2013/4/29
This is the day that FFXI dev team made one of biggest mistake in 10 years, and this mistake is, IMO, worse than Abyssea era, salvage ban, and w/e mistake SE've made in the past, and I predicted this decision would hurt FFXI a lot, causing player base lose that's even worse than Abyssea/salvage ban.
And the title of this post clearly stated my disappointment in the new producer. Considering I've been ranting on major forums about this for days already. Some ppl would disagree, and stated that "it has to be done this way", but if you sit down and analyze how it works, then you'd realized the mistake they made is vital, and all started in Abyssea era.
Note that I've been "supporting" FFXI since I started, when everyone else saying "the game would shut down in 3 years" "Everyone would leave for FFXIV", I've always been defending for FFXI, that I know it wouldn't die that fast nor being eaten by FFXIV. I wasn't kind of person that'd speak negatively towards this game.
Even after SoA release I still believe it'd last for another 5 years at least. Now I don't know, the time for fixing the damage that has been done is flying away, and SE still unable to find a good solution.
And for those who said "So what if R/E/M gets replaced, just deal with it" or "WoW is like that, so FFXI should change for the better", I guess time to analyze the importance of
emotional attachment, and how dangerous it is, if you cut off that emotional attachment when you manage a brand.
If you carefully observe FFXI, you'd realized that the value of R/E/M, is more than "best weapon in game". It's a concept that's pretty unique in FFXI, part of the reason is because it's linked to past FF titles. The names of R/E/M are just bad ass: Excalibur, Gungnir, Armageddon, Masamune, Death Penalty and such. A lot of the weapons are best weapons in past titles, when you own it it's linked to past FF heroes. And the weapon itself also has unique looking design.
Those weapons are also a class on it's own, it often has a WS tied to it, a prestige no other weapon has. And the result is, player would want one, dreamed to have one, and
keep playing for one. It meant way more than just another super expensive gear or armor.
R/E/M is just, different. It's emotional attachment in this game is so great that it shouldn't be deal with carelessly. And you can tell by looking at player's choices in FFXI. In FFXI you often see players ignore every armor slot and make them gimp, just to build R/E/M. They'd rather be a R/E/M owner with low output, instead of none-R/E/M owner with higher output. Some ppl would keep building R/E/M for every job, despite that job is naked.
If you make stupid, illogical choices such as build R/E/M for a naked job, or use subpar gears because you spend all your money on R/E/M, then it's safe to assume R/E/M is a brand of it's own. Like how ppl would eat less to save money for an iPhone, the reason is nothing but emotional attachment.
The fact is, players in FFXI value and treat R/E/M differently, that does not happen on ANY other armor nor weapons in this game. Nobody would cry a river if KC's dead. Nobody would care when your 20M dusk gloves+1 died. R/E/M is just that unique, and it's emotional attachment is so strong in FFXI, that it probably has stronger emotional attachment than anything else(barring certain job for certain players) in this game.
And let's see how all that happened, and how will it end.
When Abyssea hit, SE made it's first mistake, that they let majority of player has the ability to get empy in a very short amount of time.
At that time, majority of player supported this, although now that I look back, I see it as first step in wrong direction.
Of course, empy=relic for everyone is a cool concept. Majority of players never have a chance to get relic in their life. Suddenly there's another weapon on same class: Unique design and WS, super powerful, highest D. Everyone is happy, barring relic owners at that time, which are the minority.
Technically, if player's happy, then the game can last longer. But if leads to an uncontrollable result after 3 years, then it wasn't a good decision.
The result of everyone got R/E/M is that R/E/M became a requirement to do current content efficiently. Because the content difficulty must be adjusted based on the avg player performance.
If only 1% of players has R/E/M, it's safe to make every mob in that content HP1000 and Def 300. Because avg player doesn't have R/E/M, so you can't make mob HP/def too high, or else avg players can't beat it and only 1% of players can win.
