FINAL FANTASY XI Roadmap for October 2011 – March 2012 (10/20/2011)

[Raen Ryong]

How much is enough then? If Last stand and dungeon crawling (2 possible end game events), updates to limbus, nyzul and einherjar (more floors/chambers), isn't enough in 6 months.. then I just don't know what is.

To be perfectly honest, that's a ridiculously low amount of content for 6 months. Ridiculously low. If you play other MMOs, you'll see in stark detail just how low it truly is.

[Draylo]

ITT: Bitter people who are bitter.

[orson]

To be perfectly honest, that's a ridiculously low amount of content for 6 months. Ridiculously low. If you play other MMOs, you'll see in stark detail just how low it truly is.

The biggest problem is the general lack of new areas to explore and new story lines. If it wasn't for the lack of that it wouldn't really be to far behind. At this point I'm still glad to see them adding a lot of new battle content. I have to agree the amount of development done for this game is some what abysmal but at least they are still putting in fun fights.

As to everyone saying, "Oh, FFXI isn't dead." Well ya, FFXI will keep going as long as it's making money which at this point is stupid easy to do because they are spending the minimal amount on development, customer service and server equipment. The thing is FFXI is on the decline I'd guess there was a small boost of subscriptions due to Abyssea but honestly after that people have continued to play less and less. It's not to knock the game and say it's gotten worse (it's gotten significantly better.) We have to face the facts though that FFXI is aging fast and lack of truly "new" content isn't helping. People are moving on and that'll make it harder for larger manned stuff like VWNMs to be a really huge hit. Also if it wasn't for people maintaining their friends' or their own dual/trio boxes characters I'd bet FFXI would be at least 25-30% down on subscriptions.

[ronin sparthos]

The biggest problem is SE has thrown away storyline content and any sense of new areas opening up.

Voidwatch is summed up as "shit's coming out of a vortex, do something!" and the battles have no meaning behind them meaning they wind up being bland kills with no overarching goal. Immersion? SE is clearly just phoning it in at this point. Even kids playing with action figures put some kinda story behind battles.

If this is the future of XI then the game is going to crash and burn as people one by one drop off. At this point as much as I hate to admit it, they probably would be doing better releasing 3 zones of Abyssea till the game caves if the new content is going to be this bad.

At least Abyssea had a loose storyline.

[NynJa]

Its about time they let us join Jeuno if we've gotten the 3 nations at rank 10. Something like "You've shown your neutrality by assisting all the great nations" You are made an official emissary for the Duchy. Make the quests trying to prevent a hostile takeover by one of the cites, or be an ambassador to the beastmen. Or maybe researching vanished/dying mobs (porrogo, sanghin). Tie it in with Aht Urghan. You are no longer a mercenary trying to bring them together, but an official with real power. Give me a few days and I'm sure I could come up with something real.

And then what happens to the old story lines where no one remembers you 20 years down the line and you seemingly havent aged? afaik, you dont really interact with any crucial present time storyline characters, I'm probably wrong though.

I've only done windurst, and while theres mentions of shantotto, you dont really talk to her, and she pays no attention to you (and it would be her maneurisms to not even care about you), the ones you do interact with sufficiently die off.I dont remember interracting with the star sibyl either often enough.

[orson]

There's way more obvious storylines that they could add. Far East would be a good place to start. The other most obvious storyline is that Tavnazia has yet to be retaken. This was something that the CG opening foreshadowed and personally it's one of the biggest things in storyline that's missing for me. I would pay sooo much money to get even just a small expansion continuing CoP that rejoined us with Prishe, Aldo, and others to retake it.

[Darkdreamer]

Sadly with all these changes FFXI looks more interesting that a lot of the MMO's out there. Sadly I haven't played in like almost 3 years and I tossed all my old account info and keycode thing and I have no desire to start from scratch.

[Draylo]

Sadly with all these changes FFXI looks more interesting that a lot of the MMO's out there. Sadly I haven't played in like almost 3 years and I tossed all my old account info and keycode thing and I have no desire to start from scratch.

It's extremely easy to start over now.

[TacoTaru]

Well adding those mobs to VW and making Last Stand the crystal zone killed my hopes of a new expansion :/. Guess now that XIV is actually interesting I'll allocate my money to there unless some really good, fresh content ends up in XI that isn't trying to redo Abyssea over and over again.

[Lordender]

The biggest problem is SE has thrown away storyline content and any sense of new areas opening up.

