Free hand-outs?

I honestly forget to do it most the time b/c things so luck based seem a waste of time to me :( [In regards to dials]

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Originally Posted by Stompa

You are joking obviously when you say "there is currency washing ashore so lets give away free RME weapons in Gobby dials" [paraphrased]. You know as well as I do that farming a RME involves a lot of effort, many thousands of currency items.

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Of course I was joking about the RME Gobby dial, it was a play on your words to show you how your argument in favor of all these freebies can be applied to RME.

And no, farming RME does not involve a lot of effort, not for everyone - they can be bought. How or where the players get that gil is another story and of no consequence to the topic at hand, but someone with 33+ characters can easily accumulate that gil just by logging in once a day. ;)

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So what I'm saying is that many of us have farmed intensively for gear, pre ilvl, and seen it reduced to worthless junk overnight. That is why I can't join you in a big QQ session because some Abjurations or Unity weapons that took you a few weeks to farm, have dropped randomly to other players in lucky (and unusual) Gobby dial rolls.

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You are choosing to focus on something that isn't there. There is no point mourning the loss of outdated gear and unless I was possessed while typing up a response I don't think I so much as implied that here.

I'm against the idea of giving away what can be considered end game gear, namely Escha and UNM stuff, because we should all be playing to earn that gear, and when I say playing I don't mean scrolling down a list of goblin dials. The more of that gear and those items that people are receiving as freebies the less time we are collectively spending towards having fun earning it, whether in parties or solo. Why spend the time crafting new zones and new content for us to take part in if we're just going to sit in town and open goblin chests that hand us rewards from those very zones?

Yes, as noted in this thread, some people will be made more aware of UNM gear they didn't know existed and spend time going to take part in that content, but let's be honest here, the number of people who didn't already know Unity Wanted Battles existed are either completely anti-social and/or spend a very little amount of time actually playing - there aren't too many of them. If awareness is an issue, why isn't the game doing more to direct new players to Records of Eminence?

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Your Abjuration gear is still 119 lvl, still useful. Why should you feel sad that other people got this gear by being lucky.

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I don't - see the 13th post in this thread - it's about these gifts taking away from the game and the time we spend with it. If, like Pixela, you are of the opinion that spending over an hour a day opening goblin chests is more fun to you than actually stepping out of town and playing the game then something is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

I don't - see the 13th post in this thread - it's about these gifts taking away from the game and the time we spend with it. If, like Pixela, you are of the opinion that spending over an hour a day opening goblin chests is more fun to you than actually stepping out of town and playing the game then something is wrong.

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If you have a limited amount of time to play, an argument can be made that your time probably is best spent conversing with the daily reward NPC. Almost anything else you do in-game will still be there tomorrow and the day after. But your daily reward can only be obtained on that day. Limited-time availability is one of the primary reasons Ambuscade was so overcrowded. And the reason why weekly and monthly campaigns have such a significant effect on what we choose to do on a given day.

Besides, people like getting free stuff that has a small chance of being good. You mean to tell me that you've never gotten excited for a Mog Bonanza? For a lot of people the anticipation of a possible reward is pleasurable. Having something lucky happen to you feels great, regardless of whether you "earned" it. You might be the abnormal one here.

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Originally Posted by detlef

Besides, people like getting free stuff that has a small chance of being good. You mean to tell me that you've never gotten excited for a Mog Bonanza? For a lot of people the anticipation of a possible reward is pleasurable. Having something lucky happen to you feels great, regardless of whether you "earned" it. You might be the abnormal one here.

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This guy acts like if he found a twenty dollar bill he'd throw it in the garbage because he didn't earn it.

The rest of us are going to smile and buy a friend pizza and beer.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

That doesn't quite answer the question, Stompa.

Some players spent months farming the items we're getting for free from the gobbie dials. Given your words about handing out RMEs, would you think it was safe to assume those players aren't happy either?

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I spent 12 months making my relic back when you did Dynamis in alliances twice a week and you had to sponsor runs, now you can solo them in a week. Things change, deal with it and stop worrying about others and worry about yourself. If you play this game for prestige then you're about 5 years out of date.

This isn't even anything new, I really don't get the complaining. Did you also hate the mog lottery that gave you 100 million gil 4 years ago?

There is no reason at all why it's bad, it's great and I hope they keep doing it.

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Originally Posted by detlef

If you have a limited amount of time to play, an argument can be made that your time probably is best spent conversing with the daily reward NPC. Almost anything else you do in-game will still be there tomorrow and the day after. But your daily reward can only be obtained on that day. Limited-time availability is one of the primary reasons Ambuscade was so overcrowded. And the reason why weekly and monthly campaigns have such a significant effect on what we choose to do on a given day.

Besides, people like getting free stuff that has a small chance of being good. You mean to tell me that you've never gotten excited for a Mog Bonanza? For a lot of people the anticipation of a possible reward is pleasurable. Having something lucky happen to you feels great, regardless of whether you "earned" it. You might be the abnormal one here.

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I put the Mog Bonanza in the same boat, except that one actually drains up to 10 of your inventory slots for a month or so. Given the interest shown in the Mounts thread, the usefulness of Trusts at this stage in the game, many of which were only available for a limited time, and the amount of people running around in goofy costumes using style lock I fallback to what I said earlier: you can provide a great number of random rewards via the goblin chests without taking a sledgehammer to FFXI's kneecaps.

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Originally Posted by Olor

This guy acts like if he found a twenty dollar bill he'd throw it in the garbage because he didn't earn it.

The rest of us are going to smile and buy a friend pizza and beer.

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Or you could go back to this:

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

I don't WANT to be given anything for free, I want to earn it, but let's be frank here, I'll spend the 10 seconds or so to check the goblin chest every time I login for my shot at millions of gil or useful piece of gear just like you.

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In which case a closer analogy would be that you're begging for the $20. I take it begrudgingly.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

I spent 12 months making my relic back when you did Dynamis in alliances twice a week and you had to sponsor runs, now you can solo them in a week. Things change, deal with it and stop worrying about others and worry about yourself. If you play this game for prestige then you're about 5 years out of date.

