Selling Ultimate Weapon Ultima Is Apparently Not Against the ToS

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...9b2ae0ed61.png

This popped up in the PvP forum, maybe SE changed their stance on outside evidence. Granted it sounds like PR speak for we will accept it but will not use it. It is something though.

Imiage was taken from Razzii's post in the PvP sub forum.

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Originally Posted by Zukissa

So, if I group with the person who did this then their gear would be better and that would make the run smoother.

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Possibly. Or they might bother joining dungeons because they don't care to run any content all that much, thereby affecting your queue times (could make them better, could make them worse, depending on their role). Or, they might be someone who makes a habit of taking shortcuts to rewards, proving themselves to be a terrible player with great gear, making the run rougher. It's hard to say.

Either way, are we seriously suggesting that content in XIV is all that rough to begin with? I could perhaps sympathize with this point - perhaps - if XIV's content wasn't ultra-smooth to begin with, but I've yet to encounter any sort of run where gear is the inhibiting factor vs. multiple ignorant / inexperienced / otherwise bad players. So I hesitate to see where purchased items makes a big difference for people participating in content with the purchaser.

Also, to continue down your rabbit hole, an even better mechanism for smoothing out runs would be to introduce even more barriers for people acquiring good items, not fewer. One of the core reasons why PUGs can be so awful is that it's trivially easy to acquire solid sets of gear (run-buying obviously permits the trivial acquisition of even more gear). This allows players with very little experience, skill, and knowledge of their job to access content that they really shouldn't be permitted to access yet, resulting in rougher runs for all. If SE were to instead make all gear acquisition more difficult - harder dungeons, lower iLevel stuff dropped from 24-man Alliance Raids, much worse items gifted to you from quests, undertake serious efforts to eliminate players being carried through content (including purchased runs) - then the players who we find in, say, Ridorana or EX Trials, would be much, much better on average. They'd have to be, simply because the path there was harder, and demanded more effort, time investment, and skill.

So, I'd argue your reasoning is a bit dubious, at best.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

This popped up in the PvP forum, maybe SE changed their stance on outside evidence. Granted it sounds like PR speak for we will accept it but will not use it. It is something though.

Imiage was taken from Razzii's post in the PvP sub forum.

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I suspect your conclusion is accurate - that this is simple PR speak. I'm reasonably certain that there'd be a major news cycle on Reddit and the forums here if SE actually started banning Twitch streamers - or anyone else - based on evidence taken outside XIV. I also suspect SE would issue a warning to everyone in the form of updated ToS, because they understandably have no interest in surprising a significant portion of their player base with even a short-term ban. They've done this in the past for certain exploits, for example, explicitly warning everyone that there would be consequences for abusing it.

It's also worth considering the spirit of the rules that you want to enforce. I'd wager that RMT rules are primarily in place to protect the in-game economy; gil sellers being the primary target. It's an infringement that potentially affects every player. On the other hand, if I were to start charging $1 to pose with anyone for screenshots, while strictly RMT, it has no impact on anybody in game.

Another example: Art sellers. Strict interpretation is SE owns the rights to all of our characters. Therefore, nobody should be allowed to sell art of those characters for their own profit, right? Do you want to crack down on them, too?

So, basically, again, the point that keeps being brought up, the transactions have no long-term bearing on the game, with very little impact on players as a whole.

The only thing I can thing of that clearly breaks ToS is account sharing. When it comes to content like Ultimate you need to have a full party and everyone should be pulling their weight, so obviously if you are unsure you can do it and prefer to get someone else (paid or not) they would have to access your character to do it. Of course the problem is there is no clear way of confirming whether a player is using another account unless there is clear proof. Some have suggested IP addresses, but if a person travels often but plays FFXIV on their laptop, it doesn't mean they are account sharing.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

The only thing I can thing of that clearly breaks ToS is account sharing. When it comes to content like Ultimate you need to have a full party and everyone should be pulling their weight, so obviously if you are unsure you can do it and prefer to get someone else (paid or not) they would have to access your character to do it. Of course the problem is there is no clear way of confirming whether a player is using another account unless there is clear proof. Some have suggested IP addresses, but if a person travels often but plays FFXIV on their laptop, it doesn't mean they are account sharing.

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If IP adress change from one place to another in single hour and than comes back its clearly suspicious.

I wonder if people would be ok with Square selling the loot on Mogstation. After all you can already buy the stuff from third parties so there is no real difference. Still people generally don't like this kind of "pay to win" market...

