Reasons Why FFXI is Declining

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Originally Posted by Umichi

I actually had to wiki this.... lol I never knew a game like this existed......

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I do believe you have been looking at the wrong thing.

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Originally Posted by Tamoa

I do believe you have been looking at the wrong thing.

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Ok, so maybe he/she/it isn't Starcade. I direct you to search for him on here or just go to the Dark Renegade's Musings. Wannabe sociopath ITG who can't figure out why everyone considers him a nutter. It used to be fun to poke him with a stick until he turned on approving all replies there.

Bottom line is this "SE needs to make the game interesting and friendly for everyone". The whole game needs to be interesting. Not just one part. If you leave a bunch of people falling behind the rest then those people aren't having fun. How? Dev can read through the thread for inspirations but shouldn't follow the suggestions like mindless robots. Only a few people out of thousands of players post here and not all of them are smart, right or even correct.

FFXI is unfriendly. It's hard to play. It's difficult to start when you are clueless. The game doesn't tell you anything. Imagine playing FFXI without wiki page, without forum or any community assist. FFXI has thousands of players not even visit the wiki page for info and just walk around clueless. What to do? Where to go? How do you do that? These are the information SE must provide to the players. They are the casual players. They don't make efforts to find obscure information about the game. You have to spoon feed these people. Show them everything. Quests need to have markers. Items for quests need to be provided with ease (not looking up on AH for a chance of buying them).

Too much of FFXI relies on its community. When the community shrinks, changes or just simply move on, the game becomes difficult to play to new players. The game takes too much effort to play. People just want to have a blast with a game after they get home from work or school. SE needs to understand how to make FFXI engaging but not overbearing. Exciting but not hard. Fun but not too easy.

Reasons: The removal of (forced) gradual progression. Being able to hit cap in a few days of concentrated effort devalues almost every aspect of the game outside of what remains at the end, and what is at the end is all that could remain: modest upgrades and repeated attempts at those modest upgrades with which to grind out more modest upgrades. It is so simple to grasp, and yet this design philosophy unbelievably still persists even in FFXIV: ARR. If they are truly only concerned with developing for endgame, they ought to remove the crafting system, remove level-based progression, remove the open world and find another way because this approach is never going to work.

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Originally Posted by Oddwaffle

FFXI is unfriendly. It's hard to play. It's difficult to start when you are clueless. The game doesn't tell you anything. Imagine playing FFXI without wiki page, without forum or any community assist. FFXI has thousands of players not even visit the wiki page for info and just walk around clueless. What to do? Where to go? How do you do that? These are the information SE must provide to the players. They are the casual players. They don't make efforts to find obscure information about the game. You have to spoon feed these people. Show them everything. Quests need to have markers. Items for quests need to be provided with ease (not looking up on AH for a chance of buying them).

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While I agree things should be made more new player friendly, I don't agree with holding a persons hand all the time. Not every quest needs a marker, but the ones for new players would benefit from them. Goal would be to introduce players to a common old school RPG mantra, talk to everyone.

Now its gotten to the point of if the npc doesn't have something like a giant yellow ? above their head they get ignored. When you can get all kinds of different information from npcs if you do talk to them, granted not all of it is useful but that goes back to the whole exploring aspect of RPGs as well.

Edit: Glitch happened and posted before was done.

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Originally Posted by Hawklaser

While I agree things should be made more new player friendly, I don't agree with holding a persons hand all the time. Not every quest needs a marker, but the ones for new players would benefit from them. Goal would be to introduce players to a common old school RPG mantra, talk to everyone.

Now its gotten to the point of if the npc doesn't have something like a giant yellow ? above their head they get ignored. When you can get all kinds of different npc's if you do talk to them, granted not all of it is useful but that goes back to the whole exploring aspect of RPGs as well.

Edit: Glitch happened and posted before was done.

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Hand? More like arranged marriage or forever be banished with no hope of support ever again.

Atleast that's how I see it.

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Originally Posted by Oddwaffle

Bottom line is this "SE needs to make the game interesting and friendly for everyone". The whole game needs to be interesting. Not just one part. If you leave a bunch of people falling behind the rest then those people aren't having fun. How? Dev can read through the thread for inspirations but shouldn't follow the suggestions like mindless robots. Only a few people out of thousands of players post here and not all of them are smart, right or even correct.

FFXI is unfriendly. It's hard to play. It's difficult to start when you are clueless. The game doesn't tell you anything. Imagine playing FFXI without wiki page, without forum or any community assist. FFXI has thousands of players not even visit the wiki page for info and just walk around clueless. What to do? Where to go? How do you do that? These are the information SE must provide to the players. They are the casual players. They don't make efforts to find obscure information about the game. You have to spoon feed these people. Show them everything. Quests need to have markers. Items for quests need to be provided with ease (not looking up on AH for a chance of buying them).

Too much of FFXI relies on its community. When the community shrinks, changes or just simply move on, the game becomes difficult to play to new players. The game takes too much effort to play. People just want to have a blast with a game after they get home from work or school. SE needs to understand how to make FFXI engaging but not overbearing. Exciting but not hard. Fun but not too easy.

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FFXI would pretty much need a total redesign to attract new players. There is no tutorials, no in game help on quests, or even a reason to do most quests, no guide to help tell new players what they should be doing.

Something like a FFXI 2.0 HD Remix, UI and systems overhaul, essentially its what they have in FFXIV. Something like that most likely won't happen because FFXIV is the new game they want to attract new customers with. The game still has some people playing it which is why they still keep the game up. I don't see FFXI shutting down until hardly anyone is playing it. Even the original Everquest which came out before FFXI still has its servers up.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

FFXI would pretty much need a total redesign to attract new players. There is no tutorials, no in game help on quests, or even a reason to do most quests, no guide to help tell new players what they should be doing.

Something like a FFXI 2.0 HD Remix, UI and systems overhaul, essentially its what they have in FFXIV. Something like that most likely won't happen because FFXIV is the new game they want to attract new customers with. The game still has some people playing it which is why they still keep the game up. I don't see FFXI shutting down until hardly anyone is playing it. Even the original Everquest which came out before FFXI still has its servers up.

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Yeah but in order for that to happen, Sony will have to discontinue PS2. Then give it about 2-5 years until ps2 owners system malfunction. Then we will have to wait for SE to remake FF7. Then maybe make a new Final Fantasy movie actually related to the game rather than a sequel to some typical sci fi movie with the same concept as every other alien movie.

