To those who loved FF11...

[Maeka]

Right, you 6-manned Dynamis, or Sky. Uh-Huh. Sure you did.

And nowadays, I bet you're saying that you 6-man the new rehash of Dynamis too, right?

SOME of the content in XI could be done in 6-man groups, but yet most was for 18+.

[KaitoAsaha]

Can we move away from topics in relation to this and wait until it's no longer a 5 year running mmo against what? Think someone said 20 for the other, with a mobile port coming out? Come back to this one when XIV has been moved on from or is legitimately at the end of its life. To do so otherwise seems unfair honestly, though I'm of the mindset that if something works you stick to it, and that doesn't seem to be the case of XI into XIV. It's had its time. So unless you're looking to keep the echo chamber going then by all means. But I'd like to see this pop back up once XIV has clocked in more years, if it lasts as long.

[KaitoAsaha]

Also thank you, Maeka and others, for listing or bringing other aspects to light on XI. Long time lurker, first time poster. It's often seemed like whenever these things pop up its just a bash XIV event. So it's refreshing to read about such perspectives. The neutral ones are nice too.

[Krokov]

If 11 was a better game, we'd all be playing it right now. It seems obvious to me which game is better.

Anyone that may claim otherwise doesn't really practice what they preach, or else they'd be playing it rather than this one.

I do indeed play 11 myself.

[Skivvy]

Can we move away from topics in relation to this and wait until it's no longer a 5 year running mmo against what? Think someone said 20 for the other, with a mobile port coming out? Come back to this one when XIV has been moved on from or is legitimately at the end of its life. To do so otherwise seems unfair honestly, though I'm of the mindset that if something works you stick to it, and that doesn't seem to be the case of XI into XIV. It's had its time. So unless you're looking to keep the echo chamber going then by all means. But I'd like to see this pop back up once XIV has clocked in more years, if it lasts as long.

Also thank you, Maeka and others, for listing or bringing other aspects to light on XI. Long time lurker, first time poster. It's often seemed like whenever these things pop up its just a bash XIV event. So it's refreshing to read about such perspectives. The neutral ones are nice too.

It doesn't sound like you're really wanting a discussion, just a comfy spot in your "echo chamber" that enforces your opinion. You've thanked a person who has greatly exaggerated, and I mean greatly, many of the aspects of XI to try and show how horrible the game is.

There are plenty of threads on these forums that gush about XIV, maybe visit those if you're concerned about hearing negative comments about the game.

[Brightamethyst]

Can we move away from topics in relation to this and wait until it's no longer a 5 year running mmo against what? Think someone said 20 for the other, with a mobile port coming out? Come back to this one when XIV has been moved on from or is legitimately at the end of its life. To do so otherwise seems unfair honestly, though I'm of the mindset that if something works you stick to it, and that doesn't seem to be the case of XI into XIV.

It's not really that unfair. When people talk about the old days of FFXI it's almost always in regards to the 2004-2010 level 75 era, which really does make it a relatively even comparison at this point. All those endgame events people keep talking about (Dyamis, Limbus, Gods/HNM, Assault, Salvage, Einhejar, etc) all happened, and ran side by side during that six year period.

[Aana]

And again, if you didn't have an Endgame Linkshell, the game had absolutely nothing for you to do at max level because everything required a Linkshell. No Linkshell = No Need To Apply. You weren't getting anything done whatsoever.

At least in XIV you can still do Sigmascape, get into PF 24mans, etc. Better than absolutely nothing.

SOME of the content in XI could be done in 6-man groups, but yet most was for 18+.

And the backpedal begins.

Lets see:
Limbus: <18.
Salvage: Capped at 6
Nyzul Isle: Capped at 6
Sky: Varies greatly depending on specific monster. Much of it <12.
Sea: See sky
Einherjar: 18+
Dynamis: 18+
ZNM: Varies greatly (from solo/duos up to multi alliance for pandemonium warden)
VNM: Varies greatly (from solo/duos up to alliance yilbegan)
Trial of the magians: Much entirely solo. Only specific fights hit the 2+ party line
BCNM/ENM/Battlefields in general: Mostly 6. A few 18.
HNMs: People lowmanned HNMs all the time (varies depending on each specific monster)
Whatever the NMs in the crystal war bstman zones were called: Varied greatly. My buddy and I made a game out of seeing how much we could duo. It was a helluva lot.

In fact, that was one of the best things about XI. The ability to test your strength by lowmanning things whos cookie cutter strat was to throw bodies at it. People were actively trying and succeeding in low manning events constantly because the incentive is there. If you can kill an (insert thing) with (insert #) people that most groups took (insert much more people) to, guess who gets triple the loot? That alone caused more low man activity and (for many) tons and tons of fun going for it.

and this is just a random smattering of level 75 content off the top of my head. Moving forward theres low man heaven known as abbysea. Salvage and Nyzul reboot. Ambuscade. Meebles. Trusts allowing 1 man to become 6, on and on it goes. The game has always had a solid mix of content for all size groups for all of its history. Keep on pedaling, you got a ways backward to go.

