Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

[Arcon]

Nope. Not near the degree as what you'll find today. Not even close.

Yes, very much so. I'm right, you're wrong. Your word against mine.

That's right, and by this rationale, it's not your game to contest that we are trying to take something away from you.

And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?

How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like.

I loved the game, I just hated EXP. Remember, I actually did everything else the game has to offer, something you repeatedly seem to forget even exists. EXP is so minor compared to everything else that exists that this entire debate is pretty pointless.

"I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

That didn't help at all, skipper. The problem you're not getting is that there were periods of days of no invites in your level range appeared. I've been there and I tried building parties and even that failed sometimes. It wasn't until Level Sync was introduced that it was remedied somewhat (aside from the fact that higher levels still didn't wanna do much with lower levels). And if a PUP invited people to a party, they wouldn't even bother to respond unless they already had five other people. You're completely delusional if you think it was always that easy. THF and MNK were both desired in parties, and still there were periods during which people just weren't around, or not a decent number of people, so 8 people were lfp but only six could party, so two had to sit out, and of course it would always hit the same jobs over and over again. The old EXP system was so horribly flawed in a myriad of ways that I can't possibly understand why anyone would want it back.

[Eyeballed]

And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?

Honestly my contempt comes not from XI in its current state anymore. I couldn't care less and am not even sure why my account is still active. The flames are fueled by the apparent new trend in all MMO's that mirror what has happened to this game. And what's happening to 99% of new MMO's? Aw screw it, let's be honest: Nobody's made a great MMO in a decade or more. Care to figure out why?, I do; Hell, I fucking love playing the genre, and I know what I loved most about playing them. Now name me some of the major changes that FFXI has undergone in the past few years and we'll see if we can deduce why the active playerbase continues to bleed out.

My contention is, "Easy come, easy go".

And I'm not contesting it. I already acknowledged that all of this comes down to a matter of opinion, and sadly you're entitled to your own. What I'm explaining to you is why your idea would be hurtful to a majority of the playerbase, and that SE knows that and that that's why it will never happen. Do you think they didn't foresee what was going to happen? Why do you think they did it in the first place?

And who cares if it hurts the playerbase, right? I mean, you would have been on the indifferent side of this argument 5 years ago it seems. Again, what playerbase is there really left to offend?

I loved the game, I just hated EXP. Remember, I actually did everything else the game has to offer, something you repeatedly seem to forget even exists. EXP is so minor compared to everything else that exists that this entire debate is pretty pointless.

I didn't forget about the rest of the game. The rest of the game is not the issue here.

That didn't help at all, skipper. The problem you're not getting is that there were periods of days of no invites in your level range appeared. I've been there and I tried building parties and even that failed sometimes. It wasn't until Level Sync was introduced that it was remedied somewhat (aside from the fact that higher levels still didn't wanna do much with lower levels). And if a PUP invited people to a party, they wouldn't even bother to respond unless they already had five other people. You're completely delusional if you think it was always that easy. THF and MNK were both desired in parties, and still there were periods during which people just weren't around, or not a decent number of people, so 8 people were lfp but only six could party, so two had to sit out, and of course it would always hit the same jobs over and over again. The old EXP system was so horribly flawed in a myriad of ways that I can't possibly understand why anyone would want it back.

I never (read: almost never) took an invite from another leader for EXP and roughly 85% of the time I could start a group any old time I felt like it. And not some trash I threw together just so I could say we got mobilized, if anything. Level Sync just put the icing on the cake for a leader trying to form a group. I'll say it till I'm blue in the face: If you couldn't get an invite it wasn't because you weren't on RDM or BRD - it was because you were too damn lazy to do anything but sit back and complain that the game didn't fix your problems for you.

[Ceinwyn]

This debate is so pointless so I'll keep it short!
I forecast this:
SE is bored of this game, this is clear!
The uptades and the team put on the game are/is and will stay at a rock-bottom level to keep it barely alive!
New Expansion will be downloadable and offer minimal content, oh and it's relase will be delayed to 2014!
They shit on the economy of the world and encourage speed-lvling because it's easy mode
and probably most do like EASY-MODE!
They know the game will suffer and that they can't keep up with the content since everyone is 99 in a day
but they just don't care because it doesn't matter at all.
People will move on to FFXIV anyway, old players will go there anyway and new ones also if they are done with maxing all their jobs, thx to speedlvling yeah! and have finished or are bored of the poor endgame content what is all the game has left now, we're genius!!!
So let's hope ffxiv will be any good my fellow players because i don't belive in this game anymore.
I really recommend everyone to move on to something else and leave the actual poor playerbase alone and let em enjoy their left time we had ours i guess (: ,
with the release of FFXIV: A realm reborn. This game will take another serious drop on poulation and because of that mister, accompanied by other factors, I'm pretty sure it will go to hell.

