What Do FFXI Players Want for 2011 and How Was 2010?

[Gwynplaine]

2011 is approaching and now three long years after its release the "Wings" expansion seems completed. There's still plenty to do, but the supplementary series of Abyssea addons released this past year is also finished up. Right now there are no publicly known plans for the next year of FFXI's life, so there will probably be a "between" period while things get tied up. On top of that the restructuring within the FFXIV team also provided FFXI with a new Director, Mizuki Ito.

Given this openness and the new directions FFXI has gone through in 2010, I thought it would be a cool idea to discuss those changes and what players wanted to see in 2011. What kinds of things would you like to see more of, or less of next year? If you aren't currently subscribing what would it take to interest you once again? Are you happy with how FFXI has developed throughout 2010?

[Rocl]

A reason to leave Abyssea, and after the end of WoTG a part of me wants another boxed expansion. As long as it doesn't take three years.

[EvilTheCat]

A real expansion which means:

New continent, cities, jobs, golden saucer >.>

Abyssea quests that don't have 6 jobs on them so seals are easier to obtain.

[Jeryhn]

A reason to leave Abyssea, and after the end of WoTG a part of me wants another boxed expansion. As long as it doesn't take three years.

Actually, what I would want is an expansion of Abyssea, not just an add-on. I think it would be awesome to go crawling around cities that have already crumbled apart... full cities, not the one-zone dealy they did with WotG.

[mdkuser]

Challenge that doesnt simply relies on throwing bodies at it, and novelty, aka not ashittea.

[mallister]

balance/utility/parity between jobs.

[Calessa]

Aside from some proper large-scale end-game events, I'd like to see some sweeping changes made to the pre-Abyssea grind. Abyssea is fine and good, and I have no problem leaving it as is, but the rest of the game is currently suffering badly, and new players are pretty much screwed out of any real experience right now due to the lack of parties.

For starters:

Add decent EXP rewards to all quests that are not repeatable via non-Rare/EX items. With current levelling pace in Abyssea, even giving out 500-3k EXP for a lot of quests isn't really that ridiculous.

(Yes, I realize this boosts Astral Burns as well) Re-work experience chains so that the bonus caps out much higher than chain 5 (perhaps 300% bonus at chain 20) and/or give a significant increase to EXP gained for mobs of any given level difference

Remove the FoV once-per-in-game-day limitation.

Significantly boost EXP gained from Campaign.

Linking, at the very least, Windurst, Bastok and Sandy AH.

[Hyan]

Another vanafest, with collaboration of the xi and xiv teams. Both games are a huge question mark right now.

[Gwynplaine]

All right, well here's mine,

Suggestions for 2011:
-Genuinely new areas based on another continent. They don't have to be enormous zones like Tahrongi etc. just make them sincerely new, not old zones with pink mood-lighting, or old zones chopped up and given a new name (Ruhotz Silvermines etc.). Aht Urghan areas were mostly narrow pathways, but no one cared. Because it was just immensely refreshing and it looked exotic and beautiful. The entire last 3 years has felt like a bizarre departure from what felt like it was going to be an exploration of the worlds other cultures. First with the re-purposing of Wings stuff, then with Abyssea reusing just about everything ever. I don't know if its practical to expect so much at this point but I don't care, the players want it. Make it happen and you win our adoration.

-Do something simple to boost the "mid" levels roughly 30-60. Abyssea exping is amazing but everything before 75 is a wasteland. Your only options are to slowly solo, or get lucky and open chests for an Abyssea party, or be an established player who can drag some friends out to party.

-The game needs a universal chat channel that can be read across all zones. I know these kinds of things are inevitable magnets for RMT messages and moronic bickering, but that shouldn't marr it's sheer usefulness. People are scattered all over Whitegate and Jeuno so shouting doesn't work anymore. Right now it's very awkward and difficult to find groups or try to buy or sell something not on the AH.

-Lower the requirements on the staff Magian trials. Thanks to the impractical 8 element scheme, a good mage would want most of the staves to keep up to date. But for someone like me who has RDM and SMN leveled there's at least 8-12 I could use. The sheer amount of work involved is obscene and shouldn't be as lengthy as a one-time melee weapon.

-If you make new "side-content" systems like MMM, or Pankration etc. you need to integrate it with some significant reward. If you don't then you're just going to waste the time and effort of talented people who will be making content no one will use.

