Hardcore, easy mode and the XI veteran

Brilliant post op, probably one of the best post i have ever read on this forum, hell it made me make my first one ;)

Kudos to the OP, you hit the nail on the head on every point.

Very well written, your English comp teacher must have loved you!

I am a player of 11 from about the same amount of time and I agree with everything right down to the, "all they want is their own selfish mountain to stand on."

I'd say what you don't like needs to be in the game...as a side note.
Not the main mechanics. Because, everyone has those moments where they
have nothing to do and just wanting something to waste time.
But as the core of the game? No thx.

I have yet to waste my time posting here because of all the idiocy I've seen on this forum, but OP you are spot on. Finally someone that actually can think logically instead of going on a rant about the most ridiculous things (jump comes to mind), everything you said was spot on. As someone who played XI for about 5 years I can safely say I completely agree with you on this. And you made your points in such a detailed well thought out fashion, kudos buddy. Hopefully more people read this and get out of these delusions about the game, actually have fun instead of nitpicking at everything and realize this is not XI nor is there much difficulty between either. One is just more time consuming than the other.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Also did Yoshi-P really say derp?

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Derp.

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/10derpsssssss

Personally, I think the OP is wrong about almost everything. He heavily discredits himself by saying things like xp grinds grants 3-5k per hour, boss fights required no skill, or that the game was released with no content. Almost all of FFXIs content was very challenging. It required a significantly greater amount of team work than any other MMO every made. While it is true that the massive time sinks did not make it hardcore, the level to which players had to fight strategically was impeccable. There are few MMO that even come close when it comes to strategic fighting. People complain that it was slow, but that only stems from the fact that at a faster pace users would not have been able to compensate for mistakes on the fly.

The hardcore aspect behind FFXI was born from grinding but was in no way central to it. The FFXI grind was there to force player to learn all aspects of there jobs and being able to function effectively regardless of the size of their party.
A half decent xp party in XI, since Rise of the Zilart, would have netted a player easily 7k per hour while an good party would grant 10k. A party of skilled players even prior to the aht urghan expansion were able to easily pull 15k+ per hour in a grind. This was because the grind was specifically designed to morph players into a well oiled fighting machine. Every Job had its role and any combination of tank, healer, support and DD would be able to put up those numbers.

When it comes to end game in XI it did seem pretty easy, to me, after the grind. The leveling process specifically taught player the skills needed to perform in an endgame situation. Most players on the other hand could barely manage the first series of End game fights let alone progress later on. Players who half assed the grind or got power leveled to the top never stood a chance against the sheer power of the End Game Bosses. It was only after years of perfecting and documenting strategies that End Game Bosses started to be defeated regularly. In most MMOs you can have significant deficiencies in your party and still manage to defeat any Mob in the game. IN FFXI if one person made a mistake it could bring down a full alliance. Having that level of difficulty from the grind level up made players dedicate themselves to their role so as not to incur the wrath of their linkshells when it came time to step up. In the end SE actually had to reduce the difficulty of some end game fights because only the most skilled players ever stood a chance of taking them down. Vrtra and Pandemonium Warden had to be nerfed because they were so difficult it took Multiple full alliances working in complete cooperation to bring them down for the first time.

As far as content is concerned, on NA release of FFXI, end game was ready and waiting. Rise of the Zilart brought sky which was more than adequate to supply 75% of the player base for something to aspire to for more than four years. To place that on top of the Three City based quest lines, of which the player could do all three, culminating in a fairly epic test of strength with things like Divine Might and Dynamis. Each subsequent expansion continued to offer multiple years of End Game content.

Considering the complete disregard for obvious facts it is only reasonable to asume the OP just does not know what he's talking about. Especially when you consider he is wrong about the simplest aspects of the game like XP/hr, amount of content, and the level of strategy needed to kill end game bosses.

For me, the worst part about FFXI was the downtime and time sinks.

