new player, just want to do the story

[Beastorizer]

Isn't there a exp boost campaign coming up this month? That would be a great time to grind, leveling fast. I never got to truly enjoy the story, because it was a race to rank up, so you can follow along with the party it took you days to build to do the missions....Or you won the story battle with 1 hp, so you had no time to enjoy it because your head was spinning.

I am not hardcore anymore, so I like to enjoy the game now, rather than induce any stress in my 30s. I still play Campaign...Yep, I still do it. I enjoy it, so i do it.

[mkultrafanboy]

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[mkultrafanboy]

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[Alhanelem]

I mean, the grind is massively less than it originally was.

Have you been using EXP rings? you can get them from conquest points, the login points you get each day you log in, sparks, and more. You can literally level up to 99 in a day.|

There is also an EXP/capacity point bonus event happening next week, which gives you 2-3x exp and you can use the exp rings with it too.

It's not just this game though, all MMOs are grinds. The game does show its age in other ways, but honestly, it has a charm that will never be matched, and FFXI just gives you a lot of freedom to try different things that modern MMOs just don't let you do anymore.

[Zehira]

FFXI just gives you a lot of freedom to try different things that modern MMOs just don't let you do anymore.

Oh, FFXIV also gives you a lot of freedom. I mean, both FFXI and FFXIV together are more flexible these days.

[Typral]

Not a huge difference opening a wiki to follow for quest or missions, and seeing a huge marker telling you where to go. Just one requires alt tab. The game isn't impossible lol, its quite easy.

[mkultrafanboy]

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[Zehira]

FFXI was never intended for the modern-MMO players to play. You see how they ignored FFXI's Carbuncle and praised FFXIV's Carbuncle after Square Enix announced FF7's new Carbuncle. XD

Anyway, FFXI's engine was still made for the PS2 system. They have made a lot of QoL updates but never uncapped the limitations.

[svengalis]

true, but the lack of modern QoL stuff makes it unplayable for anyone coming from the era of modern MMORPGs

PS2 Dev Kit limitations.

[Alhanelem]

Oh, FFXIV also gives you a lot of freedom. I mean, both FFXI and FFXIV together are more flexible these days.

No it doesn't. Every job has a 100% fixed kit and gear doesn't modify any of it in any way, gear is purely a content gate and doesn't create any oppertunities to try playing in different ways.
It does make things more balanced, but it comes at the cost of making every job basically the same except for the graphics- if there's never a reason to choose one job over another, there's really no reason to have so many jobs.

Oh and I forgot to mention how they basically took away summoner's physically existing pets, which actually makes it impossible to solo some content they were able to solo before. That's taking possibilities away, not making more. And t hey also have hardly added new summons, where FFXI has added two on a shoestring budget since the final expansion release.

I do play FFXIV, but I only really play the content that's dynamic, i.e. pvp, deep dungeon, stuff like eureka when its relevant.