Then possibly... Just maybe they may come around to recoding FFXI down to the last expansion.

But before all of that happens, REM, New Red mage spells, inventory, and all other things need to be fixed first D:

It seems hard but it's actually not that different that what FFXI is offering at the moment. You don't really need to have a big "?" or "!"on some NPC, nor do you really need an arrow/dot on the radar to point the way (it would help a bit though).

Start out with much more detailed descriptions on what to do and where to go in the quest menu. What FFXI currently has is ambiguous at best and completely useless at worst (sometimes you can't even tell who gave you the quest!). It could be something as simple as: NPC A in area B asked you to look for item C. The item is believed to be found in area D from E type of monster.

Then put the markers on the players' map or ask the players to buy the maps from X NPC before doing the quests. FFXI has markers on the map. SE can use it to show the players where to go without running around looking for the ??? point.

For quests that require items that usually on AH but no longer available due to how EMPTY the AH is, a way to get the item must be provided. For example, a ??? point could be provided for the player to fight some easy NM for a 100% drop on the item (make it rare/ex).

Lastly, eliminate or greatly reduce the fame requirement for vital quests like Gobbie bags, Mog House expansions, RSE, Utsusemi Scrolls, Teleport Scrolls and Nation Missions...etc. Worried about abuse on the scrolls? Make it repeatable or drop from mobs. Most old players don't really need these scrolls so no point in making it hard for new players. Possibly extent this to some abyssea quests as some of them require repeating the same thing over again (aka. NOT FUN QUESTS).

Of course, this only helps on the quests and story side. FFXI must also allow people to level quicker solo or as a party. You don't want a new player spending 3 months getting to level 99. A lot of people will quit before that. Make it 3 weeks with 2 hours of leveling a day maximum. It doesn't have to be something ground breaking or hard. 1st, double exp gain (like the x2 exp campaign). Then make it so exp rings from conquests will give 10,000 exp with 1 hour recast similar to the anniversary ring. Also make it so players can exchange it without limit. Finally, greatly increases basic skill up rate for all combat and magic skills (ideally, x5 times rate for combat and x10 times for magic). We have enough people running bots to skill up.

"Oh you will get bad players who don't have a clue of what to do!" - argument will be there but let's just think through this. #1 If you solo or FOV stuff at the current speed from lv1 to lv99, chances are you aren't getting any better at understanding the game than just sleeping through it in abyssea. Esp, if you are in a social LS and not doing much partying #2 Most of the 'good' players aren't that good but actually have good gear. #3 Actual good skills come gradually with experience with actual situations in small party and understanding the game mechanics - which is found by reading the forums and such - so you have to get SE to modify the game to accommodate people without access to forums and such information. This is why FFXI is flawed; it doesn't explain game mechanics to people and force people to experiment it and analyze with mathematics and statistics.

I understand that Matsui can see this point and has been trying to change FFXI. The level on item is for this purpose as well as making items that are more permanent and don't require switching gear. However, the idea is sound but the execution is a mess. He forgot the implications, the changes to the playerbase, the reactions from players and failed to provide alternatives for people to accustom to changes.

Isn't the general response to this question "FFXI is declining because my personal interest is waning, I'm getting fed up with it, and my personal feelings are the only thing that exists."?

I mean, that's been the way it's gone since 2006.

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Originally Posted by Zarchery

Isn't the general response to this question "FFXI is declining because my personal interest is waning, I'm getting fed up with it, and my personal feelings are the only thing that exists."?

I mean, that's been the way it's gone since 2006.

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I will have your babies.

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Originally Posted by Eijii

Eorzea welcomes you all.

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So in 5 years we can go though all the same BS again. Thanx but no thanx I learned from the first time. Have when SE starts diverting resources from 14 for their new MMO since you are rewarding the very thing that people are here complaining about.

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Originally Posted by Ravenmore

So in 5 years we can go though all the same BS again. Thanx but no thanx I learned from the first time. Have when SE starts diverting resources from 14 for their new MMO since you are rewarding the very thing that people are here complaining about.

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So since they made 1 MMO, and are now making a second, you think they are going to do the exact same things with it? Also, this game has been around 11 years, not 5, if they do the same thing in a decade then fine, but ya know what, at least I will enjoy that decade probably, and when the time comes, Ill be complaining just like I do for FFXI, but at least I enjoyed the 11 years up to that point. Sorry but I refuse to think that FFXI must be a permanent example of how Square Enix will always do MMOs, for all we know FFXIV might not be stuck like FFXI, they might actually take it off PS3 when the console is to far behind to support it, that way it can continue to move forward. They could do it very differently than FFXI has been done, but if you give them no chance, you will only rob yourself of the potential experience. Now if this was their third or fourth, and it was a continued tradition for how they handled the games, then yes, I would understand, but since that's not the case, I completely disagree with how you see things.

The game is declining because we need server merges.

FFXI is declining because it's an old game.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

[...] Sorry but I refuse to think that FFXI must be a permanent example of how Square Enix will always do MMOs [...]

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I don't know Demon, if you know the gas station next to Wal Mart puts water in their gas, and the owner starts another station on the other end of town, do you expect different from that one.

It's a valid concern and something I've thought about to. FFxIV players might find out that devs are right on top of their concerns as long as the japanese players have the same concerns. 14's advertising so far hasn't been amazing. In as little as a year, you might never see TV ads for it and abysmal web advertising. There's no real reason to expect different especially since it's the same company and several of the same minds. Some minds high-enough-profile that we know them by name, or could, and others lower in the ranks. Many of XIV's caretakers are from XI.

It's a valid concern that they may spend years guiding endgame at a time when none of their developers actually play endgame or understand it. That's pretty common among most MMOs though.

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Originally Posted by Spectreman

FFXI is declining because it's an old game.

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Seriously, guys.

Have some ice cream and take a nap.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

So since they made 1 MMO, and are now making a second, you think they are going to do the exact same things with it? Also, this game has been around 11 years, not 5, if they do the same thing in a decade then fine, but ya know what, at least I will enjoy that decade probably, and when the time comes, Ill be complaining just like I do for FFXI, but at least I enjoyed the 11 years up to that point. Sorry but I refuse to think that FFXI must be a permanent example of how Square Enix will always do MMOs, for all we know FFXIV might not be stuck like FFXI, they might actually take it off PS3 when the console is to far behind to support it, that way it can continue to move forward. They could do it very differently than FFXI has been done, but if you give them no chance, you will only rob yourself of the potential experience. Now if this was their third or fourth, and it was a continued tradition for how they handled the games, then yes, I would understand, but since that's not the case, I completely disagree with how you see things.

