Maintenance

[Kuroku]

Why would they do this first thing in the morning? Why not schedule it for 4AM or something when no one is on... guess they decide their own hours and would rather just inconvenience the players.

[Monchat]

It is at 4 AM for the JPs... the servr are multi region so its going to piss of one region. For EU it's usually during dinner time so I don't care.

[Kuroku]

Ah I see, what is the maint for?

[Mirage]

And it's primetime for us in europe, so stop complaining :p.

[Kuroku]

Anyone know what they are fixing?

[Dazusu]

Hopefully Meeble Burrows?

[Babekeke]

Most likely finaly solved the issue in meebles kicking people out.

[Babekeke]

I was right, but also they finally nerfed blinkers (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/28107-NA-FINAL-FANTASY-XI-Version-Update-%28Oct.-22%29) and can't sell perle/aurore/teal to NPC any more o.0

[Sfchakan]

Nerfed Cruor purchased items reselling value/ability to NPC. Along with Meeble fixes and such.

[Zagen]

Nerfed Cruor purchased items reselling value/ability to NPC. Along with Meeble fixes and such.

Yay, next up RMT flood Dynamis and price fixing begins on currency, oh joy!

[Mirage]

That's not even nearly as easy/fast to efficiently do as 16 lv30 naked mules, though. Each character would need to have all limit breaks done, "some" gear, do missions for access. While this is easy to do, it's not done in the 1-2 hours it takes to recreate 16 recently banned cruor-cows.

You probably have to pay at least a bit of attention to each of the characters you want to use in there too, so you can't just leave 16 characters in 320x240 windows and minimize them while doing everything in a different client instance.

[Phafi]

Yay, next up RMT flood Dynamis and price fixing begins on currency, oh joy!

Next update: http://i.imgur.com/hdy1M.png

[Mirage]

You forgot the "rare" tag!

[Phafi]

but how would we make 100coins?

[DaBackpack]

I'm just loling right now about the chocobo blinker nerf. Really, SE? This screws a lot of people over for no good reason (inb4 RMT).

Ok, cruor is going to be used almost exclusively to upgrade Atmacites, oh wait Voidwatch is almost entirely a waste of money now because we have to completely rely on shitty drop rates to get money/break even.

Way to go Square-Enix.

[Liriel]

They nerfed cruor bought items, so they may as well make dnyamis currency untradable/unbazaarable while they're at it.

While it might take time to get a bunch of mules up that high, this will mean a mass flood of RMTs in dynamis, which will make it nigh impossible for us real players to get the currency we need without paying an arm and a leg for it.

[Liriel]

Blame the RMTs. They're the ones that screw everyone over. SE is just responding to what they're doing.

[Mirage]

but how would we make 100coins?

Direct drops only.

[Monchat]

I'm deceived they didnt do this 2 years ago when players explicitly pointed out the high rate of resale of abbysea items. Deceived that fishing in Beaucedine wasn't nerfed either, although this is not as bad as cruor.

[Zagen]

This game was always designed to be a grindfest. You must not have been around back near release. It took months of hard work just to get anywhere in level and even longer to get good gear. Abyssea has really done nothing but make everything so easy that you can go in blindfolded and never even learn what your job is even about. I'm glad they did this. Means people might actually venture out away from abyssea to earn gil and learn how to play.

I'm ending the argument here, because any real player knows that this is a change that should have happened years ago, or never have been started in the beginning. SE isn't depriving players of gil. There's many other ways to earn it. Sure it might take longer, but hey, that's what this game has always been about, slow steady progress so that you know what you're doing, and in most cases, learn how to act as part of a party and actually interact with other people. You wanna solo/low man farm something? Go play a console game by yourself or with a few friends.
I wish the player base I actually play in was the same one in your dreams.

[Khajit]

This game was always designed to be a grindfest. You must not have been around back near release. It took months of hard work just to get anywhere in level and even longer to get good gear. Abyssea has really done nothing but make everything so easy that you can go in blindfolded and never even learn what your job is even about. I'm glad they did this. Means people might actually venture out away from abyssea to earn gil and learn how to play.

I'm ending the argument here, because any real player knows that this is a change that should have happened years ago, or never have been started in the beginning. SE isn't depriving players of gil. There's many other ways to earn it. Sure it might take longer, but hey, that's what this game has always been about, slow steady progress so that you know what you're doing, and in most cases, learn how to act as part of a party and actually interact with other people. You wanna solo/low man farm something? Go play a console game by yourself or with a few friends.

