servers way more empty now? Still doing the linear gear climb?

[leorez]

Me and a couple friends are coming back after a breaking (one since ToAU, the other since seekers started). Ive only been gone since May, but on a Sunday night around 11pm i noticed that the /sea all turned out around 600~ players on Asura. I know its not the best time frame to check how its doing, but thats the lowest ive seen it in a long time.

Are the servers really that empty all of a sudden? Did 14 put a dent in it? I played 14 for a couple weeks and blew right through it because its another post WoW casual fest and i was bored as hell and was basically done with all the endgame content/was basically done with my relic weapon (yes they are jokes to get in that game). I dont see that people will stick with it, especially FFXI players who are used to games with a lot of depth.

My reason other than FF14 for leaving was how the content was in seekers which was turned into a very linear gear climb (which is what 14 has and its awful and dull). Have they stuck to that still or are they spreading out the good gear between events?

[Anjou]

Me and a couple friends are coming back after a breaking (one since ToAU, the other since seekers started). Ive only been gone since May, but on a Sunday night around 11pm i noticed that the /sea all turned out around 600~ players on Asura. I know its not the best time frame to check how its doing, but thats the lowest ive seen it in a long time.

Are the servers really that empty all of a sudden? Did 14 put a dent in it? I played 14 for a couple weeks and blew right through it because its another post WoW casual fest and i was bored as hell and was basically done with all the endgame content/was basically done with my relic weapon (yes they are jokes to get in that game). I dont see that people will stick with it, especially FFXI players who are used to games with a lot of depth.

My reason other than FF14 for leaving was how the content was in seekers which was turned into a very linear gear climb (which is what 14 has and its awful and dull). Have they stuck to that still or are they spreading out the good gear between events?

Well we got some stuff incoming soon, AF upgrades across the board will hopefully bring some people back into old content to upgrade their gear, might bring some people back for the nostalgia feel, but other than that no nothing has changed aside from the gear climbing.

[Rustic]

Me and a couple friends are coming back after a breaking (one since ToAU, the other since seekers started). Ive only been gone since May, but on a Sunday night around 11pm i noticed that the /sea all turned out around 600~ players on Asura. I know its not the best time frame to check how its doing, but thats the lowest ive seen it in a long time.

Are the servers really that empty all of a sudden? Did 14 put a dent in it? I played 14 for a couple weeks and blew right through it because its another post WoW casual fest and i was bored as hell and was basically done with all the endgame content/was basically done with my relic weapon (yes they are jokes to get in that game). I dont see that people will stick with it, especially FFXI players who are used to games with a lot of depth.

My reason other than FF14 for leaving was how the content was in seekers which was turned into a very linear gear climb (which is what 14 has and its awful and dull). Have they stuck to that still or are they spreading out the good gear between events?

It's a linear gear climb. Bayld -> Skirmish -> Delve, because sidegearing doesn't occur with item levels. And you can blame FFXIV for it, seeing as it's eating so much development and it split the playerbase.

That being said, people ARE doing Skirmish for bayld and augment stones and such, and for dual wielders, you're going to want both a Delve and Skirmish weapon for main/offhand.

[leorez]

It's a linear gear climb. Bayld -> Skirmish -> Delve, because sidegearing doesn't occur with item levels. And you can blame FFXIV for it, seeing as it's eating so much development and it split the playerbase.

That being said, people ARE doing Skirmish for bayld and augment stones and such, and for dual wielders, you're going to want both a Delve and Skirmish weapon for main/offhand.

Kind of sad to see them go down that linear route, was great how older FFXI was when you got 75 gear from all kinds of events and most stuff stayed relevant for a long time, not forcing you to do one event to get into the next. I think they are using XI as a testing ground for XIV with stuff like that....which is so sad, casual crap like that is not what players who are still around want (from what i see).

The worst part is that there is nothing like this game or some of the older MMOs like EQ anymore, all we get is speed to cap and hop on the treadmill style since WoW took over the market. OF course every game since then has barely lasted a year or so before hitting the F2P desperation bin, but that doesnt stop Devs from constantly trying (the next casualty will be 14...i can pretty much see it already).

[Demon6324236]

Well part of the issue with it is they went from being nearly 100% horizontal to 100% vertical in no time. We used to have gear last a while, and in a single update, the implementation of a single expansion, a single day, they flipped that completely from what it was into what we see today. If it were not such a complete swap, a slight gradual nudge of some sort which would give us a more vertical climb slowly, but not outdating 90% of the game in a matter of hours, then things might not be as bad. Sadly, they lacked the foresight to do so.

[leorez]

Well part of the issue with it is they went from being nearly 100% horizontal to 100% vertical in no time. We used to have gear last a while, and in a single update, the implementation of a single expansion, a single day, they flipped that completely from what it was into what we see today. If it were not such a complete swap, a slight gradual nudge of some sort which would give us a more vertical climb slowly, but not outdating 90% of the game in a matter of hours, then things might not be as bad. Sadly, they lacked the foresight to do so.

i noticed that VERY quickly when SoA came out, literally made gear irrelevant in a single patch a month or so later. It was insane to see gear become useless SO fast in FFXI. Not a fan of the new devs or the route they are going, and after a short chat when i logged in, it will seemingly be a very tough time for us to do anything since most people are near the top of the "ladder" and have no reason to bring others up with them.

sadly this may be a very short stay back in XI.

[Dragonlord]

I totally agree with where this thread is going. I can't stand the linear climb. There's no variety, nothing that you really strive for, because you know it'll be replaced come the next event. This game use to be an experience, and now it feels more like a treadmill. I really hope SE quits this WoW-cloning type deal and brings back the reason the game did so well for a decade prior. IMO, it was the struggle with friends, the challenge, the slow progression that set this game apart from others.

On a more positive note, they have been making some great playability adjustments lately. The start screen sound, more inventory, send/receive option from mog house, etc. So well done on that regard. And back on topic, on leviathan there was a major plunge in people online after ffxiv release. There would typically be 1k+ on at NA peak and it dropped to 5-600 for a couple weeks. Now its back up to more 700+ range, but still a marked decrease.

[Rustic]

i noticed that VERY quickly when SoA came out, literally made gear irrelevant in a single patch a month or so later. It was insane to see gear become useless SO fast in FFXI. Not a fan of the new devs or the route they are going, and after a short chat when i logged in, it will seemingly be a very tough time for us to do anything since most people are near the top of the "ladder" and have no reason to bring others up with them.

sadly this may be a very short stay back in XI.

At this point, gear = level up, since they can't make us level up past 99. That's literal. I equip a L100 dagger, mobs con as if I'm level 100. Forefront? I'm effectively gaining 6 levels- instead of experience points and level up, I "level up" based on my gear instead.

The good news is they're planning on updated RME/Artifact gear to bring it up in item levels (and stats), meaning that folks should be able to resume wearing their usual garb soon enough. Of course, that also means they become required again, meaning inventory gets clogged to heck and back again. Good thing we just got +80 inventory, eh?

[Demon6324236]

That's not true though, look at GEO & RUN AF, its macro gear, sure some of it is decent for practical use, but with how things are going its quickly outdated with higher level gear. Updated AF will be level 106 or so like I think RUN & GEO AF is, not sure, never leveled either past 40 where my RUN is, in either case, neither set stands up to Skirmish or Delve gear in terms of stats besides job specific things like Refresh, MDEF/EVA, or that sort of thing, which means, macro gear. So saying that updated AF is good news, to me, is false. Update AF is good news only if it brings me a ton of insane gear that outdates what I have now for the sake of inventory, or it fuses stats from multiple pieces I currently use into 1, so I do not need extra macro piece room.

The issue becomes worse as time goes on however, because their unique stats will not be beaten most likely, things like RDM's Empyrean Composure or Enhancing Magic Duration buffs, wont come from other gear. What it means is, more space taken on macro pieces because no matter what they upgrade my Estoqueur's gear to have, they will make gear with better stats next week.

