3 fixes that stop 90% of the whining and make for a better game

[Gallus]

1) Removal of dependency of TH: Having TH is nice, but it should be a bonus, not a requirement for anything. When drops are so crappy it's almost manatory to have TH, you're introducing an element that ends up hurting the overall enjoyment. Drop rate of all items should be raised to "TH2" drop rate and TH in general should be a +1% increased chance of drop per additional level. This make for an across-the-board increase for everyone, not punish TH jobs, and pretty much make everything slightly more available to everyone.

2) Removal of obnoxious repop timers: When it only takes 2 people to overcrowd a popular camping area, there's a problem. Especially when it's an area with a time limit that has a very desirable drop. EVERY standard monster in the game should have an initial 1 minute repop timer. After the monster is killed the 2nd time, it's reduced to 45 seconds, then 30, then 15, then 5. This repop time would maintain until the monster is left alone for 10 minutes, at which time it resets to the default 1 minute. This would allow for individuals and groups to sustain with one or two monsters for the entirety of their camping time, instantly allowing every camp in the game to handle 5x as many people/groups.

3) Dev team realization that this is a game. Games are meant to entertain. You aren't damaging FFXI by making jobs more powerful. There is so much content already that even if things took 1/5 the time that they currently do, this game could keep a player busy for years. Rather than bothering with toning down jobs, simply read over system parses and slowly increase the damage and capability of the jobs that consistently fall behind. Obviously no one needs to be overly powerful to the point where you steamroll everything, but that isn't really the case at the moment even for the most powerful of jobs.
You have the right idea with adding new content to old zones, but consider making some of the most desirable items attainable from multiple sources (with appropriate drop %s) to allow players to experience a variety of content to achieve their goals.
We aren't in Vanadiel to work. We're there to have fun.

[Malamasala]

I think 1) is pointless. They should just add many more useful point systems. I love the CP, AN, etc systems... except none of them sell anything for SMN, which is the job I play... a terrible oversight, or well planned trolling.

[Hayward]

I would add a fourth:

4) If an item is too good for everyone to get if they want it, it shouldn't exist. This isn't Kung Fu and none of us is David Carradine. No item should require the equivalent of climbing Mt. Fuji or wrestling 10 tigers in succession. For years the requirements for Relic weapons have been obstinately defended with reasoning that wouldn't fly with anyone with some critical thinking skill. After this, S-E practically lied to players when Mythic Weapons were introduced, claiming that casual players could work on them. I'll just let the number of Mythics completed overall speak for itself. Empyreans were an encouraging indication that this was changing until the devs started pandering to the endgamers with item requirements that few people could fulfill unless they had the necessary connections or extra accounts. The most recent requirements pretty much removed all doubt that these developers think of themselves as the heads of some hard-knocks karate dojo and they're hell-bent on breaking the spirits of all who seek to improve their characters.

[Izzybella]

1) Removal of dependency of TH: Having TH is nice, but it should be a bonus, not a requirement for anything. When drops are so crappy it's almost manatory to have TH, you're introducing an element that ends up hurting the overall enjoyment. Drop rate of all items should be raised to "TH2" drop rate and TH in general should be a +1% increased chance of drop per additional level. This make for an across-the-board increase for everyone, not punish TH jobs, and pretty much make everything slightly more available to everyone.

2) Removal of obnoxious repop timers: When it only takes 2 people to overcrowd a popular camping area, there's a problem. Especially when it's an area with a time limit that has a very desirable drop. EVERY standard monster in the game should have an initial 1 minute repop timer. After the monster is killed the 2nd time, it's reduced to 45 seconds, then 30, then 15, then 5. This repop time would maintain until the monster is left alone for 10 minutes, at which time it resets to the default 1 minute. This would allow for individuals and groups to sustain with one or two monsters for the entirety of their camping time, instantly allowing every camp in the game to handle 5x as many people/groups.

3) Dev team realization that this is a game. Games are meant to entertain. You aren't damaging FFXI by making jobs more powerful. There is so much content already that even if things took 1/5 the time that they currently do, this game could keep a player busy for years. Rather than bothering with toning down jobs, simply read over system parses and slowly increase the damage and capability of the jobs that consistently fall behind. Obviously no one needs to be overly powerful to the point where you steamroll everything, but that isn't really the case at the moment even for the most powerful of jobs.
You have the right idea with adding new content to old zones, but consider making some of the most desirable items attainable from multiple sources (with appropriate drop %s) to allow players to experience a variety of content to achieve their goals.
We aren't in Vanadiel to work. We're there to have fun.

At first you gave us story lines and new areas. Now it just seems the developers got lazy. Re-hashed zones. Grinding XP now grinding gear. Proc this. Proc that. Temp items. BALANCE.

I had hope for Walk of Echoes. We see how THAT went. Then Voidwatch. Proc/temps/zerg.

Legion is next ya? *sighs* Do we dare hope for fun and enjoyable content? Or more of the same...

[Teraniku]

Actually if TH worked like this it would be hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread:

TH1: increases drop rate of regular items by 10%
TH2: adds another 10-15 % chance of regular items
TH3 increases the chance of Rare / EX items by 10%
TH4 increases the chance of Rare/Ex items dropping by another 15 - 25%
TH5-6 increases the 35% Rare / Ex bonus by X % based on how much damage it does on the mob, up to 15 %
So @ cap you'd get a 50% chance of getting a Rare / Ex item on a drop

But here's the thing if SE implemented this they'd make drops so rare nobody would get anything unless a THF was in the party, So nevermind.

