03/10/20
???
- Zilart and the three kingdom's final mission has been implemented.
- At the same time, Ru avitau has been implemented, and the Divine might(i think this was the english name given to the BC fighting all AAs at once) has been added.
- Sleepga and SleepgaII has been added.
- The TP reset on swapping ammo has been finally fixed.
- New bolts such as Acid bolt, Sleep bolt has been added.
- Clearmind has been enhanced, and mages had an easiertime. However the need of Rdm and brd in a party has never changed.
- Search comment now have 4 categories.
- The ever so useless GA elemental spells has been now enhanced. They use big chunk of mp and the damage is spreaded depending on how many mobs you hit, but became more usable. However when the mob uses the same spell, the damage won't spread but remains the same.
- NMs which drop EX items has been increased alot. The reason was to avoid people of hunting the same mobs for the same items over and over and profit from it. Their idea was not bad. However, people considered this as you don't really have to get them, and since it was so poorly implemented that not many had gone searching for these items. It still continues to be implemented, but the problem is the NM or HNM that drops the EX item also drops the NON EX items which are profitable. It was so badly implemented that it almost doesn't have any effect on people farming. (yep.. such as cloth from aquarius, Light cloth from King behemoth etc etc etc... People will still fight them as long as they drop a profitable non ex item)
- They say that NMs can be fought in a leveling up parties. However knowing that Ninja tank was an unexpected event for the developers, their balance mind is very questionable.
- Trigger NM and HNMs were also implemented.
- Some HNM who poped every 60~72 hours has now been set to once per day.
- New BCNMs were added.
- Elemental ores were added but at this time it was very rare.
- /sit has been added. Mithra's sit were changed soon after (someone thought it was a harasment. Who said it I have no clue.)
- For new entertainment, Lucky roll has been added. But users have interpreted this as a very poor entertainment method, and question what the hell the developers are really thinking.
- Chocobo digging (not sure how you say this in english) has been enhanced and becomes rather profitable gil farming. However the Riding skill still remains as a hidden status.
- Crafting success and failure can now be seen to other players and filter was also added.
03/10
- You could silence the Last boss in ZIlart mission so they fixed it (hahahahahah... sigh)
03/10
Using some instruments made march ultra haste + extended duration, bug which you could equip a head gear while equipping specific non head gear usable body armor has been fixed.
03/10
Magazine interview. Ninja tank were unexpected, we could ajust it. However the next month they stated "Doesn't mind, but we will nerf the sub" (utusemi 2 on sub =3 and not 4 blink)
Here ends the update prior to NA release. I will start the translation on post NA release update and how JP view these changes.
03/10/20
Release of NA version. On the three kingdoms the area is filled with shout and becomes heated. During the first time of international interaction, people had more positive opinions. However with the constant comments such as "PL me" "Give me Gil" "Give me item", the sexual harrasment comments, and the style of PT play where people comes in and out constantly the JP users starts to have difficulties in interating with each other, and negative opinions starts to show more. At the same time the tab translation system were implemented, personal tell such as " [Help me out] [Cap][Coffer][Thank you]" were rejected mostly and [JP ONLY] comments were added in the search comment. Till today, the amount of plead towards the need of different servers were so popular which could lead to a conclusion that merge itself were unpopular. Developers and even the President himself states "JP and NA PT and tab system were so popular that we are greatfull" (HUH!? WHA? WTF??? /dies). Such imagination who god knows where it came from are still a mystery.
[NA??]
NA problem
JP has a strong feeling of rejection towards the NA as explained before, but at the same time for NA it was not a good idea eighther. The already built and controled market, Gil flowing, Rise of the items and price. From the hands of the JP, its culture and custom were formed. The NA people are forced to walk the trail which were made by the JP, without any sort of new discoveries, new stratergies etc.