I was around when it was a grindfest which is exactly why I know that trying to return the game to a grindfest only results in a steaming pile of shit. The game was hemorrhaging players and the only reason that stopped was because it stopped being a grindfest. When the level 99 cap announcement came out the first thing people thought was that there's no way they can tolerate having to have exp pts long enough to reach it.

You seem to be of the impression that the game used to be hard because you had to grind. It wasn't. People were still just as stupid then as they are now and figuring out how to do a job isn't rocket science. Do you think put on haste, wear good weapon is a difficult concept? Do you think macro swaps are designed like some sort of Gordian knot? If a person is too stupid to understand their job it's because they were stupid. not because the job was magically difficult. By the time you're lv 10 you should already get the concept of engaging and using a ws or using magic.
Thinking that doing something most noobs in valkurm were taught back in the day makes you special is ridiculous.

[Etrigan]

There is a much easier solution... Ban all IPs that tie back to china, this will cause the RMTs to have to use a VPN to connect through another country, which will do two things.

1.) Give them more Lag
2.) Cost Them More Money

#2 Drives down their profit margin, hopefully enough to make selling ffxi gil unprofitable

Problem Solved

[DaBackpack]

This game was always designed to be a grindfest. You must not have been around back near release. It took months of hard work just to get anywhere in level and even longer to get good gear. Abyssea has really done nothing but make everything so easy that you can go in blindfolded and never even learn what your job is even about. I'm glad they did this. Means people might actually venture out away from abyssea to earn gil and learn how to play.

Just because it's been a grindfest from the beginning doesn't mean that it is GOOD that the game remains a grindfest. And acting like an elitist isn't making your argument any stronger.


I'm ending the argument here, because any real player knows that this is a change that should have happened years ago, or never have been started in the beginning. SE isn't depriving players of gil. There's many other ways to earn it. Sure it might take longer, but hey, that's what this game has always been about, slow steady progress so that you know what you're doing, and in most cases, learn how to act as part of a party and actually interact with other people. You wanna solo/low man farm something? Go play a console game by yourself or with a few friends.

1.) >implying that people who used chocobo blinkers aren't "real players"
I've got 4 million cruor, why the hell shouldn't I use it for gil? Does that mean I suck? I guess it means I suck.
2.) I agree that if it was going to happen, it should have happened a long time ago. But it just seems stupid to do it over a year after its introduction.
3.) Regarding the "learning how to play in a party"
a.) I must have missed the memo where I can one-man everything in Abyssea. Most inexperienced players DO participate in parties. The game dynamic is not that much different than the rest of the game's events', besides Voidwatch perhaps. It's just that you can do Abyssea with less people.
b.) Nowadays, most cruor comes from Voidwatch (sans RMT).

[detlef]

I'm not too broken up over this except for one concern which is how this will affect the popularity of Voidwatch. Twist my arm and I'd go participate in a VW fight for something I didn't really need assuming I could use the XP or cruor. Well, then I capped my merits again but I could still drag myself to help for the cruor.

Take away the cruor and I really just do not want to do the content anymore. I'm sure there are others (many others) who feel the same way.

In light of this update, the Kupofried's Corundum update seems even more meaningless.

[Logandor]

/rant begin: So now that the RMT can't do that stuff to make gil the rest of us might as well get ready for them to clog up dyna and other zones to make their gil? *sigh* guess that means the good decent places to farm currency for relics will be taken by them while the rest of us are sol on those spots. So now what? What will be their next nerf? Crour/ exp gain from Voidwatch nms or completely nerf all jobs? /rant end
I am though happy they worked on the stuff that needed fixing though but other then that this maintenance kinda blows.

[deces]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ3j5jp5IoY

[svengalis]

Never took advantage of this but what are we suppose to do with cruor now if we have millions of it?

[DaBackpack]

Never took advantage of this but what are we suppose to do with cruor now if we have millions of it?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nqmCGYkexps/TPIJeQRfrZI/AAAAAAAAAiE/e2yoobuVvEg/s1600/scrooge.bmp

[Ryce]

man ><

I did my first ever cruor > blinker > gil conversion this past weekend. Was really looking forward to turning some of that unused cruor into gear and crafting materials. But eff' the economy, AMIRITE?

[Plasticleg]

Never took advantage of this but what are we suppose to do with cruor now if we have millions of it?

