The truth is we need a remastered XI or a follow up

[VelKallor]

Wildstar had a ton of issues, it just didn't deliver what's being asked in this thread Vel.

I agree, Ath...its just from my POV, MMOs that are major grindfests tend not to have a long shelf life. 2004 gameplay in 2023 is..dated. I am not sure if FF 11 would do as well these days, as a brand name maybe..but God help anyone that tries to establish that kind of game without a dedicated playerbase today.

I am told Wildstars housing was incredible, so they seemed to have nailed that part of it.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I played XI around the time when partying up was mandatory. But honestly what made me fall in love with the game was how dangerous and open the world felt. The adventure aspect really did exist, and the travel. And this despite the world not bieng open, it has zones. And yet it felt huge.

Which, brings me to another aspect. Because of all these systems when there was combat in XI it felt momentous, like, okay stuff is happening because you didn't spend the whole time just blowing stuff up and teleporting. Whereas in XIV because everything has been taken out except combat it feels shallow. Like, okay let's just start blasting with little regard for anything.

You can get through all of XIV without teleporting. I did my ng+ run without flying or teleporting.

XIV gives options, which is nice. Heck, if you wanted to, you could go the whole game walking.


I played lineage 2 as my "oldschool" mmo. I loved it then. I would never go back tho. It's outdated, grind as all hell, and while the maps were huge, there was mostly just random mobs everywhere and no real reason to fight most of them.


Heck, even dark souls, the "omg hardcore" game added fast travel in newer releases. It let's you experience the game, instead of spending tons of time getting to the game.

I love exploration, the first time. After the first time, it becomes a chore. Same with puzzles.


The other problem with games like XI releasing now is the internet. We have dedicated teams data mining and spreading every detail of every part of every game now. Day 1 prog is the most fun because there are no guides. Once the guides come out you get pigeon-holed into doing things everyone's favorite content creators way and no other.

[Ath192]

I agree, Ath...its just from my POV, MMOs that are major grindfests tend not to have a long shelf life. 2004 gameplay in 2023 is..dated. I am not sure if FF 11 would do as well these days, as a brand name maybe..but God help anyone that tries to establish that kind of game without a dedicated playerbase today.

I am told Wildstars housing was incredible, so they seemed to have nailed that part of it.

Thats good, the other thing I want to point out is that XI wasn't the type of hardcore people envision in terms of difficulty. It was a very slow game. It was more a game of forethought. Like maybe you wouldn't want to leave X city before you are done with the stuff you need to do there because it's a journey to make it to the next one and coming back would take a while.

Kind of like, if you were a real adventurer, in a fantasy world that has its horse equivalents and some forms of public transportation that actually work like real public transportation services.

[R041]

Also I just got it setup on Steamdeck, it was pretty easy with the normal Steam version. So hype.

I played XI around the time when partying up was mandatory. But honestly what made me fall in love with the game was how dangerous and open the world felt. The adventure aspect really did exist, and the travel. And this despite the world not bieng open, it has zones. And yet it felt huge.

Which, brings me to another aspect. Because of all these systems when there was combat in XI it felt momentous, like, okay stuff is happening because you didn't spend the whole time just blowing stuff up and teleporting. Whereas in XIV because everything has been taken out except combat it feels shallow. Like, okay let's just start blasting with little regard for anything.

It's interesting, because XI looks like it's split into 2 different games now. The Trust version and Non-Trust + max Lv75? (Not super familiar)

I joined Retail Bahamut because it seems a little slower than Asura, less bots and spam. Most people are using Discord now I think, and it seems pretty active still.

I want to eventually give the other servers a try too, but right now I'm just soaking it up with Trusts and experiencing it at my own pace. It basically feels like XII + Gambits.

And you're right, everything in XI has more weight overall (for casual content). Traveling to another city itself is a whole adventure. I almost died on a damn boat. I have to pay attention to what's around me and figure out how certain things agro. These are the things I liked about XIV Eureka, and it just basically amplifies it x100.

Whenever I'm getting ready to leave a city to trek to another city, I basically feel like a kid on my first day of school trying to make sure I got everything, my lunch, my supplies, am I dressed nice before I get destroyed.

[Amenara]

I agree, Ath...its just from my POV, MMOs that are major grindfests tend not to have a long shelf life. 2004 gameplay in 2023 is..dated. I am not sure if FF 11 would do as well these days, as a brand name maybe..but God help anyone that tries to establish that kind of game without a dedicated playerbase today.

I am told Wildstars housing was incredible, so they seemed to have nailed that part of it.

Even FFXI had to change for the times. You can do pretty near everything except the highest end content solo with trusts which before the 2010s, as pointed out earlier, is not the case. There are major grindfests still in FFXI (looking at you mythic weapons...) but thankfully the leveling and story isn't a part of that anymore.

Also Wildstar's housing was probably the best iteration of housing in a game period. Highly recommend looking up the crazy things people did with it on youtube.

[Ath192]

Traveling to another city itself is a whole adventure. I almost died on a damn boat. I have to pay attention to what's around me and figure out how certain things agro.

Exactly. That's the stuff. If I had to guess it was on the route from Mhaura to Selbina or vice versa.

