In regards to Matsui

[Daemon]

Dear Matsui,

This game has been going on for 11 years. And since the release of FFXIV made its way. I am curious to ask if there are any plans for FFXI to change the fee for monthly Subscription?

The way I see it, each day this game is losing more players. Obviously attempts to continue promoting such an antique has not been successful or the efforts to do so have been lacking in priorities. As a fan it makes us wonder how serious it is for us to continue support without proper communication between you and us as fans.

As each day passes, more people are wondering if servers will be merged to bring existing players together than leave small portions wandering around unable to do things effectively due to the lack of people or failure to overcome the minimum requirements for accomplishing goals according to the set standards of the event implemented within the entire game.

The way I see FFXI personally. Many game companies reaching this point either lower the cost of subscription fee or turn the game into FREE TO PLAY and add paid services such as item purchases, bonus packs, Starter kits, further implementing rent items or purchase items in the game itself.

As for bringing interest back into FFXI I will share my take on how I feel as a player who has been playing since day 1 and still to this day continue to be a fan of FFXI.

I understand your job is not easy and certain standards have been set according to limits and traditional rules to keeping FFXI within the realm of all Final Fantasy games.

However here is my view of some key issues that I think are crucial to the path FFXI has been going through until this point in time.

Before the release of Heroes of Abyssea, the issue was players were losing interest and finding it difficult to join experience points parties therefore level sync was added to the equation.

Upon releasing GOV and 18 man alliances encouraged larger groups of people to share the same interest and follow the same path of progression within the game which in my opinion was intended to group a larger amount of players to keep bigger groups of the community together.

As Heroes of Abbysea was released, long quests, storyline and fast leveling gave players a sense of quick progression which gave everyone hope of being able to login and do things together because the progression was at a decent pace and the gap between others was stable enough not to separate the community.

I understand that as players become higher level, gaps begin to happen and I also see how content have tier progressions that allow all players to reach goals at certain paces depending upon the level of the player. However I also know its not easy to create a tier system and keep that system in tact as the majority of the player base begins to surpass such content. This I know leads to going back into previous content to adjust conditions based on where the majority of the playerbase resides.

In honesty though I think content could have been better thought out and implemented with care and the current content release seems to have been rushed leading to mistakes and carelessness. Ignoring small adjustments needed over time resulted in overlapping the problem and the further things become ignored the bigger the problems became overlapped leading to ignore the problem completely which leaves us suffering the consequences as we play the game.

FFXI use to be about putting in time and effort to obtain gear that lasted long enough to make up for the effort and time it took to obtain such items.

The disappointment was releasing such powerful gear and items in SoA seemed like a rush of instant power and gratification that separated the community and because of this rush people stepped over others to get to higher power regardless of leaving others behind and as players with higher power continued to leave behind those with less power the gap between the 2 groups became further apart.

Several issues that should have been addressed over the course of time were left behind only to pile up and corner you into a position of adjusting the game with higher limits.

I just think if you listened to the community's concerns a long time ago and sorted things out than make constant careless adjustments such as adding massive amounts of gear than sort the issue with players inventory, FFXI wouldn't be a mess as it is now.

And this is why I see FFXI losing its regular fanbase. One thing I've learned about business is that you have to keep your clients happy, earn their trust, get your clients to fall in love with your business or your service that way when all else fails, the community will always stay with you no matter how bad things are. You will have a crowd who loves and supports anything and everything you do.

However, lack of proper communication between different communities. Lack of responses. And lack of expected adjustments only leaves your fanbase wondering what is going on? How can we understand your vision better?

Since day 1, I've seen many people including myself up until this point continue to ask if we could have more low man events, better adjustments to our character through permanent stat adjustments, skills, WS, spells, things that make out character powerful and unique through level progression.

Observing the direction you are taking us, it seems the alternative adjustment is to obtain items, gear and weapons to give us power through stats on items which to many of us feels like false power that requires effort to bring our character beyond the limit of our level cap.

The issue is we constantly see more attention being focused in releasing new content, events, items instead of focusing on each individual job.

