Older content is easier with SoA gearFollow

The switch from horizontal to vertical progression was too much for the FFXI community and SE's failure to maintain a constant, linear, achievable gear flow has made their vertical progression model even more obviously terrible.

Regardless what was said earlier, I have always found SE to be terrible at balancing things. The only thing that they are worse at, in fact, is identifying terrible design ideas before they are implemented. I mean, holy crap. You guys should reactivate and do Snorcia skirmish twice. You kill things for 10 minutes and then one guy kills something about every 3 minutes for half an hour. It can be trioed and the hardest part is staying awake for the whole run.

It had a few things right, and a few things wrong. Here are three of the ones that are objectively wrong:

1) Daily lockouts and alliance events were FFXI's bread and butter during... every time up to Abyssea. They aren't killing the game. The game is dying due to the lack of things that players *want* to do, not due to the lack of things that players *could* do but are unable to for some reason.

2) If you introduced easily obtained crafted weapons that were equivalent/superior to Delve boss weapons, then Snorcia Skirmish would be the only event in the game worth doing. The game doesn't need there to be even less worthwhile content at the moment.

3) RMEs being on top is not important as some kind of meaningless hierarchical status symbol. It's important because it motivates players to do a huge amount of legacy content that was recently re-worked to be lowman friendly.


Complaining about the lack of lowman events while supporting SE's decision to eliminate a decade of lowmannable content is kind of mindblowing.


Here are two posts that involve plots of player activity since April 1st:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/50106-Server-Populations?p=5902389&viewfull=1#post5902389
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/40532/server-pops/5/#2468780

Feel free to do your own analysis, but the basic conclusion is that population has dropped a little more than 50% since April 1st and it started dropping long before FFXIV's release. I find it harder to explain the dip in population from late June to early July than it is to explain the bump from early July to early September (Repeat Login Campaign 1/2), which is why I chose to interpret it as a continuous decrease since April (or at least May). The big spike in May is the update where they outdated RMEs.

You don't need stupid low drop rates without the daily lockouts, actually. Again, look to Abyssea and consider how every job had at least 5 individual pieces of gear that no other job could equip. For those who are, like... career MNK only, then yes, they might get done quickly. And while I criticized the demand that players should have to take up jobs they dislike to get anywhere, one reason why people might not have taken up other jobs in the past is the time required to gear them decently. When I knock the RME "requirement" and the wish to bring it back, it's under the auspice that you're basically telling anyone who wants to pick up a new job that they'll now have to spend 3+ months doing Dynamis and follow-up activities just to get up to the community's twisted definition of speed. Prestige weapons may motivate some, but I'm going to venture a guess it disheartens more upon the realization of what's required. We're no longer in the era where you can think, "I'm going to be playing this game a year from now!" when all it takes is one patch to ruin things, or another game to come around and do something so much better. Some might confuse this for wanting instant gratification, but it's not. It's simply a challenge to SE to be both fair to their players and hard-working to keep their players. Instead, it seems like we're getting the opposite end of both spectra, be it for financial or old-school philosophical reasons (we NEED grinds, we NEED prestige, we NEED large-group content).

In the end, one of XI's greatest issues has been getting people together to do specific things. Shouts only go so far. You gotta be on at the right time, in the right place, with the right jobs, and hope whatever it is you're after isn't being contested, and doubly so if it's a low drop rate. Not everyone visits forums no matter how much we might think it the standard. We have no cross-server matching. We have no in-game request board that people could post a task to. So, it doesn't surprise me when you'd see people shouting for a niche VW NM so they could work on their progress and not get enough bodies for the job. Hell, it didn't surprise me back in vanilla CoP when you couldn't see people get past the Promies because there was nothing in it for helpers (An issue that persists today in general for what Byrth labeled Legacy Content). I certainly wouldn't want to be doing Dynamis 3.0 a year from now just because some people can't stand the thought of content having an expiration date. At the same time, I have to wonder where these people were when conquest parties died off, eco-warrior, escorts, and other certifiably dead content. No, I'd rather see time spent on new things, while these new things don't require players who aren't on the bleeding edge to take 3+ months just to see yet another ghost town.

For the moment, I recall SE saying they had the wish to add hard mode BCs. On one hand, I don't really like that for the regurgitation of content as mentioned above. On the other, if it turns out they drop 1k coins, HMP pouches, etc. at a decent pace and generally eliminates the sting of the RME progression, I'd say it's something that's been needed for a long time now. But if they're just a future excuse to farm X amount of whatever for the new RME level, then missed opportunity. Doubly so if it's, "Do this sh*tty BC so that unpopular relic can get its upgrade!" which naturally means those people will have a hell of time upgrading. In the end, there is such a thing as spreading people too thin, which is an issue the pre-Adoulin doing Dynamis/Salvage/Nyzul/Meebles daily dynamic introduced. That's probably 4 hours of a person's day alone if they wanted to get the most of their arbitrarily delegated time. So forgive me for not wanting to see that again if that's what it means to keep legacy content relevant.