The worst part about FFXIV is the complete lack of any Content that could possibly be lost.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

Personally, I think the OP is wrong about almost everything. He heavily discredits himself by saying things like xp grinds grants 3-5k per hour, boss fights required no skill, or that the game was released with no content. Almost all of FFXIs content was very challenging. It required a significantly greater amount of team work than any other MMO every made. While it is true that the massive time sinks did not make it hardcore, the level to which players had to fight strategically was impeccable. There are few MMO that even come close when it comes to strategic fighting. People complain that it was slow, but that only stems from the fact that at a faster pace users would not have been able to compensate for mistakes on the fly.

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Eh, you may want to recheck your memory there, back during the early days, 3-5k xp/hr were considered very good sp, and was dependent on not only your party's skill, but also how many parties are present competing for the mobs. Unless, of course, all of Bahamut server sucked, and all of the NA and JP players were absolutely clueless as to your massive xp/hr secret.

as for the boss fights, I find them to be ok, nothing to write home about certainly. As for content... well, there were certainly more than 14, that's for sure, but that's for NA launch. JP launch, not so much.

Also, I wouldn't go around claiming XI was the pinnacle of teamwork and strategic challenge in all MMOs. I hate to keep bringing this up, but compared to Eve, XI's challenge really isn't much.

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Eh, you may want to recheck your memory there, back during the early days, 3-5k xp/hr were considered very good sp, and was dependent on not only your party's skill, but also how many parties are present competing for the mobs. Unless, of course, all of Bahamut server sucked, and all of the NA and JP players were absolutely clueless as to your massive xp/hr secret.

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I played XI from day one of NA release and never once had to put up with less than 7k/hr. There is a massive difference between not being able to get it and trying to camp on top of someone else and expecting things to happen. Player error does not count as actual statistics

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As for content... well, there were certainly more than 14, that's for sure, but that's for NA launch. JP launch, not so much.

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Even at JP release the game had full story lines, challenging BC fights and HNMs on top of leveling and quests it was more than enough content for the 1 year it took for Rise of the Zilart to come out.

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Also, I wouldn't go around claiming XI was the pinnacle of teamwork and strategic challenge in all MMOs. I hate to keep bringing this up, but compared to Eve, XI's challenge really isn't much.

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Unfortunately for your claims to Eve's being more challenging there is the slight problem of it not being the same genre. Yes it's in MMO but other than that it shares literally no traits with FFXI or XIV or any similar game. You can't compare the challenge level of a third prson vehicle shooter to an RPG. It's like saying Street Fighter is Harder than Call of Duty. There are literally no compatible aspects of their combat mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

I played XI from day one of NA release and never once had to put up with less than 7k/hr. There is a massive difference between not being able to get it and trying to camp on top of someone else and expecting things to happen. Player error does not count as actual statistics

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Maybe someone else can chime in with their experience then, 'cause it certainly seems like me, the OP, and just about every FF11 player I know were playing a very different game from you.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

Unfortunately for your claims to Eve's being more challenging there is the slight problem of it not being the same genre. Yes it's in MMO but other than that it shares literally no traits with FFXI or XIV or any similar game. You can't compare the challenge level of a third prson vehicle shooter to an RPG. It's like saying Street Fighter is Harder than Call of Duty. There are literally no compatible aspects of their combat mechanics.

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Except that Eve is no more of a third-person vehicle shooter than FFXI is a third-person hack-and-slash game, but you'd know that if you actually knew anything about Eve. Besides, you were the one throwing out statements like "...any other MMO ever made", not me. Perhaps you should've included qualifier like "theme park" MMO instead :P

The only major difference between Eve and other fantasy theme-parks outside of aesthetics, is that Eve is a pvp-oriented sandbox, while the theme parks are, well, theme parks. That, and the combat system is about 238472397 times more complex, though if you go down to its core, not all that different from any other MMO's - you activate different modules (abilities) which have various affects on you or your enemy, and you attack with your weapons, with results determined by a RNG after factoring in different factors such as range, weapon attack power, defense rating etc.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

If we agree on that what could we possibly disagree on? XD

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An enemy of my enemy is an ally. (I think I got that saying wrong, but the main subject remains the same. :D)

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Also did Yoshi-P really say derp?

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Look no further:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...481#post238481

Second last paragraph, first word.

