I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Mirage]

Do you enjoy the hours of running between the cutscenes? What makes the intermediary part so appealing?

This is an honest question. I do not understand why people will argue that content like that should remain. It's just not fun, and the people that argue it agree that it's not fun, yet for some reason think it should still exist in a game.

No one wants to give me a straight answer; they always dodge and then tell me I'm just whining, or I should just do it, or something else (aka they just troll me).

As some others have said, for me, it is the scale of the world that does it. Vanadiel is a very large world, especially considering when the game was made. Although I agree that some missions and quests are a bit extreme on the legwork stuff, I think it's important that when you have a large world, the players should get a real feel of how big it is. The screen fading out and fading back in at the destination doesn't really give any real sense of what sort of distances are involved, it just makes the world feel small. A lot of work was put into some of the areas in this game, and I think it would be a shame for all that stuff to be lost on the majority of the players, and I think the developers deserve that we actually experience most of what they spent so much time creating. Over the years, there have been many reasons to explore the game other than *just* seeing scenery. There used to be a lot of NMs in remote areas, there used to be a lot more minor quests with relevant rewards, there used to be areas you went to just to gain experience, then there was also areas you went to, or went through to complete the main storylines. Nowadays, there's almost no reasons to go to most of these areas, except the missions. They're kind of the only incentive left that makes new players go out and look around.

Again, I'll agree that some quests and missions are a bit too heavy on the walking, but there is sort of a recurring theme in this game that you first get your patience tested and then rewarded if you put up with it. I didn't like climbing parradamo tor when the game made me do it, but when i finally got to the top and saw the sunset from there, i actually felt that it was worth the trouble. It is sort of like if you are mountain hiking. Walking up the steep hills and getting exhausted isn't really "fun", at least not to me, however, the feeling when you are standing at the top of the mountain and are finally done with the hard part, that really does feel great. Of course, doing it in a game isn't really near how it feels in real life, but I think the game tries to capture at least a tiny bit of the same feeling. It felt special because it's not something you can just experience whenever you want to, as you can't (or couldn't, at least) just teleport there instantly anytime you felt like seeing it. If you wanted to see it, you had to take your time and walk up there. There's a lot of places like that in the game, and it's one of the things, I think, that sets (or used to set) the game apart from a lot of other MMOs, for better or for worse.

Like you said, it's not always "fun", as in it will make you feel great the entire time while doing it. It's more like an investment. Not all people like that sort of thing, but some do, and I have a feeling that many of the players that stuck with FFXI through all of these years are fine with this model. It's not for everyone, but it is for some people. Not all games cater to the same audience, just like not all movies cater to the same audience. If the naked gun 1 wasn't your cup of tea, you probably shouldn't try the two sequels, right? Your preferred sort of entertainment isn't wrong just because it's something that most others don't like, but that doesn't mean your flavor is "bad", as this is a subjective thing entirely.

Hope I made at least a bit of sense up there.

[Cabalabob]

So I have a question for you OP, I read your edit where you ask why we play? And you say you play because you want to play with friends. If that's true, why are you in such a rush to skip the game and get to where everyone else is? Why not just enjoy the content available to you and your friends?

When me and my friends started playing we were happy doing the missions while levelling up and exploring as far as we could. Eventually we heard shouts for BCNM's in places, one of which we recognised from our explorations, the palbrough mines. We spent months trying to find the burning circle in palbrough, levelling up to explore deeper, obtaining the map so we knew where we were, eventually finding the burning circle and not knowing what to do with it, we asked someone who entered, he told us to go to jeuno, we had our new goal..

I'll stop there as I'm sure you don't want to hear my characters life story, but the point is we didn't just install the game, go to the wiki, find out that dynamis was the last content, burn ourselves to 75 and complete all the relevant content to get dynamis. We enjoyed what we had. And because of that, getting to a burning circle battle, something you'd probably accomplish in an hour, took us 3 months. And we enjoyed every minute of it.

[Mirage]

For me, travel is part of the immersion and scale of the world. Being able to teleport anywhere from anywhere like in XIV truly makes the game feel like...a game, a theme park. I kinda like the scale in an RPG. It's part of the reason why I also liked things like flight paths in WoW- just watching your character swoop across areas you've already explored on feet in the air...really cool feeling for me.

Flight paths are way cooler than instant teleports for sure

[Raydeus]

Do you enjoy the hours of running between the cutscenes? What makes the intermediary part so appealing?

As a matter of fact I do very much enjoy "traveling between cutscenes".

But I'm the kind of player who will rarely use fast travel in games like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. And I usually take some time getting missions and quests done, so I never have the issues someone impatiently rushing through it all would have.

