Why was FFXI so great?

[Eagleheart]

Drop rates on items in FFXI were almost always above 15%, closer to 30% with a decent amount of HNM drops. This is opposed to the 1-2% drop rate per chest in current dungeons in FFXIV. In FFXI if you did something (whether it be once a day or less often) it was very likely your LS would get a drop.

Maybe you're the one living in the mirror universe.

Seriously?

o.o

Seriously.



http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Nidhogg

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/King_Behemoth

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Aspidochelone

^ Minimum 72 hours between pops. One pop per server.



http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Proto-Omega

^ Minimum 144 hours to pop, if you farmed all four chips in one day with an LS of decent size, and then the 72 hour wait before you can re-enter Apollyon.


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Proto-Ultima

Minimum 216 hours to pop, if you farmed all three first-tier chips in one day, then the 72 hour wait to farm the tier two chips, then the 72 hour wait to farm the actual NM.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Dynamis

Needs no explanation.


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Salvage

Requires explanation simply by virtue of how ridiculous it was.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Citadel_Chelonian

Maximum one per day, two if you did not go the day before, which is, really, one per day. Also required 1,500 Assault points, which necessitated usage of two Assault tags, which necessitated not farming Nyzul. Or, if you were really good, one assault tag, which still means not farming Nyzul, because you only got one per day. Yay!

3.1% drop rate, same as what you're complaining about in XIV, only guess what? You can only go once per day, as opposed to however many you like.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Skirmish_Pephredo

Same damn thing, except it was not even guaranteed to pop. My LS was 2/144 attempts, he popped on seven of those 144 runs.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Qiqirn_Astrologer

Maximum two per run, once per day. 6.7%.

Going for any of these Salvage NMs meant not going for the others listed.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Sarameya

Required farming several tens of thousands of zeni to pop, which required either (A. Coordinated LS effort, or (B. if you were trying to get one for your own, to get an item, turning in at maximum 1,500 Zeni once per game day (every one hour). You would be fortunate to complete one a week, rounding people up to kill it. Drop rate ~13%.


I could go on.

[Isaaru]

Seriously?

o.o

Seriously.



http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Nidhogg

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/King_Behemoth

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Aspidochelone

^ Minimum 72 hours between pops. One pop per server.



http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Proto-Omega

^ Minimum 144 hours to pop, if you farmed all four chips in one day with an LS of decent size, and then the 72 hour wait before you can re-enter Apollyon.


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Proto-Ultima

Minimum 216 hours to pop, if you farmed all three first-tier chips in one day, then the 72 hour wait to farm the tier two chips, then the 72 hour wait to farm the actual NM.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Dynamis

Needs no explanation.


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Salvage

Requires explanation simply by virtue of how ridiculous it was.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Citadel_Chelonian

Maximum one per day, two if you did not go the day before, which is, really, one per day. Also required 1,500 Assault points, which necessitated usage of two Assault tags, which necessitated not farming Nyzul. Or, if you were really good, one assault tag, which still means not farming Nyzul, because you only got one per day. Yay!

3.1% drop rate, same as what you're complaining about in XIV, only guess what? You can only go once per day, as opposed to however many you like.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Skirmish_Pephredo

Same damn thing, except it was not even guaranteed to pop. My LS was 2/144 attempts, he popped on seven of those 144 runs.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Qiqirn_Astrologer

Maximum two per run, once per day. 6.7%.

Going for any of these Salvage NMs meant not going for the others listed.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Sarameya

Required farming several tens of thousands of zeni to pop, which required either (A. Coordinated LS effort, or (B. if you were trying to get one for your own, to get an item, turning in at maximum 1,500 Zeni once per game day (every one hour). You would be fortunate to complete one a week, rounding people up to kill it. Drop rate ~13%.


I could go on.

Please go on then. I'm fully aware of all spawn and re-entry timers, but it just seems to me like you listed a bunch of Salvage items. Salvage was one part of the game. My point is once you actually got to fight an NM or HNM or Proto-Omega or Proto-Ultima your LS would get a drop. Yes the farm would be a grind but at least you didn't have to farm the NM over and over and over making the NM ultimately boring to fight.

