So Why Did You Quit? (and Still Read FFXIAH?)

It's a bummer, but it's reasonable to expect the content to run out at some point. I was under no impression that SE would update FFXI for the rest of my life.


Hook, line, and sinker. SE has been mailing it in for years while throwing out breadcrumbs. It's the best way to maximize profit, which is their only real goal. Putting significant effort into developing content for FFXI is counterintuitive to their long term goals.

They would surely cap the points just like they have with sparks. The end result would be players achieving that cap doing what they were already doing day to day. The 'endgame events' are already gated.

You're not wrong but this only works for so long, they are burning good faith away. I'm paying way less today than I was previously and other people are leaving.

At a point, they are going to be losing more than they are saving on those wages.

We will see.

In this imaginary scenario where SE is implementing something good to improve player retention, they wouldn't. That's kind of the point, especially considering the content I listed is timegated anyway.


It's worked for years at this point. SE hasn't genuinely cared about FFXI for 5 or so years. It's all about squeezing out what profitability they can until they can definitively point at the cost-benefit ratio to justify shutting it down. FFXI has been in decline for years. It was never going to get back to the "glory days" or whatever. It's a small but largely inconsequential revenue stream for SE that has only been kept up for so long due to being a mainline title.

Just disagree with you, its not unreasonable for us paying customers to expect new content or additions. The problem is the company doesn't give a ***until they see the sub numbers dip below profitability due to their own poor choices. Once that happens they will probably just shut it down and peddle out the next call of duty final Fantasy. They didnt even have to invest much to future proof the game to keep it stable and profitable, just complete neglect, people already gave examples as to the tons of things they could have done to keep longevity, they failed miserably.

To an extent, sure. But at some point you have to face the reality that developing new content for an old game isn't going to be profitable. Investment into FFXI will always have diminishing returns for SE. New games push out the old, that's always been the case.


Did they? They've managed to extract profit with minimal effort for years upon years at this point. They're probably quite happy with how it all turned out.

If their goal was to keep the game on maint mode for long as possible and maintaining profitability after TVR, yes they failed that. We havent had a maintenance mode before, and still remains to be seen if it will stay like that given how the numbers have dipped already.

I expect any game or service I pay a monthly fee to, to be maintained and have new additions. I dont give a ***how old it is, thats to be expected if people are paying. If it was free to play you would have a point.

Their goal was to squeeze as much profit as possible for as little investment as possible, which they've done quite well. In the grander scheme of things, the profit that SE makes from FFXI is insignificant to their overall business operations, which is why they will have no problem pulling the plug once the cost-benefit ratio is no longer favorable.


Technically, they do maintain the game and add new things, even if those are minimal. I'm sure you understand that paying a sub fee doesn't entitle you to have SE keep FFXI up and running for all time. If you're not satisfied but are still shelling out your monthly(or monthlies), that's on you.

...what do you call the period right after Rhapsodies ended?

Pretty much. SE is house and the house makes the rules and... Usually wins...

I hope the money they get from the Subs they use actually makes the game better. But SE won't. They said it, We aren't doing anything. 20th Anni was them just patting themselves on the back proud they lied to the player base for years to wait for something awesome just to shove this shitty sortie in our faces. They felt good... about giving nothing...

So I hope FFXI enjoys my sub. I am only playing because I "liked" this game but Love my friends. I lost the ability to support a company like SE anymore. I don't buy their games. I just pirate them... on my 7900xtx with my Curved 34-inch monitor.

While I don't advocate the piracy aspect, I'm getting to this point with an extremely high level for disdain for SE's treatment of it's customers. The 20th anniversary "We have something special planned in 3 years ..." was extremely insulting. Same goes for the sortie 100k cap.

The Treasures of Vanadiel Exhibit is Japan only and I don't know if folks outside of JP will have a chance to get a trinket or two. But as you said, we're paying for FFXI and SE is using that money elsewhere. We're basically subsidizing ....FF14 and who knows what else?

