Forcing us to the entire story quest to unlock the new classes is just bad business

[Catwho]

Wut?

No, it wasn't required to beat Shadow Lord to access the new jobs.
No, it wasn't required to complete most the main-story to access Kazham. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the point where you get a free Airship Pass (Rank 5?), had no baring whatsoever on you getting access to Kazham, which was a seperate quest entirely.

All of the content, you had access to, if you were of a level that was appropriate. A level 30 could unlock -all- the new jobs. Just as it should have been here (assuming class pre-reqs are met.)

Access to Kazham required a full party of 30+ people, or a level 75 friend who could solo the level 40 mobs that dropped the keys. People just cheated and got a friend to get the keys for their level 18 scrub character because of the mandy and goblin camps in Kazham. It was never intended for you to get there earlier than level 30 (the required level for any advanced jobs) despite what we did.

COP could not be started until level 30 at all. (And it was really a waste of time at that level.) Portions were level gated throughout.

Later on, Abyssea was very firmly gate locked to level 30, and we all fervently wish that had been 60 because of all the folks that leveled jobs from 30+ before they could contribute at all to the alliance damage.

SE decided to gate lock the new content and new jobs to 50 as a hard and fast rule, to prevent the cheaters like we had in XI.

[Allyrion]

People really need to read this and just let that sink in for a minute. When other gamers literally have to warn you NOT to buy your game...there just might be an issue. Call me crazy.

That person just said that getting through that content is not that hard or an issue but people might not give it a chance because threads like these are just negative.
Sounds like a player issue.

Not that rare either. Go to any game's forums and you'll find people warning others that game is bad, don't buy it, for X reason.
Even if it's valid, people need to make their own decisions and the developers will never please everyone.

[Eidolon]

Access to Kazham required a full party of 30+ people, or a level 75 friend who could solo the level 40 mobs that dropped the keys. People just cheated and got a friend to get the keys for their level 18 scrub character because of the mandy and goblin camps in Kazham. It was never intended for you to get there earlier than level 30 (the required level for any advanced jobs) despite what we did.

Wow, you could not be more wrong at all, and I wonder if you even played FFXI to endgame.

Wanna know what mobs you had to hunt to get a Kazham Airship Pass? The information's readily available.

Let's take Giddeus as an example, which honestly was the hardest key for me when the game first came out... :
Giddeus Chest key from Yagudo Priest, Yagudo Votary, and Yagudo Theolgist in Giddeus.

Take a look at each those links. Not a single one of the mobs exceed level 28. At level 25, a full party was easily able to farm these areas. There were also camps where we sat at. No, we didn't need to be "Cheating" our way in... the area was easily designed to LET us in at 25.

Level 18, we went to Qufim Island. We did this by sneaking (A solo-able journey, though some were escorted by high-level players) to Jeuno. Seriously, where did you get your numbers? Did you even play FFXI?

COP could not be started until level 30 at all. (And it was really a waste of time at that level.) Portions were level gated throughout.

CoP Could not be started until level 30, indeed that is true - for the first instance was a level-capped 30 zone as well as a boss fight level capped at... you guess it! Level 30! There was a special zone locked off post-those 3 dungouns that you could get access to full of... level 30+ mobs!

And then the level 40, 50, 60, and then 75 cap fights -all- were able to be done at those levels.

The ultimate reward for defeating Tenzen after all of the capped fights... was access to the final area, Sea, and one of the most GORGOUS areas you have ever seen. All of this was earned during the level process!

What relevance is this, however? That's an example for having gating that makes sense. If you had to be level 75 in order to access CoP, you might have a point. But from where I stand, you don't.

Later on, Abyssea was very firmly gate locked to level 30, and we all fervently wish that had been 60 because of all the folks that leveled jobs from 30+ before they could contribute at all to the alliance damage.

I quit before Abyssea, sadly. That was beyond my time, but I came back when leveling had switched to Alliance spam and realised that the FFXI I loved had passed, and moved on to other games.

I won't say it would've been bad to gate it to 60 if that's when you could contribute to the fights. That makes sense. But were any new jobs released in abyssea? Where any of them locked behind access to Abyssea? Because that would actually lend a little bit to your point.

[Catwho]

I'm a Ghorn bard and ran NoSephiroth Dynamis on Seraph and later Bismarck. I played XI pretty steadily until last December, actually. I started just when CoP was released. I tried to do a CoP fight when I was level 30 and I was completely and utterly lost - XI was brutal and did not hold your hand when it came to expansions, and I'd somehow gotten involved in a CoP party without having done the first cutscenes.

The Kazham key mobs in the three beastman areas were actually in the level 40+ areas of the zones; if you were lucky you might catch someone farming the bosses there to solo for you. I did that plenty of times for people when I was soloing stuff back there (for spells to sell.)

No new jobs were tied to Abyssea, but the expansion itself didn't make any sense if you hadn't finished CoP. (Abyssea was an alternate universe in which you died in the final fight of CoP and the Apocalypse happened.)

[Eidolon]

I'm a Ghorn bard and ran NoSephiroth Dynamis on Seraph and later Bismarck. I played XI pretty steadily until last December, actually. I started just when CoP was released.

Fair point! The game was not newcommer friendly, and I definitely don't want to see FFXI start bashing down new players as it did. I would like it to stay very friendly to both casual and hardcore alike. I think that's a great thing this game has done.

