Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[Shaiera]

I honestly have to say anything that made FFXI an awesome game is completely gone. I remember playing in parties where you did Skillchains and timed spells to create Magic Bursts and Exp Chains and if you all were a skilled party you could really, really Exp well. Raising you’re skills took time invested in the job, something like Guard and Parry skill being capped at max level was something you could honestly be proud of. The missions were very challenging CoP, ToAU, WoTG, and don’t forget Assaults; Cpt. Rank at 75 cap was not easy. All in all, a ton of the content was needing actual teamwork and skill, Limbus, Einherjar, Dynamis, Sea, Sky, Salvage, and KSNM99 just to name a few; I could go as far as to say early Abyssea as well, upon release when there wasn’t level 99 cap.

Now you don’t level and actually play you’re job, you head Zeruhn Mines, Kuftal Tunnel or wherever and get power-leveled to 30; you then enter Abyssea and get 99; this is done in less than a day, ask most Rune Fencer’s. Then rather than hours of skill-up on Parry or Guard like it was in the old days, just grab some Atma and pull a train of mobs and have those capped in couple hours, tops. Finally solo your missions by yourself for some obsolete zone access and gear (cheer). Nothing actually takes skill and effort anymore; there’s a massive huge world and only SoA is relevant. How hard would it really be to up the level on mobs and change out the lot tables on Campaign Battle and Besieged to make the content relevant again; clearly too much.

My point with all this… There is nothing you can have on or about your character at this present date you can actually be proud of; nothing Joe-Shmoe couldn’t do in a weekend. Even Relic, Mythic, Empyrean are garbage to the new gear and system (Delve). Months to get my Faith Torque (+7 H2H) at 75 cap to have a H2H weapon have over +60 H2H Skill on it!? (derp)

It isn’t a question of getting back on track with the game, it’s already too late; I’d rather actually be playing WoW than this cheap knock-off of it - World Of Warcraft. I thought FFXIV was bad; they stole most of WoW’s default buttons and hot-keys. What other game has “!” and “?” over quest giver and turn-in’s heads? What other game has rested when not playing for a few hours while logged off in a town? FFXIV is a huge WoW rip-off for the game-play and mechanics. I’m truthfully surprised Blizzard hasn’t tried to sue.

What’s worse is destroying a once amazing game to try and make it into WoW as well; do the developers really have no ideas and suck so bad they are just coping stuff from they’re favorite game to play on the weekend – World Of Warcraft.

All these questions aside, this post doesn’t really deserve or warrant any real responses; this is probably is my last post ever anyway, I just really had to call it out as I see it, which my come off as a lot of complaining, but it’s TRUE, all of it! FFXI was in my honest opinion the best MMO ever, the moment development started raising level cap and trying to change it into something it wasn’t – World Of Warcraft. It was all down-hill; not even down hill; it was a flat out jump off a cliff!

FFXI was truly amazing and unique, now it’s just someone’s ugly cousin. My it R.I.P.; I doubt it’ll be more than two years before the mass emails get sent for having discontinued service from lack of patrons. I can only finish this post with one helpful piece of advice; pull your heads out of your asses development; vulgar or not, you, as a group, really need to hear it from someone willing to speak up.

[Babekeke]

What's really funny is that everyone b1tched and moaned about how bad the drop rates were in VW, and now again in WKR.

But, the terrible drop rates and low chance of obtaining gear kept them doing the events, just like SE (I assume) had planned.

Since Yorcia Skirmish was released, just about all gear from the first 3 WKR is completely obsolete. Most VW gear has been obsolete for a while now, and only a few people continue to do the event in a vein attempt to complete their empy before the new update to them is released.

That leaves the majority of the people doing 3 things:

1) Yumcax and Hurkan

2) Delve Boss fights - but never the bee, or so it seems on Phoenix when I'm on. >.>

3) Monstrosity - Some have made reference to it being boring, but it at least has progression. Level 1 mob to unlock another. Find the best strategies to kill as many mobs as quickly as possible. Unlock new Instincts, etc.


