Direction of FFXI?

[Neomage]

For the past few days, I serriously though FFXI was a few months from being the next D2. Why? I learned that Cliff(None other than the current programmer or Windower) Had actually become the most knowledgeable person about FFXI, aside from the developers. He figured out how to perfect Packet Injection on FFXI, though he wisely didn't tell ANYONE, including his close friends. For those who don't know, he didn't play the game, and rather disliked it in the first place. But anyone who has mastered Packet Injection can force-spawn any NM, make all drops from any monster drop 100% of the time, obtain 0.5 skillups from every hit/spell/whatever, buy Dragon Chronicles pages from the goblin in jeuno instead of Horo Flour, among others. You get where I'm going.

Paired with the fact that hacks where becoming more and more malicious, andif Cliff could perfect Packet Injectoin others certainly could, who would use it andsent FFXI into the crap pile, and that GMs almost never did anything useful...

But now, SE seems finally realize how big a problem hacking in FFXI has become. The mass bannings I support, and I probably would have been banned to if I played within the last 24 hours. Yeah, I admit I was using hacks. It was a test to see if SE would ever catch me(I got fed up with seeing a person fleehacking IN LOWER JEUNO and didn't even get sent to Mordion for but a second.), I never did anything as bad as even skipping from zoneline to zoneline like Z was doing, but I was cheating nonetheless. And Feba, I know, no need to lecture me, but I can say I never did any of the things you said I would do that one day in IM, so I had control.

Enough of that. I cheated, it was wrong. I'm going off topic. But what do you guys feel the dirction is of FFXI? SE v.s. Cheating? Hackers v.s. GMs? What do you feel the current balance is like?

[Etra]

SE is quickly losing the battle. They need to take care of the RMT a lot faster. (Not like it's hard to see who's a Gil Farmer.)

Highering GMs to watch certain zones for strange activities is a good way to solve this. It would be a boring to hell job, but it would save the game.

[Ellipses]

Too early to tell from just this. If this is the start of a more aggressive policy, great. If this is just a "Boo!" to scare people for a couple days and temporarily dimish complaints, it'll do more harm than good.

[Neomage]

I suppose so. I'm kinda done with FFXI now anyway really. I use it more as a pay-to-IM now, I mean I still do the missions and level when I have the time but...

I still want FFXI to stay strong, and it is a loosing battle. :/

EDIT: If SE's campaign continues, and I still don't get banned(which I doubt, but meh) I'll probably retire my BLM and either start a new character from a clean slate and do everything over again, or just sell all my equip and donate alot of gil to people who need it, and start from a clean slate but with my CoP, ZM and Rank missions done.

BLM really isn't fun anymore, though I suppose all end-game is like that. Drama, and furthuring your character. Pitty I have to level to 75 anyway to finish the CoP and Aht Urgan storyline, because lowbie on a clean slate or not I still can't resist a good plot.

[neighbortaru]

I had the same disheartening realization the day Feba posted his quote from Cliff. I had suspected that the game engine was little more than hacks put together to run PS2 on PC but finding out that it was hacks held together by chewing gum, well...

imho, SE is fighting a loosing battle. there is only so much they'll be able to fix (or catch for that matter) server side. eventually, we'll see FFXI like D2 or PSO. I just hope they don't do the same stupid thing for their next-gen mmog.

[Hyrist]

This is a long endevor, because its SE trying to stop a company form making money off a root exploit of all humans.

Greed.

Unforutnatly, as long as there is a free-trade system involved in the game, you are going to get people attempting to RMT. SE is doing what it can to walk the fine line between figthing the RMTs out and pissing off as few players as possible.

Note: A VERY thin line to wak indeed.

The receint updates going to Nuke-burn nerfs will actually slow RMT's down more than it will slow players. Players will adjust and find new stragities. RMTs will have to struggle to find a new exploit. Remember, owners of the RMT companies dont want their employees to play the game for recreation, so they will avoid makign a real stragity for combat if they can find an exploit.

Slowly, but surely, SE is making it harder and harder for Gilseller accoutnts to be 'questionable' enough for one of them to cry wolf and say they were an honest player.


