Fighting Desperately...

[Xoo]

...with an ever-growing urge to just return to FFXI, get a much-needed nostalgia fix, and play all the jobs I used to love from Lv1 solo. This, just before I log out of MMORPG's for the last time. /melodrama.

There was a poll held a few months ago, and it revolved around the question, "What do you enjoy about FFXIV?" At the time, and unfortunately it remains the same, I had only one response: I like the graphics. Indeed, they are good and still amaze me.

Still, graphics do not hardly make a game. FFXIV, to me, just keeps becoming more restrictive, blurred, and just down-right not fun. I actually think I had more fun with the battle system as it was near release than the way it stands today. SE has gone overboard with Easy Mode in the form of Combos - with bright flashing circles that scream, "Click me to not suck"!! And I have every reason to believe it's just going to get worse.

I don't want what FFXIV is now and what is apparently going to grow up to be: Beyond Casual - A slacker's game made for slackers. It's really heartbreaking to think of all this game could have been, but I suppose it just makes better sense to milk the cow and market the milk.

No offense to any females out there, because I know you're all tough as nails, but I feel like FFXI was a 'man's game' - where you liked getting your hands dirty, and you came back from every adventure to Sand'Oria dripping with sweat and covered in blood. Effort: It builds the strongest character. Pun intended.

I wish some empathetic developer who was a true fan of FFXI would bring it back to us in some form. I don't need the brand to enjoy the game, by any means. I need mystery, intrigue, challenge, depth and adventure to fill a void that was left by some of my most fond and fantastic memories in gaming.

World of Warcraft, may you rot and burn in Hell.

[Antanias]

All because Utsusemi isn't in the game?

[Xoo]

All because Utsusemi isn't in the game?

I did laugh.

Honestly, probably so.

[Answa]

I think you're overreacting.

FFXI didn't really have any difficulty to it. It just took fucking forever to get anything done. Or to wait for an NM to pop so that some other team would claim it. Or to wait 72 hours to be able to go to Dynamis again so that your relic armor doesn't drop. I could go on.

[KoujiGeki]

I think you're overreacting.

FFXI didn't really have any difficulty to it. It just took fucking forever to get anything done. Or to wait for an NM to pop so that some other team would claim it. Or to wait 72 hours to be able to go to Dynamis again so that your relic armor doesn't drop. I could go on.

lol did you play CoP before the nerf that? That shit was almost impossible and when you beat it you felt awesome and accomplished. and ou got a badass ring that lasted even when cap was 90. It sucked that they made cop so easy they everyone had them and didnt feel special after all the hard work now that some Abyssea burned asshole can solo CoP.

[Riaayo]

I think you're overreacting.

FFXI didn't really have any difficulty to it. It just took fucking forever to get anything done. Or to wait for an NM to pop so that some other team would claim it. Or to wait 72 hours to be able to go to Dynamis again so that your relic armor doesn't drop. I could go on.

Thiiiiis. FFXI was a game built on more fake difficulty than actual difficulty. Things took forever to do and often times you wiped just to a RNG-launched sequence of events rather than any actual screw-up by your players.

Playing correctly dictates you succeed and are rewarded for your hard work and efforts. I don't really understand the argument that the combo system is built for idiots just because it highlights the skills that will combo next... if it didn't highlight and you missed your ability, you'd have to wait for that "miss" to pop up or dig it out of your battle log with your eyes before executing your next skill. I'm just as tired of FFXI vets railing on so many of the MMO genre's improvements at the hands of WoW's addons as I am of Casual players complaining when fairly easy content or hard content is "too hard."

This game needs balance. It needs casual and hardcore content, it does not need just one or the other, and anyone who thinks that is the case is self-absorbed and selfish. Yoshi has already stated he wants to give content to EVERY type of player in this game, so just because it's not here now doesn't mean it won't be in the future. If that's not good enough then I do encourage you to stop playing and come back if and or when the game becomes a product you feel deserves your money (because that's how it's supposed to work).

But as the quote suggests, FFXI was not actually a HARD game at all, and I feel that people who played mostly or only FFXI without branching out to other MMOs are brainwashed into thinking it was the pinnacle of difficulty when it was pretty much the opposite. As someone who has played XI and WoW for years, I can tell you WoW presented more actual gameplay challenges and rewarded players more appropriately for the amount of time they spent playing rather than SE's system of throw a random number generator and a drop % on it and watch one idiot get it run 1 and a good player go 0/500. Yeah, that's great time spent to reward ratio. Would you work a job where you had a 5% chance at the end of the week to get your paycheck?

