To: Mr Akihiko Matsui

[Luvbunny]

Regardless, all I wanted to say is that Abyssea often gets sugar-coated, especially by such overly enthusiastic people like Luvbunny, who completely ignore anyone else's opinion and just spill out Abyssea-praise like a broken candy machine. It had its ups and downs. Its ups were, among others, leveling the playing field for Lv99 content, more accessible gameplay as well as easier EXP gain for the lazy bums that most of us are. Which, sadly, brings us back to this particular discussion.

How can you refuse such a delicious sugared coated candy treat filled with honey and marshmallow? Mooooooore abyssea crack please and any abyssea flavored events!!! While I can see your points there, I never once missed the fake entitlement or grindy looooooong events that is nothing but boredom and a royal pain to set up and complete for very little rewards. I am very glad that SE decided to go to the modern way of Abyssea. I like Meiyi's opinion better, it is valid, and touched many subjects that is now. There are so many post abyssea events, and each one of those has very very very low drop rate just like the good old days, and yet I saw many posters complaining that this is not right blah blah blah. So whichever ways SE swing, it will always be wrong. I have no problems with all the events after abyssea - they are fun diversions with good sidegrade gears, and does not take a very long time to complete. Plus there are all kinds of variety too, from hard to easy. If anything the game is a lot more fun since the introduction of Abyssea. It makes the developers to have to work their ass off to create contents after contents after contents, they CAN NO LONGER rest on their laurels and have to keep up with the demands and have to measure up to abyssea.

[Camiie]

Ultimately the real reason they considered Abyssea a failure wasn't because of balance. It was because it would cause them more work. It's not something they can just set and forget for the next few years while relying on the gambler's mentality to keep people playing through stupidly low drop rates (VW) or even more stupidly low chance of success (Neo-Nyzul).

It was awesome for a large chunk of the players, but not so awesome for an SE online division that's built to just plop some mobs down and coast along. As usual, the interests of the devs were placed far higher than the interests of the players. That's why we can't all have nice things, and while the MMO with the Final Fantasy name never quite reached a Final Fantasy level of success.

[Luvbunny]

Ultimately the real reason they considered Abyssea a failure wasn't because of balance. It was because it would cause them more work. It's not something they can just set and forget for the next few years while relying on the gambler's mentality to keep people playing through stupidly low drop rates (VW) or even more stupidly low chance of success (Neo-Nyzul).

Thanks Camiie, finally someone who understand the real issue of Abyssea, and also why it is a massive blockbuster success. We pay monthly fees, developers should really work hard at emulating the success of Abyssea and try to sustain it, instead of giving us a bunch of stupid ideas like 1500 HMP, idiotic new 2 hours, etc... All these old schoolers seems to forget how menial content updates were in the dark ages of 2003-2007, barely nothing to get excited while everyone else were in the never ending grindfests. Abyssea finally gave everyone a chance at obtaining something if they put some works toward - but not utterly ridiculous amount of works.

[Arcon]

Thanks Camiie, finally someone who understand the real issue of Abyssea, [..]

Everyone did. It was not a secret. Ironically, you're the only one who doesn't seem to get it, as demonstrated by the rest of your post.

[..] and also why it is a massive blockbuster success.

That is not at all what Camiie said. It's also not true. You're just trying to promote your agenda again.

We pay monthly fees, developers should really work hard at emulating the success of Abyssea and try to sustain it [..]

See, that's what I meant. You have no idea at all why they considered Abyssea a mistake. Your entire argument is that SE is malvolent and doesn't want to provide entertaining content or that they don't know what people want. But the issue with Abyssea is (as Camiie pointed out correctly) that Abyssea-like content is hard to maintain, for two reasons. First of all, people plow through it too easily and quickly. They'd have to release more content like that every three months, forever, to maintain that level of satisfaction, which is impossible to do. The key behind any MMORPG is to find a balance between entertaining and drawn-out content, to keep people satisfied at a pace that is sustainable for developers. Abyssea fulfilled the former (to some degree) but not the latter.

The second reason is that fast-paced content approaches a limit faster than slower content does (logically). The best example for that is gear. People like to bring up Abyssea gear as one of its strong points, but that pace would ultimately lead to a dead end for gear. If you keep overpowering gear like that, not only does it get harder to release new gear (after all, how do you improve a Haste +25% leg piece?), but also creates balance issues for older content. Basically, every time you release new gear like that, all previous content would not only be imbalanced, because it was not designed to be cleared by players with such stats, but also unnecessary to do in the first place, because the gear from it is not worth it compared to the new one (also very strongly noticeable with Abyssea). That means that people would have to do the new content exclusively, because nothing else has no incentive to be done anymore. Which means the pressure would grow even bigger on SE to release completely new content more rapidly.

