Your opinion on the level cap being raised/Abyssea

[Gra]

Well....I posted an epic reply, but I took that long typing it that I got logged off and then it wouldn't post...so fuck it. Short version as follows:

Abyssea is excellent for FFXI in 100 times more ways than it is detrimental.

The good stuff:

Exp grinding is greatly reduced. Once you hit the exp cap you level so rapidly that it makes it more than worthwhile putting in the time to get to the cap in the first place.

The majority of the old-school endgame is dead. Thank god. I hated camping HNM's for hours and hours every day for a slim chance that the good stuff was going to drop. A lot of the time we were camping most of the day every day. Free time was reduced to half an hour here, an hour there. If you were lucky. With Abyssea you do it when you want.

The bad stuff:

Old-school parties are more difficult than ever to get now. I've been trying to level my DNC in an 'old-school' party over the weekend. Most of the people I've invited to party said they were holding out for an Abyssea PT so they could be a box opener or they don't want to party at all once they found out that we might have to sync to anywhere other than East Ronfaure [S]. The huge amount of exp available via Abyssea has made people lazy. It's also created a huge number of people that haven't a damn clue how to play their job and who will need to spend the rest of their playing days getting their weapon up to capped on skill now that they can't hit a barn door with it at Lv85. SMN burn did this before but it wasn't as widespread or accessible as Abyssea.

HNM gear has effectively been dumped on from a great height, and much of it is already obsolete. Only a few pieces remain that are worth having. I finally got my long awaited E.Body last month after 4 years of waiting in one queue after another. I thought I'd be a lot more excited about it but honestly...the first thing I thought was "The upcoming WAR body is going to make this look average and I suspect the +2 version will make this look a weak piece". I'd like to see SOME of the HNM gear be incorporated into future trials if there's any way of doing it. I suspect I'll be dropping a lot of very hard and long worked on gear soon though.

Overall though. Abyssea is great and I'm looking forward to 'Heroes'.

[Therin]

I, for one, got tired of doing the same events for over 3 years. I am content never having to return to Salvage, Dynamis, Limbus or any of those.

Level cap increase and Abyssea didn't change that - it just changed which event you're spamming, and Abyssea is infinitely more annoying to me than Salvage, Limbus or Dynamis.

Personally, I'm glad we had a level cap increase but I really don't like Abyssea as an event. Too low man oriented (makes it impossible to get things done if you don't have people willing to spend hours on you), too limited in time, and the concept of Atma is just stupid (in that small gear upgrades are barely relevant anymore). Plus, SE can't balance a game worth shit, or at least that's how it seems. Hoping they tone down Empyreans once the level caps are done but right now it's way off.

Overall, very detrimental to the game and my opinion since it made virtually everything else obsolete and made the game way too casual.

Basically I agree with everything drwaffles said but from a personal standpoint, I still don't like Abyssea.

I just really hope the content that comes after Heroes has nothing to do with Abyssea and nothing to do with Atma, so the game can be properly balanced again.

[FailureMidgard]

Level cap increase and Abyssea didn't change that - it just changed which event you're spamming, and Abyssea is infinitely more annoying to me than Salvage, Limbus or Dynamis.

Wat? way off base here. Abyssea is 100% what changed that. As opposed to lets say VNMs originally which had the smallest of upgrades for far far more time invested to the point most people don't even consider Galdr rings worth the time/effort to try to get. Also, you're the first person who I've heard say Abyssea is more annoying than some old events, especially Dynamis. I think most all of us liked salvage, but at the same time, we're happy as fuck to have it over and done because it was getting old. I agree Abyssea will hit that point eventually too - but ideally there's new content out before that happens (hate to make a WoW analogy - but that's what WoW does better than this game - constantly gives you new content worth doing).

Personally, I'm glad we had a level cap increase but I really don't like Abyssea as an event. Too time consuming, too limited, and the concept of Atma is just stupid (in that small gear upgrades are barely relevant anymore). Plus, SE can't balance a game worth shit, or at least that's how it seems. Hoping they tone down Empyreans once the level caps are done but right now it's way off.

