Service, Our Money, and You

[Duelle]

I don't usually agree with most of the people in this thread in other matters, but in this case you're all absolutely right. The approach taken by the devs is starting to wear on my patience, which means I may be due for another hiatus from the game.

I don't think anyone here has anything personal against Tanaka Hiromichi and the rest of the crew, but the change in philosophy between Abyssea and now is so evident it's not even funny. If other meaningful changes accompanied the battle content we've been getting as of late, I might be willing to overlook some of the stuff (like say, job changes more meaningful than reducing the obviously-too long timers on certain abilities). I don't even know where this game is headed anymore.

[Luvbunny]

Not to defend the developers, but from their point of views, they did A LOT of stuffs pre-abyssea. 2 level caps, numerous job adjustments (and nerfs), a complete void watch series (and not enough adjustment to it), neo-nyzul, legion, AF2+2, neo-dynamis, adding gazilions side grade crap gears and some good alternative gears, last tiers of magian trials (that will guaranteed 0.1% people will complete it)---and these are just the few big ones to mentioned. We got more updates than the era of CoP, ToAU, and WoTG used to. In fact we get more now than it was before if you look at their past updates history. So not calling out that they are not doing their part. But the main problem is they still have no clue on how to create fun and accessible content and need to stop in BS grinding with low drop rate. The sad thing is, they have proven that they are very capable in creating amazing content that is fun and accessible. ToAU and Abyssea are examples of this game - and there are plenty example of FFs games as well, namely FF13-2.

I agree that the problem lies at the top. This person need to come up with a better vision for the game. And focus on building another blockbuster content for the masses - read not contents for 0.1% of completionist player base with no real life. The past year gave us with so many new contents with amazing possibilities, now if only they focus on making it fun and accessible.

[Camiie]

Not to defend the developers, but from their point of views, they did A LOT of stuffs pre-abyssea. 2 level caps, numerous job adjustments (and nerfs), a complete void watch series (and not enough adjustment to it), neo-nyzul, legion, AF2+2, neo-dynamis, adding gazilions side grade crap gears and some good alternative gears, last tiers of magian trials (that will guaranteed 0.1% people will complete it)---and these are just the few big ones to mentioned. We got more updates than the era of CoP, ToAU, and WoTG used to. In fact we get more now than it was before if you look at their past updates history.

I'll call quantity over quality here. They've done a lot, but not a lot of good.

So not calling out that they are not doing their part. But the main problem is they still have no clue on how to create fun and accessible content and need to stop in BS grinding with low drop rate. The sad thing is, they have proven that they are very capable in creating amazing content that is fun and accessible. ToAU and Abyssea are examples of this game - and there are plenty example of FFs games as well, namely FF13-2.

I guess the current team are like the tiny handful of players who long for "ye goode olde days" when endgame was a living hell of low drop rates and needing 18-64 people to get anything done. Most games have evolved past the need to operate this way and most gamers have grown up to where this is no longer a viable method of play. The population as it is now barely even supports this sort of thing anymore. It's fine to include such things for those who wish to and are able to do them, but I think it's probably a good idea to create content that the majority or players will enjoy despite whatever design philosophy the dev team may have.

I agree that the problem lies at the top. This person need to come up with a better vision for the game. And focus on building another blockbuster content for the masses - read not contents for 0.1% of completionist player base with no real life. The past year gave us with so many new contents with amazing possibilities, now if only they focus on making it fun and accessible.

Agreed. His vision is horribly archaic. His attitude is seemingly arrogant and stubborn. This is mean, but he is a proven failure in recent times. Japanese culture or not, while it might be nice for him and the company to have him relegated to the FFXI project it's not so nice FOR THE CUSTOMERS. I might be excoriated for expressing a sense of entitlement, but we deserve better than that. These days though the customer is the absolute last one considered in the equation.

[bungiefanNA]

FFXI is the first MMO I played, and the only one I have stuck with. After the way I've seen SE treat their customers, I'm not really interested in moving to any future MMO they release, and my current plan is to play until I finish all the story content, now that they've made it easier to do in small groups at odd hours of the day. Once I'm done with that, I'll be satisfied with what I wanted to do with the game, and I probably won't come back.

A change in service may change my mind, but having seen lack of consistent support across regions for a supposedly international game (just because I had the misfortune to move), and how fast they are to strip staff away from an established and paying subscriber base, I'm not endeared to the company.

I already denied SE my funds for 8 months because I couldn't use the new payment system, and I had to fight them to fix it for me all that time. I've been subscribed since July or August of 2002 until that.

