Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

[Oddwaffle]

Going to chip in before we're all doom and gloom and dead with the current game direction.

Problem/Opinion: It appears that the developers fail to understand what their customers really desire and just go ahead and try to make the game fresh again without even consider the aftermath. I understand that the game has been stagnating ever since reaching lv95-99. Matsui knows the problem and he wants to refresh/reset the game. However, what he failed to see is that people are responsive to options and hate being forced to do something.

Reason: People hate being forced to do things. You can't tell people "18 people alliance will be the end game, do it!". That's not going to work. You need to give your customers options. The more options the better. By definitions, having options means all choices are roughly equal in terms of reward vs time and effort spend by a single player. If you have bad and good options then the only actual choice is the good option and no body will pick the bad one.

Solution: Make contents for EVERYONE. Alliance, large linkshell, small linkshell, group of friends or 1-2 buddies, the guy who only plays solo or that gal over there who only log in to chat with her friends or that power player with 10 characters running around doing everything. Obviously that's impossible as people play their game at different pace. So make a few content with similar rewards and different approaches. Also, you need to keep the similar amount of reward vs effort with these approaches.

Don't make too many 'ladders'. Don't make too many contents with "you must do this content before you can do that content". You will keep getting players being left behind and give up on the game. If you have to make them then you must ensure that everyone can climb those 'ladders'. I repeat EVERYONE. If you see a large gap between top players and the bottom ones then close it quickly by speeding up those who left behind. Don't sit around and wait cause those at the bottom will just quit and the game is lost.

[Omegablue]

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

Solution: turn the servers off

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

[Eijii]

Eorzea welcomes you all.

[Stompa]

Aby expansion and the skill-up / level-up easymode options made people lazy imo. Turning up in Aby buttnaked and going afk for ages, too lazy to even open boxes, your only actual gaming achievement is turning the pages in a Dom ops book repeatedly for days on end. This kills the 'user input' aspect of being a gamer.
Turning pages in your pyjamas, is not the same as pre Aby xp parties where we were fighting imps and colibris etc. and you had to wear correct armor, not go afk, play your job right etc. Or in WOTG, campaign mobs would destroy you if you were afk and naked. This meant you had to be a gamer and not a naked leech. Attaining levels and skillups was a slow process, which trained you in playing your job, and was also important in learning party dynamics. It gave you a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, which is now entirely absent because you got lvl 99 in your underwear by clicking on a GOV npc a lot of times.
Many people including myself played FFxi originally because we wanted a more challenging game, with slow lvling and slow skill up, and structured tiered system of accomplishment. After 2010 this was nulled in various updates, to the point now you can get a lvl 99 War without ever using a weapon even once. That is where SE went wrong, they should have stayed with the original game mechanics. I think the only good thing they added since 2008 was level synch, because that allowed people to party when there wasnt a lvl appropriate tank seeking. After that, and especially in Soa, it has been downhill. I will continue to play this game as long as it is online, because I still enjoy the core content & love Vanadiel, but I miss the 04-09 era a lot.

[Daemon]

Aby expansion and the skill-up / level-up easymode options made people lazy imo. Turning up in Aby buttnaked and going afk for ages, too lazy to even open boxes, your only actual gaming achievement is turning the pages in a Dom ops book repeatedly for days on end. This kills the 'user input' aspect of being a gamer.
Turning pages in your pyjamas, is not the same as pre Aby xp parties where we were fighting imps and colibris etc. and you had to wear correct armor, not go afk, play your job right etc. Or in WOTG, campaign mobs would destroy you if you were afk and naked. This meant you had to be a gamer and not a naked leech. Attaining levels and skillups was a slow process, which trained you in playing your job, and was also important in learning party dynamics. It gave you a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, which is now entirely absent because you got lvl 99 in your underwear by clicking on a GOV npc a lot of times.
Many people including myself played FFxi originally because we wanted a more challenging game, with slow lvling and slow skill up, and structured tiered system of accomplishment. After 2010 this was nulled in various updates, to the point now you can get a lvl 99 War without ever using a weapon even once. That is where SE went wrong, they should have stayed with the original game mechanics. I think the only good thing they added since 2008 was level synch, because that allowed people to party when there wasnt a lvl appropriate tank seeking. After that, and especially in Soa, it has been downhill. I will continue to play this game as long as it is online, because I still enjoy the core content & love Vanadiel, but I miss the 04-09 era a lot.

Well now... I thought I was the only person to feel this way. +1 like to you

[Omegablue]

Aby expansion and the skill-up / level-up easymode options made people lazy imo. Turning up in Aby buttnaked and going afk for ages, too lazy to even open boxes, your only actual gaming achievement is turning the pages in a Dom ops book repeatedly for days on end. This kills the 'user input' aspect of being a gamer.
Turning pages in your pyjamas, is not the same as pre Aby xp parties where we were fighting imps and colibris etc. and you had to wear correct armor, not go afk, play your job right etc. Or in WOTG, campaign mobs would destroy you if you were afk and naked. This meant you had to be a gamer and not a naked leech. Attaining levels and skillups was a slow process, which trained you in playing your job, and was also important in learning party dynamics. It gave you a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, which is now entirely absent because you got lvl 99 in your underwear by clicking on a GOV npc a lot of times.
Many people including myself played FFxi originally because we wanted a more challenging game, with slow lvling and slow skill up, and structured tiered system of accomplishment. After 2010 this was nulled in various updates, to the point now you can get a lvl 99 War without ever using a weapon even once. That is where SE went wrong, they should have stayed with the original game mechanics. I think the only good thing they added since 2008 was level synch, because that allowed people to party when there wasnt a lvl appropriate tank seeking. After that, and especially in Soa, it has been downhill. I will continue to play this game as long as it is online, because I still enjoy the core content & love Vanadiel, but I miss the 04-09 era a lot.