My point was that yes you had to farm pop items, but once you fought the actual NM SOMETHING would drop. It honestly seems like most people's argument for FFXI being grinding like FFXIV is now is "BLAH BLAH SALVAGE BLAH BLAH" I would take farm items to kill an NM that would drop something for the LS by the end of the week any day over grind 1 dungeon or 1 fight over and over.

Also you only listed the Kings there, the king HNM's were made so there would be actual rare items. The lesser HNMs would pop once a day and almost always drop something of use. So please, list something else that isn't Salvage to prove your point.

[Jokerz]

Please go on then. I'm fully aware of all spawn and re-entry timers, but it just seems to me like you listed a bunch of Salvage items. Salvage was one part of the game. My point is once you actually got to fight an NM or HNM or Proto-Omega or Proto-Ultima your LS would get a drop. Yes the farm would be a grind but at least you didn't have to farm the NM over and over and over making the NM ultimately boring to fight.

My point was that yes you had to farm pop items, but once you fought the actual NM SOMETHING would drop. It honestly seems like most people's argument for FFXI being grinding like FFXIV is now is "BLAH BLAH SALVAGE BLAH BLAH" I would take farm items to kill an NM that would drop something for the LS by the end of the week any day over grind 1 dungeon or 1 fight over and over.

Also you only listed the Kings there, the king HNM's were made so there would be actual rare items. The lesser HNMs would pop once a day and almost always drop something of use. So please, list something else that isn't Salvage to prove your point.

That isn't really true. You could fight kirrin and only get a wind crystal(well I guess thats something....) and HNM's weren't implemented well either. Also no matter what you were bound to fight the same NM's over and over again due to members in your ls needing the same gear.

[Amrita]

I loved FFXI because:
1. I could be a kitty! I'm a girl irl, I also like cats. Tail & ears on a female frame is cute. =p
2. The community... I started @ PS2 release and people were really nice & helpful. I still remember that scary run to Jeuno as a low level player. I know there certainly were some major a-holes, but I have more fond memories of kind strangers & friends then memories of the jerks.
Also, despite how long it took to get some piece of gear from dynamis or limbus or whatever... I loved going because of the other players. They were just really fun to be around.
3. Content!
The stories were so great! My fave was Chains of Promathia.... and that was maybe the hardest expansion? I'm sure that is debatable. It was a wonderful challenge to have to be level capped after being used to some job at 75. Very humbling, sometimes frustrating but ... SO FUN!

Stuff that sucked:
1. losing a level after getting KO one to many times XD. I remember people getting REALLY MAD when they would die.
2. looking for party for hours ... even starting your own didn't always do the trick + it taking a few months to level up one job
3. the HNM's... that would spawn once every 48 hours or 24 hours or once a week... @_@ I remember once getting scolded for going to work because my ls needed me @ the NM. Total wtf moment lol.

Around the time of Abyssea:
They upped the cap from 75 to 99... they removed the lvl cap off of uhm... everything I think? Those sweet little parties of 6 ballooned into... I don't even know... peoples focus shifted to getting to 99 ASAP and getting all the leetest gear ASAP. For me that shift in mentality destroyed what I had loved initially about the game and I quit. It just was not fun any longer.

If only FFXIV could just find the middle ground, I would be thrilled.

I don't want stuff to take quite as long as in the heyday of ffxi, but ... gah something is just MISSING from FFXIV! It seems to promote the hurry up and get to end-game asap mentality.
I still like to enjoy "begin game" & "middle game" before shifting all focus to "end game". Sadly there really isn't much interesting content for begin & middle.

