PLEASE REMOVE OR LESSEN RESTRICTIONS ON GARDENING FOR NEW PLAYERS

Hi, I just rerolled about a month ago and I have to say the restrictions on gardening really suck for new players. Now that RMT seems to be less of a problem I would hope that the developers would look at at least rolling back some of the restrictions on gardening for new players - even setting it up like fishing wouldn't be so bad.

It is really hard to make gil when you have just started - unlocking gardening would help! I also really want to raise a chocobo but without gardening it is just way too expensive.

I think that given the state of the game outside of Abyssea the developers should look at taking some action to make things a little easier on new players. Rolling back some of the restrictions on gardening would be a good step.

What did SE do exactly?

For 90 days plants only yield 1 item from them.

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Originally Posted by Masekase

For 90 days plants only yield 1 item from them.

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Yeah so you are better off selling the seed/crystal than bothering

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Originally Posted by Masekase

For 90 days plants only yield 1 item from them.

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oh wow it is the same thing the send gil cap change did.

SE he is right, these changes do more harm then good, if someone wants to RMT they will, you should not harm real players in the process.

That send gil cap needs to be abolished too.

The thing is I really enjoyed gardening and it was one of the things I was looking forward to when I repurchased the game and started a new character - ditto with chocobo raising. Chocobo raising as far as I am concerned is not viable for a newbie if they can't garden (and don't have some outside source of money). So this 90 day thing is really sucky not just cause it makes it harder for genuine new players to make money/skill cooking/raise chocobos, but it takes away a fun part of the game.

There still is RMT, so there will still be some restrictions while accounts are in free trial. I agree that 90 days is a bit much at this point though. At best, they may reduce it to 30 days.

There are still decent ways to make gil as you are starting out though. Crystals and base mats for crafting are still going at a decent rate, and when they merge the AH you will be able to flip them even faster than you currently can in the starter nations' AH's. You can start crafting things that sell well at 0 craft skill too (tsurara, beeswax, ingots) that you can also craft into usable items yourself--don't discount cooking either, you can start making items for yourself really cheap early on, and some still sell in the AH--there are some beginner's meats, drinks, and jug pets you can make with 0-5 skill and mats are sold by vendors. You can also get a lot of things to use/sell from chests for free too, not just off of mobs. You also get a little chunk of gil from the FOV pages once per game day as well.

Besides, you really only need a couple sets of gear to get you to Jueno and eventually abyssea now too. With the elevated XP rates and ablility to spam FoV pages, you out-level gear so fast now during the first 30 levels you don't need to upgrade a whole lot--probly do better to use the cheap vendor and <free> CP gear options until you hit 30. You can make one set of gear last easily 7 levels (or more) now with the faster xp rates.

Also, if you go the CP route, remember you can get some ls mates to upgrade them to higher level gear with just a handful of items like ingots/sheets or pieces of leather/cloth. For example, level 10 Legionaire's Harness upgrades to level 15 Bastokan/Republic Harness by just bonding a brass sheet with an earth crystal (23 goldsmithing). Same thing applies to the weapons: level 10 Legionnaire's Knuckles become level 15 Bastokan/Republic Knuckles by simply applying a bronze ingot on them with a fire crystal (19 goldsmithing). If you don't go the CP rout, use starter gear to ~7, upgrade to better vendor gear, then get lsmates to upgrade them by the same method (Leather gear can easily upgrade to higher level armors, for example: lizard, various scale, brass, studded pieces).

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Originally Posted by RAIST

Besides, you really only need a couple sets of gear to get you to Jueno and eventually abyssea now too.

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People who haven't rerolled totally over-estimate the ability of noobs to get into an Abyssea party. Just stating that right off. I am 52 now, and I haven't done anything but unlock the traverser stones accumulating. And, no, if you are soloing post 30, you actually need decent gear unless you want your life to suck.

You're nuts if you think I only need to get a couple pieces of gear to last till 75+ when I can realistically hope to get a spot in Abyssea for the first time (with no cruor/keys). If hadn't been busting my arse to make money and get gears (and hadn't gotten some gil as a gift from an LS mate) I would be totally screwed. You just can't solo effectively with crap gears.

