The Decline of FFXI: Forums, Gameplay and Nostalgia

[Akujima]

First I would like to mention that yes, this is a long post. But I assure you that I will try not to make it an overly negative bitter rant and instead just try to point out things which have come to my attention.

I decided to make this thread based on a few things I've seen in different sections of this forum. It's a reoccurring statement, where people are disappointed with certain new content that is being added, while their own creative (and I personally think, very good) ideas are being brushed aside by the developers, simply because (they say) they don't have enough time to implement them.

The example I will use is in the JOBS section: DRAGOON: "Change your wyvern color!"

The link is here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/455-Change-your-wyvern-color!

Needless to say, the idea is to have different color options for your wyvern, giving a more unique touch to the DRG job.

Now I will say that, in no way is this a major request and in no way does this affect combat, major quests or areas. Heck, it's not even a very major upgrade for DRG. But... There is one thing that this idea does represent: Fun. Simply put, it would be fun for the players, it would be something interesting to see and would add more feeling and character to the DRG job.

There are others who agree with me on this point, and I would like to quote some posts from that thread.

Really SE what is happening with you guys?, 6~9 years ago FFXI was the best MMORPG, you opened this forum to receive feedbacks from the players and to looks what we are wanting, and what we receive? Dynamis-Reborn? (a thread in which the majority of the players are against) New Trigger Conditions to pop Fafnir, Nidhogg, Behemoth and King Behemoth (another thread in which, player are against of implement it). I know you have lot of work to do and I am not against it, but you should take a closer look on what the players really want, as stated by many DRGs on this thread, this is not something new, we have been asking this for years, in the end we are the ones who are playing and this past months has been a wth? is happening with FFXI, many changes are expected to take action, but please do it properly, the general feeling of the players is not good, you have been focusing in add-ons scenarios and not in the expansions, you have been focusing on add more stuffs to do (when we already have many stuffs to do, but many players just don't do it because the rewards are gimped now) why not take a closer look on what we really want and not in what you think we want?.

I know you are working hard but please there are some content we would like to take effect in the short run (like this thread) than other stuffs, if you could delay the world merge, you can delay other stuffs in favor of what your customers wants more, anyway hope you read this, and thank you for taking the time to give us an explanation.

And another.

This is the 2nd or 3rd response from SE stating something along the lines of player requested changes being a "low-priority" to other things.
What other things? Things like [dex1012]? What a waste of time. SE did the same thing with the promyvions, what good did that do? Things like [dev1011]? Treasure caskets...seriously? I've soloed 3 or 4 jobs to level 50 and roughly a dozen to level 30 and I've rarely ever had the need for the items found in these random chests.

I would consider things such as this (wyvern color customization) one of the highest priorities. What separates a good game from a great game is the little things. FFXI already has the makings of a really good game, a VAST and complex story, lots of areas to explore and quests to do, tons of jobs to play, etc. FFXI is pretty late into it's life cycle and is obviously not getting nearly as much attention as FFXIV, why not take the time to make lots of the smaller tweaks that people have been wanting for so long?
Just my 2 gil.

Very good posts above, that deal with a ton of subject matter. But I could go on forever with this post, and I doubt many will read it.

So I'll get to my point now.

Forums

My theory is this. Is that Square-Enix designed these forums as a place for us to chase our tails, giving them ideas, thinking they will listen to us. When in reality they just want to implement more time consuming scenarios, in order for us to continue our monthly fee. I believe that this forum itself is a "time consuming tool" invented to get our hopes up that our ideas will be put into the game, waiting and watching while spending precious time and money.

On the other hand, I could just be a psychotic conspiracy theorist.

Gameplay and Nostalgia

Slowly and slowly, the colorful battle system, (that in my opinion made FFXI the classic it is) is slowly vanishing, in favor of the "solo" mindset. You can solo to 90, you can solo Abyssea, you can solo so many things now... And that's great and all, but it really takes away from what makes a good online RPG...

