SE, Please fix this FC exploit

[Souljacker]

SE has historically been REALLY bad with hierarchy. XI's linkshell design was the worst - only one leader and if he disappeared, you'd have to recreate the shell.

I had noticed that I have the ability to demote my boss in the FC - yea this is a TERRIBLE design. I thought when SE copied the guild format from other games they would actually copy it in a way that made sense. Not so much. This is something that needs to be PRIORITIZED.

[Mcshiggs]

They have said the reasons they have this kind of stuff is to protect the FC if the leaders all quit without putting someone else in charge, but it never occurred to them that people would abuse it. This is pretty much BS, because if you look at many of the limitations they put in for RMTs, it's clear they don't just trust the playerbase. This was something they simply overlooked and goes to show how rushed and half assed put together this game was, and so far they either don't know how to get around their own programming to fix it, or it just isn't a big enough priority for them.

[Avarghaladion]

Wasn't aware of this... got hit by it recently.. SE doesn't seem to care or won't do anything about it. GMs are left powerless, and devs don't even seem to want to acknowledge it. These are the offered solutions:

a) Hope 35 days pass without the person logging in.
b) Hope they don't steal/sell everything.
c) Hope they give control of your FC, house, and chest back... worth potentially hundreds of millions of gil.

If someone were to do the stuff from b) SE won't do a damn thing to them. According to GMs, they have no power to change what the development team views as "FC politics."

[Avarghaladion]

Sorry for the double post. 1000 characters is pretty slim.

Until this gets fixed, I'd suggest the only rank able to promote needs to be the one right after Master.

I'd advise against this. This is exactly how my company got in the predicament we're in now. I kept promotion priviliges to rank 1 to totally prevent all possible abuse and then got caught by the rank swap bug ^.

The only way to be safe is to make a mule or two, set them to rank 2/3, and give them promotion priviliges. Handle ALL promotions via the mules, or at least through a trusted officer. Never ever ever let rank 1 promote/demote people as there's just no way to be sure you won't wind up bugging them to lead of the FC.

[Traek]

However, even with that said, we understand the request for adjustments and the team will be looking carefully into how best to move forward.

Bayohne, what is the status on this? I am honestly rather disappointed nothing has been done about the rank privileges by now. I don't know of any player who thinks the ability to promote above their own rank is a good idea, and it leads to huge abuse potential. Please make this FC QoL adjustment so FCs don't have to be so incredibly stringent in their ranking/privileges, just to guard from this 'potential' of abuse.

If the devs are worried about stunting *legitimate* practices, then please give the FC leader the option to turn off this ability per rank. I.E., FC Leader can set Co-Leader to current unrestricted promotion privileges, but also set Officers to promotion privileges up to their rank only. More options and customization just makes everyone happy, by letting us choose our structure.

[Avarghaladion]

Starting to feel pretty toxic about the situation. Feels like they're too embarassed to admit how screwed up the FC rank UI programming actually is.

[SarahSwiftwind]

Unfortunately I wasn't aware of this particular nature about the Promotion/Demotion authorization and our FC was just ripped off of 15 million gil tonight. Why hasn't this been fixed? Or why hasn't there at least been a lot more detail regarding the functionality of this authorization in game? No other game would allow a player to promote themselves to a rank higher than their current rank.

Right now I'm at a loss of what to do to get the gil back that we worked hard to earn. The GM in game responded that they can't assist with the problem and all they could do was suggest I create a feedback post on these forums.

[Kalandros]

Its difficult to...
have any respect for people giving such "official responses"

Honestly, the system is flawed, many core systems in ffxiv are backwater and in desperate need of SIMPLE updates.

This is one such example. There is no reason someone should be allowed to promote to a higher rank than they are or even to equal rank, this is basic guild system stuff - this is the only game I know where this stupid situation can occur.

Limiting the use of the ability to promote could have negative implications for users that are using the feature legitimately (for example, if a leader has left, and a new one needs to be appointed)

This is a real joke. If that is what this 'feature' of the promote function was for, then whoever thought it up should be reassigned.
In any other game, again, basic guild stuff - the leader cannot leave without assigning a new leader - giving up his position and being allowed to leave.

How hard is this to understand?

Come on, stop wasting people's time with poor excuses of blatant flaws in the system.

Squenix needs to get this through their heads and also create a proper GM system that is both accessible and actually helpful.

Blizzard did this.
Issue with items? Resolved!
Let yourself get hacked? Restoration is done.
Lost entire guild bank to untrustworthy member? All items restored and the thief is punished (with undisclosed info of course - all items are most likely retrived, any gold made from selling, removed and possible suspension to permanent ban depending on track record)

[Ilitsa]

Man this is terrible! I really hope you get at LEAST your gil back. This is reason I think FC leaders need to come together and form a list of people like this, make it impossible for them to move around on that server and have to either quit or move to another server. this whole defending these people that SE does is ridiculous.

[Adler]

Haven't promoted/demoted anyone though I have the priviledge to do so, but our fc have changed leaders at least 3 times and got all member ranks changed many many times by current leader. As far as I know all changes were made exactly as intended with members getting exact rank and privileges as our leader wanted them to be. Also fc is kind of based on trust to each other - if you don't know each other that well then:
1) do not keep more than 1 000 000 in fc chest.
2) give promotion/demotion rights only to members that you are 100% sure that they can be trusted and/or are not plain dumb. Try to keep the number of members with privilege to promote/demote as low as possible