FFXI Thinning Out?

[kuronosan]

If we've managed to maintain a community and make it successful, then those customers are loyal to us. Which in other words means their individual value, the potential profit we can make from each person in the group, is increased as well. Therefore we have to do our best to find out what kind of treatment they really want, what we should provide them with. That would lead to good community management, which can be employed in other types of business strategies.

This is quite possibly the worst blanket statement ever made.

[Kenji]

The key phrase here is 'challenging.' Say in a month or so when the next content patch for FFXI is released and you see a new 18-man challenge waiting in the wings, do you really think said BST or PUP are going to get a slot in the alliance, or will they be forced to change jobs to the more efficient 'core' of min-maxed support/DD/healing for your main tanks? The harsh truth is when you're doing something that neither you nor a million people before you have done before, you leave the B-Team home. It's often worse to get there, fail, then regret not bringing some stronger classes.

Actually, I find the experience much different. When something new is released in FFXI, no one knows how it works, and thus no one knows what class may be good. The result is that many different LS's will try many different jobs, to report on how well each does. It's why we find that Monk was good in the initial salvage. And even when new jobs are released, people take them to old content and see how they do. It's how we found that PUP was good against Ultima.

The idea is if nothing for your alt drops, your main will pull slightly ahead on DKP for the next kill. Nobody is ever forced to bring their alt 100% of the time. Smart guilds recruit. Sloppy guilds force alts on members. Hence my earlier remark about 'guild rules.' If your main fell 2nd place to your alt in your guild it's not WoW's fault. Blame your guild for not properly recruiting.

Actually, the guild did properly recruit. We easily had 10+ healers in the roster. It's just that you will get nights where some aren't logging in, and so you lack enough healing, or tanking, or dps. In the several guilds I was in, this was an issue in all of them. Also, recruiting isn't the perfect band-aid. First, there has to be a leveled and decently geared person in the specific job/spec that you need. Secondly, the player has to be good, because a crappy player hurts the guild more in WoW, then it does in FFXI. IT didn't used to be that way; in the days of 40 mans, you could be more lax in the skill and gear of people you brought, because you could clear 40 man content with 30, and have 10 people half-assing it.

I don't personally know of a whole lot of guilds, frankly, that use Protadins as main tanks everywhere. Best I've seen with my own eyes so far is a protadin on Gruul. Nevertheless with proper guild support (and that means funding respecs and giving you as much tank gear as they would a prot warrior) Prot paladins are in fact capable of playing a tank role through T6 content. Main tank vs every boss? Likely not. But if you look at the community you will see significant work for Prot pallies.

Yes, there has been a lot of work. Even though pallies were healers only for 2+ years. But they're still not desired; they're only taken if there are no decently geared prot warriors around. Maybe on a few gimmicky fights like morogrim for the murlocs, or solarians adds. And even then, you can get by easily enough with a holy paladin, so why bring a prot paladin? I'll grant that they are better in 5 man content, but who cares about the best tank there? WoW will always have a best tank in the prot warrior. Blizz is loathe to make them equal, because the community would always whine "but but pallies can *heal* too!" Not counting the rumors of a certain dev who hated hybrids and paladins in the past.

I don't want this to turn into a prot paladin thread, but the truth is that there are class specs that aren't *wanted* in end-game WoW. In FFXI, there are job/subjob combos that aren't *desired*. There is a difference there. You can go into Dynamis with many different tanks, dps classes, healers. You can bring BSTs and PUPs and even a meleeing RDM. It's not going to hurt you much at all. People rolling paladin in FFXI do so because they like to tank. They aren't going PLD/BLM because it doesn't help them be a better tank. I find the BLU and DNC threads

Lack of solo content killed FFXI.

While you do have a point about early FFXI and the lack of solo content, it's only gotten better with time. Discounting Campaign, there is a solo ENM now, there are mobs at most levels that can be soloed for xp, crafting is a much heartier endeavor and is also best done solo. Quite a few Quests and missions can be done solo. And I just got done reading a few posts in Kanican's blog about him soloing Limbus, which apparently quite a few do.

