Dear SE...

[Kuvo]

This is a great idea. I've been saying to make xi a single player game for some time now. And ffxii is very similar to the play style of ffxi but the story isn't the same. I love xi and would like to see a game like that.

[Demon6324236]

Fixing it ;
1)Aby lvl cap above 75. Restoration of the 'big level-gap results in no xp system' in Aby. No more 99s killing mobs and lvl 30s standing there going ding every 30 seconds. We should stop that, and go back to the original xp system, augmented with level synch, and book-pages.

Oh I see, so you plan to strand all new players at low levels, the ass end of the game where no one is anymore. If you think people would still level jobs your sadly mistaken, and even if people did, where would they go? Gusgen, Crawlers, and so on, people wouldn't go back to Dunes, Kazham, Altepa, or anything of the sort. All this change would do at this point is stop most people from leveling new jobs while stranding new players at the low end of the game with hardly anyone else. At least with Abyssea they play with others after some time, its not nothing but soloing, which is what this would basically have people doing.

Magian trials. The fairest, most versatile and most rewarding weapon building system in the game imo. Add new weapon groups, cool looking weaps, add new trials to existing 99 Magians, to make them competitive in SoA and later battlefields.

Except SE seems to want to move past this system. If they would use it still, to a point, I would agree with you. I like ToM somewhat, though I have massive issues with the annoying lack of challenge, as though killing 2000 mobs which were far weaker than me during certain weathers proved I was worthy of the weapon or not. In either case, this wouldn't be to bad except it might devalue SoA weapons more which SE also seems to be trying to avoid.

Basically bring back stratification. Ie. pay your dues if u wanna wear these shoes. As the zen masters say. New chars being pimpest in the server after a few months, is a tragic fail on every level. And this rocketing to the top of the game in a month, removes the long journeying aspect, and also removes the whole 'veterans helping new adventurers' ethos which has been the backbone of FFXI for 10 years and led to many lasting friendships.

Being on top in a month, I agree, bad, long journey/helping new players, I disagree with. New people need help now more than ever before. Before people starting out had a lot of others around, people would noticed them and would help, but now days its all upper ended so no one sees them or helps them as much, and as you get further in this game it only gets worse as many more things pop up without telling you. For instance, a new player would know nothing of AF these days, or Limit Breaks, not unless they are told, before you might hear about it in a party, but now days, no parties. So to me, new players need help more in that aspect than ever, and really, since most people want Delve boss weapons and such to even participate in Delve, the main piece of SoA content, new people need help getting these for sure.

I agree about having to work for something, but this game needs to stop with the stupid/annoying ways to do it. Original Delve was hard, that was how it should have been, a really hard event, best gear, hard event, simple. The fact this game hides everything behind annoyingly tedious tasks like ToM where your doing something over and over without challenge, or the fact its hidden behind super high amounts of luck like NNI or VW, those are stupid. The game needs to be about earning things but not from repeating the same event over and over again because of luck or something that says you have to, something should be simply challenging, and if you can win that challenge, you are rewarded.

[Demon6324236]

Well idk coz I was "stranded" there myself in 2004, and I had a lot of fun xping to 75 in lots of different areas. And the 'where nobody is anymore' is the whole problem, to fix it you need a system that engages players to use those old areas, a system like we had in 03-09. The only reason those areas are empty is because theres a 'leech to 99' option available. If that option is removed, the old areas will once again be filled up with new players.

In 2004 there were people, all up till Abyssea there were people out there, but that's not now, is it? No matter what the reason, the areas are empty, and as I explained, even if you try to make people go back to old areas, it wont work, take away Abyssea, people will just do book parties, take away books, people will find something else. I am not sure where these hoards of new players are that will fill up the old areas for leveling...

In most of the recent threads there is 'why is ffxi dying' stuff, and my point is its dying because it got made into a game you can beat while afk watching TV. That is an undemanding game. And when people don't feel the game demands anything of them, they usually /quit in boredom. My suggestions are what I think could bring back the popular core game FFXI, the alternative seems to be just this fail situation we have today.

The thing is that with all your posts you seem to be focused on the idea that leveling is the core of the game, and wont accept the fact you cant really go back to that unless you do something to reset people. I agree that going as it is right now will not work, but you cant just say that taking leeching away from the game would fix it all, or really fix it at all.

