June Version Update Notice (04/25/2008)

[SeraphusRagnarok]

Soloing is overrated in an online game. If I wanted an awsome solo experience I'd play a better offline RPG like ESIV:Oblivion.

Who plays an online game to solo? Think of the loop. You solo to get exp to become stronger to fight HNM to get better gear to solo better. Where's the fun in that? Its like the snake that eats its own tail.

Remember when SE mentioned they wanted to kill TP burn? They dicussed making new mobs in new areas with increased attributed? I don't know if anyone noticed that mobs in the new area have insanely high stats for their level! I was trying to level my Scholar(10) in
East Ronfaure[S] and DC Rabbits were hitting me for 60-80 and my Max HP at level 10 is like 130. I thought it was a fluke so i tried an EM worm, its Stone I's were doing 6-12 damage to me, but its melee attacks were doing 90+ WTF? And these things had way more HP than a level 10 mob should have, I used all of my SCH's MP on Water I's and it only got them to like 20% all for a measly 100 exp.

[Khamsin]

Soloing is overrated in an online game. If I wanted an awsome solo experience I'd play a better offline RPG like ESIV:Oblivion.

What about the demographic of people who would like to solo in an MMORPG environment? Sometimes its nice just to be connected, even if you're not constantly doing activities with other people.

[Katlan]

Remember when SE mentioned they wanted to kill TP burn? They dicussed making new mobs in new areas with increased attributed? I don't know if anyone noticed that mobs in the new area have insanely high stats for their level!

I've done a decent amount of TP burns in Castle O [S] & gained around 17-18k+ an hr. Not a bad alternative to ToA camps since you don't need to worry about a PT camping on you to ruin your 20k+ per hr xp and bringing it down to 10-15k. But I will admit, most of the mobs in the new areas are tougher for their level then non-WotG areas

[ringthree]

Soloing is overrated in an online game. If I wanted an awsome solo experience I'd play a better offline RPG like ESIV:Oblivion.

What about the demographic of people who would like to solo in an MMORPG environment? Sometimes its nice just to be connected, even if you're not constantly doing activities with other people.

There are games for them too, and even places for them in FFXI. That is not really what we are talking about here. We are talking about a (small) demographic of people that want to completely undermine the basic gameplay formulation of a game so they can solo.

No one is disputing that there is or should be solo content. They are just disputing the pace at which you should gain XP whiling soloing. That is where the disconnect is happening.

[BRP]

Can anyone give me an argument against solo content? It already exists in the game, only that for exp it's weak compare to gaining money and completing quests.

"Play an offline game" isn't a good argument since FFXI would still have partying and it would probably still be the best way to gain exp. If you try to answer me with "Play an offline game" you will be ignored because that isn't worth answering.

SE isn't against solo content either, so don't attempt to claim that. Present some solid evidence if you are going to make that claim. I can list evidence that says they are all for it. Campaign, Campaign Ops, Exp Ring designed for soloing, Solo ENMs, a job built around soloing(failing horribly in the process though)...

Personally, I'd like to see nerfs to stuff like Beastmen pets and misc and have them just add real solo content. But then again, that'd piss people off. Exploits aren't exploits if it means easy exp or gil, right?

[Nyuneko]

People who are saying how soloing isn't needed in an online game, can I ask something? Do you enjoy playing with pick up groups? Or are you one of us who play with their LS/friends only? If you are the latter, why does it matter if an online game promotes soloing or not? I am the latter, I enjoy playing with my friends and LS, but I detest playing with pick up, I would much rather being able to progress in the game without joining random pick up with retards, and I would still play with my friends even if the game doesn't force me to party. Simply put, I prefer solo over partying with retards, but if you ask me to party with friends, well, you don't even have to ask, because I will party with my friends.

Well, enough of the 'me' talks, whether you like it or not, as I was reading up the FFXI update history, at around June 2003, during an interview with the FFXI dev team, the dev team clearly said that they were looking for methods to allow small-man group and soloing in FFXI; how far and how true are they with those words aren't anything that I can do anything about, but one thing for sure is that: SE admitted to the problem of force party play, and that solo/low-man stuffs have been on high demand since before June 2003(Yes, before NA release).

