I think I want subjobs more than I want job balance.

[Dzian]

Every fight in FFXI is scripted though, heavily. You have timers for every skill any boss will use, timers for each mobs spawning. Why you knew how many stuns to bring, what skills to use when etc. And you had plenty of time to do it as well, since the fights were extremely slow. FFXI is just knowing the scripted fight, just like FFXIV. The difference is, FFXI you wait to use that skill on a timer, FFXIV relies on player skill to know when to build and keep their rotation while avoiding damage, swapping targets, interrupting and then rely on you knowing how to get back into proper position and rotation again after doing all that, for all types of jobs.

FFXI encounters were incredibly random when I played it. Wasn't heavily scripted at all. That's what made it the challenge.. You never knew what a boss would do or when... Suzaku could use his chainspell at 99% health or 11% health... Byakko could pop perfect dodge at 51% or even at 3% Omega could use his skills in any order he wanted so could Ultima I believe. Many bosses were the same... at least in the 75 era.

Not like XIV where you know when you can time every tank buster or bosses move to the second. many poeple have said thats what makes XIV boring especially for the healers.

[Artemiz]

The subjob system from FFXI was very very good and 100% should be used in some form in future mmos going forward. And for those saying everyone played the same subs. Yes they did in leveling/merit parties. But in endgame subjob was completely situational and all top tier guilds would expect members and new recruits to have multiple subjobs leveled before getting invited. What people went changed depending on the world boss, dungeon, instance and many times what your role was in that specific situation (and I do not mean role as in just dps, healer, tank)

I'm not sure when you last played it but flexibility of sub jobs is very limited now. Not because the game changed dramatically, but because the players got more aware of what they wanted and needed.

2 handed DD = /sam, every time. The only possibility that this changes is if the new WSD trait drg got proves to be more DPS when the spreadsheet types have finished theory crafting it, if so it will simply swap to /drg, every time.

DW job = /nin if they need the trait, /war if they don't.

Corsair is /war if fighting at range and using Last Stand, /nin if fighting melee or when using Leaden Salute.

Brd, since the update a while back where they got amazing melee gear they are /nin now. Long gone are the days people expected brd to be a horribly gimp sub healer.

Pld = /blu, every time

Run = /blu when your gear sucks, /drk when it doesn't.

Geo = /rdm, every time.

Smn = /rdm.

All other mages /sch, except for rdm who finally, as the last job on the list, gets to choose between /whm or /blm

You can obviously do any combo you want, but the players know what's best, they know what their strat is built around and you will be expected to conform, or go play solo as a buttersheep, up to you.

Sub jobs were never about freedom of expression in how you play your class, it was a mandatory set of skill you still had to have, but had to level a completely different job to get. I leveled all jobs to 99 anyway, so it didn't bother me at all, I could use whatever but that didn't change the fact that freedom of choice was an illusion.

This is all talking about endgame, nobody cares what you do in a CP party (meripo) these days as anyone with a half decent DD can kill the mob in 20 seconds anyway, half the party is leeching regardless.

[Shougun]

Since we're on about it, and another thread sort of dredged up similar thoughts (a bit tangential lol), there are many things I think classical games / inspired games have that I really enjoy. I think "wow I wish we had that old stuff again", and then there are many things I think "sweet baby Kupo, thank god that is gone".

I do not want to play FFXI, as it was (technically people who have memory of FFXI have an inaccurate view of how it is now, it's sooooo different compared to how it was back when it was SE's main). But there are things in it that I find cute or cool. Even WoW has a lot of this old thought inspiration and occasionally I reference it.

So for example, and this was brought up in the other thread about weakness, I like the idea of monsters having characteristics that make them feel more unique. Often these are extra details that are not really needed for the whole system to function but got added anyway because 'that makes sense'. So like in that other thread I wasn't really into bringing back elemental weakness (due to profound reverberating issues that could cause now) but I had mentioned how cool it was that you could stop a Goblin bomb from going off properly by making certain movements, or avoid some damage from fungar's by standing in the right place. You didn't 'need' to know it but it just added some flavor. Naturally, as I said in that other thread, some of this is represented by our aoe markers, but the concept was just an example. Say going on FFXI again you had tigers that could run as fast as your chocobo, which just made them stick out in your mind. Here in FFXIV you might reference the first time you're in Shroud and fight a Malboro or get hit by the breath from someone else, and you're like OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH MY GOD. To me the point isn't to always have insufferable traits, just things that stick out and often they stick out as extra detail. Like if you were drawing a character and you get something neat looking but not particularly memorable and add a few more details on top so it's just "that" much more, difference between nice and "woah" ("I'll remember that"). Sometimes, in general not just FFXIV, it seems games have trouble having those moments, probably because they truly are just extra and often are probably some dev being too attentive to certain concepts, but when you find games that have it- it just 'feels' whole. Depending on what you do these extra feels can cause huge problems, but that's why I've on many occasions tried to add 'extra' suggestions that have no combat impact (even simple things like dragoon not taking fall damage etc).

