The Decline of FFXI: Forums, Gameplay and Nostalgia

[Akujima]

...From a roleplaying perspective, it was awesome. From a player wanting to complete a character, it was terrible.

You do realize this is a role-playing game right?

And in a way, yes, the company could have stepped up and helped relieve these monsters in some way. I am a big fan of the pop system. But even then, a shorter respawn timer would have sufficed as well. Or a higher drop rate.

Yes they could have added multiple items per NM and increased the drop rates a little as well as the respawn timer. But instead they created Abyssea and gave themselves more work because all that old content has now become obsolete to players wanting to "complete a character"

Now they created these forums for us to come up with idea's (apparently) on how to fix all that old content, so we can do the work for them.

Instead of what they should have done, which is create a new expansion altogether and fix current issues with the game, as opposed to just sweeping them under the rug.

What I wanted was an ability to continuously put effort into a goal and eventually reach it. I despise luck and prefer hard work. This is why I am such a fan of Magians. I can log on whenever, work on it some, and then log out when I need to. Every monster I kill for the trial will count towards the trial, guaranteed. Each monster is one step closer to completing and I enjoy slaying monsters for a better weapon. Whether this process takes a day, a week, or a month, I'm satisfied because I know I'm progressing.

So what I see here, is that you're not OK with waking up at 3 AM to go to work, but you are OK with doing repetitive simple tasks all day long at work.

The whole idea of past NM's and the items they dropped was to /check someone and say "Oh wow that guy/girl got lucky with that drop". And that's why some of those items were pretty awesome in stats and/or looks. What started happening, is that people complained that they couldn't get their hands on such and such an item, and wanted uber items for themselves, without the "luck" factor.

The problem is, people like this opt for absolutely EVERYTHING being changed and having ZERO "luck" in the game, when in reality these things CAN coexist. You CAN have NM's that are based on luck, that give equally good and different gear, than the ones based on pure progression.

Actually that was already there. The CoP rings were the best in the game, and all you had to do was finish CoP to get one. The ZM earrings were pretty good actually, all you had to do was finish ZM. There's a laundry list of items that were on par with luck NM drops, that came from progression based scenarios. The problem is, they simply didn't add more of the progression based items.

I will end on this note. FFXI use to be like a job because of the hours of the monsters and the duration of the events. Add insult to injury by adding low drop rates to the events which required more repetitions. To add icing on the cake we sprinkle in some competition. Long hours and timed hours were the problem. I think Abyssea has addressed these issues quite nicely.

Like I said above. Instead of sweeping stuff under the rug (like the old content), fix current issues and add more depth and dynamics.

But now we have Abyssea, which actually is just a scaled down model of the past system that you disliked. Now instead you have HOARDS of competition, AND for certain Empyrean weapon, you still have to compete for timed spawns to get Key Items. Not to mention you are in an area with a time LIMIT to boot!

So waiting to claim Gukumatz AS A SOLO/DUO for a Sobek pop, and then not being able to claim because of massive amounts of LS competition, having to be booted out of Abyssea or go use up more stones, more time, run back and forth re-get buffs, atma, etc, etc... How is that LESS annoying?

Anyways... I used to like Abyssea myself, but then once I got to Shinryu in less than 2 weeks after Hero's came out, I saw the real truth behind it.

[Meyi]

You do realize this is a role-playing game right?

Yes I do, but it's not a single player role-playing game. It's a game that has no pause button. People generally play to accomplish some goal. When the environment inhibits these goals from being attempted, that's when players feel frustration.

Yes they could have added multiple items per NM and increased the drop rates a little as well as the respawn timer. But instead they created Abyssea and gave themselves more work because all that old content has now become obsolete to players wanting to "complete a character"

Now they created these forums for us to come up with idea's (apparently) on how to fix all that old content, so we can do the work for them.

Instead of what they should have done, which is create a new expansion altogether and fix current issues with the game, as opposed to just sweeping them under the rug.

Allow me to suggest reading through these forums some more. There are many suggestions posted by fellow players that have been addressed by Square Enix. It seems the most common issue is lack of resources on the developers' behalf. Not that they don't want to, just that they don't have the funds or manpower.

So what I see here, is that you're not ok with waking up at 3 AM to go to work, but you are ok with doing repetitive simple tasks all day long at work.

... What...? I never said anything about work. I was talking about waking myself up, out of a sound sleep, to get on a video game to help kill a monster and then go back to bed for school. Work = money, and money is necessary to live. Video games aren't. If I had to wake up at 3 AM for a job I would.

That sentence is utterly baffling.

