Why isn't FFXI more friendly to casual players in endgame?

[Spectreman]

I know that today's FFXI is a mere shadow of its difficulty back in 2004. I was there. I was also a teenager and had tons of time to spend in front of a computer.

But time has passed and though i still manage to love this game 9 years later, which prevents me from playing anything else (nothing is as immersive as FFXI) i simply don't have the time to commit to nowaday's endgame.

Without being able to join in Seekers of Adoulin delve parties (because they require you to have a delve weapon before starting it). I'm stuck with Wildskeeper Reives.

I'm not complaining that i'm getting inferior gear. That's not the point and i agree that players that invest more time should be able to have better rewards, but the option for casual players is an event that takes too much time for a healthy adult to get things done.

What is a healthy adult? Someone that is actually an adult and have resposibilities like a job and family to take care of and has 2-4 hours at best in a day to devote to a game.

With no Linkshells devoted to Abyssea anymore (or anythin before that) the only real option for casual players to stay in the game is to farm bayld gear.

The first tier of Bayld gear is quite simple and satisfying to achieve. After that you are stuck in the game. Reports of players taking more than 12 hours in front of their computers to be able to finish one run isn't healthy.

What about those sayings "we don't want you to forget your family, friends and school"? Wildskeeper Reives are exactly the opposite of that phrase as someone that devotes half day to a game can't be doing well in other parts of their life.


So what will it be Square Enix? Make endgame events from now on shorter and keeping them hard or even harder or just putting loads of time to be wasted to achieve very little and lose interest in the game through boring activities?

[Daemon]

I know that today's FFXI is a mere shadow of its difficulty back in 2004. I was there. I was also a teenager and had tons of time to spend in front of a computer.

But time has passed and though i still manage to love this game 9 years later, which prevents me from playing anything else (nothing is as immersive as FFXI) i simply don't have the time to commit to nowaday's endgame.

Without being able to join in Seekers of Adoulin delve parties (because they require you to have a delve weapon before starting it). I'm stuck with Wildskeeper Reives.

I'm not complaining that i'm getting inferior gear. That's not the point and i agree that players that invest more time should be able to have better rewards, but the option for casual players is an event that takes too much time for a healthy adult to get things done.

What is a healthy adult? Someone that is actually an adult and have resposibilities like a job and family to take care of and has 2-4 hours at best in a day to devote to a game.

With no Linkshells devoted to Abyssea anymore (or anythin before that) the only real option for casual players to stay in the game is to farm bayld gear.

The first tier of Bayld gear is quite simple and satisfying to achieve. After that you are stuck in the game. Reports of players taking more than 12 hours in front of their computers to be able to finish one run isn't healthy.

What about those sayings "we don't want you to forget your family, friends and school"? Wildskeeper Reives are exactly the opposite of that phrase as someone that devotes half day to a game can't be doing well in other parts of their life.


So what will it be Square Enix? Make endgame events from now on shorter and keeping them hard or even harder or just putting loads of time to be wasted to achieve very little and lose interest in the game through boring activities?

This topic could be pages long but Ill try to keep it short and simple explaining my take on the matter.

There are ways to get around the game on your own. Just many people either do not have the proper knowledge or have the organization skills, drive, patience, or flat out just doesnt know where to begin or how to do it. Then there are people who don't want to accept the options in front of them and sit all day refusing to put work into themselves to do it on their own.

Hence why I wrote out a guide for this (which is still a work in progress but has enough information to help anyone reach self independence). Quick opinion to the matter? People expect FFXI to be easy when its not. Or people expect instant results when the fact is almost everything you do in this game requires time and effort.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/35308-Revelations-Strategy-Guide-FFXI

You really don't need to depend on others to get most of the things you want done unless if its something like obtaining stuff from events such as Voidwatch or Wildskeeper rieves. Or doing hardcore bosses and objectives such as VNM (Voidwalker), ADL etc. The truth is, it (as in everything else other than what i listed after) can be done but so many people refuse to listen and take action.

At the current state of the game. Its not that people "don't" want to help others. Its that everybody is at different phases of the game. While casual players expect help from others, most people who are beyond the level of a casual players are infact busy working to "Do them" especially with the current content thats been implemented.

Example? Look at it from a casual players point of view this time rather than Endgame. You need to work on your AF seals and +2s, Assault missions, REM trials and Missions so you already have plans to head to abyssea to do Ulhuadshi with LS then someone in town is shouting for help asking if anyone is free to help them break limit 50. You as a casual player willing to tell everyone in your party to wait while you help the person with limit 50 break?

Point is, this situation doesnt happen to only end game players but to all players including casuals.

Another thing is, most end game players have helped many many many people doing the same quests over and over not just 1 year but over the past decade such as Limit Break. This is where casual players do not take into consideration of why many end game players may not rush to lend a hand leading to complain or give up.

If you really want to succeed, seriously study the game, study the jobs and take action because at this point people who refuse to play more than 1 job or more than 3 wont get very far as all jobs serve different purposes.

Heck I dont like playing half the jobs i have at 99, let alone work on the gear for them but I had to do it if I wanted to participate with others rather than be left out.

Some people who want to play DD job for delve well, there are smart players out there who play a mage job if they cant get in as a DD, earn plasm and buy Delve weapons, upgrade them and then enter as a DD if they have to.. You dont have to like the option but the fact is the option is there.

Everything falls under the saying "It is what it is."

Ill leave it at this for now but thats my take on it.

[Hawklaser]

Daemon, I think the point Spectreman was trying to make is not that a casual player can not get things done, but more that the time requirements for most end game activities naturally exclude the more casual players.

While some may say that the time limits for the new endgame events is short compared to the older ones, they also tend to forget how much preparation time there often is for the events. With considering your more average casual player is on for only a few hours a day, and for some could be only a few hours a week, an event that takes an hour to do is rather unfriendly towards them. Even ones that only take 20 minutes can be unfriendly to them when you consider how long it takes to get some events started. Just consider how long it can take for a delve group to go from first starting to form to actually entering the fracture and fighting the first mob. Add that to the time allotted to finish the event, and you start to see why the event is unfriendly for casual players who can not be on for 4+ hours at a time.

[Daemon]

Daemon, I think the point Spectreman was trying to make is not that a casual player can not get things done, but more that the time requirements for most end game activities naturally exclude the more casual players.

While some may say that the time limits for the new endgame events is short compared to the older ones, they also tend to forget how much preparation time there often is for the events. With considering your more average casual player is on for only a few hours a day, and for some could be only a few hours a week, an event that takes an hour to do is rather unfriendly towards them. Even ones that only take 20 minutes can be unfriendly to them when you consider how long it takes to get some events started. Just consider how long it can take for a delve group to go from first starting to form to actually entering the fracture and fighting the first mob. Add that to the time allotted to finish the event, and you start to see why the event is unfriendly for casual players who can not be on for 4+ hours at a time.

Well the problem is, You cannot call it "End Game" for no reason. And casual players need to be prepared.

I dont see SoA events taking longer than previous events. What I mean is, I did Wildskeeper Reives last week. The boss died in about 2 hours. And sadly I didnt even get any items.

