FFXI vs FFXIV Difficulty

In that last interview with Yoshi, they asked about the leveling speed he said it would be toned down in 2.0.

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

FFXI in a year most people only had one or two jobs capped with maybe one craft capped and sub craft to sixty.

FFXIV in a year people have all jobs and crafts capped.

Yoshi-P please make the game more difficult, if I'm level 20 and a monster is level 20 then we should be even match to each other and not a one sided fight which I'm guarantied to win. If a monster is my level I shouldn't, unless being real skilled, be able to take on 3-6.

Please make it difficult to where a party actually needs a tank and cant get away with 7 DD and a healer, each DD soloing a mob well enough that the healer only needs to throw one heal at the end of their battle.

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Getting all your jobs to cap in XIV is more like getting all your jobs to 37 in XI. We aren't at the final cap yet, and won't be for a long time.

The content we are getting now is supposed to have broad appeal so it can give the most people something to do each update. Currently development teams that should be working on content and expansions are working on the redesign. I am sure that once that is done you will see content updates that include content aimed at a broad range of player types. For now just enjoy what they are able to give us each update. Its not the end of the game it's just the beginning. Windurst wasn't built in a day you know.

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Originally Posted by Fouluryu

inb4 before people need to read your troll replies damaging people's IQ's. Leave their opinions and their expressions of the game as they should be.

But seriously, Noble's reply has a valid point. To make the game more challenging they could try raise level cap and increase bar exp amount needed to gain level.

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There's nothing challenging about mindless grinds.

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Originally Posted by Sephrick

No it wasn't. It just took longer. That doesn't mean it was any more challenging.

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It doesn't mean that, but in this case it is true.
Leveling up in FFXI was quite literally more challenging than leveling up in FFXIV though the differences are minimal unless you talk about soloing.
Honestly, do you not remember the Goblin Smithies at that oh so very popular camp in Yuhtunga? How many times you'd get dead pullers. Links in Garliage, trains in Crawler's Nest and so on..?

Leveling in XI was brutal compared to XIV, not to say that it was hard because it wasn't but this is definitely some carebear stuff in comparison. And then if you want to talk about soloing... that was quite literally more difficult as well, try killing several even match-tough enemies in the 30s range in each game and tell me which it is harder to do it in (generally speaking).



So lets not even try to go there, normally I agree with you but in this instance I believe you are dead wrong.

I was just wondering if the OP character is his/her main character or just one used to post with.

This game had pretty much nothing to do but level for two years (two years....). That's the main reason everyone is capped, what else were they supposed to do?

P.S.: I wouldn't compare multi-group content to single group content.

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Originally Posted by Madruk

This game had pretty much nothing to do but level for two years (two years....). That's the main reason everyone is capped, what else were they supposed to do?

P.S.: I wouldn't compare multi-group content to single group content.

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I capped all my DoM/Dow jobs in less than two months, kthxbai. Now, though at a much slower rate, i'm capping DoH/DoL stuff... this MIGHT take a year, i'm leaning towards not that long with the added bonuses.

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Originally Posted by Platinumstorm

I wouldn't. I want the entire process to be entertaining, not just the end phase.

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^^^ This right here...IMO is the essence of an mmorpg...whats the point of the end game if you can't appreciate the journey to get there...IJS

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Originally Posted by Petdo

The OP might look at other people that have no life and play game for 24/7 and envy them.
The DoH/DoL class take too much time to lv up ( without helping hand of cause! )
If people can play only 2-3 hour per day, it will take around 40-50 days to finish 1 DoH class
So it take around 9-10 month to reach all DoH classes ( assumed you play everyday! )

DoL is a time-consuming class too because you have to walk around to find node and that count as time sink too.
I bet it might take some 4-5 month to reach lv 50 of all DoL classes

DoW/DoM is kind of easy if you have PLer.
But finding dedicate PLer that will PL you every class to 50 is very hard ==' Who gonna help you for many many hours and he go nothing in return? ( If you are REAL girl it would be another story :P )
So lvl DoW/DoM class might take another 3-4 month at least for soloing and PTing sometime.

