Dev Tracker

[Greatguardian]

The game started to fail because it could not evolve in a way that engaged a playerbase which had created working approximate models for the majority of the game's basic mechanics.

The game was fun and challenging in 2005 because we did not know what the fuck we were doing. Straight up. The best of us back then would be torn apart in the gimp thread now. Now? The game's biggest challenge is assembling a working, coherent group large enough to tackle new alliance-scale content after the sundering of 80% of the game's large linkshells that occurred throughout the Abyssea era. Everything else is either a matter of "How many hundreds of times do you have to repeat this before you get your drop?" or "How lucky can you get on procs while zerging this boss and spamming invincibility potions?"

[Mahoro]

I agree that is one of the game's biggest challenges now. It's almost comical now to see certain people on my server with bad reputations extolling the virtues of PUGs but having to waste hours a week shouting for those working, coherent groups (and failing often). One person in particular even posted disparaging comments on my LS's boards, but has pretty much killed his reputation after a string of horribly chaotic PUGs. He even drove a great new BRD applicant to us after /shouting in Port Jeuno about LS activities and being refuted.

You have to wonder if they honestly prefer this turn of events.

[Gwynplaine]

Speak for yourself

I tried XIV once, and it was so fucking shitty, I have no desires to reinstall it.

For real. I'm pretty much turned off of all MMO-dom.

[Isiolia]

I think a key problem with Abyssea was how quickly the level cap went up. At 80 mobs like Carabosse for example were a challenge, and required a decent amount of concentration/man power, but by 90 many of these NMs were fairly easily soloable, due mostly to skill caps rising (dramatic improvements in gear and abyssites helped a tonne too). Additionally I don't think Abyssea NMs were designed particularly well. Nothing was designed with Kirin levels of difficulty (and implying that Kirin is even tough is a stretch). I personally still find Omega a trickier solo then pretty much all of Abyssea.

These two points combined gave players the opportunity to form small break away groups, and eventually lead to the demise of many large linkshells. Why wait for a LS raid when you and a few buddies can get what you want faster and with less competition ? I stuck with my LS til the very end, where it had simply became a few friends sticking together to get what we want faster and with less competition.

The level cap wasn't a problem with Abyssea, rather, Abyssea was the answer to the problem of the level cap rising quickly.

Most of the concerns regarding it came back to all the previous years progress - the game might have been fairly stagnant, but the time/reward ratio for so many events was (partly) justified by the relative stability of the reward value. What many of us weren't keen on, for one reason or another, was effectively being thrown back to square one. Doubly so when we knew the eventual cap was still coming, making us wonder just how long newly introduced items would be valuable.

What Abyssea did from the start was both raise the bar for readily obtainable gear, and provide a fast-forward to get players back to the general state they were in at 75. Maybe that was a mistake, but I feel like it at least became a mixed bag - plenty of us stuck around or came back because of the faster pace (or more productive casual pace, depending on how you look at it).

The problem is the post-Abyssea content not picking up with the same effective small-group kind of approach that Abyssea fostered. SE did essentially encourage the current mentality due to design, and should continue to provide meaningful content that works for it.

[Septimus]

bolded part is a bit of a sweeping statement. I agree to a certain extent, but thats how society is, not just in an MMORPG, but in the real world. However, for a good number of us, we use each other and become friends, and end up enjoying the process because we have a "symbiotic" gaming experience. I know of many friends who I met along the way in-game thru this process, and we've grown to be friends in other games and in the real world as well.

There are genuinely nice people out there, but as the numbers go by, they're definitely getting fewer over the years with the change in player mindsets in MMORPGs. The problem of SE not adapting quick enough to the changing MMORPG player is definitely apparent, but this doesn't mean that the old-school style is necessarily a problem now.

as for the part about FFXIs slow death. Look at it this way. 2008 - 2009 were slow years in its history. If it was indeed dying, it was still a slow stagnating death.
I'm not sure if you still remember, but the announcement of Abyssea and the level cap raise, even before its release, was sufficient enough to get people to quit in droves, because for them they were content with a matured MMORPG where they didn't need to strive on for levels and gear anymore. doing what they did back then did serve to inject new life into the game, but also opened a whole new can of worms. ones that we are seeing today, especially with regards to gear.

even if Abyssea didn't exist, i don't think it would have made much difference with regard to this topic. a show of hands of how many people here commenting are actually currently play the game would be indicative enough.