I agree with the atma point, but how can you call Abyssea too time consuming and too limited? You're playing an MMO, the goal is to be time consuming. The fact that there's so much to do now is pretty good (though I think trials are stupid as fuck still and they went about them all wrong). And how is Abyssea limited? It's the least limiting event to date...

[Hyan]

I wonder what the general consensus would be if they kept releasing an abyssea expansion every 3 months for say, 3 years.

I personally liked that each event was more thought out and diverse, but obviously it gets old when no new comparable events are released in any sufficient timespan.

It would be nice to know what they could do if they had the same budget to work with as in the early days. Would 3 similar events in a year with one "break" in between to prepare for the next 3 events better than say, 2 more diverse events a year and 2 "breaks" to prepare them? It all depends on how they can balance the progression horizontally though, can't afford RoTZ-level fuck ups. 3 events might be a bit much like that.

[FailureMidgard]

I wonder what the general consensus would be if they kept releasing an abyssea expansion every 3 months for say, 3 years.

I personally liked that each event was more thought out and diverse, but obviously it gets old when no new comparable events are released in any sufficient timespan.

It would be nice to know what they could do if they had the same budget to work with as in the early days. Would 3 similar events in a year with one "break" in between to prepare for the next 3 events better than say, 2 more diverse events a year and 2 "breaks" to prepare them? It all depends on how they can balance the progression horizontally though, can't afford RoTZ-level fuck ups. 3 events might be a bit much like that.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying with "more diverse events". As in the events themselves aren't related like the 3 Abyssea releases are? I think they would do well if they were able to release 3 large-scale content things a year that people wanted to do and enjoyed doing. The biggest problem however is the idea they've pounded into people's mind that "good gear must remain good for 4 years!" or something along those lines. Nobody in WoW expects their gear to last that long, but it's ok because when the new content comes out, if your entire group is still 2-3 content patches behind, you flat out won't have the gear to kill some shit. Whereas in FFXI, you can still kill all these NMs with full AH gear + a few atma.

Also, what evens were "more thought out and diverse"....I'm honestly curious. Dynamis sure as hell wasn't. Limbus wasn't. Salvage/Assaults were good, nothing else really stands out in my mind as well done though.

[Rocl]

How do I do this I am not good with phone

As for abyssea being too low man orientated: being on break I had tonnes of freetime and on my friend list and LS I never broke 18 ppl combined-- so I'm pretty ok w/ low numbers.

I also like being able to call out the people fucking up and not pulling their weight; oh some fuck afk'd in dynamis sandy and we didn't notice because some retard diaga'd the world and now they are lotting duelist chapeau how is this happening this is not the right zone

Either way, abyssea is the best DLC released for XI to date, and really it's over after Heroes anyway. I also like looking at atma as "Abyssea:" gear, I prefer the atma system instead. That said, after years of being afraid of aggroing a fucking T crab, I'm glad I can solo that fucking Taurus I aggroed blah blah abyssea is great what happes after heroes I don't think we're ever getting another true expansion

[Hyan]

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying with "more diverse events". As in the events themselves aren't related like the 3 Abyssea releases are?

Well, yeah. Like Assaults, Nyzul, Salvage, Einherjar and ZNM weren't really the same although they may have had some similarities.

I don't know how that would be possible if they gotta keep these events coming every 3 months. With a 3 month break in-between they could think up something else to spam for 9 months, I just wonder how it'd work.

Also, what evens were "more thought out and diverse"....I'm honestly curious. Dynamis sure as hell wasn't. Limbus wasn't. Salvage/Assaults were good, nothing else really stands out in my mind as well done though.

Eh, I dunno. I just always felt like no event was similar, although they were probably made from the same mold. I only wonder what would happen to that if they changed to this kind of release schedule. Especially if it's horizontal progression we're talking about.

Abyssea is fun for a while, but Abyssea after another would get boring. And if they became obsolete after the next "Abyssea" came out, there really wouldn't be much of a need to put that much thought into them, since they'll be replaced soon anyway.

