Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[Daemon]

Hello Everyone!

We know there are many reasons. However in this post, Lets see everyone list 1 Reason Why you think FFXI is Declining.

I Figure we must try to get the DEV TEAMS Attention some how?

#1. Share 1 Opinion in a short Comment.
#2. No Criticism, disagreements, or replies to other people who list their opinion.
#3. Stay on topic so we can make it easy for them to see our lists of Opinions.

Disclaimer: Nothing is fact, just opinions on everyone's point of view. Please do not reply to others comments with debates because this is not meant to be a debate from player to player. Only an insight of how each person thinks of FFXI at its current state.

You can make your comment simple or detailed like my first comment below. You can also add other opinions but please try to keep 1 opinion per reply.

Thank you.

[Daemon]

Opinion: Lack of merit points limiting us on several things especially when we all play multiple jobs on 1 account.

Reason: I wouldn't go that far to create a new character and start all over just to enjoy meriting a Job properly. And because of this, new jobs that come out, it's not helping us who wants to play the jobs seriously.

Conclusion: Seeing that this happens, loss of motivation to enjoy new jobs leads to my opinion on why FFXI is declining.

Solution: Add more merits points so we can raise up skills for the different jobs we play.

[Karah]

This isn't going to get deleted in a day, so I'll just go ham.

Opinion: Why is FFXI declining... there is a literal million reasons. Racist GMs. Weak player base. "Supposed" language barriers, that effectively cut the community in half. Lack of skill within the playerbase. Lack of interest within the playerbase. Laziness in the playerbase. Events that force you to rely upon other people... See the pattern?

Reason: Humans, as a whole, to sum them up, are like electricity, they "follow the path of least resistance". The most reward for the least work possible. It's a flaw inherent within humanity as a species, not ffxi. It can be said that there is no skill to ffxi, just alot of luck and pressing of CTRL 1 > CTRL 2 > CTRL 1 over and over. It's unfortunate that "MMO" had to be attached to FFXI. If it had the ability to play offline and online(like PSO), things might have been different.

What it comes down to in one short sentence is this; "In the way people" People not doing a damn thing but being in the way, taking to long to accomplish menial tasks. Slowing down over all progress.

Conclusion: Start over, aka FFXIV. FFXI will never go away it'll never die, it'll be on a hell of a life support system though.

Solution: Destroy all humans. Or ban baby making. Quality > Quantity.

[Hayward]

Opinion: Obstinacy among the developers is the biggest thing killing FFXI. Not owning up to mistakes made in the past, abandoning changes that revitalized the game (Abyssea) in a foolish attempt to enforce their outmoded philosophy after the genie was out of the bottle.

Examples: The developers' out-and-out fear of giving pet jobs what they need to function effectively in a short time while simultaneously giving melee jobs everything but the kitchen sink. Preventing mages from being effective at their jobs due to needlessly high MP costs. Not giving Paladins the tools needed to flourish from 1-99 and instead enabling elitism by limiting their effectiveness to 2 shields that are out of reach for a high number of players.

Conclusion: These developers must listen to the players more often and take examples from ArenaNet and, more locally, Yoshi-P. Input from players, contrary to some self-appointed pros on these forums, can be extremely valuable. They must also adapt to the times and realize that timesinks and punishing mistakes just aren't acceptable to players anymore.

[Umichi]

Opinion: The players. That is in my honesty what is killing FFXI

Solution: turn the servers off

[Anjou]

Opinion: Overly excessive things such as high nm respawns, people waiting hours on end wasting their lives for something that they want or need, only to have it taken by another player who otherwise does -not- need it. Then after mob is stolen, all of that time is wasted, they feel like their time on the game is moot, they stress,they rage, they quit.

Example: I nearly quit when Khimaira was outclaimed after literally wasting an entire day just sitting around waiting for it to pop. The moment it did a PLD flash pulled it, and that was the end of that story.

Conclusion: The long respawn times on most nm's are a reasonable factor that is preying on the ffxi community.

Solution: Cut down on the multi hour/multi DAY repop nm's, there's no reason for them to be that long in terms of an nm taking a maximum (Now that's just documented, never said it couldn't go over) a 3 day wait. That's 3 days a player is nervous about not being at camp, having to wait 2-3 days later if someone killed it. I really emphasize lowering their respawn times to maybe 5 or even 6 hours, that'd at least make it where people -can- camp them again, and not wait days and days for a shot at something with a 7% drop rate. If it gets taken, oh well try again later that day. What do you have to lose Square Enix? Seriously...

[Gellvos]

Abyssea, it breeds noobs, those areas should be 75+ only!

But honestly, this is an old game. It is also a lot harder to get a hold of and not as user friendly as many other MMOs out there.