Having personally never played XI, I'm in no position to say yay or nay. What knowledge I glean of FFXI is done through research and other friends. But hearing many people's thoughts and views on the subject, it seems that the OP has done very well in discussing the subject in a succinct manner. Approved. (Y)

I just feel bad ppl didnt have fun in sky. Sea i can understand because it was not very melee friendly, but i still log on and kill things in sky. Just cant imagine playing the game that long if you truly just had no fun in any of the endgame. I personally hated dynamis because the drk gear was mostly a joke, but playing a game you didnt enjoy for 7 years seems crazy.

Side note: the forced long group grinding did have benefits even though they could wear on the patience at times. It taught you how to manage your resources with a group and basic etiquette for dealing with other players, such as the simple congratulations upon leveling or giving notice/finding a replacement (this aspect declined as the years went one unfortunately)-Not to say there werent draw backs to the concept, but it did serve a purpose.


Harsh Death penalty:gave you more of an incentive to pay attention to what your doing. call it a time sink, i disagree. Death should not be forgiving imo..

I think the whole xi players and xiv thing comes from players who enjoyed xi and were disappointed that xiv made no effort to cater to those players. We believed we were deserved something for being so loyal to xi and SE believed differently. Xi has some great things that they have perfected over the years which xiv could benefit from and for anyone to say there is nothing, is stupid bullshit and you need to get off your useless hate train.

Anyway i just hope for some znm type system with a story implemented because i thought it was a great when it releases in xi.

edit: i agree a lot of xi endgame could wear me down to the point of not loggin in because if i did i would HAVE to attend the event.XI became a job in that aspect and thats not something i want back. The best thing about xi to me was socialization and the friends i made along the way. The long grind, bad deaths, and crappy drop rates that led you to repeat a fight for months bonded the players through a common pain. Not saying the best way to build relationships but it did work. Xiv doesnt encourage you to group with random players and i wish it did. MMOs were a haven to find like minded nerd friends because of their niche appeal, but trying to please everyone makes this aspect harder.

XI suffers from classic collective action problems:
-tragedy of the commons
-free riders
-exploitation of the great by the small
-basically anything that falls under self interest theory

when you think about mmos are a good place to study economic and political theory. You had to deal with selfishness in an mmo? C'mon, do I need to say sh$! happens and people are selfish. Finding someone who isn't self interested is harder, I mean more theories in the modern century are based on the supposition man is intrinsically selfish, not good or evil. Its whether or not you chose to get walked on for the sake of the gear you wanted or not, and if you did, and you got the gear, then you paid the price. If not you could of walked away. Why play a game that's no fun and you hate all the people who play it? I played XI, I was fascinated with the online friendships I made with people and how you would genuinely help someone out because you remember how it was at that level. If you take out that random social encounter aspect I don't think XI would be as good, in XIV personally the worst part is relying on my friends and linkshell for everything, rather than random leveling and getting a party. They're changing that now but I really don't think there's any reason to have an mmo you can't reach out and meet random people everyday. XIV is kind of anti social, glad to see this changing though. Of course there are problems with an mmo dependent on other people like XI was, and one of those problems is a time sink. But if you took that aspect of relying on people for at least some things away, my (MINE ONLY MINE, unless you agree) motivation lessens for the overall game.

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Originally Posted by Kiote

Personally, I think the OP is wrong about almost everything. He heavily discredits himself by saying things like xp grinds grants 3-5k per hour, boss fights required no skill, or that the game was released with no content. Almost all of FFXIs content was very challenging. It required a significantly greater amount of team work than any other MMO every made. While it is true that the massive time sinks did not make it hardcore, the level to which players had to fight strategically was impeccable. There are few MMO that even come close when it comes to strategic fighting. People complain that it was slow, but that only stems from the fact that at a faster pace users would not have been able to compensate for mistakes on the fly.

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I'm going to call BS on 90% of this post, this is how the game was 2004-2007 when I was apart of a LS that dominated their server's endgame.

3-5k EXP was common way back before they boosted base exp on mobs around late 50's-60's. 3-5k was common well before CoP came out, sometimes it was much worse due to how crowded moon, kuftal were, sky sometimes was so crowded you could forget exping there on the weekends.