[Therin]

Wat? way off base here. Abyssea is 100% what changed that. As opposed to lets say VNMs originally which had the smallest of upgrades for far far more time invested to the point most people don't even consider Galdr rings worth the time/effort to try to get. Also, you're the first person who I've heard say Abyssea is more annoying than some old events, especially Dynamis. I think most all of us liked salvage, but at the same time, we're happy as fuck to have it over and done because it was getting old. I agree Abyssea will hit that point eventually too - but ideally there's new content out before that happens (hate to make a WoW analogy - but that's what WoW does better than this game - constantly gives you new content worth doing).

I find Abyssea infinitely more annoying because it can only be done on a limited schedule, requires an arduous key item progression, requires certain jobs and neglects others (big point here), and takes just as long as Dynamis to really accomplish things, but is more hands-on (meaning requires more consistent attention). For many players, like me, Dynamis was auto-pilot since we had done each zone probably 200 times. Abyssea is much more hands-on and requires a lot more attention and focus, which, while good, would be better for an event that lasts 30 minutes to an hour and not something that can take 3-6 hours anyway.

Dynamis for me was fun (or it was - yes, it got old). I agree 100% that we needed something new because doing old content over and over, I'm not saying that I'd rather do Dynamis NOW than Abyssea (though that is the case in some instances - I'd rather do a Tav run than an Abyssea run, but for different reasons - problem is, almost all Tav gear sucks so we don't have that option). Abyssea is not so fun. The time commitment is huge. Dynamis was 6-7 hours a week. Abyssea is a LOT more, if you want to move along constantly.

Mainly, I don't like Abyssea because it's too low-man oriented. There is no need for a linkshell anymore. You can do anything with 6 or less (pretty much). I realize this is good for most people, but it bugs the fuck out of me, for several reasons. First off all, the job limitations: if you're not one of five or six jobs, you're inefficient. I enjoy playing certain jobs and I hate playing others. I feel like it should be the developer's job to ensure that each job has a viable place in any new content that they make. If not, why have so many jobs? Another reason is that, with less people playing now, I can't find people that I can count on enough to go into Abyssea randomly during the day. So I'm stuck doing runs with the linkshell, which I do enjoy, but with 12-18 people you don't get much accomplished.

I agree with the atma point, but how can you call Abyssea too time consuming and too limited? You're playing an MMO, the goal is to be time consuming. The fact that there's so much to do now is pretty good (though I think trials are stupid as fuck still and they went about them all wrong). And how is Abyssea limited? It's the least limiting event to date...

I liked that it was time-consuming back when I was in high school and had plenty of time. Now, though, I don't - and over the past few years, before Abyssea, I only needed to invest a few hours a day to get plenty accomplished. A few hours a day now, though, won't cut it for Abyssea.

Abyssea is limited in a number of ways. First, you can only go in so many times (time restriction), and sometimes the NMs you need aren't even there because others have killed them. Second, it restricts what jobs are efficient and useful. Third, it forces you along a hugely monotonous progression of key item gathering to get the stuff you need (for AF3+2, Empyrean, etc.). Fourth, which isn't an issue for most of us, any new players have to go through hours and hours of Atma farming before they can even be useful against most of the NMs - hopefully they can find a group that doesn't mind backtracking to get some of the better Atma!

Finally, and most importantly I think, because Abyssea is the ONLY thing worth doing now for the most part (everything else is obsolete), I don't see how you can say "there's so much to do now". Yes, I agree Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage were all getting old but back a year ago, we had MANY options about what we could do. We could do VNMs, ZNMs, HNMs (lol), Salvage, Limbus, Dynamis, Einherjar, and so on. Now it's like... okay, uh, should we do Einherjar, AV, or Abyssea? Well, is our Einherjar timer up? If yes, we do that. If not, we'll do Abyssea. Do we have 9-12 DDs plus 3 BRDs, 3 DNCs and 3 SMNs? If yes, we can do AV. If not (and probably not, these days), we'll do Abyssea.

I think I've lost my train of thought but hopefully you kind of see my point.

Yes, trials are stupid as fuck. Empyreans are way overpowered, too. My Apoc is still level 80 - the last thing I want to do is spend another 200 hours killing Easy Prey. The next update is going to come out and upgrade relics even more - maybe even fix the balance issue, but is it really worth 200 hours of self-flagellation, plus likely 200 more after Heroes comes out? I'm not sure. I don't really think it is, honestly.