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

If IP adress change from one place to another in single hour and than comes back its clearly suspicious.

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Not necessarily, some players do use VPNs. So they could change their location easily in a few minutes, still not always account sharing.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Not necessarily, some players do use VPNs. So they could change their location easily in a few minutes, still not always account sharing.

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If the person in question is already suspicious in RMT deals existance of VPN is not contradicting it. They totally can trace that he logged from one IP, logged off, loggen on from another IP, cleared ultimate, logged off and than logged on from old IP. And players who sell are constantly having new random party member...SE should allow GMs more freedom in inverstigating RMT stuff so they game would become healther expirience. This RMT problem is also works in hands with farm-bots, gil-sellers. Sometimes its even one guild or group of people. This lobbies should be dealt with.

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Originally Posted by Gizensha

I wonder if people would be ok with Square selling the loot on Mogstation. After all you can already buy the stuff from third parties so there is no real difference. Still people generally don't like this kind of "pay to win" market...

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Thats the main reason we try to fight it. Game becoming p2w by black market. Its just disgusting. And while its p2w with it it still have sub price and cash shop.

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

snip .

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Ok let's say theoretically SE takes action based on IP and there would be no more (or at least a reduction) in account sharing. How about if someone comes to your house, or you take your laptop to them and give that player access to compete the content for you. Technically you are there for the clear, and no one can actually prove you are not doing it yourself, so how would SE handle this situation? I know it would be a lot of effort to go to, but if there is a market for kind of thing people will always find a way.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

Someone else spending money to let a person play the game for them so they can get a shiny weapon that they didn't earn has no effect on me or anyone else. If it makes them happy then let it be. I don't understand why this matters to people. Would it be okay if it was free? Is it just because it's against ToS? No there is definitely a hint of something else... Idk it's whatever.

That's also why SE prolly doesn't really enforce it hard, since it doesn't really effect anyone negatively unlike gil bots and the economy.

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Well its double against the ToS. Its RMT and account sharing. So if they care about their rules they should punish such people, otherwise why punish bots that sell gil for real money?

It also changes the data that SE collects about the mode and it takes any reason away for this mode to stay synch all the time. (Also if one is fine with it, why not let SE sell the weapons directly in the shop or make the mode unsynch an expansion later?)

(And if you PVP for the top 100 rewards it does affect you because some of them are also selling PVP ranks which does hurt other people)

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

If the person in question is already suspicious in RMT deals existance of VPN is not contradicting it. They totally can trace that he logged from one IP, logged off, loggen on from another IP, cleared ultimate, logged off and than logged on from old IP.

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I want to show my friend Ultimate. He lives nearby. I pop round to his house, logon, clear ultimate while he watches behind me, logoff, then go home. I've been in control of my account the entire time. Let's say I have several friends that want to do this. Sure, I could simply stream, but in what way am I breaking the rules doing this? Yet under your rules, I could still get dinged for it and get banned. It isn't as cut and dry as you put it unfortunately.

Lol casuals get mad at this but would celebrate if SE put replica ultima weapons on the cash shop for 30 bucks a piece :P

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I want to show my friend Ultimate. He lives nearby. I pop round to his house, logon, clear ultimate while he watches behind me, logoff, then go home. I've been in control of my account the entire time. Let's say I have several friends that want to do this. Sure, I could simply stream, but in what way am I breaking the rules doing this? Yet under your rules, I could still get dinged for it and get banned. It isn't as cut and dry as you put it unfortunately.

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If you didnt clear it ever before and suddenly cleared it with different IP with a new ppl? Yes it will be suspicious and might needed deeper investigation. You prolly would show it to your friend with your static, not new randoms cuz you will never clear it with total strangers fast enough to just "show it". So thats why i said it will at 1st be suspicious, not ban in 1st minutes of changing IP. And this hypothetical situation is really rare, even rarer than actual clears of ultimates or sold runs.

But i have a question, why you and many other people so eager to defend RMT, account-sharing and other bs stuff?

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Originally Posted by Kurando

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Thats why i said it just a trigger for investigating and might be a clue at exposing RMT sellers if they were investigated at that case. Who was your party members. What was your latest activities. There are many different factors to it. If you run with your static and it was same people who your were running with - prolly it OK and have no problem. If you never cleared and suddenly managed to clear it with new ppl with different IP while having drastivally different performance...thats suspicious.

