[FFXI] How long is too long?

[c8fe]

Originally Posted by Diatribe

I can see in a months timeframe, that unless something is changed, Square's going to be sitting around going "Geee.....why aren't the players going after this boss? Why? Why?"

Oh, I'm sure there will be 1-2 Linkshells to do it, then NO ONE ELSE will ever do it. Jeez and I remember how much the old God/Avatar fights in EQ1 sucked. (at least from a clerics perspective).

The secret to making clerics fun was playing alot of them at once. I remember doing some raids running 3 of the 6 clerics in the CH chain. Made it so I was forced to stay awake and move around as opposed to sitting there pressing a macro every 10 seconds and occasionaly manually pressing on a fizzle. Playing just one cleric was so boring.



On the topic of the 18 hour encounter, I don't know about everyone else here but I spent something like 18 hours straight camping quillmane back in my hardcore EQ days and I know monks who spent days straight on raster. Sure it wasn't quite as intensly focused and I could take a break, but don't act like none of us havn't ever done something like this considering the audience this board appeals to. That doesn't change the fact that an 18 hour boss fight is absolutely retarded, vulak was something like 45 minutes and was just insanely boring because he was pitiful once slowed. The only thing that made the encounter challenging was when a shaman fell asleep and slow faded resulting in a wipe because no one even has their heals hotkeyed.

[Rezz]

I sort of dig on the idea of content released in one expansion that isn't beatable for a few, then after enough power gains the content is managable and people go back and own it. 18 hours, if that's the real intended time, is fucking retarded, period. FFXI power gains haven't been that massive from expansion to expansion, so I'm really curious what the developers were actually thinking.

[Saban]

Any fight longer than 20 minutes is too fucking long, some of you people are insane.

[m A n i a]

Originally Posted by Vinen

Has anyone even managed to decently emulate a FFXI Online Server? I remember hearing about a group of people working on it a few years ago but never heard if anything came of it.

I don't think anyone has created one. I remember reading about a group of people a couple of years ago trying to create one, but I remember reading that it failed because it wasn't exactly possible. Something about they way SQE ran their servers, and the data made it too tough to do it. I think, actually, it had to do with POL itself, and that you can only run FFXI through POL so it wasn't possible to change the host, or something.

Don't quote me on any of this

» ProjectXI.org :: A Final Fantasy XI Emulator

Originally Posted by ProjectXI FAQ

Last Updated: 07/12/2008
First, to those of you who refuse to or are somehow incapable of reading a F.A.Q., note this: There is currently no fully-functional FFXI server emulator available, nor do we know when one will be. When one is available, information will be posted in the Project XI News Forum. Please, do not ask us when the emulator will be released or where you can obtain it. These questions only waste our members' time.

Apparently, you'd have to have an open Content ID to be able to even connect to a PXI server, if they existed.

[r3probate]

Originally Posted by Rezz

I sort of dig on the idea of content released in one expansion that isn't beatable for a few, then after enough power gains the content is managable and people go back and own it.

Yeah, this pretty much should never happen, ever.

Maybe the content should be terribly hard at the beginning of an expansion but after you've farmed kara and gruul and magtheridon you have a shot at killing vashj and kael? You know, in a way that makes sense?

[Bongk]

Agreed that was a pretty stupid statement, why would you waste dev time on content that can not be beaten for years. Just a waste of time an energy and a way to piss off your player base.

[Aria]

Originally Posted by Bongk

Agreed that was a pretty stupid statement, why would you waste dev time on content that can not be beaten for years. Just a waste of time an energy and a way to piss off your player base.

Uh yep... quit FFXI when I realized they made Sea unbeatable for no reason at all.

Thank you for the memories Square Enix but fuck you.

[Ninen]

Originally Posted by r3probate

Yeah, this pretty much should never happen, ever.

Maybe the content should be terribly hard at the beginning of an expansion but after you've farmed kara and gruul and magtheridon you have a shot at killing vashj and kael? You know, in a way that makes sense?

18hrs is insane, but, personally, I see no good reason *against* tier overlap.

The fact you keep coming back to "old content" after an expansion boosts your power enough to now handle it keeps that content alive and makes your game world a better, more cohesive place. *now this assumes that this uber old content has new content level rewards on par with its difficulty*

Blizzards way of doing it, where each expansion invalidates 99% of old content, is pure ass. Its a single player game sequel mentality, not a MMO one.

The dichotomy of this design philosophy combined with their continued insistence that folks go back to starting towns for AH/trainers/etc just so these areas never seem like ghost towns flat out boggles my mind. And god knows, they've got enough unused content hooks floating around old-world still... It's still only be a token effort, but would it really have been that hard to give us lvl 70 Grim Batol with TBC, and lvl 80, Uldamonimonacona (or whatever) in Tanaris with WotlK?

Assuming they gave us new AH's/trainers in Shat and [whatever the WotLK equivalent(s) are]; they could easily have Azeroth get sucked to the ocean floor, for all that it matters. Make that part of a cinematic when you hit level 58 and migrate to Outlands. Then when you leave Outlands for Northrend at 68, TBC could spiral into the sun. Bingo, lore fits the reality of the game.

[Ephron]

This pisses me off. I already Ctrl+A+Del my first thoughts.