Things that worked in 2010 to continue:
-Experience parties became easier for anyone to access. Much of the variety of Abyssea enemies offer similar difficulty and reward, and on top of that you usually pack any 18 people you can get to fill up an alliance. So now jobs like BST or PUP or SMN can actually conceivably fit somewhere into a party. This is a huge relief over monitoring LFG players until a Bard shows up.

-The graphical effects and music are still great. While the higher-ups in the dev. team get criticized a lot, I think the environments, mobs, animations, effects, and music are still consistently good. Even considering FFXI is 8 years old it can still manage to look better than any PS2 game has any right to. And frankly I think the newer music even outdoes Uematsu's confused blippy-rock mess he created for FFXIV. Effects look smooth and flashy, and Lillisette could probably show a wider range of emotions than Lindsey Lohan could ever aspire to.

-Continue making small adjustments that make a players life simpler and more convenient. There were so many nice touches in the last few updates its easy to forget. At this point no one should ever have any justification to complain about inventory space again. Little things like the "choose all enhancements" Abyssea feature, and the universal ninja tools/cards make me feel like the developers really do understand their own game.

-Keep new game elements clear and objective. The more complex they are, the more you need to put info in the game to make it graspable. Abyssea did this pretty well with the various NPC's, and then when the light auras got a little confusing Square actually explained them.

[arus2001]

Fixing older content would be nice, but obviously people will also want new. I know some have raged about Abyssea's general lack of story, but at the end of the day, all the fancy writing means nothing when we're out fighting stuff. Since new things can damn well be anything, I'll at least focus on recent things we know of now.

Magian Trials
- Further minimizing kill requirements. (Or ways to multiply grind kills with special items or something)
- Offering bonuses to people helping with trials if they're not on the trial itself. (Points you could spend toward your own trials, maybe?)
- Tweaking too-weak weapons at certain phases. (2-4x DRK scythe when it can't even multi-hit yet has mid-40s D, for example)
- Revising some mob groupings so each family/type has 10-15 outdoor EP spawns in close proximity in Signet/Sigil areas without other excess aggro. (Killing 400 Peiste dodging quadav/goblins sucks for those who've had to)
- Any level 95+ weapon regardless of path should have access to the Empyrean WS. (WoE paths would need their own perks added then, or even the ability to become main version eventually)

Abyssea
- TEs from Bastion and maybe even Dominion Ops completion.
- Seal exchange NPCs. (3:1 trade per slot?)
- Reduction of Primeval Brew cost (300k?) and the addition of other items to spend cruor on (Possibly any atma for 100-300k?).
- Improve mob density for some families and possibly adjust aggro/linking behavior.
- Additional cruor buffs like food duration boosts.
- Remove true sight/sound aggro from roaming NMs since repop times have been lowered. Or at the very least, remove Flee from those like Varney.


Misc.
- Improved skill up rates.
- Reworking old WS. (Insert DRKs wanting Insurgency to crit.)
- More/Better hybrid gear.
- The ability to equip items from your Satchel and Sack.

-Lower the requirements on the staff Magian trials. Thanks to the impractical 8 element scheme, a good mage would want most of the staves to keep up to date. But for someone like me who has RDM and SMN leveled there's at least 8-12 I could use. The sheer amount of work involved is obscene and shouldnt be as lengthy as a one-time melee weapon.

To add to this, and I know it's not really a new request, can we finally have the ability to consolidate staves of matching types (crafted, -perp, macc, damage)? If your goal is to get SCHs and such meleeing to put from Occult Accumen and the like to use, our needed weapon swaps go against this. Also, a means to consolidate Obis, Grips, and the new Belts.

[Spira]

2010 was an awesome year, especially in contrast with 2009, which was probably the worst year ever. In fact, by the time 2010 rolled around after 2009's lackluster year I was ready to assume that SE was tuning down FFXI and letting it stagnate.. but I was so wrong.
The announcements at Vanafest 2010 were a huge shocker. And the implementation a pleasant surprise...

Things I liked about 2010:
-Raised level cap - it literally changed everything at endgame. Even without new events it would have made the game more accessible in some ways and 'unlock' more content for casuals.

-High-level exp problems relieved - with Abyssea, exping was a lot more of a breeze and we didn't have to worry about camps with repops that couldn't keep up, or a lack of camps at all. It leveled the exp field a bit, especially with how tired ToAU exp camps had become.

