Dear SE...

[Mostfowl]

We all know ffxi's days are numbered, whether you want to admit it or not it's on the horizon.

So I implore you SE, and I have said this before, to consider rereleasing ffxi, like you have with so many other numbered titles, but as a single player game. One in which we could control a pt of 6. The story lines, the gear, all that could stay the same. There would be some adjustments needed, such as lvling a craft would have to be much faster, the timed spawn nm would need pop conditions, requirement for mythics and relics would have to be adjusted to be more reasonable since we are playing 6 chars, battle adjustments made for a pt of 6 and such but I feel it would work as a single player. Even options like lvl sync could stay in the game to make lvling multiple jobs easier.

I know many people who would eagerly purchase this, myself included. And for those of us who just do not like the adjustments made since abyssea we could just not install any pack after the 3 mini expansions and those who love it could install it all.

I considered rerolling or reactivating my account but with the state of the game and the lack of population I cannot justify it, however I could justify buying a single player version, even if you wanted to sell the game in a package or the base game with separate dlc for each of the expansions.

Please English reps, at least send the devs a note about this for consideration. ffxi was one of the best and I hate to see it just fade away.

Thanks

[Demon6324236]

I love the idea, but my own opinion on how they should do some of it all...



Party Members should be characters from the story, Lion, Prishe, Ulmia, Tenzen, Aphmau, Lilisette, so on. There are many primary story characters which assume the appearance of a playable job, it would be great to make use of them as party members, allowing them to join your party as you progress through the stories and fight along side them as true allies.



Abyssea/Adoulin should not be standard areas. Abyssea should be the optional/super dungeon. Final Fantasy, and RPGs in general, have a long standing tradition to have a side area which is not required but will feature enemies far stronger than the final boss, some even make normal encounters with enemies as powerful as the final boss itself. I think Abyssea would easily fill that hole for FFXI. If the final boss was, say, the last boss of WotG or some such, then once beating them you could save your game, after saving, the maws would pop up, the Abyssea story would begin, and if someone wanted, they could explore the new optional areas.

Upon opening Abyssea's first 3 areas, the Vision add-on, you would be given a choice, you can either continue as a level 75, or you can break your cap and continue to 80, progressing another 5 levels after completing enough of the Abyssea story to continue. If you stay at 75, you would continue to play at 75 in Abyssea, and have access to the full areas as they are, but with scaled down gear that would be amazing at 75, but not as good as it is in current day FFXI. Players who level up would get the same Abyssea as we see in today's FFXI, but with full powered gear. In both, the monsters would be at full power, there should be no Atma or Cruor buffs, Seals should only need to be 1 drop to upgrade, same with +2s, and so on.

I think by doing that, Abyssea would remain a viable area for everyone, not overpowering the game, and allowing for a choice in the matter.

So far as Adoulin goes, since its a real expansion, I think it should have 3 versions, 1 version with today's FFXI, 1 version without item levels, and 1 version with level 75 characters in mind. That way it separates everyone's preferences. If you want item levels, it would be a choice, or they could just actually add it in as a level break feature if possible, at the same time, you could continue with level 75 cap, or with level 99 cap, but in any case, progressing in the way you wish.

[FaeQueenCory]

They have this already.... it's called FFXII.
*badumpsh*

Though seriously... 12's gameplay was 11's with colored lines. Pretty sure their engines are the same. (this is made even more obvious with that JP only rerelease of 12 where you have the job system instead of the license board.)

And even more seriously... this will never happen.
The worst case scenario is that this game dies, the servers are shut down, and then you could like make a personal client-side-only server thing.... but I'm not sure how that works.

[Demon6324236]

Though seriously... 12's gameplay was 11's with colored lines. Pretty sure their engines are the same. (this is made even more obvious with that JP only rerelease of 12 where you have the job system instead of the license board.)FFXII is kinda FFXI single player, but at the same time, that's not exactly accurate. Part of FFXI is its world, characters, story, and so on, which you cant find in FFXII, not only that, but the world is completely different in design and feel. Also, while FFXII International has a Job system, its not exactly what you seem to think. Its not fully FFXI like, it has a license board still, the board is simply determined by the job you choose for your character, so it still plays a lot like the original FFXII, but with jobs determining your board layout and whats on it, rather than every character sharing the same board design, with slightly different starting locations.

In the end, I have played FFXII during my short breaks from FFXI before because they feel similar. At the same time, I can not say it will ever be a real replacement, and I would much, much rather a real single player FFXI rather than playing my 50th play through FFXII.

[Spectreman]

Yes, i would like a single player of this game.

[FaeQueenCory]

FFXII is kinda FFXI single player, but at the same time, that's not exactly accurate. Part of FFXI is its world, characters, story, and so on, which you cant find in FFXII, not only that, but the world is completely different in design and feel. Also, while FFXII International has a Job system, its not exactly what you seem to think. Its not fully FFXI like, it has a license board still, the board is simply determined by the job you choose for your character, so it still plays a lot like the original FFXII, but with jobs determining your board layout and whats on it, rather than every character sharing the same board design, with slightly different starting locations.

In the end, I have played FFXII during my short breaks from FFXI before because they feel similar. At the same time, I can not say it will ever be a real replacement, and I would much, much rather a real single player FFXI rather than playing my 50th play through FFXII.
lol I was being 80% facetious... but if you REALLY want to see how they are EXACTLY the same they are... pick up a copy of the rerelease with the jobs instead of the license board.

Then you'll really be playing 11 with 12's plot.
(I played it... it hurt my soul how much copypaste it felt like it was.)

But I understand why you're saying they're different... but mechanically... they're basically identical.
I love 11s plots too... and actually think that it has one of the strongest plots in any FF.

I also love how it can all be summed up with "racism... it's bad yo!"

Nations: "three flavors of bad leaders"
Windurst: The Star Sibyl is a bad leader because of all the bad/stupid lies.
Bastok: The president is a bad leader because RACISM! (any Galka heavy plot seems to heavily involve the racism)
San d'Oria: Hier1 = idiot... verging on the handicapped. Hier2 = vicious... no morals... Hier3 = not a candidate because she's a woman even though she's the most competent leader out of all the leaders in all the nations
ShadowLord: racism... it caused the World War. (basically ranks 1-5 for all 3 nations)

RotZ: David Bowie is EVIL! But not as much as his brother!! (this one has the weakest plot IMO, it basically amounts to about 3-4 missions from each other chain... but it was the first expansion... so it gets a buy.)

CoP: Hey everyone! You know how we all come from the dead body of Promathia... well... surprise! We're made from Promathia's body!! (Never understood how a fundamental tenant in Vana'diel's creation account is a big shock to these ppl.... I mean... the Moblins didn't think anything of it when they got told it... they had a dance party even!
But this is probably the strongest of the mission-plots. Unlike RotZ, the "party" members were involved BEFORE and after fights and even partook in some of the "BCNMs". So, great plot, charaters felt like pt members, hit each and every FF staple perfectly.)

ToAU: When ppl aren't racist enough... make new races to be racist against!

LoL not really.

ToAU: The trappings of an Empire. (Very good plot, not quite as good at CoP IMO, but I think that's due to the MULTIPLE 24hr waits arbitrarily thrown in there. Also... Kinda wanted Luzaf and Nashmeira to make tons of babies... there's still time, SE! MAKE THAT HAPPEN!)

WotG: Time shenanigans and meddling kittie-angels. (This one.... it's hard for me to pin down... the Missions are... alright. Not bad.... but not CoP or ToAU. And the nation "mission"-quests... run the gambit. They're more history lesson than anything. But that final splurge of Missions are just superb.)

Adoulin: (I have no clue. I've been holding off on those until they are 100% done.)

It's also interesting to note that not only does FFXI have a strong anti-racism message.... it also has a strong anti-religion message.

