Suggestion: Break the game, SE

Supply and Demand, if just being common was all it took, Ancient currency should be 100g. Also be glad its 120k i've seen as high as 150k with 130k being average.

FrankReynolds, I like ya. d(^-^)b

I don't think I'm the only one here who's waiting to hear about their plan for the future. The roadmap runs out in march, and we were promised a lot of revamping of old content, new content, and all sorts of stuff.

In fact, it's probably a pretty chilly day in Hades, since the prism staff announcement hit the forums -- though I'm not singing it's praises until I see it completed and find out how hard it'll be to get it.

It's an example of a good idea, but nothing in XI is a bad idea in and of itself. What gets messed up is the execution, and this absolute veneration of old coupled with a sheer fear of anything new. How many times, in the past, has the playerbase decried the practice of keeping the old end-game stuff as the best, while the new end-game stuff was simply sidegrades?

Not that I'm saying that the focus needs to be on epic loots. I'd love more fun in the game. I'd love meaningful activities other than killing bosses for loot. All it takes is a sense of progression and a rewards that I'm not going to turn around and NPC for content to be meaningful.

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Originally Posted by Zinato

Supply and Demand, if just being common was all it took, Ancient currency should be 100g. Also be glad its 120k i've seen as high as 150k with 130k being average.

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The reason you see the 120k+ is because NOONE IS BUYING THEM. lol.....Make sense now?

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Originally Posted by Anapingofness

That's a very good suggestion. Personally, I would love to see something like that implemented. You're not the only one who feels shafted by spending time and effort helping the one or two people benefit. Not only that but the external point system is kind of stupid. It's too easy to manipulate against a person or for a person in terms of getting/not getting drops.

But seriously, a lot of people would be more inclined to help others if they too got something in return. Yeah, person A gets the gear/item/whatever but if person B, C, D get a point or some sort of small reward that helps them out then suddenly you have a friendlier environment.

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Sadly, the game has never really been 100% like this, however cool it would be if it were. For most events, players are forced to create their own rewards to incentivize people to help them. That is how DKP systems came about, where at least if you don't walk away from an event with that drop you want, you will earn a few points for the next time. I agree that some systems people have come up with are able to be manipulated. There are whole schools of thought on which points system works better than others.

I have a suggestion! Take all of the suggestions to break the game, and throw that away where it belongs, because thats what killed the game in the first place! I mean it was so dumbed down for the noobs in this game that want the game broken, that it lost the thrill and elitism that made the game a challenge. I know... I should practically design this game anymore! lol

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

The guy is trying really hard to be nice to you despite the fact that your just ragging on him and adding nothing to the conversation. It makes you look pretty silly. A lot of people think the game is going in a bad direction as of late. The beauty of a MMO is that it can be reinvented and expanded on without any limit other than profitability. That means that the game can be reinvented again and again for 50 years, or neglected and shutdown in 6 months.

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A lot of people thought the game went in a horrible direction when they raised the cap after years of saying they never would. A lot of people thought the game went in a horrible direction when they made XP a joke. A lot of people thought the game went in a horrible direction when "x" happened.

I'm not ragging on him for nothing. He has his fingers in his ears going, "Lalalalalala we need a broken game where we can godmode, because that's fun, and a lot of people think so." Not everyone liked Abyssea. I, personally, do. However, Abyssea is also the reason why "a lot" of people quit. If they go the Abyssea route, they're going to lose players. If they continue to go in the Voidwatch direction, they're going to lose players.

My point is that this game is beyond its prime. It's naive of Aquilla and anyone else who thinks that anything SE does with this game is going to attract some massive amount of brand new players. It won't. It's an old game. The best thing that can happen is to slow the number of cancellations and hope to attract some of the older players back to the game.

For every person you claim doesn't like the current direction, someone else can claim that the same amount of players didn't like the Abyssea direction.

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I for one would like to see a radical shift and a reinvention. There are still thousands of walls that can be broken down in this game. The old FFXI was fun and while there was a lot of bad stuff, it was overall a great game. I don't want to go back to it anymore than I want to go back to the 8th grade though. Crazy long grinds for stuff that added virtually invisible gains to your character are a thing of the past and should stay that way.

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Why can't people who want those long grinds have them? People like you and me who don't want to mess with it 6+ years later have easy-peasy Abyssea where AF items just drop from the sky. Or is this boiling down to the same issue plaguing WoW where people want the best rewards while only putting in minimal effort?

People who don't want to have to put up with the old-school style do not have to do it. It's there for those who want to do it. I don't care for chocobo raising nor racing. I don't do them, I don't claim that the direction should have been changed because it doesn't suit my tastes. Then again, I'm sure this will be seen as not "equal" since it's as I thought, this boils down to people wanting access to the best gear possible without having to do the old-school grind.

There's no reason SE cannot implement both Aby-style rewards/events AND VW-style rewards/events for the people who want to do them. This does not have to be an either/or, and so far, most people arguing for Aby-style events aren't just wanting them to be added also, they want ONLY Aby-style events.

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EDIT: Funny side note... he clearly knew what RNG stands for. Good job explaining it to him for no reason though.

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I know he knew what it meant.

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didn't say I had a problem with the "dice" (not going to use RNG since that's also the abreviation for ranger), just pointing out that the only real risk left is plain old dumb luck.

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I explained it since he wanted to play semantics. See, there was a reason. Please stop the assumptions.

I'm not terribly smart, Shipp, and I really don't know anything about making video games, but it just seems to me that you keep saying 'The game is fine the way it is.' That's okay, really.

I'm not saying 'Godmode us'. I'm not saying 'Have only aby, and no VW.' I'm not saying 'Chocobo raising should have the best rewards in the game because i likes me some colorful chicken'.

What I said was, aby was fun because it broke the game. I'm not the only one who's noted how aby broke the game -- how it undid all the barriers that they told us were in place. It gave better gear than old endgame. It gave us a stupid amount of stats. It even gave us a godmode button in form of the primeval brew.

