Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[predatory]

delve is definitly endgame, haveing prequesites for sky sea etc was just retarded. ANYTHING you do at max lvl to further your gear is endgame. atm its delve and skirmish mostly because old content got irrelevant, in the november update it might be anything again with hardmode and REM updates.

This just doesn't have the endgame feel to me. I mean back when there was actual endgame content any number of people could attend, (well not any number dynamis was capped at 64 I think) but at most other events you could bring as many people as you felt you wanted to bring. Now you get to bring 18 tops which equals 1 ochain pld, 2 sch, 1 drg, 2 brds, 2 cors, and the rest mnks or wars, and forget the other 16 jobs out there, that's not endgame, that's just a special event for 6 jobs.

[Nivmizet]

Children are always a problem for their parents at Christmas, because kids want the newest toys, the latest Barbie or w/e even though those same kids already have 50 similar toys, its not good enough for them coz now theres a new toy out they MUST have it, for the sole reason that the toy is new and has extra shiny bits on it. Thats kids for you. But adults don't always go for the latest shiny toy.

What!?! Go to an Apple store on release of a new product! Everyone loves new and shiny things not only kids where did you get this information from? Its misleading!


Its not a complex business model, no crazy physics nor math equation (I am a math major I am sure of this) or the misalignment of the stars.

Reason why FFXI is declining:

TIME

It was has always been declining like all MMOs it gradually declines over time just some declines are steeper than most. But Abyssea was/is the problem not SOA. Imagine how SOA would have been if Abyssea never existed. /seacom "67 GEO LFP You Can have this!!!! Please invite me!!! I would have been logged on with that seacom right now.

[Demon6324236]

Reason why FFXI is declining:

TIME

It was has always been declining like all MMOs it gradually declines over time just some declines are steeper than most. But Abyssea was/is the problem not SOA. Imagine how SOA would have been if Abyssea never existed. /seacom "67 GEO LFP You Can have this!!!! Please invite me!!! I would have been logged on with that seacom right now.

So your argument is that time is killing FFXI faster because the game is old, its not the fact that they turned the game upside down in a way that the majority of players seem to hate and a way which seems to be increasing the gap between players, preventing more people from catching up?

No...

Sorry to tell you, SoA and the changes it brought were the strike that did all of the damage this time, that we see right now. Some people liked XP, to them, Abyssea will always be an issue because it effectively killed all later level XP parties. However, just because Abyssea did this, does not mean that Abyssea caused issues in the game, many people hated it, more so than liked it probably, because of the way it was done. Many people do not miss XP parties themselves, rather, the social aspect of it all, something which was seemingly lost on Abyssea, because people do not talk, though really the people to blame for that are the people you are in a party with, who don't talk, when you easily could.

If I was to level GEO years ago, I cant say I think it would get invited often, and I know for a fact RUN wouldn't without being /NIN so it might possibly tank. So yes, you might see '67 GEO LFP' but you would see that all day, without an invite, like many other jobs. One of the larger issues with the old days of leveling was that. Abyssea helped make leveling easy and fast, rather than annoying & slow. Abyssea had issues and flaws, but it was not the main cause of our issues, not even close.

[KingShez]

Thank you! A computer from 1981 are you for real? Floppy disc, pitfall (Atari), and all those other outdated games. Seriously? Do check out the lines outside the apple store. People are more interested in new technology, advanced graphics, and detailed storyline. I'm not saying ffxiv has that, but I'm surely realizing the dwindling numbers in Ffxi are due to people switching to ffxiv.

Let me ask you this.......if you have all the best armor, weapons, and storyline finished what do you then? Sit around at the auction house all day? Fish with your Ebisu fishing rod for sh*** and giggles?

Look, I don't want the game to end, but Square-Enix is driving towards that with ridiculous expansions (Abyssea, SoA) and extreme stats on weapons and armor.

[Demon6324236]

Does age affect the game? Of course, I wont say that the game is unaffected by its age. But that does not mean that all our issues now are caused by it primarily. There have been a lot of new games in the past including FFXIV, and while I know that being what it is, FFXIV is taking some people, I don't think that it alone is causing what we have seen recently. For this to happen so fast, I think it was a combo of the two, but primarily SoA did the damage, FFXIV was just assisting it, because while I know some people who would never quit, they looked at what this is becoming, and saw FFXIV as another FF game which may fill the void, as such, they left.

