Rate SE's FFXI performance in the past year / ToAU Birthday

[Eddie]

Happy Birthday ToAU. Can you believe it's been a YEAR since ToAU was released?

Through the past year much tweaking and adjustments have been done and I haven't heard as much griping and more applauders directed at SE.

Which is always a plus.

Basically, how would you rate SE's performance this past year? Using the good ol' monster toughness as my options.

Too Weak = the lowest, totally displeased.
And of course Impossible to Gauge is a hip hip horray for SE.

[Not Kuno]

VT - Salvage is made of win.

[Grey Jorildyn]

went with EP. that's what they made the game like.

[Elesirdur]

The last 12 months have been pretty good ones for FFXI. Without the March version update that changed Ulli, put high-Gil items as forced-popped NMs, and other goodness I would be quite the letdown. ToAU, while fun, lacked the punch that CoP had. (Whether you think that's a punch in the balls or not, that's up to you.)

Good:
Assaults
Easy XP/Merits
A mission structure that doesn't require millions of Gil to complete
New jobs
Chocobo raising
March update

Bad:
Technical problems with Beseiged
Salvage (It's like Dynamis but less fun, tedious naked punching can take a while, takes more work to get items, and if you're not MNK, NIN, BLM, or PUP then just gtfo - AMAZING game design SE!)
Still not doing enough to fight the gilsellers
Uncompelling and not terribly challanging storyline
Puppetmaster - WTF are you thinking?
Still no reconciling of Abjuration acquisition issues
Sage Sundi still works for SE

[Not Kuno]

Salvage (It's like Dynamis but less fun, tedious naked punching can take a while, takes more work to get items, and if you're not MNK, NIN, BLM, or PUP then just gtfo - AMAZING game design SE!

It's more then that. Thf is always welcome, same with whm and brd. Plus depending on the zone you can bring in any sort of DD and they wont be w/o weapons for too long.

[BRP]

I went with IT. I'm basing it on how much they learned from their mistakes. Now if they can learn from their mistakes from this expansion(Besieged's very poor AC recovery system, semi-exclusiveness in NMs and Salvage, ect), they would be ITG.

[Ryko]

Even match, TOAU's advancement, (assuming that there is in fact a lot left) has been rather slow (rather sure a year after the fact we shouldnt have just 3 decently challenging but laughable HNMs and 2 mediocre activites available to us), Salvage is sluggish and mindnumbing, and limiting activities that lead to the acquisition of gear that lowers the need of doing kings, etc to the same ticket is rather stupid. The worldspawn system coupled with the horrid drop rate of a certain item that in reality isn't all that badass (looks nice, not worth fighting khim 50 times trying to just get one though) makes me wonder why I'm trying to claim any of those mobs on pop aside from the fact that if I don't I wouldn't be fighting much of anything. The economy's all but dead but NPC-governed costs haven't dropped. Sky was uh... switched around a bit, I guess fighting for despot every 2 hours isnt as bad as fighting for an ulli every 4-12+

Some good, some bad, some wtf, a lot of lacking in foresight.

[Eggroll]

Even match from me. Assault and the areas for meriting have been really nice, but most other things seem mediocre to me. Salvage has really nice equipment but it's just too much of a hassel in my opinion. It's nice SE is starting to step in the right direction, but with the last update it seems to me they're starting to make things just to easy to get, taking out some of the luster from the game.

[Scythiroth]

Too weak, but I'm in the process of quitting, so I guess my vote really doesn't matter.

[Hapernack]

Even Match:

-ToAU isn't very gripping... the story developement is about as fast as Aspidechelone with Gravity on and he's walking through a narrow hallway

-Besieged got better, but honestly... why do they keep modifying that when noone really cares that much since there's no way to further yourself through that?

-New HNMs. Khimaira and Cerberus were decent additions to a repetoire of endgame NMs for shells to go after.

-Salvage is a little bit of win and a little bit of lose. Ridiculously hard to get single pieces much less entire sets but if you manage to get the sets, they seem pretty kick-ass.

