February 2020 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

Thanks for all the posts, its appreciated.

The pet enhancement effects are mostly worthless UNLESS they affect the party. SMN already has access to better AOE enhancements with the ability to stack those enhacements. (crystal blessing hastega 2 etc.) Bsts pet enhancements are actually quite weak. Rage would be detrimental to a party, basically only the crab and faaz would have mildly useful enhancements. You need to make them enhance the party AND make better ones for bst to use. Making beast at least be able to back line would be a HUGE improvement to the job, currently the only use for bst is to BACKLINE in dynamis D wave three using the slug. The slugs debuffs are actually better than ANY of the enhancements of ANY of the pets. So your enhancements are mostly worthelss EVEN if they affect the party. Right now bst is a play by yourself job. You have said you want it to no longer be a lone wolf job. Well it is ONLY a lone wolf job right now. Add some synergy for the party. Currently people would rather use a trust than a fully geared master rema bst. I would be okay with completely removing the healing factor of reward and just having it remove status effects. As was failed to be addressed in your post, the pet is completely worthless in any fight with amnesia/para/petrify.

Also, please address the issues with Tame, Gauge, Charm. THey are completely useless. They have 0 fights they help on. I would be okay with just removing them from the game.

Diligently gathering gear is fine. Making an 119 piece of gear with ready recast is also fine. Currently we are encouraged to fight away from the pet when using ready because we are using non 119 gear.

Bst is still the overall worst job in the game. It has nothing that it does well. Judging by your response, you are not going to do much to improve the job. Please do as you said and make bst a party friendly job. It currently isnt for all but 1 fight in the entire game.

My last ditch request is to let us trade in the bst exclusive gear for vouchers to get other jobs gear. Our efforts on bst are mostly wasted, please let us salvage our diligent efforts in gathering gear. I get it, old game with limited resources. At a minimum bst would need ALL of it's gear overhauled. We need gear that boosts pet and master not either or. I see that you do not have the resources to do that. So please let us exchange our gear and go on to different projects.

One other possibility would be to change the pet magic haste enhancement to Job ability haste. That alone would make bst mostly feasible for front lining.

Beast Master

Would it be possible to give bst a job ability similar to empathy where the master shares it buffs with its pet. This would allow more front line melee bst to use the pet with reasonable results. If its plausible this along with some axe ws adjustments could help the job by a bit or at least make it more appealing.

Also to add my preference on the jug pets at 119 if you devs can, I would love to see the hippogriph faithful falcorr, as well as the adamantiose crude raphie.

Paladin

If you can reduce reprisal timers to a timer similar to foil and adjust its enmity to similar values that would help pld a bit with aoe enmity.

If you devs can also give pld a cover that is aoe and or affected aoe moves and spells so long as the pld is in front of the targetted players, this would help make up for the damage loss from bringing a pld over a run. If we can have dds go all out instead of turtling up due to the pld eating their damage as well.

Also if possible fealty having its timers reduced to be similar to either rampart/sentinal/pflug/other defensive buffs would greatly help the job become more of a wall if it could ignore many effects similar to how run can with runes and its high meva although fealty shouldnt be full time like runefencers runes.

Off Topic

Also as a last minute unrelated thought. Can we get drg call wyvern timer reduced by any chance. It really sucks to be put into such a weakened state if we lose it to doom or something else silly. This and/or give drg malignance cuz that stuff rocks.

Closing Regards

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. And you devs have done great with pld so far. As well as the other jobs i know this takes time to fix and the code is very old but thank you for making a wonderful game and updating almost 20 years later.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

The aspect of diligently gathering gear to attain a 10-second recast time on Ready will be maintained. Regarding the item level of leg gear, we didn’t see it as a problem as we understood that the general playstyle was based around changing gearsets through usage of macros. While it’s possible to add a recast reduction bonus to the new ILv119 gear, this would be done when a new beastmaster-specific equipment is to be implemented.

We aren’t considering allowing pets’ support effects to apply to the entire party. One reason behind this is that some of these support effects are extremely powerful and are only allowed because they are limited to be applied to the master. Second reason is that by making this an area of effect, we can foresee players requesting beastmaster to fulfill a backline supporting role in parties.

Due to the base parameter values of pets and production cost required, we currently aren’t considering raising all pets to Lv119. However, now that the support effects affect the master, if there are any specific pets you would like to see raised to Lv119, please let us know. Additionally, please also let us know if there are any pets that are already Lv119, but you’d like to have support abilities added to them as well.

Regarding Reward, the main purpose of the ability is recovering HP. Therefore, greatly shortening its recast time is difficult to consider in terms of current balance. We could avoid the balancing issues, if for instance, we were to lower both healing potency and recast time to 1/3. However, this would mean it’d require three times the amount of items to achieve the same amount of healing, so then we’d have to consider things such as changing the quantity of items created in one synthesis to three, lowering the price to 1/3, and changing the stack size to 99.

