Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[FrankReynolds]

I go to abbysea on samurai, swap to blm, swap to bard, swap to dancer etc. all the time. I talk to people in the group and I have a good time. Then, when I get tired, if I feel like staying, I tell the leader I'm going afk and if he wants to kick me, he does.

I really don't get this crap about scenery. Parties never roamed much (trolls was a minor exception I guess).

Traveling to a new camp for the first time EVER was somewhat of an adventure I guess, but after the hundredth time, it's just annoying. There's always that one guy who gets lost, never shows up, falls through a crack, aggros and MPKs the whole group etc. You can keep that crap. I like adventuring when I'm doing missions, quests etc. When I'm going to kill the same mob family 1,000 times in a row, I just want to get there and begin the slaughter.


There are what? 18 possible dominion op camps (random guess)? Name me 18 possible camps at any other level. That's not even counting the hundred other places you can camp without ops which by the way are not the fastest exp and should really only be done if you are specifically trying to leech people in the first place.

All this of course is completely ignoring the fact that if any significant number of people (regardless of what this forum says) actually preferred that old party stuff, it would still be popular... and it isn't.

[Afania]

The only reason you see FFXI subscriptions declining is the player base has gotten older and now has children, careers and lives. Much of the older FFXI content was based on gigantic time sinks that forced you to commit large amounts of time to get anything accomplished due to group focused play. As the game got older the player-base split into two halves, the people who have actual lives outside the game and can only afford to play a few hours per week (per week not per day), and the people who still devote a few hours per day (averaged) to the game. This split has only gotten wider and people naturally leave over time, with no advertising or other ways to attract new players the game's total population has slowly dwindled.

The only reason you see people quitting during expansion releases is that they had already wanted to quit and were simply holding out hoping ~something~ changed. Of course there was no magical land on the other side of the new expansion rainbow and they get depressed, quit and complain about it.

No. You're just using YOUR(or your friend's) experience , and assuming everyone who quit for the same reason.

I've been playing FFXI since 2009, in my past 4 years, there are always ppl quit for personal reasons, new job, new wife/gf, new family, new kids, w/e. There are ppl quit in 2009 due to personal reasons, 2010 too, 2011, 2012, 2013.....there are ppl quitting for personal reasons every year since launch.

I've met high school student/college student every year too, including year 2013. It's not like in 2013 suddenly everyone's 30~40s.

I've been paying attention to amount of ppl online since SoA launch during JP prime time(10pm JPT), in March/April there were easily 2.6k~3k players, in July there are were around 2.4k, when 14 launched there were 1.7k and 1 month after launch only 1.4k left.

2.4k------>1.4k in 2 months. 40% player depopped in 2 months.

Do you honestly think 40% of players suddenly got a new job/family/kids in 2 months, out of nowhere?

You argued that ppl quit during expansion release because they were "holding out hoping something changed", if that's the case, we'd see 1.4k player in March/April, because that's when they should quit if they're really waiting for a change in SoA.

But we didn't, so it's safe to say the reason why ppl quit is irrelevant to having new family/job and waiting for a change.

Why players quit, the answer is very, very simple. It's the same reason why every other MMO on the market is declining.

There are not enough content, especially after SoA.

MMORPG is about having stuff to do to keep players around, if you run out of stuff to do, you cancel account. No one can deny this golden rule.


SoA content made all 4 previous expansion completely pointless to do, all you left is delve delve and delve.

Assuming you're a casual player, your pt is just avg pt which takes 40 min~45 min to kill tojil, and you never win lot on Oat so you have to farm plasm for it.

It takes less than 3hr to to get the best weapon in game.

THREE HOURS, in an MMORPG.

Let's assume you're super casual, you can only play 1 hour a week. It's going to take you 3 weeks to get an Oat. Last time I checked, SE doesn't release new content every 3 weeks.

What do you do after you get the best weapon in game? You go to SE account management and cancel sub, lol. It's not like there's anything else worth obtaining anymore since every other content outdated.

