Fighting Desperately...

[ThePatriarch]

I love reading threads with people complaining about how XI was easy, and that it sucked etc.

Going to post my usual.

Final Fantasy XI currently has around 300,000~ subscriptions.

Final Fantasy XIV has below 10,000 active players.

Yeah we should make fun of XI. For sure. Good Call.

[TheRac25]

lol if you thought anything in xi was hard besides av and pw, you were doing it wrong

[YUGON]

Yep! I understand you pretty well!
Every time I log on, I feel like going back to XI, because I do not like "V", in game titles............................................. ¬¬

Rly, If u want to go back to FFXI, just go. No one is posting everything they wanna do. Think If that was the case:

Thread 1: I think I'll go to play Mass Effect 3, because there are no Alien in FFXIV.
Thread 2: I think I'll go to play FFX-2, because there are more jobs.
Thread 3: I do not want to go back to FFXI, but I'll make a Thread to /rage people. (That's usually the common one)

[YUGON]

Not really Bunto, it's our way of venting our frustration of not having the same experience we were expecting when getting into FFXIV. I feel that all of the negative posters didn't have the wherewithal to push through levels and actually work towards something, just want everything handed to them. But seriously congrats on Lv50 THM, how long that take you? Three or four days? I wouldn't mind going back to how slow it was in the beginning when it took us 3-4 months to level something to 50, but the "whiners" spoke and the whole system turned into PL fest. What's the accomplishment in leveling when you can max everything in a month...

Totally agree! Still there are some people that hate PL, and are leveling their jobs the "good" way. Still is a pain in the ass to level up Levequesting, but still, I prefer doing that way rather than have ALL jobs at 50 in a week.

[Xoo]

Yugon, you have to understand that it doesn't make much sense when you post this:

Rly, If u want to go back to FFXI, just go. No one is posting everything they wanna do.

And then you "totally agree!" with this:

Not really Bunto, it's our way of venting our frustration of not having the same experience we were expecting when getting into FFXIV. I feel that all of the negative posters didn't have the wherewithal to push through levels and actually work towards something, just want everything handed to them. But seriously congrats on Lv50 THM, how long that take you? Three or four days? I wouldn't mind going back to how slow it was in the beginning when it took us 3-4 months to level something to 50, but the "whiners" spoke and the whole system turned into PL fest. What's the accomplishment in leveling when you can max everything in a month...

Sort of sending mixed messages there, bud.

[djjdiss]

I know what Xoo misses. I know EXACTLY what he's talking about when it comes to leveling up anyway. Good memories and bad memories of it in FFXI.

However Xoo, I can safely assure you that the things you're reminiscing about and longing for WILL NEVER make their way into this game.

Why?

Because it's digressive and antiquated at best. So if what you're looking for is FFXI HD, then continuing to hold out hope that this game will eventually transform into your wildest dreams is futile.

PERIOD.

Forget the reasoning and the politics, they're worthless here. This game is a WHOLE new breed of Final Fantasy that closer resembles what FF13 is: a step in a new direction that's both enjoyable and approachable by a larger audience.

I hate to say it, but the people that cling on to the old days of FF are only showing signs of their age. SE isn't going to remain stuck in limbo for a particular generation of it's players, that's retarded.

I for one embrace change and look forward to how SE is going to make this game feel more "next-generation" in 2.0 and later.

[Enfarious]

You don't have to play all of the game's content to know whether it hooks you or not. I remember starting ffxi sometime around 2006. I was hooked within a few days. It had nothing to do with endgame difficulty or anything else that I had no idea about yet. It came from the sheer immersiveness of the open world, and the high work level per reward that made it so realistic. I played FFXIV in beta and I started it again a couple of months ago. After playing for a few weeks and giving it the benefit of the doubt at every turn, I still felt none of this.

So true, before I had my first char out of the dunes, I knew I wasn't leaving XI, and that was in 2004 before the mob despawn patch when the dunes was still a true nightmare. In spite of that the sense of accomplishment in finally getting the hell out of there, getting into Jeuno, all things that took "work" and you "knew" you had accomplished something.
This has the potential to be that, make story line stuff accessible to parties, add bosses; remember that first run to Zvahl? The fight in Fei-Yin?; level cap the fights, make them diffucult, make getting to them take more than, hmmm... what's the closest camp to that > tele > 30sec ?boss? > "?yay I won???...???"
I understand some people want everything just given to them, that's what birthed the bleh that is abyssea, but maybe you could have a "skip" option like for cs's you don't wanna work for it ... fine here's your game, perhaps a "all classes/jobs50 button" and a "full AF for all jobs" button.

[Riaayo]

Sasagawa, you bring up some very good points. I think there's a sense of urgency on players' part to hit all jobs to 50, which then, in turn, strip players of a uniqueness in a part environment. XI seemed to embody this better, insofar as encouraging players to pick a class/job and BE that, as opposed to being able to do everything. When I signed up for XIV, I chose the MiQote specifically for AGI/DEX buffs as I wanted to be the ARC/RNG type. But - it's all irrelevant now! >.< And apparently, though I don't know how much truth there is to this, stats don't nearly play as big a role as they did in XI, though I could be wrong. It seems that this class/job-uniqueness has been flattened as a result of there being nothing else to do except the 5~7 or so dungeon/raids, and leveling.

