Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

"Synch" is actually as valid abbreviation of "synchronize" as "sync" is. That being said, I really dislike "synch" myself.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

"Synch" is actually as valid abbreviation of "synchronize" as "sync" is. That being said, I really dislike "synch" myself.

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"sync" is more valid because that actually represents the name SE chose for it themselves "Level Sync". It's not an abbreviation of "synchronize" at all.

The Aqueducts actually have an explanation. Apparently, the mobs were so insanely strong and such a huge threat to the Safehold, that Mildaurion/Eshan'tarl cast some super white magic on the whole place after barring the all the entry points, level capping all the mobs (presumably also keeping them from breaking out). Unfortunately, this also caps any players that enter at level 40.

Now, why Promyvion is capped, I have no idea. We'll assume a wizard did it.

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Originally Posted by Sunrider

The Aqueducts actually have an explanation. Apparently, the mobs were so insanely strong and such a huge threat to the Safehold, that Mildaurion/Eshan'tarl cast some super white magic on the whole place after barring the all the entry points, level capping all the mobs (presumably also keeping them from breaking out). Unfortunately, this also caps any players that enter at level 40.

Now, why Promyvion is capped, I have no idea. We'll assume a wizard did it.

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I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

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I can explain level caps for the misguided people (I'm not talking about you). Back then people rarely had more than one or two jobs at 75, if any which made it incredibly hard to find a group of people with the jobs needed to beat an event. However, lots of people had jobs that they leveled as subjobs or just never got around to finishing due to the incredibly slow leveling process. So, by lowering the level caps on events, they created a much larger pool of eligible players to do the events. Many people would have rather stabbed themselves in the eye with a rusty spoon than level ninja or black mage to 75, but a shit ton of people were willing to level them to 37+ for subs, which meant that they were close enough to participate in lower level stuff. Take me for example. I leveled ninja to 50 just for seal BCNMs. I took samurai to 60 just to do the airship fight. I hated every moment of it, but I needed the clears.

Now that they have given people the ability to level a subjob to 99 in less than a day, there is no shortage of players who have the correct jobs leveled for events (especially since there are really only about 6 jobs you need for every event now) and thus no need to level cap things in order to facilitate easy grouping.

TLDR; all teh level caps were made to compensate for a shitty leveling process and then in game explanations (the few they actually gave) were created as an afterthought.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

I do not recall that but the point remains in either case, story reasons for why many of the level caps exist are either silly and stupid, or non-existent. All over the game they have level caps which pop up in some form with little to no info. Such as the airship, one could argue maybe since your so high up maybe it somehow makes you weaker, but then why no cap when fighting Tenzen? Why no cap when flying for transportation? Many things are unclear about it.

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Originally, the Aqueducts explanation is right on the money- a powerful seal was put on the area to weaken the monsters there, but the side effect also left anyone else stuck the same way. Similar effects were far more common in FFXI before they decided caps weren't worth it anymore.

Anyway: (TL;DR version at bottom)

What I look at here is something dangerous- I don't care if a game is old or new, without players cycling through as much of the game as possible, it dies. I can log into Everquest to this day and find newbie players smacking rats around, folks running around the Commonlands hunting, and so on. Players still go flowing through content on the way up to higher levels, and that content is still useful and relevant.

It's three years older than FFXI is.

The opposite has happened in FFXI. 99% of the game are dead zones. Take the area around Windurst. I basically saw either 99's, anons (who had L99 gear), one blue mage learning his abilities...and me. In a week. The effective level of support as a result for anyone coming into the game? Zero. The game feels frighteningly hollow to someone looking at it from the point of view of a new player, a view that in my case is countered only by knowing that the player population is elsewhere.

Making the road to 99 easier was one thing. Obliterating any feeling of progress outside a few brief jumps to 99 was the key to a seal of a different kind- one that bottles the remaining players into a slow population decline and renders huge chunks of work on FFXI moot.

Think about it this way. Say a days' casual work would get a level from 75-99. It'd get you two levels a day from 50-74. Three levels from 25-49. Four from 20-24. Five from 1-19.

You'd still level up to cap in less than 60 days played at a casual rate. Halve that for your average hardcore grinder. A month from top to bottom. You'd actually have people in the mid-range for jobs long enough that combined with level sync, there'd actually be a reason for a lot of things that have vanished.

Cause right now? Lower level gear and such on the AH? Ha, ha. The market for lower-level crafted items? Who makes them, there's no market! There's even a crunch on -crystals- at this point, since you don't have lowbies sitting there whacking monsters around for synths- on Ragnarok, elemental clusters are literally tens of thousands of Gil each! Stuff that drops off L1 monsters is going for 30K a stack because there's nobody around to bonk lil' Goblin Thugs on the head anymore (and my guess is gardening for them is a moot point, since most people's pots are devoted to trying for more endgame-centric stuff).

Point being, games tend to function poorly when you eliminate the bottom entirely and focus the entire system on getting to the top, ignoring everything that doesn't do so, and then wondering why new players see the endgame wall and flee screaming. Of course they do. There was never any hill to climb- just *bam* here's your incredibly easymode exp process to 99, then we'll throw content at you that assumes you mastered every part of your job in a process we originally expected you to take months (at least) to do so. Easier was good. Easiest is bad.

We have MMO's that predate FFXI who didn't go the route of destroying the process of developing a character from the start that are still functional- and profitable to this day. They didn't close the door on people playing the game to the top, vs. being tossed there in a shower of exp. Thankfully, I do see some sanity showing up- it looks like with things like the blinker price change, they're making efforts to prevent another hyperinflation cycle like what happened just prior to the first big RMT/HNM busting purge about a decade ago. Again, though- the lack of a real road of progression also damages the economy of the game- with fewer gil sinks along the way and higher rates of gil gain at the top (now very top-heavy) of the charts, it makes it very easy for someone to go "Ooh, elemental cluster? Have 50K in gil for that!".
(As an aside, mid-ToAU 10K would have be considered inflated- and that's 5 times less than the current rate)

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Long story short- making the game better via quality of life and relaxing some of the basics of the game was good. Effectively removing those basics, IMHO puts the game on a timer it should never have to worry about. Good, classic MMO's are easily seeing their 10th and 15th anniversaries with no signs of stoppage, only marked by the occasional bit of revampage to take advantage of newer systems as time passed by (EQ 2007, UO 2006-7). FFXI falls into that category- if it doesn't abandon itself in the process.

Adoulin is going to mark a point at which we see another chance to refresh and increase player population- but without anything save a coherent endgame, how do those players come into the game?

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

I can explain level caps for the misguided people (I'm not talking about you)...

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This is a very good explanation that makes a lot of sense.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Originally, the Aqueducts explanation is right on the money- a powerful seal was put on the area to weaken the monsters there, but the side effect also left anyone else stuck the same way. Similar effects were far more common in FFXI before they decided caps weren't worth it anymore.

Anyway: (TL;DR version at bottom)

What I look at here is something dangerous- I don't care if a game is old or new, without players cycling through as much of the game as possible, it dies. I can log into Everquest to this day and find newbie players smacking rats around, folks running around the Commonlands hunting, and so on. Players still go flowing through content on the way up to higher levels, and that content is still useful and relevant.

It's three years older than FFXI is.

The opposite has happened in FFXI. 99% of the game are dead zones. Take the area around Windurst. I basically saw either 99's, anons (who had L99 gear), one blue mage learning his abilities...and me. In a week. The effective level of support as a result for anyone coming into the game? Zero. The game feels frighteningly hollow to someone looking at it from the point of view of a new player, a view that in my case is countered only by knowing that the player population is elsewhere.

