Dev Tracker - Discussion

Back then experience points were far more precious than they are now, because exp came in at a painfully slow pace and a single death or two could wipe out a full hour's worth of inefficient level grinding efforts. The experience loss and leveling down concept was a remnant of everquest that transitioned into FFXI for as long as the Level 75 era existed. It wasn't until abyssea happened that experience became trivial. So it's understandable that people would go to great lengths to avoid dying, and while it sucked when someone trained a hoard of bats to the citadel's mouth on you, you were just as likely to do it on someone else when your groups pulls went south. The level grinding system was far more punishing back in those days, and that only exasperated early FFXI's mob and player killing issue. GM's outright banned players for abusing it, and it quickly became a problem that they couldn't handle with simple moderation. That was why the system change was made and despawning became a thing.

The thing that sucks with FFXI right now is they put the game into fast forward with Abyssea, purposely to allow people to reach a point of feeling done and quitting to goto FFXIV. This was the obvious company strategy they had, they just assumed we would all swap and many of us didn't because it's just so different.

Now they changed their mind because we refused to leave and so they are stuck with the legacy of those decisions (everyone got used to fast leveling and capped tons of jobs, capped merits, even job points are a joke now), the playerbase now expects awesome gear and won't do content for something with +2 extra STR as we did back in the day.

Every patch that adds new content and new gear makes all content in the game another step easier, every time. Yet because the normal players still don't have the great accessory rewards from the last few patches it's still too hard for them.

How long ago did they add master trials? I remember when they added them and nobody could do them them at all, they were near impossible and now people can clear them just fine because gear has kept increasing our strength.

The power gulf between players in base ambu 119 and the top geared players is insane and it's going to just keep on getting wider, the older current (omen, dynad etc) content gets easier with every new piece of gear for the top players so they have less things to do. It's still too hard for the normal players, who are struggling with Normal Ambuscade v1.

Maybe they need to add an ultimate mode to all the content at this point, cause even VH is easy if you're well geared. VH ambuscade will be soloable in a few more rounds of gear the way it's going. They are also going to have to add Ambu +3 and more ambu point accessories or something to lessen the gap.

They are painting themselves into a corner honestly. They can't just keep adding more and more powerful gear or accessories, at a point they are going to have to upscale all the "meaningful" content or add another tier.

I have no idea how they can update this game long term honestly and I hate to say that.

I've debated whether the game's evolution toward fast paced leveling and quickened access to REMA mats had more to do with SE wanting to kill the game off and allow everyone that chance to get the thing they always wanted before the game was killed off, or if it was SE making an attempt to cater to the "I want everything, and I want it now" crowd.

Personally, I think they did way too much to expedite the game's access to progression, but I'm sure there are a multitude of people who would disagree. I think a lot of the 'brand new character to level 18 and unlocking your subjob' changes (Rhapsodies, Trusts) are superb, for example, but some of the other progression changes in the game I think were too much.

There's countless things I could imagine for this game, but at the end of the day it comes down to what budget the game gets.

It already is.

Ummm you answered your own question, the game was the same rift at 75, it's nobodies fault but your own that you can't put XI down for a couple of days, and you're now bored with it, because you beat everything.

It would have been pretty damn slow for some stuff but imagine if you had a fully kitted out party with relics mythics and Drings and top tier crafted gear where applicable. We definitely had lower DPS compared to mob health compared to i119 days but yeah top tier players with maxed our gear would have been able to 6man everything everything short of AV.

Back in the day I put in so much work for so little stat boost.

I farmed Dynamis for over 2 years to get RDM hat which gave me +1 refresh and around the same camping kings to get a Dalmy which was +1 more. 2 refresh took years of mundane camping and dyna repetition.

I can't even imagine what kind of stat boost they would have to offer to get me to do that kind of effort now.

Actually I take that back. I didn't do it for the stats alone, I did it for the look too. Maybe they just need to start offering new skins on rewards with slightly better stats, and not OP gear with the same old skins from 10 years ago. As much as people may hate to admit it, looking good is a big deal to an MMO player (which is why cosmetic cash shops do do well in multi games).

Malignance gear is great but a part of the reason people struggle so hard to get it with the terrible drop rate is, it looks so fancy.