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You might have made a point, if they had stopped doing it here and then said "come to FFXIV, we won't do it there either...".

But they didn't. They continuously crap this game up and ignore the players. There is no reason to believe that they won't do it there either.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

I don't know Demon, if you know the gas station next to Wal Mart puts water in their gas, and the owner starts another station on the other end of town, do you expect different from that one.

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Large difference. Your talking about an 11 year old game with a dwindling player base, next to no new players coming in, more people leaving every month, and being tied to an old out of date console, on top of the fact if they wanted to update this game it would take a lot of money to get it up to todays standards I'm sure. Its not opening up another game the exact same as their previous, FFXIV is different from FFXI in many ways, I doubt they will treat it the same, they already seem to be taking in feedback well from what I hear, which to me sounds good. If they start going badly with it in 5~10 years, at least I enjoyed it while it was good. I wouldn't go off a single experience with a format of game they had no experience with when it was made, time has passed, I think they will do better with FFXIV. Honestly, I doubt SE ever saw this game going on for 11 years in the first place, perhaps they will plan ahead for FFXIV better than they did for FFXI which seems to restrict our updates today with massive limitations of the past. I mean I know in a decade the game will probably have some limitations, but again, they knew not what to expect I'm sure, this time they will probably leave things a little more open to change for later.

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It's a valid concern and something I've thought about to. FFxIV players might find out that devs are right on top of their concerns as long as the japanese players have the same concerns. 14's advertising so far hasn't been amazing. In as little as a year, you might never see TV ads for it and abysmal web advertising. There's no real reason to expect different especially since it's the same company and several of the same minds. Some minds high-enough-profile that we know them by name, or could, and others lower in the ranks. Many of XIV's caretakers are from XI.

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I know, but it does seem like they can do better this time around. I don't know, I could be an ignorant fool for thinking so, but I understand the MMO market isn't something so easily jumped into and done well, especially when FFXI was made back when MMOs were fairly small by compare to today and they probably never expected it to come this far. I also know SE and advertising do not go together, I don't expect a FFXIV commercial with Mr.T in it, or anything of the sort, but I also do not expect it to flop and be horrible. Commercials are a problem of SE's failure to communicate with communities outside of Japan in general though, a problem with the company, not just FFXI or FF MMOs, or SE MMOs, but a problem with the company in general. So in the end, its another thing I hope they overcome, but that one I am more doubtful about.

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Originally Posted by FrankReynolds

You might have made a point, if they had stopped doing it here and then said "come to FFXIV, we won't do it there either...".

But they didn't. They continuously crap this game up and ignore the players. There is no reason to believe that they won't do it there either.

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Same company but different teams, this is an old game with a crumbling player base & its not getting any younger/better with time, so I understand how they can continue to mess up this game, but I do expect them to make FFXIV good enough to be this games successor and in the end be a good game itself.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Same company but different teams, this is an old game with a crumbling player base & its not getting any younger/better with time, so I understand how they can continue to mess up this game, but I do expect them to make FFXIV good enough to be this games successor and in the end be a good game itself.

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This game is crumbling as a direct result of their decisions. They chose to cut the budget. They chose to ignore the player base. For whatever reason they just decided that they would rather build a new game than keep the old one. There is a strong likelihood that they will make that decision again. I expect it to happen even faster next time.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

Seriously, guys.

Have some ice cream and take a nap.

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Only stated the obvious. Wow is also declining btw.

Doesn't mean i don't like FFXI though. Still the only MMORPG that i like to play for more than a month.

For me, FFXI's decline is mostly that the people I play with have largely quit, and the more outspoken of those that do seem convinced it's very important to tell me how much FFXI is declining and how SE needs to do something or it's going to go down the drain.


It's pretty demoralizing, and since I barely have time to play (and XI has always felt like a game that requires 4+ hour blocks to do much) I'm gonna give it a break.


I'll be back.

There are many reasons why the game has declined.

For me, FFXI was always much more than a MMORPG, of which many I have played. To me, FFXIV feels like a MMORPG, a really fantastic one but a MMORPG none the less. I played WoW, I played Aion, I played Lineage 2 and some others and while many of them were great fun, they felt like a game. FFXI however, felt like something a bit more special, like an online world you could log into and truly feel like an adventurer in another realm. I think ultimately, even though many can not recognize it, fail to admit it or are blind to the fact, it's what keeps them around hoping so dearly that one day it picks up once again.

I think the biggest problem in FFXI came from the way they decided to handle problems, it reflects with FFXIV if you really think about it. Square Enix tends to fix problems by adding new options and trying to cover them up instead of fixing the problems at hand. They tend to forget about the problems of old and only add new things to distract from the older problems. It's like a doctor who gives you a million dollars to cheer up your spirit instead of actually treating the symptoms you came into the hospital for. When the effect of that million dollars wears off, you still have the same old sickness but now it's taken a worse effect. Instead of simply giving your patients more prizes to keep them unfocused on their ailment, an actual cure needs to be found. As many others have said, so many things are ignored and for this game to shine once more they must face those problems head on.

I think one of the primary things that has lead to the decline of this game is how expansive it once was and how one directional it is in this day and time. I was thinking back to how many years ago I might sign on and ask myself, "Should I do a BCNM? Perhaps level a bit, or farm? Should I do some crafting, or maybe go camp a notorious monster? I might have an event with my linkshell, it could be a Sky NM and then possibly a King afterwards. Once we're done, I might try to work on a mission, or perhaps a quest. I need to skill up a bit as well and I still want to level that one job. Maybe I'll help some newer folks get the items they need for the level cap quest, or help them with an Artifact Quest fight, it's always fun showing off your high level as you decimate the monster they need killed to unlock a particular job!"

The above is just a small number of many options available one had when signing in, there were so many possibilities and what drove people and motivated them to those possibilities were the rewards, accomplishment and joy you got by doing them. Not everything always went in your favor, but adversity is what truly builds character and gives you the sense of accomplishment once you do finally accomplish something. There was simply so much to do and so many reasons to do it. Most of it still exists, but without reason to actually do it, people rarely experience it and the core of the game vanishes like smoke in the wind, leaving only a trace behind of what once was.

