FFXI Thinning Out?

[Catrina]

Didn't they make some JO ONRY MMO with robots or something? Or am I mixing things up?

[layoneil]

Didn't they make some JO ONRY MMO with robots or something? Or am I mixing things up?

it's not an MMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Mission_Online

http://www.playonline.com/fmo/index.shtml

[ronin sparthos]

Dont Forget Tetra Master XD

[Catrina]

Didn't they make some JO ONRY MMO with robots or something? Or am I mixing things up?

it's not an MMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Mission_Online

http://www.playonline.com/fmo/index.shtml

My bad

I didn't pay much attention to it then because I didn't like how the offline game looked (too brown for my taste) :D

[Purrrfect]

CoP had a bunch of new missions to keep people busy.

I still see people shouting for Promvyon, so the mission being "content" (and a reason to bitch) is pure bullshit in the big picture.

Nowadays people zergs missions regardless of how long/hard they are, putting JP midnight as checkpoint only makes the bitching increase.

Every MMO in english is a zergfest now. Developers cater to the ADHD and lack of strategy wave that is sweeping the video game world. Pretty soon gamers won't even know what a turn-based game is(was).

Long live the button-mashing, 10sec ability games of today!! Planning is so old-school.

[Correction]

Every MMO in english is a zergfest now. Developers cater to the ADHD and lack of strategy wave that is sweeping the video game world. Pretty soon gamers won't even know what a turn-based game is(was).

Long live the button-mashing, 10sec ability games of today!! Planning is so old-school.

Because video games should take multiple hours per day to get one thing done and feel like work right?

[ronin sparthos]

Play some older RPGs versus some you'd play today and you'd have a better understanding of what Purrrfect was trying to say. Shorter, less content, borderline forcing you to buy a strat guide, easier etc.

In FFXI terms, everyone zergs things now, fuck strategy when you can just WS spam or melee/manaburn something to death vs old school strategies that were more conservative and arguably more 'fun'.

[Correction]

I've played RPGs since Pools of Radiance, I know what old school RPGs play like.

The difference here is that when you're paying for the privilege monthly, users will look for faster (read: efficient) ways of finishing events. Here it seems like 'fun' is being used as a shield for mediocrity. "How dare you krakendrk zerg <insert HNM here>" is a silly way to attack people. Such tactics are about maximizing the time invested/reward ratio, something FFXI is notorious for tipping the wrong way. If something an LS wants only has a 1% drop rate do you really expect them to Skillchain+MB it down and take 3 hours or complete it? Why is 'fun' even a consideration when you stop to think that someone is likely to enjoy doing more, faster events better than fewer extended ones?

[ronin sparthos]

I never said it was my personal opinion but the reason why many people say its more 'fun' do something in a less efficient way is because while efficiency may be the best way to go about something its not exactly as fun as an epic fight versus a mob that takes an hour to down.

The game has basically watered down to an extent in 'epic' fights due to the player becoming stronger at the fault of the mobs not becoming stronger to meet the challenge. Its more a fault of SE people are yearning for the 'old days' because while getting stronger is fun, its not so fun when the mobs become puppets on a string that have no real chance of killing you. If someone played for a long time they sometimes realize while the old days were a grind that was very frustrating its no better than getting what you want and having nothing to do with it all.

Its completely subjective to opinion but doing a balanced alliance Vrtra is more 'fun' in my opinion versus holding it and kraken zerging it.

[Purrrfect]

Yeah, I'm not saying its the players' fault for working as efficiently as possible (I'm all for that). It's the design problem (subjective) that allows those methods. I'm sure its fun to whoop some big stuff fast, but I've never done that (sitting in DA or such for hours on end is not my idea of spending my time/money).

