Just played Final Fantasy XI

[Sebazy]

Imo the art of XIV is superb and one of its strongest points. It has to be something else. I think the way you interact with the world makes you miss a lot of the beauty in XIV.

Not quite, whilst I don't doubt the beauty of FFXIV (Upper La Noscea is stunning), FFXI's art and detailing went much deeper likely due in part to the hardware limitations they were faced with back then. Rather than funnel resources into complex high resolution assets, they poured effort into the broadening the world and replicating little things that just made the world feel so much more dynamic and believable.

One example that's already been mentioned, Airships, unlike in FFXIV, FFXI's public transport flew on a strict rota. Not only could you sit at the docks in a city and watch the them fly in and out on schedule, you could watch them fly overhead perfectly in sync through the zones they passed over. When you remember that this was a zoned game running on a PS2, that's an incredible amount of effort for such a small detail.

Ifrit's Cauldron (The volcano beyond Kazham on Elshimo) was a similar example, not only would it actually erupt, but you'd see it do so in sync from other zones on the continent. FFXI was full of little things like this, many of which we will likely never see again due to how production costs have spiralled upwards forcing studios to be more cautious with their budget.

The art direction wasn't flawless of course, FFXI's dungeons and underground corridors were generally pretty awful from an artistic standpoint. Most of these were built around modular geometry with some clutter thrown in to try and keep it fresh. FFXIV is the opposite with the open world feeling a little lacking at times, but dungeons typically being beautifully designed (To anyone that doubts this point, on your next Skalla clear, return and just walk back through the dungeon taking in the sights either side of the path, it's actually a really stunning dungeon).

Was it really that's bad? I've heard that a lot. Frankly I wouldn't want to sit for 2 hours, unable to level my character if that's what I wanted to do. Not even nostalgia goggle can make that sound appealing. Did the positive points really outweigh these negatives?

This really depended on your job and flexibility. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I was a Taru BRD main (WHM, BLM and SCH on the side) with a lot of gear, enough so to main heal for multiple pulls whilst the proper healer just rested through to keep chains going for longer. It was a cold day in hell if I couldn't get a solid merit group going within 10 minutes. Rather, getting a decent spot with enough mobs was my problem /humblebrag.

[Niqote]

Was it really that's bad? I've heard that a lot. Frankly I wouldn't want to sit for 2 hours, unable to level my character if that's what I wanted to do. Not even nostalgia goggle can make that sound appealing. Did the positive points really outweigh these negatives?

The short answer is: Yes. it is absolutely true.

More elaborate answer:
Not all the time, but enough that it became a known aspect of leveling jobs, esp. when you were leveling the less desirable jobs.
If you were the god sent jobs Bard, Scholar, White Mage, Black Mage then you never had a worry.
Even then, some jobs were desireable to different degrees depending on the level they were at the time XD.

But it was ok! Part of the charm was you talked a lot to people and networked even while waiting around. Community was a huge part of the game.

[Miste]

Was it really that's bad? I've heard that a lot. Frankly I wouldn't want to sit for 2 hours, unable to level my character if that's what I wanted to do. Not even nostalgia goggle can make that sound appealing. Did the positive points really outweigh these negatives?

It was that bad.

I remember LFP for up to 4 hours without getting anything sometimes and you were unable to level at all unless you found a party (unless you were a Beastmaster anyway). 4 hours was not super common but anywhere from 1-3 hours was normal sometimes.

It was also extremely bad when it came to what job you were playing since some jobs just weren't as desired as others.

I mean you can network and get linkshells and people to level with, but sometimes there wasn't anyone on or people were busy so it was hard to just level when you wanted to. Also finding people of the proper level....they didn't add the level sync party function until years later so it didn't matter how many friends you had if they didn't have a job around your level to party with.

FFXI was fun back in the day, but honestly everything in it took WAY too much time investment. It was fine when I was a young teen, but as an adult I could never ever play a game like that again. Spending years and so much time invested but not obtaining your goals is ridiculous. Like spending 8 years and never obtaining a piece of equipment that you worked for for like 7 of those years, yeah....it was fun to play the game itself at the time, but I definitely don't miss it.

