Would this be cheating/abusing game mechanics and get me into trouble?

[Nomido]

Hallihallo

You all know how hard it can be to get parry skillups with the job Thief.

I thought of a way to get my parryskillups but I am not sure if it will get me into trouble skilling my parry this way up.

Step 1: I gear my THF up with all sort of Regen equipment and with a Weapon I can't hit anything.
Step2: I search for an enemy that can't kill me because of my HP Regen.
Step 3: I engage that enemy and go afk for hours/days and get parry ups.

The enemy will be extremly long alive because I hit him every hundred years and if i do I nearly do no damage.

Is this allowed or not?

Nice Day
Nomido

[Pai Pai Master]

In the older days of MMOs this would get you in big trouble. Games basically had rules which stated that players weren't allowed to leave their character active without being present at the computer for extended periods of time.

So far I have seen GMs only take this stance with fishing. They have been known to contact characters who appear inactive in order to find out if they are acting without proper input from the player.

I really don't think this is against the rules but if someone notices you doing this for an extended period of time they may suspect you of spellcast-botting or something like that and contact a GM. I honestly don't know what the technicalities on this one are, so you might just want to contact a GM yourself and find out.

[Deeke]

I can only think that this would be classed as 'holding an enemy'. Which is an issue with NMs, but I can't really see it being an issue with a single regular mob held at a zoneline. There's no bot-mechanic involved, you'd be functioning within the game's natural boundaries, um.. No I can't really see this as 'cheating/abusing'.

(That said, I'd be amazed if this actually proved effective. You'd be limited by finding a mob suitably low enough (that you could survive on +regen gear alone ad infinitum), so your parry skill would only rise so high. Then you have the issue that such a low-level mob has to actually hit you. I can't foresee it levelling up very fast at all. What level is your parry currently? And how much auto-regen could you slap on?)

[Sabaron]

Executive Summary: You actions are not against the ToS (In my opinion) because you are not using any form of "process automation". However, you cannot achieve your goal because it is impossible to create the following situation: "1) Achieve Damage Equilibrium between a permanent Auto-Regen effect and an Even Match monster."


I don't think using the Auto-attack feature is against the ToS... If I'm farming some mob that can't hurt me and I have to step out to get the mail, I'm not doing anything wrong. If I execute a spell macro (in game) that takes 60 seconds to complete and go get a glass of water, I can't be punished.

The problem with your idea isn't the fact that you'd get in trouble for it... You can't get in trouble for not issuing commands. What you can get in trouble for is using process automation to issue commands. The ToS rule is that the only automated commands that are allowed must be contained within macros available through the FFXI Game interface. All other "macroing" or process automation is against the ToS. Therefore, since you have manually issued a command to attack a monster until it dies (or you do), that isn't against the ToS. Now if you add automatic features to shoot bloody bolts periodically, that would be against the ToS.

What I will tell you is that you will not be able to achieve your goal. In order to skill up parrying, you must fight mobs that are "Even Match" to the level your parrying skill would normally cap. Therefore, in order to cap parrying at any given level, you must fight a mob which, by it's nature, will cause more damage per tick than any amount of permanent auto-regen you could stack on. For a level 75 character, this will functionally limit you to (I'm guessing) somewhere in the realm of the level 50 parrying cap.

Please note that I'm not sure that Parrying skill ups work in the way that I specified (i.e. in the same way that weapon and aggressive magic skills do), but the proc rate is based on relative level, so I don't think that there is any difference between skilling up parry than any other combat skill. Evasion and Shield work like this as well.

The gear setup for the trial would be:

Ranged: Arco de Velocidad or Snakeeye
Body: Dusk Jerkin
Hands: Garden Bangles
Waist: Muscle Belt
Neck: Orochi Nodawa
Head: Presidential Hairpin

The maximum strength of your auto regen effect when you have <50% HP to activate the Muscle Belt is +6hp/tick, just one point above a regen spell which is quite a crippling limit. If you want to take advantage of Sanction/Sigil Auto-regen, you would need to discard your Presidential Hairpin, so that would be +6hp/tick as well.

[Nomido]

Hallihallo

Thank you for you replies. I asked a GM and he told me that as long as I don't take a NM placeholder or a NM itself it is a valid strategie to skillup my parry.

Now the details I left out before:

I never wanted to go to blue max parry skill on my THF75, only up to 211.

My setup (Sabaron can read minds :))
-20% Damage Weapon: Earth Staff
1HP/Tick Ranged: Snakeeye
1HP/Tick Body: Dusk Jerkin
1HP/Tick Neck: Orochi Nodawa
1HP/Tick Head: Presidential Hairpin

1HP/Tick on Daytime Hands: Garden Bangles
2HP/Tick lower 50% HP Waist: Muscle Belt +1 <- +1 gives 2HP/Tick seems to have been changed to 1HP/Tick

1HP/Tick Subjob: BLU with HP regen
(Not WHM because of the staff skill = "fast" dead monster)

Monster: Mauriche/Mandragora in the Boyahda Tree to get me up to parrying level 211, as well mandys sometime use regen on them.

And I think it is still risky at that enemy. I will see If I am still alive when I wake up tomorrow. XD

Edit: Do not use Monsters that have Posion 2! XD

Nice Day
Nomido

[Deeke]

:P Good luck..