October 2023 Version Update

The main story of FFXI before any expansions is a teenager light novel. Heroes banding together to fight the demon Shadowlord and his army of monsters? The Shadowlord was a super special dude betrayed by his comrades over jealousy about his love interest before he decided to accept his dark power? There are entire genres based around how damn cliche the main plot is.

There was absolutely more interesting stuff they could have done in the middle of Sandoria they should have touched upon but that isn't what we got. King Destin being a punk *** *** that caused the genocide of his wife's entire culture and family should have been touched upon. We should have at least tried to do something for Tavnazia. They absolutely half assed the setting itself because of siphoning funds to 14 and I don't dispute that. The plot itself was fine/good. It was SE lying to our face and trying to *** that a slightly edited copy/paste job for the zones was a full expansion's worth of places along with other mismanagement on their part that soured the experience.

Oh you get full credit for identifying it as a teenager light novel, because that is definitely what it is now that you've mentioned it.

But Lilisette's dad gets full credit for sniping an ahriman with a sword and shield bashing a demon directly back to hell. TVR has exactly 0 highlights that make it memorable for me. Lots of low points though.

Been playing Darktide while knowing buttfuck nothing about warhammer 40k. Watched a ton of lore videos now and I gotta say holy *** that's a crazy amount lore

I think its time to admit that most of the frustration isn't from a single action or release by SE, but really- their entire approach to FFXI over the past 3 years.

Spend a year building up the 20th anniversary, only for it to fall so flat most thought they missed something.

Drag TVR out about 9 months longer than it needed.

Build up during TVR towards some final new zone (yes, it was mentioned a few times, as someone posted on the last page via a youtube post) only to get a worse version of Vagary zone than we experienced prior.

Ignoring the concerns of half their playerbase, only to "fix" things quietly when their local players get upset.

Bringing in the James Gunn of Video Game development to destroy any historical connection to what holds us to a game.


Its reached the point where its hard to deny they're actively driving the playerbase away, and any one of these things done on their own would have been a bad move if they cared about XI's longevity....but to do all in the same time period has just been awful for a very loyal playerbase who doesn't want the world...we just want stability and flexibility in our playtime.

SE saw the evils of daily HNM camps and ended them....they have to know that daily Sortie grind is no different in terms of how it affects a person's lifestyle, yet they chose it this time knowing the consequences. Its time to admit this is an active move to reduce numbers in XI, not some oversight.

I don't think the time gate is their sole priority, they want people consistently running the content and being engaged with it. Getting the VPs needed can be done solo and easily. The whole system was meant to keep people doing Sortie regularly, as long as possible. Giving people the option to obtain close to the amount of currency required to reach their goals meant people retiring from the content sooner than they wanted especially once the final #s for phase 5 were discovered, something that would've happened the moment servers came online if a cap wasn't in place.

Granted, the amount of galli required for phase 5 and the initial implementation punishing keeping phase 4s means people would've only gotten close to one finished weapon, so it's not like Odyssey where capping out is actually a reasonable objective. They probably assumed people wouldn't do more than one either way and wrongly assumed more people would be interested in the long grind after already having been in the content for 9 months.

Maybe I'm wrong, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the insanely low cap at the start, their refusal to update the cap into +3, and the amount required for primes. I have a hard time believing the tendency for players to hoard currency in content to reach an end state (e.g. segfarming) wasn't a part of their objective with all of this, even if it wasn't the sole reason.

Giving a 3 KI stockpile a-la Omen/Assault/Meebles/etc isnt gonna stop people from running the content. Its more likely to drive up engagement instead of driving people to the SE management portal and canceling their accounts because a complete lack of flexibility and forcing it to be done daily is annoying people.

A lot of people started primes, got relative close to stage4s but just couldn't keep doing Sortie every day.

That is pretty negative feedback for XI's final content right there when not even really-ultimate-this-time-promise weapons are carrot enough to keep people doing it.

3 runs of sortie in a row would be brutal. Sign me up.

I'd rather do 3 hours of sortie back to back vs having to log on every day change jobs and travel just for one run then have to change jobs and travel to the next event just for one run. I'd rather farm Sheol 3 times back to back vs doing it once every day. The same way I do Omen 3/4 times back to back. The same way we used to do Assault/Nyzul back to back.

But thats just me.

Lot of people aren't gonna sit through 3 hours of sortie at once, but the ones who will would appreciate only having to coordinate schedules every third day instead of every single day, and saving time on gather/organization/etc. It's also convenient to not have to decide about replacing a member for one run if someone can't make it, because you can just hold the tag and do 2 when able.

