Happy 20th to Final Fantasy XI

[Soge01]

I just started playing XI yesterday. It's so different from FFXIV, it's really fun! My best memories so far is getting to level 9 as a Black Mage and watching the receptionist Kupipi talking with a magical Trust clone of herself, lol! xD

Oh, and also finding out I can store all my items in my Mog Home with my own personal Moogle helper and being allowed to put my Moogle Cake furniture on the floor! It's my only furniture so far and I love it. :3

[Cach]

I always regretted not being able to play the game on its prime. But I was too young and my parents never let go of their credit cards. I got into WoW shortly after and the rest is history.

I did play for 2 months a couple of years back and I actually enjoyed trying to decrypt how things work and delving into wikis and ancient forums. I got a class to 55 and several other into 20 something, but at the end Limit Break quests just got me.

Whoever made PlayOnline needs to be put on trial, tho.

[Elkanah]

I always regretted not being able to play the game on its prime. But I was too young and my parents never let go of their credit cards. I got into WoW shortly after and the rest is history.

I did play for 2 months a couple of years back and I actually enjoyed trying to decrypt how things work and delving into wikis and ancient forums. I got a class to 55 and several other into 20 something, but at the end Limit Break quests just got me.

Whoever made PlayOnline needs to be put on trial, tho.

the limit break quests are easier now with trusts in the game. Being accustomed to XI's design since the cap was 50, and still playing it today (even after releasing and playing through each expansion up till voracious resurgence released), you can easily take a character from 1-99 in maybe a week or two (with all the records of eminence quests to do, dailies, among other things). You can make gil incredibly quick week to week (without the marketboard), and basically make your play life in XI super easy lol. Endgame is a little different in XI, but having the right linkshell for different content makes it much much easier to get through. The class in meta though is a little more time consuming than it is here.

[Vav2021]

I'll admit, I never played XI. Is it any good?

[Elkanah]

I'll admit, I never played XI. Is it any good?

The stories are an adventure. It depends on you. You have your nation missions, then each expansion, plus the add-on's and the final chapter (cross collab that ended up in XIV "The Maidens Rhapsody" that ties into your character story, assuming you played XI). The grinding is a bit slower, but there's pretty much nothing you can't do in XI anymore (that you could only do in parties beforehand) when it comes to finishing the stories or getting to max level (now 99). Jobs really were a different way of playstyle too. Overall, I've had my fair share of memories through the years. I love it so much, and will always be the part of me that I hold onto the most. Many of my IRL friends are former FFXI players, though I still play from time to time.

The community relied heavily on information back then. Quests don't tell you what your progress is, so you have to keep track of it yourself. https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page is the place a lot of people still use for information regarding quests and missions. But everything revolved around the community and information. XIV doesn't need to give you that experience since 200% of it is broadcasted to you on where to be in the map and what your next task is in the questline you want to finish.

The only trial is getting through PlayOnline LOL.

[Canadane]

We need Maat's cap in game.

We need a decent Maat challenge in this game, too.

[aveyond-dreams]

I'll admit, I never played XI. Is it any good?

It's good, but there is a significant time cost that acts as a barrier to entry. With Trusts that you can call in the overworld, things have gotten much easier but it's a game where most people need a guide open on their phone/second monitor in order to progress with quest objectives. Unlocking classes takes far more effort in FFXI than it does here, with each job having vastly different requirements. You will learn abilities as you level up but as a Mage/Bard you will have to learn your skills through the use of scrolls, most of which you'll have to buy with Gil (which is easily obtained by selling Acheron Shields from RoE rewards to NPCs). Summoners however must defeat their avatars in 1v1 combat, either at level 20 in a mini trial or at level 50+ when you can easily burn down the boss with overpowered gear. Geomancers have to learn some of their skills by interacting with locations across various zones, though their other spells are purchasable.

Notably, the new white Chocobo they added is the first Chocobo I've gotten to ride in that game since unlocking Mounts and unlocking the convoluted Chocobo system are two completely different systems. There is still fast travel with home points and various books across the fields, though menus in FFXI are very dated and involve a lot of clicking. There is a sort of glamour system in place where you can lock the appearance of your equipment. Getting the good-looking AF pieces varies again in terms of difficulty and hassle, with my preference being just to grind the recolored appearance of the AF gear from Dynamis zones than hunting down treasure chests for the original pieces. Only Geomancer and Rune Fencer have another system entirely for their AF gear, which I believe is just a questline.

The overall story of FFXI is ok, with some similarities to FFXIV. As long as you keep up with the Rhaspodies questline and do what it tells you to, you'll be able to progress through each expansion easily. That questline will direct you to things like unlocking your support job, expanding the amount of Trusts you can summon, and EXP boosts for your classes (though login events occasionally reward rings that you should also use to boost your EXP). The easiest way to get gear is through RoE which doesn't take very long regardless of your level, and the most active server is Asura.

[Elkanah]

We need a decent Maat challenge in this game, too.

I miss those. I remember doing it on RNG and having a friend loan me his k.club after two weeks of not beating maat. Those were fun times lol

[Shougun]

Some crazy nostoglia for that game, the dang menu music is basically a time machine for my brain lol. Just a bunch of stuff about it was neat.. I remember being blown away at the music and 'cutscenes' that played as you selected a race and created your character. Hilarious music for mithra... .

Miss that kind of thought, now days games the character creation menu looks like open source code everyone uses with minor UI tweaks.

I am tempted to play the game again given that it has been made a lot more friendly than it was, I don't think I will ever play a game like it was in it's prime again... nothing is wrong with that if you want that but I just cant see fitting that type of game into my life again. But I am aware the changes, so it isn't what it was (with things like trusts).

