What Happen to Old Content?

[Zehira]

Hello players!

First off, if this has been discussed or addressed already, I am sorry.

Other than the latest expansion, what happen to old content? Last summer, my friend decided to play this game for the first time and I resubbed. She got her character to level 99 within a month, it was sort of amazing how quick she can get because she is still a naive player that has no idea what the real exp party was. (Remember Valkurm Dunes > Qufim Island > Kazham > etc?) She doesn’t know all about it... Okay okay, that’s not the point what I am talking about exp parties. The point is I want to see if they can bring teamwork back to old content. I understand that she doesn’t have a time to stand up and wait for an invite.

Recently, we have been playing the story of CoP, I was sort of embarrassing myself because of how easy it is to beat. As long as she enjoys the story I am fine with it. I am the kind of person who wants to see her to meet random players in MMO and have something challenging to do by herself. It seems the latest updates are trying to push us to solo even more. We see there are zero reasons why we should keep grinding until we get a best gear in the game because if we have completed all the story we just unsub and maybe go back to FFXIV or try something new. Even though, we still have many uncompleted missions to go. I understand that it’s impossible to go back to level 75.

I have played FFXIV and I got a simple idea that can be done in FFXI as well with whether PS2 limitations or not. “Hard Mode” for all national missions, Zilart, CoP, and more (example: Promyvion - Holla (Hard Mode)). So developers don’t have to waste their time to redo all over again and only modify the stats of enemies. We can go for mission rank 20 and if hard mode is too easy for you, we can go for rank 30 with Extreme Mode and go on. I don’t mind if Square Enix want to point at us and laugh for not able to beat missions like Absolute Virtue. She said she doesn’t mind if we want to play the same story again. What do you think? Is it possible for the dev team to bring teamwork back to old content? Or do you wish not to play the same story again like all other Final Fantasy games?

If you like this kind of idea, you may go ahead and discuss. I don’t care about rewards and stuff, I only care about one thing which is to have teamwork back to old content.

Help us out, she has no idea we have the lovely community here! In fact, I know not all of us are nice but just lovely players. ^^ You know that feeling, she can’t miss out the great experience we had years ago!

[Raydeus]

It's already being done, plus the community in XI died after Abyssea, so she will never get to experience what it was like back then.

And for the current state of the game it is much better to have it being more accessible for solo players and low man parties. I usually play solo and I'm still having fun after all these years.

The only thing I'd wish they would implement is a way to sync yourself to a lower level, so (if you choose to) you could face battles without feeling too op.

[Rubeus]

In a lot of ways I feel like skirmish and delve originally being 6-man content was designed in mind to give people that sort of feeling of teamwork, but the players quickly turned it into "Aegis 99-2 or GTFO" so Matsui has said he believes linkshells should pick up the slack on the teamwork front, and the current focus is designing a way to make linkshells more attractive; probably similar to FC bonuses in FFXIV. That said, delve and skirmish are being dumbed down and reduced-entry as we speak because of that very situation -- people would prefer to do it solo than spend 3 months drooling on their keyboard to efficiently farm Dynamis for a relic.

June's looks like a purely quality-of-life update though, so you might get teamwork in the sense that the 2 of you can use trusts and maybe levelsync? I agree that it wouldn't be much for them to add a "do you want to try this fight capped at 30?" option similar to how Assault asks, though. The problem with that is nobody is going to want to do it unless the rewards are worthwhile -- maybe if they added rem's tales or ancient currency it would be more attractive. Still, its a nice thought.

[edsports1]

Mixed feelings on this. I started, left to focus on my push for a college master's degree, came back five years later, and found an easier environment. But the community then, sorry to say, was way better than the community now. Maybe I miss my old game friends too much.

Like Rubeus, I think a handicap system with rewards of extra points for the various campaigns (Merit, Job, Login, RoE) for selecting capped versus uncapped would serve the old content well. If people have relevant rewards to go different places and do things differently, they will do it. At the same time, I'm a story junkie, and I really don't like being rushed through cutscenes when asking for help. Back then, we made a point as a shell to wait for people to make it through cutscenes on their own pace.

At the end of the day, I think the balance has to fall to the latest content because that's the way the world moved on and grown. But like keeping a working Atari 2600 or Mattel Intellivision around, it's fun to go play the old stuff in the old way.