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Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions and for giving us the opportunity to provide you with feedback. Hopefully, we will have another NA-based event in the future!

Thank you for acknowledging the need for I-Level Ready Recast Legs armor, as well. Swapping into pre-I-Level armor hurts us, but I eagerly await Beastmaster + pet-friendly armor, with "same effect".

Regarding pets: Crude Raphie and Faithful Falcorr both NEED to be upgraded to ilvl 119, ideally without Beast Affinity. Please give us access to Fantod as well. My personal favorite pet is Pondering Peter, but he only caps at 118 with Beast Affinity.

Why does an SU5 Beastmaster need 5/5 Beast Affinity to keep a Pet at his current level? (At level 75, Call Beast+2 was sufficient to give us Even Match (equal level) pets!).

Regarding Reward, if you read my original question, I wasn't asking for 1/3rd scaling of Reward potency and Recast. Your example is a very drastic change and your players are not asking for that. We are merely asking for a 7-second reduction, which would bring us to 45-second most-frequent Reward recast. (This ensures we get the full (minus-34 second recast delay reduction) as described by both AF pieces, which has been currently capped at minus-25 seconds since inception in 2003). No change in potency should come with this 7-second reduction. Stacking Pet Food biscuits to 99 would be very helpful to our inventory problems.

There is so much to discuss with Beastmaster. Many parts of my favorite job, are left completely unfinished. Beastmaster should be a front-line support job, similar to the play-style of Blue Mage or melee Red Mage. The job traits, job abilities, group one/two merits should match your vision of front-line DD.

After 17 years of play, I am very weary of what feels like begging for moderate, fair changes. Please consider helping to make Beastmasters whole. Thank you for your time.

Losing the job's identity with new vision.
I feel that Beastmaster is losing its job identity with these changes and new vision. All except one job ability (Feral Howl) are pet focused and Beastmaster is the only job that can rest with their pet attacking. Yet we are told we are wrong. We can't backline support or pet focus because we should be attacking on master full-time. I don't understand why Puppetmaster is allowed to go between frontline and backline but Beastmaster is not.

Not understanding the new vision.
From what I understand, the new Beastmaster's vision is that the master should be standing right next to the pet and melee 100% of the time. Where the pet's damage is just supplemental. I don't understand this as Beastmaster has no native job traits to melee and all this pet focused gear and abilities.

Issues with new vision of Beastmaster.
▼ Axe WS are too weak.
Having access to multiple magic weapon skills needs better selection to magic gear.

• Mistral Axe: Similar to Savage Blade but only 1 attribute modifier where Savage has 2.
• Decimation: Overly increased by 1 weapon. Instead of +120% on weapon, why not boost the weapon skill itself by 100-110%? Then the Ambuscade axe can just be +10-20%.
• Primal Rend & Cloudsplitter: They should be as strong as Leaden Salute and Trueflight if not stronger for being in close range.
• Bora Axe: Please just make this Ice elemental damage. It doesn't get a lot of use.

▼ Distance is still an issue and jug pets have their own enmity list.
If we cannot have our old distance to activate abilities and that we can't use pet abilities outside of battle. Then just use Dragoon's wyvern AI. Pet fights what the master fights only. At least then the job no longer feels like the mechanics are broken. No one has to deal with being unable to access commands or worrying about pet running off and aggroing monsters.

▼ Job Abilities focus heavily on pets if master is supposed to always melee.
I don't agree with a change to melee only play style but the job abilities and traits don't support melee. Killer Instinct does but very limited use and doesn't work on magical damage ws.

▼ Currently limited to picking a pet for support effect, damage or monster affinity.
Currently Beastmaster can summon a pet every 5 minutes and 1 free every 20 minutes. This does not allow for Beastmaster to stack support effects from pets. To be balanced, either:

• Every pet gets support effects.
• Pets without support effects are stronger (but this steps on the vision of BST melee only).
• Change the support effect duration on master and/or Call Beast timer.

▼ Issues with inventory / limited in choices of pets to bring.
Unless you only play Beastmaster, jugs consume a lot of inventory. Please consider a new system where you don't need to carry so many individual jugs. Ninjas, Rangers, and Corsairs got universal tools, pouchs/quivers, and high amounts of recycle.

At the very least please give Reprisal the same enmity as Foil. I appreciate that you gave PLD Banishga to tag multiple monsters but the problem is gaining enmity quickly after tagging. It would be very useful, especially against monsters that repeatedly reset enmity.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

The aspect of diligently gathering gear to attain a 10-second recast time on Ready will be maintained. Regarding the item level of leg gear, we didn’t see it as a problem as we understood that the general playstyle was based around changing gearsets through usage of macros. While it’s possible to add a recast reduction bonus to the new ILv119 gear, this would be done when a new beastmaster-specific equipment is to be implemented.

We aren’t considering allowing pets’ support effects to apply to the entire party. One reason behind this is that some of these support effects are extremely powerful and are only allowed because they are limited to be applied to the master. Second reason is that by making this an area of effect, we can foresee players requesting beastmaster to fulfill a backline supporting role in parties.

