Congratulations on your level??

[Jaall]

I work hard all day. Ffxi is a stress reliever- It's a game and games are meant for fun. The last thing I want in a game is work. Trying to out lvl and out-item others is not fun to me. My character is well suited for the jobs I have with special thanks to my past and present LS friends and family (my brother helped me tremendously). But I don't play to brag.

I play for positive interaction with others. Some people think this game is a single player game to be beat. You can't beat this game... I help random strangers, not because I'm trying to show off my knowledge or skill set. But because its fun and rewarding to me. The day I boot this game up with the sole intention to get items will be the last day I play it (partial reason I quit before- the game was soured by selfish people using other people to get stuff). Could this be the reason ffxi is failing? Not because the game was too hard, but because everyone started racing to an invisible finish line. Some couldn't keep up, some didn't want to race in the first place, and others pushed people down just to get ahead.

If you remember my original thought, i married xp draining with putting others down if they aren't geared like you. I wish there were more argument on why that is acceptable and fun. I have a feeling, though, the players who lvl burn to get end game gear are the ones doing the bragging. If its not "you" then there's no reason to get defensive.

And this is all you will hear from me on this topic.

Sorry to say but FFXI has always been about who has the better gear to the majority of players, it's the reason they play. While there are a good amount of people who play for the casual side there will always be the "hardcore" types who play for gear. It's kinda just the way of any mmo, people understand that this is a game you can't beat but that doesn't stop them trying to be the best, it's their idea of "beating" it. Not many people put you down for having bad gear. Nobody has put you down for anything, only have pointed out that the game has always been this way only the content has differed slightly and there are new ways to do the same thing, such as abyssea being the new smn burn for example. It's not really meant as offensive to you, only as a way of saying everything looks good when you reminisce but in reality it wasn't any better or worse back then than it is now but the context has changed because the games content has changed.

[Caketime]

Sorry to say but FFXI has always been about who has the better gear to the majority of players, it's the reason they play.

I always thought it was about having fun. Does this mean I've been doing it wrong for 10 years?

[Luvbunny]

I always thought it was about having fun. Does this mean I've been doing it wrong for 10 years?

Your definition of FUN may be different from others - which is totally fine. Abyssea let you do whatever you want on your own time and your own leisure with just a few people. It's a great farm spots, good zone for blue mage to do some blue magic hunting, some great areas to skill ups, heck you can just afk and chit chat while gaining tons of xp

[Caketime]

But I wasn't talking about Abyssea.

[Jaall]

Luvbunny is completely right, don't really need Abyssea but that's just content that can be fun for a lot of people. Fun has a very wide definition. While you might find it fun to run around large areas exploring the land, someone else might find it fun in enclosed areas killing all the mobs and dislike exploration. Same goes for pretty much everything in game and reality. Fun can also be found in everything, it's kinda what a games for and the job for SE is to make a game that appeals to everyone or at least everyone in their target market. Being a final fantasy game, and an MMO, they do end up having a fairly large market, players which may come from number crunching MMO's etc and players that like tackling formulae to work out exactly what will happen next and to them that is fun. I think SE do a pretty decent job at making the game fun and granted when they go and produce new content it wont be fun to everyone because of what I said before, fun has a wide definition and is pretty much different for every single person, but they aren't removing old content and you can still make what you want out of the game. You can still find 5 other friends, and go make a lvl 55 exp party in Wajaom for example and it will be exactly the same as it was 6 years ago.

[Caketime]

Obviously fun has a wide definition, long winded explanations aren't required, and often miss the point. What I'm saying here is that from ToAU until this release the game has had a distinct lack of fun activities, the only entertainment available during these boring hamster maze sessions is joking around with friends. That does not make events fun, it makes them tolerable. We also have that wonderful timer attached to every event that guarantees only certain jobs may participate in most cases because of the gross imbalance between jobs and their potential damage output/overall worth to a group.

Some may say that the solution is to level and gear a job that the player may not necessarily enjoy, just to complete an event and get gear for a job they actually like playing. Getting to the actual event and completing it is most often an exercise in running around looking for an exit or a particular monster or beating down a horde of trash mobs. This is not fun content, it is designed to be the opposite to give players a false sense of triumph when they're finally done slogging through it.

Now we have content that's fresh, accessible, and has visible progress in multiple forms. You can take your Abyssea and ToAU and shove them both straight back up Tanaka's colon where they came from. Playing with someone's fecal material never struck me as entertaining, but diff'rent strokes I guess.

[Jaall]

Obviously fun has a wide definition, long winded explanations aren't required, and often miss the point. What I'm saying here is that from ToAU until this release the game has had a distinct lack of fun activities, the only entertainment available during these boring hamster maze sessions is joking around with friends. That does not make events fun, it makes them tolerable. We also have that wonderful timer attached to every event that guarantees only certain jobs may participate in most cases because of the gross imbalance between jobs and their potential damage output/overall worth to a group.

Some may say that the solution is to level and gear a job that the player may not necessarily enjoy, just to complete an event and get gear for a job they actually like playing. Getting to the actual event and completing it is most often an exercise in running around looking for an exit or a particular monster or beating down a horde of trash mobs. This is not fun content, it is designed to be the opposite to give players a false sense of triumph when they're finally done slogging through it.

Now we have content that's fresh, accessible, and has visible progress in multiple forms. You can take your Abyssea and ToAU and shove them both straight back up Tanaka's colon where they came from. Playing with someone's fecal material never struck me as entertaining, but diff'rent strokes I guess.