Finally upgrade those mage atmacites and brew everything.
everything

[wildsprite]

Not to mention RMT is actually illegal in itself. By law, SE has to take action against it.

um. RMT is against the terms of service, in what country is it illegal? because I'm sure some of the games that actually use RMT rather than pay to play would like to know that, also Second Life Metaverse uses RMT worldwide, they even have an established currency exchange, so doesn't IMVU 3D chat...so in what area of the world is this illegal? its not illegal in the USA and it seems not in china....


you might also want to keep in mind that the RMT in FFXI got as bad as it did because SE chose not to act against it for a very long time at-least the first 2 or 3 years of the game, if they acted upon it at the start it would not be an issue now

[MarkovChain]

I approve this maintenace !

[Demon6324236]

Simple way to say it, Cruor used to be your way of making back wasted money from dust & possibly cells, dunno what blinkers sell for now but I'm sure it just fucked that up, which means I will never be doing VW again except for NMs I need, and seeing as I'm sure everyone else is probably the same way if they value their gil, SE just put the final nail in the VW coffin.

Just a small note rq, before they sold for 519 gil each, which made the conversion rate from cruor to gil 1 cruor = 2.595 gil, where as the new conversion rate with blinkers is 1 cruor = 0.335 gil. This means in a VW run, you will need an average of 3 fights to make 60k cruor to pay for a single 20k dust.

[Aldersyde]

I'm not too broken up over this except for one concern which is how this will affect the popularity of Voidwatch. Twist my arm and I'd go participate in a VW fight for something I didn't really need assuming I could use the XP or cruor. Well, then I capped my merits again but I could still drag myself to help for the cruor.

Take away the cruor and I really just do not want to do the content anymore. I'm sure there are others (many others) who feel the same way.

In light of this update, the Kupofried's Corundum update seems even more meaningless.

Seconded. SE just made it that so people who have already got what they wanted from the content will never go back to it.

Way to kill the only event that actually catered to a sizable portion of your playerbase.

[Zagen]

Seconded. SE just made it that so people who have already got what they wanted from the content will never go back to it.

Way to kill the only event that actually catered to a sizable portion of your playerbase.

Not to worry all those who slacked off can just buy displacers with all that cru they can covert to blinkers! Oh wait...

[Fynlar]

I'm not too broken up over this except for one concern which is how this will affect the popularity of Voidwatch. Twist my arm and I'd go participate in a VW fight for something I didn't really need assuming I could use the XP or cruor. Well, then I capped my merits again but I could still drag myself to help for the cruor.

Take away the cruor and I really just do not want to do the content anymore. I'm sure there are others (many others) who feel the same way.

In light of this update, the Kupofried's Corundum update seems even more meaningless.


Thirded...

[Demon6324236]

I wonder why this was done actually, I mean when you look at it objectively, they had 2 choices.

Nerf blinkers, hurts RMT, hurts players, makes it harder to find & remove RMTs.

Not nerf blinkers, which made RMT much easier to spot & report, helped players by adding a way to make money, making VW at least somewhat profitable, and even adding more cleaves, even if they are run by RMTs, allowing players at low levels or players leveling jobs to get xp faster rather than having to go through GoV burns for 70 levels.

[Sparthos]

SE:

When you decide to nerf something, try to be balanced about it.

I get the gil fountain needed to be closed to prevent capped gil scenarios backed by 24/7 FC parties and to stabilize the economy on the whole but there just isn't any grassroots demand for AH items in an era of R/EX to the moon coupled with farming for R/M/Es.

The nerf has happened yet what does the average player get out of this? Where is the compensation for ruining a legitimate - albeit dangerous to the games economy - way of making gil?

Will you make Dynamis cities viable to farm?
Will you add massive gilsinks that drain the economy of all that blinkered gil?
Will you add new items that make crafting worth a damn?

This is the main problem. Nerfs seem like slaps to the player and with no upside the whole thing comes off as "well, if you didn't get in when the getting was good too bad."

[Metaking]

prices on common things are about to plummet probably see rmt chocking up salvage and dynamis for a while, O and se did add a massive gil sink in meebles(which with how much a full MB popset would cost you per person) but i doubt anyone will have the gil for that. Alot of people who make there gil legit do not realize that people soon wont have the gil to pay the prices a crafter wants for the effort it took to craft something, cooks like me are going to get hit seriously hard but what really kills me, is HMPS were finally dropping in price now im pretty sure there going to jump to 150k+ per one to make up for the loss of gil people use to get from Qilin C, which damit only 398 to go is going to get interesting to get...... /sigh dout i will be able to relay on cooking anymore to bring me in much profit.... god i dont wanna go back to the days of like 10% profit margins on food...

