Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

[Camate]

Hello everyone! I have a message from Producer Akihiko Matsui to share with you all. Please take a moment to check it out. :D



Hello.

Thank you all very much for your continued patronage of FINAL FANTASY XI.

Firstly, let me apologize that so much time has passed since my last post.

I have been struggling to comprehend each of the below points and organize everything to tell you all, and before I knew it, months had already passed by.


How has Vana'diel changed in the past two years?
How do all of the players feel about these changes?
What kinds of discussions are taking place within the development and operations team?
With what kind of intentions and ways of thinking is work being done?
What are the plans from here on out?


I'm at a point that I'd really like more time for all of this, but I can't just keeping saying that.

With that said, I'd like to share with you an interim report of what we are doing right now and what we would like to do moving forward.

Regarding the Roadmap

I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.

The second reason is that the hours needed to work on and discuss all of the forum topics was much greater than we anticipated.

While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you.

It's hard for me to ask this, as we've already caused everyone to worry and be inconvenienced, but please give us a bit more time.

Understanding the Current Situation

I have been reading over what everyone thinks, not only from all of the posts made on the forum, but from players' blogs, Twitter, and other sources.

For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.

Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:


Content structure
Jobs overall
How to add stats to items
How to hand out rewards


I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements.

It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up.

For example, strengthening players through job adjustments or the addition of gear may work, but another good method is to directly lower the difficulty of content. Of course this is all on the basis that we provide another challenge and even better rewards for the top groups.

Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)

In regards to item stats, this is a crucial growth element as you cannot level up past level 99. It's necessary to release items with stronger and really good stats in the future. For how you receive items, as many of you have requested on the forums, I'd like to have a point system in place for when you miss out on a reward that has its drop rate set low due to difficulty adjustments.

Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into.

Once the framework of all of this has been decided, I will talk to the staff and we’ll decide exactly what we would like to do from here on out. Once all the details have been organized I will be sure to share the future plans with you all. Of course that will not be the ultimate finalized plan, as we would like to really hear your feedback now more than ever.

In Closing

I believe there are quite a few of you who would like me to communicate swiftly and with a high frequency like when I was using Twitter. Back then I was able to focus on Twitter all day long, but unfortunately these days I'm not as free as I once was. Sorry about that.

However, once things calm down a bit I would like to show my face a bit more.
(Even though I am taking notes while I read the forum, I haven't been able to handle it all…)

I’m still in the midst of learning what it means to be producer, but I am doing the very best I can and would like to build a FINAL FANTASY XI with you all that will be loved by everyone.

Again, thank you all so much for your continued support.

[Phafi]

solo contenttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

[Demon6324236]

Nice words, I only hope it is followed with the same kind of action. I admittedly have lately felt very disappointed with things being done, I believe right now that you are good with telling us things, the only question we still have yet to really see answered is, is it all talk, or will you show us that you are ready to turn this game into something greater than it has ever been before?

I like that you say you are looking at player feedback and taking it into account, and while I do not necessarily doubt this, I do wish that player ideas could be used a bit more often. Some of my more personal problems I have seen this with are things such as Excalibur's problems with Enspells, and RDM's new SP ability which the player base easily shared what we thought it should be, with almost everyone in agreement, however it was seemingly ignored. I do not expect everything to be done exactly as we ask, but when players agree in large enough numbers about something, it should mean something, as well as when good points are brought up against something thought to be an error, or flawed feature. Something else along these lines is the problem with Blue Magic Additional Effects on many spells, and their low land rate, I think the fact of how often this is reported as a bug, speaks for itself how bad this problem is and why it should not be ignored.

[MarkovChain]

Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do).


So basically they are telling us that everyone is capped on easy content and don't do legion because it's too hard, so that when they log, poof, nothing to do ? Nope you didn't get it, people don't do it because the rewards are gimp. Put nyzul gear into legion and you'll see what I mean.

[SpankWustler]

In regards to item stats, this is a crucial growth element as you cannot level up past level 99. It's necessary to release items with stronger and really good stats in the future. For how you receive items, as many of you have requested on the forums, I'd like to have a point system in place for when you miss out on a reward that has its drop rate set low due to difficulty adjustments.

Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eF7FB9KkFpY/TwIDkHfe41I/AAAAAAAANeY/0B2wXcffdpQ/s1600/funny-pictures-cat-approves.jpg

If this stuff actually comes to pass, I shall never speak of the Development Bros failing to wear pants ever again.

[Malthar]

Let us, the player base with programming skills, contribute to development.

[Cyprias]

So basically they are telling us that everyone is capped on easy content and don't do legion because it's too hard, so that when they log, poof, nothing to do ? Nope you didn't get it, people don't do it because the rewards are gimp. Put nyzul gear into legion and you'll see what I mean.

Oh yeah, cause Khepri pieces are totally gimp. Same with Huginn feet, Tenryuu tekko +1, and let's not forget the Iaso pieces too! Legion is too difficult for pick-up groups to do, and thus isn't shouted for like Voidwatch is. Recall that the subject is the gear, not about "x jobs are useless, so why gear it?", so the response of job usage is irrelevant. Then, the gear is important and makes Legion a priority in some job's optimal sets.

[Rubicant82]

I’m still in the midst of learning what it means to be producer, but I am doing the very best I can and would like to build a FINAL FANTASY XI with you all that will be loved by everyone.

Here is one of the biggest things which one can learn, listen to the player they are the customers and currently I feel the DEV team has lost sight of that (example the changes to PD, Embava, and the new SP abilities). In business there is a fine balance that must be reached to keep customers content, but if you have read any of the forums related to some of the content changes/planned changes you will see that the customers (players) are NOT happy.

[Demon6324236]

Oh yeah, cause Khepri pieces are totally gimp. Same with Huginn feet, Tenryuu tekko +1, and let's not forget the Iaso pieces too! Legion is too difficult for pick-up groups to do, and thus isn't shouted for like Voidwatch is. Recall that the subject is the gear, not about "x jobs are useless, so why gear it?", so the response of job usage is irrelevant. Then, the gear is important and makes Legion a priority in some job's optimal sets.While some of the Abj gear is amazing like Iaso Head/Feet, I have to say the price for -1s are very, very, deterring.

[Meyi]

I feel like crying tears of joy. It's nice to actually hear an update from the guy in charge. Honestly never would have expected it, not after 10 years of blindly grasping at things in the dark. It's a welcome change. Even though he doesn't have all the answers right now, it was nice of him to let us know where's at in his current thinking process.

I approve strongly of the point system. And I approve strongly of more solo content. I've never been one who enjoyed playing with others (inb4 don't play mmos noob) because most people are incompetent. That, and many are annoying. And to top it off, I'm usually exhausted from dealing with people all day, and I just want to play a video game and whack some monsters. So actually getting to accomplish things on my own without having to beg other busy linkshell members who are also trying to complete their own goals? HELL YES!

まついさん、ありがとうございました。ｍ（＿　＿）ｍ

[Cyprias]

While some of the Abj gear is amazing like Iaso Head/Feet, I have to say the price for -1s are very, very, deterring.

This is a result of less materials being available, and some of those materials are from Legion alone. While the prices are incredibly spiked, the value of gil has decreased as an inflation has occurred from NPCing items being an increased phenomena. Also, getting the craft skill level to do these synths is a huge investment. However, at least it is much easier nowadays to make 1M than it was when Abyssea first released.

Edit: Implied that making 1M is easier to make, thus the cost of the items isn't as hard as it seems.

[bigdave]

I think they should allow certain 3rd party aps like wow does and the updates since june and july have been nothing but let downs to me personally I am sick of the lets make our weapons weaker cause some one else was whining and put my mandua back on top of the relic parser for dot both my emperian weapons and relic have been greatly reduced since I got them hopefully next year they will quit doing that to us

[Krashport]

Seeing what Square Enix is as company today, Its sad to say many members have really given up and moved on. You guys at Square Enix really should've just made Final Fantasy 11 more better and not "Try" to make another MMO, All that money wasted and spent that could've made Final Fantasy 11 so much more then it is today. There's not many that want to start over and that's what you are telling us to do. Numbers work on the offline games but they kinda don't when they're online your biggest mistake. Final Fantasy 17 online anyone?

[larrymc]

I for one am very encouraged by the words of the new director. Sometimes you wonder if SE knows whats really going on in the game from an average player's perspective, as it seems like it is tailored around pleasing the top 1%. But assuming SE follows through on their words, I will give them time to adjust and look forward to the changes.

[Direct]

Just make sure you add some new world spawn hnms to go along with the new expansion, there is after all people who still want this content.

[Return1]

People crying about PD/Embrava nerf should lose posting privileges. The abilities are stupidly broken, and events will be designed around these stupidly broken abilities or there will be no challenge unless it's stupid cheap things like AoE death moves, instead of adapting to changes in mob behavior like what was done before.

With PD and Embrava getting the nerf, newer content won't be designed around them so much.

[Arbalest]

Seeing what Square Enix is as company today, Its sad to say many members have really given up and moved on. You guys at Square Enix really should've just made Final Fantasy 11 more better and not "Try" to make another MMO, All that money wasted and spent that could've made Final Fantasy 11 so much more then it is today. There's not many that want to start over and that's what you are telling us to do. Numbers work on the offline games but they kinda don't when they're online your biggest mistake. Final Fantasy 17 online anyone?

FFXI has always held a niche, and a reasonably small community of dedicated followers. It's not a mainstream MMO by any means, and it's growing smaller with each passing day because of all the people who are leaving. Lots of players, including myself, strongly dislike a lot of systems FFXI currently has in place (shitty drop%, Voidwatch, events that only support specialized jobs, etc) and we've left because of that. Not only that, but the game came of age a long time ago and the technology that it was built for is long past. It needs a major overhaul, especially to compete with all of the MMOs coming out in the market today.

I think that supporting FFXI for the long term probably would've been a good idea, but (in my opinion) doing so would've been a huge risk. They'd need to do a lot of things (that are part of my opinion and thoughts, of course) before FFXI could ever become mainstream.

-Make the game more accessible to new players jumping into the game.
-Improve the presence of solo content in the game, as well as adjust the difficulty of existing content.
-Fix all of the systems currently in place for the 99 cap, which are still tailored to the 75 cap.
-Drop PS2 support and as a platform entirely. Get rid of it, and the limitations that come with it.
-Give the engine a huge overhaul, or put the game on a new client entirely.
-Give us a new, easily-moddable UI (every other MMO does this, quite literally, with the ability to move/add components)
-Be more in contact with the playerbase and actually take EVERY piece of criticism into consideration, not just JP.
-Adjust the pace/flow of the combat system. A new UI would help us with displayable icons for macros/JAs, instead of having to navigate the shitty little menu we've had for 10 years.

They need to do a LOT to this game before it can be considered mainstream. And, with their release of FFXIV: ARR coming early next year, I think that SE is ready to support their new game for a decade, and keep FFXI on the side on semi life-support. The game has been stagnant for months now, and unless the new development team picks up the pace, I don't think a lot of people will be around for Seekers of Adoulin in 2013.

[Afania]

I for one am very encouraged by the words of the new director. Sometimes you wonder if SE knows whats really going on in the game from an average player's perspective, as it seems like it is tailored around pleasing the top 1%. But assuming SE follows through on their words, I will give them time to adjust and look forward to the changes.

FFXI never tailor around pleasing top 1%, at least not post abyssea era when majority of content are not for hardcore(abyssea, meeble, new limbus, VW are not for hardcore).

[Merton9999]

Meh, I'm not rushing for the Like button just yet. I did on the first post requesting player feedback, but the only announced changes since then have been massive disappointments to me. I'll wait for some actions rather than just the appeasement words.

If you really want to show you're listening to player feedback, make a decision and announce that you're canceling that heinous RDM Poopy Seal SP ability tomorrow. I don't even care if you have a suggested replacement.

As far as the content of the message, if it goes anywhere, I support the idea of point systems and solo or low-man content. Nothing is worse in any game than organizing large groups of people, waiting, waiting, waiting, to just repeat the same damn battle 1000 times and get nothing from it.

Also, I don't buy the "my job is hard" stuff. Stop that.

[FrankReynolds]

People crying about PD/Embrava nerf should lose posting privileges. The abilities are stupidly broken, and events will be designed around these stupidly broken abilities or there will be no challenge unless it's stupid cheap things like AoE death moves, instead of adapting to changes in mob behavior like what was done before.

With PD and Embrava getting the nerf, newer content won't be designed around them so much.

Yeah, the problem is that those mobs all still have AoE death moves and people don't want to wait a year or two only to find out that the next event they come out with is just more AoE death moves. Just because SE has nerfed embrava doesn't mean that they suddenly hired smart devs who will make events that don't revolve around AoE death anymore. It just means that they nerfed embrava/PD.

Once again the Devs fixed a problem by taking the easy route and nerfed a couple of jobs instead of making the shitty jobs better. The idea of making content that is insanely hard for most of the 2,000 people on each server just so the other 20-30 people who are really good at this game can go a week or two longer without getting bored is not an economically viable approach and quite frankly it's getting old.

When your car needs new tires you don't pull off the old ones and drive around on the wheels making sparks everywhere for a few months while you slowly buy a full set of new ones. You get the new tires ready first. Same thing applies here. You make the new content that is geared towards the weaker abilities. Then you fix the old content. Then you nerf / boost the necessary abilities. Then you release them in conjunctiuon so that the user doesn't suffer through the entire process. Especially when you do thigs as god awful slow as SE does.

They could take away those death moves and other cheap tactics and leave embrava/PD as they were and the end result would be that 1,000-2,000 diehards got bored (they are bored anyways) while the other 200,000 people playing the game had a more enjoyable experience.

This company has serious issues with prioritizing work. They keep adding more and more broken junk without fixing the broken crap they already added and it's all going to snowball into an avalanche of crap. Working on an expansion and new jobs at this point when so many events / jobs are crap is tantamount to making a road map that says "Quit the game for a while --------------------------> hopefully you'll return when seekers comes out?".

[Rezeak]

While i have been unhappy with the recent content added to the game.

20 hr cool down on 10 min event.
Legion/Odin V2 being organizible nightmare
and their stubbornness on the difficultly/skill curve on NNI

Akihiko Matsui at least has let us know we've been heard on some key aspects and really as a producer is a really nice change and i hope he does well with FFXI cause if he does it'll be a huge improvement.

If i did have a message for him it would be, if 50-80% of the player base think something should be done a different way or should be removed then it should be considered and not just forced upon us being told "we made it this way, so deal with it". At least that's how the recent communications have made me feel.

[Llana_Virren]

With PD and Embrava getting the nerf, newer content won't be designed around them so much.

It wasn't the abuse of certain abilities that forced the development of retarded content.
it was retarded content that forced the development of strategies relying on certain abilities.

Nerfing PD and Embrava is not about "fixing" balance, it is about adding shelf life to content that is being beaten "too quickly."

[odericko]

Open communication is always good. Grats to the producer for filling us in.

[Dekar]

The enmity and the TP given to enemies (super TP spam by some) need a serious overhaul. I'm extremely delighted that the team is looking at fixing both.

[Babekeke]

While some of the Abj gear is amazing like Iaso Head/Feet, I have to say the price for -1s are very, very, deterring.

This.

Get rid of some logs, and add more of the lvl 100+ synth materials to VW. Make it easier to reach 110, and cheaper to synth the gear.

[ManaKing]

On any content that will be like VW in the future, and maybe void watch itself, you should implement a system that rewards longevity. I'm pretty lucky as far as drops go, but even I get frustrated in VW, because it's hard to tell how long it's going to take before you actually get a pay off.

I'm personally still trying to get an Ephemeron off of Aello. I've gotten every other drop besides the actual HQ sword. The more I do Aello, the less rewards I get because I can't pick up the random items anymore. Whirlwind Dirs are nice and I use the Earring as well. But when I get them now, I'm not particularly happy because I can't do anything with them. When you relinquish mob specific drops, you get nothing for it. It doesn't do anything for the player, in fact it pretty much makes it so that you won't get any plates off mob (or so it feels like).

Furthermore, you can't make the sword from pulse cells, because no one ever gets the sword to begin with. So even though I would be happy to throw all of my gil at the problem, like it was implied would be possible when they introduced pulsing, I can't because they honestly don't exist. Unlike the rest of the gear in VW, which has very low drop rates, the drop rates for Pulse gear is absolutely terrible.

What I would want is a system that rewards my repeated attempts with increased odd of drop for pulse items. The way I would want that to be established would be to permanently increase your Red values the more you relinquish mob specific drops until you gain the actual pulse item. In the case of Aello, if you relinquish the earring, pants, or NQ sword, you gain an extra 5%, 10%, or maybe even 20% for the items depending on the rarity of the drops. Make it so that this effect can stack very high so that players can continue to be reinforced to go for the items that they want. As the red value increases so will the chance at getting heavy metal plates and other desirable VW specific drops. As soon as you actually get the pulse item to drop, it completely resets your progress.

As a strategy, this allows players 3 benefits. Primarily, it allows players to get the extremely rare items they want if they put in enough time and motivates them to continue trying because eventually your red value will be high enough that the items will drop. Secondly, it motivates players that already have pulse items to continue to fight the mobs because the event will be more lucrative the more they do it. If a player is intentionally relinquishing all of their rare drops to increase their chances of getting heavy metal plates, then they are going to be doing VW more often. As their red value goes up, it becomes easier to farm plates for money or for their weapons. Third-ly, there will be more pulse cells available for purchase and more heavy metal plates for upgrades. When they finally do get the pulse items, they won't be completely upset that they got the item because they can always pulse cell them and make a profit off of the sale of the sell.

If you don't want to do that, then at least don't make the drop rates for pulse gear as bad as they are. Because they are terrible. I got the Kaggen Body after like 20 tries. Super Lucky. Akvan still hasn't dropped after over 100. I've heard much worse drop rates than mine and I feel terrible that people that are trying aren't getting rewarded. It really is a turn off when you are playing and doesn't do anything but frustrate your player base.

[Mefuki]

Indeed. The current drop rate on Ephemeron according to FFXIDB is 1 out of 3327 or 0.03%. That's right, not one percent, not even a whole point of a percent but zero point zero percent...

No drop rate in any game should ever have a drop rate that bad.

It's a drop rate that'd be unreasonable for an item off fodder monsters let alone a monster you need to gather a group to kill.

[Fredjan]

While I am glad to see a post like that from our new producer, I'll be more excited when I see changes in-game. Also, to clear things up, Matsui is not the director. Mizuki Ito's still the director while Matsui is the producer.

I feel the one system that should be adjusted more than anything gear wise is Voidwatch. The pulse weapons' drop rate off Aello, Qilin, and Uptala are horrendously low. It isn't just Ephemeron, it applies to Coruscanti and Murasamemaru as well.

Murasamemaru: 5 out of 7938, 0.06%
Coruscanti: 28 out of 42047, 0.07%
To go up a notch, it isn't just those.
Borealis: 18 out of 13650, 0.13%
Asteria: 1 out of 3805, 0.03%
Aytanri: 9 out of 7911, 0.11%
Delphinius: 7 out of 3066, 0.23%
This isn't just limited to Voidwatch, either. Legion has two pulse weapons as well.
Girru, from the Gallu: 1 out of 448, 0.22%
There's also no recorded HQ katana in 300+ Botulus kills, which is to be expected.

It's obvious the pulse weapons were set that low in drop rate overall intentionally. Even pulse bodies were tough to get to drop. I've heard many stories about Corsairs having problems getting Akvan's bullet, too.

Sceamol band - 1589 out of 11504 - 13.8% - Roughly 1 per 7-8 fights
Akvan's pennon - 525 out of 11504 - 4.6% - Roughly 1 per 21-22 fights
Omphalos bullet - 222 out of 11504 - 1.9% - Roughly 1 per 51-52 fights
Heka's kalasiris - 105 out of 11504 - 0.91% - Roughly 1 per 109-110 fights

While I realize that's merely a statistic approach as it factors a full alliance's chances at the item, every individual's results can vary. What I will say without a doubt, is this:

From a pure statistic point, let's look at Coruscanti again, since over 40,000 chests off Qilin have been noted and the drop rate seems to be around 0.07%.
Coruscanti: 28 out of 42047, 0.07% - Roughly 1 per 1501-1502 fights

It's far from a far-fetched assumption, as I know someone in my LS that has done over 1,000 Qilins and has not obtained a Coruscanti. Their luck could also be much worse, too.

That is just flat out unacceptable.

I realize this became more of a Voidwatch rant, but it goes to show how sadistic the drop rates can be, and is a reason why not many like Voidwatch. I'm pretty much convinced people don't even want Qilin for Coruscanti - they do it for heavy metal pouches and it's the one people do more, which have about a ~6% drop rate across all three Zilart Tier III NMs. Qilin, in particular, it's been recorded to drop that 2,465 times, or 1 per ~17 Qilins.

Pulse cells were a step in improving the situation overall, as for some reason they want to keep the drop rates as sadistic as they are, but I don't feel it's enough. I don't think many here feel it was enough, either.

[Byrth]

It's an average 0.087% drop rate for Pulse weapons, or 1/1148 average. Apart from the fact that doing over a thousand voidwatch fights is unreasonable, the other problem is that you may not see the average and doing Voidwatch fights until you get the drop could take much longer (or much shorter) than that.

Check out Omphalos Bullet (222/11504). How many Akvans do you need to do so that you have a 50% chance of getting a bullet?
(1-1.9%)^36 = ~50%, so about 36 fights. The odds of going 36 consecutive fights without getting the bullet is 50%, so in the other cases you got the bullet. So 50% of the CORs (and everyone else) will get this bullet within the first 36 fights.

But "It took me 6 Akvan runs to get it" isn't something anyone would remember or report. What if you're a COR that really wants the bullet but you're unlucky?
(1-1.9%)^154 = 5%, so after 154 fights you have a 95% chance of getting the bullet. Wait a minute, so 5% of the CORs have to do more than 26 Akvan x6 sets to get their Bullet? That's pretty unreasonable.

You can see this below:
http://i48.tinypic.com/2q84vfo.jpg

Anyway, one very simple solution would be to add a point system as suggested in the OP. Make it so that killing Akvan 80 times gives you enough "points" to just buy the bullet and cut off the upper end of the distribution. Alternatively, everyone wants maybe 4 items from Voidwatch that have a 2% drop rate. They could have made the points generalize across fights and used the relatively larger sample size to increase the cost of items a bit.

Still, the absolutely most essential and important part of such a system is:
The point items MUST be the same as the items that drop off the monster
You haven't actually improved the system by cutting off the upper tail of the distribution until this is the case.

[Luvbunny]

Please make contents for the 75% of the population, who prefer casual contents that can be solo-ed or small party set up. Voidwatch is a good example of large group content, but the drop rate is unbalanced. Also you need to add more variety of gears to some of these not so popular VW monster to give people incentive to do them. Overall thanks for letting us know what is going on with the team. Really appreciate the transparencies.

[Phogg]

Communication is great and all but from a consumer's perspective all I get from this is "Yeah, we take forever to develop content, but look at all these things we "plan" to do (like what we "planned" to do a year ago and never completed). So, just sit back and keep paying us to take forever to actually do anything. So sorry, wish I could do more, can't, kthx"

Sorry but the content IS SKIMPY. You can finish voidwatch clears in a matter of weeks. Adding a ridiculous drop rate with people going 0/200 of their desired item is not the same as making actual content. It simply makes skimpy content take longer, and it's mildly offensive that the developers think people are stupid enough to accept that answer. Legion and Neo-Nyzul are just a matter of how badly you get screwed by randomness or ridiculous AOE wipes. Meebles has arbitrary limitations on frequency.

-New content takes entirely too long to develop at this point.

-The majority of updates in the last year have been minor tweaks.

-If the resources for these normal expected monthly fee driven content updates are being used for a paid expansion which we have no idea when will be launched, then it should be heavily discounted to make up for a year to two years worth of lackluster skimpy content by the time it launches.

Some might feel reassured with some note from the devs but I could really give a shit, I want to see value in my monthly fee and I don't see that right now.

[Camate]

Greetings!

I have a couple follow-up comments from Producer Akihiko Matsui.



Thank you all so much for the comments.

The main point of yesterday’s post was to illustrate how the current situation is being perceived and our direction. I will be doing my best to let you all know the specific plans for what we will be doing as the next step.

Also, instead of posting individual topics in this thread, please post the content into an appropriate thread. By talking in this thread it will become way too large and difficult to gather up all the feedback, so we appreciate your cooperation on this.

With that said, I will respond to some comments.






I think that the development direction of redefinition is a good thing. However! From a user’s perspective it's rather late. I believe this is something that should have been done before big things like the Embrava and Perfect Defense changes or the new special abilities.

In any event, the current decay of the game is in full force. You understand this now, but unfortunately it took some time. Frankly, before your comment I really thought the game was going to collapse before Adoulin came out.

With the development team restructuring the development plans, I don’t think you need to be concerned with a roadmap. It's way better than having to add half-assed stuff and make pointless edits just to match the roadmap. I'd really like you to make a solid game patiently and diligently.

Also, in regards to the forums, I understand that you are in dire straits over there, but I think it would be best to address things a bit more frequently. I believe there are a lot of users that have left recently due to being ignored. The users that actually play the game understand the condition of the game best, so in order to keep those users from going away it's be best to listen to them. Please make a response even if the content is short, even if the response is weird. You can always retract the statement or apologize after the fact. If you don't understand, then ask the users. I really believe that it’s critical to continue to address things frequently.

I felt your spirit with this post. I think I will stick around and see what happens a bit longer.
Do you best! I don’t want to quit just yet!


As you pointed out, I would like to take this seriously.

Since we're not putting off version updates until we finish redefining everything, the redefining will be worked on alongside our regular work; however, even amidst this work I will be talking to the staff as much as possible and have them work on this as well.

In regards to adjustments, regardless of them being big or small I feel it is integral to address them frequently. Similarly for the forum as well, I will be doing my best.






I'll be cheering you on with positivity! Please do your best!

Just one thing.

I believe moderation should be done more proactively on the forums. I think the reason why trash talk, cynicism, and other forms of negativity develop is because there is a lack or complete absence of reactions despite there being serious feedback. While some posts need to be made in a careful manner, the largest criticism in response to posts is that the way the game is thought about does not follow how the game is actually played at all. I'm sure that it is extremely difficult to play in Vana'diel while creating it, but it's difficult to understand certain things if you don’t actually play the game. Please try your best to play. Thanks.

Thank you very much. I will give it my all.

To be honest, it's not that the development team and community reps do not play the game. They actually proactively play.

So with that said then, why is there a misconception about the view of the game? One large reason is it seems there are cases where there are differences. Players want to continue discussions about only merits of a specific job, whereas we want to have discussions about jobs overall with a top-down perspective. Another case is it's only possible for everyone to talk about information that has been released, whereas the development side is aware of future plans or is envisioning them in the back of their mind.

For the former example, I believe this is a problem of whether it is a benefit for an individual or a benefit for the game, and we get stuck in an endless loop.

For the latter, however, I believe that this will improve if we can increase the amount of information that can be shared with the warning that the information is not finalized. However, it will lead to a game of telephone where there will be a risk that non-finalized is said to be finalized, so we would really appreciate your cooperation linking or quoting the original post if incorrect information is popping up.





You only discussed battle content. Please do something about other aspects like chocobo raising and mog houses.


We will be addressing things besides battle.

However, since battle, jobs, and items are all closely interconnected, we consider this to be the largest pillar of the game's elements, so we would like to do this only after we are able to get all of these large elements into shape.





I read over your post. I think the whole philosophy is great. However, there is one portion that I have a question on.


Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:

Content structure
Jobs overall
How to add stats to items
How to hand out rewards


Is it safe to assume by looking at this that you will not be doing anything to the core system? I believe one of the biggest problems is with haste and corresponding power inflation. I took what you said as you will be focusing on adjusting content and leaving these things as they are.

The battle system as whole, including haste, is in the scope of our discussions. I believe this to be an extremely delicate portion as it is an element that has a large extent of effects.




The staff and I are operating the forum and developing while we bear in mind that critical feedback is a blessing.

However, it's not realistic to think that a single person is doing all of it. The other development staff and community reps are working very hard as well. With that said, I would like to ask that you do not single out members, scream for me, or attack certain individuals. I appreciate your cooperation with this.

Just like I have been doing with these posts, I promise to show my face around here a bit more, even if the content is short. In the case that I'm in-between meetings and misread something or cannot keep the conversation going, I will be sure to follow-up afterwards, so please go easy on me.

[Totema]

One thing I think could help make the game more accessible to newcomers is to make EXP parties viable again at low levels. Maybe something along the lines of boosting the FoV bonus in larger groups? I think a big turnoff to a lot of new players is that most low level EXPing nowadays is just done through soloing until they can get into Abyssea, and this sometimes does a bad job of teaching you what your job does. Not to mention that it's pretty tough for some jobs, like Bard. (Please, though, I'm not talking about nerfing EXPing while soloing... I'm happy with how that is now!)

[Raksha]

Inc haste nerfs.

#rumorstarted

[Hinote]

In the case that I'm in-between meetings and misread something or cannot keep the conversation going, I will be sure to follow-up afterwards, so please go easy on me.

I just think this is adorable XD

[Mirage]

Inc haste nerfs.

#rumorstarted
It might actually be healthy for game balance. Of course, it would require current content that is made with the currently existing haste functions in mind to be adjusted too.

It could make things like Apocalypse's haste more valuable, 5/5 desperate blows+hasso actually do something, and haste samba amount to more than ~2% haste when in a high buff situation.

I would be fine with it if in medium haste situations, you felt almost no difference, but in high haste situations, average buffers would only get us to something like 75% haste, while really good buffers would manage to bring us to 81 or 82%

[Zagen]

One thing I think could help make the game more accessible to newcomers is to make EXP parties viable again at low levels. Maybe something along the lines of boosting the FoV bonus in larger groups? I think a big turnoff to a lot of new players is that most low level EXPing nowadays is just done through soloing until they can get into Abyssea, and this sometimes does a bad job of teaching you what your job does. Not to mention that it's pretty tough for some jobs, like Bard. (Please, though, I'm not talking about nerfing EXPing while soloing... I'm happy with how that is now!)
I don't know about you but whenever I have to level a job under 30 I solo up to 10-14 (not really worth teaming up at that stage anyway) and then join a party in gusgen > qufim or stay in gusgen with new syncs.

