Why is the game so incredibly long-winded?

[machini]

My point is the game has not substantially changed.

[Alhanelem]

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

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

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

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

[Karbuncle]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other content !

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

[Alhanelem]

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

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

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

[Ketaru]

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

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

[Olor]

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

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

[Apie]

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

[Pups323]

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

[Vae]

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

1 million +1s

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

[peculiar]

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

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

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

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