[FrankReynolds]

So your argument is that time is killing FFXI faster because the game is old, its not the fact that they turned the game upside down in a way that the majority of players seem to hate and a way which seems to be increasing the gap between players, preventing more people from catching up?

No...

Sorry to tell you, SoA and the changes it brought were the strike that did all of the damage this time, that we see right now. Some people liked XP, to them, Abyssea will always be an issue because it effectively killed all later level XP parties. However, just because Abyssea did this, does not mean that Abyssea caused issues in the game, many people hated it, more so than liked it probably, because of the way it was done. Many people do not miss XP parties themselves, rather, the social aspect of it all, something which was seemingly lost on Abyssea, because people do not talk, though really the people to blame for that are the people you are in a party with, who don't talk, when you easily could.

Or to sum it up: AFK people don't talk. Abyssea parties still have about the same level of discussion that 6 man parties had... 6 people participating and chatting.

For what it's worth, I never talked much in 6 man exp parties anyways. They were a boring necessity. I generally joined, did my job well and talked to my girlfriend who was sitting right next to me instead of chatting up the other people (who usually didn't speak English anyways). I didn't really make any friends in FFXI until I joined an end game LS and I didn't really do much leveling with them because we rarely had compatible jobs / levels / schedules to make it work ( I was in several large shells).

This is not to say that I didn't have fun chats and meet a few people in exp parties, but that it was at a negligible level of occurrence.

If I was to level GEO years ago, I cant say I think it would get invited often, and I know for a fact RUN wouldn't without being /NIN so it might possibly tank. So yes, you might see '67 GEO LFP' but you would see that all day, without an invite, like many other jobs. One of the larger issues with the old days of leveling was that. Abyssea helped make leveling easy and fast, rather than annoying & slow. Abyssea had issues and flaws, but it was not the main cause of our issues, not even close.

I wouldn't have leveled it at all.

[RabidInfant]

Hello everyone, first post on these forums by me.

I think the reason(s) why FFXI is declining is purely different for each person.

I can only speak for myself but I have played this game since UK x360 beta release and I still play on the x360 now, in all of that time FFXI has been a drug running through my veins, there have been many many days where switching the x360 on and logging in has been the first thing I have done in the morning and logging off has often been the last thing I have at night, not unlike many of you I suspect.

In all of that time of me playing FFXI I have been a constant player, always subscribed, never inactive and always thrilled to be playing the game and never wanting it to end. But for every light there must be a dark, and here is mine, albeit very selfish and to some maybe even petty...

I finally after many months of work obtained my twashtar 85 around March 2012, I had solo'd and duo'd all of the paths to that point, had many hours of work, many hours of tediousness, many frustrations along the way, I was doing it all on DNC and SMN and had help off a BLU, the amount of mobs we killed with no KI still haunts me, but we carried on when we could, for months.

I wanted the twashtar for my DNC, so on I plugged until I got there, the first time I equipped my level 80 twash I stood in my moghouse looking at myself not wanting to venture into Jueno where others would see I didn't yet have rudra's storm, then finally after soloing all the KI mobs and then Itza some 35ish times I eventually got my 85 twash, and I think for 1 week I just stood in Jueno, proud and content, and at level 85 it sat, quit happily until February 2013 when I got it to level 90... 'that's it' I thought, I was content, I had a dagger that I felt warranted all the effort, I felt good, using the dagger felt good and I actually felt like it was all worth the massive effort I had put into obtaining it.

I looked forward (naively) to SoA release so I could run around and poke mobs with my shiny level 90 twash, I thought to myself I should be able to get into some partys with this dagger, its not the best it can be but it was still very usable (pre SoA)...

So SoA comes, I was not expecting new weapons to absolutely and completely blitz my hard work in the blink of an eye, suddenly my heart sank, I do actually remember the feeling of almost betrayal, like I was laughed at by SE, and everything I had tried to achieve previously was now seemingly all for nothing... I cant tell you how so very very near I was to quiting right there, the game I love so much, I was very very close (and depending on the November update I kind of still am).

Now it is not just all about my hard work on the twashtar, I had slowly been putting together gear for MNK, WAR and a few other jobs, and all of that seemed to get blitzed too, all what felt like over night... I was semi-useful at one point, then I was obsolete, in the blink of an eye...