Voidwatch is summed up as "shit's coming out of a vortex, do something!" and the battles have no meaning behind them meaning they wind up being bland kills with no overarching goal. Immersion? SE is clearly just phoning it in at this point. Even kids playing with action figures put some kinda story behind battles.

If this is the future of XI then the game is going to crash and burn as people one by one drop off. At this point as much as I hate to admit it, they probably would be doing better releasing 3 zones of Abyssea till the game caves if the new content is going to be this bad.

At least Abyssea had a loose storyline.

They are phoning it in with XI, to be perfectly honest I laughed so hard at that roadmap because of all the shit that is releasing between dec 20th and 2nd qtr of 2012 is going to be far superior to all that shit. You really have to step back and say wow, thats pretty bad knowing all these epic games are just around the corner.

I just love how everyone has valid complaints over voidwatch, its all been documented, beat to death and SE's response is "we'll have better drop rates in later tiers!" which is basically saying "we might fix some of the problem 4 months down the line, stay tuned!" Just about every complaint about the system has been valid complaints, not just people trolling or hating to hate.

I also love how rdm's want to be useful again and they give them temper, rofl, so fail. Why don't they revamp shit that really needs a revamp like the whole skill system, redo enfeeble magic so RDM can be, you know, RDM again? how about fixing some of those fucking annoying things that have been around forever like having to click 42 times to do something simple, there is a whole list of things someone posted on the official forums about all the annoying things that need to be addressed.

I think people are getting tired of the revamping and the proc systems that will probably find itself into every major content addition. A system is a bad system when you have to bribe people into doing it which is what they fucking did with the HMP's. I also agree that story content is needed, I mean the Far East should have been done, we've only heard about the place for years.

[Septimus]

There's way more obvious storylines that they could add. Far East would be a good place to start. The other most obvious storyline is that Tavnazia has yet to be retaken. This was something that the CG opening foreshadowed and personally it's one of the biggest things in storyline that's missing for me. I would pay sooo much money to get even just a small expansion continuing CoP that rejoined us with Prishe, Aldo, and others to retake it.

You don't even have to go to the Far East to make new storylines or even add in new zones, there is plenty of stuff in the middle-lands that could be fleshed out...

Spoiler: show

* Bastok: How does reincarnation for the Galkas work? Is it because the Al'Taieu mother crystal is out of phase with Vana'diel, because of Phoenix's disassembled state, some combination of the two, or something else? Now that Selh'teus has merged with Phoenix and Al'Taieu has come slightly back into phase with Vana'diel, what are the potential ramifications?
* San d'Oria: The Papsque had Rainemard killed, and most likely had a hand in Queen Leaute's death. Will he ever have any comeuppance?
* Windurst: Fenrir is back, but he is severely weakened. It certainly cannot bode well for the Federation to have a weakened guardian. Ajido-Marujido was smart enough to stop Fenrir, but his he smart enough to restore him?
* Jeuno: The Armathrwn Society (besides Esha'ntarl) cannot possibly be pleased that we killed Kam'lanaut and Eald'narche. A secret as huge as the leader of the most powerful nation in Vana'diel being killed while attempting to destroy the world can't possibly be contained forever. When this secret comes out, how are we (the adventurers) going to prevent shit from hitting the fan.

That's just off of the top of my head. If they are having trouble coming up with story ideas, we have a place to refresh their memories about dangling plots.

[shepardG]

Oh septimus, I can't afford/ don't have time/ would lose my job wife, if they acted on 1 or 2 of those. Because I would have to play 11 and 14 ><

[Spira]

I don't necessarily agree that XI is shallow on content this year. Perhaps in relation to other MMOs out there.. but there really isn't a yardstick to compare different games that way. There is a ton of things to do in FFXI whether you count just the regular update additions or start from the very beginning. Fact of the matter is nobody cares to do everything, so they only pick at what they think is worth doing for them, and then complain that there isn't very much.

Unrealistic example: If you chose to take of a mythic, relic and empyrean weapon for just 1 job. You'd have so much 'old content' to go thru before you can even get to the new ones.

It isn't just quantity but also quality and replay value at hand here. Abyssea nailed it on all 3 counts, which is why even though you might have everything you need from there, you can still go in and find more to do for some other purpose. Excellent events in the past are like Nyzul for its amazing replay value and say ZNM for the quality of the fights (back in 75 days). Its a good thing that they're reviving old events such as those mentioned because they used to able to provide quality in those areas and generally aren't that bad for replay value except people had no reason to go back + it got too easy.

