Updates to the Prohibited Activities in FINAL FANTASY XIV and Account Penalty Policy

[Sotaris]

In order to ensure players can continue to safely enjoy their time in FINAL FANTASY XIV, we have made changes to the “Prohibited Activities,” as well as the related “Account Penalty Policy.”

A notable update is to listing of selling runs on PF, both good and bad.
Since this will cover people who just want to help people but I can't say how common that is since I rarely seen it myself on my DC.

Advertising offers to help clear content, to help earn loot, etc. via the Party Finder

It is prohibited to advertise using the Party Finder to offer help to clear duties or obtain items (to help people clear raid content or obtain items by having them join your party). A penalty will be issued if the act has been confirmed.

This prohibits the act of advertising such support and does not prohibit those asking for help themselves through the use of the Party Finder.

It is not a violation to ask for help or to offer a reward when asking for help, as in the following examples that do not violate our policy. However, in the examples that do violate the policy, the person offering help is advertising their services, which is prohibited.

Examples of violations:
- Selling [duty] clear for 1 million gil.
- Selling [duty] clear and/or offering the associated rewards from [content]. Join for more info/details.

Examples of non-violation:
- I'm new, can anyone help me clear [duty]?
- Help me clear [duty] and I'll pay you 1 million gil!
- I'd like to get some items from [duty]. will pay 1 million gil if I can get it.

Please note that Square Enix may conduct investigations and issue a penalty at its discretion even if a report has not been filed.

Another big update is the decay of penalty points, can't say if this would apply to forum as well but It's a good change, even if the latter decay period seem steep to me on paper.

Since penalties would lose their significance if they were erased after a short period, Penalty Points accrued from penalties of the lowest severity (a Caution) will not start decaying until at least one year has passed. Those involving a “temporary service account suspension,” or more severe, will not start decaying until a minimum of a three to six-year period has passed. We believe users who manage to maintain good in-game behavior during this period will not suddenly forget their long-term commitment even if the reduction system completely erases their accrued Penalty Points.

Source: https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4cd8bf2d843d88

You can still help people. This just establishes a rule that you can't sell clears anymore. I'm glad they finally cracked down on the ERP and RMT savage sellers.

I like to think so, I can't say for 100% since that type of example wasn't mentioned. Time will tell if that sort of thing would get enforced.

[Katie_Kitty]

It's about time. Good riddance to any "clear selling" ad in PF.

The point reduction over time thing is a very nice change as well! Good job, square-enix!

[Lufir]

You can still help people. This just establishes a rule that you can't sell clears anymore. I'm glad they finally cracked down on the ERP and RMT savage sellers.

[Katie_Kitty]

Okay so I took a look at the actual new rules. There is some good and some bad. But I'm very concerned with the "Nuisance behavior" section.

Here are a few examples of things that are called out as prohibited:


Statements such as "you're bad at [something]," or "you're not getting [something] at all"
blaming and attacking others, such as "It's [player name]'s fault that we wiped" or "You really make a lot of mistakes,"
"your glamour is terrible, you should quit the game," or "the way you talk disgusts me."
Statements such as "people like you will never get better"
it is prohibited to make statements such as "why aren't you doing [specific thing]? Everyone knows that's how you do this!"
"There is nothing wrong with providing suggestions that the player community typically follows, but this can only be presented in the form of a "suggestion" and cannot be in the form of a demand"
Statements such as "how can you screw up on something so simple that no one else messes up?" are prohibited.
Statements such as "you're bad at [something]," or "you're not getting [something] at all" are prohibited



Player A: B, you're doing this part wrong.
Player B: I understand, I'll try harder.
Player A: You understand the mechanics? Want me to teach you?
Player B: I do understand, I'm OK. Thank you.
Player A: You sure you understand? You keep on screwing up. You should do [something] on [something].
Player B: I understand, I'm sorry.
Player A: You sure? If you don't know let me know, ok? B, you're screwing up so many times, you're really dragging this out for us.
Player B: I'm sorry.

This is apparently a reportable offense by Player A.

[RobynDaBank]

snipping

Wait, so if I'm understanding this correctly... Player A can report B? Just reading that conversation made me super uneasy - like, I'd hate to be B in this circumstance. If A can on top of this report B then... whew. I get that A is trying to "help" in their own way, but if pressured so repeatedly or put on the spot like that, I'd only mess up more and feel just awful.

