Starting to lose interest in the whole game...

[Hayward]

I've been playing this game for close to 9 years and finally seem to be at the point where I'm struggling to find reasons to keep putting crysta in or even log on for an hour each night. Even a skillup session on GEO seems like a futile effort.

What really triggered this was finally successfully soloing Hedjedjet and getting absolutely nothing for 60 minutes of Avatar kiting, Not even a Card of Ardor. It really seems Mr. Matsui really is trying his hardest to kill off interest in XI by making the game the dojo from hell that actively tries to break the spirits of those who enter. Non-hardcore players need not apply, if you will.

Over the last week or so, I've been playing Guild Wars 2 on the Mac side of my laptop and I get the feeling that ArenaNet got things right where S-E missed the target badly. It seems ANet's philosophy from the jump was to make the game challenging but not unforgiving. Even after only a short period of time, I got the sense that that game wasn't trying to replicate an Ironman Triathlon or some other hardcore activity that excluded a high percentage of its customers.

If they haven't already, S-E would do well to take some pointers for ArenaNet as far as designing FFXIV 2.0 updates in the future.

[Demon6324236]

It really seems Mr. Matsui really is trying his hardest to kill off interest in XI by making the game the dojo from hell that actively tries to break the spirits of those who enter. Non-hardcore players need not apply, if you will.Will people please stop blaming the person who came up with mostly good content so far!?

Abyssea was not Matsui's design, neither was VW, or most of this game. The only content I can think of he made any sort of direct impact on that was created before he came in, was Meeble Burrows. He awesomely made it give you more points for more people instead of less points for more people, thus turning an event where people were left out so the smaller group could earn more, into an event where bringing and including others is more rewarding.

Lets look at Adoulin's content though, something I am sure he had much more influence on. Reives, they are like Campaign Battles, sure they have some flaws, but it introduced a HNM system which did not exclude players with 24 hour, or even 72 hour repop times. Skirmish, well, I never did it myself, it was a mistake, to restricted to enter and outdated far to quickly.

Delve, near perfect event in my eyes. Each zone has 6 NMs, 5 of which can be fought outside, beating any of the 3 lowest tier gives a KI to buy the drops from any of those 3 with a type of points you earn. Beating the highest tier, or one of the 2 NMs in the mid tier allow you to do the same with their items. Augmentable but not in a bad way, allowing you to choose a path for your weapons and directly influence their stats, rather than the random augments we have always seen in the past. Points can be gotten in a number of ways, from fighting normal mobs, to joining an entire alliance to go into a Fracture, or fighting NMs, allowing everyone from soloists to people who prefer large parties to get their things provided they can kill one of the NMs first. This event does not have procs, does not have the horrible drop rates, cells, or impossible NMs that VW had, it has a point system, but unlike others like Meebles or Einherjar its points can be gotten in a few different ways, none of which is tied to a lock out timer, such as Einherjar's day wait, or Meeble's Sacks once every 20 hours.

In my opinion, you are yelling at ghosts of the past, that is not Matsui's doing, asking him to go back and fix it would be better than blaming him for a problem he did not cause.

[Fynlar]

What really triggered this was finally successfully soloing Hedjedjet and getting absolutely nothing for 60 minutes of Avatar kiting, Not even a Card of Ardor. It really seems Mr. Matsui really is trying his hardest to kill off interest in XI by making the game the dojo from hell that actively tries to break the spirits of those who enter. Non-hardcore players need not apply, if you will.

You do something in perhaps the slowest, most inefficient way possible and you're surprised when you don't get rewarded for it?

Did you even grellow or TH it? I'm guessing not, in which case, you really shouldn't be shocked that you got nothing.

[Cledant]

Will people please stop blaming the person who came up with mostly good content so far!?

Abyssea was not Matsui's design, neither was VW, or most of this game. The only content I can think of he made any sort of direct impact on that was created before he came in, was Meeble Burrows. He awesomely made it give you more points for more people instead of less points for more people, thus turning an event where people were left out so the smaller group could earn more, into an event where bringing and including others is more rewarding.

Lets look at Adoulin's content though, something I am sure he had much more influence on. Reives, they are like Campaign Battles, sure they have some flaws, but it introduced a HNM system which did not exclude players with 24 hour, or even 72 hour repop times. Skirmish, well, I never did it myself, it was a mistake, to restricted to enter and outdated far to quickly.

Delve, near perfect event in my eyes. Each zone has 6 NMs, 5 of which can be fought outside, beating any of the 3 lowest tier gives a KI to buy the drops from any of those 3 with a type of points you earn. Beating the highest tier, or one of the 2 NMs in the mid tier allow you to do the same with their items. Augmentable but not in a bad way, allowing you to choose a path for your weapons and directly influence their stats, rather than the random augments we have always seen in the past. Points can be gotten in a number of ways, from fighting normal mobs, to joining an entire alliance to go into a Fracture, or fighting NMs, allowing everyone from soloists to people who prefer large parties to get their things provided they can kill one of the NMs first. This event does not have procs, does not have the horrible drop rates, cells, or impossible NMs that VW had, it has a point system, but unlike others like Meebles or Einherjar its points can be gotten in a few different ways, none of which is tied to a lock out timer, such as Einherjar's day wait, or Meeble's Sacks once every 20 hours.

In my opinion, you are yelling at ghosts of the past, that is not Matsui's doing, asking him to go back and fix it would be better than blaming him for a problem he did not cause.
I don't see anything perfect @ Delve , specially when you need to do mindless grind-fest for plasm in order to upgrade items/other stuff with no storyline, it's very boring and repetitive. Plasm farming is the only thing to do on ffxi atm, this new expan killed everything and made vw a forgotten event.

[OmnysValefor]

Well, there's Salvage II this month, but so many of those pieces weren't really ever attractive.

[Demon6324236]

I don't see anything perfect @ Delve , specially when you need to do mindless grind-fest for plasm in order to upgrade items/other stuff with no storyline, it's very boring and repetitive.You can kill NMs for your items, who said you had to grind Plasm? No one, people just favor that as it helps multiple people, if you wanted you could go out and do Mata, kill it, get Airlixirs for upgrades, use the 500 Plasm a kill and use that Plasm for more items as you slowly build it, need around 600 Airlixirs for a level 15 piece of gear anyways, say you get 15 on average counting +1s, that's 40 kills, 20k Plasm, enough for most drops from normal mobs. Besides that there is always the possibility of killing normal mobs.


Plasm farming is the only thing to do on ffxi atm, this new expan killed everything and made vw a forgotten event.We forgot a horrible event, sounds like a good thing to me.

[OmnysValefor]

Still, Delve isn't perfect. It's pretty boring, and like with anything, the pugs actually get, dumbfoundingly, worse.

[Karah]

I'm the first person to agree that XI has gotten -STALE- I mean it's been that way since (forever, honestly) but more so as of Limbus II release.

Limbus II showed us (me) what a complete and utter waste of time was. Not one single piece of EnifMurzim/ nor the mage set ( i dont even know the name its so bad) was even remotely worthwhile.

The Odin II, the same thing, while you could argue that the valk II pieces are SLIGHTLY better than the alternatives, nothing worth jumping up and down over.

Salvage II hit and some of the things were pretty badass, but then Adoulin dropped and just (a collective sigh of disgust) swept the land.

it just obliterated Voidwatch, negated all(most) Dynamis/abyssea/salvage II/limbus II (lol)/Einherjar II/Legion (which was never that worthwhile to begin with).

Going from alliance wide events, (old school sky/sea/dynamis) to (YEARS) of lowmanning, limbus/limbusII/einherjar/Nyzul/assault/salvage/salvageII/Meebles/MMM/Campaign(I guess?)/Abyssea/ etc etc BACK to an entire alliance style event reviving linkshells just was not something I had/have ANY interest in whatsoever.

I can't really say anything bad about logwatch, yeah the drop rates are abysmal, and the materials for empyrean 95/99ing are "@.@" but it was "entertaining" and "time killing" done pretty well (all things considered) it kept us at least "satisfied" (begrudgingly).

Legion/Odin II/Fracture just totally killed it all, while you could skip legion and odin, and just shake your head at all the people wasting their time... Fracture is all there is/all there will be for the near future.

It's -not- fun at all, not even a little bit. It's more monotonous than dynamis. It has the -stupidest- timed gimmicks, far worse than finding time extensions/proccing. It's just miserable. But it's either do it, or do nothing. And that's the big fail here. Rather unfortunate.

[OmnysValefor]

I agree, except that there were some worthwhile pieces in Limbus II.

Enif Cosciales (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Enif_Cosciales), with 5% haste and 8% fastcast come to mind.

Usukane +1 also has a few gems still afaik.

Edit: Adoulin is surely the biggest single gear reset in this game but there's a lot of gear that isn't obsoleted yet.

Mekira and Heka's still have their place, as well.. several pieces collectively.

[Demon6324236]

To clarify, I never said it was perfect, I said near perfect, its by far the best event we have had in a while.

When you look at Abyssea, it was great, but then what came after?

