I guess it's time

[Thayos]

You also should understand that there is difference between "active players" and "subscribers". I know at least 3 ppl who keep paying for this game since release.

Yep, and I already touched on this earlier.

This survey doesn't account for subscribers who are sitting on the sidelines and not logging in. It's only people who were active within a three-week period.

I don't see idle subscribers as being worthless, either. If a subscriber is idle, then in most cases that person intends to play again. It could just be the person is waiting for the next patch, or perhaps he's just too busy to log in. Maybe the person is focusing temporarily on another game. I'm not sure if I've ever gone three weeks without logging in, but I've personally had times where I didn't log in for around two weeks just because I was so slammed with work and social obligations.

I am a FFXI subscriber. Play off and on. And I've definitely gone more than three weeks without logging into XI at times.

And according to your own Survey there are actually 263,604 players who cleared 3.2. To me it's very low number.

I agree! I'm surprised by such a low clearance rate among active players. But as I said earlier, we saw the same general phenomenon a year ago heading into HW. Turns out, this game has quite a few casual players who just don't feel much of a need to blow through the storyline. (EDIT: Although, this is somewhat less surprising now given that new players must progress through all of 2.x before they can work on the 3.x storyline content.)

[Vantol]

Well, ok, with that I can agree.

So, now we need to decide what to do with this infromation,- how to make playerbase grow, make people log in every day for many hours and still be interested in playing.

[Thayos]

My gut feeling has always been that this game is great at getting new players but not as great at keeping people around. I also think a big culprit is an endgame scene that's focused too heavily on eight-man raiding, which, as a format, encourages statics and excludes casual participation.

That's why I'm so encouraged by the direction of Diadem (even though it was a failure) and Deep Dungeons. I think this game needs content that is more inviting to all-comers. When people can get enjoyment from this game without having to pencil in dedicated time for static raiding, then I think we'll see more people find motivation to stick around.

Yeah, we have the 24-man raids, but those don't really feel like endgame. When I think of endgame, I think of things I need to work for. Honestly, the relic grind feels more like endgame to me than then 24-man raids.

FFXI was incredibly welcoming in regards to casual endgame participation while also facilitating "elite" endgame groups. Yoshi-P needs to strike more of a similar balance here.

That's just one man's opinion, though.

[Bubblegum01]

i was an avid raider throughout the 2.0 patch cycles.When 3.0 came, i cleared the first alex savage in 2 weeks but halfway through the second floor i realized i hate the new tier raiding. The effort i put in had too minimalistic reward, i need more than higher level gear that will only last 3 months to give 3 hours of each night of my life. So i stopped raiding. I wasn't crafting either since i hated the script system. So i decided to take a break from the game until the new patch so i can continue the msq. And that is how i've been playing the game. I would stay subbed for a month or two and then go on breaks until next cycle of msq. I don't feel burnout and it helps me to keep looking forward to new content patch. The game as it is now doesn't deserve my hardcore dedication. So i will play it like a casual until such time where the raiding scenes get interesting again. But i can't deny the game is not in a good place. Each patch i log in i see less and less players around the marketboard in the 3 cities. it's kinda sad to see the declination of the population. I hope that the dev wouldnlearn from their mistakes and do something to retain players in 4.0 cycles.

[Iromi]

Unique stats would be amazing. But then you'll see the same old arguments of..wah excluded classes, wah balance, oh noes its "illusion" even although in 1.x, as I said a buncha times: with unique stats in 1.x I cleared every raid, primal fight and strong hold with one of each job..easily, nearly effortlessly and yes there is videos of it. I NEVER class stacked, never had a need to. There was room for every single job.

Just have to not think like a hive mind and/or learn how to play and how the game works.

[Velhart]

Unique stats would be amazing. But then you'll see the same old arguments of..wah excluded classes, wah balance, oh noes its "illusion" even although in 1.x, as I said a buncha times: with unique stats in 1.x I cleared every raid, primal fight and strong hold with one of each job..easily, nearly effortlessly and yes there is videos of it. I NEVER class stacked, never had a need to. There was room for every single job.

