New weapons with higher base damage then relics

[Teraniku]

*sigh* I just love the drama here. The wailing and Gnashing of teeth.

Anyway here's some advice:

Improvise, Adapt, overcome, or quit.

[Aequis]

Fact is, the game needed a reset button because when you NEED an R/M/E to compete at the content then something isn't right. SoA puts everyone on an even footing for the inevitable R/M/E buff but as per the usual people are too busy complaining a la Abyssea about how my EBODY IS RUINZORED.

Except now, the focus has shifted to the new weapons. You can't simply add something that's got almost double the damage rating of a previously top-tier weapon and expect attitudes to change. Be it down to future content SE implement or the humanity of the playerbase demanding these weapons in order to invite you, it'll stay the same.

Are we going to see battles that you simply can't win efficiently because you'll need one of the higher damage weapons? If so, where does the process end? People have already tried to counter-argue with the fact that SoA is progressional content. You need to do reive in order to do wildkeeper reives, which in turn you need to do Delve etc. etc.

Progression needs value in order to make it a worthwhile time investment. To wipe out a decade of previous content is a bold move, but does it really go towards fixing the problems currently in the game? I don't think it does.

[Afania]

You realize this entire "reset" is designed to move away from Tanakas 3 year grindhouse, yes?

Fact is, the game needed a reset button because when you NEED an R/M/E to compete at the content then something isn't right. SoA puts everyone on an even footing for the inevitable R/M/E buff but as per the usual people are too busy complaining a la Abyssea about how my EBODY IS RUINZORED.

Seriously people, since Abyssea the games paradigm has shifted. Quit worrying about being immortalized through ultimate weapons and enjoy the content.

Lol no. Because this isn't how FFXI works.

The content isn't nearly as enjoyable if you know there would be gear reset this big every year. It's only enjoyable if the accomplishment stays, and that's how FFXI, this MMORPG works, in past 10 years. Ppl do content not because it's fun, but to be the best, and result>journey in this game. And this update just tells players that enjoyed FFXI in the past "go play other MMO or quit now"

The reason why me, or majority of 99R/E/M owners went through all that 3 year grind house BS is to obtain best weapons that was expected to stay on top after update via trials.

If you know your gear will be resetted every update, would you still be motivated in go to Adoulin area hitting tree root for 2hr a day? Or organize 2 ally to kill an NM for 3hours? Personally I won't. And if I do, I'd rather go to other MMO that resets gear for better/more fun content that doesn't involve spending 2hr on making pt/hitting tree root/mind numbing grind for 2hrs or spam ok button to lv up a craft/fish/digging to make gil for it.

The pace and general game mechanics of this game, just won't be very enjoyable if there's small gear reset every 3 months and big gear reset every half~1 years. Unless they changed the game mechanics and economy completely, which I highly doubt they can considering this game has way less resources than it used to be.

Abysea changed how this game worked, but it was not as bad as this reset. Abyssea introduced new set of legendary weapons that would probably stay on top for another 3 years to come(and it did), on top of new lv cap is coming so everyone knows things would be different at 99 anyways. And SE announced lv 99 cap way before hand that players was prepared for gear reset anyways.

And even then, ppl DID quitted when Abyssea hit, Abyssea era did suffered from playerbase shrink and it's fact.

This reset, not only they changed everything, but they also failed to communicate(bolded for importance) with the playerbase by providing more details about what they're planning to. All they said was they'd fix R/E/M once they have the resource to(yay inc R/E/M adjustment 5 years later, let's quit and see what happen after 5 years) and gear progression would be bigger and in tiers.

And the result is, nobody is certain about the future, and ppl lost motivation.(bolded for importance once again)

If you're going to invest large amount of time in a MMO or on a pixel item(or any rl investment really), most important thing is that you will make sure your investment worthwhile and you can get what you invest/sacrificed for. For example, you don't want to spend 10000 hours of your life in a game that looks like it will shut down soon. You don't want to pay 50M for a gear 1 week before major update. You don't want to invest in an industry irl that may crash soon.....and the list goes on.

At the current stage of FFXI, the fact is, the ones who invested 5 months of their life for R/E, or the one with R/E/M 95% done, pretty much lived in an uncerstain stage, that they don't know whether they can continue(Mythic looks like nearly impossible to complete atm, unless you have a high lv craft or 2 mules to farm your own), they'd lost motivation and may quit. Then whoever haven't invest in R/E/M also lived in uncertain stage, because with smaller player base(trust me, some ppl WILL rage quit for this, it's human nature), they don't know if invest in time to get new SoA gears would be worthwhile or not if the game playerbase is getting smaller.