Leveling up was never requested, nor required, their want to do it was damaging, and the fact that we now level via gear is not an excuse for it all, it all comes back to the same idea for that reason, which is that the highest level gear is primarily the only gear that matters. That itself, is the idea of the linearity of this progression style, and why it sucks for this game.

[geekgirl101]

Ours tips around 500ish during the week and 700ish at the weekend, but today it's gone even lower at 320. The game has aged and as Demon says this adding levels to gear in order to compensate for the inability to increase the level cap is terrible. Thanks for the extra 80 slots but I don't think this gear in place of levels is going to work, and with the population decline today it just proves that it's not working out.

[Elvyn]

The main reason for server population dip at the moment is the upcoming Update (November). With SE's recent disturbing WOW-esque gear dropping means no gear is safe from being made obsolete in the coming update. All gear released with SoA has been replaced almost immediately i.e Bayld -> Skirmish -> Delve NQ ->Skirmish II -> Delve HQ and where as a few years ago this progression would have happened over years, this occurred in a matter of months. No on wants to spend time getting something that's going to be worthless in a months time.

After the update expect to see a population increase. But it wont last if the updated gear is either ridiculously hard or easy to get. Balance is the main point of this MMO and before you could offset time/effort needed to obtain something with the fun/social side of the game that's no longer there. The balance will have to be reworked.

However if I'm honest. XI has almost reached its limits from a technical stand point and with XIV SE's new baby I don't think SE will try very hard to keep XI alive much longer. With the community LS site down forever, updates promised years ago and never arrived. XI is like a village market when a superstore has opened next it to (XIV) people are drawn by the flashy look and promise of increased content and so the shops in the market start to board up there windows one by one. Bad analogy I know, but with the current times it was the only one I could think of lol.

[Demon6324236]

Its pathetic how they let this game crumble, I always forget the community site, such a sad example of just how much priority SE gives the FFXI players these days.

[Mostfowl]

i was bored as hell and was basically done with all the endgame content

Really? You completed coil of bahamut turns 1-5 already? Interesting seemings that the coil has a climbing difficulty factor such that no one has completed it yet...

[Spectreman]

You guys really think that more years of sidegrades would make any good to this game? The servers would be shutdown by now if sidegrades were still in place. Yes, feeling strong in a MMORPG isn't a problem, being able to kill gods isn't a problem. The problem is that those who rushed content always complain at having nothing to do.

Look at players that chose to live inside a game instead of real life. Have all jobs 99, all empyreans/relics. What's left for those ppl to do? Nothing. So stop crying about finally being able to kick ass in MMORPG and quit if you wanna be weak again and struggle against DC mobs like in 2003.


The old FFXI has gold memories for us veterans but that non forgiving model would not be viable on todays standards. SE doesn't want to have servers up for 15-50k players. Accept that and stop crying.

[Demon6324236]

You guys really think that more years of sidegrades would make any good to this game?Seeing as it worked, and I have seen more people leave after their change to vertical progression than ever before, yes, I think that it would do good by compare to what we got.

[leorez]

Really? You completed coil of bahamut turns 1-5 already? Interesting seemings that the coil has a climbing difficulty factor such that no one has completed it yet...

The one piece of content thats meant not to be completed...no. I dont remember saying i did all the content, i said "basically". And just because i did not do the one event that wasnt meant to be completed doesnt mean i wasnt bored and had gone through just about every endgame event there was (which is next to nothing anyway, nor is it hard, just stupid gear checks more than anything, and of course avoiding the big red circles built for dumbys) and of course the awsome "get X amount of tombs for a piece of gear you will chuck out for the next set" BS that just prolonged doing the smae 1 or 2 dungeons to death.

[leorez]

Seeing as it worked, and I have seen more people leave after their change to vertical progression than ever before, yes, I think that it would do good by compare to what we got.

I did...very well, most games that take this post WoW design of vertical gear climbs dont last more than a handful of months or a year or so before they shut down or go F2P. The "modern" design is barely holding onto players where a game like this even a couple years ago had a 200k or more paying them 13$+ a month.

[Zumi]

Sidegrades are horrible, the new game design is much better.

[Mostfowl]

sidegrades sustained ffxi for 10 years, vertical progression at the scale it currently is at will not.

too much, too fast, too soon, too much left behind

[Demon6324236]

Really to me its more like... Sidegrades sustained FFXI for 10 years, vertical progression crashed FFXI in around 6 months.

[leorez]

Really to me its more like... Sidegrades sustained FFXI for 10 years, vertical progression crashed FFXI in around 6 months.

do need to say it like an opinion, its a flat out fact at this point.

[predatory]

I hate the vertical gear climb as much as anyone else, but, imo, they need to do one more vertical climb, then they need to go back to horizontal gear upgrades. The vertical climb they actually need to make, but have completely overlooked to this point is the respective JSE sets for our jobs. I'm sorry but this whole sea of red that's going on is becoming tiresome at best. Before SoA was released you could tell a persons job by simply looking at them. Each set had stats appropriate to that job, but now its just one big amalgamation of bleh

[Demon6324236]

That's the only saving grace of it all in my opinion. All of my AF/Relic/Empyrean gear sounds like it will be upgraded, which means, my RDM gets to wear real RDM gear and be good with it again. I like that. I also like that it seems my worthless RDM Mythic I am currently making, might not be worthless, because with the skill thing, my RDM using a Sword is actually good for Enfeebling, meaning Mythic should be the best Enfeebling Accuracy weapon in the game. But in the end, the overall idea of vertical was horrible for this game, a few small good things don't change that, and had it never happened in the first place, our AF/R/E gear could have been upgraded to level 99 all the same had they wished it so.

[Sapphires]

Game isnt worth playing anymore, sidegrade+situtational gear is being killed off and myself and most of my friends got tired of waiting on the RME update that they were going to eventually throw under the bus again with more mindless vertical gear progression.
The gear and progression model that made XI cool is gone, I hope their 'game designers' feel great shame in killing the game off for a lot of people.

[Damane]

Seeing as it worked, and I have seen more people leave after their change to vertical progression than ever before, yes, I think that it would do good by compare to what we got.


sidegrades like in the lvl 75 definitly WONT work either. Vertical progression is fine, however they were pushed out since the release of SoA too fast. do vertical progression every 8-10 months, fill in the gaps with horizontal progression. Thats a good balance. the REM update will bring alot of people back i think, to some degree at least.

[Afania]

sidegrades like in the lvl 75 definitly WONT work either. Vertical progression is fine, however they were pushed out since the release of SoA too fast. do vertical progression every 8-10 months, fill in the gaps with horizontal progression. Thats a good balance. the REM update will bring alot of people back i think, to some degree at least.

No it's not, name me any MMORPG that's not wow with vertical progression that has the staying power of pre-Abyssea FFXI.

Vertical progression limited the choice of content you can do in a game, I played 14 and endgame in 14 is horrible. Farming ifrit/garuda 100 times for a weapon never drop, or prae speed run 100 times JUST so that I can do titan(and those gears are pretty much useless after you reach coil) is terrible design. After I ding 75 in XI years ago, I did ein/dyna/limbus/Nyzul/sky/ToAU NMs, pretty much every endgame right after 75. It's not limited by what gear I have, simply because most gears are sidegrade and doesn't make or break you, and doesn't make X gear required to do Y content.

In XIV you can't do X if you don't have Y gears, and you pretty much toss that gear after you finish next content(i.e, toss your primal weapons after you beat titan and get relic). So I'm limited to only a few content I can do, and it got extremely boring after 3 days. Major gear difference= gear become a requirement to do said content, and limited the content you can do.


I want to be able to do 10 content at once in endgame, so I can do different thing everyday. I don't want to do only 2 content after I hit cap, spam same old content 100 times so I can do 2 more next tier content.
Vertical gear progression is boring and lacks staying power. Just because there's one title WoW being successful, doesn't mean it's good for every other game.

