Questions to SE- November (latest email on page 23)

[solsovly]

Huh? We're capped on Zilart content. Sky isnt needed at all except for 3rd/4th jobs, M.Body is freelot, E.Body is on Bsts, handful of A.Bodys needed for multi-job rdms. Ridills always welcome. All non-xarca AF freelot, shadow mantles capped out though we still havent gotten a ring. Working on Relic #3.

The only thing that keeps us sane is CoP content, if you can call it that. 1/x on AV and it didnt lock after 20+ sets of wynavs. Countless Tiamats. Hell, we even did Tiamat->Vrtra->Jorm one day just to give us a little but of excitement. Boy, that m.pole certainly raised our spirits. (Limbus is great, and in my opinion the games only real saving grace at this point until they add some better fights/drops from higher tiered assaults.)

Seriously. Boohoo all we get are ebodies, mbodies, and dalmaticas, what kind of content is this?! How about you just stop fucking camping instead of being one of those gay ls's that manequins good gear.

Because we still need certain rare drops from all those hnm, and theres no reason to move on because theres no other worthwhile content available? And we're definately not to the point where King Bodies are on mannequins, though thats probably a situation with various other LS's across servers.

Dont put words in my mouth. You cant dispute the fact that another tier of content would open up Zilart content to people without the majority of it, which are probably the people that need it the most.

Do you guys give away abjurations to other friendly shells competing against you?

[yayaok]

they should make a thing so you have 1 out of x chance to get 1 item for 10k, ANY item (rock salt to rain hat[fucking zitah] to eabjbodylol), the x being every single item in ffxi's #

kinda like the random in d2, that shit was cool

[Pacha]

I think those charts are excellent. It might help to include a chart in relation to the equipment progression question to help explain how gear from three years ago is still the best in the game. This chart from a sig (was it rykoshet maybe who had this?) could possibly something to build on:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...rogression.jpg[/img]

[layoneil]

Sure, ISNMs, new Assaults, FROGS. They are adding content, sorry it's not what you like or as much as you like.

if someone quit the game, you think they'd come back to look at the FROGS? what are you smoking?

is there a real purpose to ISNMs other than a 15 minute fight that makes some gil? are there reasons to do any of them more than once? what's the draw to paying $13.00 a month for 45 minutes worth of fights when you're going to quit again after you do them?

So you don't like what's out there? Why are you still playing or even talking about the game then?

i do like what's out there, there just isn't enough of it. i love Fafnir fights, i don't love camping on average 20 hours for each claim.

And the old stuff isn't even worth your time. Again, why do you even play?

cause it's fun when i actually get to do it and newer members in my LS still need a lot of the stuff.

some things are fun, some things are worthwhile, SE made most of that separate and that's where their biggest flaw is.

Like I said before, once a LS has what they *need* (not e.body for BST) they need to GTFO!

I have most of what i need. my LS had the most epic lost of members in FFXI history (http://www.theorderls.com). more than half of our 3 Kings abjurations have quit, we have 2 active Ridills combined in our 45 man roster with a 3rd on a secondary character, we've lost somewhere around 8-10 of them. there are about as many BG Ridills on RMT'd accounts outside of BG than in it.

my entire server has all of 0 NAs with a Defending Ring.

And I'll say for the 2nd time it's LSes like you who are blocking new ones, it's not SE's fault.

BLMs that killed Nidhogg two years ago still using HQ Elemental Staves is SE's fault. those same BLMs leveling melee jobs to 75 faster than Ridills and E. Bodies drop is also SE's fault.

[Don Katsu]

Ask them why FFXI isn't as popular as WoW and what they would like to do to fix that.

I haven't played WoW but I am curious to see how they would respond to that. My chat linkshell on Alexander lost 15-20 members to WoW in the last month.

[BRP]

There are around 6 million players in WoW, from several countries FFXI doesn't retail. I'm willing to bet a lot, that less than 2.5 million~ people have ever touched FFXI. Most people who like WoW, wouldn't even understand its difference between FFXI aside "you have to party" and "its longer to hit cap". The reason WoW is more popular is because of its lower-level content/build, not the reason endgame FFXI players switch over to it. The question would be pointless and it probably wouldn't even offend the rep at all, as FFXI is still very popular and not dying at all despite what people on this forum like to say.