On Foreign boards, comments such as "JP ONLY" is a racial discrimination, or absurd which already some reaches to the conclusion that we cannot mutualy play with each other which also what most JP believes. (FFXI based) From some High level's view, the people who has lower pings are obviously has the advantage, which in this case NAs are in the disadvantage. (although considering some Chinese ?? do provoke relatively fast, its not very clear or sure)
The very least, other MMORPG has the freedome for the users to chose their language. Thinking on that fact, the Multi national server merge came from business point of view and completely ignoring the users opinions.
Due to the fact that JP people had the game for much longer, and to be able to compete with them or to work to their standards, such actions like RMT were a needed method, and it was normal to sell their account when they retire, it is believed that these actions might have lured the Chinese gillsellers towards the game.
About "There is no problem because the peak time is different even they are in the same server" is complete bogus since the clash comes the
from differences between the language problem. the custom and the common sense. Users will are still disreguarded and the discussion of this Merge is still talked today.
Such comment like "FFXI freaks are Foreigners boycotts so they suck" and "I can't speak englsih thats why its JP ONLY whats wrong with that?" are pretty oftenly used.
03/11
- Some regions had some intentional suicides (to lower that reagion's influence of given kingdome I believe), NA newbies entering the game it was often that the region were controled by beastmen. To counter this, up till level 5 the players won't be participating in the conquest. However, places such as Elsimo, Qufim and Alagon (Garliage region dunno the exact spelling) were usually conquered by beastmen.
- Crafters finds out that some crafted beastmen pet items were sold high in shops, of course gets patched soon after.
03/11
- "Yokodama" is an uxpected event so might fix it, which was commented in the interview. From users aswell, they stated that the battle was too simple so wanted to nerf it. However, after the nerf, people started to say "Without yokodama takes more effort" (I understand that you hate staring a male character's ass but come on... you guys asked for the nerf).
- Flash and Stun were implemented and maintaining hate became easier.
03/12
Including server migration, Asura server was built
03/12/16
- Dynamis were still un implemented but a large scale patch has been taken place
- Level cap has been lifted to 75, and new spells and abilities has been added.
- The level cap has been anounced and what it takes place. However for some jobs its difficulty were so severe (/point rdm), several discutions and flames were going on amoung the users.
- The cap being 75 and not planning to go any further was agreeable, however the implementation of Dynamis and PvP alone were not taken as an expantion of enjoyment, about job balancing issue has been completely forgotten and people question was there any necesity of holding the level?
- With this patch, the dreams of Drk getting 3 line of spell and Ninjas getting 3 line of ninjutu has been canceled.
- What we could say the core of the battle Yokodama has been nerfed, and Shield break has been nerfed at the same time. However the accuracy formula of skill 200+ has been revised and improved, which made possible for melees to have enough accuracy even without a bard.
- Level3 Skill chains power, the strength of 70+ black magics, addition of new usefull gears towards the mages, Flash and Stun addition, improvement in drops of Black magic scrolls, Skill and 2hour ability improvement, all in all towards the combat balance has been facing the right direction.
- Resist up traights has been improved, however towards ITs they were insignificant.
- Abilities which considered a waste, such as killers, and circles has been enhanced ant the mob now gets paralised from time to time. Previously these traights seemed to have a slow or haste effect.
- Some mobs has been swapped in its location and hunting ground such as KRT, Sky and rancor's den has become a popular hunting ground. Made easier access to Ro Mauve and it also became one of the popular place to hunt.
- Drk who were always in the darkest of paths, had a new light in becomming a strong attacker. However the thieves the thieves becomes unpopular.
- Wheeling thrust has been improved, but damage wise it didn't even risen over 50 damage.
- About the new WS, it was made for questing to remove those latent effect. But in reality it was planned to eighther aquire at level 70, or to give those jobs who have B trait in skill and not have an SPEX ws to have another fighting tool their way of implement were pretty suspicious, if not stupid.
- The Beastmen headquarter areas has been retouched. However it is located in such a bad place and only the interior has been modified, these places has remained dead and un populated.
- Orc's HP has been modified and retouched and it was used as an alternative hunting ground.
