Newest interview (abyssea was a mistake?)

[Greatguardian]

Some people just want an excuse to fail.

It's not like they were successful when the game was hard. But the game being hard was an excuse to flop at it.

Now that the game is supereasy, people no longer have an excuse to flop. That killed the spirit of flopping. They should make things harder so that I have a legitimate reason to flop again.

[Luvbunny]

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~

Trust me I know what you mean, my thing is all about choices. I like the way things are now because it gives me choices, and I am not forced to play the way it was supposed to be - but the choice is there should you ever want to do it. Just like you can have a choice when you do assault - cap the level and do it the hard way or uncapped and do it easy. And you have a choice when you make xp party as well. Granted most people will not choose the long hard way and rather have a quick fix, but it is their choices.

[Natasha]

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.

lol way to site HNMs, the worst example endgame... they were meant to be rare, thats why they had the long / random pop times. As for exp you better believe it, 2 days to max level ... its beyond me how you can think thats acceptable (its essentially a let me skip everything button) and not only am I not a fan of the fact that the content can be done quickly, im also just not a fan of it in general. But you don't need to fight me on it, I'm one person, and no matter if im right or not I can simply be written off.

[Winrie]

I'm sorry to say but neither side is correct in saying either Abyssea made the game better, or Abyssea ruined it, as Abyssea for the most part has had good and bad viewpoints that are plainly visible now that we are this far after it. The first thing i ask myself is my own personal viewpoint, among others, how many years did players on all servers camp HNMs for gear, and considering how long we did it, why is there such an issue with going back to a little grind, i ask myself what pleasure can one take in obtaining things so quickly and effortlessly in an MMORPG with little to no help, why not just play a single player RPG, skyrim something. Just some things ive noted to myself and others within whats left of my friends list of 9 years of FFXI.

The expansions for abyssea came out entirely too fast, to maintain the longevity that an MMORPG needs to have, this wasnt how to do it, unquestionable to anyone.

Atmas made abyssea lowmannable, Not that its a bad thing to be able to take a few buds and go smash some skulls, but for everything in abyssea? no, im sorry, no. Atmas should have been more like what atamacites are now, not super god mode KIs. This im sorry to say, destroyed linkshell coordination, hell even destroyed the need to have linkshells to do anything at all.

Back to longevity of an MMOs lifespan, allowing level 30s to enter abyssea and be able to receive exp that matched lvl 75+ was the most foolish thing they could ever do, Abyssea imo should have been exclusive endgame zones, and exp camp dedicated to alliances of 75+, doing this way would have ensured new players if any, wouldnt struggle with finding exp pts, old zones wouldnt be ghost towns, and things like campaign fov ect would still matter, now its gov to 30, aby to 95 in a day or two. Taking the game from a businessman viewpoint, i killed my replay value of my customers by allowing them to try out every job in the game, and gear them all and skill them all efficiently in 1/10th of the time it used to take, thus calling for shorter lifespans of many accounts.

Proc systems shouldnt have been so specifically dumbed down that it would make many jobs useless. Proc system if you needed to have it, which most of us do not at the moment, should have been randomly generated like dynamis or possibly like voidwatchs system, any type of system that wouldnt destroy the usefulness of jobs.

All the gear in abyssea replaces a large portion of gear which came from the previous set of endgame activities: Ein. Salvage, Dynamis, Limbus, Sea, Sky, HNM, ZNM, VNM.
9 Endgame events all holding a various spread of difference in activity to complete and gear? Variety, Why did abyssea have to replace 9 areas of content for high level players instead of being alongside it. Which leads me to say, you can call it emo rage whatever, but many players who did camp HNM, and seriously endgamed for their gear, made a relic, anything pre abyssea, when it was hard to finish things, more than likely felt f**ked by SE for various things as abyssea gear replacing almost everything weve worked for, gear that you could obtain by simply afk swinging mostly cause of atmas.

Im sorry but i miss the days when recieveing a piece of gear you worked for, finishing a relic, claiming some HNM, Effectively lowmanning harder ended content, dinging max level on a job, meant something when you finished. Not all content mind you, im looking at you salvage. But for the most part that bit of the game is dead, every joe on the block has the same gear as you now, there is no longer the diversity there once was, like i said, rather be playing skyrim lol, its about the same at the moment.

[Natasha]

/facepalm

My first face-palm...

[Luvbunny]

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.

Yup - agreed!! They refuse to put more funds on this game and instead focusing on fixing the craptacular that is FF14. They could reboot FF11 and update it with high res graphic for PC, PS3 and Xbox (which combined should have a big customers installed base worldwide) and treat it as a new launch. You see a lot of "HD Re-release" this day or remake but SE is just dumb that way - they can print money remaking FF6 and FF7 in HD and make millions but they refuse to do that and pour money developing craptacular like FF14, The Last Story, Infinite Undiscovery etc..

[Atomic_Skull]

Players liked Abyssea, they made it to be enjoyed and now they say no more of that, we should never of done it. BALANCE > happy subscribers.

Players liked it but that sort of content just isn't sustainable with a small dev team. There is also the problem of power creep.

The future looks so bright and rosey, aren't we all just so glad we got Tanaka back here?

He never left.

If you don't like the game vote with your feet. You can yell your head off all day but if SE is still getting your money they don't care.

[Luvbunny]

Winrie, the objective now is to sell more and make more money. Abyssea did just that, it give access to everyone, completely accessible for even lvl 30 to do quests and give SE a good amount of sales that bring back many who quit during the 2008-2010 period where contents are rare and the game languished for awhile after the lackluster respond to WoTG. As long as they can create content that is appealing to the masses (read easy, fun, accessible) and bring money, they will do this. And yes you can play more Skyrim now since FFXI is no longer a huge time sink and investment, isn't that grand?

[Zagen]

lol way to site HNMs, the worst example endgame... they were meant to be rare, thats why they had the long / random pop times. As for exp you better believe it, 2 days to max level ... its beyond me how you can think thats acceptable (its essentially a let me skip everything button) and not only am I not a fan of the fact that the content can be done quickly, im also just not a fan of it in general. But you don't need to fight me on it, I'm one person, and no matter if im right or not I can simply be written off.

In Abyssea what's the respawn time of a monster that someone "might" consider an HNM? 1 min ??? respawns with many NMs that can be spammed once they respawn from that 10-15min timer? Oh I know Shinryu with his max 20 hour "respawn" due to possibly not having stones, though with stones its what a 10-20minute walk back and forth? I'm not saying these are HNMs to me but to many other people I've played with they talk about their difficulty for them on that scale.

After I got my first job to 75 the reason I gave a damn about EXP was to level up sub jobs or other jobs to become a more useful asset for events I wanted to do with friends. I already did the stories with my first job outside of the Artifact stories a skip button didn't hurt me since I'm competent enough to be able to learn how to play a job from researching it. Also until SE removed the level caps from mission fights being level 25 or level 75 for the 2-3 mission fight didn't change anything.

[Khajit]

What has this interview told me? It's told me that once I hit 99 I should just get the most visually pleasing gear I can find, take pictures with friends and then quit rather than deal with whatever SE has in store next time in their crusade against people not wanting to force seppuku upon them.