What's with the medals on this forum?

Nice to finally get to know what those medals mean, yet I also feel that they should have made it more clear on how you get them.

Also I feel like they are kinda useless. I mean if they are a combination of three or four different things than this dont really say much about the user.
- Get more points by simply posting a lot. So a troll could just create topic after topic with useless posts and still get medals from that.
- Someone could just go into all the current threads and like each post and could still get more medals
- And someone could post a lot and maybe get one like for each post and thus also get medals.

This way it says nothing about the quality of the poster.

Also its strange how only some JP players were able to reach more medals. None of us NA/EU posters with five gold medals have gotten any silver medals, even posters like Anonymoose dont have more, and thats with over 4k posts and a lot of likes. How much is needed to get even the next silver medal? That one with the 7 medals must have gotten highly liked posts before 2018 because when I checked the post history of him (20 pages for 2018) he often had posts with less then 10 likes or even 0, and only a smaller part was bigger yet never reaching over 60 likes. So really strange imo.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Nice to finally get to know what those medals mean, yet I also feel that they should have made it more clear on how you get them.

Also I feel like they are kinda useless. I mean if they are a combination of three or four different things than this dont really say much about the user.
- Get more points by simply posting a lot. So a troll could just create topic after topic with useless posts and still get medals from that.
- Someone could just go into all the current threads and like each post and could still get more medals
- And someone could post a lot and maybe get one like for each post and thus also get medals.

This way it says nothing about the quality of the poster.

Also its strange how only some JP players were able to reach more medals. None of us NA/EU posters with five gold medals have gotten any silver medals, even posters like Anonymoose dont have more, and thats with over 4k posts and a lot of likes. How much is needed to get even the next silver medal? That one with the 7 medals must have gotten highly liked posts before 2018 because when I checked the post history of him (20 pages for 2018) he often had posts with less then 10 likes or even 0, and only a smaller part was bigger yet never reaching over 60 likes. So really strange imo.

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I'm thinking that maybe it has something to do with total time you've had an account. Such as players that have been here the longest are given an extra gold medal. Idk just a guess as to why the JP players have access to more medals. If the game was released there first then it probably has something to do with time, maybe total time spent actively logged in on the forums.

I'm thinking another possibility could be that it's a rank system between all of us, like the players with the highest percentile across all the forums in whatever categories they judge us in are given the extra 1-2 gold medals. Players in the top 1% get 2 extra gold medals, members in top 5% 1 extra, top 10% get 5 total. IDK but i think it's possible.

I'm surprised nobody knows I was expecting a quick definitive answer but it seems like everyone is just guessing somewhat. Some guesses more educated than others but I still think everyone in here is just making their best guess

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Originally Posted by Xibri

I'm thinking that maybe it has something to do with total time you've had an account. Such as players that have been here the longest are given an extra gold medal. Idk just a guess as to why the JP players have access to more medals. If the game was released there first then it probably has something to do with time, maybe total time spent actively logged in on the forums.

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FFXIV was released simultaneously in all countries, including 1.0. So I don’t think it’s about release dates.

I also don’t think it’s about tenure on the forums, as some individuals have 2011 join dates, yet they have 5 gold medals instead of 6 or 7 (there are quite a few 2011 posters on the NA forum with a couple thousands worth of posts); the JP poster with 6 medals has a 2013 join date with 4,000 posts, yet there’s a person on the NA forums with a 2011 join date and 5,000+ posts.

I have a join date of Feb 2016 and almost 3,600 posts, yet there are people with join dates older than my own with more posts, with both less gold medals and the same amount as myself. No idea why some JP posters have 6 or 7 medals, but the exact formula/ratio of posts, likes given, and likes received to medals is very unclear.

We are all just guessing since the explanations given by the forum reps are vague.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Also its strange how only some JP players were able to reach more medals. None of us NA/EU posters with five gold medals have gotten any silver medals, even posters like Anonymoose dont have more, and thats with over 4k posts and a lot of likes. How much is needed to get even the next silver medal? That one with the 7 medals must have gotten highly liked posts before 2018 because when I checked the post history of him (20 pages for 2018) he often had posts with less then 10 likes or even 0, and only a smaller part was bigger yet never reaching over 60 likes. So really strange imo.

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I heared somewhere that they capped out the likes wich count towards one post years ago in the 1.0 board.

