties that power leveled people who paid us gil for compensation for our time so that we could afford to buy some better gear in the past. (In other words, no RMT involvement at all, we were just working to make our characters better by performing in game work for in game rewards, similar in concept to simply doing a quest.) However, it sounds like this post is saying that doing this in the future will cause non-RMT to be banned as well. So, I am asking for clarification on this from the development team/GMs. Does Square Enix intend to ban non-RMT players for requesting in game compensation for time and effort spent? :confused: I myself don't feel Fell Cleave party shouts to be any more disrupting than shouts to put together Voidwatch parties or any of the other random server banter. Heck, I would have thought that was the original purpose of shout (to put together groups, make known an offer for item/service, etc...) and that chat filters were added for a reason.

Thanks for your time, and clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

(Banning for making use of shout to put together parties is silly in my opinion though...)
here's your clarification: they're banning people who shout to sell cleave parties for 500k (where the party is actually actively in progress and they have a bot/agent shouting in town for it). I've tried, and most of these shouters do not respond to anything other than "I'll buy." If you shout for this, you're likely putting your account at risk- but most likely its only aimed at the cleavers who have another character autonomously shouting around the clock.

I see cleave shouts all day long and i do consider it disruptive. Many of these people are RMT, as have been demonstrated by the few I've actually gotten to respond to tells and chat.


Does Square Enix intend to ban non-RMT players for requesting in game compensation for time and effort spent?You would cleave anyway, inviting someone to leech isn't affecting your time and effort spent. I think the prices people charge for this are insane. You can level to 99 in a couple days with or without a cleave party, so why pay for something you can get for free?

[Kikorimo]

You would cleave anyway, inviting someone to leech isn't affecting your time and effort spent.
On the contrary, I cleave on occasion because people willingly pay gil for it. The only exception is if I'm after key items from boxes, and at that point I am not inviting random people.

but most likely its only aimed at the cleavers who have another character autonomously shouting around the clock.
Yes, it is likely, but at the same time they do not specify "around the clock," they simply make it sound like if you have a mule shouting while you cleave to pick up people, that it's "disrupting" and you "may" be banned for it. As it has already been pointed out, Square Enix does not exactly have a great track record with mass bannings hitting only guilty people.

so why pay for something you can get for free?
I often ask myself this also. I do not have an answer for it short of this; "people do pay for it because they are lazy."

[Alhanelem]

I often ask myself this also. I do not have an answer for it short of this; "people do pay for it because they are lazy." I don't agree with this on the simple basis that it's already just as effortless to level up in a normal abyssea party, and if you just pick WAR as that job to power level, then you can just do it yourself. I also have to ask myself where the people that are so lazy they can't cleave themselves or join an abyssea party and go AFK get their gil to buy these services.

On many occasions i've seen a BLU or other job AoE burning in abyssea and i've asked to join them in order to get the KI boxes that they'd otherwise be just letting disappear. Most of the time, they happily agree, knowing that everything they aren't specifically after is just going to waste. I get lots of EXP and cruor in the process, and have never had to pay a single gil for it. When you're joining such a person's party, you're having basically zero impact on what they're doing or what they're getting out of it. Therefore, I see no reason to pay for it, nor a reason to charge for it.


Wish I knew where people got all this money to pay FC burns. I never had that much and if I ever will I definitely wouldn't spend it to EXP, I don't really care how other people get their EXP, but i do think paying gil for it is silly and wonder just as much as you do where their gil is coming from if they're really that lazy.


Square Enix does not exactly have a great track record with mass bannings hitting only guilty people. I disagree with this statement, but I don't want to open up another can of worms so I won't elaborate on it.

i think it's generally pretty obvious when it's RMT vs when it's not RMT, so I don't think any normal player has anything to worry about.

[Kikorimo]

I also have to ask myself where the people that are so lazy they can't cleave themselves or join an abyssea party and go AFK get their gil to buy these services.
Some of them make gil by mercing out drops from mobs or crafting, and would rather not spend time grinding exp when they can drop some gil on it and come back to level 99. Then all they have to do is work on skills/gear etc. I've known people who make gil easy enough with crafting or doing events that they can obtain high value items from to fund joining a cleave to level up while afk. When I said lazy I meant "lazy in regards to grinding exp", not "stupid and unable to make gil."