There was a complete spectrum of events throughout FFXI. A handful of the capstone events most certainly required a large group. Jailer of love took more people than lower tier jailers as it is the apex of the jailer system. Same with sky gods. Same with einherjar's Odin taking more than the lower rooms, same as Omega in limbus taking more bodies than individual rooms. But there was TONS of stuff available for lower number groups of all sizes. And the big secret you seem to have forgotten? Most of this uber big alliance fights were only big when you zerged them. You get 18 DDs, buff them to shiz before fight with brds, keep healers outside the alliance to heal, throw 18 megabuffed melees at it and it dies in 1 min, or you wipe and try again next week. That's the mega LS strat. But many MANY groups did these fights in a more traditional manner and when you arent on a 2 min buff clock or you insta wipe, then you dont need so many bodies. You didnt HAVE to zerg kirin in a full alliance. You could kite and kill with much less. You didnt have to zerg omega. Dynamis could easily be done with 12-18. My mega LS just did entire zone clears, but you then split loot 60+ ways. If you clear half the zone with 30 you get the same stuff. You want to go with 12 and only kill 20% of the zone? Guess what you get the SAME STUFF as the mega 60+ man loot per person. You could absolutely do dynamis with less and people did. The only thing that changed was gil efficiency, not loot. Dynamis costs X gil to enter but many of those LS's fed most of the currency to their sponsors leaving the members with only gear. Smaller LS didnt make as much money, but the members actually got a cut. In many cases the individual member got out better low manning dynamis and splitting the entry fee and the loot.

There absolutely were some large alliance only content. But you cant take a game with the event diversity and depth of FFXI and make some arbitrary sweeping statement about how to be successful at it. Mega sized endgame LS's were just ONE way to play this game. But it was far from the only way, and a far cry from "need not apply" if you didnt have one.

[Maeka]

And the backpedal begins.

Not backpedaling at all, was merely adding some clarity.

Lets see:
Limbus: <18.

If you had talented people there with great gear, sure. But otherwise you're going to want a full alliance.

Salvage: Capped at 6
Nyzul Isle: Capped at 6

These two things rewarded rather poorly and were grindy as crap.

Sky: Varies greatly depending on specific monster. Much of it <12.

You could kill the lesser NMs which mostly only drop stuff to pop bigger NMs with. But you're not going to tell me that you were killing Byakko and his friends, or Kirin (yanno the mobs that actually dropped anything good?) with <18 people until very late in the Lv75 days.

Sea: See sky

Yes, see sky indeed.

ZNM: Varies greatly (from solo/duos up to multi alliance for pandemonium warden)

See Sky.

VNM: Varies greatly (from solo/duos up to alliance yilbegan)

See sky yet again.

Trial of the magians: Much entirely solo. Only specific fights hit the 2+ party line

Okay sure you could solo this. Yeah I tried that... after dumping 10+ hours and still not having a weapon anywhere near the weapons I was already using, it was made clear that such attempts were worthless, and the system itself was ludicrous. It's either "bring 18+ people with you" or "spend 10,000 hours trying to get a single weapon done"

BCNM/ENM/Battlefields in general: Mostly 6. A few 18.

Most of these yielded very low rewards, except for crafting materials, especially the 6mans. For awhile one could make money off of rare spell scrolls, but meh.

HNMs: People lowmanned HNMs all the time (varies depending on each specific monster)

Correction: Well-geared and skilled people with tons of experience low-manned HNMs. This was not done for progression unless you were carrying someone to catch up.

[Aana]

Not quite accurate stuff

The thing is you could get 95% of the way there without touching the mega events. You claim the only worthwhile rewards are from the 18man fights, but FFXI had this wonderful accident of gear swapping. To actually become one of those 'strong' characters that could low man things, you didnt just need a ridil and an Ebody. You needed a fast cast set. A defensie set. An accuracy set. A haste set. A ws set. A WS high acc set, etc. You did not build all of these sets just from Jailer of love and kirin.

You brush off Salvage, yet it had staple pieces for virtually every job mage, melee and tank. I quite fondly remember the BIS Skadi legs for my thf TP and others in my WS sets. Most of it on my Rng. Most of the Ares set on my Drg. And as if being 'grindy' prevents it from being good. All of FFXI was 'grindy' making that a ridiculous point.

Nyzul also had staple pieces for some jobs. Heck you unlocked an entire wesponskill from this. Yeah that drakesbane was terrible right? That STP body that EVERY SINGLE sam, drg, war wore for years must have been bad. Comon now.

