The nerf scattergun approach?

[Runespider]

Nerf after nerf after nerf while making unforgiving unrewarding content, it's like someone is pushing out all the good decisions that were made to the game during abyssea and we are being pushed back to 75 days again. I understand balance but someone has to see the light here, this game is for entertainment purposes and the mindset of balance > fun is not the best way to make a happy playerbase.

The new cor roll nerf is killing some of the very few remaining fun aspects of the game as it currently stands for me but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The old joke of "An issue where the players were having too much fun was found to be evident, we are swiftly taking action to rectify this situation" rings true, really why did FFXI build itself up and then another team ride in and rip it all out? What happened to the hollow promises of "we won't be nerfing jobs, but building others up"?

All I see in the future of FFXI now is more nerfs, anything remotly enjoyable is going to be nerfed and horribly unrewarding VW like content/drop rates.

What is to look forward to in FFXI with this kind of design team at work on it now?

[Malamasala]

I think the only thing left to look forward to is spirits. At least those can't let you down more than they've always done.

[Runespider]

The route they are currently taking is really disheartening honestly, during abyssea the reponses all gave off a feel good factor "Never fear we won't nerf jobs but instead boost others!" or genuinly taking on board players comments and really trying to meet them. Now it's all stuff to ruin a players enjoyment of the game in the sake of balance.

It started off with a small nerf to war and as expected it unleashed the flood gates and everything is getting nerfed, if you enjoy some aspect of your job/game/ws right now chances are it's gonna be nerfed soon in the name of balance. If you are looking forward to some new event they are going to add the chances are it will either be horribly unfair in some fashion to extend it's lifespan or have droprates to make the hardest of hardcores scream for mercy. Lets not even start on the idiocy of new gamegoals like relic trials.

If this is balance, balance can kiss my ass.

[Malamasala]

Abyssea is probably the only thing they ever did right. Everything else has just been a constant stream of disappointments that make you wonder "Why don't they simply fix what is wrong?".

[Avelonia]

Seriously STOP NERFING THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS LV 99 NOT 75 CAP! I thought this was supposed to be a new found era of power and fun...... MAKE THE WEAK STRONGER, STOP MAKING THE STRONG WEAKER. Do we have to spell it out for you?

[Karbuncle]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WkKZJVG5wTk/S0RM35150BI/AAAAAAACUeA/S3Wnm8QftK0/s400/tape44-06356.jpg

Just saying...

[Sparthos]

The game is going right back to 75, just with remnants of Abyssean bells and whistles.

Lots of nerfs, tweaks to old JAs with very little information on improvements and a restructuring that seems strangely reminiscent of the old lvl cap. Some classes have moved up in the ranks though.

[Vold]

It would be more humane to turn the servers off than this torturing. And I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about FFXI. It's practically stretched out on the rack as I speak. Next up is quartered and sent to the four corners of Japan as a warning to gamers who grow attached to their MMOs and refuse to play the next MMO incarnation.

[wish12oz]

The fact that a post like this pops up, and the first page is all people agreeing with it, instead of laughing at it, should really tell you something SE.

[zagam]

The fact that a post like this pops up, and the first page is all people agreeing with it, instead of laughing at it, should really tell you something SE. Im laughing at it. Especially since the OP continues to make pointless threads just to get a few likes from the OF cry baby circle . Put up a dislike button and you'll see that the "entire player base" " majority of players"( its 85% right?) isn't really on your side. But I guess if that happens then runespiders constant complaints won't have much weight when he cant pull the entire player base is gonna quit if you don't do what I want.

[doctorugh]

My suggestion to SE would be to simply make mobs more difficult instead of nerfing. Perhaps give certain mobs the ability to steal rolls/songs ect. The best way to make a child cry is give them something and then jerk it away........we really dont work that much different as we grow older, we can just verbalize better.

[Karbuncle]

Im laughing at it. Especially since the OP continues to make pointless threads just to get a few likes from the OF cry baby circle . Put up a dislike button and you'll see that the "entire player base" " majority of players"( its 85% right?) isn't really on your side. But I guess if that happens then runespiders constant complaints won't have much weight when he cant pull the entire player base is gonna quit if you don't do what I want.

Right, Because when a Company who just a few months ago promised us "No nerfs, Only Buffs", Is now going full-nerf mode, Hitting WAR, MNK, COR, BST... amongst other things, We have no right to complain?

While Runespider may be making multiple threads "whining", he as a customer is entitled to such act, especially when these actions are going against what were made to believe was going to be coming in the future of FFXI.

anyone defending these random nerfs and frankly bad decisions are simply white-knights who have been deluded with years of FFXI into thinking every act from SE should be viewed as benevolent gifts of Balance.

Nerfs are never and should never be the answer to job adjustments. Buffing other jobs to be on par would be a better solution. I don't care if they nerfed WAR, MNK, and SAM in order to Buff THF To be the best DD and tank in the game, I would still be upset they nerfed WAR, MNK, and SAM in the process.

And its no secret THF is my favorite job.

Nerfs are quite simply never the solution, and frankly, its the "easy way out" when it comes to job adjustments. Its far easier in the name of "balance" to nerf one job, than to try and buff others around it.

[Vold]

I have little faith in there being a bright future for the game by the end of this year if they are still busy on this kind of stuff. Looking ahead it pretty much looks like the rest of the year is going to be spent on revamping old content instead of giving us new content in the form of expansions to the game that we pay for. Not that I am against the idea of revamping stuff but old is old and every moment spent on old is moments not spent on new. I am sick to death of the WotG era. From release up to Voidwatch it all stinks of being WotG related. I'm ready to move on to a new playground within the Vana'diel we know and love and leave void-everything the hell behind. Forever.

This is why I love this cookie I'm eating so much. It doesn't have personal issues. It doesn't mind there's a bigger and better incarnation of it. It doesn't feel the need for it's chocolate chips to be balanced. It doesn't feel the need to adjust it's chp count so that it's the same as a smaller cookie so that it does not become obsolete. It just cowards away there in my hand and gets eaten without any fuss about anything. Mmm so good. I am now happy. It's that easy. I am now happy. 10/10 will buy again.

FFXI is starting to feel like 1/10 will not play again.

[Damane]

while yes we are seeing some nerfs atm (and trust me cor is one of my main jobs so I hate this nerf), I would like to be fair and say that we are also seeing buffs.

The circle ability buffs (while situational) is a very strong buff
the cure potency buff to cure I-IV
We also saw the PUP - automaton buffs. And still see some

It really looks to me they want to find a middleground and get all the jobs pushed into that direction. Which imho is good, but they alos overlook the fact that you cant nerf every zerg ability when you have abyssmal droprates in VW... the longer the fights the more time it takes you to get your stuff with this shit dorprates.

alot of merit category 2 changes are actually BUFFs.

[Juilan]

The fact that a post like this pops up, and the first page is all people agreeing with it, instead of laughing at it, should really tell you something SE.

That assumes the devs can actually read, or understand simple language.
BALANCE = MONSTER THAT ARE MORE THAN FOURTY LEVELS UNDER YOU NO LONGER AGGRO.

[Runespider]

Im laughing at it. Especially since the OP continues to make pointless threads just to get a few likes from the OF cry baby circle . Put up a dislike button and you'll see that the "entire player base" " majority of players"( its 85% right?) isn't really on your side. But I guess if that happens then runespiders constant complaints won't have much weight when he cant pull the entire player base is gonna quit if you don't do what I want.

I do agree the threads are pointless, as are most that get posted here. Ultimately I suppose at this point in time we should just either shutup and accept the game/dev team for what it is and carry on playing or quit. Voicing complaints on here when the writing is on the wall boils down to, as you say pointless whining now.

I'm done making them now at least.

[zagam]

Right, Because when a Company who just a few months ago promised us "No nerfs, Only Buffs", Is now going full-nerf mode, Hitting WAR, MNK, COR, BST... amongst other things, We have no right to complain?

While Runespider may be making multiple threads "whining", he as a customer is entitled to such act, especially when these actions are going against what were made to believe was going to be coming in the future of FFXI.

anyone defending these random nerfs and frankly bad decisions are simply white-knights who have been deluded with years of FFXI into thinking every act from SE should be viewed as benevolent gifts of Balance.

Nerfs are never and should never be the answer to job adjustments. Buffing other jobs to be on par would be a better solution. I don't care if they nerfed WAR, MNK, and SAM in order to Buff THF To be the best DD and tank in the game, I would still be upset they nerfed WAR, MNK, and SAM in the process.

And its no secret THF is my favorite job.

Nerfs are quite simply never the solution, and frankly, its the "easy way out" when it comes to job adjustments. Its far easier in the name of "balance" to nerf one job, than to try and buff others around it.

The same company also said a few months ago they would never change the VW drops system and went ahead and did it anyway , your point? If you thing SE is the only company to ever change its mind about the product the sell then you are naive. And you cant seriously believe that continuing to buff jobs over and over will make the game better? you cant keep setting the bar higher and expect a balanced product.
And of course you have the right to complain, its an American past time. Just don't sit there and assume that everyone is on the same page. But any opinion vs you is white knighting? You sound like that Stockholm's guy every time someone disagrees with you. I never once said I liked nerfs but I understand to some degree why they are needed, Im an ukko war and ill be the first to admit I could see a nerf coming a mile away.

Runespider is a customer yes. But the problem most of you fail to understand is the the phrase the customer is always right is WRONG. There comes a time when any business will cut its losses with a customer that they clearly cant make happy. Some people are born complainers, no matter what you do nothing will ever be good enough.

Nerfs aren't the easy way out infarct just the opposite. The easy way out is to do like you said and buff everything else while making everyone happy at the same time, except for the job that was the bar. But again, the bar cant keep going up. So instead the nerf some things and have a few people fume on the OF.

[Karbuncle]

I respect your choices in this matter, Though i respectfully decline.

But I know never to fight a Fanboy/WhiteKnight. I have no interest in attempting to ask the wind to not blow, Or Water to not be wet.

Thank you for your time.