On many occasions i've seen a BLU or other job AoE burning in abyssea and i've asked to join them in order to get the KI boxes that they'd otherwise be just letting disappear.
Not saying this doesn't happen, but I know if I'm out cleaving for anything other than gil, it's for KIs, and I bring friends and linkshell members along to hold them all to pop mobs later, or sometimes while the cleave is still going. The last time I did a cleave that was for both gil and KI I even offered people an option. They could either bring some keys and help open boxes (and leech xp for free for doing so) OR they could just pay up front and afk (which 90% of them chose to do.) I myself do not pay for exp either, but I know lots of people who do.

but i do think paying gil for it is silly
I agree with this, but if someone wants to spend gil on it then I'll happily take it from them for doing this. Altana knows I can put it to better use than spending it on xp. (Like buying that new sword or armor piece I've been eyeballing for some time...)

[Calintzpso]

So...I saw like 8-9 keyboard smashed War's and Rdm's yesterday out in West Ronf while leveling my alt's Dragoon.

Either they already got shitcanned/starting over or they are preparing for said shitcanning...

Just thought I'd share.

[Kincard]

You can level to 99 in a couple days with or without a cleave party, so why pay for something you can get for free?

Opportunity cost? It isn't that hard to figure out why someone would want to pay for something they don't have to do on their own. You can get cleaved while you are at work/sleeping, come back and then do other stuff instead of leveling during your actual playtime.

If your LS is, for example, selling NNI drops for 5M a pop or whatever, it isn't that painful to separate with maybe 1.5M or whatever to cleave your character up from 30. Hell, even if I only just made money through Dynamis every day (~1.5M every time solo), I really wouldn't mind trading one of my runs once in a while to get another job to 99.

For the record, I've never paid to cleave up any of my jobs since I do prefer to xp them myself anyway, but it isn't that hard to see why people would prefer doing that instead.

[Alhanelem]

Opportunity cost? It isn't that hard to figure out why someone would want to pay for something they don't have to do on their own. You can get cleaved while you are at work/sleeping, come back and then do other stuff instead of leveling during your actual playtime.
You missed my point that while not every party will let you do this, it's completely possible to do what you describe in an ordinary abyssea party (especially if you're friends with someone in the party)

[Okipuit]

Greetings,

To clarify the situation -- normal players will not get in trouble for advertising power leveling services on their own. We will thoroughly investigate whether or not the users soliciting for the service are affiliated with RMT activity and take action against those that are. However, in the event players are supporting RMT activity and services, there is a possibility of being punished as well. Therefore, we ask users to be careful not to involve themselves in activity that is associated with RMT.

[Kincard]

Thanks for checking Okipuit.


You missed my point that while not every party will let you do this, it's completely possible to do what you describe in an ordinary abyssea party (especially if you're friends with someone in the party)

That's true, though the last few times I went to Altepa it was a pretty standard thing to boot anyone that went afk for an extended period of time, especially if they never mention anything, mostly because people prefer to keep it as a single alliance at the dolls so it doesn't get really confusing.

[Raksha]

Greetings,

To clarify the situation -- normal players will not get in trouble for advertising power leveling services on their own. We will thoroughly investigate whether or not the users soliciting for the service are affiliated with RMT activity and take action against those that are. However, in the event players are supporting RMT activity and services, there is a possibility of being punished as well. Therefore, we ask users to be careful not to involve themselves in activity that is associated with RMT.


So I can sell spots in my own cleave party just fine, but if I unknowingly join an RMT cleave party i'm supporting RMT activity and services and will be punished?

[Mirage]

No, if you knowingly join one, or join one that obviously is one.

How would you tell the difference? I don't know!

[bigdave]

but se bans all the rmt so how can you willingly join a rmt cleave lol

[Vold]

Spotting RMTs isn't too hard. Just send them tells with questions. Broken english or no reply = look for the next cleave shouter.

[Mirage]

but se bans all the rmt so how can you willingly join a rmt cleave lol

SE doesn't catch everything instantly.

[Alhanelem]

Okipuit's point is they're not going "oh, looks like RMT, BANHAMMARD!", an investigation is conducted (e.g. to see if the gil is being funneled into RMT bank characters, etc...)

So if you're not selling the gil, you're safe.

[Kraggy]

Spotting RMTs isn't too hard. Just send them tells with questions. Broken english or no reply = look for the next cleave shouter.
Because, you know, legit players on global servers can all speak perfect English.

