FFXI deserves and needs an Expansion Pack announcement similar to Seekers of Adoulin

[Tarmarkvar]

There is no valid reason we cannot have an expansion pack, the game has more than enough people playing right now and a lot that would come back willing to pay $40 for it. Given the waste of money on such things as Babyons Fall, there is no valid excuse not to spend money on something that is guaranteed to turn a profit and lead to an increase in subs after it launches too. Almost all the work can be outsourced, as happened with Seekers of Adoulin. There really is no valid excuse we cannot have one other than you don't want to do it for some reason.

I mean, they were pretty firm back in 2016 that the November update of that year, which concluded Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, would be the last major update. There is a pretty valid reason to not make more -- they don't have enough development staff to do something that major. And they are likely reluctant to hire more because the demand is not there. You seem pretty confident that there is a big enough playerbase to justify the cost, but you seem to be going off intuition and casual observation. They make their decisions based on reports from the accountants over there.

Don't get me wrong, I'd kill for an expansion or two. I dream about exploring Rhazowa (northern continent and orc homeland), or Olzhirya (Mithran homeland in the south) or the Far East. It bothers me so much that this game is now and always will be incomplete. But it's just not gonna happen, and it's weird that you seem to think it's something we're entitled to.

[Obysuca]

I mean, they were pretty firm back in 2016 that the November update of that year, which concluded Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, would be the last major update.

Didn't they also say something along those lines just before RoV too? I remember a lot of people I know quitting due to the announcement, but also before RoV cause they thought it was the end.
This (and iirc, they did something similar before TVR too) is one of the things that makes me think there's a chance we could get some sort of expansion / "expansion" (RoV style), just because SE has done this multiple times already.

Which is honestly a terrible way to do it tbh, since the time they did it for RoV, it just decimated my friends list and linkshells, then once again wiped out the remaining people I played with, just a bit before TVR. So it honestly wouldn't surprise me if 6-12 months after TVR ends (and probably another "last update" announcement), SE suddenly announces some new expansion or even just more new story with one or two new content.

While I do appreciate it when a company does announce an end date well in advance, so people don't feel ripped off if they just dumped a ton of money into it a month before it ends, it's also equally as bad to announce the end and then after losing a ton of customers, they change their mind and then it doesn't bring those people back because they thought it ended and didn't keep up with it anymore or saw any new announcements elsewhere.

[Alhanelem]

Didn't they also say something along those lines just before RoV too? I remember a lot of people I know quitting due to the announcement, but also before RoV cause they thought it was the end.
This (and iirc, they did something similar before TVR too) is one of the things that makes me think there's a chance we could get some sort of expansion / "expansion" (RoV style), just because SE has done this multiple times already.

Which is honestly a terrible way to do it tbh, since the time they did it for RoV, it just decimated my friends list and linkshells, then once again wiped out the remaining people I played with, just a bit before TVR. So it honestly wouldn't surprise me if 6-12 months after TVR ends (and probably another "last update" announcement), SE suddenly announces some new expansion or even just more new story with one or two new content.

While I do appreciate it when a company does announce an end date well in advance, so people don't feel ripped off if they just dumped a ton of money into it a month before it ends, it's also equally as bad to announce the end and then after losing a ton of customers, they change their mind and then it doesn't bring those people back because they thought it ended and didn't keep up with it anymore or saw any new announcements elsewhere.

They NEVER explicitly stated the game was ending. People decided for themselves what these announcements meant. The devs can't predict the future. Obviously conditions were better than they expected. They did suggest the nature of updates might change, but they didn't say there wouldn't be any.

I also don't personally know anyone who quit becuase "they thought the game was ending after this." Even if that were true, why wouldn't people want to experience it first?

[Obysuca]

I also don't personally know anyone who quit becuase "they thought the game was ending after this." Even if that were true, why wouldn't people want to experience it first?

Ah, so just cause you personally don't know anyone who did, you assume it's not true? lol
Also, I stated that the people who left, did so at the announcement of no more major updates, not the announcement of RoV, so they wouldn't even think to stick around to experience it. You'd be surprised at the amount of people who lose interest/desire to play a game when it's assumed to be ending, especially when they see announcements from the company itself that implies it, and yes, stating the game is going into maintenance mode and won't be receiving major updates, does in fact, imply the game could be ending.

[Tarmarkvar]

Didn't they also say something along those lines just before RoV too? I remember a lot of people I know quitting due to the announcement, but also before RoV cause they thought it was the end.
This (and iirc, they did something similar before TVR too) is one of the things that makes me think there's a chance we could get some sort of expansion / "expansion" (RoV style), just because SE has done this multiple times already.

I don't recall that. I wish I could find the announcement again, but they had specifically said no more major updates, and a switch to smaller, monthly updates.

What they have given us since then has been a LOT smaller than something like a full fledged expansion. All content since then has involved reusing existing monsters and existing zones. It's new, but minimal effort new.

[Elliander]

I'm really looking forward to an expansion too, but I'm more concerned about what we'll do in the expansion and what end game content it will have.

Character progression

The cap level would have to be raised. I'm talking about real Levels and Master level -> 175/87 to avoid "Power creep" I would give them 1 STAT + 1 Combat Skill per Level/Master level. This would be to cover the level up. An expansion without character progression feels very flat and boring, like WoTG. Could be cool have something like APEX-PARTIES from lv100-lv175 with enemies taking 95% less AoE damage and enemies hitting really hard like in odyssey high floors.