[Eri]

Its sad that noone seems to see that Abyssea broke balance and that what ppl call nerfs are fixes that have to be done sooner or later.
The Game is way to easy now. Period.
Its not fun - because its easy. I dont want things handed to me. I wanna work for it.

And while yes sometimes its nice to get something..... do you feel any acomplishment in anything anymore?

Abyssea was OK. As casual Content. But at the same time ppl got used to the easy pace. 9 of 10 Players outright suck and Leech. Ppl you woulda kicked from Pt before for beeing useless.

Idc what you ppl think honesly. Things have to change. Rather sooner then later.

[Ravenmore]

And the Whiteknights said SE would get 14 turned around, well looked how that went they are scraping the game and building a new one withe the scraps of the old. Thats not turning arond a game thats amitting they have no clue how to do things with out a couple dry runs.

I for one will never buy another game from SE new they will not get any cash from me I can find the few and fare between gems on the resell market. If more people do this and the comapny goes under have to merge for a 4th time so be it thats how the world works, you don't put out a product people like you go under. This not just what they have done with their MMOs but also the offline games as well.

Before one of the Whiteknights comes and say how they must be doing well if they were doing well they wouldn't be merging they would be buying other Companies.

[Arcon]

Right, Because when a Company who just a few months ago promised us "No nerfs, Only Buffs", [..]

They didn't, though. It was mentioned that that was pertinent to the update in question, not as a generic rule for all their future releases.


While Runespider may be making multiple threads "whining", he as a customer is entitled to such act, [..]

Sadly, everyone is.


Nerfs are never and should never be the answer to job adjustments. [..]

Nerfs are quite simply never the solution, and frankly, its the "easy way out" when it comes to job adjustments. Its far easier in the name of "balance" to nerf one job, than to try and buff others around it.

I'd agree that the current round of nerfs was unnecessary but as a blanket statement I can't let this go undisputed. Sometimes it is in the best interest of absolutely everyone to nerf one job and that's when the job is absolutely overpowered. That point is when the difference between a buff and a bug is hard to tell. Bugs are intellectual errors whereas buffs can be errors of judgment. If they made such an error of judgment and overpowered something to ridiculous levels (possibly without realizing it), then it can and should be nerfed. Because there's two sides to balance in a game like this, once the balance between classes, but also the balance between players and content. If you keep buffing everyone up to the levels of one ridiculously overpowered job, content loses its meaning as it's possible to plow through it with zero effort. That point should never arise (they came damn close to it in Abyssea). The only logical reason to remedy such a situation is to nerf the one overpowered jobs to reasonable levels.

Again, not saying this is appropriate here, but I hate generalizations like that (despite my malevolent pleasure about the pet TH nerf, which I admit is purely personal jealousy). Generalizations never work.


[..] But the problem most of you fail to understand is the the phrase the customer is always right is WRONG. [..]

Sadly, that is often lost on people thinking they're entitled to more than just an opinion.

[zagam]

Its sad that noone seems to see that Abyssea broke balance and that what ppl call nerfs are fixes that have to be done sooner or later.
The Game is way to easy now. Period.
Its not fun - because its easy. I dont want things handed to me. I wanna work for it.

And while yes sometimes its nice to get something..... do you feel any acomplishment in anything anymore?

Abyssea was OK. As casual Content. But at the same time ppl got used to the easy pace. 9 of 10 Players outright suck and Leech. Ppl you woulda kicked from Pt before for beeing useless.

Idc what you ppl think honesly. Things have to change. Rather sooner then later.

Careful with that talk, any opinion not equal to the OF crowd = white knight.

[Ravenmore]

No the customer is always right cause if you piss them off the have the option taking thier money other places. SE doesn't just compete with other MMOS they going up against movies, TV, music(concerts, iTunes etc), other hobbies everything that people pay for. While customer Ideas of getting to the point were the product is worth it may differ they would also be happy improvements were even attempted.

[Karbuncle]

They didn't, though. It was mentioned that that was pertinent to the update in question, not as a generic rule for all their future releases.

Its been a while, But i recall it being released around the same time as the Road-map and the Future-Job Adjustment updates.

Those do change over time, But generally, we expect maybe a few months of kept promises before they go back on them!


Sadly, everyone is.

This isn't sad at all.


I'd agree that the current round of nerfs was unnecessary but as a blanket statement I can't let this go undisputed. Sometimes it is in the best interest of absolutely everyone to nerf one job and that's when the job is absolutely overpowered.

I mean if they really broke a job, Yah, nerfing is a good idea. But outside of maybe Ukko's Fury, There hasn't been a job really broken, not for a 99 cap anyway. Most of the Nerfs hitting us right now are not falling under the category of absolutely overpowered.

Still, I agree with you, Maybe generalizations aren't good, But thats more nitpicking my post than anything. My intent was clear. Nerfing jobs at random is going to just piss people off. None of the things they nerfed were really needing to be nerfed.

Save TP is the only thing i can think of that may have needed a knocking down. It was a tad overpowered... a good WAR could WS > hit 2x > WS > hit 2x > WS etc... But i think a Better solution would have been to impose a Cap (Maybe +40?) Rather than reworking it completely as they have now.

The Way it is now just sh*t on COR, imposing a CAP would still keep COR's Roll Useful.


Sadly, that is often lost on people thinking they're entitled to more than just an opinion.

This is more toward Knightly, Not you. I personally believe the adage, "The Customer is always right" to be complete Bullshit lol. I never said He was right, Just that he had the right to express his distaste.

Still, when the majority of your customers disagree with your direction, Shown not only in loud multiple complaints across a lot of threads, But in the declining Player-base, You need to take notice. Sometimes a bad decision is a bad decision.


Careful with that talk, any opinion not equal to the OF crowd = white knight.

Blindly defending a bad choice makes you a White Knight. There is nothing positive about the BST nerf, or Save TP nerf. It hurts both COR and BST tremendously where they were previously useful. It was just a bad choice on SE's part.

Your anger is quite unbecoming. You should not be so upset with me. I respect your decision and your choice in the matter, I just don't agree with it. Tell me what reasons you believe these Nerfs to be justified and I can easily repeal my assumption you are just blindly defending Square Enix.

[zagam]

No the customer is always right cause if you piss them off the have the option taking thier money other places. SE doesn't just compete with other MMOS they going up against movies, TV, music(concerts, iTunes etc), other hobbies everything that people pay for. While customer Ideas of getting to the point were the product is worth it they would also be happy improvements were even attempted.
You have never worked in any customer service industry have you? I have and told customers to leave after repeated complaints. It was obvious that no matter how many times or how many ways my chef couldn't cook the steak how she wanted. It came to the point where loosing more money on wasted product trying to keep her happy was more then what we would get in return. Ive also had people complain about the music choices, the music was part of our atmosphere and wont change. Just because customers might not like it doesn't mean the company is going to change it to appease the complainer. If you have ever seen the movie waiting you would understand why the customers are not always right. If you have a concern by all means complain. But like that girl with the steak in waiting its they way you come across that will get you results.

[Eri]

Careful with that talk, any opinion not equal to the OF crowd = white knight.

Rather White Knight then delusional. I see it that way... FFXI always was hard and there where always ppl that didnt like that. Abyssea was heaven for this kind of Players i can accept that.
I can see that there has to be content that can be done effective casualy.

However. A lot of older players quit over this content. Now these players that liked abyssea go into conent wich is obviously not made for players which are into that easy pace concept.

Now its crying and whineing about not being Gods. But in order to keep this Game interesting for both kinds of Players...
SE seems to be trying to get the Players back that quit. In order to do that.... they adjust things that are more soloplay then anything else.

[Arcon]

No the customer is always right cause if you piss them off the have the option taking thier money other places.

For any company/business with no self-respect, sure. I'd rather not take money from customers if it meant I wouldn't have to cater to their idiotic requests.

Also, you're assuming customers have a brain, which is a most ridiculous assumption. Customers are morons. If a customer came into a restaurant and asked specifically for a turd sandwich, you'd make him one and then have him puke on your counter and write an article about how you served disgusting food? Good for you, most people wouldn't. It's the same here. People ask for stuff that they think they like, but that would kill the game, however, they are too selfish and too self involved to realize.

Though that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the topic here, was just about that "the customer is right" stuff in general.

[Karbuncle]

Rather White Knight then delusional. I see it that way... FFXI always was hard and there where always ppl that didnt like that. Abyssea was heaven for this kind of Players i can accept that.
I can see that there has to be content that can be done effective casualy.

However. A lot of older players quit over this content. Now these players that liked abyssea go into conent which is obviously not made for players which are into that easy pace concept.

Now its crying and whineing about not being Gods. But in order to keep this Game interesting for both kinds of Players...
SE seems to be trying to get the Players back that quit. In order to do that.... they adjust things that are more soloplay then anything else.

FFXI Was never hard. I mean that in Difficulty of enemies...

It was tedious, Theres a difference. The difficulty was artificially created by low drop rates, and limited spawn timers (24hr HNMs, etc).

The game was as easy then as it is now. Nothing at 75 was difficult outside of AV, and PW, and I'd go as far to say Botulus Rex is about as difficult as PW was in some ways. (Outside of you know, 2 days and vomiting)

[Arcon]

Still, I agree with you, Maybe generalizations aren't good, But thats more nitpicking my post than anything. My intent was clear. Nerfing jobs at random is going to just piss people off. None of the things they nerfed were really needing to be nerfed.

I never meant to disagree with you at all, it was just an addendum if you will. Balance is good, balance is needed. The problem is, SE seems to have no idea what balance is anymore. All two-hours could be on a 30min timer, all 5min abilities could be on 2min and 3min timers and higher than 5min shouldn't even exist anymore (yes, I'm looking at you ugly Mug). They could increase WS damage of certain relic/mythic/empy/merit WS to be on almost par with the best of them and it still wouldn't be broken (the fact that there's relic weapon skills that are worse than normal weapon skills gained from leveling up is retarded in itself), they could release complete gear upgrades instead of sidegrades and situational pieces and it still wouldn't be broken, they could release a combination staff for magical trial staves and it still wouldn't be broken, if they increased the VW HQ item drop rates by just 2%, that also wouldn't be broken. There's so much stuff they could do that they're needlessly afraid of that wouldn't overpower anyone, yet they don't. That's the real problem.

