Considering FFXI till FFXIV 2.0

[StubHub]

Just recently started from scratch on new character after not having played for 3 years +.

Am enjoying it right now as much as I ever did. Alot of the things I was reading that had changed (no more traditional parties etc) had me skeptical if I could still enjoy it. I'm still only in my 60s right now so ill have to see how I feel about the new endgame. But as far as breaking into it, and working past the circles of not being able to do certain things because I don't have the gear. And not having gear because I can't get into a group. Well, that's how it is in every game so I'm used to doing what's necessary to get by until I find my way.

[Mamba]

As someone who has never quit playing XI since it came out the game has gotten way better in my opinion since abyssea came out.

Abyssea destroyed the FFXI community and end game is now full of people who have burned their jobs to 99 with 0 skill...

There is no need for real linkshells anymore since everything can be lowmanned (except Legion, PW and ADL).
If you are a casual player and you have a few friends to play the game with, great, FFXI is perfect for you now.
But if you are looking for a buzzing linkshell with events and the feeling from the olden days, then forget about it.

I am playing ff11 still and quite enjoy it as I play with my boyfriend and a few RL friends. The beginning of the game has been made more "user friendly" for noobies and quests will guide you through most of the basic things now. There are still some social linkshells but they come and go because there is no real need for socials anymore. People tend to have their own little groups they play with.
There are some event linkshells that do endgame stuff but the reguirements are quite high if you actually want to get some of the harder stuff (mention in the beginning) done.

[Zumi]

Abyssea destroyed the FFXI community and end game is now full of people who have burned their jobs to 99 with 0 skill...

There is no need for real linkshells anymore since everything can be lowmanned (except Legion, PW and ADL).
If you are a casual player and you have a few friends to play the game with, great, FFXI is perfect for you now.
But if you are looking for a buzzing linkshell with events and the feeling from the olden days, then forget about it.

I am playing ff11 still and quite enjoy it as I play with my boyfriend and a few RL friends. The beginning of the game has been made more "user friendly" for noobies and quests will guide you through most of the basic things now. There are still some social linkshells but they come and go because there is no real need for socials anymore. People tend to have their own little groups they play with.
There are some event linkshells that do endgame stuff but the reguirements are quite high if you actually want to get some of the harder stuff (mention in the beginning) done.

Basically had maybe 1-2 people that still played and abyssea allowed everyone to do stuff again. Everything is pugged now too VW, PW, Nyzul. Nobody had a full linkshell anymore really, just a bunch of low man or solo stuff. VW takes full 18 but you get a few friends and fill the rest out with pugs.

Before abyssea the game was pretty much dead with no new content.

[tobyx]

I'm back on Leviathan as Litos, my original character from Remora.
I'm taking things veeeeeeery slowly but having fun even doing just that. I have yet to reach 99 (quit at first level raise to 80) and am once again mesmerized by the scale of FFXI.

[Xikeroth]

I myself went back to FFXI with my gf and a few friends for something to do, but its nothing special really, nothing like it used to be. My friends and I enjoyed low manning content at 75(there was quite a bit of good content)

FFXI IS still enjoyable but its not the same experience as it was at level 75. Level 75 took teamwork, effort and finishing a lot of hard content, be it storyline or just something endgame related with your friends was very rewarding.

Upsides

- Very easy to level solo.
- Easier to level in an Abyssea party.
- Easiest MMO to level in.
- Very easy to gear at level 90+
- A lot of content (in a game that's been out 10 years this is expected.. however some of it is just revamped old content)
- Its not a hard game to pick up and play, they got rid of most of what made the game complicated(which can be counted as a downside too?)
- One of the easiest MMOs on the market(... sorry fanboys you're no longer playing a game with a high skill requirement...)
- Emperyan armor sets and weapons are a joke to obtain despite what another person has said it takes almost no time at all to get a decent set of equipment if you put some effort into it, but it doesn't take much.(I have seen someone go from new trial to level 85 emperyan in 6 days without issue)
-FFXI has catered to casual players so there is still a decently large player base depending on server(hey it's proof that casual players help keep MMOs alive now isn't it?)

Now that that is out of the way, since I always see both sides of the coin...

Downsides
-Even if you leech xp in parties, you still will need to skillup and get gear or you'll be useless.
-Very few people in FFXI help out anyone else anymore(more people helped eachother when 75 was the cap)
-There is almost no learning curve to FFXI anymore. A lot of people don't even know the basis for jobs or what they can do.
(I met a RDM the other day that actually said MND is useless for RDM. When i told them MND governs white magic(specifically paralyze and slow) and most of their sword weaponskills(they were using a sword), they said INT did... I've met DDs that didn't know what secondary damage modifiers were and THFs that didn't know what DEX does for Sneak attack and AGI does for trick attack... some didn't even know at 60+ TA will always crit if used behind someone else... Just a few examples and this is VERY common now...)
- You still have the "hardcore" players with attitude problems that think they are better than everyone else, you'll never lose them regardless of MMO though.