How long did zilart remain as THE Expansion for endgame? Toau came, WoTG came, and we got sidegrades. We got content that was half-baked and unfinished, that didn't give good enough of a reward for the effort put in.

Aby came along, broke all that, and it was fun. Were there complaints? Sure. A lot of them. But overall, it gave a breath of fresh air to the game. It wasn't perfect. It was, however, new.

What I am championing is the cause of the new. I'm tired of the balancing act -- tweak this, tweak that, sidegrade here, miniscule update there. Look at the root of the most of the complaints here and you'll find that a lot of people are saying exactly that.

Yeah, breaking the game means making players a lot more powerful, but it also means opening up new venues to test us. Tweaking means leaving a lot of unused, dead content. I don't know that breaking the game would attract hordes of new players. However, tweaking and balancing won't -- and its bound to frustrate a lot more.

Hey, I'm glad that you think everything is okay. I'm glad that you're accepting of status quo. You're allowed to have that opinion.

I think SE isn't trying very hard to do their best -- and since we are paying customers, we are certainly allowed to tell them why we feel that way.

Here's what I believe:

This game has a ton of content that could be made enjoyable by better rewards/easier accessibility/newness.

This game has enough uniqueness and individuality to be a viable MMO even today.

Am I wrong? Frequently, but I don't think it's about this.

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Originally Posted by Mahoro

Sadly, the game has never really been 100% like this, however cool it would be if it were. For most events, players are forced to create their own rewards to incentivize people to help them. That is how DKP systems came about, where at least if you don't walk away from an event with that drop you want, you will earn a few points for the next time. I agree that some systems people have come up with are able to be manipulated. There are whole schools of thought on which points system works better than others.

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Well that's kind of my point. Basically they do need to change their system. There are plenty of things they can add so that the distribution is more equal. A DKP type system is just one solution that can be added in relatively easily.

Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with working for something, if I wasn't I wouldn't have been with this game as long as I have been. I'm also fine with things being really hard to get. For example, mythic weapons. That's all rainbows and star shine! However that route should be a choice. If player A wants to work for over a year or three to get a piece of gear then you know what that's his God given right. However, don't make that the rule for everyone else. Everyone else shouldn't have to suffer through that agony to get a marginally decent piece of gear.

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Originally Posted by Shipp

For every person you claim doesn't like the current direction, someone else can claim that the same amount of players didn't like the Abyssea direction.

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Fair enough, but you can't undo abyssea now. It's clear that people do not want to go back. Saying "hey we promise that long grinds and botting are gonna make a come back" isn't going to get the old crowd who liked that stuff back. the fact of the matter is that many of the people who didn't like abyssea initially, came around and like it better now. I am one of them.

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Originally Posted by Shipp

Why can't people who want those long grinds have them? People like you and me who don't want to mess with it 6+ years later have easy-peasy Abyssea where AF items just drop from the sky. Or is this boiling down to the same issue plaguing WoW where people want the best rewards while only putting in minimal effort?

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Actually it's the complete opposite. Epic mode is readily available to anyone who cares for a challenge. The fact of the matter is that none of these people who say they want a challenge are willing to sacrifice gear for some challenge. You are free to go low man VWNMs with no temps, and nothing but pups and bsts in your group, but nobody does that because they really don't give a crap about the challenge. They want the gear. Truth is that if SE added a whole bunch of NMS and content that gave no gear, but added all sorts of stupid visual effects to your character, nobody would do it unless it was super easy. As a matter of fact, I bet if you look through one of the wikis, you can actually find that there are a shit load of Tough NMs, and quests that no one cares about because they only want loot.

Want to be fair? make the gear readily available to anyone who is willing to put in a moderate effort like abyssea. Then create a bunch of afterglow style epic long quests and SUPER hard mode NMS that award no gear, but give people shit like glows, and flames, and shiny stuff. Watch 99.999% of the people who said they needed more challenge ignore the hard stuff that doesn't drop gear just like they do now.

Or better yet make the event so that you can adjust the difficulty, but the drops stay the same. See how many people try to do it on hard mode.

Hint: you can already do this by not using atmas. I've done it against a few NMS just for shiggles. Have you?

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Originally Posted by Shipp

People who don't want to have to put up with the old-school style do not have to do it. It's there for those who want to do it. I don't care for chocobo raising nor racing. I don't do them, I don't claim that the direction should have been changed because it doesn't suit my tastes. Then again, I'm sure this will be seen as not "equal" since it's as I thought, this boils down to people wanting access to the best gear possible without having to do the old-school grind.

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"hey, nobody is forcing you to do it."

Yeah, that ought to sell some subscriptions.

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Originally Posted by Shipp

I explained it since he wanted to play semantics. See, there was a reason. Please stop the assumptions.

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Seriously, go reread what he wrote a few times. your way off base.

Now back on the topic: They could absolutely rebuild this game, and draw new customers with expansions, graphics updates, and better play scaled towards more casual gamers. That obviously can't happen on a shoestring budget with like 3 coders. Drawing new players requires advertising and marketing... and having something new to advertise and market.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Now back on the topic: They could absolutely rebuild this game, and draw new customers with expansions, graphics updates, and better play scaled towards more casual gamers. That obviously can't happen on a shoestring budget with like 3 coders. Drawing new players requires advertising and marketing... and having something new to advertise and market.

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Haha they actually need to try advertising first! I saw one advertisement via Steam for FFXI. Other than that last time I heard about FFXI was about the Pandemonium Warden bit.

But you know what? I am 100% behind that suggestion. They should stop putting money into polishing that turd (read: FFXIV) and really polish this game. Make it shine like we know it can. Hell, Blizzard pretty much re-released WoW with Cataclysm, why can't SE do the same? Granted they'd have to actually put some effort into the damn thing and listen to the players but it can be done.

To go with what Frank said, they could rebuild the and it could very easily create top tier gear, each stronger then the last. Does this change how hard enemies will be? no, because enemies following will also be stronger. The big issue i've seen post abyssea is the need to zerg everything.

