Dev Tracker - Discussion

I donno if the game can support proper alli content without the encounters either being a faceroll or miserable to deal with, the player creep through buffs along with how potent debuffs are to the point GEOs are perpetually questioning just how screwed their bubbles are every new addition makes me think they'd be limited on how to make anything engaging and wouldnt just devolve into bringing 6~8 very quickly, only way i could personally see them really utilizing a full alli would be something that is also somewhat tight on time but requires you to go to seperate areas at the same time to get everything so sortieish but you can actually do different bosses at the same time

Is any NBA player who plays under 15 min a game also a leech?
Is the NHL fourth line enforcer who plays 8 min a game also a leech?

Youre using the nihilistic take that everyone would rely on mercs.

Using Sortie specifically: all Sortie loot is per-char, there is no content loot that goes to treasure pool. Youre assuming SE couldnt alter gallimaufry by party size. You think an alliance would get the same gallimaufry as a group of 6? Also the only zone wide loot distro is main floor. All boss chambers are segregated and all basement floors are segregated. So its not like “everyone will fan out and clear stuff faster”.

IDK, I felt like there was plenty of fun "community" in the Seekers of Adoulin era. Including regular shouts for Delve alliances!

Also, we're further away now from Voidwatch (2011) and Abyssea (2010) than those were from the game's initial JP launch in 2002. And in between we've had content that supported community with alliance content like Delve, Dyna Divergence, Omen, Geas Fete, etc. Of course it's not the exact same thing as 2005 FFXI, but also far from a game that has been "dead" for the past 13 years.

Asura experience was people were doing shouts for nyzul assaults daily, the occasional easy/most pt awarding assasults aswell like RvB or one of the lower rank ones cause people either wanted the gear or to get the next permit.

Dynamis was sparse but they did happen, but due to how the event worked it was better to just get into one of the shells so you didnt overlap on another group doing it iirc.

Rest were pretty rare, salvage especially because pugs for that were miserable to begin with from my memory and limbus cause people who had sea also tended to have their own group to go with i think, never saw shouts for those.

Which alliance content required a full house to clear? Some was power creep, some was learning the content, but a large chunk was that it just wasnt required to have a full house to win. You didnt need 64 people to clear dyna. You didnt need all 36 to clear einherjar. You didnt need all 18 for limbus, salv, delve, etc etc.

I remember Limbus started as needing 18 for a zone, and that very quickly turned to “A B C go to apy SE, D E F go to Apy SW, Gs pt for Apy NE, rest Apy NW” or whatever once people figured things out. But no one had to sit on the side and ride pine.

These are all examples from 75 era, they were designed with the mindset that players wouldn't be using addons, wouldn't have optimal gear, and would be at wildly variable stages of the game.

You want current content designed for that level of performance with 18 people? Go into Dyna-D, it's about as hard as dynamis was at the tail end of 75 era. Omen is harder than Limbus. Delve required pretty near 18 until they nerfed the ***out of it and added HP scaling (I merced with 16, and I don't think I saw anyone do it with less).

I don't see why SE should spend the time making content that will just be facerolled and provide no challenge. If you see Omen and Dynamis as too easy, you aren't being realistic when you ask for more alliance content. That's the level of difficulty you can use if you want to allow 18 people with very loose enforcement of gear and skill.

Some google translate impressions from a JP blogger

I guess "never" was a little too strong in this case. I definitely remember PUGs happening, but not to some mass extent in all content and most content seemed dominated by event Linkshells. I guess the point was that I don't recall some huge PUG culture that died with Abyssea outside of exp groups, nor do I remember the community being some bastion of positivity and support.

I think there is a bit of rose tinted goggles going on here about 75-cap and community. What I remember is 75-cap endgame being a second job with Linkshells that required you to apply, then be admitted and agree to a set schedule while earning points to get items/drops you needed. If you missed too many, they broke your pearl and then you were SOL until you found another one. It was tedious as all hell and robbed the enjoyment out of it for myself and a lot of other players I knew around that time, forcing them to quit. I also can recall several times LS owners ran off with drops or drama around similar situations, and a ton of toxicity around some of this content.