The game also use to not only be about end game, it was only part of it. I know no one including myself liked standing around for hours if not days without getting an experience points party, but as I said earlier, instead of resolving the issue, perhaps giving people better options on how to form a experience points party, with who and where they would fight, they just eliminated one of the fundementals of what made this game so unique and what it was. I can truly and honestly say some of the best times I ever had in this game was in a experience points party, grinding down the monsters as I laughed and chatted with friends and made new ones. Again, it made every little thing you earned feel like an accomplishment. Once you achieve those accomplishments, you want to put them into use- it gave the adventurers of Vana'Diel a drive to do more and use what they had worked so hard for.

When you finally got those few more levels and you were able to do a new mission, or equip a new peace of gear, or fight something slightly higher level without dying you felt that sense of accomplishment. You felt like you had done something and it meant something as well. While many people thought this was a slow process, they failed to realize it wasn't always about the destination, but the journey itself that made everything so special.

It was that climb to the top that made the top so much more majestic and beautiful, then doing it again on another job. During the lower and mid levels you got to actually learn the job in parties against less troublesome enemies, you learned the mechanics of the job as you went up so that finally once you reached end game you had a lot better idea of how to put that job to proper use. During the climb you had quests, missions, new gear, new people to meet. Yes, there were a lot of things about the party system that needed to be fixed. People standing around for hours on end not getting to party was no good and overcroweded experience points camps was no fun either, but again, if solutions would have been found to these problems people could have continued doing what made this game so fantastic without the negative side effects.

A big part of this slow climb was that it slowed down mission progression. No longer did you simply go and burn through all the missions in a day, it took some time, but this made one feel more envolved in the story, as if it were an actual journey that they got closer to realizing day by day and once again, that final sense of accomplishment was intoxicating.

Simply put, the game before you hit the level cap was the real journey, it was the real fun and added a full spectrum of things to do all across the board. Where the game once felt so 3 dimensional it now feels as if it is 1 dimension in 1 direction. In this day and time all you do is quickly grind to 30 then open a little box a bunch of times until you reach 99, all of which can be done in a day or two. It removed much of the challenge and sense of accomplishment.

As I said before, it is through adverse circumstances and challenging times that we really learn a lot about who we are, what we're capable of, what drives us and what we're willing to do to realize a goal. It's through the tough missions, hard to defeat monsters and challenges of making it to the top that we became strong, we became skilled and although some tend to disagree, having to depend on others is really what brought us together, taught us to treat others with respect and work together as a team. There needed to be better options and revissions to finding those other people in which to work with, but needing to depend on one another is really what made us such a strong community and what made it feel like more than just a game with other people on it, but something different than any other mmo.

People always complained about horizontal gear progression, but I always felt it was a good idea. Give people MANY options to be A+, not ONE option to be A++++++++ while everything else is left by the wayside. I log in now days and see EVERYONE wearing a bunch of red gear. I know in the days of the Optical Hat and Walahra Turban many people ran around with those on, but there were still so many other options used, especially in all the rest of their bodies. It was a lot more diverse. You could do X event, Y event or Z event and each reward would be different, but they would all be pretty close to equal of each other, save for a few very elite options- but those very elite options were not so far above other gear that it made those without them useless. I sign in now and since I do not have Skirmish weapons no one wants to use my DD at all, while back in the day if some one didn't have a relic weapon or adaberk, but had all the proper gear and merit they held just about the same level of respect if not more.

Merit parties added on to the whole idea of gathering experience points and was a sort of "proving grounds" to show what you had accomplished and could do once you got to the top. It's how so many end game linkshells met members and recruited. More often than not, it wasn't about the gear as much as it was the player. That guy who constantly AFK'd in his adaberk was laughed out of the party while the one who was consistently doing his job, using food and putting out high numbers in the normal hauberk was respected and invited to join many different events.

Let's also not forget how many missions gave you an incredible item, giving us further motivation to finish storylines and reap a reward from it in the end. The game had a lot more depth too it, it was a lot more complex in so many ways...

What's happening now is that people are getting bored and many don't know why. People have had issues trusting Square Enix sense the level cap was originally raised from 75 way back when. I remember spending so many years gathering so much gear, putting so much into my character and really enjoying what I had become only to be told all that hard work was for nothing and those items had been made useless by new ones added. "Why are these new items so much better than everything else? Who's going to want to do all these old events now?" it really concerned me, even then I saw much of this coming. With Abyssea people began to simply "Grind for Gear" and after spending so much time and hard work, much of that gear was replaced, as was that and so on and so forth over and over. People now feel much like they're on a treadmill chasing a carrot, constantly running in a strait line always with that one goal and so few other options.

So much of the game has been abandoned, forgotten and not cared for. People no longer stop to smell the roses, because there is no need to, no reason to and the paths we take lead no where near those roses.

I myself? I still sign on and put on my full set of Relic Armor, a set I once worked so hard to achieve. I go around and do little quests, craft, fish and try to experience Vana'Diel, a ghost of what it once was. I miss standing around with others in Selbina, chatting about the goblins in Valkurm dunes. I miss climbing Delkfutts Tower to get a Dark Knight friend his Artifact Helm, I miss being sent all over the world for many different reasons.

Many will yell and scream, disagree with me as they stare at the carrot they'll never really catch, basking in the "AMAZING STATS" the new gear has without stopping to realize what those stats were even once used for, the many things they helped us do.

I believe FFXI is a incredible world and I would like to personally thank the people who developed it, wrote the stories and made Vana'Diel so incredible. I went through many hardships in my real life and when I never felt like I had a home in the real world, I always felt truly at home in Vana'Diel. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I always thought of FFXI like a tree. As time went on, it only grew more and became more majestic. If a branch died or was struck it only needed to be trimmed, pruned and allowed to grow further, flourishing on and on instead of simply being bulldozed to plant new trees, new shrubbery over and over again.

Take with it what you will, but ask almost anyone what was more rewarding, fulfilling, exciting and fun. Even with all the problems it once had, the old Vana'Diel, or the Vana'Diel of today.

