June 2020 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

https://i.imgur.com/SiKqm5t.jpg

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I'm more interested in what they do with the metric tons of prize powder.

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots. It has come to the point that legitimate players cannot farm job points anymore because all of the apex camps are over populated with these RMT bots selling job points.

The problem in addressing the job point sellers by simply banning them doesn't seem to be a viable solution in the long run.

I would suggest a solution that involves player participation in order to receive job points so they can't get them if they're simply AFK.

In terms of bots in general it gets easier and easier as software evolves to reproduce "normal player" behavior so people can still AFK. In terms of dealing with job points sellers I believe the best target is the legitimate player base who pays for these services.

For example, the solution involving player participation should be designed such that participation can't be reliably reproduced by a bot. It can involve a certain action at /random based on the player's job and current battle they are in. It can also involve a /random check that wouldn't involve a players participation. I think there are many possibilities in this regard.

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Originally Posted by SylphThor

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots.

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Very true, and growing in numbers almost daily. It doesn't help though when players are justifying them, and using their "services" on a regular basis.

There is literately nothing now that isn't being sold. Delve, Job Points, EXP, Clears, Escha zones are dominated by mercs. /yell on the busiest server is actually dead or near dead regarding people creating groups.

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Originally Posted by SylphThor

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots. It has come to the point that legitimate players cannot farm job points anymore because all of the apex camps are over populated with these RMT bots selling job points.

The problem in addressing the job point sellers by simply banning them doesn't seem to be a viable solution in the long run.

I would suggest a solution that involves player participation in order to receive job points so they can't get them if they're simply AFK.

In terms of bots in general it gets easier and easier as software evolves to reproduce "normal player" behavior so people can still AFK. In terms of dealing with job points sellers I believe the best target is the legitimate player base who pays for these services.

For example, the solution involving player participation should be designed such that participation can't be reliably reproduced by a bot. It can involve a certain action at /random based on the player's job and current battle they are in. It can also involve a /random check that wouldn't involve a players participation. I think there are many possibilities in this regard.

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Feel free to come on over to shiva, I'll grind job points with you any time, with plenty of camp availability. <3

This would really be a lot less of a problem if the population were more evenly distributed, instead of the lion's share of the playerbase being on one server though.

Worst Update in any game i play. This only company in gaming history hurt playerbase more than help them. I have play ff 11 off and on for past 18 years. Economy will not be effected at by this update. I can not count number of multi boxers go uncheck in this game that use third party tools should be ban and which in turn flood market with items 2 where ban for this player i ask SE. I have cancel my sub cause this update. My money goes to company actually care about their playerbase. Btw shout out Asura players hiddenfist and glassslippery guild only players actually help me out in game. Best luck to u guys.

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Originally Posted by Zgaro

Worst Update in any game i play. This only company in gaming history hurt playerbase more than help them. I have play ff 11 off and on for past 18 years. Economy will not be effected at by this update. I can not count number of multi boxers go uncheck in this game that use third party tools should be ban and which in turn flood market with items 2 where ban for this player i ask SE. I have cancel my sub cause this update. My money goes to company actually care about their playerbase. Btw shout out Asura players hiddenfist and glassslippery guild only players actually help me out in game. Best luck to u guys.

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So your issue is equally regarding the update, as it is multiboxers (aka, for the most part Mercs)?

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Feel free to come on over to shiva, I'll grind job points with you any time, with plenty of camp availability. <3

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Shiva is far too quiet. Need a server with some middle ground and a population of at least 1000, not 300.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

Shiva is far too quiet. Need a server with some middle ground and a population of at least 1000, not 300.

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Concurrent users != total population. There's more than enough players to do anything you need to do if you know who to ask. That's the thing with the smaller communities, they help each other disproportionately more than larger ones.

Please remove any and all EX tagged items from counting towards the cap. There is literally zero benefit to including any of them, it hurts legitimate players and does absolutely nothing to combat RMT activity. It is a straight up, painful nerf to legitimate players with zero benefit of any sort involved. This new cap especially hurts newer players/characters who may need to rely on "sparks gear" as their first ilvl equipment source and are likely struggle to find groups for HTBs to acquire Rem's chapters at a reasonable pace.

