FF11 "Classic Fresh" - WoW is rebooting classic! How would you launch XI Classic?

[Leeto]

So WoW Classic is currently doing a fresh start classic reboot with easier levelling, harder raid difficulty and QoL changes that are completely different to how they did "Classic" the first time around...

Would you launch the official FF11 classic server with QoL changes?

I would like to see everything up to Treasures of Aht Urhgan and implement Mythic weapons with it as a Quality of Life change! However I would not be against adding Wings of the Goddess or the add-ons, but the cut-off date for updates would have to be the March 23rd, 2010 update just like Wings.

Sky, Sea, AF2, Limbus, Salvage, Einherjar, Nyzul... When endgame meant alliances and group content. When every piece of 75 gear was a long-term goal. Everything before that date is the golden 75 era!

[Sfchakan]

Just what we need, a fourth or fifth thread about this this week.

For something they've repeatedly said "lol no" to.

[Alt0167]

I wouldn't

[Lortheron]

So WoW Classic is currently doing a fresh start classic reboot with easier levelling, harder raid difficulty and QoL changes that are completely different to how they did "Classic" the first time around...

Would you launch the official FF11 classic server with QoL changes?

I would like to see everything up to Treasures of Aht Urhgan and implement Mythic weapons with it as a Quality of Life change! However I would not be against adding Wings of the Goddess or the add-ons, but the cut-off date for updates would have to be the March 23rd, 2010 update just like Wings.

Sky, Sea, AF2, Limbus, Salvage, Einherjar, Nyzul... When endgame meant alliances and group content. When every piece of 75 gear was a long-term goal. Everything before that date is the golden 75 era!

Yes, please.

People don't get that when we say "Classic server", this is what we mean (more or less, give or take...):

Keep some tele books, not all, make airships available every 2m and trips faster. Remove hability to teleport too far away, make airships and boats free or 50gil and teleportartion ~500gil.

Keep standard faster leveling we have now, remove Raphsodies of Vana Diel key items that make it ridiculously fast and break the game.
Remove personal mounts, but add more chocobo stables everywhere, make chocobos always available to sumon back as long as you're still in time, so one can mount and dismount freely while the timer lasts.
Remove Abyssea content but keep max level at 99 anyways.

Release with some expansions only (Rise of Zilart and Chains of Promathia), add new things slowly with time.
Limit trustes to two per person, three per party, make people want to group up trough low~mid level content.

Apply hard, level sync to all dungeons and notorious monster fights, as well as missions, challenging content and important story mission should be hard and offer somewhat of a challenge no matter the level one is doing it (really boring and dumb to steamroll trough fights supposed to be epic challenges).
A good middleground with all the feeling and challenge of the classic but not as spartan, and still very accessible and much faster to level without much grind (just some), while still requiring groups and valuing content of all levels (not just endgame).

Some of the above could and should also be applied to the current retail server actually.

[Inches]

Clickbait? Trolling? Both?

Ah yes, how wonderful it was to start a party in Cape Terrigan and zone right after into Valley of Sorrows...going for 72 hours because you didn't want to lose the xp camp and that next level was (at least) a couple of days' worth experience away.

Reading about the incredibly long Absolute Virtue fights were people were actually vomiting due to overplaying.

When so much time had passed between missions that any chance of you following the plot was gone with the last five levels you had to gain before you even had a chance at continuing the story.

When you couldn't complete quests in: Garlaige Citadel, past the three mage gate, Eldieme Necropolis, or the Quicksand Caves because... for one reason or another you just could not get past a certain door.

When some classes (like DRKs) hung around Jeuno in a perpetual LFG Exclamation Point next to their head because...parties just didn't want them.

Finding a party as a DD, and suddenly the WHM has to leave 10 minutes after you hauled ass to Crawler's Nest, because they're human and have been in a party for the last 10 hours. Desperately performing a /sea all whm and trying to snipe whatever healer isn't /anon or ask them if they want to party, before anybody else did.

Ah, yes. The good old days. They were alright back then.

But they can stay there.

[Lortheron]

Clickbait? Trolling? Both?