Yorcia skirmish does have it's good points of course:

Newly returning players aren't instantly excluded from any content that allows them to progress, because it's so easy to do the initial skirmishes to get an upgrade weapon from 99, and you collect some bayld in the process to get some bayld gear.

You don't need to be particularly well-geared to do yorcia, because it's fairly easy once you've got the hang of the map and the strategy.

Once you've done yorcia and got some gear and upgraded a weapon, you're at a point where you can go off on your own and be semi-competitive in the rest of adoulin's content.

[predatory]

Well I have an idea, how about instead of the constant vertical gear climb, you give us some JSE for our respective jobs? Then give us the horizontal gear progression back? You know, how about some events we have to do to become well geared? Before you guys gave us seekers we actually had JSE and could tell one job from another simply by catching a glance of the character, now all the heavy armor types look the same, as do the other armor types. Stop giving us crap content, and give us something we need for our respective jobs

[ScreamingInDigital]

I'm actually coming back to the game. I stopped playing it back when I realized someone at SE decided to change the focus/direction of XI, and turn it more into a "level quickly and then grind end-game" deal, rather than the steady-paced adventure-driven experience it had been for so long before.

Even with the launch of WoW and all the resulting "me-too" follow-ups from other developers, SE stayed the course, understood its playerbase and realized the kind of people playing FFXI were playing it because of the game it was. They maintained a loyal population for years because of that focus. They continued on with what made the game great. They had some mis-steps, of course. They implemented some systems that would fall flat, sure. But they kept the FFXI experience intact. And for that, they maintained what... ~500k players over 7 years into the game's life cycle? Few new MMOs in the last 8+ years can claim those numbers even after their first few months. The reason is, while there's been plenty of MMOs built from the WoW mold, there were very, very few similar to FFXI. And I'd go so far to say that XI was quite unique from any of them, outside of the standard features and functionality that makes a MMO a MMO.

Then, somewhere along the line, they lost that focus. They decided that, rather than stay the course and continue expanding the game as they had been, they would lean more toward the WoW side of things.. faster leveling, easier progress, more soloability, etc. etc. And it really changed the game, especially the way it was played. While many argued at the time that it was for the better, seeing where the game is now... I'm not so sure I would make that claim anymore.

Considering what they'd done with 75 levels, when they announced the increase over time to 99, I thought "wow, think of all they could do with that extra 24 levels?" I was thinking in terms of them expanding on it similarly to how they'd been with the 75 levels already in-game. What I didn't realize was that they'd trivialize those 24 levels - and the rest of the game along with it - to the degree that they did. They took everything they'd spent years creating, and all but obsolesced it in the course of a few major updates.

Now, apparently, they've gone the route of changing it to a purely vertical progression. And, no surprise, the complaints about it now are falling more in line with the complaints people have had about all those other MMOs that SE made it a point to not emulate. New gear is out-done by newer gear only a short time later, racing to the end-game, etc.

So, what has caused FFXI's decline in my opinion?

SE lost their focus, forgot what it was that made FFXI the long-lasting and awesome experience it was, and tried to hop on board with the rest of the genre. They tried to mix oil into water, and the results are self-evident.

As for me returning..
I have a few friends I know who still play, and I'm going to be taking my time. I'm not doing the race to 99 ordeal. I'm going to duo, or even solo, or perhaps get a full group together if/when it's possible, and enjoy this game as much the way I always have as I can. I know it can be done, because others I know are doing it. It's not the popular path, and I know I'm gonna be heckled for not hopping on the speed-leveling bandwagon (I was last time I played), but I don't care. This "new way" of playing FFXI holds no fascination or interest with me. It looks extremely boring, and all I'm seeing for it are a lot of seemingly disappointed players at the end of it. Why would I want to rush into that? I've got plenty more to do that I will enjoy.

[Afania]

I've essentially stopped playing XI since the item level and vertical progression announcements. I found that I was spending more time stressing out about bad management decisions than I was actually enjoying the game, so I took a break (my first ever) back in July. Aside from a couple of weekend visits to see old friends, I've not been back.

