FFXIV Online Community seems to be dying?Follow

Shh, you keep your common sense out of this!

Funny thing about this aside stating my something is right?



The same reason anyone gets bored when playing a game or something. Seeing the bigger picture isn't a good standpoint. If you're bored now you're not supposed to look at it like:

"K I'm bored now but I'll be entertained 6 years from now when SE changes direction of their content design."

How does that work? It's like trying to go into a relationship with someone you don't like stating you'll grow to like them eventually.



I wouldn't want to spend that much fish organs either. Also, ironically, unless you had everything handed to you or did it during 1.x days you did spend quite a lot of time and money on crafting and gathering, especially during ARR which things are naturally more expensive due to the change in value of gil compared to 1.0



Read topics on any community where someone states they're bored. People get bored pretty quickly when content design allows you to get bored. New patch comes out, people (that actually care to progress) do all of the throwaway content within a day or week and all that's left is content that hides behind lockouts? Yeah people will get bored if all they have left to do is:

Farm Tomes..
Farm More Tomes..
Level x if they aren't all 50s
Farm even more Tomes
Craft or Gather if they like that stuff..
Farm yet more Tomes..
(Week later)
Coil 2! CT! (back on gear lockout), Coil! (Back on week lockout), CT 2 (will have a week lockout)
..Back to the usual rotation of Tome farming and so on.

In all reality, that's how general interest (game isn't "brand new" anymore) dies out and people get bored after a patch and waiting on the next patch. This happens in every MMORPG, especially those that obsolete old content fairly quickly which means going back to enjoy content is meaningless when it does nothing for you, hence SE creatin the Roulette system. It wasn't designed to get you more tomes, it was designed to throw you into content no one does anymore to help new players trying to get through said content. If you played since Pre-Launch or even 1.x and did actually progress, you have accomplished basically "everything" and are waiting on every patch for something to do but that doesn't mean that's the only way you'd get bored.

Some people get bored of the Quest Grind style since it's the same type of quests OVER..and OVER...and OVER..no matter which quest hub you're at, it's the SAME exact quests with different dialog that doesn't even fully fit into the world's story..hell it was even littered in the main story and unless you're the type to truly enjoy the fetch quest/kill x type of quests when you're supposed to be doing a storyline..good for you, but looking at any MMO community, quite a lot hate it because you're thrown out of something interesting and shoved into forced "grinding" for almost no reason lol. It helps you level, sure, but shouldn't that be placed elsewhere and not the main storyline?

Alright, quick question:

How often did you queue up for Cape Westwind for these 3 reasons? Or The pre 30 dungeons? Or hell, even Darkhold or Aurum Vale when you don't need to level something? If you did, kudos, many did not though hence the advent of the Roulette system.



You forgot:
-Didn't obsolete gear and said content in every update
-People rotated the content that did exist.

The MAIN reason is SE not making gear obsolete and thus the content itself. In XIV's case, they obsoleted stuff out the gate, so you may say it's not fair, but it doesn't matter when in comparison, every update (major specifically) will obsolete the last with the exception of Relics, even if XIV had 6 years more worth of content than XI did, most would be meaningless compared to the CURRENT patch content and gear.

So you either like or hate that style of system but that's pretty much the 'standard' so in all reality the only reason people bring up XI is because it's another MMO SE created.

Holy hell, did you just justify content longevity by saying people stopped doing it for a while in favor of other content?

As for:

The Roulette still encompasses those. Your motivation could solely be personal progress, sure, but since XIV is more liberal with tokens, #2 is also more likely. How many roulette just because they're bored, though? Well, I don't have that answer and you don't, either. Regardless of game, there are times I have done something I normally wouldn't do just because I needed a change of pace or wanted to kill some time. In XI's case, that could've been helping a lowbie with G1 or G2 before they got nerfed. Stuff like that.


And now we step into a category that could be considered both a blessing an a curse. Did you not have a Peacock Charm? Did you enjoy having no comparable neck item until Sandworm came with WotG? Not everyone did. For all the proverbial glitz and glamor XI's itemization gets, let's not pretend there weren't oodles of items that were never sought after and never used beyond getting your name in an AH history. And bluntly, I hated the fact that something I'd gotten years ago was still BiS a lot of the time BECAUSE it hamstrung content potential right out the gate. So, yeah, I will subscribe to the belief that some are letting nostalgia cloud their view of things here. XI didn't put out new and useful items very often. Coincidentally, the current XI is probably closer to XIV in this respect with the whole ilvl system they got going on.

