Running out of leveling content.

[Olor]

People in FFXI, and in life really, are always, always, always more ready and willing to help someone who is already putting in a conscious and visible effort. If you ask someone out of the blue if they want to help kill Shadow Lord, you may get lucky and get a yes, but more often than not people are just going to be silent and/or say that they're busy, even if (especially if) they're not. But if you start climbing Castle Z and fighting the Shadow Lord by yourself, and keep a positive attitude ("/l D'oh! Almost had him that time! Bloody Shadow Lord stole my knickers and threw my dingie on the barbie!"), people will not only be more likely to help out if asked, but may even offer to help on their own.

this makes me want to go solo the shadow lord.

[Taylin]

For the people that feel that abyssea burns dont help you learn a job's role in a party.... that's what forums are for... use them...

[Ravenmore]

Love doing the Shadow lord fight, I will help anyone on that fight that I don't have to hold thier hand on the way to the fight.

[Abelia]

Abeli Good news a party of 6 can do DM with the super tank strat but it will still put up a good fight, more would make it easier but up to you. The last time I did the fight after DM we went in with 4 people and it seemed like it was over kill. Again its basicly the strat just less people.

Oh no I have had Divine Might finished for ages now. I said about eight people for Divine Might these days, because I haven't actually done Divine Might for like two years. I am taking a break from the game because most of my friends quit or moved servers. I was just trying to state most content today is a lot easier to beat. I remember when you had to have the full alliance to beat Divine Might. It was a sort of a pain to beat, but i honestly think the most depressing fight in the game was the airship fight. It took me forever to get past the airship fight. I am glad that they quickened XP, and made it so BLM was good to have in parties again. Being forced to solo or do mana burn parties sucked.

[CrAZYVIC]

I think the people forget something "What is a RPG or what is a MMRPG".

In a MMRPG, What the protocol say is, choice and lv up a job, gear that job, learn use the job, craft and end game activies involving massive numbers players like 12 + 15.

I think everything is necesary in a MMRPG. And everyone is looking for a diferent things do to in a mmrpg.

I think lv up, know all areas, learn use the job, get Job abilities, and be a expert of job you are using is 35% from a MMRPG.

Gear the job, do quest, misions, crafts, is the other 35%

And the last 35% is the end game activity, raids, dificult battles invold 12 - 15 players for do it and have a group of elite High lv members.

I see some people dont like lv up well they will go play some end game things and gear the job. Lets respect the way they enjoy the game ^^

I see some pleople like me love lv up and end game and HATE with passion do quest and misions and storythings involved.

And i see a lot of players are only focusing in end game.

Lets respect the way the people want play. But i think everything in a good MMRPG is necesary and when something start missing, there serious problems in keep the people interesed

Lv up in a mmrpg. Not is force you play with 6 people party and without 6 people cant play even if you are dying to play. Lv up in a mmrpg not is get a job afking in 6 hours. Right now lv up calm down, enjoying the game can be done in 1 week. I like the idea in a few days have a job lv 90 doing it myselft ^^

End game in a mmrpg not is assist 6 times per week, 6 hours per day to LS events for make a progress and wait 6 months for get some gear. Maybe 3 times per week a few hours is cool.

[Akujima]

I think everything is necesary in a MMRPG. And everyone is looking for a diferent things do to in a mmrpg.

I think lv up, know all areas, learn use the job, get Job abilities, and be a expert of job you are using is 35% from a MMRPG.

Gear the job, do quest, misions, crafts, is the other 35%

And the last 35% is the end game activity, raids, dificult battles invold 12 - 15 players for do it and have a group of elite High lv members.

Yea, but most people here want this system:

10% Lvling up.
10% Crafts, Missions, Quests, Storyline.
80% Endgame Content.

And if that's the case, then why even have such insignificant amounts of content? Why not just start directly at Endgame, and we're all handed Lv99 jobs at max?

The purpose of an MMO is to experience an adventure. That adventure begins at Lv1. It doesn't begin at Max Lv. And if you think that EXP'ing in an MMO is totally annoying and not worth the trouble, there's 2 explanations for this:

1.) It's a poorly designed MMO.
2.) You don't like playing RPG's.

Good MMO's are designed so that the player is forced to experience each segment of the total adventure. From Lv1 to Max Lv and beyond, questing, missions, storyline and crafting, etc, should all be blended together in a grand sequence of events that compliment one another and give incentive to the player experiencing the journey.

