As an FFXI player, thank you for Limited Jobs and BLU SE

[Awha]

No one should like that game.

I did not play FFXI, nor do I think I would enjoy it. Nevertheless, maybe everything you mentioned is why people enjoyed FFXI.

[Skivvy]

snip

So I take it you don't like XI. Everyone is allowed their opinion on the game, but don't spout things off like it's fact and everyone agrees with you. It would also seem you're basing your experience off of XI of old The game is vastly different than it was and has been adjusted to account for QOL items. For what it's worth, this 'useless' game currently has 3,000+ people online ATM on my server.

[Edax]

...eeexcept they don't. An underperforming release can easily wipe out a studio.

I wasn't talking about underperforming releases. I was talking about poorly reviewed AAA games making tons of money on release. It happens all the time. The fact that EA and Ubisoft still exist is a testament to that fact.

No one should like that game.

By every single reasonable metric, it fails as both a piece of art and entertainment.

Since FFXI has a fanbase and the game was profitable, that is demonstrably false.

No one should like that game.
-snip-
I fully understand that some people love game like this. They love a game that requires time, patience, and dedication in order to accomplish things. Some people even enjoy the game's leisurely (now I'm mincing words) pace, as it makes Vana'diel more realistic and immersive.

Your defeating your own argument.

[Sandpark]

No one should like that game.

By every single reasonable metric, it fails as both a piece of art and entertainment.

Final Fantasy XI is primitive and slow, and those were two of its best qualities. Even diehard fans cannot mince words on this. And it's not just the sluggish combat, either. Everything takes forever. Before acquiring a chocobo license, airship pass, or Teleport spells, it can take you 30-40 minutes to run from one place to another on foot -- and that's if you're avoiding combat and not regularly getting jumped by orcs, goblins, yagudo, or quadavs. You have to wait for shops to open, wait for the best in-game day to craft items, and wait for people to buy your swag at the auction house. You sit around and wait for you HP/MP to recover when you hit the "heal" command, you wait for people to invite you into their parties, you wait for your party members to run off and get Signet, you wait for somebody to come and cast Raise on you when you die, you wait two hours to use your special ability again, you wait one hour (in real time) between the five feedings in the chocobo license subquest. Roughly 75% of the Final Fantasy XI experience is waiting for the Final Fantasy XI experience.

I fully understand that some people love game like this. They love a game that requires time, patience, and dedication in order to accomplish things. Some people even enjoy the game's leisurely (now I'm mincing words) pace, as it makes Vana'diel more realistic and immersive.

The problem in Final Fantasy XI's case is that none of this is actually fun. During your stay in Vana'diel, you are constantly level grinding, crystal harvesting, doing NPCs' fetch quests, and spawn camping like you're on somebody's imaginary payroll. As I mentioned above, you have to take the same approach to Final Fantasy XI as you would a personal project such as building a model ship in a bottle, taking a martial arts class, or writing a novel. It is an arduous, time-devouring, and often frustrating process.

Exploring Vana'diel is a thrilling experience. Indeed. On the rare occasions you're actually exploring, anyway. Most of the time, you're spawn camping and level grinding on the same map for hours on end. Depending on how often you play and how much focused time you spend on leveling up and keeping your character's equipment and spells up to date, it can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before your character can cross over into a new zone without fearing swift evisceration at the hands of the first gob you encounter. Until then, you're stuck running back and forth between your home point and the local EXP party hotspot until you put in enough time to become sufficiently leveled up to move on -- on to the next EXP party hotspot.

Final Fantasy XI's battle dynamic is structured such that every individual player is a limb of the greater organism in the party. Watching the party's various skills efficiently mesh together to blast a mob to hell is definitely a sight to behold. Actually being a participant in that process is like working a post at a factory conveyor belt. You're doing the same thing, standing in the same spots, hitting the same macro keys over and over and over again, until the monster dies or otherwise turns the tables and kills everyone. The game isn't designed to let you do anything else. The engagement strategy never changes.

