Future of FFXI and your approvals/disapprovals to the development team

[Anewie]

So I am a 8 year vet and I was just thinking about how much the game has changed. I was reviewing the New HNM thread and if you read through it, there are a lot of concerns.

As you've all noticed the game has toned down it's player base a lot. A lot of people have quit, both elite and casual players.

The game has done a 180 but the updates are not yet finished or finalised. This is not a suggestion thread. It's more of a voice your opinion/concern/approval/disapproval type thread based on the direction and future direction of the game.


Prior to 2010 Level cap increase -Endgame for Casual/Elite player base: You have Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul Isle
These events imo were the standard mostly for the more Casual base. They were perfectly aimed at being convienant enough for casual base but challenging enough as well.

Casual player Base gameplay: Garrisons, Beseiged, Campaign, Notorious Monsters,

Elite player base gameplay: Salvage, Sea, High Notorious Monsters,

The Good: The game provided a lot of hefty time/effort for equip that kept even the most casual player dedicated. There was ALWAYS something to do and somewhere to explore. It was anything but boring. Team work was of the biggest priority. It enouraged us to work together in groups and helped establish our Linkshell/group as our own!

The bad: Many people with less playtime could not devote the time/effort needed to consistantly attempt more elite content, this seemed a bit unfair to them. A lot of casual player quit or deactivated their accounts because they couldn't devote time to achieving some of the more higher quaslity gear or taking part in more elite content. Some of the more hefty endgame content was so time consuming or hard, many people resorted to cheating. Salvage drop rates/ HNM spawning. It also was the source of so much drama. Many people resorted to stealing, buying gil and just overall cheating and stepping on another person toes to get what they wanted.


FAST FORWARD to 2010:With the introduction of the Final fantasy XI level cap increase, came a slew of gear/abilities/goals and new monsters!

Both Casual gameplay and casual/elite endgame events were considerred worthless at this point. Although it didn't require much more effort/team work, the rewards seemed diminishing, too easy or irrelevant.

FFXI as a whole atm: Abyssea. Since you can enter Abyssea at lvl 30, most people casual and elite, exp until that point then build an experience point party/alliance and head out. Its pretty easy to get any job lv.90. Abyssea holds gears that are so out of this world amazing, gears obtained through HNMs, Dynamis, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Sky,Sea, seem almost deserted. They plan to release augments through the amazing trial of magians for those gears though to satisfy those who spent so much time obtaining gear through such methods. Most people don't seem to optimistic that the augments will make it worth it again, to make those events worthwhile on a consistant basis.

The good: The game now benefits all players on a universal level. Many people are very content and happy . It doesn't require large amounts of time or effort for the absolute best. In fact, in its current state, you can obtain an ultimate weapon in a weeks earth time. Almost all content can be done with 3-4 people. Team work is not nessicary but player base is more friendly it seems. If you noticed there is much less drama on BG and the player base seems more kind. You can do anything on your own time without having to worry about the next guy. Even things like Pandemonium Warden, Rani and Absolute Virtue can be consistantly and easily taken down via SHOUTS!

The Bad: Many people in the endgame scene, both casual and elite, seem disssatisfied with the content. These are generally people who devoted more time to the game than others, but also kept the game alive for so long. People who devoted their time to camping notorious monsters as well as people who took a very active and enjoyed the consistancy with salvage/sea. It seems they feel the game and all their accomplishments over the past years have gone to waste. They also feel the game has lost a lot of fun or rush due to content thats too casual.


Sorry for the wall of text! Whether you agree with the above or not, state your opinion about whether or not you're satisfied with current direction of FFXI. Please take time to consider the following:

99 Cap: Once the cap is raised, events and such will be built around that if they already are not in place beforehand. Are you satisfied with endgame primarily aimed at the casual base? Do you want more variety of casual endgame events BESIDES Abyssea? Do you want more content that is aimed at low level events, Such as Garrison etc? Do you want more elite content that will include rare drop rates, long spawn windows or a hefty amount of time and patience? Do you want more elite content that does NOT require hefty amount of time/patience/player skill/long spawn windows?

What do you really want for the direction? What are you strongly against, strongly for and how would it effect you as a player? How would it effect the game as a whole?


Are you someone who doesn't care what they add as long as its versatile/fun and keeps the game alive? A second server wide merge might indicate the player base has continued to fall. PS2 Limitations seem to be holding the game back. There are no current plans to add anymore expansions, and I personally do not see them doing it again in the future.

--
My personal opinion (besides the above): I have played FFXI since i was 16! I love that the game has offered me something to do in my freetime. I love that I do not need lots of people to do much anymore. It's nice to see there no drama and more people are working together as a base.

I am a proud member of the older school elite endgame but I enjoyed all of it at one time or another and I still enjoy aspects of abyssea but somethings missing. I find myself being bored with the game and missing the less casual events i enjoyed before.

My playtime varies from casual to "elite" though. Some weeks I can play very often and some months I can barely play at all. In short (lol, i know) I enjoy that I can do abyssea and other things with very little help, I feel freedome to do what I like without having to compete and have someone else beat me or step on my toes. I also miss the endgame LS enviroment where you work as a team and build that foundation with your LS. I miss salvage and camping notorious monsters. It was fun to me to have that rush and I enjoyed competing for claims and farming.

I approve and am very grateful for Abyssea but I disapprove of them building the game around being casual. There should be all types of content of players. Things that require more effort for those who want to to strive to be superior in gear and skill or those who want to keep busy/entertained without it feeling like less fun.

I approve of them to continue to add gear/mobs/areas for abyssea to benefit the casual base but I would like them to focus on balance more so now. Balacing out the current state with a more superior/elite endgame. I would like them to take into consideration how it would effect others and what they can do to counter any issues in regards to the concerns and considerations to everyone. They should take time to look into the versatility of their player base and add events/monsters that might target them so every player type has something they can enjoy and have success in!

A perfect direction in my opinion is that endgame return to its more orignal state but also continue to make abyssea worthwhile so the casual will not feel left our or abandoned. The casual deserve to have ultimate weapons and elite gear without having to compete or deal with long term goals. The player base in general deserves to have options. It shouldn't revolve around one type of player!

If you read this, please contribute but do not flame or turn this into another anti abyssea or anti HNM thread. I would like the devs to take this seriously and if you play FFXI and read this, your opinion should be heard!


Thx!

To BG lurkers: Don't be shy. Speak up!

[Rambus]

abyssea would of been fine if the game was not abyssea only.

just have to wait and see what 95 and 99 brings and if they take anything we said. I personally think it is a waste of space if they do not change limbus, dyna, savage, einherjar, assault to be harder and have an appeal to 99. otherwise you are stuck with unused data ( ps2limtations) so buff it or delete it if you are going to support ps2.

[Soundwave]

So to make the players happy....the new thing-void walkers...have all new sets of armor and hard to get items for the Elite players etc.

Lets just say.....while the causal players in abessya stay happy with af3...The Elite players can find new fun in these new hard areas/bosses.

I would like for some items to take longer to complete or obtain sure, but I really don't miss times before Abyessa were certain people constantly obtain items over and over, looking back on it...some ls members only get about 2-3 items per year in HNMLS with 30-40 people...even if your playtime was 30 hours a week or so.

I'll welcome anything else they have to come, but I hope they make things a bit more challenging however make it more rewarding for a larger group so gear can be a bit more distributed.

p.s.


My name is Rambus In the game. I did not spend 5 years getting a weapon to have it outdone by weapons that takes 1 week

*comfort* I have an unfinished Mythic and really can't find people to complete these quest etc. Its sucky...

[Vold]

They need to keep doing exactly what they are doing but design additional content for the hardcore player, even if that means redoing older content. Gotta cater to them or else. But you shouldn't over cater them...

Too many years were spent catering to the hardcore. The FFXI population suffered because of it. Abyssea will probably keep the masses entertained for some time still so now is the time to design content for the hardcore player. Despite much of Abyssea content being geared towards the hardcore, we see that if you permit them to rush through something, they most certainly will. Ultimately you have to force them into a long time sink as a large group because nothing you design could possibly make them happy otherwise. In other words content that the casual player just cannot realistically do.

You could possibly solve this "problem" with a Abyssea system. It is sort of solved to an extent with +2 upgrades but not really. What I mean is you could take an end game system and make it open to all and still cater to the hardcore player. The most simple example I can give for that is +3 and up empyrean upgrades that only a dedicated linkshell could ever possibly hope to achieve. I know part of the idea behind the level raise was to make end game easier on numbers but the unfortunate truth for SE is there are many oldie linkshells and they tend to stay together, and they need content to do together.

Just don't go ruining everything by designing all end game content from here on out for the hardcore player and requires 18 people. Say it with me: End game content is not exclusively for hardcore players. Abyssea was a huge step in the right direction but nothing is perfect from the word go. What's done is done. Casual players have content that will still last them for some time. Now let's get to work on content for the hardcore player.

[Flunklesnarkin]

I think if abyssea was limited to 2 atmas equipped at a time... and no brews it would have been a lot more fun

[Karbuncle]

I have, and always believe, There should be an equal amount of Hardcore, and Casual Content in FFXI.

Something that every player can access. For instance, I'd say... Nyzul/Assault were "Casual", while Salvage/Einherjar were "hardcore". To a Lesser extent, I'd go to say Einherjar was "Casual" compared to "Salvage" though. Difficulty wise IDK.

I don't think Abyssea will ever truly be obsolete, But i also think by 99 We're going to have a lot more End-game Content as well.

I enjoy what we have, and look forward to what we'll be getting, and i just hope it brings enough balance that everyone has something to enjoy.

[Soundwave]

Something that every player can access. For instance, I'd say... Nyzul/Assault were "Casual", while Salvage/Einherjar were "hardcore". To a Lesser extent, I'd go to say Einherjar was "Casual" compared to "Salvage" though. Difficulty wise IDK.

I like your posts Karbuncle, I would say Einherjar was far more difficult for many reasons due to Lamp entrance, lame choice of random mobs....so many factors could come into play vs your ls...specifically when entering a T3 when you come across your Findlay Dahaks...and ending the run with a KB boss.

The road to 99 will be interesting, so many new things will be changing the game soon. If these Voidwaker areas are much different from abyssea...players will be put back to the challenge I would believe.

[Anewie]

83 views and 6 replies!

No lurker please. We need to voice our opinions!

If you can read through my wall of text, please submit a reply!

THX guys!

[Venat]

I think if abyssea was limited to 2 atmas equipped at a time... and no brews it would have been a lot more fun

brews are the what ruinned abyssea.

[Eldelphia]

I like the reduction in reliance on gil. That's one of the best things about Abyssea. It's killed RMT and I love that. Dynamis only encouraged it, and I loved the event. There are endless tales of people making millions and rmting dyna gil or running away with ls banks. I'm really glad (even as an LS leader) that gil is less important.

On the way though, the crafting market has been hit hard. I would imagine there are a lot of high level crafters who don't touch their crafts anymore. But I think its a necessary evil of reducing RMT. If you can make a ton of gil easily through crafting you encourage gil buying to get a craft to 100 etc etc. And it happened a lot. I levelled Cloth to 100 over years but that's because I wasn't in a hurry and was levelling it as a personal goal. I saw others buy a ton of gil and level crafts in 2 weeks.

In the process of reducing our reliance on buying and selling, you've completely killed ENMs. My suggestion would be to revamp them... Uncap them if you have to and give us some seriously tough fights with unique gear in.

Abyssea is amazing and a lot of fun but hard core players have already beaten everything in it. There has been no depth to plot in recent times. I was really hoping for something more involving after the trailer for Heroes. Getting Sea and completing Cop are still my alltime favourite moments.

I'm getting a bit sick of the policy on zone reuse. It has improved in Heroes but I've never understood why Sea hasn't been given more content. Especially now that its so accessible. Drop PS2 support next year and let us go somewhere else...

Add more levels to Nyzul Isle because the event is fun! Or add another dungeon with random floors/zones which have different scenery. I always hoped NI would be this... so that you'd go up a floor and find yourself in a desert or next floor, in the jungle. In practical terms, make it different dungeon maps and it would be fine. So use Zeruhn mines for example on one floor and King Ramperre's Tomb on another. Then zone down into Den of Rancor or something. Would be fun and an interesting reuse of some of the dungeon areas. Of course Voidwatch may help...