The whole idea of past NM's and the items they dropped was to /check someone and say "Oh wow that guy/girl got lucky with that drop". And that's why some of those items were pretty awesome in stats and/or looks. What started happening, is that people complained that they couldn't get their hands on such and such an item, and wanted uber items for themselves, without the "luck" factor.

The problem is, people like this opt for absolutely EVERYTHING being changed and having ZERO "luck" in the game, when in reality these things CAN coexist. You CAN have NM's that are based on luck, that give equally good and different gear, than the ones based on pure progression.

Sounds like Abyssea monsters to me. You can proc yellow !! for higher seal/gem drop, but then again, you may only end up with one seal/gem. Or, even without yellow !!, you can luck out and get decent seal/gem drop without yellow proc.

If there were armors with equal stats that were luck based and progression based (perhaps different .dats), then I wouldn't mind one bit. I don't care if people want to play with luck; it's their game too and they're free to play how they want. However, I also enjoy progression and would be disappointed if the hard work progression item was inferior to the luck item.

But now we have Abyssea, which actually is just a scaled down model of the past system that you disliked. Now instead you have HOARDS of competition, AND for certain Empyrean weapon, you still have to compete for timed spawns to get Key Items. Not to mention you are in an area with a time LIMIT to boot!

So waiting to claim Gukumatz AS A SOLO/DUO for a Sobek pop, and then not being able to claim because of massive amounts of LS competition, having to be booted out of Abyssea or go use up more stones, more time, run back and forth re-get buffs, atma, etc, etc... How is that LESS annoying?

Anyways... I used to like Abyssea myself, but then once I got to Shinryu in less than 2 weeks after Hero's came out, I saw the real truth behind it.

I think competition now is the best it's ever been. The numbers are on par with the past, but, people are more willing to cooperate now. We take turns popping monsters or we team up to help each other out. And this happens at Sobek, too. While my linkshell was farming Sobek for all of our +2 pants, we would invite people there for the emp. weapon skins and let them take them.

I admit that it's not any less annoying. I'm frustrated by the hordes of players at +2 NMs. Luckily for me I have a new linkshell that's very supportive. When I'm frustrated they'll help me take my mind off of my monster by asking me to come help them with seals. And when we're finished with their seals, we'll go back to my monster and try again. And I must add that I don't enjoy having to leave the zone/get more stones/rebuff either. But, it's more enjoyable to have a respawn timer of 15 minutes than 21~24 hours.

Abyssea is not perfect. It's just an event were previous issues have been somewhat corrected.

[Akujima]

Abyssea is not perfect. It's just an event were previous issues have been somewhat corrected.

I read your whole post (saying this because I've been accused before of just skimming over others posts), the whole waking up for work analogy just means this: We do simple repetitive tasks at work all day, and Magian trials as well as Abyssea farming just seems like work for some people, but I guess you're not one of them.

Anyways, I'm not trying to ridicule anyone for liking Abyssea. All I'm asking for is a difficulty increase and dynamic depth to battle tactics and strategies. But IMO they are making the game a little TOO easy, and a little TOO simple. "Farming" seals was not my idea of endgame content.

If the battles were actually difficult and made me use my brain in order to defeat the enemy, then yea I'd still be playing. Pre-Endgame 75, even doing an EXP PT you had to think of tactics and strategies depending on where your PT camped at, and what jobs you had.

You know what pissed me off? The counter for Utsusemi. And it all happened because whiney players who subbed /NIN (It wasn't even their MAIN job for crying out loud) complained that "Boohoo, counting shadows is so annoying!"

NIN pre-endgame 75 was a very, very FUN job. You had to focus and time your nukes and enfeeble ninjutsu correctly. You had to WATCH your enemy carefully to determine when you would cast your next Utsusemi. Timing was key. It was FREAKEN fun to count those shadows, and "Pro Ninja's" were the ones who could do that, and at the same time keep hate, WS, SC and MB.

But overnight, as soon as the shadow counter was added, NIN went from being a cool IN DEPTH DYNAMIC JOB, to being a cakewalk @$$ wipe job, and stole all the fun out it.

The example given of a NIN pre-endgame 75, is EXACTLY what I'm talking about in regards to "IN DEPTH, DYNAMIC, STRATEGIC, GAMEPLAY"

God Dang!!! my posts are so good.

(yea yea, lots of caps because I really feel strongly about this topic)

[Bhujerba]

. It was FREAKEN fun to count those shadows

... :O
fun is subjective... :|
plus nothing much really changed, going from watching chat log now you watch buff icon instead, the whole timing thing and strategy still remained almost exactly :O , this what I love about the job (timing shadows and/or abilities around it, keep me busy constantly) and what I fell playing nin now,before and ever!

you just are over thinking it! snap out of it now! *poke*

[Akujima]

fun is subjective...

