Attacking Monsters with an Avatar While Being AFK.

I don't see why this warrants a change to either Summoner or Chigoes. I don't see why it warrants anything other some guy at SE doing stuff to people who can't keep half-an-eye on Final Fantasy XI while doing other stuff, now that it's known people will be punished if reported.

This is sometimes a problem on some servers rather than a universal tactic, it's one really damn specific problem but tangled up in much larger mechanics, anyone inconvenienced by the activity is likely to report it, and the activity is related to playing Final Fantasy XI while not playing Final Fantasy XI which is something SE has staff to handle. The solution seems obvious.

People who want a 0% chance of being punished for this activity should keep one eye on Final Fantasy XI while they're studying the modern neural chemistry of people engulfed in flames or making four gallons of crayfish gumbo or perusing the internet for images of people covering their naked bodies in canned baked beans or reading erotic Avengers fanfiction (Tony Stark/Hulk) or even doing something somebody might actually do.

That's how it's been since the dawn of playing Final Fantasy XI while not playing Final Fantasy XI, it was pretty well accepted when population was dense enough for there to be a danger of being reported for what and not and even whatnot, and I don't think the lack of third-party stuff in this situation changes much.
Yes, the Hulk is on bottom.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

one problem though....they don't appear to have any problem with people participating in afk game play. Been to any Abyssea or Gov Book Burns lately?

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If someone who is at their keyboard kills a chigoe, and someone who is afk gets the geode from that kill, it is not absentee play because a player who was at keyboard did the work. Same thing in exp alliances- if the person doing the work is at their keyboard, it's not absentee play, and it's not against the rules. If someone who is afk kills a chigoe, that's absentee play, and that's what the GMs are attempting to discourage.

Your logic for this sounds completely unreasonable to me. They're trying to deal with people who are breaking the rules. Your claim is that the problem isn't that people are willing to break the rules, the problem is that breaking the rules is too enticing.

People flee hack in neo Nyzul. What's your solution for that? Make Nyzul so hard that even when you cheat you stand no chance of reaching floor 100? Sure, that'll keep the cheaters away, but it'll also keep away all the people who play by the rules. The same thing goes for "fixing" chigoes. Yeah, it'd keep absentee players away if you made chigoes too hard to kill with an afk smn, but it'd also screw over everyone who hasn't broken rules.

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Originally Posted by Yinnyth

If someone who is at their keyboard kills a chigoe, and someone who is afk gets the geode from that kill, it is not absentee play because a player who was at keyboard did the work. Same thing in exp alliances- if the person doing the work is at their keyboard, it's not absentee play, and it's not against the rules. If someone who is afk kills a chigoe, that's absentee play, and that's what the GMs are attempting to discourage.

Your logic for this sounds completely unreasonable to me. They're trying to deal with people who are breaking the rules. Your claim is that the problem isn't that people are willing to break the rules, the problem is that breaking the rules is too enticing.

People flee hack in neo Nyzul. What's your solution for that? Make Nyzul so hard that even when you cheat you stand no chance of reaching floor 100? Sure, that'll keep the cheaters away, but it'll also keep away all the people who play by the rules. The same thing goes for "fixing" chigoes. Yeah, it'd keep absentee players away if you made chigoes too hard to kill with an afk smn, but it'd also screw over everyone who hasn't broken rules.

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Don't think you even grasped what I meant about Abyssea and GoV. People are NOT AT THEIR KEYBOARDS AND LEVELING TO 99. If you don't see that as absentee play.... /facepalm.

And we aren't talking about making chigoes harder to kill. IDK where you are drawing that from. What we have been talking about is not making the drops from them such a "gimme".

Highly doubt it it is about people completing SMN trials while AFK. There is only one trial where this would be a real benefit--300 kills in the OAT and DA staff lines. The other Staff trials that would take a chigoe kill have requirements that would greatly reduce the benefits to doing this. The only reasonable reason to do this for a trial would be to get credit for someone in party.

And it's highly unlikely they would be doing it for the experience points.

So, what incentive is left? What they have on their drop list. Restrict this to the point where it's not fruitful to do it while afk with a pet, and you take away the reason for them to afk kill them. Plain and simple. If they have to interact during the fight, then they are no longer afk farming them unless they are running a bot to do it--then it becomes a whole different issue completely. Even then, they could still just as easily be monopolized afterwards if this were the only remedy. These things are very easy to kill, repop in line with the geode drop rates, etc. They are simply a highly attractive target for farming geodes, no matter how you are doing it.