I can go without jug pets, I can go without pet food - but I need armor that can take some hits, charisma gear, and decent axes - or I am going to get ridiculously slow exp./eat dirt constantly.

Your advice is fine otherwise - and believe me, I've farmed up lots of onions and tiger skins and tiger fangs (my personal favourite) and sold lots of crystals and beechips and honey - but newbie gears are really expensive (35 stacks of most crystals for the lvl 25 dagger I just bought for my DNC) compared to the kind of money you can realistically make through most farming.

Only people on a free trial should be subject to any kind of restrictions of this sort. Once the free trial is over any restrictions should be lifted. 90 days is just silly. No RMT is going to last 90 days.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Only people on a free trial should be subject to any kind of restrictions of this sort. Once the free trial is over any restrictions should be lifted. 90 days is just silly. No RMT is going to last 90 days.

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This!

I understand blocking things while on the trial, but for goodness sake - I'm not on the trial and I even bought all the Abyssea expansions - just let me garden so I can afford to raise my choco!

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Originally Posted by RAIST

There still is RMT, so there will still be some restrictions while accounts are in free trial. I agree that 90 days is a bit much at this point though. At best, they may reduce it to 30 days.

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30 days is still stupid, all that needs to be done is restrict people on free trail.

same goes with the send gil cap.

if you are paying for the game these restrictions should not exist.

they harm real players more then being anti rmt measures

Is earning gil from gardening still so game breaking (now that you can make tons of gil in abyssea)? Assuming you were going about it the legit way and just farming gold chest items you'd still make gil faster than if you're gardening I would think? Since last June, without even trying, I've made 5 million gil selling scrolls, pop items, synth mats, and trash gear from abyssea and if I'd touched the 5.2 million cruor I've stored up for anything other than brews I could have made significantly more.

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Originally Posted by Hoshi

Is earning gil from gardening still so game breaking (now that you can make tons of gil in abyssea)? Assuming you were going about it the legit way and just farming gold chest items you'd still make gil faster than if you're gardening I would think? Since last June, without even trying, I've made 5 million gil selling scrolls, pop items, synth mats, and trash gear from abyssea and if I'd touched the 5.2 million cruor I've stored up for anything other than brews I could have made significantly more.

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be nice to have inventory to do that.

but to answer your question about gardening it is an OLD RMT countemeasure that needs to get rid of ( like the gil sending cap too) for people not on trial.

It is something newer players can do while leveling to 30 or something i guess.

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Originally Posted by Olor

People who haven't rerolled totally over-estimate the ability of noobs to get into an Abyssea party. Just stating that right off. I am 52 now, and I haven't done anything but unlock the traverser stones accumulating. And, no, if you are soloing post 30, you actually need decent gear unless you want your life to suck.

You're nuts if you think I only need to get a couple pieces of gear to last till 75+ when I can realistically hope to get a spot in Abyssea for the first time (with no cruor/keys). If hadn't been busting my arse to make money and get gears (and hadn't gotten some gil as a gift from an LS mate) I would be totally screwed. You just can't solo effectively with crap gears.

I can go without jug pets, I can go without pet food - but I need armor that can take some hits, charisma gear, and decent axes - or I am going to get ridiculously slow exp./eat dirt constantly.

Your advice is fine otherwise - and believe me, I've farmed up lots of onions and tiger skins and tiger fangs (my personal favourite) and sold lots of crystals and beechips and honey - but newbie gears are really expensive (35 stacks of most crystals for the lvl 25 dagger I just bought for my DNC) compared to the kind of money you can realistically make through most farming.

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Actually, no.. you don't need high end gears.. I just took 4 jobs from 60 to 78 in mostly level 50-57 gears (WITHOUT abysses, mind you). You just need to be a little smarter about your targets. Use the FoV system more. Remember, a DC mob now gives more xp than an EM used to, and EM gives more than a VT used to. You also get double the CP return as well. Those CP gears have a lot more value than people realize. You also need to earn your gil more wisely as well. If you are getting tiger fangs, you get more gil turning them in for a quest. You can farm bee chips and wild onions on easy mobs right outside Bastok (if you are over there, that is) and make a quick 20k a pop (or more) still in the AH. If you are in Windy area, you can still do the same there as well, just have to go to two different zones to do it. The "high end" gears you are talking about needing are ridiculously cheap. For instance.. Amamet +1 for 20k or less now.