- Mobs such as Wyverns and Manticores has been added a bonus exp since they were stronger than usual mobs. By putting this 1.2 ~1.3 more exp than their level, they have tryed to avoid which mob is easier and gives more exp and such. However due to the fact that these were implemented in such a minority of the mobs that people simply ignored it.
- Abjuration and Sky NM, the Big three HNM (I have no clue what they are... not the 3 dragons.) has been added.
- Sky Nms are basically triggered NM although it sitll has competition, it became an easier type of HNM and due to many successes the amount of Sky LS has increased. Those who never hunted or had a chance to hunt an HNM, could manage to get something out of them by just playing on weekends.
- However, the Big Three NM are a lottery pop of an NM that pops once per day and has a spawn range of 3~9 days. Its strength itself was not high and it could be even to a medium scaled LS, however those item greed LS had to start camping the Placeholder HNM itself every day to have the chance of the Big three HNMs. (Could this be Nidhogg, adpi what ever and another one?) But even after promathia, there hasn't been any HNM that had a better drops than these HNMs.
- Gravity towards NM has been somehow nerfed that the effect of gravity now have half effect when it is applied for the second time. This has been adressed.
- BUT, somehow they allowed to keep the HNM to sleep (DOH! stupid stupid stupid -_-)
- Escort quest has went live
- Garisson has become live
- Many people begged to make the furnitures to have some meaning. They have added the new container type of furnitures, however it uses your space and also cannot be used unless you go back to your home town. (and since jeuno is hometown to most of the people now it is pretty pointless...)
- New recepie to make a crafting component needed for the elemental staffs were made and the Elemental staffs become a common items towards many users.
04/12
The big christmass tree event which is the clone of the big toad event has been made. The day it was implemented the hp of this mob never decreased. (but people used it to skill up lol lol lol) After it was fixed, the company have threatened the users that if the tree is not killed, that server won't be allowed to use the OP teleports. Which the users kill and now happily using the teleport service.
04/01
Started to gather dynamiss beta tester. Although it has been like a bandwith test than anything...
04/01
Deleted characters are now able to regain their characters again. This was rumored that it has been implemented from one of the user incidents that happend beforehand.
*Note, this very incident happend in our very server Quetzalcoatl. It is known as Earth's Festival. To summerise, Earth has used the friend's account in real life since that very day that friend went to visit his house and used her account in Earth's house, left it logged in and told him to delete the user when you are done. What Earth did was to loot every valuable item from there, deleted Ibara's character. When Ibara logged in, she was with newbie gear and level1. Soon discovered that Earth's mule has sold all the valuable through AH. Won't go into more detail since it might end as a 1k essay post.
04/02/26
- Dynamiss now went live
- Even understanding the concepts of Dynamiss itself pre launch during the test phases the lag that produced, the poor AF2 drop rate, boring repetitive encounters, difficulties setted way too high for it standards made the users very disapointed of what was most seeked. Ofcourse there were some people who does enjoy. As a result, till today there are tours of Dynamiss opening every week. However the systematic problems that a game have has a limit that the player can control, and with countless runs people simply go there with the mind set of "there is nothing better to do".
- Battle system were also forgotten
- A high speed cactus NM has been added
- Skeletons blood saber now absorb ridiculous amount of hp (like 150 from each member usualy about 90~110s)
- Hard to explain this one... it seems that before the caster type weapons cause link to other magic detecting mob when they cast a buff toward other weapon.
- Silence is now easier to land on ghosts.
- Rune gear has been implemented from a quest of the mysterious devices that were located in several areas.
- Fenrir has been added
- Rdm Genkai 5 has become easier (doesn't use fire3, doesn't attack that fast)
- Wedding dress and its crafting material recepies has been added.
- Artifact quest can now be repeated.
04/03
- Lets think about balance, specially dragoon. Such topic were becomming hot in the boards.
