Shocked at the player loss?

[Castanica]

So after logging in for free and seeing the sad numbers of players that still bother with this game why are Square trying so hard to get us all to play it again? Free to play months, login campaigns, spamming our email accounts to come back.

The core of what kept us in this game has pretty much been gutted, what remains is a shadow of it's former self and in many ways feels like they are copying the horrible FF14 model. When I logged back in I wasn't wowed by all the new changes I was despressed at what you have done to this once wonderful game. I certinaly won't pay you money for this travesty. I used to pay for multiple accounts, now I pay you nothing and pay a competing publishers game, if you hadn't messed up so badly I and most of the people I knew would still be here.

The new people in charge seem to be putting out content that is suited for newer titles and the kinds of players that want that content are really not going to accept it from a gereatric title such as this. The massive player loss should be a sign that players do not want this from a title such as this...you really put an item level system in this game?...

Now maybe Square are simply trying to get XIV players bored of the lack of content to play both games and pay 2 subs, but again....if you're an XIV player more impressed by graphics than gameplay you really aren't going to want to play a game like XI which is showing it's age so badly. At least not for more than a few months when the novelty wears.

The strong points of what made FFXI great are the party systems, the community and the open world etc. Stop trying to make an old man (FFXI) dress up in ghetto gear and a baseball cap (FFXIV) and understand what makes this game great, stop trying to copy new things into an old game badly and half assing content updates. If you don't do this all the f2p months in the world won't save it. This game cannot compete with modern titles on thier own ground, stick with the niche that made it great or watch it die completely.

[Mordian]

I believe the game would have lost subscribers no matter what course SE took. But making old gear outdated so drastically was a bad move, yes. Should have let people keep upgrading those old armor and weapons, not just create totally new set of item-level-armor which replaces the old.

Now this latest introduction, records of eminence... everyone can solo the new gear upgrades, at their own slow pace. Reminds me alot of FFXIV myth tomes system, but without a weekly cap. I do like that you sort of need to work on old content too. You need to get the artifact armor, you can do limbus to get the upgraded ones faster, or upgrade the original low level piece with more work.

-- edit: correction, you must do CoP up to sea it turns out. I tried talking to the upgrade NPC, wont work on one of my chars, who still hasn't got sea access. Interesting, given the fact that the NPC gives option to upgrade the low level artifact with 10 chapters. Why would it require sea access?

But... in the end... what is keeping me from resubscribing at the end of this free period, is the fact that there is no discounted price on SoA expansion anywhere. I'd have to pay full price for the expansion on my three accounts, plus subscribe each for a month to continue. By my calculations, close to 100 euros. Wont happen, sorry SE.

[Camiie]

While I despise many of the old systems and like many of the new ones, I do agree that the initial gear jump with Adoulin was far too drastic and jarring. I've said it before, but there really was no need to change the status quo of sidegrades and minor upgrades. There was much that needed changing and modernizing, but that wasn't it. Yes people wanted new content and new rewards, but small percentage boosts in gear power would have done the trick just as well to lure folks to the new content while still keeping them interested in the old. That would have been a win-win for players and the devs.

As far as the item level system itself, it's kind of a mess IMO. First of all the content was released out of order, and the item levels seem to be backwards in some cases. Why do I get higher item level gear from a mind numbing snoozefest like Yorcia Skirmish than from spending plasm from the more challenging Delve? The 119 boss items make sense. The 110 and 113 gear does not. Of course, the item levels don't necessarily indicate which gear is actually superior. On the surface it has the appearance of a hard number system, but when players do the math they often find lower item level gear to be superior because of the haphazard way stats are distributed and the random nature of augments on mid-tier gear versus max level gear that can't be augmented at all. The whole system comes off as rather half-assed and poorly thought out if we're supposed to use the level numbers to decide what's best. If we're NOT supposed to do that then the numbers really serve little purpose. Except for the fact that the item level number changes our level relative to our opponents, which just makes things more confusing.

[Apie]

Why constantly update old gear, that's being stuck in the past. I'm glad they added stronger gear than was strongest at lvl75 cap. It's silly to have lvl75 gear be the best in the game with a cap of 99 and a second "cap" at 119.

[Draylo]

Ok so OP how about you tell SE what you wanted then? How were we to progress stuck at lv99 without adjusting lvl cap? Did you want to continue to do the same dated events over and over for minimal increases? Let them know, I'm curious too. They had to do something different or the game would have stagnated.

[CaptainCrunch]

Imho, the only people whining about a constant flow of diverse and powerful gear are people that are bad at the game and feel like they're behind because they aren't good enough. Good players are happy that we're getting something new and exciting with every update.

[detlef]

I feel like we're in a situation where we're too gear-dependent. The advantage of player levels and merits is you have something that's always there. Your HP merits are still there regardless of what job you are. You merit your STR one point, that's there for everything. I just feel like mobs have gotten so much stronger, so much more evasive. And yet here we are with essentially the same HP and MP with some boosts to VIT, AGI, etc.

It might sound lame, but somehow back in the day you felt like YOU were getting stronger. Whereas today, you're just using using stronger gear.

[Draylo]

If you are a good player you have good/intelligent gear choices, nothing in this game is hard to get at all. It wasn't hard before the update either. We all relied on gear back then too... just like we do now.

[Draylo]

They aren't all obsolete, what do you mean? I still use skirmish, bayld and delve gear. Some items were yes, but there are a majority that aren't and are still good for certain builds.

[Ravenmore]

The RoE and bayld gear is this expansions pearle gear not meant to be the end all be all or even more then stepping stone gear from the start. Skirmish gear is better then RoE gear And not all of delve/skirmish/anything else is outdated there is much that is sidegrades just like people have been asking for. Look at reforge +1 for the amount of work you put into it is really not all that great and much of reforge is Marco pieces or sit gear. I have asst. jubbah and it is a macro, idle piece and I have vishep legs for drg that is a solo piece since the way wyvern hp% sometimes doesn't get added till after HB goes off. No one event now can gear you out like it was with delve and if I seen anyone full timing Reforge or RF+1 I would laugh at them same if they were fulling any other set.