Ladies and Gentlemen. Answers to the Interview....

[Luke]

Does anyone remember the date of the version update that "fixed" Ulli? I know it's been 6months+. I can't do anything but laugh when they say they realize there's a problem with Ulli 6months after the fact.

[Eaglestrike]

Does anyone remember the date of the version update that "fixed" Ulli? I know it's been 6months+. I can't do anything but laugh when they say they realize there's a problem with Ulli 6months after the fact.

Well I know my LS has improved their claim rate of Ulli since that patch. But I also know of a JP LS that buys RMT stones that I recently learned about recently. We've even had 2x Ulli's in one sky run before since that patch...

[Lordwafik]

Does anyone remember the date of the version update that "fixed" Ulli? I know it's been 6months+. I can't do anything but laugh when they say they realize there's a problem with Ulli 6months after the fact.

Well I know my LS has improved their claim rate of Ulli since that patch. But I also know of a JP LS that buys RMT stones that I recently learned about recently. We've even had 2x Ulli's in one sky run before since that patch...

Made it worse on Asura, now instead of camping 1 spot, you have to camp all over the place while the gilsellers fly to ullikimi and provoke. I wish I could fly too!

[Luke]

Does anyone remember the date of the version update that "fixed" Ulli? I know it's been 6months+. I can't do anything but laugh when they say they realize there's a problem with Ulli 6months after the fact.

Well I know my LS has improved their claim rate of Ulli since that patch. But I also know of a JP LS that buys RMT stones that I recently learned about recently. We've even had 2x Ulli's in one sky run before since that patch...

Well either they ninja changed its pop time or you got really lucky. How many people do you make camp Ulli?

Anyway, the date they changed Ulli was 7-24-06 http://www.playonline.com/pcd/update...N1/detail.html

7 and a half months later and it's still an issue.

[Quicklet]

They need to obsolete ridill/ring and they need to do it in a way that isn't a complete botfest or otherwise cockblockable. Salvage was a good start, and this new nyzul assault has potential, but they need to continue pursuing it aggressively because it's already 2 years too late.

The biggest issue with obsoleting Ridill/DRing is that unless they flat out move them to Nyzul, which is the extremely optimistic view, any new "replacement" to Ridill/DRing would just be an excuse for people who already have Ridill/DRing to go "ooo, now I can dual wield / wear two incredibly ridiculous items." If you mean by making equivalent items for other jobs, then I think that's probably a good step to evening the playing field.

And Bercus, I understand you can look at a lot of what they say positively, and some of those things are positive changes and are long overdue, but for many of the other things, a lot of people have put their faith in SE for a long time and always got the short end of the stick. I think it's good that you're doing the interviews but SE needs to get the message that the players want better communication about the game, not vague references to what might or might not happen. You don't have to think of it as negative responses either, you can think of it as constructive criticism to try and get better responses to the next round of questions.

[bercus]

lol... posted this also on zam-forums
Was my last time...
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?f ... m=4;page=1

people need to realize that the main point of FFXI is not endgame. it's storyline

I appreciate your efforts, but I don't think keeping asking about "endgame" is the way to go.

were the first 2 responds lol...
I could give a fuck about storyline right now since Iam up to date everywhere I can.(ZM/COP/TOAU/JOBstorys/BastokRank ok ok not 10 yet) I think they might not realise as well that these questions have been asked by an endgame community and are serious problems.
Do the people from Alla actually go to Sea? Ullikumi? 3 Kings? Limbus? Dynamis? Whatever....

[bercus]

You don't have to think of it as negative responses either, you can think of it as constructive criticism to try and get better responses to the next round of questions.

I will let them know for sure. Like I said I give it one more try.
My personal line where I would stop bothering with Interviews is when they do not fix most stuff till the next Convention. Then it has been over one year and if stuff is not fixed by then (yeah iam 2004 and still want to do old content like Kings/Sky) I know that they are going the wrong way in making the game better. To keep the FF XI playerbase they need to fix old content and make new challenges the same time. Otherwise more people like those who post here will get burned out and move to WoW.
I can say I still love the game and enjoy to play it. My hopes are with this and the next Version Update. And the next Interview.

[Kayos]

But I'm not going to slam my dick in a door for 3 hours a day hoping that we get claim against 30+ bots.

Its funny but you were actually one of the best claimers when you were in our LS lol.

[Lylie]

I appreciate your efforts, but I don't think keeping asking about "endgame" is the way to go.

were the first 2 responds lol...
I could give a fuck about storyline right now since Iam up to date everywhere I can.(ZM/COP/TOAU/JOBstorys/BastokRank ok ok not 10 yet) I think they might not realise as well that these questions have been asked by an endgame community and are serious problems.
Do the people from Alla actually go to Sea? Ullikumi? 3 Kings? Limbus? Dynamis? Whatever....

