All Worlds Emergency Maintenance (Apr. 11/ Apr. 12)Follow

saffron

Now if only they'd discover hotfixes.

dat JP business model.

Unfortunately where the wheels fall of that one is where WoW is 8 years old, from basically the same time period of No Hotfixing, and implemented the ability to push hotfixes anyway because they were sick of taking the servers down for an hour at a time to fix something stupid.

But I'll concede that it probably isn't something SE cares much about for FFXI and it'd probably take significant re-engineering of how its update process works at a fundamental level.

Still... it's irritating to see 2 hours of downtime to fix a mining drop rate.

We would have an unplayable FFXIV style mess.

I would be VERY interested in that game.

First and foremost, FFXI is SE's biggest cash cow right now. It has already been stated by them that this is their #1 source of income, even more so than their actual released games. It's why they did the new expansion in the first place: To start rebuilding after all the recent fiascos with missed sales targets and FFXIII-2 Part 5 subpart 14 (yea, can you tell I'm not a fan of that...?)

Now, this would be something I would NOT want to see. And this is coming from a 9 year vet who has loved this game and still loves it. It might not make much sense but listen:

Square-Enix struck an amazing balance with this game even initially. Hardcore mechanics with a harsh exp loss punishment system, but bolstered by forming player bonds and groups that would make those mechanics easy to overcome. Then, as the population left, they adjusted it, removing the harsher edges, making it easier to catch up to all the core end-game focused events they were adding in. And now they are adding a new section for those higher levels to explore.

Yes, the coding is an absolute mess. Yes, there are issues with instancing. And yes the graphics are dated by today's standards. But, at the same time, all of this combines in a product better than the sum of its parts. FFXIV proved you cannot reinvent the wheel. They had two choices when they made it: Break totally from the success of FFXI and give a new experience (which they should have done. Imagine if they had done a FFVII-style MMO, with Mako, steampunk/technological aspects), or try to re-imagine the elements of FFXI and repack them, which is what they did.

The problem is that they do not, and have not, had the same view on the game that the bulk of the player base has had. Their view has always been roadblocks, difficulties, and delays. That's why the lame gathering mini-games. That's why the terrible per-mob exp. That's why the lack of auto-attack. They thought that the "hard-core" would like that, but in reality, no one likes any of that. Ever.

The simplistic beauty of this game was that, at its core, it was broken. Not everything was balanced. Not everything was perfect. The challenges were not because of the difficulty of game play or bar of entry, it was in figuring out how to co-operate to overcome those broken elements. It was the struggle against the code, the issues with instancing, that helped forge tighter bonds among players. It forced them to make every opportunity work, and not just toss it away because you could try again tomorrow. It was a brilliant accident, and it won't be recreated soon. Remember, FFXI is one of only two monthly payment games left on the market with any major audience.

And, about the graphics... Tarutaru... with fumanchus...

Yea... Don't touch the graphics. Maybe polish them up, give us the XBox high-rez textures, but don't update because the look is a part of the feel of a game.

Honestly I have not looked much at the game. The crafting and gathering appears to be fixed but I haven't looked at anything else. The game lost me the moment I played it. It was a terribly done game, with a horrible interface and god-awful system. I got somewhat excited, but I would not pay per month for it. If they did a freemium game out of it, I would pick it back up. That's the only way I would do it. It's just not worth investing the time in a new character on a new server just to have the same poor level of fixes on a game whose core mechanics were so terrible.

The new job system had a lot of possibility. I was excited to change jobs simply by changing weapons. It sounded like a brilliant idea... but in practice, it turned every job into an ultra-generic, white bread melee, or ultra-generic, white bread mage. There was no personality, no true differential. But that goes beyond the loss of the rigid job system.

No, what really sank FFXIV was the cries of the masses endlessly about balance issues. Because of this, SE balanced FFXIV to the logical conclusion: No one gets to be special. It's the risk I see in The Elder Scrolls going to the Online model. Every hero can reach the exact same strength. So unless they lock you into a class, then you wind up doing the exact same mistake. FFXI has that brilliant core because of how broken some jobs are. All those outcries over SAM or DRG or BST, over their differing power levels, and the subsequent rebalancings.... it all blended into making the game a more compelling experience.

I know, I hated to see FFXI not get a true new boxed expansion until now. I know part of that is the PS2 holding things back. I would love to see the game moved to the new platforms out there, but I would rather a slight retool than some full revamp that would radically alter the game.

It ain't nearly as broke as you think, and fixing it would be removing the bottom card from a house made of them.

Oh and for those that would argue that "if only X could be fixed," let me remind you of the change in Treasure Hunter. This will require backstory...

I started my FFXI time as a RDM on my original character, then when I got Pawkeshup, I moved to BLM. BLM sucked for farming. I was fragile and could barely solo anything. Even the weakest mob could crush my weak little magey body. So I vowed to level a melee. Not really wanting to be a full-time melee, I wanted to pick one specifically for farming, and THF with its Treasure Hunter was my choice. I got it high enough for the maximum TH at the time (III), and spent tons of time farming lowbie mobs for easy AH-able items like beehive chips, grain seeds, et cetera.

At one point, I worked overnights, so there was one night where I would flip from sleeping during nights to days, and those nights I would farm all night, collecting grain seeds for my ex's and my mules to sell throughout the week. I could predictably get enough in one night's farming to fill our AH's for most of the coming week. It was very predictable. So much so that by using Flee once you reached the end of one section, you could go back to its start and begin farming the seeds all over again, nearly endlessly.

In the end, my THF became a job I truly loved (enough to even look at getting a Mandau for it), so it was among my first to 99. Now, I can't recall exactly when the change for TH occurred, but I do remember having a terrible feeling about it. Originally, TH automatically was placed on a mob by taking any action on the mob. So, farming lowbie mobs was easy. One hit, one kill most of the time, and TH would have been in place.

The TH change was done to make THF more "relevant" in end-game by allowing it to be controlled and stacked. However, by changing it to a proc effect, they effectively killed it as a means of farming low level enemies, as they would not survive to be proc'd. It pretty much ended my long farming sessions of gathering grain seeds as now my THF. There was no difference in using my THF or any other melee for the job any longer.

So, see, one mechanic "fixed" that broke other portions of it.

No, I don't "trust" you because you're completely incorrect.

The only difference between TH of days of yore and TH of now is that while *BOTH* pre- and post-TH adjustments your base TH level was placed onto the mob it's only *post* TH adjustments that allowed you chance(s) to gain access to the next tier. There's a reason your first proc on a monster says "Treasure Hunter level increases..." and not "is now affected by Treasure Hunter." and it's because your first hit starts off on the base level you have via traits, gear, and atma (if applicable).

Count it up next time: if you're 99 (3) with the knife (4), +2 hands (6), and feet (7) and actually read the messages it'll tell you that TH 8 is placed onto the mob and not 7 (which is your baseline).

So I went out to prove you all wrong... And I did not.

I am big enough to admit when I am wrong. In my defense, I did test it immediately after patch, and after an 8 hour session, did not wind up with the amount I normally did. And in my testing, there was improvement, mostly in the garbage drops, but I did wind up with 15 instead of 10 grain seeds on the 50 mob testing.