Why was FFXI so great?

[Roaran]

FFXI was like an actual Final Fantasy game. It had a sense of story and adventure from beginning to end. FFXIV and essentially every MMO I've played has replaced the adventure with 'end game content' (boring and repetetive raids for example), and the story is at times either brief boring or a combination of the two.

FFXIV has more potential than most, and that and FFXI are probably the reason I stick around. If the current types of updates were what we could expect for the next few years, I would quit in a heartbeat.

[darkstarpoet1]

well as one that played and left xi pretty quickly i can say not very much to me. the one thing i can say it did well was have tons and tons of content that allowed people to overlook it's massive flaws. if xiv had as much content on release as xi had most of its flaws could have been overlooked just like xi's was.

i actually preferred xiv on release than i did xi as far as battle system was concerned, but with no content it got stale really quickly just killing the same mobs over and over with nothing to look forward to.

[Jinko]

FFXI was like an actual Final Fantasy game.

I played FF11 for 5 years and never did it feel very Final Fantasy to me, It was a good game don't' get me wrong although it had its problems but I never got that Final Fantasy vibe from it.

Chocobo's, moogles and airships were about all there was to it, of course this game isn't much different either.

Yoshida has said in several interviews of course that he also felt this world was lacking the Final Fantasy feel and he plans to rectify that, can't wait to see what he plans for 2.0 ^^

[Lux_Rayna]

Try not to write essays, if you can :P

Nostalgia. The End.

EDIT: Agree with Jinko

[Denmo]

Refer to this comic for a better idea of the experience.

[Beorhtel_Fet]

XI had content, both for hardcore and casual players (though the casual content took longer to come)

Hardcore: nm, endgame areas (sea/sky) with tiered steps to take and make progress, several different events that werent simple run straight through raids

casual: besieged (town invasion event with fleshed out npc general allies and enemies), campaign (always going capture the territory from beastment event), FoV (increased exp for targeting certain mobs), chest drops from normal mobs

not to mention excellent expansion storylines, RoZ CoP ToA WoG (good npcs)

Why abyssea ruined it? for years everything was geared towards 75, and a lot of "ultimate" sets that took lots of effort to get at 75, suddenly became garbage. Lots of people felt like all their time went to waste

This is kind of on the right track.... I also would like to add that alot (not all) of the newer players burned their jobs up to high levels from level 30 in Abyssea and never learned to play them correctly. My friends from 11 that are coming to 14 now because of all of that tell me horror stories of Abyssea babies not knowing what skillchains and Magic Bursts are. In Abyssea, people got away with afking in their xp parties because nobody could tell they were even there when 2/18 people did most of the work. This was the complete opposite of old school 11 in the sense that the old days forced all people to work together or none of you could get anything done as almost nothing was done solo efficiently. Particularly on my server in the older days if you didn't know how to play your job you were booted from the party and replaced, which kind of forced people to have some idea of what they were doing, although there were exceptions.

[Zumi]

Abyssea babies not knowing what skillchains and Magic Bursts are.

No that's not true. Nobody uses skillchains or magic bursts ever in the game even at end game. FFXI hardly had any new players when Abyssea came out it only had current players leveling all their jobs to 99. Well some people bought extra accounts so they could duo box all the best gear in the game but thats about it.

[Denmo]

Nobody uses skillchains or magic bursts ever in the game even at end game.

Another reason I'll never go back.

[Jocko]

Mostly, FFXI had a better sense of progression and pacing, with a variety of content along the way. Every new piece of gear you received, every new form of progression you hit, felt massive and important because you would use what you obtained for your accomplishments over a long period of time. In contrast, in FFXIV, you can power level to 50 in a week, and all of the crafted gear for 1-40, all of the open world NM's that drop level 25-35 gear, the level 25 raid...is all pointless and irrelevant because you speed right by the need for them. That's my biggest hope for 2.0, that it will slow WAY, WAY down, and fill the gap from beginning to end game with meaningful content

An MMO shouldn't be exclusively about endgame, with everything before nothing more than a grind to get there. It should be about the long term journey, with the bulk of the content spread through evenly. The end should be the climax, using everything you learned and obtained to conquer. And once an expansion hits, you start again with a new journey of sorts, following the same principles. At least, that's what I believe

...I suppose that went a bit off topic, though

[Duelle]

I played FFXI for three years almost non stop and I have an opposite view. If XI was as great as some put it, it would have been a more well received game for the gaming community at large, specially the Final Fantasy fans, wich are among the most loyal fans out there. The game was only good for the stubborn gamers that put up with the nonsensical gameplay mechanics in place at that time.

I loved FFXI to death, but I see it for what it is/was.

This. I don't think many started realizing this until they started playing other games of the same generation and saw how stagnant in design XI is.

Nobody uses skillchains or magic bursts ever in the game even at end game.

This too. Skillchains were borked by latency, leading to anything more complicated than a two-step SC doing nothing. Their idea was that players would all build up the skillchain so that two melee make a level 1 skillchain, then one guy joins in and makes it lv2 and then the last guy comes in and makes it lv3. I have a feeling battle regiments were following this idea in a way.

Magic bursts are testinomy to how poorly-designed magic was in XI, when your nukers had to start casting before the skillchain even started.