Fighting Desperately...

[Firon]

Hell i would go back to XI but Se made me rage quit case i spent 2 years getting my Aegis shield then they say: When you upgrade relics it will still be the best. That was bullshit so i quit. If shit didn't take so long to do in the game i would have played it regardless of the lvl cap increase but i felt like SE gave me a swift kick in the dick, cause of all the time sinks they add and all the bullshit they made you go thru to get gear was all undone by a single patch.

[Xoo]

It's nice to see someone else realizes that FFXI didn't start w/ everything already in place.

Most US and even more so EU players didn't see the game before CoP was released, which is also a factor in the "alot to do" arguments. When the game was released to the world at large the first expansion was already out, and CoP was all but hitting shelves.

This just begs the question, "If you're professionals, why release an unfinished product (again) when you know you're just going to put hundreds of thousands of nails in the game's coffin resulting in it being buried alive, prematurely?"

[Xoo]

Crafting wasn't a job. It was just a skill. And yes, just those 6 pre-NA (Zilart) release.

My point was to contend the relevance of simply having the original battle classes capped in XI, whereas in this game, many have long since passed the point of capping every class/skill/job/profession there is to grind from Lv1-50.

[Xoo]

Well if you wish to go back to FFXI thats fine, no 1 is stopping you. All in all I will have to say that FFXI is now easy mode, it no longer has what it had years ago. SE change FFXI for the worst in a lotta aspects of it and I played til just after level capped increased to 95. I retired because of what SE did to FFXi. It is not the same nor can they bring back that which it had. So if you want easy mode go ahead go play FFXI.

Abyssea was, I'm sure, a testing ground for how the flow of battle was intended to work in FFXIV. I've never played in Abyssea at all, but from what I gather, it isn't a far cry from what we have now in this game.

[ArnoMorley]

We're kidding ourselves if we think we're ever going to get another good FF game. Without Hironobu Sakaguchi there is no Final Fantasy. The series died with his resignation, XI was his last FF and it was the last one that was any good.

I read something on his new company's website about surfing/business, something so simple but yet it was written so beautifully and poetic.

Yoshi P said he wanted XIV to have the same kind of impact 7 did... I like Yoshi P but come on he's no Sakaguchi, Nobody is. When he was Square's vice pres he put his special touch on each title that made it an FF, but now all SE tries to do is copy other games. ex: making XIV a WoW clone, or modeling 12's story off of a disney movie, 13/13-2 stories mainstream anime garbage.

I have hope for 2.0 like the rest of us but as the past decade has taught me, Final Fantasy under the 2004+ management will disappoint at every turn.

[Firon]

We're kidding ourselves if we think we're ever going to get another good FF game. Without Hironobu Sakaguchi there is no Final Fantasy. The series died with his resignation, XI was his last FF and it was the last one that was any good.

I read something on his new company's website about surfing/business, something so simple but yet it was written so beautifully and poetic.

Yoshi P said he wanted XIV to have the same kind of impact 7 did... I like Yoshi P but come on he's no Sakaguchi, Nobody is. When he was Square's vice pres he put his special touch on each title that made it an FF, but now all SE tries to do is copy other games. ex: making XIV a WoW clone, or modeling 12's story off of a disney movie, 13/13-2 stories mainstream anime garbage.

I have hope for 2.0 like the rest of us but as the past decade has taught me, Final Fantasy under the 2004+ management will disappoint at every turn.

Lol heraderp If you knew anything about FF its all related to this anime garbage you speak of.

[ArnoMorley]

Lol heraderp If you knew anything about FF its all related to this anime garbage you speak of.

If you knew anything about FF you'd know they were always about being different than the mainstream. Sure it always contained elements because it was Japanese. 7 resembled an action movie more than anime, 8 got away from the anime element almost entirely and 9 was Shakespearean based.

[lord_Niax]

Lol heraderp If you knew anything about FF its all related to this anime garbage you speak of.

Wait wait wait, you must mean the card minigames, that was sooooooooooooooo yugiho based.Lemme hit that pipe, cmon bro.

With that being said I dont know if this is a troll attempt or he is that dumb.

[Haydest]

Well, going back to the OP's original topic:

If you intend to go back to FFXI re-live those "hardcore" days then you are going to get slapped with a huge of dose of post-2012 reality. Sure, you still have the rather restrictive PS2-port UI to deal with, so you won't get your flashy combo lights or "click here" prompts as you eloquently put. However, you are certainly not going to spending 3-4 months to get to level 99 unless you plan to play solo and in the most tedious way possible (meaning: no Grounds of Valor/Fields of Valor pages).

You think partying/power leveling is in bad in XIV? Squeezing your way into an Abyssea group post 30 will likely net you the 99 cap (presuming you have the cap quests done) in less than 5 sessions (1 or 2 if you have a good group that lasts the entire day). If that's not option, people typically level--ahem, "leech" in alliances nowadays at Gusgen Mines, Crawler's Nest, Garlaige Citadel, Bostineaux Obliquette, and so forth. Seriously, before I quit FFXI (again) there were people in C Nest--at the appropriate level of 40+ wearing...crap, level 1 gear and extra accessory pieces.

So no--if you return today, you are not going to feel FFXI from circa-2004.

[Xoo]

Yanno Haydest, with all due respect and patience, again I repeat the very first sentence stated in the OP:

...with an ever-growing urge to just return to FFXI, get a much-needed nostalgia fix, and play all the jobs I used to love from Lv1 solo.