Dev Tracker - Discussion

So explain why pick Ilvl beseiged to devote months of dev time into, or how making Sortie stones npcable will have any meaningful impact on player participation. My point was they are rarely transparent with these decisions even if you think they make good business sense.

iBesieged is because players said the can't get their silver vouchers.

Why add -ite to the npcables list, so youll drop remove them from your inventory and stop wasting space

(Why do it though? So they can say "hey look were doing something" just not something of actual consequence, so you can justify to yourself that they still care about you) Which is why it takes two years to fix anything, and a year of dev time to do it.

If they do things in a timely manner, youll expect them to keep doing it. Youve been conditioned to eat ***and like it.

My belief is that they see things that will have a meaningful impact on player participation as being too much effort, so they don't do them.

They aren't changing besieged to lvl 99 because it's going to make players return, or keep players from quitting. They're doing it because it will take minimal development effort (relative to other things), fits within their vision of the game, and will resolve a complaint that people have (can't get to Besieged before other players have already smashed all the enemies).

They aren't changing sapphires to be NPCable because it will make players return or keep players from quitting. They're doing it because people are hoarding lots of useless items with the hope that they will be able to turn them in for muffins. This "fix" will save those players inventory space by allowing them to NPC the stones and not feel bad about tossing them away.

They added the menu to change controller settings in-game to resolve a complaint from the community, not because they thought it would increase subs or keep people from cancelling.

They're doing minimal, extremely low-impact, low(ish) development effort tasks to fix perceived pain points from the users.

INB4: changing Sortie and Ody to 18-man would be incredibly simple and resolve everyone's complaints, triple subs overnight, and everyone would be thrilled. Also add 7-stacks of entry KIs.

Most of their decisions boil down to:
Players want things to be easier, gear to be more plentiful, drops to be more generous, etc.

Players won't actually be happier if they get these things, they'll quit faster.

SE knows they can't give you what you want, so they give you token things to try to say they're helping. Players are upset they didn't get what they want and convince themselves SE is idiotic, when really SE just knows what will keep you subbed* better than you do.


*on the shoestring budget they are allotted

Most of the people left are the lifers, I don't think the majority really wants EZ mode or they would have left long ago. I wasn't aware of the complaints about Beseiged because I haven't attended one in over a decade, so I guess it makes at least some sense.

If that many people really did need SE to give them the OK to npc Sortie stones before getting rid of them, good for them I guess.

There's no way to prove one way or the other, but I think this is an interesting thought experiment.

I don't think the majority of people left are lifers; in fact, I know lots of people who I thought were lifers who quit the game and/or got banned, and most of the people I interact with these days are new or returning players, not veterans. Maybe it has to do with my server, but I also see a lot of posts on here and reddit from new players looking for guidance, linkshells, merc services, etc.

Gilsellers are still making & selling gil, and they sure as hell aren't selling it to lifers who already have all the gear they could buy and ridiculous incomes.

Mercs are making a killing and they sure as hell aren't selling to veteran lifers.

I think the vast majority of the population of most servers are hapless newbs wandering around in ambu gear or worse. I see people constantly in weird sets, lots of people with no linkshell, names I've never seen before, etc. I could count the number of people with finished prime weapons, R30 ody gear, and billions of gil on my fingers & toes.

As to wanting EZ mode, every time making Sortie/Ody easier comes up, the VAST majority of the population comes in saying they want those updates and "so what if it's easier?" so I think you're mistaken with that too.

They say they "want" so they can be done with it.

They don't consider any unintended consequences, after effects, or ripples, just gimme gimme.

I'd also point out there are plenty of lifers who can't 9boss Sortie or clear V25 bumba/arebati. I'd even go as far as to say the majority of lifers are in the group wanting things easier.

Don't forget bad design in the service of daily login metrics.

If Sortie was a twice-weekly lockout with rewards equivalent to ~3 daily runs, that's more rewarding for players without giving them gear any faster.

I get that the need for good daily metrics may be a demand from upper management the XI team can't ignore, but there are other ways they could have achieved those numbers without making the final content system a joyless second job.

Those metrics will tell you that the more painful it is the more the masochists do it, no matter how much they moan about it.

On paper 1x6 and 2x3 look the same but they feel very different. Being allowed the peek behind the curtain at said metrics, you'd understand that.

It's also not just a daily metrics thing. Imagine the world where 7-day tag saving was implemented. Logging in on a Tuesday, you might be the only person actually moving their character. That kinda makes the game incredibly dead for any day/time that isn't the hot time.

