June Version Update Notice (04/25/2008)

[orson]

SE says that we still have 500k users but they haven't released a census lately have they? I'd guess a decent amount joined because of 360 and a few because of WoTG coming out. Overall though I just don't see many new players. Now I'm not naive enough to think just because I don't meet new players there aren't a lot but generally when talking to friends that play the game meeting a new player is few and far between. I think maybe 10% of the population are players that have joined in the last year and are 1-75 (tbh I think that's a fairly generous number.) Even "new" players often are people who played before and deleted their character or are friends of someone who is assisting them learn to play anyways.

Either way the point is fairly moot in my opinion because I bet FFXI would attract more players if they made exp less serious and less of a time commitment.

[LD]

In the ideal world exp parties would work like you say they do but in reality we know that's not true. Exp parties are mostly brainless affairs that some people do well in and some people don't it simply boils down to the effort the player is willing to put in. Whether they put that effort in 1-20, 30-60, 61-74, or 75 is up to them you can exp all the way up to 75 being a completely useless tit. I learned way more about playing the game through reading, research, forums, LSs, etc. then I ever did in parties. So I find it hard to swallow that so many people sit there and pretend that exping is such a massive learning aid.

This is what I said, but I like the way you said it. Especially the bit about research. I was into this game literally months before the JP beta (April '02) and followed it through importers until I was able to play. By then I knew what I was supposed to be doing even if I didn't always get it right.

[Dense]

I don't think galkas fighting pose with H2H is the same as in pic. As much as I wish as a monk that SE would give us a weapon that isn't blunt type, it'd have to be completely new weapon class and I don't see that happening

Vampiric Claws

those are pretty terrible anywhere but apollyon

Yeah, and nothing they're going to make specifically for MNK with Piercing or Slashing property is going to be any better than destroyers anywhere. That was kind of my point.

Unfortunately, your point was way off-mark, as SE specifically stated they wanted to decrease tp given/hit in order to make MNK somewhat desirable for things like HNMs, where the high defence of the mobs means feeding tp for 5-10 dmg per fist. My original point was that I could see a new weapon-type filling that gap, even though the likelyhood seems pretty far-fetched. I expect that the kama is probably the NIN nyzul relic, or something like that, but I could see an argument of speculation about the kama being used in a Hand-to-Hand manner in order to bridge to the former-mentioned deficiency of MNK...

[DAKPluto]

seeing a lot of people here that should be playing WoW instead of FFXI...

[Melios]

If they made a Cobra Robe with Refresh effect, it'd have the added effect of making me give a crap about Campaign. I don't think I'm the only one.

Don't tease me!

[phrost]

seeing a lot of people here that should be playing WoW instead of FFXI...

[DAKPluto]

seeing a lot of people here that should be playing WoW instead of FFXI...

Phrosty :nikkei:

[Yutuyu]

seeing a lot of people here that should be playing WoW instead of FFXI...

Yeah, basically. They're unhappy with that which makes FFXI, FFXI. Forced group dynamics IS FFXI. I don't think they should change the game massively to appeal to the few people that can't deal with it; those people should find another MMORPG.

I'm not against Campaign's addition or even if they added a couple more XP quests/changed the way XP scrolls work so that they don't suck. But the moment they start making soloing mobs for XP viable, or soloing quests a legitamate way to level up from 1-75, the game will unravel and die for me, because if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing WoW.

XPing is done, it's over. We don't need more ways to hit 75. We need more things to do when we get there.

[Rocl]

in before someone mentions goblin pet solo-ing

[Therin]

There should be ways to get to 75 solo, but it shouldn't be as fast as partying.

Until the addition of Campaign, there basically was NO way to solo to 75 unless you were a select few jobs (RDM, BLM, SMN, BST, NIN), and even then it was slow for all of them. Now that we have Campaign, the system is perfectly balanced.

[fantasticdan]

I'm not against Campaign's addition or even if they added a couple more XP quests/changed the way XP scrolls work so that they don't suck. But the moment they start making soloing mobs for XP viable, or soloing quests a legitamate way to level up from 1-75, the game will unravel and die for me, because if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing WoW.

So do you think they should nerf drg/blu/blm/bst/smn exp solo? On my blu, solo exp was definitely more "viable" than most pickup parties, and I leveled 1-75 for the most part solo.

[Inactive]

Theres a difference between wanting to play WoW, and wanting to eliminate (or make less painful) the grind from 1-75. It's been said before that leveling is supposed to teach you basic game and grouping mechanics. What about the people have have 5+ 75's and already know what their doing? Half the reason WoW has so many subscribers is because you can actually log on for an hour and make some progression on your character. Since when was that a bad thing? When most of the player base is at the max level you can focus on producing more content because your no longer just giving content to the hardcore players, your giving content to everyone.

[Gere]

A note to those who say there are no new players. I know about 15-20 people at my school who recently started playing FFXI (some of them in groups some individually, none of them due to me telling them about the game). New players do exist, old players just don't see them very often for various reasons.

[Xno Kappa]

Fucking LOL for those who think forced party play is somewhat of a "social interaction."

