Lol. You assume everyone that disagrees with you is a “casual” player? 
I made it to 75 and it was the worst gaming experience of my life. The only reason to play a game like this is for the people. That’s it.
Although I will concede, SE has tried to make it easier to lvl over the last few years (anniversary rings, new zones, dailies, etc etc), it doesn’t take away the fact that the gameplay is absolute balls.
To be fair, FFX-2 went in a completely different direction FFX did.
From super linear to non linear.
From one continuous story to a chapter based system.
From one mandatory story to a “do sidequests if you want” structure.
From turn based back to ATB, with timing based attacks.
Basically, I’m saying that generally for most gamers, direct sequels give them more of the same, but for this one, it’s vastly different.
Which is fine, cause I prefer X-2 over X anyway.
It’s pretty easy for anyone to point out FFXI’s abundant amount of flaws. I consider FFXI to be my favorite of the franchise for many reasons* but I can still acknowledge the problems.
Grinding: You spend the first few hours solo to level 9-10 when you can start grouping. From here your choices were to pug out and kill crabs for maybe a combined total of 40-50 levels or setup/find a static group and really tear shit up. Personally I loved this because I chose the latter and the parties I made were RL friends or guildmates so they were always excellently synergetic. The gameplay is based around this group mechanic and the grind lets you see the type of combat you experience endgame on a much smaller scale. With a WoW comparison the most efficient way to level is by doing generic quests all the way until 58. By generic I mean you had three quests to do as the XP rolled in and that was: Kill x amount of mob/s, Collect objects on the map, Kill y amount of mobs until they drop z amount of items. With the exception of a random escort quest or the couple of quests you get per level post Lv.58 for killing an instance boss in Outland that wraps up WoW. I quit before WoTLK but did Blizzard change this formula, and if they did whats the difference? You still spent 1-70 doing the same thing, FFXI is repetitive? So is WoW. I really think this is the weakest argument anyone can make for a flaw in the game because everyone knows real combat in MMOs doesn’t start until you’ve have reached max level.
PvP: Ballista was kind of boring and stupid. SE clearly did not have PvP in mind during the development of this game. I liked WoW arena a lot but at the end of the day it never gave me a true PvP fix. I’ll leave this alone and just say since this is SRK it should be expected that clicking cool downs, auto attacking and playing character-specific RPS will never give someone like me the competitive experience I get from SF.
End-game: This IMO is one of the major FFXI faults and theres a few reasons for that. PvE in FFXI was extremely guild vs guild competitive. The server and LS drama in FFXI were unparalleled during my days. This sounds like a human fault but SE is to blame. I first played endgame on the high pop Ragnarok server. When I got to this point, Japanese players dominated spawns to the extent that a good amount of time an NA player would see the mob spawn claimed. We got fortunate at times to deal with only local competition when NQ kings were to be expected but the japanese never slept for HQ spawns. Even if they had one guy scouting at the time he could sleep Nidhogg forever without diminishing results/enragement. SE tried to fix this by adding a random delay prohibiting the mob to be claimed after it spawns. This turned the game into a matter of probability. The LS that brings the higher numbers has a higher chance to claim the mob after the random delay has worn off. I remember specifically using this as one reason to quit because my LS that brought smaller numbers but had quality players lost to the LS that brought 30 guys for an NQ spawn and still had to zerg it down with BLMs. They fixed the enfeeblment stalling tactic pretty well though… but that was not as big of an issue. WoW got endgame correct, personal instances felt so good to me as a FFXI player. Guilds can build themselves at their own pace and they don’t have to compete with the other server denizens at very specific windows of time to get the gear everyone wants. This defines the reason we play MMOs. Making friends with the social networking tools the game gives us and subsequently gearing up yourself and all your friends.
Difficulty: In MMOs, really? The only thing remotely difficult about FFXI or WoW is dealing with human stupidity. The challenges we face are AI boss scripts that have a pre-defined skill set and are typically always on rails with their actions. We live in the age of information so if one group defeats the newly created boss, everyone knows. It’s only a matter of time before that group discloses the core strategy and tactics and then it’s open season. I realize in WoW a lot of pinnacle bosses are mainly gear checks but I’m just talking key strategy. Kirin was a really challenging encounter when he was new and no one had the gear or experience to deal. Yogg-Saron is no different. Excuse my ignorance but is the last boss of WoW not on farm status just a few months after its release? It will be… Again, this is SRK. We take on the most difficult challenge a human can face and that is simply the mind of another human being. Computer bosses, come on… the only difficulty you get from MMOs is from facing the unknown and the unknown becomes auto-pilot with a single victory.
