October 2023 Version Update

Diminishing resources to ffxi is an "active move". I also would suggest that every year indeed since 2011 the execs ask themselves how to get active ffxi players to migrate to ffxiv and each time realize we just wont shake free. Of course they don't want to release that revenue all at once, which is why ffxi has been on an depreciation/amortization plan.

There's a big difference between "don't invest resources into an ancient game which has no realistic chance of growth" and actively sabotaging the game by introducing shitty content to try to get people to quit.

They're passively neglecting the game in favor of their other game (with 100x the subscribers), but that's not the same as actively sabotaging it.

You could also say that Blizzard isn't putting as much development effort into maintaining their D2 servers or content as they are their D4 servers/content. No ***, one of them is an ancient game with a small but devoted following, the other is a massive brand new project they're trying to court players towards. Which one would you put a marketing budget in, if you were an executive? This is like business 101, and if you tried to tell someone they need to put out ads for a 20 year old MMO to drum up interest they'd laugh you out of the room before you could even begin to ask them for more developers to learn how to code new jobs for the expansion you have planned.

Going into hyperbole here. This isn't what I am saying, maybe it was what Celebrindal meant, but I didn't take it like that.

An argument could be made that it is shitty content, and they knew it was shitty content yet they put it out anyway which is negligence or worse.


Exactly, thank you for supporting what I've been saying. Seems pretty clear to me also.

Next time I totally forget to plan a 20th anniversary for 3 years I pray the people are just as forgiving as maletaru

The game has been pronounced dead and they've told us for years that they're never going to produce new content for it. For 20th anniversary we got:
-New battle content (Sortie)
-New items (Earrings, Empy+3)
-New ultimate weapons
-New zones (Sortie meh rehash, the battlefield for TVR, the library)
-New story

I mean, you could say you don't like Sortie, the earring system, the primes, the zones, or the story, but it's not like they didn't do anything. Taste is subjective and running around slinging your opinions as though they're cold hard facts everyone agrees upon isn't going to change that.

In 2015 they said the game will stop receiving major updates. There are articles from 2015 talking about FFXI going into maintenance mode, and explicit statements from the company saying they will not be updating it anymore as a cost-savings measure to keep the lights on. I'm sure you don't view adding the content above as worthy of a 20th anniversary because you don't like it, but that doesn't change the fact that they made MAJOR updates to a game after saying they wouldn't be doing that anymore.

I don't get where you are coming from.


I mean, unless you've been under a rock, everyone doesn't like

From all accounts its been a massive failure.

Pretty much everything Hopalong says seems to be blindly negative, very biased against XI, and honestly pretty cringe to read. But, it's still straight denial to pretend anything relating to sortie or TVR was a success.

Jesus, did you just insult me then agree with me?

Well, define success. They're still all doing it even though they hate it.

And will continue to. Begrudgingly or not, it's still being done. Every daily cycle.

I thought my point was pretty clear, but to clarify further: comments like


Are saying "there was no 20th anniversary" or "they said there was going to be a big celebration and then didn't release anything"

There are comments all over the forums about "did I miss the 20 year anniversary? What were they talking about? They hyped up the 20th anniversary like they were going to do something and then released nothing"

My point is: they released all kinds of stuff. If you don't like the content, that's fine, but you can't pretend they didn't do a 20th anniversary thing. They didn't "forget it" for 3 years, they were actively releasing patches with content for 3 years. They developed new mechanics, balanced (I know, stfu) the bosses, designed the area layouts, the objectives, decided on the stats for the rings, earrings, all the other items from TVR, made cutscenes, combat encounters, wrote dialog, etc. and released it over the course of months/years. It is incredibly clear that lots of people put lots of work into this anniversary celebration.