[Correction]

"epic" fights are 100% about design encounter, and it's not the fault of the player if they find some way to get around a hurdle designed to slow them down. The bad news is that SE is very very bad at designing encounters. No matter how melee-friendly the mob is the ultimate strategy is:

1) Stun/Disable the TP moves/spells that you can
2) Run out of range of the ones you can't.
3) Aim to resist/evade when 1) or 2) aren't options
4) If all else fails, you're probably fighting AV

Seriously. That's it. Whether or not you do things the 'classic' way or zerg your way through it, you're accomplishing the same goals. How 'epic' you feel doing it is pure perspective.

[ronin sparthos]

"epic" fights are 100% about design encounter, and it's not the fault of the player if they find some way to get around a hurdle designed to slow them down. The bad news is that SE is very very bad at designing encounters. No matter how melee-friendly the mob is the ultimate strategy is

Thats true, maybe because HNM releases are so rare and items of value is so skewed in one direction... ah they should just rework the whole damned thing, but whats the chances of that.

[Linua]

What is the replay value of having everything so easy like in WoW? Why can a person lvl to cap soley off of quests and never fight a single mob?

You really want that in FFXI? Come on,....

But yeah, I'm ready for another MMO that isn't WoW or like WoW. I can't stand the control scheme. Button mashing, meh. Team Fortress 2 fills my button mashing needs when I need it, and it's free to play online.

I want challenge, I want community, and I want to be forced to make friends, not enemies and gold buyers. I don't want to see shouts for selling gold online in my game. I don't want to level another character when I decide to try out another job. I want to keep my gear and my name and my guild/linkshell when I do decide to do so. Subjobs are always a plus. Guess those are the reasons I'm still playing FFXI and not WoW, or lol EQ2.

[Correction]

There's no serious need to rework the system from the ground up, the user-level problem is what roles you get to play. Class design in FFXI in a big way contributes to the 'lol BLM is a stunbitch' and 'krakendrkzerg' issues you face when you attend HNM events. Why do you think people hate playing BRD? Because they do the same fucking thing from start to finish. Good luck having fun doing that for events that take 3 hours rather than 20 minutes.

Design a boss encounter that expands the role any given class can play beyond 'stun that, sleep that, kite that' (read: start giving advantages to casting spells other than ballad, march and stun) and the fun goes up asymptotically. There's a reason the melee get all the attention lately.

What is the replay value of having everything so easy like in WoW? Why can a person lvl to cap soley off of quests and never fight a single mob?

Prove you got a class in WoW past 50 and I'll buy your argument. There's more to WoW encounter/class design than button mashing and easy fights. And your second sentence is just blatantly wrong. But I guess you preferred camping Eldieme for 8 hours for yourself and 6 others to get that ol' Papyrus. That's when you knew levelling was something special that should be frustrating and slow.

[Linua]

The beauty of FFXI though, is the ability to change jobs and lvl another one on same character. If the community decides that drk > blm, I can go along with that. I don't have to create another character and farm more gear more gold more chocobos more BoE or ex/rares....

I've been a mage my entire time in FFXI, but yet, I find my moghouse filled with melee end game gears that one day, if I'm still playing this game then, I will have for my 75 mnk, or my 75 nin. I don't have to do those things again.

[ronin sparthos]

There's no serious need to rework the system from the ground up, the user-level problem is what roles you get to play. Class design in FFXI in a big way contributes to the 'lol BLM is a stunbitch' and 'krakendrkzerg' issues you face when you attend HNM events. Why do you think people hate playing BRD? Because they do the same fucking thing from start to finish. Good luck having fun doing that for events that take 3 hours rather than 20 minutes.

Design a boss encounter that expands the role any given class can play beyond 'stun that, sleep that, kite that' (read: start giving advantages to casting spells other than ballad, march and stun) and the fun goes up asymptotically. There's a reason the melee get all the attention lately.

It starts with making spells that are useless have uses (any of the BRD bar-status spells for example), reworking HNMs that are way too easy for the buffs that players have gotten stronger (more HP, more dangerous, more TP moves maybe?), mobs that react violently to moves that are currently used (it'd show that the devs are evolving mob design to change how the playerbase works) and maybe.... just once for a change... an HNM that tries to keep itself alive with spells, more dangerous adds (imagine if Khim was in the pit of flayers or Hydras defeated heads created adds on top of elementals you couldnt avoid)

The only way the devs can create better results is looking at the playerbase and dissecting how exactly we tick, then create something thats designed to kick our asses and rethink the aspect of HNM.