Delve doesnt take long either. The problem i see is that people "can" end up taking hours for these events if done wrong.

Point is these events consume close to the same time as other events like Void Watch.

Past events to get to end game take longer but look at it from our point of view. We all had to do them to get to where we are now. Yet casual players want to participate in end game and not even put in the time we all did.

One of my friends solod his Relic quest by duel boxing. Also did his emp trials solo brew etc. As I said there are alot of things you can do solo. If not solo more likely the rest duo or 3 man party. Now that delve gear is out there im sure people can get help to do it faster than when we had to do everything.

How much easier do people expect SE to adjust the game? A casual player with friends could probably be at end game in a month.

[Daemon]

From my point of view, a casual player could level RDM, SCH or WHM and get into just about any party. Chatoyant staff can do a lot for mages. Orvail set on top of that will allow you to do anything as long as skills are capped. Leveling a pet job like BST or SMN would allow you to solo all your seals and +2s for AF3. Also will allow you to collect AF relic from Dyna, earn gil. BST is nice for people who can invest gil. Summoner is the cheaper job to play.

Well I only play DD? As I said before if you really want to participate in events as a DD, might be best to play a mage job to help you get a Delve weapon. First goal should be "How can I participate in all events?"

Once you get a delve weapon heck even having bst or smn will still benefit anyone to get around the game faster. Including someone who needs to earn AF for the DD job they want to play.

While earning AF pieces, earn the bayld to buy Adoulin gear sets from coalition npc. Skill up in abby. Make some friends to help earn those Atmas and Boss wins.

The rest will fall into place after the basics are done. How?

Scholar is great for farming NNI. Make a static for assault and do ToAu Missions. I just got Nares trews a few weeks ago.

Earn those delve pieces like Bokwus gloves for cure potency. Can also get people together and do some VW. I still see shouts for akvan which Hekas is good for Cure potency too.

BST or SMN is your money making job also your solo job to help you get just about anything done without depending on others all the time. Then focus on the job you want to main once you build yourself to do things independently.

[Hawklaser]

Well the problem is, You cannot call it "End Game" for no reason. And casual players need to be prepared.

I dont see SoA events taking longer than previous events. What I mean is, I did Wildskeeper Reives last week. The boss died in about 2 hours. And sadly I didnt even get any items.

Delve doesnt take long either. The problem i see is that people "can" end up taking hours for these events if done wrong.

Past events to get to end game take longer but look at it from our point of view. We all had to do them to get to where we are now. Yet casual players want to participate in end game and not even put in the time we all did.

One of my friends solod his Relic quest by duel boxing. Also did his emp trials solo brew etc. As I said there are alot of things you can do solo. If not solo more likely the rest duo or 3 man party. Now that delve gear is out there im sure people can get help to do it faster than when we had to do everything.

Just going to use your Wildskeeper Reives as an example, two hours for the boss to die, I am assuming from 100%-0. How long did it take to get enough people to actually start the fight? Add that to the time it took to kill the boss and you get the total time it took for you to complete the event. Its that total time needed that makes it prohibitive for more casual players to participate simply due to the fact they don't have jumbo blocks of time they can play the game in.

It's not about the casuals being prepared for them, but the problem of not being able to consistently cover both event preparation time and event battle time. What I mean by preparation time, is getting a group able to have a chance at clearing the event, and all necessary gear and consumables into ones inventory for the jobs needed to be on. Setting aside two hours to kill a wildskeeper is not all that hard, but when have to also set aside an undetermined amount of time in addition to that to even be able to start the fight is not an easy thing to set aside time for when have very limited time. If you only have two hours to play, are you going to join an event that takes close to that much time to do when there are no guarantees of it starting the close to the moment you arrive?

Now I know I have heard of delve shouts going on for over three hours before actually starting, which means those particular delve runs took close to four hours to do for those that joined the group forming at the very beginning.

The whole point is not about how much time it took to get the gear to participate in the endgame events, but not having enough time to actually participate in the events due to length of time to get a group formed for the events and the time it takes to do the event itself. So when an event takes an average of 2-3 hours to even begin the event on top of another hour or two to finish the event, it becomes very prohibitive for casual people to do.

I know I have had plenty of Linkshell events in the past that were scheduled for specific times, but did not actually get started at that time for various reasons. And that was with knowing what was going on sometimes almost a week in advance. You ever have any experiences like that?

[Daemon]

Just going to use your Wildskeeper Reives as an example, two hours for the boss to die, I am assuming from 100%-0. How long did it take to get enough people to actually start the fight? Add that to the time it took to kill the boss and you get the total time it took for you to complete the event. Its that total time needed that makes it prohibitive for more casual players to participate simply due to the fact they don't have jumbo blocks of time they can play the game in.

It's not about the casuals being prepared for them, but the problem of not being able to consistently cover both event preparation time and event battle time. What I mean by preparation time, is getting a group able to have a chance at clearing the event, and all necessary gear and consumables into ones inventory for the jobs needed to be on. Setting aside two hours to kill a wildskeeper is not all that hard, but when have to also set aside an undetermined amount of time in addition to that to even be able to start the fight is not an easy thing to set aside time for when have very limited time. If you only have two hours to play, are you going to join an event that takes close to that much time to do when there are no guarantees of it starting the close to the moment you arrive?

Now I know I have heard of delve shouts going on for over three hours before actually starting, which means those particular delve runs took close to four hours to do for those that joined the group forming at the very beginning.

The whole point is not about how much time it took to get the gear to participate in the endgame events, but not having enough time to actually participate in the events due to length of time to get a group formed for the events and the time it takes to do the event itself. So when an event takes an average of 2-3 hours to even begin the event on top of another hour or two to finish the event, it becomes very prohibitive for casual people to do.

I know I have had plenty of Linkshell events in the past that were scheduled for specific times, but did not actually get started at that time for various reasons. And that was with knowing what was going on sometimes almost a week in advance. You ever have any experiences like that?

Ok what i want to ask is what makes you think we end game players have massive amounts of time? Most of us are just the same as casual players. We have jobs, families, friends, life to deal with just the same.

This isnt "Casual players only deal with this problem"

Its all about your server and how many people you can get together. For my server? Well we had like 3 people constantly shouting the event. What we learned is that most people dont want to join unless they know its already started =p

So many people responded to us "Ill join in later once the event has begun."

We started out only 6 people. When we got there we added other parties to alliance with us. Then the rest of the server started to show up. In all it took maybe 3 and half hours. So less than the 4 hours you stated earlier.

For the items that these bosses drop, thats a decent amount of time. Lol took longer to do PW than this... compare the amount of time it takes to do the 3 cats and then PW...

I like the fact that you can join in the fight at any moment even if the boss is at 10% HP left. So casual players or any player really doesnt even have to waste 4 hours for an event like this.

(In regards to Wildskeeper Rieves Nakuaals)

[Hawklaser]

Ok what i want to ask is what makes you think we end game players have massive amounts of time? Most of us are just the same as casual players. We have jobs, families, friends, life to deal with just the same.

This isnt "Casual players only deal with this problem"

Its all about your server and how many people you can get together. For my server? Well we had like 3 people constantly shouting the event. What we learned is that most people dont want to join unless they know its already started =p

So many people responded to us "Ill join in later once the event has begun."

