Gil-for-money farming getting out of hand

[Sylviana]

I spoke with a GM last night and asked him about what is being done about it. He told me that unfortunately they dont have a system in just yet to accuractely catch people that are botting and people that are selling gil. They can review chat logs to see if someone has been offered to buy gil but that is about all there is right now.

I inquired as to what they could do to stop companies like IGE that give people an outlet to break their ffxi contract and he said that was up to their legal department, he didnt have much info on the subject but did tell me that IGE was a know problem that apparently is being looked into. Hopefully those bastages will get shut down or at least made to no longer deal in ffxi goods.

[simong79]

Here is something I was thinking one day when trying to camp stroper chyme. Since really nothing is going to be done right now. Wouldnt it be funny to get about 200 ppl and go down to Ordelles Caves and just cram the camping spots where stroper pops? Imagine that hallway or the open room with about 200-300 just sitting in there. And when they try to move their going to be running into someone every half second slowing them down. I doubt it would ever happen or work for that matter. But still funny to see hehe.

[csBahamut]

Even a full alliance in there should cause them problems.

[little ninja]

oct 29 will be the one year anniversary that ffxi came to the us. lets just do a huge protest like spam shouts in lower jeuno.. crash the servers.

[LoganP]

This was one of the big reasons I quit about 6 months ago. As hard as money is to come by and english speaking friends far and few between, I felt like I was in a solo game amongst other soloers. Even as a lvl 55 pally with all his gear up to date, I had a hard time getting groups. Add to that the fact of having to compete with gill farmers to get the gear that was "required" in the end it was just easier to quit and go do something else. I don't mind competing with other people for camps, I just hate the fact that if I'm at a rare spawn point and someone else who is a botter comes up, they don't have any respect for the camp. I can't compete with whatever macrobot programs they use and the like hood that they have a faster connection to the server.


FF is a great game and all but I would love to see some American servers. I don't have anything against the JP players, I just would like to be able to have a decent ping that would allow me to enjoy the game.

Something else they need to do is add more gear options either threw crafting or nm's for all levels. This would cut down on the choke points and give players different options on how they want to equip themselves. Hell, they could even make them almost the same, just give a +1 to one stat and take one away from another.

Last thing, not related to the subject, I wish they would do something about the interface. Some of it could be solved with some local servers but they need to go back to the drawing board on this one. Even with a controller, I find it clunky.

Oh well, as a Final Fantasy fan since ff1 came out years ago, I guess I set an unrealistic standard for what Square could do. I won't even talk about FFX-2 which is the first FF game I've never finished out of disgust.

WoW, here I come.

[Arkadya]

Originally posted by Sylviana
I spoke with a GM last night and asked him about what is being done about it. He told me that unfortunately they dont have a system in just yet to accuractely catch people that are botting and people that are selling gil. They can review chat logs to see if someone has been offered to buy gil but that is about all there is right now.

I inquired as to what they could do to stop companies like IGE that give people an outlet to break their ffxi contract and he said that was up to their legal department, he didnt have much info on the subject but did tell me that IGE was a know problem that apparently is being looked into. Hopefully those bastages will get shut down or at least made to no longer deal in ffxi goods.

ToS aren't legally binding, just as an aside. The truth is, nobody has ever actually tried to take someone to court over a ToS. There was a very vague attempt made by SoE at one point, but it fizzled out. Chances are good, nobody ever will either. If a court was to decide that the ToS was not a legally binding docuement, that sets a terrible precedent and really puts developers over a barrel.

[Cali]

Bots, if they really exist, should be easy to find, right? By bots I mean, those that can send out the packages before us or something...according to some people... not bots as in those that can spam macro fast...

As for gil farmers, what can you possibly expect SE to do? they won't show themselves unless you paid them, even then, they send you money thru delivery, there is no actual contact with the gil seller himself(I have gone as far as the 'pay' section of the IGE site, and no I have no intention in buying gil)... and yes, it's obvious to us that those flyone, flytwo, flythree are gil farmers... they even got as far as to telling us by their names, if you even bother /tell them, they will even tell you they are gil farmers, as I have seen some screenshots of tells on that lol...