Personally, I'd also appreciate it if you could exempt UNM special materials as well. There isn't much profit to be made from them when comparing the cost:income ratio, and the ability to buy them is mostly useful for collecting pop items (which I provide to my linkshell at no cost to them) and using as upgrade materials. Any significant profit involved with their sale also involves dealing with the demand/delay of using the AH to sell rather than selling to NPCs, and every item requires actually playing the game and defeating each UNM at least once anyway, so it seems like a low-risk adjustment to exempt them from the purchase cap as well.

Other than my reasoning above to exclude UNM materials, anything else that can be sold to an NPC for gil should be counted towards these new caps, with all other purchasable items excluded, for both sparks and accolades. The current implementation is clearly overreaching.

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Originally Posted by Nyarlko

I'd also appreciate it if you could exempt UNM special materials as well..

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I disagree really. People are selling stacks of some of them for 800K. Also, since they have been limited, a lot more people are doing UNM fights, as this encourages them to do so.

I'm in favor of the cap to spark/accolades despite the minor inconveniences, but I hope the developers and STF know they can't stop here. The crackdown needs to be harder on players who are using crafting exploits and item duplication.

• Remove more of these accounts sitting on thousands of medals or who have started to try and massively trade them into popular shard/void items to hide them. I don't expect overnight to get them all but I don't see how it's possible for 7 stacks of 99 medals on AH not being a red flag or buying 6 of them in one day (Bismarck).
  
  
• Look into these accounts selling suspicious amounts of Su5 weapons / +2 necks. Just on Bismarck I'll look at one person's AH history and it contains multiple crafts +2 necks being sold frequently. Instant ban? No. But these things should be suspicious enough to look into where they got them from and then ban all associated.
  
  
• Farming items needs an overhaul: Gardening, mining, logging, harvesting, fishing, clamming, chocobo digging, enemy farm, etc. needs an overhaul on grinding materials. Make things fun, non-competitive for spots, and deterrent to players who automate bots to complete the tasks like what spark/accolade farming was.

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Originally Posted by Rwolf

Farming items needs an overhaul[/B]: Gardening, mining, logging, harvesting, fishing, clamming, chocobo digging, enemy farm, etc. needs an overhaul on grinding materials. Make things fun, non-competitive for spots, and deterrent to players who automate bots to complete the tasks like what spark/accolade farming was.

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Unfortunately fishing got crippled by RMT/bots. I can only really comment on that aspect of your post, as I've not really done much of the others.
To get the best fishing rod in the game is a lot of work, and there doesn't seem to be much reward at the end of it.
I mean it is good to fish and cook, that used to be a great combination, however with so many people seemingly botting shields, even the crafting market (as you mention) has been decimated by cheats.

Yeah, that sucks about fishing. I don't know what the answer is and I'm sure there will always be someone cheating/botting but the current situation sucks. There's so much as you said decimated by cheats. Directly through price/inventory manipulation on AH but also providing false metrics to the devs on how content needs to be adjusted.

Devs should also consider making a way to transfer your RP progress on NQ/+1 weapons/necks to give them more value. That detracts some players from feeling the need to go directly to +2 neck / Su5 weapon. The game needs some return to casual progression and encouragement to actively participate in the game.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

I disagree really. People are selling stacks of some of them for 800K. Also, since they have been limited, a lot more people are doing UNM fights, as this encourages them to do so.

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There are only a handful that are worth much at all tbh, and trying to use them as a reliable source of income is a generally bad idea in my experience. (The only ones that are close to the max value that you are quoting are all pop items for GF NMs, and come from ilvl128+ fights.) At 10k accolades per, they are also a significantly worse point:gil conversion ratio than powders/shields/etc even in the best case scenario since the alternatives were 100% reliable and independent of the economy. They also do require defeating each UNM at least once to unlock their material for purchase, so there is a gameplay barrier involved (which can be bypassed by being carried, yes. But that goes for all content at this point other than Master Trials.)

