Players Purposefully Despawning Forgiven Gossips Are Not Being Punished

As of the last 24 hours of this post, there has been a total of two botched attempts to spawn Forgiven Rebellion on the Aether datacenter. All of them were purposefully done - by the same player - with the sole intent of preventing players from spawning the SS rank. The first one happened yesterday on the Cactuar server after defeating Tarchia in Ahm Araeng; the second and most recent one happened on the Faerie server with the defeat of Tyger in Lakeland. I can't stress this enough again, but all of this was done by a single player on multiple occasions. To make matters worse, this has been going on for months, yet nothing has been done to punish those who are ruining the playing experience for players who want to participate.

Currently, the only method of preventing these despawnings has been to have 4 tanks hit the S rank (so that they get credit for the kill), leave the S rank while others whittle it down, and have each of the 4 tanks plant themselves on the spots where the minions spawn from. This is what must be done in order for players to participate in and enjoy this content.

It is very clear that the current way of handling a "failed" spawn attempt of Forgiven Rebellion is not working. I propose an alternate way that the game should handle a "failed" spawn attempt of Forgiven Rebellion: Instead of how it works now where if a Forgiven Gossip "resets" after all players in the mob's vicinity die, it instead is treated as a "failed" spawn if the Gossips are not killed after a given length of time. This way, it prevents players from intentionally ruining the spawn attempt while giving those who are making an effort to spawn Forgiven Rebellion a chance to achieve it.

IIRC, people have also contacted the GMs about this individual and nothing has been done, even though they are clearly griefing the whole DC.

I was present for the post-Tarchia sabotage, and I was en-route to the Tyger today when I was informed a Gossip had already been deliberately reset.
The devs really do just need to remove the "reset = de-spawn" element to these enemies. It is not functioning as intended - it is not establishing player failure to kill the enemy in time, but is instead providing an exploit by which malicious player(s) can grief and harass everyone present by knowingly preventing them from experiencing this content. Which includes players from the entire data center, as OP and Koishi both have stated.
One player should not be able to negatively impact so many others in this way. Meting out fitting consequence aside, future-proofing this exploit is the better action to pursue.

Although it would also be nice to see someone face consequences for these months of repeat ToS-breaking offenses.

This sounds like a really big oversight on SE's part. Why they would design them this way intentionally is beyond me.

A lot of players have yet to fight Forgiven Rebellion due to this player de-spawning the Gossips, and are missing out on game content, affecting their overall gaming experience, this is an issue that needs to be adresssed asap, and as it stands, we've been dealing with this for months, with something so exploitable there needs to be a change, don't let the adds despawn after someone pulls and purposely dies, let the 5 minute timer it already has run its time,please. Square has changed many things in the past to adjust it for the players, hopefully this is something that they can see,adress and fix! Thank you.

As one of the players who usually signs up to watch the minion spots it is a chore sadly. I already have my mount so I don't mind missing the S rank (even if its my own spawn) to help the others around me but at the same time myself and the other players undertaking this shouldn't have to go to this level of extreme. Banning the offending player(s) is a temporary solution that is fixed with less than 100 USD as they can just boost a new character on a new service account. The best solution is an overhaul of this mechanic to mitigate their malicious intent.

I'm really not sure what kind of stupid excuse the GMs are making to allow these players to get away with this behavior because even though they never vocally make their malicious intent clear, the fact that they generally do this by switching to BLU, camping out at a spawn point then using Self-Destruct (The move has a massive 20 yard radius which removes the need to actually target) to instantly aggro/reset the minions if they aren't immediately tapped by another player makes it extremely obvious regardless. Even if we have people waiting at a spawn point they still manage to succeed regardless sometimes.

There is literally no logical reason for them to be doing this other then to troll people.

And as Meowto mentioned, these players specifically level-skipped alt accounts just to engage in this behavior without any risk to their main accounts, so banning them is unlikely to actually get them to stop.

I feel like both the Forbidden Rebellion minions and the ARR S ranks could use some adjustments because these players live to make hunting in general suck for the entire data center by trying to pick off as many of weaker hunts as possible and being obnoxious at the ShB hunts both by "accidentally" directing the hunt's mechanics towards other players if they manage to keep enmity on them (They've taken to doing this, then abandoning the S rank midway to troll the minions).

