Why was FFXI so great?

[Eagleheart]

I'm actually with you I don't want this game to turn out like FFXI either. There was a lot of things FFXI could have done better but some things FFXI did do was right and should be considered.

I concur with that for sure. I'm just worried that so many of these threads idolize FFXI in a way that both confuses and worries me.

[Eagleheart]

However a lot of people like myself hated the sidegrade nature of FFXI doing sky for 5 years ring a bell. So when abyssea did come out it was like a breath of fresh air, probably the greatest thing to happen to FFXI, most people who currently still play FFXI agree on this. Finally we got some upgrades and a new level cap to level up our jobs to keep us busy.

Its the people who quit because their gear wasn't the best anymore are the ones that kept bashing abyssea. Most people who still play FFXI really enjoyed it.

Indeed. If the Dev Team of Old had not returned to XI, my LS and I would still be attempting to balance time on XIV with time on XI. Abyssea was a thrill for our little linkshell, something we could work together on and achieve great successes and awesome rewards, if we just stuck with it. We could complete awesome gear sets for all of our members on multiple jobs, and not obtain only one Adaberk every couple of months with an Einherjar alliance.

This is what irritates me most when people complain about Abyssea. Abyssea enabled the average player without a massive linkshell to obtain awesome rewards, if they just worked hard and stuck with it. We did. We benefited. Anyone could do the same, and that is the entire point. Anyone could.

Hard work, persistence, and due rewards for both, in a system where anyone could join, as Abyssea enabled a variety of strategies with virtually any job combination. We had PLDs. We had BSTs. We had SMNs. Sometimes, we'd BLM burn just to cackle at the sheer nuking power. Sometimes, we'd go with three or four DRKs, just to see the chaos. We'd obtain "tokens" AKA totems/kupo charms for upgrading our individual armors, and be able to see steady progress as we worked towards our goals, and eventually completed them.

The posters who claim to long for a system that rewards hard work and perseverance, with tangible rewards for their time, and then proceed to decry Abyssea, are astonishing to me on a fundamental level. What they claim to want, they instead denigrate and demonize, and have not the capacity to see it, even as it is typed out in front of them! ; ;

[Jocko]

It really isn't moot, though, sir, because the developers are watching, and I am deathly afraid that they will take XIV in the direction of XI.

And what's wrong with the direction? Yes, XI had a lot of issues, but its style of progression and unique "side grade" gear kept the game a lot more interesting than most current (Including XIV) MMO's. XIV is, and should be, a spiritual sequel of sorts to XI. As such, it should take the core concepts and ideas from XI, improve upon them, and create a similar, enhanced product.

The reason XI players are so defensive on these boards is because most MMO's have begun to take a different path from the old EQ, UO, and XI days of past in favor of a more 'casual' (This is not a derogatory term) and perhaps 'solo friendly' approach, and XIV, being a spiritual sequel of sorts, is the closest thing they have to game in that older style. It's understandable as to why they get upset easily when others want this game to go in a direction far away from it's predecessor.

But I got side tracked. What was it about XI's style that you didn't like? Because, note that as a sequel, it's expected that they fix the bad and keep the good of the previous game. It's more than possible to make an XI style game more accessible with less time sinks.

[Eagleheart]

But I got side tracked. What was it about XI's style that you didn't like? Because, note that as a sequel, it's expected that they fix the bad and keep the good of the previous game. It more than possible to make an XI style game more accessible with less time sinks.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-FFXI-2/page12

As an answer, please hop over to this thread, and read my posts at #113, #114, #117, #118, and #124. I would copy them all over to here, but I am not sure if that would violate a spam rule or something. o.x Also, see my post at #152 here.

[Zaaku]

Eagleheart let me break it down for you.

FFXI was not for those who couldn't grasp the concept of being part of a whole. The game was designed from the ground up from the leveling to the end game to be beyond challenging and difficult. Almost to the point of being impossible without constant help.

Which was the point.

You did EVERYTHING with your LS. You fought together, you cried, together, and you shared the glorious warm honeid wine of victory together. The game was not going to let anyone progress without a solid LS behind them. Your LS in effect became the ever constant NPC cohorts that help you through your journey as you'll find in every FF title. All the negative things you mentioned about how FFXI was hard to get anything done in was not the case for me. Sure there were times when I had to shout. Lord knows how many PT's *I* made personally because I didn't want to wait in WG for 4 hours. Most of my time was spend efficiently since I had a great LS to fall back on.


FFXIV's will never reach that level of closeness in the LS groups. Because of the simple fact that we don't really *need* each other as much. Sure there are fights that having 7 people you can trust would be nice and the end game is better when shared with friends. There just isn't that bond anymore. That link of gratitude and faith you have in one another to come help you out after you have helped them become stronger themselves.

Also why you are noticing so many people putting pedestal is because WHAT THE FUG DO YOU EXPECT?! If SE had said, "Were making a new FF MMO with all new races in a new world with a new adventure." You wouldn't hear a peep out of me about how it scaled up to FFXI. That didn't happen.


