What MMO do you think FFXI could learn the most from, and why?

[Guren]

Feba, pointing out a typo as a means of discrediting someone is the most base and immature thing one can do. And, as no surprise to anyone you start flaming when we don't address the subject of your topic.

Way to "keep it positive."

Look, you don't play FFXI, if I've misunderstood recent events and you are playing it again, you still have a feeble grasp of the game itself aside from EXP trends, which are an everyday discussion.

SE has been on a rather proactive trend with updates since October 2006 and each new update and expansion has been more progressive than the last. That doesn't come from looking at what other MMOs do and copying it, but looking at the user's criticisms and balancing new designs with or against it.

People have complained there aren't enough EXP quests, now we have weekly/daily ones you can do to get EXP and merits. People complained about a lack of MP endurance for non-RDM mages and also soloability for melees, it has been addressed very well.

But you don't look at this, you just look at the complaints and what other MMOs do to fix the problem. The answer for other MMOs is to make the game dumb as bricks to start with. FFXI came from EQ/Lineage roots, SE can't go back and dumb the whole thing down, because in doing so, they'd alienate people for doing that, too.

I mean, why do you think EQ players disliked EQ2? Because it was trying to ape things WoW did to be more "trendy" but they fucked things like the faction system and the diverse starter cities to do it, removing a lot of the original MMO's flavor in the process. Barbarian from Halas sounds much cooler than Barbarian from Queynos, I'm sorry. Guess if I want that, I'll just stick to the original with the ancient graphics engine since the one with spiffier graphics and voiceover is too dumb to do it.

This is what happens when you don't understand what was good about the game you had.

The handling of the RMT situation in FFXI is also unlike anything I've seen in other MMOs. Some companies still don't do another abou the Chinese Gold Farmer, others go overkill witch hunt on it. SE finds means in and outside of the game to discourage it, sometimes even obseleting things to do it, though not entirely.

Think about to when Assault came out and RMTs were still exploiting the Abjuration market. While not as awesome as abjurations, the more casual player looked at the Assault sets and said "Hey, why bang my head against a wall in sky when I can just do this instead?"

Prices went down on abjurations, Assault, in a way, was responsible for this. It gave players respectable endgame equipment without having to deal with RMTs fucking it up. Then the adjustments to quests, sky and fishing came and the RMTs attempts to manipulate these elements are now getting laughable.

they'll always find something else, they'll always try, but its continuing the be less and less effective the more alternatives SE puts out there.

At the same time, these alternatives don't really obselete Abjurations in the slightest, they're just alternatives and highly respectable ones at that.

Even in this previous update, progress has been made. There will always be problems and people will ALWAYS complain, but you can't deny the progress that has taken place.



I generally ignore people who lack anything of any substance to say. This usually includes Feba. Most of us ignore the content of his topics because his feeble understanding of the game is perpetually apparent.

What praytell, was I "angry" about my original post here? I stated my opinion and it was contrary to the OP, is that a problem? OMG, I didn't addess the OP properly, the world will now spin off its axis and we'll lose all gravitational pull. Earth is doomed.

Seriously, get a grip.

/Applaud! Go BBQ!

[Tomato_Kai]

Meh. I think the Wow comparisons are a bit contrived. Yes, we all know it's the highest selling MMO (and highest grossing game) in existance. Yes, we know that it has many great features that (may or may not) appeal to many. Yes, I also know that Every Stinkin' One of my co-workers play and yakk about it every day...


I'm sorry, do I seem bitter?


Anyhow.

I think if FFXI can learn anything from anyone, FFXI could learn a learn a thing or two from Asheron's Call 2 (What what what?? What is this AC2??!) In it's endless and amazing set of /emotes.

Sure, call me shallow, but being able to putt putt around in /gocart was endlessly entertaining. (It made your /sit animation stick as you moved around until you typed /gocart again. Essentially, you looked like you were driving a little invisible go cart. Amazing!) And there were many others. Wow kinda gets the idea, but not to the same effect.

