Final Fantasy XI?

langfor6

No FF XI topic? I still have a few friends who play, and I just saw a guy buy the newest expansion in the store the other day.

Does anyone out there still play this?

Accualt

There use to be a big FFXI presence on these boards, I remember ongoing SE++ and G&T threads for it. I don't know where all those people are now, though.

Scooter

Everything I've heard about it seems to describe it as the definitive worst case example of MMO grinds.

Plus I guess the Japanese hate us.

Dr. Phibbs McAthey

I have wanted to pick this up in the past, it's a shame there are no trials for it. About the time I had the disposable income to pick this up this past summer, it seemed like every store in the midwest stopped carrying it. I'm told I'm not missing out, but every time I see pictures of the armor sets I whimper a little.

s3rial one

Scooter wrote:

Everything I've heard about it seems to describe it as the definitive worst case example of MMO grinds.

This is why I left the game. As if the grinding wasn't bad enough to kill my interest, standing around for hours trying to find a party was.

Scooter wrote:

Plus I guess the Japanese hate us.

I never got this, though. The Japanese were never anything but nice to me.

The game has a lot of potential, but short of being re-tooled for the American audience, I don't think it's going to maintain much of a presence in the states.

GimpyBoy

Dr. Phibbs McAthey wrote:

I'm told I'm not missing out, but every time I see pictures of the armor sets I whimper a little.

Yeah, that's basically the gist of FFXI right there. You play a long ass time because you see all these Japanese people wearing AF1 and 2 sets and then you finally get them and you can't stop playing even though there's nothing to do simply because you spent the time to get the AF sets and don't want to feel like it was a waste.

Then you sit around and wait for a party for 2 hours. 1 if you're a healer.

HarshLanguage

There is an awesome game there, buried deep, really really deep, beneath layers of grindy, user-hating, unfun, unfriendly gameplay. It's a shame.

Regina Fong

HarshLanguage wrote:

There is an awesome game there, buried deep, really really deep, beneath layers of grindy, user-hating, unfun, unfriendly gameplay. It's a shame.

Thinking and talking about FFXI makes me sad, because what you say is so very true.

Zombiemambo

GimpyBoy wrote:

Dr. Phibbs McAthey wrote:

I'm told I'm not missing out, but every time I see pictures of the armor sets I whimper a little.

Yeah, that's basically the gist of FFXI right there. You play a long ass time because you see all these Japanese people wearing AF1 and 2 sets and then you finally get them and you can't stop playing even though there's nothing to do simply because you spent the time to get the AF sets and don't want to feel like it was a waste.

Then you sit around and wait for a party for 2 hours. 1 if you're a healer.

2 hours? Your a lightweight. Try 3 days.

GimpyBoy

Zombiemambo wrote:

GimpyBoy wrote:

Dr. Phibbs McAthey wrote:

I'm told I'm not missing out, but every time I see pictures of the armor sets I whimper a little.

Yeah, that's basically the gist of FFXI right there. You play a long ass time because you see all these Japanese people wearing AF1 and 2 sets and then you finally get them and you can't stop playing even though there's nothing to do simply because you spent the time to get the AF sets and don't want to feel like it was a waste.

Then you sit around and wait for a party for 2 hours. 1 if you're a healer.

2 hours? Your a lightweight. Try 3 days.

3 days for a party? What are you a dragoon?

Artoria

I recently quit the game. Mind you I invested in the PS2 version and the expansions which means I probably paid $100 for it all. I think I lasted about 6 months. I managed to get both RDM and WHM to level 20.

I Mainly because of the following

Economy went to hell. everything was insanely high priced.

Waiting forever for parties as a WHM?!?!? then Tanks who don't do their damn job.

Was in 3 different Linkshells and all three broke quickly the average was about 2 weeks the longest was 2 months.

It takes for-fucking-ever to do anything. Leveling comes slowly even with a Power leveler

No one wants to help you with quests. If you are not Grinding you are some sort of Pariah. Never mind you can Level while you are doing a quest by.. I dunno killing shit along the way.

I never had much of a problem with the Japanese. But I also know a little Nihon-go and they really like it when you try to speak to them in their language.

Don't get me wrong I loved the way the game was set up with the jobs system, the location, the quests, and most of all the storyline, music and art direction but all those other factors killed it for me.

Kashi

Takes you forever to grind to endgame, then you find that the endgame is you just standing around waiting for the endgame to let you play it.