Though I'm pretty sure that is unintended and just a side effect.

Like, take the creation account. The religion says that the 5 races are "tears of Altana" shed upon the body of Promathia. And from that union do we get Elvaan, Mithra, Galka, Tarutaru, and Humes.

But RotZ and CoP tells us that this is a lie. The true children of Altana and Promathia are the Zilart.
And from the Zilart derived the Kuluu.
And due to the Dawn Maidens and Kuluu's interference in the Zilart's plan to reforge the perfect world... (thereby restoring Promathia and thusly killing everyone)
The magical radiation mutated those Kuluu into the image of the golems who protect the fragments of the Mother Crystals: the Ark Angels.

So it has an anti-organized religion message... but I don't think it's intended. More a side effect of the world being fleshed out.

[Demon6324236]

I did play FFXII: International, that's why I said it wasn't really a job system, it still uses the license board, I mean, its a job system, but at the same time I feel like its quite different than FFXI. The story for any game can be simplified down in that way for the most part, and while I admit I am not big on the FFXI story, I do like the world, and would hate to see it simply vanish from existence when this game dies. This is the only FF game to date we cant really go back and re-experience the story of if we wanted to, many old ones which would be hard to find have been remade, which still lets us experience them to this day.

Lastly, so far as the religion thing goes... well... I honestly think that is kind of part of SE's games actually... I admit, I haven't played an amazing amount of them, however, FFX had a massive religious core to the story, and without trying to spoil it, the story really does seem some what 'anti-religion' by the end of the game in a way. In most FF games I simply don't notice a real religion, more or less most of the time there are large forces in the background like in FFXII trying to control people, but not something I would say is really a god or a religion in any real way.

I understand what your saying, and I know what you meant, I myself have said before that FFXII is just FFXI but single player, but at the same time, while I do think that, I also think that FFXI should be 'immortalized' as a single player, self sustaining game, rather than a MMO which relies on the server to be playable, to the point that once its shut down, the game is lost.

[Demon6324236]

You miss the point of this idea then...

The idea of this isn't 'the multiplayer aspect of this game sucks/is killing it, just make it single player!' its more that some people understand the game is dying, and if it dies, we would like a single player version to go back to. We all know its not the same without others, but its a story and world we can never return to past a certain point, when the servers are gone so is the world and everything within it, some of us players want a single player version to return to however.

[Demon6324236]

Actually that was the exact point I was responding to. This game can still return to high numbers of players. But it needs to return to the slow progression / stratified heirarchy / effort-based rewards game. That game was hugely popular, and not dying at all. Even when people were just logging in to farm magians and woepaths these last 2 years. And much more so in the pre-Aby era. A return to that game would bring in and keep new players in the game, just like it did 11 years ago. The reason new players are quitting after a month, is that they got a free zero-effort ride from lvl 1-99 and they got the most powerful gear/weaps in FFXI in like an hour. Thats why the new players quit. Solve that problem, and return the game to gradual effort-based xp/gear-building and this game will stop losing new players.Something that could never be done in this FFXI even if you tried. How exactly would you make XP meaningful again? Raise the cap? Well, sounds like from what SE says it that it cant be done, that's why we now level via gear. Reset everyone's characters? Oh, that is just what would make me want to play more, my character being reset on my levels to go back and do it all over again. Simply put, XP is a dead system in this game, you cant bring it back in a meaningful way that is actual leveling at this point really.

Depending on which period of time you are talking about new people quitting, you could be wrong. During the Abyssea age new players came and went because the game was fast to throw you into endgame but unlike many newer games, it explains nothing, you have to have either a wiki or another player holding your hand nearly the entire time to actually play the game. Not many people seem to want a game that involves spending more time reading what to do and walking around to do it than actually having fun and doing something. Not only that, but this game explains nothing about character stats either, something else which is looked down upon, since most games now days seem to make it fairly clear what stats actually do something, where as this game its all on wiki and if you don't read it, chances are, you wont know it.

Now, if you meant during the SoA period we are currently in, then yes, people quit after getting the best things quickly, but that's for a simple reason. On top of the above things, there is nothing to do in this game right now after you get those things. Those of us who have been here a while can hold on to some hope the game we have played so long will actually become fun and playable again, but new people have no reason to really stay, and just walk away after a disappointing couple of weeks or months. At least, that's my experience with people I know or have known who quit.


It is losing players for the reasons stated above. That doesnt mean its dying, that means it is hitting rock-bottom and needs to return to the previously successful business-model. "Some people understand" is some rare old BS. You don't have a crystal ball. We are all totally in the dark as to the future of FFXI. It might have a revival. You don't know.No one needs a crystal ball to understand that the game population is dying and as it dies, more people leave, as you say, the community is part of why people play this, its an online game after all, so as more people leave, the game feels emptier, people take notice, more people leave, and it continues. That, and they would either need to wipe away years of work to go back to what you describe, or they would need to make so much new content, levels, and so on, that it would take years to get enough content in the game to get to that point.


And again, I don't miss the point here, I don't want to play an offline version. Read my post. I like the worldwide gamer community and friends in faraway lands. That is what made FFXI fun. Sitting alone in a room playing it alone on offline mode would just be heartbreaking.You may not want to play an offline version, but these threads have popped up a few times, obviously seems to point to only one thing... others do.

[Tennotsukai]

I really wouldn't mind them doing something with adventuring fellows again. A little irrelevant. Oh well

[Kuvo]

This is a great idea. I've been saying to make xi a single player game for some time now. And ffxii is very similar to the play style of ffxi but the story isn't the same. I love xi and would like to see a game like that.

[Demon6324236]

Fixing it ;
1)Aby lvl cap above 75. Restoration of the 'big level-gap results in no xp system' in Aby. No more 99s killing mobs and lvl 30s standing there going ding every 30 seconds. We should stop that, and go back to the original xp system, augmented with level synch, and book-pages.Oh I see, so you plan to strand all new players at low levels, the ass end of the game where no one is anymore. If you think people would still level jobs your sadly mistaken, and even if people did, where would they go? Gusgen, Crawlers, and so on, people wouldn't go back to Dunes, Kazham, Altepa, or anything of the sort. All this change would do at this point is stop most people from leveling new jobs while stranding new players at the low end of the game with hardly anyone else. At least with Abyssea they play with others after some time, its not nothing but soloing, which is what this would basically have people doing.


Magian trials. The fairest, most versatile and most rewarding weapon building system in the game imo. Add new weapon groups, cool looking weaps, add new trials to existing 99 Magians, to make them competitive in SoA and later battlefields.Except SE seems to want to move past this system. If they would use it still, to a point, I would agree with you. I like ToM somewhat, though I have massive issues with the annoying lack of challenge, as though killing 2000 mobs which were far weaker than me during certain weathers proved I was worthy of the weapon or not. In either case, this wouldn't be to bad except it might devalue SoA weapons more which SE also seems to be trying to avoid.


Basically bring back stratification. Ie. pay your dues if u wanna wear these shoes. As the zen masters say. New chars being pimpest in the server after a few months, is a tragic fail on every level. And this rocketing to the top of the game in a month, removes the long journeying aspect, and also removes the whole 'veterans helping new adventurers' ethos which has been the backbone of FFXI for 10 years and led to many lasting friendships.Being on top in a month, I agree, bad, long journey/helping new players, I disagree with. New people need help now more than ever before. Before people starting out had a lot of others around, people would noticed them and would help, but now days its all upper ended so no one sees them or helps them as much, and as you get further in this game it only gets worse as many more things pop up without telling you. For instance, a new player would know nothing of AF these days, or Limit Breaks, not unless they are told, before you might hear about it in a party, but now days, no parties. So to me, new players need help more in that aspect than ever, and really, since most people want Delve boss weapons and such to even participate in Delve, the main piece of SoA content, new people need help getting these for sure.