If you want to help out, start calling GM reports on gillsers en-mass. All of your friends and palls, every incident made, without exception. Organize it, and be persitant. Go for the highest level gillsellers as well, make the RMT loose the most time that way.

We can help speed things up if we stop complaining about petty adjustments and start lending a hand.

[Neomage]

I agree Taru. Thats why I posted this thread in the first place, I felt FFXI was becomming the next D2. But I wanted others opinions. See, FFXI IS held together by chewing gum, and once teh hackers figured that out it was only a matter of time before FFXI quite litterally, dies. True, WoW is riddled by hacks, moreso than FFXI, but at least their not on the verge of being able to make a character 75 in the time it takes to level to 5 and buy/use 10,000 Dragon Chronicles. It dosn't matter how good SE gets at banning hackers, FFXI's weakness has been found.

Dissapointing, really. I really, really hope that the next MMO SE makes, this upcomming one, is actually a new game, and you CAN'T transfer characters over. Give it a new engine, one server-based, but hide it the same way FFXI was hidded. Make it windowed, but make a strict ToS that is strictly reinforced. With a windowed version, and hackers banned on first offence... should live a long life. Or even without the ToS, as long it isn't held together by chewing gum....

[neighbortaru]

by the virtue of it (their next mmog) supporting Windows Vista, it'll be window-able. now for the rest...

[Neomage]

Thats good to hear. I bet ~50% of hackers used other hacks because they where windowing in the first place and felt they already broke the ToS, a little more wouldn't hurt.

[Raydeus]

Personally I wouldn't mind starting over in a new SE/FF game, even though I already been playing for 2 years (highest lvl jobs are 75 and 69, with a lot of jobs at lvl 37-38).

It's sad but I think I had the most fun up until my first job was lvl 75, and it was downhill from there.

Starting a new character and doing it all over again would never be as fun as starting over in a new game, but whatching the current MMOGs out there, there isn't any other game I feel like playing so I'm kinda at a dead end.

Still having fun with XI, still have plenty of things to do and jobs to lvl, but I wouldn't think twice about starting over on the next MMOG from SE if it was already here.

[Neomage]

Personally I wouldn't mind starting over in a new SE/FF game, even though I already been playing for 2 years (highest lvl jobs are 75 and 69, with a lot of jobs at lvl 37-38).

It's sad but I think I had the most fun up until my first job was lvl 75, and it was downhill from there.

Starting a new character and doing it all over again would never be as fun as starting over in a new game, but whatching the current MMOGs out there, there isn't any other game I feel like playing so I'm kinda at a dead end.

Still having fun with XI, still have plenty of things to do and jobs to lvl, but I wouldn't think twice about starting over on the next MMOG from SE if it was already here.

Ditto

[Rodin]

Well, I've been playing this game for 3 years now.

The last few months have been COMPLETE FUCKING BULLSHIT.....

There are 5 times as many gilsellers as ever. People are openly flee tooling and not getting caught. People are ripping other people off a LOT recently. GMs are going to nerf a job that doesn't need nerfing.....

If SE completely fucks over BLMs with this next update, I'm going to quit and go to WoW with my Brother and my Dad.

[Feba]

I'm not gonna worry too much for now. Cliff is a very bright individual, and he would never intentionally let that ability reach the masses, or maybe even others on the windower team.


Cliff knows more about FFXI than anyone else outside SE, so unless something happened to really, really, really piss him off, I doubt other people would find out how. As is, I believe there's only one or two other windowing programs out, and they were created from Archbell sourcecode (it was released a couple years ago, apperently, before the plugin and other features were added. )


Unless someone who is very knowledgable in computers and code, and very devoted to finding this out, and spending a lot of time on it, AND releasing it comes along, ffxi will probably be safe.

[sevenpointflaw]

Well, I've been playing this game for 3 years now.

The last few months have been COMPLETE FUCKING BULLSHIT.....

There are 5 times as many gilsellers as ever. People are openly flee tooling and not getting caught. People are ripping other people off a LOT recently. GMs are going to nerf a job that doesn't need nerfing.....

If SE completely fucks over BLMs with this next update, I'm going to quit and go to WoW with my Brother and my Dad.

