How Could SE Realistically Improve Modern FFXI?

This is demonstrably false. There is an entire Retro Gaming community devoted to playing "dated games". FFXI is over 20 years old, it now falls into Retro Gaming.

Heck EA shut down Earth and Beyond a long time ago and people still play that game.

https://www.net-7.org

So long as there isn't excessive wait times during the week, I'm good with it. If weekends become a train wreck and the new server conversions don't solve it, then they deserve the complaints they'll be getting

I bet it's only gonna be higher HP/stats and maybe -99% AoE/Geomancy resistance to enemies in the existing event, no other changes.

People should complain about DI not lasting long enough so SE can make every dragon a Mireu.

This. They're only bringing Besieged mobs to lv99, which is lower than Delve trash. It's still going to be braindead easy for any ilevel player, just slightly slower. Doubt there will be any change to rewards, at most maybe they add a new RoE.

Reason seems pretty clear, they just wanted to tune the event so it lasts a little longer. Potentially allows people to ignore the shouts/waiting around, but still have enough time once the mobs arrive to warp/HP there, zone in, and take an action to get points before everything dies. That can be a challenge now, and I imagine even moreso on Asura.

I don't mind the adjustment, but it wasn't hard to get credit. You just had to be there when it started, pop a giant's drink, and cure yourself. I'm sure there's some threshold for self-buffs or buffing NPCs that could also clear the bar.

I think it's more the opposite. There's 3 people saying they will quit if Primes are made easier. But most people who are currently willing to do Primes are lifers who are still gonna keep paying their fee even if there are changes that make them grumble.

IMO, worth a shot to make some Sortie tweaks to retain players by making it more compelling for those who aren't currently doing the event to start doing it more regularly (which they kinda need players to do if this is one of the primary pieces of content they expect people to do for the indefinite future). Maybe the data SE is looking at shows otherwise, or maybe they just don't care.

Wouldn't be shocking if they are just hoping (and for not the first time) that XI players will just drop it already and move over to XIV. With the new expansion that has some elements of trying to appeal directly to XI fans with their new Vana'diel raids and FFXI NMs and all that.

I agree with you that it isn't hard now, but it DOES typically require some waiting/standing around so you can be there when it started. Feels like the main thing they're addressing is people complaining they don't want to do that waiting around part. They would rather be off doing other things, then once they get a message that Besieged is actually finally happening, they can wrap up what they're doing and head over with enough time to comfortably get into Besieged before it ends. That's hard today even on less populated servers, much less Asura.

SE probably has metrics that show a decrease in people who are bothering to do Besieged for the monthly RoEs, and thinking that a large part of that is because it's a bit of a hassle to stand around and wait for the event (backed up by players telling them exactly that). The idea for the change is probably that they may be able to improve engagement if the event doesn't end quite so fast and people do have time to mosey on over.

I've reached a point where I'm able to admit my level of addiction of XI just part of a daily routine for me that there's very little SE could do that would actively drive me to quit playing.

What their poor stewardship of FFXI has done in my mind without question, though, is that I won't buy a new Square-Enix product again outside of modern platform remakes. I won't be foolish enough to think that the loss of me as a customer and my like will change SE's methods- I can at least admit they no longer make entertainment for me.

The only reason it's not the version you see, is as it exists it's no effort. To change and risk is effort.

Ain't broke don't fix.

It could get more people back and keep the addicts, but why take a risk over a sure thing. That's just a bad idea.

From neutral, either path could've worked, but as one path is already set, going back is not an option.

I'll tell you how good the new Mana is. I am extremely biased but I can definitely tell you if I'm not having a good time too.

Also AMAN trove gave me a Nisroch Jerkin today, so I've partially lost my mind.

On that note, after reading your comment I went to spend my vouches. One thing I realized was that opening all chests super fast made me get thwacked.

I went a second time and started opening chests super slowly, then I got thwacked again.

Moral of the story... God is dead.

I guess I see it more as: "is broke, maybe should fix".

I agree with you that it would be risky to think they'll get people back once they leave, but I'm operating more on the theory that they're starting to lose more users now and should do something to stop the bleeding while they still have a chance. That there's a window of time where taking action could keep some of those semi-addicted types who are now considering hanging it up, but could be convinced to stay.

You're probably right that there is some inherent risk/speculation there too though, so if they're comfortable with the amount of people willing to jump through the hoops now (and factoring in a small amount of attrition), doing nothing costs nothing and maybe that's their play.

Still, I would think that even the most hardcore "SORTIE IS FINE GUYS" types should still be concerned that a lot of the rest of the community seems to be getting more dissatisfied than just the usual grumbling that the game has had for decades. Even if they don't affect your static, if enough people don't engage with the limited amount of endgame content to the point where they stop paying, that directly impacts your game too when SE reduces maintenance budget even more or even finally pulls the plug.

And while I think the past has proven that it's a bit of a misguided philosophy, I also can't help but think there's some hope within SE (and particularly in Yoshi-P's MMO division, Creative Business Unit III) that XI is finally winding down and they can try to encourage players who are leaving to start up a new treadmill by coming over to XIV. I don't think the XI influence on the new expansion is a coincidence.