Either way, people chase loot. I'll take the XIV-style item hunt that minimizes drama over XI's excessive RNG, time gating, and player politics. If you're looking for that kind of throwback, by all means, give Wildstar a look, but I'd also say there's a reason some systems have evolved as they have to this day and the best communities aren't formed because they're cut-throat. People try, oh do they ever try, though. Which basically leads to what I first quoted from Koji.

Edit: And just because Thayos slipped in while I was wordsmithing...

Content obsolescence is entirely within the realm of the 3 criteria I mentioned earlier, which basically means its lifespan isn't the same for everyone. I've had people try to argue with me about this before, but in the end, it only leaves me wondering why they might doing content they don't need to do for any good reason.

Edited, Jun 1st 2014 10:39pm by Seriha

Re: the OP, I personally have fallen off the wagon with XIV. My FC and I were really into the game, beating turns of coil a couple weeks after "first clears" on Ultros.

Then half the group took 3-4 weeks off due to PAX East and some members flying in from outside the country. Since they got back, all 8 of us have *quit* the game. As a side effect, this is the first time I've logged into the XIV ZAM forums, the only XIV forums I frequent, in 2 weeks. 1 member left for another raid group due to us not running anything for over a month, 3 more left due to not wanting to deal with finding a new tank among drama-queen tanks on the server, and the rest of us left due to not wanting to build a new group.

I don't know about other servers, but Ultros does not seem to promote inter-player interaction. Most PF comments include something along the lines of "fail once and kick" and this discourages even semi-experienced players from venturing out beyond their FC. I know of several members of my own FC who won't join a lot of PF stuff for this reason.

I am a DRG who is usually the last standing in most fights (all EX's and through T5), but I won't join groups with "fail = kick" comments because **** happens. I go into a Levi EX fight with 2 BRDs and a SMN, they box me in for 3x whirlpools, I die and get scrutinized. Why would I expect to find a decent Coil static through PF when they have the same comment standards?

I find it's not worth my trouble and I've decided to not log in due to this standard. It's the same reason I quit XI in the midst of the plasm farming BS. People would rather spend 4 hours shouting for a perfect group for one run, rather than dealing with an OK group and getting 3/4 the plasm in 1 hour. The elitism AND stupidity in this game (from skilled and unskilled players) is astounding.

I can understand it if you like the XIV system better simply because it does not take as much time/politics, but the things you are talking about were not obsolete. I mean you even go so far as to mention garrison and conquest when neither of those were ever considered "endgame", but actually both were good even at the end of the WotG era. At least on my server doing garrison for mannequins was worth quite some gil and conquest was actually still important because it affected travel routes with op warps as well as warp etc scrolls. Again, these were just side content that was relevant even when not all items were useful.

Not all ENM were good, but there were several that were, amongst others Sheep in Antlion Clothing (the one that dropped Hagun), which was again either good for gil or if you actually needed it, which many did since it was arguably the best SAM weapon in the game aside from relic.

I don't remember people skipping sky entirely unless you were in an endgame LS where everyone already had everything up there because like someone mentioned above there were movement speed items that were still good, not to mention a couple of other macro pieces like kitty pants, k. osode etc. I soloed a lot up there for pop items to sell, which sold for quite some gil and fast at that so there was definitely a demand for items up there.

Most people didn't get Sea, but why would that mean it should not be mentioned? Should we just go ahead and say that well most people won't get past t5 in XIV so that should not be mentioned as content in XIV? The gear was never made obsolete and all the content should be mentioned because it was there, just like second coil is in ARR.

I don't agree with you that XI did obsolete gear before Abyssea, for the most part anyway. The reason being partly (not exclusively) gear swapping, a steady level cap which ties into the fact that the differences sometimes were not that big between "a good" and "the new and best" items. Gear was still relevant even when it was not the absolute best, and sometimes "best" just meant "different" depending on situation. I mean, even if what you claim is true (which I obviously don't agree with), it still holds true to a large extent.

