I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Bukota]

Keep in mind these statements are only relevant to mission/storyline content.

Within this thread we are seeing evidence of 3 different perspectives.

1) Players that want to experience storyline content with challenging battles (which intrinsically require multiple players to complete, thus are cooperation gated content).


2) Players that want to experience storyline content regardless of battle difficulty or artificial restrictions like “gather a party of 3 or more players.”


3) Players that do not want to experience storyline content, but would like to cooperate with others in content like Voidwatch or Delve.


Let’s start by being perfectly honest about one thing. Aside from a few stubborn and sycophantic mouthpieces in this thread, there appear to be very few of #1) around these days.

There should be no debate about point #1), because Square-Enix already changed the game long ago to appease the clarion call of #2) players who wanted to actually accomplish things and see the game.

The argument being made here is that Square-Enix continues to sabotage itself by restricting incoming players to 2 options: Belong or force themselves to belong to group #2) –or-- quit the game.

This game does not offer you a choice between #2) and #3).

It is flat out #2) or GTFO.

Oh btw, you can see what happens next after Japanese Midnight.

Now, please wait 3 hours while I prepare your katana Ms. Bukota.

----

By the way, just one thought.

Nothing stops them from creating ONE new server with a special rule set.

They could call it Cloud(New Player), and funnel new players there.

It would be exclusive to creation and non-transferable.

It would offer equal opportunities to both #2) and #3) players by easing a lot of the restrictions currently in place on live servers.

They could test some new quality of life features, like allowing Trusts everywhere, and allowing 3 person groups + the leader being able to summon 3 Trusts.

If the new rule sets gained popularity, they could deploy the stuff that worked best to production servers.

Because right now, there is a lot of fragmentation of new players.

If you are new on Odin, Asura, or Bahamut, you have a fighting chance of getting a shell with like-minded players. But on some of the smaller servers, I’m sure many new people join but just can’t get the right support system.

And quite frankly, in the current state of the game, new players can't play with veterans anyway.

How is metaphorical segregation any different than physical segregation?

Don't believe me, look at this gem of a LS recruitment post:

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/42...n-recruitment/

It's a total treasure through-and-through, but this is absolutely my favorite part:

"
We're also not looking for career damage dealers that lack appropriate knowledge of said DD. If you've ever used a Ghillie Earring on Samurai outside of being drunk and confusing it with a Brutal earring, please do not apply.
"

Because we were all "born with gear."

But I'm sure there is enough cognitive dissonance within the elite player base that a white knight will show up within minutes to tell me that I'm wrong, and it would be a terrible idea to give new players an opportunity to play together.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Oh noes, TCELES B HSUP for players that can't read anything but ! on the map maybe.

Well, what else could be given as a "hint?" "It's in Eastern Altepa Desert" certainly doesn't cut the number of rocks to check down to a manageable amount. "It's near Quicksand Caves" doesn't mean anything because hardly any part of either Altepa zone isn't near one or more entrances/exits to that dungeon (even if the player can find them all by crawling through parts with monsters well above the supposed target level of this quest).

Hell, there's not even any indication that the player should be looking for a ??? to begin with, rather than farming all the things. "Wow, this must be a really low drop rate..."

[Bukota]

You think your friends are not coming back, because the game is daunting and full of stuff to do. But it may be the other way around. You should have an epic goal first, so you're willing to work for that epic goal, not the other way around. You don't remove all the obstacle on the path first, then find your goal on the path. You won't even walk on that path to begin with

I mean, sure, dev can delete all the "work" and quest requirement and let every player instantly catch up. Hand out free lv 99 characters, hand out IL119 gears in every slot, no more KI farming, no more LB quests, no more goobie quests. Everyone can just log on, instantly get access to delve rdy character, beat 3 delve zones in 3 days~1 week, quit again.

IMO, even spending 3 days to play a game like this is a waste of time. I mean really? Get rid of LB? Get rid of gobbie bag? Get rid of quests and missions so I can log on and do AA/delve battle instantly? Is this RPG or online action game? I used to play unhealthy amount of FFXI, because the goals in FFXI excited me, not because the road toward the goal has no obsticles.

I think you have a strong point here, which is that if we remove all of this stuff, what’s really left in the game to do?

Having done all of it before, and pretty much maxed out, I can say that eventually there always comes a point where the answer is “not much.”

And you’re right that unless you set goals, that’s when you will burn out.

But to me I’m not really talking about just getting rid of this stuff.

I’m talking about the prospect of re-engineering it.