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Careful, the faults and personality traits we can’t stand in other people are often traits of our own personality.

Ok, it's high time to step away from that soap box you're standing on. You induldge in the same "sin" as the rest of us, those are your own words.
No, don't give us this "I'm doing this against my will" speech, the game won't stop you from playing it if you don't open your box or if you do not spend your log in points and we're not forcing you either.

Like us, you choose to open the box, you choose to spend the log in points and you choose to participate in Bonanza.
You're not against it, and now there's nothing left to convince us that you are. You're the same as us, a gambler, and it's time that you accept that fact.

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Originally Posted by Shirai

Like us, you choose to open the box, you choose to spend the log in points and you choose to participate in Bonanza.
You're not against it, and now there's nothing left to convince us that you are. You're the same as us, a gambler, and it's time that you accept that fact.

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The difference is that some of you are claiming it is THE reason you are still playing. In case you aren't aware of it yet, many of us are playing on servers that look more like ghost towns for most of the day and making it a point to attract people who have no interest taking part in the world isn't helping.

So what?! If that is the reason they're still playing, let them!
They are also part of the reason that you and them and me are still able to play and enjoy this game. It's also their subscription that keeps this game going.

And if you think your world is so bad, move to a more populated one. It's what all the cool kids do these days.

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All of the UNM materials have crashed hard in price, so it does effect the economy. Look at that person who spends a lot of RL money and time with all those mules just to do this campaign lol. I can't believe people would do that just for UNM, you realize how easy to kill most of these are?

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If you're worried about the economy, I hope you extend your opposition to double accolades, double unity coffer drops, double personal loot from Escha NMs, and double personal REM drops from high tier battlefields. Those have done more to affect the prices of highly coveted consumables than any once-per-day freebie box ever would.

With the fervor in this thread, as well as the name, you'd think thread was about social welfare programs or something.

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Originally Posted by Shirai

So what?! If that is the reason they're still playing, let them!
They are also part of the reason that you and them and me are still able to play and enjoy this game. It's also their subscription that keeps this game going.

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You think casual players paying for stuff to be handed to them are what's keeping the game alive? Interesting.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

You think casual players paying for stuff to be handed to them are what's keeping the game alive? Interesting.

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Heh every one of your posts is dripping with condescension. Is that intentional?

Unity drops are like what, 3rd tier and dropping? I had some misgivings with the abjuration dial, but in the end body drops were far more uncommon so really it was just a nice treat for a handful of lucky players. Those free dark matter augments probably ruined the game in your eyes.

I'm not understanding who is actually hurt. Is there a better argument than some casual getting a Jovian Body abjuration won't join a Pakecet shout group?

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

You think casual players paying for stuff to be handed to them are what's keeping the game alive? Interesting.

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It's amusing you think it's not, as a now filthy casual I spend more on this game than you in a month by a large margin (my level 1 alts that exist purely for gobbie boxes alone probably put more money into the game than you do with your min/maxed characters). Also it's worth keeping in mind that with my massive amount of characters all getting "hand outs" I still don't have even 1 single set of abjurations complete or even 1/10th of UNM drops I want (and I lose no sleep over that fact either). What keeps this game alive and getting updates is money, updates are what keep people playing. Nobody is going to get all the items they want from hand-outs, the only way you'll do that is by doing the content and if your friends are all capped out it's because of double drops which you take full advantage of and not gob events.

The "hand outs" are for fun, little more than that. You can't gear a character with any of them and you sure ain't capping out, if I can't with my little army of characters than nobody can (outside of immense luck).

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Originally Posted by detlef

Those free dark matter augments probably ruined the game in your eyes.

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Viewing the issue in black and white as you just did there is why you have trouble understanding the other side of the argument.

This isn't about one person (casual or otherwise), one drop or one specific type of content. It's thousands of items given away daily, affecting everyone to some degree, both positively and negatively, like the brief examples I mentioned earlier in the thread.

If those goblin NPCs were handing items from outdated content no one plays anymore or crafted gear no one bothers making anymore that's one thing, but they've been handing out rewards from the newest areas of the game. Ask yourself, does Final Fantasy XI need to be doing this to keep its subscriber numbers up? If the answer is yes, why? I'm genuinely interested in your response.

This topic brings to mind the old proverb about giving a man a fish vs teaching him how to catch it. The dev team is giving us all a fish (or chunk of rock salt) every day.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

It's amusing you think it's not, as a now filthy casual I spend more on this game than you in a month by a large margin (my level 1 alts that exist purely for gobbie boxes alone probably put more money into the game than you do with your min/maxed characters). Also it's worth keeping in mind that with my massive amount of characters all getting "hand outs" I still don't have even 1 single set of abjurations complete or even 1/10th of UNM drops I want (and I lose no sleep over that fact either). What keeps this game alive and getting updates is money, updates are what keep people playing. Nobody is going to get all the items they want from hand-outs, the only way you'll do that is by doing the content and if your friends are all capped out it's because of double drops which you take full advantage of and not gob events.

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Again, black and white - you assume that if you get all the gear you want from the goblin dials then it has a negative impact on the game, but if you only get a select few pieces it has no impact whatsoever.

This isn't about me vs you either (re: money spent). This game only exists today because of the millions of players that it has attracted over its almost 14 year existence. While the population numbers today are a far cry from where they once were, it's probably safe to say the vast majority of active accounts are played by people who would continue playing even if the hand outs came to an end.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Again, black and white - you assume that if you get all the gear you want from the goblin dials then it has a negative impact on the game, but if you only get a select few pieces it has no impact whatsoever.

This isn't about me vs you either (re: money spent). This game only exists today because of the millions of players that it has attracted over its almost 14 year existence. While the population numbers today are a far cry from where they once were, it's probably safe to say the vast majority of active accounts are played by people who would continue playing even if the hand outs came to an end.

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Of course but ending the events would lead to a large drop in profits, or are you saying ending them would usher in a large wave of new players?

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Viewing the issue in black and white as you just did there is why you have trouble understanding the other side of the argument.

