Thread For Q&A @ Meet And Greet

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/56412-Ask-Questions-for-Director-Yoji-Fujito-and-Producer-Akihiko-Matsui

No Cheese Sandwiches.

Ah, I figured we would be asking questions while we were there. Makes sense though. Theyll need to prepare their dodge and weave respones in advance.

I think I had two questions I was gonna ask them. When is empyrean +3 and is the game going to see a graphics overhaul or some sort of clue to 2023 or whatever they're so excited about.

Ask the old "No DRG for party" question

instead of contributing in the proper thread and hope to be part of the stimulating, original, and reasoned discussion that video game fans are known for at Fan Events, I say we turn this in to "what's the dumbest question that will be asked and yet still answered at PAX East?"

(for the record, any question along the lines of "what do you have planned for 2023" is that question. They teased it a year ago. There's 3 years left to go. You don't tease something 4 years in advance to then reveal it 3 years in advance.....they ain't telling you.)

Whats the secret to avoid mimic in AMAN trove

How can i find Rancibus

Overcapping th gear has any effect on th procs

Those are my never answered questions

Well it's a 3hr event. They're definitely not going to say anything. But theres always their dumb hints they like to drop. Like the hint of something so far in the future. At this rate, if it's a classic free to play bull crap. That'll fail tremendously. Theres always the hints of what it wont be that I'd like to know.

The only thing I truly hope for any more is SE being aware they aren't capable of attracting new players to FFXI in numbers that justify trying to recruit them, so they're better off serving their current customers and keeping them subscribed vs popping in and out.

I wanna know what kinda swag Ima be missing out on :(

I fear trying to "modernize" FFXI to be more like current online game offerings. Based on conversations I have in game with those I hang with plus my personal feelings on it (about as far from scientific as we can get^^), we play FFXI because its NOT like more recent games. It IS a grind, and we prefer that (within limits).

The quality of life changes for the most part have been good. Not gonna argue that. But any move towards an "SE Store" concept or F2P model would be the end of my time in vana'diel, and pretty sure I'm not alone here.

If they want to keep current players active, give us a nice 12 month outline with legitimate details of what plans are. Tell us that over the next year the follow 6-8 jobs will get their adjustments. That X number of new HTBFs will be released, one in Y month, one in Z month. Major content will be released in Fall, with new endgame material. If I see even just an outline, but one with hard commitments by SE they can't fudge out of, I'd feel a lot better in terms of the direction of the game. Right now, it just feels like they have 1 idea for 2-3 years from now and are throwing month-old parade candy at me until Santa Claus comes at the end.

"Please look forward to more level 1 daggers with wild and crazy styles"

I agree. But also disagree. They definitely wont ever attract new players. But a graphics overhaul and removing a lot of the old limitations to the game. I think it would flood in a whole lot of old players. Maybe same kind of numbers they saw on the games original release. But if that means starting over again. Nope, I'd be done.

Theres a lot of people who seem to know SE financial capabilities on here and a lot of computer science people who actually understand what it would take for them to pull something like that off and know it's not possible for them.

Theres no way their mind set is just to keep current players happy. They're a business. I'd hope they'd still want to grow :/

If i were to post, it would be along these lines (and if any of these have been asked/answered before please let me know so it's not a waste if i hit the forum).

1) is it technically feasible to reduce / remove the 3-sec casting lockout, with the intent to allow support jobs to have more actions in battles (more -na spells) with an added bonus of raising mage DPS, so nukes could be more than spike damage.

2) why the ****(capital asterisks) do (mage) weapons like the Dynamis JSE have Melee traits when the overall trend in equipment does not allow these augments to synergize with a 'real' melee type of build. Get rid of them and provide something more specific to a mage playstyle. Or give us a trait that doesnt allow us to lose TP when swapping weapons (lol)

3) Love & Support your mages, because they support you.

I want a new expansion to the far east, new jobs time mage and chemist

Will we ever get more inventory space?