Let me put it this way: Whether the game forces party play or not, people who want to party play will still cluster up together and do stuffs; but a game that forces party play increases the frustration everytime you want to progress but met a week worth of retards who couldn't even get behind a Goblin to avoid aggro.

Ever wondered why FFXI has never gotten to any of the Top MMORPG list? May be it's time to stop being fanboy and see the big pictures.

Now for those who said FFXI should lower the grind. Looking at the update history, FFXI was much more lax than it is now, did you know HNM used to be 16 mins repop? And that all NM used to be instant repop? Did you know, making gil was as easy as killing tiger, and NPCing the tiger leather ring you made? To put it simple, they have done what you have asked for in the past, and they obviously didn't like it, so I doubt they would do anything to change the game back to how it was.

[Inactive]

ringthree you're making it seem as if the solo advocates want to completely eliminate or revamp the partying system in favor of soloing. I enjoy parties and enjoy the community aspect of the game just like most if not all of the people who play (que the "I'm addicted to my friends not the game" comment.) But if I want to get XP that is somewhat comparable to a groups XP, that isn't always an option. Grouping should have the edge over soloing no doubt, but SE hasn't been doing anything to help bring some jobs back into group play (blm, bst) or eliminated the need for certain party setups. So why not allow for alternative ways of gaining the XP?

[ringthree]

ringthree you're making it seem as if the solo advocates want to completely eliminate or revamp the partying system in favor of soloing. I enjoy parties and enjoy the community aspect of the game just like most if not all of the people who play (que the "I'm addicted to my friends not the game" comment.) But if I want to get XP that is somewhat comparable to a groups XP, that isn't always an option. Grouping should have the edge over soloing no doubt, but SE hasn't been doing anything to help bring some jobs back into group play (blm, bst) or eliminated the need for certain party setups. So why not allow for alternative ways of gaining the XP?

When was the last time you played FFXI? Seriously, did you miss Campaign entirely? SE is never going to give up the party system as the dominant form of XP, anyone that believes so is deluded. They have based a fundamental part of the new expansion entirely in soloable and small-man content. The argument at this point sounds less like a call for soloable content, and more like "this isn't the solo content that I wanted."

There are tons of alternative ways to gain solo XP, they are varied and actually there is far more available for a person that wants to solo than for a person that wants to party. The only thing that partying has over soloing right now is that you get more XP partying than soloing. If you change that, no one is going to party. And that is pretty much the antithesis of the gameplay system.

[Yutuyu]

People who are saying how soloing isn't needed in an online game, can I ask something? Do you enjoy playing with pick up groups? Or are you one of us who play with their LS/friends only? If you are the latter, why does it matter if an online game promotes soloing or not? I am the latter, I enjoy playing with my friends and LS, but I detest playing with pick up, I would much rather being able to progress in the game without joining random pick up with retards, and I would still play with my friends even if the game doesn't force me to party. Simply put, I prefer solo over partying with retards, but if you ask me to party with friends, well, you don't even have to ask, because I will party with my friends.

I've never built a shitty party except in the first couple of months I started playing. If you're tired of getting shitty parties, build them. Then you won't end up with a terrible setup, you won't have to seek as long, and you'll have control over things!

One of the reason there's so many shitty parties is because there's so many idiots who try leading them because the "veterans" are too lazy and expect other people to organize things.

Well, enough of the 'me' talks, whether you like it or not, as I was reading up the FFXI update history, at around June 2003, during an interview with the FFXI dev team, the dev team clearly said that they were looking for methods to allow small-man group and soloing in FFXI; how far and how true are they with those words aren't anything that I can do anything about, but one thing for sure is that: SE admitted to the problem of force party play, and that solo/low-man stuffs have been on high demand since before June 2003(Yes, before NA release).

Low man != solo content; but some solo content isn't necessarily a bad thing. I love having things to do on my own so that I don't have to get a party when I want to do anything. I just don't want SE to waste a large amount of resources building an alternate way to do things which're already easy to do in a party. Because that wastes developer resources which are already very scarce.