This isn't about one person (casual or otherwise), one drop or one specific type of content. It's thousands of items given away daily, affecting everyone to some degree, both positively and negatively, like the brief examples I mentioned earlier in the thread.

If those goblin NPCs were handing items from outdated content no one plays anymore or crafted gear no one bothers making anymore that's one thing, but they've been handing out rewards from the newest areas of the game. Ask yourself, does Final Fantasy XI need to be doing this to keep its subscriber numbers up? If the answer is yes, why? I'm genuinely interested in your response.

This topic brings to mind the old proverb about giving a man a fish vs teaching him how to catch it. The dev team is giving us all a fish (or chunk of rock salt) every day.

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You completely ignored that part of my post and focused on my comment on dark matter. Let me get this straight then. Adoulin dial is okay because Delve and Skirmish are outdated. But Unity is pretty much outdated too. I'm sort of with you on abjurations but I think the body abjurations were sufficiently rare to render the argument moot.

Now, as for whether FFXI needs to be doing this to maintain subscriber numbers... Who knows? I think people appreciate these campaigns not only for the free gear but also as a reassurance that the game is still alive. When the dev team comes up with something new and inventive, I like that. Maybe that thing is new content like Ambuscade, maybe it's something that's arguably worthless like the patio. Maybe it's something that a small minority will appreciate like mounts. And maybe it's a new way of giving treats to the playerbase. I don't personally need any help getting abjurations, but somebody out there was genuinely happy to get something. I ignored dark matter augments, so 6 free ones per day was amazing (and let's be real, no reasonable person was already doing dark matter augments so that didn't negatively affect anybody).

We all know the saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. How about "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Okay, you hate the idea of a Jovian Body abjuration loading for a random person. So how would you get that person to farm Pakecet instead? Maybe instead of giving out abjurations, SE could give out NM triggers. But now I ask you, is that really going to make people do the content? It's not that I think giving people free stuff will get them to do content, I just don't think anything short of nerfing things will get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. So if a given player was never going to do Pakecet anyway, then sure, give him a chance for a Jovian Body. What's the harm?

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Of course but ending the events would lead to a large drop in profits, or are you saying ending them would usher in a large wave of new players?

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I don't know that it would make a large drop in profits, but it surely wouldn't usher in new subscribers without a change in direction for the game. Right now it seems like we're constantly being bombarded with free stuff and campaigns temporarily making outdated content more enticing: login points, Adoulin dial, abjuration dial, Wanted dial, WKR campaigns, Voidwatch campaigns, hard mode battlefield campaigns and on and on... as a hardcore player it's easy to sit back and say, "Ahh, this is the life!" but they're essentially acting as temporary "solutions" for what is outdated content. The fact that many players now say "I'll wait for the next campaign before I do X event" is terrible to me. Having lots of choices was one of this game's strengths in the pre-Abyssea days. Today everything becomes the flavor of the month (or week during the Rainbow Campaign) and activity for most everything else drops off.

Have you noticed how much easier it is to enter Ambuscade? That's not because they added more rooms/"instances", it's simply because the current campaigns pulled people away. It should be like that everyday, except the content those campaigns are promoting should be updated to be more approachable in this day and age. Let's be honest, farming a level 119 Empyrean weapon is ridiculously difficult in comparison to a relic or mythic - without capped lights and boosted cells Voidwatch still requires a party/ally covering many jobs for triggering weaknesses, it's just not realistic anymore and there's a decent sized thread here covering this. Likewise, good luck making any real progress on that Idris or Epeolatry outside of a WKR campaign, not to mention the 6 months or so it takes just to make your way through the coalition assignments. A couple of great players I had the benefit of playing with recently got stuck there and after endlessly grinding through WKRs decided to quit the game.

I used to hate CP campaigns too (not so much the XP part of 'em) because it got a lot of people to 2100 JP in a hurry, some of whom have no idea what they're even doing on those jobs (so much for that "master" title). With so many people having multiple master class jobs now they're losing incentive to go out and CP, making it more difficult to find parties, at least on the less populated servers, so good luck to new or returning players wanting to progress through the ranks unless they permanently increase CP gain a bit. A good friend of mine who only logs on two or three times a week has been having a hell of time trying to make pogress with BLM JPs since everyone else is busy taking part in campaigns and the one CP party that might be online at that time doesn't want to take the hit for adding an extra player. The way things are right now he likely won't be around much longer either.

I take full advantage of campaigns myself, I'd be silly not to, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, it's like throwing cocaine in front of an addict. A lot of players wind up grinding that content hardcore because it's a limited time event and we wind up losing one or two players when it's over. They burn themselves out. I guess I just have a higher tolerance. :p

This turned into an off topic rant, but again, I don't mind the goblin dials so much as the quality of items they're giving us. Like the OP I think the hand outs have gotten out of hand. A little more time spent recalibrating older content for today's players would go a long way to retaining membership (an LS member is calling it quits as I type this). Stuff like more mobs with quicker repop times (waiting 10+ mins for some mobs to repop kinda made sense in 2004, not anymore), new high level mobs in old zones like Meriphataud Mountains, adding plut/beit/boulders as 1-2% drops to mobs yielding XP/CP (similar to seal drops)... just some ideas off the top of my head. They're the type of changes that wouldn't be difficult to implement and would bring a little life back to completely ignored zones.

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Originally Posted by detlef

You completely ignored that part of my post and focused on my comment on dark matter. Let me get this straight then. Adoulin dial is okay because Delve and Skirmish are outdated. But Unity is pretty much outdated too. I'm sort of with you on abjurations but I think the body abjurations were sufficiently rare to render the argument moot.

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Unity Wanted battles still provides players with gear useful at end game, such as Loricate neck, and while true that body abjurations were rare from the abjuration dial campaigns I don't see any reason why they, or any end game abjurations for that matter, should be thrown out for free. A lot of that stuff can be acquired with as few as 2-3 players, some of it can even be solo'd fairly easily provided you have decent gear, vorseals and trusts. I was getting myself abjurations using 119 relic/artifact gear with the odd piece of Escha Zitah gear I also solo'd.

