The Decline of FFXI: Forums, Gameplay and Nostalgia

[Akujima]

Well I like all the replies so far.
It's good to hear peoples feedback.

[Leonlionheart]

Oh god, if 90% of the 'ideas' given in this forum were implemented in the game, we'd be playing a watered down version of the power rangers game for game boy advanced.

Most of this forum is completely retarded, and the rest of it is generally QQ.

Yeah, Dynamis reborn is meh. The synergy thing is meh.

However everything else in the upcoming update has the potential to be awesome, but it also has the potential to fail just like some of the previous updates (Evolith?).

You also have to consider that there are more players than not that don't give a rat's ass about the community and are just in game right now enjoying it. They have an opinion, you'll just never hear it anywhere outside of the game.

Don't act like the few of you who are discontent represent the entire playerbase.

[Bigboy]

Another thread with a few people who think they speak for most people. I see that there are a fair amount of people jumping into this thread to express similar sentiments to my own though. This upcoming patch brings so much awesome to the game, I am really looking forward to it.

You really can't spend your time complaining about the things SE hasn't done (except implement jumping, or laxing height restrictions on movement to allow moving over 3 inch ledges) when you are still getting something. If they were sitting on their thumbs, like I felt they were doing about 2 years ago (I was wrong) then we wouldn't be seeing all these enhancements to game play.

I also feel like it is really important to not slap them in the face before we've seen an update just because we have a better idea of what it entails. Only recently has SE become as transparent with their game development as I'd like, and to spit in their faces for finally telling you what to expect seems like taking a step backwards.

If you can't see the massive improvements, you may need to take a break. I took one for about 4 months, and when I came back about 2 months ago, I got completely re-hooked. They've really been working hard, and it amazes me when people cant see that.

[Anewie]

I deactivated my account today and am planning on quitting. I've been playing 8 years, completed 2 relics, 2 empyreans, 2 salvage sets, mutiple sets of af3 and killed almost every major NM/HNM long spawnshort spawn/lottyery in game! I've had a good run. Met my husband on here and I am not dissapointed as I am a bit sad it's just fun anymore.

I come from the aquaresoft generation. Final antasy 7 came out when I was in junior high, amazing game. I played ff7-10 and loved mutiple games squaresoft released! I love fairy tales and that's what the majority of squares old titles revolved around: story telling.

I got hooked on ffxi, and ever since they became square enix, their offline games just were so bland and uninteresting. Hard to get into. They lacked the heart and soul of a good story, but I still had FFXI! I enjoyed everything from exping in the dunes and qufim island (alot of fun imo) to camping khimaira/tiamat on my busy days when All i could do was watch for a pop every hour.

I won't lie, I have a great dislike for whining. I also have a great appreciation for the casual player. Casual players are kinder. They are usually not drama queens and are often more considerate. I'm glad they getting abyssea and having lots of fun. I'm not a hater. I had my elitest fun with salvage, nyzul and hnms for YEARS while the casual and kind couldnt even attempt such content. They got an event that is designed for them, finally. However, I feel the game has lost too much to keep me interested. Im just blazing through empyrean and af3 and it's rly boring ;/.

I'll use the word noob, but not in an elitest way, just as a way to define someone who just doesn't care to play their job with any amount of focus, i hate these players. They are the same as botters/cheaters imo. Botters/cheaters will block ppl and ruin another persons gamejust to win.

A noob doesn't care at all and also has no consideration for others. They don't care for levels or progress. Unlike people who always want to be better than such person, these people want everyone to be as bad as them, and they don't want others to be able to do things, they cannot do or do not WANT to do..

They will grip and complain about anything that is even remotley incovnienant to them, without even trying and they don't want anyone to be better than or have access to things they don't have. Not because it's an unfair situation, but they simply are inconsiderate to the fact that some people enjoy different things than them and want to do different things. They want the game to revolve around them, instead of them revolving around thhe game.

They don't want people to have the option to strive harder than them, because they know they couldnt care. They want things handed to the and they want the best, without effort. They are never satisfied and I find players like this.. worse than the cheaters. Theres something amazinsingly pathetic about a person who just doesn't want to even try. Let alone try and enjoy the process of MAKING PROGRESS on goals as opposed to just getting the best in 1-2 hours. They are jealous of others who are honestly hard working player, and also, enjoys playing to the best of their abilities. They often justify their success by labeling them cheaters or no lifers etc. Get out.

You can easily a spot a player like this, they are usually blaming botting and other people for their lack of success. The fact is, as Orson said in another thread: these people will always suck and they will always complain.

The issue is, SE is giving in to these people it seems.

