THANK YOU

[Vivivivi]

I logged in tonight for the first time in weeks, and so did dozens of friends because of the welcome back campaign.

Instead of being met with new content we didnt meet requirements for, we were all very, VERY pleasantly surprised at how much new content we COULD participate in, and how much more of a pleasant experience it was to travel around vana'diel.

I had fun explaining to some xi friends what the spriggans are like in 14. We all started unlocking trust spells, and trying out the new eminence system and felt right back at home with a lot of new things to do.

The general concencus: A+ tremendous work dev team. Vana'diel has never been a friendlier place, and content is fun again, and much more intuitive to access. Really really refreshing to see.

[Draylo]

Yeah I agree, next month should be another update as well with their planned update schedule.

[Mkilbride]

Really? Opposite here. All my friends are depressed. We're both on servers with the "best" population that rarely breaks 1000 people - a all time low, as it used to average 3200+ earlier this year. Content is easy and accessable...but the rewards are gone. They've made the game so easy that all the content that used to be so exciting because it was a challenge...is gone. I don't know. It feels...disappointing that you no longer need to party. FoV's are boring.

The game is more accessable, but the reason I played FFXI, the feeling of accomplishment - is gone. You can get 99 weapons that max out all your skills instantly, with ease. You can solo Dynamsis, you can make millions of Gil in hours with no problems. NM's have like a 25% drop rate now instead of 2-3%.

Game is old, and I understand why they did it, but the population shows it wasn't meant for all. The dip since the release of Seekers is incredibly noticable. 3200 players @ peak to 1200 @ peak, and sometimes as low as 400-500 players, even on one of the Top MOST populated servers. And you have to factor in what % of those are AFK, or logged on merely to talk to friends.

Vana'diel has never been more cold to me, less friendly...and as boring as it is now. I went and killed a NM I used to hunt, that had a decent drop worth good cash, and I have all the memories of competing against people for it, of getting the drop or not, and bringing friends to split it with, and all the excitement of MAYBE, getting that drop, that literally caused my heart to pound. I went to that NM - killed it, got it's drop. Within the span of 2 hours, I got the drop around 8 times.

It's just...too easy...the thrill is gone in getting stuff. I used to go "Wow! Look @ that 75 in his AF with his Relic weapon!"

You'd see a guy with Excalibur...and it was like "You are fucking awesome!" now you can get it with a few hours work.

[Calypsx]

Amazing patch, it made me incredibly happy and i'm having a blast.

[Umichi]

Really? Opposite here. All my friends are depressed. We're both on servers with the "best" population that rarely breaks 1000 people - a all time low, as it used to average 3200+ earlier this year. Content is easy and accessable...but the rewards are gone. They've made the game so easy that all the content that used to be so exciting because it was a challenge...is gone. I don't know. It feels...disappointing that you no longer need to party. FoV's are boring.

The game is more accessable, but the reason I played FFXI, the feeling of accomplishment - is gone. You can get 99 weapons that max out all your skills instantly, with ease. You can solo Dynamsis, you can make millions of Gil in hours with no problems. NM's have like a 25% drop rate now instead of 2-3%.

Game is old, and I understand why they did it, but the population shows it wasn't meant for all. The dip since the release of Seekers is incredibly noticable. 3200 players @ peak to 1200 @ peak, and sometimes as low as 400-500 players, even on one of the Top MOST populated servers. And you have to factor in what % of those are AFK, or logged on merely to talk to friends.

Vana'diel has never been more cold to me, less friendly...and as boring as it is now. I went and killed a NM I used to hunt, that had a decent drop worth good cash, and I have all the memories of competing against people for it, of getting the drop or not, and bringing friends to split it with, and all the excitement of MAYBE, getting that drop, that literally caused my heart to pound. I went to that NM - killed it, got it's drop. Within the span of 2 hours, I got the drop around 8 times.

It's just...too easy...the thrill is gone in getting stuff. I used to go "Wow! Look @ that 75 in his AF with his Relic weapon!"

You'd see a guy with Excalibur...and it was like "You are fucking awesome!" now you can get it with a few hours work.

How much of the game have you and your friends completed? how connected are you and your friends? there are many variables and circumstances that undoubtedly has occured to make the game to easy for you... lack of content might be one if your on the leading edge of the sword.

