Hardcore, easy mode and the XI veteran

[KaiKatzchen]

How many of these threads do we need... there are like two back to back about the same thing.

Hardcore, Casual, Easy Mode, Hard Mode, depending on the person these will all have different meanings. Whats hard for one person, is easy for another. Whats Casual for one person, is hardcore for another. Whats a challenge for one person is pie for another.

The game will be what it is, if people like it that's great. If people don't like it, well then that happens too. I've played many games I didn't end up liking. I just suck it up and either deal with it, or leave.

[Jennestia]

What... the... f... I don't even.

I'm actually waiting for those that hate FFXI to answer this question:

How is it that people of this forum love to spout off "You can't use FFXI's launch as a basis as to why FFXIV should/did have a bad launch, it was a game of 10 years ago", yet can continually spout off about outdated concepts and practices that are no longer existent in FFXI today for their arguments against it?

Funny enough, without XI, the "different FFXIV" wouldn't exist -- Ironically, XI suffered development wise because of FFXIV's development.

[Scherwiz]

I'm actually waiting for those that hate FFXI to answer this question:

How is it that people of this forum love to spout off "You can't use FFXI's launch as a basis as to why FFXIV should/did have a bad launch, it was a game of 10 years ago", yet can continually spout off about outdated concepts and practices that are no longer existent in FFXI today for their arguments against it?

Funny enough, without XI, the "different FFXIV" wouldn't exist -- Ironically, XI suffered development wise because of FFXIV's development.

yeah... you know, all too often I feel people forget, unless they were in a linkshell handing them things all the time, how rewarding XI really was for the time you put into it.

[KaiKatzchen]

yeah... you know, all too often I feel people forget, unless they were in a linkshell handing them things all the time, how rewarding XI really was for the time you put into it.

Agreed, I played it for 6 years and it was very rewarding and still one of my favorite mmos. I have good memories from there.

[Jynx]

XI's model is only "terrible" because it requires work versus it handed to you. We all know how much humans hate to work for things.

It's always hard to explain this to people who don't really agree with it due to the aversion to do anything that takes time for a reward that is worth that investment.

Christ I played XI for seven years and never once had a single peice of God, HNM, Sky, Dynamis gear (That I wanted), and I still had a immensly fun time playing the game.

*Gasp*

How did I ever have fun not participating in these "Stupid" things? The game had umpteen ammounts of content, there was always SOMETHING to do, Some goal to strive for, something that you could apply yourself too and see results. the "Insane grind" was part of that, leveling had a profound effect on your character what you could do at 30 was like nothing at 35 sure it took a while but you could look back at it and feel good when you went back to Valkurm dunes and killed every single goblin at the lizzard camp for agroing your party!

No matter your rank there was always 2-3 sets of gear that were available for your character, it almost worked as a tiered system. your first 75 is always the hardest, once you have that you had so many resources at your fingertips you didn't need to buy the lower tiered gear you could afford a select few "Awesome" peices of gear to make your next trip to 75 all that easier and it felt good seeing how you had progressed as a player.

You knew so much more about the game, where to fight, what to avoid, how to make a decent party, what gear really works best for you, what gear you "want" to get before you start leveling again.

The gear became so important to the game it was a very big accomplishment when you achieved it. Getting those Leaping boots were a god-send because nothing as good as them existed for most of your 1-60 career, they were not impossible to get they just needed some time and luck. Leaping Lizzard could have been camped with 20 people on your server, but you had the same chance to claim him as everyone else (Don't get me into stupid bot discussions I have never had issues outclaiming bots or RMT in XI in fact I always tended to best them due to their slugish reaction speeds) I didn't have "All the time in the world to be uber hardcore" So I did what I could with my time, but I never wanted it to be easier or faster to do becuase that would cheapen the experience.

If I only had a hour or two to play I would sometimes decide I was going to walk to Norg to set myself up for the next day, or maybe I'd go grab some outposts my city had that week that would help me next time I was on. I never said "God damn this takes too long I wish it was shorter!" becuase I enjoyed every minute of it. Everything I did in XI had a impact on how my next login would play, the next time I logged on I would be stronger, might be able to cook more food, not need to run to Tavnazia, be at Jueno waiting for my Dynamis group, or be chilling in my mog-house waiting for my friends to log on so we could get into some zany antics.

I can say without a doubt with my nostalgia goggles firmly off (My account got hacked and lost my character before I quit XI) that I had enjoyed my seven years playing the game and if I had the choice I'd do it again.

Play in moderation, play what you find fun, find the good in things instead of the bad. I'm sure if the forums took some things more "In stride" we would see the developers be alot more open with us. No matter the change or development it's met with extreme resistance.

[Seikninkuru]

I'm actually waiting for those that hate FFXI to answer this question:

How is it that people of this forum love to spout off "You can't use FFXI's launch as a basis as to why FFXIV should/did have a bad launch, it was a game of 10 years ago", yet can continually spout off about outdated concepts and practices that are no longer existent in FFXI today for their arguments against it?

Funny enough, without XI, the "different FFXIV" wouldn't exist -- Ironically, XI suffered development wise because of FFXIV's development.