[Therin]

How do I do this I am not good with phone

As for abyssea being too low man orientated: being on break I had tonnes of freetime and on my friend list and LS I never broke 18 ppl combined-- so I'm pretty ok w/ low numbers.

I also like being able to call out the people fucking up and not pulling their weight; oh some fuck afk'd in dynamis sandy and we didn't notice because some retard diaga'd the world and now they are lotting duelist chapeau how is this happening this is not the right zone

Either way, abyssea is the best DLC released for XI to date, and really it's over after Heroes anyway. I also like looking at atma as "Abyssea:" gear, I prefer the atma system instead. That said, after years of being afraid of aggroing a fucking T crab, I'm glad I can solo that fucking Taurus I aggroed blah blah abyssea is great what happes after heroes I don't think we're ever getting another true expansion

I lol'd, good post.

Anyway, yeah, I see your points and really I'm just airing out frustrations. I realize I'm in the minority but I really get frustrated at how things have changed so much. The relic trial thing is the biggest issue for me and it's something that I know won't change.

Really, whatever comes next, I just hope that it doesn't involve Atma or anything like Atma. Some of these bonuses are just ridiculous - I'm all for the concept, I just think they're way too much, to the point where it unbalanced the game in favor of a handful of jobs (MNK, NIN, SAM - any other DD can go fuck itself) or just made it downright too easy for other jobs (mages can be naked now and do just as well as before, where's the fun in that?).

*EXAMPLE*: I got a Hydra Haubert a few days ago and I was really happy with myself that I finally did, but then I realized that I spend 99% of my in-game time in Abyssea and there, there's an Atma for PLD to use that is so good it makes that Haubert look irrelevant. And then I realized that people don't even use PLD anymore in Abyssea to begin with so what the fuck was even the point?

Damn, I double posted. Sorry.

[Hyan]

The next update is going to come out and upgrade relics even more - maybe even fix the balance issue, but is it really worth 200 hours of self-flagellation, plus likely 200 more after Heroes comes out? I'm not sure. I don't really think it is, honestly.

I just wonder why the change in mindset? Was it even worth getting Apoc in the first place then? I can't imagine this being any worse than the original quest..

[Therin]

Honestly, it is. Yeah, the original quest took a hell of a lot longer, but you can make money in a huge variety of ways and it can actually be fun and enjoyable to get the money that it takes to upgrade a relic. But there's only one way to kill 2000 beasts, and it sucks.

[Raen Ryong]

I liked that it was time-consuming back when I was in high school and had plenty of time. Now, though, I don't - and over the past few years, before Abyssea, I only needed to invest a few hours a day to get plenty accomplished. A few hours a day now, though, won't cut it for Abyssea.

Abyssea is tailor-made for people with not many hours to play. The only reason I can see that you may feel you can't get enough done with a fairly low amount of time is that you're trying to achieve everything in one go.

[FailureMidgard]

I find Abyssea infinitely more annoying because it can only be done on a limited schedule, requires an arduous key item progression, requires certain jobs and neglects others (big point here), and takes just as long as Dynamis to really accomplish things, but is more hands-on (meaning requires more consistent attention). For many players, like me, Dynamis was auto-pilot since we had done each zone probably 200 times. Abyssea is much more hands-on and requires a lot more attention and focus, which, while good, would be better for an event that lasts 30 minutes to an hour and not something that can take 3-6 hours anyway.

Dynamis for me was fun (or it was - yes, it got old). I agree 100% that we needed something new because doing old content over and over, I'm not saying that I'd rather do Dynamis NOW than Abyssea (though that is the case in some instances - I'd rather do a Tav run than an Abyssea run, but for different reasons - problem is, almost all Tav gear sucks so we don't have that option). Abyssea is not so fun. The time commitment is huge. Dynamis was 6-7 hours a week. Abyssea is a LOT more, if you want to move along constantly.