Whilst the changes to Dynamis are welcome, I think the fundamental thing which is missing is a reason to do Dynamis anymore. The armour isn't very good with a few exceptions. If this is where you expect us to xp to 99 I think it will be hard to compete with Abyssea.

What I'm hoping is that Abyssea is dressing us for Endgame. A bit like when you hit your 60's and get your artifact armour. Ideally Abyssea gears us for some extreme challenge in the form of the new void areas.

Abyssea really should have been inaccessible to anyone sub 50 at least. So that the levelling scene in the low to mid levels wasn't killed off and people could xp their subjobs without leeching. It's great that the xp grind has been addressed but I think there were better ways to do it for the low to mid levels.

You might laugh at this... but there's nothing truly terrifying in the game right now. I mean something which presents a serious threat to life and limb and which a strong group couldn't take out. Whilst I do believe that pop NMs are the way forward it would be nice to have a few absolutely monstrous HNM randomly causing chaos. A bit like the way Guivre used to to level 53 parties in Kuftal tunnel but something terrifying and up at the 110+ level.

I've always dreamed of an HNM crab in the dunes... scaring the crap out of people and shaking the ground. What I'd like to see in an ideal world an HNM which people could team up on in the same way as you do for Campaign or Besieged but I know that might be impossible. Randomly popping in almost any zone and with some form of shared reward or points which you can trade in for items.

Abyssean gear has effectively nullified 80% of the other gear in the game. Whilst we need the improvements going forward, this means its nullified interest in other events. Only the promise of upgrades has taken my group back to Salvage, even though we enjoy the event. Whether we like it or not, players are greedy for equipment and almost everything from Limbus/Nyzul Isle/Dynamis/Assault/Salvage/Campaign/Einherjar/Kings is worthless now. I really, really hope that the upgrading system brings back interest in these events.


Sorry for the wall-o-text but essentially I like the move away from Kings/gil but am worried about the future. And please give me a giant crab of doom!

[Runespider]

brews are the what ruinned abyssea.

They made a fun area and then went overboard and made it too easy, 3 atmas and cheap brews ruined any challenge in Aby. Rani should of never been killed to the extent it has been and Shinryu gear is as common as Aurore/teal etc

If I had of been in charge of Abyssea I would of made 2 versions, one as it is and another where you can't use as many/any atmas and brews don't work there. Then put better gear in the more difficult Aby area, including +3/+4, everyones happy.

[Leonlionheart]

I like Abyssea because gear accrues rather than appears.
That is to say that rather than OMFG HOLY FFFFFFF N BODY DROPPED. LS Leader: "LOL MINE",
We now get "Oh look 1 item that drops in 3's that you need 6 of to get the thing you need, Well X and Y both need it so they can lot it out until they have 6!"

Each NM seems to offer something to several players, barring maybe Rani, Raja, Pankotrator, and Isgebind (NMs that only drop gear instead of +2 items) and most Visions Empyrean Weapon NM's (I.E. Glavoid, Carabosse, Briareus, which all drop complete trash for gear, and Empyrean Weapon materials). Even if you're just there helping, Heroes areas drop Trophies which can be used to obtain several niche pieces like Cure potency bodies for whm or haste legs for drg, and many other varieties of gear.

I personally hope they continue with rewarding material that benefits nearly all players rather than the few that have the resources to get the high end crap.

Respectively hardcore players can go the extra mile and get Empyrean weapons with the help of a few friends. Even if it doesn't take the time you would see to maybe get that N body to drop, or to build a relic, the level of difficulty is about the same and can be very competitive on populated servers.

On Asura you can see up to 6 shells camping Glavoid KI NMs at primetime, making claim- though only 10 minutes apart- quite annoying.

TL;DR: I hope SE continues this 'rewards everyone' type of material going. It's quite, well, rewarding.

Edit: Brews ruined it.

[Rambus]

*comfort* I have an unfinished Mythic and really can't find people to complete these quest etc. Its sucky...
that is because they have no appel, people for the most part are "what is in it for me?" and that only happens in abyssea so people do not do much contant outside of abyssea.

what mythic? and hi taru twin!

how did brews ruin it? if you cannot get help on something you can brew it,, getting apademak's horns or doing 75-80 emp items , hard to get random people to help on such things. if you want to go that route I say atma ruined it more then brews, makes lazy player. i ask bard for ballad and he is like you do not have milkin? I did not know it was requred to have atma to gain exp. I did not know people had "you are suppose to have atma so i do not have to do my job" concept

[Sparthos]

Brews are overall too accessible and undercut every challenge within Abyssea. If SE did something like this at the 99 cap when other things were available to do, that'd have gone over better than what we have now - Brew Fantasy XI.

Abyssea went downhill after Scars. Things got way too easy and the playerbase responded with AFK alliances where individuals hug the Dominion Tactician for EXP and zonewide light bonuses which take any strategy out of building/maintaining lights.

You have to ask yourself what the point of making Rani so difficult was if SEs intention was to make her a gatekeeper to Shinryu. In addition, whats the point of Shinryu being so difficult if you can simply just brew him down too? It's all fun the first or second time you do it but like any game where the cheat codes are on, it gets dull fast.

Oh and unlike offline RPGs, you cant turn the cheat codes off when you finally decide to do things legit.

[Neofire]

I like Abyssea because gear accrues rather than appears.
That is to say that rather than OMFG HOLY FFFFFFF N BODY DROPPED. LS Leader: "LOL MINE",
We now get "Oh look 1 item that drops in 3's that you need 6 of to get the thing you need, Well X and Y both need it so they can lot it out until they have 6!"

Each NM seems to offer something to several players, barring maybe Rani, Raja, Pankotrator, and Isgebind (NMs that only drop gear instead of +2 items) and most Visions Empyrean Weapon NM's (I.E. Glavoid, Carabosse, Briareus, which all drop complete trash for gear, and Empyrean Weapon materials). Even if you're just there helping, Heroes areas drop Trophies which can be used to obtain several niche pieces like Cure potency bodies for whm or haste legs for drg, and many other varieties of gear.

I personally hope they continue with rewarding material that benefits nearly all players rather than the few that have the resources to get the high end crap.

Respectively hardcore players can go the extra mile and get Empyrean weapons with the help of a few friends. Even if it doesn't take the time you would see to maybe get that N body to drop, or to build a relic, the level of difficulty is about the same and can be very competitive on populated servers.

On Asura you can see up to 6 shells camping Glavoid KI NMs at primetime, making claim- though only 10 minutes apart- quite annoying.

TL;DR: I hope SE continues this 'rewards everyone' type of material going. It's quite, well, rewarding.

Edit: Brews ruined it.
I agree with you dude, other then this post and one other, all I've seen people do is cry about how they cant monopoly NMs pretty much and it seems to piss people off when other people get the same good gear they have which makes me sick to my stomack when I see people act like that. I too hope SE continue with things similar to abyssea to give all types of players the same choice to get gear and weapons as people with big ls's. Noone should have camp against people who want to cheat to get gear or make gil, and before abyssea that's all ff11 was who was going to get banned this week for cheating. which i know it still happens but it isn't nowhere near as rampant before the changes SE did with abyssea.

[Sparthos]

I agree with you dude, other then this post and one other, all I've seen people do is cry about how they cant monopoly NMs pretty much and it seems to piss people off when other people get the same good gear they have which makes me sick to my stomack when I see people act like that. I too hope SE continue with things similar to abyssea to give all types of players the same choice to get gear and weapons as people with big ls's. Noone should have camp against people who want to cheat to get gear or make gil, and before abyssea that's all ff11 was who was going to get banned this week for cheating. which i know it still happens but it isn't nowhere near as rampant before the changes SE did with abyssea.

So Nyzul Isle was rampant cheating and botting?
So Salvage was rampant cheating and botting?
So VNMs were rampant cheating and botting?
So TOTM were rampant cheating and botting?
So Campaign Ops were rampant cheating and botting?
So Einherjar had rampant cheating and botting?
So Assault had rampant cheating and botting?
So MMM had rampant cheating and botting?

No ones saying that Abyssea did do an amazing job at making things more accessible to players but the entire game has been left a smoldering pile of ash in the process. You talk about how Abyssea solved the problems of cheating and botting yet stuff like Gukumatz frequently gets claimed on sight, people are APradaring VNMs and overall nothing has really changed on the cheating/botting front except the chokepoint of HNMs is gone.

It never will change unless everything in XI was instanced.

[Neofire]

Brews are overall too accessible and undercut every challenge within Abyssea. If SE did something like this at the 99 cap when other things were available to do, that'd have gone over better than what we have now - Brew Fantasy XI.

Abyssea went downhill after Scars. Things got way too easy and the playerbase responded with AFK alliances where individuals hug the Dominion Tactician for EXP and zonewide light bonuses which take any strategy out of building/maintaining lights.

You have to ask yourself what the point of making Rani so difficult was if SEs intention was to make her a gatekeeper to Shinryu. In addition, whats the point of Shinryu being so difficult if you can simply just brew him down too? It's all fun the first or second time you do it but like any game where the cheat codes are on, it gets dull fast.

Oh and unlike offline RPGs, you cant turn the cheat codes off when you finally decide to do things legit.
Don't be so ignorant, SE made brews cheaper because not everybody has a huge ls's to throw at bosses like rani and even with brews rani is still tricky. You sound like your mad that the same NM u killed normally someone else just brewed. I will tell to everyone if u dont want to use the brew don't, but don't post on here crying about it saying it ruined your experience in abyssea when its your choice to use it or not.

[Neofire]

So Nyzul Isle was rampant cheating and botting?
So Salvage was rampant cheating and botting?
So VNMs were rampant cheating and botting?
So TOTM were rampant cheating and botting?
So Campaign Ops were rampant cheating and botting?
So Einherjar had rampant cheating and botting?
So Assault had rampant cheating and botting?
So MMM had rampant cheating and botting?

No ones saying that Abyssea did do an amazing job at making things more accessible to players but the entire game has been left a smoldering pile of ash in the process. You talk about how Abyssea solved the problems of cheating and botting yet stuff like Gukumatz frequently gets claimed on sight, people are APradaring VNMs and overall nothing has really changed on the cheating/botting front except the chokepoint of HNMs is gone.

It never will change unless everything in XI was instanced.
Yea there was some form of cheating in those endgame events from item duplication to people staying in them longer then it wax possible, once I get home I will post every case of people getting banned for this. Hell do you really think SE was mass banned for no reason do you? Come on

[Anewie]

Thanks for the replies guys. Keep them coming and please DO NOT TURN THIS THREAD into anti abyssea or anti HNM thread. Simply state your opinion on the current state of the game, your hopes for the future and your disaprovals. Theres no need to flame. Not everyone who camped HNMs was a botting cheating monopolizer and not everyone is happy just doing abyssea and casual content.

Respect other peoples opinions. Theres no right or wrong side!

[Sparthos]

Don't be so ignorant, SE made brews cheaper because not everybody has a huge ls's to throw at bosses like rani and even with brews rani is still tricky. You sound like your mad that the same NM u killed normally someone else just brewed. I will tell to everyone if u dont want to use the brew don't, but don't post on here crying about it saying it ruined your experience in abyssea when its your choice to use it or not.

Except you can shout a group to defeat Rani and actually have a challenge to look forward to. If you don't have a large LS, that's what the shouting is for and it's been increasingly successful for many. "But I won't be able to defeat Rani for sure!" you say? Oh, that's a what a challenge is called.

Rani ain't Promyvion. Shes only guarding the way to Shinryu - the "ultimate" boss of the expansion.

Im not "mad" moreso accepting that the future of this game is doomed when all you have to do is pop an item, spam a WS macro and have nearly 0% chance of losing. This is a lesson I learned way back in '97 where using cheat codes (brew is as close to a cheat code as this game gets) is fun for but only for a while and then shortly thereafter, the fun is replaced by boredom and then abandonment of the game.

You can continue to delude yourself into believing that 200k brews have done nothing to FFXI and i'll continue to realize that too much of a good thing is bad. There are no more challenges left in XI for the "little-guy" (read: new players/old players/upcoming players) to look forward to. Instead the game has been morphed into a brewfest, a leechfest and a game completely detached from its former self.

