Tanaka Rage!

[Lordender]

lol

Old XI is back. Honeymoons over.

Haha, so true, the sad thing is I doubt i'll stick around much longer on XI. Why pay for something they're clearly not putting effort into when I can play XIV for free and the game continues to make leaps and bounds every content patch plus not have to worry about Tanaka fail.

[Septimus]

I don't even know how to make that comparable.

Since you can trade currency between players, there would have to be a different system. You also don't have to be -there- for each currency drop.

Actually, there is a way to make it perfectly comparable. You pay people gil to go in and farm for you, and if the relic you want drops, you enter and get it. So there you go, a 1/17,500 system is the perfect solution.

[Gynin]

lol

Old XI is back. Honeymoons over.

Oh Jesus Christ why? WHY?!? We're not allowed to consume content again are we?

[mallister]

...lol. tanaka, oh you!

[Lordender]

I hope someone from SE reads this thread and makes Tanaka step down or if he's always been around have him take a backseat again and let new blood be incharge of content. Kiss of death sounds about right at this stage of the games life.

[Siatdiat]

Oddly, I find Hyan and Lordender to be opposite ends of the same retarded stick.

Hyan as usual is either trolling or what I don't know for sure.

Lordender... only teenagers would think people posting threats to quit on the forums would effect anything.

[Apelila]

I don't think the random number game as a system is 'fail' although the playerbase perception is skewed towards that being the case. Pros and cons

As far as loot systems go, if the drop rates are concerned how exactly do you add longevity then? It's clear that they want people to keep playing without having to put in more wasted effort, perhaps even preparing for even longer drought seasons once the cap is finalized. Their bottom line is to keep you playing, and the playerbase has shown that it can deal with a lot of shit before the numbers start taking a dip.

I'm not saying that they couldn't do better overall than they do now but I'm interested in hearing the alternatives while keeping in mind their situation and not just what we want them to do..

Everyone who is arguing against Hyan missed this, in bold, and this is why you're all beating a dead horse. Hyan has essentialy said that he doesn't mind this type of system; everyone else has said that it is craptastic. To each is own.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Lordender confused producer with director, Akihiko Matsui did most certainly assume the role of Director of FFXI(scroll down) in Sept of last year - prior to that the director changed in 2008, my apologizes for being a lazy fucker and not tracking down that link. But you can verify from real wiki if you like. Recently the director changed yet again, when Matsui went to the 14 team to try and stop that game from sucking like a hooker in the alley behind a political convention.

Now to rant a bit -
People have given alternatives, very valid alternatives which would have done much to eliminate the grind of past bullshit in XI. Most of them are invalid now - who the fuck cares about salvage gear anymore? Or Einerjar? Oh, the people who want Mythic weapons. No one wants to do the old content because it's not worth it for them. Fuck you mythic weapons!

FFXI from before 2010 focused on slow progression and sidegrades with a select few peices of gear that were widely desired. There were many ways of getting gear: Unless you showed up all the time, you weren't getting shit. You could also suck off the LS leader - many people with tits did this. Or unless your brother ran the shell. "Fairness" has never been a big part of this game. Argue what you will about abyssea making gimps get stuff - with enough time and patience, anyone can get anything out of those zones. Voidwatch also with its system - if you don't get a drop, its not because someone showed up 300 times before you finally got to 75.

My biggest problem with the last 2 updates - they represent a return to the past, frustrating FFXI that I tolerated, and the reasons to tolerate have run very thin for me. After a year of being shown that this game can be fun and rewarding I find myself questing why I would continue much further if the future only holds what can charitably be called "The grind to end all grinds". The idea that "Bring me 1500 peices of bullshit, BECAUSE I SAID SO FOR A SMALL INCREASE IN POWAH" no longer holds any way over me with the gigantic steps our characters have taken since 75. It highlights the grind, and makes the area's of the game that are still slow stand out in a higher contrast.

Double aside - I think Tanaka gets hate because he's the face for the company/dev team that has for a very long time now ignored the players at best, expressed open scorn and contempt for the players at worst. We tried to say what we didnt like, they responded by making it so that you couldn't go into an interview and ask questions about AV, PW, or any number of things they wouldn't budge on.

