FFXI in 2020

[ultramooz]

Does it still have the utterly stupid level down mechanic?

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Haha, brings memories of when my boyfriend was playing... Whenever I heard the level down sound I knew there was a screaming rage fit incoming. I usually waited in another room for the storm to pass.

The cycle was : pass a level > sell all equipment to buy a better set > get killed by a mob > level down > cannot equip new set because of level requirements = rage.

Also the crafting was terribly busted - I tried cooking and it was failure upon failure at low level and the ingredients were so expensive you were bankrupt after a few failed pop corns...

 

[Conrad Link]

Duo'ing things you weren't meant to be able to duo back in the day with my little brother is one of my most fondest memories in all of gaming.

SO MUCH FUN! SO MUCH TIME SPENT PLAYING! lol. I actually physically miss being in that world, like my memories of it are that strong (good and bad) that I think back on it like it was a real thing I did or place I visited.

Vana'diel forever!

 

[Yankee Ruin X]

Does it still have the utterly stupid level down mechanic?

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Haha the amount of times I deleveled from 75 to 74 on that game because of this and not leaving myself a big enough buffer. It took me nearly 2 years to get my first level 75 and when I dinged it I was so happy and everyone was cheering in my party. I was running around cheering to have finally made it and pulled aggro from a nearby mob and we party wiped, back to 74 for me lol.

Another time it wrecked me was whatever level you can equip Beetle Gear, think it was level 20. I just bought the full set and proper got myself tooled up with all the best gear and weapons for my level and sold all my old stuff. Went out into Qufim* (sp) and set my home point and waited for a party for what seemed like an eternity as it did back in the day. Eventually got an invite and on my way running over to meet them at the camp a skeleton aggroed me and killed me. Deleveled back to 19, couldn't equip any of my gear as it was all level 20 so I was naked. Got kicked from the party as they didn't want to wait for me to go back to Jeuno to buy new gear lol

 

[Coinspinner]

I was fond of that world, but my memories of the mechanics give me only pain. Online RPGs are there to gouge you for money and time, and the mechanics are built around that. It is also bizaar to me to think that I've only seen about 10% of this game's story, despite all the time I spent on it...

 

[Toth]

Here's a handy primer of the Trust system from the website so you can see what it does:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/38761?p=537439#post537439

 

[Augemitbutter]

I've been playing for the last six months. I left in January.

The whole game is a cesspool of drama over the general chat with Trump crap splattered all over it, and almost everything is done by bots and RMTs, including endgame activities. Want to get Capacity Points (think merits, but way more hardcore)? Pay a RMT to do it for you. Want to get an Aeonic or Empyrean weapon? Well, good luck. One is ultra expensive and the other is done by paying RMT to clear fights for you. Almost everyone I knew bought Gil at some point. There's very little "real activity" with players forming groups and doing contenago. Aside from a bunch of linkshells.

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this game is like my worst nightmare. These games always get murdered by ugly customers and their RMT army. R.I.P

 

[Toth]

this game is like my worst nightmare. These games always get murdered by ugly customers and their RMT army. R.I.P

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it may be just the server. I have never seen this on Sylph.

 

[blonded]

wait this game is still 12 euros a month? More expensive than FFXIV...

 

[snausages]

So I have just defeated the first raid boss of FFXI: The Play Online viewer. Truly a grueling trial.

I even tried sending myself spam through its terrible mail client but it timed out. Wonder if they still service that?

 

[Deleted member 4346]

I still play and I enjoy the game. I run an endgame event linkshell. There's basically two lanes, people who want to play through the game's excellent and comprehensive story missions, and people who want to do endgame. A few things:

• The story is told in an outdated way, but I think the Chains of Promathia, Wings of the Goddess, and Rhapsodies of Vana'diel missions are excellent Final Fantasy stories which stand on their own.
• The horizontal model of progression at XI endgame is superior to any modern MMO IMO. There's not a treadmill like in XIV or WoW, rewards feel substantial because they are substantial, and you will do a variety of events to get your best gear.
• Job roles are more... fluid compared to other MMOs. It's a different kind of battle system based on job synergy and buffs.
• If you want to progress in the dev's intended fashion, sometimes it's not clear or accessible as to how to proceed through content.
• Ambuscade, which is "catch-up" content, isn't always balanced for new/returning players for reward/time.

Asura server is the primary NA gathering place today. There's a lot of gil-for-gear stuff. If you want to progress without that, the standard party setup is 2:4 dps/tank to support. Level support!

 

[signal]

Felt it was pretty boring when I played it in 2019 but at least PlayOnline is cool.

 

[Deleted member 13560]

Is there still talk of turning this into a single player experience with updated graphics? I could have sworn that was in talks not too long ago. I'd love to play this game again. I enjoyed FFXIV SB, but I miss the skill that was required when it came to working with team mates in order to skill chain and magic bursts.

