Quote Originally Posted by Ferth View Post
As others have stated abyssea took all sense of accomplishment out of playing the game.

Grind/solo til 30 then spend 6 hours in abyssea and you are at the level cap.

That's awful, no matter what.
Hell, it's not even just the going from 30 to 90 via Abyssea. It's everything.
I returned to and played XI for a couple months recently, got my DRG from 62 to 73 in Abyssea, 73-75 solo on regime pages and the rest via Abyssea due to lack of outside, non-level sync parties. Even that felt cheap.
After that? Merits. The process now is cap out merits in a matter of 2~3 hours or less, go dump them into whatever you feel like, go back to zone, rinse, repeat. For those who don't know, they upped the unspent Merit limit from 10 to 20. Even as a DD who was actually killing things rather than leeching like a good third of the alliance, it all felt shallow and effortless, something that I never felt while leveling before.
People are getting jobs to 90 with the respective AF3+2, just because they can and have nothing else to do. Best shout I've seen post-Abyssea? "I just got BRD90 what instrument should I use?"
MP management inside Abyssea? Gone, thanks to Minikin Monstrosity (10MP/tic refresh). Got a RDM in the group? Enjoy an extra 10ish/tic via Refresh II.
Some people might say "Oh! Abyssea NMs are hard!" but really, they aren't. The only reason they seem that way is because you're essentially letting them beat on you until you proc whatever weaknesses you need. Just because you're holding back from killing them doesn't mean they'll be doing the same for your party. After you proc? The NM is dead within a minute in 90% of cases. End up wiping somehow? That's fine, just zerg it with Atma of the Apocalypse! Permanent RR3!
Simply put, yeah. The current XI isn't the XI we knew and loved. It's over simplified and way too easy now.