VW? Spam a mob possibly hundreds of times without getting your drop and no trackable progress, it also had a lot of wins needed which after the majority of people had, it became increasingly difficult for others to get them. Rehashed content? Well, lets start with the first, Neo-Nyzul, started out impossible, then was forced to only be possible with exploiting a specific SP ability with 4 DDs and even then it was almost impossible for most groups, and now its easier and able to be done with a SCH, BRD, and 4 DDs. All in all the gear was great and still is but the problem it had from the start was that luck ruled it, like VW, and made it highly annoying for many people to get the rewards from it. Limbus had little use, Odin had very limited use, mainly only DT sets were effected, and then you have Salvage II, which had some good gear, but most of it was recently outdated, and even before that, the way it was built encouraged people to go with as few as possible, many people ended up dualboxing it or doing it in very low groups, excluding more players. Meebles had gear which most people did not care to much about, was meant to be for more casual players but the higher tier NMs with some of the better rewards were both cheap and had low drop rates. Once they added the ability to buy wins it helped a little, but only rich players, if you did not have a ton of money you could do nothing more than before because the costs were to high, the last adjustment was the best one, the one that made the point amount higher for bringing more people, which completely turned the events point system around, encouraging bringing more people instead of less. Legion started out near impossible, continued to be that way for most people, and so far as I know its finally something accessible for a lot of people thanks to changes and Delve weapons, but all of that came to late as few things from there are worth anything anymore, and the most worthy items are still much to expensive to bother with due to material costs for crafters to make.

All in all, each had its own flaws, most being either luck based or having mostly irrelevant gear. Delve has neither of those flaws, almost all of the gear has some use, especially with augments included, and are all obtainable. None of it is really luck based, all of the NMs have some sort of gimmick you must exploit to win, one which includes some small bit of a unique strat to killing it, rather than just PD zerg or stun lock zerg as we have had most of the time. Sure its just tedious farming for Plasm, that's what most seem to do, but see, what is not that way? Salvage, spam it for plans, Dyna, spam it for currency, VW, spam it for drops or Emp items, Abyssea, spam it for Seals, +2s, and Emps. At least in Delve I am spamming something with a guaranteed reward at the end, trackable progress, and I choose my reward no matter how I get the points. Like I said, in my opinion, its the best event we have had in a while.

So far as the OP goes, my point was Matsui has done a good job so far as events go since he came in. While I disagree with everything he has done weapon wise, the rest I find amazing, and think its the best job we have seen in a while, probably since Abyssea. As I said, if your problem is with Abyssea, or anything that is really pre-Adoulin, I have to say I think it is blaming the wrong person, and besides that, as Fynlar said, if you did it in such a stupid and slow way without any procs or TH then you have no one to blame but yourself it should be obvious by now that Abyssea without procs or TH is a slow painful progress and you should not expect rewards every time, if you did and got nothing, your disappointment is your fault, no one elses.

[OmnysValefor]

I'd disagree completely. I ONLY go to delve because I need plasm. People can lol about aby all day long, but at least you can have fun times in aby doing retarded things because you're in godmode.

Every bit of Adoulin's content, I'd say, once I was done with it, you couldn't drag me back. I've had more exciting times farming dynamis.

[Karah]

I agree, except that there were some worthwhile pieces in Limbus II.

Enif Cosciales (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Enif_Cosciales), with 5% haste and 8% fastcast come to mind.

Usukane +1 also has a few gems still afaik.

Edit: Adoulin is surely the biggest single gear reset in this game but there's a lot of gear that isn't obsoleted yet.

Mekira and Heka's still have their place, as well.. several pieces collectively.

I do typically write with Hyperbole, of course there is some things still worth using, the pieces of usukane+1 ares+1 mekira mainly, but as an overall, you get what I mean, without technicalities. If 99% of something is effectively outdone, I can (we can) go ahead and say 100% (even though it's not entirely true).

[kylani]

Over the last week or so, I've been playing Guild Wars 2 on the Mac side of my laptop and I get the feeling that ArenaNet got things right where S-E missed the target badly. It seems ANet's philosophy from the jump was to make the game challenging but not unforgiving. Even after only a short period of time, I got the sense that that game wasn't trying to replicate an Ironman Triathlon or some other hardcore activity that excluded a high percentage of its customers.

If they haven't already, S-E would do well to take some pointers for ArenaNet as far as designing FFXIV 2.0 updates in the future.

I played GW2 along with several others who had played FFXI. We loved it initially, but it gets old. It has nowhere new the depth of FFXI. There's no feeling of accomplishment like FFXI. Since you buy GW2 one time, it was worth it for the break, but I hope no MMO maker follows GW2's example of trivializing everything.

I do get frustrated with FFXI at times, mainly because after my friends left, I don't have the ls to do a lot of stuff unless I can solo or duo it, and as you say, the drop rates can be a pain, I hate trying to get the procs with bst, etc. There is so much to do, it's easy to get sidetracked with what I can't do instead of enjoying what I can. GW2 just dies after you hit cap unless you like to PVP, and even my friends who like PVP still left it.

[OmnysValefor]

I do typically write with Hyperbole, of course there is some things still worth using, the pieces of usukane+1 ares+1 mekira mainly, but as an overall, you get what I mean, without technicalities. If 99% of something is effectively outdone, I can (we can) go ahead and say 100% (even though it's not entirely true).

Yeah, just a pet peeve when people speak in absolutes but don't mean them^^. Not to split hairs but if you's said "Enif/etc was a massive letdown" or "regulated to macro pieces", I wouldn't have made a peep.


Limbus II showed us (me) what a complete and utter waste of time was. Not one single piece of EnifMurzim/ nor the mage set ( i dont even know the name its so bad) was even remotely worthwhile.

[Spectreman]

FFXI was always know to be an extremely punishing game towards players since its start. Abyssea was the epitome of evil. Procs that excluded many jobs from being useful and their players, 30minute stones that would require you to farm time before hand for hours to just start your damn event, bad drop rates...

FFXI devs always created content with this sort of punishment toward drops but Abyssea brought the punishment to a whole new level. So many years after its release for a group of players that got married, jobs and families to take care of. This is one of the reasons that FFXI didn't refresh its playerbase. Too much time required for too much punishment.

Of course someone will come here and say everything in abyssea is easy when he/she/it had a full linkshell working towards the same objective, but today its basically a dead zone that small groups do it for this or that specific content.


But the level of punishment is the same. So you can pretty much admit that doing Abyssea content from the perspective of a new player is impossible nowadays unless he forms a successful linkshell dedicated to this purpose. Considering the low amount of new players, the fact that many are casual to the point of hindering progression through Abyssea this just won't happen.

[Demon6324236]

Abyssea was the epitome of evil. Procs that excluded many jobs from being useful and their players, 30minute stones that would require you to farm time before hand for hours to just start your damn event, bad drop rates...Procs were actually a reason to include most jobs, stones build up quickly and Abyssites are not to hard to get so you get extra time or stones more quickly, and drop rates are amazing on most items if you proc it and throw some TH at it, if you do not proc it then yeah, drop rates are more annoying.


FFXI devs always created content with this sort of punishment toward drops but Abyssea brought the punishment to a whole new level. So many years after its release for a group of players that got married, jobs and families to take care of. This is one of the reasons that FFXI didn't refresh its playerbase. Too much time required for too much punishment.Seems to me the fact that all Abyssea needed for some of the best armor in the game, Emp +1/2, was a BLM, NIN, WHM, THF, and possibly WAR, would have the opposite effect, because you could go and do almost anything in Abyssea with a couple of friends. Besides that, those people you mention would be better off with the leveling speed that Abyssea brought as well, where as before it would take them much longer to get to the same level.


Of course someone will come here and say everything in abyssea is easy when he/she/it had a full linkshell working towards the same objective, but today its basically a dead zone that small groups do it for this or that specific content.I never had a linkshell to help me, the majority of my seals were gotten in shout groups. I understand today its less popular, but with all of the people who complain about this issue you would think that there would be enough to make some seal parties and get each other their stuff. Unless people are looking at seal shouts and ignoring them because its not the seals they need, in which case, your just making it harder on other people like you.



But the level of punishment is the same. So you can pretty much admit that doing Abyssea content from the perspective of a new player is impossible nowadays unless he forms a successful linkshell dedicated to this purpose. Considering the low amount of new players, the fact that many are casual to the point of hindering progression through Abyssea this just won't happen.You are right and wrong. Yes, its hard for a new player to do this content without assistance, or flat out harder now than ever before. No, no one has to form a linkshell to do this, a few shout groups, a static with some friends you make while leveling, or any other small group can easily be made to do this, a linkshell just for Abyssea would not get anywhere, it would get laughed at.

[Rustic]

Funny thing about Abyssea was this: If it hadn't been L30 to enter most of the (read: exp-giving-fountain-of-stupid) content, but only to start the stone-building process AND alliance-page exp hadn't become so incredibly stupid easy, by the time you'd actually be able to reasonably contribute in Abyssea (65 at worst, more like 75) the time taken would have been enough to build up a massive amount of stones.

But I'm in the "Abyssea shot the rest of the game in the foot" category here. If the earlier content hadn't been trivialized, we might now be crying so much about what we've got now.

[Edyth]

http://www.sternfannetwork.com/xen/index.php?attachments/imageuploadedbytapatalk1365516471-745390-jpg.159585/

[Tamoa]

I still cannot fathom what went through the developers' brains when they introduced Delve, effectively making almost all other content obsolete.

[Babekeke]

The ONLY reason that people are losing interest now is because SE messed up with the Delve NMs not de-popping to start with.