Another thing of note, I think FFXI could take a lesson from it's own pages and remember the earlier days. Back in 2004-5 Conquest was actually a (reasonably) big deal. I think the OP warps were a step in the right direction, but I really would like to see an improved focus towards that. That, and i'd like to see a re-established understanding of skillchains and magic bursts. Those were my favorite aspects of the game back in the day (and still are, when we can arrange them...). I just kinda wish that the question "(In what order shall we perform our weapon skills?)" would get a little more use...

[pacoblah]

I think one thing they could take out is the miles and miles and miles worth of running. If the game had some sort of more convenient rapid transport, or chocobos at lower levels that you can ride for however long you want, and can summon from anywhere, not just a stable, then the game would be much more enjoyabl. Waiting for someone to run from Sandoria, through Latheine all the way out to Valkurm to party takes way, way too long.

[Murphie]

The person running from Sandoria to Valkurm is doing it wrong. Outpost Warps are a quick and easy means of travel. They just require a bit of work doing the various supply runs. But then you're good to go.

[Feba]

Apart from outpost runs, I'm pretty sure you've been able to raise a chocobo and summon it for at least a year now. FFXI's transport is really pretty good when you start to look deeper into it. Really, making it too much easier would almost cheapen the experience.

[pacoblah]

Jeeze they must have just added that since i stopped playing. I played a little over a year ago. I apologize for being misinformed.

[Murphie]

Outpost Warps were added to the game in 2003.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Telera, no offense, but a lot of your complaints are outdated.

The game was more soloable with ToA, even moreso now as of WotG. The difference is SE hasn't dumbed the game down to the point where you can start doing it with your first job at level 1, you have to earn it by levelling subjobs. I think that's the smart way to approach it, instead of making the game itself so dumb that it allows for it at level 1.

There is no such thing as forced grouping in FFXI, to only person that forces PTs on anyone is the player themselves and there are tons of people out there with zero initiative. You've always had the option to solo, the returns were just lower on EXP and the risk much higher for doing so. Soloing has never been exclusive to BST, NIN and RDM - tons of jobs were capable of it before /DNC and even more are now after.

And really, I don't see how SWG was better, they had to make tons of overhauls to a system vastly more flawed. But then, look who was in charge. SoE, ew.

Don't see much different about LotR from WoW. Maybe you just like movie license-flavoring?

[Murphie]

I hope that was not just an insinuation that LOTRO is based on a movie.

[Telera]

I played post WotG. In fact I only quit this past Dec. for the final time. Its still slow as sin to level alone. Granted, I didn't give Campaign much of a chance, but at that point I was too fed up with 24+ hour NMs, level this sub to sub to your sub so you can do your main and other random things.

The lower exp returns is the entire problem here. XI does not cater to the soloist in the same vein as the party player. LotR is actually doing decent at that, especially lately, in that you can advance equally quickly however you choose to play. I have characters I duo/party and some I solo. They go at about the same rate, give or take. I don't like games that essentially penalize you for preferring one play style to another. You can solo on XI, and I did say that. But as you say, slower. Any job can pull it off. But I don't agree that you have to make the player 'earn' the right to play their preferred playstyle, and I think SE is missing out on a very large playerbase. At least half of the people I've run into on Laurelin are former XI-players. And every last one of them pegged the timesinks and time it takes to level in general as reasons they finally gave it up.

As for my taste, movies have nothing to do with it, and LotRO rides more on the book than the movies, as they have no rights to PJ's movie changes/looks/ideas. Only to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as novels. In fact, I've seen nothing in it that looked like much in the movies at all. And I can guarantee Faramir's character won't be as fucked up as PJ managed to make it.

What I 'like' as far as a flavor, is a game I can play alone if I want, and still get somewhere with close-to-equal speed. So even if LotRO wasn't LotR-based, I'd still be playing it, if only for the roleplaying and soloability. I can play it and not have to be essentially penalized for the conflicts with my 'real' life. And I don't have to go out and 'earn' the right to play the way I want to play.

Easy? Not particularly. I've had my ass kicked more times than I can count on that game. Some of those raid bosses are mean. More enjoyable? For me, yes. I could start out at square one knowing 'I can do this exactly the way I want to, and have fun the entire way.'

