A Slight Change to the Terms of Services - Formal Complaint

[Mercanuis]

I'm on the Valefor server, and recently my friend and fellow LS member was fighting Bhukis with a small pick-up group. As Bhukis was at 1%, the tank died and Bhukis went yellow for one second, even though the rest of the party was still there and helping to take it down.

The instant it went yellow a LS by the name of LoveBanana swooped in and stole the claim on Bhukis, killed it, and got the drops. This LS is NOTORIOUS for being nothing more than a bunch of thieves, cheaters, and all around dirty players. Not only was the incident with Bhukis a time when LB stole from a member of our LS. They are also completely guilty of stealing a Rani pop from us, and locking us out of getting claim on Fistule by holding the two NMs capable of triggering claim on it.

This Bhukis incident with my friend was the final straw. My friend immediately called the GM services, who then told him that due to Bhukis going yellow for that split second, that technically what LB did was completely legal. My friend was obviously furious and told off the GM with a very derogatory name that is best left unrepeated. The GM penalized my friend with a 48h suspension.

I'm not excusing my friend's behavior, but this kind of behavior can not be what the terms and services had in mind: to let the perpetrators walk away scott free while the victim gets punished. And with Abyssea becoming a cesspool for this kind of behavior I wanted to let you guys at SE know that this wasn't right. My friend did wrong, but letting bunch of scumbags like LB continue to exploit these clauses of the Terms and Services isn't right either

[Rambus]

SE needs to program the game so mobs don't drop yellow that easily. it is bad manaic and i have no idea why it is programned like that. if you report it GM will just say mob is yellow and fair game

that is also wrong.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Actualy in 37 GM calls I can tell you, that they will respond with "it's not my responcibility" 95% of the time.

I though SE had changed claim/unclaim already? And no offence Merc or excusing LB's behavior, but your friend's PT should have remembered to DoT it. It's a standard practice.

Oh yeah, and this is for site feedback, not game feedback. lol

[Rambus]

Actualy in 37 GM calls I can tell you, that they will respond with "it's not my responcibility" 95% of the time.

I though SE had changed claim/unclaim already? And no offence Merc or excusing LB's behavior, but your friend's PT should have remembered to DoT it. It's a standard practice.

Oh yeah, and this is for site feedback, not game feedback. lol

people can be consistency hitting a mob and when the tank dies it goes yellow, saw it before, even in full allies.

It is here because it is in regards ToS guidelines.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

But game ToS has nothing to do with Site Feedback and Suggestions.

[Arcon]

Yes, the topic should be moved to a more appropriate location. But it is a very valid suggestion. Either update the ToS to reflect this particular behaviour or change the programming that a mob cannot go unclaimed until it's lost aggression towards all members of the alliance it's currently claimed to. We have our own LS, Morality, that's famous for doing things like that.

Now to debunk the "arguments" that people will obviously make to this thread.

1. If it's yellow, it's fair game.
"Fair" game is debatable. While it doesn't violate any rules, it most certainly isn't fair, fair to the people who spent hours/days/weeks on farming triggers. And making rules it would go against is the point of this thread.

2. You lost/you're stupid, suck it up.
No, thank you. First of all, I didn't lose anything, I still think this is a really stupid game mechanic. This game is about making the online gaming experience a pleasant one. If that can't be done, what's the point of playing? Competition on claim is one thing, and even then I find current game mechanics too loose, but especially on triggered mobs, it's frustrating to lose the mob to someone else, especially when you were still fighting it. I'd go as far as to call this a bug. After all, you didn't lose, sometimes you wanna kite the mob, then suddenly DoTs wear off for a second, and before you can reach the mob, someone who was conveniently set to /follow does it for you.

The ToS, by principle, is supposed to allow players of this game to have legal ground to things like fairness, which, in turn, is supposed to be for SE's own benefit, because it keeps a steady userbase. However, as it stands right now, players are dissatisfied, because some obviously jackass moves are allowed, and no matter how frustrating and unfair it is, GMs won't do anything about it. I've known people who quit the game because of things like that, not necessarily just stolen claims. Bazaar scams are another thing that falls under that category.

3. They're noobs and I wanna take advantage of them.
If such behaviour is allowed (not to mention promoted) there won't be a game much longer. Especially so lately, because Abyssea made high-tier NMs available to pretty much everyone. Before Abyssea I'm sure many people didn't even experience the joy of losing claim to a linkshell full of lowlifes (yes, I'm pretty sure there's one on every server, Leviathan's is called Morality, don't know how they always come up with these cheerful, positive names). Even in competitive online games there's such a thing as fair competition and cheating. And FFXI has always been a game that has put major focus on eliminating the competitive aspect of the game. Why were triggered NMs even introduced, instead of timed NMs? Precisely to avoid competition on claims. So this flawed game mechanic goes against the very ideas behind FFXI.

[Rambus]

The purpose of this forum is for players to submit feedback and suggestions related to the FINAL FANTASY XI official forums, the FINAL FANTASY XI Official Website, and other official websites concerning FINAL FANTASY XI. In order for us to be able to offer a better service, we would like to hear your opinions.

ToS is stated on websites and furthermore i think he wants to be able to have a section to complain about GM action.

like if the GM took action on the mob steal his friend wouldn't give such rude comments to the gm, though that is not an excuse to do such things. I guess that temp ban is a message do not go too far with authority figures.

there are lines drawn in what is acceptable and not, and if this is not the right section where would it go? general where so many issues pop up on the game? I really think these forums can use more specific sections.

having dots on the mob does not keep it red ( from what I seen). I have seen full ally doing actions on mobs and they just go yellow after one person dies, yes I do call that a bug. it allows people to mob steal for no reason.

other then that i agree with you Arcon , bismarck does have less of that going on, our ls has not stolen mobs from others ( we even killed one mob for a group that whiped at like 10% and gave them drops) this group also gave me sobek skins ealier so it was a nice jesture of cooperation. I got the skins of that kill we did for them too. I have wached our NMs go yellow after something stupid as one tank dies, seen it happen to others where we did not impose.

[Kayri]

Yah we had an incident like this with Sobek. I made is clear to the GM that we worked very hard to build that pop set and to have it stolen from us because the tank dies? I agree that SE should have better rules about this kind of behavior.

[Rie]

Worked very hard to build a Sobek pop? It's 3 NMs, two of which are ??? spawns. Gukumatz can be a pain to get claim on sometimes, but it is by no means difficult to proc/kill.

Anyway,

The mob will go yellow if the last person to perform an action on it dies/zones/disengages/gets too far out of range and loses aggro. If you had other melee hitting it, they must have been swinging very slowly for that other group to get enough hate on it to claim it to them, before another hit landed on it.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

You have to also rememebr to look into the time of day that you're doing this. High traffic times will have higher occurances of these incidents.
It's like how I see people complaining that they can never even claim such and such, but I've never even seen over caping issues.