Edit-In Right Here: I do want to say however, that if you went to the areas at level 30, you could clear them at level 30, new player or no. It's just like you said... the fights were a genuine challenge. It wasn't made to be easy. But to me, it seemed ideal to go to these areas when you WERE level 30 if you kept your gear up to date because it meant you didn't have to deal with the pesky level synch. For those uninformed: Level Synch when it first came out in FFXI didnt' synch your armor. It made you nekkid.

This is why I'm stressing that this design with the new jobs is not friendly, it is silly and counter-intuitive towards getting more players playing and stay playing.

The Kazham key mobs in the three beastman areas were actually in the level 40+ areas of the zones; if you were lucky you might catch someone farming the bosses there to solo for you. I did that plenty of times for people when I was soloing stuff back there (for spells to sell.)

If I had to guess, you're very confused. There weren't level 40+ mobs inside of Giddeus, Palborough Mines, OR Yughott Grotto.

Well, except the ones in Orange, which were Notorious Monsters. You're thinking of other areas I think, because these areas were very pre-30 friendly.

No new jobs were tied to Abyssea, but the expansion itself didn't make any sense if you hadn't finished CoP. (Abyssea was an alternate universe in which you died in the final fight of CoP and the Apocalypse happened.)

That sounds pretty bloody awesome. XD It definitely would make sense had you died in that final fight, I'm sure... there was a lot of revelations, even in that last cutscene. That story was beautifully done.

[XxSliphxX]

That person just said that getting through that content is not that hard or an issue but people might not give it a chance because threads like these are just negative.
Sounds like a player issue.

Not that rare either. Go to any game's forums and you'll find people warning others that game is bad, don't buy it, for X reason.
Even if it's valid, people need to make their own decisions and the developers will never please everyone.

And i'm saying it's a problem that needs to be addressed...or not if square truly doesn't care about making more money. Too many apologist on this forum that think square can do no wrong and it's always the players/consumers fault. A bad business model is a bad business model regardless of your personal feeling on it.

[Raist]

Wut?

No, it wasn't required to beat Shadow Lord to access the new jobs.
No, it wasn't required to complete most the main-story to access Kazham. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the point where you get a free Airship Pass (Rank 5?), had no baring whatsoever on you getting access to Kazham, which was a seperate quest entirely.

All of the content, you had access to, if you were of a level that was appropriate. A level 30 could unlock -all- the new jobs. Just as it should have been here (assuming class pre-reqs are met.)

There was far more involved than just being level 30. You had to progress through content that gated you on top of the level requirement as well.

[AdamFyi]

Not that it particularly effects me since I've been playing since launch, however I have had friends who came back, became daunted at the sheer volume of quests they needed to complete in order to just GET to ishgard, and said (Snip) then quit again. It was really unfortunate.

The Heavensward questline has more quests on top of the ARR questline. Not to sound rude, but I highly doubt they would last long if that's the case. The new jobs being gated behind Ishgardian areas is pretty reasonable.

Also considering the fact that, Someone did mention that the jobs weren't really locked behind the expansion - just that unlocking it required you have access to Ishgardian areas.

And i'm saying it's a problem that needs to be addressed...or not if square truly doesn't care about making more money. Too many apologist on this forum that think square can do no wrong and it's always the players/consumers fault. A bad business model is a bad business model regardless of your personal feeling on it.

To be honest, there are an equal amount of people on this forum who do think that SE does everything wrong and that it's never the player/consumers fault. Personally, I do appreciate the fact that SE focuses on the game itself rather than making something half-baked just for the money. It really shows how much they put into the game and how much they care about it; which not a lot of MMOs actually do.

[Eidolon]

There was far more involved than just being level 30. You had to progress through content that gated you on top of the level requirement as well.

Content that you could do on-level. Please read the other posts - I already went over that while yes, there was certain things you had to do, you did NOT have to essentially level well pass the point the content was at to clear it.

[Raist]

Content that you could do on-level. Please read the other posts - I already went over that while yes, there was certain things you had to do, you did NOT have to essentially level well pass the point the content was at to clear it.

Depends on how you were running some of them--sometimes you needed to build a rep first, be that in game or amongst players, you couldn't simply waltz into the game and go straight to unlocking and playing the advanced jobs.

Take for instance the NIN quest--you had to kill 3 level 32 NM's. To unlock DRG, you had to be at least Rank 2 Sandy, or had to be on 2-3 (the envoy rank missions) so you could get into the Chatteaux. PLD required you run a series of 3 quests and you had to sneak your way through Davoi for a key item (may need help managing some 33-ish mobs). SMN required farming a rare ruby drop (having good TH was a good idea)--while some of the more popular targets were in the 20/25 range, if you weren't careful you could get overwhelmed by aggro (again, precautions are in order). And don't even get started on the risks and hoops needed for the TAU and later additions (dangers of level 60-100 mobs and such in some cases).

The typical soloists/low man situations was bringing along something on the order of a 40+ job, and even then it could still be dicey sometimes if solo. That meant either you or someone helping you had likely progressed through a lot of content reaching that point on their character. Note also that the original endgame level and first limit break took place at level 50, hence my reference to people being at or near endgame status.

Basically, you kinda needed be playing through content so you know what you were doing on these things--or have networked enough to have good help along the way. It was nowhere near being on the level of a "let's install the game and go straight to unlocking my advanced job of choice and play all the way through on that job from day one" kind of game. You had to invest time and effort first.