Tanaka back in charge?!

[Kimble]

As bad as the drop rates were in Salvage, I don't recall ever hearing anyone bitch about having to do Salvage because it was a fun and enjoyable. Salvage is still hands down one of my personal favorite events.

[Prothscar]

As bad as the drop rates were in Salvage, I don't recall ever hearing anyone bitch about having to do Salvage because it was a fun and enjoyable. Salvage is still hands down one of my personal favorite events.

It was fun and enjoyable the first few times... but after the 11th dozen run of Citadel Chelonian it got kind of stale.

[Insaniac]

As bad as the drop rates were in Salvage, I don't recall ever hearing anyone bitch about having to do Salvage because it was a fun and enjoyable. Salvage is still hands down one of my personal favorite events.

Salvage is the same as voidwatch. Fun and soul crushing at the same time. I did salvage with a relatively high number of friends and we didn't dupe so it took us all upwards of a year to finish our first sets. No one was enjoying themselves after the first 6 months but we were already up to our necks in the event so we kept going. It's a classic (outdated) MMO design strategy that expoilts human nature and practically every event Tanaka ever designed followed the same guidelines. "Well, I've already killed this thing 75 times. I must be due for a drop so I can't stop now!!."

[Atomic_Skull]

It's a classic (outdated) MMO design strategy that expoilts human nature and practically every event Tanaka ever designed followed the same guidelines. "Well, I've already killed this thing 75 times. I must be due for a drop so I can't stop now!!."

Using the skinner box method is highly effective at keeping people playing. Why would they switch to something less effective? If they aren't doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible for their shareholders then they aren't doing their job.

[Hayward]

Using the skinner box method is highly effective at keeping people playing. Why would they switch to something less effective? If they aren't doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible for their shareholders then they aren't doing their job.

No one sane--or at least honest with themselves--is buying that on Allakhazam, nor will it sell here. We're not lab rats, and the developers would do well not to play us as such if they hope to keep the game going.

[Atomic_Skull]

No one sane--or at least honest with themselves--is buying that on Allakhazam, nor will it sell here. We're not lab rats, and the developers would do well not to play us as such if they hope to keep the game going.

I've seen what gets posted on Allakhazam in the BG thread on fail posts from that site. That really isn't saying much. There's a reason why every MMO in existence uses these methods.

[Sparthos]

Using the skinner box method is highly effective at keeping people playing. Why would they switch to something less effective? If they aren't doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible for their shareholders then they aren't doing their job.

I hope you're being facetious.

[Insaniac]

Using the skinner box method is highly effective at keeping people playing. Why would they switch to something less effective? If they aren't doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible for their shareholders then they aren't doing their job.

Yes there always has to be some delay in MMOs between deciding you want something and getting the thing you want. Tanaka takes it to a level that drives more customers away than it keeps playing. He also uses systems with no promise that you will EVER, even if you play for 10 years, get the thing you want if you get unlucky. Like Sparthos said. Point systems work. They can be huge grinds and people will still do them because they can see the progress instead of the mounting level of fail (aka 0/200+ on the drop you want). In VW you can kill a T3/4 100+ times and still be no closer to your goal than you were on kill 1. -1% drop rates on anything need to gtfo. I don't care what MMO you are playing. People need to see a light at the end of a tunnel for serious grinds to actually work anymore.

[saevel]

Using the skinner box method is highly effective at keeping people playing. Why would they switch to something less effective? If they aren't doing everything in their power to make as much money as possible for their shareholders then they aren't doing their job.

Skinner's box's have proved to be highly immoral when applied to human beings. Skinner designed his experiments as a method to train and program animals to do specific behaviors and to experiment with how they reacted. When put into real life practice they only work until the creature being trained (that's you) realized it's being coerced and manipulated, then they tend to rebel / walk away. Using the gamblers fallacy (I must win eventually) is what Tanaka FFXI was all about, it tried to get you addicted the same way people get addicted to gambling.

And while all MMO's use some form of randomized time / reward ratio, most successful ones have a set method of progress, you ~know~ your moving forward. FFXI under Tanaka had you have absolutely forward progress, Salvage and VWNM are prime examples of this. You can keep throwing hours and hours, every moment of free time you have, at these events and get absolutely nothing. The only thing keeping you going is the rush and addiction to the feeling that you ~might~ get something and the cognitive dissonance that takes place to prevent you from walking away.

When Tanaka was "busy" with FFXIV (lets get real, someone else was direction FFXI while he screwed up FFXIV) this game become immensely fun and actually started to gain subscribers back. Abyssea actually rewarded you for time invested, it was a tangable and countable reward not subject to an extremely arbitrary RNG. Tanaka's abyssea would have you require 500 Briarus helms with a 25% drop rate, or 50 helms with a 5% drop rate. Same with Sobek skins, except all three KI's would be from timed spawned NM's with a 10~60 min timer. You can see this with the Magian system, everything has a nice predictable growth rate / requirements until Tanaka took charge again, then it's a sudden wall of "WTF". Ridiculous requirements for very small incremental gain.

Anyhow Tanaka = VERY VERY BAD for any MMO.

[AyinDygra]

The reason most people were/are willing to do certain events that they don't like, is because they want the best possible gear. Any endgame event with incredibly low drop rates only serves its purpose of drawing people to continue doing the event as long as the gear obtained from it is the best.

The success of Salvage was that the Salvage sets were the best for certain jobs (at least certain pieces), so people went through the event, even if they didn't like it or its horrible drop rates, and the expense of creating the gear. The fact that the gear is no longer the best shows directly in the unpopularity of the event outside of mythic upgraders or those looking to make money off said upgraders. (For completion's sake, I still have several pieces of gear I'd like to finish, but nobody I know wants to do it at all, even to take out a force-popped NM to complete a piece.)

The success of Abyssea gear wasn't just how "easy" (I use the term loosely) it was to obtain gear, it was combined with the fact that people knew it wasn't the "ultimate" gear. The effort required and time spent was proportional to the expected performance of the gear and future prospects of its usefulness.

The problem with the current "new endgame" events, is that we still have another level cap increase on the horizon, and a whole new selection of "the best gear" close at hand. Who in their right mind would put themselves through events like that for a year or more with those drop rates for something that will only be the best for a limited time (for any significant period of time... longer than the time it took to obtain it) which they know they'll have to replace -- perhaps within a year!.

Most of the current rewards have extremely low drop rates and yet, they provide only small increases in performance, and we all expect better gear to be revealed at/after level 99. These "intermediate" endgame events need better drop rates for gear that is certainly not going to be the best.

Real "final" endgame events with real "ultimate" gear can have fairly low drop rates without overly angering most players, since this is what we've been conditioned to expect from FFXI's "random" drops.

However, for players who play the game for fun, not for work, an even better system for endgame should invoke feelings of accomplishment rather than the thrill of the lottery, knowing that by our effort and time spent, we're making progress little by little. This is why in-game point systems (and even the Magian Trials) are better than random drop systems for rewards, in my opinion - and while it may not keep a person with only one job leveled busy as long as they'd like, many players have multiple jobs, increasing the points they need to gear up each individual job.

Anyway, that's my analysis of the game's design moving forward, and hopefully the intended audience understands the reasoning presented.