You guys realize that if they remove the 90 day wait period they'll probably also nerf the NPC selling prices of certain items instead thus removing the reason you wanted to garden in the first place, right?

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Originally Posted by Hoshi

Is earning gil from gardening still so game breaking (now that you can make tons of gil in abyssea)? Assuming you were going about it the legit way and just farming gold chest items you'd still make gil faster than if you're gardening I would think? Since last June, without even trying, I've made 5 million gil selling scrolls, pop items, synth mats, and trash gear from abyssea and if I'd touched the 5.2 million cruor I've stored up for anything other than brews I could have made significantly more.

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I guess you missed the part where he said he couldn't get into abyssea parties. Unless you make it yourself or know someone then good luck finding a abyssea where you sit there and do absolutely nothing.

Oh, so the OP wants RMT to overrun Gardening again...

No thanks.

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30 days is still stupid, all that needs to be done is restrict people on free trail.

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The free trial lasts 30 days. -.-

EDIT: clarification: they quietly removed the 2 week free trial download from their "buy the game" flash site. This is actually probably the main reason RMT have declined. The only free trials there are now are the 30 free days you get with the game, and buddy pass trials, if anyone still has them.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

The free trial lasts 30 days. -.-

EDIT: clarification: they quietly removed the 2 week free trial download from their "buy the game" flash site. This is actually probably the main reason RMT have declined. The only free trials there are now are the 30 free days you get with the game, and buddy pass trials, if anyone still has them.

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how is it free if you buy it? 30 days is too long -.-

I was pointing do that free trial dl yeah you can put resections on that.

guess they would only have restrictions on buddy pass trail then.

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Originally Posted by Starcade

Oh, so the OP wants RMT to overrun Gardening again...

No thanks.

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thats like saying lets not trade high amounts of items because its RMT ( really muling) lets not send gil from alt accounts/ chrs acting as a bank, only RMT must do that.

RMT will always be there, no reason to hurt real players because they can't make RMT target softwere ( targets real people not rmt ) lol

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Originally Posted by RAIST

Actually, no.. you don't need high end gears.. I just took 4 jobs from 60 to 78 in mostly level 50-57 gears (WITHOUT abysses, mind you). You just need to be a little smarter about your targets. Use the FoV system more. Remember, a DC mob now gives more xp than an EM used to, and EM gives more than a VT used to. You also get double the CP return as well. Those CP gears have a lot more value than people realize. You also need to earn your gil more wisely as well. If you are getting tiger fangs, you get more gil turning them in for a quest.

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I am using the fangs for the sandy quest (no please don't assume I'm brain dead). I am wearing A LOT of conquest gear (unfortunately - most of it comes from nations I am not a member of- since no matter how much I would like the bastok dagger to be equippable by DNC - IT ISN'T). I know what drops frigging onions.

However, the fact of the matter is - all of that farming nets for the most part less than 10k/hr in goodies - and when the market is filled with gil people can get from selling weapons bought with dom notes (and other Abyssea sources) - it means the price of lowbie gear is STILL REALLY HIGH compared to what people can realistically farm on a lowbie job.

I am lucky cause this is my 4th char and I know how to make money - but for new players it has to be a complete and total nightmare.

There should be a forum rule/guideline against using all capital letters

[Caps Lock Key] [No Thanks]

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Originally Posted by Hoshi

Is earning gil from gardening still so game breaking (now that you can make tons of gil in abyssea)? Assuming you were going about it the legit way and just farming gold chest items you'd still make gil faster than if you're gardening I would think? Since last June, without even trying, I've made 5 million gil selling scrolls, pop items, synth mats, and trash gear from abyssea and if I'd touched the 5.2 million cruor I've stored up for anything other than brews I could have made significantly more.

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My take on mass gardening was that it was more or less legalized RMT. For very little effort, just throwing an additional $1 per ID at SE meant relatively risk-free gil. This is not something every player can do, but the difference between this and something like dual-boxing is that characters out in the field at least risk death, EXP loss, wasted gil on food/tools/meds, and of course time. On top of that, it's assumed they're competing for limited resources like an NM, HELMing spots, or even a good EXP camp.