Making the road to 99 easier was one thing. Obliterating any feeling of progress outside a few brief jumps to 99 was the key to a seal of a different kind- one that bottles the remaining players into a slow population decline and renders huge chunks of work on FFXI moot.

Think about it this way. Say a days' casual work would get a level from 75-99. It'd get you two levels a day from 50-74. Three levels from 25-49. Four from 20-24. Five from 1-19.

You'd still level up to cap in less than 60 days played at a casual rate. Halve that for your average hardcore grinder. A month from top to bottom. You'd actually have people in the mid-range for jobs long enough that combined with level sync, there'd actually be a reason for a lot of things that have vanished.

Cause right now? Lower level gear and such on the AH? Ha, ha. The market for lower-level crafted items? Who makes them, there's no market! There's even a crunch on -crystals- at this point, since you don't have lowbies sitting there whacking monsters around for synths- on Ragnarok, elemental clusters are literally tens of thousands of Gil each! Stuff that drops off L1 monsters is going for 30K a stack because there's nobody around to bonk lil' Goblin Thugs on the head anymore (and my guess is gardening for them is a moot point, since most people's pots are devoted to trying for more endgame-centric stuff).

Point being, games tend to function poorly when you eliminate the bottom entirely and focus the entire system on getting to the top, ignoring everything that doesn't do so, and then wondering why new players see the endgame wall and flee screaming. Of course they do. There was never any hill to climb- just *bam* here's your incredibly easymode exp process to 99, then we'll throw content at you that assumes you mastered every part of your job in a process we originally expected you to take months (at least) to do so. Easier was good. Easiest is bad.

We have MMO's that predate FFXI who didn't go the route of destroying the process of developing a character from the start that are still functional- and profitable to this day. They didn't close the door on people playing the game to the top, vs. being tossed there in a shower of exp. Thankfully, I do see some sanity showing up- it looks like with things like the blinker price change, they're making efforts to prevent another hyperinflation cycle like what happened just prior to the first big RMT/HNM busting purge about a decade ago. Again, though- the lack of a real road of progression also damages the economy of the game- with fewer gil sinks along the way and higher rates of gil gain at the top (now very top-heavy) of the charts, it makes it very easy for someone to go "Ooh, elemental cluster? Have 50K in gil for that!".
(As an aside, mid-ToAU 10K would have be considered inflated- and that's 5 times less than the current rate)

--

Long story short- making the game better via quality of life and relaxing some of the basics of the game was good. Effectively removing those basics, IMHO puts the game on a timer it should never have to worry about. Good, classic MMO's are easily seeing their 10th and 15th anniversaries with no signs of stoppage, only marked by the occasional bit of revampage to take advantage of newer systems as time passed by (EQ 2007, UO 2006-7). FFXI falls into that category- if it doesn't abandon itself in the process.

Adoulin is going to mark a point at which we see another chance to refresh and increase player population- but without anything save a coherent endgame, how do those players come into the game?

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The problem with what you just described is that most people see leveling as a roadblock to freedom. If leveling consisted of doing quests / missions etc. that were different for every level and specific to the limitations / abilities of each specific job, you might have some point as far as the character development goes. But in this game, once you have gotten through the first 20 or 30 levels in party mode, you have learned almost everything that you will ever learn from the leveling experience. Leveling 10 or 20 jobs in old school exp parties is not going to teach you anything new and thus begins to feel like a giant waste of time. Especially when you consider that the structure of endgame events usually requires you to level at least one or two jobs that you never had any interest in leveling or playing. for example: none of the jobs that I enjoy playing have a place in Nyzul Isle runs and yet all of them require the gear from Nyzul to perform at a level that is considered acceptable for other end game events.

A lot of people spent far more time trying to get a group to exp with than they did actually exping back in the day and I think that is far more of a turn off than the current state of leveling. When you are on a low level job, you tend to feel impotent. Everything can kill you. Just going from point A to point B is a dangerous endeavor. How long do people really want to feel like that? What's more is that just leveling doesn't mean that you are done and can go join the HNMLS of your choice. You still have a ton of quests, missions etc. to do before you can even access a lot of that. Developing your character is an ongoing process that does not require a level attached to it. Completing missions, accessing new areas, following story lines etc. can be an experience that is enriching regardless of level.

I agree that a different mode of leveling would be better, but bringing the old methods back will not have the effect that people who push for it so desire. To be honest, I don't think SE would ever dedicate the resources required to make leveling worthwhile and fun. I think they reserve funding for overhauls of that scale for FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

The problem with what you just described is that most people see leveling as a roadblock to freedom. If leveling consisted of doing quests / missions etc. that were different for every level and specific to the limitations / abilities of each specific job, you might have some point as far as the character development goes.

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Then, I would say this: Why not? Compare what your first artifact armor was like compared to your Dynamis gear. One was traveling across the entire span of the FFXI map, battling NMs and finding your way deep into dungeons to gain your signature "job gear" in a story related to your specific job. The other was slapping mobs around endlessly hoping your Duelist's Chapeau (or insert PITA AF2 drop) would fall into the treasure pool. Which was more fun and felt more rewarding?

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But in this game, once you have gotten through the first 20 or 30 levels in party mode, you have learned almost everything that you will ever learn from the leveling experience. Leveling 10 or 20 jobs in old school exp parties is not going to teach you anything new and thus begins to feel like a giant waste of time.

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And here's another flaw. The idea that one needed to level 10-20 different jobs? For serious? How high?

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Especially when you consider that the structure of endgame events usually requires you to level at least one or two jobs that you never had any interest in leveling or playing. for example: none of the jobs that I enjoy playing have a place in Nyzul Isle runs and yet all of them require the gear from Nyzul to perform at a level that is considered acceptable for other end game events.

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And here's something that exists even at 99: Gear coming from sources that X job requires to progress, but isn't useful for getting said gear. Even now, you see that with jobs who aren't generating the staggers needed for optimal drops = sorry, {No thanks}. If it's a process that results in gear that is ideal for X job, that job should be able to perform in some manner that makes it easier to come by. For example, if it's RNG/COR gear, give it weaknesses to a RNG WS or a specific Quick Draw.

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A lot of people spent far more time trying to get a group to exp with than they did actually exping back in the day and I think that is far more of a turn off than the current state of leveling. When you are on a low level job, you tend to feel impotent. Everything can kill you. Just going from point A to point B is a dangerous endeavor. How long do people really want to feel like that? What's more is that just leveling doesn't mean that you are done and can go join the HNMLS of your choice. You still have a ton of quests, missions etc. to do before you can even access a lot of that. Developing your character is an ongoing process that does not require a level attached to it. Completing missions, accessing new areas, following story lines etc. can be an experience that is enriching regardless of level.

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Of course, HNMLS as we knew it no longer exist, and we have a world now where even soloing EP's, you actually make a respectable chunk of exp per kill- especially when combined with training regimens that tack on an effective xp bonus with each cycle of dead beasties, and killing piles of bad guys also results in treasure chests dropping hither and yon. The old bad days of being unable to make appreciable progress without a PT are dead and gone. The problem lies in that the replacement has become sitting in place while someone spams AoEs with a greataxe. There isn't even that 10-20 levels of party play to learn your job anymore. I don't want to see the days where a character took a year to hit cap. I'd be happy with seeing people go 1-99 in 30-60 days played- where 30 is someone who pushed hard and partied constantly for maximum exp gain, and 60 for people who played casual and soloed much of the way instead. FoV could even be easily retuned to this- by offering training regimens that worked for parties and ones that worked for soloists.