-New spells, ja and gear - evidently adding stuff is a lot easier than balancing it, because all jobs got more stuff in the last 3 updates than like the last 3 years, especially in terms of spells/ja. its a nice change of pace, rather than praying that something comes for your job.

-Retained temp items in Abyssea - this should totally work for old zones that have treasure caskets.

Things that I didn't like as much:
-whole game too Abyssea-centric - with a full expansion like ToAU, i'd understand if a majority of stuff that one does is in that expansions areas, but for Abyssea, everything was there because it effectively obsoleted everything before it, but collectively only has 9 zones and some degree of limited access (traverser stones). Old areas and events fall out of favor, which is usually fine but the ratio of events not worth doing to events that are became very disproportionate.

-pace of leveling screwed up - it would make sense, as it has been in the past, that lower levels are easier to level and fly by faster than when you're higher, but Abyssea changes that entirely. Low levels past 10 become tediously slow because soloing is inefficient and there rarely are people who want to level at those ranges anymore. In conventional parties, it takes me more time to get from 40-45 than it'd take me to get from 80-85, and if I leeched from lv30 in that same 80-85 party duration, I'd probably have exceeded 45 as well. I think there is something fundamentally wrong about that. EXP doesn't have to be hard, but it doesn't make sense that it starts harder than it ends.

What I'd like to see in 2011:
-a timeline, like the one with ToAU and this years Vanafest. Something to look forward to helps the community a lot, especially when the game is this considerably late stage. We want to know that there's still a future in the game we're playing.

-a new expansion project. I don't really care if its an add-on set or a full boxed expansion, but I'm hoping to see more new content. At this point (with renewed interest due to abyssea + lv caps) I think FFXI is primed for new original content, and not just rehashed stuff. I want new zones, a lot more new monsters, and something that can keep me captivated for a while. I don't mind paying more if thats what it takes to get an original zone instead of "remixed" zones. Vana'diel is so huge and there are many areas to explore. Even 3 new zones per update in an add-on would do nicely.

-revival of old content - the old zones are dead, and I think something can be done about this. People do still have a reason to go back there, since there are always subs to level and i suppose new players as well. Maybe the exp curve could be adjusted, or FoV tweaked (remove day limitation or increase exp reward) to make it look more attractive to do.

-fix Campaign - Campaign/Ops could have been a wonderful system if it wasn't so overly interlinked. Reduce the whole restrictions thing on some Ops because a lot of players have never done many of these Ops simply because they're never available or require effort from the whole server. Now that people can keep rank automatically after having cleared nation quests, I expect Campaigning will drop even lower than it ever did, and we'll rarely ever see Cracking Shells/Splitting Heirs/Plucking Wings again, let alone Fiat Lux. Ops were never rewarding enough to begin with either. Considering how easy it is to get exp elsewhere, older content will never be as attractive if it cannot compete somehow.

-mission replay. One of the best things about FFXI to me are the missions, but its a real irony to me that Missions (especially battlefields) are some of the few things you'll only ever get to do ONCE for your own character - the only exception is if you help others. And they often have some of the most fun battles around. Is it so much to ask that SE allows us the option to redo mission BCs (since rewatching cutscenes is already possible) on our own without the need to find a friend who hasn't done them? Scenario add-ons already allow this, and an additional reward isn't even necessary. I'd just like that option to be available.

edit: to add on stuff relating to missions: make it so that storyline content is released at a timely pace. 3 years for the completion of WotG story was ridiculously long. I think anything more than 1 and a half years is too long personally - the old expansion storyline pace was better. Also, alternating between 2 different storylines/story arcs is fine, but not when the time between getting to continue to the next chapter is 6 months. Thats like taking a book and reading one chapter and putting it away for half a year before reading the 2nd chapter only. No matter how good the story, the pace at which it is delivered ruins everything - no one should have to wait that long - so in light of the fact that there are usually only 4 updates a year, perhaps mission updates could follow an entirely different update schedule of its own...

[Julian]

For the love of god, get rid of, or increase the 5 trial at a time limit.

I agree with the comments about staffs, all of these trials are a bit ridiculous, and just mess up inventory. What happened to the "prism staff" or whatever idea?

Also agree with <75 exp scene needing help.

Crafting needs help, badly. And by crafting, I mean crafting, not synergy.

Besides minor inconveniences, I absolutely love everything that they're doing with the game. Even small touches are a great help, and just shows that they're caring about their game.