I dun mean to be offensive here... but that was said about the MIthkabob Nerf... the NIN nerf... the RNG nerf... Wel... I don't think that WoW was out when Mithkabobs were nerfed...

Double Post Edited:
Cliff knows more about FFXI than anyone else outside SE, so unless something happened to really, really, really piss him off, I doubt other people would find out how.

I dun think cliff even cares about FFXI, let alone SE

[Neomage]

There was a mithkabob nerf?

[neighbortaru]

There was a mithkabob nerf?it no longer affects R. Attack

[Feba]

actually there was a HUGE cooking change in late 04, which pissed a lot of people off. Created a lot of the percents and caps that food has now, used to be a more static value I beleive.

Mithkabobs used to be used 1-75, whereas there's more now.

I dun think cliff even cares about FFXI, let alone SEread the entire post.

[sevenpointflaw]

yeah <.< I did read the entire post. Several times. Did I miss something?

[durecellrabbit]

What do you mean by the next D2?

[Ashady]

SE is quickly losing the battle. They need to take care of the RMT a lot faster. (Not like it's hard to see who's a Gil Farmer.)

Highering GMs to watch certain zones for strange activities is a good way to solve this. It would be a boring to hell job, but it would save the game.

Im sure a GM could make this job fun, but yeah that would save the game. Heck, we as a community could all /sign to watch the current zone were in, maybe SE would catch on and help support this "neighborhood watch".

Double Post Edited:
What do you mean by the next D2?


Diablo 2 is a hackers game these days

[Rodin]

I dun mean to be offensive here... but that was said about the MIthkabob Nerf... the NIN nerf... the RNG nerf... Wel... I don't think that WoW was out when Mithkabobs were nerfed...

No offense taken.

I'm just saying this is my personal limit. SE doesn't need to NERF Black Mages, it needs to make other ones better against Gods. I mean, gods are so morbidly boring right now, it's insane. Now SE is going to make Gods take LONGER. WTF?

[DakAttack]

Don't be so fickle. Chances are in World of Warcraft, Blizzard is going to nerf something you play, and you'll end up right back here playing FFXI.

[sevenpointflaw]

Er... Well, I disagree on that. I find gods quite enjoyable, and my Sky LS is going to hardly notice this change, as we have - at most - 4-5 BLM even at Kirin. Really, we rely extremely heavily on the fact we have an assortment of attacks, cycling chi-blast, blood pacts, light skill chains, dark skill chainers, solo skill chains, w/e. At any given time our DD (mage or melee) are constantly dropping alliance and re-joining and there is a sea of LFP blinking on an off as we adapt our rotation to whatever suits Kirin's current doings.

All in all, I'd say we won't even see a 5min increase on Kirin after this change. But maybe we're the only LS that didn't all our eggs in one basket :/

[Neomage]

Wow. Major de-railing here... oh well I got my question answered.

[Rodin]

Don't be so fickle. Chances are in World of Warcraft, Blizzard is going to nerf something you play, and you'll end up right back here playing FFXI.

I haven't touched BLM since ToAU came out..... -_-

And Blizzard doesn't nerf anything that's not already insanely overpowered. Like at one point in PVP, a level 50 Shaman could beat a level 60 anything else. I wasn't complaining about the RNG nerf. Hell, RNG/WAR is still insanely overpowered. But nerfing BLM is just idiotic, they're the base of most HNM strategies. I've done Shen without a single BLM before. But trust me, that fucking NM is SOOOO hard without BLMs. It takes 30 minutes to kill him w/o BLMs, and you have to have 2 RDM/NINs sleeping the elementals and silencing them.

[Herrisa]

It takes 30 minutes to kill him w/o BLMs, and you have to have 2 RDM/NINs sleeping the elementals and silencing them.

Ahhh.. the fun fights where blood is pumping, you're on the edge of your chair and everything will go to hell in a handbasket if even one person messes up...

...then...

brains wins over brawn. :cool:

[Etra]

And Blizzard doesn't nerf anything that's not already insanely overpowered.
Blizzard has no idea what the hell it's doing and should back away from the MMO business. Oh, and I have been playing since Day 1 of that game; So, you can't use that funfun "Have you ever played the game?" excuse. I've done everything there is to do in that game.

