FINAL FANTASY XI 2012 Roadmap Follow

Thumbs up ;)

So far it seems a small amount of people are really unhappy to the point they dont want to play no more?

If Seriha is telling people to get "over that line" funny, you could say that the other way with "Im not happy with this update". Not everyone is going to be satisfied and thats a fact. People are still signing on in large numbers to play, XI is a very old game and keeping a MMO running this long with so much competition is close to a miracle. Yet the fact people still sign on to ALLA to voice their opinions of a "apparently" dieing game that no one is happy to play just shows that XI interest is still high. The game is like marmite love it or hate it, if you really hate it that bad why are you sticking around? SE is not going to change their approach.

That wasn't about making the game look "better" just having it perform without glitch's.



Stand next to a conflux and look at it, your FPS will dip down and things get sluggish. If you have the task manager up looking resource monitor you'll see the POL process shoot up to max speed on whatever core it's running on. That's part of FFXI being emulated in software because their too damn lazy (or don't know their own code) to write a proper graphics engine. Spin around and look away from that glowing crystal and watch the CPU utilization go down again. FFXI actually runs better on XP + older hardware then it does on newer hardware.

So not really about making new textures or more complex models, just updating the graphics engine to speak the modern language (DX9/10/11). Can keep everything else the same, this wouldn't increase it's requirements on older PC's one bit but would make a dramatic difference on anything made in the past 6 years.

Titles can stay the same while duties and focus change. I dunno maybe Tanaka is the man behind Abyssea, but if so it's such a vast departure from everything else he's done before and since that I'm sure you can see why people might think he had little if anything to do with it. The same can be said of the state of communication and cooperation between the players and dev team during that time. That too was a complete 180 from what we've gotten before and since. Maybe he, like many of us, just wanted to try something new and then went back to his old ways. I guess it's possible, but my skepticism is high.

From some people, I'd believe it. Others, I find, have been brainwashed into believing that's really how it should be.

I'm sure there are studies out there outlining the difficulties of reacquiring customers after they've been alienated from a given business. There are most definitely methods to try and win people back, like cutting costs or offering deals, but that's something SE's obviously not offering at the moment.

I don't buy $0.99 TV dinners expecting them to have the same quality and portions as the $4 ones. FFXI is going through the crisis of formerly being a $4 TV dinner, but coming out more like the $0.99 ones. People are noticing this. Some want it back to the meaty $4 days. It's not like the money isn't there. Some would be okay with and tolerate the $0.99 status if they weren't paying $4. Some are indifferent. Maybe money isn't a concern for them? I dunno. All I can say is I didn't feel like FFXI was growing, then or now. The past year has left me thinking it was shrinking, and the "Just quit!" crowd will eventually get those "...maybe I should." realizations from the unhappy. Once they're gone? Good luck getting them back without something drastic like cap increases and Abyssea.

Edited, May 1st 2012 9:44am by Seriha

This makes me so angry to read, nothing against you because I know it's a widely held feeling among the playerbase. It makes me mad because I think this was basically the idea, if they hadn't of ruined FFXI those who feel like you probably would not of even contemplated going near it. Of course the thing that makes me feel a little better about it is that for players that fall for it will pay for it in the end again, they will probably use this strategy next time too when they bring out FFVI. The reason for FF14 was because 11 stopped attracting new customers, once the new game goes into that stage we will be back to this strategy.



Try Tera or Guild wars 2, or something that doesn't have a SE logo on it. Rewarding them for what they did to this game is truely depressing.



I was thinking earlier about what if they brought out a new expansion, honestly I don't think even that would bring me back now..which is really sad because I was a hopeless addict to FFXI for a long time (paying for 6 accounts no less). I'm so mad and angry with what they did to the game to make me decide to quit, the thing that would bring me back would be the old team coming back.

Not even close to filling the same role as what he had prior to Yoshida, and now again, after Yoshida has been moved to FFXIV.

Nobuaki Komoto and Tanaka walked hand in hand; they shared the same goals and ran FFXI a specific way for several years. When Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi P) came along and filled in during Komoto & Tanaka's absence during their work on XIV, he did more than sit idle and watch the game continue to follow the boring, dying path that Komoto & Tanaka had laid out.