 

[Nocturno]

Felt it was pretty boring when I played it in 2019 but at least PlayOnline is cool.

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Play Online was the only redeemable thing.

 

[Warukyure]

it may be just the server. I have never seen this on Sylph.

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Yeah guaranteed it's Asura he's talking about.

i still technically play, been subbed for 12 years. For the most part, SE knows that most of people who join now want to play for a) story and b) endgame. 90% of the game is soloable with "trust" companions. Story has removed much of the roadblocks such as real time waits or level caps on certain areas.

while there is a plethora of shouts/chats for merc-ing, it's no different from any MMO and is only scene in major towns.

Racial traits are no longer a thing so rolling as whatever race isn't an issue anymore, and any class is pretty much viable depending on preference.

as for server selection, Asura is by far the largest and most populated English server, and for the most part, if you ask for help or questions, you will get a proper answer from some players.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Is there still talk of turning this into a single player experience with updated graphics? I could have sworn that was in talks not too long ago. I'd love to play this game again. I enjoyed FFXIV SB, but I miss the skill that was required when it came to working with team mates in order to skill chain and magic bursts.

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Nexon mentioned FFXI-R in their Q3 2019 report - we haven't had any real news in a long time, just that it's still something they are working on. It's being made in UE4 for mobile devices.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

What made FFXI special (The people you played the game with) is no longer there, but there's still good things about it, such as the characters and the world. Try the trial, and maybe give it a go when the free login periods come around.

The OST is criminally undervalued by the FF fandom.



It was a standard thing at the time, but it absolutely helped make the overworld more threatening. Gobbieterrorism, and whatnot.

What would probably truly piss people off today would be the boats, and just how you get around the world in general.

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This is probably my favorite memory of anything in an MMO.

Trying to get to Jeuno for the first time. Sure, you can handle everything in the first zone, but for every zone after that everything is aggressive and designed to be felled by a party, so you will die if they catch up with you. "Train to zone!" Barely reaching zone in time. Then getting to that one fishing village that has the ferry and relax to the chill music.

Then get killed by a monster attack on the ship and do it all over again.

Ah, memories.

I also appreciated their commitment to make every piece of content only doable by a group. I wish some other game would go heavily into this niche. Because you could only do content in a group, finding groups was easy and the fights could be designed around it.

 

[signal]

 

[Darknight34]

I miss what this game used to be..I know ff14 isn't that game either, but I don't get the empty shell feeling with it.

 

[Taruranto]

I've been playing for the last six months. I left in January.

The whole game is a cesspool of drama over the general chat with Trump crap splattered all over it, and almost everything is done by bots and RMTs, including endgame activities. Want to get Capacity Points (think merits, but way more hardcore)? Pay a RMT to do it for you. Want to get an Aeonic or Empyrean weapon? Well, good luck. One is ultra expensive and the other is done by paying RMT to clear fights for you. Almost everyone I knew bought Gil at some point. There's very little "real activity" with players forming groups and doing contenago. Aside from a bunch of linkshells.

That feeling of "let's help each other and be nice to everyone, cause tomorrow maybe I'll be the one in need of help" has vanished completely.

It doesn't help either that while all classes are viable at certain content the game favours tremendously SMN, GEO and COR setups for almost everything. It's comical how OP SMN is. And they're even giving it another summon this month.

Story content is fine, it's not a bad grind and can be done at your own pace. You can do everything solo now, deleveling & level capped areas don't exist anymore, even many mechanics like dungeon doors that required 4 people have been simplified. If you want to take a last visit to Vanadiel to enjoy the story & locations, I totally recommend it, it takes a month or month and half to do everything, tops. Stay away from everything else.

Also, time has not been kind to the game's code. It works worse than it did years ago. It works poorly in W10 cause it's fully single core and the APIs haven't been updated. It still uses DX8, which in W10 works through a compatibility layer under DX9. Essentially the CPU emulates it. Stuff like the new Dynamis areas (content for 18 players) can see heavy slowdown and lag even while your CPU and GPU are taking a complete nap.

It doesn't help either that reaching 83% haste cap is extremely easy and melees now have a ton of double, triple and even quad attack gear and animations can't keep up with what's actually happening.

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I dont know what you are talking about, players do nothing but CP parties during CP campaigns and the game literally throws Gil at you with sparks. I never crafted or farmed but I had millions simply by selling Delve and Sparks items to NPCs.

 

[Zetta]

It's funny how I've played so many MMOs but FFXI is the only one in which I still remember the mass majority of the zones. Last time I played the game was 2012 and while I've thought about going back multiple times its just not the same. This video still reminds me of all the fun FFXI was with a great group of friends.

 

[Deleted member 37928]

W

I'm curious, what's this mechanic?