The game has a single method of defeating the enemy and thats stand at its side and smack it around. What would make the game more challenging (Real challenge not artifical) is enemies that can select random players and spawn damaging spheres that slowly engulf the arena. Arena's like Diabolos' that change as the fight progresses. Enemies that use moves that are reletively harmless unless two or more people hit it during its ready phase at which point it does large AoE dmg. Enemies that change colors to symbolize a weakness for a window of time. (and i'm talking 0 from other sources) more fights like this and less like VW, along with scaling enemies could make all the difference. 99 may be the literal cap but gear and monsters could let the game go far beyond that leaving room for many things to come. That is if they cared.

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Originally Posted by Aquilla

I'm not terribly smart, Shipp, and I really don't know anything about making video games, but it just seems to me that you keep saying 'The game is fine the way it is.' That's okay, really.

I'm not saying 'Godmode us'. I'm not saying 'Have only aby, and no VW.' I'm not saying 'Chocobo raising should have the best rewards in the game because i likes me some colorful chicken'.

What I said was, aby was fun because it broke the game. I'm not the only one who's noted how aby broke the game -- how it undid all the barriers that they told us were in place. It gave better gear than old endgame. It gave us a stupid amount of stats. It even gave us a godmode button in form of the primeval brew.

How long did zilart remain as THE Expansion for endgame? Toau came, WoTG came, and we got sidegrades. We got content that was half-baked and unfinished, that didn't give good enough of a reward for the effort put in.

Aby came along, broke all that, and it was fun. Were there complaints? Sure. A lot of them. But overall, it gave a breath of fresh air to the game. It wasn't perfect. It was, however, new.

What I am championing is the cause of the new. I'm tired of the balancing act -- tweak this, tweak that, sidegrade here, miniscule update there. Look at the root of the most of the complaints here and you'll find that a lot of people are saying exactly that.

Yeah, breaking the game means making players a lot more powerful, but it also means opening up new venues to test us. Tweaking means leaving a lot of unused, dead content. I don't know that breaking the game would attract hordes of new players. However, tweaking and balancing won't -- and its bound to frustrate a lot more.

Hey, I'm glad that you think everything is okay. I'm glad that you're accepting of status quo. You're allowed to have that opinion.

I think SE isn't trying very hard to do their best -- and since we are paying customers, we are certainly allowed to tell them why we feel that way.

Here's what I believe:

This game has a ton of content that could be made enjoyable by better rewards/easier accessibility/newness.

This game has enough uniqueness and individuality to be a viable MMO even today.

Am I wrong? Frequently, but I don't think it's about this.

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You bring up some good points, but I don't care for your somewhat snide remarks about me accepting the status quo. I'm not 100% happy with XI, nor have I ever been. I like Aby over the old-school style grind. However, I also don't see the problem with having that type of grind for players to do if they wish.

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Actually it's the complete opposite. Epic mode is readily available to anyone who cares for a challenge. The fact of the matter is that none of these people who say they want a challenge are willing to sacrifice gear for some challenge. You are free to go low man VWNMs with no temps, and nothing but pups and bsts in your group, but nobody does that because they really don't give a crap about the challenge. They want the gear. Truth is that if SE added a whole bunch of NMS and content that gave no gear, but added all sorts of stupid visual effects to your character, nobody would do it unless it was super easy. As a matter of fact, I bet if you look through one of the wikis, you can actually find that there are a shit load of Tough NMs, and quests that no one cares about because they only want loot.

Want to be fair? make the gear readily available to anyone who is willing to put in a moderate effort like abyssea. Then create a bunch of afterglow style epic long quests and SUPER hard mode NMS that award no gear, but give people shit like glows, and flames, and shiny stuff. Watch 99.999% of the people who said they needed more challenge ignore the hard stuff that doesn't drop gear just like they do now.

Or better yet make the event so that you can adjust the difficulty, but the drops stay the same. See how many people try to do it on hard mode.

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That is the thing though. More challenging events -should- reward better gear. I'm not saying that there's a problem with that. I'm saying that there are a lot of people complaining (same thing happened in WoW prior to WoTLK and Cata) that they want the best gear, but they shouldn't have to put in the effort to obtaining it. If you want that those great rewards, then put in the effort and do them. If you just want Aby-style events since they're easy and quick, then be happy with Empy+2. This isn't directed to you specifically, just in general.

To explain what I'm talking about, going to bring up WoW here. People complained and complained that they couldn't do raids. So Blizzard nerfs raids. Now everyone has the same gear. The people who wanted a challenge now have the gear, yet they don't have the challenge. Blizzard made heroic mode raids with basically the +1 version of gear from the normal raid counterpart. Then those same people who complained about not being able to raid in the first place because they were too challenging complained because now they don't get to have the top-tier gear like people who put in more effort. Then heroics were nerfed and Blizzard introduced hard-modes within the heroic raids so players had the choice of getting better gear by fighting harder version of the gear, which is basically a +2 version of the normal raid (in XI's terms). The people who originally whined about not being to raid now complain that they want hard-mode raid gear. It was never about them getting in to raiding, it was about them wanting the same gear as the hardcore players without actually putting in the time that those hardcore players do.

I see the same thing happening here. VW would be basically the equivalent of Heroic raids in WoW. Aby would be like the normal version. If people want that great gear, then they should put in the effort for it. Or, they can be happy with upgrading their empy stuff and still be far more powerful than they were prior to upgrading it.

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"hey, nobody is forcing you to do it."

Yeah, that ought to sell some subscriptions.

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Yes, because I certainly saw that huge influx of sub numbers rising when Aby was released.

The statement is right. Nobody is forcing you to do it. You want the rewards from it without doing it, and you want them obtained through easier means.

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Originally Posted by Shipp

The statement is right. Nobody is forcing you to do it. You want the rewards from it without doing it, and you want them obtained through easier means.

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Just because they offer you an option to get something one way doesn't mean you have to do it that way. For example: you are free to try and get to floor 100 in Nyzul isle with just 3 people.