It's difficult to make sense of the state of the game at this time, really. SE has always loved to ignore its playerbase and rush headlong into pointless endeavours, but never on this magnitude. It's odd because, somewhat paradoxically, I want to want to play the game, but SE is continuously challenging that as if we're all playing some sort of bizarre metagame of "how long can you tolerate playing XI", with no-one quite sure whether quitting is winning or losing.

I think the true impact of these changes on the playerbase is difficult to gauge because of XIV. People say that population has declined because of XIV, but with the supposedly coincidental timing of XIV's release and XI's sudden drop into (further) insanity, how many of those people would have quit anyway? I took a break with no intention of playing XIV, but so many of my friends went over that I followed, somewhat against my better judgement. It's quickly becoming clear that XIV is going to be vertical progression + item level based from the ground up, so I'm regretting it to some extent already, but the real point is that with the new developer direction there's nothing here for me in XI either, no matter how much I want there to be.

It's not too late for SE to salvage XI. Please, just dump the item levels and dump the vertical progression model. No one wants it. Seekers suffers to some extent from the same crippling lack of resources that plagues the rest of XI, but it's not broken beyond repair. Rip out the new rot before it takes root, and rebalance jobs properly to let people do content on jobs they enjoy. Maybe even invest some money into the game! Just do something before everyone is gone and there's nothing to come back to.

I wish I have 10 "Like" I can use for this post. You summerized everything I feel toward XI. XI population had been dropping before XIV launch, it's not like it's suddenly drop a ton after 8/27. That hinted SoA game direction doesn't work.

In fact it's still dropping, 1.5 months after XIV release. I still log in and check server pop, and every week it seems to get lower. Surely those who wanted to play XIV should already been gone 1.5 month ago, so where's rest of the ppl? Not everyone that cancel account because of XIV. I'm pretty sure many ppl are willing to sub both if XI is still as good as pre-item level era.

[Afania]

So, in [almost?] every other MMO an expansion comes along and obsoletes all the BiS gear around but FFXI shouldn't? Why should gear be made future-proof just because it took a bit of effort 'back in the day'?

Because almost every other MMO following this model that's not World of Warcraft has even lower staying power than pre-Abyssea/pre-SoA FFXI. FFXI is not WoW, so it's destined to fail if they follow the same model. That's the reality.

"Modern" MMO model are bad, with avg 3~5 years of life span and go F2P after 2 years. FFXI switch to same model= killing itself period.

[Afania]

Sorry but all that Skirmish needs is to be made like cirdas so its fun and rewarding. HNM was a waste of life for those who wanted to have one.

If you don't like HNM, don't do it and save yourself some time. Old FFXI never force anyone do HNM, you still have plenty other event to do if you don't like HNM.

There are ppl that liked HNM, just let them like it and do it, it's their life not yours.

[leorez]

If you don't like HNM, don't do it and save yourself some time. Old FFXI never force anyone do HNM, you still have plenty other event to do if you don't like HNM.

There are ppl that liked HNM, just let them like it and do it, it's their life not yours.

Thats what made it great, you were never forced to do content so you could get to the next, you could pick and choose what you wanted to do because there was great gear in just about every event, the "best" piece was never secluded to one event either. For those reasons people are fond of FFXI and say how it has "so much endgame" when really it doesnt have a ton more than other stuff, it just makes all of it viable so people dont just pass through each event and never go back.

[Babekeke]

Because almost every other MMO following this model that's not World of Warcraft has even lower staying power than pre-Abyssea/pre-SoA FFXI. FFXI is not WoW, so it's destined to fail if they follow the same model. That's the reality.

"Modern" MMO model are bad, with avg 3~5 years of life span and go F2P after 2 years. FFXI switch to same model= killing itself period.

The main difference between most other MMOs and FFXI now, is that FFXI will never go F2P.

There will be people out there who never cancel their subscriptions, and even if SE abandon all support for it, they'll keep the servers open as long as enough people are subscribing to cover the cost of powering the servers.

[casual]

Linear progression isn't a bad thing, the problem is that the team working on FFXI now simply hasn't the man power to keep up with the demands it creates. It very well could give FFXI the final killing blow, I've never seen such a bad population drop before.