Curious state of raiding and could something from the early days of XI fix it?

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

I'd love to see some stuff from FFXI especially sky, sea, beseiged... But anything the devs port over from FF11 will be a watered down version. Like how hunts are watered down version of NMs and Deep Dungeon is a watered down version of Nyzul Tower. Unfortunately fun was sacrificed at the altars of convenience and accessability

I'd just be happy if developers gave better reasons to be in a static.... Even raiding is dying in FF14, pretty soon there will be no endgame at all except grinding tomestones.

A lot of people thought that diadem and deep dungeon would be taking us back to old school MMO mechanics. Now it's pretty safe to say that will never happen lol.

[Leigaon]

Always did think about having some of this stuff come back into the XIV world, though the more I look at it the biggest thing would be the reward for what you would have to go through. In dynamis, when something dropped you needed..it was because it had a good enhancement to it that helped your job. We have a 3 month gap, so they work within that time frame. I did think we were getting a Sky-like content, but it turned into a giant mob killing fest. Still, imagine having to hunt two mobs just to take the dropped items to spawn a more powerful mob that might drop an axe. While in our old XI game that great axe may give you some resistances, enhances to abilities, in ours it would be 3 points of VIT / 2 points of DET and...Parry.

I liked dynamis and sky because it took a while to get real good items, but the definition of what is a good item for that game and this one are widely different. Who knows though it could work and cater to the guys who have only one night a week to dedicate rather than hours each day..

[Krazymagic]

I could write an essay on this topic, but ill try not to here (edit: it turned into an essay....sorry). I played FFXI for 4 years, ending in 2008/2009. In XIV, Ive played since the very first Beta. There is a wealth of things I miss from XI. Ill try to focus on the topic of the end game situation you bring up. Some of the best memories and fun times I remember from XI were in HNM's and Sky. I can remember Vrtra fights that lasted over 4 hours long, Tiamat fights that turned into a circus as a 2 hour engagement suddenly went haywire and everyone died. Competing LS's scrambling to rez everyone so they could win the next claim and try to down it. HNM fights often turned into giant social events and competing LS's showed up and watched the fight, waiting to see if the LS fighting would die and give up the claim. I can remember hundreds of people showing up. Sky was pure genius in many ways. You had your trigger farming days, and when you had lots of triggers I remember some days where you killed a full Saturday just farming sky NM's. The whole LS would show up, even if everyone didn't get in on every fight they were all there, ready to sub in at any moment. As the leader of the guild during most of this, I could tell stories for days about what made XI's end game so enjoyable. While dynamis had its fun times, I wasnt personally as big a fan of it as much as some were.

So could XI style content work in XIV? I dont know. I think they could definitely borrow a lot of it, but it would have to be done in a more time friendly manner.....It would have to be "casualized" if you know what I mean. The end game in XIV right now, to me, is very underwhelming. Its a couple of 8 man encounters, and thats it. The 24 man raids in XIV arent end game content to me really, as they are tuned for the masses, and are push overs. I keep hoping we will see some new kind of end game content type announced, something to break from this current mold. I would love to see some over world HNM type content. The over world content in XIV is a joke. I suspect hunts were supposed to be a form of NM / HNM overworld content, but its unfun zerg content. The hardest hunts evaporate in 1 minute in a zerg of special effects.

In a nut shell, I would love to see XIV try to recreate some of the magic of XI's end game, while keeping it clear of some of the tedium it came with. This is one area XIV has improved upon XI - XIV has a tremendous amount of "quality of life" improvements, and I am not one who thinks adding old school tedium produces better game play. However, for all its gains, it really captures very little of the magic that XI embodied. The atmosphere is drastically different between the two games. XIV feels much more like a "production line end game development" if that makes sense. Its the same formula over and over again with each patch. I felt that in XI they constantly evolved new kinds of content into end game. XIV is all about glamour and minions and other casual fluff content. End game content in XIV isnt even done with an FC most the time, its all statics now, and often times these statics include members from various fc's. Used to, LS's (LS's were what FC's are in XI) competed for prominence and prestige in the server. It feels like for many people now, FC's are just social groups.

Im afraid we will never see games like XI, and everquest again. The landscape shifted with World of Warcraft. Players today dont like depending on a group to advance, and RNG has become the devil. This has led us to content that is focused more on instant gratification and predictable or guaranteed outcomes. This is why nearly everything in XIV is acquired by some type of currency. When everything is done via currency, then comes the weekly limits and caps. With the weekly caps comes the chore list. You can literally map out when you will acquire everything. End game becomes an empty grind to a predictable outcome. I've never jumped up in excitement at acquiring something in XIV, but I can vividly remember jumping and yelling when I finally won that prized item in XI. This is the trade off. I think the mindset of today makes it very hard to bring XI style content to XIV. Development studios are following the players, and players today are very casual. There is a reason why XI retained its playerbase for so many years. I played XI for 4 years without ever really "taking a break". I take breaks from XIV every few months though. Everything is just a chore in XIV - lots of "to do" lists but very few of the emotional highs that seemed to be readily available in XI. If you could put XI in the XIV graphics engine, and iron out a few of the quality of life issues, XI would be a superior game.