Due to the base parameter values of pets and production cost required, we currently aren’t considering raising all pets to Lv119. However, now that the support effects affect the master, if there are any specific pets you would like to see raised to Lv119, please let us know. Additionally, please also let us know if there are any pets that are already Lv119, but you’d like to have support abilities added to them as well.

Regarding Reward, the main purpose of the ability is recovering HP. Therefore, greatly shortening its recast time is difficult to consider in terms of current balance. We could avoid the balancing issues, if for instance, we were to lower both healing potency and recast time to 1/3. However, this would mean it’d require three times the amount of items to achieve the same amount of healing, so then we’d have to consider things such as changing the quantity of items created in one synthesis to three, lowering the price to 1/3, and changing the stack size to 99.

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Regarding area of effect pet support effects: If making our pet's support effects would be enough to encourage others to ask us to move to a backline support role all by itself, then that just means that master melee is far too weak for players to consider it as a loss to do so. Please give us more reason to want to be up front swinging away, and for others to want that too. As many have pointed out before, there is just far too little in the actual design of the job itself to encourage us to hit things with axes.

Regarding Reward: I don't believe that anyone is asking for a drastic reduction in base recast for the ability. It has been brought up that Reward is subject to a bizarre cap on recast reduction, which is less than the reduction available from the 3 pieces of gear currently implemented which have been available for years. What reasoning is there to prevent the full application of available recast reduction from gear, especially since neither piece reaches the current cap on it's own and one piece required to hit the current cap is non-ilvl? By the way, the recipes for lower tier pet food already create a full stack of 12 per synthesis, with no improved results from HQ results, while even the highest tier (Pet Food Theta) is 4/6/8/10 per synthesis depending on HQ result.. There are no pet foods which have single results. ^^;;

Regarding ilv119 pets: Would it really be that heavy a task to change jug usage to ignore the innate level caps and override with ilv119 for lv99 players? Is it not possible to simply skip the check of the jug's settings and directly set the cap according to main hand weapon ilvl? This would be the simplest to implement solution most likely. The majority of naturally ilvl pets' stats are based off of job templates, so is your reluctance to allow all jugs to hit ilvl 119 because old jugs are coded differently? Personally, while that would be an acceptable solution, I am actually partial to the idea of stealing the pet ilvl system from PUP/SMN instead. It would help simplify our pets' mechanically if their ilvl was directly set by a new ranged slot piece of gear (which can stack with Pet Food in the Ammo slot,) and provide a balancing option development-wise for scaling pets beyond ilvl119 just like PUP/SMN. I imagine this would be a much larger task than the earlier suggested solution, so I don't have much hope that it will be considered as a viable option, but I do hope that you understand that there are alternative solutions if the current model is no longer within the capabilities of the dev team to continue development on.

Seems like if you want Atonement to be used in situations where paladins cant deal a lot of damage, it should have it's skillchain resonances removed to function like Spirits Within or Sanguine Blade.

I've noticed a lot of references relating to why this or that hasn't been changed due to game balance.

However, at this stage (on Asura at least) - Game balance has well and truly left the building.

1. Mercs sell everything. They offer the ability for people to 'buy' equipment from battles that they never even drew their weapon in. Any new content added just gets merced/sold. In fact merc yells selling said content probably out numbers genuine yells for said battles 30-1.

For example: A merc selling an item from the likes of Tenzen where you would need merits to be able to qualify in order to even get into the battle: The mercs just yell in the zone, said buyer joins the party, pays and lots on the item. The ridiculous thing here is that they don't even need merits to do so - they have completely by-passed that system.

2. The sheer amount of automated botting. It only takes a short walk around pretty much any zone, and you will find some kind of bot. /yell and job point sellers yells are relentless and if anything boil down to spam.

So, let's address these issues which are core game balance issues.

How do you address #1? How do you even consider that a core game balance issue? People are free to start parties or join parties whenever they want. If people are buying wins, it means theres a demand for purchasing content. It doesn't matter if they are forced to enter, people still sell wins that way too (Dynamis, Master trials.) It's sad but its what happens when we have an overabundance of gil via people selling and creating it from thin air with GAIN EXP sparks.

I would genuinely like to know what criteria and metrics the dev team is using to define "Game Balance" at this point. Please consider addressing this at length to explain to all of us players how and why you are making the decisions you are making regarding job adjustments, so that we can lower our expectations accordingly. I say "lower" because many of us players are hoping for more, and more drastic, improvements to our favorite jobs than what you would likely consider feasible, so I believe that it would be beneficial to the community to have a clear definition of whatever limitations, definitions and benchmarks are in place in the current design process.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Due to the base parameter values of pets and production cost required, we currently aren’t considering raising all pets to Lv119. However, now that the support effects affect the master, if there are any specific pets you would like to see raised to Lv119, please let us know. Additionally, please also let us know if there are any pets that are already Lv119, but you’d like to have support abilities added to them as well.