This is an honest question. I do not understand why people will argue that content like that should remain. It's just not fun, and the people that argue it agree that it's not fun, yet for some reason think it should still exist in a game.

No one wants to give me a straight answer; they always dodge and then tell me I'm just whining, or I should just do it, or something else (aka they just troll me).

It varies from player to player, but to me it's because that kind of content makes the world feel bigger and it makes activities feel like a trip and an adventure rather than just a grind.

For instance, back in the day it could take half an hour to get to sky or sea, and then then another half an hour to get to where the event/fight/etc. was actually happening. And that, believe it or not, made the event feel special. You weren't just grinding mobs but you were adventuring to the deepest parts of a remote region of Vana. A region where you could easily die if you weren't careful or didn't have a party to watch your back.

And most of the times you were doing these events, missions and quests for the story and the adventure rather than the reward. Because most mission/quest rewards while decent were rarely worth the time if you were only in it for them and not the story.

Which is of course something unthinkable for "modern" players that are used to teleporting to an instance through a raid finder and be done with it in less than 20 minutes in the Skinner box model.

Also, I play MMOs with the expectation of playing for years, so it was normal to get the next mission a week or a month later, since I had plenty of stuff to do and get sidetracked with in the mean time. Nowadays games are cleared in a matter of days, and rarely anyone sticks with an MMO for more than 6 months before jumping to the next one, only resubbing for the next expansion which they will finish less than a week later.

But in the end it's all a matter of personal preference. If you don't enjoy XI then you could try XIV, which again seems much more your type of game. Just don't expect it to have the depth or longevity a game like XI does.

[Crevox]

The thing is, new players aren't going to want to do all that running, let alone try to figure it out or look it up on wikis. Gaming has changed, and gamers have different expectations of games now. Whether or not you want to believe it, FFXI won't hold a new player's attention for very long once they realize what they have to go through, unless they are really, really dedicated for some other reason. I mean, just look at the main post. About 6 different people I know that I started the game with all quit (and didn't complete any missions, though they tried and got extremely bored). The most you'll see out of new players is leveling to 99 off of mythical worm party, maybe get some steps into Adoulin, and then that's it.

The thing is, there are tons of changes that could be done that would make the game enjoyable. This game has such a high number of playable jobs, and the party play is actually very good and has huge potential, but the game itself holds it back from reaching that potential. Archaic requirements, time gates, difficulty to find party content outside of leveling when you're not 99 (and little point to people to party when leveling thanks to trust); these things cause problems. If SE streamlined things a bit, people could see the game for what it truly is... but after months of playing, I never even reached party play outside of leveling due to all the requirements I had to go through, and no one is going to be that patient.

If it was my decision, I would remove the mission requirements from content, unlock all the jobs by default, and just let players go and do whatever they want. The game has so much content blocked behind walls. Just open it all up and let people have fun. You can go ahead and do CoP if you want, if that's your thing, but that's the great part: you have a choice.

But I'm the kind of player who will rarely use fast travel in games like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. And I usually take some time getting missions and quests done, so I never have the issues someone impatiently rushing through it all would have.

The same can be done in modern MMORPGs, in higher detail and graphics. Players aren't going to choose FFXI over FFXIV or WoW or anything else just for this. Also, if you enjoy it, it's a choice; it shouldn't be a requirement of all players. Players should be able to either warp to the location they need to reach, or take the scenic route and enjoy seeing everything along the way. There, you have the best of both worlds (or just leave it how it is and remove the content as a requirement for critical 2014 current content).

it makes activities feel like a trip and an adventure rather than just a grind.

It feels like a grind as is due to the ridiculous amount of time it takes. Leveling didn't feel like a grind to me; what felt like a grind was doing the missions. Leveling was enjoyable, I had fun. I may find different things enjoyable than you (and that's perfectly fine), but there's no reason missions can't appeal to both of us. I want to get it out of the way as a requirement (and while the story is enjoyable, the in-between running and stuff takes far too long), and you want to take the time to explore and enjoy the scenery. Different people play this game for different reasons, and SE is just ignoring that and forcing everyone through the same path, even newbies. If they could speed it up a bit, or just remove it as a requirement so we can make the choice to go and experience it all at some time of our own leisure, then there's nothing wrong with it. I was planning to do CoP at some point because I wanted to see it all, and play through the same stuff everyone else did in the past, but I was cut short and forced to prematurely. That's not fun.

don't expect it to have the depth or longevity a game like XI does.

