Memories of the old days.

[Marada]

Anyone ever wish we could go back to the old days where people worked together more and communities were created on both a social and endgame level? Back when the level cap was still 75 and it took skill to play the game instead of just "Hey let's get 3 bards so we can have twelve songs and rape this boss like it's nothing!"

I remember being an Elvaan PLD when I first started the game. I remember rocking my server and for some reason was known as one of the few that would actually hold hate by curing myself in parties. WHM's and RDM's loved me.

But now I don't see that happening in this game. I try to get the same social pieces, but no one really wants to do older content or even just mess around like the old days. Hell, can't even get people together to just an old six man pt just for laughs.

There are some ways to kind of fix this and I will list them, but SE won't do that because it would really make players angry.

#1 fix: Make entry to abyssea level 75. No one needs to be able to enter an area where they can't even hit the damn mob at all, let alone get 1shotted by anything in the zone. Plus that's where a lot of the problems started. People didn't play their jobs, they just leeched them to 99 like it was nothing. I'll admit I'm guilty of this one a job or two, but I was being stupid with the hype that it had at the time and regret it all.

#2 fix: Really put a benefit on partying with other people for non-battlefield/endgame content. The sense of community is really starting to take a hit in the game since everyone really just wants to see who can get the shiniest pair of pants in the game making it no better than a Zero Punctuation version of a dungeon crawler. It's sad because out of all my original shells from the game, I'm the only one that still plays.

#3 fix: And no body is going to like this one. Another set over Server collapsing. There aren't enough people on each server to do anything needed for content, let alone the idea's I'm trying to get across here. It's sad when I can enter in five different zones at each time and in the end, I'm the only person in those five zones.


These aren't all the fixes I would actually go with, but I'm sure there's someone out there that might agree with at least one of them.

I love FFXI, it was my first MMO and really the only one I can really get into with it's story and gameplay. But if the game continues on it's path right now, I see it being no better than FFXIV where you play throughout the whole game solo unless you do endgame content and after that you go about solo again. To me I don't play an MMO to just enter a dungeon with people to clear a boss, I play to do many other things with them. More event based, more story based, just more in general that needs more than a single person.

But I guess none of that would happen until the future comes with a complete VRMMO that is doomed to not exist because that technology won't be around for another 50 to 100 years.

I promise my ranting might be over for now.

[madmartin]

Yeah i agree abyssea entry should never have been level 30, like 65 or something at least, this game also needs a server merge there's 16 currently but im lucky if i see more than 600 people on siren, think i see maybe 800 on jpn prime time. a triple server merge on some servers at least so we see 1500+ players online again like the old days would be great. i think this game doesnt need more than about 5 or 6 servers depending on how many people are on the others compared to siren. i'm currently playing a new character after being gone for a few years, kind of enjoying going through the missions with my npcs helping me but the game feels really dead!

[Balloon]

I find it shocking that after 4 years of abyssea being out we're still having this "Adjust abyssea to 75!!!" discussion. It's not going to happen, nor should it. It's very easy to have rose tinted goggles about this, but the fact of the matter is that for most people leveling jobs the old fashioned way was tedious and long.

The leveling experience is dead, it's not coming back, and nor should it. The game branched out, and it's much better now to have a wide array of jobs that you can use. The speedy leveling process of Abyssea supports this play style.

Jobs aren't even nearly played the same in endgame content as they are in a party situation, so 'learning' your job is utter crap. This game is not mechanically diverse enough to require 'learning' jobs.

FFXI really didn't take that much skill at 75, either, you're delusional if you think that buff stacking wasn't an issue back then either.

We do need a server merge though, desperately. I keep hearing people ask for 18man alliance content, and I am one of those people who enjoys that style of content too, but I can't see it working with the population of servers sitting at <600 for NA/EU players. The problem though is that while the NA/EU populations are dwindling, the japanese usually have a healthy 1000-1500 people.

I know it's not going to happen, but I feel the integrated servers have run their purpose now, english and japanese players do not integrate, and it'd be much more beneficial for the dwindling NA/EU playerbase to have our populations merge into a much smaller array of servers. It's very hard to keep enthusiastic about the game when nothing happens in it.

[Demonjustin]

Jobs aren't even nearly played the same in endgame content as they are in a party situation, so 'learning' your job is utter crap. This game is not mechanically diverse enough to require 'learning' jobs.

I wish people would understand this, really. I know people who were arguing just yesterday that if not for Abyssea we wouldn't have all of these SCHs running around who fail at stunning in Tojil runs, as though stunning were a skill we picked up between levels 1 and 98 as a SCH rather than something of a skill SCH's were to have developed only as of recently. It reminded me of people who complained about SCHs who sucked in NNI back before Adoulin, as though curing multiple people while keeping up 3 key buffs over the span of an entire zone as they spread out for 3 minutes were a leveling acquired skill that these people just didn't pick up due to Abyssea leveling.

Allas, this message never seems to sink in with many people who argue against Abyssea in such a way.

[Draylo]

Knew it was going to be some guy with nostalgia goggles bolted on tight when I clicked this thread.

[Selindrile]

Nostagiavision, there were plenty of derps back in the old days too who couldn't play their jobs. And I daresay more people did just terrible terribly stupid things in groups. When was the last time you saw a Whm/Mnk or a Brd/War etc, such things were all too common once upon a time. People have gotten generally better at the game, but that's more because of widespread information (BGwiki, FFXIclopedia) and less rampant misinformation (Bradygames Guide, rumors that people that are hard for people to debunk.) Rather than anything game-related.

Does abyssea make it easier for underskilled people to level? Yes. Does it change the amount of underskilled players there are in the game? No, not really.

I definitely enjoy the new 'event based' XI to the old 'exp based' one, while there's some waiting around, there's a lot less of it, a lot less wasted travel time, I do miss some of those moments, and feelings of accomplishment, but there are new ones to obtain, I don't want to go back to the way things were, not even a little.

[Vil]

FFXI pre-Abyssea is dead. It's good to remember the old days, but lets not live in the past and expect others to do the same. "Old" FFXI would not survive in this era of MMO's...it still has trouble bringing in and sustaining newer players, let alone returning players. A lot of people like to knock the "hand holding" whateveriscooltodiss, as if it makes them some kind of cultured righteous person, but fact of the matter is, this is the MMO "standard", people like to get things done with a reasonable amount of time.

I've played since NA release back in 2003, but quit around 2011 because of the shift in game design (not that I was unhappy with the changes, but rather a lot of my friends just stopped playing, which made it less fun for me). I tried to come back twice, in 2012, then again when Adoulin was released in 2013. I just didn't have time to play catch-up, nor to spend hours reading up on all the wikis on strats and how boss mechanics work and all that.

I came back again this past month and so far I am enjoying the transition back into the game a lot more than the previous attempts. I can log on and do a small bit of farming or solo exping (now with Trusts!) without having to spend a long time looking for other people to party with. No, its not that I'm anti-social by any means, I would just rather get stuff done in the short time that I have to play. The people who wanna go at it more hardcore are also free to do that, and I have no problems with it. I am just thankful for the option to play solo and feel like I get things accomplished all the same. And honestly, if it weren't for Records of Eminence making it easy to "catch up" on some basic gear, I probably would have just lost interest again Lol