FFXI Thinning Out?

[Lucavi]

but unless you are a roleplayer

I love to roleplay, but that has nothing to do with shitty droprates, a lack of solo content (come on, you can roleplay as a beastmaste, out in the wild with just your pet, or a dragoon, training in the wilderness with your wyvern -- getting into character doesn't always mean you have to do it ONLY in a group setting), and the "set it and forget it" policy that SE employs to almost every single aspect of the game.

What I am not, however, is JP, or a masochist (well not anymore, at least). Being a roleplayer doesn't mean you're forced to subject yourself to stringent and often-times unfair policies and systems. Apparently, however, being Japanese or a masochist means that you do.

And "lol" at the "leaking vagina" comment. Apparently everyone should simply be happy with whatever SE throws out, no matter how half-assed it is.

[ronin sparthos]

A RP server would have been a good idea back when FFXI was 'newer' - one for each group (NA, EU, JP) - that kinda thing pulls in people that would otherwise look over the FF for games that feed their 'immersion' into the game with a special server for it.

Shit like that would help draw in people, trivial as it seems.

[Damane]

but unless you are a roleplayer

I love to roleplay, but that has nothing to do with shitty droprates, a lack of solo content (come on, you can roleplay as a beastmaste, out in the wild with just your pet, or a dragoon, training in the wilderness with your wyvern -- getting into character doesn't always mean you have to do it ONLY in a group setting), and the "set it and forget it" policy that SE employs to almost every single aspect of the game.

What I am not, however, is JP, or a masochist (well not anymore, at least). Being a roleplayer doesn't mean you're forced to subject yourself to stringent and often-times unfair policies and systems. Apparently, however, being Japanese or a masochist means that you do.

And "lol" at the "leaking vagina" comment. Apparently everyone should simply be happy with whatever SE throws out, no matter how half-assed it is.

I agree with you. Its not like I dont like playing FFXI, I mean I played for almost 4 year and am still playing just occasionally, but RL changes and huge time sinks vs little/no rewards are nothing looking forward to. Its frustrateing. When I log on I want to play and not to wait hours until I get a group going or so, the lack of solo content is also a huge factor. Giving just some decent BCNM, EXP, QUEST solo options would give a huge boost, and no I dont mean solo options for lvl 75. An instanced zone that puts out enemys corrected to your lvl and job you are in currently so you can solo them for some decent exp. 4k per hour wouldnt sound bad for 1-2 hours or so.
Mobs with lower hp then usual.
when you enter as whm lvl 33 for example you get a NPC with you that fights mobs and your duty is to heal him and keep him alive since he kills the mobs and gives you the exp basicly.
when you enter as blm you have mobs weak to magic that dont have fast movement speed.
Mobs would drop temporary items like yagudo drinks etc. to keep you going on.
This is just an idea solo content would help FFXI

seriously EU primetime lacks player catastrophicly and the most...

[Paegan]

ToAU: Probably the best release content but still near nothing. all soloable missions, only 2 rank ups. no one could build up the points to get a amir/yigit/etc piece before the first version update so gear wasn't much of anything either

Totally false. Someone said earlier that the first ToAU update was ~3 months, that's plenty of time to get 20k assault points, 40k even.

And anyway, even if that hadn't been the case, the gear was there from the start to give people something to work towards and get excited about.

[BRP]

Damane have you done Campaign? You can get 4k an hour if you are a melee/DNC or a RDM or something. Minimum is like 2k.

[Damane]

Damane have you done Campaign? You can get 4k an hour if you are a melee/DNC or a RDM or something. Minimum is like 2k.

I have done campaign, and its nice for lvl 60+ jobs, but what about lvl 1-60 jobs? and I hate campaign lag, it just is hell when there are so many people around in campaign. Campaign alone still doesnt fix the lack of solo content, its not only solo exp, its BCNMs, Quests with decent rewards etc. that need to be added and are soloable.

