PSA: HQ items cannot be restored through item restoration if not discarded

[Liinko]

Recently I accidentally desynth an expensive crafted item with expensive melds, knowing that there is an item restoration policy, I filed a ticked and talked to a GM who said "HQ items are not restorable as they contain unique information."

I asked if it were any different if I had discarded it accidentally, and got the response "If you have accidentally discarded the item we will verify discard though our logs and if evidence is found your item will be reviewed for restoration."

Apparently you can only get your HQ item restored if it was accidentally discarded.

If any dev, or community rep would like to share why this is that would be great.

The GM said I could leave feedback so here it is,
To whomever is in charge of item restoration:
Please consider other accidental loss of HQ items other than discarding such as converting, desynthing, and trading in for seals, some of us spend a lot of time and money getting our items, just to be told that we cannot have them back.

Thank you LGM Enkrateia for the reply:

Greetings!

It seems there may have been a miscommunication that I would like to clear up, and I will be looking into the contact with the GM to see if there are ways to improve how this information is conveyed to our customers. The GMs have the ability to recover HQ items and items with materia on them as part of the item restoration policy. Thanks to certain changes with items, we are able to restore a number of items that may not have been restorable in FFXI or earlier versions of the game, and we try hard to find ways to expand this policy to cover as many items as possible.

That being said, if an item was used properly in the game, then it would not normally be eligible for restoration through the policy. This would include turning in an item for a quest, converting an item into materia, or failed synthesis, among many possible variations of this guideline for the policy. This is in place to prevent abuse of the item restoration policy to try to improve the rewards that can be obtained.

That being said, many cases like this are escalated to the SGMs and myself for consideration as an exception to the policy (both for how the item was lost or if the policy was already used by a customer). When considering an exception, we need to balance the context of the situation, fairness for all customers, and the workload for the GM team. You are always welcome to request the use of the item restoration policy, although these exceptions are not guaranteed.

I hope this explains things a bit better, and provides a bit more insight into the policy.

LGM Enkrateia

[Liinko]

Here's a link to the restoration policy for anyone curious http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...la=1&kid=68222

Specific to my situation it says this:
・The item had materia attached or contained unique information
　*It may be possible to restore the item in its initial condition

I did ask if I can get the item in its initial condition, but I was told no because the item was crafted and HQ.


Yes, it was my fault for not paying attention and clicking the wrong thing, it was stupid of me, but that's what the item restoration policy is there for, in case you did something to your item that you didn't mean to do.

[DaffyRoth]

I think the difference here is the fact that you desynthed it rather than discarded it. So for instance you could be like hmmm.....desynth to get what you need, fail, file a ticket and get it back. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the item rather how you lost it.

BTW: Not saying this is what you did, but I can see how it can be abused.

[BigPapaSmurf]

I think it's a tad silly it's only a Once In a Lifetime Item-Restoration.

Mistakes happen, should be 1/6mo. or 1/1yr.

Of course, there's no rollover if you don't use yours in the time-frame.

Also, +1; if they're going to limit us to 1 ever, there should at least be no restrictions.

[DaffyRoth]

But I think the problem is you get stuff from desynthing where as discarding you don't. And considering WHAT you can get from desynth, I can kinda understand why it is what it is.

[Alistaire]

It seems like the policy hasn't been updated. Since they cover "converted to Materia", desynth would fall under the exact same potential for abuse. It's a 1-time thing per account and not per character so there's practically no ability for extensive abuse. But mainly since they cover items converted to materia they should cover items converted thru desynth. I hope you escalate this to a SGM for review.

[BigPapaSmurf]

But I think the problem is you get stuff from desynthing where as discarding you don't. And considering WHAT you can get from desynth, I can kinda understand why it is what it is.

All they'd have to tell you to do is discard the item(s) gained from the Desynth before they'll honor the Item-Restoration, it's not that hard.

If you've spent the gained items, then in that case you will have forfeited your opportunity to get the Item-Restoration.

Anybody who has the intent to get the item restored will not spend the gained items, plain and simple.

[Liinko]

I think the difference here is the fact that you desynthed it rather than discarded it. So for instance you could be like hmmm.....desynth to get what you need, fail, file a ticket and get it back. I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the item rather how you lost it.

BTW: Not saying this is what you did, but I can see how it can be abused.

I would agree if it wasn't that you can only get one item restored per lifetime, IMHO there is nothing you can get from desynth that is worth enough to get an item restoration in case you failed. The item I had with the melds was worth ~3mil at the current prices on the market, nothing I could have gotten from the desynth would be close to worth that much, and even if I had succeeded I would've given any resulting items up without hesitation to get my item back.

[Liinko]

It seems like the policy hasn't been updated. Since they cover "converted to Materia", desynth would fall under the exact same potential for abuse. It's a 1-time thing per account and not per character so there's practically no ability for extensive abuse. But mainly since they cover items converted to materia they should cover items converted thru desynth. I hope you escalate this to a SGM for review.

I didn't escalate the issue, from experience I would've gotten the same canned responses about how they're sorry and it's outside of policy. I did file 3 separate tickets before I talked to a GM, who seemed to be cutting me off by telling me that if I want the policy to change to come submit feedback.

So, I came to post here in hopes that a community rep will see it and submit it as feedback, to save others from having to deal with this. For now I'll save my one time item restoration, since I can make my money back and purchase the item I lost.

[Alistaire]

I didn't escalate the issue, from experience I would've gotten the same canned responses about how they're sorry and it's outside of policy. I did file 3 separate tickets before I talked to a GM, who seemed to be cutting me off by telling me that if I want the policy to change to come submit feedback.

So, I came to post here in hopes that a community rep will see it and submit it as feedback, to save others from having to deal with this. For now I'll save my one time item restoration, since I can make my money back and purchase the item I lost.

That's probably a good idea, although if I were you I would raise it to an SGM anyway on principle, tell them you don't want them to actually do it for you, but that the policy should be updated since it's the exact same form of retrieval as an item converted to materia.