Given hindsight and the wealth of good tools available, it seems reasonable that these tasks could be more than just a brainless chore given a little bit of concentration.

Let me give you an example.

I recently went back and did the Rank 3 dragon fight as a level 33. The fight was easy to solo at 33, but it still felt pretty epic, since it used to be 25 capped. After all these years, the cutscenes have held up well, the story is good, and there is something satisfying about smashing a dragon in the face.

It would have been even more epic if I could have brought my Trust npcs along.

But yesterday I completed LB1 and LB2.

These quests have not held up well at all. They are a mindless chore.

Please bring me a lump of coal, a sheet of paper, and a petrified fungus goiter so that I can make my signature foot powder.

Also, can you get me 3 different shapes? My Fischer Price shape sorter is short a couple after baby Henry swallowed a couple whole last week.

These quests are mundane, mindless, and embarrassing to the players’ collective intelligence.

They are also long forgotten by the average vet, but unfortunately sentient for every new face that tried to make this game work.

They could easily be updated with epic fights using the Records of Eminence system.

Maat could teleport you to a BCNM where you and your Trust NPCs are given an ad-hoc RoE objective to slay a GIANT fungus. Bam, 100% drop of exoray mold.

Epic content that’s actually fun. No, instead you are to invis up and click 3 ??? points.

Just total and utter fail. It’s a straw man that you’re saying the reason your friends quit is the reason seemingly ALL new players to this game quit after a short period of time.

It is the abundance of REQUIRED quests like the 2 I just described, NOT the reason you are saying.

[Afania]

Well, what else could be given as a "hint?" "It's in Eastern Altepa Desert" certainly doesn't cut the number of rocks to check down to a manageable amount. "It's near Quicksand Caves" doesn't mean anything because hardly any part of either Altepa zone isn't near one or more entrances/exits to that dungeon (even if the player can find them all by crawling through parts with monsters well above the supposed target level of this quest).

Hell, there's not even any indication that the player should be looking for a ??? to begin with, rather than farming all the things. "Wow, this must be a really low drop rate..."

Or rather, just skip every dialogue because the ! is going to tell you where to go next anyways.

As someone who've been playing RPG before silly ! exist on the map, I find able to know where to go WITHOUT having to read the NPC conversation is just silly in a RPG.

30,000 items, 304 item slots(which I have an entire character dedicated to as it stand currently) is excessive as can possibly be. As for it being a long term goal, you constantly make it sound as though it is not a long term goal even with this change. If the 3 Kings, 4 Chariots, 100 Assaults, all ToAU Missions, 150,000 Tokens, 100,000 Ichor, and Odin weren't around, and people asked for the 30,000 Alexandrite to be cut into half or a 3rd, ok, maybe you have a point, it's no longer long term by compared, but that is a ton of things required, still far longer than either of the other two weapons. To say that cutting the Alexandrite down would stop it from being a long term goal begs the question, what in the world is a long term goal in a game!? Obviously you and I have vastly different concepts of what long term is, so without actually establishing that line it is really impossible to agree with one another.


So, again, asking a Galka at a gate about things that involve the country every single time something happens so that he can help you out with hints doesn't break the immersive feeling, since I guess some NPCs are allowed to know all and yet say little, but !s, Markers, or Dynamic Quest Logs are immersion breaking.

Sorry to say but your solution also fails in the respect that while I do think a great deal of players would not mind going to NPCs for Markers telling them where to go for a quest,

I already said everything I want to say about Mythic in another thread, so there's no point to reply here anymore.

Considering plenty of single player RPG has no ! on the map and ppl beat the game just fine, I can argue that "great deal" of player won't mind having to read a little bit more text.

No, ! isn't needed in any RPG. And it's annoying to have.

I find this highly doubtful seeing as until he had a job, FFXI took up a great amount of his day, it was only after his time dwindled that he stopped playing as much, and then at all. Before then he was actually further in this game than I was, a higher level, better gear, so on, but after he quit I surpassed him so much that looking at me, how much time I spend, and how much I have had to spend in order to get to the point I can do events with other people, he has told me it just isn't worth the effort.

He could not even be bothered to go out and download everything for the return campaign because he would have to download it all, install it all, update it all.

After those 2 days go by he would have to spend more than a month re-familiarizing himself with the game and trying to finish old quest lines like CoP/RotZ/ToAU for certain things, as well as unlock Adoulin, start it, get his jobs leveled to 99, gear them... the list goes on and on, yes I admit part of why he doesn't want to come back is probably because he is not interested or excited, but ask yourself why that is the case.

I just explained, he isn't interested nor excited, because he no longer has a goal.

