The economy is grinding to a haltFollow

OK, I have to ask because I see this as a foolish statement: What, exactly, makes you think that FFXI wasn't as focused around endgame as other MMOs? Don't even try the BCNM argument because those are nothing more than low level instances (that other MMOs have) that require a hefty payment fee (that other MMOs don't). Leveling taking forever isn't a sign it wasn't endgame oriented as this is hardly the only MMO to have a steep leveling curve.

Was it vanilla? Considering there wasn't much to do of anything until a few patches that introduced BCNMs, and that the storyline at the time actually *did* require you to be at the level cap, this was a wash in both senses. Plus, the missions only had two level caps -- one for level 25 and one for level 50 (hint: this WAS the level cap when it was put in). Considering how easy both battles were it's a moot point anyway. So you had low level instances and high level instances (equal), HNMs (Serket and the two birds, Cassie, and probably one other I'm forgetting -- endgame oriented), and the Northlands added patches later (endgame oriented with several NMs that were tough), and a final mission that was.... endgame oriented.

Was it RoZ? Well, everything in that expansion was aimed towards the endgame crowd. In fact, the only content produced during RoZ that wasn't endgame oriented was the job unlocks and AF quests. More land HNMs and king HNMs were released, and the entire storyline fights were meant to be fought at the level cap when those fights were put in (had 3 level cap raises in RoZ). Sky was entirely endgame oriented. Dynamis was endgame oriented. Summoner unlocks were endgame oriented. You got a few more low level BCNMs and that was about it.

Was it CoP? Sure, if you want to be foolish you could state it wasn't endgame oriented.... for the first five chapters of the story. Beyond that? Sea -- endgame. Limbus -- endgame. Dream Dynamis -- endgame. Sure, you got a few more low level BCNMs that weren't story related and finally an option to solo your avatars as a SMN at level 20.... but that's it. Once again the bulk of the content was aimed at endgame.

Ok, maybe it was ToAU? Well, there were a few more BCNMs (recognizing the pattern yet?) and you were thrown a bone by being able to start on Assaults earlier than level cap. But yet again, look at the rest of the content released for the game. Einherjar -- endgame. Salvage -- endgame. Nyzul Isle -- endgame. Outdoor HNMs. Zeni system -- endgame.

Do I really need to go on? Sure, there were a few side things to do (chocobo raising, pankration, racing, etc.) that were just side stuff to do (which exists in most MMOs) and they added additional things to help ease leveling (MMM, fields/grounds of valor, etc. -- again a lot of MMOs so this as well), but the vast, vast majority of all content released in every single iteration of the game has been endgame oriented.

Nostalgia is a terrible thing when you let it blind you.



I partially agree because crafters have always taken the playerbase dry. But, considering how the game was originally designed that pretty much you couldn't make money except by selling things to other characters the raw mats market consistenting drying up is a fairly valid concern.

Unless you're a cook. That market will almost never run dry.

Edited, Jul 13th 2013 5:19pm by Viertel

Having endgame content doesn't mean being endgame-oriented. While there is no dictionary description for the expression, it is generally accepted that an endgame-oriented mmorpg is one in which the majority of the player base sits at endgame and relies on updates to progress to the next level of it. The new content and items overtake the old, while the old becomes substantially useless. Before this new development direction FFXI was everything but that kind of game. The majority of the players spent time leveling up below endgame. Whereas in other games one reaches cap level and sits at endgame, FFXI provided the innovation of giving an enormous amount of replayability for the low level content.
Updates didn't add as much low level content simply because with constant leveling to do, accompanied by related crafting, questing and socializing there was no need to add as much. People would reach the cap on a few jobs, have a rush in endgame, and then return home to level up parties and intermediate content(can't skip those AF).
You reach level 18 without a subjob, then you get one and level to 18 again with it, but your gear is basic, so you level up higher and craft and try your luck at bcnms and NMs, getting some cool low level items in the process. When you hit endgame, you get burned by the ludicrous time sink and difficulty it entails and go back to the beginning again, without losing any of your progress.

Anyone sane will agree FFXI's success was slow and steady to come, and only arrived commercially because of the lasting community willing to pay a subscription for it, not because of a huge turnover of players every 6 months, as endgame-oriented games experience. The expansions did add quantitatively more endgame content, because endgame was the part actually needing content the most, as occurs in every mmorpg.