The bolded statement is hands down true about humanity in general, not video games. Most people are assholes, if not all of the time, part of the time. There are always genuinely nice people out there, but if you look at your linkshell back in the day, can you honestly say that you really liked all 35+ people in it? Or more appropriately, that you didn't dislike many of them for being loot whores, shady people who only logged on when it benefited them, greedy users, shell-holder's pets, cliqueish assholes who schemed to keep everyone else out, people who rarely logged on but thought that they should have been at the top of every loot list, back-biting two-faces who are only nice to people in their faces, etc? If you can say that, your linkshell was a utopia, because this is a statement about mankind, not about how people act in video games. (It is my philosophy of "Pragmatic Misanthropy": I don't hate people, but I am keenly aware that most people are terrible.) Not everyone is awful, and even kind-of awful people can become better people with the right group. But saying that there are fewer nice people is a bit silly. Hell, I gave up a Bravura and let everyone else in my LS get an Empyrean weapon before I started mine, and I am still a bit of an asshole.

I am not saying that the old-school style of MMO is a problem now; I am saying that it was, is, and always will be a problem. It encouraged people to be shady, play linkshell politics, jump shells, and so on. The main difference now is that people are much more up-front about their assholery since they don't need a good reputation to get into the best shells. Abyssea may have opened a new can of worms, but at least it wasn't the same old can that we had been dealing with since we hit end-game.

I don't know a single person who quit back in 2009/2010 because if the level cap increase. I do, however, know of dozens of people who came back to the game because of it. You can say that the game was "mature", but in reality, it was neglected. Square was content to let FFXI stagnate because they thought that FFXIV was going to be the next hot thing. But the real problem was that their design philosophy was stagnant and FFXIV showed that.

[Chamaan]

When conversations like this come up I always wonder how accurate the assumption that Abyssea killed the large scale LS is. On Valefor at least, by the time Abyssea came out, a ton of end game shells were already falling apart because of lack of interest, which meant difficulties putting together enough muscle for events they breezed through only a year previous. So was it more "Abyssea killed alliance sized events" or was it "Abyssea allowed a playerbase that was already tired of alliance sized events to enjoy the game again?"

[Septimus]

When conversations like this come up I always wonder how accurate the assumption that Abyssea killed the large scale LS is. On Valefor at least, by the time Abyssea came out, a ton of end game shells were already falling apart because of lack of interest, which meant difficulties putting together enough muscle for events they breezed through only a year previous. So was it more "Abyssea killed alliance sized events" or was it "Abyssea allowed a playerbase that was already tired of alliance sized events to enjoy the game again?"

I guess the best way to put it was that Abyssea was the straw that broke the dhamel's back. Before the level cap announcement, if I could wrangle up more than a party for a linkshell event it was a miracle. Other LS leaders that I talked to at the time had a similar problem. After the level cap announcement, we had a massive influx of old players and renewed interest in the game. Sadly, after a year of nothing but Voidwatch we are pretty much back to where we were before Abyssea, and I am debating the merits of actively recruiting again.

And I strongly agree with your "Abyssea allowed a playerbase that was already tired of alliance sized events to enjoy the game again" statement.

[Mahoro]

Don't really agree with that statement. When Abyssea was first released, it was not thought of as a lowman event. People XP'd in alliances (and still do), and before Scars/Heroes atma like Minikin and RR were added, they usually killed NM's in groups larger than a single party. In Visions Abyssea play, it was not uncommon to have 12-18 people kill an upper-tier NM. Abyssea fostered and renewed an enthusiasm for those sorts of large-scale events again. I certainly didn't notice a decrease in my shell's attendance. People were hungry for something "new". But of course, new Atma got added, the "tricks" were figured out, and people realized that a MNK + WHM could duo most things. The difficulty of Abyssea ramped starkly down and people started splintering off into their groups. My LS survived but many others did not.