[zagam]

Blindly defending a bad choice makes you a White Knight. There is nothing positive about the BST nerf, or Save TP nerf. It hurts both COR and BST tremendously where they were previously useful. It was just a bad choice on SE's part.

Your anger is quite unbecoming. You should not be so upset with me. I respect your decision and your choice in the matter, I just don't agree with it. Tell me what reasons you believe these Nerfs to be justified and I can easily repeal my assumption you are just blindly defending Square Enix.

What choice was I defending actually? because I wasn't Defending anything specific at all. Just because You like to throw subtle insults then try to come off the bigger person doesn't make your opinion any more valid. I don't like nerfs as much as the next guy but I don't get wrapped up in the bandwagon hate as easily as you/some people. And the Umad card? really? I expected better from you. I may not post a lot but I do read the forums and didn't peg you as one of those people.

But I guess ill take a page from your book and know not to argue with close minded people. I don't want to ask the wind not to blow either.
Thank you for your time.

[Eri]

FFXI Was never hard. Your Nostalgia goggles are blinding you.

Hard for solo and some ppl. But It was never hard in a group of good Players. I give you that.



It was tedious, Theres a differenc. The difficulty was artificially created by low drop rates, and limited spawn timers (24hr HNMs, etc).

Tedious yes. But getting something you wished for a long time is... rewarding.
(24HNM- ToAUhnm) Been there not doing that again. That was so time consumeing....



The game was as easy then as it is now. Nothing at 75 was difficult outside of AV, and PW, and I'd go as far to say Botulus Rex is about as difficult as PW was in some ways. (Outside of you know, 2 days and vomiting)

No, its way more easy now. Where its was mildly challengeing to Solo IT mobs back then. Its a joke now.
The real challenge now is to keep hate on your tank. Thats SAD!

[Ravenmore]

You have never worked in any customer service industry have you? I have and told customers to leave after repeated complaints. It was obvious that no matter how many times or how many ways my chef couldn't cook the steak how she wanted. It came to the point where loosing more money on wasted product trying to keep her happy was more then what we would get in return. Ive also had people complain about the music choices, the music was part of our atmosphere and wont change. Just because customers might not like it doesn't mean the company is going to change it to appease the complainer. If you have ever seen the movie waiting you would understand why the customers are not always right. If you have a concern by all means complain. But like that girl with the steak in waiting its they way you come across that will get you results.

Yep I have 15 years and 10 in 5 star Dinning. At my old place of employment we had up to 2k dollars to make a guest happy and could not say "No" to any guest could only offer other options. Every outlet had a comapny credit card that was used in cases that we couldn't fill the customer needs in house. If fact if you said no you would get writen up. Because that one pissed off customer would tell 10 or more. No matter how much money you loss you never stop trying.

[zagam]

Yep I have 15 years and 10 in 5 star Dinning. At my old place of employment we had up to 2k dollars to make a guest happy and could not say "No" to any guest could only offer other options. Every outlet had a comapny credit card that was used in cases that we couldn't fill the customer needs in house. If fact if you said no you would get writen up. Because that one pissed off customer would tell 10 or more. No matter how much money you loss you never stop trying.
Either you're lying or that company is out of business . 2k expendable cash to make a customer happy on what a $100-200 meal? Please let the world know what place this is so we can all go get free stuff for putting our own hair in the soup.

[Karbuncle]

Hard for solo and some ppl. But It was never hard in a group of good Players. I give you that.



Tedious yes. But getting something you wished for a long time is... rewarding.
(24HNM- ToAUhnm) Been there not doing that again. That was so time consumeing....



No, its way more easy now. Where its was mildly challengeing to Solo IT mobs back then. Its a joke now.
The real challenge now is to keep hate on your tank. Thats SAD!

IDK, I still think you may be experiencing nostalgia goggles. The game really wasn't difficult unless you include self-imposed Difficulty (Like Soloing an IT mob, Or doing things alone).

A SCH Solo'd Hahava, That sounds like difficulty you could do. You can impose the same challenge then as now! just gotta try.

Solo an IT outside Abyssea is still difficult to some degree :P

[Draylo]

Kinda scary but this kind of disconnect between players/devs is what did SWG in (in addition to a new Star Wars MMO). I hope it doesn't go that route if anyone knows about that, it sounds very familiar to this current situation.

[Eri]

Solo an IT outside Abyssea is still difficult to some degree :P

Been there got #chain 3 solo. Call that challenge? lol But i could be Merriting like that i guess...

[Ravenmore]

Either you're lying or that company is out of business . 2k expendable cash to make a customer happy on what a $100-200 meal? Please let the world know what place this is so we can all go get free stuff for putting our own hair in the soup.

Up to 2k depending on how bad the screw up was most problems were fixed with free drinks. But 2k is not much when a clinet might be drop a couple mil on a convention.

[zagam]

Up to 2k depending on how bad the screw up was most problems were fixed with free drinks. But 2k is not much when a clinet might be drop a couple mil on a convention.
You mention restaurant then 2k then jump to million dollar deals? what is it geesh. Of course 2k is nothing for a million dollar deal, infarct if 2k was the max then that company is cheap.

You sit there and and threaten your 12.95 (not MILLIONS) and expect game changing results. Like I said the customer is not always right it is weighted on the cost of fixing/product value so take your 2k/multi-millions out of the equation and put in how many time you threaten to never play a SE product again /12.95 and still expect SE to roll over to your ever whim.

[Rekin]

Hard for solo and some ppl. But It was never hard in a group of good Players. I give you that.



Tedious yes. But getting something you wished for a long time is... rewarding.
(24HNM- ToAUhnm) Been there not doing that again. That was so time consumeing....



No, its way more easy now. Where its was mildly challengeing to Solo IT mobs back then. Its a joke now.
The real challenge now is to keep hate on your tank. Thats SAD!

Tedious should never be an excuse for increasing gameplay for a game. One of my all time favorite game series has been the Monster hunter series which I have roughly over a thousand hours of pure game play. Drop rates off creatures were never HORRID or miserable they were reasonable and the reason a person wouldn't get X thing would come more from failing the quest rather then going 0/100+ on the drop after defeating the beast. Also none of those hours of gameplay stemmed from just standing around WAITING for a creature to pop or some specific event to occur, they came from actually playing the game.

TL:DR; How long it takes you to get something shouldn't make it satisfying or rewarding it should be how much actual enjoyment you get from the content when you obtain that item.

[Damane]

The problem with FFXI is that their fundamental job/battlemechanic/systemdesign/maths was done for up on to lvl 50 with no regards to lvl 99.

Example1: hate system. The Hate system works perfectly until lvl 50. People noticed allready at lvl 75 that the hatesystem is skewed. At lvl 99 its just broken and doesnt work anymore if at all. (throwing in hate reset mobs doesnt help the fact either lol)

Example2: is the dmg taken. Atm there is no middle ground. The Defense VIT vs attack STR curve is so skewed at lvl 99 that mobs either hit you like a fucking truck or are not even worth to note. There is no in between.

There are some fundamental flaws. While SE tries to balance the jobs (which is imho good) they actually should fix the fundemental flaws that are plaguing the game and were allready noticeable at lvl 75 (not so strong like today but it was there).

[Mirabelle]

Its sad that noone seems to see that Abyssea broke balance and that what ppl call nerfs are fixes that have to be done sooner or later.
The Game is way to easy now. Period.
Its not fun - because its easy. I dont want things handed to me. I wanna work for it.

And while yes sometimes its nice to get something..... do you feel any acomplishment in anything anymore?

Abyssea was OK. As casual Content. But at the same time ppl got used to the easy pace. 9 of 10 Players outright suck and Leech. Ppl you woulda kicked from Pt before for beeing useless.

Idc what you ppl think honesly. Things have to change. Rather sooner then later.

You do know this game is over 8 years old now? You do realize that many players have grown up, married, moved out of their parents basement, got jobs, kids etc. There is nothing wrong with easing up on the difficulty as the player base matures. It was a godsend for those of us with a RL. We could feel like everything was no longer a roadblock but a progressing quest.

Like any game, you can make it as easy or as hard as you need and there is no reason to lock lesser players out of content by making things so discouragingly hard. If you think Abyssea is easy... don't put on any atmas or cruor buffs. Hard enough for you?

I feel every bit a sense of accomplishment when I finished my Empy weapon, my Af3+2. The fact that it didn't take 3 years of collecting points with an endgame LS didn't lessen the satisfaction. Trio'ing some of the level 90 NM's is still a challenge if you are not on your toes.

Anyways, you are entitled to your opinion. I think you are wrong and suspect most of the FFXI population felt Abyssea was fun and successful.

[Aldersyde]

Either you're lying or that company is out of business . 2k expendable cash to make a customer happy on what a $100-200 meal? Please let the world know what place this is so we can all go get free stuff for putting our own hair in the soup.

Setting aside an account to deal with dissatisfied customers is pretty standard in the food service industry. I've had friends that were waiters or waitresses tell me that there were budgets in place to spend $100-200 dollars to make a single guest happy and this was at mainstream run-of-the mill restaurant chains. Wouldn't surprise me in the least that restaurants aiming at a wealthier clientele would have larger budgets.

[Mirabelle]

However. A lot of older players quit over this content. Now these players that liked abyssea go into conent wich is obviously not made for players which are into that easy pace concept.

Really? Do you have proof of this. People have always quit the game. Some come back, some don't. My experience is that people don't quit because they got bored but rather they got disillusioned and RL pressures became more important. From my recollection most of the big hardcore HNMLS were long gone prior to Abyssea.

[Eri]

Tedious should never be an excuse for increasing gameplay for a game. One of my all time favorite game series has been the Monster hunter series which I have roughly over a thousand hours of pure game play. Drop rates off creatures were never HORRID or miserable they were reasonable and the reason a person wouldn't get X thing would come more from failing the quest rather then going 0/100+ on the drop after defeating the beast. Also none of those hours of gameplay stemmed from just standing around WAITING for a creature to pop or some specific event to occur, they came from actually playing the game.