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Now, as for whether FFXI needs to be doing this to maintain subscriber numbers... Who knows? I think people appreciate these campaigns not only for the free gear but also as a reassurance that the game is still alive. When the dev team comes up with something new and inventive, I like that. Maybe that thing is new content like Ambuscade, maybe it's something that's arguably worthless like the patio. Maybe it's something that a small minority will appreciate like mounts. And maybe it's a new way of giving treats to the playerbase. I don't personally need any help getting abjurations, but somebody out there was genuinely happy to get something. I ignored dark matter augments, so 6 free ones per day was amazing (and let's be real, no reasonable person was already doing dark matter augments so that didn't negatively affect anybody).

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We agree here, Dark Matter augments are ridiculous in that no reasonable person is spending 1M a pop, but instead of asking for free augment campaigns we should be asking for them to improve the augment system or at least find a way of making dark matter a little more accessible. I'm surely not going to spend 1M on an item that has a very high likelihood of giving me an augment serving me absolutely no purpose, like -3 Blood Pact ability delay on Odyssean boots.

I have no doubt most people appreciate free stuff - I wouldn't turn away a million dollars if it was dropped in my lap tomorrow - but the question is why is it needed? Do they believe its necessary? I guess I'm just too old school to see the benefit here as I still believe there is a large enough segment of the gaming market that appreciates a good challenge within a large scale, social atmosphere. There was a far greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction tied to this game back in its early years because it was so difficult and gave you nothing for free.

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We all know the saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. How about "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Okay, you hate the idea of a Jovian Body abjuration loading for a random person. So how would you get that person to farm Pakecet instead? Maybe instead of giving out abjurations, SE could give out NM triggers. But now I ask you, is that really going to make people do the content? It's not that I think giving people free stuff will get them to do content, I just don't think anything short of nerfing things will get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. So if a given player was never going to do Pakecet anyway, then sure, give him a chance for a Jovian Body. What's the harm?

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It simply isn't deserved. If I'm not going to make the effort to get myself a university degree and high paying job do I deserve that Lamborghini sitting outside my driveway?

If a player won't take the time/effort needed to obtain end game gear they should go on playing the game without it, until which time someone or something motivates them to go after it. This is still an MMORPG where players from all sorts of different backgrounds come together. Maybe that well geared person a casual player holds in high regard one day asks why they aren't wearing Adhemar jacket and after a brief conversation convinces them it's time to start working up to it. Or maybe they just don't care enough. It's up to you to decide what you do/don't want. Not everyone has it in them to make it to the top and there's nothing wrong with that, but rewarding them for showing no interest/effort? I do find something wrong with that - it sends the wrong message.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

I don't know that it would make a large drop in profits, but it surely wouldn't usher in new subscribers without a change in direction for the game. Right now it seems like we're constantly being bombarded with free stuff and campaigns temporarily making outdated content more enticing: login points, Adoulin dial, abjuration dial, Wanted dial, WKR campaigns, Voidwatch campaigns, hard mode battlefield campaigns and on and on... as a hardcore player it's easy to sit back and say, "Ahh, this is the life!" but they're essentially acting as temporary "solutions" for what is outdated content. The fact that many players now say "I'll wait for the next campaign before I do X event" is terrible to me. Having lots of choices was one of this game's strengths in the pre-Abyssea days. Today everything becomes the flavor of the month (or week during the Rainbow Campaign) and activity for most everything else drops off.

Have you noticed how much easier it is to enter Ambuscade? That's not because they added more rooms/"instances", it's simply because the current campaigns pulled people away. It should be like that everyday, except the content those campaigns are promoting should be updated to be more approachable in this day and age. Let's be honest, farming a level 119 Empyrean weapon is ridiculously difficult in comparison to a relic or mythic - without capped lights and boosted cells Voidwatch still requires a party/ally covering many jobs for triggering weaknesses, it's just not realistic anymore and there's a decent sized thread here covering this. Likewise, good luck making any real progress on that Idris or Epeolatry outside of a WKR campaign, not to mention the 6 months or so it takes just to make your way through the coalition assignments. A couple of great players I had the benefit of playing with recently got stuck there and after endlessly grinding through WKRs decided to quit the game.

I used to hate CP campaigns too (not so much the XP part of 'em) because it got a lot of people to 2100 JP in a hurry, some of whom have no idea what they're even doing on those jobs (so much for that "master" title). With so many people having multiple master class jobs now they're losing incentive to go out and CP, making it more difficult to find parties, at least on the less populated servers, so good luck to new or returning players wanting to progress through the ranks unless they permanently increase CP gain a bit. A good friend of mine who only logs on two or three times a week has been having a hell of time trying to make pogress with BLM JPs since everyone else is busy taking part in campaigns and the one CP party that might be online at that time doesn't want to take the hit for adding an extra player. The way things are right now he likely won't be around much longer either.

I take full advantage of campaigns myself, I'd be silly not to, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, it's like throwing cocaine in front of an addict. A lot of players wind up grinding that content hardcore because it's a limited time event and we wind up losing one or two players when it's over. They burn themselves out. I guess I just have a higher tolerance. :p

This turned into an off topic rant, but again, I don't mind the goblin dials so much as the quality of items they're giving us. Like the OP I think the hand outs have gotten out of hand. A little more time spent recalibrating older content for today's players would go a long way to retaining membership (an LS member is calling it quits as I type this). Stuff like more mobs with quicker repop times (waiting 10+ mins for some mobs to repop kinda made sense in 2004, not anymore), new high level mobs in old zones like Meriphataud Mountains, adding plut/beit/boulders as 1-2% drops to mobs yielding XP/CP (similar to seal drops)... just some ideas off the top of my head. They're the type of changes that wouldn't be difficult to implement and would bring a little life back to completely ignored zones.