Just have to not think like a hive mind and/or learn how to play and how the game works.

Every fight in 1.0 the developers made could be beat with a normal party setup. Fun fact: If the player base can exploit it, they will. Stack BLM's on Garuda, stack BLM's on Cutter's Cry, stack BLM/MNK on Aurum Vale, stack ranged DPS in Dzmael Darkhold, stack Lancers in Ifrit Hard (because THM dps was pathetic in that fight), stack WAR's on Ifrit Extreme, stack ranged on Moogle. If fights in 2.0 could be exploited, it would have been, especially with the difficulty curve that raiding has.

Question, what -exactly- about unique stats makes the content you are fighting better? If you say options, I mind you that people will always go for what is best, no matter how you make the system.

[KitingGenbu]

Question, what -exactly- about unique stats makes the content you are fighting better? If you say options, I mind you that people will always go for what is best, no matter how you make the system.

You couple unique stats with difficult content, not everyone can acquire it regardless if its best. Raiders want motivation to feel like they are progressing, not just getting stats like everyone else can get. Challenging content is only good in the honeymoon phase then wears off after a person realizes that what they are doing it for is for minimal gain and will be obsolete shortly after acquiring it. People are throwing around 6 months but the average raider takes about a month to clear new savage raids or longer....The longer it takes, the less time they have to enjoy it before its obsolete or the mechanics get dumbed down because a majority of the community doesn't clear it within what the dev team feels is a reasonable time frame.

[Istaru]

-snip-
Question, what -exactly- about unique stats makes the content you are fighting better? If you say options, I mind you that people will always go for what is best, no matter how you make the system.

I have given this some thought as it is a very good question and deserves an answer.

I will preface this by saying that I am mainly looking at it from my own perspective. A semi-hardcore player that enjoys midcore to hardcore content. I think that for the most part, people who get slapped with the "casual" title do not worry too much about the exact stats on gear or try to work out gearsets across ilvls and melding schemes and all of that. It isn't their thing and you know what? It's ok that it isn't. I can admit that most likely they are the majority of the playerbase and the devs should keep them in mind.

Right now there are 4 options for gear, 220 crafted, 230/240 tomestone, 230 wiping city and 240 raid. We have 4 sub stats that matter for raiding, accuracy, critical hit, determination and skill speed/spell speed. Non-raiding? It is usually stack up as much of your main substat as you can get for that their only considering its balance against the main stay for your class. Raiders have to consider an accuracy cap as well. So, with this system your want list from the items is either 1 level, non-raiding only looking at highest combination from main stat and secondaries or 2 levels, meeting an accuracy requirement then the same as level 1.

What could unique stats do about that?

What if the calculations were situational??? What if for some fights, other things were important? What if item X was OMGAWESOME!1! for one fight but not for another one? What if some characteristic of a certain raid tier fight used the item with a unique stat like "ballad +3" for BRD instead of the item that had more DEX which was better for another raid tier since it could be hard on healers or whatever reason. I will stop the train here for a moment. I do want to say that I am not advocating gear swapping during battles, I think that idea was put to bed some time ago. I am saying that different gear being BiS for different fights might be something good.

This does require other things to change. Why are all the endgame items U/U? That would allow people to use more than one to outfit their character. Why is every endgame item behind a lockout, with many of them locked out for 1, 2 or more weeks?

I know the answer that is given is usually that people will blow through the content and whine a week later of nothing to do. Is that really any different than today where people cap out in a day and complain that they have nothing to do until next week. Obviously, they could do GS or whatever, but if endgame progression is their thing, then those activities are worthless to them.

Still with me? Good, and if not, don't worry, I lost myself while writing this.