He introduced an expansion that revolutionized the way we played FFXI, and solved almost every single major complaint of the game's mechanics in an extremely robust and well maintained way. They revived a good 6 jobs that no one could realistically play in any form of endgame and made them fun to play at all times. I think the only class that really got "hurt" was Bard, and as much as it sucks to be a relic bard who isn't as essential (still super useful though) in Abyssea as they are outside Abyssea, every single bard I knew was happy to be freed of the burden of bard for every single event. Every. Single. One.

Furthermore, he Yoshi P kickstarted the long-dead idea of "communicating with the public" that Komoto & Tanaka had completely abandoned many years ago because the wanted to do their own game, their own way, with the mindset of "the player is wrong and doesn't know what the player actually wants, so we are going to do it our own way with no flex, PERIOD".

Granted, I can't vouch for inside titles, but there was an obvious announcement of Yoshi P taking the reigns when Abyssea came to fruition. We all sat and wondered why suddenly we, as players, were getting the attention we deserved, and so much awesome stuff constantly delivered in an incredibly timely fashion. Even the miniscule stuff like "additional spawn ???" for bosses are the kind of thing that Tanaka never bothered to invest time in, he and Komoto as a team are outright a-holes and deserve to be demoted x 10. When we were all begging for an answer, Yoshi P was announced as the new FFXI lead. This was no coincidence, it was the result of his hard work and progress the game saw with his baby; Abyssea and everything that came along with it.

Read your very own ZAM article on the front page of XIV to see the Yoshi P announcement again hitting the playerbase, much like we had in the past for FFXI, we now see a similar announcement for XIV. The bottom line is that Yoshi P has a chance to create something from scratch... no holds barred, no one to interfere. There's a reason he abandoned everything Tanaka did, and that's, very simply, because he doesn't want him crawling back into the scene as Komoto's buddy to take over his hard work, claiming credit and destroying what he's created.

I'm betting money on XIV 2.0 being completely amazing simply because of who's at the helm. I can't even imagine the game not being amazing once Yoshi is finished with it, but right now, even in the XIV 1.0 stages (that I have no interest in playing again) Yoshi is adding / fixing stuff every day, even though he knows it's going to be abandoned, for the simple reason that he actually cares about the players and wants them to have a good time.

See your own ZAM article here: http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=29618

Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.

It amazes me how you can say it was both just as exclusive as old content, and yet it was too easy to blow through and obtain gear.

Want content that's not easy for just anyone to low man without excluding certain jobs? You got Void Watch. But that has it's own issues. I'll take Abyssea over Void Watch any day.

And this is why Abyssea worked, brought back players and had other players like me stick around.

Not to be a wet blanket but Monster Missions was the beginning of Everquest's death spiral.


Edited, May 2nd 2012 7:16am by Lobivopis

You're making my argument for me. It's your call who you bring or don't bring. You're the one making others out to be "dead weight" when SE even created a way for any melee or mage to contribute even if they aren't fighting the NM! Get a couple extra people and they can feed you time and pop items so you can pop ad infinitium. They can earn you extra curor (aka gil) and XP WHILE you're fighting NMs. Maybe those things have no value to you, but compared to past events that's downright revolutionary. They never let you kill 2 birds with one stone before. Maybe killing trash mobs isn't glorious enough for you, but don't say it's not helpful in Abyssea.

What SE did was open up the game, but many of the supposedly brilliant minds in the supposedly friendly community took it the wrong way. Rather than decide that they can get everyone in the LS geared up to epic proportions in relatively short order by working together, our glorious leaders had the same idea as you. "If I don't NEED you then you're dead weight. Me, my 'girl'friend, and my BFF can kill everything ourselves! The rest of you guys are on your own!" There was no reason to do this other than selfishness, inability to adjust from old event mentalities, or some OCD thing about efficiency. That's not an SE problem, that's a player problem.

If my LS-mates and other friends want to come along for seals or items they're always welcome whether they have one of the chosen jobs or not. If you don't feel the same way then I dare say you're the one who's doing it wrong. Said it before and I'll say it again. Why play an MMO if you want to be exclusionary and anti-social?

