Newest interview (abyssea was a mistake?)

[Luvbunny]

I came back when several friends talked up Abyssea to me, they told me it was the best time to get back into FFXI and that starting over from scratch was about a months affair as opposed to the years affair as it used to be. When I got back and jumped into Abyssea as a player who was as hardcore as they came back in the day that spent up to 9hrs a day camping kings + had a mule watching Tiamat when her window opened I loved what they did with Abyssea.

I started FFXI as a 22 year old, now 30, I loved the fact that I could just log on and get into something that wasent serious or required a lot of investment and the loot was mindblowing compared to all the HNM gear I used to have. As the transition from Abyssea to Voidwatch began, I wanted no part in it, it felt like I been there and done that and dealt with the lowdrop rate mess years ago that was Salvage, Dynamis, Kings and so on, I instantly just lost the will to play because the game was starting to go back into that lowdrop rate mess again.

I was a player who had just about all endgame gear back at 75, I only came back because the game had changed from a mindnumbing grind to being able to jump into abyssea for two hrs a night and make progress. Voidwatch seems to bring me back to the days of slamming your head against a brickwall trying to get drops.

Agreed, Abyssea is the best thing that ever happened in this game. It is a blockbuster coming from Yoshi directed team (and the ToAU team) - hence the current team lead by Tanaka despised it since it is not their claim of fame and will try to do their best to discredit this. I am not sure what is the office politics behind the development team, but SE CEO should get a wind of this and put a kibosh on this negative statements and rest assure to costumers that all is good and they will make more similar content like abyssea in the future that is bigger better more fun and a guaranteed blockbuster and put Tanaka and his team locked in an office somewhere and ban them from ever granting an interview or insight.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The only thing you're "watching" by doing this content is loot hitting the "void" because the spinner didn't land on your character again and again and again. It's been nearly 3 months since the last VU and interest in VW has died off already. Why? Blame MW3 or Skyrim but it's really cause the base thinks the content sucks.

Or even better, the spinner hits the same character again and again, and you wind up with 5 r/ex boots you can't do anything with after the first pair.

[Greatguardian]

I legitimately enjoy Voidwatch, but probably only because I do it sparingly (on the weekends). If I did that shit every day, I would likely throw my PC out the window. Which would probably kill someone, as I have a very large, very heavy enthusiast rig and I live on the second story.

[Luvbunny]

I certainly hope not, Im glad so many people are getting the wake up call. "oh, this isnt what it was supposed to be? Oh noes!"

Read other post on lvl 99 cap BCNM. Good thing that the developers read the forum and willing to react to this and offer solutions to both casual and hardcore players. This so called "wake up call" will be a painful one when everyone stop playing after seeing the "old ways" of difficult time consuming frustrating grind rears its ugly head. I know for sure I will "invest" my time on other games or activities.

[Natasha]

Is that so they know for certain they can quit now because the many who loved the ease of Abyssea will now know its a hardcore gamer's world to come where doing X fight 1000 times might get you that 1 item you want because of the shitty loot system changes?

Any Good Game Designer or Producer will tell you making the extremist in any genre happy will make your pockets unhappy.

Not at all what im going for, and old ffxi was far from extremist.

[Natasha]

Read other post on lvl 99 cap BCNM. Good thing that the developers read the forum and willing to react to this and offer solutions to both casual and hardcore players. This so called "wake up call" will be a painful one when everyone stop playing after seeing the "old ways" of difficult time consuming frustrating grind rears its ugly head. I know for sure I will "invest" my time on other games or activities.

I have actually and it seems like the majority are actually in favor of a hard fight lol...

[Luvbunny]

I have actually and it seems like the majority are actually in favor of a hard fight lol...

If this is indeed true, they would not even bother to make it in two flavors at all since this is what the majority wants. If you give them 2 options, one where you do very challenging bcnm with 6 people needed, and another one where you trade 20 merits and no battle, I can guarantee you which one of those 2 things the majority will choose.

But hey, you should rejoice since now you can solo this without any items and increase the difficulty from hard to very super extra hard mode and gain a big huge satisfaction knowing that you are able to beat it, solo, with no items to weaken the npc

[Natasha]

If this is indeed true, they would not even bother to make it in two flavors at all since this is what the majority wants. If you give them 2 options, one where you do very challenging bcnm with 6 people needed, and another one where you trade 20 merits and no battle, I can guarantee you which one of those 2 things the majority will choose.

Thats true that almost everyone would pick the easy way out and thats the same thing i've been trying to explain to you about the other problems with abyssea... providing extremely disadvantageous choices is hardly a choice at all and it kills the spirit of things. Everyone wants the reward, and while the road getting there can be hard and a bit annoying it makes the journey memorable and when its so easy to get around it despite the lost enjoyment people will pick it almost all the time. tis truely a sad day~

edit: where do you get the 20 merits thing? Looking at the dev tracker what they said was weak fight vs hard fight.

[Luvbunny]

Is that so they know for certain they can quit now because the many who loved the ease of Abyssea will now know its a hardcore gamer's world to come where doing X fight 1000 times might get you that 1 item you want because of the shitty loot system changes?

Any Good Game Designer or Producer will tell you making the extremist in any genre happy will make your pockets unhappy.

Don't you worry, they will learn soon from their stupid statement, unhappy pocket result in immediate action - since they have not yet do any harm and creating crap contents - my suggestion is to look back at what is great about Abyssea and do similar or better. Fixing mistakes will cost them 10 times more money than giving consumer exactly what they want (if they still have not yet learn from the mistake of FF14 then SE is dumber than I give them credit for).

[Zagen]

Not at all what im going for, and old ffxi was far from extremist.

10-15 min repop norm vs. lotto/2hr+/24 to 72hr windows?
200k/hr exp min vs. 20-30k (though I should say 3-10k since that's before the ToAU era since those designers came up with Abyssea supposedly)?
Drop rates improved by more than TH vs. Drop rates that didn't seem improved by TH at all many times?

The comparisons can go on.

The real problem with Abyssea wasn't that it opened the door to a casual play style where rewards are near instant for the hardcore and well paced for casuals it is that SE doesn't have the man power isn't willing to dedicate the man power needed to keep churning out that type of content.