The issues with FFXI that we don't often discuss

[Telera]

Some non rare/ex items, maybe gil. Personally I love PVP and many other I know do as well.

Turbine did this to the Ettenmoors on LotRO.

It made all the Creeps cry.

Hell, it made all the (older) Freeps cry.

Both sides, many tears. So many loser ass respawn campers and burglar-gankers too interested in teals and shiny shit. Grams campers... campers.. more campers. Everywhere. It took what was a rare problem and made it an aggressive cancer.

Playing with PvP is like playing with fire. It could sound good on paper and backfire horribly. They'd have to be careful with that.

*looking for a flashlight to get out of Murphie's head* ...it's dark and scary in here.

[Murphie]

Hey! It is awesome in there.

[Feba]

Agreed.

You're in an awfully unmurphic mood today.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

The trouble with doing that for BRD is that, as you should know, BRD buffs are almost exclusively self-targetted. The nerf you suggest would screw them over in normal, legitimate combat in Campaign. I can see making sure that you don't get credit for AoE buffs that only hit yourself, though.

That's more or less what I'm getting at, but even that could be exploited, just have people party up thier song bots. It should only count if the targets it hits are actually engaged in casting and melee and that those allies are touching enemy targets. How to implement that is a grey area, but how its allowed to get by right now it unacceptable to me.

And, er, there already are caps on the XP you can get from Campaign.

Only in the sense that there are caps for specific types of actions. I somewhat knew we were in for these caps being exploited for Max EXP when the details were posted on BG and made thier way to other forums.

At any rate, it needs to be fixed to reward activity and risk, not spamming a buff on yourself. Until then, these people are NM AoE target fodder to me.

[dirtyclown]

Playing with PvP is like playing with fire. It could sound good on paper and backfire horribly. They'd have to be careful with that.

A duel system would easily solve the problem of people going too nuts. Perhaps one that comes with it's own chat filter and an option in the menu that allows players to flag for pvp. I personally like pvp, but the available pvp mediums in this game suck. I don't want an elaborate distraction getting in the way of me stabbing people, and I don't want a scheduled and regulated timetable for it either. Also, before anyone brings up the possibility of some annoying kid spamming with tells because random player #42 doesn't want to fight, we have a blacklist function built into the game already.

Finally - and this is just because it really annoys me for some reason - those fucking /BRD and Barspell bots in campaign.

I don't see how this is such a horrible thing, those bots might be saving people from getting a really bad party member.

[Yellow Mage]

I don't see how this is such a horrible thing, those bots might be saving people from getting a really bad party member.

Themselves?

[dirtyclown]

Themselves?

Italic text?

[Yellow Mage]

Italic text?

Why not?

[dirtyclown]

Why not?

There's a hammer in the cake.

[Yellow Mage]

the cake.

It's a lie!

[DakAttack]

A dueling system would be so annoying.

[Brielle]

The one also sort of ties in with jobs: what's the big deal on the lack of hybrid gear S-E? Oh, and the TOTAL ABSENCE of hybrid foods (Ambrosia obviously doesn't count: it's an uber-food). Hybrid jobs can't work if you don't give them hybrid gear. To get any more specific than that, though, might anger the OP. Let's just end at I share his anger in BLU getting both Homam AND Nashira (or, rather, BLU in general, but no more specifics, as I said).

This was a particular problem in World of Warcraft when it was first released. Classes that were listed as hybrids were usually only given gear for one specific function, which was generally healing. Blizzard changed this when they released armor sets for the different functions of a class. I am not sure how hard that would be for Square-Enix to implement into this game, it has been awhile since I have played.

Would that be too outlandish of a suggestion? Take a Red Mage for example. You could have a set that focuses on destructive/enfeebling spells, one on healing/defensive spells or one that works with the melee aspect of the class.

I may be taking this idea in the wrong direction, so forgive me if I missed the boat.

[Feba]

The problem with PVP in FFXI is that it doesn't make sense outside of things like Ballista.

For example, in WoW, you have two competing sides; the ugly ones and the really ugly ones. In EVE online, players are free to do whatever they like; including be evil, space pirate, scum. You have police in some areas, but generally it's like real life (INNNNNNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE) in that if someone wants to hurt you, they can do it in a very public way-- the police will show up to take care of them, but probably not before you're already significantly damaged or destroyed.

In FFXI, however, we're all heroes, out to save the world from whatever the Bad Guy Of This Expansion is, and quests are centered on doing good deeds. We don't have an enemy with playable characters, and we aren't allowed to go around doing evil. Heck, even minor evil things (theft) aren't allowed in FFXI. Why should killing someone be allowed? Consensual PVP (like 'duels') also doesn't really make sense, as A- the characters would be better off fighting against an enemy instead if it's for 'training', and B- slicing your buddy in the face outside of a controlled environment doesn't really make sense for entertainment. There are also plenty of other ways to compete with people; plain old combat (while possibly pleasing to some players) doesn't really make much sense in terms of Vana'diel entertainment.

[Malacite]

I thought there was a cap on self buffs in campaign? BG listed it as 150 a while back.

My personal gripe these days? Crafting and H.E.L.M.

Waaay before inflation and RMT became a huge problem, I absolutely loved mining and logging to fuel my smithing, gold smithing and woodworking. I would go on crafting binges, doing nothing but mine/log and craft. It was fun back then, because it wasn't a complete bitch to get any decent materials like it is now and things like Arrowwood Lumber were actually a good profit.

These days you are screwed if you don't have a lv 100 craft (other than cooking) and ever since SE implemented that damned H.E.L.M nerf years ago gathering materials has become a total chore rather than a fun, profitable side activity. My best run in Zeruhn Mines ever was 4 darksteel ores in one hour. I haven't seen a single ore in that zone since. And then there was the string of fishing nerfs...


So I propose SE undo some of these nerfs. RMT have become much less of a threat now and SE pretty well has them underwraps for the most part (save for a few groups on each server we all know and wonder why SE does nothing against them) so how about some changes?

I've proposed some ideas before, like making fixed mining points that everyone can use rather than the current (retarded) system of random points. Inclusion of mining, logging, harvesting and excavating skills in the craft menu would be great too. They'd of course be the same as fishing in that they don't count towards your cap post 60 (either that, or they compete with fishing)

This would help balance out returning the rates of materials to how they were before; the higher your skill, the more likely you are to find the good stuff and the less fatigued you become after repetitive mining. Maybe they could but in a cap too the same way they did with fishing? i.e. you can only gather so many ores/logs/bones/etc in a day depending on your skill level.


Oh yeah and isn't it about time they revisited the guilds and various shops in the game? Why are the NPC prices of some items still so obscenely high? How about more guild quests too, and not just the stupid contract system they put in to earn guild points. Actual freaking quests that the guild will ask of you from time to time. Maybe a way to earn discount prices in the guild depending on your rank/fame or something?

At this point I just feel that there's a real need to address the ways we make money in this game and how lame a number of the game's extra activities are.

[Brielle]

That is actually one of the reasons I enjoy Final Fantasy XI so much, there is not this nagging worry in the back of my mind that the person standing next to me might come over and try to stab me.

The 'player-versus-player' aspect of World of Warcraft suits the game, like Feba stated. You have two opposing factions that have a common goal, but also are at war.

Final Fantasy is based on heroes and their great deeds. Killing a fellow comrade does not seem like something Cloud or Squall would have done, unless that comrade had turned on them. Duels and PvP are not part of the game's lore, and would be very out of place if implemented.

I am not an extremely competitive person, so that whole idea turns me off to many other video games. There, that is my bias.