Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

[Demon6324236]

I am as close as you can get to the pulse and thoughts of the new players in FFXI. Saddly my report is grim. I've never seen such discouragement in FFXI (among new players) then I have ever seen in the past. It saddens me and worries me about FFXI's future. With no new blood and retention to the game, I fear the playerbase will continue to decline and FFXI will eventually shut it's doors.

I see the opposite, the majority of new players I have met are happy they can skip to the meat of the game, looking forward to every update and happy they are able to play and participate with the majority of other players rather than being left out of the loop. I personally see why, so long as you have assistance with where to go, you can get to your 90s in a couple of weeks, where most of the game really is now, along with most of the players.

Back when I started I had a LS I joined where a good 75% or more was in endgame, while I had no idea what was going on, I was a lowly level 20~30 RDM. I felt left out, and disconnected from them, even the xp parties I joined often had the same feel, people would talk of events like Limbus or Dyna, which I had never experienced. Now days people don't have that feel, the only content like that are things like Legion which few people do. I like this change as it seems like the game is easier to get into, and understand, as well leaving people to feel more informed, instead of wondering what an event was, and having nothing to compare it to from their xp party experience.

Without the proper help I admit, no new player will be able to make it in this game, but I believe that is one of the problems that they are trying to fix. Currently if you start new you have no idea what GoV, Abyssea, FoV, or anything of the sort is, or where to find it. You need someone else to tell you how to reach Gusgen, and then need people there to teach you to use books, then you can start actually doing something. Before that, players will easily be more lost and confused than ever before, and that I can definitely agree with. But as I said, I think thats something they are trying to fix, and if they do fix it, then this will be awesome. After you pass that part is when you realize how the speed helps new players rather than hurting them as many claim it does.

I think if they make it so you can level easier at lower levels without needing higher levels to guide you through it then it should be a better overall experience. With that, they could pull in new players who actually want to stay, but as it is I admit few players come right now, and fewer stay due to the rough start. It does make sense the game could die from lack of new players, but if they fix the problems with new players being left clueless then they could potentially have more players coming in than in a long time just because of the new expansion as well as the ability to draw players who are right now looking for something to hold over for 14 to be re-released.

[Eyeballed]

No, I mean like going to parties when you want to socialize instead of hiding in your room complaining to your parents about how they should make your friends come hang out with you.

Ah, just as Joe Blow A-Z would because he couldn't get an invite in 2006? The purpose for my complaining has less to do with selfish want than utilitarian good. I understand that "going back" in this game is not going to work because it's filled to the brim with players like yourselves and would just fall apart if you were subtracted. Like taking great-grandpa's walker away.

I said it before and I'll keep saying it I suppose. You want to eat your cake and have it too; Don't be at all surprised when the genre keels over from diabetes.

[Caketime]

Must...make...Dagwood!

[Arcon]

Your arguements fall short as I have already said in other posts that lvl synching just to do promies the old way is a pain. You need a puppet character... of that EXACT level to synch down to. Sure I can find people that are level 41 or 44 but EXACTLY 40?

It matters absolutely nothing whether they're 40 or 41 or 44. That was my point, and I mentioned that. I said even if they're a bit higher and go with 5 instead of 6 they'll essentially have the same experience. Not entirely the same, but that's not possible anymore, even with a cap. See below.

All I am asking for is an option for players to choose a cap or not.

That's perfectly acceptable and I have no issue whatsoever with it. I thought previously that you wanted to cap it in general. It will be completely useless though, because no one will do it. Well, not entirely true, Lv.99 players who feel nostalgic may give it a shot with a few mates once every blue moon (real life blue moon, not FFXI blue moon), but certainly not many newbies.

As for your arguement about low level content, that falls short as well. Read my posts before before just posting the same stuff over and over again. The low level content should ALLOW high levels to take part in with a temp level cap however we all agree SE needs to rework the event concepts 1st along with gear storage.

And you read my post too, please. I chose my words carefully, I didn't say it would exclude high levels, I said it would discourage them. No one wants to voluntarily cap their character to do some low level event when they are at 99, except for the aforementioned nostalgia moments, which are few and far between. And why should they? Unless the event offers some rewards tailored to 99 players (which would be pointless for the newbies), no one would even bother looking at it (yes, I'm generalizing, there are a few people like you around, after all, but the vast majority wouldn't).