It's old.
It's boring.
It just plain fails as an MMO.

It's first concepts were divine, but with all the recent changes.....no thanks.

Anyways, I'll /sign the "Neighborehood watch" thing. However, if taken to an extreme level, this could turn out to be like a 21st century FFXI witch hunt. Beware.

[Rodin]

Ahhh.. the fun fights where blood is pumping, you're on the edge of your chair and everything will go to hell in a handbasket if even one person messes up...

...then...

brains wins over brawn. :cool:

We win, but it's an annoying ass fight.

Now, you can go out to Rolanberry and buy a trigger for that.

With Gods....that's a different story. If you wipe to Byakko because he's hitting hard as hell (which he does), and couldn't nuke him down fast enough, that your WHMs are hurting for MP, that's a different story.

Triggers plain SUCK. If you know how insanely boring triggers are, you'd seriously want to play another MMO. People get pissed when wipes happen. And if you ca'nt nuke well, then you're going to have a lot of pissed off people, because wipes will be a LOT more common.

Blizzard has no idea what the hell it's doing and should back away from the MMO business. Oh, and I have been playing since Day 1 of that game; So, you can't use that funfun "Have you ever played the game?" excuse. I've done everything there is to do in that game.

It's old.
It's boring.
It just plain fails as an MMO.

It's first concepts were divine, but with all the recent changes.....no thanks.

Anyways, I'll /sign the "Neighborehood watch" thing. However, if taken to an extreme level, this could turn out to be like a 21st century FFXI witch hunt. Beware.

WoW is the biggest MMO in existence. I think Blizzard has to be doing something right. :/

[Neomage]

We win, but it's an annoying ass fight.

Now, you can go out to Rolanberry and buy a trigger for that.

With Gods....that's a different story. If you wipe to Byakko because he's hitting hard as hell (which he does), and couldn't nuke him down fast enough, that your WHMs are hurting for MP, that's a different story.

Triggers plain SUCK. If you know how insanely boring triggers are, you'd seriously want to play another MMO. People get pissed when wipes happen. And if you ca'nt nuke well, then you're going to have a lot of pissed off people, because wipes will be a LOT more common.



WoW is the biggest MMO in existence. I think Blizzard has to be doing something right. :/

As a MMORPG, it plain fails. It's the other... charactaristics(Hacks flying everywhere that over 80% of the playerbase uses), major PvP, the ability to be toatal assholes and not even get told off for it... you get where I'm going.

[Murphie]

Marketing themselves well isn't the same as programming a good game. Anyway, WoW is a lot of fun, but it didn't have the kind of longevity that FFXI has had for me.

I'm kind of with Feba on this. I don't think we're looking at the end of all things.

[Macht]

Yeah, you'd be amazed how well a good marketing plan can sell useless junk. There is a product our company considered buying once to sell at our stores. We didn't know at the time it was such a piece of junk, we did great marketing on it though and got a few millions in dollars worth sold (Approx. 2.2 million of that product).

Some time after that is when we got the flood of complaints of it being defective.

So don't judge it by players it gets alone, the true test is it's retention. How many do they keep year after year? Know that and you got how good it really is.

All I can say is with the quantity you see just on this site alone of people abandoning WoW makes me think it's retention isn't that good.

[DakAttack]

I have to say, I've never actually considered retention to be a character of quality, and I'm a little bit ashamed.

I'd relate it to World of Warcraft and how they havn't exactly retained a single class concept since each ones inception, but I don't feel people would want this thread to go any further in that direction. >_>

[Hamlet]

BLM really isn't fun anymore, though I suppose all end-game is like that. Drama, and furthuring your character.

I really think you just burned out on Mysticmaker. Camping an NM for a really long time and not getting what you want is probably THE most frustrating thing in this game. I highly suggest completely forgetting about the earing. Phantom Earing +1 is probably just as good, and even if it isn't, neither one is really that good.

I camped Argus for a week after mining in Ifrit's for a month. I don't know why I got so gil crazy. I think I just wanted EVERYTHING that a rdm could buy. But anyway, I quit for a year after that.