Don't have high hope for XIV endgame too, by the time they release crystal tower everyone would be rocking in ilv 90 gears 5/5 and laugh at lv 80 crystal tower, same shit dev been doing since SoA.
Completely agree with OP, XIV lacks staying power, unless dev change game direction, it's probably going to face same fate as SoA FFXI.

[Afania]

You guys really think that more years of sidegrades would make any good to this game? The servers would be shutdown by now if sidegrades were still in place. Yes, feeling strong in a MMORPG isn't a problem, being able to kill gods isn't a problem. The problem is that those who rushed content always complain at having nothing to do.

Look at players that chose to live inside a game instead of real life. Have all jobs 99, all empyreans/relics. What's left for those ppl to do? Nothing. So stop crying about finally being able to kick ass in MMORPG and quit if you wanna be weak again and struggle against DC mobs like in 2003.


The old FFXI has gold memories for us veterans but that non forgiving model would not be viable on todays standards. SE doesn't want to have servers up for 15-50k players. Accept that and stop crying.

It seems you have 0 idea about how to manage an MMO.

Yes, players will always climb super fast, whether they have a life or not is none of your business. There will be hardcore players beating content as quickly as possible, no matter what title it is, and dev's job is to keep them busy and stick around.

Also, I'm not interested in playing a game that can "kick ass", if I do I'd play single player game and use cheat code. I don't see major gear difference as "make you a god and feel good", I only see it become requirement to do content and give everyone less content choice to do, gears in XIV makes quit a bit of difference, if you pt with relic DPS in full ilv 90 v.s ilv 55 DPS in AF you'd notice the difference, that made relic a requirement for nearly everything, including speedrun. Can't join speed run without X, can't do primal without Y. If the difference is only 1% or 2% it won't be an issue. A player just ding 50 in full AF can't join any /shout besides ifrit in XIV because every /shout pt ask for relic(or even +1) DPS, and it just make that much difference in terms of kill speed.

[Afania]

Really? You completed coil of bahamut turns 1-5 already? Interesting seemings that the coil has a climbing difficulty factor such that no one has completed it yet...

One major issue with vertical progression is, if someone isn't interested in Coil, he has nothing to do after relic. And if someone isn't interested in primal, he can just cancel account after main story done.

In 75 era FFXI, if you don't like dynamis, you still have sky/ein/Limbus/ZNM and everything else. I've met someone with full limbus armor, runs limbus LS and hate dyna with passion, it doesn't stop him from doing everything else he want.

[Sparthos]

sidegrades like in the lvl 75 definitly WONT work either. Vertical progression is fine, however they were pushed out since the release of SoA too fast. do vertical progression every 8-10 months, fill in the gaps with horizontal progression. Thats a good balance. the REM update will bring alot of people back i think, to some degree at least.

There was plenty of room to push horizontal progression while inching on the vertical progression through the continued improvement of the armor that was already commonplace pre-Seekers. As in all expansions Adoulin could have had its signature pieces that added to the armor glut but with regards to endgame it should have been about improving those pieces that people spent alot of time improving. You know, things like Mythics, Magians, pulse weapons, Salvage II loot etc etc.

Requiring people to go through the old base content, which you could make easier as part of the move away from stress would not only have kept the idea of needing pieces from old content to be the best but also have been used in conjunction with new pieces or items to improve your Nyzul II gear further or made those burning fists from Paramount Botulus that much stronger. Instead we get the worst kind of vertical progression where gear comes out nowhere to topple that which you spent years to obtain. It just leaves a bad taste in the mouth of players who have been sculpting a sand castle only for the game to suck it away with the tides.

It's ok though, you can get a sand castle+1 by running some lazy and mindless content like Reives though! Cmon...

All Seekers was tasked with doing was being an improved Campaign system and it fails miserably on that front. Reives are worse than WOTG's campaign battles, colonization is composed of boring ops that feel detatched from the game, wildskeepers are just glorified public arenas where people leech EXP for hours killing useless adds that idle in the arena if the col. rate isn't high enough. Then if that wasn't bad enough, Delve shit on everything lol.

And here I thought we'd be able to finally mega digivolve our Ridills into a glowing Ridill+2.

[leorez]

The biggest problem with the vertical slice as it is with a game this old is how few people will be doing the lower stuff. If a newer player wants to jump into SoA endgame now...well for the most part they are screwed. Its not a giant spread out community anymore, almost everyone left is at the newest endgame so if you get left behind, you might as well stop playing, next to no one does the lower end stuff because there is no need.

That in general is what i hate about the gear climb, it makes content worthless after a short time and since no one needs it, no one is gonna come help you catch up (unless you have a bunch of friends to help, but not everyone does).

2 of my friends that cam back, they are nowhere near that stuff, ones starting fresh because he hasnt played for ages, the other stopped at ToAU...i have no idea how me and a couple LS mates are gonna handle bringing them up to speed.

[Afania]

There was plenty of room to push horizontal progression while inching on the vertical progression through the continued improvement of the armor that was already commonplace pre-Seekers. As in all expansions Adoulin could have had its signature pieces that added to the armor glut but with regards to endgame it should have been about improving those pieces that people spent alot of time improving. You know, things like Mythics, Magians, pulse weapons, Salvage II loot etc etc.

Requiring people to go through the old base content, which you could make easier as part of the move away from stress would not only have kept the idea of needing pieces from old content to be the best but also have been used in conjunction with new pieces or items to improve your Nyzul II gear further or made those burning fists from Paramount Botulus that much stronger. Instead we get the worst kind of vertical progression where gear comes out nowhere to topple that which you spent years to obtain. It just leaves a bad taste in the mouth of players who have been sculpting a sand castle only for the game to suck it away with the tides.

It's ok though, you can get a sand castle+1 by running some lazy and mindless content like Reives though! Cmon...

All Seekers was tasked with doing was being an improved Campaign system and it fails miserably on that front. Reives are worse than WOTG's campaign battles, colonization is composed of boring ops that feel detatched from the game, wildskeepers are just glorified public arenas where people leech EXP for hours killing useless adds that idle in the arena if the col. rate isn't high enough. Then if that wasn't bad enough, Delve shit on everything lol.

And here I thought we'd be able to finally mega digivolve our Ridills into a glowing Ridill+2.

If they want to make XIV vertical progression they should have just leave XI the way it was like pre-SoA, and various new content to upgrade old gears, most of the old content can be solo or lowmanned, so its' good incentive to keep players around without big LS.

And whoever interested in doing primal fight 100 times for a weapon or farm 600k(that's a lot for a new ARR player with no craft/DoH leveled btw) for an ilv 70 weapon just to do one Titan fight can play XIV.

[Damane]

No it's not, name me any MMORPG that's not wow with vertical progression that has the staying power of pre-Abyssea FFXI.

Vertical progression limited the choice of content you can do in a game, I played 14 and endgame in 14 is horrible. Farming ifrit/garuda 100 times for a weapon never drop, or prae speed run 100 times JUST so that I can do titan(and those gears are pretty much useless after you reach coil) is terrible design. After I ding 75 in XI years ago, I did ein/dyna/limbus/Nyzul/sky/ToAU NMs, pretty much every endgame right after 75. It's not limited by what gear I have, simply because most gears are sidegrade and doesn't make or break you, and doesn't make X gear required to do Y content.

In XIV you can't do X if you don't have Y gears, and you pretty much toss that gear after you finish next content(i.e, toss your primal weapons after you beat titan and get relic). So I'm limited to only a few content I can do, and it got extremely boring after 3 days. Major gear difference= gear become a requirement to do said content, and limited the content you can do.


I want to be able to do 10 content at once in endgame, so I can do different thing everyday. I don't want to do only 2 content after I hit cap, spam same old content 100 times so I can do 2 more next tier content.
Vertical gear progression is boring and lacks staying power. Just because there's one title WoW being successful, doesn't mean it's good for every other game.

