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

[Septimus]

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.

While 2011 wasn't as bad as 2009 content-wise (they really phoned it in expecting us to wait for FFXIV), 2011 hasn't exactly been stellar either.

We have had 4 version updates this year, two of which were minor updates. (To be fair, we probably would have had one more if not for the earthquake.) We were stuck treading water at 90 from last December to September. Battle-wise, they revamped RotZ and CoP Dynamis, Voidwatch,made some improvements to WoE, a few BCNM fights, and made land kings force spawns. For XP, they added Grounds of Valor, auto-repeat books, increased merits, and added new limit breaks for Adventuring Fellows. Item-wise, they added Tatter and Scap Synergy, added stuff to the Porter Moogles, reacquiring ToAU rings, sending certain EX items to mules, mass trading of battle trophies for Heroes zones, and a few stack size adjustments. Oh, and new fishing messages.

But let's face it, they have a skeleton team working on the game and it shows. There is a lot of stuff to do in the game for sure, but doing the same stuff over and over again can get tiring. I ground out all 8 Magian avatar perp staves, have ground out 4 of the damage staves, and was working on the rest. But once I am done with that, am I supposed to grind out the M. Acc staves on both characters? There comes a point where you just become tired of grinding for the sake of having something to do.

The roadmap does look interesting, there isn't a single piece of story involved with it. Not everyone plays the game for story, but some of us enjoy the Final Fantasy titles because we enjoy an encompassing story to our games, in fact, that was one of the selling points of FFXI when it was released. There are monsters attacking, but where are they from and why are they attacking? The story is one of the reasons I am connected to Vana'diel, why I care about the characters, it isn't something that should be excised because their other MMO is a flop.

I hope that they are going to add another full expansion, but I am not holding by breath.But if they do, for the love of Altana, don't drag it out for three years.

WHY CAN'T I SEE QUEEN LEAUTE IN SHADOWREIGN ZONES

Because then they would have to make a new model for her!

[Charismatic]

I wanna know where the fuck my Garrison revamp is.

Eco-warrior 2012, just you wait.

[Rocl]

BRP be proud.

[shepardG]

Hey Rocl, I'll be in London in about 12 hrs, you wanna bullshit FF stuff over a beer?

[Spira]

Lol
I would be pretty hyped about 2012 Eco warrior..

Whilst the roadmap is promising as I stated before, I'm still most disappointed that story/mission aspect was largely ignored this year. And as a mission/story whore, am very disappointed but I hope they announce something big for it soon. Like a full expansion ;0

Also agree that time span for the missions should not be too long. Maybe a year - year and a half should be the max.

[Zag]

This road map looks very promising. I just had a dream about ff11 and I woke up and looked at BG... I havent been on ff11 since the 90 cap and this stuff looks amazing.

finally faster ways to obtain alexandrite. i loved nyzul isle so im glad its revived. expect new level 99 gear to be in the boss floors on the new nyzle floors. Your WSNM WS might come from nyzul as well. expect new level 99 gear from einherjar while getting your ampoules up as well for other level 99 ampoules gear. possibly new abjs for level 99 too in the chest. I predict pouches of alex dropping in nyzul and einherjar.
These new floors will also be used to upgrade mythic from 95-99 I predict.

Then you got limbus, I predict artifact+2 gear and new gear sets from arch omega and arch ultima. Gear is level 99 as well maybe good macro swap gear. also new level 99 gear from H.Q Ancient beastcoins.

Salvage expansion in the roadmap after this one will drop salvage+1 and salvage+2 gear i predict and even more alexandrite.

new KCNMs BCNMs will drop new level 99 scrolls and syenergy mats I predict with the occasional new level 99 weapons with average stats on them.

New voidwatch will drop level 99 gear with ABOVE average stats and will be the gear to go after in these new updates.

WOE will be useless again with synergy mats, new meteor and new scrolls, and magian weapon upgrades for the gimp empyrean versions of the weapon.
-------

Everything good will drop from voidwatch, while einherjar will only have good drops from its last chamber from arch-Odin lol.
They might be asses and have the good melee gear (thf,mnk,bst rng etc) drop from VW, war/drk/pld gear drop from arch odin in einherjar and the good mage equipment drop from nyzul lol.

either way, im looking forward to zerging stuff in einherjar again and climbing up the fun floors in nyzul. I made alot of friends in nyzul and we pulled off some amazing feats... like no white magic on cerb floor 100 and having blue mage heal us to victory while rdm and sch stood there with thumb in ass.

