PSA: Giving promotion privilages to someone in your FC gives them all privilages

Now you're probably wondering how that works.

Well right now, the promotion privileges in game work in a very different way from what is standard in a rank hierarchy.

Lets say I have a large FC and I'm taking steps to make it more autonomous. I give the person who I intend to be the highest ranked officer the promotion privileges so that he can he promote players as he sees fit. Guess what he can also do? He can also promote someone to any rank that they want besides the master rank. Someone has mentioned he could make an alt in the FC and promote that alt to a rank they were not suppose to have.

Yes you heard right.

They can basically promote themselves to a rank that has privileges that they weren't suppose to have.

Someone in the thread has mentioned that this is because every rank that is not the master rank is treated as equal. As an FC master, you are not able to define which ranks are higher than others. Someone else has said that the initial impression of the rank structure is that there is an enforced hierarchy, when in reality there isn't.

It has caused many problems such as the one that this thread was about:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...100M-GIL-taken

The purpose of this thread to petition to get this changed so that rank hierarchy is properly enforced. Hopefully we can get a Dev response on this.

Here even more information you'll want to know

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Originally Posted by alimdia

Two more additions:

Anyone with the permission "rank settings" can give themselves ranks they didn't previously have.

Anyone with the permission "purchase/relinquish land" and "hall construction/removal" can demolish the FC house, relinquish the plot and buy the plot as a personal to themselves, without ever asking for FC master confirmation.

So as a FC master you should remove these permissions from everyone as they are not used very often: Rank Settings, Purchase/Relinquish Land, Hall Construction/Removal, Workshop Construction/Removal, Airship Registration/Dismantling, if anyone needs to mess with any of those settings they can wait until you're online.

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And just so I can hammer it in:

WARNING: GIVING AN FC RANK THE PRIVILEGE TO PROMOTE OTHERS WILL ALLOW THEM TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES AND OTHERS TO A RANK YOU DIDN'T WANT THEM TO HAVE

You can't promote yourself to master with any other rank. You can lose master rank if you don't log in for 35 days though.

I can see why they did it in a way but they should probably just have a mark or such like "Once leader is absent X days, auto promote to leader" however I do agree that no one should ever be able to promote themselves. =/

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Originally Posted by Zumi

You can't promote yourself to master with any other rank. You can lose master rank if you don't log in for 35 days though.

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Alright let me change it then.

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

I can see why they did it in a way but they should probably just have a mark or such like "Once leader is absent X days, auto promote to leader" however I do agree that no one should ever be able to promote themselves. =/

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No, there is literally no valid reason for the rank system or promotions to exist when the system itself is so fundamentally flawed. It's literally built around the ability to mount what amounts to an 'elevation of privilege' attack on a Free company.

Two more additions:

Anyone with the permission "rank settings" can give themselves permissions they didn't previously have.

Anyone with the permission "purchase/relinquish land" and "hall construction/removal" can demolish the FC house, relinquish the plot and buy the plot as a personal to themselves, without ever asking for FC master confirmation.

So as a FC master you should remove these permissions from everyone as they are not used very often: Rank Settings, Purchase/Relinquish Land, Hall Construction/Removal, Workshop Construction/Removal, Airship Registration/Dismantling, if anyone needs to mess with any of those settings they can wait until you're online.

Here is what happens if you try to promote yourself to master. The game will not let you do it. If anyone who was an officer could promote themselves to master you would see a ton of so and so stole the FC.

http://i.imgur.com/gxYdhjd.jpg

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Here is what happens if you try to promote yourself to master. If anyone who was an officer could promote themselves to master you would see a ton of so and so stole the FC.

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IIRC you can't promote yourself higher than yourself but you can promote others higher than you.

And they cant promote to the ownership level, but they could promote to a level that is so strong that it basically does everything that is important (and effectively destroy the FC).

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Originally Posted by alimdia

Two more additions:

Anyone with the permission "rank settings" can give themselves ranks they didn't previously have.

Anyone with the permission "purchase/relinquish land" and "hall construction/removal" can demolish the FC house, relinquish the plot and buy the plot as a personal to themselves, without ever asking for FC master confirmation.

So as a FC master you should remove these permissions from everyone as they are not used very often: Rank Settings, Purchase/Relinquish Land, Hall Construction/Removal, Workshop Construction/Removal, Airship Registration/Dismantling, if anyone needs to mess with any of those settings they can wait until you're online.

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Remove the ability to withdraw gil from the bank as well unless you want to risk that being drained. Basically only the FC master should have any 'sensitive' abilities within the FC, otherwise it's possible for someone to maliciously exploit the incredibly flawed system to asset strip your FC out from under you.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

IIRC you can't promote yourself higher than yourself but you can promote others higher than you.

And they cant promote to the ownership level, but they could promote to a level that is so strong that it basically does everything that is important (and entirely destroy the FC).