Now, again I completely understand why someone would prefer the system XIV has because it requires a lot less time to still have fun and get items, catching up for new players etc. I don't really understand claiming that you don't really obsolete gear in XIV but that in XI you did however. To me it just sounds like trying to defend a system that doesn't need defending. I think it could use some improvement, but why try and claim XIV progression is something it isn't and reverse with XI?

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 6:54am by Belcrono

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 6:56am by Belcrono

Removing the level cap did obsolete some gear, but there were many items that were carried through the cap increase due to magian trials, synergy, ect. Some things got pooped on, but SE did pretty well in keeping many of the items we spent ages trying to collect relevant.

It's hard to compare gear in the two games because of ilvl. For perspective, there were items in XI which you could obtain and equip at a much lower level than you'd expect. Peacock Charm, Ochuido's Kote, Juji Gi... all items that were superior to many alternatives that had higher level requirements. XIV's gear progression is much more static. You can get melds on gear to make it better, but lower level gear is generally worse than higher level gear.

A small number of people still did Sky, just like I'm sure a small number of people still run Crystal Tower in XIV.

But, by and large, the content became "obsolete." People abandoned sky for the fast exp in the ToAU areas, and getting Sky access became something that was totally optional, and no longer expected. ToAU offered token systems that allowed easy access to great gear sets and pieces, and that was pretty much the end of Sky being the "go-to" destination for endgame gear.

Most of the people in sky at that point were small groups either farming (as you were) or low-manning NMs.

The vast majority of newer players I came into contact with post ToAU didn't even really know what Sky was, because there was absolutely no reason for them to go there.

Note... I'm not trying to argue that FFXI is better or worse than XIV... but people seem to be taking liberties with comparing the two games, and we should all remember that XI wasn't this unique phenomenon that was immune to all the problems plaguing the entire MMORPG industry. The biggest difference between XIV and XI is that back when we were all playing XI, we didn't really know what we'd gotten ourselves into.

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 9:13am by Thayos

No, people stopped going to sky because 1) its experience camps were totally made obsolete, and 2) the vast majority of NM drops there were made obsolete.

There was still novelty value in some of those drops, and some people enjoyed the prestige of low-manning groups... but, by and large, most people stopped going to sky (and many new players never even unlocked it).

Also remember that until ToAU came out, the majority of "endgame" in FFXI was spent standing around or killing placeholder mobs in Sky, or running the same handful of Dynamis zones (three-hour runs FTW) over and over and over and over again.

Again, I'm not trying to elevate one game above the other. I played FFXI until just after the launch of ARR. I loved the game. However, it's just wrong to say that XIV makes all content obsolete while XI never did. That's just flawed logic.

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 9:52am by Thayos

Which is partially why small numbers of people still low-manned it, for the few pieces that remained relevant and weren't completely dwarfed either by stats or by ease of access.

Did you ever actually go to sky after ToAU launched? It was always empty. Every now and then, I'd go up there and run around for nostalgia's sake. After awhile, "sky linkshells" were about as viable as the "old school leveling" linkshells you'd see advertised every now and then.

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 9:56am by Thayos

Spending hours upon hours killing trash mobs for an atma drop... BAD!!!!

Spending hours upon hours killing trash mobs for a pop item for an NM that may or may not drop what you want (while having to compete against other linkshell members or wait in line because you don't have enough points)... THE GOOD OLD DAYS!!!!

Ah, good times.

Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 10:12am by Thayos

Wow Thayos, there's a lot of misinformation going on here. I can say firsthand, that sky was absolutely NOT obsolete when ToAU came out, nowhere even close. I was in Frenzy, one of the top NA endgame shells on Carbuncle and played through WoTG. Our endgame shell still ran sky on a weekly basis all the way through and often were there during the same times as other large endgame shells. We were constantly gearing up newer players in Osode's and Haidates, and doing it as more than "low man groups". You're correct that the exp camps stopped being used, but incorrect in the rest of your statements.

I think you have your timing way off. During ToAU, sky was still very full of players and there was still plenty of groups (both small and large) farming pop sets, at least on Carbuncle. It wasn't until Abyssea opened that sky became mostly irrelevant. Trust me, I played consistently (and pretty hardcore) up through the end of WoTG. So either you have your timeframe wrong, or your server was just really dead in general...


Edited, Jun 2nd 2014 1:31pm by BartelX