Edited, May 2nd 2012 8:23am by Camiie

Way to miss the point Dantedmc.

Looking at the discourse you are having with other posters from the outside in, have to agree with the sentiment expressed that you are just reinforcing the opposite view Really need to step back a sec and really try and get what they are saying. Or you will just end up going 'round and around in that discussion.

Hit the nail on the head Camile. Essentially exactly what Abyssea did for me personally, was allow me to have more flexibility with friends. I would encourage them to come as something they've "wanted" to attend as, but people are so torn apart and scarred by the game that they are afraid to. They would literally express to us what they wanted to attend as, then come as something else because they were afraid they wouldn't be "as useful as possible". When we finally got people to let their guard down and just have fun, things got a lot more interesting. Sure, seals didn't come int he abundance they normally would, but when you can kill 4-6 hours just screwing around having fun with different tactics, you end up with a surprising amount of seals & items that you never expected to obtain. In the end, we almost always came out ahead with a "lets enjoy ourselves first" policy.

It's not to say that sometimes coming as a well-fit job isn't a good idea, I mean I played WHM now and again even though I didn't love it, just to help a couple friends out. I'd attend as a mage to help proc even though I wasn't thrilled about it. But to "expect" that someone will attend as those roles every single time you go do something together is foolish. You aren't friends with "the WHM" like when this game first came out. People now have several jobs capped and geared. You are now friends with "the person" who happens to have one of his jobs as a WHM.

Take away the WHM exclusive procs and WHM would have still been the only/preferred healer. That wasn't an Abbysea exclusivity problem. That was an SE "main healing working as intended" problem.

A lot of people never even knew I had black mage at 75, let alone warrior or thief.

I still get to come BRD when we've got a group with at least five people in it. So I'm still getting use out of my Ghorn, but I'm not trapped exclusively on that one job forever and ever.

a big part of the reason Abyssea became to easy and got old fast because they continued to raise the level cap making abyssea which is the newest expansion a joke and feel way to easy. It was also recycled areas, included crap quest, etc.

Edited, May 2nd 2012 3:00pm by Nashred

Least... Interesting... Roadmap... Ever!

I'm not even complaining about "No Expansions! No New Zones! No New Jobs! QQQQQQ" There's nothing in there which makes me excited. And oh look, new pup attachments in six months, when from the last set I only use Disruptor.

Seriously, the only slightly interesting thing is "New Dungeon Crawl System", which will probably be either dominated by gearhounds who will sap all the fun out of it by spamming the same fights for 0.1% drop rate gear and nobody new can get clears or reach the final battle without a weekly static, or it will be so hard that you have to have six (or 18) people with empy stuff just to finish within the time limit.

And I am also concerned that with the awesome success of Pankration and MMM, this has a good chance of being crap. Or if it is successful, then people will do nothing else, compare with today how it seems these days that too many people want to do nothing but grind full sets AF3+2 for six or more jobs. (Actually MMM was kind of fun until the marbles nerf, at which point it was just too much effort to collect runes. And we all know how relic-threateningly OP those marbles weren't.)

I've already been feeling a bit bored with XI lately, and this does nothing to change my plan to suspend at the end of next month.

I use a 37" TV from the couch five feet away. The new resolution options would help inside FFXI, but my problem is that I can't read anything on the screen before I start FFXI, so I simply have my PC set to 720p mode.

Wait, you can get into a VW fight without having the tier? (Oh, you don't get the clear? Never mind, I'm only in it for the warps.) Hang around Jeuno more and watch the FFXIAH shouts. It's hard to find a PUG when you're already doing something else. On Sylph, there are random tier shouts all the time. I've done nothing but VW PUG and have finished through T1 Jeuno, and had to pass on T2 because it was getting late. Sure, it's a minor commitment of at least 3 hours to get six fights done, but if I chill and wait, something will show up.

They tried that once. We eneded up with XIV instead.