Limited schedule? Huh? One of the best things about Abyssea is I can go in at any time of the day, regardless of how many people are online, and get stuff done. I like the fact the scheduling is so free and NOT limited. Also, no offense, but DRK has always been an inferior DD, and it still is - but the fact of the matter is you can still do perfectly fine with DRK or virtually any other job, and in fact there are a ton of situations I would opt for DRK over MNK, due to availability of red proc WSes. You are reading far too much into what some people here on BG post. I will agree Abyssea takes far more time - but why are you comparing it to 1 event? You don't have to do limbus 1 night, then dynamis the next, then camp kings or do ZNMS (which are prob the worst event to date). Abyssea has aspects of Dynamis in it (farming trash mobs), aspects of Sea/Sky (making popsets), then the ability to just farm NMs or do quests as well. Also, while Dynamis is less time commitment, you can also go a full year and not have what you need from it, so no, I think for the time spent, you get more out of Abyssea than Dynamis. Your only valid point for an argument here is there is so much to get - it feels like you have to spend far more time to get it.

Mainly, I don't like Abyssea because it's too low-man oriented. There is no need for a linkshell anymore. You can do anything with 6 or less (pretty much). I realize this is good for most people, but it bugs the fuck out of me, for several reasons. First off all, the job limitations: if you're not one of five or six jobs, you're inefficient. I enjoy playing certain jobs and I hate playing others. I feel like it should be the developer's job to ensure that each job has a viable place in any new content that they make. If not, why have so many jobs? Another reason is that, with less people playing now, I can't find people that I can count on enough to go into Abyssea randomly during the day. So I'm stuck doing runs with the linkshell, which I do enjoy, but with 12-18 people you don't get much accomplished.

This isn't an Abyssea thing. This is true for Dynamis as well, and Limbus too really. The only difference is the player mindset at this point. If anything, I'd blame ToAU and Salvage and the general awareness of the playerbase now that we don't need large numbers and old-school setups. Fafhogg are doable with 3 pretty easily. KB is duoable, Dyna zones 6 is plenty. Ein is maybe the only thing you need more than 6 for, and even that is just ~10 people to full clear t3 and Odin. Also, you can make use of 12-18 people in an Abyssea run with the LS, it's just a headache to organize, but with a good leader you could easily split people up to get shit done quickly and efficiently.


[quoteI liked that it was time-consuming back when I was in high school and had plenty of time. Now, though, I don't - and over the past few years, before Abyssea, I only needed to invest a few hours a day to get plenty accomplished. A few hours a day now, though, won't cut it for Abyssea.[/quote]

This is a fair point - but let's be honest here, you aren't the prime MMO player anymore. People that have more time than you don't want to play 4 hrs a week and be done with the game with nothing to do. I'd cancel my account if there were that little to do. I don't think "I can't get everything done in 2 hrs a day" is a really good reason to hate abyssea...

Abyssea is limited in a number of ways. First, you can only go in so many times (time restriction), and sometimes the NMs you need aren't even there because others have killed them. Second, it restricts what jobs are efficient and useful. Third, it forces you along a hugely monotonous progression of key item gathering to get the stuff you need (for AF3+2, Empyrean, etc.). Fourth, which isn't an issue for most of us, any new players have to go through hours and hours of Atma farming before they can even be useful against most of the NMs - hopefully they can find a group that doesn't mind backtracking to get some of the better Atma!

Time restriction? I spent far too much time in there and am up to 90 stones on NPC. Sorry, that's not a restriction. Every job is useful, some are just worse than others - same as it was before abyssea. You can still do anything you want in Abyssea with any job really...as for Key Item progression...lol? Takes like no time to finish a popset, easier to finish popsets than any previous event with tiered NMs (VNM, ZNM, Sky, Sea, SCNM). I don't really see how you can complain about this. Atma don't take hours and hours of farming - you can also buy them, but it takes some 30minutes to finish a popset for RR, another 15min to kill it.

Finally, and most importantly I think, because Abyssea is the ONLY thing worth doing now for the most part (everything else is obsolete), I don't see how you can say "there's so much to do now". Yes, I agree Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage were all getting old but back a year ago, we had MANY options about what we could do. We could do VNMs, ZNMs, HNMs (lol), Salvage, Limbus, Dynamis, Einherjar, and so on. Now it's like... okay, uh, should we do Einherjar, AV, or Abyssea? Well, is our Einherjar timer up? If yes, we do that. If not, we'll do Abyssea. Do we have 9-12 DDs plus 3 BRDs, 3 DNCs and 3 SMNs? If yes, we can do AV. If not (and probably not, these days), we'll do Abyssea.