Sure Limbus super bosses had sexy homam gear for a handful of classes, but AF upgrades from the 6man zones were staple pieces for everyone. Dynamis didnt need 60 people to farm gear drops for all jobs with many staple pieces there.

You need more than Byakko's haidate to be good. You need the gear from ALL of these places to be good. Missing a couple slots doesnt make trash and you built your char up from every event in the game, but you are narowly focused on a handful of alliance events and completely dismiss the value of everything else in the game.

One thing that FFXI does have over 14 is that if you really want to be the best you must have a holistic experience. You have to do everything in the game and that includes all the events you keep wanting to minimize and discredit as 'real' content.

Sheesh i didnt come into this thread to hold up XI as some awesome bestest game ever, but theres no need to try to trash it with unfounded BS. It was far more focused on group play than 14 will ever be, but don't paint it as some exclusive elite buyers club for only mega guilds with hundreds of players. That isnt what the game was. There were a handful (5-10) of these mega groups on each server. But there were hundreds of thousands of players. All those players were able to play, enjoy, make friends and kill monsters. Not just some fraction of players in the mega groups.

[Hamada]

The thing is you could get 95% of the way there without touching the mega events. You claim the only worthwhile rewards are from the 18man fights, but FFXI had this wonderful accident of gear swapping. To actually become one of those 'strong' characters that could low man things, you didnt just need a ridil and an Ebody. You needed a fast cast set. A defensie set. An accuracy set. A haste set. A ws set. A WS high acc set, etc. You did not build all of these sets just from Jailer of love and kirin.

You brush off Salvage, yet it had staple pieces for virtually every job mage, melee and tank. I quite fondly remember the BIS Skadi legs for my thf TP and others in my WS sets. Most of it on my Rng. Most of the Ares set on my Drg. And as if being 'grindy' prevents it from being good. All of FFXI was 'grindy' making that a ridiculous point.

Nyzul also had staple pieces for some jobs. Heck you unlocked an entire wesponskill from this. Yeah that drakesbane was terrible right? That STP body that EVERY SINGLE sam, drg, war wore for years must have been bad. Comon now.

Sure Limbus super bosses had sexy homam gear for a handful of classes, but AF upgrades from the 6man zones were staple pieces for
everyone. Dynamis didnt need 60 people to farm gear drops for all jobs with many staple pieces there.

You need more than Byakko's haidate to be good. You need the gear from ALL of these places to be good. Missing a couple slots doesnt make trash and you built your char up from every event in the game, but you are narowly focused on a handful of alliance events and completely dismiss the value of everything else in the game.

One thing that FFXI does have over 14 is that if you really want to be the best you must have a holistic experience. You have to do everything in the game and that includes all the events you keep wanting to minimize and discredit as 'real' content.

Sheesh i didnt come into this thread to hold up XI as some awesome bestest game ever, but theres no need to try to trash it with unfounded BS. It was far more focused on group play than 14 will ever be, but don't paint it as some exclusive elite buyers club for only mega guilds with hundreds of players. That isnt what the game was. There were a handful (5-10) of these mega groups on each server. But there were hundreds of thousands of players. All those players were able to play, enjoy, make friends and kill monsters. Not just some fraction of players in the mega groups.

Couldn't said it better myself. Some people did crazy low man back in the day

The problem, though, was the simple fact that a lot of these systems were so similar in design, and they were still punishing and unrewarding, where you ran it week after week after week and got nothing 99.9% of the time.

Only if you had bad ls leaders or bringing too many people to Dynamis. Loot distribution in FFXI was fine as long as the linkshell was managed well. In ffxiv you are just wasting your time for no reason and easily screwed over by RNG. In ffxiv you are only given a week to get gear otherwise you are SoL. So in that sense ffxiv has way worse Loot distribution.

And of course all the convoluted macros that you had to make, where you'd need 8-10 pieces of gear swapped, do the thing, then swap the 8-10 pieces of gear back. It got so bad that they had to introduce FOUR mog wardrobes JUST for being able to hold and equip armor. That's THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY slots JUST for swap-in gear.

I'll take vertical progression over that retarded junk anyday.

Can you handle the truth? FFXIV had nothing new since sometime in 2.xx (I am not sure when the repeated reskinning started)
Let me give you the latest example of the top crafted/gather gear of 4.3, it is MADE EXACTLY the same way ironworks was (top HW gear) the only difference is one of the materials is from yellow scripts, Kingcraft Demimateria, I do not think you can desynth for them, but assuming you can't, that would be the only difference. FFXIV had nothing truly new outside failed diadems (all 3 versions) and deep dungeon (successful) At least ffxi actually released new content, not reskining content and calling it "new".

I would take investing time in something meaningful vs it getting outdated in 3 months.

So really, you have one that had a significant barrier of entry(IMO) that feels very rewarding versus the other that is incredibly accessible but ultimately shallow. Yet for some reason the middle-ground is largely untouched.

well said