I am for the most part always a forum lurker, rarely a poster. I automatically would skip/skim a wall of txt, but your opening sentence is why I kept reading. I read many of the posts, and they all have similar or equally valid opinion, but there are some parts I pulled out I think everyone, especially the developers should read. Thank you for posting this, I myself could never of expressed it so well.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

For me, FFXI was always much more than a MMORPG, of which many I have played. FFXI however, felt like something a bit more special, like an online world you could log into and truly feel like an adventurer in another realm.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

I think one of the primary things that has lead to the decline of this game is how expansive it once was and how one directional it is in this day and time. I was thinking back to how many years ago I might sign on and ask myself, "Should I do a BCNM? Perhaps level a bit, or farm? Should I do some crafting, or maybe go camp a notorious monster? I might have an event with my linkshell, it could be a Sky NM and then possibly a King afterwards. Once we're done, I might try to work on a mission, or perhaps a quest. I need to skill up a bit as well and I still want to level that one job. Maybe I'll help some newer folks get the items they need for the level cap quest, or help them with an Artifact Quest fight, it's always fun showing off your high level as you decimate the monster they need killed to unlock a particular job!"

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

There was simply so much to do and so many reasons to do it. Most of it still exists, but without reason to actually do it, people rarely experience it and the core of the game vanishes like smoke in the wind, leaving only a trace behind of what once was.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

The game also use to not only be about end game, it was only part of it.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

No longer did you simply go and burn through all the missions in a day, it took some time, but this made one feel more evolved in the story, as if it were an actual journey that they got closer to realizing day by day and once again, that final sense of accomplishment was intoxicating.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

Where the game once felt so 3 dimensional it now feels as if it is 1 dimension in 1 direction.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

I sign in now and since I do not have Skirmish weapons no one wants to use my DD at all, while back in the day if some one didn't have a relic weapon or adaberk, but had all the proper gear and merit they held just about the same level of respect if not more.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

What's happening now is that people are getting bored and many don't know why.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

People now feel much like they're on a treadmill chasing a carrot, constantly running in a strait line always with that one goal and so few other options.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

So much of the game has been abandoned, forgotten and not cared for. People no longer stop to smell the roses, because there is no need to, no reason to and the paths we take lead no where near those roses.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

I myself? I still sign on and put on my full set of Relic Armor, a set I once worked so hard to achieve.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

I believe FFXI is a incredible world and I would like to personally thank the people who developed it, wrote the stories and made Vana'Diel so incredible. I went through many hardships in my real life and when I never felt like I had a home in the real world, I always felt truly at home in Vana'Diel. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

People now feel much like they're on a treadmill chasing a carrot

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At this point of the game since the majority of players are 99 at the end. We are the carrot and the DEV TEAM is running on our treadmill.

No, the dev team is off in the other room having a snack. They cannot create enough content to sustain a vertical progression model even for casuals, let alone hardcores. They abandoned a much more sustainable model in favor of this treadmill of fail. I have not played seriously in a month and bet I can max out my jobs again in two nights after work.

Adoulin is bad design blended with terrible ideas and dusted with a pinch of "who really cares what the players want?"

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

There are many reasons why the game has declined.

For me, FFXI was always much more than a MMORPG, of which many I have played. To me, FFXIV feels like a MMORPG, a really fantastic one but a MMORPG none the less. I played WoW, I played Aion, I played Lineage 2 and some others and while many of them were great fun, they felt like a game. FFXI however, felt like something a bit more special, like an online world you could log into and truly feel like an adventurer in another realm. I think ultimately, even though many can not recognize it, fail to admit it or are blind to the fact, it's what keeps them around hoping so dearly that one day it picks up once again.

I think the biggest problem in FFXI came from the way they decided to handle problems, it reflects with FFXIV if you really think about it. Square Enix tends to fix problems by adding new options and trying to cover them up instead of fixing the problems at hand. They tend to forget about the problems of old and only add new things to distract from the older problems. It's like a doctor who gives you a million dollars to cheer up your spirit instead of actually treating the symptoms you came into the hospital for. When the effect of that million dollars wears off, you still have the same old sickness but now it's taken a worse effect. Instead of simply giving your patients more prizes to keep them unfocused on their ailment, an actual cure needs to be found. As many others have said, so many things are ignored and for this game to shine once more they must face those problems head on.

I think one of the primary things that has lead to the decline of this game is how expansive it once was and how one directional it is in this day and time. I was thinking back to how many years ago I might sign on and ask myself, "Should I do a BCNM? Perhaps level a bit, or farm? Should I do some crafting, or maybe go camp a notorious monster? I might have an event with my linkshell, it could be a Sky NM and then possibly a King afterwards. Once we're done, I might try to work on a mission, or perhaps a quest. I need to skill up a bit as well and I still want to level that one job. Maybe I'll help some newer folks get the items they need for the level cap quest, or help them with an Artifact Quest fight, it's always fun showing off your high level as you decimate the monster they need killed to unlock a particular job!"

The above is just a small number of many options available one had when signing in, there were so many possibilities and what drove people and motivated them to those possibilities were the rewards, accomplishment and joy you got by doing them. Not everything always went in your favor, but adversity is what truly builds character and gives you the sense of accomplishment once you do finally accomplish something. There was simply so much to do and so many reasons to do it. Most of it still exists, but without reason to actually do it, people rarely experience it and the core of the game vanishes like smoke in the wind, leaving only a trace behind of what once was.

The game also use to not only be about end game, it was only part of it. I know no one including myself liked standing around for hours if not days without getting an experience points party, but as I said earlier, instead of resolving the issue, perhaps giving people better options on how to form a experience points party, with who and where they would fight, they just eliminated one of the fundementals of what made this game so unique and what it was. I can truly and honestly say some of the best times I ever had in this game was in a experience points party, grinding down the monsters as I laughed and chatted with friends and made new ones. Again, it made every little thing you earned feel like an accomplishment. Once you achieve those accomplishments, you want to put them into use- it gave the adventurers of Vana'Diel a drive to do more and use what they had worked so hard for.

When you finally got those few more levels and you were able to do a new mission, or equip a new peace of gear, or fight something slightly higher level without dying you felt that sense of accomplishment. You felt like you had done something and it meant something as well. While many people thought this was a slow process, they failed to realize it wasn't always about the destination, but the journey itself that made everything so special.

