Wake up, "Seekers" is failing

[Spectreman]

"Content that only ten percent of the population can enjoy doesn't sound like a formula for success to me."

I couldn't agree more with you but Square Enix is ruled by people that doesn't understand how the MMORPG market works nowadays. I never understood why their MMORPG (a fricking game, a form of entertainment) became a reflex of real life, recreating third-world capitalism structure where a billionaire minority controls the masses of miserables. Blizzard recently realized that changing this paradigm would be inevitable if they wanted to keep their 9 year old product having millions of subscribers (they still have 8mil subs after 9 years).

I miss those pure ages of MMORPG when people where immersed in a fantasy world trying to survive while helping build a community. Then devs started to create content that promoted elitism and brought the worst of all players.

[Alerith]

"Content that only ten percent of the population can enjoy doesn't sound like a formula for success to me."

I couldn't agree more with you but Square Enix is ruled by people that doesn't understand how the MMORPG market works nowadays. I never understood why their MMORPG (a fricking game, a form of entertainment) became a reflex of real life, recreating third-world capitalism structure where a billionaire minority controls the masses of miserables. Blizzard recently realized that changing this paradigm would be inevitable if they wanted to keep their 9 year old product having millions of subscribers (they still have 8mil subs after 9 years).

I miss those pure ages of MMORPG when people where immersed in a fantasy world trying to survive while helping build a community. Then devs started to create content that promoted elitism and brought the worst of all players.

Rarely is this the cause of the content.

In almost every instance, it's the players who cause these problems, be it elitism, economic issues, what have you. Players will play and manipulate a system into what will benefit them most.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

In almost every instance, it's the players who cause these problems

That's like blaming the tide for rising water: It doesn't excuse you from not building to compensate for it.

[Daemon]

Sorry Re-Post

Problem I see is that many people have either forgotten what an RPG game is or shifted somehow toward expecting this game to be instant quickplay grind and get items and be done type.

Also in my opinion, before SoA was released, everyone on the server set Homepoint for Jeuno, so it was a smaller world where it was easier to respond to lower levels asking for help. Or some players have been very busy focusing on them now trying to get their stuff done in Delve. Yes people are that lazy to use a waypoint and go back to Jeuno.

Lack of guides and expert advice falls into a good reason. The servers are like classrooms filled with kids that have no teachers no principles.

That's why you see selfish, self gain, or as some people call it "douchebags" no respect or common courtesy in several situations.

Then there are those who are single minded refusing to do anything else because the one thing they are desperate in doing they can't do therefore decides giving up and rage quitting because they lack skills (No I don't mean gaming skills)

Have we really forgotten our morales? Our social skills? Most of the time I encounter negative people that only know how to say I Can't, I Won't, I Refuse. Then there's Trolls who has nothing else better to do than make others miserable and put people down especially those in town trying to do positive things for others.

Too many people in this game sitting around "waiting" for things to happen instead of "making" things happen. And decide that because no one is going to do it for them they think complaining about it is the best solution rather than go out and explore the game.

There is way more out there that people can do and in fact need to do in order to participate in Delve T5 boss fights people don't even realize. You need those Relic gears upgraded. You need Augmented gears with best stats. You need gears from Salvage, NNi.

But the few who don't know this has already sent out an idea into the ffxi social world where others start to agree and feed off that negativity and then eventually people lose hope, motivation and interest and to many who clearly sees past all of it are sitting here wondering why are peopling choosing to make such a huge deal when there is no reason to begin with?

If people would read the guide I've been writing carefully, they would learn to see things at a different point of view..

To those who think Delve weapons is the only thing that matters.
You don't need Delve weapons to get Delve weapons. We didn't even have those and got them. And I'm pretty sure if you make a boss party to get kis, people with Delve weapons would most likely join to help out in killing bosses.

The biggest point that people are missing is that they think they can do delve in only AF Gear and Skip the part on getting Adoulin Gear.

Think about this Seekers of Adoulin is High Level Content no? Then wouldn't common sense tell you that the gear in Adoulin is made to match the level of that content?

And this is what I see many people trying to skip this expecting that they deserve to rock out Delve only to find out they are being refused for not being properly ready.

[Alerith]

That's like blaming the tide for rising water: It doesn't excuse you from not building to compensate for it.

And how do you compensate for it when the base system isn't inherently flawed? Look at R/M/E weapons. They are good weapons that take effort to get. There is nothing flawed with this system. A shout group requiring R/M/E weapons for invitation? That's not SE's doing, that's the players doing. What you suggest is akin to SE imposing some limit on the number of R/M/E that can be in a single alliance. At that point, it is now SE's fault for imposing such restrictive limitations.