Populations are declining, because most hardcore players got Oat in June and quit, then semi-hardcore players got Oat in July and quit, then avg player got Oat in Aug and quit, then semi casual players got Oat in Sept and quit......players are clearing the content and getting best gears, hardcore or casual. And SE simply can't release content to keep up.

If they're making players getting best weapon in 3 hours, they need to release new content every 3 weeks at least. If they release delve 2 in august, delve 3 in sept, delve 4 in Oct maybe we'll still have 1.8k players instead of 1.4k players.


Now they hand out items too fast, and unable to release content just as fast, on the same time outdating 11 years worth of old content.......that's why everyone quit.

I know everyone loves getting gears super fast and easy....but I'm sorry, giving away best gears in 3 hour isn't going to keep a MMORPG alive, it's going to kill it. There's a reason why MMORPG is timesink, because it's the most effective way to keep players around. If you can't keep players around you get empy servers nobody stays.

[vienne]

K, so its storytime.
This week I seem to have adopted 2 totally fresh players, for some reason I was the chosen one to help them out. I gave them a shell, I showed them how to make a voke macro, showed them where to exp, what the FoV books were for and gave a rough explanaton of what they could expect in the near future...
Two days later I log in and I get asked for help, someone ran them to Jeuno while they're lvl18 and told them to put their homepoint in Jeuno >< And if I could please run one of them back to windurst cause they didnt get the mea-crystal KI, they didnt have enough tabs from FoV to get repatriated so they had no means to get back to windurst, they also had no clue about what mobs aggro and what not, no clue on how to play their job in general.
I just can imagine what's gonna happen when they hit lvl30 and do the whole aby-leech thing. It must be so boring and they're not even gonna learn how this game works while doing that!
There absolutely is no incentive to do missions, quests, exploration, learn mob behaviour etcetc. Just rush your way to 99 and go do endgame cause there really is no need to do anything else atm.
I bet in 2 months they'll be bored out of their mind and just quit, cause this game has forced them to be less then average players (and no not everyone wants to watch youtube or read wiki to learn how to play) and the world seems very small, while in fact the world/content/lore is huge.

[FrankReynolds]

Well, obviously you don't see the point, Altep doll ops for lvl 30-99, means you are spending 69 levels in the same camp, watching the same 10~ dolls getting pwned by lvl99 players. There is no music or scenery to speak of and no variety for 69 levels. Lvl 15-75 pre-2010 was hundreds of different camps, allover Vanadiel. The dunes, QI, Yuhtunga/Yhoator jungles, Garlaige Citadel, Crawler's nest, West Altepa, Quicksand Caves, Labyrinth of Onzozo, Valley of Sorrows, Cape Terrigan, then the six main TOAU zones we xped in from 60~ to 75, WOTG campaign battles, etc.. All those zones have unique and interesting scenery, unique background music, unique mobs. If you can't see the difference between all that and 69 lvls of dolls in one single map grid next to the Dom Ops smurf, then you are beyond reasoning with.

And... There are a hundred camps in abyssea. The only difference is that instead of doing one camp at level 15-18 then another at 18-23 then another at 23-30 etc... You are doing one camp on bard, then another camp on red mage, then another camp on ninja, then... Get the point? All that changed was the level. There are still just as many camps.

And again... All those other camps you named are still available.

Yes theres lots of different dom ops camps. I don't have a problem with dom ops camps, for lvl 75+ parties, or solo lvl 85+. I've said lots of times I like the Abyssea expansion, for lvl 75-99 jobs. I have a problem with zombie alliances which are uniformly at Altepa flux 8. Sixty-nine lvls of turning pages in a Dom Ops book in that one single place is totally fail, compared to 69 lvls in fast-paced and fun xp parties allover vanadiel.

LMAO "fast-paced and fun xp parties allover vanadiel."... Yeah, actually at each level range there were maybe three camps where you could get "Good exp" and they were shared by a lot more people back then.