The longevity and depth of XI mostly comes from how long it takes to do things. The majority of the time I spent playing was catching up on missions so I could actually play the game with other people. Skirmish, Dynamis, and other "high level" content don't actually take that long to clear or get the rewards you desire from. It's certainly better off in terms of longevity than XIV, but people don't ever reach that point due to ~10 year old content being a wall between you and the 2014 content (AA, Zilart, Dynamis, ARMOR, etc).

And you say you play because you want to play with friends. If that's true, why are you in such a rush to skip the game and get to where everyone else is? Why not just enjoy the content available to you and your friends?

What content? CoP? As I said, CoP is not "playing with friends." If you want to do missions with a friend, you're only going to make it worse for everyone involved. You are both basically just playing a single player game, going "okay now we have to warp here, okay now we have to go there." After spending hours of doing this, eventually, probably sooner than you'd expect, ONE of you is going to be done with it for the moment. Either they need a break, they need to go to sleep, they need to go somewhere, who knows. So, what do you do? Do you all stop and wait for the person? If you do that, it's only going to take even longer before you finish the missions, and catch up on the current content and be able to play with everyone else. You could go on without him, but then you're all on different stages of the missions before long, and then you're truly all just playing by yourselves. Not long after that, in either scenario, people are going to end up quitting.

It sucks having to tell your friends "hey guys, we can't fight any monsters or do anything fun and interesting for the next couple weeks, because we have to do all these missions first. Yeah, I know it sucks, but we have to do it, because we can't join any parties until we do, and we need the armor as well, so we don't have a choice." Next couple weeks is also probably a bit generous considering the amount of play time people who work and go to school full time have. The thing is, you basically have no choice but to do all this. You can go and level up a new job, or try some Adoulin content, but you still ultimately have to do those missions, and having them sit there with knowledge of them having to be done at some point is just bogus. You're just delaying the inevitable. You can't get the good armor or do a lot of other content until you do it.

And yes, it's not just about playing with friends; it's about being able to play with anyone at all in any current content relevant to the community. People shout in town all the time: AA, WKR, that other new battlefield, and more. You can't join any of that until not only your character has reached the minimum requirements by clearing all the missions, but you also have to be at least competently geared, which is a challenge itself when you can't access content or trade your items for upgraded armor. Yes, spark gear does exist for this purpose as well, but its usefulness will depend on your job (for SMN it's mostly just defense and base stats that do nothing for your avatar besides the delicious sachet) and many people just straight up go "ew spark gear, that guy is a noob" and won't let you come along.

For me, travel is part of the immersion and scale of the world. Being able to teleport anywhere from anywhere like in XIV truly makes the game feel like...a game, a theme park.

A game feeling like a game is a good thing; it's certainly better than it feeling like a job, which is what happens when you try to go get a Mythic weapon, or complete CoP, etc. Yes, that's personal opinion, but the thing is, nothing is stopping you from taking the run from one point to the other in XIV. It's probably about the same run time in XI, and you'll even save money in XIV from doing so, and get to see the scale of the world and all that. Again, back to that original point: you have a choice. This game does not give you a choice.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

For instance, back in the day it could take half an hour to get to sky or sea

And sky ended up having terrible participation rates compared to other content because of it. There are reasons why they put the Limbus entrances at the crags and the Dynamis entrances right inside towns. And even then it took forever to get all the participants to show up in a reasonable amount of time.

and then then another half an hour to get to where the event/fight/etc. was actually happening.

I invite you to go browse some of the old Vana'diel Censuses and observe what the progress/completion rates for CoP were like before the level caps were removed. Other content, for which sneak and invisible were viable, ended up in a situation where participants expected and required the other participants to bring their own sneak and invisible, just to cut down on the hassles (i.e. time duration) of travel.

Also, I play MMOs with the expectation of playing for years

I doubt your sincerity here. Even S-E doubted FFXI would last this long.

[Demonjustin]

Crevox, any chance after they change the price to change servers you would be willing to come back to the game and change to Phoenix? I think me and my LS might be able to help you get into the game easier and feel more included. We obviously can't fix all of the issues, but so far as doing party based content, we can easily help with that by simply including you in what we do normally. Since you have stuck around these forums I would assume you still have some interest in the game, I really thinking coming to Phoenix and joining the shell would help. ^_^

[Lithera]

It gives you plenty if choice you don't need reforged anything. Again smn isn't a wanted job but even it can get into a Yorcia skirmish party. If one of the biggest "end game" things is reforging then you're wrong. Yes you stop when the person has to stop. If you can't find something else to do while you or your friend(s) isn't on to continue through which ever mission you are on and can't bloody wait for them; then I'm sorry but you're an awful friend.

