The Decline of FFXI: Forums, Gameplay and Nostalgia

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Originally Posted by Supersun

I expect some of these 6 man new BCNM fights to be plenty difficult (or course this is all meaningless if there aren't ample rewards behind them).

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And it's exactly this mindset that is becoming a major problem for MMO's in general.

Now instead of the reward being one of teamwork and accomplishment (intangible things) to down a difficult boss, has turned into a cry out for bigger, better, cooler looking equipment/accessories. True satisfaction seems to be the real problem. Which is why I will always lean towards the side of the "Hardcore Players". At least some of them have a sense of what it means to achieve something for themselves and teammates, rather than have it handed to them on a silver platter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to completely get rid of bosses dropping "phat lewt", just simply pointing out where the majority of the focus has shifted towards.

It's sad to see, that such things are fading from the real world and now the game world. But things like teamwork and friendship was the idea from Square, when they decided to let the Japanese and English Speaking players play on the same servers. Noble actions like this, hold much more reward than any item ever could.

Get real, people have always only done content if they can see a benefit in it (or a benefit to one of their friends). Name one NM which drops nothing but garbage that anyone will hunt down regularly just for fun.

That doesn't devalue friendship and teamwork - but the game and every game like it is focused around friendship and teamwork in a way that revolves around achieving goals.

The reason why people don't do old content like Assault and campaign much anymore is the reward to effort ratio is too low compared to other things people could be doing.

Most of us play to have fun, but the fun is not just being with friends - what makes it epic is achieving goals.

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Now instead of the reward being one of teamwork and accomplishment (intangible things) to down a difficult boss, has turned into a cry out for bigger, better, cooler looking equipment/accessories. True satisfaction seems to be the real problem. Which is why I will always lean towards the side of the "Hardcore Players". At least some of them have a sense of what it means to achieve something for themselves and teammates, rather than have it handed to them on a silver platter.

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So these "hardcore" players pre-Abyssea would go and kill Vrtra and Jormungand regularly right? After all, these two fights are the epitome of "challenging fight, terrible reward". Were unclaimed Vrtras or Jorms a rare sight on any server, ever?

The focus and the driving motivation between any event in FFXI has always been the reward at the end. Of course you grow as a team and there is a great sense of satisfaction if you vanquish a particularly difficult adversary, but these are secondary bonuses. Without good rewards, nobody wants to do these fights and this is not a phenomenon that has suddenly occurred with the advent of Abyssea.

On a side note with Shinryu, I would hate this fight so much if it wasn't brewable. The droprates on the gear are ridiculous and though my record is an anomaly, requiring 6 people to engage in a challenging BC all for a tiny shot at a good piece of gear which they will all want is absolutely sadistic game design. I refuse to believe SE designed Shinryu with anything but mass brewing in mind. Personally, don't get me wrong - I'd prefer they made him unbrewable and instead you get a choice of his gear each time you kill him, but hey.

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Originally Posted by RaenRyong

So these "hardcore" players pre-Abyssea would go and kill Vrtra and Jormungand regularly right?

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You're picking out part of my post and not referring to other things I said in it. So I'll reiterate.

I'm not saying to completely get rid of bosses dropping "phat lewt", just simply pointing out where the majority of the focus has shifted towards.

It's not my fault that SE decided to sweep the current problems under the rug, regarding various NM's, spawn timers and whatever crap is in their drop table. What I AM saying, is that they decided to run away from solving the problems they already had, and create more with Abyssea. And I understand that you don't see Abyssea as a problem, but some of us do. Just because you don't give a $#!% about DEPTH and DYNAMICS, doesn't mean that others share similar thoughts.

Telling us hogwash such as "If you want more difficulty, then go fight Shinryu without a brew", implies that we're completely retarded. The fact that brew is even available, means that bosses are just going to be cakewalk, and why WOULDN'T we take advantage of this?

But realize this. That everyone who quit because they figured out Abyssea is just a farm fest for casual "mall-rats", is not bothering with these forums. They know it's just people crying to the Dev's, about how much faster/easier things should be obtained/accomplished.

I'm finding this interesting. Like how every generation sees a distant time as a golden era were things had more meaning or value, when in fact its not the case.

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Originally Posted by Akujima

But realize this. That everyone who quit because they figured out Abyssea is just a farm fest for casual "mall-rats", is not bothering with these forums. They know it's just people crying to the Dev's, about how much faster/easier things should be obtained/accomplished.

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It's the same with most of the casuals, there's only a slight few who actually post in a forum compared to those that view it in the first place, and there are even less people who care about these forums at all rather than just stay in the game.

Yeah, there are a lot of people who quit because of abyssea and level cap raise. But there are a CRAP TON MORE that started playing again because of all this new wondrous stuff. And then there's always the declining rate at which FFXI loses players because it's a really old game, and has freaking horrible advertising so there's not much influx of new players.

After reading over several pages and doing my best to ignore any derailments from the original post I've come up with this to say and/or add in response to the initial posting.

In regards to the forums being a pure distraction to nullify or pacify players:
While there is no doubt that many, if not all, of the design elements directly in place within FFXI are there solely for the purpose of creating longer play times and extending user subscription, I sincerely doubt SE is conspiring against us to distract us from focusing on the things a lot of posters claim aren't getting done or simply brushed aside.