So total time is around 1 year+ to reach all 50 classes,
And this game also released for more than 1 year, no wonder why ppl reach all 50.
But for new player, it will take another 1 year to lv up everything. And I think that's the correct pace.
After 2.0 launch, SE might lift lv cap and everything should be good-to-go again

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Not to mention going after the DoL/DoH achievments, go ahead and add on another 3-6 months of chasing those bad boys.

I think it is possible for them to make XIV more difficult without adding time synchs. What most people don't realise is I am sure SE has more difficult content planned, but they can't add things from the top down. Wait for 2.0 and then wait another 6 months after that for them to start actually releasing 2.0 content, and THEN we can have a conversation about how difficult the game is or isn't. So much of the games current state is still left ofver from the old development team, its not at all fair to try to judge it in its current state.

FWIW... my first 50 took over 2 months.... (That was the norm back at launch)

Difficulty in an MMO... (Hmmm)

IMO Difficulty in an MMO usually comes down to one thing; TIME. Some people like to think of it as a Tedious Time Sink and some people see it as a means to forging relationships through long periods of time with a person/people. But every goal in an MMO is usually going to come down to a calculation of time.

Once a strategy is understood (and this happens within hours of every new patch/expansion), you follow said strategy or your own and its only a matter of TIME before you-get your desired achievement.

I would venture to guess that an MMO is quite easy for most people nowadays. Besides games like Tera, that are action based (really just twitch relexes... But Im sure many an FPS player will tell me how this is a skill. hehe just playing. Its a skill; in the sense that its a developed motor function that some are better at then others.)

What was I saying?... Oh right, the mechanics of the game. The mechanics of an MMO are prevalently easy nowadays. (besides action MMOs and the like) They can't be difficult because then you have a "barrier to entry". I would say that mechanically UO and FF11(before it's end days) we're difficult. Examples, from FF11 would be; strict party lvl ranges (prior to lvl sync), strategic battle mechanics, mob difficulty and map placement, aggro system, reliance on full parties of a strategic build to finish content (or a few high levels), "milestone quests" such as chocobo, airships, kazham, limit breaks. But even saying that these things are "mechanically" difficult is semantics on my part, because they all come down to one thing- TIME.

Same with FF14. EX. Your Ifrit/Moogle weapon, your AF gear, your chocobo, lvling to 50. You know the strategy is to stand in the right spot and only cast two spells after Ifrit does a move. So you do it, over and over again. You make sure ur heavily loaded with archers in Moogle and other new endgame content. You watch the youtube videos of your AF body fight and know exactly what to do. You get a party together and zerg shit to lvl to 50 or do leves. What makes any of this inherently difficult?

I think this discussion has really misunderstood the nature of difficulty. What does difficulty mean? How is difficulty measured? Difficulty is described as something that requires effort. So what types of effort exist in MMOs?

In terms of brainpower(or raw intelligence) Im going to go out on a limb and say MMOs really don't require much( especially once you have researched online how to do something). Although I would say FF11 required on-the-fly strategic thinking in a lot of its content. Physical effort, ie twitch gaming, action based MMOs etc, doesnt seem very relevant in most MMOs. There may be more ways to make a person "work" in an MMO, that Im not thinking of but the measurement for effort put forth is in my mind; always going to be in units of time.

So imo, MMO Difficulty= X/units of time (including the time it takes you to research and apply a strategy.

Now that we have a loose concept that difficulty in an MMO is most often measured in units of time; we can think a moment on what we are doing in this thread? We are basically trying to pinpoint what in a game makes us "work" and whether that "work" is tedious or difficult. The only difference is an arbitrary personal opinion. In our own minds when something takes too long like getting an Ifrit weapon, we either decide its tedious or its hard. When some people think about Anima they think in units of time; it is either an "easy button"(the opposite of hard) or its a convenience(the opposite of tedious).

The OP actually, imo, pointed out a few things that mechanically can be considered difficult; mob AI and stats/abilities and strategic weapon use and party builds for grinding. These are actually things that require brainpower, such as strategic on-the-fly thinking during fights.