Maybe you don't like it. That's fine. Maybe you've read a bunch of comments on FFXIAH and participated in some echo chambers which have lead you to believe that everyone in the entire universe thinks it's a wet fart of a celebration. I think you're 1.) applying extremely broad strokes with the brush of "everyone hates it" and 2.)Literally saying that nothing was released, which is factually untrue

I enjoy Sortie way more than I enjoy Omen, Dynamis [D], Vagary, Odyssey seg farms, Delve, Sinister Reign, Gaes Fete, Unity NMs, and probably a half dozen other events. It might be my favorite event right now, and especially during the discovery period where people were discussing strategies, finding secrets, etc. it was an absolute blast. I loved researching stuff, reading the strats, trying things out, changing out jobs, etc.

I thought the story was a bit cheesy and very JRPG, but no better/worse than any of the other vague nonsense FFXI has offered in the past.

The earring system makes +2 earrings, especially on jobs you want to play, exceedingly rare. I think an exchange system should be in place for jobs you never play, but that's not really in keeping with FFXI's game design. There are about a million places in FFXI where you can get gear you don't want instead of the gear you do want and there's no possible exchange and like...3 places where you can exchange?

What game have you guys been playing for the last 20 years? KC is .001% chance to drop, Crep armor has .01% chance to drop, Omen bodies are ~1% chance to drop, Regal Cuffs are 1% chance to drop, the pulse weapons are sub-1% chance to drop, Annointed Kalasiris has 1% chance to drop, Volte bodies have a 1% chance to drop. That's what this game does. If you want to get tokens for completing content and then turn them in for your favorite job's gear, you're playing the wrong game.

Most of the content wasn't added on or around the 20th anniversary, it came in the year that followed.

Aside from those who thought something flat out infeasible/impractical was going to happen (e.g. new client, full expansion, etc), I think disappointment came from people expecting something on the date/month of the anniversary. IIRC in an interview later, they pointed out that they considered it a year long event, not a day/month of thing. Maybe that's their revisionism, maybe they missed timelines (I doubt this considering how spread out it was), maybe it was a mistranslation, whatever. Point was, the day and month came/went without much to speak of and it seemed like nothing was happening aside from a bunch of webcasts and merch.

IMO, beefs with the content aside, I think their mistake was not going into more detail about the new content so people got a better taste of what was coming, both with Primes, Empy +2/+3, and Sortie. Instead we got obscure references to new battle systems, Prime weapons (with no details or images, in contrast to what we got when Mythic and Empyrean weapons were teased), and some other things, all buried in what was largely content focused on the early game or nostalgia. I don't blame people for being disappointed, they could have gone into more detail about their plans for the year instead of emphasize content most endgame players don't care about.

For me, Empy +2/+3 and v25 were the only updates I actually liked and I think Sortie/Primes flopped for many, but the webcasts still should've emphasized what was coming instead of what they did.

Sortie was FINE as an engaging enough Vagary 2.0-esque event designed to get Empy +2/+3 armor upgrades. I'm totally OK with it for that purpose. Would go so far as to call it a very successful and well designed event it that's what it was destined to be for, especially considering the significant development limitations. Ability to make progress solo, figure out the objectives, get some additional rewards in earrings - all perfectly sound decisions.

But OMG, having to also grind that same event out for Primes to the extent required to make those was... quite a choice. Effectively requiring a 6-person static and near daily hour-long runs to make progress in a reasonable time is also a real kick in the teeth.

Imagining a Sortie without the Prime grind attached, maybe make a couple tweaks like giving bosses item drops for some additional longevity, and adjusting the earring drops a bit (better +2 drop rate, ability to trade in multiple earrings for your choice or a better tier item, etc.)... Hell, I'd have been willing to argue that would be one of the better events we've seen. It's really just the way they implemented Prime weapon acquisition that leaves people with an especially sour taste about the entire event.

And yes, I know you can just ignore Primes and do Sortie solely for Empy upgrades. And I know if they were gonna make Primes, they had to find some grind somewhere. But the way they mashed those together as a whole somehow devalues even the separate parts in my mind. I don't think I'm alone.

