I asked a GM to clarify the new rules regarding hunts and early pulling

I have asked about this previously and was advised "early pulling" is not against the rules.

Now, it appears that may have changed, or, they don't know.

https://i.imgur.com/IA4wXL8.png
https://i.imgur.com/6DsXPjE.png

I asked again, how do we know if we are breaking rules if we don't know what the rules are? (Regarding hunts).

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

Apparently the answers are here on the official forum. So uh... is early pulling now against the rules since it could be "nuisance" or "obstruction of gameplay"?

To be honest, what concerns me more about this whole conversation, regardless on what opinions are held via hunts, is that they can't clarify any rules when asked specifically about something.

Why is this even a question? “Early pulls” don’t exist. People who spawn S ranks do not own those hunts, they’re a server wide monster in which anyone has the right to attack at any time.

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Originally Posted by Moonfish

Why is this even a question? “Early pulls” don’t exist. People who spawn S ranks do not own those hunts, they’re a server wide monster in which anyone has the right to attack at any time.

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Except now, your "early pull" can be considered nuisance or obstruction of gameplay. That rule about it not being a thing used to stand, does it still? They can't answer the question, where as previously they could.

Personally, no, I don't think early pulling is a thing. But there are a LOT OF PEOPLE that do. On any world. This used to be a easy cut a dry "No" response. Now it isn't.

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Originally Posted by Moonfish

Why is this even a question? “Early pulls” don’t exist. People who spawn S ranks do not own those hunts, they’re a server wide monster in which anyone has the right to attack at any time.

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Marley beat me to it, there is no such thing as "Early pulling" all mobs are open to everyone, as far as obstruction of game play it's considered optional content. There is a reason that the new policy set forth is vague.

There's no such thing as early pulling, that would imply there's a set time and it doesn't exist.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

Except now, your "early pull" can be considered nuisance or obstruction of gameplay. That rule about it not being a thing used to stand, does it still? They can't answer the question, where as previously they could.

Personally, no, I don't think early pulling is a thing. But there are a LOT OF PEOPLE that do. On any world. This used to be a easy cut a dry "No" response. Now it isn't.

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It’s still cut and dry. No one owns these monsters. What actually is a nuisance are people resetting mobs because of these supposed “early pulls” and erasing everyone’s credit towards killing it. That is hindering gameplay. People need to stop looking at the updated rules so hard, this is not the end of the game we currently know.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

Except now, your "early pull" can be considered nuisance or obstruction of gameplay. That rule about it not being a thing used to stand, does it still? They can't answer the question, where as previously they could.

Personally, no, I don't think early pulling is a thing. But there are a LOT OF PEOPLE that do. On any world. This used to be a easy cut a dry "No" response. Now it isn't.

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I consider obstruction of gameplay like killing a mob a blue mage is trying to learn a spell from on purpose or resetting mobs.

If early pulling was considered obstruction you could report someone for pulling a random mob you wanted to pull, or finishing a FATE before people get there which is frankly ridiculous.

The new rules simply mean don't be a jerk.
It's quite simple really.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

So uh... is early pulling now against the rules since it could be "nuisance" or "obstruction of gameplay"?

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Early pulling with the intent to grief has always been reportable. Early pulling by itself is allowed. The updated rules indirectly allow for more early pulling if anything, as they allow the GMs to address the harassment, bullying and mob mentality that can accompany it.

For a better chance at a clear answer for topics in general, you'd want to speak to a GM directly. I've asked questions about RMT and received automated responses about grief tactics and third-party applications. Was like my question wasn't read or someone hit the wrong automated response button.

Simple: You don't own the mob. No one does. Even if you spawned it.

They're in the open world, first come, first serve.

Stop with the entitlement.

IF I had to speculate and give benefit of the doubt this is what theyre saying:

IF someone early pulls just to drag an S-Rank towards where players are congregating in preparation as a means to wipe those players, or to destabilize the situation - that is an actionable offense the GMs will act upon. This would be like pulling Odin into where people are gathering in hopes his AoEs will kill players, or pulling him to glitch him out.

IF someone 'early' pulls an S rank and engages with it legitimately (with allies present possibly) even if people are saying "Wait" or have yet to arrive, this would not be an actionable offense. There is no stipulation that players or groups NEED to wait for all players who wish to participate to arrive.

