Selling Ultimate Weapon Ultima Is Apparently Not Against the ToS

[Vnolan]

while we are at it lets ban parser users too they are against ToS also.

If you put up a pf saying you will be parsing, nothing will happen. If you put up a pf saying you want to exchange services for real money, it would be taken down.

[HyoMinPark]

If you put up a pf saying you will be parsing, nothing will happen. If you put up a pf saying you want to exchange services for real money, it would be taken down.

Actually, towards the end of Deltascape, on Aether DC, people were going around reporting PFs advertising “parse runs” for the floors, and the PF leaders were getting messages from GMs about the PFs; and the PFs were taken down. However, such PFs do not harm anyone, as no one is forcing you to join parse runs for content, so I vehemently disagree with whoever was sitting on their high horse and felt the need to report PFs that literally did not concern or impact them in any way.

Something should be done about content sales PFs—while I don’t care what others spend their money on, I’m tired of seeing them clog up the Party Finder every time I open it up.

[Avatre]

so I vehemently disagree with whoever was sitting on their high horse and felt the need to report PFs that literally did not concern or impact them in any way.

It was quite likely someone who got booted from a party/raid group due to what appeared on their parse.

[HyoMinPark]

It was quite likely someone who got booted from a party/raid group due to what appeared on their parse.

I'd be inclined to believe such. However, I have also seen people state in previous debates that they report on even the smallest of sneaking suspicion that someone may be parsing. So I feel more inclined to believe someone saw "parse runs", flipped their lid, and just started reporting.

Generally when people kick others for low DPS, they don't say anything and just kick or outright disband the party.

[Zukissa]

So, if I group with the person who did this then their gear would be better and that would make the run smoother.

[Vhailor]

So, if I group with the person who did this then their gear would be better and that would make the run smoother.

Possibly. Or they might bother joining dungeons because they don't care to run any content all that much, thereby affecting your queue times (could make them better, could make them worse, depending on their role). Or, they might be someone who makes a habit of taking shortcuts to rewards, proving themselves to be a terrible player with great gear, making the run rougher. It's hard to say.

Either way, are we seriously suggesting that content in XIV is all that rough to begin with? I could perhaps sympathize with this point - perhaps - if XIV's content wasn't ultra-smooth to begin with, but I've yet to encounter any sort of run where gear is the inhibiting factor vs. multiple ignorant / inexperienced / otherwise bad players. So I hesitate to see where purchased items makes a big difference for people participating in content with the purchaser.

Also, to continue down your rabbit hole, an even better mechanism for smoothing out runs would be to introduce even more barriers for people acquiring good items, not fewer. One of the core reasons why PUGs can be so awful is that it's trivially easy to acquire solid sets of gear (run-buying obviously permits the trivial acquisition of even more gear). This allows players with very little experience, skill, and knowledge of their job to access content that they really shouldn't be permitted to access yet, resulting in rougher runs for all. If SE were to instead make all gear acquisition more difficult - harder dungeons, lower iLevel stuff dropped from 24-man Alliance Raids, much worse items gifted to you from quests, undertake serious efforts to eliminate players being carried through content (including purchased runs) - then the players who we find in, say, Ridorana or EX Trials, would be much, much better on average. They'd have to be, simply because the path there was harder, and demanded more effort, time investment, and skill.

So, I'd argue your reasoning is a bit dubious, at best.

This popped up in the PvP forum, maybe SE changed their stance on outside evidence. Granted it sounds like PR speak for we will accept it but will not use it. It is something though.

Imiage was taken from Razzii's post in the PvP sub forum.

I suspect your conclusion is accurate - that this is simple PR speak. I'm reasonably certain that there'd be a major news cycle on Reddit and the forums here if SE actually started banning Twitch streamers - or anyone else - based on evidence taken outside XIV. I also suspect SE would issue a warning to everyone in the form of updated ToS, because they understandably have no interest in surprising a significant portion of their player base with even a short-term ban. They've done this in the past for certain exploits, for example, explicitly warning everyone that there would be consequences for abusing it.

[Rogatum]

This popped up in the PvP forum, maybe SE changed their stance on outside evidence. Granted it sounds like PR speak for we will accept it but will not use it. It is something though.

Imiage was taken from Razzii's post in the PvP sub forum.

[Hasrat]

It's also worth considering the spirit of the rules that you want to enforce. I'd wager that RMT rules are primarily in place to protect the in-game economy; gil sellers being the primary target. It's an infringement that potentially affects every player. On the other hand, if I were to start charging $1 to pose with anyone for screenshots, while strictly RMT, it has no impact on anybody in game.

Another example: Art sellers. Strict interpretation is SE owns the rights to all of our characters. Therefore, nobody should be allowed to sell art of those characters for their own profit, right? Do you want to crack down on them, too?

So, basically, again, the point that keeps being brought up, the transactions have no long-term bearing on the game, with very little impact on players as a whole.

[Kurando]

The only thing I can thing of that clearly breaks ToS is account sharing. When it comes to content like Ultimate you need to have a full party and everyone should be pulling their weight, so obviously if you are unsure you can do it and prefer to get someone else (paid or not) they would have to access your character to do it. Of course the problem is there is no clear way of confirming whether a player is using another account unless there is clear proof. Some have suggested IP addresses, but if a person travels often but plays FFXIV on their laptop, it doesn't mean they are account sharing.

[DDkiki]

The only thing I can thing of that clearly breaks ToS is account sharing. When it comes to content like Ultimate you need to have a full party and everyone should be pulling their weight, so obviously if you are unsure you can do it and prefer to get someone else (paid or not) they would have to access your character to do it. Of course the problem is there is no clear way of confirming whether a player is using another account unless there is clear proof. Some have suggested IP addresses, but if a person travels often but plays FFXIV on their laptop, it doesn't mean they are account sharing.

If IP adress change from one place to another in single hour and than comes back its clearly suspicious.