What is the percentage of people per server, do you think, really give a shit about Sea? Ullikummi? 3 Kings? Or Salvage?

Sure this interview may interest some people on BG (then again, nothing really interesting has been said in the interview...). But don't expect people to give a shit about Endgame, because not everybody does.

[Luke]

Well since the majority of server population has a 70+ job now, I'm willing to bet one of those things affects them in some way.

[Dirian]

People might actually give a shit if it was reasonable to expect to be able to actually do something besides get cockblocked by long spawn times and low claim rates. My linkshell has more or less given up on sky(though we mage a meager at best showing every few weeks to try and farm stuff), not because we don't want to do sky anymore but because its not worth it to go up there and get nothing whatsoever time and again.


All those people that say they don't give a shit about aery because its not worth their time to watch darters for 3 hours and lose claim might suddenly start giving a shit if there was a chance they could actually fight the mob instead of staring at darters for 3 hours.


All those social shells that mostly do nothing might actually do more in FFXI then seasonal events if they thought their time investment might yield meaningful results. As is most of them stick to pop NMs at best and leave aery to the people that either bot, hate themselves, or both.


If you don't give a shit about endgame, is it because you generally aren't interested in any of the content that endgame has to offer, or because all the content thats there is mostly cockblocked by botters/RMT/shitty drop rates?

I have tenatively high hopes for the potential of Nyzul Isle. 6 man fafnir would be reasonably challenging(especially for those who haven't fought fafnir before) while still offering anyone who is capable of actually killing it a chance at the mob.

Anyway, good work Bercus. I'm kinda disappointed in their answers, but thats nothing thats your fault, and maybe this is a babystep in the right direction that will start SE on the path to finally providing some kind of dialogue with their fanbase.

Maybe in the next interview stress that alot of content isn't being consumed, not because the fights are too difficult, but because the chance to actually get to consume that content is so low that its not worth it for a great number of the levle 75 players.

Or ask that if SE feels that the difficulty of an encounter should be indicitive of the potential rewards, then why does fafhogg drop the best items in the game(to this day), while Jorm and Hydra both drop shitty JSE materials.

[Aerin]

I appreciate your efforts, but I don't think keeping asking about "endgame" is the way to go.

were the first 2 responds lol...
I could give a fuck about storyline right now since Iam up to date everywhere I can.(ZM/COP/TOAU/JOBstorys/BastokRank ok ok not 10 yet) I think they might not realise as well that these questions have been asked by an endgame community and are serious problems.
Do the people from Alla actually go to Sea? Ullikumi? 3 Kings? Limbus? Dynamis? Whatever....

What is the percentage of people per server, do you think, really give a shit about Sea? Ullikummi? 3 Kings? Or Salvage?

Sure this interview may interest some people on BG (then again, nothing really interesting has been said in the interview...). But don't expect people to give a shit about Endgame, because not everybody does.

I don't think the point is that we're expecting people to give a shit about endgame, SE is. Didn't they say somewhere that they cared about what their "core" players thought.

As far as how many people per server actually care about endgame, I'd think most people do, just some are more smart/vocal about it, and some care more than others. But to say most just flat out don't give a shit doesn't sound right to me.

[Paegan]

So I ask everyone…. Why are you guys so fucking negative? Do you really think that poop Interviews others make changes more stuff? No. I find the other Interviews I read more useless.

I think most of the negativity comes because of the answers to questions 1, 2, 3. It's just too depressing to think that after all this time they still don't understand the fundamental flaw with Kings, Ulli, and the whole NM claiming system. If they don't understand then it'll never get fixed properly.

It was a good interview and there are some positive points, but that particular part really does annoy a lot of people.

Translate this next time

Next interview, would someone please, for the love of god, just stand up quietly, take off your hat, and tell the developers the 3 fucking kings are broken because of the claim system. If it was part of the design of the game that I can't fight kings because they are botted to shit and require 9 hours a day, they are fucking stupid. Someone grow a pair and just say straight up claiming should not be counted in the difficulty of a monster, nor the rarity of its items. I don't get why they don't understand this or why nobody has brought this up with them.

[Dirian]

Make sure you get emphasis on the JP equivalent of "fucking kings" too.

[bercus]

I appreciate your efforts, but I don't think keeping asking about "endgame" is the way to go.

were the first 2 responds lol...
I could give a fuck about storyline right now since Iam up to date everywhere I can.(ZM/COP/TOAU/JOBstorys/BastokRank ok ok not 10 yet) I think they might not realise as well that these questions have been asked by an endgame community and are serious problems.
Do the people from Alla actually go to Sea? Ullikumi? 3 Kings? Limbus? Dynamis? Whatever....

What is the percentage of people per server, do you think, really give a shit about Sea? Ullikummi? 3 Kings? Or Salvage?

Sure this interview may interest some people on BG (then again, nothing really interesting has been said in the interview...). But don't expect people to give a shit about Endgame, because not everybody does.

