So when did Final Fantasy become WoW?

[Sureal]

um, what fuels the players is the same in EVERY mmo, to get gear

WoW and ffxi are nothing alike, sorry to burst your bubble

[Sureal]

I started playing 6 years ago, when doing a promy was a real pain, but as well an epic doing, when fighting minotaur and mammets were a pain in teh ass, CoP used to be the more difficult yet amazing expansion FFXI had, i personally still enjoy it, its my favorite expansion and it will be forever, ^^

i was one of the few players that was able to pass at least 2 of the prommys before the very first nerf, the one no one remembers

[Wenceslao]

lol, i think they gimpled CoP difficulty, but at least they allowed new players to enjoy a good storyline, i would like to see the lvl restriccions back, but as i know they won't do it, i'll keep it enjoying it as is, i'll always remember the days when finishing this expansion was epic! ^^

[ffxkenshin]

About the time Square-Enix realized (about 2 1/2 years ago now) that most of the elite players were loot whores.

Methinks a lot more discussion than we are aware of came about around the time of the Salvage bans.

LOL, this sums it all up for a lot of the discussion thread in here. Many claims things are "too easy" now, abyssea changes is needed, etc etc. In the end, may just be what you said, elite player wants the elite gear to themselves, and now that they see more people can get just as good gear as they do, they flame SE for making it "somewhat easier" to get them. Trying to say how they want to enjoy the hardcore difficulty of needing alliances to finish something is rewarding, is a bunch of BS IMO, just another way of saying, "people that play less time than we do, does not deserve the gear we wear".

[Aliron]

Gear has yes always been a goal for players, however things in FFXI there were many other things that fueled players to play, like crafting which has been made practically pointless and unneccesary with the Abyssea gear, only a few items are still worth using that are craftable like Noble's Tunic, the oportunity to gain new abilities never explored to its fullest potential like they did with SMN spells. What they need to do is add a few rewards to origanal content that will make it truly worth while to do, sure make it gear if you want, or make it a customizable ability that you can use those built up merits to augment there are many ways to bring challenge back into the game, let newer players have a full experience of the content, while provided experienced players with something to do, that they'll truly find fun and exciting.
Oh and I am one of those players that still don't have all that fancy elite gear yet, you can even look up the name on the linkshell community page to see how far from elite I am lol, I've actually avoided doing some of the Abyssea stuff because its to easy, a Final Boss like shinryu should not be soloable in less than 3 minutes for example. Should take at least a full party 20~25 minutes to beat with an okay strategy, 15min with a really good strategy

[Revalus]

I wanted to do the Promyvions before they removed the cap. Alas, something I could not convince five other people to do. I'm pretty stoked that I've finally been able to do that stuff. And watch cutscenes, and explore new zones, and the stuff that drives me to keep playing. Did it with a few friends, and good times were had by all.

[Toren]

i was one of the few players that was able to pass at least 2 of the prommys before the very first nerf, the one no one remembers

I completely agree with you Sureal I also completed CoP before it was nerfed I even roughly told myself I would never level another character to that point because of having to do CoP again back then as much as I love the story to it.

[Sureal]

while i finished ALL of CoP before the main nerfs, i beat 2 of the prommies when they were considered unbeatable lol

[Zumi]

The difficulty of WoW is actually really hard they had people compared to FFXI where everything is pretty easy to kill.

[Sureal]

wait, what? i dont even....