Take away leeching/quick leveling, and who gets hurt most? Nearly everyone in the game today has a few jobs at 99, we wont level new jobs as easily if at all, but that doesn't mean we don't have out jobs we already leveled/leeched. New players on the other hand, would be forced to level slower, taking weeks or months to reach 99, which is where everyone else is right now. That's why I say they are stranded, forced to level slowly to get to the part of the game where everyone else is, something that is not even close to the same as back in 2004 or any other pre-Abyssea period really.

Some people including you it seems, believe that the old slow party xp to lvl75 was an evil and horrible waterboarding type of experience. But I can confirm I had more fun xping in 04-09 in challenging parties with interesting players, than I've had since Aby and Soa arrived. And the point is, if you want the game to survive, you need the new players to keep logging in and paying subs, and the reason players always did that was that they had a slower progression through the game. "This week I'm gonna go level 65-70 if it kills me!" etc. Now its just, "oh I'm lvl 30, I got stacks of forbidden keys, I will be 99 before the end of the day" /yawn & /quitgame.

I enjoyed old XP parties for a time, when they were all I knew, and they were necessary. I no longer enjoy them or the idea of them, I did them for some time, but I realized the social aspect of it was the only part I enjoyed, the fights were boring, the challenge non-existent, and overall, it just wasn't fun for what I was doing, but it was fun for the people I did it with. Once I joined a linkshell with those people, I had no more fun in XP parties than I did just standing in my Mog House really, XP just kept me more active.

Besides that, look, you keep talking about leveling as if its the only thing, level, level, level... As though that's all there is to the game. Yes, new players can get to level 99 before the end of a day, whup te do, that means nothing when you have no gear, no skill, no merits, no knowledge, sure, some people will see level 99 and think they are done, people with the mindset you seem to have. Others, will understand that its simply a number, a level, something that does not mean you have won. You want to speak of a journey, well, the new journey begins at 99, if a new player quits at 99 just because of the number, they are not fit for the journey.

This game needs more content, something to keep people here, but leveling is not the place to find it, not any more.

I disagree on Magians. I enjoyed doing f.ex 3000~ ws to build a TPbonus weapon, etc. It felt like I was being challenged, to use TP efficiently, get the required WS killshots etc. Also I like my char & enjoy watching her use WS. Also pet trials, using strats to get multiple mobs to 10% so your pet can kill them fast. Weather trials, holding like 20 mobs at 10% while waiting for the weather to change lol. And coz I earned those items by my own efforts that makes me feel like proud of it and stuff. I didn't just leech a seeker's KI and use it to buy a god-shovel.

Seeing as I am sure they did not intend us to hold 20 mobs for weather so we can AoE WS them all to death, its not really challenging content, its just you creating your own form of challenge. I think of it like someone going in to Abyssea without Atma/Cruor buffs, its an option you choose, but its not really how SE intended it to be done. When it comes down to it, your killing hundreds or thousands of mobs which are all many levels under you, often EP or EEP now, and in the end would be rewarded one of the best weapons in the game, to me, its just not to great a system in that way, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind seeing it expanded on as it did work well.

The other great thing about Magians is if you have a job and family etc., you can log in a few hours per evening and just chip away at your trials, and obtain your weapon gradually on your own casual timeframe. For ppl with real lives, a lot of SoA timesinks are just not possible.

That is the best thing about ToM, and the worst thing about ToM. The weather/day trials are a complete time sink that are often impossible for people with those kind of restrictions. The fact you have to kill certain enemies in certain weathers means you can be restricted to certain zones with rare weather such as fire or water makes it impossible for some people because of the waiting. Even day trials can be a complete pain since you have to wait for your free time and the proper days to align so that you can make progress.

As I said, ToM is a good system, but a bad system, another lack of true challenge but it could be worse.

[Demon6324236]

Are you making the mistake of thinking I am comparing the old FFXI to the current FFXI and saying that the current FFXI is good? If so, your mistaken, the current game sucks, pre-SoA was good, that's what I compare it too, the game as it is now sucks and the game that it was pre-Abyssea can never return either.

Pre-SoA FFXI had a lot of content at 99, you started often at Abyssea, but you had so much to do, that's the journey, Abyssea, VW, doing CoP, Limbus/II, RotZ, Sky, NNI, Salvage/II, Einherjar/II, Legion, and likely more that I cant think of. Now? Its only Delve, Skirmish, Reives, and they are all shorter and easier than the others I listed really.