That would be my assumption.

I've pretty much accepted at this point that "early" pulls are synonymous with relaying hunts.

If people miss it because someone is selfish, then oh well, I tried. I try to spawn them mostly so I won't miss them because of this behavior.

It might not be against the rules, but it's still kind of scummy regardless. If you're unwilling to wait even a few minutes for more people to arrive at a hunt when you had no hand in spawning it, then you're lacking in basic human decency.

Policy never real changed regarding hunts, as others have stated, it's optional content and doesn't block anyone from progression. Probably not something that should of wasted a GM's time by asking to be fair.

Early pulling was never and continues not to be a problem.
Resets though...

IMO the people claiming early hunt pulls are blocking their progression or whatever are probably the same people that were constantly sending GM tickets on FFXI on myself and my LS for repeatedly claiming the same HNM's consistently because we kept accurate LS longs for death timers. Is it possibly annoying to not get everything you want when you want it? Yeah sure. But if you want the world to revolve around you in a game there are plenty of offline single player games right up your alley. Its not going to fly in an MMO.

I'd go with the original answer:

http://i.imgur.com/LIRZbGO.jpg?1

Resets, however, were always a reportable offense. The fact the GM says that the answer can be found on the forums makes me think their stance has not changed when it comes to hunts.

Vague rules are bad. They are ALWAYS bad. They give power to someone, but they screw over someone else, every time.

I feel like playing the game isn't going to be worth it if they don't address the gordian knot they've just decided to make of their prohibited behaviors rules.

What concerns me more then anything is that GMs have a lot more power and a lot more discretion now and they also now don't know the rules either. That sounds absolutely horrifying.

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Originally Posted by Skeith9

What concerns me more then anything is that GMs have a lot more power and a lot more discretion now and they also now don't know the rules either. That sounds absolutely horrifying.

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The GMs are going to have more detailed guidelines to follow when making judgements. At least they certainly should, and I'd be very surprised if they didn't.

people that need 10 mins to show up of for a hunt obstruct my gaming experience, can i report them?

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Originally Posted by Moonfish

It’s still cut and dry. No one owns these monsters. What actually is a nuisance are people resetting mobs because of these supposed “early pulls” and erasing everyone’s credit towards killing it. That is hindering gameplay. People need to stop looking at the updated rules so hard, this is not the end of the game we currently know.

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How does it hinder gameplay?

Tag it again, it's not your mob after all, you aren't entitled to anything from it. I'd only see repeated resets to prevent people killing it at all as griefing.

No, early pulls are not against the rules. In fact if anything, getting pissy about people “pulling early” is against the rules now as you’re the one obstructing the pullers gameplay.

Whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but wonder how many of the people involved actually bother spawning/searching for hunts as opposed to just waiting for relays.

I find that the former tend to be a lot less tolerant of "early" pulls because they're often trying to do their server's community a service by allowing as many people as possible to reap the rewards of hunt marks, while the latter are prone to not caring because they're not actually doing any work.

I'm kind of past the point of caring when my server has multiple people who make it a note to pull hunts ASAP seemingly just for the sake of trying to rub the whole "Hunts are free-for-alls" rule in everyone's faces. They're technically not breaking the ToS (Though their intent is very clearly to upset people from the things they say at times), so there's nothing can be done, save for maybe waiting until they enter an instance or log off to attempt a spawn of a hunt.

I guess that's what Yoshi P. meant by each server's community "working things out" in regards how hunts will be handled post World Travel, since while "early" pulls might not be against the ToS, they are oft frowned upon and people find ways to exclude/deter players who are prone to it.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but wonder how many of the people involved actually bother spawning/searching for hunts as opposed to just waiting for relays.

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Odds are close to zero, anyone I have ever met that actually takes the time to spawn S ranks has unanimously agreed there is no early pulling. People that leech off linkshells are the vocal ones about it.

Someone will always be late, you cant include everyone because thats not how the content was designed.

It is very true that the most vocal ones tend to be the ones who aren't spawning stuff.

