Why is the game so incredibly long-winded?

[peculiar]

I've been killing Kaggen for a chance to get a body drop (which these days is just a cosmetic item), the drop rate is less than 1% so I was happy to read that you could get one from spending millions of gil to get items from others, swap those for the armor. Yay, or so I thought.

Now I find out that I can only do this quest if I have the title from Kaggen, I've killed it numerous times why don't I have the title.

I read more and find I need a fully upgraded white abysite in order to get the title from a kill to do this quest. So I think ok fine, I'll see what I need to do. The more I look the more intertwined nonsense I have to do to unlock the first thing I read.

First I need to pay millions for items to do this quest for a cosmetic item.
I need the nms title, ok how do I get the title since I've already killed it.
Oh it says I need to kill the tier 1 2 and 3 voidwatch nms, including kaggen again to get a title. Ok that's annoying but I can do that.
I read more.
I need to do a quest in jeuno, involving lots of running around in order to get this white abyssite. Guess I can do that...
Can't unlock the quest for some reason.
I need to enter the conflux in Xcabard S first. Try to do so but nothing happens when I talk to it.
Read back more.
I need to do all of WoTG quests upto 45 in order to have access to this one conflux, required to do the quest above. Really, to do one single step of another quest I have to do 45 missions?

At a game as old as this do we really need to do all this in order to get a cosmetic item? I wanted to do this and was ok with a certain amount of effort but all the messing around involved made this so long winded I simply didn't bother at all.

For someone returning to the game after a long absence the amount of things you are expected to do in order to participate in old content is incredible, it's such a massive wall to climb over that it kills peoples desire to play at all.

You can say, well just don't do it then. It's only cosmetic, the problem is there isn't a heck of a lot to do for someone like me anyway.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I will have to tell you, that FFXI when it was first released asked you (as a player) to go way out of your league with doing simple quests/chores for NPCs, and sometimes you would never get rewards (be it items, spells, gil, etc.) but only fame. I had a ton of quests to complete as well when I first started, but by God, the game really asks you to do things way out in the field and into areas you may have not even stepped foot in. That was a major turn off for me most of the time since I was trying to get fame unlocked for certain things, and you get unrewarded from your hard work. Funny thing is that a player from FFXIV and his friend made a video exploring Vana'diel in FFXI, and did a quest. They ended up dying several times, and as soon as they finished the quest, the guy who did the video literally yelled out, "WTF?" into the mic because of having no reward other than fame lmao

[detlef]

Pulse cells are 10k on your server. Also, the drop rate is not 1% anymore. Everything else you said is still applicable however.

[Angemon]

Welcome to playing an MMO, you would rather everything take 10m and you would be bored with the game in a week?

[Stuzey]

I see your thoughts and I do sympathise, but I love the fact ffxi makes you work for stuff, nothing comes easy, it's what makes me keep playing.

[bungiefanNA]

Voidwatch was endgame content when it was released. Endgame requires mission progress and usually something else to unlock it. They haven't really relaxed the requirements to get into much of the old endgame, like you still needing to be Rank6+ to enter Dynamis, and still having to clear initial Dynamis zones to unlock later zones.

There is a method to guarantee obtainment of the drop that you want, which used to be endgame gear, and that method requires more time investment to unlock. This is the way MMOs of the EverQuest era were designed, that everything was meant to take a long time so players wouldn't burn out of content to do.

You're going to want to complete all the expansions anyway, as you get a Capacity Point bonus for each storyline that you complete. WotG is soloable in about a week of playtime if you have a job wearing sparks armor or better and a good selection of Trusts. Voidwatch is similarly soloable if you use phase displacers.

[Andros]

ToaU and WotG are actually extremely lenient with their mission requirements when they were released. In fact I think the worst case was Salvage requiring more missions complete. Compared to RotZ and especially CoP, this was amazing.

Also, to get access to the Xarc (S) walk of echoes you only need to complete Cait Sith.

[Stompa]

What the OP listed is part of the reason I love FFXI, lol.

I like the fact that the game is highly stratified, you need to have done ABCD before you do E. And I like the fact that this stratified system is woven into the storylines, this is faithful to the original roleplaying game standards.

Vana'diel feels like a real world to me, on so many levels, and one of the reasons for this is the stratified storyline system. It would not make sense if a new adventurer was recognised by Hero NPCs, it would not make sense if a new adventurer could obtain items or dialogues relating to areas / missions / battlefields they have not ever visited.

So the criticisms in the OP are actually compliments, if taken from the perspective of immersive roleplaying games. The Devs worked hard to make this game have as much realism as possible in terms of lore and storyline mechanics, and to apply logical gating systems which a player has to overcome in order to reap rewards.

I would have said that back in 2004-09, it was like a world of locked gates, and very difficult to progress on most things. People even used to ask the LS beastmaster to help them with coffer keys for AF, etc. Back in those days, when I finally obtained something, after a year or more of dying-again and trying-again, I got this wave of amazing euphoria, it was like being ontop of the world. Even though all I had done was beat a mission or get some quite puny item to drop XD.