[Ravenmore]

Seems to be a lot of rose tinted glasses going on here. Abyessa didn't bring in new players it bought back old player that came back cause the old sytem was gone. No longer did you need 17 other people to get things done, no more sucking up to ls leaders to get gear you only needed a couple close friends that you enjoyed being around not a bunch of people you would rather see die in a fire but had to put up with to get things done and you could work towards rewards. Almost every fight offered something for everyone that helped.

Even during the ToAU era the lowbie areas were dead X-play even highlighted this when they did their review of the expansion saying the game was top heavy which was right on the money, the starter cities were dead with everyone being in whitegate or jueno. People left after abyssea when content not only went back to alliance based content but it was time restricted to 30 mins a fight that meant little to no room for error so only the top DDs were taken to reduce the chance of fail. Before with time restricted you either had the option of limiting your rewards by picking time extensions like limbus areas and final bosses that could be beaten in AH gear or events like dyna where you could take as many bodies you could to make up for lack of skill or gear. But most of old endgame you could use body chunk and beat the mobs down by kicking the dead and inviting the living. Involved less skill then a skirmish run. What was hard was watching that 1% drop go to the guy you hated above all else and he then left the shell.

If it wasn't for abyssea faster less exclusive leveling people wouldn't had leveled many of the jobs they have now cause the first time up to 75 was fun the sec less and by the third time it was so boring that you didn't take up another job unless it was a job you needed to level to get into a good endgame shell cause all you had was DDs and they were only taking whm, rdm, brds sounds familiar huh.

Sky was p** freaking easy, not getting lost on the way to kitty was the hardest thing about it, sea finding people with the right jobs and willing to help do the missions to get to sea was the hardest part, it's endgame was easier then the missions. ZNM was doom to fail once since the people that were the ones building the pops got sick of carrying the leaches along after putting so much work in taking the pics for little to no reward at the end. Salavge you had to choose between doing assaults for points or Nyzul focusing on one could mean that by time you were done with it the rush was over for the other and finding help was even harder.

Old game only seemed like it was pack cause more then one LS doing sky/sea meant you had to fight over the pre pop NMs all had at least a 2 hour respawn and one at one point was a 24 hour spawn the RMTs had on lock down. That first day might had been exciting but after fighting kirin for the 1000th time it was old and tiring. Then you had leveling that would take longer to put the party together then it would be leveling cause no one wanted to play tanks or mages.

Then you take in to account it's a 11 year old game that has NEVER gotten a graphics upgrade(a real one not the BS token upgrades we have gotten to fonts and a few icons). EVE, EQ, WoW all got a upgrade to their graphics at some point in their history's. People will use the excuse that it's the Ilvl or relics being outdated what not but you hear excuses that sound very much like people when they leave girl friends, wives, boy friends, husbands, when they get fat or loss their attractiveness when a hot 20 something comes along and shows them some attention. Just in this case it was a new game with what really got people to pick the game up in the first place and that is the Final Fantasy name. I heard everything you all are going on about from many people that left for 14 were they have the the same system. The niche this game had for the longest time was it was the only Final Fantasy MMO it no longer has that niche.

The last influx of brand new players was with the 360 release so you now have a aging player base that have other things they have to do so even if abyssea never happen it would have just meant we would have seen this 3 years ago. Wotg did more damage to the game then SoA just with SoA there was fewer to absorb the hit then with wotg thanks to the people leaving after going back to the old model that came with VW. SE over corrected with VW and then again with SoA while the reward are easier to get once you get the wins, getting into run that can get the wins are the hardest part if you don't go back to the old way of getting into good LSs.

Everything that has happen since after abyssea has been things the player based ask for but with with how limited the game is thanks to being tied down to outdated hardware they had to use cheap tricks to make content harder I.E extremely low drop rates or time events that promoted exclusion.

[Demon6324236]

I had a good laugh at that one, thanks. I had 12 jobs at 75 in 2009. I also had two mules on 75.

You also seem to think that leveling was the greatest thing the game ever had, so go figure, most people at 75 had a few jobs, 2~3, and stopped because XPing for hours on end wasn't appealing to them anymore.

This game still looks and plays fine, to me. It looks good and the engine is responsive and well designed. Also re; 11 years, ppl play 1980s games still lol. Classics never die.

Games from the 1980s aren't updated every couple months and make you pay a subscription monthly to play it either. Very different things. That being said, I honestly don't care much about the graphics, worse they are, less lag I get on my terrible Laptop, part of the only reason I still play this probably, so I cant complain much.

