For those who keep resurrecting that dead topic....

[Ragmar]

Couple quotes from Karbuncle~

The only reason, only, some people think Old school used to be better is because of wonderful deep rose tented glasses. Its Nostalgia, nothing else. Maybe some of you are remembering your old LS Friends, Maybe some of you are remembering doing CoP mission, regardless of the memories, its nostalgia.

Those wanting it to go back to the way it was are a minority, and those are the ones who can't grasp the concept of Nostalgia

~Yeah I'm the one with a pants on head attitude. IF YOU LIKE OLD SCHOOL FFXI IT CAN ONLY BE BECAUSE OF NOSTALGIA!!!

Fact is fact. You dont see the majority of old school FFXI elite players on here begging for more easy buttons. You do however see the majority of those who were deemed gimp at 75 cap here praising/begging for more easy button madness. Yes gimps were everywhere at 75 cap but the percentage of lvl 75 gimps that were rocking relics and other top notch end game gear was MUCH smaller than todays numbers. I dont expect a lot of people to agree because there just arent that many veterans left. BG's idea of gimp isnt my standard by any means. I expect far less than the perfect augments for the perfect sets in any situation lol. But yeah using victory rings at 99 when flame are less than 100k ... gimp. Using 4/5 perle with a random haste piece like dusk hands/feet or walmart head totalling less haste than 5/5 perle ... gimp. Yeah there were some people using askar head at 75 but it wasnt the norm.

TLDR: It's not about nostalgia it's more about the frustration that if you throw a rock in jeuno you're going to hit more F'tarded gimps than you will even moderately well geared players let alone elite properly geared players. Then when you try to give these people a chance in say a VW pick up they fail in every aspect of their job. WARs without even raging rush thinking they are ready for VW. Can you think of a time at 75 cap where you did an event considered end game with someone who had less than half their main weapons skill lvls ... I bet you cant.

[Luvbunny]

LOL - another thread about nostalgia yet again.... Sorry but the game is like 10 times better now than it used to be. Fun, accessible, and enjoyable. They finally focus the grind on end game and less of a chore to level. Now you don't need to spend hours and hours to get things done. Traveling time has been cut down tremendously. You no longer need the help of many people just to get simple things done. Most missions can be done solo or trio at most. Voidwatch is no longer LS events exclusive but random shouts - quick to set up, and you can make the battle last 5 mnts with displacer. Dynamis is no longer LS exclusive, you can solo. Even making empy weapon is not as bad as it was before. The game is going to the right direction, let's hope it will become even easier, enjoyable and more casual friendly than ever before. I mean seriously, this is just a game, something to waste your time and relax, no need to make it such a big deal like you have to accomplish greater challenge etc... Nobody has time to dedicate playing video games, which bears no real value other than pure entertainment. Not everyone has no jobs and no life other than playing video games 24/7.

[Mirage]

Good thing that you guys who are missing the old school hardcore stuff now have the perfect event for you. Neo nyzul without cheats!

So what are you complaining about?

[Plasticleg]

Dynamis is still there to grab your alliance +1 and go wreck it.
They didn't remove Kirin.
AV and PW are still pop-able.
Odin75 can still make you money.

I don't see the argument here; unless all you did when cap was 75 was meripo or be a sheep for HNM claims.

[FrankReynolds]

Couple quotes from Karbuncle~

The only reason, only, some people think Old school used to be better is because of wonderful deep rose tented glasses. Its Nostalgia, nothing else. Maybe some of you are remembering your old LS Friends, Maybe some of you are remembering doing CoP mission, regardless of the memories, its nostalgia.

Those wanting it to go back to the way it was are a minority, and those are the ones who can't grasp the concept of Nostalgia

~Yeah I'm the one with a pants on head attitude. IF YOU LIKE OLD SCHOOL FFXI IT CAN ONLY BE BECAUSE OF NOSTALGIA!!!

Fact is fact. You dont see the majority of old school FFXI elite players on here begging for more easy buttons. You do however see the majority of those who were deemed gimp at 75 cap here praising/begging for more easy button madness. Yes gimps were everywhere at 75 cap but the percentage of lvl 75 gimps that were rocking relics and other top notch end game gear was MUCH smaller than todays numbers. I dont expect a lot of people to agree because there just arent that many veterans left. BG's idea of gimp isnt my standard by any means. I expect far less than the perfect augments for the perfect sets in any situation lol. But yeah using victory rings at 99 when flame are less than 100k ... gimp. Using 4/5 perle with a random haste piece like dusk hands/feet or walmart head totalling less haste than 5/5 perle ... gimp. Yeah there were some people using askar head at 75 but it wasnt the norm.

TLDR: It's not about nostalgia it's more about the frustration that if you throw a rock in jeuno you're going to hit more F'tarded gimps than you will even moderately well geared players let alone elite properly geared players. Then when you try to give these people a chance in say a VW pick up they fail in every aspect of their job. WARs without even raging rush thinking they are ready for VW. Can you think of a time at 75 cap where you did an event considered end game with someone who had less than half their main weapons skill lvls ... I bet you cant.