I agree about having to work for something, but this game needs to stop with the stupid/annoying ways to do it. Original Delve was hard, that was how it should have been, a really hard event, best gear, hard event, simple. The fact this game hides everything behind annoyingly tedious tasks like ToM where your doing something over and over without challenge, or the fact its hidden behind super high amounts of luck like NNI or VW, those are stupid. The game needs to be about earning things but not from repeating the same event over and over again because of luck or something that says you have to, something should be simply challenging, and if you can win that challenge, you are rewarded.

[Demon6324236]

Well idk coz I was "stranded" there myself in 2004, and I had a lot of fun xping to 75 in lots of different areas. And the 'where nobody is anymore' is the whole problem, to fix it you need a system that engages players to use those old areas, a system like we had in 03-09. The only reason those areas are empty is because theres a 'leech to 99' option available. If that option is removed, the old areas will once again be filled up with new players.In 2004 there were people, all up till Abyssea there were people out there, but that's not now, is it? No matter what the reason, the areas are empty, and as I explained, even if you try to make people go back to old areas, it wont work, take away Abyssea, people will just do book parties, take away books, people will find something else. I am not sure where these hoards of new players are that will fill up the old areas for leveling...


In most of the recent threads there is 'why is ffxi dying' stuff, and my point is its dying because it got made into a game you can beat while afk watching TV. That is an undemanding game. And when people don't feel the game demands anything of them, they usually /quit in boredom. My suggestions are what I think could bring back the popular core game FFXI, the alternative seems to be just this fail situation we have today.The thing is that with all your posts you seem to be focused on the idea that leveling is the core of the game, and wont accept the fact you cant really go back to that unless you do something to reset people. I agree that going as it is right now will not work, but you cant just say that taking leeching away from the game would fix it all, or really fix it at all.

Take away leeching/quick leveling, and who gets hurt most? Nearly everyone in the game today has a few jobs at 99, we wont level new jobs as easily if at all, but that doesn't mean we don't have out jobs we already leveled/leeched. New players on the other hand, would be forced to level slower, taking weeks or months to reach 99, which is where everyone else is right now. That's why I say they are stranded, forced to level slowly to get to the part of the game where everyone else is, something that is not even close to the same as back in 2004 or any other pre-Abyssea period really.


Some people including you it seems, believe that the old slow party xp to lvl75 was an evil and horrible waterboarding type of experience. But I can confirm I had more fun xping in 04-09 in challenging parties with interesting players, than I've had since Aby and Soa arrived. And the point is, if you want the game to survive, you need the new players to keep logging in and paying subs, and the reason players always did that was that they had a slower progression through the game. "This week I'm gonna go level 65-70 if it kills me!" etc. Now its just, "oh I'm lvl 30, I got stacks of forbidden keys, I will be 99 before the end of the day" /yawn & /quitgame.I enjoyed old XP parties for a time, when they were all I knew, and they were necessary. I no longer enjoy them or the idea of them, I did them for some time, but I realized the social aspect of it was the only part I enjoyed, the fights were boring, the challenge non-existent, and overall, it just wasn't fun for what I was doing, but it was fun for the people I did it with. Once I joined a linkshell with those people, I had no more fun in XP parties than I did just standing in my Mog House really, XP just kept me more active.

Besides that, look, you keep talking about leveling as if its the only thing, level, level, level... As though that's all there is to the game. Yes, new players can get to level 99 before the end of a day, whup te do, that means nothing when you have no gear, no skill, no merits, no knowledge, sure, some people will see level 99 and think they are done, people with the mindset you seem to have. Others, will understand that its simply a number, a level, something that does not mean you have won. You want to speak of a journey, well, the new journey begins at 99, if a new player quits at 99 just because of the number, they are not fit for the journey.

This game needs more content, something to keep people here, but leveling is not the place to find it, not any more.


I disagree on Magians. I enjoyed doing f.ex 3000~ ws to build a TPbonus weapon, etc. It felt like I was being challenged, to use TP efficiently, get the required WS killshots etc. Also I like my char & enjoy watching her use WS. Also pet trials, using strats to get multiple mobs to 10% so your pet can kill them fast. Weather trials, holding like 20 mobs at 10% while waiting for the weather to change lol. And coz I earned those items by my own efforts that makes me feel like proud of it and stuff. I didn't just leech a seeker's KI and use it to buy a god-shovel.Seeing as I am sure they did not intend us to hold 20 mobs for weather so we can AoE WS them all to death, its not really challenging content, its just you creating your own form of challenge. I think of it like someone going in to Abyssea without Atma/Cruor buffs, its an option you choose, but its not really how SE intended it to be done. When it comes down to it, your killing hundreds or thousands of mobs which are all many levels under you, often EP or EEP now, and in the end would be rewarded one of the best weapons in the game, to me, its just not to great a system in that way, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind seeing it expanded on as it did work well.


The other great thing about Magians is if you have a job and family etc., you can log in a few hours per evening and just chip away at your trials, and obtain your weapon gradually on your own casual timeframe. For ppl with real lives, a lot of SoA timesinks are just not possible.
:pThat is the best thing about ToM, and the worst thing about ToM. The weather/day trials are a complete time sink that are often impossible for people with those kind of restrictions. The fact you have to kill certain enemies in certain weathers means you can be restricted to certain zones with rare weather such as fire or water makes it impossible for some people because of the waiting. Even day trials can be a complete pain since you have to wait for your free time and the proper days to align so that you can make progress.

As I said, ToM is a good system, but a bad system, another lack of true challenge but it could be worse.

[Demon6324236]

Are you making the mistake of thinking I am comparing the old FFXI to the current FFXI and saying that the current FFXI is good? If so, your mistaken, the current game sucks, pre-SoA was good, that's what I compare it too, the game as it is now sucks and the game that it was pre-Abyssea can never return either.

Pre-SoA FFXI had a lot of content at 99, you started often at Abyssea, but you had so much to do, that's the journey, Abyssea, VW, doing CoP, Limbus/II, RotZ, Sky, NNI, Salvage/II, Einherjar/II, Legion, and likely more that I cant think of. Now? Its only Delve, Skirmish, Reives, and they are all shorter and easier than the others I listed really.

[Ravenmore]

Seems to be a lot of rose tinted glasses going on here. Abyessa didn't bring in new players it bought back old player that came back cause the old sytem was gone. No longer did you need 17 other people to get things done, no more sucking up to ls leaders to get gear you only needed a couple close friends that you enjoyed being around not a bunch of people you would rather see die in a fire but had to put up with to get things done and you could work towards rewards. Almost every fight offered something for everyone that helped.

Even during the ToAU era the lowbie areas were dead X-play even highlighted this when they did their review of the expansion saying the game was top heavy which was right on the money, the starter cities were dead with everyone being in whitegate or jueno. People left after abyssea when content not only went back to alliance based content but it was time restricted to 30 mins a fight that meant little to no room for error so only the top DDs were taken to reduce the chance of fail. Before with time restricted you either had the option of limiting your rewards by picking time extensions like limbus areas and final bosses that could be beaten in AH gear or events like dyna where you could take as many bodies you could to make up for lack of skill or gear. But most of old endgame you could use body chunk and beat the mobs down by kicking the dead and inviting the living. Involved less skill then a skirmish run. What was hard was watching that 1% drop go to the guy you hated above all else and he then left the shell.

If it wasn't for abyssea faster less exclusive leveling people wouldn't had leveled many of the jobs they have now cause the first time up to 75 was fun the sec less and by the third time it was so boring that you didn't take up another job unless it was a job you needed to level to get into a good endgame shell cause all you had was DDs and they were only taking whm, rdm, brds sounds familiar huh.