Let me put it this way: Whether the game forces party play or not, people who want to party play will still cluster up together and do stuffs; but a game that forces party play increases the frustration everytime you want to progress but met a week worth of retards who couldn't even get behind a Goblin to avoid aggro.

Why are you playing a game that forces party play if you don't like it though? I don't see why SE should invest resources into pleasing people who don't like the basic premise of the game. You'd be much happier if you stopped lobbying for big change, and just picked up a game which is centered around solo play.

Don't lobby for ruining our game to be like every other game because it isn't what you want, just go play what you want!

Ever wondered why FFXI has never gotten to any of the Top MMORPG list? May be it's time to stop being fanboy and see the big pictures.

I don't want my game to be on the top MMO listing. I play this game because I like it for what it is. It's not being a fanboy to want the game to stay the way you like it; it's liking your niche and not wanting it altered to appeal to the masses for the simple sake of capitalism.

Now for those who said FFXI should lower the grind. Looking at the update history, FFXI was much more lax than it is now, did you know HNM used to be 16 mins repop? And that all NM used to be instant repop? Did you know, making gil was as easy as killing tiger, and NPCing the tiger leather ring you made? To put it simple, they have done what you have asked for in the past, and they obviously didn't like it, so I doubt they would do anything to change the game back to how it was.

Before the vast majority of us were playing, that was true. But most of that was changed around RoZ's release (which was before NA FFXI was even released) or shortly after. Those may as well have been 'beta' stages of the game. The game has gotten progressively easier ever since CoP; that's fact.

[Inactive]

ringthree you're making it seem as if the solo advocates want to completely eliminate or revamp the partying system in favor of soloing. I enjoy parties and enjoy the community aspect of the game just like most if not all of the people who play (que the "I'm addicted to my friends not the game" comment.) But if I want to get XP that is somewhat comparable to a groups XP, that isn't always an option. Grouping should have the edge over soloing no doubt, but SE hasn't been doing anything to help bring some jobs back into group play (blm, bst) or eliminated the need for certain party setups. So why not allow for alternative ways of gaining the XP?

When was the last time you played FFXI? Seriously, did you miss Campaign entirely? SE is never going to give up the party system as the dominant form of XP, anyone that believes so is deluded. They have based a fundamental part of the new expansion entirely in soloable and small-man content. The argument at this point sounds less like a call for soloable content, and more like "this isn't the solo content that I wanted."

There are tons of alternative ways to gain solo XP, they are varied and actually there is far more available for a person that wants to solo than for a person that wants to party. The only thing that partying has over soloing right now is that you get more XP partying than soloing. If you change that, no one is going to party. And that is pretty much the antithesis of the gameplay system.

Campaign is great, nice for keeping up buffers and maybe grabbing an extra merit here and there. But how viable do you think it is to take a job from 1-75 in campaign? You would have to invest more time doing that than actually grouping, and if your soloing because you don't have the time to group it defeats the purpose. I'll say it again, I don't expect nor do I want SE to make soloing the dominant for of XP. But whats wrong with making it a viable option? I don't hear any complaining about soloing goblin pets for XP, which for some jobs and some cases might be better than actually grouping. So why is it all of a sudden a bad idea when someone wants to expand on that?

[terranova]

now one thing I don't want FFXI to become is an instanced game.

[Yutuyu]

XP is FINE it doesn't need to be fixed. Why should scarce developer resources be wasted to fix something that isn't broken except for a vast minority of players that aren't okay with the established dynamic of the game.

I'm not against a little soloing. Even a little soloing content addition, but any major overhauls are simply a waste of developer time. That's the point.

[Nyuneko]

Yutuyu, then I envy your luck of pick up group, but it's also an unchanging fact that whether the game has solo element or not, people who enjoy partying will still do so without being forced to, at the end, I'd say if a game has both solo element and party element(nothing said that they can't co-exist, right?), they would be attracting a lot more people to this game, aka more money and better ratings. So far, up to RoZ updates history that I have been reading, SE has only been able to get on the news with every mistake they made in FFXI, but I guess that's also due to people prefering hearing bad news over good news?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I do try to educate newer players when I party with them, but I am playing a game, not a job that I have to train my newer colleague everytime I join a group. And I do put my own parties together now and then(let's not talk/argue/debate about how each of us play, right? No point really.), but the choice are far and between these days, which is also one of the other problem with forced party play: We need certain jobs to progress in the game. And it's an increasingly apparent problem in FFXI's game design.