The game has opened up a lot since then, and solo progress with trusts and ilvl gear is now standard, the only gating for mid-range content is really the willingness of a player to put in a few weeks of legwork, to complete what used to take years!

:cool:

[machini]

Something that people nowadays forget is that FFXI is basically EverQuest: Final Fantasy Edition. And that EverQuest was basically DikuMUD: 3D Edition. It was so close to Diku, in fact, there was a lawsuit over it, iirc. And MUDs were basically computerized PnP roleplaying games.

FFXI was created during a time where people had longer attention spans, and games were not 'mainstream', and still limited, mostly, to people who liked that sort of stuff.

These days, where we have people who cannot use the restroom without tweeting about it, downloads are faster than I ever dreamed they could be when using a 300 baud modem, and you have literally the world's wealth of knowledge at your fingertips, of course this game seems "long winded". It was made, more or less literally, in a different age, with a different target audience, than modern MMOs and games.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

Something that people nowadays forget is that FFXI is basically EverQuest: Final Fantasy Edition. And that EverQuest was basically DikuMUD: 3D Edition. It was so close to Diku, in fact, there was a lawsuit over it, iirc. And MUDs were basically computerized PnP roleplaying games.

FFXI was created during a time where people had longer attention spans, and games were not 'mainstream', and still limited, mostly, to people who liked that sort of stuff.

These days, where we have people who cannot use the restroom without tweeting about it, downloads are faster than I ever dreamed they could be when using a 300 baud modem, and you have literally the world's wealth of knowledge at your fingertips, of course this game seems "long winded". It was made, more or less literally, in a different age, with a different target audience, than modern MMOs and games.

Don't forget to add-in people who have now become to know busier work schedules growing up than they used to have or didn't have yet back in earlier times and some have created their own families with kids now who used to play or play more but also some folks were already this way of course as well. ;-)

[machini]

My point is the game has not substantially changed.

[Alhanelem]

I see your thoughts and I do sympathise, but I love the fact ffxi makes you work for stuff, nothing comes easy, it's what makes me keep playing.
The thing is though, most of the time these things aren't difficult, just time consuming to a fault. I don't mind talking to some NPCs and watching some cutscenes etc. but there have been many places in the game where something seems dragged out for the sake of being dragged out. It's what discourages me from playing, not keeps me from playing. I have lots of unfinished quests desspite how long I've played, simply because there's no payoff. I don't feel good when I complete them and there's no reward (often times).

for the ZNM, the annoying part was taking tons of photos of random mobs from all over the place. Battling the NMs was the fun part, but that part was gated behind an easy-yet-annoying-and-timeconsuming task. I feel like theres a difference between being made to work for something, and having to do something a bunch of times for the sake of making it take longer (and not because it logically makes sense or changes or increases in challenge as you go). Don't forget JP midnight, or conquest update wait times. Those things had a certain purpose when the related content was new, but now the wait times have no game design value whatsoever. There's so much content in the game that even if you eliminated every frivilous task, a new or returning-from-long-ago player would be hard pressed to complete it all or catch up.

The exception is the main storylines. The next part of the story is in large part the whole reason you're doing it. It takes time, but you're engaged teh whole time and invested in what happens, in contrast to long winded tasks that are longwinded just for the sake of it.

[Karbuncle]

Don't forget to add-in people who have now become to know busier work schedules growing up than they used to have or didn't have yet back in earlier times and some have created their own families with kids now who used to play or play more but also some folks were already this way of course as well. ;-)

For those people, it's them who needs to realize change is a blowing. When your real life circumstances change drastically, things in your life accommodate, and things will become harder if you want to continue to enjoy an MMO like FFXI. I'm not saying this in a negative way either, simply as a fact of life we will all one day acknowledge. But I think XI has gotten a bit more "Relaxed" on its requirements with new content, just not a lot of old content... I think thats okay cause the old content is significantly easier now, Voidwatch especially considering the Rhapsodies buffs to it.


The thing is though, most of the time these things aren't difficult, just time consuming to a fault. I don't mind talking to some NPCs and watching some cutscenes etc. but there have been many places in the game where something seems dragged out for the sake of being dragged out. It's what discourages me from playing, not keeps me from playing. I have lots of unfinished quests desspite how long I've played, simply because there's no payoff. I don't feel good when I complete them and there's no reward (often times).

Side quests in XI have generally been sad disappointing messes, its the games age showing... no shame in passing those up. At least most of the SoA Side-quests are worth doing lol.


for the ZNM, the annoying part was taking tons of photos of random mobs from all over the place.

Mmmm, Fun idea in theory, horrible idea in implementation. Should have made it less of a necessary grind. I think using the pictures for Pankration was great fun, which goes to show the concept itself was solid, just forcing it on us was a bad idea, yes.