Is the game an entertaining diversion? No, not really -- it's too great a time devourer. It's not a game you can hop on and play for an hour or so at night before dinner. There is no point in playing for an hour. An hour is how long it takes to log on, check your Mog House delivery box, peruse the auction house, hit up a special NPC to cast Signet on you, start or join a party, and walk halfway to wherever you're trying to go. If you can only play Final Fantasy XI for an hour at a time, you're better off not playing at all. Are the battle and character customization systems what carry the game? Not really -- combat is slower than molasses, and the Job/Subjob setup is a drag, especially in light of how many hoops the game expects you to jump though in order to unlock new jobs and level them up to the point at which they become viable. Does it give its player any new ideas to think about? No -- unless we're talking about how it might inadvertently trigger OH MY GOD IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE existential crises in frequent players. Does sitting alone and entering a level-grinding trance night after night for a period of months or years enrich your life in any way? No. It does not.

Final Fantasy XI is a useless game. If our lawmakers wanted to be consistent, they'd outlaw video games like that on the same professed grounds as marijuana prohibition. Chronic use of Final Fantasy XI will make you dull, reclusive, unmotivated, unthoughtful, and detached from reality -- and unlike cannabis, it isn't even fun. And that, for a video game, is the greatest crime of all.

Sluggish combat? Now slow maybe, but not sluggish. In XIV you have to wait 20 levels to get a chocobo, you can't even ride an airship here because it's just a cutscene. Sure it takes longer to walk across zones in Vanadiel because the zones are larger, way larger than this game.

Avoiding combat happens in both games. Here you run 10 feet and stuff deagros in XI they follow you an entire zone but sometimes avoiding aggro enhances gameplay like sneaking games or utilizing dangerous pulls in enemy infested areas to avoid death. Here there is not fear of death with standard enemies, you can pull half a zone and AoE them down with little effort and there is no interesting pull mechanics.

The wait on crafting days and weathers and shops is not great but it does add immersion. How can a world be believable when all it's inhabitants exist to make your day easy and nothing else? You sit and wait for regen ticks here too they just regen faster. But that aspect also made regen gear valuable and extended the life of things you earned. Yeah it did not have a cross world duty finder but that enhances community. No need to form deep connections if you can party with people and only say hi or nothing or be a jerk and never have to see them again. Waiting for raise is more applicable to this game because you either get raised or home point. In XI you have a reraise spell and reraise gear so no waiting provided you have that. You might have to wait two hours to use your special ability unless you knew how to get it reset. Here you can't even use your special ability unless you are in a party.

Final Fantasy XIV experience is waiting for the Final Fantasy XIV experience too at times. Maybe if you are tank or healer it's less waiting but still waiting on queues.

You don't have to understand that some people love it.
It is more immersive and that is not subjective.
The question is to each player is.
Do you value convenience over immersion?

What is not fun to you is fun to someone else and what is fun to someone else is not fun to you in all circumstances.

What the hell do you do during your stay in Eorzea that is different from XI?
You level grind here, harvest, you are fed ex man here. You spawn camp dungeons 100 more times than any notorious monster you camp in XI. Here you don't even get a special lasting gear. You get a currency to buy gear that is going to be worthless after a patch unless you like it as glamour.

You are damn right it's thrilling.
You are exploring the open world 100 times more in Vanadiel than Eorzea. There is no exploring Eorzea, the zones in Eorzea are just a static canopy, beautiful but nothing thrilling or tangible.
Every NPC, enemy,fate, and interesting locale exist to funnel you convenience and nothing more. Grinding enemies, here you grind fates, fed ex quests and dungeons for hours on end and in XI you grind open world enemies, notorious monsters, HNM, trials, etc.
What is the difference?
Other than dungeon bosses mechanics nothing really. You could explore a new zone in XI every couple of hours unless you only play 30 minutes per session or suck at experience point chains or party composition. No need to homepoint in XI, you either have a reraise or a healer who can raise.

XI's battle dynamic not just a sight to behold. It's one of the greatest multiplayer combat systems to ever be created for an RPG.
No the factory conveyor belt is XIV combat. Here you crank out the same rotation regardless of enemy over and over, the only choice is AoE or single target. Your Dragoon is the same stat build and rotation as every other Dragoon in the game. Your gear is relatively the same as every other Dragoon. You run here but that's only because enemy population is sparse and spread out. You hit the exact same macro or hotbar over, over, and over again regardless of circumstance until the monster dies or otherwise turns the tables and kills everyone.
In XIV The engagement strategy never changes.