[Aodh]

WOW = a Toy
FFXI = an Experience

(From what I've interpreted.) WOW is a fun thing to play with but there's not much content/depth to play with for a while. FFXI offers a long game play which is challenging and rich in content, but it starts getting tiring after a while and builds up to a repetitive endgame.

[levish]

Ask them why FFXI isn't as popular as WoW and what they would like to do to fix that.

I haven't played WoW but I am curious to see how they would respond to that. My chat linkshell on Alexander lost 15-20 members to WoW in the last month.

lemme help

Their Response: "blah blah, different market appeal. blah blah blah, different fan base"

Their Thoughts: "man it'd be teh pwn to have that much market penetration"

FF's subscription will never come close to rivaling wow since it's a much less accessible game, better/worse doesn't matter as long as Little Johnny can't fire the game up, get his game on for the 2-3 hours his parents let him play then go to sleep.

2-3 hours is roughly the amount of time a non mage/bard/tank type job needs to go LFP + add in travel time to camp + add in 2-3 hours of actual xping ...

1-2 hours for attendance gathering for Dynamis + 2-3 hours for the actual event + travel time and so on

My opinion is that it's accessibility that plagues FF with respect to why it doesn't have a larger customer base.

[BRP]

Ask them why FFXI isn't as popular as WoW and what they would like to do to fix that.

I haven't played WoW but I am curious to see how they would respond to that. My chat linkshell on Alexander lost 15-20 members to WoW in the last month.

lemme help

Their Response: "blah blah, different market appeal. blah blah blah, different fan base"

Their Thoughts: "man it'd be teh pwn to have that much market penetration"

FF's subscription will never come close to rivaling wow since it's a much less accessible game, better/worse doesn't matter as long as Little Johnny can't fire the game up, get his game on for the 2-3 hours his parents let him play then go to sleep.

2-3 hours is roughly the amount of time a non mage/bard/tank type job needs to go LFP + add in travel time to camp + add in 2-3 hours of actual xping ...

1-2 hours for attendance gathering for Dynamis + 2-3 hours for the actual event + travel time and so on

My opinion is that it's accessibility that plagues FF with respect to why it doesn't have a larger customer base.

And in the end, this isn't what we want. If SE does something for low-levels, people here get pissed because the high-level game needs more attention.

[levish]

And in the end, this isn't what we want. If SE does something for low-levels, people here get pissed because the high-level game needs more attention.

endgame isn't the answer to broad appeal, accessibility is.

what you and I want vs. what would get more people playing are different things.

sure for most of the people on BG endgame content is important but it's not a lack of that content that keeps FFXI from becoming more popular with the rest of the gaming community.

simply "adding something" for low levels would never "fix" accessibility

[Isiolia]

Logically, you would think that FFXI would be designed for any given person who puts the time in to be able to take a job to 75, get some nice stuff for that job...and then turn around and do it all again on a new job. See more of the game, and not give up what we did already.

That's what the job swap system would favor. Making it hard to really deck out *one* job works against that IMO.

I mean, if SE wanted people to just have to do the same things over and over and over again...why let us swap jobs at will? If we had to pick certain races/cities/etc to do a job, like with WoW, that'd force us to do other quests/missions that we may not have done otherwise (lest we lose our outpost warps).

I think the 1-60 stretch or so of the game is pretty good overall. You put in time, and you get rewarded. Seems to me the majority of problems people have with endgame is that you put in time and maybe get something out of it (Damn you, Duke Berith...).

Accessibility IMO would be key. Even if it took a year or so to go get everything for a job...if it was a matter of snagging some friends and just going out to get things *for sure*, like AF sets or limit breaks or whatever, then it'd be a fun year.

[Kimiko]

When will SE drop support for the lolps2? I mean seriously, I think we are all sick and tired of having suggestions for improvements falling on the deaf ears of "PS2 Limitations". It's time for them to move away from an inefficient system that does little more than handicap the game's growth.

[Machazareel]

Ask them why FFXI isn't as popular as WoW and what they would like to do to fix that.

I haven't played WoW but I am curious to see how they would respond to that. My chat linkshell on Alexander lost 15-20 members to WoW in the last month.

Firstly, you don't really get cockblocked by rmt. The best gear is dropped in instanced dungeons and making money is generally quite easy for any player, whether you're level 10 or level 60.

