Alliance based content

[AyinDygra]

I'm a returnee from just before the release of SoA. I play a monk primarily, from the early days of never getting invites unless the friends I joined the game with brought me along... took a year to get to 75. Had some of the best gear *I* could get (full Empy+2, epona, blackbelt, Taipan fangs, etc) when I left. I've always played Monk, even in FF1... 4 monks! FF5: 4 monks! ... I only really enjoy playing on Monk.

I come back, and my gear is useless, so I get Eminence gear... still can't get into shout Delve for wins, I only need 1, because if I got a win, I could solo-farm meywa plasm by those little shards you get from normal monsters in the fields... my linkshell is gone, friendlist is down to only 2 people, but they're not "friends" (friends of a friend... used to do Salvage/Dynamis with them)...

My schedule doesn't allow for regular play times setup beforehand. I play when I can play. I can't join any "Endgame" linkshells like this. I don't have the gear, I don't have the time. How does someone progress in an MMO that requires gear from content that requires large groups to get into content that allows smaller groups? Yeah, I'm stuck... no Delve, no Skirmish... I really REALLY hope they don't add more "Alliance-based" content, and I hope they add more ways to obtain gear that the playerbase will accept as "top-tier" that doesn't require an alliance, or even a party, given enough solo-effort and questing. (hey, just take the Tojil win requirement off of buying Oatixurs, and I'll gladly farm the plasma from using shards for 100-150 plasm per drop.)

The answer most people on these forums have been giving to other people has been: level whitemage or bard or corsair... alliances will take a naked one, no problem, and you can get your win that way! ... um, no. I hate those jobs. Last thing I want, is to have a job leveled that I hate, to be forced to use it for all the content I want to play on a job I like!


I also play Dancer to explore and solo missions (free sneak/invis/movement speed, solo survivability!), and Puppetmaster and Dragoon for fun (though I hate how this game handles pets in battles that matter... AoEdeath) These jobs don't seem any more welcome than my Monk to help me get it geared up.
I tried playing Samurai to help my small group out, but it was horribly undergeared compared to my Monk, and by the time it was 75, Sam needed Empy, and they wouldn't help me even get an Empy for my Monk, let alone Sam.

So, I for one, am glad for the death of Alliance-based content!
Bring on more Campaign and Wildskeeper reives, where I can join without asking somebody if I'm good enough for them to pick on their dodgeball team!
(yes, I still want an MMO... just not with all the restrictions players put on people!)

[Draylo]

Somebody has to play support jobs or the group won't succeed, 18man or 6man. If you don't have the time to sink into an MMO, you can't expect to be the best. You should be content with eminent gear and reforged AF, the low tier gear was created for players like you. The top end gear should be to the people who are most dedicated and are able to field the things necessary to win it.

[Mefuki]

The top end gear should be to the people who are most dedicated and are able to field the things necessary to win it.

So, you're saying there should be content in this game that people just can't do, not because of a lack of skill or effort they're willing to put forth, but because of how many people they know?

Granted, I do think it's strange that 6-man seems like it's going to have the same drop rates and such as 18-man.

[Zhronne]

So, you're saying there should be content in this game that people just can't do

Yes and no. Getting to the point of "some people can't do" is a bit too much for these days, but there has to be a difference somewhere.
What I find to be the best compromise is for "tiers".
As the level cap/ilevel raise, new content tiers are released. Once the new one is out (efficiently doable only by organized groups and people with some dedication to the game, not necessarily only freaks who play 24/7 of course) the old one becomes easier thanks to: 1) temporary zone buffs, 2) new gear
That way everybody gets to try content, but casual player will complete it later.
This is how it works in most other MMOs, FFXIV included. It would need to be adapted in several ways to work in FFXI, but it's something they could and should definitely do.

It sounds "elitist", but there has to be a difference somewhere, for the sake of EVERYBODY, not just the elitist.
It gives hardcore player something to work for to sedate their thirst for glory and power.
It gives other players something to look forward to, as far as it may seems, a far goal that will give them a sense of progression.
If everybody looks the same, plays the same, does the same... it all becomes boring and you slowly stop being interested in the game in a small time, eventually dropping it.



