June 2020 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Sirmarki]

[Alhanelem]

I'm more interested in what they do with the metric tons of prize powder.

[Cimyr]

Man just because the global economy is in shambles doesnt mean I want it simulated in FFXI too.

[Xilk]

Wow, 100k unity accolades per week REALLY hurts when farming unity NM's.
It should be at least double or triple that just to not kill Unity NM farming.

Especially since I want more unity pop items for my Odyssey farming.

this is really ridiculously too low.

[Lockhart]

Wow, 100k unity accolades per week REALLY hurts when farming unity NM's.
It should be at least double or triple that just to not kill Unity NM farming.

Especially since I want more unity pop items for my Odyssey farming.

this is really ridiculously too low.

There is no limit to how many accolades you can use on NM pops. Just exchanging.

[Alhanelem]

I agree the limit is too low. Not crazy low, but as it is, even if you don't specially farm for certain RoE objectives, you're going to hit that limit just doing things you normally do in a week. It needs to be higher. I think this change was good intentioned, but it is causing problems because you didn't plan for this a lot sooner. It's really crappy to keep a status quo for years and then suddenly change it on people.

You mentioned you were considering removing certain ROE objectives. Instead of doing that, why not limit the number of times you can repeat them? Then the fastest gil generation method is reduced while players are still able to gain sparks etc. at the regular rate at other times.

See the problem is all that gil is already in circulation, and you can't just remove it. So the people who already have mules full of gil, they're already set, while the players who were just getting by are hurt by this.

The problem is more that there aren't many big gil sinks in the game anymore. Teleporting doesn't cost that much (heck, i remember paying white mages more to teleport to fewer places....) and dynamis doesn't have an ongoing cost, and neither does any of the other major content in the game.


---
Let me tell you a short story.


I was involved in the post-release community-based development of a game called Dungeon Defenders. (We basically had free range to make many changes to the game although they had to be approved by the community and verified by the original devs to not make the game explode). This was a third-person action game with tower defense elements. Among the gear available to players were pets, which there were a variety of and had unique effects. One of these was a "genie," and his special ability was to give you mana when you dealt damage. This mana is primarily used to buiild and upgrade towers. There was a bug with the genie, which went unfixed by the developers for a long time, which caused its ability to potentially activate multiple times per attack, generating a lot of mana and allowing players to complete their defense builds much faster than normal, somewhat trivializing certain aspects of the game at high levels.

When the development was handed over to the community, we discovered this bug, and we attempted to fix it- but the bug had been in the game for years unbeknownst to the players, and they rebelled when the fix was proposed. Bound by the community wishes, we were forced to leave the bug in. This is because the playerbase was used to it for so long that the bug essentially became a feature.

That is basically what has happened here in FFXI. The current popular way to make money has been around for a very long time and had some obvious flaws in it, but they went unaddressed for a long time. As a result, the playerbase became used to it. Now, years later, you decide you need to fix this.



Hopefully my story helps illustrate why people have a problem with this.

[Lockhart]

Maybe I am doing it wrong but it usually takes me around 3-4 hours to cap sparks (other then gain exp objective). 3-4 hours for 1m gil is super ineffective for me. During gain EXP in a group i finish 99.9k sparks and accolades every 20-30 minutes. During that one event I could make up to 6m/hr which is worth it. I do not think average players are willing to spend 3-4 hours to cap objectives during not these times.

The real problem was the bot's capping sparks and accolades every 3-4 hours (6-8 times a day), If you toss in gain EXP, I'd say they cap both in an hour or slightly less during ALL 3 events, which puts the bots up to 65 times per week. Assuming the BST running at flee speeds in cirdas caverns were the same RMT, there was 23 of them online at one time. Thats around 1,495 times a week for just the one in Cirdas, the other zones are packed too. Accolades usually cap in the same-ish time therefore ~3k exchanges of 1m gil.

