Lore, FFXI or FFXIV

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

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Which is all fine and good, but my issue wasn't that you can do anything whenever, but instead that the game tosses you into everything without you having a say in the matter, and whether you've established the context you need to enjoy it or not. A bunch of nonsense being thrown at me doesn't make me want to pursue it further - at best, it's a tedious roadblock to whatever I'm trying to do at that time, and at worst it destroys any narrative flow that the game might otherwise have. XIV clearly marks story quests and gives you the option to start them whenever; XI has nothing like the former and outright forces the opposite of the latter. And while I'm sure that XI's refusal to use such petty things as "quest markers" is more immersive for some, the alternative it offers results in very poor storytelling structure.

[CyrusArjuna]

The thing that really grinded my gears about XI was some of the time sponge gating they did. Having to wait for JP midnight on ToAU missions, having to do story sidequests for WotG, or having to have a certain amount of Coalition fame for SoA kinda sucked lol. Despite that though the game still holds a special place in my heart.

[Nalien]

JP midnight, as much as I loathed it at the time, did provide a fairly nice narrative function... It gave events more weight, as you couldn't just jump forwards with the plot... As much as I loved 3.2, events did move ridiculously quickly...

We had a disaster at Falcon's Nest, then did the Grand Melee, then back to Falcon's Nest ready to put that show back on despite the previous issues... Knocked all that out in a matter of minutes... It left me going "How would the general population even know about the Grand Melee? We literally just decided to do it and now we're back here doing this like nothing happened...", sure NPCs mentioned it, but considering I'd only just done it literally 5 minutes prior, I had a hard time believing that...

Were this XI? We'd have had a disaster at Falcon's Nest, then had to wait for JP midnight to let things sink in... Then we'd do the Grand Melee! Then wait for JP midnight again... Then we read the mood in Ishgard a day later and the event is back on!

You know... I actually wouldn't mind that... Right now I just blow through the story in a day and I'm stuck waiting until the next major patch... Throw in JP midnight and the plot lasts a bit longer at least... It's a shame content tends to be locked behind story progression here, too... That was probably the biggest issue I had with JP midnight in XI, and I likely see no issue with it here because I'm not playing catch-up with this game... Though I'm also sure a large part of it was just how utterly inane some of the JP midnight waits were...

On that subject of ToAU though, remember how you had to wear specific attire before you could have an audience with the Empress in ToAU? Damn I miss little things like that... How much better 2.55 would have played out had we a system like that... Sadly we can't even unequip our weapons though, so that goes completely out the window...

Fame is definitely a mechanic I'm glad to see the back of, even if Beast Tribe dailies do a similar thing... I think here it works because the "Fame" quests are so closely tied to the story progression of the tribes, where as in XI I was turning in bat wings and crystals so I could get enough Fame to do the next Nation quest? lolwut?

[CyrilLucifer]

I agree. While at the time I really found JP midnight obnoxious, but after playing XIV and how the MSQ really feels like I'm doing nothing but pushing forward, I think XI's breaks after big events were rightly placed.

For example, I'm really of the belief that we should have taken some "off time" after the Vault, not just rushed into Bismarck. You can't just run the WoL into the ground; their mental stability is important, too.

I think the way SE does it now in XI, where it's one in-game day, works better as a balance. You're still getting the sense of time passing as you recover, but you don't have to wait that long.

[CyrusArjuna]

Maybe the breakneck pace at which we can do the MSQ kinda ties into some theories about how the WoL (us) is going through some rough times when it comes to mental health? :O

But to be more serious, I suppose the JP midnight stuff wasn't really all that bad if you were doing it as it came out like Nalien said...but having gone back to XI a bit before RoV came out and rushing through the stories...those breaks were killer. It was especially annoying since the ToAU jobs had crafted AF pieces that were tied to the same JP midnight junk still! Of course if you were a smart BLU you'd get the hands made first and maybe get the other crafted pieces for vanity.

...I miss Blue Mage XI's was probably the most badass iteration of it in the series

[Khalithar]

I felt FFXI was definitely more immersive and pulled you in to it's world over time as you talked to NPC's and did the various story missions and learned about the background of what happened to the different races. The San D'oria storyline told you about the creation of an entire continent, showed you the current infighting in the royal family, and showed you a great deal of what life was like for them in their war against the orcs.

The class storylines were memorable for me also, Zeid in particular stood out as my mentor and his final words always stuck with me when I was RPing my character and I still remember them now and I'm going to quote them here because they're awesome, "if you ever doubt the path you have chosen, look at your blade and ask yourself, does it shine with true darkness?" It was a little awkward doing the level 50 story quests as a 60+ though since you do the drk storyline and then you meet Zeid in the 50 stuff and he doesn't know you... but I digress. Or the pld story quests where you meet the strict dad and his son and help them out to.