I play ffxi on Seraph (51 war), I enjoy the game because it's a challenge. I've camped VE against 5 other players and won the claim and got my pin, my heart was racing, it was exciting. But this is demotivating to me. My ambition is to experience the end game, but what is anyone leveling up for to hit a wall like this? I'm level 51 right now and I love leveling up, exp chain 5 makes me hot, but I've spent 45 minutes duoing Dozekar, an hour+ on Acidic Mass. An easy 12h trying to clear PoTime in one go. I read the post by the Blt member, a projected 20-24h for their LS.

Not to totally hate on SE though, I've done stupid shit in games before (mostly EQ). Camped Rage Fire for 5 days straight because we didn't form up fast enough the first time and lost claim (to farsight). Spent 27hours in Velks at US exping to finally pass out at my keyboard. I've spent longer than 18h playing a game but this isn't just one person, this is as many people as you're LS has.

[r3probate]

Yeah, I think it'd be fun to still have a reason to do Naxx/AQ/BWL in the current expansion, and why not, do Black Temple in WotLK, but you implied that you wanted them nigh-UNBEATABLE in their prime. This is batshit fucking retarded design and is worse than having the old world fade away except as anything as a curiosity as it is now.

Running back through tanaris to go see Uldum (hi2u running through tanaris to go to CoT) isn't going to fix anything about tanaris or make the old world more relevant. Adding Grim Batol as an instance or quest hub in the wetlands isn't going to do anything but get more lowbie alliance ganked.

[Rezz]

I still fail to see any downsides from having a couple of mobs in the game that aren't intended to be defeated until an expansion has been released to amp power enough to make em doable. I'm not talking adding a raid zone that isn't meant to be beaten with 5-6 bosses and storyline that took months to design. I'm saying having an AoW scenario where a mob or two in the game simply are too badass for even the best of the best to down till the next expansion. Nothing like having an entire expansion devoted to Illidan and then having him be broken impossible to beat, keeping people from finishing the expansion or something equally silly. I'm talking random badass in the hills who simply rapes face when people attack him being "unbeatable" until an expansion is released to amp power levels. It's the exact same thing as creating a solo raid boss for the next expansion, only it's already in the game. Doesn't add or remove development time from the game and requires no additional expenditures.

Like I said, I fail to see the downside besides someone simply disliking the idea.

[r3probate]

So is this new badass in the hills going to have req level 80 loot or req level 70 loot? WoW already experimented with optional butt-rape bosses (see Viscidus) and how many people bothered to kill him? Even raid-stacked with druids and priests and C'thun on farm my alliance guild had tons of trouble on him. Or kill Lord Kri last? I don't know anyone who actually bothered there. You could make an argument that Netherspite and Nightbane were optional "challenges", I suppose.

Regardless, all you're saying to me is "waste dev time on unkillable content for the current expansion so that the next expansion will have more content in place".

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Rezz

I still fail to see any downsides from having a couple of mobs in the game that aren't intended to be defeated until an expansion has been released to amp power enough to make em doable. I'm not talking adding a raid zone that isn't meant to be beaten with 5-6 bosses and storyline that took months to design. I'm saying having an AoW scenario where a mob or two in the game simply are too badass for even the best of the best to down till the next expansion. Nothing like having an entire expansion devoted to Illidan and then having him be broken impossible to beat, keeping people from finishing the expansion or something equally silly. I'm talking random badass in the hills who simply rapes face when people attack him being "unbeatable" until an expansion is released to amp power levels. It's the exact same thing as creating a solo raid boss for the next expansion, only it's already in the game. Doesn't add or remove development time from the game and requires no additional expenditures.

Like I said, I fail to see the downside besides someone simply disliking the idea.

what is the upside? It is a waste of time and space unless you are looking to have the effect of griffons in commonlands.

[Jubee]

Originally Posted by Rezz

It's the exact same thing as creating a solo raid boss for the next expansion, only it's already in the game. Doesn't add or remove development time from the game and requires no additional expenditures.

Like I said, I fail to see the downside besides someone simply disliking the idea.

So skinning, itemizing, scripting this new butt-rape boss takes 0 dev time? They just press a magic "add butt-rape boss" button on their keyboard and he's ready to go? Making sure there are no geometry sploits or charm tanking glitches that filled the EQ Cheaters thread happens instantly?

[Ssinurn]

While 18hours + is crazy for one fight (barring old school camping type scenarios). FFXI isn't exactly the type of game where people run out of stuff to do. I haven't ever really heard that as a complaint. Sure some things could be improved, but they release content in a timely manner, and uber LSs in game almost never beat all the content.

Between Einherjar, Dynamis, Sky, Sea, that new worm they just added, old kings, BCNMs, Limbus, Salvage, Beseiged, etc etc most end game LS's have to decide which things they concentrate on. It's not even humanly possible to do all the stuff anyway.

So as far as taking dev resources, sure, but its not a scenario where people are constantly needing more raids in FFXI. Square isn't also known for having buggy releases and they are able to do internal testing on their raid content, so really, where is the harm?

I do support that they should have spent more time (when the game was new) on the UI and lower player engaging content. I don't think that they'd get a huge increase over their 500k subs by doing that now, so I hope they keep it in mind for future games.