What solo content is in end-game WOW? BGs? Still, I wouldn't count the lack of solo content against FFXI. It's a conscious decision, because they want people to team up. I remember, early on when FFXI/RotZ was released for NA, that the early end-game crowd consisted of good players. They learned how to play their class as they leveled; they were forced to, to be invited at all. Compared with a WoW hunter who can go to 70 without ever learning what a shot rotation means. Granted, FFXI is different nowadays, and there are plenty of tards at 75. Which makes me wonder if lots of solo content is really a good thing or not.

[Siatdiat]

Kenji, basically your points to me all come down to "Omg wow is hard I like ffxi where I can just breeze through the same 3 yr old content while watching tv!" I'll admit I have beef with the 10 man gateway content, its very restrictive, but once you get to 25 man raids it leaves rooms for alot of off specs to come in and shine, there is no reason to stack a 25 man raid and I cant imagine most guilds post tbc have the man power to be so choosy.

[Correction]

Actually, the guild did properly recruit. We easily had 10+ healers in the roster. It's just that you will get nights where some aren't logging in, and so you lack enough healing, or tanking, or dps. In the several guilds I was in, this was an issue in all of them.

That's not very good recruiting if you bring people into a raiding guild that have attendance problems.

And you're still comparing Dynamis to Tier 5 raiding content. They're nowhere near the same thing. Dynamis isn't hard for anybody but the absolute worst of players. Kael'Thas is so hard he's broken scores of guilds. Therefore the 'wanted class' lists are going to be different. Even I don't want melee RDM coming with me to Dyn-Valk.

[Lucavi]

Actually, I find the experience much different. When something new is released in FFXI, no one knows how it works, and thus no one knows what class may be good. The result is that many different LS's will try many different jobs, to report on how well each does. It's why we find that Monk was good in the initial salvage. And even when new jobs are released, people take them to old content and see how they do. It's how we found that PUP was good against Ultima.

Bullshit. When new content comes out, you get your legion of established "A-class HNM" jobs (nin, pld/nin, drk (preferrably with KC in hand), rdm, sams, a thf for TH, 1-2 bards per alliance, loads of blms, and if there aren't enough blms, a smn or two. You don't bring the drgs, the bsts, and the pups out for the party.

You're speaking like you live in a fantasy world. "We" didn't find out that pup was good against Ultima. One or two shells were literally kind enough to allow someone to bring their pup into Ultima, and it just so happened that it performed well. Nobody was saying "hey guys, lets all get our pups and check it out."

Most obscure discoveries are usually done by shells that are so absurdly strong that they can afford to allow untested or socially undesirable jobs into such events, and if they work out, then everyone benefits from it. Perhaps a few of the elite HNM shells here on BG have the luxury and the compassion to do this, but your average Joe Blow Claim-a-Few HNMLS isn't bringing anything but the best of whatever A-Team set of jobs they can slather together. You make it sound like every shell out there has the same mindset to allow each and every player to come on whatever job they personally want to come as. If that were the case, we wouldn't have been arrowburning every end-game mob to death post-RoZ, and we certainly wouldn't have comprised many of the loljob stigmas. I'm sure everyone remembers the day of the poor thf at kirin, sitting around until swapped in at the absolute last second.

When ToAU dropped, honestly tell me that established shells were running out to fight Cerb with a slew of drgs, bsts, and thfs. No, they brought their tried-and-tested, good-for-everything, A-class jobs to the fights, and they based their initial analysis on the capabilities of the mobs, and how long it would take to kill it on average, on these A-class jobs. To think otherwise is to be naive and foolish.

At least in wow I know I can have a lot of fun soloing as my holy pally, as well as securing an enjoyable and welcomed place in the end-game society, and if it's not all I want it to be? Fuck it, I can just re-roll my talent tree.

don't want this to turn into a prot paladin thread, but the truth is that there are class specs that aren't *wanted* in end-game WoW. In FFXI, there are job/subjob combos that aren't *desired*. There is a difference there.

Let me shut this down for you in one, quick statement. Dragoon/anything. It took 3 and a half years to get angon, the only socially acceptable saving grace to the job at the end-game scene, and even then, its totally not needed. Feint does more for zerging than angon ever will.

There's no way to "re-roll" dragoon into a role that suddenly becomes praised and accepted. It can perform, by try convincing the server of that. Try convincing people to let one main-heal/DD for something as simple as merits with an ares body, full homam ethereal, well over 300+ base mp, and 5-7 mp per 350+ hp heal. Hell, you still have idiots demanding that a drg sub /nin for ODS.