Here's the rub. If you didn't have competition for pulls (And thus a slow paced party), that meant that there weren't many people exping at your level... which meant what? That's right! Building a group was a pain in the arse. LFG is hardly what one should call "Fast paced and exciting".

If you did have competition, that meant what? That's right! You were in a slow party that couldn't pull at a fast enough pace to be considered "Fast paced and exciting".

That's ignoring the requirement that you have the correct jobs. That problem is virtually nonexistent in abyssea.

And to reiterate: Scenery... it's still there. You can see it at any time. It has never been unavailable. Ever. It won't go away. It has no level requirement. It has no time limit. It doesn't care what job you are. It just exists for your viewing pleasure.

"Begin the slaughter" isn't really what FFxi partying was about. It was about party-dynamics, balanced and cohesive teamwork parties keeping xp-chains going against IT++ mobs using game-skills and determination.

None of what you just said describes walking for 30 minutes across a giant map full of recycled scenery in order to get to a camp that may be taken or to which all of your members may not make it. All you did was elaborate on my description of fighting. How is this a valid counterpoint?

Playing your particular job with skill, and working well in the party unit. That FFXI game doesnt exist in Aby ops when you can solo one-shot the mobs and run around with temps and atmas keeping you on 100%hp.

So to be clear: You're mad because joey over there is in group with level one gear doing nothing. But, for some unkown reason, YOU can't get in a group unless you are geared / atmaed to the teeth huh? Have you tried it without the atmas? Cuz it sounds like SE put hard mode in the game and you (and everyone else) chose not to do it. :Confused:

[nyheen]

would like to know how SE plan on fixing this. it already broken once they threw the "easy mode" on. sad seeing them numbers staying around 400-500 normal on Bismarck and other servers, rarely little to no shouts happening since everyone in godmode and can one shot all the older area. now it just delve, skirmish and that starting to die down with no one joining.

with the way things are going now and i never said this before and i did not wanted this to happen but.... it really looks like it dying . too me it looked like SE wanted this to happen because i cant believe they didn see this coming with SoA

[predatory]

Get your act together SE, and give us some real content and not just a little bit here and there, we paid $30 for an expansion that is damn near unplayable with its lack of things to do, reives, wkr, monstrosity, and delve bfd, we expect a lot more from you than this. You gave us less content on the release of SoA than you used to give us with our version updates when the game was younger, and I'm sure I'm not the only person on these forums that remember those updates. I don't know what you people are thinking, but I spend my real life money to play this game, and it consumes my real life time, the least you can do is give me enough content to make it worth what I spend

[nyheen]

was watching some old ff xp pt videos thinking wow things changed. remember the time when you joined in a xp pt deck out thinking with your job iam so bada$$ owning s@#$! but not anymore if it like this.. dont feel the same

[Arcon]

Well, obviously you don't see the point, Altep doll ops for lvl 30-99, means you are spending 69 levels in the same camp, watching the same 10~ dolls getting pwned by lvl99 players. There is no music or scenery to speak of and no variety for 69 levels. Lvl 15-75 pre-2010 was hundreds of different camps, allover Vanadiel. The dunes, QI, Yuhtunga/Yhoator jungles, Garlaige Citadel, Crawler's nest, West Altepa, Quicksand Caves, Labyrinth of Onzozo, Valley of Sorrows, Cape Terrigan, then the six main TOAU zones we xped in from 60~ to 75, WOTG campaign battles, etc.. All those zones have unique and interesting scenery, unique background music, unique mobs. If you can't see the difference between all that and 69 lvls of dolls in one single map grid next to the Dom Ops smurf, then you are beyond reasoning with.