All of us players have been using the same spells, abilities, WS too long that jobs have become stale boring repeat routines and this is why many of us complain we are not getting proper attention.

This is why we are feeling that instead of addressing what we want, we are being ignored with quick fixes and instant gratification only to satisfy every player for the moment rather than the long run such as implementing things that give our jobs more than what is already given as an individual that brings out the uniqueness of the job we play.

I leave you with this and hope this thread can give you light on how us players really feel. I also understand that your job is not easy but I hope you do take the time to listen to our real concerns.

As a supporting player of 11 years, I still have faith in you.

For everyone else reading. Feel free to add more concerns, debates and how you feel about this topic.

Thank you.

[Kaisha]

Ditching the $1/month per content ID would be a nice start for many.

[Vivivivi]

In my opinion, the sudden departure of so many players (530 on Quetz at the moment) is due largely in part to XIV's now successful re-launch, I can say this with some certainty, as my XIV linkshell is made up largely of XI players. I do notice on weekends that the XI numbers still largely remain the same as three weeks ago (1.5k+ here). So in my very informal survey, people haven't outright left XI just yet, they're just not playing as much.

I think it may be premature to call for another server merge since XIV is brand new (again) and I'm sure many people who play both games are enjoying all of the new content in XIV, while they're likely caught up to what XI has to offer. As people reach end game in XIV I wouldn't be surprised if those who play both begin to spend more time in Vana'diel again, especially with each major update.

I of course don't have access to official stats or anything, but this sudden drop off doesn't seem unprecedented, I remember a similar pattern when other, non SE titles came out such as Diabolos 3, Skyrim, etc that have a big cross over appeal. Another major XI update, and people came back, Adoulin picked up steam and the game seemed more alive than ever in recent years.

For financial reasons, if I'm continually wanting to play XI and XIV, I eventually may have to decide between them, and would love to see some sort of packaged discount to do so as I believe the free to play model wouldn't work with XI's structure.

[Edyth]

Daemon, I hope your post is translated and forwarded to the developers. Some things on this forum are too inane to even read, and I'm sure the job of translating posts full of misery, angst, and hurt is a depressing experience, but I hope that worthwhile and civil posts are forwarded, however long they may be.

I just hate the stonewalling that the developers do on anything that isn't reive adjustments or monstrosity.

[Daemon]

I'm still waiting for the spell Meteor to be as massive and useful at level 99 as how useful the spell was at end game in past series. Not only is Meteor limited to only 1 use per Elemental seal. The spell is expensive in price due to rarity, expensive in MP cost and a massive waste of disappointment sitting in everyone's spell list because either BLM is irrelevant to end game content, or most BLMs don't have the spell but last its not worth it to use.

And the spell looks almost like Comet.

As for Arise. At end game recast is what makes this spell barely useable. The cost of MP should have been enough punishment for all WHMs as it is. Recast time just makes it harder to do the job intended. And as more people are added on to the equation, having such a horrible recast with high MP cost is ridiculous.

I mean current recast timer on Arise would have been understood if we were back in the day when waiting 30 minutes for a WHM to come raise or 6 man group had less people to worry about than at end game now where 18 man alliance up to 150-250+ people events like WR.

It would be nice if these 2 spells were made more useful. I mean some of us worked very hard to earn them.

[Kaisha]

For financial reasons, if I'm continually wanting to play XI and XIV, I eventually may have to decide between them, and would love to see some sort of packaged discount to do so as I believe the free to play model wouldn't work with XI's structure.

I remember when you were supposed to get a discount for subscribing to both XI/XIV on the same SE Account. Never happened since XIV went with no monthly fee for a year due to broken game.

Perhaps they should bring that back.

[Aselin]

I agree with everything you said above and hope Matsui does read it.

Not going to rewrite everything I've posted on another FFXI forum since they're very long.

Re: Server population (Bismarck server)

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ife/3/#2459835
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ops/3/#2460428
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ops/3/#2460513

Yes, as high as 77% drop in population since we merged with Seraph in 2010.