Do you think I magically popped over 2~4hr everyday to play FFXI? No. I had less than 2hr a day in FFXI. But back when I play actively I log on 1.5~2hr a day doing dyna, because I had a goal that excited me, which was mythic(long term goal). The concept of Mythic itself is epic, and it's a goal worth fighting/sacrifice my free time or even sleep time for, to me at least. I still do group event for other gears, but I usually gather people at specific time so I log on and do content such as delve right away. At one point of time I just pop on 9pm, enter delve with LS(that's when everyone do delve with LS instead of /shout), sell airlixir for gil, log off before 11pm.

Why I keep doing that everyday? Because I had an epic goal, and there's a reason why I stated long term goal is important, it effectively kept me playing and interested for years. After the long term goal done, I no longer find any game content epic enough to interest me. I've experience pretty much everything I wanted from this game. But obstacle isn't the reason why the game isn't interesting anymore, the lack of goal is.

He isn't interested in the game, because he already experienced everything he wanted to. He's "done" with the game. Unless a goal that'd spark his interest pops. Removing the obstacle isn't going to get him back.

Think of it this way, if your goal of life is to be an oscar award winner, so you spend all your life and money making a film trying to win the award. You're often broke and starve on the street for your film, but you insist to continue. One day a company want to hire you as a cashier, now you no longer have to worry about your money. But you would no longer have time to work on your film, and must give up your dream to win an oscar award.

Now you have 2 choices, try to pursue your epic goal of life and continue to work on your film, but you have to deal with the obstacle(often starve on the street)

Or give up your dream and get a full time job, and no longer deal with the obstacle?

In real life, some people would pick option 1, sacrifice everything for 1 epic goal. Some of people would pick option 2, easier life but nothing epic.

In FFXI, some people would pick option 1, sacrifice a lot of free time/family time/sleep time/w/e for 1 epic goal in a video game, some people would pick option 2, not to chase after a goal for easier life, which is don't play FFXI(or play FFXI very casually).

And whoever picked option 1, eventually would have to face a situation: After spending entire life working toward a goal, their goals are accomplished.

So you finally won an oscar award after sacrificed everything you have in your life, and now you're done with this goal. You no longer have to sleep on the street because your movie is done.

In FFXI, if your goal is done, you won't have a reason to keep playing anymore. With obstacles or not. That may be the reason why some ppl don't play anymore.


I'm not sure whether you understand the entire concept or not, since you seem to play video game for entirely different reason from me. I play the game(or aim for a goal irl) for challenge. Once challenge no longer exist I'd lose interest. Removing the obstacle doesn't do anything, because it's the challenge that's keeping me around. I don't play video game for the sake of playing video game. I don't play FFXI to instantly pop on a character call Afania for the sake of killing delve bosses or AA because killing them is fun. Removing goobie bag/LB/quest requirement doesn't help, because pop on a character and kill delve boss with everyone isn't my goal.

Why I can tolerate content like 75 CoP/mythic/making a group for everything/FFXI endgame? Because I have to tolerate it to accomplish my goal, like that unlucky movie director must tolerate sleeping on the street if he wants to complete his film. (Oh and please don't start next round of "why do you must tolerate obstacle for a goal" arguement)

Your friend(and my friend too) isn't coming back, because they no longer feel the goal in FFXI important to them, it's as simple as that. The goal used to be important to me, that's why I kept playing.

Maybe everyone play FFXI for different reasons, some play it because of their friends, some play it because it's part of their life style. Some play it because they have emotional attachment, some play it because they want a Mythic and quit. But no matter what their goals are, obstacles isn't what'd affect their decision, unless their goal no longer important to them.

Again, there's nothing you can do if your friend can't find a meaningful goal to keep playing. I quit ARR before full IL90 in every slot, because I don't find full IL90 in every slot a goal worth invest time on, even though that game has very little obstacle, I still quit. The only goal in ARR that's worth sacrifice everything for is world/server first kill for harder raid boss, but it'd have a time limit, unlike FFXI I can just do long term goal at my own pace without worry about falling behind. I'm not interested in goals that everyone can do. A cashier isn't a job I'd be interested in because everyone can do it, making an award winning film is more interesting. But I don't feel like racing against the time for a goal too, ARR can't provide a goal I'm interested in unless I aim for world/server first kill, so I quit. FFXI provided a goal I was interested in for a while, so I stayed, it's as simple as that. That probably apply to majority of player that quit FFXI, have a goal and stay, or no goal and quit.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Or rather, just skip every dialogue because the ! is going to tell you where to go next anyways.