It's true, seeing those places was new, fun, sometimes even exciting. But that only applied for the first time, and honestly, they were more fun when I was exploring them for missions and quests, not getting to spot, waiting up to an hour for the last guy to arrive to kill one mob over and over and usually not seeing much of the zone anyway. The "hundreds" of camps you mentioned are about a dozen. That is not enough to last you several years worth of playing. The music was good, but also not good enough to not piss you off after days of hearing it. All in all, I don't understand this argument in the first place, because you mentioned yourself that you don't have a problem with Dom Op camps themselves here:

Yes theres lots of different dom ops camps. I don't have a problem with dom ops camps, for lvl 75+ parties, or solo lvl 85+. I've said lots of times I like the Abyssea expansion, for lvl 75-99 jobs. I have a problem with zombie alliances which are uniformly at Altepa flux 8. Sixty-nine lvls of turning pages in a Dom Ops book in that one single place is totally fail, compared to 69 lvls in fast-paced and fun xp parties allover vanadiel.

So if the camps are fine, all the talk about music and scenery is useless when it's the mentality of the people that pisses you off. You simply don't want people to do what they like, because it's stopping you from doing what you like, which is slow EXP. You want people to form an EXP party with, something they simply don't enjoy, hence aren't doing it anymore.

Now you go on about how Abyssea leeching is fail, ignoring the fact that people simply don't care about EXP. Then you try to pull some arguments out of your ass to defend your opinion, like the music and scenery stuff above, or calling old EXP "fast-paced" (which is one of the most ridiculous claims I've ever heard) or making up stuff about how old EXP parties required skill, as in here:

"Begin the slaughter" isn't really what FFxi partying was about. It was about party-dynamics, balanced and cohesive teamwork parties keeping xp-chains going against IT++ mobs using game-skills and determination. Playing your particular job with skill, and working well in the party unit.

What you described here is not how EXP parties worked. There was no skill required, at all. The only places where skill was required was endgame, always. And that's precisely the reason why people argue against you that EXP parties weren't important, because that's not where the real game was to most people. It's true that Abyssea parties require no skill whatsoever, but that's about the only thing they have in common with old school parties.

Also, Skillchains and Magic Bursts slowed down party EXP in many cases. The only reason to use that was when the mob was so tough that you probably shouldn't be fighting it for EXP in the first place, i.e. if you chose the wrong camp, underleveled party, horrible gear, etc. If that's something you learned during EXP, it actually made you a worse player for it if you tried to apply that to endgame.

And that's the thing about EXP parties. They did not teach people how to play. That is a horrible misconception that I hear people repeat over and over again in these arguments. All EXP parties taught people was how to play in EXP parties. It's an entirely self-contained system. All of the things required in almost every endgame event were just not covered in EXP parties, and that is not a coincidence. Endgame is all about skill and dangerous mobs and hard gameplay. EXP is all about the opposite and that is not just in Abyssea, that has always been the case, because tough mobs were deliberately avoided for EXP purposes.

In your world people fought tough mobs in EXP parties, but that's not true. IT++ doesn't mean tough. An IT++ crab is still just a crab. It hits harder, but it uses the standard attack most of the time, no dangerous TP moves, no special traits or abilities, no linking. And that makes sense, because people have always sought out the path of least resistance, even in your magical EXP days. Hence they chose mobs that were easy to EXP on. That includes crabs, colibris and crawlers. That does not include any BLM mobs, any mobs with dangerous AoE moves, any mobs with high linking chance or any mobs with high damage resistance. Take skeletons for example. They take reduced damage from slashing and piercing weapons which are the prevalent weapons in EXP parties, hence almost no one EXP'd on them. Who did? MNK burns, why? Because skeletons have actually reduced damage resistance to blunt damage, hence they make it easier than regular mobs for them.

Hence, everything that endgame is full of is precisely not what is covered during the EXP phase. Not just now, but never. I played three jobs to 75 over the course of four years, and here is everything I learned during that time:
- Valkurm Emperor is not an EXP mob
- Voke if you're the tank
- Line up for SATA
- Don't even think about EXP unless you have at least three hours to spare
- Skillchains and Magic Bursts are not worth it

The last one isn't always the case, but the times it isn't the situations are very different (like The Hills Are Alive). And here is what of that applied to endgame back in the day (it doesn't anymore):
- Line up for SATA

And that one was only relevant if you were tanking a sky god or something. All you could really hope for was that you memorized some mob behavior during that time, aside from that EXP was just unrelated to everything else in FFXI. It was its own mini-game with little to no application to the real game.

