question for current ffxi players

[Shuon]

I think some of the FFXI vets here are remembering the game with extremely rose-colored glasses.

Most definitely true (for me at least). The many hurdles were also the reason why I stopped playing without finishing the story.

I'm just glad the storyline is so accessible now with all the player-friendly features, and levelling is so fast I can actually get to experience so many jobs that would've taken years in 2005. I'm a happy returning player

[Xanikk999]

I played FFXI for one year starting when I was 16 years old. I was forced to quit during Chains of Promathya because my account was hacked and the hacker changed my secret question and all my details. My mother was on the phone with support and none of the new details added up with ours so they told her they couldn't restore the account. I cried so much that day. I never got my account back and starting playing WoW 2 years later which I still play to this day.

Now for my question. How much of the game has changed since Chains of Promathya? I remember when I played it was MANDATORY to level as a group past level 15 as the mobs because way too hard to solo unless you were a beastmaster. Is this still the case?

What else has changed since then? I might be tempted to try it.

[Shuon]

Now for my question. How much of the game has changed since Chains of Promathya? I remember when I played it was MANDATORY to level as a group past level 15 as the mobs because way too hard to solo unless you were a beastmaster. Is this still the case?

What else has changed since then? I might be tempted to try it.

From my limited experience so far:
- you now can set up a party made up of NPC
- the npc will fill up all the main roles I.e. Healer, tank, dps
- you can start using them at level 5
- at level 5 you get up to 3 npc from your starting city, hence creating a party of 4 characters
- doing some simple quests will allow you to have 4 npc instead of 3, hence giving you a party of 5

The above essentially removes the need to find party members for most content of the game.

[Shuon]

And also, there r many exp bonus items available. Coupled with your npc party and exp chaining EM or T mobs, I'm getting 700 to 800 exp for my first kill, and more than 1500 exp for chain 5.

At level 30 I think my exp tnl is around 6000? So a full exp chain to chain 5 is enough for me to get 1 level

[JonLuso]

Basically, lots of new content in the form of mini-games and battle content has been released since then (Monstrosity, Monster Rearing, Seekers of Adoulin and its related battle content, Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, BCNM fights involving the various villains of the expansions, etc).

On the player access side, you can now have 2 chat logs for dividing communication, have multiple LS's and use them if they're in your Storage even, ability to summon placeholder NPCs to your PT that scale with your item/level, help guides/NPCs in the menu that explains where to find content, various graphics additions such as better quality font and resolutions without using reg. edits. Mog Houses now have a second floor for more furniture, which means another Mog Safe is added along with other inventory options such as Mog Sack, Satchel, Case and Wardrobe in addition to the Locker from ToAU and the 2 Mog Safes.

Monstrosity basically is battle content that allows you take the form of a monster and level it up and your own rank by battling other monsters and player characters in the overworld. You acquire these monsters by using 'fetishes' and can change into them in a special portal in each of the main areas such as the nations or the city of Adoulin. Various exclusive monsters have been released, such as XIV's Spriggan via the 1st XIVxXI collaboration event and the XIxDQXI event wherein you can become the famous Slime.

Mog Gardens are a mini-farming simulator where Monster Rearing and your typical farming activities take place to gather resources in the form of minerals, fish or vegetation without requiring any actual Skill Levels in any craft.

You can now store more Macro Sets than ever before and there is a new section of Macro Sets specifically for Glamour: so long as the item you want to glamour is in your current inventory or storage (Mog Safe through Mog Wardrobe), you can choose any item from any of them to glamour over your armor. You can even glamour your armor using items that you can't normally equip, such as a WHM equipping gear for PLD.

Speaking of Mog Wardrobe, if you use a lot of macros for gear-set swaps, you can place your additional sets of gear you use for these in your Mog Wardrobe; it pulls the gear from that storage place and lets you equip it on the fly. It stays in your Mog Wardrobe despite you equipping it, meaning you can safely equip anything in your Wardrobe and let it stay there. This only works with the Inventory and Mog Wardrobe; all other inventory options are the same as ever. Beyond that, you can manually equip items from your Wardrobe, as well, not just through Macros; an option will open up asking where the item you want to equip is located, letting you specify Inventory or Mog Wardrobe.

You can pretty much solo 90% of the game if you get Trust minions; you can get 3 easily from the Trust tutorials at each of the nations. They all give one each, and you can have up to a maximum of 3 Trust minions in a PT. You are allowed to get 2 more on top of this if you progress in Rhapsodies of Vana'diel. Beside that, it's easier to get gear, food and medicine via various NPCs placed around the nations as well as the map vendor selling most of the maps available up to a certain content level without having to go to each specific map vendor.

[Kotemon]

Most definitely true (for me at least). The many hurdles were also the reason why I stopped playing without finishing the story.

I agree, that's why I tossed my hands up and stopped two or three months before 2.0 came out on the ps4. Stun-Sch?, Yoichi RNG occ Sam?, WHM?, do you have End game? TH8 THf, Capped Relic Bard, Aegis Pld? get good <kick>, get better gear <kick>, got 119 R/M/E? <ignored>. God forbid you were a pug DPS and one person is parsing for most of the group "your doing <number> get better gear <kick> (warps and shouts for replacement)". The time sync to farm all those weapons, gear, accessories, skills, macro macro-management for every skill and ability. I'm still hesitant to even attempt to go back and do the Rapsody story let alone attempt to complete Adoulin.