I suppose the issue I have with this is while I agree with the intent behind this decision, and making life better for the casual player, I disagree with the method and I don't think that this will have the effect that they are desiring at all.
The problem with FFXI was not the grind. Sure, the long, long exp parties that we all know about for those of us who played it will argue that it was not always fun. But the central issue behind a lot of FFXI's problems was that 90% of the game took place at level 75. Want to do some fun events? Dynamis starts at 65. Assault? I think it was like 50. Missions? Chains of Promathia is your friend here for the lower level people, or at least was, and nation missions leading up to 5.1. But the majority of the game's content was out of people's reach. That's what motivated the push and makes your first 75 so miserable in FFXI, there's nothing really to do until you get there. Starter nations barren, Jeuno pretty empty too and if you get to Whitegate you can really only watch shouts of what you might be able to do someday in the future.
Yes, for newbies there was an event called Garrison, which I actually enjoy. Quick, easy, cheap to do and you can get some good stuff from it. But what SE failed to do is give upper level characters much incentive to participate in these events. It ends up being trash for them. And when the majority of the gaming population is in the upper level category that creates a problem. My LS does Garrisons to give the new people some fun stuff to do and you should see how pumped they get. They want to go out and grind out some new levels to do the tougher Garrisons. But say, for example, if SE offered tiered rewards for Garrisons, for example, if you do a 20 sync garrison and you are level 20, you get access to a potential item of a certain category, but if you are level 80, you get to choose from different, premier items. Heck, if Garrisons dropped Dynamis currency everyone would be doing them, and the lowbies would have something to do.
But that's what I am worried about with this strategy. Limiting the time you can exp on a job does not mean that the lower levels will be more enjoyable. That's not going to make it the funner game. You need a lot of stuff to do on your way to the upper levels. If you give the upper levels a good reason to do these events with newbies, with good rewards, the exp grind won't matter.
I do hope they do a lot better job with how they choose to manage their community. I think that SE's biggest failure with FFXI was drop rates and NM pops. It might sound weird but what I've seen is this: people generally are willing to help each other, especially for mutual gain. They don't mind taking a couple hours to hang with friends and camp some monster for the chance at some high level gear. But once you are 0/6 that seems less appealing. You don't want to really sit around and help your friend anymore because the time vs. reward just isn't turning out to be worth it, you are getting frustrated. So you bail, because you want to do other things. Your friend decides he has to solo this thing, and so on and so forth, it promotes a very, very "every man for himself" mentality. People don't mind a challenge, or a hard battle, so long as they know the rules and know that when they put their time into it and they accomplish the goal, they will be rewarded. In FFXI, that wasn't necessarily the case, and actually, it was more often that you were not rewarded despite having "beaten" the boss, or monster, or whatever. You won, fair and square, but SE's internal /random generator decided that you don't get your item today. And that isn't going to keep people playing. SE's argument is that unless they keep drop rates low you won't keep playing, but all I can say is, people are already playing another game (WOW) and they aren't maintaining subscriptions with that strategy.
The other big problem was how they managed HNMs. 24 hour repops and they sit and monitor their server and what as several elite linkshells comprised of people with too much free time sit and catch every Fafnir, Behemoth, or whatever spawn. And SE just sat there and more or less encouraged this, even though there was the whole botting problem. How much more enjoyable would it have been if Fafnir was a force pop? Shout for a group in whitegate, put it together, go pop him, and get to fight the beast. It would've been fun, and manageable for all.
I hope that they head into FFXIV with more of this mindset, but I have to say I'm not so hopeful. I love the FF lore that backs the game but they never did fix these problems with XI. And reading that their way of solving it is by putting an 8 hour exp cap to make things more friendly for the casual user? That won't help... if anything it will just make more of a disparity. Think of the PS3 users, who will start out behind and will *stay* behind...
The problem with FFXI was not the grind. Sure, the long, long exp parties that we all know about for those of us who played it will argue that it was not always fun. But the central issue behind a lot of FFXI's problems was that 90% of the game took place at level 75. Want to do some fun events? Dynamis starts at 65. Assault? I think it was like 50. Missions? Chains of Promathia is your friend here for the lower level people, or at least was, and nation missions leading up to 5.1. But the majority of the game's content was out of people's reach. That's what motivated the push and makes your first 75 so miserable in FFXI, there's nothing really to do until you get there. Starter nations barren, Jeuno pretty empty too and if you get to Whitegate you can really only watch shouts of what you might be able to do someday in the future.
Yes, for newbies there was an event called Garrison, which I actually enjoy. Quick, easy, cheap to do and you can get some good stuff from it. But what SE failed to do is give upper level characters much incentive to participate in these events. It ends up being trash for them. And when the majority of the gaming population is in the upper level category that creates a problem. My LS does Garrisons to give the new people some fun stuff to do and you should see how pumped they get. They want to go out and grind out some new levels to do the tougher Garrisons. But say, for example, if SE offered tiered rewards for Garrisons, for example, if you do a 20 sync garrison and you are level 20, you get access to a potential item of a certain category, but if you are level 80, you get to choose from different, premier items. Heck, if Garrisons dropped Dynamis currency everyone would be doing them, and the lowbies would have something to do.
But that's what I am worried about with this strategy. Limiting the time you can exp on a job does not mean that the lower levels will be more enjoyable. That's not going to make it the funner game. You need a lot of stuff to do on your way to the upper levels. If you give the upper levels a good reason to do these events with newbies, with good rewards, the exp grind won't matter.
I do hope they do a lot better job with how they choose to manage their community. I think that SE's biggest failure with FFXI was drop rates and NM pops. It might sound weird but what I've seen is this: people generally are willing to help each other, especially for mutual gain. They don't mind taking a couple hours to hang with friends and camp some monster for the chance at some high level gear. But once you are 0/6 that seems less appealing. You don't want to really sit around and help your friend anymore because the time vs. reward just isn't turning out to be worth it, you are getting frustrated. So you bail, because you want to do other things. Your friend decides he has to solo this thing, and so on and so forth, it promotes a very, very "every man for himself" mentality. People don't mind a challenge, or a hard battle, so long as they know the rules and know that when they put their time into it and they accomplish the goal, they will be rewarded. In FFXI, that wasn't necessarily the case, and actually, it was more often that you were not rewarded despite having "beaten" the boss, or monster, or whatever. You won, fair and square, but SE's internal /random generator decided that you don't get your item today. And that isn't going to keep people playing. SE's argument is that unless they keep drop rates low you won't keep playing, but all I can say is, people are already playing another game (WOW) and they aren't maintaining subscriptions with that strategy.
The other big problem was how they managed HNMs. 24 hour repops and they sit and monitor their server and what as several elite linkshells comprised of people with too much free time sit and catch every Fafnir, Behemoth, or whatever spawn. And SE just sat there and more or less encouraged this, even though there was the whole botting problem. How much more enjoyable would it have been if Fafnir was a force pop? Shout for a group in whitegate, put it together, go pop him, and get to fight the beast. It would've been fun, and manageable for all.
I hope that they head into FFXIV with more of this mindset, but I have to say I'm not so hopeful. I love the FF lore that backs the game but they never did fix these problems with XI. And reading that their way of solving it is by putting an 8 hour exp cap to make things more friendly for the casual user? That won't help... if anything it will just make more of a disparity. Think of the PS3 users, who will start out behind and will *stay* behind...
![[Image: 51f7fee1a068d6073b38115a.jpg]](http://cdn.guildwork.net/albums/images/51f7fee1a068d6073b38115a.jpg)
