FFXI Thinning Out?

[Weltall]

I agree. FFXI exp mobs are also WAY* too boring, and they should at least have a chance, even if it was -1%, of dropping something worth selling.

[blud]

I quit in 05, playing lord of the rings online currently..

Why are you here?

Just like to see how the game is going, I did spend almost 2yrs on it.

[Blitzen]

I will also say the community on 11 is quite good, because in a way, it has to be; you need a lot of friends (often good ones) to progress

FFXI has the most tightly-knit online game community I've seen only because it requires at least 5 other trustworthy people to do anything beyond tying your own shoes; forced companionship does wonders for that whereas in WoW I can (and have) gone beyond level 30 without even receiving a guild invite.

I wish there were a happy medium.

[levish]

I will also say the community on 11 is quite good, because in a way, it has to be; you need a lot of friends (often good ones) to progress

FFXI has the most tightly-knit online game community I've seen only because it requires at least 5 other trustworthy people to do anything beyond tying your own shoes; forced companionship does wonders for that whereas in WoW I can (and have) gone beyond level 30 without even receiving a guild invite.

I wish there were a happy medium.

you mean like LoTRO?

wow gameplay with eq2-like community and gorgeous graphics to boot

*hides*

[Nazrious]

eq2 community isnt as tight knit as FFXI I mean where do u see rl picks of some ones crotch on an EQ2 forum!???

[Tulun]

I will also say the community on 11 is quite good, because in a way, it has to be; you need a lot of friends (often good ones) to progress

FFXI has the most tightly-knit online game community I've seen only because it requires at least 5 other trustworthy people to do anything beyond tying your own shoes; forced companionship does wonders for that whereas in WoW I can (and have) gone beyond level 30 without even receiving a guild invite.

I wish there were a happy medium.

I agree here, actually. I have definitely shifted from guild to guild quickly, and very few guilds seem to be last, or are good in the first place. The community in WoW is far less, until you hit raiding levels, but even then, I'm sure it compares far less to 11.
I still remember my first linkshell, back when I was level 10 in the dunes... I stayed for a while, and even got a little help. I recall the party getting my test in Eldieme for level 50; I thought this 65 SAM helping me with Tachi:Gekko was awesome!
The community in 11 is awesome, and generally will be heavy handed towards real douchebags; which hopefully keeps people in check, 99% of the time (hopefully...).

Overall, 11 really should have shifted to more leniency for casual players. It has made efforts, but they come late, and not far enough, if they want casual playing to be possible.
If this was done, there would be less bleeding out.

[Aerin]

For me WotG was definitely a step in the right direction towards casual play. I came back to the game and did Campaign non stop for almost a good month when I could log on. But beyond that there was really nothing. The missions took little to no time to do and there wasn't many. So now I'm back to playing WoW in my spare time waiting to see what SE might come out with next patch

[Pacha]

For me WotG was definitely a step in the right direction towards casual play. I came back to the game and did Campaign non stop for almost a good month when I could log on. But beyond that there was really nothing. The missions took little to no time to do and there wasn't many. So now I'm back to playing WoW in my spare time waiting to see what SE might come out with next patch

Well said, the short missions, repetitive campaign, negligible campaign ops, etc. seem to have held the attention of the playerbase for a short time but now, many are getting very bored and the thinning out has continued.

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned a whole lot is the lack of any sort of timeline or preview to future content in WoTG. Even though SE did not meet all the deadlines that they set forth in the ToA timeline, the timeline gave the players something to look forward to and kept their interest. For WoTG, we essentially haven't heard anything about any new content since its release and many have come to the conclusion that the reason for this is that there is little new content to look forward to.

[ronin sparthos]

They cut that timeline shit out because they couldnt stick to it with ToAU, no use stabbing themselves in the foot twice.

If they were smart, something as *simple* as dropping the AV video between the lacking WotG and the 1st update of content would have shut up alot of endgamers desperately looking for something to do.

That is, if the video wasnt just some sorta gimmicky joke... the way they are talking about it, it better be trailer-tier with custom music and everything. >.>

[neochaos]

Campaign i guess is cool for casual gameplay, i've done it a few times, not all that great to me, but thats just my opinion. Most hardcore end-game players primarily I don't see caring a great deal about some "casual play", and more about killing some epic mobs for leet gear, or something involving rewards that are worth obtaining. (Key words: "worth obtaining") D:

If you look at WoW, each time an expansion comes out, the level cap is increased, therefore making a lot if not everything prior to, obsolete. Now I'm not saying make everything in the game to date obsolete, I'm just saying SE reaaaaaaaaaaally needs to push FFXI out of 2004-05. Hell, simply showing us a way to defeat AV would accomplish that somewhat.