The difference between now and 2003 when I leveled jobs is that instead of being in the dunes I'm in gusgen and instead of spending 2 days to a week trying to get out of the dunes it usually takes 1-2 days in gusgen/qufim.

EXP isn't the issue for new players, learning curve is the biggest issue. After that would be the lack of good incentives for old players with missions/quests to help random new players.

[Luvbunny]

One thing I think could help make the game more accessible to newcomers is to make EXP parties viable again at low levels. Maybe something along the lines of boosting the FoV bonus in larger groups? I think a big turnoff to a lot of new players is that most low level EXPing nowadays is just done through soloing until they can get into Abyssea, and this sometimes does a bad job of teaching you what your job does. Not to mention that it's pretty tough for some jobs, like Bard. (Please, though, I'm not talking about nerfing EXPing while soloing... I'm happy with how that is now!)

This has been discussed to death in several other threads. The problem with normal xp party and the current fantastic xp boost is that, T-VT chain can get you 300-500 xp per kill with xp ring on. Coupled with 800-1200 FoV bonus per completion, this amount to get over 2k-5k exp per rounds of 1 book page. Which resulted you level so fast in one camp that you will have to move around every 60-90 mnts max. People don't like to travel to find camps which adds 10-30 mnts depending on how fast your party members can move or if they even have access to old camps. There is also issue with how fast you can finish the book and how convenient is the camp, which makes GoV the most efficient way of leveling. Granted you end up with a bunch of jobs that are grossly under skilled, but you get to pay your dues later on anyway.

[saevel]

It might actually be healthy for game balance. Of course, it would require current content that is made with the currently existing haste functions in mind to be adjusted too.

It could make things like Apocalypse's haste more valuable, 5/5 desperate blows+hasso actually do something, and haste samba amount to more than ~2% haste when in a high buff situation.

I would be fine with it if in medium haste situations, you felt almost no difference, but in high haste situations, average buffers would only get us to something like 75% haste, while really good buffers would manage to bring us to 81 or 82%

I think their referring to alter how haste works in general. Currently it's used as a percentage delay reduction.

50% haste is actually 100/(100-50) type formula instead of a (100+50)/100 type of scaling.

[Sapphires]

Im going to rant on voidwatch a bit here since some others brought it up:


Right now there is a voidwatch shout after not seeing any for a couple hours. I am posting on this forum instead of joining that shout because I am second guessing whether i should spend 120k gil yet again for 6 more chances at something that has a 1 in 1500 chance of dropping.

You have game content I want to play and enjoy but you have turned it into a moneysink that has become increasingly frustrating due to 'bad luck' and a system that replenishes voidstones too slowly.
Something like Qilin is not hard game content, it is now a loot grind that I have to keep paying gil to participate in for a rare/ex drop.

I use rubi cells, red alignment always capped to 550% so what gives with your battle content design and sense of balance? I enjoy the luck factor but there comes a tipping point where players get bitter and angry their time and gil invested does not yield the treasure they desire from these events.


To compound this frustration, voidwatch participation has been suffering also partly due to not everyone being willing to 'gamble' on voidwatch and buy voiddust. Your perceived success of the event in the past was largely tainted by the cruor->gil abuse that had been going on.
Since that correction to the cruor->gil was made, event participation has dropped off significantly because voiddust are no longer subsidized through the previous cruor->gil conversion.

When I want to play FFXI and do voidwatch, most of the time im doing something else like reading forums and glancing at the chatlog window for a voidwatch shout. This is why people say they 'log in and have nothing to do' because they are doing the same thing. People are standing around waiting for something to happen, but your game design and RL time limtations on things like voidstones replenishing are largely to blame here.

I feel that the dev team should rebalance the event and encourage participation in voidwatch by having stones replenish quicker or implement an optional reward system where perhaps some lofty goal of turning in 1000 petrifacts would entitle the player to a pulse weapon/item/abjuration of their choice. At least with an absurd requirement of 1000 petrifacts, there is a 'light at the end of the tunnel' for someone grinding voidwatch that much.

The problem with FFXI battle content design and balance is that it is afraid of people 'winning too fast':
far too many hours before voidstones replenish
1 day wait to enter dynamis again
20 hour cooldown on meeble phermones
3day wait for einherjar
1 day wait for an imperial ID tag so I can do 1 assault/nyzul run
and so on.....

stop making game content that I have to wait around for to play. People making more than 1 empyrean/relic should have made this obviously clear to you by now that people will keep playing even if they 'win' at something. People wont quit, they'll find something else to do and keep paying their subscriptions instead of quitting out of frustration.

[Kriegsgott]

Greetings!
I have a couple follow-up comments from Producer Akihiko Matsui.

does this mean you guys consider finally a Campaign UPDATE?!

(listen more to playing people right? good luck with checking all the Campaign threads then....)

[Seyomeyo]

Now why did we have to throw in anything about Haste when the community is already addled and exhausted?

[Mefuki]

Still, the absolutely most essential and important part of such a system is:
The point items MUST be the same as the items that drop off the monster
You haven't actually improved the system by cutting off the upper tail of the distribution until this is the case.

This. This. This.

Meebles got close but the point reward items are different then the ones you get as drops. This is not a new idea. 6 years ago when I started, people were asking the devs about making the game keep track of kills on Leaping Lizzy and the like until, eventually, they would gain a reward. They'd be able to cooperate with other players for a shared goal, a strikingly uncommon thing in a PvE game such as this. I'd hoped Hunts would be the answer for that but we all know how that turned out.

[Dreamin]

A lot of what ppl has said already has a lot of merits so not going to repeat what many has said. However, a few things that if at all possible to please pass on over to the producer:

1. Please don't just answer the JP forum's questions and concerns. I understands that he's JP and probably does not read the English forum unless it's through the translation/community rep team. But this keeps the JP favoritism bias in many english speaking player's mind going. If he is really serious about making an effort into listening to what ALL the players are saying, he needs to rotate/balance answering questions from ALL the variou regions. Maybe based on percentage of players from the region or something.

2. Before you were to develop NEW content, you need to first FIXED what are broken. Yes, I know that people trends to think we can do a parallel tracks in development. However, the fact of the matter is that with everything such as battle system, enmity system, job (ja/spells/weapons/ws/etc) all together forming the basis of the game mechanics, it will be extremely difficult to develop new content/system that relies on current systems which would then be broken when these current systems are changed/fixed. So, STOP doing the new stuff and FIXED the critical problems NOW. This is a major undertaking and should be given the highest priorities and resources. Everything else, things like new UI, play-as-mobs, new expansion (yes I said even the new expansion) can all be shelved until the fundamental systems are fixed.

[Doombringer]

i'm definitely hungry for more concrete details about how the devs plan to actually deal with these things, but still; it's reassuring to see that these major issues have landed.

cautiously optimistic.

[Camiie]

Regarding the Roadmap

I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.

The second reason is that the hours needed to work on and discuss all of the forum topics was much greater than we anticipated.

While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you.

It's hard for me to ask this, as we've already caused everyone to worry and be inconvenienced, but please give us a bit more time.


Instead of asking for us to be more patient and accept excuses, I suggest that you acquire more/better manpower and resources and implement better management strategies. (Sound familiar?)


Understanding the Current Situation

I have been reading over what everyone thinks, not only from all of the posts made on the forum, but from players' blogs, Twitter, and other sources.

For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.


I think the problem is that you're trying to squeeze relevance out of content many of us were done with and tired of years ago. I did HNM, Sky, Dynamis, Sea, Limbus, Einherjar, Salvage, Nyzul Isle, ZNM, VNM, and Campaign BCNMs each many many times. I ran the proverbial table on a lot of it until you shoehorned in things like augmented abjuration gear and relic armor +2. As a player who's been here so long it's almost embarrassing, I'd like to see the focus on truly new events and let the past stay in the past.


Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

Well, the dev team had some really fantastic content that fit the needs of the casual player perfectly, but it was deemed a failure and abandoned. I shudder to think what casual content they would produce they they'd consider "successful." I imagine the rewards would be less than useless and not at all aesthetically pleasing since just anyone could do it.



Development Plans

With all that said, to make it easy to understand, we will be redefining and deciding on themes for the below points:

Content structure
Jobs overall
How to add stats to items
How to hand out rewards


I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements.

It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up.

For example, strengthening players through job adjustments or the addition of gear may work, but another good method is to directly lower the difficulty of content. Of course this is all on the basis that we provide another challenge and even better rewards for the top groups.


The way WoW does it, if I'm not mistaken, is by the gradual enhancement of an instance-wide player buff and enemy debuff over a series of weeks or months after a raid is released. They also have "Normal" and "Heroic(Hard)" modes from the outset with corresponding gear for each mode as well as 10-man and 25 man versions of raids. One doesn't have to purchase items from a shady guy behind a building in the woods to make a boss weaker. They just choose to fight the "Normal" version and accept "Normal" level rewards. Simple, no?


Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)


It's definitely better to adjust content to the community you have than expect the community to somehow adjust itself to your content.



In regards to item stats, this is a crucial growth element as you cannot level up past level 99. It's necessary to release items with stronger and really good stats in the future. For how you receive items, as many of you have requested on the forums, I'd like to have a point system in place for when you miss out on a reward that has its drop rate set low due to difficulty adjustments.


Thank goodness for this. Many of us have been asking for this for so long. Heck, while they weren't exactly what you're talking about here (which is even better), you've had very well received points systems in the past. I thought it was a bit silly that you'd gotten away from them, especially since you created content that would have been served very well by having points available (WoE and VW). It was nice to see the idea return with Meeble Burrows.


Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into.


So, you want to make it where people won't yell at the front-line fighters for actually being front-line fighters? If so, more power to you. I always hated it when I wasn't allowed to fight for fear of TP-feed. I know people want varying strategies, but having the melee classes all have to sit on their thumbs is one I can do without.

[Mefuki]

I ran the proverbial table on a lot of it until you shoehorned in things like augmented abjuration gear and relic armor +2. As a player who's been here so long it's almost embarrassing, I'd like to see the focus on truly new events and let the past stay in the past.

Part of the issue came with all of the people complaining when they announce the level cap increase about their gear being obsoleted.

[MarkovChain]

All I want to say to Akihiko_Matsui is : please read the complaints of the census and adjust most of them without waiting more months (what's the point of this ?).

*There is NO reason for mythics to be set at such a high level difficulty (and artificial difficulty : einherjar points when nobody does einherjar anymore, alexandrite whene nobody has been doing salvage for 3 years). Salvage bosses should be dropping a pouch 100% and solo entry should be allowed for both salvage and assault (if needed make us consume 3 permits if solo). I'd like to point out that all mythics have been mathed out recenly, and they all suck, so there is no problem of unbalance.

* People have been complaining for dumb luck factor, so ajust this for stuff like nyzul (the event sucks as many have pointed out, and the nerf of embrava is going to make it even dumber).

* Legion needs to be added better drops to motivate people to build alliance to farm it. There has been suggestions about riftcinder/dross or metal plate. You can think of plenty of things (marrows..).


For nyzul all you have to do is change the random floor jump now (instead of next VU). Are you guys aware that it's nearly impossible to test a party event on the test server anyway ? For legion it's just adding stuff to the pool, this doesn't seem to hard of a work. And for salvage, it's already possible on the test server for NyzulII so it's probably easy. This will require you maybe 5 minutes of work and the reward is giving people stuff to do while answering the concern they expressed in the census.

[Corey]

all of my like to Sapphire's post

[Tennotsukai]

Please, don't start up any haste nerfs.

[Camate]

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm back yet again for more Producer Akihiko Matsui follow-ups!




I saw the version update information on PlayOnline just before posting and I noticed that it listed "Job Ability adjustments: Perfect Defense / Tabula Rasa." Does this mean that the new special abilities will also be implemented at the same time? If at all possible, I’d really like these new special abilities to be implemented with the Perfect Defense and Tabula Rasa nerfs.
Also, I don't mind how you do it, but could you please give some kind of response to the Perfect Defense thread? There are over 1400 posts there and just leaving it be is not good. Also there are numerous threads talking about the same thing, so how about closing them?

Sorry for the confusion.
First in regards to the new special abilities, the direction has pretty much been solidified, but there are still adjustments and fine tuning to be made, so we will not be implementing them in the upcoming version update. In regards to Perfect Defense and Tabula Rasa adjustments, we are aiming to have these implemented along with the content adjustments in the upcoming version update. We are currently making preparations to explain about this along with some other topics. We'll be informing you all early next week, so please wait for that for the time being.






To be honest, it's not that the development team and community reps do not play the game. They actually proactively play.
You mean not on the Test Server, but on the actual servers mixed in with all of us players?
Yes, we all play on the same servers as all of you with regular accounts. (Of course the staff conceals their identities and plays as a regular player.)

I believe I mentioned this before, but there are a lot of times when I actually play in static parties with my family. I try my best to do things like returning lost chocobos, but, while this is embarrassing, I'm only at the level where I can challenge the Maat fight.

However, there are a good amount of hardcore players amongst the staff (there are also instances where hardcore players have joined the staff), and they are hardcore into the recent end-game content.

I’m always hearing things at the office like "Man, the Odin’s Chamber II I created is tough to beat!" and "We just barely lost a win on that low-man Arch Dynamis Lord run."





I've been playing this game for quite a long time now and this is just something I noticed.
One time when I quit for a while and finally came back, I had absolutely no idea about the objectives, what to do, or the difficulty for all the content that had been implemented in my absence.
External sites' strategy guides and Wiki information are pretty easy to use for people that have continued to play the game, but I feel like it's way too much for a person with no knowledge to study up on everything. With that said, I think it would really help a lot if there was some kind of system that would breakdown the content design and teach you what each content is about, what level you can play it, and how to start it. This is sure to come in handy for new players coming in.

Thank you for the feedback.
Even I feel this as I just came back to the game the other day.
Up until now the stance for FINAL FANTASY XI has always been that the constantly varying trends, strategy, and other information are created from within the player community, but we didn't make it so all of the answers were on the official site.

This has continued for 10 years, and with the world and content growing massive currently, I really feel that it would be best to organize some form of instruction that shows "we recommend this kind of content at this level," "it would be good to get this kind of gear," etc. At this point in time this is really nothing more than a vague idea, so if you have any suggestions about what would be good, I would love to hear them.

[Luvbunny]

It's great that he has this more open communication with the players. Keep this coming. And yes creating official site with plenty of suggestion would be very helpful. I understand the "exploration and discovery" aspect. But let's face it, this is not 10 years ago. Be transparent, communicative and build relationship with your paying costumers. You are building a brand, not creating content for your heart desires. Make sure that it works for the majority of the players.

[Malthar]

Hello Mr. Akihiko Matsui,

Do you play beastmaster at all?

[kingfury]

I've been playing this game for quite a long time now and this is just something I noticed.
One time when I quit for a while and finally came back, I had absolutely no idea about the objectives, what to do, or the difficulty for all the content that had been implemented in my absence.
External sites' strategy guides and Wiki information are pretty easy to use for people that have continued to play the game, but I feel like it's way too much for a person with no knowledge to study up on everything. With that said, I think it would really help a lot if there was some kind of system that would breakdown the content design and teach you what each content is about, what level you can play it, and how to start it. This is sure to come in handy for new players coming in.
------------------------------

Thank you for the feedback.
Even I feel this as I just came back to the game the other day.
Up until now the stance for FINAL FANTASY XI has always been that the constantly varying trends, strategy, and other information are created from within the player community, but we didn't make it so all of the answers were on the official site.

This has continued for 10 years, and with the world and content growing massive currently, I really feel that it would be best to organize some form of instruction that shows "we recommend this kind of content at this level," "it would be good to get this kind of gear," etc. At this point in time this is really nothing more than a vague idea, so if you have any suggestions about what would be good, I would love to hear them.
-------------------------
Tactician Moogle

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b167/soulchld4/TacticianMoogle-WEB.jpg

[Demon6324236]

Never cease to impress with your artwork King.

[Economizer]

Tactician Moogle

Why has SE not hired you yet? D:

[Castanica]

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me (when FF14 was in as bad a state as FFXI is now they stopped subscriptions as a sign of respect, where is that here?), especially when it's coming from a company the size of Square Enix that is literally throwing money at FF14. I'm sorry but if the company cares so little for this successfull game and so much for a gamble that says it all for me. Money should not an issue for FFXI, staff should not an issue because if Square enix really cared they could do what they did with FF14 and put as much money and staff into it as was needed, or at least more than they are now. They don't because they don't care, as such the producer has to say these things to try to squeeze as much money out of us as possible before we finally give up and quit.

I read this and I have not only now unsubscribed after 5 years but I now see that this game for what it really is, finished. At best to SE this game is now fallback position incase 14 fails, this I believe is the only reason Adoulin was given the go ahead at all and they have done almost nothing towards it and will continue to do very little towards it until they see how FF14-2 is received.

In my 5 years playing this game I went from happy, contented and pleased to support the company with my money to in the last 2-3 years angry at the content drought (especially when I knew the cause of it), leading to sad acceptance that the game was near it's demise to where I am now of finally not caring anymore. I never thought I would say it but I no longer care if this game shuts down or not anymore and seeminly neither does the company. It's been left to stagnate for far far too long.

The player loss the last 2 years has been catastrophic and it's not due to boredom of the core game, it's due to boredom and anger at how the company has been running it for the last few years. With proper budget and content this game would be as popular as it ever was, the company killed it and now so many have moved onto other companies games it might be at the point of no return. In fact I know it is.

This post will probably be deleted but honestly I don't even care anymore, just my final act after 5 years support towards a game I once loved that has been ruined by and inept and uncaring handling.

[Zirael]

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me [...]

Well written.i know of and have spoken to many people thinking the same way, unfortunately.

[Aethon]

I don't post on the forums much but i do tend to check them every day to see what is happening. Thank you for at least trying to read up on what people are saying and trying to answer them.
I usually read the Dev responses and community reps posts first since they have relevant info and player threads devolve into petty bickering.
Development on multiple fronts can be very difficult and time consuming so thank you for the work that you are doing and i hope everyone can be pleased with the end results.

[Teraniku]

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost ...


You lost me right here, and really can't take the rest of your post seriously.

Content Drought? What Neo-Nyzul, Voidwatch, Legion and Meeble burrows to name a few not to your liking?

[FrankReynolds]

Excuses and pleas to wait longer while continuing to pay a very expensive subscription cost when the money is not being used on what I'm paying for are not enough for me (when FF14 was in as bad a state as FFXI is now they stopped subscriptions as a sign of respect, where is that here?), especially when it's coming from a company the size of Square Enix that is literally throwing money at FF14.

I actually refuse to play any other square enix titles now. I have a lot of time / effort / money invested in my FFXI characters, but I will never invest in another game from a company that treats paying customers this way. It's crazy that they keep making these BS excuses.

I work for a nation wide insurance company. Can you imagine the fallout that would occur if the director of my company released a press release to paying customers saying "Oh hey guys thanks for being paying customers all this time. Sorry about all your hurricane losses, but we only have like 4 people working on your claims (and there are thousands of claims) because we rerouted all the money you've been paying us into building out a new program to provide insurance to astronaut donkeys, so just hang in there (or tread water) a few more years and be patient while we have a few casual meetings and think about stuff."?

[Direct]

I actually refuse to play any other square enix titles now. I have a lot of time / effort / money invested in my FFXI characters, but I will never invest in another game from a company that treats paying customers this way. It's crazy that they keep making these BS excuses.

I work for a nation wide insurance company. Can you imagine the fallout that would occur if the director of my company released a press release to paying customers saying "Oh hey guys thanks for being paying customers all this time. Sorry about all your hurricane losses, but we only have like 4 people working on your claims (and there are thousands of claims) because we rerouted all the money you've been paying us into building out a new program to provide insurance to astronaut donkeys, so just hang in there (or tread water) a few more years and be patient while we have a few casual meetings and think about stuff."?

Lol really.

[Camiie]

You lost me right here, and really can't take the rest of your post seriously.

Content Drought? What Neo-Nyzul, Voidwatch, Legion and Meeble burrows to name a few not to your liking?

All of those events are seriously flawed in one way or another. Neo Nyzul is overly-random and even the best players feel the need to cheat at it. Voidwatch has a horrendous loot distribution system. Legion difficulty is over-tuned. Meeble Burrows access is too restricted by the nature of entry items. Bad or heavily flawed content is as bad as no content. The end result is the same.

[Camiie]

Yes, we all play on the same servers as all of you with regular accounts. (Of course the staff conceals their identities and plays as a regular player.)

I believe I mentioned this before, but there are a lot of times when I actually play in static parties with my family. I try my best to do things like returning lost chocobos, but, while this is embarrassing, I'm only at the level where I can challenge the Maat fight.

Well it's a start, but if that's as far as you've gotten you definitely don't have the perspective of a long time player who's lived and struggled through the various eras of the game. Be sure you keep that in mind when reviewing what you see here and on other sites. Don't let your team be so quick to dismiss us. Many of us have been around the block more than a few times.



However, there are a good amount of hardcore players amongst the staff (there are also instances where hardcore players have joined the staff), and they are hardcore into the recent end-game content.

I’m always hearing things at the office like "Man, the Odin’s Chamber II I created is tough to beat!" and "We just barely lost a win on that low-man Arch Dynamis Lord run."

This is actually more disconcerting than reassuring. It's like many of us have been saying for ages. Your guys really don't know what they're putting out until it's on the live server. Shouldn't they know what the NM they created is capable of? No one's perfect and mistakes are made, but should one really be that surprised about how powerful a NM they created is?

[Mirage]

I'd say yes, it's perfectly fine to be surprised of what their NMs are capable of. However, shouldn't such surprises be happening on the test server, rather than on the live server?

[Byrth]

If they all have accounts, why not just test server themselves, form an alliance, and fight the fights?

[Mirage]

Eggsackly.

One thing though, is that developers often keep in mind that the other players of their games sometimes are much better than the actual developers, so sometimes, they need to make things that are too hard for the devs themselves in order to let it be a real challenge for some of the other players.

[ManaKing]

I'm glad that the Enmity system and TP gain from monsters is on the top of the problems that developers are looking into. From a top down perspective, that's probably the most vital point to start at because it applies to all of the other problems that are more specific.

The Enmity system :mad: is one of the things you need to address because so much of the game's imbalances rest on it. PLD isn't a functional job because of shortsightedness of the system. Neither is NIN or THF. Now the 'Tank' is just whichever DPS does the most damage. Generally the WAR or DRK. That really does take a lot of complexity out of the game.

Most people are very weary of having a job system that includes 20 jobs, and the only 2 you need anymore are WAR and WHM. All hybrids are penalized because they don't fall into the same potency categories as those 2 jobs, and the only real exception is BRD, which has always had a place since it is the only full potency support job. The enmity system in this game makes it so that the only thing important to the success of an outing is the DPS and the ability to keep those DPS up by healing them.

Actual Tanking is non-existent. Managing hate is non-existent. Debuffing is non-existent. Magical Damage is non-existent, unless the mob is physically resistant. Skill Chains are unneeded and so are magic bursts. The game lacks the complexity and finesse of previous years. Most of that has to do with Enmity system not being appropriate for the increase in gear or increase in levels that the game went through.

Eliminating actual tanking from this game allowed all tactics to go out the window as well. If DPS is all that matters, then that is all anyone will ever care about.

I am very bored of this current Enmity system being decrepit. It covers up how poorly ALL of the jobs are currently balanced. It lacks complexity and offers the player the lowest form of AI imaginable for spend their time fighting against.


The 2nd point that was brought up was TP gain from monsters. I agree that this is a problem, but I don't agree that TP gain from mobs is the top of the problem. TP feed is a problem because Tanking doesn't work, that is the most obvious issue. If tanks were taking those hits instead of anyone/everyone, we could actually manage this content and enjoy fighting bosses. The actual problem is that you make boring bosses that don't mesh well with the current state of the game and they are less interesting than previous bosses even in this game. The biggest problem with the TP gain against bosses, after the lack of people being able to tank them with actual tanks, are the bosses being implemented are very basic/boring AI, that the game speed has increased, and the general inequality between 2H vs 1H jobs.

If you haven't played Chrono Trigger or FF:Crystal Chronicles, I would highly suggest you look at how they presented boss battles. They are much more engaging and entertaining boss battles than FFXI. Neither are MMOs, but CT is a turn based RPG and FF:CC allowed for movement around the battle field and more position based combat, and thus are parts of what make up MMOs like FFXI. Both kinds of bosses had punishment as a part of their design. If you went all out and just attacked the bosses mindlessly, they would retort with super moves. Your job was to avoid damage that was going to be fatal to you, as you fought something larger and stronger than you. The difference between what FFXI has and what those games had, was that they warned you and made you very aware of where you messed up. We don't act as though we are fighting something more powerful than us, we don't have the same kind of reservation of thought or action. The currently enmity system only supports an all out zerg and because of that, we just keep attacking regardless of what the mob is doing. There is no actual advantage or tactic to doing otherwise, because all of those tactics stopped being viable years ago.

There are 3 main examples of good boss fights from CT and 2 good example from FF:CC that I would like you to consider. (TL;DR the italics and skip to the Bold Summary)

The first one from CT is the Masamune boss. He gives you a warning that he is building up power and will devastate your team very shortly after that warning. The way to dispel his aggression is to have Chrono use Slash on him. Other moves do significantly more damage, but using Slash dispels a huge AOE attack. Slash also uses resources, so Chrono can't go all out and afford to be incapable of performing Slash. If you decide to ignore this punishment mechanism, you can survive it once, so you can learn from your mistake. If the boss goes right back into it, you probably can't recover your team in time to take another. It is not viable to ignore the mechanism, even though it lowers your total DPS to do so.

You could easily require specific SCs to nullify NMs super attacks much like CT requires the use of Slash. SCs require at least some kind of coordination and tactics. They make the game more interesting for me, personally, but they aren't used currently because SCs can't get through a bosses unnaturally high magic defense and evasion to be able to contribute to damage VS 100% TP Resolution Spams. You could add some diversity to the game play by putting SCs back in the game. You could even require MBs to dispel effects.

The second example from CT is the Robot Guardian with its 2 Bits. You have 3 targets, a main one and 2 auxiliary. The main target's HP is the only one that matters for the completion of the battle. If you choose to attack the main target while the aux targets are alive the Guardian will unleash large AOE damage against your party. If everyone attack the main target for your first attack round, you probably wipe. You can destroy the aux targets so that you can attack the main target without retort. The main target isn't particularly difficult, but it will destroy you if you attack mindlessly. It also has the ability to regenerate it's Bits, so you have to start the cycles over a couple of times.

Compare this to any boss in VW with adds. You make a PLD tank all the adds and then zerg the mob down. Not only do you make the PLD do essentially nothing interesting, but you completely disregard the aux targets. If the mob didn't have adds, you wouldn't have brought a PLD. A better tactic would be for the PLD to be able to hold the main target as the DPS eliminates the adds. If PLDs could actually hold hate at all, then we could have more strategies.

The third example from CT is the Tyrannosaur. It tells you it's going to blow you up in a couple of turns. Get ready. It's going to hurt. You can't avoid this damage. For FFXI, it's the same as the Limbus Weapon fights. Because we can move out of the way, this kind of tactic is viable. The only complaint I have is that the mobs usually become stationary. I would prefer if they could continue to chase whoever was on their hate list so that a NIN or PLD could draw them off and once again have a use as a Tank.

The first example I have for FF:CC is the zombie dragon/undead in general for that game. They are immaterial by default and take significantly less damage from physical attacks. You have to hit them with Holy to make them capable of being physically beaten. There are mobs that change resistance and our undead also take additional damage from being hit by Banish, but the biggest thing to take away from this is that the undead physically change in appearance when their resistances change. Obviously that creates challenges for the Dev team, but they are the kinds of changes that would actually benefit the overall play of the game and make it so that players could realistically be warned of changes in the battle or increased threat from bosses.

The second example from FF:CC is something almost every Boss in the game has. They have slow moving, high threat moves that are meant to be avoided. Some of them are player seeking, other have patterns, others just move in a straight line. Obviously, this would also require development and would require better computers to play higher end content, but I think that 10 years later, people are willing to drop PS2 and actually put something current into this game. We know you can do the work required for these kinds of changes if we give you the time to do them, because those are both games made by your company. These aren't even new ideas, they are just better idea your company already developed but didn't think to apply to the most financially successful game they've ever made.

Overall, boss battle and tactics in FFXI lack anticipation. The mob just goes off on you. You don't think about what you are doing for the most part because it's not required. There aren't any good tactics to either respond with or preemptively execute because they aren't more effective than a Zerg or a modified Zerg. I would much rather mobs have longer anticipations to devastating moves that can't be stunned. Boss Mobs currently spam a large amount of pointless moves that have no tactics surrounding them and that needs to stop. The high end content of this game is not smarter content, just mindlessly harder. They need to have actual tactics and patterns associated with them that make them unique and stand out from each other. That way, different jobs could be more or less useful depending on the mobs, instead of just in a scale of pure DPS.

Another part of the reason mobs became mindless spam machines, outside of their AI and planning, is that equipment Haste became more prevalent. Everyone that is engaged on a mob probably has capped Equipment Haste. No player is going to be ok with you nerfing this because it makes it so that battle progress faster. FFXI is a slow game compared to almost any other MMO. Most of us have no problem with this because we like the speed it currently runs, aka with capped equipment haste. Because of how Haste works, we feed TP to a mob that is being engaged by 8+ people very quickly. While Haste is a part of the 'problem', I don't think it is something that you should consider nerfing because you will slow the game down and make people want to quit. Equipment Haste is also a system that you can use to balance jobs because it allows you to limit the gear that a job can effectively TP in.

Most people would like more job abilities to use so we did more than just auto attack, but for the most part, I feel like most people playing FFXI don't mind the overall pace of battle. What they do mind is super powered bosses that can instantly kill them without warning and have very few strategies to counter it. The game feels brainless and boring because 1 out of the 100+ super mobs that have been released since 75 cap will decide that you(or someone near you) should die, and thus you will. The lack of strategy is a big problem. It's why I'm all for your new SPs. PD and Embrava are boring and mindless. I believe everyone will be happier to be more engaged with more abilities that lead to a larger diversity of tactics in addition to fixing the Enmity system and tanking in general.