Why shouldn't be an amazing event? Because you say so? You made my entire point. The reason why grinding from level 10 to 75 was so "boring" as you say, because there was no content to do inbetween that offered exp like some large scale event like say a revamped besiged.

Because an amazing event requires lots of work and development time. So much so, that SE didn't release an amazing event in years. Yet you expect them to drop what they're doing and add something that only very few people want and others wouldn't even care for, even if they were at the appropriate level? And something that, given their track record in the field, would only turn out shitty in the end regardless?

How exactly do you imagine it to be implemented anyway? Tiers for every 10 levels? Offer EXP rewards worthwhile, which would replace old EXP completely? You realize that they'd have to tailor it differently to every 10 levels to even be classified as "possibly exciting"? If they did all of that, they'd have done what I suggested a few pages ago, namely make EXP diverse and interesting for every level. If they did that, awesome. Only at the expense of introducing content that matters, or fix any of the majorly flawed content we have right now. They should have done that years ago, but now the game has moved on, and the playerbase with it.

And even if it was amazing, it would still be pointless. Sure, the few newbies who would do it would feel great (possibly), but even they would move on quickly. Just because it wouldn't be a forgettable experience anymore, it wouldn't mean they would have taken something from it. You cannot possibly introduce the things that matter at endgame into low level content, because people at lower levels are not equipped to deal with it.

Look at Eco-Warrior. At level 20, there's basically three types of jobs: DDs, healers and useless jobs. Classes don't matter at all, they basically have no unique abilities, at least not to a degree that sets them apart, no specific stats, no specific gear sets, no specific traits, it's just a mess of people. It's not even the same game. Everything pre-75 is a different game than post-75, and for that reason they are incompatible. So you have to dumb down the content for lower levels, by definition. It does not work any other way.

Don't grease the rail to 99 with nothing of worth to do inbetween or you will (like I said before in many comments) toss 75% of the existing world of vanadiel out the window. No one will explore it, nor inhabit it.

I really wish people would stop bringing that argument. EXP did absolutely nothing to encourage exploration of Vana'diel. You didn't experience Yuhtunga jungle when you went to EXP there, only when you got lost trying to get to the camp. It was the same thing over and over again. Missions and NM hunts were where you explored the world the most. Nowadays, trials do a lot more for exploration that EXP could ever dream to do, and indeed it does. The level range is not magically connected to the physical world you play in. If SE ever did add an amazing event like you said before, it would be Legion-style, some remote place you can teleport to from the starter cities, a shared zone, where everything else would fall behind again.

You need to think outside of the box and not only think of yourself, but in the minds of new players coming to the game for the first time. This game NEEDS new player retention or, yes, it will die. I hope SE will opt to keep them in the game with engaging content [..]

SE already does that, by offering that content at 99. I've said that three times now. This game is a lot more newbie friendly than it ever was, in its entire decade long history. The newbies in my shell I mentioned last night? We did the LB10 Taru for one of them, the others have unlocked support jobs and some advanced jobs and they're also leveling them quickly now.

Back in the day, if a new player wanted to experience fun content, they were told to EXP here, EXP there, EXP someplace else. But people were not insinuating that EXP fun. It was what was required to be able to reach endgame, where all the content was. EXP itself is not content, it's a means to get there. For it to be content it has to actually offer something unique, but it doesn't. It just takes advantage of the FFXI combat system and some mobs that are wandering around.

Let me ask you this: why? I honestly don't understand. Why are low levels so important to you? To me they're just numbers, and I don't see why they deserve special treatment. Let's say SE capped the game at 99 from the start, for every job. Name one thing that's bad about it. And no, the argument that they won't get to EXP is self-referential and doesn't count (even disregarding the fact that many people hated that aspect in the first place).

[Arcon]

I see the opposite, the majority of new players I have met are happy they can skip to the meat of the game, looking forward to every update and happy they are able to play and participate with the majority of other players rather than being left out of the loop.

