Dev Tracker

[Yugl]

Ya, the augment is for homam.

[Septimus]

When I read about the metal chip entry, I thought to myself, "Ancient Beastcoins are finally going to be worth something again."

[Lordender]

And would you pay 15k for a 10 year old car that's had some work done on it here and there? It's not like there aren't new models with better features available.

Somewhere along the way, MMO companies have successfully brainwashed their customer base into believing that if they don't like something, the ultimate solution is to quit. Anyone who dares to imply otherwise is seeking entitlement, no matter how reasonable and sensible their request. At the end of the day, SE is nothing without the money we've offered them in exchange for a product. MMOs are not a rigid item like a pound of meat at the deli. They are fluid, evolving, meant to change and improve. Principally, stagnation is the death of evolution. How the game should evolve may certainly be a hot topic amongst its players, but when its developer lets the proverbial rust grow, allows the tires to go bald, and stops checking the engine even though that light keeps shining on the dashboard... that 10 year old car starts looking less and less appealing despite all the travel it's offered. Right now, SE is barely gassing the tank and occasionally changing the oil.

We may still like the car, but in the shape its in, its not worth its original price. We can only say it so many ways before suddenly there's another round of server merges, then maybe another, and possible even a cessation of service altogether. So many businesses would love to be in the position SE's in here with people so willingly throwing their money at them hoping that maybe the next patch will be the one, the one that rekindles that spark, reminds someone of the old days, separates the men from the boys, or whatever waxing of ideal outcome. Restaurants don't tell people to GTFO and come back x months later. They want you back as often as possible. Mechanics strive to do good work so you'll tell your friends and so you'll come back the next time your car needs some work. I think the only other business that hands MMO developers their ass when it comes to getting their customers to eat shit and like it is Apple.

FFXI could be better. To some degree, it's our fault it's not.

I agree, also adding onto the age point:

I think this game hasn't aged very well, the direction of the game often contradicts itself, first the game started out where lots of time/people were needed then moved to small man events then eventually people got into having several mules, then back to needing lots of people again.

*The Job system is a complete mess, some jobs just completely got left in the darkages, just look no further than SMN.
*The Enmity system is a joke and has been a joke for a long long time, this should have been reworked years ago. FFXI has got to have the worst tanking system I've seen in any MMO I've played.

*The pace of combat is still atrocious, especially as a caster, the game should literally be at a point where you should never have to /heal or have some atma, rdm, brd or some 10min ability to get your mp back. The resource system has been figured out and polished up in newer games since FFXI's release. If I play a caster in other games like WoW I can pew pew as a caster until the cows come home in an endgame setting.

These are all things SE could and maybe will eventually address but like I said, things like that needed to be done years ago. There are far bigger problems with this game than just lackluster content, many of the games core systems are just fail/outdated in the current game. Stacking content ontop of content is fine in the short term but when are they going to address the real critical problems of the game?

Theres some pretty bad fundamental failures all across the board that have been well documented around these forums for years. I think the content quality suffers because they have to build the content to fit their systems and those systems are grossly outdated.

[Spira]

I thought they specifically said that they weren't going to be looking into upgrading AF+1 in the past. I could be wrong, though. Maybe they're having one thing with augmented homam/nashira, and then separately new sets of homam/nashira (hopefully with more jobs).

last i heard it was augments for homam/nashira, then a new neo-homam/nashira set. they're probably adjusting jobs that can wear the latter, but basically for the augments, jobs like WAR MNK THF PUP DNC SCH etc are all screwed over since they can't wear any of them

[Khajit]

thf is on homan. you might want to adjust that statement since thf will get something decent from augments even if it's by accident.

[Spira]

Ok oops never noticed that but you get my point

[KCem]

last i heard it was augments for homam/nashira, then a new neo-homam/nashira set. they're probably adjusting jobs that can wear the latter, but basically for the augments, jobs like WAR MNK THF PUP DNC SCH etc are all screwed over since they can't wear any of them

I wouldn't say that all those jobs absent from Homam are getting screwed over, they've been making use of augmented sky gear for a while now. I don't want to even get started on how uneven the abj augments are in terms of utility and job crossover; Warriors and Monks really have nothing to cry about in that regard.

