To: Mr Akihiko Matsui

[Twille]

I think it's long past time that this thread be locked down.

[Eyeballed]

I think it's long past time that this thread be locked down.

Why? We were just getting somewhere constructive in the last 4-5 pages! If people would knock off the BS we could actually talk about the last few questions I've presented and move forward.

[Meyi]

Well then, if you'd like a serious discussion. Let's begin.

I'm not going to read through 30-some pages to try and find the answer to this, so I would greatly appreciate it if your next post could list every reason why you would like to see EXP parties return and Abyssea parties be removed from the game. In exchange I will list every reason why we should not return to old EXP parties.

[Trisscar]

I think it might also be classified as trolling.

Or flame baiting.

[Mirage]

trolling is just newspeak for flame baiting anyway

[Plasticleg]

why haven't they completely nuked this thread yet?

[Arcon]

Why? We were just getting somewhere constructive in the last 4-5 pages! If people would knock off the BS we could actually talk about the last few questions I've presented and move forward.

Which questions? I don't see anything unanswered.

[Eyeballed]

Well then, if you'd like a serious discussion. Let's begin.

I'm not going to read through 30-some pages to try and find the answer to this, so I would greatly appreciate it if your next post could list every reason why you would like to see EXP parties return and Abyssea parties be removed from the game. In exchange I will list every reason why we should not return to old EXP parties.

Abyssea, Book & Repeating Book Pages:

- Fosters potential for abuse. (Ability to progress without playing, IE cheating)
- Diminishes value/need for mid-game gears. (Those who still play classic will need)
- Rewards the player with higher EXP/hr. for spamming EP-- mobs. (Diminished need for challenge/engaging battles)
- Player who 'burns' a job from 1-XX loses skill points that would otherwise be gained. (Creating a new and unnecessary need for manually raising these skills; Reference "increased rate of skill-point gain" to supplement this fact.)
- Supplants a general perspective that endgame content is the whole of the content the game intends to provide.
- Caters an equal reward system to all, regardless of time or effort put into a goal.

[Eyeballed]

Which questions? I don't see anything unanswered.

This:

Go ask Bugsy Siegel, I guess.

Does not qualify as an answer.

[scaevola]

This:



Does not qualify as an answer.

Sure it does.

Some people, MANY people in fact, find a random-number-based reward structure viscerally exciting. Many smart people have spent their entire professional lives arguing about why this is the case and we might even have an answer, but the slot machines of Las Vegas keep taking your quarters no matter how much you realize the odds are stacked against you.


ANYWAY

- Fosters potential for abuse. (Ability to progress without playing, IE cheating)

Did you not recommend I SMN burn a few pages back? People who want to cheat will either get away with cheating or will find someone they can pay enough to let them get away with cheating.

- Diminishes value/need for mid-game gears. (Those who still play classic will need)

This assumes the conclusion that their purpose has not already been made obsolete. It's like saying we should get rid of cars because they diminish the value of buggy whips.

- Rewards the player with higher EXP/hr. for spamming EP-- mobs. (Diminished need for challenge/engaging battles)

We were never rewarded for engaging in difficult battles to begin with. XP/hour was ALWAYS higher when fighting VT than IT; we just didn't actually figure it out for awhile.

- Player who 'burns' a job from 1-XX loses skill points that would otherwise be gained. (Creating a new and unnecessary need for manually raising these skills; Reference "increased rate of skill-point gain" to supplement this fact.)

A player who starts a job at level 1 and burns it to 99 will ultimately reach a given skill cap faster than one who starts the same job at level 1 and levels the old fashioned way. True or false?

- Supplants a general perspective that endgame content is the whole of the content the game intends to provide.

As I had mentioned earlier, if FFXI offered a narrative arc to accompany the leveling process, there would be a point here, but all FFXI narrative is totally separate from the leveling process. It has way less in common with other FFs and is a lot like Wizardry or Ultima in this regard: leveling is just a Thing You Do to Get Deeper in the Dungeon.

- Caters an equal reward system to all, regardless of time or effort put into a goal.

This is true, but myopic because as I and several other posters mentioned, the uneven rewards of old school leveling were based entirely on the metagame of convince-other-idiots-you-are-awesome and not at all on actually killing mobs (which any shuriken-using yokel could do). To the extent that actual knowledge of game mechanics and skill in execution entered into the equation at all, they entered in to it less than any MMO this side of Korean shovelware.

This statement buys into what I think is the particularly American delusion that time and effort invested matter in and of themselves, and not simply as means to results.