TL:DR; How long it takes you to get something shouldn't make it satisfying or rewarding it should be how much actual enjoyment you get from the content when you obtain that item.

I actually had fun doing events even if i got nothing. Someone in my Ls will have gotten something so i can be happy for them. And i can benefit form a friends getting better Gear so yeah i've been cool with that...

I see if its a random shout then you dont know the ppl and dont care....

But still i feel Content that is for 18+ ppl should be done with big group of friends.
This works for everything but VW.... so that event us awful......

[Disifer]

You do know this game is over 8 years old now? You do realize that many players have grown up, married, moved out of their parents basement, got jobs, kids etc. There is nothing wrong with easing up on the difficulty as the player base matures. It was a godsend for those of us with a RL. We could feel like everything was no longer a roadblock but a progressing quest.

Like any game, you can make it as easy or as hard as you need and there is no reason to lock lesser players out of content by making things so discouragingly hard. If you think Abyssea is easy... don't put on any atmas or cruor buffs. Hard enough for you?

I feel every bit a sense of accomplishment when I finished my Empy weapon, my Af3+2. The fact that it didn't take 3 years of collecting points with an endgame LS didn't lessen the satisfaction. Trio'ing some of the level 90 NM's is still a challenge if you are not on your toes.

Anyways, you are entitled to your opinion. I think you are wrong and suspect most of the FFXI population felt Abyssea was fun and successful.

Abyssea was broken due to the fact of how they introduced the proc system and didn't think far enough in advance that a war, nin, and a whm could do ANYTHING in those zones with positive results while the rest of the player base had to level or gear those jobs to stay somewhat relevant. The VW proc system would have been better in abyssea, at least you'd need more then 2-3 jobs to get something done.

[Yarly]

We're going back to level 75? Man that sucks for those people who spent so many months to level all their jobs to level 99 just to have to go back to 75...

Question... will the gears be scaled down at least?

[Saiken253]

haha... People forget that in the beginning Tanaka ran the show. They kicked him out and put him on 14(hence why it sucked so hard). and put a team on 11 whose goal was to improve the game(which they did; many people came back and new players subscribed). Due to that team's success, they moved them to 14 and brought back Tanaka to 11(thinking he couldn't possibly screw it up THAT badly. they were wrong) and moved that successful team to 14. since then, 11 has been dying, again, and 14 has been improving in great strides.

Coincidence?

SE if you do read these posts, remove Tanaka from your company and ensure he never returns. In fact, try to convince him to work for Blizzard on WoW. I'm sure that if he's hired it'll be a huge benefit to you :D

[zagam]

haha... People forget that in the beginning Tanaka ran the show. They kicked him out and put him on 14(hence why it sucked so hard). and put a team on 11 whose goal was to improve the game(which they did; many people came back and new players subscribed). Due to that team's success, they moved them to 14 and brought back Tanaka to 11(thinking he couldn't possibly screw it up THAT badly. they were wrong) and moved that successful team to 14. since then, 11 has been dying, again, and 14 has been improving in great strides.

Coincidence?

SE if you do read these posts, remove Tanaka from your company and ensure he never returns. In fact, try to convince him to work for Blizzard on WoW. I'm sure that if he's hired it'll be a huge benefit to you :D

I really need to invest in tinfoil.

[SpankWustler]

I don't think the problem is the number of changes that make jobs or abilities worse so much as the lack of thought put into some of them.

"Beastmaster pets and Thieves are pretty much the same in terms of Treasure Hunter. This is a problem. Let us do absolutely anything other than make high levels of Treasure Hunter and the time required to accrue them worthwhile!"

"Save TP is too strong in Voidwatch. This is a problem. Let us make Miser's Roll worthless outside of Voidwatch!"

I agree with their assessment of the problems, but I feel like they went out of their way to achieve the worst possible solutions.

[Ravenmore]

You mention restaurant then 2k then jump to million dollar deals? what is it geesh. Of course 2k is nothing for a million dollar deal, infarct if 2k was the max then that company is cheap.

You sit there and and threaten your 12.95 (not MILLIONS) and expect game changing results. Like I said the customer is not always right it is weighted on the cost of fixing/product value so take your 2k/multi-millions out of the equation and put in how many time you threaten to never play a SE product again /12.95 and still expect SE to roll over to your ever whim.

Did I say I work for a restaursnt only. I worked for a resort. Every customer was given that level. Though I willing to bet you work for applebess knock off or chain stack house.

Thats the wonderful thing of word of mouth. If you were really in Restaurant/food service you would know that bad press can shut you down over night. Why you think food critics are banned from place's once they are found out, even if they haven't wrote a bad review.

One person walking is nothing but when they start leaving in droves thats when it hits the fan.

[Luvbunny]

Wow... amazing, the more I read about the nerf, the more obvious that the developer has no clue at all on creating a fun, enjoyable game and a successful one - this coming from the same group who created the disastrous FF14, it's understandable. That's too bad, this group will never be able to replicate the success that is abyssea - their solutions seems to nerf everything and call it balance.... Might as well wait till the craptacular FF14 Vers 2.0 is relaunched, maybe then the other group can come back and take over FFXI. A much needed one year break from the game - enjoy the money saved and use it to play other quality games!!

[Karbuncle]

I don't think the problem is the number of changes that make jobs or abilities worse so much as the lack of thought put into some of them.

"Beastmaster pets and Thieves are pretty much the same in terms of Treasure Hunter. This is a problem. Let us do absolutely anything other than make high levels of Treasure Hunter and the time required to accrue them worthwhile!"

"Save TP is too strong in Voidwatch. This is a problem. Let us make Miser's Roll worthless outside of Voidwatch!"

I agree with their assessment of the problems, but I feel like they went out of their way to achieve the worst possible solutions.

Pretty much this.

As i said in a previous thread, They could have simply given THF A buff dependent on the Level of Treasure Hunter. Make it an Enemy Debuff and you've given THF another use.

As i suggested in that thread, They could have given THF a JA that Debuffs the enemy in some way (Maybe lowered Defense, Attack, Accuracy, Evasion, Magic Evasion, magic Defense... etc) Based on the Current level of Treasure hunter. Like....

Debuff JA:
Recast: 5 min
Dur: 3min
*Lowers Enemies Defense and Magic Defense Based on the current level of TH.
**Amount lowered is a % Based off Current Level of TH x2. (I.E TH6 would grant -12% DEF/MDEF)

Theres so many things they could do to actually give TH a use in Voidwatch outside of piddly ass light bonuses that are ultimately insignificant. Theres so many possibilities like the above that could be small progressive buffs to THF and TH instead of a blanket nerf.

[Arcon]

haha... People forget that in the beginning Tanaka ran the show. They kicked him out and put him on 14(hence why it sucked so hard). and put a team on 11 whose goal was to improve the game(which they did; many people came back and new players subscribed). Due to that team's success, they moved them to 14 and brought back Tanaka to 11(thinking he couldn't possibly screw it up THAT badly. they were wrong) and moved that successful team to 14. since then, 11 has been dying, again, and 14 has been improving in great strides.

So many lies in one tiny post. Tanaka has always been in charge, he was never kicked out, he never left at all. Yet so many people believe that so firmly, so I ask you..

Coincidence?

No, conspiracy nuts. They see whatever they want to see.

Also, Abyssea didn't get old players back for its content but just because it was something new. People simply wanted to experience the level cap raise. Many people quit during Abyssea too (most of the returning people as well). Abyssea had more criticism when the forums were released than VW has now, in case you hibernated through that period and missed it.


I agree with their assessment of the problems, but I feel like they went out of their way to achieve the worst possible solutions.

This is so very true. They get what the problem is only their idea of fixing it is so off-course that it borders on ridiculous. Fixing Save TP in Voidwatch was very easy as well, just make it cap at 30. That way a buffing COR is still beneficial but not overpowered, and retains its full functionality outside of Voidwatch. However it seems that they went out of their way to find a more convoluted solution that has more negative effects that carry over outside of the event. And pet TH would not be a problem if TH itself actually had a noticeable effect over level 2. I have no idea why they're so scared of these things.

[Ahrana]

It doesn't matter how much you defend SE's honor Arcon, they still won't sleep with you.

SE will always screw up balance with 20 jobs running around, but I think most people have gotten bored because they haven't had a real expansion since ToAU. WotG could have been a real expansion, but they stretched it out over such a long period of time that it became 14 mini-expansions. Making new battle systems and revamping 6 year old content isn't a replacement for a real expansion.

[Arcon]

It doesn't matter how much you defend SE's honor Arcon, they still won't sleep with you.

Point out to me where I defended their honor. At first I was gonna call you semi-illiterate, because you ignored the second half of my post which blamed SE for not being able to handle the most simple problems with any shred of common sense, but then it occurred to me that even in the first part of my post all I did was blame SE for failing even during the Abyssea era, which some idiots call the most successful period of the FFXI lifespan, so I believe I'm well within my rights to upgrade my insult to fully illiterate. Congratulations.

[Nala]

Theres so many things they could do to actually give TH a use in Voidwatch outside of piddly ass light bonuses that are ultimately insignificant. Theres so many possibilities like the above that could be small progressive buffs to THF and TH instead of a blanket nerf.


Just reminding ya jic, but they are planing on auto capping blue and red for VW now, which unless they modify how TH works will completely invalidate TH. Among the problems THF has TH is just one of many in terms of abilities that dont do anything any more.

Thing that gets me is they talk about recast limitations all the while there are plenty of jobs who have abilities that do nothing.

[Sparthos]

So many lies in one tiny post. Tanaka has always been in charge, he was never kicked out, he never left at all. Yet so many people believe that so firmly, so I ask you..

Coincidence?

No, conspiracy nuts. They see whatever they want to see.

Also, Abyssea didn't get old players back for its content but just because it was something new. People simply wanted to experience the level cap raise. Many people quit during Abyssea too (most of the returning people as well). Abyssea had more criticism when the forums were released than VW has now, in case you hibernated through that period and missed it.



