Can we discuss how abusive the GM department is when it comes to 'Grief Tactics'? A

[JunseiKei]

Nope, there isn't. They don't ask about it. They just slide it under the rug as "Difference in Playstyle". Absolutely no consequences unless they were abusive before kicking you. I got kicked once for explaining that we lost the limit break pulling a boss and that was why I said to use it before pull. Reported, got treat as "Difference in playstyle" and that the GMs couldn't do anything about it.

I actually feel sorry for you, then (as well as anyone else that gets that response back), as I've had a much better experience with GMs and not had a kick that resulted in my time being lost simply sit at "difference in play-style" and that was that. It's happened about three times only, I've never had a GM say that, only they are going to investigate after asking me a few questions, but cannot say what will happen at the end of their investigation. None of the times were these other players abusive towards me, either, just a random kick after going part-way or right up 'til the final boss and then receiving a kick (though every single one of those I reported, I told the GM I noticed looking up the players on lodestone that they were all in the same FC).

Not saying something was done, either, as I'd have no way to know, only that I've yet to encounter a GM that did not 1) ask me a bunch of questions for what I was reporting and 2) say they would conduct an investigation. Even though I've only had three encounters with wrongful removal, I've had other reasons to contact GMs in game.

[kikix12]

(...)just a random kick after going part-way or right up 'til the final boss and then receiving a kick (though every single one of those I reported, I told the GM I noticed looking up the players on lodestone that they were all in the same FC).

Going partway, and even more, going to the final boss and kicking, simply cannot fall under the "difference in playstyle" unless there WAS interaction before it. If a player played so differently that they would be kicked, why go with them through most of the dungeon and kick them only before the final boss?! That is clearly done maliciously. By the time the first boss dies, a player should know what to expect from another and it's the latest I'd consider it reasonable for a muted "gameplay difference" kick.


As for the hunts, there are many facets to the issue.

First, a player may have no chance of getting credit (sorry, 1 tomestone is not really a "reward") if there will be a lot of people gathering. That's several minutes wasted waiting, possibly two or three wasted killing the thing.

Second, the player may not even know about anything like that. I can tell you that I absolutely do not know the difference between A and S rank. If I see a mob, I can tell that it's a hunt higher than B...and that's about all. I don't even really know exactly how they are spawned or the mechanics of spawning (timers and what not). I just know that it happens and I suspect that it have something to do with clearing FATES. There may be players that know even less. To them, if someone ups and resets the mob they pulled then just stand there, it really LOOKS like being jerks. Especially since I can see a flood of abuse towards them for the early pull to follow.

Third, you do not "spawn the S rank" and you do not "have it". You may put forth effort into doing whatever it is that spawns them...but so may have others done, unknowingly. Especially if it is FATE dependent. Someone may do most of the work, then you come and "finish it"...and why are you supposed to be the "boss of the spawn"?! If that player that did unknowingly most of the job is solo and won't have party, he may not get credit if people will pop up and mob the hunt down, he may not even get anything from doing most of the work, even if he could actually solo it otherwise. You are barring him from doing that.

Fourth...in a way, by force-spawning hunts which seem to have time limits, you are actually preventing many people from ever doing them. There are those that can only play two, three hours a day. And it may so happen that the spawn will always be outside of those windows if done "at first opportunity". So if your method of force-spawning them at your convenience prevents players from enjoying the hunts altogether...what gives you the right to get on your high horse in the first place?!

(Whoa...yeah. Just checked the spawn methods. Most are actually rather easy and may happen simply over the course of the game from people randomly doing their jobs, others are more obscure. But the timers can very much prevent some people from ever seeing any spawn with the forced spawning.)

[KageTokage]

The hunt timers are indeed a huge obstacle to a lot of people interested in the tiger, because living a normal life by having a job and not being at your PC every hour of the day almost ensures you're going to end up missing a ton of them, though that understandably makes some people all the more sour if something gets melted while they were enroute to it.

The "scheduled" ones like Croakadile/Mindflayer and Laideronette are the most convenient since you can actually plan around their spawn times, yet despite the interest numerous people have in killing them, I almost never see anyone outside of my hunting linkshell in zone before we locate/call them, so it's hard for me to have pity for people who miss those due to "early" pullers.

[alimdia]

Keeping hunts a secret and doing them with your own party solo is pretty much how the developers intended for hunts to be done from the beginning, so have fun! It might even inspire the community to go hunt more on their own. But resetting a mob someone has pulled in general, not just with hunts falls under griefing, so I doubt they're going to make an exception purely for hunts.

And if they did, how would it even be administered? No matter how long you wait, it's always going to be an "early pull" for someone. Does the guy who was super late get to report for early pulling because he took 4 minutes to get there when everyone else took 1? Does every S rank that spawns need to have a GM present who'll declare when enough "time" has passed for people to pull? You'll find yourself a lot happier if you simply say "ehh, I missed this one, I'll just be quicker next time." it's what I do and I don't have a fiber of salt in my being towards hunts.

I just want to say that whatever the devs intended doesn't have to be written in stone. I mean, look at Eureka. They intended us to play a certain way with the first map, and because we decided to play a different way they neutered the way we chose to play in the second map just to try to force their view of how it should be played. I think devs should be open to change how content is played if the entire community is doing it in a different way.

A forced stat scaling or level sync is very long overdue.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I just want to say that whatever the devs intended doesn't have to be written in stone. I mean, look at Eureka. They intended us to play a certain way with the first map, and because we decided to play a different way they neutered the way we chose to play in the second map just to try to force their view of how it should be played. I think devs should be open to change how content is played if the entire community is doing it in a different way.

A forced stat scaling or level sync is very long overdue.

so.. make them fates? BUT WAIT, PEOPLE HATE FATES!

[alimdia]

Well, people like Ixion and Odin...

[KageTokage]

I was thinking they could make the S ranks hidden FATEs, but I realized that would cause a ton of them potentially overlap their radius with normal FATEs (Which to my knowledge, never happens with Odin/Ixion/Coeurlregina due to them being located specifically in spots that aren't near other FATEs).

They'd need to code them as something distinct for that idea to work.

[Nich2710]

What if the pull is accidental? Mistakes happens... I should know. Messed up an s rank with a miss click..

[Enla]

What if the pull is accidental? Mistakes happens... I should know. Messed up an s rank with a miss click..

Most of the people who pre-pull S ranks have a known history of doing so. There's several bad actors across the NA servers in particular who do it so regularly that they're names are fairly well known.

[Nich2710]

For real? And here I was worried about a single mistake... how do people deal with these goons?