The nerf scattergun approach?

[Frost]

Oh yeah. That claim sounds so much more convincing than it did in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Every year, all the time, disgruntled players saying "the game is dying, isn't it obvious????"

And yet you can't see the forest because of all those damn trees in the way...

Players: "Kings are Bad, only a select group of people get to participate and they are heavily botted."
SE: "Nothing is wrong with kings. Kings are great here have Wyrms on even longer spawn timers."

People leave because of bad decisions.

Players: "Absolute Virtue is unreasonable, Is it even killable?"
SE: "Yes, you need to figure it out."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Players: "Killed it!"
SE: "That was an exploit that's not how you kill it."
Player: "Can't seem to kill it... You SURE it's killable?"
SE "Yes, here's a Video." (trollface.jpg)
Players: "Fine Whatever.."

Players complain that SE making these kinds of decisions like "unkillable monsters" is bad and leave.

Players: "Pandemonium Warden is unreasonable, Is it even killable?"
SE: "Yes, you need to figure it out."
Players: "It's been 18 hours of fighting. You SURE this thing is killable???"
SE: "Yes that's the expected result of this fight."
Media: "SE expects people to fight monsters for 18 hours+"
SE: "Yes that was what we tried to do, but we realise that was wrong. We're fixing PW and AV."
Players: "Back up.... AV too??? Does that mean you expected us to Fight AV for HOURS????"

Players quit because SE's decisions are unreasonable...

So yes. It IS the same song man. You're absolutely correct.

The thing that makes THIS different?

They asked US for once, what they should do.

We're answering.

And for a while it wasn't "Workign as intended" or "PS2 Limitations"; it was "Here's a forum, please tell us", and "Here's a Test Server" please try this out.

And we're answering.

And they made progress. ACTUAL progress.

There was a time where we were happy.

Now they've all but shut their doors and gone back to their old tricks.

That's what's different.

[Xantavia]

And yet you can't see the forest because of all those damn trees in the way...

Players: "Kings are Bad, only a select group of people get to participate and they are heavily botted."
SE: "Nothing is wrong with kings. Kings are great here have Wyrms on even longer spawn timers."

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

[Arcon]

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

My apologies if it came out that way, I'm pretty sure I know what I want and I think I know what most players want. What I meant to say is that while SE tries to react to players' wishes they do so in the most ridiculous ways possible. It's the classic 180 degree turn. SE made gear too easy to obtain, so the players complained about a lack of content. Then they made it way hard to obtain and now players complain about a lack of motivation to do it. That's not the players' fault, that's SE not being able to find a middle ground for balanced content. Which is ironic, considering how afraid they are to upset varying kinds of balances. FFXI still has great potential, even now. The perfect form of FFXI does exist. It wasn't pre-Abyssea and it sure as all fuck on this planet combined wasn't Abyssea itself, but there is an awesome game that SE keep missing with their updates. That's the game the people are trying to suggest (well, most people) and the game I'm still hoping it will eventually become.

All SE needs to do is to loosen up and stop being so afraid of upsetting what they consider balance when the truth is, static balance is hardly anywhere to be found in this game, but static balance is overrated anyway. If we wanted static balance all jobs would be equal, and what kind of game would that be anyway. Chaotic balance that allows for high variations but that eventually settles on some kind of middle ground, which leaves the option to employ all kinds of different and effective strategies but which can also bite you in the ass for mistakes in its execution. That's where FFXI should be headed in my opinion.

[Frost]

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

I was speaking in terms of the "pre pop" era. Sorry thought that was clearer.

As for the rest. I think there are certain things that the playerbase can all agree with. Moreso I think there's a lot of things that we can mutually all disagree with. Not sure if you can really say we don't know what we want, when there's a general theme we can at least agree upon. One that SE is kind of ignoring recently that we're all disagreeing with. You know?

We want to see a better reward to effort ratio. More importantly, we want to be rewarded for the effort at all. We want to see rewards based completely on luck removed. Not remove luck completely, but most gear should be earned, not gifted to you by a random number generator.

