Replace Nation rank in search with Mastery rank

[radar]

When you search for players, it shows the nation and rank of all players.

Windurst rank 1-10
Bastok rank 1-10
San'doria rank 1-10

This was good at the time, because it allowed you to see other players that needed the same missions you were stuck on. It serves no purpose in 2026.

If you changed it so the number instead shows modern player Mastery Rank it would be far more useful and encourage players to boost their master rank, which is an extensive completionist system. The only thing lacking, it the ability to show off that rank (and so there is little incentive to do it)

The graphics can stay the same, to still show the nation but change the number to Mastery Rank.

https://i.ibb.co/8DPXZcSk/rank.jpg

This appears to be fairly simply to do, no graphics changes are needed in the UI since it uses the current ones. The only change would be the number being fed to the UI comes from a different place, instead of nation rank it shows mastery rank.

[Alhanelem]

which is an extensive completionist system.It only really is because the players turned it into one. Its original purpose was to help new players in the assist channel identify how experienced the mentors were.

[radar]

They didn't put all that effort into it just for that, barely anyone even uses mentor chat anyway.

Players like to show off accomplishments, putting the rank in search will greatly incentivize people to engage with it and so give them something to do. It even goes upto 10. They put the time to make the base system, and don't properly show it off and so barely anyone does it.

[Alhanelem]

They didn't put all that effort into it just for that, barely anyone even uses mentor chat anyway.I think you're overstating the "effort" that went into this. While it's not QUITE that simple (not every title carries the same value apparently), it's largely just a tabulation of the number of titles you've earned. It also isn't any specific ones, it's literally all (or almost all, unclear if the Ballista titles which can only be retained temporarily count?).



They put the time to make the base system, and don't properly show it off and so barely anyone does it. I personally don't want it shown off. As I said and still argue, it wasn't meant as an "achievement system;" if they really wanted to do achievements, they'd do achievements (and for the record, when the game was on xbox 360, there were actual achievements for that platform- no real reason they can't do it)

I think it's better right now that most people don't care about it. I don't WANT it to be something everyone cares about, because then you're judging people on something that isn't really even that important or accurately reflects your accomplishments. The mastery rank is incredibly vague.

I've got thousands and thousands of hours in this game like pretty much anyone who posts here, and my mastery rank is 4 when I last checked. This isn't because I'm bad at the game or haven't done a lot of content, it's primarily because I don't do things just for the sake of doing things- i do things that advance my character by improving the jobs I play (the only real exception is Ballista but I don't really get to do that often anymore).

So no, I don't want to "show off" my mastery rank or have it being used as a condition in searches. A low mastery rank doesn't in any way indicate player ability or knowledge. And I don't want to go /anon either, so it would need its own toggle option.

[Catmato]

When you search for players, it shows the nation and rank of all players.

Windurst rank 1-10
Bastok rank 1-10
San'doria rank 1-10

This was good at the time, because it allowed you to see other players that needed the same missions you were stuck on. It serves no purpose in 2026.

If you changed it so the number instead shows modern player Mastery Rank it would be far more useful and encourage players to boost their master rank, which is an extensive completionist system. The only thing lacking, it the ability to show off that rank (and so there is little incentive to do it)

The graphics can stay the same, to still show the nation but change the number to Mastery Rank.

https://i.ibb.co/8DPXZcSk/rank.jpg

This appears to be fairly simply to do, no graphics changes are needed in the UI since it uses the current ones. The only change would be the number being fed to the UI comes from a different place, instead of nation rank it shows mastery rank.

I agree with this. This is a good idea. SE, please do this.

[radar]

I personally don't want it shown off.

Most mmorpgs players do because it's human nature to want to show off accomplishments, showing it off in this way will encourage far more people to do more content in the game.

Hiding it as it currently is, means way less players engage with it.

In terms of player skill and being judged, that's not what it is. This is an accomplishment system. /check does what you're talking about.

[Alhanelem]

Most mmorpgs players do because it's human nature to want to show off accomplishments,A single number condensing everything does not really do a very good job of showing off accomplishments. Unless it's completely maxed out (which very few have done) you don't know exactly the things they did and didn't do.

in FFXIV, I can proudly display a title on my character based on my performance in a past PvP compeition, as an example, among many other things.. That's a concrete achievement I can display and be proud of. Mastery Rank doesn't do that, not even close. FFXI's current systems can't do this, aside from the title display, but unlike FFXIV later where you can just choose a title to display, in XI your title constantly changes when you do stuff.



In terms of player skill and being judged, that's not what it is. This is an accomplishment system. /check does what you're talking about. If this was implemented I see it purely being used to judge people, rather than as a flex: "Sorry your mastery rank is too low you can't join our party." or "Mastery rank 8+ ONRY"

City and Mission rank is something you can search by, because (at least, at one time, as you said) , a useful metric to search by, finding people with the same nation to do missions, etc.

Mastery rank is not a useful thing to search for players by. The search menu is not intended as a place to display accomplishments, it only does so indirectly by you seeing people's job levels etc- but that's criteria you may actually want to search for.

I don't think an achievement system in XI would be a bad thing, but we need a REAL achievement system, not this single number that tells us nothing.



Hiding it as it currently is, means way less players engage with it.Good. I don't want players to engage with it. Give us a proper achievement system instead. Recognize specific accomplishments, not condense your life in FFXI to a single digit number. Mastery Rank is an extremely poor and inadequate substitute for a real achievement system with clear goals and accomplishments to tackle and put on display.

At its very best, mastery rank is a very, very loose completion percentage. It is something that could (and maybe should) be derived from an achievement system. But as an achievement system itself, it fails hard.