[Trumpy]

I stopped reading after a bit but this could also be in preparation for makin crystal petrifacts able to turn into cruor they mentioned this last week (all the gil nerfs from cruor i mean).

[Ezikiel]

WHATS THE NEW SELL PRICE FOR BLINKERS?

[Zagen]

I stopped reading after a bit but this could also be in preparation for makin crystal petrifacts able to turn into cruor they mentioned this last week (all the gil nerfs from cruor i mean).

Except people who would benefit from converting the crystals are likely the ones who benefited from cruor being blinker friendly. If you're maxed out on atmacite, have already left Abyssea zones or never needed to brew anything cruor is now essentially meaningless.


WHATS THE NEW SELL PRICE FOR BLINKERS?
I read 69 in a few other forums. No idea if that's max fame or not but pretty bad.

[Ezikiel]

Except people who would benefit from converting the crystals are likely the ones who benefited from cruor being blinker friendly. If you're maxed out on atmacite, have already left Abyssea zones or never needed to brew anything cruor is now essentially meaningless.


I read 69 in a few other forums. No idea if that's max fame or not but pretty bad.


well dont that suck the fat one. well now i need a new way to make gil :(

[Luvbunny]

SE has been combating RMTs for years. This is about the only way to shut them down - take away their means of making a lot of gil in a short amount of time. RMTs destroy the economy of any game, making it more and more difficult for legit players to afford gear. Take away their ability to make a ton of gil, and it will force prices down to a more reasonable level. Not to mention RMT is actually illegal in itself. By law, SE has to take action against it.

OK... I am a bit confused, who buys gil anymore nowadays. Before the update, making gil is so freakingly easy that you do not even need to buy gil, since it is overflowing right and left. Now they are killing EVERYONE in the game to the point that casual players will have to buy gil to even have a chance. I mean seriously, after TWO WHOLE YEARS, they finally did this????? A lot of the good gears are actually rare/ex, most you cannot just bot farm them but have to have a full alliance to be able to get them to drop. Dynamis currency is soloable. Gil was never a problem for two whole years since Abyssea arrived. Why now??? This is beyond retarded. What RMT are they worrying about exactly?

[Luvbunny]

Seconded. SE just made it that so people who have already got what they wanted from the content will never go back to it.

Way to kill the only event that actually catered to a sizable portion of your playerbase.

Pretty much this. I never realized how much they really hate FFXI to the point of trying to kill its own game that producing easy money. There is no way in hell I will fall into this stupid trap of SE online game again. Sorry to say but as much as FF14 is going to be great, SE is not going to get any money of me. Time to put the final nail to FFXI coffin as well it seems. To think that they were actually developed some IQ when they released Abyssea two years ago.

[Vagrua]

To think that they were actually developed some IQ when they released Abyssea two years ago.

It's starting to seem like they're catering away from the casual playerbase back to making content only time grinds, competitive, and unfeasible requirements. Abyssea was a step in the right direction keeping not only the casuals busy, but also the hardcore players. Sure, the hardcore players could burn through it all within weeks, but casuals may not finish Abyssea for months to years with work schedules and families. Not to mention, the content was rewarding for your time put into it. VW came into play and separated the casuals from the hardcore players at its introduction required actual tanks and tactics until 99 where everything was just proc'd and zerged along with SE's old 1% drop rates on anything useful. The pulse cells were an aim in the right direction, but there are still many items in VW that don't have cells making the incentive not worthwhile to others. Only specific VW NMs will be spammed now. It's difficult to find help from others if there is no profit in it for themselves sad, but true to say. Cruor to Blinkers balanced that out.

[Luvbunny]

The game is already a massive grind fest now at 99, mostly for gears and weapons. What I like about abyssea is that everytime you do something, you are closer toward your goal. Nothing is completely wasted effort in building toward your intended gears + weapons. Everyone benefits and gives people many ways to play at their own pace. The last few updates are a total crap fest pretty much shunning the majority of the players. They ignore all the requests to fix Campaign and Walk of Echoes, they play deaf when it comes to Legion and Neo Nyzul, and pretty much stop adjusting with Voidwatch events, making the lower level tiers very hard to find people who wants to do it.