Dev Tracker

[ronin sparthos]

ADL,legion, neo nyzul all are stupidly designed, but abyssea ("buy a pocket whm and solo the zone") is no better, so I don't think it's about tanaka being disconnected from reality, but all the dev are really clueless about how their game works (pup was semi fixed only recently, drg was never fixed, embrava, pd, mythics, neo nyzul, einherjar V1 ... the list is long). I think the only things they have done right is salvage and neo dynamis.

Sorry, nope. Abyssea only is considered the silliness it is today because SE slathered on too many perks. relied too hard on procs and buffs that ruined the event. Without those buffs the concept of Abyssea completely curbstomps things like Salvage and Neo-Snorefest.

It's not even a contest. Nostalgia has clouded the senses so hard that people here can't tell shit from diarrhea.

Firstly, Abyssea allowed for constant progression rather than the luckbased crapshoot that other events tout. Things like Glavoid, Carabosse, Kukulkan, Eccentric Eve, Bhukis, Ironclad Triturator, Rani, Pantokrator, Apademak and the like were difficult enough for good groups to get comfortable with while being challenging enough to keep average players entertained. These things only got easier because of level caps and the advent of Razed Ruins / Minikin / Apocalypse spam which made it damn near impossible to lose.

Being able to login, get a group together and grind some items where we could all say that we stood a chance of walking away with something without worrying about having to hide under Embravas and Perfect Defenses is what FFXI needs. The only reason most people tend to loathe Abyssea is because it was so easy to just zoom through all the content that you end up with very little to do other than sit in Port Jeuno waiting for the RMT to leech up your next job to cap.

Salvage at its height was a series of runs where you wasted your time for little to no reward and then once you managed to finally get rewards after dozens of kills and the Assault grinds you're then tasked to gather up a ton of overpriced synthesis materials just for the hell of it. Do I like the dungeon crawl aspect? Yes. Do I like the fact that it's an all or nothing venture? No.

Ah the fond memories of Arrapago Remnants and her obsession with dropping absolutely nothing time after time.

Dynamis? It's only good because its a solo farming spot for currency/gil but it also happens to be boring as shit and reminds me soloing in an offline game. Subjective?I'm aware. In terms of actual changes to the content? The Arch Bosses are a complete waste (sans ADL), there is no incentive to even take 6 people to pwn some shit and cities are a complete waste of space because SE refuses to adjust the zones to make them competitive with CoP.

[Septimus]

it's good they're changing the icons but the change should have been an eyecatching redesign of singles, not a slight change to 100s, since it was singles that people were trying to pass off as something else. this really will only help once people have a couple months to develop a gut reaction to the lack of a HQ box around currency, since the entire scam was based on people being too excited about a low price to notice the subtle color difference.

regardless of what you think of people who would fall for such a trick or their theoretical existence, having fulltime dedicated bazaar scam mules running in PJ is just plain scummy and reflects poorly on the community that produces them and the support staff that allows them to exist.

You cannot blame the game community for basic human nature, con artists have been around since the dawn of time. It is not like people who play the game can actually do anything about people who put singles up for the price of hundreds, it is not technically illegal to bazaar any item for any price that someone wants. (Wildly unethical and immoral, yes; illegal, no.)

[Eurell]

I can totally blame people for being pricks lol. But as you pointed out, its not illegal, just unethical.

[Septimus]

I can totally blame people for being pricks lol. But as you pointed out, its not illegal, just unethical.

You can blame the individuals for being pricks, but you cannot blame the game community for what individuals do when the community has no power to do anything about their actions.

[Eurell]

Oh yeah, blame is absolutely on the individual.

[Priran]

You cannot blame the game community for basic human nature, con artists have been around since the dawn of time. It is not like people who play the game can actually do anything about people who put singles up for the price of hundreds, it is not technically illegal to bazaar any item for any price that someone wants. (Wildly unethical and immoral, yes; illegal, no.)

If it was so immoral, people who did it would become pariahs and quit. But the bottom line is, in FFXI culture it isn't immoral to do something like this anymore, or any other wildly selfish bullshit that wouldn't have flown a few years ago. Players decide what is immoral and SE decides what is illegal. Neither have taken any steps to stop things this from happening and so both are to blame.