Don't have high hope for XIV endgame too, by the time they release crystal tower everyone would be rocking in ilv 90 gears 5/5 and laugh at lv 80 crystal tower, same shit dev been doing since SoA.
Completely agree with OP, XIV lacks staying power, unless dev change game direction, it's probably going to face same fate as SoA FFXI.

i think you misunerstood what I meant and frankyl I wasnt clear. What I meant by haveing "vertical gear progression every 8-10 months" was that they should have started with ilvl 105 gear. That way you woulnt have made everythign else/olde obsolote, now the following 8-10 months you push out events that are decent sidegrades, either by adding new stuff to old content or by new events. Then after 8-10 months of sidegrades you would have pushed for an update event that would have introduced vertical gear progress to ilvl 110 gear, either by introducing a new event or by makeing old gear event upgradeable. Now fill the following 8-10 months again with sidegrade upgrades on different fields that were left out.

Thats how I could see vertical gear progression work, however at the current rate we have of like outdateing everything every 1-2 months, everything is flushed down the toilet via a mindnumbing giant mega-depression.

What I meant by Horizontal gear progression wont work either is: fucking e.body staying on top in FFXI for 8 years+, like for real? shit like that should have had never happened and it should have gotten bombed when salvage was introduced (e.body is just an example, there are more such occasions)

[Anjou]

i think you misunerstood what I meant and frankyl I wasnt clear. What I meant by haveing "vertical gear progression every 8-10 months" was that they should have started with ilvl 105 gear. That way you woulnt have made everythign else/olde obsolote, now the following 8-10 months you push out events that are decent sidegrades, either by adding new stuff to old content or by new events. Then after 8-10 months of sidegrades you would have pushed for an update event that would have introduced vertical gear progress to ilvl 110 gear, either by introducing a new event or by makeing old gear event upgradeable. Now fill the following 8-10 months again with sidegrade upgrades on different fields that were left out.

Thats how I could see vertical gear progression work, however at the current rate we have of like outdateing everything every 1-2 months, everything is flushed down the toilet via a mindnumbing giant mega-depression.

What I meant by Horizontal gear progression wont work either is: fucking e.body staying on top in FFXI for 8 years+, like for real? shit like that should have had never happened and it should have gotten bombed when salvage was introduced (e.body is just an example, there are more such occasions)

E body was only considered top tier solely because of those augments you could put on it, that is what sustained it at the top. Mostly because it gave players an extension on their e-penis so they continue to flaunt that accursed thing, but not anymore...the Armadaburk has been reduced to nothing more than a vanity piece.

[fatbob]

SE probably trying to get everyone up to the top so they can end game and transition all ffxi players to 14.

[leorez]

SE probably trying to get everyone up to the top so they can end game and transition all ffxi players to 14.

played it, dont wanna play another WoW clone. If they had kept the core of what 1.23 ended on the old 14, it would have been amazing and i would have never looked back, but instead they threw it all out to "meet the standard" which they even said they got by talking to blizz devs, so its no surprise its like EVERYTHING else out there.

[Damane]

E body was only considered top tier solely because of those augments you could put on it, that is what sustained it at the top. Mostly because it gave players an extension on their e-penis so they continue to flaunt that accursed thing, but not anymore...the Armadaburk has been reduced to nothing more than a vanity piece.

it was top tier for 7 years or more... really shit like that should never be the case with ANY item. (not to mention thats why kings also remained a shit fest for 7 years). hence why I side this horizontal gear scaling isnt good either.

[Afania]

i think you misunerstood what I meant and frankyl I wasnt clear. What I meant by haveing "vertical gear progression every 8-10 months" was that they should have started with ilvl 105 gear. That way you woulnt have made everythign else/olde obsolote, now the following 8-10 months you push out events that are decent sidegrades, either by adding new stuff to old content or by new events. Then after 8-10 months of sidegrades you would have pushed for an update event that would have introduced vertical gear progress to ilvl 110 gear, either by introducing a new event or by makeing old gear event upgradeable. Now fill the following 8-10 months again with sidegrade upgrades on different fields that were left out.

Thats how I could see vertical gear progression work, however at the current rate we have of like outdateing everything every 1-2 months, everything is flushed down the toilet via a mindnumbing giant mega-depression.

What I meant by Horizontal gear progression wont work either is: fucking e.body staying on top in FFXI for 8 years+, like for real? shit like that should have had never happened and it should have gotten bombed when salvage was introduced (e.body is just an example, there are more such occasions)

What you said wasn't too different from FFXI pre-SoA though. Before SoA gear hiearchy did change all the time, just slowly, only a few piece, like ebody and tiger pants stay relevant for very long time. Majority of the AF2/sky/limbus gears or even some of the salvage gears were already dead before Abyssea release.

There are so many gear/gear sets in FFXI before SoA, ebody and tiger pants are like 1 gear out of a hundred. Also, FFXI has gear swap as core game mechanic, so you need more than just 15 pieces of gear to play a job, more like 50~70 gears per job, that's also one reason why a piece of gear can stay relevant for such a long time.

Honestly I think 75 era model works just fine, you have maybe 1~2 piece of gear stay on top for 5 years, maybe 20 pieces stay on top for 3 years, you can maybe have rest of the gear outdate every year or something, and legendary weapon that's supposed to be on top. That way it always feel like an accomplishment to complete your long term goal, and still have short term goal to satisfy you before finishing your long term goal, and your short term goal changes after every new content so you always have something new to do. I think gears that's associate to JA should stay relevant for very long time for even forever, that makes getting them worth the effort. Gears with DD stat can change hierarchy every 8~10 months or so.


But even then, 75 era FFXI wasn't real vertical gear progression, unless I understand vertical gear progression wrong, even if gear outdate slowly, gear doesn't block your content progress in 75 era. My understand toward vertical gear progression is, if you don't have A gear you can't do B event unless you're a leech. One example is Titan HM in FFXIV, you need 3.3k~3.5k HP on DPS/healer or else you will die. To get that much HP you must have item lv 70 armors. The content automatically filter out anyone not having ilv 70 armors, and force players to farm them.



it was top tier for 7 years or more... really shit like that should never be the case with ANY item. (not to mention thats why kings also remained a shit fest for 7 years). hence why I side this horizontal gear scaling isnt good either.


I think ideally you'd want maybe 5% of item stay relevant, long lasting accomplishment is No.1 incentive to keep players around, if you get an item that's relevant for long time, it's an accomplishment that stays, like your titles.

Rest 95% outdate on different pace, it's easily doable with gear swap system. Gears in FFXI kinda have different value from other MMO. In many other MMO gears are just tools to do X and Y content, in FFXI it replaces achievement system and tell other players what they've accomplished.

[Afania]

E body was only considered top tier solely because of those augments you could put on it, that is what sustained it at the top. Mostly because it gave players an extension on their e-penis so they continue to flaunt that accursed thing, but not anymore...the Armadaburk has been reduced to nothing more than a vanity piece.

All MMO is about your accomplishment, you've done this, I've done that. Ebody or legendary weapons are the same as achievement system, it's 1 important aspect of the game, don't need to look at it in such negative way.

[Demon6324236]

2 of my friends that cam back, they are nowhere near that stuff, ones starting fresh because he hasnt played for ages, the other stopped at ToAU...i have no idea how me and a couple LS mates are gonna handle bringing them up to speed.If you can get them out to Skirmish, get them the Skirmish Armor & some +1 weapons, it will be more than enough to get them caught up gear wise, LBs are easy too, past that its learning how the game/jobs have changed.

[leorez]

If you can get them out to Skirmish, get them the Skirmish Armor & some +1 weapons, it will be more than enough to get them caught up gear wise, LBs are easy too, past that its learning how the game/jobs have changed.

so im guessing the plasm weapns are now outdated (of course they were always weaker than the MB ones, but they were above pretty much everything else). Jeez, how quickly do they make more content irrelevant?