Had this been implemented in the beginning, people might still be doing skirmish for the 'quite good' upgrades to the pre-adoulin weapons.

People would also still be spamming reives so that they could get enough Bayld to enter Wildskeeper reives, just for the weapons, rather than just doing each one once for the win.

Due to the NMs not de-popping after 20 mins initially, people endured long and drawn-out fights and got the KIs to unlock delve weapons/equipment.

This meant that they could then farm plasm until they could afford to buy a delve weapon, and delve equipment.

They then bought delve weapons/equipment and started to upgrade them.

By the time that the 20 min limit was implemented, enough people already had delve weapon to make the delve NMs easy to kill. People who had missed the bus on the drawn out fights were able to join people with delve weapons on WHM, SCH, BRD and SCH to get their KIs and then buy their own delve weapons.

Adoulin content was designed to be progressive, but they messed it up and everyone skipped the majority of the content. We currently rely on those who have got a wildskeeper reive KI to take us into fractures, because we can't be bothered to do reives to get enough bayld to spend hours trying to find enough other people who also can't be bothered to farm bayld because they don't have to, so that we can get our own KIs to enter.

Once the KI cost to enter WK reives is halved, maybe people will be more inclined to get their own KIs, so there will be more shouts and more people willing to join, for a week or so. Hopefully after this happens, there might be a few more shouts for delve plasm farming too.

The only progressive part left is that people are still doing the NMs to get KIs to unlock weapons/equipment or a chance at gear drops. They are still farming plasm to buy/upgrade gear so that they can attempt to kill the bosses.

Once a group kills a boss, they are still farming plasm so that they can buy the boss drops, which are reassuringly expensive enough to at least guarantee the content not to drop off for maybe a year.



TL; DR:

Is Adoulin content bad? No. They all have good reward:effort ratio. Reives and Skirmish good for small groups, WK reive good for large groups. Delve good for more experienced groups.

Is all Adoulin content worthwhile? No. The playerbase beat Delve before it's time, making all of the rest of the content obsolete.

[Crusader81]

I've been playing this game for close to 9 years and finally seem to be at the point where I'm struggling to find reasons to keep putting crysta in or even log on for an hour each night.

Me too!

http://youtu.be/HHnxfrvgdqw

[OmnysValefor]

All good points.

It doesn't matter though, it was their mistake. After all these years, they know their playerbase will zombie. Things like stacking waypoints on top of several NM's only made zombie'ing easier, because it wasn't zombie'ing, it was hp'ing and returning read for new battle.

Now they've got a largely bored playerbase.

You also forgot that, as they stand, WK reives themselves are hours-long fights, besides the time taking to pug it.

Many of us have left lots of quality feedback that's well-received with the community but devs remain largely quiet.

[Osmond]

Many of us have left lots of quality feedback that's well-received with the community but devs remain largely quiet.

Yes, and that's the most annoying thing the dev team can ever do. Why ignore your fanbase that are trying to help make this game become better or respond when it's necessary? It's 1 of the reasons why im holding off on this game until the update cause it feels unplayable right now. This game needs alot of work and for god sake not release more useless gear on old endgame content...the majority of them I mean.

[Yinnyth]

Why ignore your fanbase that are trying to help make this game become better or respond when it's necessary?

Ok, I'll take this one. Because this:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33919-Make-FFXI-Free-to-play!

[Demon6324236]

Ok, I'll take this one. Because this:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33919-Make-FFXI-Free-to-play!You mean an idea that almost every single person in the thread opposed? I think the main thing that post was in response to is the fact SE ignores the good and the bad, no matter what the player base as a whole wants.

[Emilja]

I hate the LAAAAG in game I don't know why!! it's been a long time since the lag was long in my xbox ;;

[Mayoyama]

I've spent the last 3 weeks doing other things and have logged in ONCE... and that was to play around with monstrosity on the test server.. which (may I add) was fun.. but doubt it will be enough to get me to un-cancel my sub which expires next week.

**Adding content that basically shat on everything else in a big way (thus hugely devaluing years of work for other gear) and
**Such mundane and repetitive spam of Reives/Delve (which at this point I am sure anyone could run in their sleep) and
**Poor execution of events, such as the "little too late" nerfing of despawning delve NMs and
**Little prospect of anything "fresh" and "exciting" on the horizon AND
**A HUGE lack of storyline despite Matsui saying SoA would be very heavily filled with quest lines and multiple storylines (so far its been quite the contrary)

Would be why such a large portion of the playerbase is bored and "new" already feels "stale"

[Babekeke]

I've spent the last 3 weeks doing other things and have logged in ONCE... and that was to play around with monstrosity on the test server.. which (may I add) was fun.. but doubt it will be enough to get me to un-cancel my sub which expires next week.

**Adding content that basically shat on everything else in a big way (thus hugely devaluing years of work for other gear) and
**Such mundane and repetitive spam of Reives/Delve (which at this point I am sure anyone could run in their sleep) and
**Poor execution of events, such as the "little too late" nerfing of despawning delve NMs and
**Little prospect of anything "fresh" and "exciting" on the horizon AND
**A HUGE lack of storyline despite Matsui saying SoA would be very heavily filled with quest lines and multiple storylines (so far its been quite the contrary)

Would be why such a large portion of the playerbase is bored and "new" already feels "stale"

Let's be honest. If they released the whole storyline, all the missions, all the quests right from the start, everyone would have them completed by now and would have just about nothing to look forward to, besides the chance that one day they might beat a delve boss, and be able to farm enough plasm to own a boss weapon.

By releasing a few missions/quests every few months (just like they did with every other expansion that's been released for FFXI) the player-base holds out to see what the next quests/missions offer.

95% of the playerbase will most likely hold on until all of the SoA content has been released before deciding to quit.

[Longshot]

The devs definitely need to speak up or give us an idea of what they have planned. (How many of us are waiting for r/m/e updates...so we can do exactly what with them? Delve?)

When they decided to obsolete most of the game they should have had a lot more content ready to take its place.

[Aezelas]

By releasing a few missions/quests every few months (just like they did with every other expansion that's been released for FFXI) the player-base holds out to see what the next quests/missions offer.

95% of the playerbase will most likely hold on until all of the SoA content has been released before deciding to quit.

That's precisely the masterplan. Holding us until 8/27/2013.

[Mayoyama]

Let's be honest. If they released the whole storyline, all the missions, all the quests right from the start, everyone would have them completed by now and would have just about nothing to look forward to, besides the chance that one day they might beat a delve boss, and be able to farm enough plasm to own a boss weapon.

By releasing a few missions/quests every few months (just like they did with every other expansion that's been released for FFXI) the player-base holds out to see what the next quests/missions offer.

There were, apparently, a LOT of quests etc that were finished (in Japanese) and were meant to be included at SoA's launch but had not been translated yet... its been a few months now and none of them have yet been implemented. Is it really due to a lack of resources.. or is it just yet another excuse as to why they havent got around to doing stuff that should have been done ages ago (50% of the 2012 roadmap as just one example)

I am not at all saying that they should have released the entire storyline.. but really... an opening cutscene, a couple dialogs.. a mission needing the use of 50 imprimaturs (while it fits with lore it doesnt count as storyline) and then a single cutscene in the palace... I'm sorry but thats just paltry. We've had version updates in the past that have added more than that.


95% of the playerbase will most likely hold on until all of the SoA content has been released before deciding to quit.

Uh, no. Many will just cancel their subs/stop playing and "hang around" to see when something interesting will finally come up.

Addendum: I really do miss the roadmaps, at least then it gave players a sense of "progress" and knew what to look forward to. Even if something on it got delayed a bit, at least you knew where you stood and what to expect. Nowadays it really does just feel like they've bitten off more than they can chew and are in reactive knee-jerk mode.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

When they decided to obsolete most of the game

Am I the only one here that remembers the way campaign battle all but eliminated merit point parties and made large swats of relic armor obsolete?

[Karah]

Am I the only one here that remembers the way campaign battle all but eliminated merit point parties and made large swats of relic armor obsolete?

That's really not true at all, every new addition obsoletes SOME gear/content, that's inevitable, but comparatively delve obsoleted pretty much everything, that's a sizable difference.

I mean merit parties needed to go away. It was slow, it was outdated. And a lot of relic gear was never/will never be that worthwhile. Even most of the +2 even with aug's is pretty bad. That's not other contents fault, that's just bad design and failing to understand what the players want/need/actually use.

Just a couple examples;
Does anyone care that WHM feet give 5 extra defense per merit of Protectra V?
How about THF's body with enhanced Ambush...
BLM's 4/5 augments being specifically for AM II...
How about enhanced Feral Howl that barely works to begin with
"Enhances 'Sange' effect"... really?

[CrAZYVIC]

Will people please stop blaming the person who came up with mostly good content so far!?

Abyssea was not Matsui's design, neither was VW, or most of this game. The only content I can think of he made any sort of direct impact on that was created before he came in, was Meeble Burrows. He awesomely made it give you more points for more people instead of less points for more people, thus turning an event where people were left out so the smaller group could earn more, into an event where bringing and including others is more rewarding.

Lets look at Adoulin's content though, something I am sure he had much more influence on. Reives, they are like Campaign Battles, sure they have some flaws, but it introduced a HNM system which did not exclude players with 24 hour, or even 72 hour repop times. Skirmish, well, I never did it myself, it was a mistake, to restricted to enter and outdated far to quickly.