All together now - This mentality, it wasn't fun when they kept it during CoP-WoTG but I kept playing because my friends kept playing. I stopped when they banned all my friends, and I only came back because I was curious about the game after the level increase. If they're going back to that mentality then fuck them all.

Edit - Typo's, extra sentence.

[Colenzo]

This is how I look at things. What is the point in playing an MMO where there is virtually no PvP? What attracts people to keep playing? Rare items? Hard to get items? Where is the prestige in everybody having the same crap that you have? What is the point of them putting all this awesome new stuff into voidwatch and making it easy to obtain? Relics/mythics/salvage gear take time/people/gil to upgrade. Salvage gear used to be some of the best shit in the game. People sat for hours/days/weeks/months/years to obtain these items. What is the difference in VW over the stuff that used to be? People will still do it to get their items. Remember back in the day when we would say "oh wow lets invite so and so because they have this and this to do whatever and they care about their job etc. etc." In the past year we got these new abyssea expansions provided to us to play and to fuck around with. Abyssea is easy, everything involving abyssea is fucking simple, do you really want to play abyssea for the rest of your on ffxi? Do you really want to just surround yourselves with people that have all the same shit you have so you can continue to do easy content? What is the fucking point?!

Oh do you want to do tough shit and get the best stuff every time? Oh you do? Oh well ok, you do that and tell me how long the game keeps your interest. What are you going to do when that well dries up, are you going to turn and bitch some more for more game content? Where does the bitching end? The same people bitching about VW are the same people bitching about abyssea. I think that everybody just needs to take a step back and realize that in some games, some stuff is just going to be harder to obtain. If its close to impossible to get well guess what, you can still get it! Everyone just needs to stop being whiny little assholes and be glad that they are still putting bad ass new relevant gear into the game that they're playing. Abyssea was abyssea, if they want to take the game back outside of abyssea again and make things difficult to get again then thats what is going to happen. Seriously, I beg you to tell me what they are doing so right in the game. Are you going to tell me the EXP situation is acceptable too? Yeah, THEY WERE DOING SUCH A FINE JOB! See I can bitch too, awesome right? Yeah, just deal with it. The game you're playing is fine or else you wouldn't keep coming back to it. Also, you wouldn't be posting such passionate responses about this Tanaka guy regarding how he has conducted this game over the past several years. Some people just need to reserve their nerd rage and take a step back and reconsider what they've been doing on this game over the past year, then alt-tab back to their game and take a look around port jeuno. Everybody and their mother has the same gear, over 9000 kannagis and the same AF3+2 shit. Everybody's shit is the same. Is this where you want the game to remain? Do you really want to keep looking at noobs with the same cookie-cutter gear that you've been farming the fuck out of in abyssea(or whatever new game content they create.) Or do you want to man the fuck up and go spam the easy to access shit they have put in front of you. Is it really that much of a hassle to regenerate those voidstones or to trade that voiddust and grab your friends to go do your stuff? Or would you rather them make it like sea again so you can go chase down Jailer of Faith for a half an hour so you can have a chance at popping 1 retarded NM for an item you want. Take your pick, shit that is worth your time is usually going to be worth your time. If it isn't then stop playing the game. Either way, they will not stop putting rare hard to acquire shit in their game so you might as well just get over yourselves or continue your empyrean weapon hoarding or whatever casual shit you are into.

Abyssea was 3 mini expansions, fuck off already with your casual bullshit crying.

tl;dr poorly written rage

[Forte]

This whole thing is a problem with absolutes. For quite a while, FFXI was a grindfest. There is 'hard to obtain', and there is 'you need to sacrifice your life to get.' That's what FFXI was for quite a number of years. If you didn't know the right people, have the right jobs leveled, and in some cases have the right 'tools', you didn't get anything. And even those who did have all of that spent years fighting he same mobs for a horrible drop rate. Abyssea is the opposite. You can hand pick what you want, when you want it, and how you want it. Don't have friends to kill NMs? You can quest the +1s. Don't want to spend hours leveling a job that doesn't fit the 6 or so actually useful jobs? No problem. Well... the problem is that almost all of the gear from Abyssea was miles ahead of the existing stuff, and so you got pink power rangers and cookie cutter folk, and no way to tell them apart from people who knew what they were doing.