Not to mention how far the difficulty level has decreased or changed. The mobs and bosses are ALOT easier. The only difficulty now is just fighting with one another on who gets to pop what first. I also hear there is a new coming idea, to make an Abyssea like scenario outside of Abyssea. Again only decreasing the difficulty level and adding further imbalance to jobs more and more.


A great video for comparison
The video is a bit silly, but it presents a great synopsis of how developers extend the game time, in order for people to feel like they "got more out of the game"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aip2aIt0ROM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So...

What I'm saying is. Actually listen to peoples ideas. Give us FUN things, not just empty promises and false hopes. Give us a difficulty level where we feel a sense of accomplishment and teamwork after downing a boss, or completing a tough quest. Give us LESS of this annoying grind and bland tasteless jobs that play very similar to one another.

Do away with this bitter competition between players, and give us what we felt back when FFXI first came out... A lasting colorful world, where the little things are important too.

[Luso]

I agree with this entirely; many suggestions I've seen from players have either been said to have been something that will be "looked at and considered for the future" or that they will be overlooked or delayed due to limited "developer [or system] resources". The latter can go along with "high-costs", as well.

To me, if SE has the funds to develop XIV and stated that money is not an object in order to get it back on its feet, then where the heck is XI in all of this? I'm pretty sure people are still playing XI more than XIV right now. It still isn't up to par with what I expected. So, concentrate on both MMO's with EQUAL focus; don't put all of your resources into on game and semi give-up on the other. Regardless if it's a decade old or not, if people are still paying for it and it's still profitable to you, give the people what they want (reasonably want) and don't infer or assume that people want what you release.

[Hoshi]

It's quite possible to prove anything by selecting a few quotes and omitting those that say something contrary to your point. I can't say that I see devs refusing to reskin wyverns as a sign that this game is dying. The proposed adjustments are still focusing on much larger scale problems and until all of the big problems are fixed I agree with devs saying that little fun things are not where they're going to focus their time.

I don't find the forums to be an intentional timesink. There have been a lot of little tweaks that have been garnered from the forums and approved by devs (getting to kirin, ranger fixes, vit adjustments as an attempt to fix plds [no i don't think that's the answer], relic vs emp weapon adjustments, the difficulty of xi for attracting and keeping new players). There are a lot of suggestions made on this board and it would be impossible to implement all of them so I don't blame devs for prioritizing. I don't think it's a waste of your time to post a good idea here if you have one.

Yeah the old days were awesome but you'd be complaining about that too if things were exactly the same as they were 8 years ago... the grass is always greener and whatnot.

[Karbuncle]

We cannot expect every single silly or asinine idea will be added to the game. This Forum* was more about the open discussion of ideas, and feed-back on upcoming content. as well as some suggestions. They do listen, they just can't listen to everything. especially with a very limited staff and development time.

The Community Reps have responded to a lot of threads, and the good ideas will generally get looked into. And how is the game slowly becoming a "Solo" mindset, when just about every announced new event for this update requires a minimum of 3/6 or 18 people? I think if Anything they're moving back to their roots of "Team oriented" playstyles.

The mobs and bosses aren't "A lot easier" per-say, Go fight Rani and Shinryu without a brew. The mobs are fine and dandy in terms of difficulty, its the fact that Brews exist that makes them do-able by most failure groups. A lot of Abyssean mobs are just as difficult, if not more so, than past mobs (PW and AV excluded).

The only difficult fights of past days were PW and AV, anything else is Nostalgia-vision. The mobs weren't difficult or hard, in fact the most difficult part of a lot of fights back at 75 was claiming the mob. Besides, as a game progressing, players tend to get smarter, Enemies become easier due to finding a pattern, or learning how to fight it. eventually every enemy becomes "Simpler".

I won't deny Atma/Cruor has put the game on an Easier track, To sound like a broken record, mobs like Rani, Raja, and Shinryu show that even with Cruor/atma, There are still challenging opponents, what ruins that is Brews being so readily available. However no ones forcing you to use one if you do indeed want the Challenges.