But if 80% of players has R/E/M, then you'd have to make every mob HP 3000 and Def 500. If you still keep mob HP 1000 and Def 300, most players would find the content too easy.
And that made R/E/M a requirement, instead of a bonus to the pt. And the result is, last 20% of players
must get a R/E/M to keep up. Because if they don't, they can't kill the mob fast and efficient enough.
And like many other players made the point, as the game move on to new areas, you can't keep players to grind in old areas for R/E/M, or else it's discouraging. You can't force a returning player go back to dyna or Abyssea or ToAU to make R/E/M just to do SoA content. But now that R/E/M already a requirement and difficulty has to balance based on this fact, what can SE do?
There are many ways to fix it, and SE chose worst possible way I can think of, by replacing R/E/M with new AH/point weapons that looks nothing special and literally no emotional attachment.
And even worse, they failed to communicate with the player base effectively(which was surprising....Matsui Akihiko is usually pretty good at communicating). Every time when he tried to respond to the player base regarding this R/E/M matter, he made the situation worse, that I don't even know what to say.
It's pretty clear that they intend to make DD R/E/M being replaced, but compensate the players some way, such as allowing the WS being used on any weapon.
Imagine you don't WF on Zebra gun, instead you WF on random AH gun that looks 100x boring than Zebra gun. Or imagine you no longer Zorro Slash on fat sword Almace, instead you have to zorro slash with a bronze sword model.
I can't believe this producer, doesn't even know the fundamental reasons why players PAY to play a MMORPG to get gears.
Why would you pay to get a pixel item in a video game? Because it's more than just another equip with numbers attached to it. It's player's preciousssssss. I can't name other MMO doesn't use this emotional attachment to make money.
Once I met a game developer making F2P MMO, he said something that's very blunt, and yet very accurate: "We want to make those expensive gears as cool as possible, and it better looks shiny and pretty. Because players love cool looking gear and that's how we make money, and our company can only survive when we make money".
In the end, game mechanics and game design theory are just tools to keep player involved. But the root of a successful MMO making money, or any brand/title w/e, still lies on emotional attachment, that no theory/formula/awesome mechanics can replace it.
The way how SE often make new weapon model ugly, and the fact that SE wanted to do gear reset every once a while, means current lv 99 R/E/M owners would ended up using their precious R/E/M WS on a much uglier model just because it has better stat.
To be honest, I fail to see how FFXI wouldn't suffer from losing player after this update.
Instead of playing to get an ultimate item that looks cool, used by past FF title heroes, now you have to deal with using ugly model from AH, for A content, so you can do B content to get another ugly model. Until one day you finally can do C content for a slightly better model weapon that would last maybe a couple of months, then repeat the process after next update. And your old lv 99 R/E/M, is nothing but a tool to allow you zorro slash in new stuff. You can no longer zorro slash on your fat sword, nor Cataaaaaa on dat golden scythe.
I mean, I started project DP because it looks bad ass, and I want to be able FUCKING use it, so I looked cool in battle too. I don't fucking want to build a DP, and use an ugly AH gun in battle.
I failed to see how is this exciting, nor fun.
We play video game to have fun, to have exciting moment.
Get an epic weapon with unique name, state and design is the exciting moment made players want to pay for it.
Get a weapon that you know it'd be replaced after 3 months and design/name isn't anything exciting.(And even if the name/design is unique, we'd forget about it after 3 months anyways)
And this decision completely destroyed the exciting game mechanics FFXI has.
Abyssea did gear reset, also changed game mechanics, and it wasn't even this bad. At least in Abyssea you replaced legendary weapon with another legendary weapon, and only affected 1% of player base.
It doesn't feel as bad if your legendary weapon is replaced with another weapon in same tier.
Now this decision affected 80% of players, and you replaced legendary weapon with AH weapons.