Edit: And none of this actually taps into issues of job imbalance or stagnation for why some opted to bow out. See sig for my poor attempt at cynical meme humor.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2013 5:39pm by Seriha

If you want to talk about population drops, FFXI has done two rounds of server merges. The first was in May of 2010 and the second was in May of 2011. This reflects the total lack of worthwhile content between ToAU (2006) and Abyssea (June, 2011). ToAU was the gift that kept on giving and was stilling cranking out updates past the release of WotG (probably into 2008, can't be bothered to look it up), but WotG was an abject endgame failure that offered one useful-yet-boring activity, Campaign. There was essentially nothing novel and worthwhile to do from 2008 to 2011 and the game was limping by on a combination of player incompetence and the terrible odds that SE put into its old events.

That said, based on the fact that only 12 servers reached an average of half-capacity at each of the previous merges and that this time we are looking at a >50% drop in the total number of logins, you can conclude that we are currently in the worst population drop that FFXI has ever faced. There are no mandatory lockout on current events. It's stupid to blame them.

If there had been some kind of population drop shortly following the introduction of Dynamis, Salvage, Limbus, Assault, or any of the other forced delay events, then maybe your point would have the potential to be correct. Unfortunately, reality informs us that you're wrong.





I agree with you and I'm also not claiming that SE understands the fact that I wrote there. They obviously do not understand it. However, invalidating Skirmish v1 weapons and Delve boss weapons so you can make sure that everyone has an easily obtained "best weapon" is not working towards a solution to that problem. It is removing two currently useful events in exchange for... making Snorcia easier for everyone? it's already near-soloable by black mages. Do we really need it to be easier?



I feel like these last two responses were some kind of logic bomb, but I'm not Borg so I'll just work through it. I've moved some of the sentences around to combine thoughts.


SE is wrong and the RMEs are important, as should be very obvious from either of the graphs I linked. I'm also not pretending that Empyreans didn't happen. I just did not bring it up because I don't feel it was relevant. However, if you want to get in to that, the big problem with that was not the introduction of Empyreans. It was the stupidly difficult trials given for Relics/Mythic upgrades. Those just added insult to injury. Still, those trials affected a tiny portion of the population, while the current lack of RME content affects much larger portion of it now that the events have been made so accessible.





I don't know why you're bringing up the terrible failure of WotG's endgame (which resulted in server merges) as some kind of counter to RMEs, but I am willing to acknowledge that SE has only introduced one successful event not involved in RME creation (Limbus).

There was content introduced throughout WotG, but it sucked and players didn't choose to do it over old content. As a thought experiment, imagine if SE had released WotG and deleted all other endgame events. Do you think people would have farmed Xarcabard region campaigns all day, or do you think they would have quit? I know which one I would have done.





http://cannotlinkto.com/brlhthw

Try as FFXIAH might to monitor populations, it will never be accurate. It has no means to directly distinguish mules or secondary accounts to give a true measure of the actual population. The only one can actually do that is SE, and they've never given a precise population number. This inaccuracy could also be applied to the census and the age old fallacy of everyone having an RME, let alone multiples. The hardcores might, especially those crazy enough to have every Emp at 90, but they just aren't the norm and skew the numbers when not working with all the numbers.

Either way, I won't argue WotG had its lull during the mini-add-on year, but I'd hardly call it terrible. Campaign was actually one of the best things they'd done with FFXI, but the fact they've chosen to abandon it instead of building a new iteration within Adoulin is what left us with the BS of colonization percentages and the general lack of pick-up-and-play-at-your-own-pace friendly activities. And when I'm talking about evolving Campaign, I'm saying have more than one point of attack/defense, give the waves some more objective variety, don't tie activity/reward to NPC presence, and certainly implement high end gear as a carrot, because the best armor sets coming out Campaign being level 68 were a slap in the face, nevermind the cocktease of the weapons.