Today, we're seeing the actual core of FFXI, what it is oriented towards, the balanced back-and-forth of leveling and character-building reduced and increasingly trivialized towards endgame, hence SirEaglestrike's post is not only pertinent, but also self-evident. Was FFXI endgame-oriented, it wouldn't have lasted this long, because frankly, most of FFXI's old endgame was almost too unbearably slow, difficult and expensive to beat. Until recently, that is.

Speaking of foolishness, to call a player-based economy undesirable compared to a simple virtual reward system is foolish from every perspective.

The truth is the game has been broken since RoZ and perhaps even before. It has gone close to dying multiple times. The economy is eternally broken and harsh to deal with, having just ever shifted towards different shades of worse in time, the jobs are eternally unbalanced or in need of serious revamp, likewise the NM and BCNM systems. The community has endured it all for over a decade, but only now it has to endure what really being endgame-oriented entails, and neither the developers nor the players seem to understand what is bound to happen.

In short, endgame was at one point part of a cyclical form of gameplay in FFXI. Now it seems to have become THE gameplay. At least, the focus has shifted. After ten years FFXI has finally become WoW.




Edited, Jul 13th 2013 7:06pm by AreonMaere

Edited, Jul 13th 2013 7:08pm by AreonMaere

I never said FFXI wasn't end-game focused. It always was. What I said was that FFXI endgame and its economy was not built around the model that other MMO's were. That's why going to a situation where 99.9% of all gear are bought with currency instead of sold for money can decimate the economy. The economy used to be based around people purchasing currency for r/m/e's, buying hermes sandals, buying tefnut wands and chatoyant staves, etc. That's how you got the gil from those with a lot of it to be passed on to other people. Now those at the top sitting on hundreds of millions of gil get everything they need directly from their sources, the economy means nothing to them as they can take care of it all by themselves. And there aren't enough consumables to sustain the economy.

Think about it, old FFXI endgame "consumable" items consisted of:
Cursed gear
Reraise items
Bullets/arrows
Ninja tools
Relics
HNM drops, both consumable (as a poor example as its a weak HNM but great for the example: Serket claw) and direct gear.

Now the economy is based around...reraise items, and to a much lesser degree bullets/arrows (mitigated by scavenge change, recycle on gear. Ninja tools barely counts as a consumable since we went from everyone using /nin to...no one using /nin...or even nin/

The current game has patched up the need for those consumables and added no variation to make up for it.

It simple, it is that all the casuals and hardcore left this game( To south korean MMO, usa MMO, uk MMO) and it is like how the elite players wanted this game. It is how they always dreamed about it. It just the gil sellers and those that have been in linkshells for years and still on the game , and close friends, so there is no longer selling stuff on the AH ,( with a limit on amount items at 7 on the AH kills it.) Since they make the items for there linkshell or friends.

Example : my one buddy just farm 400k (AH item) for 4.7mil if i make them, will I sell no, or when I can, or you can craft them for a friend or linkshell member on the new pets or another thing, Will I or he/she sell any nope just between are friends.So they do not need to buy any of the items from the AH.
.
There a reason so many people been going over to ff 14:ARR, also Yoshi-p he understands, and he got the mmo's crowds' attention. Game is really good and fixed everything that ff11 had wrong with it and , it a true FF game the music on ff14 is astonishing , also those from the ff11 will love some the ff14 easters eggs and the cross over hints for seekers.

XIV doesn't release til August 27. There's a whole month left.

I stopped playing beta not because I didn't like it, but because I didn't want to spoil myself further.

But I don't want to quit XI. I have too much invested and I still have things I want to do.

People aren't going to 14 because the XI economy is dead, or because there is no casuals or hardcores left. They play and try it because 1. It is in Beta and Free, and 2. It is new.

Myself, I had a lot of fun the first couple weekends, the game looks beautiful, sounds great, plays fun. But after you get over the shiny stuff it is just the same old thing in a new skin. I think FF14 can be a great game, but I think a lot of people who have experienced FFXI, and/or WoW will find that its essentially the same. In fact, I was disappointed to find that EXP grouping for the most part is dead, which is sad. Yes there is events you can stumble on, or organize, but for the most part it seems like a solo quest grind, probably my least favorite part of WoW.