[Eyeballed]

This debate is so pointless so I'll keep it short!

It's not pointless though. Do you love playing MMO's? When was the last time you picked one up that you didn't touch another video game for years, period? That was me and FFXI in 2005; For 4.5 years I did not play a single game outside of it. It was exactly what I loved and the game was a success and I refuse to believe the only reason it was a success is because secretly there was a majority of players that despised backbone of its content. Bullshit, I say.

[Ceinwyn]

It's not pointless though. Do you love playing MMO's? When was the last time you picked one up that you didn't touch another video game for years, period? That was me and FFXI in 2005; For 4.5 years I did not play a single game outside of it. It was exactly what I loved and the game was a success and I refuse to believe the only reason it was a success is because there was a majority of players that despised backbone of its content. Bullshit, I say.

I can understand u bc it was the same for me but things are like they are.
I don't belive either that it was a succes bc of people who didnt like it at all but lots of people don't even check the forum and i can't blame em for it.

[Prrsha]

The majority of the current player base (which is a very low number compared to old ones) that favor speedleveling are who stay with the game. The people who don't like what the game has become, have tried it for a few months, then left without a word. The simple fact is because the game is tailored that way, then those people who like speedleveling stay, have access to the forums and as such a vested intrest in the game. Those people are the "vocal" minority (due to their ability to post here).

What if SE was to take a poll to all of those players who LEFT due to the current state of the game. I am sure you'll agree that number FAR outweights the current numbers of the playerbase. Heck the people in my LS above are a prime example of that. A good 80% of them quit the game due to the changes. Will they ever return to be able to post here? Doubtful. What you have here is the great silent MAJORITY.

In order to see the numbers SE saw way back in the golden days of 2005-2006 they should at least consider their thoughts (Maybe a mass e-mail poll to ex-players would do the trick) to get an unbias poll.

Arcon has stated that levels don't matter anymore, and they should be removed. As crazy as that sounds, I'd have to agree with him if SE treats the road to level 99 as something that is an unwanted after-effect of the game. If this is the case, make every player level 99. You might as well make the test server, the "player server", so they can have access to every spell, set of gear etc. What you have now in FFXI is not a level progression ladder, but a set of ability/gear progressions... but you know what... it's the same thing. Both are time sinks and what is worse... some forms of obtaining gear is entirely luck based. At least with levels, you are guaranteed to get them. SE has just about removed the risk of leveling down (since exp is so plentiful).

So yeah same progression and time sink... different names.

Edit: clean up

[Eyeballed]

I've been thinking of deleting my character and washing my hands of MMO's, but I read on the XIV forums that a group of them started again at Phoenix. Are you part of that group? Entertaining the idea of hopping over.

[Prrsha]

I've been thinking of deleting my character and washing my hands of MMO's, but I read on the XIV forums that a group of them started again at Phoenix. Are you part of that group? Entertaining the idea of hopping over.

I'm working on it but I am trying to get many of my old friends to form the backbone of this group. Like I said above, the game mechanics don't really reward teamwork like they did in the "old days" so it's a hard sell to win them back to the game. So far I have around 20+ intrested people. When the number gets to around 50 or so, I plan to launch it with some full time leaders so the shell grows quick in a short amount of time (thus will have alot of staying power). I lead MP for 5+ years and it still endures today but RPing LSes are a thing of the past sadly.

Once everything is hammered out (the site, gameplay rules and staff) I plan to launch it around Feb. We have been tossing around ideas for names for the LS, so far none have stuck per say. The rules have already been drafted up and I have been slowly collecting people looking for shells like this on the ala boards and such. If people are going to vest time and money into such an idea, I want it to be a success, so I am proceeding slowly.

My e-mail is Prrsha@hotmail.com if you ever wish to contact me (or any other like minded people who wish to play FFXI in the six party dynamic). Some baseline rules are doing old content at the level cap it was intended to be done at. I have several characters at certain levels just for synching purposes (as do many other members) so yeah, the framework is there. We just need a large tally so there will be enough people on at all time zones so people can find friends and statics to form 6 man PTs with.