Unfortunately it feels as though unless they specifically say they are doing it to grief nothing will be done according to the several GMs I have talked to regarding this group the past few months. As soon as I fail to provide chat log evidence of malicious intent it feels like they can't hang up on me fast enough most of the time.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

This sounds like a really big oversight on SE's part. Why they would design them this way intentionally is beyond me.

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They should just give them the Ovni portal treatment and let them spawn after 3-4min of the S rank dying. That way players would already be at the minions' spawn locations.

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Originally Posted by KoishiKomeiji

IIRC, people have also contacted the GMs about this individual and nothing has been done, even though they are clearly griefing the whole DC.

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Issue with doing something about the individual is, without something to corroborate him doing this thing to intentionally grief people, there's nothing to be done. Is it reasonable that he's griefing? Sure.. but it's bad CR to just start punishing players for what could be them just playing the game.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

Issue with doing something about the individual is, without something to corroborate him doing this thing to intentionally grief people, there's nothing to be done. Is it reasonable that he's griefing? Sure.. but it's bad CR to just start punishing players for what could be them just playing the game.

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I don't think people who are just "playing the game" would be killing themselves on a mob repeatedly for weeks/months on end when it serves no purpose other then to deprive people of rewards and if they were simply unaware of the harm they were causing they should've caught on after having people call them out for it after the first few instances.

There's a point it becomes unreasonable to continue giving someone benefit of the doubt and these guys have gone way past that.

It's just a pity they don't take Discord as evidence as they actually left a threat to one of the Aether DC hunt discords saying they'd continue doing this if we don't let them have their way with the ARR S ranks.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I don't think people who are just "playing the game" would be killing themselves on a mob repeatedly for weeks/months on end when it serves no purpose other then to deprive people of rewards.

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That's why i said that it's reasonable to assume he's griefing, but it's also bad customer relations if they just start handing out punishments because of the way he's playing unless there is some provable malicious intent. So yeah, it should be investigated by a GM, but just handing out punishments isn't the answer.
And, while i don't want to say you're exaggerating, i find it hard to believe that he's been at this for weeks, let alone months.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

That's why i said that it's reasonable to assume he's griefing, but it's also bad customer relations if they just start handing out punishments because of the way he's playing unless there is some provable malicious intent. So yeah, it should be investigated by a GM, but just handing out punishments isn't the answer.
And, while i don't want to say you're exaggerating, i find it hard to believe that he's been at this for weeks, let alone months.

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You'd be amazed at how spiteful/petty some of the people in the hunt community can be.

These guys regularly spent 18+ hours a day just hitting spawn triggers across the DC in a near-constant effort to kill off the S ranks before they can be relayed or just to sow chaos by having multiple hunts spawned at the same time. It's basically a spit of defiance towards the organized hunting the majority of the populace tries to follow and the minion trolling is just the tip of the iceberg. They also know the names of all the people who regularly spawn hunts on each server and are not above stalking me and others if they think we're trying to spawn something.

The two I'm talking about first showed up back before Shadowbringers released and shortly after cross-world was introduced so they clearly just want to cause trouble.

I think this whole mechanic is just really flawed in general, it requires such a team effort yet one guy can ruin the entire thing.
I get it encourages team effort, but why not have it be like the rare fates; just have it be a rare spawn thats so difficult that you have no choice but to have tons of people help out. I think SE has underestimated how many 'no-life' players there are and how far they'll go to make the game less fun for everyone.

Cool idea, but in an mmo this function of spawning just doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

You'd be amazed at how spiteful/petty some of the people in the hunt community can be.

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I mean.. you would be right that. The idea that someone would put so much time and effort into something like this is.. kind of unnerving? I would get bored after the first time and be all "Y'know what.. i'd rather just do something else and complain about them while i do it" than dedicate so much time to griefing people i don't know.

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Originally Posted by MeowTo

...Banning the offending player(s) is a temporary solution that is fixed with less than 100 USD as they can just boost a new character on a new service account...