You can burn out on NM camping. If I were you, I'd take a break from the game, or, if you can, just let the earing go.


Personally I wouldn't mind starting over in a new SE/FF game, even though I already been playing for 2 years (highest lvl jobs are 75 and 69, with a lot of jobs at lvl 37-38).

It's sad but I think I had the most fun up until my first job was lvl 75, and it was downhill from there.

Starting a new character and doing it all over again would never be as fun as starting over in a new game, but whatching the current MMOGs out there, there isn't any other game I feel like playing so I'm kinda at a dead end.

Still having fun with XI, still have plenty of things to do and jobs to lvl, but I wouldn't think twice about starting over on the next MMOG from SE if it was already here.


I feel exactly the same way. That's the problem with goals- once you achieve them, and there's no equally promising goals to replace them, then what? This was my first MMORPG, but I suspect it's a problem with all MMORPGs.

I would be really happy if SE released FFXI-2 tomorrow (or really sad, considering there's this girl I just started hanging out with again, and I'd probably lose her because of it lol)

[Etra]

WoW is the biggest MMO in existence. I think Blizzard has to be doing something right. :/
They did. They promised certain things would be implimented, then totally canned the whole idea a year and a half after release. Hero classes and Siege Weapons, anyone?

the ability to be toatal assholes and not even get told off for it...I reported someone for calling people the "N" word. He didn't even get a warning. (This was in WoW last week.)

ANYWAYS (lol), I'm not sure about other servers, but I haven't seen much hacking on mine (Ramuh). So, I'm not sure what to further say about the topic. After only returning to FFXI today, do have renewed faith that SE will OVERCOME! /bad joke

[Manatra]

They did. They promised certain things would be implimented, then totally canned the whole idea a year and a half after release. Hero classes and Siege Weapons, anyone?

And anyone that knows a bit about balancing could see hero classes being canned from a mile away. The balancing issues and implementation would be a nightmare, at least Blizzard tried. As for siege engines, due to the failure of Blizzard's original vision of Alterac Valley (and subsequent changes), siege engines don't fit into the game anymore. Pointing those out as faults of the game, especially when every article about heroes and siege engines said they were in the conceptual stage, is dumb. Oh and about class nerfing, Blizzard has taken to buffing each class to be of similar power rather than nerfing every class to be equal to the least powerful.

You can't judge retention rates by the people flocking back to the forums, etc. Blizzard is obviously doing something right because it has continued to grow in North America, not shrink.

Anyway, whether FFXI is better than WoW or the other way around; I don't care. There is one big thing that WoW does have over FFXI: Blizzard isn't detached from its player base.

[Neomage]

Mabye your right, I am just burned out... I did end up selling my P. Rope, Aquilio's and Ele.Torquw though. With any luck if I do switch back to BLM I can get the things back cheap because of the upcomming manaburn nerf.

I just hope that less BLMs+more spells = I can finally get into conventional parties again.

[Etra]

And anyone that knows a bit about balancing could see hero classes being canned from a mile away.
But unbalanced Tier 3 gear being used in PvP is better? Riiiiiight....

As for siege engines, due to the failure of Blizzard's original vision of Alterac Valley (and subsequent changes), siege engines don't fit into the game anymore.
I honestly didn't see how AV was a failure. I enjoyeod doing it more with the NPCs.

Pointing those out as faults of the game, especially when every article about heroes and siege engines said they were in the conceptual stage, is dumb.
Conceptual stage, huh? When the word about Hero Classes being 'canned' came out, people went crazy. And when Blizzard used that "it was only in conceptual stage" card, a few people posted interviews with the lead devs that said Hero Classes would be implimented a few weeks after the game went live. They were in the final stages of testing. GG anyone?

Oh and about class nerfing, Blizzard has taken to buffing each class to be of similar power rather than nerfing every class to be equal to the least powerful.
Similar power on paper? Yes. Similar power in-game? No. Try playing a Druid and Paladin at end-game PvP and PvE. Then, play a Warlock and Warrior at end-game PvP and PvE. You'll see what I mean.

Last time I post about WoW and Blizzard in this thread. :p