It's one of my more major criticisms in FFXIV is that they are so streamlined that sometimes it's a little challenging to have those moments that stick out as 'extra' (you can see it in some elements of course, like pretty much anything written or decoration, but I feel in the game 'play' side of things this is where FFXIV struggles to goof off with). To example WoW then you have these neat features of jobs that make you feel special as that job, say as a Druid you can transform into your fast movement speed form in combat or you can mount someone else on you or you gain an abnormally large breadth of options, a demon hunter who can glide, dark knight walk on water, warlocks who can summon their allies, on and on (it's a decent list of unique and weird things you can do just because they're fun and not necessarily because it needs to be there for combat balance, like having the scout eye as Warlock). This moves into races and items as well, with unique traits that exist there. One of my more favorite examples in crafting is the Engineer stuff, where you can craft yourself a huge selection of unique features and attachments. Of course, as said before, certain concepts would be larger issues (say if you let a certain job have a permanent 20% movement speed buff in combat, that could be bad in implications to certain fights, but you can always tweak such an idea like this job can transform into their movement form in combat but the movement bonus doesn't apply in synced content, basically like blue mage with their movement skill basic instinct).

Of course when I mention stuff like this I don't meant 1:1, personally I don't think racial differences would be a good thing to stick in FFXIV, especially this late but also it'd kind of hurt the "play the job you want" idea, but yet you could still have goofy trinkets, unique features to jobs or crafters. Like if you leveled your crafter you might have 'personal crafts' that you can go out of your way to make that give you cool gadgets and feel a personal reward for your skills in that trade. Bard might be an example where this has a light existence, with Bard you do gain the ability to play music. With dancer they could add dancing system.

I think I'd call it something a bit paradoxical like modern old school. Avoid some of the unnecessary pain but keeping some of that wild quirkiness that wasn't stamped out by a sort of corporate production "that isn't needed, don't do it". Of course sometimes if you do too much extra you just take forever to make the game and extra doesn't always make fun, so there is a balance- but I don't think FFXIV struck the balance on the 'play' side of things as well as it might have been able to. To balance out some of the criticism, FFXIV does have an entire area dedicated to mini-games (Golden Saucer), and has tried concepts like deep sea fishing, and a crafting system that is far more complex than the majority of MMOs I have seen. So one may want to amend FFXIV struggles with extra to more specifically struggles to imbue it closer to the metal of 'everyday' play. There exists 'extra' out there if you go find it, but say and again my cheesy easy example Dragoon shouldn't take fall damage.. It's just not logical in the sense of what they do and are- the logical sense of 'extra' here would be giving stuff like that. One might say "okay fall damage, but even giving them higher jump could cause issues to zone design, can't do that" - which I had already thought (restrict higher jump to when you've unlocked the currents, which means you can fly- and if you land on anything un-pathable just give them the Sun Wukong / Kain (FFV) standing pose and from there allow them to continue jumping about / or summon the mount or teleport).