Sky was p** freaking easy, not getting lost on the way to kitty was the hardest thing about it, sea finding people with the right jobs and willing to help do the missions to get to sea was the hardest part, it's endgame was easier then the missions. ZNM was doom to fail once since the people that were the ones building the pops got sick of carrying the leaches along after putting so much work in taking the pics for little to no reward at the end. Salavge you had to choose between doing assaults for points or Nyzul focusing on one could mean that by time you were done with it the rush was over for the other and finding help was even harder.

Old game only seemed like it was pack cause more then one LS doing sky/sea meant you had to fight over the pre pop NMs all had at least a 2 hour respawn and one at one point was a 24 hour spawn the RMTs had on lock down. That first day might had been exciting but after fighting kirin for the 1000th time it was old and tiring. Then you had leveling that would take longer to put the party together then it would be leveling cause no one wanted to play tanks or mages.

Then you take in to account it's a 11 year old game that has NEVER gotten a graphics upgrade(a real one not the BS token upgrades we have gotten to fonts and a few icons). EVE, EQ, WoW all got a upgrade to their graphics at some point in their history's. People will use the excuse that it's the Ilvl or relics being outdated what not but you hear excuses that sound very much like people when they leave girl friends, wives, boy friends, husbands, when they get fat or loss their attractiveness when a hot 20 something comes along and shows them some attention. Just in this case it was a new game with what really got people to pick the game up in the first place and that is the Final Fantasy name. I heard everything you all are going on about from many people that left for 14 were they have the the same system. The niche this game had for the longest time was it was the only Final Fantasy MMO it no longer has that niche.

The last influx of brand new players was with the 360 release so you now have a aging player base that have other things they have to do so even if abyssea never happen it would have just meant we would have seen this 3 years ago. Wotg did more damage to the game then SoA just with SoA there was fewer to absorb the hit then with wotg thanks to the people leaving after going back to the old model that came with VW. SE over corrected with VW and then again with SoA while the reward are easier to get once you get the wins, getting into run that can get the wins are the hardest part if you don't go back to the old way of getting into good LSs.

Everything that has happen since after abyssea has been things the player based ask for but with with how limited the game is thanks to being tied down to outdated hardware they had to use cheap tricks to make content harder I.E extremely low drop rates or time events that promoted exclusion.

[Demon6324236]

I had a good laugh at that one, thanks. I had 12 jobs at 75 in 2009. I also had two mules on 75.You also seem to think that leveling was the greatest thing the game ever had, so go figure, most people at 75 had a few jobs, 2~3, and stopped because XPing for hours on end wasn't appealing to them anymore.


This game still looks and plays fine, to me. It looks good and the engine is responsive and well designed. Also re; 11 years, ppl play 1980s games still lol. Classics never die.Games from the 1980s aren't updated every couple months and make you pay a subscription monthly to play it either. Very different things. That being said, I honestly don't care much about the graphics, worse they are, less lag I get on my terrible Laptop, part of the only reason I still play this probably, so I cant complain much.


But tbh most of the people I've seen quit during SoA are new players who join the LS, get 99, get delve, get bored, all three of those things they get incredibly fast.I am sure new players quit, what do they have here to look forward to? People like us who have played for years are sitting around with friends we have known for a long time, playing a game we have played for a long time, hoping it gets better again. If your new to the game, you don't really have that, you get everything fast, see a massive lack of content, see no reason to stay, and leave. So far as I hear, FFXIV is in the same boat, people come, they get into it a bit, find the amount of content rather lacking, and leave, not everyone, but a lot of people.

But just to say, the fact new people are leaving is part of why I continue to tell you that you wont be able to get old leveling to work ever again. There would never be enough new players to make parties enough to actually level that way, anyone new who couldn't leech would be stuck with all of the new players, which are few and far between, leaving the game feeling fairly dead. How could you really tell a new player they need to spend 1~3 months of their time to play, doing nothing but killing small enemies in areas with hardly anyone else, just so they can get to the part of the content where all of the other players are?

[Demon6324236]

They hardly advertised the game when it had a brand new expansion coming out, hell, I cant think of an advertisement I have seen for FFXI in years that wasn't RMT. They didn't put the game on disk for PC users, they don't let PS2 players play it outside of JP, and the Xbox version is hard to find in stores as it is from what I have seen. When it comes down to it, they aren't trying to sell the game anymore really. For what your talking about they would have to advertise the game, they would need to actually make it possible to find without having to go online and look specifically for it.

On top of that, I wonder what your position is on the, Final Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection Seekers Edition, promotional items. The fact they give you 1 Regen/Refresh as well as Auto-Reraise, Movement Speed+, and +50 Accuracy to every form of Accuracy, makes them very overpowered for low levels, making it easy. Now, if you are ok with this, then they could just use the current Ultimate Collection of FFXI and just advertise the game that way, as well as making a new version on disk for PC players I suppose so that people could find it in stores. All in all, I doubt this would ever happen.

[Demon6324236]

Well that was part of my point. If you take those out you make it harder, but you also take away one of the parts to the Ultimate Collection of today, which means for them to do it without those codes they would need to remove that, and possibly put something else in it for new players. Doing that would likely be a pain on their end, giving even more reason for them not to do it on top of their normal lack of advertisement and such. It all adds on to why I think it will never happen, and why I keep saying the old FFXI can never return through this game. Its a nice idea and all, but between SE and the players, as well as the games age which creates a lack of new players, I honestly cant imagine it ever happening.

I play old games myself, but I am sure not many people go out and buy old games they never played, and this game is just that, an old game that most people haven't played, I don't see a lot of people will come to this no matter the changes sadly.

[Ravenmore]

You nailed it. It was only hard if you made it hard, same as to day. I knew a group that used to 6 man omega and low man all the lower gods. Killing the gods wasn't the problem beating the other LSes to the punch on the pre pop NMs was the hardest thing. Reason why you had a hard time getting people was people were sick of doing sky. Sky was the entry level endgame and you didn't need a good sky LS to do it. You got into the good endgame LSs to do ground kings again hardest thing wasn't falling asleep while you waited for it to pop and try to beat the other LSs there to claim.

Lost far more players from the Delve weapon only to even do delve then the ones that got bored doing delve. It's still SE's fault but that was leaving in being able to keep fighting mobs past the rage timer for so long. So a whole bunch of people got their KIs from whoring sam/thf, Blu/thf and if you missed that you had a hard time getting into future runs. Which leads to people leaving since they put up with that crap though VW and had enough. Not being able to even get into the content will make people leave faster. Just because its easy for you doesn't mean its easy.

[Demon6324236]

That's a community issue more than anything though. Many people on the leading end of the community are more selfish about their rewards than they truly need to be. For instance, people who asked for nothing but Delve DDs for regular Plasm Farming, not Tojil, Dakuwaqa, or Muyingwa, just flat out old Plasm Farming off of weak mobs. People could have gone in without Delve DDs, gotten Plasm, and even though they would have gotten less, more people in the community would have the weapons. The thing is, the community doesn't work like that, often times its either have the required weapon for people to invite you, or you get ignored/talked down to, and that is a massive issue, but its a community issue. SE cant really make us invite others, it wont work, they asked us to when Delve came out even, but nothing happened as expected. I agree, it makes people leave faster, and I have no doubt it has caused some people to leave, but sadly, its just how this game has gotten at this point.

[Ravenmore]

It was a issue caused by SE poor planning of going back to alliance with a harsh time restriction at a point in the game we had already received two server merges. Say what you will but abyssea was as close to perfect reward effort with just the right amount of RNG we should have gotten more of that but SE failed and keeps failing to understand their own player base. Sure you could duel box mnk, whms for blue drops but that could had been fixed. Content should had been designed around the single party model. Abyssea wasn't perfect and there was job exclusion but you could still gain rewards and with a few tweaks it could have been remedied. Instead we got VW and then SoA dropping the ball with the event they billed as the option for low man.