It was that climb to the top that made the top so much more majestic and beautiful, then doing it again on another job. During the lower and mid levels you got to actually learn the job in parties against less troublesome enemies, you learned the mechanics of the job as you went up so that finally once you reached end game you had a lot better idea of how to put that job to proper use. During the climb you had quests, missions, new gear, new people to meet. Yes, there were a lot of things about the party system that needed to be fixed. People standing around for hours on end not getting to party was no good and overcroweded experience points camps was no fun either, but again, if solutions would have been found to these problems people could have continued doing what made this game so fantastic without the negative side effects.

A big part of this slow climb was that it slowed down mission progression. No longer did you simply go and burn through all the missions in a day, it took some time, but this made one feel more envolved in the story, as if it were an actual journey that they got closer to realizing day by day and once again, that final sense of accomplishment was intoxicating.

Simply put, the game before you hit the level cap was the real journey, it was the real fun and added a full spectrum of things to do all across the board. Where the game once felt so 3 dimensional it now feels as if it is 1 dimension in 1 direction. In this day and time all you do is quickly grind to 30 then open a little box a bunch of times until you reach 99, all of which can be done in a day or two. It removed much of the challenge and sense of accomplishment.

As I said before, it is through adverse circumstances and challenging times that we really learn a lot about who we are, what we're capable of, what drives us and what we're willing to do to realize a goal. It's through the tough missions, hard to defeat monsters and challenges of making it to the top that we became strong, we became skilled and although some tend to disagree, having to depend on others is really what brought us together, taught us to treat others with respect and work together as a team. There needed to be better options and revissions to finding those other people in which to work with, but needing to depend on one another is really what made us such a strong community and what made it feel like more than just a game with other people on it, but something different than any other mmo.

People always complained about horizontal gear progression, but I always felt it was a good idea. Give people MANY options to be A+, not ONE option to be A++++++++ while everything else is left by the wayside. I log in now days and see EVERYONE wearing a bunch of red gear. I know in the days of the Optical Hat and Walahra Turban many people ran around with those on, but there were still so many other options used, especially in all the rest of their bodies. It was a lot more diverse. You could do X event, Y event or Z event and each reward would be different, but they would all be pretty close to equal of each other, save for a few very elite options- but those very elite options were not so far above other gear that it made those without them useless. I sign in now and since I do not have Skirmish weapons no one wants to use my DD at all, while back in the day if some one didn't have a relic weapon or adaberk, but had all the proper gear and merit they held just about the same level of respect if not more.

Merit parties added on to the whole idea of gathering experience points and was a sort of "proving grounds" to show what you had accomplished and could do once you got to the top. It's how so many end game linkshells met members and recruited. More often than not, it wasn't about the gear as much as it was the player. That guy who constantly AFK'd in his adaberk was laughed out of the party while the one who was consistently doing his job, using food and putting out high numbers in the normal hauberk was respected and invited to join many different events.

Let's also not forget how many missions gave you an incredible item, giving us further motivation to finish storylines and reap a reward from it in the end. The game had a lot more depth too it, it was a lot more complex in so many ways...

What's happening now is that people are getting bored and many don't know why. People have had issues trusting Square Enix sense the level cap was originally raised from 75 way back when. I remember spending so many years gathering so much gear, putting so much into my character and really enjoying what I had become only to be told all that hard work was for nothing and those items had been made useless by new ones added. "Why are these new items so much better than everything else? Who's going to want to do all these old events now?" it really concerned me, even then I saw much of this coming. With Abyssea people began to simply "Grind for Gear" and after spending so much time and hard work, much of that gear was replaced, as was that and so on and so forth over and over. People now feel much like they're on a treadmill chasing a carrot, constantly running in a strait line always with that one goal and so few other options.

So much of the game has been abandoned, forgotten and not cared for. People no longer stop to smell the roses, because there is no need to, no reason to and the paths we take lead no where near those roses.

I myself? I still sign on and put on my full set of Relic Armor, a set I once worked so hard to achieve. I go around and do little quests, craft, fish and try to experience Vana'Diel, a ghost of what it once was. I miss standing around with others in Selbina, chatting about the goblins in Valkurm dunes. I miss climbing Delkfutts Tower to get a Dark Knight friend his Artifact Helm, I miss being sent all over the world for many different reasons.

Many will yell and scream, disagree with me as they stare at the carrot they'll never really catch, basking in the "AMAZING STATS" the new gear has without stopping to realize what those stats were even once used for, the many things they helped us do.

I believe FFXI is a incredible world and I would like to personally thank the people who developed it, wrote the stories and made Vana'Diel so incredible. I went through many hardships in my real life and when I never felt like I had a home in the real world, I always felt truly at home in Vana'Diel. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I always thought of FFXI like a tree. As time went on, it only grew more and became more majestic. If a branch died or was struck it only needed to be trimmed, pruned and allowed to grow further, flourishing on and on instead of simply being bulldozed to plant new trees, new shrubbery over and over again.

Take with it what you will, but ask almost anyone what was more rewarding, fulfilling, exciting and fun. Even with all the problems it once had, the old Vana'Diel, or the Vana'Diel of today.

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Valkurm Dunes
Qufim Island
Yuhtunga
Yhoat
Garlaige Citadel
Wajaom Woodlands
Bhaflau Thickets
Caedarva Mire
Arrapago Reef

anyone miss these old party spots?

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Originally Posted by Anjou

Valkurm Dunes
Qufim Island
Yuhtunga
Yhoat
Garlaige Citadel
Wajaom Woodlands
Bhaflau Thickets
Caedarva Mire
Arrapago Reef

anyone miss these old party spots?

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miss them lot:). but people dont even them now n days and the list is even bigger then that with the old pt spots. this was one of the main things i liked that got took away.>< just to join level sync xp pts and to actually do your job in a 6 man pt.

in todays pts no one doing any kinda team work, it just join gusgen mines 18 people, spam EP,DC with little to no help, it mostly just soloing while being in a pt.
same thing in abyssea lvl90+ DDs, etc mostly just soloing everything or even 1 shoting stuff now while people just following them.>.>

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Originally Posted by nyheen

miss them lot:). but people dont even them now n days and the list is even bigger then that with the old pt spots. this was one of the main things i liked that got took away.>< just to join level sync xp pts and to actually do your job in a 6 man pt.

in todays pts no one doing any kinda team work, it just join gusgen mines 18 people, spam EP,DC with little to no help, it mostly just soloing while being in a pt.
same thing in abyssea lvl90+ DDs, etc mostly just soloing everything or even 1 shoting stuff now while people just following them.>.>

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I had to pretty much solo or whack at walls to get THF,BLM,SMN and DNC to 75 because they were not popular party jobs and it was paaaiiinnnfullly slow. I miss the party spots, but I don't miss anything that went with them.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

No, the dev team is off in the other room having a snack. They cannot create enough content to sustain a vertical progression model even for casuals, let alone hardcores. They abandoned a much more sustainable model in favor of this treadmill of fail. I have not played seriously in a month and bet I can max out my jobs again in two nights after work.