[Byrth]

Ignoring that the OP assumes that the number of FFXI subscriptions is decreasing, here is what I think they're doing wrong:

1) They're creating a two-tier system where the "hardcore" players are miles and miles and miles beyond the "casual" players due to Delve boss weapons.
Example: Last night I did Provenance Watcher on Monk. I did twice as much damage as the second closest DDs (a 99 Ryunohige DRG and 99 Ragnarok DRK about tied). It is not uncommon for me to out-DD people when I come a DD job, but normally I'm doing 33% more damage than them. This time it was 100% more damage, and to top it off... I have no H2H merits or Shijin Spiral. I haven't even unlocked Ascetic's Fury. I did so well simply because I won a pair of Oaxiturs earlier in the day from Tojil (the only person in my linkshell to comment them because everyone else already has).
Reason it is problematic: These weapons give players incredible DPS. You have made the game substantially easier for the small subsection of the playerbase that is perfectly capable of playing FFXI on hard mode. Apart from the danger that they will get bored and quit if more difficult content is not added (which seems like a legitimate problem, given the proposed update path), they may get bored even more quickly doing old content because it's not challenging at all anymore. My linkshell has Tojil and the Dakuwaka on farm status, and we'll probably take down the bee on Tuesday night. There aren't going to be any more Delve Fracture bosses until after August, unless I'm mistaken. What are we supposed to do? Grow Moko Grass? Pick up soon-to-be outdated Salvage equipment that we obviously don't need by doing brainless 30-minute runs? We already have literally millions of Plasm. This is a real problem, and it was entirely caused by too much player advancement in too little time.

2) They have removed "gear value" stability.
Example: Back at 75, gear retained its value for long periods of time. If you got an Armada Hauberk in 2005, it was still the best TP body in 2009. Abyssea overturned this paradigm and basically outdated everything. Once we reached the 99 cap, several more upgrades came out (Thaumas and some new abjurations), but the gear hierarchy was basically stable again. Player confidence in gear investments was slowly growing again. Since Adoulin, no one wants to invest in equipment anymore.
Reason it is problematic: This decreases the drive of both casual and hardcore players to obtain minor improvements, but SE has not awoken to this reality and continues to release upgrades that are minor but require a lot of effort. For instance, the last 5 Plasm armor upgrades take something like 4,000 points (2x Airlixir +2s = 8mil or 200k Plasm). They're also pretty likely to still be outdated by equipment released in this patch or the next patch. So why blow the gil for such minor improvements?

[Umichi]

most gamestops sell copies of the latest disc released, and they can be readily purchased at alot of retailers online, including themselves, lack of availability is probable but not likely

[Sfchakan]

Ignoring that the OP assumes that the number of FFXI subscriptions is decreasing, here is what I think they're doing wrong:

1) They're creating a two-tier system where the "hardcore" players are miles and miles and miles beyond the "casual" players due to Delve boss weapons.
Example: Last night I did Provenance Watcher on Monk. I did twice as much damage as the second closest DDs (a 99 Ryunohige DRG and 99 Ragnarok DRK about tied). It is not uncommon for me to out-DD people when I come a DD job, but normally I'm doing 33% more damage than them. This time it was 100% more damage, and to top it off... I have no H2H merits or Shijin Spiral. I haven't even unlocked Ascetic's Fury. I did so well simply because I won a pair of Oaxiturs earlier in the day from Tojil (the only person in my linkshell to comment them because everyone else already has).
Reason it is problematic: These weapons give players incredible DPS. You have made the game substantially easier for the small subsection of the playerbase that is perfectly capable of playing FFXI on hard mode. Apart from the danger that they will get bored and quit if more difficult content is not added (which seems like a legitimate problem, given the proposed update path), they may get bored even more quickly doing old content because it's not challenging at all anymore. My linkshell has Tojil and the Dakuwaka on farm status, and we'll probably take down the bee on Tuesday night. There aren't going to be any more Delve Fracture bosses until after August, unless I'm mistaken. What are we supposed to do? Grow Moko Grass? Pick up soon-to-be outdated Salvage equipment that we obviously don't need by doing brainless 30-minute runs? We already have literally millions of Plasm. This is a real problem, and it was entirely caused by too much player advancement in too little time.

2) They have removed "gear value" stability.
Example: Back at 75, gear retained its value for long periods of time. If you got an Armada Hauberk in 2005, it was still the best TP body in 2009. Abyssea overturned this paradigm and basically outdated everything. Once we reached the 99 cap, several more upgrades came out (Thaumas and some new abjurations), but the gear hierarchy was basically stable again. Player confidence in gear investments was slowly growing again. Since Adoulin, no one wants to invest in equipment anymore.
Reason it is problematic: This decreases the drive of both casual and hardcore players to obtain minor improvements, but SE has not awoken to this reality and continues to release upgrades that are minor but require a lot of effort. For instance, the last 5 Plasm armor upgrades take something like 4,000 points (2x Airlixir +2s = 8mil or 200k Plasm). They're also pretty likely to still be outdated by equipment released in this patch or the next patch. So why blow the gil for such minor improvements?

You, sir, can have all of my internets. Take them all!