Seriously devs - the balance

[Greatguardian]

Why so defensive? I never called you out. I don't actually like calling people out by name. I have seen the things said that I was talking about. I've seen them stated outright and implied. Do they reflect your views? That's great that they don't. I never said that they did.

If you call out elite players, then you call me out. You can Karbuncle out. You call Byrthnoth out. This is the quintessential problem with sweeping generalizations. Honestly, I've been on both sides of this fence, and all I can say is it needs to stop.

I really don't have a list of names. I don't keep a score sheet of who says what, but I assure you I have seen these ideas in game and in forums. I can't prove it, so I know you won't believe it until you see it. Next time I see something I'll be sure to PM you or something.

This is important. It doesn't matter whether or not someone is elite or casual or Wopadobop. Individuals hold individual views. If someone is being a flaming retard, then it is that person alone who is a flaming retard. It does everyone else around them a disservice to credit their flaming retardedness to their peers.

So you've never seen generalizations about "n00bs' and "casuals" and people who want "easymode" and "everything handed to them?" You've never seen anyone state that points systems are bad and only random is good? You've never seen people upset that things are too easy or too plentiful or what have you?

Now I don't really pay much attention to who says these things, and I don't do any background checks on them. They may or may not actually be elite players, but they tend to put forth the idea that they are. I really don't know whether you are or not, nor does it really matter to me. I will tell you I am not one, and you can certainly check up on my lack of eliteness if you want.

I've seen them. Most of the time, they come from people that I (and most of BG) would consider noobs/gimps/retards. The FFXI middle class is their own worst enemy. Those who have actually held power and prestige for a long period of time have grown accustomed to it. We don't particularly mind if other people share the limelight, since we already have plenty of claim to fame ourselves.

Personally, I was one of the originators of the now-famous Cataclysm cleave on BG (which got compiled and reposted by various others on nearly every website around). I lead and organized one of the server-first sub-12 man Odins many years ago, and I have an extremely solid reputation on my server. What do I care if other people get better at the game? Good for them, I say.

On the other hand, you have a lot of casual players who were suddenly thrust into the limelight with Abyssea. Suddenly, they were able to be "Elite" (think nouveau riche), and tried to lord it over others as much as possible like a kid with a new holographic Charizard. You have people who were solidly left out of serious Endgame content prior to Abyssea, suddenly wanting things to go back to being hard after they've come out on top so that they have a chance to flaunt their epeens the way that other people did to them in the past. While they may have everything they want now, they have it because it's not exclusive any more, and they desperately want to have their cake and eat it too.

These retards are not elite. They just wish they were, and are able to convince a decent amount of people who don't know better that they are. Please don't attribute their hubris to the rest of us. They're a disgrace to the term "Elitist".

I'll do my best in the future to not be so general and document things better.

Please do. Generalizations only perpetuate this senseless "Class warfare" that always seems to go on in more casual-heavy forums. You don't see BG bashing on new players all the time. We're actually extremely new-friendly, and have massive threads dedicated to helping new/returning players adjust to the game as it is now. On the other hand, whenever I walk into Alla or many social/casual shells, all I see is leet-bashing. Elitists this, Elitists that. If I'm to believe half of the things people say about Elitists, then I'd have to be a botting douchenozzle who will hack your account for fun and post pictures of myself tossing your Empyreans in BG: Media.

[SpankWustler]

There's a difference between wanting something to require relative effort for a relatively long period of time, and wanting something to require wrestling the seemingly sadistic workings of FFXI's Random Number Generator for a random period of time that may be forever.

Similarly, few people who want the former are huge fans of the latter. Check out threads about the Voidwatch item distribution thread for proof of that. Actually, I'm sure no small number of people would like the fights themselves to be more difficult but the item distribution system to make sense.

Lumping every kind of time or effort together isn't a good idea, and neither is lumping together everyone who wants stuff to require sizable time or effort.

[Crysten]

If you call out elite players, then you call me out. You can Karbuncle out. You call Byrthnoth out. This is the quintessential problem with sweeping generalizations. Honestly, I've been on both sides of this fence, and all I can say is it needs to stop.

I will definitely agree here. By and large I have a lot of respect for the BG community and what they contribute to the game. Players such as yourself, Byrthnoth, Kirschy, Nightfyre and several others have all been fantastic sources of information and as such, it is being unfair to lump you all together. I've seen that a lot of the more mature members of BG are pretty much on the same page.

