Congratulations on your level??

[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"?

[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.

[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]

Because no one would play on it. Not nearly enough people who want to play the game the old way are around or else you wouldn't even have to make posts like these -- BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE ENOUGH OF EACH OTHER TO DO THINGS THE OLD WAY.

People aren't leveling quickly because they are forced to, people aren't doing missions at level 99 because they have no choice -- if there were people who actually wanted to do things the "hard" way outside of an overly vocal minority there would be no problem. If you want to form an old school part in ToAU zones or in an obscure old school camp, shout the level range and find someone with a job of appropriate level to sync to -- it is as easy as that.

if you can't find people for that, then dare I say you might be a bigger minority than you believe -- and it is not in SE's best interest to cater large amounts of time, energy, and money towards appeasing gross minorities.



This.

I've never been "hardcore" but I do like number crunching and the only way to be a successful, happy number-cruncher is to grind gear. FFXI has always been about end game and the hyper elitist part of the community that demands everything cater to them and keep them entertained -- frankly, every MMO has that set of players and they are perfectly correct in their demands because there needs to be something left to do to keep people playing.

Like it or not, but the evolution of FFXI over the last 10 years has followed that train, and the reason the game is still SE's biggest money maker is because it has worked. People may claim to hate Abyssea and the level 99 increase, but the fact they are still playing is proof that they enjoy it more than they'd like to let on.

The people who want this kind of server aren't playing just as I haven't been playing for a long time. You don't see the demand because the people that are looking for it quit when they find out it isn't there. Only after it is offered do we see these people flock back to these servers as they have in Uthgard and EQ progression servers. I'm not sure how difficult it is to throw a server out there with patch 1.0 but I doubt it is more difficult than trying to make a classic feel server using more updated rulesets. I know this won't get player traction on the forums because people still playing enjoy the game as it is, but it is the best way for this kind of thing to get visibility with the devs. From past experience I'm sure it would be popular enough to thrive as any other server does, but I don't expect everyone to jump ship and switch servers.

[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]

I dont mind doing Reives, but running around following people or waiting around is not my idea of fun. A bit waste of my time. Since in Bahamut, most roots are cleared up rather fast leaving stragglers or solo explorers with not much to do but run around again on your marked maps to find the next roots. Wasp nest are avoided cuz they give you almost nothing. Too bad you are not having fun in ToAU or Abyssea or any contents coming out after that. I did, it's great to just log in and play with 0-2 people without having to resort to jobs xyz or too many restriction.

In case you didn't notice, most of SoA is safely locked in its tiered iron clad garden and right now, roots and wasp nest are pretty much the most popular option to grind your bayld. Granted all jobs can participate - well, pretty much tank is somewhat needed, and a sleeper. This is similar to how campaign was in the beginning, free for all whackaton for fun And it is fun. Until you realize it's over very soon and an alliance mowed the rest of em fast - leaving you with not much to do.

And I cant really explore safely as summoner - even if most mobs are dead in 3-4 rage BP. Just doing one BP rage is enough to send the mob attacking me....

[Candi]

... it's great to just log in and play with 0-2 people without having to resort to jobs xyz or too many restriction.

This was needed 10 years ago.

[Jaall]

I dont mind doing Reives, but running around following people or waiting around is not my idea of fun. A bit waste of my time. Since in Bahamut, most roots are cleared up rather fast leaving stragglers or solo explorers with not much to do but run around again on your marked maps to find the next roots. Wasp nest are avoided cuz they give you almost nothing. Too bad you are not having fun in ToAU or Abyssea or any contents coming out after that. I did, it's great to just log in and play with 0-2 people without having to resort to jobs xyz or too many restriction.

In case you didn't notice, most of SoA is safely locked in its tiered iron clad garden and right now, roots and wasp nest are pretty much the most popular option to grind your bayld. Granted all jobs can participate - well, pretty much tank is somewhat needed, and a sleeper. This is similar to how campaign was in the beginning, free for all whackaton for fun And it is fun. Until you realize it's over very soon and an alliance mowed the rest of em fast - leaving you with not much to do.

And I cant really explore safely as summoner - even if most mobs are dead in 3-4 rage BP. Just doing one BP rage is enough to send the mob attacking me....

Um... Can't believe I really need to say this but, there's more than one zone, and I guarantee that 3 other zones will be effectively empty and still hold reives. If you're bored by the ease of reives go do one in the basalt fields, every mob in them is very tough meaning it'll challenge you even further. Just stop complaining already and just go play it, you gave up way too easy and are now just playing ignorant to everything because you've decided you don't like it.

And Caketime I really do agree with you for the most part, I'm not even sure what kinda side you're fighting for, like for or against nostalgia? But yea there have been good and bad sides to both times and expansions have had hit/miss aspects, like Einherjar was virtually impossible for years after it was released and hardly anybody actually did it a year after it was made easier because it just wasn't all that great. Abyssea to me was just a way to get my char to 99 and get the gear needed to move onto the harder content. Haven't actually been inside Abyssea for anything other than a few merits in the past 6 months.

[Luvbunny]

Um... Can't believe I really need to say this but, there's more than one zone, and I guarantee that 3 other zones will be effectively empty and still hold reives. If you're bored by the ease of reives go do one in the basalt fields, every mob in them is very tough meaning it'll challenge you even further. Just stop complaining already and just go play it, you gave up way too easy and are now just playing ignorant to everything because you've decided you don't like it.

You need to chill lol. There are at least two zones for reive with everyone clustered in Cezhak and not bother to stop by at Yahza. I am not flat out hating SoA but it's clearly a beta content, which is somewhat expected from SE. That does not stop me to try and see what works, and how to maximize the enjoyment, even if it is not much. I don't give up that easily but the broken enmity and the atrocious hate issue with pet jobs at least rendering two of my favorite jobs somewhat broken for doing exploration. That does not mean it's the end of the road. Good thing abyssea pretty much let you sample all 22 jobs in a flash to find other jobs that could work for exploring SE. So far I am having fun as Rdm/Blue. Definitely will try other jobs combo to see which one suits me the best for now while SE is taking their sweet ass time fixing the update. At least they admitted there is something wrong.

[Jaall]

I am chilled lol, but you're incredibly annoying with all your undignified hate for SoA. I do agree on some of your points but most are just whining about it when really it's only your own fault. In every zone there are reives and they get harder the further out you go, like I said, in the basalt fields they're all VT mobs. If you don't like standing around waiting for a reive and you don't like bashing roots or they "die too quick" go make an alliance and head out to the basalt fields to hit rocks there. There are at least 5x more reives in that zone because of how huge it is and it's not all corridors. Your arguments were valid before everyone started properly playing it but while you've been sat here not exploring and arguing that it's s**t people have actually been playing it and realising it's a lot more than just waiting around for a reive to start, making you ignorant for not accepting that and still arguing your case.