Suggestion: Break the game, SE

[Chocobits]

I really wanna beat the "boxed expansion set" drum here.

I remember the OMGWTFBBQSAUCE reaction to the snippets of info about CoP as it was being released. Until the tedium of the missions kicked in, there was nothing that wasn't win about the CoP expansion when it came out. Exploring Attohwa as a nubby dubby and getting 1 shot unexpectedly was magical.

And then ToAU. ToAU had freaking BIPEDAL DINOSAUR MOBS! And they hopped up and down and cast killer black magic and just.. DAMN! And chigoes man! Freaking invisible, pint sized DEATH!

And then WoTG with the cavernous maws! Just walking by those things before the update, you knew it was no DeLorean man! Those things were gonna EAT you and shit you out in the past! And they actually included the Sandworm "Zone Eaters" from FFXI and you got sucked in for a mini event! Freaking-A!

I wanna feel the MAGIC again. Reminiscing about the old expansions when they came out, it's like that GF whose name escapes you but how that first time together friggin' ROCKED and now you wish you could remember her name, because thinking about her brings a smile to your face. We need a new whatername to fondly remember years from now!

[Shipp]

The problem with many MMO's is that as they age so does their population and content level. A player joining FFXI right now has so much stuff they need to do before they can join the rest of the game that it's daunting and highly discouraging. They have over a years worth of work (Zilart / CoP / ToAU / Nation Quests / Dyna wins / Genkai / ect..) before their able to do what we do right now. WoW is no different, a new player would have to grind up their toon and do tons of quests and faction farming just to be somewhat acceptable for raid groups. Again that is very daunting to new players, or even older players returning and starting new. SE's idea is to make all old content easy to do and just let XP flow like a flood (Abyssea / GoV), WoW's was to give out a level 80 char to new players.

Zilart, CoP, and ToAU can be largely be soloed at 99. I've helped a few people with Limit Breaks since I've been back, and I've seen other people helping newer players, or returning players, as well. You don't have to finish Nation quests, only do enough to start the other expansion missions. Same for Zilart/CoP. You don't have to finish them, and just about all of them prior to sky/sea can be soloed. I did the bulk of ToAU when I got back within 2 weeks, and got Alex and Odin. Dyna wins I agree with though, as I'm glad I had them cleared years ago prior to this neo Dynamis.

All that said, it's a lot more difficult to start XI than WoW. The grind to 85 in WoW is about the same as the original grind to 60 in Vanilla. They've buffed XP gained for each previous expansion. Also, you don't have to do attunements in WoW any longer (haven't for years) and the old raid content is only run anymore for fun, mounts, random recipes, and transmog sets. A new player can get to 85 within a few weeks in WoW at a casual pace and basically jump right into endgame. If they PvP, they can convert Honor to points for PvE gear and just buy better stuff than running the normal instances. They can get enough gear that way to get into the Well of Eternity heroics, gear up, and then join the herd in the raid finder. As far as rep, there are really only two reputations in Cata that you need to build up for raiding, and for casters that's Hyjal and Deepholm. Once you build Hyjal rep once, you can just mail the enchants to another toon you make since they're BoA.

I think giving out a level 80 is a bit cheap. Regardless of whether you key in Abyssea (which you won't be doing until you already have a job that you leveled in GoV parties) or find a leech spot in a FC group, you at least spent the time, even if you just AFK'd and went to work or something in a FC burn. Giving out an 80 not only cheapens the experience, but it also nullifies the work that went into redesigning 1-60. Sure people will level alts, but it still seems like a desperate move, in my opinion.

[Anapingofness]

I'd like to point out that it has *always* been more difficult to start in FFXI than WoW.

For one, FFXI never, and I mean never actually had a starting tutorial. Back when I started you got shown a cs of your home nation that introduced you and bam, that was it. You had to figure out everything else on your own. To be perfectly honest, not much has changed since. Even now with the half-assed starting guide a player first starting out in FFXI will have unnecessary trouble.

That was never the case in WoW. Once your character is created you see your little cs and a little box pops up on the screen telling you how to play. Ten to fifteen minutes later you know how to play WoW.

This may not seem important to you or me (aka people familiar/comfortable with playing w/ a keyboard) but to casual players or console players whom have never experienced playing via keyboard it was an important step. Blizzard turned a rather intimidating aspect of interface (aka using a keyboard) into something very simple to do.

[Aquilla]

Chocobits, you're right. Capturing that 'omg, this is new and exciting' feeling would be amazing. I would love to see more new areas added to the game. I can't argue against that.