[Kincard]

They generally can't speak French, German, or Japanese either. Unless you're one of the very very few legitimate Chinese-speaking players (They do exist, but even then they generally know a passable amount of either English or Japanese otherwise they can't get anywhere in the game) I doubt you'll have a hard time telling they're struggling with answering you.

Still, there's plenty of RMT operations run by English-speaking players anyway (a lot of big companies are run by US companies in one way or another), so that's not really a foolproof way of ensuring you're not supporting RMT or whatever.

[Kikorimo]

Thank you Okipuit.

Something else you can do is check their auction house purchase history. If you see that they are spending a few million gil on a single bronze bullet, pretty good chance that they are RMT moving gil. (I say buying on the off chance a legit player put one up for 1 gil and RMT screw up and buy from someone for that much instead of just moving to another RMT character... could happen, and would make me laugh (assuming person who got "lucky" doesn't get banned in the process because of RMT gil ending up in their hands over it...) But yea, I've seen some people who, if you check their buy/sell history, you can tell they're RMT from a mile away.

[Lokithor]

Greetings,

To clarify the situation -- normal players will not get in trouble for advertising power leveling services on their own. We will thoroughly investigate whether or not the users soliciting for the service are affiliated with RMT activity and take action against those that are. However, in the event players are supporting RMT activity and services, there is a possibility of being punished as well. Therefore, we ask users to be careful not to involve themselves in activity that is associated with RMT.
So, players are free to provide power levelling, same as RMT, but if they participate in an RMT organized power leveling activity, whether they know them as RMT or not, they can be banned? Only SE thinks that it is OK to kick out paying customers in the face of a declining player base. Awesome.

Maybe you should think of ways to control RMT that do not involve bystander casualties. Just a thought.

[Demon6324236]

Maybe you should think of ways to control RMT that do not involve bystander casualties. Just a thought.Likely easier said than done.

[Kraggy]

Greetings,

To clarify the situation -- normal players will not get in trouble for advertising power leveling services on their own. We will thoroughly investigate whether or not the users soliciting for the service are affiliated with RMT activity and take action against those that are. However, in the event players are supporting RMT activity and services, there is a possibility of being punished as well. Therefore, we ask users to be careful not to involve themselves in activity that is associated with RMT.
History tells us that it's kind of complacent to think 'RMT activity' is so easily or accurately determined by SE .. as the many hundreds or thousands of legitimate gardeners, for example, found to their cost some years ago.

[Kraggy]

Maybe you should think of ways to control RMT that do not involve bystander casualties. Just a thought.
There are many examples in the history of this game, some still active, where normal, legitimate players are considered 'collateral damage' by SE in their fixation on their war with RMT.

God knows I'm no lover of RMT, but SE show no common sense or sense of proportion sometimes, and it's we players who are often the casualties of this war, either having to suffer asinine in-game mechanics (at best) or else getting unfairly banned and never reinstated (at worst).

[bigdave]

rmt is cause by the demand of the user not the supplier so if they remove the need then no rmt would ever open up shop again

[samusaron]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?

[samusaron]

Further to my Last post.

SE has made it Very Clear Charging for Abyssea xp parties is seen as RMT Behaviour. so if you do this you will be Banned.

Is that not Clear enough as it states or you can take a risk and be Banned. Personally I report anyone shouting for Gil xp parties at Port Jueno . I hope you are not one of those , so dont even think about trying to do it or face the consequences.

[Mirage]

So, players are free to provide power levelling, same as RMT, but if they participate in an RMT organized power leveling activity, whether they know them as RMT or not, they can be banned? Only SE thinks that it is OK to kick out paying customers in the face of a declining player base. Awesome.

Maybe you should think of ways to control RMT that do not involve bystander casualties. Just a thought.
They're likely just saying "may" or "can" be banned to cover all their bases. Saying "you will never ever be banned if you just say you didn't know" makes it too easy to get away with it again.

[Ezikiel]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?

i work customer service from home and have 9 hours to play im not a RMT

[Vivivivi]

No, if you knowingly join one, or join one that obviously is one.

How would you tell the difference? I don't know!

Things that are usually a dead giveaway: little or no rare/ex equipment, no linkshell, and character names that don't make much sense.

[Vivivivi]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?