Re: Game difficulty and ease of content; and older content being outdated

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ife/2/#2459531
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ife/5/#2460202
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40...ife/5/#2460234 (A friend's reply to same thread.)

From a user named "Pergatory" on /r/ffxi on Reddit:

It's dead, although it wasn't FFXIV that killed it, it's Adoulin that killed it. Adoulin replaced massive amounts of old gear that was hard to obtain with new gear that is a total breeze to obtain, and now everyone has done everything and feels like there's nothing left to do. I log on, look at my inventory... try to figure out something to do... watch the shouts for a while... then I log off. That's it. There's nothing left for accomplished players to do anymore.

I think it was sort of intentional that SE killed the game at this time, in order to drive people to FFXIV, then they will release the updates to relic/mythic/empyrean weapons to revive FFXI... but I hope they haven't killed FFXI beyond reviving at this point. They might have a hard time drawing people back.

[Daemon]

I wanted to add more that couldn't be said on the OP as there are so many issues that won't fit.

Scholar Embrava was considered overpowered before SoA release. This new expansion brought on harder monsters, longer fights and difficult time limits.

In my opinion, Embrava was overpowered "before" SoA. But the reason why it was popular is because it allowed the entire 18 man alliance to survive and play stable as a team. At the cost of waiting 1 hour for recast.

Rather than depend on a group underskilled or lack of finding enough people to play with. Embrava gave the ability to make groups work better.

Corsair could possibly reset that 1 hour ability using Wild card or if anyone playing Scholar spent time in Abyssea long enough to get a revitalizer could enter Abyssea and reset it.

Point is, recast time should have been enough punishment for using a powerful ability such as 1 hour.
Giving us the ability to earn an additional use requires dedicating time to earn it or at the cost of using another jobs 1 hour ability is a good balance.

However.

Honestly Embrava is only good for the additional Regen ticks to stack with Regen V. Haste can be capped with gear / other job abilities. And Refresh is too weak to even be considered useful.

This is just an example of a poor decision that seems like it was not well planned out and coming to the conclusion of nerfing the ability unbalanced rather than make a proper adjustment only killed the ability all together rendering it useless. It's things like this very example how jobs have become lacking in power and killing off popularity to play certain jobs or use certain skills leads to wasting everyone's time who put in the effort, dedication, Gil and paid their dues to raise the job to begin with.

Especially a skill that required AF3 hands, Enhancing gear 500 to gain the full benefit of Embrava only to be severely nerfed.

It's like climbing a ladder only to start all over again.

Seriously these days 1 hour abilities are weak compared to the start of Final Fantasy. The reason why 1 hours today known as 2 hours back in the old days are lacking is because today's 1 hours don't give you enough power or enough time to benefit and appreciate it.

It's as if 1 hours have been weakened down to be almost comparable to a regular skill or ability with a long recast time.

These use to be strong enough to provide WOW factor and this is why everyone didnt complain the recast was 2 hours. It was worth it.

Soulvoice doesn't last long enough for parties to organize rotations quick enough to enjoy the ability.

Chainspell generates too much hate from casting spells on mobs such as stun, consumes too much MP since Redmage spells are expensive to the point that:

Its examples like these is why we are saying jobs are lacking in balance and rather than focus on each individual job, more attention is being seen in releasing more content, items, gear, and quick fixes than actually focus on the important details in the jobs itself.

Any player can get items and weapons and everyone can come to the result of performing the same task using the same gear but its the jobs itself that is suppose to bring out the true identity of the individual.

And the uniqueness of jobs have far been watered down by sharing the same concept such as refresh or rendering jobs like Redmage useless offering the majority of the unique spells know to Redmage only giving a mains power to everyone else through support job.

Right now this individual unique power of each job cannot be seen when all jobs basically have the same gear, same Weaponskills and Mage classes spamming the same spells repeating the same routines.

Focusing on each individual jobs is what we are asking for. Not more gear and items.

This is why I see people losing interest to play. We take a step up only to be brought back down and then eventually be made useless to the point our time has been wasted investing the effort to build our characters.