[ronin sparthos]

If it was so immoral, people who did it would become pariahs and quit. But the bottom line is, in FFXI culture it isn't immoral to do something like this anymore, or any other wildly selfish bullshit that wouldn't have flown a few years ago. Players decide what is immoral and SE decides what is illegal. Neither have taken any steps to stop things this from happening and so both are to blame.

Who are you to define morality within the bounds of the game? Perhaps to you bazzaring singles for the prices of 100s is not an issue but I'm sure countless individuals would disagree.

SE has temp banned for deceptive practices like this before (namely trading a Scorp Claw instead of a Venemous Claw) and so I see the change as simply a way to avoid GMs wasting time handling cases of this.

Once again SE is fucking slow to adapt to something they've known has been an issue for years with certain items but it is what it is with this company.

[NynJa]

Except thats because someone throws in a venomous claw in trade window, then switches it to a scorp claw before confirmin the trade. Still the traders stupidity for not Checking the item before hitting "OK", since the person cant switch item after youve confirmed your OK without resetting it.

[Septimus]

If it was so immoral, people who did it would become pariahs and quit. But the bottom line is, in FFXI culture it isn't immoral to do something like this anymore, or any other wildly selfish bullshit that wouldn't have flown a few years ago. Players decide what is immoral and SE decides what is illegal. Neither have taken any steps to stop things this from happening and so both are to blame.

So FFXI is Amish country where a shunning will get rid of douchebags? If people get together to shun someone, the shunee will just make a new mule on which to do scummy shit or if it is on the main, hop servers and change names. Sure, back in the good old days shit like this wouldn't fly, they where wholesome, simpler times when people didn't do scummy things. Like bazaaring insect wing at Emperor Hairpin prices, bazaaring enchanted items with no charges on them that prompted Square to have different colors for full and empty enchanted items, LS leaders using their LSes to farm currency for their relics, and the old favorite just stealing the LS bank while jumping ship. It was all a Normand Rockwell painting of good morals, strong communities, and family values.

[Priran]

Who are you to define morality within the bounds of the game? Perhaps to you bazzaring singles for the prices of 100s is not an issue but I'm sure countless individuals would disagree.

I'm not defining it, I'm observing and describing. A long time ago it used to be a career ender to be accused of using MrArgus. Now the moral highroad is saying "I'd never use cheats to win NNI! I'm going to pay somebody else 6 million gil to do it for me!". The community's morals have changed majorly.

[Priran]

So FFXI is Amish country where a shunning will get rid of douchebags? If people get together to shun someone, the shunee will just make a new mule on which to do scummy shit or if it is on the main, hop servers and change names. Sure, back in the good old days shit like this wouldn't fly, they where wholesome, simpler times when people didn't do scummy things. Like bazaaring insect wing at Emperor Hairpin prices, bazaaring enchanted items with no charges on them that prompted Square to have different colors for full and empty enchanted items, LS leaders using their LSes to farm currency for their relics, and the old favorite just stealing the LS bank while jumping ship. It was all a Normand Rockwell painting of good morals, strong communities, and family values.

Divisortheory, one of the first NA relics and a former mod on this site, quit when it was revealed he had basically bought his relic from IGE.

Most people who played the game since release will tell you that why they're still playing or played as long as they did was FFXI's community. How many of those friends would they have made if every time they shouted for missions the only tells they got were people quoting prices for their time? FFXI used to have a community, now it has a loose association of selfish dicks.

[ronin sparthos]

I'm not defining it, I'm observing and describing. A long time ago it used to be a career ender to be accused of using MrArgus. Now the moral highroad is saying "I'd never use cheats to win NNI! I'm going to pay somebody else 6 million gil to do it for me!". The community's morals have changed majorly.

People cheated/scam/connived back in '04 and they do it right up to this day complete with the halfass rationalizations from the scammers. It doesn't change the fact that scummy action is scummy and it should be SEs responsibility to promote gameplay that is fair and fun to all parties involved.