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In the spirit of your request for requests for specific jug pets to get increased to ilvl119 and/or gain support abilities:

Please increase the natural level caps of the following jugs to ilvl119.
Reductions in synthesis material costs would be appreciated as well if possible.. particularly the recipes that require Philosopher's Stones.:

• Cactuar - Amigo Sabotender : Only jug with Fragmentation skillchain property. Add Photosynthesis if possible (shareable).
• Snow Rarab - Lucky Lulush : Only jug with Ice damage.
• Lynx - Bloodclaw Shasra : Only jug with Lightning damage.
• Hippogryph - Faithful Falcorr : Fantod (shareable).
• Adamantoise - Crude Raphie : Harden Shell was included in the initial implementation as a shareable buff but the only Adamantoise jug is not ilvl?
• Leech - Fatso Fargann : Please add Regeneration if possible (shareable). This is one of my personal favorite pets even though he needs the ilvl upgrade badly.

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For existing ilvl jug pets:

• Chapuli - Missing Nature's Meditation. (shareable)
• Rarab - Droopy Dortwin : Stat differences are more than enough of a difference between NQ/HQ jugs. NQ should have a natural cap of 119 as well to reduce total dependence upon a 20min JA.
• Mandragora - Sharpwit Hermes : Missing Photosynthesis (Shareable). Phaeosynthesis would probably be too much to ask for, but would be something exciting (Shareable.) Also missing Dream Flower. Please add it like the low level jugs have it. Crowd control can qualify as support, no? >_>
• Toad - Brave Hero Glenn : New idea - Give Subtle Blow +50%~75% and flip the current atk-30%/def-30% penalties into +30% bonuses. This would give an option for meleeing masters who want a pet but not use Ready. Would at least make it more than a pure joke pet.

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Originally Posted by Typral

How do you address #1? How do you even consider that a core game balance issue? People are free to start parties or join parties whenever they want. If people are buying wins, it means theres a demand for purchasing content. It doesn't matter if they are forced to enter, people still sell wins that way too (Dynamis, Master trials.) It's sad but its what happens when we have an overabundance of gil via people selling and creating it from thin air with GAIN EXP sparks.

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Because it is breaking game balance. I left my character logged in for 15 hours yesterday, just in town, in yell. 95% if the yells were mercs and a handful were people getting people together for content.
Of course some people are going to 'buy wins' if the option is there, it is a tempting and easy option - It has now been accepted as the new norm to just 'use a merc'.

If you really think the future of this game is going to be all about people entering a party and lotting and then returning to town to just stand there (without even participating in the battle) JUST to have that piece of equipment. Then it won't have a future, especially with new faces, because if anything, if that is the way the game is going, it is becoming increasingly boring.

Bottom line:
It is all well and good about talking and balance when it comes to Beastmaster/other and timers/distance.

Yet, battles (a pretty big part of the game) are being manipulated to the core.

- Getting equipment from a battle you never even fought in.
- Getting gear from a battle that you don't even qualify to enter (not having to spend merits)
- Standing there getting job points because someone is running a bot for hours on end getting them for you.

I mean... Seriously, come on.....

Okay, cool feelings? How exactly do you combat it? This game is entering its retired mode. There is barely fresh blood coming into the game so I don't see what you plan to suggest to curb that type of behavior. Are you suggesting SE ban people who attempt to sell content?

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Originally Posted by Typral

Okay, cool feelings? How exactly do you combat it? This game is entering its retired mode. There is barely fresh blood coming into the game so I don't see what you plan to suggest to curb that type of behavior. Are you suggesting SE ban people who attempt to sell content?

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You think new people are going to stick around when only around 5% of yell is actually people DOING content?
How long are they going to stick around knowing that the only apparent route these days is to not do anything, pay gil for gear and then go back and look pretty in town.

No, banning is way over the top. Redesign the treasure pool so that people can't just join in it and lot. That way people will have to (god forbid) play the game (you know, like when this game was huge and people got stuff done without the level of merc that exists today).

It's an MMO, it is meant for people to get together, to find and meet new challenges.
Otherwise you might as well have every single item/equipment/weapon sold by NPC's, because whats the difference (NPC vs Merc)?

Your solution of redesigning the treasurepool so that you can't just join and get the item wouldnt do much to stop mercing. People would just join before the fight similar to that of helm clears. It would simply make mercing more annoying.

IMO that is a poorly thought out solution. Mercing is fine, without it new players would give up. Which is the reason it is so common. We get rid of mercing and honestly we lose like 60% of the player base. Sadly, mercs are a big part of the reason the game is still going.

Idk if you played back in the day. But mercing was EXTREMELY rampant in the 75 days (i know, i used to do it a LOT).

Better solution for the merc'ing+newbies issue: Become part of the solution.