I believe that there is very little inherent risk in excluding them in addition to EX items, and given how low demand on the AH is for any of them, I can only see the AH prices for all of them going down along with the current deflation trend, which will also discourage RMT from dealing with the low time:profit ratio.

Would it not be possible to implement some more Apex mobs, would love to see some in the old zones, such as;

Valkurm Dunes, Sea Serpent Grotto, Yuhtunga Jungle, Beaucedine Glacier.

I'm sure are parts of these map, no one ever goes to.

This has been a painful and ongoing battle for SE. It's difficult because since Gil is still very meaningful, and any methods to counter the RMT's will impact the player base in one way or another.

Although I will say that I've always preferred that about this game over FFXIV since Gil is almost cosmetic only there. While Gil can be used for a wide number of things here in FFXI.

I also have to agree with Flackoo though. More Apex camps or adjusting some zones in general would definitely help. Even using some of the other areas of like Al'Taeiu, they could also use some of the Abyssea zones as with some adjustments since they can already accommodate large numbers of players with multiple camps. There's a pretty large number of zones they can work with.

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Originally Posted by Nyarlko

There are only a handful that are worth much at all tbh, and trying to use them as a reliable source of income is a generally bad idea in my experience. (The only ones that are close to the max value that you are quoting are all pop items for GF NMs, and come from ilvl128+ fights.) At 10k accolades per, they are also a significantly worse point:gil conversion ratio than powders/shields/etc even in the best case scenario since the alternatives were 100% reliable and independent of the economy. They also do require defeating each UNM at least once to unlock their material for purchase, so there is a gameplay barrier involved (which can be bypassed by being carried, yes. But that goes for all content at this point other than Master Trials.)

I believe that there is very little inherent risk in excluding them in addition to EX items, and given how low demand on the AH is for any of them, I can only see the AH prices for all of them going down along with the current deflation trend, which will also discourage RMT from dealing with the low time:profit ratio.

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But then the RMT would just bot Unity points, and run back and forth to that NPC buying pop items and selling them, setting the price trend (as opposed to sparks).
There are more than a handful of unity items that sell for good amounts of gil.

Why not just get the group in question who needs whatever Escha NM's, to come along with you and farm the needed Unity fights for pop items?
That way, everybody has something to do.

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Originally Posted by Flackooo

Would it not be possible to implement some more Apex mobs, would love to see some in the old zones, such as;

Valkurm Dunes, Sea Serpent Grotto, Yuhtunga Jungle, Beaucedine Glacier.

I'm sure are parts of these map, no one ever goes to.

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I don't see that possible for older zones pre-adoulin maybe for some reasons. I can't think of a few apart from older zones having level correction pre-adoulin.

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Originally Posted by Zuidar

I don't see that possible for older zones pre-adoulin maybe for some reasons. I can't think of a few apart from older zones having level correction pre-adoulin.

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Maybe I'm wrong, (I know they aren't apex), but weren't there around level 101 mobs added to The Boyahda Tree?

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Greetings, everyone!
FFXI Producer Matsui here.

Alas, we’ll be delivering the FFXI Digest in text format once again.

This version update will mainly focus on aspects that were originally planned for the May version update that couldn’t be implemented due to some tasks being put on a halt.

As a countermeasure against RMT (real-money trading), we set a limit on the number of sparks of eminence and Unity accolades that can be exchanged each week.
While the STF (Special Task Force) have been tracking reported logs and strengthening their enforcement, we determined that it would be effective to also reduce some simple methods of earning gil. This countermeasure will affect regular players to some extent. However, in order to minimize effects on players, we opted to limit the number of points exchanged, rather than remove certain Records of Eminence objectives.

We don’t think this is a perfect solution and will consider adjustments if necessary, so we’d like to hear your opinions on this countermeasure.

Ambuscade will both feature returning enemies, Dullahan and Pteraketos.
We’ve added some new Dullahan-themed rewards, so please look forward to it!