IMO when I think of partying, I want high mob stats, "hard" AI and high exp bars because in my mind, its not tedious to grind (especially in FF11 where the gear was so well developed in aesthetics, lore and usefulness). In fact, I understand that the time I spend making a party and then partying is time spent with other people, which is the driving force behind an MMO(though of late you'd begin to question that). I personally think that the journey to 50 should be a time sink as much as grinding Ifrit, Moogles or Aurum Vale is a time sink, because thats how you build a thriving and positive community; force people to work together as much as possible. Although we uber need level-sync.

Well that was a huge rant. I dont apologize. I use these forums to take up my time. And there is some time well wasted. Hope you enjoyed.

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

Please make it difficult to where a party actually needs a tank and cant get away with 7 DD and a healer, each DD soloing a mob well enough that the healer only needs to throw one heal at the end of their battle.

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Could you make a vid doing Ifrit without a tank?

FFXI has never been difficult, just time consuming.

People could take 2 years to get their first job to 75, that doesn't make them skilled enough to get Dynamis Xarcabard cleared, or defeat Bahamut v2.

Time=/=Skill

well i agree with you... difficulty is not all about timesink.

but i also can understand the topic opener when he says that everybody being lv 50 at each class doesnt feel that "special" anymore. because almost everyone has maxed out each class/job.

on the other side, this isnt the maximum cap forever i think.

Stop confusing time sinks with difficulty. Leveling in FFXI required a lot of time and patience, not skill.

If it's hard on your mental state, it can be thought of as difficult, whether that's a grueling grind or not. It challenges your mentality. It may not be hard or take "skill" to level up, but it takes patients, and that is a skill. So, when something is a time sync, you have to battle it with your mind, not necessarily with your hands.

Tl:dr
Time syncs are hard on your mind, not your hands.

I guess the real question is:

regardless of definitions,

do you want to level up forever? Or not?

i lol'ed at they guy who said that Ifrit Battle is harder than any FFXI fight.
Obviously that'

Ahh the old group vs solo debate. This same thread is going on in every mmo forum and blog out there and probably will until the end of time. I understand the OP's take on things but as the majority of the replies on this thread can attest, most people don't want forced grouping in an mmo. I for one am very thankful for this. To balance out the new solo-friendly gameplay trend, developers offer rewards that are gated by group-only content. A solo player can't get that reward. That's just the way it is.

I know that's a little off topic but that's essentially what a XI vs. XIV argument boils down to. The whole group vs solo, risk vs reward, blah blah mostly comes down to how much time you have to dedicate to playing a game.

Not all of us can waste hours and hours a day playing a game. I like having a choice as to whether I group or not. And as someone that can only play an hour or so a day, I dont' see myself reaching the cap, let alone unlocking a class or getting AF gear anytime soon. So yeah I think the pacing in FFXIV is just right. Especially if you like to level DoH or DoL and take time to smell the flowers along the way.

I want content. Sure being able to have level 99 in the far future would be nice, but worthless without content like Primal-Fights, HNMs, Quests, Besieged for example. SE is implementing more and more content now, and thats what the game really needs. I see no reason to raise the lvl cap in the near future. And thinking about the difficulty in FFXI and FFXIV: When the lvl cap of FFXI was raised to 80, 85... 99, there were always some nerds who needed few weeks to achieve the new maximum level. So there will be always ppl who get everything to the max. That has nothing to do with difficulty, just with the amount of time you need. Iam studying and dont have as much time as in the past when i went to school. I dont have the time to play FFXI any longer. FFXIV is more casual-friendly, and thats one reason why i play it. FFXI and FFXIV are different games for different customers. If one of them pleases u, the other one doesnt, why not stick to the one you like? I dont know where the problem is...

The ease of the game is why I actually play this instead of XI. I got tired of having to find groups for everything past lvl 10 lol

I dont know how many of you still play XI but you are comparing XIV to the XI of the past.
You can have a 99 in no time at all now. Most players do Grounds of valor till LV30 then hop right into abyssea 18 man XP parties doing pages, helping the party open boxes & go from 30-60 in a few hours. It took me 5 years to level and gear 6 classes. After abyssea I did 4 more jobs all while keeping the 6 I had up to par with the new LV caps.
I can honestly say I like it better. more ppl with more classes makes it easy to mix it up when building parties and I get to play more classes I enjoy, getting alot less "Can you come BLM Neek? were short a few BLMs."