The new systems in the May patch may change the current course of the game but as it stands, the choices made during Heroes of Abyssea have had an overall negative impact on the game itself. Abyssea as a whole had some solid good choices but only a fool chooses to ignore the horrible choices.

[Randwolf]

Mixed feelings on the changes.

The brews are a good concept for players who need that one NM to complete a quest or are a couple of items shy of an upgrade. However, there are a lot of people who milk the system by farming tons of cruor and brew everything. Not sure how you balance that without penalizing the people who are using the brews for that one extra push when they can't get a team together.

Part of the issue is that as we keep going up in levels, things that were hard become easier to do with fewer people. But, part of that is just natural progression. Just like many things that you needed a team to kill at level 50 became a solo effort at 75. The answer is to add NM's that require a full alliance at 99.

Long timed spawns I always thought were ridiculous at 75. Especially when the challenge involved requiring an alliance to begin with. In my opinion, the challenge is supposed to be in killing the mob, not claiming it. Again, IMO, if you log in for say 5 hours, you should at least get one chance to try and kill a certain NM and, perhaps, if lucky, get the drop. Days shouldn't go by where you can't even be on at the times something is due to pop. Nor, should the claim system favor using external programs to make a claim.

Anyway, just some thoughts off the top of my head.

[Anewie]

I really miss camping. I remember back in day I'd go camp Vivian for Vring or go search out random NMs. I used to just goto wiki and look up NMs and and go out and try and pop them. I miss that FFXI. New NMs just don't do it for me. I don't know why. I love farming and camping NMs for gil and stuff. Was time consuming and fun. I'm really hoping for more lottery pops or world spawns.

The irritating thing to me is, I really don't want people gathering in a single spot to bot. I don't really get that logic tbh. I mean, lets all keep it real. World spawn NMs that wander or lotto are some of the most fun most of us have ever had. Most all people enjoy killing NMs and its cool to explore and possibly stumble upon a rare spawn one. Thats awesome!

The issue is, should SE hold back because of cheaters? Should they make content easier because of the strain it places on others? I want to say no but honestly, if i was one of the casual players, and I couldnt get into a king/salvage LS or devote time to kings, I would be dissapointed. Although there odin and nyzul isle, camping is fun and salvage was tricky and cool!

I think the best thing to do isn't holding the game back because of cheaters but implmenting alternate methods or events that keep the more casual base busy and active!

[Neofire]

Except you can shout a group to defeat Rani and actually have a challenge to look forward to. If you don't have a large LS, that's what the shouting is for and it's been increasingly successful for many. "But I won't be able to defeat Rani for sure!" you say? Oh, that's a what a challenge is called.

Rani ain't Promyvion. Shes only guarding the way to Shinryu - the "ultimate" boss of the expansion.

Im not so mad more so accepting that the future of this game is doomed when all you have to do is pop an item, spam a WS macro and have nearly 0% chance of losing. This is a lesson I learned way back in '97 where using cheat codes (brew is as close to a cheat code as this game gets) is fun for but only for a while and then shortly thereafter, the fun is replaced by boredom and then abandonment of the game.

You can continue to delude yourself into believing that 200k brews have done nothing to FFXI and i'll continue to realize that too much of a good thing is bad. There are no more challenges left in XI for the "little-guy" (read: new players/old players/upcoming players) to look forward to. Instead the game has been morphed into a brewfest, a leechfest and a game completely detached from its former self.

The new systems in the May patch may change the current course of the game but as it stands, the choices made during Heroes of Abyssea have had an overall negative impact on the game itself. Abyssea as a whole had some solid good choices but only a fool chooses to ignore the horrible choices.
This is a prime example of stupidity, as I said in my other posts people have a choice to play the content they like and the content they don't like. I wouldn't dare say abyssea pushed 11 back, I appreciate all the content SE has released(yes even With). I'm just tired of people crying about shit when SE doesn't release or upgrade what they want on top of a stupid doom and gloom speech.

[Anewie]

Also, you have to also consider that even if bots/cheaters died, I don't think people would be satisfied anyway. Some people just don't like to compete or do challenging/tricky things that require time and patience. Cheating is an issue or was an issue in old endgame, but if this had been a perfect game with perfect balance on NMs and events, I still think people would complain.

[Greatguardian]

I pretty much stopped reading the anti-Abyssea posts after "Shout for a group for Rani without a brew".

Most shout groups fail Rani with 1-2 Brews, broseph.

It's not just anyone who can pop an NM, afk, and come back to it at 0%.

I'm not saying Abyssea is hard. It's not. Frankly, I find it rather relaxing and definitely easy. Anyone with an IQ greater than potato can master it.

Truthgasm: Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato. Most FFXI players still find ways to wipe to Orthrus with 18 people. Most FFXI players think Briareus is hard and Empyrean Weapons require a linkshell of slaves to kill things for you. Most FFXI players cannot kill anything above AF3+1 Seal NMs without a brew. Most FFXI players still call Abyssea "Super easy god mode", even if they've never completed a single piece of AF3+2 or even entered the zones. And in case it needs repeating, Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato.

The only people who have any right to complain about Abyssea being easy are the people who are actually good at the game and walking around in multiple Empyrean Weapons/AF3+2; ironically, people who I rarely see complain at all.

With that said, I don't mind Abyssea at all as midgame content. I think it was made to strongly appeal to casual players, and give them the same opportunities for gear as the hardcore playerbase; something which FFXI has lacked for a long time. The move away from World Spawns for the game's best gear is beyond refreshing. A lot of people complain about the influx of gear caused by, in a nutshell, everyone being able to force-spawn Fafnirz. But really, it just removed a lot of conflict from the game. Some players enjoyed the conflict, the drama, the stealing and the hacking. But overall, the shift away from these trends has made the FFXI community much friendlier overall.

I hated world spawns. I love being able to log onto skype, get an IM like "Hey, let's kill a few Ironclads for plates", and just log in and do it. I'd love a challenge at 99, and I'd love a reason for my Endgame shell to exist. But I definitely have no qualms with Abyssea, and I love the game's paradigm shift from world spawns to force spawns.

[Malamasala]

I disapprove of most of the game. FFXI in itself is a collection of every mistake you can do in a MMO.

I'll list what I approve of though.

1. Atmas.

A customizable boost to your job, independent of if you are a tank, mage, pet job, melee, ranger, etc. Everyone can now adjust their job the way they feel like. (A majority of the so called potato-IQ people only picks one or two combinations though, because they can't think further than "hit hard")

Atmas should have existed from the first day, available from NMs here and there in the world. So you could team up in a group and hunt NMs for a mutual benefit of the kill.

2. Cutscenes.

I don't think there is any other MMO using cutscenes as well as FFXI. I just wish they were easier to access than having to head all over the world just to relive a story line. Not to mention have fewer so called "cock-blocks" by BCNMs and NM fights.

3. Choose your own augments.

The best item system ever introduced, and it was abandoned as quickly as it came. Just how SE did FFX fantastic, and then dropped the ball on FFXI.

4. Job system

Almost forgot this since you take it for granted. Much appreciated system, even though the subjob system leaves a lot to desire.



In the future I want more of the above. Atmas outside of abyssea, choose my own bonuses on new weapons and items, and lots more storyline Cutscenes. I predict I'll get none of the above, and probably quit at level 99 unless it offers something fantastic as 99.

[Benihana]

Before Abyssea, most of the end-game content was only available to the hardcore players. Abyssea and magian trials have gone the opposite direction and opened up quite a bunch of good gear for casual players too. I do not consider getting af3 +2s, emp weapons, or shinryu gear as elite content. Anyone who spends the time to read up and shout for groups or kill with friends can do all of that pretty easily. I think it was good they made Abyssea very accessible to casual players as not everyone has the time it required to get all the good gear there was at end-game at level 75.

With the upcoming updates, they should put the focus back on elite content for the hardcore players. There is more than enough for casual players to do in Abyssea, and SE can always add more things for casual players to do. One thing that makes ffxi so different for the older players is that certain gear just made you go say, "Wow, I'd love to have that." Gear also differentiated players in a good way. You could for the most part tell who knew what they were doing and who was a noob by looking at their gear (I know it is a generalization and isn't 100% true). I'm not amazed when I see anyone have emp weapons and gear. Someone having 5/5 af3 +2 and ochain and almace does not amaze me at all. All that Abyssea takes is some time. Anyone with any group can kill anything in Abyssea as long as you know how to read. There should be an equal mix of casual and hardcore nms in the game I feel. Since all the old elite end-game is now virtually pointless and no longer elite, it is now time to put in new elite content for the hardcore players.

Note, I use to camp the Hnms and do almost all the end-game content. I no longer have the time to do elite content if they were to put more in, but I still feel it should be put in. Not everyone should be able to get the same gear. That is part of what makes ffxi the game it is and special.

[Rambus]

In the future I want more of the above. Atmas outside of abyssea.

I find it funny when people say brews make abyssea too easy then say things like this.

I think some mobs were made to be brewed/atmaed, old FFXI is not, so no

[Sparthos]

I pretty much stopped reading the anti-Abyssea posts after "Shout for a group for Rani without a brew".

Most shout groups fail Rani with 1-2 Brews, broseph.

And what is wrong with failure on a monster that only leads to the final boss of Abyssea? Rani was designed as a gatekeeper and her strength is to keep out people who haven't done the other content Abyssea has to offer.

You still had the option to use 2M on a brew, a huge hit to cruor in order to pass her anyway. This encouraged you to make the brews count and you were punished for failure. You know, consequences and the like.

200k brews shouldn't have been available period. The game shifted to casual content which was perfectly fine but "just brew it" is poison to the game. Why should I cooperate with people when I can just brew it?


It's not just anyone who can pop an NM, afk, and come back to it at 0%.

If brews had remained @2m cruor you'd see people reading on how to brew and meticulously preparing for any battle where one would be employed like Shinryu or Rani. With 200k brews, who cares? Just throw bottles of brew till you win.


I'm not saying Abyssea is hard. It's not. Frankly, I find it rather relaxing and definitely easy. Anyone with an IQ greater than potato can master it.

Vision and Scars were a vacation whereas Heroes completely washed away any sense of accomplishment. EXP parties got worse thanks to Dom Ops or as I like to call them, AFK in a corner Ops. Bastion was always sorta crappy but creating a good EXP party in the first two zones required people to you know... be at the console.


Truthgasm: Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato. Most FFXI players still find ways to wipe to Orthrus with 18 people. Most FFXI players think Briareus is hard and Empyrean Weapons require a linkshell of slaves to kill things for you. Most FFXI players cannot kill anything above AF3+1 Seal NMs without a brew. Most FFXI players still call Abyssea "Super easy god mode", even if they've never completed a single piece of AF3+2 or even entered the zones. And in case it needs repeating, Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato.

No argument here about people being dumb but the solution never is to simply embrace stupidity.

Abyssea as it stands makes getting AF gear simple enough (all pieces) and stuff like accessories are also made extremely simple to obtain granted you ask around about strats. Perfect.

What isn't perfect is completely throwing away any sense of accomplishment by making everything a joke via brews. Couple that with the fact that previously casual content (Assault/MMM/Einherjar/Campaign/Nyzul) were tactically nuked by Abyssea and you have a situation where all players are converging on one place in the free-for-all from hell.

Really, was Nyzul Isle, Assault etc worth abandoning? I found them to be some of the most fun events SE ever designed. They were casual, fun, engaging and mixed things up. SEs timeline says nothing about fixing them so it's safe to say that they have been let go.



With that said, I don't mind Abyssea at all as midgame content. I think it was made to strongly appeal to casual players, and give them the same opportunities for gear as the hardcore playerbase; something which FFXI has lacked for a long time. The move away from World Spawns for the game's best gear is beyond refreshing. A lot of people complain about the influx of gear caused by, in a nutshell, everyone being able to force-spawn Fafnirz. But really, it just removed a lot of conflict from the game. Some players enjoyed the conflict, the drama, the stealing and the hacking. But overall, the shift away from these trends has made the FFXI community much friendlier overall.