We started out only 6 people. When we got there we added other parties to alliance with us. Then the rest of the server started to show up. In all it took maybe 3 and half hours. So less than the 4 hours you stated earlier.

For the items that these bosses drop, thats a decent amount of time. Lol took longer to do PW than this... compare the amount of time it takes to do the 3 cats and then PW...

(In regards to Wildskeeper Rieves Nakuaals)

End Game Player does not equal a non-Casual Player, as the two are not mutually exclusive. Often when people are asking for more casual player friendly events, it is often only due to amount of time events take. A casual player that is wanting to do end game events is going to be prepared to do them, but may not always have a time block large enough that coincides with when the events are going to be done. It all comes back to nothing more than how much time one is able to play at a time.

Even with your Wildskeeper only taking three and a half hours to do, that still makes it hard for anyone that can only play in four hour chunks to participate unless the event is already on the verge of starting, which is why you would get lots of replies saying they would join when the event had already begun. Let alone making it extremely hard for people that can only play in two hour chunks to participate.

When end game is often referred to as not being casual friendly it is often tied to the events needed to get geared for end game themselves taking large continuous blocks of time to complete, and/or the endgame events themselves taking large continuous blocks of time.

Its not about casuals wanting items handed to them on a silver platter, but having options that are reasonable and can be obtained with smaller blocks of continuous playtime.

[Daemon]

End Game Player does not equal a non-Casual Player, as the two are not mutually exclusive. Often when people are asking for more casual player friendly events, it is often only due to amount of time events take. A casual player that is wanting to do end game events is going to be prepared to do them, but may not always have a time block large enough that coincides with when the events are going to be done. It all comes back to nothing more than how much time one is able to play at a time.

Even with your Wildskeeper only taking three and a half hours to do, that still makes it hard for anyone that can only play in four hour chunks to participate unless the event is already on the verge of starting, which is why you would get lots of replies saying they would join when the event had already begun. Let alone making it extremely hard for people that can only play in two hour chunks to participate.

When end game is often referred to as not being casual friendly it is often tied to the events needed to get geared for end game themselves taking large continuous blocks of time to complete, and/or the endgame events themselves taking large continuous blocks of time.

Its not about casuals wanting items handed to them on a silver platter, but having options that are reasonable and can be obtained with smaller blocks of continuous playtime.

Starting over a brand new account, I could start playing Wildskeeper rieves in less than 3 months. Even if you only had 2 hours to play. You could still participate in Wildskeepers rieves. I joined one last week at 23% HP. Why? I wasted most of my time doing the climbing quest and had to wait til the colonization reives blocking the path was taken down. Also it was my first time going to the map and had to get waypoint along the way.

The game is not as time consuming as you make it out to be. If you are a player that knows how to get around the game without wasting time, regardless if you are a non casual, casual or end game, you can do get things done. Its how you make use of the time you have.

Casual friendly events? Everything is Casual friendly. I think you are speaking from the POV of wanting to join the majority of the crowd but again the majority right now is SoA due to so many people already being prepared to participate in it. When VW first came out, it didnt get up on its own and make the events for you. People who took the initiative to make the event happen is why it happened.

Events before SoA is all casual friendly, just you cannot expect the event to happen on its own. And from what I see many people expect the events to be made for them.

Ive written several articles in my guide to help people in many aspects of the game.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/35308-Revelations-Strategy-Guide-FFXI

Networking guide is one of the main articles I keep suggesting people to read. Also Leadership 101.

BTW im off to work, so I will read your response and reply when i finish my DJ set ^^

[Merton9999]

I agree with the OP as far as XI's assessment ... in a vacuum. However, despite Matsui's claim that more low-man activities will be added to XI, I don't see them focusing on it too much. At least not enough to attract back players who are only interested in such content. I could be completely wrong, but here's my take on it:

I used to be able to (and want to) put time into FFXI. That included research, grinding, etc. I just no longer care to do that with the game anymore. Even switching jobs (and gear for them) can be an unacceptable time commitment for a single night's play time allotment. However, after having spent 9 years on a character, I would love to have new casual things to do with that character a few hours a week, especially if some UI and system elements improved as well...

...until August 27th.

As a casual MMO player now, I would never have time or interest in playing two MMOs. XIV is offering a lot for casual gamers to do, in a much prettier, modern package. I have no idea what SE's long-term plan is, but I don't see a reason to spend time offering a ton of casual access in XI if your average casual gamer would only have the time to justify one sub. I don't even care about the price, but I wouldn't pay for something I literally never play.

[Bamph]

What about those sayings "we don't want you to forget your family, friends and school"? Wildskeeper Reives are exactly the opposite of that phrase as someone that devotes half day to a game can't be doing well in other parts of their life.

Yeah, Come on SE... You never had people spend more than 2 hours (probably a generous amount of time to complete a WK reive avter the update), at a time during the game before (like in Slavage, Dynamis, Sky, Besieged). Why does this endgame stuff suddenly take so long? OMG eleventymillion! Why can't I jump in and fight for like 5 mins and then leave. This totally sucks.

[Hawklaser]

Starting over a brand new account, I could start playing Wildskeeper rieves in less than 3 months. Even if you only had 2 hours to play. You could still participate in Wildskeepers rieves. I joined one last week at 23% HP. Why? I wasted most of my time doing the climbing quest and had to wait til the colonization reives blocking the path was taken down. Also it was my first time going to the map and had to get waypoint along the way.

The game is not as time consuming as you make it out to be. If you are a player that knows how to get around the game without wasting time, regardless if you are a non casual, casual or end game, you can do get things done. Its how you make use of the time you have.

Casual friendly events? Everything is Casual friendly. I think you are speaking from the POV of wanting to join the majority of the crowd but again the majority right now is SoA due to so many people already being prepared to participate in it.

Events before SoA is all casual friendly, just you cannot expect the event to happen on its own. And from what I see many people expect the events to be made for them.

As you said, the key thing is making the most out of the time you do have. It does not matter how long it takes to get to a point to be able to do an event if one is unable to participate in an event due to time constraints. So if one can only ever play in one hour chunks, they are pretty much excluded from any event that takes close to an hour to do or over an hour to do irregardless of if it only takes 10 minutes to get to a point to be able to attempt participating in the event. The reason I also say close to an hour, is because of the amount of time it can take to even get said event off the ground.

Staying with the Wildskeeper Rieves, if one has a limited amount of time and wants to maximize their chances at a good reward beyond the KI, they are likely going to wait for a relatively fresh run of the event to avoid the risk of wasting time by either getting to the event too late to have a chance at the reward they wanted or having the event end before they even arrive. Thus possibly resulting in wasting the time to get the KI to participate in the event, on top of the time to get to and do the event as well. As last I saw, if don't get to the fight early enough, you can't get all of the rewards from it.

Its not expecting the events to happen on their own, but how does one go about actually doing an event that takes most of ones play block, when just organizing people to do whichever event one wants can sometimes take longer than the event itself does? It is actually fairly hard to start an event that requires multiple people without wasting playtime outside of linkshell events, which more casual players don't usually have playtime to waste in the first place. And as I pointed out earlier, linkshell events are not even guaranteed to start on time even with a week of advance notice, I also asked if you ever had experienced linkshell events that did not start on time as well.

