Newest interview (abyssea was a mistake?)

[Natasha]

This is one of the best thing ever happened in the game, no more useless timesink travel time. It is great the first time you go explore, but not for the 100th time you have to do it. Direct port to the zone where bcnms are (not the bcnm itself) would be great, then I can easily find more people to do this since it cut down the 10-15 mnts time spent to reach the bcnms. You want instant fun, not needless time sink over and over and over. All those waystone earrings are beyond awesome, you can warp direct to Nashmau to do Einherjar instead of having to wait 10-30 mnts for people to gather.

This is EXACTLY the problem with casuals (i view myself as casual just so you know) travel is not a timesink -.- ... what good adventure had no travel in it?

[Kimble]

Ah well, sorry, not going to dig through another thread just to find you reasoning, lol.

I travel the same path to work every day. Doesn't make it an adventure.

[Luvbunny]

Thats exactly the point i was making -.- ... That if people were complaining it was hard then they werent people who were wanting old ffxi back.

The old ways are about gathering people for hours... and asking if they have xyz jobs, and camping the sky and fight it out with RMT people to get claim, and have 5-7 things dropped that are either not what you want, or good luck getting a claim cuz some of the VIP members of LS have the claim and you are just warm body to help them get what they want.

[Natasha]

Ah well, sorry, not going to dig through another thread just to find you reasoning, lol.

I travel the same path to work every day. Doesn't make it an adventure.

Why even have areas then, if theres no reason to travel through them.

[Natasha]

The old ways are about gathering people for hours... and asking if they have xyz jobs, and camping the sky and fight it out with RMT people to get claim, and have 5-7 things dropped that are either not what you want, or good luck getting a claim cuz some of the VIP members of LS have the claim and you are just warm body to help them get what they want.

You never had to do endgame, if you did you were expected to make some kind of investment in it. <- this makes sense

Now, everyone does it cause thats all there is <- this does not make sense.

[Luvbunny]

This is EXACTLY the problem with casuals (i view myself as casual just so you know) travel is not a timesink -.- ... what good adventure had no travel in it?

Travel is fine, you have to travel inside abyssea (very minimal) - you have to travel to get to VW pop (very minimal) - but traveling for more than 10-20 mnts to reach a zone IS NOT OK. The first five times you may like it, but not for the 10th-20th time you keep having to do this. Things that should take a 60-90 mnts can easily stretch into a 3-4 hours deal because half the people did not do their homework and everyone have to wait around for them to get there. This is not OK - it's rude to make other people wait for you, especially if they are there to help you get your stuffs done Obviously this is not about you, heh heh heh.

[saevel]

Ok this is getting annoying now. Stop with trying to romanticize "old FFXI", your deluding yourselves.

You people argue and complain about abyssea making "XP" easy ... and yet yearn for "old style" Xp parties. Yet you fail to mention those parties were RDM BRD BRD WAR SAM MNK, and NOTHING ELSE. Your wanting to level SMN, BST, PUP, BLM, or a myriad of other jobs, better have a friend who's RDM or BRD and hope they insist you be allowed into the party. "Old style" XP was just people holding their party hostage to get their friends in.

"Old style" content boiled down to two things, one being waiting 3~4 hours in Dragons Aery to attempt to outclaim all the bots for a 21~24hr spawn NM. Second having to making a schedule to attend an event with 17~20+ other people where the leaders would tally points and control gear distribution. If you didn't' give the LS leaders wet oral encouragement then you'd be near the bottom of the list for getting your stuff done, maybe never being allowed to get your drop.

THAT was FFXI, if you didn't fall into those two groups then you were stuck with absolutely nothing to do. Assault / Nyzule Isle gear sucked, there was better available on the AH for the most part. There was NO strategy, no SC / MB, no mysterious magic that made the game "better". It was a bunch of LS leaders herding cats and telling you what to do. They could carbon copy whatever "winning" strategy was present on BG to maximize gear acquisition for the leaders and their chosen few. Ultimately this always boiled down to a melee zerg. No strategy involved, just the simplest / fastest method for obtaining gear.

Abyssea introduced super hard NMs, but also super powerful buffs. Anyone and I mean ANYONE complaining about this, just go do Abyssea without crour buffs or atma, there your problem is now solved. The only reason abyssea seems "easy" is that players found the best combinations of atma possible. Remove Apoc / RR and suddenly it seems much much harder. And ultimately, Abyssea NM's weren't any harder / easier then pre-abyssea NM's once players found a strategy. Omega, Ultima, Hydra, Khimera, and Kirin were all "easy" once we figured them out. DL was FARMED for drops, just throw CSS and he's a joke. It may take longer, so a 30min fight vs a 5~10 min, but length of fight does not dictate difficulty.

The real difference between abyssea / pre-abyssea / post-abyssea is that you could control your gear acquisition rate. Abyssea had a steady method to acquire your +1/+2 armor and emp weapon. For 8 seals you would have to fight a guy 3~6 times, so you could say the +1 armor had a 15~25% "drop" rate. For 6 coins you would have to fight a NM 2~4 times (if it was the guaranteed drop) so again same 25% "drop" rate. Armor was a bit harder due to 10/9 but was still obtainable with friends. Which is the whole point, if I'm helping a friend get his +2 armor, there will be other drops that myself and everyone else could lot on. Something for everyone and all that jazz.

THAT is what abyssea was about, helping each other acquire better gear without having to give oral encouragement to linkshell leaders. You could still do it with a LS and you would acquire a crap ton of gear, I know I did, but you could also opt to just go do those NM's with a few friends. The choice of gear acquisition was in your hands.

[Natasha]

Travel is fine, you have to travel inside abyssea (very minimal) - you have to travel to get to VW pop (very minimal) - but traveling for more than 10-20 mnts to reach a zone IS NOT OK. The first five times you may like it, but not for the 10th-20th time you keep having to do this. Things that should take a 60-90 mnts can easily stretch into a 3-4 hours deal because half the people did not do their homework and everyone have to wait around for them to get there. This is not OK - it's rude to make other people wait for you, especially if they are there to help you get your stuffs done Obviously this is not about you, heh heh heh.

The amount of travel in ffxi before abyssea was perfectly acceptable, long enough to make people be serious but not long enough to make you not want to go somewhere.

[Luvbunny]

You never had to do endgame, if you did you were expected to make some kind of investment in it. <- this makes sense

Now, everyone does it cause thats all there is <- this does not make sense.

This is a GAME, not work, not stock market, no one should do "investment" of any kind other than to log in, go play and have fun, repeat infinitum over and over. Yes in a way, any gaming experience is just another way of wasting our free time, hence it should not feel like work where you have to invest. When I log out of the game, everything about the game means absolutely nothing to me.

[Kimble]

I'm sorry but the most annoying thing about old FFXI was sitting around and waiting for everyone else to get there to get started. hell that is still the most annoying thing.

"hey guys, event starts at 5!"

/gets to the event right at 5.

/other people wait till 5 to start to move to the area.

/is now 6 and event is finally starting.

Yeah, that was REAL fun.