For me FFXIV has surpassed FFXI in every way.

[Laerune]

FFXI had more dept and encouraged grouping and exploration. I still remember the Summoner class quests, I enjoyed those quests. Sadly MMORPGS like FFXI wont be made again, players these days want their content fast and easy.

The only thing that I disliked about FFXI was that if you were new and alone, leveling was going to take ages. Lucky for me, I made friends fast and found a nice Linkshell.

[SilverObi]

I don't see the rose-tinted glasses that people keep mentioning in this thread. I'll sing XI's praises all day long for the things it got right and the problems it corrected over time, but I'll also bring up every stupid and painful piece of bad gameplay and non-intuitive system that ever darkened its doorstep (remember when they tried introducing augmented items with a pseudo materia system but it was botched from day one?)

I'm not a teenager anymore so I don't have the time to sit for 2-3 hours chit chatting while LFP, even though I do miss the heavy amount of conversation the slow difficult gameplay necessitated. But XIV also frequently loses my interest after each patch and with how safe they're playing it with each and every chance to make themselves better. I'm also more jaded when I hear the dev's excuses for why they can't do things in this game that XI got to work with arguably worse spaghetti code but this just seems to be how SE runs their MMO's unless the DQ one runs better?

At the end of the day, XIV and XI are very very different games that do certain things better than the other. XI adopted a handful of XIV's systems and frankly XIV would be well-served to copy a few from its older sibling.

[Justuas]

Things like the awful EXP loss penalty on death that would even level you backwards if you were unlucky to die while being too close to the previous level still EXP wise (you lost 10% of the total exp needed for the next level when you died, raising gave some of that lost exp back), enemies being ridiculously dangerous even for minor trash mob wildlife like rabbits and yet giving minuscule EXP for it, having to party for everything and even then certain content pretty much restricting party make up to certain Jobs, airships running on tight schedules that all too often would result in players missing one by the skin of their teeth and then having to waste 10+ minutes of real time sitting doing nothing on the dock waiting for the next one, people abusing NIN as a subjob for Utsusemi thinking it made them invincible and then not accepting that it didn't (and thus leaving WHMs like me to have to raise them for their stupidity), no minimap, quest journal that was virtually useless and told you nothing about what you needed to do for a quest (thus forcing you to look online for the (often misleading, incomplete or inaccurate) information, important quests (even main scenario ones) that were locked behind invisible 'fame' counters for each city that forced you to do thousands of pointless fetch quests just to 'build up fame', need I go on?

The game hasn't been like that for like, how many years? You're bashing the game for something that doesn't exist anymore.

[SilverObi]

The game hasn't been like that for like, how many years? You're bashing the game for something that doesn't exist anymore.

And at the time, those mechanics while extremely punishing and restrictive were just how MMOs were back then for the most part. It was also a conscious design direction taken by the devs to encourage cooperation and communication through adversity. Is it bad nowadays? Arguably yes for many valid reasons and I can see how it left a bad taste in many players' mouths. It borders on bitterness for some people though, just like the sad sacks who refuse to play XIV because of SE siphoning profits from there to fund 1.0's development back in the day.

[Deceptus]

Final Fantasy 11 is great even today, just looks very dated, and could do with a visual make over.

It has one. It's called FFXIV.

[Laerune]

It has one. It's called FFXIV.

I realy wouldnt call FFXI and FFXIV the same. Aside from spell names, races and being a mmorpg, both games are different from each other.

[Skivvy]

The same bias as people who keep claiming that FFXI was "better" than FFXIV, or that FFXIV "should learn" from FFXI, merely based on their own good memories. And I don't see you complain about those.

Everyone is welcome to have an opinion. This is why I also posted:

I think this is an important thing to remember. It is an incredibly different game, and of course everyone has their own particular taste when it comes to games. It is also possible to enjoy both, and also find faults in both :X

You dislike grindy games, and you've never even played XI. That is perfectly fine.

What irks me is when people start dismissing other's opinions as them simply having rose-tinted glasses. It adds another level when it's coming from someone who has never even tried the game.