What is keeping FFXI from reaching the potential it has?

[Ultimagi]

Isn't that just the name of the project?

[GeneJackit]

Huh? If the game is profitable? Have you seen WoW recently? Guess Blizzard is losing tons of money on that game.

the point was that b/c they are still making money hand over fist then why would they bother making any changes...what if they decide to implement some big changes and it fails miserably? i would imagine that SE has a very conservative business model...so basically i wouldnt expect much to change about the game.

SE wont do anything drastic to XI unlessl they start losing subscribers

[Panthera]

"What is keeping ffxi from reaching the *potential* it has?"

If they fixed the botting issue with three kings, increased the drop rates and made NM windows smaller, would the game be everything it can be?

Potenial to be or do what exactly? There are problems with ffxi, but these obsticales are in the way of what?

[Okan]

Potenial to be or do what exactly? There are problems with ffxi, but these obsticales are in the way of what?

They are in the way of creating a game that is more fun and balanced to play. I'd love to be able to run all the way to the end of The Boyahda Tree and trade a little R/E "Fafnir's Tear" item to some ??? that allowed us entry in to a BC like Dragon's Aery for us to be able a chance to kill Fafnir (The REAL Fafnir with Ridill) or Nidhogg (The real one with abjurations) without having to worry about some LS spamming Cure IV's on the late WHM who forgot to use /blockaid to cause him to Spike Flail us. Insert same for Valley of Sorrows and Behemoth's Dominion. No, rather you have the problem I just mentioned. My friend and LS mate went to Behemoth's Dominion to get ToD for NQ Behemoth because he wants a hide and some LS was fighting King Behemoth. We're not an HNM LS yet our pearl color matches that of the one that was currently fighting it. The rival HNM LS spammed Cure IV's on my friend in an attempt to pull KB away from the kiter and steal it. How is this fun knowing that the moment KB goes unclaimed there is someone following it waiting to steal your 99% work? I already know you'll go "Your fault for letting it go unclaimed" but why? Your dia spammer to keep claim died to Meteor and your PLD with W. Legs got just a step too far to Provoke fast enough and that rival RDM just used Dia and stole it... Your PLD still has hate though as well as the rest of your LS.

Catch my drift? Not fun. Not worth sitting in these zones for up to 3 hours each in hopes of claiming a monster faster than someone else.

[Thiefami]

As many people have said, it is time versus reward. I think for the one time a year special events come by Square should really take this time to reward their playerbase for the continued patronage with amazing gear. Every event should have a moogle that you could recharge your anniversary rings, and the gear should be fitted to high and mid levels with fun simple events such as summerfest with great once a year (some cases one time ONLY items) for lower level players.

The time it takes to add the new items, and set up event text and what not for 8 people to show up and participate when you could have amazingly interactive events with nice rewards and have half the server population interacting in the seasonal events.

[Hyan]

As many people have said, it is time versus reward. I think for the one time a year special events come by Square should really take this time to reward their playerbase for the continued patronage with amazing gear. Every event should have a moogle that you could recharge your anniversary rings, and the gear should be fitted to high and mid levels with fun simple events such as summerfest with great once a year (some cases one time ONLY items) for lower level players.

The time it takes to add the new items, and set up event text and what not for 8 people to show up and participate when you could have amazingly interactive events with nice rewards and have half the server population interacting in the seasonal events.

More accurately 'time vs. reward for the top tier items'; Nyzul time vs. reward is ok, Assault is fine too aside from the ??? items. I dare say it's the same for Einherjar as well, and limbus. Dynamis is a close call, for most jobs it's not too bad but some jobs might have harder time in getting their relics. It got easier though when SE upped the droprates, with good group I'd say one can get relic from one area within <5 runs there, in some cases even 1 or 2. Sounds alright. Double that for xarca though.

HNM's, CoP dynas, relic weps, mythics, sea (and sky?), plus PW and silver sea remnants belong to the broken part without a doubt. I dunno about ZNM, but the drop rates seem quite high for the tier 3-4 items..

[Thiefami]

More accurately 'time vs. reward for the top tier items'; Nyzul time vs. reward is ok, Assault is fine too aside from the ??? items. I dare say it's the same for Einherjar as well, and limbus. Dynamis is a close call, for most jobs it's not too bad but some jobs might have harder time in getting their relics. It got easier though when SE upped the droprates, with good group I'd say one can get relic from one area within <5 runs there, in some cases even 1 or 2. Sounds alright. Double that for xarca though.

HNM's, CoP dynas, relic weps, mythics, sea (and sky?), plus PW and silver sea remnants belong to the broken part without a doubt. I dunno about ZNM, but the drop rates seem quite high for the tier 3-4 items..

it begins at lower levels too, why was it a pain in the ass to get fame for most people? Anyone remember that horrible process - I dont know if it still is. A 30 to an 60 minute quest for a 500g, wut.

[Panthera]

They are in the way of creating a game that is more fun and balanced to play.

This is not an obsticle at all, but rather the means through which FFXI in fact DOES achieve it's potential; not as a fun and balanced experience for us, but as a money maker for SE. Their goal is to keep players playing for as long as possible to continue make money off of us. To do so, they have to us reward us just enough to keep us playing, but not so quickly that we run out of rewards to get lest we quit. By and large, the player base (RMT not withstanding) has remained static, with just enough coming in to replace the few that leave, and as such, FFXI is a success. If it were not, would SE be making a follow-up MMORPG? If this were not true, would you not quit? With the hundreds of hours anyone on this forum has invested into the game, I highly doubt it.