[Arcon]

That is totally wrong. [...] We disagree fundamentally on this and neither of us will change our minds so I leave this point.

You can disagree on opinions, not on facts. With facts, one person is right, the other is wrong. You're wrong, and here's why:

You played a job relentlessly in slow xp parties, [..]

Relentlessly repetitively.

[..] learned which abilities and spells worked in situations, which could be used in any endgame situation. [..]

Give me an example.

[..] You learned about not overnuking, [..]

You learned that overnuking is bad, but not when you overnuke, because the boundaries are different on weak mobs and endgame mobs. They are even different among endgame mobs and the only way to learn that was doing endgame. EXP did not give you a feeling for that whatsoever, because it was not behaving the same way.

The consequences themselves were also different and much more harmless in EXP. Overnuking in EXP situations was a "dude chill" type of scenario whereas during an event it could mean a wipe.

Not to mention most events did not need to differentiate between regular nuking and overnuking, because the mobs that were nuked were either timed to kill or kited or manaburned entirely, where overnuking is not an issue.

[..] which WHM spells drew the most hate, [..]

No, you most certainly did not. WHM drawing hate was almost never an issue, and at the times it was it was unavoidable anyway, because people had to be kept alive, so you can't just hold back on curing. The strategies involved in curing are not very applicable before endgame, because there's not much variation. There's usually only one healer in EXP parties, so they can't switch that, hate has rarely time to build up, because weak mobs die quickly, there's almost no variation in spells to choose from before higher levels and very little sub job options to consider. The only thing you learned is that Flash can be dangerous and should not be used at the start of the battle.

[..] you learned SC and MB, [..]

You learned to time it, nothing else. You will still have to look up SCs all the time. And those are very rarely relevant in endgame situations (just like EXP situations, only slow and/or bad parties used them).

[..] you learned how to effectively ration MP, [..]

No, most certainly not. First of all, you can't even ration MP at lower levels, because there are not many options to conserve MP before the high levels. Unless your idea of rationing MP is to just not cure people. And even when you get them it's usually straightforward because you are not fighting difficult mobs. You rarely have to choose between removing a crippling status effect and curing a player in the orange, because those situations don't come up. I'm not even aware of any EXP mob that paralyzes. A crawler's slow is probably the worst you can get there.

Second, there is simply no need to ration MP. If a WHM's MP gets low, they say something like "need MP" and the puller goes for a smoke. Yet another luxury you don't have at endgame. After a triple link, you raise people then go on a break while you recover.

[..] you learned about elemental weaknesses of mobs vs summons and nukes, [..]

You generally don't, because most mobs you fight don't have them (unless you solo EXP, that is different entirely and much more relevant to endgame, both on pet and mage jobs).

[..] casting spell while tanking on PLD or NIN, [..]

Timing cures between melee attacks, you got me. That's one thing I did learn.

[..] etc.etc.etc.etc. you learned the fundamental game mechanics of survival.

Again, you learned fundamental game mechanics of surviving EXP parties. Which, in my case, was lots of coke and aspirin.

Also, and this is key to my point, repeatedly playing a job for years, makes you play it as 'second-nature', this allows for split-second decisions to be made, which you can not make if it is your first month in the job.

Very true. Unfortunately you don't play your job during the EXP phase. Every single job plays differently at endgame and you'll have to rethink everything you've learned again. You never kite during EXP parties, you don't do crowd control, assisting people, mob priorities, terrain usage, splitting of mob duties among alliance members, high buff situations, deal with crippling status effects like Paralyze, Zombie or Weakness, deal with heavy AoE damage, conal and gaze attacks, positional attacks and mob positioning, etc.