History

The story, I would do something like RoV, scenes, good music, more direct narrative, battlefields that you can do with your Trust. Something that can be ENJOYED and not be a TORTURE or suffering for the player. Playing the FFX story is wonderful and entertaining.

Areas

The areas I would like variety, a forest like ronfaure, a beach like Valkrum, an area of ​​snow like xarcabad, a jungle like yuthunga, a volcano like ifrit cauldron etc. Without HORRIBLE key items like the ones in SoA, that just interrupts the exploration of the areas. SIMPLE is always better, more enjoyable, overcomplicating everything and making it tedious will only make players go back to WoW-Modern or FFXIV in days.

Teleports and exploration

Completely remove in expansion: Warp between teleports, survival guides etc. Let the player explore the area in his mount and in the city the player must WALK to all the places, only puting CRYSTALS like teleport-dem, holla, mea, etc. Another thing is to make the player go to the area where the end game, exp party, etc. will take place. Not pure WARP-WARP-WARP-TELEPORT this is terrible for that I better go play FFXIV.

Ultimate weapons

Explain to the player until he is lv175/87, complete the Merit points II category, he will not be able to access the next upgrade of his ultimate weapons, all the materials will be obtained in the end game of said expansion.

End-game

I would like a battlefield like dynamis, einherjar, delve, bosses like ultima, omega, KSNM99. Content obviously for 12-18 players.

Battle-Combat

I would give all the jobs SKILLS like DRG. Yes, after 20 years ENOUGH of pure WS-SPAM. DRG is the only job in FFXI which has rotation with the jumps and requires a lot of mechanical skills, in order to correctly time those skills and increase the damage. All the DPS jobs would play more like "DRG" ​​you will have to combine the WS-SPAM with the abilities to increase the damage you do and that will take you many hours of practicing your correct rotation. You would have to lower the JA-DELAY to 1 sec, that is already done by an external program which puts JA-0 delay, so don't tell me that you can't.

This would be the elements that my expansion would have.

I agree overall, although I'd like to see any new gear come from crafting primarily. Give people a reason to develop their skills. I also agree with taking out all the teleports. Like, what's the point of having any teleport or warp spells when it's quicker and easier to warp all over the place? I'd like to feel like the game is big and dangerous again. Also, make areas that actually require people to get into parties to go through. And on that note I'd like a reason to play with others or, lacking that, I'd like them to just make a single player version of the game with simulated player interactions since there's no point playing an online game alone.

I've read interviews saying that it would take an entire development team to make it offline, but I've also seen videos of people playing the game offline via mods so I don't think that's the reason.

They make their decisions based on reports from the accountants over there.

That's funny actually when you consider the origin of the entire franchise. You see, once upon a time, a small software company wasn't doing too well. By all accounts there was simply no way they'd survive as a company even if their next game did well. As a consequence they decided to make "Final Fantasy" - so named because it was their final fantasy. Since there was no pressure to turn a profit all motivation was on making something that they themselves would enjoy to play and that single event shaped an entire genre of games for decades to come.

Of course, ordinarily, you do need to do a cost benefit analysis. The failure to do so with the first Final Fantasy movie (although I did like it) simply because it cost too much to make than could reasonably be made back. This was what ultimately led to Square to be eaten by Enix forming the Square Enix we know today. Betting the entire company on one product is rarely a good idea, but on a smaller scale the fact is that a "labor of love" has a general tendency to be a huge success more often than not.

Think about some of the most successful software projects over the past few decades, and consider how many were done by people who made a game just because they wanted to play it and share it with the world. Some of which literally made billions of dollars.

In contrast, when a company looks at what someone else is doing and copies them it may look good on paper, but it has disasterous consequences for the existing playerbase. Before FFXI I played Everquest. I loved the simple UI and spent hundreds of hours in that game, but then they looked at what Warcraft was doing and decided to replace the entire User Interface with disconnected objects that were all over the place. Maybe on a modern multi monitor desktop like we have today that would be acceptable, but my response was to quit. I moved to FFXI primarily because of the simple user interface. I loved how it all fell away while exploring the world, but SE also fell into the trap of copying WoW with their new baby. In the closed beta the User Interface was horrible and while a realm reborn is at least playable, they showed no respect for those who were in the beta by making it impossible to use those characters if they were unfortunate enough to die before gaining access to the ability to respawn. Which was weird. But their excuse was that they didn't have experience making an MMO, which made me wonder what they thought FFXI was, and as I watched things change I found myself less and less interested in what they were doing. There were and still are so many things wrong with that game, but that's from the perspective of someone like me who likes to get lost in a world. They even based the game clock around the assumption that people will only spend a half an hour in the game at a time so if they released an expansion at all I'm afraid it would just make FFXI more like that. Of course, I for one would buy a new FFXI expansion in a heartbeat whereas I have no intention of ever buying any more content for a realm reborn no matter what they do to that game.

If they don't want to release new content, here's an idea: Officially support graphical mods. (i.e. HD graphics) and even facilitate it's integration. Some platforms actually make money doing that and it would also give them control over what kind of mods are popularized. Let the people who are already doing that kind of thing expend the effort to make the game "modern". Also, how about open a "classic" server which has the classic game balance intact? Where it actually takes time to level up, and where transportation is a literal journey rather than a zip around the globe. It could even just be a copy of the server file backups from 10+ years ago.