I very truly believe that the new heads of the development team are desperately looking into every single way possible to extend the life and maintain the subscriber base of FFXI. Its no secret how poorly FFXIV is doing, but what most people also aren't aware of, Square-Enix as a whole, while still incredibly more fiscally capable and stable than a lot of developers, is currently at an all time low in their stocks. Now, that's not to say they're dying, but they reported earning a meager 12% of their projected earnings during the last fiscal year. Even with just 100k subscribers, far far under FFXI's actual subscriber numbers, SE is still earning approximately 1-1.5 million in gross profit every month. That said, FFXI is a staple of income for the company, the last thing they would ever do is neglect, ignore or devalue its importance.


Secondly, regarding the loss of nostalgia and the changing face of FFXI's battle systems:
The OP stated here:

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Originally Posted by Akujima

Slowly and slowly, the colorful battle system, (that in my opinion made FFXI the classic it is) is slowly vanishing, in favor of the "solo" mindset. You can solo to 90, you can solo Abyssea, you can solo so many things now... And that's great and all, but it really takes away from what makes a good online RPG...

Not to mention how far the difficulty level has decreased or changed. The mobs and bosses are ALOT easier. The only difficulty now is just fighting with one another on who gets to pop what first. I also hear there is a new coming idea, to make an Abyssea like scenario outside of Abyssea. Again only decreasing the difficulty level and adding further imbalance to jobs more and more.

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Now, I can fully sympathize with where the OP is coming from. Having joined six months before the Treasures of Aht Urgan expansion came out I am all to familiar with the way things used to be. But, on that exact same note, I am all to familiar with the way things used to be.

Try not to misunderstand me, I loved the old methods, but they were and are, redundant within the current world of FFXI. I've leveled just about every job at one time or another and played each type of party role and enjoyed just about all of them. The one thing that always stood out to me though was that while the system was enjoyable, its effort vs. reward ratio was always so defeating. The system frequently punished players that didn't want to fit into the standard preset roles the community had established as the right way or the only way in their eyes. This was of course not an issue with the community so much as the result of an unbalanced job system. There were and are to many overlapping roles.

Jobs didn't stand apart from each other enough to the point where certain jobs were ignored or forsaken in favor of easier use applications. The most prevalent example of this was post the ToAU expansion when Black Mage suddenly became a useless job as of level 55 because of the nature of the most commonly preyed on enemies. But in converse, the BLM job was highly coveted in end game scenarios, both pressuring and punishing players that wanted to level BLM.

The old system was interesting and well thought out, but in my opinion it was far from nostalgia worthy with its limitations on user friendliness.


Which brings me to the first part of the OP's conclusion:

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Originally Posted by Akujima

What I'm saying is. Actually listen to peoples ideas. Give us FUN things, not just empty promises and false hopes. Give us a difficulty level where we feel a sense of accomplishment and teamwork after downing a boss, or completing a tough quest. Give us LESS of this annoying grind and bland tasteless jobs that play very similar to one another.

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Fun things are so subjective. The best example I can offer to the futility of adding in fun things are the endless cycle of seasonal events. No doubt at one time or another any player that's been subscribing for more than a year has already participated in and taken to completion every seasonal event that they felt had use to them. But, what do we do when these events come around the next time? How many of us find the repetition of these at one time new and fun events to still hold any level of fun or entertainment at all?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new content, but adding in fun merely for the sake of fun accomplishes only a small respite in the monotony of the repetition that a MMO really is. Which really harks back to the youtube video the OP linked to. Adding in content for content's sake is just that. These fun things are more time spending distractions, not actually fun things. Again, I'm not against more, I just don't feel the need of adding in things that entertain outweigh the need of fixing the numerous things that still need balancing.


And now to the final point made:

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Originally Posted by Akujima

Do away with this bitter competition between players, and give us what we felt back when FFXI first came out... A lasting colorful world, where the little things are important too.

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Any observations about RMT aside, competition has always been a part of FFXI. I have friends that recall clearly the horrors of camping Valkurm Emperor against a hoard of dozens of competing players. While I'll eagerly admit that the competition factor of the game is often one of its most demoralizing and rage quit inducing stresses, its also one of the few things that rewarded the player with an intense sense of personal accomplishment. I still feverishly recall my first victory over a highly camped notorious monster, the adrenaline thundering through my veins both from the battle that was dangerous and the thrill of barely out claiming the various other campers left me feeling drained but extremely excited and very happy afterward.

There's nothing wrong with competition, only with poor competitors. Small subtle changes to the existing systems, friendly discussion with your competition and a cool reasonable response to being out-anything'd can make one's game play significantly better.

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In closing I share one of my favorite quotes on nostalgia:
"People seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around."

I hated the game so much that I continued to play it back then. Got it.

Whereas I liked the game so much, I put up with really irritating crap for a long time. I can't say I miss a lot of it.

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Originally Posted by Akujima

I'm not saying to completely get rid of bosses dropping "phat lewt", just simply pointing out where the majority of the focus has shifted towards.

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I've been in the end game scene since 2004. The majority of the focus of high level players has always, without wavering, been "phat lewt". If something did not drop something useful people would not fight it, ever.

The only reason most people did Zilart missions was sky access. Even now there are people who have not finished off the mission line because there isn't any point beyond the earring.

I'm not sure what game you are remembering, but it is not Final Fantasy XI.