If it's the other way around and B can report A successfully, that's a different issue. I wouldn't go so far as to report, but if this dialogue occurred within the same moment it would be discomforting for sure. It's not just about the mentions of "you're doing this incorrectly" and such, it's the constant advances for help that put me off. As a super shy person IRL I'd rather be kicked from a group than have to go through that. :T

[Katie_Kitty]

Wait, so if I'm understanding this correctly... Player A can report B? Just reading that conversation made me super uneasy - like, I'd hate to be B in this circumstance. If A can on top of this report B then... whew. I get that A is trying to "help" in their own way, but if pressured so repeatedly or put on the spot like that, I'd only mess up more and feel just awful.

If it's the other way around and B can report A successfully, that's a different issue. I wouldn't go so far as to report, but if this dialogue occurred within the same moment it would be discomforting for sure. It's not just about the mentions of "you're doing this incorrectly" and such, it's the constant advances for help that put me off. As a super shy person IRL I'd rather be kicked from a group than have to go through that. :T

No, it's player A who can be reported by player B.

I mean, Player A is literally just trying to help Player B. If Player B is clearly messing up repeatedly, then they need to be corrected. I consider this a very bad thing, Player A did nothing wrong here. Sometimes you do need to point out the problem in order to fix it.

[Larirawiel]

Wait, so if I'm understanding this correctly... Player A can report B?

You can report everyone for everything. The question is whether the GMs do something or not.

Cheers

[CKNovel]

Statements such as "you're bad at [something]," or "you're not getting [something] at all"
blaming and attacking others, such as "It's [player name]'s fault that we wiped" or "You really make a lot of mistakes,"
"your glamour is terrible, you should quit the game," or "the way you talk disgusts me."
Statements such as "people like you will never get better"
it is prohibited to make statements such as "why aren't you doing [specific thing]? Everyone knows that's how you do this!"
"There is nothing wrong with providing suggestions that the player community typically follows, but this can only be presented in the form of a "suggestion" and cannot be in the form of a demand"
Statements such as "how can you screw up on something so simple that no one else messes up?" are prohibited.
Statements such as "you're bad at [something]," or "you're not getting [something] at all" are prohibited.

Ramuh EX in mentor roulette are just going to be even more instant leave.
I like the other changes but this one is just preventing me to call out mistakes.

In the past I would've been warned for this behavior so many times.

Another example is someone is Ninja pulling.
You can't even say to them "Ninja pulling is wrong, please X stop doing that, we need to communicate." ?

[Katie_Kitty]

Ramuh EX in mentor roulette are just going to be even more instant leave.
I like the other changes but this one is just preventing me to call out mistakes.

In the past I would've been warned for this behavior so many times.

Another example is someone is Ninja pulling.
You can't even say to them "Ninja pulling is wrong, please X stop doing that, we need to communicate." ?

It's very troubling. I'm not sure how experienced players are supposed to be able to effectively correct weak links in a party when they are not allowed to communicate the problem with the person in question, and when they can get in trouble for attempting to do so. Ramuh EX is a great example. It's a bad thing to say "Tank, you need to get lightning orbs or else the boss will simply kill you again"?

[MilkieTea]

Wait, so if I'm understanding this correctly... Player A can report B? Just reading that conversation made me super uneasy - like, I'd hate to be B in this circumstance. If A can on top of this report B then... whew. I get that A is trying to "help" in their own way, but if pressured so repeatedly or put on the spot like that, I'd only mess up more and feel just awful.

If it's the other way around and B can report A successfully, that's a different issue. I wouldn't go so far as to report, but if this dialogue occurred within the same moment it would be discomforting for sure. It's not just about the mentions of "you're doing this incorrectly" and such, it's the constant advances for help that put me off. As a super shy person IRL I'd rather be kicked from a group than have to go through that. :T

If player B can report player A it makes more sense. Not only are the advances unwarranted, they're making B feel bad and saying they're "screwing it up." In this situation even if player B keeps making mistakes, you don't call it "screwing up." You don't call out the player. Just say "Alright everyone, remember to -blank- on -blank- this time." It doesn't matter if you're trying to help, you're going to make things worse by constantly focusing on the negatives that player B is doing.