Thank you for making both the grind and rewards of the Job Point system so terrible.

[Mefuki]

If they take away everything that takes time to do, or time to set up for people who don't allow themselves time to play, (yes I did say allow yourself time to play, because people make their own choices about what to do with their time), there will be nothing to do for those of us who genuinely enjoy playing the game.

Some of us really do enjoy playing this game. I enjoy playing FFXI, it's game that gives me a regularly updated, large scale, lore laced world with a battle and customization system that I haven't been able to find elsewhere, especially within the MMO market. But that's just it, I enjoy playing the game, not waiting around for 2 hours+ before I can start getting to the playing part.

If you're of the mindset that everything has to be doable quickly, then you've missed the point of playing an mmo.

I hope you're not falling into the trap of thinking that people who want to actually work toward long term goals the moment they log in are the same people who want ultimate weapons showing up in their delivery boxes. Desiring to do content is a far cry from wanting things handed to you. I want gradual progression towards my in game goals. Let it take 10x as long as someone with connections, etc if it has to, like when I farmed my reforged gear via farming sparks and gil (read: points) or when I spent two months doing Dynamis everyday last year to get enough gil for my HMP.

It's not that people are unwilling to put effort into playing, it's that they actually want to play. Let me give an example: Can't say what others did but due to time restrains and connections (or lack-there-of), I had to PUG all of my Voidwatch. I, regretfully, made some sacrifices in RL to get those silly quests done. Why? Because it took 2+ hours before we could even get to the fighting (read: playing), especially when it came to doing any of the VWNM's that wasn't Qilin. Why is logging in and immediately getting to play and working toward goals considered a bad thing? Why should it take so much time to start playing?

[predatory]

You realize you sound like a total dick, right?

And obviously you haven't spent much time with those two games you invoked intending to insult your fellow FFXI subscriber (one of the few people keeping this game alive so you can play it, remember). Minecraft and FFXIV are also games you can't win, and there's veritable SHITLOADS of content that anyone can play 24 hours a day.

There's no difference in terms of commitment, and playing those games doesn't make you any "less of a gamer" than playing FFXI. The fact that FFXI REQUIRES more grindy content makes it in no way better. There will NEVER be a dearth of content in this game. But the amount of content that absolutely CANNOT be accomplished in a few hours is unacceptable by today's standards. The average age of gamers keeps going up. Most of us have jobs, families of our own with kids, etc.. We can't sit around all day waiting to get a group just to make a small bit of progress.

How does making the game more convenient for everybody detract from your "genuine enjoyment" of the game? Do you derive pleasure from endless grinds, roadblocks, and content that requires large, restrictive groups? FFXI can't do that anymore with the few players left. Not that all that garbage was ever enjoyable in the first place.

If FFXI is going to survive, it won't be through long-term grinds. People NEED to feel like they've accomplished something in the few hours they have to play. If they don't, they'll quit, and move on to a game that doesn't waste their time. And when enough of them quit, down goes the ship. Make no mistake, FFXI isn't guaranteed to live forever, especially with Square-Enix's streak of bad business decisions. FFXI has been heading in the right direction thanks to Matsui, and the last thing we need is to fall back into a Tanaka-style sadomasochistic relationship between the players and the devs.

Games do not stand the test of time if everything can be done in minutes. Period end of story. WoW is still alive, but hemorraging people after all the years it's been around, so is FFXI. The rest of the MMOs I can think of go f2p in a couple of years. So from what I can see the games that take awhile to get things going, last far longer than those that offer instant gratification.

Oh and I don't sound like a dick, I am one. I've watched the player base fall off more and more over the years as the game became easier and less time consuming. I'm 50 years old, work, and am a single dad, yet I still find time to do what I want in game, so that shit doesn't wash with me. Quit QQing and f**king up this game so much, because believe or not when all the diehards get fed up and go, the game will die, because who will be left to help out and teach people the game? Surely not someone who doesn't have time to devote to it, and only wants to get their own stuff done.

[Ravenmore]

Sorry can not agree with WoW doing bad and blaming it on it's progression model. For a game of it's age to still have subs in the muti millions is a testament to how well blizz has ran their ship, love it or hate it respect must be paid. It is close to the same age as FFXI and it is based on the most overly used genre in gaming, the fantasy setting. People may not have grown tied of the game but the setting it self as many people's taste in books and movies change so to do their taste in game genre change and that has more of a effect on subs then anything else.