In XI you play on the game's time, not on your time. Mobs that everyone wants to kill because they drop the only good loot in the game show up once per day, sometimes 1-3 days. So you stand around forever praying your linkshell gets the claim, and when you do the other 5 linkshells there do their very best to cluster around you so you lag out and die.

Or you could go to Dynamis and grind the useless mobs there and get nothing in return for it, unless you are the designated golden child who will get all the currency and actually obtain your relic weapon (this process generally takes a year and a half. Each.)

HarshLanguage

At one point, when I was in the throes of deciding to quit FFXI, I talked a lot on ffxionline.com about how to fix the game. I think the North American userbase that's left would be thrilled with even some simple changes. Look at the reaction they got when they smoothed the level curve and reduced the death penalty... keep going on those lines and other user-friendliness items and it would be a great game.

The problem is, it's not clear that the developers or the Japanese playerbase wants that friendlier game.

Do they still say they delete characters 3 months after deactivating the account? That struck me as one of the dumbest MMO decisions ever. And then when subscriptions stagnated, they did that "Return to Vanadiel" thing, where suddenly all those deleted characters weren't so deleted after all! But IIRC, only for a limited time!

MAINER 3.0

I still play it

I've got a black chocobo

Hullabaloo

This was like, a lot of fun with the linkshell I had. I think that's what more people needed, linkshells that were about having FUN with each other, rather then just grinding forwards.

Anyways, I haven't played the game for years. That deleting characters thing sucks, I miss my taru-taru bard, who had goals of being a summoner (I'd have been a summoner, but you needed to get to level 60 to get anything other then carbuncle at the time.) Anyways, there's a fun game there under all the stuff trying to stop you.

OtakuD00D

I'm on Odin. I'm enjoying the game well enough. My friend helps me through whatever quests he can. He's trying to get me through to Rank 5 with San D'oria. I'm currently a Mithra 25THF/12MNK (Or 13. I forget what it decides on). Going for Samurai.

FierceDeity666

i still have an elvaan on midgardsormr.

my main gripe with that server is that no other forumers are there at all.

the only one other than me was KiTA.

s3rial one

HarshLanguage wrote:

At one point, when I was in the throes of deciding to quit FFXI, I talked a lot on ffxionline.com about how to fix the game. I think the North American userbase that's left would be thrilled with even some simple changes. Look at the reaction they got when they smoothed the level curve and reduced the death penalty... keep going on those lines and other user-friendliness items and it would be a great game.

The problem is, it's not clear that the developers or the Japanese playerbase wants that friendlier game.

Do they still say they delete characters 3 months after deactivating the account? That struck me as one of the dumbest MMO decisions ever. And then when subscriptions stagnated, they did that "Return to Vanadiel" thing, where suddenly all those deleted characters weren't so deleted after all! But IIRC, only for a limited time!

There is a good game in there, somewhere...

Things I'd do to fix it:

• Change skillchains to be strictly stat-based, so there isn't a "best" one.
• Normalize spell damage across the elements (e.g. all the -aga spells should have the same hitting power)
• Reduce the importance of levels, so that groups can be within 3 or 4 levels of each other instead of 1 or 2.
• Change the way subjobs accumulate spells and stats so that a couple people subbed white mage or red mage can pull healing duty. That'd add a much-needed degree of flexibility to group creation.
• Add some semblance of soloability. It doesn't need to be fantastic or even comparable to group experience, but it needs to be possible for pretty much everyone.
• More quests, less grinding.

If they did those things, I'd resubscribe in a hearbeat. Fat chance, though.

Hullabaloo

Oh also, have they done anything about putting Tetra-master (or whatever that little side card game was called) INTO the main game?

Not that they showed any signs of ever wanting to, but I always thought it'd be an awsome way to pass the time while waiting for a party.

Clawshrimpy

I play FFXI simply because I am in a good LS and I dont want to go back to a shittier comunity in WoW. I would do the dunes 8 times before Id ever fucking do Scholo or UD Strat, or UBRS again.

MAINER 3.0

If anybody is on Asura we should start a PA linkshell

langfor6

MAINER 3.0 wrote:

If anybody is on Asura we should start a PA linkshell

I just ran into an old friend of mine that I've known for 20+ years, and the whole reason I started this thread is because he plays FF XI and we haven't gamed together since we used to play tabletop D&D.

He actually plays on Asura, so once I get a world pass I'm going to start a character there. PM me your character name if you want to get in touch. Fair warning, I'm new to this game.

