How about some actual challenge to FFXI?

[Catsby]

Go get captain mercenary rank. That's pretty challenging and fun.
I've been dying for Assault revamp for years now.

[Ilax]

doin' a fight lowman is not only hard because you are less people.. it's harder because everyone have a important role and you can't do mistake, so in that way you can demonstrate your skills in the game... when you are 18 people you can do your part but you can also go afk a couple of mins. and no one notice it ... go fight Vrtra in 1 pt and you'll find the challenge: you have to do a perfect fight! ...and I'm not talking about the reward, because when you stop caring about the reward for doin' something, doin' something is its own reward... the challenge IS THE FIGHT, not the reward... because I can PAY some gils to an LS group that fight Rani for me, I can stay in /sit & /clap and get my Epona Ring... this is not the challenge...

Hey i agree with that lol, i was just worry you mean let give us better challenge by adding even that require mass player, because hell no i don't buy that idea and i see nothing really hard into that, like you said, Lowman always been amazing fun and i doubt anyone would disagree with that. I just hope SE add more content that actually limit the number of player, quality >> number.

I love BCNM for that part, it was limited and mr.anybody that success everything on HNM scene, was still wiping on BCNM lol, i so have some picture of couple HNM ls i saw wipe on the Wyrm BCNM, i don't really need name them but ya.. it was a good laugh anyway just don't get me wrong, i welcome all new challenge from SE, by time is not about how many player you have to toss on the NM just to win lol.

TY to Avesta to have made most of the RDM dream about solo'ing the world of FFXI, imo these video was the best one on youtube, because it show skill/determination, it was way more interesting then watching a HNM LS with 36 member fighting 1 NM lmao.

[Malamasala]

If you min/max your character content should be challenging. Handicapping yourself is not a real challenge. Content needs to be challenging to people who play at the best they can play, not doing stuff to make it artificially harder. Yes the best gear should probably be going to the best 1% of the players.

The first thing you need to do is re-evaluate what a challenge is. Because if you ask me, everything in FFXI is artificial difficulty.

A) A NM with 100 damage bio aura. Well, it isn't hard, it just means you want fewer melee near to heal.
B) A NM casting DOOM. Again, it isn't like the NM is hard, it just has a random chance to kill you.
C) A NM has amnesia aura. Just annoying, it isn't like not WSing is hard.
D) A NM casts meteor that instant kills your whole group. Again, that isn't hard, that is simply a chance to instant lose.

So what do you want on your new content? A NM that is immune to melee attacks? That just means you don't melee it. A NM that can cast warp on you? Just means you'll be annoyed at walking back to the fight.

How about some extremely odd NMs then? The kind that instant kill you if you wear level 90 gear, so you have to re-equip yourself for the fight? level 5 death so you want to delevel to level 89?

Everything you can possibly think of is just silly artificial difficulty tricks. It never becomes more advanced than "Hold hate from healers, cure person with hate, deal damage". And when it gets more advanced, you get AV, a mob you have to "think" how to solve, and even after the developers tell you how to beat it, you can't do it.

Which reminds me to ask if you have killed AV without BRDs and CORs and Perfect Defense lately. You wouldn't want to easy mode the fight, right? Needs to be a challenge.

[MrWigglles]

FFXI currently has no real challenge to it. Which leaves me pretty bored if I want to play a the game and be challenged. Not really into boring farming.Timesinks, drop rates, farming 8 seals and +2 items to grind out a set of AF3+2 armor is not what I call a challenge. Fighting NMs for 50+50 and then 75 of a drop for the Empyrean weapons is not a challenge its really just fighting some pathetically easy nms several times. Can even be done in 2 weeks or less if your a hard core farmer. Most people won't finish this fast though due to a bunch of competition on the 15 min timed spawned NMs on the 2nd part. The game now just boils down to tedious gear farming in abyssea for end game content.
SE was good about adding some new content and the new higher level cap and new abilities and spells but what they failed to do was provide the players with any real challenge in the new content abyssea.
None of the fights in abyssea require much skill at all. Majority of fights can be summed up as melee kill the mob WHM spam their cure 5 and 6. Ok so their might be some fights that require you to remove a debuff or stun a certain move but still those are few and far between. WHMs can't run out of mana. Melee are so buffed and have so much survivability that almost everything in the game boils down to spam heals. You can get such a high amount of counter on monk 70% that you pratcually destroy most stuff in the game with 1 healer. Doesn't even have to be a monk but any geared melee.
Oh and in the case of something might be too hard such as Rani or Shinryu time to bust out the Primeval Brew for the easy win. Why does such an item even exist? Kind of reminds me of using Holy War in Final Fantasy VIII to beat the hardest bosses.
Would be nice if SE came out with some very hard bosses that required more then spaming cure 5 and 6 on a monk, and took some actual real strategy to kill or skill, and people were actually in danger of dying. Having infinite mana is so easy mode. Whatever happened to actually trying to manage your mp or you would run out. When was the last time you can think of that you were actually in danger of dying?
Rather fight some difficult hard to kill bosses for some good gear then kill something then grind easy nms over and over.

So you want "Old School" FFXI back. The 1-2 hour Kirin fights with so many deaths you'd lose count, etc. It was fun in a way at the time. But hmm... I don't know. I've been there and done that. Things change, move forward, try new approaches to things. Abyssea love it or leave it.

I do wish they make it so only level 75+ can enter Abyssea. The "Leeching" is way out of hand.

[Rambus]

There was no endgame since the game became 80, so the question is, what will the new endgame be? I also wonder if SE knows that there is no endgame material at the moment.

[Delente]

A NM that can cast warp on you? Just means you'll be annoyed at walking back to the fight.

anyone besides me remembering the first year with the bulls outside the nations? lol
In all respects though, I do have to agree with the facts that there truely is no endgame atm, just current game. By the time lvl 99 is released the empyrian gear will prolly be outdated in most aspects just like all the other AF and relic gear was. With that in mind, the gear that outbeats the empyrian gear will most likely come from the mobs that pose the challenge that ppl are looking for and will only be obtained by those who show the heart and dedication of a true final fantasy player...yes I'm referring to those ppl who create engame LS's, get the gear cause they are the leader, then jump servers or claim their account has been stolen. Not to say that the true to game players won't obtain their gear, they just won't be the first ones to flaunt it in the cities.

[Autymn]

I've joked lately with my ls mates that SE is intentionally making things easier so we'll accomplish our goals and stop playing so they can stop investing in this game. I don't think that's seriously going on, but if you think about it too much ...

[Runespider]

I've joked lately with my ls mates that SE is intentionally making things easier so we'll accomplish our goals and stop playing so they can stop investing in this game. I don't think that's seriously going on, but if you think about it too much ...

I wonder the same things, if that is the plan the jokes on them though. Most XI players won't be moving to 14 so if they turn us off 11 they will just push us into one of the many other games out there. Rift, wow, Tera, star wars old republic, GW2.. list goes on, plenty of games around if I lose my desire to play XI.