Delve, near perfect event in my eyes. Each zone has 6 NMs, 5 of which can be fought outside, beating any of the 3 lowest tier gives a KI to buy the drops from any of those 3 with a type of points you earn. Beating the highest tier, or one of the 2 NMs in the mid tier allow you to do the same with their items. Augmentable but not in a bad way, allowing you to choose a path for your weapons and directly influence their stats, rather than the random augments we have always seen in the past. Points can be gotten in a number of ways, from fighting normal mobs, to joining an entire alliance to go into a Fracture, or fighting NMs, allowing everyone from soloists to people who prefer large parties to get their things provided they can kill one of the NMs first. This event does not have procs, does not have the horrible drop rates, cells, or impossible NMs that VW had, it has a point system, but unlike others like Meebles or Einherjar its points can be gotten in a few different ways, none of which is tied to a lock out timer, such as Einherjar's day wait, or Meeble's Sacks once every 20 hours.

In my opinion, you are yelling at ghosts of the past, that is not Matsui's doing, asking him to go back and fix it would be better than blaming him for a problem he did not cause.



Good job white knighting square enix work.

Before this expansion

We could play Dynamis, Einherjar, Limbus, Legion, VW, NNI, salvaje and abyssea.

All we can play now are DELVE and Reive the game is getting very repetitive.


1.- The people say "Go kill the Expansion SAVER! mata". Mata is OVERCAMPED 24/7. You have wait massive time for pop it.

The only way for kill mata fast is inside of fracture. but good luck dealing with the links or with a Shitty pull, if you are tri boxing it

For Get the items without Plasma. You need kill the 1 - 3 NMS inside of fracture, thing only a "Solid group can do", You cant do this with a normal shout group.

If you have a solid LS or a Solid group of DDS can pull 100k damage per NM in the parse, good for you!. Not everyone can get this kind DDS in a Shout! Ending the Post here, with You.

I wish Point THIS for all the elitist players, i hope they understand Why we are asking for a low man version of fracture.

Yes we can Farm fracture with a low man group but you need INHUMANS players for do it.

The strategy for Low man Fracture atm

3 DDS. Drk and Sam onry, other Shit will not work here. Cor, Brd and WHM. 1 Zombie

1.- Start the Run. The Zombie/Thf. Will use powders boots pulling the NMS are inside of the main Room. Then Run for the 3 one, at this point flee effect is about of end, is necesary use flee /thf, get the 3 NM quickly

The zombie pull the NMs in a SAFE place Before the DIE

2.- The party will have Roam all time, the pops will be slow if they stay only in the main Room

The 3 DDS need to be total Elite DRKS or Sam, with enough Skills for do 500k + damage per head in the parse
The DDS Need Eat Marinara pizza +1, have PDT/MDT sets.
The DDS need USE STUN and JA Stuns rotations when the Stupid aura pop and if they are in danger.

The buffs need to be used are Chaos/Regain, March/Minuet. Regain because you will be RUNING A LOT and when you engage, you need SPAM WS quickly.

If you dont have 7 Gods playing, dont even try. If your DDS are stupid they will end death, if your whm is slow, your run will fail, if your zombie is not enough fast and skilled the run is fucked, if your buffers cant keep the buffs 90% the time GG. This is equal NNI Run and Reach the level 100, Elite players can try this, mortals Need 18/18.

This is the reason for im asking for a lowman VER. For skip all this BS and proceed to farm with a Small Group of Normal/Skilled players. Yes we can Lowman but you need MAGISTRAL Skilled players.

[Demon6324236]

Good job white knighting square enix work.Correction, defending Matsui, which I think is wrongfully blamed for many problems in this game that he was stuck with when he got the job, in particular this thread started out blaming him for a problem in Abyssea, a series of add-ons he has done nothing to alter in any way, shape, or form, directly until just recently with the Abyssea event, something which has 0 relevance to the topic at hand, which was complaining about killing an unproced, likely unTH'd Hedjedjet.


Before this expansion

We could play Dynamis, Einherjar, Limbus, Legion, VW, NNI, salvaje and abyssea.

All we can play now are DELVE and Reive the game is getting very repetitive.Weirdly I thought all of the content was still there, actively do-able, and available for those willing to do it. So far as I know, SE's plan even was for players to progress naturally through this content, rather than jumping straight to Delve and doing only Delve. Now, was it poorly done? Yes, because the player base, as normal, abused something to kill the NMs, and then went about their merry way to get whatever they wanted. Example? Simple, look at the parties that killed the NMs outside by holding the NM, having DDs or BLMs with Meteor hit it as hard as possible, die, reset JAs and do it again. We exploited the fact they had no time limit, something we have been asking for was the removal of cramping time limits that restrict things to zerg strats only, look at Legion or NNI for proof, to low of time, forced zerg strat. We exploited the power to do that and in return we made what was meant to be hard content into a 5 hour death fest to kill the NM, then, we had super weapons, not tons, but a few, the numbers grew and grew as time went on because of the fact people had them and helped others. Now, everyone can practically do Delve, a great deal of people have the wins for most NMs, allowing a great deal of people more powerful gear and weapons than they were ever meant to have by this point. It was a mistake by SE, yes, but it was a mistake on our part to for once again abusing an error they made and completely killing the meaning behind the content as a result. You act as though all of that other stuff is worthless or pointless, no one does it, well in fact it was meant to become a progression tree, one that will never be realized as it was meant to be because we skipped ahead, and even with SE trying to fix it, the damage is done!

[Umichi]

I agree with Demon a lot of problems we have now are due to players abusing the system the way it wasn't intended to be....I myself am a mixed player who does try to get some endgame done to progress. I have had powerful friends help me get past stuff I needed but for the most part I relied on myself throughout my gaming career to progress forward. Now I'm at the point where I can't compete with my high end friends so I can't join their endgame events (not really their fault) and I try doing those things but still can't really put out enough damage even though I'm a skilled player, so I'm stuck attempting older content but can't because I'm apart of a gap in players coming up from being new and players far more ahead in gear progression than me.

This creates a situation where I'm helping with older content and trying to do new content but i have to wait for some to play catch-up so we can all work together at our level of gaming and skill to get stuff done again. A lot of this i can thank because players abused the one most important system in the past gil. The great inflation that happened prior to my arrival in Vana'diel, RMT's helped bring in even more money...... The value of item's started disappearing, and as players gained more powerful items more often they were able to execute more offensive oriented strategies and forgo classic systems intended for combat.

Among other things an influx of gil into the game was in my opinion another reason on top of Demons suggestion of players abusing the system that has attributed to the current atmosphere our game has taken on.

I plan on playing the game in the future but right now I'm waiting for stuff to happen so I'm on hiatus again!

[Kuvo]

Ill be honest, I haven't played any of the new expansion gameplay except getting the 2 new jobs. Im a casual player that all I have really been doing is old content soloing nation missions, zilart, and cop thus far. I've also camped some older nms I never had the chance to get before. Everything seems to be going in a direction that takes away from what I personally loved about this game and that is a connected community. I miss working hard at leveling my character, farming for gil, and camping nms to get usable good gear and in turn use that gear during parties and ls events to truly help eachother complete our goal. I miss all that stuff about the game, and im not talking about grinding. Im talking about being connected in a game that was fun. This is only my opinion about how I enjoyed the game and what I miss.

I really loved abbysea too, yes it was god mode but it brought me back to this game. I personally thought the content was fun and obviously you got rewarded. You didn't have to be in a ls for half a year to have enough ls points to have a chance to lot for items. To me it was fun. Now all I have been seeing is content being developed for us to get this gear here from this spawnable nm and that's it. What good is gear on this game anymore? Spend all your time getting it to just stand around and let ppl check you. These are just my opinions, flame on

[Karah]

What good is gear on this game anymore? Spend all your time getting it to just stand around and let ppl check you. These are just my opinions, flame on

You are, totally right. Every piece of gear I've obtained in the last (year?) has been almost completely (few exceptions) to look good afkin' in. And making people who think it's good gear jealous. Perfect example was the Drachenhorn, hundreds of /jellies for an almost complete piece of trash.

It just perpetuates the cycle, you get good gear, to keep getting good gear... no logic.

You do delve to get delve gear to do delve. Vast majority aren't going to do Fracture Naakuls. and next update we'll throw away the delve gear and get new shit, at the rate they're going.

[Aezelas]

Imo it's precisely why this game became boring. It's really only about getting gear and doing repetitive events slashing mobs.

I liked this game because of the balance between fights and storyline/quests.
Even the quests to unlock new jobs shows an insulting lazyness.


Someone said the new content is near perfect, and i'm pretty sure he only had the drop system in mind.
It has its flaws but I can understand why some people like it. Besides drop system, the new content is nowhere near perfect.
I find it boring, too elitist and it requires too much time to gather people when you have to deal with random shouts.
Aby dealt with this in a perfect way, since fewer people were required to quickly enjoy the content.

There are no quests, no missions, skirmish was made nearly impossible to access in the first place.
Doing reives to get enough baylds for Naakual fight wasn't fun at all, and delve followed reive's footsteps in that repetitive playstyle.

Exploring Adoulin's zones isn't fun either, because of the awful map design.

