What is keeping FFXI from reaching the potential it has?

[[Cookies]]

As others have said, the amount of effort you have to put in to get certain items (mythics) compared to the reward (omg 100 extra damage every 10 mins woo).

I'd rather fight something really challenging with 100% drop rates than something really easy with dreadful drop rates. Not only is it more fun, but there's a bigger sense of accomplishment when you obtain those items.

Pandemonium Warden is a good example but it could be improved (higher drop rate for triggers).

[Not Kuno]

Pandemonium Warden is a good example but it could be improved (higher drop rate for triggers).

Also useful loot helps too.

[Antithesis]

Would a Level 75 Hat with 10% Haste really be that broken? I think not!

[Mesiah]

I would be interested to know how the jp player base feels about the game. I don't claim to know anything about japanese culture, but it seems to me like english and japanese gamers have two very different mind sets over the years. We are consumed with the rewards of victory and they are consumed with the challenge. If you need but one example, look all the way back to the original donkey kong. There wasn't even an end to the game. Once you beat the last level the game simply froze up because nothing else was programed. And the reason nothing else was programed was that the designers didn't think anyone would ever make it to the last level, let alone beat it. It apears to me that SE is just continueing with japanese video game tradition because thats what japanese players like.

Now I know you all saying "screw jp players! we are here too!" But if I'm SE I'm going to be working for the home team, and I'll let everyone else deal with it. So, I guess my point is, maybe what has fallen short of a great mmo for us is seen as perfection to a japanese gamer. Maybe it's exactly what they want. An insane challenge, no matter the reward. But I'll never know unless I learn to speak japanese. Michael phelps, put down that joint and bring me some rosetta stone!

[Howard Roark]

the ps2 limitation factor is huge

I recently explored WoW with the recruit a friend after resisting the goofy looking game for years; the sheer scope of the areas (and I've only been to starting areas and cities as yet) is pretty nuts compared to ffxi's piddly little zones

and thank god for my recent new computer, going into cities on my old one gave me a blue screen rofl

don't get me wrong, I still prefer FFXI, and the stuff the blizzard does for their player base is far and away better than SE's "huh-what?--No." approach, I just wish blizzard would pick up FFXI and SE could go sit on their porch with a shotgun and stare at the neighbors

[Mesiah]

the ps2 limitation factor is huge

I recently explored WoW with the recruit a friend after resisting the goofy looking game for years; the sheer scope of the areas (and I've only been to starting areas and cities as yet) is pretty nuts compared to ffxi's piddly little zones

and thank god for my recent new computer, going into cities on my old one gave me a blue screen rofl

don't get me wrong, I still prefer FFXI, and the stuff the blizzard does for their player base is far and away better than SE's "huh-what?--No." approach, I just wish blizzard would pick up FFXI and SE could go sit on their porch with a shotgun and stare at the neighbors

I think they could both learn a lesson from eachother. Comming from someone who played wow for over a year and leveled a mage to 70 (back before they raised the level cap to 80) both companys have their ups and downs. Where ffxi really shines is actually where alot of you people blast them. Alot of people don't realise just how stable and glitch free ffxi is, especially concidering it spans 3 platforms. After my first day on WoW I wanted to rip my hair out because of all the glitches. Glitches that people on WoW find common and hardly blink an eye for, people on ffxi would freak and SE would have an emergency maintenance to fix it in under 24 hours. So, if you want blizzard to take over ffxi, be careful what you wish for

[Hyan]

I think the dev team is pretty good, but they're not reaching their true potential if they won't let players help them in making the content, like beta test and give opinions and suggestions. Of course players don't really have a complete understanding of everything and suggest broken ideas, but SE could at least get a general idea at what players feel would need a balancing at the time. Also they could improve in making bosses and HNM's, especially the harder ones. Salvage bosses are imo pretty balanced but they really can't get the high level mobs right difficulty wise.

But still, I understand it can be rough to balance them right, especially since replacing old gear with new isn't something they want to do (which I prefer myself) and if they want to keep the drops rare in the future as well they really can't just make them 100% drop, since who knows in 3-4 years groups might 6 man those HNM's that earlier in the game's stage required 2 alliances to beat. Of course players and especially the hc ones would prefer these kind of HNM's, so keep trying SE.