The last thing to put into perspective on Boss Fights is 2H VS 1H. 2H DPS is blatantly better in every sense of the word when it comes to boss fights. 2H weapons have better scaling off of stats. They WS harder, in general. They feed less TP to the mobs. Low delay jobs are almost completely phased out of the game now that they increased the max level to 99. THF only really exists to TH things. DNC has no practical use any longer. NIN can do decent output, but even with maxed Subtle Blow, you are still giving more TP than a 2H job that is probably doing more damage. I'm not against 2H jobs doing more damage, I'm against Dual Wield and 1H damage just being inferior. It would be greatly appreciated if you increased the cap on Subtle Blow for 1H jobs so that they wouldn't be so detrimental to the health of an alliance. Or do something to rectify it.

You didn't want specific jobs to work on so I'm trying to give you the broad strokes that are painfully unbalanced to all jobs in this game. Access to good 2H weapons is an inherent buff and thus an inequality that hasn't been adjusted to factor in non-2H weapon jobs. THF, RDM, DNC, NIN, PLD, BLU, and BST are all hurt by this to one extent or another. It's not surprising the the only job out of that list that is still in good overall standing is BST. BST has a pet in addition to it's own personal DPS so it has a big exception.

The inclusion of Fencer did very little to rectify 2H vs 1H since it doesn't apply to Dual Wield. There are a lot of dual wield jobs and jobs that use dual wield to increase their damage output and letting Fencer be some kind of exception and then not put it on PLD, which would have made at least some sense, is still mind boggling. I am very serious in my request for you to look at the difference between 1H and 2H DPS when looking at the problem of enmity gain on bosses. Making jobs intentionally inferior so that can't contribute the same DPS, is one of your biggest problems with overall job balance. If you wish to keep these inequalities, I would suggest you look very hard at what non-2H DPS jobs contribute to a meaningful boss fight. Currently, they contribute very little, since very little is important besides DPS.

-----

Please look into increasing the diversity of bosses that exist at higher end content. It is one of the games biggest failing points. Players are bored of not having to do anything to do besides sitting in PJ because even when they leave, they just fight cheap bosses over and over again. That is where a lot of your discontent comes from, at least from a top down view. I'd like to continue to encourage you to try new things to add diversity and tactics, much like you are doing with new SP abilities, because I honestly think this game needs some rather large changes to make it interesting again. Please try to make this game more engaging for it's players because that way we will be happier and more likely to continue playing.

I am completely serious when I say that re-establishing PLD as main tanks and making actual tanking viable again should be at the top of your list of things to do. If you attempt to change too much without giving players something to rely on, then you hand them a rocky, uncertain, and potentially very unsatisfying play experience. I don't want long time players leaving any more than you do. The easiest and most effective way to keep them is to give them something they can rely on.


(Please Like if you agree with the majority of what I posted)

[Mirage]

A very long and comprehensive post that I actually read all of, and then plusoned.

[Nebo]

Mr Matsui. Please read the NA boards and respond to an actual NA post.

I'm happy you read the JP forums, but I'd feel a lot better if I knew you ere responing to our concerns as well.

[Meyi]

Mr Matsui. Please read the NA boards and respond to an actual NA post.

I agree, and I nominate Manaking's post to be one of them. Please translate Manaking's post, one of our board moderators; I feel that is something Mr. Matsui should really get a chance to read and digest.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated.The absurdity of this statement is overwhelming. Perhaps they would care to rephrase it? A schedule being release before a new expansion was announced would not alter anything as the workforce would have already known that the expansion was coming. I find this very lacking as an excuse and seek clarification.

[Demon6324236]

The absurdity of this statement is overwhelming. Perhaps they would care to rephrase it? A schedule being release before a new expansion was announced would not alter anything as the workforce would have already known that the expansion was coming. I find this very lacking as an excuse and seek clarification.Agreed, it made little sense, how exactly could it make the work any more or less after it has been announced?

[Psxpert2011]

there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people.

When thinking about the amount of content made thus far, it's not that the amount of content is skimpy by any means; however, I believe a contributing factor for this concern is that a lot of older content requires more than a party, but it has become quite difficult for a lot of players to do things with full parties these days.

Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats.

We just need another expansion as good as "Chains of Promathia" which i think the DEV team would fail to replicate or do better.

We don't need 'add-ons' or 'mini-expansions' or something for only end-gamers (which the new content rubbing elbows with old content). How can you take time out to explain EVERYTHING to new players/ returning players(who lack new content/ expansions or accessibility?)

CoP did it right! You couldn't access curtain content w/o completing or going through the story-line. It was linear and progressive until you arrive to the end-game areas then your world expanded.

Try to stick with this fundamental!

[Caketime]

Agreed, it made little sense, how exactly could it make the work any more or less after it has been announced?

Lost in translation, perhaps?

[Godofgods]

Development Plans

I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo),


I'm not sure whether this was an intended Nerf or not but given that statement, it seems worth mentioning for reaching lvl 99 quickly as possible. By now everyone knows of war's Fell Cleave party's. And Blu has their version with a Charged Whisker party. The main difference (for this point) is that Blu kills all mobs in one shot, where as war's take a few swings to kill them all.

Last time i was CW'ing on blu i noticed that no matter how many mobs were pulled and killed, i never got kill credit/xp for more then 10 mobs at once. Some people mention that it had been adjusted to that. Now as a whole, i could understand a decision to reduce overall xp gained from these types of parties. But this targets only Blu's. Since war's kill over a few swings, you still get full credit for all mobs. Where as Blu's are just screwed. (Its an even bigger blow since all RMT Pt's i see are all Fell Cleaver's, so you're helping them out)

It should either be adjusted so that effect works on all, or remove it completely. Their is no balance in that.

---

Also, please dont forget to help that tarutaru's (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4662-Give-a-taru-a-leg-up!!)out!!!

[Mirage]

Do not forget to help the tarutarus out.

[Psxpert2011]

Let us, the player base with programming skills, contribute to development.

um, no


... By now everyone knows of war's Fell Cleave party's. And Blu has their version with a Charged Whisker party. The main difference (for this point) is that Blu kills all mobs in one shot, where as war's take a few swings to kill them all.

Last time i was CW'ing on blu i noticed that no matter how many mobs were pulled and killed, i never got kill credit/xp for more then 10 mobs at once. ...

There's no doubt RMTs will work around anything SE throws to prevent their operations. Restrictions I believe aren't the answer but more serious punishment to 'those guys' and not 'us' as true players.

10 mobs?? ...I do believe to be considered too much. Should be 5 mobs or an amount equivalent to the number of party members in a alliance. Farming in abbysea should be done responsibly.

[Teraniku]

Eggsackly.

One thing though, is that developers often keep in mind that the other players of their games sometimes are much better than the actual developers, so sometimes, they need to make things that are too hard for the devs themselves in order to let it be a real challenge for some of the other players.

See there's a problem too. The Dev team never ever has to go in Blind to a boss fight. Since they know the mobs tp moves what magic it can cast etc. They have an advantage that the first player group that goes through doesn't have, and it can skew the difficulty, because they may adjust the content according to their playthrough and not get enough player feedback to adjust it properly.

[FrankReynolds]

10 mobs?? ...I do believe to be considered too much. Should be 5 mobs or an amount equivalent to the number of party members in a alliance. Farming in abbysea should be done responsibly.

THat is a terrible idea.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Lost in translation, perhaps?Which is why I also asked if they could rephrase it.

[Carth]

Bump for new page. Selfish, I know.

What about for the people with 40 posts per page?

[Camate]

Hello everyone! :)

Producer Akihiko Matsui responded to a couple comments, and I thought you might like to hear what he had to say.

In regards to a player's suggestion to make the final level cap quest battle less stressful by removing the rare status on the Olde Rarab Tail item, he mentioned that it was a good idea that was viable and possible to implement in a short period of time, and gave a follow-up response:



QA testing on this has concluded and we will just barely be able to implement this adjustment in the December version update. Specifically we will be changing the below:

Removal of the rare status on Olde Rarab Tail / Fossilzed Fang / Fossilized Bone
Increase of stack size from 1 to 12 for Olde Rarab Tail / Seasoning Stone / Fossilized Fang / Fossilized Bone


We also looked into the removal of the rare status from the fossils as well, and decided that we did not want to increase the amount of times players need to run around to get them, since we already have players taking time gaining battle experience and going around to defeat monsters to obtain these items.

We'd like to see a great deal of players get past this quest and become level 99, so please give it a shot.





This touches on something that is unrelated the topic at hand and might be traumatic for you, but creating an evasive tank with Utsusemi expanded the game and I really enjoy tanking as a ninja.


I probably didn't explain this part too well.
I wasn't talking about the strategy of evasion tanking, what was traumatic was the history of mass producing monsters that countered evasion tanks. ><

I vaguely remember reading a blog post of an acquaintance that really stuck with me and made me realize evasion tanking has spread beyond just ninja:
"Today I was thinking, wow, I'm not having any trouble getting shadows up, but it turns out the dark knight was timing my shadows perfectly and supporting me with stuns. It was too awesome ♡”


And finally, a response in regards to a comment about scholar and the position that they will be placed in without the current Embrava effects.



I believe that scholars who have very potent regen and the ability to extend enhancement effect durations will be useful in content such as the salvage that is to be implemented. However, I realize that there are disagreements between the thoughts of the development side and the thoughts of all of the players. Moving forward we will be closely monitoring the conditions of the public servers and be making adjustments as necessary based on all of your feedback. Please continue to hold discussions on the forums.

[SNK]

I'm really impressed with his replys I've been reading. He comes foward with a good ounce of humlity along with a willingness to listen to the playerbase with some open ears instead of the closed windows we'd been used to dealing with for years on FFXI when it came to the Dev team in terms of actually making content more viable.

I'm still pushing for a slim chance the devs will introduce a currency exchange NPC for Walk of Echos seeing as nobody really ever wants or uses Coins of Ruin for nothing then throwing away. Walk of Echos is ok for the most part but, it's a pain when you do 12 to 14 runs for one single coin and it's not even the one you wanted. :|

[Kraggy]

The basic problem with the final Limit Break is that it still needs a group, and players stuck on 95 often can't get groups unless they pay asinine mercenary fees. Making the quest items less painful to get is fine, but until the fight itself doesn't need a full group, or anything like, then this roadblock remains intact.

[Demon6324236]

Not really, you fail to understand this I believe. By making tails stackable, and non-rare, you can use more, 1 tail is amazing, it allows it to be trioed effortlessly now, so far as I understand. That means with 2 or 3, it would be easy to solo, them allowing the items you trade to be able to stack, and be non-rare, means more people are likely to sell them as well, prices will likely be fairly cheap due to ease of obtainment, making it overall a simple task of farming or buying a few items, and walking away with the prize.

[saevel]

Still not convinced until they do something about RDM's Elemental Seal -1. It's kind of become a test to see how much they are actually listening.

[Kincard]

As far as the tail allowing a Limit Break 99 solo, it would, but you would need to time it correctly, because the interim between tail uses is more than enough time for him to kill you instantly with a WS. It's probably best to still go with 2-3 people so you don't end up wasting tails.

Really, even now, with a tail, a well-geared SAM could probably solo him. I helped a group of pink-clad clowns once and they were able to beat him with just one tail, too.

[Kristal]

Still not convinced until they do something about RDM's Elemental Seal -1. It's kind of become a test to see how much they are actually listening.

RDM SP2 is not designed to work with the current system but a future version of FFXI. The previous SP2 would definitely be nice, but it wouldn't do anything to give RDM an edge over /RDM so we'd still be out of a job...
Just wish SE would release more info about it.

[FrankReynolds]

RDM SP2 is not designed to work with the current system but a future version of FFXI.

Lol wishful thinking.

[saevel]

RDM SP2 is not designed to work with the current system but a future version of FFXI. The previous SP2 would definitely be nice, but it wouldn't do anything to give RDM an edge over /RDM so we'd still be out of a job...
Just wish SE would release more info about it.


Bulvine Scatology

It's Elemental Seal but worse on a 60m timer. There is absolutely no difference between

Elemental Seal Slow II
RDM SH!T MOVE Slow II

They both jack Magic Acc up to cap though RDM SH!T MOVE only works on enfeebles and can be resisted vs ES which works on everything and is significantly higher magic accuracy (damn near cap on anything).

This is one of those things that some dip sh!t said "Hey we want RDM to be focused on enfeebles right, so lets like give them an ability to enhance their magic acc" and the next guy over says "dude I was just trying to thing of a limited SP ability for RDM that they couldn't possibly use to solo any content with, thanks for helping me out"

That is exactly (or a close approximation of) how it happened. There was no careful planning, no reviewing game mechanics, none of that. No it was a random a$$ idea someone pulled out, something BTW that RDM's have actually mentioned being given on a 10m timer, and threw on a table.

[Kristal]

Lol wishful thinking.

That Encomium is meant to be used against formerly immune NMs was hinted at by the devs.
It's wishfull thinking RDM might actually be wanted again for endgame content because of it.

[Kristal]

Bovine Scatology

It's Elemental Seal but worse on a 60m timer. There is absolutely no difference between

Elemental Seal Slow II
RDM SH!T MOVE Slow II

They both jack Magic Acc up to cap though RDM SH!T MOVE only works on enfeebles and can be resisted vs ES which works on everything and is significantly higher magic accuracy (damn near cap on anything).

You fail to see the difference between "Magic Accuracy +X" and "Ignores Magic Evasion". While in effect they might be the same RIGHT NOW, the upcoming changes to resistance will change the playing field. Elemental Seal will not allow you to land enfeebles on formerly immune NMs, because their Magic Evasion is so frigging high it takes ES'd Immunobreaks to land a gimp enfeeble.

Wether or not that makes RDM wanted again remains to be seen, but at least it's a step in the right direction. (It beats yet another solo ability.)

[Kincard]

Even if RDM was the only job that could land said enfeeble with the use of this ability, that still wouldn't be useful, because it's on a 1-hour recast and slow II only lasts 3 minutes. I doubt the same monsters where something you would NEED these enfeebles to stick are the same ones that only last 3 minutes.

[Dragoy]

As far as the tail allowing a Limit Break 99 solo, it would, but you would need to time it correctly, because the interim between tail uses is more than enough time for him to kill you instantly with a WS. It's probably best to still go with 2-3 people so you don't end up wasting tails.

Really, even now, with a tail, a well-geared SAM could probably solo him. I helped a group of pink-clad clowns once and they were able to beat him with just one tail, too.

Indeed, and a samurai doesn't even need to be that well-geared for it.

Also, there's plenty of time to use a new tail after the effect wears off. The tarooo~ does no longer unleash a barrage of weapon skills like it used to at that point. It is quite disheartening to imagine that anyone would still have troubles with it (or trouble with having anyone to help with it), but I guess it is possible.

So with that said, it's definitely a good direction to go, allowing the items to stack and become less rare... so to speak.

Ii no tsuushin. ^^

[Godofgods]

I'm really impressed with his replys I've been reading. He comes foward with a good ounce of humlity along with a willingness to listen to the playerbase with some open ears instead of the closed windows we'd been used to dealing with for years on FFXI when it came to the Dev team in terms of actually making content more viable.

Agreed.

Now if we could get rid of this 10 mob/xp at once cap that kills blu CW in favor of war's FC (who are mostly rmt anyway), and of course help the tarus out (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4662-Give-a-taru-a-leg-up!!), we'd be golden! :D

[Waldrich]

Im going to rant on voidwatch a bit here since some others brought it up:


Right now there is a voidwatch shout after not seeing any for a couple hours. I am posting on this forum instead of joining that shout because I am second guessing whether i should spend 120k gil yet again for 6 more chances at something that has a 1 in 1500 chance of dropping.

You have game content I want to play and enjoy but you have turned it into a moneysink that has become increasingly frustrating due to 'bad luck' and a system that replenishes voidstones too slowly.
Something like Qilin is not hard game content, it is now a loot grind that I have to keep paying gil to participate in for a rare/ex drop.

I use rubi cells, red alignment always capped to 550% so what gives with your battle content design and sense of balance? I enjoy the luck factor but there comes a tipping point where players get bitter and angry their time and gil invested does not yield the treasure they desire from these events.


To compound this frustration, voidwatch participation has been suffering also partly due to not everyone being willing to 'gamble' on voidwatch and buy voiddust. Your perceived success of the event in the past was largely tainted by the cruor->gil abuse that had been going on.
Since that correction to the cruor->gil was made, event participation has dropped off significantly because voiddust are no longer subsidized through the previous cruor->gil conversion.

When I want to play FFXI and do voidwatch, most of the time im doing something else like reading forums and glancing at the chatlog window for a voidwatch shout. This is why people say they 'log in and have nothing to do' because they are doing the same thing. People are standing around waiting for something to happen, but your game design and RL time limtations on things like voidstones replenishing are largely to blame here.

I feel that the dev team should rebalance the event and encourage participation in voidwatch by having stones replenish quicker or implement an optional reward system where perhaps some lofty goal of turning in 1000 petrifacts would entitle the player to a pulse weapon/item/abjuration of their choice. At least with an absurd requirement of 1000 petrifacts, there is a 'light at the end of the tunnel' for someone grinding voidwatch that much.

The problem with FFXI battle content design and balance is that it is afraid of people 'winning too fast':
far too many hours before voidstones replenish
1 day wait to enter dynamis again
20 hour cooldown on meeble phermones
3day wait for einherjar
1 day wait for an imperial ID tag so I can do 1 assault/nyzul run
and so on.....

stop making game content that I have to wait around for to play. People making more than 1 empyrean/relic should have made this obviously clear to you by now that people will keep playing even if they 'win' at something. People wont quit, they'll find something else to do and keep paying their subscriptions instead of quitting out of frustration.

There is no words to define how I love this post.

[FrankReynolds]

That Encomium is meant to be used against formerly immune NMs was hinted at by the devs.
It's wishfull thinking RDM might actually be wanted again for endgame content because of it.

So your theory is that they are going to design monsters that are only susceptible to one specific debuff and only when cast by a red mage under SP2 effects... think about that for a minute.

[saevel]

You fail to see the difference between "Magic Accuracy +X" and "Ignores Magic Evasion". While in effect they might be the same RIGHT NOW, the upcoming changes to resistance will change the playing field. Elemental Seal will not allow you to land enfeebles on formerly immune NMs, because their Magic Evasion is so frigging high it takes ES'd Immunobreaks to land a gimp enfeeble.

Wether or not that makes RDM wanted again remains to be seen, but at least it's a step in the right direction. (It beats yet another solo ability.)

The purpose of "bullvine" totally whooshed you while you were trying to formulate a response.

Umm ... you realize the RDM one doesn't "ignore magic evasion right? It can be resisted meaning MA / ME is still in effect. All it does is give a boost to MA and set the critical resist limit to 1/2 instead of 1/4 or 1/5. Elemental Seal does far more and is on a 10m timer.

Their "magic resistance" change already happened, or did you miss that train? It was called immunobreak. Our current resistance system is what we will have for the next couple of years.

[Prrsha]

I thought this comment from the ala forums sum up many thoughts of returning vets (or those long departe) and the complaints of a certain loss of "heart" in FFXI that has been eating at it's soul for a while now. I joined FFXI in 2004 and was leader of MithraPride Phoenix for 6 some years. I have played just about every aspect in the game from combat related content to passive content such as chocobo raising, fishing, pankration, whathaveyou. I enjoyed mentoring players from little'ol level 1s to level 99 powerhouses. Many of the people I taught went on to form HMN Lses to dynamis lses and lvl 75 content beyond.

The most fun I had in FFXI was mid level oddly enough. I enjoyed the steady pace of leveling and helping others along the road as well. I made tight knit friendships in those days. I made a LS for the SOLE intent of involving lower level players in large group events. Yes... large scale battles for new players which they has a BLAST doing. Garrisons, eco-warriors, CoP, expeditionary forces. All of those COULD be done by low level players BECAUSE there were level caps back then. There was some content back in the day that gave new players a bang for their buck WITHOUT having to warp to level 75 or 99. People were interested in those events because they gave gear that could be used solely in events like CoP and the before mentioned ones.

Now the level caps are gone. Leveling is set to light speed. 75% of your existing game content that was made in the past serves NO purpose now. It's far too easy to complete and offers no rewards of any use. After all, if you warp players to 99, why do you need special gear or items for them? There is no need and 75% of vanadiel becomes tumbleweeds.

You are pandering to existing and returning players, yes, but what about new ones? If FFXI is to survive you need NEW blood. New players, with meaningful things to do on the way to level 99... or the game seems... unfinished. I miss the old members of my LS:

Brynmor
Aadfiyyuna
Califlower
Yamamotokenshin
Emphulax
Wayako
Aeona
Tedz
Kogoro
Tofu
Shdwlancer
Crouriant
Reginhart
Taz
Volkai
Quibly
Quorc
Quintessa
Jimi
Okatsu
Siconda
Slander
Ryth
Tinythumbs
Igigi
Keirah
Esyra
Tazmaliah
Laaha
Imori
Sampson
Aroshen
Aeroz
Thorquin
Genisis
Nomax
Uway
Renald
Aspen
Kakerot
Mickdangerous
Blaquepearl
Bolvvek
Coltrain
Rihku
Iruka
Demonicafox
Rossjr
Pumira
Parabellum
Eion
Kyulu
Atada
Datu
Arkumi
Silverdragon
Baldmonkey
Giblit
Danza
Pumyra
Tigriess
Amphiruru
Mertutu
Umpaloopa
Tsafyah
Maddia
Sunn
Hanagumi
Ultirian
Lynnisadi
Igothl
Evey
Xanthiris
Shazzaak
Cerealkiller
Nomax
Murdy
Verdei
Harvin
Frosted
Karma
Soulstorm
Shupyuu
Shizuko
Khaled
Maxiex
Anumi
Inyourwasha
Satrams
Praeline
Bazel
Katrity
Kmgb
Ishamael
Zortho
Tinacat
Chaoskitten

I still keep in contact with them on facebook and many wish to return... they really do... but they find the lack of low level content, the fast exp and just the plain unity of the community is gone in FFXI.

If you don't wish to re-instate the level caps for CoP... or slow down the leveling process, at least include an option for those who WANT to play the game how it was. Maybe add better rewards for completing CoP with a lvl cap on, or add new relevent rewards for older content like garrison and maybe retool it.

Now about that ala quote:

I came back from a 2 year break and had to start over. I have been here from 2006 on and thought it was great there was a challenge in the game. Challenge meaning for instance, the dreaded Airship battle, old style. There was only a certain percent of people that could beat that battle. I really liked the fact that it challenged my playstyle, thinking about enmity, how much to cure, how to act and how my team members had to act. In fact, it wasnt hard at all, as long as you had people that knew how to play, iow, had experience and insight. People without the knowledge or skill had little chance of beating this fight. Yes, I kinda regret that I couldnt get a casual team through this fight when leading a CoP run myself, what I really disliked is that they took away the option to try the old difficulty and took the challenge away.

It's ridiculously easy to get good gear nowadays, good gear that doesnt matter what you do, you can get it done with very little skill involved whatsoever. No content (besides certain battlefields or events that require ace gear to complete, for instance New Nyzul Ilse, that only gets you more uber-gear which there is no need for anyway but e-peen or completing the same content in an easier way), is hard. It's mostly boring and needless to do.

The problem I have is that I want to try difficult battles and I can find few people that have the skill involved to complete it. That DOESNT mean "Spam this monster 1000 times and maybe get the drop you want". That's not difficult, that's boring. Voidwatch high tier bosses might be difficult to beat without empyrean, relic or mythic weapons, but it's certainly possible. I would like to try them without relics, mythics and empyrean weapons and have the droprate increased for rare items if I complete it that way. Yes, that will upset all the people who can only do it the easy way by buying displacers, demanding relic wielding players and get a lower droprate on that gear. Doesnt really matter if they spam those fights or try the hard fights. At least, I have a CHOICE to choose to do it the hard way, and get rewarded in the process, somewhat. I replayed CoP and all the other add-ons and the only thing I was thinking was: Damn, this content is easy and there are almost no players to team up with/or willing to help me out. It's the journey of sharing, failing and finally succeeding that is the most fun to do. Where is the challenge? Shinryu? Maybe the first time without atma's and stats boosts, or without people brewing, having top tier gear, etc etc. There is NO challenge in this game, and when there is, it's because of unfair difficulties or ridiculous demands for a party to have gear-wise.

My point is, level 75 had a balance, yes the game was harder, I didnt mind at all. HNMs were a problem to get drops from. Did you need those drops? Not at all. You could complete all the storyline fights without any problems with a good team or help from experienced players WITHOUT top-tier gear.

The game's difficulty is a joke. Especially after coming back when 2 years have passed. And the new director wants to LOWER the difficulty?? Are you kidding me? Are games meant to be easy nowadays to be enjoyable? Or does difficulty means, get all the top-tier in the game and maybe you can win? With horrible droprates?

The problem with FFXI nowadays is that the majority of players are all casual players. That means there's not much knowledge of game strategy or structure on how battles are fought. It means grinding for all the top-tier gear and lower the difficulty by doing that. I remember doing certain battlefields and boss fights with a weird setup, without the "required" setup, like rdm for refresh, bards, blms etc etc. And winning! That was fun. Those were the good times. Going in with Pups, Smns and other jobs that weren't considered to be needed or useful and getting the win. I had a choice in doing so, even with difficult fights. I had a choice to make it harder by going in without the usual setups.

Now I dont have that choice, cause the storylines particularly have been pathetic in difficulty since the increase of the level cap. My only choice is to increase the difficulty by level syncing to 75 (and then it's still dumbed down from the initial difficulty). Guys, Im sad. Im glad I see lots of hardcore players returning and they are even more easy to recognise because of skill, but the way things are going, even more distance between the hardcore and casual players are being created. You need to bring everyone together again. Give us a reason to play together, to do content together. With the current difficulty and the coming lowering of the difficulty it's gonna be more soloing or dumb teaming up for Voidwatch and just zerg everything with a little incentive of strategy (read not really strategy).

I really hope A Realm Reborn is gonna be very difficult, or at least Seekers of Adoulin, cause im already bored after 6 months of playing from the start and there is no need to get better gear, I can trio everything in the game besides the level 99 hard fights. With decent, AH bought (mostly) gear. I miss the community, which you needed to have if you wanted to progress. I miss the hardcore players. I miss the hardcore players to help the casual players. Now, there is almost no need to. There is almost no knowledge about how to play a job given to newer players, they dont need to, they can leech almost anything, there is no reason to learn.

As a closing statement, Im by no means an expert player, or the best player there is out there, im a decent player, who thinks up fun strategies to beat a boss, and was known for that too. Beating bosses with very different setups. Now, there is no need to think up fun strategies, the game is too easy. Especially for returning players. I was never a fan of HNMLSs or doing Dynamis a 1000 times to maybe get a gear drop through a point system based egls. I would love to play casual, as long as the difficulty is still there, and not this dumbed down game that has stolen my heart with challenge in the past.


Please please please... I know you wish to cater to casual players but you don't have to dumb the difficulty to do so. Just give them more things to do along the way. More things to accomplish. Toss out some capped events that lower level players can take part in while high level (and low level) players can unite to have a fun gaming experience, with a dash of challenge. Warping speeding every character to level 99 is the easy way out and you know it. You can make the game equally as fun if you spread around events with rewards that benefit all. Do that and you will have the happy medium you desire.

-Prrsha and the MithraPride (also Emerald Arcanum) crew.

[Carth]

FFXI is a live horse? Hahahaha.

This actually just proves his point.


RDM SP2 is not designed to work with the current system but a future version of FFXI. The previous SP2 would definitely be nice, but it wouldn't do anything to give RDM an edge over /RDM so we'd still be out of a job...
Just wish SE would release more info about it.

You are playing right into SE's hands and you have no idea just how much sh!t this RDM SP2 actually is regardless of system changes. Since I know you mean well, I'll break it down for you.


Many people are commenting that the effect is no different than Elemental Seal. While Elemental Seal greatly increases the accuracy of spells, its effect is still limited by resistances, so there are cases where highly resistant monsters will still resist a spell used in conjunction with Elemental Seal. On the other hand, red mage's new special ability will guarantee the spell to land ignoring resistance, so the effect is stronger than Elemental Seal.

The development team has been working on adjustments to greatly reduce monsters with immunity, and nearly all of the monsters that have immunities have been adjusted for Voidwatch, Legion, and the higher-tier Limbus/Einherjar. We will continue to address other monsters for each content. (The ability cannot be used on monsters with immunity; however, the effect will not wear off in these cases and you can use the effect in conjunction with your next spell.)

This post tries to state the difference between Elemental Seal and RDM SP2, but you and I both know that in reality, they really are just the same thing. The one difference they have (outside of duration), is that the SP2 is a guarantee to land. This means that no matter how resistant the mob is (barring immunity), the spell will land regardless of your statistical deficiencies.

But there's two things to notice here:

1: The RDM SP2 does not enhance the potency of the enfeebling spell. All it does is guarantee that the spell will land.
2: They are making sweeping changes to negate immunity to multiple NMs.

#2 is extremely important, because if mobs are no longer able to just go "lolimmune" to a RDM's enfeebles, that means RDM will be able to land enfeebles normally without the help of MAcc+ JA's.

But the next question would be, "what if they don't make them immune, but so resistant that you would need to use MAcc+ JA's for them to work anyway"? Then we're back to where we started and nothing has changed at all. RDM still has crappy enfeebles they can't land without riding on Immunobreak, and since Elemental Seal is on a 10 minute timer and has a massive MAcc buff, people will op to use that over the RDM SP2.

Ah, but here's the last question, "What if they make them so resistant that not even Elemental Seal would work?"

Then they are immune.

This may sound silly at first, maybe absurd. But it makes perfect sense if you sit back and think about it. If you make them so resistant that only a 1 hour JA can break that resistance, then SE ends up doing the very same thing that they stated was a mistake on their test servers, that RDM SP2 cannot break immunity. But if you make it so that only the RDM SP2 can land an enfeeble immediately (changing 100% resistance to 99% resistance), then the mob is considered immune, and the SP2 just happens to break that rule.

You see the problem here? In order for the RDM SP2 to considered useful, they either have to jack up monster resistances to such high levels that not even Elemental Seal can break it, or the RDM would have to be so gimped in gear and skill that the SP2 would be the only way for them to land an enfeeble. The former just makes RDM more useless than it already is. The latter only makes the SP2 a crutch until the RDM gets better MAcc. Either way, one of two extremes have to happen to make the SP2 look useful, and neither extremes help RDM in any way possible.