The JP, like us are really concerned about these gil farmers, and how to destroy them... They posted a screenshot of this guy's convo with GM, apparently, both English and JP GMs talk the same: they can't do anything to the damn gil farmers, china isn't a place where FF is legally sold(its import, there), but still, the GM said 'import of FF is fine, we have no power over how you obtained your copy of FFXI'...

For gil farmers, all we can do is get them to MPK, don't argue back, contact a GM right away, so the GM will suspend/ban them(don't know the punishment for MPK)...

PS I was being accused as a bot once, because I can claim NM pretty fast, and apparently the poor kid lagged: he saw the NM spawned purple, and started hitting me without me using any sort of claiming JA, but I saw myself provoked on my screen.... so sometimes IT IS your connection, not bots

[Vanalesca]

Sympathy?

Sadly if I were Chinese living in china i'd much rather be gil farming than making Nikes.....

[Karinya]

Ultimately, I blame high prices on the buyers. Sellers would like to raise prices, but if the buyers don't cooperate, the sellers are out of luck - doubly so for gil selling companies, the items do them no good and they *must* move them to get the gil they need to sell to cover their expenses. People want certain items and are willing to pay ridiculous prices to get them - that's why the prices keep going up.

Some of the most wanted gear doesn't become obsolete in a reasonable time frame. Neckchopper is a great weapon at level 20, but if you're still using it at level 30 you're a fool. So it's about 40k - expensive, but even a level 20 can raise that if they're determined; and a level 40 who wants war for their sub shouldn't have much trouble camping Panzer Percival: he isn't hunted much because his drop is only 40k. (And even if you don't get him, or don't get the drop, you probably get beetle jaws, which will eventually get you to 40k.) And wars that get to 30 (or maybe 25) and upgrade to another GA put their Neckchopper back on the market. So that's a NM drop that works ok.

Part of the problem is that some of those items are insanely broken to begin with. +3 Dex *and* Agi on a low level foot item? Whoever thought that one up should have been laughed out of the room. That's way out of line. On level 60 gear it would be strong but reasonable (which explains why it is sometimes still worn at 60), but at that level it's absurd. Nerf leapers to +1 dex and agi, winged boots and emperor hairpin +2 (and +5 eva for emperor hairpin), Ochiudo's kote +10 attack - they'd still be good and desirable items *at their level*, but eventually you would replace them with something better. Prices would collapse, which is the point. And people who aren't on their 3rd or 4th job might even be able to afford them, or camp their own. Of course they wouldn't make as dramatic a difference - so people who *still* can't afford them are at less of a competitive disadvantage. But having made the mistake of introducing these items in the first place, SE is reluctant to nerf them now because of the player outcry that would undoubtedly result from people who already have those items and went to great lengths to get them.

There should be better alternatives to emperor hairpin, leaping boots, Ochiudo's kote, sniper rings at no more than 10-15 levels above where those items are first equippable. (Not just +1s, or items that have to be crafted from the same NM drop; that doesn't help. Something that breaks the bottleneck - crafted, quested, conquest, BCNM can all scale with the server population.) Then people who have them will eventually level past them and sell them back, not keep them forever, which will lower the demand. Of course if the original is broken, the replacement has to be even better - but since it is higher level, it can be slightly better and also less broken relative to its level.

Things that are genuinely intended as "ultimate" gear should require significant effort that can't be bought - AF2, Abjuration gear, Kirin's Osode and other EX HNM drops, Relic weapons. (The HNMs have similar issues - but more people interested in Dynamis = more Dynamis runs = more Dynamis drops.) Anything else should have alternatives that are at least comparable that aren't subject to a limited-spawn chokepoint - because that system breaks when server populations rise. (Unless SE adjusted pop times and drop rates as the demand or the world population goes up - but they haven't.) The NM gets saturated and increased demand can't be met with increased supply - no matter how many people try to camp Mee Deggi, they get the same number of kote as one camper would if he camped alone. It's an artificially created shortage that defeats the population's efforts to find alternate solutions.