The endgame was a JOKE.

my LS was the first on the server at killing each CoP wyrm, we knew little to nothing about Vrtra other than it charmed and we one shot it our first time ever pulling it, infact the only things we didn't one shot in the endgame was


-Dynamis Lord due to just unlucky during chain-spell stun one of his tp moves got through and it was something that just happened back then.

-Bahamut rematch, pre-melee burn, we lost our first time and never lost again.

-AV because it was unkillable without cheap gimmicks or it just bugging out. Only kills around this time were Wall of Justice or when it un-expectedly locked itself which later on SE said it was "bugged"

-PW did not exist, my LS had long quit before they added him.


There was nothing challenging about having DD stand under the wing on fafnir/nid, SC+MB aspid, overload BLM+RNG to steamroll KB on all the endgame content pre-toau or limbus since omega/ultima required balanced setups. Eventually you started to stack more SMN's and BLM for CoP wyrms, A SMN army pretty much dominated ToAU HNM with a little melee sprinkled in for Hydra.

I hate to bring up WoW but I was in a top-end guild on WoW during the height of the Ulduar raid before ToC came out, those hardmode fights like firefighter, one keeper yogg, 3 elder freya kills were 100x more harder than anything SE put into FFXI, the end game in FFXI was nothing more but an unbalanced joke, the only challenging thing about FFXI endgame was hoping Ebody,Ridill,D.ring dropped after claiming the mob vs 150 people.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

Maybe someone else can chime in with their experience then, 'cause it certainly seems like me, the OP, and just about every FF11 player I know were playing a very different game from you.

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No, just you and a few other casual inexperienced players in this thread must have enjoyed wasting your time. Kiote is spot on.

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Originally Posted by Burn

I'm going to call BS on 90% of this post.

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I call BS on 100% of your post.. it doesn't even sound remotely true. On those FEW kills you mentioned of even FEWER fights in XI... Screenshots or it didn't happen..

AV was unkillable..? Fail much? Stop claiming XI was just a timesink when you clearly didn't even finish half the content. I'd be surprised if you cleared even half of what you just claimed.

Then you went on to claim WoW was more challenging... LOL! Your done.

If only I could copy the entire OP into my signature.

+1

It's a very nice OP, you make some good points, i never considered myself a hardcore player of FFXI and i always found it quite challenging and not as easy as you make it sound, indeed it was time consuming but that's how i liked it, in the end we got a feeling it was all worth it, that's all i would disagree with you. I can say this lifted my spirits up a little considering the future of this game, i'll try no to quit it for now and hang around to see it change for a while

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Originally Posted by Sephrick

Let me start this by saying there was nothing hardcore about Final Fantasy XI.

->

Because in the end, casual players don't want hand outs. They just want to play.

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Beautifully written eloquently phrasing what most of us want to say as we're all other-wise drowned in the mob drone of protesting "Hard core" players and those who enjoy complaining. If you play a game like this I would assume you play to challenege yourself, not only the game - a good player takes the time to establish how to play not through grinds as you say but through a close bond with the job over time in all sorts of situations. Thank you for saying what needed to be said. Props to the SE team and Yoshi for the direction they're taking the game =D

Dear freaking god that OP was beautiful. Now lets watch the "hardcores" froth at the mouth because the truth hurts so good.

The Ifrit fight looked challenging, and super fun.

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Originally Posted by Wynn

Dear freaking god that OP was beautiful. Now lets watch the "hardcores" froth at the mouth because the truth hurts so good.

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The truth does hurt because anyone who was anybody back during the beginning of FFXI knows how bad the endgame really was or how only the popularity of the job you were leveling at the time determined how fast you leveled.

Doing x amount of time sinks isn't challenging, the OP hit every nail on the head.

Great post OP. I feel the same way as you.

Bottom line, Final Fantasy never required grinding for the player to progress through the game. It was always just play through the game and you're bound to be at least close to the needed level. Why should XIV be any different? Just because it's an MMO?

I'm sorry, but FFXIV shouldn't have to take on level grinding just because it's an MMO and they can't think of any other way to go about it. I feel this is one of the biggest drawbacks to the entire game, and it certainly keeps me from playing.