[Carth]

Sorry if I missed it, but wasn't he speaking to Prrsha's recollections as though they were dead and bid good-riddance in light of the "new" FFXI whose current number of active players so greatly outnumbers those during that period? The game today versus the game then is a blatant joke.

He's saying it'll never happen because FFXI is so old that new players hardly trickles in, so it's better to cater to the folks who still plays. Remember, FFXIV: ARR is Square's golden child at the moment. They're not looking to bring in new players, just maintain the current ones.

[Eyeballed]

He's saying it'll never happen because FFXI is so old that new players hardly trickles in, so it's better to cater to the folks who still plays. Remember, FFXIV: ARR is Square's golden child at the moment. They're not looking to bring in new players, just maintain the current ones.

Oh, FFXIV... you mean that "live" horse that adopted the "new" FFXI and failed beyond miserably? As XIV is currently being rebooted and servers have been shut down, people have tossed around the idea of coming back to XI. From what I've read, the consensus is "I would, but it's a shadow of its former self and I wouldn't enjoy it as it is now." This is due to the fact that many of XIV's original subscribers migrated from XI in 2010. They got shafted in that game, and found themselves to be twice shafted as there was no returning to the type of gameplay XI once had. That is why in the last year the total subs between both games has been knee-slappingly laughable.

And I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read that Yoshida's primary concern was not retaining the current playerbase. His focus was to bring new players in and quitters back. Of course keeping the current players is not a bad idea at any rate. But, how miniscule is that total number opposed to the potential number of people he could have playing the game, the latter makes better business sense to me.

Essentially, SE's fucked up so bad the name of the game now is "Let's see how many of our fans we can shit all over and still come out on top."

[Carth]

And I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read that Yoshida's primary concern was not retaining the current playerbase.
What does Yoshida have to do with anything about FFXI's playerbase?

[Eyeballed]

What does Yoshida have to do with anything about FFXI's playerbase?

That comment was aimed toward XIV players. So essentially, nothing at all. Unless you consider the design philosophies both games have suffered, which is exactly what Yoshida is pushing for. Honestly, I'm not sure why XIV got brought up to begin with. But naturally when you switch the focus from XI to XIV mid-paragraph and then follow it with the suggestion of, "They're not looking to bring in new players...etc.", I assumed you were referencing 14.

[Aldersyde]

Stop beating a dead horse. Go find a live one to ride.

Same could be said for all the "woe is rdm" posters who insist on bringing up the same shit in every popular thread.

I'd rather read random yearning for the nostalgia of days gone by than the cacophony of whining rdms who just can't accept that the world has moved on.

[Llana_Virren]

1: The RDM SP2 does not enhance the potency of the enfeebling spell. All it does is guarantee that the spell will land.
2: They are making sweeping changes to negate immunity to multiple NMs.

If they made the ja bypass and overrule immunities, and go on a 30 minute timer, then it might not be so bad.

[Kincard]

Even if it could bypass immunities it wouldn't be terribly useful, because slow II (Which is probably the most desirable enfeebling I can think of, aside from maybe Dia, which doesn't get resisted) only lasts 3 minutes. Something that is hard enough to actually warrant a RDM a spot so they can 100% land a slow II is going to live longer than 3 minutes, which means that either
1. You need a bring multiple RDMs to keep your enfeebles up constantly, because it is simply that unmanageable without the debuffs present, or
2. The enfeeble is not essential enough to warrant 1, so you don't bring a RDM at all.
Neither one is a good idea.

[FrankReynolds]

Same could be said for all the "woe is rdm" posters who insist on bringing up the same shit in every popular thread.

I'd rather read random yearning for the nostalgia of days gone by than the cacophony of whining rdms who just can't accept that the world has moved on.

I'd prefer neither, but they did say "We would like to see people get to level 99 quickly". They never said "we would like to see people stop playing red mage". Although it wouldn't surprise me at this point if the devs just said "Look, that job is never going to be good again. We are concentrating on other things that we like better now".

[Prrsha]

I'd prefer neither, but they did say "We would like to see people get to level 99 quickly". They never said "we would like to see people stop playing red mage". Although it wouldn't surprise me at this point if the devs just said "Look, that job is never going to be good again. We are concentrating on other things that we like better now".

His comment about lightspeeding players to level 99 made my jaw drop. It's far too easy already plus it is done using such horrible and lackluster strategies like AFK book burning in dungeons. Players just... sit there AFK and leech! It's like the game is populated by dual boxers and zombies. It doesn't give new players that warm and fuzzy feeling that FFXI had before.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

I beg you to check out this link. It really is relevant for the current state FFXI is in. "Fooing" is the name of the game in FFXI now. There are so many exploits now it makes my head spin. People have already proven you can climb the latter to level 99 in TWO days just from leeching alone... and now they want to speed it up more?

If what he is saying is true (that a player needs to get to level 99 just to have "fun" in the game) then you should erase levels all together. It's a crazy statement but he's making a crazy proposal. That is the EASY way out.

Slow down the leveling process but add content along the way is entertaining for ALL playing levels. A level cap on certain events is one way to do this. For example: One could design a system like conquest in WotG but have battle fields of varying levels caps and (here is the key to this) make it EASY to access. In a campaign battle, all a person has to do is walk up to a NPC and join in to earn points. The are no flags or LFP nonsense. You just join in and leave when you wish to. Everyone obtains points... and should leave with something of value (no booby prizes please). Let the point system take care of that. The key is to make the battles have level caps of various levels (like in garrison) 20, 30, 40, 50 e.g. Let each tier of capped events give out different items that players of ALL levels need. That way players of ALL levels... level 20-99 can unite and play beside one another and have... dare I say it... fun.

When people are not in group events like this (and are in downtime), bring back the 6 party dynamic again but, please do away with the current archaic of searching for party members. There should be no need to type in a string of syntaxes to find players willing to party. Add a new form of GUI that replaces the old one. Players should be able to flag quests/missions etc they need help in and it should show up on a global board (or even a chat room). That way players can co-ordinate and meet up with ease to tackle certain group centric goals with a click of a mouse.

If I need help with a mission, I should be able to choose it from a list and flag it. It then should appear on a global board for all to see and assist if they need help with the same thing. The same could go for leveling parties. Have people enter a desired amount of people they need to level with and other players could just fill the list until the limit is reaches (six people or less).

I know this seems like alot of work, but to be frank, FFXI needs alot of attention. It has been neglected for a long time now. If you wish to bring it back to its glory days, don't just take the easy way out and have people "skip" 75% of the content of game... bring it back by introducing new interfaces that embrace it.

The fun of a game should not be in the goal at the end, but in the journey too that goal. Currently FFXI lacks that from 20-99 and placing a "speed" band-aid on it just makes things worse not better.

Edit: To make this work btw, there needs to be a better form of armor storage that is newbee friendly and free of charge. Maybe a GUI that gives you a "paper doll" to equip and have those armor/weapon setups appear in your inventory with a click of a mouse. (Maybe make use of the mannequins that sit idle in moghouses). It would be a macro system for quick equiping a character with various setup for level caps (A data dump for level 20, 30, 40 etc) that can be accessed at the moghouse or nomad moogle. No cards to mix up like the current system has.

This concept would also make certain armor/weapons/gear worth money again. It would give a boost to low level crafter's wallets and give new players low level NMs to hunt again.

Last problem I see that needs addressing is... placement of mobs in newbee zones. It is NOT fun for a newbee to take a left turn instead of right just to be one shotted by a level 75 goblin that resides in a level 10 area (and has level 10 quests in). It just leaves new players with a bitter taste in their mouth and more confusion, which leads them to quit. The Brass canteen quest in Bastok is a prime example of this. This should be MMO 101 here. Never EVER place mobs of incredible level to a low level player one or two zones from a STARTING town. It's just silly.

[Psxpert2011]

solo contenttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

/unlike

MORE party conteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeent!!!

Or play soloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

[Eyeballed]

The fun of a game should not be in the goal at the end, but in the journey too that goal.

This can be applied to real life in a very sound regard, and a notion that I'm sure every person with an ounce of wisdom on the planet is aware of. The journey is not just a means to an end - it is the defining characteristic of those ends. But people today don't understand this, apparently.

[Arcon]

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

I beg you to check out this link. It really is relevant for the current state FFXI is in. "Fooing" is the name of the game in FFXI now. There are so many exploits now it makes my head spin. People have already proven you can climb the latter to level 99 in TWO days just from leeching alone... and now they want to speed it up more?

Two days if you're in crappy leech parties. 10 hours if you're in a decent one.

You have the very same misconception as every single player that has ever brought the EXP argument though, namely that EXP somehow trains the player. It doesn't. It trains the character, nothing else. You do not pick up skill in EXP, and there was no point in FFXI history when you ever did, and I've explained before (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/28972-Fast-leveling-in-Parties-hot-spots?p=383246&viewfull=1#post383246), why this is the case.


Slow down the leveling process but add content along the way is entertaining for ALL playing levels.

There's two ways to do that. Either add new content for lower levels, which would mean leveling up will exclude higher levels from doing that content, or offer the same content but make it scale to level, which would remove the desire to level up at all. Why waste a month to get to 99, when you can do the same crap at 20?


That way players of ALL levels... level 20-99 can unite and play beside one another and have... dare I say it... fun.

Your definition of fun is not shared by the majority of players (I am of course extrapolating by what I see on here). That does not work, and it cannot work by definition. It's why campaign is completely dominated by whoever is the highest level around. It makes it boring for lower level players, and a drag for high level players.


When people are not in group events like this (and are in downtime), bring back the 6 party dynamic again but, please do away with the current archaic of searching for party members. There should be no need to type in a string of syntaxes to find players willing to party. Add a new form of GUI that replaces the old one. Players should be able to flag quests/missions etc they need help in and it should show up on a global board (or even a chat room). That way players can co-ordinate and meet up with ease to tackle certain group centric goals with a click of a mouse.

If I need help with a mission, I should be able to choose it from a list and flag it. It then should appear on a global board for all to see and assist if they need help with the same thing. The same could go for leveling parties. Have people enter a desired amount of people they need to level with and other players could just fill the list until the limit is reaches (six people or less).

I agree with the UI update, but it would not change much about how the game is played or enjoyed.


The fun of a game should not be in the goal at the end, but in the journey too that goal. Currently FFXI lacks that from 20-99 and placing a "speed" band-aid on it just makes things worse not better.

Again, completely wrong. The fun is in the journey, it's your misconception that leveling to 99 is the journey (this is to you as well, Eyeballed). Doing missions, winning battlefields, progressing through events and building your character by improving on skill and gear, that is the journey, not watching an arbitrary number climb from 1 to 99. Your entire perception of what the game consists of is askew. FFXI lacks content in the road to 99, that is completely true. But that only affects a very minor part of the game.

It is a part many people are completely finished with, by the way. Whatever they add to EXP now, will not affect me in the slightest, because I am done leveling. Does that mean I won't get to enjoy that content anymore? Or can't I enjoy the game at all anymore and now that I am fully leveled I should just quit?

[Prrsha]

Again, completely wrong. The fun is in the journey, it's your misconception that leveling to 99 is the journey (this is to you as well, Eyeballed). Doing missions, winning battlefields, progressing through events and building your character by improving on skill and gear, that is the journey, not watching an arbitrary number climb from 1 to 99. Your entire perception of what the game consists of is askew. FFXI lacks content in the road to 99, that is completely true. But that only affects a very minor part of the game.

It is a part many people are completely finished with, by the way. Whatever they add to EXP now, will not affect me in the slightest, because I am done leveling. Does that mean I won't get to enjoy that content anymore? Or can't I enjoy the game at all anymore and now that I am fully leveled I should just quit?

My comments just aren't focused on levels. The above examples: Doing missions, winning battlefields, progressing through events and building your character by improving on skill and gear... I am addressing that as well. I just don't think a player should have to be level 99 to do it, or have fun.

Edit: As for the road to 99 being a minor part of the game, SE has tossed 75% of their enjoyable story content out of the window for new players by focusing so much on the rate of climb to 99. The vets have their levels and endgame content galore but SE axed their beginning content when they removed level caps for zones and lifted the level cap past 75. It threw off the balance and challenge of many of the expansions, storyline areas and storyline quests.

Have you replayed CoP, Zillart as level 99? It just seems like a dev's afterthought now. It doesn't do justice to any of the creators.


I agree with the UI update, but it would not change much about how the game is played or enjoyed.

Eh? A MAJOR problem with forming a six man party dynamic is the dreaded LFP flag. This has been a #1 complaint for years and years...


Why waste a month to get to 99, when you can do the same crap at 20? Ummm... that's exactly what SE wants. Players who can play casual if they wish (and take part in group events and have fun) and other players who want more from FFXI and wish to take it up a knotch and keep increasing their powers for a change of pace.

[Arcon]

My comments just aren't focused on levels. The above examples: Doing missions, winning battlefields, progressing through events and building your character by improving on skill and gear... I am addressing that as well. I just don't think a player should have to be level 99 to do it, or have fun.

I agree on the fun part, but disagree on the statement that a low level player should be able to do that. Because building your character is an extension of the leveling system, it's what happens after levels can't go any further. Developing your character at level 50 is pointless if it becomes obsolete again just a few levels later. Of course leveling should be fun, but it isn't, and I can't even think of a way how it possibly could be, unless you make it play through a pre-programmed course that forces you to fight through customized mission-style battles to progress.

The major complaint I have with EXP is that it was a boring and tedious grind. If SE were able to magically fix that somehow, then yes, it may be fun again. But first, it wouldn't do anything for high level players, which is almost everyone by now, and second, it's pretty much impossible to implement. If you can think of a fun way to introduce EXPing again, do tell. But for the first reason, I will still be against it.


Edit: As for the road to 99 being a minor part of the game, SE has tossed 75% of their enjoyable story content out of the window for new players by focusing so much on the rate of climb to 99. The vets have their levels and endgame content galore but SE axed their beginning content when they removed level caps for zones and lifted the level cap past 75. It threw off the balance and challenge of many of the expansions, storyline areas and storyline quests.

Very true. But here's the thing: people who are actually leveling without leeching and want to experience that content while they're leveling can still do that, and some of them still do it, and they don't complain about it. You do.


Have you replayed CoP, Zillart as level 99? It just seems like a dev's afterthought now. It doesn't do justice to any of the creators.

I have, and again, I agree. It's no issue for me, because I've already done it, as have most people who still play. Same as before, SE made a conscious decision to introduce new content tailored to older players in favor of newer players, which is a rational choice given the distribution of the player population. If they left the level cap, they would have made it almost impossible to complete for new players, because fewer people are around, and of those fewer are willing to help, and of those even fewer are prepared. The times of keeping extra level capped gear is over (and it was before the level cap increase too), and everyone just syncs their equipment, which isn't nearly as good as proper weapons.


Eh? A MAJOR problem with forming a six man party dynamic is the dreaded LFP flag. This has been a #1 complaint for years and years...

Dead wrong. It is a major annoyance, but not a problem at all. If you wanna party, you type /inv. If you're looking for members, you type /sea all <whatever criteria you desire>. It has never prevented anyone from teaming up for anything. I have never heard anyone complain that it was actually preventing them to party up with people.


Ummm... that's exactly what SE wants. Players who can play casual if they wish (and take part in group events and have fun) and other players who want more from FFXI and wish to take it up a knotch and keep increasing their powers for a change of pace.

But what's the motivation in "taking it up a knotch [sic]" if you still do the same crap as the Lv20 guy? Level-scaled content can exist, but it will never work simultaneously. The Lv20 guy can not fight the same mob as the Lv99 guy, and he can not get the same reward. And if that's the case, why fight it at Lv20? Why not level to 99 and fight it then?

I used to believe that leveling still held some merit, even if I personally don't really care for it. Now I just say levels are an entire unnecessity. SE should auto-cap everyone to 99.

[Chocobits]

I'd really like to see job BALANCE implemented at some point... not nerfhammers, but real balancing of the jobs, job abilities, timers and magic so that each job brings something so useful, so unique that when forming up for events, be they casual or hardcore, the question "Ok, I can come PUP, COR, SMN, RDM or BST" can be asked in all seriousness.. and that its response wouldn't be a range of mirth from mild lulz to roaring guffaws. That question should really make party leaders pause and consider each tantalizing possibility, as each job would be invaluable in any given situation and the giving up any one of them for any of the others would be sorely missed.

And given that FFXI is moving toward more and more fast-paced zerg style battles for everything, timers need to be lowered CONSIDERABLY. From minutes to seconds.

[Mirage]

Or just make more content where fast zergs aren't won't work.

[FrankReynolds]

Whole buncha stuff....

I say quit beating a dead horse because it has been debated a million times on a million forums (numbers exaggerated to illustrate a point) and the debate always ends with this argument followed by some memes and insults:

All the old methods of leveling etc. are still available. People are not using them because they would rather be doing something else. You don't need to petition the development staff to fix that. You need to put that energy into finding other people who feel the same as you. Did you find any? Good. No need to adjust the game then. Couldn't find any? I guess no one else feels like you then. No need to adjust the game.

[Chocobits]

Or just make more content where fast zergs aren't won't work.

Except:

That isn't the direction we've been heading in for years
Nobody wants drawn out battles
Game mechanics favor shorter battles

And finally:

SE can't seem to design any kind of fights other than "If you're doing it long, urdoinitrong"

Which is fine by me, because even in 2005 I thought 45+ minute Kirins made me wanna die. Compare that to now. My last LS literally farmed and popped 75 Chloris in 1 night. The farming was terrible but the actual fights for 75 Chloris didn't set us back anything that 2 time extension chests didn't recover and then some. Imagine doing a mob like Chloris back in 2005...? You'd handle it like Golden-Tongued Culberry and kite/zombie/recover like we seemed to think was so smart back then.

I like the Powerthirst approach. Insert credit card (pop items), dispense tasty high fructose energy drink (NM), drink (destroy), win at everything forever (get the drops), use your sweat to fuel sweet rave parties (rest and recover). Repeat as necessary until you acquire 400 babies. Then finish up your day as usual. I like rewards that don't require literally wasting an entire day/month(s)/year(s) that are still fun and challenging to obtain. Timesink =/= difficulty, sense of accomplishment, or put you any closer to achieving personal enlightenment. Timesinks just make you overweight greasy couch potatoes that disdain RL as a necessity because it detracts from gameplay time.

[Mirage]

Except:
The world isn't black and white, fights don't have to be either 2 minutes or two hours.
Do game mechanics really favor shorter battles? Why? Because we are building every single strategy around 2-hour super buffs?

I'll agree that we haven't headed in that direction for years, but at the same time, during these years, a lot of the game has been broken, limiting the number of options and possible strategies.

[Chocobits]

Except:
The world isn't black and white, fights don't have to be either 2 minutes or two hours.
Do game mechanics really favor shorter battles? Why? Because we are building every single strategy around 2-hour super buffs?

I'll agree that we haven't headed in that direction for years, but at the same time, during these years, a lot of the game has been broken, limiting the number of options and possible strategies.

No, nobody mentioned anything about using 2 hours. I say the game mechanics favor shorter battles because of AoE-more-HP-than-most-people-have TP moves, job recasts of several minutes+, or difficulty of melee to TP on mobs once their initial damage reduction buffs wear. Those don't have to include 2 hours. In fact most zergs are moving away from 2 hour use largely because you can't spam 2hr fights back to back without an army of COR, and because 2 hours have not increased enough in potency from our rise in level cap at 75 to remain useful or relevant any more. There are normal 5 min JAs that are more powerful than a number of 2 hours.

[Ceinwyn]

I say quit beating a dead horse because it has been debated a million times on a million forums (numbers exaggerated to illustrate a point) and the debate always ends with this argument followed by some memes and insults:

All the old methods of leveling etc. are still available. People are not using them because they would rather be doing something else. You don't need to petition the development staff to fix that. You need to put that energy into finding other people who feel the same as you. Did you find any? Good. No need to adjust the game then. Couldn't find any? I guess no one else feels like you then. No need to adjust the game.

It's not that simple as u think.
There are plenty of people who think like eyeballed or prrsha for example.
Most just have given up the debate because its very unlikely that the game will still improve in the future, some still try to discuss tough and i fully apreciate it. (: Most are also looking forward to ffxiv, hoping it doesnt end as the same rubbish ffxi has turned into.
And people partied a lot back in the days, what do u say to that?
Do you really think they did it because they didnt enjoy the lv progress?
The reason noone does these days is simple.
It's senseless to try it. Reasons:
Everything these days works around Abyssea and Gov burns, means most people go there because its faster and there in neither motivation nor are people left for the old way. That is the the first and most important point. So even if u are one of these old player who want to give it a chance, forming a 6 man party because of the actual meta is almost impossible. People would still party without abysea and have fun and i think it would have been better for the meta of the game and future changes.
Most people who enjoyed FFXI because of the old way have already given up because they coudnt any longer enjoy it.
Maybe, the took up some jobs in abyssea bc it was the only way to do it and bc everyone was doint it but after that they got bored quick, like me, and left the game for good.

[Arcon]

It's not that simple as u think.
There are plenty of people who think like eyeballed or prrsha for example.

If that is the case, why don't these people team up and EXP the old way? SE did not remove the old camps. You can still team up with five like-minded players and get shitty EXP, same as in the old day. The only thing that's stopping you is if you can't find five other people like that. And that means there aren't many people left who like to EXP that way. So no, you are wrong, there are not "plenty of people" who think like Eyeballd or Prrsha. There are some. That's it.


And people partied a lot back in the days, what do u say to that?
Do you really think they did it because they didnt enjoy the lv progress?

They did it because there was no other way. I never enjoyed it, but I still did it, not because I was a masochist, but because I wanted to join my LS mates at all the cool events they did at 75. I wanted to get the crappy part over with to start enjoying the game.

[Eyeballed]

Just forget it Ceinwyn. He's using the obvious preferences of XI's current playerbase as his only reference for confirmation. It's a very convenient defense, albeit thin - like the active population found in the game these days.

[Ceinwyn]

Obviosuly, makes no sense anyway since he just ignores what i write anyway.
I told him why noone forms 6 man partys these days, why does he even ask then?
And i think we have different view points of "fun".
Endgame events are ok, some do enjoy this most but a game has to offer more than this
and i prefer slower exp, what u call "shitty exp" over a broken realm.

[Demon6324236]

Heres the thing, hes right. You want to level slow, you prefer that, you rather the old xp, thats cool, heres the problem, you complain no one else wants to join you in 'old school' parties. If you cant find 5 others on your server who like that idea, shouldn't you take the hint that not to many people are into it? Why force the majority to return to something they do not like, for the minority to get what they do like, it makes no sense, unless you are simply going to say something similar to 'but I liked it that way ;;' in which case, get over yourself, there are alot of other people around, accept that you are 1 of few who like that way, see if you can find others, and if you cant, then accept it, and either move on, or try to adapt.

[Byrth]

Seriously though, if old-style xp is so unpopular that you can't get a party together to do it then how is forcing everyone to do it a good idea?

[Arcon]

Just forget it Ceinwyn. He's using the obvious preferences of XI's current playerbase as his only reference for confirmation.

It's the only reference I need, because the current playerbase is the current playerbase. Why should SE cater to the old playerbase that is gone? In what universe does that make sense?

I know this is all subjective. I know I hate old EXP and I know some people like it. But if the majority of players dislikes it, it's all the reason and motivation SE will ever need to try and replace it with something else.


Obviosuly, makes no sense anyway since he just ignores what i write anyway.

No, I didn't. I told you why what you said was completely senseless. I gave you a counterpoint.


I told him why noone forms 6 man partys these days, why does he even ask then?

I didn't ask. It was a rhetorical question, I answered it myself right after that.

[Eyeballed]

Heres the thing, hes right. You want to level slow, you prefer that, you rather the old xp, thats cool, heres the problem, you complain no one else wants to join you in 'old school' parties. If you cant find 5 others on your server who like that idea, shouldn't you take the hint that not to many people are into it? Why force the majority to return to something they do not like, for the minority to get what they do like, it makes no sense, unless you are simply going to say something similar to 'but I liked it that way ;;' in which case, get over yourself, there are alot of other people around, accept that you are 1 of few who like that way, see if you can find others, and if you cant, then accept it, and either move on, or try to adapt.

It is entirely possible that though there are those with the preference to play classic, because they too could not readily find others of like-mind, were forced to do one of two things: Conform or pack it in. I've played almost 100% solo since I returned to the game, (though I don't even log in much anymore), and I have met more than just a few returning players that expressed the desire to play the game as it used to be. You know where I find them the next day/week/month? That's right, in GM/CN/Abyssea or offline - if you catch my drift. Of course, you can say, "Hey, they found that book-burns were a faster/better way to get EXP and never looked back!", and you can also say, "Hey, they discovered that 110% of their efforts to build a 6/6 party each and every day yielded 3-4 members at most and just gave up."

Speaking from experience, this is what I do every time I log in, and I too have given up. Even when I could get 6/6, it was a crap shoot whether your tank actually had the first clue what tanking was, your Thief had any clue what "pulling" or "SATA" meant, etcetera. In the handful of occasions where things did go to plan and people were willing to learn, things went beautifully - and that's not an exaggeration. Versus IT++, fights did not last longer than 45 seconds, EXP from 450-650 per kill and never once complained "this is too slow" or "My LS needs me gotta go!"

You ask us what right do we have in asking others who are enjoying themselves to change for us? My response is: What right did you or anyone have in taking the game away from us in the first place?

[Sunrider]

This raises an interesting point.

Not even being of high enough level to challenge Maat yet, I wonder if Mr. Matsui has ever pondered the problems inherent in low-levels, or whether he even feels there's a problem at all.

The majority opinion seems to be that level progression was once too slow. Others feel as if lower levels were such a trial because there was no content.

I think that the source of the problem goes deeper than either school of thought: if all the cool gear, traits, spells, and abilities weren't waiting for your at levels 50+, would you still be in a rush? And there were low-level events available, in the form of Garrison, Expeditionary force... and those silly escort quests you simply could not get through without several other, preferably high level players.

What made these events unattractive is (aside from reward selection), the players get their butts handed to them. As an example, Garrison was like a proto-Campaign: waves of mobs, except no Protectras, Refreshes, or sick Weapon Skills in the players. Why bother with low level events when all the high-level evens came with the cool powers attached?



This, I think, is the source of what makes the lower levels (let's say, 45 and lower, maybe even 65 and lower), so unattractive: there's just nothing there. No strong armor, weapons, spells, abilities, or traits. What would you do if you could play with Refresh (even at 2 MP/tic), as early as level 5? What if the armors and weapons with +5/+6 this or that were available at level 10? What if you got Traits like Occult Accumen, Fast Cast, or Double Attack straight out the gate? I think if we had more of what makes the higher levels enjoyable, at the lower levels, people would have never developed the hasty attitude to progress.

Of course, its all just speculation at this point. I feel this is probably the one standard the developers can never hope to back to (without an FFXI 2.0): the current progression rate has been taken so well by the players that any retroactive changes would go ignored by now, and might not even serve to support the minority that prefers slower, "classic" parties. As it is, the development team is simply not known for going back and retroactively changing the levels of spells, traits and abilities, especially not on the scale I'm thinking about.

[Eyeballed]

It's the only reference I need, because the current playerbase is the current playerbase. Why should SE cater to the old playerbase that is gone? In what universe does that make sense?

Because nobody complained about rate of progression in the first place, man! Not once in all my years of playing this game, which happened to be the years it was most successful (interestingly enough) did I hear this complaint. People either accepted it for what it was, as a necessary evil or otherwise, or were enjoying themselves.

[SpankWustler]

Speaking from experience, this is what I do every time I log in, and I too have given up. Even when I could get 6/6, it was a crap shoot whether your tank actually had the first clue what tanking was, your Thief had any clue what "pulling" or "SATA" meant, etcetera.

This seems to be describing my experience with pick-up experience parties in FFXI circa 2005, so you might be doing a better job recapturing the past than you think.

[Ceinwyn]

Seriously though, if old-style xp is so unpopular that you can't get a party together to do it then how is forcing everyone to do it a good idea?

Because it would be better for the durability of the game.
The game is going to hell atm.
Speedlvling created a ton of problems.
Useless areas, useless crafts and everyone is maxing out too quickly.
Lack of intresting content which is also limited to 99 only.
A lv cap on abyssea and a return to the the old lv style woudnt help much anymore but it would be a start, the game would need a lot of love which it probably wont get and therefore i think its pretty doomed.
And dont get me worng i wouldnt do a usual exp partys these days either, where is the reason pls?

And Demon
this game worked pretty well for 6~?years without abyssea and people enjoyed it and dont tell me they didnt, "grinding" was the main part of the game back then and people woudnt have done it if they didnt enjoy it and i'm pretty sure less people play it these days so I woudn't call me one of a few.

[Eyeballed]

This seems to be describing my experience with pick-up experience parties in FFXI circa 2005, so you might be doing a better job recapturing the past than you think.

I did my best to try and guard my groups from the total noob effect. For what it was worth, I started with the high-ranks and worked my way down when inviting people. You would always get the occasional BLM that only cast Shock/Bind/Warp no matter what you did. But now, there's just no hope.

[Arcon]

Speaking from experience, this is what I do every time I log in, and I too have given up. Even when I could get 6/6, it was a crap shoot whether your tank actually had the first clue what tanking was, your Thief had any clue what "pulling" or "SATA" meant, etcetera.

You do realize that this is precisely what old EXP was? A bunch of noobs not knowing how to play properly, frustration of not finding good members, or members at all, bad or restrictive party setups. And you were just lucky they didn't leave because of LS activities, nothing more, because that's also something that happened all the time during old EXP parties. And that wasn't old EXP's fault, because it still happens, only now the remaining party members are not penalized as much for it.


You ask us what right do we have in asking others who are enjoying themselves to change for us? My response is: What right did you or anyone have in taking the game away from us in the first place?

SE had the right, because it's their game, not yours.


Because nobody complained about rate of progression in the first place, man! Not once in all my years of playing this game, which happened to be the years it was most successful (interestingly enough) did I hear this complaint. People either accepted it for what it was, as a necessary evil or otherwise, or were enjoying themselves.

All of this is a lie. Either that or you played an entirely different game from me. Not only did I hear people complain about how slow and boring leveling was, people actually refused to level certain jobs, even if they actually wanted to play them, because it was too much of a pain to level them up.