Putting shit in the game that would make a lot of things easier to do now would be sweet, and in turn, make future stuff more difficult, etc. Primarily tho, SE just needs to let us know what they at least have planned for WotG. Its a little over a week till february and the latest info they have still is about some fucking mascot straps. srsly, that fails :/

[Aerin]

If you still believe SE will push out any gear from any period you probably haven't been playing the game longer than 2 years max.

Not saying that as an insult or anything, I just find it hard to comprehend that anyone who's been playing since NA release or even CoP thinks that SE will do such a thing. You can hold out some hope but that's another story.

[ringthree]

If you still believe SE will push out any gear from any period you probably haven't been playing the game longer than 2 years max.

Not saying that as an insult or anything, I just find it hard to comprehend that anyone who's been playing since NA release or even CoP thinks that SE will do such a thing. You can hold out some hope but that's another story.

The idea of gear progression is nice in theory, until the realization that it "nerfs" the current gear that people worked hard to get sets in and the subsequent shitstorm begins.

Gear progression is not as simple as tossing out more gear and letting the chips fall where they may. Blizzard has been as roundly criticized for doing this as SE for not progressing. The problem with FFXI is not so much that there is no progression, but that a decent amount of people have gotten to the end of the progression and thus need new gear goals. The Salvage gear is a good example of progression without obsolescence.

Gear progression is a case where going slow is better than going fast. If SE were to "nerf" all of the gear in the game the way that Blizzard did, the consequences would be far worse for FFXI than it was for WoW. There is space for progression, but I would prefer that SE would take it slowly and with care, rather than recklessly adding new gear to a five year old game with a much higher level of requirement to get the best gear.

[Tulun]

Gear progression is definitely an issue. It is pretty bad when gear from 3 years ago (which is no longer hard to get, just time consuming to get; which is just in bad form...) is still basically the best thing. Also, there are very little alternatives for a lot of gear in the crafting sector, so you *have* to obtain this gear in this way...

They just really need to remove luck as much as possible from the equation. Luck plays an incredible role in 11, and it usually just means you'll be waiting more weeks (or months) for a shot at a piece of gear. While it's a good means of addiction, I think more people would be happy (I'd hope?) if fights were made more difficult, and luck was removed (mostly) from the game. Make fights more interesting and creative... They've proven they have some ideas (Alexander was definitely a more unique fight), they just need to stop being lazy about it.

[Lordender]

I think a lot of people are missing the point that it isn't all gear progression that has allowed players to out progress the majority of FFXI's content it has a lot more to do with merit progression/job and game adjustments.

This is just a basic run thru of how I saw this game progress to where we are now.

Zilart's HNM's were a lot tougher back then because there wasent any merits, sushi didn't exist yet for melee, everyone suffered greatly from the level correction.

CoP comes out, merits released near the end, sushi gets added, nin/drk gets put on the map, homam begins to make pld/nin much easier to use. Melee's begin to go to haste setup's(post ammoburn nerf, early tpburn stages.) People begin to merit a lot.

ToAU comes out, meriting made much easier, group 2 merits get added, job updates like shield changes for pld, rampart/sent effects, players continue to change while HNM strength remains the same.

WoTG: unknown yet since its ongoing.

Overall players strength have changed a shitload with some nifty useful gear but most of it is coming from job adjustments and merits while HNM strength has remained the same throughout.

[Lucavi]

Overall players strength have changed a shitload with some nifty useful gear but most of it is coming from job adjustments and merits while HNM strength has remained the same throughout.

To be fair, SE performed many of the adjustments to strength (not counting merits) because of the penalties against high level monsters, to the point where only rangers, smns, and blms could reasonably damage them. If SE goes around just jacking up the defense of all the HNMs, we'll have repeated the circle once again (we've already done it once). They just need to introduce mobs where its not always about burning it into the ground, and not always about dealing a ton of damage. Make mobs where it takes a long time to chip away at their "shielding", and once you're through, the fight gets easier. You've seen tons of games where you have to hit actual points on a creature first -- hell, you've done it in many FF games (Sepiroth fights, Kefka fights, Really big mob fights). Instead of simply having the monster register the same kind of damage from all over, make it so you have to weaken it by attacking different points.

They could have done this with Hydra, but as usual, SE fucked things up by adhering to their same old boring standard of "high hp, decent damage, shitty, low percentage drops". Yawn.

[Octavious]

The first thing that came to mind on your idea, was the last ZM fight when you break the exo-plates then fight the main boss. It seems like a semi fun idea if done right. I think you have an interesting suggestion.