Which again, isn't really something I criticize. I think the game should have a nice healthy mix of large-scale and small-scale events. In any event, it looks like the devs will be focusing on more small-scale events this year.

[Isiolia]

When conversations like this come up I always wonder how accurate the assumption that Abyssea killed the large scale LS is. On Valefor at least, by the time Abyssea came out, a ton of end game shells were already falling apart because of lack of interest, which meant difficulties putting together enough muscle for events they breezed through only a year previous. So was it more "Abyssea killed alliance sized events" or was it "Abyssea allowed a playerbase that was already tired of alliance sized events to enjoy the game again?"

To a point, I agree.

LS sizes were already dwindling, but just not to the extent they did post-Abyssea. Prior to Abyssea, maybe 8-12 actual players, maybe more. My LS ranged from 12-18, depending, though not all were on regularly. You still saw some event shells though - Dynamis, Einherjar, sometimes Limbus, etc, that meant there was a larger base of people to try and build a group from.

Had Abyssea come and continued to benefit from a larger group, then that's what people would have tried to field. While the initial release may have seemed that way, as the cap went up, and Atmas were obtained (and got better, since the better ones weren't until Scars), the event skewed to an even smaller group size than before.

As it was, people didn't need to try and rebuild larger groups, or compromise convenient playtimes, or any of that. It let a lot more of us play the game on our terms, which was definitely welcome.

[Celebrindor]

I do wonder outside of PUGs how much of a MMO we're still playing. When the term "dual-box" is one so common seen on boards, I get frustrated. I don't wish to pay for two accounts, nor do I have a system that really could handle two running characters well (my guess). I don't want the return of mega shells- I agree most people don't. They were rampant with abuse as has been said a thousand times.

But I do enjoy some level of alliance play, and do miss that being an integral part of the game. I'm not saying a full time part of the game. But ToAU was a solid mixture in that we had plenty of party work (Salvage, Nyzul, Assault) while older content that did require Alliances (Sea, Zilart) was still gear relevant, Einherjar, and new HNMs (top tier ZNMs, 3 ToAU kings) also was Ally content.

Where's the party/ally mix in Abyssea? Non-existent. Dynamis changed to small group/solo/duo setting. It was a release of pure party and solo/duo content followed by ally based content release(Voidwatch). And the ally based was PUG friendly, followed by sudden Ally based content that was not PUG friendly (Provenance, Legion). So random. And after a relatively long time, and a very long time in gear progression and game development, a lot changed in game dynamics.

When the game moves in one direction then makes a complete 180 back to the previous direction, that's what's frustration people, at least people like myself. I'm dying to get into Legion, but my shell will need to team up to do it. 6 months ago, not so much.

[Mahoro]

Your list is spot-on, but I would add Dynamis Arch Boss stuff to the ally-based content. I think they are at least trying to "balance" the directions (yes, I hate using that word as much as you probably hate reading it). They viewed Nyzul and Legion as two sides of the coin. I think Camate actually said their intention was to add a new low-man event and a new alliance event at the same time. Of course, neither has proven to be accessible to the majority of the playerbase. If the rumor Slycer said proves true, Dungeon Crawling might be their effort at focusing on lowman this year (and revamped Ein will reward alliance play).

[Celebrindor]

Your list is spot-on, but I would add Dynamis Arch Boss stuff to the ally-based content. I think they are at least trying to "balance" the directions (yes, I hate using that word as much as you probably hate reading it). They viewed Nyzul and Legion as two sides of the coin. I think Camate actually said their intention was to add a new low-man event and a new alliance event at the same time. Of course, neither has proven to be accessible to the majority of the playerbase. If the rumor Slycer said proves true, Dungeon Crawling might be their effort at focusing on lowman this year (and revamped Ein will reward alliance play).

If by ally you mean 8-10 people then yes.

