Newest interview (abyssea was a mistake?)

[Mirabelle]

Well as a casual player, I've got a couple comments:
1) Abyssea was the greatest boon for casuals. I'm still not anywhere done with Abyssea and its been out a couple years now. I always feel I'm progressing in my goals, not stuck in a grind. It was fun and challenging to collect wins, atma, abyssites. It's now fun to low man things that took an alliance earlier on.
2) I really don't think SE ever intended for best gear to go to the common folk. But sadly they seemed to have meant it to go to those with uncommonly good luck and or perserverance, rather than those with skill. This has always been a problem with the game. You never had to be particularly skillful to get the best gear. Just be on all the time, befriend some skilled players, get lucky with some drops.

The only problem I saw with Abyssea was how it closed out certain jobs. VW seems to help that. But in the end VW seems shallow. No new areas, no quests, rare drops even with good lights.

In the end I think the devs see Abyssea as a mistake because it will be impossible to do something better (or they're too lazy to come up with something better). I have no probelm going back to being a weak ass character in a difficult and challenging land. But at least make it fun and accessible to the casual at the same time.

[Hayward]

The comments in that interview have to be the most absurd I've read in some time and the posts defending them even more so. I cannot agree in any way that Abyssea was bad for FFXI. If nothing else, it saved the franchise from falling into irrelevance. The argument that it raised our expectations too high is rather unbelievable on its face--to be honest, it represents what MMOs can and should be (i.e. challenging yet rewarding in proportion to effort). Their contention that Abyssea de-emphasized the concept of teamwork doesn't even merit a response. Let's not even get into the gear being too accessible argument, which basically boils down to a lot of crushed egos looking to reclaim their artificially-constructed elite status.

If the old construct of FFXI never came back, it would be too soon as far as I'm concerned. I can accept a transition out of Abyssea, but there's a right and wrong way to do it. The developers, so far, are choosing the wrong way by pandering to a loud and exclusionary minority of players who are far too into themselves to realize they are killing the game.

[Insaniac]

An internal producer is heavily involved in the development of, usually, a single game. Responsibilities for this position vary from company to company, but in general, the person in this position has the following duties:

Negotiating contracts, including licensing deals
Acting as a liaison between the development staff and the upper stakeholders (publisher or executive staff)
Developing and maintaining schedules and budgets
Overseeing creative (art and design) and technical development (game programming) of the game
Ensuring timely delivery of deliverables (such as Milestones)
Scheduling timely quality assurance (testing)
Arranging for beta testing and focus groups, if applicable
Arranging for localization

Thats what a producer does. Go be a dumb ass somewhere else.

You managed to google and copy/paste evidence against your argument. GG

[ShadowHeart]

all they had to do with abyssea was make it level 70-75+ to enter...

[Daniel_Hatcher]

all they had to do with abyssea was make it level 70-75+ to enter...

Even if they did that it would only remove the leveling aspect, fast leveling isn't the problem. In leveling from 30-99 you learn close to nothing about the job that'd be used in endgame in Abyssea, and before it.

ATMA and Brew was Abyssea's problem, for an MMO it made the game that wasn't ridiculously hard to begin with much easier to the point there was no challenge. It made things only really require 3 people Tank, Healer and BLM.

Abyssea could have been brilliant, not that I dislike it, had the ATMA of been a lot less powerful and Brews didn't exist. It allowed Abyssea to be rushed through when they had no real plan for the future.

[Ketaru]

ATMA and Brew was Abyssea's problem, for an MMO it made the game that wasn't ridiculously hard to begin with much easier to the point there was no challenge. It made things only really require 3 people Tank, Healer and BLM

My sentiments exactly. I thought Abyssea was brilliant when it was first released. Atma was very limited. Brew was just this mystical thing that was sold by the NPC and most people didn't actually know what it did. It was still a legitimate group event that had low barriers of entry and was very welcoming to most people, regardless of playing style or job.

Then it just went over the top...

[Ryce]

Yeah... I don't know how anyone can think Abyssea was bad for XI. It lowered difficulty expectations? It emboldened n00bs?

The way I see it, casual players were finally allowed to collect items that (currently) feel like the cream of the crop. We could become superman for a brief stint with a brew and demolish a too-tough opponent. We could rake in enough exp to actually consider playing those 3rd and 4th choice jobs that we never had the time to level.

All of this was great. Less stressful, less schedule-dependant, less time consuming over all. As a result, more people had more fun with the game. Sure there are a lot of grumpy relic-holders and disgruntled HNM linkshells that are just now realizing how much time they've wasted over the last 5 years, but the game doesn't need to cater to them all the time.