Also really reduces the value proposition of the game. What's there to do in FFXI? Twice a week, I play it for 1 hour.

"Oh, you need a Fotia Gorget synergized? Male can do that for you, hold on to it until Saturday, he logs in for Sortie that day so he can do it for you"

"Need some help with TVR missions? Just wait until Friday night, that's when all the vets log in, one of them can help you"

"If you want to do some ambus, wait until Sunday afternoon, that's Dynamis night so you might be able to pick up some people to help you"

7-day tag saving? I think you missed my point entirely.

Sortie's rewards for time spent are crap because you can spend 8 hours a week doing it. Limiting that to 2-3 hours for the same net weekly progress would make the time you spend in Sortie feel more worthwhile, and let players with limited time do other content with friends outside their Sortie static.

New content should be part of your play schedule, not replace it entirely. Dyna once or twice a week, Sortie twice a week(or a double run once a week), Seg farming for gil once or twice a week... vs. Sortie, Sortie, Sortie, 7~8 times per week.

It's a daily to keep things different.

This event is every 3 days, this event is once per week, this even stores entries, this event is hourly, this event is daily.

It's all for a reason(s)

It just feels extra crappy because the last event was also a daily.
(And extraextra crappy for other purposeful design reasons...)

This presumes that people actually have other things to do and want to do them. What if you only need to work on Sortie/Ody and don't give a crap about dynamis or any other events? Then you'll only log in twice a week to do those events. Now read all the statements above, but put "Wednesday or Saturday" instead of Saturday in them.

Point being, the reason to log in (doing daily events) encourages people to be on the game. When people are on the game, they are available for other people to socialize with them, chat, do side-stuff together, fulfill favors, etc. If you put everything in 4-day tags and give 4-times the reward, then player log in 4-times less often and then there are giant deserts of population.

And of course SE also says their servers can't handle everyone doing Sortie on Saturday evening, but IDK about that, the population is pretty paltry already. For me, the bigger issue is that lots of players would spend significantly less time on the game, which is bad for the community.

It's probably also terrible for player retention because with 2-3 day gaps between playing, people also feel much less inclined to come back so (IMO) you would bleed some subs that way, but that's just going to get Eiryl fully erect so let's not dwell on that.

This is the feedback I always see about Sortie and Odyssey, nothing about difficulty only accessibility.

The time for complaining about not wanting to do dailies was before you kept doing dailies. You told them it's ok to make it daily by doing it daily. You showed them you like dailies.

As a whole, not any specific you.

I was still doing Dyna, Omen, and Ody with my friends long after I stopped needing anything from that content. It was fun, first and foremost, and on top of that an excellent source of gil to dump into whatever silly nonsense I wanted to work on(R15 Yagrush, lol). Occasionally we'd mix in a vagary, master trial, help someone finish an empy in a day, whatever.

If Sortie x8 a week with the same 5 players until someone dies sounds like a more enjoyable way to spend that time then I don't think we're gonna agree here.

OK here's an olive branch then:
Assuming every player in the entire game has exactly 3 hours to play, those hours are every single day, and they all feel the exact same way about events as you do, then I agree with you, that would be a great idea.

I don't think that's a realistic view of most players though.

When I open a bottle of Liquor I usually pour one out for the homies who do sortie every day- RIP to your self-worth.

I think you're still missing it. Some people played more than that, other less, some only once or twice a week. The beauty of a varied schedule that includes some alliance content is that it's flexible enough to let you play with your friends whenever time lines up.

It's 2024. People have jobs, and families, and lives outside the game. The value proposition that matters is value for player time, not sub $.

SE need to add a game breaking pulse weapon as a drop for Aminon, with KC drop rate.

Then, people will start enjoing again Sortie.

low effort

That's a brand new game. I can tell because it's purple

There's gonna be thousands of Trove mules doing this content and inflating the metric. People want moar lewt, but they don't want to accept that the terrible design choices are a reflection of their terrible playing habits.

All this for one extra silver voucher a month?

Idk how you guys think dailies are good for the game
I basically unsubbed because the thought of having to do sortie/odyssey every day with my only free time felt *** awful
There's no way the majority of people feel good about that

You are still young.

They don't "feel good" about it, they just can't stand the idea of not being as optimal as they're allowed to be.

You "let them" go every day and they have to go every day. More will, than won't.

When the alts and mules are the majority, what you are doing with them is more impactful to the metric than what any normal player would do.