Put simply, it was possible to make millions upon millions of gil per month with enough mules. From the RMT perspective, that would mean in order to prime an account for NPCing, they'll need to have spent at least $70 for the game, IDs, and monthly subs after the 30 days. With the amount of time they need to invest, being overt in moving funds can pretty much blow up in their face easily and so they're back to the point where any money they could've made selling things off is lost in trying to start over again if they were actually able to sell it off to begin with.

Back to players, though, they'll need to stomach that same initial investment and waiting period. While a ban is unlikely for personal use of harvested gil, it's still currency largely created from nowhere and some might be tempted to sell off excess. Their economic value is largely toxic, too, as the simple result is unnatural potential inflation that multiplies the more readily it can be done. Good for the people with plenty of RL cash to spare. Not so much for those who don't.

Realistically, the only way to remove the gardening nerf is to go through all possible yields and tweak their NPC values accordingly. Gardening should be a tool used to provide unique goods to other players, not junk other players would never want and instead NPC as primary source of gil for the gardener.

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Originally Posted by Seriha

Realistically, the only way to remove the gardening nerf is to go through all possible yields and tweak their NPC values accordingly. Gardening should be a tool used to provide unique goods to other players, not junk other players would never want and instead NPC as primary source of gil for the gardener.

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I have/had no intention of using gardening to make npc junk. I want to grow chocobo food and ingredients for cooking.

>.>

Maybe that is how some people garden but it seems like that would be an awful time sink for a not great return. But then again - maybe I am doing it wrong.

Like I implied, it's pretty much money for nothing. More pro-active players could make more, but an equally ambitious player could do the same on top of gardening and walk out that much richer. Some have allegedly funded relic weapons in this way. 3-5 minutes a mule per day, all for the cost of the initial seeds and some cheap crystals come feeding time. No competition, no undercutting at the AH, just a paycheck every few days.

I can sympathize with wanting to make things for personal use and not being able to, but this is an unfortunate side effect of people abusing the system and SE not making the right call with their response.

But blocking me from gardening isn't stopping anyone with an account older than 90 days from abusing gardening...

And again, I feel for ya. SE didn't make the right call with their initial reaction. They instead should've looked at NPC values so what you get never exceeded the value of what you put in when dealing strictly with NPCs. For now, all I can suggest is maybe asking a friend or shellmate who plays regularly if they could garden for you until your 90 days pass.

Meh, I will just suck it up - this thread is less "fix this for me" and more "fix this so that no one in the future has to deal with this crap."

The worst part of it is - the game doesn't give you a message about what is going on - so if a new player WAS to start gardening, and never get anything more than 1 crappy item per pot, they might just think it sucks and never try it again.

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Originally Posted by Olor

The worst part of it is - the game doesn't give you a message about what is going on - so if a new player WAS to start gardening, and never get anything more than 1 crappy item per pot, they might just think it sucks and never try it again.

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I second this issue, would like something to be done about it.

Hey everyone,

We definitely understand your concerns about the restrictions on gardening for new players and also for current players that create new characters. We will talk to STF about this and see what is possible.

However, please keep in mind that the currently low amount of RMT activity is mainly due to these kind of countermeasures, so it might not be so easy to loosen up on these restrictions as there is a high possibility that RMT activity will grow once again if we ease up.

We will keep you posted on any info we receive.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hey everyone,

We definitely understand your concerns about the restrictions on gardening for new players and also for current players that create new characters. We will talk to STF about this and see what is possible.

However, please keep in mind that the currently low amount of RMT activity is mainly due to these kind of countermeasures, so it might not be so easy to loosen up on these restrictions as there is a high possibility that RMT activity will grow once again if we ease up.

We will keep you posted on any info we receive.

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I also think it has a lot to do with how irrelevant gil has become in the game as well. There are simply a lot of ways to aquire gil/items in-game now, so there is less demand for it in general. I think if you guys could ease off the caps on secondary crafts we may see even less of an impact from gil selling.

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I also think it has a lot to do with how irrelevant gil has become in the game as well. There are simply a lot of ways to aquire gil/items in-game now, so there is less demand for it in general. I think if you guys could ease off the caps on secondary crafts we may see even less of an impact from gil selling.