No means am I defending SoA but it is stretch that ilvl is the cause or even the pace of rewards. The other factors did far more damage then ilvl could ever have. I have 10 friends leave cause they couldn't get into delve plasma runs or KI mob runs, both are a directly caused by SEs failings to understand the player base and should had seen it coming. Really they only had how long to see it happen with VW to know it would turn out just like that.

Though in the end the player base got exactly what they asked for. All the threads complaining about how much gear we had to carry around. We got Stats and lots of them on everything, grinding to rewards, faster rewards, less dependency on the RNG etc. to bad the way they did it was a fail.

[Anjou]

Hello, I liked Abyssea, I joined in 2008, I like old content too. Can we stop acting like chimps and get along please? ._.

[Demon6324236]

I agree with you that the whole thing with Delve at the start was a huge mistake, but even had they done it right originally, or had left it as it was, would it have made any difference? Eventually people would have gotten wins, after enough people had the win, it would have turned out the same way, Delve weapon or you cant come, simple as that. I agree the original way it was setup was horrible, but either way this was the outcome, it only came sooner, if anything, I think it might have been better this way in the end because more people on the lower side of the player base likely got their wins because of it, if not, it only sped up what I think was inevitable.

[predatory]

Why would I want to play an offline version of a game I loved, but now consider hopelessly broken? So I can put more money into a game makers pockets on what might be another inferior, (yes I said inferior), product? And IMO FFXI right now at this moment in time is an inferior product, when compared to the FFXI of just one year ago, and massively inferior to the FFXI of the pre Visions days

[predatory]

I agree with you that the whole thing with Delve at the start was a huge mistake, but even had they done it right originally, or had left it as it was, would it have made any difference? Eventually people would have gotten wins, after enough people had the win, it would have turned out the same way, Delve weapon or you cant come, simple as that. I agree the original way it was setup was horrible, but either way this was the outcome, it only came sooner, if anything, I think it might have been better this way in the end because more people on the lower side of the player base likely got their wins because of it, if not, it only sped up what I think was inevitable.

It probably wouldn't have been such a big issue if there were no time limits on fracture runs, or if they would have done like they did in Limbus and Dynamis and gave time extensions for the event. Actually this would be easy enough to do anway, If SE added a 5 minute time extension for each of the T1-3 nms in the fracture, and a 10 minute time extension for each of the t4 and 5 nms in the fracture, that would give an additional 35 minutes for the fracture, and remove most of the elitist bullshit from the event.

Being delved geared to get into delve is pure elitist bullshit, but they've even gone overboard with that on Bahamut, now they are shouting for delve geared players, and for players to be veterans in their jobs, so now getting the KI off the nm outside of fracture for a weapon, then farming plasm for that weapon and upgrading, followed by leveling a job to 99 and skilling it up aren't enough, now you have to have been playing it for a year or more to get into fracture? SE set this up with the 45 minute time limit on fracture runs, and no way to extend the time in fracture, if they didn't want their events to be taken over by the elitist segment of the player population, they wouldn't set up events geared toward 7 jobs at best with insanely low time limits on them

[Demon6324236]

Well really you cant get rid of the restrictions people place without making the content way to easy and giving no challenge, which is what you are talking about doing. The so called 'elitist' issue cant really be solved without making the game far to easy, nothing else you can do will remove the issue really. Also, veteran so far as I know just means they want someone who doesn't suck, could be different on your server, but I saw shouts for GEO veterans all the time even just after Delve had released, when no one could have possibly played it more than a couple months.

[Ravenmore]

I'm saying it should had never went back to alliance content in the first place. Also I really think you are blowing smoke at the numbers of new players you have talked to stompa. There were not that many new player to tghe game at all during that time since there was no effort on SE's part to get them. Most of the new chars made then were people that had played years before and were returning.

All those CS are still there and as with all MMOs the story line means next to nothing for most of the base. Those new players you say you had talk to wouldn't even had made it to cap if it wasn't for leeching. There was really no one exping at low levels on most servers why do you think we got level sync. Level sync helped for a little while but then it was just sitting at the good camps. No exploring when staying at 20, 55 and 75 were the only levels people wanted to exp at oh what fun that was. But every thing you are saying now people just like you complained about people leveling though campaign and using the same tired arguments.

[Demon6324236]

Alliance content I don't think is to bad, its not great, but it does seem to take more strategy to some extent than lowman content normally does. What I think was horrible beyond anything in Adoulin is that when their playerbase was at the lowest its ever been they thought to add WKs, the largest event of all FFXI when it comes to how many people can participate and are needed to win. But I will say, we need more lowman content which equals out to the alliance content, Legion was good, but NNI was too, NNI wasn't miles behind, which is how Salvage and Delve are right now, Delve is far ahead of Skirmish on weapons, and some pieces of gear are better too, especially boss pieces.

[predatory]

Well really you cant get rid of the restrictions people place without making the content way to easy and giving no challenge, which is what you are talking about doing. The so called 'elitist' issue cant really be solved without making the game far to easy, nothing else you can do will remove the issue really. Also, veteran so far as I know just means they want someone who doesn't suck, could be different on your server, but I saw shouts for GEO veterans all the time even just after Delve had released, when no one could have possibly played it more than a couple months.

I was going to respond with a whining boohoo woe is me type of reply, but I really can't do it as I've always had the best gear for my class, (hell I do right now, and have only spent a day in fracture), and I've always been something of an elitist myself, so I guess just nvm. At this point I can't even remember why I wanted to do fracture in the first place. Oh yeah now I remember, because WKR and Delve are the only two real endgame events in this game anymore.

Edited to add: Oh yeah now I remember, because WKR and Delve are the only two real endgame events in this game anymore.

[Psxpert2011]

There should be a mercinary system where i can hire other player characters to help me while they're off-line.

Problem solved!

Cha-ching!

@OP post this under forum or ingame suggestions, thank you.

[Silex]

It seems a lot of people are missing the FFXI experience as they remember it now. FFXIV threads have had a small boom lately with people saying they miss how FFXI did something unique.

Why do we miss the old FFXI community. What made it special :
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/114145-Why-do-we-miss-the-old-FFXI-community-What-made-it-special

Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/113534-Make-FFXIV-more-like-FFXI-and-less-like-WoW

Also as this is my first post (I normally just read these forums) I just want to thank posters like Demon and others for supplying the SE staff with countless good analyses and feedback suggestions for the game.

[Zephrose]

Seems to be a lot of rose tinted glasses going on here. Abyessa didn't bring in new players it bought back old player that came back cause the old sytem was gone. No longer did you need 17 other people to get things done, no more sucking up to ls leaders to get gear you only needed a couple close friends that you enjoyed being around not a bunch of people you would rather see die in a fire but had to put up with to get things done and you could work towards rewards. Almost every fight offered something for everyone that helped.

Even during the ToAU era the lowbie areas were dead X-play even highlighted this when they did their review of the expansion saying the game was top heavy which was right on the money, the starter cities were dead with everyone being in whitegate or jueno. People left after abyssea when content not only went back to alliance based content but it was time restricted to 30 mins a fight that meant little to no room for error so only the top DDs were taken to reduce the chance of fail. Before with time restricted you either had the option of limiting your rewards by picking time extensions like limbus areas and final bosses that could be beaten in AH gear or events like dyna where you could take as many bodies you could to make up for lack of skill or gear. But most of old endgame you could use body chunk and beat the mobs down by kicking the dead and inviting the living. Involved less skill then a skirmish run. What was hard was watching that 1% drop go to the guy you hated above all else and he then left the shell.

If it wasn't for abyssea faster less exclusive leveling people wouldn't had leveled many of the jobs they have now cause the first time up to 75 was fun the sec less and by the third time it was so boring that you didn't take up another job unless it was a job you needed to level to get into a good endgame shell cause all you had was DDs and they were only taking whm, rdm, brds sounds familiar huh.