Pick up those random shouters looking for lower tier content and help them complete it free of charge. Be like me and build a linkshell focused on helping new/returning folk learn about the game and get up to speed to be able to handle the content themselves that others are selling.

Doing content in-house rather than with randoms that you don't know tends to be a more enjoyable experience at the very least.

Merc'ing of highend content really does not have anything to do with anyone who would qualify as a "new player". The biggest stumbling block when starting out is learning 18 years worth of content. You are correct that this is an MMO and we should ideally do things by doing them rather than buying them. Instead of complaining about something that has been officially given the green light (declared not-against TOS) being a problem for new players, help those new players yourself and maybe they'll stick around long enough to become veterans. :)

Or you implement this :

Placed into June Digest reply, but relates to items, crafting, economy + econ health
This is a concern for the longevity of FFXI, the current state of our community and the overall health of each server.

At this point i really really really believe that FFXI is unworthy of it's ignorant peer to peer transaction interfaces. Unregulated interface design has lead to a manipulated and sometimes corrupt environment. All items in game categorized as equipment should be account-mail only (bound to account). This specifically concerns only the mail system, equipment will still have a place in the economy -> Read Below. Increase mail outslot/inslot to 32+. Trade boxes have the option for a gil trade completely removed. Crafting skill level cap per character reworked to allow all crafts to achieve maximum skill level.

"EX" itemization tag is completely removed from game with the exception of reforged armors, augmented equipment or equipment with Rank point upgrades. All items are given a NPC mediatory vendor listing in a new player supplied warehousing/pawnshop style environment including items that have "EX" tag removed. Auction house is removed and replaced with this new interface. SE dev team + director + producer select a base exchangeable gil rate for said items in the new warehousing system. Dev team + director + producer can elect to set a minimum and maximum value for every listing. Bazaar is linked to new warehousing system, prices of items placed into bazaar are set automatically by the current listing price through the new item commerce system. Item listings are subject to the supply and demand through easily constructed price formulas by which small percentages of value are subtracted or added based on stock levels and availability of items within each listing. Prices never exceed the maximum price for items that existing NPC vendors sell at: this includes all items that are currently sold by every NPC vendor. When selling to NPC vendors players are paid a suggested amount of 75%-90% of the item's current listing price. Listing prices adjust automatically based upon inventory levels. Sold items are automatically accounted for and added to the warehousing inventory. Inventory levels begin at and can become zero.

All equipment purchased with "Sparks" will receive a random stat augment applicable to the jobs that access user prerequisite. Example: Cloth armor sold from Sparks vendor with job listings for BLM/WHM/RDM/SCH/GEO/SMN could receive an augment of +INT or +MND based upon the level range bracket it's sold through.
New NPCs created that will remove any augment for the cost of X 100 the item's minimum equipment level. One placed in each city where sparks vendors are currently located.

Okay, I can tell you what I think now.

Asura is a very special server (great community btw) and this /yell was a very interesting feature. Mercing was never a thing in Pandemonium before both servers got merged. For years, I always wondered about Asura before I moved back. I got invited to the first linkshell. A few of days later, the holder of linkshell told me to recruit members so I went ahead and recruit members for her. I recruited more than 50 members in the same day I started recruiting as I basically said welcome to the family! Oops. Not a smart move. Everyone felt strange to each other and it annoyed the holder of linkshell the hell out. It took me several months to learn this community before I stop being the nicest person on the server.

Today, times have been changed. FFXI is no more. We are basically living in FFXIV's world where free companies and duty finder do not exist. People want to solo most of time. As I have told several months ago, discord is a very important thing to have. Discord keeps everyone in touch with. While I am having a break from doing the content with other members, my discord keeps getting 10+ notifications from the linkshell every week so it does tell me they are still doing stuff together. They are still recruiting new members to replace retired members. I guess I must be very lucky to be in one of the most active linkshells. That could be a reason why there is 95% mercing in /yell. Of course, one person takes all loots and divides loots by how many members who have ran an event. They have to be honorable enough to keep the linkshell going forever. Take a lot of practices with the same teammates every week. It's an old school MMO for everyone to enjoy.

Welcome to FFXI-2. /shrug You can still start looking for members if there is nothing to do. No one likes to stand in town and watch people selling content in /yell.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

Or you implement this :

Placed into June Digest reply, but relates to items, crafting, economy + econ health
This is a concern for the longevity of FFXI, the current state of our community and the overall health of each server.

At this point i really really really believe that FFXI is unworthy of it's ignorant peer to peer transaction interfaces. Unregulated interface design has lead to a manipulated and sometimes corrupt environment. All items in game categorized as equipment should be account-mail only (bound to account). This specifically concerns only the mail system, equipment will still have a place in the economy -> Read Below. Increase mail outslot/inslot to 32+. Trade boxes have the option for a gil trade completely removed. Crafting skill level cap per character reworked to allow all crafts to achieve maximum skill level.