-Assault was a good addition and was pretty revolutionary. The Nyzul Isle addition was also pretty kick-ass of them.

-Chocobo Racing is lol, as is raising your own bird... I still rent them half the time just to save charges.

-They didn't add much if anything to endgame which really needed to be done.

-New Exp areas made getting exp and merits even easier and pretty much destroyed the hierarchy and balance of exp/merits they had created. Win/Loss here.

-Whitegate is still incomplete a year after we all stuck it on our systems... SE is slacking.

[Therin]

T - Lots of good moves in the right direction, but overall slightly disappointing in the area of progression. Khimaira and Cerberus were good moves (compared to the CoP wyrms) though they should have had more variable drops to add along with the 100% stuff (maybe more craftables to help the banks a bit). Salvage was good but could definitely use some improvements. Assaults and Nyzul Isle, on the other hand, was a massive step in the right direction, though they could also be improved by less variable ??? items and stronger point items (most of the Assault items are useless, with few exceptions).

Yeah, I give it a T.

[Epical]

Went with Tough, for random reasons stated above.

[Kaylia]

Too weak. This expansion was probably my last one.

Graphic: I thought CoP area were looking much better. Sky was also impressive. There is still nice scenary here and there, but I was expecting a little more

Story: Too easy. Beside that, cutscene are interesting, but they are stretching it way too much..should give at least twice as much content every updates.

Content: I supose cerb and khim are fine, but they could make them so much better. Assault is fun, but a slightly superior drop rate on "??? item" wouldnt hurt. Salvages and Nyzul imo would need some tweaking to become interesting, until then, they are shitty.

Gears: Same as always...90% is downgrade, 8% is macro gear and 2% is new worthwhile gear

Other: they did add some nice thing like Moglocker, summoning chocobo (the whistle only), better xp camp, signet, teleport jeuno/city, teleport to sky, but in the end, it's stuff that should have been added years ago.

[Metah]

IT. I love this expansion.

[LD]

If you really think about it, it's been better than COP and ROZ, and it fixed the problems of the last two.
The only thing anyone can reasonably complain about is its speed.

[Tirrock]

I'm disappointed in some of their updates in the last year, but I like other parts about as much. I'm not overly fond of nyzul isle. It's fun, but I was hoping for the HNMs to drop something better. The expansion seems so small too. Although some of the zones are just massive, a lot of areas in a zone are unused, unless somebody is trying to get to a staging point. The hardest part of the missions seems to be finding some people who still care about the missions. CoP may have been difficult, but at least I felt a sense of accomplishment when I watched that cutscene on the cliff overlooking tavnazia. I would have liked to have seen them fix ground god camping too.

Gilseller bannings are nice, but they need to ban more of them at once, do it more frequently, or find a way to keep them out for good. (Or any combination of all three.) Ulli and other NMs being turned into poppable NMs was definitely a step in the right direction, I think. As was turning some drops into rare/ex while offering normal versions in BCNMS.

I like the assaults though. Abjuration-alternative gear is welcome. BLU and COR are interesting at least. The ton of hMP items in existance now is really nice. New exp zones from ~54 on is nice, even if they are overused. Some of the new gear is hit or miss, but at least the level 55 stuff isn't bad.

I went with even match. I chose it largely because it actually seems possible for SE to fix some problems of their game, rather than ignoring the playerbase for years. Despite being disappointed in more updates than being happy about them, being able to not just assume things will get worse with each update is rather nice.

Edit: If I had remembered signet changes and mog locker, I probably would have given it T, just because I like those two updates a lot.

[Xanthu]

Don't everyone forget about the Walhara Turban. This must-have piece was there from the start and was(is) reasonably attainable.

Voted VT, just cuz that's what my gut told me. I like that they're moving the idea of "end game" away from staring at darters.

[Beckwin]

I went with VT.

-They've fixed a lot of stuff. Yes, the stuff was long overdue to be fixed and we probably take the fixes for granted because of how overdue they were, but it still happened this year. More storage, signet buff, some nice RMT nerfs, etc.

