Why do you still play FFXI?

[Afania]

I played for 7 years, unsubbed do to the game becoming way to easy and the attitude of the community going to pot post aby. After a few months away I resubbed to see what SoA had to offer but now I cannot find a single soul who wants to group to do anything at all. I have nearly no SoA stuff completed that requires group play and finding ppl for the most basic of things has become a hassle.

Ppl who wanted to group still there, you just have to spend the time and the effort to find them. I still make delve boss /shout party often, and often got ppl wanted to come just for fun(even though they all had clears). However, they won't start /shout themselves and just waiting for someone to pop and organize the pt. They also don't trust random PUG because random PUG fails. So if you have 0 friends and just pop and /shout for a delve boss run, nobody would come. That doesn't mean server's dead at all.
Once one person they can trust pop and start making the ally, they'd all come just for fun. This pretty much applies to every content. If you camp in town 24/7 you will get the impression that this game is dead cuz there are no /shout. But in fact, ppl who do the content often do with ls mate/close friend and avoid fail /shout, so you must find your own ls mate/close friend. You also kinda have to pick the right time so ppl don't scatter in every content. 14 is the same as well, before I quit nobody do lower lv dungeons anymore and it takes forever to queue, since everyone and their mother all pretty much WP/coil 24/7. As MMORPG gets bigger and players progress, it's just gonna happen in every title. But this is just how MMORPG goes and what it's about, make friends. If you only want to log on and play for fun right away, may as well play LAN game such as Starcraft 2 lol.

[Renaissance2K]

I feel like characters in other MMOs are disposable. You roll some configuration, take it to cap, get some shiny gear for it, and then say, "Okay, now I'm going to try this as a [second race name here] [second class name here] of [random adjective]," repeating this process ad nauseum until a new expansion gets released.

I'd much rather put all my focus into one character and apply all that leveling and building to one familiar face. I'd much rather be partying with a character named Billy than a character named Billysmule. It makes the community seem like less of a hodgepodge, and it actually adds some weight to each customization and specialization decision one has to make.

I know that last point is probably opening up the floodgates because these forums are filled with posts by people that want to cap every single available merit, equip every "Choose One" piece of equipment, and otherwise make it possible for every character to reach that post-celestial level. Ignoring the fact that some of the most celebrated games of the last generation revolved around the player making a battery of irreversible choices, this community has a tendency to turn "capabilities" into "requirements" whenever possible. I can live with the occasional person calling me a "noob" or an idiot because I'm playing around with some against-the-grain job-specific merit configuration, but I'll very quickly get irritated by the party leader who doesn't invite me because I don't have INT merits. On MNK.

Some day, Square-Enix may change their mind, remove the group caps, and give those posters what they've been asking for. (I pity the Abyssea worms.) In the meantime, I'm enjoying making choices that are still choices and not just expectations.

[Cabalabob]

I came back for the free trial. It's definitely more fun and stable than when I left. But I won't be resubscribing when the free trial is up. It's just not worth the money anymore, especially when it has ffxiv to compete with now. If they did a play both get them both half price deal I would certainly pick up XI again, having it pseudo-free would be a great way to bring some customers back to it. Would be a fun game to play as a chilled out game (never thought I'd say that about XI lol) and perfect for xiv maint times.

[Secondplanet]

You can do build colonisation armor by doing search quests, skirmish armor weaps by joining shout runs who take anyone because skirmish is easy.
You can do Wildskeeper Rieve (using your new skirmish gear), just turn up and get lvl 115 weaps and armors from that.
You can farm Sparks on solo and get lvl 117 armor and weaps from the NPC.
You can do all of the above without a LS or a single friend. And get lvl 117 gear, and meet new people along the way.

I have to disagree with this, i was getting my backside chewed out for not having i119 gear for my monk for the event you get it from. I have i117 gear and weapons and was only grabbed as a last moment choice to fill the spot. I have been denied countless parties cause as a monk i don't have Oats. At times this game is unbalanced from the point of if your not there to get it in the first 2-3 weeks your left behind. Even though i was out damaging every other DD in the party and holding hate from Tojil with taking minimum damage compared to others i was blamed by the oats monks for the loss. I've tried Tojil 4 times with groups and all ended in failure and 3 times they tried to shift the blame on my "gimped" gear.

Its a hard game to catch up on and with the unbalance of jobs right now and no incentive to bring out of the loop jobs its not appealing for me to stick around. I think SE should have stuck with the VW formula of every job was needed for procs and there was a fun battle ahead. Its all cutthroat demoralizing peoples armor if it isn't up to LS/Groups high standards and yet they won't do anything to aid you in getting it to help them.

[Ravenmore]

Failed Tojil runs, 9 out of 10 times comes down to bad whms and schs not stunning. They know it but they can't make those people mad since those gimps that keep replying to the shouts are the only ones they can get.(not you with out oats but the gimp schs and whms that ruin runs).

[Afania]

I have to disagree with this, i was getting my backside chewed out for not having i119 gear for my monk for the event you get it from. I have i117 gear and weapons and was only grabbed as a last moment choice to fill the spot. I have been denied countless parties cause as a monk i don't have Oats. At times this game is unbalanced from the point of if your not there to get it in the first 2-3 weeks your left behind. Even though i was out damaging every other DD in the party and holding hate from Tojil with taking minimum damage compared to others i was blamed by the oats monks for the loss. I've tried Tojil 4 times with groups and all ended in failure and 3 times they tried to shift the blame on my "gimped" gear.