Anyway, I have no issue with attributing a drop in 2012 to the fact the casuals generally had finished up their Abyssea experience. Yes, you and I could probably put a full set of AF3+2 together in a day, but I'm not blind to the reality that everyone had the proper time and connections. Maybe they'd manage a few seals due to RNG. Maybe they tried quests instead, but weren't luck there. Maybe they could never get help with the +2 NMs because others were hogging them for their own personal gain (Gukumatz can still DIAF). But hey, eventually they could finally finish their favored job. Probably not an Emp holder, so either an AH or magian weapon. Then what? 2xSCH, pimp BRD, 3x high-end 2H DPS for Nyzul and all it's random stupidity, especially before stopper adjustment and the shift from 25 to 5 clears? Too unreliable. Too unfun. Salvage wasn't any better about job discrimination. Plus, well, not everyone having a pocket WHM on the side. Legion was out of reach. VW was very hit-and-miss just for progression purposes, nevermind getting a drop thanks to SE's "Well, 18 chests, let cut 5% drop rates by 18!" philosophy of reverse gambler's fallacy.

The Xarc Campaign hypothetical is pretty much hogwash because I know you're trying to apply what we know of it now as the be-all of the event. In comparison, Delve did at least offer gear for all jobs in most all slots one way or another. So it would be fairer to compare it to Abyssea with its cap increases relative to the ilvl increases serving the same purpose with actual character leveling. But yes, Ixion and Sandworm sucked and encouraged botting just as land kings before. If people quit over that being the endgame, I wouldn't blame them. If we want to talk about drops in population from this year specifically, sure SoA disappointment can be a factor. Player trends within the game, too. I'd even include outside influences like Rift going F2P. People wanting to enjoy their summer. New console games. Eventually, yes, XIV.

Reasons why myself and friends left XI may honestly mean next to nothing to those still playing, but they're still reasons, reasons that others can share. I'll certainly never be convinced that prestige content a sub-15% of the player base can complete is good for any game. I've criticized the **** out of Rift for doing this. I stopped TERA because they was pretty much their MO, too. GW2 has no endgame to speak of and has this weird obsession with temporary content. I haven't really hit a point in XIV yet where I feel there's something I can't do. Borderline too grindy? Sure. Hate the weekly currency caps? You bet. But not out of reach. I knew I'd pretty much never get a mythic in XI, though. Why? I hated Salvage, so that ruled out direct Alexandrite acquisition. Would've been able to stomach Dynamis better without the time restrictions, but saying I had to set aside two uninterrupted hours daily to get the most of it killed that right quick. And bluntly, relic currency being the only thing really moving gil around in XI just emphasizes how terrible the economy is/was. Slap 5k plasm craft mats on the vendors for those new potential weapons I mentioned. Might not be epic gil, especially in the distant future, but it'd be something to spend plasm on when you're generally done with your gear. Even let 'em get augmented so they could be permanently removed from economic recirculation, too.

Seriously try? No. Seriously consider? Of course. In the end, I realized that the gil generation of my play times and style wouldn't match up with a pace I'd be comfortable with over a significantly long term. I'm of the mind that no single item in an MMO should take more than a month to make by someone who puts in, say, 10 hours a week into a game. Overall, FFXI has a lot of time sink potential by virtue of the number of jobs and equipment slots before even entertaining gear swaps mid-combat. And even with Dynamis as the premier money-maker for many back then, it was still subject to competition, personal job options, or even if you ran a WHM/BRD mule (less downtime, faster kills with Haste/March, more money). Some people might've broken 1m a day no sweat, others would probably be lucky to break 500k. I'm not up to date on Alexandrite prices anymore, but there was a time you'd be dumping at least 70m into them. For your weekend warriors, that's a significant amount of time even if you could break the 1m mark per attempt. Reasonable people should then understand the folly of ever making such a thing a requirement for content.

Anyway, could Xarc have been an endgame hangout? Sure. It simply needed the actual attention required to facilitate that. On the other hand, I'm not saying SE needs to go make Xarc the it-place now. I'd rather see emphasis on SoA content so if I ever consider peeking back in on the game, I know I'll be seeing new stuff and not the same thing I did years ago with a few new mobs and maybe some new moves to 'em. Hell, I was somewhat tempted just to ***** around with Monstrosity in early August until XIV launched, but I held out knowing the other content is a bit hostile on social requirements (and RDM still sucks) and what's left of the LS I was in really isn't enough for me to say I "know them" now, which ultimately means I'd have to prove myself to a new group all over again. And frankly, the political aspect of group activities contributes to my earlier sentiment on acquisition limits, which naturally gets murkier the more bodies you add.