So the things you did learn were timing related, because that's the only thing that takes practice. Timing SCs/MBs and timing spell casting for tanks. And here's the thing: once you've learned them, what then? Once you spent a whole party doing that, you pretty much have it down. Sure, you can improve a little more with time, but is that why you should spend months doing something you dislike, not just for one job, but over and over again for all other jobs?

Long term goals. We had them. And now we don't.

Also very true. And EXP was never part of any goals. I agree with most of what you said about content itself, only EXP isn't content, it's filler. We're currently lacking a lot of it because SE tries their best to make everything outside of SoA obsolete. But that only happened recently. Even after Abyssea people were still doing almost everything that was ever introduced. Dynamis, sky, Limbus, sea, KS99s, Salvage, Assaults/NI (and more recently NNI), etc. So obviously the lack of content was not related to the EXP increase, because that was three years ago, and it was going fine for a long time, until people slowly got bored of the lack of updates.

So you're saying that the solution to that is to force people to slowly play all their jobs to 99 in zones they've been to a thousand times, with unchallenging mobs they've fought a million times, just so people keep playing more? What's the point of playing anyway then? I wouldn't even call that playing at all. It's the same as calling a person who logs on and idles in their Mog House all day an active player. Because the two things are about just as challenging and just as entertaining.

[Arcon]

If that were true, you would still be level 1 on all jobs.

Level 75 was not a goal, but a requirement.

As a point of note, cure 3 spammed repeatedly drew less hate than cure 4 cast occasionally. C4 carried a heavy enmity load. We learned that while xping. Yes SE have changed enmity dynamics recently, but that was the old system and hence my example of it.

That was never the case and shows just that EXPing for a lifetime will not make you a good player. Enmity has been tested thoroughly (before the changes) and documented. Cure 3 and Cure 4 (and 1 and 2) follow the exact same formula. The only reason why Cure 4 drew more hate was because it cured more HP. If it cured twice as much, it net you twice as much enmity.

We disagree on everything it seems and your points in your last post are totally invalid imho, however I politely said we disagree, which you leapt on and said "no we don't disagree - I'm right and you are wrong" which makes me REALLY glad I don't have to talk to you in real life or socialise with you.

I gave a good reason for that. Disagree all you want, you're still wrong.

FFXI was a huge success, a stand alone classic online game, DURING THE SLOW PROGRESS YEARS. Since it got made into a super easy to beat game, it has crashed into the ground in flames.

Out of curiosity, what recent content did you ever beat? Did you beat NNI? Did you beat Legion? Did you beat Odin II? How about old content, did you beat Absolute Virtue? Pandemonium Warden?

Slow progress is good. SE can't handle fast progress, as they've proved repeatedly now. Slow progress keeps people playing. Slow progress ensures that previous achievements don't go to waste. Slow progress makes for a better rounded game.

EXP is not that slow progress, EXP is no progress. EXP kept you from progressing. Dynamis was slow progress. Sea was slow progress. Sky was slow Progress. Limbus, Einherjar, Salvage, everything that wasn't EXP related was slow progress. That was what kept the game alive, that was part of what made the game great. EXP had absolutely no part in it. I played the game without EXPing for years and I was highly active in all those years. What do you think I was doing? What do you think everyone else is doing? Some people had better things to do than screenshot 20 Lv.75 jobs in their MH. That was not what I played for. Having a job at 75 meant nothing.

Many people felt they could quit a job when it was at 75, and that's the part I never understood. Leveling itself needs to have a purpose. If you only level to level, what's the point? You level to beat new content, to experience new things, to explore the remaining game, which is huge. Out of all the possible activities the game offers, leveling never claimed more than 10% of it (pulled it out of my ass, it's figurative). There were so many events that I rarely even found the time to EXP anymore (which was good and bad, good because I didn't have to put up with it, bad because I wanted THF at 75 back then). So even with that dead, the game would still very much be alive. The fact that it isn't shows that the problem lies far beyond just EXP.