04/03
NA PS2 version of FFXI released. Not only in JP but in NA PS2 users has alot of kids, and they have named these wannabe kids "Gaijin" (with different word, meaning Plague people).
04/04/23
- Ballista has gone live. Many people were seeking this feature but due to the unbalancing feature, the difficulties of entry procedure, lack of prize items had made only a fraction of the people to participate in the PvP.
- Using the 999 delay weapon exploit, when used a multi hit ws they received 100+TP instantly. To adress this they have nerfed the TP system completely. But this never affected Barrage. As a result, some of the job's WS has become gimped (Dragoon pentathrust, guilotin and such) and lowered there presence in the party.
- Dragoons were gifted now with spirit link, the long awaited dragon curing ability. But at this stage dragoon has been treated nothing but a entertainment job.
- Thieves now have the shooting skill (?? I dunno how is displayed in english version)
- Pets now have the master's name, but with bugs.
- New fields which made us to believe its the followup of Dynamiss were added, the mistery of the existance of the relic weapon now they were shown they have their own WS when they were polished to the final form to the public. However the rarity of the money, the vast amount of gil needed and time sink made many users to simply give up.
- New parts were added in dynamiss that when ever you defeated the boss had a feature that loads of monsters spawn around them which made Dynamis Jeuno completely unstable, and unbalanced in difficulty.
- AF2 drops has been stealthly increased without any announcement.
- Summoners have now able to get their avatars at level 20, however it became difficult to level a summoner without having fenrir at your disposal.
- Mentor system was implemented.
- The quest which were thought the reward were an abjuration resulted as a Summoner only quest (Evoker's ring I bet...)
- You can now put your name in your crafted items
[??]
Chinese (gilsellers)
Since this spring, there have been increasing amount of Chinese gill sellers throughout the area. (I will abreviate as CGS later on) Their name were always similar with each other, and they own multiple account controled by a few selected people, swapping players and acting 24/7. Their goal are "Real money trade RMT". These people are hired workers and also were those users who have destroyed LinageII. (I know makes little sence but I really don't know how to explain this)
Soon after the CGS has become a major problem. But the RMT itself were a difficult problem to deal with, and not enough mesures, if not no mesures were taken to counter this situation. Vanadiels famous gil farming spots were flowing with CGS, and conquered. This problem is a major hit to the people who are enjoying FFXI, but similar to language barrier problem, solution or counter measures are still not taking place.
It is true that the problem comes from the game mechanics allowing this sort of action, but recently RMT websites can now be searched in the search engines. The User morale is starting to decrease dramatically these days. They took some action again, and banning has taken place but still in Vanadiel these CGS are high in number. Inflation are taking place, and the RMT prices are getting lower. (Which helps more people to access the RMT)
04/04
- Chain of Promathia expantion has been announced. It was announced before that no new jobs will be added. Unlike Zilard, this expantion was not in the plan of developing and was made separate from FFXI. But the product itself when it was released was something that no one wanted.
04/06/29
- Ballista's entry has now become free. And more ajustment were made. But already the heat of PvP has ended to most of the users.
- Merit point system has been implemented. For the amount of exp needed and the very minimum increase in its spent points some people have complained. But sitll they keep exping in order to aquire their MP.
- Some areas of the existing map has been modified and more hunting grounds for the 70s were made. (which were very small in number)
- BC ajustment (I think the no buff thing)
- Evisaration's WS element were changed and now thieves can work with drk better. However, the era of Drk skill chain has never come even after Promathia release.
- Alliance BCNM were has been implemented. However, they demand specific jobs, the amount of people needed and the poor drops compared to its effort needed, it never became popular.
- Garrison has been improved and some nice items were added.
- Manequin has been added but it became a simple Armor storage that occupies your space.
04/08
The already infested Fish bots has now spread the world the easy way of making money. The Rusty cap polished could sell to vendor for 2500 gil, now this rumor has been spread out and more Fish botters have gathered in Rabao. Sadly, this rusty cap itself were planned to counter fish bots. Light crystal has become more and more expensive and it reached to a stage that 1 cluster were 10k gil. This made many people go to sky in search for light elementals. During this time, the inflation were already starting to appear.