However, I do not have the option to bring 12 people do I? Seems to me that you don't really want more challenging events. You want events that are too hard for most of the paying customers. You want to have some gear that no one else can get. It has nothing to do with the challenge. Its all about a false sense of superiority.

I have no problems getting endgame content completed. However, the average gamer spends maybe a couple hours a day playing games tops, and most of the time not consecutively. Making events that require massive time sinks, and large numbers of players who have already completed large time sinks, as the only method of completion, effectively blacks out a large portion of potential customers. Every impossible to obtain item eventually becomes the standard. They did a lot to adjust the curve so that new players could catch up for a while, but now they are screwing that all back up. They should have stuck with that.

There is always a harder way to do things. The challenge seekers never opt for that though. They always seek the easiest way to do it, and then complain that it's too easy.

If this was a standard RPG, these people would be playing on easy mode, and sad when they finished the game the first day.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Just because they offer you an option to get something one way doesn't mean you have to do it that way. For example: you are free to try and get to floor 100 in Nyzul isle with just 3 people.

However, I do not have the option to bring 12 people do I? Seems to me that you don't really want more challenging events. You want events that are too hard for most of the paying customers. You want to have some gear that no one else can get. It has nothing to do with the challenge. Its all about a false sense of superiority.

I have no problems getting endgame content completed. However, the average gamer spends maybe a couple hours a day playing games tops, and most of the time not consecutively. Making events that require massive time sinks, and large numbers of players who have already completed large time sinks, as the only method of completion, effectively blacks out a large portion of potential customers. Every impossible to obtain item eventually becomes the standard.

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How is the average gamer blacked out from Nyzul when the event only takes 30 minutes? For that matter, how are they blacked out from any event you call a time sink when no current endgame event takes more than 2hrs?

I also dont think he was saying that he wants events that are too hard for the paying customers. He expressly said that if people want the better gear, they just need to put in the effort. Your attempt to portray that as some sort of ad hominem attack that he secretly wants a false sense of superiority is not supported by what he said.

You know, frank up there nailed it, but I'm not here to laugh at the 'I want sword of supershiny and nobody else can have it' people.

Here's the problem: the game has a severe myopia when it comes to reward. You want 18+ endgame? Fine! There's the Legion -- it's tailor-made for all the HNM-fighting, 18-man goodness you can get.
Your rewards are: a sidegrade. A haste+4%, str+8 and assorted stats sidegrade.

That, quite frankly, should upset the hard-mode crowd more than me. It makes me go 'meh' since I'm not in the market for end-game of that sort, but for you hard-mode people out there, it's even more meh. That's not an endgame reward, that's a joke. That's the type of shit that you should be able to get through a quest, or somesuch.

What if Legion dropped rings that gave stat+50? body pieces that were haste+25%, etc? If you are going to have this be endgame, then have it be endgame with oomph. Have it be gear that, when I get it, I can put on and see a difference.

However, you also need to have actual content for the rest of the crowd -- and that's exactly the problem. There is no content other than endgame content. There is nothing except NM-killing and loot-chasing.

Imagine starting out in this game now -- and imagine doing it coming from other MMOs. Quests are confusing, and give no rewards. The game doesn't explain to you how to participate in the variety of content -- no explanations for BCNM, VNM, ANNM, ENM, and all other dead content taking up space. No PvP, no crafting/gathering worth doing, no non-battle content such as pankration/chocobo raising/MMM.

All of this stuff is in the game, but shitty. It gives no rewards, takes too long to do, and is too hard to get into. Why can't all of this stuff be meaningful?

The game needs a serious revamp, for both the end-game and the actual playing of the game. It needs to be fun to play. That does require breaking the game. Why? because the elitist crowd who truly cared about the nerfing of the heroics are a tiny percentage of gamers. Most people want to have fun when they are playing a game, not have the item x. that nobody has. If that wasn't true, then WoW would've tanked the moment their first expansion made the former expansion obsolete.

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Originally Posted by Aquilla

You know, frank up there nailed it, but I'm not here to laugh at the 'I want sword of supershiny and nobody else can have it' people.

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No, he actually didn't, and I'll explain how.

I don't do VW. I do Aby. In another thread about inventory issues, Frank specifically said he needs 78+ pieces of equipment for gear swaps, and I said that's not necessary for any job except maybe BLU. His response was basically that "I" might not see it as necessary, but he does. He has no problem with people like me who don't carry around 80+ pieces of gear for just one job at a time, but he feels he needs to.

You tell me who has the superiority complex sweetheart. Mahoro nailed my point perfectly. If you want better rewards than the +2 gear from aby, then you need to put in the effort. People didn't baaaahhhhh about wanting Riddil without fighting Faf back in the day, because it makes logical sense that you get better rewards from harder events. Also, nothing today comes close to endgame back in the "glory" days, so I have a hard time imagining someone has a hard time getting into endgame things.

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Here's the problem: the game has a severe myopia when it comes to reward. You want 18+ endgame? Fine! There's the Legion -- it's tailor-made for all the HNM-fighting, 18-man goodness you can get.
Your rewards are: a sidegrade. A haste+4%, str+8 and assorted stats sidegrade.

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And you know what, it's optional. You obviously don't like the rewards, so you don't have to do VW. That is not a hard choice. Leave the more challenging/time-consuming events to those people who want to do them. I agree that the game could use more Aby style events. I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing against you people who claim that it's going to bring a ton of brand new players in and that more challenging/time-consuming content will kill the game.

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That, quite frankly, should upset the hard-mode crowd more than me. It makes me go 'meh' since I'm not in the market for end-game of that sort, but for you hard-mode people out there, it's even more meh. That's not an endgame reward, that's a joke. That's the type of shit that you should be able to get through a quest, or somesuch.

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Some people actually LIKE to do those types of events, regardless of the rewards. You know, some of us do play the game for fun instead of sitting in Jeuno e-peening around.

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What if Legion dropped rings that gave stat+50? body pieces that were haste+25%, etc? If you are going to have this be endgame, then have it be endgame with oomph. Have it be gear that, when I get it, I can put on and see a difference.