The main issue being I'm not quite sold on the idea of having two subscriptions active at once, and probably the combat feeling a bit clunky/slow to what I'm used to now. Also I'm still wondering if they might revive the resources created in FFXI mobile game they canceled. That mobile graphic looked really nice. The company that was porting the mobile game I'm not sure they would have done it justice, and I would fear the mobile curse touch making it very p2w / cash-shop-y... but the screenshots were very purty. Certainly on one hand "Genshin Impact'ing" FFXI might increase the cash flow of it, and the graphics they could achieve are clearly pretty good given the screenshots we have before it was canceled (and obviously Genshin itself), but on the other hand... the mobile monkey paw has it's own costs lol.

How FFXI is currently though is why I think there might be a quite fun FF future of a game that is both HEAVY rpg but also not incredibly unfriendly (like FFXI in the haydays was).

I'd love to see a FF mmo with deep roleplaying, large class differences, smooth more action oriented (maybe to the point you have double jump, dashes, and such- very smooth movement), high emphasis on using 3d worldspace (like Elden Ring with some insane verticality or an mmo comparison like GW2, and their cool mount movement system which WoW is even taking now.. and in my defense I described in FFXIV forums before either of them did it.. lol), etc..

I don't see FFXIV dying anytime soon, but a super greedy desire of mine is seeing a more medieval FFIX-like steampunk, general avoid high tech type stuff, very roleplay enforced game with many friendly systems to prop up some of the more obtuse parts. Like every job is a limited job, but because their primary design was from the beginning to be 'limited' resources were not spared. If you play Summoner you will have a substantially different engagement to the game than if you played warrior, blue, or what have you- but enough systems to not make it so missing the boat costs you your whole play session like OG FFXI.

Of course ensuring a number of strong social features, like sharding for heavy role play of the game but built powerful enough that players could join with friends, perhaps consider adding as much as possible multiplayer moments to the MSQ (or 'sync'ing so you could do a solo content in the same party as your friend even though you don't see each other you could stay in party, talk, wait at the marker, watch them perhaps, even give them minor blessings), housing for freaking all lol (powerful instanced systems, could be ESO or wildstar), more powerful dye and glamour system, etc... All things I feel like I would have trouble getting in FFXIV (but not that I think FFXIV is dying, just wish there existed a steampunky FFIX like more classic world space FF mmo with a stronger emphasis on roleplay while including some of the modern expected amenities like powerful housing and glamour logs).

To me a subtle but major desire is specifically in recognizing movement as a core component of gameplay- minor example might be movement systems as mentioned like GW2 to make it 'fun' to traverse, but as the world gets larger not to forget to add some ways to speed it up. First time somewhere far away may actually be a 'journey' rather than a bunch of instant load screens, but there would be systems in place to make sure someone short on time doesn't have their day wasted. For example consider well designed movement gameplay that adds 40 seconds to destination over holding just w and spacebar to fly directly with no further engagement- fairly certain adding engagement via the first route would be acceptable cost to people's time (but not like... wait 15 minutes for a boat, so you can ride the boat for 15 minutes, so you can wait for an airship for 10 minutes, so you can fly the airship for 15 minutes, so you can then ride a chocobo for 8 minutes- to then do that all over again tomorrow.. that's not what I mean and that is just painful for the everyday joe and jane lol).

A lot of the stuff I'd be hoping for in a future mmo FFXI might be doing, though I have to say again the combat is just.. I don't want to menu dive lol (or in general, the menus are classic but I didn't find them easy to use compared to stuff that accept kb / m exist).

Probably a larger push against me wanting to start FFXI up again than the subscription cost, is the whole combat / menu stuff lol. If there was a combo deal I might consider it, but I fully understand that they don't want to cause FFXI's fate to be hinged like that (or at least what they said before, which I found was fine reasoning).

As an aside on more action / smooth combat honestly quite impressed with the new ffxiv pvp abilities. I know some people don't love the concept as a whole but for me condensing buttons down and making things shift themselves / have multiple purposes is quite nice. Quality over quantity, I don't see the purpose of having 1 2 3 separated unless I would ever launch 3 separately (which for many jobs is never going to be a case). An aside to the asides side though was I hope SE considers changing one use skills, like carbuncle summon to have an alternative. Summon Carbuncle changes to another skill once carbuncle is summoned- maximize space and power of every button. I'd like to see that (more). Basically if a button becomes a dead button then it should be condensed, combined, or enhanced. Few exceptions might apply where it just can't be done smoothly, but certainly for example the carby summon could be.

I just started playing XI yesterday. It's so different from FFXIV, it's really fun! My best memories so far is getting to level 9 as a Black Mage and watching the receptionist Kupipi talking with a magical Trust clone of herself, lol! xD

Oh, and also finding out I can store all my items in my Mog Home with my own personal Moogle helper and being allowed to put my Moogle Cake furniture on the floor! It's my only furniture so far and I love it. :3

I really wanted a mog helper in FFXIV lol. Back in 1.0 to 2.0 transition I was like make the tutorial introduced by them, add them all the UI, make mognet a huge deal, gib moogle everywhere, make them have FFIX (9) flute powers, giveeee mog buddy plzzzzz!

[Erza_Scarlets]

Fun times of loading into the dunes dead cause goblins eat you before you can even load.

FFxi's gear system also one of a kind and by far the best one. Where gear actually had reason to exist with multi stats and different sets of gear. As well as unique stats on lot of different gear.

Not to mentions ffxi's gear set system for equipping and glamour has 200 slots for sets and you can make set out of anything you can wear. If only 14 could learn from it and have enough plates for even all the jobs to have one set of glamour. When older mmo in same series can do glamour better then one based so heavily on glamour.