Dyna isn't obsolete. Salvage isn't for another 2 weeks (heh). VNMs aren't. ZNMs aren't. Ein isn't. K, good try I guess, but you're right - Abyssea is far and away the most useful event to do, but there are a lot of options to do in Abyssea, and it's a bit more varied than any other single event.

Yes, trials are stupid as fuck. Empyreans are way overpowered, too. My Apoc is still level 80 - the last thing I want to do is spend another 200 hours killing Easy Prey. The next update is going to come out and upgrade relics even more - maybe even fix the balance issue, but is it really worth 200 hours of self-flagellation, plus likely 200 more after Heroes comes out? I'm not sure. I don't really think it is, honestly.

Empyreans are overpowered for the effort required to obtain them, I agree, and I have a relic too that I wish were better, but meh.

[darkepyon]

I like the weakness system and the fact that one can rack up EXP very quickly if they knew what they were doing. I do however wish the minimum level was like 70. As it is now, I think it discourages people from taking up new jobs. And God help anyone just starting from scratch now.

[Cymmina]

Mainly, I don't like Abyssea because it's too low-man oriented. There is no need for a linkshell anymore. You can do anything with 6 or less (pretty much). I realize this is good for most people, but it bugs the fuck out of me, for several reasons. First off all, the job limitations: if you're not one of five or six jobs, you're inefficient. I enjoy playing certain jobs and I hate playing others. I feel like it should be the developer's job to ensure that each job has a viable place in any new content that they make. If not, why have so many jobs? Another reason is that, with less people playing now, I can't find people that I can count on enough to go into Abyssea randomly during the day. So I'm stuck doing runs with the linkshell, which I do enjoy, but with 12-18 people you don't get much accomplished.

So split up your 12-18 people into 2-3 teams and go fight different NMs. How do you not have at least 1 of the "efficient" trigger jobs leveled?

I do understand the frustration with having to be job X all the time, since I've been nothing but WHM for the past 2 months and my favorite job falls under the "inefficient" category. But, I'm getting merits and loot as efficiently as my group can do so, and that's the most important thing. I'd rather be on a job that isn't my favorite than take twice as long to get loot.

I liked that it was time-consuming back when I was in high school and had plenty of time. Now, though, I don't - and over the past few years, before Abyssea, I only needed to invest a few hours a day to get plenty accomplished. A few hours a day now, though, won't cut it for Abyssea.

My group goes in for about 3 hours a day since some of us have jobs/school, more if everyone is online and ready to go earlier. If we're popping a lot of NMs and plan to be there a good while, we build lights and farm time extensions between pops. For freestanding NMs, we just burn the stones and kill whatever we can with our 120 minutes.

Abyssea is limited in a number of ways. First, you can only go in so many times (time restriction), and sometimes the NMs you need aren't even there because others have killed them. Second, it restricts what jobs are efficient and useful. Third, it forces you along a hugely monotonous progression of key item gathering to get the stuff you need (for AF3+2, Empyrean, etc.). Fourth, which isn't an issue for most of us, any new players have to go through hours and hours of Atma farming before they can even be useful against most of the NMs - hopefully they can find a group that doesn't mind backtracking to get some of the better Atma!

Time restriction is irrelevant. My group does Abyssea 5 days a week, we farm time extensions when it's efficient to do so. I have over 50 stones on Joachim.

I don't see Atma being that huge of a barrier anymore. Until Scars came out, my group didn't have any Atmas or a Lunar Abyssite. The synthetic abyssites (particularly Ambition+Heavens) and the buyable Lunar made a huge difference, making it a lot easier to get the 2nd Lunar and additional atmas. There's so many people selling Atmas for 200-500k (remember when HQ elemental staves were 500k?), which is not an unreasonable price if you can't convince your LS to repeat them with you. I've also seen pickup groups for Razed Ruin and Minikin Monstrosity, something I'd never seen with Visions (partially because so few people had Lunars, and it took a long time to figure out the weakness system).

