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

[Karan_Vess]

Hi,
I've been told by a GM that he can't answer my questions because they're hypothetical and to post in the official forums. I'm not going to read 44 pages of other posts, so here's what I want clarification on:

1. Are party finder listings that offer help for free considered violations? For example a listing for garuda extreme "Teaching garuda extreme for new people" while not requesting pay or other recompense.
2. In regards to "Expressions that compel a playing style", the example is
"Example of a violation:
"We can only beat [duty/content] by using [something]. You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!" "
What about duties that do require certain things to be done? For example Alphascape V3.0 (Savage) or more recently Seat of Sacrifice (Extreme) where a tank LB is necessary to be able to progress to the next phase. Is it a violation to tell your party members that some mechanics need to be done right in order to progress?

[kaynide]

Hi,
I've been told by a GM that he can't answer my questions because they're hypothetical and to post in the official forums. I'm not going to read 44 pages of other posts, so here's what I want clarification on:

1. Are party finder listings that offer help for free considered violations? For example a listing for garuda extreme "Teaching garuda extreme for new people" while not requesting pay or other recompense.
2. In regards to "Expressions that compel a playing style", the example is
"Example of a violation:
"We can only beat [duty/content] by using [something]. You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!" "
What about duties that do require certain things to be done? For example Alphascape V3.0 (Savage) or more recently Seat of Sacrifice (Extreme) where a tank LB is necessary to be able to progress to the next phase. Is it a violation to tell your party members that some mechanics need to be done right in order to progress?

1- Should be fine, but you might want to phrase it as a "Learning Party: Garuda EX!"; that's the more common lingo.

2- The key problem is the second half of that statement, the "You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!"; that bit worded the way it is (especially in Japanese) can be seen as belittling another. Rather, just saying "We can only beat X by doing Y" should be clear and easy enough that you don't need to elaborate further about what they're doing wrong.

[Karan_Vess]

1- Should be fine, but you might want to phrase it as a "Learning Party: Garuda EX!"; that's the more common lingo.

2- The key problem is the second half of that statement, the "You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!"; that bit worded the way it is (especially in Japanese) can be seen as belittling another. Rather, just saying "We can only beat X by doing Y" should be clear and easy enough that you don't need to elaborate further about what they're doing wrong.

1. Right, maybe my example wasn't good enough. What about a pf listing that's offering to skip savage fight 1-3 and go straight to 4? The point is, are free services being offered violations?
2.1. How it's worded in Japanese is irrelevant when I'm talking about the policies posted in English and the policies have no reference to the Japanese version.
2.2. Sure, people "should" be able to understand a simple explanation. But the problem arises when they don't for whatever reason and the only options you have left is to directly tell someone to stop sabotaging progress or simply kicking them. Neither would go very well with the current policies as they're written. Even if you're polite, "Please stop using the melee LB, we need the tank LB" could technically be construed as compelling a playstyle.
I see the intention behind the rules but the wording is insufficient which makes them easily abusable.

[KOPF]

2- The key problem is the second half of that statement, the "You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!"; that bit worded the way it is (especially in Japanese) can be seen as belittling another. Rather, just saying "We can only beat X by doing Y" should be clear and easy enough that you don't need to elaborate further about what they're doing wrong.

The problem is that different cultures perceive statements differently. If someone kept saying the latter term, it would make me kinda feel that the person saying is being passive aggressive and condescending. Not to say that the first one is OK either, but to me the most polite way of saying is: "You just have to do it this way, since that's how we can complete the mechanic simplest/easiest." I mean I wouldn't get offended enough to report someone for either statements you made as an example, but it just isn't that simple in my opinion.

[Izscha]

The problem is that different cultures perceive statements differently. If someone kept saying the latter term, it would make me kinda feel that the person saying is being passive aggressive and condescending. Not to say that the first one is OK either, but to me the most polite way of saying is: "You just have to do it this way, since that's how we can complete the mechanic simplest/easiest." I mean I wouldn't get offended enough to report someone for either statements you made as an example, but it just isn't that simple in my opinion.

Wait there is different cultures in this world beside murica's one ?
We need to tell the world.

[Absurdity]

Wait there is different cultures in this world beside murica's one ?
We need to tell the world.

Wrong country for this game lol.

[kaynide]

The problem is that different cultures perceive statements differently. If someone kept saying the latter term, it would make me kinda feel that the person saying is being passive aggressive and condescending. Not to say that the first one is OK either, but to me the most polite way of saying is: "You just have to do it this way, since that's how we can complete the mechanic simplest/easiest." I mean I wouldn't get offended enough to report someone for either statements you made as an example, but it just isn't that simple in my opinion.