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Yes, so you could create an Alt, and promote your Alt above yourself, thus completely compromising the system.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

IIRC you can't promote yourself higher than yourself but you can promote others higher than you.

And they cant promote to the ownership level, but they could promote to a level that is so strong that it basically does everything that is important (and effectively destroy the FC).

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Say you have a another rank like Co-GM above officer, then an officer that can promote can promote himself to Co-Gm.

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Originally Posted by Destinova

Say you have a another rank like Co-GM above officer, then an officer that can promote can promote himself to Co-Gm.

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Haha, I laugh with tears XD. I remembered it was a pretty silly system but I forgot how bad it was.

Every time I hear the loops in it I just wonder what SE was thinking at the time XD. I've never heard these issues in WoW except for Guilds who didn't set up the roles right in the first place, once done it was done right.

Luckily I've never had these issues with the people I'm with. :/

It's unfortunate that the OP is structured the way that it is, as it it makes me worry the devs may pass it over on the grounds that the poster includes terminology like "higher rank". There are no higher ranks, and there is no hierarchy, so the post may be dismissed out of hand, with the company line that "SE wanted players to have total freedom in structuring their FC ranks", if it receives any attention at all.

What the devs need to understand is that players are NOT granted total freedom, because they are not ALLOWED to establish a hierarchy. All ranks are equal, and someone given the promotion ability can use it to move themselves or others to any rank that they choose. That is the weakness in the system that trips everyone up; players are not permitted the option to set some ranks as being "higher" or "lower" than others, and with the promote command inherently prohibited from promoting someone above the rank of the individual doing the promoting.

While I commend SE for the decision to build a freeform system where the players can set up whatever sorts of ranks they choose, by leaving out the ability to build a hierarchy they've actually restricted the amount of freedom players have to construct their FC ranks. While players should have the opportunity to build ranks that are "equal" to each other in hierarchical terms, they should ALSO be able to build ranks that are "higher" or "lower" than other ranks. Currently we lack this ability - and the fact that hierarchies are so ubiquitous in ranking systems outside of this game means that many players become confused when setting up their ranks, giving promote ability to ranks that they shouldn't because they naturally assume that that promote ability can't be used to elevate your own (or others') permissions beyond your own. They don't understand that there is no elevation, because all ranks are at the same level, and that has caused more than one FC disaster - and will continue to do so.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

It's unfortunate that the OP is structured the way that it is, as it it makes me worry the devs may pass it over on the grounds that the poster includes terminology like "higher rank". There are no higher ranks, and there is no hierarchy, so the post may be dismissed out of hand, with the company line that "SE wanted players to have total freedom in structuring their FC ranks", if it receives any attention at all.

What the devs need to understand is that players are NOT granted total freedom, because they are not ALLOWED to establish a hierarchy. All ranks are equal, and someone given the promotion ability can use it to move themselves or others to any rank that they choose. That is the weakness in the system that trips everyone up; players are not permitted the option to set some ranks as being "higher" or "lower" than others, and with the promote command inherently prohibited from promoting someone above the rank of the individual doing the promoting.

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Except that the system inherently has a ranking system from top (rank 1) to bottom. It treats the ranks hierarchically, but they are not.

Including that top down hierarchy strongly suggests a typical hierarchical security system that is not in place at all.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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I've edited the OP again. This was good information

Its a dumb system that needs to be reworked, Til then its safe to say Only allow your second in command to hae promote/demote and make sure your second in command is highly trusted.

This is bad

This is really bad.

Some decisions, it makes you think what goes through a devs' mind when they do it...

wait, is that true? can you promote someone else a rank higher than your own? Is it possible for this to be confirmed?

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Originally Posted by RaijinSupreme

wait, is that true? can you promote someone else a rank higher than your own? Is it possible for this to be confirmed?

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It's confirmed and has been commonly known for a long, long time. SE just haven't done anything about it.

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Originally Posted by RaijinSupreme

wait, is that true? can you promote someone else a rank higher than your own? Is it possible for this to be confirmed?

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There's no hierarchy system in place. The numbers next to the rank icons which appear when you manage the ranks mean absolutly nothing.

The concept of "higher rank" doesn't exists in the game. There's the Company Master ranks, and then all the others without distinction.

In short, if someone has the permission to promote people, this right is absolute and completly disregards any sense of rank position you may have imagined. This means that someone with the promotion permission can indeed promote people to whatever rank that player wants. Including that player him/herself.

Watch out for the rank with the shield looking icon, its the one you cannot delete besides master, that Icon usually gets most the permissions including once that come out when they add new FC stuff. That should always be the second in command, unless you wanna keep editing that rank all the time.

For now, you can just have the FC master be the one who promotes people if it bothers you that badly. If you don't and happen to see someone try to promote themselves or others when they shouldn't have, kick them out.