If any yagudo of the right job above a certain level had a 0.1% chance to drop it - eventually it would be better to farm 1000 normal yags than to camp Mee Deggi, if he's camped enough. If he was a lottery pop from every yagudo in the castle - more people farming there would pop more Mee Deggis and get more kote. Those are scalable solutions that aren't vulnerable to saturation (well, less vulnerable - I guess every yag in the castle could be camped 24/7, but I doubt that would ever happen) - and most drops that *do* work like that don't have outrageous prices. This is a clear indication that the problem is a static supply, that can't be increased by player effort, with skyrocketing demand due to the increased popularity of FFXI and more players reaching higher levels.

Snipers are another issue, but this post is long enough. Suffice it to say that the "need" for snipers is mainly lack of understanding of how accuracy works, and bad choice of leveling mobs (lack of understanding of the exp system and the importance of kill rate leads people to go after too-high mobs). But they're still based on a static supply, so increased player populations will drive them up whether they are actually good or just believed to be good.

[ObsidianII]

Eh sorta slowed them down on Garuda for a bit, went down there with some friends and we charmed the Stropers. It only worked temporarily though, since their bots were insanely fast to voke them the instant charm wore off (thankfully I had to go to sleep anyway).

Regardless, on Garuda a group of about 8 people owns the Chyme camp and they have for a long time. Cafard appears to be their seller, and he has sold probably 99% (I would actually guess over 99% as I check the price all the time and I pretty much never see a name other than Cafard) of the rings in the last month. Without competition the price has steadily risen from 200k to where it is now, 600k.

[Kuaiffxi]

The economy is perfect. Most of the complaining is done by cheap ass melees who cant take the time to farm for decent gear. fucking gimps. Making money is easy in this game and if you dont have the time to devote to making money then go buy your gil.

[CarbonFibre]

Originally posted by Kuaiffxi
The economy is perfect.

[Voila!]

The price of gil has steadily dropped, and no doubt will go further. If the the price of gil drops then the gil's price of items in game will rise to keep the dollar income steady.

[Kuaiffxi]

Originally posted by CarbonFibre

whats the matter? can't take the time to farm 1.5mil for a haubergon? its ok. since you most likely don't even have snipers you can just get by with your AF armor since you are a gimp and leaching xp anyways. hell your a sam so by the time your nongimp SC partner gets 100 you can just meditate! skillchains every 3 minutes for your PT

[CarbonFibre]

Originally posted by Kuaiffxi
whats the matter? can't take the time to farm 1.5mil for a haubergon? its ok. since you most likely don't even have snipers you can just get by with your AF armor since you are a gimp and leaching xp anyways. hell your a sam so by the time your nongimp SC partner gets 100 you can just meditate! skillchains every 3 minutes for your PT

Yeah that's right, I don't have 2.3 mil for a Haubergeon or 1.3 mil for 2 sniper's rings, and I'm not about to farm to get them. When I can still xp and do fine without them, it's an awful waste of time to try and afford them. Of course I would want them if they were cheaper, but I actually do things other than play this game. If I farmed for those items, the time that I had to play would be consumed by trying to afford that stuff. This would lead to the game not being any fun, and that's the whole point of it. Another reason I am reluctant to ever buy sniper's rings even if I could afford them is when the same person's name is on every sale history of Archer's rings in the AH.
I would never "leech" xp. A recent party I was in, I felt that I was not performing very well, and I felt that I was not earning my place in the party. I was too low level for the party anyway, so I found a replacement and left when he/she got there. I've seen leeching xp before like with the NIN that has absolutely no ninjitsu (or just decides not to use one the entire time).