I guess funding is a problem for them too, with the new MMO being made and all they're prolly understaffed right now too. I think they're going to the right direction with mini expansions though, at least in my case. If there's enough story content to beat I'll be around in the future as well, at least 'till some other story driven MMO comes out (never?)

[ronin sparthos]

Pandemonium Warden is a good example but it could be improved (higher drop rate for triggers).

PW is a good example of a super challenges with not enough to show in reward.

You spend weeks/months focusing on zeni NMs and collecting the tier 4 trophies in order to be thrown into the "ultimate" battle only to walk out with Cerb Hides any old player could have got from The Ashu Talif. Maybe its just me but PW is a huge step back from even our friend AV in terms of unique drops.

Now, now i understand how awesome Shenlongs and Hachiryu are but that still only amounts to 2 players being rewarded for months of effort. Is it really that tough to reward more than 2-4 players for beating the hardest monster in the game? This has always been a huge flaw and its sad when the motivation is bragging rights and not something tangible.

We (NA) are consumed with the rewards of victory and they (JP) are consumed with the challenge.

This is sorta ironic seeing as the majority of JP players on my server have given up on the challenge of AV and PW and continue to play as if they dont exist. Correct me if im wrong but ive never seen anyone post a serious JP-side attempt at the hardest monsters in the game but maybe thats just due to a breakdown in communication.

Hell, the NA/EU players seem to always be first to take on these challenges - as stupid as some of the challenges may be.

[Mesiah]

ya but in the end we are just doing it for the reward, and we get upset when the reward isn't big enough. Although the fact that the jp player base has stopped attempting these mobs maybe shows that SE finally presented them with a challenge that they can not overcome. Makes me wonder more about wether they are angry about it, or just more intruiged, and furthermore, if they are mad that the english media forced SE to nerf AV and PW :D

[Devolver]

been said 100 times, but having 2 version update files (one pc/xbox and one ps2) would be a HUGE step forward. and on another note, is the fanbase still on ps2's still that strong?

[Mayareira]

PS2 limitations is not an excuse. Why? Because we've seen ToAU. Rock solid and accessible content, wonderful new areas, a very beautiful new city etc. etc. We are almost 3 years into the expansion and the game is still on ToAU's shoulders.

Well, people were expecting something similar to ToAU in terms of content. Unfortunately, so far WoTG failed to meet expectations and to be honest, I am not too fired up for 3 little expansions either.

Poor and inconsistent content updates are keeping the game from reaching its potential.

[Mesiah]

been said 100 times, but having 2 version update files (one pc/xbox and one ps2) would be a HUGE step forward. and on another note, is the fanbase still on ps2's still that strong?

I believe alot of the JP player base is still on ps2. Also, (and this would make ps2/xbox people cry foul) I think SE should give you the option of downloading PC updates from mirrors and patching the game outside of POL. It would relieve alot of traffic on update days. Better yet, they could release the updates to mirrors ahead of time. people could download them when they want. and on the day of the update your viewer could just check your hard drive first to see if you have the files downloaded and install them from your own drive. But.... that would be too easy.

[Ophannus]

-Richard Honeywood (Chrono Cross translator) in 2003 stated that they'd like to do another Chrono but were too busy with FFXI

-In a 2003 interview, Richard Honeywood (Chrono Cross's translator) noted that a new Chrono game wasn't out of the question, but that the team was too busy with FFXI.

-In 2007, Tanaka notes that the issue of making a Chrono new game is getting developers of the former games back together (whether they're in different companies now or split among Square projects such as World of Mana and FFXI)

Chrono Break would have been sick too I bet.

[Ollieyk]

The major stumbling block i find most people have is time investment against reward. I have found, since i have started work after my education, it's nigh on impossible to invest anywhere near enough time to get anywhere. Everything in this game takes far too long, and doesn't always result in a reward that justifies the effort put in.

[Guyverarmor]

The major stumbling block i find most people have is time investment against reward. I have found, since i have started work after my education, it's nigh on impossible to invest anywhere near enough time to get anywhere. Everything in this game takes far too long, and doesn't always result in a reward that justifies the effort put in.

I agree with this post since this is the reason why I finally left FFXI after comming back a couple times thinking something could change.

