Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

[Chocobits]

Except:
The world isn't black and white, fights don't have to be either 2 minutes or two hours.
Do game mechanics really favor shorter battles? Why? Because we are building every single strategy around 2-hour super buffs?

I'll agree that we haven't headed in that direction for years, but at the same time, during these years, a lot of the game has been broken, limiting the number of options and possible strategies.

No, nobody mentioned anything about using 2 hours. I say the game mechanics favor shorter battles because of AoE-more-HP-than-most-people-have TP moves, job recasts of several minutes+, or difficulty of melee to TP on mobs once their initial damage reduction buffs wear. Those don't have to include 2 hours. In fact most zergs are moving away from 2 hour use largely because you can't spam 2hr fights back to back without an army of COR, and because 2 hours have not increased enough in potency from our rise in level cap at 75 to remain useful or relevant any more. There are normal 5 min JAs that are more powerful than a number of 2 hours.

[Ceinwyn]

I say quit beating a dead horse because it has been debated a million times on a million forums (numbers exaggerated to illustrate a point) and the debate always ends with this argument followed by some memes and insults:

All the old methods of leveling etc. are still available. People are not using them because they would rather be doing something else. You don't need to petition the development staff to fix that. You need to put that energy into finding other people who feel the same as you. Did you find any? Good. No need to adjust the game then. Couldn't find any? I guess no one else feels like you then. No need to adjust the game.

It's not that simple as u think.
There are plenty of people who think like eyeballed or prrsha for example.
Most just have given up the debate because its very unlikely that the game will still improve in the future, some still try to discuss tough and i fully apreciate it. (: Most are also looking forward to ffxiv, hoping it doesnt end as the same rubbish ffxi has turned into.
And people partied a lot back in the days, what do u say to that?
Do you really think they did it because they didnt enjoy the lv progress?
The reason noone does these days is simple.
It's senseless to try it. Reasons:
Everything these days works around Abyssea and Gov burns, means most people go there because its faster and there in neither motivation nor are people left for the old way. That is the the first and most important point. So even if u are one of these old player who want to give it a chance, forming a 6 man party because of the actual meta is almost impossible. People would still party without abysea and have fun and i think it would have been better for the meta of the game and future changes.
Most people who enjoyed FFXI because of the old way have already given up because they coudnt any longer enjoy it.
Maybe, the took up some jobs in abyssea bc it was the only way to do it and bc everyone was doint it but after that they got bored quick, like me, and left the game for good.

[Arcon]

It's not that simple as u think.
There are plenty of people who think like eyeballed or prrsha for example.

If that is the case, why don't these people team up and EXP the old way? SE did not remove the old camps. You can still team up with five like-minded players and get shitty EXP, same as in the old day. The only thing that's stopping you is if you can't find five other people like that. And that means there aren't many people left who like to EXP that way. So no, you are wrong, there are not "plenty of people" who think like Eyeballd or Prrsha. There are some. That's it.

And people partied a lot back in the days, what do u say to that?
Do you really think they did it because they didnt enjoy the lv progress?

They did it because there was no other way. I never enjoyed it, but I still did it, not because I was a masochist, but because I wanted to join my LS mates at all the cool events they did at 75. I wanted to get the crappy part over with to start enjoying the game.

[Eyeballed]

Just forget it Ceinwyn. He's using the obvious preferences of XI's current playerbase as his only reference for confirmation. It's a very convenient defense, albeit thin - like the active population found in the game these days.

[Ceinwyn]

Obviosuly, makes no sense anyway since he just ignores what i write anyway.
I told him why noone forms 6 man partys these days, why does he even ask then?
And i think we have different view points of "fun".
Endgame events are ok, some do enjoy this most but a game has to offer more than this
and i prefer slower exp, what u call "shitty exp" over a broken realm.

[Demon6324236]

Heres the thing, hes right. You want to level slow, you prefer that, you rather the old xp, thats cool, heres the problem, you complain no one else wants to join you in 'old school' parties. If you cant find 5 others on your server who like that idea, shouldn't you take the hint that not to many people are into it? Why force the majority to return to something they do not like, for the minority to get what they do like, it makes no sense, unless you are simply going to say something similar to 'but I liked it that way ;;' in which case, get over yourself, there are alot of other people around, accept that you are 1 of few who like that way, see if you can find others, and if you cant, then accept it, and either move on, or try to adapt.

[Byrth]

Seriously though, if old-style xp is so unpopular that you can't get a party together to do it then how is forcing everyone to do it a good idea?