Ah yes, how wonderful it was to start a party in Cape Terrigan and zone right after into Valley of Sorrows...going for 72 hours because you didn't want to lose the xp camp and that next level was (at least) a couple of days' worth experience away.

Reading about the incredibly long Absolute Virtue fights were people were actually vomiting due to overplaying.

When so much time had passed between missions that any chance of you following the plot was gone with the last five levels you had to gain before you even had a chance at continuing the story.

When you couldn't complete quests in: Garlaige Citadel, past the three mage gate, Eldieme Necropolis, or the Quicksand Caves because... for one reason or another you just could not get past a certain door.

When some classes (like DRKs) hung around Jeuno in a perpetual LFG Exclamation Point next to their head because...parties just didn't want them.

Finding a party as a DD, and suddenly the WHM has to leave 10 minutes after you hauled ass to Crawler's Nest, because they're human and have been in a party for the last 10 hours. Desperately performing a /sea all whm and trying to snipe whatever healer isn't /anon or ask them if they want to party, before anybody else did.

Ah, yes. The good old days. They were alright back then.

But they can stay there.

As I said in my post before yours: keep some conviniences here and there but strugle to keep the feeling of the original and value the years of content up until 75~99. Keep current faster leveling peace (already ~5x faster than original classic without any of those silly Raphsodies of Vana Diel experience boosting Key Items that break the game), for example, and so on. A "not so classic server" is what is needed, and some tender love and cars, for this game. Sadly the current situation is an absurd extreme aking to private server experiences of old (where people would make private servers of any MMO, including WoW, where one could get max level in days. In FFXI currently a new player can reach max level in hours).

Overall some conveniencies here and there and faster leveling is fine. Welcomed. But reaching max level within a few hours is not fun at all on any RPG, as is steamrolling trough content and fights that are supposed to be epic and challenging... it's simply silly and boring and doesn't value the content at all.

At the very least, reaching level 75 should take some more time than it currently takes for a player to reach top level in FFXIV, which is around two months, and reaching level 99 from there should take at least half as much.

We need a middleground between current retail state (which is easy mode with Abyssea and Raphsodies of Vana Diel, a steamrolling and speedruning dream skiping trough 90% of original beautiful stories and content, which is just sad) and classic (which was just too spartan and archaic for today). It's not that hard to do, really.

[Alt0167]

You clearly don't understand where we are in the life cycle of this game and community. I hope you find a private server to accommodate your fantasies, because they'll never be realised on retail. The game has moved on. No going back. Literally Never. Emphasis on the literally never part.

[Lortheron]

You clearly don't understand where we are in the life cycle of this game and community. I hope you find a private server to accommodate your fantasies, because they'll never be realised on retail. The game has moved on. No going back. Literally Never. Emphasis on the literally never part.

There clearly is a market big enough for the old school MMO experience. Everquest 1 releases new time locked servers periodically with less paying players than FFXI and Daybreak still makes good money. The classic MMO is a totally different game genere than the modern one, can't compare, and a different market too. Currently no one is exploring the classic MMO but there are paying costumers longing for a quality game albeit modernized and not as spartan as some of the original experiences (while still being far away from the modern MMO FFXIV like model).

The classic MMO community is scattered all around between private servers and many different games and needs someone to unite them. Like many other classic game styles that seen a comeback lately (last one was shooters in general, of many different sub styles. Because modern FPS games just terrible), the classic MMO needs a comeback as well.

FFXI can be that one game to gather and unite all players orphaned from classic MMOs, if given some tender love and care.

[Lortheron]

The thing is, FFXIV is really NOTHING quite like FFXI, nothing at all. Zero similarities in the experience for the player.

I know many people that hate the way FFXIV took but still play it because they feel like there is nowhere else to go. Many people would LOVE FFXI but the interface and graphics are a HUGE problem, even the installation and account creation are barriers. I do believe a remaster of any kind of FFXI would drawn many frustrated players from FFXIV and they would really prefer the FFXI experience a lot more.

Most people don't even know how much FFXI is all they are looking for in an MMO but keep away from it because of how much of a huge starting barrier it got and how old it's graphics and interface look.

[Pixela]

Modernization does not always just mean positives, it can also bring negatives.

Sometimes it's better to just be happy you still have the game and it's being updated.