In the end its still enjoyable but also still far from perfect. I personally am only playing until 2.0 comes out. What made FFXI great for me... the incredible storylines, the difficult fights doing some missions the sense of achievement is all gone. Teamwork in parties or alliances are not as needed as they once were. Maybe to hit weaknesses in their weakness targeting system(TERRIBLE CONCEPT BY THE WAY!) but that's about it.

There is still a lot to it but there have been no good story lines since before Wings of the goddess, the addons were terrible for storyline, especially Abyssea.

If you're just looking to kill some time, FFXI is still good for that though, just don't expect the same experience.

[Xikeroth]

The most annoying thing I find about FFXI currently is most people will pay for 2 accounts dual box a meele+whm to do empyreans. You can solo it yes but its pretty slow. Kind of annoying to see dual boxers everywhere. I mean what every happened to playing with other people? There is a kind of solo everything mentality in the game for abyssea.

I dual box but its for different reasons, I dual boxed BEFORE abyssea came out because I found no matter what event I was doing we always lacked something So I leveled up a RDM(my old main on my main character) and it helped complete the old content. I never take my dual box to just Solo stuff. I only use it to help my friends with what they need.

[Gentaro]

I tried XI - I failed


or rather FFXI failed....its not what is was back then.

/disappointed

[MicahZerrshia]

A lot of people don't even know the basis for jobs or what they can do.
(I met a RDM the other day that actually said MND is useless for RDM. When i told them MND governs white magic(specifically paralyze and slow) and most of their sword weaponskills(they were using a sword), they said INT did... I've met DDs that didn't know what secondary damage modifiers were and THFs that didn't know what DEX does for Sneak attack and AGI does for trick attack... some didn't even know at 60+ TA will always crit if used behind someone else... Just a few examples and this is VERY common now...).

The most amusing things I have seen are

lvl 99 thieves asking "I keep getting a msg in my log about treasure hunter, wtf is that?"
lvl 99 pups who dont even have their animator on them because they dont use manuvers
lvl 99 mages who dont know what <stpt> and <stal> are and just using f and tab keys to target for heals and buffs
lvl 99 sch who never even bothered to get thier weather scrolls and have no idea what weathers do

the list goes on. There are alot of basics for each class that are important to that class which people just simply don't learn anymore and there are no ls or vet players willing to teach them.

[MicahZerrshia]

- Emperyan armor sets and weapons are a joke to obtain despite what another person has said it takes almost no time at all to get a decent set of equipment if you put some effort into it, but it doesn't take much.(I have seen someone go from new trial to level 85 emperyan in 6 days without issue).

Ok unless this was an elemental path and not a nm path I am going to call fowl on this. The only way to accomplish a nm path empy in 6 days is with a good and efficiant low man group who is already properly geared or someone who plays 6 days around the clock.

Considering that any nm empy path (and these are the empy everyone wants you to have for endgame) you have to get 21 nm kills that have a minimum of 1 hr respawn (and let's face it to get all 21 of these to spawn right at an hr is not possible) plus another 20 kills of a t2 vwnm plus anywhere from 50-100 aby nm kills depending on whether they drop 1-2 of the trial items AND the 1-4 nm you have to kill to get the ki to even spawn it.

So getting an 85 empy in 6 days without issue is not possible for the average gamer. Like I said I can totally see this is you have a group that is willing to farm and give you all empy drops or maybe if you play around the clock and have alot of crour to kill on brews, already are geared well and duo box. But either of these two options are not really common occurances in ffxi anymore (at least on asura). And outside a few exclusive sets, alot of the empyrean armor pieces and some full sets have been rendered useless. I have been in pugs where someone on war, sam or drg will come in full +2 and taunted and eventually kicked for having "bad gear" even though they had a 90-95 empy weapon

[Naraku_Diabolos]

Also... on another serious note, I did a lot of PLD back in the day. All I've been reading is that both PLD and DRK are shit and there's now a such thing as "Melee WHM" that even proves more useful than the two. Can you confirm/emphasize on that?

Lawl, I'm actually soloing on my WHM on FFXI. I've had troubles finding parties in recent years, so I've mainly soloed. I've always melee with my mages (I engage monsters in parties just in case my character drew hate from the tank, that way I could smack it), but I also melee with my RDM a lot of the time. I just switched to the Carbuncle server today with my LS from FFXIV so they can help me. All of my friends from the Siren (Diabolos) server are no longer on the game.