Nerfing sparks and unity enchanges for gil is not the answer.

All they would need to do is reset everyones Sparks & Accolades to 0 then re price everything at the npcs and decrease the rate of which sparks are obtained. So 999999 is more like 9999.

Sparks of Eminence and Unity Accolades now have a maximum weekly exchange limit of 100,000 each.
* This weekly limit will reset each Sunday at 8:00 a.m. (PDT) / 3:00 p.m. (GMT) / 4:00 p.m. (BST)

Gain xp used to be fun. This nerf is stupid. Maybe I'm about done with this game.

At least SE put a limit of 100k, instead of just nerfing prices like they did for chocobo blinkers back in abyssea days

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Originally Posted by Taruphic

Gain xp used to be fun. This nerf is stupid. Maybe I'm about done with this game.

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Bit extreme. Gain EXP is fun?

the cap is sheer madness.

SE please. dont let this cap count towards anything that cant bet traded or sold for gil. you basically just ended 90% of the games ability to make money. how are we supposed to keep up with the insane crafting prices now? Are you under some illusion that the price fixers will actually let the price of these items fall? the cap should have been at a minimum 700,000

Dear SE, just email me with a title of "Sparks limit increased/abolished" and I may re-subscribe at that point. Ya sure there is other ways to make money, but now everyone else is seeking those out as well as the RMT.

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Originally Posted by hideka

you basically just ended 90% of the games ability to make money.

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No, they really haven't.

Think outside of the box...

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Originally Posted by Taruphic

Dear SE, just email me with a title of "Sparks limit increased/abolished" and I may re-subscribe at that point. Ya sure there is other ways to make money, but now everyone else is seeking those out as well as the RMT.

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You're basing your whole subscription on one 4 hour Gain Experience Points Records of Eminence?

and that won't happen... They have already done this to counteract RMT, which is a good thing. No more anon keyboard smashed BST's repeat killing sparks objectives.

I play maybe 10hrs a week and my gear is at best a C+

Making gil outside of sparks is not challenging and frankly I always considered it to be the worst return on investment

I'm glad they did this

this is awesome....

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

You're basing your whole subscription on one 4 hour Gain Experience Points Records of Eminence?

and that won't happen... They have already done this to counteract RMT, which is a good thing. No more anon keyboard smashed BST's repeat killing sparks objectives.

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this is not just during gain exp. during a double accolade campaign you can easily cap accolades multiple times a week from just doing random things.

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Originally Posted by Divaud

I play maybe 10hrs a week and my gear is at best a C+

Making gil outside of sparks is not challenging and frankly I always considered it to be the worst return on investment

I'm glad they did this

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as far as i know the only other efficient method to make gil is UNM farming and its not nearly as time efficient.

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Originally Posted by svengalis

this is not just during gain exp. during a double accolade campaign you can easily cap accolades multiple times a week from just doing random things.

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So? Go and do some unity battles, and then restock!

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Originally Posted by svengalis

as far as i know the only other efficient method to make gil is UNM farming and its not nearly as time efficient.

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Research is your best friend!

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Originally Posted by svengalis

as far as i know the only other efficient method to make gil is UNM farming and its not nearly as time efficient.

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Well here's an easy one; solo farm Omen.

You can do it once a day, takes about 30-40mins and you generally will get 4 or so swart crystals which on most servers are 250k+

Easy 1 mill per run, plus job cards for your AF.

Another is Ambuscade, very soloable on lower difficulties, use hallmarks to buy currencies and resell them.

These tactics work on any server, and that's just off the top of my head.

100k each? not really that bad tbh. that's still plenty of gil to live on lol. sparks are like universal standard income, you can make money elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Divaud

You can do it once a day, takes about 30-40mins and you generally will get 4 or so swart crystals which on most servers are 250k+

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Went THF last night on a solo run and got 11 crystals!

heaven forbid we have to play content to make money! :p

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

They have to be counteracted somehow, and SE have examined the data.

It is virtually impossible for somebody to have their account hacked if they have the proper security means in place (i.e They use the Securekey).

Rather than speculate, it will be a case of wait and see what happens.

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Firstly, I provided proof (or do you really believe RMT only sticks to a single account? lawl), not speculation; and secondly, if Facebook, the biggest cybersecurity nightmare to ever exist (and that is not an over-exaggeration either), isn't willing to to fix their security, then have nearly 2 billion people still using it then how can you count on the majority of people having proper security in place? You cannot; the mass majority of people wouldn't know how to keep themselves secure if it hit them on the head.

(Ironically, while Facebook is a cybersecurity nightmare with exploit after exploit - all of which I and others like me can remember pointing out from as far back as Facebook's beta phase - it was Google that canceled its social network due to only one major exploit. The same major exploit they had managed to patch out several months before its actual cancellation, despite the fact that G+ never had a history of exploits.)

