RMT Bots Have Won...

If it were up to me (and maybe it's a good thing it's not): We'd get the Incursion level-selection feature, but applied to Dynamis Divergence, and it'd be 140-160.

Before MLs it was Shinryu, before Shinryu was Lilith.

Here is something shiny enough to keep you trying to get it with abysmal drop rates. Stretch it out as long as possible.

That way players can't say, I have nothing to do. Instead, I could do X and I like the idea of the reward. The idea is completely unattached to the reality of the time/effort it will take to get it because maybe you get a lucky drop off X. You've seen other people with them(AMAN Trove), why not me?

But with MLs it's maybe my bot will run all day/night successfully. Or I guess hopefully this RMT I paid for will actually get good return value for my gil. PLD/RUN with Foil? You could AFK twice as hard and make an even better sandwich!

Wishful thinking. As long as people keep voting with their wallets...

ITT: a hundred players talking about how OTHER players should quit because they're so miserable playing the game, but they won't. Players who maybe, just maybe, don't own any mirrors.

If you guys all think the game is ***because items take too much effort to get or random drops are too random, *** quit and leave us alone to grind in peace, instead of continuing to pay SE a sub and *** on forums about how you hate every event in the game.

It seems like people are pretending that they like the game but they just have a couple minor gripes. Except the minor gripes are like...the design of every part of the content. There's a criticism and a "well they should..." for every single bit of content and a wishlist as long as your arm, and complaints out the wazoo about what SE should be doing with their time.

I, for one, enjoy my time with the game. There's plenty to do, a lot of fun content, it's really rewarding and I enjoy spending time with my friends, linkshell mates, and random strangers doing stuff together. If every time I went to an event I was frustrated beyond belief, I'd stop playing, because I'm not a masochist.

"I'm no masochist"

"My 5th crafting shield is going to be..."

There's nothing more satisfying than completing a crafting shield! Well, maybe T3 V25 (or Bumba, but I haven't beaten him yet so can't confirm) qualify. Finishing stage 5 prime will be exciting!

Might be Bonecraft or Leather, but I'm thinking maybe I'll take it easy and do Cooking since most of the hard stuff is already done.

SE: "In exchange for greater EP, we have removed all drops, RP gains are halved, all leaders have been changed to their wave boss, and all fodder have been changed to leaders"


The "greater EP" is just a x2 multiplier

This is what I don't think people constantly defending SE, Sortie, Primes, MLs, etc fully grasp. They can defend that content like it's some sort of pinnacle of game design, but sub numbers are dropping quickly and people are quitting the game left and right, which says something about the quality of the content and how it has been received.

It could be argued it's happening because there is no new content coming, but I don't think that's the sole reason esp considering we are just now coming to the point where stage 5 primes are available due to the time gate. The people quitting haven't truly done everything, they just decided they don't want to mess with what remains. There is content left to do, but people quitting don't want to do it.

Making stage 5 Primes, ML50, etc actually reachable goals would've dragged out the exodus, but instead they pushed it out so far that people would rather quit and move on. I'm not saying it has to be trivial, in fact I'd rather see the basement difficulty become higher to finish with a lower galli requirement, but for the best groups to take 6 months to finish (and much longer for average groups) is further out than people want to do. If you put the carrot too far out, people can't see it anymore and don't want to bother with it, which is where I think they put a lot of these content objectives.

Clearly the direction they went isn't keeping players engaged, whether you agree with the above or not, and I don't think the prospect of no new content is the only reason why people are leaving in droves.

I'll grant that there's a happier medium between "wait 6 months between prime weapons, minimum, with hardcore daily grinding" and "Prime weapons should've been done in 2 weeks each", I think that psyches could've been foregone entirely and the muffin requirement could be reduced by ~25% or whatever and they would still feel rewarding and challenging enough.

I don't think sub numbers would change in any meaningful way whatsoever if the ML50 numbers were lower. I still maintain that grinding EP is boring as ***, getting ML is not exciting at all, and nothing is going to change that except a massive overhaul of the entire ML system. It's just not rewarding or interesting enough. People don't stay subscribed because their bot gets them 1.5x as many ML every night, and people aren't going to be thrilled to grind ML50 because it's easier.

I'd say the same thing about giving EP for doing content. I think they should improve the EP given for Sortie, Omen, Dynamis, etc. I think the idea of adding RoEs which reward EP for doing these events is a good idea. I also don't think this is going to do anything for the sub numbers or engagement. Please raise your hand if you think Sortie is a boring purple hallway and you hate all the mechanics of it, but you'd gladly do it every night if it gave you 50k EP.

I think the "mass exodus" of ~10% of the subscribers is because the game is in maintenance mode with absolutely no plans for anything new and people are either:
1.)having a hard time finding groups for content
2.)having a hard time completing content
3.)have already achieved everything they want

I think in a game like FFXI it's difficult to solve the "hard time finding groups" problem because there are no hard-set strategies, group compositions, or gear requirements so from a systems standpoint it's difficult to group people.

I think having a hard time completing content is a good thing (Sortie, Ody mostly) because the hardest content in the game should be difficult and it makes things interesting, challenging, and fosters creativity, experimentation, and cooperation. My group has had a lot of conversations about different strategies, weapons, food, buffs, etc. to use to complete the Ody fights and if they were ROFLSTOMP fights that would never happen.

I think people having already achieved everything they want to, whether that means everything in the game or just the content they're interested in completing, is also a very difficult problem to solve when you're a company that doesn't want to invest development resources into a game anymore. Other than "they should spend money on this game, surely they'll get it back in subs" I'm not really sure what the suggestion is here. People are mostly suggesting making things easier to accomplish which from my perspective seems like it would make this category worse; Allowing people to make 1 prime a month would make them reach this breakpoint sooner, quit the game and leave a vacuum of experience and assistance for the players who are coming up, and of course reduce subs.