I cringe everytime that a tank can simply step to the side slightly to avoid the full damage of an HNMs breath attacks. Whats the point of breath -% gear? Why doesnt a dragon *try* to flail you? Why doesnt KB cast stun on you then cast meteor? Aspid cast curative spells or try to nuke you into oblivion... all these things are simple patch solutions that devs could simply do to stir shit up on what we consider 'the norm'.

[Dezzimal]

FFXI doesn't seem to have the gameplay depth to be able to make creative and fun boss encounters. When the dev team does try to make something new and exciting guess which mob you end up with, it rhymes with chew.

[Isiolia]

I cringe everytime that a tank can simply step to the side slightly to avoid the full damage of an HNMs breath attacks. Whats the point of breath -% gear? Why doesnt a dragon *try* to flail you? Why doesnt KB cast stun on you then cast meteor? Aspid cast curative spells or try to nuke you into oblivion... all these things are simple patch solutions that devs could simply do to stir shit up on what we consider 'the norm'.

'cause an HNM that did that sort of thing would more than likely be a lot like AV. SE has to balance what a mob can do with what players can keep up with.

IMO the better route would be to require changing strategies on the fly. Changing resistances or weaknesses, SC/MB only damage, etc. The problem with many of SE's stuff is more that it focuses on avoiding squish-you-flat type moves. Making things "harder" shouldn't mean making them cheaper and hit for more, though that's the general design of video games I suppose.

In some ways stuff like Nyzul or Salvage is perhaps a better route for making a good overall challenge, along with encouraging a better community. I often read "want harder mobs" as LS egotism, figuring that others would wipe and one's own shell is leet enough to handle more.

[Okuza]

The problem with bashing FFXI's end-game is that there isn't anything to bash. There's precious little "end-game" in FFXI. The game is designed pretty much for you to start all over and level another job up to 75 rather than spending your time on your 75 job. There are only a handful of HNMs. There are only a couple of "end zones" and you can only do those every 3 days: Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar, Salvage. The end-zones have serious contrasting head-count issues, too.

Dynamis likes more people than the rest. So, you have the old bench-warmer issues for a shell that has grown to tackle Dynamis. If you pare your shell down to 18 + depth, you then have problems with Salvage, which can hold that many, but likes smaller groups. Einherjar is OK with 18ish for the lower tiers but wants more for the upper (and has a ridiculously high effort:reward ratio). Basically, the numbers needed for each event varies by so much as to make it painful for a shell to organize effectively to do all the events available.

Contrast FFXI with EQ. EQ had so many end-zones and HNMs that you could cycle through different ones every day of the week and not cover them all in 7 days. 'Course EQ also had absurd "mudflation" to go along with that, but it truly had an end-game. The under-cap stuff there was just a prelude to the real game.

About the only thing I miss from EQ is the end-game there (the old balanced end-game like NTOV in it's prime rather than the newer 64-player stuff).

[Linua]

We could fill this thread with 100 pages of comparing apples and oranges if we wanted. We like the games we like, and love to give our opinions and whatnot.

If I could take one thing from WoW and put it into FFXI, I'd take the resting bonus, which is a good idea. If I could take one thing from FFXI and put it into WoW, I'd take the plot elements. I quit playing WoW for a while and came back to FFXI, then I quit FFXI and went back to WoW, after about 4 months. I had enough resting bonus to take my night elf druid from 53-65 before the bonus wore off. It kinda made it very easy, but it was cool. I eventually got tired of (insert reasons here) and went back to FFXI where I think I'll stay until another mmo comes along. But I'm ready for that, I'm kinda tired of the MMOs on the market atm.

We all could say all of us are waisting our times playing (insert game here). It's personal opinions mostly.