OP, thank you. That was very well said!

Don't forget.. difficulty is also a matter of opinion. The only challenge that come to mind in any FF was Ozma in FF9 but that was also a time sink earning the right to fight him. Otherwise ALL FF games are "easy mode" unless you purposely avoid fights to make it harder. To be honest i haven't played a truly difficult game since NES, so unless they make gameplay of FFXIV like streetfighter 2010 or battletoads i wouldnt hold my breath for a true challenge.

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Originally Posted by Raagnar

Don't forget.. difficulty is also a matter of opinion. The only challenge that come to mind in any FF was Ozma in FF9 but that was also a time sink earning the right to fight him. Otherwise ALL FF games are "easy mode" unless you purposely avoid fights to make it harder. To be honest i haven't played a truly difficult game since NES, so unless they make gameplay of FFXIV like streetfighter 2010 or battletoads i wouldnt hold my breath for a true challenge.

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Battletoads?

Pah! Try Hawk-Eye on the Commodore 64! THAT's difficult.

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

Battletoads?

Pah! Try Hawk-Eye on the Commodore 64! THAT's difficult.

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Silver Surfer

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

Battletoads?

Pah! Try Hawk-Eye on the Commodore 64! THAT's difficult.

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i remember ghouls and ghost being crazy hard, but i was like 6 years old so i dont know.

Honestly it might be challenging to some, but its more annoying not challenging, was FFX Yunalesca fight, where you need to keeps zombie status on your people to survive the 2nd transformation. I always had Rukki steal those stamina tablets at first and beefed up there hp so they could zombie and take the hits more so. But I hated that fight more than the 10 (exaggerating) times I had to fight that Guado a$shole, Seymour BLEH!. So basically there's where I am on my ps3 playthrough of X, at the moment, that stupid Yunalesca b!tch, if anything SE made me racist against a made up race of people just by sheer annoying fights with them. (JOKE)

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Originally Posted by ReapKarmah

Bottom line, Final Fantasy never required grinding for the player to progress through the game. It was always just play through the game and you're bound to be at least close to the needed level. Why should XIV be any different? Just because it's an MMO?

I'm sorry, but FFXIV shouldn't have to take on level grinding just because it's an MMO and they can't think of any other way to go about it. I feel this is one of the biggest drawbacks to the entire game, and it certainly keeps me from playing.

OP, thank you. That was very well said!

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I agree with this ^

be nice if everyone was technically level 1 at all times...just only got stats from gear.

maybe learn abilities from gear like in FFT and FF9....just have to be the correct job to equip the item

Here's a few other timeless classics that had people smashing their joysticks to pieces with frustration -

Feud
The Newzealand Story
International Ninja Rabbits

and of course...
Spellbound Dizzy

Now everyone can scream till they're blue in the face that FFXIV isn't hard enough, but trust me, you don't EVER want them to be as hard as those games :p

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

Silver Surfer

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Bad != Difficult :D

To be honest, I have a hard time thinking of more than a small handful of games that are both well-designed AND above-average difficulty. The closest one to hit that mark recently was Demon's Souls.

As for classic games, Metroid and the first Legend of Zelda games are always excellent examples.

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Originally Posted by Burn

3-5k EXP was common way back before they boosted base exp on mobs around late 50's-60's. 3-5k was common well before CoP came out, sometimes it was much worse due to how crowded moon, kuftal were, sky sometimes was so crowded you could forget exping there on the weekends.

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Boy I remember the days of 5k/hr being a pretty rocking party in xi. You felt a bit proud of your self and your group when you pulled off a chain 5 regularly as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKVpZeJk1HM My sister's Ozma fight...notice anything? If we're going to cite that FF's challenges are generally because a boss can instant KO people (He didn't use Doomsday in this fight or meteor/comet, which is what made him hard) then FFXI was indeed challenging in a lot of boss encounters because there's bosses who has a death/doom aura for example.

All RPGs, of any walk, can be challenging or can be a breeze, Darkhold in XIV is a challenge, but people breeze through it with the typical "this is the auto win combination."