There's a happy middle ground, but sadly FFXI has never been about the middle ground. Things are either too easy or too hard.

[Colenzo]

Yep, and if you look at most other MMOs its the same way. The only "middle ground" this game ever had was people going and camping emperor hairpins and bounding boots so they can have better gear for when they exp'd their lower level jobs.

[Lordender]

This is how I look at things. What is the point in playing an MMO where there is virtually no PvP? What attracts people to keep playing? Rare items? Hard to get items? Where is the prestige in everybody having the same crap that you have? What is the point of them putting all this awesome new stuff into voidwatch and making it easy to obtain? Relics/mythics/salvage gear take time/people/gil to upgrade. Salvage gear used to be some of the best shit in the game. People sat for hours/days/weeks/months/years to obtain these items. What is the difference in VW over the stuff that used to be? People will still do it to get their items. Remember back in the day when we would say "oh wow lets invite so and so because they have this and this to do whatever and they care about their job etc. etc." In the past year we got these new abyssea expansions provided to us to play and to fuck around with. Abyssea is easy, everything involving abyssea is fucking simple, do you really want to play abyssea for the rest of your on ffxi? Do you really want to just surround yourselves with people that have all the same shit you have so you can continue to do easy content? What is the fucking point?!

Oh do you want to do tough shit and get the best stuff every time? Oh you do? Oh well ok, you do that and tell me how long the game keeps your interest. What are you going to do when that well dries up, are you going to turn and bitch some more for more game content? Where does the bitching end? The same people bitching about VW are the same people bitching about abyssea. I think that everybody just needs to take a step back and realize that in some games, some stuff is just going to be harder to obtain. If its close to impossible to get well guess what, you can still get it! Everyone just needs to stop being whiny little assholes and be glad that they are still putting bad ass new relevant gear into the game that they're playing. Abyssea was abyssea, if they want to take the game back outside of abyssea again and make things difficult to get again then thats what is going to happen. Seriously, I beg you to tell me what they are doing so right in the game. Are you going to tell me the EXP situation is acceptable too? Yeah, THEY WERE DOING SUCH A FINE JOB! See I can bitch too, awesome right? Yeah, just deal with it. The game you're playing is fine or else you wouldn't keep coming back to it. Also, you wouldn't be posting such passionate responses about this Tanaka guy regarding how he has conducted this game over the past several years. Some people just need to reserve their nerd rage and take a step back and reconsider what they've been doing on this game over the past year, then alt-tab back to their game and take a look around port jeuno. Everybody and their mother has the same gear, over 9000 kannagis and the same AF3+2 shit. Everybody's shit is the same. Is this where you want the game to remain? Do you really want to keep looking at noobs with the same cookie-cutter gear that you've been farming the fuck out of in abyssea(or whatever new game content they create.) Or do you want to man the fuck up and go spam the easy to access shit they have put in front of you. Is it really that much of a hassle to regenerate those voidstones or to trade that voiddust and grab your friends to go do your stuff? Or would you rather them make it like sea again so you can go chase down Jailer of Faith for a half an hour so you can have a chance at popping 1 retarded NM for an item you want. Take your pick, shit that is worth your time is usually going to be worth your time. If it isn't then stop playing the game. Either way, they will not stop putting rare hard to acquire shit in their game so you might as well just get over yourselves or continue your empyrean weapon hoarding or whatever casual shit you are into.

Abyssea was 3 mini expansions, fuck off already with your casual bullshit crying.

tl;dr poorly written rage

I'm sorry but you're a fucking retard, coming on bg spouting off casual player shit/rage, lol, most people who have posted on these forums for YEARS were/are multiple salvage set owners who weren't retards by duping, had every king drop, lots had multiple relic weapons when the cap was at 75, you can't come on bg dropping the casual line without looking retarded.

I hate to bust your bubble but you look even more stupid coming on here saying "GAMES EZMODE NOW! CASUALS GTFO" when it ALWAYS WAS easy, what was so hard about standing under fafnir's wing blowing him up or blowing Tiamat up with an army of blms when she was in the air, bringing an army of smns to rip through vrtra with a few blms on add control?