[Renalt]

I get what Ath is saying. I could go for a bit of an updated XI and I would probably find it more fun than XIV. XI does not respect your time. It is hard, punishing, and things take time...but MAN does it feel GOOD to have a goal in mind and with hard work, determination, and patience...you can achieve that goal.

It's a rush.

All this XI talk is making me want to give it another chance. I tried it very early in my MMO days and did not give it the chance it deserves. It's not the best MMO to start off on.

[Shougun]

I wanna give some appreciation here - This week I started playing XI for the first time.

I'm blown away - everything about the game is amazing and extremely engaging. I never wanted my hand held in XIV, I never wanted choices made for me, I never wanted my rotations pre-planned, and I sure as hell never wanted a visual novel forcing itself on me for hundreds of hours.

XIV has kinda just felt like a museum of FF, which was OK but difficult to get truly immersed. Mostly feels like I'm watching a movie of FF where they just stole old FF assets and put them in new stories.

XI has challenged me in almost every way possible so far, and it feels like an actual open world Final Fantasy mainline game. It's pulled me directly into a universe of it's own design.

If you've only played XIV like me, but absolutely love FF - Do yourself a favor, push past the initial install/setup woes and experience it. (Use a controller)

May be controversial but... having watched quite a few games and their feedback.. I have a thought..

Gameplay is important sure.. and I did hear this a lot during 1.0 to 2.0 as I am bit of a nut on it (then and now) but pacing, immersion, the concepts that ground you in the world space are perhaps equally important.


Now hear me out, because maybe two people are agreeing and I want to misalign myself more ! I read a lot of players, usually the same, who are asking for things that older MMOs tended to do better, and then usually suggesting things like better combat or complaints on mechanics. Then, maybe a little like yourself, praising a game which frankly has very simplistic content in comparison. FFXIV, WoW, etc, constantly shifting fights to be more and more convoluted (which is fine lol) but, and I'm not saying these are mutually exclusive or you can't be talking about two issues at once, but I swear I get a strong inkling when people are having issues with the game, or other games, that they're not really saying they need harder content, more complicated mechanics, or anything like that...

Honestly.. I feel a lot of times people are feeling like they don't have that magical lost experience and immersion and they're hoping through pain they can get it (certainly you can in ultimate when everything is lining up, or your blood pays out), but like... Look at say Bethesda games, honestly their gameplay is fairly bad and thank god for addons and especially for the modding scene these recent years, but the immersion is some of the best in class anywhere.

My own convoluted post to suggest that a lot of peoples problems that are usually expressed on the harder end of things are looking to be immersed, but expressing it by gameplay because that's all they can think to explain but even if the gameplay did change I doubt it would entirely solve what their soul of the problem is attempting to express. Because again really.. really look at some of the best in immersion, that usually people upset about FFXIV's direction are saying, and compare it to like Skyrim or more parallel example FFXI. FFXI, Skyrim, their gameplay if you lay it out on paper is really basic man.. Sure there is magic burst system which had team work but beyond that.. lol. Okey. (fun fact, FFXIV had something kind of like that in 1.0). Or classic WoW where people are laying on all the praise, honestly most of the gameplay earlier on was fairly simple compared to their later more complicated fight mechanics and classes. And the rate of new content for a lot of these older games was even slower, people just did the same thing over and over lol.

Want to say I'm sure some people are saying more things than one at once, but personally watching some people complaining about certain issues and then seeing what they're praising, and the things the game is doing well or not well- I often feel the core target is feeling grounded and not really difficulty (though time is an important calculation in this). I'm still a self proclaimed filthy casual (was hardercore way back when, like I was a "FFXI" player), but now I wouldn't have it any other way, so I anything I suggest naturally will be bent or at least 'bendable' to that but.. often when I see people have issues, I feel it's due to a loss of grounding, identity, magical word that was a bad word on the forums long ago, and not really needing harder and harder content and the scrubs are ruining everything, etc. My personal thought is it's harder to fix lost magic and easier to add new content, on top of people asking for things that don't actually solve the issues they're having (although the homogenization comments have recently, imo, been calling out that issue as it's extremely apparent these days though I believe that wasn't due to casuals but due to the bean counting of end game content).

Anyway... felt it for years and just felt like posting it since you were calling out the immersive element of FFXI and challenge in FFXIV. Gameplay is important sure but grounding your players in the world is nearly equally important if not actually equal and on top of that a lot of players issues of recent time are ultimately stemming from grounding than simply gameplay (with those above games with 'meh' gameplay still being awesome games). Then just for the Thal of it, two games I feel that have fantastic grounding and gameplay would be Ghost of Tsushima and Elden Ring.

[Amenara]

It's interesting, because XI looks like it's split into 2 different games now. The Trust version and Non-Trust + max Lv75? (Not super familiar)

If you were to try a 75 era (not necessarily supported by SE) server that I definitely don't play on from time to time, keep in mind that if they are staying in the realm of how it actually was in the pre-abyssea era it is not a solo game as when you get a high enough level easy prey mobs will blow you up unless you are playing something like Beastmaster or Dragoon with a healer subjob...

[Alacran]

Completely off topic i guess...

(Hidden for light spoilers)

but i just want one of the shards to be set in Vana diel, seeing the areas remade in a new engine with new content would totally stoke the nostalgia, without the clunky out of date gameplay. (it was a product of it's time & everyone knows it wouldn't fly in this dat & age.