But lets start with thing that SE dont care about RMT to begin with so they have zero intention to expose thoose lobbies and this black market.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

Lol casuals get mad at this but would celebrate if SE put replica ultima weapons on the cash shop for 30 bucks a piece :P

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Well they will ruin runseller's bisuness with it which is good. And its just a shiny toy anyway.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

Lol casuals get mad at this but would celebrate if SE put replica ultima weapons on the cash shop for 30 bucks a piece :P

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Right now you can buy the real deal though.

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

Most of FFXIV players are apologist, white knights or just too apathetic for anything. They doesn't care. Or protect every insane thing will fanatical passion. And SE doesnt care about health of their game either, will just continue milk while it still lives. Sadly no matter how loud we discuss it - SE protect this sellers and will do nothing.

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When someone has no real response in a discussion, rely on them to bring up 'apologists, white knights, elitists, whatever'. These terms fall under the category of "people who don't think the way that I do, and therefore anything they say is invalid".

The post didn't do much except disparage the opposition.

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

But i have a question, why you and many other people so eager to defend RMT, account-sharing and other bs stuff?

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At what point did I say I'm defending RMT, account-sharing, etc? I don't defend it. I feel that RMT is a bane and account-sharing is just opening yourself up to have everything stolen from you. But because I say it isn't as cut and dry as you make it out to be I'm defending RMT, account-sharing, etc? People have said this to me before, but it applies here. Don't put words in my mouth.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

It was quite likely someone who got booted from a party/raid group due to what appeared on their parse.

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I'd be inclined to believe such. However, I have also seen people state in previous debates that they report on even the smallest of sneaking suspicion that someone may be parsing. So I feel more inclined to believe someone saw "parse runs", flipped their lid, and just started reporting.

Generally when people kick others for low DPS, they don't say anything and just kick or outright disband the party.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

When someone has no real response in a discussion, rely on them to bring up 'apologists, white knights, elitists, whatever'. These terms fall under the category of "people who don't think the way that I do, and therefore anything they say is invalid".

The post didn't do much except disparage the opposition.

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Similarly when someone says, "Why do you care what people spend their money one?" that too is also quite useless and adds nothing to the conversation beyond confirming that complacency is the reason things like that exist in such a blatant form.

Don't need ip checks. If its cross server, the only way it can be done for gil is either if the player transfers to the server, or they have an alt with a lot of gil on the home server of the advertiser. If the run happens without either, it has to be rmt of some kind. The limitations of cross server gil transfer leave enough traces to tell if its a legit mercing run. (Selling runs for in game currency isn't against the TOS at all, unless they are piloted.)

Isn't really a matter of complacency. What stops sellers from moving to a third party platform to advertise their services? Nothing. Buyers willing to lay down the money required to purchase UwU/UCoB runs already frequent RMT-based sites; the removal of cross-world PFs would do nothing except help you sleep better at night. Even then, there is no indisputable proof money is being exchanged via cross world sell PFs; blatantly obvious though it is. There is absolutely nothing you can do to prove, beyond a doubt, that those PFs are engaged in RMT activity using in-game logs; 0.

This all comes down to personal opinion IMO. All youre doing is trying to belittle eachother and forcing "what if's".

This entre thread is more toxic than someone paying for a clear.

Breaking game immersion? Oh please.
You want exclusiveness. You want that one ting and You dont want anyone Else to have it unless they got it the same way at the same amount of time.

If there is a market for something, there are going to be People providing it. You can't moderate this with some automated system, it has to be manned. Thats a huge resource sink for something thats "annoying some People".

Dont be dramatic. Its not Breaking the game for you and Its easy to completely disregard while playing.

Let SE do their thing. They'll put a stop to it when they can.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

Someone else spending money to let a person play the game for them so they can get a shiny weapon that they didn't earn has no effect on me or anyone else. If it makes them happy then let it be. I don't understand why this matters to people. Would it be okay if it was free? Is it just because it's against ToS? No there is definitely a hint of something else... Idk it's whatever.

That's also why SE prolly doesn't really enforce it hard, since it doesn't really effect anyone negatively unlike gil bots and the economy.

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Why would I want to put in the effort for content if I could just pay my way through it and nobody knows?

SE doesn't care unless your buying items from Mog Station or stating irl money in some description.SE also like never reads these posts the most recent being the greed only raids, other than that the last I can recall is the whole pre SB whm fiasco when Yoshi-P basically told the community "shut up we know what we're doing" to which they clearly didn't and still don't know what they're doing with the class.
Stating the obvious but alot of this community are SE White Knights and anything that may seem negative towards SE will get them coming full force as shown by some in this thread alone. Finally judging by some peoples responses the white knights are oblivious that this is person in the picture is clearly wanting irl money which is why they want to talk on discord to avoid any logs ban-able by GMs. Another obvious thing is it's a Cross-World party finder if the person wanted Gil they would make a regular party finder to only appear to their server.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

Truly this game is ran by competent people. We ban people spreading awareness but not people breaking the Terms of Service.