Customer service: specs said it best when he said SE did not give two shits about the people that were lining their pockets with cash. Was it pride or did they just not care to make gaijin happy because the local audience was content? Who knows, but you can’t deny SE fucked up in this regard. Besides the aforementioned issues with endgame play, look at RMT. They ruled supreme in my day, and if you tried to make some gil in say Kuftal tunnel you were bound to get MPK’d by a random gold farmer for anything you wanted to do. If you were camping a high tier NM like LoO or Sozu chances were RMT was free to shit all over your parade by dragging dozens of mobs on you with minimal to none consequences. Please keep in mind that I quit pre-ToAU so if my points are out-dated forgive me. Regardless, my generation had very necessary demands that SE chose to neglect and consequently they lost a huge user base to the MMO Titan. When you dealt with it on a daily basis, it was beyond easy to choose to end the bullshit and head to the seemingly promised land, Azeroth.
Please forgive this wall of text, I’ve never had the chance to write up a rant on FFXI ever since I quit years ago. What’s sickening is through all the hate I’m spitting, I did truly love this more than any other game and genre(fighting games are the exception because traveling to compete is the real life MMO and you just can’t beat that.) I’ve touched. Because of this:
For all the garbage, I’ll never forget the online friends I made or the experiences we shared. As someone who has been sitting in front of a TV, completely absorbed into a world of Final Fantasy since his childhood with SNES, the feeling I got from being in Vana’diel could not be compared. Azeroth never for a single moment engaged me like the time I first stepped into Vana’diel Sky with my friends. The CoP story was also something I consider to be classic Final Fantasy story telling, a feeling again, something I never got in any other game in the MMO genre… and Blizzard works damn hard for lore.
It’s important to remember for all it’s flaws, FFXI is not FFXIV. We as a species have the amazing ability to learn from our mistakes. We can acknowledge these problems because we’ve experienced them. It’s now up to SE to understand this and improve on something that at the core is solid. You can get hype for the future or dwell on the shitty past.
*
One year at the local anime convention I saw and approached this girl dressed as a white mage. As an easy-mode ice breaker I asked her for a Raise, and everything was going well until it become abundantly clear I had just engaged myself with some serious jailbait.* I cherish this memory over spotting a Tifa with immaculate T&A and registering it in the spank bank, nerdy eroticism aside.*
I could probably continue and hit the post limit with this, but I’ll end it here. Thanks for reading, you bored bastard. :lovin:
I think FF2 is more popular in Japan, but I think you can beat it without Grinding ?_?
Speaking of which FF2 apparently has a novel written focusing on expanding on it’s plot. The novel is even considered canon, since one of the people working on FF2 at the time helped in writing it.
Thing is it only got released in Japan =/
Contrary to popular belief, the ability to enjoy something and the ability to think that very same thing is “bad” are not mutually exclusive (see: “guilty pleasure”).
I love me some Granstream Saga. That game is extremely enjoyable. However, if I were to, say, review it, I wouldn’t give it an A+ or a 10 out of 10 just because, dammit, since I like it, it must be good. That’s nonsense. If I were to review it, I’d point out the good (the combat system, some of the music) AND the bad (everything else, oh good lord everything else) and score the game accordingly (and that score would be QUITE low, rest assured).
Similarly, I don’t like Grand Theft Auto games. I don’t enjoy them, I don’t care for their settings, I don’t care for sandbox games in general. The same applies to Fallout 3. And guess what? If I were to review Fallout 3 or most Grand Theft Auto games, they’d likely get very high scores, and I wouldn’t slam them just because of personal feelings (i.e., GameFan, Kotaku, Play Magazine, and other piles of shit). The same applies the day Sonic Team actually makes a GOOD Sonic game (unlikely, as their last good one was Sonic 1 for the Genesis, which is ass compared to 2 and 3&K, which I’m only mentioning because I can’t ever resist the opportunity to take a shot at Sonic Team).