[Mostfowl]

played it, dont wanna play another WoW clone. If they had kept the core of what 1.23 ended on the old 14, it would have been amazing and i would have never looked back, but instead they threw it all out to "meet the standard" which they even said they got by talking to blizz devs, so its no surprise its like EVERYTHING else out there.

pssst ffxi is a eq clone, se flat out admits that
and ffxiv is not a wow clone, its just not ffxi/eq based

[Anjou]

All MMO is about your accomplishment, you've done this, I've done that. Ebody or legendary weapons are the same as achievement system, it's 1 important aspect of the game, don't need to look at it in such negative way.

I wish I could agree with you on that, but when you're rubbing it in someone's face (I'm looking at a certain someone I bet is lurking this forum) to the point I rejected the notion of ever going DRK, yeah there's a reason to be negative due to past experiences....

[Demon6324236]

Skirmish +1 weps with +1 stone augments basically match starting Delve weapons most often, so they should be good enough.

[casual]

Linear gear climb is honestly the worst thing SE could have added, due to the simple fact that they cannot keep up with the demands of new content to keep people interested. We're probably the closest to the game outright dying than we ever have been before.

[Afania]

pssst ffxi is a eq clone, se flat out admits that
and ffxiv is not a wow clone, its just not ffxi/eq based

FFXIV is a wow clone period, it's just a clone that doesn't have every good aspect from wow, still a clone.

There are more wow clone on the market than EQ clone, we don't need anymore, don't need FFXI to become one.

[leorez]

FFXIV is a wow clone period, it's just a clone that doesn't have every good aspect from wow, still a clone.

There are more wow clone on the market than EQ clone, we don't need anymore, don't need FFXI to become one.

and i have played EQ before, though there are some parts that are very much the same, there is a good chunk that is different (and i know they said they used it as their base) but 14 is a flat out copy in almost every way, not just WoW but of all the WoW like games and their slight changes from that (like fates basically being rifts/gw2 events but crappier)

And like the person i quoted said, there are TONS of WoW clones and most have failed or barely hang on over all these years, FFXI was one of a few EQ clones and they did it when the game was still early in its life (and early in the genre in general).

Dont be shocked when in 6months to a year tons of the 14 servers are merged or they bite the bullet and go F2P (they are copying all the other "standards" so im sure they would be up for one more?

[predatory]

The biggest problem with the vertical slice as it is with a game this old is how few people will be doing the lower stuff. If a newer player wants to jump into SoA endgame now...well for the most part they are screwed. Its not a giant spread out community anymore, almost everyone left is at the newest endgame so if you get left behind, you might as well stop playing, next to no one does the lower end stuff because there is no need.

That in general is what i hate about the gear climb, it makes content worthless after a short time and since no one needs it, no one is gonna come help you catch up (unless you have a bunch of friends to help, but not everyone does).

2 of my friends that cam back, they are nowhere near that stuff, ones starting fresh because he hasnt played for ages, the other stopped at ToAU...i have no idea how me and a couple LS mates are gonna handle bringing them up to speed.

you must be a new player, or you would never have made this statement

[predatory]

it was top tier for 7 years or more... really shit like that should never be the case with ANY item. (not to mention thats why kings also remained a shit fest for 7 years). hence why I side this horizontal gear scaling isnt good either.

So what is wrong with gear that stays good forever as long as the content is geared side progressive as well? Did the game ever have to leave the 75 cap in the dust? of course it didn't all they had to do was add more content and their player base would still be in the 4k range on multiple servers, they didn't start having to do server merges until after they announced the level cap to 80. Think about it, your gear was good for multiples of years, you had sweet shit, were building even nicer stuff, then all of a sudden boom level cap up 5, and bamb everything you worked so hard on was worthless. Now fast forward just a few very short years and you go from not just that level cap to 99 and even worse through 4 sets of gear progression in 8 months. population then 4k, population now 700, you do the math

[predatory]

know the difference between ffxi and wow these days? you can only do a raid in wow once a week, you can do skirmish and delve as much as you want provided you have the ki to do it

[leorez]

you must be a new player, or you would never have made this statement

Im not at all, besides the fact that there is next to no one on, people are doing shouts for mega bosses and skirmish 2...and thats about it. DO you think they would let in a guy who only has bayld gear at their best? (because its what you can get done on your own or with a small group) Unlikely, they will want people who have the weapons and gear from the plasm stuff or higher (which you can not do on your own...and no one does it anymore)

[Damane]

So what is wrong with gear that stays good forever as long as the content is geared side progressive as well? Did the game ever have to leave the 75 cap in the dust? of course it didn't all they had to do was add more content and their player base would still be in the 4k range on multiple servers, they didn't start having to do server merges until after they announced the level cap to 80. Think about it, your gear was good for multiples of years, you had sweet shit, were building even nicer stuff, then all of a sudden boom level cap up 5, and bamb everything you worked so hard on was worthless. Now fast forward just a few very short years and you go from not just that level cap to 99 and even worse through 4 sets of gear progression in 8 months. population then 4k, population now 700, you do the math

yeah no... the lvl cap raise wasnt bad and I also dont think that vertical gear progression is bad. It is just pushed out too fast atm (every 1-2 months) instead of going every 8-10 months while filling the rest with sidegrades.

The game was on a big decline pre lvl cap raise and abyssea, if they wouldnt have done anything back then, we would have had the same situation like now. The only difference between now and then is that FFXIV is another FF MMO competetor and that people have literally nothing to do atm.

besides we went from lvl 75 to lvl 90 in 9 months+ vs. ilvl 99 to ilvl 120 in 2 months, that is a big difference.

[predatory]

Im not at all, besides the fact that there is next to no one on, people are doing shouts for mega bosses and skirmish 2...and thats about it. DO you think they would let in a guy who only has bayld gear at their best? (because its what you can get done on your own or with a small group) Unlikely, they will want people who have the weapons and gear from the plasm stuff or higher (which you can not do on your own...and no one does it anymore)

Sorry I should have said that differently, what I meant to say was back at the 75 cap you had to have all kinds of prerequisite things done or you weren't getting into a decent endgame shell, (which of course left you out in the cold). You had to have sea and sky, all dynamis clears, you had to have completed the quest Shadows of the departed etc. or you couldn't join in their little reindeer games, the difference is now you have to have delve gear to actually get into delve, back then you just had to have access. I started a second char when they came out with WoTG, got it to 75 on brd and sam, and abandoned it because I couldn't get it the necessary clears to get into an endgame shell, simply because everyone had their clears and no one was helping or joining groups. I shouted for hours on end trying to get shit done, and then said meh, enough. So the times may have changed, but getting into stuff you wanna do for your char was as difficult then as now

[Okipuit]

Good morning,

We understand that some of you would prefer having more equipment choices made available through various content. Moving forward, a variety of new equipment will be implemented and this will give you more options to choose from laterally. We'll be introducing new content where this equipment can be obtained, and we'll also be adding them to existing content as well.

We know you're all interested in the artifact armor revamps as well, so we'd like to let you know the latest development is that we plan to set their item levels to be the same as geomancer and rune fencer AF.

[Ceuabara]

Arigatogozaimasu <><><><> <(^^)> HAI !!!!

[Malthar]

What about that server merge?

[predatory]

Good morning,

We understand that some of you would prefer having more equipment choices made available through various content. Moving forward, a variety of new equipment will be implemented and this will give you more options to choose from laterally. We'll be introducing new content where this equipment can be obtained, and we'll also be adding them to existing content as well.

We know you're all interested in the artifact armor revamps as well, so we'd like to let you know the latest development is that we plan to set their item levels to be the same as geomancer and rune fencer AF.

Sweet, that'll make my Iuitl a swap set for rng rather than something I feel obliged to wear. Hopefully there'll be some ilevels added to our relics and empy +2 sets as well?

Oh btw you probably destroyed the game for everyone who thinks gear shouldn't last forever :D

edited to add big grin

[Jerbob]

We understand that some of you would prefer having more equipment choices made available through various content.
Yes, people do want this - and oddly enough, it was something that was (not perfectly, I will admit) available before all this item level and vertical progression nonsense. People want things to go back to the way they were before.