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I agree that a different mode of leveling would be better, but bringing the old methods back will not have the effect that people who push for it so desire. To be honest, I don't think SE would ever dedicate the resources required to make leveling worthwhile and fun. I think they reserve funding for overhauls of that scale for FFXIV.

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We don't need to bring the old methods back- but we do need to overhaul the current one, which has become dangerously straightforward and mercenary and mindless, something that made chaining colibris old-school look like attempting to take the Shadow Lord on in a bronze subligar and nothing else in relative difficulty. When I'm getting people telling me we can take a job from 30-99 in a -day-, in fact taking a dozen+ characters that way at once without moving an inch, the system by which this is easily done is an error in FFXI that needs to be removed.

Heck, make characters gain exp bonuses from having leveled other jobs that level out as you get nearer your "top jobs". I've got a jobs I've already leveled? Awesome, give me a exp bonus of (50- current job level + number of jobs with a level higher than current job) x .(highest job level)%.

Take a newbie Black Mage who's just gotten their subjob done and starts leveling WHM from 1. He's 20th and hasn't done anything else. When he starts on WHM, he gets a "expert bonus" of (50 - 1(his WHM level) + 1 (BLM is the only job over 1) x .20 (his BLM is his highest job level at 20th) = 50 x .20 = 10% bonus at level 1. Not a huge bonus, but hey, it helps.

Later on, he's managed to take BLM and WHM up to 40/20 and he decides to start leveling Scholar. At level 1, his Scholar gets an expert bonus of (50 -1 +2) x .40 = 20% exp bonus. By 20th, the SCH is down to a 12% bonus- but still, he's moving faster than he did with his previous jobs.

He takes himself all the way up to SCH/BLM of 80/40 and decides to level that 20th level WHM up a bit so he can get some teleports. He's got a bit more than 25% bonus for that 20 WHM to work with- (50 -1 +2) x .80 = 25.6%.

Finally, he's hit 99 SCH/BLM 49/WHM 49 and with the Embrava nerf says the heck with it and decides to level Summoner instead for the laughs. He starts level 1 with Carby and company with a (50 -1 +3) x .99 = 51.5% exp bonus at first level, 33% at 20th, and he's even getting about a 5% exp bonus even at 48th.

Voila. Higher level players spend less time going through the level-up process, but they're not magically uplifted to job-godhood in a process that takes zero effort whatsoever on their part.

Then add in the needed changes to get rid of cleave-style exp gain. Nastier monsters with zone-banishing abilities like Cattlepult and resistance to crowd control, that lottery spawn with power levels based on how many monsters the party/alliance has chained that can be dealt with if everyone's paying attention, but will punk groups that are in an AFK leech mode, even if that's by harmlessly booting players out of exp range and requiring them to return- or if the group has next to no active players, getting their tank booted and the rest of the AFKers being mangled to death one nibble/zoneboot at a time.

A lot of nice ideas there Rustic!

What saddens me is that most of the naysayers complain but don't offer new ideas and feedback on how to fix FFXI. The devs have already admitted that FFXI needs a lot of work. I hope to see good things though...

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

A lot of people spent far more time trying to get a group to exp with than they did actually exping back in the day and I think that is far more of a turn off than the current state of leveling.

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Did you read my ideas about revamping the LFP interface and making into more of a GUI. That would solve many of those old problems.

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Originally Posted by Prrsha

What saddens me is that most of the naysayers complain but don't offer new ideas and feedback on how to fix FFXI.

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That is very untrue. We offer constructive criticism all the time. Only we don't do it in a thread about EXP, because there is nothing wrong with EXP. The problems start in content that's relevant, which this doesn't fall under. The only people I've seen complain about EXP were people who miss the old days because of nostalgia.

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Originally Posted by Prrsha

Did you read my ideas about revamping the LFP interface and making into more of a GUI. That would solve many of those old problems.

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If you say so. I would have absolutely nothing against it, and in fact, I hope they introduce many changes of a similar nature with their announced UI revamp. However, I still refuse to see how the interface had anything to do with not finding people to EXP with. /inv if you want to EXP. /sea all inv <level range> if you're looking for members. It was that easy, and it worked. The problem was not that you couldn't find people who wanted to EXP, but that there were no right people who wanted to do it (right job combinations for a party) or no camps were free, or, in the days before Level Sync, no right levels within your accepted range. And no changes to the UI could have fixed that, and even less today.

Off topic post: (because there's no PM's on these boards)

Prrsha, I sent you an email at the address you gave about 5 days ago. The message is as follows:

Without trying to jump the gun too quickly before I move over, just a few questions.

What times is your LS most active? I live in the UK and we're 5-6 hours ahead of CST/PST. Not that I'm too heavily bothered about that in my own right, but I won't be around to get to know and help other members.

When you get your numbers up, what's your primary focus? Social/fun or hardcore/endgame? It probably goes without saying that I'm not willing to devote anywhere near 100% of my time to the game any more, but when I do log in, I am serious about what I'm doing. If I do come, here's what I have to offer:

Top Jobs:

Lv.63 RDM
Lv.51 BST
Lv.49 NIN
Lv.47 WHM

Most jobs unlocked and at least Lv20. Proper gear/spells for all.

Crafts:

Woodworking 50
Alchemy 40
Smithing 20


I've been using my spare time to concentrate on C++ and character modelling and animation, so if I'm not online I'm doing that or playing co-op games with my better half. My wife actually rolled her first character ever back in April, but lost interest in a few months, and I'm pretty sure she'd want to come also but whether it would revive her interest I'm not sure. It's doubtful - she'd just want to come because she always has to be near me anywhere I go lol.

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Originally Posted by Prrsha

Did you read my ideas about revamping the LFP interface and making into more of a GUI. That would solve many of those old problems.

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I'm all for revamping the LFP interface. I don't think it will do what you think it will though.

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Originally Posted by Prrsha

A lot of nice ideas there Rustic!

What saddens me is that most of the naysayers complain but don't offer new ideas and feedback on how to fix FFXI. The devs have already admitted that FFXI needs a lot of work. I hope to see good things though...

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That's the thing about an engine that's been proven. The foundation is still solid, even if the roof needs work. "Retro gaming" may be a catchy term, but there's a reason games like this still persist. As long as the devs are willing to give the game some TLC, it'll have players and turn a profit for S-E, considering the big investment in developing FFXI was made and paid for a decade ago during the initial JP/EN rush of subscribers.

And yes, I think that means that we throttle back the rate of exp gain from mass AoE killfests. That has to be the first step. Without it, any changes to progression are meaningless, as there literally is nothing better by a few orders of magnitude.

http://common.allakhazam.com/images/...618e2b2182.jpg

This needs to stop if you want to have any kind of exp gaining system other than "scoop up pack of easy targets, Cleave, repeat"- especially since delivering damage via TP attacks is by far the easiest method of sustainable AOE.

Give AOE attacks a damage reduction effect if they hit more than X number of targets (I'd suggest four, and cut the damage on the group by 10% for 5, 15% for 6, 25% for 7, 40% for 8 or more), and reduce the exp gain by half for each mob past the second- so #3 gives 50% exp, #4 25%, #5 12.5%, #6 6.25%, #7 3.1%, #8 1.6% (and #9+ don't give exp in any case if killed simultaneously).

In the pic above, that single Cleave delivers exp (limit points in this case) as: 245, 234, 234, 228, 234, 228, 234, 228, 228, 228 = 2,321 limit points. Even assuming that with damage reduction the Cleave managed to kill all 8 (since it'd deal 60% normal damage), the exp rate would instead be 245, 234, 117, 57, 29, 14, 7, 3 = 706. Voila, we've just managed to cut Cleave-fests down to less than one-third their prior efficiency, and that's assuming you manage to actually kill everything with AOE damage reduction. Or you're pulling less into every AoE to get more exp per kill- again, that effectively nerfs mass exp-production, as it still takes more time to set things up and rebuild enough TP to hack through targets.