"EX" itemization tag is completely removed from game with the exception of reforged armors, augmented equipment or equipment with Rank point upgrades. All items are given a NPC mediatory vendor listing in a new player supplied warehousing/pawnshop style environment including items that have "EX" tag removed. Auction house is removed and replaced with this new interface. SE dev team + director + producer select a base exchangeable gil rate for said items in the new warehousing system. Dev team + director + producer can elect to set a minimum and maximum value for every listing. Bazaar is linked to new warehousing system, prices of items placed into bazaar are set automatically by the current listing price through the new item commerce system. Item listings are subject to the supply and demand through easily constructed price formulas by which small percentages of value are subtracted or added based on stock levels and availability of items within each listing. Prices never exceed the maximum price for items that existing NPC vendors sell at: this includes all items that are currently sold by every NPC vendor. When selling to NPC vendors players are paid a suggested amount of 75%-90% of the item's current listing price. Listing prices adjust automatically based upon inventory levels. Sold items are automatically accounted for and added to the warehousing inventory. Inventory levels begin at and can become zero.

All equipment purchased with "Sparks" will receive a random stat augment applicable to the jobs that access user prerequisite. Example: Cloth armor sold from Sparks vendor with job listings for BLM/WHM/RDM/SCH/GEO/SMN could receive an augment of +INT or +MND based upon the level range bracket it's sold through.
New NPCs created that will remove any augment for the cost of X 100 the item's minimum equipment level. One placed in each city where sparks vendors are currently located.

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They wont even give bst 119 pets. your solution is never going to happen simply because they lack they man power. Honestly, the cool thing about this game is how broken it is. These anti merc solutions are pretty dumb to be honest. Ill bet my left leg they NEVER remove the AH. This solution is actually laughable. Why not just play elder scrolls games solo?

You could make everything drop into personal pools, but then you get mercs selling kills left and right where the buyer has to be in the zone and BAM all of escha is even more laggy. Solutions have to be realistic lol. Expect Mireu level effort for solutions. Revamping all gear and currencies. LMAO

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

Idk if you played back in the day. But mercing was EXTREMELY rampant in the 75 days (i know, i used to do it a LOT).

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Maybe on Asura. I never heard of it on Fenrir, it was only when I joined Asura that I saw it.

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

People would just join before the fight similar to that of helm clears. It would simply make mercing more annoying.

IMO that is a poorly thought out solution. Mercing is fine, without it new players would give up. Which is the reason it is so common. We get rid of mercing and honestly we lose like 60% of the player base. Sadly, mercs are a big part of the reason the game is still going. .

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They can't just join a fight if they don't have merits to do so..

If new players give up because they can't get gear through fighting battles, then what is the whole point of the game? People give up when they see unlimited merc yells in /yell and because everyone has got stuff from mercs, they dont wish to do the battles anymore, and so the chances are reasons for doing content are virtually nil. They get bored, they quit.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

Maybe on Asura. I never heard of it on Fenrir, it was only when I joined Asura that I saw it.



They can't just join a fight if they don't have merits to do so..

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You want to make merits a prereq for all fights? for non merit fights they just join before. Making merits a requirement just makes EXP/CP mercs even more prevalent. WOuld make even more mercing.

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

You want to make merits a prereq for all fights? for non merit fights they just join before. Making merits a requirement just makes EXP/CP mercs even more prevalent. WOuld make even more mercing.

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No... Im saying that under the current system, people can get gear by joining the party and lotting on equipment that had a requirement for merits, without even using any merits.

As an example:
Merc group kills Tenzen.
Ginsen drops in pool.
Exit out into Sea Lions Den.
Buyer/player walks into zone pays gil, and then lots on the item.

They then got that item without even dropping one merit.
That's not the way it is meant to be, clearly.

It takes next to no time to get merits to 75 SOLO.... I mean seriously, do you want everything to be no work and instant gratification? That's not how the world works.

That content is all dead. who cares if they merc it. Hardly anyone mercs those fights anyway because better gear exists.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

That content is all dead. who cares if they merc it. Hardly anyone mercs those fights anyway because better gear exists.

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If as you say, that content is all dead, your attitude is to just merc the 'current and only remaining viable content' because better gear exists?

Right, we will go on the notion that content is dead, and worthless. So, nobody needs to do it.
Let's merc the only viable remaining content? Offer the goods from them and the easy way, so nobody has to even group up for that content.....

Then everybody returns to town, in their new gear (that they didn't even draw their weapon for), staring at the HP crystal?

Sounds like an amazing experience.... Take....My....Money....Now.............