Don't get me wrong. I loved it, but it felt to me like the community relaxed a lot and became much gentler after Abyssea.

I multibox my own dynaD and Omen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not that difficult

Also Vagary is SoA content, definitely didnt need a full alliance in its hey day.

Correct me if im wrong on this, but Delve was Matsuis first run at making large scale content as the lead voice? He was director from Sep 2010 to Dec 2010, went to XIV, then back to XI June 2012. Legion was released March 2012, and that was the last large scale content before SoA.

Did Delve get “nerfed to ***” or did Matsui just set the bar way too high?

This was also the time he told everyone to kiss their REMAS (well REM, As didnt exist) goodbye because theyre getting left behind.

Suggested this at least 10 years ago, but also, Moogle Mastery should be standard unlocked outside of Odyssey after a simple quest or reaching the highest level (45) and then killing every Gaol NM at least once. There's really no reason for that bonus to only apply to Odyssey Gaol.

Yeah, if "community" means being expected to be there for a Nidhogg pop at 3am, that can stay in the past.

On a different note, new FFXI merch! I am puzzled at why the only REMA pin they made was for... Mandau? (seriously, they should have done all the relics)

Here's the new FFXI collection at Amiami:
https://www.amiami.com/eng/search/list/?s_keywords=FINAL%20FANTASY&s_cate_tag=10&s_originaltitle_id=3389&s_st_list_preorder_available=1

It's not the PUG culture that died with Abyssea/VW, it's the actual event linkshells themselves that died. Everything became PUG.

Abyssea required 2-3 people to do most stuff, and pretty much everything there had multiple drops so that you could easily throw together a group of people who are all benefitting from the content.

Voidwatch required more people, but gave everyone personal drops and did away with the treasure pool. Meaning you couldn't really "help" someone get a Voidwatch drop the same way you could help them get loot from older content. You could help them kill it sure, but they're just as likely to get their loot in a PUG as with 5 people who are helping and don't need the drop.

In both cases, you end up in a situation where people will be inclined to say "go find someone else who needs the same thing as you" instead of helping someone get it. It didn't make as much sense for a linkshell to organize Abyssea or Voidwatch, as it did for people to just do PUGs for getting everything done.

It was a colossal shift in the underlying nature of the game, and it is the reason why linkshells are pretty much purely social now, DKP is gone, you instead have little cliques of people who sometimes organize for 6-person content and beyond that the mercenary mentality dominates the scene. All of this is a direct result of the shift in game design that began with Voidwatch and continues to this day for example with Odyssey & Sortie which are also 6-person content with personal rewards only.

Don't forget we allowed the leader to buy the dynamis pop and he was able to collect ALL of the currency during every run so that the rest of the ls has a *chance* to lot on def+14 mnd+3 gloves.

We aint never going back to those days.

Oh for sure, once you got into event mode it could be miserable, starting with filling out mini job apps to apply for shells, ultimately i think its the same as today; if you play with a group of friends, games fine, if you dont its pretty stale. To me whats changed is 75 had more life back then and thus more friends to potentially make, which imo has changed since post SoA, you interact less and people just drop more quickly in my experience

I don't think that (cult)ure is still around to milk

I guess I misunderstood.

I'm still not convinced this is a bad thing, though. IMO the way the game structured this was really poorly and resulted in a lot of drama, creating effectively a second job. There may be "community" in the sense that people were playing together, but it seemed more like a community of coworkers than it did friends. It created a toxic culture with a lot of issues. I just don't have fond recollections of the way endgame grouping happened during 75-cap, I remember a lot of toxicity, exclusion, and drama that was reduced when individual drops became a thing. Just thinking about the schedule during ToAU makes my skin crawl.