Also the LS will heavly focus on mentoring new players and keeping them in game. We will have a few set players just patrolling starting areas looking for new blood. We want FFXI to succeed as well as everyone else does and for that to happen, it needs new player retention.

[Caketime]

You know what I haven't had in awhile? Big League Chew.

[Chocobits]

How did this derail from a dev update post to a full on horse corpse abuse session?

Prrsha/Eyeballed:

The reason the Devs don't allow feedback from nonpaying current customers is because they have this funny mentality that the game should be shaped by the current playerbase, which is usually to the detriment of the game.

I'll say that personally there were aspects of the exp grind that I loved. And as much as I agree with (and have argued siding with) people that say exp parties don't teach a player how to do anything meaningful but exp; there are a small handful of jobs that I think really did benefit from it. I know I was a much more adaptive, reflexive and resourceful WHM from having grinded exp the old school way with complete idiots and with limited resources.

Mostly though, it was repetitive and it sucked. The party seek function sucks; level sync came out way too late in the game's lifecycle and was poorly implemented, ushering in terrible parties that were terribly geared due to syncing mechanics, as well as exploitive options such as SMNburn.

The reason it was repetitive and sucked, and which is really the core of the problem, lies truthfully in the unimaginative way SE plotted mob spawns (mostly 1 type of mob in an area), battle mechanics that penalized lower level players by virtue of lack of stats, gear and spells/abilities (and the fact that accuracy SUCKS at low levels no matter what you do), a homogenous leveling experience from 1-30 because most jobs didn't obtain their job defining abilities and traits until the 30s, and the fact that despite the myriad of fauna available to hunt in Vanadiel, most players focused on about 5 of them throughout the course of leveling, due to terrain, surrounding mobs and party friendliness. The ecosystem wasn't sufficiently balanced to healthily support leveling on any type of mob you desired, and still isn't.

Even in 2005, we would always comment that leveling in the 50s was like watching paint dry. Those Bibiki Bay parties that could go up to 6k/hr (which was a holy grail to us back then, even though usually we were at the 3.5-4k/hr mark) were constantly interrupted by gobby bombs that could 1 shot people, dhalmel links, and nooby players.

Fast forward to 2013 (yes, I can time travel a few weeks into the future :-) !) None of that is any different now, with the exception of mildly-but-not-nearly-enhanced-enough-exp, except that now doing the same grinds level synced with high level gear results in an even worse experience due to the poor way gear syncs.

I would say that in order for "old school" partying to be effective, FUN, and appealing, the following would have to change:

*Increase in mob density and increased population overall with lower repop timers, which disallows building custom 4 of 1 type of job melee parties, as different damage types would be needed and allows for an uninterrupted grind experience.
*Availability of more refresh options to accommodate faster chains (look at how much refresh we have in Abyssea).
*Higher base experience points (to the order of at least 50% of what is currently being awarded after numerous xp bump patches).
*Modification of basic mob strengths and behavior at < 75 levels to even out the difficulty of several mob types and to increase the number of available camps.
*Fixing the way gear syncs.
*Balancing of job abilities and stats at low levels.

Which would all said and done essentially create the same exp rate outside of Abyssea as inside (GoV notwithstanding).

So, which do you want exactly? A needless time sink by forcing everyone back to 2005 era exp under the pretense of "lurning ur job doods!", an opportunity for legit but efficient exp outside of Abyssea, or level caps and exp restrictions inside of Abyssea? I'm just confused. Is your goal to create a fun, flexible and fair mode of exp with several different paths, or is it just to hop in your Delorean and head back to 2005 when it took unnecessarily long to reach level cap for no reason? What are you trying to accomplish? There's no content at low or mid levels and even SE acknowledges that. There's no reason to want to grind.

But as has been pointed out, the option to grind is still available to you. You can't find anyone to do it because nobody wants to. You say that pro-"new way" people on the forums are a "minority" that are the "vocal majority" because all the sane people have jumped ship. The option to grind was always available and so they if there were that many of them, they coulda teamed up and formed a grind LS and called it "TeamGrindCore" or something and grinded until they were sore from all the grinding. So really, there weren't that many of them right? Cuz the option to grind was never removed from the game.

*edited for some spelling and revision of potentially inflammatory remarks*