New Content and Rewards

[Meiteron]

This was going to be posted into the Nyzul thread but on a reread it turned out to be far more general in scope, so I decided it warranted it's own thread. Warning: Words! Lots of words.

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Less than 48 hours into release and we already have a thread filled with mostly negative responses to what is essentially the central piece of the latest update. This forum is not alone in this, either: in that same thread we can find links to other FFXI sites with similar responses. I think that is slightly depressing for all involved, player and dev alike.

What I have realized is that Nyzul and by extension a lot of the content released in the past few months is just a repetition of a cycle a lot of long-time players are probably familiar with.

If you look at the history of FFXI there is a repeating pattern. People lived in Sky, in Dynamis, camped 3 Kings long after CoP released content equal to those events, which was vastly less popular on the whole(Limbus was, perhaps, an exception). People were getting sick of old content and starting to pack up when ToAU revitalized the game with a lot of stuff to do, and reasonably easy to acquire gear.

Then WotG comes out, and we see the same thing happening again with the expansion names changed. Campaign is not really a group activity. ANNMs were alright for about a month and then people lost interest. SCNMs were almost the same. Sandworm and Ixion were locked out content to anyone who did not have half their linkshell running bots. Years, years into WotG's release the playerbase was still living in Whitegate and doing ToAU content which had been in the game for even longer. Once again over time they tired of it and the game started bleeding players. People were starting to quit and then Abyssea comes along and revitalizes the game, again.

So that's three times now over the years where people focus on the content which is fun, and/or is rewarding over newer, less fun content. Now in present day, even the people that enjoyed VW (and there are things to enjoy) are getting tired of it. WoE has never been popular, despite a lot of effort on the Dev's part to stick cool things in there. We are well into the "ignoring the bad content" stage of the cycle and have all been spinning our wheels for months, going back to Abyssea while we wait for something new and fun to play. That isn't cutting it anymore. People are leaving.

What the game needs, desperately, is a massive influx of content that gives us stuff. There's no other way to say it: if content with an effort::reward ratio equivalent to Abyssea doesn't come down the pipeline nothing is going to change, people are just going to keep leaving. A lot of people I know are pinning their hopes on Legion. I tell these people ToAU was a lot more than just Einherjar, no matter how fun Einherjar was.

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This has been a lot of complaining. So I will end on a positive note, suggestions for the devs on what can be improved:

1. Fast-track the ticket system for VW drops, and allow people to buy voiddust with Cruor. Drop rate is, as I'm sure you know, the most vocal complaint people have about VW. Less vocal but still considered an annoying problem is how fast people who do enjoy VW run out of voidstones for fights. 16 hour recharge on stones doesn't cut it when one stone is a 5 minute fight, and not everyone has the time for a few hours of campaign or the cash to buy 12 voiddust a day on the AH.

(ok well what i really wanted to write here was "increase drop rates on rarest VW drops for each fight by a factor of 10" so that my 0.1% coruscanti chance becomes a 1% coruscanti chance but i will stick to things i consider halfway possible)

2. Start talking about this "New Dungeon Crawl System" that is listed on the roadmap. It was scheduled for February, and hey look what month it is! Even if it's in an unfinished state, even if there's not a lot of screenshots or media to provide, start talking about it. How it will work. How often can we do it. What kind of challenges are in there. How's it different from previous raids?

3. Address the new Nyzul content. Tell us what the rationale was! Is there some trick for progression to 100 that we have missed and are all freaking out unnecessarily? Say we missed something and call us names! If we already have a good scope of how this content was supposed to work, I would strongly consider changing it. Here: increase the time limit from 30 to 45 minutes. That alone would probably fix it. Congestion is not going to be the problem you thought it would be.

4. Release a new, or updated roadmap. The last one covered October of last year to March of this year. Even though there has been some schedule slip it was always a good thing to see the overall plan of what the devs were working towards; in a month we'll have hit the end of that plan. What sort of things are being planned for 2012 now?

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And that's about everything I had to say. Time to look for VW shouts before heading back to Grauberg. AF3 doesn't build itself!

[Trisscar]

I don't disagree with anything you said. Except you kept misspelling LW. Just thought you'd like to know.

[Zumi]

What the game has turned into is get AF3 and Empyrean weapon for all your jobs in abyssea. That's where FFXI is right now.

[wish12oz]

What the game has turned into is get AF3 and Empyrean weapon for all your jobs in abyssea. That's where FFXI is right now.

It's sad that we've been stuck there so long, Abyssea is the new ground kings/sky, which I totally don't have a problem with, I love abyssea because it has real progression and anyone can go in and get anything no matter how bad they are as long as they try.

But it's boring for those of us who finished getting stuff there, we want new content to progress through. Without random number generators determining if we have to fight a mob 300 times or once to get something. All the stuff added since abyssea is complete crap.

[Camiie]

What the game has turned into is get AF3 and Empyrean weapon for all your jobs in abyssea. That's where FFXI is right now.

Pretty much. For someone like me who is not a terribly hardcore player with a vast amount of resources, I just kinda wonder what it is I'm supposed to be doing these days. Lately I've been chipping away at an Empyrean weapon I'll never realistically have the opportunity to truly complete, finishing up my last bit of AF3, and helping others with their needs. I have some avatar staffs to work on I suppose. Is that it for me? Is that my what I'm left with as ultimate goals? Elemental Magian weapons? Great, I guess.

