Can't we do anything solo and improve?

[Artemiz]

FFXI has changed now, yes, but until a couple years ago, FFXI was a game where you grinded with others or you didn't play, and that included skilling up if you fell behind. FFXI was probably one of the most solo *un*friendly games at the time. Even BST was grindy. The more solo friendly content didn't occur until after Chains of Promathia, and even then, "friendly" is debatable.

The only thing that spanned "decades" in your description were skilling up and farming, which you did because you had to, and for not for any other reason. People immediately noticed when all you were doing was missing or didn't have the best gear because you couldn't afford it (Haubergeon, Scorpion Harness, etc) because the game's content was extremely reliant on everyone in the party doing their job correctly and doing it well. You know how people hate the perfection that the primal fights require? Put that kind of expectations in *every single mob pull* for almost the entirety of your gaming experience, because if you died in FFXI, you lost EXP, a good chunk of which just took you almost two hours to earn, and even better, you could level down upon death. People didn't take failure very well in that game.

And those NPCs were either in Chains of Promathia or Treasures of Aht Urghan, I forget which, which is the second or third expansion pack. They were implemented only because the playstyles of people had changed so dramatically because of games like WoW that FFXI had no choice but to adapt. Magian Trials came after the NPCs, and if you ask around, those aren't remembered very fondly. And the first actual solo friendly experience point content, the book trials, Fields of Valor, were in 2008, and they were limited so much upon inception that it was still more efficient to grind in a party. Then Abyssea came out and threw the whole game on its head (which, also, is not solo content).

The game has changed dramatically, yes, but it is impossible to call FFXI the better solo game. It's mostly as a result of play styles and gaming climate changes. Grinding was "the thing" in MMOs when FFXI came out and games like WoW changed that. But you can solo FFXIV from 1 to max level, doing nothing but quests, FATEs, or what have you. You couldn't do that in FFXI unless you were a BST (which you couldn't unlock till lv 30) or a very skilled (and very patient) Red Mage until they changed the game years later.

I don't agree with any of this post, I solo'd tons if FF11 and franky can only assume we played a different game. You're also exaggerating massively when you suggest it took 2 hours to regain the exp from one death, it took 15 minutes at the most unless your party was hopeless or you where soloing easy prey mobs. Deconstructing this post however is pointless because the discussion isn't "did you enjoy the solo content of FF11?" which you seem to have answered. The point I made is that we can have both solo and group content, we don't have to choose between one or the other like some are suggesting.