Hardcore, easy mode and the XI veteran

[Niavim]

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

[Miraa]

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

[ZachCero]

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."

[VeranRamaden]

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.

[Hanemakikaze]

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.

[NoctisUmbra]

Also did Yoshi-P really say derp?

Derp.

/10derpsssssss

[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.

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.

[Aenarion]

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.

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.

[Kiote]

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Aenarion]

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

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.

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.

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.