Its a hard game to catch up on and with the unbalance of jobs right now and no incentive to bring out of the loop jobs its not appealing for me to stick around. I think SE should have stuck with the VW formula of every job was needed for procs and there was a fun battle ahead. Its all cutthroat demoralizing peoples armor if it isn't up to LS/Groups high standards and yet they won't do anything to aid you in getting it to help them.

To defend for XI's job system, the jobs are "unbalanced" because it's not a WoW clone, in which every job/class must be a tank/DPS/healer and it can only be tank/DPS/healer. Plenty of jobs are still useful in lowman/solo situations, and not just tank/DPS/healer. If you only want to do endgame of course some jobs are left out, that applies to every MMO on the market. As stated in my last post, FFXI is more of a role playing game(where you live another life in game world) and less of a dungeon raid game in which every job must be balanced.

It's not like anything other than BLM BRD PLD WHM gets invite to WP speedrun in XIV.

Ppl "left behind" after 2~3 weeks is common in EVERY MMO. Go play GW2 and see if there's anyone doing dynamic event in lower lv area.

[Demonjustin]

I still play FFXI because partly I have no real choice, I have a GF who wants me to keep playing this so we have something to play together we both like, also, I have a few friends who insist I stay and play, which is why 2 months ago I did not depart as I said I would. Past that, I know this game has potential in some areas they have not flushed out, and I enjoy what they have been doing to change that, things like Trust and Monstrosity as well as Records have shown they still want to make this game great, they are just not sure how to go about it, but are starting to take the proper steps to do it right.

[Afania]

I have to disagree with this, i was getting my backside chewed out for not having i119 gear for my monk for the event you get it from. I have i117 gear and weapons and was only grabbed as a last moment choice to fill the spot. I have been denied countless parties cause as a monk i don't have Oats. At times this game is unbalanced from the point of if your not there to get it in the first 2-3 weeks your left behind. Even though i was out damaging every other DD in the party and holding hate from Tojil with taking minimum damage compared to others i was blamed by the oats monks for the loss. I've tried Tojil 4 times with groups and all ended in failure and 3 times they tried to shift the blame on my "gimped" gear.

Its a hard game to catch up on and with the unbalance of jobs right now and no incentive to bring out of the loop jobs its not appealing for me to stick around. I think SE should have stuck with the VW formula of every job was needed for procs and there was a fun battle ahead. Its all cutthroat demoralizing peoples armor if it isn't up to LS/Groups high standards and yet they won't do anything to aid you in getting it to help them.

Oh and btw, if you're really out damaging every DD in the pt for real and pt still blame you for gimping the output, then your pt suck and you should get a new one(or maybe you're in fact not outdamaging everyone else in the pt). Good party would parse to see who's leeching win with less than 5% of output, and who's doing most of the work.

IL117 weapons are just fine btw, when I made Ceizak 6 NM ally I can usually carry 1~3 leeches with subpar performance and still able to clear bee in 2~3 min. 117 is very close to 119, if your ally can't clear with a group of IL117 DDs, it's either something wrong with stun/buff/heal or DD aren't gearing properly.

Also there's a reason why ppl don't just aid anyone to get win. Most of the ppl with enough experience/gear and performance to get delve win easily already cap out on delve gears. Doing delve boss run is at least 1+hr of pt organization, sometimes even 2hr with all that /shout and afk. Plasm doesn't worth much gil anymore unless you're multi-boxing, so you're just spending hours for almost 0 benefit. Most experienced ppl would rather do newer fight like AA battle, which gives 6M worth of mat a run, a lot more RME items and 119 armor pages which not everyone have atm.

They should have make delve reward much better than it is now. Atm the reward for doing delve is shit after you got clear, for amount of characters you need to get a win. While you can solo AA very easy~normal multi-boxing for much better reward.

[Rekin]

To defend for XI's job system, the jobs are "unbalanced" because it's not a WoW clone, in which every job/class must be a tank/DPS/healer and it can only be tank/DPS/healer. Plenty of jobs are still useful in lowman/solo situations, and not just tank/DPS/healer. If you only want to do endgame of course some jobs are left out, that applies to every MMO on the market. As stated in my last post, FFXI is more of a role playing game(where you live another life in game world) and less of a dungeon raid game in which every job must be balanced.

It's not like anything other than BLM BRD PLD WHM gets invite to WP speedrun in XIV.

Ppl "left behind" after 2~3 weeks is common in EVERY MMO. Go play GW2 and see if there's anyone doing dynamic event in lower lv area.

Having a ridiculous lack of job balance is not an excuse for jobs to be so far behind others and you know it. Whats the point of having extra jobs beyond the core if they don't at least match up to their peers?
If this is suppose to be a roleplaying game then it completely destroys that argument if a player is denied any participation on a job they enjoy. If you're going to use the excuse that they should level another job then its a fallacy in that the person is no longer having fun and thus the point of playing the game is shredded.

[Vivivivi]

FFXI keeps releasing enough new and interesting content to keep me from canceling my sub. I don't play as much as I used to, but I still get really excited for each update and generally spend a few weeks playing every day or every few days.

Monstrosity is a fun, almost relaxing low brain power activity that I enjoy doing while chatting with linkshell friends. Customizing the monster is fun to do also while not having to worry about inventory space.

The removal of the party limit for things like assault and savage has gotten me to dust off my automaton and try running those solo or with a buddy.

Short answer: I still play FFXI because I still have fun playing FFXI.