Unity Wanted battles still provides players with gear useful at end game, such as Loricate neck, and while true that body abjurations were rare from the abjuration dial campaigns I don't see any reason why they, or any end game abjurations for that matter, should be thrown out for free. A lot of that stuff can be acquired with as few as 2-3 players, some of it can even be solo'd fairly easily provided you have decent gear, vorseals and trusts. I was getting myself abjurations using 119 relic/artifact gear with the odd piece of Escha Zitah gear I also solo'd.

We agree here, Dark Matter augments are ridiculous in that no reasonable person is spending 1M a pop, but instead of asking for free augment campaigns we should be asking for them to improve the augment system or at least find a way of making dark matter a little more accessible. I'm surely not going to spend 1M on an item that has a very high likelihood of giving me an augment serving me absolutely no purpose, like -3 Blood Pact ability delay on Odyssean boots.

I have no doubt most people appreciate free stuff - I wouldn't turn away a million dollars if it was dropped in my lap tomorrow - but the question is why is it needed? Do they believe its necessary? I guess I'm just too old school to see the benefit here as I still believe there is a large enough segment of the gaming market that appreciates a good challenge within a large scale, social atmosphere. There was a far greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction tied to this game back in its early years because it was so difficult and gave you nothing for free.

It simply isn't deserved. If I'm not going to make the effort to get myself a university degree and high paying job do I deserve that Lamborghini sitting outside my driveway?

If a player won't take the time/effort needed to obtain end game gear they should go on playing the game without it, until which time someone or something motivates them to go after it. This is still an MMORPG where players from all sorts of different backgrounds come together. Maybe that well geared person a casual player holds in high regard one day asks why they aren't wearing Adhemar jacket and after a brief conversation convinces them it's time to start working up to it. Or maybe they just don't care enough. It's up to you to decide what you do/don't want. Not everyone has it in them to make it to the top and there's nothing wrong with that, but rewarding them for showing no interest/effort? I do find something wrong with that - it sends the wrong message.

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I want to say that I've enjoyed reading all your posts in this thread, you write well and make your points clearly. Also I really did respect you for reading the poster who said "UNM Dial made me realise that there are so many Unity NMs that I'd never heard of, and made me research UNM properly" [paraphrased] which, to your credit, you highlighted that point and accepted it as a valid counter to your own arguments. So I'm really not battling you, I think you make valid points and you acknowledge valid counter-arguments.

This post [quoted above] is full of contradictions. You say that all the Freeby stuff is killing the authentic achievement feels, but then you say Empys are almost impossible without bonus events, and Jobmaster is too much without bonus events. This is a contradiction, and also not true.

I got Jobmaster without using rings or capes, and most of my 2100 points was gained outside of Double-Cap / Chain-bonus events. I never partied for jobpoints, I just went and solo'd them. It is perfectly simple enough to do. You say your friend is quitting because they don't want to solo Jobpoints slowly, I think this is a shame, because soloing Jobpoints slowly is a great sense of achievement, and a good test of how you can streamline your job for efficiency.

I got Empy finished before the capped-lights-VW existed, and so did many other people. It just takes a lot of dedication, focusing on that one weapon and not being distracted by Mythics/Relics. I don't have Mythics or Relics at 119 stage, because I focused on Empys instead.

And by contrast, I have been able to farm Jobmaster and Empy weapons without any bonus events / help. At the same time, I have not received a single piece of gear from UNM dial, or anything useful from ABJ/SOA dials. So this goes against what you are saying completely.

As your post shows, SE have a hard job trying to balance this game, to make it just right and acceptable to everyone. In the same post you are saying that bonus events / free stuff is bad, because it discourages people from farming and making an effort, then you go on to say how farming / making an effort in Jobpoints and Empys is driving people away. So clearly you are answering your own questions here, you are highlighting that some people find some content too hard and some people find it too easy. And it seems to vary from person to person.

I think Jobmaster is a bigger achievement if you are grinding out the small numbers over a longer period of time, and I think Empys are desirable because they require so much dedication in the face of loot-pool randomness. So I am happy if those Jobpoints / VW Lights events didn't exist.

I would however prefer a static base drop-rate in VW, a structured attainment system, the abolition of random loot reloads. But that would be a change to the system, rather than a bonus event.

Similarly with Ergons, a lot of people did farm Ergons before the WKR bonus event existed. It is possible, it just requires a lot of dedication.

But at the same time, I see no harm in Gobby Dial stuff, because it is a fun bonus event which is especially User-Friendly and exciting for new / returning players.

So I don't think there is a right/wrong here, only personal preferences, which not only vary from person to person, but vary a lot in a single person too. I think SE deserve great praise for trying to balance a game with so many different players who have so many varied requests and preferences. I admire SE greatly for trying to maintain this balance, and improve QOL for players of all stages, from New Adventurers all the way to seasoned Pros.
:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Today everything becomes the flavor of the month (or week during the Rainbow Campaign) and activity for most everything else drops off.

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So you’re complaining that interest in things drops off while also complaining that interest in something picks up. I mean, that’s ridiculous right? Interest in every event in the game has to be maintained at some level that you’re happy with? On low population servers, SE saying “hey you guys may want to focus on X even this month/week” helps to focus peoples’ efforts so things can actually get done.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Have you noticed how much easier it is to enter Ambuscade? That's not because they added more rooms/"instances", it's simply because the current campaigns pulled people away. It should be like that everyday, except the content those campaigns are promoting should be updated to be more approachable in this day and age.

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Wait, isn’t pulling peoples’ attention away from Ambuscade and making the event tolerable (if only temporarily) a good thing?

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

I used to hate CP campaigns too (not so much the XP part of 'em) because it got a lot of people to 2100 JP in a hurry, some of whom have no idea what they're even doing on those jobs (so much for that "master" title). With so many people having multiple master class jobs now they're losing incentive to go out and CP, making it more difficult to find parties, at least on the less populated servers, so good luck to new or returning players wanting to progress through the ranks unless they permanently increase CP gain a bit. A good friend of mine who only logs on two or three times a week has been having a hell of time trying to make pogress with BLM JPs since everyone else is busy taking part in campaigns and the one CP party that might be online at that time doesn't want to take the hit for adding an extra player. The way things are right now he likely won't be around much longer either.