I have had friends working on relics charge for cleaves on weekends and such as an alternative to farming Dynamis for currency. I have also had friends working on Empyrean weapons do the same while they cleave to build up time for themselves in the zone as get amber lights going for key items. These parties typically do not last the same length as the RMT advertised ones. On our server there are regular shouts for 11 hour afk parties which I suspect are RMT. The "legit" ones are generally 3-5 hours because the players doing those typically want to actually get to doing whateever their goal in game was :)

[SNK]

So, players are free to provide power levelling, same as RMT, but if they participate in an RMT organized power leveling activity, whether they know them as RMT or not, they can be banned? Only SE thinks that it is OK to kick out paying customers in the face of a declining player base. Awesome.

Maybe you should think of ways to control RMT that do not involve bystander casualties. Just a thought.

Maybe you should just find other ways to level up? Just a thought.

[Mirage]

I find that the non-fodder RMT characters have a bit less nonsensical names than usual, and lack of ex equipment could also just mean they're a recently abyssea burned legit character :p

[Areayea]

Nerfing cleave would do nothing because AoE exp burns have been around for years, even before level 80+ and fell cleave. Remember summoner burns? There is also Aeolin edge and Cataclysm burns as well as blu "cleave."
Just my 2 cents in regards to the "nerfing one weaponskill will solve all the problems" train of thought. Fell Cleave is currently just the most popular method is all.

<3 SMN Burns >.> anyway yes they do need to nerf fell cleave, but everyone does bring up a good point, esp with the direction that the producer wants to take in this game, it only seems logical to keep fell cleave as it is... but pertaining to your question,

"Please be aware that advertising in such a manner in itself can be disrupting to other players and we may take action against players who continuously advertise for the above kind of parties. This also includes behavior that helps facilitate such activity. Please take caution in not supporting RMT-related activity"

Since there are some "fair" FC parties I think they would be ok, however the STFU is usually responsible for checking out RMT related activity, so in conclusion I believe that non-RMT related Fell Cleave parties will be ok.

[Jaall]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?

Okay so what you're saying is people don't have 3-9 hours to burn? Just to let you know there are people who actually do and for the right reasons they might spend that time FC'ing. If you consider that a lot of people buy a place in FC parties and charge 100k per hour which is entirely possible, you could make ~18 mil in 10 hours which would pay for 1/3-1/4 of a relic stage 4 or 5, in 1 day! I think that's a good reason to spend 10 hours doing the same boring thing over and over.

Also just to add, people might have friends that want to help, and for a cut of the profits might join in the FC to take over after 4-5 hours giving you time to rest so although you're advertising for 10 hours, you're not actually cleaving for the whole 10 hours.

It is hard for SE to differentiate between RMT and genuine players without a few "casualties" but FC'ing is fine imo, and if people are willing to pay for it there shouldn't be anything wrong with it. I don't personally sell FC services before you say anything, simply because I'm not the sort of person who could do the same old thing for so many hours even if I do get paid, but some people would and I agree with their reasons and they shouldn't be classed as RMT.

[Godofgods]

Greetings,

To clarify the situation -- normal players will not get in trouble for advertising power leveling services on their own.

If you have no problem with players doing FC pts to power level, then why was the 10 mob at once limit imposed (seriously hurting blu CW)???

[Crimson_Slasher]

There are also married couples/siblings that play ffxi, among the married, there are likely stay at home parrents, who yes, in fact, have 10+ hours to play ffxi, due to children being in school for 7+ hours and largely self-sufficient. Pair this with as was stated, people passing off the control of the character to another friend/family/spouse/etc to resume the task, this is very much realistic. In fact i actually encountered one cleaver on 3 separate occasions on sylph here, and 2 of the times it was actually his wife doing the cleave on his character. Had some short and lengthy conversations with them over it actually, they were in fact working on 2 relics up to the 99 stage. So while its unlikely, its just as plausible that these individuals are not conducting "real Money Transactions" and are simply using this activity to fund their in game activities. Not that any legitimate player needs to come on here and justify their activities to the penut gallery.

[Areayea]

If you have no problem with players doing FC pts to power level, then why was the 10 mob at once limit imposed (seriously hurting blu CW)???

tbh although yes I know it does hurt CW :( it is a little better of an idea, that way you don't step on other player's toes by taking mobs they are trying to farm, esp when it comes to PIs for nms, just sayin.

[Caketime]

So it's OK for us to FC as players but we'll be investigated for doing so? Awesome.

The 10 mob limit is completely ignored by regular FCers, so was that just put in to discourage small groups? I can't help but notice that duos and trios are most highly affected by this change, large paid alliances are not. Yay Square, sticking it to the common player in response to RMT!