Adoulin is bad design blended with terrible ideas and dusted with a pinch of "who really cares what the players want?"

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In my opinion people want the world to be more than what it already is. We are playing a game that is 11 years old. Most people have already past almost everything in it.

Playerbase is at a point where everyone has enough power to speed past new content faster than it can be put out.

You do things for people and when they lose interest in what you do for them no matter how hard you try the interest cannot be given back without some miracle and that's what I see people are expecting.

A miracle.

But at this point the ladder can only go so high. Is it worth it?

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Originally Posted by Adventurer

Take with it what you will, but ask almost anyone what was more rewarding, fulfilling, exciting and fun. Even with all the problems it once had, the old Vana'Diel, or the Vana'Diel of today.

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I love your post. I've left and come back several times. I always left when I got focused/frustrated with things and forgot to just enjoy the game. When I come back, I'm always amazed at how much there is to do and how much fun the story and content are. It seems no matter how much I love it, I seem to get drawn in to the hurry and level syndrome, that starts making it feel like a job vs. a game. I've tried to avoid it this time, and still feel that pull to take shortcuts or 'grind thru the pain' vs. enjoying whatever I'm doing.

I feel for the dev team. There is such a wide range of player base, it's got to be hard, if not impossible to keep long time players satisfied and draw in new players without the new players feeling like they're facing insurmountable odds. Things that are trivial for much of the player base are painful for newer folks, and it becomes harder as there are less newer folks. Many of the storylines require a group or being over leveled to complete.

I understand why many hated COP even though I agree it was a good thing to remove the level cap, I thought the level cap was an good idea. There's nothing like doing the content with a group at the level it was meant to be done. Unfortunately, the coordination to do it was a pain to much of the player base, myself included. I hope those who completed it as it was meant to be done remember those battles and the effort as fondly as I do even if they were often incredibly frustrating. Unless a new player is fortunate enough to join with friends, they're likely to have to wait till they're capped and then solo or maybe duo/trio thru it if they're lucky.

When people used to level multiple jobs the old fashioned way, it helped new players, but now that many take the fast path, new players don't have vets re-leveling jobs to group with or learn from as much. If they manage to get to endgame, they need help in many cases learning the intricacies of their job or of a certain type of tactic, and some folks aren't very patient or willing to take some time to explain. Fortunately, there are some (hopefully many) who still enjoy the fun of the game and are patient and understanding. Those people make the game better for all they play with.

I love this game and want it to keep going forever, but I can't think of a good plan for the game that encompasses everyone. People are so different. I think the devs are trying. They may fumble along the way, but at least they did put Adoulin out. I honestly thought there would never be another full expansion for the game. It seems like they were trying to do something different, and I like to think they were trying to help newer players catch up a bit with seasoned players and just jumped the shark a bit. I thought Abyssea was horrible at the time, but now I actually enjoy it quite a bit, so who knows how this will go down the road.

I just hope many keep playing 11 and SE keeps developing for it because while I can enjoy other games for a time, there is no other game as rich and involving as FFXI to me.

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Originally Posted by Anjou

anyone miss these old party spots?

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I don't miss the old grind. I do think that Abyssea kicked the exp system squarely (ha!) in the junk, rendering GoV/FoV nearly meaningless post-30.

What's kinda amazing is that Adoulin, I stab an Easy Prey to death in Morimar? I'm racking up 600+ limit points. If they'd given us non-KI related stuff for plasm, you'd likely see players sitting out there in parties slapping butterflies around.

Put some kind of non-exp-but-advancement system wrapped around this and you might actually see the rebirth of the 6-man group again.

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Originally Posted by kylani

I love your post. I've left and come back several times. I always left when I got focused/frustrated with things and forgot to just enjoy the game. When I come back, I'm always amazed at how much there is to do and how much fun the story and content are. It seems no matter how much I love it, I seem to get drawn in to the hurry and level syndrome, that starts making it feel like a job vs. a game. I've tried to avoid it this time, and still feel that pull to take shortcuts or 'grind thru the pain' vs. enjoying whatever I'm doing.

I feel for the dev team. There is such a wide range of player base, it's got to be hard, if not impossible to keep long time players satisfied and draw in new players without the new players feeling like they're facing insurmountable odds. Things that are trivial for much of the player base are painful for newer folks, and it becomes harder as there are less newer folks. Many of the storylines require a group or being over leveled to complete.

I understand why many hated COP even though I agree it was a good thing to remove the level cap, I thought the level cap was an good idea. There's nothing like doing the content with a group at the level it was meant to be done. Unfortunately, the coordination to do it was a pain to much of the player base, myself included. I hope those who completed it as it was meant to be done remember those battles and the effort as fondly as I do even if they were often incredibly frustrating. Unless a new player is fortunate enough to join with friends, they're likely to have to wait till they're capped and then solo or maybe duo/trio thru it if they're lucky.

When people used to level multiple jobs the old fashioned way, it helped new players, but now that many take the fast path, new players don't have vets re-leveling jobs to group with or learn from as much. If they manage to get to endgame, they need help in many cases learning the intricacies of their job or of a certain type of tactic, and some folks aren't very patient or willing to take some time to explain. Fortunately, there are some (hopefully many) who still enjoy the fun of the game and are patient and understanding. Those people make the game better for all they play with.

I love this game and want it to keep going forever, but I can't think of a good plan for the game that encompasses everyone. People are so different. I think the devs are trying. They may fumble along the way, but at least they did put Adoulin out. I honestly thought there would never be another full expansion for the game. It seems like they were trying to do something different, and I like to think they were trying to help newer players catch up a bit with seasoned players and just jumped the shark a bit. I thought Abyssea was horrible at the time, but now I actually enjoy it quite a bit, so who knows how this will go down the road.

I just hope many keep playing 11 and SE keeps developing for it because while I can enjoy other games for a time, there is no other game as rich and involving as FFXI to me.