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I'm not sure if someone is willing to spend 100$ each time they want feel the lulz of despawning a mob in a game.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

I'm not sure if someone is willing to spend 100$ each time they want feel the lulz of despawning a mob in a game.

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The fact that it's possible at all is the issue. And there have been multiple people who have admitted (gloated, even) about doing exactly this, multiple times (outside of the game, however - which means SE typically rejects it as evidence) so the "willingness" element, while a minority, is sufficient to prove that something else needs to be done to address this grief exploit.

Hence, the suggestion that the Forgiven Gossips be updated so as not to despawn upon reset. Maintain the timer they have built in, to keep the urgency and time-sensitive rush. But remove the despawn, since it's primarily been used maliciously by a very small minority to deprive the majority of content.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

I'm not sure if someone is willing to spend 100$ each time they want feel the lulz of despawning a mob in a game.

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People spend more for far less. It's certainly a possibility.

(BUMP) If SE could change the despawning condition for the Forgiven Gossips it could eliminate those players ability to grief the playerbase.

Adds should spawn in their own induvidual FATE. Maybe FATEs with a shorter duration compared to the usual, so people will have a fair chance to find them and kill them. If everyone dies against one of them, then i'll just reset to full health, but it'll still be there. And since it won't last long, then it'll still be a challenge

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Originally Posted by HeavyMetalGod

(BUMP) If SE could change the despawning condition for the Forgiven Gossips it could eliminate those players ability to grief the playerbase.

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This is definitely the direction this thread should take, preventing X player from ruining other peoples experience by changing how the Gossips work, instead of seeking out and punishing said player. They just need to stay the 5 minutes they have on them instead of despawning when aggro is lost on it (regardless if its troll reasons or not)

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Originally Posted by Vain_X

This is definitely the direction this thread should take, preventing X player from ruining other peoples experience by changing how the Gossips work, instead of seeking out and punishing said player. They just need to stay the 5 minutes they have on them instead of despawning when aggro is lost on it (regardless if its troll reasons or not)

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Absolutely. Punishing individual player(s) won’t fix the problem, they will just keep coming back. It’s frustrating to show up to a spawn a minute after it’s called, and it already be at 30%. There has got to be a better way for SE to run the spawn structure, to make sure everyone gets to participate.

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Originally Posted by SirGus

It’s frustrating to show up to a spawn a minute after it’s called, and it already be at 30%. There has got to be a better way for SE to run the spawn structure, to make sure everyone gets to participate.

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I've been a believer of giving all S ranks a universal HP boost. Something more akin to some of the notorious monsters in Eureka. Even when every single player on a Eureka instance is participating, they take a fairly long time to kill.

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Originally Posted by My_Wet_Rooster

I've been a believer of giving all S ranks a universal HP boost. Something more akin to some of the notorious monsters in Eureka. Even when every single player on a Eureka instance is participating, they take a fairly long time to kill.

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An HP boost would go a long way to ensuring the spawner gets credit for the ARR/HW marks but its still only a temporary solution/bandaid option as item levels increase. Though I'm not opposed to the idea until a better one is worked out by the Devs.

The core problem really is just the minions being too easy to despawn as I've seen them instafail from random underleveled players running into them or overzealous hunters engaging them solo then getting instakilled by the petrify.

The timer should be lengthened slightly but minions should only disappear after it actually runs down.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

You'd be amazed at how spiteful/petty some of the people in the hunt community can be.

These guys regularly spent 18+ hours a day just hitting spawn triggers across the DC in a near-constant effort to kill off the S ranks before they can be relayed or just to sow chaos by having multiple hunts spawned at the same time. It's basically a spit of defiance towards the organized hunting the majority of the populace tries to follow and the minion trolling is just the tip of the iceberg. They also know the names of all the people who regularly spawn hunts on each server and are not above stalking me and others if they think we're trying to spawn something.

