Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[FrankReynolds]

Agreed. Another thing that puzzled me in FFXI is lack of experience points for completing quests.

This is a great idea, but SE was always afraid that someone would exploit this to level faster. If it only rewards exp once, then it will not make people want to help you. If it does then SE will make it horrible to ensure that it can't be exploited.

***For some reason they are not willing to piss people off by adding a good amount of reward and then scaling it back if it becomes a problem, but they are perfectly willing to piss off their most dedicated customers by nerfing things that they have put incredible time / effort into.

"Where is everyone?"

There are mostly AFK in cities. It has been this way since the game began.

"Why is this area so empty?

Because groups form in cities where large numbers of people have access to job changes, equipment, home points and auction houses for last minute food, medicine and gear purchases. It has been this way since the game began.

"Do people go elsewhere to level?"

with the exception of the dunes and kahzaam where people hung out because they had a hard time getting to / from the zones at that level, everyone usually hung out in jeuno waiting for a party just like they do now. It has been this way ever since the game began.

"Why am I leveling so slow and my friend is already 30 levels above me?"

Why do you care? Do you want to be level 99? or do you want to party? If you are in it for the experience then form a party and don't worry about getting super fast exp. If all you care about is leveling up then go do what he's doing.

They either can't grasp the learning curve (or don't want to invest the time in doing so) then quit.

Well at least they got to level a job. They used to hit that wall and quit at level 40 or so before.

As for casual players, the ride for them sort of ends at end game.... since they have advanced there so fast, they feel that they have run out of casual things to do. Everything seems so serious and even if they wish to do a casual event, they can't find anyone interested in them because the rewards for them are so worthless.

Yeah, what happened to the good old days when end game was super casual. All you had to do was schedule 10 hours a week around helping 15-30 other people build a huge mound of cash for one complete stranger who would inevitably take the money and run at the end. Or spend 7 hours a night standing in one spot waiting for the chance to be disappointed when the same bot claims that 21-24 hour spawn NM for the 9th day in a row while missing out on RL because the linkshell leader said he would kick you out of the shell and delete all your points if you missed another window this month.

Ahhh the casual days...

SE needs to take a step back and retool their existing content for newer players.

They do. But not this part. The exp changes are great for new players.

I am by no means saying that there should be LESS endgame content but I am saying that there is a great need for worthwhile newbee content. One that teaches them how to play the game, not how to leech from it.

Exp parties are still here. To be honest, they are probably not much harder to start now than they were then. The only difference is the reason. In the old days you couldn't find people because leveling was tedious and most people didn't want to do it, either that or they were the wrong levels / jobs. Now you can't find people because leveling is tedious and most people would rather skip through it.

The difference is that now people don't level in parties because they choose not to instead of not leveling because they can't.

TLDR; Dead horse debate. They are not getting rid of abyssea parties.

[Hawklaser]

Regarding your comment about new players not knowing how to get to level 99 in a few days... Most catch on pretty quick because they begin to ask around. Questions like this arise:

"Where is everyone?"
"Why is this area so empty? Do people go elsewhere to level?"
"Why am I leveling so slow and my friend is already 30 levels above me?"

When asked that in a shout, most players either tend to tell the player how to exploit level (step by step) or they point them to a wiki which explains the same thing. So yes, new players do know how to level that fast, they just don't learn what to do with the skills they have acquired until later in endgame (where it matters most). At that point it is sink or swim for the newbee. They either can't grasp the learning curve (or don't want to invest the time in doing so) then quit.

Which comes back to your new players having to rely on the vets to get going. Eventually the new players that like the game will find out how to do things, but I think a good game design would be one that would allow them to get hooked on the game without having to rely on outside assistance in that critical introduction time period. A good example is a friend of mine that started when I returned to the game, his biggest complaint was being so lost when I could not help him out with things. That being from getting initial gear, quests he could do, where to explore. FFXI is one of the few MMOs that barely holds the newbies' hands, and at one point in its history it did not at all.

TLDR; Dead horse debate. They are not getting rid of abyssea parties.

They don't need to get rid of Abyssea parties or GoV burns, but they do need some engaging and entertaining content for new players. As rushing to 99 to just start a gear grind is not going to keep many new players around. Let them level as fast or as slow as they want, but at least give them more options with meaningful rewards for this new quick leveling style of FFXI.