Abyssea zones are still going to be very, very good for exp gain- but combined with the beasties I mentioned in the end of the prior post, you can control mass-slaughter leeching alliances and have folks actually needing to contribute vs. being along for the ride.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Then, I would say this: Why not? Compare what your first artifact armor was like compared to your Dynamis gear. One was traveling across the entire span of the FFXI map, battling NMs and finding your way deep into dungeons to gain your signature "job gear" in a story related to your specific job. The other was slapping mobs around endlessly hoping your Duelist's Chapeau (or insert PITA AF2 drop) would fall into the treasure pool. Which was more fun and felt more rewarding?

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Dynamis used to last way too long and require too much scheduling. Other than that and the shitty drop rates, I found it to be a fun and rewarding event. The AF quests had some cool story lines and stuff, but I didn't enjoy the excessive amount of running around to places that were intentionally made annoying to travel to / through. I'd say I felt pretty well rewarded when I finished my first set of af. When I went to start on a set for my next job, it didn't feel nearly as rewarding. I feel like they could have made the finding of chests portion into a one time thing that didn't have to be repeated for subsequent jobs. I'd say it's sort of a wash honestly.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

And here's another flaw. The idea that one needed to level 10-20 different jobs? For serious? How high?

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That only sounds crazy because of how long it used to take to level jobs. In reality it's stupid for them to keep adding jobs if no one has time to level them. Which also means that they can't really build content around those jobs unless they find a way to get more people to use them (faster leveling process). Besides, who want to pay a company to design stuff that is too inaccessible for them to ever use? If there are going to be 22 jobs, then I want to use them all at some point.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

And here's something that exists even at 99: Gear coming from sources that X job requires to progress, but isn't useful for getting said gear. Even now, you see that with jobs who aren't generating the staggers needed for optimal drops = sorry, {No thanks}. If it's a process that results in gear that is ideal for X job, that job should be able to perform in some manner that makes it easier to come by. For example, if it's RNG/COR gear, give it weaknesses to a RNG WS or a specific Quick Draw.

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They did that to force people to level more jobs.

Need gear from X event? Level X job ==>
Now you need gear from Y event to gear Y job ==>
That event requires Z job ==>
Now you must level Z job to gear job Y ==>
During the course of all this you acquire extra gear for R job so you decide to level that too

This all leads to job diversity and longer play time. It's a vicious cycle, but it's pretty brilliant if you think about it.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Of course, HNMLS as we knew it no longer exist, and we have a world now where even soloing EP's, you actually make a respectable chunk of exp per kill- especially when combined with training regimens that tack on an effective xp bonus with each cycle of dead beasties, and killing piles of bad guys also results in treasure chests dropping hither and yon. The old bad days of being unable to make appreciable progress without a PT are dead and gone. The problem lies in that the replacement has become sitting in place while someone spams AoEs with a greataxe. There isn't even that 10-20 levels of party play to learn your job anymore. I don't want to see the days where a character took a year to hit cap. I'd be happy with seeing people go 1-99 in 30-60 days played- where 30 is someone who pushed hard and partied constantly for maximum exp gain, and 60 for people who played casual and soloed much of the way instead. FoV could even be easily retuned to this- by offering training regimens that worked for parties and ones that worked for soloists.

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I actually agree for the most part. I think it would be cool if they made it so that some zones had books and people could burn like they do now, while other zones had no books, but offered far higher exp per kill, so that a traditional group of 6 could exp outside just as fast as an abbysea burn group does inside (or at least close to that). I doubt that many people would choose it over abbysea, but it might make a few nostalgic cats happy. I think 2 weeks per job should be tops though. Even at that speed, we're still talking about almost 6+ months of just straight leveling for people that want to take all the jobs to cap.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

the system by which this is easily done is an error in FFXI that needs to be removed.

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I would agree with you, except that I think they would make something far worse if they did. I just don't like the idea of changing things in a way that will make people feel like they missed the boat.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Heck, make characters gain exp bonuses from having leveled other jobs that level out as you get nearer your "top jobs". I've got a jobs I've already leveled? Awesome, give me a exp bonus of (50- current job level + number of jobs with a level higher than current job) x .(highest job level)%.

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Not a terrible idea. I'm not gonna lie though. I'm fine with how abyssea leveling works. I don't mind having lot's of people with lot's of jobs leveled. I don't miss the days of playing red mage at every event because we already had a mandau thief in the shell and I didn't want to spend 9 months leveling Samurai. Or spending hours shouting for a bard so that I could merit for 30 minutes before he D/Cs. I was especially thankful for it when SE decided to block me from paying the bill on my 8 year old JP account because I live in NA thus forcing me to turn my mule into my main and reroll another mule.

Funny story. When I was attempting to finish CoP, I actually joined a group with a guy that was shouting at about 7:00pm one night. I sat and watched Netflix and drank beer while he shouted for the next several hours. I passed out in my chair and woke up about 2:00am. I looked and we still only had 3 people. I went to bed and woke up about 9:00am the next day. The guy had just gotten the sixth member. I hopped on and did the mission. I can't remember what job it was that we so desperately needed for that specific mission, but I can tell you that I'm glad that that sort of thing is such a rare occurrence these days.

The problem with slowing down exp, is that most people find collecting gear on high level jobs through various different types of events more fun / rewarding than just leveling a job (not all people, but most) and by limiting the speed with which people can level jobs, you limit the amount of gear collecting they can / will do.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Funny story. When I was attempting to finish CoP, I actually joined a group with a guy that was shouting at about 7:00pm one night. I sat and watched Netflix and drank beer while he shouted for the next several hours. I passed out in my chair and woke up about 2:00am. I looked and we still only had 3 people. I went to bed and woke up about 9:00am the next day. The guy had just gotten the sixth member. I hopped on and did the mission. I can't remember what job it was that we so desperately needed for that specific mission, but I can tell you that I'm glad that that sort of thing is such a rare occurrence these days.

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You mean to say that 3 people stayed in the same group for 14 hours and you just happened to wake up the moment he got the last member? What are the chances of that? - Like 1 in a couple thousand trillion? At any rate, if you want to do the mission also, shouldn't you help look for members too and not leave it up to the leader and then complain later on how long it took to get the mission started? Wait, I forgot who I'm talking to; Nevermind.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Dynamis used to last way too long and require too much scheduling. Other than that and the shitty drop rates, I found it to be a fun and rewarding event. The AF quests had some cool story lines and stuff, but I didn't enjoy the excessive amount of running around to places that were intentionally made annoying to travel to / through. I'd say I felt pretty well rewarded when I finished my first set of af. When I went to start on a set for my next job, it didn't feel nearly as rewarding. I feel like they could have made the finding of chests portion into a one time thing that didn't have to be repeated for subsequent jobs. I'd say it's sort of a wash honestly.

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And they've adjusted Dynamis to a once-a-day thing, and in addition, it's even soloable to an extent. Mind you, they've also managed to successfully cut out the massive travel time part as of this patch with the proto-waypoint quest. Given how much this will cut out of to-and-froing about on running around, does that change your opinions?

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That only sounds crazy because of how long it used to take to level jobs. In reality it's stupid for them to keep adding jobs if no one has time to level them. Which also means that they can't really build content around those jobs unless they find a way to get more people to use them (faster leveling process). Besides, who want to pay a company to design stuff that is too inaccessible for them to ever use? If there are going to be 22 jobs, then I want to use them all at some point.