[Warlyx]

4 bosses onlyand scripted to no end , is what makes engame boring as hell , i guess learning a new boss and what not is fun for 2 days...after u hit the final phase and have to repeat the phase 1 2 3 over and over for days until u finally kill it ...doesnt help that consumables have been a pain in the rear to get / craft until 3.2 (1 potion craft at time ? come on ...)

IMO is easy to fix , 6-8 bosses with 2-3 phases ,instead of 4 bosses with 4+ phases... the competition is giving raiders 20 bosses in huge zones / castles , and even u change enviroment ( phase changes or the whole ground breaks and u are in a new zone ) thats how u create a rich and fun endgame....that ppl want to play.

because there are plenty of players but the raider community is small , is easy to see why , the entry is huge , the time/gil cost is a bit too much (getting food/potions for raids is a investment that not every1 can afford or want to ) , and after that u face the need of a raid usually static , with 1-2h raid times 3-4 days / week , to face a scripted boss that while Midas got more involved and interesting is still not that fun

i loved farming , sky , dynamis , limbus , salvage , einhenjar ect some got boring after a while? yeah everything is but there were more than 4 encounters every 6 months

[Yamimarik]

Well... people always seem to so easily defend FFXI and it's easily sighted short comings lol...

NOW before you rip into me, I played FFXI for.. (this is so cliche lol) 11 years, and I absolutely loved that game! It's in my opinion on the highest pedestal when it comes to Final Fantasy games for me (mostly story wise, it's how I personally judge FF games on how I like'em).

I raided hardcore, if only to get my precious Bahamut's staff, and did every single thing up to SoA (minus Pandemonium Warden...). The idea of having to claim NM's with an abysmal drop rate of 0.000000001% drop rate and lot against 17 other people isn't my idea of fun anymore. I really don't cherish the idea of being called at 2 A.M. in the morning to say "Hey Fafhogg is about to pop! Get on, let's go!" Those days for me are over, it's why I'm playing a game like FFXIV. This is the first time I'm playing a game like this, now (so all things done here are... *shock* new for me.) I've never really gotten into games like XIV before, so a lot of things people like to complain about saying "It comes from this game or that game..." I've personally never experienced it myself yet, until here.

My favorite things to do in XI were Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul Isle, story, Avatar fights and seeing what I could solo on SMN. Personally I never thought of Diadem=Dyamis (I envisioned Sky... more or less at first.) Regardless I will agree it felt like Diadem was an extreme flop for many people including me, I feel like the basic structure is there, if they could just fine tune it some how.... Now personally I disagree entirely with many people on this forum, but so far I'm greatly enjoying The Palace of the Dead right now. It definitely gives me that sense of Nyzul Isle WITHOUT being a direct copy with HD graphics of Nyzul Isle. I knew what was expected with The Palace of the Dead because Yoshi spelled it out to all of us, and what was to come with it. When we get the new floors, hopefully we'll see the difficulty raise, or even new mechanics(possibly).

I came to FFXIV with the regards of playing a new game that was not FFXI. This is not, FFXI and I personally don't think anything should be directly just tossed in here because of "nostalgia reasons" or "it worked there, make it work here." I never had the intention of coming here for FFXI-2/HD, I would have stayed on FFXI and made it work out if I wanted the base of FFXI in an "updated" way. Now granted I'm all for them implementing ideas from FFXI into a different way for XIV, but not just directly adding in "this or that" content just because it "worked" in FFXI. I'm all for them implementing other ideas from other games so long as it isn't a direct copy/pasta as well! I'm willing to give anything new a try, and if I don't like it I just move on to the next thing or continue doing what I do like.

(This got a lot more winded then I hoped lol...)

TL : DR - Just because it worked in FFXI, doesn't mean it will work here. Two very different games, and I personally don't want to play or see (here at least) FFXI-2/HD.
I am all for old ideas coming into XIV from previous games reworked and retooled for XIV.

[Ibi]

I've never jumped up in excitement at acquiring something in XIV, but I can vividly remember jumping and yelling when I finally won that prized item in XI. This is the trade off.

Keep in mind that part of the reason that getting a new piece of equipment in XI was so exciting was that (for most players) it was so rare that you ever got anything at all.

I had a two year stretch from 2006-2008 when I was doing something every night of the week in XI; Dynamis and Limbus twice a week, with Sky, Sea, Einherjar, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, etc. mixed in through the rest of the time. About the only thing my LS didn't do was anything that required camping HNMs.