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Stalking you? Oh, I'm so sorry you feel victimized. I'm sure no one from Squonk/Nunyunuwi stalks anyone on Aether that they don't like/aren't involved in their 'hunt community'. You just admitted to Nunyunuwi/Squonk searching and finding out one of the trolls changed their name and you all actively search and follow him. But yeah, you're victimized. That's a bummer.

So what if they spend 18 hours in-game? None of you ultimate thrillseekers and 'spawners' (campers/leechers) spend 18 hours in game a day?


Who is petty? I'm confused.

Spending 18+ hours for the benefit of others vs. being actively detrimental towards others out of strictly out of spite isn't the same thing. The stalking I'm talking about is also a lot more overt then simply choosing to be in the same zones as troublemakers as these guys have actually shown up uninvited to social gatherings organized by people in the hunt community simply to make them uncomfortable (This particular case was discussed in private but they somehow found out regardless). There are very obviously personal grudges involved here but instead of choosing to resolve things in a more mature manner they're instead lashing out in a way that affects everyone negatively.

They're not killing hunts out of interest in rewards; they just want to deprive people which is evident in how they'll split their efforts across multiple servers/zones to pick off as many things as they can.

But this isn't the place to debate hunt ethics unless you think these people you indirectly associate with are somehow justified with what they've been doing with the Forbidden Rebellion minions.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Spending 18+ hours for the benefit of others vs. being actively detrimental towards others out of strictly out of spite isn't the same thing. The stalking I'm talking about is also a lot more overt then simply choosing to be in the same zones as troublemakers as these guys have actually shown up uninvited to social gatherings organized by people in the hunt community simply to make them uncomfortable (This particular case was discussed in private but they somehow found out regardless). There are very obviously personal grudges involved here but instead of choosing to resolve things in a more mature manner they're instead lashing out in a way that affects everyone negatively.

But this isn't the place to debate hunt ethics unless you think these people you indirectly associate with are somehow justified with what they've been doing with the Forbidden Rebellion minions.

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Regarding the FORGIVEN Rebellion minions, what this thread has lacked and refused to acknowledge is the back up counter-measure to the minions SE has in place. You all want to complain about the despawns, but if you all stick around after one despawns, you can still kill the remaining minions. Once the total minion count reaches 4 across multiple spawns, FORGIVEN Rebellion will spawn. That's why it's not ToS breaking. That's why it's not griefing. SE expects minions to despawn, therefore they have that fail safe mechanic measure in place. The problem is, none of you stick around. None of you finish the task at hand if a minion despawns. You all give up, and leave. And if you want to get technical, a lot of times when a minion gets despawned, another one is already engaged, and a lot of times also gets despawned because you all give up and quit. That in itself, in your book, is griefing and should be against ToS, because you are despawning minions yourself and they do not count towards the 4 count minion total to spawn FORGIVEN Rebellion.

From my understanding, it was a public hunt community gathering that was posted in the Discord that has 300 members. Pretty easy to see how it was leaked.

You talk about how this isn't the place to talk and debate about hunt ethics, yet here you are talking about hunt ethics and how you stalk and follow these trolls around. Say what you want, but to play and pretend to be a victim, when you and your hunt community is literally just as bad, is laughable.

The two people that are talked about in this thread in regards to the despawns, do you know what they do? they spawn s ranks, unlike most people in here who camp aetherytes. They call out their spawns. And they mark their kills. Can't say the same about the hunt community abroad lately. they refuse to mark kills, keep their own private trackers, chastise the casuals who mark hunts publicly, and they're holding their s rank callouts. Y'all ain't a hunt community. You're a community only concerned about stopping 2 or 3 trolls.

While it is good to know there's a "failsafe" of sorts, it can still potentially take multiple ShB spawn waves before another set of minions to spawn a FR shows up, plus you're effectively losing spawns over an extended period of time if people are repeatedly despawning the minions and making you only get one FR per two minion waves as opposed with every single one. it's evidently not common knowledge as I literally never saw it mentioned anywhere outside of now, though I did witness a FR popping after less then four minion kills on one occasion. Plus most people are not going to want to kill the remaining minions just for a chance at spawning a FR they not even be present for.