[Thalion]

This is my own opinion as well. I don't expect anyone to agree.
What would you suggest? Don't answer, as it's a rhetorical question, and this thread has probably derailed enough. I just wanted to point out why FFXI isn't dying, nor will it for awhile. Not as long as they keep adding things to do. Tonight, I'll do Dynamis-San'Doria. Tomorrow, Temenos-east. Next night, we'll hit some assaults or a salvage. Night after that, Dynamis-Tavnazia. Then a different limbus. Perhaps a KS99, or a BCNM. Hey look, no trash to clear, just a straight shot at loot. And all this takes 3 hours, maybe a little more, at most. No 4-5 hours per night of raiding the same thing.

So you don't like clearing trash mobs in wow but you like doing it in FFXI? Dynamis is just a big trash pull with a 01.% chance of actually dropping an AF2 that someone wants. Also did I mention its like 4 year old content?

[Lexa]

don't want this to turn into a prot paladin thread, but the truth is that there are class specs that aren't *wanted* in end-game WoW. In FFXI, there are job/subjob combos that aren't *desired*. There is a difference there.

Let me shut this down for you in one, quick statement. Dragoon/anything. It took 3 and a half years to get angon, the only socially acceptable saving grace to the job at the end-game scene, and even then, its totally not needed. Feint does more for zerging than angon ever will.

So many people had so many misconceptions of DRGs for so long. The horrible, horrible 2-hour didn't help, either (back when it was still Call Wyvern... I mean, WTF?). I also don't see a lot of linkshells desiring PUP/anything players.

[Kenji]

Kenji, basically your points to me all come down to "Omg wow is hard I like ffxi where I can just breeze through the same 3 yr old content while watching tv!" I'll admit I have beef with the 10 man gateway content, its very restrictive, but once you get to 25 man raids it leaves rooms for alot of off specs to come in and shine, there is no reason to stack a 25 man raid and I cant imagine most guilds post tbc have the man power to be so choosy.

People claim that FFXI is hard and that WoW is easy. I'm not saying the latter is hard, just limited. If you can't get past kael, what else can you do?

That's not very good recruiting if you bring people into a raiding guild that have attendance problems.

RL crap happens. Are you lucky enough to have a guild where people never get sick? Never have unexpected company or computer problems? Perhaps someone just decides to not log in one night? Where is this perfect guild of 100% attendance you speak of? I've never seen it. Some nights, you just get unlucky in attendance. You need 25 to raid. Dynamis is for 64 or 36, but you can easily go with less. If most guilds could clear TK with 15-20 people, it would be comparable.

And you're still comparing Dynamis to Tier 5 raiding content. They're nowhere near the same thing. Dynamis isn't hard for anybody but the absolute worst of players. Kael'Thas is so hard he's broken scores of guilds. Therefore the 'wanted class' lists are going to be different. Even I don't want melee RDM coming with me to Dyn-Valk.

It's not so much that Kael is hard, it's that there is no alternative, save pvp for gear. Well, badge gear, but that falls under the category of Sidegrades, something people get on FFXI's case about. If you don't like pvp, or honor grinding, or aren't good at it, you don't have many options. Imagine if Dynamis was the only end-game in FFXI, and you had to beat the Shadowlord before you could get into the other 36-man Dynamis areas or Limbus.

Bullshit. When new content comes out, you get your legion of established "A-class HNM" jobs (nin, pld/nin, drk (preferrably with KC in hand), rdm, sams, a thf for TH, 1-2 bards per alliance, loads of blms, and if there aren't enough blms, a smn or two. You don't bring the drgs, the bsts, and the pups out for the party.

We'll have to agree to disagree here, as it's a player issue, not a game issue. I have seen plenty of LS's bring along the new classes to events to see how they do. And bring along old classes to new events to see how they do. I've yet to find a wow guild that brings a ret pally or moonkin to bleeding edge fights. Hell, even on farm content. I think it was Nihilum that said, "Our shamen heal. Our paladins heal. Our druids heal. Our priests DPS."

Let me shut this down for you in one, quick statement. Dragoon/anything.

I never had any problems partying with DRG. They were awesome with penta-spam before the WS TP nerf. Even after that, they do respectable damage. Maybe not the best, but when forming a party, they were never excluded. I always saw them doing just fine in Dynamis and Limbus. The wyvern is pretty good for Salvage as well. That's a far cry from a Ret Pally in WoW that is good *nowhere*. Moonkin were actually fairly decent in pvp, from what I can recall, but I could be wrong.