10 hours may be 5 Dynamis runs, but the "weekend warrior" part of that was important. As in only 2 days a week of play, which means 2 Dynamis runs, maybe 3 if you're OCD enough to wake up before reset for a third. But let's say they could make 2m per run, 210m cost means 105 runs. Then factoring actual RL scheduling, they'll need 52.5 weeks at the 2/week scheme. They'd also have to go through the hassle of finding an Ein group, tracking the beastmen kings and their fickle spawns, and other associated grinds like actually finding people for the 50 different assaults (twice). ****, all this is for one weapon before even getting into the zeni farming snorefest and climb to PW.

Relics and Emps may take less on the gil end, but the latter is certainly suffering from an HMP and other drops drought with VW swimming with the fishes. Hence why you see some hoping SE will address level 90 weapons in some way. I doubt they will, but I don't find the request without justification.

In the end, not everyone plays daily. Not everyone wants to make a daily Dynamis rotation their thing. I can understand the same sentiment for Delve, and would in turn say that Bayld and Skirmish gear should actually have equal options with the right effort. You'll have people ***** about that, of course, via perception of difficulty:reward scaling, but if the community's going to enforce its own sense of minimum requirements for content, giving people more ways to be less gimp isn't a bad thing. SE just needs to avoid singular event superiority and tunnel vision in the future.

I hated Fiat Lux because of that more than anything. It was really brutal making your way up to the top of the castle with all the high-level monsters there (especially in dealing with those gates on the first floor that had the Beastmen hanging out near them), only to be unable to get in all night long because others are managing to beat you to entering.

Man, the one time Fiat Lux became available, Sylph formed its usual line. It was a long as **** line. Like 45 minutes. But everyone played by the rules and got in line and nobody jumped the gun.

Your servers are just full of uncivilized barbarians.

And to think all Matsui needed to do was design a harder version of Campaign with credits that built up towards upgrading what was already established in the game as being top tier. Fishmen are attacking a bivouac needed to maintain certain rewards and halting our colonization? Wipe them out. Hoards of Chapuli have gotten into to town and threaten to kill NPCs we need alive to teleport around? To the cannons, we can afford to lose vital NPCs. We need mountains of ore from the Moh Gates to construct a new building in Adoulin? Descend on that zone for group EXP or HELM for items. We just lost our main tower to the hoards of Beastmen attacking our holdings in Foret? We'll have to rebuild. Woodworkers/Fishermen/Smiths, to your crafting stations. Our colonization is held up by hungry NPCs refusing to work? We need Culinarians to provide them with some obscure recipes from 2005, quick. What's that? A giant land shark has appeared and threatens to destroy our entire settlement? Everyone rally to the aid of Adoulin!

Adoulin could have been a resource war combining battle/field skills with real-time consequences for failure. Something that WOTG failed miserably to accomplish. Instead we get a downgrade on all fronts. A miserable pile of steaming chocobo dung.

If items like HMPs and Rift-XXX items were among the colonization rewards then you'd keep the interest of everyone trying to finish their Empyreans among whatever else was up for grabs. Matsui could have also chosen to ease up on the Mythic requirements to bring those weapons in line with the eased up Relics/Empyreans If the goal was make things more "relaxing" and "fun" in the new expansion pack. Afterglows being changed could have also helped to keep people occupied rather than frustrated to all hell that those weapons were basically giant <^>s to the base. Who wouldn't want to glow like a GM after putting in some more work? Things like Ephemeron, Sagasinger and all the glow weapons/armor should have been thrown into the magian system as things you could continue to slightly improve due to their rarity.

What XI has always been is a grind and the goal of this expansion pack should have been to continue that theme but in a more relaxing manner. If we needed to go past 99 in some 'way' then it should have been through merit point style content (think paragon levels, D3) that unlocked new abilities, weaponskills and spells that encouraged EXP and general anti-Abyssea leeching. Monstrosity as another way for people to hammer out levels again with rewards tied to your physical character would have also served as a way of blowing off some steam when you got bored of competing in the resource war and wanted some retro-PVE or deal with PvP.

Instead we have stat bloat. Sucks.

Sparthos pretty much has it right.

It is not very difficult for me to imagine people returning to this game if SE took the right corrective steps:
1) do something about the horizontal to vertical switch, because right now the population is in freefall. They can either make it work or stop it. Idc
2) bundle ffxi and ffxiv subscription fees. Make ffxi cost like $5 more and give a free patched download of it to current ffxiv subscribers.
3) basically stop all the terrible design decisions that lead to DOA content.

I was looking forward to PvM fights, but this morning it struck me that the populations ate too low for such a system to work. I am going to end up doing it twice with friends and running out of people to fight. Another DOA system.

SP2s have been in limbo for almost two years: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17223-dev1058-Merit-Point-two-hour-abilities