Having an unstable future, IMO, it's a taboo in any rl industry, and in any MMO. Because you'd lost motivation if the future isn't secured, and that's the single most important thing to keep ppl going forward. And if anyone thinks other MMO is successful with gear reset so FFXI can do it too and would be just as successful, then I'd say you're too naive about MMO industry. A MMO this old, the last thing they should do is to change the way it work completely, it's not like it'd gain new playerbase by changing the game mechanics, and you'd just pissed off old/dedicated players that was expecting/wanted the game to work the old way. Because player's emotion, how they feel and human nature had a major factor in MMO management. Certain decision may make sense in terms of logic and theory, but in reality it's hard to execute. FFXIV failed hard because of it. Lack of communication and bad gear reset execution like this, is a taboo for MMORPG.

Imagine you invested a lot of money in a rl company, with a small group of dedicated customer base, one day the company suddenly decided to change the direction by ditching current existing customer base(and hoping the existing customer base would adapt the change, lol get real), while hoping to attract new customer base that is unlikely/very hard to get. Then I tell all the investors/customers "deal with it, get over it, because that's how every other company do" How would you feel?

The fact is, the way MMO works, you just aren't going to get new player base that easy, and the best you can do is to keep current customer base. The ones playing current-gen MMO probably won't come to FFXI with new direction, and lack of communication just pissed off existing playerbase who stayed for current FFXI.

Even if FFXI become successful with new direction, it'd take years to get the faith from the playerbase back. By that time they'd already lost considerable amount of playerbase.

The only right way to deal with R/E/M issue, is to make your 3 year boring grind worthwhile by being the best of the best, so players would play for 3 years to get it and still has motivation. The reason why you need R/E/M to compete, is either because certain job(DRG to be specific) is too weak, or they hand out too many R/E/M that they have to balance the difficulty based on the amount of population that has R/E/M.....if 1% of playerbase has R/E/M, the content would be effectively beatable without it. If 80% of playerbase has R/E/M, it'd become a requirement to keep up with the difficulty.

They made a mistake by handing out R/E/M to more playerbase and had to make game content efficiently beatable with one, they tried to fix the mistake by making R/E/M sidegrade so ppl can compete without one and created a bigger mistake, so now they decided to make R/E/M worthless anyways, by destorying FFXI and it's most hardcore playerbase, then hope one day, maybe(small chance ) 3 years later we can have a brand new FFXI, with a much smaller playerbase. So you created a hole on the road and fixed it by digging more holes, lol.

No matter how you can use other MMORPG as example, and tell everyone to get over it, I only see inevitable playerbase shrink, like what happened in Abyssea era, except this time is even worse. Blindly copying other MMO without factoring other factors that doesn't exist in other MMO, just isn't very good way to manage MMO IMO.

tl; dr:

Whether you like it or not, or how you tell ppl to deal with it and get over it because game needs reset, this update just isn't a very smart decision.

[Elexia]

It's still just a video game. Name another MMORPG that keeps ONE SET OF WEAPON OR ARMOR as the top and must need to do any content. I'm very curious because most MMOs, especially in 2013, has an actual gear progression.

You say it's not a smart decision, it's understandable being butthurt and crying if you completed a relic and mythic in 2007 for example, but for fucks sake, it takes only a month-2 months tops to complete a relic these days and mere days to complete an empyrean if you're dedicated.

It only takes awhile to complete a Mythic because of, as I stated, artificial difficulty. These new weapons actually has an entry barrier that'll make them actually something to work for (sounds familiar?)

The sad part about all of this bitching, the ones bitching are out there working towards getting these weapons. :\ The other funny thing about this, it was likely the same people who bitched when Abyssea released..oh, you don't remember the years and years we spent grinding content like Sky, Sea, Ground Kings and Einherjar only for Abyssea and VW to come out and negate all that work and everyone moved on their with lives just fine?

You say you can't use other MMORPGs as an example, but why is it that everyone is content in said other MMOs with gear progression..? Probably because almost every other MMO is designed this way and not keep things relevant for years on end rather than making something better to work for. Serious question Afania, did you join post Abyssea? Or did you quit after Abyssea released? I'm going to guess you joined post Abyssea.

