Vana'diel Complete

[Yeargdribble]

SE doesn't just need to figure out how to keep their vets, but how to get new ppl to play, so ignoring low-mid level content is not in their best interest.

Once upon a time I would've agreed, but not any more. Now that I've all but quit I notice how many people have actually quit. BG is a huge endgame community and it's amazing how many of these endgamers are leaving because they've just run out of room to grow. Some people are content with leveling 12 other jobs to 75, but that leads to another major problem......

And, I don't mind if the level cap stays 75. It could be a good idea though, if you were to cap it on the main continents / aht urghan, and have it raised in other areas. My only concern then, is that they give us more room to hold equipment!

Inventory is bad enough as it is. People that want 3+ jobs at 75 essentially have to start gimping their current jobs to do so. It's impossible to have the best situational gear for all of your jobs because there just isn't room. In Ra/Ex stuff alone this is a problem. The problem would be more severe, as Om pointed out, if they raised the cap.

They are screwed if they don't raise the cap and they are screwed if they do raise the cap. It seems like the only way the game can grow is if they ditch PS2 support and find new ways to give us armor storage.

I think per-job-closets would work. Give us a closet (10 spaces for every 10 levels) for each job that can only hold gear that said job can wear. Sure that's a lot of space, but for someone with multiple 75s, it's nearly the only way to have multiple jobs ready within a reasonable time frame to do anything without an hour+ of muling. Having 70 spaces for my BRD alone still wouldn't be enough. I'm generally 57/60 when doing anything and I essentially have to review what I'll be doing and leave certain potentially important things in my MH.

With the new MMO coming out, I expect Final Fantasy XI won't be getting anywhere near as much attention as it currently does.

This is the other reason SE needs to focus on keeping vets happy. Vets are the ones that keep a game moving. The people who are still playing UO and EQ today are vets. These games don't attract new players (or at least not a substantial number of them). New people are going to go to new MMOs instead of the tired old FFXI which is famous for its grinding. If SE doesn't add room for the vets to breathe and grow.

Additionally, as new games come out SE faces another problem. The mid-levels of FFXI are a problem... Not for new players, but for old ones. There is a declining population of mid-level players and getting a PT will become increasingly difficult (especially for the 14 out of 18 jobs that aren't popular). People will either be forced to static with members from their endgame LSs or just not level any other jobs (except maybe BST).

SEs hand will be forced to either make things soloable or start condensing servers at that point. I also think that server consolidation will be a red flag for many. This will essentially signal to the players that FFXI is in its death throes and certain people will begin filing out and looking for the next big thing.

Preventing certain job traits/abilities from being used while a sub seems the way to go. They already do this with 2hrs after all.

I agree with this. Many JAs have been adjusted to be gimped when subbed (meditate comes to mind). The big things like Refresh aren't as big of an issue as people make them out to be. Just make subbed Refresh 1/tick. Keep in mind the cap would have to be 85 for people to /RDM for Refresh. Ballad III (in the dats) is level 85. I'm sure they could give RDM Refresh II around there as well. When your main refreshers have 5/tic refreshes on you and the endgame for 85s is designed for having 5/tic, having 1/tic isn't going to really break the game. Convert has more potential of hurting things if everyone had it. A SMN/RDM could last nearly indefinitely, but so what? A RDM/NIN can do that as it is now.

Also, there has been the fear that "ZOMG but then evry1 wud sub RDM onry!!!" So what? Everyone subs the same crap now too. Just because there may be a paradigm shift doesn't mean much has really changed.