Because nobody skips dialog while they follow their precious wiki checklist? I've been guiding new players long enough to know that those who read all dialog have never been anywhere near being a majority of players.

Seriously, try to be constructive here and prove me wrong: what "hint" could be given for this quest that would actually be useful that isn't a map coordinate? Current in-game information is limited to "I need a rock from 'Altepa,'" which does little more than infer that it's not in a Kuzotz region dungeon, so there's theoretically plenty of room for improvement.

[Afania]

I think you have a strong point here, which is that if we remove all of this stuff, what’s really left in the game to do?

Having done all of it before, and pretty much maxed out, I can say that eventually there always comes a point where the answer is “not much.”

And you’re right that unless you set goals, that’s when you will burn out.

But to me I’m not really talking about just getting rid of this stuff.

I’m talking about the prospect of re-engineering it.

Given hindsight and the wealth of good tools available, it seems reasonable that these tasks could be more than just a brainless chore given a little bit of concentration.

Let me give you an example.

I recently went back and did the Rank 3 dragon fight as a level 33. The fight was easy to solo at 33, but it still felt pretty epic, since it used to be 25 capped. After all these years, the cutscenes have held up well, the story is good, and there is something satisfying about smashing a dragon in the face.

It would have been even more epic if I could have brought my Trust npcs along.

But yesterday I completed LB1 and LB2.

These quests have not held up well at all. They are a mindless chore.

Please bring me a lump of coal, a sheet of paper, and a petrified fungus goiter so that I can make my signature foot powder.

Also, can you get me 3 different shapes? My Fischer Price shape sorter is short a couple after baby Henry swallowed a couple whole last week.

These quests are mundane, mindless, and embarrassing to the players’ collective intelligence.

They are also long forgotten by the average vet, but unfortunately sentient for every new face that tried to make this game work.

They could easily be updated with epic fights using the Records of Eminence system.

Maat could teleport you to a BCNM where you and your Trust NPCs are given an ad-hoc RoE objective to slay a GIANT fungus. Bam, 100% drop of exoray mold.

Epic content that’s actually fun. No, instead you are to invis up and click 3 ??? points.

Just total and utter fail. It’s a straw man that you’re saying the reason your friends quit is the reason seemingly ALL new players to this game quit after a short period of time.

It is the abundance of REQUIRED quests like the 2 I just described, NOT the reason you are saying.

Fetch quests exist in RPG for years though, including the best selling RPG skyrim, usually serve as some kind of "cool down" between the exciting/epic part of the quest.

Yeah, you just killed an epic dragon, if you're going out to kill something epic right away you won't feel the epicness anymore. You don't see every hollywood movie have action scenes every sec too, it's usually action scene--->boring scene--->action scene--->boring scene repeat. If it's anime with more episodes, it'd have even longer boring scenes.

Google story structure:


Having fetch quests in game isn't FFXI only tbh.

[Afania]

Because nobody skips dialog while they follow their precious wiki checklist? I've been guiding new players long enough to know that those who read all dialog have never been anywhere near being a majority of players.

Seriously, try to be constructive here and prove me wrong: what "hint" could be given for this quest that would actually be useful that isn't a map coordinate? Current in-game information is limited to "I need a rock from 'Altepa,'" which does little more than infer that it's not in a Kuzotz region dungeon, so there's theoretically plenty of room for improvement.

If the players skip the dialogue, that means the game writer needs to work harder and write something more interesting so players are interested in reading them. It does not justify a ! on the map.

They could just mention something about an object or building, for example, under the 1st tower from southern entrance in beaucedine glacier. Go to the southern entrance of beaucedine glacier, go to the closest tower, click.

[Renaissance2K]

If the players skip the dialogue, that means the game writer needs to work harder and write something more interesting so players are interested in reading them.

Unless you plan on inserting lewd photos throughout the text, there's no way to write dialogue interesting enough for all players, especially from the more recent generation. I've seen plenty of games with really celebrated cutscenes and scripting fall victim to the "mash the A button until I can kill something again" mentality of most modern gamers.

That said, the text in Adoulin is really, really dry. I've been really pleased with the text as I play through a lot of the legacy content, but it's fairly obvious that Square's priorities shifted with the release of Abyssea.

(Though the "Make it so / Make it no" dialogue from the Abyssea warp NPC is incredible.)

[Afania]

Keep in mind these statements are only relevant to mission/storyline content.

Within this thread we are seeing evidence of 3 different perspectives.

1) Players that want to experience storyline content with challenging battles (which intrinsically require multiple players to complete, thus are cooperation gated content).