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Which, incidentally puts you in a rare spot. Most games, people gravitate towards what we'd consider just specific jobs- some people like playing support, others like being tanks/melee DD, still others prefer being the backline bombadiers raining down bullets, bolts, and elemental blasts. I'm suggesting about 1-2 months per job if you wanted to level them up, rather than 1-2 days (as soon as you have Abyssea access and can sit there going 30-99 without breathing heavy). Again, I don't want jobs to be inaccessible- but I do want there to actually be a low-mid-high-end process of advancement that actually involves going out there and playing.

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They did that to force people to level more jobs.

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And then made a system in which leveling said extra jobs is a trivial process. Counterproductive, you think?

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Need gear from X event? Level X job ==>
Now you need gear from Y event to gear Y job ==>
That event requires Z job ==>
Now you must level Z job to gear job Y ==>
During the course of all this you acquire extra gear for R job so you decide to level that too

This all leads to job diversity and longer play time. It's a vicious cycle, but it's pretty brilliant if you think about it.

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Mind you, I was one of those players that had a whopping -two- jobs leveled up to endgame points. RDM, and COR. While you'd think it was true...it wasn't. Now, I had plenty of jobs in the subjob (37 then, 49 now) range...but those jobs don't and never have taken the level of gear investment a 75-now-99 job does. Sure, I leveled BLM, WHM, SCH for my Red Mage. I leveled RNG to go with my Corsair. But those investments in time and gear were nothing compared to main jobs- even today, you wouldn't even go into your AF1 stuff to be properly geared going from 1-49. In Dynamis, sure I could end up with random AF2 drops as I went along...but it was like anything else. If I wasn't interested in doing it, I didn't need it, I didn't take it.

The flaw was in making jobs "junk" for any given event or "required" for same. With the level cap gone, this became a lot less painful for earlier content as it became either "Doable at X level with job A, or Y level with job (B,C,D...)." That is, content no longer became barred to anything but specific jobs because they're the only ones that can do things at that level- instead, people can engage that content by getting more powerful in another direction and fighting the fight later. Can't take out Ultima/Omega? Get some more levels and take it on again. Alexander? You get the idea. If it's not endgame content, you can train up on ordinary monsters and take it down, and that process is (at this point) beyond painless- and basically, anything up through WoTG can be done in this fashion. I'd honestly say that the same should apply for Abyssea with Adoulin. If you're finding yourself stymied on doing endgame content on it, the next expansion should allow casual players to break through that barrier with "regular" content.

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I actually agree for the most part. I think it would be cool if they made it so that some zones had books and people could burn like they do now, while other zones had no books, but offered far higher exp per kill, so that a traditional group of 6 could exp outside just as fast as an abbysea burn group does inside (or at least close to that). I doubt that many people would choose it over abbysea, but it might make a few nostalgic cats happy. I think 2 weeks per job should be tops though. Even at that speed, we're still talking about almost 6+ months of just straight leveling for people that want to take all the jobs to cap.

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Two weeks is basically saying "Just give me a level in every job as soon as I get it in any one of them.". Double that. Make it a month of hardcore leveling if you want that job 1-99, two months if you take it easy. Getting a job to 49? Sure, quick and relatively easy for all those subjobs you want. 50-99 should actually take more effort- that's someone who's leveling a job to the top.

And honestly, S-E should have learned it's lesson when we started going "colibris or GTFO" with ToAU- one zone shouldn't be superior exp over another, and FoV gave them the tuning tools for it. Not Abyssea, not nothing.

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I would agree with you, except that I think they would make something far worse if they did. I just don't like the idea of changing things in a way that will make people feel like they missed the boat.

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Once upon a time, HNM's were something fought over for spawns and controlled by RMTs who used their access to easy power to get a virtual lock on the game and it's economy. We changed that. Now we have a system by which RMT are getting their grasp once again on the economy- via selling powerleveling instead. One chunk of the RMT engine was knocked out when blinkers got nerfed. Now we need to take out the other one- the powerleveling engine that channels buckets of the gil in the economy into the hands of RMTs who just have a 24/7 PL team good to go by the hour, times up to sixteen, with a multiboxed healer keeping the whole thing rolling along while you sleep and dream of 9's. Congratulations, you have experienced the Cirno method of "I'm the Strongest!".

http://en.touhouwiki.net/images/e/e2/Th128Cirno.png

Behold, the Fairy of 9_9 for Final Fantasy 11

In effect, the way exp is gained is not only damaging the whole cycle of people leveling jobs, but it's acidic to the economy as well. Prior to this, since it was pay cleave party -> Take It Easy -> enjoy L99 -> turn results of leech mode into Gil, we turned both the exp and the money pumps up to maximum, feeding plenty of cash into the system. Heck, the RMTs doing all the work even got payola in the process, reducing gil-farming to the most mindless level ever.

Now we're in a habit of looking towards those pay-to-play alliances as the method of choice. Just like HNM access of old, now it's "Hey, those guys are always ready to make my leveling experience a breeze, and the rates are what I'm used to, so..."...as you hand the money straight into the nice bot-teams hands, who in turn launder it through AH purchases (just like the old days, oopsie I paid 1,000,000 for that 1,000 Gil AH item nobody else buys, clumsy me!) and into accounts ripe and ready to both manipulate the economy into higher levels of inflation and feed your need for Gil in exchange for your dollar bills or currency-of-choice (credit cards accepted). The flow of Gil may be lower into the system, but we're still channeling it into the hands of RMT-friendly characters.

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Not a terrible idea. I'm not gonna lie though. I'm fine with how abyssea leveling works. I don't mind having lot's of people with lot's of jobs leveled. I don't miss the days of playing red mage at every event because we already had a mandau thief in the shell and I didn't want to spend 9 months leveling Samurai. Or spending hours shouting for a bard so that I could merit for 30 minutes before he D/Cs. I was especially thankful for it when SE decided to block me from paying the bill on my 8 year old JP account because I live in NA thus forcing me to turn my mule into my main and reroll another mule.

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And here's the fun part. If S-E poured napalm on the Abyssea zone servers and reduced them to slag, we'd STILL never see those days again. The other changes S-E put into the system would have resulted in a much, much more gentle hill to climb from 1-99 vs. even what ToAU players had from 1-75, thanks to FoV. Not only that, if Abyssea wasn't the exp fountain it is, S-E could literally tweak XP gain by zone simply by dropping training pages into the appropriate zone books. It would be that simple.

1) Pick EP-level monster X job can take down without going insane.
2) Put in page that involves ganking said monster.
3) Watch players zip in and level solo at precisely the speed S-E desired.
4) Profit.

Want monsters for parties to kill? Same deal, only you're looking at even-match+ targets instead for however and whenever you want those parties there. Monsters are tougher? Better reward for training so page + party = good exp, regardless of where said party is taking out monsters. A more simple way to get people to go from zone to zone could not have been put in short of applying a nose ring everyone would have to wear when playing FFXI that would tug them painfully until they zoned where you wanted them to go next.

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Funny story. When I was attempting to finish CoP, I actually joined a group with a guy that was shouting at about 7:00pm one night. I sat and watched Netflix and drank beer while he shouted for the next several hours. I passed out in my chair and woke up about 2:00am. I looked and we still only had 3 people. I went to bed and woke up about 9:00am the next day. The guy had just gotten the sixth member. I hopped on and did the mission. I can't remember what job it was that we so desperately needed for that specific mission, but I can tell you that I'm glad that that sort of thing is such a rare occurrence these days.

