New Vanafest incoming.

[Michelob]

Yeah, and again, imo the most damning point against RNG reward systems being necessary to prolong the life of content is that people are still doing and loving the shit out of Abyssea, two years later.

I think you views are a bit skewed, here. Most of abyssea content is largely untouched at this point besides Gukumatz and other empyrean related content.

[arus2001]

Many people may be personally done with their own objectives (not everyone wants all emps or +2 everything), but I'll be damned if coaxing said people to help do stuff in Abyssea is a lot easier than trying to round up people for whatever oldschool event. Either way, you're walking shaky ground implying Abyssea sucks because folks have their Emps or AF3 that they wanted when that isn't so much what's keeping people from playing in general. Like I said, some just need to accept content has a general shelf life, and Abyssea wasn't meant to be forever as an intermediary step to 99.

[Michelob]

Many people may be personally done with their own objectives (not everyone wants all emps or +2 everything), but I'll be damned if coaxing said people to help do stuff in Abyssea is a lot easier than trying to round up people for whatever oldschool event. Either way, you're walking shaky ground implying Abyssea sucks because folks have their Emps or AF3 that they wanted when that isn't so much what's keeping people from playing in general. Like I said, some just need to accept content has a general shelf life, and Abyssea wasn't meant to be forever as an intermediary step to 99.

No where did I ever say abyssea sucks. In fact I enjoyed it quite thoroughly for about 6 months. I simply said it had shortcomings in my opinion, like everything else does.

[Kalmado]

As a returning player for a fourth time and changing the way I play this game I'd like to say a few things about what others have expressed their opinions on.

Prior to Abyssea: Content was fun and achievements truly felt earned and respect was garnered from your LS mates, competition, etc. I personally loved/hated HNM. It was fun and exciting while everyone in my LS's were still gearing and every time someone got something they needed we all felt like winners. After being maxed on Fafnir and everyone openly saying how much they hated doing Cerb and Khim, HNM felt like a waste when it was basically leaders demanding we all be there so they could fund relics while we all worked for them. Same went for Dynamis. Only exciting time was Glacier/X and the rare CoP/Tav run.

Abyssea: I had quit before it was introduced and returned at 90 cap. My mind was blown how great things had become. I somewhat felt as if I was not earning my levels, no excitement while exping even at 90, and while I was in a larger "abyssea" LS our "event" nights weren't really that fun. After fully understanding the system and myself and some friends started doing our own thing, it was by far and wide the greatest time I had playing this game. Even if I only had two hours to play for an evening, I knew that I could actually get something accomplished unlike before.

Post Abyssea to VW: After returning yet again, I let my voidstones build before trying it out. In the meantime I leveled, missions, etc etc. I joined a VW shout for Sandy leg and it was mostly with a LS that took me on after I explained I had no idea what I was doing (tyvm Halycon and MrFusion LS of Shiva). It was kind of neat, but I could see doing this with an alliance of pickups being a head/desk event just like joining your average sky or sea ls back in the day, not to mention the drop rates.

I find myself not even caring about any gear introduced with VW because it just doesn't seem "fun". I'd rather farm dynamis by myself, do abyssea with friends, or just level at my pace. I've come to terms that the days of having a full LS (18+) of average to excellent people is gone, except for possibly a few people, and they more than likely wouldn't welcome a part time player just looking for fun into their LS. Thing is, I'm ok with it. Even if all new content from this point on is going to be alliance based, I will more than likely not be involved unless more things change and more strong people band together to create strong LS's again.

As far as comments about mmo players being addicts and ffxi players just going to ffxiv, I am not part of that group and I'm sure there are plenty like me from the FFXI era as we've all aged since beginning our journeys here. As Churchill said, to which I 100% agree, cartoony worlds and carrying weapons 10x bigger than your character do not interest me. For myself, other mmo's do not interest me either. I do not care to p2p another game really again unless you count buying DL stuff for console games. I tried Lineage 2 when it became f2p, but that drove me to come back to ffxi. While many say ffxiv has somewhat turned around, after all of the terrible reviews and majority of the player base saying it's not even playable, I have zero interest in getting it.