I've seen a lot of negative stuff out there, so what keeps people coming back? They released this game on 360 and I have two friends back home that are diehards (the other one is on Odin) so there has to be something to it.

ask

the game is awesome looking and has a great atmosphere but like everyone else already mentioned the game is a terrible grind fest. I quit playing around the time chains of promathia came out so some of this may have been fixed no but

- it took forever to get a good working party together and equally long to get anything accomplished
- it was basically a requirement to have the absolute best gear for your level
- everything was insanely expensive and money making either consisted of hours of monotonous fishing/mining etc. or standing in a field with 500 other people hoping you beat them all to some stupid lizard that spawns once a day and isn't even guaranteed to drop the pair of boots everyone wants
- leveling took forever and one death would wipe away hours worth of exp
- nobody seemed to care about the quests or the story line so nevermind increasing your rank cause all everyone else wants to do is grind to level 70 and get their AF


I was in a really good linkshell for awhile and it solved most of these problems but once it broke up I just couldnt force myself to keep going. deep down though I really loved that game. If square does that return to vanadiel thing again I might consider going back. I miss my old dark knight

Coldbrand

ask wrote:

the game is awesome looking and has a great atmosphere but like everyone else already mentioned the game is a terrible grind fest. I quit playing around the time chains of promathia came out so some of this may have been fixed no but

- it took forever to get a good working party together and equally long to get anything accomplished
- it was basically a requirement to have the absolute best gear for your level
- everything was insanely expensive and money making either consisted of hours of monotonous fishing/mining etc. or standing in a field with 500 other people hoping you beat them all to some stupid lizard that spawns once a day and isn't even guaranteed to drop the pair of boots everyone wants
- leveling took forever and one death would wipe away hours worth of exp
- nobody seemed to care about the quests or the story line so nevermind increasing your rank cause all everyone else wants to do is grind to level 70 and get their AF


I was in a really good linkshell for awhile and it solved most of these problems but once it broke up I just couldnt force myself to keep going. deep down though I really loved that game. If square does that return to vanadiel thing again I might consider going back. I miss my old dark knight

The game is nothing like this at all.

ask

like I said things may have changed since but that was my experience with the game. when I was in a good active linkshell all those problems went away but that only lasted for a few months

I still think it was a good game at its core there was just a lot of things that got in the way of that fact

EDIT: I also dont think I am really cut out for MMO's . so that probably had a lot to do with it

Invisible

Coldbrand wrote:

ask wrote:

the game is awesome looking and has a great atmosphere but like everyone else already mentioned the game is a terrible grind fest. I quit playing around the time chains of promathia came out so some of this may have been fixed no but

- it took forever to get a good working party together and equally long to get anything accomplished
- it was basically a requirement to have the absolute best gear for your level
- everything was insanely expensive and money making either consisted of hours of monotonous fishing/mining etc. or standing in a field with 500 other people hoping you beat them all to some stupid lizard that spawns once a day and isn't even guaranteed to drop the pair of boots everyone wants
- leveling took forever and one death would wipe away hours worth of exp
- nobody seemed to care about the quests or the story line so nevermind increasing your rank cause all everyone else wants to do is grind to level 70 and get their AF


I was in a really good linkshell for awhile and it solved most of these problems but once it broke up I just couldnt force myself to keep going. deep down though I really loved that game. If square does that return to vanadiel thing again I might consider going back. I miss my old dark knight

The game is nothing like this at all.

Really? When did it change? Because I played 9 or 10 months ago (whenever it came out on the 360) and it was still like that. Well, except for the XP part.

ducttapeenthusiast

The game certainly isn't for everyone, as I've heard several accounts of people not having a very fun time. Some cases are just people not sticking it out to get to the good stuff, others are simply people who are not cut out for MMO's. Otherwise, people have their own tastes and are entitled to their opinion. I enjoy the game, personally.

Invisible wrote:

Coldbrand wrote:

ask wrote:

the game is awesome looking and has a great atmosphere but like everyone else already mentioned the game is a terrible grind fest. I quit playing around the time chains of promathia came out so some of this may have been fixed no but

- it took forever to get a good working party together and equally long to get anything accomplished
- it was basically a requirement to have the absolute best gear for your level
- everything was insanely expensive and money making either consisted of hours of monotonous fishing/mining etc. or standing in a field with 500 other people hoping you beat them all to some stupid lizard that spawns once a day and isn't even guaranteed to drop the pair of boots everyone wants
- leveling took forever and one death would wipe away hours worth of exp
- nobody seemed to care about the quests or the story line so nevermind increasing your rank cause all everyone else wants to do is grind to level 70 and get their AF


I was in a really good linkshell for awhile and it solved most of these problems but once it broke up I just couldnt force myself to keep going. deep down though I really loved that game. If square does that return to vanadiel thing again I might consider going back. I miss my old dark knight

The game is nothing like this at all.