You've kinda missed my point entirely despite saying my definition wasn't required. While this isn't fun for you, it is fun for others and the majority come to that. Kinda begs the question, why do you still play if it's as bad as "playing with someone's fecal material"?

[Caketime]

You've kinda missed my point entirely despite saying my definition wasn't required. While this isn't fun for you, it is fun for others and the majority come to that. Kinda begs the question, why do you still play if it's as bad as "playing with someone's fecal material"?

I was referring to ToAU and Abyssea content rather than the game in general, I find both expansions to be incredibly boring and needlessly restrictive. I had to slog through it just like everyone else, but it was in no way fun and should not be used as a measuring bar for current content.

Besieged and Einherjar for example, are both battlefields designed for alliances to kill monsters. Einherjar has a bit more flavor to it with some bosses requiring specific tactics to defeat. It also has a reward system, and therefore more content requiring thought, which is completely absent in Besieged. But then again Einherjar is mostly just zerg tactics with a bit of mob holding, so it basically turns into people standing around at one point or another actively engaging in buttscratching.

Abyssea is designed like a pyramid, and when the player ascends to the top of the pyramid said player is greeted with another pyramid. The only time I have ever had fun in Abyssea was drunk, the hundreds of hours I've spent in there farming this or that or 75 of those have been mostly boring. Farm one NM, move to the next, then the next. Most of the time you can even go afk and do the laundry during these fights because the NMs are so ridiculously easy to beat you can fritter away your time and occasionally heal to victory. The only positive side of it is all the conversation time with LS buddies, I would have quit without them.

You know Bunny, I appreciate what you have to say most of the time. But I'm just not seeing your point of view on this, most of what you're saying is bunk. You can do Reives at any time, and they spawn in a bunch of spots. Can't get anyone doing lairs? Bring a BLU, have fun. I like this not only because it's a new place to explore (don't care about corridors) I also get facewrecked if I'm not careful. This is awesome, the way it should have been years ago, we have to suck less to succeed. I like that in my games, and FFXI is finally bringing it back. Also, I apologize for nothing.

[Luvbunny]

Now we have content that's fresh, accessible, and has visible progress in multiple forms. You can take your Abyssea and ToAU and shove them both straight back up Tanaka's colon where they came from. Playing with someone's fecal material never struck me as entertaining, but diff'rent strokes I guess.

LMAO, you may want to take back that statement. SoA is a maze of corridor. There is a timer! ONE HOUR for roots and 15-20 mnts for NEST (which you can skip since no one wants to do this now). There is a timer!! A lot of the contents are locked safely. A 6 hours timer on tags (which is great by the way - a lot lower than the BS 20 hours cool down crap). A 15 tag limits (still a BS which hope to be addressed soon). A lot of the quests are accessible - true, but the same goes to every other expansion (Abyssea was way too accessible for even level 30 lol). Timers everywhere - some are better and some are worse, which is expected.

If you are bored with ToAU and Abyssea, it is expected, one is 7 years old and the other, is a recycled areas and 3 years old content now. No mention of WoTG? Yeah nvm, I agree with you, not worth mentioning either. You hate that your jobs is excluded for events XYZ? Blame the players not the developers. In fact, a few old forgotten jobs are back now. For how long? One cannot say. PLD came back in the spotlight briefly in 2011 when Voidwatch first came out and it needed a PLD at lvl 90 cap.

Fun is definitely different for everyone. But a lot of people just want to log and play and go whack the mobs at their leisure, regardless of prejudice of gears and skills, not to be looked down as LOL noobs. They should be able to do this - they pay this game. Obviously when you play with larger groups, you are expected to know some things, if you don't - hopefully others are kind enough to let you know the proper "group etiquette" and expectation of your jobs/role.

Right now the game is not as fun, there are multiple reports on hate being a big issue for pet jobs (the same exact people who usually just roaming for fun and exploring and try new things). Defense being an issue with thf, ninja, mnk and dancer - which renders them in a big disadvantage farming currency in dynamis. And hate being a serious issue for mages in general - meaning the tank job cannot function properly when the WHM is getting chewed just trying to do its job in the first place.

As for SoA - your definition of fun is running from one roots to another to whack it? When there is a full alliance cleaning all the roots, all the smaller group and solo straggler cannot even participate this in two starting zones. No roots left for them to whack, or it is over in a minute or two. This is not fun, not with an hour respawn. There is your timer again.

And speaking of timer.... There are a slew of OMG incredible weapons with bling bling stats that surely will bring ruinous omen to those who did work very hard for their R/M/E. Not to mention starting gears that probably soon renders all old events a waste of time to do. The timer is ticking indeed, the death of Voidwatch, Neo events, Meeble, and Abyssea has just begin. As K-Dollar-Sign-Sha used to say:.... Tick tock!

[Elrim]

Perhaps the better question here is why do you require your own special server for this type of play? Having access to Abyssea, FoV, GoV, etc. does not necessarily mean that you have to use them. They are simply there as an alternative means to gaining exp. Surely if the demand is as large as some would imply, then all of these players could agree to congregate onto an already existing server and forgo using the previously mentioned tools.

All these arguments about how *insert change here* has ruined FFXI is baseless at best and absolutely asinine. Those of us that have been here from the beginning have seen this argument made a million times. Every time something new is introduced to reduce time sinks there is always a vocal minority that screams about how the new change is the harbinger of the FFXI apocalypse. Yet, the game still remains.

You are putting words in my mouth. I never said the game was bad or that changes ruined the game. The game is simply different and everything from content to server culture/community has changed. The only way to experience classic community is with a progression or classic server. That is what I would like, but you are free to play the game as it is. We simply have different tastes.