Quote Originally Posted by Skivvy View Post
Anything that starts off mentioning "rose-tinted glasses" is bound to be great. I still sub to XI off and on (status: currently subbed), so it's not just nostalgia talking as your comment would imply. You removed the rather vital part of my complaint - the 100% forced completion.
The rose-tinted glasses were for me. You can't remember FFXI "right" unless you wear them. =P

But to your point, you said "They didn't force full MSQ completion on you." And I gave you many places where they did. It's hard to compare the two, because they're different monsters. That's why I said it depends on how you look at it.

XI at initial release didn't even have the Shadow Lord fight, and there was no reason to even finish the story. However, when they added Dynamis, (basically the first endgame content) you needed full MSQ completion of the original content to access it. That would be the equivalent of needing to finish patch 2.0 MSQ to access Binding Coil or Crystal Tower. Which was the case. You didn't need 2.1 story for Tower, but you did need the 2.0 full story. Technically it was 100% completion of the base MSQ + 5-1 and 5-2 (added later) to access Dynamis.

When the endgame content for Zilart was added (Sky), you were required to go through the entire Rise of the Zilart story line to get to Sky. The only thing not required was the very last mission, which took place in Sky. They probably assumed people would finish it off. But here's where XI differed from XIV. There was no additional story added, other than a few CSs later when CoP's ending was combined with Zilart's. So it basically was all of 3.0 without the rest of 3.X. 95% completion of MSQ to access Sky.

When CoP was added, the endgame content of it was exactly like Zilart's. You had to complete all but the final mission to get access to the area (Sea), as well as Limbus. 95% completion of MSQ to access Sea/Limbus.

Around this time is when they decided to add content differently, and began separating things in patches. They actually started doing this during CoP, where they added 6-4 through 8-4 in patches.

ToAU to unlock Salvage, the first endgame content for it, you had to complete up to mission 17 of the MSQ. At initial release, the story only went to mission 8. They added 9-18 later, and then 19-25 before releasing Salvage in an even later patch. If you want to get technical, you had to complete the original ToAU MSQ to access Salvage. Since you had to have the first two patches of MSQ done. The rest of the story came in later patches. So again, 95% completion of original MSQ to access Salvage.

(I'll point out here that I was wrong about Einherjar. It really had no requirements other than level.)

WotG again, had no real "endgame" content, unless you count WoE. Nothing really seemed significant. SoA was so spread out that I find it hard to determine what really was "endgame" content. The entire expansion seemed like a last ditch effort to give players something to do; bringing with it an arbitrary ilvl annoyance factor. However, in both cases there were MSQ requirements.

Land Kings, HNMs, VNMS, ZNMs, BCNMs, etc. were considered endgame, but they're really more like FATEs, trials and hunts in XIV.

So pretending like FFXI isn't a "story driven" game, or didn't require a huge part of the MSQ to access major parts of endgame content, is quite naive. I personally find it hard to compare the two, as they are quite different. But I'm also not denying (hence this post and the other) that XI required participation in the MSQ to access things. Yes, maybe it wasn't "full MSQ" but it was either 95% of an expansion, or a large portion of the original release of each expansion.

However, where XIV differed overall, (and I pointed this out) they decided to do a larger continuous arcing story line that carried over into the new expansion. So therefore finishing the post stories became a requirement to continue through to the expansion stories. Maybe they'll switch things up when/if this story line ends, but it's not the worst thing, and the CSs can be skipped.

Is XIV perfect? Absolutely not. It's lacking major endgame content variety. You can either repeat an 8-man raid for gear, repeat a 24-man raid for gear, or the latest trial for gear. Or you can repeat a rather dull, slightly changing dungeon (HoH/PotD). Eureka (despite being FATEs) was vastly different, and felt a lot like XI's Abyssea (of all things); where you had to kill a certain amount of monsters to spawn a NM. So I enjoyed it, but I also hated aspects of it. The light grinds alone felt forced. I wish they'd just kept the crystal system from Anemos through the whole thing. Other than those things, the endgame content just isn't varied enough.

XI isn't perfect either. In fact, I talk frequently with a friend that plays/played both games with me. And I frequently say I would love to replay about 80% of XI but with XIV's mechanics. Duty Finder to help with MSQ fights. Faster streamlined traveling, faster gameplay overall, etc. etc. The list goes on. XI is very hard to get back into and catch up. XIV has a ton of catch up mechanics built in. XI is very slow. When you I go back to it, I sometimes wonder how I ever sat through things. (Probably because I felt invested in it.) Just changing jobs through the menu system, and equipping gear seems so annoying compared to XIV.

Quote Originally Posted by Skivvy View Post
As for XIV game content, if you truly feel there isn't a lot to do outside of the story, what exactly do you do once you've put in your few hours to complete the latest story patches?
Basically I level everything at a leisurely pace. I like doing daily/weekly hunts, beast tribes. Crafting, and working on some of the achievements they've been adding (like the ones for crafting/gathering tools). Eureka took up a huge portion of my time in this expansion. And it's not like I don't do raids, but they do get tiring pretty quickly. 24-man are more fun than 8-man imo. Other than that, I play other games or invest time in other hobbies. I usually look forward to new MSQ, and Hildy quests. I honestly wish they'd add more side quest things like the Scholasticate quests. I feel I'm the only one sometimes that's disappointed the MSQ has been cut way back due to ARR backlash.