Any One Else Think SE Is Falling Apart Lately?

I think the fact that SE has 'killed off' some of their other series (Chrono, Star Ocean) hasn't helped as well. I dont even remember the last Parasite Eve game to come out

The 3rd Birthday (Parasite Eve 3) came out in 2011 for PSP, thats rather recent.

But I get your point that SE has seemingly shelved certain titles for w/e reasons they have. Expect Final Fantasy Basketball or whatever cashin they can come up with at this point.

When I come back I'll gather up some friends who have been on break as well in addition to some new people who have similar goals. Been doing that periodically ever since Abyssea killed off 90% of the old mega LS's, and I had to start thinking for myself vs going with the flow. Getting the SoA missions/quests I haven't finished done, Delve weapons, and hopefully the unlocking of empy weaponskills won't be too far off. That should keep me busy for a while. At least long enough to gauge how the 14 reboot is progressing.

My only complaint about SoA and XI is that I feel they're just launching content way too fast... I don't know if that's an attempt to keep people interested or what, but I've seen at least two "events" become nearly obsolete within a week or two of launch: skirmish and naakual.

Case in point: I was one of the first people to flush a pair of tlalpoloani on this site when they were all like "omgwtf," then literally within a week they launch rigor baghnakhs, which was fun for a little while, and now I don't even have no use for those anymore because of oatixur lol... I'm just confused as to what they're trying to accomplish with this insanely high weapon turnover rate.

On a positive note: I do like the fact that the SoA expansion is actually "hard" after what we've gotten used to in the past.

My only guess is they wanted to give people as much to do as possible very quickly by releasing several levels of content without really think that they may have been overloading people reactions. It wasn't handled particularly well and it seems like they may have already realized given some of what was said today.

I'm replaying ff12 now, and for how bad i thought the story was, it's like 100x better than 13's >.>;

12 is actually extremely underrated imo. I'm playing the International Zodiac Job edition now on emulator and loving it.

13's story is actually good if you just focus on the story itself. I thought it was horrible when I first played it, giving me negative feelings going into 13-2, and didn't finish playing it.

Since then I rewatched the cutscenes for 13, and the story isn't as bad as I once thought it was, and it made much more sense going into 13-2.

A lot of the story for 13-2 is in the datalogs and fragments, as well as talking to NPC's, something I missed greatly when playing 13.

It doesn't really change anything about the 2 games though, because gameplay was horrible not being able to control the movement of your characters. They stepped backwards from 12, and some of the music is just absolutely horrible in 13. The boss battle music in 13-2... I wish I could change the music so bad.

I won't put 13 near 12 though, I loved 12 so much.

12 has the same story as 9, a Princess is trying to save her kingdom, super generic. The difference is, 9 had great characters like Vivi, 12 had a horrible cast. 13's story was bad with a bad cast. It was perfectly understandable, it just sucked, which set up the ***story of 13-2. Which sets up the ***story that will be 13-3. SE has definitely lost its way in terms of story telling and casting.

I have been looking forward to trying out a way to make Fantasy Blitzball happen....

If you want to look at it in a very super generic way, sure I guess. I wouldn't have made that comparison however. Garnet has to save her kingdom but how she goes about it and everything that is involved is so much different than what Ashe dealt with. The overall story and theme from 9 is vastly different (and in my opinion far superior) to that of 12's.

What's The 3rd Birthday? I don't know what you're talking about, I do agree a new Parasite Eve game would be swell though. Knowing SE though, they might do something horrible to the franchise like completely derail Aya's character and objectify her with all kinds of superfluous game mechanics or something

I'm one of the people that thinks 13 is one of the better entries in the series, really. I liked 12, but I feel that it suffered from Matsuno leaving. The narrative felt almost confused at times, in its emphases.

It's been a long time since 12, though, and I'm actually hoping they do a rerelease of it for PS3 like they're doing with 10, as I want to revisit it soon and see if another playthrough is kinder to it.

