Letter to SE Development Team: Tanka I hope you read this

[Dazusu]

...

I would have read your opinions and thoughts, but you opened with the HNM / Real Life card when this thread/discussion has nothing to do with it, so everything after that was invalid to me.

Didn't you just return from WoW?

Yes, played WoW for 9 months because Abyssea got stale. However, FFXI is still my first MMO, and my main MMO. It was the announcement of Legion which prompted my return. Understand that I'm not asking for the return of the HNM scene - I'm asking for long term goals and difficult challenges. Abyssea for me didn't provide that. The new Nyzul isle is fun, I personally enjoy it. You don't, and that' fine. I'm not going to try convince you to love it.

As I've said in the past on the forums, I hope they continue to add more content like Abyssea, and stuff that people can do without massive commitments. I also hope they continue to add the stupidly hard stuff... but a lot of people (like Mr I hate HNM because RL Card above) want it one way or the other and that's the problem. Everyone has an opinion, but groups of players tend to band together and proclaim that theirs is more valid than anyone else's - because their opinion is beneficial to them.

[Disifer]

I would have read your opinions and thoughts, but you opened with the HNM / Real Life card when this thread/discussion has nothing to do with it, so everything after that was invalid to me.

The point of the post had nothing to do with hnm camping and briefly touched upon it. The point is the playerbase is 8-9 years old in most cases. Say you started at 13, now you are 20. Most of us played since 17-25 meaning 26-35 year old player base now. Those same people who populate your game are older and don't have time to spend 6+ hours a day farming up someone else's shit. Point is people have jobs, careers, and families now, most of us who played this game hardcore since its inception. Can't create time consuming, nonrewarding content, and expect to keep that same player base. maybe 6-7 years ago when this game was fairly new, not when it is 9 years old and there is no reason to have a new influx of players to come in with all the new mmo's out with better graphics, battle systems, and reward systems. Sorry is that better cupcake? Guess you can't mention real life being a motivation for making obtainable, rewardable content for the average person.

Edit:And i never hated camping HNM, i hated dealing with people within a LS who if you weren't with the "click" then no matter what the points system or whathave you are, they will still find an excuse to change the rules momentarily to benefit those within the click. Trust me, if they still popped on 21-24 hour timer, i'd be there on bst or in a small group of friends camping it for the reward of completing something, even as small of an achievment as it is. I don't mind the harder content. But if your idea of harder content is a RNG, then you're view of what is "hard" is a lot different than the others i talk to. I think PW and AV was hard, even after they were figured out to a degree, but you still had a sense of achievement because of the camping of sea NM's for AV or the sheer amount of zeni required at the time to even get a PW pop, considering the drop rates off t4 znm.

[Karbuncle]

Once every 3 days. Artificial wall.



As many as you have tags available. Artificial wall.

Your ideas for a point system are good, but don't think that the two examples you gave were free of artificial blocks. MMOs have to limit progression to a certain point, and almost every bit of content in the game is stuffed with said blocks. All except Abyssea (assuming you know how to farm time).

That's my original point. People were generally fine with it until Abyssea, now they've had a taste of XI without the blocks, etc etc

Other than that, I agree with a lot of your points. Progression, points, feeling of accomplishment all work. Rehashing old content doesn't give that, though.

Everything has some Artificial Walls. It has too in an MMO. When the Artificial Walls consist of Nothing but Random Number Generator - Thats where the problem is.

No one would complain about 1 Tag a day if that 1 Tag could give you meaningful progress in something even if you didn't hit floor 80, or 100.

Just like in Einherjar and Assault. Assault, You had to win, But Even if you didn't get the ??? Item you wanted, You got Assault points for items that were (back then) good.

Or Einherjar, Which now, Offer you partial rewards in the battlefield, and Points on win you could turn in for what was (At the time) Some pretty decent items.

So while each had an Artificial Wall Dependent on Day, Or Assault Points, That wall wasn't a Random Number Generator, Which is what people are bitching about. (now each of those events did have 1 form of Random Number generator or so... But they also had the combo of Progression).