The storylines and lore from FFXI that stood out to me most were the drk storyline, san d'oria storyline, and all of CoP where you learn the truth of the evil god. I was so sad when it ended as well, no more adventures with Prishe or Tenzen (at the time) and beating CoP when it was still considered hard as a dark knight which everyone had said couldn't beat CoP but I managed to do it without being carried. Then after that going to Aht Urgan, the entire area was really interesting, the different classes had an interesting lore, the monsters and enemies were pretty cool also, from the chigoe infested mammoths to the troll mercenaries and the mamool ja.

[SinSiew79]

All I will say is I hate how dumbed-down XIV is compared to XI. XI actually had difficult things you had to achieve, like going from Windy to Jeuno that first time. It was nerve-wrecking. But thanks to (and im probably an old grouch now) what i see is a massive influx of WoW gamers into this game, SE had to dumb it down, cause "everybody" kept bitching and whining that "things are far too hard, i cant figure stuff out/things are too hard, Im not used to having to think" (sorry; but thats how I feel, I'm sure thats is alot of exWoWers that also likes a good challenge). I feel that SE toning down things in this game, as opposed to the difficulty of XI, made this a lesser game then what it could have been, and tbh its kinda runing the game as it stands today for me.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

XIV offers plenty of good challenges. Pretending that the game's accessibility is somehow only enjoyable by drooling, filthy casuals and that it offers nothing for those who like a challenge is as unfair as saying that XI is an obtuse nightmare with no respect for anybody who might not want to dedicate every waking moment to it. I think both games have a healthy amount they do better than the other one, though I won't really go much more in-depth on gameplay comparisons, considering the original intent of the thread.

Instead, I'll ask: what about the story, world, and characters do you find is dumbed down in XIV, in comparison to XI?

[CyrilLucifer]

In regards to the world?

Everything. Literally everything - and that's even discounting zone sizes and possible immersion (because I loathe when people use immersion as an argument).

Terrifying, multi-storied beast dungeons where the enemies are actually a threat and don't leash and become more difficult as you go deeper and deeper. In RotZ you actually kill one nation's leader and the characters that appear from then on out in any cutscenes where he would play a role are different, as does the dialogue. This is nothing at all like how XIV dropped the ball at the end of 2.5. FFXI even has seasons where the leaves on trees in La Theine would change, which also influenced weather patterns.
Ifrit's Cauldron erupted; seeing it was incredible.
Weight doors in Altepa, while annoying, were a really neat idea. You needed 1 Galka, two Elvaan/Hume and like 4 Tarutaru or something? You only needed 1 Galka because the areas were intended for Galka.
I also like the Word puzzle door in Castle Oztroja; please don't hurt me.
And who can forget going into Gusgen Mines the first time and seeing the crying ghosts, wondering what happened in there?

XIV's world is just dreadfully static in comparison. XI's world has an absurd amount of detail in it.

The other topics are really opinion, but I believe that more (in quantity) of the minor NPCs in XI have a background and personality than XIV's, but most of this is due to out of game lore tidbits that SE spent years developing. If you want to ignore them, go right ahead, but they still exist. Minor being just generic NPCs in, say, Selbina and Mhaura, not characters like the Serpent Generals (who were definitely better developed than most characters in both XIV and XI). The only thing XIV really has in comparison is the Moogle Postman quests.

I see a lot of people throw around things like "XI has had more time for lore-building!" - but XIV has also had quite a bit of time for its basic mythological and metaphysical lore to be built up, since that stuff doesn't change from XIV to ARR, hence why it is so developed.

That being said, how many times are we going to have to complain before we get more Hellsguard and Duskwight lore? I felt the cultures and races were a lot more developed in XI because it went for quality over quantity. Meanwhile, in XIV we have a puddle for everything except 2 or 3 races.

The big difference in lore between games is scale. XI spent a lot more time on individuals and minor groups (eg SOB, the Adoulin factions), where XIV's lore has focused on a larger scale overall - hence why one person may prefer some traits of one over the other. There's not really a right or wrong answer in preferences on things like this.


On a final note:
FFXI Raubahn + Immortals > XIV Raubahn + Immortals

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Sorry Cyrill, that was more directed at SinSiew; bit of a knee-jerk reaction at the implication that enjoyment of XIV is predicated on being some kind of inferior "WoW Casual", or whatever. I imagine their answer is quite the same as yours.

And that's fine. But I haven't experienced any of all that in XI. The game does not give up its lore, or story, very easily. Which is all fine and good, but (a) XIV is a far cry from being shallow, lore-wise (it too has an absurd amount of detail to it, or at least more detail readily visible to player) and (b) the history it's crafted for itself makes itself apparent much more quickly, thus sucking me in faster. I'm getting a decent-quality story taking place in a high-quality fantasy world told to me at a reasonable pace. Now, I'm far from a mouth-breathing casual idiot (not that I think anyone's implied this, mind), and yet I haven't felt a connection to Vana'Diel like I had to Eorzea at a similar point in playing. As a new player, I don't think that's nothing. There's something to be said for accessibility.