And no, this is not coming from the PoV of someone wanting to join the majority crowd, but from one that understands the plight of not being able to participate in events due to ones schedule. Yes, the new events are more casual friendly than the old school Dynamis, however that does not inherently make them casual friendly either.

[Umichi]

I honestly feel for you OP I'm a casual player sometimes but i tend to shift towards normal play amajority of the time. And finding like minded people at my level of progression can be tough to do. I can average about 5-6 hours a day if I wanted to and thats mainly from work taking up a vast majority of my time, owning no transportation outside of a bike makes travelling tedious and I live in a small town... so I just coast by enjoying a game I enjoy playing..

And while I agree with you that there are different jobs for different things I'll argue the point that I shouldn't have to make myself a one man army. I enjoy being a Dragoon and I specialize at being one. Sure my whm is pretty decent skill wise on my part, but It's not the best geared and it's really the only other job I play. I don't enjoy going whm to groups with strangers, and generally will keep my whm reserved for my friends.

[Umichi]

As you said, the key thing is making the most out of the time you do have. It does not matter how long it takes to get to a point to be able to do an event if one is unable to participate in an event due to time constraints. So if one can only ever play in one hour chunks, they are pretty much excluded from any event that takes close to an hour to do or over an hour to do irregardless of if it only takes 10 minutes to get to a point to be able to attempt participating in the event. The reason I also say close to an hour, is because of the amount of time it can take to even get said event off the ground.

Staying with the Wildskeeper Rieves, if one has a limited amount of time and wants to maximize their chances at a good reward beyond the KI, they are likely going to wait for a relatively fresh run of the event to avoid the risk of wasting time by either getting to the event too late to have a chance at the reward they wanted or having the event end before they even arrive. Thus possibly resulting in wasting the time to get the KI to participate in the event, on top of the time to get to and do the event as well. As last I saw, if don't get to the fight early enough, you can't get all of the rewards from it.

Its not expecting the events to happen on their own, but how does one go about actually doing an event that takes most of ones play block, when just organizing people to do whichever event one wants can sometimes take longer than the event itself does? It is actually fairly hard to start an event that requires multiple people without wasting playtime outside of linkshell events, which more casual players don't usually have playtime to waste in the first place. And as I pointed out earlier, linkshell events are not even guaranteed to start on time even with a week of advance notice, I also asked if you ever had experienced linkshell events that did not start on time as well.

And no, this is not coming from the PoV of someone wanting to join the majority crowd, but from one that understands the plight of not being able to participate in events due to ones schedule. Yes, the new events are more casual friendly than the old school Dynamis, however that does not inherently make them casual friendly either.

I think they are just right for casual players who want some progression done.. if your having trouble doing things find an LS that will allow you to pop yours once you've aquired w/e is needed, or start finding players you can communicate with over a long time.

[Hawklaser]

I think they are just right for casual players who want some progression done.. if your having trouble doing things find an LS that will allow you to pop yours once you've aquired w/e is needed, or start finding players you can communicate with over a long time.

The only reason I can see Wildskeeper Reives and Delve as being considered casual friendly is due to the quest Order Up, and how the KI/plasm system for Delve works. But both still suffer from the two things that typically prohibit casual players from participating. That is large numbers of people required for the event, and the length of time needed to gather for and actually do the events. And no, I do not consider someone zoning in to a wildskeeper rieve and only doing enough to qualify for the KI to be participating in the event. Sure can make progress that way, but does not do much to keep one interested in the game. Which ultimately is what people looking for more casual friendly end game events are looking for, events that keep them engaged and enjoying the game.

[Umichi]

I would never advise afking during an event... your there for the item and that's that.. but you don't have to do a high tier multi WKR if you have the right connections... I mean the weapons from those ones only take a short time on each one (usuallly 30-45 mins) and usualy shark is hardest at 2-3 hours per server, but thats due to lack of colonization.. I've been in enough WKR to know JP and NA alike do not mind people who have to afk 1 or so hours. The only thing stopping you is getting a group together..and if you truly want to do it youll find people and groups who do them. and start coordinating times to farm them.

getting your WKR weapon helps you get into delve groups faster and easier.

[Hawklaser]

I would never advise afking during an event... your there for the item and that's that.. but you don't have to do a high tier multi WKR if you have the right connections... I mean the weapons from those ones only take a short time on each one (usuallly 30-45 mins) and usualy shark is hardest at 2-3 hours per server, but thats due to lack of colonization.. I've been in enough WKR to know JP and NA alike do not mind people who have to afk 1 or so hours. The only thing stopping you is getting a group together..and if you truly want to do it youll find people and groups who do them. and start coordinating times to farm them.

getting your WKR weapon helps you get into delve groups faster and easier.

This just shows that you are not understanding the issue in my eyes. The gear offered as rewards was never an issue with the event, or getting geared up to do the next event. Never said to AFK in the event to get the reward, I mentioned that I don't consider only showing up and doing enough to qualify for the KI to be participating in the event. That could either be by going AFK for the event(I really dislike this) or showing up to the event already in progress at a low enough percent to still qualify for the KI. And the fact that you bring up it being acceptable to AFK for an hour or two during the event just goes to further show how the event is not casual friendly.

What makes an engaging event casual friendly has to do with the number of people required for an event, the length of an event, and being able to do it at the appropriate gear and level requirements. If an event is intended for casual players to complete with an item level of 105, it had better not take more than a single party equipped at that level much more than 30 minutes to complete, as beyond that it is very likely no longer a casual event. And if said event was intended for an alliance of item level 105 characters to complete, it does not automatically become casual friendly just because a party of item level 120 characters can beat it, that is just people out leveling the content, and trivializing it as well. Which would be like calling all of CoP casual friendly just because one can now level to 99 and solo the vast majority of it.

It is not being able to skip 10 item levels that make things casual friendly, but the ease of being able to complete an event from start to finish based on an individual's schedule. The more people required, and the longer an event takes the less casual friendly it is. Gear also factors into this, however that is more due to if the required gear to complete an event comes from non-casual event, like say if relic gear was required to even have a chance of completing any assaults when the cap was 75.

[Umichi]

The harder bosses require attention! and they wouldn't take as long as they do if payers were only actively interested in doing the bosses only... skipping colonization reives really effects the duration of boss fights... If people managed better colonization rates NM's like the Shark and Tree, you would see their time taken to defeat droped significantly... SE said they intended to make content 30-45 minutes at best and longer at worse... They've also mentioned in the past that due to this if your going on 2-4 hours then you're probably doing something wrong. *hint*

An alliance of players can safely manage a 45 minute fight with people picked up during shout if you create a balanced party.... once WKR youll find alot more people show up to assist.... So if your a casual player wanting progressive content... here ya go, either wait for people to shout to go in and bide your time doing CR's and LR's alongside imprints voila you'll gain a more rapid intake of Bayld and also assisting the server in maintaining a proper colonization rate for easier attempts at WKR. Or find groups who do WKR's together and join them. Or do other content for your weapons. Skirmish is a good choice, and the 30k bayld weapons are a great starter weapon also.