It's a shame because there are some good ideas, but they made huge mistakes and got people sick.
A lot of things need to be fixed, maybe too much, and i'm thinking they won't bother with that much, as i bet they want us all to progressively quit for XIV.

Happy 11th anniversary! The last one.
RIP

[Splinters]

I have finally put my NNI/VW/Delve gear to good use. I am using it to help new players level faster in GoV and then rushing them through LB's. Otherwise this gear is what Karah mentioned, looking good while AFK.

[Demon6324236]

Someone said the new content is near perfect, and i'm pretty sure he only had the drop system in mind.Mostly, but really its flat out better in my opinion than most content we have been getting. I personally find it funny people complain about it being just Delve over and over for Plasm killing the same little mobs over and over again. Why is it funny? Simple, because that's all VW was and we ate it up for a long time, difference is the drops were horrid and unlike Delve you needed most of the Alliance to be competent for things to work out so you got any rewards at all, in Delve, so long as my party, not Alliance, party, does well, I can assure myself 2~3.5k Plasm from my group alone, if the others suck, I still got rewarded.


It has its flaws but I can understand why some people like it. Besides drop system, the new content is nowhere near perfect.Without the best part, no, its not, but its better than what we have had in the past, certain things like Salvage or Meebles beat it in simply verity or fun because they are different, but I see this event to be very comparable with VW2.0.


I find it boring, too elitist and it requires too much time to gather people when you have to deal with random shouts.
Aby dealt with this in a perfect way, since fewer people were required to quickly enjoy the content.I agree, so far as accessible content goes Abyssea was the best we have ever had, and probably ever will.


There are no quests, no missions, skirmish was made nearly impossible to access in the first place.This is mostly true, the quests and missions are coming later on, probably what they are focusing on now so far as new content as Matsui said he wanted to stop making EG events for a bit. So far as Skirmish that was fixed at the same time that Delve came out, which we abused its flaw and made Skirmish pointless. So basically just like with Delve, Skirmish was fixed after the damage was already dealt.


Doing reives to get enough baylds for Naakual fight wasn't fun at all, and delve followed reive's footsteps in that repetitive playstyle.For the most part, I agree, the only difference is that Delve at least is constant action for 45 minutes with a break then more action for 45 minutes, Reives were 5 minutes of action with 10 minutes between, which was worse in my opinion.


Exploring Adoulin's zones isn't fun either, because of the awful map design.Mostly agree, I always find new areas fun to run around in when they look new, like Morimar.


It's a shame because there are some good ideas, but they made huge mistakes and got people sick.
A lot of things need to be fixed, maybe too much, and i'm thinking they won't bother with that much, as i bet they want us all to progressively quit for XIV.Basically what I was thinking myself, and so long as RDM is in that game, I will definitely be there.


Happy 11th anniversary! The last one.
RIP

[Mayoyama]

I got invited to FFXIV beta phase 3... after only an hour of playing around, it glaringly made evident exactly why most people will move on from XI unless something drastic is done. I for one am 100% certain my decision to unsub this month was the right one. XIV has so many things XI players have been asking for for years.. and then some (NB not white knighting XIV.. just using it as an example of why XI is on a very steep downward slope).

Then again.. you know things are bad when even playing a game of solitaire on your PC is more entertaining than XI... lol

EDIT: Just saw the RUN merits and ya.. I rest my case lol....

Disclaimer: Not going to say any more on XIV just so I dont end up breaking some kind of NDA

[SqEnisfilledwithgeniuses]

I got invited to FFXIV beta phase 3... after only an hour of playing around, it glaringly made evident exactly why most people will move on from XI unless something drastic is done.
Disclaimer: Not going to say any more on XIV just so I dont end up breaking some kind of NDA

I got accepted to the PS3 beta as well. Just saying, FFXI is about to get smashed. Clearly SE has listened to requests and suggestions, they just put it in the wrong game.

FFXIV: A Realm Reborn
FFXI: A Realm Aborted

[Xantavia]

I have finally put my NNI/VW/Delve gear to good use. I am using it to help new players level faster in GoV and then rushing them through LB's. Otherwise this gear is what Karah mentioned, looking good while AFK.
Nice to hear that, but be careful. I feel like I've been burned numerous times helping new players. You help them get to a position where they in turn can assist you (nyzul and CoP mostly at the time), then they suddenly rush ahead and can't be bothered to return the favor.

[SqEnisfilledwithgeniuses]

Nice to hear that, but be careful. I feel like I've been burned numerous times helping new players. You help them get to a position where they in turn can assist you (nyzul and CoP mostly at the time), then they suddenly rush ahead and can't be bothered to return the favor.

^^^^^^^^^^^This.

Found a truly new player who had never touched FFXI before. Gave him 100k, brought him into my social LS. Helped him level, got him geared. Then next thing you know, he's sitting in Jeuno shouting about how worthless the LS is and how it helps no one, and not to join it. I'd rather afk in SoA in shiny gear with OP stats while I play FFXIV beta, than waste my time helping someone who is eventually just going to plant a knife in my back. The few ruin it for the many.

[GoblinTown]

I'd rather afk in SoA in shiny gear with OP stats while I play FFXIV beta, than waste my time helping someone who is eventually just going to plant a knife in my back. The few ruin it for the many.

...and in those many were lost those few who would have given back and would have been happy to call you friend.

[Mayoyama]

...and in those many were lost those few who would have given back and would have been happy to call you friend.

I can say with confidence that out of the plethora of people I've helped over the past 5 years, there's maybe 2-3 (max) I can still call a "friend".. the rest got what they wanted and pissed off, probably laughing their assess off they just conned yet another nice person to further themselves up the foodchain.

Either that or the big green envy boogyman with his peanut butthurt and jelly sammich would go stomping through the ls yet again and use it as an excuse as to why they should never have to help you back regardless of how many months you donated time to helping them get their gear up to snuff lol...

[sc4500]

FF14 is simply amazing and should play that , and play on ff11 when ever they got server maintence or on a dry spell for content for ff14 , but i hope they got a plan in place so they can keep ff11 running for another decade. Yet what they did for ff14 is a miracle and hope all of you can play it or try it. What all the ff11 fans and FF fans wanted in a mmo they made, If you can try ff14 really should and not just be like ff11 bored me so no more square mmos.

[Spectreman]

The new content is too easy for those who already had the best gear to achieve, soon they will be bored again. Yet it's impossible to be reached by others who were not lucky enough to be on the Abyssea train. SE doesn't know how to run an online game. Cattering to the hardcore, forgetting the casuals.

It's not the community fault that they only pick delve geared players for delve content. It's SE fault for creating an itemization system that makes 99% of everything useless and events that require so much precision to fight the amount of time required to get things done that makes players choose the best setups only for fights.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Found a truly new player who had never touched FFXI before.

As a general rule, I don't reach out to new players unless their title is something other than "New Adventurer" or "Mog's Master." I've found that to be a relatively reliable indicator of initiative and curiosity on the part of a new player.

[Demon6324236]

Cattering to the hardcore, forgetting the casuals.Catering to the current players, forgetting new players. Most casual players I know are able to do Delve right now, they went with the LS on a few runs, did some bosses, we went with some of the hardcore people in the LS but all in all got wins for people. Then the LS did some Delve farms for plasm, again, casual members came, they were not uberpro, they did not have the best gear, we even had a WHM who was actually in almost full Teal, but we got them Plasm so they could get Delve gear. Most casual players I know have done much of Abyssea, most importantly the gear aspect, I have a friend who can only get on about 3 hours every day except Monday & Tuesday, he finished Abyssea gear and an Ukon by workin at it. My point in all of this is that they are not really targeting casual players, or forgetting them, the players who are hurt by this most are new or returning players because the content they need to use to build up and catch up is long since abandoned by most, thus making it to hard to catch up. Players both hardcore and casual who have been around a while have left Abyssea behind for the most part, its a matter of play time, not really how much you play.


It's not the community fault that they only pick delve geared players for delve content.I forgot SE told everyone to only bring Delve DDs to Delve, oh wait, they asked people to bring more casual or weaker players along for the experience as well rather than leaving them out.


It's SE fault for creating an itemization system that makes 99% of everything useless and events that require so much precision to fight the amount of time required to get things done that makes players choose the best setups only for fights.Whoa, wait, what? NM fights are hard, yes, but no one said, again, that people should jump right to Delve, we were never meant to, it was meant to be the hardest event in the game. Remember when Legion was the hardest content and only a handful of linkshells on each server did it? Yeah, that is what Delve was supposed to be, hard, but we did what we do, abused flaws, and boom, many more people have wins than were ever meant to by this point, killing the latter, making it the only relevant thing for the most part.

Now, you are saying its not the players fault they only take Delve geared players, well, who's fault is it? SEs, and your reason for why makes no sense. As I said, NMs take some amount of precision, if by precision you mean paying enough attention to exploit a specific built in weakness that we figured out how to do weeks ago. As for taking only the best setups for a fight, that's how most people do it, best setups, not best gear. Plasm farming is easy, so long as you have competent healers(who understand this is not Abyssea or VW with super MP) and DDs who do not get the party killed(DRKs who pop SE/LR/Bergressor and think they will live long) so that's not really hard or precision requiring either, just intelligence/attention requiring.