Back in-topic.
I'm fine with how SE is allowing scalable content. I would have enabled it a few weeks/months after the normal 18-men version, but in the end I'm fine with it.
What I'm not fine with is the balancement of drops.
Currently a 6men Delve group gets the same Plasm and MORE rewards than a 18-men alliance, of the same quality, with what is overall an easier to organize and easier to complete content.
This is not fair and as far as I can think, FFXI is the only place where this happens, especially to this extent.
They need to give 18-men some further motivation, some tweak, some perk.
It would be hard to add exclusive drops, but at least they could make so that just like difficulty scales, so does the amount of Plasm you get and the amount of item slots from megaboss.

The current situation is just completely insane and unbalanced.
It could be fine if lowmanning were so much harder than 18men (I remember we used to 7men Tojil long time ago, without HPscaling etc), but since it's the other way around it's really unfair.
Why should people even bother to do something that's harder to do, harder to organize and give you LESS stuff?

[saevel]

Somebody has to play support jobs or the group won't succeed, 18man or 6man. If you don't have the time to sink into an MMO, you can't expect to be the best. You should be content with eminent gear and reforged AF, the low tier gear was created for players like you. The top end gear should be to the people who are most dedicated and are able to field the things necessary to win it.

Unfortunately MMO's don't work that way. The "high end" players don't contribute enough financially to justify keeping the servers going, it's the casual players that are actually footing the bill for the game's development. Creating content that they are, by design, locked out of is not only ethnically wrong but will eventually result in a loss of total subscriptions and money. There should never be any content / reward that is out of reach of casual players. The separator between "hard core" and "casual" should not be the gear that is obtainable but rather the speed at which it's obtained. Hard core folk will simply get the gear faster then the casual players, but the casual players should still have the chance at obtaining that gear, provided they put in the time. This is one are that SE is really struggling with, they can't seem to find a balance with accessibility and are really afraid of allowing gear from hard event A to become accessibly through easy event B at a much slower rate. Abyssea was the closest they got to getting it right, casual players could still get their stuff eventually, hard core folks with plenty of time and access to lots of resources would have it done much faster.

If every "hard core" player in FFXI quit tomorrow, the game could easily continue on and the developers would end up adjusting it down. If every "casual" player quit tomorrow, the game would shut down within a month. That is how little hard core players actually matter to non-competitive MMO's.

[detlef]

If every "hard core" player in FFXI quit tomorrow, the game could easily continue on and the developers would end up adjusting it down. If every "casual" player quit tomorrow, the game would shut down within a month. That is how little hard core players actually matter to non-competitive MMO's.

I don't necessarily disagree with the basic point of your post, but I want to point out a typical hard core player very likely pays for more accounts and mules and is much less likely to deactivate any account(s) on a whim. Using myself as an example, between my GF and myself we have 4 accounts with dozens of mules. I personally haven't ever deactivated for ten years.

While I agree that SE should always keep casual players in mind, losing the hardcore players (and hardcore is a subjective term) would have more of a significant impact than you imply. With that said, I'm happy with the direction and current state of the game. My only current frustrations are the end of double XP, the apparently huge time sink of job points, and Ark Angel congestion.

[saevel]

I don't necessarily disagree with the basic point of your post, but I want to point out a typical hard core player very likely pays for more accounts and mules and is much less likely to deactivate any account(s) on a whim. Using myself as an example, between my GF and myself we have 4 accounts with dozens of mules. I personally haven't ever deactivated for ten years.

While I agree that SE should always keep casual players in mind, losing the hardcore players (and hardcore is a subjective term) would have more of a significant impact than you imply. With that said, I'm happy with the direction and current state of the game. My only current frustrations are the end of double XP, the apparently huge time sink of job points, and Ark Angel congestion.