While I agree with you to a point regarding the shift away from the multi-hour pop system from hell, I feel the XI community has lost more than it has gained. EXP has boiled down to a system where people AFK in party or just don't care, community no longer has events like Campaign or Besieged to rally around regardless of how flawed they were, events like Nyzul/Salvage/Einherjar/MMM are all dead and had qualities that made them charming to groups and everything is now Abyssea.

There is no longer Final Fantasy XI, only Abyssea. Even with SEs Voidwalker patch coming up the game is going to need an overhaul to make things outside the maws relevant again. The whole game didn't need to be thrown away to make HNMs obsolete.

[Karbuncle]

events like Nyzul/Salvage/Einherjar/MMM are all dead and had qualities that made them charming to groups and everything is now Abyssea.



now

Yes. Right now its Abyssea. We have 2 Level Cap increases coming, and no hint of any new Abyssea zones otw. I think its rather safe to assume the game is moving Away from Abyssea. Buck up! We'll be out there soon :(

(After this Point i'll be ranting. Its not directed at you or any particular poster. Just off my readings)

I admit i agree with GreatGuardian Here, I enjoyed Abyssea for what it was, a few Months of Easy-Mode while we waited for the next thing to come, Cause lets face it, Abyssea won't be "end game" for 99, it'll be like ... ... ... "Dynamis?" is now, a "Fun Side event people do ocassionally for gear they didn't get at 75/80/etc.

I think people focus entirely too much on the size of their E-peen and can't ever just sit back and enjoy the ride without crying about how easily everyone else is getting it. Truthfully, I don't care if dumb-ShmuckA is brewing Rani when I'm 3 zones over killing a +1 Seal NM. Why do other people seem to? I can look at my THF and enjoy my full +2 Set, Epona's Ring, Atheling Mantle, and Select-Twilight armor with my Triplus just fine regardless of who else has it. It has the same stats, and i enjoyed getting all this gear with my friends.

(Btw, his point with "People fail brewing Rani" was in regards to someone saying "ABYSSEA IS TOO EASY BREW RUINED E'ERTHAN", he was pointing out that "People still fail to Rani with Brews, Abyssea is easy, But stupid players still fail".)

The other day my GF watched some group wipe to rani after using 2 brews and getting it to like, 30%. Point is while yes Abyssea is easy mode, there are still some NMs that will wipe the floor with 90% of the player base, with or without brew. Cause as GG said, The average FF player has an IQ less than Potato.

I think GG hit the nail on the head, most of the people complaining Abyssea is too easy are generally those who sit around town still wearing their Askar head complaining they can't find a good shout for XYZ while never taking the initiative to start their own shout for XYZ cause they're too busy complaining on forums about XYZ being too easy despite the fact they've never done it.

I have experience more than enough of my fair share of Abyssea, I've even began work on Atma of the Savior, and i can safely say without an ounce of a doubt that

Its the most fun i've ever had in FFXI short of the level 20 Avatar Fights back when my account was less than a month old.

I don't see why people can't enjoy their game without complaining that people they made up/never met/never interact with are brewing XXX NM. So they dumb-lucked into Okay armor? I bet you still play better than them. I bet you're still smarter, Knowledgeable of game mechanics, and can do your job better, So why care?

Now, Before i get too far ahead of myself.

I'd like to Acknowledge i know people do want Challenge. I issue this challenge. Do Abyssea Without Atmas. Just Cruor buffs. Knock yourself out. It'll be like "Pulling teeth hard". but if you TRULY want a Challenge, and not just "I say i want challenge, but i really want to just have better gear than everyone so i can have a huge E-peen to make up for my ... nevermind", Then you'll take that Challenge. Because according to your own words, It'll be more fun for you.

This isn't a permanent solution, But it should hold you over until 95/99 Cap where abyssea Begins to fade out, trust me when i say, it may not look like it, But i too look forward to out-side abyssea content!

[Rambus]

Really, was Nyzul Isle, Assault etc worth abandoning? I found them to be some of the most fun events SE ever designed. They were casual, fun, engaging and mixed things up. SEs timeline says nothing about fixing them so it's safe to say that they have been let go.

I keep saying they should buff those old events and make them relvenet again.

[Sparthos]

As much as self-imposed challenges have existed as long as gaming Karb, it just isn't feasible in FFXI unless you're running events by yourself (multibox) or have like minded friends.

[Karbuncle]

As much as self-imposed challenges have existed as long as gaming Karb, it just isn't feasible in FFXI unless you're running events by yourself (multibox) or have like minded friends.

NEEDS FRANS :O!

Though, There are a lot of people who think abyssea is too easy and want a challenge, I truly wonder if theres enough to make a Linkshell on each server specifically for it o-o;

But yah, I'll be happy for out-side Abyssea Content too, Cause i know all good things must come to end :)

[Ravenmore]

We won't be moving out of abbyssea for least exp. As long as the mob type chain is in place we not going anywere else for exp. Salavge was always lot of effort for side grade gear. Every job had a refresh body except pld which wasn't needed at endgame cause you woulda took a rdm anyway. The rest was either for sam for a 6 hit or WS. Another thing the game has always been "whats in it for me". I seen so many drop pearls after they gotten what they wanted, be it rdm af2 hat, kirin body, list goes on. The game woulda died if everything at 75 stayed the same.

[Randwolf]

Gear also differentiated players in a good way. You could for the most part tell who knew what they were doing and who was a noob by looking at their gear (I know it is a generalization and isn't 100% true).

You could only really tell that right after the gear came out. Once a shell had geared everyone who wanted it, they start to sell the drops to anyone, competent or not. I can think of multiple people on Sylph who absolutely sucked at their job but had the best of everything (back when the cap was 75). If you want gear to differentiate players, make the best gear drop from mobs in uncapped BCNM's that can only be entered solo. There is pretty much no way around that unless someone uses a hack.

[Meyi]

I have to say I approve of the developers finally caring and listening to the player base.

Even if we all don't see eye-to-eye, they at least respond to a lot of our topics and concerns.

Edit: Wanted to add this little bit in here!

I think FFXI will be just fine. Abyssea isn't end game; it's just temporary fun while we wait for end game to arrive. I've seen a theory circulating around many times before that Abyssea may be our "Valkurm Dunes" for preparing for level 99 end game. In a way, the player base has discovered lots of ways to play the game that have always existed and just weren't well known.

I think it's an enjoyable stepping stone, not the final destiny.

Either way, I really enjoy how FFXI is now. The only thing that makes me feel sad is the slight loss of that accomplished feeling. I don't feel as accomplished anymore as I use to. But, there are now other ways to feel content; I have a brand new LS with friends for the first time in years, my LS can go and do events with a small amount of people and have lots of fun, and magians are a great goal set for me.

Thank you SE for less and less luck based events. ^^

[Andylynn]

My quick opinion based on OP:

-I find fun on the fact I can be a decently equipped player without having to invest my life into an MMO, without fear of there being a pay to win mentality. I personally don't think FFXI was ever difficult, and that elitists just complain, because they don't have a very thick line to seperate them from ones theyd call noobs. The content is perfectly fine how it is; inviting ANYONE who wants a shot at something, to have it with some effort.

[Tamarsamar]

Not reading entire thread (tl;dr).

Concerning the augmenting of older gear mentioned in the OP, I feel obligated to mention that it is not being done through Trials of the Magians, but rather through Synergy.

As far as the general direction of FFXI nowadays, I can't help but approve. Sure, every update we as a playerbase may wag our fingers at S-E, scolding them for introducing something that makes us all ask why it wasn't done x number of years sooner, but a good update is still better late than never.

[Duelle]

Concerning the augmenting of older gear mentioned in the OP, I feel obligated to mention that it is not being done through Trials of the Magians, but rather through Synergy.

As far as the general direction of FFXI nowadays, I can't help but approve. Sure, every update we as a playerbase may wag our fingers at S-E, scolding them for introducing something that makes us all ask why it wasn't done x number of years sooner, but a good update is still better late than never.This is how I feel as well.

Admittedly, I stopped caring about "accomplishments" in MMOs the day I quit Lineage II, so I'm more out to do things I find interesting.

[Neofire]

I pretty much stopped reading the anti-Abyssea posts after "Shout for a group for Rani without a brew".

Most shout groups fail Rani with 1-2 Brews, broseph.

It's not just anyone who can pop an NM, afk, and come back to it at 0%.

I'm not saying Abyssea is hard. It's not. Frankly, I find it rather relaxing and definitely easy. Anyone with an IQ greater than potato can master it.

Truthgasm: Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato. Most FFXI players still find ways to wipe to Orthrus with 18 people. Most FFXI players think Briareus is hard and Empyrean Weapons require a linkshell of slaves to kill things for you. Most FFXI players cannot kill anything above AF3+1 Seal NMs without a brew. Most FFXI players still call Abyssea "Super easy god mode", even if they've never completed a single piece of AF3+2 or even entered the zones. And in case it needs repeating, Most FFXI players still have an IQ less than potato.

The only people who have any right to complain about Abyssea being easy are the people who are actually good at the game and walking around in multiple Empyrean Weapons/AF3+2; ironically, people who I rarely see complain at all.

With that said, I don't mind Abyssea at all as midgame content. I think it was made to strongly appeal to casual players, and give them the same opportunities for gear as the hardcore playerbase; something which FFXI has lacked for a long time. The move away from World Spawns for the game's best gear is beyond refreshing. A lot of people complain about the influx of gear caused by, in a nutshell, everyone being able to force-spawn Fafnirz. But really, it just removed a lot of conflict from the game. Some players enjoyed the conflict, the drama, the stealing and the hacking. But overall, the shift away from these trends has made the FFXI community much friendlier overall.

I hated world spawns. I love being able to log onto skype, get an IM like "Hey, let's kill a few Ironclads for plates", and just log in and do it. I'd love a challenge at 99, and I'd love a reason for my Endgame shell to exist. But I definitely have no qualms with Abyssea, and I love the game's paradigm shift from world spawns to force spawns.
Finally someone who accepts changed and isn't dumbfounded on that it is inevitable.

[Malamasala]

I find it funny when people say brews make abyssea too easy then say things like this.

I think some mobs were made to be brewed/atmaed, old FFXI is not, so no

Best part is that atma and brews are optional, so only people who LIKE them use them. Unless they are hypocrites.

[Soundwave]

that is because they have no appel, people for the most part are "what is in it for me?" and that only happens in abyssea so people do not do much contant outside of abyssea.

what mythic? and hi taru twin!

how did brews ruin it? if you cannot get help on something you can brew it,, getting apademak's horns or doing 75-80 emp items , hard to get random people to help on such things. if you want to go that route I say atma ruined it more then brews, makes lazy player. i ask bard for ballad and he is like you do not have milkin? I did not know it was requred to have atma to gain exp. I did not know people had "you are suppose to have atma so i do not have to do my job" concept

Nirvana =X and yes hello twin!

[Rambus]

Nirvana =X and yes hello twin!

thought about getting that

[Zero-Hour]

First off, I am a new player. My wife and I started playing about December 2009. We mainly play as a duo, and rarely party with others. We held off playing FFXI for a very long time mainly because we did not believe that square could actually translate a Final Fantasy to online and have it actually be Final Fantasy. To a large extent this is true, the story line is very thin, and because of the weeks of grinding between segments to attain the levels required to complete them the story all but gets lost along the way.

For us the main drawback is the absolute requirement to party with absolute strangers to get things done. This is probably what stopped us playing for so long. We did not want our experience of the game to depend upon others, after playing Final Fantasy 1-10 off-line, solo.

Many will say that FFXI is a Party Only game and we accept the limitations that our play style imposes.

The game is not without some merits though.

With recent updates, like the removal of level caps on certain battles/areas we have been able to progress in the game far further that would have been possible before. Things like "Chains of Promethia" would have been completely impossible for us before.

Many players review recent updates from the perspective of long term players who have long time been everywhere and done everything. For us newcommers, we will not have 7+ years to build up our experience, as it is unlikely the game will last that long, so any alterations square have done to make things more accessable are good from our point of view.

One announced update we are very excited about is the increase of the Adventuring fellows to level 85 and the higher time/monster limits. The NPCs have already enabled us to complete missions far beyond what 2 could achieve and we anticipate more inaccessable content unlocked.

