100M GIL taken

[KokonoeAiyoko]

Look, I really don't care if your opinion is that working as intended is flawed. That is not this topic. The OP comment many pages back were they gave some rando higher rank to execute actions. If he was a competent leader, he could of realized he could of gave them a lower rank with that permission. Guess what? If he did that we wouldn't be here right now. I also stand by my opinion of that guy being an SJW. "Waaaaah everything has got to be fair in this world". Look it up.

It is the topic, maybe you're going a little too off topic? Obviously this is a wide spread issue and not merely just because someone makes a mistake. Like, the fact that you can make a mistake of this magnitude in this game and people can get away with it is very flawed and something needs to be changed. There is nothing as damaging as this in this game outside of this function.

Even if you accidentally sell a valuable item you can't obtain again for who knows what reason, there is a buyback function in case you make that mistake. If tons of people are making this mistake, you design around it. That's what needs to be done, and I've never seen a guild system in any of the tons of MMO's I've played that allows you to promote yourself higher than what you are. When that is fixed, you will see that people will stop complaining about this. That is and will remain to be the issue until this happens.

[ToasterMan]

You are so wrong it makes me cry. Everything you are spewing reeks of holier than thou self righteousness. If the FC ranking system is working as intended it should be changed. In no world should someone be able to promote themselves above their assigned rank. Last I checked there was no tooltip in game explaining this can happen, so the OP is at no fault whatsoever if they didn't know this could happen.

Just wanted to quickly add, if this was real life, you could expect a lawsuit. SE is lucky this is their virtual environment.

[Beckett]

Just wanted to quickly add, if this was real life, you could expect a lawsuit. SE is lucky this is their virtual environment.

100% false. Everything in the current system is left in the hands of the players, and the players are responsible for how they use that system. The only way SE could be held liable for any of this would be if their employees took a direct hand in any of it, which is very clearly something they are trying to avoid.

[Nyerieri]

Don't understand why every reply after mine is "we're going to take the side road and not discuss the original OPs comment. It is 100% his mistake for promoting someone that high when that permission (or any, really) can be given to any rank. There is no way of defending that truth, try as you may though. If you really do not know how FC's work, you should, you know, maybe read google or these forums on how to set permissions after all, this is only the 100th topic on this issue.

If you wan't to talk about promotion/demotion should get fixed, this is not the topic for that. Make one under housing and maybe you will get a response from SE. I personally agree it should be fixed, but this is not the topic for that.

[Valenth]

Guys, you're starting to argue points besides the point.

It would have been handy if it mentioned up-front that the promotion/demotion priviledge actually allows someone to promote/demote someone else to any (<= keyword) rank besides 'owner' within a Free Company. I only found out and adjusted accordingly a little while ago thanks to this thread. I was assuming the 3rd ranking rank in my FC wouldn't be able to promote someone to the 2nd ranking one that has actual access rights to the FC gil, rare mats tab and major house decorating/demolishing. Judging by the many responses in this thread most people seem to think this is indeed a weird, unorthodox and unexpected system regardless if it's intended or what not. It clearly deviates from the common expectations of how ranks in guilds work while not explicitely mentioning so in the actual game. A post by a dev answering a question about it in a live letter or on the forums is not enough safe-guard against this. Especially not if you consider the immediate repurcussions it can have. This information should definitely not be located anywhere else but directly in the game, maybe in the form of a tooltip, itself. Heck, the different layers are even called 'ranks' in-game suggesting some form of hierarchy of importance and responsibility within a FC only adding to the suggestion.

I think we can all agree, regardless of who's to blame in the OP's case (the thread shifted away from that anyhow), this system needs AT LEAST some clear prompt or indication in-game about what exactly the promotion/demotion priviledge does before you assign it. I would rather they just make it impossible all together to promote someone above one's own rank or demote someone above one's own to below. However, if FFXIV's devs are truly adamant about keeping the *ahum* feature, then the least they can do is provide ample warning directly, not behind google or forum searches (or make it optional). In green/red/allcoloursofthefrigginrainbow. With comfirmation window. Asking *10 if you're really sure Yoko Taro style. And then wait 10 days before taking affect. Etc, etc, etc... you get the idea...

Edit (to stay a bit on-topic more): Could the OP have looked up the information? Probably. Can we expect him to not have in a world where similar systems in other MMOs with the workings most of us expect is so incredibly abundant? Definitely! Don't be a douche guys, the OP deserves sympathy. He made a small but very understandable misstep that had giant repurcussions for his gaming experience, all while the chocoboherder who did this to him is still out there. Shall we maybe focus a bit less on bashing the OP nor argue for principle/argument/symantic's sake? As I mentioned a while ago in the thread I'm sorry for what happened to you OP. I really hope things will land on their feet. And for what it's worth, you may have prevented a similar thing from happening in my FC for which I'm very grateful.

[Solarra]

Don't understand why every reply after mine is "we're going to take the side road and not discuss the original OPs comment. It is 100% his mistake for promoting someone that high when that permission (or any, really) can be given to any rank. There is no way of defending that truth, try as you may though. If you really do not know how FC's work, you should, you know, maybe read google or these forums on how to set permissions after all, this is only the 100th topic on this issue.

