Dear SE...

[Mostfowl]

We all know ffxi's days are numbered, whether you want to admit it or not it's on the horizon.

So I implore you SE, and I have said this before, to consider rereleasing ffxi, like you have with so many other numbered titles, but as a single player game. One in which we could control a pt of 6. The story lines, the gear, all that could stay the same. There would be some adjustments needed, such as lvling a craft would have to be much faster, the timed spawn nm would need pop conditions, requirement for mythics and relics would have to be adjusted to be more reasonable since we are playing 6 chars, battle adjustments made for a pt of 6 and such but I feel it would work as a single player. Even options like lvl sync could stay in the game to make lvling multiple jobs easier.

I know many people who would eagerly purchase this, myself included. And for those of us who just do not like the adjustments made since abyssea we could just not install any pack after the 3 mini expansions and those who love it could install it all.

I considered rerolling or reactivating my account but with the state of the game and the lack of population I cannot justify it, however I could justify buying a single player version, even if you wanted to sell the game in a package or the base game with separate dlc for each of the expansions.

Please English reps, at least send the devs a note about this for consideration. ffxi was one of the best and I hate to see it just fade away.

Thanks

[Demon6324236]

I love the idea, but my own opinion on how they should do some of it all...



Party Members should be characters from the story, Lion, Prishe, Ulmia, Tenzen, Aphmau, Lilisette, so on. There are many primary story characters which assume the appearance of a playable job, it would be great to make use of them as party members, allowing them to join your party as you progress through the stories and fight along side them as true allies.



Abyssea/Adoulin should not be standard areas. Abyssea should be the optional/super dungeon. Final Fantasy, and RPGs in general, have a long standing tradition to have a side area which is not required but will feature enemies far stronger than the final boss, some even make normal encounters with enemies as powerful as the final boss itself. I think Abyssea would easily fill that hole for FFXI. If the final boss was, say, the last boss of WotG or some such, then once beating them you could save your game, after saving, the maws would pop up, the Abyssea story would begin, and if someone wanted, they could explore the new optional areas.

Upon opening Abyssea's first 3 areas, the Vision add-on, you would be given a choice, you can either continue as a level 75, or you can break your cap and continue to 80, progressing another 5 levels after completing enough of the Abyssea story to continue. If you stay at 75, you would continue to play at 75 in Abyssea, and have access to the full areas as they are, but with scaled down gear that would be amazing at 75, but not as good as it is in current day FFXI. Players who level up would get the same Abyssea as we see in today's FFXI, but with full powered gear. In both, the monsters would be at full power, there should be no Atma or Cruor buffs, Seals should only need to be 1 drop to upgrade, same with +2s, and so on.

I think by doing that, Abyssea would remain a viable area for everyone, not overpowering the game, and allowing for a choice in the matter.

So far as Adoulin goes, since its a real expansion, I think it should have 3 versions, 1 version with today's FFXI, 1 version without item levels, and 1 version with level 75 characters in mind. That way it separates everyone's preferences. If you want item levels, it would be a choice, or they could just actually add it in as a level break feature if possible, at the same time, you could continue with level 75 cap, or with level 99 cap, but in any case, progressing in the way you wish.

[FaeQueenCory]

They have this already.... it's called FFXII.
*badumpsh*

Though seriously... 12's gameplay was 11's with colored lines. Pretty sure their engines are the same. (this is made even more obvious with that JP only rerelease of 12 where you have the job system instead of the license board.)

And even more seriously... this will never happen.
The worst case scenario is that this game dies, the servers are shut down, and then you could like make a personal client-side-only server thing.... but I'm not sure how that works.

[Demon6324236]

Though seriously... 12's gameplay was 11's with colored lines. Pretty sure their engines are the same. (this is made even more obvious with that JP only rerelease of 12 where you have the job system instead of the license board.)

FFXII is kinda FFXI single player, but at the same time, that's not exactly accurate. Part of FFXI is its world, characters, story, and so on, which you cant find in FFXII, not only that, but the world is completely different in design and feel. Also, while FFXII International has a Job system, its not exactly what you seem to think. Its not fully FFXI like, it has a license board still, the board is simply determined by the job you choose for your character, so it still plays a lot like the original FFXII, but with jobs determining your board layout and whats on it, rather than every character sharing the same board design, with slightly different starting locations.

In the end, I have played FFXII during my short breaks from FFXI before because they feel similar. At the same time, I can not say it will ever be a real replacement, and I would much, much rather a real single player FFXI rather than playing my 50th play through FFXII.

