Quote Originally Posted by BigCheez View Post
In what way is retail a cakewalk compared to how it was back in the day?

The leveling experience is much easier, sure, but Odyssey V25s and master trials are infinitely harder than anything that existed in the game back in the day, with the exception of legitimately broken content like AV and PW that was designed in such a way that it just wasn't possible without exploits given the 250+ms latency that Western players were playing with.

I don't think anyone has even cleared the master trial that was added last year yet. The world's first clear of the one before that took 11 months and no one else has cleared it besides the first group yet as far as I'm aware. If you think the game is a cakewalk, you probably don't play or know very much about the modern game.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying but I can see how that could be the case with the way I worded it. Of course content designed to be difficult is going to be difficult. My point was that OP is citing FFXI as the prime example of how to make a new hardcore MMO where every little thing is a huge pain in the ass, but ironically the game has long since sanded off most of those edges. Leveling is way easier, synthesis is easier, you can get around the world much easier, quests and fame requirements were made easier, maps are easier to get, XP loss on death was reduced, etc etc. As much as I enjoyed the game's brutality back in the day, a new MMO designed like that would absolutely be DOA.