Originally Posted by
Adventurer
There are many reasons why the game has declined.
For me, FFXI was always much more than a MMORPG, of which many I have played. To me, FFXIV feels like a MMORPG, a really fantastic one but a MMORPG none the less. I played WoW, I played Aion, I played Lineage 2 and some others and while many of them were great fun, they felt like a game. FFXI however, felt like something a bit more special, like an online world you could log into and truly feel like an adventurer in another realm. I think ultimately, even though many can not recognize it, fail to admit it or are blind to the fact, it's what keeps them around hoping so dearly that one day it picks up once again.
I think the biggest problem in FFXI came from the way they decided to handle problems, it reflects with FFXIV if you really think about it. Square Enix tends to fix problems by adding new options and trying to cover them up instead of fixing the problems at hand. They tend to forget about the problems of old and only add new things to distract from the older problems. It's like a doctor who gives you a million dollars to cheer up your spirit instead of actually treating the symptoms you came into the hospital for. When the effect of that million dollars wears off, you still have the same old sickness but now it's taken a worse effect. Instead of simply giving your patients more prizes to keep them unfocused on their ailment, an actual cure needs to be found. As many others have said, so many things are ignored and for this game to shine once more they must face those problems head on.
I think one of the primary things that has lead to the decline of this game is how expansive it once was and how one directional it is in this day and time. I was thinking back to how many years ago I might sign on and ask myself, "Should I do a BCNM? Perhaps level a bit, or farm? Should I do some crafting, or maybe go camp a notorious monster? I might have an event with my linkshell, it could be a Sky NM and then possibly a King afterwards. Once we're done, I might try to work on a mission, or perhaps a quest. I need to skill up a bit as well and I still want to level that one job. Maybe I'll help some newer folks get the items they need for the level cap quest, or help them with an Artifact Quest fight, it's always fun showing off your high level as you decimate the monster they need killed to unlock a particular job!"
The above is just a small number of many options available one had when signing in, there were so many possibilities and what drove people and motivated them to those possibilities were the rewards, accomplishment and joy you got by doing them. Not everything always went in your favor, but adversity is what truly builds character and gives you the sense of accomplishment once you do finally accomplish something. There was simply so much to do and so many reasons to do it. Most of it still exists, but without reason to actually do it, people rarely experience it and the core of the game vanishes like smoke in the wind, leaving only a trace behind of what once was.
The game also use to not only be about end game, it was only part of it. I know no one including myself liked standing around for hours if not days without getting an experience points party, but as I said earlier, instead of resolving the issue, perhaps giving people better options on how to form a experience points party, with who and where they would fight, they just eliminated one of the fundementals of what made this game so unique and what it was. I can truly and honestly say some of the best times I ever had in this game was in a experience points party, grinding down the monsters as I laughed and chatted with friends and made new ones. Again, it made every little thing you earned feel like an accomplishment. Once you achieve those accomplishments, you want to put them into use- it gave the adventurers of Vana'Diel a drive to do more and use what they had worked so hard for.
When you finally got those few more levels and you were able to do a new mission, or equip a new peace of gear, or fight something slightly higher level without dying you felt that sense of accomplishment. You felt like you had done something and it meant something as well. While many people thought this was a slow process, they failed to realize it wasn't always about the destination, but the journey itself that made everything so special.
It was that climb to the top that made the top so much more majestic and beautiful, then doing it again on another job. During the lower and mid levels you got to actually learn the job in parties against less troublesome enemies, you learned the mechanics of the job as you went up so that finally once you reached end game you had a lot better idea of how to put that job to proper use. During the climb you had quests, missions, new gear, new people to meet. Yes, there were a lot of things about the party system that needed to be fixed. People standing around for hours on end not getting to party was no good and overcroweded experience points camps was no fun either, but again, if solutions would have been found to these problems people could have continued doing what made this game so fantastic without the negative side effects.
A big part of this slow climb was that it slowed down mission progression. No longer did you simply go and burn through all the missions in a day, it took some time, but this made one feel more envolved in the story, as if it were an actual journey that they got closer to realizing day by day and once again, that final sense of accomplishment was intoxicating.
Simply put, the game before you hit the level cap was the real journey, it was the real fun and added a full spectrum of things to do all across the board. Where the game once felt so 3 dimensional it now feels as if it is 1 dimension in 1 direction. In this day and time all you do is quickly grind to 30 then open a little box a bunch of times until you reach 99, all of which can be done in a day or two. It removed much of the challenge and sense of accomplishment.