[bercus]

Thing I'm most dissapointed with in XI is the whole silence between devs and players, they only seem to answer to magazines (poke poke elmer's topic where they say stuff about new jobs). They're all about the publicity which is obvious as they're a business, but is 5-10mins a day poking into a forum and answering a Q really that hard? Hell, if I were a dev, and I spent so much dev time making something for it only to end up being epic fail (Hi Pankration and Chocobo racing, 2 big areas that remain empty across all servers), I'd love to know why and what went wrong, to try and fix it to become appealing again.

Hell, it's nearly 20 days since the new year, and not even a breath of version update.

Come on now there is no silence! They throw a fan fest, a bunch of players willing to pay like 80 dollars + airfare go, ask a few questions and make a few complaints, then like 1-2 years later its adjusted, maybe not fixed yet, but yes its adjusted. I don't see a flaw in that system at all.

P.S. Bercus still optimistic about ffxi or gave up?

Honestly?

[Siatdiat]

Thing I'm most dissapointed with in XI is the whole silence between devs and players, they only seem to answer to magazines (poke poke elmer's topic where they say stuff about new jobs). They're all about the publicity which is obvious as they're a business, but is 5-10mins a day poking into a forum and answering a Q really that hard? Hell, if I were a dev, and I spent so much dev time making something for it only to end up being epic fail (Hi Pankration and Chocobo racing, 2 big areas that remain empty across all servers), I'd love to know why and what went wrong, to try and fix it to become appealing again.

Hell, it's nearly 20 days since the new year, and not even a breath of version update.

Come on now there is no silence! They throw a fan fest, a bunch of players willing to pay like 80 dollars + airfare go, ask a few questions and make a few complaints, then like 1-2 years later its adjusted, maybe not fixed yet, but yes its adjusted. I don't see a flaw in that system at all.

P.S. Bercus still optimistic about ffxi or gave up?

Honestly?

I guess you are optimistic, looks like you're closing in on a 5th 75 job, which I cant see doing if you have given up. Could be wrong though.

[layoneil]

I guess you are optimistic, looks like you're closing in on a 5th 75 job, which I cant see doing if you have given up. Could be wrong though.

i've seen plenty of people quit in the middle of leveling a new job to 75 (and not their 1st or 2nd).

[bercus]

On a few aspects of FFXI I gave up yes. Not enough people complain(ed) about 3 Kings have to change the way they are. So I gave up on that, since SE stated, enough people enjoy sitting around and see monsters getting (99%) "unfair" claimed.

Over 10 Linkshells camping Kings is not a lot of fun. Getting retards from other servers is not helping too. The demand for most 3 Kings Items is at least equal to how it was 2-3 years ago.

Most other HNMs are getting claimed the minute they spawn too. Is that how the game was designed to be? So at the whole HNM aspect I gave up. SE will not think about another way for these monsters. Those who are ok with 3 Kings are either those that bot (and know how to low man them), or those who believe noone in their LS is botting, or those with not much competiton on their server.

There is better gear out yes, but for me 3 Kings are fun to fight. Some of my friends did never fight them too. Sure we do KS99 but it is not the same. KS99 is not the same like Fafnir/Nidhogg, more like a mix of CoP Wyrm and Fafnir. I could care less about the drops, but seeing our JP LS selling those drops they don´t need is even more of a reason to give up on that.

SE has a shitload of people developing the game. Yet they are not able to instance Dynamis or Limbus or change the way the 3 Kings are. They are not able to raise drop rates of old content so we can finally be done with them and focus on new stuff. And what is up with always getting AF1+1 material we don´t need? Around 30% of the time I see BST and BRD upgrade material.

They have a shitload of people developing and yet it takes them 2 years to put AF2 for jobs from the last expansion into the game. Or years to help on killing Absolute Virtue. Not able to fix old content or repop of questionmarks. It is stupid to wait 15 minutes to be able to fight stuff again. 5 minutes is enough. We are wasting sometimes 2 hours on popped stuff.

Too much time in the game is still going to waste. (like repop of (???), when someone is in Limbus area and you wait for them to go out, sitting at HNM spawn points).

And another thing that comes to my mind is the still excisting lack of Level 75 EXP spots. For what did we get the new expansion? (Sure not all areas unlocked yet, but stil….)

Also they are not holding their promises. Guess if I got the responds yet from the E-Mail they wanted to send me? No I got 2 weeks ago a responds that they are sorry but couldn´t send me anything. But my hopes are going towards this :

But, I will ask the team if it is possible for small Q&A in February and get back to you ASAP.

I´am disappointed from this Expansion too. Guess I do not need to explain why . My RDM is 74 since I think 3 months now. And who knows and the next Version Update changes more then we think.

But I still enjoy the game. I have awesome people playing with me the game, so no reason for me to quit yet.