The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

So when does the "Win Mission BCNM" button get added?

I really hate how they continue to bastardize the missions, particularly given they were my favorite part of the game prior to ToA and WotG.

The solution is pretty easy too.

Give it a difficulty setting/level cap setting
Add desirable rewards for each setting
Make the rewards scale based on said difficultly/level cap.

Making the whole thing easy to stomp is fine, but make sure its less rewarding for the players that take the easy way out.

Put it this way, if you Super Guide a level in Super Mario Galaxy, you don't get a Gold Star, you get a Bronze. Its the games way of shaming you. You still get to progress to the end, but the game tracks your Bronze stars separately. And you can't get the Green Star challenges until you've purged the Bronze Stars by obtaining Gold ones.

Or we could just have a Baby Mode like Prinny 2. You get to win no matter what happesn, but you have to wear a diaper.

That last approach might be better for FFXI now. After you take the easy way out, you have to wear a diaper everywhere until you finish the mission properly.

[Firewind]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Yes because finding people who will actually help you through the Nation Quests, Zilart, CoP , ToAU and the WG missions, or repeat all of them to help you and shell out all of the gill necessary to get consumables and quest items for all of them are easy to find.

Maybe locking new players out of endgame content is the way to go now *shrugs*

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Yes because finding people who will actually help you through the Nation Quests, Zilart, CoP , ToAU and the WG missions, or repeat all of them to help you and shell out all of the gill necessary to get consumables and quest items for all of them are easy to find.

Maybe locking new players out of endgame content is the way to go now *shrugs*

Go back and read my post again.

No where does it say you couldn't get access to endgame zones. Super Guide and Prinny 2's Baby Mode don't stop wimps from seeing the end of the story, its stops them from getting the proper shiny rewards.

My concept would still be to let them have endgame zone access, because that's what you need to see the final boss, but it would bar you from doing the likes of Apocalypse Nigh, Bahamut, Dynamis and Limbus as well as getting things like AA earrings, CoP rings, ToA Rings and the like.

You get completion and your log is notated that you did the bare minimum, just not everything you could have. You get Bronze Star instead of the Gold Star

And why should you? Bronze isn't Gold. Reward should scale with risk and effort.

And by adding lucrative rewards to Mission BCNMs for doing them on a standard or even higher difficulty, you attract high level players to come out and help. Sizable EXP rewards, Gil rewards (once per day), points toward a new piece of armor, weapon, accessory or crafting item..

Gee, that would be kinda like what we have now for other parts of the game.

Greed is the great motivator in MMOs, plain and simple. All the nicest endgame LS members in the world disappear when words like "Missions" get mentioned. Unless there's a shiny involved, that is.

So add more shinies, but don't just give them to people for setting foot in the content, make them work for it.

[Aksannyi]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Q: Very few items are being auctioned at each of the three nations, making it difficult to acquire what I need.

A: An auction house merger is in the pipes for the next major version update, which will make it possible for players to bid for and sell a particular item at all auction houses. As this change may profoundly impact the in-game economy and flow of items and gil, due consideration will be given to all aspects of the merger leading up to its implementation.

Q: Will the item awarded for completing the Treasures of Aht Urhgan missions be made reobtainable in the future?

A: Yes. Players will be given the option of reobtaining the reward item ahead of the next major version update.

Q: I'd like to undertake Fields of Valor training regimes more often than once per Vana'diel day.

A: We are moving to abolish the per-day training limit imposed upon Fields of Valor, and expect to be able to deliver this change ahead of the next major version update. The gil and tab reward allocated for the completion of each regime, however, will be issued no more than once per day.

All of these are amazing and, in my opinion, long overdue. FoV not so much since it's not that old, but but the one-per-day thing was an unnecessary cockblock to leveling.

I like that one specific WHM question. I'm sure all the non-WHMs were glad to hear that SE was working on that pressing issue. I mean don't get me wrong, they should fix their bugs, but answering that question seems almost like a cop out.

"What other questions are there?"
"Two about AV, sixteen about instancing Dynamis, forty-six about SMN, 600 about RDM melee, 10 about new tanking classes, and one about a WHM gear bug."
"Oh let's answer the WHM bug one, I'm sure that's what the players really want to know."