Oh yeah, that'll work. How many PUPs use sharpshot to solo? And if you're not solo, why do you need TH when someone else can bring it? On second thought, it's so relatively useless that I wouldn't be surprised to see SE do just that.

What I really expect would be a TH attachment, but you have to keep up maneuvers to get more than TH1. But which maneuver will be either one you don't need for your current setup (like ice maneuvers for Soulsoother) or it'll be a maneuver that causes it to spam something else like crazy (like light maneuvers for Soulsoother). What would be really cool is one that gives TH based on how many maneuvers of any type you have up, TH0-3 or TH1-4. (4 maneuvers is only momentary, so not sure if they could make that give one extra)

Yep, how many "I am new" threads popped up here since Abyss - TONS!

I know a good amount of players who quit and only one of them quit as a result of Abyss/content of XI (the others because of the CC issues, XIV, family or simply been playing too much XI). I my self have seen updates and thought "Nothing" I dont stick around for the hope of those updates I stick around simply because its XI.

Numbers dont seem to be at a point where SE have to even consider another server merge, I am sure if numbers were actually dropping that fast SE would be fast acting - some of the updates show that they are wanting to release new life in to XI.

Strange thing is, when getting in to XI originally you needed massive amount of patience - lets face it the 50s were a NIGHTMARE (back before the EXP changes that resorted in to hacked servers), now all of a sudden some people dont seem to have any. Its just those "Doomsayers" who say XI is dieing/numbers dropping.

Only have to look at WoW and every other MMO that lasted for as long as XI (and Longer) to know long time MMOs struggle regardless. Numbers on WoW are dropping like flies - again I know three of them and two have just quit. Worse thing is no one has suggested WHAT type of new content should be released, just that "I hate this update"............

Seconded. I want what Camiie suggested too. To give the developers some suggestions, here are a few:

-Introduce 2-4 new jobs related to the Far East and Samurai. Everyone playing FF games is somewhat of a Japanophile. Those who aren't still enjoy a good story. Japan folklore has good stories. You could even tie it into some of the existing Japanese mythology like Genbu, Kirin, Byakko, Suzaku, Seiryu. You would also probably delight your Japanese fan base.

-Bring us to the Far East

-Through introduction of these jobs and "training" we could participate in massive battles that give regular small rewards (think: cruor, exp, some small gil, and NPCable/AHable/low level crafting items). People would also play it if there is a chance, but a small one (as long as there is a chance) that you could get best in class items like a VW body.

What.

No seriously, what? If someone was truly your friend, they would be considerate enough to take away from their free time to level, learn, and gear a job they probably don't want to level to you get sh*t from an event that, even if they didn't level the job, you will still get a thousand times faster than you would grinding old endgame, because abyssea drop rates are like candy compared to it? You really didn't put much thought into that, did you? Talk about a stupidly selfish viewpoint...

I mean, it's one thing if someone levels a job to be useful to their LS/group of friends of their own will, especially because it's more likely that they'll enjoy the job if they do it voluntarily, but don't @#%^ing try to guilt people into it or vilify them by calling them a bad friend for not doing it. That's @#%^ing stupid.



To be fair, Bard is useless in abyssea because all the fights are either easy enough that you don't want double march because it'll kill the thing faster than you can proc it for drops, or it's so outrageously hard that the only real reasonable way to kill it without an army of r/m/e users is to just brew it, which is pretty much a near instant win button, march or no march. That relegates bard to exp haste whore, and yea, that sounds like a lot of fun, especially since you'd have to be running a bard rotation to make sure to hit every melee that isn't afk, and half of them won't have the accuracy to hit sh*t anyway. So what's left? Threnody Procs. I love bards, and have played with the idea of leveling it a few times myself, but honestly, unless the bard is the Tarutaru Incarnation of the Old Spice Man wearing a Voyager's Sallet (If you know which taru I'm talking about, you're a mother@#%^ing boss.) there's not a lot of value they add to an abyssea set up when compared to other jobs...


