I might get hate or banned but hey w/e

[Miste]

Challenge means something completely different between the two games though.

FFXI's challenge was primarily in how inconvenient things were, rather than the actual battle content being difficult. That's not to say that all the fights were completely devoid of difficulty, but you could reasonably expect to get through even the toughest mission battles in less than a dozen attempts. The vast, vast majority of them wouldn't take more than two or three attempts..

Uh...did you do the CoP story missions? Two-twelve attempts for some stuff maybe..but definitely not all of it. There were some very difficult story mission fights that you could get stuck on for weeks.

[Khemorex]

Don't need a XI-2 but the game could use a stronger community and not just enter DF not say anything do the run exit never seen those people again. XIV has a friendlist but for the most part it like gil it pretty useless most the time.

i would be happy if we had also cross-server linkshells XD

[Lexia]

That's not actually true. There was plenty besides the glitches and performance issues that was heavily criticized about 1.0. Everything from the heavy emphasis on Levequests, the EXP limits (and levequest limits), the extremely poorly designed UI, the slower combat, the lack of direction, and more was heavily criticized about the game on release. Just looking at some of the older reviews of 1.0 (it had a 49 on metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fi...asy-xiv-online ) complain about far more than simply the performance issues/bugs...although there are certainly many complaints about that.

Lot of that (if not all of it) can be contributed to that fact it was unfinished to begin with as a main reason it failed.

[Cakekizyy]

So go play a RPG, not a MMO .... What is the point in playing solo on a ONLINE GAME.... -_-

Socializing does not require grouping.

[Ibi]

Uh...did you do the CoP story missions? Two-twelve attempts for some stuff maybe..but definitely not all of it. There were some very difficult story mission fights that you could get stuck on for weeks.

I did.

I had a group that only ran on Saturdays, and it took us about five months to go from Phomiuna Aqueducts to finishing up, which we did about a month and a half after the last mission was added.

Obviously it's been a while, so may memory may be a little fuzzy, but I think there were only three fights that took us more than two attempts: Snoll Tzar, Tenzen, and the 8-3 fight against the four zdei. I think the last of those was the worst, with it taking us maybe eight or nine attempts before we finally got through it.

In all three cases, it was a lack of damage that caused our struggles, as our composition was paladin, ninja, thief, black mage, red mage, white mage.

[Sparktacus]

I hear only on a couple servers (mainly Asura) is there a reasonably active community. When I started again a few years back though I found lots of endgame LS and game seemed doing well, can't remember primetime numbers, but iirc it was around 1300. However, that was 3 years ago now, as I quit when 14 came out because I could not do both. I recently went back but so much has changed and the need for scripts more then ever killed a lot of my interest. That and, while I do love the gear, going back now and trying to outfit your jobs for every action is just tiring when you have so many items and your inventory system incredibly archaic the experience is a bit meh. Though actually thought of restarting from 0 or perhaps looking into the FF11 private server where the level cap is maxed at 75.

[Gospel]

Socializing does not require grouping.

Imho I feel this game forces you more than XI to be in a group and not just any group - but a 'perfect' group. In XI the game was pretty lax despite needing a party. You could pretty much have just about anything in your party and if somebody died it wasn't the end of the world. Tbh, FFXI actually rewarded a lot of jobs for improvising and trying different combinations with their toolsets (Bluemage/Puppetmaster comes to mind). The game also was much solo friendly with certain jobs and those jobs still carried value in endgame for getting hard to get items. Summoner, Beastmaster, Puppetmaster etc. You could play through the whole game solo as these jobs, still contribute when in a group and were also very effective at soloing otherwise tough monsters for wonderful items that would last you your entire FFXI career on numerous other jobs.

Where as in XIV you don't get to solo unless it's purely for leveling. You have to always have a group if you want tomestones, you always have to have a group if you want to do a dungeon (3.0-wise), and most if not all of it requires you have the perfect meta. To make it even more annoying you're not even allowed to deviate from your assigned rotation for your job in this game. Pile that on with everyone having to be picture perfect with theirs. XIV= no weak links. No customization, no improvising. ever. At least if you're doing relevant content. It all just feels incredibly bureaucratic.

And as for gear and progession? What's the point? Everything we struggle to work for is thrown in the garbage 6 weeks later. It makes it insanely difficult to cherish any work that is put into anything. It's just constant little 5 minutes of glory feelings that are quickly forgotten 2 weeks later. It's really weird with this game. I've stuck with it since 1.0 Alpha and ever since 2.0 and onward it's just; I can't put my finger on it? I usually don't mind grinding, but in this game it is literally the same thing every single time. New content is just a reskin of what we've been doing for 3 years now. Not even FFXI despite its flaws made me feel this burnt out.

In the end I just feel like this game lacks a lot of the passion they put into their previous MMO in both content and community and that is what mostly irks me. Despite my griping I still continue to trudge on in hopes it will get better but who knows?

[Seig345]

Personally, helping struggling new players learn how to perform their role in dungeons/seeing them improve and succeed, are all the challenge/reward I need. Hell, there's even a little gambling involved as to whether or not the person I try to help is receptive or a total snob. ;p

I used to solo FFXI all the time... as a fishertaru. I enjoyed supplying the moat carp quest, chatting up the LS, living vicariously through the stories I'd hear about all that content I didnt have hours of time to group up for.

Pretty sure it's Massive/Massively Multiplayer, not Mandatory Multiplayer.

[Sparktacus]

I think we also forget the state of Squaresoft back in 2000. When FF11 was in development Squaresoft was a juggernaut. Probably one of, if not the most successful RPG video game publisher/developer in the industry at the time. They had so much assets to throw at 11 financially and developmentally. Then they released the Final Fantasy movie (which lost them so much money it almost bankrupt the company if not for the merger with Enix) and have been struggling to some degree ever since. With 14 2.0 they certainly had their hands tied a lot more and it shows by the small development team and constrained budget, couple with the fact that it's assumed that most of 14's revenue does not support 14 but supports 15 and its immense marketing budget and the 7 remake

[Windi]

That was a very interesting read, and before I go on I'll mention that I've never played XI so I can definitely be wrong with what I'm going to say.

I believe the article actually does have a bias of its own, since the writer seems to describe XI in from the perspective of a player new to MMOs, while criticism towards XIV demonstrates familiarity with basic mechanics. Difficulty is always a hard thing to address because as someone who hasn't played an MMORPG in years prior to this game, I found many of the concepts new and challenging in their own right; it's completely relative and dependent on the player's personal experiences.

In that regard, I too have reached out to other players within my party or otherwise for help and advice. Maybe not in the same way as described in XI, but it's more or less the same concept? Generally, I feel that forming a connection with other people is a burden on the player, just like in real life networking; the game's core design will only do so much to coax you into it.

Overall, I feel like XIV's design decisions exists so that it'll draw a wide audience into them. What if someone hasn't played an MMO before? Punishing them for reasons that require steps niche in appeal has a risk of turning someone away. What if the player's a shy individual who needs some time before being comfortable with with a group? Gating their experience so harshly by making grouping a requirement to progress is a turn-off. What if the player wants to experience a different aspect the game has to offer, like fashion, roleplaying or other more social-based activities? Making the core game too centered around having a solid grasp of mechanics in non-pvp-oriented areas is a turn-off.