Still, we can compare the long perceived uselessness of 1 job, Dragoon, vs. the long perceived useless of Prot pallies, Ret pallies, Moonkin, enhancement shammies, elemental shammies... in most cases they didn't get better til recently, in both games. And I tend to think of each spec as it's own class, because it gears and plays differently.

So you don't like clearing trash mobs in wow but you like doing it in FFXI? Dynamis is just a big trash pull with a 01.% chance of actually dropping an AF2 that someone wants. Also did I mention its like 4 year old content?

Trash in WoW rarely drops epics that you want. We sharded most of them. All it does, is limit the time you can spend working on a boss, that drops the real loot you want. In FFXI, trash drops the loot, at least currency that everyone generally wants. When I last did Dynamis 2 years ago, I saw an average of 10 drops a run. Up to 20 in a few cases. Even in Xarca, towards the end, we got 10 or so drops a run. Generally, everything was used. If no one wanted, there was generally someone who had plans to level the job eventually, and so would take it.

Trash in WoW = annoying and generally non-profitable. Well, some patterns were profitable to sell, until badge gear came out. Nether Vortexes were nice, but in order to support the guild bank, they were sold off via belt patterns, rather than allow someone who wanted to upgrade a weapon for fun.
Trash in FFXI = drops the epics and currency. Don't even need to kill the boss if no one needs the clear.

[Raineer]

I had enough resting bonus to take my night elf druid from 53-65 before the bonus wore off.

I missed this one. I played WoW too and have my opinions but they don't matter here so I won't share them... However don't exagerrate about either game as it doesn't help any, especially if you're trying to sway players. The resting bonus caps at 150% of a level and caps after 10 days offline, so if it took you 12 levels to wear that off you took around 3 months to get those 12 levels ;p

[Day]

Really I think we all know that both games have their strong points, whether we want to admit or not.

Personally I had to give up FFXI because I didn't have the free time needed to achieve any further goals of mine. I mean I have a lot of free time, but not in the large chunks that FFXI needed. WoW gives me a lot more things I can do in an hour or two and feel a sense of accomplishment. Also a huge thing is PVP, if FFXI would have expanded on Ballista and Brenner, giving rewards or gear for succeeding, then I think A LOT of people would have stuck with it, including myself. I love being able to log into WoW, PVP for an hour or two, and know that I earned points that will go towards some pretty damn nice gear.

Also, man, some of the instance fights, and quests are just plain hilarious, since it's a US based game, they get to incorporate things like the Eagles "Hotel California" in quests, and fights like Little Red Riding hood, where the mob turns you into Little Red Riding gnome and you have to run like crazy from the Big Bad Wolf. That same event alone can either be Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, or Romeo and Juliet. I mean cmon, how freaking awesome is that?

Things I really miss about FFXI have been touched on already. Mainly the being able to keep one character and switch jobs. IMO that's what makes FFXI's community so great, you keep a name for your entire mmo life, and you have a reputation, names become familiar, things of that nature. There are other things about FFXI's gameplay I miss, it just feels "tighter" if that makes sense; it's kind of hard to put into words, but I think you know what I mean if you've played both. And strangely I miss XP camps. I used to have so much fun XPing, just pulling mob after mob, might sound crazy, but it was always fun imo.

That being said, theres a lot I dont miss as well, but I'll keep those to myself.

[Kyreth]

Blizzard listens to it's player base, SE doesn't.

Was this before or after the Priest forum got full of people bitching about how on raids, they're outhealed and left out?

And it's a simple thing, but you know what? Pay my 15 a month and I'll care if you care - you dont lose a level when you die. When you earn it, you earn it. The game DOESN"T RELY ON LESS CAPABLE PLAYERS TO ADVANCE YOUR CHARACTER.

Till you hit raids. Then you rely on it all the time, and bitch madly when they screw the pooch, the trash mobs start respawning and you're back to clearing the instance. Again. Fuck.