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Your complain is a familiar one. I think people have been saying that players don’t learn anything from XP/merits for at least a decade. Being good at XP never made us good players and even players who were horrible at XP still advanced, whether it was 2004 or 2016.

As for your friend, yeah it sucks that the playerbase has decided that only double CP is worth doing but it’s also a sign that a lot of people have capped their favorite jobs by now. I don’t think a PT taking an XP hit for adding another player is really relevant.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

This turned into an off topic rant, but again, I don't mind the goblin dials so much as the quality of items they're giving us. Like the OP I think the hand outs have gotten out of hand. A little more time spent recalibrating older content for today's players would go a long way to retaining membership (an LS member is calling it quits as I type this). Stuff like more mobs with quicker repop times (waiting 10+ mins for some mobs to repop kinda made sense in 2004, not anymore), new high level mobs in old zones like Meriphataud Mountains, adding plut/beit/boulders as 1-2% drops to mobs yielding XP/CP (similar to seal drops)... just some ideas off the top of my head. They're the type of changes that wouldn't be difficult to implement and would bring a little life back to completely ignored zones.

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Sure we’d all like that but what does it have to do with hand outs?

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Unity Wanted battles still provides players with gear useful at end game, such as Loricate neck, and while true that body abjurations were rare from the abjuration dial campaigns I don't see any reason why they, or any end game abjurations for that matter, should be thrown out for free. A lot of that stuff can be acquired with as few as 2-3 players, some of it can even be solo'd fairly easily provided you have decent gear, vorseals and trusts. I was getting myself abjurations using 119 relic/artifact gear with the odd piece of Escha Zitah gear I also solo'd.

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That you only came up with Loricate Torque as an example is pretty indicative of how weak Unity drops are as a whole right now. It’s barely better than Twilight Torque. I’m sure there’re other things that are extremely situationally useful but if we tried we could probably find some Abyssea gear that’s still equally useful.

I’m not really against your approach with body abjurations. If it were up to me, yeah, it’s probably too powerful to just give away. But then, if it’s rare enough then I’m not really seeing a problem and it’s not worth protesting to me.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

If a player won't take the time/effort needed to obtain end game gear they should go on playing the game without it, until which time someone or something motivates them to go after it. This is still an MMORPG where players from all sorts of different backgrounds come together. Maybe that well geared person a casual player holds in high regard one day asks why they aren't wearing Adhemar jacket and after a brief conversation convinces them it's time to start working up to it. Or maybe they just don't care enough. It's up to you to decide what you do/don't want. Not everyone has it in them to make it to the top and there's nothing wrong with that, but rewarding them for showing no interest/effort? I do find something wrong with that - it sends the wrong message.

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Going back to your “teach a man to fish” platitude, I don’t think you can get people to want to learn to fish. So I don’t see the harm in giving players a random shot at a rare fish, especially when there’s only a small chance that it’s a best-in-slot fish.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

This post [quoted above] is full of contradictions. You say that all the Freeby stuff is killing the authentic achievement feels, but then you say Empys are almost impossible without bonus events, and Jobmaster is too much without bonus events. This is a contradiction, and also not true.

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It's all about balance and I see none where the R/E/M weapons are concerned because Empys are so much more difficult to build than their counterparts without offering any clear advantage to justify it (won't even bring up that poor Ochain). Dynamis has seen many changes which have made farming currency much easier over the years. Likewise, Assaults and Salvage can now be done far more frequently thanks to Rhapsody key items. What changes has Voidwatch received to make farming Empyrean weapon items easier? Lowered atmacite enrichment and Phase Displacer costs as well as the recent voidstone change, which are great, don't get me wrong, but Dynamis and Salvage have been solo-friendly for a long time now whereas VW most definitely is not. Using the /fume emote every 5 minutes wasn't a very practical solution. There's a relatively long thread about this here in the forum which you're a part of, so I trust you understand the community's frustration.

I'm right there with you on CP - I solo'd practically all of mine across several jobs, both with and without CP campaigns active - but with so many of those campaigns having passed now, the population on a lot of servers being so low and having absolutely no incentive to continue CPing jobs we already have at Master it again becomes a question of balance. How do you get those who already have their jobs at Master to go out and help others reach that goal? The easy answer here would be to allow the use of your JP across all jobs, like merit points. Still hoping this becomes a reality at some point in the not too distant future.

In the example I brought up about my friend's situation, it's compounded by the fact that he's excluded from pick up groups and end game content the LS is tackling because he isn't able to get those important JPs/Gifts he needs. So Player A takes part in CP campaign and gets into every event he wants, while Player B misses out on a party or two during campaign and is forced to solo. Obviously it's slower when solo and it's made worse when the campaign ends because that divide between Player A and B requires a whole lot more work to overcome. While this has no real effect on me personally because I login practically everyday, it does affect those of us who aren't able to do so and reinforces my belief that campaigns are bad idea. If the dev team believes we need this many XP/CP campaigns then it begs the question, why? Like you, I'd be happy enough with the regular XP/CP limit. Reaching Master rank should not be an easy endeavor done in the span of a weekend, but this is what it's come to.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

I got Empy finished before the capped-lights-VW existed, and so did many other people. It just takes a lot of dedication, focusing on that one weapon and not being distracted by Mythics/Relics. I don't have Mythics or Relics at 119 stage, because I focused on Empys instead.

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While FFXIAH's website doesn't account for all subscribers, it does represent a good portion of the population. I urge you to go use it to search for and compare the number of level 99 Empyreans versus the same weapon type Relic and Mythic across all servers. It's lopsided by a significant margin. In sword's case: 60 Almaces vs 471 Excaliburs vs 312 Burtgangs which is quite telling considering Almace is available to more jobs, one of them being very popular right now.

I have been, and remain, a proponent for challenging content. The problem with Empyreans is that their counterparts have become far easier to obtain and their stats really don't reflect that, especially in Ochain's case now that it's been rendered almost useless against level 130+ content.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

And by contrast, I have been able to farm Jobmaster and Empy weapons without any bonus events / help. At the same time, I have not received a single piece of gear from UNM dial, or anything useful from ABJ/SOA dials. So this goes against what you are saying completely.