You really gotta understand game demographics. "Hard core" players account for less then 5%, typically ~2% of a MMO's subscription base. So even if every one of them had two accounts, the casual players still dwarf them in financial contributions. It's a separator of time not effort (too many people confuse the two).

[Ravenmore]

I don't necessarily disagree with the basic point of your post, but I want to point out a typical hard core player very likely pays for more accounts and mules and is much less likely to deactivate any account(s) on a whim. Using myself as an example, between my GF and myself we have 4 accounts with dozens of mules. I personally haven't ever deactivated for ten years.

While I agree that SE should always keep casual players in mind, losing the hardcore players (and hardcore is a subjective term) would have more of a significant impact than you imply. With that said, I'm happy with the direction and current state of the game. My only current frustrations are the end of double XP, the apparently huge time sink of job points, and Ark Angel congestion.

Still no where near enough for the game to shut down if they all went away. The game is already at the point were it is unlikely to get another full blown expansion and it it was already well on the way when SoA was released. I am willing to bet SoA was SE plan C if FF14 had failed again like 1.0. Like he said SE would just dumb the game down a bit after seeing the clear rates drop to a unacceptable level.

[detlef]

Still no where near enough for the game to shut down if they all went away. The game is already at the point were it is unlikely to get another full blown expansion and it it was already well on the way when SoA was released. I am willing to bet SoA was SE plan C if FF14 had failed again like 1.0. Like he said SE would just dumb the game down a bit after seeing the clear rates drop to a unacceptable level.

I implied that a hardcore player's subscription is probably more valuable to SE, which almost certainly true. But then we haven't even nailed down what defines casual and hardcore, and if no definition is agreed upon then how can we predict what would happen if one group or the other no longer existed? All I said was that there's more to a hardcore player than $12.95 a month, and that we shouldn't underestimate their impact on SE's bottom line.

[Draylo]

Unfortunately MMO's don't work that way. The "high end" players don't contribute enough financially to justify keeping the servers going, it's the casual players that are actually footing the bill for the game's development. Creating content that they are, by design, locked out of is not only ethnically wrong but will eventually result in a loss of total subscriptions and money. There should never be any content / reward that is out of reach of casual players. The separator between "hard core" and "casual" should not be the gear that is obtainable but rather the speed at which it's obtained. Hard core folk will simply get the gear faster then the casual players, but the casual players should still have the chance at obtaining that gear, provided they put in the time. This is one are that SE is really struggling with, they can't seem to find a balance with accessibility and are really afraid of allowing gear from hard event A to become accessibly through easy event B at a much slower rate. Abyssea was the closest they got to getting it right, casual players could still get their stuff eventually, hard core folks with plenty of time and access to lots of resources would have it done much faster.

If every "hard core" player in FFXI quit tomorrow, the game could easily continue on and the developers would end up adjusting it down. If every "casual" player quit tomorrow, the game would shut down within a month. That is how little hard core players actually matter to non-competitive MMO's.

MMO's do work that way, what are you smoking? If you look at any MMO, the people who play two hours a week don't have the best gear in the game. I'm not sure how you can think otherwise, its clear as day. If you play with such little playtime, you shouldn't need to have the best gear in the game. This has been true for almost any MMO I've ever played, even FFXIV where you need ilevel gear to even enter some of the instances to do the fights. You can work towards the gear in FFXI just like the others though, even with minimal play time but it takes a lot longer. There are shouts for Delve all the time, and plenty of people who sell the wins to others where you can buy one and use the items mobs drop in the field to obtain plasm. None of the content in this game is out of reach of players, NONE, it is simply an issue of laziness or unwillingness to participate. How is it my problem that you have two hours a week to play? Why should I be penalized with dumbed down easy content just so you can obtain it? One guy even posted he doesn't have a win because he is a DD meathead who refuses to play support to help a party. Catering to people like that is ridiculous. I also think you are quite wrong about the hardcore players. If you haven't noticed, this game has a very niche userbase and the sub numbers aren't exactly super high. If all the hardcore players quit, I doubt you would have a game left.