Petition against Level Sync

[Levian]

You are completely full of shit. I refused level sync all the time, and other people I know did also.

My my, such venom and spite...clearly you and I have two widely varied opinions of the same game. Not quoting all of that, too long. But I'll start at the top and work my way down.

I refused to synch for a while, aside from a few rare occasions with shellmates. I'd say WotG is when things got extreme. Note that I specified Ronfuare synch parties, as in Ronfuare (S). I spent the majority of my FFXI playtime on Remora, among the first to migrate over when the server was put up actually, until it was recently merged with Leviathan. If you spent any time there about halfway through WotG you know as well as I do this next paragraph is spot on...

The occasional level range? This is a lovely trip down memory lane actually, the last time I played was Bard. We did worms in Qufim from 20-36, with some mandragoras in Yuhtunga Jungle intermittantly from 27-36 though I promise you that was 2 groups at best. Then it was off to Ronfuare (S) for those darling pink birdies, until 55 when you went to toau for more pink birdies until you hit 75 and merit off of yes, more pink birdies. That was IT. No Garliage citadel, Crawler's Nest, Yhoater jungle, East/West Altepa. You get the picture.

The third section you quoted there was actually intended to pin the blame for said issues on ToAU. Perhaps I should've been a little more clear, but that IS where things began to slide down that slippery slope of catering to the more casual crowd. As far as precisely when it was gutted clearly we have differing views. For me it started with ToAU and ended with Abbyssea.

I ask you this, if ToAU saved FFXI, why then did it's population spike at the release, then quickly drop back down below where it had settled prior to it's release? The same can be said for WotG. Granted they were updates and population spikes are expected. But the game continued to decline after the spikes petered out, and fell to levels below where it was before BOTH of those releases. Can you say with a straight face that you know for SURE had ToAU and WotG not come out, that the game would be dead by now?

For every player you can personally name that was brought in by one of those updates, I can name one that left. I'm not saying that the game would still be alive had nothing been done, but I'm not going to laud the updates as saviors of a dying game either. I can probably still dig up the MMO population graphs for comparison if you need me to backup this statement, but they hardly saved anything and were more like putting a comatose patient on life support.

And your last statement? I could have sworn I made it clear that SOME of us liked the old SC/MB playstyle. I liked my BLMs, and didn't find it fair that they were sitting on the sidelines, busting their @$$ to solo XP while the rest of us left them in the dust until we needed them again @ 75. Was the old way perfect? No, clearly melee DD needed some tweaking, and perhaps we needed some more options for closing Skillchains so womething other than BLM got that first seat in the party. Was the answer to obliterate the art of Skillchains in the process? I didn't, and still don't think so.

Edit: Perhaps it is unfair to say level synch destroyed the game as there were a myriad of factors involved, but it did add yet another thing that could be, and certainly was, exploited to death.

[Dragon]

My my, such venom and spite...clearly you and I have two widely varied opinions of the same game. Not quoting all of that, too long. But I'll start at the top and work my way down.

I refused to synch for a while, aside from a few rare occasions with shellmates. I'd say WotG is when things got extreme. Note that I specified Ronfuare synch parties, as in Ronfuare (S). I spent the majority of my FFXI playtime on Remora, among the first to migrate over when the server was put up actually, until it was recently merged with Leviathan. If you spent any time there about halfway through WotG you know as well as I do this next paragraph is spot on...

The occasional level range? This is a lovely trip down memory lane actually, the last time I played was Bard. We did worms in Qufim from 20-36, with some mandragoras in Yuhtunga Jungle intermittantly from 27-36 though I promise you that was 2 groups at best. Then it was off to Ronfuare (S) for those darling pink birdies, until 55 when you went to toau for more pink birdies until you hit 75 and merit off of yes, more pink birdies. That was IT. No Garliage citadel, Crawler's Nest, Yhoater jungle, East/West Altepa. You get the picture.

Well no wonder why Remora was a complete backwards server.

The third section you quoted there was actually intended to pin the blame for said issues on ToAU. Perhaps I should've been a little more clear, but that IS where things began to slide down that slippery slope of catering to the more casual crowd. As far as precisely when it was gutted clearly we have differing views. For me it started with ToAU and ended with Abbyssea.

ToAU didn't cater to the casuals or it wouldn't have had a Leveling requirement of +55, it wasn't something you could just enjoy right as you got into the game. It was about giving options to do different things.

I ask you this, if ToAU saved FFXI, why then did it's population spike at the release, then quickly drop back down below where it had settled prior to it's release? The same can be said for WotG. Granted they were updates and population spikes are expected. But the game continued to decline after the spikes petered out, and fell to levels below where it was before BOTH of those releases. Can you say with a straight face that you know for SURE had ToAU and WotG not come out, that the game would be dead by now?

The game was already experiencing population decline long before ToAU.

For every player you can personally name that was brought in by one of those updates, I can name one that left. I'm not saying that the game would still be alive had nothing been done, but I'm not going to laud the updates as saviors of a dying game either. I can probably still dig up the MMO population graphs for comparison if you need me to backup this statement, but they hardly saved anything and were more like putting a comatose patient on life support.

Graphs can be used to construe anything.

But for the record, I'm not talking about people being brought in by those expansions and their updates - I'm talking about people that were going to permanently leave with the game in the state it was pre-ToAU.

And your last statement? I could have sworn I made it clear that SOME of us liked the old SC/MB playstyle. I liked my BLMs, and didn't find it fair that they were sitting on the sidelines, busting their @$$ to solo XP while the rest of us left them in the dust until we needed them again @ 75. Was the old way perfect? No, clearly melee DD needed some tweaking, and perhaps we needed some more options for closing Skillchains so womething other than BLM got that first seat in the party. Was the answer to obliterate the art of Skillchains in the process? I didn't, and still don't think so.

No one obliterated skillchains in the process. But at least BLM was able to solo through almost anything and still was required at endgame. Not even Paladin nor Ninja had that much an advantage - it was usually possible to only require one or the other, and even then, one was simply able to use RDM/NIN or DRK tanks, but BLM? No alternative whatsoever, period. Even when Scholar came out, BLM was still the ultimate DPS. (And here, I'll give you some credit for admitting it needed some fix.)

But again, ToAU never interfered with anything between 1~55. Nearly every single place from 20 to 55 (Valkurm Dunes also, but that doesn't count because anyone that bothered getting EXP parties pre-Qufim was an idiot) still required sneak and invisible to get around properly and skillchains with magic bursts for higher EXP/HR: Qufim Island, Korroloka Tunnel, Garlaige Citadel, Crawlers' Nest, The Eldieme Necropolis, Quicksand Caves, East/West Altepa, Kuftal Tunnel, and so on.

Perhaps the problem were the Xbox 360 players that came with ToAU since the Xbox 360 player stereotype is typically a FPS fanboi that has no clue about RPG elements.