The trolling behavior is still not something to be excused if resetting S ranks or making them kill players on purpose is considered punishable, because when a clear pattern is established with those two problems, punishment is delivered. This, on the other hand, is not being punished despite a very obvious pattern that's strictly harmful to others.

What an absolutely rubbish system for getting rare monsters to spawn, when a single person can intentionally ruin it for hundreds of other players. Honestly it amazes me that they have yet to fix this after half a year.

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Originally Posted by TheGrimace

What an absolutely rubbish system for getting rare monsters to spawn, when a single person can intentionally ruin it for hundreds of other players. Honestly it amazes me that they have yet to fix this after half a year.

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Yes but you'll always get those in the community defending the behavior. I've started to become actively involved in A rank hunt trains and I will say the discords for these are wonderful. Those who actively locate and organize hunts for the community are commendable.

Hopefully this gets to the attention of the right people who can fix it so it isn't a troll able event relative to the super S ranks.

Hmmmm, having read through all the posts, clearly there is more going on here than was immediately apparent. Of course there are always two sides to a story so I am going to try not to leap to any hasty conclusions. If the players who appear to be 'griefing' have a genuine grievance then the hunt community needs to address that rather than presenting one-sided accusations on the OF. But said players also need to stop with petty machinations that affect the entire data centre. It does sound like you are all as bad as each other.

Also sounds like SE already have something in place to counteract the mobs despawning. Arguing that you're not going to kill them because there isn't enough and you might not be around to fight the boss when he does spawn is kind of petty and selfish in and of itself, don't you think?

I'm not part of the hunt community, I have done less than 10 since the entire thing started so I have no commitment to either side. I do have a commitment to ending toxic behaviour from anyone; I have seen MMO communities slowly degenerate over the years until this kind of tit for tat behaviour is the norm. It makes me sad. It's also the reason I avoid most group content now except with my friends

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Originally Posted by Elladie

Hmmmm, having read through all the posts, clearly there is more going on here than was immediately apparent. Of course there are always two sides to a story so I am going to try not to leap to any hasty conclusions. If the players who appear to be 'griefing' have a genuine grievance then the hunt community needs to address that rather than presenting one-sided accusations on the OF. But said players also need to stop with petty machinations that affect the entire data centre. It does sound like you are all as bad as each other.

Also sounds like SE already have something in place to counteract the mobs despawning. Arguing that you're not going to kill them because there isn't enough and you might not be around to fight the boss when he does spawn is kind of petty and selfish in and of itself, don't you think?

I'm not part of the hunt community, I have done less than 10 since the entire thing started so I have no commitment to either side. I do have a commitment to ending toxic behaviour from anyone; I have seen MMO communities slowly degenerate over the years until this kind of tit for tat behaviour is the norm. It makes me sad. It's also the reason I avoid most group content now except with my friends

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It is very difficult to get people interested in spawning hunts. I used to try but I was lucky to get even one person to show up to help with even a simple task like hitting a node once for Croque Mitaine, so them lacking interest in killing minions isn't surprising.

It's really something of a Little Red Hen situation where most people want the rewards minus the effort of searching/spawning hunts (Or heck, even killing them as some people will just tap an A/S rank then go AFK in a corner while their party kills it for them), and that also makes it understandable as to why some people are disinclined to share S ranks with others. The way I see it is that since it takes a while to bring down S rank hunts there's little reason to not wait a few minutes and invite other people over so they can reap some rewards too (Unless they're being actively detrimental as the AFKers at A/S ranks can be as they've reset the hunts on several occasions).

And no, we are not all "bad as each other", unless you think trying to share A/S ranks with as many people as possible is somehow a bad thing compared to deliberately working to deprive people of hunts. There are two parties with divided philosophies, but the latter are a small, yet impactful minority (As the Aether DC minion despawner can prove). I have no beef with people deciding to kill A/S ranks by themselves or with a couple friends if they genuinely just want the rewards from it, but most of the bad apples have made it clear that they just dislike the more charitable hunters and want to inconvenience them and make them look bad more then anything else.

The bottom line is that there's still absolutely no justification for intentionally despawning the minions failsafe or otherwise.