Forcing us to play every job only to be discouraged that we can't play every job to its fullest potential with limits like Merit points and inventory.

[Donmega]

Well in my opinion i really wouldn't mind paying what i pay now for the game if they would try to modernize this game with things from more current MMOs like HD textures, decent quest log other various UI functions etc. but i guess since they got final fantasy 14 JWOW they will just be milking this old neglected relic til everyone leaves for for Final Fantasy 14 JWOW or something else. But i'll be here til something some other MMO non Square-Enix interests me.

[Daemon]

Here are some examples of how I see proper balance can be made.

1.) If balance was an issue then creating new 2 hour abilities for level 99 with the condition that power of those abilities depend on the power of the gear being used.

2.) Upon changing jobs, merit points should be reset to a fresh page for the job being played.

3.) Enmity reduction or removed using Chainspell. It doesn't make sense to use spells like Stun at the sacrifice of your life when the point of using 1 hour to begin with is to save yourself and your team. Especially when using specific Subjob is enough sacrifice. On top of the recast timer of the 1 hour ability.

4.) Bring back the old Embrava, reduce amount of TP Regain per tick or make this unstackable with other jobs that can regain. If Embrava is still considered overpowered, raise the cost of the spell or make Penury unusable to Embrava. Why? Lack of people on every server will use Scholar to bring people together and do events more effectively. I'm sure no party will sacrifice slots to bring more than 2 to an 18 man alliance. Clearly 1-2 is enough to provide the max result. Having more than that would only be pointless and wasting slots in the Alliance. If you worry that people will show up to big events spamming Embrava then set a system where Embrava loses its duration and power after casting it on the same person more than once. So if this spell is casted 3 times then Embrava would become weak until a set amount of time.

I just don't understand how Regain on Embrava is overpowered compared to Corsair rolls that can be recasted with less limits compared to 1 hour recast time. Especially now that regain was completely removed and the duration only lasts 90 seconds.

5.) 1 Hours need longer durations since SoA provides longer fights.

6.) Spells like Arise should have lower recast time if the cost of the spell is expensive. It doesn't make sense to consider this spell over powered if the cost of MP will render WHM useless after spamming the spell especially at end game where too many people are involved in events with no temp items. If anything more mages will buy more MP items such as elixers. Which would only encourage people to farm more Gil and spend more Gil. If Vile Elixers were sold at NPC, this would provide an excellent way to deflate the economy.

7. Remove RARE off meds. It doesn't make sense to allow only 1 person to carry 1 item that after use renders all meds unusable for 1-2 hours. If Gil farming RMT is an issue, providing more ways to obtain these items only drops the value.

8. Summoners struggle because the amount of time they spend to summon a pet renders them unfavorable to events. They should have their 1 hours enhanced, and all skills and abilities should have longer duration. This is why many people don't bother inviting summoners. The job lacks performing a result in a decent time frame.

As players reach higher level and obtain higher power, adjustments require more power and more focus. I'm only speaking from the view that I've played several jobs throughout 11 years to see and know that conditions are different between small and big groups. The problem is that Mr. Matsui all of your events are encouraging players to join big groups than small ones yet it seems like you are trying to balance the two so the difference in gap does not provide issues.

In this case its hard because in a small group these adjustments might seem overpowered and in large groups these adjustments will seem right according to the moment. However most end game players who have abilities like Embrava obtaining 500 enhancing and AF3 hands to create a longer duration. I'm sure the power of the player will stay among those on the same level doing the same events along with others within that range. And because other content has become irrelevant, this in my opinion shouldn't matter if the power is overpowered in low man events. It's at this point in time that server does not have a thriving community therefore having such power would only promote low man parties to get things done easier. This is how lower levels can catch up faster and by the time they reach the current content, everyone's power should be evened out according to balance.

It may provide more power to do things easier, however your time limits such as Dyna once per day is the reason people cannot speed through the content faster. Which is why I can see balance can be made possible.

And it's gear progression that separated the power between each player contributing a part in achieving balance.

In my opinion, this is only a few examples of a good start to bringing back interest in the community that's left.