Didn't quote the rest of your post, but I do agree the things you mention would be lovely for us currently here without dramatically changing the gameplay style that is now so unique, and may bring back old players familiar with the game and curious about an "overhaul". Again though, your points on cost/capability are ones that are the real questions at hand and I have no intimate knowledge of SE or even basic coding knowledge.

In regards to what I grabbed from your post to quote- I think that they proved with FFXIV that their way of growing is to invest in the development of NEW games while creating a maintenance environment for existing titles. Face it- if it weren't for the success of the RoV storyline and connected content, that was intended to be the final development of the game. After that, it was meant to be just in coast mode. Everything after that point has been essentially gravy.

And from a pure business standpoint, it does make sense. Develop new content so you're on the cusp of gaming publications/sites regarding what's "new" to constantly attract those gamers who bounce from title to title with every new release, hope to hold on to enough to justify the development. Create a low cost way to maintain that product and hold those who now are in love with it, and do what's needed to keep them attached and paying. But put a majority of resources-both financial and personnel- into developing the "next big thing". Its that way in pretty much any industry.

When will the next Login-Campaign for Empyrean Aby Items be? (Been 7+ months since last one).

People are just so pessimistic. Yes they can grow the game and get new and old players back, they just need to invest in the damn thing like they do XIV.

Man. No matter how hard they keep squeezing the stone it's never going to bleed. It just makes (more) sense to pump 14. It's just business. It's irresponsible to invest in a 20 year old game, unless you're going to fully re-release it (lolmobile) and MMO as a genre is dead and needs to die the rest of the way.

And since I bothered to post now; Chemist and Timemage. Chemist is an actual possible real job that could happen. Monberaux will be a Chemist, so the planning is there. Timemage pretty much already exists. Slow I/II Slowga Haste I/II Hastega Meteor Stop(Terror) Demi(Ooze) Don'tMove(Bind). Reflect straight up breaks the game (not just fully and entirely negating all enemy spells, but making all spells player targetable to use reflect fundamentally breaks the actual game). Not really gonna happen.

Plenty of older MMO's still getting support and making a profit, SE is just sleeping on XI.

They don't have to do much of anything to keep the prisoners they already have.

Still supported and still makes money as is. Enough new gain won't come from putting in more work. Do you really think there's 10k teens that want to pick up XI? 10k people that want to come back and get rebanned? Even with a brand new x-pack.

They do well enough selling dollar mules with login freebies for $0 investment.

(I was going to make a comment about EQ but damn, that ***still gets an expansion yearly, we picked the wrong game)

Yes there will be tons of people to return with a new expansion, can promise you that because the evidence is there with each and every expansion the game has gotten including ROV. No new content or expansions = stagnation and nobody will even want to stay, let alone come back. It would make more sense financially and business wise, to invest to some extent.

I swear all the keyboard entrepreneurs think they know everything. I remember arguing constantly with people on this forum over remaking FF7, and even one of the creators of the site said flat out "FF7 REMAKE WILL NEVER HAPPEN" "they lost the code! it wouldn't make sense financially!" and look what happened.

People need to stop assuming they know and just let it happen. Also, this is a mainline final fantasy game, they have every opportunity to spruce it up and introduce it to more FF fans, look at all the older games they are remaking like crystal chronicles, FF8 remaster, etc. Obviously they care to update their old games, XI would be a profit and further dev time sunk into the game could also help other IPs like the mobile games and offline ones with the recognition of FFXI. As an example, when Kamnalaut was put into Dissidia, people had no idea who he was. Mainly because XI received almost nothing in terms of PR in its life, compared to XIV which had been advertised everywhere.

I mean I don't understand why people still play the game at all so maybe there are thousands waiting and wishing. But I doubt it. You got addicts forever, but with no pushers, no new addicts. ...and they simply make better drugs too. Why improve meth when you've got meth v2

XIV is completely different than XI, no reason they need to directly compete. That is like saying, why would they ever pour resources into remastering old games when they can put those resources into a mobile game or XIV, well because they are different games and attract different people.

