Why was FFXI so great?

[Tigercub]

http://kotaku.com/5036371/final-fant...-hours-to-beat

Took me whole day to just be able to ride a Chocobo and i could only rent one in those days. Same for samurai quest, it took a LVL 75 with for a whole day and lots of items to avoid detection to complete that stupid quest.
HNM with ridiculous spwan rates that forces you to camp for days on end.

Should i keep going? Didn't i tell you in the past that if you have no idea of what you are talking about, it's better to say nothing?

I actually liked FFXI's pace and difficulty level. I have no problem with an NM that takes 18 hours to beat or a quest that takes a whole day to finish. They're things you do on a weekend gaming binge or in the case of a quest you do it a little at a time.

Many different aspects of FFXI kept me interested enough that I didn't feel like just falling asleep during the tedious parts. Everything puts me to sleep in XIV. It's like taking half a bottle of ambien and downing a quart of rum for me. I play full zombie mode (when I can fire up enough neurons to play, since my brain tends to go dead at the thought).

But it all comes down to personal preference. I mean one person's idea of masochism is different to another's. Right now, FFXIV is my idea of masochism, though it has drastically improved. I stick around because I know it's going to get better, not because it's fun to play right now.

[Eagleheart]

Where is this, where everyone is getting the idea that everything in Final Fantasy XIV is simply being handed to the players on a silver platter?

Artifact armor was never a great challenge in XI, and put bluntly, most of it was thoroughly mediocre, if not utterly useless - complaining about it being easy in XIV is to go beyond the relatively noncommittal term "Double standards", and vault squarely into the realm of hypocrisy.

The drop rates on equipment in the Vale and Cutter's Cry are a source of outcry, the rate on weapons for Ifrit and Moogle have always been complained about, and getting particularly good double or triple bonded armor is no cheap or easy task.

Just what exactly is being handed to the playerbase without any effort here? Can that question be answered definitively by someone?

[illriginalized]

Challenge for everything.

I'm probably double quoting this... but.. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


/dies

[Volsung]

XI had content, both for hardcore and casual players (though the casual content took longer to come)

Hardcore: nm, endgame areas (sea/sky) with tiered steps to take and make progress, several different events that werent simple run straight through raids

casual: besieged (town invasion event with fleshed out npc general allies and enemies), campaign (always going capture the territory from beastment event), FoV (increased exp for targeting certain mobs), chest drops from normal mobs

not to mention excellent expansion storylines, RoZ CoP ToA WoG (good npcs)

Why abyssea ruined it? for years everything was geared towards 75, and a lot of "ultimate" sets that took lots of effort to get at 75, suddenly became garbage. Lots of people felt like all their time went to waste

[Beorhtel_Fet]

XI had content, both for hardcore and casual players (though the casual content took longer to come)

Hardcore: nm, endgame areas (sea/sky) with tiered steps to take and make progress, several different events that werent simple run straight through raids

casual: besieged (town invasion event with fleshed out npc general allies and enemies), campaign (always going capture the territory from beastment event), FoV (increased exp for targeting certain mobs), chest drops from normal mobs

not to mention excellent expansion storylines, RoZ CoP ToA WoG (good npcs)

Why abyssea ruined it? for years everything was geared towards 75, and a lot of "ultimate" sets that took lots of effort to get at 75, suddenly became garbage. Lots of people felt like all their time went to waste

This is kind of on the right track.... I also would like to add that alot (not all) of the newer players burned their jobs up to high levels from level 30 in Abyssea and never learned to play them correctly. My friends from 11 that are coming to 14 now because of all of that tell me horror stories of Abyssea babies not knowing what skillchains and Magic Bursts are. In Abyssea, people got away with afking in their xp parties because nobody could tell they were even there when 2/18 people did most of the work. This was the complete opposite of old school 11 in the sense that the old days forced all people to work together or none of you could get anything done as almost nothing was done solo efficiently. Particularly on my server in the older days if you didn't know how to play your job you were booted from the party and replaced, which kind of forced people to have some idea of what they were doing, although there were exceptions.

[Holland]

I played FFXI for three years almost non stop and I have an opposite view. If XI was as great as some put it, it would have been a more well received game for the gaming community at large, specially the Final Fantasy fans, wich are among the most loyal fans out there. The game was only good for the stubborn gamers that put up with the nonsensical gameplay mechanics in place at that time.

I loved FFXI to death, but I see it for what it is/was.

[Duelle]

I played FFXI for three years almost non stop and I have an opposite view. If XI was as great as some put it, it would have been a more well received game for the gaming community at large, specially the Final Fantasy fans, wich are among the most loyal fans out there. The game was only good for the stubborn gamers that put up with the nonsensical gameplay mechanics in place at that time.

I loved FFXI to death, but I see it for what it is/was.

This. I don't think many started realizing this until they started playing other games of the same generation and saw how stagnant in design XI is.

Nobody uses skillchains or magic bursts ever in the game even at end game.

This too. Skillchains were borked by latency, leading to anything more complicated than a two-step SC doing nothing. Their idea was that players would all build up the skillchain so that two melee make a level 1 skillchain, then one guy joins in and makes it lv2 and then the last guy comes in and makes it lv3. I have a feeling battle regiments were following this idea in a way.

Magic bursts are testinomy to how poorly-designed magic was in XI, when your nukers had to start casting before the skillchain even started.

[Amage]

This. I don't think many started realizing this until they started playing other games of the same generation and saw how stagnant in design XI is.
This too. Skillchains were borked by latency, leading to anything more complicated than a two-step SC doing nothing. Their idea was that players would all build up the skillchain so that two melee make a level 1 skillchain, then one guy joins in and makes it lv2 and then the last guy comes in and makes it lv3. I have a feeling battle regiments were following this idea in a way.

Magic bursts are testinomy to how poorly-designed magic was in XI, when your nukers had to start casting before the skillchain even started.

you clearly didnt play blm or any caster past kuftal tunnel

[Rutelor]

I played FFXI for three years almost non stop and I have an opposite view. If XI was as great as some put it, it would have been a more well received game for the gaming community at large, specially the Final Fantasy fans, wich are among the most loyal fans out there. The game was only good for the stubborn gamers that put up with the nonsensical gameplay mechanics in place at that time.

I loved FFXI to death, but I see it for what it is/was.

Holland, with due respect I will disagree. You cannot equate numbers of players with quality. According to that line of thought, McDonald's is better food than Thomas Keller's; Rihanna's music would trump Bach; and Twilight is better literature than Infinite Jest.

FFXI was a great game, much better, imo, than others that sold gazillion copies to the MCD* audience. Which is not to say that it lacked quirks, even some abysmal failures, mainly in interface design, quality of program code, and future-proofing.

Stubbornness is, again imo, an inadequate word to describe what kept at least this dedicated player among the loyalist band for years. I found this game engaged my thoughts and emotions in ways (and believe me, I played most of the major ones) no other game within the genre did.

R

* Minimum Common Denominator

[fusional]

it was and it wasn't. it did a lot of things really awfully, but it also did a few things really well, and it was enough to keep a pretty loyal player base around to keep doing those things (while putting up with the bad)