So I agree, NMs take some effort and might be a bit hard, but Plasm farming is easy, and getting wins is not to bad if you have some good friends willing to help out. Saying its not the players fault for Delve exclusive shouts though, that's an annoying amount of finger pointing. That's like saying its not the players fault for shouting for only RME DDs for VW months ago, because T4 City NMs are so hard, or that Qilin is going to kill party without RME only DDs. Its the fault of the player base being impatient with things and wanting everything now. Why accept a Hoarfrost Blade DRK or OAT DRK, or even a Rag DRK when you can have one of the 100 Bereaver DRKs who are just waiting for a Delve shout to go by on their screen? Simple, you wouldn't, and besides that, if you shout you probably want Plasm, or win, why take something that is either slower or weaker when you can assure yourself a better run, or better shot at winning, by simply taking only Delve people? You wouldn't, and so the player base does it to each other yet again.

[Merton9999]

I got invited to FFXIV beta phase 3... after only an hour of playing around, it glaringly made evident exactly why most people will move on from XI unless something drastic is done. I for one am 100% certain my decision to unsub this month was the right one. XIV has so many things XI players have been asking for for years.. and then some (NB not white knighting XIV.. just using it as an example of why XI is on a very steep downward slope).

Then again.. you know things are bad when even playing a game of solitaire on your PC is more entertaining than XI... lol

EDIT: Just saw the RUN merits and ya.. I rest my case lol....

Disclaimer: Not going to say any more on XIV just so I dont end up breaking some kind of NDA

I'm glad someone else did it before me, so I'm just going to agree. I was invited this weekend as well, and FFXIV is miraculous. The most fun I've had starting any video game in the last 15 years.

As far as XI goes, I don't necessarily think they're trying to dump people over to XIV. I think they're just trying to make sure XI remains a different beast, so they can attract multiple types of players. I haven't enjoyed much of XI since I finished Abyssea, but I do think it offers some positive things I'm not sure I'll find in XIV. Though I'm out as of June 30th, I'll definitely still keep an eye on the game and the forum comments, just in case XIV ever gets stale.

[Cledant]

You can kill NMs for your items, who said you had to grind Plasm? No one, people just favor that as it helps multiple people, if you wanted you could go out and do Mata, kill it, get Airlixirs for upgrades, use the 500 Plasm a kill and use that Plasm for more items as you slowly build it, need around 600 Airlixirs for a level 15 piece of gear anyways, say you get 15 on average counting +1s, that's 40 kills, 20k Plasm, enough for most drops from normal mobs. Besides that there is always the possibility of killing normal mobs.

We forgot a horrible event, sounds like a good thing to me.
Bosses hardly grants any new items or weapons but a bunch of airlixirs (thats why almost/everyone prefers to do plasm grinding), on top of that it takes a considerable time to gather alliance members for bosses/delve, since most servers are dead with lots of non-active players

[Sarick]

I've been playing this game for close to 9 years and finally seem to be at the point where I'm struggling to find reasons to keep putting crysta in or even log on for an hour each night. Even a skillup session on GEO seems like a futile effort.

If they haven't already, S-E would do well to take some pointers for ArenaNet as far as designing FFXIV 2.0 updates in the future.

I agree with this 100%. The game has moved in the wrong direction since the update. Before you gained power by mostly leveling up and getting sets of gear that generally worked well for your level. Now they've added super items that push the game toward the hardcore play style. SE really dropped the ball in this expansion. These changes hurt a lot of players and their interest.

I enjoyed abbysea a lot. I could log on do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I didn't need stink'en large alliances to enjoy the game. This game has become a large rat race that SE keeps adding track to at the end while everything behind you turns to rubble. What happens when you can't keep up? The answer is simple the road behind you collapses. This is what has happened with the games direction. It's why so many players feel what this OP is saying.

If it's not fun then everything is for naught. It's not fun playing a game like a real life job. A game is supposed to be about entertainment. I don't get paid to play "I'm not an RMT" so this game should be fun. Unfortunately, it's not and the time I'm spending is mostly on offline RPGS.

[BST]

Does anyone here think that SE would give a shit if they lost 50% of subs for this game now that XIV is really that good?
XIV:ARR is amazing! just look at the JP beta forum "165,000 testers over 30-40+ servers with 700,000 signups for Phase 3 to 4".

[Jaall]

FFXIV is definitely gonna take over this games crown. I really think FFXI has lost too many players now and is ready to pass the baton. As far as SE's support for this game goes I'm not sure what will happen but when FFXI stops being their main money-maker and FFXIV takes over, you know where SE will be spending their time and money.

[Rustic]

I really loved abbysea too, yes it was god mode but it brought me back to this game. I personally thought the content was fun and obviously you got rewarded. You didn't have to be in a ls for half a year to have enough ls points to have a chance to lot for items. To me it was fun. Now all I have been seeing is content being developed for us to get this gear here from this spawnable nm and that's it. What good is gear on this game anymore? Spend all your time getting it to just stand around and let ppl check you. These are just my opinions, flame on

Abyssea was designed to be a mercy-kill for FFXI when FFXIV came along. Adoulin was designed to kill off everything prior, thanks to Abyssea basically rendering the game "over" as the equivalent of a "New Game+". Unfortunately, someone in there didn't realize that people will do whatever content is "best" and ignore the rest, the same way people ignored 99% of the old game content once Abyssea came along.

It feels like they, once again tried to finish off the game but missed horribly, having lobotomized most of their own creation and leaving us only with people farming for plasm, endlessly.

[Demon6324236]

Well in all honesty I am not sure this game will be around once FFXIV comes out. Yes, I know, people have been saying FFXI would die forever, but whats new? FFXIV is another game from SE, its taking resources, it appeals to the same kind of players in many ways including the Final Fantasy title itself, not to mention Squares traditional way of story telling and character development. So far as things that FF games do best, we can expect to see them in FFXIV like we did with FFXI, also, many players here have been saying they will be changing to FFXIV.

Sure, FFXI just got a new expansion, but look at its reception! Even though I myself like many things it brought, it seems like the majority of people who speak on these forums do not like it, many in fact think its destroying the game. As it has been said, Delve has become the most popular event in the game in a matter of a month since its release, and not popular like VW, but popular in the way that almost everything before it was instantly taken from being worth going after, to being a waste of time. Things like the Delve weapons or the new pieces of armor have easily surpassed our previous expectations of gear, and besides that many old pieces of content which were viewed as possibly the hardest things in the game, have become trivial. Things like Legion, where mobs were hard to kill and presented a real difficult challenge to even the best of players, have become jokes, not only were they weakened but the average damage a DD can deal as well as their average gear level in terms of things like Accuracy have been boosted to extremes.

The direction the game has gone overall has also changed, we once had gear come out which was mostly side grades, and while many people hated that, what has happened now seems to be even worse, but admittedly is what was basically asked for. People hated side grades and wanted real upgrades, the problem that was brought with this is the fact we all see those upgrades, and instantly go after those, especially when they take less overall time to get, than our old weaker gear. After all, why go out of your way to make a Relic when you can make a weapon twice as strong in only a few hours of Delve farming? Some of the gear was a bunch of clear upgrades as well, for instance the light DD legs, which are amazing, or the Mikinaak body which rivals Phorcys for many WSs at level 15 and beats Phorcys at many others at the same level. In the end, we saw just what we asked for, direct upgrades. The thing is they tried to change the direction in the way of tree progression. So we would work on, say, the Skirmish weapon for our job, like SAM, and then once we had it with some nice augments we would take on Delve, and move on to that weapon.

The problem with tree progression in this game stems from a single issue that SE has seemingly had with this game for quite some time. The lack of ability to get things right the first try. Many pieces of content are not balanced properly for the players on its first go around without some type of exploit or locking of the mob in question. Like Legion which was Stun and PD locked to stop the enemies from hurting you, yes, we won, but the point is we did it by literally removing the enemies offence from the equation. In this case, rather than making the enemies over powered for the sake of being over powered, they did it very well, they gave them each weaknesses, not in the form of procs or anything like that which we saw in the past, but more creatively. By giving every NM their own special way to fight it, like keeping Blind on a NM to not only take away its two best attacks, but also lower its evasion to levels it can be easily hit, they made each NM special and unique in the way which you had to fight. Sure, under it all it was a zerg in the end, but one which took more planning and thought to succeed at.

The problem to all of this great work in my opinion was their flawed start. As I said, SE has a hard time getting things right the first time around, in this case, as we asked for a long time they finally gave us an event without a highly restricted timer, like how Legion and NNI were, when we always complained about zerging everything. The problem existed because once we had no timer, and we could easily move back to the NM's position, it became pointless to give up a fight, why quit when you can just keep going at it till it dies? So that's what we did, we kept at it for hours and hours, killing each NM one by one figuring out the weaknesses along the way, but as we did we also got the KIs, the gear, and in the end, killed the tree. The tree was meant for us to progress along to the point where Delve would be hard, but possible to the top players, it was meant to be something no one had really beaten as of right now, only a few select shells on each server, and the Delve bosses would be long out of reach still.

Thanks to the fact we rushed ahead, this will never be realized, and another piece of content which suffered the opposite, a slow start, will be forgotten. By that I of course mean Skirmish, a piece of content which we had many problems with originally, mostly, accessibility. By the time this was fixed, Delve was released, and with it came the exact thing that made Skirmish pointless, Delve weapons, so now Delve weapons are much stronger than Skirmish weapons and Skirmish offers nothing unique worth the time to get it, even if it is much more accessible now it has so few people doing it that not many care. I myself am among those who never did it while it mattered due to lack of funds or luck, and besides that, the time has come now that I probably will never bother, after all, why would I do it when I can farm Plasm in less time and have every KI from Delve so far?





