February 2020 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

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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.

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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.