... item levels ...
Please, please, PLEASE, just stop. New AF is something that people have been asking for and looking forward to for years, but as things stand you're ruining it before it's even been released. I cannot emphasise enough how wrong of a direction this is.

[Xantavia]

I hope "adding to existing content" means they revisit the trial of the magian stuff again. I would love to be able to keep improving my weapons as an alternative aldouin stuff.

[Psxpert2011]

"Fly Me To The Moon and let me PLAY among the STARs~...

You are all I long for, the one I worship and ADORE~...

In other words, HOLD my hand...

In other words, please be true~ ..."

~SINATRA

[Kraggy]

What about that server merge?
No, if you're unhappy where you are nothing's stopping you moving, I'm happy where I am thanks.

[Demon6324236]

No, if you're unhappy where you are nothing's stopping you moving, I'm happy where I am thanks.I don't want to leave my friends on Phoenix, I don't want to be on a server with few people on every day, tell me, how does one solve this? Only way I know of is merging.

[saevel]

Umm this game's always been vertical, all MMO's are. At level 75 you were not using a Bee Spatha. At level 90 you were not using a level 75 weapon. Level 90~99 things leveled out a bit as Tanaka tried to reverse the gear progression from Abyssea but there was still progression from voidwatch, magian and legion. Now we are level 119 (effective) and are using level 103~119 gear.

The only issue is that SE released level 119 gear too fast, they did 20 levels of gear progression in a matter of months. They should of been much slower about it, 103 then 105, 107, 110, 113, 115, 117 and eventually 119 sometime next year. I wouldn't expect a level 119 person to wield a level 99 weapon for the same reason I wouldn't expect a level 99 person to wield a level 75 weapon.

[Demon6324236]

Except for many years 75 was the cap, through RotZ, CoP, ToAU, and WotG, a long period of horizontal progression, then they released Abyssea, we went to level 99, and during that time it was vertical for a short time, with only Abyssea/VW/WoE for gear till 99 really, then it went back to horizontal. Really, if you look at the history of the game, the game has been horizontal far more often than it has ever been vertical.

Saying that we didn't use underleveled gear doesn't say much, once you leveled to 75 the gear was horizontal for a long time, same with 99, as I said, short bursts of vertical, but when we hit 99 we had a large selection of gear to pick from, some better than others, yes, but not so much better that only it matters. At the point the game is getting to now, 1 weapon is vastly better than everything else with no real comparison between the two in damage, for instance, Oats and Rigors have an extremely large gap, far larger than, say, Relic H2H & Brawny. That kind of imbalance is new, and bad for the game.

[leorez]

Umm this game's always been vertical, all MMO's are. At level 75 you were not using a Bee Spatha. At level 90 you were not using a level 75 weapon. Level 90~99 things leveled out a bit as Tanaka tried to reverse the gear progression from Abyssea but there was still progression from voidwatch, magian and legion. Now we are level 119 (effective) and are using level 103~119 gear.

The only issue is that SE released level 119 gear too fast, they did 20 levels of gear progression in a matter of months. They should of been much slower about it, 103 then 105, 107, 110, 113, 115, 117 and eventually 119 sometime next year. I wouldn't expect a level 119 person to wield a level 99 weapon for the same reason I wouldn't expect a level 99 person to wield a level 75 weapon.

like demon said below me, it spent more time horizontal content wise than ever vertical, now even at 99 cap they are continuing the stupid vertical climb with this dumb ilevel crap. Not only is it keeping going instead of going back to how it was at 75 cap where it goes back to horizontal, its doing the fastest vertical its ever done, within a month or 2 when everything you got was suddenly crap, especially with weapons.

People dont want this vertical climb anymore and want it to go back to how 75 cap was. Lots of endgame to be viable and not just turn it into this climb to do a single event. Ilevel was basically garbage they pulled over from FFXIV and if we wanted to do that junk, we could play XIV and not this.

[predatory]

like demon said below me, it spent more time horizontal content wise than ever vertical, now even at 99 cap they are continuing the stupid vertical climb with this dumb ilevel crap. Not only is it keeping going instead of going back to how it was at 75 cap where it goes back to horizontal, its doing the fastest vertical its ever done, within a month or 2 when everything you got was suddenly crap, especially with weapons.

People dont want this vertical climb anymore and want it to go back to how 75 cap was. Lots of endgame to be viable and not just turn it into this climb to do a single event. Ilevel was basically garbage they pulled over from FFXIV and if we wanted to do that junk, we could play XIV and not this.

IMO if they want to keep this ilevel crap, fine, just side grade every other part of the game, so it all becomes relevant again

[Draylo]

Funny, just a year or so ago people were super tired of "side grades". You can't please anyone lmao.

[predatory]

I don't remember saying anything on the forums a year ago, but I do remember bitching ingame about the same things I am whining about in the forums now, and it fundamentally comes down to a lack of rewarding content at endgame, and or content that has been brushed aside for new endgame content rather than being brought up to date.

There would be so much stuff to do in Vanadiel that getting all of it done would be a daunting task to even the most diehard of us, if they would just go ahead and make it all relevant again, and let's face it, the real reason everyone hates the ilevel system is it was a blatant statement "This game is nothing but a time sink, and your goals and efforts to attain them, mean nothing"

[detlef]

Funny, just a year or so ago people were super tired of "side grades". You can't please anyone lmao.I know I use the term sidegrade a bit too liberally but I don't really mean it literally. It's mostly used to contrast against ilvl gear and wholesale replacement and obsoletion. I think most people who continue to play enjoy situationally good gear with occasional best-in-slot pieces introduced every so often.

[leorez]

I know I use the term sidegrade a bit too liberally but I don't really mean it literally. It's mostly used to contrast against ilvl gear and wholesale replacement and obsoletion. I think most people who continue to play enjoy situationally good gear with occasional best-in-slot pieces introduced every so often.

There has always been some slightly better pieces introduced, the thing is, they were never such a giant leap that it made anything but that one thing pretty much irrelevant or if you didnt have it, your exceedingly weaker than the other person. I never liked salvage and it took forever to complete a single piece, so i pretty much ignored it, and honestly that was just fine because it wasnt such a step up that i was utterly useless without it.

The other obvious thing was that these slight upgrades came every so often and not every couple of months. They also normally didnt replace entire sets of stuff, they would do a piece here and there. These updates basically take (for example) a DDs TP and Haste set and completely replaces all of it at once. This was never the norm, nor should it be.

That style is how games Post WoW work it seems...and they haven't exactly fared well. Right as this game decided to pull this crap me, a bunch of my friends all got fed up and left, and when we came back its now a ghost town...i wonder why? I don't wanna play a dumb 1 game event ladder climb, nor can i see most of the FFXI players wanting that either, if they did there are choices out the bum to do that exact thing, including the overly praised FFXIV.

[Camiie]

I'm going to go with saevel on this. They basically implemented Mount Everest when all they needed was a mild incline. All the new gear needed were slight stat boosts compared to what we already had and some unique bonuses. Old content would still be relevant and people would have had plenty of incentive to chase the new shinies.

[Blah]

Yea.... Sorry but I feel you guys are well still wearing rose colored glasses and are missing the obvious reason why the servers are empty. The fact is the population has BEEN low and steadly decreasing for the longest, that's why they had to merge in the 1st place, remember? By the time 14 came along the 1st time it was only around 2000~ 2500 per server, ok for getting some stuff done but considering that this is a party oriented time burner ( it still seems to me that they expect EVERYTHING to be done with a party), a lot of stuff just wasn't getting done so a lot of people simply left until it finally started being only around 1800 to 1500 when 14 came out again and when people left to play that well a mass exodus is basically the end result. People pop in shout for SoA and get nothing they figure well screw this I'M GONE. Now unlike most I like soloing my lowbie jobs while I wait and see what happens so it bothers me none that people are gone. But...well...since like I said b4 this game is a party oriented time burner it's is what made it so great is what is leading to it's own demise

[saevel]

I'm really waiting for someone to explain how going from level 10 gear to level 50 gear isn't "vertical progression".