PvP in WoW rapes the living shit out of ballista or Brenner any day of the week. Not to mention, you can actually kill rmt if you're on a pvp server ;o

You're not totally reliant on other players to achieve anything in the game. Lots of things can be done solo. In fact, if you wanted, you could just spend all your time spamming pvp battlegrounds and get very good gear as rewards from that.

There is actually alot of content in the game, there's a myriad of quests, albeit the various types are somewhat limited, there's now a good amount of end-game dungeons that are very clearly tiered. This brings up another strong point, there's actual progression in this game. You raid X place Y times, and then you move on to something more challenging, with better gear waiting for you. Progression!

However, FFXI's combat system is far more refined imo. It's one of the reasons I haven't quit, another being the awesome people in my linkshell and other friends.
FFXI takes a bit more on the concentration side as well, depending on class. That's a good thing imo.

And of course, SE does deliver with the one thing they've always been pretty good at. Storylines.

One thing that I absolutely hate about WoW, though... The noobs in the general channels who feel some need to end every statement with multiple punctuation marks.

HELP ME WITH DM PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CAN U HELP????????????????????????????

I dunno, just seems like there's alot more annoying retards that play WoW, but I guess that's because they also have alot more young people who play it.

And I just noticed this is sort of a FFXI vs. WoW post... but it's not, I love both equally, which makes the bigamy ok![/i]

[Lithiani]

TBH, the PvP is the main turn off I find regarding WoW. I simply dislike PvP, and the PvP-centric nature of WoW spills over to make the PvE rather lacklustre and imbalanced, in my experience.

I'm totally not WoWs target audience though. I have a concentration spam of more than 3 minutes and everything!

[Aodh]

TBH, the PvP is the main turn off I find regarding WoW. I simply dislike PvP, and the PvP-centric nature of WoW spills over to make the PvE rather lacklustre and imbalanced, in my experience.

I'm totally not WoWs target audience though. I have a concentration spam of more than 3 minutes and everything!

I started to read your post but then I noticed a shiney quarter on my desk and I remembered that I put it there to remind me to go buy a pop because I didn't get time earlier when I had a lot of work to do because I was late getting up in the morning because I was playing FFXII last night which I bought on my credit card earlier in the week when I was on my lunch break from work... So yes I like cookies.

[Machazareel]

I thought I hated pvp, couldn't stand being in Ballista Royale ( though the Stars Cap I got is pretty pwn ).

Alterac Valley changed that, though. Combined PvP and PvE action, 40 vs 40 players and can lead to some of the most awesome skirmishes I've ever seen in any MMO

[Lithiani]

It's just the interaction with game balance for PvE makes it a real problem. You can't effectively balance a game for both PvE and PvP (as is shown by both WoW and FFXI, in fairness), and I play MMO games for teamwork, not PvP (mostly)

The only good PvP MMO game was Planetside, because it was pure PvP, no PvE at all. And that stopped being fun when they broke the combat balance and turned it into BFRside. Fuck Sony Online Entertainment, fuck them right in the ear (i'm still bitter about how much they fucked up on SWG as well, despite all of us who had been in since Beta 1 posting, over and again, "don't release, it's not ready..." - and we were proven right)

[layoneil]

When will SE drop support for the lolps2? I mean seriously, I think we are all sick and tired of having suggestions for improvements falling on the deaf ears of "PS2 Limitations". It's time for them to move away from an inefficient system that does little more than handicap the game's growth.

don't think they can, close to half of their playerbase is on PS2.

[Hyjynx]

Didn't bother to read the whole long thread so if it's already been said just ignore me.

Someone just needs to convey how important endgame in general and endgame progression is to a MMO. It's something that S-E has failed to realize over and over again.

Draw your lil pictures and what not showing new "end gamers" and old endgamers bottlenecking @ the very first level of endgame and having no where to really progress after.

I think it's the main issue and if they addressed that then it'd just cascade down through everything, including the kings.

Or maybe it's just a pipe dream.

[BRP]

It's not just item progress. Stuff is too easy. DL, Wyrms, and AV all gave a hard time when they were released, but have been conquered, and once conquered becomes pretty easy. AV is glitch, so I guess that's a special case. Anyway, stuff like DL... you look at it and think, that would be an epic battle, but its just a stun-spam and damage rush that is over in less than 5 minutes, win or lose. Horribly not epic.