And that's the only thing I think XI needs to learn from the other MMOs out there. To cater equally to the casual and the non-casual players, and give avenues for both to be able to enjoy the full content of the game.

[Tomato_Kai]

Some people manage to work full time and play this game. I could if my schedule was more regular, but as is, it made it very difficult to find parties, or to get in on mission/promy/avatar/NM runs.

While I in no way had any particular love for SWG or LotRO, I have to say I agree with most of your post.

I quoted this, because I'm one of those folks working 40-60 hrs a week and still plugging in 3 hrs a night. Of course, I also have the luxury of being able to peruse certain forums and other certain websites (thank god for BGwiki...) without any negative impact on my job performance.

I'm lucky I guess?

Anyhow, I just thought I'd say. It's entirely possible to play 3-4 nights a week for 3 hrs or so, and more on the weekends... and still work *and* find time to hang out with your awesome roommates.

I do.

[rshermaniv]

FYI, when you start out a post, "no offense but..." the offense is automatically implied...

[Jaelachan]

What, trickly? I didn't touch on that at all. You don't even read what you bitch about, do you? Or do you mean that everything you write is a typo?



That's because this thread is pretty fucking obviously not to talk about balance. Let me make this easier to see, maybe you'll read it:

This thread has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with balance.

This thread is about what FFXI could learn from other games. It's not about balance. It's not about people asking for balance. Nobody even MENTIONED balance until you started bitching. You're just making shit up to try to derail the thread, and I'm not going to let that slide.

Did I ever say that SE's updates weren't cutting it? No. Did I ever say that SE needs to change their update strategy? No. Did I ever say SE should copy other MMOs? No.

Did my post have anything to do with complaints? No. It said, very fucking clearly, 'what do other MMORPGs do well that FFXI could benefit from learning from?'. Was I saying FFXI should be dumbed down, or did anything I say have to do with dumbing down FFXI? No.

Did I say that other MMOs could learn from FFXI? Yes. Also very fucking clearly. SE has been doing a great job of dealing with RMT recently, better than almost any other company I've seen.

Did I say that SE had never done anything right? No. Did I say that SE should just copy other companies for their updates? No. Did I say SE can't balance FFXI well? No. Did I say that FFXI is not improving? No.

This is not a criticism of FFXI. This is not a criticism of SE. This is not saying there is some huge flaw in FFXI, SE, or that FFXI needs to be fixed. This is, quite obviously, a thread about what other MMOs do well, and where FFXI could learn from them. I could just as easily make a thread about what FFXI does well and other MMOs could learn from it, but that would be a mess as most people would not have played most of the games mentioned. At least here, we can have a common thing to see how learning from it could improve the game.

BBQ, nobody has a problem with your opinion. The problem is that it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the point of the thread or anything anyone else posted. If you're just pissy today, that's fine, go be pissy and come back when you're calm. If you honestly can't understand what people are talking about, go take some reading comprehension courses, I promise you they will be useful.

Stop being so mean to everyone Feba, no wonder everyone discredits your opinion and ignores your state of being. Also an opinion to the webmaster: Add the mood "Ignoring Feba" to the moods menu :D

[eticket109]

FFXI is fine the way it is.

However, SE can can learn a lot about customer service from Blizzard.

[KingOfZeal]

Perhaps not something that SE could "learn" from, but there was a small RPG (too small to be considered an MMORPG by any stretch of the imagination) I played some time ago called DarkSpace... it's still around, I want to pick it up again sometime soon. But, it has a few elements similar to FFXI... namely the large amount of time to get from point A to point B, and the need to cooperate with allies if you hope to ever have a chance to win on the main server.

But, I felt it had a very realistic view, was a little overpowered at times (for geeks: think a fleet of DS9's against a shuttle in Star Trek) but it required a lot of strategy and long-time planning. Since the environment was 100% interactive (IE, you could take over any of the planets at any time) you had to plan accordingly.

Not likely to happen, ever, but sometimes I wish...