This game is currently utilizing boss mechanics that are actually interesting and require some thought. The problem is SE is not quite use to this so we see fights like Chim getting completely cheesed by mages standing in some sweet spot to avoid ALL the boss mechanics meant to make the fight engaging. That kind of BS is the community's fault and is what I have seen out of FFXI players from day 1... nothing but a fight to figure out where they can stand or be to not get hit by anything. As the game is now, I can't blame people because moving and casting, moving and dpsing, all suck at the moment from server lag. If SE fixes that in 2.0 however, I hope to see all this hug a wall cheese abolished too. Do you see people in Lord of the Rings all huddled in a corner casting spells at a boss 20 feet away, or do you see everyone out moving, dodging enemies and fighting? If you showed ANY non FF gamer a video of the way we fight enemies they would laugh at how pathetic it is. And XI was just as boring. WoW? Other mmos? Actually engaging.

Honestly if people think XI is the best game ever, it's still up and you can go back and play it. I'd love to see good ideas taken out of XI and implemented in this game, but a lot about XI needs to remain with XI.

I'd worry I've already said all these things on the forums but it seems common practice for people to say the same stuff over and over so guess I fit in.

[Airget]

I think you're overreacting.

FFXI didn't really have any difficulty to it. It just took fucking forever to get anything done. Or to wait for an NM to pop so that some other team would claim it. Or to wait 72 hours to be able to go to Dynamis again so that your relic armor doesn't drop. I could go on.

Exactly Time sink=/= immersion, difficulty or player skill.

[Platinumstorm]

Exactly Time sink=/= immersion, difficulty or player skill.

I'm always surprised that people associate FFXI's model with difficulty, challenge, and skill. When I think of challenges and immersions I don't think of standing in one spot pulling an identical mob over and over. I'm also always surprised that the developers [original XI and original XIV] never seem to understand that story and adventure are major appeals to Final Fantasy games in general; they're certainly not something that begins only after you've maxed out your character level, and certainly not something you progress through only a tiny fraction of the time.

[Xoo]

I'm always surprised that people associate FFXI's model with difficulty, challenge, and skill. When I think of challenges and immersions I don't think of standing in one spot pulling an identical mob over and over. I'm also always surprised that the developers [original XI and original XIV] never seem to understand that story and adventure are major appeals to Final Fantasy games in general; they're certainly not something that begins only after you've maxed out your character level, and certainly not something you progress through only a tiny fraction of the time.

Killing one enemy repeatedly is not difficult, given you come prepared.

When I say 'prepared', I mean your tank has to do his best to keep hate off the Black Mage, Samurai, and Ranger (difficulty); Your Thief has to be quick with SATA and use status bolts (depth); Your mages have to monitor their output closely so as not to pull hate (difficulty); Your Red Mage should employ every applicable debuff to the mob while also serving as a backup healer and nuker (depth); The experienced Bard should be able to keep the action going without interruption (gameplay).

If you do not have a majority of these qualities in your group, then killing crabs over and over is going to be a long and painful process. Of course, killing the same mob repeatedly is what we do in this game now, so I'm not sure what point you're digging at.

[Enfarious]

Killing one enemy repeatedly is not difficult, given you come prepared.

When I say 'prepared', I mean your tank has to do his best to keep hate off the Black Mage, Samurai, and Ranger (difficulty); Your Thief has to be quick with SATA and use status bolts (depth); Your mages have to monitor their output closely so as not to pull hate (difficulty); Your Red Mage should employ every applicable debuff to the mob while also serving as a backup healer and nuker (depth); The experienced Bard should be able to keep the action going without interruption (gameplay).

If you do not have a majority of these qualities in your group, then killing crabs over and over is going to be a long and painful process. Of course, killing the same mob repeatedly is what we do in this game now, so I'm not sure what point you're digging at.

Yeah other than repeating the same ~4 leves for grinding now there is 0 variety, the grind style of all games follows that model. Hence the name "grind" aka "work" aka "tedium" this is the price of progress.

OMG someone other than me talked about team strategy, that's awesome, sad really that this game still has none at all, button mash your way to the end. Solo-Combos do not show strategy, just an ability to mash buttons in order ...

Can we get some "team play" back?

Yes I know there's tanks/healers/DDs but they really don't perform as a team so much as a pack of ppl doin their own thing. Someday maybe ...