One major emotional attachment(read: main way to keep player hooked and pay $$) FFXI has, poof gone :)
No matter how you want to use other example in other MMO, you can't change this fact. Because FFXI isn't other MMO. It has it's unique dedicated player base, and it won't be able to attract new customers no matter how they copy and paste other game's direction.
You can argue that FFXI "survived" every gear reset anyways.
It seems that the new producer has a brand new vision for FFXI, sadly the bad execution pretty much just cut off the emotional attachment players has.
FFXI can survive this long, is NEVER because the game design is awesome, it's only because emotional attachment.
Some ppl would go "Ohhh, you can just deal with it and keep playing this game without R/E/M!" And I'd say that's very ignorant about MMO industry or any brand management. When you deal with customers, you don't tell them to change preference. If they buy your product, they buy your product because they liked certain aspect. If you want to change your strategy, customers that liked that aspect would just leave, and it's really just that simple.
Personally I found FFXI with gear reset every 3 months and no more "legendary weapon"(I don't mean best weapon with awesome name and look, I mean weapon with certain prestige and special image in certain player's mind for very long ) not very exciting nor promising. Legendary weapon always provide extra fun in this game, and someone recently finished on R/E/M was always a hot topic in our social network. Thus I found erasing the value of R/E/M a very bad move.
FFXI
may not just shut down right away because of this, maybe 20% of players would feel less motivated/involved and leave. Maybe those none R/E/M owner or returning player wasn't affected would stay. And maybe certain players just sick of old FFXI would want something new.
But it IS a move that would make player base a lot smaller, that's for sure. And if player base gets smaller, it affects everyone, including new/returning player without R/E/M, or players doesn't care about the death of R/E/M. Those players would get less ppl to play with, harder to make pt, nor learn from them(since dedicated players are often the one finding most efficient/successful strategies), indirectly made the game harder.
When a MMO is this old, with small player base, making the player base shrink faster is the last thing dev should do, no matter how you want to copy and paste other successful examples. Unless you're making an entirely new game.
I thought Abyssea was a mistake, because of terrible game mechanics. And the fact is, player base did get smaller during Abyssea era, server merged twice and it only slowed down post Abyssea era. And at that time, if anyone pointed out Abyssea was a mistake, that person would be labeled as elitist. Because you're not allowed to voice opinion against casuals, which are the majority.
And even funnier, if you do stated your opinion that Abyssea was a mistake on SE forum, you'd be attacked by others "So you liked old HNM no life more? lol". And it ended up as a 10 page debate that anti-Abyssea group always lose because they're the minority and being labeled as elitist. Majority of players wanted a legendary weapon and supported Matsui Akihiko.
But now that I look back, I see how everything started in Abyssea. Legendary weapons shouldn't be hand out to everyone to begin with, whether you like it or not. It's not about being elitist and anti-casuals, but it did created a hole that lead to this devastating result when SE want to move to new areas, that it can only end by cutting off the emotional attachment and pissed off dedicated core customer base, that would inevitably lead to player base shrink.
I only see Matsui Akihiko made a series of mistake, that made the death of FFXI comes a lot faster than it should. And the fact that fans supported him during Abyssea era because they wanted a casual FFXI with everyone owning a legendary weapon, leads to his 2nd decision. And once again, there are still fans wanted FFXI to be WoW supporting him, ignoring the fact that selling a MMORPG product is about keeping existing customer base big, not to make certain group of ppl happy. In the end everyone lose, you get a WoW like casual FFXI with everyone owning top weapon, and you lose customer.
The fact that Abyssea era server merge happened twice proved that theory =/= result, making FFXI "like other MMO" doesn't keep players around. And let's see how many more server merge coming soon, under Matsui's direction.
Oh god I miss Tanaka, at least I know FFXI wouldn't piss off large amount of player base and kill itself when he's around :(
P.S: FFXIV also plays with relic, and a lot of player has it. I wonder whether it'd walk the same path and ended up as bad as FFXI?