[Spectreman]

Yes, i would like a single player of this game.

[FaeQueenCory]

FFXII is kinda FFXI single player, but at the same time, that's not exactly accurate. Part of FFXI is its world, characters, story, and so on, which you cant find in FFXII, not only that, but the world is completely different in design and feel. Also, while FFXII International has a Job system, its not exactly what you seem to think. Its not fully FFXI like, it has a license board still, the board is simply determined by the job you choose for your character, so it still plays a lot like the original FFXII, but with jobs determining your board layout and whats on it, rather than every character sharing the same board design, with slightly different starting locations.

In the end, I have played FFXII during my short breaks from FFXI before because they feel similar. At the same time, I can not say it will ever be a real replacement, and I would much, much rather a real single player FFXI rather than playing my 50th play through FFXII.

lol I was being 80% facetious... but if you REALLY want to see how they are EXACTLY the same they are... pick up a copy of the rerelease with the jobs instead of the license board.

Then you'll really be playing 11 with 12's plot.
(I played it... it hurt my soul how much copypaste it felt like it was.)

But I understand why you're saying they're different... but mechanically... they're basically identical.
I love 11s plots too... and actually think that it has one of the strongest plots in any FF.

I also love how it can all be summed up with "racism... it's bad yo!"

Nations: "three flavors of bad leaders"
Windurst: The Star Sibyl is a bad leader because of all the bad/stupid lies.
Bastok: The president is a bad leader because RACISM! (any Galka heavy plot seems to heavily involve the racism)
San d'Oria: Hier1 = idiot... verging on the handicapped. Hier2 = vicious... no morals... Hier3 = not a candidate because she's a woman even though she's the most competent leader out of all the leaders in all the nations
ShadowLord: racism... it caused the World War. (basically ranks 1-5 for all 3 nations)

RotZ: David Bowie is EVIL! But not as much as his brother!! (this one has the weakest plot IMO, it basically amounts to about 3-4 missions from each other chain... but it was the first expansion... so it gets a buy.)

CoP: Hey everyone! You know how we all come from the dead body of Promathia... well... surprise! We're made from Promathia's body!! (Never understood how a fundamental tenant in Vana'diel's creation account is a big shock to these ppl.... I mean... the Moblins didn't think anything of it when they got told it... they had a dance party even!
But this is probably the strongest of the mission-plots. Unlike RotZ, the "party" members were involved BEFORE and after fights and even partook in some of the "BCNMs". So, great plot, charaters felt like pt members, hit each and every FF staple perfectly.)

ToAU: When ppl aren't racist enough... make new races to be racist against!

LoL not really.

ToAU: The trappings of an Empire. (Very good plot, not quite as good at CoP IMO, but I think that's due to the MULTIPLE 24hr waits arbitrarily thrown in there. Also... Kinda wanted Luzaf and Nashmeira to make tons of babies... there's still time, SE! MAKE THAT HAPPEN!)

WotG: Time shenanigans and meddling kittie-angels. (This one.... it's hard for me to pin down... the Missions are... alright. Not bad.... but not CoP or ToAU. And the nation "mission"-quests... run the gambit. They're more history lesson than anything. But that final splurge of Missions are just superb.)

Adoulin: (I have no clue. I've been holding off on those until they are 100% done.)

It's also interesting to note that not only does FFXI have a strong anti-racism message.... it also has a strong anti-religion message.

Though I'm pretty sure that is unintended and just a side effect.

Like, take the creation account. The religion says that the 5 races are "tears of Altana" shed upon the body of Promathia. And from that union do we get Elvaan, Mithra, Galka, Tarutaru, and Humes.

But RotZ and CoP tells us that this is a lie. The true children of Altana and Promathia are the Zilart.
And from the Zilart derived the Kuluu.
And due to the Dawn Maidens and Kuluu's interference in the Zilart's plan to reforge the perfect world... (thereby restoring Promathia and thusly killing everyone)
The magical radiation mutated those Kuluu into the image of the golems who protect the fragments of the Mother Crystals: the Ark Angels.

So it has an anti-organized religion message... but I don't think it's intended. More a side effect of the world being fleshed out.