Maybe not to you. but other people like it. Quite a few apparently.
My attitude is to let people do whatever they want, just because you dissagree with how people like to play doesnt mean anything. I think it is crazy to have someone merc most content for you, but im not such a giant narcissist that ill scream that they shouldn't be able to do it.
I cant even remember the last time i saw ginsen being merced lol. The merced content is CP/EXP/ESCHA/Dynamis/New HTBF. People merc T1 reseinjima stuff. Easily soloable content. Some people prefer to play that way. A lot of the newer MMO you can buy gil and gear straight from the developer. If you really want to get rid of mercing, have SE start selling it. None of the solutions i have seen from the players would do much to change it. I wish they would, cuz then the devs would have more money to work with and put back into the game. It would also get rid of a lot of the botting issues. I think botting is a FAR bigger issue than mercing. Mercing is really just background noise tbh.

I mean, tell me your proposed changes and ill tell you how people will start mercing it.

Postings and complaints beat around the bushes, some have outright pointed fingers at the correct culprits. Where there is a demand there will be supply (Academic Econ 101). So here are the elephants in the room that each have guilt in creating a mercenary customer.

1. Bots (3rd party ToS violations that script commands into FFXI).
2. Inflation of gil present on active accounts (This is made worse for every bot implemented).
3. Conditions by which HQ (high quality) synthesis product results occur.
4. Escutcheon creation sinks of time and gil which is compounded by the source of necessary material being obstructed by bots. (The crafting shields).
5. Ultimate Weapon (REMA) domination within 18 of 22 available jobs (Power Creep).
6. Conditions by which Ultimate Weapons (REMA) upgrade and the economic+acquisition grind that is attached to each. (Yes, all the non-gil REMA currencies).
7. Un-evolved /seacom party finding and communications assistance.
8. VE, E, N, D, VD reward disparities for battles with these difficulty selections.
9. Power Creep requirements to qualify as a competent participant for present-day ilvl 119+ battles that allocate economic rewards.
10. Monopolized and outrageous NPC vendor gil sinks attached to Job Specific Equipment reforge process and advanced crafting recipies.
11. Items tagged "EX" from battles that DO NOT have any relevant problem of a open world obstruction due to them being procured from instanced content (HTBF Omen Escha).
12. Direct un-mediated peer-to-peer transaction capabilities.
13. Persistence of RMT distribution, customers and supply chain.
14. Battle conditions, enemy capabilities, and player established counter-measure strategies that exclude a bracket of job type or dramatically favor specific party compositions as it pertains to jobs.
15. The mutilation of magic burst as a competent offensive strategy for significant content such as Ambuscade and the failure to adequately balance the utilization of BLM job as an elemental damage source with the capabilities of other offensive jobs.

Character equipment requirements, Job point requirement, and power creep along with the meta party compositions utilized by players have created a significant barrier to entry as a competent participant in content traversed for advanced character development. Players enamored with progress that is only directly or potentially achievable through economic purchases have these concerns as motive to extract gil from any viable source. Undeveloped or underdeveloped characters have to meet or exceed the content and player enforced barrier of competency for participation.

Gil has become the short-cut. The choice is to struggle with the status of incompetence or to purchase the minimum of competence which is the equipment requirement for a job to adequately fulfill it's placement within a party. The legitimate resolution is to form a linkshell, community, and/or static of players that have comparable capabilities and limitations that would climb the ladder of achievement together. Due to #7 and #14 the establishment of such social networks is in a dismal state. This leaves the unregulated marketplace as a means to attain requirements forced by both power creep and player preferences.
NOW beyond that explanation, the acquisition of these funds falls into question. Various schemes, mercenary work, market manipulations, Bots, ToS violations (dupes), micro-transactions and RMT purchases all have been utilized for these economic gains which motive originates from the availability to purchase progress of various variety.

As of late, SE has taken a progressive step with the development of the NPC Zurim and how he vendors his wares. The Unity NM system at the beginnings of modern ilvl 119 era was implemented effectively to curtail plundering tactics of embedded merc transactions. Dyn{D} although problematic with it's direct alliance-wide treasure pool system and complications due to the dupe scandal and cross-service of crafting skills has a small degree of improvement in the area of a 18 player alliance having enough room for the inclusion of additional job selections without increasing the challenge of defeating enemies.

In the state that FFXI exists today, I offer this advice. Buyer Beware! The value of what is sold to you is based on how incompetent the merc perceives you to be and how much gil they believe they can extract from you. Merc prices reflect the above mentioned scandalous behaviors and they are looking to sell their services to the players who place the least value on the gil they have.
Form statics, linkshells and social connections with people that have comparable schedules. Lift all players in your group to meet the requirements of modern FFXI and the newest challenges. If you feed wild animals, they will associate you as a food source. Merc utilizes this same precedent, those that feed that demand perpetuate that behavior.

UNM is merced pretty easily. you just sell kills. It didnt do anything to stop mercing.

True, but not even a fool would exchange vast sums of gil for that service. The fights are typically alot more available to the inclusiveness of job types with 18 player alliances being allowed. Thus limiting the perception of marketing the UCNM as a consistent source of sales for a merc.