Nope. I use it to cover up ugly linkshell colors. It is important to keep around for that reason alone.

Yes, it is the players fault that SE has not added a new level of difficult content for 4+ years. Victim blaming at its finest.

I could almost understand this sentiment if players where burning through new content within weeks of its release but we, the players, have had up to 4 years with the current most difficult content available to us. How much slower do you think we need to play?

Really no way to excuse the horribly slow trickle of empty content. They just dont care at this point it seems. Cant even argue with your wallet because they would probably just shut it down. Sad how little they care about the game.

Or they could just cap sub job level at 49??

Yea, cuz we are all just "victims" of this big bad SE...... Use a better metaphor, it's a game.

So yea.... It's a video game, there is a finite amount of ***they can pull out of their ***, if you are bored with what they have to offer, put it down for a while.

Also, you aren't a *** victim, you are a user, there's a difference.

Literal definition of victim blaming.

A golden Bomb! We need better mounts

After they made travel quicker, it's not unnormal for me to have the chat/inventory unavailable for about a minute. It's very noticable when doing htb/ambuscade. I hope SE can reduce this time.

If anything it's only gonna get worse if they really are going to add new repositories (wardrobe5/6).
They should make so moghouse exclusive repositories are NOT loaded when you're outside of mog house.
Their data is loaded on EVERY zone, even if you cannot access them.
Making so: Mog House1, Mog House 2, Storage and Locker are only loaded inside the mog house, would give a noticeable boost in the loading times of inventories when zoning.

It's because of the way items are loaded when you zone. Each item is loaded one by one, and each item (or packet) has a designation of where that item is, whether it is inv, safe etc. They need to reengineer the way this is done in order to allow items to be loaded in batches by bag. At this stage, I wouldn't hold my breath on this kind of change.

They always have a free access campaign in November, I'm a bit worried now that they have merged all the online operations they might no longer do free access campaigns for FFXI. Stealing thunder from "other games" they run.

They've done free login campaigns since their last major restructuring last year. We've had one in March, May, and August this year. They could still announce one for later in the month.

We also typically see I Dream of Mog Bonzanza starting in November, selling marbles into December, and winner in January - often meaning those logging-on-free folks can buy marbles and maybe resub to redeem them. That isn't announced yet either. I remember there was some 3-digit one supposedly coming though, so maybe the plan is different.

Speculation though: they should be implementing the Novice Network stuff this patch. Would it be that surprising if they wanted to roll some details of that into a Return to Vana'diel announcement, making a patch-time announcement more logical?

To be fair XIV does have a free access campaign going on, but there's not necessarily any real competition there. The way they do them on XIV gives a wider window to play, but limited hours, so someone wanting to take advantage of both could simply play XIV when the XI campaign isn't on.
If they are aiming to not conflict, then that campaign is only through the 23rd, leaving room to start a Return to Vana'diel campaign later in the month.

We should have had 18th Vana'versary Mog Bonanza June~July as well, but not this year.

They said they are completely rehauling the mog bonanza, with a single marble next time, that will allow to win multiple times or something like that.
They didn't spill out too many details honestly.

From what they said, it's a single marble for 200k gil. The prizes supposedly will be better to reflect your lowered odds and increased buy in. But they said it was for this next bonanza and regular bonanzas weren't going away.

Literally, you're not a *** victim, it's a video game, you can choose to do other things with your time, sound like a *** millennial.

Comparing your choice to complete a video game too quickly, to actual victims is disgusting, like I said, find a better trope.

Edit: just to dumb it down even further for you, look up the definition of the word victim, then get back to me if you still think this is a hill worth dying on.

Looks like definition 3 fits here. Pretty sure FFXI is a religion to some of us and those people are sacrificing themselves to it to please their electronic god.

vic·tim
/ˈviktəm/

a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
"victims of domestic violence"

a person who is tricked or duped.
"the victim of a hoax"

10-05-2020 04:33 PM#1
Akihiko_Matsui
However, in exchange for being a bit lighter on new content, we’ve got a wonderful array of campaigns for you at enjoy and prepare for an even more fruitful November.

iLevel is something you slap on after you feel dirty inside before you have a chance to hop in the shower. Actual level cap would be an interesting avenue to pursue. New limit break quests!?? lol