I will agree though that some jobs have been completely overlooked and screwed over, mainly PUP, DNC and SCH; It baffles me how none of those jobs made it on to any sky/sea gear sets.

[Damane]

I wouldn't say that all those jobs absent from Homam are getting screwed over, they've been making use of augmented sky gear for a while now. I don't want to even get started on how uneven the abj augments are in terms of utility and job crossover; Warriors and Monks really have nothing to cry about in that regard.

I will agree though that some jobs have been completely overlooked and screwed over, mainly PUP, DNC and SCH; It baffles me how none of those jobs made it on to any sky/sea gear sets.

Its worse for DNC and SCH... looking at this trend DNC and SCH wont even get something out of Salvage update wohooo ¬.¬

the reason those jobs didnt make into gearsets is because SE decides before putting a NEW job into the game, what old armor this job can wear. BLU basicly got alot of love, COR too... and then there is PUP DNC and SCH that got totally shafted. Sadly SE never goes back to READD jobs to existing old armor.

[pancakesandsex]

They already said the "homam 2" would have different job sets on it compared to homam 1 / augmented homam 1.

[Apelila]

metal chips drop from Omega/Ultima as well IIRC. I still have one clogging up my main's storage.

[Genosync]

I agree, also adding onto the age point:

I think this game hasn't aged very well, the direction of the game often contradicts itself, first the game started out where lots of time/people were needed then moved to small man events then eventually people got into having several mules, then back to needing lots of people again.

*The Job system is a complete mess, some jobs just completely got left in the darkages, just look no further than SMN.
*The Enmity system is a joke and has been a joke for a long long time, this should have been reworked years ago. FFXI has got to have the worst tanking system I've seen in any MMO I've played.

*The pace of combat is still atrocious, especially as a caster, the game should literally be at a point where you should never have to /heal or have some atma, rdm, brd or some 10min ability to get your mp back. The resource system has been figured out and polished up in newer games since FFXI's release. If I play a caster in other games like WoW I can pew pew as a caster until the cows come home in an endgame setting.

These are all things SE could and maybe will eventually address but like I said, things like that needed to be done years ago. There are far bigger problems with this game than just lackluster content, many of the games core systems are just fail/outdated in the current game. Stacking content ontop of content is fine in the short term but when are they going to address the real critical problems of the game?

Theres some pretty bad fundamental failures all across the board that have been well documented around these forums for years. I think the content quality suffers because they have to build the content to fit their systems and those systems are grossly outdated.

WE ADD GIANT 36 PERSON BATTLEFIELD FOR YOU WITH NO INFORMATION ON HOW TO SUCCEED OK? THREE BIG MONSTER, YES?? LITTLE TO NO DROP TO HELP NEXT FIGHT YES? THIS MAKE GAME CHALLENGING. VERY CHALLENGING.

YOU SAY NO CAN WIN?! DEV TEAM WIN EVERY TIME. WE WILL MAKE VIDEO TO SHOW YOU INGAME TIMER AND DAY AND ZOOM RANDOMLY SO YOU SEE US BEAT IT AND WIN.

STILL NO LIKE? WE RE-DO OLD CONTENT OVER AND OVER. ABYSSEA WAS THE DEVIL. I MADE XIV A MASSIVE SUCCESS RITE?!!?


^^^ all reasons why I don't play anymore. Don't even get me started on Voidwatch. Anyone who says this shit is not mostly Tanaka's fault is blinding themselves.

[Spira]

and anyone who isn't playing the game anymore who still thinks Tanaka is the main reason for everything wrong in the game is supposed to be credible?