In WoW - you'll do a quest where (since you're a Paladin - a protector), you'll aid an NPC who's husband is off fighting a horde situation and left alone. She worries that a group of renegade defias (thugs) will attack her. Your job is to defend her farm, heal her while fighting them. It took you 10 mins of travel, leaving you 40 mins of play, 10 mins of travel back to turn in the quest. For that, you'll earn a nice new piece of USEFUL armor (nope, you do not need to buy Gil. Shut the fuck up about farming. 99% of the FFXI population during 02-06 bought gil, they didn't farm. Argue it all you want. They didn't.) and about 2000 EXP - enough for you to level. You felt like a Paladin during this quest, you had fun! You brought a friend with you too!

Actually, around 2-06 you may have bought 99 percent of your Gil, but not the other way round. Generally, I hear this shit from people who should know better and RMT'ed to extend their epeens. The average player didn't RMT or bot or fleehack, but the ones you noticed with the big shinies often well did.

Oh, and a solid day's worth of play later in WoW, your shiny new piece of useful armor is going into junksville and gets DE'd/vendored, never to be seen or needed again, to be replaced by another quest with shiny new armor L40. And you'll have to go through the entire song and dance if you feel like playing anything but that Paladin. You can't respec to a Warrior. Or a Priest. New character. Same frickin reputation grind/quest series/etc.

In FFXI - you waited for 20 mins (if you're lucky) and got a PT invite. The PT (in Crawlers) pulls a link and 2 members die. Their home points are in Bastok. Wait more.

EVEN in a perfect situation, you must agree that you will wait an average of AT LEAST 20 mins for a PT Invite unless you're a fucking WHM and giving this situation you have 1 hour.

I loved FFXI. I know better now - and WoW IS a better game. Opinions are like assholes, and thats simply mine.

Absolutely agree- FFXI is a much slower progression. On the other hand, you don't hit endgame still wet behind the ears, unable to work properly with a 10-man or even 25-man (or in some cases, 5 or so) group do play in instanced content. Which happens. Too. Fucking. Often in WoW.

Something in the middle would work wonders. WoW could use some baby steps between L1 and L70 that get people learning the group skills they need at endgame. FFXI could use some smoother level progression getting there. WoW could use the ability to switch classes. FFXI could use more diversification pre-merits.

[ronin sparthos]

FFXI will forever be chained by Zilart unless the developers do something drastic that shakes up the games feeling. Whens the last time something major went down that changed an endgame players everyday 'life'? Dynamis is nice, but aged. Salvage was great, but is limited by time, Assault points -and- luck. Einherjar was a design shot to hell and back.

WoW and FFXI both have playerbase issues, most of the issues WoTG is going to face are going to stem directly from ToAU in the sense that everyone is so spoiled in the sense that EXP camps must be directly outside the hub city, if they are dead in 30sec or less its garbage and that only *insert TPburn jobs here* can do anything. WoW has way less jobs than FFXI so the fight to get a slot in party isnt as hard as say.... an 'XI alliance. Do the devs ever ask themselves 'would someone want to put this job into an HNM alliance?' before they design something? I doubt it. Inserting more poppable HNMs, more world HNMs and HNMs that encourage certain jobs to be present would be a good start. Obvious reasons to choose the new over the old would be nice as well, or inserting a happy medium....

So many things in FFXI could be so much better if they didnt have stupidly thought out limitations tacked on to them. Chocobo Raising was supposed to be the way to FINALLY get a fast source of transport ingame anywhere you wanted but turned into a glorified achievement you'd soon not give a fuck about once you found out it can only go to zones that rental birds can also go to. (Rentals are usually faster as well.)

I for one think that unless WotG stands up and obsoletes at least -some- of the things from RoZ/ToAU that it will be going down in obscurity and the painful norm of doing things will continue. No need to obsolete everything, but the least would be to cater the playerbase to trying to the new over the old. People are still grinding Sky for gear thats arguably better than stuff in ToAU/CoP. Shaking up the way people do HNMs and forcing people to consider newer jobs and different strategies would be a good thing as well.

[Kenji]

FFXI will forever be chained by Zilart unless the developers do something drastic that shakes up the games feeling. Whens the last time something major went down that changed an endgame players everyday 'life'? Dynamis is nice, but aged. Salvage was great, but is limited by time, Assault points -and- luck. Einherjar was a design shot to hell and back.

I think we have to step back, and look at things in a different perspective. While these may be 4 years old to us, to the guy just hitting 75, it's brand new. When he looks at end-game, he sees a lot of different things. I think that colors our vision.