[NynJa]

I somewhat felt as if I was not earning my levels, no excitement while exping even at 90

I'm sorry, but what excitement was there lvling from 30-75? Was raping colibris while level syned at 34-39 while you leveled from 34 to 52 exciting? Repeat synced from 52-60 to xp from 52 to 70 on lesser colibri, and then killing greater colibri over and over and over and over. That was fun? I got bored of that very quickly, if you want to talk about monotonous garbage, that takes the cake.

[Pergo]

personally i found the original level up days to be fun (2003 > 2004-2005).

-leveling in 'moon' (ro'maeve). most people probably don't even know what that means.
-doing a chain22/23 in the central ruavitau camp.
-manaburning from 51>75 (robber crabs > krt)

exping on stuff where dispel and a good sc/mb could get you to make 6k/hour, instead of 3.5k/hour. in retrospect, it was awful and a waste of time-- but it felt good.

[scaevola]

I think you views are a bit skewed, here. Most of abyssea content is largely untouched at this point besides Gukumatz and other empyrean related content.

Again, seal shouts say hi, particularly body seals. $$$ farming says hi. People +2 shit, they beat up dolls and worms for untold hours, they yell at pugs until they get 200k cruor an hour at Lake Vunkerl, etc.

The Abyssea zones are alive and well, and more populated individually at all hours of the day than any zone outside of Jeuno. If you want to talk about content people are "done with", talk about Walk of Echoes. Meanwhile, Abyssea has been the focus of the game for two years and I got into a four-way claim fight on something as piddly as Ironclad Executioner like a week ago, so whose view is skewed?

There are very nearly as many, if not more, things to do in Abyssea than the entire level 75 game combined. You just don't notice it, because while you're in there you're actually doing them rather than waiting to get a shot at it.

[NynJa]

Most of abyssea content is largely untouched at this point besides Gukumatz and other empyrean related content.

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103...=1#post5253855

Abyssea is clearly untouched

[Kalmado]

I'm sorry, but what excitement was there lvling from 30-75? Was raping colibris while level syned at 34-39 while you leveled from 34 to 52 exciting? Repeat synced from 52-60 to xp from 52 to 70 on lesser colibri, and then killing greater colibri over and over and over and over. That was fun? I got bored of that very quickly, if you want to talk about monotonous garbage, that takes the cake.

The route you use for an example I never took part of, although I was mainly talking about pre level sync. I did Warrior twice the old fashion way. Once pre ToAU when people would still use Warrior as a tank. My first character dual wielded swords as I was a noob until someone took me under their wing. The second time doing Warrior I had a blast. It was a ton of fun to push 1500+ Raging Rushes w/out 2hr! Same with leveling Thief. I used most of the camps from http://campsitarus.blogspot.com/. Personally I enjoyed Garliage bats and beetles, Wajaom Puks, Mire Marsh Murres, Aydeewa crawlers, Mount Z Crawlers, and my favorite merit camp was Thickets mamools and puks.

[scaevola]

I should expand on it a little bit.

Abyssea is FFXI's level 99 proving ground. It is the ultimate grinding sandbox. It's a collection of zones that were designed in a way to promote low-impact accumulation of XP and money long after you have the gear from them through enough different methods to keep it fresh, or even long after that gear is eclipsed by modest upgrades/sidegrades from other sources. The gear itself is (and will likely remain) good enough to be a starting point for any new job you take up, and gets progressively easier to obtain as you put in more work in Abyssea.

What was the most popular part of ToAU, judging by how much time was invested and the overall effect it had on the playerbase? Colibri. What was the most popular part of WotG by that metric? Campaign. You can sniff at grinding all you like but the fact remains that people really liked it, or were at least engaged with it; even if Abyssea just eventually evolved into punching sand sweepers and crying about Gukumatz, that would still fill a niche evidence from past expansions suggest FFXI sorely needed.