Yup many people, including myself, have been saying that for years. That announcement being such a fail was a real eye opener

It only makes sense that SE would dedicate resources to more profitable endeavors while doing the minimum to keep FFXI running. FFXI pays for itself in sub fees, but in the grand scheme of SE operations FFXI generates an abysmal amount of money.

He's saying also that they are using NA player money to reward JP player benefits and we all pay the same subscription.

A little of that is understandable since they are in Japan but its a fair point to me.

I don't agree with this, 14 has been getting hosed too but to a lesser extent. The problem has been 16, because it was such a massive project that it took all the slack and 11 is the least important project in the division. Now that it's done things may get better but who knows for sure.

The merch stuff is because of licensing issues with Square Enix NA and EU, they can't sell 11 merch from JP to these regions without those regions getting annoyed about not getting a cut or whatever.

The game is receiving some kind of content, so it is not on maintenance mode. It is impressive, but not the only game, EvE, Tibia and (iirc) RuneScape also are being updated until this day.

SE is charging money monthly for FF11 so it is not unreasonable to expect new content, the other games have abandon monthly fee or always had the “premium” accounts paired with F2P.

Where is the money? Remember that not too long ago SE went all in for NFT, they even sold Eidos (Deus Ex and Tomb Raider) to made it happen.

When will they put the plug? Probably never: the fact is that FF11 haven’t got a huge engine update so the server load is probably not that hard. If fans can get servers running I bet SE also can with little to no cost (just some space in the FFXIV servers). The game is really old.

And they also have no real competition, we all know that games like FF11 doesn’t exist and will probably won’t be made in the near future, even SE have adopted the WoW formula. And private servers will always strive to get the population of the official servers (with few exceptions like Ragnarok). So why would they put effort?

An epilogue.

XI is the only game I know that has had two "ending" mission storylines. Both had credits rolling like it's The End.

And according to patch notes there's another ending something coming in next patch.

Felt silly to even answer to that, did you see 0 new content or additions after RoV? It wasn't a maint mode, they either decided against it last minute or something changed their minds over time.

Yeah as of monday. Might be on a couple more times to help out a static until they rep me ro sub runs out. Otherwise I'm out, peace all lol

Felt like ROV got right what VR got wrong.

ROV wasn't crazy amazing... but it felt like some thought was put into it...

This felt like they took content that didn't get approved and forced it. Look at all the issues they had with it when it first dropped.


I'm 99.9% sure this was the last Alluvan skirmish and before released someone was like "Damn... this is really really bad... lets never release this" and then 2022 rolled around and was like "Damn... we didnt do ***for 3 years and now need content... whats this ***? Make it work."

I still don't really understand what made people expect more than we got. The only real expectation should have been empyrean armor. I feel like prime weapons were the surprise.


For Sortie, it made sense that they capped muffins so people wouldn't preload weapons. They probably should have put a larger gap between when +2 and +3 released so people could load up on gear. That way they would have avoided the "Why do they make me choose between armor and weapon" complaints.

Prime weapons are already gated through roe, the galli gate was redundant.

You could have 15 million muffins right now. You still can't stage 4. And you can't stage 5 until october either. (presumably)

And you have to be subbed every month to get them or you get locked out of subsequent ones.

I made the same point to people who complained that they need to do Sortie daily to keep up, but concede that we don't yet know what the end looks like.


What would stop someone from getting 15 million muffins and then subbing every other month to collect the psyche?

I can help jog folks' memories. Matsui gave a very long speech or interview either during the monthly digest or in Famitsu, that FFXI was finally able to coordinate and secure funding a 3-year venture that would lead up to the 3-year anniversary. He said that in the past, they could only secure up to 1 year's worth of funding for their particular business unit and that would severly limit their ability to plan or secure resources to create additional content.

I just don't know if TVR, Sortie and Prime Weapons were part of the original plan. Also, the "We Are Vanadiel" website is nice, but it paints too rosey a picture of FFXI releases. I like the way Funkworkz chronicled the monthly updates much better.

Expecting dev of the game to pick up after some undefined thing stops being a thing is just not going to happen.