And, to further emphasize your point, the lack of milestones while leveling also severely strips players of a sense of achievement and reward when you can level from 1~50 without ever having to break away from behests and leves. I like the idea of there being milestones, where in order to progress past 25, you do totorok or something (capped at 25 mind you!, so 50s can join and demolish everything while you just follow and stay out of harm's way), and to progress past 35, something else, etc. It seems to be improving with the addition of jobs (at least in concept), however the fact that jobs can piggy back off your class level strips current players with 50s the ability to level something new.

I've iterated this point before in some previous post I think, but my fear is that as SE releases new content leading up to 2.0, that because the content is so limited (result of limited dev resources for non 2.0 content) that everyone floods it and then asks "Now what?!" until new content is released and the cycle repeats. I also fear that if they release 2.0 and reset everything (to better level the playing field so existing players don't feel so over-achieved with 50 everything) that it'll upset them and cause a mass exodus from the game, which is a valid concern and fear, methinks.

You have to understand that when XI released it didn't have all the advanced jobs etc either, and what hit the US was like 2 years down the pipeline. XI had the same problem of everyone leveling everything, as you saw lots of people aiming for a Maat's cap. The difference is XI was older and had like 16 jobs to pick from rather than the 7 we currently have. You will see new people be more selective in what they level when 2.0 hits, but you can't realistically expect anyone playing right now to not level everything to 50 because there's so little to do.

When 2.0 reaches, you will also see the Job AF quests along the road for those leveling, something that was not along the road for many of us and was, thus, content we breezed through as all 50s. That is laying framework for players in the future, and not so much for us.

I'm sometimes a bit shocked when I see a player rank 50 in a matter of days, however I've come to realize the only part of me that cares is the selfish one that wants to be better than other people and horde something nice for myself rather than share it. In the end idiots always got to 75 in XI just the same as they get 50 here, so I'm at the point I don't even think leveling up even matters in an MMO other than to waste your time before you can access the meat of the important content or play with your max lvl friends.

The problem you bring up about people blasting through content, though, is not unique to XIV. WoW and every other mmo out there are experiencing this. New content is released and it is conquered in a matter of days... it's very difficult for development to keep up with such a pace, and I honestly think no mmo yet has the ability to not simply lose a player's interest between updates. I think the challenge for the game, at that point, is making that initial enjoyment of a new update so fun that even when it's exhausted and a player takes a few weeks off, they had enough fun to want to pick it right back up when your next patch hits (especially enough fun to where they don't turn their account off when they break). But sadly, you will not ever see actual engaging content that isn't steamrolled by people who are ridiculously committed to being world or sever 1st on everything.


Back to the original point, I agree that at the moment it feels like there's little diversity in players because everyone is leveling everything... but the majority of people playing prior to 2.0 are going to have all their classes maxed out until the end of this game's days, nomatter the updates added. I do personally hope they don't steepen the leveling curve too drastically 50+, as I enjoy every class I play immensely and don't look forward to weeks of grinding (this is the exact reason I quit FFXI after lvl 80 cap was released, after 5 years of playing). I believe the Jobs severely limiting your cross-classing abilities will help limit future players from feeling like they had to level every class (prior to the class reworks, you pretty much did need everything 50 to play any of the classes the best, which was a real mistake that is being slowly fixed).

I also don't personally agree with each race having a monumental advantage over others at specific things. While I liked the racial abilities in WoW, no race had so much more mp than another than it made you never want to touch a mage class as said race (Galka mages anyone?). Truth be told? I LIKED seeing that Galka black mage, even if his mp pool was crap. I'd like to see a bit less punishment for people who go away from the norm... but I do think each race might deserve something unique so it stands out more (Mithra could eat raw fish! How useless and yummy).

[Xoo]

I know what Xoo misses. I know EXACTLY what he's talking about when it comes to leveling up anyway. Good memories and bad memories of it in FFXI.

Etcetera~

In my opinion, I can't help but believe that SE just sold out to make a better profit. Of course, this is fine if you actually need the revenue, but I really don't think that's the case here. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.

It's just an overwhelming feeling of betrayal.

[Drunk-Bandit]

Only time FFXI was difficulty was when you ran into idiots that didn't know how to play their job.. lol Pld with DD Gear.... ring a bell... ~.~ or a whm that always wanted to melee and never heal in a pty... ya.... Other then that I got sick of sitting there waiting for crap to happen... I might've been able to get away with playing a timesink like that back in high school... but when you get older having a Job and crap... things change... to Be honest I don't wanna play the next XI... I want XIV to be a much better experience... Wait until 2.0 before judging baby... New mmorpgs are a work in progress baby...

I love reading threads with people complaining about how XI was easy, and that it sucked etc.

Going to post my usual.

Final Fantasy XI currently has around 300,000~ subscriptions.

Final Fantasy XIV has below 10,000 active players.

Yeah we should make fun of XI. For sure. Good Call.

Proof... Can I have it?! Cause last time I heard... from a friend currently playing FFXI. says that it was a ghost town of it's former self...