This is so very true. They get what the problem is only their idea of fixing it is so off-course that it borders on ridiculous. Fixing Save TP in Voidwatch was very easy as well, just make it cap at 30. That way a buffing COR is still beneficial but not overpowered, and retains its full functionality outside of Voidwatch. However it seems that they went out of their way to find a more convoluted solution that has more negative effects that carry over outside of the event. And pet TH would not be a problem if TH itself actually had a noticeable effect over level 2. I have no idea why they're so scared of these things.

Always missing the big picture.

We can debate the pros and cons of Abyssea all day but the fact is that during that period of FFXI's development, the actions of the dev team were markedly different than the responses we currently receive. Jobs that were previously rotting meat (like BST) received significant improvements, issues that players had asked for years to be resolved were resolved quickly and the game shifted away from grinding to a more relaxed playstyle centered more on small, significant improvements than long term aspirations.

For once, the 'weekend warrior' could accomplish something all while the hardcores could cap out on gear, complete multiple Empyreans and still maintain superiority over their less inclined to play brethren. All SE had to do was tweak the Abyssean model away from all the buffs but kept the reward structure and we'd be in a better place than todays Voidwatch lottery. Conjecture on my behalf.

To the trained eye, it almost appeared that SE had changed course from years of stubborn foolishness and were finally willing to create a more relaxed game for an aging playerbase but how wrong we were to infer such beliefs. You claim people are "conspiracy nuts" if they infer Tanaka had left XI but the fact is that something did change and the effects were significantly different than what we have today.

It may not have been Tanaka's call but he's become the scapegoat for everything wrong because of his stubborn "you'll eat those damn beans" fatherly attitude that he's displayed for years. His spectacular fail on XIV is just another indication of his attitude.

As soon as Abyssea concluded we've been treated to classic Tanaka-style behavior in constant nerfs under a banner of balance, a reversion to pre-Abyssean standards, convoluted solutions to simple problems (like VW) and slow responses to issues. All we need are HNMs back on the scene and this game will be back on it's path to 75.

[Arcon]

Always missing the big picture.

The big picture wasn't part of this thread. I didn't feel like elaborating on the encompassing issue of why exactly his opinions and beliefs are misguided when all I wanted to do is point out that he's a liar and a conspiracy nut.


You claim people are "conspiracy nuts" if they infer Tanaka had left XI but the fact is that something did change and the effects were significantly different than what we have today.

So are you agreeing with me or not? I really can't tell. I didn't dispute that something changed (although where you interpret it as a change of heart of the developer team, I interpret it as a lapse in their judgment, which they agreed upon in that infamously disputed interview), I merely called the idiots who don't do their research but instead just spout unsupportable bullshit conspiracy nuts. When content has changed and you find arguments to support that observation, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. I know what you just said is your opinion, and I know it all too well (although you sometimes seem to believe it's more than that, but that's besides the issue). But that's not what happened here. Content has changed and instead of finding arguments and sources for their theories they just talk out of their asses and spread lies that other people believe.

You can say about Tanaka what you want, if you say you disagree with some of his design choices (assuming they're his choices, which is debatable as well, because he may be responsible, but he's not always the cause), that's perfectly fine with me. But if you spread lies, that's what I have a problem with. He was talking bullshit and I called him out on it. Simple as that. You didn't, that's why I'll leave you alone (aside from defending my position). Same as the Abyssea argument, you say you like Abyssea, you like the proc system, you like the casual friendly content, good for you. I have no problem whatsoever with any of that. However, if you say it was good for the game or it increased the subscriptions or some garbage like that I'd like to hear an explanation or to see your sources because it goes completely against what I've experienced.

[Mirabelle]

However, if you say it was good for the game or it increased the subscriptions or some garbage like that I'd like to hear an explanation or to see your sources because it goes completely against what I've experienced.

Well of course it didn't increase subscriptions. Its an aging game that is whittling down by attrition as all MMORPG's do. Nothing can stop that. It's about retaining a profitable player base.
Anyway, whether abyssea was good for the game or not is very debatable. I can say it was fun. It was cool to track down atmas. Learn the proc system, kill a wide variety of NM's, steadily empower your player to a very high level inside the system. Sure it got tiresome eventually, but it certainly was more fun than many other content additions in the last 5 years.

This game is going back to being less fun again. We will see if its "good for the game", but I doubt it will appeal to all but the elitists who need to feel some degree of superiority over most others.

[Insaniac]

I think people mistake the aftermath of abyssea for abyssea itself. From my experience abyssea and the level cap increase brought a lot of old players back to the game and people started quitting AFTER heroes came out. I think it was a combination of 9 months of instant gratification and SE not having anything ready to go after abyssea cause they assumed 11 would be a ghost town. Which is why we got low production value time sink voidwatch thrown together to keep us busy while they used all our dev money to rebuild 14. That's when all those people who came back started quitting as far as I could tell.

I've said this before but all you need for proof that abyssea was both a financial and critical success is the fact that Yoshi is the man they went to when 14 needed saving. They wouldn't put someone who had just directed a flop in charge of saving an already sinking ship.

[Daniel]

I know I was kinda upset about the relic nerf, this probably didn't affect too many people but when I herd that you got full buffs from offhanding relic weapon, IE attack + procs ext I said hawt damn I'm gonna make a relic. Shortly after I started "Oh sorry this was a mistake, we didn't mean for relic weapons to be useful, put that relic back into storage please." I don't know about the rest of you but that felt like a huge blow to me.

[Zarchery]

These posts are all the same. "They should turn off the servers and shut the game down permanently. Since I'm not having fun, it's inconceivable that anyone else is. Everyone agrees with me, obviously."

They're especially humorous because they've been happening for years, the disgruntled minority endlessly whining "FFXI is in its death throes", yet it continues on and on.

[Ravenmore]

Yeah Keep on defending a team that failed so hard on FF14 which had everything that failed in FF11 see how well that work. Oh wait who did they call on to try to save that train wreck the same team that gave FF11 a shot of new life and showed us it could be a more rewarding game.

[Zarchery]

Yeah Keep on defending a team that failed so hard on FF14 which had everything that failed in FF11 see how well that work. Oh wait who did they call on to try to save that train wreck the same team that gave FF11 a shot of new life and showed us it could be a more rewarding game.

I'm not defending anyone. I'm pointing out that people have been complaining about the game since 2004, complaining about nerfs, complaining about content, complaining about the developers not listening to them, stating that the game was dying. This has been going on for YEARS, but the people who make these posts relentlessly think that they are brilliant thinkers making bold new statements. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but check your damn ego at the door. Your opinion is not that fresh or new or unique.

But the fact is that I'm still having fun. Thousands of people are still having fun. They have a different view.

[Zarchery]

The fact that a post like this pops up, and the first page is all people agreeing with it, instead of laughing at it, should really tell you something SE.

Actually, it tells you something very elementary about human psychology. Misery loves company. When people are unhappy about something, they like to commiserate about it. All it really tells you is that multiple people are unhappy with something, which is completely normal and expected. Back when Abyssea was in its heyday (the glory days you guys seem to latch on to) anti-Abyssea posts were made and drew similar cries of "yeah I agree!"

But yeah, go ahead and hang on to the delusion that it's all about you and that YOU are representative of the entirety of the playerbase.

[Runespider]

However, if you say it was good for the game or it increased the subscriptions or some garbage like that I'd like to hear an explanation or to see your sources because it goes completely against what I've experienced.

I can only speak for myself here but just before Abyssea hit I was almost completely burned out with the game, I'd pretty much done everything there was to do and suffered for the doing of it (4+ years of 3 hour dyna runs twice a week bored out of my skull, 3 years of doing kings and being utterly dominated by botters with Square looking on unwilling to combat it, years working on a relic only to finally obtain it and due to balance fears it being so underwhelming it making me laugh in desbelief at spending so much time and effort on it), just hanging around because of time invested and some close friends.

Abyssea came and literally blew me away, not only was there so much new content, not only did I no longer have to find a LS and could do it with friends but it was a total change to the old punishing game we were all so used to. It completely turned the entire game on it's head and it was pretty exciting, once the shock wore off. I've done all the old content (aside from AV/PW) with the shells that I had, I've done all there is to do in Abyssea and in my opinion Abyssea was the best this game has ever been.

Now we are sliding slowly but surely back to old FFXI and honestly I really don't want to go there, it was a horribly punishing, boring and an unrewarding place...the majority of my play time was standing around WG before Aby. The constant stream of nerfs just build on the already bad feeling I have with how the game is going.

So we are just stuck on a game we love and can't turn away from that is slowly being turned into a chamber of horrors of punishing gameplay features again, we can't simply move on because of time invested and a genuine love of it so all we can do is complain and hope they listen...with the honest realisation that in reality, they wont.

If there is a new expansion coming, now is the time to tell us because I don't see anything to look forward to at all, nothing. I'm sure i'm not the only one.

Maybe it's an attempt to make XIVv2 more appealing with XI being a factor to XIVv1 failing but if that really is what is happening I think it will have the total opposite effect, trusting a company to not do the same thing with the new game they are doing with the other? Crapping up a game people love will just cause resentment and in a game that players are expected to put 4-5+ years into trust is a big factor.

[Ravenmore]

Fact is the game is now dieing. They are spending less and less on the up keep of this game and have gone back on everything they have said in the past as to why we can't have things(ps2 crap). They have now learn a harsh lesson with FF14 that fandom will only carry you so far. What got most people playing this game was the name Final Fantasy it didn't work a sec time. Look at shouts for VWNM they are dieing off, groups are starting to move away from it and we are going right back to the stagnation of 2009. You had to have seen hoow many players only came back the new missions and storyy quest onlly to leave again. Their is nothing major in the foreseeable future at least not till FF14 tanks thats when we miight see fresh content.

[Draylo]

Nothing in the future? Have you not seen the plans for this year? Please shut up.

[Ravenmore]

Nothing in the future? Have you not seen the plans for this year? Please shut up.

What some rehash events that offer nothing but more gear grinds. Nothing new just systems that have been reskined so yes nothing of meaning.

