How To Not Get Screwed In FFXI.

This is aimed at avoiding getting screwed out of drops from various events (sorry to those coming for the possible LOLS).

Recently a friend of mine got screwed out of a Peacock Charm on a BCNM40 run (It was his orb and the shouter stated "your orb, your drops" but decided to lot the PCC anyways). I feel bad for him but I've told him time and time again to always watch who you do random events with. Strangers are not always trustworthy. Now most of what I'm about to say is or should be common knowledge by now but I feel it should be said for those that don't know it.

I've had a lot of experience with doing shout runs with a lot of different events. Things like Salvage, BCNM, KSNM, ENM, ZNM, VNM, Sky gods, Sea gods etc. Through my years of experience, I have never been screwed out of a drop because I follow these simple rules:

1. First and foremost, try to do events with people you know already. Friends, LS members, friends of LS members, someone that is known to you or someone close to you. Don't use people who just joined your LS either. Make sure it's a long standing LS member. It'll drastically reduce the risk of getting screwed.

2. DO NOT LOT THE ITEM(S) TIL EVERYONE PASSES. Can not stress this enough. Everyone wants to hastily lot their items and move on. Don't do it. Wait until everyone passes then lot. If they don't pass in a timely manner (I give people 1 minute to pass but they shouldn't need more than 30 seconds), drop their *** from the party then lot.

3. If you're not the party leader, ASK FOR PARTY LEAD. In smaller events like BCNMs/KSNMs/ISNMs/etc. always be in control of your run. Never ever trust a stranger to lead during your runs. That's an automatic loss if the leader is a *** and wants your ***. If the leader doesn't want to give it up, drop the party and move on. It's not worth risking your time/money on someone not willing to pass the lead. Quartermaster is not enough! Do not accept someone just Quatermastering you. They can easily change it while you're not looking or right before you open the chest.

4. In an alliance event, if it's your run that you are leading, always make sure the leaders of the other parties in the alliance are friends or LS members you can trust. Never allow a stranger to lead a party. As Rule #2 says, don't lot on anything until everyone passes. If people aren't going to pass, then your leaders need to be ready with a swift kick in the *** from the alliance.

5. When you're doing a run and you're not a leader, you need to educate yourself before joining said run. Ask around in your LS(s) about the person(s) leading the run. Do they have a shady past or are they trustworthy people? Your community is your best friend. Resources such as this website and other websites help as well. Don't be afraid to ask around. A lot of times you can generally tell how well known or liked the person is by how fast they're getting people (depends on the event as well but if someone is shouting for an hour and they're only at 2 of 18 people, something is up).

6. If you're unsure of how drops work for a particular event or run, ask the leader AND do some homework of your own. Don't always rely on what people tell you. I've seen people get fooled out of drops before because the leader lied and told them the item in question didn't drop in that particular area/zone (Temenos/Salvage examples).

7. Leading or not, avoid Dynamis /shout runs. I know a lot of people are going to ramble on about this but the fact of the matter is it's just a giant sign saying "Come Ninja Lot my ***after I asked you nicely not to!". Anything goes in a public Dynamis run. People can lot whatever they want, whenever they want. SE/GMs can not and will not do a thing about it. You let the person in the zone. The drops are free to all to lot. You're going to get screwed.

Tell the guy to come to Unicorn and try to ninja our pcc's. :D

On a more serious note though, don't just trust someone either because they're a member of an ls you're in. Whether they're new, been around for a few runs, or you're new to the ls yourself; if you don't know the person for yourself, then you don't know how they could react. Don't let somebody else have lead during your run just because they happen to be in the ls, whether they ask or not, if you don't know them. I've seen people get screwed over this way, it can happen. Especially if it's an event ls, sadly endgame or not doesn't even matter. Some people just don't care.

These things are true about LS members and this isn't a 100% guarantee that you're not going to get screwed. You always have to be aware of who to trust. I do trust my LS members more than a stranger though so I'd go with a LS member over a stranger any day.

If I remember right, in the case of that one PCC that got jacked by Bloodstand or whatever his name was, he was in the same LS as the person who he took it from. Just throwing that out there as well.

Yep, I'm pretty sure he was.

Not saying that you can't trust ls members though, just that you have to know which ones you can trust and stick to them. If you're in a ls for a while, you generally can pick out the ones you'd trust or not once you've been around them enough. If you're in a more established ls, you're probably less likely to have this problem but it's always a good idea to be careful still.

Nice post OP, very informative.

>_> This should be mandatory reading upon starting the game. I say we replace the "Don't ignore your real life" message with this.

Short version: Assume people are douchebags, you're likely to be right.

hey thats what i already do thanks for saving me a read!

Good advice, and I've never even done events like that yet.

When I do runs with my friends/ls-mates, we ALWAYS do split drops.... because for one, its more fair, and that way everyone who participated gets something.. I hate YOYD rules in a whole especially with friends.... I couldn't be happy getting awesome drops and then pt members get nothing but crap drops.. I also really dont do pick up runs for circle fights... for one you cant fully trust people, secondly its more fun to do it with people you know. just my 2cents

Tips to people wanting to screw their groups

Drop party and open the chest. All yours.

vegetto is a dark night

Probably the best and most important tip.

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Also, I dislike the "Your (pop item) your drops" rule; if you don't like the people you do the fight with to want to share the winnings with, you probably should team up with real friends anyway.

"Share and share alike" is my rule for the likes of BS/KS runs. Well, except for junk items no one care about; big gil drops are always sold and split.

Most of our "discussions" regard loot are like "I can't hold Cuchulain's Mantle because I already have it," and "Can someone else lot those? I have no AH space."

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lol. I am with an LS which recruits via shouts--at least it used to, until recently. Not that misunderstandings and mistakes with lots didn't happen, but so far only one person threatened to ninja lot, and he didn't actually do it. (He was kicked and then banned from joining runs again, just to be safe.)

The LS also splits profit and hand out gil to people who meets attendance requirement, though, so there's an incentive not to do stupid things and get kicked.

#7 wasn't aimed at recruiting people full time for Dynamis more so aimed at the people that do shout runs every 3 days using random people each run. They free lot armors and collect all single coins and sometimes even the 100s. Dangerous gamble for someone's 500k. This is my opinion however so the gamble is yours to take. Some still do it and have been lucky so far but with time they'll come to learn this the hard way.

"Also, I dislike the "Your (pop item) your drops" rule; if you don't like the people you do the fight with to want to share the winnings with, you probably should team up with real friends anyway."

works well w/ our ls as we usually do ***where people want a specific item--not money. avoids favorites and avoids any hard feelings. your pop your drop is pretty much as fair as it gets.