Wich means that 1.0 players who got hundreds of likes for one post will have a lot of medals, because all that likes counted. But when you get hundreds of likes today for one post, only a few of them are counting for the medals.

And yeah, all people I have seen with tons of medals are 1.0 players, registered before 2013.

Just to throw more confusion into the matter... I don't think 5 gold medals are actually 5. If you highlight them, it's actually 3x1 medals and 2 medals together. A lot of the 4 gold people are the same etc.

Going on what people have said about number of liked posts etc, is possible half of medals post count and the other half to do with likes? Just when they're all the same it looks like multiple of same medal?

Edit: And I just noticed, when I did that quick reply (and same on edits) because it doesn't refresh the page properly it only shows the block of two medals on my post, but when I refreshed the page, 4 medals appeared (or rather 2x1 and 1x2)

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

Just to throw more confusion into the matter... I don't think 5 gold medals are actually 5. If you highlight them, it's actually 3x1 medals and 2 medals together. A lot of the 4 gold people are the same etc.

Going on what people have said about number of liked posts etc, is possible half of medals post count and the other half to do with likes? Just when they're all the same it looks like multiple of same medal?

Edit: And I just noticed, when I did that quick reply (and same on edits) because it doesn't refresh the page properly it only shows the block of two medals on my post, but when I refreshed the page, 4 medals appeared (or rather 2x1 and 1x2)

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Interesting. I wonder if that’s the same for those that have 4~5 golds with 3~4 silvers after their names. I know my medals do the same after I post—it only shows the 2 lone gold ones, and then all 5 when I refresh the page. Mine are grouped 1-1-1-2 when I try to drag and drop them somewhere. So I wonder that means—posts made, threads made, likes given/received, likes received/given, maybe? I post a lot more than I create threads, though—I think I have 6~7 threads I’ve made in the 2.5 years I’ve posted here. I’m not sure how many total likes I receive, much less the amount I give—I think I give more than I get but I’m not sure because I don’t have numbers to see lol. And I’m not going to go through ~3,600 posts to count those I received lol.

I've edited this post a few times now, but feel confident these are correct and the the right side of the "medals" are definitely the post count (they literally have post rank in the filename):

https://i.imgur.com/RYCyPna.png

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank1.gifRank 1: 1 -> 9
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank2.gifRank 2: 10 -> 19
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank3.gifRank 3: 20 -> 29
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank4.gifRank 4: 30 -> 49
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank5.gifRank 5: 50 -> 99
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank6.gifRank 6: 100 -> 249
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank7.gifRank 7: 250 -> 499
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank8.gifRank 8: 500 -> 999
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i.../postrank9.gifRank 9: 1000 -> 1999
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...postrank10.gifRank 10: 2000+

The left side are just called "kin" in the filename (does that mean anything?) and not everyone has these "kin" medals. You can have between 0-3 kin, and any you have appear as a single gold medal each. You can select/highlight someones medals to check which is left/right (rank medals are multiple medals in same image, "kin" are separate medals).

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

that doesn't solve the mystery of the left side which are just called "kin" in the filename (does that mean anything?)

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It's probably from 金 meaning gold. I think when ranks went past 10 they gave up on making new icons for each rank, and just made a gold medal icon to combine with other rank icons to make whatever other number they wanted. The overall meaning of 1 gold medal representing 5 post ranks and a silver medal representing 1 is presumably still true.

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Originally Posted by worldofneil

It's hard finding people with lower post counts :D But I'm guessing then 50-100 is probably rank 5, I just couldn't find someone. Same for rank 3. There aren't many lower posters? :D

Need more data to work out the exact boundaries.

And that doesn't solve the mystery of the left side which are just called "kin" in the filename (does that mean anything?)

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Try the forum contest section here. There's a lot of infrequent posters there so you are bound to find some examples. Weird thing was I was just trying to figure out the medals last week.

Something else odd I just noticed - you know how when you've just posted, your profile picture isn't visible next to your post? The medal count is different too.

Currently I have three gold and four silver medals.

When I have just posted, I have one gold and four silver medals.

The lack of image suggests it hasn't accessed all your data to display it on the page yet - so from that it suggests (again) there are definitely multiple kinds of data being computed into it. Possibly whenever the page loads.