[Vivivivi]

@Mkilbride i think where I'm coming from is the point of view of a player who has barely logged in since August. To me and many of my friends, we're past the point of willing to go through the grind of the old days (which was rewarding at the time for sure!) and are greatful that this new content allows us to jump back in to things right away

[Dreamin]

Not sure how your server can be 'best' if you're hardly ever breaking 1k. Over here, on weeknights (NA EST timeframe), we're anywhere in the 800-1.2k. On weekends, it's typically 1k-1.4k. At least those are the numbers I remember seeing in the last 2+ weeks or so.

[Afania]

Really? Opposite here. All my friends are depressed. We're both on servers with the "best" population that rarely breaks 1000 people - a all time low, as it used to average 3200+ earlier this year. Content is easy and accessable...but the rewards are gone. They've made the game so easy that all the content that used to be so exciting because it was a challenge...is gone. I don't know. It feels...disappointing that you no longer need to party. FoV's are boring.

The game is more accessable, but the reason I played FFXI, the feeling of accomplishment - is gone. You can get 99 weapons that max out all your skills instantly, with ease. You can solo Dynamsis, you can make millions of Gil in hours with no problems. NM's have like a 25% drop rate now instead of 2-3%.

Game is old, and I understand why they did it, but the population shows it wasn't meant for all. The dip since the release of Seekers is incredibly noticable. 3200 players @ peak to 1200 @ peak, and sometimes as low as 400-500 players, even on one of the Top MOST populated servers. And you have to factor in what % of those are AFK, or logged on merely to talk to friends.

Vana'diel has never been more cold to me, less friendly...and as boring as it is now. I went and killed a NM I used to hunt, that had a decent drop worth good cash, and I have all the memories of competing against people for it, of getting the drop or not, and bringing friends to split it with, and all the excitement of MAYBE, getting that drop, that literally caused my heart to pound. I went to that NM - killed it, got it's drop. Within the span of 2 hours, I got the drop around 8 times.

It's just...too easy...the thrill is gone in getting stuff. I used to go "Wow! Look @ that 75 in his AF with his Relic weapon!"

You'd see a guy with Excalibur...and it was like "You are fucking awesome!" now you can get it with a few hours work.

Pretty much this. This game needs some "motivation" worth building connection for. This update turns FFXI into solo MMO since you can get best gears with 0 friends, if I want to play solo I'd play single player game.


I don't mind some gears obtainable solo, but most of the top gears obtainable solo is just none sense to me. What's the point to make friends? What's the point to join a LS? What's the point to work hard? None of those hard work are rewarded, just easy to obtain gears coming 1 after another. I don't mind this game being more friendly, but not rewarding hard work/connection making is killing this game....you won't see the result now. After 3~6 months of easy come and go gears ppl WILL get bored and quit. Like how I quit FFXIV cuz I can get IL90s without doing raid. No motivation to raid=quit.

[Rekin]

I enjoy the fact they increased accessibility, lowman and solo content, and generally lots of quality of life improvements but what killed this game for me is the soul sucking knowledge knowing that core issues between jobs will never, ever, ever be fixed in a meaningful way. Tanks will never have a true purpose in high end content that isn't essentially bait for trash to chew on. Jobs that aren't in SE's favor will never get the attention they deserve and in the case of DDs the difference in dmg is terrible even when a job is at its pinnacle when against an average to above avg dd who is in SE's graces. The SP2s more or less proved that when an ability like SAM's was okayed even though its basically invincible+5 when RDM gets a gimped ES and DNC/DRG get a gimped Meikyo.

I know the devs are working to retain what they can but for me the crushing despair of knowing that jobs will never be truly balanced and that ancient broken/useless/redundant unique items for jobs will never be addressed killed any desire I ever had to return.
I leveled many jobs, even those loved by SE like SAM but I find no joy, no accomplishment in knowing that even if I played the job terribly more often then not I'll be above the best of lesser dds no matter what. When the current director said he'd stop even bothering to making sure new content that could include all jobs it was large nail in the coffin.

For all its current faults what I praise SE for doing in FFXIV is that the job balance is extremely well done to the point where I am surprised. The kicker, the players told the DEVs how bad one tank was behind another in damage migration. The response was to essentially overhaul the job, a feat that will NEVER happen in FFXI. This is a sad truth.

If you still enjoy the game, great this is a good time to bask in the current content.