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Only if you're suggesting your personal experience reflects that of every player. I've received mostly low level Wanted battle items, both gear and "special items" for upgrade purposes, which I just send to my mules. You can't use anecdotal evidence of one player receiving no gear whatsoever to make the point it's having no impact on our worlds, which completely disregards the upgrade items. There are screen shots of players getting Tumult Curator's drops from that dial (I got its blood today), so if I was using your argument I could say everyone's getting that content's best items (obviously not true :p).

We've been receiving these campaigns for so long that we've come to expect them, so regardless of how good/bad they are for the game removing them entirely now would come as a shock to the system, unfortunately. We're forced to deal with them whether we like them or not. I just hope going forward a little more thought goes into their impact on the game and even each individual server, as your experience on one server to the next varies far more today than it has at any other point in this game's life. I'm not sure the development team has come to understand this yet.

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Originally Posted by detlef

Wait, isn’t pulling peoples’ attention away from Ambuscade and making the event tolerable (if only temporarily) a good thing?

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That's precisely what I meant when I said "that's how it should be every day." It shouldn't be temporary. If Voidwatch, Wildskeeper Reives and other content like Vagary and Delve were made more tolerable/accessible just as Dynamis and Salvage were; if CPing a Master'ed job allowed you to transfer earned JPs to unused/unwanted jobs; if high tier battlefields always dropped more plut/beit/boulders... if all that was done we would have a wealth of options available to us every single time we logged into the game and we wouldn't have to worry about entering newer content like Ambuscade. We wouldn't have to worry about missing out if we had real life responsibilities to attend to that week/month. We wouldn't feel forced to grind like today was the last day on Vana'diel.

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Originally Posted by detlef

That you only came up with Loricate Torque as an example is pretty indicative of how weak Unity drops are as a whole right now. It’s barely better than Twilight Torque. I’m sure there’re other things that are extremely situationally useful but if we tried we could probably find some Abyssea gear that’s still equally useful.

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I'm not Unity's biggest fan, but I think you're selling it short. We're playing a game where people pay huge sums of gil for a marginal stat increase and Loricate Torque +1 was an obvious example for me to use as it's best in slot for -damage taken. I don't play BLU much, but Tanmogayi +1 made for a really nice sword I could shoot for, as well as Celine's earring for those rare occasions where I'd benefit from a HP+ gear set. Unity is easy enough for players of any skill level to attempt as they make the climb up the ladder and can be a fun diversion even for the more hardcore players, but the point here is that they should be encouraged to take part in Unity and not be handed the rewards just for logging in.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Aby was a lot more fun than SOA or Escha etc. imho.

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Oh yes, so much more fun. I really wish the devs had not thrown out all of the things they learned in Abyssea/voidwatch era about not punishing people for bringing extra players. All the most useful content since Voidwatch has basically punished players for bringing extra people along, whereas VW/Abyssea there was, at worst, no loss for bringing others. Gone are the days when you could just show up at a boss pop and get a clear from people farming it who had no reason not to let you in to get the title. Gone are the days where a person could focus on a little niche (for me it was proccing on BLU in voidwatch) and join in on high level content.

I mean, sure I had no way into neo-nyzul at the time - so that was still something that gave elite gear to better players, but there was real endgame shouts I could join. I really really really miss that.

Anyway, maybe the devs wouldn't feel like they need to give out free 119 gear through a lottery box if events were designed to better allow players to join in on relevant content. Right now everything is either fairly useless (unity stuff is nice for a player like me but completely irrelevant for the most part for better players) and thus it's hard to get groups for it, or it's super duper hard and you have to already be geared to join in.

I am fully willing to take some responsibility for not being set up for hardcore endgame, I only play a bit here and there and I haven't optimized my macros, don't use helpful addons etc... but I see it as a problem that it is hard to find group content to do if you're not 100% top of the line... I used to be able to do lots of the content that the top tier players were doing.

Maybe it would help if they extended yells to more areas? I don't know, it just sucks that you have to sit around in town if you want to try to find something group oriented to do. FFXIAH shouts help, but it's still not ideal.

The box definitely gives me an incentive to stay subbed and MOST definitely gives me a reason to login. Often I'll decide to play a bit more once I've done my logins, since I've already loaded up the game... whereas when there is no campaign I rarely log in at all.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Even though you and I may prefer Relics and Mythics, and we can see they are more powerful in some ways, and we love the Jobspecific bonuses on those weapons, which are totally missing from Empys, that doesn't change the fact that when Empy-building was introduced, it was designed to be the "latest and greatest" legendary superweapon class. So because SE viewed Empys as the latest and best of the RME, they made the content extremely challenging for a level 99 player.

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Except this is 2016 and a lot of content in this game has been made far more accessible (re: solo-friendly) whereas Voidwatch has yet to be scaled down that way. As you pointed out in the HMP, Riftcinder, Riftdross thread the drop rate of these items was officially said to increase as the size of the party/alliance increases, yet the days of being able to gather an alliance, let alone a single party, to tackle this content is long behind us. That is exactly why all this other content has been made solo-friendly. So, what reason is keeping Voidwatch from going down that same path?

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Originally Posted by Stompa

It is entirely possible to build a 119AG Empy today, with the right amount of effort. I don't see it as a balance issue.

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The fact that something is possible can't be used as a reason against scaling it down, that makes no sense here. It was possible to build a relic weapon when Dynamis was introduced, so why make it easier over the years? It was entirely possible to build a mythic weapon when Salvage was introduced, so why make that easier? It's all relative, except while relic and mythic weapons were made far easier to build since their introduction, level 95-99 empyrean weapons remain a painful grind that's only realistic during a Voidwatch campaign or if you're lucky enough to get a group of people who A) want to farm empyrean weapons everyday and B) have enough voidstones to do it.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

In my case, I went and farmed the currencies for my main Empy, which is why I don't see the lack of balance you speak of. If you farmed all your Mythic and Relic currencies instead of buying them, you would notice that it actually takes a while. The same is true of Empys, only more so, because it is from a higher-level stage of the game's timeline.

