Selling Ultimate Weapon Ultima Is Apparently Not Against the ToS

[Rogatum]

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

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

[Vhailor]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Hasrat]

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

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

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

[Kurando]

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

[DDkiki]

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

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

[Gizensha]

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

[Kurando]

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

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

[DDkiki]

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

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

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

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

[Kurando]

snip .

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

[Alleo]

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

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

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

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

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