Iam sure everyone would give a shit if they would be able to Fight Ullikummi, Have Sea acces and fight Jailers with 100% drops, claim or fight Kings. If Fafnir would be unclaimed cause there is better gear arround or he pops often whatever... Iam sure even Social Linkshells would bother to go there. The reason why we do not do much Sea atm, do not Camp Ulli a lot atm and not Camping 3 Kings atm are the existing Bots and RMT that destroy the game. This could be the same reason many other people do not try it BUT would like to do it.
So yes these are important questions to ask. And according to my friendlist with people I know since the early days I started over 50% are involved in endgame. While other people (rl friends) are on their way to finish their first 75 job and for sure would like to fight Byakkos or Kings or whatever.

[rithridan]

Not that it matters much, but heres a view from a 'not very' endgame player.

Even though I've played roughly about 3 years now, I've only recently found a linkshell in which I comfortably do endgame content with during the times I play (GMT+1). For us most of that endgame content is still sky based because we need the equipment. In regards to challenge, sky doesn't give us much anymore. We can pretty much kill all gods and are trying to do bigger stuff. Now here is where the whole kings part comes in. From what I've read and heard during the time I've played this game, the usual route for linkshells to go is sky>kings>wyrms>bahamutv2.

The problem nowadays is that a new linkshell will have a hard time to do the switch from sky to bigger things. Kings is hardly an option considering they are still wanted and camped by all the big linkshells. You will have a hard enough time claiming them let alone killing them with 50-100 eyes oggling(lagging) at your prey. Instead we have opted to skip those and go straight for a wyrm. Here the next problem is that Taimat (arguably the easiest from what I've heard/read) is also out of the question due to the same reason. So basicly we 'have' to go from sky to Jormungand, which is a huge task.

As a beginning linkshell (without experience) it's incredibly hard to progress in the game where halfway the "experience chain" you get cut off by experienced players farming old and easy (for them) content for it's unreasonably high reward.

[Talint]

If people don't care about sky farming, or sea farming, or general endgame activities...

...then what the hell do they do when they have a job at 75?

[Lylie]

Iam sure everyone would give a shit if they would be able to Fight Ullikummi, Have Sea acces and fight Jailers with 100% drops, claim or fight Kings. If Fafnir would be unclaimed cause there is better gear arround or he pops often whatever... Iam sure even Social Linkshells would bother to go there. The reason why we do not do much Sea atm, do not Camp Ulli a lot atm and not Camping 3 Kings atm are the existing Bots and RMT that destroy the game. This could be the same reason many other people do not try it BUT would like to do it.
So yes these are important questions to ask. And according to my friendlist with people I know since the early days I started over 50% are involved in endgame. While other people (rl friends) are on their way to finish their first 75 job and for sure would like to fight Byakkos or Kings or whatever.

No, you're missing the point. Not everybody wants to spend 3 hours camping stuff (let's assume that they fixed Kings, bots don't exist anymore, and you're sure to get the claim) or in Dynamis, not everybody wants to spend hours in Sky / Sea farming Gods even if it's to get nice gears. And if you seriously think SE will make Abj. or Ridill drop in KS99, fix the bot issue, make so people won't rush to the Aery every 21 hours anymore, then just stop making interview, because all you'll get is this sort of answers.

I'm not saying nobody gives a shit about Endgame, I'm saying some people do, and some don't. I'm not saying either, that your interviews are useless, because they're all nice and possibly make SE developpers think about some stuff, I'm saying stop putting your hopes too high, and thinking every single person in this game gives a shit about Endgame.

If people don't care about sky farming, or sea farming, or general endgame activities...

...then what the hell do they do when they have a job at 75?

Some people actually like to level several jobs to 75, just for the sake of leveling new jobs (sometimes making statics with friends). Some others just like to do what you would consider useless / boring stuff: one of my friend made an LS with her friends, and spends all her time helping newbies with missions, limit breaks, sub job items, etc. Some consider Endgame as getting Sea to do Limbus in small group or just to complete CoP, complete all quests, all missions in the game.

[Luke]

Just because there's a group of people who have no interest in end-game doesn't prove a viable excuse for the end-game that does exist to continue to exist in a broken/non-maintained state.

[BRP]

Most of the game is in pretty good shape; I mean if you think FFXI is truly a bad game, you shouldn't be playing it. That isn't to say it doesn't have its flaws. One of its biggest and obvious flaws comes from its endgame. A lot of what ZAMers want isn't broken. It doesn't matter how many people don't care about the endgame in my opinion, the endgame requires the most fixing because it is the most broken. It wasn't always that way, the economy was a lot worse than the endgame awhile back, but they fixed that.

The other problem is how easy(or a better word: simple) it would be to fix most of the end-game problem kind of shows SE is going out of their way not to fix it.