[Cowardlybabooon]

Yeah this really is not okay. RMT means Real Money Trade. It doesn't refer to earning lots of gil. There are so many things wrong with the way SE bans people. For example:

There really isn't a review process. If a player was just given a chance to write a paragraph explaining that they are a 9 year player with 3 relic weapons and 5 empyreans who charges people to kill Apademak because he happens to be able to do it as an ochain/aegis/almace paladin without using a brew, they should not be banned just because they made 300m in a week and played 16 hours a day while they were on summer vacation and having a bipolar episode where they experienced insomnia. This player is not doing "Real Money Trade" and they are likely going to buy alexandrites or relic currency with their gil, which is probably where their "clients" got their gil in the first place. There may be some farce of a review process, but I have 2 friends that have been banned for making too much gil in a short period of time by selling services like Empyrean farming and Epona's rings/Zelus Tiaras, and they were definitely not RMT, they were making mythics.

Secondly, there is nothing worse than a manager at a workplace that punishes you before telling you what you that what you were doing was wrong. "You aren't getting your bonus because you didn't hit your sales goals, here are the goals for you that I made during the review process" RMT activity appears to be an instant ban process, with no temp ban unlike third party tools. It makes perfect sense that this would be the case for real RMT players, but the innocent casualties are similar to doling out the death penalty without a rigorous review and appeal process. You just wouldn't do it.

In conclusion SE, just rescind your statement about joining Fell Cleave parties and go back to banning people for laundering large amounts of gil. It should be absolutely clear when you permanently ban these players. Go on a temp banning spree as much as you want, but perma ban should be treated like a really big deal. As a side suggestion, the tenure of the character should be a large consideration.

[Kikorimo]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?

Not true, because real players sometimes actually have days off. I have been in a party on a day off before for 12 hours straight (not FC, old school abby party.) In other words, I could have cleaved for 12 hours, and by your logic, that would make me a RMT just because I had a day free with nothing better to do.

[Kikorimo]

Okipuit already stated that it is ok to cleave as long as no RMT is involved, and so I plan to do so on occasion. Let them investigate me all they want, they'll see all my gil goes towards gear for making my character better, or fish for my quest to complete Lu Shang's. I've got nothing to hide.

[Alhanelem]

"only SE would kick out paying customers"

No, anybody would kick out "paying customers" that are an unplesant presence that might cause other paying customers to stop paying. Otherwise, there would be no reason to fight RMT, because they're "paying customers" too.

Legitimate paying customers that are not breaking the rules set forth for participating in the service are not going to be punished by this.

[Demon6324236]

If you Can Charge people to Levell them up and have from 3 to 10 Hour's spare in your Rl , then the Question one need to ask is , Why do you have so much time to do this and is this your Full time occupation ? there are other eans to make Gil in Game and especially it seem's you have so much time on your Had's to do so evidently.

RMT Behaviour is exactly that , it is their full time occupation in game to make Gil and to sell period. there is no fine line to read.If you charge people to play for levelling them , then you are an RMT. What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do.

Normal players play the game for Fun and do not have 3>6>9 hour's to Burn making money and if you do this you are RMT is this Clear enough ?
Further to my Last post.

SE has made it Very Clear Charging for Abyssea xp parties is seen as RMT Behaviour. so if you do this you will be Banned.

Is that not Clear enough as it states or you can take a risk and be Banned. Personally I report anyone shouting for Gil xp parties at Port Jueno . I hope you are not one of those , so dont even think about trying to do it or face the consequences.So, in your opinion a RMT is any person who has alot of free time, and doesn't mind spending it making gil. Oh, btw, "What do you do with Gil ? Sell it? Afcause you do." last I knew there were items worth more than 100 Million gil, old FC prices were 100k/hour, even with 16 leechers, 10 hour cleave, thats 16 Million gil, a fraction of the cost of many high end pieces of gear right now, including but not limited to the highly rare Hexed -1 gear. Please do not make more of a fool of yourself by attempting to explain that anyone with alot of free time, or making alot of gil, is a RMT, because thats doing nothing more than spreading the same idea SE seems to believe in, and thats a stupid idea in the 1st place.