04/09
EU service has started. However they never made a server for them and brought back the (Pointless stupid and unlogical) peak time theory. However post promathia release the overpopulation became absurd and made more servers.
04/09/14
- Pre Promathia expantion patch. People has expected alot of things adding like pre Zilart patch.
- Blood pact moves has now got an element implemented (in some of them.)
- Appart from Wheeling thrust has been enhanced, no other battle change has been made.
- Utusemi has been nerfed, however the ninja tank is still intact, and continue to be so.
- Blink and Third eye now has no meaning towards weapon's Stun AoE.
- Merit point possibilities has been expanded, now you can have more enmity, or less more skill and other things. On level restricted areas, exp were added to your main level when you are on merit point exp, but never implemented to the actual level exp. (hence it won't increase your level exp)
- In the past it was planned to put items with charges, now it came live items which has enchantment effect.
- New harvesting type has been added (dunno name in english) but nothing amusing.
- Now with Promathia disc the PS2 users can skip pol window and go directly to FFXI screen. Also with /shotdown you can logout and the turn the PS2 off. People say this is the best feature added in Promathia expantion.
04/9/16
- Registration server died. (again...) Making the same mistake as when the game was first launched made unpopularity.
- New area maps could be bought over and over. Same as in ZIlard expantion release... unpopularity from users.
- After this event, when you failed to version up users were asked to install the FFXI from the very start. With all this F*ck ups alot of users became angry that not only have bugs but server maintenance has been screwed? Unpopularity again rose.
[????????]
Chain of promathia
As announced before, this expantion has put alot of effort in the mission contents. However it became a product that there are only missions added and nothing else. Missions aswell, like the previous errors they made, there were jobs which were difficult to participate due to the horrible balance, and the difficulty to surpass the long way in promivon has made this expantion further unpopular.
Users who just hit 20 could also participate, so were told towards the users. However the first mission being 30cap, has a BCNM fight in the end, not only your cap is 30, but specific jobs were required, with demanded sub and must have gears, even the most wanted job were asked to have specific items on them. Such difficulty are too much for those people who has reached level 20 for the first time. Due to the level cap, the possibility of lifting the level cap in order to make things easier were not possible.
At first curiosity and sight seeing were happening often. But in reality only 2~3 areas were used as leveling up purpose, and most of the new areas were not populated.
The textures and new mobs amount were larger than in Zilart, however all these monsters have a very fast melee attacks, old model mobs has new WS. Their location is pretty bad, and under the level cap influence you cannot get Full exp, unlike in Zilart there were no such posibility to use these new areas as specific level hunting ground.
First we make the events and plots then make the map was the concept of Promathia map making, some say due to this the difficulty of accessing the areas has made frustration and not enjoyable. Without new jobs, spells nor ws added, no modification to the battle system, High difficulty missions, the need of rebuying certain gears due to the level restricted areas were not attractive towards users who played the game for 2+ years, just by experiencing the difficulty of Promivon, people had judged the expantion to be a "Failed product". Till today, Promathia missions has never been a popular expantion.
"The need of people and large timesink" were always a negative point in FFXI. In this expantion not only they haven't fixed on this issue but it made it even worse. The awaited new "Outfits" were not that good status wise, and considering how hard to obtain them it was not worthwhile. Personaly the high difficulty missions are not a problem, but considering that FFXI system allows very limited items to carry in their inventory, the level restriction doesn't seem to match very well to the FFXI system itself. Already alot of NA users reached level 75, and I (the author) don't see the necesity of such wide scale level restricted areas appart from BCNMs. The major problem were: Due to the lack of things that players had once reaching 75, not adding new contents to their standards and further more they have not expanded what were currently doing (adding new 70s hunting areas and such) were a major hit. The director of CoP has stated that they have extended the prograssion of the lower levels, which is the truth that nothing new has been added appart from mission concept. Mission, NM, New dynamis, New merit point are mere expantion of existing things, and not even that is done well in CoP expantion. The Director's "Expanded the lower level content" could be interpretate as "Expanded lower areas with level restriction" to many users. It was this severe that the expantion itself were so different from the interviews pre launch. As a result, not adding any progress towards the end content and not fullfilling enough to the low level content by placing severe restrictions, some believe FFXI is reaching its end.