In a perfect MMO, there should be content to that exists for all types of players. There should be content for the casual, the elite, the hardcore and everyone should respect eachother. But it seems that will never be the case. Before, the casual were getting screwed on the fun and the jerks were loving their tears. Now, the casual get everything and the long term more hardcore base is, in my honest opinion, getting very shafted.

Part of me finds it funny, honestly. All these years of botting, drama and screwing the little guys out and now theyre getting screwed. Lets take relics for example, Relics are the hardest item to get in ffxi. Yet they are gimped down by such a large portion to weapons that take 1-3 weeks to complete. It took me 2 years OF farming and sponsorship to complete my gjallarhorn. My friend took 2 1/2 years to complete his aegis. We are not jerks eithers. Sure, ive seen my fair share of drama. All in all i am a more kind player in game. I respect everyones interests and don't laugh at others. I DESPISE the drama on bg. (i enjoy trolling though! Thats harmless^^)

This game has one sever problem. The player base has no respect for other. I was once considerred at the top of game. I had everything and I was a good player. I was a dedicated customer to this company. Now, although my gear and merits are still top tier. I am bored and it seems they have stopped adding content that really interested me and my groups, because other people decided to cheat and ruin it. Then you had the noobs who have never seen the inside of the king camp and complaining about black belt. The same people blame botters and rmt for their lack of success when the fact is, they just suck and are lazy. They only skill they have to crying until they get what they want.

I used to hope square enix would release a RPG that had a real story to tell and was fun. Like the old FF's. Final fantasy has NOT been good, had the quality of heart and soul, since Final fantasy X. It just hasnt and anyone whos played a variety of the older and newer games, whether they enjoyed them or not, will agree. The heart is gone. After ff13, i accepted, the days of heart in their RPGs is gone.

I have a simliar feeling about FF11. This game has done a 180. It's not even a bad 180. As before when you didnt have content that appealed to the casual, now they don't have any content that appeals to the uncasual or "elite". I hate that word but I don't know what else to call it. I know it seems like a petty thing to cry about, Who doesnt wanna complete an ochain in 3 weeks, mostly duo/trio?:P but, Its just not fun. If theyre going to fund ffXIV with FFXI, which is undoubtedly what they are doing.. The best way to do it is to make content that appeals to people who are casual. Making a new char and rushing them to lvl90 and getting the best gears take.. what.. a month? It's easy to start and get the best now. That's good for business. FFXI is easy to start and it's not hard to get the best. It's actually fairly easy. Requires only time. SE needs the game to appeal to the casual and to appeal to people who don't have a lot of game time. This will increase the likelyhood of someone activating an account. The game is not difficult at all.

I don't think they are going to add new world NM/HNM or any other creative events like salvage or sandworm doomvoid! That would be so much fun! But i think voidwatch and even "The last stand" will be of the abyssea related and although I think they will add many more events, I think it will all revolve around atmas, cruour, and things of the "abyssea nature". They reworded it "atmacite" but thats more than liely just going to be a gimped down version of an atma.

I dont think we will get anymore new area/expansions outside the Last stand, and I dont think they will discontinue ps2 support.

I believe they are focused on putting minimal amount of creativity into ffxi, just enough to keep the game flowing to its player base. They have to save ff14 and thats their priority. If ff14 does not recover, it will mean the end of Square enix. FF14 is a major thing for them because the future of the company rests on it. Funding dev. for ffxi on a creative scale like the past, i can't see it being possible, while still being able to put substantial funds into FF14.I guess the longevity, luck and unknown aspect of the old ffxi was exciting to me! I loved it!

Anyway, One positive note about the game is, we are more connected as a base now. We work together more and theres hardley any drama anymore. Thats awesome! Does the game lack variety, fun, mystery, excitment? I think so, very much. But after 8 years, it maybe time for others to have some fun!

The game cannot, should not, revolve around you, your group or just on player type. Everyone deserves a chance at stuff and i had mine and got what i payed for.

[Karbuncle]

I keep seeing "Their priority is saving FFXIV". While this is correct for the company, I assure you the people you're typing this too, the Devs and Reps, want all the focus back on FFXI. Because its their game and its their project.

They really don't have a choice but to obey the higher ups. When they gave the call to save FFXIV and FFXI got robbed of a lot of its resources, I'm sure the dev team was as disappointed and as upset as anyone.

So don't be too upset with the Devs, I'm sure its not their choice to have limited time and resources :|

[Romanova]

one thing I want to say to the "fun" aspect, is that they do still add fun little things, and that doesn't mean they have to add all the fun little things.

For example, job emotes. They add zero to the game, but they are fun and silly little things to get that can give you a couple of chuckles.