You see, The player base doesn't completely want the removal of R.N.G, Cause its impossible unless drops were 100%, We just want Progression along side it.

[Dreamin]

I think either Dazusu is extremely lucky with VW drop or he really hasn't spent the kind of time with VW yet. Because after going 0/300+ on Pil and Qilin and you see pink/white folks that gets the ra/ex body under 1/10, it would just absolutely drive you off the wall and there's no way in hell you would LIKE this random drop BS at all.

Same thing for the Neo Nyzul Isle. Right now it is near impossible for ANYONE to make it up to floor 100 on any consistency regardless of how GOOD (skill) your group are. 90s on 11 floor in a row with 9 floor jump every single time is just stupidly impossible to reach (yes, it's mathematically possible but realistically impossible). So if you enjoy that crap, good for you but dont try to tell the rest of us that it is an acceptable event because it is IMPOSSIBLE to just reach 100.

I've posted elsewhere, challenging the DEV to just post an image where a group of DEV without using any hacks, backdoors or anything else that is currently NOT KNOWN to the userbase yet is EVEN just on the 100th floor. They can just show that they can even get there, whether or not they even have the TIME to fight the final boss is not necessary. I will STFU if they can show that this is possible at all and will even stop my weekly posting in the BST thread.

Until then, SE, fix this BS Random Generator based event/drop.

[Dazusu]

Stuff.

In large, agree. Just don't make the challenges 'easy'

I think either Dazusu is extremely lucky with VW drop or he really hasn't spent the kind of time with VW yet.

Done one VW fight the day it was released before I started playing WoW. No doubt I'll hate VW loot system when I get stuck into it. From what I've heard, the random drop system to each person sounds crap, is it an improvement on the pool system? Not sure, would have to experience it first. Though my argument isn't really about drops. It boils down to wanting a challenge that has the life to go the distance. 3 month relics, 3 day Empyreans and I'm assuming soon to be 3 month Mythics mean that there is no epic goal to work towards as there was in the past (Except for maybe 99 trials).

(Again I'm not asking for all content to be this way, perhaps <5% of it.)

[Kimble]

No one said they wanted content to be easy. They said they don't want to be at the mercy of RNG.

[Dreamin]

Too late, Camate has confirmed that Floor 100 is indeed LUCK driven. Here's praying that my LUCK with this is better than my Toci (0/300+).

[Runespider]

Too late, Camate has confirmed that Floor 100 is indeed LUCK driven. Here's praying that my LUCK with this is better than my Toci (0/300+).

You did VW and hated it because of the horrible luck factor, they add an event that's far worse and you are going to do it and hope you get lucky? Damn they love players like you, you will take anything they shovel on your face.

[Dreamin]

Well, I'm unlucky but I also have 2 others who are usually 'lucky' person in my set. So I'm just going to make them be the person to hit the '???' every single time and pray for the best.

But seriously, as most of us who has played this game in a long time knows, we're still playing this because we have a group of friends that enjoy each other's company and we work well together and can get stuff done in small group setting. So it's either this or just toss in the subscription but I'm not quite there yet...it's close but just not there yet.

[Oscar71]

The point of the post had nothing to do with hnm camping and briefly touched upon it. The point is the playerbase is 8-9 years old in most cases. Say you started at 13, now you are 20. Most of us played since 17-25 meaning 26-35 year old player base now. Those same people who populate your game are older and don't have time to spend 6+ hours a day farming up someone else's shit. Point is people have jobs, careers, and families now, most of us who played this game hardcore since its inception. Can't create time consuming, nonrewarding content, and expect to keep that same player base. maybe 6-7 years ago when this game was fairly new, not when it is 9 years old and there is no reason to have a new influx of players to come in with all the new mmo's out with better graphics, battle systems, and reward systems. Sorry is that better cupcake? Guess you can't mention real life being a motivation for making obtainable, rewardable content for the average person.

Thank you for saying this!