So, even if they do what many are concerned about (nerfing SMN specifically), the problem doesn't go away--it may simply just get transferred to another job monopolizing the spawn points. Then what? They've screwed over one job because of it, and the problem still persists.

Thus, the logical solution is to do something about the nature of the mob and/or it's reward conditions.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

And we aren't talking about making chigoes harder to kill. IDK where you are drawing that from.

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Thus, the logical solution is to do something about the nature of the mob and/or it's reward conditions.

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You made one post, reply #49 suggesting no loot or exp on chigoes if they get crit-killed. The rest are ambiguous statements that something needs to be changed about chigoes which I took to mean that you think chigoes should be made tougher. For that, I apologize. But changing their drop dynamics is still a change to them which punishes legimate players as well as the people who are engaging in absentee play. And as such I must oppose it as a matter of principle.

I don't think chigoes being a better source of geodes than other mobs is a design problem anymore than beetles being a good source of beetle jaws is a problem. To some extent, I agree that SMNs doing afk kills on chigoes is a relatively minor issue, but if something needs fixing, it's the speeders, not a hardcap on the speed cars can go.


And as far as the definition of "absentee play" goes, I draw the line at "character creating profit while associated player is not controlling said character". Charity doesn't count, because some other player is doing the work. That's leeching. Unethical, but not against the rules. Apparantly SE seems to agree. You're welcome to your own definition, but then how would you enforce your definition? Would you really ban leechers from the game?

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Originally Posted by Yinnyth

You made one post, reply #49 suggesting no loot or exp on chigoes if they get crit-killed. The rest are ambiguous statements that something needs to be changed about chigoes which I took to mean that you think chigoes should be made tougher. For that, I apologize. But changing their drop dynamics is still a change to them which punishes legimate players as well as the people who are engaging in absentee play. And as such I must oppose it as a matter of principle.

I don't think chigoes being a better source of geodes than other mobs is a design problem anymore than beetles being a good source of beetle jaws is a problem. To some extent, I agree that SMNs doing afk kills on chigoes is a relatively minor issue, but if something needs fixing, it's the speeders, not a hardcap on the speed cars can go.


And as far as the definition of "absentee play" goes, I draw the line at "character creating profit while associated player is not controlling said character". Charity doesn't count, because some other player is doing the work. That's leeching. Unethical, but not against the rules. Apparantly SE seems to agree. You're welcome to your own definition, but then how would you enforce your definition? Would you really ban leechers from the game?

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That's just it, the TOU is actually pretty clear on these issues, but they are not enforced rigidly, thus a lot of things happen that shouldn't. Technically, a lot goes on in this game that should not be allowed, but SE lets it slide either because it's considered trivial or not worth the resources to pursue it. SMN letting their pet auto engage and kill a mob without the player drawing their weapon is, in a way, by design. To go after specifically SMN for doing this kinda falls in the category of being a serious WTF moment if they were to take away a very key dynamic to the job.

If they are REALLY concerned about this action specifically on these chigoes, then they should be looking into WHY the focus was put on the chigoes and not any other mob they could choose to do this on. The point here is, they are not doing it in Kuftal, Gustav, Pashow [S], etc--where there are lower level mobs an avatar is perfectly capable of soloing with no effort from the SMN, and weather pops frequently. There are certain characteristics to letting their pets kill chigoes that make them more attractive than crabs, worms, spiders, etc. There are, however, such specific targets in other zones that are indeeed heavily farmed by others on various jobs for the purpose of getting geodes, sometimes to the point that those mobs are no longer a viable target for people to use for trials. It is specifically these chigoes and this specific zone that have become a problem because it is so easy to get a very high demand item off them. It just so happens that it is easier to do it on SMN--just like other mobs may be easier to manage on melee/nuking jobs in other areas.

Other jobs could farm these chigoes in just as high a volume (probly even HIGHER volume), but they would have to actively engage the chigoes to kill them. This creates the monopolization problem that gets in the way of other players ability to participate in certain aspects of the game (trials, etc.). It's not the fact that SMN are taking over the camps--it is that SOMEONE is taking over the camps. Whether it is BLU, THF, RDM, WAR....or SMN. The camps are being monopolized and preventing others from being able to claim them.

Lets look at another mob that had a similar thing happen in recent history. Iron Giants and other NM's were getting pinned in such a way as to exploit elevation in the landscapes to avoid taking damage. This allowed certain jobs to kill them from a safe distance or otherwise out of harms way. They didn't choose to go after the jobs that were heavily exploiting this. Instead, they tweaked how landscape physics affect damage dealing. A similar situation is occuring here. SMN sitting on these camps is the symptom and not the cause of the problem. The problem is how easy it is to mass farm particular items off a specific target due solely to the very nature of how that monster is designed.