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Like I said, and you denied, you want godmode.

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However, you also need to have actual content for the rest of the crowd -- and that's exactly the problem. There is no content other than endgame content. There is nothing except NM-killing and loot-chasing.

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You have Aby for the time being. I don't know what you want, +50 gear just handed to you or something? Why SHOULDN'T you have to kill NMs? What is it that you want? You keep saying what you don't want to do yet you don't say what events you do want, only the rewards you want.

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Imagine starting out in this game now -- and imagine doing it coming from other MMOs. Quests are confusing, and give no rewards. The game doesn't explain to you how to participate in the variety of content -- no explanations for BCNM, VNM, ANNM, ENM, and all other dead content taking up space. No PvP, no crafting/gathering worth doing, no non-battle content such as pankration/chocobo raising/MMM.

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Very few new people are coming to this game. It's been that way since about WoTG release.

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All of this stuff is in the game, but shitty. It gives no rewards, takes too long to do, and is too hard to get into. Why can't all of this stuff be meaningful?

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Not everyone needs a reward to do something they consider fun. Perhaps you're not understanding the point of a game.

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The game needs a serious revamp, for both the end-game and the actual playing of the game. It needs to be fun to play. That does require breaking the game. Why? because the elitist crowd who truly cared about the nerfing of the heroics are a tiny percentage of gamers. Most people want to have fun when they are playing a game, not have the item x. that nobody has. If that wasn't true, then WoW would've tanked the moment their first expansion made the former expansion obsolete.

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You know, this is the exact same mindset of WoW players. Look how many subs dropped after Cata turned the game into easy-mode. Also, BC was a challenging expansion which most players actually did NOT raid, only the elites. I don't know where you're coming up with your info, but you're sorely mistaken and misrepresenting the facts. Blizzard has even stated that Cata's raids were easier because only a small portion of the playerbase had been raiding from Vanilla through WoTLK.

You are trying to bring a Cata-style revamp into XI, and Cata is the entire reason why I came back to XI. It's trash in terms of endgame. If you want easy events where you get the best gear, go play any other MMO, don't try to turn one of the last MMOs into that.

Wow, that was lengthy! Well, back on track:

Break the game, SE. Be brave, and bold. Do something new and innovative. That was what made FF special from the beginning!

Try something new -- because the current approach is just death by small doses. If you make the game shiny, new, and exciting -- and it still fails -- at least it would've gone out gloriously.

Actually Shipp... people did go "baaahhh Ridill" back in the day. I would know. I was one of those people. Besides, Ridill wasn't that great either. It was an e-peen item. Not to mention that Faffy wasn't that hard anyway.

On that note...

SE!!
Break the game!
If Shipp quits I'll get another player to take his place. Hell I'll pay for two accounts. Just make the game fun!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shipp

No, he actually didn't, and I'll explain how.

I don't do VW. I do Aby. In another thread about inventory issues, Frank specifically said he needs 78+ pieces of equipment for gear swaps, and I said that's not necessary for any job except maybe BLU. His response was basically that "I" might not see it as necessary, but he does. He has no problem with people like me who don't carry around 80+ pieces of gear for just one job at a time, but he feels he needs to.

You tell me who has the superiority complex sweetheart. Mahoro nailed my point perfectly. If you want better rewards than the +2 gear from aby, then you need to put in the effort. People didn't baaaahhhhh about wanting Riddil without fighting Faf back in the day, because it makes logical sense that you get better rewards from harder events. Also, nothing today comes close to endgame back in the "glory" days, so I have a hard time imagining someone has a hard time getting into endgame things.

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TLDR;


Yes, If you don't carry any healing set or any physical damage down set, and I do, then your physical damage down and your healing sets suck compared to mine. This is because you didn't bother to make a set at all. Not because I have epeen gear and show it off to make others feel inferior.

I carry around a bunch of stuff because it makes my character perform better, and it doesn't require any grinding to get that improvement. I mean seriously, who wants to help a guy get his awesome strength headpiece when the guy doesn't even bother to keep it on him so he can use it afterwards? DO you really not feel annoyed when the mage runs out of mp, and you look over and hes not wearing any HMP gear while he rests? This is all stuff that can be bought cheap off the AH. not king drops.

How can you act like I'm lazy for complaining about months of grinding when you can't even be bothered to buy sets off the AH?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mahoro

How is the average gamer blacked out from Nyzul when the event only takes 30 minutes? For that matter, how are they blacked out from any event you call a time sink when no current endgame event takes more than 2hrs?

I also dont think he was saying that he wants events that are too hard for the paying customers. He expressly said that if people want the better gear, they just need to put in the effort. Your attempt to portray that as some sort of ad hominem attack that he secretly wants a false sense of superiority is not supported by what he said.

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Actually ....

Earlier today I noticed not one, not two, but four different VWNM shouts that required the melee's to have Emp / Relic weapons. They were not even for Rex but for Ig, Gaunab, Uptala and drum roll please, Pil. I'm not sh!tty you, they demanded emp / relics for ... Pil.

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How is the average gamer blacked out from Nyzul when the event only takes 30 minutes?

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Because the people who will be organizing these events will demand Emp / Relics and nothing else. The "average" player doesn't have an Emp, I know I've been watching. Without solid friends or a shell getting past Stage II is pretty much impossible now. Nobody even remotely cares for the +2 drops from those NMs nor the Atma's, we've completely saturated the supply with them by having to do them x50 x50 x75. 50 really was too big a number, or the NM only dropping 1~2 was too little, either way it required such a grind that people refuse to help anymore. Relics are now more realistic to obtain then Emps due to being able to do the entire thing by yourself or nearly by yourself.

So yes, "average players" aka the majority of paying customers, are being c*ck blocked from events by leaders demanding relic / emps. Basically saying "you can not participate in any new content without first making yourself several Emps / Relics". And yes it's several, because at this point in time people have different jobs. And if the event leader needs a DRK, and you leveled DRK but have an Almace or Ukon, then your told to go piss off. If the event leader is looking for "Ukon WAR Onry" and you got a Torcleaver but also have WAR leveled and fully geared, your told to piss off.