MMOs are dynamic.. there are always mltiple and alternative ways to achieve what you want to do especially a game like FFXI in this day and age..

Things like Yumcax wouldn't be a problem if people simply played the game instead of rush rush rush to get best lewt... why do you think people are failing or lacking the ability to kill Delve NM's.. It's because they lack the ability to simply get up and do the content like it was intended... The time restraints are only created by the players... after all Time is manmade. It's also why people find delve content challenging.

[Hawklaser]

The harder bosses require attention! and they wouldn't take as long as they do if payers were only actively interested in doing the bosses only... skipping colonization reives really effects the duration of boss fights... If people managed better colonization rates NM's like the Shark and Tree, you would see their time taken to defeat droped significantly... SE said they intended to make content 30-45 minutes at best and longer at worse... They've also mentioned in the past that due to this if your going on 2-4 hours then you're probably doing something wrong. *hint*

An alliance of players can safely manage a 45 minute fight with people picked up during shout if you create a balanced party.... once WKR youll find alot more people show up to assist.... So if your a casual player wanting progressive content... here ya go, either wait for people to shout to go in and bide your time doing CR's and LR's alongside imprints voila you'll gain a more rapid intake of Bayld and also assisting the server in maintaining a proper colonization rate for easier attempts at WKR. Or find groups who do WKR's together and join them. Or do other content for your weapons. Skirmish is a good choice, and the 30k bayld weapons are a great starter weapon also.

MMOs are dynamic.. there are always mltiple and alternative ways to achieve what you want to do especially a game like FFXI in this day and age..

Things like Yumcax wouldn't be a problem if people simply played the game instead of rush rush rush to get best lewt... why do you think people are failing or lacking the ability to kill Delve NM's.. It's because they lack the ability to simply get up and do the content like it was intended... The time restraints are only created by the players... after all Time is manmade. It's also why people find delve content challenging.

Again you miss the entire point of why a Wildskeeper Rieve is not casual friendly. It is not about if the event is hard or not, and it is also not about whether or not people are rushing to just get loot or doing every thing else along the way. If you really need some examples of casual friendly content in this game, look no farther than Besieged and Campaign Battles, as all you have to do is go to the right place to participate, and for Campaign also had to pick up allied tags. And if you look back at the rewards for doing those events in the first place, there were none besides XP and IS/AN.

Now before you go citing Campaign Ops being casual friendly or not, please keep in mind that for some to even be available on a consistent basis still take the continuous efforts of an entire server. The simple fact that it takes a whole servers continuous participation automatically makes those specific Campaign Ops not casual friendly. Now if you take that logic and expand it to Wildskeepers Rieves, it shows they are inherently not casual friendly, but can appear to be so only so long as ones server is working at keeping the colonization rates up. And to see the future of colonization rates, just have to look at what happened to the original Adoulin area's rates as soon as Delve hit, as well as the state of participation in Campaign as a whole.

[Umichi]

Ciezac on my server is 100% with yahse 75% and morimar usually sits around 30-40%. Marjami has droped down to around 75% and yorica is up to almost 28% with two bivouacs up

all you have to do is go and participate and you get rewards... the more dangerous it is the better the reward. rieves encompass that. and all you have to do is participate. Is that not casual friendly? by your standards.... WKR are the challenge.

[Hawklaser]

Ciezac on my server is 100% with yahse 75% and morimar usually sits around 30-40%. Marjami has droped down to around 75% and yorica is up to almost 28% with two bivouacs up

all you have to do is go and participate and you get rewards... the more dangerous it is the better the reward. rieves encompass that. and all you have to do is participate. Is that not casual friendly? by your standards.... WKR are the challenge.

While lair and colonization rieves may be casual friendly now, they were not initially. They are also not really end game events. They are more like obstacles to hinder players movements. So outside of people needing bayld or them blocking their travel path, they are very unlikely to be done on a consistent basis as soon as they no longer obstruct access to current end game activities. Right now is also likely a bad time to use colonization rates to try and argue if an event is casual friendly or not due to the new wildskeepers, zones, and recent increases to coaliton ranks. When there are no recent activites that involve rieves, then can see where the rates stabilize. However, just because currently there is a high amount of server participation making the events more accessible to casual players, does not make the event itself casual friendly, as once the server's participation in activities to maintain colonization rates drop so will the casual players participation in things like Wildskeeper Rieves.

[OmnysValefor]

Reives were and are casual friendly in their design. The problem lies in the reward.

I can basically summarize reives and campaign in very similar fashions. They both were designed to appeal to everyone. The problem is that the reward is so lackluster that people stopped doing them pretty quickly.

At launch, any person could get on, with almost any job, and go out and participate in the chaos and collect their bayld and their grain seeds. Once people got enough bayld for the bayld gear they wanted, and the bayld to participate in the three Naakual, it died very fast.

Bayld and reives, likely, are supposed to be the endgame for everyone. Yeah, the fight goes much smoother if you have more-hardcore players participating, but any player can shoot/nuke/sic pets on those two and any player can get in the melee mess on the trash.

I've seen a level 59 at Yumcax, which is too low, but they even went so far as to not require you be 99.

[Hawklaser]

Reives were and are casual friendly in their design. The problem lies in the reward.

I can basically summarize reives and campaign in very similar fashions. They both were designed to appeal to everyone. The problem is that the reward is so lackluster that people stopped doing them pretty quickly.

At launch, any person could get on, with almost any job, and go out and participate in the chaos and collect their bayld and their grain seeds. Once people got enough bayld for the bayld gear they wanted, and the bayld to participate in the three Naakual, it died very fast.

Bayld and reives, likely, are supposed to be the endgame for everyone. Yeah, the fight goes much smoother if you have more-hardcore players participating, but any player can shoot/nuke/sic pets on those two and any player can get in the melee mess on the trash.

I've seen a level 59 at Yumcax, which is too low, but they even went so far as to not require you be 99.

I would agree that Colonization and Lair Rieves are casual friendly, but for Wildskeepers that is only as long as players keep participating in colonization efforts. Though as I said in my last post, Colonization and Lair Rieves feel more like obstacles and obstructions than an event.

In reality, it is looking like Monstrosity will be the big casual event to come out of Adoulin.

[Rustic]

My devil's advocate question would be this: Why does someone who only plays a few hours a day -need- gear that takes longer than that to accomplish? Why can't I have content that's -not- friendly to casual players because I find it has enough "meat" to it?

I also have my thoughts on the expansion structure right now being at a point of balance. They want to lure a big playerbase into FFXIV. In a sense, not addressing that "casual FFXI player" may be in part an attempt not to divert potential players. After all, if they suck FFXI's playerbase dry to populate the other, why cater to casuals when only the hardcore will remain?

[Hayward]

My devil's advocate question would be this: Why does someone who only plays a few hours a day -need- gear that takes longer than that to accomplish? Why can't I have content that's -not- friendly to casual players because I find it has enough "meat" to it?