However, they also need to actually go back -- and much like Duelle said, revamp the old stuff. SE has spent a very long time just letting content die. For example: they add evoliths. Playerbase hates it/laughs at it. They do nothing. Much like Zinato said, they do need to be a lot better about progression in general -- gear progression, game progression. More of a feeling of accomplishment when you DO upgrade your gear, not like 'omg, yay! I have a snow ring, and before I had a diamond ring! My damage..er... didn't really increase but...I sure feel more ubar.'

FrankReynolds made a point about how, in a MMO, teamwork is good, but shouldn't be an absolute requirement for everything.

They need to up the drop rates on a whole lot of stuff. Low drop rates =/= challenge. Shipp made that point rather eloquently.

That's just a few names from this thread. This forum is made up of people who have some great ideas about this game. Granted, it's got a few nuts, also, but that's okay too. Nuts are a nice snack. Back in my OP, i made that exact point: there are a lot of great ideas being tossed out onto the forums. SE has opened up this channel of communication. And, I can't say that they didn't listen -- they have made a few tweaks here and there. They've also barreled forward, stubborn-mule-like, down channels that seem pointless.

Yes, saevel is right when he says that starting out in XI now would face a newbie with a mountain of content. Shipp is also right in that most of that content is useless. XI, as I said, is a monument to abandoned content/mission lines/etc. Some of these have great stories -- some of the quest lines, with their cut scenes and good characters -- should be made more relevant. XI has unique gameplay, and it should preserve that. It should also work to make it so much better than it is.

I think that this game, to borrow another phrase from the thread, needs to break the mold a bit. It needs to stop pretending like people are going to go back to 2004, and everything will be new again. It needs to remake itself into something new. It's more than doable -- and many people smarter than me have given great ideas as to how that can be done.

What SE can't afford to do, imho, is cling to status quo like a piece of gum clings to the bottom of a shoe. The game needs a rebirth, a re-imagining, and it needs to do so with a focus on fun and a focus on community. SE has recognized, with the creation of these forums, that the community exists -- they also need to provide ways for that community to exist in game.

Revamp the linkshells. Revamp the LFG system. Revamp the dead content and bring it to life, SE.

[FrankReynolds]

Never said I'm better than the whole forum, I'm just stating what seems to be the opinion from nearly every other forum. Maybe you only check this one, I don't know. I've read what I described on more than one other forum, and numerous times at that. OP even made a comment about the type of reputation this place has.

Take note that the people writing that stuff on other forums are the same people reading and posting on this forum and realize that that argument is pointless.

Except you wouldn't reach it just as fast, because you wouldn't have been invited as fast as someone who had pimped out gear. Also, I'm pretty sure this comment states AF was good enough to get to 75 in.

AF was good enough to get to 75 in. The unfortunate fact is that waiting around town for that perfect geared guy to pop up his flag slows down xp more than just going with the mediocre guy in most cases because back at 75 cap, odds were that the perfect geared guy wasn't ever going to show.

This completely ignores the fact that the whole argument was obviously meant to make a fairly obvious (not to be taken literally ) point that you are either purposely or accidentally missing (either way it doesn't look good for you).

People who pimped their gear were silly. People who got things like Scorp Harness were silly. People who wore Snow rings were silly. People who level in AF did just as well.

Except that's not the case, never has been, nor will it ever be.

No they didn't do just as well. They did well enough to get to 75 fairly quickly where they could work on gear that would actually last them for longer than 1 event / exp party.

[Shipp]

Take note that the people writing that stuff on other forums are the same people reading and posting on this forum and realize that that argument is pointless.

Not really, no. Also, it wasn't an argument, it was a statement. Please don't confuse the two.

AF was good enough to get to 75 in. The unfortunate fact is that waiting around town for that perfect geared guy to pop up his flag slows down xp more than just going with the mediocre guy in most cases because back at 75 cap, odds were that the perfect geared guy wasn't ever going to show.

Except the exact words were that things like INT+2 stats did -NOTHING-. Also, most people wore better gear than AF, at least back on Unicorn. Most people stopped, camped NMs, made money, and bought stuff like SH and Hauby. So it was more like, "Either pick that THF that has no SH and is wearing full AF, or pick one of the other DDs who could actually hit the mob more than 50% of the time." Also, you seem to be forgetting that if nobody was in the seeking range, people often asked friends, LS members, or even other people they had partied with previously that they knew had good gear to come. Just because people didn't have a seek flag up didn't mean they wouldn't come party, especially when DDs got lucky to not only NOT have to wait for hours, but they didn't even have to seek in the first place.

This completely ignores the fact that the whole argument was obviously meant to make a fairly obvious (not to be taken literally ) point that you are either purposely or accidentally missing (either way it doesn't look good for you).

Except it was meant to be taken literally, because she specifically gave very detailed examples. You just know what she said is wrong, just like I do, and you insist on arguing instead of removing your head from your rear and acknowledging that I'm not the idiot you seem to think I am. Also, remember when you completely took one of my posts out of context and claimed I was some elitist gear whore, and it was even pointed out that you missed the point and that's not how my post read at all? I do.