It's all the usual party lines from management - we have good things in store so hang around and keep paying your sub.

This is probably the case because it's a complete sheer cliff to get from finishing up RoV (and even that might need you to get someone to carry you if you're really new) or I suppose finishing up TVR now to being a useful, functioning party member in endgame. And the journey there is either very lonely or the epitome of just getting carried.

SE's tried to fix things up here and there and provide skips in previous parts of the process with things like DI (and now I imagine Empyrean +2/3 armor) but there's still a vertical wall of Stuff you have to do before anyone really wants to play with you in a capacity where you're not getting carried. There's CP/EP to go get, particularly CP, and since that's a grind many people have long finished and since now SE separated the best ways to get CP from the best ways to get EP you're probably soloing the CP part very tediously or paying someone to do it for you. There's all these intermediate steps of gearing that move you from useless to still pretty useless when Odyssey armor is staring you right in the face singing "just RMT and merc little bit and skip probably months of things I'm going to make irrelevant anyways" (Particularly if you're a Sakpata job). There's the paradox of the community telling you to go gear a support but COR expecting expensive competent DPS sets too, GEO having a literal 6 month timegate before you're allowed to start going for an Idris, BRD needing 3-4 REMA to be considered useful, and for all of that you're going to be about as useful as the bot mule someone in your LS has that's running that support job too. At least there's WHM?

I'm probably an interesting case for this forum since I started XI somewhere in 2019-2020. I don't have the history of experiencing earlier iterations of the game. I came in wanting to see the story and systems and feel out the route to endgame if I ended up liking it. From that perspective I was probably the "ideal" new player. I'm MMO savvy, I have no aversion to Windower/Ashita and was able to figure out Gearswap/Ashitacast with no issues, I was willing to play support jobs and not just be the probable new player THF/DNC one trick (since that's the best way to get through missions), and I was fine looking up whatever needed looking up on wikis.

What ended up happening was I got WHM to the point where I could do VD Ambuscade with everyone else pulling their weight and help out on Omen and Vagary runs with a LS I found (probably not usefully since we had a bot mule WHM there too but y'know) but I wound up not really seeing a path forward without more squeeze than I was willing to put into the game. Keeping up with the dailies to get gil (tediously) was annoying enough, with Omen and Odyssey and now Sortie solo farms XI was feeling a lot like a KMMO in terms of the daily commitment it was expecting of me. Then the LS I found started to get burnt out on the game too and people were having life changes (everyone that plays this game is at least nearing 30 I swear) and events weren't firing anymore, so I dropped off quietly as new releases were coming out in the gaming world. I didn't feel confident anymore investing the level of time and effort I was when I didn't feel like the game had a confident future given that even long-term players were dropping off or burning out.

I check back in now and then to see if SE's making progress with fixing what I consider to be severe structural problems with the game (don't get me started on how there are 3-4 uniquely supportive support jobs and then 12+ jobs that all just "do damage" in a game where 6-man is now the standard content size) that will prevent it from being anything other than a story mission museum for curious new people until they hit the brick wall or an endless uphill climb for veterans only as the game's internal math starts to break down, but I'm not confident about that. The place is also a fun little time capsule of earlier Internet culture.

You bring up a lot of great points Blackmoreknight. I hope SE is at least passively reading these notes.

Nothing replaces good planning.
To Blackmoreknight's experience, which is all too common, the dev team's disconnect from their own game and content is the root cause.

Strategy Objective:
Facilitate easy entry of new and returning players to XI, and ensure integration into the community of existing players.
Expected outcomes: Increased subscriptions, greater retention of existing customers/players
How? To make this cost-effective, launch a series of polls, engagements and feedback sessions with the existing community on the official forums. Objective of which is to leverage the great amount of experience and knowledge available within the community of players.