I also have my thoughts on the expansion structure right now being at a point of balance. They want to lure a big playerbase into FFXIV. In a sense, not addressing that "casual FFXI player" may be in part an attempt not to divert potential players. After all, if they suck FFXI's playerbase dry to populate the other, why cater to casuals when only the hardcore will remain?

It is simple to answer the first question; catering to elitists is the surest way to destroy an MMO. No matter what your collective delusion of grandeur may be, you're all a small percentage of ANY MMO.

I cannot speak to the motivations behind making SoA so devoid of casual content/items but it certainly doesn't speak well of a company allowing developers to pander to a small percentage of the playerbase, even if it is for the purpose of driving them to FFXIV (which has been, at best, an unintended consequence of catering to elitists).

[OmnysValefor]

In fact, it is not. For the longest part of XI's more healthy life, XI centered around hardcore. Everything in this game was hard.

I'd like more casual content, in the sense of just going and doing something with a group of friends, like Abyssea permitted, but several mmo's have done very well aiming at their top tier players.

In fact, much of the resentment towards adoulin is at how it spits in the face of past achievements and how "In 3-5 hours, you can make a weapon better than weapons people worked years on".

[Spectreman]

Yeah, Come on SE... You never had people spend more than 2 hours (probably a generous amount of time to complete a WK reive avter the update), at a time during the game before (like in Slavage, Dynamis, Sky, Besieged). Why does this endgame stuff suddenly take so long? OMG eleventymillion! Why can't I jump in and fight for like 5 mins and then leave. This totally sucks.


Playing retard won't make you look cool to the other kids.

[Spectreman]

My devil's advocate question would be this: Why does someone who only plays a few hours a day -need- gear that takes longer than that to accomplish? Why can't I have content that's -not- friendly to casual players because I find it has enough "meat" to it?

I also have my thoughts on the expansion structure right now being at a point of balance. They want to lure a big playerbase into FFXIV. In a sense, not addressing that "casual FFXI player" may be in part an attempt not to divert potential players. After all, if they suck FFXI's playerbase dry to populate the other, why cater to casuals when only the hardcore will remain?


You are so wrong in many ways.


First everyone pays a subscription fee to a MMORPG to feel powerful in the end. Most casuals would be ok if they were 15-20% behind top hardcore players in power but when you realize you are at least 50% weaker than you are not recieving what you are paying for. And dude i think you should know by now that casuals are the huge majority of any MMORPG, even this one.

Second. It's not the hardcore player that keeps a game for years. It's the ever flowing wave of new and returning players that keeps the game alive. It's actually the casuals, that play less and demand less content (less development, less money spent from a game company) that supports a MMORPG life time.

I was here in 2004, then 2006, then 2009 and now 2013. Checking FFXIAH you realize that all Linkshell empires that used to rule the game are dead and mostly all their hardcore players quit permanently. You see diferent linkshell names and different player names as the top ones for each server, which means that new players are the ones that keep carrying this game and not the veterans from 2003.

[Daemon]

In fact, it is not. For the longest part of XI's more healthy life, XI centered around hardcore. Everything in this game was hard.

I'd like more casual content, in the sense of just going and doing something with a group of friends, like Abyssea permitted, but several mmo's have done very well aiming at their top tier players.

In fact, much of the resentment towards adoulin is at how it spits in the face of past achievements and how "In 3-5 hours, you can make a weapon better than weapons people worked years on".

I think the problem with FFXI is that SE makes too many objectives based around depending on other people to get things done at a decent time frame. I mean yeah we "could" solo on our own many things but the effort requires more than what other games require.

SE you make us dedicate too much real time and effort as if this is a real life job when it's suppose to be a video game.

Which many have said this before and I too agree, "This was fine when we were kids & teenagers having all the time in the world when mommy & daddy was paying rent & bills" but the sad truth is, game is suppose to be entertainment for a short period of time in ones day if free time is available. Not require us to live in the game 24/7 just to to make decent progress. Especially when the company states "Do not forget your friends, family, job" at the beginning of the login screen.

Kinda like when the soda industry was asked to sell less soda in schools, which they agreed to do it. Only to replace them with sugary juice drinks instead which defeats the purpose of selling less sodas. Companies these days. It's all about the Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons, Jacksons, Grants, Franklins...

Then again you have people like this...
http://www.geekosystem.com/groups-beat-diablo-iii-7-hours/
Which is every gaming companies worst nightmare.

Solution? I think SE should make things people need to work on themselves like AF/REM much more solo friendly and then leave the bigger events for party based.

[Mahoro]

You are so wrong in many ways.


First everyone pays a subscription fee to a MMORPG to feel powerful in the end. Most casuals would be ok if they were 15-20% behind top hardcore players in power but when you realize you are at least 50% weaker than you are not recieving what you are paying for. And dude i think you should know by now that casuals are the huge majority of any MMORPG, even this one.

Second. It's not the hardcore player that keeps a game for years. It's the ever flowing wave of new and returning players that keeps the game alive. It's actually the casuals, that play less and demand less content (less development, less money spent from a game company) that supports a MMORPG life time.

I was here in 2004, then 2006, then 2009 and now 2013. Checking FFXIAH you realize that all Linkshell empires that used to rule the game are dead and mostly all their hardcore players quit permanently. You see diferent linkshell names and different player names as the top ones for each server, which means that new players are the ones that keep carrying this game and not the veterans from 2003.

While it may be true that many old hardcore players have quit, there have been new hardcore players to replace them. By the same token, many old casual players quit, and new casual players have replaced them.

When you say "it's not the hardcore player that keeps a game for years. It's the ever flowing wave of new and returning players that keeps the game alive," you are not accounting for the possibility that some of those new players are hardcore.

Therefore, if your point is that ONLY casuals keep a game afloat for years, this isn't quite accurate since it's also the NEW hardcore players that keep it afloat. I believe a dev has to program toward BOTH contingents, but obviously I agree that the casual playerbase is the major portion of their bread and butter purely from a revenue standpoint.

[Daemon]

While it may be true that many old hardcore players have quit, there have been new hardcore players to replace them. By the same token, many old casual players quit, and new casual players have replaced them.

Therefore, if your point is that ONLY casuals keep a game afloat for years, this isn't quite accurate since it's also the NEW hardcore players that keep it afloat. I believe a dev has to program toward BOTH contingents, but obviously I agree that the casual playerbase is the major portion of their bread and butter purely from a revenue standpoint.

You left out one important point. You also having returning players to come back and slide right in with the casuals and hardcores.

[Umichi]

My devil's advocate question would be this: Why does someone who only plays a few hours a day -need- gear that takes longer than that to accomplish? Why can't I have content that's -not- friendly to casual players because I find it has enough "meat" to it?

I also have my thoughts on the expansion structure right now being at a point of balance. They want to lure a big playerbase into FFXIV. In a sense, not addressing that "casual FFXI player" may be in part an attempt not to divert potential players. After all, if they suck FFXI's playerbase dry to populate the other, why cater to casuals when only the hardcore will remain?

It's simple really everyone deserves acess to such things.. spending a couple hours a day can accumulate to aquiring a piece that took 3-4 days to aquire or even a year or two.