My new puppy went on a rampage. She ate my wallet, credit cards, xbox controller and went to my stack of xbox 360 games. Out of nearly 200 discs she pulled out FF13-2 and ate it. Now I can be mad at the wallet and credit cards but picking out that one disc to eat? I can't punish brilliance.

I guess the direction I was trying to get information on was what direction is this PUSH for XI going in ......

The History of the company is interesting I didn't know they have really only produced about 3-4 full games...

if FINAL FANTASY XI is there single most profitable title they cant be trying to ruin it or turn us on to XIV can they??....

When Abyssea was released I thought the game was going to a smaller party formation for events 3-8 man. They would revamp old endgame to be relevant at Lvl99. And then SoA would be just more Content, possibly more difficult, but targeted at Lvl99 players. Not Completely Trump Everything before SoA now it seems to be going back up to 12-18 man And this new Content overwrites All


Does this mean they are again trying to change the direction of the game Again totally?.......


Also I don't think some things where meant to turn over in this game due to certain complications ---

( Dynamis Limbus Einherjar Nyzul Salvage WoE REM's Etc...Isn't this why they revamped all of it to make it Relevant at 99 )

not enough space
not enough programmers
not enough finances

----These Issues not a problem anymore? ----


-- Now we are seeing a whole new Mog House system in August which will probably include a faster crafting method or a way to produce our own materials easier....

-- The Huge Huge Huge Damage Increase to Melee Weapons which in a way breaks a lot of old endgame Salvage Dynamis Abyssea ....
....

-- They Keep Tweaking things ...is there something behind these updates....


Adjustments to Defense and Enmity System
Elemental Magic Adjustments
One-handed and Ranged Weapon Adjustments


And they seem to be rolling out New top end gear that is replacing everything else available in the game after they just revamped the old endgame...(I understand everyone wants new content but we have never seen anything like this)


currently only a few pieces from NNI and Abyssea are worth while and I presume those will gone soon too ....


So my Question is this -----

Does anyone have any speculations as to what they are trying to accomplish overall?

And now they are adding Huge Damage increases to weapons WHY?

They are replacing All the Endgame they just redid WHY?

or are these all just small fixes with no bigger goal in mind?

Are they trying to restructure the entire game?
(HP = Physical Damage = MP cost = Enmity = Defense = Magic Damage)



I've got a lot of Questions and not really sure if anyone has any of these answers but just figured I would throw them out there and see.....

Their explicitly stated intent was to create a tiered progression system similar to that of other current MMOs where progression up a content ladder allows you to collect progressively stronger gear that can be used to tackle harder content. Currently, the highest level content are the Fracture Naakuals and all content that will be released in the near future will produce gear that will help in the progression towards fracture clears.

As to why the newly released gear blows most previous gear out of the water has to do with the fact that the developers don't want to further increase the level cap. Instead, they'll be releasing gear that increases in item level and quality. For example, the current fracture Naakual gear is equivalent to what a character level of 120 would wear while the gear we've obtained from pre-Adoulin content is equivalent to gear of a character of level 99.

Their biggest snafu is trying to force people on a set path with giving you very little options. They should have focus on 3-6 people contents and let everyone start embracing the idea of grouping, assigning roles and fighting progressively harder tiered bcnm or NMs and upgrading your gears along the way. Pretty much a slow evolution of what the majority somewhat used to with the myriad of options pre-SoA. People love new gears, but I doubt they love fighting it out with 17 other players lol.

The 18 person contents is not that popular in the last 3 years. Legion is DOA, Walk of Echoes is DOA, the only thing that is quite popular is Voidwatch. Or doing 18 people farming and getting exp-merit. At least they realize this and now is going back to focus on small group and solo contents, and trying to give people some options to clear basic SoA events without having to always need help all the time. Delve should have been released in Dec, after the majority of players are being eased back in into the "skillful party play" lol. Maybe after they release the new 1 hours JA updates and R/M/E updates.