[Octaviane]

For the people that feel that abyssea burns dont help you learn a job's role in a party.... that's what forums are for... use them...

LOL sure, and then how many hours/days/weeks after to skill up magic, weapons, evasion, guard, parry, etc, then break latents for your WS, blah, blah, blah.

You gain information about the game in general through the Forums, not HOW to play your job. That comes from taking the time and putting in some effort.

[Octaviane]

Love doing the Shadow lord fight, I will help anyone on that fight that I don't have to hold thier hand on the way to the fight.

Same here. I will practically beg to go along with anyone who wants to do this Mission.

[Bumbeen]

You gain information about the game in general through the Forums, not HOW to play your job. That comes from taking the time and putting in some effort.

People that never read forums are the ones you see TPing in str rings and not using gear swaps.

[Greatguardian]

LOL sure, and then how many hours/days/weeks after to skill up magic, weapons, evasion, guard, parry, etc, then break latents for your WS, blah, blah, blah.

You gain information about the game in general through the Forums, not HOW to play your job. That comes from taking the time and putting in some effort.

Once you have information on how the game works, it is the easiest thing in the world to figure out "HOW" to play your job for anyone with a pulse and an ounce of deductive reasoning. The hardest part of being a Warrior is learning how Haste, DA, Attack, Str/Dex/etc, and Accuracy interact to make you a stronger Damage Dealer. No amount of eyeballing and playing around with different gear in-game is going to give you a proper answer to that, because it's impossible to get unbiased perception from human observation. This is why you see so many people insisting that they "Do more damage" and "Take more hate" using full STR builds on DRK. Once you go online and learn how Haste, DA, Attack/cRatio, Accuracy, and fStr/dDex work, it is not difficult at all to create functional gearsets.

And yes, having functional gearsets for your actions is 60-75% of "Playing your job". I didn't say "OMG SUPER LEET" gearsets, I said functional. You can have functional gear with 100% Free and Easy to obtain pieces mixed with a bit of gil (which is easy as hell to obtain). No matter what you are doing, you are doing it significantly less effectively than you could be if you're doing it naked or without changing gear.

Finally, it doesn't take days to skill up anything, let alone weeks. You can skill up to 82-cap while completely AFK on Zvahl Fortalices. If you have WAR, and a decent atma selection, you can skill every weapon WAR can equip to cap in Abyssea - Altepa just Retaliation supertanking Mandies with Regen/PDT atmas.

If your definition of learning "HOW" to play your job is simply "When to Weaponskill" and "How to cast Cure", I'm afraid for anyone who doesn't know how or when to cast a bloody Cure spell on a mage. It is absolutely common sense. Weaponskilling at 100TP is absolutely common sense. Sneak Attacking from behind when the JA description says "from behind" is absolutely common sense. Congratulations, spending weeks/months grinding up on pink birds has taught people how to not be an absolute drain on society. That doesn't mean they know how to play their jobs.

As for the whole "It's an ARR PEE GEE, YOU HAVE TO LEVEL UP IN IT" thing, just get over it. Seriously. That's the single worst argument anyone has ever heard ever. You want to know what standard RPGs have that FFXI doesn't? Low and Mid level content. Do you want to know, perhaps, why that is? FFXI uses persistent characters. Once you're level 50, you are always going to be level 50 or higher on at least one job. You are never going to be "Only level 30" again. And these characters aren't something we pour 20-40 hours into and then call it quits. FFXI characters last for years, and only get stronger.

What is the point of making content exclusive to level 20s when over half of the playerbase doesn't even have a job below 30 (or more realistically 49) any more? It existed. Oh, don't get me wrong, it definitely existed. But it went unused after like a year or two of the game's life. Why? Because most people already had at least one job that was too high level to participate in them. The people in low level parties became significantly more Subjob and Second+ job leveling than New Player First Job leveling. Why? Again, because once you have a level 75, you don't lose it. You can only get more level 75s. As any game with that philosophy in mind progresses over time, more and more people will have more and more level 75s. The need for low level content will drop until it is practically nonexistent. That's where we've been for half a decade now.

Content is designed for level 75 (90). Content is not EXP. Does newer content award EXP? Sure does. Can you call it EXP content? If you want. Does that make 6-man Colibri/Crab-fests "Content"? No. And it never will.