While I agree with a cap, I believe this amount chosen is too low. just 1 fill up a week makes it so you don't need to do much of anything to cap weekly, and hitting 100k unity accolades takes maybe 30 minutes (with sparks taking roughly double)

I understand slowing down gil generation, and hurting the bots, but as someone who is getting back in to this game looking for a way to grind out money for the millions of things I need, this hurts significantly.

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Originally Posted by Neogon

Firstly, I provided proof (or do you really believe RMT only sticks to a single account? lawl), not speculation; and secondly, if Facebook, the biggest cybersecurity nightmare to ever exist (and that is not an over-exaggeration either), isn't willing to to fix their security, then have nearly 2 billion people still using it then how can you count on the majority of people having proper security in place? You cannot; the mass majority of people wouldn't know how to keep themselves secure if it hit them on the head.

(Ironically, while Facebook is a cybersecurity nightmare with exploit after exploit - all of which I and others like me can remember pointing out from as far back as Facebook's beta phase - it was Google that canceled its social network due to only one major exploit. The same major exploit they had managed to patch out several months before its actual cancellation, despite the fact that G+ never had a history of exploits.)

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I really dont see how its worth it for RMT to make more accounts to bot for sparks/accolades anymore. Even if they have all the possible 16 characters leveled up to 99 and cap exchanges on all of them every week, which would be significantly more work for them already, with the imposed limits I cant see how it would be worth it for them to do this.

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Originally Posted by Lockhart

I really dont see how its worth it for RMT to make more accounts to bot for sparks/accolades anymore. Even if they have all the possible 16 characters leveled up to 99 and cap exchanges on all of them every week, which would be significantly more work for them already, with the imposed limits I cant see how it would be worth it for them to do this.

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Sure, but does that even hurt them compared to the average player they're marketing to? I'm still going to say, no (if for another reason that I did not bring up: an average player does not have the logistics to get things done as efficiently as RMT), which is what ultimately matters to the customer when MMO publishers play these little wargames: whether or not it affects them enough to get them to buy the in-game currency or to quit. Not being one myself, I can certainly pick out the people that I personally do know will suffer from this and I won't be surprised if they quit. (And that's another thing; it'll only affect average not even on Asure.

Thank you, however, for providing an argument instead of just trying to dismiss it by saying "that's just speculation" or "we should wait instead of speculating".

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Originally Posted by Neogon

Firstly, I provided proof (or do you really believe RMT only sticks to a single account? lawl), not speculation; and secondly, if Facebook, the biggest cybersecurity nightmare to ever exist (and that is not an over-exaggeration either), isn't willing to to fix their security, then have nearly 2 billion people still using it then how can you count on the majority of people having proper security in place? You cannot; the mass majority of people wouldn't know how to keep themselves secure if it hit them on the head.

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I didn't see any proof? Facebook doesn't have a Securekey. I have a physical key. obviously something that can't be accessed unless someone actually grabbed it off my desk.

With regards to RMT making multiple accounts - it would have to be financially viable for them to do so. This game charges the 'market rate' for subscription, yet has a lot less subs than other titles.

I think the limits don't affect me much, but it would indeed be nice if they made them not affect the non-sellables, such as the Capacity Ring, as others have pointed out.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

With regards to RMT making multiple accounts - it would have to be financially viable for them to do so.

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Sometimes I wonder if they even actually pay, or if the accounts only get suspended due to a charge-back or stolen credit card info and what have you. Never researched this topic, but that's something I've wondered about a bit. They probably wouldn't have time to do much if anything with such tactics though.

They probably do pay at least for the accounts that they use to level up their minions (I've been keeping an eye on a few of such characters for a time now).

I'd also imagine them to rather go somewhere else, than start putting effort into stealing account credentials, which seems like it might be a lot more work for them. Could be very wrong of course.

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Originally Posted by Neogon

Thank you, however, for providing an argument instead of just trying to dismiss it by saying "that's just speculation" or "we should wait instead of speculating".

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You know I was referring to 'wait and see' with reference to the long/short-term result of what happens when it comes to the capping of sparks/unity. Right?

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Originally Posted by Neogon

Sure, but does that even hurt them compared to the average player they're marketing to? I'm still going to say, no (if for another reason that I did not bring up: an average player does not have the logistics to get things done as efficiently as RMT), which is what ultimately matters to the customer when MMO publishers play these little wargames: whether or not it affects them enough to get them to buy the in-game currency or to quit. Not being one myself, I can certainly pick out the people that I personally do know will suffer from this and I won't be surprised if they quit. (And that's another thing; it'll only affect average not even on Asure.