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It has always been this way. I only know one Game that actually banns cheaters, RMT'ers or whatever ToS-violators you might find. For the Rest: Making people aware of Problems is making the Game or Devs look Bad. They rather wanna keep you silent than actually deal with those Problems.

Thats how a lot of Governments work too btw.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

Why would I want to put in the effort for content if I could just pay my way through it and nobody knows?

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Because you enjoy playing the content and not only having the shiny?

I dont know about you, but I mainly play this game - and any other game - for the fun I get from playing it, not to earn trophies... people who are buying clears like that apparently play for different reasons, I guess, but yeah...
Even if there were cheap lowlevel-glamour-versions of all raid-gear, I'd still put in the effort to clear and play that content myself, because thats my mainsource of fun - not the shiny in my inventory.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Because you enjoy playing the content and not only having the shiny?

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I don't even want the shiny, it looks too opposite for BLM.

I'dj ust pay the $1200 to tell people I cleared it and I'm better than them. Already had that before.

As someone else said in this thread, I personally I do not care what people do with their money but these adverts clog up the PF, which is annoying. At the very least make it tab just for selling runs, and punish people that post their advert outside that tab if they are trying to sell a run.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

Why not just sell the clear on mogstation then?

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If it gets SE to unclog the PF then I am all for it. People have brought this up before you, and others will bring it up after you. SE does not seem to care. I mean if they made a profit off out of they properly would start to care, just as if they had a legitimized version of RMT properly they would also care about that. Just my cynical view.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

As someone else said in this thread, I personally I do not care what people do with their money but these adverts clog up the PF, which is annoying. At the very least make it tab just for selling runs, and punish people that post their advert outside that tab if they are trying to sell a run.

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Why not just sell the clear on mogstation then?

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

Why not just sell the clear on mogstation then?

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Why not just pay for a sub and never, ever login.

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Originally Posted by Skogli

This all comes down to personal opinion IMO. All youre doing is trying to belittle eachother and forcing "what if's".

This entre thread is more toxic than someone paying for a clear.

Breaking game immersion? Oh please.
You want exclusiveness. You want that one ting and You dont want anyone Else to have it unless they got it the same way at the same amount of time.

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I personally don't. I realize you may struggle to understand that, but as I've admitted before, I don't Raid. I'm 99.99% certain I'll never so much as attempt the Ultimate fights, so I'll never have these items. In fact, I don't even do Savage Raids. My iLevel average on my WHM is i360, and I'm quite content with that. So, clearly, this cannot possibly be about exclusivity.

I do, however, prize a sense of fairness in the game world. I want rewards structured around in-game effort and skill, not outside forces like how much money is in your bank account. For people who use the PF, I imagine there's also a desire for a system that isn't cluttered with thinly-veiled RMT runs so that they can use it more effectively. Just because something doesn't impact you or you can't see how it impacts others, doesn't mean others are lying or making things up, and it's quite judgmental and arrogant to assume otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Skogli

If there is a market for something, there are going to be People providing it. You can't moderate this with some automated system, it has to be manned. Thats a huge resource sink for something thats "annoying some People".

Dont be dramatic. Its not Breaking the game for you and Its easy to completely disregard while playing.

Let SE do their thing. They'll put a stop to it when they can.

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That's always the reality, but we can moderate this with relatively minimal effort if SE adjusts their ToS. All they have to do to significantly curb this type of run is close the giant gaping loophole of permitting run-selling when Gil is exchanged, along with maybe a ban on posting references to non-XIV sites or content within the PF description. Boom. Anything reported is a clear-cut, binary sort of judgment that a GM can make in just a few seconds.

Alternately, they could legalize RMT in this particular context, and include PF options for sold runs so that people can filter out the runs they aren't interested in. I think this would be a mistake (see Diablo 3 for a recent attempt at legitimizing RMT), but that's SE's call. What they really shouldn't do is leave the policy in an unenforceable state. They've left the door wide open for barely-hidden RMT, despite officially banning it. Either open the door up officially, or close it more firmly. It's that simple.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

As someone else said in this thread, I personally I do not care what people do with their money but these adverts clog up the PF, which is annoying. At the very least make it tab just for selling runs, and punish people that post their advert outside that tab if they are trying to sell a run.