It's a Japanese game policed by Japanese people; How they (or people they've specifically hired) interpret the rules is all there is to it. They need not explain their reasoning as this isn't a court of law or whatever.

Though like you're saying, being more polite is always the way to go.

[Illmaeran]

It's a Japanese game policed by Japanese people; How they (or people they've specifically hired) interpret the rules is all there is to it. They need not explain their reasoning as this isn't a court of law or whatever.

Though like you're saying, being more polite is always the way to go.

Honto da!

I think the mental gymnastics required for non-Japanese or non-people-who've-lived-in-Japan to understand the sometimes significant difference in points-of-view can be insurmountable in these matters. Even though I'd been aware of social practices before moving there, I know I had no real/true frame of reference as to how radically different my American POV was from the Japanese POV. Thankfully my momma raised a boy with good manners so the gap wasn't completely insurmountable.

Erring on the side of "best behavior" never hurts and hopefully the well-hidden statement of SE staff accounting for regional cultural differences will have noticeable benefit.

This whole kurffule makes me glad I'm on a JP server though and not some "JP-but-OCE-dominated server like Ton....oh, *ahem*. .

The only policy I'm not ok with is the one about random disconnections. Sometimes, I get 90k'd out of nowhere for joining an instance. It usually takes me 2-3 minutes to come back (logging in + queue), so telling people to stop using the Duty Finder system is a bit weird.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've got a way to track this; especially if the client gives you an error message.

[KOPF]

It's a Japanese game policed by Japanese people; How they (or people they've specifically hired) interpret the rules is all there is to it. They need not explain their reasoning as this isn't a court of law or whatever.

Though like you're saying, being more polite is always the way to go.

That is true, that is their right.

But in my opinion, the consumer has a right to criticize those rules as well. For Japan, these rules probably make complete sense, although I am not knowledgeable enough about Japanese culture to confirm that. I am saying that what constitutes a generally agreeable offense will widely differ between cultures, which wouldn't be a problem in a very homogenized datacentre like JP, might give out problems in a datacentre with a very broad sense of cultures like EU. I feel that these corrections that most likely are completely suitable for Japanese culture can also be easier used for malice, which can lead to more work for GMs or ToS being used as a malicious tool for bad actors.

For example, the Nordic and the Mediterranean cultures can be very different, and therefore a lot of misunderstandings may happen between them that can lead to major offense on one side or another. Anecdotally I have been on both sides of those kinds of cultural differences. Thankfully people are usually able to talk things out since people are for the most part well-meaning and understanding when these things occur. Therefore things should work out how they did before. I don't think it is that probable, that people use the CoC as a tool on a larger scale and most likely we'll keep on trucking as is.

Like I said before since I haven't had any reprimands for my behaviour, I most likely won't receive more after these clarifications either. The rules just feel too specific for me for how nuanced the topic can be. I can also be very wrong on how normal these kinds of ToS/CoC are since I am not an expert and I haven't looked at the rules of other games that specifically, so I could be very wrong on how specific the FFXIV CoC is.

[Roda]

Hi,
I've been told by a GM that he can't answer my questions because they're hypothetical and to post in the official forums. I'm not going to read 44 pages of other posts, so here's what I want clarification on:

1. Are party finder listings that offer help for free considered violations? For example a listing for garuda extreme "Teaching garuda extreme for new people" while not requesting pay or other recompense.
2. In regards to "Expressions that compel a playing style", the example is
"Example of a violation:
"We can only beat [duty/content] by using [something]. You can't do it any other way, so stop doing that!" "
What about duties that do require certain things to be done? For example Alphascape V3.0 (Savage) or more recently Seat of Sacrifice (Extreme) where a tank LB is necessary to be able to progress to the next phase. Is it a violation to tell your party members that some mechanics need to be done right in order to progress?

Your gm did you dirty cause we can't give any reliable answer to how gms will do their jobs.

For 1, right now that should be fine, but as the rmt verbiage arms race continues, you might get investigated, but so long as you're not doing anything sketchy, you should be fine.

2, aaand thats what we've been spinning on about for 44 pages.
Best case scenario: the gm understands common language for explaining mechanics and does nothing but get their time wasted.
Worst case scenario: a troll purposely fails mechanics repeatedly and uses the magic words to look innocent to an outside observer while goading you into being short with your language, trapping you into getting confronted by a gm who follows the rules as written instead of as intended.

We, as players do not know how the gms will enforce these rules, we can only guess how bad faith actors can bend them to grief others.