[Sparthos]

Actually, it tells you something very elementary about human psychology. Misery loves company. When people are unhappy about something, they like to commiserate about it. All it really tells you is that multiple people are unhappy with something, which is completely normal and expected. Back when Abyssea was in its heyday (the glory days you guys seem to latch on to) anti-Abyssea posts were made and drew similar cries of "yeah I agree!"

But yeah, go ahead and hang on to the delusion that it's all about you and that YOU are representative of the entirety of the playerbase.

The market has been pretty decisive on SEs ventures in the gaming community but go on and claim that it's just a minority claiming the company is going in the wrong direction. Whatever lulls you to sleep.

It's not just FFXI. The most vocal people are often the long time fans that see the iceberg dead ahead and are trying to tell the captains to change course but they're too busy chanting balance, balance, balance.

[Zinato]

It's not just FFXI. The most vocal people are often the long time fans that see the iceberg dead ahead and are trying to tell the captains to change course but they're too busy chanting balance, balance, balance.

I think I need to make a flash animation for this. Would likely make a great youtube video if anyone is bored. Can even add Titanic music.

[Zarchery]

The market has been pretty decisive on SEs ventures in the gaming community but go on and claim that it's just a minority claiming the company is going in the wrong direction. Whatever lulls you to sleep.

It's not just FFXI. The most vocal people are often the long time fans that see the iceberg dead ahead and are trying to tell the captains to change course but they're too busy chanting balance, balance, balance.

Oh yeah. That claim sounds so much more convincing than it did in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Every year, all the time, disgruntled players saying "the game is dying, isn't it obvious????"

[Zarchery]

What some rehash events that offer nothing but more gear grinds. Nothing new just systems that have been reskined so yes nothing of meaning.

Thing is, that's only a rehash if you've already done the old stuff. Like a rerun is only a rerun if you've seen that episode. The game still holds appeal for new players who have a lot more new content than long time players.

[Ravenmore]

What new players. Last great surge of new players was ToAU.

[Sparthos]

Oh yeah. That claim sounds so much more convincing than it did in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Every year, all the time, disgruntled players saying "the game is dying, isn't it obvious????"

Are you trying to deny that SE hasn't been in hot water the past few years? Even the CEO has agreed on that front that things need to change. FFXIII-2 has launched to some praise which is a nice change of pace after the recent bashing SE has been witness to.

The game is "dying" as subs are going down yet what's happening in FFXI is SE pushing customers away because of largely silly/incompetent decisions. Things like nerfs, convoluted solutions to player issues and a return to the hardcore timesink/skinner box style gameplay. We know this is an MMO and needs people to stick around but getting people to keep playing doesn't have to involve crushing challenges.

Let's put it this way: Without these forums someone at SE actually thought that hundreds of ADL/PW/T6 VWNM was reasonable for a 99 trial. That encompasses everything wrong with the dev team thinking. You mean to tell me in years of feedback SE didn't get the message that this is too much, too early '00s style MMO development?

Everyone can agree this game is aging but the issue isn't that the game is aging but moreso that the decisions made by the devs give the company a bad name and negatively affect the brand going out years ahead of time. If you choose to ignore the state of SE over the past few years then you merely leave yourself ignorant to the truth lay bare in front of you.

[Disifer]

Pretty sure at one point only some servers merged, maybe 2 back about 3-5 years ago, and since then no need to merge at all. Only until 2010 did I realize how dead it was actually becoming. I think more people quit around WoTG going nowhere and no new content from within than during any period in game. People came back for level cap increase with people being very interested in what new JA's and new items were. I even thought at one point there would be a 10th zone for someone who completed all 9 areas that would be a new end game zone with the difficulty we originally faced at 75 for the first 2-3 years. Instead you got an expansion that was for obtaining AF, Emp Weaps, and Exp'ing. I have interest in voidwatch but the system in which everyone passed me by and now are only shouting/wanting to do t6 Jeuno and need temp items from mobs no one does anymore sort of makes it discouraging to even get involved in it.

New content in previous expansions = missions that took time to complete, new areas to explore, new NM's to fight, new monsters with abilities you've never seen before. Nothing NEW is promised, it is a rehash of something already done which is fine, but it will never hold the same attention rates as something more involved, composed, and completely not done before, as least on this MMO. People steal ideas all the time. I've heard nothing but good things from Legion which is great.

I won't be spending my money on 14 unless they can prove to me you can listen to the customer base 20% of the time which i do not see now. Any business who gets 5 calls to go bid out service for a customer, you're lucky to get 1/5 of those people to call you back and give you the job. At this point i loved the "contractor" i hired in 2004, i was satisfied with most of his answers of why certain changes were made to the initial plans of my home, now it's 2011 and he shows up once a week to work a couple hours to make an appearance cause he's too busy with his other projects which he'll be making more money off of. Nothing wrong with that to be honest, just don't drag me along showing up once a week. Sub the work out to someone else or tell me to go somewhere else.

I'm just frustrated cause I can't find a game like this and i think i'm stuck on the more nostalgic side of this remembering all the good times i've had and now i'm stuck in jeuno after doing dyna once a day, doing salvage, assaults once every 4 days, and have a hard time filling the gaps.

[Dreamin]

Think even with all the disagreement that has been raised in here, we can all agreed to one thing:

Nerf'ing should not be the way to go. Especially SE has said previously that they would be looking at boosting jobs and not nerfing them as a going forward basis.

Set aside all the other differenting of opinion as to the success or failure of Abyssea and whether Tanakasan was to be blamed and all that, I think we should at least try to see if everyone does indeed agreed that nerfing should not be the right solution.

[Rohelius]

I've found plenty of MMO's that are better then this both in graphics and the depth. The only reason i still play is the nostalgia and my love for all the final fantasies and the its world.

All Chocobos and Moogles aside i can only take so much. The way the Dev's cant make up their minds on what is fun for people and what makes a job work all around in the world they created leaves me with the choice to move on to the next one(Not 14), I really think that people are only taking this because it's "Final Fantasy" if it was any other MMO it would have failed already because shit is broken some jobs overpowered some too weak and everything is either too easy or too hard to do there's only 4-5 jobs worth leveling and gearing up out of 20! every mob looks the same the areas are the same or inaccessible if your soloing which is crazy stupid to do on any area in a MMO but most of all is the fact that this game had a bunch of things that could have been improved back in the 75 era and some were hit and some total miss after the caps were raised, and now they trying to take everything back to those times of lousy drop rates massive alliances for anything of importance and SAM god's....

I know there's more then a few new MMO's that actually have improved on those things FFXI is lagging to fix so as soon as Guild Wars 2 comes out ill be saying goodbye because a 99 Relic Weapon with "Afterglowlol" has nothing on the sick ass weapons that devs from other games are coming up with these days.

[Arcon]

I can only speak for myself here but just before Abyssea hit I was almost completely burned out with the game, I'd pretty much done everything there was to do and suffered for the doing of it (4+ years of 3 hour dyna runs twice a week bored out of my skull, 3 years of doing kings and being utterly dominated by botters with Square looking on unwilling to combat it, years working on a relic only to finally obtain it and due to balance fears it being so underwhelming it making me laugh in desbelief at spending so much time and effort on it), just hanging around because of time invested and some close friends.

That's exactly the same as what I said. People were simply excited about something new, not about something good. There was no new content released for years, WotG had no endgame whatsoever (unless you count Sandworm and Dark Ixion, which you shouldn't) and it was released over a duration of years, so no one even realy knew where it was going (it still wasn't finished by the time Abyssea was released), so of course they were gonna latch onto Abyssea. That doesn't mean people were happy about it. Shortly after Scars were released already people were annoyed with many aspects of it and it showed, because as soon as the forums went live the floodgates opened and complaint after complaint was placed.

I think you people are simply reading too much into SE's actions. Thinking they wanna return FFXI on some course it was supposedly on or that they wanna get people to XIV or whatever, I don't think any of that was a motivation for their actions, I think it's a lot simpler: they wanna react to user requests, yet they don't know how. Look at what people complained about during the Abyssea era:
- Mobs are too easy
- Atma are nice but overpowered
- New gear is overpowered
- Fractured big groups, everything is duod/triod
- Limits job choices to WAR, NIN, BLM, WHM, THF, MNK
- Too easy to finish, gear too quick to obtain
- No skill required
I know some of you will probably disagree with these things being bad, but I'm not here to argue those, they are simply complaints that were made en masse when the forums went live. If you look at it, all of those things were addressed with Voidwatch. Mobs are hard again (or harder at least), Atmacite aren't nearly as powerful (though I assume they underestimated Save TP, which is another reason why they wanna nerf it now) and neither is the gear, big groups are almost required (at least until they make certain lights cap out, as they said they would), broad spectrum of jobs is basically forced into inclusion, gear drop rates are horribly low and you need to know what you're doing or you're simply gonna wipe on any of the harder tiers. Some of these changes are good, others are pretty ridiculous. It's the exact same thing as with the recent nerfs, it's like SE realized the problem, but in trying to fix it came up with a solution that's just off base, and expectedly, people are complaining about it again. And it's a good thing, the shitstorm that ensued about some of VW's issues will definitely prevent them from trying something like that again. All we can do is hope they won't screw up another way when Legion and the unnamed event go live.


What some rehash events that offer nothing but more gear grinds. Nothing new just systems that have been reskined so yes nothing of meaning.

So, anything that isn't a new expansion would fit that criteria? Because in addition to rehashing (a kinder word would be revamping) old events, they also announced expansions to current events and two completely new events for this year.

Don't get me wrong, being a story buff myself (I even liked WotG for that matter) I'll be the last person to complain about a full expansion, I'd even accept if they took a year off of current development just to get it released. But they just got the game to 99 and Abyssea was horribly short lived, so they need to find some current events to keep us on the hook for a while so they can go and make something else, hopefully something big and beautiful (and hopefully not just reskinned old zones like in WotG or Abyssea). Not that I actually believe that's gonna happen anytime soon (not before they realize this game can't continue for long on a skeleton crew and hire some new people to it), chances are what they're making will be just more events like this. Which, personally, I'd also be ok with, as long as they make them entertaining and it keeps me hooked on the game for a while longer.

