The nerf scattergun approach?

[Luvbunny]

Wow... amazing, the more I read about the nerf, the more obvious that the developer has no clue at all on creating a fun, enjoyable game and a successful one - this coming from the same group who created the disastrous FF14, it's understandable. That's too bad, this group will never be able to replicate the success that is abyssea - their solutions seems to nerf everything and call it balance.... Might as well wait till the craptacular FF14 Vers 2.0 is relaunched, maybe then the other group can come back and take over FFXI. A much needed one year break from the game - enjoy the money saved and use it to play other quality games!!

[Karbuncle]

I don't think the problem is the number of changes that make jobs or abilities worse so much as the lack of thought put into some of them.

"Beastmaster pets and Thieves are pretty much the same in terms of Treasure Hunter. This is a problem. Let us do absolutely anything other than make high levels of Treasure Hunter and the time required to accrue them worthwhile!"

"Save TP is too strong in Voidwatch. This is a problem. Let us make Miser's Roll worthless outside of Voidwatch!"

I agree with their assessment of the problems, but I feel like they went out of their way to achieve the worst possible solutions.

Pretty much this.

As i said in a previous thread, They could have simply given THF A buff dependent on the Level of Treasure Hunter. Make it an Enemy Debuff and you've given THF another use.

As i suggested in that thread, They could have given THF a JA that Debuffs the enemy in some way (Maybe lowered Defense, Attack, Accuracy, Evasion, Magic Evasion, magic Defense... etc) Based on the Current level of Treasure hunter. Like....

Debuff JA:
Recast: 5 min
Dur: 3min
*Lowers Enemies Defense and Magic Defense Based on the current level of TH.
**Amount lowered is a % Based off Current Level of TH x2. (I.E TH6 would grant -12% DEF/MDEF)

Theres so many things they could do to actually give TH a use in Voidwatch outside of piddly ass light bonuses that are ultimately insignificant. Theres so many possibilities like the above that could be small progressive buffs to THF and TH instead of a blanket nerf.

[Arcon]

haha... People forget that in the beginning Tanaka ran the show. They kicked him out and put him on 14(hence why it sucked so hard). and put a team on 11 whose goal was to improve the game(which they did; many people came back and new players subscribed). Due to that team's success, they moved them to 14 and brought back Tanaka to 11(thinking he couldn't possibly screw it up THAT badly. they were wrong) and moved that successful team to 14. since then, 11 has been dying, again, and 14 has been improving in great strides.

So many lies in one tiny post. Tanaka has always been in charge, he was never kicked out, he never left at all. Yet so many people believe that so firmly, so I ask you..

Coincidence?

No, conspiracy nuts. They see whatever they want to see.

Also, Abyssea didn't get old players back for its content but just because it was something new. People simply wanted to experience the level cap raise. Many people quit during Abyssea too (most of the returning people as well). Abyssea had more criticism when the forums were released than VW has now, in case you hibernated through that period and missed it.

I agree with their assessment of the problems, but I feel like they went out of their way to achieve the worst possible solutions.

This is so very true. They get what the problem is only their idea of fixing it is so off-course that it borders on ridiculous. Fixing Save TP in Voidwatch was very easy as well, just make it cap at 30. That way a buffing COR is still beneficial but not overpowered, and retains its full functionality outside of Voidwatch. However it seems that they went out of their way to find a more convoluted solution that has more negative effects that carry over outside of the event. And pet TH would not be a problem if TH itself actually had a noticeable effect over level 2. I have no idea why they're so scared of these things.

[Ahrana]

It doesn't matter how much you defend SE's honor Arcon, they still won't sleep with you.

SE will always screw up balance with 20 jobs running around, but I think most people have gotten bored because they haven't had a real expansion since ToAU. WotG could have been a real expansion, but they stretched it out over such a long period of time that it became 14 mini-expansions. Making new battle systems and revamping 6 year old content isn't a replacement for a real expansion.

[Arcon]

It doesn't matter how much you defend SE's honor Arcon, they still won't sleep with you.

Point out to me where I defended their honor. At first I was gonna call you semi-illiterate, because you ignored the second half of my post which blamed SE for not being able to handle the most simple problems with any shred of common sense, but then it occurred to me that even in the first part of my post all I did was blame SE for failing even during the Abyssea era, which some idiots call the most successful period of the FFXI lifespan, so I believe I'm well within my rights to upgrade my insult to fully illiterate. Congratulations.

[Nala]

Theres so many things they could do to actually give TH a use in Voidwatch outside of piddly ass light bonuses that are ultimately insignificant. Theres so many possibilities like the above that could be small progressive buffs to THF and TH instead of a blanket nerf.

Just reminding ya jic, but they are planing on auto capping blue and red for VW now, which unless they modify how TH works will completely invalidate TH. Among the problems THF has TH is just one of many in terms of abilities that dont do anything any more.

Thing that gets me is they talk about recast limitations all the while there are plenty of jobs who have abilities that do nothing.

[Sparthos]

So many lies in one tiny post. Tanaka has always been in charge, he was never kicked out, he never left at all. Yet so many people believe that so firmly, so I ask you..

Coincidence?

No, conspiracy nuts. They see whatever they want to see.