This is the flaw in Empyrean's design and the recreation of dynamis. Super weapons were never ment to be an every man item, and this holds true for nearly every MMO. However, now enough people have empyrean to make it "standard", the problem this causes is a rift between content. On the one hand those with empyrean find the content too easy since the weapons themselves are far superior to any non-super weapon counterpart. Then on the other hand, any player unable to gain an empyrean will likely find content too hard or else players will gain the idea of empyrean = faster and therefore only useful way to win. (Since zerg has been the play style for quite some time now)

The problem lies in the uncloseable gap of power in the Weaponskills along with double dmg aftermath, this on low delay weapons makes a major difference. When SE announced new Weaponskills for players that threatened to be as powerful as empyrean, those with the weapon fought back and eventually got the weaponskills weakened. (Not without reason however, they did after all create a weapon vs 100 merits) Had the weaponskills remained in power its possible empyrean would be counteracted and the situation wouldn't be what it is now. Alternatively if the aftermath or even the weaponskill itself was unlocked at 90 or more so 95 the balance would likely be restored. The fact that for larger teams empyrean is dime-a-dozen and for smaller teams its much more of a time commitment the balance will continue to shift. As more people make empyrean out of nessessity the gap grows ever larger and the means to acquire ever smaller.

Imagine for a moment, 6 months from now leveling drk, this is long after the abyssea rush and many ls' will be burnt out on creating empy after making so many others. But, you must have 90 GS to even have a chance of using the job, and whats more this may only be your second job. (This issue affects any DD regardless of how many other jobs a player has.) The common argument is just level a mage, but this not only lowers DD available for runs but from the players perspective has nearly the same result since magian staves are up to 8 or more per mage, excluding WHM. (besides, if a player is forced into a role they dislike its highly likely they wont hang around long.)

The day FFXI breaks the random system for drops and start a point system it will rain in hell. Unfortunately that would be the best change for FFXI. There are so many interesting jobs in this game and so many events that a point system wouldn't remove the longetivity of the game for the casual or the hardcore.

But it would remove a lot of frustration. FFXI became more of a game about things you can't do unless you whore yourself to a linkshell (unless you are a leader, officer or virtual girlfriend from one of those) then things that you can actually log in for 2-3 hours and get things done. A lot of players appreciate that others can't achieve meaningful thing in 2-3h but they are just sick (lack of social life) and don't know yet.

I don't know if its linked to the japanese culture of self-suffering and this is why this random system drop still exists. The proc stuff made it even worse cause now you gotta have a friend nin another whm and another blm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saevel

Because the people who will be organizing these events will demand Emp / Relics and nothing else. The "average" player doesn't have an Emp, I know I've been watching. Without solid friends or a shell getting past Stage II is pretty much impossible now. Nobody even remotely cares for the +2 drops from those NMs nor the Atma's, we've completely saturated the supply with them by having to do them x50 x50 x75. 50 really was too big a number, or the NM only dropping 1~2 was too little, either way it required such a grind that people refuse to help anymore. Relics are now more realistic to obtain then Emps due to being able to do the entire thing by yourself or nearly by yourself.

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This may have been the intention all along, going back to that interview where the devs "claim" they didn't call Abyssea a mistake.

Conspiracies aside, you'd probably have to create a new incentive to make people either grind merit points in abyssea or kill those mobs in exchange for something else. Like, say, an item "created" by killing three abyssea zone bosses that can be traded for one of the items required for the other trials. Could make it specific for each weapon (maybe a sword wielder gets "Blade Shard", a G-Axe user gets "Axe Splinter" and so on). Trading merit points for said items (probably 20 or so) would also work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saevel

Actually ....

Earlier today I noticed not one, not two, but four different VWNM shouts that required the melee's to have Emp / Relic weapons. They were not even for Rex but for Ig, Gaunab, Uptala and drum roll please, Pil. I'm not sh!tty you, they demanded emp / relics for ... Pil.



Because the people who will be organizing these events will demand Emp / Relics and nothing else. The "average" player doesn't have an Emp, I know I've been watching. Without solid friends or a shell getting past Stage II is pretty much impossible now. Nobody even remotely cares for the +2 drops from those NMs nor the Atma's, we've completely saturated the supply with them by having to do them x50 x50 x75. 50 really was too big a number, or the NM only dropping 1~2 was too little, either way it required such a grind that people refuse to help anymore. Relics are now more realistic to obtain then Emps due to being able to do the entire thing by yourself or nearly by yourself.

So yes, "average players" aka the majority of paying customers, are being c*ck blocked from events by leaders demanding relic / emps. Basically saying "you can not participate in any new content without first making yourself several Emps / Relics". And yes it's several, because at this point in time people have different jobs. And if the event leader needs a DRK, and you leveled DRK but have an Almace or Ukon, then your told to go piss off. If the event leader is looking for "Ukon WAR Onry" and you got a Torcleaver but also have WAR leveled and fully geared, your told to piss off.

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To be fair, i was responding to the point that grindy time sinks are blacking average players out. From a design perspective, no event takes over 2 hours in current FF endgame, so the argument that there are scads of casual or average players who cannot put in time or effort to do SE's events strains credulity. They might be grinds, and I myself do not appreciate artificial grinds like VW, but the intent of the programmer was never to black people out.

As to the phenomenon you are talking about, that lies SOLELY at the hands of the playerbase. Shouting for Relics or Empyreans ONRY in shit like Pil is sheer idiocy. There are various solutions for average players running up against that kind of mindset. One is to join an LS. Another is to start their OWN shout groups.

They should make a DKP system added to LS's lol. So you can't be cheated out of your armor. Like say everyone gets 5 points for events attented and there is a minimum amount of say 100 before you can lot certain armor. This way LS leaders can't abuse people and people get rewards. Via we have to sign in for events with the LS before we start.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

TLDR;


Yes, If you don't carry any healing set or any physical damage down set, and I do, then your physical damage down and your healing sets suck compared to mine. This is because you didn't bother to make a set at all. Not because I have epeen gear and show it off to make others feel inferior.

