Not all has been good and shiny in Final Fantasy XI

[Themis]

FFXI was great, and more importantly memorable.

For all of its flaws (and there were several) I will always remember that game fondly. I don't know why XI fans hate XIV and XIV fans hate XI.

I enjoy both games.

I've not played a whole lot of MMOs, but of all those I have played, XI is the only one I've stuck with for any considerable length of time - for me, that's about 5 1/2 years and I'm still playing. Sure, it has a lot flaws and there's plenty of room for improvements, but that doesn't stop it being enjoyable to play and it holds very important and special memories for me, the biggest of which is that I met my current partner of 4 years in that game (and I know of many couples who have also met through the game). The social aspect of XI is what made it XI, as much as the story/characters/content did.

That's the biggest part of XI that I want to see in XIV. I love to solo/duo/lowman as much as the next guy, but I also enjoyed those large LS events where everyone pulled together to achieve goals, or even just a social LS with people to make friends with. And with XI/V being mutli-region, I've been able to meet people of all kinds of cultures, nationalities and walks of life. It's not all about smooth combat scenes and flashy animations. Unless you're that shallow, of course (non-targeted comment).

[Jeronlmo]

You have no idea how tired I am of people saying things like "if 11 was so great, then why arent you still playing it". That is NOT, 100% not FF11 over there, that game is now a joke, it is nothing to any of us that played it for years. They changed it into a gimp fest for people like you who left shortly after, they nerfed and nerfed until abyssea came out, that is where the playerbase went, if they didnt break 11, i promise you this game would be smaller, by far.

[Churchill]

Laughing so hard at how pathetic you sound

[Jeronlmo]

Keep talking gimp.

Threads basically designed trying to talk people out of remembering how good 11 was is just sad, im seeing people bash the "community" that people loved so much by talking about "bots" and hnm's, do you really think all of endgame was HNM related? There was generally 1 LS per server that would have the bots, maby 2, thats a total of maby 80 people from thousands on packet bots, that is it, most endgame did not do HNM, had nothing to do with it.

Endgame was sky/sea/salvage/ein/dyna/znm/limbus, the majority of endgame was between these events, the community was amazing, but i do get it, people like alot of you should be scared, because we did have requirements, sometimes very high, you can either play, or you cant, idc about your rl excuse, thats all it is, the end, if you think you needed to be a programmer to set up good macro's thats just an easy sign you would never cut it.

You will never talk people out of liking what FF11 was, these threads are pointless, its like telling old people pong has bad graphics or mario/donkey kong, your always going to be the idiots in the conversation.

[Onisake]

- less variety when it comes to character customization (clone wars here we come)

It made 100% perfect sense why this was done. There's also an 8 year gap. between release dates.

- very beginner unfriendly

This isn't uncommon in FF. only the recent ones are faceroll easy. the original FF games had steep learning curves.

This was a huge barrier for some people. I understand that. for me, it made the experience more endearing.

- horrible combat menu (you had to write macros on your own, otherwise combats are a mess "am i a programmer or what?!)

I loved the menus. if i opened a menu i could see all of my CDs in one spot. programming macros was not that difficult. we still have macros. and i prefer those to the action bar.

- slow and passive combat (BLM had to rest MP for hours, casting spells each 10 minutes. Melee jobs hit every 5 seconds and have to wait for their TP to finally get filled slowly) (now we have positioning stlyes, combos, spell combos, much faster regeneration etc)

I don't remember combat being that slow. but I was a main tank for an LS. i had a lot to worry about. i occasionally went melee DD, and i agree that was much slower. but i though the pace of things was acceptable.

- non-typical (non charismatic) Final Fantasy character design
FFXI shantotto

standard Tarutaru Female♀, Face 1, Hairstyle 4



FFXIV char design (it just seems more final fantasy alike to me. (like FFIX etc.))
E-Sumi

Kann-e-senna

Darnus

Again this is a limitation of the tech. the game is OLD. it's been a decade since FFXI came out. so many of your complaints here are unfounded. the team did a fantastic job with what was available to them.

I remember the NPCs from FFXI. Prishe, Naja, Shantoto, Raogrimm. they were memorable. I HATED Naja. and that's what made me love the memory of her. they made the character real enough it made me feel something. FFXIV has yet to do that. i dont' remember any of the NPCs names for FFXIV and i'm playing it right now.