[Alhanelem]

old FC prices were 100k/hour, even with 16 leechers, 10 hour cleave, thats 16 Million gil, a fraction of the cost of many high end pieces of gear right now, Two things: Depending on where or what you're cleaving, you're also making some more gil from whatever you're killing, there are some items in gold boxes in some places that are 50-80k or more each. Second, every cleaver i've seen charges a lot more than 100k an hour. Frankly if you could get 100 million gil in 10 hours, that 100 million gil item would inflate to several hundred million. So 16 million in 10 hours is nothing to sneeze at, especially considering I don't usually earn 100k in a day from normal activity.

[Demon6324236]

Prices on Phoenix were 100k/hour 900k/10 hours for a long time.

[Rustic]

I look at it this way. When you have something that literally negates the entire level-up process in favor of a few guys swinging AoE's all day...something has broken. Badly. Think about it.

You have a brief soloing period, a few cycles of parties in two-three specific zones...and then you have a system of gaining exp so good that people happily are paying millions of Gil just to be able to skip straight to 99. On multiple jobs.

We're going to have a legion of Geomancer and Rune Fencers who barely know which end to use for nose-picking if this isn't changed, not to mention the effective crippling of play that's already happened. Why bother with gear you may barely use for an hour, or playing a job prior to having all the benefits of L99 funtimes once you get past 10th or so and jump through the brief FoV hoops on the way to Cleave-O-Rama? Sure, the level caps are gone in most areas. That's OK. Most of the reasons to be in those areas has been obliterated in the process. Big ol' bad-boy mobs in old areas? Nobody cares. There's no reason to exp in those areas anyway, nor much of use in them at this point.

The guy with the great axe knows he's the key to the state of "normal" in FFXI play at this point. I'm not surprised he's milking it for all it's worth, and the fact that it costs big money is just a huge sign saying "RMT me!" as people who want to be "normal" with 99 job levels are jumping straight on the buy-a-top-job bandwagon.

That's just wrong. Even with all the (good) changes we had towards making leveling up easier, somehow we've ended up with them being tossed aside in favor of alliances worth leeching their way to the top of their jobs, barely twitching in the process. Further, this means there's no real cycle of building up Gil, gear, whatever. Just whip through the level breaks and you're done...in need of gear, but done. Psst, need some Gil to buy that gear?

All of it points towards creating immense demand for RMT-supplied product at the top of the food chain. That's cancer. The cure is probably needed before the next expansion comes out, and honestly, if FFXI hadn't gone through the chaos of FFXIV's ups and downs and dev-team-eating-shenanigans, I think we'd have seen FC's as a method of totally bypassing the job-leveling process eliminated months ago.

[Kikorimo]

I look at it this way. When you have something that literally negates the entire level-up process in favor of a few guys swinging AoE's all day...something has broken. Badly. Think about it.

You have a brief soloing period, a few cycles of parties in two-three specific zones...and then you have a system of gaining exp so good that people happily are paying millions of Gil just to be able to skip straight to 99. On multiple jobs.

We're going to have a legion of Geomancer and Rune Fencers who barely know which end to use for nose-picking if this isn't changed, not to mention the effective crippling of play that's already happened. Why bother with gear you may barely use for an hour, or playing a job prior to having all the benefits of L99 funtimes once you get past 10th or so and jump through the brief FoV hoops on the way to Cleave-O-Rama? Sure, the level caps are gone in most areas. That's OK. Most of the reasons to be in those areas has been obliterated in the process. Big ol' bad-boy mobs in old areas? Nobody cares. There's no reason to exp in those areas anyway, nor much of use in them at this point.

The guy with the great axe knows he's the key to the state of "normal" in FFXI play at this point. I'm not surprised he's milking it for all it's worth, and the fact that it costs big money is just a huge sign saying "RMT me!" as people who want to be "normal" with 99 job levels are jumping straight on the buy-a-top-job bandwagon.

That's just wrong. Even with all the (good) changes we had towards making leveling up easier, somehow we've ended up with them being tossed aside in favor of alliances worth leeching their way to the top of their jobs, barely twitching in the process. Further, this means there's no real cycle of building up Gil, gear, whatever. Just whip through the level breaks and you're done...in need of gear, but done. Psst, need some Gil to buy that gear?

All of it points towards creating immense demand for RMT-supplied product at the top of the food chain. That's cancer. The cure is probably needed before the next expansion comes out, and honestly, if FFXI hadn't gone through the chaos of FFXIV's ups and downs and dev-team-eating-shenanigans, I think we'd have seen FC's as a method of totally bypassing the job-leveling process eliminated months ago.


Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:

* Content structure
* Jobs overall
* How to add stats to items
* How to hand out rewards


I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements.

The idea is that the game is old and mostly focused on end game content these days. They want new players to get leveled up fast, THEN learn what end of the spear to pick their nose with. How jobs play changes drastically between levels 1 and 99. The lack of focus on mid-game content means a player is better off just learning how things work in end game these days. Assuming there are players around to help the newer people learn how to play end game properly, it's better for them because they're not stuck grinding xp (likely solo) for a year to level one job and then find out no one wants it for anything end game. Farming can be done at any level, and pre-blinker nerf It was actually possible to make back most of what one spent in a cleave in the first place.
Despite cleaving, there are still GoV parties and standard abby parties still happening, you just have to know where to look. Often these parties are going almost non-stop and constantly replacing people, and instead of shouting they just pick up people waiting in line in the area.
Good day.
(On a side note, is it possible to lock the thread down before the relevant information gets completely buried? It was made for one purpose, and that purpose has been met thanks to Okipuit.)

[Jaall]

Also, if you literally bought all your gear at 99 you will be sub par to those who farm their gear. Take for example DRK (just a job I know a bit about). If you bought the best pieces on the AH for every slot and then a relic, you will still only be decent and not great because you miss some key R/E pieces, such as rajas, atheling, and most importantly AF3. Also this is a very self explanatory game, I personally learnt how to play THF within 20 mins and don't get how some still cant grasp the SA and TA system >.> but then again shouldn't your gripe be with the players and not the system because when it comes down to it, it's the lack of research that really fails them.

[Godofgods]

tbh although yes I know it does hurt CW :( it is a little better of an idea, that way you don't step on other player's toes by taking mobs they are trying to farm, esp when it comes to PIs for nms, just sayin.

That doesn't make any sense actually. I still pull the same amount of mobs irregardless. (Since blu's generally target mobs that agro and link.) I just don't get any credit for killing them. And i no some ppl are pricks, but i always put pops in my bazaar when I'm at a camp. And instruct anyone with me to do the same.

[Rustic]

Also, if you literally bought all your gear at 99 you will be sub par to those who farm their gear. Take for example DRK (just a job I know a bit about). If you bought the best pieces on the AH for every slot and then a relic, you will still only be decent and not great because you miss some key R/E pieces, such as rajas, atheling, and most importantly AF3. Also this is a very self explanatory game, I personally learnt how to play THF within 20 mins and don't get how some still cant grasp the SA and TA system >.> but then again shouldn't your gripe be with the players and not the system because when it comes down to it, it's the lack of research that really fails them.

Of course, being 99 means that you simply go back and slap the non-level capped content silly for whatever you happened to need. Doing CoP at 99 to pick up that Rajas is rather easy, no?

[Jaall]

What i'm saying is it's obvious to tell who's a decent player and who's not. CoP is very easy but still takes a lot of running around getting cs's etc that takes a lot of time, something i'm sure RMT wouldn't want to do. Obviously they might, that's why rajas was only one of my examples, but it does contribute to being a good player. The argument was that people just spam FC parties and lvl jobs yet put no time into gearing and simply buy everything, what i'm saying is that it's obvious to spot the people that do that and all you have to do in return is say no when they ask for invites. If they can't be bothered to get rajas that would be an absolute no in my books considering that I recently solo'ed the entire thing bar the 8-3 pots where i died with 1 of the pots left at 50% so asked for a second person to help.

[Kikorimo]

That doesn't make any sense. I still pull the same amount of mobs regardless. (Blus generally target mobs that aggro and link.) I don't get any credit for killing them. I know some people are pricks, but I always put pops in my bazaar when I'm at a camp, and I instruct anyone with me to do the same.

Fixed that for you. "Irregardless" is not a word, and "no" is not a substitution for "know." They are completely different words. (It's hard for you to make a valid argument around the point of someone not making sense if you are not even going to use actual words or proper grammar/punctuation...) I know I'm not perfect, but I at least try to put in some effort to what I type.

Also, please stay on topic. I made this thread in regard to finding out whether or not cleaves were still permitted, not to discuss the method or etiquette involved. As I had already stated, the purpose for this thread has already been fulfilled. I'm sure you can find/make another thread out there to discuss cleaves. If I could, I would have already locked this thread down after Okipuit responded to it in order to keep the relevant information easily accessible without having to dig for it.

(Okipuit's response can be found on page 2.)