[Cantih]

I'd like to see L99 give each job something particularly awesome, especially since 99 cap means subs are locked out of L50.
What with extra KC/HQKC, we'll probably see some new BCNMs.

And like Rocl, Evil, & Gwyn, I want some new areas to explore/storylines.
(Having finished WotG, I'd say it's story is not quite as good as CoP, but better than anything else. Lilisette's facial animation was as epic as Prishe's full body animation.

Spoiler: show

The CSes after the final battle felt kinda lacking.

)

Also, a zone with fire weather where it, you know, actually happens, would be nice.

Also, Empyrian weapon items need to stack. I'm gonna have 50 itzpapalotl scales WAAAAY before I get 50 glavoid.

[Colenzo]

I'd like to see L99 give each job something particularly awesome, especially since 99 cap means subs are locked out of L50.
What with extra KC/HQKC, we'll probably see some new BCNMs.

And like Rocl, Evil, & Gwyn, I want some new areas to explore/storylines.
(Having finished WotG, I'd say it's story is not quite as good as CoP, but better than anything else. Lilisette's facial animation was as epic as Prishe's full body animation.

Spoiler: show

The CSes after the final battle felt kinda lacking.

)

Also, a zone with fire weather where it, you know, actually happens, would be nice.

Also, Empyrian weapon items need to stack. I'm gonna have 50 itzpapalotl scales WAAAAY before I get 50 glavoid.

this

Also just content thats harder than Abyssea that we can use our new bad ass gear in.

[Haborym]

Crafting needs help, badly. And by crafting, I mean crafting, not synergy.

This, but to a certain extent. I would love to see new crafted gear, well, gear that would be worth making at whatever cap it is introduced at. Much like how there was a lot of gear worth crafting at the 75 cap. But to be honest, the draw to synergy for me, is that not many people on the server have it capped, so it still is a huge profit on he shit that is worth making.

[rog]

More abyssea.

As for 2010, i loved abyssea.

[Nightfyre]

I believe the level 90 items stack, for what it's worth. FFXIAH has a listing for stacks of them at any rate.

I'd like to see something beyond Abyssea. It was a great injection of new energy into the game, but I don't think this kind of environment can be sustained and I definitely don't think it should be sustained. Completely fresh zones would be fantastic if possible.

Job balance is definitely something I'd like to see addressed. I suppose there will always be job tiers, but the gaps between tiers at the moment are appalling. If the weakness triggers were SE's attempt at encouraging use of more jobs, it was an epic flop - casting a few spells/WSing a few times is not creating a balanced system, it's a waste of time and manpower.

Jobs not on the Magian staves should still get some sort of weapon that exceeds the power of the level 51 staves. Ice path weapons are sort of doing that, but Abyssea buffs devalue INT/MAB more than potency, not all the relevant jobs benefit from INT, some of those weapons aren't even in the main slot so it's not an actual replacement (sup COR), and they need to be DW'd to be better which isn't necessarily going to happen.

[Raen Ryong]

2009 is when I quit FFXI because it was just becoming stale/frustrating/etc. 2010 brought me back and it's been one hell of a year. I love Abyssea but agree that it shouldn't be endlessly perpetuated. Atma in particular are absolutely ridiculous and while a lot of fun, are severely unbalancing. I love the fact that it's so lowman friendly and I think all content should be designed in such a way that you don't need greater than say 12 people to do it productively however.

What I would like:

THF boost so that it keeps some of the whole "Razed Ruins" type thing outside of Abyssea - that's how we've always meant to be!
VNM 100% change rates.
RDM/SCH/possiblyPLD cureV.
Rebalancing of DDs or at least get them close...
No 5 trial limit on Magians. Allow doubling up (can do 2x AGI/EVA magians at once for instance instead of one having to lag one trial behind the other)
Rejuvenate old content. Perhaps if you have AF3+3 or whatever you want to do, make it so that you can earn them in a variety of ways. Can get one "seal" from high tier NMs, or maybe x Ballista Points, y IS, etc etc. Just multiple ways of approaching the goal using different content.
Fix Ballista! Make it more convenient being the biggest issue.
Etcetc.

[Forte]

A new region. The west, south, or north. I know it's a long-shot, especially for a game slated to die, but I want to see the world of Vana'diel.

[ryskar]

I want /motion for the new fucking job emotes.