[Disifer]

There are so many zones that are not used whatsoever. So many battle systems that are not used whatsoever. All the problems could have been tweaked and evolved but nothing ever happened. People did campaign by the boatload because exp parties were hard to find on jobs. They never fixed those jobs, and were content with bst, smn, blm, pup infested campaign battles. Then you release abyssea, FoV, GoV, why should i even touch a campaign battle anymore.

The point is they never fix it, they just find something else to distract you. They'll toss a nerf and release news of them fixing tonko and monomi ichi's timers. The lies have grown thin. No more nerfs yet they do it anyways. Biggest statement is not to go to 14. Telling people to quit 11 is like beating a dead horse. Telling people it's actually worse over there and their "fixes" aren't exactly groundbreaking and it's still broken.

[Frost]

Oh yeah. That claim sounds so much more convincing than it did in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Every year, all the time, disgruntled players saying "the game is dying, isn't it obvious????"

And yet you can't see the forest because of all those damn trees in the way...

Players: "Kings are Bad, only a select group of people get to participate and they are heavily botted."
SE: "Nothing is wrong with kings. Kings are great here have Wyrms on even longer spawn timers."

People leave because of bad decisions.

Players: "Absolute Virtue is unreasonable, Is it even killable?"
SE: "Yes, you need to figure it out."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Player: "Can't seem to kill it... You SURE it's killable?"
SE "Yes, here's a Video." (trollface.jpg)
Players: "Fine Whatever.."

Players complain that SE making these kinds of decisions like "unkillable monsters" is bad and leave.

Players: "Pandemonium Warden is unreasonable, Is it even killable?"
SE: "Yes, you need to figure it out."
Players: "It's been 18 hours of fighting. You SURE this thing is killable???"
SE: "Yes that's the expected result of this fight."
Media: "SE expects people to fight monsters for 18 hours+"
SE: "Yes that was what we tried to do, but we realise that was wrong. We're fixing PW and AV."
Players: "Back up.... AV too??? Does that mean you expected us to Fight AV for HOURS????"

Players quit because SE's decisions are unreasonable...

So yes. It IS the same song man. You're absolutely correct.

The thing that makes THIS different?

They asked US for once, what they should do.

We're answering.

And for a while it wasn't "Workign as intended" or "PS2 Limitations"; it was "Here's a forum, please tell us", and "Here's a Test Server" please try this out.

And we're answering.

And they made progress. ACTUAL progress.

There was a time where we were happy.

Now they've all but shut their doors and gone back to their old tricks.

That's what's different.

[Xantavia]

And yet you can't see the forest because of all those damn trees in the way...

Players: "Kings are Bad, only a select group of people get to participate and they are heavily botted."
SE: "Nothing is wrong with kings. Kings are great here have Wyrms on even longer spawn timers."
In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

[Arcon]

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

My apologies if it came out that way, I'm pretty sure I know what I want and I think I know what most players want. What I meant to say is that while SE tries to react to players' wishes they do so in the most ridiculous ways possible. It's the classic 180 degree turn. SE made gear too easy to obtain, so the players complained about a lack of content. Then they made it way hard to obtain and now players complain about a lack of motivation to do it. That's not the players' fault, that's SE not being able to find a middle ground for balanced content. Which is ironic, considering how afraid they are to upset varying kinds of balances. FFXI still has great potential, even now. The perfect form of FFXI does exist. It wasn't pre-Abyssea and it sure as all fuck on this planet combined wasn't Abyssea itself, but there is an awesome game that SE keep missing with their updates. That's the game the people are trying to suggest (well, most people) and the game I'm still hoping it will eventually become.

All SE needs to do is to loosen up and stop being so afraid of upsetting what they consider balance when the truth is, static balance is hardly anywhere to be found in this game, but static balance is overrated anyway. If we wanted static balance all jobs would be equal, and what kind of game would that be anyway. Chaotic balance that allows for high variations but that eventually settles on some kind of middle ground, which leaves the option to employ all kinds of different and effective strategies but which can also bite you in the ass for mistakes in its execution. That's where FFXI should be headed in my opinion.

[Frost]

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

I was speaking in terms of the "pre pop" era. Sorry thought that was clearer.

As for the rest. I think there are certain things that the playerbase can all agree with. Moreso I think there's a lot of things that we can mutually all disagree with. Not sure if you can really say we don't know what we want, when there's a general theme we can at least agree upon. One that SE is kind of ignoring recently that we're all disagreeing with. You know?

We want to see a better reward to effort ratio. More importantly, we want to be rewarded for the effort at all. We want to see rewards based completely on luck removed. Not remove luck completely, but most gear should be earned, not gifted to you by a random number generator.

We want to see progression. Point systems, Gil, Collectible Upgrade items (at reasonable amounts). To walk away from something maybe not with an item, but progression towards an item.

We want more involved content, Tiered Access: meaningful barriers that separate people based more on the basis of dedication and mastery than based on finances and influence.

We want to see more 'upgrades' than 'sidegrades'.

We want "Balance" to mean enhancing weak or faulty game dynamics, not nerfing fun or powerful game dynamics.

We mostly want the simplest thing of all: We want to have fun, PLAY the game... Not WORK in it...

[Kimble]

I don't think anyone wants HNM to go back to time spawned. People are generally happy with the pop system, just unhappy with the absurd drop rate on the HQ pop item. Esp since higher tier of TH doesn't affect it.

[Ravenmore]

They are not new events they are reskined events with the same systems they have used before. Yes short a proper full blow expansion I will not be happy with this pile of crap as many other people. FF11 has the least amount of content out of all the MMOs that are close to the same age that are still going. Even EQ/EQ2 have gotten revamps to the core of the game and brand new expanions far into their lives.

No they need to get ride of that ass backwards concept of keeping us busy with crappy drop rates and blant grinds. They would have no problem funding brand new content and events every 6 months to a year had they not dump pile after pile money into FF14. A game they have admitted if it wasn't a "Final Fantasy" title they would had shut it down.

Content should only be expected to last 6 months to a year. WoW is catching heat for this reason as well to long between fresh content and it is gimmic content to boot. Any MMO that doesn't keep the content fresh will suffer when players go off to try other MMOs looking for that "New feeling" due to the addictive nature of MMOs. You have to keep the players addict to your game and if are not sutble about it and put in systems that are seen as massive time sinks from the get go it cause's people to not even bother chasing the carrot to start.

[Arcon]

Esp since higher tier of TH doesn't affect it.

That's a TH issue, though. It does affect it, just the effects are hardly noticeable.

[Kimble]

That's a TH issue, though. It does affect it, just the effects are hardly noticeable.

I didn't mean that it specifically doesn't affect that drop rate, but you seem to understand what I meant by that comment anyways.

My point remains the same.

[Arek]

We mostly want the simplest thing of all: We want to have fun, PLAY the game... Not WORK in it...

That's the main thing for me. Work and Game shouldn't belong together. Well, at least not so much.

[Damane]

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

The Playersbase knows exactly what they want. They wanted forced pop Kings. SE delivered, but in the wrong way. If the HQ pop item would drop at a 50% rate from the NQ noone would complain about it, but as it stands its a 10% drop rate at best. SE delivered, but delivered wrong AGAIN.

VW isnt only fail because of the Lootpool problem. VW is fail because some fights depend entirely on Temp items (Botulus rex, Ig-Alima?), then there is the low droprate. The Lootpool/drop system would be ok, if it werent for abyssmal droprates. SE wants to fix this, but my guess it they wont fix shit, because they tend to do something wrong all the time.

You see the problem is, the mentaility of the most people has changed. people want changes, but SE changes things with their "old" mentality of grinding... Grinding is so over atm thats whats wrong.

Pre Tanaka comeing back form FFXIV and while abyssea was comeing out, SEs mentality was alos "less grind more fun2. Why the hell did they suddenly change their mind after Tanakas super XIV fail from "less grind more fun" to "more grind, less fun"?

[Runespider]

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

When you have a large playerbase you will always have a portion that like the old abusing, boring way (some weirdos even yearn for old botting HNM..does that mean we all want to camp 6 hour window sandworms every day that very often dropped nothing again?). Just because some people say that they liked it better the old way doesn't change the fact that most still prefer the changes made, it's just common sense that more fun/rewarding content > grueling, long winded, punishing content?. It's not a matter of you can never please the playerbase it's that you have to see what most want and tailor the game to what will keep the majority happy and paying.

This is what we got (a little overdone but still) with Abyssea content/dev reactions, now it's nerf it all and make everything balanced as the main concern.

[Vold]

I'm sorry if our invested interest in the continued existence of our beloved MMO offends anyone, but sure keep comparing us to the average bandwagoner "ffxi is dieing!!1!" Joe from the earlier years because you lack understanding.

FFXI took a FFXIV to the knee when SE decided to pull a Jason Voorhees on it's development staff. It took another one to the knee when they announced the level cap raise. Finally they are taking yet another one to the knee with this back peddling with the players that chose to stay post Abyssea. They need to find a spot and stick with it fast so they stop losing bodies to play their game. They can start by keeping us happy at whatever cost while maintaining a moderate and realistic time sink so we earn our crap to maintain this game's subscriber base. They can augment such a try by nerfing content before they nerf jobs so that they don't have to nerf jobs. Nerfing jobs for balance in Voidwatch is insanity. Insanity? This. Is. JAPAN!

So like, what's next? Well, I guess Legion. Wow that sounds so much more fun than a new expansion I can't wait to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter just like in WoE and end up never doing it. Who needs new storylines and expansion content when you can do yet more battle themed content. I can afford it I'm immortal and never age and can wait many years while a hand full of people code for this game because 80 million dollars a year is not worthy of SE's devotion and focus, which is down to like 40 million now I'm sure. Whatever the true income figures are because it's hard to know when they've never been open about it, I am certain it's been cut in half. But I am pretty close with my figures, give or take 10 million.

But hey, we're no different from the typical 2006 foo' who predicts gloom for the game because no one wants to help their ass. Gee I wonder why no one wanted to help them.