Anyway, my point is.. 2011 isn't a bad year in XI. There's a lot of content and VW isn't a bad system - very inclusive and repeatable. I think the drop rates are fine since you can just spam the NM you want instead of like working your way up the ladder for traditional pop systems. I still remember being pleasantly surprised that Abyssite tiers are kept in VW.

If you really wanna see a bad year, 2009 woulda been it. There was virtually nothing to do there. The only thing they had on 2011 was missions. The good ones, you couldn't repeat, but the sub-par add-on ones you could. Still there wasn't much replay in there.

2011 was supposed to be their get-to-99 and rebalance the game year.. and things are actually looking on track. They've successfully revived a lot of old areas, especially with the inclusion of GoV. Even Dynamis itself has never been more popular.

If this roadmap is anything to go by, then 2012 should be better.. because they've laid the groundwork for renewing the game. The last thing they really need is a new expansion whereby players would only flock there and effectively ignore the rest of the entire game (which was exactly what happened with Abyssea). But now that the 2011 changes are in place, its a lot more feasible for that. And also more missions, hopefully.

I look forward to great things in 2012. It's the 10th anniversary - knowing SE, I expect there to be something big in the works that they're keeping under wraps.

[Appie]

I can't wait until I "forget" to add crysta to my account. :D (Weren't they going to FUCKING FIX THIS? WHY HAVE THEY NOT FIXED THIS YET. WHY. Also, where the fuck is that fucking favorite atma menu stuff they promised)

Truth be told, I already "forgot" it. And with that I mean: SE's stupid call to make it my decision now. If they kept shit automated, I would have still be paying, but not playing (busy playing other games that come out these months and FFXI sorta boring atm). Should have fixed your payment shit sooner SE for free money! No idea now when I feel like adding crysta again. I bet they will add the new payment options when FFXIV beta 2 goes P2P in nov/dec.

[Rocl]

WHY CAN'T I SEE QUEEN LEAUTE IN SHADOWREIGN ZONES

[Cail]

All this "oh theres so much to do" is bs. There's so much to do if you're just starting or havent played that long or just came back. If you've been playing since 2004 (like i was), you dont wanna still be doing dynamis/etc 6-8yrs later. you don't wanna do salvage+nyzul+assaults 4-6yrs later (i forget when it came out).

[Spira]

and NMs first came out in 2003. people still do them.

the concept may be old but there is new content in the revived events. just that no one really bothers with it.

your old/new argument is BS, because the real thing that makes people not want to do it is player perception - and theres only so much SE can do to change it.
whats more funny though, is that after Dynamis was overhauled, the people who do it focus mainly on the content that has always been there (but made more accessible/lowman) and none of the truly new stuff.

I've been playing since 2004 too. but there is a ton I haven't done because I chose not to do it. Especially true for quests - theres a whole bunch of them which amounts to a wealth of content and some good rewards (eg spell scrolls). Everyone has content they knowingly choose not to do, but when you do that then you pretty much waive away your right to complain.

I'm not saying that they couldn't do more for content, but unless you're a player with all missions and quests done, all jobs and crafts leveled to their various caps, fully merited, fellow at cap, all events completed and all NM titles collected, you've certainly not run out of things to do.
And i know most people aren't like that.. because you know.. they have lives outside of the game and will skip what they can.

[6souls]

Spoiler: show

* Jeuno: The Armathrwn Society (besides Esha'ntarl) cannot possibly be pleased that we killed Kam'lanaut and Eald'narche. A secret as huge as the leader of the most powerful nation in Vana'diel being killed while attempting to destroy the world can't possibly be contained forever. When this secret comes out, how are we (the adventurers) going to prevent shit from hitting the fan.

Spoiler: show

In the CS in Jeuno for the Jeuno leg of Voidwatch, they seem to have something sinister planned. I don't know what the past CS shows, but this may tie somewhat into that.

Now that the Ace's set is out, I think we deserve a quest based are the misadventures of Ace.

[vagus]

Revamp to Nyzul Isle excites me. As much as I hate doing random shit with people, it is entertaining.

[shepardG]

I think the vast majority of folks pick and chose what to participate in because the fundamental social aspects of 11 are old and have never been addressed. Shouting in a zone for participants should be a last resort, whereas it has always been the way to accomplish things in this game.

I'm all about having a good LS that can finish any sort of end game content but that should not be a persons sole means to accomplish missions, quests,voidwatch, bcnm, etc. And shouting for hours is just silly.