I for one think that unless WotG stands up and obsoletes at least -some- of the things from RoZ/ToAU that it will be going down in obscurity and the painful norm of doing things will continue. No need to obsolete everything, but the least would be to cater the playerbase to trying to the new over the old. People are still grinding Sky for gear thats arguably better than stuff in ToAU/CoP. Shaking up the way people do HNMs and forcing people to consider newer jobs and different strategies would be a good thing as well.

Though I do agree with your here. Now is a good time to see what jobs and what slots haven't been updated, or gotten something good in awhile. And then make something new for it, even if it's a slight upgrade. I've long that that the idea of AF3 has come. Now that jobs are different then when AF and AF2 came around, make a new set of AF that directly enhances job abilities. We're in the past where Relic is used... so let us upgrade our Relic again! Perhaps get a minor set bonuses.

Really I think we all know that both games have their strong points, whether we want to admit or not.

Agree again. Different strokes for different folks. I got tired of the same exact thing over and over, and didn't like pvp. WoW is no longer for me. I look at FFXI and I see a lot of different things I can do at end-game, solo or grouping. Not expected to raid every night for 5+ hours. Ironically, it would mean I would spend less time per night doing things.

[Neometalrain]

Agree again. Different strokes for different folks. I got tired of the same exact thing over and over, and didn't like pvp. WoW is no longer for me. I look at FFXI and I see a lot of different things I can do at end-game, solo or grouping. Not expected to raid every night for 5+ hours. Ironically, it would mean I would spend less time per night doing things.

Wut..

[ronin sparthos]

I think we have to step back, and look at things in a different perspective. While these may be 4 years old to us, to the guy just hitting 75, it's brand new. When he looks at end-game, he sees a lot of different things. I think that colors our vision.

The influx of new players versus old school players is skewed heavily in the direction of older players. Many people have beaten Zilart content to death, stepping up and out of it straight into something newer wouldnt even be an issue. The majority of players on this game are 75 with multiple jobs.

[Isiolia]

I think we have to step back, and look at things in a different perspective. While these may be 4 years old to us, to the guy just hitting 75, it's brand new. When he looks at end-game, he sees a lot of different things. I think that colors our vision.

The point would be more that whether you're a new 75 or not, those are the activities people do. The Aery is not just populated by new 75s. Things like that rarely see LSes leave for good, just more arrive.

A new 75 player would see things on a more equal balance, and wouldn't be as tired/jaded about the events. However, he'd still likely see more attractive end results from Zilart era content. Unless his first 75 was a ToAU or WoTG job of course.

In some ways that's the problem of FFXI. New 75s in a shell, whether new jobs or newer to the game, want the same stuff. It keeps people doing the same stuff over, and over, and over again.
While in some ways it's good that SE doesn't make things obsolete, it also kinda traps players into repeating content. I agree with the sentiment that to really make FFXI fresh, new stuff that really shakes things up and breaks players away from old content is needed.

Perhaps rather than make older content/drops obsolete, it'd be better if SE just finally instanced things so they can be there if/when people want to do 'em. Save up Fafnir pops for a Saturday night LS event and go try new stuff instead of camping.
To add a twist for jaded players, create optional conditions to meet for additional or better rewards. So maybe a new shell could go in and beat King Behemoth, but it'd take an experienced one to win with majority melee damage or without using enfeebles or something, and thus making him drop a Defending Ring.

[Lucavi]

I think we have to step back, and look at things in a different perspective. While these may be 4 years old to us, to the guy just hitting 75, it's brand new. When he looks at end-game, he sees a lot of different things. I think that colors our vision.

So then what's in it for us? Most older MMO's release their latest expansions geared nearly specifically towards the hardcore, established player. They know that with the aged graphics, they aren't getting a lot of new players, so they shift their focus towards keeping what they've got. FFXI is the single -worst- MMO I've ever seen in terms of keeping its established, highly-leveled, nicely-geared, and extremely bored playerbase enthralled with new content. Hell, with the new expansions, the only thing that keeps an end-gamer from completing the entire load of new missions and quests is the simple fact that SE does not release all of the content at first.