We've had some people actually get mad at us for calling something that ended up being instantly pulled by someone on the basis that we "wasted their time" because it died before they got there.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Whenever this topic comes up, I can't help but wonder how many of the people involved actually bother spawning/searching for hunts as opposed to just waiting for relays.

I find that the former tend to be a lot less tolerant of "early" pulls because they're often trying to do their server's community a service by allowing as many people as possible to reap the rewards of hunt marks, while the latter are prone to not caring because they're not actually doing any work.

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Same.

The spawners spend a lot of time and effort and sometimes gil getting the S ranks to spawn. Then they are courteous enough to call the hunt and share it with the server. Then sometime shows up while people are still arriving to the hunt you spent an hour or more getting to spawn and kills it in a way that the rest of the people you did that for can't get a hit in.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

How does it hinder gameplay?

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Your work was "wasted", basically undoing what you did. Having the same potential doesn't change the fact that you cannot do it as efficiently because someone else decided to screw you over.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Tag it again, it's not your mob after all, you aren't entitled to anything from it. I'd only see repeated resets to prevent people killing it at all as griefing.

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If a player is solo and have taken 10%-20% of the mobs life in that time, they are certain to get full credit for it.

If a player is solo and there's a bunch of parties that will melt the mob in five or six seconds, the solo player won't be able to get any credit. Rewards?! 1 of each currency.

Getting 1 of each currency and getting 100 seals, 100 poetics and 30 of whatever is the reward at the time is a huge difference.


"Then party!". And?! That's exactly what's obstruction of gameplay means. Making it so a player that can get the reward (and did enough to get it) in one way, could no longer do it without playing how YOU want him to. Can the person party?! Yes. But that's besides the point, not to mention, there may not be anyone to party with to get enough credit anyway. Not every "train" is going to have the people for that. If there are 17 people then someone ends up solo anyway. If there's 18 then there's a party of two which doesn't necessarily going to have it any better.

This whole idea that anyone is required to wait for you, who most likely had absolutely no hand in spawning this monster, is ridiculous. You stop what you're doing and get to the monster, if we kill the monster before you get there it's because you dragged your feet, others before you clearly made it in time.

So uhm...if I accidentally find a rank I need to report or I get banned for killing it solo?

If you find a hunt monster, you can do whatever you want with it. You can (try to) solo it, message only a couple friends to come kill it with you, leave it alone, or put out a shout to announce it.

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Originally Posted by Skeith9

What concerns me more then anything is that GMs have a lot more power and a lot more discretion now and they also now don't know the rules either. That sounds absolutely horrifying.

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"I'm not telling you our exact criteria" is not the same as "I don't know."

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Originally Posted by Ssmiley_Bjakkzz

So uhm...if I accidentally find a rank I need to report or I get banned for killing it solo?

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I agree there is no such thing as early pulling, there are times I miss kills and I simply just shrug it off and go on with my day. If it is going to be an issue and SE wants us to wait until every single person who wants to kill it got there in time, even if they didn't say they were on their way (which happens quite frequently) than they may as well make hunts player/party exclusives.

That honestly would be a better solution than disciplining ppl who actually put time into spawns. Let the ppl who complain take the time to spawn and kill hunts themselves, instead of just waiting on an alert and doing just enough to get credit. If they don't like it, well, they made their own bed.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It is very true that the most vocal ones tend to be the ones who aren't spawning stuff.

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To be fair, Cactuar probably has the more organized hunt system, holding SB hunt calls and waiting for them all to be up and just training them. It's made the wait so much more bearable. Still, it's first come, first serve with only an unwritten rule by players to follow that. Outside of courtesy, there's no reason to adhere to it.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

I agree there is no such thing as early pulling, there are times I miss kills and I simply just shrug it off and go on with my day. If it is going to be an issue and SE wants us to wait until every single person who wants to kill it got there in time, even if they didn't say they were on their way (which happens quite frequently) than they may as well make hunts player/party exclusives.

That honestly would be a better solution than disciplining ppl who actually put time into spawns. Let the ppl who complain take the time to spawn and kill hunts themselves, instead of just waiting on an alert and doing just enough to get credit. If they don't like it, well, they made their own bed.