The game is going to hell atm.

You're aware that people have been spouting this garbage line since 2005?


this game worked pretty well for 6~?years without abyssea and people enjoyed it and dont tell me they didnt, "grinding" was the main part of the game back then and people woudnt have done it if they didnt enjoy it [..]

All of this is completely wrong. The game did not "work well" for six years, the playerbase has been declining for most of the six years before Abyssea as well. And no, EXPing was not the main part of the game, that was never true. You're completely delusional if you believe that. And yes, people do level despite hating it. Take me for example. I hated every moment of it, and I still went through it, because my goal was a different one, I wanted to play the jobs at 75. Leveling was a necessary evil I had to take upon me to be able to do that.

[Eyeballed]

You do realize that this is precisely what old EXP was?

Nope. Not near the degree as what you'll find today. Not even close.



SE had the right, because it's their game, not yours.

That's right, and by this rationale, it's not your game to contest that we are trying to take something away from you.



All of this is a lie. Either that or you played an entirely different game from me. Not only did I hear people complain about how slow and boring leveling was, people actually refused to level certain jobs, even if they actually wanted to play them, because it was too much of a pain to level them up.

How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like. I wager that what complaints you did hear were those who moaned about never getting invites on unpopular jobs more than anything to start with. That is what I've heard. What I have to say about that is I took at least MNK and THF to 75, typically having no trouble at all getting a group because I took the initiative to make something happen for myself. "I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

[SpankWustler]

How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like. I wager that what complaints you did hear were those who moaned about never getting invites on unpopular jobs more than anything to start with. That is what I've heard. What I have to say about that is I took at least MNK and THF to 75, typically having no trouble at all getting a group because I took the initiative to make something happen for myself. "I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

I found leveling White Mage in pick-up groups miserable for the 50-75 stretch because of how misinformed and esoterically equipped 90% of the melee were, even relative to the limited knowledge available at that time. There were a lot of people who were so dense that, even to me on my first job going to 75 for the first time, it was obvious they were retarding progress. As the healer, all I could do to make them flail around less horribly was cast Haste and Dia II. It was infuriating.

I stuck it out because end-game looked interesting for support jobs, even if watching a handful of mental invalids fail to efficiently kill various species of crabs killed something deep inside of me.

That was my subjective experience. Your subjective experience is that you enjoyed leveling up by killing more crabs than the bearded boat bros on The Deadliest Catch.

You are trying to make your experience into something objective. That is not the case.

[Arcon]

Nope. Not near the degree as what you'll find today. Not even close.

Yes, very much so. I'm right, you're wrong. Your word against mine.


That's right, and by this rationale, it's not your game to contest that we are trying to take something away from you.

And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?


How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like.

I loved the game, I just hated EXP. Remember, I actually did everything else the game has to offer, something you repeatedly seem to forget even exists. EXP is so minor compared to everything else that exists that this entire debate is pretty pointless.


"I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

That didn't help at all, skipper. The problem you're not getting is that there were periods of days of no invites in your level range appeared. I've been there and I tried building parties and even that failed sometimes. It wasn't until Level Sync was introduced that it was remedied somewhat (aside from the fact that higher levels still didn't wanna do much with lower levels). And if a PUP invited people to a party, they wouldn't even bother to respond unless they already had five other people. You're completely delusional if you think it was always that easy. THF and MNK were both desired in parties, and still there were periods during which people just weren't around, or not a decent number of people, so 8 people were lfp but only six could party, so two had to sit out, and of course it would always hit the same jobs over and over again. The old EXP system was so horribly flawed in a myriad of ways that I can't possibly understand why anyone would want it back.

[Eyeballed]

I found leveling White Mage in pick-up groups miserable for the 50-75 stretch because of how misinformed and esoterically equipped 90% of the melee were, even relative to the limited knowledge available at that time. There were a lot of people who were so dense that, even to me on my first job going to 75 for the first time, it was obvious they were retarding progress. As the healer, all I could do to make them flail around less horribly was cast Haste and Dia II. It was infuriating.

I stuck it out because end-game looked interesting for support jobs, even if watching a handful of mental invalids fail to efficiently kill various species of crabs killed something deep inside of me.

That was my subjective experience. Your subjective experience is that you enjoyed leveling up by killing more crabs than the bearded boat bros on The Deadliest Catch.

You are trying to make your experience into something objective. That is not the case.

I think you answered your own question here; Obviously this was early on in the game's history and people were simply noobs on the whole. I mean, fair enough all you had to do was stack MND/MP, (if even that to be effective), where if you had a problem sticking Dia something was terribly wrong, and if you couldn't stick Haste, you might give MNK a try instead.

As well, I feel you're also attempting to objectify your experience in an even more acute sense with regard to a single job for a span of 15 levels. I'm referring to all jobs from levels 1-75 (99?).

PS: Your sig is the best I've seen in a long time. :)

[Eyeballed]

And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?

Honestly my contempt comes not from XI in its current state anymore. I couldn't care less and am not even sure why my account is still active. The flames are fueled by the apparent new trend in all MMO's that mirror what has happened to this game. And what's happening to 99% of new MMO's? Aw screw it, let's be honest: Nobody's made a great MMO in a decade or more. Care to figure out why?, I do; Hell, I fucking love playing the genre, and I know what I loved most about playing them. Now name me some of the major changes that FFXI has undergone in the past few years and we'll see if we can deduce why the active playerbase continues to bleed out.

My contention is, "Easy come, easy go".


And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?

And who cares if it hurts the playerbase, right? I mean, you would have been on the indifferent side of this argument 5 years ago it seems. Again, what playerbase is there really left to offend?


I loved the game, I just hated EXP. Remember, I actually did everything else the game has to offer, something you repeatedly seem to forget even exists. EXP is so minor compared to everything else that exists that this entire debate is pretty pointless.

I didn't forget about the rest of the game. The rest of the game is not the issue here.


That didn't help at all, skipper. The problem you're not getting is that there were periods of days of no invites in your level range appeared. I've been there and I tried building parties and even that failed sometimes. It wasn't until Level Sync was introduced that it was remedied somewhat (aside from the fact that higher levels still didn't wanna do much with lower levels). And if a PUP invited people to a party, they wouldn't even bother to respond unless they already had five other people. You're completely delusional if you think it was always that easy. THF and MNK were both desired in parties, and still there were periods during which people just weren't around, or not a decent number of people, so 8 people were lfp but only six could party, so two had to sit out, and of course it would always hit the same jobs over and over again. The old EXP system was so horribly flawed in a myriad of ways that I can't possibly understand why anyone would want it back.

I never (read: almost never) took an invite from another leader for EXP and roughly 85% of the time I could start a group any old time I felt like it. And not some trash I threw together just so I could say we got mobilized, if anything. Level Sync just put the icing on the cake for a leader trying to form a group. I'll say it till I'm blue in the face: If you couldn't get an invite it wasn't because you weren't on RDM or BRD - it was because you were too damn lazy to do anything but sit back and complain that the game didn't fix your problems for you.

[Ceinwyn]

This debate is so pointless so I'll keep it short!
I forecast this:
SE is bored of this game, this is clear!
The uptades and the team put on the game are/is and will stay at a rock-bottom level to keep it barely alive!
New Expansion will be downloadable and offer minimal content, oh and it's relase will be delayed to 2014!
They shit on the economy of the world and encourage speed-lvling because it's easy mode
and probably most do like EASY-MODE!
They know the game will suffer and that they can't keep up with the content since everyone is 99 in a day
but they just don't care because it doesn't matter at all.
People will move on to FFXIV anyway, old players will go there anyway and new ones also if they are done with maxing all their jobs, thx to speedlvling yeah! and have finished or are bored of the poor endgame content what is all the game has left now, we're genius!!!
So let's hope ffxiv will be any good my fellow players because i don't belive in this game anymore.
I really recommend everyone to move on to something else and leave the actual poor playerbase alone and let em enjoy their left time we had ours i guess (: ,
with the release of FFXIV: A realm reborn. This game will take another serious drop on poulation and because of that mister, accompanied by other factors, I'm pretty sure it will go to hell.

[Eyeballed]

This debate is so pointless so I'll keep it short!

It's not pointless though. Do you love playing MMO's? When was the last time you picked one up that you didn't touch another video game for years, period? That was me and FFXI in 2005; For 4.5 years I did not play a single game outside of it. It was exactly what I loved and the game was a success and I refuse to believe the only reason it was a success is because secretly there was a majority of players that despised backbone of its content. Bullshit, I say.

[SpankWustler]

As well, I feel you're also attempting to objectify your experience in an even more acute sense with regard to a single job for a span of 15 levels. I'm referring to all jobs from levels 1-75.

I tried not to, but my feelings probably bled through a bit because my experiences are from the opposite end of the spectrum. I just wanted to provide an example that lots of people had lots of different experiences.

There were some people who did little other than level back when leveling had a much slower pace, and enjoyed it. Others leveled jobs as quickly as possible, hanging out with Shiva in Korroloka Tunnel rather than leveling normally when possible; they wanted to use a certain job for end-game, to fill a niche within their linkshells, or just to equip the armor they had accrued for that job via free-lot. I mostly met the latter kind of player, given that I was the latter kind of player, but I have no idea which group made up the majority at the time.

I don't think anybody else has any idea which group made up the majority, either. I also doubt the player base could be divided neatly into groups. It's so hard to collect data on the mental state of large groups of people that there are statistical tactics for using normally problematic sample sizes to get representative results in the social sciences.

Basically, I have no faith in my ability or anyone's ability to have knowledge of what's good or bad for FFXI players as a whole. If somebody tried to make the point that almost all players hated leveling more than my racist uncle hates brown people, I would find that dubious as well.

It's cool that some people liked leveling at the slower pace. I'm glad somebody really liked it to balance out how much I hated it. I just find any implication of a "silent majority" to be very, very, very suspect and one or both sides always make that implication when this topic comes up.


PS: Your sig is the best I've seen in a long time. :)

Thanks! I saw the image and it's dimensions seemed perfect for a signature.

I would post a link to the maker's Tumbler but there's some NSFW stuff there. Typing "Paul Robertson" into Google and checking out his Tumblr should do the trick, though. Again, there is some NSFW stuff there.

[Ceinwyn]

It's not pointless though. Do you love playing MMO's? When was the last time you picked one up that you didn't touch another video game for years, period? That was me and FFXI in 2005; For 4.5 years I did not play a single game outside of it. It was exactly what I loved and the game was a success and I refuse to believe the only reason it was a success is because there was a majority of players that despised backbone of its content. Bullshit, I say.

I can understand u bc it was the same for me but things are like they are.
I don't belive either that it was a succes bc of people who didnt like it at all but lots of people don't even check the forum and i can't blame em for it.

[Eyeballed]

I don't think anybody else has any idea which group made up the majority, either. I also doubt the player base could be divided neatly into groups. It's so hard to collect data on the mental state of large groups of people that there are statistical tactics for using normally problematic sample sizes to get representative results in the social sciences.

Basically, I have no faith in my ability or anyone's ability to have knowledge of what's good or bad for FFXI players as a whole. If somebody tried to make the point that almost all players hated leveling more than my racist uncle hates brown people, I would find that dubious as well.

It's cool that some people liked leveling at the slower pace. I'm glad somebody really liked it to balance out how much I hated it. I just find any implication of a "silent majority" to be very, very, very suspect and one or both sides always make that implication when this topic comes up.

You could say it's because the game's old, outdated graphics, what-have-you and that's the reason the game is 'dying'; But on the other hand, you could say that (Your sig is really distracting! haha) it's just as likely that the game changed in a few major ways (Abyssea/99 cap) that OG players weren't keen on and those facts are equally responsible in the decline of player numbers and re-subscribers.

It's a given to say that the game had aged by the time WoTG released, but it had aged gracefully. So much that when FFXIV released, many, many players migrated over expecting more great things from SE. Unfortunately we all know how that went, and you had (and still do) their players wanting to recapture the gameplay they had known for years only to realize that it was nowhere to be found.

[Prrsha]

The majority of the current player base (which is a very low number compared to old ones) that favor speedleveling are who stay with the game. The people who don't like what the game has become, have tried it for a few months, then left without a word. The simple fact is because the game is tailored that way, then those people who like speedleveling stay, have access to the forums and as such a vested intrest in the game. Those people are the "vocal" minority (due to their ability to post here).

What if SE was to take a poll to all of those players who LEFT due to the current state of the game. I am sure you'll agree that number FAR outweights the current numbers of the playerbase. Heck the people in my LS above are a prime example of that. A good 80% of them quit the game due to the changes. Will they ever return to be able to post here? Doubtful. What you have here is the great silent MAJORITY.

In order to see the numbers SE saw way back in the golden days of 2005-2006 they should at least consider their thoughts (Maybe a mass e-mail poll to ex-players would do the trick) to get an unbias poll.

Arcon has stated that levels don't matter anymore, and they should be removed. As crazy as that sounds, I'd have to agree with him if SE treats the road to level 99 as something that is an unwanted after-effect of the game. If this is the case, make every player level 99. You might as well make the test server, the "player server", so they can have access to every spell, set of gear etc. What you have now in FFXI is not a level progression ladder, but a set of ability/gear progressions... but you know what... it's the same thing. Both are time sinks and what is worse... some forms of obtaining gear is entirely luck based. At least with levels, you are guaranteed to get them. SE has just about removed the risk of leveling down (since exp is so plentiful).

So yeah same progression and time sink... different names.

Edit: clean up

[Eyeballed]

I've been thinking of deleting my character and washing my hands of MMO's, but I read on the XIV forums that a group of them started again at Phoenix. Are you part of that group? Entertaining the idea of hopping over.

[Caketime]

You know what I haven't had in awhile? Big League Chew.

[Chocobits]

How did this derail from a dev update post to a full on horse corpse abuse session?

Prrsha/Eyeballed:

The reason the Devs don't allow feedback from nonpaying current customers is because they have this funny mentality that the game should be shaped by the current playerbase, which is usually to the detriment of the game.

I'll say that personally there were aspects of the exp grind that I loved. And as much as I agree with (and have argued siding with) people that say exp parties don't teach a player how to do anything meaningful but exp; there are a small handful of jobs that I think really did benefit from it. I know I was a much more adaptive, reflexive and resourceful WHM from having grinded exp the old school way with complete idiots and with limited resources.

Mostly though, it was repetitive and it sucked. The party seek function sucks; level sync came out way too late in the game's lifecycle and was poorly implemented, ushering in terrible parties that were terribly geared due to syncing mechanics, as well as exploitive options such as SMNburn.

The reason it was repetitive and sucked, and which is really the core of the problem, lies truthfully in the unimaginative way SE plotted mob spawns (mostly 1 type of mob in an area), battle mechanics that penalized lower level players by virtue of lack of stats, gear and spells/abilities (and the fact that accuracy SUCKS at low levels no matter what you do), a homogenous leveling experience from 1-30 because most jobs didn't obtain their job defining abilities and traits until the 30s, and the fact that despite the myriad of fauna available to hunt in Vanadiel, most players focused on about 5 of them throughout the course of leveling, due to terrain, surrounding mobs and party friendliness. The ecosystem wasn't sufficiently balanced to healthily support leveling on any type of mob you desired, and still isn't.

Even in 2005, we would always comment that leveling in the 50s was like watching paint dry. Those Bibiki Bay parties that could go up to 6k/hr (which was a holy grail to us back then, even though usually we were at the 3.5-4k/hr mark) were constantly interrupted by gobby bombs that could 1 shot people, dhalmel links, and nooby players.

Fast forward to 2013 (yes, I can time travel a few weeks into the future :-) !) None of that is any different now, with the exception of mildly-but-not-nearly-enhanced-enough-exp, except that now doing the same grinds level synced with high level gear results in an even worse experience due to the poor way gear syncs.

I would say that in order for "old school" partying to be effective, FUN, and appealing, the following would have to change:

*Increase in mob density and increased population overall with lower repop timers, which disallows building custom 4 of 1 type of job melee parties, as different damage types would be needed and allows for an uninterrupted grind experience.
*Availability of more refresh options to accommodate faster chains (look at how much refresh we have in Abyssea).
*Higher base experience points (to the order of at least 50% of what is currently being awarded after numerous xp bump patches).
*Modification of basic mob strengths and behavior at < 75 levels to even out the difficulty of several mob types and to increase the number of available camps.
*Fixing the way gear syncs.
*Balancing of job abilities and stats at low levels.

Which would all said and done essentially create the same exp rate outside of Abyssea as inside (GoV notwithstanding).

So, which do you want exactly? A needless time sink by forcing everyone back to 2005 era exp under the pretense of "lurning ur job doods!", an opportunity for legit but efficient exp outside of Abyssea, or level caps and exp restrictions inside of Abyssea? I'm just confused. Is your goal to create a fun, flexible and fair mode of exp with several different paths, or is it just to hop in your Delorean and head back to 2005 when it took unnecessarily long to reach level cap for no reason? What are you trying to accomplish? There's no content at low or mid levels and even SE acknowledges that. There's no reason to want to grind.

But as has been pointed out, the option to grind is still available to you. You can't find anyone to do it because nobody wants to. You say that pro-"new way" people on the forums are a "minority" that are the "vocal majority" because all the sane people have jumped ship. The option to grind was always available and so they if there were that many of them, they coulda teamed up and formed a grind LS and called it "TeamGrindCore" or something and grinded until they were sore from all the grinding. So really, there weren't that many of them right? Cuz the option to grind was never removed from the game.

*edited for some spelling and revision of potentially inflammatory remarks*

[Carth]

Arcon has stated that levels don't matter anymore, and they should be removed. As crazy as that sounds, I'd have to agree with him if SE treats the road to level 99 as something that is an unwanted after-effect of the game.

It's not crazy at all. I humorously made the same remark in another thread very recently.

I don't want anyone to get any ideas: I really don't care about this debate about fast leveling vs slow leveling. I'm in the neutral camp. Fast or slow, as long as I'm enabled to perform missions, quests, and events, I don't really care.

I'm honestly surprised no one caught Sunrider's post. Actually I shouldn't be since everyone was caught up in their "NO U!" argument.


This, I think, is the source of what makes the lower levels (let's say, 45 and lower, maybe even 65 and lower), so unattractive: there's just nothing there. No strong armor, weapons, spells, abilities, or traits. What would you do if you could play with Refresh (even at 2 MP/tic), as early as level 5? What if the armors and weapons with +5/+6 this or that were available at level 10? What if you got Traits like Occult Accumen, Fast Cast, or Double Attack straight out the gate? I think if we had more of what makes the higher levels enjoyable, at the lower levels, people would have never developed the hasty attitude to progress.

I'll take what Sunrider said, and take it a step further: There is sort of gratifying goal in this MMO. This game is a static, uneventful world that never changes, regardless of your level. Literally everything in this game stays the same no matter what you do, and it's a shame because this world is so elaborate, yet so little is done with it.

So really, what is everyone's goal with this game? To get the next level? To get the next shiney? To get the bestest gear in the game? Who cares about any of that stuff if you can't do anything with it? And I feel that's why Matsui keeps everything at level 99. Because what's the point otherwise? Leveling up and getting new gear means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[Chocobits]

It's not crazy at all. I humorously made the same remark in another thread very recently.

I don't want anyone to get any ideas: I really don't care about this debate about fast leveling vs slow leveling. I'm in the neutral camp. Fast or slow, as long as I'm enabled to perform missions, quests, and events, I don't really care.

I'm honestly surprised no one caught Sunrider's post. Actually I shouldn't be since everyone was caught up in their "NO U!" argument.



I'll take what Sunrider said, and take it a step further: There is sort of gratifying goal in this MMO. This game is a static, uneventful world that never changes, regardless of your level. Literally everything in this game stays the same no matter what you do, and it's a shame because this world is so elaborate, yet so little is done with it.

So really, what is everyone's goal with this game? To get the next level? To get the next shiney? To get the bestest gear in the game? Who cares about any of that stuff if you can't do anything with it? And I feel that's why Matsui keeps everything at level 99. Because what's the point otherwise? Leveling up and getting new gear means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I missed his post completely too, but I essentially wrote exactly the same thing. That low level exp anything would benefit from refresh and more defined job abilities and party roles. +1'd

[detlef]

XPing at a low level isn't even the same game as it is at 99. You have almost no abilities, a weak WS, no gear to swap, no spells. It's simply not fun for me. And I certainly would not be learning a single thing while XPing. Maybe a case can be made for the mid-levels, 50-60 or so. By that point you do have a lot of your job-defining abilities and spells.

For me personally, I would have quit if my first job was not BRD. I would not have been able to handle not being invited and I would not have met my girlfriend in my endgame linkshell. Maybe in 2005 I could handle it, but I have grown up quite a bit since then and I cannot spend 12 hours to get one level anymore.

[Arcon]

It's not pointless though. Do you love playing MMO's? When was the last time you picked one up that you didn't touch another video game for years, period? That was me and FFXI in 2005; For 4.5 years I did not play a single game outside of it. It was exactly what I loved and the game was a success and I refuse to believe the only reason it was a success is because secretly there was a majority of players that despised backbone of its content. Bullshit, I say.

I absolutely agree with everything you said. It's bullshit that a majority of players despised the backbone of its content. Only EXP is not that backbone. It was an experience that introduced the game to the players. For about the first 10 levels. After that it was endless repetition until 75. It was not essential, it was not crucial. If the game started at 50 back when it was released, and if they autocapped everyone to 75 when the cap was increased, it still would have been a great game and would have had everything that most people loved about it.

Ok, here's the gist: what is EXPing? A way to develop your character. And I love developing my character, it's the sole reason I play this MMORPG. I invested in Arcon and I wanna see him grow, and myself with him. I want him to progress, to learn, to get experience (not necessarily EXP) and skill (not necessarily skill levels). I love working towards obtaining a new spell, that's why I loved getting Meteor. So if I like developing my character in certain directions, why don't I like EXP?

And the answer is a lot simpler than some of you seem to think. It was boring. That is the only reason. I already said a few posts ago, if SE managed to find an interesting way to introduce EXP, it would be an entirely different story. However, the gap between 1 and 99 is immense, it's pretty much impossible to fill it with unrepetitive content. It doesn't work. And they can't make it challenging, if they do, casual people would not make it anymore. Old EXP was about the easiest thing in the entire game, and still people failed, because everyone was doing it, not just the best. Even people with little to no experience and/or brains. That means that people who were good at it were extremely bored while people who sucked at it were challenged to the point of frustrated if they made a reputation and couldn't get invites anymore (I know a few of those notorious people on Leviathan and still remember them, I'm pretty sure other servers had similar idiots).

I don't have anything against leveling up or EXP gain per se. The reason why I'm against it now is because it's impossible to implement it in a way that's fun and challenging to people with an IQ larger than their shoe size without making it inaccessible to the masses. It just doesn't work. And, as I also mentioned before, because anything EXP-related they add now will not affect a majority of the population.

These are the facts. Anything after that is up for interpretation. Like the claims that the EXP system was what turned old players off this new game, which I find completely ridiculous, but I have no way to disprove it, so I won't bother. I'm just pointing out that that's your take on it, not a fact.

Or your opinion that old people liked EXP and that was the reason why they stuck around. Not everyone was aversed to FFXI like you were. On the other hand, it's a fact that EXP was a minor part of FFXI. And I'm not talking subjectively. Sure, for you it may have been big, but objectively compared with how much content there was aside from it, it still took up a very minor part. There were missions (which is a very broad category, and some say playing through CoP was one of the defining features of their FFXI experience), quests, crafting, Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar, sea, sky, HNMs, Assaults, Nyzul, Salvage, Campaign, xNMs (which includes a massive variety of battlefields, BCNMs, KSNMs, ENMs, SCNMs, ANNMs and ZNMs being the ones I can think of) and even Ballista and random wandering around hunting for minor NMs (like LL, Goblintrap, Argus, etc.). This game was full of content that did not relate to EXP in any way. Even back then there were quite a few people who got by without EXPing at all, which alone proves how insignificant it could be to some people.

So to sum up, some objective facts:
EXP was a minor part of the game (see above), even more so now (above + Abyssea, Voidwatch, Meeble Burrows, Nyzul Isle Uncharted, Legion, new Einherjar/Limbus, soon new Salvage)
EXP was repetitive content (little variety in mobs and even in camps after Level Sync was introduced)
EXP was not challenging (easy targets were chosen, no annoying TP moves, no area effects, no screwing with enmity, no weird status effects, nothing to prepare for endgame)
EXP was tedious (finding camps and getting there) and time consuming (could take months to get to 75)
EXP was difficult to set up (finding working job combinations, hoping enough people were even lfp) and sometimes excluded certain jobs entirely (BLM, SMN, PUP and BST were all favorites of not getting picked)
EXP formed bonds, some friends were made through it since you were in a party for several hours
EXP caused drama and frustration because of stupid players, lack of combined skill resulting in wipes and/or camp competition

I understand that there's people who have no problem with these things and can, in fact, embrace them. Especially the second-to-last point seems to appeal to certain people so much that they use it as the backbone for their entire argument (all the claims that fast EXP ruined the community and linkshells stem from this point). However, most of these points were of a negative nature, and I don't see how anyone can rationally defend them.

Saying you miss them is perfectly fine. Saying you want them back also. Saying that most people liked it and that it's the reason people quit and the game is dying is wishful thinking on your part.

[Ceinwyn]

This debate is so pointless so I'll keep it short!
I forecast this:
SE is bored of this game, this is clear!
The uptades and the team put on the game are/is and will stay at a rock-bottom level to keep it barely alive!
New Expansion will be downloadable and offer minimal content, oh and it's relase will be delayed to 2014!
They shit on the economy of the world and encourage speed-lvling because it's easy mode
and probably most do like EASY-MODE!
They know the game will suffer and that they can't keep up with the content since everyone is 99 in a day
but they just don't care because it doesn't matter at all.
People will move on to FFXIV anyway, old players will go there anyway and new ones also if they are done with maxing all their jobs, thx to speedlvling yeah! and have finished or are bored of the poor endgame content what is all the game has left now, we're genius!!!
So let's hope ffxiv will be any good my fellow players because i don't belive in this game anymore.
I really recommend everyone to move on to something else and leave the actual poor playerbase alone and let em enjoy their left time we had ours i guess (: ,
with the release of FFXIV: A realm reborn. This game will take another serious drop on poulation and because of that mister, accompanied by other factors, I'm pretty sure it will go to hell.

[wildsprite]

I think you will find that quite a lot of FFXI players wont touch FFXIV, many will, but not enough so they will need new players in order to make up for that, don't expect FFXIV:ARR to make that big of a difference just because you are excited about it. the reason the original failed was many factors, the biggest of which it made many of the systems it ran on choke, if ARR doesn't alleviate this problem it will not replace FFXI because the simple fact is FFXI runs on older systems and many people with those older systems cannot afford to upgrade to one that will handle XIV as it was properly, we shall see if ARR fixes that, I'm not going to hold my breath though

[Eyeballed]

I absolutely agree with everything you said. It's bullshit that a majority of players despised the backbone of its content. Only EXP is not that backbone. It was an experience that introduced the game to the players. For about the first 10 levels. After that it was endless repetition until 75. It was not essential, it was not crucial. If the game started at 50 back when it was released, and if they autocapped everyone to 75 when the cap was increased, it still would have been a great game and would have had everything that most people loved about it.

Without getting too much into the semantics of relating anatomy with a game, in a game where you actually do not begin the game at cap, the mere requirement of players to (ad)venture out and gain levels one by one to support the subsequent requirements of those skills gained in the process sounds more like the backbone than anything else. That's the way I see it; You may not agree.

On the other hand, if your biggest gripe and defense is that grinding was simply too boring for your tastes, I have something else to say. There are things in life nobody really likes doing. We don't like doing them because we feel, personally, they're not necessary or shouldn't apply to us because we're special.

But also, as with many aspects of life, rarely do you get to enjoy the just rewards of anything before putting in some work. And what is work? - a pain in the ass. I'm sorry you don't like your job because the idiots around you hold the group back. I'm sorry you can't enjoy your job as much as I enjoy mine.

Yet, you seem to think that life is primarily about rewards. Let me say this: Rewards do not exist properly without the struggle. Without dinner there is no dessert. Simple logic.

[FrankReynolds]

As soon as they added monsters and events that could only be beat by level capped groups of characters, leveling your character became a means to an end and until they remove all level capped content, it will always be so.

You can add whatever twists you want on the debate, but the fact of the matter is that the old methods of leveling are still present. The people who enjoy them are not. Removing all the new fast methods of exping will not make all the old people come back and exp with you. They are gone. Or to be more accurate... They are still here, but they don't want to do that anymore. You can't force people to be your friend and do stuff with you.

[Arcon]

Yet, you seem to think that life is primarily about rewards. Let me say this: Rewards do not exist properly without the struggle. Without dinner there is no dessert. Simple logic.

The current state of the game disagrees with you. Now we have dessert without dinner. So it is possible. Although it's an oddly phrased metaphor, as dinner is normally also delicious. And unlike EXP, it's also essential. EXP gave nothing relevant to FFXI except raise your level. The "journey" as you call it is a sham. It's not a hike across a mountain in the beautiful countryside, but slowly dragging through big city sewers. Sure, at the end you're relieved. But it was a voyage of pain and despair and gave you nothing but exotic diseases.

Games are precisely there to not be bound by real life restrictions. It's like saying you shouldn't be able to start up Mario Party until you read through the entire manual and have a written exam on it, because it prepares you for the game. "You must first endure torture to have fun" is not a good game mentality. I understand that some people were drawn to it, and that's good for them, but not good for everyone else. This is good for everyone else.

[Eyeballed]

The current state of the game disagrees with you. Now we have dessert without dinner. So it is possible. Although it's an oddly phrased metaphor, as dinner is normally also delicious. And unlike EXP, it's also essential. EXP gave nothing relevant to FFXI except raise your level. The "journey" as you call it is a sham. It's not a hike across a mountain in the beautiful countryside, but slowly dragging through big city sewers. Sure, at the end you're relieved. But it was a voyage of pain and despair and gave you nothing but exotic diseases.

Games are precisely there to not be bound by real life restrictions. It's like saying you shouldn't be able to start up Mario Party until you read through the entire manual and have a written exam on it, because it prepares you for the game. "You must first endure torture to have fun" is not a good game mentality. I understand that some people were drawn to it, and that's good for them, but not good for everyone else. This is good for everyone else.