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Although true right now, who knows how the game will change with new content.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hey everyone,

We definitely understand your concerns about the restrictions on gardening for new players and also for current players that create new characters. We will talk to STF about this and see what is possible.

However, please keep in mind that the currently low amount of RMT activity is mainly due to these kind of countermeasures, so it might not be so easy to loosen up on these restrictions as there is a high possibility that RMT activity will grow once again if we ease up.

We will keep you posted on any info we receive.

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Your countermeasures do not stop RMT, your mass bannings did

In 2009 the savage bannings, the gardening bannings and the credit card bannings is what hit the RMT hard. With less players around you have less demand for gil, it is that simple. It has nothing to do with programmed coutermeasures. the coutnermesures hurt real players more then it does to RMT.

Not only do you have less damad for gil because there is less gamers, but abyssea killed the want for gil. most of the stuff we want is rare ex after abyssea and abyssea also hurt big ticket items ( B hide, cerb hide, so on)

So abyssea killed crafting, abyssea killed RMT ( or the last nail) due to people not needing gil

You are delusional if you think the countermeasures help stop rmt. They find ways around it. They broke around your chat filter, made advance bots for fishing, made advance ways to bypass your filter and ways around the sending gil cap.

Even your filter was known to bug and block legitimate tells.

I want to ask you, how many legitimate players have your STF banned to get better numbers to act like you are doing something to RMT?

And speaking about STF I want to know why my mule account is still banned:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...stomer-service

All I did to get banned was trade a lot. A program saw I made a huge amount of trades so I got banned. Is STF even real? Or is STF just a code name for a program?

You want to stop RMT? I can tell you what to look for without hurting real players. I lost track on the amount of times GMs did nothing when I reported new ways of RMT leveling, RMT farming and so on.

If the STF is real I bet i know more than them, since I know how to ban RMT without hitting real players. I know GMs so well and if you want proof of that i can tell you how many GM calls i made at the next adventurer apperation thing. I do admit Abyssea killed my observation on them as well. I can start again I guess if i have a reason to.

IMO Gardening needs many improvements.
It takes way too long to be able to harvest, with little reward.
Not to mention the mog safe space taken from attempting to mass garden, heh.

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Originally Posted by Kari

IMO Gardening needs many improvements.
It takes way too long to be able to harvest, with little reward.
Not to mention the mog safe space taken from attempting to mass garden, heh.

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they recently reduced the time to harvest. I don't garden much anymore...only do it for taru rice really, which I need less of with the abyssea enhancements I get. Never tracked the actual time, but it feels almost like half the time.

I wish there was not a cap on the gardening but I hate rmts more than the cap. The rmts did more than just garden. They took the gardening and added hacks that allowed them to harvest same garden over and over again. They did NOT pay for the game since it was free to download, or close to, and they did not have to pay for the month so they took the new account, gutted gardening, closed account and moved on to new account.
I am thrilled beyond measure to know they are gone. I WAS banned wrongly, during the garden bans, so I could go whining how it is all wrong blah blah blah but I WANT the freaks that caused SE to be banning people at all gone for good. It is rmt at fault here not SE, although SE did go at it a bit recklessly at the time. Its a lot better to prevent the rmts from starting that all again.
For new people: did you realized wind stacks are 4k or more at AH? That is in the cities. Five stacks and you have a 20 k item. I would have loved that at start of my game. There are good ways to make gil same as there always have been. Having your own choco is something worthwhile to look forward to getting. There is nothing wrong with not having everything in the game at the beginning. It would be very boring if we didnt have to work to get the fun stuff. Have some patience and you can enjoy it all.

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Originally Posted by annewandering

There is nothing wrong with not having everything in the game at the beginning. It would be very boring if we didnt have to work to get the fun stuff. Have some patience and you can enjoy it all.

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This... 10 times over. Heaven forbid an adventurer actually explore and try to interact with different aspects of the game. I was in the game for roughly over 5 years before I ever ONCE kept more than 1 million gil (most the time I was b/t 300-500k)--yet, I never wanted for gil.