I guess you didn't play much back in the day when you killed Fafnir 230+ times trying to get a Ridill only to lose a few claims and have it drop on the days you didn't claim it or how about face rolling Tiamat for a month only to see that glorified fire crystal drop despite having TH4 thf whacking away at it before death.

Before you come calling me casual my LS at 75 cap had 30+ pairs of Herald's gaiters since we were the only LS for almost a year capable of bringing Tiamat down, multiple people capped on king HNM drops, 20+ novio's, shadow rings for all tanks. Most people who post on these forums have "been there, done that" so don't give me that shit about "people want to be spoon-fed with moar abyssea cuz they're casuals"

Bottom line lots of people don't want the old FFXI back. I really pity you if thats the only reason why you even play FFXI to sit around in port jeuno saying "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT THE GEAR!" give me a fucking break.

[Colenzo]

I'm sorry but you're a fucking retard, coming on bg spouting off casual player shit/rage, lol, most people who have posted on these forums for YEARS were/are multiple salvage set owners who weren't retards by duping, had every king drop, lots had multiple relic weapons when the cap was at 75, you can't come on bg dropping the casual line without looking retarded.

I hate to bust your bubble but you look even more stupid coming on here saying "GAMES EZMODE NOW! CASUALS GTFO" when it ALWAYS WAS easy, what was so hard about standing under fafnir's wing blowing him up or blowing Tiamat up with an army of blms when she was in the air, bringing an army of smns to rip through vrtra with a few blms on add control?

I guess you didn't play much back in the day when you killed Fafnir 230+ times trying to get a Ridill only to lose a few claims and have it drop on the days you didn't claim it or how about face rolling Tiamat for a month only to see that glorified fire crystal drop despite having TH4 thf whacking away at it before death.

Before you come calling me casual my LS at 75 cap had 30+ pairs of Herald's gaiters since we were the only LS for almost a year capable of bringing Tiamat down, multiple people capped on king HNM drops, 20+ novio's, shadow rings for all tanks. 1.Most people who post on these forums have "been there, done that" so don't give me that shit about "people want to be spoon-fed with moar abyssea cuz they're casuals"

2.Bottom line lots of people don't want the old FFXI back. I really pity you if thats the only reason why you even play FFXI to sit around in port jeuno saying "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT THE GEAR!" give me a fucking break.

1.Alright, so basically what you're telling me is that they were ok with doing this content to begin with and by playing the game during those times and participating in doing those activities and getting all this shit that they managed to STILL GET THE SHIT.

2.Oh, so you mean to tell me that all this content that you just mentioned doesn't still exist and isn't a total pain in the dick to get? Well then tough guy tell me how easy it is not to get those drings and gaiters and novios are to get still. OPE, looks like you have to still get a 5% drop rate off a mob that you only have a 5% chance of getting(dring.) OPE, looks like tiamat still only pops every few days and doesn't drop gaiters every time. OPE, looks like all the kings are still basically a bitch to farm.

OH?! WHATS THIS!? ABYSSEA HUH?! STOP THE PRESSES, EVERYBODY GET BUKAKKE'D WITH GEAR AWWW YEAH FEELS SO GOOD AROUND MY DICK GIRL!!! AWWW YEAAAH!

(a few months later after the abyssea expansions are done and pretty much anybody who has been doing abyssea since it came out has what they need from it)

VOIDWATCH, RARE DROP RATES?! WTF IS THIS IN MY FFXI!? NO WAY! WOW ITS LIKE I'M PLAYING THE SAME GAME I HAVE BEEN PLAYING THIS ENTIRE TIME! WOW I THOUGHT THIS GAME WAS GOING TO BE EASY WTF SE!?

