New weapons with higher base damage then relics

[Tamoa]

Do you know why other MMOs have certain similar elements? Money. It is a business after all. There are some game elements that are popular among gamers; and developers want to integrate those, because they attract subscribers. More subscribers means more development, and better maintenance. For example, whether you like (or even played) the game or not, WoW is the most successful MMO in history because Brack recognized that, and the today's version of WOW has improved drastically from it's debut in 2004.

Very little has changed for FFXI, even though it's practically the same age as wow, and it fell way behind because it didn't change. It has an endearing environment and great story, but it's still pretty much a graphical mud with insane grinds. That isn't that popular any more in today's gaming community, hence why they're changing.

Unlike you, I would love to see FFXI stick around for many more years, but to do that, they need to find new subscribers. You will be hardpressed to convince a developer to keep the game the way you like it, if it meant losing potential funding and profit.

You know what Blizzard did different from SE? They advertised their game. Even here, in my country with barely 5 million inhabitants in total, there were ads for WoW on the tv. I can go to any store here that sells pc/console games and the employees all know of WoW, but nobody's heard of FFXI.

If you really believe the current changes to FFXI will bring in new players in any significant number, then I don't know what to tell you. But I would suggest you dedicate a day or two to reading threads (in more than one section) on this forum and also on Ffxiah, and unless you're lying to yourself you will see the number of people unhappy about the current changes greatly outnumbers the people that are happy about them. Of course, not everybody reads forums, or post on them. But I personally know several players, on different servers, that have quit (or they're still playing only to pass the time till XIV's released) because of the current state of the game. And guess what - some of them don't own a single R/E/M.

I've played this game for 7 years. I have never taken a break, the longest I've gone without playing was after the earthquake in Japan when all servers were shut down. I've frequented FFXI forums on a daily basis (mainly Ffxiah, BG, and this forum after it was created) for 6 of those years. And I can assure you that nothing SE's done before in those 6 years has had a remotely similar impact on the players.

By the way, you still haven't answered my question so I'll ask again, rewording it a little:

Would it have hurt for SE to have set plans on how to upgrade R/E/Ms to still keep them relevant, in addition to implementing Delve and Delve weapons? You talk about keeping customers happy - wouldn't that have made everybody happy - both R/E/M owners and those that never had any intentions of making one? If they'd done that, people would still be doing both versions of salvage. People would still farm currency. People would still do ADL. People would still do VWNM. People would still do all of that, and not idle in Jeuno or Adoulin, waiting for the next plasm farm shout or 5 NM+Tojil shout. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

[Duelle]

More contributing factors, yes, but if a game copies off other games without bringing nothing new to the table either, it will get no where, many games seem to do just that, copy other games gameplay while messing some things up, failing to make any unique qualities which would make it different, and leave it boring.

Then you get into gritty stuff like what constitutes "new" and examples of stupidity like "calling anything with quested leveling a WoW clone".

I'm the odd man out, but I look for stuff that works, is balanced, is well thought-out and has room for growth where applicable. "Unique" is more like salad dressing: nice to have but not mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. You can slap enfeebling on a poorly-designed magic fencer and call the job "unique"; doesn't make it useful, good or workable.

People who support it however, have given no good points as to why they should progress this way except 'but all of the other MMOs do it' to which I have to say, perhaps the reason this game still has people playing it after 10 years is because its not every other MMO...

The reason people stick around is because deep down the crazy amount of time wasted on this game prevents them from leaving.

I can give you a couple of reasons behind the change in design. First was to level the playing field with the new expansion, as is the case in a modern MMO. Yes, this involves obsoleting your l337 gear for the sake of keeping a leash on character progression while also creating a metric with which to balance encounters and content. This is notably the case with stuff that has procs and (in the case of FFXI) aftermaths and sphere effects.

As I mentioned, leveling the playing field means that you remove extra variables that would mess with either class/job balance or let people do/kill things in ways not intended. If you want a modern example of why you do this, Thunderfury in WoW had a damage proc that affected multiple targets; this made the weapon ideal for tanking lv60 content since the proc was affected by the hate modifiers that were native to tanks. There were cases of lv70 tanks that were still using Thunderfury instead of weapons relevant to TBC because the proc was that damn good. This forced Blizz to nerf the proc on Thunderfury because their design at the time focused on tanking niches (like paladin tanks tanking groups of mobs while warriors were more single-target tanks), and a weapon like Thunderfury rendered that design moot.

---------------------------

This being said, I'll admit the mistake was releasing Delve weapons early, though the whole design is faulty not because it's "bad" or because I don't like it. FFXI simply does not have the type of content to validate tier-based progression. You don't have multiple dungeons you can run to gear yourself up and obsolete the old expansion's gear. You don't have raids with even more powerful gear to repeat every week until you're decked out in epics. Instead you have fights with crappy RNG augments that are there solely for the sake of forcing repetition (Skirmish), a misreleased set of boss fights on a time limit (Delve) and a bunch of buyable gear with really poor job distributions (Bayld gear).