The recent FOV update along with increased XP outside of Abyssea has been most welcome too. For those for which Abyssea is not an option this has made a world of difference. I would welcome further improvements to this area too, like areas for 80+ as Cape Terrigan get a little crowded.

I guess for many long time players who have a great linkshell with many long time friends, will find it hard to understand how newer players get on. We have a linkshell, with very good people in, however they have all known each other for a very long time, and us as newcomers cannot really contribute on the same level. So much of our game is unexplored and we cannot expect anyone to spend hours, days, months helping us through missions they all did years ago.

90% of endgame is missed out on for us, and probably always will be, as others have said, Limbus, Dynamis, Nyzul Isle etc are dead because Abyssea has taken over pretty much completely. While further improvements might be forthcoming, I doubt they will re-vitalise those areas to anything like what they once were.

As far as Abyssea is concerned, we have tried it, but found little of value there. The whole system is designed for full alliances to actually gain any xp benefit, so no use there, and the items gained are all aimed at endgame, of which we have had little experience, and probably never will.


One thing I definately have no time for is the complete luck based system that a lot of FFXI works on. The random popping of NMs and the random nature of the drops. I find no fun in waiting hours or even days for a spawn, only to luck out on the drop, even worse, finally get the pop, only to have someone else appear from nowhere and claim the NM, especially if I have spent hours killing placeholders. For those of us that have consistently bad luck this makes the process even worse.


Sorry for the long post which might seems quite negative. Far from it really, for us the game has a great deal to offer, and recent updates, and hopefuly those soon to come will make more of the existing game possible. As far as Abyssea is concerned though, this will make no difference in either direction to us.

[Karbuncle]

I know this is too easy.

But if you hate doing things with other people, why play an MMO? I just find it particularly odd "Playing with other people" would be a huge gripe in a genre like MMO >.>

Edit: Other than that, i enjoyed the read :) Very thought out.

[Seriha]

People are both an MMO's greatest strength and weakness. Personality clashes, schedule conflicts, play styles... all contribute to the experience and, while maybe fun for one person, could be utter hell for another. Such is mainly why I tend to favor systems that promote fair access without all the time sink, but that can run opposite of the "hardcore" mindset of those wanting challenge or some sense of accomplishment. Things like crappy drop rates make people want to tackle content with as few bodies as possible so there are less mouths to feed when stuff does show up. On the other end, if things were generous enough, people would have no reason to not take others. Sure, some will be dicks and still try to sell things in this scenario, but as long as these people can't have a monopoly, a potential buyer always has a choice to accept an offer.

[Forevergogo]

I like the changes that ffxi has made since the leap past 75...
big pluses:
Traveling takes less time than it ever did these days.
Leveling up and meriting is faster than ever, thank god.
Acquiring gear is easier than it used to be.
Friendlier people and lots of shout groups for abyssea.
Enjoyable content and areas, faster-paced battles and action.
Atmas giving us new heights of power and prestige.

But there are still areas that are frustrating and I still feel work could be done
My 11 most wishful dream changes and development in FF11..... ;)

1) Revisiting old 'events' and tuning them to have rewards for endgame players
ex: add more loot to the pool, maybe even upgrades for emperion/magian stuff. What is the reward for helping someone kill an avatar these days? 5k gil? 10k? People pay that much for a teleport when they're desperate. Make it worth the time it takes to get out there and kill the damn thing.. same for all those mid-range events and things. :/

2) Soloability of All Missions. There are still people, like me, who haven't finished missions... like, most of them.
the missions and quests make this game what it is- give it a Huge Story~! But a lot of times it takes 2 people to trade keys at the same time, or it takes at least 6 people to kill x-mob(s), etc. I'd like to see it take 1 person to get to where they need to go, fight what they need to fight, and leave learning a bit more of the amazing tale of vana'diel! Easy fix: No level cap for any of it, change some of the keys/doors rules, and give us some buffs equatable to the ones we can get in Abyssea between cruor buffs and atmas and maybe even brews in difficult missions. Make it so that it could be a guaranteed win if you had support, but an actual possible challenge to solo. Oh, and I agree with earlier sentiments on reviewing cutscenes. These could easily be filed away with some NPCs in various cities, just a "Remember When..." and you select from a long but organized list of cut scenes from the different expansions and story lines. Like a sub-section to all your completed missions and quests, to relive the moments.

3) Black Magic (Lower the price?) All black mages out there have either quested and farmed hoping for a very rare drop for ages for various scrolls, or spent Millions on their spell list. Yes, Millions. Check the price of sleepga II on your server, and tell me if you haven't quested it yet, and why. Maybe some of these spells could be dropped in abyssea chests? Or added as drops in other events. A number of the tier IV nukes are far more expensive than the tier V! ..Mostly cause you need them to stagger mobs in abyssea. True also for some ninja magic *cough UTSUSEMI cough* and white magic *cough Teleports and Recalls cough* ..Yeah. Let's lower the price by adding some new ways to find these scrolls.

4) Auction House. Fees? These need to go. They are a HUGE reason people npc something, it npcs for 6~k gil, auctions for 7~k.... after fees... it just really almost isn't worth it. 7 item limit? ...7 item limit??? .... SEVEN ITEM LIMIT?! Well great, now people will only want to auction what sells fast and what sells for high prices. All that crap that sells at a slow pace, or for a mid-range price... usually sits in the bottom of some bag until a cloudy day when you actually have room to put it up for auction. Let's raise 7 to.... 20? I that asking too much? Fine... 10? I think I read that a future update plans on linking the auction houses? That *could* work... if you paid for a few 'mules'.

5) Skilling Up. I didn't 'leech' to 90 in abyssea. I worked my butt off to get to 75 on all three jobs I have. And still half of my skills are left in the dirt. White Mage parry... yeah, try to skill that up. Bard nearly capped my evasion pulling in merit parties all the time, but even between a 90 White Mage and 90 Black Mage... some of my magic skills are so far behind in developing. Enfeebling Magic, Divine Magic, Healing Magic, Enhancing Magic-- and my biggest irk with it is when a BLU or SMN is like "u mad, bro?" with their SINGLE magic skill to skill up. Can something be done to give faster and consistent skill ups? Maybe a status effect under signet or something that increases the likelihood of skill up, cause it is pretty bad when you're 100 points under cap, and haven't gotten more than +.4 total in an hour's worth of attempted skilling up. I'd like to see more +.5 than anything when I'm really far away from the cap, and more of the +.1 when I'm closer to the cap...

6) Year-Round Mog Bonanza.
Make it a monthly thing. It is a HUGE gil-sink for this now-booming economy, and players LOVE to gamble. change up the rewards, throw some 'your-choice of emperion upgrade seal / coin / etc' in there for bottom 3 wins, put some unique rewards like colored chocobos, some 'your-choice of AF2' in there for like the level 2-3 wins. It would definitely be a gil-sink for players to pour money into each month hoping for a big and valuable prize. ;) Maybe a cool top prize could be a bigger mog-house (well, room anyways) with built in cabinets for +50 storage right off the bat!

7) Effect Durations. "RR wore" is a common gripe. It lasts a while, but eventually- and usually you don't notice until you're dead, it "wore" Can there be a duration increase to many of the buffs? It was so frustrating trying to keep a chain 100+ going as the sole puller in a merit party back in the day, AND trying to keep two songs up, on a group of melees And a healer. Two minute songs? Puhlease... Can we have a minimum of five minutes? Bar-spells would be used more often if they lasted a good three minutes or more.. I think a lot of 'buffs' need to be examined and have their durations increased.. Enspells, Protect/Shell, Regen/Refresh, Bar-everything, smn's avatar provided buffs... etc.

8) Level-Sync 100% of your negative, usually almost none of your positive. Yeah, we worked to be 90 and get the gear we have, don't take the full -30hp and only give me +6mp out of the +75mp on my item! Don't ignore the haste%+ completely and still give me 100% of the -evasion! I'd like to see bonuses reflected more adequately when level synced. Say your twilight mail (I know, right? :D) that you worked your butt off for in LS events and stuff actually rocked socks in level sync! Like at level 20 sync you might expect it to have +7~ accuracy, +4~ all stats, +1 mp/tick refresh. So yeah, please leave a bare minimum of an effect active when level synced, we worked to get past that level and into that gear.. we're syncing down low again to spend time with someone- at least let us show off a bit...

9) Augmenting (FoV)- FoV is a great way to take an old item and give it a make over! Problem is.. it can be anywhere from super amazing awesome, to "omg what have I done to this 300k item... I ruined it!!". Can we at the very MINIMUM be allowed to re-augment an item? Completely wipe it clean when you trade it *again* and hope to see a better and more useful augment. What players could only dream of, is a chance to select what sort of augment you would like, perhaps it could be done in stages- like you trade your original item, slay the beast, and select +1str -1int as an augment. Then you do it the next day and choose +1str -1int again, totaling it to +2str -2int. Of course this would have to have a limit, like perhaps 1 augment total for lowbie beasts, and up to 7 or 8 augments for the very high level beasts.

10) Merit System. The merit system is perhaps one of the most unique systems in MMOs to diversify the end-game crowd, and provide your lower level jobs with bonuses that your higher level job(s) earned for them. I'd like to see it tweaked though... maybe change some of the group 2 job specific merits, or increase their effect so they're used again... make the group 1 job specific merits more effective.. maybe add some new job specific merits under a third tier, to augment job abilities and traits. Maybe add some new ideas under the merit system, how about +auto-Regen, +auto-Refresh, +Attack, +Defense +Accuracy +Evasion ? How about +Job Traits ? Wouldn't it be neat to play as a monk with Zanshin merited to Zanshin II? Or a Blue Mage with Fast Cast merited to Fast Cast III? Or hell, dare I say any job with Treasure Hunter merited? Naturally, I don't think traits should stack, and there would have to be a limit- and things like merited fast cast might make you great as whm, and screw your timed nukes on blm all up... But it would be fun to merit some of the traits I enjoy. Anyways. Merit points are a dime a dozen nowadays, and I think its time to give the system a little overhaul- why not a category for +Elemental resistance? a group for +_Status_ resistance? I'd like to meet a taru named Caffeine who had 5/5 +Sleep Resistance merited! :P It'd be something to throw points into at the end of the day. Maybe when all is said and done and your last available slot for merit points is full, or if you're sick of tweaking your character, you could trade merit points in for some kind of reward.

[Forevergogo]

super long reply... just got longer.
request #11... :-P

11) Crafting / Farming Plants in Pots. First, I'd like to be able to check on my plants and pots from afar, in my mog rent-a-room in jeuno, or maybe even on the field. Or at least direct my useless moogle "Feed it ___ crystals after ___ hours, don't smoke your cigars next to them, and for chris-sakes- HARVEST THEM WHEN THEY GLOW- don't let them wither!" Secondly, crafting needs a makeover... I like the system from Ultima Online where you get requests to fill an order, in FFXI it should be within your skill range and up to you to gather the materials, make the items, and deliver them to the NPC. The reward could be simple, a guaranteed skill increase of +.1 to +.5 (depending on the difficulty of the order) experience and or gil and or larger guild point rewards would be nice too :) This would help early crafters who have a hard time finding a niche in a market that is pretty well carved out or abandoned due to a lack of low level players looking for these practically forgotten items. Not to mention everyone has the HQ or bust attitude towards equipment ;)

[Meyi]

But if you hate doing things with other people, why play an MMO? I just find it particularly odd "Playing with other people" would be a huge gripe in a genre like MMO >.>

1. I love FFXI's storylines!
2. I love the world of Vana'diel.
3. I enjoy communicating with people while I play a game.

Ever since I've gotten a great LS I've begun to enjoy parties and bigger NMs. But, not everyone plays FFXI simply because it's a MMO. And even then, some people want to play with close friends, family, or loved ones, and not necessarily strangers.

[MarkovChain]

Prior to 2010 Level cap increase -Endgame for Casual/Elite player base: You have Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul Isle
These events imo were the standard mostly for the more Casual base. They were perfectly aimed at being convienant enough for casual base but challenging enough as well.

Casual player Base gameplay: Garrisons, Beseiged, Campaign, Notorious Monsters,

Elite player base gameplay: Salvage, Sea, High Notorious Monsters,

The Good: The game provided a lot of hefty time/effort for equip that kept even the most casual player dedicated. There was ALWAYS something to do and somewhere to explore. It was anything but boring. Team work was of the biggest priority. It enouraged us to work together in groups and helped establish our Linkshell/group as our own!