[Sparthos]

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

Look into the context of people who claimed to like popped Kings - they were largely either:

A. People who domineered Kings. The people who had no issues buying bots for money and becoming God of the FFXI claim.
B. People who never did Kings yet have this grandiose image of the event in their heads, failing to see that all the event boiled down to was some really stinky PvP.
C. People who were annoyed that new Kings would require farming KS which is certainly more difficult to setup than being at X zone at Y time.

Overall the Kings change came too late and in typical SE fashion had strings attached in the largely shit rate on NQ -> HQ conversion. Going 10 Behes before a KB pop is just silly given most of the gear wasn't even that good anymore and require luck to augment properly, the rarity of BB items was largely to keep old schoolers happy.

The idea of popped Kings was good but the execution left much to be desired.

[Daniel]

I actually liked the voidwatch loot system, thought it was a nice change, at least until I hit my 400th run without getting a single body or the HQ dagger despite using red and blu every time... at that point I just got pissed off.

[Runespider]

I actually liked the voidwatch loot system, thought it was a nice change, at least until I hit my 400th run without getting a single body or the HQ dagger despite using red and blu every time... at that point I just got pissed off.

Same as everybody else, as always they have good ideas that are ruined by balance/longevity worries.

[Aarahs]

SE said way back that they were going to adjust everything to lvl99 cap after it was reached. Guess what, it's past the lvl99 cap...

Honestly, I'd like to see the game reworked from the ground up, keeping the current job system as is and rebuilding it from the ground up. Maybe adjust some zones so to require certain jobs for a fight by creating a barrier a blm, rdm, or whm would need to shutdown. Maybe another combo where a thf would need to flee across a river of lava with a mini'ed alliance. Or a deep chasm requiring a drg to super jump everyone down.

[Phogg]

http://i.picasion.com/pic49/70b4c82173d9e42faa968871b661101d.gif

[Dreamin]

I actually liked the voidwatch loot system, thought it was a nice change, at least until I hit my 400th run without getting a single body or the HQ dagger despite using red and blu every time... at that point I just got pissed off.

I stopped tracking once I went over 250. and starting to do less and less of it because I am just sick of logs and ores.

[Spiritreaver]

Look into the context of people who claimed to like popped Kings - they were largely either:

A. People who domineered Kings. The people who had no issues buying bots for money and becoming God of the FFXI claim.
B. People who never did Kings yet have this grandiose image of the event in their heads, failing to see that all the event boiled down to was some really stinky PvP.
C. People who were annoyed that new Kings would require farming KS which is certainly more difficult to setup than being at X zone at Y time.

Overall the Kings change came too late and in typical SE fashion had strings attached in the largely shit rate on NQ -> HQ conversion. Going 10 Behes before a KB pop is just silly given most of the gear wasn't even that good anymore and require luck to augment properly, the rarity of BB items was largely to keep old schoolers happy.

The idea of popped Kings was good but the execution left much to be desired.

Liked the whole post. But i 'Like'ed it because of the bolded B. That is so the truth.

[Asymptotic]

To be perfectly honest, everything they've nerfed recently has been more or less merited.

[Hayward]

I'm not even surprised anymore that there are wannabes who will defend these absurd decisions just because, in their warped minds, S-E can do no wrong. In their warped minds, the Tanakification of Magian Trials is how things are supposed to be. In their warped minds, no other jobs should have a level 99 Weapon Skill that equals the performance of Tachi: Shoha. In their warped minds, Paladins should just accept their place in life and not look for offensive updates to match their defensive attributes--see, in their minds, lack of any offense that matters constitutes *no, I won't use that word*. *ahem* In their warped minds, Mages' scrolls must be so unjustifiably rare that opportunistic d-bags can charge exorbitant amounts of gil for them.

In sum, everything should be what Abyssea is not in the warped minds of these "White Knights".

[Asymptotic]

Oh Hayward, QQ more, please, your tears of infinite sadness are delicious.

SE has done some pretty stupid stuff recently, but nothing they've nerfed recently (post live server release) has been undeserved. Ukko's Fury and Victory Smite were overpowered, the BST treasure hunter nerf was simply an acknowledgement of SE realizing that any tier of TH past III is statistically unimportant, and Save TP's mechanic was pretty broken (2hit builds, lol?).

[Runespider]

Save TP's mechanic was pretty broken (2hit builds, lol?).

Only in VW and that was because of the atmacite (they knew it would allow 2 hit builds, they know how the game works and that players will max stuff they add, they even made it easier to get 11 rolls to make this easier to attain), any sensible person would of instead nerfed the atmacite by maybe given it a large -attack stat (or whatever else) so you get more procs but a lot less dmg. That way outright DD would avoid using it and it would be a procer atma isntead of every DD atmacite.

A lot of things seemed to be nerfed due to VW which was stupid due to all the temps and atmacites, why ruin stuff out of VW when they were only serious issues inside?

[Asymptotic]

Most "stats" in the game are only worthwhile if you stack a large amount of them, and that seems to be their design paradigm.

Save TP gave large increase at low Save TP levels.

[Hayward]

I'll say it again: some people are so deep in their Stockholm Syndrome they'll say anything to defend S-E's honor even when what they do proves to be unjustifiable to anyone capaple of reason.

Again, the best way to address discrepancies in job performance is to raise the performance of those that are underperforming, not bringing down those that are performing the best (even Samurai).

[wish12oz]

Im laughing at it. Especially since the OP continues to make pointless threads just to get a few likes from the OF cry baby circle . Put up a dislike button and you'll see that the "entire player base" " majority of players"( its 85% right?) isn't really on your side. But I guess if that happens then runespiders constant complaints won't have much weight when he cant pull the entire player base is gonna quit if you don't do what I want.

I waited a few days before I responded to this because I wanted to give people time to like your post, so I could compare it to the OP, and say it looks like the majority of players agree with the OP, and not you. But hey, at least you can take comfort in the fact that for every 7 or 8 people that agree with the OP, 1 agrees with you.

[Asymptotic]

I'll say it again: some people are so deep in their Stockholm Syndrome they'll say anything to defend S-E's honor even when what they do proves to be unjustifiable to anyone capaple of reason.

Again, the best way to address discrepancies in job performance is to raise the performance of those that are underperforming, not bringing down those that are performing the best (even Samurai).

Yay, Power Creep!

Anyway, It's more parsimonious to adjust 2 jobs than it is to adjust 10.

I'll say it again, the Ukko's, Smite, BST TH, and Save TP nerfs were merited. They haven't nerfed anything else recently, as far as I'm aware, post-live server release. Every other job adjustment has been at least a slight improvement, even one to WAR!

[Disifer]

Yay, Power Creep!

Anyway, It's more parsimonious to adjust 2 jobs than it is to adjust 10.

I'll say it again, the Ukko's, Smite, BST TH, and Save TP nerfs were merited. They haven't nerfed anything else recently, as far as I'm aware, post-live server release. Every other job adjustment has been at least a slight improvement, even one to WAR!

Even MNK was a never used job until Smite came along. It sorta fixed the job. Nerfing it didn't break what was fixed, it was just bringing them down to a level with other jobs. Ukko I have no opinion on whatsoever. BST TH being a bst, wasnt really an exploit. Could never get above th3. Nerfing it to TH2 would make sense. TH1 is like a kick in the balls. The save tp adjustment, the one job complaining about it is a Cor, not the ones who were receiving the roll. Just made Cor a less desired job.

Everyone has their own opinion, I do see both sides of each nerf, some more than others. But it still goes against what they've said as recently as a year ago about buffing jobs and not nerfing them. At least release information of plans on how to increase the functionality of those jobs, and before you say they released the changes to merits for every job and existing JA's, i hardly see them as noticeable increase compared to the decrease of the jobs in the nerfing conversation.

And to edit, we can't even use the TH+1 sash, so it's putting us on par with a PUP/DNC in any situation who tags a mob with the sash on. Dunno how that makes a ton of sense.

[Kimble]

If DNC got a nerf, he'd be crying so meh.

[SpankWustler]

I'll say it again, the Ukko's, Smite, BST TH, and Save TP nerfs were merited.

I don't really see the change to Ukko's Fury and Victory Smite in the same light as the change to Save TP.

In the case of the former, the base critical hit rate was seen as too high and thus it was reduced. It was a pinpoint solution that focused directly on the one thing seen as a problem.

In the case of the latter, weaponskill frequency was seen as too high when various sources of "bonus" TP such as Save TP were combined. Thus, Save TP is being made to be really useful only when you have more than ~30 of it and Miser's Roll is being made pointless outside of Voidwatch. If high amounts of such bonuses were the issue, why are only high amounts useful now?

It is also possible that the development team doesn't know how one of these sources, Conserve TP, actually works in spite of inventing the damn job trait themselves.

It's entirely possible to think that something was a problem but also think the Development Bros came up with a cumbersome "solution". Although I guess that's not really what this topic is about.

[Eri]

If DNC got a nerf, he'd be crying so meh.

What do you wanna nerf on a Job that fails in its own role (Support) and is pushed to play DD...
Soloability? Sad to say so but im hopeing for it.... and as mutch as i have seen (of Posts) Asymptotic would not even be on the fence...

Anyway im in for nerfing the bandwagen DNC's and make it what it should be in the first Place.

[Asymptotic]

If DNC got a nerf, he'd be crying so meh.

Not if it were deserved. :P

[Kimble]

What do you wanna nerf on a Job that fails in its own role (Support) and is pushed to play DD...
Soloability? Sad to say so but im hopeing for it.... and as mutch as i have seen (of Posts) Asymptotic would not even be on the fence...

Anyway im in for nerfing the bandwagen DNC's and make it what it should be in the first Place.

Well, they did nerf Bst so anything is possible.

[zagam]

I waited a few days before I responded to this because I wanted to give people time to like your post, so I could compare it to the OP, and say it looks like the majority of players agree with the OP, and not you. But hey, at least you can take comfort in the fact that for every 7 or 8 people that agree with the OP, 1 agrees with you.
And the majority of the OF advocates melee rdm, limit break to hard etc etc, if you want to lump yourself in with that group by all means go for it :)

[Alerith]

SE, you can salvage this entire bad image and you can do it with the same two words I've been chanting for years:

Tavnazia Expansion