It always make me laugh when people say "If you don't like it, quit.", what are we? Children? Although as a matter of fact, SE never did listen to the consumers, it is consumer's rights to complain when the product isn't what they wished for, and if SE want to buy people's heart, they have to listen to their demands and work for it. No one is asking them to listen to those who say "Make Ridill drop off a Goblin Thug", but user feedback is part of the design process, in particular, game design. If they are little kids that just take every negative feedback as plain rant, then there is no helping, but they being a big company and all, I'd hope they know what "feedback" means(then again, they mixed up "Shield" and "Healer" last expansion).

It's true that a game doesn't have to be the top game to be anyone's favourite, to each their own. I like Monster Hunter, but it has received rather poor ratings from many sources. Reviews are nothing but personal opinions written by other people that we don't know of, and each person has their own preference, although it doesn't concern us as much, it should be a big problem for the publisher, receiving good reviews often mean that they can make money out of the game(Assassin's Creed is a fine example for this, great reviews, great sales, worst game ever). Anyway, having poor reviews also mean that the game isn't well received amongst the public, which just mean that, may be, just may be, that there is indeed places in the game where they can improve on?

And, what I was saying in the end of my last post is that: Most of the suggestions that people put forth have been done and beaten before, SE won't bring those back, they will try to do something else to compensate it, whether their new methods would work or not is up to each to decide. Whether or not those changes were made today or during RoZ doesn't change the fact that: They have done it, they don't like it, they are not bringing it back.

Lastly, I have no idea how and what SE could do about the increasing concern of the game's problem.

Sorry, don't like quote train, but I guess I like wall'o'text in a signiture/avatar-less post...

[orson]

Yutuyu seriously you're not making any valid points. Basically every time someone suggests anything that you don't agree your response is "If you don't like it GFTO and go play another game." Not only that the only reason you say that solo = bad is because you really really really like parties and there's a slim chance that if they allowed solo play then your fun might be impacted. Your whole argument isn't based on what would improve the game but what you prefer. SE could easily add solo exp systems that aren't as good exp as parties and they would never replace parties.

Right now Campaign Ops, Fellow's, and Exp scroll quests are already there but they suck balls for the time put in vs the reward. Obviously since SE is putting more work into the Fellow they want to improve solo play (unless they're making fellows more compatible for parties.) The problem is each one of these systems are brutally limited you earn a tiny fraction of the exp that you could in a party.

You're completely avoiding the fact that FFXI's exp system as it stands completely fucks over the casual player. If I want to level Drk I have to take 5-15 min swapping gear because I may have muled my gear. Turn on seeking and look to see there is a War, Nin, and Drk seeking and that is it, so I sit there and wait (possibly go to try to solo shitty EPs for laughable exp.) Then finally after waiting an hr I get an invite and I say sorry I've only got another hr left to play the person says, "No thanks, I don't want to invite you because after the 30 minutes it takes the other fucking retards who don't have OP warps to get to camp I'll have to invite a replacement right away." Don't tell me this shit doesn't happen all the time.

The exp system is fucking terrible as it is. You're selfish little attitude is the only reason you can't see that a solo system would improve the game, most likely draw more players, and let people exp while seeking so that there would be more people wanting to spend there time seeking!

[Yutuyu]

Yutuyu seriously you're not making any valid points. Basically every time someone suggests anything that you don't agree your response is "If you don't like it GFTO and go play another game." Not only that the only reason you say that solo = bad is because you really really really like parties and there's a slim chance that if they allowed solo play then your fun might be impacted. Your whole argument isn't based on what would improve the game but what you prefer. SE could easily add solo exp systems that aren't as good exp as parties and they would never replace parties.