Fun is objective　too! So... I object!

Actually my chat log scrolled up and　I had to remember how many shadows I had, due to other things going on in the battle. But I'm still trying to make a point about dynamic game play. Back in the day, Trick Attack actually had a use. But now people don't really care if they're trick attacked, because most all melee can tank in Abyss without shadows or evasion gear or whatnot.

Anyhow... This is also a test of my sig, wanting to see if it works heh...

Edit: Guess it doesn't work. How do you get a pic to show up in your sig?...

Edit#2: Figured out the sig thing. Cool.

[Karbuncle]

Fun is objective　too! So... I object!

Actually my chat log scrolled up and　I had to remember how many shadows I had, due to other things going on in the battle. But I'm still trying to make a point about dynamic game play. Back in the day, Trick Attack actually had a use. But now people don't really care if they're trick attacked, because most all melee can tank in Abyss without shadows or evasion gear or whatnot.

Anyhow... This is also a test of my sig, wanting to see if it works heh...

Edit: Guess it doesn't work. How do you get a pic to show up in your sig?...

Edit#2: Figured out the sig thing. Cool.

This is all Nostalgia vision and false.

Ninja has barely changed at all. The only thing thats different about the job is you have more shadows. You're still an Evasion tank, you still need to keep track of shadows (Either by log or by Icon), and Timing is still key on a lot of fights. Ninjas have great Evasion, But they're about 60 Evasion behind THF, so they still have to eye their shadows on a lot of Enemies, that hasn't changed.

Beyond that, You can still Debuff a mob with Ninjutsu in Abyssea...? That hasn't changed either. Trick Attack was frankly just as "useful" then as it is now. Only now NIN's are able to get hate easier through DD. If your complaint is that TA is "Useless" because you don't need the Enmity, your Complaint is NIN is too powerful through damage. "Trick Attack" isn't 'not wanted' because of melee damage blah blah blah, Trick Attack just isn't NEEDED. its not a WANT, its a need. Right now, especially for jobs like NIN, the Added Enmity is simply not required. it can help early in a fight or after a Hate reset.

Thats funny though, Trick Attack is still useful in the exact way you want, strategically, Its useful after an Enemy uses Hate reset. It just became an ever more strategic hate tool, adding depth to a fight, but you failed to mention that... You're overlooking exactly what you want, Strategy and in-depth fights.

I Won't go into how much i hate a lot of THF Abilities for being "Party onry", So I'll try to focus away from the Trick Attack Subject more, Sorry :X

Going form here on, I don't know what quite else to say. If you guys are so disappointed with how this game is turning out, take Anewies initiative and just quit already. If the game is truly so unfun to you that you can't even see how it still has almost everything you want because you're blinded by nostalgia and animosity, you simply need to deactivate your account.

The Representatives on this website, while not responding to every single (Really TERRIBLE) ideas are in fact looking through and commenting on decent ideas. As i said before, They have limited time and resources. This is likely not their fault. In a company, you obey who is above you, or you lose your job. I'm sure if they had their way there would be much more time/staff devoted to FFXI.

I mean, I don't complain my "Personal Beast pet" idea has never got dev attention, even though its gotten mostly positive responses. I simply feel its either "Horrible idea" or "Too unrealistic". I've come to terms with that, and i certainly don't think that we should start a complaint thread every time we see a thread without a Crown icon by it.

Edit: Throwing Sucks. (you know you laughed)

[Bulrogg]

I used to jokingly ask if I had a case against SE because I had played Ninja so long, I could no longer count past four.

You know what pissed me off? The counter for Utsusemi. And it all happened because whiney players who subbed /NIN (It wasn't even their MAIN job for crying out loud) complained that "Boohoo, counting shadows is so annoying!"

NIN pre-endgame 75 was a very, very FUN job. You had to focus and time your nukes and enfeeble ninjutsu correctly. You had to WATCH your enemy carefully to determine when you would cast your next Utsusemi. Timing was key. It was FREAKEN fun to count those shadows, and "Pro Ninja's" were the ones who could do that, and at the same time keep hate, WS, SC and MB.

But overnight, as soon as the shadow counter was added, NIN went from being a cool IN DEPTH DYNAMIC JOB, to being a cakewalk @$$ wipe job, and stole all the fun out it.

I couldn't agree more. I very much enjoyed playing Ninja before then. Since then Ninja has become just another 'Bandwagon' job. I'll be happy when SE unintentionally adjusts something and then [Insert Job Here] becomes the next 'bandwagon' job and everyone jumps ship.