That being said, much like you say, posts like this only serve to reinforce the negative stigma a lot of players have towards endgame as a whole. Hell, using uptempo's posts on the previous page as another example - would there be as much unneeded enmity if I said I totally agreed with an HNM/Einherjar point style system as he said?

I think a lot of the generalizations can go both ways. Any relic/empyrean comparison thread pre-level 90 was pretty good proof of the kind of people that the community tend to resent.

And yes, they aren't "elitist."

[Camiie]

I've actually played with Kirschy and Nightfyre before. Been in LSes with them both and done lots of events with Kirschy. No issues with them at all. I don't know the other folks mentioned. I really didn't intend to lump everyone who was truly elite or knowledgeable into a certain category, even if I ended up doing so. I'm really sorry for that, as it wasn't my intention to insult good people.


I do hope that not everything I mentioned is invalidated by my mistake. If so, then I'll just try to make a better argument next time.

[Byrth]

I wouldn't call someone who can't spell and glorifies his bot an "elite" of anything. Nor would I call myself an elite though. I picked up Dancer specifically to avoid the whole Level 75 Endgame trap. All the job really needed at 75 was a few pieces from Dynamis. I don't dislike noobs. I don't dislike casuals. I dislike idiots. Unfortunately, there are plenty of idiots.

Now that everything is obtainable with a little skill and (sometimes quite a bit of) time, I'm doing fairly well for myself. Pushing the focus off the HNM system is one of the best things this game has ever done, and it's a rare bird who disagrees with that statement regardless of what group you're talking to. In general, I like the direction they have taken the game.

That said, I agree that they're taking the game whatever direction they want without much respect for the substantial quantities of player input they receive. Do I blame them? Not really. The effort SE would have to spend sorting out well-measured and thought out suggestions from the suggestions of idiots is substantial. Then, in our case, the effort they would have to spend translating our suggestions would be substantial. If you guys think they yield to JP suggestions much more than NA suggestions, you'd be wrong. The JPs were just as "wat? where did this come from." about the job FAQs when they came out and blamed us for it the same way we blamed them.

There are two types of things that actually get addressed:
* Bug Reports
* Localization Reports
Everything else is just SE's translated responses that they drop on to whatever thread fits the best. That's fine, I guess, but it means that people waste a lot of time and effort blowing smoke at each other proposing intricate ideas that will never be read, considered, or implemented.

[Karbuncle]

Feeling the love in here D:

[Crysten]

Can I have a hug? :<

[Karbuncle]

Yes. Yes you can

[Crysten]

And they all lived happily ever after <3

[Sparthos]

As someone who devoted alot of time to partly running a big HNMLS, I have mixed feelings regarding where SE has taken the game in the past year or so not because it undercut my "importance" but more because I play XI for the social aspect and that has started to significantly recede with the emphasis on content that can be duoed or trioed rather than things for 6-12man parties.

Marginalizing kings was one of the best things SE did with the game, don't get me wrong. The breath of fresh air that sent the most virulent botters packing along was way past overdue. Yeah, I camped my fair share of all those NMs (making large sums of gil in the process) but the arrogance that came with being the best claimer of a lottery mob had become completely silly and represented the worst this game had to offer.

There was never any challenge in Kings yet so many people equated skill with claims. Fafnir could always be slept, anyone could kite KB till reinforcements arrived and Aspid was stupid easy once you brought the proper number of BLMs. I had more joy beating the Pandemonium Warden than I ever did with Kings because time, skill and organization were all being tested while the only thing a Sandworm or Dark Ixion would frequently do is try my patience.

My main trouble with this game now is that the current systems of loot rewards is Abyssea which has ended for most individuals, Dynamis which is worthless unless you happen to be farming gil or a relic and Voidwatch which doesn't encourage LS play because the drops are terrible to sort out. People aren't going to waste time for marginal upgrades coming off a system where doing a few hours work resulted in huge upgrades and so they have voted with their feet to quit this game until version updates bring news of something worth chasing.

XI is in a good place if you like to play solo or catch up on old, rotting content but the future is bleak with regards to meaningful events being released anytime soon. We get promises of Nyzul II and revamps but what the game needs right now is buzz and life - not more events revolving around logs and ores.