The good news for players wanting more of a grind and more of an artificial challenge (organizing an effective linkshell and spending the most hours online) is that we are not talking about end game with Abyssea. More than likely, new challenges will be released along with the 99 cap that will keep you busy for years to come. Abyssea will be to 99 what Campaign was to 75... casual play with decent rewards, but not end game.

When that new content, and it's hard-to-obtain rewards become the new 1337 status symbols, all of us softies will be left to meddle with our AF3 and low-man activities while the "hardcore" player base begins establishing themselves once again.

[Insaniac]

I don't think ease really has anything to do with abyssea being unsustainable in the devs eyes. It's just that you could build your party and go get what you wanted with near certainty. They could have turned the dial down on drop rates ever so slightly and extended the life of abyssea by months if not years. Really what happened is the pendulum got pulled too far in one direction and now (hopefully) it's at the height of a swing back in the other direction but I have no faith in this team to let it swing back. Maybe if we are lucky we end up with content that's only as soul crushing as salvage.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I don't think ease really has anything to do with abyssea being unsustainable in the devs eyes. It's just that you could build your party and go get what you wanted with near certainty. They could have turned the dial down on drop rates ever so slightly and extended the life of abyssea by months if not years. Really what happened is the pendulum got pulled too far in one direction and now (hopefully) it's at the height of a swing back in the other direction but I have no faith in this team to let it swing back. Maybe if we are lucky we end up with content that's only as soul crushing as salvage.

In a way it did. Even dropping the drop rates somewhat, you could still spam the NM's with 3 people, and even end up with that item in 1~2 days at the most. (make note I said spam) there was no difficulty to any of the NM's and what little difficulty they had SE kept adding stuff to completely anull it. This is bad design when Abyssea was the only real endgame they had at that time. Even now they're struggling, with Voidwatch being somewhat what Abyssea should have been (bar rewards) and the rejuvenation of old content such as Salvage and Nyzul Isle.

[Greatguardian]

Edit: Due to the fast movement of this thread, this would appear out of context. If you don't think it applies to you, it probably doesn't.

I T BLOODY T:

THE REASON ABYSSEA IS BAD IS BECAUSE OF E X BLOODY P.

Christ on a bloody pogo stick doing the macarena, who gives a flying snickerdoodle about EXP?

Changing the level entry wouldn't have done jack bloody shit aside from make players level up slower, which has absolutely nothing to do with why Abyssea may be considered a poor overall choice by the Devs.

The issues with Abyssea, which are quite legitimate, are in the Midgame content - not EXP. Primeval Brews dropping to 200k was a horrible design decision. Atmas, Abyssites, and NMs were poorly balanced between low-tier and high-tier players. Content was repetitive rather than immersive, and hardcore groups capped out on everything within months.

The Devs wanted to open Abyssea up to everybody. That means they designed even the hardest NMs in Abyssea (aside from Shinryu) to be defeatable by a group of 6-18 players of halfway-sensible job assignment wearing full teal/perle/aurore. What this meant is anyone who had half decent gear and atmas could pulverize the entirety of Abyssea content solo or duo.

The Devs wanted to include even more options for solo players to kill strong NMs, so they made Brews readily available. This meant everyone had a slew of brews to fling at whatever the hell they felt like smashing that day.

Abyssea was poorly balanced overall because it attempted to appeal to too wide of an audience at the same time. Any content that is friendly and doable for the absolute minimum requirements in numbers, skill, and gear, is going to be demolished by players with any or all of the above at their disposal.

You can not make singular content for FFXI that will be balanced for both Low-tier and High-tier players. It will never, ever happen. The gap is too wide. A party of 6 high-tier players are going to be at least 10 times more battle effective than a party of 6 low-tier players.

What they should have done?

Keep Abyssea how it is. Remove Af3+2 from it. Allow players to upgrade to AF3+1 and "WoE" weapons there. Add harder content. Put NMs for Empyreans and AF3+2 in the harder content. Voila. Problem solved.

Or if you want to be really finicky, keep Abyssea how it is including Emps/AF3+2. Just include harder content that drops a ton more stuff. Fight Abyssea-Dragua for 1-2 scales, or OURYU THE WORLD EATER THREE POINT OOOHHHH for 10-15 scales.

Either would have been fine.

Abyssea's biggest fault is the fact that it tried to be everything. Nothing in FFXI can ever be everything, ever.

PS: Seriously. No one gives a shit about EXP. The level cap in Abyssea is not important. Skill ups are easily done overnight in Castle Zvahl [S] for combat skills or Lumoria for magic skills. Get over it.