Going to use that linen robe quest mentioned earlier as an example, before there might of been a use to it for a very new player, but now its not really worth it, as it is quite possible they either found something close in a brown casket or they will have leveled way past the item by the time they get the reputation and do all the leg work for the quest.

So how do you make quests like that worthwhile for a newbie, considering how fast one levels now? For one, would have to rework the fame system, two would likely need to start having quest items have useful augments, and three add some universal rewards such as Gil, XP, conquest points, or beastman seals to them.

We have this vast wasteland of unused content now, even back when FFXI was newer, quite a few places went unused. Just think of all the zones you don't do anything besides Voidwatch or just passing through now. Like when was the last time you went to Toraimarai Canal outside of doing something like Fenrir?

Point trying to make is that outside of leveling, a newbie does not have much to do until they hit 99 and have to start participating in the gear grind. How do you engage and hook a player when all they have to look forward to in their initial exposure to the game is grinding, followed by more grinding?

[Prrsha]

Stuff.

If you put as much energy in posting solutions for the problem at hand then just shooting them down at a whim with no hard evidence... FFXI would be a paradise by now.

Some people are just doom and gloom and the slightest suggestion of improving a system (which everyone I think here admits is broken now and dying fast) makes some froth with malcontent.

Complaining serves no purpose then to demoralize or flame the community unless you can post an alternative that would fix the current newbee problem (and other problems) at hand. Proclaiming everyone has rose colored glasses on (a metaphor many have used in the past) is subjective at best. Plus proclaiming everything is black or white, 100% right or wrong, serves no purpose either and garners no credibility on your part.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but the thread at hand is not really about that. It is about what can be done to help save FFXI with creative ideas. Doing anything else is just mucking up the forums with flames/gibberish/rooted opinions and makes it that much harder for the devs to wade through the mess to gleam any gems from it.

Pearls before swine...

[Prrsha]

Why do you care? Do you want to be level 99? or do you want to party? If you are in it for the experience then form a party and don't worry about getting super fast exp. If all you care about is leveling up then go do what he's doing.

The quote you quoted was not my own but one I have heard echoed many times by others... hence if you read the text before those quotes you'd see that.

I am not quite sure if you are asking me that question personally or just in general to a comment made by another?

[FrankReynolds]

How do you engage and hook a player when all they have to look forward to in their initial exposure to the game is grinding, followed by more grinding?

Do like they did with atmas in abyssea. Give them some stat bonuses that carry over permanently though. Like say
"complete this quest gain +5 max MP" and
"complete this quest, gain 10 max HP" or
"Do this mission line, earn one free retrace spell every day" or
"Do this mission, earn 1 level in the craft of your choice"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on chocobo rentals"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on NPC warps"
etc.

There could be a million little bonuses like that, none of which would be game breaking, but all of which would make playing the game a little easier and round out your character a little. Even high level players would jump on some of those.

[Daemon]

I disagree , I agree with Stompa and Prrsha.

Me too I have to agree with both.

No matter if it takes you 2 hours to grind or 6 hours to grind. You are still grinding. However, the way you progressed is totally different now than before.

You can argue how hard it is to find a group.
We still have that problem today. Just in different ways now than before.. VW, Eibherjar, Assault, Limbus, sky? Who does sky as a group anymore?

We have different types of players in FFXI. Some like the grind to be laid back where you can hang out with 5 other people all day and talk about all sorts of stuff. Be there to appreciate the level you gained and try out that new gear set, weapon you were holding for the moment you leveled up. Try out that new job ability, WS in front of those people in your party, or that brand new spell youve been dying to use since spending an entire week from exping just to farm and save up enough gil to buy all your gear for the next few levels.

To us, it was wasnt about the exp. Because exping to us is like going to your job. Yeah some of us don't like to go to work but do we have any choice? Gotta earn that money for bills right? Or else fall behind and get no where.

So yeah, exp was just one of those things that had to be done, yet our focus was more on the atmosphere, the people, the adventure.


Then you got people who find leveling is a chore and just wanna get it done and over with. Because they have millions of other things to do, exping was only holding them back. Especially when you start seeing your friends you started out with surpass you and move on.

Kinda like being held back a grade only to see everyone move forward without you.

Then there's people who can play more than 6 hours a day.
While you have those who only have 1-2 hours a night. Some only on the weekend.