I carry around a bunch of stuff because it makes my character perform better, and it doesn't require any grinding to get that improvement. I mean seriously, who wants to help a guy get his awesome strength headpiece when the guy doesn't even bother to keep it on him so he can use it afterwards? DO you really not feel annoyed when the mage runs out of mp, and you look over and hes not wearing any HMP gear while he rests? This is all stuff that can be bought cheap off the AH. not king drops.

How can you act like I'm lazy for complaining about months of grinding when you can't even be bothered to buy sets off the AH?

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Pardon, but when did I say I don't have hMP sets, nuking sets, MND sets, etc? I didn't. I said I do not need to have them in my inventory 100% of the time. On my mage jobs, I always have my main set of gear plus hMP gear. Situational pieces that might not need use at the time are satcheled or sacked.

You're the one assuming incorrect things. I said nobody (aside from maybe blu) needs to carry 78+ different pieces of equipment for one job for any given event. I never said I don't have 78+ pieces that I use on my jobs. I said I don't have to carry them around in my main inventory 100% of the time while I'm on said job.

Also, you're still trying to portray yourself as superior about gear sets when you just attempted to say that the only reason I feel the way I do about endgame events is because I'm an elitist. Get your story straight. Am I an elitist, or a gimp? Make up your mind please.

I'm beginning to feel like Mahoro is about the only person in the thread who actually has reading comprehension instead of jumping the gun and slanting what someone else says.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aquilla

Wow, that was lengthy! Well, back on track:

Break the game, SE. Be brave, and bold. Do something new and innovative. That was what made FF special from the beginning!

Try something new -- because the current approach is just death by small doses. If you make the game shiny, new, and exciting -- and it still fails -- at least it would've gone out gloriously.

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Let me requote the relevant parts.

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You know, this is the exact same mindset of WoW players. Look how many subs dropped after Cata turned the game into easy-mode. Also, BC was a challenging expansion which most players actually did NOT raid, only the elites. I don't know where you're coming up with your info, but you're sorely mistaken and misrepresenting the facts. Blizzard has even stated that Cata's raids were easier because only a small portion of the playerbase had been raiding from Vanilla through WoTLK.

You are trying to bring a Cata-style revamp into XI, and Cata is the entire reason why I came back to XI. It's trash in terms of endgame. If you want easy events where you get the best gear, go play any other MMO, don't try to turn one of the last MMOs into that.

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Yes, let's turn XI into the game that has now lost more subs in one year than XI and XIV even have combined.

You said you don't want godmode, but that's what you're wanting with them "breaking the game."

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Originally Posted by Shipp

Let me requote the relevant parts.



Yes, let's turn XI into the game that has now lost more subs in one year than XI and XIV even have combined.

You said you don't want godmode, but that's what you're wanting with them "breaking the game."

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To be fair...I don't play these other games except FFXI, but if they had a MUCH higher population than FFXI, wouldn't that mean they're more likely to lose more subscriptions lol? Just sayin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shipp

Pardon, but when did I say I don't have hMP sets, nuking sets, MND sets, etc? I didn't. I said I do not need to have them in my inventory 100% of the time. On my mage jobs, I always have my main set of gear plus hMP gear. Situational pieces that might not need use at the time are satcheled or sacked.

You're the one assuming incorrect things. I said nobody (aside from maybe blu) needs to carry 78+ different pieces of equipment for one job for any given event. I never said I don't have 78+ pieces that I use on my jobs. I said I don't have to carry them around in my main inventory 100% of the time while I'm on said job.

Also, you're still trying to portray yourself as superior about gear sets when you just attempted to say that the only reason I feel the way I do about endgame events is because I'm an elitist. Get your story straight. Am I an elitist, or a gimp? Make up your mind please.

I'm beginning to feel like Mahoro is about the only person in the thread who actually has reading comprehension instead of jumping the gun and slanting what someone else says.

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In the other thread, one person listed out over 100 items that they could easily need on them at any given time. The same can be done for many of the other jobs in the game. No one is going to waste their time listing out all of their gear for every one of their jobs so that you can critique it.

Even if they did, it would still boil down to you saying "I could manage all that gear with the space we already have. So you can't have any more space"

The bottom line is you saying that people can't have more space because you are better than them at managing inventory, and that is a bull crap argument.

Reading comprehension is also a pretty funny argument being as in the other thread you said:

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Originally Posted by Shipp

you assumed I was against more inventory/storage and attacked a position I never held to begin with

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and yet you continue to argue that we don't need more inventory / storage here. Perhaps you don't comprehend the words that you are using Because you clearly want to assert your superiority at inventory management. You keep asserting that we don't "need" to carry things as if you are the authority on what can and should be done in the game. I bet you would take a different stance and turn all "elitist" when someone pops in claiming they don't need to swap gear at all. Trying to paint me as an elitist because I carry relevant gear is just lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shipp

Yes, let's turn XI into the game that has now lost more subs in one year than XI and XIV even have combined.

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Erm, if you're gonna mention WoW, at least get the facts right. The majority of the subcriptioin dip was because Cataclysm made dungeons and raid content much harder at the entry level than they were back in Wrath of the Lich King. This in effect meant tanks and healers became super picky over who they wanted to run with, which made pugging really difficult. Combine that with the fact that PvP was an utter mess for 2/3 of the expansion and there's your answer. It wasn't until gearing and content as a whole was made more accessible that people started coming back (AKA 3.3 between the Hour of Twilight dungeons, Fall of deathwing AND raid finder).

In short, when the expansion launched they went back to a design model where people were basically bashing their head against a wall in trying to kill things in dungeons and it pissed a lot of people off. It diluted the tank and healer pool because you had less people wanting to take up those roles due to how much more difficult content was, and PvP was a mess because of several class changes for most of the expansion. You can tell it was bad when Blizzard chose to cut an entire tier of content just to wrap up Cataclysm as soon as possible and move on to whatever is next.