I'm glad we're out of Abyssea for meaningful content and I kind of hope we don't go back, but that's not because I don't think Abyssea is totally great or not what the game needs; I thought Campaign was a great success but was disappointed when it turned out to be the only thing they ever actually did with WotG. If we're ever lucky enough to get another "boxed" (read: digital) expansion, that expansion will not need to have colibris or Campaign, and can be evaluated purely on actual content rather than more efficient ways to grind.

[Draylo]

God I hate these threads, rose tinted goggles and doomsday prophets all in one place.

[Michelob]

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103...=1#post5253855

Abyssea is clearly untouched

You are misinterpreting what I am saying. My comment does NOT say abyssea is untouched, I said most of abyssea content goes largely untouched. How does showing a shout for people selling spots to afk in abyssea for exp change the fact that over all of the zones more than half of the NMs go untouched regularly. That is the untouched content to which I am referring. Yes the zone is still used, mainly for exp or people that are new/returning to the game or people making another empyrean. I would find abyssea to be more of a success if nearly all of the content was still being used, that's all. I'm not saying it sucks. I'm not saying it was a failure.

To scaevola, I have been playing quite a bit over the last month since returning from about a 9 month break and on Phoenix, at least, the shouts on a daily basis are nearly 90% for Voidwatch. I see maybe 1-3 shouts a day asking about abyssea content. I realize that is mainly because abyssea content really doesn't require shouting. But I also realize that most abyssea zones have just a small portion of players in them compared to a year ago when you were hard pressed to find abyssea content that wasn't swamped with people and had lines to pop NMs. I think that if drops were not as easy to come by or if they kept creating new content at a fast abyssea-like pace (not likely), then people wouldn't be packing up and leaving for other games like Tera or Diablo 3. Server populations are lower than they have ever been since the merge as far as I can tell. I don't know what other people's linkshells look like but out out of the 25ish people in my linkshell about 5 log in on a normal basis anymore because they are bored. I don't blame them, as I quit logging on myself last summer for the same reason. I don't want to sound like your average "zomg ffxi is dying" poster. I simply think that if abyssea content was done slightly differently, there would be less FFXI players playing different games right now.

Some examples could be Shinryuu. How many people would probably still be shouting for Shinryuu fights if there weren't brews available? What about Rani? What would be the harm in keeping some of those things relevant and remotely challenging?

[scaevola]

It takes a special kind of nuts to say that people are leaving FFXI in droves because of high Abyssea droprates rather than a lack of varied content, and so people are playing D3 and Tera because those, uh, have new shit to do.

DEAR SQUARE ENIX

I SAW LIMBUS IN 2006

REALLY?

(and yeah, people sure love the shit out of those voidwatch droprates!)

((the joke is that might not actually be a joke ))

(((I like FFXI a lot but I often feel that it actively tries to depress me, not through what it asks me to do but how others seem to have no problem with doing it)))

[Michelob]

It takes a special kind of nuts to say that people are leaving FFXI in droves because of high Abyssea droprates rather than a lack of varied content, and so people are playing D3 and Tera because those, uh, have new shit to do.

I did not say people are leaving in droves. I do know that server populations are as low as they have ever been since merging. I don't know why people are playing other games or not logging on; I can only speak for myself. Sure, it could be coincidence that people just happened to take breaks for other games but the people that I know of that are not logging on now are people that had never taken a complete break for another game before. Sure, they are the hardcore types. I personally had never taken a legitimate break from the game before having played basically daily since ps2 release and I found myself completely bored with the game last summer waiting for fun new content. I came back last month so I could try to get the jobs I play and my relics up to 99, but after seeing Voidwatch and how little fun that is I don't know how long it will be until I get bored enough to stop logging on again which is a situation that I had never found myself in before abyssea had given me everything I wanted.