Pretty sure this design just boils down to trying to force daily active users and inability to deal with instance congestion, which is an Asura issue anyway. I've never got much positive to say about their instances, but I feel like that's a legitimate excuse if they aren't willing or able to work on them. Maybe a system could be put in place to throttle multiple runs when queue is high. Perhaps, block queueing if the queue already has at least X groups and you've gone in the last Y hours. But, that's still got it's own problems (requires tracking more things and may be difficult for players to understand or SE to code).

its not about "having" to do 3 at once, its about the flexibility for an adult with a job, family, and social life beyond this game to still feel subscribing is worth it for them. And maybe that means they only play 2 days a week, but go all out during those times in the ways they want.

Flexible KIs on the same timer doesn't change the speed to finish one bit, but it may cause some who feel a daily grind game doesn't fit their life stick around as they can still feel like they accomplish something.

3 Sortie doesn't mean 3 hours unless you can actually fill the time with efficient galli farm.

You can blow through ACEG in like 30~ minutes and if you can't do anything else worthwhile, you just leave. Go to Altepa, play tea party with the cactuar for your SPs. repeat 2 more times.

You got more Galli than if you missed any of those days because it didn't fit in your schedule.

If you're of the mindset that you have to get the MAXIMUM possible run every time or you think you'll ever get a +2 for you jobs, much less a well rolled one, then you don't need more flexibility. Keep running daily for the entire hour.

2023 pumpkins

Bostaunieux Oubliette F-8, inside cell
Bastok Mines G-9 SE depot corner
Windurst Waters South J-9, Rhinostery Roof
Tavnazian Safehold top floor, K-10
Ordelle's Caves, Morbolger Spawn room, use proto-waypoint
Den of Rancor, by hp #1 past gate
Uleguerand Range, southern facing clifftop
Meriphataud Mountains (S) J-10 Engraved Tablet spot
Marjami Ravine F-8, south of lair reive

enjoy your sheet of chocobo tunes

if you need screenshots here's a JP blog about it https://ff11washi.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-1147.html

Ehrrrr... I don't know about that °-°
We're talking about a 1hr long content, doing it three times in a row would be quite brutal and would probably lead a lot of people to burn outs and dropping the game, maybe?
But I don't think that's the reason why SE isn't allowing it (after all they aren't allowing it for Sheol C runs either, and those are fast and braindead).

Either way, regardless of that, having the OPTION to do so for people willing to, would undoubtely be better, if you ask me.
But SE doesn't want that, it doesn't fit the paradygm they've been following in the past few years, alas.

It keeps me wondering if ultimately theirs is a good choice for the overall health of the game and we players aren't realizing it (wouldn't be the first time, to be completely honest) or if it's simply a shitty decision and they refuse to acknowledge it.

Already covered:
But even if you do 3 full 1 hour runs, thats still time you dont have to warp, change jobs, move gear, travel, possibly redo parties, etc etc.


It actually does follow the paradigm of the game if you go way back in time:
XI dev's have never been good at the balancing thing. They do something, they give a little bit in favor, and then they follow up with very heavy handed nerfs.
Using this methodology, older content that was time gated but allowed you to accrue multiple entry items is the original something. Then they made content with no time-gating, thats the little bit in favor. They didnt like it (with reason considering people were deactivating for months at a time) so they gave the heavy handed nerf where the player is incapable of storing any entry items (ok, Sheol gets one). Sortie's timer only starts ticking down AFTER you enter, and I'm not including Ruspix's stupid plate because of how dumb it is.

No high points!? The Shadowlord turning away with a sigh to become nothing, leaving the world with a whimper, juxtaposed on our beloved Vana'diel that is facing the same fate. . . just hit too hard.

Oh man.. maybe the story designers were being a bit too meta there. That hits hard.

Not willing to change your opinion (I said it in the premise that this topic is extremely subjective, I respect your perfectly entitled opinion on the matter) but I think you are mixing up the "teenager light novel" definition with something else. What you gave to me sounds more like "extremely simplified, straightforward, stereotyped story".

And you wouldn't be wrong. Despite some squirts of originality here and there (especially in CoP) the story of FFXI is incredibly classic, seen-before, stereotyped, simple, straightforward.

I think it was good, epic, with several nice core aspects which were sadly told in a very bad way more often than not. But it was pretty coherent, well thought in its simplicity and fitting the tone and goal of the game, imho.
It's got nothing to do with the "teenager light novel" thing I was talking about, which imho still sounds pretty accurate when I think about WotG.
"Teenager light novel" is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different style of telling stories and one I personally don't like much, or rather one I grew extremely tired of over time.