The bad: Many people with less playtime could not devote the time/effort needed to consistantly attempt more elite content, this seemed a bit unfair to them. A lot of casual player quit or deactivated their accounts because they couldn't devote time to achieving some of the more higher quaslity gear or taking part in more elite content. Some of the more hefty endgame content was so time consuming or hard, many people resorted to cheating. Salvage drop rates/ HNM spawning. It also was the source of so much drama. Many people resorted to stealing, buying gil and just overall cheating and stepping on another person toes to get what they wanted.


I find it normal that casual players can't get the best gear. At least, they could have almost the best gear as generally, "elite" endgame content provided only marginal gains. You can for instance compare the mini-extension final rewards to salvage gear or salvage gear to Nyzul gear, or even sky.




FAST FORWARD to 2010:
Both Casual gameplay and casual/elite endgame events were considerred worthless at this point. Although it didn't require much more effort/team work, the rewards seemed diminishing, too easy or irrelevant.

Nope, they where considered worthless in december with full AF3+2.




FFXI as a whole atm: Abyssea. Since you can enter Abyssea at lvl 30, most people casual and elite, exp until that point then build an experience point party/alliance and head out. Its pretty easy to get any job lv.90. Abyssea holds gears that are so out of this world amazing, gears obtained through HNMs, Dynamis, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Sky,Sea, seem almost deserted. They plan to release augments through the amazing trial of magians for those gears though to satisfy those who spent so much time obtaining gear through such methods. Most people don't seem to optimistic that the augments will make it worth it again, to make those events worthwhile on a consistant basis.

This is the typical opinion of "pro abyssea" players that IMO are just recent players that spend time leveling right before abyssea without getting involved in endgame and then when abyssea cam out, they dicovered it.

First, not many old endgamers will do exp parties in abyssea because there is no real point in leveling extra jobs. The game is so unbalance that you require at most 2 DD jobs, 2 mages jobs. More precisely, ninja monk whm are basically the best jobs. Why would you level drg/pup/dnc/ w/e really since those jobs are so much better. Guess what ? Abyssea did not change that, except for nin, because at least mnk and whm were already most wanted jobs for endgame before abyssea. MNK could take anything meleable without TP spamming (unlike SAM/WAR WAR/SAM DD/SAM) while being easily on par and even better in some cases than 2 handed DDs. WHM has always been the best healer in the game and ranked top job in the census since forever.



The good: The game now benefits all players on a universal level. Many people are very content and happy . It doesn't require large amounts of time or effort for the absolute best. In fact, in its current state, you can obtain an ultimate weapon in a weeks earth time. Almost all content can be done with 3-4 people. Team work is not nessicary but player base is more friendly it seems. If you noticed there is much less drama on BG and the player base seems more kind. You can do anything on your own time without having to worry about the next guy. Even things like Pandemonium Warden, Rani and Absolute Virtue can be consistantly and easily taken down via SHOUTS!


"it doesn't require a lot of effort to be abosulutely the best"

I'm sorry you are completely wrong. Do you have the best gear ? Honest question. The best gear right now is full AF3+2 with level 90 empyreal weapon, epona's ring plus various marginal upgrades. I'm sorry to tell you it's pretty hardcore. Getting a level 90 weapon requires you to kill ~ 100 Boss types Nms, all of them requiring lesser NM's KI to be poped, and all of them requiring a team to defeat. Getting a full AF3+2 set is not possible solo, it also requires a team and if you want to proc green, it requires specific jobs so a decent size party.

So it does require a lot of effort to achieve this. About as much as a full salvage set I would say, the difference being mainly that you can enter anytime. But as far as dedicated game hours it's the same.

Look, in my old group it took us ~6 months to get a full set like usukane in salvage, running 4x aweek. That is 1 hours of assault, 1 hours of waiting time for gathering and 7 hours per week of salvage : 9H/ week for 26 week is 208 hours.
I have the level 85 vere and this what It cost me : 6 pops were gathered in two game sessions of 6 hours (and not : 6 hours of abyssea I insist cos I know some idiot will jumb at my throat), so 12 hours. 1/3 of the chloris put only 1 bud so that's 10 buds for 10 hours, or 50 chloris buds for 50 hours. Magianing the base mantis took forever camping the NMs, that's about 50 hours. Ulhuadshi is about 4 hours for 6 pops and with the 1/3 of 1 drop rule, that's 10 drops in 4 hours so 20 hours for 50 drops. From personnal exprerience, gathering a pop from dragua takes 15 minutes including running around etc plus 15 minutes kill so 30 minutes per kill, and with the 1/3 rule you need 45 kills to achieve 75 scales, or another 23 hours.

In total a level 90 empyreal weapon cost you (at least) 93 hours of work

I didn't farm AF3 yet but there are a lot of NMs to kill, a lot of seals. I'd say 5 hours per peice or 25 hours total eyeballing.

time for the absolute best, as you said : 118 hours

Seeing as the 208 hours of salvage grants you one set for yourself as well as plenty of pieces for others, while the 118 hours of abyssea gives only an empyreal for yourself, I'd say it's extremely hardcore.


"Almost all content can be done with 3-4 people"

I tend to read a lot of people thinking this was not not the case before abyssea. I think you guyz wasted to much time doing dynamis thinking you were doing something useful. Limbus/salvage/Nyzul/assault/sea/sky/hnm/znm could all be done with 3-4 people. Nothing changed. Nothing. Ever since I stopped dynamis in 2006 I did most of my endgame in groups of smaller length than 6-8. A lot was done duo. Everything I can think of range from duoing all salvage NMs, bosses, wierd BCNMS like X's knife, most interesting KSNMs, trioing Nyzul at 75, duoing limbus zones, duoing tier IV pop sets for znms then 6-manning them. The only exception would be Einherjar but this has to be the most casual event in a sense as it required you to run at a fixed time 2x30 minutes a week as opposed to the kind of hardcore event which is dynamis for 2x 3H30 per week.








The good: The game now benefits all players on a universal level. Many people are very content and happy .

By many you probably think you and your team.



It doesn't require large amounts of time or effort for the absolute best. In fact, in its current state, you can obtain an ultimate weapon in a weeks earth time.

No way. facepalm. How many of the posters of this forum have full AF3+2 + level 90 empyreal weapon. Not many of the noobs from BG have this. If something takes a week how come there are not many level 90 weapons yet, considering we are 5 months after the relese of heroes ?





99 Cap: Once the cap is raised, events and such will be built around that if they already are not in place beforehand. Are you satisfied with endgame primarily aimed at the casual base? Do you want more variety of casual endgame events BESIDES Abyssea? Do you want more content that is aimed at low level events, Such as Garrison etc? Do you want more elite content that will include rare drop rates, long spawn windows or a hefty amount of time and patience? Do you want more elite content that does NOT require hefty amount of time/patience/player skill/long spawn windows?

I want 6-man events like nyzul/assault/salvage. Preferably that don't require a static to be efficient. No more abyssea. I'm tiried of the grind and to have to camp my 15' respawn NM against 2-3 others systematically.


What I don't like in abyssea :

* having to counter camp others or being yourself countercamped. Make everything popable already, it's artificially increasing your pain. There are still cc problem for pops NMs, especially at peek times, but it's not as much of a problem.

* too much running around, too much jeuno lag.

* the general grind that go with it. At least for salvage/nyzul you had the time attack aspect which was quite exciting.

For the next event I would like this time attack aspect but preferably with no limited entry requirements like abyssea. My ideal would be 2 hours salvage style instance zones, not extendable that you could try over and over. You get the difficult aspect but not the cockblocking aspect.

[Anewie]

I find it normal that casual players can't get the best gear. At least, they could have almost the best gear as generally, "elite" endgame content provided only marginal gains. You can for instance compare the mini-extension final rewards to salvage gear or salvage gear to Nyzul gear, or even sky.




Nope, they where considered worthless in december with full AF3+2.




This is the typical opinion of "pro abyssea" players that IMO are just recent players that spend time leveling right before abyssea without getting involved in endgame and then when abyssea cam out, they dicovered it.

First, not many old endgamers will do exp parties in abyssea because there is no real point in leveling extra jobs. The game is so unbalance that you require at most 2 DD jobs, 2 mages jobs. More precisely, ninja monk whm are basically the best jobs. Why would you level drg/pup/dnc/ w/e really since those jobs are so much better. Guess what ? Abyssea did not change that, except for nin, because at least mnk and whm were already most wanted jobs for endgame before abyssea. MNK could take anything meleable without TP spamming (unlike SAM/WAR WAR/SAM DD/SAM) while being easily on par and even better in some cases than 2 handed DDs. WHM has always been the best healer in the game and ranked top job in the census since forever.



"it doesn't require a lot of effort to be abosulutely the best"

I'm sorry you are completely wrong. Do you have the best gear ? Honest question. The best gear right now is full AF3+2 with level 90 empyreal weapon, epona's ring plus various marginal upgrades. I'm sorry to tell you it's pretty hardcore. Getting a level 90 weapon requires you to kill ~ 100 Boss types Nms, all of them requiring lesser NM's KI to be poped, and all of them requiring a team to defeat. Getting a full AF3+2 set is not possible solo, it also requires a team and if you want to proc green, it requires specific jobs so a decent size party.

So it does require a lot of effort to achieve this. About as much as a full salvage set I would say, the difference being mainly that you can enter anytime. But as far as dedicated game hours it's the same.

Look, in my old group it took us ~6 months to get a full set like usukane in salvage, running 4x aweek. That is 1 hours of assault, 1 hours of waiting time for gathering and 7 hours per week of salvage : 9H/ week for 26 week is 208 hours.
I have the level 85 vere and this what It cost me : 6 pops were gathered in two game sessions of 6 hours (and not : 6 hours of abyssea I insist cos I know some idiot will jumb at my throat), so 12 hours. 1/3 of the chloris put only 1 bud so that's 10 buds for 10 hours, or 50 chloris buds for 50 hours. Magianing the base mantis took forever camping the NMs, that's about 50 hours. Ulhuadshi is about 4 hours for 6 pops and with the 1/3 of 1 drop rule, that's 10 drops in 4 hours so 20 hours for 50 drops. From personnal exprerience, gathering a pop from dragua takes 15 minutes including running around etc plus 15 minutes kill so 30 minutes per kill, and with the 1/3 rule you need 45 kills to achieve 75 scales, or another 23 hours.

In total a level 90 empyreal weapon cost you (at least) 93 hours of work

I didn't farm AF3 yet but there are a lot of NMs to kill, a lot of seals. I'd say 5 hours per peice or 25 hours total eyeballing.

time for the absolute best, as you said : 118 hours

Seeing as the 208 hours of salvage grants you one set for yourself as well as plenty of pieces for others, while the 118 hours of abyssea gives only an empyreal for yourself, I'd say it's extremely hardcore.


"Almost all content can be done with 3-4 people"

I tend to read a lot of people thinking this was not not the case before abyssea. I think you guyz wasted to much time doing dynamis thinking you were doing something useful. Limbus/salvage/Nyzul/assault/sea/sky/hnm/znm could all be done with 3-4 people. Nothing changed. Nothing. Ever since I stopped dynamis in 2006 I did most of my endgame in groups of smaller length than 6-8. A lot was done duo. Everything I can think of range from duoing all salvage NMs, bosses, wierd BCNMS like X's knife, most interesting KSNMs, trioing Nyzul at 75, duoing limbus zones, duoing tier IV pop sets for znms then 6-manning them. The only exception would be Einherjar but this has to be the most casual event in a sense as it required you to run at a fixed time 2x30 minutes a week as opposed to the kind of hardcore event which is dynamis for 2x 3H30 per week.









By many you probably think you and your team.



No way. facepalm. How many of the posters of this forum have full AF3+2 + level 90 empyreal weapon. Not many of the noobs from BG have this. If something takes a week how come there are not many level 90 weapons yet, considering we are 5 months after the relese of heroes ?





I want 6-man events like nyzul/assault/salvage. Preferably that don't require a static to be efficient. No more abyssea. I'm tiried of the grind and to have to camp my 15' respawn NM against 2-3 others systematically.