Guys' there is no such thing as "horizontal progression", it's an oxymoron. You can't walk forward by walking to the side. What people really are talking about is minimum progression, aka side grades. Where you wait six months to get an item that is 2~3% better then the one you already have. Where new content might have 1~3 pieces of useful gear per job instead of replacing nearly everything. Voidwatch, Legion and Sea are prime examples of this content. Skirmish, Delve, Sky, Abyssea and Ground Kings (depending) are examples of vertical progression.

People aren't pissed that gear is being upgraded, it's always been upgraded and people actually get pissed when there is no carrot. People are pissed that the previous gear they spent years getting was obsoleted so fast that it left them behind. The people who are the most pissed are the ones who were in the ultra elite groups that claimed exclusive rights to be "winners", after all if everyone can get a trophy then trophy's are meaningless.

[Blah]

And that is why the veterans are probably leaving in mass exodus...well the few veterans that are left

[leorez]

I'm really waiting for someone to explain how going from level 10 gear to level 50 gear isn't "vertical progression".

Guys' there is no such thing as "horizontal progression", it's an oxymoron. You can't walk forward by walking to the side. What people really are talking about is minimum progression, aka side grades. Where you wait six months to get an item that is 2~3% better then the one you already have. Where new content might have 1~3 pieces of useful gear per job instead of replacing nearly everything. Voidwatch, Legion and Sea are prime examples of this content. Skirmish, Delve, Sky, Abyssea and Ground Kings (depending) are examples of vertical progression.

People aren't pissed that gear is being upgraded, it's always been upgraded and people actually get pissed when there is no carrot. People are pissed that the previous gear they spent years getting was obsoleted so fast that it left them behind. The people who are the most pissed are the ones who were in the ultra elite groups that claimed exclusive rights to be "winners", after all if everyone can get a trophy then trophy's are meaningless.

though its true i can never actually be "horizontal", its a way of saying things differently. If i get a piece that is situational or get a piece that is better suited for my build (like i need more acc vs attack) would you consider those vertical? It was that not every piece was exactly better than the last, but had different uses for different set ups. I could ignore certain pieces and not be gimped and not be able to participate in things because my damage or w/e is drastically lower.

And yes the giant obvious problem is how not only quickly they replaced just about everything, but how much of a jump it was, making you so much weaker than another player it made your output not worth having. Its the design of most new age games, and in particular FFXIV where if at 50 you dont have the higher "ilevel" sh*t you dragged everyone down pretty substantially. I hated it and left the game pretty quick because of it (among plenty of other reasons).

We went to 99, so yes lots of old stuff would be replaced, we all got that, but it should have went back to how 75 cap was with lots of viable gear in tons of different events, basically re-doing the 75 endgame design. Instead they pulled this "ilevel" crap too and basically raised the levels even more (why?..who the hell knows?). Poor design by a terrible new team who havent the slightest clue how this game worked before and what kept people around, its turned into a poor mans FFXIV testing ground run by a bunch of amateurs.

[Ravenmore]

The elites leaving wasn't the real problem it's the people that got shut out of content leaving that is the problem.

[predatory]

The elites leaving wasn't the real problem it's the people that got shut out of content leaving that is the problem.

That sounds just about why I'm leaving

[Zumi]

I like the ilvl system way more then side grades. Because with the big upgrade it actually feels like I am getting better gear and my character does noticeably more damage.

People aren't leaving because they don't like the gear system in the game. Its more like FFXI is really old 12 years almost. The graphics are pretty dated, there is new shiny FFXIV out now with HD graphics. One of the main contributor to FFXI's population loss is new games especially FFXIV. Personally I know I been playing FFXIV more then FFXI since there hasn't been much new added in FFXI for quite some time.

SE just said that 1.5 million people were playing FFXIV, and it uses the same ilvl system as they put in FFXI so its not the gearing system that is at fault here, its the fact the game is very old now.

[Demon6324236]

SE said 1.5M people were playing FFXIV, not that 1.5M people who play FFXI were playing FFXIV. Just because a lot of people are playing that game does not mean that the issue of this game is not the ilevel system. The fact is, ilevels suck as an idea for this game. This game has always had gear which lasted a long time, every update was not likely to bring gear so much better that your gear you got since last update was practically worthless by compare. On top of that, the power gap is to large, far to large, anyone without a boss weapon has a massively lower DPS, so much so that its insane by compare to the old idea of RME > All, a massive issue in the community since Abyssea till the start of SoA.

So far as just saying its a dated game, that's never stopped it before. The game has been old for quite some time, and not a single person I know of who has quit or has been talking about quitting has even once brought up its age. Everyone I know who has even talked about quitting brings up that the game is changing to much, they don't want to go get new gear every couple months and feel like they are starting from scratch. Maybe you and the people you know are different, but from what I have seen, your statements are completely wrong as to why people are leaving.

[Blah]

Erm... Man I don't think you have been paying attention. BEFORE they even started the the ilevel stuff and even before Abyssea people were leaving. Pay attention why don't you? The servers only had around 3000 to 2500 and steadily decreasing wait you know what? If you haven't been checking the population then this is useless to explain.

[Demon6324236]

The population has been slowly going down, yes, but in the last few months the population has fallen drastically, at a much faster speed than the norm. If it were falling like normal, there would be no need to make special notice of it, but its going much faster, which is why its actually being brought up as more of an issue, the acceleration is worrisome.

[detlef]

Erm... Man I don't think you have been paying attention. BEFORE they even started the the ilevel stuff and even before Abyssea people were leaving. Pay attention why don't you? The servers only had around 3000 to 2500 and steadily decreasing wait you know what? If you haven't been checking the population then this is useless to explain.I don't think you've been paying attention. Steady decrease yes, humongous, noticeable decrease no. Until now.

[Zumi]

SE said 1.5M people were playing FFXIV, not that 1.5M people who play FFXI were playing FFXIV. Just because a lot of people are playing that game does not mean that the issue of this game is not the ilevel system. The fact is, ilevels suck as an idea for this game. This game has always had gear which lasted a long time, every update was not likely to bring gear so much better that your gear you got since last update was practically worthless by compare. On top of that, the power gap is to large, far to large, anyone without a boss weapon has a massively lower DPS, so much so that its insane by compare to the old idea of RME > All, a massive issue in the community since Abyssea till the start of SoA.

So far as just saying its a dated game, that's never stopped it before. The game has been old for quite some time, and not a single person I know of who has quit or has been talking about quitting has even once brought up its age. Everyone I know who has even talked about quitting brings up that the game is changing to much, they don't want to go get new gear every couple months and feel like they are starting from scratch. Maybe you and the people you know are different, but from what I have seen, your statements are completely wrong as to why people are leaving.

I have an LS of 88 people in FFXIV that were former FFXI players. I am the only one who occasionally plays FFXI. The general consensus is the game got old or there was just nothing to do because lack of updates. I think you guys are underestimating the amount of players FFXIV:ARR took from FFXI. Which was the sharp decline in people in Aug/Sept. I haven't heard anyone in FFXIV complain there different item levels, 50, 55, 60, 70, 90. Obviously people with ilvl 90 gear way out preform people who just hit 50 and using ilvl 50 gear. To me the system seems to work very well.

Its not oh the ilvl system made people quit the game. Delve has been the top gear in FFXI since last April, with pretty much no new gear since, skirmish 2 was slightly worse but better if you could get certain arguments. I seen the argument in game that people don't want to have to get a new set of gear every patch, this isn't the case at all look how long Delve gear has been top since April. SE will probably take a full year or 2 to outdate delve 1.0 gear, given how slow they release new content.