In my experience, and maybe it's just the grouping of shells that I was in at the time, around Abyssea the community seemed to relax and it was easier to pull people together for content. I realize that's subjective but it felt like an overall softening of the community compared to 75-cap when the game was effectively a second job and people were at each others throats, with rigid rules. That said, I got into some really bizarre shell at the time that I still can't really explain how it worked, it just...did (RIP, saddest moment in the game was logging in with the lsmesg being 'We had a great run' and everyone gone). So maybe it's just my experience and I was unlucky during earlier periods or lucky during Abyssea.

The one exception to this, that I think Nariont mentioned similarly, is that you don't really spend a lot of time in the early-mid game with others. There was a sense of "growing up" together when you were leveling and you'd see a lot of the same people throughout that cycle, forming relationships. The problem is that, at least in my experience, those broke apart either because players broke into three categories: quit (which, tbf isn't really relevant in this context), others focused on on lower tier content, and others focusing on endgame, which consumed all their time. Most of the memorable relationships/community I had pre-Abyssea was not at endgame but at earlier levels, big achievements aside

Don't think the game even has the population for new alliance content. Maybe Asura does, idk.

Nor do I want to see current 6-person content opened up to alliance. All that does is put more strain on the already probably strained groups that can actually clear the content to carry another two parties along with them.

Mercing didn't ruin the pug scene, people did. Why bother learning how to contribute to something when you can just buy it. Why bother gearing up a job to be able to do content that you want to do when you have an LS or friends that carry you through it.

Can anyone buying clears from mercs or getting carried through Dyna, a 7+ year old content, contribute in the latest 6-person content?

Real problem is unwillingness to learn on the job, form groups at a similar level and work their way up. And I don't agree with the "everyone wants BiS" argument either.

The best Sortie/Odyssey groups didn't just wake up one day and they were BiS, they worked their way up. Any one of those people, before they had the gear to clear C, did A and B. But mention doing A/B daily to someone without the segs to do even 3 runs for RP and they're all "naaah not enough segs". A month later they're still waiting for that sheol C group they can't contribute in.

Same with Sortie. Gearing up blm or sch is the easiest thing now with Empy+2 and mage strat is a lot more forgiving on the gear requirements. It takes 50k to +2 a full set of gear. 50k. Can get that solo with trusts in a couple weeks and your character is infinitely better for it.

But does anyone do that other than a tiny minority? Frak no, they'd rather wait and get carried by 5 other near BiS people while they stand around with their thumb up an orifice while everyone else does objectives because they don't even know what objectives are.

I see things like Sheol A/B, DI to a lesser extent, Omen and Dyna as entry level "let's gear up together" kind of things. The gear requirements are, now, pretty low with Ody R0 armor being so good and there are still good rewards from it either segs, accessories, clears and gil from Dyna. You also don't need more than 6 people to do it.

But again, not seeing many people willing to form these groups and do things together. Everyone wants to, no better way to put it, leech from the few people that both know how and are able to do it.

That's not sustainable. Those people get fed up carrying and leave. Then what.

MMO
noun
noun: MMO; plural noun: MMOs
an online video game which can be played by a very large number of people simultaneously.
"a well-made fantasy MMO unlike ffxi"
Origin

I think this was hugely down to the standards people set for their linkshells.

Back then, I was very careful what linkshell I joined. I made sure it was with good and helpful people and more importantly, good leaders. I felt a strong kinship to all my linkshells, which is why my strongest memories of this game are from that era.

On the other side of the coin though, I've heard lots of horror stories like yours, from people who just found nothing but drama and their linkshells were like you described, more like co-workers than friends.

Ultimately it was up to you to choose what kind of people to surround yourself with. Many people in the 2nd group that I talked to felt like bad linkshells were their only options and so they HAD to join them to do endgame content; I never really understood that take because, at least on Asura, there were always a lot of great linkshells and only a small handful of bad ones. I can definitely see how different people would recall this period differently though based on their experiences.