Right now Campaign Ops, Fellow's, and Exp scroll quests are already there but they suck balls for the time put in vs the reward. Obviously since SE is putting more work into the Fellow they want to improve solo play (unless they're making fellows more compatible for parties.) The problem is each one of these systems are brutally limited you earn a tiny fraction of the exp that you could in a party.

You're completely avoiding the fact that FFXI's exp system as it stands completely fucks over the casual player. If I want to level Drk I have to take 5-15 min swapping gear because I may have muled my gear. Turn on seeking and look to see there is a War, Nin, and Drk seeking and that is it, so I sit there and wait (possibly go to try to solo shitty EPs for laughable exp.) Then finally after waiting an hr I get an invite and I say sorry I've only got another hr left to play the person says, "No thanks, I don't want to invite you because after the 30 minutes it takes the other fucking retards who don't have OP warps to get to camp I'll have to invite a replacement right away." Don't tell me this shit doesn't happen all the time.

The exp system is fucking terrible as it is. You're selfish little attitude is the only reason you can't see that a solo system would improve the game, most likely draw more players, and let people exp while seeking so that there would be more people wanting to spend there time seeking!

Thank you for making it all clear to me by debating each one of my points and showing me how I am wrong. I see no need to continue to argue this, Orson has won. His ability to read and dismantle opposing points of view with clever wit and impeccable logic has defeated me. I surrender. :jeuno:

[orson]

At least you can admit it.

[travOtaku]

I love how everyone that is against solo content seems to think that these people are asking for players to be able to solo for 19k/hr solo and then get an invite to a party and have that party cap out at only 13k/hr.

There are days when I don't even log into FFXI because I only have like an hour or two and I know that isn't enough time to get a party or do much of anything. That's why I am happy they added campaign, because before that I would just forego the game until I had like 5 hours to spare.

I'm paying for access to this game for a whole month. Why should I only be able to progress my character at certain times when certain conditions are right?

I don't think anyone is asking for soloing to become a more viable option than partying, but just to create the option for people to get EXP when they'd like to, even if they can only log in for an hour.

Another possible solution would be something like adding more escort quests, and reset them at JP Midnight as a quest for 800-1400 EXP once a day isn't game breaking. You could also adjust the recast time on the solo ENM, or have it grant more EXP.

[ringthree]

Yutuyu seriously you're not making any valid points. Basically every time someone suggests anything that you don't agree your response is "If you don't like it GFTO and go play another game." Not only that the only reason you say that solo = bad is because you really really really like parties and there's a slim chance that if they allowed solo play then your fun might be impacted. Your whole argument isn't based on what would improve the game but what you prefer. SE could easily add solo exp systems that aren't as good exp as parties and they would never replace parties.

Right now Campaign Ops, Fellow's, and Exp scroll quests are already there but they suck balls for the time put in vs the reward. Obviously since SE is putting more work into the Fellow they want to improve solo play (unless they're making fellows more compatible for parties.) The problem is each one of these systems are brutally limited you earn a tiny fraction of the exp that you could in a party.

You're completely avoiding the fact that FFXI's exp system as it stands completely fucks over the casual player. If I want to level Drk I have to take 5-15 min swapping gear because I may have muled my gear. Turn on seeking and look to see there is a War, Nin, and Drk seeking and that is it, so I sit there and wait (possibly go to try to solo shitty EPs for laughable exp.) Then finally after waiting an hr I get an invite and I say sorry I've only got another hr left to play the person says, "No thanks, I don't want to invite you because after the 30 minutes it takes the other fucking retards who don't have OP warps to get to camp I'll have to invite a replacement right away." Don't tell me this shit doesn't happen all the time.

The exp system is fucking terrible as it is. You're selfish little attitude is the only reason you can't see that a solo system would improve the game, most likely draw more players, and let people exp while seeking so that there would be more people wanting to spend there time seeking!

/facepalm

You just ignored like 2 pages of reasoning explaining why solo XP can't be more efficient than party XP because of game design all the while saying that anyone that didn't agree with you was biased, then doing then same exact thing yourself. That is pretty much the definition of /facepalm.

[LD]

My job is done here.


*Cheers series finale exit*

[Seigfried Of Pandy]

soooooooooooooo who thinks that nin scythe thing is nyzul relic?