Why not just all jobs at 99 if you just want them all unlocked at the start because you know getting to 30 is too hard and slow for some people. There are stories behind every job and sure it makes you have to explore some but hey at least for any jobs that are not in the starter cities you'll find out where you have to go for your AF. If you have all 22 unlocked then unless you use a wiki all but geo and run would have people getting their AF. Why go to Norg, or Aht Urhgan, or the past if those jobs are unlocked day one? I doubt many new players would go and do the various missions if there was no reason to do so.

Just look at Olor who has been playing for three years who is just now touching CoP because they want to reforge gear. They say they might one day finish on their own if it wasn't required, but I doubt it. If only because story isn't big for them, doing the one expansion that doesn't have a butt load of warps and requires you to actually run from place to place seem like it's equal to someone who has to choose either eat for the day or have electricity.

End game content is in no way to be thought of as the only party content. I'm sorry that you feel that is and believe that any other new player will also think this. It's funny for years one of the biggest complaints people had in this game is that you HAD to have a party to do almost anything in this game. Now, that we can pretty much solo anything but the current events people have gone the opposite in thought. I'm sorry, but we obviously can't have our cake and eat it too. SE is doing their best to find a middle ground which even if they do someone will probably still find something to complain about.

[Crevox]

Crevox, any chance after they change the price to change servers you would be willing to come back to the game and change to Phoenix? I think me and my LS might be able to help you get into the game easier and feel more included. We obviously can't fix all of the issues, but so far as doing party based content, we can easily help with that by simply including you in what we do normally. Since you have stuck around these forums I would assume you still have some interest in the game, I really thinking coming to Phoenix and joining the shell would help. ^_^

I do still have interest in the game, of course. It's all a matter of when to come back...

I don't know if I'd be so keen on transferring servers. The price is high, but besides that, I'd basically be giving up on my friends ever coming back to the game too. They may or may not play again, but I can be hopeful, and completely abandoning them would hurt. ;|

I doubt many new players would go and do the various missions if there was no reason to do so.

So... they won't do it because it's not fun. So... force them to do it even though it's not fun, so that they have to experience it even though they don't want to.

Uhhhhh... okaaaaay....

because you know getting to 30 is too hard and slow for some people.

It's not only about getting to 30. Yes, while some people are going to want to play something like SMN or COR off the start (and honestly, where's the harm in it) some of the quests just suck and people will get bored/annoyed/quit before they even finish it. Getting to Aht Urhgan is a mission in itself that requires a lot of reading up on in order to understand on how and where to go for things like COR, collecting all the weather for SMN is not easily done for a newbie, etc. It's just not needed anymore.

[bungiefanNA]

Running around only takes a long time the first time. There are teleports to most zones in core, Zilart, and Promathia. You have to unlock them, but once you do, going just about anywhere is about a 10 minute trip, and most of that is navigating through the zone you teleported to. If you spend time unlocking the transportation options, missions, and going to events, will be much faster. Waypoint warps from Jeuno, voidwatch warps, homepoint warps, and outposts cover just about every area I can think of.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ca...Transportation

Also, the missions were designed when it took months to level, and you would be doing them as you leveled, so it would be days or weeks between missions. The fast leveling screwed that up a bit, but the transportation options have been implemented to adjust for that.

As far as needing reforged armor, some jobs it isn't that great for. Sparks gear should be enough to do Delve or Skirmish to get gear with better stats, as an alternative to reforged armor, while you can work on the requirements for reforged armor. There were also plenty of other events you could have tried with friends, like Voidwatch, Salvage, Abyssea. There were 6 of you, you could have done just about any event you wanted together, not just having to jump into current endgame. Leveling is faster in a 6 person party than Trust, partly because of more members, and partly because of more control than the AI lets you have. Also, an established social LS would have likely assisted you with learning things and unlocking things. Endgame shouldn't be the focus of a new player, and having the best armor is going to take you a while.

I do still have interest in the game, of course. It's all a matter of when to come back...

I don't know if I'd be so keen on transferring servers. The price is high, but besides that, I'd basically be giving up on my friends ever coming back to the game too. They may or may not play again, but I can be hopeful, and completely abandoning them would hurt. ;|

Another option is to start a new character in a new slot, and leave your old character inactive until your friends come back...

If you stayed on Asura, there's an LS run by Tiktaks called REDDIT that is recruiting players of all types, newbies and veterans, to provide help to whoever they can.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comment...o_be_stickied/

http://www.reddit.com/r/RedditLinkshell

They're very active from what I've seen. I'm almost considering a server transfer myself, but I'm the admin of the web site for my current LS on Guildwork, and the fee for the transfer is still high on top of what I'm already paying.