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I actually solo killed a number of A rank and 1 S rank hunt because they were in the way leveling Blue Mage then mentioned it in my hunt LS so someone could add it to whatever tracker they use. It saved me time and also meant not having my chat flooded with salty drama. I kind of want to try soloing a HW S rank now... >.>

Once I was in group to spawn S rank and before could change from gather job and get there it was killed by one's that did help spawn it at all. I will be glad when ones that act like jerks start getting banned. Ones who spawned S rank should be ones to decide when gets pulled.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

Once I was in group to spawn S rank and before could change from gather job and get there it was killed by one's that did help spawn it at all. I will be glad when ones that act like jerks start getting banned. Ones who spawned S rank should be ones to decide when gets pulled.

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No its an open world mob. Only resetting a hunt is ban-able.

You dont have to share hunt, you dont have to relay hunts.

I'm pretty sure the GMs have gone on record saying that even resetting a hunt isn't necessarily something that can be considered an offense unless the majority of the players present showed that they were bothered by it.

But yeah, those players technically didn't do anything wrong, though it is pretty rude to camp out in a zone and wait for other people to spawn something so you can kill it before them. When I see people trying that I just hold the node and wait for them to leave before I actually gather.

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Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, all!

I was quite excited to see a rules discussion here, since it gives me the opportunity to join in and hopefully clarify our policies. The GMs do their best in the game to explain policies; however, space constraints (typing large amounts of text into the chat system) can sometimes cause misinterpretations. Hopefully a forum post, where a larger amount of text and be read easier and digested over time, will provide a clearer view of these types of violations.

To begin, at its most basic level, resetting hunt marks can be considered a grief tactics violation. This post will be discussing grief tactics in general as a violation of the rules, and that general discussion would apply to this particular topic, as well as any number of related topics (MPK, zone disruption, etc.). If you would like a point of reference for this rule, you can find it under the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement, specifically section 3.2:

Disruption. You may not in any way disrupt or interfere with the Game experience of other players, including the disruption of Square Enix's computers and servers.

When discussing grief tactics, there is one important detail that is needed to determine that an action was a violation of the user agreement. That detail is the intent of the customer as determined by a GM. Because of this, while any suspected grief tactics violation can (and should) be reported to a GM, only after a GM completes their investigation will a decision be made about if there was a violation.

The intent of the customer is important, since this determines if they are trying to disrupt the game play of other customers, or just trying to play the game. To use an example, this could be best represented in the potential conflict between a customer that needs to defeat certain monsters for a quest and another customer who is defeating the same monsters for an item drop. Each customer may feel the other is interfering with their game experience, although that interference is not their intent. Of course, there are a number of additional factors that could come into play, and change this from an innocent conflict to a grief tactics violation.

This is why a GM investigation is critical, and why the final decision on the violation rests on GM discretion. The GM will look at all of the information available, measure the plausibility of the stated intent, and make a decision about if a violation occurred. This allows the GM to make a decision based on customer activity instead of just what they state their intent is. Using the above example, the farmer may say they are just farming, but the GM's investigation may show they would follow the person trying to complete the quest and would kill enemies before they could get credit.

I would like to note, before closing, that hypothetical situations are usually something I do not like to use, since they tend to simplify a situation to give a certain bias or justification. This example is no different, and should not be used as justification for that type of behaviour or assumption of another customer's guilt. Every situation is unique, and only through a GM investigation can the full situation be reviewed and a final determination be made.

In closing, grief tactics concerns should be reported to a GM when possible. To assist in these investigations, knowing the name of the person who is suspected of violating the rules is immensely helpful, since it allows us to focus our investigation. Without a GM investigation, calling out other customers for perceived violations does more harm to the community than good, since it creates a negative atmosphere. Should a violation be found, we will issue the appropriate account actions, based on the violation, prior violations, and our current policies. One note that is always important here is that we do not discuss the those results of investigations, since they reveal details about another customer's account.

If there are questions about this, I will be monitoring the thread to try to help provide additional clarifications.

LGM Enkrateia

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However, keep in mind this post:

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Originally Posted by Totomo-Omo

A player on our server who has spawned and relayed more S Ranks than likely anyone else on our servers history was recently reported and warned for "Grief Tactics" in response to her resetting an S-Rank that SHE herself spawned and relayed to the entire community.