I agree with you that it is likely a lack of content that is driving force behind the current low server populations. I'm not saying that high drop rates are the reason for people leaving but since SE clearly isn't adding new content at a fast pace then giving people everything they want at very high drop rates doesn't give that material as long as a shelf life and as such the more hard core types will likely get bored more quickly.

For me, abyssea was a great time. I just wish it lasted longer for me.

[Therin]

First time posting something substantial in about two years.

I wanted to chime in here some thoughts on what I think that some people in this thread have said correctly and what others are missing. This past week I reactivated my FFXI accounts and my FFXIV account and jumped on both games to see what sort of changes and updates have been made. Now, I will admit, it's only been about 8 months since I've played FFXI and it has been over a year and a half since I played XIV but, in that time, I see XIV to be the much improved game. When I first started playing, it was atrociously terrible - so bad it would take thousands of words just to describe it. It is still pretty bad, but they've improved it by an insanely huge margin. FFXI on the other hand has gotten no better. In fact, it has probably gotten worse, simply because more people have left the game.

I'll start with a list of a few simple things that I think are killing or have already killed FFXI. I'm of the opinion that Abyssea ruined the game. Now, before you write off what I'm saying, let me explain myself. It's not that the content was too easy. It's not that the gear was too good. It's not that the time sinks of Empyrean weapons were too annoying. It's simply that SE rewrote what FFXI had been for 7-8 years and tried to make it into a different kind of game, and then refused to follow up on the new blueprints they had given us. If I had to pen an illustration, this is what I would say: In 2008-2009, the FFXI playerbase was dying of thirst. What we needed were meaningful updates that helped bring the game back to its former glory. What SE needed to do was hook an IV up to our figurative wrists and start to pump fluids back into us. What SE did instead was dump the entire Atlantic Ocean on our heads all at once. We were overwhelmed with what was nearly a complete revamp on the end-game system and once it was gone, the development team ceased to keep the updates rolling in. We loved what we got - briefly - but now we're gasping for more.

Think back to when FFXI was most successful. It was the time between the end of CoP and the late portions of ToAU. The hardcore spent most of their time on kings and other HNMs, but even the more casual players were doing Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul Isle, Salvage and Einherjar (a small digression: Salvage was problematic because it was SUCH a grindfest that when people found exploits they abused the hell out of them and consequently got half of end-game banned). It was the release of new maps, new battle systems, new missions and easy mid-level content that kept new and casual players interested and it was end-game's reliance on not over-simplifying itself and making everything obsolete that kept the hardcore players addicted. WoTG thrived at first because it released new maps. People were expecting more of the same success that we got from ToAU (minus the Salvage bans) but instead they got a pathetic Campaign system that took years to slowly transform into a decent system and a horrible selection of end-game content (let's face it - there was virtually NO end-game WoTG content to speak of short of a pair of HNMs that were monopolized by one or two linkshells per server). SE should have known what worked because they did it right with ToAU (and to a small extent CoP) but instead they did something completely different and the result was just terrible.

Next came Abyssea. It rewrote the book yet again. End-game was simplified, nearly all of the content that had been implemented in 7 years before was made obsolete and leveling was turned into a joke. The only thing WoTG was good for was leveling jobs in Campaign and now that would take a hundred years compared to an Abyssea EXP fest. We all have mixed feelings about Abyssea. I hated it because it felt fake to me, with the atma and procs. It took the game's mechanics which I loved and turned them into gimmicks. Yes, you needed a variety of jobs but not because they were actually useful - just because you needed them to cast the right spell at the right time or use the right WS. But I digress - that's not the point of my post. What is the point of my post is that SE took a whole new direction with the game yet AGAIN, which didn't work with WoTG, and yet the expected it to work this time. And maybe it COULD have worked. Abyssea was a pretty unique and fresh look at the game. Maybe it was a viable plan, but instead of following up on the new blueprint that Abyssea gave us, we went back to the stone age with the content that followed.