Ifrit fight will suffer the same fate.

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Originally Posted by weeble

what is so retarded with it you act like 99% of the people posting read even quarter of the posts, heck half of them argue they have a life and need casual gameplay let alone read 20minutes of post thread. i read enough to know what it was about, there been a few of the same post in these forums and every mmo forum in creation.

the 2 words hardcore or casual aren't relevant to the actual arguments being made in 90% of the threads weather they use that word to describe themselves or others, or if they want ot be consider or not. that is all i was saying. people who want to chose to start talking about that part of the post rather then the points he trying to make is hilarious and retarded not i.

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You have to listen(in this case read) and then provide feedback through a common channel(forums) to have competent communication. In effect what you basically did was read the headline of a major news story then hope to finagle your response to somehow have some relevance to the original post. No.

If it takes you 20 minutes to read the OP, I think you may have some reading comprehension disabilities and perhaps may need to work on that.

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Originally Posted by Sypherblade

I agree with this ^

be nice if everyone was technically level 1 at all times...just only got stats from gear.

maybe learn abilities from gear like in FFT and FF9....just have to be the correct job to equip the item

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That's one way. I'm thinking along the lines of:

Each location/set of enemies is able to net you the needed exp to gain the next few levels. Where-as the other enemies that aren't around your level give you no exp. Make it so that those enemies that net you exp give you enough each so that you won't be sitting around, grinding. Say like, 10 enemies or something.

Just remember how in FFVII you were more than likely able to progress in the story and defeat your enemies all the time because you were usually at the right level at the right time. This was due to the environment being as big as it was, requiring enough exploration to have battles and maybe other factors...but maybe that's due to the random battles so I could be wasting my time here.

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by ReapKarmah

Just remember how in FFVII you were more than likely able to progress in the story and defeat your enemies all the time because you were usually at the right level at the right time. This was due to the environment being as big as it was, requiring enough exploration to have battles and maybe other factors...but maybe that's due to the random battles so I could be wasting my time here.

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The random battles did have a lot to do with it. I skipped most of the random battles in FF8 from disc 2 onwards and ended up hitting the boss at the start of disc 4 at only level 25. Only through prolonged cure-spam did I manage to get her down, but getting any further was simply impossible.

It needs to scale for "kill enough to gain levels <> not annoy players to the point where they try to skip it"

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

The random battles did have a lot to do with it. I skipped most of the random battles in FF8 from disc 2 onwards and ended up hitting the boss at the start of disc 4 at only level 25. Only through prolonged cure-spam did I manage to get her down, but getting any further was simply impossible.

It needs to scale for "kill enough to gain levels <> not annoy players to the point where they try to skip it"

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Very true. I've yet to see Square Enix even attempt to do away with grinding. I want to come home and play a game, not work on something else. I sure as hell won't be paying for that!

Of course the easiest way to convince players to keep battling, especially with the battle chains being added, is to change the battle music to this. That would pretty much keep everyone in permanent combat for hours on end :D

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Originally Posted by Seikninkuru

You have to listen(in this case read) and then provide feedback through a common channel(forums) to have competent communication. In effect what you basically did was read the headline of a major news story then hope to finagle your response to somehow have some relevance to the original post. No.

If it takes you 20 minutes to read the OP, I think you may have some reading comprehension disabilities and perhaps may need to work on that.

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and there you go another toolbag not adding anything at all relevance of the op's post but thinks his smart arse reply to me and my first line helps at all with the thread. i said it already, i don't agree with anything he babbles about, half the people who posting don't ...even more of them didn't read it either and just not say they didn't read it. there are like 10 of these threads in just the past month. get a clue. i read way more then the title, but apparently people like you just like picking the most pointless things people write out of pages of relevant material even in the post you try to c rap on.

yay reading comprehension jokes, i'm sure weather me or not theres a whole world that aren't up to your reading skills and they all have right to say there opinions on there games. no matter how long, it was babble, just like you forced me to babble in this thread once again. enjoy this long read, yay i took 10mins of your life away, but at least you learn your a toolbag. i would of learned nothing from the op since it's all wrong in my opinion just like many have stated as well. ty.