A Message to Our English-speaking Community

[Anjou]

yes because FFXI is politics? and camiie just because they are a buisness does not mean we can't be civil.I'm sure they don't expect rainbows and sunshine... but at least have some decency.. we are adults..

So we are to just tolerate poor customer satisfaction in a product?

[Camiie]

yes because FFXI is politics? and camiie just because they are a buisness does not mean we can't be civil.I'm sure they don't expect rainbows and sunshine... but at least have some decency.. we are adults..

For the most part we are civil, but it seems that most any criticism or request is met with belligerent White Knighting by some players and is either dismissed or completely ignored by SE. You can understand why some just say "screw it" and let loose with whatever is on their mind.

Also, this is a game where the customers have a lot of time, money, and emotion invested. Tempers will run hot at times. That's just how it goes and if they're truly professionals they are prepared for that.

[Anjou]

If we were flat out saying insulting things to the developers, then yes I can see why you would defend them. However what most people do is publicly point ingame issues that the devs (and this is my own speculation, feel free to disregard it) ignore and therefore they have sought to use this forum as a means of bringing it to a more public light. Because for the most part, what gets said on this forum is talked about ingame. Sooner or later SE'll have to step up to the plate and either commit to fixing the more pressing issues, or else they'll face the realization that they will end up losing potential profits.

[Prrsha]

Something that is not focused on and has been neglected for a VERY long time, is new player retention. For a MMO to survive and remain healthy it needs to retain a certain percentage of new players. Grasping for vets with these "log on campaigns" will not fill your coffers in the long run. It is just a temporary stop gap measure. Vets will move on to other games eventually, players RL situations will change and some will leave. Many will move on to other games like 14. This is why there needs to be look back to the drawing board to solve some glaring problems that are keeping new players from staying in 11.

#1 New tutorial. There should be some form of offline tutorial to introduce new players to an old format of a MMORPG. This would help immensely. It coulc give players a run down for every job and how each one should be played in a party format. Currently there is no such thing.

#2 Economy problems. Currently due to the huge rate of exp gain from Abby and GoV and players are leveling far faster then they need the gear for it. This renders the need for low level gear (aside from Guild Points) non-existent. It puts up a giant road block up for new players trying synthing, because they will quickly learn that none of their equipment they synth will sell. They will lose gil altogether and just quit, shrug and ask "Why is this feature even in the game?"

#3 Forming Parties. In the past that was the #1 complaint about leveling. Finding xxx job to do xxx. I am pleased however to see changes in the UI for the PC that is going to allow players to find other players that need similar quests/missions/leveling related content done. So that problem is sort of being fix. Kudos.

#4 VERY high level monsters (Level 99) one or two ZONES away from a starting city. Really? Come on guys, this is really a poor battle design. Players from Bastok should not be given a quest to clear bats from Bastok Mines only to attack the first bat they see, and it one shots them and they die (because the bat is level 99). This zone connects to the town for Pete's sake. From a RPG standpoint, if the bats wanted to, they could swarm the city and kill every last NPC if they wanted to.

Also many of these level 99 monsters are right in the way of certain quests (like the brass canteen quest) and other low level quests. New players can (and will) get confused easily when they lack a tutorial regarding "Sneak and Invisible" and don't realize why they can't complete simple starter quests. In addition access to sneak oils and prism powders are far out of the gil range of new players. Please just remove those high level monster clusters. No high level player levels off of them anymore now that newer content is around.

#5 Low level content for lower level players. Players won't feel the need to rush to level 99 if they have something worthwhile to do along the way. Look at FF14 for an example. There are plenty of quests with rewarding items and those that give exp. The rewards for the lower level quests need to be looked over again and changed to fit the changing landscape of the game. No one needs a Linen Robe anymore as a reward for a quest that takes 5-6 hours. Also in 14, you have events like FATE that low level players can take part in. FFXI desperately needs events like this. Garrison and Eco-Warrior doesn't cut it anymore, especially when you are handing out many of the worthwhile rewards from log in campaigns anyways. A Wotg Campaign battle style for lower level players could be a start. That way players would be doing something "fun" to get to level 99 instead of spamming GoV fell cleaves in Gusgen Mines or leeching in Abby from level 30-99. Back in the day, that would be considered exploiting the system, but few care anymore which leads me to my final point...

#6 Very few Vet players will care about new player content. Why? Because it doesn't pertain to them. You will see very little threads about it. Heck, most of the new players who leave 11, don't even know this forum exists (or really care). See... new players aren't as passionate about 11 as vets are. Why? They have invested nothing but a month into the game. They move on and don't give it a second glance. All of those silent joiners and leavers are tons of cash flow out of your pocket. If you want to see a richer game, a game with a larger development staff... there needs to be the player base to support it. If you ignore these people new to 11, the game will slowly die out like a starved candle. I've seen it before in far to many MMOs to count.
If you really care about 11's legacy you need to fix it's foundation. Attract new players, make them feel welcome, WHILE attending to your vet players. If you don't do all of these things, all you have left is a server full of disgruntled vets wishing this and that were added to the game... but wonder why it isn't happening, because the devs don't have enough cash to hire a larger team to address those matters.

In closing:

Please shut down exploit leveling by capping abby to 75+

Please alter the GoV and FoV books so people don't fly to 99 in a few days. If they do, there will be no use for low level gear or a reason for crafters to craft them.

Please add fun and engrossing content for players that are leveling to reach to 99 so they are not bored and allow the content they do, HELP them obtain that goal instead of give booby prizes.

Please allow such content to be done with the help of vets and new players alike, working together towards a common goal. One simple way to do this was to have events with level caps on them. CoP was brilliant in doing so because you brought both communities together to accomplish certain aspects of the storyline. It would be nice to see those level caps back again. It would also serve to make low level gear useful again (which would help the crafting economy). My only gripe with CoP was that it was very difficult to organize a run. With the new search system, I hope this would be a thing of the past. Another thought would be to have level capped campaign battles that players could join freely. Or a FATE system like in 14.

Once you do the above things, advertise the game more, and let the new players enter FF11 and fall in love with it like we did before.