Players want as high drop rates as possible, while SE needs to maximize its content by having players put in as much time as possible; the motives are conflicting, and thus is born an adversarial relationship between players and SE. The only other way to keep us playing is to develop new content, but that's risky money invested on SE's side that might not see return. FFXI is a see-saw, with a balance to be struck on opposite sides. From reactions on this thread, we feel like we're the scrawny kid, and SE is the fat kid on the see-saw.

[Animusprime]

Top 5 reason this has been held back. (IMO)

1. Playstation 2 limitations. (Single weakest link to this game.)
2. Lack of upward communication and feedback between the players and the company.
3. Low disclosure of game mechanics
4. Lack of PvP rewards.
5. Cultural and lingual barriers.

[Lordender]

So many things went wrong with this game and a lot of it had to do with the dev's more than the game itself. SE made no effort to communicate with the playerbase. Drop rates were way to bad, no reason to have such bad drop rates. SE was slow to react on major issues, botting, gil sellers, account theft's from rmt compaines, they never solved the botting issue for the most part.

There was no reason to spend months of time putting questionable content into the game like fish ranking system, chocobo racing, pankration, chocobo rasing when that time could have gone into improving the game. Far to many useless updates that killed this game.

The people who ran this game continued to prove they were idiots time and time again. This was a horribly ran game and it might go down as one of the worst ran games ever.

[Hyan]

How many MMO's have ya played for 1 year+ to see how their dev's run the game? (just curious)

[Kongolo]

It's been said a million times, but here it is yet again. The drop rates are horrible. One player gets an item on the first kill (or dynamis or salvage run, or whatever), another person goes 0/50. Vastly different rewards for the same amount of effort? I can understand a little bit of randomness but there is way too much in the game.

King spawn timers are also ridiculous. The player who can provoke something a split second faster than another player reaps huge rewards...why? I'm not even talking about bots here. Even if everyone plays fair, why reward a player who hits provoke a fraction of a second faster?

Those are the types of problems holding FFXI back from being amazing.

aside that SE should send a virus to all PS2 PS3 and xBOX 360 to screw them :D

PC FTW \../(`.')\../

[Rokimus]

Rapture

[Alistaire]

FFXI Project Director: We can't explain it, I'm afraid. We had no idea these kinds of people even existed. We thought this was a game, but they treat it as if their lives depended on it. We're honestly afraid for their lives if we don't keep up.

lol'd at this for some reason. lol'd then coughed. Damn cold. Damn you!

[Meian]

Too lazy to read everything and I have a headache

The two main reasons, to me, is that PS2 limitation bs and lack of improvement in PvP

[Ayn]

Time versus reward.

Frankly if someone's going to go through the pain and effort of completing a relic, a mythic, or even a Salvage gear, that gear should:

1 - Be more awesome than it is currently
2 - Have more situations / monsters to fight with this awesome gear.

I love my Usukane set, but honestly? For the amount of bullshit some people have to go through to get it, +5% haste on top of everything is kind of laughable. The added fast casts on Marduk's laughable. The added crit hit rate on Skadi. . . ok seriously, look at the jobs that can wear it, which one is going to bother full timing that gear to make a difference?

I just wish certain relics were more awesome (like BLM one adding an exclusive spell/spells) and so forth.

But I will say that one thing this game does awesome? The time and effort that goes into the story missions, quests, and even some of the random dialogue. It makes doing missions a real joy, and I'm actually looking forward to some of the story packs.

[MarkM.]

Expanding on what Ayn said about blm relic, G-horn should give massacre elegy ;3

[ryskar]

It makes doing missions a real joy, and I'm actually looking forward to some of the story packs.

This was one of my major motivations to come back to the game. I need to see how wotg unfolds...

[Katarzyna]

Players want as high drop rates as possible

I don't think any reasonable player wants the drop rates maximized to the point where everything is so easy to obtain, that it almost makes the gear obsolete. I think what reasonable players want is the drop rates increases just a bit to make the effort put into it worth the reward.

[Lordender]

FFXI always got an A+ from me with missions and music. The end game problem was always a unique situation on FFXI. The worthwhile HNM's people actually wanted drops from weren't really expanded and for years you had an endgame enviroment was based on a 2004 endgame population.

Back in the day only a few LS's camped at a time. I remember back then only 3-4 LS's camped. SE dumbed the game down a lot over the years. Merits made players overpowered because they never adjusted the older HNM strength which made it a lot easier for people to come into the endgame. Before I quit this game we were seeing camps of 120+ people at even day 1 fafnir's and that is just fail, it should of never got to that point. Salvage was great, but having one cock block zone in SSR wasent cool.

Long story short here is my list of what stopped FFXI reaching its full potential.

1. The game was way too hard on newbies for far too long but it seems like they got a little better at that in certain updates but its too little, too late.

2. Allowed gilsellers to dictate their game which led to massive farming nerfs for legit players making gil more annoying to gather. SE failed at dealing with them during the peak of this game.

3. Kept the crafting system in the dark ages, it never got the updates it needed.

4. Horrible communication with the playerbase. Players wanted fixes to lots of things and issues and instead they got pankration and other useless content.

5. Useless gm's that never dealt with the actual problems that were reported. Dealing with FFXI gm's kinda felt like dealing with FEMA after hurricane katrina.

6. Ridiculous timesinks that were far beyond needed. Every MMO has timesinks but FFXI took it to the extreme and it seemed like SE went out of their way to put these timesinks in.

A. 10min airship waits when you can just outpost to where you need to go and get there faster.
B. waiting to jp midnight for certain missions or handing in salvage mats+ 35 that you spent 5months aquiring.
C. Queue's for pankration were up to 45mins at times when it was new.

7. Horrible drop rates all across the board. I remember killing fafnir for almost a year without seeing 1 ridill drop and that was ridiculous. How about 92 SSR runs before seeing a macha slops? blah blah the story could go on forever.