I will be returning for sure. Very good roadmap imo. I wont mind grinding heavy plates if they actually came from a fun place like nyzul isle.... Thats the problem with voidwatch, its boring.

EDIT: I also see them making level 75 relics and level 75 mythics as easy to obtain as level 80 empyreans were. Make currency drop even easier in dynamis with the aoe parties again and add alexandrite everywhere and I can see this happening.

[Rocl]

Hey Rocl, I'll be in London in about 12 hrs, you wanna bullshit FF stuff over a beer?

i have no idea who you are but if you promise not to rape/rob me, sure

[Buffy]

EDIT: I also see them making level 75 relics and level 75 mythics as easy to obtain as level 80 empyreans were. Make currency drop even easier in dynamis with the aoe parties again and add alexandrite everywhere and I can see this happening.

Doubtful, that would make relics far easier overall and fail to achieve their goal of making relics and empy equal difficulty to 99. This has been discussed endlessly in another thread that I can't find atm.

[DNAval]

This road map looks very promising. I just had a dream about ff11 and I woke up and looked at BG... I havent been on ff11 since the 90 cap and this stuff looks amazing.

finally faster ways to obtain alexandrite. i loved nyzul isle so im glad its revived. expect new level 99 gear to be in the boss floors on the new nyzle floors. Your WSNM WS might come from nyzul as well. expect new level 99 gear from einherjar while getting your ampoules up as well for other level 99 ampoules gear. possibly new abjs for level 99 too in the chest. I predict pouches of alex dropping in nyzul and einherjar.
These new floors will also be used to upgrade mythic from 95-99 I predict.

Then you got limbus, I predict artifact+2 gear and new gear sets from arch omega and arch ultima. Gear is level 99 as well maybe good macro swap gear. also new level 99 gear from H.Q Ancient beastcoins.

Salvage expansion in the roadmap after this one will drop salvage+1 and salvage+2 gear i predict and even more alexandrite.

new KCNMs BCNMs will drop new level 99 scrolls and syenergy mats I predict with the occasional new level 99 weapons with average stats on them.

New voidwatch will drop level 99 gear with ABOVE average stats and will be the gear to go after in these new updates.

WOE will be useless again with synergy mats, new meteor and new scrolls, and magian weapon upgrades for the gimp empyrean versions of the weapon.
-------

Everything good will drop from voidwatch, while einherjar will only have good drops from its last chamber from arch-Odin lol.
They might be asses and have the good melee gear (thf,mnk,bst rng etc) drop from VW, war/drk/pld gear drop from arch odin in einherjar and the good mage equipment drop from nyzul lol.

either way, im looking forward to zerging stuff in einherjar again and climbing up the fun floors in nyzul. I made alot of friends in nyzul and we pulled off some amazing feats... like no white magic on cerb floor 100 and having blue mage heal us to victory while rdm and sch stood there with thumb in ass.

I will be returning for sure. Very good roadmap imo. I wont mind grinding heavy plates if they actually came from a fun place like nyzul isle.... Thats the problem with voidwatch, its boring.

EDIT: I also see them making level 75 relics and level 75 mythics as easy to obtain as level 80 empyreans were. Make currency drop even easier in dynamis with the aoe parties again and add alexandrite everywhere and I can see this happening.

Someone woke up very optimistic from their dream, its a shame the reality is much much more harsh than your dream, but keep predicting I like it.

[Toth]

Serious question here:

How many other 9+ year old MMORPGs receive monthly updates with content?

[Septimus]

Serious question here:

How many other 9+ year old MMORPGs receive monthly updates with content?

Everquest gets an expansion pretty much every year and it is older than FFXI. I would like a nice expansion for FFXI.

[Karbuncle]

SE rarely had their priorities straight.

Waiting for their idiocy to run them Bankrupt and another company grab the rights to FF7/etc and make millions of an HD Remake that SE is too stupid to do.

hell, Even if its not needed, the Fanboys would eat it up.