So right now my greatest joy in ffxiv is helping others with.. AF or some random nm fight or crafting & chatting with people in my social ls. ^^;

[Ramis]

The Game felt like you had to accoplish something. The time you spent tryign to get to 75 or finishing a quest (rank, Tower, or to get to a Boss) was worth something. The gear in the game was worth obtaining, trying to farm 4mil for you body armor, or do dynamis/lymbis bi-weekly for items to get that awesome pices of armor. It was a little harder for the casual gamer (say a couple hours a day max) to get some of the tings done.. I know toward the end of my playing it was hard for me to lvl or get a fight that i needed done becuase i was not on during peak times due to work or school. then with WoG expansion things started going down for me.. i barely scratched the surface becuase i couldn;t get on , and i would build up my ribbons and then I would have to start over do to lack of playing.. and that got frustrating. But i will tell you playing FFXI for 8 years, that the story made you care, the jobs were balanced and fun, the only thing that deturned from the Game play was PL... and jobist players, that thought you had to have a PLD, whm, RDM, and BLM X3 to do anything. Poor Drk knight.. And BST SUPER FUN!!!! (pre party lvling style).
Thats what made it fun (Great) for me..

[Jokerz]

You do need some limit to how fast you can do things...think about it. If everything is so easy and quick to get...everyone will be standing around complaining about nothing to do.

[Amrita]

You do need some limit to how fast you can do things...think about it. If everything is so easy and quick to get...everyone will be standing around complaining about nothing to do.

Isn't that kinda what's going on now with ffxiv? >_>
A friend of mine today /tell me "I might quit until 2.0 ... nothing to do"


To stay on topic of the OP's question:
Another thing I loved about FFXI was
LINKSHELL MESSAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ; ;

Oh and Summoner job. That one was my favorite before it was cool to be one... if it ever was cool to be one? lol
And it was HARD.. had to have max fame in the cities before you could even take a crack at the avatars... even then (when I was doing it) it was hard to get help. I ended up doing the mini fights and went totally broke ; ; BUT I HAD ALL MY SUMMONS! So while I was gil-less... I was giddy to be able to summon them!

[Zaaku]

You do need some limit to how fast you can do things...think about it. If everything is so easy and quick to get...everyone will be standing around complaining about nothing to do.

You can see the grim future my Son. PLer's will harken the death of this game save for those few who want to raid endlessly until the dark times come and the sun goes dark with age.

[Ryuko]

Although there are lots of replies, I'm still going to throw my own into the mix.

---

Why was FFXI 'so good'?

Content

I'm not going to lie. There were plenty of MMO's before FFXI, and successful ones at that. But what really pulled people into this one in particular? ... The Final Fantasy franchise. With so many games, and such a huge history, FFXI pulled many people into what would be their 'first' MMO. What makes a FF MMO different from other lore-based MMO's is the fact that Final Fantasy always has certain elements (such as chocobos, elements, avatars), but will not explore the same world twice (unless you are playing a sequel, and X-2 was not released until after XI came out). Therefore, you could play each new FF and 'fall in love with it' all over again, just as many people 'fell in love' with FFXI.

People often complain about the time sink compared with other MMO's. Yes, FFXI took SO MUCH TIME to level... but those 'grizzled veterans' coming to the MMO world from the Final Fantasy franchise were used to this. It took a long time to 'grind' your way up to get the best items and weapons in previous games... not a long time compared to the years you could easily log in an MMO, but FF players were a bit more tolerant of this type of time sink than others.

Timing

FFXI came out when MMO's were really starting to improve. There was always the iconic Everquest, but WoW would not come out for quite some time after the NA release of FFXI. By the time WoW did come out, so many people were already hooked on FFXI and absorbed into its world that they did not even bother with WoW, and if they did, they would usually come back disappointed. This is why you might notice a particularly large amount of hostility toward WoW in general with FFXI and FFXIV. Many FFXI and FFXIV player will bash WoW because it's 'so easy' (and it is in comparison), but the real reason you'll find it in this community over others is because the two were released at about the same time, and were each other's 'competition'.

Community

The time sink of FFXI really gave it this extra element of community that you would be hard pressed to find in other MMO's. There were NM's you would literally have to wait days for. Even the 'common' NM's would not pop for at least two hours, and there was no guarantee that it would pop or drop for you. Daily NM's could pop between 21-24 hours after they died, and only in 30 minute intervals between the start of the window and end of the window. Some NM's wouldn't pop for weeks. This left a lot of time to chat. You really got to 'know' your community. The theft of an item, or the betrayal of a friend, meant so much more in FFXI than any other MMO I've ever been a part of.

