Interim Report – Sorry to keep you all waiting!

[Arcon]

Speaking from experience, this is what I do every time I log in, and I too have given up. Even when I could get 6/6, it was a crap shoot whether your tank actually had the first clue what tanking was, your Thief had any clue what "pulling" or "SATA" meant, etcetera.

You do realize that this is precisely what old EXP was? A bunch of noobs not knowing how to play properly, frustration of not finding good members, or members at all, bad or restrictive party setups. And you were just lucky they didn't leave because of LS activities, nothing more, because that's also something that happened all the time during old EXP parties. And that wasn't old EXP's fault, because it still happens, only now the remaining party members are not penalized as much for it.

You ask us what right do we have in asking others who are enjoying themselves to change for us? My response is: What right did you or anyone have in taking the game away from us in the first place?

SE had the right, because it's their game, not yours.

Because nobody complained about rate of progression in the first place, man! Not once in all my years of playing this game, which happened to be the years it was most successful (interestingly enough) did I hear this complaint. People either accepted it for what it was, as a necessary evil or otherwise, or were enjoying themselves.

All of this is a lie. Either that or you played an entirely different game from me. Not only did I hear people complain about how slow and boring leveling was, people actually refused to level certain jobs, even if they actually wanted to play them, because it was too much of a pain to level them up.

The game is going to hell atm.

You're aware that people have been spouting this garbage line since 2005?

this game worked pretty well for 6~?years without abyssea and people enjoyed it and dont tell me they didnt, "grinding" was the main part of the game back then and people woudnt have done it if they didnt enjoy it [..]

All of this is completely wrong. The game did not "work well" for six years, the playerbase has been declining for most of the six years before Abyssea as well. And no, EXPing was not the main part of the game, that was never true. You're completely delusional if you believe that. And yes, people do level despite hating it. Take me for example. I hated every moment of it, and I still went through it, because my goal was a different one, I wanted to play the jobs at 75. Leveling was a necessary evil I had to take upon me to be able to do that.

[Eyeballed]

You do realize that this is precisely what old EXP was?

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

SE had the right, because it's their game, not yours.

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

All of this is a lie. Either that or you played an entirely different game from me. Not only did I hear people complain about how slow and boring leveling was, people actually refused to level certain jobs, even if they actually wanted to play them, because it was too much of a pain to level them up.

How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like. I wager that what complaints you did hear were those who moaned about never getting invites on unpopular jobs more than anything to start with. That is what I've heard. What I have to say about that is I took at least MNK and THF to 75, typically having no trouble at all getting a group because I took the initiative to make something happen for myself. "I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

[SpankWustler]

How funny that people who might have complained stuck with a game they didn't like. I wager that what complaints you did hear were those who moaned about never getting invites on unpopular jobs more than anything to start with. That is what I've heard. What I have to say about that is I took at least MNK and THF to 75, typically having no trouble at all getting a group because I took the initiative to make something happen for myself. "I waited DAYS for an invite on my DRG!!!" Keyword: Waited; Well there's your problem there, skipper!

I found leveling White Mage in pick-up groups miserable for the 50-75 stretch because of how misinformed and esoterically equipped 90% of the melee were, even relative to the limited knowledge available at that time. There were a lot of people who were so dense that, even to me on my first job going to 75 for the first time, it was obvious they were retarding progress. As the healer, all I could do to make them flail around less horribly was cast Haste and Dia II. It was infuriating.

I stuck it out because end-game looked interesting for support jobs, even if watching a handful of mental invalids fail to efficiently kill various species of crabs killed something deep inside of me.

That was my subjective experience. Your subjective experience is that you enjoyed leveling up by killing more crabs than the bearded boat bros on The Deadliest Catch.

You are trying to make your experience into something objective. That is not the case.

[Eyeballed]

I found leveling White Mage in pick-up groups miserable for the 50-75 stretch because of how misinformed and esoterically equipped 90% of the melee were, even relative to the limited knowledge available at that time. There were a lot of people who were so dense that, even to me on my first job going to 75 for the first time, it was obvious they were retarding progress. As the healer, all I could do to make them flail around less horribly was cast Haste and Dia II. It was infuriating.