If the content becomes hard, then yes they would. When UNM was new you could charge pretty good amounts for a kill. Even still 200-300k a kill on the 135 UNM is pretty common. Most mercing is pretty small amounts of gil tbh. dynamis D wave three mercing is expensive and so is aeonic clear. BUt the rest are pretty darn cheap. Any content that has a requirement to get kill/clear credit or drops will easily be merced. Your solutions really just make mercing look slightly different.

guess you overlooked the part about removing the ability to place gil into a trading box?

You just sound like a communist at this point, just let people sell whatever they want. SE just needs to keep adding content and not let things stagnate like they have. There is nothing stopping players from grouping up, mercing or buying from mercs is not required in any form.

Correct, there's no requirement.
The alternative traditional way of doing things must be facilitated by players.
The implementation of billboard advertising by mercs in /yell imposes a perspective that contradicts the core intent of community formation and building relationships of trust.
Core values of MMOs.

If people would actually read each word of the comments concerning the topic you would have seen that the proposal didn't remove capabilities to sell things, it actually INCREASES those capabilities through the use of a new commerce interface that would replace the antique auction house with a evolved player supplied warehousing market. Complete with massively more items available (due to removing "EX" tag from equipment with the exceptions being items with rank points, items that are augmented and items that are described as Artifact/Relic/Empyrean).

Then they just use real money in paypal via discord. still will be merced. Also, SE will NEVER do that. to even suggest it is silly. If you want a different commerce system i suggest finding a different game. They dont have NEAR the manpower to do that, and they dont really care about mercs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Typral

SE just needs to keep adding content

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And mercs just keep selling that content. Reducing the chances of people getting together and doing it (because they already bought the stuff from a merc).

Whatever your thoughts as well as Spaitin's are. Mercing breaks ToS.... Controlling 6 characters on one computer using third party software and sending scripted automatic commands to
each instance is breaking terms. End of story...

Unless SE want to re-write the entire ToS to say it is ok, until that day, it remains against the terms of service.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

Then they just use real money in paypal via discord. still will be merced. Also, SE will NEVER do that. to even suggest it is silly. If you want a different commerce system i suggest finding a different game. They dont have NEAR the manpower to do that, and they dont really care about mercs.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

other people like it. Quite a few apparently.

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So just make absolutely everything sellable from NPC's, right? Because whats the difference? If people like buying weapons/gear and not fighting, make it more user friendly, right?

Lol then go play wow or FFIV. you can do that in those games. People like this game the way it is, which is why they still play it. Your suggestion would just kill the game. SE is aware of people breaking ToS. Guess what? they dont really care. Your suggestions are a bit silly. They dont have NEAR t he manpower to do it. I wish they would make bst not suck. But it aint happening. They only tweak existing parameters. THey are not changing to new ones. Sure make it sellable by NPC. then they are doing the same thing you dont like just different.

People have been complaining about the mercing for 17 YEARS. you really think they are going to change it now? lol The reason they havnt stopped it is because they dont want to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

Your suggestions are a bit silly.

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Me: "Play the game, form a group and do content, it's actually quite fun" - Silly apparently.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spaitin

Sure make it sellable by NPC

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You: make everything sellable, nobody has to do anything whatsoever other than own copious amounts of gil and just stand there doing not much of anything...

In case you haven't noticed, with current trends, there is only one 'undead' server left with (I just checked) 2500 people on it.......
So, yeh, merc'ing isn't really working.....

Edit: I mean 500 people running 5x alts on each account.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one thinking this...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

In case you haven't noticed, with current trends, there is only one 'undead' server left with (I just checked) 2500 people on it.......
So, yeh, merc'ing isn't really working.....

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I mean... the only server that isnt dead is the one with mercing. The ones without mercing are all dead. You used bad logic on that one, can easily use it to describe multiple opposite outcomes. Yes your solution is silly. They will NEVER do what you are suggesting. For a solution to be good, it has to have at least a snowflakes chance in hell of being implemented. Your solution is silly and unrealistic. People actually go to asura FOR the mercing services, as crazy as that sounds.

Wow, this thread got derailed hard.

1) Thank you SE (& Matsui especially!) for taking the time to address some of our issues, especially as it pertains to Mireu and Beastmaster.

2) Still have not seen any Mireu kills on Cerberus, but hopefully this can happen soon thanks to your adjustments.

3) I'm not a BST, but it's clear there's so much that can be done to the job going from the suggestions by others.
Just be smart about it, do small updates every month or so. Ask for feedback, test, test, test. BST can be great
again without being ridiculously overpowered.

As for the other stuff..

4) You'll find the merc 'problem' is only prevalent on the biggest servers. Go to any small server like Cerberus
and these services either don't exist, or only show up once in a blue moon. If you're so upset by players
selling content? Go to a smaller server and join/build a linkshell with players who want to beat things
the way the game should be played.

You'll be surprised how many players still get together to do content without any
exchanges of currency. My endgame linkshell is close to completing its fifth Aeonic,
we've destroyed Omen and plan on doing the new content as well. You won't get
things done as fast as somewhere like Asura, but you'll probably enjoy it more.