[Arcon]

Just forget it Ceinwyn. He's using the obvious preferences of XI's current playerbase as his only reference for confirmation.

It's the only reference I need, because the current playerbase is the current playerbase. Why should SE cater to the old playerbase that is gone? In what universe does that make sense?

I know this is all subjective. I know I hate old EXP and I know some people like it. But if the majority of players dislikes it, it's all the reason and motivation SE will ever need to try and replace it with something else.

Obviosuly, makes no sense anyway since he just ignores what i write anyway.

No, I didn't. I told you why what you said was completely senseless. I gave you a counterpoint.

I told him why noone forms 6 man partys these days, why does he even ask then?

I didn't ask. It was a rhetorical question, I answered it myself right after that.

[Eyeballed]

Heres the thing, hes right. You want to level slow, you prefer that, you rather the old xp, thats cool, heres the problem, you complain no one else wants to join you in 'old school' parties. If you cant find 5 others on your server who like that idea, shouldn't you take the hint that not to many people are into it? Why force the majority to return to something they do not like, for the minority to get what they do like, it makes no sense, unless you are simply going to say something similar to 'but I liked it that way ;;' in which case, get over yourself, there are alot of other people around, accept that you are 1 of few who like that way, see if you can find others, and if you cant, then accept it, and either move on, or try to adapt.

It is entirely possible that though there are those with the preference to play classic, because they too could not readily find others of like-mind, were forced to do one of two things: Conform or pack it in. I've played almost 100% solo since I returned to the game, (though I don't even log in much anymore), and I have met more than just a few returning players that expressed the desire to play the game as it used to be. You know where I find them the next day/week/month? That's right, in GM/CN/Abyssea or offline - if you catch my drift. Of course, you can say, "Hey, they found that book-burns were a faster/better way to get EXP and never looked back!", and you can also say, "Hey, they discovered that 110% of their efforts to build a 6/6 party each and every day yielded 3-4 members at most and just gave up."

Speaking from experience, this is what I do every time I log in, and I too have given up. Even when I could get 6/6, it was a crap shoot whether your tank actually had the first clue what tanking was, your Thief had any clue what "pulling" or "SATA" meant, etcetera. In the handful of occasions where things did go to plan and people were willing to learn, things went beautifully - and that's not an exaggeration. Versus IT++, fights did not last longer than 45 seconds, EXP from 450-650 per kill and never once complained "this is too slow" or "My LS needs me gotta go!"

You ask us what right do we have in asking others who are enjoying themselves to change for us? My response is: What right did you or anyone have in taking the game away from us in the first place?

[Sunrider]

This raises an interesting point.

Not even being of high enough level to challenge Maat yet, I wonder if Mr. Matsui has ever pondered the problems inherent in low-levels, or whether he even feels there's a problem at all.

The majority opinion seems to be that level progression was once too slow. Others feel as if lower levels were such a trial because there was no content.

I think that the source of the problem goes deeper than either school of thought: if all the cool gear, traits, spells, and abilities weren't waiting for your at levels 50+, would you still be in a rush? And there were low-level events available, in the form of Garrison, Expeditionary force... and those silly escort quests you simply could not get through without several other, preferably high level players.

What made these events unattractive is (aside from reward selection), the players get their butts handed to them. As an example, Garrison was like a proto-Campaign: waves of mobs, except no Protectras, Refreshes, or sick Weapon Skills in the players. Why bother with low level events when all the high-level evens came with the cool powers attached?



This, I think, is the source of what makes the lower levels (let's say, 45 and lower, maybe even 65 and lower), so unattractive: there's just nothing there. No strong armor, weapons, spells, abilities, or traits. What would you do if you could play with Refresh (even at 2 MP/tic), as early as level 5? What if the armors and weapons with +5/+6 this or that were available at level 10? What if you got Traits like Occult Accumen, Fast Cast, or Double Attack straight out the gate? I think if we had more of what makes the higher levels enjoyable, at the lower levels, people would have never developed the hasty attitude to progress.

Of course, its all just speculation at this point. I feel this is probably the one standard the developers can never hope to back to (without an FFXI 2.0): the current progression rate has been taken so well by the players that any retroactive changes would go ignored by now, and might not even serve to support the minority that prefers slower, "classic" parties. As it is, the development team is simply not known for going back and retroactively changing the levels of spells, traits and abilities, especially not on the scale I'm thinking about.