There were plenty of times where I'd have a stretch of weeks at a time where I wouldn't even see anything I wanted drop, and my gear was far from completed from any of the jobs I played.

[Highwilds]

FF11 was also heavily based on gear swapping in the middle of a battle. You had different gear sets for haste, attack, str, dex, damage taken-%, magic attack bonus, enmity+, enmity-, fast cast (spell speed in 14), accuracy, evasion, store TP ect. Even the abilities your class had got gear to boost a single ability to make it stronger. That was the horizontal progression in ff11: GEAR SWAP. You'd maximize your character that way by constantly swapping gear in mid combat to get best out of the best:

*Faster attack speed with store TP to gain faster TP to execute weaponskills to do more damage, then swap to the modifier of your weaponskill to boost the damage output from the TP used.
*Fast cast on precast to cast it faster and have lesser casting time when at the moment of spell actually being casted you'd equip gear that would boost your nuke to the maximum.
*You'd equip certain gear to shorten the recast time of your ability or boost it other ways.
*Ect.

That is not what FF14 is about and we have only main stats and secondary stats to play with and there isn't many of them. And we cannot even swap them mid battle to perform differently at different parts of a fight. That and how time consuming something is is the difference between 11 and 14. Until we get a horizontal progression in ff14 to customize our jobs/classes, not much from 11 will work. :<

[Kallera]

While we are all busy shooting down ideas, what would work to bring the fcs together for endgame involvement, for some content that doesn't silo us all into 8 person parties?

[Ibi]

While we are all busy shooting down ideas, what would work to bring the fcs together for endgame involvement, for some content that doesn't silo us all into 8 person parties?

A lot of XI's battle systems wouldn't be bad fits for XIV, the bigger issue (as Highwilds pointed out) is that the reward and gearing structures are entirely different.

Take the Zeni Notorious Monster, or ZNM, system from XI. The first step was to acquire a currency, Zeni. This was done essentially by taking photos of various mobs around Vana'diel (though there's no reason it has to be tied to an activity like that, and could just as easily be an alternate use for tomestones or GC seals or something).

Once this currency was acquired, you could purchase one of nine items from an NPC. Each item corresponded to a different NM that could be popped by trading the item to a spot somewhere around the continent on which ZNM took place. Each of the nine NMs had its own loot table and strategy necessary for taking it down. One of the items in the loot pool (that was guaranteed to drop) could then be taken back to the NPC that gave you the pop item, and traded in for a new pop item for an NM in the next tier.

This could be repeated for a second and third tier (each of nine NMs, each with their own unique drops and strategies). The NMs in the third tier were grouped together in threes. Collecting the guaranteed drops from all three NMs in a group would let you pop one of the powerful fourth tier ZNMs. These were alternate versions of three rarely-spawning HNMs that showed up on the continent. They were challenging fights, with some very good rewards available, but took place in the open world, so you could effectively take as many people as you had available (though only 18 at a time would be able to attack the NM, and having too many people attacking at once could frequently be a detriment, as it would increase the number of special attacks the NM would do).

Finally, killing all three of the tier four NMs would allow you to fight one of XI's most challenging fights: Pandemonium Warden.

It was a great system, and worked well in XI... but I'm sure it was a ton of work for SE to come up with 31 unique fights. That was fine in XI, where the system remained relevant for literally years. It's still somewhat relevant now, 8 years later (although many of the fights themselves are trivial now), because the items from tier 4 are also used in the acquisition of Mythic weapons.

In XIV though, with the vertical gearing structure, it becomes much more challenging to make that work pay off. SE would have to keep readjusting fights (and rewards), item level cap them (but, again, what do you with rewards?), or live with the fact that they're only going to be relevant for 6 months or so, which seems like a poor effort:reward ratio on their part.

[Mycow8me]

Lately it seems like every time the XIV devteam borrows an idea from FFXI they try to change it that its either annoyingly grindy or easy. Don't get me wrong, XI's stuff was a grind too but it was more fun and harder.

Die-of-bordem (diadem) > Some kind of sky/abyssea event
Derpy dungeons (deep dungeons) > Moblin maze mongers/Nyzul

Honestly though, they just so easy that the grind is extremely boring. Stuff could go wrong in sky/moblin/nyzul very quickly and strategy was very important and the NMs in abyssea were sometimes very hard.

I dont think introducing only 50 floors was a good idea for derpy dungeons. They should have introduced 100 floors and possibly the first 50 could have been a learning curve with 50-100 becoming quite difficult and not every run will succeed. Bosses from 50-100 could drop tokens to exchange for relevant catchup armor outside dungeon? For all we know they had 1-200 planned and developed already and are releasing it slowly to make it seem like its still being worked on. The maps are randomly generated anyway, bosses are in game mobs already with different stats.

I dunno, the devs in this game are trying to cater to everyone and when you do that... You just aint gonna make everyone happy.