Dev Tracker - Discussion

I don't like adding or editing information unless I can verify and the test was done properly. I stated as much in my last sentence that someone can verify what I noticed. I would have added it eventually, but always good to have a number of people verify if you're unsure

I disagree. Evading an attack means you avoided getting hit and avoided damage :) so even if my test was incorrect it's still useful as an evasion item. I also haven't ranked mine past r1 because I'm lazy



I don't have a good way to test these in an evasion build unless Bard with SV songs or something, but no additional alt to heal so it might take a while. I can reattempt the test when I get a chance. Maybe in one of the sheols is a good place to start

It's a mix of both
Sometimes movement speed is good on certain pulls
Sometimes movement speed is bad on certain pulls

The mercs are going to go where the demand is, and this is a side effect of Asura being locked down.

Bahamut has a significant legitimate player population, and with many new players choosing to play here, it is inevitable. That said, Asura had years of the merc culture building and acceptance of it happened gradually over time. It happened without people realizing until it was really too late [insert boiled frog analogy].

If Bahamut players don't want it to get that bad, it doesn't have to.

I certainly hope you're right. can't really stop the /yell advertising, the only way to fight it is to not buy anything so they give up.

You definitely do not have a choice, as unfortunate as that is.

It's only when, not if

Sand in the hourglass. As the new ones trickle in, they will (have) to pick baha. As the pop grows, the mercs will have to follow the money. As the mercs raise the bar on your standard gear, the toxicity will flow.

One day very soon, youre going to see "our server is better than asura you should come here" Shooting yourselves in the ***.

Meanwhile, no one ever talks about Odin, they're way smarter than you guys. (if I were on Odin native, I'd ask that ***be locked now)

Your last line kind of destroys the rest of your argument, doesn't it? Would the overflow not continue in this chain of events?

Eventually, but it has to destroy bahamut first. It took almost 10 years for asura. And while it will happen faster, that's still a ways away.

That's long enough to realize other solutions are required.

It will happen unless all of the multiboxers and high level players decide to invest all of their time helping every single lowbie/newbie and shouting nonstop for an "alternative" method. Or you force every player to block every single yell spam message ahead of time so temptation doesn't set in. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Nonstop yell spam to sell you merc services for virtually everything is going to crowd out any "no, don't buy from them!".

Newbie spending hours of their time looking for a group to help them kill a monster, or just pay 1/3/5/10m for it. Or fill a JP party. Or Odyssey Seg farm. Or HTBF. Sortie/Gaol etc. Eventually people will give in. Then it trickles down, then you have a huge problem.

Oh it's coming. But you can stop the bleeding. The mistake people made was telling everyone to come to Asura for years. Don't do that. Tell everyone on every single post how terrible Bahamut is, and how it's worse than Asura. You'll at least limit some migrations and character creations there. Forcing the mercs somewhere else (this you can hope for)

Eiryl wrong, as usual


Asura was the #1 NA server, there were like 2 reddit groups that always told people to go to Asura, which is why all the scum flocked to it.
Odin was the #1 JP server.
Bahamut was the #2 NA server for a long time, and it was a very distant number two.

Don't believe me? Here are numbers from April 2021. Asura had twice the population as Bahamut, and was pretty far behind Odin. Fast forward four years later (late March 2025, so still before the Asuran lockdown announcement). Asura had a moderate lead on Bahamut, but Bahamut has a larger pop than Odin. The growth of Bahamut was probably all the NA players who left for the other popular NA server that wasnt overrun with scum.

Move onto todays numbers: Bahamut's population has grown more than Odin's population.


I dont think the JP population of Odin will let their server turn into a cesspool the way the NA population of Bahamut will allow their server to fall to ruin. Among everything else, remember this:
SE routinely listens to feedback from their JP playerbase, and GM calls from JP players get answered promptly.

If you want or think you need an evasion item, just use a better evasion item? BLU and BRD are the jobs you mentioned:
- Malignance exists for BLU (DEF:88 AGI+49 Eva+119 Meva+150 DT-4%
- BRD could use Fili +3 (DEF:96 AGI+44 Eva+113 Meva+157 Regen+4 Movement Speed+18%)
- Either are better than Hippo+1 R15 with its DEF:60 AGI+43 Eva+106~111 Meva+107

Can just use Hippo Socks to get the Flee proc, then swap to a higher eva/meva/DT piece for its defensive benefits. If anything, might even look at an overall set that intentionally reduces evasion (but with capped DT and good defense) to fish for the flee proc, then once flee is active change to your higher eva/meva/DT piece.

I guess there's a question of whether Hippo Socks can re-proc Flee before it ends, or if it has to wear off first to get a new proc. That could be a reason to just fulltime Hippos and hope to keep the Flees rolling.

You're missing the point I made. Assuming I'm not mistaken and they actually DO proc on misses, the feet are double duty: you 1) evade attacks (no damage), and if attacks get through and land, you 2) have a chance to proc flee and run away from further attacks (less damage taken). Using a better evasion feet just allows you to evade better, but you can't evade everything. Sum of all parts, diminishing returns, etc. The augment even has Resist Bind, so clearly they're intended as kiting/evasion all-in-one footwear.


This is what a toggle is. I assumed this is how anyone would use these, it's how I do.


I still disagree because evading an attack is less damage taken than taking attacks and getting a proc. Again this assumes I'm incorrect. They very well may proc on misses. But if they don't, evading The attack on that round is good. They're not just for flee. Double duty.


I haven't seen it proc when you have flee active, but you'd probably outrun anything chasing you after a few seconds of flee, so the chances of this happening are very small to begin with.