To those who like the new direction. It's because in a sense you feel like you are progressing. Hey I just got 75 levels in today.

Boy I got 99 today, can finally switch over to a new job and start leveling that for VW. While my other job is for Dyna.

Which there is nothing wrong with that because we all have different reasons and different expectations of how we want to play a game that we are paying for.

However. When some people say "Actually spend time learning how to play the job"

It's not them saying everyone doesn't know how to play the job. It's that rather spending 8-12 hours leveling to 99 in an 18 man alliance, we stay for hours trying out different skillchains, learning how to use different gear sets, figure out which food was the best for different areas and camps. Look up monster information to see weaknesses. Explore different areas together trying to figure out where would be the best place to level.

And yeah to us, moving from dunes to Jeuno, figuring out how to get to the new city and do the quests like chocobo license.. Leveling in Qifim to Lower Delkfutts to Kahzam getting lost in yuhtunga and yhoater, sea serpents grotto to exploring norg together, then moving to garlaige citadel, gustav tunnel on to Altepa to labyrinth of onzonzo to Temple of Uggalpeh to Kuftal tunnel to cape terrigan on to sky...

The point that they were trying to make was the game is not like that anymore. I remember so many times I got lost in yhoater jungle, the entire party got lost too, spend so much time just to get to the spot safely.

Or how many people fell down the hole in Garlaige citadel? Or the infamous mob train at the entrance of crawlers near?

Back then we had more fun enjoying the entire game exploring different areas together with friends, small exp groups than today's. gather together jueno lets just do it already and be done with it 18 man grind, or quick gear that anyone can get in a day really. Cough.. Delve...

Remember back in the day leveling in dunes, Valkurm emperor sometimes spawned on your group out of nowhere and wiped everyone out who couldn't run fast enough to Selbina?

Or everyone running back to the entrance of Qufim at night because ghouls and banshee would spawn and wipe everyone out. Oh look that taru whm... run for it.... oh dam... another one that didnt make it...


Death was fun back then. I lost count of how many different ways I died.. Some pretty dumb, some very funny...

[Karbuncle]

For what its worth FFXI Quests don't give exp because this MMO came before that trend. I mean, Its no excuse not to add quests in later expansions that give exp, but retroactively doing it would require more manpower (and they'd f**k it up) than I'd think worth the effort.

Plus, they attempted to add exp/quest rewards with all dem OPs and crap... Just rather ineffectively as expected.

[Hawklaser]

Do like they did with atmas in abyssea. Give them some stat bonuses that carry over permanently though. Like say
"complete this quest gain +5 max MP" and
"complete this quest, gain 10 max HP" or
"Do this mission line, earn one free retrace spell every day" or
"Do this mission, earn 1 level in the craft of your choice"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on chocobo rentals"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on NPC warps"
etc.

There could be a million little bonuses like that, none of which would be game breaking, but all of which would make playing the game a little easier and round out your character a little. Even high level players would jump on some of those.

Exactly, that would be the kind of stuff they could add in an expansion or update that revamps a lot of older content on top of adding new endgame content that would involve all players. And if the quests and missions were engaging, would do a whole lot more for retaining what new players do get brought into FFXI. If I was designing the game, would likely limit those kind of rewards to quests like the linen robe one mentioned earlier(disposable gear quests), and some of the missions, mostly because some with more permanent rewards like spell scrolls or something like Rajas ring don't need the extra oomph to them.

Now if only the tutorial for new players got updated again on top of something like that, might start seeing some growth in the player base.

[Daemon]

Do like they did with atmas in abyssea. Give them some stat bonuses that carry over permanently though. Like say
"complete this quest gain +5 max MP" and
"complete this quest, gain 10 max HP" or
"Do this mission line, earn one free retrace spell every day" or
"Do this mission, earn 1 level in the craft of your choice"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on chocobo rentals"
"Do this quest to earn a discount on NPC warps"
etc.

There could be a million little bonuses like that, none of which would be game breaking, but all of which would make playing the game a little easier and round out your character a little. Even high level players would jump on some of those.

I'm still waiting for them to fix Nexus Cape.

[Umichi]

IKNEW IT, YOU'RE A STARCADE SOCK PUPPET AREN'T YOU! ADMIT IT!

I actually had to wiki this.... lol I never knew a game like this existed......