This might have been mentioned already, but I think its a damn shame that none of the sortie bosses have their own drops. I don't count the random earing BS as drops, that system is a whole other issue... We all know sortie is just Vagary 2.0, they could have just grab some drops from that, upgraded them to Odyssey power levels and slapped them on the basement bosses with low drop rates. Boom, some excitement added to the mix.

Absolutely. And that even stretches out the useful life of the content for players who aren't gunning for Primes, but will still come back for months seeking boss drops (and maybe by that time they have built up enough muffins to think... ehhhh maybe I can do more of this for the Prime that I already have a decent start on).

Wouldn't be entirely crazy for them to add something like that as a a future revision to Sortie though, giving it a second wind. Maybe once they see participation numbers drop further when people who are currently doing the content for Empyrean armor get all their stuff.

Breaks my heart that SE spend trillions of dollars creating Vanabout and that's how old timers show their gratitude. I heard they even cut down on FF16 to give us this amazing event.

Let's work on being better every day. Let's start by being grateful.

If they are saving gil drops for a second wind, that'd be pretty bigbrain. Cause the lack of gil motivation remains baffling.

They lose so much of the audience by not having a gil motivator.

Same but instead of buy, its Torrent. I figure the 24 bucks they sap out of me every month so I can try to kill bumba 5-6 times also gives me a SE Gamepass to pirate their ***.

When I heard BD3 were working on ff16 I remember saying it would either be a success and they would make more single player games and cut back support for 11/14 or it would fail and 11/14 would pay for it it failing with reduced budgets.

We paid for it failing, as was always going to be the case.

It's not only sad for us how they treat us, but it's sad for Matsui who went above and beyond to try make XI more profitable and successful with what meager budget he was given and they still cut the team size after all that. Which was a line in the sand he stated would make him leave over back in 2000.

I'm learning to dislike Square Enix very much, I dislike buying anything they make now that isn't a XI sub. Which isn't too hard since most of the stuff they make lately is crappy anyway, they even messed up ff7Remake

No, it's main strength is that it is still true to what it was made to be and so it still appeals to that audience. People need to stop this positivity bias with modernizing games, most of the time they make things worse when they "modernize" them.

Modern Square Enix couldn't run a pissup at a brewery, they are incompetent.

Actually I'm kind of glad they used the budget set aside for a remake of FFXI on PS3 on FF14, cause if they had done that they most likely would have ended up ruining FF11 and none of us would still be playing it now.

Whoa, whoa. Where are your morals, man.

/s

You wouldnt download a car, would you?!?

If we don't own the games we purchase, how can not paying for them be stealing?

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Everything you're saying we all agree with the sentiment of and would love to see them be able to accommodate us better. But there is risk in chasing subs like that. If they do nothing, they keep the status quo and that's what people return to this game for. This is an old game that is the equivalent of comfort food for anyone that has played it long enough. We all know current games are trash and there really is so much trash you can consume before you start looking for an alternative. All FFXI has to do is wait for there to be another 6 months where nothing amazing comes out and the semi-casual addicts that left earlier will possibly be back, for free. If you disrupt this game being stuck in a previous era, then you loose whatever vintage nostalgia it has going for it.

People like the phrase, a rising tide lifts all boats, but the video game industry is currently the opposite. The lower the tide sinks, the more you can be happy to be stuck on an island you like.

Dark Ixion 2.0.

I haven't played either of the remakes because they're not for me but um...wut?

FF7 remake
Critic score: 89
Fan score: 8.3

FF7 Rebirth
Critic score: 92
Fan score: 9.0

Yup, they *** those games up really badly.

Wait a minute, are we bleeding the did FFXVI flop thread into our totally realistic and not ranty what should they do to make the game better thread?

Proceed

I agree with his post except the remake part. FF7R was a lot of fun, still don't get why people dislike it. The forced slowdowns were rly annoying, but its a good game and a lot of hours to make it worth the price you pay.

Its funny I didn't post my opinion here yet and its like 11 pages. I think the only way they can improve XI atm is to add more meaningful content. An expansion was sorely needed to increase the longevity of the game, but they seem to keep trying this "lets do the bare minimum and tell them we are preserving it" multiple times. It's like they start it each time and realize, ***! we are hemorrhaging subs, lets do something quick. It's happened like 4 times now. If people don't have things to do, they will quit, it is just inevitable. They needed to make Sortie more engaging like Escha was, that was a big mistake. It seems they are open to trying different things now so lets hope they come up with more things to do.

The game itself is fine, doesn't need HD graphics or modernization. It has a loyal playerbase, and a lot of people would return if they saw it was getting new additions in content etc. This happens at the end of every content cycle, in each era of this games life. People get bored, they complete whatever shiny they were after and then quit. It creates a chain affect and people become doom and gloom until the next thing comes along. Sortie and the end of TVR just happened to be done very lazily/low cost and it did not have the same longevity that Escha did.