PLEASE REMOVE OR LESSEN RESTRICTIONS ON GARDENING FOR NEW PLAYERS

[Rambus]

So are you saying Asura was the Cheaters, Botters, and Dupers server? Not a place I'd want to be.

Why you think i left? and not just botters and cheaters, MPK and greifers too.

I am not making the situation worse than it is, I am stating the truth, this is why i called you ignorant. I do not like to name call but you are giving me no choice.

1. Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.
2. Lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular: "ignorant of

No, the game would be more active if SE did not do anything or did other measures to fight RMT.

instead of banning people left and right for numbers they could of found ways to find botters, greifers, link botting ( some RMT play 5 chrs at once that all follow each other to level)

there is plenty of ways to only target RMT/target people that need to be banned.

SE took the route of "lets hit everyone that looks like RMT"
You know those charts, numbers, so on, that they flashed in fount of your face? it was just a ploy to make you think they actually did something. They had no issue letting botters play.

game would be in a better state if SE did nothing VS the actions they did.

I would of prefer SE not to do nothing, but it is apparent SE does not know how to fight RMT properly so doing nothing would been an improvement.

See this thread for example THIS IS NOT A COUNTERMESURE to fight RMT. All it does is herm real players.

You are right, people should be banned for breaking the rules. If SE did that we would not have so many people that harass people, stalk people, scam people, BOT, mob steal, and MPK

But SE does not do that, they let some people brake the rules and allow them to still play ( botters/ harassers) but turn around and do mass bans that shouldn’t never take place

you want SE to ban everyone that broke a rule?

You have 1000 people on one server then. ( I would be one of those 1000, I have never used windower or anything. I am sick of being made fun of for saying windower brakes ToS and I am gimp for not using it)

I would find it very interesting to see SE ban everyone that used windorer.

You cannot handle the truth.

comeone Camate like a replay, I want to know what you think of what really goes on.

[Seriha]

Sorry, but if someone duped, they deserved what they got. And no, these people were not the lifeblood of FFXI no matter how close a friend you might've been to them.

Moral of this story? If you find a bug, report it. Not keep it a secret and profit to the tune of millions of gil or triplicating the amount of items entering the game.

[Alhanelem]

1. Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.

I am not lacking knowledge or awareness in general, nor am I uneducated or unsophisticated. Thanks for showing me that though.

You gave your viewpoints through the perspective of your specific server. I am giving them from mine, and the fact that they are both different should be a signal to you that any one server is not an accurate representation of the total population. Each server is different, with different people who do different things. That said, no matter how you want to say it, not even the entirety of everyone who did salvage on a regular basis constitutes a majority of any group of players. There are many "prominent" players who never did salvage, or did not do so regularly. "Prominent" players make up a very tiny percentage of the total population. Even banning a "large number" of them does not substantially affect the total population.

You cannot handle the truth.

I cannot handle your "truth" because it's not the truth.

A few pro players does not represent the entire playerbase.

[Rambus]

I am not lacking knowledge or awareness in general, nor am I uneducated or unsophisticated. Thanks for showing me that though.

You gave your viewpoints through the perspective of your specific server. I am giving them from mine, and the fact that they are both different should be a signal to you that any one server is not an accurate representation of the total population. Each server is different, with different people who do different things. That said, no matter how you want to say it, not even the entirety of everyone who did salvage on a regular basis constitutes a majority of any group of players. There are many "prominent" players who never did salvage, or did not do so regularly. "Prominent" players make up a very tiny percentage of the total population. Even banning a "large number" of them does not substantially affect the total population.

I cannot handle your "truth" because it's not the truth.

A few pro players does not represent the entire playerbase.

I was talking about total player base... that was just an example. so yes you fit that word.

oh wait when did the server merges start? was it 6 moths or so after that? hmm

on top of the CC bans and gardening bans? oh yeah gardening, the ability to charge you, muling, and gift giving warrants a ban!

and ill ask you again, you want everyone baned that violated the tos correct?

[Alhanelem]

oh wait when did the server merges start? was it 6 moths or so after that? hmm

You're delusional if you think the salvage bannings caused the playerbase to decline.

1) FFXI is an old game
2) It has reached many of its limits in terms of adaptability, upgradability and expandability
3) It was at it's peak long before the salvage bannings
4) It was already declining at the time of them

The number of people who were banned or quit because of the bannings is tiny compared to the number of people who quit or left for other reasons. Many people have left simply because they've been here for years and they've moved on to other things. It's a fact of any MMO that lasts this long. Circumstancial evidence is not useful or helpful and is not admissible in courts for those reasons. You are implying correlation where there is no provable connection.

So let me spell it out one more time. Salvage. Bannings. Are. Not. A. Significant. Cause. Of. The. Decrease. In. Population.

and ill ask you again, you want everyone baned that violated the tos correct?

It entirely depends on the violation, and if it can be conclusively proven that a violation actually took place. I know where you're going with this- "So they should ban everyone who ever used windower?" Answer: Possibly, but there is no way to conclusively prove anyone's use of windower -- other than their own admission -- which does not violate privacy laws of various countries (e.g. they'd have to search your computer).

Anyone who shared credit cards or addresses or any other personal information amongst several people to purchase/pay for the game yes indeed should be banned. If you want to play, get your own account information and payment method. If you can't do that, find another game.

Gardening: I don't know the specifics of what happened, but if anyone was exploting a bug or doing anything that was unintended by the developers intentionally and for their own gain, yes, they should have been banned.

Smaller population of people you can play with fairly > larger population full of cheaters/botters/exploiters.

Edit: Man, by the way, when it comes to ninja editing posts, you're a worse offender than I've ever been.