If you want to talk about promotion/demotion should get fixed, this is not the topic for that. Make one under housing and maybe you will get a response from SE. I personally agree it should be fixed, but this is not the topic for that.

I think the discussion simply moved on a bit. I'm sure most people posting in this thread realised the OP was in error, OP included.
We do understand that this feature is working as intended and we are not trying to claim it's a bug or that promoting above your own rank is breaking any rules. Having discussed what happened and why, it seemed natural to also point out that this feature no longer has any practical use (since leadership now auto-transfers) and in light of the damage it has caused, that we'd like Square to review it.

As to making a new thread in Housing, (or should it be Companies?) perhaps you are right, but I don't think it would get very much attention. The other boards get far less traffic than this one. Also, do we really need another thread going over basically the same arguments? So often, discussions get spread across several almost identical threads and then die.

[joshdavis271]

The point here is FIX the dang Promotion and Demotion! No one should be able to promote people on or above their rank, and under no circumstances you shopuld not be able to promote yourself. SE please fix this problem so dumb threads like this quit cropping up!

[LineageRazor]

I think the major misunderstanding when it comes to FC ranks is this:

THERE IS NO HEIRARCHY.

All ranks are equal. Giving one more permissions than others does not make it a "higher" rank. The order that ranks appear in in your list does not indicate higher or lower, either. This is the mistake that folks make when they set their FC permissions, and I don't know how clear the game makes this fact.

The ranking system is built for extreme flexibility. If you want, you can create a specific rank that can plant and harvest, but can't adjust furnishings, and call it "Gardener". You can create a rank that does nothing but let a player mess with furnishings and call it "Interior Decorator". You can make a "Treasurer" rank who can handle the FC gil, but can't touch the garden or adjust furnishings. Whatever crazy ranks you want to implement, the sky's the limit! Once you understand that, the fact that there's no hierarchy becomes a bit clearer. After all, which would be considered "higher rank"? Gardener, Decorator, or Treasurer? They're all just jobs.

Most players, though, intuitively implement a ranking system that gives more permissions to higher-ranked individuals, rather than create niche ranks for different activities. After creating this tiered ranking system, they assume that the "Promote" command will only allow promotion up to a specific rank - but the problem is that there is no "up". Promote allows you to assign any rank to any individual, because all ranks are at the same level, regardless of the permissions they grant.

Is there a way to fix this? Honestly, the best way would be to implement what folks are asking for: enforce the ranking hierarchy that is implied. Almost none of the "freedom" is lost by this; all you need to do is make sure that the ranks you choose to have the "Promote" ability are in the top slots of the hierarchy. Since Promotion is the ONLY ability that cares about hierarchy at all, you're then completely free to craft whatever odd rank types you like, in any order that you like, below the ranks that have Promotion. I don't know how easy this is for devs to implement, however, or whether they even care. For now, the best we can do is try to keep folks informed, make sure that they understand how powerful the Promote command is.

[ToasterMan]

100% false. Everything in the current system is left in the hands of the players, and the players are responsible for how they use that system. The only way SE could be held liable for any of this would be if their employees took a direct hand in any of it, which is very clearly something they are trying to avoid.

They did have a hand in it. They designed it that way.

I dont know if the person sueing would win or not. That depends on the laywer. I'm just saying I know someone would attempt to sue for property lost due to faulty design

[Nyerieri]

I think the major misunderstanding when it comes to FC ranks is this:

THERE IS NO HEIRARCHY.

All ranks are equal. Giving one more permissions than others does not make it a "higher" rank. The order that ranks appear in in your list does not indicate higher or lower, either. This is the mistake that folks make when they set their FC permissions, and I don't know how clear the game makes this fact.

The ranking system is built for extreme flexibility. If you want, you can create a specific rank that can plant and harvest, but can't adjust furnishings, and call it "Gardener". You can create a rank that does nothing but let a player mess with furnishings and call it "Interior Decorator". You can make a "Treasurer" rank who can handle the FC gil, but can't touch the garden or adjust furnishings. Whatever crazy ranks you want to implement, the sky's the limit! Once you understand that, the fact that there's no hierarchy becomes a bit clearer. After all, which would be considered "higher rank"? Gardener, Decorator, or Treasurer? They're all just jobs.

Most players, though, intuitively implement a ranking system that gives more permissions to higher-ranked individuals, rather than create niche ranks for different activities. After creating this tiered ranking system, they assume that the "Promote" command will only allow promotion up to a specific rank - but the problem is that there is no "up". Promote allows you to assign any rank to any individual, because all ranks are at the same level, regardless of the permissions they grant.

Is there a way to fix this? Honestly, the best way would be to implement what folks are asking for: enforce the ranking hierarchy that is implied. Almost none of the "freedom" is lost by this; all you need to do is make sure that the ranks you choose to have the "Promote" ability are in the top slots of the hierarchy. Since Promotion is the ONLY ability that cares about hierarchy at all, you're then completely free to craft whatever odd rank types you like, in any order that you like, below the ranks that have Promotion. I don't know how easy this is for devs to implement, however, or whether they even care. For now, the best we can do is try to keep folks informed, make sure that they understand how powerful the Promote command is.

I hope your post actually helps the majority on this thread actually understand what I've been saying this entire time, but with a lot less words. I sincerely mean it is the best response to this topic to date!