If you ask me there isn't enough upgrades in this game to chase. People need to be farming that new gear set, otherwise its just do Tojil for the 200th time for no reason other then to sell airlixers on the AH for gil.

There needs to be constant new goals in the game to keep players interested its just you cap out on delve gear so fast you are left with little to do after you got all the best gear in the game. There isn't a new delve or anything in the November patch so what will happen is the game will be do Tojil with newly updated R/M/Es.

[predatory]

Zumi
There needs to be constant new goals in the game to keep players interested its just you cap out on delve gear so fast you are left with little to do after you got all the best gear in the game. There isn't a new delve or anything in the November patch so what will happen is the game will be do Tojil with newly updated R/M/Es

Actually they are adding quite a bit of content in November, the problem is, it's limited in scope, and won't hold peoples attention for much more than a few days, what they needed to do was fix the RMEs, add the new WKRs, SoA missions and quests they added, and update something from the older content to give people something really worth while to do, Sky v2, assault v2, meeble barrows v2, whatever, just something that people would want to do over and over again. That's just not the case with this update

[Blah]

And like I said before it's because a bunch of people jumped ship to XIV (and GTA V and possibly even COD Ghosts to be fair) taking the population down below 1000 and people jumped on looked around (basically) and saw it was empty took off too especially when they didn't come back like before. Now I am trying to get you to understand it's because people just can't get a party together anymore is the reason people have left and are leaving even now. I see them even now yelling and hollering for lair or reilve only once maybe twice a day and most times not getting any takers. People are fed up and leaving because of that. P.S. and if you were paying attention you would have noted that it happened practically the day FFXIV came out

[Fynlar]

The gear upscale is not the problem

The fact that skirmish/delve are easy to "finish", coupled with the fact that not even the previous long-term projects of RMEs are even worth working on anymore and skirmish/delve offer no such equivalents, is the problem

Yeah, RME update is coming, but it's a case of too little too late and a significant blow to the populace has already been dealt. This is something that should have already been rolled out along with the new content, not half a year afterward.

[Jerbob]

I don't think it's accurate to lay the blame on a single cause. For me, and a lot of people I know, the gear upscale IS the primary issue, and I've gone from playing for several hours every day for years to essentially not playing at all.

I'm sure that for the "top tier" players who are able to clear content quickly (often with questionable methods), boredom and lack of content is a major problem, but to deny that SE's recent decisions have been disastrous as well is rather disingenuous. SE needs to work on pleasing both types of players, and I think that both issues can be sorted out by quite similar solutions. It would be more positive for us as a playerbase to stop arguing about what the problem is and start focusing on making SE fix all of it so that everyone can be happy.

[predatory]

The problem is SE did a few things almost simultaneously, and it had a snowball effect on population. They obsoleted R/M/Es with the release of SoA, and regardless of what some say here, quite a few people did leave over this; They stated, (and later recanted), that the fix to the R/M/Es was going to be to add the weapon skills from those most coveted of weapons onto the newly created delve weapons, which drove quite a few more R/M/E owners from the game; they released FFXIV, which took a significant chunk of the population with it, (but new game releases have always done this for a month or two until the glitter wears off); and finally they failed to add anything significant to stem the tide, even the upcoming November, (which on the outside looks huge) does little to address what I see as the main issue FFXI will never come back from the recent hits it took.

After all the recent hits FFXI has taken, (even if we assume some pie in the sky, all the R/M/E players are gonna flock back after the update- something that most likely will not happen, some will come back sure, but not all), a chain reaction has taken place and as more people left for the reasons stated above, even more people left out of sheer boredom or because they couldn't get things done, and that's where the problem lies, because the ones who left because they couldn't get anything done or were bored, will never come back, to them this game is a done deal, and at this point even if all the people who left over R/M/Es do come back, it will only bring the population back to between 600 and 700 during peak hours on Bahamut, and they'll quickly leave out of boredom.

Expansions are supposed to bring people to the game, not drive them out in droves, but this expansion was so poorly thought out, and executed, that it actually managed to drive people away rather than bring them into the fold. When the Delve weapons were introduced the R/M/Es should have been upgraded to match their strength, the wasn't enough content added to make the expansion self sustaining, and rather than keeping the old gear relevant until there was enough content for the new expansion to stand on it's own, they brushed it all aside with no real plans to revise anything.

Everyone on the FFXI team knew for almost a year that SE was going to be revamping FFXIV, but instead of having a major update ready to compete with FFXIVs release they gave us crap and still have yet to release an update that has any real content, or an update that brings relevance back to some of the older content. Had they made a major content release simultaneously with the release of FFXIV, a lot of the people who went to 14 would have come back to do the new and revamped old content when they grew bored with 14, as it stands right now, there is no reason to come back, and the upcoming November update is doing little in that regard

In November they're fixing R/M/Es and upgrading AF armor to match SoA AF armor, (BFD that should have been done at the release of SoA, and when they added Run and Geo AF); they're adding new reives, (nobody does the old ones why would SE expect the new ones to be any different?); they're updating fov chests and spawn times and drop rates from the older nms so lower levels can get gear more readily, (who really cares? Go naked to 30,then go to abyssea naked until you can get into curor gear at 78, who really worries about lowbie gear other than AF and gear for Maat fights anymore?); they're adding mog garden quests, a default choice to go to your mog garden, and a porter moogle for your mog garden, (I personally could give a rats ass less about mog gardens); they're adding stuff to monstrosity, (never did it so I have no opinion on it); they're adding new bcnms, (I wanted the old battlefields revamped not new bcnms). There's really no actual substance to this update, it's just more fluff. You don't go into a steak house to eat salad, you go to eat meat, and like every update since SoA this one lacks any meat.

[detlef]

I don't think it's accurate to lay the blame on a single cause. For me, and a lot of people I know, the gear upscale IS the primary issue, and I've gone from playing for several hours every day for years to essentially not playing at all.I agree completely with this. I don't think that there was any one cause, I just think that saying "it's an old game and has been declining for years" is a lazy answer.

It's likely fair to say that the population is always in steady decline because a game like this isn't going to attract new players. However, the current lull in content definitely caused the game to lose players at a faster rate, not to mention how many players left due to the bungled RME fiasco. And at exactly the right time, 14 was waiting with arms open to receive disenchanted FFXI players.

It's actually a real shame because I, among others, thought that a new expansion would revive the game. Instead, things have become quite bleak.

[predatory]

Me and a couple friends are coming back after a breaking (one since ToAU, the other since seekers started). Ive only been gone since May, but on a Sunday night around 11pm i noticed that the /sea all turned out around 600~ players on Asura. I know its not the best time frame to check how its doing, but thats the lowest ive seen it in a long time.

Are the servers really that empty all of a sudden? Did 14 put a dent in it? I played 14 for a couple weeks and blew right through it because its another post WoW casual fest and i was bored as hell and was basically done with all the endgame content/was basically done with my relic weapon (yes they are jokes to get in that game). I dont see that people will stick with it, especially FFXI players who are used to games with a lot of depth.

My reason other than FF14 for leaving was how the content was in seekers which was turned into a very linear gear climb (which is what 14 has and its awful and dull). Have they stuck to that still or are they spreading out the good gear between events?

There were 600 on asura? Wow, that's at least 100 more than we have on saturday during peak playing hours on Bahamut, and upwards of 200 more than are on some days during the week, and it's not just 14 that's causing the population drop, 14 is just an excuse many use, it's a combination of the whole rme thing, outdating gear, a poorly planned expansion, and just plain nothing really fun to do

Edited to add: on Bahamut

[Camiie]

I'm just going to reiterate that I didn't quit playing because of the new gear grind. I quit because of the lack of variety in endgame content, and the complete and utter uselessness of all but one of my jobs. I was left with one job to play and 2 events that would garner me progress. The jobs I hadn't leveled either didn't interest me or required gear that I didn't feel I could realistically obtain. So basically if there wasn't a Delve or Skirmish run going on there was nothing enjoyable for me to do.