I agree with you (OP) that they should keep adding the big and the small, but you have to keep it in perspective and realize they are adding small, even if it just doesn't happen to be a particular drg one at this point.

[Akujima]

I come from the Squaresoft generation...

I used to hope square enix would release a RPG that had a real story to tell and was fun. Like the old FF's. Final fantasy has NOT been good, had the quality of heart and soul, since Final fantasy X. It just hasnt and anyone whos played a varioety of the older and newer games, whether they enjoyed them or not, will agree. The heart is gone. After ff13, i accepted, the days of heart in their games is gone.

Thank you.

Thank you for such an awesome post and I'm glad you posted it in this thread. Amazing read.

[Anewie]

Thank you.

Thank you for such an awesome post and I'm glad you posted it in this thread. Amazing read.

<3 People in the spam section of BG, say I am incapable of an intelligent conversation :P. They would be surprised to know, I am really just kidding most time in that section! I loved FFXI and I loved Square soft. I payed for great games and i got great games. Times change, MMOs change, People move on. Butt hurt noobs and cheating jerks or not, FFXI was an amazing game back at 75. I personally tried to find fun, in the things I had time for, at that time in my life. Even though I was guilty of stepping on others toes occasionally, I tried really hard not too.

Lovex from BG!

[Meyi]

What did I just read...?

I think that accusing Square Enix of having evil intentions for creating the forums is wrong. The odds are high that they took notice of all the fan made forums (BG, Wiki, Killing Ifrit, Alla, etc) and realized that such a strong community base for FFXI is strongly desired by the fans.

We should also take note that several suggestions are stupid. And to be fair, Square Enix representatives have come into a handful of topics and explained that while yes, the development team thought it was a fascinating idea, they don't have the man power/time/money/resources to pull it off. Or, if they did like it and did have all the resources they needed, the idea would be considered and possibly added at a later date.

I found it amusing that you talked so sweetly of FFXI in its younger years as if it had been perfectly constructed. As if there was no competition and everything was the perfect flare of challenge. Do some more digging around here and other forums and you'll discover how silly it is to think that the game had been perfect then and pointless now.

Do you think that pop NMs are a pain? Consider the Kings then. And it wasn't as if Kirin -- one of the few popped NMs of the old era -- could have more than one pop up at once. (Not to mention that Kirin took hours to kill while popped NMs in Abyssea take a few minutes.) The difference between then and now is that now we control when our Notorious Monsters are up and have much more incentive to group up and help each other out. Odds are nobody wanted to group up to kill Fafnir, but people don't mind helping a group kill their popped Wherwetrice faster so that they can pop their own.

The difference is that today the game is a game and no longer a second job.

[Seriha]

We should also take note that several suggestions are stupid. And to be fair, Square Enix representatives have come into a handful of topics and explained that while yes, the development team thought it was a fascinating idea, they don't have the man power/time/money/resources to pull it off. Or, if they did like it and did have all the resources they needed, the idea would be considered and possibly added at a later date.

This reminds me, while we'll eventually be getting access to the test server, giving players the tools to actually create content for the game could be an insanely successful maneuver if done right. Back in the day I worked with a few others on a Diablo II mod that ran on a private server. We'd pretty much redone the entire equipment progression, loot tables, mods, skills, and while somewhat restrictive earlier in D2s life, we'd also made custom areas and monsters.

Understandably only the most savvy and dedicated would actually be able to create things of quality, but with the players basically working as free labor in this case, they gain the ability to pick and choose additions they'd like to port over, be it as is or with some tweaks. Aside from some possible community recognition, successful mods could grant the creators free subscriptions, names on possible equipment tied to whatever, the mobs themselves, and so on. Repeat successes could possibly lead to actual hiring to the dev team.

The downside, and perhaps why this would never happen, is this level of control and creation would give players access to knowledge we can only currently estimate or believe we've reverse engineered. In effect, some of the "mystery" they cherish would be lost even though so many things could be looked into or problems solved.

As is, I haven't been particularly hyped about this update. Sure, there are some creature comfort perks to look forward to, but those range anywhere from "Should've been that way from the start." or "Too late to really care about it." for people. Other things are simply too much in "wait and see" status. NMs don't excite me much, for example, without knowing what they drop and their overall difficulty. And if they're designed so you have to kill them dozens upon dozens of times, they'll lose their charm pretty quick, especially if they're more on the annoying side (and I differentiate this from actual difficulty). The VIT thing could maybe be interesting, but I just can't see it ushering the return of blood tanking in situations where Atmas aren't involved. Maybe they're hiding some doozies like a Part II to job updates? I dunno, but holding back on such things aren't what I'd call beneficial this close to patch time.