The time it took to level also allowed you to 'get to know' your party members. Because leveling wasn't easy for everyone, you got to know who was good and who was bad. The entire server 'knew' of each other. Some were famous while others were infamous. Applying to a linkshell required more than just skill -- it required attitude evaluation as well. When entering something like Dynamis (an instance that took 3+ hours to complete, IF you could complete it), you would want to make sure you liked the people you went with.

Identity

As a result of how hard it was to level, you really had to commit to your job. You had to spend weeks and weeks leveling it to 75, doing all of your job quests, and obtaining gear for it to be useful. Therefore, people got to KNOW you as that job. You weren't just your name. You were your name AND your job. I had three jobs at 75 -- Summoner, White Mage, and Black Mage. To this day, all of my FFXI friends know that my favorite job was and will always be summoner. In other games, it is easier to level. Having jobs at a cap level is not such a great accomplishment. Because the servers in FFXI were pretty small, you were more likely to recognize anyone you came across. Reputations developed... both good ones and bad ones. You knew who was likely to help out and who was a jerk.

Storylines

The 'story' of any FF game has always been SE's forte. The storylines took a long time to complete, and involved intricate lessons that you can really only appreciate if you did them. Each expansion was like a new FF in a familiar world. The content never left you 'high and dry'. There was literally ALWAYS something you could be doing.

Gear

One thing about FFXI that was very different from other MMO's is how your gear would remain at about the same quality no matter how long you took a break. The reason for this is because gear mattered a lot and so you would switch gear for each situation. Black Mages would switch to elemental staves depending on the spell, for instance. People would sometimes switch gear just to use a weapon skill. As a summoner, I would switch gear when using an avatar's ability. You switched gear a LOT, and so each piece of gear never became 'obsolete'; it was merely another option that you could be using. So, even if I took a break and came back years later, my gear was still great... And yet, despite this, there was always gear every person wanted to get and had to work to obtain. Very few people had everything they could possibly want.

---

Why did Abyssea 'ruin' FFXI?

Level Cap

The level cap increase that came along with abyssea and other DLC brought about a huge flux in gameplay. After the NA release, the level cap was raised to 75 and left there for four expansions. Every single 'endgame' event was synced to this level cap, including content from all previous expansions. This is why content from the original expansion would be comparable to an expansion that came out many years later... because, unlike other MMO's, the level cap DID NOT change.

This change in level cap also more or less turned the gear you had spent years acquiring into garbage. All new gear was released, and somehow FFXI was thrown into the same category as other MMO's... with each level increase, or new content available, your previous gear became less and less likely to be used. To many players (such as myself) that could come back to the comforting thought that your gear would never be outdated, this ruined our desire to play the game. The FFXI we 'knew and loved' was torn apart by the level increase...

Not to mention, Abyssea itself more or less broke the game. The amount of experience points you received in Abyssea per time spent was staggering and unlike anything seen before. Obviously, they needed to do this to keep the game going (remember, it is older than WoW!), but more or less made it a different game. All endgame content was made easier so you could do it with less people (because there weren't as many people around). I, like many others, simply lost interest.

---

In conclusion, I'll tell you what I see when I look back on FFXI. I see it with rose-tinted glasses and a nostalgic outlook. I will often sit around with my current FFXIV guild (all people I knew from FFXI...) and joke about how hard FFXI was, and all the ridiculous stories we have as a result. People would fall asleep waiting for monsters to pop, and somehow mysteriously not get mauled. Other fights were so hard (literally took days to master) that they were constantly imprinted in everyone's memory.

[Eagleheart]

You can see the grim future my Son. PLer's will harken the death of this game save for those few who want to raid endlessly until the dark times come and the sun goes dark with age.

Raid endlessly til the dark times come?

From the person longing for XI? o___________________________O

This is precisely why the official forums are lambasted in polite Ul'Dahn society. The capacity for self-delusion amongst some posters here is utterly indefatigable.