I see shouts every so often for Non-brewed Shinryu on Asura.

On the topic of the Wyvern thing, Yah, It may sound simple on our side, but it would take a lot of time and effort to program it in, i hate to say it but you should really consider .dat swaps if you want your wyvern to be prettier. Maybe down the line they'll add this.

What needs to be understood is that right now they're limited on Production time, and staff. The ideas we think now are great that can't be added, might very well be added down the line when the team has more free-time. While it may seem like they aren't listening or taking ideas, they are.

Even if their response is "not right now" we need to accept they're probably very busy with the upcoming updates, and while i really agree something like a Wyvern color change option would be fun, I'd sooner take "Content" over "Something accomplished through .dat swaps" if i had to choose between the two.

Trust me when i say, They are taking our ideas, each post they make is proof of that. Even if not every single thread gets attention, I'm sure they're looking through them and presenting them to the Reps.

[Olor]

Well I would be a lot more forgiving of developer "limitations" if it wasn't for the fact that they are siphoning money off XI to invest in XIV. It seems pretty bogus that we have to finance their failure to produce a game that's even remotely playable.

[Akujima]

I read the post above :P

Actually, it might have been unintentional, but remember how in "A Ninja without Throwing" I kept mentioning how everyone was ganging up and pressing their own "like button" against me. Then a few days later, they did an update to the forum and now we can't press our own "like button"... lol...

Funny huh?

[Karbuncle]

Well I would be a lot more forgiving of developer "limitations" if it wasn't for the fact that they are siphoning money off XI to invest in XIV. It seems pretty bogus that we have to finance their failure to produce a game that's even remotely playable.

Yah i don't disagree it sucks, But they're not magic. They have limited production time because of the higher ups.

I bet you ... alot?.. that if the Dev team had their way, 99% of the ideas here would be added. They want the game to be nice. Its not their fault they're restricted on time/team members. The highers basically said "Revive FFXIV" and they got shafted.

No game developer wants to see their creation die.

Actually, it might have been unintentional, but remember how in "A Ninja without Throwing" I kept mentioning how everyone was ganging up and pressing their own "like button" against me. Then a few days later, they did an update to the forum and now we can't press our own "like button"... lol...

Funny huh?

See? Some things are getting added. Even if its crappy forum features.

[Airget]

Honestly I think people are just huffing and puffing over things they don't have full knowledge of yet. When it comes to the dynamis zones, they are areas that could now be done by 6 people with little to no problems and make good gil from it, however they could claim the zone making it difficult for others to do it if they happened to want to go at the same time. When you consider the frustration that can come from that some people may just give up the idea of even entering dynamis. With the new idea in mind they are allowing people to enter dynamis as they please and on a daily timer, so if what they really want a relics they can spend 2hrs a days working on obtaining currency for it rather then pay 500k claim a zone and farm it for as long as they can.

When it comes to customization sometimes you just have to accept the fact that it's the ps2 that's holding that aspect down, you know the company is capable of making customization if you look at XIV but XI has grown based on it's content rather then it's overall customization that to add it now based on the resources it would require just doesn't make sense in the long run. In a sense changing wyvern colors could be seen as pankration or even chcoobo racing, while it looks to be fun in the end it's gonna be looked over and only slightly given notice at the time of it's creation. If I'm correct they even said that it's not as simple as a texture change since they would have to create unique names for each aspect of the wyverns action and such so if one wyvern takes up x data then 7 more colors will take up 7x, and with the ps2 they do have to be stingy with what they can and can't do. While later on they may be able to find loopholes to ease the amount of memory it'll use overall actual content should take priority.

On the aspect of "easy mode" I dunno I kind of disagree with that, when you consider how abyssea first started it looked to be difficult and challenging but through the unlocking on lunar abyssites we were given a means of evening the odds against foes that may destroy smaller groups. While people may say things like MNK WHM can duo nearly anything what good is duoing when you end up having to fight the same monster 5 times more to get the drops you want when you could have just teamed up with others and proced to increase your odd, as well as make the fight overall easier and quicker. It's not truly SE's fault that people duo MNK/WHM in abyssea it's greed. They don't want competition for their items so they rather solo it so they don't have to share what they obtain.