[Hayward]

I'm going to say it like this and end my contribution here: If your only reason for quitting this game is because S-E upset your position at the top of your server (or so you'll have us believe), then I can say for myself that you will not be missed. Status hounds don't mean a thing in my world if they're doing nothing but showing themselves off 23 out of 24 hours. You can point at my signature all you want in some vain attempt at calling me out. As proud as I am of what I did for those pieces of armor (with help at times from good people), don't for one minute think I ever lorded that over anyone's head. It is what it is.

I haven't much interest in acquiring these weapons unless one of them improves my SMN job manyfold from where the job stands presently. However, I have no intention of quitting just because my Empyrean Armor and the various Magian weapons I've built are supplanted by stronger items.

[Karbuncle]

*sigh* I just love the drama here. The wailing and Gnashing of teeth.

Anyway here's some advice:

Improvise, Adapt, overcome, or quit.

Quit or suspend-and-see is the best option for me at this crossroad. IDK About you, But I'm not so ADHD that my only interest is grabbing the next shiny carrot they dangle infront of me seconds after I've nibbled on the other carrot I've finally got my hands on. In fact this is the very reason I chose FFXI.

I chose FFXI as my MMO entirely because gear had some term of longevity, pieces would be replaced, but it wouldn't be like other MMOs where every update you can expect 99% of your gear to be worthless. FFXI didn't have that, and thats what attracted me to it.

I don't want this bland generic MMO design sh*t with gear ladders they're throwing down our throat, Its not why i chose this game. If you like it? F**king good for you, there's about 1000 other MMOs on the market with this sh*tty design and you can play them for the 3 months their servers are active before they go FTP/Eshop with 10k people max.

FFXI was a niche MMO to me, it catered to the part of me who likes upgrading, but also like that sense of longevity some items have or had. Everyone who plays know eventually most if not all of your armor will become out of date, but going in a design direction where everything you have is worthless in 2 months just competely kills my, and very many others like me, will to play.

We get sh*t gets replaced, we just hate that its getting replaced so rapidly and so absolutely and by such insane bounds. Thats not why we love FFXI, Its not why i've been playing since NA Beta, thats not the FFXI i know, and its not what I want.

There's already an over saturation of poorly designed geargrind "WoW Killers" on the market, and none of them have a Decade old combat/skill system, FFXI doesn't need to become one of them. This game is still alive 11 years later, so obviously what its been doing the last 10 years was good enough, why the sudden idea that if they didn't do this, the game wouldn't be fun or be played? Every single update, (besides maybe legion...) they've released some armor that was top, some sidegrade, and some that makes you scratch your head... but we still worked for it, and we still played.

For 10 years this game has played the "Some Upgrade, some sidegrade, some "wat"" game with updates, and for 10 years its still active. It lost players over the course of time, but most if not all MMO's do, rather it be people who out-grow it, people who just decide to jump ship for a newer shinier MMO, or what have you... but FFXI still stands even with all this huff and puff over how the game would be dead if not for this new "gear ladder, replace it all" mindset.

Long story short, We don't need every single piece of our equipment to become sh*t each update to remain interested. Make the content fun and the rewards good, but we don't need what ... this whole thing... is doing. Its causing way more uproar than praising. Should note, I understand my views are all opinions, But I haven't spoken to a single person who likes this design pattern that doesn't give the reason "CAUSE SUCK IT UP". (Case at point, thanks below me).

Edit: And like 3 posts up someone's said pretty much the same thing i have <3

[Falseliberty]

For the love of god can we at least see what plans devs have in store for r/e/m before brandishing pitchforks?
The fact that this thread has more posts than the others mean people are not concerned with communicating ideas on how to make events more fun but rather that there e-peen is not best anymore, All this crap about "hard work" in a video game...really? And then you have the asshats who talk about how things suck now but how things was so dam great during "kings"

[Karbuncle]

If you think its about Epeen you have read so very little, and I fear you simply do not care to understand even the slightest why any of us are upset. Speaking for me personally, It has f**k all to do with Epeen, and more with the game i love and chose for over a decade is turning the car around and driving down "WoW Killer" Bland MMO Gear ladder Boulevard, and thats not the car I hopped into.