My point is somewhere over the years of running XI someone must have decided XPing new classes shouldn't take a year and keep new players from seeing all the other great stuff the game has to offer. There are alot other ways to keep people busy.

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

*OP random stuff*

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Don't be naive, I can get one job to Lv99 in a day or two in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Petdo

Hmm why don't you go back and play FFXI OP?

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Because FFXI has been remodeled into something that barely resembles what the game was in its prime. The vast majority of players didnt want a level cap increase, didn't want endgame events reduced to soloable shells of what they once were, and didn't want EXP handed to them and everyone around them (For the love of God, don't bring up that ridiculous "Don't like it? Don't do it." argument. That's not what an MMO is about). Nobody is going to go back to FFXI because they don't like this game. They came to this game because FFXI fell apart.

You all seem to think that its just a handful of "FFXI elitists who want this game to be FFXI-2" making these suggestions. Its not. People level every class to 50, not because they're bored and there's nothing else to do, but because they can and it's the new norm because they can. You have to if you want a good reputation and good invites. It's gross.

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Originally Posted by Levian

You do realize this game is meant to be solo/casual friendly right...? This game isn't meant to be tough like FFXI, at least not in terms of the level grind. I am tempted to agree that leveling might be a little too accelerated at this moment though. But, without throwing any mid level content in, why bother dragging out the process?

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If they put a level cap on some stuff, there would be mid-level content. Toto-rak, certain quest battles, if you level capped them, there would mean at level 30, you have no more benefit over the player at level 50 (for example). There's enough mid-level content to justify a slower leveling system.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Ruh roh

HERE WE GO

inb4 if you like FFXI so much why don't you marry it

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Why do people respond with these little trendy phrases so quickly? It's really annoying.

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Originally Posted by Jericho

People level every class to 50, not because they're bored and there's nothing else to do, but because they can and it's the new norm because they can. You have to if you want a good reputation and good invites. It's gross.

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I dont know why you play this game, but i dont need "good reputation", because i dont define myself by accomplishments in this game. My only level 50 Class is Lancer and i have no problems getting invites for anything i want to do, be it Ifrit, DH, AV or whatever. I dont have problems finding a party and i dont care about reputation. I play this game because its fun.

There is a difference between Time Sink and Difficulty.

FFXI leveling was a time sink when in a good group. Everyone knows that if you had a bad tank or healer that the difficulty got a lot harder. In FFXIV you don't need a tank and as long as your healer knows how to target and press cure, you're set. If one of your DD or Tank died in FFXI the fight got a lot harder because there was the risk of your healer running out of mana even if they had some sort of refresh on them. This is the difficulty I'm talking about that very few are understanding. People didn't want to not level in XI because of a long grind, if fighting one monster or two was a joke like it is here, a lot more people would of grind all their jobs to 75 pre ToAU. If monsters were harder people would think more about weather they wanted to solo or party and PL'ing wouldn't be as effective.

People who believe that the game only exist at capped level, tell me, when have you ever played a single player game, where all you did was killed monsters till you capped abilities and spells so that you can actually start doing the "fun" stuff? Its that mentality that ruins MMO's. To say that there isn't enough mid content in the game is WAAAAY off. Even if there was more mid content than end game, these people wouldn't do it because they don't believe anything is "fun" unless its end game.

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

FFXI in a year most people only had one or two jobs capped with maybe one craft capped and sub craft to sixty.

FFXIV in a year people have all jobs and crafts capped.

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I hate to do this but you are comparing an incomplete game, which will be scrapped, to FFXI...which had been out as a complete game for a year with an expansion before it ever came to the US.

Basically wait until 2.0, which is the complete game, before making any comparisons...at least a year into 2.0 to be fair. Difficulty cannot be balanced in a game "under development", which is what FFXIV is.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

I hate to do this but you are comparing an incomplete game, which will be scrapped, to FFXI...which had been out as a complete game for a year with an expansion before it ever came to the US.

Basically wait until 2.0, which is the complete game, before making any comparisons...at least a year into 2.0 to be fair. Difficulty cannot be balanced in a game "under development", which is what FFXIV is.