I know this is going to sound crazy but just hear me out. What if you just don't give the promotion ability to people you don't trust ? What if we stop assuming that strangers on the internet are all trustworthy people because They joined my cool FC so they must be cool too? I know, I know it's a hard concept to grasp, but just think about it, the FC chest you save could be your own!

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

I know this is going to sound crazy but just hear me out. What if you just don't give the promotion ability to people you don't trust ? What if we stop assuming that strangers on the internet are all trustworthy people because They joined my cool FC so they must be cool too? I know, I know it's a hard concept to grasp, but just think about it, the FC chest you save could be your own!

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That's not the point. The point is it's a bad system that makes no sense and needs to be changed. In the ideal world your idea could fix the problem but in the real world we need a hierarchical system.

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

In the ideal world your idea could fix the problem but in the real world we need a hierarchical system.

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Oh no, in the real world simply not trusting anyone ever and never giving away any priviledges fixes the issue, too. If noone but you can do anything, noone but you can screw anything up!

It's just impractical and begs the question why FC ranks are a thing in the first place, since by that mentality, you only need a Glorious Leader and the rest should be untrustworthy Peons without any priviledges.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Oh no, in the real world simply not trusting anyone ever and never giving away any priviledges fixes the issue, too. If noone but you can do anything, noone but you can screw anything up!

It's just impractical and begs the question why FC ranks are a thing in the first place, since by that mentality, you only need a Glorious Leader and the rest should be untrustworthy Peons without any priviledges.

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Yeah cause I'm the real world I can promote myself from janitor to head manager and take everything from the store with zero consequences and everyone has to just deal with it. /sarcasm

Yep. The FC rank system is broken and has been since 2.0. Unless you really trust someone, don't give them any elevated permissions.

They may fix this in Stormblood, but I'm not holding my breath. The FC system needs a lot of love, but I can forgive it for its current state, because it's still loads better than 1.0 (where, iirc, FCs didn't exist).

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

Yeah cause I'm the real world I can promote myself from janitor to head manager and take everything from the store with zero consequences and everyone has to just deal with it. /sarcasm

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If the Head manager gives a Janitor permission to promote himself to the rank of Head manager, then really the Head manager deserves the consequences.

(The point being, if you're in charge, you are ultimately responsible for the people underneath you. If you give someone authority and they abuse it, it's your fault for giving them the authority in the first place.)

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

If the Head manager gives a Janitor permission to promote himself to the rank of Head manager, then really the Head manager deserves the consequences.

(The point being, if you're in charge, you are ultimately responsible for the people underneath you. If you give someone authority and they abuse it, it's your fault for giving them the authority in the first place.)

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No! No no no no this is not how things work! Well apparently it is because ethical conduct and morality are DEAD. There's nothing in game explaining people can promote people ABOVE their own rank! How can anyone defend this?? Am I just being trolled at his point?

We aren't discussing who's to blame for what here! We are discussing a broken system that needs to be changed. Stop going off topic.

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Originally Posted by DaikiKiyoshi

No! No no no no this is not how things work! Well apparently it is because ethical conduct and morality are DEAD. There's nothing in game explaining people can promote themselves ABOVE their own rank! How can anyone defend this?? Am I just being trolled at his point?

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Imo, if you're in a leadership role, it's your responsibility to ensure that bad things don't happen. Sure unexpected things can happen, but it's not like the information doesn't exist anywhere. You could have researched what the permissions actually do before assigning them to people. The real issue here imo, is that literally anyone can become an FC leader, and we all know that not everyone is cut out to be in a leadership role. When irresponsible people make bad decisions, they turn the blame on others and make excuses for why the bad things happened instead of accepting their mistake and admitting they failed to exercise due diligence. So yes, while perhaps the rules should be changed by SE to protect against these kinds of situations from happening, that doesn't excuse the FC leader from failing in their responsibility to protect themselves and their members within the rules that already exist.

Why is this even a thing? You should not be able to give yourself a rank in your FC that the FC did not decide you've earned.

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Originally Posted by joshdavis271

Watch out for the rank with the shield looking icon, its the one you cannot delete besides master, that Icon usually gets most the permissions including once that come out when they add new FC stuff. That should always be the second in command, unless you wanna keep editing that rank all the time.

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Just to add on to what you said; I've seen way to many people set this rank symbol wherever they want to. Always leave this one at #2. When SE adds new permissions like he said, this is the only rank besides Master that is also likely to get the new permissions also until the leader changes the permissions if he does not feel this rank should have it.

Please fix the promotion/demotion to where you cannot promote yourself above your currently assigned rank. Keep on hitting that like button on the OP's post so SE is likely to see this thread!

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Originally Posted by ToasterMan

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Thank you again for stepping up to make this post. This was long overdue.

Signal boosting this thread, coming from the "100m taken" one. This issue needs to be adressed quickly before more harm is done. :)