Also, Abyssea didn't get old players back for its content but just because it was something new. People simply wanted to experience the level cap raise. Many people quit during Abyssea too (most of the returning people as well). Abyssea had more criticism when the forums were released than VW has now, in case you hibernated through that period and missed it.



This is so very true. They get what the problem is only their idea of fixing it is so off-course that it borders on ridiculous. Fixing Save TP in Voidwatch was very easy as well, just make it cap at 30. That way a buffing COR is still beneficial but not overpowered, and retains its full functionality outside of Voidwatch. However it seems that they went out of their way to find a more convoluted solution that has more negative effects that carry over outside of the event. And pet TH would not be a problem if TH itself actually had a noticeable effect over level 2. I have no idea why they're so scared of these things.

Always missing the big picture.

We can debate the pros and cons of Abyssea all day but the fact is that during that period of FFXI's development, the actions of the dev team were markedly different than the responses we currently receive. Jobs that were previously rotting meat (like BST) received significant improvements, issues that players had asked for years to be resolved were resolved quickly and the game shifted away from grinding to a more relaxed playstyle centered more on small, significant improvements than long term aspirations.

For once, the 'weekend warrior' could accomplish something all while the hardcores could cap out on gear, complete multiple Empyreans and still maintain superiority over their less inclined to play brethren. All SE had to do was tweak the Abyssean model away from all the buffs but kept the reward structure and we'd be in a better place than todays Voidwatch lottery. Conjecture on my behalf.

To the trained eye, it almost appeared that SE had changed course from years of stubborn foolishness and were finally willing to create a more relaxed game for an aging playerbase but how wrong we were to infer such beliefs. You claim people are "conspiracy nuts" if they infer Tanaka had left XI but the fact is that something did change and the effects were significantly different than what we have today.

It may not have been Tanaka's call but he's become the scapegoat for everything wrong because of his stubborn "you'll eat those damn beans" fatherly attitude that he's displayed for years. His spectacular fail on XIV is just another indication of his attitude.

As soon as Abyssea concluded we've been treated to classic Tanaka-style behavior in constant nerfs under a banner of balance, a reversion to pre-Abyssean standards, convoluted solutions to simple problems (like VW) and slow responses to issues. All we need are HNMs back on the scene and this game will be back on it's path to 75.

[Arcon]

Always missing the big picture.

The big picture wasn't part of this thread. I didn't feel like elaborating on the encompassing issue of why exactly his opinions and beliefs are misguided when all I wanted to do is point out that he's a liar and a conspiracy nut.

You claim people are "conspiracy nuts" if they infer Tanaka had left XI but the fact is that something did change and the effects were significantly different than what we have today.

So are you agreeing with me or not? I really can't tell. I didn't dispute that something changed (although where you interpret it as a change of heart of the developer team, I interpret it as a lapse in their judgment, which they agreed upon in that infamously disputed interview), I merely called the idiots who don't do their research but instead just spout unsupportable bullshit conspiracy nuts. When content has changed and you find arguments to support that observation, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. I know what you just said is your opinion, and I know it all too well (although you sometimes seem to believe it's more than that, but that's besides the issue). But that's not what happened here. Content has changed and instead of finding arguments and sources for their theories they just talk out of their asses and spread lies that other people believe.

You can say about Tanaka what you want, if you say you disagree with some of his design choices (assuming they're his choices, which is debatable as well, because he may be responsible, but he's not always the cause), that's perfectly fine with me. But if you spread lies, that's what I have a problem with. He was talking bullshit and I called him out on it. Simple as that. You didn't, that's why I'll leave you alone (aside from defending my position). Same as the Abyssea argument, you say you like Abyssea, you like the proc system, you like the casual friendly content, good for you. I have no problem whatsoever with any of that. However, if you say it was good for the game or it increased the subscriptions or some garbage like that I'd like to hear an explanation or to see your sources because it goes completely against what I've experienced.

[Mirabelle]

However, if you say it was good for the game or it increased the subscriptions or some garbage like that I'd like to hear an explanation or to see your sources because it goes completely against what I've experienced.

Well of course it didn't increase subscriptions. Its an aging game that is whittling down by attrition as all MMORPG's do. Nothing can stop that. It's about retaining a profitable player base.
Anyway, whether abyssea was good for the game or not is very debatable. I can say it was fun. It was cool to track down atmas. Learn the proc system, kill a wide variety of NM's, steadily empower your player to a very high level inside the system. Sure it got tiresome eventually, but it certainly was more fun than many other content additions in the last 5 years.

This game is going back to being less fun again. We will see if its "good for the game", but I doubt it will appeal to all but the elitists who need to feel some degree of superiority over most others.

[Insaniac]

I think people mistake the aftermath of abyssea for abyssea itself. From my experience abyssea and the level cap increase brought a lot of old players back to the game and people started quitting AFTER heroes came out. I think it was a combination of 9 months of instant gratification and SE not having anything ready to go after abyssea cause they assumed 11 would be a ghost town. Which is why we got low production value time sink voidwatch thrown together to keep us busy while they used all our dev money to rebuild 14. That's when all those people who came back started quitting as far as I could tell.

I've said this before but all you need for proof that abyssea was both a financial and critical success is the fact that Yoshi is the man they went to when 14 needed saving. They wouldn't put someone who had just directed a flop in charge of saving an already sinking ship.