Alex Supply and Salvage Cheating- Accounts Not Banned?

[Hoshi]

The infinite assault tag bothered me slightly more but I had heard about that exploit and chose not to use it so I can't really be mad at people who made the opposite decision. As far as RMT goes... do people really still buy gil? It's crazy easy to make gil in FFXI and only a few things can be bought with gil (unless you're buying drops). I play this game to have fun with my friends, not to brag about my gear. As such it doesn't really bother me that people made tons of mythics: even without this cheating mythics were becoming rather common.

[Zubrin]

Who gives a toss pal ? Se decided to give them 3 day temp bans there is nothing you nor i or anyone can do about it so like i said deal with it.

S.e arn't going to suddenly give them a perma ban now after they have already taken action so just get over it.

If you don't think this thread is going to change the outcome anyway, then you don't need to waste your time derailing it. Anyone who knows anything about SE is aware of the high likelyhood that complaining about this is futile. However, this is a forum specifically for us customers to communicate with SE. If anyone wants to voice their displeasure about how SE operates, this is the appropriate place to do so. The most anyone has to lose by doing so is a couple minutes of their time. That's hardly worth discouraging.

I'm not that invested in whether bans were permanent or not, personally; although I do feel this exploit more than met the criteria for receiving one. The offenders should have had their gil and mythics removed at the minimum. Even if you're relatively apathetic about others cheating, it's hard to say an exploit of this magnitude and SE's response is defensible or good for the game. To some degree, the three day bans could be seen as worse than doing nothing. Once SE acknowledged the cheating but did nothing to reverse it, they removed any ambiguity about the risks of exploiting the game. They're practically incentivizing cheating with this.

[TrippyCat]

I just think it's a crybaby thread by someone angry that Tigerwoods didn't get perma banned i bet he has upset her at some point and she has held a grude for years i've seen it happen time and time again with the nerds on this game, they get over emo about everything some "men" if you can call them "men" in there fortys and beyond crying,shouting going crazy over drops or failing a run it's pathetic behaviour and it's the same nonsense in this thread.

[dasva]

What I find most displeasing by just a 3 day is like 3 months ago I had a mule get perma banned that has never had so much as a warning for "rmt activity" despite the fact that the only characters it interacts with or exchanges items with are my other characters.

So an account that didn't do anything an only looks a little suspicious of selling maybe 10mil a month since it wasn't even making that much gil gets permabanned but people who they caught redhanded position hacking to exploit a flaw in the system to make 70mil a day get 3 day <.<.

Granted they finally are going to unban my character but took 2 months for them to decide to and start rolling it back... and it's been almost 2 weeks since they started rolling it back and it's still not done

[Safiyyah]

I just think it's a crybaby thread by someone angry that Tigerwoods didn't get perma banned i bet he has upset her at some point and she has held a grude for years i've seen it happen time and time again with the nerds on this game, they get over emo about everything some "men" if you can call them "men" in there fortys and beyond crying,shouting going crazy over drops or failing a run it's pathetic behaviour and it's the same nonsense in this thread.

Wow. So much projection here. I don't even know...

Like I said before, this isn't about one cheater, it's about all of these scumbags who hurt the many players who were farming alex in a way that complied with FFXI's Terms of Service. I'd benefit from cheap alex myself. I don't farm Salvage for gil.

[Crevox]

I too wish that the punishment for this was more severe. People shouldn't be allowed to get away with doing stuff like this.

It's bad enough that every high end party I join some guy is using JA0 and running extremely fast, but this is far worse.

[dasva]

I can kinda understand the 3 day thing instead of perma... game population and age doesn't support the massive bannings of old for a business standpoint. What really confuses me is no rollbacks. I mean isn't it kinda standard to remove the ill gotten items/gil? And it's not like the people caught would quit over having to give back the stuff so they'd still get their subscription fees

[Stompa]

From the 1980's ; "Love the game, don't hack the game. Play the game, don't pay the game."

Its the same in casino games, or any sport games. Real gamers and sportsmen win by skill - not by cheating.

[Pixela]

This is simply a neon green light that you can abuse the game and suffer no consequences, in-fact you'd be dumb not to abuse the heck out of the next gil fountain. To abuse the game and make hundreds of millions of gil, capping out on the rare items you need in a short time and have those gains left on your character is hilariously silly for the next loophole. Given Squares spaghetti code on both FFXI and FFXIV that's not a message they really want to be giving out.

RMT need to come back and abuse this stuff, Square are giving out green lights to make lots of real $$ here...and yes people still do buy mass amounts of gil. One of the biggest things right now is buying clears and items, gil is as important now as it ever was.

[Tomiko]

And it's not like the people caught would quit over having to give back the stuff so they'd still get their subscription fees

I would have to imagine that most of them would quit. The game is already lackluster due to the lack of content (SE making Delve a joke didn't help one bit), so I imagine a rollback would be the final straw needed to get someone to quit.

Wow. So much projection here. I don't even know...

Like I said before, this isn't about one cheater, it's about all of these scumbags who hurt the many players who were farming alex in a way that complied with FFXI's Terms of Service. I'd benefit from cheap alex myself. I don't farm Salvage for gil.

You're also not taking into account all the players it helped. Before this exploit happened, Alexandrite supply was low and everyone that wanted to make a Mythic had to compete for what little supply was there. I have to imagine multiple players even bought from other servers because their server's supply didn't meet the demand. That shouldn't be happening.

But with this exploit happening, the supply rose and the idea of making a mythic became a reality for more people, especially with the prices (slowly) dropping. I can remember multiple instances where people were shouting to buy Alexandrite and competing with each other just so they would get to buy it instead of the other person. Once again, a supply problem that shouldn't be happening.

When SE made it so you can enter Salvage it was one of the best things to happen, yet it also had a downside. While the accessibility was great for everyone, it also increased the number of players making mythics. Not only are those players not selling any Alexandrite they are getting, but they are likely also adding to the amount of buyers, thus lowering the supply yet again.

Should there be/have been repercussions for taking advantage of this exploit? Of course. The big question is to what extent. SE pretty much made it clear that they can't afford to lose these subscriptions. A rollback or taking away the items people got is a possibility, but I'm of the opinion that will have the same effect as a ban. I almost feel like it would have been better for SE to just fix the exploit (which they did) and leave it at that. Most people probably didn't even know about it until the suspensions hit. I'm not sure how feasible it is, but I imagine SE could add tags to these accounts (similar to the Mentor tag). That way those with the "better than thou" attitude can avoid doing events/activities with these players and those who don't care can continue on as normal.