I’d also like to briefly explain the reason for the adjustments made to alter egos.
Certain alter egos used Holy during Divine Emblem to gain enmity; however, after the adjustment to paladin that reduced the recast time of Divine Emblem, we noticed that these alter egos often ran out of MP. To address this, we’ve adjusted AAEV and Rughadjeen to use Flash during Divine Emblem instead. With August, however, we addressed this by improving his MP restoration methods, so he will continue to use Holy as before.

The development and operations team are gradually returning to their usual productivity, and we’re currently in process of preparing for the July version update.

We hope that you continue to enjoy FFXI!

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I will just go on record saying this there are people out there who will hate me saying it (RMT)

but i like to see your moving to do things to stop RMT from hurting a game that people like me who have played from ps2 till now love and hold so close to there hearts.

what i wish i would see from the FFXI Team and SE is the company takeing legal action on the 2-3 RMT sites running ADs just about nightly on my server and i would guess they do it on all servers.

but everything you do helps us to have a better ffxi and i love you guys keep up the good work.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

But then the RMT would just bot Unity points, and run back and forth to that NPC buying pop items and selling them, setting the price trend (as opposed to sparks).
There are more than a handful of unity items that sell for good amounts of gil.

Why not just get the group in question who needs whatever Escha NM's, to come along with you and farm the needed Unity fights for pop items?
That way, everybody has something to do.

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If RMT all decided to shift their energy into farming accolades to buy UNM mats, they'd have to wait for stuff to sell on the AH rather than instant NPC-sourced gil, and demand simply isn't high enough for any of them to support the overly inflated supply resulting from them jumping into the market. Prices would crash, and crash hard, making it a less lucrative market for them to be a part of. It'd still eliminates the ability that RMT had to generate non-economically interactive funds due to being able to directly convert unlimited quantities of sparks/accolades directly into gil at a 1:10 ratio via instantaneous NPC sales. The mats are all dirt cheap when sold to NPCs, and even at the highest end of current pricing, AH value is much less than 1:10 value, so RMT income potential would still be vastly reduced. Even if UNM mats were excluded from the cap, it'd be less gil/hour potential for them to continue botting trash mobs for accolade/sparks farming than just about any actual content. That's still a big win IMO.

Still need to exclude all EX items regardless (that can't be sold for gil, if any exist,) since that almost exclusively hurts newer players/characters who need gear/Rems.

No one ever wants to actually fight UNMs. They are straight-up miserable with a full alliance. <,<
As the leader of a large, active ls I also have absolutely no desire to double~triple the amount of time required for any events. Our event schedule is full enough without trying to cram in UNM farming (which is also best done with smaller groups due to scaling, resulting in member exclusion.) We have no shortage of things to do even without forced UNM farming added to the mix. There was absolutely no need to when I was able to personally cover the pop item costs for everyone with my own accolades before this change. :(

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Originally Posted by Kawar

I will just go on record saying this there are people out there who will hate me saying it (RMT)

but i like to see your moving to do things to stop RMT from hurting a game that people like me who have played from ps2 till now love and hold so close to there hearts.

what i wish i would see from the FFXI Team and SE is the company takeing legal action on the 2-3 RMT sites running ADs just about nightly on my server and i would guess they do it on all servers.

but everything you do helps us to have a better ffxi and i love you guys keep up the good work.

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I mean, I like it too in theory, I just think this doesn't hurt RMT and only hurts legitimate players.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

We don’t think this is a perfect solution and will consider adjustments if necessary, so we’d like to hear your opinions on this countermeasure.

We hope that you continue to enjoy FFXI!

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Hello! Thank you for your time. I think it's about time you started discussing these significant issues we hear all over this official forums (both English & Japanese forums). Of course, Japanese players may say the same thing over and over about reporting to the STF and nothing happen. That's their culture and we have our own culture. I feel like as if I am not welcomed to any server outside of Asura due to the amount of gil I have in my pocket and I am fine with that. To be fair, Asura is not a perfect server. There, I speak for myself. :o

As I have just returned to Vana'diel after real life issues, I would still like to finish up my final phase of the Escutcheon shield, however being a legitimate player I don't know what I am supposed to do at this time. I would like you to continue discussing this issue with your fellow adventurers and helping us to understand.