[neochaos]

As far as expansions go, this is what we've gotten:

CoP: At first we had missions up to 2-5, granted they were incredibly difficult at the time, but still. New areas that were pretty good exp spots and were easily accessible (sans Ulegeurand Range), shit like ENMs were out, shitloads of new armor (blessed gear, igqira, just to name a few), new HNMs (which were incredibly difficult with shitty drops but still). Lots came out with CoP at start

ToAU: Brand new side of the world released, new hub city, besieged, assaults with some pretty nifty gear, broke ass exp camps for 53+, missions that sucked ass, but thats ok. Three new jobs, of which 1 was broken, 1 failed, and 1 was at the time sucking. BLU, PUP, COR respectively lol. Maybe not a massive content upgrade, but still quality came out.

WotG: the new areas are simply older areas with higher level mobs, except the "fortress" type zones. Personally, I've only done campaign twice, didn't really care much about it, thats just my own personal problem, i can live with it. As far as any rewards thus far in this expansion, you have i think 3 sets of 50~ish armor, which is kinda cool, but most armor pre 70 is temporary unless its badass (hauby for instance). So the armor kinda..lol. No HNMs, nothing rewarding end-game, like 2 missions, no exp areas that i've been told about yet (djinns were great solo exp i heard but alas, SE nerfed that, gg)





So anyways I think we can safely establish at this point in time, WotG sucks. Now I KNOW SE will eventually upgrade everything to where it just might be the best expansion ever, but seriously, why release an expac with absolutely nothing to start? thats lame.

[Sonomaa]

As far as expansions go, this is what we've gotten:
WotG: the new areas are simply older areas with higher level mobs, except the "fortress" type zones. Personally, I've only done campaign twice, didn't really care much about it, thats just my own personal problem, i can live with it. As far as any rewards thus far in this expansion, you have i think 3 sets of 50~ish armor, which is kinda cool, but most armor pre 70 is temporary unless its badass (hauby for instance). So the armor kinda..lol. No HNMs, nothing rewarding end-game, like 2 missions, no exp areas that i've been told about yet (djinns were great solo exp i heard but alas, SE nerfed that, gg) .

new areas are nice once you learn the exp, youve done campaign twice, probably back before they adjusted it, so you cant even comment on it really, you didnt even give it a shot, its 10x better than what it was before and Ive used it to level my samurai a decent amount because I havent felt like shitty pts. You are correct about the gear, but CoP in its AH offering and ToAU in its three armor sets and some gear right off the bat via assault as well as new merit and exp areas, a new HNM that dropped some good and some ok things, it spoiled us. Honestly after what you might consider a perfect launch for keeping us entertained with toau, there was no way SE could make a new expansion launch any better.

[ronin sparthos]

There was no way they could have matched a toau launch since aht urhgan kinda snuck up on the playerbase and delivered. It wasnt as highly buzzed about as wotg but they screwed up by not coinciding the AV video with the WoTG launch, that would have alone sealed the deal and had people playing with sea and associating it with WoTG even if it wasnt such. No video meant alot of the endgamers went into wotg expecting what happened last expansion and it just didnt happen, leading to harsh reviews of it. Trickle-down reviews that the expansion 'sucked' took its course and here we are at this point and time.

Campaign is fine, they need to work out it being so static though - perhaps some more dynamic events going on during it would make it less repititious.

I still think the lack of appealing the playerbase with what it wanted on top of a weak expansion would have at least gave it a favorable reviews, SE took the maverick approach and did what they wanted which means its a toss up if people like it - [survey said: no] i guess.

[Lucavi]

Honestly after what you might consider a perfect launch for keeping us entertained with toau, there was no way SE could make a new expansion launch any better.

The fact that you think ToAU was a perfect launch makes me sad.