I honestly think that FFXI will die this time. Like I said originally, I know people have been saying that for a long time, but look at how things are going right now. The game has changed directions completely again, unlike Abyssea, this way is going much worse, Abyssea brought in people by giving a new fast way of leveling and making the end game, which was built on the most, more accessible. SoA, or rather, Delve on the other hand, has turned most of the games content into nothing, the same way as Abyssea did in the end, but in a much more drastic way. Abyssea made leveling irrelevant and out classed most of the gear, in those respects this did the same, but Abyssea was many different things all wrapped under a single title, it had experience point parties still, it had seals, +2s, Emps, multitudes of NMs and areas to go in, many types of mobs, and quests, as well as a story which while it was somewhat poor in quality.

So far Adoulin has given us Reives, basically killing roots and rocks or special mobs meant to be hard which people tackle with -DT ignoring attacks, Skirmish, a long lost event almost no one got to do, or ever will bother doing, and Delve, the content which outdated almost all other content. Many things we looked forward to with Adoulin have failed to come about. Our resort islands, play as a monster, a new story which would not be strung out like WotG, all 7 HNMs, and so on. If you think about it, even the HNMs have been changed in a way which to me takes all the fun out of it, like Abyssea, and WotG, our dimension is once again not good enough. So far as I understand, Delve, Skirmish, Abyssea, WotG, VW, Prov, WoE, and possibly more are all events or expansions which take place in other worlds. I would be ok with that if it did not feel like everything hard was in another dimension. When will a true challenge come back to Vana?

All in all, FFXIV promises to do what its earlier version did not, provide FF fans entertainment in MMO form, in a fun world with good story and great gameplay as well as beautiful graphics that are awe-inspiring when you first lay your eyes upon them. Many people have already claimed they will take their leave from Vana once its released, or already have in hopes that it is as big of a success as it looks like it will be, and with how FFXI has changed over the last few months, it is not looking good for the game. The only hope I think FFXI has left is in this supposed June update we are supposed to get, a large update which was to bring a ton of Adoulin related things to us, like our resort and the other areas. But the question we must ask is, are we going to be delayed again? Its over half way into the month with little info, and as much as SE loves to keep things secret, this is only hurting them more at this point. On top of everything else, will this update really help things? The damage Delve did has been done, nothing short of nerfing its rewards to fall in line or removing them from players who got them so far from the early rush when it was broken will fix these issues. Neither of these two options would go well with players either, both would throw us into a fit of rage. So what will this June update bring? Will it be worth the wait some have given or will it only prove that this game has met its end finally, and the expansion's life, as well as the games life, cut short?

[Castoth]

I'll agree that SoA content, so far, only caters to current players and makes it extremely hard for returning/new players to ever catch up. As of now, I've been starting to do SoA content (grinding Imps, farming Bayld in the few Ceizac Rieves done during JP primetime so I can afford a Wildskeeper Rieve KI, etc) and already am seeing major issues ahead within the next few months. Heck, one issue I'm already coming across is that many sections outside of Ceizac are impossible to pass through now due to higher level Colonization Rieves blocking all routes. Bivouacs being destroyed in most areas is another issue as their waypoints can't be accessed even if I could reach those blocked off areas. Good luck shouting for a Morimar or Moh Gates Rieve group to temporarily break through those, now that most of the playerbase has moved on to Delve and have their warps already.

This is just one example. Once Delve 2.0 gets released, it may get even worse if Matsui lacks the foresight to address the new/returning playerbase and cause more to give up.

[Spectreman]

If all those elitists from FFXI leave the game for FFXIV i feel pity for those trying to have fun in FFXIV.

[Jaall]

FFXIV is bringing in people from all different places though so it won't just be elitists playing like FFXI is becoming, you'll have much greater choice of who to team up with. Also it would be likely that a lot of the old FFXI players who quit in the past few years will be joining XIV so it'll be more like the old days of XI just with different gameplay (although it's not as different as I first thought it would be). If you're getting bored of XI I would highly recommend trying XIV, it has great potential.

[kylani]

FFXIV is bringing in people from all different places though so it won't just be elitists playing like FFXI is becoming, you'll have much greater choice of who to team up with. Also it would be likely that a lot of the old FFXI players who quit in the past few years will be joining XIV so it'll be more like the old days of XI just with different gameplay (although it's not as different as I first thought it would be). If you're getting bored of XI I would highly recommend trying XIV, it has great potential.

Personally, the way SE ignores the Non-Japanese player base, I feel they'll ignore us in 14 as well. I'm thinking it might be nice to try an MMO that tries to appeal to all.

[Mayoyama]

Personally, the way SE ignores the Non-Japanese player base, I feel they'll ignore us in 14 as well. I'm thinking it might be nice to try an MMO that tries to appeal to all.

Problem is.. you can never please everybody, and (often) the more you try the worse you make the situation for the exact same people you were trying to impress

[kylani]

Problem is.. you can never please everybody, and (often) the more you try the worse you make the situation for the exact same people you were trying to impress

I don't want them to try to impress all. It's just obvious they don't care about what non-Japanese think. They ask for opinions, then never seem to listen. Look at the front page and how many comments are on Japanese threads vs. non-Japanese threads. They have polls for things like beast pets, and only the Japanese votes seem to matter, etc.

I've loved the game and don't regret the time I've played, but I'm tired of feeling ignored, and more tired of feeling like they are ruining this game hoping to force us to 14. Just feeling like a fresh start, not restarting with more of the same bias.

[BST]

If all those elitists from FFXI leave the game for FFXIV i feel pity for those trying to have fun in FFXIV.

News flash : Care Not Given!

FFXIV - Not XI 2.0 HD remaster.

No gear swapping, No auto-attack-gear swap-tp-care. With the vanity tab(Costume), you see what players want you to see.. Is that PLD wearing clouds getup from ff7?....its hiding his armour! I could go on about why nobody will care for elitist ppl but just read the beta forums and you'll see..

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

It's just obvious they don't care about what non-Japanese think. They ask for opinions, then never seem to listen.

In XIV, that will mean that they're NA- and EU-centric servers will depopulate, and S-E will be driven to respond one way or another.

[Spectreman]

Personally, the way SE ignores the Non-Japanese player base, I feel they'll ignore us in 14 as well. I'm thinking it might be nice to try an MMO that tries to appeal to all.

Believe me, i tried. Everquest 1, 2. WoW, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, Darkfall, Rift, TERA, DCUO, City of Heroes, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, FFXIV, and dozens of F2P ones from korea/china/whatever.

Nothing ever came close to FF11. I tried another MMORPG to call home for 9 years. Best i managed was wow for 3 months.

[OmnysValefor]

Bosses hardly grants any new items or weapons but a bunch of airlixirs (thats why almost/everyone prefers to do plasm grinding), on top of that it takes a considerable time to gather alliance members for bosses/delve, since most servers are dead with lots of non-active players

People prefer grinding, because short of Matamata, all the bosses require some level of coordination that anyone can mess up. (Easy for 10 good players can become a nightmare for 17 good players and 1 bad player.). A person could actually screw up matamata if they were determined.

1 bad player can screw up delve farms too, but it almost takes effort to do that.

[Xantavia]

They have polls for things like beast pets, and only the Japanese votes seem to matter, etc.
This actually made me laugh. I remember the uproar when a hippogryph was selected even though scorpion polled higher. And yet, Falcorr is like 99% of the pets I see bst running around with.

[sc4500]

In XIV, that will mean that they're NA- and EU-centric servers will depopulate, and S-E will be driven to respond one way or another.

I'm sure they seen the ff14 forums and the 300k plus post in the general area of NA area and all the positive feedback that it got going on and there like holy crap lol. ( I wish they would allow us FF11 players to read there posts over there with out having to read it from friends shared skype screens even if can not post anything until you got the ff14 beta or ff14 game register.), and how they on the beta have limited the amount of NA players do to the volume. FF14 got a global feel to it , Yes it might be missing some of the suff NA and South Korean mmos people are accostumed to, but it does got a great ff vibe and feels fresh in it own world.

FF14 feeling like a classic game. One that we all be playing for years to come and be the game that get the japanese developers out of there funk and globalized some there awsome games.

[Zumi]

Personally, the way SE ignores the Non-Japanese player base, I feel they'll ignore us in 14 as well. I'm thinking it might be nice to try an MMO that tries to appeal to all.

It's just a lot easier for them to get feedback from their Japanese player base since they can look at the JP forums and read stuff players are posting. They have a couple of community reps on the NA side. They basically have to read what we post and bring up some of the top issues and a lot of it gets missed.

[kylani]

This actually made me laugh. I remember the uproar when a hippogryph was selected even though scorpion polled higher. And yet, Falcorr is like 99% of the pets I see bst running around with.

Because we didn't get the scorpion and the other choices aren't that great either? I actually see a variety of pets not just Falcorr. I kept a variety on hand, but I really am not crazy over any of them. If anything, I liked Falcorr because I like fishing the bladefish.