NNI presents the same moral dilemma that Kings did if you want to go there:

Are you willing to play it fair and take months to accomplish goals or use tools to get ahead?

The change in the community stems from the cratered state of the server populations but with regards to this particular situation? Nothing has changed.

[Septimus]

Divisortheory, one of the first NA relics and a former mod on this site, quit when it was revealed he had basically bought his relic from IGE.

Most people who played the game since release will tell you that why they're still playing or played as long as they did was FFXI's community. How many of those friends would they have made if every time they shouted for missions the only tells they got were people quoting prices for their time? FFXI used to have a community, now it has a loose association of selfish dicks.

People used to charge to help with missions and quests, the difference is that people are more shameless about it now. It isn't just this game though, welcome to the Ayn Rand-ification of America.

[Priran]

NNI presents the same moral dilemma that Kings did if you want to go there:

Are you willing to play it fair and take months to accomplish goals or use tools to get ahead?

I remember "selling the right to lot on things" being the domain of RMTs up until like WotG release, and shouts to do so being met with public ridicule. For a long time people would kill Kings for things they didn't need and watch them either rot or fall to Provoke mules. Those people were almost necessarily already cheaters, but the community ties to their LS overcame their selfish need to get paper.

People used to charge to help with missions and quests, the difference is that people are more shameless about it now. It isn't just this game though, welcome to the Ayn Rand-ification of America.

No, not in my experience. People offered monetary incentives to get help on an old mission nobody really needed, but that's different.

[Tarage]

We shun Pchan and he hasn't left yet so...

[Priran]

Pchan keeps himself company.

[ronin sparthos]

I remember "selling the right to lot on things" being the domain of RMTs up until like WotG release, and shouts to do so being met with public ridicule. For a long time people would kill Kings for things they didn't need and watch them either rot or fall to Provoke mules. Those people were almost necessarily already cheaters, but the community ties to their LS overcame their selfish need to get paper.

That was more an issue of access from the start.

People typically didn't sell things like they do today because the FFXI of old took so long to get yourself suit up in virtually anything that the process of getting paid to suit other people up was taking time away from bettering yourself in addition to needing more skill as less tools were available to jobs. You could also count on other individuals needing things like AF or coffer keys so the entire thought of merc runs really only applied to things like PLs or odd things like Charybdis or BLMs burning ODS for you.

The kings thing explains itself. People wanted to maintain superiority by dominating the supply due to the lack of PvP in FFXI and so we ended up with situations where egos came before common sense but even that changed as people got bored of claiming Fafnirs for the umpteenth time.

With the game stagnant, goals largely accomplished and people wanting to rush through content now everything is doable in lowman groups or to hammer out an R/M/E the idea of merc runs has taken root in XI partly because the game itself changed.

[Septimus]

I remember "selling the right to lot on things" being the domain of RMTs up until like WotG release, and shouts to do so being met with public ridicule. For a long time people would kill Kings for things they didn't need and watch them either rot or fall to Provoke mules. Those people were almost necessarily already cheaters, but the community ties to their LS overcame their selfish need to get paper.

No, not in my experience. People offered monetary incentives to get help on an old mission nobody really needed, but that's different.

We had a few Japanese shells on Bahamut that would camp Kings in order to sell things to people for money. The difference is that they were monopolizing the system to keep people out so that they could make money, as opposed to someone who could not get the item otherwise getting a mercenary group to do it for him. The latter may be laziness, but the former was malicious.

Maybe not in your experience but back in the day when I would help random newbs because a 75 RDM was a solo machine of death, plenty of people told me about people wanting gil in order to help them with coffer keys, missions, quest, AF, etc. You may not have experienced it, but this is nothing new.

[Churchill]

Used to make a lot of money monopolizing king drops.

[Ophannus]

inb4 neosalvage gear requires:
Heads: 6x Scarletite Ingots
Bodies: 6x Ormolu Ingots.
Hands: 6x Sealord Skins
Legs: 6x Penelope's Cloth

etc

100x Imperial Goldpieces and/or Alexandrites per upgrade