[Rambus]

It entirely depends on the violation, and if it can be conclusively proven that a violation actually took place. I know where you're going with this- "So they should ban everyone who ever used windower?" Answer: Possibly, but there is no way to conclusively prove anyone's use of windower -- other than their own admission -- which does not violate privacy laws of various countries (e.g. they'd have to search your computer).

Edit: Man, by the way, when it comes to ninja editing posts, you're a worse offender than I've ever been.

have fun on having 1000 people on one server then.

so with that logic you have to be selective, where do you draw the line?

if you cannot be fair with that line do not ban anyone ( this is where I will place SE)

SE banned way to meny people that should not have been, that was the downfall of the game, not age.

[Alhanelem]

have fun on having 1000 people on one server then.

Indeed I will. Thanks for the kind wishes.

It's not about "being selective." Different violations warrant different punishments.

[Rambus]

Indeed I will. Thanks for the kind wishes.

It's not about "being selective." Different violations warrant different punishments.

This is true, normally.

but you cannot ban one guy for botting, temp ban the next and never touch a 3rd botter and ban the 4th guy that had nothing to do with it.

You cannot ban people that do nothing wrong.

Look at this thread for example. punishment real players VS RMT. RMT may not make as much, RMT may find different outlets but it does not stop RMT. It may slow the gil gain of RMT but all that does is make the dollar of gil to go up.

SE in their countermeasures has been punishing real players more then RMT. They focus was on trades and such vs getting botters and camp harassment. I got to tell you I care more about that RMT harassment then the effect on the market. It will balance out on its own, but that harassment? Wasting your time camping cuz RMT or real player botted claim? That cannot be fixed.

You know what i would do if i had power doing those savage bans? delete the gear that was gained by the "cheating"

even if you hit some people that got it ligitmently they would have their account and cotunie playing.

not have this ripple effect that killed 1/10 of the overall playerbase.

[bungiefan]

Not having cruor to join an Abyssea party isn't such a big deal. I've still seen people actually solving the puzzles for the chests in parties on Ragnarok when they were lacking in cruor. You just turn on all the chat log filters for battle actions, since you aren't participating in battle and that leaves you room to see the clues. After a couple of cruor chests, you have keys for time extension chests when you are otherwise going to fail the puzzle. I have seen people speed through the puzzles as fast as we can generate them with worthwhile contents.

As for the gil issue... I'm still having money problems for scrolls as a 90 BLM, there's a few I haven't bought yet. My other mage jobs are mostly below 30, with WHM at 57 and SCH at 49 not having bought a scroll since Dispel. Spells still cost a lot of gil from NPCs, and even at a 2-2.3 gil per cruor exchange via the Teal, Perle, and Aurore armor sets (the 3000 cruor pieces give this return, the more expensive pieces only give a 1.5 gil/cruor exchange), I'm not making enough gil to afford everything from the NPCs. Leveling another job that eats scrolls is almost unthinkable for me right now, and I know people with a couple hundred million gil with nothing to spend it on. Only food, tools, ammo, and scrolls seem to be things to spend gil on anymore.

In my 8.5 years of playing, I've never reached 500,000 gil on my character. I've only broken 200k a couple of times, trying to level BLM as my main. Gil is even harder to earn, excepting doing it via Abyssea by cruor exchange, than it has ever been for me before. I can only imagine what it is like for someone starting new completely. NPC shops are the only source for a lot of gear now, especially for levels 20-75, since the AH has dried up with people not needing gil so much anymore. I've donated about 10-20k to friends I've had starting new, when I've had it to spare.

You don't get a lot of the gil back for gear you have leveled past when you sell to an NPC, and you can't earn a lot of it until you can get cruor, compared to the current NPC prices things go for. How am I supposed to handle a 10k+ scroll every level or two as a mage with just quest rewards? Now at 90 I'm looking at 100-200k per scroll, and they only drop in Abyssea pyxides, they aren't sold by NPCs.

[Seriha]

SE banned roughly 550 people for the Salvage dupes, suspending another 400 temporarily. Spread amongst the, what, 32 servers at the time? That'd be roughly 18 banned and 13 suspended per server. Hardly the beginning of the game's decline, let alone a cause.

Meanwhile, you can't correlate gardening, or even the temporary restriction of it, to this. In part you can blame free trials for the creation of unlimited mules, but as I noted earlier, the ability to create more gil via NPC sales than what it cost to begin the process was the ultimate issue. This isn't a bug or dupe, merely a balancing oversight. It happens. I can't say I'm for the subsequent suspension of the trials that this likely led to, either, no matter how some may reason "It's just a few bucks to get the game!" over Steam over wherever. It just reeks of SE not making the proper fix at the time.

Otherwise, players need to utilize some common sense when it comes to something being off. Nowhere else in the game could dissolving your alliance at certain periods lead to the same items in each treasure pool. There is nothing of this "feature" spoken of in official manuals or tutorials. No doubt, I can see the temptation for exploiting this given Salvage's shoddy effort:reward ratio, but c'mon. It's duping. Duh.

Regardless, the downside of laying out rules is when it comes time to enforce them. Would simply deleting the items have been a sufficient lesson? No. Acquisition is a cumulative process, here. The more they got, the more they could dupe. The more duped, the more outfitted and in turn able to sell excess. Once you start getting to gil, the process becomes far more murky and they gain the ability to tap into other things that a fat wallet would've allowed like buying currency for relics/mythics or merc'ing out other goods. In turn, this act potentially affected the entire server. The message SE conveyed with the bans was simple. It's unfortunate some still feel these policies shouldn't apply to them, feigning innocence or hiding behind the whole "nobody likes a snitch" mentality.