Why was FFXI so great?

[Alaltus]

Personally when abyssea came out all that old content becoming useless didnt bother me so much as the experience parties were completely replaced with alliance sized(18+) abyssea parties. The exp was massive but just long sessions of boredom and tiredness for me. I would have prefered if they had made Nyzul isle a more prominant leveling form, something with actual challenge and didnt suck away all the skill by just throwing bodies at it.

[Corrderio]

Personally when abyssea came out all that old content becoming useless didnt bother me so much as the experience parties were completely replaced with alliance sized(18+) abyssea parties. The exp was massive but just a long sessions of boredom and tiredness for me. I would have prefered if they had made Nyzul isle a more prominant leveling form, something with actual challenge and didnt suck away all the skill by just throwing bodies at it.

Was Abyssea really that bad? That sounds worse than merit parties before the level cap increase 0.o

And yes to Nyzul. I'd kill for an event with a sense of randomness in it to keep you on your feet.

[Zumi]

Was Abyssea really that bad? That sounds worse than merit parties before the level cap increase 0.o

And yes to Nyzul. I'd kill for an event with a sense of randomness in it to keep you on your feet.

Exping in abyssea was really no different then exping in merit parties. Excpet you had more people and you got more exp so you could get done with exping faster which is boring no matter where you did it.

[Alaltus]

Was Abyssea really that bad? That sounds worse than merit parties before the level cap increase 0.o

And yes to Nyzul. I'd kill for an event with a sense of randomness in it to keep you on your feet.

1 person to pull mobs, 1 person set to assist and 1 person calling the desired form of death (physical/magical/etc) for exp bonus/time bonus and gear chests. You still needed to maintain the party with healers and buffers ofcourse. Exp parties + dynamis = abyssea, thats how it always seemed to me anyway. Abyssea was one of the only times i managed to be a melee rdm without much complaint though.

[Jokerz]

1 person to pull mobs, 1 person set to assist and 1 person calling the desired form of death (physical/magical/etc) for exp bonus/time bonus and gear chests. You still needed to maintain the party with healers and buffers ofcourse. Exp parties + dynamis = abyssea, thats how it always seemed to me anyway. Abyssea was one of the only times i managed to be a melee rdm without much complaint though.

There was that much to it? With abby buffs people pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted to do>.>;

[Alaltus]

There was that much to it? With abby buffs people pretty much did whatever the hell they wanted to do>.>;

Well i stopped playing ffxi altogether a few months after abyssea came out but i have seen the buffs you can get exclusively in abyssea so i'll take your word on that one.

[Amage]

Abyssea was the best thing to happen to FFXI in my opinion it brought life back into the game and I actually saw a lot of people that came back that quit FFXI. Why because gear you got 7 years ago still shouldn't be best in slot. Abyssea gave people a lot to do get new better gear and level up to 99. It was so unlike SE because they usually just gave us sidegrade stuff but these were actual upgrades and new AF3 sets to collect.

no it didnt you may have seen people you knew come back but many who spent their time getting everything like Aegis and other relics were a waste most ppl took 2+years to complete relics given a good shell and in 1 day you can get something that out does that weapon abyssea was made for those who didnt want to try at the game or work hard at it

[Amage]

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.

yeah no one skillchains why would you want to do more damage on the monster thats just stupid

[Amage]

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.
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.

you clearly didnt play blm or any caster past kuftal tunnel

[Gramul]

I think we have room for both quick casual (we have a lot of that. Most of the content takes no longer than an hour per task.) and hard long term content (we have some of that in Grand company rewards and achievement rewards).
To deny the validity of one or another is a little selfish as I see it. Regardless, at this point, I think we could use more long term content.