Sky was p** freaking easy, not getting lost on the way to kitty was the hardest thing about it, sea finding people with the right jobs and willing to help do the missions to get to sea was the hardest part, it's endgame was easier then the missions. ZNM was doom to fail once since the people that were the ones building the pops got sick of carrying the leaches along after putting so much work in taking the pics for little to no reward at the end. Salavge you had to choose between doing assaults for points or Nyzul focusing on one could mean that by time you were done with it the rush was over for the other and finding help was even harder.

Old game only seemed like it was pack cause more then one LS doing sky/sea meant you had to fight over the pre pop NMs all had at least a 2 hour respawn and one at one point was a 24 hour spawn the RMTs had on lock down. That first day might had been exciting but after fighting kirin for the 1000th time it was old and tiring. Then you had leveling that would take longer to put the party together then it would be leveling cause no one wanted to play tanks or mages.

Then you take in to account it's a 11 year old game that has NEVER gotten a graphics upgrade(a real one not the BS token upgrades we have gotten to fonts and a few icons). EVE, EQ, WoW all got a upgrade to their graphics at some point in their history's. People will use the excuse that it's the Ilvl or relics being outdated what not but you hear excuses that sound very much like people when they leave girl friends, wives, boy friends, husbands, when they get fat or loss their attractiveness when a hot 20 something comes along and shows them some attention. Just in this case it was a new game with what really got people to pick the game up in the first place and that is the Final Fantasy name. I heard everything you all are going on about from many people that left for 14 were they have the the same system. The niche this game had for the longest time was it was the only Final Fantasy MMO it no longer has that niche.

The last influx of brand new players was with the 360 release so you now have a aging player base that have other things they have to do so even if abyssea never happen it would have just meant we would have seen this 3 years ago. Wotg did more damage to the game then SoA just with SoA there was fewer to absorb the hit then with wotg thanks to the people leaving after going back to the old model that came with VW. SE over corrected with VW and then again with SoA while the reward are easier to get once you get the wins, getting into run that can get the wins are the hardest part if you don't go back to the old way of getting into good LSs.

Everything that has happen since after abyssea has been things the player based ask for but with with how limited the game is thanks to being tied down to outdated hardware they had to use cheap tricks to make content harder I.E extremely low drop rates or time events that promoted exclusion.

I think I can agree with just about every word in this post. Good post Raven. I felt Abyssea was probably the best thing to happen to this game since sliced bread. With them moving back into the old alliance based content, the game has become toxic and lonely. There's a lot wrong with the game as of late, but if I had to point out one problem that glares brightest, I'd say there isn't enough content to keep the players engaged. It's just the same regurgitated old mechanics again, different skin.

I'm sure to get flamed for my favor of Abyssea style mechanics/content, but really, it was the highest point in this games life cycle.

Again, good post Raven.

[Mostfowl]

abyssea was not bad in concept but it was bad in implementation. The lvl requirement to enter was too low and the exp too high. Also it only favors a handful of jobs, the rest are for the most part worthless. Also making insane requirements for some of the empy's wasn't a good thing. Ochain and Harp as an example. Making it 1 nm pop an hr was a dreadful idea when you need so many drops. They should have at least increased the number of nms that dropped the items needed or reduced the items needed. It really sucked when you had 5 pts camping 1 15-minute spawn nm or a 1-hr spawn nm.

The crour gear was also a miss imo. I could see the aug gear from trophies but buying somewhat good gear that could easily bridge you to the next set with minimal cruor was a mistake.

It also overpowered us. Sure it was a challenge at first but between atma and lvl vs content it is by far the easiest endgame in the game.

The one good thing I can say about aby is it finally introduced great looking af...aside from rdm and blu anyway (that gear was horrendous looking)

[Zephrose]

abyssea was not bad in concept but it was bad in implementation. The lvl requirement to enter was too low and the exp too high. Also it only favors a handful of jobs, the rest are for the most part worthless. Also making insane requirements for some of the empy's wasn't a good thing. Ochain and Harp as an example. Making it 1 nm pop an hr was a dreadful idea when you need so many drops. They should have at least increased the number of nms that dropped the items needed or reduced the items needed. It really sucked when you had 5 pts camping 1 15-minute spawn nm or a 1-hr spawn nm.

The crour gear was also a miss imo. I could see the aug gear from trophies but buying somewhat good gear that could easily bridge you to the next set with minimal cruor was a mistake.

It also overpowered us. Sure it was a challenge at first but between atma and lvl vs content it is by far the easiest endgame in the game.

The one good thing I can say about aby is it finally introduced great looking af...aside from rdm and blu anyway (that gear was horrendous looking)

I don't know where you've been since playing FFxi but all endgame/NM/Dungeon type content has always required a cookie cutter setup. This is since Sky. This is not to say other setups wouldn't work, but to say there has always been a preferred setup by the community.

As for abyssea? I don't think the low level requirement is a glare at all. SE knew their audience and wanted to make it so we didnt have to suffer from XP burnouts like the old days. Taking a year to obtain one 75 job was enough. Abyssea enabled all players to participate in something they might not have otherwise. Their later implementations to old systems to lessen the gap did come too late, but that's always to be expected of SE. Players in 11 have always been able to find new and unexpected ways to work with their new systems. They have to be reactive to our meddling because they aren't finding all the use cases to their features. There is always going to be something that could have been done better, but really, abyssea was a high for this game.

As for overpowering us, our level increase is really at the core of this. The system was meant to adjust the difficulty based on your level foremost. Adding relevant gear just added to it. Really, in the end, you should be upset they ever increased the level of our characters.

[Vold]

This game still looks and plays fine, to me. It looks good and the engine is responsive and well designed. Also re; 11 years, ppl play 1980s games still lol. Classics never die.



I logged in the other day to start to prepare for my eventual return on a regular basis. I can't deny it, after two months of FFXIV, FFXI was at best painful to look at. The 30 FPS is just a disaster. You just get used to it after so many years but once you go from 60+ FPS in FFXIV to 30 FPS in FFXI it's just damn awful to stomach. The game still looks ok graphics wise, but I'll tell you this: A graphical update to this game would do it wonders. SE needs to not think of it as wasting resources like I know they do, but as an investment to prolong the cash cow.

Too bad that window of opportunity probably passed about 2 years ago. I'm sure they'll do it only after no one cares anymore.

[Fynlar]

This game has much more serious problems right now than graphics, that ought to be addressed first.

The grafix hoars are for whom games like FF14 are there for.

[Arkitan]

5 words: Make it free to play!

[Camate]

Hello,

There have been a lot of comments asking for both content geared towards low-man groups and also for content that requires alliances. Likewise, there have also been a lot of requests for content that can scale according to your party size, much like the system that is currently used for ENMs. Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui who shares some insight into the development team’s ideas for content moving forward.



I understand everyone's feelings and concerns.

While the below might not be a direct answer, I’d appreciate it if you could look over it until the end.

In the November version update we implemented a system where you can select the difficulty of battles. The aim of this was to make it easier to play the game.

I believe the same goal applies to the number of people needed to participate in content, and using an ENM style for battlefields, as suggested, is definitely one way to make the game easier to play.

For ENMs, we adopted the currently used system due to the way the content was structured and the way rewards were passed out. With this it was easy to create variations depending on the number of players who participated, and adding to this you also need a key item and re-entry is every five days.

With that said, it really all depends on the structure and method of rewarding players for content that is added in the future, but the development team’s focus is to make it easier to play. Based on that, we would love to keep hearing your feedback.

