Is this the road they will continue to take with items?

[Welsper59]

Hi Taban,

On a theoretical level, sure it's "6 months," but with Weekly Lockouts and a poorly-designed Massive Loot Pool per Chest, you may NEVER get those items for MONTHS. Our static was clearing Turn 4 consistently from early on (well before Echo), and we *never* saw the Tank Allagan Gloves drop. Ever. (No joke.) That's RNG.

Also, most groups lose about ~1 month or so learning and progressing to clear a particular turn, so overall, "No," the actual amount of time a player might have a "BiS" Item from Coil is far less than "6 Months."

Wait so, the complaint is that you want at least the 6 month period AFTER you've acquired BiS? That's... uhh... unusual.

[Scootaloo]

FFXI has a very loyal fan base who have been playing the game for its whole 11+ years. For 10 of those years, XI featured horizontal progression. Now, with the latest expansion, it has changed to vertical progression.

And you know what? Their 11 year old loyal fan base, who you think would be outraged at such a drastic change to their beloved game, is not complaining.

Except you forgot to mention that 90% of the fanbase left the game once abby was introduced, SE was forced to merge servers to cut costs, and released an expansion in a desperate attempt to get them back. Also, if you unsub, you can't post on the game's forums, which is why there was no complaints.

[Fendred]

Except you forgot to mention that 90% of the fanbase left the game once abby was introduced, SE was forced to merge servers to cut costs, and released an expansion in a desperate attempt to get them back. Also, if you unsub, you can't post on the game's forums, which is why there was no complaints.

I think we can safely say that was the point at which the development department up at SE had lost sight of what FFXI's fanbase saw in their game. There were some seriously annoying/broken things in FFXI, but game balance be damned, the fans loved it regardless.

[Magis]

I think we can safely say that was the point at which the development department up at SE had lost sight of what FFXI's fanbase saw in their game. There were some seriously annoying/broken things in FFXI, but game balance be damned, the fans loved it regardless.

Rumor I heard was that it was to kill XI for XIV. It gave players the ability to be super powerful for one last hurrah, now go join FFXIV. When 1.0 was the disaster it was, they had to figure out how to "restart" XI. Too late I guess.

[Fendred]

Rumor I heard was that it was to kill XI for XIV. It gave players the ability to be super powerful for one last hurrah, now go join FFXIV. When 1.0 was the disaster it was, they had to figure out how to "restart" XI. Too late I guess.

That might make sense from the perspective of some developers who don't want to be stuck working on tech that is over a decade old. So far they are attempting to make ARR a hybrid between 1.0 and 2.0 if the features we have been seeing in previous patches are any indication of the future.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I liked how SE managed to keep the i80 dungeon sets, the i100 ST sets and the new i95 primal weapons semi relevant: the i80 ilevel cap. Many of the BiS and near-BiS pieces for various classes in i80 Frontlines/Wolf's Den are not Soldiery or High Allagan.

[Nicobo]

...I'd just like to know whether or not i should care anymore if i can just wait for the next patch and get previous seasons endgame gear in an hour. Too boring .

Sound like I can buy iPhone6 cheaper when I phone7 is out. Too boring ^^;
Btw, if would be worse if players cannot get previous gear easily, it would become unbalance.

[Magis]

Sound like I can buy iPhone6 cheaper when I phone7 is out. Too boring ^^;

Using your analogy... it's if the iPhone 7 was the iPhone 6 but had a different coat of paint on it and a 5% faster CPU but all the new programs ran 5% slower anyway (leading to a net improvement of 0%). Functionally it's the same, no new features... just a different look to it. No one would buy it (well... Apple fanboys), because it doesn't bring anything new to the table over the older phone. This is why new features are added every iteration. To bring it back to MMOs... items should have something that separates them from other items other than an ilvl increase, which itself is a meaningless number that forever increases.

Btw, if would be worse if players cannot get previous gear easily, it would become unbalance.

If the game wasn't built around fast vertical progression, that wouldn't be a problem. The reason there is such a gap from a fresh lvl 50 to ilvl 100 is because of the system. Heck... we have basically DOUBLED our ilvl from 50, and we haven't even got to the expansion yet.

[Kiara]

Wait so, the complaint is that you want at least the 6 month period AFTER you've acquired BiS? That's... uhh... unusual.

Hi Welsper,

No, I wasn't stating my preference for a fixed time "after acquiring an item," I was pointing out to Taban the claim that "6 months" being plenty of time w/ a piece of gear wasn't true at all for many people; many players don't have a "new shiny" from the day of the patch release -> say, 5 - 6 months (next iLevel Patch Bump).

Ultimately, I can only speak for myself (and many of my JP and NA friends) in saying that the current pace of gear inflation is too accelerated for our tastes.

So much work is wasted (fights / dungeons being outdated so quickly), or if something gets to be too RNG-reliant (e.g., certain HA piece not dropping), I'm hearing more and more comments (and I feel the same way), that, "Meh, doesn't matter. Next (big) patch will invalidate the gear anyways. Whatever."

The general feeling of detachment from the rewards you're getting because of how fast Item Level / Vertical Progression is going isn't something I like in FF XIV at all.

I hope they change this.

[Tupsi]

I think we can safely say that was the point at which the development department up at SE had lost sight of what FFXI's fanbase saw in their game. There were some seriously annoying/broken things in FFXI, but game balance be damned, the fans loved it regardless.

They had to do something due to XIV's development then later ARR's development. Abyssea was fine in concept but in execution it pretty much butchered a lot of XI because XI was designed and built to have things to do as you progressed and leveling was also part of the experience since aside the 'standard camps' it gave you a reason to go places beyond just warping to your next event.

The ironic thing is, even after all was said and done, XI still updates quicker and even sometimes add systems other MMOs don't have or stuff this one "can't do" per SE's words.