Tanaka did fuck up a lot of things, but for what its worth, FFXI was a success in its long term focus up till the days of Abyssea. sure the game's power progression used to chug along rather slowly, but old content was still relevant. it did a good job at preserving the game, maybe not so much at getting parts of it to excel.

these days, the only thing relevant left in the game is just the newest event thats the flavor of the month, and whatever people can solo.

edit: to expand, i think a big part of the reason why the game isnt doing as well is also due to the mindset of the players, as arus and lordender have mentioned. there is only so much the company can do to revitalize its game tho, because a lot depends on player uptake and how much 'shit' they're willing to endure to enjoy their game. these days the MMORPG crowd is a bit spoilt for choice. lotsa games are there willing to hand you rewards on a platter. satisfaction is ephemeral, and you're likely to move on to another game soon enough.

if we were to use the same car analogy, we really shouldnt kid ourselves, the first reason why most players play FFXI is because of its brand power as an RPG franchise with polish. For a 10 year old car, its got a decent engine that is still running. Recently got a new paint job and looks better than it ever could have been.
Of course, other than the fact that many people are already using this car and its convenient to stick to it, i do believe a lot of us are clinging on because it has sentimental value to us, and is.. in some ways, vintage.

[arus2001]

If that was a subtle jab at me trying to play the entitlement card and expecting hand-outs within the game itself, not in the slightest. Other games certainly haven't spoiled me. I've come to my own conclusions on FFXI based largely on experiencing the rare good and the habitually bad. Yes, it's easy to look to greener pastures and ask, "Why don't you do this?" of the Devs. The truly annoying part is the consistent "we can't" or nebulous turnaround times of ideas they may look into, but probably hope we'll forget about.

No matter how you try to spin it, when Tanaka had his hands wrist deep in XIV's rectum, XI grew under the eyes of Yoshida. Tanaka's way may have worked back in the day, for whatever reason ranging from lack of competition to people just not knowing better, but it isn't back in the day anymore. The money XI generates isn't the issue. The issue is that money isn't going back to XI, and what does is poorly managed by the guy running on an Everquest philosophy.

[Lordender]

I don't know who's really to blame with current XI, I think its impossible to really pin it on someone not knowing the actual budget and how many people are working on the game these days. The game has just aged very poorly, lots of critical systems desperately need revamping starting with enmity, entire jobs need to be reworked, yada yada yada etc.

Maybe SE will eventually get to it after these UI revamps.

[Deader2818]

When was Yoshida the director of XI?

Koichi Ishii (until 2003)
Nobuaki Komoto (from 2003 until 2008 )
Koichi Ogawa (from 2008 until 2010)
Akihiko Matsui (2010 sep-dec)
Mizuki Ito (from 2010)

Ito was the battle director of Abyssea.

[Septimus]

Tanaka did fuck up a lot of things, but for what its worth, FFXI was a success in its long term focus up till the days of Abyssea.

This sentence is simply untrue. In 2008 and especially 2009 so little effort was put into the game that it was dying a slow death. If they continued down that path and had not added Abyssea or increased the level cap, I severely doubt that most of us would be here right now discussing FFXI in anything but the past tense.

[ringthree]

Agreed Septimus. Abyssea saved an almost dead game. Anyone that doesn't recognize that either has some rose-tinted glasses on, or was out of touch with end-game at the time.

[Xantavia]

Agreed Septimus. Abyssea saved an almost dead game. Anyone that doesn't recognize that either has some rose-tinted glasses on, or was out of touch with end-game at the time.

I agree that it saved it, but at the same time it set up what people are seeing as a failure now. With the ability to dual-box a lot of the abyssea stuff once it was understood, and breaking up large shells, I feel the community suffered because of it. You can see people lamenting the need for large groups to do things like Legion. And by making gear that was such a huge leap over existing equipment, going back to slight increases or side-grades is turning people off. I've also found that shouting to get any kind of older content done is rough. I'll see responses to "Level X to 99, then just go solo it". It seems the willingness to help with random stuff has vanished, and the "what do I get out of it" mindset has grown.

[Yugl]

Shout runs for EG content was nearly nonexistent prior. I don't know what you mean.

[Xantavia]

Wasn't thinking EG content for shouts. More along the line of fights for quests and missions.