Hey, guess what fuckwads, you played the game then and they're still giving you what you want. (Assuming you wanted it in the first place since you obviously farmed so much shit off your precious tiamats etc.) You seriously can't be that upset that there are rare drop rates in your game still. It shouldn't even be an issue as far as I'm concerned. I think if you're seriously bitching about voidwatch then you should have been playing a different game a long time ago. I am not entirely sure if you have ever played any other MMO or even any other final fantasy games out there but each one requires some amount of grinding to be the best. If you don't want to be the best then don't but don't go on children's video game forums and complain about the same shitty drop rates that have been in the game forever. Stuff will be rare and stuff will be common. Remember all those ridills and drings you fought to claim for? You don't have to do that anymore BUT YOU WILL STILL HAVE TO WORK FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE STILL RARE DROP RATES! OMG WHAT IS THE GAME COMING TO!? OH JEEZ, OH BOY!

[Hyan]

Actually, there is a way to make it perfectly comparable. You pay people gil to go in and farm for you, and if the relic you want drops, you enter and get it. So there you go, a 1/17,500 system is the perfect solution.

You still have to be there for the whole time. It's still not even close. Y u suck so much Septimus?

Everyone who is arguing against Hyan missed this, in bold, and this is why you're all beating a dead horse. Hyan has essentialy said that he doesn't mind this type of system; everyone else has said that it is craptastic.

And the reasons for thinking it is craptastic (or, rather, more craptastic than the alternatives) are competely fucking stupid. There's nothing but grass is green syndrome on this forum because nobody has any fucking clue about how this system would actually function in the same environment as the oldschool RNG did. Even Appie's glorious solution turned out to be a sidegrade at best, suited for those who think the game has and will never be fair to them and want an alternative that fucks up everyone else and makes up aim for some retardedly high number instead.

I don't mind the system because unlike the morons here I can actually realize the alternatives they're proposing AREN'T BETTER. For Appie maybe, but his experience is not like with the rest of us.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Lordender confused producer with director, Akihiko Matsui did most certainly assume the role of Director of FFXI(scroll down) in Sept of last year - prior to that the director changed in 2008, my apologizes for being a lazy fucker and not tracking down that link.

thatsthejoke.jpg

That's when Tanaka left the team. Around the time when Matsui became the Producer and replaced him.

[Spira]

err.. correct me if i'm wrong, but Tanaka has been Producer of FFXI all this while. He never left. It was the director change that too place in 2010. From some ogawa i think to Matsui. And then when he left to finetune XIV, the Abyssea director took over..

If anything those are the people most responsible for the shift in direction that XI has seen.. because afaic remember Tanaka never left, so the change was not due primarily on his part.

And so, even tho Matsui is no longer director, we know things aren't going to be the same. Its not like we're going back to some old style, its totally different with a totally different director. And quite clearly so because the developmental process has changed entirely. We have a test server now, communication lines are more open, and the style is different.

People knocking on Voidwatch obviously don't know enough about it, because events aren't made the same. VW isn't Abyssea. Their difficulty levels don't have to be on par, nor their rewards systems. It's like comparing Limbus and CoP dynamis back in the day.

The difficulty of Empyrean weapon trials is also something that should have been expected. Empyrean builders have had their weapons handed to them on a silver platter compared to Relic and Mythic weapons. They're weapons of equivalent status which aren't balanced at current levels, so the road up to 99 is making up for it by adding the gil item component that had always been lacking.

[Karbuncle]

If you look back in this thread, Or in the official forums, You should find a Rep Response saying they "have no intention of reducing the power of Empyreans, But simply making them more difficult to upgrade, in the end it should balance out" or something to that extent.

They said they were going to make Empyreans harder to obtain, and relics easier to upgrade, so the over-all balance of getting them is about equal. At this point, I think they've done a pretty good job at that. I might even put Empyrean 95 being harder to get than Relic 95's start to finish. Especially with how great CoP Dynamis has made farming currency, and how abundant currency is because of this.

For the record, I'm assuming all this bitching is about low drop rates in voidwatch and the difficult of upgrading Empyreans/stuff to 95 because of the low drop rates in Voidwatch. If its not, You can ignore this.

[Lordender]

If you look back in this thread, Or in the official forums, You should find a Rep Response saying they "have no intention of reducing the power of Empyreans, But simply making them more difficult to upgrade, in the end it should balance out" or something to that extent.

They said they were going to make Empyreans harder to obtain, and relics easier to upgrade, so the over-all balance of getting them is about equal. At this point, I think they've done a pretty good job at that. I might even put Empyrean 95 being harder to get than Relic 95's start to finish. Especially with how great CoP Dynamis has made farming currency, and how abundant currency is because of this.