(And before the obvious rebuttal is made, by you or someone offended by the notion that reviewers may actually be on to something: yes, you should make up your own mind about something, but reading well-formed reviews is conducive to doing just that.)
The worth of art, which includes all manner of games, movies, and television shows (yes, even ANIMU) is not 100% subjective.
GASP!
If it was 100% subjective, you couldn’t say that ANYTHING was good or bad. Why? Because the only reason you can measure the worth of anything is by comparing it to something else. How do you know something tastes bitter if you’ve never tasted something sweet? And while there are no hard milestones all pieces of art MUST reach, there are pieces of work that do “better” or “worse” at any given message/storyline element/control scheme/aesthetic/etc. than others.
FF11 does not exist in a vacuum. If it was the only MMO, it would STILL be compared to other console and PC games. But it isn’t the only MMO.
So, now that all of that is out of the way, let’s bullet point those “not-so-subjective” elements:
Try it. Name something. Anything. Name A. WoW will do A, and probably also do B and C as well, or it will do A better, or WoW will do something that precludes the need for A in the first place.
Oh, and as mentioned, my opinion of WoW isn’t all that high. Gasp again! Also as mentioned, this isn’t me saying “don’t enjoy FF11.”
I <3 Dr. B. I love him so much I’m going to say so again. I <3 Dr. B.
Serious question due to ignorance, but in WoW, does combat involve any type of intuitiveness such as the chain linking/magic burst elements FFXI had? Or is it all just straight forward spamming of combat styles or spells? I never got far enough in to WoW to actually see a group combat setting. I’ve only seen the videos such as “Need more DoTs!” which sounded to me like people just spammed.
The chain linking/magic burst is my favorite element in FFXI. Set the game apart from anything else I have ever played.
**Edit
Will keyboards work with the PS3? I played FFXI on PC just for the use of the keyboard for communication, and use of Ventrillo. Used a controller to play the game, though. I don’t want to use the “controller attachment keyboard thingy” they have for the PS3. I wonder how they will work voice comms with FFXIV on the PS3.
Agreed, timing your weapon skills to perform skillchains was so fun (especially since I was Samurai main for my first 3 years playing)
Unfortunately, they moved toward the mindless spam style of playing with ToAU. Parties of 4x Melee, 1x RDM or WHM, and 1x BRD or COR are fairly common with simply physical melee/weapon skill spam.
Black Mage is such a liability for those parties, and not worth the effort to Magic Burst… BLM get stuck either soloing or doing Manaburns (opposite of above party setup) 4-5x BLM, 1x Refresher: (RDM/BRD/COR)
**Edit
Yeah, you can use any USB Keyboard on the PS3, or bluetooth keyboards if you’re so inclined.
I used the Logitech Netplay Controller when I started playing FFXI on PS2. No idea on voice comm with FF14 yet… that would be very sweet.
Ugh, I hope they don’t do the spamming style of combat for XIV. Wonder why they changed it.
One thing I am damn happy about, is that it will come out for everyone at the same time. Japan had XI, what? A year before we did? I’m hoping they have completely separate servers for different regions. The LS drama was beyond stupid the first year, due to the high level/NM mob camping crap. I also cant help but wonder if they will actually have some sort of REAL PvP in store. Ballista was just awful.
Ah, thanks for the info about they keyboards. Great news to me. I just hope they nail down voice comms with different lobbies or built in software for private chat rooms for LS/friends etc.
Yeah, XI was released in May 2002 in Japan. US release was Fall 2003 for PC, Spring 2004 for PS2.
mindless spam style in xp / merit parties doesn’t really count as how the endgame goes down. endgame still requires skillchain / magic burst on a good number of the monsters.