[svengalis]

Abyssea, Salvage II, Neo Nyzul, Skirmish, and Wildskeeper are all casual friendly. Most of these events are timed less then an hour(except wildskeeper) and anyone can just jump into them and do them. Even delve farming is only 45 minutes tops.

Dynamis is 2 hours at most.

With that said I am not sure where the complaints are coming from.

[Daemon]

Abyssea, Salvage II, Neo Nyzul, Skirmish, and Wildskeeper are all casual friendly. Most of these events are timed less then an hour(except wildskeeper) and anyone can just jump into them and do them. Even delve farming is only 45 minutes tops.

Dynamis is 2 hours at most.

With that said I am not sure where the complaints are coming from.

Well salvage requires 2 other people to enter and you need assault points to buy entrance. Then you need tags to do assault. So I'm sure a good portion of the complaints are from lack of tags, lack of people interested in joining you on something that could be done solo. Like farming Alex for mythic.

Wildskeepers require 50-75k Bayld which some people have fought the same nakuaals more than 2-3 times only to get logs and ores due to already carrying the equipment item that possibly dropped again.

[Daemon]

The thing is, playing any MMORPG is like going to the beach. The water is there, the sand is there. It's up to you to make the events happen.

People are use to the Abbysea/Voidwatch days where you could sit in town waiting to join an event that doesn't require you to have several gear sets and top of the line gear to participate. And those who cannot join the crowd that has moved on to SoA delve etc are here feeling left out.

[Hawklaser]

My devil's advocate question would be this: Why does someone who only plays a few hours a day -need- gear that takes longer than that to accomplish? Why can't I have content that's -not- friendly to casual players because I find it has enough "meat" to it?

I also have my thoughts on the expansion structure right now being at a point of balance. They want to lure a big playerbase into FFXIV. In a sense, not addressing that "casual FFXI player" may be in part an attempt not to divert potential players. After all, if they suck FFXI's playerbase dry to populate the other, why cater to casuals when only the hardcore will remain?

For the first question, it is not that they need gear that takes longer than that to get, it is they need access to comparable enough gear to not end up being alienated from those that can play in larger time blocks than them. In otherwords, while Super weapon A may take 20 hours with an alliance in one sitting to get and forever be out of reach of a casual, the Casuals need an almost Super weapon A that may take 60 hours in many 1 hour chunks to get.

As to the second, we are not saying all content needs to be casual friendly but more endgame casual friendly content needs to exist. The casual content is meant for everyone, and for those that are more hard-core, it is meant as something to do between their big events, or on those days where they don't have much time to do something else.

As to the comment about them trying to divert people to XIV, that is more likely to backfire as if a company is sabotaging one game to make another one do well, eventually the brand as a whole will get a bad name and all but the most die-hard fans will begin to avoid the games. So in the long run trying to get people to go from XI to XIV is a very bad idea for business, as it won't just impact the Final Fantasy series, it will impact every game Square-Enix releases.

[Daemon]

As to the second, we are not saying all content needs to be casual friendly but more endgame casual friendly content needs to exist. The casual content is meant for everyone, and for those that are more hard-core, it is meant as something to do between their big events, or on those days where they don't have much time to do something else.

That's the thing about new expansions. People "Want" to participate in the newer areas. I mean it doesn't make sense to buy a new expansion if you cannot even participate in it.

Especially if the new expansion has drawn the majority of the fanbase to play in those new areas making the older content no longer interesting.

In this case SE should make older content a little more less time consuming to bring Non Casuals and casual players up to par with everyone else.

If it only takes 4 plasm parties to earn a delve weapon then things like REM should take the same amount of time or less. Or give everyone a better reason to continue spending the amount of time it takes to obtain these.

[Hawklaser]

That's the thing about new expansions. People "Want" to participate in the newer areas. I mean it doesn't make sense to buy a new expansion if you cannot even participate in it.

Especially if the new expansion has drawn the majority of the fanbase to play in those new areas making the older content no longer interesting.

In this case SE should make older content a little more less time consuming to bring Non Casuals and casual players up to par with everyone else.

If it only takes 4 plasm parties to earn a delve weapon then things like REM should take the same amount of time or less. Or give everyone a better reason to continue spending the amount of time it takes to obtain these.

Agreed. FFXI used to be unique in the fact a new expansion did not totally obsolete everything but the newest expansion.

Here's something to consider, if the constant gear ladder climb continues at Adoulin rate, think about how fast the developers are going to have to churn out new content to keep those that devour it within weeks of release happy and playing? Do we really want a game where the strong end game people only have to be subscribed for a month or two every time a content patch comes out?

[Hayward]

That's the thing about new expansions. People "Want" to participate in the newer areas. I mean it doesn't make sense to buy a new expansion if you cannot even participate in it.

Especially if the new expansion has drawn the majority of the fanbase to play in those new areas making the older content no longer interesting.

In this case SE should make older content a little more less time consuming to bring Non Casuals and casual players up to par with everyone else.

If it only takes 4 plasm parties to earn a delve weapon then things like REM should take the same amount of time or less. Or give everyone a better reason to continue spending the amount of time it takes to obtain these.

The one problem with this suggestion is that there are still those elitists who insist upon requiring Delve weapons to do Delve content which, besides being a$$-backwards in logic, seems to alienate everyone else and drive players away.

[Daemon]

The one problem with this suggestion is that there are still those elitists who insist upon requiring Delve weapons to do Delve content which, besides being a$$-backwards in logic, seems to alienate everyone else and drive players away.

True but I said before in another post that the Devs made it that way. Not saying they did it intentionally but look at Delve. Because you can actually count how much plasm the entire alliance earns this only promotes leaders to invite people with Delve weapons.

The way I see it, everyone just has to wait it out. SoA is new, once more and more people get what they want, it will eventually tone down and maybe more players wont be so busy and will actually take the time to help others out. If Devs don't rush to implement the next big thing.

I've barely been on the game lately but when I do login, I don't even rush to join a plasm party. I see no point in rushing to have the best, then what else will there be to do? Lol.

I have fun helping people on my server. I mean you never know, the person you helped out might be in the same party as you later on in the game. Vana is a small world.

[OmnysValefor]

True but I said before in another post that the Devs made it that way. Not saying they did it intentionally but look at Delve. Because you can actually count how much plasm the entire alliance earns this only promotes leaders to invite people with Delve weapons.

This this this this this.

People aren't being elitist, or mean, they're being practical. "My group wants max plasm, and I can invite the Bereaver DRK or the Kardia Faussar DRK".

[radiationbots]

This this this this this.

