New HTBF Shinryu 2.0

Wouldn't really consider specific wording like that to be meaningful, especially in a translation.

That said, it does seem likely they've only increased the chances of drop slots loading without changing the distribution within the slots. This would still create a benefit even on VD(if you get an extra 1/3 slot a fight, it adds up to dozens less fights over time), but maybe not commensurate with the merit cost addition.

Obviously these drop rates are in poor taste, and SE is using them as artificial difficulty to drag this halfassed fight out into a couple month farm.

It may be in poor taste but damn if it isn't effective. Can't argue with results. Didn't even make the carrot juicy and it still works.

Don't need to be juicy! New drops! Gotta catch 'em all!

I don’t get it. You guys endlessly complain about a lack of content or the game, and they make something difficult or hard to obtain and you still complain? Why don’t you just move on with your lives

It's supposed to be hard for everyone else to get, not hard for me to get.

Because it's not "hard" to obtain; the fight is incredibly easy. They made it an unreasonable time sink which is mostly merit farming. There's nothing "hard" about merit farming.

It's not cool if I don't get it before most other people!

EDIT: Some people are dimmer than even me, so going to clarify. This is a joke. I would personally prefer if this fight was much more difficult and had higher drop rates.

Rolex Daytona white gold is harder to get than* that merit.

"players" = serious endgame players

Players want to get the drop, to get the endorphin rush of obtaining that hard to get item but also to gain status / enjoyment of getting something rare as a collector. If the developers greatly increased the drop rate, it would ruin that to the player with this mindset. Also the stats would be lower due it being a common item. Items are designed with drop rates in mind, and even if you think these items are not that good (which is a silly argument, since you're chasing them) they would be far lower if they drop rate was higher or it was easier to spam than it is.

FFXI and many older games are made to delay gratification as long as possible (and to add annoyance to the process of obtaining it) because doing so increases the intensity of that gratification and value of that item to you when you do get it, the problem with this is that it's a major filter to casual players and so you never see it on modern games. Even if you get a rare item easily, you still know you were incredibly lucky and so this item has more value to you because of that.

One of the reasons I hate modern MMORPGs so much is because they are bluntly aimed at casual players as the main demographic, and so they are not allowed to blue ball you very much you to increase the gratification of finally getting the drop or achieving whatever it was you wanted to do. This means, you will never feel the emotional high of finally getting something like a Dalmatica, Ebody or even going 5/5 on Malig as a solo player on any modern game. They rob you of the extreme emotional high of that achievement to pander to casual players, and it's just not that rewarding in a genre built on progression and item obtainment if you're getting it all so easily as anything above a casual player.

On modern MMORPGS gear has high drop rates and are very powerful, however this is offset by total gear resets every 6-9 months to allow this system to function.

it's not just rarity, i'm pretty sure someone who gets his kraken club already on the 20th run doesn't experience significantly less of a "endorphin rush" than the person who gets it on their 200th run.

there definitely is a sweet spot to balance drop rate/power/value of a item vs time/effort invested but instead of aiming for that sweet spot SE is in constant pursue to stretch halfassed content and test our patience.

The reason FFXI appeals mostly to casuals is most of the population . Why else would we have log on campaigns. And experience point boost etc. They know that a very small percent of the population are hardcore players. The noob that takes forever to get anything done. Is far more valuable than a veteran that quits every six months cause he is bored.

I mean.. the noobs taking forever to get things done are usually the ones that quit every month, not the hardcore. I'm sure SE is banking on getting all the money from the hardcore 6 boxers+ when they bring out the new inventory options for extra money.

Why 30 merit cost instead of 25...?

Haven't been counting but finally saw first armor drop, a mail. Probably ~20 runs in

Edit: Another mail few runs later. Noticed on the first mail drop a TH5 proc (GEO had just Dia'd with TH4) even though I'm on THF so now I've been doing Provoke in TH gear maybe it'll help. Never seen a TH proc outside of that TH5 one, though.

The major failing with running a subscription based MMORPG is inflation, the sub fee can never increase because players have a weird mindset about it (even though literally everything else goes up with inflation).

This means $12 today is worth 50% less than it was worth in 2001, so even though the number is the same they make 50% less per subscriber than they used to when the game launched.

If FFXI sub was worth the same value as when it launched, the sub fee would be $18.42. Most modern MMORPGS offset this major loss by adding a cash shop. FFXI cannot do this because the engine will not support it.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Mog wardrobes were added as a smart way to try offset the losses from inflation, and this is also why they are so desperate to keep adding them (to meet inflation issues in an ongoing way). If you pay a sub + both mog wardrobes, you're still paying less today for your sub than you were in 2001 in real terms.

On-top of this, the game has less players than it used to. Multiboxing being so fun and rewarding here offsets that loss to a degree, to keep it profitable enough to keep the finance dept happy and continually funding it.

I multibox and I have for the last 12 years. I spend a lot on this game and honestly I'm happy to do so, because I love the game and there isn't any other game out there I could really move to.

The great thing about having a large % of multibox players (2 to 6) is not only do they pick up the slack in terms of subs, they are also near immune to churn.

Most veterans don't quit every 6 months, and even if they do they usually stay subbed.

Heck most vets I know of, have mules with better gear than 90% of the server.