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Whether you farm every piece of currency or buy it all the unmistakable differences in difficulty of farming the level 95-99 R/E/M's should be readily apparent. You are reading the thread about the availability of HMP, Riftcinder and Riftdross, aren't you picking up on the frustration of the players attempting to tackle this content, or maybe you believe they're all just spoiled and should suck it up the way we did years ago?

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Similarly, on the balance issue, I would rather have an Afterglow Relic or Mythic, than have an Aeonic. Yet you can solo Relics/Mythics or buy them with Gil. Aeonics are way harder to solo farm or buy from the AH.

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Except the option of buying an Aeonic is open to me whereas the option of buying a 119 Empy isn't quite there due to lack of interest from the player base.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

this is 2016

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Yes it is, unfortunately.

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and a lot of content in this game has been made far more accessible (re: solo-friendly) whereas Voidwatch has yet to be scaled down that way. As you pointed out in the HMP, Riftcinder, Riftdross thread the drop rate of these items was officially said to increase as the size of the party/alliance increases, yet the days of being able to gather an alliance, let alone a single party, to tackle this content is long behind us. That is exactly why all this other content has been made solo-friendly. So, what reason is keeping Voidwatch from going down that same path?

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SE made displacers cheaper, made VW stones appear in your inventory without visiting the NPC, added VW capped lights events, added Trusts for solo cures etc. and also added all the VW currencies to Ambuscade. I would say that this is a lot of bonuses, compared to a few years ago. It should certainly be enough easiness for somebody who was complaining in this thread, that Free Stuff is killing the legitimate farming achievement feels, and that people should go out and grind stuff instead.

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The fact that something is possible can't be used as a reason against scaling it down, that makes no sense here. It was possible to build a relic weapon when Dynamis was introduced, so why make it easier over the years? It was entirely possible to build a mythic weapon when Salvage was introduced, so why make that easier? It's all relative, except while relic and mythic weapons were made far easier to build since their introduction, level 95-99 empyrean weapons remain a painful grind that's only realistic during a Voidwatch campaign or if you're lucky enough to get a group of people who A) want to farm empyrean weapons everyday and B) have enough voidstones to do it.

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In the past, a person couldn't solo farm Relics, Mythics or Empys.

Today, a person can solo farm Relics, Mythics, and Empys.

I hope you will see how this is infact totally balanced.

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Except the option of buying an Aeonic is open to me whereas the option of buying a 119 Empy isn't quite there due to lack of interest from the player base.

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Some parts of the player base are still farming VW, but they are for the most part using the HMP/cinders for their own Empys. You could team up with them.

My friend realised that half the server had unfinished Empys, so he started a VW Linkshell, and /shouted in town until he had like 20 members. They farm VW twice weekly, have static designated jobs, and they don't have to shout for extra members before a run. Nothing is stopping you from doing this too.

Earlier on this thread, you were criticising SE for giving Free Stuff away, and the impact it was having on authentic legitimate farming and Triumphant Achievement Feels. You were basically saying that people should team up and do content, instead of asking for Freebies. A few pages later, and your philosophy has done a full U-turn, and you don't want to start a VW Static LS group to farm your Empys. You would prefer to buy all the Empy materials with Gil, if only the playerbase would go out and farm the materials for you!
:p

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Originally Posted by Stompa

SE made displacers cheaper, made VW stones appear in your inventory without visiting the NPC, added VW capped lights events, added Trusts for solo cures etc. and also added all the VW currencies to Ambuscade. I would say that this is a lot of bonuses, compared to a few years ago. It should certainly be enough easiness for somebody who was complaining in this thread, that Free Stuff is killing the legitimate farming achievement feels, and that people should go out and grind stuff instead.

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If it was up to me a lot of the changes/additions made to the game wouldn't be here today for reasons that have probably become quite apparent at this point. Except those changes have been made and despite all the "bonuses", as you call them, farming items for Empyrean level 95 and 99 trials from Voidwatch remains a far more daunting task than Relics or Mythics, in some cases impossible just by virtue of how slowly voidstones accumulate (1 every 12 hours if you have the two key items to reduce restock time). I posted Byrth's math behind it all in the HMP, Riftcinder, Riftdross thread and after grinding through the Voidwatch campaign myself, his numbers held up: it takes about 3,500 stones, give or take, for you to farm up the necessary items if you happen to be using just one account. Telling someone they have to wait 4+ years in order to accumulate enough stones to farm up the items for a level 99 Empyrean goes against everything the dev team has been trying to do with this game (re: make it accessible).

No, I don't want it made easier, but I DO want the option to farm up another 119 Empyrean if I so choose and right now that option is wiped clear off the table for me because of the settings in place.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

My friend realised that half the server had unfinished Empys, so he started a VW Linkshell, and /shouted in town until he had like 20 members. They farm VW twice weekly, have static designated jobs, and they don't have to shout for extra members before a run. Nothing is stopping you from doing this too.

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Just to drive home the point: Yes, something IS stopping me at this point - voidstone recharge time. You're only getting 14 stones a week, which means 14 chances at a 6% drop rate for Heavy Metal Pouches and half that or less for Riftcinder/dross.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Earlier on this thread, you were criticising SE for giving Free Stuff away, and the impact it was having on authentic legitimate farming and Triumphant Achievement Feels. You were basically saying that people should team up and do content, instead of asking for Freebies. A few pages later, and your philosophy has done a full U-turn, and you don't want to start a VW Static LS group to farm your Empys. You would prefer to buy all the Empy materials with Gil, if only the playerbase would go out and farm the materials for you!

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This isn't about making the content easier, it's about making it available - there's a difference. Someone that subscribes to FFXI today or is returning from an extended hiatus has no viable option to pursue an Empyrean weapon unless they're on an active server where those Voidwatch items are readily available on the Auction House or via bazaars, in which case they're absolutely forced to buy them at great cost. Do you consider this good game design?