Why was FFXI so great?

[Lux_Rayna]

But having done it before does not mean you have issues or that you're risking your health. I can't take anyone seriously who thinks this is life threatening or that you're mentally unstable for ever in your life having played a game for a single 18 hour period. I really don't think I'm the one who needs to get a grip here.

I dont think he meant to take it that far, but it isn't exactly healthy. Idc what you're doing, its bad to be sedentary for that long in any single day. Sure once in a while it doesn't hurt you, but its not exactly a healthy display of behavior. But then again, American society is sedentary most of their waking hours so its not more unhealthy than the rest of our sad work/school/tv culture.

[Amage]

I quit because 1) it got boring and w/ 99 alot of content became too "easy" and also the drops from that content became antiquated and 2) player skill dropped thru the basement and past the first sub basement shortly after the advent of abyssea and the marketing campaign to bring 13 year olds to FFXI and get 1~99 in 1 week so they could do EG content w/ "friends", did you ever end up in a +2/Empy Weapon pick up only to realize that your whm only had cures up to 4, didn't have and skills above 100, and then asked if your melees/tank should be hasted? Come on.


Yay PUP, I loved my PUP, and proved on more than one occasion that it is a useful job for more than just soloing. Not to mention it was fun, useful pets that don't swallow your mp or turn on you at the worst possible moments are fun.


6/18 players active the rest watching t.v. or napping or at work, noobs come back to a job that went 30~99 and say, "Oh what do all these skills do. I'm gonna go shout for a seal party before I get the rest of the spells cause I don't need them anyway."


WHM/NIN dual-wielding clubs because s/he's bored ... need I go on.


Rapidly declining team strategies, not to mention that now it's more of a blu/ dnc/ sam/ or /sam just solo chaining, and getting pissed when someone else WSs during their chain. Yeah all mine were 99 and there wasn't anything more fun than dnc/sam doin 3peice dark skillchains for hahas. But yeah DDs stopped working together ages ago.

Those last 3, they sum up the player skill level plummet that abyssea brought to FFXI.
I missed skillchains when they for some reason went out the window, well some people, old school types, still realize that a chain for an xtra 25~150% or more "free" dmg added to the last hit of the chain, and the mages getting to boost their dmg for magic bursting is "smart" playing.

i loved SC and MB's all day kill shit fast more xp/hr or just Damage

[Gentaro]

FFXI wasn't a game you could "finish" that easily. Leveling one job took you months, you had challenges on the way (AF,Genkai) and when you finished a job (and the subjob of course) you opened the door to almost every piece of endgame content. The gear wasn't a requirement because what you obtained wasn't much better than your AF - but for this tiny improvement you were willing to work hard. By hard work I mean grouping up with 17 other people to camp a monster that spawns every ~5 days and drops 2 or 3 items for your LS. NMs didn't respawn after 5 minutes. You were working hard for weeks, months, even years to get a certain item instead of farming 100 Inferno Lamps and just challenging the droprate,not the encounter itself. Fighting Ifrit in FFXIV is boring, you get tired after run #236, in FFXI it was always exciting to fight big stuff, simply because you didn't get the chance. Big encounters like Kirin took days of preparation, Killing Zipacna, Mother Globe & Co to be able to Kill the 4 Gods which drop the seals for Kirin... And those items were anything but fancy. The models were unique, but still simple. Today in FFXIV the first big encounter drops weapons similar to christmas trees....
Travelling from San d'Oria to Jeuno was a challenge, an adventure. Moving through 4 different areas, 2 of them completely new to you in the beginning. You had to watch out to survive, setting your homepoint on all locations on the way. In FFXIV, someone teleports you from Ul'dah to Gridania, or you just take the airship, which you couldn't without working your ass off on missions in FFXI.

SE did one mistake: They didn't copy anything from FFXI - no auction house, no loot system, no teleport system, nothing. FFXI was far from perfect on many things, but people loved the game anyways, because it always had a challenge for you.
What's the challenge in FFXIV? Defeat boredom, cause leveling all classes to 50 isn't a real challenge. Another challenge in FFXIV are the items, not obtaining them, instead finding a place to store them. Having all ifrit weapons shouldn't be that easy.


Why Abyssea destroyed FFXI? Because plenty of the content there was became solo-content in an instant. 64-ppl Dynamis ended up as a Beastmaster solo area.



