FFXI: The more things change...

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01.31.2012 1:48am

Thread Creator

Zubis
Registered Member

...The more things stay the same.

So a little backstory: it's very well known that from 2010 onwards FFXI got a massive overhaul in the form of Abyssea expansions. These expansions (to put it mildly) made the game a hell of a lot more fun, offering massive increases in experience earned, fun fights, and really great loot. It was undoubtably the biggest event in FFXI's history. After quitting for two years I came back a few months ago and can honestly say I've had more fun in 3 months than I had in 6 years of playing.

The reason for the change was never made clear, but it was well known that a new development team had taken over while the current team was moved to FFXIV. Rumours suggested that the new team enabled "god mode" in FFXI so that players would complete all their long term goals and perhaps move on to FFXIV.

Well we all know how that turned out.

So in 2011 players began to see a subtle change in FFXI, a return to old. The game no longer favoured soloing and small scale events that Abyssea brought in were replaced by "old school" events that required 18 people or more. This didn't go down so well with a playerbase that had obviously aged since FFXI was first released and had quickly become accustomed to the newer, shorter events that Abyssea brought. The change was confirmed when an interview with the developers revealed that the original team had moved back from FFXIV and thought Abyssea was a mistake.

Clearly the players aren't allowed to have fun.

Recently players have been able to reach 99 and have been upgrading their legendary/epic weapons using trial quests in the game. The developers revealed that the final trial to upgrade the weapons are being tested on the FFXI test server and some players attempted the quest.

A number of elements were revealed:

1. The fight is against the "Arch Dynamis Lord", a monster which requires a number of items to spawn taking anywhere from 2 to 10 hours to farm.
2. The fight takes a full alliance (18 people) to bring him down.
3. When he spawns he splits into three. Your alliance must randomly pick one and pray it's the real monster. If it isn't, it clones itself and you must repeat the process.
4. If you got lucky and picked the right one, you have about one minute to zerg him before he decides to slaughter you.
5. After defeating him, there is a 5-50% chance he will drop an item you need to upgrade the weapon.
6. You need 20 of these per weapon.
7. You can only fight him once a day.
8. 18 people that need 20 items in an alliance means that you'll be fighting it daily for 360 days - essentially a year.

Five years ago pre WoW people would have attempted this, but today? A shitstorm has been raised on all major forums.

SE's official response? Nope, we're not changing it because people might have already started collecting items based on the test servers data. It is a case study in mismanaging your playerbase.

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01.31.2012 1:59am

amaron
No answer, must be that deaf bitch.

I really really really want to go back... but they just keep killing it for me.

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01.31.2012 2:12am

Thread Creator

Zubis
Registered Member

A year ago people were actually coming back to the game, but now, not so much.

The development team is really hated on at moment, by all major groups (NA, EU, JP). I actually feel a little sorry for the community guys on the forums as they really get a lot of shit thrown at them even though it's obvious they're just the messengers for the developers.

Oh, an amusing little anecdote: The interview where the FFXI team said Abyssea "was a mistake" was an American interview and not officially published for Japanese players. A fan translated the article on the official forums and the feedback from the Japanese players was so overwhelming that the director himself posted on the forums trying to smooth things over.

People are not happy with the game at the moment, not in the slightest. This is the 10th anniversary of the game and unless they pull something major off there won't be many players left at the end of the year.

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01.31.2012 3:47am

amaron
No answer, must be that deaf bitch.

Zubis said:

Oh, an amusing little anecdote: The interview where the FFXI team said Abyssea "was a mistake" was an American interview and not officially published for Japanese players. A fan translated the article on the official forums and the feedback from the Japanese players was so overwhelming that the director himself posted on the forums trying to smooth things over.

They did just the opposite with FFXIV IIRC. There was a Japanese interview that was translated and the US players freaked out.

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01.31.2012 9:10pm

Lexx
I know how they work

Silly, silly players. Haven't they learned by now that S-E is always right, in all things? You'll play the archaic design and you'll like it.

In all seriousness though, I am surprised that a business would eliminate gameplay aspects that reinvigorated their decade old game and brought people back. Maybe this is their new attempt to get people to try out FFXIV 2.0: make FFXI as monotonous and draining as possible.

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01.31.2012 10:21pm

amaron
No answer, must be that deaf bitch.

Lexx said:

Silly, silly players. Haven't they learned by now that S-E is always right, in all things? You'll play the archaic design and you'll like it.

In all seriousness though, I am surprised that a business would eliminate gameplay aspects that reinvigorated their decade old game and brought people back. Maybe this is their new attempt to get people to try out FFXIV 2.0: make FFXI as monotonous and draining as possible.

They went from a grindfest in the original FFXI to easy mode with Abyssea. They never have an inbetween.

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02.02.2012 3:46pm

Rinoa
Night Star
Administrator

LOL do they honestly think keeping an interview in a certain language = other people will never find out in this day and age?

Rinoa.Nu

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02.02.2012 4:20pm

amaron
No answer, must be that deaf bitch.

Rinoa said:

LOL do they honestly think keeping an interview in a certain language = other people will never find out in this day and age?

We ARE talking about Square-Enix. :P

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02.11.2012 7:08am

Arckanghel
Pirate.

I wnat to still love it, but it's like an old dead friend. Better yet, it's like the worst version of Weekend at Bernie's ever.

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02.27.2012 3:37pm

Atma Weapon
I Am Pure Energy

I have been toying with the idea of making a comeback but every time I log on, I invariably just stand around in Jeuno for a while, chat with the friend list, realize I have no goals or motivation to do anything, then log off.

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