I don’t play XI as hard as I used to, but I still play for a few hours a week to do endgame stuff with my shell (dynamis, instanced battles, very rarely king camps). it looks like the new hotness (well not exactly new anymore) is to kill stuff with a mostly full alliance, 2-3 bards popping 2hr, troubador and nightingale, and rotating attack, accuracy and haste buffs across the entire alliance of mostly melee, whereupon they’ll zerg rush the mob while a red mage sub drk chainspell stuns it.
endgame goes down like this:
camped mobs:
fafnir / nidhogg: skillchain / magic bursts
king behemoth: kited fight / rangers / mages
aspidochelone: skillchain / magic bursts
tiamat / cerberus / khimaira: straight tank / rangers / mages / summoners / controlled melee (with extra people killing adds for tiamat)
king vinegaroon / vrtra: melee zerg rush
instanced fights:
sky gods: melee zerg rush (mostly)
bahamut: melee zerg rush
ouryu: straight tank / mages
ultima / omega: skillchain / magic bursts
sea gods: varies (hurray! variety)
I haven’t done much of the newer end game stuff, since I mostly quit around the time wings of the goddess came out - so I haven’t done any ZNMs or ANMs, but I can speak for everything from ToAU and prior, and the game can be fun in a teamwork kinda way. it probably helps that 2 good friends (former roommates) are in the same endgame shell with me.
I have sam and rdm merited, so I know how the fights go from the front and backline perspective. rdm is a pretty fun job, especially compared to the monotony of melee.
I look forward to XIV, and hope SE learns from all the mistakes they made in XI and makes it a fun experience from the get-go.
IGN article on XIV
After the announcement for XIV, my thrill for XIII has diminished quite a bit. I have no idea why the FF crew can’t create a single player FF series that has actual different armor sets/models. They do weapons/shields, but no armor? It’s annoying to know that you have full diamond armor equipped, yet your characters visuals are still a mini skirt or lame cardigan vest etc.
I liked X too. But I wasn’t a big fan of Tidus. I think I liked it a lot simply because it was the next gen FF. I had fun with it regardless though.
As for X-2. The only thing that was cool was actually doing the side missions and all the different classes you could pick from. Aside from that, the story was pretty cheesy… Should have known though.
Having been an off-and-on subscriber of FFXI since it came out on US shores, I can’t say that either side of reasoning (“hate it!” “love it!”) is right; they both are. The same general shit that bogs down the MMO genre is still in play: grinding, rare items, random number generators run by the Devil himself. The content by now is old, drop rates horrible, “overcrowding” at some things (merit camps + sky still wtf) repetitive boredom until the lights go out from your eyes “gaming”.
The one thing that makes it worth it all is the people. It’s because of the people that I continued giving SE semi-monthly payments for crack.
However, if they want continued business from people who played their last, good albeit flawed business model of an MMO, they are going to have to radically alter FFXIV if not overhaul the typical failings of MMORPGs themselves in order to get a larger consumer base on board. Most everyone who tried/played/is still playing FFXI already know exactly what they did wrong and what they want fixed. Whether or not they will actually fix said problems is going to make this a “must buy” rather than a “no thanks” for people who tried 11 before. All the people who posted that had made it to 75/were part of any endgame know exactly what I’m talking about.
Off the topic of FFXIV though, I’m wondering why they didn’t show anything regarding the other parts of Fabula Nova Crystalis, specifically Versus XIII…
Lobelia’s making me want to play FFX-2 again. XD
I was thinking the same thing, Like where the hell is gameplay vids of FFXIII Versus?!
C’mon Square, first you take away the playable demo w/FF7 advent kids complete then e3 shows up and no Versus stuff? WTF!?
I need to play some Final Fantasy. I finished all the hunts in FF12 now Im just playing blitzball in ffx like its it’s own game:bluu:
You would ask about one of the elements I actually LIKED about FF11. Before I answer your question: I thought it was downright stupid that, despite being able to earn 300% SP, you couldn’t, unless you were a Samurai once every two hours, perform your own Skillchain. I also hated how non-mage classes had no innate MP, ensuring that subbing a mage class was beyond pointless. How cool would it be if I could make a WAR/RDM or a MNK/RDM (or any melee/any mage job) that could solo and perform his own Skillchains that ended in his own Magic Burst?
Now to answer your question about WoW: it depends on the class, and is somewhat precluded by the sheer amount of abilities each class has (which actually borders on too much, funny enough, and is one of the issues I have with WoW).