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See above. Caps are what caused this issue- by the point we hit ToAU, people should have been able to go into Assault, gear up, and get through their CoP missions without agonizing barriers built out of "Your level has been reduced to 40" and tightly pigeonholing the battles to specific jobs or GTFO. When content is no longer the newest, the newest should hold the method by which players who are behind can catch up to the current state of affairs.

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The problem with slowing down exp, is that most people find collecting gear on high level jobs through various different types of events more fun / rewarding than just leveling a job (not all people, but most) and by limiting the speed with which people can level jobs, you limit the amount of gear collecting they can / will do.

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Except that the reason people are going "Glee! High level gear collect time, go go go" is because they get no use out of lower level gear whatsoever now. What you're stating is untrue- if it was, I wouldn't have seen people making a killing selling white-box bits or NM-related bit of gear they came across- because being in best gear, regardless of level was an addictive feeling. Ask every player that had an Emperor/Empress hairpin if it wasn't. Gear was treasured because it was rare, potent and useful- and because it was more powerful than average, it was useful longer. Now, when you might only wear a piece of gear for a day on the way up no matter how good it is, why bother?

The reason people are going towards high level gear is because thanks to the current system of advancement, it's all that matters- you aren't low level long enough to feel that anything save the budget basics matter. If that. And again, this does a number on the effective content of FFXI- who cares about content that rewards you with stuff you find meaningless in the long run? That helps to indeed effectively reduce the game to "collect gear on high level job, repeat", and that in turn massively reduces player lifespan and increases the burnout rate for good measure. This, too damages FFXI.

Narrowing the game to 99 is indeed effectively making the game all about "9"'s. A bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Narrowing the game to 99 is indeed effectively making the game all about "9"'s. A bad thing.

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No .

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Originally Posted by Arcon

No.

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Okay, then. Why do we have level 1-98 then at this point? Explain.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Okay, then. Why do we have level 1-98 then at this point? Explain.

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For people like you who wouldn't know what else to do if they didn't have their precious EXP. Everyone else has moved on. SE could auto-cap people's levels to 99 and I wouldn't care. I'm done leveling completely anyway, as are many other people. That's what the last decade was for.

I am a blob of pessimism, filled with Flamin' Hot Cheetos and regret. I shall slough over all, weeping my cynical slime.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Once upon a time, HNM's were something fought over for spawns and controlled by RMTs who used their access to easy power to get a virtual lock on the game and it's economy.

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I wish the people who I remember gathering at usually-not-Nidhogg were RMT. People who wanted to make money in real life never would have invested so much time in something so relatively unproductive. I suspect RMT would have left after three days and my shame would have felt all the more acute for I would have been doing something as a hobby that somebody else passed over as a job.

It's been a long time, but you're talking about the guys who piled into Sky, yeah? They were a pain, but it's a huge stretch to say RMT had control over anything other than the huge golem with a funny name who dropped half a Byakko pop-set.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Ask every player that had an Emperor/Empress hairpin if it wasn't. Gear was treasured because it was rare, potent and useful- and because it was more powerful than average, it was useful longer.

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Equipping in the olden dayes isn't as positive as a lot of people like to remember.

Some equipment was so sough after in those days because all other options were bad, spectacularly bad to the point of adding only defense. Other times, items were just assumed to have quality equal to their rarity because few people fully understood what various bonuses actually did.

Edit: To tie my points together with this off-topic topic as a whole, it's great to have a feeling of drama or nostalgia, but those things are just feelings. They're not concrete and not everyone is going to share them.

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Originally Posted by Eyeballed

You mean to say that 3 people stayed in the same group for 14 hours and you just happened to wake up the moment he got the last member? What are the chances of that? - Like 1 in a couple thousand trillion? At any rate, if you want to do the mission also, shouldn't you help look for members too and not leave it up to the leader and then complain later on how long it took to get the mission started? Wait, I forgot who I'm talking to; Nevermind.

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And yes, I realize exactly how incredibly unlikely it was that I would wake up just in time. That was the interesting part of the story. I know that you like to imagine that you're sooooo awesome that if you had been in that group, you would have filled it up in a minute or two, but you're wrong. If you were half as good as you think you are at forming groups and getting things done, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

And then made a system in which leveling said extra jobs is a trivial process. Counterproductive, you think?

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I don't have time to read all this, because I'm about to leave for the company xmas party, but I did want to respond to this ^ because I think you might have missed what I was trying to convey.

It's not counterproductive. They no longer need you to spend all your time leveling. They have created sufficient endgame content for you to stay entertained with (by "you" I mean the general populace). What they do need is for you to have a bevy of jobs leveled so that you can use them to participate in that content.

They can't very easily keep making mid-grade content because most people who have already leveled whatever jobs they like will just ignore it or become angry that they can't use the abilities / gear they have earned for the content. They can however (or more accurately they already did) speed up the leveling process so that everyone has access to high level content.

To sum it up: losing stats, abilities etc. to level synch is annoying. Losing the ability to spend months / years leveling is not so bad in comparison. Especially when you consider that the ability to waste time leveling is still there sans the people who actually like it.

The Snark in this thread is nearing critical levels.

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Originally Posted by Arcon

For people like you who wouldn't know what else to do if they didn't have their precious EXP. Everyone else has moved on. SE could auto-cap people's levels to 99 and I wouldn't care. I'm done leveling completely anyway, as are many other people. That's what the last decade was for.

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Till Geomancer/Rune Fencer show up, anyway. But hey, you're hardcore. Grats on the Maat's Cap++ level of dedication. You're effectively done with the game at this point until a new expansion shows up. Everything's old hat to you, you've likely run CoP missions till your eyes bled, fought Alexander enough times that you have your name on the list, could draw Lilith from memory with your off hand, and the words "Shadow Lord" on your screen trigger migraines and the only thing of interest to you at this point is whatever new comes along in the next expansion plus the next iteration of L99 gear.

In other words, you're done with 99% of the content. Now, tell me why it's a good thing that the current system renders a similar amount of the game meaningless to new players, and why new players would even come into a game like that- and in fact, how the game sustains itself without them.

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Originally Posted by SpankWustler

I am a blob of pessimism, filled with Flamin' Hot Cheetos and regret. I shall slough over all, weeping my cynical slime.

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And that slime smells like Mountain Dew and sorrow.

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I wish the people who I remember gathering at usually-not-Nidhogg were RMT. People who wanted to make money in real life never would have invested so much time in something so relatively unproductive. I suspect RMT would have left after three days and my shame would have felt all the more acute for I would have been doing something as a hobby that somebody else passed over as a job.

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Thus the "fought over for spawns" bit. RMT didn't control them, but boooooy you couldn't swing a dead mandragora in Dragon's Aery without hitting someone using a claimbot from one HNMLS or another. RMT groups did in the very early NA days still sit there claiming a lot of HNMs or even NMs, but with the first real bansticking that started to fade in a hurry, and most of the roadblocking was sitting there blocking access to Sky. Here, this was 2006:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/384...measures/page3

"Prices for items on Alexander... RMT Bazaar
Autumnstone 11mil
Summerstone 6mil
Springstone 6mil
Gem of the west 3mil
Seiryu Seal 300k
Suzaku Seal 300k
Byakko Seal 8mil
Genbu Seal 10k"

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It's been a long time, but you're talking about the guys who piled into Sky, yeah? They were a pain, but it's a huge stretch to say RMT had control over anything other than the huge golem with a funny name who dropped half a Byakko pop-set.

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See above. Till S-E really, REALLY got to clubbing RMT over the head, they had a tight grip on Sky for years.