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Sorry but anyone saying its not fair to compare a complete game to an incomplete game is really an invalid point. Unless the game was free (which it wasnt) by free I mean completely free (meaning everyone got the money they spent on the disc/key) its fair to compare the RELEASED version to "enter comparison here" version.

I can argue that SE wouldn't release an incomplete game, so that means the game was complete! Its one thing to release and incomplete game to releasing a "completed" game with a broken engine. Of course I'm not trying to get all technical smart ass on people but I try to view all things from all angles and as a gamer if this difficulty doesn't change, people will most likely not stick around like they have in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

Sorry but anyone saying its not fair to compare a complete game to an incomplete game is really an invalid point. Unless the game was free (which it wasnt) by free I mean completely free (meaning everyone got the money they spent on the disc/key) its fair to compare the RELEASED version to "enter comparison here" version.

I can argue that SE wouldn't release an incomplete game, so that means the game was complete! Its one thing to release and incomplete game to releasing a "completed" game with a broken engine. Of course I'm not trying to get all technical smart ass on people but I try to view all things from all angles and as a gamer if this difficulty doesn't change, people will most likely not stick around like they have in FFXI.

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Lol its an invalid point because its inconvenient for you? Not an argument.

SE acknowledged it was an incomplete game by cancelling payments and letting ppl pay free for an entire year. And you want to compare THAT to FFXI? As I said, its not a fair comparison. The only reason we are paying for it now is because they can't afford to fix it otherwise. Why would they be making FFXIV 2.0, and scrapping this one, if this was a complete game as you are trying to hypothetically argue? FFXIV 2.0 is a new game, this is like a bridge into it. As I said, comparing a complete game to an incomplete game is not a fair comparison. Its just not. If you insist on making it, fine, but anyone with an ounce of logic can see the error in your comparison.

Thats like trying to compare the taste of ripe bananas in Jamaica to some not yet ripened bananas in, idk, California. Yeah you can conclude that Jamaica's bananas are better, but its not a fair comparison. You didn't even give California's bananas a chance to mature and ripen yet. You're comparing the faculties of a full-grown adult to those of a child. Seriously.

i agree it should have a higher top end of difficulty, but i also think that the speed to 50 is a blessing at this point. It will allow the new players at 2.0 to catch up somewhat before the cap increases. From 50 on though, it should not be nearly as fast.

50 out of 100 could be like saying 37 out of 75.
It took a damn long time to reach 75, but getting everything to 37 would be relatively easy.

I think there is talk of xp bein scaled down at 2.0, but idr where i read it. It could be bullcraps.

Fights in FFXIV can be pretty difficult by default just because this game is a lot more fast-paced than XI. However, XI really competed with XIV in difficulty... so you really have to think about the complexity of the two games. Overall, I like the XIV battle system better because it requires a bit more movement than the average XI fight.

I understand your frustration with everyone having multiple jobs to 50, but that's because the game launched in all areas of the world together. Then, the team needed to focus on improving the game in general in addition to releasing new content. XI was released a year earlier in Japan, giving them a huuuuge head start on everything from leveling to questing to figuring out how to get stuff done in general. XI may have seemed harder to you for this reason.

Yes, leveling took a LOT more time in XI... but do we really want that? Leveling wasn't especially difficult... just incredibly time consuming. It was difficult when you literally could not level without a party (and if you tried, you couldn't kill much on your own), and unless you were a healer or tank, you were sitting for hours LFG... and good luck if you were a job that wasn't really sought out, like SMN or DRG.

I know many of us look back on XI with rose-tinted glasses. It was a great game and I spent years of my life playing it along with the rest of you. But, don't forget it had its problems... problems we ALL agreed on and complained about even while we were enjoying it. When they took away a huge chunk of exp needed to reach 75 (a few years after NA release), some people complained while others rejoiced. Many of us would sit around talking about it in a "back in my day..." tone.

I don't think XIV is necessarily 'easier'. I just think they can't release as much content as we'd like because they are literally REWORKING the entire game. To be honest... if they can release content that keeps me satisfied (while at the same time also recreating the entire game in preparation for 2.0), I give them a LOT of props. I like it a lot and I honestly prefer this game to XI ... now, anyway. Times have changed and this game reflects that.