Fact is blizz could use the exact same model as WoW, reskin it with a Starcraft setting call it the "Galaxy of Starcraft" and bam they are right back to over 10 mil subs. The only reason they haven't is currently there is no reason to bust out a trump card when they are still making money hand over fist on WoW and no real computation in sub based MMOs. Not too mention unlike SE they learn from other companies failures and took away the lessons of EQ/EQ2 and FF11/14. They updated the graphics engine along with the AI not wasting time on building a whole another game(or in SE's case 2) when the first game was still turning a decent profit.

As for the diehards simple 20 min fix by SE and the game is still enjoyable by reducing the difficulty, though not that it really matters the same basic tactics have been used over and over to fell every NM since the start of the game. Se does keep track on how fast people are clearing content and how long it takes for the first group to finish new content or kill new NMs/battle fields what not so the diehard no lifers leaving SE would see content is not getting cleared and adjust it down something they have been getting better at.

[Puck]

I never thought one day I'd be defending WoW, but yes, Ravenmore is correct in asserting that Blizzard knew then, and knows now, how to keep their subs in the millions and that's nothing to scoff at. They'd NEVER had gotten so many subscribers, or still be sitting at such insane membership after all these years, if they followed FFXI's model of "wait several hours to play, because that's hardcore." No, what WoW did and still does better is letting people jump in and accomplish something whenever they want. That's what playing games is all about: turn on, play, feel rewarded for the time you spent. Not sitting with your thumb up your ass in Jeuno waiting for the ideal group to assemble.

You're completely in the wrong if you think FFXI's numbers are dropping due to content getting "too easy." The problem has ALWAYS been that endgame content is inaccessible to too many people. Too many jobs are locked out entirely, and for the few that are accepted the expectations are often too high. Most people don't even get to play the jobs they love the most, they're forced to level something they're not crazy about just to make progress.

And even if you happen to play one of the handful of acceptable jobs, you STILL have to wait. Nobody wants to wait to play, that can't be said enough.

(edit: The restrictive requirements for groups still is, and always has been, a major roadblock to actually enjoying this game, and one of the major reasons people quit. It makes many players feel as if the time spent playing jobs they actually enjoy is ultimately time wasted. This should never be the case. ANY time spent must be rewarded in some way. Any time you put in effort, your effort should pay off.)

But that's just it, I enjoy playing the game, not waiting around for 2 hours+ before I can start getting to the playing part.

It's not that people are unwilling to put effort into playing, it's that they actually want to play.

See, Mefuki hit that big-ass nail right on the head. That's the real reason people are quitting now, and it's the same reason they've been quitting for the last decade.

[Mefuki]

And that's why I think RoE, Trusts and, if given some more attention, rewards and virtually endless "content" in the form of Mon V Mon, Monstrosity are all good indicators of a positive future for FFXI. Matsui and his crew seem to be trying various ways to get people to actually play the game and make progress the moment they log in.

RoE is an excellent example of this clear, progressive, effort-reward concept I'm talking about.

Trust magic told us, "Hey, don't just wait around for EXP parties or for help with that old mission that is almost certainly not going to come. Get to playing!" Though admittedly, SE dropped the ball a little here by not making it possible to party up with other people and your trusts at the same time but that's going to be fixed in the near future I hear and when that happens Trusts will then also say to us, "And if you happen to run into someone who's doing the same thing as you or a friend who wants to just jump in on a mission with you, team up without feeling like you're sacrificing anything."

Monstrosity's instinct and subspecies acquisition system is currently nothing but a progressive, successive, "small goals to big goal, small rewards to big reward" oriented system. I was able to log in and immediately begin working on goals, saying to myself, "I'm going to unlock that Ruszor eventually but I'm also going to unlock some other interesting instincts, cool new skills and new monsters along the way." If done right, Monstrosity can replicate the Pokemon formula relatively closely. Which utilizes the similar systems of a steady stream of small rewards(I.E. learning new moves, evolving, catching new Pokemon.) which culminates into pitting your monster/monster team against an opponent's. It's this gradual process of gaining smaller rewards leading up to a big one that helps to keep people playing.