[Elexia]

For the love of god can we at least see what plans devs have in store for r/e/m before brandishing pitchforks?
The fact that this thread has more posts than the others mean people are not concerned with communicating ideas on how to make events more fun but rather that there e-peen is not best anymore, All this crap about "hard work" in a video game...really? And then you have the asshats who talk about how things suck now but how things was so dam great during "kings"

The irony is...none of the R/E/M is hard work. It's just 99% fetch quests. Mythics are stupidly designed and there were a huge topic recently calling for SE to fix it..oh, yeah people forgot about that huh?

Mythic has a portion you need to do Assaults and Salvage, ok that's cool..except you can only do 4-5 assaults a day and you need a constantly supply of assault points in order to do Salvage up to 2 times a day..that's such hard work. Then you need to collect 30,000 alexandrites.

Why? Like..seriously, why? Not even the "story" explains why they need 30,000. People are just exaggerating the "hard work" needed for an REM these days because if it was such hard work why is it that you're spamming easy content or wasting so much gil buying frivolous items when they could actually make content for progressing the weapons that would actually be hard work?

Sorry to say but spamming VW or buying out of bazaars is the least acceptable definition of hard work. Especially when most of the update path requires kill shots on hundreds of monsters (why hundreds of thousands? you already did your "hard work" obtaining the weapon.)

As much as I love FFXI, some people honestly can't see past their own noses.

If you think its about Epeen you have read so very little

"My weapon I worked "so hard for" is outdone by a stronger weapon and I refuse to go and get the better option."

That's definitely not Epeen, that's just whining.

[Karbuncle]

The irony is...none of the R/E/M is hard work. It's just 99% fetch quests. Mythics are stupidly designed and there were a huge topic recently calling for SE to fix it..oh, yeah people forgot about that huh?

Mythic has a portion you need to do Assaults and Salvage, ok that's cool..except you can only do 4-5 assaults a day and you need a constantly supply of assault points in order to do Salvage up to 2 times a day..that's such hard work. Then you need to collect 30,000 alexandrites.

Why? Like..seriously, why? Not even the "story" explains why they need 30,000. People are just exaggerating the "hard work" needed for an REM these days because if it was such hard work why is it that you're spamming easy content or wasting so much gil buying frivolous items when they could actually make content for progressing the weapons that would actually be hard work?

Sorry to say but spamming VW or buying out of bazaars is the least acceptable definition of hard work. Especially when most of the update path requires kill shots on hundreds of monsters (why hundreds of thousands? you already did your "hard work" obtaining the weapon.)

As much as I love FFXI, some people honestly can't see past their own noses.



"My weapon I worked "so hard for" is outdone by a stronger weapon and I refuse to go and get the better option."

That's definitely not Epeen, that's just whining.

None of the R/M/E Are hard work
>Doesn't own any 99 Versions.

If its so easy, Why aren't you swimming in 99 RME? Oh, cause your talking out of your ass. Yes, Getting a 75/80 R or E is stupid easy, Getting it to 90/95 from there is also quite easy, Getting them to 95/99 (E and R respectively), Not easy. Getting an Afterglow? Downright insaniac level.

Mythics are a whole other ballpark. They're stupid no matter how you look at it. But the downright point is, sh*ts no cake walk, and while yes, there is some level of ease in getting them these days, Getting them to 99 is a real chore for all 3. ADL is annoying at best and downright stupid at worst, 1,500 Metal plates is no easy task, rather you farm the gil for it or do VW yourself... Both are a long drawn out task, Gil doesn't just appear in your inventory... Just, downright, the point is, R/M/E Are not at all easy to get to 99, rather you buy it all or not, Its expensive and you have to earn the gil somewhere, or its time consuming and its not so easy to collect 1,500 Plates or 5 Marrows if all you have if yourself.

You guys trivialize the efforts of others all in the name of "hurt epeen" bashing, when in essence, all you're doing is getting a power high off some false sense of accomplishment because you think every RME holder is some elitist epeener who wants nothing more than to dump on those without them, which is flat out Bullsh*t. I didn't get my Relic to 99 because i was wanting t0 sh*t on Parses, I got a Mandau for crying out loud, I got it cause I loved THF, not to show anyone up, and I don't think I'm better than anyone else for it.

But, seriously though, I have to reiterate, for me, Its not even about RME anymore, That is a drop in the bucket compared to the bigger problem, which I've explained in my previous post. And the only thing bashing everyone and trivializing their work is doing is showing how terrible of a person you really are, you are no different than the hypothetical elitists you are bashing... the second you feel an ounce of power in your belly you go on a high horse spree laughing at the misfortune of others, judging them all by the same standard.