Catering to the Majority

[TheRac25]

FFXI -isn't- hard. Now. FFXI -was- hard. Now, it's not.

Either check out some youtube from the old days or get yourself a time machine. After you've armed yourself with some knowledge, try to say that again.

If you have a time machine, let me get in too.

could you please cite something in XI wich you thought was hard? all i seem recall was 5 minute fafs 30 second kirins and 10 minute tias, or maybe you mean getting goldsmithing or clothcraft to 100

[busta]

could you please cite something in XI wich you thought was hard? all i seem recall was 5 minute fafs 30 second kirins and 10 minute tias, or maybe you mean getting goldsmithing or clothcraft to 100

When did you play FFXI? Yesterday? It certainly wasn't before 2010. Kirin used to take 36 people nearly 30 minutes minimum with tons of deaths. FFXI was extremely hard before Aht Urhgan. And it was awesome.

[Scratchs]

When did you play FFXI? Yesterday? It certainly wasn't before 2010. Kirin used to take 36 people nearly 30 minutes minimum with tons of deaths. FFXI was extremely hard before Aht Urhgan. And it was awesome.

Seemed to be easier back then for me.. I remember in Kirin fights and those other sky monsters a lot of people would be afk, etc and we still won. Also Dynamis tons of afkers and you could still win. Only thing harder was the extreme time it took to travel. This game it seems harder and less forgiving every player needs to be doing their job or you just don't win.

[busta]

Seemed to be easier back then for me.. I remember in Kirin fights and those other sky monsters a lot of people would be afk, etc and we still won. Also Dynamis tons of afkers and you could still win. Only thing harder was the extreme time it took to travel. This game it seems harder and less forgiving every player needs to be doing their job or you just don't win.

I had the literal opposite experience and so did virtually everyone else. That why you hear echoes of horror about the infamous Valkurm Dunes. You had to work hard just to get past lv10. If even one key player messed up in a giant alliance in FFXI, everyone wiped. It took tons of hard work and dedication to get anywhere in that game. CoP took me nearly a year to beat. Even the very first CoP missions sometimes took me more than 10 tries and prepping for those were super expensive and time consuming. Hard work was rewarding and satisfying. Failure was punished. Everything was extremely intricate and complex enough to make it feel like a real living world but it worked behind the scenes enough so new players weren't too intimidated.

I can count the times I've died in this game on one hand. I ran out of fingers and toes to count with on my first day of deaths in FFXI. It was brutal. I raged hard but I kept at it. Then I took up the most brutal job of all: Beastmaster. And this was back in the day when you had to leave your pet to get full exp. 20 deaths a day for a Beastmaster was common. And the exp loss from that sometimes lead to negative total exp gains for hours of hard work. But you gained more skill. You learned your environment. You timed everything perfectly. It was like improving at Chess or Go. It was exciting and every time you leveled up it felt really good.

[Sixmp]

I had the literal opposite experience and so did virtually everyone else. That why you hear echoes of horror about the infamous Valkurm Dunes. You had to work hard just to get past lv10. If even one key player messed up in a giant alliance in FFXI, everyone wiped. It took tons of hard work and dedication to get anywhere in that game. CoP took me nearly a year to beat. Even the very first CoP missions sometimes took me more than 10 tries and prepping for those were super expensive and time consuming. Hard work was rewarding and satisfying. Failure was punished. Everything was extremely intricate and complex enough to make it feel like a real living world but it worked behind the scenes enough so new players weren't too intimidated.

I can count the times I've died in this game on one hand. I ran out of fingers and toes to count with on my first day of deaths in FFXI. It was brutal. I raged hard but I kept at it. Then I took up the most brutal job of all: Beastmaster. And this was back in the day when you had to leave your pet to get full exp. 20 deaths a day for a Beastmaster was common. And the exp loss from that sometimes lead to negative total exp gains for hours of hard work. But you gained more skill. You learned your environment. You timed everything perfectly. It was like improving at Chess or Go. It was exciting and every time you leveled up it felt really good.

I heard they are bringing BST to FFXIV ARR and i am hoping that it will be a solo job that is capable to soloing all the content, even the stuff for 4 man parties. Then for higher parties they need to team up with other BST or join a normal party.

I miss my BST from FFXI. I miss the difficulty of leveling. That moment where you fail a charm in the middle of a fight and you now have 2 mobs swatting at you. You manage to charm one as a pet and get it to attack the other and getting away with a slither of HP left. Curing yourself at a distance so not to take hate. I remember holding my breath through those moments

[Feln]

could you please cite something in XI wich you thought was hard? all i seem recall was 5 minute fafs 30 second kirins and 10 minute tias, or maybe you mean getting goldsmithing or clothcraft to 100

Hmm. Just off the top of my head, and this is before everything was watered down -

Riverne sites. Both of them. Difficult to get through, even with a full party.
Promyvions. Did you do those?
Uncapped Avatar fights.
Red Mage head piece quest.
That big undead thing you fight in the woods outside of The Boyada Tree, for the Zilart Missions.
High-Tier BC/KSNMs. Even some of the low-tier ones were pretty easy to get destroyed by, with a single mistake.
Divine Might.
Sky/Sea gods.
Motherf*cking Ouryu in "The Savage".
The Three Mithra fight.
Omega/Ultima in "One to Be Feared.
Certain bosses with pieces of equipment that really shone for their level bracket - Simurgh(Trotter Boots), Kreutzet(Sirocco Kukri), Amikiri(Kamewari. Seriously, f*ck this guy.), That manta thing(Joyeuse. F*ck this guy too.).. Seriously, I could go on.
WSNMs.
Dynamis.

All of this, all of these things were things you needed team and coordination for. Advanced coordination, since everything wasn't so easily read. There weren't giant red circles or cast bars. You had to pay attention, know your distances, be fast on that stun with little to no tells for certain abilities that could potentially crush/cripple your efforts.

Seriously, if you didn't play back before the level cap increase and difficulty decrease, you don't know what a challenge the game -used- to be. Even with groups that knew everything a certain boss/mob could do, there was the element of randomness/surprise that kept you watching every corner of your screen. There were extremely punishing ends to small mistakes, which really separated the bad from the good, and then again separated the good from the great. It took a long time to accomplish grand goals, and it brought together long lasting communities within a communities. That challenge created heroes and leaders; ones that you would look forward to watching in action, or follow on youtube to see what amazing things they could pull off with their extreme amount of knowledge, luck, and personal dexterity.

I'm getting off topic here.

That all said, this game is it's own game, and I do like it for what it is. It's just not at that epic standard. Not yet, anyway. For all we know, it may turn around and surprise the hell out of us with some crazy content that gives me the rush that XI did in my earlier days of gaming. SE is wholly capable of it, and even though it's not that likely to occur, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Stryker]

For all we know, it may turn around and surprise the hell out of us with some crazy content that gives me the rush that XI did in my earlier days of gaming. SE is wholly capable of it, and even though it's not that likely to occur, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

True that, but I would suggest not to keep your fingers crossed. They might get sore from the wait.