For another old school 'modern' example, I LOVE the idea of traveling and seeing the environment and I think too instantaneous travel can damage some of the world aspects- but I'd never want to see any form of quick travel nerfed to FFXI tiers where it could literally (at least in the old days) take you an hour to get somewhere and all the effort for not when someone else failed to bring certain supplies. (Also why I never want to have to form my own parties for the majority, if not all, the content I want to play in a game- I hate begging for parties like in FFXI, very done with that experience lol). Personally would like to emphasize the journey in the game, would love to see camps even be a thing as was in many FF sRPGs (or the fancy inspiration from FFXV), but not to the point of wasting an hour. An entire post could go into how one might modernize yet experience that sort of flow, so I'd not here but I might say it something like what struck me when listening to a Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) interview where the quiet moments are purposefully placed to act as balance and breath and adds overall to the experience. Sometimes I use GW2's mount system as an example in conjunction with the cliff wall in Khoulsia, if you were able to leap from outcropping to outcropping to make your way up the cliff it would take you like 15-30 seconds longer but make that wall feel absolutely huge in comparison to just holding space bar and w. In WoW most boats and zeppelins came after few minutes and were exceptionally fast, so the experience of your first boat ride was pretty easy on the wait but also unique to the scale factor of the world (especially made better because you actually were in it, rather in FFXIV where it's a quick cutscene; although, of course WoW gets off easier on that since it's open world... FFXIV would have to design an entire world map).

Sometimes modern old school makes things simpler and less punishing but other times I think it means actually getting more complex- personally I see many of the jobs in FFXI and how you play them and I'm just not interested in that type of combat anymore, not that many interworking links and while there are some combinations I'd prefer even more craziness like a Hades or Diablo 3 (layers of layers that echo into other layers), so I'd never want something so simple in mechanical interplay of abilities (FFXIV's 1 - 50 blue mage reminded me of an even more simple FFXI blue mage, that wasn't a good feeling, 60 - 70 is more modern designed imo).

[Genz]

Every fight in FFXI is scripted though, heavily. You have timers for every skill any boss will use, timers for each mobs spawning. Why you knew how many stuns to bring, what skills to use when etc. And you had plenty of time to do it as well, since the fights were extremely slow. FFXI is just knowing the scripted fight, just like FFXIV. The difference is, FFXI you wait to use that skill on a timer, FFXIV relies on player skill to know when to build and keep their rotation while avoiding damage, swapping targets, interrupting and then rely on you knowing how to get back into proper position and rotation again after doing all that, for all types of jobs.

No
FFXI monsters have TP like players, so they use skill depending on their TP gain, and choose at random.
There are some scripted gimmick for some boss, and some boss have a general scripted guideline (Odin for example has a skill at 75%/50%/25% HP, another skill every 10%, the Valkyries spawn at random 10% thresholds, and Zantetsuken at 10% ; this is the most scripted fight I remember, and of course he uses other skills/spells freely outside this general framework)

In the end, even without the scripted part, "knowledge" is as important as FFXIV but it's not "The boss will use skill A then B then C", it's "The boss can use skills A, B and C"

[Artemiz]

No
FFXI monsters have TP like players, so they use skill depending on their TP gain, and choose at random.
There are some scripted gimmick for some boss, and some boss have a general scripted guideline (Odin for example has a skill at 75%/50%/25% HP, another skill every 10%, the Valkyries spawn at random 10% thresholds, and Zantetsuken at 10% ; this is the most scripted fight I remember, and of course he uses other skills/spells freely outside this general framework)

In the end, even without the scripted part, "knowledge" is as important as FFXIV but it's not "The boss will use skill A then B then C", it's "The boss can use skills A, B and C"

I somehow skimmed past that part of their post when I first read it but I think you're right to point it out, if either game is going to be accused of being scripted it's 14. In 14 being good at end game is all about learning the fight, usually by rote. In 11 being good at end game is all about preparation in terms of gear and party composition etc... Actual scripted fights in FF11 are very rare and Omen would be my pick of the content with the most predictable mechanics but even then they are only about 30% of the attacks the bosses use. Not only that but because they are so scripted they are tuned to wipe the whole alliance if you don't deal with them.

[RyoXander]

Every fight in FFXI is scripted though, heavily. You have timers for every skill any boss will use, timers for each mobs spawning. Why you knew how many stuns to bring, what skills to use when etc. And you had plenty of time to do it as well, since the fights were extremely slow. FFXI is just knowing the scripted fight, just like FFXIV. The difference is, FFXI you wait to use that skill on a timer, FFXIV relies on player skill to know when to build and keep their rotation while avoiding damage, swapping targets, interrupting and then rely on you knowing how to get back into proper position and rotation again after doing all that, for all types of jobs.