The community is reaping the end result of its abuse of multiple systems that either couldn't be predicted or couldn't be directly influenced positively without some form of damage caused by the Dev team.

[FrankReynolds]

And how do you compensate for it when the base system isn't inherently flawed? Look at R/M/E weapons. They are good weapons that take effort to get. There is nothing flawed with this system. A shout group requiring R/M/E weapons for invitation? That's not SE's doing, that's the players doing. What you suggest is akin to SE imposing some limit on the number of R/M/E that can be in a single alliance. At that point, it is now SE's fault for imposing such restrictive limitations.

The community is reaping the end result of its abuse of multiple systems that either couldn't be predicted or couldn't be directly influenced positively without some form of damage caused by the Dev team.

SE made content that worked wayyy better when you had an RME. In the past, having an RME had very little affect on a groups ability to beat things. All these timed events cause a lot of it. People get all serious about damage output when weaker weapons can't finish the task in the allotted time, or when the drop rate is so bad that you have to kill the same NM 1,000 times just to get it. That's SE's fault. Not mine.

[Mahoro]

What causes the problem doesn't matter. Only that the problem exists. Talking in circles about how people could adjust their schedule, tastes or life to the game won't make it happen. You have to make content available to the people. They will not make themselves available to the content. They will go where content fits their needs. This is not what anyone concerned with the future of this game should be excited about.

Nobody is saying to readjust their schedule or lives over 45 minute fights. I would please request that you stop introducing factors into your arguments that are irrelevant to the issue at hand. We aren't talking about ye olden days of four hour Dynamis sessions. The longest fights in Adoulin are those silly Wildskeepers which are tied to the broken Colonization system whose rate of decay is being expressly patched. Otherwise, every aspect of it is bite-sized and RL-friendly. To the extent you are talking about LS schedules, we aren't talking about HNM camping in the wee hours of the morning. Players join or make LS's that have predictable hours based on their individual play schedule. The vast majority of people who play this game know approximately what time of the day they expect to play.

As for the content itself, we'll just have to see what they do. At the moment, we are still only talking about one event, Delve, which is made up of Plasm farming and Fracture Boss farming. Plasm farming has become somewhat popular, although admittedly somewhat exclusionary. Daemon has some good tips on how to defuse that. Some people bypass plasm farming by just getting the KIs and then farming other content for money to buy Airlixirs off the AH. Fracture Boss farming is not as common, but I don't think it was intended to be. It was intended to be the most difficult content for top-tier LS's or inordinately skillful PUGs.

Yes it should. Rewards bring people in. according to your reasoning, people should still be spamming campaign and garrison etc. because it's still content right? That's where this is going. everything but delve is relatively worthless. You keep quoting dev notes, but they haven't happened and there are thousands of things on these forums that have been promised and not delivered.

Now you're being facetious. I never said all content in the game is still worthwhile. But in any event, not everything but delve is "relatively worthless." The gear and scrolls/abjurations in other events such as Abyssea, Voidwatch, NNI, Legion, etc. have not been rendered worthless. The weapons have been outclassed, as well as certain pieces of armor, but gear from those other events still have a central part in most players' gear sets.

Do you do those smaller events? I'm guessing that you don't because the rewards are crap. Why should other people do it?

As stepping stones to harder content, of which more are said to be added directly in the next patch. I am not quoting dev notes that are wishful hopes. Matsui has already listed what will be in the coming patches.

To answer your question, I've only done a few Skirmishes, but I've Bayld farmed and Wildskeeper killed before colonization rates tanked and the mobs became 5 hour fights. Some Bayld gear, Skirmish gear, or WKR gear is not trash. There are a couple of worthwhile pieces for my jobs that didn't get instantly outclassed with Delve. For example, the Orvail set is heavily skewed toward M.Acc. to help mages land certain debuffs or Stun harder mobs. I still use the Orvail Legs in my SCH stun set. This is the type of gear progression Matsui likely had in mind.

@Mahoro: Umm... Delve isn't the only content in SOA, it's just that nobody cares about the other contents: Reive and Skirmish. Why? Cause Delve is easy to do and gives the best rewards. Yeah, sure there will be additional content but would anyone be doing those additional content or will they just be like current 'forgotten' content? These additional content will give less power rewards than Delve, that's a bad sign. If they take longer, luck based and require more work than Delve then I'm sure I won't be doing them unless I don't have anything else to do (like skirmish).