Then when that is all said and done, you end up in the same place where FFXI is. Eventually the game will be Top end heavy, and the lower tier content will dry up, new people will find it harder and more frustrating than those who got into the game from the start, and the only way to keep people going is to expand beyond the current endgame. (much like FFXI and WoW both had to do.)

This is what effects the economy. Now I don't know if SE has a plan in place, I know Blizzard tried to keep lower tier stuff relevant by dropping "medals" that could be exchanged for higher tier medals and ultimately upgrades, meaning if you were high level doing previous tier stuff still gave you something you could use later on. Since 14 has not evolved to this point it is hard to say if it will have a similar system, or not.

In the end however the economy of the game lives and dies based on relevance. Abyssea in XI essentially made anything prior obsolete, hence the AH being weened out of relevancy. With no advancement or realignment of stuff (maybe moving low tier stuff to NPC's, adding new higher tier crafts) it has slowly bled into a husk of what it once was. I can tell people don't like the Abyssea bashing, but all Abyssea was, was a reset, and unfortunately SE didn't have plans in place to keep the "other stuff" relevant. Crafting is all but dead for the most part due to the majority being for <75 stuff.

But ya thats not why people are going to a new game, and it won't be the reason people leave 14 when its time comes. Eventually people burn out of doing the same stuff again and again, and the biggest issue with XI (which does effect its economy) was making everything prior to Abyssea essentially irrelevant, and not advancing the secondary things (crafting for example) behind it. So instead of having a plethora of things to do, you are kinda herded into hitting the endgame cap, and waiting for SE to release new stuff...instead of working on a way to make everything relevant. There is literally a sh*t ton to do in XI, the unfortunate thing is that the vast majority is meaningless in the sense of progression...which is ultimately what most people want in a game. If stuff from RoTZ/COP/ToAU/WoTG was still functionally relevant I think FFXI would have a much larger community than it does, but sadly your options are limited to current stuff, which hurts the player base, and the economy follows suit.


(When you look at all the stuff in FFXI from Vanilla to now, the amount of things to do is pretty mind boggling.its to bad SE hasn't put a system in to make the old old stuff like Garrison or Expeditions worth doing. Even if it was a point exchange system, similar to the seal exchange system they added. There is just so much content that is dead, and if you look at all the stuff that is essentially irrelevant it is actually sad...especially for someone like me who got to play through it all. Lots of people probably havent experienced lots of stuff, and anyone who came after abyssea likely hasn't even heard of a lot of it.)
Edited, Jul 14th 2013 1:37pm by rdmcandie

Edited, Jul 14th 2013 1:41pm by rdmcandie

Evoliths?

Oh yeah, XIV. It's Materia.

Not gonna help XI's economy though.

Wrong.

Leveling in a group is the fastest way to level either by running dungeons or running around and knocking out FATES together. Simply because you aren't mindlessly picking a corner of the world to pull monsters for four hours doesn't mean group leveling is dead. Solo takes immensely longer to level: it's not even a contest.

Solo leveling is more than possible and completely viable compared to pre-FoV FFXI, but it's by no means efficient.

Not even going to touch the rest of the post on your whole "Abyssea destroyed the economy" when it was the dead period leading up to Adoulin that killed it. And even then, it didn't kill so much as finally move on from the same crap that was being sold for the past 4+ years onto Adoulin materials.

I will never understand the hardon people have for the old school FFXI leveling of taking 6 hours to make a party, 45 minutes to gather at a camp and then killing the exact same mob for 2-5 hours in the exact same place. How that became the holy grail of exping is well beyond my level of comprehension of the human psyche.



Except last I checked this market already crashed/stabilized at 30k for 1-3 shard and 50k for 4-5 shard and 25-30k an airlixir. All of those items went down in price steadily ever since SoA came out as people "finish" needing them, there isn't enough demand for them.

Edited, Jul 15th 2013 5:31am by SirEaglestrike

I'm right you're wrong.

Signed,
Bob Loblaw

Can you point me to his law blog?