Let's ask about Monstrosity too guys

Ask what's their favorite windower plugin.

@Draylo-

the prevalence of addons designed to SHORTEN the FFXI experience that's so unique in the online gaming world should be enough proof that even among returning players, the desire is to avoid that unique experience (read: the GRIND) has overwhelmed even those desiring to play the game, let alone those choosing not to. Addons to get all homepoints without unlocking them, so one never experiences the growth of running around to unlocking mounts to getting new homepoints "the old way". Addons to skip cutscenes and storyline. New "token" quests to eliminate old hassles like Eldeime Necropolis navigation or Garliage Citadel gates. Between designed changes and "questionable" 3rd party apps, we're constantly eliminating TIME from this game.

You cannot attract new players not familiar with this style of game to FFXI without fundamentally changing the game, and that runs a very high risk of pushing away the long-standing, guaranteed subscription player who has been playing for 10+ years already, and will play for another 10 more with even just the minimal level of maintenance. FFXI is the coma patient who wont' die, but isn't improving. Just stuck in that haze of only existing.

They've already completely removed leveling in terms of actual game content. Its now just another task one does before actually getting to play the game. In the first 5-8 years of this game, possibly even longer (a little fuzzy to me), leveling was a multi-month experience even on the servers of 2006 and 10k plus actual humans playing at once. Gear in the 40s mattered. Nowadays, its call some trusts and hitch on for the ride, or pay someone to power-level you.

After that, its pay someone else to CP for you while you sleep. Then merc a few aeonics and some reisenjima gear. The merc mentality has existed in the game forever in some way, shape, or form...but with SE introducing ways to make gil that cater to multiboxers and bots like Gain-EXP and RoE's, this increased the in-game volume of gil, devaluing said gil the same way inflation happens in the real world- flood the market with money to the point where everyone has some, and the value of each individual unit of currency lowers. But if everyone has what they perceive as a large amount, they are more likely to pay people to "avoid" content or dodge the growth curve by paying others to play the game for them. Again, shortening the game experience.

Entire swaths of the game that once were fundamental are now completely ignored- beyond just trivializing, they're now honestly irrelevant. Remember subligar parties as an example?

So how, exactly, in this environment among those who WANT to play this style of grind already doing everything they can to AVOID it, do you plan on attracting the modern gamer while maintaining the current playerbase?

I don't see how that is a problem when 80% of current gamers have the attention spans of gnats. The game has changed and evolved,it doesn't need to retain everything it had since day 1.


Not true at all... I keep using the example, but why would SE remaster games if that was the case? A lot of these games they remaster with almost everything in tact. Some games that barely anyone played (Crystal Chronicles) FFXI is that way because SE does not support it! Why is that hard for you to understand? If they place only the bare minimum effort into the game, that is all they will get out of it. The die-hards will be there forever, it doesn't matter if you change aspects of the game like the graphics.


Uh yeah, for over 6 years now? or more. There is still CP.


In the "old days" there was SMN burning in Korrokola Tunnel and many other EXP burn methods, its been there since forever and people paid for it. Leveling is an outdated form of "content" your ideology is so far in the past.


You said it yourself, it has existed since day one and you can do that in literally ANY MMO.


I don't get your example, what does subligar parties have to do? There are many different forms of content to work on gear and if they actually start giving a shift and putting resources into the game, they can create more content.


Leave it to the company to decide. They can either tackle the 3rd party programs after they revamp the game or they can just put some kind of effort into creating content so that people return which will bring even more people back and possibly newer players. The biggest changes they need are to the sloggish game play we have through all this old PS2 code. People have been trying to get around actually playing since day one, in every MMO. I just don't get all this doomsday talk, if they can remaster dinky games that nobody cares about then they can put more effort into XI.

most important question, right here.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/56412-Ask-Questions-for-Director-Yoji-Fujito-and-Producer-Akihiko-Matsui?p=624035&posted=1#post624035