Don't forget JP midnight, or conquest update wait times.

in SE's defense they went back and change many of these. Wish they would change them all to at least in-game day but I have to be frank, while I hate the delays sometimes I do enjoy the splash of realism in the game days for AF and such, as it takes time to finely craft the armor... but I get this.

I know its no fun, I hate arbitrary wait times too, but me and my brother ran into a lot of those trying to catch up to SoA storyline missions... but whenever we hit those walls, know what we did?

Other content :D!

So my advice, OP, would be simply make multiple goals... Its what I did. Aegis, 109/119 AF/Relic for me and my brother, JP, finishing Story missions for SoA, Solo'ing some Hard mode Battlefields (for the crap gear we have we've duo'd Tenzen normal!). So whenever you feel like you're at a breaking point with Voidwatch grinding... Stop~ Go do something else, come back to it. At least from what I remember, most of that old content is the really only difficult stuff to catch up on, All the SoA content, save perhaps Sinister Reign which requires SoA Completion, have very relaxed entry requirements.

[Alhanelem]

in SE's defense they went back and change many of these. Wish they would change them all to at least in-game day but I have to be frank, while I hate the delays sometimes I do enjoy the splash of realism in the game days for AF and such, as it takes time to finely craft the armor... but I get this.

I know its no fun, I hate arbitrary wait times too, but me and my brother ran into a lot of those trying to catch up to SoA storyline missions... but whenever we hit those walls, know what we did?

game day waits don't bother me much, as long as there's a lore-logical reason for it (e.g. I need time to make this gear for you, or I need time to get back to place where you're meeting me or some such thing like that) That wait is at most 56 minutes and some-odd seconds (I don't remember the exact time)during which time you can just craft, chat, or kill stuff.

[Ketaru]

A person can probably start Final Fantasy XI now and treat it very much like a PSX generation Final Fantasy game at this point, soloing with trusts. This would not be so bad, but the monthly fee is probably the greatest barrier to this. A new player, starting fresh, is not participating in endgame anytime soon. That much should be a given. If you tell them it could take months to get there, hopefully they have a friend to play with. But tell them that it will also cost $15 per month every step of the way, that's when I think we have a problem.

And yes, I am totally suggesting the monthly fee be curbed in some way.

[Olor]

And yes, I am totally suggesting the monthly fee be curbed in some way.

Yeah, I think there needs to be some kind of fee because it does cost money to run servers and have GMs etc, but when they end substantial updates there should be a substantial fee drop. If it was around $5 a month with mules an additional 50 cents each I'd probably just set it to renew and forget it, but at around $25 Canadian a month for 1 character and 5 mules (and yeah I need them for my stuff...) - if I don't play very much in a month I feel ripped off, and I unsub for a couple months. It would be better for the community (and thus the longevity of the game) if people remained subbed, and dropped in more... the current fee is a bit outrageous, honestly.

[Apie]

To the original post person, I feel ya. The things you have to do in this game to get something you want is insane. Even if you remove all the b.s. steps, you still have the insane and unfair drop rates to deal with. Put it this way, I recently purchased a Kraken Club (just cause I always wanted one, not for usefulness in battle.) Why did I buy it instead of doing the burning circle over and over until I got it for free? Cause it is a LOT easier to earn the 80M I spent on it than it would be to get the drop. That's right, it's easier to earn 80M than it is to get a drop... To call that insane is an understatement. Same with 2 relics and the empryrean I have, it was much faster to earn the gil and buy all the needed currency than it was to farm them.

[Pups323]

I would settle for a way to skip/cancel/fast forward all cutscenes.

[Vae]

I would settle for a way to skip/cancel/fast forward all cutscenes.

1 million +1s

After playing an emulator and being able to fastforward, this game BEGS for that option. I've seen the WotG storyline enough, skipping those hour long stories would be the greatest QOL thing ever added.

[peculiar]

A person can probably start Final Fantasy XI now and treat it very much like a PSX generation Final Fantasy game at this point, soloing with trusts. This would not be so bad, but the monthly fee is probably the greatest barrier to this. A new player, starting fresh, is not participating in endgame anytime soon. That much should be a given. If you tell them it could take months to get there, hopefully they have a friend to play with. But tell them that it will also cost $15 per month every step of the way, that's when I think we have a problem.

And yes, I am totally suggesting the monthly fee be curbed in some way.

Till you get to cap and want to do the most mundane part of the game, capacity point party with others and realize you need obscene amounts of accuracy gear to even hit them.

Even back when this game was hardcore you could buy some gear from the auction house, buy some sushi and go merit. Not anymore.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

I would settle for a way to skip/cancel/fast forward all cutscenes.

For me, I'd settle for a rewind feature to back up on a cs I was watching and being able to watch the whole cutscene or the games movie clip all the way through the end right on the spot instead of having to go to a replay CS NPC in hopes it plays all of the CS including sections you missed especially when that one whole long movie clipped cutscene can be split into two to three selectable parts on the replay CS NPC's that may not capture it all because of the cut off's and split up's they've done. ;) :p