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The way I see it is we are legends in vanadiel history..... we've rescued the world time and again we've pushed past our physical limits time and again over a span of 11 years... new players have it easy.. with some commen sense you can achieve great things just by playing the game... Armed with knowledge via the internet... you become pretty much invincible... but using that knowledge comes at a price because it's all built off of the community not SE

I have complaints but I don't see XI declining... more like legends are retiring and only the adventurers of this time are existent while newer generations are being continuously planted... however.. they are about 11 years behind on their training..... so don't really expect to see them in Audolin anytime soon...unless a a seasoned adventurer or a linkshell that's willing to help picks them up.

I play this game to play it as a game! It is fun and I to sometimes feel like the background stuff (leveling and going out and doing stuff to get gear over and over) sometimes makes me lose my path but I will preserver!

Shouting in jeuno for days for a single pt invite?

Camping HNMs for so many hours to be beaten by the LS with the best bot claim?

Endless frustrating Dynamis runs where you would return empty handed 90% of time because drops for certain jobs were abyssmal?

Events like Salvage where only a few would even see what was in there because it was "too hardcore" for scrubs to participate?

Years of sidegrades that more and more required us to blink each second exchanging gear, carrying almost full inventory with swaps for 2-3% of dmg improvement?



Yea right, you guys can all go to FF14. The game changed for the better. If you are rushing yourself through endgame content and find yourself bored after a month then go play another game called real life.

All hardcore freaks can't understand that there is life outside this game. Go experience that and enjoy FFXI in smaller doses. You will be amazed how awesome this game is instead of cursing how everything is easy when you got the strongest gear of the game in a month.


Though i have to agree that things like exp parties in valkrum/qufim/kazham/citadel/cn/altepa was fun and still would be today if they improved GoV exp rewards up to abyssea level.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Put some kind of non-exp-but-advancement system wrapped around this and you might actually see the rebirth of the 6-man group again.

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I myself as well as others have mentioned this before. I think they should make all events either solo, party, or alliance, and have the same rewards, but obviously scaled difficulty/ drop rate so people don't spam solo speed runs., and make this game even more single player.

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Originally Posted by Spectreman

Shouting in jeuno for days for a single pt invite?

Camping HNMs for so many hours to be beaten by the LS with the best bot claim?

Endless frustrating Dynamis runs where you would return empty handed 90% of time because drops for certain jobs were abyssmal?

Events like Salvage where only a few would even see what was in there because it was "too hardcore" for scrubs to participate?

Years of sidegrades that more and more required us to blink each second exchanging gear, carrying almost full inventory with swaps for 2-3% of dmg improvement?



Yea right, you guys can all go to FF14. The game changed for the better. If you are rushing yourself through endgame content and find yourself bored after a month then go play another game called real life.

All hardcore freaks can't understand that there is life outside this game. Go experience that and enjoy FFXI in smaller doses. You will be amazed how awesome this game is instead of cursing how everything is easy when you got the strongest gear of the game in a month.


Though i have to agree that things like exp parties in valkrum/qufim/kazham/citadel/cn/altepa was fun and still would be today if they improved GoV exp rewards up to abyssea level.

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I believe they were referring to how much more competant the playerbase was back in the day vs now

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Originally Posted by Spectreman

Yea right, you guys can all go to FF14. The game changed for the better. If you are rushing yourself through endgame content and find yourself bored after a month then go play another game called real life.

All hardcore freaks can't understand that there is life outside this game. Go experience that and enjoy FFXI in smaller doses. You will be amazed how awesome this game is instead of cursing how everything is easy when you got the strongest gear of the game in a month.

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That's not even half the issue this game is facing. This game requires connection/"buy-in" to keep players around, playing on and off simply doesn't work, and it's irrelevant to whether you have a life or not. It's more of a social game than MMORPG. Once your close friend got bored and quit, you'd got bored and quit too due to lack of ppl to play with, making it harder to do everything else. "Have something to do" is more than trying to please the hardcore, but it's also a good incentive to keep players/friends/linkshell together.

And stop playing real life card. Everyone has a life, including myself. But I only have one life, and I'd like to experience something different/more exciting than real life. My life is nothing more than wake up work wake up work, I like my "second life" after I got home, that give me a chance to meet players I never have chance to meet irl, or experience a world that I never get a chance to irl. It's my money and my time, I don't need anyone giving me lecture "go experience real life" when I have enough of it.

You don't even need to be close to hardcore to finish current game content 100 times. I've been selling stacks and stacks of airlixir +1s since it cost 1.2M a stack back in July. All the plasm add up together I can have R15 for every slot if I want to, plus capped delve boss gears. Do you think I play 8hrs a day? For past 1 month I play 5hr a week avg, and I work 9~12hr a day, sometimes even Weekend. I highly doubt you have more "real life" than me. I'm no where close to hardcore, not even close to avg player playtime, and I already finish delve content for month.

I don't mind 2%~3% of improvement, I don't mind doing an event and get nothing 9 out of 10 runs as long as I'm playing with friends and after 9 runs I got something cool. But I'm not very happy to log on to XI and see my LS all turn into ghost town and friendlist empty, due to everyone quitting after they're done with delve.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spectreman

Shouting in jeuno for days for a single pt invite?

Camping HNMs for so many hours to be beaten by the LS with the best bot claim?

Endless frustrating Dynamis runs where you would return empty handed 90% of time because drops for certain jobs were abyssmal?

Events like Salvage where only a few would even see what was in there because it was "too hardcore" for scrubs to participate?

Years of sidegrades that more and more required us to blink each second exchanging gear, carrying almost full inventory with swaps for 2-3% of dmg improvement?



Yea right, you guys can all go to FF14. The game changed for the better. If you are rushing yourself through endgame content and find yourself bored after a month then go play another game called real life.

All hardcore freaks can't understand that there is life outside this game. Go experience that and enjoy FFXI in smaller doses. You will be amazed how awesome this game is instead of cursing how everything is easy when you got the strongest gear of the game in a month.


Though i have to agree that things like exp parties in valkrum/qufim/kazham/citadel/cn/altepa was fun and still would be today if they improved GoV exp rewards up to abyssea level.

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Pretty much everything I said in all of my replies sum up to this in 1 post lol.

Worth noting that Monstrosity is basically old-school partying if you took a 6-man party and rolled it into one character.

(it's seriously a blast and I look forward to wiping the floor with the lot of you in November~)