Explore, experiment, improvise--part of the fun is figuring out diffrerent ways to do things rather than running through the game on rails doing everything cookie-cutter style.

I never liked how overly restrictive they got when they went on the warpath against rmts. Seemed like it was done with the mentality of "sometimes you got to shoot the hostage to save them." They wiped alot of repeatable gil quests, nerfed both gardening/fishing, and nailed a good bit of players with their mass bans.

While I abhor the RMT, I think the strings should be loosened a bit. I doubt the RMTs would flood the game again. Let's face it FFXI isn't as popular as it was in their heyday, and the need for gil isn't anywheres near as high as it used to be.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hey everyone,

We definitely understand your concerns about the restrictions on gardening for new players and also for current players that create new characters. We will talk to STF about this and see what is possible.

However, please keep in mind that the currently low amount of RMT activity is mainly due to these kind of countermeasures, so it might not be so easy to loosen up on these restrictions as there is a high possibility that RMT activity will grow once again if we ease up.

We will keep you posted on any info we receive.

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Actually, I think it's far more likely that the decline in RMT is due to the removal of the 2 week free trial.

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Your countermeasures do not stop RMT, your mass bannings did

In 2009 the savage bannings, the gardening bannings and the credit card bannings is what hit the RMT hard

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Oh, for the love of all that is holy, please stop posting this BS. Only a handful of people relative to FFXI's population were banned. More were slapped on the wrist than banned, and RMT were around LONG LONG after the salvage bannings. Everyone who was banned deserved it. Stop acting like this was a majority of high level players or something, because that's just plain false. The STF has done it's job, it is ridiculous to argue that something like banning a few cheaters/exploiters ruined the economy. The salvage bannings were about removing people exploiting bugs, it had absolutely nothing to do with RMT.

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While I abhor the RMT, I think the strings should be loosened a bit. I doubt the RMTs would flood the game again. Let's face it FFXI isn't as popular as it was in their heyday, and the need for gil isn't anywheres near as high as it used to be.

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Some of the restrictions are not really needed anymore (though they were needed at the time they were created, to be sure). Since even RMT will have to either buy the game or steal accounts to do their job now, that's one of the reasons they've all but disappeared.

Though a bit off topic from the OP, I believe SE-STF has taken the wrong approach to dealing with RMT. The number one goal RMT focus on is a solid repeatable aspect of the game. Either to raise the demand of an item in their favor or to exploit game mechanics.

In most other MMOs that often find themselves flooded with RMT, they saturate the demanded object. In Final Fantasy's case, that object would be gil. With said saturation, there is an obvious balance. Not to make it too simple so that the means don't justify the ends. But also to not make it too difficult so that the reward does not meet the ends.

If gil is being horded by RMT and sold for a premium, give the players a reason not to purchase gil(Obviously reason would be banned xD). Make the player feel like the gil is not worth the purchase when they can generate it on their own.

There are many different ways to fix these issues and SE-STF chose a more punishing tactic. I believe instead of punishing the entire player base for what the RMT have done is simply excessive.

I realize the times of the game are not about purchasing high end items as much as it was in the past. I believe Abyssea has a big part in that. But in the future all this might change. Just something to think on.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Actually, I think it's far more likely that the decline in RMT is due to the removal of the 2 week free trial.

Oh, for the love of all that is holy, please stop posting this BS. Only a handful of people relative to FFXI's population were banned. More were slapped on the wrist than banned, and RMT were around LONG LONG after the salvage bannings. Everyone who was banned deserved it. Stop acting like this was a majority of high level players or something, because that's just plain false. The STF has done it's job, it is ridiculous to argue that something like banning a few cheaters/exploiters ruined the economy. The salvage bannings were about removing people exploiting bugs, it had absolutely nothing to do with RMT.

Some of the restrictions are not really needed anymore (though they were needed at the time they were created, to be sure). Since even RMT will have to either buy the game or steal accounts to do their job now, that's one of the reasons they've all but disappeared.

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It is not BS, you cannot handle the truth.

you can target banning botting, MPK harrsment, and other things then jsut telling a program to monter trade count to ban people that should be banned ( both RMT and non RMT that do that)

SE would rather ban real people with thier flawed programing for numbers then ban bigger issues