I can confirm this from pretty much every account of a new player I've heard since the level cap increase. I don't know why you had contrary experiences, it doesn't add up to me. The new players don't miss old EXP, because most of them don't know what it was. The few of them who do (returning players) are amazed, because they only made level 30 or 40 or something back in the day, and now they're level 99 in a few days of work, so they're excited about the jump. That has been my sole experience, I don't remember anyone off the top of my head who said anything else.

[FrankReynolds]

I can confirm this from pretty much every account of a new player I've heard since the level cap increase. I don't know why you had contrary experiences, it doesn't add up to me. The new players don't miss old EXP, because most of them don't know what it was. The few of them who do (returning players) are amazed, because they only made level 30 or 40 or something back in the day, and now they're level 99 in a few days of work, so they're excited about the jump. That has been my sole experience, I don't remember anyone off the top of my head who said anything else.

Same thing here. Every time I have ever gotten a RL friend to play this game, they have complained at length about the leveling process and the amount of time that it takes to get to a point where they can participate in events with me. None of them thought that having their level / abilities capped in certain fights was a positive thing. As a matter of fact, the leveling process left such a bitter taste in their mouths that most of them look at me with intense skepticism when I try to convince them to give it another shot now that leveling is much faster and none of them have come back so far. And to be clear, a lot of my friends work in the gaming industry and literally play games all day. These aren't people who don't know how an MMO is supposed to work.

[Prrsha]

Same thing here. Every time I have ever gotten a RL friend to play this game, they have complained at length about the leveling process and the amount of time that it takes to get to a point where they can participate in events with me. None of them thought that having their level / abilities capped in certain fights was a positive thing. As a matter of fact, the leveling process left such a bitter taste in their mouths that most of them look at me with intense skepticism when I try to convince them to give it another shot now that leveling is much faster and none of them have come back so far. And to be clear, a lot of my friends work in the gaming industry and literally play games all day. These aren't people who don't know how an MMO is supposed to work.

So by that logic /synch should be removed because no higher level player would dare /synch (and lose their abilities) down to a lower one to gain exp? Not even to help a new player or friend?

[Demon6324236]

So by that logic /synch should be removed because no higher level player would dare /synch (and lose their abilities) down to a lower one to gain exp? Not even to help a new player or friend?

Removing level sync would remove the ability for a book party to function, killing off low level peoples ability to level fast, something I suppose you would like, however is not what he was suggesting at all. His point seem to be that its terrible how badly the game restricts you from your abilities and spells, including level syncing events such as CoP used to be, where no matter your level, you had to go through certain areas as a weakling for an unknown and unexplained reason.

[Prrsha]

killing off low level peoples ability to level fast, something I suppose you would like.

You assume incorrectly. I just want new player retention, and it's not really happening of late.

His point seem to be that its terrible how badly the game restricts you from your abilities and spells, including level syncing events such as CoP used to be, where no matter your level, you had to go through certain areas as a weakling for an unknown and unexplained reason.

#1 they were explained if you read the storyline.

#2 I was pointing out that you lose your abilities as well when you /synch down to book party too. Does it make leveling any less fun when /synching? It really didn't for me. It just made me adapt to other strategies of doing things. I couldn't count on certain spells or WSes anymore, which mixed things up a bit.

[SNK]

All I know is that I leveled BST to 75 pre-abyessa and it was probably the most fun I'd had in this game in ages. It was one of the few jobs where you could just log in, pick and go exp without seeking for parties. I know a lot people bagged on the job back then but it really was a versatile machine. The job if anything taught me how to manage my hate since Snarl didn't exist and helped in learning the system of monster corralation in general.

A lot of posts I've read have been a lot of what I'd say is stemmed up anger over the years which I can easily see since I've had a few times where I've loosed some profanity on a critical failed charm or linking something which usually meant my death.

This new producer is something I consider a real breath of fresh air and I'm happy with what he's said so far despite the amount of rude and angry posts people have made in his direction. Give the guy a chance folks, He's the new person at the helm and I think he deserves a fair chance.


P.S. Walk of Echos currency exchange NPC prz! ; ;