Way to take some sound wisdom out of context to loosely support your argument. Simply put, I believe, you're not willing to put in the work for your rewards and only want to eat your cake and have it too just because in a perfect world, (your world), that's the way things would work out best. Not to worry though, it looks like SE and most developers are on your side, and the overall interest in new MMO's reflects it.

And in case you're wondering, I concur: Neither developers nor yourself have any idea what you're doing to the genre.

[Prrsha]

The current state of the game disagrees with you. Now we have dessert without dinner. So it is possible. Although it's an oddly phrased metaphor, as dinner is normally also delicious. And unlike EXP, it's also essential. EXP gave nothing relevant to FFXI except raise your level. The "journey" as you call it is a sham. It's not a hike across a mountain in the beautiful countryside, but slowly dragging through big city sewers. Sure, at the end you're relieved. But it was a voyage of pain and despair and gave you nothing but exotic diseases.

Games are precisely there to not be bound by real life restrictions. It's like saying you shouldn't be able to start up Mario Party until you read through the entire manual and have a written exam on it, because it prepares you for the game. "You must first endure torture to have fun" is not a good game mentality. I understand that some people were drawn to it, and that's good for them, but not good for everyone else. This is good for everyone else.

The missed fact most people don't see is that the Final Fantasy franchise is NOT Mario Party, Halo or Half-life. It is Final Fantasy. It is a distinct genre of a level based progression system, where time and battles = exp and exp is seen as a reward. If you take out that equation, it is just not Final Fantasy anymore. You have a different kind of game. SE owns alot of franchises. They own the rights to many games, with play styles like the before mentioned games. If they wish to make clones of them, shouldn't they make a new titled game to appeal to those masses insteads of destroying a nitche franchise game that has been a hallmark of Square?

If you play a FF# game, expect the following: experience points, gear progression, ability progression and time sinks. All of those wrapped up in an engrossing storyline. If you want to play a game like Half-life, I am sure there are many others out there that will suit your needs. This is just an example of a company trying to pander to waaaay too many different backbone playstyles at once (instead of its nitch) and losing its core design in the process. It's like Disney trying to make petroleum instead of animated movies.

In sort they messed up a good thing. Now they are in damage control mode and asking a skewed ratio of customers what they want in the game. It's like the blind leading the blind now... and I can't blame them. Most of the people that designed FFXI and it's expansions have moved on to other companies (citing complaints of restrictions of their creative freedom in the design process).

[Mirage]

Because grinding for gear doesn't count as "put in work for your rewards". Are you serious?

[Prrsha]

I've been thinking of deleting my character and washing my hands of MMO's, but I read on the XIV forums that a group of them started again at Phoenix. Are you part of that group? Entertaining the idea of hopping over.

I'm working on it but I am trying to get many of my old friends to form the backbone of this group. Like I said above, the game mechanics don't really reward teamwork like they did in the "old days" so it's a hard sell to win them back to the game. So far I have around 20+ intrested people. When the number gets to around 50 or so, I plan to launch it with some full time leaders so the shell grows quick in a short amount of time (thus will have alot of staying power). I lead MP for 5+ years and it still endures today but RPing LSes are a thing of the past sadly.

Once everything is hammered out (the site, gameplay rules and staff) I plan to launch it around Feb. We have been tossing around ideas for names for the LS, so far none have stuck per say. The rules have already been drafted up and I have been slowly collecting people looking for shells like this on the ala boards and such. If people are going to vest time and money into such an idea, I want it to be a success, so I am proceeding slowly.

My e-mail is Prrsha@hotmail.com if you ever wish to contact me (or any other like minded people who wish to play FFXI in the six party dynamic). Some baseline rules are doing old content at the level cap it was intended to be done at. I have several characters at certain levels just for synching purposes (as do many other members) so yeah, the framework is there. We just need a large tally so there will be enough people on at all time zones so people can find friends and statics to form 6 man PTs with.

Also the LS will heavly focus on mentoring new players and keeping them in game. We will have a few set players just patrolling starting areas looking for new blood. We want FFXI to succeed as well as everyone else does and for that to happen, it needs new player retention.

[Prrsha]

Because grinding for gear doesn't count as "put in work for your rewards". Are you serious?

Oh it does, I just find it odd that Acron finds exping and obtaining gear not one in the same time sink.

[Byrth]

ToAU-ish Level 75 events:
Sky - Farm pops, pop gods with pretty simple AI, kill gods, get gear.
Sea - Farm pops, pop jailers with unique AI, kill jailers, get gear.
EXP - Fight monsters for RL weeks, eventually obtain level 75
Ground - Bot harder than the next LS, fight an easy battle (for anyone who can count to potato), get gear.
Einherjar - Clear mini-dungeons with unique bosses, clear boss dungeon, get gear.
Buffering - Fight the same monsters for short bursts, continue being 75
Nyzul Isle - Climb down/up the randomly generated dungeon floors, clear boss fight, get gear.
Salvage - Clear unique dungeon, kill NMs, kill boss, get gear.
Meriting - Fight the same monsters for RL weeks, eventually cap merits
Assault - Fulfill unique objectives, clear dungeon, get gear.
Dynamis - Coordinate an 18+ man alliance to clear challenging dungeons, get gear.

Can you spot the difference? I'll give you a hint. Three of the listed events are actually just boring grinds put into the game due to cover for the lack of other endgame content.

[Mirage]

Oh it does, I just find it odd that Acron finds exping and obtaining gear not one in the same time sink.

Probably because it is less repetitive, and actually starts to touch that part of the game where you need to know what you're doing. Considering it is pretty different from how you played during exp, and that you'll be doing it for a longer time, the knowledge and skills you acquire here are actually useful.

[Caketime]

Treating an NM like a Pinata until the particular piece of candy you want comes out is not any less repetitive than stabbing crustaceans for experience points over and over again. I don't think it helps anyone learn anything either, other than spawn conditions.

[Prrsha]

ToAU-ish Level 75 events:
Sky - Farm pops, pop gods with pretty simple AI, kill gods, get gear.
Sea - Farm pops, pop jailers with unique AI, kill jailers, get gear.
EXP - Fight monsters for RL weeks, eventually obtain level 75
Ground - Bot harder than the next LS, fight an easy battle (for anyone who can count to potato), get gear.
Einherjar - Clear mini-dungeons with unique bosses, clear boss dungeon, get gear.
Buffering - Fight the same monsters for short bursts, continue being 75
Nyzul Isle - Climb down/up the randomly generated dungeon floors, clear boss fight, get gear.
Salvage - Clear unique dungeon, kill NMs, kill boss, get gear.
Meriting - Fight the same monsters for RL weeks, eventually cap merits
Assault - Fulfill unique objectives, clear dungeon, get gear.
Dynamis - Coordinate an 18+ man alliance to clear challenging dungeons, get gear.

Can you spot the difference? I'll give you a hint. Three of the listed events are actually just boring grinds put into the game due to cover for the lack of other endgame content.

Exactly my point. SE needs to add low-mid level content so the climb to 75 (end game) is not just the primary focus for new players.

Again this link is really relevant: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

FFXI has turned into a "FOO"fest and exping right now is a primary example it.

If the dev thinks the exp system is just an afterthought in the FF universe then like I said, it is best to leave FFXI as the golden game it was and make a different "vision" of a new MMO (I am speaking in terms of backbone game design) in another game.

Respect FFXI as the game it was designed to be and leave it as a game in the "Golden Era" in the series that is called Final Fantasy. If you want the "future" of a MMO make a new game in SE's so called "modern era" (FF14). (They named and placed games in eras not me) :P

[Mirage]

Lv75 is midgame :)

[Prrsha]

Lv75 is midgame :)

Midgame currently but not in past... but yeah I get your joke. XD

I was speaking in terms of the void that existed of things to do before the level cap was raised... problems that still exist now. Sure there is garrison, ecowarrior and expeditionary force but like another poster pointed out they were a bit flawed. You always needed a clearer in most of them of higher level (which really didn't get to participate in the event itself).

Frankly speaking, I'd like SE just to add a simple option for now. A choice to cap CoP areas when you enter them or not. It would make doing them the old way easier for those players who wish more of a challenge. A simple toggle switch wouldn't be too hard to code, I wouldn't think. That way players of both mindset could have a choice, not be forced to do so. Synching down is a pain in the but right now. You always need a puppet character needed of that level.

Another thing that needs addressing asap for new player retention is the placement of level 80 mobs in areas 1 or 2 zones from starting towns. It makes doing low level quests a royal pain in the butt for new people. Why there are bats that can slaughter the entire town of Bastok, a zone a way (where the NPCs mine) is just silly.

[Mirage]

Well, it makes no sense to refer to what was midgame in 2006 when it currently is 2012, just like you wouldn't call level 25-30 midgame when the level cap was 75, even if it was midgame when the cap was 50.

Actually, when you're about lv 60(and that is most certainly midgame), there is a lot of stuff you can actually do without raising your level even further. You can start doing your AF quests, for example, which offer somewhat interesting storylines in some cases. You can quest a lot of scrolls, you can do a lot of missions without needing help, and you can probably get past all the promyvions. You can unlock a lot of the advanced jobs as well.

It's not the game's fault that people wait until they are level 99 before they start doing these things. People just usually do it when they've hit the cap because it's easier.

[Prrsha]

Well, it makes no sense to refer to what was midgame in 2006 when it currently is 2012, just like you wouldn't call level 25-30 midgame when the level cap was 75, even if it was midgame when the cap was 50.

Actually, when you're about lv 60(and that is most certainly midgame), there is a lot of stuff you can actually do without raising your level even further. You can start doing your AF quests, for example, which offer somewhat interesting storylines in some cases. You can quest a lot of scrolls, you can do a lot of missions without needing help, and you can probably get past all the promyvions. You can unlock a lot of the advanced jobs as well.

It's not the game's fault that people wait until they are level 99 before they start doing these things. People just usually do it when they've hit the cap because it's easier.

It seems the pervailing thought on the forums and by the dev's post (no offense to him) but he's claiming that people need to get to 99 faster so they can have "fun" with other players in FFXI. While there are things to do on the way, none of them compare in quality to end game content (in most people's mind).

When a developer makes that bold a statement, it's very hard to read what he thinks the playerbase is thinking as a whole. I can tell you from years of experience of mentoring however, unless you get a player somehow involved in group activities early on, they feel the game is out of touch to them... that anything worth doing is only achieved at level cap.

What I am proposing is more activites for lower level players so they don't feel the need to be level 99 in order to have fun with their friends. I mentioned some examples in eariler posts. Current low level content is outdated reward wise however and needs a major overhaul and vast changes in game play. It is key to new player retention and doesn't force this attitude that people need to get to level 99 quicker or they will leave the game.

[Eyeballed]

Can you spot the difference? I'll give you a hint. Three of the listed events are actually just boring grinds put into the game due to cover for the lack of other endgame content.

And what when the grind doesn't exist at all, as Arcon would have it? What when you can cap a job in 1-2 days if you put enough effort in? Do you think developers casually create lasting endgame content and toss it into the game on a whim? No, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. There has to be a way to buffer the time between, or what you get is a whole lot of players standing around after a month shouting, "OK guys, I'm all done! What's next? Guys? GUYS?!?!"

*cricket*

.....

-log out-

[Chocobits]

And what when the grind doesn't exist at all, as Arcon would have it? What when you can cap a job in 1-2 days if you put enough effort in? Do you think developers casually create lasting endgame content and toss it into the game on a whim? No, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. There has to be a way to buffer the time between, or what you get is a whole lot of players standing around after a month shouting, "OK guys, I'm all done! What's next? Guys? GUYS?!?!"

*cricket*

.....

-log out-

For a new player or several years ago.. as far as XP grinds go, everyone has already leveled the jobs they are going to level, and that is true whether Abyssea exists or not.. all Abyssea has done is allow people to experiment with other high level jobs and add versatility and something to play around on. If not for Abyssea, people would've continued leveling solo or endgame friendly jobs at a snail's pace and not given a 2nd thought to jobs they might otherwise enjoy playing if not for the hassle of leveling.

So they'd all still be twiddling their thumbs with really nothing to do. Abyssea gave us more jobs to burn, combat/magic skills to skillup and subsequently more jobs to gear up. Fast leveling up multiple jobs = we were kept MUCH busier than we otherwise would have been, and SE was brilliant for giving us those tools.

Not that you're responding to me anyway, because you're just looking for a pseudo-intellectual "debate" and not really looking to evaluate the merits of anything anyone else has to say. What did your forum name used to be btw? I remember arguing this exact same point with someone of your... mental nature, but under a different name. And the same thing keeps being explained and it seems like the neurons WANT to fire but there's a short somewhere that disallows the connection to happen that lets you "get it", process and file it under "understood" and move on.

[Eyeballed]

Last two posts directed toward Eyeballed...

The reason I didn't reply to your previous post is because wall-o' text is a big turn-off. Only motivational speakers and politicians need that much dialogue to get their point across. Intellectuals armed with common sense know it's better to use exactly what you need to get the job done and no more, as it just makes you look desperate to find a solution otherwise.

As the one-and-only cat called Eyeballed, I reserve the right not to respond to you. Sorry to burst your bubble. Unless you care to summarize and continue, by all means, take that as a "you got me!" submission.

On the contrary, the only thing that's been explained is that grinding is boring in the eventual case you finally got an invite. I get that. I get you're lazy and don't disagree.

[ScreamingInDigital]

It's not the game's fault that people wait until they are level 99 before they start doing these things. People just usually do it when they've hit the cap because it's easier.

It's not the game's fault, for sure. It's the players' fault, because the advice being given to brand-new players who come in hoping to experience this amazing game they've seen people raving about for years is "just power-level to 99 and then solo it all".

I came back to the game recently from a break of ~2 years - probably longer. The change in the community overall (with exceptions) is amazing to me - and not in a good way. Veteran players have become so incredibly jaded and cynical about this game now that it's actually sad to see. I can not fathom what keeps some of them around.

I mean, if people who have "been there and done that" feel that the game has nothing more for them, except waiting for SE to toss them their next bone of end-game content and gear, that's one thing. That's on them.

But I can not stand it to see these same people passing that cynicism on to brand-new players coming in, with 10 years worth of quality content ahead of them - awesome storylines, cut-scenes, characters, dialog, events, challenges, and on and on... all that stuff that we went through and got to experience. All of that is still there. It doesn't cease to exist just because you've ("you" in general) finished it.

I mean, I read other forums, and I see it time and again. Someone new comes in eagerly and excitedly looking for people to group up with on their own journey through the game. Without fail, they're told, "Don't bother. FFXI now is all about the end-game. All that content now is obsolete and none of it matters anymore. Just get to 99 and solo it all if you want".

I've seen variations on that exact "advice" given to new players. I mean, really? Just because you (ditto) have seen and done it all and are disenchanted with the game, don't dump all over the experience for a new player.

"Well, the low levels are dead because everyone power-levels to end-game now". You know why everyone power-levels to end-game now? Because the veterans who "know the game best" are telling new players "hey, don't bother with doing low level content, just power level to 99". Go figure, huh? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's in the same vein as new players coming up through the Dunes who would insist that it was impossible to get through them without a power-leveler. I had that debate many times with people who insisted it couldn't be done. Why did they think that? Because when they started playing they saw a bunch of people in the Dunes with Power-Levelers turning the game into 10 levels of whack-a-mole. That's what new players saw, that's what they experienced, that's how they learned the game. Dunes for them became "Get a power-leveler or it's impossible". The idea that they simply should not be fighting mobs 8 levels higher than themselves never occurred to them.

And now it's happening with bitter, jaded and cynical Vets passing their "wisdom" on to new players by telling them that the low level content is out-dated and doesn't matter. For a brand-new player it's not out-dated at all. The stories are still just as great. The cut-scenes are still just as awesome. The fights could still be just as challenging and satisfying to complete. Why the hell would you want to discourage people from experiencing the game we all got to experience on our way up? Just because "you're past all that now and it doesn't matter to you anymore"?

Seriously... If you (again, ditto) are so cynical and so caught up in your own negativity about the game that you can't even think back to how awesome it was to experience all those things on your way up as a new player, then please... don't give new players "advice". Don't gyp them of an awesome MMORPG experience by advising them to hardly experience it at all.

[Arcon]

Oh it does, I just find it odd that Acron finds exping and obtaining gear not one in the same time sink.


Way to take some sound wisdom out of context to loosely support your argument. Simply put, I believe, you're not willing to put in the work for your rewards and only want to eat your cake and have it too just because in a perfect world, (your world), that's the way things would work out best.

I actually very much disagree with that. I told you before, the only problem I had with EXP was that it was boring, and nothing else. I don't mind grinds in themselves. There can be fun grinds, when there's a challenge involved. I didn't mind waiting months for an Arise scroll, because doing Legion was fun, it required a lot of skill and coordination of 18 people. Even in the old days, I didn't mind waiting a few years to cap out on AF2 from Dynamis, something that many people took heavy issue with, because it was fun to me. That was tough, and I endured and got a reward for it. EXP is not tough, it is just waiting. You do nothing for a few weeks and you're 75. Now you do nothing for a few days and you're 99. The less nothing you're doing, the better.


And in case you're wondering, I concur: Neither developers nor yourself have any idea what you're doing to the genre.


If you play a FF# game, expect the following: experience points, gear progression, ability progression and time sinks.

You're obviously not a FF fan, because that statement is untrue for the same reason Eyeballed's previous statement is untrue: FF games don't follow a formula. Sure, there's always some Cid and Chocobos, and Shiva and Ifrit are always involved somehow, but that's it. There have been FF games without levels at all.

And here's the thing, even if it did, who cares? You can't judge a game by its genre. A game is not good or bad depending on the genre. So what if it's not a traditional D&D style RPG? Does that mean it can't still have RPG elements that people are attracted to?


Treating an NM like a Pinata until the particular piece of candy you want comes out is not any less repetitive than stabbing crustaceans for experience points over and over again. I don't think it helps anyone learn anything either, other than spawn conditions.

Repetitive is not necessarily boring, if it's a challenge, or some sort of excitement involved. This is why I don't randomly bash pro-EXP people, because excitement can be subjective. Maybe you really enjoy these pointless boring fights? Who knows. It sounds strange to me, just as it sounds strange to most people that I enjoyed camping NMs. Personal differences. Only I know when I'm being subjective, and I know that objectively camping NMs (or at least HNMs) was a shitfest. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and if I was a game designer I sure as hell wouldn't implement it. Same goes for massive EXP grinds like FFXI had in the past.


Exactly my point. SE needs to add low-mid level content so the climb to 75 (end game) is not just the primary focus for new players.


When a developer makes that bold a statement, it's very hard to read what he thinks the playerbase is thinking as a whole. I can tell you from years of experience of mentoring however, unless you get a player somehow involved in group activities early on, they feel the game is out of touch to them... that anything worth doing is only achieved at level cap.

You can still do that. We get new players in our shell about once a week, and they are involved very early on, namely once they reach 99, which is a few days in (tops). The relevance of 99 content isn't bad, as you make it out to be. It would be bad, if EXP was still horribly slow as it was back in the day. But these days, even 99 content is not out of reach to anyone, not even complete newbies. And once they enter Abyssea, they have the time of their lives in there, because it's extremely accessible to them. It's a very newbie-friendly event, and they get introduced to the game quickly.


And what when the grind doesn't exist at all, as Arcon would have it?

See above. Boring grinds and grinds are not the same. I've been doing Salvage almost daily for the better part of a year now. I enjoy it, because it's still challenging. Not in a "Will I make it?" kind of way, but in a "I can do this better!" way. I can constantly improve, cut corners, get better, push myself. Occasionally I link 20 mobs and have to handle them somehow in between keeping myself and my mule alive. It's a long grind, but it's not dumbed down and it's not pointless, unlike EXP, which pretty much gives the definition of dumbing down an event.

[Chocobits]

So, to summarize the last 10 pages or so of this thread:

Some people think everyone that power levels a job are lazy for not "doing their time" like a prison sentence and serving an arbitrary minimum term before they are let out on parole to join endgame.

Furthermore, they complain noisily when they can't find a bare minimum of people to do community service with them.

So, because they can't find anyone to help them pick up trash, they feel it should be mandated everywhere.

ITT: Having an aversion to boring repetitive "content" and choosing to skip it makes you lazy, and MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Repetitive Psychotic Grind.

[Prrsha]

Alot of stuff....

Basically what you are summing up, is that fun is subjective to the person. A time sink for one person might be fun for one and not another. I get that. What I would like are options not a mandate. More activities for low level players are a win in all areas. If you don't like the event don't do it and get the reward. Be it chocobo raising to leveling. What I am asking for are options for new player retention, not the same old quote "get to level 99 to first to have fun in a large scale event that requires teamwork"... sheesh.

[Prrsha]

It's not the game's fault, for sure. It's the players' fault, because the advice being given to brand-new players who come in hoping to experience this amazing game they've seen people raving about for years is "just power-level to 99 and then solo it all".

I came back to the game recently from a break of ~2 years - probably longer. The change in the community overall (with exceptions) is amazing to me - and not in a good way. Veteran players have become so incredibly jaded and cynical about this game now that it's actually sad to see. I can not fathom what keeps some of them around.

I mean, if people who have "been there and done that" feel that the game has nothing more for them, except waiting for SE to toss them their next bone of end-game content and gear, that's one thing. That's on them.

But I can not stand it to see these same people passing that cynicism on to brand-new players coming in, with 10 years worth of quality content ahead of them - awesome storylines, cut-scenes, characters, dialog, events, challenges, and on and on... all that stuff that we went through and got to experience. All of that is still there. It doesn't cease to exist just because you've ("you" in general) finished it.

I mean, I read other forums, and I see it time and again. Someone new comes in eagerly and excitedly looking for people to group up with on their own journey through the game. Without fail, they're told, "Don't bother. FFXI now is all about the end-game. All that content now is obsolete and none of it matters anymore. Just get to 99 and solo it all if you want".

I've seen variations on that exact "advice" given to new players. I mean, really? Just because you (ditto) have seen and done it all and are disenchanted with the game, don't dump all over the experience for a new player.

"Well, the low levels are dead because everyone power-levels to end-game now". You know why everyone power-levels to end-game now? Because the veterans who "know the game best" are telling new players "hey, don't bother with doing low level content, just power level to 99". Go figure, huh? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's in the same vein as new players coming up through the Dunes who would insist that it was impossible to get through them without a power-leveler. I had that debate many times with people who insisted it couldn't be done. Why did they think that? Because when they started playing they saw a bunch of people in the Dunes with Power-Levelers turning the game into 10 levels of whack-a-mole. That's what new players saw, that's what they experienced, that's how they learned the game. Dunes for them became "Get a power-leveler or it's impossible". The idea that they simply should not be fighting mobs 8 levels higher than themselves never occurred to them.

And now it's happening with bitter, jaded and cynical Vets passing their "wisdom" on to new players by telling them that the low level content is out-dated and doesn't matter. For a brand-new player it's not out-dated at all. The stories are still just as great. The cut-scenes are still just as awesome. The fights could still be just as challenging and satisfying to complete. Why the hell would you want to discourage people from experiencing the game we all got to experience on our way up? Just because "you're past all that now and it doesn't matter to you anymore"?

Seriously... If you (again, ditto) are so cynical and so caught up in your own negativity about the game that you can't even think back to how awesome it was to experience all those things on your way up as a new player, then please... don't give new players "advice". Don't gyp them of an awesome MMORPG experience by advising them to hardly experience it at all.

This summarizes it best. New players have yet to experience the Vanadiel that you did. Shouldn't they have an option to do so? Telling someone to get to the end of the game to have any fun in it, sort of discourages a newbee in general. Shouldn't there be a lead up to it? Something inbetween? There was... now that exp is full tilt forward (and the developer is considering making the progress faster) all of that old enjoyable content is lost once you get to level 99. Most of the starting city quests are low level quests and rewards. CoP is a joke at level 99. SE basically tossed out 75% of the existing content for new players. Argue what you will but for FFXI to survive you have to bring in new players and as it stands now, FFXI seems like a members-only club with the attitude of some of the people.

[Arcon]

More activities for low level players are a win in all areas.

No it's not, for two reasons. First, it discourages people who don't have any low level jobs anymore from participating. Second, it's time wasted catering to very few that could be spent fixing some of the gaping flaws this game has, including (but not by any means limited to) content.

Anything targeting mid levels is bad design choice, because it's only temporarily relevant, and only in a very short term. Once you're past the mid levels, you are done with it. Unless it's an amazing event that will match endgame expectations it will be an entirely forgettable experience, and why should development time be spent on that?


New players have yet to experience the Vanadiel that you did. Shouldn't they have an option to do so?

They do. Level Sync to 30 and do Promies. Level Sync to 40 and do Minotaur. Level Sync to 50 and do Ouryu. Level Sync to 60 do the Airship fight.

If you now say that they can't find any people to sync to them, then that alone illustrates the problem: if people don't want to voluntarily do something, your idea is to force them to? How the hell do you think that will make people happier?

If they want a challenge without Level Sync, just let them do Promies with one or two other people at 40. It's still a challenge then, quite tough for some jobs even. It's still there to experience. Of course it won't be quite the same as doing it with a full party at level 30, but that's because it's dated content, which is precisely why more problems would arise from uncapping it than it would fix. People have moved on since then, you can't shout anymore and hope to get a Promy party going. It's a lot tougher to find help with those, that was already the case at the end of the 75 era, and that alone was the reason why the cap was removed in the first place.


Telling someone to get to the end of the game to have any fun in it, sort of discourages a newbee in general.

It didn't discourage the many people I've taken into my shell recently. Three of them just started today, they're Lv.30 ish now (differs because they started at different times and independent of each other) and about to unlock their support jobs sometime soon. The other few people who joined just this week also don't seem to mind, and the ones who joined before neither. Your argument still relies on the idea that the difference between 1 and 99 is huge, but that's not the case. Leveling up comes easy, and it's precisely because of that that people are not intimidated by the statements that the game only really starts there.

[Eyeballed]

What she said.

Reducing the need for open-world one instance at a time. Spam-grinding out for that next gear just to get a little better. And for what? - to kill the next one in line just to get a little better. No adventure, no story, no need for anything but your epeen and glory.

[Eyeballed]

So, to summarize the last 10 pages or so of this thread:

Some people think everyone that power levels a job are lazy for not "doing their time" like a prison sentence and serving an arbitrary minimum term before they are let out on parole to join endgame.

Furthermore, they complain noisily when they can't find a bare minimum of people to do community service with them.

So, because they can't find anyone to help them pick up trash, they feel it should be mandated everywhere.

ITT: Having an aversion to boring repetitive "content" and choosing to skip it makes you lazy, and MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Repetitive Psychotic Grind.

No.

Until you can stop being cynical, don't expect a serious response. If all you've gathered from this side of the fence is what you've stated, then you're better off seeing yourself out of the discussion. Just a suggestion.

[Demon6324236]

Reducing the need for open-world one instance at a time. Spam-grinding out for that next gear just to get a little better. And for what? - to kill the next one in line just to get a little better. No adventure, no story, no need for anything but your epeen and glory.Sounds alot like xp, killing 1 crab to get a little stronger to kill another crab and so on, nothing really getting done along the way except more of the poor crab people dying at the hands of adventurers. Just to inform you though, Abyssea has a story, even if not great, VW has a story as well, SoA is sure to have a story, SoA sounds like exploration will be a big part, VW forces you to goto nearly every area in the game at some point for at least 1 fight. Xp parties had little exploration, it was the same camps, you went there, you killed things, you left, you didn't walk around for 3 hours with your party moving from place to play killing things for xp, you sat in a corner, had someone pull a nearby mob to it, and kill it, and kept doing that for hours.

At lower levels you had to get gear, use that gear for some time, and discard it in most cases because it became outdated and worthless. In todays game, any gear that is worth while will basically always be, it will over time be out done, but its never some trash gear, unless it was always trash gear. You talk of exploration, adventure, story, yet I remember none of this that existed being taken away really. The story is still there, I for the life of me can not recall a story part that involved my character magically becoming a weakling by compare to his normal abilities because he stepped into a certain area to fight a minotaur. I think exploration is encouraged when there is something to find which you do not know where it is, which means there isn't much in this game or many MMOs in my opinion, story does encourage it a bit with all the running around missions have you do.

I honestly do not see what this game lost that xp is gone other than the xp grind died, and the gear grind came to be, the advantage of the gear grind is many of my jobs can use the same gear, xp however is tied to a job. In the old days I could level up my RDM, but my DRK was lv1, now my DRK is 99, and if I ever finish leveling my DRG, it has alot of good gear to grow into as soon as it hits those levels.

[Byrth]

And what when the grind doesn't exist at all, as Arcon would have it? What when you can cap a job in 1-2 days if you put enough effort in? Do you think developers casually create lasting endgame content and toss it into the game on a whim? No, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. There has to be a way to buffer the time between, or what you get is a whole lot of players standing around after a month shouting, "OK guys, I'm all done! What's next? Guys? GUYS?!?!"

*cricket*

.....

-log out-

Old-style EXP is a boring event that's basically just using the battle system to kill monsters, because the game had a battle system on release so that's something they could make people do. Now that we have 10 years of content releases behind us, I'd hope that you can find something to do that isn't repetitively killing crabs.

[Caketime]

Repetitive is not necessarily boring, if it's a challenge, or some sort of excitement involved. This is why I don't randomly bash pro-EXP people, because excitement can be subjective. Maybe you really enjoy these pointless boring fights? Who knows. It sounds strange to me, just as it sounds strange to most people that I enjoyed camping NMs. Personal differences. Only I know when I'm being subjective, and I know that objectively camping NMs (or at least HNMs) was a shitfest. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and if I was a game designer I sure as hell wouldn't implement it. Same goes for massive EXP grinds like FFXI had in the past.

Are you drunk again? I never said any of these things and I'm not sure why you insist on trying to imply that I randomly attack people and that I enjoy repetitive gameplay for the sake of opposing others on the internet.

[Arcon]

Are you drunk again? I never said any of these things and I'm not sure why you insist on trying to imply that I randomly attack people and that I enjoy repetitive gameplay for the sake of opposing others on the internet.

I wasn't talking to you.

