[IfritnoItazura]

A lot of players no longer respect replacing themselves because very few JP players respected it to start with and just leave when they damn well please. Its a western courtesty and always has been, JP players usually only observe it when the MMO and the majority of its player base isn't on thier home turf. Switch to WoW or EQ and they suddenly replace themselves, know english and will seek out and request help from the english speaking player.

Geez. Why not blame the Japanese players for badly play BRDs, global warming, and proliferation of nuclear technology, too, while you're at it.

The clue is in your own phrase: "western courtesy". Except, replace 'courtesy' with 'culture'. JP players don't replace themselves even in JP parties normally; it's not expected of them, and in fact runs counters to how JP parties operate.

Japanese players like to form party in city, then head out to camp together. Then, there they stay together for reasonable amount of time (usually 2-3 hours), and everyone leaves at the same time.

If I understand them correctly, they think it's discourteous to put up the seek flag when you only have an hour, then drag someone else to camp when you leave before the party is ready go. Replacing yourself is a form of rudeness--not so much for keeping the party going, but for ditching party before it's time to go.

As for Japanese players leaving before an NA party's done, I've seen it happen two ways usually: 1) the party wasn't working, and they decided they wanted out. 2) The party kept going after 3+ hours, and they had to go.

In the second case, they often don't know what do--because by the time they party for 2-3 hours, JP parties would leave normally. (Their English skill often isn't strong enough to discuss with the party what they should do, either!) Some of them would actually find replacement, some would inform the party they are leaving 10-20 minutes early, hoping the party leader would take care of it (disband party or find replacement), and some wouldn't say a thing until they really have to go, and disappears fast. Those who did that very last thing are usually those whose English aren't too great, and don't know how to communicate using Auto Translator.

For me personally, I don't like being the replacement. Never know how long a party is going to be; hate running to camp only to see the the exp coming to a halt because someone else has to go, or party disband in 25 minutes, or people are tired and they fall asleep mid fight. So, my search comments says "Torikae / Replacement ◀No Thanks.▶" whenever I seek on RDM.

I'll give you one guess players of which language group always ignore my search comments and try to invite me as replacement? Now, that's rude.

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By the way, lately I've discovered that a quite a few "Japanese" players on Ifrit are actually Hong Kong players in disguise. They often use the Japanese version of FFXI (or Windower), and put up their flags as 'J', sans the 'E'. I think some of them even put ◀English▶ ◀No thanks.▶ in their search comments.

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Um, maybe because BST never, ever, ever look for parties? In my entire time playing FFXI the number of BST I have seen with their lfp flag up can be counted on one hand. If they're soloing anyway it wouldn't cost them anything to solo with flag up - but they don't. You can argue about why, but clearly it's the BSTs that don't want parties and not vice versa. Seeing a BST that actually wants to join a party is rarer than seeing King Behemoth unclaimed.

On Ifrit, it's not that rare to see BST looking for party.

Acctually up till a short time ago BST was not invited to party because the pet would cut into XP, now BST is considered a solo job because of it(also most players still do not know that pets no longer affect XP).

Jug pets have never cut into a party's exp, as far as I know, and neither has charmed pets which are EM or lower. This has been the case for years. And, charmed pets higher than EM still affect exp, for both the BST and the party.

The changes are to the exp cut for the BST player himself, only; none of it affects the party.