[Mahoro]

Minimum 8-10, sure. Add in resources such as extra CORs/SMNs and you have an event that rewards traditional LS event sizes, assuming an endless stream of pops.

[Celebrindor]

Minimum 8-10, sure. Add in resources such as extra CORs/SMNs and you have an event that rewards traditional LS event sizes, assuming an endless stream of pops.

Very true, stream of pops yes. Point taken.

[Spira]

The bolded statement is hands down true about humanity in general, not video games. Most people are assholes, if not all of the time, part of the time. There are always genuinely nice people out there, but if you look at your linkshell back in the day, can you honestly say that you really liked all 35+ people in it? Or more appropriately, that you didn't dislike many of them for being loot whores, shady people who only logged on when it benefited them, greedy users, shell-holder's pets, cliqueish assholes who schemed to keep everyone else out, people who rarely logged on but thought that they should have been at the top of every loot list, back-biting two-faces who are only nice to people in their faces, etc? If you can say that, your linkshell was a utopia, because this is a statement about mankind, not about how people act in video games. (It is my philosophy of "Pragmatic Misanthropy": I don't hate people, but I am keenly aware that most people are terrible.) Not everyone is awful, and even kind-of awful people can become better people with the right group. But saying that there are fewer nice people is a bit silly. Hell, I gave up a Bravura and let everyone else in my LS get an Empyrean weapon before I started mine, and I am still a bit of an asshole.

I am not saying that the old-school style of MMO is a problem now; I am saying that it was, is, and always will be a problem. It encouraged people to be shady, play linkshell politics, jump shells, and so on. The main difference now is that people are much more up-front about their assholery since they don't need a good reputation to get into the best shells. Abyssea may have opened a new can of worms, but at least it wasn't the same old can that we had been dealing with since we hit end-game.

I don't know a single person who quit back in 2009/2010 because if the level cap increase. I do, however, know of dozens of people who came back to the game because of it. You can say that the game was "mature", but in reality, it was neglected. Square was content to let FFXI stagnate because they thought that FFXIV was going to be the next hot thing. But the real problem was that their design philosophy was stagnant and FFXIV showed that.

you know, i think we generally agree about what is happening, we just don't see eye to eye on the smaller details. I'd say i follow your pragmatic misanthropy. I don't hate but am aware that people are terrible and kinda accept that its the way things are. That said, I still do believe that the number of nice people in game is far less these days because of the ageing population of this very game.

When i started out, I was like 17, and I do believe quite a number of people who started playing this game were around this age range. I'm willing to believe that many people, like me, hadn't met enough assholes in their life, be in in-game or IRL to know better than to be too nice to them. I myself have been exploited many times in the past - lending gear or gil, helping people with ridiculous events but then having them disappear when they agree to help you. Take a few knocks and you'll figure out that it doesn't pay to be too nice to people around you. in fact, learning to be a bit of an asshole is a useful skill so you don't get stepped on.

Whilst the old-school style system did encourage all sorts of politics and whatnot, I can't help but feel it was cohesive in more ways than it was divisive. Yes, there will always be backstabbers and whatnot, but also people who are close friends. you get shit done, share experiences together, and there's greater familiarity with the people you log in with and interact on LS. Social LS do make up for some of that these days, but really if you're left without that, the game has essentially become a very lonely place because the need to interact has gone down. When I solo i feel like im playing a single player game but can just see other people. In any case, the new can of worms does seem to contain less exploitative elements, so I suppose its better.

I know a few people who quit because of level cap increase. and I'm pretty sure SE didn't think XIV was gonna be the next hot thing, because if so they wouldn't have announced/released Abyssea before XIV came out and flopped. The 2 years before that, especially the scenario add-on year was painfully slow tho. Much worse than 2011.