2) Players that want to experience storyline content regardless of battle difficulty or artificial restrictions like “gather a party of 3 or more players.”


3) Players that do not want to experience storyline content, but would like to cooperate with others in content like Voidwatch or Delve.


Let’s start by being perfectly honest about one thing. Aside from a few stubborn and sycophantic mouthpieces in this thread, there appear to be very few of #1) around these days.

There should be no debate about point #1), because Square-Enix already changed the game long ago to appease the clarion call of #2) players who wanted to actually accomplish things and see the game.

The argument being made here is that Square-Enix continues to sabotage itself by restricting incoming players to 2 options: Belong or force themselves to belong to group #2) –or-- quit the game.

This game does not offer you a choice between #2) and #3).

It is flat out #2) or GTFO.

By the way, just one thought.

Nothing stops them from creating ONE new server with a special rule set.

They could call it Cloud(New Player), and funnel new players there.

It would be exclusive to creation and non-transferable.

It would offer equal opportunities to both #2) and #3) players by easing a lot of the restrictions currently in place on live servers.

They could test some new quality of life features, like allowing Trusts everywhere, and allowing 3 person groups + the leader being able to summon 3 Trusts.

If the new rule sets gained popularity, they could deploy the stuff that worked best to production servers.

Because right now, there is a lot of fragmentation of new players.

If you are new on Odin, Asura, or Bahamut, you have a fighting chance of getting a shell with like-minded players. But on some of the smaller servers, I’m sure many new people join but just can’t get the right support system.

And quite frankly, in the current state of the game, new players can't play with veterans anyway.

How is metaphorical segregation any different than physical segregation?

Don't believe me, look at this gem of a LS recruitment post:

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/42...n-recruitment/

It's a total treasure through-and-through, but this is absolutely my favorite part:

"
We're also not looking for career damage dealers that lack appropriate knowledge of said DD. If you've ever used a Ghillie Earring on Samurai outside of being drunk and confusing it with a Brutal earring, please do not apply.
"

Because we were all "born with gear."

But I'm sure there is enough cognitive dissonance within the elite player base that a white knight will show up within minutes to tell me that I'm wrong, and it would be a terrible idea to give new players an opportunity to play together.

The game doesn't offer choice 3 because no game does.....well maybe unless you pay for the service. Endgame is supposed to be for players that's done with pre lv cap content.

As for the the guild recruitment thread, to defend for them, they're looking for serious players to join their event. There are always serious players in MMO and casual players. The point is to find like-minded players, not to force yourself to play with different group.

If you're casual/new, it'd be painful to play with serious players even if they accept you. You'd have to catch up, you'd have to work on many stuff. You'd have to feel falling behind and under stress.

So why are you bothered that serious players don't want to play with new/casual players? New/casual players should play with casual players because it's more comfortable to, instead of playing with serious players and feeling stressed. And vice versa, if someone want to play the game seriously, having to wait for a casual player trying to catch up is quite painful too.

Playing with like minded player isn't a crime, it actually make everyone's life much happier. Casuals can feel more comfortable with casuals, serious players won't be pissed for having to wait for someone else that's behind.

Call me a white knight if you want, but that's just my observation. Serious players are happier with other serious players and casual players are happier without serious players around.

Unless you plan on inserting lewd photos throughout the text, there's no way to write dialogue interesting enough for all players, especially from the more recent generation. I've seen plenty of games with really celebrated cutscenes and scripting fall victim to the "mash the A button until I can kill something again" mentality of most modern gamers.

That said, the text in Adoulin is really, really dry. I've been really pleased with the text as I play through a lot of the legacy content, but it's fairly obvious that Square's priorities shifted with the release of Abyssea.

(Though the "Make it so / Make it no" dialogue from the Abyssea warp NPC is incredible.)

Just because some players hates reading, doesn't justify a ! on the map

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

If the players skip the dialogue, that means the game writer needs to work harder and write something more interesting so players are interested in reading them. It does not justify a ! on the map.

Man-hours for writing cost money, and old content was on sale for $4.99 back in 2012. At best you're proposing a chicken-and-egg problem: S-E needs to attract new paying subscribers to that they can afford to make dialog more accessible (in four languages!) to attract new paying subscribers.

They could just mention something about an object or building, for example, under the 1st tower from southern entrance in beaucedine glacier. Go to the southern entrance of beaucedine glacier, go to the cloest tower, click.

"Go to the part of Altepa with all the rocks and sand." We're talking about an area where the game lore itself describes the geography swallowing all architectural landmarks.