In XI every enemy has different strengths and weaknesses, some to elements, some to specific skills chains, some to blunt, some to piercing, some to slashing, some to physical, some to magic, some to specific magic, some steal your gear, some lock your abilities, etc. If you face an enemy with deadly fire, you better have barfira because shell in XI won't cut enough damage. You have 18 jobs in XI but you really have 18 jobs and 18 subjobs all which can change the way you approach different encounters. Skill chains and magic burst offer like 120 different ways you can combine skills for different effects, some gear enhances certain effects, some gear allows more combinations. The engagement strategy always changes.
So even if you only pushed 12 keys(your not, you have more), those 12 keys can interact with other players 12 keys in ways XIV cannot hold a candle to.

It sounds like I am saying Final Fantasy XI is amazing, and I am. But I also enjoy XIV alot.

To say XI is mediocre though makes me take anything you say with a grain of salt.

XI does everything better than this game in terms of depth and everything worse in terms of convenience.
And XIV does everything better in terms of convenience and everything worse in terms of depth. I can like both and not be a sadist.

[Shougun]

Here we go

It hurt me not to see that accompanied by this:

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

An extremely long-winded "I know you are but what am I?"

If I want to level a job in Final Fantasy XIV over the course of a month, I can log in every day and spend 20-40 minutes doing the leveling roulette. If I want to level a new job in Final Fantasy XI over the course of a month, I can spend six hours every night sitting in the same spot in the same zone until it hurts to stand when I finally do stand back up. That's the difference.

No one ever had to convince me to stick it out just a little bit longer in Final Fantasy XIV because it will get better eventually. That's the difference.

There is a distinction between enjoying an activity and putting up with an activity in the thought that it will eventually lead to a reward. FFXIV is the former. FFXI is the latter.

[Shougun]

If I want to level a job in Final Fantasy XIV over the course of a month, I can log in every day and spend 20-40 minutes doing the leveling roulette. If I want to level a new job in Final Fantasy XI over the course of a month, I can spend six hours every night sitting in the same spot in the same zone until it hurts to stand when I finally do stand back up. That's the difference.

No one ever had to convince me to stick it out just a little bit longer in Final Fantasy XIV because it will get better eventually. That's the difference.

There is a distinction between enjoying an activity and putting up with an activity in the thought that it will eventually lead to a reward. FFXIV is the former. FFXI is the latter.

Not that it's terribly important but that hasn't been true for a while now, leveling and a number of other things were modernized quite a bit in FFXI in it's later years. I understand you're talking about before modernization happened, just thought you should know it's not true on the official servers - that it's not a super hard long process now.

[Skivvy]

If I want to level a job in Final Fantasy XIV over the course of a month, I can log in every day and spend 20-40 minutes doing the leveling roulette. If I want to level a new job in Final Fantasy XI over the course of a month, I can spend six hours every night sitting in the same spot in the same zone until it hurts to stand when I finally do stand back up. That's the difference.

No one ever had to convince me to stick it out just a little bit longer in Final Fantasy XIV because it will get better eventually. That's the difference.

There is a distinction between enjoying an activity and putting up with an activity in the thought that it will eventually lead to a reward. FFXIV is the former. FFXI is the latter.

Leveling in XI is laughably quick and easy. If you're going to compare the games, at least compare them in their current state. Again, nothing wrong with not liking a game, or a particular game style, but trying to prove just how bad XI is with points that aren't accurate isn't the way to go.

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

Not that it's terribly important but that hasn't been true for a while now, leveling and a number of other things were modernized quite a bit in FFXI in it's later years. I understand you're talking about before modernization happened, just thought you should know it's not true on the official servers - that it's not a super hard long process now.

Leveling in XI is laughably quick and easy. If you're going to compare the games, at least compare them in their current state. Again, nothing wrong with not liking a game, or a particular game style, but trying to prove just how bad XI is with points that aren't accurate isn't the way to go.

Ah.

So the Final Fantasy XI experience has been vastly improved by making it not the Final Fantasy XI experience.

Why do we want to go back to that again in FFXIV?

[Shougun]

Ah.

So the Final Fantasy XI experience has been vastly improved by making it not the Final Fantasy XI experience.

Why do we want to go back to that again in FFXIV?

If a game was made up of components like a car or house is, and say you loved the door but hated the garden - that of course can make sense and be a thing (love my house but I wish my door shut easier). I think it would be okay to say, for example, you wish you had the front door of FFXI but the garden of WoW with the garage door opener of FFXIV. As convoluted an example that may be lol. Referencing enjoyable components doesn't mean we need to bring out the worst components too :3. Also just was trying to let you know that FFXI has continued to evolve (so the exp issue is not really one now).