Now, here is something to consider: FFXI servers and FFXIV servers are both located in Japan. When I played XI, the lag from Japan to the East coast (where I am) never bothered me. Even when I was part of a stun order, I would NEVER miss my stun (unless it was 3am and my linkshell was forcing me to stay up against my will, etc). In XIV, the lag definitely bothers me. Your 'reaction time' must be a LOT faster now. East coasters and Europeans especially can find this unbearable. It's difficult to tank or to move out of an ability in time. This adds a LOT of difficulty that perhaps not everyone experiences.

The "time-sink" of leveling, as everyone wants to call it, wasn't an effort to make FFXI more "difficult". It was a balancing tool. The longer it takes to level, the less amount of capped jobs a given player would have. It was pretty rare to see someone with more than 3 of the 20 before Abyssea, and especially before the past areas. Even the hardest of the hardcore didn't WANT to go through all that again, they needed to REALLY want that if they were going to. Maybe the casuals had to suck it up and put in some painful hours and maybe they would stop leveling after 1 job is up top, but its not that big a deal to only have 1 option when the vast majority have no more than 3.

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Originally Posted by NefarioCall

i agree it should have a higher top end of difficulty, but i also think that the speed to 50 is a blessing at this point. It will allow the new players at 2.0 to catch up somewhat before the cap increases. From 50 on though, it should not be nearly as fast.

50 out of 100 could be like saying 37 out of 75.
It took a damn long time to reach 75, but getting everything to 37 would be relatively easy.

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that could work only if they move level cap from 50 to 75 or 100, but they plan to level it slowly, with expansions, like wow.

I like people to choose a job and try their best on that one. Then level up another or 2 more if u have enough time...

Can't believe people can make any single link between difficulty and leveling speed.

Levels mean nothing. I dunno how many sucks player at max lvl in XI I have met.
It is all, all, and all about player skill.

Maybe they should implement some kind of experience loss when players die. >:] muhahahaa

we all know ff14 has kinks

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Originally Posted by Noblewar

FFXI in a year most people only had one or two jobs capped with maybe one craft capped and sub craft to sixty.

FFXIV in a year people have all jobs and crafts capped.

Yoshi-P please make the game more difficult, if I'm level 20 and a monster is level 20 then we should be even match to each other and not a one sided fight which I'm guarantied to win. If a monster is my level I shouldn't, unless being real skilled, be able to take on 3-6.

Please make it difficult to where a party actually needs a tank and cant get away with 7 DD and a healer, each DD soloing a mob well enough that the healer only needs to throw one heal at the end of their battle.

Please make it to where every class has to pull out their weapon to "cast", even Lord Voldemort needed to use his wand to cast a DD spell. Point being there is no fun in not having to worry about down time weather it be a party or an important fight.

In the end the game needs to be more difficult. At the moment its not very motivating to get something done when you're almost guarantee a victory.

I hope you read this Yoshi-P and thanks for you're time.

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FFXI is famous for the boss that was so hard people got sick because they refused to take breaks and SE had to nerf the heck out of it to make a wipe timer so people would get up and eat instead of playing constantly. Salvage, Absolute Virtue..in general completely different as for difficulty. I am not sure if I want it the XI difficulty but I would play the game either way because I still find challenges at my level.

It took me some time to realize that it was not challenging to fight a mob [at my actual level] in XIV that in XI would be considered an "even match". I figured this out by accident because I started playing as I did in XI, anticipating a far more challenging mob and when I got linked, I realized it.

It is strange having crafting recipes actually in the game and crystals/items that add themselves to the recipe.

Having food stats on the food and in game pop up help, actual user manuals and crafting recipes on line that are not solely fan made websites.

I can't take any of these things for granted because of my time in XI. I am in the middle of choosing and not certain if I want things to be harder again. If anything, having a hardmode button with greater rewards for difficulty [kinda like levees but on non levee mobs too] might just be enough to satisfy both sides.

And there are still some die hards who still play XI and absolutely love it. I like having both games as an option. People will complain no matter what is done though, I am certain of this.