Thank you, however, for providing an argument instead of just trying to dismiss it by saying "that's just speculation" or "we should wait instead of speculating".

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I'm so sorry, I am having trouble understanding what you are saying. However; I do think it is hurting RMT a lot at the moment. If you just search for ffxi gil, you'll see that gil prices were around $0.25/1 million gil, now they are between $1-5/1million gil. I cannot imagine being into this game so much that it was worth $100 minimum for a SU5 weapon (let alone how much it cost to upgrade it). There might be some people willing to pay those prices, but not many. I think with all the hacks (crafting/duping) they have caught lately and then throwing this in too, we will probably see a lot less of the RMT. They will move to another game or stop. It is possible they will move on to doing something different, but the amount of bots running constantly that will be gone now, is a QoL improvement for me. If anyone from SE wants to know where these sites are, please check your report RMT request or just do a simple google search.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

I didn't see any proof?

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The very guideline I showed was proof (re: proof; not evidence).

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Facebook doesn't have a Securekey. I have a physical key. obviously something that can't be accessed unless someone actually grabbed it off my desk.

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Yeah, which further proves the fact most people give no shit about security.

Just consider the fact that Facebook passwords have been saved in plain text ever since it went into beta over 14 years ago (even then, we knew plain text was a bad solution), and they're most likely still saved to plain text, yet somehow two billion people have continued to use it. If people cared about security, Facebook would never have made it past beta. (Then on top of that, for years there was a way to glitch the Display Preview into hacking someone else's account.)

Then, on top of that, there's the fact that the majority of people still fall for phishing scams despite the fact that phishing is the most renown scam on the internet, and the cherry on top: people still wind up giving their passwords to complete strangers who claim to be admins even when it's written in big, bold letters that: "WE DO NOT ASK FOR YOUR PASSWORD OR ACCOUNT INFORMATION."

(Oh, and while I'm at it, you can bet that there are numerous high-profile officials who continue to hold insecure passwords to their primary email like, p@ssw0rd...)

So again, how can you possibly expect other people to take proper security measures?

And you talk about OTP; I use 2FA and 30 to 80-character passwords for everything. Hell, you wouldn't find my real name anywhere on the internet; any search for it will bring back an obituary as the first result; a Facebook account that doesn't belong to me for the second; and one of the most renown film directors for the third.

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Originally Posted by Lockhart

If you just search for ffxi gil, you'll see that gil prices were around $0.25/1 million gil, now they are between $1-5/1million gil.

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That's not even remotely a noticeable difference. I remember back when 1 million gil cost $25, and yeah, you can bet your ass that it was worth it to a lot of people.

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I cannot imagine being into this game so much that it was worth $100 minimum for a SU5 weapon (let alone how much it cost to upgrade it).

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Sounds like a steal to me. For someone working, say, $5/hr, that'd only be 20 hours of labor when getting an SU5 is going to take a lot longer by any legit means. Since most people in the U.S. do not even work that low, it becomes an even bigger steal.

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Originally Posted by Neogon

Sounds like a steal to me. For someone working, say, $5/hr, that'd only be 20 hours of labor when getting an SU5 is going to take a lot longer by any legit means. Since most people in the U.S. do not even work that low, it becomes an even bigger steal.

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Why bother playing the game at all at that point? 10-35 dollars for the game, 12-15 dollars a month, plus anything extra like mog lockers on top of whatever gil you buy sounds like a rip off. It is akin to using a gameshark back in the nes/snes days. Sure it's fun for a bit to have everything handed to you but then what do you do next? At that point just save yourself a ton of cash and look at the cutscenes online, that only costs whatever you pay for internet!

I do apologize for the late response, so forgive me.

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Originally Posted by Rolodex

Why bother playing the game at all at that point? 10-35 dollars for the game, 12-15 dollars a month, plus anything extra like mog lockers on top of whatever gil you buy sounds like a rip off. It is akin to using a gameshark back in the nes/snes days. Sure it's fun for a bit to have everything handed to you but then what do you do next? At that point just save yourself a ton of cash and look at the cutscenes online, that only costs whatever you pay for internet!

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What do you know about hard work? You sure do talk an awful lot about being handed everything in such a small post.

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Originally Posted by Rubicant82

What to stop RMT for gil; Make gil rare/ex, I dare you.

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I totally agree with this! Make gil only tradable between characters on the same account, or not tradable at all. Gil RMT problem solved!!! It would be no different than Ambuscade points, Nyzul tokens, Ichor, Silt, Plasm, etc.

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I use 2FA and 30 to 80-character passwords for everything.