Really? When did it change? Because I played 9 or 10 months ago (whenever it came out on the 360) and it was still like that. Well, except for the XP part.

Again, it's all personal opinion, and your opinion is usually formed based on the people you meet. There are people playing that have the same goals in mind as you, you just have to find them. Speak up, make some friends and the game really picks up fast.

Just_Bri_Thanks

I just logged off. I am a hair away from level 61 on White Mage.

My server is Carbuncle.

1up

I used to be the Linkshell leader of the Penny Arcadians on Lakshmi (G&T). I made it to 75 BLM and had done up to Dynamis Xarcabard. In the end it really wasnt worth it. I had AF2 and drops from sky and sea access. But to do that I had to alienate myself from my Linkshell. Had some really good times with a lot of PAers. I made a little crappy flash before I left about our old guild.

(this will take a while to load)
http://home.comcast.net/~1upmushroom/thatthing.swf

langfor6

I'm up and running on Asura now. My name is Tevok if anyone wants to hit me up.

Mephianse

Clawshrimpy wrote: »

I play FFXI simply because I am in a good LS and I dont want to go back to a shittier comunity in WoW. I would do the dunes 8 times before Id ever fucking do Scholo or UD Strat, or UBRS again.

All those dungeons are irrevalent and useless now. OUTLAND ftw.
FFXI was a great game at the time..but the horrible community on the server i was on, not to mention that if you are a dragoon or samurai(my 2 favorite classes) you cant get a group.

King Kong

Honestly this game is about friends. If you dont make any or make very few it just doesn't work.

I've played for over 3 years now and my orginal time thru I had a great shell with fellow PA'ers which made the game much more enjoyable.

Now I've made a second account fo rmy 360 and going thru with no real shell sucks a lot of life out of it.

Just_Bri_Thanks

I view every MMO as somethng pretty to see/do while chatting with friends.

Just_Bri_Thanks

I am going to get level 61 White Mage this weekend. I am 2500 points away! I am so psyched!

I want to tool around with my new Automaton chasis first though.

Just_Bri_Thanks

Spoilered for H-Scroll

mrcheesypants

1up wrote: »

I used to be the Linkshell leader of the Penny Arcadians on Lakshmi (G&T). I made it to 75 BLM and had done up to Dynamis Xarcabard. In the end it really wasnt worth it. I had AF2 and drops from sky and sea access. But to do that I had to alienate myself from my Linkshell. Had some really good times with a lot of PAers. I made a little crappy flash before I left about our old guild.

(this will take a while to load)
http://home.comcast.net/~1upmushroom/thatthing.swf

Wait which one were you? I know keit in the game.

edit: Nvm it was keitarou not keitaro. Stupid random name generator...

Airan

It's kinda sad that the big announcements this month were choose what world your character will be in during creation (omg no more worldpasses!) and a rumored legal windowed mode. Mmm.

Was a lv75 THF in Ramuh. Quit a month ago, just didn't have the time to do shit in the game.

ducttapeenthusiast

Airan wrote: »

It's kinda sad that the big announcements this month were choose what world your character will be in during creation (omg no more worldpasses!) and a rumored legal windowed mode. Mmm.

Was a lv75 THF in Ramuh. Quit a month ago, just didn't have the time to do shit in the game.

They still have 4 days to make the big announcements, and the best is usually saved until the last minute. The windowed mode is also not a rumor, it's fact, along with adjustments to endgame drop rates. The only things still "rumored" are the details regarding both, which we should hear about in the next few days.

I will agree, the world selection and migration thing is a bit rediculous and should've been done a while back, but at least they finally did something about it. Otherwise, congrats on beating the game(addiction)! Heh...

Just_Bri_Thanks

So I am putting together a White Mage guide. If you have any insights you would like to share, PMz plz.

Xhaztol

This might piss off a lot of PS2 players, but seriously, this game would even benefit from being PC only, receiving a heavy overhaul upgrade of the UI and the graphics. Maybe some proper mouse support. I dunno. I still play, having a good time with PUP, but for the love of God, having to cater to the PS2 users and deal with giant ugly fonts and slow menus is a pain. For some reason I don't think I'd mind the grind as much if the interface were as quick and responsive as say, WoW's.

But we'll never get that.

Here's hoping to the game's sequel.

Just_Bri_Thanks

I think you are forgetting that the game was designed to be used with a controller.