If it gets SE to unclog the PF then I am all for it. People have brought this up before you, and others will bring it up after you. SE does not seem to care. I mean if they made a profit off out of they properly would start to care, just as if they had a legitimized version of RMT properly they would also care about that. Just my cynical view.

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May as well have a subforum here for selling runs.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

May as well have a subforum here for selling runs.

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I simply would not visit that sub forum. Really comes down to out of sight out of mind for me. Good on you for finding a cause you feel is worth fighting for. I personally have my own worries and issues, I do not have the time or energy to care how someone uses their money. Would it be nice if SE changed their policy and took action sure why not, but if they have not done something by now I am not holding my breath they will do something in the future. If it happens awesome, but not holding my breath.

Trust me because someone is indifferent does not always mean they are against you, in my case I will let the others carry the banner. Would just be nice if at the very least SE did a band aid fix to reduce the clutter in the PF.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

It is fairly obvious that it's for RMT. It's a crossworld PF and you can't trade in any capacity in it. They advertise their discord because they want to talk off-site about the sale. The advertisement itself infringes on the rules.

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Is it fairy obvious though? I'm sorta new and when I saw those ads I figured they had characters on multiple servers. I know some people that have multi chars because they just like raiding and hate the lock outs.

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Originally Posted by OurMom

Is it fairy obvious though? I'm sorta new and when I saw those ads I figured they had characters on multiple servers. I know some people that have multi chars because they just like raiding and hate the lock outs.

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Yes. You can't trade gil or items with a person unless they are in your world. The fact that they sell runs but refuse to talk about it at all in party finder (hence the ilvl set to a level where no one can join) and link to an off-site medium of communication is proof.

I mean, I won’t say that people buying clear is breaking my immersion—they are free to spend their $1,200 USD on whatever they please. If they deem that spending it on a virtual UwU weapon is worth over a grand in cash, okay then? I don’t like it, but it doesn’t cheapen any achievement I will get when I finally clear Ultimate—I’ll have proof that I’ve earned mine, where as they won’t. So there’s really no argument there for me at least.

OP is more than welcome to feel passionate about this; I just think it’s a losing battle because the GMs will not accept Discord screenshots of sales because of the risk of them being falsified. They’ve already proven they won’t do this with videos of crafting/gathering bots or streams of people botting/hacking in PvP, so they aren’t going to really do it for content sellers either.

At the end of the day, I just stop concerning myself with what others do. I wouldn’t call that complacency so much as I have my own crap to worry about; I don’t have time to worry about what others are doing.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

Yes. You can't trade gil or items with a person unless they are in your world. The fact that they sell runs but refuse to talk about it at all in party finder (hence the ilvl set to a level where no one can join) and link to an off-site medium of communication is proof.

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Maybe they link their discord and keep the PF locked so multiple buyers don't join simultaneously. Maybe the sellers have discord on their phone and are away from their computers during their ad runs. Disprove this using in-game chat logs.

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Originally Posted by CreinCrein

Maybe they link their discord and keep the PF locked so multiple buyers don't join simultaneously. Maybe the sellers have discord on their phone and are away from their computers during their ad runs. Disprove this using in-game chat logs.

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Wouldn't more buyers be more money?

Also they seem to oddly relist very quickly after an hour. That's some afk reaction time.

If I own I contracting company I'm not going to have two clients with two different sets of needs come into my office simultaneously; I'd go over each consultation one at a time. Setting an hour-long reminder isn't hard either. At the end of the day without concrete and indisputable evidence against sellers this trend isn't going to go away. Instead of witch hunting people that are supplying a service which has absolutely no impact on your gameplay, you relax at let them do them; just my opinion.

The above exchange is what GM's have to deal with unless SE changes their policy. Within the rules many variables can exist, even if it seems strange when you look at it. They are not breaking the rules as listed. Cause it is possible to find reasons within the rules as to why they are posted. Most common one being it can simply be a mistake, even if as people we know it was intentional the policy itself does not have that luxary. I hope that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

May as well have a subforum here for selling runs.

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To answer your question if SE did go to such a length I would avoid said forum. Just as I avoid the housing market sub reddit, or rmt sites. I get where you are coming from but the reality is only person you truly have control over is yourself, and it is good you are passionate about this cause but you run the risk burning yourself out long before change happens. If you feel that is worth it great, but I personally cannot see how that is enjoyable. Worrying about what others do must be tiresome and stressful.