Originally Posted by
Peepiopi
I don't mean to sound rude, and I don't mean this in an attack against you personally. However, whenever someone mentions anything that glaringly sucks about FFXI, it's pretty much guaranteed that diehards come out to defend it by saying, "FFXI has always been this way".
Ex:
1. Horrible server population management causing issues with content completion: Always been this way.
2. "Role balance" being used instead of fair job balance: Always been this way.
3. Prohibitive metagame with extremely difficult progression walls for new players: Always been this way.
4. Horrible economy management and obscure gil income methods: Always been this way.
Those are just to list a few complaints that come up frequently. With respect to a few exceptions, this game DOES NOT appeal to new players largely because of the reasons above. FFXI is shrinking because of it, probably irrevocably so at this point. Unless SE makes serious efforts to address these concerns and actually listens to the players' frustrations, people will just stop playing it. And the remaining number of subscribers will just get smaller and smaller.
I've played FFXI for years, and there are a few things that I really enjoy about it. But I get extremely fed up with the progression in the game. I want to play any content I want with my job of choice, so my biggest complaint is SE's idea of "Job Balance". I sometimes return to the game usually out of nostalgia and interest to see if the problems have been fixed, but they never really are... So I can never resubscribe for more than maybe a month. There are just WAY better and more rewarding MMOs to play out there.