Though I do agree with your here. Now is a good time to see what jobs and what slots haven't been updated, or gotten something good in awhile. And then make something new for it, even if it's a slight upgrade. I've long that that the idea of AF3 has come. Now that jobs are different then when AF and AF2 came around, make a new set of AF that directly enhances job abilities. We're in the past where Relic is used... so let us upgrade our Relic again! Perhaps get a minor set bonuses.

I'm tired of "minor set bonuses"! How big of an upgrade was AFv2 to AFv2+1? How many people honestly viewed the time spent in CoP dynamis zones as absolutely required (along the same lines as doing salvage for hot ares, ect) in order to upgrade to that? Most +1 bonuses are shit because they're so minor. You're looking at an addition of maybe 2-3 acc, another +mp while resting tic, or a single percentage of haste. Why is it so hard to actually BOOST your gear to the point where its worth getting? You keep your AF3 "slightly better" than AF2, and you're repeating RotZ all over again -- people will feel that the new crazy, high-death, tons of xp loss adventure just isn't conducive to the scale of the reward you're getting. Hell, going through the crazyness of dynamis tav just for THOSE shitty drops?

Agree again. Different strokes for different folks. I got tired of the same exact thing over and over, and didn't like pvp. WoW is no longer for me. I look at FFXI and I see a lot of different things I can do at end-game, solo or grouping. Not expected to raid every night for 5+ hours. Ironically, it would mean I would spend less time per night doing things.

So doing salvage 3 times a week, dynamis 2 times a week (walk around and kill shit), limbus 2 times a week (walk around and kill shit), and camping HNM (stand around hoping to kill shit) 7 days a week isn't doing the exact same thing over and over? You can only feel the new-ness of doing those missions one time. You can only get that ridill one time (unless you get banned for cheating and make a new chara). You can do your dynamis as many time as you want, but the only time it feels different is if your LS either has a fun theme to it (naked dynamis -- i've seen it -- its hilarious), or you're going specifically for either your relic attestation, or going for DL for the first time -- other than that, its the same clearing of clumps of mobs for drops, just like an instance -- only in this case, you have to fucking fight with other LSes to have a shot at doing it when you want, or signing up for a calender.

[Kenji]

I'd be interested to see numbers of the amount of people at end-game, vs. those newer players who are joining. While there might be more at 75, I'd wager there's more leveling up than would be normally thought.

So doing salvage 3 times a week, dynamis 2 times a week (walk around and kill shit), limbus 2 times a week (walk around and kill shit), and camping HNM (stand around hoping to kill shit) 7 days a week isn't doing the exact same thing over and over?

Well, let's see. I can do SSC and TK over and over. That's 2 instances. Or AV over and over(I could do the other BGs, but I need honor, so why bother?).

Or I can do 9 different Dynamis zones, 9? different limbus zones, 4 different Salvage zones, A ton of different assaults, A ton of different instanced BCNMs, KS99s, easily half a dozen HNMs, 9 different Einherijar zones, all the stuff in sky and sea, campaign... am I missing something?

As they say in on education television shows, one of these numbers is bigger than the other.

However, I do think it's high time to instance all of the HNM drops, in the form of KS99s. That way you don't need to sit around waiting for something to pop. And WotG should make newer versions of some of the older sky drops. But I dunno... I'd still rather have the choice of a lot of content, even if some of it is old, rather than the choice of all new, but limited content.

And if you really complain about old content, how long as WSG, AB, and AV been in the game? What BG has forever been seen as the place to get honor? Has Blizzard changed the honor gain in the other BGs to match it?

[Correction]

Well, let's see. I can do SSC and TK over and over. That's 2 instances. Or AV over and over(I could do the other BGs, but I need honor, so why bother?).

Or I can do 9 different Dynamis zones, 9? different limbus zones, 4 different Salvage zones, A ton of different assaults, A ton of different instanced BCNMs, KS99s, easily half a dozen HNMs, 9 different Einherijar zones, all the stuff in sky and sea, campaign... am I missing something?

Your math is questionable. Combine the boss encounters of SSC and TK and you have 10 unique endgame encounters on a 7-day reset.

On average, you do 2 dynamis runs a week if you run every reset, same for Limbus. BCNM/KS99 can't be sustainably run every week, and HNMs that people care to fight don't pop more than twice a week. I reckon if you add up the typical HNMLS activities over a 7-day span, you'll come up with 10 separate, unique encounters as well.