Just kind of made me lol. Now I'm not familiar with the ability and I'm guessing it would be rather annoying if it doesn't work, but one of the items was a Yagrush - how many people have those? And some other gear I'm not familiar with. Wondering how common that stuff is that it's really a big enough issue to pick that one question to answer when they only give us ten in the first place.

Yeah, yeah, ever the cynic, but just seems an odd choice. The other questions I have no issue with, honestly. I guess it just struck me as odd unless it really is a widespread huge deal. (I mean really? Take those peices off and activate the JA.)

Oh well, good changes all around.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

The Orison set is the WHM AF3, if you didn't get that from the +1/+2 reference. Just saying.

That may well have been a cop-out question, but I don't think it should bother you as much as it seems to -- they've answered a lot more questions then they have in the past (normally it's only 3-4).

Although, to be honest, I'm starting to be curious on what some longer-term plans are. The March update should put the level cap to 99 (if it's only 95 I think I'll kill someone), and for some reason I'm getting the impression they're going to do more mini-expansions like Abyssea, not full retail box expansions like CoP/ToAU/WoG. Are there any more of either kind of expansion in the long-term plans? What are they doing to help the balancing for 99? Will they just shove the level cap forward and then adjust over the next year until they're happy?

Don't get me wrong, over-crowding and easier access to things aren't bad, but I guess I also want to know that the game will be around for a sizable amount of time so I can finish all the things they're putting in, too. I mean, you have to admit there's a LOT of content out there, even if you don't look at quests, just mission lines. I really do like all the detail they put in, and I want the chance to fully explore it.

[Aksannyi]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

It's always been ten, as long as I can remember. Although you'd always get stupid ones like "Can we haz cheez sandwiches pl0x?" I'd forgotten about AF3. Are +1s and +2s all that common though? They weren't when I played, but then again I know the game has changed a lot. I just didn't think it was a huge issue. Just an annoyance, like "You were unable to change your equipped items." spammed 15 times in Salvage. (lol)

Good to see they fix bugs, just seems for a Q & A it was a cop out question. Then again, the playerbase doesn't always ask good ones (see above) so maybe this was one of the best in the bunch.

[Truece]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Well what I do right now is this. I keep my HP at P. Jeuno. If I want to go to Bastok, I teleport myself to one of the crystals, use the FoV book (because I have over 20k tabs) and repatrition myself there.

There's also Field Manuals right outside of Port/Lower/Upper Jeuno, for those people who aren't always WHM or /WHM.

If I want to go to WG, I do the same thing, and then use the NPC to poof me to WG from P. Basty for only 300 gil.

There is a WG Warp NPC in Upper Jeuno. Just gotta do the Lure of the Wildcat quest in Jeuno.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Unless they announce some major new content additions to the game I see these changes as merely quality-of-life adjustments for the remaining few players still logging in to FFXI.

[Neverslip]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

remaining few

Exaggeration. There are still quite a lot of players... of course not as much when MMO options were limited and this game was newer but there are many people still playing and people of old returning to a inhospitable (yet easier at high level) game. "Remaining few" ... hahaha...

[Aksannyi]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

I have been reading through some of the huge threads (pet peeve, best/latest accomplishment) and I have gotten some nostalgia for this game. I probably would have returned by now if I still had an account.

[Malacite]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Now I'm not familiar with the ability

It speeds up casting of status removal magic and lowers enmity for them.

[Aksannyi]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

I guess that's kind of nice ... don't really remember pulling hate from status cures, but I'm sure it has its uses. Situationally.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Exaggeration. There are still quite a lot of players... of course not as much when MMO options were limited and this game was newer but there are many people still playing and people of old returning to a inhospitable (yet easier at high level) game. "Remaining few" ... hahaha...

Compared to what it was 2-3 years ago, "remaining few" is an accurate enough summation of the population. Unless you view server merges and AH consolidation as indicative of a healthy population.

[Neverslip]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

Compared to what it was 2-3 years ago, "remaining few" is an accurate enough summation of the population. Unless you view server merges and AH consolidation as indicative of a healthy population.

Blah blah blah... "remaining few" is inaccurate and an exaggeration.

[Aksannyi]

Re: The Final Fantasy XI Team Answers Your Questions! (01/20/2011)

I can agree with both. I mean every day, I'm surprised at how many people (both here and on BG) still play FFXI, but on the other hand, I remember how dead the game was when I quit.