Building the Future of Vana'dielFollow

NO MORE EIGHTEEN MAN EVENTS SE. Jesus ******* Christ on stick, how can a development team be so god damned dense.

I actually don't mind events with a lot of players - what I mind is what happened today, when I spent twice as much time waiting for 18 ppl to get their butts organized to do Voidwrought as I spent killing it 3 times with said people.

I wish they could find a way to make walk of echoes not die off so fast all the time. I actually really enjoy the event (though would be nice if loot pools generally sucked less) - what I like about it is it is a massive group event that doesn't require spending tons of time managing people. (When it is working... of course when it is dead the content is not doable, which sucks - and which is why I suggested scaling walks so they could be completed with fewer players)

I don't play videogames because I want to manage people. I want to play, NOT shout, NOT stand around waiting for little johnny to find his way, NOT wait while the party leader desperately looks for the one job we are missing and need to proc... that just isn't fun.

Also, all the logs and ores in endgame loot pools can burn in a fire.

I just finished reading it and what I took from is that the FFXI devs have never actually played an MMO before and have no idea what to do.

They make a set of expansions that add's players (and revenue) and livens up the game significantly, then say it was a bad idea and want to go back to how they did things in 2008/2009, the time when players were leaving. They have no idea how drop rates work, even when they have the code in front of them. Talking about how an 18 man VWNM group will get more drops then an Abyssea or other "end game" group. They must count petrified logs as being one of the "good drops".

Just proves what I've said for years, the developers are not players and have no idea what we do and why we do it. They also go one step further and ignore most of our feedback, focusing only on what they want to hear.

Exactly. Although I will admit if 18 people are needed for VoidWatch (to get the full potential) then so be it. I would be happy with that.


It is hard for them, so dont insult them people have no clue exactly how hard it is to make an MMO let alone keep one going for 10 Years.
I could write a long list but I wont bore people, if people want to stick to their small groups then there is content for you, if you want to solo there is content for you, if you want to go back to the good old days of 18+ then great.

XI used to attract the one kind of gamer, those who can spend hours and hours just to get some levels. Those who stuck around accepted that, those who didnt quit.

Now its not like that, SE opened a door to the casual gamer making it easier to criticise.

SE are working hard fixing the one real thing they have needed to sort out from day 1 and that is how they communicate to the players (casual, hardcore etc). I am glad they are working on the balance :)

GJ SE I say.

I hope they can fill some gap for those who are sitting between casual and hardcore. They need to lower the slope.

Edited, Dec 2nd 2011 12:51pm by VZX

My fav is when same piece of rare gear keeps droping to the same people. Is it really that hard to add a check, that is worse then getting no drop at all.

/sigh, you cannot put the rabbit back in the box. They need to accept that Abyssea changed FFXI forever and move on from there. Trash the old stuff and let it rot. I did years of Dynamis, I don't want to go back just to collect 100 pieces to add +1 to some barely useful stat on a 7 year old piece of armor.

At the minimium +10-30 for stats and +3-5% for haste/fastcast. We need to see real improvements, not stuff only measurable to people running 3rd party parsing programs

They're complete idiots with no common sense, and it's clear they don't actually play their own game. That's the only thing I got from the article (yeah, I read the whole thing. There's too much to comment on to delve into specifics).

EDIT:

This is all that needs quotations



In other words who gives a @#%^ if people enjoyed it, we're running this show and we're going to retool it into an environment people don't enjoy. Awesome logic, real freakin smart business techniques. Pissing off the masses is a great way to keep people paying that monthly fee, because we so look forward to hell bent frustration in our video game leisure time.

Edited, Dec 2nd 2011 10:16am by Melphina

It isn't the ability to go god-mode that made Abyssea so successful. The extra stats and powers were fun, but they weren't the reason we loved Abyssea.

For me, it was the incremental progress. It was the ability to fight a NM, to feel some semblence of control over the drops via the procs, and to usually walk away with some marker of progress in the form of a few seals even if I was just along to help someone else out. I'd rather build up 8-10 seals over the course of a few months than wait those few months and never see the drop I want.

Remember the stupid gates and the stupid bees in Salvage? How you had to pray Mad Bomber was up until they changed it, then you had to keep desperately fighting bees hoping for a NM to pop, then you had to cross your fingers that the NM MAYBE, just MAYBE, would drop the thing you actually wanted?

It would have been so much less frustrating if the stupid NM bee dropped a seal, and you had to collect 6 such seals to get the item. The illusion of progress is so much more important than the actual reward to an MMO player. The thrill of getting the item wears off quickly once it's obtained. The fun is in the progress of getting the item.

I would have hoped that that was the lesson SE took away from Abyssea. It's clear they didn't learn that lesson at all.

Edited, Dec 2nd 2011 11:21am by catwho

Yeah really sucks when the one "good" drop that you get out of a full day of voidwatch is a gun for two jobs you haven't even unlocked yet.

Meanwhile the cor in the group got some logs. And so did the ranger.

It takes 1 hour + TE's I guess to farm 100 pieces of currency. IE. no time at all. You can do this solo if you have the right job and pick the right mobs (DNC works well) or in a low man group.

Maybe I have sounded like a broken record the past few weeks, point taken. I do like the new FoV, GoV, Besieged, Campaign etc. These are all good adjustments, but they're all related to leveling up and getting exp just like an abyssea exp pt. Once you have those levels the exp venues offer little more and the only thing left is to gear the jobs. The problem I have is that once you get your levels and finish your meta end game abyssea armor sets the difficulty for further character progression is multiplied in a disproportionally harsh way. So instead of repeating myself any further I'll simply ask you this. Do you think the new content s-e has released after abyssea is overall satisfactory, particularly the events themselves like new WoE and voidwatch? The drop systems in the new HKC battlefields WoE and Voidwatch are not in line with abyssea at all. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, it's just that it's so far out of line it's like comparing a molehill to a mountain. Do you feel your character progression has been satisfactory since abyssea ended, or that most of the newest tasks have had a fair effort to reward ratio? Do you believe their end game environment is as balanced as they say it is? Maybe I'm out of touch with things and it's not as bad as I perceive it to be, but if they intend to create more end game like they did at 75 I don't feel optimistic about the prospect




My take on this is it's saying "The fans consider something to be a huge success, so instead of embracing that success we intend to implement tactics that have failed miserably in the past". It just doesn't make any sense at all why someone would think like this. I dunno /scratch head

Edited, Dec 2nd 2011 1:30pm by Melphina