Suggestions: Quality of Life Stuff and other suggestions

[Tarmarkvar]

It's a limitation tied to the game not being able to change to take advantage of technological advances. I'm gonna keep calling it PS2 limitations until I see an interview where someone explicitly says "actually, we don't need to find old PS2 devkits to work with any more, which is nice."

As to the server load problem itself though, when there were four separate auction houses that didn't seem to cause any trouble. Seems to me that the issue isn't the number of items in total, it's the number of items at once. Maybe we can't have 8 auction slots, but what's stopping us having a second sales ledger with another 7 slots, which has to be accessed separately?

I mean, the game is in maintenance mode and they have a scaled back development team so they probably don't have the manpower to do something like that. When there were 4 separate auction houses, it was still the same number of items though.

I don't see where there would be an advantage to expanding any of the storage spaces beyond 80 slots. Yeah you get more inventory, but people have wanted more inventory for 20 years and they never seem to be satisfied. Junk would just expand to fill the additional space.

[Immortal]

The game isn't in maintence mode... they even increased our monthly sub with the wardrobes. They are adding content super slowly and barely paying attention to the game tho, so maybe youre right and we're just paying for it.

[Alhanelem]

The game isn't in maintence mode... they even increased our monthly sub with the wardrobes. They are adding content super slowly and barely paying attention to the game tho, so maybe youre right and we're just paying for it.

That's disingenuous. They didn't increase the subscription fee. The wardrobes are optional extras for one man armies. The two wardobes included for all have proven plenty sufficient for me as I don't play that many jobs with regularity.

I'm still paying the same $12.95 I have since shortly after NA launch, which is a steal compared to 19 years ago, and I'm quite thankful that they decided to offer these optional extras only some people need rather than just raise prices, even though with inflation, the sub fee back then might be closer to $20 in today's money. Maybe more than that.

I mean, the game is in maintenance mode

We still get content updates, maybe slower than way back when, but "maintenance mode" would imply there are no updates at all and they're simply counting the days til they have to close it down. Which many of us thought was going to happen several years ago and it didn't.

[Haldarn]

I'm still paying the same $12.95 I have since shortly after NA launch, which is a steal compared to 19 years ago, and I'm quite thankful that they decided to offer these optional extras only some people need rather than just raise prices, even though with inflation, the sub fee back then might be closer to $20 in today's money. Maybe more than that.

I always seem to have to point out that just because it was $12.95 in 2002, the equivalent today isn't $12.95 plus inflation.

On one side, you have disparity in Yen, Dollar, Pound and Euro; the exchange rates are very different today. Then, you have consumers' net personal income less cost of living leaving disposable income available, which differs all over the world.

On the flip side, you have a reduction in the number and cost of staff, hardware and resources; a particular piece of hardware purchased to last five years which is now running after ten will have been budgeted with five in mind. When new types of content were introduced and new ways of delivering the service there would have been an investment in R&D.

Balance that with the number of subscribers, which feels like (from the attitude of any SE staff interviewed in the last few years) it's a lot higher today than they anticipated it would be in 2015, thanks in no small part to streamers.

All of this of course is restricted by the market; even just looking at S-E FFXIV costs £8.99 a month and so does FFXI. Raising FFXI to £14.99 a month as per direct inflation is completely unfeasible - that fee would be just about acceptable if it included 8 character slots per server, conversion to a new engine with modern graphics, current-gen console release and a new, full expansion with a bi-annual commitment to new ones for the foreseeable future, like it's little sister.

(which, by the way, I would throw money at. Give me £150 PS5 CE, £30 expacs, £40 lorebooks and £30 soundtracks and I wouldn't hesitate to preorder)

[Pixela]

The people who decide the future of FFXI are not game developers who work on the game, they are accountants that work for the company.

The producer has to goto these accountants and show them the finances and ask for more money, in advance (for the next 1-3 years) to keep the game running. Those accountants have to decide if the PROFITS the game will bring in is worth spending that money. It's that simple, they don't care about covering costs they care about returns on an investment.

If they give 1 million dollars to run the game for the next 1-3 years (idk how much they spend, random number), they want 2-3 million back minimum. If they won't get that, why bother spending money? close it down. It's that simple.

[Zenion]

If they give 1 million dollars to run the game for the next 1-3 years (idk how much they spend, random number), they want 2-3 million back minimum. If they won't get that, why bother spending money? close it down. It's that simple.

I think it's a little more complex than that. If this were, say, Runescape or Everquest, where the MMO is the brand, sure. It's all about the raw numbers. But Final Fantasy is a franchise that, at this point, trades primarily on the power of its brand. Having a mainline member of the series disappear just because it was an MMO that stopped being profitable kind of hurts that brand a little. I doubt that would save FFXI if it ever cost more to run than it brought in, but I suspect it'll keep the game afloat as long as it can just break even.

[Alhanelem]

I always seem to have to point out that just because it was $12.95 in 2002, the equivalent today isn't $12.95 plus inflation.

I stopped reading here. Yes, I know that different people place different values on their money and their game experience.

However, I would disagree with your implication that we're getting less for the technically smaller amount of money we're paying them. The structure of updates was changed considerably a long time ago, instead of big patches a few times a year that have tons of stuff, we get small updates on a monthly basis with the ocasional bigger thing thrown in. It really isn't that far off in the end from how things used to be.

We've gotten not just one but two new storylines that were never planned. We've gotten multiple new progression systems, multiple new and/or improved battle contents.... I'd say for the most part, im about just as happy with what I get for paying as I was back in the day. Maybe a little bit less because of certain ongoing issues with botting and the like. but not way off.

Ultimately, my point remains, I don't need those extra mog wardrobes. Sure, if you do, you might view it as a sub fee increase instead of an optional extra, but it's little different than XI's system of paying $1 per character slot (which I agree is silly and outdated though)

[Tarmarkvar]

The game isn't in maintence mode... they even increased our monthly sub with the wardrobes. They are adding content super slowly and barely paying attention to the game tho, so maybe youre right and we're just paying for it.

First off, they didn't increase anybody's subscription costs. They added a completely optional service So do not tell outright lies.

And what I mean by maintenance mode is that they aren't adding anything big or new. No new zones. No new monster types. They're using existing monster types and increasing stats, adding new moves, and changing colors. It's all low effort stuff.

[Alhanelem]

First off, they didn't increase anybody's subscription costs. They added a completely optional service So do not tell outright lies.

And what I mean by maintenance mode is that they aren't adding anything big or new. No new zones. No new monster types. They're using existing monster types and increasing stats, adding new moves, and changing colors. It's all low effort stuff.

"new zones and mosnters" is expansion level stuff. Not simply updates. "Maintenance mode" means simply "keeping it running." And no updates whatsoever aside from keeping it working. Your opinion about the amount of effort put in (by a team of a handful of people) is irrelevant to this.

[Tarmarkvar]

"new zones and mosnters" is expansion level stuff. Not simply updates. "Maintenance mode" means simply "keeping it running." And no updates whatsoever aside from keeping it working. Your opinion about the amount of effort put in (by a team of a handful of people) is irrelevant to this.

My point is that they had the big grand finale in 2016 and scaled back operations, so that means they just don't have the stuff to do big stuff like expand the auction house or the number of slots per inventory box and such.