All I'm hearing is "Grinding is a game." No. We did that for enough years. The party system sucked in the long run. I played as both a dog DD and Princess-come-play-with-us RDM and WHM during that time. Let it go. SE's problem nowadays is making appropriate content and that's really only been an issue since Legion and Seekers.

[Daemon]

All I'm hearing is "Grinding is a game." No. We did that for enough years. The party system sucked in the long run. I played as both a dog DD and Princess-come-play-with-us RDM and WHM during that time. Let it go. SE's problem nowadays is making appropriate content and that's really only been an issue since Legion and Seekers.

As I stated in the disclaimer, this is not meant to be a debate from player to player however an insight on each persons point of view. I do share the same opinion as Stompa so I'm sure even though not everyone will agree with each other, this post was meant to see how everyone feels about the current state of FFXI. And I do respect your point of view

Hopefully the DEV TEAM will take a closer look at our concerns with this post.

[Hawklaser]

All I'm hearing is "Grinding is a game." No. We did that for enough years. The party system sucked in the long run. I played as both a dog DD and Princess-come-play-with-us RDM and WHM during that time. Let it go. SE's problem nowadays is making appropriate content and that's really only been an issue since Legion and Seekers.

Never had a problem with the grind, but more of getting into groups so could make progress outside of farming up some gil or a NM item. Now, Level Sync was a good idea to alleviate the time looking for XP parties and so if one person leveled it didn't kill a whole party in off hours. Too bad it ended up more being used so groups could stay in one camp way longer than they should of. Anyone else remember East Ronfaure (S) level syncs for Colibri? Now with GoV burns and abyssea being the main ways to get XP, takes a lot of what was enjoyable out of the xp grind. Granted it is nice having that speed up as much as it is now, but that also takes out a lot of the fun of the journey along the way. How many remember their first trip to Jeuno, unescorted at 20? Or doing any missions before quite a few of them were made easy mode? Or any number of crazy things from trying to solo prime avatars to having Guivre sneak up on your XP party and plotting to get revenge later? Which makes me wonder, what things does a new player have to do that will leave lasting memories for them? Because those kind of things are what help get and keep a new player interested in playing.

With most if not all new content being aimed at old players, it really is no wonder that XI is loosing more players than it is gaining. Which makes me wonder how long till FFXI gets an expansion like WoW's Cataclysm to try and reinvigorate things for newer players, and give some new experiences to older players. As the new players need engaging content at all levels instead of just endgame. Which is why CoP is still my favorite expansion of FFXI, because even though some parts were very hard, it had events for most levels to participate in, compared to most of the others which have been primarily aimed at near end game leveled and geared players.

[Oddwaffle]

Here's another opinion.

Opinion/Reason: FFXI has too many empty content. Empty as in people rarely does them. MMM anyone? Garrison? These are ideas that didn't go anywhere but are kept in the game. As the game progress, more content get introduced and the old ones stick around. The more new content you give people the less people will do other content. These content are kept for the sake of 1-2 people doing them (if they still do it somehow) and resources are used to keep them around like useless fat in your body.

There are a lot of players who have never ever done any of the old content. To them these would be new and refreshing. SE is abandoning these content too quickly by introducing new things. New players would never experience how rich FFXI was if they are doing what they are doing now. Race to 99, join Delve as a Whm or Cor -> end.

I have played this game for over 10 years and I'm sure there are things I have yet to do. However, none of that really matters now with how the game is focus.

Solution: Spend a bit of resources on recycling old content. Don't spend all your resources in making new areas, new monsters, new battlefields. Concept wise, it's not that hard to put some of your inspirations and new ideas into old content and make them interesting and refreshing again. Don't just cut and paste them with higher level monsters. Instead mix and match them, modify them a bit, add a little bit here, take away that annoying thing...etc.

Stop worrying about getting new content. FFXI is old. That means it has a large amount of ideas and materials that can be built up on. I don't know much about coding but I think it's far easier to recycle, rebuilt and recreate some old things than just simply putting in new things. I know veteran artists and professional engineers often drawn their inspirations from their old work, sketches and even doodles or abandoned work.

Lure people with item rewards. Not the silly chocobo hat or such. Make something useful. Give people options.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

All I'm hearing is "Grinding is a game." No. We did that for enough years. The party system sucked in the long run. I played as both a dog DD and Princess-come-play-with-us RDM and WHM during that time. Let it go. SE's problem nowadays is making appropriate content and that's really only been an issue since Legion and Seekers.

I don't know. I've been grinding since diablo. It seems to work as a main game mechanic.