I was actually wondering about this recently: wouldn't it also be efficient to DDoS them? i.e. if the server responds to these yells by sending tons of tells to the yeller (bonus points if they pretend to be interested in the service to waste their time), wouldn't it quickly become unsustainable for sellers?

It wouldn't kill gil selling or merc'ing, but it could still be a major thorn in their side and might eliminate shout pollution

buukki has the right of it, it takes an extraordinary amount of collective willpower to fight back. every individual indifference piles up until its way too late to do anything about it.

the problem with things like elad's suggestion is that if there is anything remotely against TOS in terms of harassment, they will absolutely report anyone and everyone. their accounts are completely disposable, most of yours are not.

Unfortunately, I think the MMO "culture" that existed back when XI started no longer exists anywhere in the market. Quick wins, instant gratification, etc. have become the norm. So you're all probably right that if it comes to Bahamut, which it likely will, it'll end up just like Asura.

I'm pretty sure its also in the TOS to not do anything involving RMT. That would be like the crooks calling the cops on the person who stopped them from robbing them.

Fortunately, FFXI is based in Japan, not Canada, where that type of ***actually happens.

The term filter eliminates shout pollution, if only 80% of the players knew how to set it up.

The yell filter works, because no one knows how to use it.

If everyone knew how to do it, they'd resort to the Qil gill jill Ghill G1l G11 6il variants and it wouldn't work anymore.

filters are just a reactionary band aid, and maintaining one when they start changing names and shout patterns daily is a chore that shifts all the responsibility onto the average player. I don't have a better solution, but let's not pretend the one we have is a good one.

I have two:
IP ban the usual suspects ("but VPN", blanket ban VPN's, no ones playing FFXI over a VPN)
Reject payment from the usual CC numbers ("but prepaid cards", cool temp ban prepaid cards. How many legit ffxi players are relying on those? If its a larger number than I'm led to believe, send out a notice it will be put on hold for months to combat RMT, prebuy a bunch of crysta to account for this, and move on. RMT wont prebuy crysta, they'll just be pissing money away knowing their ***has high risk to get banned and money lost)


SE doesnt want to get rid of RMT though. RMT is like 15-25% of their monthly income (maybe more). They'll ban a few here and there to make it look like they're banning RMT, but theyre just scraping the surface.

yes it all boils down to greed, everybody wants to get paid and is willing to compromise player experience to get there. I don't think any company has really come close to solving RMT, and why would they? too much money involved.

was gonna post something about greed in RT but I doubt I'd express it well. I can empathize with all the other big 7 but have real trouble understanding what the big deal is with more money than you can make use of. that's a me problem for a different time, though.

This isn't an important topic but I often experience an issue where when entering certain zones I cannot connect. I get stuck at "downloading data" for like 3 minutes, then DC and can't connect to that character for like 5-15 minutes, they will DC every time. It happens like clockwork, every time, across multiple characters, with or without windower, with no dat swaps or addons.

If I'm connected to a VPN, I can enter those zones no problem and never experience these crashes. So, while I don't ALWAYS play on a VPN, if I know I'm going to those areas, I do preventatively connect to VPN before logging in to avoid the hassle.

That is a backend connection issue between your ISP and whatever IP that zone is hosted on. I wont pretend to know why it happens, but I know its strictly connection based and not character based, evidenced by:
1-the fact that you can either hop on a VPN or have a friend log you and move you to a working area.
2-it happens across multiple characters for the same zones


Original point stands, you arent using a VPN to play FFXI. I cant imagine the lag doing Gaol, Dyna, Sortie over a VPN.

I have used a VPN connection for over a decade now and FFXI is always connected to it. I am sure many people use a VPN and play FFXI. Banning VPN would be so stupid!

I guess we cant purge 80% of the RMT because Asura.Zetatau will be collateral damage and thats unacceptable :(

Banning IP ranges never works.

Some countries basically require the use of a VPN to use the internet because of censorship and abused regulations that allow ISPs to disable access to anything they do not like and anything that competes with them or their services.

No, not China. Supposedly first world countries that are not China.

SE isn't banning the RMT. Who's going to pay for the missing money? You? Fat chance. If somebody want to avoid RMT then they can always move to an empty server. RMT aren't going to be there but so is everyone else.

With the RMT gone, the one buying from them will also go away. Why? It's like eating at a restaurant and cooking for yourself. If all the restaurants are gone then the ones who couldn't be bothered to cook would move away. You will be left with tough farmers who grow their own crops with 6 characters and doesn't speak to anybody.

Whether you like it or not, population is critical to maintain an economy. There is a reason why people aren't spreading to the empty servers where there are very few if no RMT. People gather at high population server and so are the RMT and in turn, the RMT provide a service for people who don't play the game as much but still paying and make the place lively.

It's not a question of how to ban all the RMT, the difference between sweeping actions like IP bans and putting a little effort into tracking the shouts is measured in hours of work, not days. Banning them is easy.

It's a question of if SE wants to; like Andret said, they don't. Bans are there to create the illusion of a fair environment. Normal players will have some hesitation if they know they can lose their character. The goal isn't to actually ban all the cheaters/RMT, just enough to keep that fear there.

No company ever wants to ban paying customers.

They do it when the repercussions cost more than the subscriptions.

It's just bad business. And they're a business.

if enough NA people went to the extreme to cancel subs over this, would SE even get the memo? how do you hit them where it hurts AND clearly show why you did it? a forum post on the OF would probably get shut down immediately.

not suggesting anyone do this, just a thought exercise how would you get their attention. Nynja made the point that this absolutely would not fly on Odin, and I agree, how do non-JP ever stand a chance?