The way SOA structured is to favor large LS and ignores the low-man and solo players. Even the update will still put low-man and solo players to 2nd class. It's not just the stat on the equipment, it will be the perception of the players too. People used to ask for REM weapons even though some magian weapons are on-par or close to REM weapons. This is because SE created 2nd class stuff so people think it's not as good as the top class.

I agree Delve is easy to do, at least the Plasm farming part. Only the 3 Fracture Boss fights favor large LS, because SE wanted to give something for that contingent. Everything else has begun being adopted by the player community. More and more people are getting their Delve KIs every day. Daemon has made exhaustive threads detailing how this can be accomplished, and there is a lot of good stuff in them.

[FrankReynolds]

Players join or make LS's that have predictable hours based on their individual play schedule. The vast majority of people who play this game know approximately what time of the day they expect to play.

Sure, so according to that theory, everyone should have beaten every delve NM at their regularly scheduled LS event by now and be regularly farming their airlixers and plasm. The ones who haven't beaten them and upgraded have not done so because... why again?

As for the content itself, we'll just have to see what they do. At the moment, we are still only talking about one event, Delve, which is made up of Plasm farming and Fracture Boss farming. Plasm farming has become somewhat popular, although admittedly somewhat exclusionary. Daemon has some good tips on how to defuse that.

Daemons guide is cool, but everyone can't play WHM and most would rather not. The unfortunate side effect of playing a job you hate like WHM just to get gear is that you inevitably end up either playing that job forever and never having a real use for the gear you were originally after or you end up standing around in town and never having a use for the gear you were originally after.

Here's how it works for Joe the Samurai.

Level WHM and gear it so you can get in events to get gear for your favorite job, SAM (I'm using Sam as an example. You can insert PUP, DNC, THF or a number of other unwanted / overpopulated jobs here)

Get gear for SAM

Try to enter PUGS.

Realize that everyone already has plenty of SAMS

Option A) Stand around forever with your flag up on SAM. (this sucks)
Option B) Start your own groups (most people think that this sucks too. We can't all be leaders.)
Option C) Join a linkshell where someone else will form groups and include you (You will be WHM forever. This also sucks)
Option D) You could start your own link shell, but Lets face it. Basic arithmetic says that's not a viable option for most people. There's only room for a few leaders since each leader needs 18-36 followers right?

When you make events that require far less people, people find forming groups to be far less of a chore. This pisses of the 5 guys on each server that are leading Boss killing linkshells, but makes the other several thousand people feel like they are a part of the game again.

Some people bypass plasm farming by just getting the KIs and then farming other content for money to buy Airlixirs off the AH. Fracture Boss farming is not as common, but I don't think it was intended to be. It was intended to be the most difficult content for top-tier LS's or inordinately skillful PUGs.

Great. I guess that's fair since they pay way more than everyone else and basically make the game fun for them just by being around...

Now you're being facetious. I never said all content in the game is still worthwhile. But in any event, not everything but delve is "relatively worthless." The gear and scrolls/abjurations in other events such as Abyssea, Voidwatch, NNI, Legion, etc. have not been rendered worthless. The weapons have been outclassed, as well as certain pieces of armor, but gear from those other events still have a central part in most players' gear sets.

You realize that people just paid $30 for an expansion and nothing you named besides delve was a result of that that $30 expansion right?

As stepping stones to harder content, of which more are said to be added directly in the next patch. I am not quoting dev notes that are wishful hopes. Matsui has already listed what will be in the coming patches.

SO in the next patch, they will add stuff that may be easy enough that in 4 months time, you might be able to earn some gear that will not be as good as the stuff that people had three weeks ago.

You just don't get it. Why would anyone want to work extra hard for <a day? a week? a month? More???> Just to get something that isn't quite as good as what another guy got in a few minutes? just because he doesn't have 17 friends who work the same schedule as him?

To answer your question, I've only done a few Skirmishes, but I've Bayld farmed and Wildskeeper killed before colonization rates tanked and the mobs became 5 hour fights. Some Bayld gear, Skirmish gear, or WKR gear is not trash. There are a couple of worthwhile pieces for my jobs that didn't get instantly outclassed with Delve. For example, the Orvail set is heavily skewed toward M.Acc. to help mages land certain debuffs or Stun harder mobs. I still use the Orvail Legs in my SCH stun set. This is the type of gear progression Matsui likely had in mind.

So after I do Reives for one day, then what?