[Afania]

FFXII is kinda FFXI single player, but at the same time, that's not exactly accurate. Part of FFXI is its world, characters, story, and so on, which you cant find in FFXII, not only that, but the world is completely different in design and feel. Also, while FFXII International has a Job system, its not exactly what you seem to think. Its not fully FFXI like, it has a license board still, the board is simply determined by the job you choose for your character, so it still plays a lot like the original FFXII, but with jobs determining your board layout and whats on it, rather than every character sharing the same board design, with slightly different starting locations.

In the end, I have played FFXII during my short breaks from FFXI before because they feel similar. At the same time, I can not say it will ever be a real replacement, and I would much, much rather a real single player FFXI rather than playing my 50th play through FFXII.

FFXII is the most immersive single player FF, when you play it you actually feel like living in a huge game world and no over dramatic character/story. FFXI is the most immersive MMO FF with no over dramatic character/story too, in that way they're similar :)

Other FF single player titles play like FFXIV, linear small world with pretty locations everywhere, with an over dramatic story and characters. I wish SE make more games like FF12(one of my fav single player FF besides FF5) and 11, but they're going FF15's direction :(

[Jerbob]

...we would love to keep hearing your feedback.
The difficulty with us giving feedback is the fact that you don't actually make any use of most of our feedback.

[predatory]

5 words: Make it free to play!

FFXI online would never last as a free to play model, in a free to play there has to be reward vs effort and that just isn't how this game was designed, this game was designed around even the smallest thing taking ungodly amounts of time to get done. The crafting system is horrible, the leveling system has always been extreme, (it went from extremely time consuming to extremely fast), the jobs aren't correctly balanced, endgame is virtually non existent, and there is no real PVP or option to PVP someone like there is in every free to play and pay to play game out there right now. No, what they need to do is either revamp and make relevant all the old content to breathe new life into the game, or they just need to kill it outright

[Demon6324236]

Also as this is my first post (I normally just read these forums) I just want to thank posters like Demon and others for supplying the SE staff with countless good analyses and feedback suggestions for the game.Thanks :D


The difficulty with us giving feedback is the fact that you don't actually make any use of most of our feedback.I wouldn't exactly they don't make use of it, just not always, or the right way. We have complained about the RDM and THF SP2s, no change, we complained about a lack of content, they gave us new BCNMs/RME upgrades to do, which is spread through out a ton of content and gives us a ton to do, and then we complain they gave us things to do.

[predatory]

Thanks :D

I wouldn't exactly they don't make use of it, just not always, or the right way. We have complained about the RDM and THF SP2s, no change, we complained about a lack of content, they gave us new BCNMs/RME upgrades to do, which is spread through out a ton of content and gives us a ton to do, and then we complain they gave us things to do.

lol my biggest complaint has been for lack of things to do, and it still is. I'm one of those people who are happy with my spelegeon bow, not as good as the relic I know, but I really like it. Soooo.... If I'm not after and R/M/E upgrade other than af, delve or skirmish what is there for me to really do in the game? I have pretty sweet gear for my jobs right now. I wanted to be able to do some fun stuff, not time sinks yet again, and was really looking forward to the higher level battlefields, and am seriously hoping after they add those, that they go back and revisit some of the older stuff and revamp it for higher levels, like dynamis, sky, sea, assault etc. So yeah people are complaining, and will probably keep complaining until SE gets it right, that's our job, we are paying customers and deserve to have the best quality mmo for the price, and this game has the potential to be great again

[Demon6324236]

Go out and farm Tusks in Kamihr for gil, while farming up SKCs, then use the SKCs to do the SKCNMs. Once a WK starts in Kamihr goto it, participate, get the items from there including its bow perhaps, the legs should go nicely I would think, though not sure, depends on your jobs. Past that, sell the Grip/Ammo/Earring/Back from there for more Gil, if you find yourself with a ton of gil and no where to spend it, make yourself that relic if you want, or hold on to it till you find a use. There are things to do, but if your caught up in the fact you don't want to do Delve, RMEs, or AF, even though all are worth doing, especially the AF/RF thing, then you can at least profit off of them, and if you will not do that, then simply be patient for the next update and try to keep yourself occupied with Monstrosity, that's what I have been doing this entire week myself because I have been unable to rally the assistance with getting my Excalibur to 99 due to the fact I am a RDM, not a PLD, and either people haven't had time, want to 119 their RME first to make it easier, or flat out don't think RDM is worth the effort when I will likely never be allowed to put it into use anyways.

[Zephrose]

Go out and farm Tusks in Kamihr for gil, while farming up SKCs, then use the SKCs to do the SKCNMs. Once a WK starts in Kamihr goto it, participate, get the items from there including its bow perhaps, the legs should go nicely I would think, though not sure, depends on your jobs. Past that, sell the Grip/Ammo/Earring/Back from there for more Gil, if you find yourself with a ton of gil and no where to spend it, make yourself that relic if you want, or hold on to it till you find a use. There are things to do, but if your caught up in the fact you don't want to do Delve, RMEs, or AF, even though all are worth doing, especially the AF/RF thing, then you can at least profit off of them, and if you will not do that, then simply be patient for the next update and try to keep yourself occupied with Monstrosity, that's what I have been doing this entire week myself because I have been unable to rally the assistance with getting my Excalibur to 99 due to the fact I am a RDM, not a PLD, and either people haven't had time, want to 119 their RME first to make it easier, or flat out don't think RDM is worth the effort when I will likely never be allowed to put it into use anyways.

Good to see you didn't quit the game. How's that new special ability working out for you?

[Demon6324236]

Horrible as ever, thanks to the fact friends are trying to get me to stay and I feel compelled to do so I made my plea post to SE in the RDM forums if you wish to check it out.

[Zephrose]

Horrible as ever, thanks to the fact friends are trying to get me to stay and I feel compelled to do so I made my plea post to SE in the RDM forums if you wish to check it out.

Similar situation on my side, regarding friends and staying to play with them. In truth and in my opinion, this update was lack luster at best and too focused on past material/content. Additions to the RME is just more wasted time and money for something so marginal and void of real sustenance. As well as the new "Reforged" AFs, with the new BC fights and seals needed to participate, there is little to no gain from these steaming pile of... AF1s.

I think the real winners for this update are coming from WKRs. I was surprised and happy to see these become easier and more enjoyable for repeat attempts. The addition of JSE capes and iLv115 gear/weapons was also a nice change of pace. But like everything else above, marginal gains and side gear to take up more inventory space.

I like the idea of all inclusive gear. Something similar to what Empyearn Gear was trying to do for each of the jobs. Moving forward with that concept would be awesome for the player base in that inventory would start to free up. But to take it a step further, and to tie in some of the old content as well, you'd need to take that old AF/Relic/Salvage/Empy/Bayld/Delve and apply that to the new gear. What I mean is, you would not only upgrade to new gear but need your old gear to transform it. Kind of like the salvage concept, lv15+25+35 = 1 awesome piece of gear(back in the day). And really, if there were still situational pieces from the gear before it, this wouldnt stop the players from going back to pick up another piece/set of the gear used to upgrade.

Just ramblings from a wandering mind.

[Demon6324236]

The RF is only really so-so for now, once the next update hits it will be raised to 119, at which point for most jobs it will be a set which I assume will be highly desired. This event to double XP, skill ups for crafts, and increase Seal Drops, is a nice event, the issue is trying to pick what you want to do. I want to level my Monstrosity monsters, sadly, I will probably be spending the majority of my week doing SKCs and SKCNMs so when the update comes, I am ready with my RF gear.

Besides that, I kinda agree. I am happy with how WKs turned out, I hope they don't die out again and that the comments about nerfing Elemental Magic are ignored. I think I would be much happier with this update had I gotten my Excalibur to 119 but I have yet to even 99 it and have had issues getting help from others since not many people I know are on the same 'level' as me and able to actually fight ADL well. I think if I could fully use everything I got in the update, the RF/SP fixes I asked for in my thread and my Excalibur at 119 or at least on its way, I would be enjoying the game much more, but for now, I just do Monstrosity mainly.

