sadly GM's appear to have dropped the ball

[Anethia]

Earlier this evening while farming cirein-croin lanterns, my LS sadly ran into a spat of bad luck with charmga. While charmed the NM momentarily went unclaimed and was quickly grabbed up by another group. Therebye causing us to lose not only our claim but the popsets we had spent the previous 6 hours gathering.

Now I know this should not be cause for concern, however, my linkshell witnessed this same group of people "steal" cirein-croin from 3 other parties under the same circumstances. We also witnessed them attempt to steal the NM from a 5th party during the charmga/unclaim and failed thanks to a vigilant black mage.

However, where the complaint comes in is in the GM response to repeated calls from atleast 17 people. Or rather a lack of response while we witnessed this party do this multiple times to mutliple other parties. Not only that but the lack of response to the calls that were made regarding this party harrassing people as well. Quite honestly this is unacceptable; and despite the fact I have tried to keep an open mind considering that the game over all has taken a positive direction, I can't help but feel the GM's recently have become less than helpful regarding player concerns.

In this situation 2 glaring problems have come to my attention: the first and foremost is the threat of losing a claim because of a monsters JA even though there are still atleast 2 or more people uncharmed that are on the mobs hate list within the group. And the second is the GM's dropping the ball on issues that are clearly a violation of the Terms of Service, (Hovering over other groups hoping they will lose claim on a monster they worked to pop and then attempt to steal it is a form of harrassment). I know that atleast 1 GM witnessed this first hand and yet still took no action.

SE I respectfully request that you review the affore mentioned problems and take the proper steps to address them.

[Gennadi]

Mobs that go unclaimed are open to anyone else that can claim them. If you can prove you were harassed and is a violation of the TOS then you have a right to a GM call. Otherwise everything else is open to interpretation.

[Greatguardian]

1) This is not against the ToS. I know, it's happened to me once when I was being dumb and the GM told me very specifically that:

"Unless the other group took an action against/on my party in order to force us to lose claim (my note: example would be cure bombing), then anything White is fair game."

They did not break any rules by waiting for you to mess up. And you did mess up, see 2.

2) When Cirein-Croin readies Charmga, the first thing your Mage should do is turn to cast Stun, Dia, or Flash on the NM as the melee get charmed so that the Mage is the one with claim. If a Melee has claim over Cirein and gets charmed, he will go White. If the Mage has claim over Cirein, he will stay Red.

If the mage remotely has a pulse, there will be absolutely no risk of losing claim on Cirein. If you did not know this, well, now you do. Learning things is always nice, and I hope that this will help you prevent losing claim on NMs in the future.

Edit: It is also absolutely not harassment unless they were, you know, harassing you. Taking your NMs is not harassment. Waiting for you to wipe is not harassment. Repeatedly taunting you without provocation or reciprocation, griefing you (eg: pulling Cep-Kamuy on top of you and intentionally wiping so that it aggros your WHM), and other such things may qualify as harassment in sufficient quantity/degrees.

Your mage/group messed up and lost a fair bit of work, but you were not harassed by anyone based on the information provided.

[Anethia]

Well to the uniformed: our blm had put a DoT on it and our war provoked it, but it still went yellow and got claimed by the other group. And the fact they did this 4 times in succession and attempted a 5th IS a violation since that shows they were hovering over other groups to steal their claim. Afterwards they began harrassing us, asking us if we were going to pop it again cause they couldn't wait to steal it again. This portion we have evidence of.

[Greatguardian]

Okay, I really just don't think you understand how the claim system works. It doesn't matter what actions you've taken on the NM.

Only one person ever has claim on anything at any given time. Not a party, not an alliance, one person. That is always the last person to have acted on the mob. Not the person with the most hate, not someone with a DoT (DoTs do NOT keep claim or prevent depop, that is a total myth and has never been true ever), only the person who has most recently swung at, shot at, or casted on the mob.

Thus, when your WAR was the last person to act on the NM and the WAR gets charmed, the NM goes white because the person with claim disengaged. In order to keep claim, the last person to act on the NM before charm needs to be someone who is not getting charmed. Examples:

Here are some orders of events, and the results:
Blm casts Choke on Cirein-Croin
War uses Provoke on Cirein-Croin
MNK hits Cirein-Croin
Cirein-Croin uses Mayhem Lantern
War and Mnk are charmed
Cirein-Croin goes White.

Why did this happen? Because the most recent action on the NM was the Mnk's punch, meaning the Mnk had sole claim over Cirein. When the Mnk became charmed, then, Cirein went White.

Ex2:
Blm casts Choke on Cirein-Croin
War uses Provoke on Cirein-Croin
Mnk hits Cirein-Croin
Cirein-Croin uses Mayhem Lantern
Smart WHM casts Flash on Cirein-Croin
War and Mnk are charmed
Cirein-Croin stays Red.

Because the Whm was the one to take the most recent action against Cirein-Croin, they have sole claim over the NM. Because they had sole claim, and were not charmed, the NM stayed Red.

Is that a bit more clear?

Also, it really is not a violation to wait around and take mobs that other people legitimately screw up on. As long as they were not inducing said screwing-up, they are within their rights.

[RAIST]

kinda on the fence on this one. If it were a group passing by, or there to pop it and this happened it's one thing....but if they were hanging out and effectively camping for the opportunity to steal it multiple times....

Maybe the GM could have restored your pop set or something...not sure what else they could have done to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, it isn't a clearly defined violation....it's just people being jerks. Afraid the server merge is just increasing the occurence of such bad behavior.

[Greatguardian]

Any and all players are 100% within their rights to stand around in any place they choose as long as they choose, so long as they are not directly interfering with other players. They were not impeding their fights. They were not throwing NMs and mobs at them. They were not cure bombing them. They simply took White NMs after a group messed up.

Absolutely, 100%, not a violation of anything.

[Saefinn]

I'd argue that it shouldn't be okay. Potentially people could spend a lot of time getting pop items to find that as soon as say, their tank dies and loses claim and before somebody else manages to regain claim, somebody nicks it making prior effort a waste of time, where as the people who took claim just needed to be at the right place at the right time. What's the point farming pop items when you can just wait for a party to lose claim? Heck, they'll even wear it down for you, making it an easier win for you. E.G. Dhorme Khimaira took out our tanks when he was at >10%hp and had proc'd and before anybody could regain claim somebody took it and quickly finished it off (admittedly it wasn't a brilliant party, but I answered to shouts in PJ in hope for seals). Sure pop items aren't difficult to find, but it was a complete waste of our time, even though we would have won. Of course I am not suggesting that you ought to be an easy win either, but the opportunity is kind of taken away from you even though your party isn't wiped.

[Greatguardian]

Should it be against the ToS? Subjective.

Is it? No.

GMs did their jobs properly. That is what the thread is about.

[Saefinn]

Well I'm passing my opinion. Does it need a new thread? Not really.

Should the claim system be based on hate or on the party/alliance somebody is in? I would think it would be better.