The chief difference is that if you're in a progression WoW guild you'll see 10 more unique encounters come your way after the next major content patch. Where are people after an update in FFXI? It rhymes with 'Bragon's Dairy.'

[Lucavi]

Or I can do 9 different Dynamis zones, 9? different limbus zones, 4 different Salvage zones, A ton of different assaults, A ton of different instanced BCNMs, KS99s, easily half a dozen HNMs, 9 different Einherijar zones, all the stuff in sky and sea, campaign... am I missing something?

And what are you getting from those dynamis zones? I can count the number of indivdual pieces of AF (from EVERY job) that are worth using over something elsewhere on one hand. The biggest one is AF2 hat, and most others are purely situational (lots of koga, a bit of melee and Valor). Limbus is lovely, and the rewards are great, but it took me 9 months to get full homam, we did omega far more than ultima. 9. fucking. months. of shit drops of X2 head, and thats even with us farming chips on omega. Salvage? Paying 13-17 mil just for Ares body in this economy? Now think of the rest of the set? How much are you forking out to get your epic gear in WoW? Hell, you're actually doing einherijar? I'll leave that one alone.

BCNMs, KS99 = droprate much? I'm sure I see more people in level 70 epic gear than 75s with speed belts, and speed belts have been out for much, MUCH longer.

All the stuff in sky? Out since NAs have had a shot to play the game, and even then, the JPs had already monopolized it all.

Sea stuff? Gorgets, torques, obis, novio, and AV? AV? None of that beats RotZ gear, or you'd see an entirely larger portion of the population up there, instead of down in the aery all weekend.

Campaign stuff? Lolwut? You can AH all of the gear that's out so far. Campaign is extremely fun, but its not exclusive to this game. I've been seeing NPCs fighting off waves of NPC baddies as I run around in fucking starter zones in WoW. Lets not even talk about when WoW's campaign turns into ACTUAL PEOPLE charging fortresses that are guarded by OTHER PEOPLE. That's when shit becomes not-boring and not-repetitive. I was one of the most staunch supporters of campaign when it released, and 15 merits later and 230k allied notes later and all the way up to the second emblem later... I'm bored out of my mind with it. Why do you think I turned to WoW in the first place?

WoW's instances may not be perfect, but they aren't the only things you feel like you need to do, because there's nothing else to do. WoW has long been established as -the- MMO to play if you love the thrill of fighting other people, as well as getting a decent story around it, and some pretty worlds (minus the people -- mithra still blow everything else away). FFXI is known as the place where you stand still, LFG for hours with your blue-box gear to find a party with the tank having 45% of his slots empty and a starter city ring on, and then post screenshots about it on forums while everyone laughs.

SE left one of the most promising things they had ever created, ballista, to rot in the dust. They supported one -- JUST ONE -- form of cross-server PVP, then let that die as well. There are maybe 3 servers left that have a rigorous, active PVP, when most all of them originally had matches so large that people would complain about the lag. They've refused to introduce gear that even rivals the RotZ gear in any way outside of a few rare trinkets in salvage that cost millions to upgrade (and still have a chance to break the crafts to get them!). The best thing they could have ever done was design the linkshell, even though I'm finding the guild options to be far superior, as having your own custom tabard is much better than having your own colored pearl that can barely be color-customized.

But for me, the biggest and most grevious offense of all is:

WoW. has. fucking. capes.

I've been crying for capes to actually be visible in FFXI ever since I first got it. You have all these high peaks, bridges, and cliffs, and without the ability to stand on them with the wind tossing your cape or cloak around and truly feel epic. Instead, we have flat emotes, no ability to dance, no ability to jump, swim, or otherwise interact with the environment, a plethora of items with absolutely no graphics attached to them (you can't even let me see a fucking belt?), and if it wasn't for the fact that they took meticulous time to design their character bodies and faces well, you'd have uninspired models as well. I'll give SE tremendous credit for really stretching the motions and animations for the NPCs in the last two expansions -- ToAU was done especially well, but WHEN are those motions going to extend to the actual playerbase? When can I jump, and really laugh, and really slam my fist down, or dance, or SIT ON A CHAIR?

Edit: The ability to pull out and put away your weapons whenever you want is awesome as well. Its just the little things all added up that have me liking WoW. FFXI feels so fucking -stiff- compared to WoW. I can't -do- anything.