But tbh most of the people I've seen quit during SoA are new players who join the LS, get 99, get delve, get bored, all three of those things they get incredibly fast.

I am sure new players quit, what do they have here to look forward to? People like us who have played for years are sitting around with friends we have known for a long time, playing a game we have played for a long time, hoping it gets better again. If your new to the game, you don't really have that, you get everything fast, see a massive lack of content, see no reason to stay, and leave. So far as I hear, FFXIV is in the same boat, people come, they get into it a bit, find the amount of content rather lacking, and leave, not everyone, but a lot of people.

But just to say, the fact new people are leaving is part of why I continue to tell you that you wont be able to get old leveling to work ever again. There would never be enough new players to make parties enough to actually level that way, anyone new who couldn't leech would be stuck with all of the new players, which are few and far between, leaving the game feeling fairly dead. How could you really tell a new player they need to spend 1~3 months of their time to play, doing nothing but killing small enemies in areas with hardly anyone else, just so they can get to the part of the content where all of the other players are?

[Demon6324236]

They hardly advertised the game when it had a brand new expansion coming out, hell, I cant think of an advertisement I have seen for FFXI in years that wasn't RMT. They didn't put the game on disk for PC users, they don't let PS2 players play it outside of JP, and the Xbox version is hard to find in stores as it is from what I have seen. When it comes down to it, they aren't trying to sell the game anymore really. For what your talking about they would have to advertise the game, they would need to actually make it possible to find without having to go online and look specifically for it.

On top of that, I wonder what your position is on the, Final Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection Seekers Edition, promotional items. The fact they give you 1 Regen/Refresh as well as Auto-Reraise, Movement Speed+, and +50 Accuracy to every form of Accuracy, makes them very overpowered for low levels, making it easy. Now, if you are ok with this, then they could just use the current Ultimate Collection of FFXI and just advertise the game that way, as well as making a new version on disk for PC players I suppose so that people could find it in stores. All in all, I doubt this would ever happen.

[Demon6324236]

Well that was part of my point. If you take those out you make it harder, but you also take away one of the parts to the Ultimate Collection of today, which means for them to do it without those codes they would need to remove that, and possibly put something else in it for new players. Doing that would likely be a pain on their end, giving even more reason for them not to do it on top of their normal lack of advertisement and such. It all adds on to why I think it will never happen, and why I keep saying the old FFXI can never return through this game. Its a nice idea and all, but between SE and the players, as well as the games age which creates a lack of new players, I honestly cant imagine it ever happening.

I play old games myself, but I am sure not many people go out and buy old games they never played, and this game is just that, an old game that most people haven't played, I don't see a lot of people will come to this no matter the changes sadly.

[Ravenmore]

You nailed it. It was only hard if you made it hard, same as to day. I knew a group that used to 6 man omega and low man all the lower gods. Killing the gods wasn't the problem beating the other LSes to the punch on the pre pop NMs was the hardest thing. Reason why you had a hard time getting people was people were sick of doing sky. Sky was the entry level endgame and you didn't need a good sky LS to do it. You got into the good endgame LSs to do ground kings again hardest thing wasn't falling asleep while you waited for it to pop and try to beat the other LSs there to claim.

Lost far more players from the Delve weapon only to even do delve then the ones that got bored doing delve. It's still SE's fault but that was leaving in being able to keep fighting mobs past the rage timer for so long. So a whole bunch of people got their KIs from whoring sam/thf, Blu/thf and if you missed that you had a hard time getting into future runs. Which leads to people leaving since they put up with that crap though VW and had enough. Not being able to even get into the content will make people leave faster. Just because its easy for you doesn't mean its easy.

[Demon6324236]

That's a community issue more than anything though. Many people on the leading end of the community are more selfish about their rewards than they truly need to be. For instance, people who asked for nothing but Delve DDs for regular Plasm Farming, not Tojil, Dakuwaqa, or Muyingwa, just flat out old Plasm Farming off of weak mobs. People could have gone in without Delve DDs, gotten Plasm, and even though they would have gotten less, more people in the community would have the weapons. The thing is, the community doesn't work like that, often times its either have the required weapon for people to invite you, or you get ignored/talked down to, and that is a massive issue, but its a community issue. SE cant really make us invite others, it wont work, they asked us to when Delve came out even, but nothing happened as expected. I agree, it makes people leave faster, and I have no doubt it has caused some people to leave, but sadly, its just how this game has gotten at this point.