However yeah, both groups are important and FFXI uses the same mechanics to give them both greater gratification when they obtain stuff (try spamming amu v2 for months to get your gear and weap). This is why many players say modern games are souless, because when you achieve anything or get a reward on them you feel very little. Cause you're used to a more emotional reward for achieving your goals on FFXI.

Although I would pretty much hate it, they truly could add a web-based cash shop that sells item codes and uses the existing infrastructure to choose which character to send them to. It would take very little effort.

I've personally always disliked them tying any in-game item to super limited purchases or real life events. At the least, it should be available to everyone globally in some fashion.

Not a fan of the limited-time Twitter/forum contests, either. I got my Well, but I still don't think such a thing is entirely fair to newer or players who aren't paying attention for a small frame of time.

Of course they could set up a cash shop. Why do we always overthink it and believe SE's hands are tied for something so simple?

You already signed up for wardrobes your character is linked to.

You already buy extra accounts to exploit additional "rolls" for various things in the game.

You get random items from some "A.M.A.N" named NPCs during certain holiday events (like cakes and sweets), Twitter contests (Byakko mask), etc.

They have an entire event named "AMAN Trove", which is the same moniker they use to reward players at complete random chance. They could use the exact same system where you purchase orbs or keys or whatever, and use it on an NPC or battlefield that rewards you with exactly you want without having to fight the boss for a chance at it. The systems for a cash shop are already in place to make it happen.

Want Kraken Club? Buy "Kraken Moon Orb" and proceed to the $Up In Arms$ BCNM. Trade your orb, run up to the middle terminal box, voila, instant Kraken club. They could do the same with Omen drops. Link it to AMAN with only one box, or they could do it in the actual Reisinjima zone where it just takes you to a treasure floor and you can pick all the items you bought online.

It would take 1-2 hours worth of work to implement using the current systems. They just haven't gotten to that point yet (but they should).

The inflation argument flies out the window when you consider that you're paying 2021(year, not amount) dollars to sub to a game still releasing content developed over 10 years ago; likely from 2007 earnings...


You don't really need an excuse to multibox, but you should absolutely do it for personal reasons and not because you think it benefits other people. It doesn't and it doesn't have to, but when you throw this kind of defense at something that doesn't need it, you just look desperate.

They blew all of that money in the years since.

Arguably, you're paying more now for less consistently rolled out new content than you received in the game's classic days.

Hey just wondering if anyone else has noticed most of their abyssea temp items missing after doing a bunch of Shinryu spam.

The other day I noticed brew, revitalizer and nearly all of my other abyssea temp items missing when I went to abyssea, wondering if it may be due to Shinryu spam? (I'm speculating it could be an issue around almost entering then being kicked out, also almost entered before only to be sucked into 99 version a party member selected even though I had hit the HTMB version) has anyone else noticed a similar problem?

I'm very confident I didn't use all my temp items and that I had them, I recently farmed up an empy for my secondary char and cleared it through all the zones so it could get shinryu access, so I should have been pretty full on temp items the secondary char still has all it's temp items but I only ever enter on that character after I'm in on my main which is why I suspect it could be an issue around trying to enter and failing.

Of course even if it is an issue around trying to enter Shinryu through congestion, there's just not much of that on my server anymore as most people I know have given up on getting drops.

Did you try exiting and re-entering Abyssea to see if they loaded then?

yes they were still gone and I was able to just buy another brew and farm up another revit but it was anoying.

You're paying the wages of the people making the content today, their wages and all the costs associated with running the game rise with inflation. Your sub is literally to pay the wages of the people making the stuff you do, from new endgame content like Odyssey to new mission story lines to just adding a new login item or trust. Someone has to do that. they don't magically pop into existence even if they are using old assets.

Past FFXI actually had less content for the subscription fee than modern FFXI does, all that content you're thinking about from the past was added via paid expansion packs and not the subscription fee.

Expansions for FFXI launched with barely any content and a handful of missions, and then they slowly drip fed that content from the expansion you bought over the next 2-3 years.

So no, you're not getting less for your money today. You're getting far more for your money than ever before and you're paying far less in real terms too.

You are not factoring the reduced number of people working on the game compared to the past (less wages) and the cheaper cost of maintaining the servers nowadays.

So no, at best the sub cost should remain the same if not less.

The things you mentioned are because of the things I mentioned and not a choice of the team. When your game makes less money, you have to cut costs to remain profitable.

Also, as I just pointed out the subscription does cost less today than it ever has before.

I don't think you know how inflation actually works. SE hasnt increased the subscription cost since the game started or at least in a long time. People are getting paid more per hour now than they were 20 years ago so you are actually spending less on the game now percentage wise than you were 10-20 years ago.

Got mail today, have all drops now and done with this fight!

Took about 400ish total fights.

Now back to afking all day until odyssey.

It's almost as if we're not all 17 anymore.

30 days of service. That's what you're paying for. What SE does with the revenue doesn't matter. The value is subjective so it's not worth consideration. Though we all get access to the same content for the same price, much of that content isn't relevant anymore depending on your personal progress.




This wasn't true until WotG. It wouldn't have made a difference if WotG launched with full missions on day one anyway because 80% of players hadn't even finished CoP.