No they didn't do just as well. They did well enough to get to 75 fairly quickly where they could work on gear that would actually last them for longer than 1 event / exp party.

And:

People who leveled in full AF to cap did just as well.

But that wasn't literally right? They did just as well, but not literally? I never said they didn't do well enough to get to 75. I said they didn't do just as well. I said they typically did not get to 75 as fast, since reputation actually mattered back then. Doesn't mean Joe Blow couldn't nub it up as a naked DRG/WHM and get from 1-75 in the span of a month, it means it wasn't the norm, and implying that they got parties just as quick back then is just arguing for the sake of arguing.

If you're going to keep responding to my post addressing someone else, and then agreeing with me WHILE trying to argue that I'm wrong, then insist that I'm the one who doesn't look good... See, you are so full of contradictions it causes a run-on sentence.

[Anapingofness]

Except you're missing the point Shipp - repeatedly... I'm really not sure how this keeps happening to you.

+2 of *any* stat is such a marginal increase that you cannot even tell the difference without a parser. For that matter, so is +4 of a stat. It's only when we hit the double digits that you may be able to tell something without a parser. +10 of a stat isn't much but at least you can see the result a bit better than if it were a +2.

However, even +10 of a stat is a marginal increase but it is one people would be more willing to accept.

That being said, yeah, having an SH or a Hauby did enhance your play back in the day but I've seen plenty of people go up to 75 without them. They weren't pieces of gear that made or broke the game and it is only after we've experienced Abyssea that we can see that so clearly.

Therefore amount of time people spent worrying about +1's of gear is kind of silly. The fact that they worried so about marginal increase is even sillier. +10 ACC or +12ACC, or for that matter +5ACC.... Nobody without a parser will be able to tell the difference. Which is the real tragedy.

[saevel]

Rare / expensive +1 gear is exactly that, rare and expensive. It's the Gucci of digital possessions and used for the exact same reason.

[Shipp]

Except you're missing the point Shipp - repeatedly... I'm really not sure how this keeps happening to you.

+2 of *any* stat is such a marginal increase that you cannot even tell the difference without a parser. For that matter, so is +4 of a stat. It's only when we hit the double digits that you may be able to tell something without a parser. +10 of a stat isn't much but at least you can see the result a bit better than if it were a +2.

No. Go on BLM, nuke something. Put on snow rings and nuke it with the same spell. You WILL see a difference, and that is exactly my point. I'm not missing anything. I'm being argued with by people who apparently have no clue what they're talking about, yet they're all patting each other on the back as if they're right.

However, even +10 of a stat is a marginal increase but it is one people would be more willing to accept.

Most people don't tend to just upgrade one item. It's a cumulative affect. Sure, if I was only adding snow rings without other INT gear, it wouldn't affect me too much. I can understand people in full AF feeling as though just a snow ring won't do much. If they actually upgraded all of their gear accordingly, it would. Even so, you will actually see a difference in damage if you buy the snow rings. Not by some huge amount, but you still DO see the increase.

That being said, yeah, having an SH or a Hauby did enhance your play back in the day but I've seen plenty of people go up to 75 without them. They weren't pieces of gear that made or broke the game and it is only after we've experienced Abyssea that we can see that so clearly.

Therefore amount of time people spent worrying about +1's of gear is kind of silly. The fact that they worried so about marginal increase is even sillier. +10 ACC or +12ACC, or for that matter +5ACC.... Nobody without a parser will be able to tell the difference. Which is the real tragedy.

However, the original statement was that AF did JUST AS WELL as all of that gear. Marginal or not (it was not as marginal in the 60's and you seem to think it was) AF did not perform just as well since AF tends to be horrible for a lot of jobs, with usually 2 or 3 pieces that actually have useful stats for how that job operates in a party setting.

[Anapingofness]

Your post just proves that you keep missing the point Shipp. I refuse to get into a battle of numbers with you, which is what you seem to want.

Yes, you are right in the sense that it is very much so a cumulative effect. One snow ring won't do much for you... which is what I said, mind you. Two snow rings won't do it either, but if you do upgrade everything else so that it adds up to +30, +50, etc INT yeah. Then you do see a difference- also something that has been said over and over in this thread.

That part has never been debated so why are you debating it now? What is being debated (well one of the things being debated) is the fact that gear, especially end game gear is giving you such marginal increases that you have to rely on that cumulative effect. Moreover, that cumulative effect isn't that great either but at least it's something. Would it hurt the game if we could equip +50 INT rings, no, it really wouldn't.

But then we get into another problem, gear slots and space. Which I really don't want to touch right now.