Death Knights, for instance, have abilities that use a shared resource (runes) that power up a bar (runic power) used by other abilities, and Paladins have a whole slew of powers that mix and match in various ways via Seals (self-buffs that have a variety of effects) and Judgements (abilities that impart a debuff on an enemy while simultaneously “expending” your Seal to impart an additional effect). Shaman can drop totems that have any number of effects on themselves, their abilities, their allies’ abilities, and enemies. Every class has talents and glyphs that allow for abilities to somehow affect other abilities (think how Combo Breakers in KI unlocked new specials for your characters, and yes I know KI sucks). And, as mentioned, every class has eleventy million abilities with most having a real use, though I feel there are two many and quite a few could be “folded into” each other.
However, there aren’t any “double/triple techs” like with the Skillchain system (two Warriors can’t X-Strike, and a Warrior/Paladin/Death Knight can’t set up a chain of abilities that a Mage/Priest/Warlock can then “detonate” in a Magic Burst).
EDIT - Just a thought: Skillchains and Magic Bursts aren’t really all that intuitive. I remember the periodic table-sized chart I printed out when I still played the game, before I realized what the hell I was doing.
Dr. B performs his own skillchains, all of which end up with the ladies “Magic Bursting.”
Try to play the FFs before FFX, if you need ‘links’ I can provide them…
In an update Samurai were given a new job ability that essentially gave them a mini-2hour ability that let their next WS consume only 100% TP… so if they had 200%+ they could self-skillchain regularly.
Also, Blue Mages can self-skillchain as well using Weapon Skills and Blue Magic!
samurai was always able to self skillchain without 2-hr or sekkanoki.
likewise, ranger has always been able to self skillchain with the proper use of barrage and /sam wouldn’t hurt either for meditate.
dancers can self skillchain after level 60.
A guilty pleasure is only that because one does not want to admit the good traits they enjoy because it is not socially acceptable. If someone enjoys a game or movie to any degree, it must be doing something right, whether society agrees on it or not.
With the risk of sounding like I’m bashing WoW, here goes:
-Storytelling.
-Cutscenes.
-Teamwork through skillchains/MBs.
-Set structure to encourage leveling in parties. (It’s a gripe of many that you have to rely on parties to actually level, but it’s a really solid system if you don’t get wankers on your squad and get invites etc.) The game encouraged efficiency through team effort, not just stats and going all out. Not just for HNM but exp parties. You could do really well with minimum equipment despite popular belief.
-Since we can look at art objectively now, the game doesn’t look like cartoony shit. 
-While difficulty is a dumb thing to talk about with MMOs like ellsd touched on, I hear about people leaving WoW because it’s ‘too easy’ or ‘too casual.’
-Use to have a better economy until WoW got numerous updates and gilsellers absolutely ruined XI’s economy for a large chunk of time.
My history with the game to supply credibility. Imported JP release. Had Bard and Samurai at 75 with many other numerous jobs around 60 (not very hardcore I know). Had the relic great katana, Amanomurakumo. Experienced just about every HNM related and end game related activity up till ToaU. Had zero infractions. Had a stars cap from team ballista. Played both JP and EN clients for each expansion (up to ToAU). Took part in surveys for SE at two E3’s. Was moderator status on a FFXI forum (by status only, didn’t really do anything). For those who may have frequented forums or played on the same server, or during the same time frame, my character’s name was Nodachi on the server Ragnarok.
Again, I’m well aware of the problems in the game. I’m aware of what I and friends, disliked. I’m aware of what can/should be done to improve the game. I’m not ignorant or blind to the obvious problems, though I may look at some differently than others. Even with acknowledging all of those problems, I still know it’s a great game. Not for the masses, but still a great game.
Commented on the ones I disagree with. The rest you mentioned I agree on entirely.
Sorry if this has been discussed, but for a change of pace let’s play theory!
Looking at the concept art on the official site(http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com) I see some familiar jobs and some not so much. Of the four characters to the left, the only armor I recognize is the little guy in Summoner gear. What about the cat girl and the other two or even the Hume to the right of the crystal? On the right we also see the easy ones, WHM(AF1 and 2?), BRD(?), BLM, DRG.
So to you FF experts, do you recognize any of the armor? Maybe someone will see something they remember from FFV or FFT/A. Calculator job, bet it!