[Chamaan]

Spira's complaints of the game feeling "single player" without the absolute NEED for alliances to do anything are warranted, but only somewhat. There certainly is less incentive to interact with other players when you can solo/duo/trio most of the relevant content left in the game. But there are still a few things where PUGs are necessary or preferred, and in a lot of ways I think this solo-era of the game gave a new dimension of interaction. In the before days people only really interacted with their own shell, which were their own little social microcosm. A lot of players made new friends through the weird serial monogamy of LS recruitment, where people would come in fresh faced and apple-cheeked, then leave when things got too real to start over somewhere else. I never really had those "wild college (linkshell) dating days" in this game since I married the proverbial high school sweet heart. I joined an end game shell, got put on council, stayed there until it was just me and one other guy, and now people are slowly returning. Over the past couple years I've done random PUGs out of necessity or boredom and met a lot of really cool people I otherwise wouldn't have met. If something big pops up my name's on a lot of people's Bat Signal list to fill out the ally. It's kind of like how the nuclear family isn't the "norm" anymore compared to an extended one.

And I think Isolia and Mohoro both have good points. A successful, modern event for the game these days has to allow the freedom of small group play while encouraging larger group play with increased rate/quantity/quality of rewards. Neo-Dyna, Abyssea, and even GoV model this pretty well.

[Churchill]

I don't really feel Abyssea killed large shells, as was pointed out, Valefor had no large shells except for shit ones prior to Abyssea. The HNM content had run its course and people were already getting older.

Wake up, camp NM, camp, camp, camp, 3 man Krabkatoa, camp, camp, Einherjar, sleep, wake up because EU's claimed, sleep, wake up, craft, camp, Tia, camp, camp, etc.

Mix in Sea, Limbus, Zeni, LS ZNM, Salvage, Nyzul Isle, Assaults for good taste.

People were just tired of this shit. I always attribute it to the increasing lack of drama as the game aged, but that may just be why I got more bored as the game went on. Epic trolls and drama llama's became more and more rare and I don't think I'm alone in saying that was the best part of HNM's. There was no PVP, but you sure could fuck other people over pretty hard. Monopolizing stuff so only your shell had the best gear, etc.

At some point, myself and a lot of others just felt like fuck, I can't even level a job doing all this shit. And it is just shit, I don't need anything from it, the people who do never helped me get any of it, why the fuck am I doing this shit.

[KCem]

And I think Isolia and Mohoro both have good points. A successful, modern event for the game these days has to allow the freedom of small group play while encouraging larger group play with increased rate/quantity/quality of rewards. Neo-Dyna, Abyssea, and even GoV model this pretty well.

I feel this would we widely achievable if SE would start introducing more scaling in events like they have done with Legion, albeit to a much larger extent, allowing a party of 3 to participate in the same event as an alliance of 36.

[Celebrindor]

I feel this would we widely achievable if SE would start introducing more scaling in events like they have done with Legion, albeit to a much larger extent, allowing a party of 3 to participate in the same event as an alliance of 36.

The big question becomes how do you encourage all sizes of groups to participate? If a 6 man group can participate in a scaled down version (HP wise let's say, all other factors equal) and win while receiving the same rewards as a 36 man group, the tendency will be for 6 man groups to form for faster rewards.

Scale up rewards based on number entering the event? In Quantity? Quality? Droprate? Its a difficult call, but the idea of course is a great one, if it could be implemented properly. Let's see how they do Legion. If there is an actual benefit to go with more than 18, maybe it will preserve the intent SE had.

Think of Einherjar now..ok maybe bad example with the level difference, but nonetheless, it has gone from the intent of a challenging large scale event to 6-10 people for any chamber, with the same number of drops. If SE increased the difficulty of the waves based upon number entering the chamber and HP of the boss, and in turn increased the slots in the drop pool, it may motivate people to bring more to such an event, if they had the manpower to do so. Or if there was one guaranteed Odin drop per 4 characters present at the death of Odin. Just some thoughts.

[Ansems]

Wake up, camp NM, camp, camp, camp, 3 man Krabkatoa, camp, camp, Einherjar, sleep, wake up because EU's claimed, sleep, wake up, craft, camp, Tia, camp, camp, etc.

^ sounds like heaven to me right now.
I think if FFXI would go back to camping shit as a main source of epic endgame gear shit would be amazing. new kings, new 3 day nms. I like Abyssea imo it did save a dead game but now we need to go back to old roots.