22 Macro Books, Please?

[Wolfe]

I've looked over the site and I don't see anyone else mentioning it, so I'm going to bring it up.

There are currently 20 jobs.
There are currently 20 macro books.

We are about to have 22 jobs.
We still only have 20 macro books.

I don't know about anyone else, but the first thing I did when they released more macro books was set one to every single job. I love have them all listed by job.

My Summoner macro book could do with at least 1 more page (making it 11 instead of 10), but I would much rather have 2 more macro books instead. Each of my jobs has their own list of pages depending on what gear I have, what I'm doing with that job, and numerous other factors.

Anyone else have any opinions about this idea?

[Economizer]

Note: This is not an agreement with the quotation.

Greetings,

Good observation regarding 20 jobs and 20 macro books but these matching numbers are actually by coincidence and we never intended to have one book per job.
We can understand that creating one book per job would make things easier to organize but we would need to continue adding them every time a new job is introduced. We feel that 200 macros are sufficient and for that reason we do not plan on adding more books at this time.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Yeah, and you know how they like to release new jobs every other month or so.

[RAIST]

oh how quickly we have become spoiled, eh? Doesn't seem all that long ago we had only one set to work with, so we had two or sometimes even 3 jobs sharing the same macro bars at times. Used to have to use the save slots (remember, we have four slots to save/load from at the login screen?) to load either an all-melee macro set or a mage friendly one at login, based on what I planned to do that night.

Probly have to look at combining some of the melee jobs into one book I guess? I rarely use more than 5 or 6 pallettes on a few melee jobs. Now the mages... those are some nightmarish books, and not much wiggle room there--but you could probably combine some melee books to make room, or as mentioned earlier, run different saved profiles.

[Wolfe]

If this is indeed how SE feels about taking suggestions from the fan base (read: the people that PAY for the service), I may look into running some of those third party apps out there that will allow me to have 2,000 macros. Not to mention, customize them any way I see fit, without ANY restrictions at all.

Seriously though, how can SE be satisfied with this answer?
We feel that 200 macros are sufficient and for that reason we do not plan on adding more books at this time.

Really? You are going to tell us what is acceptable and what isn't? Aren't WE the ones that keep telling YOU what should be included in the next updates? YOU give US what WE want. That's how this works. WE pay YOU for stuff that WE want. If WE don't get what WE want, WE don't pay YOU. It's very simple logic, I assure you.

Ever wonder why the FFXI fan base keeps shrinking? It's because SE keeps trying to tell us what we want. 200 macros is enough. I say it isn't.

Furthermore, why is adding more macro books for every new job a bad thing? SE makes it sound like this would really be that hard to do. I thought it should have been a given. Whether it was a coincidence or not. I don't believe that, I think someone, somewhere at SE, thought about the idea of 20 jobs / 20 macro books, it just makes sense (there's no way everyone at SE is that stupid that no one thought of this before).

[RAIST]

If this is indeed how SE feels about taking suggestions from the fan base (read: the people that PAY for the service), I may look into running some of those third party apps out there that will allow me to have 2,000 macros. Not to mention, customize them any way I see fit, without ANY restrictions at all.

Seriously though, how can SE be satisfied with this answer?
We feel that 200 macros are sufficient and for that reason we do not plan on adding more books at this time.

Really? You are going to tell us what is acceptable and what isn't? Aren't WE the ones that keep telling YOU what should be included in the next updates? YOU give US what WE want. That's how this works. WE pay YOU for stuff that WE want. If WE don't get what WE want, WE don't pay YOU. It's very simple logic, I assure you.

Ever wonder why the FFXI fan base keeps shrinking? It's because SE keeps trying to tell us what we want. 200 macros is enough. I say it isn't.

Furthermore, why is adding more macro books for every new job a bad thing? SE makes it sound like this would really be that hard to do. I thought it should have been a given. Whether it was a coincidence or not. I don't believe that, I think someone, somewhere at SE, thought about the idea of 20 jobs / 20 macro books, it just makes sense (there's no way everyone at SE is that stupid that no one thought of this before).