Barrage Turbine, Viv-valve, Barrier Module, and Percolator would like a word with you. They'd like to know whether you forgot how amazing(Barrage Turbine/vivi-valve)/Useful(Barrier Module/Percolator) they are, or whether you might just not be as good at (read: suck) at pup as you think. Hell, Power Cooler isn't bad either, for Soulsoother outside of abyssea, and I make pretty good use of Heat Capacitor when I'm soloing. I'll give you Galvanizer, though. That sh*t's about as useful as Reactive Shield.



Or, instead of a treasure hunter attachment, they could give us an attachment that actually does something. Why the @#%^ would I waste any of my attachment slots on placebo hunter? On ANY puppet? This nonsense about wanting a TH attachment needs to stop...

Edited, May 3rd 2012 7:59pm by Jinte

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how there are any openings for any of those jobs whatsoever.

I admit, of all the crazy ass jobs people ramble on about the game needing when it doesn't need them, the one I love is Geomancer, because I will always be a total geomancer fangirl regardless of how unnecessary it is. That said, I'll give you that it could probably be worked in, though the end result would basically either be a gimicky blm/blu/sch hybrid, or would step all the @#%^ over poor sch's already totally broken beyond repair toes, since there's not a lot of unique tricks Geomancer could do with it's niche that sch can't do already with its storm and helix spells. I'd absolutely play the @#%^ out of the job if they added it, and wouldn't complain if they did, no matter how much it ended up sucking, but I'd still prefer the fix the other jobs first...

As for the others... what the hell would chemist even do? Main heal? SE's already made it clear that that ship is for whm, and only whm. Support heal? Get in line, there's already 5 jobs that can do that. What else? enfeeble? Rdm says back the @#%^ off. Buff? Brd, Cor, and Sch say high, gtfo. DD? We don't need another DD. Ranged DD? We don't need another @#%^ing DD. Tank? Those don't exist any more. What non-existant opening do you see for job that doesn't have anything specific it can do? Another hybrid job? Rdm, Blu, and Pup have made it pretty clear how much we "need" those.

Berserker would obviously be a heavy DD, but we already have DDs coming out of our ears. We absolutely do not need another DD job, under any circumstances. Sure, berserker could give a job with A+ Greatsword, or make clubs a viable melee weapon, but @#%^ing why? There's nothing original it could do. Heavy Weapon specialist that can take hits if they pull hate, constantly pounding out damage, and only meleeing? That's warrior. Heavy DD that can cast spells? Dark Knight. Heavy DD that abuses the @#%^ out of WS and Skill Chains? Sam. Heavy DD that focuses on Melee DoT rather than WS damage? Mnk. Heavy DD with some limited enmity shedding/control? or a pet? Drg. Heavy Range- There's a job named after that one. The only gimmick that hasn't been used is a heavy DD that can cast white magic, but that's because pld's offense sucks, and is more of a reason to give pld an offensive boost, since it needs it to tank anyway. Speaking of, no, berserker cannot be a tank, because tanks are no longer relevant until SE fixes enmity. It's so stupidly easy to cap it out now that there's no point.

Time mage has been absolutely discussed to death, and there's just no way it would @#%^ing work without either stepping all over a half dozen different jobs and being totally overpowered, or being so bland and underpowered that it completely erases the lolpup stigma from people's memory by taking it's place with loltim. Haste and Slow are the only "time" related spells we have, and while haste is absolutely amazing, it's already so easy to hit the haste cape/delay floor with the jobs that can make use of it that there's no need for another job to try and throw itself into the mix. Slow, on the other hand, is basically rdm and brd's baby, whenever SE gets around to making enfeebling useful again, anyway. That leaves Time Mage without need for the two main time spells. What other time-related effects could such a super-niche gimmick job make use of? Stopping time? That's called stun, which we have a million different versions of, or terror, which most monsters would resist the @#%^ out of regardless of enfeeble buff. How about reversing time to heal wounds/restore mp? You mean Refresh and Regen? Yea. Speeding up time in some other form? What else is there? Regain? Already done. the only other niche thing would be reducing party JA recast times, but there's no way they could go about doing that in a way that would be both useful and not totally broken. Slowing time? aside from slow, there's just Inhibit TP, which is kind of a nice, but they didn't let Penance and Yurin stack, so why step on mnk and nin's toes? What else could Tim possible do aside from being a messy collaboration of rdm, sch, whm, brd, and cor with a little dash of nin/mnk/blm on the side? What would it possible add that would be worth adding the new job over buffing existing jobs like, say, sch, which is pretty much only useful for Embrava?