In particular, the more I see of the XIV Dawntrail expansion explicitly channeling XI with Vana'diel raids, an Aht Urghan-ish world (with Gulool Ja Ja!), etc... the more I think this is one of the larger and more focused efforts to once again attempt to migrate XI people onto the "current" MMO.

It really comes across as CBU3 seeming to view XI as an annoyance to maintain, like they kind of wish it would just go away so they didn't have to deal with it any more.

Allow up to 18 people to enter and we can dispense with the "6 person iron man static" nonsense.

But mercssssss

18 man sortie sounds awesome, we can just do stuff while shoot the ***instead of always GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

Yeah? Till you remember you have to herd everyone into the boss room for credit

Small price to pay if I can revive a LS or two

I honestly wouldnt mind if they imposed some "one job per entry" restriction. If anything, it'll force people to gear up and use different jobs instead of winding up with 3 parties of DD DD WHM BRD COR GEO

They pay subs. That makes them customers. Aren't those always right according to everyone's rationale about what SE owes them? ;)


Nope. F them people. Dinner is at 7PM not 7:05. If they are late and not essential, then they go hungry.

Not reading all that. I'm happy for you or I hope it gets better

Its time to let this argument against things die (I know in your case it was done sarcastically, but not to many who read it). At some level people have to accept that the limits that keep merc mentality in check also limit our ability to help honest brokers and friends we want to. You gotta take some of the bad to get the good.

Plus- if some fool honestly wants to pay gil towards Sortie muffins and segments in 2 year-old+ content, let 'em. It doesn't slow down your gameplay one bit, or interfere with your personal enjoyment.

I used to *** a ton about "those fakers" who bought MLs running around all proud of their ML45+ afk'd jobs....but I had to step back and realize, "does this honestly change how I play?"

Alliance content is 2-4 dudes with their buffbots and healbots and the remaining slots leeches.

They don't want the 1% carrying (dragging) the bottom 95% expediting the expiration of their content thats supposed to last 5+ years.

You don't like it, but you're still doing it. If it was alli content it'd be done and over already. (Sortie would have 6 months, a second prime as alli, instead of multiple years as party)

You'd have 15 trillion segments and every R30 saying there's nothing to do.

All right, Negative Nancy- you know I agree with your comments more often than not, but really....at some point people have to decide if dying servers full of AFK folks waiting for their 1 hour to do something; or worse yet, waiting 3 hours to try and find that 6th; or even worse yet, being some group's 7th just hoping someone is sick are worse than "finishing stuff too fast".

Then show the people who made that decision they're wrong by playing a different game that has larger group content

Cause you keep doing it means you like it. No matter what you say about it. Numbers on the screen don't care how you feel about it.

C-Suite cares about yes or no. They don't give a *** about why. Until you make them.

I did and it doesn't mean I have to like it.

They don't understand that SE are looking at this from a business perspective and doing what will retain subs for the longest time possible. Players will always look at doing things the quickest and easiest route which generally means alliance.

The people who play the game are talking.

This guy never has any clue what he's talking about.

The Ody discussion in the RMT bots thread is about how people cant even clear V20's because everyone is in statics, or quit because someone else from the static quit and no one wants to drag someone back up through the content. I wouldnt either.

People had enough Muffins to upgrade to stage 5 before the forced 6 month Psyche lockout.


Meanwhile this guy makes threads about how the XI population is becoming smaller and smaller every month, but every time the people who ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME speak up on why people are quitting, he's always "but mercs, but this, but that".

True story:
Eiryl: "Everything is Naegling savageblade, thats all people do with their 5 buffbot mules"
People who play the game: "Maybe if they got rid of the nuke wall, people would actually SC + MB instead of only using it for one NM in the entire game because it absolutely neuters physical damage and nuking through the wall is still better DPS"
Eiryl: "NOOOOOO you cant do that because then everything will become magic burst alliances"

Get the *** out of here with that Negative Nancy garbage.