People aren't being elitist, or mean, they're being practical. "My group wants max plasm, and I can invite the Bereaver DRK or the Kardia Faussar DRK".
the word "elitist" gets thrown around a lot in mmo culture but usually what people are referring to is perfectionism. elitism refers to the idea that society at large should be ruled by a select group of educated individuals ("elites"). see socialism/communism. please don't start talking about politics. i'll cry.

perfectionism is just not being happy with something unless it is absolutely as good as it can be. in this case, not being happy with DDs in your delve alliance because they don't have delve weapons. or not being happy with a bard who doesn't have daurdabla. or a pld who doesn't have aegis and ochain. etc. on one hand it's acceptable to a certain degree, but you get to a point where everyone has unrealistic standards and that is toxic to the game's community. it also breeds a sort of superficial analysis towards players who join alliances.

back when people did voidwatch, party leaders would sit around for hours shouting for rem DDs. didn't matter if it was a monk in nq empyrean armor and verethragna, had to be rem. problem here is that it's much easier to go by what you've heard from the grapevine than it is to do the research yourself. then they would probably know that kill speed really didn't matter in voidwatch, and also that there were a bunch of non-rem builds that would have wrecked that monk on several jobs. that, and the way the game has evolved over the years, there's no other way to be "good" at the game than to have good gear, so intelligence and knowledge aren't rewarded as much as inhuman patience and stubbornness.

tldr ffxi's bad.

[Daemon]

the word "elitist" gets thrown around a lot in mmo culture but usually what people are referring to is perfectionism. elitism refers to the idea that society at large should be ruled by a select group of educated individuals ("elites"). see socialism/communism. please don't start talking about politics. i'll cry.

perfectionism is just not being happy with something unless it is absolutely as good as it can be. in this case, not being happy with DDs in your delve alliance because they don't have delve weapons. or not being happy with a bard who doesn't have daurdabla. or a pld who doesn't have aegis and ochain. etc. on one hand it's acceptable to a certain degree, but you get to a point where everyone has unrealistic standards and that is toxic to the game's community. it also breeds a sort of superficial analysis towards players who join alliances.

back when people did voidwatch, party leaders would sit around for hours shouting for rem DDs. didn't matter if it was a monk in nq empyrean armor and verethragna, had to be rem. problem here is that it's much easier to go by what you've heard from the grapevine than it is to do the research yourself. then they would probably know that kill speed really didn't matter in voidwatch, and also that there were a bunch of non-rem builds that would have wrecked that monk on several jobs. that, and the way the game has evolved over the years, there's no other way to be "good" at the game than to have good gear, so intelligence and knowledge aren't rewarded as much as inhuman patience and stubbornness.

tldr ffxi's bad.

In my opinion, abyssea made it easy for anyone to level up, skill up, and have temporary false power that allows people to slack off and not really learn to party with people and tackle real strategy. I mean procs made it easy. Temp items and atmas made it easy.

When SoA was released, people actually had to carry food, work on having gear and yes learn real strategy vs mobs and bosses that you cannot proc and freeze of a much harder level.

As for VW, I don't think all people really cared for any job to have REM as hardcore as SoA wanting people with Delve weapons. I mean, who wants to sit in town waiting all day shouting til your fingers are numb from spamming the up/ enter key every 10-30 seconds? Especially when every leaders biggest fear is making the entire alliance wait til they start leaving because you wasted too much time trying to get the best when you could have made due with what you got.

The thing is, you could still get away without having an REM DD for VW. You had displacers as an option to allow you this. Unlike Delve.

As I said, it's the way DEVs made the event is how us players make up our own system. I still argue that many of us NA players base our parties around what we've learned through joining such events, see what we think works and follow what we've learned only to incorporate that when we decide to lead our own groups.

I mean who would want to risk trying to make a different type of party setup wasting everyones time with a risk of failure when we've seen and know what works watching others lead the event?

Some VW procs have pet procs but who intentionally invited Beastmaster?

Elitism sucks and its selfish in my opinion because rather than just play the game and have fun with people we all interact with on a daily basis, they choose to not be bothered with players who could slow down their progress when they want something.

Whether it takes you 1 hour or 10 hours, eventually we all get what we want in time.

[sc4500]

FF14 is just around the corner.

This game as casual it going to be and most people that got a family , kids, and a job there not going get far in there 1 to 4 hrs of play time unless vocal and at this day and age of the game that no longer works.

Only way square could go casual on this the game now days would be to make it a free to play model and increase the user base 100 times , but that will not happen since the game still got to much hardcore elements to the game and even free to play models will not work(with out the right model). They would have to drop all ps2 support. Then revamp the pc side with a simple sign up system , and the xbox version of the game they would have to build a system that streamline it for xbox users to sign up and microsoft will slow that side down.

FF14 just around the corner and that is casual and elite style game play.

[Bamph]

Playing retard won't make you look cool to the other kids.

We're going to start this? Fine.

Is this the part where we act like we're five? *Throws sand in your face*



What is a healthy adult? Someone that is actually an adult and have resposibilities like a job and family to take care of and has 2-4 hours at best in a day to devote to a game.

Please explain what you mean by this.

[Hawklaser]

Well, depending on the rewards get from monstrosity when they add them, we may have a new casual endgame event. Very fun, and easy to do.

[Zarchery]

Abyssea was lauded for being casual and low man friendly. Then as soon as the next thing came along, everyone forgot Abyssea even existed and complained that the game wasn't casual or low man friendly.

If there are no linkshells dedicated to Abyssea, or parties doing Abyssea stuff... make your own. If other people aren't running parties with the content you want, you have to take on the leadership role. When I came back to the game in Fall 2010 after a 2 year hiatus, I still wanted to do Assaults, TOAU missions, WOTG missions and quests, and regular Nyzul. It was old content that nobody was doing... so I formed my own parties for them. Leadership is stressful, but sometimes it's all you can do.

Dunno what you mean by the game being unfriendly to casual players, but I only play 2-3 hours a day tops, don't do much Adoulin stuff, and get by just fine.

[Rustic]

It's simple really everyone deserves acess to such things.. spending a couple hours a day can accumulate to aquiring a piece that took 3-4 days to aquire or even a year or two.

I disagree. Everyone deserves access. Not everyone has the actual ability to get there. FFXI has never locked players out of content- they have only made content that some people can't or won't put the time in to access.

Even to this day, I can point at half of my linkshell never having even seen Sky, or Limbus. Indeed, a good chunk of them never even made Rank 10 on their nation missions.

All of them have access. Many of them simply fail at the effort to acquire it. I have zero problems with effort = reward, and further that some people can't make the effort, so they don't get that reward. Call it schadenfrude, but every time I see someone in gear from a hard-mode piece of FFXI, I feel good about it.

It tells me there's something actually challenging in the game. The game should never be 100% complete for anyone save those who can make the exceptional effort. That's what makes those things exceptional to begin with, not a "I spent sixty days grinding mindlessly to get the bayld for this best-in-slot item, look at me I am UBER!"

You have access to a Maat's Cap. Did you get it? No? There's my perfect example of "anyone has access, not everyone earns it." Content like that is as important to getting and holding players as casual content, and in fact, because it appeals to a different part of the playerbase, serves to increase server population.

That is, you need content for BOTH, and more specifically, you need to have content that does NOT appeal to 100% of the population, content that in fact is aimed specifically at smaller chunks of it.

Say, they made a golden chocobo that would take racing and breeding and developing insane levels of effort to hatch and produce, but could warp you to nearly any zone you visited in the game. People would do it, but many would not. It would grab the attention of people who are chocobo-mad, but other players would utterly ignore the content in question. It's still "good content", because it holds and attracts a portion of players that otherwise would never come or never stay in the first place...even though it's not designed for 100% easy access.