I guess my point is that, despite how much I would like to see them return, unique stats on their own will not do much for fixing endgame gearing. Yes, I just said that. /cry

However, as part of a larger change, perhaps including removal of daily/weekly caps, unique stats meant to fit nicely into certain situations could add a new level of gearing. Even more so if we toss unpredictable mechanics into the mix.

[Ceasaria]

text

Yep, that's why magikolith (skills assigned with stones) from FFIX is one perfect solution for this.

For exemple, we could have this :

Imagine at level 60 we have 30 Magikolith points to put in passives skills only.
Here a list of examples what we could have for passives skills shared among all job :

- immunized against blindness (5 points)
- immunized against poison (5 points)
- immunized against mute (5 points)
- immunized against petrification (5 points)
- immunized against madness (5 points)
- immunized against frost (5 points)
- etc. (or it could be atleast a protection which depend on chance to avoid status effect or reduce it time like materias pvp)

- resistance fire + 25% (3 points)
- resistance water + 25% (3 points)
- resistance storm + 25% (3 points)
- resistance earth + 25% (3 points)
- resistance wind + 25% (3 points)
- resistance ice + 25% (3 points)

- critical hit + 3% (3 points)
- determination + 3% (3 points)
- spell speed + 3% (3 points)
- parry+ 3% (3 points)
- piety + 3% (3 points)
- accuracy + 3% (3 points)

- regain HP + 1% (4 points)
- regain MP + 1% (4 points)
- sprint cost half of PT (5 points)

....

For the passive skills for each job, I think everybody know what we could have and some have already written examples of it.

I will just do it for the Scholar :

- Broil potency become 200 (4 points)
- Ruin II potency become 120 (3 points)
- Adlo potency become 320 (3 points)
- Dissipate add at the original effect : invoke the other pet instantly and reset his cooldown (5 points)
- Emergency Tactic reduce the cost of mana of next Adlo or Succor by 50% (2 points)
- Resurrection cost mana and cast time is reduce by 25% (3 points)
- Energy Drain don't cost aetherflow stack but in return his cooldown become 40 sec. (2 points)
- Shadow Flare slow become 10% (1 point)
- Virus give additionally Poison to the target, potency 50 (2 points)
- Eye for an Eye, the barrier effect has now 40% to be activated (1 point)
- Sacred Soil give additional effect : HoT potency 30. (3 points)
- Bio II have 20% chance to refresh DoT from Bio (2 points)
- Miasma II have 40% chance to refresh DoT from Miasma (2 points)
- Sustain cast become 0 sec and cost mana become 0 (1 point)
- Deployment Tactics work on you (1 point)
- Indomitability potency become 600, but in return cost 2 aetheflow stacks (4 points)
- Under Rouse, the pet cast an additionnal Auto-Heal on the member of the team with lower HP (3 points)
- Bane can now spread Miasma II and Virus (2 point)
- Leeches cast become 0 sec (1 point)
- Summon and Summon II cast time is reduce by 25% (1 point)
- Lustrate have 20% chance to apply an shield Adlo on the target (2 points)

Ok, I listed some examples, and I will not pretend it's perfectly balanced but it's an idea what we could have in the futur if SE decide to follow this path.

[Istaru]

Yep, that's why magikolith (skills assigned with stones) from FFIX is one perfect solution for this.

Imagine at level 60 we have 30 Magikolith points to put in passives skills only.

-snip-

I have some questions on how something like this could be useful for making items and the chase of them more interesting.

1) Would you envision them to be U/U or just untradable?
2) How are they acquired? Tomestones? Grinding easy content? Last stage of hardest raid? Complete multiple middle ground raids/EX content, etc?
3) Do you get all the spec points upon acquiring the item or do you unlock/gain them. If unlocked/gained, ideas on how?
4) Can you respec the item? If so, ideas on that please.
5) How to handle items like this when gear has a 6 month or less expiration date before it gets tossed in the trash?

I will add that I am really looking at this from the perspective of someone that loved this game and wants to continue loving it, but is having a hard time not being very disappointed with its current state at endgame.