I won't pretend to know enough about WoW or any other game to make meaningful comparisons.

However, I will stand firm with my opening post. Yeah, SE needs to 'break' the game. It needs to make their players powerful in the world of Vana'diel, because we, as the players, have worked to be powerful.

It also needs to make the content to match. Low drop rates are not challenge, and never have been. Faffy was never a challenge to kill - in fact, it was a joke, doable with six people who knew which end of the pointy weapon went into the mob. Taking two, three years to get a drop off Faffy and his ilk didn't mean that a player worked for two, three years -- it meant that they worked for five-ten minutes, and all the other time spent killing Faffy was essentially wasted time.

I also want to champion the causes of lost content, and not just for the sake of epic lewtz. I want crafting to be meaningful. I want synergy to be meaningful. I want evoliths to go from 'you're kidding me, right? acc+3 vs. beasts only?' to 'I should toss this str+5 stone onto my Legion-begotten red jacket of mediocrity.' I want the hunt registry to have less of 'let's watch Netflix while I wait for this mob to spawn' and more of 'Here's this orb. Throw it into a burning circle, bring all your potions and lucky charms, and see if you can beat it on your own/with two of your best friends/just you and your moogle'. I want chocobo racing to involve me racing my chocobo. I want the potions to stack to 99.

Are any of these things a good idea? Maybe. I say, SE, try it and let's see. Revamp the game you have, and toss it out there to duke it out with the big guys. Maybe your reputation will go from 'That company that made the one good RPG and has been turning out soggy crackers since' to 'Hey, this is cool. Not like WoW and all the other WoW clones out there. You should try it.'

A cat can dream!

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Originally Posted by Aquilla

I won't pretend to know enough about WoW or any other game to make meaningful comparisons.

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I was more annoyed at the person I quoted suggesting that tuning things down and making stuff accessible drives people away, when both this game and WoW have proven the exact opposite.

Quote:

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I want evoliths to go from 'you're kidding me, right? acc+3 vs. beasts only?' to 'I should toss this str+5 stone onto my Legion-begotten red jacket of mediocrity.'

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Meh, personally evoliths need to be scrapped and remade. I'd take from the one thing TOR got right and borrow elements from their gear modification system. Any piece of gear that is not rare/ex could be put through a process (probably using synergy) to have all of its stats stripped from it and instead 3 or 4 evolith slots. Elemental affinities would be removed from the slots themselves and be kept on the evoliths to signify their allignment. Then assign the evolith shapea to a type of equipment buff (say, square evo sockets being for boosts to base stats, triangle sockets being more stuff like +attack or +acc, and circle sockets being for extra effects like Enhances Refresh or Enhances Dual Wield). At least this way you have some sort of modifiable gear and give evoliths some use. Then it'd be a matter of balancing values per evolith and so on.

Oh, and they should be crafted. None of this nonsense of randomly dropping in chests.

As far as the hunt registry, I agree that it should be more along the lines of a pop item leading to you killing the target NM. I wouldn't make it an orb though. Something more along the lines of "the NM is in X zone. Y item can lure it out, which can be obtained from Z mobs in that same area" or something like that.

XD well, the above works too. Brilliant ideas, I'd get behind it!

Are we not powerful lol? This is an MMO...We are supposed to work together, and look how powerful we are when we are together.

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Originally Posted by Fupafighter

Are we not powerful lol? This is an MMO...We are supposed to work together, and look how powerful we are when we are together.

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Nope, we are supposed to play in the same game together. I do not have to be on your team to play an MMO with you. Teamwork is just one very small part of a very large game. Not that teamwork is bad but people shouldn't have to schedule play dates to enjoy an MMO.

You know, in other FF games (or RPGs for that matter) you can get stupid powerful stats and I mean beyond 9999HP and the like, (BTW, we barely come to 1/5 that) yet there are still challenging boss fights. Things which make you think outside the box, or just equally crazy powerful enemies. Group or not it proves the concept is more than possible. All this does is keep us weakened there by ensuring monsters don't have to be powerful either. Sometimes feels like Fisher Price presents MMO complete with smaller numbers. (What I mean by this does not refer to the "challenge" of the game but, rather the lack of epicness.) 10 DMG to an enemy with 100 hp is the same as 10000 DMG to an enemy 100000 hp just less satisfying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zinato

You know, in other FF games (or RPGs for that matter) you can get stupid powerful stats and I mean beyond 9999HP and the like, (BTW, we barely come to 1/5 that) yet there are still challenging boss fights. Things which make you think outside the box, or just equally crazy powerful enemies. Group or not it proves the concept is more than possible. All this does is keep us weakened there by ensuring monsters don't have to be powerful either. Sometimes feels like Fisher Price presents MMO complete with smaller numbers. (What I mean by this does not refer to the "challenge" of the game but, rather the lack of epicness.) 10 DMG to an enemy with 100 hp is the same as 10000 DMG to an enemy 100000 hp just less satisfying.

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Yeah, when I convinced the guys from work to try FFXI, they all commented on how low all the stats and damage numbers were. At the time I had no idea what they were talking about (this was way back when I only had red mage leveled and had just joined my first linkshell :P). But now I have realized that as silly as it seems, this is actually a turn off for some people (who doesn't like to see a big number really?).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fupafighter

They should make a DKP system added to LS's lol. So you can't be cheated out of your armor. Like say everyone gets 5 points for events attented and there is a minimum amount of say 100 before you can lot certain armor. This way LS leaders can't abuse people and people get rewards. Via we have to sign in for events with the LS before we start.

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Any good shell has one of these already. And people who are abusd by LS leaders should question the research they did before choosing to join that shell.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Nope, we are supposed to play in the same game together. I do not have to be on your team to play an MMO with you. Teamwork is just one very small part of a very large game. Not that teamwork is bad but people shouldn't have to schedule play dates to enjoy an MMO.

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I'm done talking to you on all threads retard...