Thank you again!

These adjustments were made based on requests brought up on the forums.
When we shortened the recast time of Divine Emblem, the alter egos kept their previous behavior of frequently casting their spells (Holy), which caused them to quickly run out of MP. We’ve readjusted their behaviors, so we hope you’ll try them out in battle again.

Thank you all for your feedback.

We understand that many players feel that the current restrictions are too low and have run into the current set limit. We’ll continue to examine this. Rather than simply raising the limit and keeping in line with the current structure, we’re considering the addition of more effective methods with future countermeasures.

The development and operations teams are aware of RMT vendors bypassing the restrictions by using multiple accounts or repeatedly creating new characters. While we’d like to completely cut off the gil supply for RMT vendors, I believe it wouldn’t be possible without severely affecting regular players. Instead, our goal is to make the effort of RMT vendors selling gil not worth the real life benefits they would receive. Since the changes, we’ve received reports that RMT vendors have altered their activity patterns, and we’re also constantly penalizing accounts involved in fraudulent activity. Therefore, the changes had some effect but weren’t a decisive blow, and we’ll continue to take countermeasures.

On a related note, Sparks of Eminence are only intended to be a supplemental method for obtaining items such as Rem’s Tale Chapters. We’d like to encourage all players, beginners and veterans alike, to challenge themselves to primarily obtain these items through other means, such as High-Tier Mission Battlefields. Sparks of Eminence aren’t meant to completely replace the other content in that regard, but we’d like to hear your feedback if you encounter any issues with obtaining these items through other content.

We do not believe the issue can be resolved with just a one-time measure. Additionally, we want to make sure that these measures do not heavily affect everyone’s normal gameplay as well.

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback.

You wanna combat RMT?? Put some GMs in zones. If we as player can spot a bot, I bet you can too! Taking actions that hurt actual players(such as sparks) does not fix or hinder RMTs, I am sure they got enough Gil with their 18 accounts per person... or maybe the 1000 job shouts per minute, or maybe the pay to win everything shouts... or the crafting bots that have been in the same zones for 2+ years running the same path... or the Dynamis bots that have been there 2+ years... or the AH pricing that seems to magically inflate by large amounts... jail these bots, temporary suspensions, and continue to do it. That will ensure SE still gets the monthly paid subscription $$$, and players will have access to content!! Amazing how simple it is(I know there is a little more to it than that). But I am wasting my breath, it’s not rocket science so you can make changes that impact the game positively for the player base... you have only had years to try and come up with a solution... if you can’t monitor RMT any better than this then you should just stop trying... it’s beyond ridiculous how bad they have become. Quit sugar coating these little changes and get on the offensive! End of rant. :p

With love,

Taru

The Job Point sellers (aka botters) need to be dealt with, the Apex camps that players often (try) to use are swamped with them, all stuck on top of each other repeating killing monsters 24/7, and yell is 95% Job point sellers.

If something isn't done soon, there will be no spots left at all for us genuine players.

I am noticing a reoccurring theme here Matsui; you have a vision.....which you force down the throats of the players.

For decades, BST was able to use ready or sic from the yonder. Even though BST like myself battled at close range, you wanted to force feed others to do so. Everyone hated it.

RMT was an issue for decades. Players and RMT always shared the same source of gil for the most part. Now, you once again force feed your vision upon the players.

Disclaimer: NO DISRESPECT MATSUI.

However, I feel like if you were in charge during the early 2000s, you would have force fed NIN as a elemental wheel DD instead of a tank as players were playing Ninja as......

I have no issue making money, or really fighting as BST (Unless my little bunny gets lost in a crowd and I cannot see it to come closer in attempt to use Ready....Which is why I like/want bigger pets...), but you gotta stop the force feeding man.....Disrupting players is not the answer to everything.

No shade, disrespect, just the opinion of one man.

MATSUI please remove animation lock on abilities. Most "power up" animations are exactly the same. It would improve the pace of combat and animation lock bloat.