[Zephrose]

The RF is only really so-so for now, once the next update hits it will be raised to 119, at which point for most jobs it will be a set which I assume will be highly desired. This event to double XP, skill ups for crafts, and increase Seal Drops, is a nice event, the issue is trying to pick what you want to do. I want to level my Monstrosity monsters, sadly, I will probably be spending the majority of my week doing SKCs and SKCNMs so when the update comes, I am ready with my RF gear.

Is it that they are making the AF-RF gear 119 or doing the same process with Relic and Empyrean like they said in an earlier post? I don't remember reading anything about them making the AF-RF iLv119. Link maybe?

As for the events, a group of friends and I are jumping onto Salvage for double papers to help rush some completions as well as farm the alex for a mythic. For the most part, it's the only special event I really look forward too. Salvage has a special place in this taru's heart. Even if the gear is obsolete these days.

[Demon6324236]

They are doing both. They have not confirmed that we will get Relic or Empyrean gear to level 119, or upgraded at all from what I recall, but it is heavily implied from the fact our AF was made into our new RF sets, and I believe the reason RF started at 109 was for two reasons, firstly, Relic and Empyrean had +2 stages, which ended in the 80~90 area, with the stats of the Abyssean age included, while AF only had +1, and was left with the stats of the Sea age. Secondly is because of the level gap, AF+1 was 75, even those stats were barely better than AF at 52~60, so I think they did this in 2 stages to make it a bit more balanced of a climb.

So far as a link goes... this thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/38207-”Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-Digest) gives us a bit of a look at what we will be getting in the near future and some thoughts on whats happening, this specific post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/38207-”Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-Digest?p=477792&viewfull=1#post477792) says...


Artifact armor upgrades
While currently the item level is 109, we are planning to increase it to 119 in the December version update.

After this, we would like to add upgrade content in a slightly different fashion for relic and empyrean armor.

[Zephrose]

I see... Wonder if they are going to make it more worth our time to actually farm the sacred kindred crests then. It was one thing to have farmed up the previous seals through experience parties or for conquest/imperial standing, which was in addition too. But it's another to just kill aimlessly with no other gain. These dont drop during reives and their isn't a global conquest system in Adoulin to help any of the existing systems. I understand they made the requirement low for these reasons but my luck is terrible and in just the couple dozen mobs I killed through the areas already, I haven't seen one SKC yet. Granted, I was not THF for any of these kills, but even still, I can get a seal/crest out of 1/10 mobs killed.

I short, I haven't tried hard enough really... And I still don't see a point too. Much like Meebles or Salvage 2.0, they will only take the gear up to make it side gear to something new they'll be releasing at the same time or close behind. I thought they were going to make Salvage gear into +2 as well, since why stop at +1 when they have all these other +2 gear mechanics in the game. Seems I was wrong about that. #dreamscrushed hahaha

[Demon6324236]

I would not lose faith in these pieces so quickly only because we have always used JSE for its job specific effects, not every piece will be amazing, but the ones that are already good are sure to get better with 119, and since the usual item level 'stat vomit' should follow along, I think we will end up seeing them as very good pieces for time to come.

The fact they made the stats so similar to everything else in Adoulin already gives me hope personally that they will remain relevant even next to their Relic and Empyrean counterparts because unlike Relic +2, their stats are already made to be similar, where as Relic gear was mostly upgraded to 90 with its old stats, which had long since been discarded, such as DRKs getting MND or MAB on their gear.



So far as farming them goes, we have a few methods we can use. If you are having issues with getting drops, I have a suggestion you can try. Though it may yield few SKCs themselves, you can get others to trade in for SKCs following the next update, since I think that is when the ability to do the exchange for those will be added. The suggestion is, the items drop from every mob at 100+, Abyssea mobs, especially in Heroes areas, can hit 100+, and since the drop amount is based on the number of people in the party, you could try asking friends and LS-mates if they want to come to a free Fell Cleave like party, free of charge or anything like that, but you want all seal like items. This should increase the number of drops you get to the maximum, give you a place with high level monsters, enough to get the seals at least, and let you kill not only fast, but in large numbers too. Also, you get to help out people with some free XP. If it works, everyone should win.

[Rustic]

I see... Wonder if they are going to make it more worth our time to actually farm the sacred kindred crests then. It was one thing to have farmed up the previous seals through experience parties or for conquest/imperial standing, which was in addition too. But it's another to just kill aimlessly with no other gain. These dont drop during reives and their isn't a global conquest system in Adoulin to help any of the existing systems. I understand they made the requirement low for these reasons but my luck is terrible and in just the couple dozen mobs I killed through the areas already, I haven't seen one SKC yet. Granted, I was not THF for any of these kills, but even still, I can get a seal/crest out of 1/10 mobs killed.

I short, I haven't tried hard enough really... And I still don't see a point too. Much like Meebles or Salvage 2.0, they will only take the gear up to make it side gear to something new they'll be releasing at the same time or close behind. I thought they were going to make Salvage gear into +2 as well, since why stop at +1 when they have all these other +2 gear mechanics in the game. Seems I was wrong about that. #dreamscrushed hahaha

SKC's drop in Rala Skirmish and Cirdas. I've picked them up in both.

[Demon6324236]

SKC's drop in Rala Skirmish and Cirdas. I've picked them up in both.Let me just make this a bit more specific for you, if its level is at 100 or above, no matter the area, if it drops seals, it drop SKCs. This includes Abyssea, SoA, even the Worms and Adamantoise in Gustav, if its 100+, it drops them, just the higher the level the higher the drop rate.

[vienne]

Let me just make this a bit more specific for you, if its level is at 100 or above, no matter the area, if it drops seals, it drop SKCs. This includes Abyssea, SoA, even the Worms and Adamantoise in Gustav, if its 100+, it drops them, just the higher the level the higher the drop rate.

Yup, I can confirm this, had one drop in abyssea-ule yesterday... but only one in the ~3hours i was there

[Zephrose]

Hmm, Doing Cirdas Skirmish for seals isn't a bad idea and for the effort needed you're getting a double or triple reward depending on what you're looking for. But then it would all come down to drop rate from the mobs inside. Honestly, farming up seals needed to go farm up more seals for something else doesn't sound appealing, even in the short or long term. Think I'm just going to stray away from that mess all together.

[bukadan]

Obtaining the AF upgrade stuff isn't the part i'm worried about. it's that 90% of this gear is useless right now. I see no reason to upgrade them at all. For 119 i hope they make extremely hard content (likeness to delve, but harder, thus more fun) and actually have useful stats, even just got macro peices. if the next content wave doesnt have something more challenging than current delve (8-9 man delve as it is, that's low man content enough for me) then i'll probably unsubscribe because logging on to do boring events that dont even test my limits is getting old.

[FaeQueenCory]

Though it may yield few SKCs themselves, you can get others to trade in for SKCs following the next update, since I think that is when the ability to do the exchange for those will be added.
Dear God I hope you're right... I just spent all day today (11-19) farming up these...
2.
I got 2.
:[
I have about 2-3k of the other seals combined...
Have 0 reason to ever use them.

Maybe if they allow us to trade you'll see more than a handful of PLDs with RF1.
(I say PLD, because I've seen a person or two with 1-2 pieces in other jobs... but I've seen about 5 PLDs with the body... And even then... 5/1200ish ppl on Odin? That's barely better than Claustrum numbers...)
Some of us still have WKRs to get stuff from... or Delve to get stuff from... or a myriad of other possible things to get stuff from... (not to mention if you have friends who are new and you are not)
Adding the exchange which should have been day1...
I can't tell you how much I hope you're right.

EDIT: I should probably say that I got about 40 more "dead" seal drops... (about 20 of each, Kindred Crests and High Kindred Crests)