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Most places dont even let you enter passwords like that, nor is it really necessary if you h ave 2fa. long as the 2fa isn't just a 3-4 digit number or something like that, all the password really needs to do is exist- it can be pretty much anything, they're not getting in without the 2fa.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Most places dont even let you enter passwords like that

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False. Most websites do allow for a password beyond 30 characters, especially when the account system is dealing with financial data.

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nor is it really necessary if you h ave 2fa.

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I never said it is necessary, however...

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long as the 2fa isn't just a 3-4 digit number or something like that, all the password really needs to do is exist- it can be pretty much anything, they're not getting in without the 2fa.

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2FA does not protect anyone from MITM phishing attacks - AKA, their own complacency that leads to a lax security mindset.

‘You can’t relax’: Here’s why 2-factor authentication may be hackable
Chinese hacker group caught bypassing 2FA

Moreover, you're creating a red-herring. I will not respond again to that.

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it was Google that canceled its social network due to only one major exploit.

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?? I was pretty sure google+ was killed because it was crap and nobody liked it, not because it had a security exploit. I personally didn't enjoy google trying to shove it down my throat and make me create a google+ profile every time I went to youtube or tried to play games on my phone.

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False. Most websites do allow for a password beyond 30 characters, especially when the account system is dealing with financial data.

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Nearly every website I've ever used has a maximum password length less than 30 characters. Hell, my company's intranet only allows 8 characters (But they also make you change it constantly).

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2FA does not protect anyone from MITM phishing attacks - AKA, their own complacency that leads to a lax security mindset.

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This is true, but if you can be compromised in this fashion, odds are they can get your password out of you as well (or force you to enter it for them)

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

?? I was pretty sure google+ was killed because it was crap and nobody liked it, not because it had a security exploit. I personally didn't enjoy google trying to shove it down my throat and make me create a google+ profile every time I went to youtube or tried to play games on my phone.

Nearly every website I've ever used has a maximum password length less than 30 characters. Hell, my company's intranet only allows 8 characters (But they also make you change it constantly).

This is true, but if you can be compromised in this fashion, odds are they can get your password out of you as well (or force you to enter it for them)

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You're welcome to find another means to contact me if you really want, and I'll respond to your inquiries further. However, I refuse to bite at red-herrings - AKA, off-topic responses.

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Originally Posted by Neogon

You're welcome to find another means to contact me if you really want, and I'll respond to your inquiries further. However, I refuse to bite at red-herrings - AKA, off-topic responses.

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You already responded right there. If you're bothered so much by "red herrings" (what?) then don't reply, and don't bring up other topics if you don't want anyone else to talk about them. The only way for you to end a conversation is to walk away- and not tell people you're doing it.

You brought those things up, so you've no one to blame but yourself if it's such a problem. This isn't even your thread, nor are you a moderator, so why do you feel like you get to make the rules?

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Originally Posted by Pixela

What are you doing? You are taking action to combat RMT by punishing everyone else?



This is stupid, here is what you're doing:

You are punishing players, especially new players who have been returning because you give them no alternative to make money now. This is so stupid.

You are also encouraging the RMT to farm gil in other ways that are more annoying to the players, you aren't stopping RMT because the demand is still there.

They will now move to farming revies or currency in dynamis or whatever...this sucks, at least when they were farming sparks they did it out of the way of most others.

What on earth are you doing? This is terrible.

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You have dynamis, Salvage II, For gill, its not hard to do with sparks its PRE ILVL, Square did the right thing imagine if u sixbox? thats 6 mill gill, and less than a day yea no. I think they did the right thing but that's just my opinion.

Not everyone wants to spend their limited playtime on gil making endeavors. They would like to actually be doing events with friends. Sparks was a nice easy way for people to not have to do those boring activities and still have some sort of income, or make a good amount of gil with minimal time invested. RMT were here from the start and will be here till the end, there's no changing that. You simply made it so they can sell gil they already are sitting on for a higher price and they will move on to doing something else to make gil. You could slow down the RMT and not hurt players so much with a higher cap though.

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Originally Posted by Tharly

Not everyone wants to spend their limited playtime on gil making endeavors. They would like to actually be doing events with friends.

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Gil making/farming is part of almost every single game in this genre. There aren't many games out there where you can NPC a load of items that you just bought from another NPC standing 15ft away.
I seriously doubt people do stuff with friends ALL the time, so outside of that, is time to farm and make weapons. Otherwise, what else are you going to do?

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

Gil making/farming is part of almost every single game in this genre.

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I mean, it is, but the games don't usually directly revolve around it, you just make money by doing the contents of the game, not by explicitly grinding out money with no other purpose in mind.

Until Sparks came along, this was mostly true of FFXI as well, since the game gave out almost no gil by fighting regular enemies with few exceptions.