I agree Delve is easy to do, at least the Plasm farming part. Only the 3 Fracture Boss fights favor large LS, because SE wanted to give something for that contingent. Everything else has begun being adopted by the player community. More and more people are getting their Delve KIs every day. Daemon has made exhaustive threads detailing how this can be accomplished, and there is a lot of good stuff in them.

I agree that Daemons guide is great. He did a great job and it was really nice of him. It will probably help a few people out. The problem is that none of it is fun at all. Most people would figure it out on their own if they had any interest.

[Mahoro]

Sure, so according to that theory, everyone should have beaten every delve NM at their regularly scheduled LS event by now and be regularly farming their airlixers and plasm. The ones who haven't beaten them and upgraded have not done so because... why again?

I'm not sure, but they are most likely holding regularly scheduled practice runs. The fights are quite challenging and take practice. Some groups schedule bead farming night as well.

When you make events that require far less people, people find forming groups to be far less of a chore. This pisses of the 5 guys on each server that are leading Boss killing linkshells, but makes the other several thousand people feel like they are a part of the game again.

Sure, and Matsui has already recognized that's a problem, and said he would try to rectify it.

Great. I guess that's fair since they pay way more than everyone else and basically make the game fun for them just by being around...

Please, no strawmen ;; Nobody is saying they pay more than anyone else. The rationale is that an MMO like this has to satisfy both hardcore and casual players in order to make money.

You realize that people just paid $30 for an expansion and nothing you named besides delve was a result of that that $30 expansion right?

Huh? I was responding to your comment, where you raised pre-expansion events and the notion that the new event invalidated all of that stuff. My response necessarily had to incorporate pre-expansion events. Please stay on track ><

You just don't get it. Why would anyone want to work extra hard for <a day? a week? a month? More???> Just to get something that isn't quite as good as what another guy got in a few minutes? just because he doesn't have 17 friends who work the same schedule as him?

I think, but I'm not sure, that you are making a veiled reference to the new weapons outclassing RME. If that is so, here is where we agree. I don't think SE should have done what they did, adding new weapons that wholesale eclipsed items that took weeks or months to perfect. I think it's counterintuitive to have a weapon drop from a 45-minute fight that can beat a weapon like a Mythic that could take years to make. At best, if they wanted to ensure people played their expansion, they should have created a new Magian trial for each weapon, requiring X number of Delve items to upgrade to a "super" version that would be slightly better than Delve weapons.

If that isn't what you meant, it's a somewhat more complex answer. It's the same principle behind why some people are content to just cap their character to a certain extent and don't strive to perfect the min/maxing. I know some people who farmed easier content like Abyssea to complete their collection while knowing full well that there were other pieces of gear from more difficult events that eclipsed the Abyssea gear. Anyway, we'll see what the rewards are like for the new lowman events.

So after I do Reives for one day, then what?

You buy Bayld equipment and fight Wildskeepers (after they patch the silly Colonization thing).

[Demon6324236]

Here's how it works for Joe the Samurai.

Here's how it worked for Justin the Red Mage.

Level BLM & DRK and get good gear for both since everyone needs Procs & DDs, but no one needs RDM.

Get RDM gear from Abyssea and VW.

Ask friends made along his way to help him get some out of the way gear he can not get himself or with a shout group.

Gear SCH for NNI.

Join NNI groups as SCH. Get Nares Cap and Nares Trews.

Join a Linkshell as a SCH for some rare specific events like ADL for money or Arch-Limbus.

Leave said Linkshell for not letting you come the job you want to that you have spent so much time getting well geared.

Join a new LS while making sure leaders know of your preference, while listing your other jobs as backups only.

That's where we are today, where I am happily in a linkshell who accepts me as a RDM and lets me come on my job.

That's my story of how my job, the job no one wanted, got geared and is now played as even after I was turned down from everything for so long. I had a very long time of having my job shunned, not allowed to come to anything on it because everyone thought it was useless. You know what is better about Joe? His job was good for something, he might get to pull it out time to time because literally every event needs a DD, but my job, not so much, I was left alone for years now and during my golden age I did not do any EG, or hardly anything in the game past leveling. So in the end, I have to say, I think my journey of playing multiple jobs getting gear for my RDM over the last couple years has paid off, and now I'm accepted on the job I want to play, not my stepping stones. Do you know what I do with linkshells that always refuse to let me come on the job I want, and always force me to go on a job I leveled only because I had no choice? I leave them. The minute anyone is in the situation Joe is in where he is forced to play a job he no longer wants to, they need to get up, and leave, after all nothing will change unless you do something about it, and leaving is the most direct and potent way to do so.