[vienne]

i dont agree with you arc :p but you already know that... and you also know that there are more people like me who think the old exp way was more fun then book burning or aby burning. this discussion is pointless. SE has taken a turn with abyssea and there's no way they can change it back to the old days, although i preferred it more then the way the game is played now. the thing which annoys me the most about the new exp way is that lvl 99 players who burned their jobs ask the dumbest questions about job and game mechanics in general (and yes i know i also ask stupid questions :) ) and imo they have less understanding bout the game then someone who has "grinded" his way to 99.
But yes we've crossed a line and there's no going back so better make the best of it and hope SE gives us some more challenging content in the future.

[Mirage]

Stuff
It is just unrealistic to expect lots of people to want to do level capped promyvions with new players that they don't know. It took ages to put together promy parties even back when I first did them, years before the level cap was increased, and that was while lots of people still needed to clear them. In today's game, it would take even longer, and probably put people off even more than just soloing it themselves. I hate to point this out, but I think you're looking at the old game through rose-tinted glasses.

The old level capped fights were cool and exciting when you actually did them, but the wait you had to often go through before you could actually fight was really, really annoying and boring. While I tell new players that they would probably need to solo the earlier group content, I also tell them that they can start doing this way before reaching the level cap. A level 50 character could probably beat the promyvions solo if he really wanted, and I actually do encourage them to try. If it's too hard for them, they can just try again a few levels higher.

You can't force old players who have done everything multiple times to help new players that they don't even know. That would just piss them off even more. The main problem in today's game for new players is simply that S-E went about with the increased leveling speed in an annoyingly repetitive and boring way (amass buffs in dungeons, lose them all if zoning = stay in the same area forever because you're whipped across your ball sack if you want to try out a different area).

The low-man leveling process could have been made a lot smoother and exciting if S-E just put a bit more thought into it, without it having turned out any slower. Additionally, there is a severe lack of low-level gear because there are so few low level players around and because we only have 7 AH slots. Selling low level gear is simply too expensive, because it occupies AH slots that could have been used on selling gear that is 10 times as profitable. As a counter to this problem, SE has done just about nothing at all. Because the current most efficient non-abyssea leveling method does not give people conquest points, they are also unable to use CP on gear to make up for the lack of player sold gear. Without decent gear, players are again stuck with killing EP mobs, because they at EM will start to notice how terrible their gear is, and get their asses handed to them.

[FrankReynolds]

You can talk and talk and talk. It will never change the facts. The old low/mid-level content is all still there. If you can't get people to do it, they either don't like you or they don't like the content. I think it's a little of both at this point.

[Eyeballed]

Sounds alot like xp, killing 1 crab to get a little stronger to kill another crab and so on, nothing really getting done along the way except more of the poor crab people dying at the hands of adventurers.

...And that's the real kicker: This new mindless grind is your endgame. It's all you have to look forward to, but as I've said before, for some reason the lot of you embrace it as something new simply because you're not going to a particular point on the map and killing the same mobs over and over again to progress. It's different! Gotcha!

[Caketime]

I wasn't talking to you.

Yet you quoted me, and even posed a question related to what I mentioned. Herp.

[FrankReynolds]

...And that's the real kicker: This new mindless grind is your endgame. It's all you have to look forward to, but as I've said before, for some reason the lot of you embrace it as something new simply because you're not going to a particular point on the map and killing the same mobs over and over again to progress. It's different! Gotcha!

It's different in that you get to use all the abilities that your job has to offer and the strategies that come with that, versus using a limited set of abilities and strategies for no reason other than to have limits.

[Demon6324236]

...And that's the real kicker: This new mindless grind is your endgame. It's all you have to look forward to, but as I've said before, for some reason the lot of you embrace it as something new simply because you're not going to a particular point on the map and killing the same mobs over and over again to progress. It's different! Gotcha!Wait, is it the same, or different? I cant help but read that in a sarcastic tone, if its not different, then why are you complaining in the 1st place?

[Ceinwyn]

She says endgame content is boring. Even so u say level grind was boring ure endgame content isnt any better to us.
However, game missses diversity and low,mid lv content for people who enjoy it what shouldnt be the case.

[Demon6324236]

Heres the thing, if its not different, then why is this boring, and leveling was fun? Honestly, I doubt either of you tried everything the current game has to offer, and then thought it was boring and terrible. Do some parts suck? Yes, VW is a terribly annoying event for instance even though it is one of the most popular, a while back someone even pointed out that at least in xp parties you always made progress for your kills unlike luck based drops where people can get screwed many times back to back with no progress made at all. My point to you both is this, the game was a grind, and is still a grind, its not really changed much except what your obtaining in return. It used to be a grind for points which made it so you could go to a different corner to fight different mobs, now its different gear so you can fight more effectively against the NMs your spamming for more gear. Both are highly similar, yet have their differences. As I said, I doubt either of you have actually went deep into current endgame then thought it was so terribly boring by compare to old parties. If you did, then fine, you don't like it, I wont say its perfect, its far from it, but I don't want people changing it because 1/100th of the people playing want it changed to effect everyone in a way they don't want.

[Prrsha]

No it's not, for two reasons. First, it discourages people who don't have any low level jobs anymore from participating. Second, it's time wasted catering to very few that could be spent fixing some of the gaping flaws this game has, including (but not by any means limited to) content.

They do. Level Sync to 30 and do Promies. Level Sync to 40 and do Minotaur. Level Sync to 50 and do Ouryu. Level Sync to 60 do the Airship fight.

If you now say that they can't find any people to sync to them, then that alone illustrates the problem: if people don't want to voluntarily do something, your idea is to force them to? How the hell do you think that will make people happier?

If they want a challenge without Level Sync, just let them do Promies with one or two other people at 40. It's still a challenge then, quite tough for some jobs even. It's still there to experience. Of course it won't be quite the same as doing it with a full party at level 30, but that's because it's dated content, which is precisely why more problems would arise from uncapping it than it would fix. People have moved on since then, you can't shout anymore and hope to get a Promy party going. It's a lot tougher to find help with those, that was already the case at the end of the 75 era, and that alone was the reason why the cap was removed in the first place.



It didn't discourage the many people I've taken into my shell recently. Three of them just started today, they're Lv.30 ish now (differs because they started at different times and independent of each other) and about to unlock their support jobs sometime soon. The other few people who joined just this week also don't seem to mind, and the ones who joined before neither. Your argument still relies on the idea that the difference between 1 and 99 is huge, but that's not the case. Leveling up comes easy, and it's precisely because of that that people are not intimidated by the statements that the game only really starts there.

Your arguements fall short as I have already said in other posts that lvl synching just to do promies the old way is a pain. You need a puppet character... of that EXACT level to synch down to. Sure I can find people that are level 41 or 44 but EXACTLY 40? That's asking alot. Do you really think a newbee has thought all of that through before accidently leveling their job above the CoP norm? No. All I am asking for is an option for players to choose a cap or not. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything by that. Limiting options of playstyles is short sided. While you might enjoy to solo CoP at 99 I have no problem with that. If it makes you happy go for it! But don't deny other players the oppertunity who may want to do things the old way, just for enjoyment's sake. Like I said, a simple patch reinstating the level cap as an OPTION wouldn't be too hard of an undertaking to code as the elements are already there.

As for your arguement about low level content, that falls short as well. Read my posts before before just posting the same stuff over and over again. The low level content should ALLOW high levels to take part in with a temp level cap however we all agree SE needs to rework the event concepts 1st along with gear storage.


Anything targeting mid levels is bad design choice, because it's only temporarily relevant, and only in a very short term. Once you're past the mid levels, you are done with it. Unless it's an amazing event that will match endgame expectations it will be an entirely forgettable experience, and why should development time be spent on that?

Why shouldn't be an amazing event? Because you say so? You made my entire point. The reason why grinding from level 10 to 75 was so "boring" as you say, because there was no content to do inbetween that offered exp like some large scale event like say a revamped besiged. If you have fun low level, large scale events, exping at low levels (working together with teammates)... like in Campaign or whathaveyou would be a blast. Instead, yes, you have the simple solo wack a mole strategy that you dislike (and others enjoy). My thoughts are to bring endgame events to lower levels but offer large exp rewards as well for them. Don't grease the rail to 99 with nothing of worth to do inbetween or you will (like I said before in many comments) toss 75% of the existing world of vanadiel out the window. No one will explore it, nor inhabit it.

You need to think outside of the box and not only think of yourself, but in the minds of new players coming to the game for the first time. This game NEEDS new player retention or, yes, it will die. I hope SE will opt to keep them in the game with engaging content instead of a "sit AFK in x location and reach level 99 by book burning to enjoy this game 1st".

[Mirage]

If someone new wants to experience CoP at the appropriate levels, why doesn't that person just keep one of his jobs at the appropriate levels until they are done with them?

[Prrsha]

If someone new wants to experience CoP at the appropriate levels, why doesn't that person just keep one of his jobs at the appropriate levels until they are done with them?

Because with the insanely fast exp system, it is hard to do so. If you have a job you'd like to try out at higher levels, it will be forever just be sitting there at level 40. That's why.

I do like to repeat older content again from time to time, and some people have already done CoP on easy mode and wish a wack at it on a harder setting. If they can't use their favorite job, it discourages them, plus you have to admit it makes organizing things a bit harder.

For example, I like to do the minotaur fight as BST. Since by BST is past that level, I really can't organize the event as my favorite job for it unless I can find someone else of that EXACT level, which is hard to do these days as people have powerleveled all of their jobs at least past 40.

[Mirage]

I'm not actually opposed to an optional level cap mode for things that are now uncapped, just for people who want to see how things used to be.

I can't imagine it being too hard to implement.

[Prrsha]

I'm not actually opposed to an optional level cap mode for things that are now uncapped, just for people who want to see how things used to be.

I can't imagine it being too hard to implement.

I agree with you. Like I said it should be an option not manditory. Like a choice when choosing which BCNM to enter.

[Byrth]

Yeah, or like Assaults. Remember when people ever used the level cap settings for assaults?

Okay, neither do I.

[FrankReynolds]

Yeah, or like Assaults. Remember when people ever used the level cap settings for assaults?

Okay, neither do I.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm fine with them putting that stuff in, but we have tried it in the past and no one does it.

[Mirage]

Oh I know. Add achievements and let level capped victories be required for some of them!

[Economizer]

The problem still stands that doing stuff at level cap takes away your job abilities and such that you exp'd and geared hard for (especially for those of us who worked for years getting the majority of the levels before it was easy and grinding out skill caps, or even just for those of us that have worked on getting capped skills and the best gear we can for 99 cap).

We're not EVER going back to recapping level capped fights, and nor should level capped fights have a better reward. Solo it at like level 40~50 like people suggested if you want a challenge, the fights often will give some experience anyways.

And if you really want to be able to redo the fights with a challenge, why not lobby SE to make something to the tune of remaking the fights at level 99 and requiring full parties to full alliances for better rewards. I even have a good idea for it - it could be about how one of the newspaper guys in Windurst is putting together a piece on how an adventurer saved the world from Promanthia, and would have bad parodies of the events that happened, with lots of player induced slang, along with fights that are "as people remembered them" meaning they're at 99 cap and much harder. The fights could then also give out prizes like a Chatoyant Obi quest, reobtainable Ducal Guard Rings, and the final fight in the thing could be against those evil Chebukki siblings who have been slandering the player.

[SpankWustler]

I even have a good idea for it - it could be about how one of the newspaper guys in Windurst is putting together a piece on how an adventurer saved the world from Promanthia, and would have bad parodies of the events that happened, with lots of player induced slang, along with fights that are "as people remembered them" meaning they're at 99 cap and much harder. The fights could then also give out prizes like a Chatoyant Obi quest, reobtainable Ducal Guard Rings, and the final fight in the thing could be against those evil Chebukki siblings who have been slandering the player.

This would be really awesome. I've always wanted "hard difficulty" versions of the story-line fights, since some of them contain unique monster.

[Demon6324236]

For example, I like to do the minotaur fight as BST. Since by BST is past that level, I really can't organize the event as my favorite job for it unless I can find someone else of that EXACT level, which is hard to do these days as people have powerleveled all of their jobs at least past 40.Could always use a mule too... Either as sync or to play on.

[Eyeballed]

Wait, is it the same, or different? I cant help but read that in a sarcastic tone, if its not different, then why are you complaining in the 1st place?

Just to clarify, sarcasm was intended. With regard to your question, two words: Open world. What would be the point/purpose in it?

[SpankWustler]

Just to clarify, sarcasm was intended. With regard to your question, two words: Open world. What would be the point/purpose in it?

Has anything in FFXI ever really made use of the open world, other than maybe Ixion and Sandworm that used it to better annoy the general populace?

Most camps for experience parties emulated instances as best as they could, because it was more efficient that way. They were stationary. They were in a part of the zone that had only one kind of monster, within one small level range. They were near a zone when possible, to provide a simple exit. They were in places specifically chosen for their lack of surprises, such as wandering Notorious Monsters.

People were out in the open world, technically, but everything that made a camp ideal for experience points also made fighting in that camp far less of an open world experience. It was an open world experience relative to Legion or making a huge sandwich while hiding in a Martello in Abyssea, but it still never felt like exploring the world to me. It was a long line of similar camps in sometimes similar-looking places fighting similar monsters.

Running around and killing stuff to complete a Fields of Valor page in today's FFXI can be more of an open world experience than many experience camps were, because at least a big chunk of the zone needs to be covered to get the one Weiner-Looking Worm a page might require along with its seven Bong-Water Pugils.

[Caketime]

Must...make...Dagwood!

[Eyeballed]

Has anything in FFXI ever really made use of the open world, other than maybe Ixion and Sandworm that used it to better annoy the general populace?

I'm sorry, but you're joking me right? Stationary is fine by me - it's the instance itself where I have no other contact with the outside "world" as long as I'm in it. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be secluded for 90% of my play experience. Square-Enix does about as much justice to the term "Massively Multiplayer" as the USA does to "Land of the free" these days.

Hell, while I'm literally playing FFXI I'm locked into an actual instance, and without getting into some real Matrix-type shit, I don't need that self-imposed seclusion capitalized on. Unfortunately, this game is (was) my social life, and that's just the reality for a lot of geeks. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Your last paragraph is fine in theory, but do you know who does FoV outside of soloers? Nobody. The game makes use of 2-3 caves before Abyssea. And even with that, you're far more likely to find that soloists will be found deep inside a cave somewhere pounding out GoV. Out of the light and out of sight where SE doesn't have to look at your sorry faces.

[SpankWustler]

I didn't think you were referring to "open world" in the social sense so I just addressed the literal open world, as in exploration and monster variety and stuff. Read as a response to something social, my post would totally seem like the weirdest response ever.

In regards to the social atmosphere, I'm apathetic. I play to spend time with my best friend, after we moved apart from each other, so I'm pretty indifferent to the general atmosphere. I don't pay enough attention to know how it was or how it is, or really care, or know how anybody else feels.

Don't worry, though. Somebody else will pop up who cares enough to keep this argument going until somebody else mentions "Beastmaster" in the same sentence as "Dynamis" and that argument gets a chance to start like a fire at an orphanage for the blind. Matsui will never know the true pain of reading these forums without being exposed to both of these...uh..."issues".

[Arcon]

Your arguements fall short as I have already said in other posts that lvl synching just to do promies the old way is a pain. You need a puppet character... of that EXACT level to synch down to. Sure I can find people that are level 41 or 44 but EXACTLY 40?

It matters absolutely nothing whether they're 40 or 41 or 44. That was my point, and I mentioned that. I said even if they're a bit higher and go with 5 instead of 6 they'll essentially have the same experience. Not entirely the same, but that's not possible anymore, even with a cap. See below.


All I am asking for is an option for players to choose a cap or not.

That's perfectly acceptable and I have no issue whatsoever with it. I thought previously that you wanted to cap it in general. It will be completely useless though, because no one will do it. Well, not entirely true, Lv.99 players who feel nostalgic may give it a shot with a few mates once every blue moon (real life blue moon, not FFXI blue moon), but certainly not many newbies.


As for your arguement about low level content, that falls short as well. Read my posts before before just posting the same stuff over and over again. The low level content should ALLOW high levels to take part in with a temp level cap however we all agree SE needs to rework the event concepts 1st along with gear storage.

And you read my post too, please. I chose my words carefully, I didn't say it would exclude high levels, I said it would discourage them. No one wants to voluntarily cap their character to do some low level event when they are at 99, except for the aforementioned nostalgia moments, which are few and far between. And why should they? Unless the event offers some rewards tailored to 99 players (which would be pointless for the newbies), no one would even bother looking at it (yes, I'm generalizing, there are a few people like you around, after all, but the vast majority wouldn't).


Why shouldn't be an amazing event? Because you say so? You made my entire point. The reason why grinding from level 10 to 75 was so "boring" as you say, because there was no content to do inbetween that offered exp like some large scale event like say a revamped besiged.

Because an amazing event requires lots of work and development time. So much so, that SE didn't release an amazing event in years. Yet you expect them to drop what they're doing and add something that only very few people want and others wouldn't even care for, even if they were at the appropriate level? And something that, given their track record in the field, would only turn out shitty in the end regardless?

How exactly do you imagine it to be implemented anyway? Tiers for every 10 levels? Offer EXP rewards worthwhile, which would replace old EXP completely? You realize that they'd have to tailor it differently to every 10 levels to even be classified as "possibly exciting"? If they did all of that, they'd have done what I suggested a few pages ago, namely make EXP diverse and interesting for every level. If they did that, awesome. Only at the expense of introducing content that matters, or fix any of the majorly flawed content we have right now. They should have done that years ago, but now the game has moved on, and the playerbase with it.

And even if it was amazing, it would still be pointless. Sure, the few newbies who would do it would feel great (possibly), but even they would move on quickly. Just because it wouldn't be a forgettable experience anymore, it wouldn't mean they would have taken something from it. You cannot possibly introduce the things that matter at endgame into low level content, because people at lower levels are not equipped to deal with it.

Look at Eco-Warrior. At level 20, there's basically three types of jobs: DDs, healers and useless jobs. Classes don't matter at all, they basically have no unique abilities, at least not to a degree that sets them apart, no specific stats, no specific gear sets, no specific traits, it's just a mess of people. It's not even the same game. Everything pre-75 is a different game than post-75, and for that reason they are incompatible. So you have to dumb down the content for lower levels, by definition. It does not work any other way.


Don't grease the rail to 99 with nothing of worth to do inbetween or you will (like I said before in many comments) toss 75% of the existing world of vanadiel out the window. No one will explore it, nor inhabit it.

I really wish people would stop bringing that argument. EXP did absolutely nothing to encourage exploration of Vana'diel. You didn't experience Yuhtunga jungle when you went to EXP there, only when you got lost trying to get to the camp. It was the same thing over and over again. Missions and NM hunts were where you explored the world the most. Nowadays, trials do a lot more for exploration that EXP could ever dream to do, and indeed it does. The level range is not magically connected to the physical world you play in. If SE ever did add an amazing event like you said before, it would be Legion-style, some remote place you can teleport to from the starter cities, a shared zone, where everything else would fall behind again.


You need to think outside of the box and not only think of yourself, but in the minds of new players coming to the game for the first time. This game NEEDS new player retention or, yes, it will die. I hope SE will opt to keep them in the game with engaging content [..]

SE already does that, by offering that content at 99. I've said that three times now. This game is a lot more newbie friendly than it ever was, in its entire decade long history. The newbies in my shell I mentioned last night? We did the LB10 Taru for one of them, the others have unlocked support jobs and some advanced jobs and they're also leveling them quickly now.

Back in the day, if a new player wanted to experience fun content, they were told to EXP here, EXP there, EXP someplace else. But people were not insinuating that EXP fun. It was what was required to be able to reach endgame, where all the content was. EXP itself is not content, it's a means to get there. For it to be content it has to actually offer something unique, but it doesn't. It just takes advantage of the FFXI combat system and some mobs that are wandering around.

Let me ask you this: why? I honestly don't understand. Why are low levels so important to you? To me they're just numbers, and I don't see why they deserve special treatment. Let's say SE capped the game at 99 from the start, for every job. Name one thing that's bad about it. And no, the argument that they won't get to EXP is self-referential and doesn't count (even disregarding the fact that many people hated that aspect in the first place).

[FrankReynolds]

I'm sorry, but you're joking me right? Stationary is fine by me - it's the instance itself where I have no other contact with the outside "world" as long as I'm in it. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be secluded for 90% of my play experience. Square-Enix does about as much justice to the term "Massively Multiplayer" as the USA does to "Land of the free" these days.

Hell, while I'm literally playing FFXI I'm locked into an actual instance, and without getting into some real Matrix-type shit, I don't need that self-imposed seclusion capitalized on. Unfortunately, this game is (was) my social life, and that's just the reality for a lot of geeks. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Your last paragraph is fine in theory, but do you know who does FoV outside of soloers? Nobody. The game makes use of 2-3 caves before Abyssea. And even with that, you're far more likely to find that soloists will be found deep inside a cave somewhere pounding out GoV. Out of the light and out of sight where SE doesn't have to look at your sorry faces.


Perhaps you would have a better "Social" experience if you did events that other people are doing instead of trying to get people to do things that 90% of the populace don't like?

[Eyeballed]

Perhaps you would have a better "Social" experience if you did events that other people are doing instead of trying to get people to do things that 90% of the populace don't like?

You mean like jumping over cliffs just because everyone else is? No thanks. I know what's valuable to me, and that which is also valuable to them, but they seem to think adrenaline and extremes are the meaning of life and therefore trying to drag us down with them saying "You're too lame!"

[Camiie]

You mean like jumping over cliffs just because everyone else is? No thanks. I know what's valuable to me, and that which is also valuable to them, but they seem to think adrenaline and extremes are the meaning of life and therefore trying to drag us down with them saying "You're too lame!"


So we, and all the things we like, are beneath your standards. You talk about jumping over cliffs and us dragging you down so you clearly consider yourself figuratively above the crowd. It wouldn't hurt you to stop looking down on everyone else just because they're into different things than you. Different isn't a synonym for inferior.

[Prrsha]

The problem still stands that doing stuff at level cap takes away your job abilities and such that you exp'd and geared hard for (especially for those of us who worked for years getting the majority of the levels before it was easy and grinding out skill caps, or even just for those of us that have worked on getting capped skills and the best gear we can for 99 cap).

We're not EVER going back to recapping level capped fights, and nor should level capped fights have a better reward. Solo it at like level 40~50 like people suggested if you want a challenge, the fights often will give some experience anyways.

And if you really want to be able to redo the fights with a challenge, why not lobby SE to make something to the tune of remaking the fights at level 99 and requiring full parties to full alliances for better rewards. I even have a good idea for it - it could be about how one of the newspaper guys in Windurst is putting together a piece on how an adventurer saved the world from Promanthia, and would have bad parodies of the events that happened, with lots of player induced slang, along with fights that are "as people remembered them" meaning they're at 99 cap and much harder. The fights could then also give out prizes like a Chatoyant Obi quest, reobtainable Ducal Guard Rings, and the final fight in the thing could be against those evil Chebukki siblings who have been slandering the player.

Retooling the fights for level 99 is much harder to code and balance then just adding an optional level cap, however, I am for both schools of thought. I'd like SE to give players an option to do capped events the old way (with the level cap on) or the current way without level cap. I don't wish to take away anyone's fun regarding this, only to include people who wish to do it both ways. A plus would indeed be to rehash the content for level 99 but I'd still like the easy coding option do to it the "old way". CoP does give players a nice progressive storyline to do before hitting level 75 (due to the level caps). I think a good example of this harmony would be the avatar battles. There are two options to do them. You can go in at level 20 and get your avatar or wait until post 75 (if you don't have the help of high level friends). I am sure both versions can exist side by side.

[FrankReynolds]

You mean like jumping over cliffs just because everyone else is? No thanks. I know what's valuable to me, and that which is also valuable to them, but they seem to think adrenaline and extremes are the meaning of life and therefore trying to drag us down with them saying "You're too lame!"

No, I mean like going to parties when you want to socialize instead of hiding in your room complaining to your parents about how they should make your friends come hang out with you (figuratively speaking. In no way suggesting that this is what you actually do in RL). when you say things like that, you sound like some hipster in crappy retro clothes and thick framed glasses declaring that anything that other people do is outdated and lame, while your outdated style is somehow ironic and cool. It's not. You seem to want a game that never changes once you start playing it. Have you considered playing games that don't receive content updates and / or rely on other players for their content to work?

[Prrsha]

No, I mean like going to parties when you want to socialize instead of hiding in your room complaining to your parents about how they should make your friends come hang out with you (figuratively speaking. In no way suggesting that this is what you actually do in RL). when you say things like that, you sound like some hipster in crappy retro clothes and thick framed glasses declaring that anything that other people do is outdated and lame, while your outdated style is somehow ironic and cool. It's not. You seem to want a game that never changes once you start playing it. Have you considered playing games that don't receive content updates and / or rely on other players for their content to work?

A balance of both worlds is nice. One that builds upon previous successes with brand new content but still embraces it's core concept while not treading and trashing perfectly good content of the past. Learn from your failures, embrace your successes and build on them while not forgetting your roots in the process. Always look at the game from not just your perspective but also that of a new player's.

I've had the privilage of helping countless players over a 6 year period, learn, enjoy, and embrace FFXI. My main role in the game was that of a mentor. I am as close as you can get to the pulse and thoughts of the new players in FFXI. Saddly my report is grim. I've never seen such discouragement in FFXI (among new players) then I have ever seen in the past. It saddens me and worries me about FFXI's future. With no new blood and retention to the game, I fear the playerbase will continue to decline and FFXI will eventually shut it's doors.

[Demon6324236]

I am as close as you can get to the pulse and thoughts of the new players in FFXI. Saddly my report is grim. I've never seen such discouragement in FFXI (among new players) then I have ever seen in the past. It saddens me and worries me about FFXI's future. With no new blood and retention to the game, I fear the playerbase will continue to decline and FFXI will eventually shut it's doors.I see the opposite, the majority of new players I have met are happy they can skip to the meat of the game, looking forward to every update and happy they are able to play and participate with the majority of other players rather than being left out of the loop. I personally see why, so long as you have assistance with where to go, you can get to your 90s in a couple of weeks, where most of the game really is now, along with most of the players.

Back when I started I had a LS I joined where a good 75% or more was in endgame, while I had no idea what was going on, I was a lowly level 20~30 RDM. I felt left out, and disconnected from them, even the xp parties I joined often had the same feel, people would talk of events like Limbus or Dyna, which I had never experienced. Now days people don't have that feel, the only content like that are things like Legion which few people do. I like this change as it seems like the game is easier to get into, and understand, as well leaving people to feel more informed, instead of wondering what an event was, and having nothing to compare it to from their xp party experience.

Without the proper help I admit, no new player will be able to make it in this game, but I believe that is one of the problems that they are trying to fix. Currently if you start new you have no idea what GoV, Abyssea, FoV, or anything of the sort is, or where to find it. You need someone else to tell you how to reach Gusgen, and then need people there to teach you to use books, then you can start actually doing something. Before that, players will easily be more lost and confused than ever before, and that I can definitely agree with. But as I said, I think thats something they are trying to fix, and if they do fix it, then this will be awesome. After you pass that part is when you realize how the speed helps new players rather than hurting them as many claim it does.

I think if they make it so you can level easier at lower levels without needing higher levels to guide you through it then it should be a better overall experience. With that, they could pull in new players who actually want to stay, but as it is I admit few players come right now, and fewer stay due to the rough start. It does make sense the game could die from lack of new players, but if they fix the problems with new players being left clueless then they could potentially have more players coming in than in a long time just because of the new expansion as well as the ability to draw players who are right now looking for something to hold over for 14 to be re-released.

[Eyeballed]

No, I mean like going to parties when you want to socialize instead of hiding in your room complaining to your parents about how they should make your friends come hang out with you.

Ah, just as Joe Blow A-Z would because he couldn't get an invite in 2006? The purpose for my complaining has less to do with selfish want than utilitarian good. I understand that "going back" in this game is not going to work because it's filled to the brim with players like yourselves and would just fall apart if you were subtracted. Like taking great-grandpa's walker away.

I said it before and I'll keep saying it I suppose. You want to eat your cake and have it too; Don't be at all surprised when the genre keels over from diabetes.

[Eyeballed]

So we, and all the things we like, are beneath your standards. You talk about jumping over cliffs and us dragging you down so you clearly consider yourself figuratively above the crowd. It wouldn't hurt you to stop looking down on everyone else just because they're into different things than you. Different isn't a synonym for inferior.

Nope. I'm just different.

[Arcon]

I see the opposite, the majority of new players I have met are happy they can skip to the meat of the game, looking forward to every update and happy they are able to play and participate with the majority of other players rather than being left out of the loop.

I can confirm this from pretty much every account of a new player I've heard since the level cap increase. I don't know why you had contrary experiences, it doesn't add up to me. The new players don't miss old EXP, because most of them don't know what it was. The few of them who do (returning players) are amazed, because they only made level 30 or 40 or something back in the day, and now they're level 99 in a few days of work, so they're excited about the jump. That has been my sole experience, I don't remember anyone off the top of my head who said anything else.

[samusaron]

My bit here is
1. Re-cap everything that was un-done
2.Make Dynamis zone a choice Solo players or Multi as it was for many many year's + drop the upgrade relic+2 gear
3.Introduce + 10 new Dynamis Area's with Relic 3 Gear and make those the Best in Game.
4.Extend story lines in Promythia + Zilarts to meet with Seeker's of Adulin and Gear to Match.
5.Put 6 New Dynamis expansion in to Campaign Area's ie 16 Dynamis Zones all told.
6.Cap Abyssea expansion to 75 as you Can wear gear til that levell + Anyway's and not 30 as it is now which will remove Very Quickly RMT activity.

Just some very Basic commonscence Idea's and thing's you Can do to Amazingly improve Game Mr Producer. I have more much more Idea's that can really bring FFXI back to life.

[FrankReynolds]

I can confirm this from pretty much every account of a new player I've heard since the level cap increase. I don't know why you had contrary experiences, it doesn't add up to me. The new players don't miss old EXP, because most of them don't know what it was. The few of them who do (returning players) are amazed, because they only made level 30 or 40 or something back in the day, and now they're level 99 in a few days of work, so they're excited about the jump. That has been my sole experience, I don't remember anyone off the top of my head who said anything else.