04/09
Items which made profit by vendor selling has been nerfed. Before hand you could steal mithril beast coins from beastmen, but they have swapped them to silver beast coins. This has further made the new areas unpopular, and users have deserted from these places.
04/10/06
The unexpected patch which were launched before a month passed from the launch date. Modifications and adjustment has been made to the Promathia contents. Mission has been expanded but the difficulty remained very high. Even having the 18 men alliance restriction, they have implemented an HNM which needed 20~50 people, adding the fact that their loot is poor. New costume has been added, but has a outrageous difficulty to aquire them.
04/10
Hades and Remora has been made with Server transfer service.
04/11
EQ2 and WoW becomes live, and people who has retired FFXI increased. It was said that there were many people who haven't bought the Promathia expantion aswell. We do not know the time but there were a comment from Square stating "If you retire, please cancel your content ID but not of PoL" in the American official home page.
04/12
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Some items become stackable till 99. But most people felt betrayed since the stackable items which became 99 were mostly snacks and foods, which those effects were reduced to 5minuit.
04/12/09 ??????
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- RMT restriction has been anounced once again towards the users. The NM has been changed slightly to prvent users to camp continuously in the same place, however this made the CGSs to worry a bit but still was not strict enough for them to stop their activities. The items which replaced old NM dropped items, this solution still fails to be effective. The promathia mission difficulties has been reduced, and new NMs has been added throught the new areas involving quest item drops. However this is not good enough to be a solution.
- Without warning, Double attack and Tripple attack no longer activates while on WS.
- Food and Drink effects has been changed dramatically. Including sushi's increased accuracy made it easier to hit those IT mobs.
- The AH cost became much higher and caused severe unpopularity.
- One of the seeked features were the chat filter but it made the filtering even worse.
- Assasinate has been added towards the thieves and made the Trick attack more powerfull alone, but nothing else has been changed in the battle system.
- BC has increased further more
- Ballista now grants you rewards but can only be used in ballista.
- After 1year that Kirin and 4 gods has been implemented and finally they added unique textures towards them.
04/12
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About fishing, they were discussing to change the fishing system to be more complex and make the bots dissapear. But many people say "... after all the time you haven't done anything why do it now?"
05/
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Now... Chances of the FFXI opening in Korea is high.
Thats it folks. Comments on how games changed are welcome in this thread. Use it in a non flaming manner if possible. Game has changed much, both good but also in many negative ways. I have started the game since September 2002. Have seen many things happening over the course of FFXI, although I have made a half year break before hand (pre making Shiia). From the hands of Square, many cash making method were destroyed, which makes me to believe that RMT became more extensice use than before.
The lack of good items dropped from so called EX item drop Nms and the items who are sold to the highest bidder existed since the very launch of the game has severely made me think the game is not improving much, if not adding many things which are not worth of its efforts. HNM is a good example. No good loot dropping HNM has been added since when? Kirin could be the last HNM added which people would hunt down. The new 3 dragons doesn't drop anything better than the previous ones and requires more people to defeat AND has a higher respawn table. Level restriction in promathia areas were both good and bad. It is at the very least not easy
XI Wiki
That's why it's "untold by version-up notes."
Originally Posted by BRP
Huh, never knew that one. What was the original amount, 10? 7 always felt like an odd number, but that could be the OCD 'must be in sets of 10s' gamer in me.- AH became very unstable, lowered the amount of items you could put in the AH and also added a 30second delay per viewing. (lots and lots and looooots of disconnection in jeuno that was not funny)