I don't know if going back to "here's a goal that'll take you two years to do if you play hardcore" is the answer.

[Peepiopi]

I don't think there is anything wrong with FFXI in the way the item system works. My only beef with the game is the dwindling player base and the difficulty of finding people to do stuff with. This problem was solved since almost every modern MMO has adopted a dungeon/raid finder system. This was first invited by Blizzard but later copied in many games because people want to get in be able to find players easy and play the game. FFXIV has a duty finder matchmaking system where you can queue up and do whatever dungeon or raid you want. Something like that in FFXI would require such an overhaul that SE probably won't bother with it. More likely they would want you to move to FFXIV.

I agree, LFG would be awesome for the game! But, I wouldn't say it's impossible for it to happen. If you remember back in Wrath of the Lich King, WoW had pretty much the same system as FFXI for group finding before it implemented LFG. SE is currently working on overhauling the entire UI for FFXI to optimize keyboard/mouse gameplay, which is a much bigger project. I could see some kind of LFG system going into FFXI. But like you said.. probably won't be for a loooong time.

@Demon.. I don't think that SE is resigning to let FFXI die out and let FFXIV be their only MMO cashcow. If that was the case, then they would not have announced the roadmap, and they wouldn't be putting the efforts into changing the game into a faster-paced and simpler "vertical" progression now. They're making efforts to get the game back into relevancy in today's MMO market, even though I think we all know that's going to be a huge uphill climb... To do that, there will need to be drastic changes. However, I can guarantee you that if they leave the game the way it has been for the last decade, the subscribership will continue to fall.

So just to reiterate, SE is going to do what is best for the company to make more money. That means they may pursue changes to appeal to the greater MMO community (including gamers new to FFXI), not just to you.

[Peepiopi]

By the way, you still haven't answered my question so I'll ask again, rewording it a little:

Would it have hurt for SE to have set plans on how to upgrade R/E/Ms to still keep them relevant, in addition to implementing Delve and Delve weapons? You talk about keeping customers happy - wouldn't that have made everybody happy - both R/E/M owners and those that never had any intentions of making one? If they'd done that, people would still be doing both versions of salvage. People would still farm currency. People would still do ADL. People would still do VWNM. People would still do all of that, and not idle in Jeuno or Adoulin, waiting for the next plasm farm shout or 5 NM+Tojil shout. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

I think SE will do what they're going to do, and I'm just going to play the game as long as I'm having fun. From a business perspective, I don't think that the "lateral" progression system was all that beneficial to the growth of the game in retrospect. Historically, the best items in the game had you going back and doing old game events like Dynamis and Salvage, when they could have focused more effort into making expansions and new game content more appealing. The unfortunate side effect is that players like you have gotten a little too attached to RME progression.

I think Tanaka had a backwards plan for the last decade, and Matsui is trying some new things to keep the game forward focused. So in short, yes. If you want my broader opinion, I think they shouldn't have raised the level cap from 90-99 until after Adoulin released, and they should have just left RMEs behind at that point. That way, more people would be focused in the new zones. That's just my 2 cents. I know you obviously feel differently.

There is an age old saying that says "You can't make everyone happy all the time". Whatever they do with the game, there will inevitably be someone here ranting just like some of the people in this thread.

[Demon6324236]

However, I can guarantee you that if they leave the game the way it has been for the last decade, the subscribership will continue to fall.

Look at the rate people left in the past, then look at the rate people are leaving now, the number grew quite a bit due to these changes.

SE is going to do what is best for the company to make more money. That means they may pursue changes to appeal to the greater MMO community (including gamers new to FFXI), not just to you.

Yes I understand, you are saying they are abandoning the formula that the current player base is used to, thus alienating a great deal of its player base. They are doing all of this in hopes of increasing income by making an 11 year old game that gets no advertisements and is heard of by next to no one, more appealing to the majority of gamers who play MMOs. The only problem is, almost no one knows about this game anymore except those of us who play it, or know someone who plays it. Its for this reason that changing the game will do nothing to draw in players, especially when the trial is as horrid as it is, and turns people away more than it invites them in.



I comprehend what you are saying, I just also have the misfortune of seeing how stupid it sounds at the same time. I fail to see how you think this makes sense for any rational company, to me it sounds like they are changing the game up while losing people in droves. The rate of people joining is most likely lower, since the great majority of new players to FFXI join via recommendations, something people who are leaving will not be giving out.

The chances of this game growing a new player base out of thin air is so stupidly low its not worth the time to even consider it. Maybe if they advertised, had some reason for new players to come, did something to help people catch up, not just limited time Double XP or free Atma to help people start out, but real constant things people need in order to catch up easier, things might be different. But unless they really put effort into things like this, new players will not be popping up as fast as people are leaving, so money will be lost instead!

Now sure, not everyone is mad or quitting, but a great deal of people are. How many people used to do things before that now just afk because they cant get motivated enough to go out and do some content for gear because next update or 2, it will be trash again? How many people have made RME90~99s just to watch them go to waste after recent events, after spending months on them, not for a trophy, but for the best weapon? Like I said, not everyone is mad, but if this is seriously an attempt to get more money, they are doing an absolutely horrid job at it, and their line of thinking seems severely flawed.