I really have nothing in game to get excited about. I'm perfectly willing to accept that part of the problem lies with me, but not entirely. Everything released lately seems like a bore, a chore, or a closed door (cute huh?). Dynamis is more productive these days but is as sleep inducing as ever even with the music turned off. NIUR may not be as boring, but the randomness upon randomness with no means of progression just feels like it's going to be a hopeless cause or a "years for gear" scenario. WoE and VW just don't seem to have the public interest to allow a non-leader like me to get on board with them on any sort of regular basis. Combine that with the loot system issues they both have I end up putting those in the hopeless cause category as well.

Maybe I'm rambling and repeating myself from previous posts, but I really do wonder these days if FFXI isn't leaving folks like me behind. Is it meant for me anymore? It doesn't feel like it right now, and I'm not sure what's coming along that will make me feel any differently. I don't know if I'm looking for some reassurance from the dev team, or confirmation of my fears and concerns from other players. I would hope for something other than "if you don't like it leave," but I'm sure there will be some of that. Heck, maybe the "leave" people are right. I just don't know anymore.

[Luvbunny]

To fix WoE, VW and Campaign is rather easy to be honest. They already kinda semi did it with Campaign but not quite doing it properly - by adding ancient currency. All they have to do is adding more ancient currency - pouches with 5-20 currencies random, alexandrite pouches with 2-6 of them, random forgotten stuffs to both Walk of Echoes and Campaign battle spoils and yet increase the exp and campaign notes even more. Plus have a system where you can buy ancient currency pouches via campaign notes. Another good option would be to have npc in the past that will let you use your campaign notes for scrolls and items that are dropped in WoE. They can also give a good multiplier of xp and campaign notes to a party of 2 or more so that the more people you have in your party/alliance the more xp and notes you get when you do campaign. Do this and you can see new interest spikes for WoTG contents. While they are add it, please add a retrace option on GoV/FoV book and npc from cities that will warp you direct to Walk of Echoes.

Also one last thing that has been requested over and over, please let us skill ups via Walk of Echoes and Campaign battle, faster skill ups.... why keep being a boneheaded about this??

[Haldarn]

Pretty much. For someone like me who is not a terribly hardcore player with a vast amount of resources, I just kinda wonder what it is I'm supposed to be doing these days.

Your entire post is where I'm at. Over the last year, pretty much everyone I ever met has stopped playing and it's hard to build up new friendships afresh when only being able to play a few nights a week. This, in turn, pushes the majority of the remaining content I have left to complete out of my reach.

So yeah, here's a confirmation of your fears and concerns from another player.

I have got a ton of other jobs to take to level cap though, which seems to be my only hope for fun (XPing was always the thing I liked least about the game).


Otherwise, what the OP said. It would be nice if we got an updated roadmap with some major new content/changes. Yesterday's was three sets of armour from a rehashed event and a slew of minor tweaks. Can I plz have new areas, a housing upgrade, an enlightened inventory/gear swap system, crafting that influences end-game drop rates, a party-seeking system for all content based on your current progression, Synergy that means my weapons and armour can be augmented on the fly, some useful functionality to the Linkshell Community and, while I'm at it, that Dark Moogle King dude from XIV. All in the next six months.

I fear though, the next six months will bring us one version update of minor job tweaks and higher resolution/different status icons with possibly one of 'The Last Stand' or 'Dungeon Crawling' going live on the test server.

[Luvbunny]

I fear though, the next six months will bring us one version update of minor job tweaks and higher resolution/different status icons with possibly one of 'The Last Stand' or 'Dungeon Crawling' going live on the test server.

The Last Stand is currently known as Legion - as for the dungeon crawling, not yet known if they even plan to do it, blame it to poor performance of FF14 - which now reduced the total servers by half after they start charging.

[svengalis]

It's sad that we've been stuck there so long, Abyssea is the new ground kings/sky, which I totally don't have a problem with, I love abyssea because it has real progression and anyone can go in and get anything no matter how bad they are as long as they try.

But it's boring for those of us who finished getting stuff there, we want new content to progress through. Without random number generators determining if we have to fight a mob 300 times or once to get something. All the stuff added since abyssea is complete crap.

If they made VW more low man friendly that wouldn't be the case but of course people whined about content being to easy and VW is what we got.

[Glamdring]

The problem with your suggestions-even tho' I've participated in a few requests to "fix" the current drop rates-is that the game has become so easy now that the only real challenge left IS getting lucky enough to get the drop you are after. I get the feeling that the Devs are getting frustrated with trying to find challenging new content. Now that everyone is locked into the mindset that everything should be as easy as Aby was and anything else is an "unrealistic expectation" they can't exactly add difficult fights, large-scale battles, fights that need a balanced party build, prey that resists your "omgwtf damage WS" or anything of the kind, they're left with only 1 acceptable option-easy but repetative spam for a drop. People are okay with that as evidenced by their acceptance of Empy weapons and the like where the only REAL effort was getting claim.

So as long as every request on these forums that isn't immediately shouted down is a request (actually, based on the tone more of a demand) to make the game easier in 1 way or another we won't GET a hard fight with a high drop rate or anything of the kind. I sure as hell wouldn't WANT a job as an FFXI dev now.