Also there is a bit of irony in your last comment lol "Do away with this bitter competition between players, and give us what we felt back when FFXI first came out... A lasting colorful world, where the little things are important too."

If you have ever camped the 3 land kings for 3hrs you would see there is a lot of bitter competition to be had between players and the use of claim bots to get what people want. With what they added by making it a pop they have slightly eased the frustration as well as the unnecessary bickering between players to claim such mobs, while it may be a bit late some who had wanted a BB but felt discouraged because of time can now actually have a fighting chance. If one wished to make a suggestion about the orbs used to pop the kings a simple one would be to reduce the KS needed from 99 to 50, it's not like they haven't reduced the cost of something before, Limbus use to be 30k, Salvage 1.5k assault points and Dynamis 1million gil entry fee.

Overall though if you look at the big picture what SE is attempting to do is bring life to the world as a whole and ease on the time constraints we were once stuck with ie 3hr dynamis now a max of 2hrs. A lot of content in XI use to be sit and wait or a long session of killing baddies to arrive at the boss, it's suddenly changed to having a wide variety of options to choose from within Abyssea and slowly working it's way out into the outside realm. It's difficult to add everything in one fell swoop which is why everything is being done in steps, as well as tweaks where they seemed necessary.

Think about Abyssea for a second, odds are all 3 expansions were setup the same way a lot of KI to pop the Boss NM and then a secret boss to fight, but the players felt the amount of KI needed to pop the Bosses were unnecessary so with the later add ons they eased it and made less KI needed for the scar bosses and later on the hero bosses.

It's not that they aren't listening to people ideas it's that they can't take every single persons idea. What you also need to remember is there are also 3 other forums that have their own opinions as well, so just because a majority of "forum posters" may not approve or dislike the idea of dynamis changing doesn't mean the other forums think the same way or even those that choose not to state their opinion.

[Zumi]

No the dyanmis reborn is a good idea, and people are so stubborn that they don't want SE to change the outdated content for the better.

[Seriha]

Until we're 99 and a few more of the "new endgame" environments are fleshed out, panicking over current levels of solo or even low-man ability is a lost cause as current things aren't quite meant to be the pinnacle of eventual cap difficulty. Personally, I don't miss the good old days of sitting on my duff waiting for a party or waiting for the perfect job to appear LFG if making one. I don't miss trying to organize 12+ people for a single event, and I'm sure those who did that consistently didn't really enjoy it when paired against complaints of favoritism, someone not wanting to play X job, no shows, maintaining point systems, etc.. Events that require high numbers of people for large chunks of time are, unfortunately, not on the plate of your average casual player, which also tends to be a growing majority of the XI players as we've grown up, gotten out of high school/college, taken on full-time jobs, started families, etc.. To the dismay of some, SE is often better served catering to the majority if dealing with limited resources, which means the people with the time and ability to do such things will probably be left hanging.

Now, when it comes to posting ideas here and feeling like we're spinning our wheels, I'd agree there's a bit of despair floating around, particularly when it comes to current job balance or lack of knowledge on future plans. On the other hand, you have ideas like the Wyvern color, which to some are just going to come off as a waste of time for a moment of vanity. Compared to the alluded job issues, Campaign, Beseiged, the state of crafting, and other pressing ills, things like that, the backwards beetle foot, or Cid's bum opening up into another dimension should not be priority.

As is, we're unsure how knowledgeable our CT is when it comes to the overall game and how it works since they don't chat with us mere mortals too often. Some problems come up from such a perspective, so it's possible things could go over their head, not get translated properly, and so on. It just gets more murky when you see a bunch of bad ideas floating around that might unfortunately make sense to those unfamiliar with actual mechanics or community perceptions.