If you want to stop RMT you would be better off addressing the reason people BUY gil in the first place, not addressing ways the sellers get it.

Job points are way too hard for newer players to obtain, yet for players with a REMA they are too easy. You need to implement boosts for players to get job points for the first 100-150 (at least), it's so difficult right now that they just give up and buy Job Points from Bots who kill Apex monsters in seconds.

I understand you want a time sink, but it's not working. People are buying 500 job points for 10m gil, which is very little. I like getting my own job points but the amount of work and time it takes to get 500 means even I'm tempted to just buy them.

If you ask me the the cap on how many sparks you can spend on buying Skill-Up Books needs to be removed. Reason being is NOBODY would buy these from the Auction House and new/returning players that are finding it hard to skillup could get these books and stand around and pop them. If you put a limit on them it slows their ability to catch up on skills that they need for doing Endgame. Most shells that do Endgame don't want underskilled players in their ranks so why limit the amount of skill-up books people can get from NPCs? Again there's better things in the game to blow your gil on and Skill-Up books aren't one of those "better things"

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I mean, I like it too in theory, I just think this doesn't hurt RMT and only hurts legitimate players.

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how would SE doing the same thing they did years a go hurt us. They took down an RMT company years a go by legal action and all i am asking is they do it again. we had very little rmt for years after they did it before that is the goal. force rmt to close up shop and force them to spend money and time to reopen. it is a big turn off now that prices are all so not as cheap as they were even 10 years a go.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Job points are way too hard for newer players to obtain, yet for players with a REMA they are too easy. You need to implement boosts for players to get job points for the first 100-150 (at least), it's so difficult right now that they just give up and buy Job Points from Bots who kill Apex monsters in seconds.

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and there is me wondering how I got to 75 in the old days, when solo got you 15xp per Easy Prey kill.

Only reason why people allegedly buy currency is because they can't be bothered, lazy, and would probably cheat in all other games anyway given the chance.

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Originally Posted by Kawar

how would SE doing the same thing they did years a go hurt us. They took down an RMT company years a go by legal action and all i am asking is they do it again. we had very little rmt for years after they did it before that is the goal. force rmt to close up shop and force them to spend money and time to reopen. it is a big turn off now that prices are all so not as cheap as they were even 10 years a go.

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I think you're confused. I'm referring to the thing they did to combat RMT with this update. It doesn't hurt RMT, despite that being the intention, and it only hurts legitimate players.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I think you're confused. I'm referring to the thing they did to combat RMT with this update. It doesn't hurt RMT, despite that being the intention, and it only hurts legitimate players.

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Time will tell as SE have a lot more data on their side than we do, to plough through and analyse.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

and there is me wondering how I got to 75 in the old days, when solo got you 15xp per Easy Prey kill.

Only reason why people allegedly buy currency is because they can't be bothered, lazy, and would probably cheat in all other games anyway given the chance.

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You can buy 500 job points for 7m, I can make 7m in a few hours. 500 job points would take me weeks, it would take someone far less geared than me months.

The only reason not to take the quick route is if you have the knowledge that you are ruining the game for yourself, but most don't understand this until it's too late. This is probably the 2nd source of players buying gil right now, just goto the apex camps and see how many idle players are there.

It's so bad now that it's rare to see someone without master stars, they wanted job points to be a long grind and at the start it was fine but they made it so long and boring that people now don't do it at all and bypass it. They messed up because they never re-visited it, it's ok to have a grind but it needs to feel like you're making progress. I've seen people taking 10-15 minutes to kill one apex monster, that's not meaningful progress when it's 1.5k job points to cap.

It's so bad at this point that it's rare to see apex parties at all now, it's easy to just farm the gil.

If they want to address RMT they need to make job point acquisition less awful, or people will just pay more for the gil no matter how annoying they make it for sellers.

returned for the "ffxi return to vana'diel" thing after 2 yrs to this bs.. yeaaa. really screwed over everyone BUT the rmts. nice job SE... glad I quit in late 2019 now, hopefully the servers get shutdown soon on this spaghetti code game. trash