What this game needs (or needed, since it may be too late now) is a selection of new maps with easy content that is still rewarding (ala Abyssea) for the casual players and extremely difficult (but hopefully not tedious, like Salvage) content for the hardcore players. The rewards from the easy content should match the difficulty of the content. They should be small upgrades or sidegrades to what is currently available - perhaps pieces that replace some harder to get items from earlier content - but the REALLY hardcore items, like relics, should only be replaced with equally hardcore NEW items. Something important should have been the reliance on team play. I realize that linkshells and groups were getting smaller as the game became older but that was a byproduct of people leaving the game. If people had never left, we could still have 30-person linkshells that can field a full alliance for an event once or twice a week. And even if you did want to scale down the big events, which would be fine, there's nothing wrong with making content that requires 6-10 people rather than making everything something than can be done by 1-3. Isn't the point of an MMORPG to cooperate with others? Abyssea was mostly, "Oh, you can't find any people to help you? That sucks. Buy and/or make a WHM account and level NIN/THF/MNK/DNC/etc on your main."

As for XIV, I don't understand how SE fucked it up so badly. They had a winning formula with FFXI. All they needed to do was come up with a decent story for the people who enjoy it, make a slew of new areas, update the graphics and add tons of new types of content and systems. The core game should have been virtually the same. Instead they gave us a terrible UI, clunky targeting and awkward battle system that is some sort of fucked up hybrid of FFXI and more action-oriented MMOs and quite literally THE WORST crafting system ever implemented into a game. Then again, when you look at the trends set up by SE's recent single player RPGs (FFXII, XIII and XIII-2) which raped the form of an RPG rather than evolving and refining it, I guess it makes sense.

Just a few thoughts from someone who pretty much grew up with this game starting in 2003...

[NynJa]

What was the most popular part of ToAU, judging by how much time was invested and the overall effect it had on the playerbase? Colibri. What was the most popular part of WotG by that metric? Campaign.

You mean to say the content that was available to partake in 24/7(colibri) as opposed to 100 minutes a day(salvage) was the most popular thing?

WotG offered nothing out of campaign. ANNM was fucking garbage, the beastmen lair BCNMs (farm 8 boxes) were pretty much useless, plucking wings and the other 2 wer pretty good except for the fact you could campaign all day saturday in oz/davoi, go to sleep and find that one of the other areas fell to beastmen fucking u over, same with fiat lux, requiring a 48 hour effort from half your server.

[Michelob]

You mean to say the content that was available to partake in 24/7(colibri) as opposed to 100 minutes a day(salvage) was the most popular thing?

WotG offered nothing out of campaign. ANNM was fucking garbage, the beastmen lair BCNMs (farm 8 boxes) were pretty much useless, plucking wings and the other 2 wer pretty good except for the fact you could campaign all day saturday in oz/davoi, go to sleep and find that one of the other areas fell to beastmen fucking u over, same with fiat lux, requiring a 48 hour effort from half your server.

I second all of this. I avoided essentially all WotG content bar DI/SW like the plague and likewise merit parties were always my last option and only when I really needed it. More times than not I'd get my merits soloing on BLM despite being much slower because I found it more fun than merit parties.

[NynJa]

How does showing a shout for people selling spots to afk in abyssea for exp change the fact that over all of the zones more than half of the NMs go untouched regularly.

Turns out some of the JP text broke the spoiler tag and there wasnt as many abyssea shouts in there as I was expecting, I pasted that log in a discussion about how VW drop rates are ok since you can do it all day. But I've seen more abyssea shouts lately for content completion over VW shouts...usually around NA evening.

[Septimus]

Seems the Vanafest site went live.

Rukkirii isn't a bad looking individual :D

Looks like Camate has been hitting the gym. And it agrees with him.

[Gwynplaine]

Looks like Camate has been hitting the gym. And it agrees with him.

Devon's a hotty. Like an attractive version of Adam Sessler. And Matt has nice tits. <3