Same thing here. Every time I have ever gotten a RL friend to play this game, they have complained at length about the leveling process and the amount of time that it takes to get to a point where they can participate in events with me. None of them thought that having their level / abilities capped in certain fights was a positive thing. As a matter of fact, the leveling process left such a bitter taste in their mouths that most of them look at me with intense skepticism when I try to convince them to give it another shot now that leveling is much faster and none of them have come back so far. And to be clear, a lot of my friends work in the gaming industry and literally play games all day. These aren't people who don't know how an MMO is supposed to work.

[SNK]

All I know is that I leveled BST to 75 pre-abyessa and it was probably the most fun I'd had in this game in ages. It was one of the few jobs where you could just log in, pick and go exp without seeking for parties. I know a lot people bagged on the job back then but it really was a versatile machine. The job if anything taught me how to manage my hate since Snarl didn't exist and helped in learning the system of monster corralation in general.

A lot of posts I've read have been a lot of what I'd say is stemmed up anger over the years which I can easily see since I've had a few times where I've loosed some profanity on a critical failed charm or linking something which usually meant my death.

This new producer is something I consider a real breath of fresh air and I'm happy with what he's said so far despite the amount of rude and angry posts people have made in his direction. Give the guy a chance folks, He's the new person at the helm and I think he deserves a fair chance.


P.S. Walk of Echos currency exchange NPC prz! ; ;

[Rustic]

Old content being pushed past via leveling doesn't hurt me in the least- quite the opposite. It means people can actually catch up with their friends and play together in a hurry if they want- and stuff like level syncing meant that older players could still play with new ones all the way up to that point.

I'm just hoping we see less content at the top that can be brute-forced through, and more stuff at the lower levels that can give people fun stuff to do on the way there. When I came back in (after leaving around mid-WoTG), seeing the new NM's, stuff like the training books, and other newbie-friendly things I was a happy camper. If 2013 means a game producer who remembers both to make the road to the top fun and the challenges at the endgame actually challenging? Win-win.

[Prrsha]

I see the opposite, the majority of new players I have met are happy they can skip to the meat of the game, looking forward to every update and happy they are able to play and participate with the majority of other players rather than being left out of the loop. I personally see why, so long as you have assistance with where to go, you can get to your 90s in a couple of weeks, where most of the game really is now, along with most of the players.


Names please? And how many? If you wish I can post a long roster of Phoenix newbees who have tried the game, gotten bored (and frustrated of being told to get to 99 or STFU) and left.

[Prrsha]

All I know is that I leveled BST to 75 pre-abyessa and it was probably the most fun I'd had in this game in ages. It was one of the few jobs where you could just log in, pick and go exp without seeking for parties. I know a lot people bagged on the job back then but it really was a versatile machine. The job if anything taught me how to manage my hate since Snarl didn't exist and helped in learning the system of monster corralation in general.

A lot of posts I've read have been a lot of what I'd say is stemmed up anger over the years which I can easily see since I've had a few times where I've loosed some profanity on a critical failed charm or linking something which usually meant my death.

This new producer is something I consider a real breath of fresh air and I'm happy with what he's said so far despite the amount of rude and angry posts people have made in his direction. Give the guy a chance folks, He's the new person at the helm and I think he deserves a fair chance.


P.S. Walk of Echos currency exchange NPC prz! ; ;

GASP! You mean you had fun PRE ABBY!?! According to many on this forum, that is just not possible. ;3 Heck you even did it without the fast rate of exp that the game offers today and you enjoyed it.

I do like the new developer however. He has impressed me thus far much more then anyone who has managed the game since WoTG. Off topic wise: From various quotes and internet news stories, I am finding out more and more regarding Tanaka... in his involvement in FFXI post WoTG, but that is another subject. I thought he was the man in control then but his name was just for show. I'll health and work on 14 kept his activites in 11 minimal at best.

[Prrsha]

Old content being pushed past via leveling doesn't hurt me in the least- quite the opposite. It means people can actually catch up with their friends and play together in a hurry if they want- and stuff like level syncing meant that older players could still play with new ones all the way up to that point.

I'm just hoping we see less content at the top that can be brute-forced through, and more stuff at the lower levels that can give people fun stuff to do on the way there. When I came back in (after leaving around mid-WoTG), seeing the new NM's, stuff like the training books, and other newbie-friendly things I was a happy camper. If 2013 means a game producer who remembers both to make the road to the top fun and the challenges at the endgame actually challenging? Win-win.

Regarding your first paragraph, I don't mind people blowing past CoP at 99 if they wish to do so. However, I don't like the option of doing it the way it was intended to be done (by the developers who make CoP) taken away either. Like I said, an option to do it both ways would be nice. A choice to be capped or not would be easy to code.

As for your second paragraph it gets a thumbs up from me! :3

[Prrsha]

Same thing here. Every time I have ever gotten a RL friend to play this game, they have complained at length about the leveling process and the amount of time that it takes to get to a point where they can participate in events with me. None of them thought that having their level / abilities capped in certain fights was a positive thing. As a matter of fact, the leveling process left such a bitter taste in their mouths that most of them look at me with intense skepticism when I try to convince them to give it another shot now that leveling is much faster and none of them have come back so far. And to be clear, a lot of my friends work in the gaming industry and literally play games all day. These aren't people who don't know how an MMO is supposed to work.

So by that logic /synch should be removed because no higher level player would dare /synch (and lose their abilities) down to a lower one to gain exp? Not even to help a new player or friend?

[Rustic]

Regarding your first paragraph, I don't mind people blowing past CoP at 99 if they wish to do so. However, I don't like the option of doing it the way it was intended to be done (by the developers who make CoP) taken away either. Like I said, an option to do it both ways would be nice. A choice to be capped or not would be easy to code.

Hmm. Can't level sync with someone of the appropriate level and go at it for a "hard mode"? I wouldn't mind seeing the choice of having a level cap established on the various special encounters.


As for your second paragraph it gets a thumbs up from me! :3

It worries me that nowadays, we're seeing the lower-level game as something to be utterly ignored- where once, we were champing at the bit to make that pre-99 (or 75) game something we could participate in with others. LS gets a new player? Ooh, level sync party in Valkrum! Now, we have those rapid-fire leaps through dozens of levels, often without doing a thing thanks to FC parties- a "service" that has become an RMT paradise. When I started, RMT's profited by making the endgame accessible (originally via camping Sky gods and blocking access otherwise). Now, it's turned into a culture where if you're not leveled to the top, you better buy your way into an FC alliance and do it- and while you're at it, I hope you've got money to buy all that gear...

...and that utterly corrupts the process of going from 1-99 in the first place. It takes most of the changes S-E made to improve the road and replaces them with a ladder to the top you buy your way into, so effective it takes any prior means of powerleveling and puts it to shame, and simultaneously puts most of the playerbase outside the cycle of play that mixed experienced players with newbies.

That is, right now the road to the top is not fun, because the old road has been replaced with a bypass paved with gold and dollar bills.

[Demon6324236]

Names please? And how many? If you wish I can post a long roster of Phoenix newbees who have tried the game, gotten bored (and frustrated of being told to get to 99 or STFU) and left.First, I don't feel the need to supply you with names of people I have met who were new and liked the game.

Second, did you explain how easy it is to level, or did you awesomely try to drag them down the old path you prefer, while telling them the game basically starts at 99? If you bring a new player into the game and tell them that they cant do much of anything till 99, then show them how to XP in a way that will take them months to reach it, yeah, they are gonna quit fast. If you show them how to level fast, and that they can get from a new character to 99 in about a week or 2, then they should have little problems with it because the speed is so fast, the whole "need to be level 99" thing sounds more intimidating than it really is.

Thats the experience I have had, I had 1 friend I know from XBL who got on the game and quit cause of PC problems, he was on the trial and that ruined his experience because I couldn't help him much either, like giving him a weapon, thats the only person in over a year who was new, that quit the game after me trying to help them out.

[Demon6324236]

So by that logic /synch should be removed because no higher level player would dare /synch (and lose their abilities) down to a lower one to gain exp? Not even to help a new player or friend?Removing level sync would remove the ability for a book party to function, killing off low level peoples ability to level fast, something I suppose you would like, however is not what he was suggesting at all. His point seem to be that its terrible how badly the game restricts you from your abilities and spells, including level syncing events such as CoP used to be, where no matter your level, you had to go through certain areas as a weakling for an unknown and unexplained reason.

[SpankWustler]

This new producer is something I consider a real breath of fresh air and I'm happy with what he's said so far despite the amount of rude and angry posts people have made in his direction. Give the guy a chance folks, He's the new person at the helm and I think he deserves a fair chance.

Yeah, the animosity towards the new guy is something that I really do not get. At worst, nobody knows what he's going to do because he hasn't had a chance to do anything yet due to the crazy-nuts long development cycle of each updates. At best, he really was sitting at his desk and had the thought, "Whoa, bros, let's hold up this change to Perfect Defense and Embrava until the new SPs are done!" which seems pretty good to me.

Do some people just think the FFXI development office is a rotten barrel that ruins every apple in it?

[FrankReynolds]

Do some people just think the FFXI development office is a rotten barrel that ruins every apple in it?

I think most people rightfully suspect that if his ideas differed too much from the previous boss, that the previous boss would have canned him by now. Some people can fake like they share the corporate vision for long enough to rise in the ranks and get themselves into a position where they can act on the ideas that they repressed all the way to the top, but most people will be assimilated. Borg out.

[Prrsha]

First, I don't feel the need to supply you with names of people I have met who were new and liked the game.

Second, did you explain how easy it is to level, or did you awesomely try to drag them down the old path you prefer, while telling them the game basically starts at 99? If you bring a new player into the game and tell them that they cant do much of anything till 99, then show them how to XP in a way that will take them months to reach it, yeah, they are gonna quit fast. If you show them how to level fast, and that they can get from a new character to 99 in about a week or 2, then they should have little problems with it because the speed is so fast, the whole "need to be level 99" thing sounds more intimidating than it really is.

Thats the experience I have had, I had 1 friend I know from XBL who got on the game and quit cause of PC problems, he was on the trial and that ruined his experience because I couldn't help him much either, like giving him a weapon, thats the only person in over a year who was new, that quit the game after me trying to help them out.

It depends on the time period. Before abby, I hosted mid to low level events that introduced new players into group events that they said they would have otherwise have missed out on (and many have said would have quitted) as a result.

After abby, I never bothered getting them into garrison or others because well, the entire gameplay of the game shifted away from rewarding those sort of events. I tutored them to level 70 in large book parties all the while teaching them how to play the game and not just sit afk and leech. After awhile... when they got past 80 in a few weeks, they quit when they smacked into endgame 99. Maybe the learning curve was too high for them for endgame because of lack of other lower level events or whatnow but to be honest, I really don't know the reason. I got comments ranging from "The players in this game are so mean" to "I'm so bored after I got all of my levels" or... "Doing x or y is pointless, why is it even in the game? I wasted time doing it for nothing!" (a common reply to synthing).

So yeah, I have never encouraged slow leveling to newer players unless they got a job to 99 and complain that the process was stupid. Only then do I suggest that they try to form a static to level the old way in a 6 man party. They go off and try and to do that and fail to find people, and their names disappear from the server.

So to sum it up... whether they level fast or level slow, 90% of them go poof and all do have one strange hollow complaint. "This game feels dead." Maybe it is due to lack of exploration, doing quests or storylines. I can't say 100%. Somehow the experience they felt was lack luster and empty.

Many vets I have also have had the privilage of knowing for years have also left in a short time (months of late) as well... and they were long time fanatic players of the game.

My guess is that SE realizes that and this is why the current management is in place. Parts of abby (and it's aftermath) were a failure of sorts and they are bringing in fresh minds.

My pet project now is to see if I can form a LS to explore older content and encourage newer players to slow level (and take part in capped events). I look forward to seeing how that works and if does a better job of keeping newbees in the game.

[Prrsha]

killing off low level peoples ability to level fast, something I suppose you would like.

You assume incorrectly. I just want new player retention, and it's not really happening of late.


His point seem to be that its terrible how badly the game restricts you from your abilities and spells, including level syncing events such as CoP used to be, where no matter your level, you had to go through certain areas as a weakling for an unknown and unexplained reason.

#1 they were explained if you read the storyline.

#2 I was pointing out that you lose your abilities as well when you /synch down to book party too. Does it make leveling any less fun when /synching? It really didn't for me. It just made me adapt to other strategies of doing things. I couldn't count on certain spells or WSes anymore, which mixed things up a bit.

[Prrsha]

Hmm. Can't level sync with someone of the appropriate level and go at it for a "hard mode"? I wouldn't mind seeing the choice of having a level cap established on the various special encounters.



It worries me that nowadays, we're seeing the lower-level game as something to be utterly ignored- where once, we were champing at the bit to make that pre-99 (or 75) game something we could participate in with others. LS gets a new player? Ooh, level sync party in Valkrum! Now, we have those rapid-fire leaps through dozens of levels, often without doing a thing thanks to FC parties- a "service" that has become an RMT paradise. When I started, RMT's profited by making the endgame accessible (originally via camping Sky gods and blocking access otherwise). Now, it's turned into a culture where if you're not leveled to the top, you better buy your way into an FC alliance and do it- and while you're at it, I hope you've got money to buy all that gear...

...and that utterly corrupts the process of going from 1-99 in the first place. It takes most of the changes S-E made to improve the road and replaces them with a ladder to the top you buy your way into, so effective it takes any prior means of powerleveling and puts it to shame, and simultaneously puts most of the playerbase outside the cycle of play that mixed experienced players with newbies.

That is, right now the road to the top is not fun, because the old road has been replaced with a bypass paved with gold and dollar bills.

An interesting point that SE has addressed several days ago about confirming RMT activity in that area. A by-product of faster leveling is that more people cap out all of their jobs they wish to level now (and new players are left with fewer players to level with as a result).

The only way to counter this is to add more merit rewards or just plain add more people. In order to do the latter you need new player retention. It's a catch 22.

[Arcon]

#1 they were explained if you read the storyline.

They weren't. "A mystical force surrounds this area!" is not an explanation.


#2 I was pointing out that you lose your abilities as well when you /synch down to book party too. Does it make leveling any less fun when /synching? It really didn't for me.

It does for pretty much everyone else. They sync down because they want to help people out, not because it's fun.

Your sole argument about player retention is one I don't believe you, because your experience is completely contrary to mine. To me, it sounds like you just make those statements up, because they are the exact opposite from what I've witnessed repeatedly throughout months now.

[Demon6324236]

After awhile... when they got past 80 in a few weeks, they quit when they smacked into endgame 99. Maybe the learning curve was too high for them for endgame because of lack of other lower level events or whatnow but to be honest, I really don't know the reason. I got comments ranging from "The players in this game are so mean" to "I'm so bored after I got all of my levels" or... "Doing x or y is pointless, why is it even in the game? I wasted time doing it for nothing!" (a common reply to synthing).What did they do at 99? Level/Merit in Worm parties? Learn their jobs new abilities and traits in those parties while still evolving their character? Did they go off trying to do old content? Did they go attempt to start seal parties? Simply getting to 99 is a small part, once there, you have to know what to do. In this case, the way I always lead people is to get to 80~85, then goto worms, once they understand more about their job and its abilities, I get them a few atma like Minikin or Razed Ruins, those key atma they need for jobs, as well as getting them a ZB win, easy enough with Emps being made in my LS, we almost always have a need for Bria or C-C. After that comes teaching them how procing works in detail, and how to setup seal parties, after that they mostly go off on their own, and figure out how everything else works. Just getting to 99 does very little in the end, because once your there you can easily find yourself lost.
#1 they were explained if you read the storyline.
#2 I was pointing out that you lose your abilities as well when you /synch down to book party too. Does it make leveling any less fun when /synching? It really didn't for me. It just made me adapt to other strategies of doing things. I couldn't count on certain spells or WSes anymore, which mixed things up a bit.1, they really didn't explain it, there is no reason I can recall at any point that I was told why I was going through Promy as a level 30, why I was going through the Aqueducts as a level 40, why on an airship I was a level 60, and yet, everywhere else in Vana I was a level 75. 2, sync!, now, besides that, I myself do find it a bit more boring when I lose my job abilities. They are what define a job, to lose them makes the job less important to me and is something I hate to do. I level sync when needed, but prefer not to when I don't have to, I believe this is also part of the attraction of Abyssea leveling, as syncing serves no purpose thanks to Abyssea's xp system.

[Mirage]

"Synch" is actually as valid abbreviation of "synchronize" as "sync" is. That being said, I really dislike "synch" myself.

[Arcon]

"Synch" is actually as valid abbreviation of "synchronize" as "sync" is. That being said, I really dislike "synch" myself.

"sync" is more valid because that actually represents the name SE chose for it themselves "Level Sync". It's not an abbreviation of "synchronize" at all.

[Sunrider]

The Aqueducts actually have an explanation. Apparently, the mobs were so insanely strong and such a huge threat to the Safehold, that Mildaurion/Eshan'tarl cast some super white magic on the whole place after barring the all the entry points, level capping all the mobs (presumably also keeping them from breaking out). Unfortunately, this also caps any players that enter at level 40.

Now, why Promyvion is capped, I have no idea. We'll assume a wizard did it.

[Demon6324236]

The Aqueducts actually have an explanation. Apparently, the mobs were so insanely strong and such a huge threat to the Safehold, that Mildaurion/Eshan'tarl cast some super white magic on the whole place after barring the all the entry points, level capping all the mobs (presumably also keeping them from breaking out). Unfortunately, this also caps any players that enter at level 40.

Now, why Promyvion is capped, I have no idea. We'll assume a wizard did it.I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

[FrankReynolds]

I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

I can explain level caps for the misguided people (I'm not talking about you). Back then people rarely had more than one or two jobs at 75, if any which made it incredibly hard to find a group of people with the jobs needed to beat an event. However, lots of people had jobs that they leveled as subjobs or just never got around to finishing due to the incredibly slow leveling process. So, by lowering the level caps on events, they created a much larger pool of eligible players to do the events. Many people would have rather stabbed themselves in the eye with a rusty spoon than level ninja or black mage to 75, but a shit ton of people were willing to level them to 37+ for subs, which meant that they were close enough to participate in lower level stuff. Take me for example. I leveled ninja to 50 just for seal BCNMs. I took samurai to 60 just to do the airship fight. I hated every moment of it, but I needed the clears.

Now that they have given people the ability to level a subjob to 99 in less than a day, there is no shortage of players who have the correct jobs leveled for events (especially since there are really only about 6 jobs you need for every event now) and thus no need to level cap things in order to facilitate easy grouping.

TLDR; all teh level caps were made to compensate for a shitty leveling process and then in game explanations (the few they actually gave) were created as an afterthought.

[Rustic]

I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

Originally, the Aqueducts explanation is right on the money- a powerful seal was put on the area to weaken the monsters there, but the side effect also left anyone else stuck the same way. Similar effects were far more common in FFXI before they decided caps weren't worth it anymore.

Anyway: (TL;DR version at bottom)

What I look at here is something dangerous- I don't care if a game is old or new, without players cycling through as much of the game as possible, it dies. I can log into Everquest to this day and find newbie players smacking rats around, folks running around the Commonlands hunting, and so on. Players still go flowing through content on the way up to higher levels, and that content is still useful and relevant.

It's three years older than FFXI is.

The opposite has happened in FFXI. 99% of the game are dead zones. Take the area around Windurst. I basically saw either 99's, anons (who had L99 gear), one blue mage learning his abilities...and me. In a week. The effective level of support as a result for anyone coming into the game? Zero. The game feels frighteningly hollow to someone looking at it from the point of view of a new player, a view that in my case is countered only by knowing that the player population is elsewhere.

Making the road to 99 easier was one thing. Obliterating any feeling of progress outside a few brief jumps to 99 was the key to a seal of a different kind- one that bottles the remaining players into a slow population decline and renders huge chunks of work on FFXI moot.

Think about it this way. Say a days' casual work would get a level from 75-99. It'd get you two levels a day from 50-74. Three levels from 25-49. Four from 20-24. Five from 1-19.

You'd still level up to cap in less than 60 days played at a casual rate. Halve that for your average hardcore grinder. A month from top to bottom. You'd actually have people in the mid-range for jobs long enough that combined with level sync, there'd actually be a reason for a lot of things that have vanished.

Cause right now? Lower level gear and such on the AH? Ha, ha. The market for lower-level crafted items? Who makes them, there's no market! There's even a crunch on -crystals- at this point, since you don't have lowbies sitting there whacking monsters around for synths- on Ragnarok, elemental clusters are literally tens of thousands of Gil each! Stuff that drops off L1 monsters is going for 30K a stack because there's nobody around to bonk lil' Goblin Thugs on the head anymore (and my guess is gardening for them is a moot point, since most people's pots are devoted to trying for more endgame-centric stuff).

Point being, games tend to function poorly when you eliminate the bottom entirely and focus the entire system on getting to the top, ignoring everything that doesn't do so, and then wondering why new players see the endgame wall and flee screaming. Of course they do. There was never any hill to climb- just *bam* here's your incredibly easymode exp process to 99, then we'll throw content at you that assumes you mastered every part of your job in a process we originally expected you to take months (at least) to do so. Easier was good. Easiest is bad.

We have MMO's that predate FFXI who didn't go the route of destroying the process of developing a character from the start that are still functional- and profitable to this day. They didn't close the door on people playing the game to the top, vs. being tossed there in a shower of exp. Thankfully, I do see some sanity showing up- it looks like with things like the blinker price change, they're making efforts to prevent another hyperinflation cycle like what happened just prior to the first big RMT/HNM busting purge about a decade ago. Again, though- the lack of a real road of progression also damages the economy of the game- with fewer gil sinks along the way and higher rates of gil gain at the top (now very top-heavy) of the charts, it makes it very easy for someone to go "Ooh, elemental cluster? Have 50K in gil for that!".
(As an aside, mid-ToAU 10K would have be considered inflated- and that's 5 times less than the current rate)

--

Long story short- making the game better via quality of life and relaxing some of the basics of the game was good. Effectively removing those basics, IMHO puts the game on a timer it should never have to worry about. Good, classic MMO's are easily seeing their 10th and 15th anniversaries with no signs of stoppage, only marked by the occasional bit of revampage to take advantage of newer systems as time passed by (EQ 2007, UO 2006-7). FFXI falls into that category- if it doesn't abandon itself in the process.

Adoulin is going to mark a point at which we see another chance to refresh and increase player population- but without anything save a coherent endgame, how do those players come into the game?

[detlef]

I can explain level caps for the misguided people (I'm not talking about you)...This is a very good explanation that makes a lot of sense.

[FrankReynolds]

Originally, the Aqueducts explanation is right on the money- a powerful seal was put on the area to weaken the monsters there, but the side effect also left anyone else stuck the same way. Similar effects were far more common in FFXI before they decided caps weren't worth it anymore.

Anyway: (TL;DR version at bottom)




The problem with what you just described is that most people see leveling as a roadblock to freedom. If leveling consisted of doing quests / missions etc. that were different for every level and specific to the limitations / abilities of each specific job, you might have some point as far as the character development goes. But in this game, once you have gotten through the first 20 or 30 levels in party mode, you have learned almost everything that you will ever learn from the leveling experience. Leveling 10 or 20 jobs in old school exp parties is not going to teach you anything new and thus begins to feel like a giant waste of time. Especially when you consider that the structure of endgame events usually requires you to level at least one or two jobs that you never had any interest in leveling or playing. for example: none of the jobs that I enjoy playing have a place in Nyzul Isle runs and yet all of them require the gear from Nyzul to perform at a level that is considered acceptable for other end game events.

A lot of people spent far more time trying to get a group to exp with than they did actually exping back in the day and I think that is far more of a turn off than the current state of leveling. When you are on a low level job, you tend to feel impotent. Everything can kill you. Just going from point A to point B is a dangerous endeavor. How long do people really want to feel like that? What's more is that just leveling doesn't mean that you are done and can go join the HNMLS of your choice. You still have a ton of quests, missions etc. to do before you can even access a lot of that. Developing your character is an ongoing process that does not require a level attached to it. Completing missions, accessing new areas, following story lines etc. can be an experience that is enriching regardless of level.

I agree that a different mode of leveling would be better, but bringing the old methods back will not have the effect that people who push for it so desire. To be honest, I don't think SE would ever dedicate the resources required to make leveling worthwhile and fun. I think they reserve funding for overhauls of that scale for FFXIV.

[Rustic]

The problem with what you just described is that most people see leveling as a roadblock to freedom. If leveling consisted of doing quests / missions etc. that were different for every level and specific to the limitations / abilities of each specific job, you might have some point as far as the character development goes.

Then, I would say this: Why not? Compare what your first artifact armor was like compared to your Dynamis gear. One was traveling across the entire span of the FFXI map, battling NMs and finding your way deep into dungeons to gain your signature "job gear" in a story related to your specific job. The other was slapping mobs around endlessly hoping your Duelist's Chapeau (or insert PITA AF2 drop) would fall into the treasure pool. Which was more fun and felt more rewarding?


But in this game, once you have gotten through the first 20 or 30 levels in party mode, you have learned almost everything that you will ever learn from the leveling experience. Leveling 10 or 20 jobs in old school exp parties is not going to teach you anything new and thus begins to feel like a giant waste of time.

And here's another flaw. The idea that one needed to level 10-20 different jobs? For serious? How high?


Especially when you consider that the structure of endgame events usually requires you to level at least one or two jobs that you never had any interest in leveling or playing. for example: none of the jobs that I enjoy playing have a place in Nyzul Isle runs and yet all of them require the gear from Nyzul to perform at a level that is considered acceptable for other end game events.

And here's something that exists even at 99: Gear coming from sources that X job requires to progress, but isn't useful for getting said gear. Even now, you see that with jobs who aren't generating the staggers needed for optimal drops = sorry, {No thanks}. If it's a process that results in gear that is ideal for X job, that job should be able to perform in some manner that makes it easier to come by. For example, if it's RNG/COR gear, give it weaknesses to a RNG WS or a specific Quick Draw.


A lot of people spent far more time trying to get a group to exp with than they did actually exping back in the day and I think that is far more of a turn off than the current state of leveling. When you are on a low level job, you tend to feel impotent. Everything can kill you. Just going from point A to point B is a dangerous endeavor. How long do people really want to feel like that? What's more is that just leveling doesn't mean that you are done and can go join the HNMLS of your choice. You still have a ton of quests, missions etc. to do before you can even access a lot of that. Developing your character is an ongoing process that does not require a level attached to it. Completing missions, accessing new areas, following story lines etc. can be an experience that is enriching regardless of level.

Of course, HNMLS as we knew it no longer exist, and we have a world now where even soloing EP's, you actually make a respectable chunk of exp per kill- especially when combined with training regimens that tack on an effective xp bonus with each cycle of dead beasties, and killing piles of bad guys also results in treasure chests dropping hither and yon. The old bad days of being unable to make appreciable progress without a PT are dead and gone. The problem lies in that the replacement has become sitting in place while someone spams AoEs with a greataxe. There isn't even that 10-20 levels of party play to learn your job anymore. I don't want to see the days where a character took a year to hit cap. I'd be happy with seeing people go 1-99 in 30-60 days played- where 30 is someone who pushed hard and partied constantly for maximum exp gain, and 60 for people who played casual and soloed much of the way instead. FoV could even be easily retuned to this- by offering training regimens that worked for parties and ones that worked for soloists.


I agree that a different mode of leveling would be better, but bringing the old methods back will not have the effect that people who push for it so desire. To be honest, I don't think SE would ever dedicate the resources required to make leveling worthwhile and fun. I think they reserve funding for overhauls of that scale for FFXIV.

We don't need to bring the old methods back- but we do need to overhaul the current one, which has become dangerously straightforward and mercenary and mindless, something that made chaining colibris old-school look like attempting to take the Shadow Lord on in a bronze subligar and nothing else in relative difficulty. When I'm getting people telling me we can take a job from 30-99 in a -day-, in fact taking a dozen+ characters that way at once without moving an inch, the system by which this is easily done is an error in FFXI that needs to be removed.

Heck, make characters gain exp bonuses from having leveled other jobs that level out as you get nearer your "top jobs". I've got a jobs I've already leveled? Awesome, give me a exp bonus of (50- current job level + number of jobs with a level higher than current job) x .(highest job level)%.

Take a newbie Black Mage who's just gotten their subjob done and starts leveling WHM from 1. He's 20th and hasn't done anything else. When he starts on WHM, he gets a "expert bonus" of (50 - 1(his WHM level) + 1 (BLM is the only job over 1) x .20 (his BLM is his highest job level at 20th) = 50 x .20 = 10% bonus at level 1. Not a huge bonus, but hey, it helps.

Later on, he's managed to take BLM and WHM up to 40/20 and he decides to start leveling Scholar. At level 1, his Scholar gets an expert bonus of (50 -1 +2) x .40 = 20% exp bonus. By 20th, the SCH is down to a 12% bonus- but still, he's moving faster than he did with his previous jobs.

He takes himself all the way up to SCH/BLM of 80/40 and decides to level that 20th level WHM up a bit so he can get some teleports. He's got a bit more than 25% bonus for that 20 WHM to work with- (50 -1 +2) x .80 = 25.6%.

Finally, he's hit 99 SCH/BLM 49/WHM 49 and with the Embrava nerf says the heck with it and decides to level Summoner instead for the laughs. He starts level 1 with Carby and company with a (50 -1 +3) x .99 = 51.5% exp bonus at first level, 33% at 20th, and he's even getting about a 5% exp bonus even at 48th.

Voila. Higher level players spend less time going through the level-up process, but they're not magically uplifted to job-godhood in a process that takes zero effort whatsoever on their part.

Then add in the needed changes to get rid of cleave-style exp gain. Nastier monsters with zone-banishing abilities like Cattlepult and resistance to crowd control, that lottery spawn with power levels based on how many monsters the party/alliance has chained that can be dealt with if everyone's paying attention, but will punk groups that are in an AFK leech mode, even if that's by harmlessly booting players out of exp range and requiring them to return- or if the group has next to no active players, getting their tank booted and the rest of the AFKers being mangled to death one nibble/zoneboot at a time.

[Prrsha]

A lot of nice ideas there Rustic!

What saddens me is that most of the naysayers complain but don't offer new ideas and feedback on how to fix FFXI. The devs have already admitted that FFXI needs a lot of work. I hope to see good things though...