[ronin sparthos]

People are getting tired of SEs infinite remakes strategy in the market - come up with new shit already.

Their error is to kill off XI instead of reinvesting it alongside XIV.

[Septimus]

People are getting tired of SEs infinite remakes strategy in the market - come up with new shit already.

Their error is to kill off XI instead of reinvesting it alongside XIV.

People may say that they are tired of it, but they will still run out and buy the games.

And I don't think that they are intentionally trying to kill FFXI. I honestly think that Hanlon's Razor applies here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[Karbuncle]

People are getting tired of SEs infinite remakes strategy in the market - come up with new shit already.

Their error is to kill off XI instead of reinvesting it alongside XIV.

They have come up with new shit already, problem is, Their New games have sucked hard. All of it minus Deus Ex maybe. I think their problem isn't "not making new shit", its "Making their new shit terrible". Really, Whos bright idea was it in FF13 To make "Main character dying = Instant Game over"... Whats that? Phoenix down? Fuck you.

They just have terrible ideas that shouldn't make it past stage one somehow make it into the final product.

People may say that they are tired of it, but they will still run out and buy the games.

Also this. FF7 Remake, While you may not like the idea, Would like make millions due to its overwhelming fan-base. Even Rehashed, It'd still sell. Look at Nintendo, how many times has Ocarina of time been re-released? And that shit still flies off the shelf each time.

[Toth]

Everquest gets an expansion pretty much every year and it is older than FFXI. I would like a nice expansion for FFXI.

Yeah but 1 year is 12 months and FFXI is getting new stuff every month. I want an expansion pack as much as anyone but I am happy to just see the game keep going.

[Kaisha]

Only the test server is getting new stuff every month, and rightfully should as it would otherwise means they're doing jackshit between the content updates.

[Septimus]

Yeah but 1 year is 12 months and FFXI is getting new stuff every month. I want an expansion pack as much as anyone but I am happy to just see the game keep going.

They don't have to make an expansion to add more story-based missions to the game. They don't even need to make an add-on scenario. Rank 15 already exists for the three cities, then if they don't want to make a new category for Jeuno missions, add it onto RotZ or CoP. New missions for everyone!

[ronin sparthos]

People may say that they are tired of it, but they will still run out and buy the games.

And I don't think that they are intentionally trying to kill FFXI. I honestly think that Hanlon's Razor applies here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

At this point we may as well equate stupidity with malice from SE. They have consistently made dumb decisions left and right with this MMO and then initiated more stupid decisions that nearly killed XIV on launch.

While XIV may one day recover (thanks to money being thrown at it), it's clear that their future for this game is in rehashed content, endless grinds and more PS2 limitations than you can shake a jacaranda log at. Unless they mention killing off consoles, boost to the skeleton dev team, drop a new expansion or rehash more Abyssea the future is bleak.

The barn door is open and the casuals are bolting.

It's pretty much a certainty that a remake of VII would be snapped up like nuggets of gold but it would just paint SE further into the inevitable corner they seem to be heading towards as a company stuck in the past living off old success.

It seems some of the people at SE realize this inevitability and are trying to avoid it but Wada is just trying please the shareholders with profits from remakes rather than establishing a long-term vision for the company while mixing in remakes.

[DNAval]

At this point we may as well equate stupidity with malice from SE. They have consistently made dumb decisions left and right with this MMO and then initiated more stupid decisions that nearly killed XIV on launch.

While XIV may one day recover (thanks to money being thrown at it), it's clear that their future for this game is in rehashed content, endless grinds and more PS2 limitations than you can shake a jacaranda log at. Unless they mention killing off consoles, boost to the skeleton dev team, drop a new expansion or rehash more Abyssea the future is bleak.

The barn door is open and the casuals are bolting.

It's pretty much a certainty that a remake of VII would be snapped up like nuggets of gold but it would just paint SE further into the inevitable corner they seem to be heading towards as a company stuck in the past living off old success.

It seems some of the people at SE realize this inevitability and are trying to avoid it but Wada is just trying please the shareholders with profits from remakes rather than establishing a long-term vision for the company while mixing in remakes.

Yeah I agree I'd buy that shit even if i had to pawn my wife..........