[Demon6324236]

I did play FFXII: International, that's why I said it wasn't really a job system, it still uses the license board, I mean, its a job system, but at the same time I feel like its quite different than FFXI. The story for any game can be simplified down in that way for the most part, and while I admit I am not big on the FFXI story, I do like the world, and would hate to see it simply vanish from existence when this game dies. This is the only FF game to date we cant really go back and re-experience the story of if we wanted to, many old ones which would be hard to find have been remade, which still lets us experience them to this day.

Lastly, so far as the religion thing goes... well... I honestly think that is kind of part of SE's games actually... I admit, I haven't played an amazing amount of them, however, FFX had a massive religious core to the story, and without trying to spoil it, the story really does seem some what 'anti-religion' by the end of the game in a way. In most FF games I simply don't notice a real religion, more or less most of the time there are large forces in the background like in FFXII trying to control people, but not something I would say is really a god or a religion in any real way.

I understand what your saying, and I know what you meant, I myself have said before that FFXII is just FFXI but single player, but at the same time, while I do think that, I also think that FFXI should be 'immortalized' as a single player, self sustaining game, rather than a MMO which relies on the server to be playable, to the point that once its shut down, the game is lost.

[Demon6324236]

You miss the point of this idea then...

The idea of this isn't 'the multiplayer aspect of this game sucks/is killing it, just make it single player!' its more that some people understand the game is dying, and if it dies, we would like a single player version to go back to. We all know its not the same without others, but its a story and world we can never return to past a certain point, when the servers are gone so is the world and everything within it, some of us players want a single player version to return to however.

[Demon6324236]

Actually that was the exact point I was responding to. This game can still return to high numbers of players. But it needs to return to the slow progression / stratified heirarchy / effort-based rewards game. That game was hugely popular, and not dying at all. Even when people were just logging in to farm magians and woepaths these last 2 years. And much more so in the pre-Aby era. A return to that game would bring in and keep new players in the game, just like it did 11 years ago. The reason new players are quitting after a month, is that they got a free zero-effort ride from lvl 1-99 and they got the most powerful gear/weaps in FFXI in like an hour. Thats why the new players quit. Solve that problem, and return the game to gradual effort-based xp/gear-building and this game will stop losing new players.

Something that could never be done in this FFXI even if you tried. How exactly would you make XP meaningful again? Raise the cap? Well, sounds like from what SE says it that it cant be done, that's why we now level via gear. Reset everyone's characters? Oh, that is just what would make me want to play more, my character being reset on my levels to go back and do it all over again. Simply put, XP is a dead system in this game, you cant bring it back in a meaningful way that is actual leveling at this point really.

Depending on which period of time you are talking about new people quitting, you could be wrong. During the Abyssea age new players came and went because the game was fast to throw you into endgame but unlike many newer games, it explains nothing, you have to have either a wiki or another player holding your hand nearly the entire time to actually play the game. Not many people seem to want a game that involves spending more time reading what to do and walking around to do it than actually having fun and doing something. Not only that, but this game explains nothing about character stats either, something else which is looked down upon, since most games now days seem to make it fairly clear what stats actually do something, where as this game its all on wiki and if you don't read it, chances are, you wont know it.

Now, if you meant during the SoA period we are currently in, then yes, people quit after getting the best things quickly, but that's for a simple reason. On top of the above things, there is nothing to do in this game right now after you get those things. Those of us who have been here a while can hold on to some hope the game we have played so long will actually become fun and playable again, but new people have no reason to really stay, and just walk away after a disappointing couple of weeks or months. At least, that's my experience with people I know or have known who quit.

It is losing players for the reasons stated above. That doesnt mean its dying, that means it is hitting rock-bottom and needs to return to the previously successful business-model. "Some people understand" is some rare old BS. You don't have a crystal ball. We are all totally in the dark as to the future of FFXI. It might have a revival. You don't know.

No one needs a crystal ball to understand that the game population is dying and as it dies, more people leave, as you say, the community is part of why people play this, its an online game after all, so as more people leave, the game feels emptier, people take notice, more people leave, and it continues. That, and they would either need to wipe away years of work to go back to what you describe, or they would need to make so much new content, levels, and so on, that it would take years to get enough content in the game to get to that point.

And again, I don't miss the point here, I don't want to play an offline version. Read my post. I like the worldwide gamer community and friends in faraway lands. That is what made FFXI fun. Sitting alone in a room playing it alone on offline mode would just be heartbreaking.

You may not want to play an offline version, but these threads have popped up a few times, obviously seems to point to only one thing... others do.

[Tennotsukai]

I really wouldn't mind them doing something with adventuring fellows again. A little irrelevant. Oh well