Resources required:
- someone to audit the game and document challenges and verify what staff member #2 (community rep) relays
- Someone to engage with the community, sincerely, and document feedback
- Someone to introduce/implement said improvements
- Timeline 12-18 months of continuous support and initiatives

Indirect benefits:
-Piloting a platform for receiving specific and actionable feedback from the community. A new way to achieve extreme customer centricity. probably a USP within the modern gaming industry.
-Achieve greater brand affinity with customer base.
-Augment/improve SE's customer experience and relationship, transferable to other titles/games and indeed future releases.

From a player journey perspective, SE would be wise to experience it first hand and document it. Only then will they be able to spot the gaps and plug them with some creative problem-solving. Or the community could do it for them. They probably wouldn't read it, unless some serious effort was made to cut through the clutter of noise that is present on their official forums. This would be an audit of the game, of which a massive undertaking of effort would be required by someone. (Not me, I have a full time job and stuff)

Once they've spotted the gaps in the player journey, all that would be required are some creative solutions. Again, that would need a decent amount of resources. There isn't a blanket, broad-strokes remedy to the issue. They've created a big ol' messy spaghetti monster.

Tactics:
There are several ways to make old content relevant.
- Introduce worthy, unique rewards for existing players who engage in old content.
- Re-introduce open world content
**since there is a lot of controversy around timed HNM spawns, bring back the farming pops model of Sky and sea or ZNMs.
Priority should be to get players out of instanced zone"hallways" locked content and back into the open world.

Data needed to get this proposal over the line:
1. Existing player base
2. Total amount of current unique subscriptions, and all unique subscriptions since the 2002
3. Trend analysis. How many old players resubscribe, when do they resubscribe?
How many players quit per month?
How long do players stay quit?
when do players quit? why?
Do we need to revise our pricing? Should we double down on retaining existing players and focus our resources there, or should we focus our resources on increasing the player base, and reducing the subscription price to get an influx of new players?
Two critical questions that need to be answered. Do we do both?
4.Costs and efficincies:
-Look into new A.I capabilities in making revision/changes/upgrades to vanadiel cheaper.
-Launch an SE internship program
-Recruit members from the community/volunteers. Provide Money-cant-buy incentives such as a trust named after them, a cameo appearance in the story line, a unique armor/weapon set.. etc
(I'd volunteer for this if Prime became a trust y'all could summon to throw gil at the mob. *** my rl job)

Anyways, there's a ***done that can be done by SE, even with limited resources.
But do you guys think Matsui or the new guy think this way?


There are two types of businesses;
those that strive to meet their customers' expectations, and those that are busy ripping them off.
Business is an equal exchange of value and in its purest form one of the most altruistic endeavors humans undertake.
Right now, SE definitely isn't striving to meet the expectations of the customers of XI.
How's it feel being ripped off?

Because, i got enough to pay 30 euros/ Month for Filler's Loop....

No contents, no expension and the most important The Reall S.E behaviour regarding FFXI community... They just don't Care.

Back to my Second MMO. GW2 .... Active, in full expension and a Care of their Community.

( 160 euros will be spend on Anet in 6 months ( x2 Deluxe expensions ))

160 Euros S.E won't have, this is where they care about...

Money for nothing !!!

Omen and dynamis came after no that's still just 2 things in the span of what 2-5 years?
Now just sortie and the new records. which is really just a lazy mode dungeon type nothing in the open world no real zones, we need a whole new Reigon new Zones, new Beastmen, New Quests
(that gives u alot of Exemplar) in the new reigon maybe something like the stronghold Mechanic but in the new region, or like a campaign battle that people will participate and get exemplar points, lets say it pops up every 3 hours, in specific 3 new Zones, and does not Require a Key item to participate
(if they can do that if not its still ok!),
Anyway 3-6 Zones to Explore mini quests, (campaign kinda) *Ranks*
and than maybe focus in the story in the years to come slowly like WOTG?

They can do so much this is an older game its Easy To add stuff in, its not complicated at all, maybe the progaming kit used in FFXI might be old and complicated but doubt that it is i don't work in tech so i don't know.,


https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Stronghold_Invasion

There is so many events you can re hash but in new Zones and still improve on you don't have to call it Salvage II or Stronghold invasion's, II