[Karbuncle]

However, I can guarantee you that if they leave the game the way it has been for the last decade, the subscribership will continue to fall.

Of course players would still continue to dwindle because eventually every gets bored, and there aren't many new players cause FFXI isn't advertised at all. Hell i nearly sh*t myself when i saw I think it was a CoP or ToAU Commercial some odd years ago because its the first I'd ever seen since FFXI Was released. You think the campaign would drive itself as its one of, or THE, only MMO on the market that can be played on Consoles. But no, on advertisements at all.

So yes, the population would continue to fall, But right now, Its falling faster, or at least just lost a good chunk of its remaining players. I actually suspect a world merge may happen again in the near future. The game isn't going to just die cause of RME people leaving, or even those without RME going, none of us are naive enough to believe that. But what we do see is what all MMOs become, a sinking ship. FFXI Could sink for years after this, but the point is the population is dwindling, and increasing the rate of decay is not something they want to do.

P*ssing off a sizeable portion of their playerbase because of the RME99 obsoleting? Not a good direction. People who made 90-95 RME probably are the type who did it because its good enough and they like big numbers, they'll probably be able to adapt to these changes easier, people who made 99's did it because it was the best and they could feel proud of that. Afterglows are retarded no matter how you look at em.

Regardless, unlike some folk, some of us don't need a google search and a chart to understand the psychological and sometimes physical responses to a perceived negative change. But luckily for those of us who don't rely on Google as the word of god, we can comprehend that there are several different types of change and each should be evaluated separately and not all should be taken as acceptable. There are many changes both historically and happening right now that warrant more than a "Okay, I roll over and accept" approach. While FFXI doesn't quite reach the level of IRL/Historical changes on simple grounds its a game, I think my point is clear enough for most folk... Change isn't a flat, vacuum situation that can be approached the exact same way every single time with the exact same outcome.

When a Change is bad, it would be stupid to roll-over and accept it. If you do not fight against negative change, if you don't fight for something you enjoy, thats far worse in my eyes than following a line graph that doesn't apply to every situation.

So, After this much debate I have to wander if you're arguing for the sake of arguing or if you truly simply cannot understand how not all change should be taken bent over with cupped hands and open mouth like you're accustomed(Metaphorically speaking)... But not every change should be taken with the same attitude. Some changes you can just go "F**k it" to, like we have... Like say, Twilight Scythe changes... Others, like his drastic design direction change, should not.

-------Lost half my post due to a breaker flip, trying to repost it sucks. But the point I'm trying to make I hope is clear. Change isn't something you can address the same way every time, and sometimes a negative reaction to change is the right course of action.. and also no one thinks FFXI isn't going to dwindle, but if the game is going to die, it should go out the same way it came in, a unique MMO that offered a great niche experience for loyal customers the last 11 years... not an attempt at a grinderclone.

[Tamoa]

Would it have hurt for SE to have set plans on how to upgrade R/E/Ms to still keep them relevant, in addition to implementing Delve and Delve weapons?

in short, yes.

Really? No, I mean - really??

If you want my broader opinion, I think they shouldn't have raised the level cap from 90-99 until after Adoulin released, and they should have just left RMEs behind at that point. That way, more people would be focused in the new zones.

That's the whole point though - they didn't do that, they kept R/E/Ms relevant via magian trials all the way to level 99.

There is an age old saying that says "You can't make everyone happy all the time".

But keeping R/E/Ms relevant while still adding Delve gear would have made both "sides" in this discussion happy. Why would anyone that doesn't own a R/E/M be upset that those weapons were kept relevant when they can easily get a Delve weapon? It wouldn't affect them anyway.

[Richwood]

We know many of you have been waiting with bated breath for the announcement of-which NPC was voted the most popular-NOPE! We want to know your plan for REM's and why you are not announcing anything new or having them in recent updates.

[Daemon]

We know many of you have been waiting with bated breath for the announcement of-which NPC was voted the most popular-NOPE! We want to know your plan for REM's and why you are not announcing anything new or having them in recent updates.

I would assume they are busy trying to fix SoA and make it a success first. Announcing anything without a sure answer would only cause conflicts. We know Skirmish updates is around the corner so hopefully after that DEV Team will have time to revise REM. that's my opinion.

[FaeQueenCory]

I would assume they are busy trying to fix SoA and make it a success first. Announcing anything without a sure answer would only cause conflicts. We know Skirmish updates is around the corner so hopefully after that DEV Team will have time to revise REM. that's my opinion.

I also think that they are using the adoulin gear to test the waters to see what exactly they need to add/adjust on the REMs. (specifically the massive overhaul where some things got their potency doubled and pretty much every >99 gear got massive stat boosts along every stat... and now pretty much every >99 weapon has those fake skill levels on them... so I believe that these items are all the alpha-testing for changing the REMs to fit the new content: ie make them relevant.
"measure twice, cut once" and all that.)