You love to make up excuses Jennestia. Do you like to use excuses when you code as to defer blame for your shoddy work?

Whether or not FFXI released in a poor state ten years ago is irrelevant to FFXIV's situation. When a customer purchases a product they expect it to perform as advertised. If it doesn't, it's the producer's fault. I don't care that it was rainy or your dog ate the master code.

[Scherwiz]

You love to make up excuses Jennestia. Do you like to use excuses when you code as to defer blame for your shoddy work?

Whether or not FFXI released in a poor state ten years ago is irrelevant to FFXIV's situation. When a customer purchases a product they expect it to perform as advertised. If it doesn't, it's the producer's fault. I don't care that it was rainy or your dog ate the master code.

Of course a lot of blame can be given, but if you think there wasn't massive pressures by stockholders and board members to release another "big" title in 2010, that's just crazy. Every single pre release interview with Tanaka and Sundi said they wanted more time, and every post release interview they were ashamed of the state of the game.

[Jynx]

People are still jabing SE for the shoddy release?

Talk about crying over spilt milk.

[Jennestia]

You love to make up excuses Jennestia. Do you like to use excuses when you code as to defer blame for your shoddy work?.

"Instead of answering what I can't I'll just say you make up excuses."

That's all I got from your post since it seems you still love to create something out of nothing, even when someone doesn't even say what you're responding to. Funny enough I've seen quite a few people talk about the way WoW was at one point and they'll instantly be corrected by people who actually play and say "It hasn't been that way since WoTLK."

Whether or not FFXI released in a poor state ten years ago is irrelevant to FFXIV's situation.

Exactly, however my post specifically stated:

yet can continually spout off about outdated concepts and practices that are no longer existent in FFXI today for their arguments against it?

How is it whenever XI is brought up, it's ok to use outdated concepts that is no longer existent in FFXI today in arguments when it's already not ok to use XI's launch as a justification for XIV's bad launch? No one said anything about XI's launch being the reason for XIV's bad launch, especially when I specifically stated that people on these forums already love to say that it's no justification for what happened with XIV.

[Suirieko]

Dynamis:

Only one group at a time per server.
Insane gil sink as entry requirement.

There are 10 Dynamis Zones. Six Originals and 4 Dreamlands. Some server actually went together and made a server schedule so each group could determine which runs to go to. It was never really a problem as long as the LSes stick to the schedule. Fortunately, that has changed, and now anyone can get in, with only one time fee of 50K to get a permanent KI (Originally it was 500K)

Open world HNM:

Spawns every 24-hr/3 days/1 week
Only one group gets to kill it

That was probably the only thing I despised in FFXI. It did became a huge problem to the point that top linkshells monopolized it by using bots to ensure that no one would ever be able to claim the HNMs but the said LS. This allowed them to force people to pay insane money just for the drops. For example, Three black belt materials once costs 6 million each. SE finally changed these HNMs to forced pop in the long run.

However, there are many, many NMs that have that long of a spawn window, so in some ways it did allowed LS to be able to stake a claim on some NMs, but sadly, not all.

BCNM/KSNM:

Insane farming required to gain entry
Only one group at a time can enter

As both Jennestia and Exni pointed out, this isn't insane farming. Keep in mind that these seals drop every 5 minutes, and are actually easily farmed. Want Beastmen seals? Go on a lower job and kill mobs that are lower than level 50. Want Kindred Seals? Kill mobs higher than 50. At this point this is where I believe you never played FFXI, because you wouldn't be calling this insane if you did. And if you did played FFXI, then you were doing something wrong.

Even now, these seals are exchangeable, (along with crests) which made farming these even easier. There should be no reason why ANYONE would be having trouble with this. Also, multiple people can participate in arenas, and there are a *LOT* of arenas.

Sky:

Similar to open world NM, only one group can fight at a time
Harsh farming requirements
Requires long quest chain to access

You say this is long only because you are only making it out to be. Yes, only one group can pop NMs, but get real, these NMs are usually killed in short time, and farming the pops for the NMs are easier than ever. The chain isn't as long as you think it is.

Sea:

Similar to Sky, requires an even longer quest chain

Actually it was quite shorter (if not the same as Sky), but much more difficult due to the immense size of the zone and the annoying spawn condition of certain bottom NMs.

I mean, I could go on and on, but I think you realize that if you weren't part of one of the few privileged/hardcore/botting end-game LSes, you were screwed. The fact that FFXI had more content on release or by the 1 year mark doesn't mean FFXI had decent content, it means FFXIV is worse than FFXI in that aspect. Compare FFXI to other MMOs' end-game model, and you'll see how terrible FFXI's model is.

while understandably joining a "hardcore/botting" endgame LSes were difficult (Volume, MercuryX, and so on), not all of them were difficult to join, and yet they were able to get the job done. Especially in these days in FFXI, it was even easier to get what we need done.

FFXIV is actually better in that aspect because almost all of the NMs (Dunno about Dodore and the likes) have only 5 minutes respawn time. For the most part, I do believe that FFXIV is significantly easier than FFXI, but still managed to keep up the fun. For example, the Darkhold raid is pretty damn difficult unless you were skilled. I think the devs know that FFXIV is starting to feel a little too easy, and will be changing that.