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.