[ringthree]

Theres a difference between wanting to play WoW, and wanting to eliminate (or make less painful) the grind from 1-75. It's been said before that leveling is supposed to teach you basic game and grouping mechanics. What about the people have have 5+ 75's and already know what their doing? Half the reason WoW has so many subscribers is because you can actually log on for an hour and make some progression on your character. Since when was that a bad thing? When most of the player base is at the max level you can focus on producing more content because your no longer just giving content to the hardcore players, your giving content to everyone.

WoW is one game, FFXI is another. Your argument is basically a kin to saying that since you like running plays in football that baseball should having running plays. In fact most of the arguments for soloing basically boil down to the fact that a player does not like xping in a party, in a game based upon a party system. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. Campaign was a fantastic way for SE to add the ability to solo XP, not just Campaign battle, but the lower level quests with XP rewards.

They are never going to introduce a system that allows solo XP to overwhelm the party XP system. It is completely counterintuitive to expect them to usurp the entire basis of the game. It would be like demanding that Blizzard introduce partying for XP and making it a faster rate than solo. Comparing individual game functions between the two games fails so hard.

[Yutuyu]

I'm not against Campaign's addition or even if they added a couple more XP quests/changed the way XP scrolls work so that they don't suck. But the moment they start making soloing mobs for XP viable, or soloing quests a legitamate way to level up from 1-75, the game will unravel and die for me, because if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing WoW.

So do you think they should nerf drg/blu/blm/bst/smn exp solo? On my blu, solo exp was definitely more "viable" than most pickup parties, and I leveled 1-75 for the most part solo.

I don't see a harm in certain jobs being able to solo for certain intervals. But I think it should always be more attractive to party by far, and those soloing jobs should never move into an XP party's territory.

[orson]

Theres a difference between wanting to play WoW, and wanting to eliminate (or make less painful) the grind from 1-75. It's been said before that leveling is supposed to teach you basic game and grouping mechanics. What about the people have have 5+ 75's and already know what their doing? Half the reason WoW has so many subscribers is because you can actually log on for an hour and make some progression on your character. Since when was that a bad thing? When most of the player base is at the max level you can focus on producing more content because your no longer just giving content to the hardcore players, your giving content to everyone.

WoW is one game, FFXI is another. Your argument is basically a kin to saying that since you like running plays in football that baseball should having running plays. In fact most of the arguments for soloing basically boil down to the fact that a player does not like xping in a party, in a game based upon a party system. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. Campaign was a fantastic way for SE to add the ability to solo XP, not just Campaign battle, but the lower level quests with XP rewards.

They are never going to introduce a system that allows solo XP to overwhelm the party XP system. It is completely counterintuitive to expect them to usurp the entire basis of the game. It would be like demanding that Blizzard introduce partying for XP and making it a faster rate than solo. Comparing individual game functions between the two games fails so hard.

Thank you ringthree. I was just about to say WoW comparisons GTFO!!!!!

Seriously I play both games and both are extremely different. I specifically didn't use the "FFXI should be like WoW argument" because I'd be pissed if they didn't concentrate on stuff like storylines (which actually they're giving in to the masses on that one making fights for missions slightly harder then an exp party.) You want to teach the players how to play the game force them through stuff like CoP. Not only does it teach loads of strategy it forces them to understand that there are 20 jobs in this game for a reason.

I've already illustrated that a solo system "not like another MMO that will remain nameless" could easily make seeking and exping a more desirable activity and increase the number of people seeking for parties. Also by allowing players to earn exp in 15-30 min blocks then you make the game easier to access by new players or players that have limited time. Wasting time is never fun that is what I want to remove from FFXI. Seeking is a waste of time no matter what way you look at it and you are very limited in the way you seek and what you can do while seeking (perhaps this should go hand in hand with improving the seeking system.)

Also Yututu quit being such a semi-charmed idiot. "I don't see a harm in certain jobs being able to solo for certain intervals." Get real, the majority of the time party exp is better but because the majority of the FFXI community is selfish those jobs don't have a choice but to solo. You don't think Sam can solo goblin pets? They do it really quite well but they get invites and party, because it's safer and faster exp. Basically you're saying I don't want a solo system because that might slightly jeopardize your fun. Go make a new character on a random server and try to lvl Blm or Bst they aren't solo jobs they were just forced to be. With 20 jobs there will always be less desirable jobs to invite not to mention often times there are only 3 people seeking that are all DDs and thus are forced to wait 2-3 hrs until more people come on or they get invited. The exp and seeking system has always sucked it's just more acute because there's more players sitting on there level 75s going, "why the fuck would I seek when I could actually get (insert random thing.)"

[Koyangi]

Yes, I like both games, I enjoy the unique things each game has to offer, and at the bottom of page 6 I explained just 2 very overall small things that FFXI could have that wouldn't ruin it's uniqueness at all(yes you can party in WoW to level, especially 60+ it's very recommended, but it's not necassary). But on the same token, noone here can say FFXI is perfect, we like it more because we're addicted than we are because it's a "perfect" game (hint: it's not).

[Talint]

Show me an EXP party that can get away without having refresh, and I will cede to the idea that party play is superior.

[Khajit]

Show me an EXP party that can get away without having refresh, and I will cede to the idea that party play is superior.

sublimation? Dancers? drg/mages in a group destroying all in thier path?