What I don't like in abyssea :

* having to counter camp others or being yourself countercamped. Make everything popable already, it's artificially increasing your pain. There are still cc problem for pops NMs, especially at peek times, but it's not as much of a problem.

* too much running around, too much jeuno lag.

* the general grind that go with it. At least for salvage/nyzul you had the time attack aspect which was quite exciting.

For the next event I would like this time attack aspect but preferably with no limited entry requirements like abyssea. My ideal would be 2 hours salvage style instance zones, not extendable that you could try over and over. You get the difficult aspect but not the cockblocking aspect.

I have 2 90 relics and 2 90 empyrean weapons, yes. I completed a lvl 90 ochain through shouts and it took 3 weeks ish. I have have 2 full sets of salvage gear and I would be happy to swiftly tell you, you couldn't be more wrong about comparing abys gear to salvage gear. I have a question now, why don't you post pics of your gear?

And most your post is pretty innaccurate. BlueGartr is THE most respected player forum and if you went on there and said something like this, Islander would eviserate your account. I want to believe you're trolling, but I think you're probably serious...

Also, december 2010 is... in fact, 2010...

>.< I don't even mean to be rude but jeez, what is with all the noobish posts? This is simply just not true...

[MarkovChain]

1) Bg used to be respected now it's a bunch of idiots and the forums are completely dead, proof is that the main activity concerns comments on the posts done on this site. At one point the site were full of arrogant pricks that at least knew wtf they were talking about but nowadays it's all about optimizing the number of NMs per brew and answering "what's better ?" question by invoking the wonderful spreadsheet done by kinematics from .. Allakhazam. Elitism 101 I guess.



2) You got 2 level 90 empyrean and 1 ochain , so what ? Abyssea stated in July 2010. Even if we only consider the release of heroes as a baseline, you managed 2 level 90 weapons in 5 months. You claimed to have 2 full set of salvage gear and I would like to know how much runs it took you because it's definitely not much longer than full AF3+2 + level 90 mythic. Like I said the difference is that you can be in abyssea all day, unlike salvage where you are limited to 100 minutes per day and 1-2 NM per 100 minutes. So If you compare the amount of RL time required to fully complete salvage, yes, it's longer. But If you compared the actual ingame time, no, not much. You only having 2 level 90 relics 5 months after their final release is proof of this. Even though you can work towards them whenever you want, any amount of time you want per day, not just once a day, it took you roughly the same time to get 2 empyreal as me to get full sets to people that transfered to our server. On quetz we had a richissime player transfer to us on october 2008 and he had 4 completed sets on July 2009. Considering the limitation on salvage entry, yes, level 90 weapons are easily comparable as far as amount of work goes.

Think you mad. I bet you also consider yourself casual.

[Trangnai]

My personal Opinion stems from the fact that the game is centered entirely around abyssea. This isn't necessarily bad for end game, besides brews, which i feel should still be 2mil curor.

My Major issues with Abyssea Stem from the ease of play, While I believe that the game should turn and allow for more causal and low man play, I don't think making it able to be soloed/duoed to get most of the good gear is what players should want.

Leeching levels is by far my biggest pet peeve with Abyssea. Thought I do enjoy the fact that outside exp is now double what it once was, it should have been that way from the beginning. I'm sure I am not the only person that doesn't enjoy being the only level 90 in a pt of 18 that can properly hit a mob.

Job Balance has always been an issue, but the biggest hit was Abyssea. The Introduction of Atmas, while adding another demension to the game and making your job class more customizable inside of abyssea. Also Limited rather then buffed jobs. Literally to the point where alot of jobs just saw themselfs knocked off the chart of jobs wanted. An issue i've always had is this game having far to many DD jobs, and not enough tanks/healers.

On an end note I just feel that this game has had some nice improvements, but as a consequence we lost alot of the old game even to the point of just simply exping all the way to most old EG content which i feel in some form should still be relevant and enjoyable for playing on the side or just getting old gear that you may want to use for a job you're leveling or something of the sort, but due to the content no longer being relevant to current end game or just simply exp. I know due to this i've personally lost alot of enjoyment out of the game. I could make a list on changes i would like to see. But I feel that this thread isn't where that belongs.

[Rambus]

Can someone explain the brew thing? because without it it would be very hard to do emp weapons because of the "what is in it for me" mind set. like the 75>80 stage there is no seals and what not so you are suck soloing them unless you have a group that wants to do them for each other. some can be soloed, some are hard like galvoid route vs butus > sobek.

then you have the 85>90 that are hard to fight and are usally brewed. I think wanting 75 drops from that is a bit much as well.

why shoud people be left out because of they can't find help or w/e?

[Anewie]

1) Bg used to be respected now it's a bunch of idiots and the forums are completely dead, proof is that the main activity concerns comments on the posts done on this site. At one point the site were full of arrogant pricks that at least knew wtf they were talking about but nowadays it's all about optimizing the number of NMs per brew and answering "what's better ?" question by invoking the wonderful spreadsheet done by kinematics from .. Allakhazam. Elitism 101 I guess.



2) You got 2 level 90 empyrean and 1 ochain , so what ? Abyssea stated in July 2010. Even if we only consider the release of heroes as a baseline, you managed 2 level 90 weapons in 5 months. You claimed to have 2 full set of salvage gear and I would like to know how much runs it took you because it's definitely not much longer than full AF3+2 + level 90 mythic. Like I said the difference is that you can be in abyssea all day, unlike salvage where you are limited to 100 minutes per day and 1-2 NM per 100 minutes. So If you compare the amount of RL time required to fully complete salvage, yes, it's longer. But If you compared the actual ingame time, no, not much. You only having 2 level 90 relics 5 months after their final release is proof of this. Even though you can work towards them whenever you want, any amount of time you want per day, not just once a day, it took you roughly the same time to get 2 empyreal as me to get full sets to people that transfered to our server. On quetz we had a richissime player transfer to us on october 2008 and he had 4 completed sets on July 2009. Considering the limitation on salvage entry, yes, level 90 weapons are easily comparable as far as amount of work goes.

Think you mad. I bet you also consider yourself casual.

Wow. Although you are correct on some point, you're totally missing the mark. You cannot compare salvage sets with af2+2 BECAUSE you can stay in abyssea all day. That automatically makes it casual. Abyssea is, will always be, and was meant to be casual. Salvage? Absolutley not.

Also, are you comparing.. getting af3+2 to getting a mythic? I'm sorry but you need to seriously think about what you are saying. YOU are comparing very casual and easy events to very elite non casual events/goals.

You're basically sayng if you could stay in salvage all day long, the casual could get 5/5 salvage just as fast and thats retard logic. Sorry, it just is. First of all, if they stay in any event "all day", they aren't casual. I am NOT casual, although I don't play all day. I'm in school and i'm married but because I put forth alot of effort into my goals and I actually try to be a good player and be very much prepared for what i'm doing, I would not be considered casual by most people standards.

Also, what's casual to one group, might not be for another. I have helped with mythics before and as I've stated, I have 2 relics, nothing, absolutley nothing compares to those goals. They are anything but casual/easy. Abyssea is a simple, casual event. Sure, if you wan't af2+3 5/5 you're gonna need to know what you need to do but lets not get carried away with comparing it to the old school endgame. Huge difference and I have put forth the effort towards both. It took me 2 straight years of salvage to get 2 full sets. You couldn't suck either. You HAD to be good, smart and a quick thinker. You had a time limit and you needed to know what to do at the exact moment.


Abyssea? Please. I'm not even going to get into comparing it. As many people have said before, you can afk/not pay attention and people who dont want to do anymore than that? Brew sup. And that is the truth.

I'M not casual sir, Abyssea/Empyreans/AF3 IS. kthxbai

[MarkovChain]

You're basically sayng if you could stay in salvage all day long, the casual could get 5/5 salvage just as fast and thats retard logic.

Obviously, NM having 5% drop rate, and killing one NM requiring 30 min at worst, if you could enter the zones several time a day, you would be able get the drops after 20 kill, so yeah getting a full set would probably be a matter of one or two weeks.


It took me 2 straight years of salvage to get 2 full sets. You couldn't suck either. You HAD to be good

I hope it was 2 years of running once a week because otherwise you deserve a big facepalm. One 35 required ~20 runs on average so 80 runs for a full set since a zone drops 2 of the same. You will get boss drops in the process if you are good. Otherwise I can only laugh at you for claiming to be good by having 2 set after 2 years. Salvage was casual in the sense that you could /shout and get strangers to kill NMs with you. It was hardcore in the sense of effort for a fullset but for individual pieces it was cake. Anyone and their sisters had morrigan's robes and usukane sune-ates.

[Rambus]

I seen 273 deaths of a NM before it droped the 35, it is likey moking the piss poor drop rates then anything.

1 year for 1 35, not worth it. then you add the gil cost on top of it, more not worth it.

I did it nonstop for a year then quit. never seen people get so bent out of shape over drop rates ( in otherwords lead to drama who gets what, not enough to go around).

then you have other people that got missed from savage duping XD

[MarkovChain]

I don't think you ever entered salvage bro, I've done it 4 years 4 times a week ouside of holidays and it's about 5%.

[Rezeak]

That was alot of text to say I'd like harder more challenging content

[Anewie]

Obviously, NM having 5% drop rate, and killing one NM requiring 30 min at worst, if you could enter the zones several time a day, you would be able get the drops after 20 kill, so yeah getting a full set would probably be a matter of one or two weeks.



I hope it was 2 years of running once a week because otherwise you deserve a big facepalm. One 35 required ~20 runs on average so 80 runs for a full set since a zone drops 2 of the same. You will get boss drops in the process if you are good. Otherwise I can only laugh at you for claiming to be good by having 2 set after 2 years. Salvage was casual in the sense that you could /shout and get strangers to kill NMs with you. It was hardcore in the sense of effort for a fullset but for individual pieces it was cake. Anyone and their sisters had morrigan's robes and usukane sune-ates.

Right because that's all salvage required. I'm calling bs on you. Salvage was not just some mindless, "oh hay lets go kill etc" and i'm sorry but I wasn't a gear whore and in my 6 man group, we had other people to tend too. Most people would think a full set per 6months was pretty good back then. We were after all, one of the better known groups.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree but i am a salvage vet and I was part of a very good group. Did I have bad luck with 35s? Yes I did but who didn't? LMAO at everone having morrigan slopes. You are either dillusional or something! Also, If you honestly believe a person could just say. oh hay! I feel like doing salvage! I wanna get enlil's doublet ! I'm gonna shout for 6 people so we can go!

No. Just not. That is ABYSSEA! iN SALVAGE, to even consider shouting, first, you needed a good guide, a skilled person who knew wtf. And you can believe guiding a random group through salvage/cell calling required much more effort than calling procs. If you don't think that, well you just simply, don't know :)

I lead abyssea and salvage and I am telling you, if you think you woulda been able to obtain 5/5 salvage set in a week, if u could stay in salvage as long as you wanted, with a random shout group of 4-6 people, I would say you have a lot to learn. That is not at all the case and there was much more to salvage than there is to abyssea. Fact.

[Karbuncle]

1) Bg used to be respected now it's a bunch of idiots and the forums are completely dead, proof is that the main activity concerns comments on the posts done on this site. At one point the site were full of arrogant pricks that at least knew wtf they were talking about but nowadays it's all about optimizing the number of NMs per brew and answering "what's better ?" question by invoking the wonderful spreadsheet done by kinematics from .. Allakhazam. Elitism 101 I guess.


The reason BG is "dead", Is because "New content" is dead. When a new update is released, where do Most people go for up-to-date Info? BG. FFXIAH usually has Copy > Paste of BG Info. Alla i wouldn't know, stopped visiting there in like 2006 except for Job Forums, which are actually pretty decent. I don't suspect very many people on this forum to ever visit BG because they're probably the same type of people who just "heard a friend of a friend made a thread (without reading the stickies) and got flammed so everyone on BG is an Elitist". Theres a bad Stigma on BG, But its only when people blindly fly to the thread, Make a random topic asking 1-liner questions without reading the stickies, and then get told off. Usually they go off on a whiny tangent about "HURR HURR ALL MY FRANS SAID BG WAS ELITISTS I GUESS THUR RIGHT".