Before this announcement was made, a small percentage of players (compared to after the announcement) were likely heavily farming these guys. Now it has been shown how potentially profitable it could be to go after these things. Who's to say they won't now be targetted heavily by THF, BLU, WAR, RDM......then the problem is not a SMN specific problem then, is it? What is the common entity in such a scenario? That's right...the monster being farmed. It all comes back to how attractive the target is. THAT is what needs to be focused on.

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Originally Posted by Bulrogg

Are you sure it the drops, or the completion of magian trials while AFK; perhaps a combination of the two?

What ever the offense, why the hoopla? If you're not guilty of it, no need to cry here about it. And if you are guilty of it.... a wag of the finger and a tsk-tsk to you.

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I just don't want to see SMN "adjusted" because of this. I don't camp chigoes and I don't really care if people do or do not.

I think people are doing this to farm stacks of blood, but I'm not completely sure.

I still think all that needs to happen, if anything, is to "randomize" or expand the spawn areas for each chigoe instead of basing the spawns solely around the bushes. That way people couldn't just stand in one spot to claim them. That's the issue. The spawn points are clearly marked and extremely small. They may as well have put up "Chigoes Spawn Here" signs instead of bushes.

They don't have to adjust the loot pools or remove the mobs. They just have to have them spawn more randomly around the area like the other mobs do.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

Before this announcement was made, a small percentage of players (compared to after the announcement) were likely heavily farming these guys. Now it has been shown how potentially profitable it could be to go after these things. Who's to say they won't now be targetted heavily by THF, BLU, WAR, RDM......then the problem is not a SMN specific problem then, is it? What is the common entity in such a scenario? That's right...the monster being farmed. It all comes back to how attractive the target is. THAT is what needs to be focused on.

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I think this is the biggest part we differ on, honestly. I think chigoes are fine the way they are. You seem to think this is a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I can respect that, but I still disagree. My opinion is that chigoes aren't broke, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just like how I believe SMN pets auto-attacking isn't broke. If you want to stop cheating, catch cheaters. Don't nerf.

Even if people didn't bot (I'm using the term more loosely than I should, I know) the chigoes, do you still think they should be nerfed? If some other enemy with attractive loot (let's say lynxes for lynx meat) was getting botted, do you think that creature should be nerfed?

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Originally Posted by Yinnyth

I think this is the biggest part we differ on, honestly. I think chigoes are fine the way they are. You seem to think this is a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I can respect that, but I still disagree. My opinion is that chigoes aren't broke, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just like how I believe SMN pets auto-attacking isn't broke. If you want to stop cheating, catch cheaters. Don't nerf.

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That's why I was thinking mob placement might be a fair adjustment if one needs to be made at all. I'd be fine if nothing were changed and SE left well enough alone, but they like to meddle where they shouldn't and not meddle where they should.

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Originally Posted by Yinnyth

I think this is the biggest part we differ on, honestly. I think chigoes are fine the way they are. You seem to think this is a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I can respect that, but I still disagree. My opinion is that chigoes aren't broke, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just like how I believe SMN pets auto-attacking isn't broke. If you want to stop cheating, catch cheaters. Don't nerf.

Even if people didn't bot (I'm using the term more loosely than I should, I know) the chigoes, do you still think they should be nerfed? If some other enemy with attractive loot (let's say lynxes for lynx meat) was getting botted, do you think that creature should be nerfed?

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That's the problem though....SE may not be able to curtail the problem with just the STF. They already have put SMN specifically in their sites, but SMN is not the cause of the problem. They have let the cat out of the bag now, and if SMN was taken out of the equation somehow, another job could just step in and take over the camps again....and the problem still persists.

There are countless mobs that continually get overcamped by people, sometimes by very specific jobs. Ever see BLU's whiskering funguars into extinction in Grauberg [S]? Good luck with your trial there if they won't teamup....and, yet, they never get reported. However, people took the time to report people monopolizing the chigoes, and now SE is expected to do something about it.

That is what has people spooked. If SE is not able to conatin this by throwing resources at it via the STF, they may look to adjust something....the question is, what?

The surest way to do it is to adjust the object of desire. So, you have to look at why the chigoes would be specifically targeted, and adjust there. Whether that is the drop list, the camps, the reward conditions....whatever it is, it is something more specific to the monster/camp than the job killing it.

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they may look to adjust something....the question is, what?

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The simplest, most logical adjustment would be to change the target for the trial.