She reset the hunt due to it being pulled early in order to give others time to get there.
However, someone apparently decided to get together and report this player, and as a result, she received this warning against her account:

https://i.redd.it/wcwt5adao7u11.png

I see things like this all the time, and it infuriates me to no end. Grief Tactics. While I acknowledge that some of these warnings are valid, I've seen many people get warned for Grief Tactics over the most ridiculous things. Kicking people who are harassing others in Novice Network, disrupting bots by trading them to prevent them from being able to teleport (yes, bots will sometimes report you and get you banned), among other things.

It is probably one of my most hated things about this game at the moment. There is no accountability or real oversight on this. I have never seen a single person who has appealed a dubious "Grief Tactics" ban or warning and successfully have it revoked, no matter how much evidence has been provided in their defense.

This kind of abuse by the GM department seriously needs to stop.

I'd like to hear of any other dubious "Grief Tactic" bans others here have received, so maybe I can compile a list of these before sending it over to SE's corporate office in Japan, since nobody in the North American division seems to care at all.

This likely won't go anywhere and is probably more of a rant than anything, but here you go.

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Basically, reset at your own discretion. Resetting a boss to allow others to get there could be judged as griefing, or interfering with gameplay of, players that are already there and is not the same as flying or running off because the boss didn't show up on your screen until you aggro'd it. One is accidental resetting; the other is resetting with an intent to drop all current player credit.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I guess that's what Yoshi P. meant by each server's community "working things out" in regards how hunts will be handled post World Travel, since while "early" pulls might not be against the ToS, they are oft frowned upon and people find ways to exclude/deter players who are prone to it.

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Most servers' communities have already worked out the rules that are generally followed on their server, even if not everyone is in total agreement about those rules.

That changes with the start of world visit when players will be doing hunts on other worlds that have a different set of rules compared to what they are used to. There is nothing that states they must obey the rules conventions adopted on the world they are visiting.

What will the end result be? We'll have to wait and see. I think YoshiP is overly optimistic if he thinks players on an entire data center will manage to come to an informal agreement about hunt etiquette in cross world hunts.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

"Then party!". And?! That's exactly what's obstruction of gameplay means. Making it so a player that can get the reward (and did enough to get it) in one way, could no longer do it without playing how YOU want him to. Can the person party?! Yes. But that's besides the point, not to mention, there may not be anyone to party with to get enough credit anyway. Not every "train" is going to have the people for that. If there are 17 people then someone ends up solo anyway. If there's 18 then there's a party of two which doesn't necessarily going to have it any better.

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Except that's not obstruction of game play by another player. That's game design that generates rewards based on party participation and not individual player participation.

If someone doesn't want to have to join a party to receive the full reward, then they need to convince SE to change the reward structure for hunts. Unless SE makes that sort of change, the player is obstructing themselves by choosing not to join a party.

As for someone ending up solo because the wrong number of players showed up, there's no need for anyone to be solo if the community cooperates. We shuffle people between parties to do our best to make sure everyone who shows up gets into at least a Light Party, which is usually enough to get full credit as long as we don't have an exceptionally large group present. On those rare occasions it's not, partial reward is still better than none at all.

One thing we do when we have new players join our community - we tell them when a relay goes out you drop what you're doing and go straight there if you want to be part of the kill. Most people are willing to be patient for 3-5 minutes for others to teleport and travel. They're not going to wait 10 minutes because you wanted to do other things first.

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Originally Posted by zztoluca

No its an open world mob. Only resetting a hunt is ban-able.

You dont have to share hunt, you dont have to relay hunts.

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If the mob is going to require specific player activity to spawn the mob, then SE should ensure those who specifically engage in that activity to spawn it get rewarded. It's a poor system that gives random players the reward instead of the player who put in the effort.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If the mob is going to require specific player activity to spawn the mob, then SE should ensure those who specifically engage in that activity to spawn it get rewarded. It's a poor system that gives random players the reward instead of the player who put in the effort.

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I feel like they could spare people a lot of misery by making it so instead of a S rank spawning immediately after its condition is fulfilled, it instead creates some kind of marker on the spot where it's due to spawn, then it'll actually appear a few minutes later.

This both prevents random passersby from getting ganked by sudden hunt spawns and gives people more time to locate the thing before it's potentially pulled.