Allow me to paint a picture to demonstrate what I was talking about though. Remember HNM camping? Multiple linkshells cramming into a zone at god-knows-what-hour of the night, all competing to claim the NM when it pops? Then once it pops you'd have so many people in the zone that the lag prevented some from being able to see the NM and it started to impact the ability for people to win even if they do claim it? I recall Asura had an honor system in place for a long time. After the NM was claimed, all the linkshells present would pick someone to /random for them, and all the linkshells would then /random to see who stays to fight the NM if the first group fails. The amazing part? It worked. Basically without fail, all linkshells except the one that won the /random would warp out and leave, reducing the lag to a manageable level and allowing the fight to proceed unhindered.

Now riddle me this: Can you honestly see something like that working today?

Not a chance in hell. Everyone would random, but win or lose they would stay and even try to steal the kill if they could. That's the difference between the old FFXI community and the current one.

This is a valid point that I fully acknowledge. There's no going back to how things were, even if they changed content to be more like it used to be. The game has evolved, and where it is now, trying to do things the old way just wouldn't make sense.

This leads to its own problems, like people hitting mid-endgame before they realize they need more than just DD jobs... not sure how that could be addressed, honestly.

For some casual shells on smaller servers, taking returnees/new players through Omen/DynaD and occasionally Delve/Vagary/Aeonic is their main form of social activity. They aren't doing it to maximize drop efficiency, they're playing with friends and making new friends for fun.

It sucks that we can't do the same with Ody/Sortie, but I guess it's worthwhile if it stops the mercs. Nobody mercs Odyssey or Sortie, right? ...right?! /s

How much of this was due to our age back then though? I was running a sky LS at age 22. I had people in the shell older than me, and some that were younger. Me and my officers had to manage 30+ people, their egos, create a system that incentivized them to come to events. I ran it for about 14 months before I burned out, my own progress only took a few months and I was blocked by CoP missions I didn't have the jobs to clear.

My group went from Promy's to Sea with a ragtag group of
PLD
THF
RNG
NIN / DRG
BLM
RDM

I still have fond memories doing CoP with my dawgs Marcin Xauron Kraze Slinger and Iluvitar

It has nothing to do with job selection.

This is the kind of thing I miss about the community, it was a line for the bcnm on adventuring fellow release day. Funny though now, as the precursor to trusts. HNMLS and all the unnecessary drama that entailed can stay buried deep in the past, however.



Hope is not lost, just need new people willing to step up and do things for other people. On Bahamut there is a person who sells trove drops and then donates 100m to new people nominated by other players as being deserving. Whoever you are, if you read this, kudos!

No, I don't see that working now, and that sounds great. I'm honestly kindof surprised it played out that way, I remember competitive camps being a lot more antagonistic.

I wasn't on Asura until around SoA, I was on Garuda then Fairy. I recall Garuda being fairly decent, but I also wasn't really involved in endgame there. Fairy was where most of my endgame time was pre-Abyssea and I just recall rampant issues to the point it turned me off to endgame entirely. So much drama.


That's a fair point I hadn't really considered. I know I talk about the effects of our age now in current content but being that young with that many other young players then definitely would've had an impact on the way the community interacted.

I guess we should congratulate ourselves on actually growing up

So they are working on updated and technically new content. Guess another thing I can go back and quote people on who said with dead certainty that the game would see nothing different lol.

I don't get the obsession with Limbus, its been redone like 5 times already. There are a lot of other content they could do this update treatment to.

Oh, Promy's weren't the issue. I was stuck on Ouryu. Even when they lifted the level cap, went in, all confident with a full group of level 75s, we STILL wiped on the dry run.

Sounds like you should have stayed Garuda until the merge w/ Lakshmi like the rest of us. There was relatively minor drama in the scene at best from my memory. Nothing as respectable as what Pergatory said though

Trying to think of what hasn't been redone a time or three already, what do you have in mind?

the bgm is from a chiptune arrangement album called Final Fantasy XI Chips. https://vgmdb.net/album/33456