[Loraiine]

I would like this.

[Alhanelem]

I would like a proper achievement system, and Mastery Rank ain't it.

[nixRidge]

Yes, I'd love an achievement system too. I think they could tie some fun, helpful but not game-breaking rewards to it! Milestones like "Defeat the Shadow Lord", then receive an amount of elemental crystals or perhaps even XP/CP.
Or even achievements that increase your max merit cap by 1 as a reward! Just to make it a tiny bit less tedious to max out that cap.

[Teraniku]

They technically did have Achievements in the XBox 360 era, Kind of wish they'd port that over to Steam, but because it takes time & Money probably way low on the priority list. IIRC to unlock XBox Achivements you had to go see a guy in Tavnazian Safehold.

[radar]

The point is this already exists, and it works to get people to do content to work on increasing the number.

This has been proven to work and be a good business model in other games like Warframe (where many plaeyrs are only still playing to increase their Mlev number), they just need to allow players to see the achievement or they will not chase it.

I don't get why they would add this entire system, and not allow players to properly show it off. A major part of human psychology is the desire to climb the social ladder, and this applies in online worlds too.

The original developers knew how this all worked, they spent a lot of time adding good looking gear, +1 white border stuff etc.

[Alhanelem]

The point is this already exists, and it works to get people to do content to work on increasing the number.It really doesn't have much of an effect on that, because everything is just one-and-done when it comes to this.

As others suggested, leveraging the achievement system that actually likely still exists even though Xbox360 service ended many years ago would be a far better way to both encourage people to do things and create a good way of flexing your accomplishments. A vague number that doesn't care which content you do, how much you do it or anything else is really not a great mechanism for this. Mastery Rank is literally the most bare bones an "achievement system" could possibly be.

I'm not against having an achievement system, but I am against representing Mastery Rank as one, and I'm against having it show up in searches because people WILL use it to filter players.

If they wanted to implement something more like what FFXIV or WoW or many other games have been doing, I'd be down for that. Mastery Rank, on the other hand is garbage.

[newLM]

can anyone help me with opening the Written in the Stars door on server leviathan ... name is speedyaf .. trying to find someone with the portal charm to open the door

disregard. i got someone to open the door

[radar]

Also add a headpiece for attaining rank 10, in a similar way to Maats cap back in the day.

https://i.ibb.co/pBG25bbN/blue-mlev-hat.jpg

[Alhanelem]

yeah no. isn't the reward supposed to be that number on your profile?

A proper system though would enable them to give out rewards for completing all sorts of specific goals. That's what we need. Instead of asking to expand mastery rank you should be asking for a true achievement system like the rest of the gaming universe uses. That would go way further to incentivizing people to do more and different contents for the bragging rights.

Now i understand, from the context of "this is what we have and we probably won't get anything better," it makes sense. But given that the game even supported xbox achievements at one point, I think it isn't reasonable for us to ask them to do us one better in this case.

[radar]

FFXI:

A game with a mass myriad of content, most of which is out of date and that has no real reason to do in 2026, that struggles to keep people entertained due to a very underfunded dev team.

A mastery /hierarchy system:

A system that locks into that mass myriad of content, giving it a new purpose. The value of which is based on prestige, and prestige is only activated if you can show off. The title, the gear, the NUMBER is the driver of actions because it bestows prestige.

MMO players are incredibly invested in prestige, hierarchy systems (this is why cash shop items make so much money)

The number only has value if you can show it off to others.

If you cannot show it off, then it has far less value and so is not a driver of actions.

They made a mastery system, which is very involved and complex and they do not properly show it off so only the most hardcore people currently do it.

For instance, "why should I do this quest, the only reward is 50 gil"
Well now it slightly boosts your master rank, so lots of people will start to do that quest.

I played Warframe for years, the entire game is founded around the mastery rank system like this. Where players to things that don't matter just to boost the number.

[Dragoy]

I never really wanted to, nor do I still want to, show off any numbers, and I even hide the three stars (well they kinda look annoying more than anything, which is more why to hide them), but then they went and introduced the equipment that scales on this particular number... so I suppose it must now go up from what I had before (just 7).

Well, I do am a slightly bit of a completionist, so I'm still mainly doing it because of that.

Nation rank I think for a lot of people only gues up to 6, but I have viewed it as a some kind of an indicator for a new player if they are below that, so it has been useful for that.

Mastery, I think, should be a separate thing, if a thing at all.

[radar]

Most people like these things, it's part of the human condition.

I'm suggesting this change, because it will give people a lot of things to keep them busy. For a social status system to work, there has to be proper signalling of it.

[Dragoy]

Most people like these things, it's part of the human condition.

I'm suggesting this change, because it will give people a lot of things to keep them busy. For a social status system to work, there has to be proper signalling of it.

Fer sure!

In general I can't really argue against all that. :]

Also not against the change as suggested, really, but would not like to lose the ability to see the rank in some way also, even if the usefulness is of minor use.

[radar]

I remember in the first few years of the game, rank 10 was a big status thing and others respected it.

It was very common to hear "get that rank 10" when looking for party members for things.

If it was upto me, the rank up animation would also fire off when you get mastery rank ups too.

[Dragoy]

It is a fun animation.

Definitely much more so than the "new challenge" every so and so hour...

A very good idea for it even, since one will not otherwise notice it if they don't check their stats window... which I now need to remember to do at all times...

Would be a nice "bikkuri event".

[Alhanelem]

It's too bad they decided to stop there, as there are textures/animations in the data files going all the way up to rank 15 for each nation.

[nixRidge]

It's not too late. They'll just have to make use of the last five ranks with a new expansion!


(gigglesnort)