ANYWAY, Eventually after all info of the update is discovered, It reverts back to a casual forum, We talk about random topics, Misc Questions, etc. BG used to be drama filled which is where a lot of the old threads began, Drama just died down, and that's good. Its still a great website for information, a lot of people still contribute a lot to the website in terms of testing/math behind new items/unfamiliar aspects of the game. I can't quite think of the persons name but they have a Drawn-SAM Taru in their Avatar, i think names with a K, does a lot of Testing, very informative.

Even a thread/section now dedicated to discovering previously unknown things, testing previously assumed things, etc.

There are a select for jerks there, but they're mostly in the minimal now, and to be frank, every forum on the internet is rather harsh when it comes to people posting without reading the sticky threads, or asking questions already answered cause they didn't use search function. i visit 2 other non-FFXI Related forums, the Minecraft Forums, and the Capcom-Devroom (For MML3), and trust me when i say they do the exact same thing when people make bad threads about already-answered questions without reading Sticky/Searching.

So yah, Its not BG, its the Internet.

Edit: BTW, calling someone out, and assuming you're better than them is a form of Elitism. So while you sit there and call BG elitist, and act like you're so much better than them, You yourself become an Elitist.

[Anewie]

I'm not arguing with him anymore. Here are the facts that make my argument valid to the point I was making.

@75 to successfully and consistantly clear salvage zones, you had to focus a fair amount. Fair amount meaning quite a bit. You had to be quick, as it's a timed event. You had to know your job very well and play it, very well. You had to listen. You had to work hard. Salvage was not a casual event. The reason you didn't see just anyone in 5/5 salvage sets wasn't JUST because you couldn't enter and stay as long as you want.

Arguing and comparing salvage with abyssea and the the differences between obtaining 5/5 set of usukane to mnk af3 is honestly, no comparison. The reason why are endless and I dont have to argue with you on that.

[Greatguardian]

You guys were arguing with Pchan. At least you know better now, right? :(

[Karbuncle]

You guys were arguing with Pchan. At least you know better now, right? :(

really? He is? ISTG when i saw his posts the first thing i almost said was... "Pchan...?"

[Greatguardian]

really? He is? ISTG when i saw his posts the first thing i almost said was... "Pchan...?"

Yup, definitely Pchan. He even has "not idle" in his sig for good measure.

[Rambus]

Greatguardian told me about this pchan before but i could not find where.

His posts have no real depht hard to replay to, had do to something with march thread or haste..

ah that was the other topic you told me about him always using 2 march, though i forgot the real topic of that thread

yay i found it:


Pchan, aka Pimpchan on Leviathan. He posts here under MarkovChain. The majority of the endgame community has learned not to bother listening to a word he says. This is the only person I know of in the history of BG forums to be banned by popular request. Seriously, I cannot possibly explain how bad an idea it is to respond seriously to Pchan. You can try it if you want, but you'll just regret it later.

click the quote go to thread lol

[MarkovChain]

Right because that's all salvage required. I'm calling bs on you. Salvage was not just some mindless, "oh hay lets go kill etc" and i'm sorry but I wasn't a gear whore and in my 6 man group, we had other people to tend too. Most people would think a full set per 6months was pretty good back then. We were after all, one of the better known groups.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree but i am a salvage vet and I was part of a very good group. Did I have bad luck with 35s? Yes I did but who didn't? LMAO at everone having morrigan slopes. You are either dillusional or something! Also, If you honestly believe a person could just say. oh hay! I feel like doing salvage! I wanna get enlil's doublet ! I'm gonna shout for 6 people so we can go!

No. Just not. That is ABYSSEA! iN SALVAGE, to even consider shouting, first, you needed a good guide, a skilled person who knew wtf. And you can believe guiding a random group through salvage/cell calling required much more effort than calling procs. If you don't think that, well you just simply, don't know :)

I lead abyssea and salvage and I am telling you, if you think you woulda been able to obtain 5/5 salvage set in a week, if u could stay in salvage as long as you wanted, with a random shout group of 4-6 people, I would say you have a lot to learn. That is not at all the case and there was much more to salvage than there is to abyssea. Fact.

Stop giving me lessson bro. My salvage group elaborated a good chunk of salvage strategies and also discovered, for instance, how to pop zhayolm 4F frog (and it dropped) for the first time 10 months after release. 2 years for a full set ? Faceplam. I say 6 months for a set going 4/week and I'm not a gear wore considering everyone had 2-3 fulls sets in the end and only stayed to sell drops to server transfers with capped gil. I know exactly what to expect from each NM. Morrigan slops NM is no different, it's just that the zone itself is harder.

Also for your information, you should have played with JP during salvage era because they did a lot of shout and were successful. Random pickup would easily clear the zone, but they absolutely required specific jobs. So saying noone did salvage shout is wrong.

[MarkovChain]

Edit: BTW, calling someone out, and assuming you're better than them is a form of Elitism. So while you sit there and call BG elitist, and act like you're so much better than them, You yourself become an Elitist.

Don't think you read me right. Noone on BG is elitist anymore. 99% of the posters can't do or understand maths behind their jobs and generally also spread wrong info around (a good example is greatguardian in here http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4671-What-changes-additions-would-you-like-to-see-to-whm?p=77600#post77600 which he prompty posted on BG maybe hoping someone will back him up ?). There are still a few good poster, but they are pretty hard to notice seing as generally the info is hidden into weaird long and linear thread. It's not exactly an encyclopedia of knowlege. They have generally good average knowledge but the top mathologist are not there. Not surprising seing as the game is based on random numbers and probability theory is a pretty hard math part.

[Greatguardian]

Your link's broken, broseph, so I have no idea what you're referring to. I have no problem admitting I'm wrong if I'm actually wrong. It definitely happens sometimes. I'm still a better poster than you are either way.

[Meyi]

When a new update is released, where do Most people go for up-to-date Info? BG.

FFXIclopedia. I never hear anyone ever suggest BG, but always hear people suggest wiki.

[Greatguardian]

FFXIclopedia. I never hear anyone ever suggest BG, but always hear people suggest wiki.

Uh, an absolutely huge chunk of information on Ffxiclopedia around new update time is just copy-pasted from BG without proper source citing =/. BG will almost always have it first, exceptions being the occasional good Alla poster who cross-posts in BG (Tummie, Kinematics).

[Henihhi]

I have to agree, new info usually pops up on BG first then then is funneled to wiki. There are also a lot of wiki posts that are wrong, and are later fixed. Wiki search function is a bit more user friendly though, which is why most people flock there first. But if you read testimonials there, a lot make lolmobs sound like a friggin epic battle when they can be soloed/duoed easily.

[Anewie]

Now that we all know it's pchan.. Yeah. Lol!

[MarkovChain]

Uh, an absolutely huge chunk of information on Ffxiclopedia around new update time is just copy-pasted from BG without proper source citing =/. BG will almost always have it first, exceptions being the occasional good Alla poster who cross-posts in BG (Tummie, Kinematics).

Can you be more accurate on this ? What kind of info are you talking about. It's funny how you don't give exemples. Everything abyssea related is done outside of BG, wake up, it's all about killing NM and observing what they drop . Victory smite have been tested by JP from studio G then reported on wiki by alla posters. Basic game mechanics like pdif is entirely done by JPP, and only recently masamune tried to bring BG to test it again as some forumlae were wrong, but noone tested because BG doesn't care. Noone there can test it, they wouldn't even know how to do it nor test a ws MOD. There was this kirshy data about crit pdif on a exemple, but all it did was confirmed what was done. Only recent info coming from BG would be exact marche values. The entire magic accuracy section was done outside of BG. I think you are an idot really. BG doesn't test shit. I remember this idiot Mojo once posting he wanted to test treasure hunter and all he did was asking other persons on the site to kill mobs for him so he can sum it up in the thread. Facepalm.

[Guitarman]

I remember this idiot Mojo once posting he wanted to test treasure hunter and all he did was asking other persons on the site to kill mobs for him so he can sum it up in the thread. Facepalm.

Because a random brainless post speaks for what an entire forum is about, right?

Facing directions while crafting improves HQ? - BG debunked.
Best items for each slot for, hell, every job in game - BG
Kirschy has tested/proven more things herself than 90% of your precious JP community.

So don't talk about people being an idiot when you have absolutely NO idea what you're talking about.

[Greatguardian]

Can you be more accurate on this ? What kind of info are you talking about. It's funny how you don't give exemples. Everything abyssea related is done outside of BG, wake up, it's all about killing NM and observing what they drop . Victory smite have been tested by JP from studio G then reported on wiki by alla posters. Basic game mechanics like pdif is entirely done by JPP, and only recently masamune tried to bring BG to test it again as some forumlae were wrong, but noone tested because BG doesn't care. Noone there can test it, they wouldn't even know how to do it nor test a ws MOD. There was this kirshy data about crit pdif on a exemple, but all it did was confirmed what was done. Only recent info coming from BG would be exact marche values. The entire magic accuracy section was done outside of BG. I think you are an idot really. BG doesn't test shit. I remember this idiot Mojo once posting he wanted to test treasure hunter and all he did was asking other persons on the site to kill mobs for him so he can sum it up in the thread. Facepalm.

Oh obviously, because pDif has so much to do with information concerning new content on Update day (eg, the type of information we were talking about). A hell of a lot of information on Abyssea, Lights, NMs, Pop requirements, Maps, and the like was reported and compiled in Cairthenn's threads on BG.

You hate BG. We know. They hate you too. Go away.

[MarkovChain]

Because a random brainless post speaks for what an entire forum is about, right?
Facing directions while crafting improves HQ? - BG debunked.

Noone ever took this seriously, except BG apparently.



Best items for each slot for, hell, every job in game - BG


Really ? All I see is people inputing numbers in Kinematics spreadsheet...



Kirschy has tested/proven more things herself than 90% of your precious JP community.

Kirshy tested recast, haste values. That's hardly 90% of the JP community.



So don't talk about people being an idiot when you have absolutely NO idea what you're talking about.

I know what I'm talking about, I've done the entirely magic accuracy tests, spell interruption tests, and 1/3 of the critical hit tiers thread.

[MarkovChain]

A hell of a lot of information on Abyssea, Lights, NMs, Pop requirements, Maps, and the like was reported and compiled in Cairthenn's threads on BG.

You hate BG. We know. They hate you too. Go away.


I believe this is because you only read BG. Don't you think JP don't read BG and figure everything themselves ? You are playing an online game, you know.

[Greatguardian]

I believe this is because you only read BG. Don't you think JP don't read BG and figure everything themselves ? You are playing an online game, you know.

I never said anything about JP. I said Ffxiclopedia has a bad history of blatantly ripping off material directly from BG and not citing the source. Do they do this to other sites too? I'm sure they do. Never said they didn't. You're just trying to pick a fight.

[MarkovChain]

FFXIclopedia is the only source of knowlege about game mechanics and saying the pages are copy pasta from BG is retardation. A lot of pages link their source and discussion is often done within the "discussion" section of the page, after which the main page is edited in a clear way. Since you don't seem to be used to checking this side of the pages I'll suggest you to visit the pdif wiki page and visit the corresponding "talk" here (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Talk:Level_Correction_Function_and_pDIF). You will see a lot of maths and tecnical considreation as well as sources of testing.

[Greatguardian]

FFXIclopedia is the only source of knowlege about game mechanics and saying the pages are copy pasta from BG is retardation. A lot of pages link their source and discussion is often done within the "discussion" section of the page, after which the main page is edited in a clear way. Since you don't seem to be used to checking this side of the pages I'll suggest you to visit the pdif wiki page and visit the corresponding "talk" here (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Talk:Level_Correction_Function_and_pDIF). You will see a lot of maths and tecnical considreation as well as sources of testing.

Are you really this - ... never mind, another rhetorical question. Both myself and the person I was responding to were speaking very specifically within the context of new content. Neither of us said a damn thing about game mechanics info till you decided to spew your Anti-BG ragefest in my direction. Gotta love that Pchan strawman.

[Anewie]

Pchan- Get the hell out of my thread.

Go troll somewhere else. NO ONE likes you. You're a universal retard known accross all servers. Spare my thread please.

Thx^^