Fixed

OK, *** off and quit then. Go read forums for the fun games you're playing now.

Forcing people to log in daily to do stuff otherwise they fall behind doesnt help anything either.

As much as people find Sortie boring, I'm sure they'd rather do 2-3 runs back to back. I'm sure they'd rather do 2-3 Sheol's back to back. The same way people do 3/4 Omen's back to back.

I already know the incoming response: "you can do 2 Sheol's back to back, just get the KI". You still have to go pick up the KI the day after though. If you were going out of town for a weekend, you could clear out your Canteen's on a Thursday night and not really miss anything when you get home and log in Sunday night / Monday morning (maybe a couple hours worth). Dynamis is a bit trickier with the 60 hour lockout, but no one ever really goes right at the 60 hours either. The same cant be said for Sortie/Odyssey.

Salvage had the same system in place (daily KI), however Salvage didnt offer individual currency ie: Muffins or Segs. The individual risk to missing Salvage was missing Arrapago Remnants and that 2% chance Macha's Coat drops.

Im at work



But that doesn't make what I said not true

Current FFXI is *** and if you don't like it, take it to the pms or block me. LMAO

Your friends, your linkshell, the good players, the decent players and the players with more than two brain cells to rub together becoming disinterested in the content is the FOMO.

Homies calling it FOMO

If people are deactivating because the destination is way too far and/or the road is way too boring, theres obviously no fear of missing out. Thats more akin to TL;DR (too long; didnt resub)

If you think the destination is way too far or the road is way too boring, then who cares if you have to do it every night?

If you're worried about missing one or two entrances to an event because you don't want to miss the birth of your child or your sister's wedding, then maybe the content or rewards aren't as ***as is being implied.

IDK, you can't say out of one side of your mouth that everyone hates this ***and they don't want to do it, but out the other say that everyone's crying themselves to sleep when they miss a night of it. If you hate the content, having a weekend off without doing it should be a gift to you and you should be thanking SE you don't have to run it 3 times on Sunday, right?

Unless you're feeling that FOMO because you're 100k muffins behind now.

This is like billions of other online games where there are daily/weekly tasks, and if you don't do them, you feel like you're falling behind because everyone else is getting 25 gems and you're "Wasting" your bonus exp rewards by not logging in to your character and running your daily.

I guess the entire video game industry is falling for this same dumb idea. Someone should inform people that this doesn't drive engagement but actually makes people quit your game and never play it.

Not saying it's healthy or good for human brains or anything, but it's not like SE invented the concept of daily logins, daily content, or cooldowns on content. It's also been in FFXI for ages ...

Nor does it make it true. It is your opinion and you are entitled to it but that does not make a "truth".

Forcing you to log in for a vanity weapon that isn't even needed lmao.

Gotta ask yourself if you are playing for fun or playing for rewards.

We all know the score here. White knighting ffxi might have worked five-ten years ago, it's delusional now and rather lemming-like.

The people who still play play for whatever reasons, but it doesn't change that the sky is black and the grass dead and dry.

Keep reading homie
If you missed Salvage, Dyna, Limbus...theres a good chance you really havent missed anything. Maybe you missed a drop, and it'll drop again. For those who dont have "more segs then they know what to do with", you're potentially holding up your group when they have 12k segs for a RP run and you have < 3000. The only way to catch up is the rest of the group sitting idly.

I guess the real *** they made was giving guaranteed rewards for attending events then. They should go back to items dropping into a treasure pool, because the HNM kings, Sky, Einherjar, and Dynamis were rewarding events where you showed up, played for 2-6 hours, and left with absolutely nothing except hope that next time you'd get something. So you don't mind when you miss a day!

I keep reading Maletaru's posts as if he's the heel turn of Draylo. Or like when Flanders one day just snapped

What the *** you talkin about lmao. You're talking as if Sky/Ein/Dyna left you with "absolutely nothing" while you're white knighting this current era of "milk maintenance mode with abysmal drop rates".

You have people talking about how they had to kill Shinryu TWO THOUSAND times to get all the visible gear, and then there are the people saying "well I only had to kill it 500 times to get my cloak" as if thats better. Thats being left with absolutely nothing.

Go into the sortie threads and look at all the comments about people still trying to get a +2 for their main job(s). Thats being left with absolutely nothing.

Anecdotal, but I'd be willing to bet of all the Omen bodies in game, 90% came from Trove, and thats no exaggeration. That is left with absolutely nothing.


"No, you get Muffins and Cards and Scales", boy you just said Sky/Dyna/Ein left you with "absolutely nothing", you set the standard, I'm following suit.

I feel attacked and triggered lol

If you play fun games you don't waste time in forums, you play the game.

This sounds about right. To be honest, SE is sitting on a lot of unused potential. The fact that Dynamis Divergence doesn't include Beaucedine Glacier and Xarcard, is a travesty. These 2 zones could have their own separate objectives/gear/crafting/augments and we would be busy for 5 years. I hope SE wakes up, and makes prime weapons augmentable through EP earned in Dynamis Glacier/Xarcabard, as alliance content.

For the folks who need the lore to make sense... Uhh....Aurix dropped his wallet. If you help him find it, he'll augment your Rank 5 prime weapon. Whatever.

Move to Horizon 75 era, there is 1000+ players online at any time, there are no duel boxers allowed, no RMTs and no bots. People are 24/7 actively forming parties for all content including exp. There are active GM who are very proactive and they basically just do a better job than SE does at their own game.