On another note , SE for the most part listens to their playerbase (when they do) just take forever and a damn day to do anything, I personally play WoW due to not having as much time anymore to invest in FFXI but stil quite fun for me. But I will say though that once I am done with school, I will have more time...and I may come back for a little bit...depending on how things go. WoW and FFXI both have their pros and cons... I like both ^^

[Acturus]

Well, people were expecting something similar to ToAU in terms of content. Unfortunately, so far WoTG failed to meet expectations and to be honest, I am not too fired up for 3 little expansions either.

Poor and inconsistent content updates are keeping the game from reaching its potential.

This a hundred times over.

Zilart was good, CoP was hard, but rewarding. Ignoring the disallusionment that we all felt as SE patched CoP time and again, it was a good expansion. It felt like Zilart and CoP were building us up for something and then *BAM*, ToAU.

The game reached a new peak at ToAU, and everyone knew it. SE even carried the expansion's content additions for longer than they did with the previous two expansions. But then they gave us WotG and failed to realize how quickly Campaign would lose its luster. Add on the fact that the updates were VERY slow, and now we're told that WotG is 50% complete and we're already looking at these "mini expansions". Rather than give us more WotG story, they're adding ten-dollar side quests three times over. We'be been brought up to believe that story line drives exploration, but we're faced with a lot of blue-balling from WotG and some bread and circuses from these mini expansions as the only story we're getting.

The whole thing has been damn inconsistant. SE puts different teams on different sets of content, but lets these teams run their own timetables and their own measures of success, and there's obviously no accountability from management over keeping the status quo when it comes to content size, scope, and player expectation.

Ultimately, it's felt to me for a long time that SE doesn't pay attention to the total package. New Content, Old Content and patching, Customer Service, Marketing, it's all being handled like a bunch of governmental committess with no central oversight. I blame MMO inexperience, but 5 years of MMO inexperience really interferes with my belief in FFXI2 as a "fun game".

[Hyan]

Psh, I'll take first year of WoTG over CoP any day. Gonna take another year or 2 to decide whether I'll prefer the whole CoP over WoTG though, it got better at the end.

[Starr]

The Japanese being content with the game is why SE doesn't make things up to date.

[Celebrindor]

As a moderate gamer (2-4 hrs a night, 5 nights a week), I'll be honest- I'm rarely ever in WotG zones. I have very little interest in that entire expansion....in fact, I didn't even enter a cavernous Maw until about 5 months ago.

CoP was the pinnacle in terms of story development, challenge (before all the nerfs of course), and depth. Zilart was the foundation for so much in the game, and it didn't disappoint. ToAU has been the peak of rewards. Outside of the ToAU HNMs and Beastmen Kings, the entire expansion is incredibly well designed. Multiple sets of gear, each of which got better and better as they were released. Fast events (Assault, Nyzul, Einherjar) that you can do on your own schedule for solid rewards. I could spend the next 3 years doing ToAU endgame solely, and not get bored with my playing time. I'm sure those doing 6+ hours a day disagree...as they should. But I get the feeling from those I talk to that WotG is basically a lot of hope and Sandworm.

What could they do? Quit dumbing down the game. Have some situations that call for skillchains in order to defeat mobs. Stop the "easy mode" trend they opened with the nerfing of CoP. Those simple things made people better players when they arrived at endgame, no matter what level.

Tell me, could today's AH meriters getting 9-11k/hour in ToAU zones stand a chance exping at rams in Tavnazia? Or get through mammets, diabolos, Ultima/Omega, and Tenzen without the nerf? No, because the "learning curve" of the game has been completely fucked. Outside of those who have been playing 3+ years, who plays their job right in terms of party dynamics? None- its not needed any more for 90% of the content.

Introduce rewards that are equal to the challenges met, not the time spent. Fine, give me a series of mobs that each present a unique challenge, or a mind game, or even a stupid run up a moutain to get an item for a BC....but make the rewards comparable to how challenging the battles/etc are....don't just make an event difficult because you have to repeat it 100+ times.

[drwaffles]

They're just stubborn, so even if it's in their best interests to submit and collaborate with the player base via official channels they won't. If they're still making lots of money off the game without having to try too hard, why should they? Yeah, it's stupid and lazy, but there's nothing anyone can do about it.