Do you really think that little of your player base?

[FrankReynolds]

Chuk, you clearly didn't understand what Arcon said about how games work, or what the OP means when they say we want explanations. You would probably agree with some of what they are saying if you understood it fully. I think you are just a little confused about what everyone is pissed about. Which is understandable. That's the problem with written conversations. The tones of speech often convey more than the words themselves.

People aren't asking to know all the secrets. We just want honest answers from the reps. They ask for feedback on things and we give it to them, and then they refuse the feedback, but give no explanation other than "balance".

It's like asking someone what flavor ice cream they want, Then giving them the opposite. When they ask why you gave them something different you say "because". That person wants to feed you the cone backwards (your wrong end, not the cone).

But if you said "because I saw the guy drop a dirty towel in that flavor ice cream when he was cleaning...", then the person would thank you for choosing something different for them.

The problem is (I suspect anyways) that the devs probably didn't see a guy drop a dirty towel. They just didn't care what you wanted.

[Arcon]

The idea of exploring a games mechanics and layout is the whole point to gaming.

So the idea behind poker is to figure out what the rules are? That's like saying "the point of shooters is to figure out how to shoot people". Which is blatantly false. The point of games is not figuring out how to play them but to actually play them.

If the fresh feeling of exploration has worn off with you, then tHats a clear sign you are not having fun with this game any more.

Bullshit. Stop telling me what's fun to me, you don't get to decide that. I know pretty much everything the entire community knows about the game, which is a lot. And I'm still enjoying it. Every other game I've ever known I knew exactly how to play and how it worked, and I still enjoy them. Exploring lore is one thing, exploring game mechanics is an entirely other thing. If you really believe any of what you just said you don't want a game at all, you want a sight-seeing tour. And as soon as you've seen everything you wanna move on to the next.

Let me ask you this: Why are you still playing? I honestly don't get it. Are you trying to figure out the pDIF formula in secret? Are you killing hordes of lizards to get the TH formula? What exactly is it that you are exploring?

[Zhronne]

I think i remember reading some where that Square never intended people to do gear swiping with macro's. its just something ppl started to do to get nice damage with their job

I remember them saying that but if you want to know what I think about it, I'd say that it sounds to me more like an excuse to avoid developing >6 lines macros, rather than what they really think.

They say that in interviews, but then they act in a completely different way when they develop updates (and new gear). Sounds to me they are lying.
If they really didn't want people to swapgear or wanted to limit it, they could have implemented countless of very easy method to block such behaviour or at least limit it.

[Zhronne]

And about the "players finding out things on their own" topic.
I have to say that I'm fine with SE leaving a certain amount of things for us to find out. It's one of FFXI's peculiarities and one of the many aspects that make this game so different from everything else.
Fine with me.

Point is that they should balance in a much better way the amount of things we have to find out from the amount of things they tell us. This is completely off-balance atm and has always been.
If you want to let us sort things out give us 3-6 months and then clear things up for us.
Give us something to sort out and give us something for which you spill all the details.


In the past they didn't do it because of a different japanese approach. It was pretty common back then to have separate entities to publish very specific guides for FFXI with detailed data and "answers" coming up directly from SE.
So basically SE wasn't telling us (the player base) a lot of things because they were selling these information to other companies, who were then putting them into books and selling them to the public (only in japan).
It was a tuned mechanism, and it could only work if SE kept all their "secrets" for themselves.

Such a mechanism stopped working long time ago, it's time SE starts releasing accurate data in a more detailed way and more often.
You wanna give us some time to sort things out on our own before spilling? Fine.
You want a few things to remain a secret and us to "adventure" into seeking the truth? Fine.
But fucking to do it for 99% of the things in game! That is completely off balance, really

[Nala]

Think you're misunderstanding in which capacity i wish to know about. We really do not need SE to tell us things like the damage equation or the hidden effects of X vw weapon, what i want is detailed answers to support the constant "Balance" and like answers.

Considering we can beat PW and AV due to level cap increases and other abilities added if i had to ask one unsolved mystery it would be what was the "proper" way to defeat these entities.

[Caketime]

Bullshit. Stop telling me what's fun to me, you don't get to decide that.

But Batman, you're dictating what's fun at him, so doesn't that mean you're speaking hypocritically? Now you have to hug each other. Don't be shy now.

[Demon6324236]

Think you're misunderstanding in which capacity i wish to know about. We really do not need SE to tell us things like the damage equation or the hidden effects of X vw weapon, what i want is detailed answers to support the constant "Balance" and like answers.

Considering we can beat PW and AV due to level cap increases and other abilities added if i had to ask one unsolved mystery it would be what was the "proper" way to defeat these entities.

Bet ya if you /cheer as AV kills your party members it makes him weaker, and you just have to use /clap when PW uses Hellclap to mess him up, because he doesn't expect you to clap along! And why is this? Just because hidden emote powers are so cool! ;>_>

[Arcon]

But Batman, you're dictating what's fun at him, so doesn't that mean you're speaking hypocritically?

No, I'm not, so no, it's not hypocrisy. I don't expect you to understand kid, let the big guys talk.

[Caketime]

You told Chuk that he can't dictate what's fun to you, but then you attempt to do the same to him. Call me a child all you like, it doesn't change the fact that you're not only contradicting yourself, you're also being a huge whiner that feels he's entitled to every little facet of technical data the game has to offer. The truth is though, the devs have the right to tell you whatever the hell they want in regards to how the game works, up to and including nothing at all.

[Demon6324236]

You told Chuk that he can't dictate what's fun to you, but then you attempt to do the same to him. Call me a child all you like, it doesn't change the fact that you're not only contradicting yourself, you're also being a huge whiner that feels he's entitled to every little facet of technical data the game has to offer. The truth is though, the devs have the right to tell you whatever the hell they want in regards to how the game works, up to and including nothing at all.

Just because you can do something does not make it good or right. Companies are getting that idea that they can do whatever they want all over the place, and its hurting gaming as a whole, so lets not go down that path. SE made alot of things in this game, they keep alot of info from us, we figure things out on our own alot however so thats not such a problem. But to tell us everything we want can not be done because of "balance" or a reason with little to no explanation is somewhat insulting, its not that we are unable to understand their reasons, we want to know what they are.

Everyone has had one of those very annoying moments when something you want is denied, but when you asked why, you got told simply, because. Its not a reason, its annoying and insulting, we wish to know why, that is all we ask, not balance, but a real answer that tells us why, with detail.