Merlwyb (I had to look up her name) is just 'the admiral' to me. the characters in FFXI were far more charismatic to me. Naja with her mace, and Shantoto with her laugh. Raogrimm with his mopey attitude and tragic history. Prishe with her flamboyant attitude. all memorable. the NPCs in FFXIV are just boring right now. they feel too much like plot elements to me, they are just sorta there. they aren't really alive to me. the only NPC i know by name is lolCid.

- camping one spot for hours (in FFXIV you are cruising for most of the time)

- fighting one mob for half an hour (well i enjoyed it for some time, i just mean its not offline final fantasy alike when it comes to this point


one monster battles only in FFXI (not very Final fantasy alike):


multiple and one monster battles in all Offline Final Fantasy's and in FFXIV:

This added structure. these fights were a lot closer to what you would experience endgame. right now, grind parties are get a tank, tank aggros everything. and all the DD AoE.

my LS did some ifrit runs last weekend with some fresh 50s to show them what endgame was like. and...yeah. fresh 50s have no idea how to play their jobs. the only thing they had really done up to that point was spam AoEs.

I met a whm the other day in Natalan that did not know what Sacred Prism did. I had 3 wariors in a raptor party, and the monk had to pull because the wars couldn't figure i tout. >.> So i can't really back you on this point either.

in FFXI by the time you hit 75 you knew how to play your job. you knew what all your abilities did. the experience was a lot more balanced.

Times have also changed in the MMorpg genre. And i can remember quiet good the voices of Final Fantasy offline-only players who just tried out FFXI and said "thats not really Final Fantasy alike". which.. is not a bad fact.

Dont get me wrong, i enjoyed Final Fantasy XI for such a good long time. but not all about FFXI is the perfect shiny rainbow how many fans describe it here. The Battle interface and menu was far beyond from being good, till today.
And i think even FFXIV 1.0. did a better job than FFXI in this point.
If FFXI was released today for the first time, i really doubt that it would have been flopped less than FFXIV 1.0.


Yoshida wants to go new ways with FFXIV 2.0.
He wants to have content progressing instead of grinding. he wants a final fantasy themepark with much typical Final Fantasy'ish elements.
he wants to blur the fixed boundaries between Final Fantasy Offline and Final Fantasy Online.

Well lets see how Final Fantasy 2.0. can surprise us. either in a bad or in a good way.



BUT the fact is.. that not all about Final Fantasy XI has been shiny, sugar and rainbow. seriously .. not. So take off your pink glasses.

there were a lot of problems with FFXI. but it had a lot more going for it than FFXIV did. FFXI had a TON of problems at launch. but they were fixed by the time it launched in NA.

but FFXIV can learn a LOT more from FFXI than FFXI can learn from FFXIV. i think maybe you need to take the rose-colored glasses off my friend.

I too am looking forward to see where the game goes. and I provide my feedback where it is appropriate. but your thread is just as demeaning as the other ones, if not more so. so step off the soap box and get over yourself.

[Jeronlmo]

I hated Naja so much.

[Gramul]

Laughing so hard at how pathetic you sound

Conciteeeeed~

[Firon]

in FFXI by the time you hit 75 you knew how to play your job. you knew what all your abilities did. the experience was a lot more balanced.

This part made me lol and this was a major problem with XI there wasn't rly anything to learn. Party to HNM fights in XI all felt the same no matter what. No matter how much you party in XIV and don't PL it will never get you rdy to face garuda ifrit or the Final GC fight cause they are much more dynamic than fighting 1 mob at a time like you did in XI.

[Jeronlmo]

Nothing to learn? Is that why i kicked so many people from exp groups... daily, because they would melee on rdm, or couldnt SC, couldnt handle a haste rotation, or heal, or not pull hate off the tank, interesting.

Edit: who couldnt line up for SATA,

Also, learning your job, and learning an event is 2 different things, though you need to know your job to properly learn the event, atleast to learn it fast enough before I kick you for causing a wipe.

[Churchill]

Whole lots of mad at not being able to log in and afk in the best gear and solo Krabkatoa like a boss