Mastery Rank has helped me to explore Vanadiel

[Gwydion]

I just wanted to say that the addition of Mastery Rank has made me feel like I should go back to other areas of Vanadiel and try parts of FFXI, I would have never tried otherwise.

I really enjoyed all of the Windurst WoTG storyline and so many of the quest NPC interactions in Kazham.

I have been work towards Abyssea's Atma of the Savior to increase my master rank further (currently Rank 7).

Also, I entered monstrosity for the first time today and got my rabbit up to level 35. The XP campaign that started today this fun and enjoyable and makes me want to try to unlock other monsters. I absolutely love the mix of job abilities and monster abilities. The monster abilities have various TP costs, which is different from player weaponskills that require 1000 TP (However, I must say that I am upset that there is no Monstrosity connection to Beastmaster).

I also started evolving the monsters in my Mog Garden. I've had Rank 7 Monster Rearing for years, but I just got my first evolution from Wyvern to Abyssal Wyrm. (Again, there really should be a Beastmaster connection to these in game events!). I think the Mementos are a great way to add variety to my character configuration! I do wish the stats on Mementos were stronger.

So, I think that Mastery Rank gear is a great incentive. Please continue to reward players for playing FFXI and seeing everything it has to offer. (But please, do not neglect Beastmaster, Monstrosity and all of the unique characterists of Vanadiel that keep us connected).

Thanks!

[Alhanelem]

This is going to be a hot take. But before I get into that, I am glad that some people are finding value in it. Unfortunately I don't.

Mastery Rank doesn't make me want to do anything in particular. It was added purely as a metric to help Novices in the Assist Channel gauge the general level of experience a Mentor has with the game and not any other purpose. This is also one of the reasons they didn't give specifics about how it works. But for some reason people are using this as a crude form of an achievement system and doing whatever they can to make number go up. I still prefer to play the game my way, enjoying the content and jobs I like to enjoy. If I come across something that I haven't tried that seems interesting, sure, I'll do it. But I'm not going to bend over for content that doesn't interest me just to increase my title count (I might be interested in a given title if it's a "cool" title though.)

In this case I fully acknowledge my opinion on this isn't going to be popular. But it is my truly held opinion that Mastery Rank is meaningless, and at best is just a condensed version of the number of titles you've earned. For you and for the others that this has worked out for, that's great. I'm not judging anyone for liking it. But I think it was unnecessary and it has been completely bent from its original purpose and intent of gauging experience, rather than making it a bragging rights contest of who can complete the most stuff in game. I am glad you like it, but I just don't understand what it is with people and making a number go up for no other reason than to make the number go up. I absolutely do not want to see rewards for increasing it. I would rather enjoy content based on its merits than do it just because my mastery rank will go up.

Of course, this is coming from someone who doesn't understand how people get so infatuated with xbox achievements and PS trophies for doing random arbitrary things in games. I've always liked Nintendo for NOT jumping on this bandwagon with a centralized achievement system that every game has to make up a bunch of stuff for. Like I said: I admit it's a hot take. But I don't understand this stuff.

[nixRidge]

That's really cool, I never knew what Mastery Rank until I read this post. At first, I thought you were talking about Master Levels. Like Alhanelem I'm not an achievement hunter, but actually I think it's really cool that you're using it as a checklist of sorts, or a guide of sorts to help you discover the "forgotten" parts of Vana'diel I might try it myself, just to discover what the game has to offer behind things I would normally not think to interact with.


I've been playing for a while at this point, but there's still new and exciting things around almost every corner..

[Catmato]

I absolutely do not want to see rewards for increasing it.

You're about two months too late.

[Alhanelem]

*shrugs* well I guess even more will start bending over for it.

[Gwydion]

What? Bending over? This is a game. We're being incentivized to play the game that we already pay for...

Personally, I LOVE monstrosity and I can't believe how well developed and fun it is! I would have never tried it without mastery rank ...because the rewards don't tie well to the rest of the game.

This is shame because it was announced to have more stuff, like Monstrosity parties! That would be amazing!

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/gui...y/index.html#4



I'm really looking forward to investment that SE is making to preserve the longevity of FFXI. With modern updates to POL.exe and converting assetts to Maya ...SE will be able to attract developers with modern skills. This is a great time to be an FFXI player!

[Alhanelem]

What? Bending over? This is a game. We're being incentivized to play the game that we already pay for...