Seriously, we don't need another job, and we sure as hell don't have room for another job. Think about it practically for a moment (and please don't say "Who cares about practicality, some of us want to play for fun" because that's what's keeping all of the jobs that need fixing from getting fixed.).

FFXI's Generalized Party Roles:
Damage Dealer: War, Mnk, Thf, Blm, Drk, Bst, Rng, Sam, Nin, Drg, Smn, Blu, Cor, Pup, Sch, Dnc; 15/20 jobs
Healer: Whm, Whm, Whm, Whm, Whm, Whm, and only mother@#%^ing Whm, (as far as SE's concerned), but also Rdm, Blu, Pup, Sch, Dnc; 1/20 jobs and staying that way, except for support healing which is 6/20, before considering subjobs
Buffer: Whm, Rdm(well, buffing themselves anyway. trolololololol), Brd, Smn, Cor, Sch; 5/20 plus rdm
Tank: Pld and nin, as well as situationally war, mnk, sam, and dnc, 2/20~5/20, but nigh useless these days because the enmity system is completely useless
Puller: Any job can pull.

As far as generalized roles go, the only thing we don't have several options for are tanks, but we don't need tanks any more. They'd be better off making tanking viable and buffing one of the 15 @#%^ing DD jobs that doesn't heavy-focus on DD into another tank, if we really want another one after they fix enmity.

So what about FFXI's Niche Party Roles? Well:
Melee DD: War, Mnk, Thf, Drk, Bst, Rng, Sam, Nin, Drg, Blu, Pup, Dnc; 12/15 jobs. I'm serious. We don't need another @#%^ing DD.
Ranged DD: Rng, Cor (as far as ranged attacks), but over all, Blm, Rng, Smn, Blu, Cor, Pup, Sch; 7/20 (Sorry, not including shuriken.)
Magical DD: Blm, Smn, Blu, Pup, Sch; 5/20
Support Healer: Though almost entirely moot at this point, I already covered it above with Healer
Debuffer: Whm, Blm, Rdm, Drk, Nin, Smn, Blu, Pup, Dnc; 9/20
Crowd Control: Rarely ever needed any more, outside of stun, but it was really only ever sleepga and stun before, anyway.

What other role am I not seeing that we're apparently lacking?

That said, I completely agree with wanting to see the four far regions; except the far east, because I really don't give a @#%^ and I don't understand why everyone has such a massive goddamn hardon for the japanese gaming company to introduce a virtual japan into the westernized fantasy world that is vanadiel. I realize that a lot of people are just japanophiles, but seriously, Japanese mythology has been done to death so @#%^ing hard so many @#%^ing times, and they've set up such diverse and potentially amazing foundations for other mythologies in the far north (Norse/Germanic/Slavic mythologies), Far south (they've set the mithran homeland up to easily work with any or all of indonesian, indian, african, and central/south american mythologies), and the far west (seems to lean towards the world's various shamanistic mythologies, such as the huge variety of North American myths), of which only norse mythology has been done a great deal, while the others are pretty much universally ignored despite being as or even more intense/dramatic/drawing as Japanese Mythology.

I bet SE wants to add jobs, but can't think of any unique classes, and that is probably why we're getting the Fight as a Monster! event. Want a new job? How about 50+?

Also, new jobs don't add new life to a game- they give bored players something to do for 3-4 months.

Isn't that all a new job would be at this point anyway? Replace "tp moves" with "unique ja/spells"

Edited, May 3rd 2012 9:36pm by xypin

About the only unique area of abilities left for further exploration would be a job that specializes in throwing stuff, as a counterpoint to ranger. Chemist could equip ranged slot potions for buffs, making them the RNG equivalent of a WHM - throwing gil at your party to heal them, instead of throwing gil at a monster to damage them.

I.E. nobody would do it because why waste money on items, even cheap ones, when you have a job that already does it for MP?