I want my challenge back :< I want FFXI-2

[Tonkra]

to answer the question:

BECAUSE IT WAS SO GREAT IN YOUR MEMORIES, BACK THEN

to quote myself from an other similar thread opener who loved FFXI that much also:

First joined FFXI? The release of CoP.

well and thats the point... see how much content (and maximum cap level raise) the expansions "Rise of the Zillart" and "Chains Of Promathia" brought to FFXI.. it was about 2-3 years after the game was released.

and you compare this experience with the basic game of FFXIV. i think 2.0. could be that, what Chains of Promathia was to FFXI. and i think we have good content now in comparison what the FFXI standard game offered, seeriously.


and how i mentioned.. FFXI was a good game BACK then. but not for today. FFXIV is more active in any way, do not need to rest for an hour after each mob kill as a white mage.. you cruise around the camps, dont standing the whole time in one place. and maybe 2.0. can be even much better and more modern than we have it now.

be surprised.. and dont call for an other FFXI. it is in your memories (which i can understand). i personally loved FFXI back then^ it was a great experience.

[The basic FFXI didnt even had an auction house, it had the very standard jobs and less areas/content]

[Gentaro]

To be exact, FFXI got the auction house about 1 month after release and had 15 areas and the lvlcap was 50

[Darian]

Personally I think FFXI just has a lot of nostalgia since it was the first MMO for a lot of people even though it had some of the most wtf time sinks ever.

However, FFXI did have content that basically said "a full alliance or don't even bother", which I think is the 1 thing FFXIV is missing atm to entertain people looking for a bigger challenge.

FFXI also had what I consider the most challenging quest ever.... Doing Dynamis to obtain a Relic Weapon.... I'm talking 75 cap dynamis where you could only enter 2x a week.

Even though Dynamis had such a restriction I swear I'll never forget the feel I got the day I finish my relic bow after spending what felt like years working on it and the amount of nerd pride I felt that day lol (I literally had chill bumps on my arm and spent a good minute just look at it. I think the amount of yelling that followed also scared anyone in the house that day).

Being new to FFXIV I feel it's on the right track. It's 100x faster then FFXI and it does not even have 1 expansion out. I know it's been said 9999 times but it's really hard to judge this game until 2.0 comes out. Because a lot of the issues we are having atm are set to be fixed then.

As for Abyssea I don't think it killed FFXI since it made almost 90% of the jobs effective with atma and opened up TONs of ways to play 1 job. But I will admit stuff like Auto-Reraise and lack of NMs that would challenge atma buffed characters was the main issue I had.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

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.

...

To alleviate these problems, convince your old friends to wander over here

I'd have to buy 20 some-odd graphics cards and, for some, desktop PCs to put them in.

Current XI content is stale and/or bland while XIV content, regardless of its quality, is inaccessible for far too many. And this too-long period where both of these factors are still true is only working to segregate and ultimately disperse my social LS minions.

I'm doing what I can, but it's not enough. Something has to happen soon.

[illriginalized]

Challenge for everything.

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


/dies

[Venat]

Only few downfalls with the game was making Abyssea too easy with EXPing. What they should of done was let players obatin exp by trading in there Abyssea signet points for EXP scrolls & limiting those scrolls to be only be used to buy a single Merit point.
Everything else was pretty much fine. I do feel they should of Augmented more gear and made Crafting/Fishing better.

Also Abyssea weapons are way too powerful outside of Abyssea. Also they shouldn't of added Primal Brew. Primal Brew took the skill and enjoyment out of Abyssea itself as a Cheat.

Lack of game support or even more to hope for is extremely low. Last 5 years were pretty bad with mini expations and ton of copyed Areas from Dynamis to Abyssea to Wings of the Goddess.

No new things being added in the future expation pack wise... pretty much says the to public, this game is dead and isn't making enough cash.

[Eagleheart]

I'd have to buy 20 some-odd graphics cards and, for some, desktop PCs to put them in.

Current XI content is stale and/or bland while XIV content, regardless of its quality, is inaccessible for far too many. And this too-long period where both of these factors are still true is only working to segregate and ultimately disperse my social LS minions.

I'm doing what I can, but it's not enough. Something has to happen soon.

Aye, I agree. My point was mostly to Zaaku, regarding the real reason why he finds himself so frustrated with XIV. I myself have several friends that are holding out on joining XIV for a little while longer yet.

>.> I want them to join to get in on the Legacy Campaign though. Gonna start harping on 'em about it.