I may be taking things for , but ToAU wasn't all -that- special at launch, save for the ease of meriting, and the hilarious bloodlust that people had for walmart turban; buying up imperial gold coins for upwards of 800k a PIECE on Hades. Those were glorious time of accumulating cash in a game where its nearly impossible to gain a sizable amount short of farming a single NM here or there (seriously, I kill a large bird and there is NOTHING I can take at 75 outside of a slim chance for a feather, chunk of ex meat, or a plume?), but the expansion still didn't feel "chock full".

[Rags]

I agree with you. Its not like I dont like playing FFXI, I mean I played for almost 4 year and am still playing just occasionally, but RL changes and huge time sinks vs little/no rewards are nothing looking forward to. Its frustrateing. When I log on I want to play and not to wait hours until I get a group going or so, the lack of solo content is also a huge factor. Giving just some decent BCNM, EXP, QUEST solo options would give a huge boost, and no I dont mean solo options for lvl 75. An instanced zone that puts out enemys corrected to your lvl and job you are in currently so you can solo them for some decent exp. 4k per hour wouldnt sound bad for 1-2 hours or so.
Mobs with lower hp then usual.
when you enter as whm lvl 33 for example you get a NPC with you that fights mobs and your duty is to heal him and keep him alive since he kills the mobs and gives you the exp basicly.
when you enter as blm you have mobs weak to magic that dont have fast movement speed.
Mobs would drop temporary items like yagudo drinks etc. to keep you going on.
This is just an idea solo content would help FFXI

seriously EU primetime lacks player catastrophicly and the most...

When I heard about WOTG I was hoping that it would have added more solo content for younger players and for players who loved FFXI. But couldn't commit a huge chunk of time to it. It would have been nice to see mobs weaker that lower levels could exp off of for decent exp while they waited for a pt. Not to mention adding areas within the expansion for parties to use.

As it stands WOTG is basically used for campaign and nothing more. In fact I don't remember seeing my G.Sword get any points or levels while I did campaign. Maybe it did and I missed it. Though I will agree with you. I am far to tired of going to D.A to kill a king and not get the drops that matter or to get them and realize it will be a freaking long time before I ever see them Or worse always lose claim to botters.

[ronin sparthos]

ToAU came outta the box streamlined compared to WoTG and was a step up over CoPs launch. The only complaint i had was a lack of storyline content and besieged being a joke at first. Merit camps pushed everyone into the content and visible rewards in assault gave people clear-cut goals and desires. Lastly, a new hub zone kept people together and unified the expansion - and didnt make it a a 'sidestory'.

[neochaos]

No expac released on any MMO will have full content to begin with, but it IS nice when you have some things in it to busy ur time. The failure of the WotG launch does only account for SOME of the reason that I and a lot of players I've known for a while are finding FFXI distasteful. If they would have fucking released the AV video like they said they would, we'd all be clamoring in sea right now kicking AV's ass (or trying to anyways). OR if they would have given SCH's ALL of the spells that were previewed at the festival (tier IVs?????????). Seriously, why would you show a preview of SCH with tier 4 spells if you have no intentions of adding that? Makes sense I guess. You know what's nice tho, by the time this thread dies out, SE might have potentially given its first useful fucking patch note update in like, 2.5-3 months, giving us something to be blissfully hopeful about (ignoring the prospect of the utter disappointment thereof).

[Gulkeeva]

ToAU came outta the box streamlined compared to WoTG and was a step up over CoPs launch. The only complaint i had was a lack of storyline content and besieged being a joke at first. Merit camps pushed everyone into the content and visible rewards in assault gave people clear-cut goals and desires. Lastly, a new hub zone kept people together and unified the expansion - and didnt make it a a 'sidestory'.

Yeah ToAU was pretty good, so many people were all over that place the server was crashing from it, like 500 people in 1 zone and besiged had hundreds all over the place the very first day I think the server crashed 3-4 times ;/

[Yutuyu]

The thing is, ToAU was an amazing launch. I don't think anyone expected them to top that. But considering how much they blew off finishing ToAU to develop WotG, and all of the hype... they expected something other than regurgitated old content.