[Taruking]

I left the game right before SE released the 2nd abyssea expansion. I agree there are some really nice concepts that come with abyssea expansions. I just don't like the idea that SE make us pay for the goodies and impose time restriction on all abyssea zones (presumably to prevent overcrowding). They could have simply added atma/abyssite system to all FFXI zones and adjusted the drop rate/ loot pool/cooldown period of old content to match the level of abyssea expansions. A lot of players (myself included) would have probably stayed a bit longer if SE let us enjoy the system as long as we want, whenever we want. In my opinion, SE have just killed their precious hen for its last golden eggs.

Vertical expansion is not a bad idea, however the game doesn’t have to sacrifice old content to make way for new gear. For example magian trials for AF3 and Empyrean weapon upgrade could have involved drops from dynamis and/or perhaps other events such as salvage/einherjar/NI so that the long term subscribers do not feel they have wasted years of effort for nothing. This way they also ensure sustainable supply of currencies and alexandrites for upgrade of relic and mythic weapons. Level cap raise will have made those events more manageable by lowman groups anyway. No need to add new reskinned zones to make the game more appealing to casual players. The dev team simply need to let multiple groups enter dynamis/limbus simultaneously, remove minimum player requirement for salvage/NI and probably add a few more NMs or slightly alter the difficulty of those events.

The uncertainty associated with magian weapon upgrade and introduction of new equipment also puts me off abyssea. Why should I bother with the new expansions if SE are likely to release more powerful gear that will make even abyssea rewards obsolete in the future?

[Kaeda]

I actually quit the game a couple months back shortly after the release of Scars of Abyssea. While I really enjoyed the level cap increases and the ideas behind Abyssea, the overall feel of the game with all the changes did not sit well with me. Most of this stems from Magian Trials. For players with multiple jobs, it's very time consuming to do multiple trials to have decent weapons for every job. On top of that, the limit and addition of Empyrean armor made it even more difficult. I don't even want to think about how long it takes relic owners to go through all of their trials for a weapon that is, hopefully, slightly better than a level 85 Empyrean weapon. Abyssea being the main spine of content also killed other relics like ghorn since everyone has refresh Atma, although I remember seeing some players not using it.

Experience parties in Abyssea got boring fast. When it first came out, I think we were all in awe of how quickly experience flowed in Abyssea. Having come out of Scars, it felt like a chore and it's not even that enjoyable with Atmas boosting the ???? out of players. Atma is another reason why I quit. While I'm happy to hear there are shout groups (or even sellers) for useful Atma, it wasn't that way when I was playing and I found it difficult to procure useful Atma and a second Lunar Abyssite (it didn't help that my LS was HIGHLY inefficient with Abyssea despite what I told them... they would "farm" Abyssea with over 18 members and have everyone doing a single NM). In addition, lots of my friends, who still played a lot, would Abyssea quite often for other friends and did not have any spare stones to use to help me with farming NMs, so in the end, I'd end up with no progress.

Overall, I guess it was a combination of factors that caused me to quit XI: from trials to Abyssea (and trials) making older gear obsolete to Abyssea killing traditional parties and making levels 10-70 a pain to the focus on Atmas and !! weaknesses to just a change in my life style and some of my closer friend's life styles. Most of my best FFXI friends who I trusted enough to lowman just didn't have time to play anymore (and/or had a different schedule than me). Maybe that's the real reason though. Without friends, the game just isn't that fun and I wasn't having fun.

[Charismatic]

I'm just wondering how in the hell a new player would break into all of this content, that's the main thing. I know not everyone who plays is going to want to continue to play... the numbers are slowly gonna drop off and if it's as rough for newbies to get a start as I think it'd be (with people just leeching jobs in Abyssea and not really doing much old-world content) I'm kinda wondering how much longer this is all gonna last.
Seems to me like if you don't already know someone, you're buttfucked. Fine and dandy for the people here but, jesus fuck, that's not good for the future of the game.

[fredjanx]

I still think Francisco's chart is bullshit.

[Toth]

With the level cap, Abyssea breathed so much new life into this game that it's staggering to think how dull the 75 life had been. I have eagerly awaiting every update to see what's next now when a year ago I legibly wondered...."Is this it? What else is there to play for?""

If the world expands in the upcoming year (like visiting the long mentioned Mithra isles or the Far East), then this game will continue strong for years to come.