selling wins

[Sebazy]

<snip>

I will add, whilst yes, it's fair to say that a tiny minority of players will ever clear these ultimate fights, it's worth remembering that a very significant number of groups (and even PFs) will work at it regardless of if they are likely to actually clear it or not. Why? In my case at least, it's because it's fun content and I enjoy playing it with my friends <3

[whiskeybravo]

There's no way only 1% of raiders do this. That's never how stuff like this works.

You're clearly out on your own island here. Do you even PF? You make it sound as if every group recruiting or posting for weekly clears is selling the content for real money. I literally haven't even seen a PF posting for sells in weeks. It's all normal people trying to get their clears. I'd say less than 5% of the raiding population engages in this kind of activity, and that's a generous 5%.

Again, if SE wants to crack down it all they have to do is start asking the PFs themselves and seeing where it leads. It's not incredibly complicated. In general, I don't see too much of a problem with it - in the grand scheme of things it's not much different than paying a professional to fix the transmission in your car. They can do something that you either don't have the knowledge or time to do and thus can charge a premium for said service. Back in the day I helped sell Titan and Twintania clears for people (for gil, mind you) and most people generally appreciated the service and were glad to get it out of the way. Nothing more than mercs for hire. Now, SE can have (or not have) all the problem in the world with it, people are making money off of their game after all. But it's on them to crack down on the sellers - not the community.

[RiyahArp]

But it's on them to crack down on the sellers - not the community.

..this isn't a service. This isn't a chore you pay someone to do for you. This is a game you play for fun. If you are selling or buying runs, you make sort of a meta-content that the game itself really isn't that fun, the rewards are, and its okay to skip the game to get the rewards, either in game (drops, gil) or outside of game (rl money). That's not really a healthy attitude for any game to have. The whole rmt/merc thing came up to be fair because a lot of older mmos really didn't get that their systems were not fun, but it makes no sense here at all; the reward is the content, not the drop. Its the experience in playing it, because virtually no drops in this game are useful, alter the gameplay much, or are required. The whole itemization system if anything is just to keep us playing.

It's actually taken to hilarious extremes in games now. Lineage 2 revolution will let you tap on a quest description and the game will play the quest out for you. EvE Online thinks so little of its real time progression system now that players buying and selling characters are quite ok, and that system literally just was a cookie clicker sort of thing where you just waited rl time to skill up.

and again for the raiding, its as much people saying "oh, its no big deal" as much as doing it. It shouldn't be this accepted or in doubt, especially given all the griping about skill on these forums. It shouldn't be someone like me who sees issues with this, the raid community really needs to be the one to condemn it so much more so than us.

[whiskeybravo]

This isn't a chore you pay someone to do for you. This is a game you play for fun. .

But that's just your opinion.. And I don't necessarily disagree with you. I play the game to have fun and gear up my character, get better at my job, etc. But not everyone does and that's the reality. The reason it's not considered a big deal because it's a very, very, VERY small minority of players partaking.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Considering that it's against the ToS to give your account credentials to anyone, the people buying these clears for real money are sabotaging themselves if the raiders decided to take the money and flee.

Very rarely does this happen. Sells are all about reputation and repeat customers. You only do yourself a disservice by stealing money since your name will get passed around and near universally black-listed. And considering most sell groups are apart of large FCs, the last thing they want is the reputation of associating with someone who steals since that will make potential buyers wary. Basically, it's not worth being an asshole.

There's no way only 1% of raiders do this. That's never how stuff like this works.

Look at parsers.

You do realize you're comparing a free tool which displays damage numbers and calls out mechanics with buying content clears for hundreds of dollars; over a thousand if it's Ultimate, yes? Making this comparison really does show you have very little idea of how the raid scene works. The amount of people willing to spend the money asked will always be staggeringly small. If sells were frequent, you wouldn't see groups slash their prices from $1,200 to less than $600 in a matter of weeks. In fact, as Penthea said, you wouldn't see $1,200 prices period. Once a market becomes saturated, its value sharply declines. Look no further than the in-game Market Board itself. All that crafted battle gear used to cost a fortune for several weeks since crafting it took absurdly high stats and dedication. Those prices have long since plummeted due to crafting being significantly easier in Stormblood.

[Sebazy]

Very rarely does this happen. Sells are all about reputation and repeat customers.

This

I wound up being one of the regular healers for a particular sales team on my server (again, only ever for gil). Reputation was absolutely everything, we had very strict rules both in conduct and in ability too. If someone couldn't do the kills cleanly and consistently, they wouldn't stay in the team for long. Multiple wipes were a disaster in our eyes. Running off with someone's gil was absolutely unthinkable and would have ended us as a team right there.

A fun side note to the reputation thing. Back in 2.0 my FC even went as far as doing various PR stunts on Titan including having a WHM tank and Bikini armour. Fun times =(

[Bourne_Endeavor]

and again for the raiding, its as much people saying "oh, its no big deal" as much as doing it. It shouldn't be this accepted or in doubt, especially given all the griping about skill on these forums. It shouldn't be someone like me who sees issues with this, the raid community really needs to be the one to condemn it so much more so than us.

Okay. And what does this accomplish? Even if people do report advertisements in PF, literally nothing will happen because SE's own policies prevent them from enforcing anything. You could sit with PF open for an entire week, reporting the same few people with advertisements where it's obvious real money is being traded and nothing will happen to those players. In fact, I reported someone on my server who is a known bot, and very obviously brought his bot alts into Eureka. Still botting away. SE does nothing. That contributes to general apathy on the subject.

[Alleo]

Tos breaking is tos breaking right?

My point is, berate them if you think it’s immoral or such. But playing the TOS card is a bit silly

And I am quite sure that those bards that are reported might get at least a warning. But selling Ultimate for example is a double break of the ToS. RMT which is normally a big no for companies and account sharing. And seeing how a lot of those raiders use parsers too you could even make it a third one if they would follow through with that.

In the end the biggest question is: What will hurt the community more?

Someone that plays something does not hurt us (or maybe just our ears) while those that use RMT, account sharing and do this even in PVP means that less people will get mounts, honest people wont stand a chance against cheaters in PVP thus lose and you will have people clearing Ultimate that should never have done it thus bloating the numbers and with that giving the devs fake numbers. Any of these points hurts us more in the long run than perfom will ever do.

Edit: Also if you (as in general you, not a person directly) are fine with them selling clears, then why not just let them put the weapons on the mog station. Then at least SE can earn something from it too.

[Penthea]

Making this comparison really does show you have very little idea of how the raid scene works.

I think it's safe to say that person has little to no contact with the raid community. They talk as if RMT is very commonplace among raiders and tries to compare using a free damage meter to buying a boss kill for several hundred dollars. It seems they have this idea that most raiders are a lawless breed of players with no moral compass.

At this point I wonder if they're even playing the same game as the rest of us.

[Nabril]

The players name is on that picture.
You shouldn't post that, for your own accounts sake, no matter if you think a rule is being broken or not. It's not on us to decide.

Yeah, the player's name should never be on anything that another player can see. I won't even show my login username to anyone for any reason. Privacy is there for our protection. Good catch on getting the player to edit out whatever image he was showing.