FFXI Q&A Digest 2021

What people don't realize is that they are adjusting all jobs to fit into specific categories a la FFXIV.

And they will get it all wrong.

<playerbase> Having only 2 tank jobs suck!
<SE> Well, we will just redo all of the jobs at the same time and make WAR and MNK as tank jobs! Maybe DRK too, since it's part of FFXIV!

You forget NIN and PUP as tanks though.

That's the point.

Every job has flexibility. There is only 3 real "specific" role jobs in the game (BRD, COR, and GEO). They can all 3 be multiple jobs at once (DD BRD, Range COR, nuking GEO) but only those 3 have specific items pertaining to them (aka songs, rolls, and bubbles).

Every other job can be interchanged into one role or another (need a tank? You got lots of choices, Need a healer? Got a few too, need a nuker? There's lots to choose from!) but have no defining characteristic like BRD/COR/GEO has.

Them doing all the job updates at once is making me wonder which direction they could go. It might not actually be buffs or improvements. They may actually start redirecting every jobs 's role back to what makes them unique, instead of 15 DDs, 1 healer, 1 defunct BLM, 2 hybrid mages that can do everything, 2 (3lol) tanks. I don't have a ton of faith in them to get this done properly, but I would love to see them correct some things, like BST and PUP being able to play with their pet TOGETHER instead of being so heavily weighted to either Pet-strat or Master focus. And do something with NIN, it sits in between a lot of jobs but is really undefined.

I was playing Ranger the other day and I kind of thought it was funny I couldn't shoot a monster that I could physically target. Out of Range. No, I am a ranger. I should be able to hit anything in my sights

I see, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were saying that they're trying to pigeonhole jobs and I was trying to point out versatility.

They'll probably just uncap merits and call it a day.

That's one of the few reasons the cap still exists. Artificial limitations on a system they created based on the limitation existing.

Should let us pull out of our potpourri stock at this point...

I'm saying that that could be the plan. I think it's a greater chance than "nope", which is scary if you think about it.

I just resubbed from a 2 year break and honestly I'm back because I want to play a game that isn't total horse ***. Phone games are just terrible. I fear for my sanity when this and other good games are no longer supported at all under the current business model.

The take away is do they have more than this time last year.

They do.

I was thinking that the other day, its so sad that games like XIV are constantly praised and some youtubers saying it has the best final fantasy story ever (huge eye roll) and then you constantly see people quitting left and right. Just resubbing to do story or the new trash content and then quitting again. Crazy how XI had people subbed for literal years upon years and most modern games can't hold peoples attention for more than an hour or so. Damn Gen Z is ruining everything

If this actually happens, I'd honestly quit. It'd kill what makes FFXI FFXI.

Agreed. I'd put money on them not expecting Naegling to be as centralising as it is. COR needs a nerf. Support jobs shouldn't be able to out-DD pure DD jobs. Melee RNG shouldn't be better than bow RNG!

I want to remind everyone that these future "all jobs adjustments, at one time" ....will be as unique and versatile as Aeonic Weapons, (i.e.same stats per weapon, regardless of job).

I still believe this to be true, even though SE said that it'll make us enjoy our favorite jobs more and let us consider playing other jobs that we didn't play previously. (Oh, I can't wait for the underwhelming disappointment).

On the bright side, you'll have to wait another year to be disappointed...

And why this isn't their priority #1 is beyond me. I'd level another job but already paralyzed with gear.

Because what you play doesn't matter, only that you keep paying.

Does it matter what order they do things in? If they did the Empyrean updates tomorrow, you'd unlock all of it and deal with the limited space anyways. If they do the wardrobes in a year, they milked a year's worth of subs before delivering it to you, and then you will pay to access it. The finesse is in.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but having a bunch of people unsub to prove a point in the hopes that it will encourage them to make changes might have the adverse effect of SE just saying "screw it" and shutting the game down. We're getting into lose-lose territory no matter what at this point because you can only play hardball if you're negotiating from a position of strength.

If SE really cared about keeping this title going beyond just making an easy profit then they would be showing it. This bare minimum effort of stringing along us diehards with lip service tells me they'd abandon it in a heartbeat if given half the chance.

If you still play, then play because you love what's currently in the game, not because of what you think is on the horizon. If that's worth the money to you, then great! I for one am sticking around until the bitter end, even if I don't invest nearly as much time as I used to.

I feel like they'd cave, having XI shutdown would be bad publicity, especially under those circumstances.

"Numbered Final Fantasy XI shuts down after revolt from unsatisfied customers causes record cancellations"

Always that chance though.

Honestly, I think more people would be shocked that it took this long than people would that it's being shutdown.

Most people I know think it's already shut down.

Isn't that sad, I just wish SE would care