With all due respect, this has been going on since 2011 and a lot of people have called them out on it the whole time.

That time period where they were collecting XI subs and all the focus was directed to saving XIV while that game had no subscription fee, yes I agree. But to say its been "ongoing since 2011" is a lie.

I would define that as a low point, not a highlight, but to each their own.

Your personal interpretation of the events hit harder than the actual CS, for me at least. <3

Depends on your interpretation. Saying "lies!" to an alternate viewpoint to a rosy past ten years of ffxi seems like having blinders on.

How much main stream marketing for ffxi vs ffxiv has there been?

How long has it been since they reduced dev time for ffxi?

Was 2015 Rhapsodies the final main scenario apart from VR which we all know was half-assed?

When was the last new job introduced?

Them doing the minimum over all these years which began after ffxiv seems to be the truth to me.

Luckily the players enjoy ffxi core game mechanics and so that has always prevented SE from axing it as they always wanted to.

So you're suggesting that the addition of SoA and everything it brought was SE "trying to reduce XI numbers"?

Not really, that was a long time ago also... ten years.

Probably their last push yeah?

You're the one who replied to "this is an active move to reduce numbers in XI" with "this has been going on since 2011".

Unless my knowledge of the English lexicon is failing, your statement is implying that Seekers of Adoulin, released in 2013, was an active move to get people to quit FFXI.

Here's where you agree.

And then I gave examples of ongoing abandonment.

I don't think its a stretch to say SE wanted ffxiv to be their flagship and hoped ffxi would go away, which is what has led to today.

If you want to nitpick SoA I'd say that was because they still had devs/contracts so they needed to be occupied, and that ffxiv was crap so they hedged the last content push in ffxi. Again ten years ago and maintenance mode starts after that.

And, what are you saying, besides just being ornery? You sat in on their exec conversations so you know they always wanted ffxi to be in full bloom and so it just mean they *** up their content (not talented enough?) that drove everyone away, and not long term strategy of diminishing resources? You tell us how we got here that isn't a reflection of abandonment.

Do you legitimately think that FFXI would be as successful as FFXIV if they marketed it and increased dev time?

How big of a market do you think there is for an MMO with PS2 graphics, janky controls, and outdated systems? I mean, we love it because we're used to it and have nostalgia for it, but introduce this game to a modern audience and a lot of people are going to reject the hell out of it. There's no chance in any alternate universe FFXI ever achieves the financial success that FFXIV has.

The batshit insane conspiracy theories that SE is actively harming its own profits because it thinks FFXI subs are losing them money is ridiculous.

Anyone playing FFXI is paying more in sub fess than they would pay for FFXIV, most people are paying 2-10x as much for FFXI as they would for FFXIV. Do you think the ancient FFXI servers and 0 dev costs are 10x as expensive as FFXIV?

So we think FFXIV is so desperate for subs that they need to throw out a profitable arm of their business to increase subs on FFXIV by 2%? This conspiracy has never made sense to me. Obviously FFXI is profitable because otherwise they wouldn't be doing it, they don't run a charity. So the theory is that some hacks at SE did some math and figured they are making $10m/yr off FFXI, but if they trashed it they'd make $20m/yr in FFXIV subs, so they have been telling their devs to make the shittiest content possible to get people to quit so they can pull the plugs on the server, instead of just...shutting down the servers? WTF is this, pepe silvia?

These are exactly the questions the execs asked themselves. Then they said, what are the minimal resources we can provide this game to turn an ongoing profit. They certainly didn't increase dev time exactly as you said... they reduced it which = slow death. Its statistics, sometimes you stay open to wring the last profit out, and sometimes you just go bankrupt. Clearly its the former here.

My guy, you said "ongoing since 2011", not "on and off since 2011". Ongoing since 2011 means every month of every year since 2011 they've been attempting to sabotage their product to get active XI subscribers to quit / migrate to XIV.

Yes, I agree that in that time period when they made XI keep XIV afloat, they were sabotaging XI hoping people would move to XIV. We, the XI players, were literally paying for development of XIV, and XI was getting nothing. However, once that was done and they realized people werent quitting XI to start over in shitty XIV, they moved resources back to XI and delivered SoA and everything that came with it. I dont think anyone rational would believe this was another sabotage attempt to encourage XI players to unsub (permanently) in droves. Ergo, "ongoing since 2011" is a lie.