The point of it all is that such a pace is impossible to maintain. That was why they considered Abyssea a mistake. And here's what you obviously don't get: they're right. It was a mistake. That's not a matter of opinion. This does not mean that Abyssea wasn't "good" or that it wasn't "fun" or whatever other crap you will want to read into my words again. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying that from a developer-viewpoint doing something like that was a bad business-decision. It upset the balance between entertainment and pacing too much to be manageable. You can say whatever you want about how much you liked it, how much fun it was and how special you've been feeling since it was released, it does not matter one bit. This is an entirely different argument.

[Eyeballed]

See, that's what I meant. You have no idea at all why they considered Abyssea a mistake. Your entire argument is that SE is malvolent and doesn't want to provide entertaining content or that they don't know what people want. But the issue with Abyssea is (as Camiie pointed out correctly) that Abyssea-like content is hard to maintain, for two reasons. First of all, people plow through it too easily and quickly. They'd have to release more content like that every three months, forever, to maintain that level of satisfaction, which is impossible to do. The key behind any MMORPG is to find a balance between entertaining and drawn-out content, to keep people satisfied at a pace that is sustainable for developers. Abyssea fulfilled the former (to some degree) but not the latter.

The second reason is that fast-paced content approaches a limit faster than slower content does (logically). The best example for that is gear. People like to bring up Abyssea gear as one of its strong points, but that pace would ultimately lead to a dead end for gear. If you keep overpowering gear like that, not only does it get harder to release new gear (after all, how do you improve a Haste +25% leg piece?), but also creates balance issues for older content. Basically, every time you release new gear like that, all previous content would not only be imbalanced, because it was not designed to be cleared by players with such stats, but also unnecessary to do in the first place, because the gear from it is not worth it compared to the new one (also very strongly noticeable with Abyssea). That means that people would have to do the new content exclusively, because nothing else has no incentive to be done anymore. Which means the pressure would grow even bigger on SE to release completely new content more rapidly.

110% Agree. Well put.

[Luvbunny]

That is not at all what Camiie said. It's also not true. You're just trying to promote your agenda again.

Not trying to promote agenda here, but getting kinda sick and tired dealing with blame abyssea for everything that is wrong in the game, the same crap that happened when ToAU came about, with blame everything on collibri for everything that was wrong at the time. Personally I think they did OK with contents created after Abyssea, not all are perfect but so far they are giving players options to do, and gears are marginally better than the Abyssea versions. The fact remains that Abyssea exists, and wether they like it or not - every new things that will come out will have to be balanced against Abyssea content and playstyle. At least now there are myriad of options for players to do, from easy mode to hard mode - and all of them are accessible from the get go - that ultimately what made Abyssea so great - it forced the developers to consider creating content that is FUN, ACCESSIBLE and ADDICTIVE.

[Camiie]

To be fair, I wasn't defending SE at all. Just the opposite really. I think they and other P2P MMO developers are far too lazy and complacent when it comes to producing and maintaining content and SE especially cuts far too many corners . I know, I know spoken like a true customer with no perspective on what it's like to be a game developer, but still I wish they'd find a better way to do things than 0.1% drop rates and 6 degrees of randomness.

[Demon6324236]

To be fair, I wasn't defending SE at all. Just the opposite really. I think they and other P2P MMO developers are far too lazy and complacent when it comes to producing and maintaining content and SE especially cuts far too many corners . I know, I know spoken like a true customer with no perspective on what it's like to be a game developer, but still I wish they'd find a better way to do things than 0.1% drop rates and 6 degrees of randomness.

Don't forget reusing the same areas and mobs for content (WotG, Abyssea, Add-ons, Neo-Blahblah) except with color changes here and there on occasion.

[Luvbunny]

Don't forget reusing the same areas and mobs for content (WotG, Abyssea, Add-ons, Neo-Blahblah) except with color changes here and there on occasion.

Yup, even the gears are exactly the same lol, with newly revised stats. I have to say that they did produce tons of new contents in 2011-2012, true none of these are completely original and brand new, but at least they are giving players a few options that is not easy mode abyssea. Though as you can see in the other posting - those so called "old school" contents are not exactly getting tons of warm welcome lol. Legion and Neo blahblah are good examples of two new contents that draw very little interests from the players. Good thing that the gears are marginally better, so that the majority do not have to feel left out and give the minority a feeling of "extra special fairy pixie dust of precious snowflakes" that they crave so much. Even the new pixie dust weapons have "afterglow" - just in case you are not already special for completing them. So in the end - they at least try to give us options, yet still all these so called abyssea haters flaming every thread with torches and sign asking for the "old school" feeling back. I mean, maybe they should do more Legions and Neo-blahblah instead

[Arcon]

So in the end - they at least try to give us options, yet still all these so called abyssea haters flaming every thread with torches and sign asking for the "old school" feeling back. I mean, maybe they should do more Legions and Neo-blahblah instead

Don't confuse the anti-EXP crowd with the anti-Abyssea crowd. Those are entirely different concepts. I see a lot of anti-EXP rage here, but very little anti-Abyssea rage. That has all calmed down about one year ago, after everyone who hated Abyssea quit.