WotG is nothing more than recycled bits from previous expansions and a couple new character models slapped together. Just the difference in amount of effort put into ToAU's release vs. WotG's release is staggering.

[Pacha]

The thing is, ToAU was an amazing launch. I don't think anyone expected them to top that. But considering how much they blew off finishing ToAU to develop WotG, and all of the hype... they expected something other than regurgitated old content.

WotG is nothing more than recycled bits from previous expansions and a couple new character models slapped together. Just the difference in amount of effort put into ToAU's release vs. WotG's release is staggering.

Tutuyu makes a key point. One of the main reasons why people expect so much from WoTG is that SE (supposedly) spent a huge amt. of time developing WoTG and they delayed finishing parts of ToA in order to work on WoTG. In return for our patience, SE has given us no NM's, pointless, reused zones, insanely repetitive campaign, 2 useless new jobs, and no worthwhile new gear. All of this has really made the player-base wonder what the heck SE has been doing all this time (besides developing Valentine's Day and fan art updates...).

[neochaos]

All of this has really made the player-base wonder what the heck SE has been doing all this time (besides developing Valentine's Day and fan art updates...).

Pretty sure thats all they fucking do >.> OMGWTFBBQFANARTWEEK!!!!!!!!111111111111

As much as I respect people's ability to draw, I could really careless in comparision to updates to a game that needs updating >.>;

[Kenji]

The endgamers are also your source of constant money, they are the ones that keep the low levelers/newbies rushing to get to 75 - the ones that give the game free publicity and go to events to talk to the dev panels/fanfests etc. - the ones that develop the strategies - the ones that write the 'how-to guides' and everything you see on those resource sites.

On the contrary, given that the subscriber level is the same as 2 years ago, one can surmise that for every end-gamer who got fed up and left, a new person took their place. From a Dev standpoint, which do I want?

New player - a lot of content left to consume, still interested in excited
Old player - consumed all content and must be constantly fed to keep happy. Whines on messages boards and negatively influences people in that respect

I'd want the new and excited player to be playing my game, rather than a curmudgeon that's bored and let's that attitude infest others. I have to work harder to keep you happy, the end-gamer, who is usually a smaller percentage of the subscriber base. So, work extra hard to keep a few people happy? Or take a more relaxed approach, knowing that I still have plenty of newbies joining and enjoying what I've put out over the last 5 years?

[neochaos]

I cannot simply fathom how at this point in 2008 there could be remotely the same number of subscribers as there was 2 or 3 years ago. What with a total of a few hundred thousand up to this point banned (most being rmt, but they still pay for the game either way), quite a massive number of end-gamers and "newbies" alike getting fed up with this game and leaving.

If SE's true method of service with this game as that "relaxed approach" that heavily relies on this "recurring playerbase" (which im sure will be thrown hard out of the window when the next census comes out), then this game is just gonna die off fast. I've seen the noobs who play, the "new players who are so excited blah blah", they fucking wear atrocious gear and know not a damn thing about playing this game, god help us all once they become the majority of end-game D: Most of us end-gamers played this game when it was difficult and was a learning process, they dumbed this game down so hard (CoP nerfs, exp curves, etc) that most people who get to 75 are just blah.

You might be right tho, this game might not be dying at all, what with the "massive playerbase" it still has. But I'm sure at this rate by the end of the year the majority of players who mattered in the last 4-5 years are going to be gone.

[Kyreth]

2-3 years ago, the EU population was smaller.

Nowadays, that's factored in and the population is "stable", but we now have a larger number of "new players" rather than old ones, as burnout takes it's inevitable toll.

Once the cycle's complete on the influx of EU players, the population will begin it's slow decline once again, as is the natural way of all MMORPG's. Even WoW.

Short of a total re-do of the original game to bring it up to modern standards and a larger dev team to allow for ToAU/CoP levels of development, what we see now is the rate we're gonna get for new content.