First they ruined FFXI with Abbeysea for a cash grab. Something that undid 7 years of balance for the sake of letting new comers outpace and out gear those who worked for years on their characters. So they burned down our home. Then they made FFXIV featuring the SAME RACES from FFXI! Call them any name you'd like but it is still Humes, Elvaan, Mithra, Tarutaru, and Galka I see in game. When you export the races from a long running title into a new game of the same genre what the hell do you expect the fans to think? They wanted their subs from FFXI to come over to FFXIV. So they made the races familiar. Well that means that you're going to have thousands of subscribers, all with years of background with FFXI, scratching their heads as to why nothing is the same?

They wanted the fans but wanted to get more money so they have casualized the game. This was NOT the Fantasy we were a part of and I'm a bit peeve about how they handled the transition. I know I can't be the only one. So yes people are going to complain and point out the flaws in FFXIV and compare them to FFXI endlessly because this game is filled with people who played FFXI.

[Jokerz]

Just noticed this part.

Pray tell, what process was that? The process of getting to, and killing Dynamis Lord? Yes, that was a challenge, but it also required idiotic mechanics which became staple for most fights, known as CS.Stun. Stunlock is not great game design.

Horizontal development is also another way of saying "no improvement". Yoshi P said much the same in his reasoning behind implementing Jobs.

Salavage, salvage gear was incredibly impressive at it's time and required a tiered approach in acquiring them. In the event you had to know which path to take and which doors to open o get to the NM's you needed. Add to that the process of unlocking your jobs and how that would effect your run gave players a lot to figure out when it was released. Granted some items had a piss poor drop rate but the over all event was enjoyable to me.

Sea and ZNM's had tierd approaches to the NM's requiring you to fight a series of NM's before getting to the final big boss. You may ask what was the point of the smaller NM's? Well they often dropped decent gear as well so it wasn't for naught to fight these lower NM's.

Relics/emps/mythics were the most powerful weapons in the game and were understandable the most difficult/tedious to obtain. It wasn't as simple as running a raid and hoping to get the .001% drop for the best wep in the game, you had to obtain certain items and pretty much have the weapon created for you.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying these events were perfect and should be copy+paste.

I liked tiered events because you can't get it done in one night. Darklight is the best gear in FFXIV atm to the best of my knowledge well say I were to get lucky and get all the pieces I needed in one week, why the hell should I keep paying for and playing this game? A low percentage drop rate is one very weak way to limit a player base, one that you'll eventually get lucky and win. With a tiered approach I at least leave knowing I got something done, and I'll log on to continue working towards my goal.

I'd like to finish this post by saying I don't think everything should be like this. This game should/will be big enough to have a multitude of other options as well.

[Eagleheart]

@ Zaaku

I'm going to write a long, long post to counter that.

Offhand, I'm just astonished, and can only say that every time you say FFXI had any semblance of balance, you erase your credibility further.

[Jocko]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-FFXI-2/page12

As an answer, please hop over to this thread, and read my posts at #113, #114, #117, #118, and #124. I would copy them all over to here, but I am not sure if that would violate a spam rule or something. o.x Also, see my post at #152 here.

From what I read, it seemed that your major complaints were of balance (Not getting invites for playing certain jobs), time sinks (Waiting long term for a party), and pace (Fighting one mob at a time). Those are all valid complaints, but I don't feel that's what the core of XI consisted of. When I think of an "XI style game", I think of a game with large amounts of open world content, a focus on party as opposed to solo play, a long and very fleshed out story line (More so than most other MMO's), and a variety of "side grade" gear. Those are the core concepts I, and I believe most others think of when remembering XI. I would think it more than possible to create a game with those concepts without falling into the same traps XI did. Better class balance, better and faster party seeking implementation, and a game balanced around fighting multiple (But still challenging and unique) mobs are all possible in what I would consider an "XI style game", and that's what I truly would like to see from XIV. I doubt there are many here, even among the die hard XI fans, that really want to see XIV full of the pointless time sinks and balance issues that XI had, they just want a similarly styled experience with improvements to the formula, and really, is that so much to ask for a game that presented itself as a sequel to XI?

[Eagleheart]

Tiered events were fine.

2% drop rates on items with a 24 hour lockout are not at all superior to 2% drop rates with a fifteen minute lockout. What we have here is romanticizing what was only tolerable because we had established friendships and linkshells.

That was the only reason it was tolerable.

What we've really got a problem with here is that people are not finding themselves, or making themselves, new communities, and I am sorry for that, but that is not a problem with the current game design. People shout for leve parties, they shout for darkhold parties, they shout for Ifrit parties, they shout for Moogle parties.

They shout for AF parties, they shout for EXP parties, they shout for Cutter's parties, and soon, they will shout for Garuda and Imperial Stronghold.

The game design is not the problem with most of the posters in these XI nostalgia threads. The problem is that the posters want their old friends and linkshells in this game, and they are not here, and so that emptiness is being attributed to faults within XIV.

It is only true to the extent that XIV crashed on initial release. The rest of it is simply players in denial.

To alleviate these problems, convince your old friends to wander over here, and cease tilting at windmills.

[Zaaku]

@ Zaaku

I'm going to write a long, long post to counter that.

Offhand, I'm just astonished, and can only say that every time you say FFXI had any semblance of balance, you erase your credibility further.

I completed every single End Game event, (Save Limbus. SCREW Limbus) nearly every story line, and NM hunt on PUP.

Don't even begin to tell me how this game is unbalanced when I proved to every person I ever partied with that the *worst* perceived job in the game was actually one of the best