LOYALTY MODE

[Preypacer]

I would like to also add: Sitting in one of the main cities for hours(sometimes days) hoping to get a party invite until SE add a level sync feature years later...Then having more days to spend trying to level your gimp weapon skill.

lmao Loyalty Mode...

To start... Yes, I got the joke in the OP and do agree with some of what he lists there as being less than great ideas or implementations of otherwise good ideas. I've had my share of "WTF were they thinking?" moments while playing XI over the years, to be sure. Most of them have been since WoTG came out and SE's been trying to retro-fit XI to be more "casual friendly".

However, other things on that list, though characterized as "bad things" were actually quite fine and consistent with the type of experience XI was designed to be. XI wasn't designed to be a "quick race to end-game" like newer MMOs have become. It was designed to be a long-term adventure through a massive and complex virtual world with tons of things going on.

It didn't sit well with people who were only interested in leveling as fast as possible and racing through the content when they had to, bypassing it completely when they could. But then, I think it's pretty clear those aren't the people XI was designed for.

When you're in a hurry, everything seems to "take too long". Many MMO players these days are forever in a hurry.

Yet, for those who approached it as an adventure, as a long-term hobby, not a short term race to the finish line... the game provides many great and memorable experiences. It's all in how you approach it. When you're not in a hurry and just enjoying the journey, how long something takes doesn't even occur to you.

Many of the things in that list could have been better implemented. Most of them, though, I think were just fine for that setting. A number of them come back more to how people approached them than the systems themselves.

Speaking of "how people approached them"...

Akumu, you illustrate one of the things in XI that drove me nuts... and (like many other perceived "flaws" in the game) it was the players' doing, not SE's.

For years, players leveled up in normal parties and gained xp/levels and skillups at the same time. This way, their skills were almost always up-to-date, or no more than one or two job levels behind. There was never a problem. People seldom ever had "gimped" skills. When you hit 75, you could be reasonably sure your skills were only equivalent of one or two job levels behind and would catch up in short time.

Level-Sync was introduced and people immediately adopted it as a way to level their jobs faster, without considering how having no skillups when capped could affect their performance later. People didn't care, because it meant "faster levels and xp" which, in their tunnel vision, is all many players seem to care about these days; "How can I level as fast as possible?".

The attitude was, "Meh... We can get the skillups in a party later on", which meant hours in Boyadha Tree or one of the tunnels skilling up on crabs.

This is one of the best examples of /facepalm worthy behavior I've ever seen by players in a MMO. In their obsession with "leveling up to cap in less time", they actually gave them self twice the work.

Had they stuck to parties in areas closer to their actual level, instead of leveling up to 75 while sync'd down to 22 in Qufim Island or elsewhere, they'd earn their levels and their skillups and they wouldn't have to go back and grind out skillups.

I actually asked people about this.. "You realize you're doing twice the work to get the same result you would if you just leveled up in normal parties, closer to or at your actual job level?" They'd agree it was pretty dumb, but "it's what people did", so they went along with it... complaining the whole way.

The scenario you describe was 100% the players' fault. They chose to use level sync in that way. It's not how they had to use it.

The problem with people (many of them anyway) is that they always immediately look for someone or something else to blame when they make poor decisions. Instead of stopping and thinking, "Hmm... you know, if we xp'd on mobs closer to our actual job level and didn't sync so far below it, we would get more skillups and would have a lot less, if any, catching up to do later". But of course, in their conceit, many people won't do this. So, instead we get "Stupid SE making us spend hours grinding our skillups to catch up with all the levels we got while sync'd down to 20 on our level 70 jobs..."

Same thing with the Dunes. If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone say "I can't believe SE made the Dunes the only place you can level up to 20", I'd have enough to pay a subscription for a year. If I had a nickel for every time they also refused to acknowledge that other options do exist and that the Dunes isn't the only place you can level to 20... I'd have enough for two years of subscriptions. Again, people making poor choices, then blaming someone/something else for the result.

Typical.

[Keith_Dragoon]

I thought it was serious at first but then I sat there and thought to myself ".... Isn't this XI summed up?"

lol nice

[Goldfighter]

Should add a Real Life mode also imho. When you die in game your PC/TV explodes.

[Medura]

This is funny, first post in this forum where i can say with a hundred percent certanity, without being racist in any way about peoples interests etc. "OP is biggest idiot currently wandering the internet"


edit:
wow sorry, thought you were serious when i started reading the post!! xD

[Dromox]

racist

Pretty sure you don't know what that word means.

[Rowyne]

LMAO! This is hilarious. This brought back many memories of FFXI (and not the good ones). Makes me realize just how far FFXIV has come in comparison.

I'd like to add these:

*Character creation changed to 8 static models with two hair colors to choose from
*Death penalty changed to exp loss (with the possibility of deleveling)
*No monster aggro indicator
*Mouse is rendered useless
*No windowed mode (for those who remember the really old days)
*Aggroed monsters will chase you until the zone line
*Aggroed monsters lead to zone lines will not despawn or return to roaming points when its target zones, but instead turn and aggro the next nearest target

More as I think of them...

[northernsky]

LMAO! This is hilarious. This brought back many memories of FFXI (and not the good ones). Makes me realize just how far FFXIV has come in comparison.

I'd like to add these:

*Character creation changed to 8 static models with two hair colors to choose from
*Death penalty changed to exp loss (with the possibility of deleveling)
*No monster aggro indicator
*Mouse is rendered useless
*No windowed mode (for those who remember the really old days)
*Aggroed monsters will chase you until the zone line
*Aggroed monsters lead to zone lines will not despawn or return to roaming points when its target zones, but instead turn and aggro the next nearest target

More as I think of them...

That's funny because even though I can't remember what in particular, I remember saying to myself during the first weeks that I played XIV that many features were greatly improved over XI.

Obviously, that was before the lack of combat and content depth hit me but still, it shows that the wave of negativity around the game has made us forget about some of the good things it brought up

[Vesper]

Nice, with the Tragedy in Japan a lot of us needed a good laugh. You provided that.

[origamikitsune]

Bell Bottoms for Conjurers and Hooker Boots for Lancers, yo.

[Rowyne]

Bell Bottoms for Conjurers and Hooker Boots for Lancers, yo.

LOL!