I stuck it out because end-game looked interesting for support jobs, even if watching a handful of mental invalids fail to efficiently kill various species of crabs killed something deep inside of me.

That was my subjective experience. Your subjective experience is that you enjoyed leveling up by killing more crabs than the bearded boat bros on The Deadliest Catch.

You are trying to make your experience into something objective. That is not the case.

I think you answered your own question here; Obviously this was early on in the game's history and people were simply noobs on the whole. I mean, fair enough all you had to do was stack MND/MP, (if even that to be effective), where if you had a problem sticking Dia something was terribly wrong, and if you couldn't stick Haste, you might give MNK a try instead.

As well, I feel you're also attempting to objectify your experience in an even more acute sense with regard to a single job for a span of 15 levels. I'm referring to all jobs from levels 1-75 (99?).

PS: Your sig is the best I've seen in a long time.

[SpankWustler]

As well, I feel you're also attempting to objectify your experience in an even more acute sense with regard to a single job for a span of 15 levels. I'm referring to all jobs from levels 1-75.

I tried not to, but my feelings probably bled through a bit because my experiences are from the opposite end of the spectrum. I just wanted to provide an example that lots of people had lots of different experiences.

There were some people who did little other than level back when leveling had a much slower pace, and enjoyed it. Others leveled jobs as quickly as possible, hanging out with Shiva in Korroloka Tunnel rather than leveling normally when possible; they wanted to use a certain job for end-game, to fill a niche within their linkshells, or just to equip the armor they had accrued for that job via free-lot. I mostly met the latter kind of player, given that I was the latter kind of player, but I have no idea which group made up the majority at the time.

I don't think anybody else has any idea which group made up the majority, either. I also doubt the player base could be divided neatly into groups. It's so hard to collect data on the mental state of large groups of people that there are statistical tactics for using normally problematic sample sizes to get representative results in the social sciences.

Basically, I have no faith in my ability or anyone's ability to have knowledge of what's good or bad for FFXI players as a whole. If somebody tried to make the point that almost all players hated leveling more than my racist uncle hates brown people, I would find that dubious as well.

It's cool that some people liked leveling at the slower pace. I'm glad somebody really liked it to balance out how much I hated it. I just find any implication of a "silent majority" to be very, very, very suspect and one or both sides always make that implication when this topic comes up.

PS: Your sig is the best I've seen in a long time.

Thanks! I saw the image and it's dimensions seemed perfect for a signature.

I would post a link to the maker's Tumbler but there's some NSFW stuff there. Typing "Paul Robertson" into Google and checking out his Tumblr should do the trick, though. Again, there is some NSFW stuff there.

[Eyeballed]

I don't think anybody else has any idea which group made up the majority, either. I also doubt the player base could be divided neatly into groups. It's so hard to collect data on the mental state of large groups of people that there are statistical tactics for using normally problematic sample sizes to get representative results in the social sciences.

Basically, I have no faith in my ability or anyone's ability to have knowledge of what's good or bad for FFXI players as a whole. If somebody tried to make the point that almost all players hated leveling more than my racist uncle hates brown people, I would find that dubious as well.

It's cool that some people liked leveling at the slower pace. I'm glad somebody really liked it to balance out how much I hated it. I just find any implication of a "silent majority" to be very, very, very suspect and one or both sides always make that implication when this topic comes up.

You could say it's because the game's old, outdated graphics, what-have-you and that's the reason the game is 'dying'; But on the other hand, you could say that (Your sig is really distracting! haha) it's just as likely that the game changed in a few major ways (Abyssea/99 cap) that OG players weren't keen on and those facts are equally responsible in the decline of player numbers and re-subscribers.

It's a given to say that the game had aged by the time WoTG released, but it had aged gracefully. So much that when FFXIV released, many, many players migrated over expecting more great things from SE. Unfortunately we all know how that went, and you had (and still do) their players wanting to recapture the gameplay they had known for years only to realize that it was nowhere to be found.

[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.