I don't need an incentive beyond the normal rewards that come from winning fights/clearing missions/etc.

Like I said, I've never been a big fan of the achievement systems on consoles and while this is far simpler than that, I'm still really not a fan. The best accomplishments are the ones we make for ourselves not the arbitrary conditions someone else makes up.

That item linked above definitely isn't much of an incentive, considering how I've played the game for 20 years and only just reached the threshold where that item gives +5 stats instead of none at all (and it gives minus stats below mastery rank 4 lol). Who knows how many dozens of unique NMs I'll need to go after that are otherwise useless just to make that earring a little bit better? That is definitely not much motivation lol.

I would have never tried it without mastery rank

Why not? I guess it shows that we only do content in MMOs if it has rewards, and not because it's fun. It's half the reason the PvP in this game failed, befcause there was basically no reward for doing so. Other than titles. Which you might need for Mastery Rank. Have fun collecting every Ballista title...

I did monstrosity when it came out and i put a lot of time into it because it was fun and collecting the monsters and mods was fun. it shouldn't have taken a number you want to go up in order to make that happen in my opinion.

Content should stand on its own, it shouldn't take "achievement unlocked" to make people do it. Which, as an aside, I hope you don't have an xbox and care about gamerscore, because FFXI had xbox achievements during the time it was avialable on that platform (there was even one for ranking 1st in a ballista match, you can probably count the number of people who got that on your hands)

If they wanted to do something like this, they could ave at least done the effort and make a complete achievement system rather than just a number stuffed in your profile that we don't even fully know what it takes to increase it.

[Gwydion]

I don't need an incentive beyond the normal rewards that come from winning fights/clearing missions/etc.

Like I said, I've never been a big fan of the achievement systems on consoles and while this is far simpler than that, I'm still really not a fan. The best accomplishments are the ones we make for ourselves not the arbitrary conditions someone else makes up.

That item linked above definitely isn't much of an incentive, considering how I've played the game for 20 years and only just reached the threshold where that item gives +5 stats instead of none at all (and it gives minus stats below mastery rank 4 lol). Who knows how many dozens of unique NMs I'll need to go after that are otherwise useless just to make that earring a little bit better? That is definitely not much motivation lol.
Why not? I guess it shows that we only do content in MMOs if it has rewards, and not because it's fun. It's half the reason the PvP in this game failed, befcause there was basically no reward for doing so. Other than titles. Which you might need for Mastery Rank. Have fun collecting every Ballista title...

There is a valuable datapoint here. You've played this game for 20 years (like many of us) ...but you're only at Mastery Rank 5? So ...for 20 years you've only been interested in the base battle content of FFXI? What do you enjoy most out of FFXI? What do you want to see more of?

I will save my responses for your reply, but I hope that SE will see this and do a few things: Introduce more Mastery Rank gear, expand Monstrosity and create battle content that is engaging for folks who in your category of player, as well. (Personally, I think BLU/BST/DNC should be allowed to buff the party on the same tier as BRD/GEO/COR....but I digress as that is an entirely different conversation).

[Alhanelem]

There is a valuable datapoint here. You've played this game for 20 years (like many of us) ...but you're only at Mastery Rank 5? So ...for 20 years you've only been interested in the base battle content of FFXI?

Dude that's the other thing. This mastery rank frankly minimizes my own accomplishments. I've completed all of the mission lines, I've got at least a majority of quests completed, I've killed god knows how many different NMs including all the HNMs (except maybe Ixion if we count that as an HNM), I've got plenty of other titles (including several of the afformentioned Ballista ones). Yet I've been playing and enjoying this game as much as anyone else. Unfortunately since we don't really fully understand how mastery rank works, I can only guess as to why

I'm not mad that it's not as high as some other long time players- but my point (for this post) is there's a lot to this game that mastery rank doesn't really cover.

As far as things I want to see, well like quite a few people I wish they'd get someone on figuring out the monstrosity system and completing it as it was intended to be, but it's a pipe dream at this point. We only have like a quarter of the monster families and that doesn't even include new ones introduced since. Monstrosity was not a failiure. They had big plans for it but the lead person on the project left SE and then it stalled.

[nixRidge]

This is shame because it was announced to have more stuff, like Monstrosity parties! That would be amazing!

Imagine a 6 Monster vs. 6 Gladiator showdown. The sight would be pretty incredible. I think I'm finally going to try Monstrosity next time I get the time to play