I've always fund 14 to be much easier than 11 in every single aspect. Down to the "one size fits all" approach to battles. In XI you had to actually prepare for fights with different gear sets, food, items etc; even just for regular exp parties! I know that you typically use food for savage runs but it's not necessary whereas in XI, unless you ate Sushi, you were absolutely NOT landing a hit on any THF mob with a haste build. Both games fights were scripted but XI offered more randomness such as wiping to Fafnir due to Spike Flail etc.

[Komarimono]

I've always fund 14 to be much easier than 11 in every single aspect. Down to the "one size fits all" approach to battles. In XI you had to actually prepare for fights with different gear sets, food, items etc; even just for regular exp parties! I know that you typically use food for savage runs but it's not necessary whereas in XI, unless you ate Sushi, you were absolutely NOT landing a hit on any THF mob with a haste build. Both games fights were scripted but XI offered more randomness such as wiping to Fafnir due to Spike Flail etc.

With the trusts, you don't even need the XP parties you had to be in, in the past. Not that I've seen at least for how FFXI is now versus how it used to be. The purposely, and rightfully nerfed it greatly. No more needing to group up to even kill a level 15 normal mob etc.

No
FFXI monsters have TP like players, so they use skill depending on their TP gain, and choose at random.
There are some scripted gimmick for some boss, and some boss have a general scripted guideline (Odin for example has a skill at 75%/50%/25% HP, another skill every 10%, the Valkyries spawn at random 10% thresholds, and Zantetsuken at 10% ; this is the most scripted fight I remember, and of course he uses other skills/spells freely outside this general framework)

In the end, even without the scripted part, "knowledge" is as important as FFXIV but it's not "The boss will use skill A then B then C", it's "The boss can use skills A, B and C"

Ya, and you knew what skills were going to happen. There is no pure randomness. It's scripted, like any other game. Once condition reaches this, TP in this case, use Skill from this Set. With a weight on what skill to use based on %. You knew, what could come, and with how slow the game plays, you can't possibly miss it.

[Miskatonic]

While I absolutely love FF11 subjobs (still hoping for a classic server), FF14 jobs are so self-contained that I don't think it would work. While in FF11 white magic is a classification of specific spells that certain jobs/subjobs have access to, what is white magic in FF14? Theoretically, both FF14 white mage and red mage use it, but it's really very self-contained to those jobs and not something you can easily sub in.

I do agree that there can be a thing of too much balance. FF14 can often feel very clinical and dry because of it, in my opinion.

Interestingly, FF11 was a much easier and enjoyable experience for my wife who had never played an MMO before. For someone who doesn't have the gamer instinct, the amount of buttons in FF14 can be stressful. In FF11, she would just smack things with her greataxe and had tons of relaxing fun. Because of this I actually consider FF11 to be more casual friendly in many regards, where I would have said FF14 before.

[Jkap_Goat]

"They don't make 'em like they used to!" Yeah, there's a good reason for that (see also, 1.0.) FFXI was an absolutely fantastic game for it's time, but that time was 18 years ago. Games and players have both moved on since then.

Umm theres still alot of people who prefer ffxi over ffxiv, not everyone likes or loves XIV, so please don't paint a picture that xiv is this glorified holy game when it isnt, also FFXI is getting new players/returning players all the time. FFXI has a good/ consistent community just not as big as ffxiv


https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/commen...ink_i_finally/

Some people have their reasons like this person, sometimes its health reasons:

"But the thing that really makes me prefer this over FF14 is the slowness of the battle system. I only have one useable hand and doing a rotation while constantly on the move can put a huge strain on my left hand. Since this game doesn't require so much movement in combat its easier for me to concentrate on my role without having to worry about all those complex mechanics that require fast reflexes."

I already started my reason, people just like a WoW style game, notthing wrong with that

[Jkap_Goat]

No
FFXI monsters have TP like players, so they use skill depending on their TP gain, and choose at random.
There are some scripted gimmick for some boss, and some boss have a general scripted guideline (Odin for example has a skill at 75%/50%/25% HP, another skill every 10%, the Valkyries spawn at random 10% thresholds, and Zantetsuken at 10% ; this is the most scripted fight I remember, and of course he uses other skills/spells freely outside this general framework)

In the end, even without the scripted part, "knowledge" is as important as FFXIV but it's not "The boss will use skill A then B then C", it's "The boss can use skills A, B and C"

Lol Komarimono says she has played it but doesn't know how bosses even work, i wonder how far shes gotten and attacking me that ffxi fights are script