I didn't know a failsafe even existed for these at all until now. Seems like a better failsafe would still just be... not having them despawn like they do??

Actually what happens if it does take four to trigger across more than one spawn? If you kill three and then the fourth is from a different cycle? Do the extra three stay up while the SS spawns? Or do they just despawn then? I don't see anything on any of the wikis or a couple quick Reddit threads about it at all, but might've missed it somewhere.

Either way, that still seems like a crappier "failsafe" than just not having them despawn on reset. The spawns seem uncommon enough without adding yet another layer of player exploitable silliness on top.

It really doesn't matter if leftover minions can spawn Forgiven Rebellion in a future instance, consistently despawning a single minion still effectively prevents at least half as many Forgiven Rebellions from spawning in an absolute-best-case scenario.

at the end of the day hunts are and should always be considered a community event and should be shared with all who can attend. intentionally griefing players for your own enjoyment shouldnt be tollerated by SE, the quickest and most beneficial way to correct the minions despawning is to turn them into fates (like odin fate)

I would really he carefull here I'm not sure of the whole context, if they are coming out saying they are intentionally ruining or trying to not spawn the SS rank that would be really bad but some people are just ignorant and don't know, look at the diadem special mission back in heavenward. There was alot of people accusing of messing up back then but alot of it was just a lack of knowledge. Hopefully the SS spawns for you to enjoy it :)

It would be easier to just allow them to reset like a normal mob until their timer runs down at which point they can either despawn on the spot or despawn if they reset.

I think they actually mentioned that making hunts into FATEs would be difficult due to technical reasons. I think they could realistically have a simpler alternative like giving hunts an debuff aura that lowers the player's damage output based on how much they exceed the hunt's level by or some such or even just a defense buff that scales based on how many players are present to discourage low-manning weaker hunts. If they're going to continue giving out rewards proportional to group content I don't see any issue with them taking time to kill even as the gear levels continue to bloat.

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Originally Posted by Darty123

I would really he carefull here I'm not sure of the whole context, if they are coming out saying they are intentionally ruining or trying to not spawn the SS rank that would be really bad but some people are just ignorant and don't know, look at the diadem special mission back in heavenward. There was alot of people accusing of messing up back then but alot of it was just a lack of knowledge. Hopefully the SS spawns for you to enjoy it :)

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The same few people have done this several times and they specifically wait at the spawn point for one of the minions in advance on BLU so they can immediately despawn it by killing themselves with Self-Destruct. They are also well-aware of the spawn conditions for every other hunt.

It's way too deliberate and recurrent to be a happy little accident.

Regardless of the intent of the individual(s), it does sound like the mechanics need to be changed. I am interested in hunts but don't have the confidence to commit to groups: I join in when I see one in the area I am in, or I hang around nearby to watch (sometimes on a job that's way too low, because why does it matter if I'm not engaging?). This mechanic means that I could, unwittingly, be in the wrong spot and thus ruin a whole bushel of people's efforts. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. This, as well as unfairly punishing hunters for something outwith their control, discourages players who may be curious but not yet ready to commit from checking out what all the yelling is about. Furthermore, making the spawns trollable like this also means hunt communities are encouraged to 'go dark' (can't get into a LS/Discord without being heavily vetted and vouched for, no more announcements in zone or in public groups, etc.), which makes it even harder for newer players to get involved. And obviously now us casual/spectator types should be scared to just pop along and see what's up for fear of accidentally ruining a spawn and getting blacklisted as a suspected troll.

So yeah, if not for the sake of the hunt community, then for the sake of the newbies who may one day want to join in on hunts, the mechanics should be changed to prevent one person despawning stuff (intentionally or not). Seems like the current system is just 'everyone loses'.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Plus most people are not going to want to kill the remaining minions just for a chance at spawning a FR they not even be present for.

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What happened to doing things for the benefit of others? Are you in such a hurry to benefit others elsewhere that you can't spend a couple of minutes killing the minions? I haven't ever even seen them but from what I gathered from this thread they shouldn't take all that long to kill. Abandoning them mid-fight because you can't be 100% sure you get the benefit sounds kinda selfish to be honest.