We want to see progression. Point systems, Gil, Collectible Upgrade items (at reasonable amounts). To walk away from something maybe not with an item, but progression towards an item.

We want more involved content, Tiered Access: meaningful barriers that separate people based more on the basis of dedication and mastery than based on finances and influence.

We want to see more 'upgrades' than 'sidegrades'.

We want "Balance" to mean enhancing weak or faulty game dynamics, not nerfing fun or powerful game dynamics.

We mostly want the simplest thing of all: We want to have fun, PLAY the game... Not WORK in it...

[Kimble]

I don't think anyone wants HNM to go back to time spawned. People are generally happy with the pop system, just unhappy with the absurd drop rate on the HQ pop item. Esp since higher tier of TH doesn't affect it.

[Ravenmore]

They are not new events they are reskined events with the same systems they have used before. Yes short a proper full blow expansion I will not be happy with this pile of crap as many other people. FF11 has the least amount of content out of all the MMOs that are close to the same age that are still going. Even EQ/EQ2 have gotten revamps to the core of the game and brand new expanions far into their lives.

No they need to get ride of that ass backwards concept of keeping us busy with crappy drop rates and blant grinds. They would have no problem funding brand new content and events every 6 months to a year had they not dump pile after pile money into FF14. A game they have admitted if it wasn't a "Final Fantasy" title they would had shut it down.

Content should only be expected to last 6 months to a year. WoW is catching heat for this reason as well to long between fresh content and it is gimmic content to boot. Any MMO that doesn't keep the content fresh will suffer when players go off to try other MMOs looking for that "New feeling" due to the addictive nature of MMOs. You have to keep the players addict to your game and if are not sutble about it and put in systems that are seen as massive time sinks from the get go it cause's people to not even bother chasing the carrot to start.

[Arcon]

Esp since higher tier of TH doesn't affect it.

That's a TH issue, though. It does affect it, just the effects are hardly noticeable.

[Kimble]

That's a TH issue, though. It does affect it, just the effects are hardly noticeable.

I didn't mean that it specifically doesn't affect that drop rate, but you seem to understand what I meant by that comment anyways.

My point remains the same.

[Arek]

We mostly want the simplest thing of all: We want to have fun, PLAY the game... Not WORK in it...

That's the main thing for me. Work and Game shouldn't belong together. Well, at least not so much.

[Damane]

In response to this, didn't the playerbase want to have force spawns and more drops? We get the king adjustments and all of a sudden its "This pop system is stupid. Camping and fighting for claim was so much better" (I can understand the disappointment of BB items no longer being 100% from HQ though)

VW gave individual rewards so there was no more player made point systems, everybody gets a shot at the new gear. Suddenly, there is an outcry that loot can't be pooled and given to X person or sold to some poor player standing there.

Like Arcon stated, the playerbase doesn't seem to know what they want either. "Change this", SE makes a change that has similarity to what was suggested, base shouts "That's not how we wanted it. Old way was better". It seems there is no winning.

The Playersbase knows exactly what they want. They wanted forced pop Kings. SE delivered, but in the wrong way. If the HQ pop item would drop at a 50% rate from the NQ noone would complain about it, but as it stands its a 10% drop rate at best. SE delivered, but delivered wrong AGAIN.

VW isnt only fail because of the Lootpool problem. VW is fail because some fights depend entirely on Temp items (Botulus rex, Ig-Alima?), then there is the low droprate. The Lootpool/drop system would be ok, if it werent for abyssmal droprates. SE wants to fix this, but my guess it they wont fix shit, because they tend to do something wrong all the time.

You see the problem is, the mentaility of the most people has changed. people want changes, but SE changes things with their "old" mentality of grinding... Grinding is so over atm thats whats wrong.

Pre Tanaka comeing back form FFXIV and while abyssea was comeing out, SEs mentality was alos "less grind more fun2. Why the hell did they suddenly change their mind after Tanakas super XIV fail from "less grind more fun" to "more grind, less fun"?