Part of me will never forgive SE for this, I don't see them the same now, I would not put that much effort into one item again, I know it's only a game but it's a game that does demand many hours of effort for reward, or at least it used to... pre SoA.

So I have a level 90 twashtar, and I still don't know if it's going to be worthless in the November update or not, if it is only level 99 EMR's that get 'updated' then what's the point, 90% (guessing sorry) of all EMR owners do not have them to level99 and probably wont either due to either a lack of funds, or availability of HMP's, there just is not enough on the server to sustain how many people would like to upgrade, even if it was just 20 people looking to go from 90-95 it would still need 30,000 HMP to be in circulation, which is completely insane really, then there's the riftdross...

So for me at least that is why FFXI declined, that's my story... yours may be different but that's how I feel and I still don't know where I will be in 3 weeks time after the next update... I am finding it a little hard to commit fully and whilst it is difficult to put into words how it really feels, I have tried.

Thankyou for reading.

Rabid.

[FrankReynolds]

Your Aby/seacom stuff is also meaningless, because we got LevelSynch which means you can party with friends or anyone at a lower level if you can't get party for your current level. Ffxi would still be a popular game if it had 6-man partying using level-synch to augment available members and available camps. Aby alliances turned people into zombies and then they got bored and quit the game.

Level Synch: I saw two things going on with this. People didn't do it because exp was way slower even when you had a good party and the parties were far less likely to be good at lower levels. Low level camps were usually annoying to get to as well.

The biggest use of level sych that I experienced was people synching to 37ish and partying on colibri in past zones. A lot of time, the level synch person didn't have to do anything at all. It was abyssea on a smaller scale.

Gear didn't scale correctly, so not only was the person who synched down frustrated by his crappy gear, but so was the rest of the party. DOes anyone really want to have to carry gear for every level for each job? Nope.

It had very little effect on the problems people faced finding groups.

[saevel]

The only reason you see FFXI subscriptions declining is the player base has gotten older and now has children, careers and lives. Much of the older FFXI content was based on gigantic time sinks that forced you to commit large amounts of time to get anything accomplished due to group focused play. As the game got older the player-base split into two halves, the people who have actual lives outside the game and can only afford to play a few hours per week (per week not per day), and the people who still devote a few hours per day (averaged) to the game. This split has only gotten wider and people naturally leave over time, with no advertising or other ways to attract new players the game's total population has slowly dwindled.

The only reason you see people quitting during expansion releases is that they had already wanted to quit and were simply holding out hoping ~something~ changed. Of course there was no magical land on the other side of the new expansion rainbow and they get depressed, quit and complain about it.

[vienne]

Level Synch: I saw two things going on with this. People didn't do it because exp was way slower even when you had a good party and the parties were far less likely to be good at lower levels. Low level camps were usually annoying to get to as well.

The biggest use of level sych that I experienced was people synching to 37ish and partying on colibri in past zones. A lot of time, the level synch person didn't have to do anything at all. It was abyssea on a smaller scale.

Gear didn't scale correctly, so not only was the person who synched down frustrated by his crappy gear, but so was the rest of the party. DOes anyone really want to have to carry gear for every level for each job? Nope.

It had very little effect on the problems people faced finding groups.

I found lvl sync to be fantastic and exactly what this game needed to make it more accesible and not lose its character.
I dont recall pt'ing always on birds when they implemented it, sure we did but if those camps were taken people always were up for doing one of the older camps (we still did alot of garlaige in that time and also alot in ToAU areas, yes i know it was on birds too, even the horrible dunes were still regularly used).
In the lvl sync era there were other ways to exp too... campaign battle anyone? I got alot of exp there even afer they nerfed skill ups. There just were more options, then go to altepa and do a doll pt.
When doing birds in a lvl sync pt in the past as a thf, you still had to be aware of the most efficient way to pull birds btw, which is a totally different case in abyssea. The fights, although yes at times equally monotones, were more challenging then alliances in aby.
Being frustrated about crappy gear? Happened to me two days ago when i did skirmish for the first time and everyone else had better gear. Thought that was a part of the game >.> Noone brought gear to pt in cause they had to scale down, never have i heared people complain about that, they just came in w/e they had in their inv.
Finding groups was alot easier then before lvl sync, i'm starting to wonder if you ever joined a lvl sync pt...