Apparently you never did sky, sea, or dynamis before abyssea. There were people showing up for that crap that weren't even 75 yet. I've taken NMs from wiped alliances in sky and soloed them on red mage so many times I've lost count. Same with sea. I made a ton of loot selling gear to those "well geared elite" players you saw, and I've failed so many nyzul isle runs because retards couldn't figure out lamp floors that it gives me migraines just to think about it. I can't tell you how many usu sams I've partied with at colibri that used GK because they didn't have a polearm skilled yet. People who TP in Hecatomb gear and then "even out the slow" with some haste gear. Thieves at 75 using af gear because " DEX is good for thf" and war's showing up to merit in full AF (can you believe he even bothered questing it?).

You are in fact a victim of nostalgia. People sucked just as bad back then and you aren't / weren't as good as you think. Despite all of the "easy button is bad" and "noobs on ungeared jobs" that your spouting, something tells me that you still have a few 99 jobs that you noob it up on even though they aren't fully geared, just because you want to play them, or the job is needed for the event.

Final fantasy has literally hundreds of thousands of players. I highly doubt that the collective IQ's and work ethics have changed much over the years. Your in denial.

[Myo]

I like the game just as much as ever, but I do feel like they killed the leveling system 30+ when abyssea was introduced.

[Luvbunny]

I like the game just as much as ever, but I do feel like they killed the leveling system 30+ when abyssea was introduced.

They killed it when GoV was introduced - and people are actually smart enough to adapt it similar to abysea lvlng system and pretty much eliminated the need to grind your level. For me it's a great innovative game mechanic. The fun is not getting to 99, the fun now lies on the end game grinding for your gears, weapon and access. XP grinding is no more. All these conveniences are amazing, it makes the game feels faster, snappier, very accessible, less of stupid nonsensical ridiculous idiotic grinds just for the sake of taking more of your time to complete any single things in the game. But at the end, the best thing that happened with Abyssea is the introduction of myriad of options on how you want to play the game. And guess what? A lot of sane people take the easy shortcut road over the rose tinted "old school" way of doing things. And please don't argue about LOL perle pink teal gears - those gears are actually rather good for a starter set, and easily beat most of the 70s gears. It's a starter set while you are gathering your empyrean gears - it gives casual players a good start, and cheap to get, and let the veteran focus on gearing via abyssea, voidwatch, legion and all those new neo anything end game events.

[scaevola]

Yet for those of us who really, know for a fact that pretty much everything about FFXI has pretty much been destroyed in the last few years, from the sense of progression, the now barely-existent community.
No more mystery, exploration, challenge, team coordination; topped off with the fact that the sheer mentioning of this simple fact brings forth droves of people complacent with the virtual chatroom they're paying for.

Okay, I really just don't get this one at all.

FFXI was never that big! It just felt big because it took forever to walk there and Sneak/Invis saved you from certain death 8 times on the way! For instance, the sky stuff that people did for years amounts to about half the actual content of a given dungeon in not just WoW but probably any other AAA MMO release on the market. Abyssea/TotM probably introduced by volume more actual endgame content than the previous 8 years combined; adding Voidwatch puts us over for sure.

By square-footage, it's probably one of the smallest MMOs on the market, actually. What you're probably actually complaining about is the fact that you can warp like everywhere now, which you'll probably deny because it sounds straight-up insane when I put it that way.

[Mirabelle]

Bottom line though it isnt about nostalgia (I got off on a tanget there).

And showed your character by calling less skilled players "gimps" and "noobs". Two derogatory terms that really shouldn't be used IMO. There is a spectrum of skill and knowledge. Those at the lower end deserve to enjoy their time in the game just as much as those that are skilled since both pay the same fee per month. SE has no obligation to make the game only fun for the best players.
Anyway, I'm sorry people feel butthurt that the less skilled can get good rewards. There is still no excuse calling anyone a gimp just as you wouldn't call a less gifted person in real life a derogatory term in public.

[scaevola]

My previous post notwithstanding, OP, you really should try another game, not because I'm trying to get rid of you or I think another game would be better, but because a little variety never killed anyone and you might enjoy seeing a few uncharted (lol) vistas.

TERA seems to have gotten a lot of buzz with FFXI dudes; I haven't played it. Rift is pretty good, SW:ToR and LoTRO do a great job with the narrative arcs everyone seems to love so much in FFXI (though I never saw the appeal), and Aion feels a lot like old-school FFXI in my limited experience. Everquest II is MASSIVE and f2p without unreasonable p2p hooks. Guild Wars 2 looks pretty great. I needn't comment on FFXIV here, of all places. WoW is WoW, warts and all, but the game is absolutely huge at this point, has a lot of character, and is at its best in the leveling ride, so if you haven't tried it it's worth a shot.

It's not exaggerating to say there are more options for the enterprising MMO player than ever, so it's kind of silly to feel bogged down by one game you're sick of.