But what does NOT help to keep people playing is having them wait around long enough for them to say to themselves, as was so common back in the day, "What the heck am I doing? I'm logged into FFXI while playing a different game, waiting for this party/alliance to form."



Now before it's brought up, I'm not suggesting that parties or alliances be abolished. Far from it. I just think forming parties should generally be more...hmm...organic. It should flow naturally while playing. So, for example, when I did the first few NM trials for my Almace, I didn't shout for help. I went and did it. When I got to the camps, there were people there doing the same thing and instead of competing with each other, because there was a positive benefit for the both of us and very little reason not to, we teamed up and covered for each other when one of us had to go AFK. Not a perfect example but I think you see what I'm getting at.

[predatory]

Looks like they might have foud the perfect solution to you guys' problem, and one people like me love, go oldschool. Woot chain bonuses http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...nd-Adjustments

[Demonjustin]

Depending on the amount it scales and how much they increase the rate of obtainment(basically what the lowered reduction is in Skirmish) it may actually be a nice fix. My hopes aren't high since it's not a direct fix/increase however.

[Byrth]

Honestly, people are already reporting rates of up to 80CP/hr in CP parties. 2-3 merit points/hr was deemed acceptable back in the day. With chain bonuses, I imagine that most groups will be able to hit/exceed that. I have personally hit about 23k/hr soloing DNC with trusts, and about 22k/hr soloing BRD with trusts. It's possible that my CP/hr would go up if I moved to a new camp, but I'm too lazy. D:

PS. I find it sad that my bard solos almost as well as my dancer. Go go 4 songs!

[Demonjustin]

Honestly, people are already reporting rates of up to 80CP/hr in CP parties. 2-3 merit points/hr was deemed acceptable back in the day.

I just want to say that Merit Points in this case shouldn't be used as an example of how this system should be.

This system so far has come out of the gate with minor bonuses which hardly rival Merit Points when it comes to how much they aid a job, I mean the most important things I've heard of are Phantom Roll Duration and BLU Mage Points. While those 2 things are nice they hold no candle next to things as important to a job as merits are, and when it comes to comparing the rate it's an unbalanced comparison anyways. For Merit Points you only ever needed 15~22 points to cap a category for a job so far as I know, the new Job Point system requires 55 per capped category so far as I know. If it's 55 right now then think about the future when they expand it to that wonderful cap of 30 they mentioned... you're looking at more than 150 points at very least. That detracts from the fact that at 22 points per capped category you're looking at 2/5th of the worth of a Merit Point, this means for the rate to be around equal when it comes to progression you're looking at needing to nearly triple the rate that you're talking about having right now just to match old school Merit Parties. Mind you that's old school parties which took much longer to get things done in, completely going against the newer rate of progression in the game of today.

I don't mean to make it sound like it's not acceptable, in fact I think it's looking a lot better, but I still don't think it's how it should be even with chains, the only thing that makes me think it'll be fine now is the fact we might get a lot of points from Skirmish & Delve which is content we're already doing anyways. If I can get these points on the side then I'm not so obsessed with how long it takes because it can be a side bonus on content I already do, but when I have to go out of my way to make any real progress on it then I have a problem with the time it's looking to take.

[Byrth]

The important part is that it will be viable for the average player to make progress on their goals in an hour or two.

Also, it's optional. If there are no job point categories worth blitzing for a job, then there's no need to blitz it. This system seems to be designed to be a long-term-grind kind of deal, and having mediocre categories without category caps keeps that alive. For instance, lets say they add Step Accuracy to DNC's categories in the future. That's not something I'd bother blitzing for Dancer, because there are almost zero cases where it would be relevant. I have so much accuracy during Steps that I have a capped Step hit rate with Flash. That said, it would take me a long time to cap it if I wasn't going to blitz it. That means that Job Points will have some small amount of value for me for a long time. They might not be worth enough for me to actively farm, but I'm going to be able to spend them and improve my jobs (maybe even my favorite jobs) forever. With merit points, having mediocre categories does not extend the life of the system because category caps exist.

I suspect SE will keep adding job point enhancements (they have planned up to 32 per job), and I strongly suspect that every job will eventually get worthwhile job points that are worth partying up and blitzing in an old merit-party style format. I also think that there is pretty much no chance I will ever cap out job points, which makes me happy in its own way.