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Equipping in the olden dayes isn't as positive as a lot of people like to remember.

Some equipment was so sough after in those days because all other options were bad, spectacularly bad to the point of adding only defense. Other times, items were just assumed to have quality equal to their rarity because few people fully understood what various bonuses actually did.

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Of course, as we headed upwards levelwise, the stat pool for items got bigger as well. And yeah, you had crappy items, the same way we can look in the AH today and see rare, crappy items that nobody equips. But the point was that good items, regardless of level requirement, WERE prized, hunted, bought, sold, used.

Not anymore. Those NMs sit, un-wanted, un-needed, along with most of the zones in the game. Yeah, they're old news to you, the long-term player who's done all that a dozen times. The problem is that if there's no use to those zones for anything- leveling, item hunting, whatever- it narrows the game considerably. It reduces the value of that game to newer players when they look around at what's seemingly a vast array of content and are told "Nah, nobody does any of that. Get to 99 and endgame event everything, all the time." - and then you show them how to skip 68 levels by doing nothing as someone waves a great axe in circles while dualboxing a healer in an endless cycle of dead chigoes and the victory theme playing every few.

Players stay where they invest. FFXI has reduced that investment to the point where new players are newbie, L30, L99, and "why aren't you in Empyreal Paradox, noob". It's an awful fragile tether compared to folks who got their airship pass, AF, DM earring, their CoP ring, ToAU ring, etc. etc. when each step along the line mattered and took effort. When a game overtrivializes it's achievements along the way, it loses that grip it has on players to continue playing. We become a community of the hardcore, for the hardcore, crumbling away one burnout at a time with no new faces to replace them.

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Edit: To tie my points together with this off-topic topic as a whole, it's great to have a feeling of drama or nostalgia, but those things are just feelings. They're not concrete and not everyone is going to share them.

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No, they aren't- but it's that investment of feeling into a game that hooks players and keeps them playing- the lifeblood of any MMO. Hell, I'm not nostalgic about a lot of my time in FFXI- but it's the times that did inspire drama or do inspire nostalgia that get me to keep logging in and throwing my $12.95 or so S-E's way. They're the investments that keep a player grinding through endgame content, the ones that kept older players in Dynamis for years, hammering against CoP missions, getting parties together to exp or merit, camping that NM for days straight, synthing that 50th time for a fortune in mats to get that last 0.1 skillup rather than saying "Screw this" and never coming back.

We've trivialized so much of the process of progress that we've lost the very process of investment that produces players like us. Players that stay, and play, and buy new expansions, and keep the game population alive.

I'm all for not having to repeat that cycle and level of investment for people at the same intensity who have gone through the dance before. What's happened is that we've eliminated the cycle for everyone, new AND old instead- not merely made it easier to do that next job to 49 or 99, but made it so trivial as to be meaningless. Sit in place. Watch exp flow in. Get job to 99 so we can do that endgame run as X job instead of Y or Z. Woohoo. Achievement. Pride. Not.

No more "I'm going to go into Giddeus and hunt down that Yagudo cause I want the staff for my bard, I'll use that for months" or "I'm going to Crawler's Nest to sneak around cause I need a coffer for my AF" or "Wow, I just leveled up in (insert strange zone here) and I wish I'd known it was that awesome when I leveled (oldjob)!". With each part of the game we trivialize, the road is narrower, the feeling of worth from doing something along it lessened, the desire to go further more easily derailed.

We need those feelings and a process that inspires them, however they're expressed to players, or the game becomes only a haven for those who got them before they were removed and we'll all be in FFXIV. In that sense, I actually think of Abyssea as being constructed to create a curtain to pull across the game. Show's over. Here's the easymode key, we'll just throw some endgame stuff for you dedicated players to do until the population burns enough out to justify closing FFXI down and we can concentrate on FFXIV and how we're investing players in that instead, thanks for playing, we'll see you in the next MMO.

If it isn't changed, I don't see much of a future for FFXI past Adoulin, as either FFXIV will again become a talent sink that removes developer efforts from FFXI, or the player population, starved of new players will drop below the critical numbers needed to sustain the game. I'm not saying "restore the grind of old or we perish", but if there's no emotional reward to investing time into the game other than the narrowest road to 99, FFXI will be a game that only appeals to the endgame player playing the endgame games, and a game cannot do this and survive in the long term.

I have to address one vital thing before I leave for a racist relative's place to be horrified at the ways she's dreaming of a White Power Christmas.

Seriously, this is vital!

VITAL!

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Originally Posted by Rustic

And that slime smells like Mountain Dew and sorrow.

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I bought the wrong type and scent of deodorant last week, forcing me to really layer the stuff on and making "Mountain Dew and sorrow" a disturbingly accurate description of how I smell.

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Originally Posted by SpankWustler

Seriously, this is vital!

VITAL!

I bought the wrong type and scent of deodorant last week, forcing me to really layer the stuff on and making "Mountain Dew and sorrow" a disturbingly accurate description of how I smell.

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You know how sometimes people say "I could smell that through the monitor?" :)

(Kidding!)

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

And yes, I realize exactly how incredibly unlikely it was that I would wake up just in time. That was the interesting part of the story. I know that you like to imagine that you're sooooo awesome that if you had been in that group, you would have filled it up in a minute or two, but you're wrong. If you were half as good as you think you are at forming groups and getting things done, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

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Don't get jealous now. But seriously, if I wanted to get a mission done and my leader was having trouble filling the spots, I sure as shit wouldn't opt out for "beer and Netflix" while someone else did their best to recruit the remainder and then have the audacity to come out and complain that the leader didn't fill the group fast enough. When will you kids learn that life just doesn't drop into your lap while you sit around scratching your balls and stroking your cat?

I mean, if a small fire erupted in your house do you get a bucket of water/fire extinguisher or call the fire department and wait outside?

DO SOMETHING!!!

This thread has gone completely stupid.

Are we seriously arguing about old vs new? This is no better than the "Abyssea ruined FFXI" argument.

Oh wait...

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Originally Posted by Arcon

For people like you who wouldn't know what else to do if they didn't have their precious EXP. Everyone else has moved on. SE could auto-cap people's levels to 99 and I wouldn't care. I'm done leveling completely anyway, as are many other people. That's what the last decade was for.

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I sort of agree with you like I said before. If SE wants to make getting exp easier to get then it is now, remove the system entirely, because SE has trivalized it to that point. Whether it will help FFXI or not, that is another debate.

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Originally Posted by Caketime

The Snark in this thread is nearing critical levels.

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Ah, I love half-life... go Black Mesa! :3 http://www.blackmesasource.com/

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Not anymore. Those NMs sit, un-wanted, un-needed, along with most of the zones in the game. Yeah, they're old news to you, the long-term player who's done all that a dozen times. The problem is that if there's no use to those zones for anything- leveling, item hunting, whatever- it narrows the game considerably. It reduces the value of that game to newer players when they look around at what's seemingly a vast array of content and are told "Nah, nobody does any of that. Get to 99 and endgame event everything, all the time." - and then you show them how to skip 68 levels by doing nothing as someone waves a great axe in circles while dualboxing a healer in an endless cycle of dead chigoes and the victory theme playing every few.

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The basically sums up the problem.

Another problem is that SE thought placing level 75+ monsters in zones right next (or 2 zones away) from starting zones would generate more traffic in those areas. That was a huge mistake. If anything it make the game less newbee friendly and just served to frustrate crucial new customers. It handed them a dose of confusion while making it near impossible to do low level quests at low level (like they were designed to do).