As I said before, it is through adverse circumstances and challenging times that we really learn a lot about who we are, what we're capable of, what drives us and what we're willing to do to realize a goal. It's through the tough missions, hard to defeat monsters and challenges of making it to the top that we became strong, we became skilled and although some tend to disagree, having to depend on others is really what brought us together, taught us to treat others with respect and work together as a team. There needed to be better options and revissions to finding those other people in which to work with, but needing to depend on one another is really what made us such a strong community and what made it feel like more than just a game with other people on it, but something different than any other mmo.
People always complained about horizontal gear progression, but I always felt it was a good idea. Give people MANY options to be A+, not ONE option to be A++++++++ while everything else is left by the wayside. I log in now days and see EVERYONE wearing a bunch of red gear. I know in the days of the Optical Hat and Walahra Turban many people ran around with those on, but there were still so many other options used, especially in all the rest of their bodies. It was a lot more diverse. You could do X event, Y event or Z event and each reward would be different, but they would all be pretty close to equal of each other, save for a few very elite options- but those very elite options were not so far above other gear that it made those without them useless. I sign in now and since I do not have Skirmish weapons no one wants to use my DD at all, while back in the day if some one didn't have a relic weapon or adaberk, but had all the proper gear and merit they held just about the same level of respect if not more.
Merit parties added on to the whole idea of gathering experience points and was a sort of "proving grounds" to show what you had accomplished and could do once you got to the top. It's how so many end game linkshells met members and recruited. More often than not, it wasn't about the gear as much as it was the player. That guy who constantly AFK'd in his adaberk was laughed out of the party while the one who was consistently doing his job, using food and putting out high numbers in the normal hauberk was respected and invited to join many different events.
Let's also not forget how many missions gave you an incredible item, giving us further motivation to finish storylines and reap a reward from it in the end. The game had a lot more depth too it, it was a lot more complex in so many ways...
What's happening now is that people are getting bored and many don't know why. People have had issues trusting Square Enix sense the level cap was originally raised from 75 way back when. I remember spending so many years gathering so much gear, putting so much into my character and really enjoying what I had become only to be told all that hard work was for nothing and those items had been made useless by new ones added. "Why are these new items so much better than everything else? Who's going to want to do all these old events now?" it really concerned me, even then I saw much of this coming. With Abyssea people began to simply "Grind for Gear" and after spending so much time and hard work, much of that gear was replaced, as was that and so on and so forth over and over. People now feel much like they're on a treadmill chasing a carrot, constantly running in a strait line always with that one goal and so few other options.
So much of the game has been abandoned, forgotten and not cared for. People no longer stop to smell the roses, because there is no need to, no reason to and the paths we take lead no where near those roses.
I myself? I still sign on and put on my full set of Relic Armor, a set I once worked so hard to achieve. I go around and do little quests, craft, fish and try to experience Vana'Diel, a ghost of what it once was. I miss standing around with others in Selbina, chatting about the goblins in Valkurm dunes. I miss climbing Delkfutts Tower to get a Dark Knight friend his Artifact Helm, I miss being sent all over the world for many different reasons.
Many will yell and scream, disagree with me as they stare at the carrot they'll never really catch, basking in the "AMAZING STATS" the new gear has without stopping to realize what those stats were even once used for, the many things they helped us do.
I believe FFXI is a incredible world and I would like to personally thank the people who developed it, wrote the stories and made Vana'Diel so incredible. I went through many hardships in my real life and when I never felt like I had a home in the real world, I always felt truly at home in Vana'Diel. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I always thought of FFXI like a tree. As time went on, it only grew more and became more majestic. If a branch died or was struck it only needed to be trimmed, pruned and allowed to grow further, flourishing on and on instead of simply being bulldozed to plant new trees, new shrubbery over and over again.
Take with it what you will, but ask almost anyone what was more rewarding, fulfilling, exciting and fun. Even with all the problems it once had, the old Vana'Diel, or the Vana'Diel of today.
. but people dont even them now n days and the list is even bigger then that with the old pt spots. this was one of the main things i liked that got took away.>< just to join level sync xp pts and to actually do your job in a 6 man pt.
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