That RMT is making 3 billion gil a week on these sparks and selling it to people that we are competing against for spots in linkshells, ambuscade spots, omen spots. Its hard to be upset at SE for placing this limit for me. I think there is a better way though.

I think the only things that should be included in this limit are equipment 1-99. The current limit should allow you to buy gear and equipment up to 99 for around 2-3 jobs a week, and then sell it for a profit of (1 million gil roughly). However, I dont think anything in items, skill increasing tomes, or trust should count against your limit. Sure, you can sell the tomes or memories on the auction house, but the market for these is not usually very high. The tomes you can sell to NPCs but at a 0.5:1 ratio instead of 10:1 (meaning they are 200 sparks and npc for ~105gil). I dont think RMT would find this profitable or worthwhile, and its definitely not 1.5 billion gil a week guaranteed.

As far as accolades: The only one that makes guaranteed gil is prize powder. Two options: its the only one you made NPC-able (I'm not sure why) so ether make it worth 10 gil (1-1 ratio) or make it non-npc sellable like the other items. Place no limit on anything else. Sure, RMT could purchase a bunch of "special material" which is not NPC able, and sell it on the auction house, but it will not sell that quickly which makes me think RMT will also find this not worthwhile, giving us the ability to exchange for them if we cannot find a group to do the content. Also, these items are useful to new players so if they do FLOOD the market with these items, I'm sure they will be incredibly cheap and useful to everyone doing Oddessy or upgrading equipment (IE new players).

Thoughts?

I could be way off base with my assessments. Even though this strategy by SE to combat this seems like a good idea to me, I would love to discussing things that could make this better for everyone.

EDIT: upon investigation, my suggestion for sparks is already what they did.
EDIT to EDIT: nevermind, it just doesnt show up on the main page. They do count against your 100k limit.

[SylphThor]

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots. It has come to the point that legitimate players cannot farm job points anymore because all of the apex camps are over populated with these RMT bots selling job points.

The problem in addressing the job point sellers by simply banning them doesn't seem to be a viable solution in the long run.

I would suggest a solution that involves player participation in order to receive job points so they can't get them if they're simply AFK.

In terms of bots in general it gets easier and easier as software evolves to reproduce "normal player" behavior so people can still AFK. In terms of dealing with job points sellers I believe the best target is the legitimate player base who pays for these services.

For example, the solution involving player participation should be designed such that participation can't be reliably reproduced by a bot. It can involve a certain action at /random based on the player's job and current battle they are in. It can also involve a /random check that wouldn't involve a players participation. I think there are many possibilities in this regard.

[Sirmarki]

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots.

Very true, and growing in numbers almost daily. It doesn't help though when players are justifying them, and using their "services" on a regular basis.

There is literately nothing now that isn't being sold. Delve, Job Points, EXP, Clears, Escha zones are dominated by mercs. /yell on the busiest server is actually dead or near dead regarding people creating groups.

[Alhanelem]

On Asura the vast majority of Apex camps, as well as mobs in Escha Zi'tah are riddled with bots. It has come to the point that legitimate players cannot farm job points anymore because all of the apex camps are over populated with these RMT bots selling job points.

The problem in addressing the job point sellers by simply banning them doesn't seem to be a viable solution in the long run.

I would suggest a solution that involves player participation in order to receive job points so they can't get them if they're simply AFK.

In terms of bots in general it gets easier and easier as software evolves to reproduce "normal player" behavior so people can still AFK. In terms of dealing with job points sellers I believe the best target is the legitimate player base who pays for these services.

For example, the solution involving player participation should be designed such that participation can't be reliably reproduced by a bot. It can involve a certain action at /random based on the player's job and current battle they are in. It can also involve a /random check that wouldn't involve a players participation. I think there are many possibilities in this regard.

Feel free to come on over to shiva, I'll grind job points with you any time, with plenty of camp availability. <3

This would really be a lot less of a problem if the population were more evenly distributed, instead of the lion's share of the playerbase being on one server though.