[Camiie]

But here's the thing if SE implemented this they'd make drops so rare nobody would get anything unless a THF was in the party, So nevermind.

Or logs and ores would be given the rare tag even though they're literally more common than dirt.

[Kitkat]

1) Removal of dependency of TH: Having TH is nice, but it should be a bonus, not a requirement for anything. When drops are so crappy it's almost manatory to have TH, you're introducing an element that ends up hurting the overall enjoyment. Drop rate of all items should be raised to "TH2" drop rate and TH in general should be a +1% increased chance of drop per additional level. This make for an across-the-board increase for everyone, not punish TH jobs, and pretty much make everything slightly more available to everyone.

Not sure how this would fix/amend any complaints considering SE has gone to great lengths to make TH virtually needless. Unless some new mechanic was found recently, I don't recall TH affecting anything that shows up in chests. This negates any reasoning on current systems which give each play an individual loot pool in the form of a chest they open after the mob is dead (IE WoE, VWNM, KSNM, KCNM, HKCNM). This leaves only older content that has items drop directly into a shared loot pool affected (Dynamis, Old HNM, Old NM, Abyssea, etc). If anything the biggest positive change SE could do to any loot system is remove all the damn logs/ores/gems that drop like candy clogging up individual loot pools.

2) Removal of obnoxious repop timers: When it only takes 2 people to overcrowd a popular camping area, there's a problem. Especially when it's an area with a time limit that has a very desirable drop. EVERY standard monster in the game should have an initial 1 minute repop timer. After the monster is killed the 2nd time, it's reduced to 45 seconds, then 30, then 15, then 5. This repop time would maintain until the monster is left alone for 10 minutes, at which time it resets to the default 1 minute. This would allow for individuals and groups to sustain with one or two monsters for the entirety of their camping time, instantly allowing every camp in the game to handle 5x as many people/groups.

They did this in the past for repop timers, just not to the extreme you are suggesting. The biggest problem with this is that it can have potential economical side effects that the developers want to avoid. Just for dynamis alone I can think of a few good reasons, mainly to keep currency circulation down. Additionally, I would think it is to keep the load in the zone down also, but I won't even pretend this is really a major problem server side as it is individual client.

3) Dev team realization that this is a game. Games are meant to entertain. You aren't damaging FFXI by making jobs more powerful. There is so much content already that even if things took 1/5 the time that they currently do, this game could keep a player busy for years. Rather than bothering with toning down jobs, simply read over system parses and slowly increase the damage and capability of the jobs that consistently fall behind. Obviously no one needs to be overly powerful to the point where you steamroll everything, but that isn't really the case at the moment even for the most powerful of jobs.
You have the right idea with adding new content to old zones, but consider making some of the most desirable items attainable from multiple sources (with appropriate drop %s) to allow players to experience a variety of content to achieve their goals.
We aren't in Vanadiel to work. We're there to have fun.

I want to chop this whole problem right here up to the fact that FFXI essentially has only a skeleton crew keeping it going at the moment. Anyone who has played this game for years will remember the expanded map that was leaked to the net showing the other continents that haven't seen more than mere mention (mithra home land, far east, etc). Since I started (RoZ release) there as been 3 full size expansions, with the last 3 years being a bunch of add-ons rehashing the old.

Cutting an on going rant short, I would rather them put some effort into a real story/content.....but personally I think they are just realizing the extent they can take the game. PS2/PS3/Xbox versions have numerous lock up/crash issues that even PC users occasionally face (gotta love that random POL crash). That being said, they are going to drag this out as much as they can given the smaller dev group for the new content while trying to balance it back out putting us at the old grind we used to have a lvl 75. Seriously, how many actually thought that this wouldn't happen again after nearly 8 years stuck at 75?

[Winrie]

The game has never been reliant on TH, it is an enhancement, I'm sure many people know someone or some peoPle that hav gotten nice things without TH. The idea of rapid popping mobs is a horrible idea, if it popped that fast it would need a horrible drop rate, which means it would be camped heavily and for long durations or time no doubt. It's ideas like these and them being implemented that does the most harm and creates whiners. Fix voidwatch, bring back content that is void of procs and brings back strategy elements, and keep rolling in new things and areas and content to play lowman friendly and big team friendly, there's how you stop whiners

[Rezeak]

1) i'll disagree with too much work readjusting THF and every mob in the game i'd rather that time be put into new content.

2) repop timer of 1 min-30sec would prolly fix most stuff in dyna (5 sec prolly a little to short)

3) not too sure of the point here (maybe it was 2 or 3 points)
Nerfs = yea you need to back off this
For example the bst nerf how about just readjust the citys/glacier/x so a group could always outperform a group of bsts soloing.

[Kristal]

2) repop timer of 1 min-30sec would prolly fix most stuff in dyna (5 sec prolly a little to short)

That 'fix' would break my PUP/DNC camp in Dyna-Beaucedine, where there is no safespot. Mobs would respawn before I even got a chance to proc the last one.
A better solution would be to create more potential camps by changing monster placement. (Which is needed anyway... dyna-bastok's slum area is so jam-packed with sound and sight agro mobs, you run the risk of pulling half the zone if you're unlucky...)