[kylani]

I'm sure they seen the ff14 forums and the 300k plus post in the general area of NA area and all the positive feedback that it got going on and there like holy crap lol. ( I wish they would allow us FF11 players to read there posts over there with out having to read it from friends shared skype screens even if can not post anything until you got the ff14 beta or ff14 game register.), and how they on the beta have limited the amount of NA players do to the volume. FF14 got a global feel to it , Yes it might be missing some of the suff NA and South Korean mmos people are accostumed to, but it does got a great ff vibe and feels fresh in it own world.

FF14 feeling like a classic game. One that we all be playing for years to come and be the game that get the japanese developers out of there funk and globalized some there awsome games.

And already the beta weekends cater to JP playtime. NAs get a partial weekend unless they take off work Fridays.

I really don't care that much. I'm probably MMO'd out. I've played a lot of MMOs and always came back to FFXI, but I'm feeling more and more that it's over. My sub ends June 28th, and I'm not sure what I'll swap to, if anything, but I would like something where I feel the devs care about me enjoying their game even if I know gaming companies just care about the bottom line.

[OmnysValefor]

Falcorr: Does more single target damage than Yuly, has Treasure Hunter.

People use falcorr because it makes sense, doesn't matter if they voted for a scorpion.

[Jaall]

And already the beta weekends cater to JP playtime. NAs get a partial weekend unless they take off work Fridays.

That's just because it's a beta. They're based in Japan and need to do tests all the time as a part of the beta, if they're asleep while the beta is running then no tests will be done which is the idea of a beta. The feedback offered by players is only a small part of what actually goes on. it would be exactly the same if an EU/NA mmo was about to be released and went into beta - the japanese would have to cater to our timezones in order to take part.

When the game is actually released the Japanese will probably have more of a say of what goes into the game in the same way as they do in XI, but I highly doubt it'll be as bad as XI due to the fact that there is a larger team working on XIV. Also it would be in their best interests to listen to everyone and they probably realise that already, given the start XIV had.

[kylani]

That's just because it's a beta. They're based in Japan and need to do tests all the time as a part of the beta, if they're asleep while the beta is running then no tests will be done which is the idea of a beta. The feedback offered by players is only a small part of what actually goes on. it would be exactly the same if an EU/NA mmo was about to be released and went into beta - the japanese would have to cater to our timezones in order to take part.

When the game is actually released the Japanese will probably have more of a say of what goes into the game in the same way as they do in XI, but I highly doubt it'll be as bad as XI due to the fact that there is a larger team working on XIV. Also it would be in their best interests to listen to everyone and they probably realise that already, given the start XIV had.

I've enjoyed FFXI. It may end on a somewhat depressing note, but I really can't complain that I haven't gotten my money's worth over time, so I'd just as soon let this drop, but I'd really like to understand your comment. The beta runs from Friday morning to Sunday morning (my time), so I don't understand what it has to do with developers having to sleep while watching it. I doubt the same developers are staying up the entire 48 hours.

Maybe SE will care more about the entire player base. Just not expecting it to. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

[Tennotsukai]

Definitely lost interest too. I'm taking a break for a while.

[Jaall]

I've enjoyed FFXI. It may end on a somewhat depressing note, but I really can't complain that I haven't gotten my money's worth over time, so I'd just as soon let this drop, but I'd really like to understand your comment. The beta runs from Friday morning to Sunday morning (my time), so I don't understand what it has to do with developers having to sleep while watching it. I doubt the same developers are staying up the entire 48 hours.

Maybe SE will care more about the entire player base. Just not expecting it to. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

Probably not but they are Japanese therefore they mainly focus on their times, in exactly the same way as an NA/EU game would in their beta. We are no better than Japanese game designers, it only makes sense to run the beta in your own time. The fact that it is only every weekend makes this really clear, but maybe phase 4 in a few weeks will be up full time and it's open so anyone can join. If you play any Japanese game and expect them to care the same about NA/EU customers as they do with their JP player base then you may be a bit disappointed that's all. I personally don't mind how it works out and whether they listen or not as long as it's a good game, which it looks to be.

[Olor]

Well, first thi I am doing if a game company ignores me, belittles me, ruins a game I love... Is to play the game that was so bad they apologized for it. I am sure they would never abandon it as soon as something shinier comes along

[Umichi]

News flash : Care Not Given!

FFXIV - Not XI 2.0 HD remaster.

No gear swapping, No auto-attack-gear swap-tp-care. With the vanity tab(Costume), you see what players want you to see.. Is that PLD wearing clouds getup from ff7?....its hiding his armour! I could go on about why nobody will care for elitist ppl but just read the beta forums and you'll see..

Umm he said nothing about FFXIV being a XIv2.... I'm with spectre... I wonder how these elitests will shape that game because they did a damn good job gutting FFXI... I love all of the content because I'm still progressing and never had acess to powerfull allies due to time restraints and when I played... But it gets boring when you having nothing but really powerful people outpacing you by alot... then your trying to help new people play catchup because xp system is f'ed up and they are leveling faster than game progression should be and thats because we have a system that allows you into abyssea at lvl 31... amongst other xp exploits while legitimate are merely powerleveling tools abused by higher level players... combine lack of players even existing on the game it makes for a hard time rapidly adapting to where your inbetween everything...

[OmnysValefor]

I love the things people can blame on other players.

We hacked our way right into those maws, with hacks that only work at level 30.

Now being progressed is elitist? Most of the changes brought about in the last 4 years shocked these so-called elitists just as much as they shocked you.

[Demon6324236]

Now being progressed is elitist?No, were just bad people for leveling quickly rather than wasting time leveling slowly in a tedious party structure is all.

[Umichi]

no being progressed isn't elitest... expecting others to conform to the way you play is being elitest and sadly thats where alot of the problems come from highly developed players with a longtime standing in this game that are so far ahead of the curve they are looking for the next challenge because they already have most of the shinies that us casual/normal players find still takes time and effort to try and accomplish them. Their perspective of the game is so dillusional that players who actualy are at a different tier of progression have been lost in the fray.

[Vizzer]

no being progressed isn't elitest... expecting others to conform to the way you play is being elitest and sadly thats where alot of the problems come from highly developed players with a longtime standing in this game that are so far ahead of the curve they are looking for the next challenge because they already have most of the shinies that us casual/normal players find still takes time and effort to try and accomplish them. Their perspective of the game is so dillusional that players who actualy are at a different tier of progression have been lost in the fray.

I love those type of elitists, you get to hear things like, "Me and my linkshell cleared that, it's not hard, I don't see why you just don't go solo it."

[Umichi]

my favorite ones are the ones who use dual boxing!

(please note idm people who dual box just remember it is against the terms of agreement....and the moral code of gaming...)

[Jaall]

Umm he said nothing about FFXIV being a XIv2.... I'm with spectre... I wonder how these elitests will shape that game because they did a damn good job gutting FFXI... I love all of the content because I'm still progressing and never had acess to powerfull allies due to time restraints and when I played... But it gets boring when you having nothing but really powerful people outpacing you by alot... then your trying to help new people play catchup because xp system is f'ed up and they are leveling faster than game progression should be and thats because we have a system that allows you into abyssea at lvl 31... amongst other xp exploits while legitimate are merely powerleveling tools abused by higher level players... combine lack of players even existing on the game it makes for a hard time rapidly adapting to where your inbetween everything...

If you're talking about XIV being overrun by elitists it won't happen for years and years, if at all. The only reason it's a problem with XI now is because the game is losing a lot of players and naturally the ones left are the most dedicated so the majority of the player base is made up of elitists. I don't know why people assume there wont be many players on XIV other than elitists, maybe it's because you're so used to the way XI is, but XIV is bringing in a lot of first time mmo gamers and a lot of casual players, with very few elitist players. Every mmo has them but you can choose to ignore them and play your own way.

[Tamoa]

my favorite ones are the ones who use dual boxing!

(please note idm people who dual box just remember it is against the terms of agreement....and the moral code of gaming...)


I woke up not long ago and haven't had my coffee yet, i.e. I'm only partially awake - so would you be so kind to provide a link/quote to where it says dual boxing is against the terms of agreement?

Not going to comment on the statement on it being against the "moral code of gaming", since I'm not even sure what on earth you mean by that.

[Vizzer]

I woke up not long ago and haven't had my coffee yet, i.e. I'm only partially awake - so would you be so kind to provide a link/quote to where it says dual boxing is against the terms of agreement?.
Nothing is wrong if you use 2 accounts on 2 different systems, but to make it work on one pc, you need to use third party software, which is against the agreement.

[Umichi]

Nothing is wrong if you use 2 accounts on 2 different systems, but to make it work on one pc, you need to use third party software, which is against the agreement.

this, and to your latter response going agaisnt moral gaming code is why are you using two characters to accomplish your task in a game only intended for 1 person to be playing 1 character at a time?

[Tamoa]

You said dual boxing is against the terms of agreement though, which I'm 99.99% certain is incorrect. Using 3rd party programs is though, we all know that - no matter your reason for using them.

As for that moral gaming code - eeh yeah not going to get into that.

[Miiyo]

I think you're very fortunate that you're only "starting" at this point.

[BST]

Just take a quick look over at the beta forum (XIV) and check out how many screenshots of XI players with there characters on display while running windower, right under the nose of SE..

[Demon6324236]

If SE banned people who used Windower the game would die in no time, because on top of every other problem people are leaving for, they would be instantly removing a great deal of their PC players.