For the record, I'm assuming all this bitching is about low drop rates in voidwatch and the difficult of upgrading Empyreans/stuff to 95 because of the low drop rates in Voidwatch. If its not, You can ignore this.

I think the bitching is more of where the game is going and how much its starting to represent "old status quo" rather than it just being voidwatch. I don't have many issues with voidwatch, its a fun event when you have enough to do it, I could totally see it being frustrating if you're after a certain drop though or needing those plates. Also the argument about how everyone looks the "same" because of abyssea, you really must have selective memory because everyone looked the same @ 75.

[Spira]

For now Relics are becoming a whole lot easier because its that much easier to farm currency due to level cap increase and hugely increased supply.
The 1500 heavy plates is only considerably hefty now because the event is still new, people are learning strategies and so on..
but if you think its a grindfest, think about how Mythic upgraders must feel. Alex comes from an old event with far less interest, much lower supply and far higher item requirements. Your only source of the item comes from repeating 4 structured instances that are up to 100minute affairs and you can't exactly do it whenever you like.

VW as it is has 6 different 30min battles where the plates drop and altho they drop in far lower quantities if it drops for you, you can be assured your share of it and don't have to worry about others with the same drop goals. Not to mention you also get EXP and Cruor on the side, other pieces of good eq and a handful of items you can actually sell to finance your plate buys.
The system is better off not just in terms of difficulty, but also its in-game socio-economic practicality. The fact that it will get easier in the next level cap raise is just icing on the cake.

[Colenzo]

I think the bitching is more of where the game is going and how much its starting to represent "old status quo" rather than it just being voidwatch. I don't have many issues with voidwatch, its a fun event when you have enough to do it, I could totally see it being frustrating if you're after a certain drop though or needing those plates. Also the argument about how everyone looks the "same" because of abyssea, you really must have selective memory because everyone looked the same @ 75.

Yeah, I guess you're right there but my point is that most of the gear comes from abyssea anyways so its pretty lulz.

[Apelila]

Snip, stuff about alternate systems

To be fair I'm not advocating anything over anything, I'm simply stating that the game as it exists now is infinitely more fun than it has been since TAU came out. I just see people trying to make a point to you when you've already said you like what they are hating. From voidwatch, and from what I've played of it I've liked it. There's no system in the game that has brakes to stop a person from getting lucky their first time in and saying 'go fuck a donkey' to the group.

I can also totally understand the rage towards the devs - Milkman or Bercus, I cant remember which said at one point that they had to submit their questions for the 'interview' ahead of time and that only those questions the dev's cleared would be allowed, with a laundy list of do's and don'ts that read like a prima donna's concert rider.

[Appie]

Now if you were the one getting the short stick which sounds plausible considering you keep mentioning the magical number 200, congrats but I don't give a fuck and certainly would not want this shit forced down my throat because of you. You are a freak of nature and I'll take my 1/1 "chance" over yours because there's no way it would ever happen to me. Just like I will never win in the lottery.

I didn't want alternatives, I wanted alternatives that were BETTER. This is you being butthurt for reasons which 0,0001% of us can relate with. And then there's another bunch of you who are like hell no mate, 1/1 on this bitch.

As always: your mileage may vary. Of course it never happened to you and people didn't start duping in Salv because the RNG was so nice to them (/end sarcasm). I don't consider my system that much better than the RNG, but I do consider it a lesser evil. You disagree, fine, but will you will disagree with anything because you actually love the RNG, Apelila and me already pointed this out. You're one of the Salv masochists, good for you.

Unless you never went 0/200 on anything in which case, ignore the last few sentences.

It's so amazing that you actually are in favor of this mother of all shitty systems. At first I thought "noo, he's just ignoring me" but goddayum. This is the perfect system for people who either feel like they always get the short stick (or they're just cynical dicks) or find pleasure in knowing that the pain will end. Maybe not in my lifetime, but my grandson will surely finish the battle.

Been on both ends of the stick, went 1/1 and went 1/200, both multiple times, I still hate the RNG and actually like shit like Magian Trials, to an extend I might add.