One of SE's first thing on their agenda would be to remove those monsters (as high level players level elsewhere anyways). They do more harm then good. At the very least move them to higher level but accessable areas like crawlers nest. By then players know how to evade mobs and have access to abilities to go undetected.

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Originally Posted by Eyeballed

Don't get jealous now. But seriously, if I wanted to get a mission done and my leader was having trouble filling the spots, I sure as shit wouldn't opt out for "beer and Netflix" while someone else did their best to recruit the remainder and then have the audacity to come out and complain that the leader didn't fill the group fast enough. When will you kids learn that life just doesn't drop into your lap while you sit around scratching your balls and stroking your cat?

I mean, if a small fire erupted in your house do you get a bucket of water/fire extinguisher or call the fire department and wait outside?

DO SOMETHING!!!

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You're quite dense. I wasn't complaining that "that the leader didn't fill the group fast enough". I was complaining that a shitty system existed that forced him to look for people for that long because there were no compatible jobs available. Try to follow the topic.

And WTF are you trying to tout a better work ethic than me now? You better save that crap for someone who cares. I play my video games for fun, I always scratch my balls and drink beer while I'm doing it and I still do great :)

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

Your quite dense. I wasn't complaining that "that the leader didn't fill the group fast enough". I was complaining that a shitty system existed that forced him to look for people for that long because there were no compatible jobs available. Try to follow the topic.

And WTF are you trying to tout a better work ethic than me now? You better save that crap for someone who cares. I play my video games for fun, I always scratch my balls and drink beer while I'm doing it and I still do great :)

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The reason it took FOURTEEN HOURS to fill the group has a lot more to do with a lack of organizational skills from all parties involved and a lack of member participation to rectify said dilemma rather than a problem with the "system" which is apparently flawed in all ways that does not magically fill your party slots for you whilst you engage in other activities that you obviously hold in higher regard. I'm dense? Coming from you, that's quite a compliment; I didn't think you had it in you.

But go on, drink your beer and watch your films and keep bitching until they put an AUTO-WIN button right next to PLAY GAME at startup, so in the days you have better things to do, you can still get something accomplished. Regarding your last statement, apparently these two choice activities (amongst sleeping, of all things) didn't work out too well for you.

The proof is in the pudding, and you sir are the fucking Bill Cosby of "What's Wrong with MMO's Today?"

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Originally Posted by Eyeballed

The reason it took FOURTEEN HOURS to fill the group has a lot more to do with a lack of organizational skills from all parties involved and a lack of member participation to rectify said dilemma rather than a problem with the "system" which is apparently flawed in all ways that does not magically fill your party slots for you whilst you engage in other activities that you obviously hold in higher regard. I'm dense? Coming from you, that's quite a compliment; I didn't think you had it in you.

But go on, drink your beer and watch your films and keep bitching until they put an AUTO-WIN button right next to PLAY GAME at startup, so in the days you have better things to do, you can still get something accomplished. Regarding your last statement, apparently these two choice activities (amongst sleeping, of all things) didn't work out too well for you.

The proof is in the pudding, and you sir are the fucking Bill Cosby of "What's Wrong with MMO's Today?"

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This is an idiotic argument. Sorry Mr. Nostalgia, but back in those days, the same thing happened to me (except after hour #8 I just gave up). It's not because "you weren't trying hard enough", but the playerbase was so dumb back then that unless they needed the same quest, they aren't willing to inconvenience themselves to help others.

Specifically, my situation was the Savage Blade NM quest. I was completely ready for the quest, but I needed others to open the weighted doors. Now take a step back and realize this was in 2005, and back in those days, we didn't even have a clue how to properly grind for EXP. This is why it's no surprise that the majority of the playerbase believed you needed an alliance for the quest purely because you needed to the open the weighted doors in Quicksand caves and race to gate (this is because no one knew you had 30 minutes to go in after the gate opened). Damn near every fansite and the wiki stated this, and it was further solidified when my Sky LS told me the same thing, and they specifically postponed doing the quest for me for this false fact.

This is doubly true with CoP. You can argue that Frank should've asked his linkshell for help, but you're completely missing the point if you are. It doesn't excuse the fact that the playerbase as a whole were idiots, and unless they have a guide sitting in front of them, doing a PUG in CoP was asking for failure. I know this because I specifically became the CoP leader for my old linkshell when it was still capped, because I needed members to get my CoP missions done, but everyone else were stuck on the Promyvion missions because for some reason, there's always only 2 out of 6 members that actually feel assed enough to come prepared and have their "Make this boss retarded" items, so I had to make a strict guide showing that everyone needed to bring their items and the party setups were the most optimal.

The reason why it's so hard to get members in the first place is because the people that actually have CoP done doesn't dare do them again because they don't want to farm the items needed just to simply help out (this is why SE eventually allowed Anima and other "boss rape" items to be buyable on the AH). I can't blame them either. Who wants to waste their time getting items and a proper job and proper equipment(pre-level sync) for someone else, when your chances of success aren't guaranteed?

No matter how you slice it, this is terrible design, and the level sync mechanics only mildly curbed this problem. This is why SE uncapped CoP, because they realized the people who already have their Rajas were not going back to help other people, and as the game became more top-heavy, there were even less low levels that were available to form CoP parties.

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Originally Posted by Carth

This is an idiotic argument.

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You know what's even more idiotic?, You're defending the non-efforts of Bill with a blast against the whole community. Way to pass the buck. The more you people talk, it's as if you're claiming you couldn't do a damn thing in this game because you're smarter than everyone else - whatever intelligence has to do with motivation, I don't know. I suppose this makes those of you on that side of the fence stars among retards?

Whether in 1905, 2005, or 2055 your outlook is trash.

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Originally Posted by Eyeballed

You know what's even more idiotic?, You're defending the non-efforts of Bill with a blast against the whole community. Way to pass the buck. The more you people talk, it's as if you're claiming you couldn't do a damn thing in this game because you're smarter than everyone else - whatever intelligence has to do with motivation, I don't know. I suppose this makes those of you on that side of the fence stars among retards?

Whether in 1905, 2005, or 2055 your outlook is trash.

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Cherrypick fallacy.

You decided to pull a statement out of context and therefore use that as a main argument in order to make yourself look like you have a winning argument, when in fact you have nothing.

If you're going to make a rebuttal, make an actual argument instead of trying to make yourself look like a bleeding heart.

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Originally Posted by Carth

Cherrypick fallacy.

You decided to pull a statement out of context and therefore use that as a main argument in order to make yourself look like you have a winning argument, when in fact you have nothing.

If you're going to make a rebuttal, make an actual argument instead of trying to make yourself look like a bleeding heart.

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Read back. The original argument was not against mission design or the (restrictive) requirements thereof. It was, however, against the pervading tactics of a group member who conveniently blames the aforementioned "design flaws" when he states himself he did nothing on his own part to alleviate the problem. This distorts his claim of what the real problem might be, and in the very least does not well support his case.

And funnily enough, you go on to add that it's not only these strict requirements that inhibit progression, but also the community of mongoloids you're forced to play with.

Edit: Why did you ever play this game again, either of you? I'm seriously at a loss for understanding.

You would have to be pretty retarded to think that I hadn't already mentioned to my shell / friends that I was attempting to do the quest and I really don't see how having two people shout for the same thing in the same zone (this was before /yell when everyone stayed in one place). I mean you're really just going on about how much better you are at forming groups and that completely goes against your argument that people who want old school style play can't find groups.

Eyeballed is the most entertaining nostalgia troll ever, more so than Rosina. I'm glad he's posting again.

Nostalagie is the only good thing this game has to offer >.>

If you really think that, you're missing out on a lot of content.