-Assault/Nyzul is great. It's the Limbus of ToAU, I guess. Nice gear, small groups, money making opportunities, and some unique scenarios. Just please get rid of the order lamp floors.

-3 new HNM. Aside from Hydra's loot pool totally sucking balls and the other two still being weaker than midlands HNM, I like what SE has done. Algol is nice, Cerb Mantle is nice, Hades Sainti are nice, Hautclaire is nice epeen I guess, Seveneyes is a kinda neat macro piece. Above all the fights are actually pretty fun and a change of pace from previous HNM encounters.

-Salvage: Good concept, good rewards. Needs work on not being so restrictive. The entrance requirement kinda nerfs player opportunity in standard Assault/Nyzul, which kinda sucks. The initial pathos raping is obnoxious, and more experienced Salvagers than myself have reported a couple zones having some serious flaws.

-Besieged: Fun but inconvenient. When you're in the mood for it, all the enemies are at lvl 0; when you're out xping the candescense gets taken. Initially had huge lag problems but things seem to be better now, and the temp items + other fixes have shaped it up overall. Still a cool concept and a nice time killer when you find yourself standing in whitegate/dry-humping your moogle.

-Chocobos: a neat diversion if thats your thing. It's not mine, but hey.

-Assorted stuff: gambling game, ashu talif, ISNMs, IS purchases, quests, quick way to sky, etc- all pretty awesome. Little things that don't get much consideration but I think are really nice.

[Mertron]

Voted T, I like the expansion but I'm in the group of people who find nyzul and salvage to be lame. Assault is fun though.

and

If you really think about it, it's been better than COP and ROZ, and it fixed the problems of the last two.

Eh? 100+ for day one fafnir at 1 a.m. and AV still being a big ball of murder doesnt say "fixed" to me. Making virtues drop 100 percent and cracking down on some RMT NM's was nice but hardly a full fix.

Also, why is Khimaira a good addition again?

[Sigi]

For all the fixes that people have mentioned, I rated them EP for these reasons:

They still do not address technical issues in a timely matter.
Even then, the first course of action is to blame the user/user's connection.

- still have a disconnect at precisely 11:38:45 PM EDST... using more than one method of connecting (different ISP, wired v. wi-fi, loldialup)
- Anyone remember the deadzones that lasted for over a week? Yeah.
- People are still having massive issues... like random disconnects

RMT are still around... I mean, comeon... COCKROACHES aren't as tenacious.

- Lack of STFU follow-up with normal players reporting blatant RMT action

Lack of customer service:

- Incompetent tech support
- Severe lack of GM presence (yes, this counts under customer service)
- Inadequate problem resolution time. (falls under the blame ISP /customer first, THEN try to fix the problem after people complain)

Good things:

Salvage- interesting idea, needs some tweaking to make it more of a challenge to player, not "throw more mnks until you get magic then nuke stuff to cinder" Several have suggested having a chest at the start that had a random selection of cells. This would allow a little more strategy and flexibility for the area.

Nyzul- VERY interesting. Depends on luck of the draw, but is a great implementation, and allows people that would shy away from staring at darters a chance for a challenging fight. Only kvetch is that it would be nice to not have only a .5% chance of the actual drop item being appraised to the real item from the NM.

Assault- Extremely good idea... would be nice to stack more than 3 tags and one in possession, however most are extremely fun to do with a small group of friends.

Expansion Areas- Excellent. The scenery is beautiful, and fun to explore.

Signet "Fix"- good idea, again needs some refinement before truly comparable to Sanction

Storyline- Good. Cutscene overdose however. The few bcnms were incredibly fun fights.

New Jobs- BLU is an awesome addition, COR brings a new versatile support job to the table... PUP.... on the plus side, DRG is not the most loljob anymore >.>b
- the fix for PUP is to either increase Automaton ability/utility, or to bring the master up a notch.
- ... give BLU throwing skill. PUP has no need for throwing.

Other than that, I rated SE low, even for all the good that has been done... the problems that have existed for a long time have STILL not been addressed properly.

edited for format and grammar... 5:32 AM ftl