Guess I'll have to play Devil's Advocate for a minute:

Have to remember how cramped things are on the PS2's memory space now (and how that impacts the other clients still to this day)---they would likely have to remove something else from the stream to add the new books into the interface.

Yes... that's right... this may very well have some ties to the dreaded old PS2 restrictions. It's not as easy to add things in these clients as many people think because of SE's insistence on maintaining compatability---until this lowest level tech is removed from the equation, have to get out of that PC environment mode of thinking.

[Wolfe]

Guess I'll have to play Devil's Advocate for a minute:

Have to remember how cramped things are on the PS2's memory space now (and how that impacts the other clients still to this day)---they would likely have to remove something else from the stream to add the new books into the interface.

Yes... that's right... this may very well have some ties to the dreaded old PS2 restrictions. It's not as easy to add things in these clients as many people think because of SE's insistence on maintaining compatability---until this lowest level tech is removed from the equation, have to get out of that PC environment mode of thinking.

But you have to remember, they are killing PS2 support. This can be seen by the new expansion NOT coming out for the PS2. They also took a survey to find out how many people were playing on each system/platform. When I filled it out, I still have FFXI for my PS2 (as well as installed on my PS3), but I never checked that box. Because it's not worth playing it on a system that no longer helps the game. It's not hard to get this on a system that can run it. Steam sells it for $10 (with every expansion). I hate to sound rude, but if you can't afford a newer system to keep playing the game, you need to just quit. The PS2 is the cancer to the game and needs to be killed off so the game can grow and potentially attract new players.

But, in order for that to happen, SE needs to get off their lazy asses and advertise. WoW did it, a lot, and is still doing it. You can see WoW advertisements on the 360 and you can't even play it on there! Why not advertise that FFXI is still around? Spend $1m on advertising, I guarantee that money will come back at the very least double. Especially when you take notice that WoW has all of, what, 4 expansions?

The Burning Crusade
Wrath of the Lich King
Cataclysm
Mists of Pandaria

FFXI has how many expansions?

Rise of the Zilart
Chains of Promathia
Treasures of Aht Urhgan
Wings of the Goddess
Seekers of Adoulin

Plus 3 add-on scenarios

A Crystalline Prophecy: Ode of Life Bestowing
A Moogle Kupo d'Etat: Evil in Small Doses
A Shantotto Ascension: The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born

And 3 add-on battlefields

Vision of Abyssea
Scars of Abyssea
Heroes of Abyssea

There's plenty to advertise here, why haven't they (SE) stepped up their game and give WoW a real challenge? Every WoW expansion that comes out steps up the graphics a little bit more. FFXI, nothing. Until recently, we get slightly sharper text, a few small graphical enhancements to tiny icons (and I can barely make out what any of that small crap is).

The PS2 is getting left behind already. So, why is this an issue at all? Drop PS2 support altogether. It's already happening with the working GUI overhaul. How is adding more macros to 360 and PC supposed to hurt the PS2?

[Demon6324236]

But you have to remember, they are killing PS2 support.

Not in Japan...

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Come March 26 they'll be supporting the PS2 more than they will be Windows XP.

[RAIST]

They aren't killing PS2 support....they just aren't selling one expansion to the non-JP regions on the PS2.

PS2 is still in production by Sony until 2015 (I think it was, forget the exact details of how long they vaguely commited to it). SE will likely still provide some level (although maybe half-baked) for the PS2 until Sony announces they will in fact stop production by a certain date. Likely much like they did with Microsoft announcing XP support going by the wayside in April of 2014--we eventually got an official announcent that SE will stop actively supporting XP by a set date.

Until then, the impact on the PS2 client WILL be considered with future changes to functionality in the game. UI changes can be more easily tweaked in the newer platforms, because the overlay is already now managed a bit differently than on the PS2--but when it comes to core functions/features of the game that have to remain consistent across all platforms in SE's eyes.....you will periodically run up against the timeless "PS2 Limitations" scenario. This may be coming into play a bit here with the difficulty in making such a change.

Besides, as already stated....it can already be remedied with the current system. You can either combine some books that dont' require all 10 palletes to be populated with macros and thus free some books, or load different profiles at the character selection screen (this allows you to actually have access to 80 books already, 20 x 4 save slots).