Also, some of the bonus items being bundled like they have has annoyed me. Something useful only being given to new subscribers because they buy a Collection at a greatly reduced price, compared to paying full price for every expansion on release and only getting a decoration for my house? The Tidal Talisman being useful in-game, but being ugly and not very functional for the real item you get, as well as the absurd price?

[Ilax]

^ -- this and just this. You express my exact opinion i have of SE, and doubt they ever change they attitude too.

SE mentality: "Don't complain, you should be totally satisfy to play the most awesome game in the world, if you not happy go play other fail MMO, but we know we are #1 with our 270,000 subscriber VS 2 million playing WoW."

[Anapingofness]

I agree with the OP. It was so well said that the only thing I can do is state my agreement. I sincerely hope that this thread is seen by the dev team.

[Yinnyth]

Although the price of the game has remained constant, the level of service has degraded over time in all aspects.

The sad truth is that even though we pay the same amount we have always paid, SE isn't getting as much revenue off FFXI as it used to, and that is why service has degraded. The amount of code they're able to write per update is more affected by how many people are paying a monthly fee than by how much your monthly fee is. Yes, it would be fair if I got the same service now I got 3 years ago when it cost just as much as it does now. But life isn't fair, so I'm putting the chances of that happening somewhere around 0.

All the same, I liked your post because I want the devs to hear this. Not because I think they'll hit the magic "fix everything" button which does not exist, but because I want to light a fire under their ass and motivate them to find some sort of solution for the downward spiral. Well, that, and this post was much more even-toned and reasonable than other posts of this nature.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

The sad truth is that even though we pay the same amount we have always paid, SE isn't getting as much revenue off FFXI as it used to

Perhaps not as much revenue, but I suspect the profits haven't degraded too much.

Ignoring labor for the moment, S-E's overhead for running FFXI are servers and bandwidth. The bandwidth they need is directly proportional to the number of subscribers they have, so that part of the overhead will more or less balance out. As for servers, just as we're no longer playing on Pentium III systems running Windows 98, the servers have likely been upgraded over time as well (probably coincident to world mergers), to machines that can churn out more FLOPS and faster data access times for less kilowatt-hours; realistically, the costs for operating the servers over time must go down, even if the user base was constant.

The primary cost driver here is going to have to be labor. Like bandwidth, customer support costs are directly proportional to the number of customers you have to support, so that too can be safely ignored. As for developers, part of that expense is going to come from trying to support aging platforms (PS2 and DirectX 8) that nobody focuses on any more (it will eventually be cheaper to write a whole new client than to support the existing code). The rest of their costs depend on how many man-hours they actually put into "developing."

And I'm not seeing a whole lot of "developing" going on.

[cidbahamut]

I agree with the overall sentiment of this thread. FFXI isn't getting the resources it needs, the management seems to be at odds with the customers and the developments we see lack a sense of urgency. Square-Enix is letting FFXI coast along when they need to be actively investing in it and pulling away from the archaic game design of yesteryear.

I want better service.

[Yinnyth]

Perhaps not as much revenue, but I suspect the profits haven't degraded too much.

Ignoring labor for the moment, S-E's overhead for running FFXI are servers and bandwidth. The bandwidth they need is directly proportional to the number of subscribers they have, so that part of the overhead will more or less balance out. As for servers, just as we're no longer playing on Pentium III systems running Windows 98, the servers have likely been upgraded over time as well (probably coincident to world mergers), to machines that can churn out more FLOPS and faster data access times for less kilowatt-hours; realistically, the costs for operating the servers over time must go down, even if the user base was constant.

The primary cost driver here is going to have to be labor. Like bandwidth, customer support costs are directly proportional to the number of customers you have to support, so that too can be safely ignored. As for developers, part of that expense is going to come from trying to support aging platforms (PS2 and DirectX 8) that nobody focuses on any more (it will eventually be cheaper to write a whole new client than to support the existing code). The rest of their costs depend on how many man-hours they actually put into "developing."

And I'm not seeing a whole lot of "developing" going on.

I love using overly simplistic math to make complicated issues easier on my brain, so...

r=revenue from players
x=all standard operational costs including bandwidth, electricity, customer support, server maint., etc.
y=leftover money for use in developing new content

Let's assume y = r - x and further we'll go on your assumption that r and x scale completely evenly with one another. Now let's assign some sample values to each! We'll say SE gets 200 dollars in revenue, and spends 100 on operational costs, so

200 - 100 = 100

SE can spend 100 dollars on developing new content. Now let's scale back r and x by 50%, so 100 dollars in revenue and 50 on operational costs:

100 - 50 = 50

SE can spend 50 dollars on developing new content.



So even if we assume operational costs and revenue scale perfectly with one another, the budget for development must also shrink if the revenue shrinks.