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Since no one has actually described the frustration with this system yet let me tell you about it. In FFXI (back in the day) leveling up was a very time consuming and difficult process that included party formations 99% of the time. And the difference between two levels could be a matter of life and death as armor and spells/skills were level bound. So you ended up in situations where you had looked for a party for an hour or more and maybe had bad luck with an enemy and got a full party wipe. In the worst case scenario people de-leveled, which meant that the party usually dissolved because of the amount of time and effort it took to get back to the original readiness of the party. It also caused for some hilarity as characters got stripped from their gear when they suddenly didn't have the level required. So you ended up naked, suddenly alone in the middle of nowhere (in a maze if you were especially unlucky) with lots of dangerous enemies that followed you right to the edge of the map if you got their attention. Not to mention the placement of the resurrection points that you sometimes forgot about, the map with no position marker and the hostile players who couldn't leave you alone with their harassment over your poor player performance. It was just absolutely brutal.

 

[Mr. RPG]

Thinking about this game makes me sad, because we'll never see a game like it again. :(

I love Final Fantasy XI so damn much. I love every aspect of it, including de-leveling!

 

[diablogg]

Camping Notorious Monsters in this game is basically all I did, I leveled a big boy Galka to Thief(60)/Ranger(30) and then for 2+ years just camped Leaping Lizzy, Jagged Eared Jack, Huu Muju the Torrent, Valkurum Emperor, Spook/Goblin Gruel, Argus (got a Peacock Charm!)

Probably the MMO that I have the most vivid memories of forming parties (*I would always put parties together and do the mob pulls,) also vivid memories of some of the actual game zones/towns. Was a really good game and a had more fun then I should have just claiming Notorious Monsters rolling the dice hoping to get a rare drop. Even though a ton of the game was stupid and obtuse as hell (just getting a chocobo taking days, leveling crafting magic skill or weapon profiencies being long and ardous, how the shit do I unlock Ninja and Samurai subjobs without looking at a wiki, taking 2 weeks to figure out gardening and then saying screw it and just camping more Notorious Monsters.) It still was unique and fun as hell. I also agree I don't think a game like this as it existed during the first couple expansions will ever be made again.

 

[blonded]

What's the best English speaking EU server?

 

[KaiPow]

I'll be interviewing a couple members of the development team at PAX East, so please let me know if there are any questions you haven't seen answered before.

 

[Richietto]

Leveling down is and will always be dumb, in every game its ever been in, y'all dumb. That being said its a non issue in current FF11.

 

[Tetrinski]

Since no one has actually described the frustration with this system yet let me tell you about it. In FFXI (back in the day) leveling up was a very time consuming and difficult process that included party formations 99% of the time. And the difference between two levels could be a matter of life and death as armor and spells/skills were level bound. So you ended up in situations where you had looked for a party for an hour or more and maybe had bad luck with an enemy and got a full party wipe. In the worst case scenario people de-leveled, which meant that the party usually dissolved because of the amount of time and effort it took to get back to the original readiness of the party. It also caused for some hilarity as characters got stripped from their gear when they suddenly didn't have the level required. So you ended up naked, suddenly alone in the middle of nowhere (in a maze if you were especially unlucky) with lots of dangerous enemies that followed you right to the edge of the map if you got their attention. Not to mention the placement of the resurrection points that you sometimes forgot about, the map with no position marker and the hostile players who couldn't leave you alone with their harassment over your poor player performance. It was just absolutely brutal.

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Oh wow that does sound awful. It seems like a great idea taken too far.

 

[Murder She Wrote]

I don't know how much I can say but the private server scene for FFXI is alive and well. Multiple types/eras. I'm not really interested in returning to retail except for maybe doing the adoulin story.

 

[Deleted member 32018]

Oh wow that does sound awful. It seems like a great idea taken too far.

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They are talking about the worst, worst scenario there. In most cases it really wasn't that bad, especially if you came prepared as you should do if you are doing difficult content.

 

[Deleted member 49535]

That feeling of "let's help each other and be nice to everyone, cause tomorrow maybe I'll be the one in need of help" has vanished completely.

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That's so sad. When I played it many many years ago the community was by far the best part of the game.

 

[Tohsaka]

I played the game for a while a long time ago and enjoyed it somewhat, but there were factors that made me end up quitting. I was a Black Mage for my main job and most of the gear I wanted/needed was super expensive due to the mobs that dropped it all being camped by farmers/bots 24/7. Another was that it oftentimes took a long time of waiting and looking for a party to level up, and when I eventually did find one a lot of the time it wouldn't last more than an hour or so which ended up being a waste of time with all the travel involved.

 

[Gentlemen]

What did they finally do?

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They got huge buffs to their weapon skill damage and separated all the Jump cooldowns. Monk is also finally good (again).
Not that they were terrible before but now they can do massive damage while shedding enmity and building TP about as fast as a Samurai.

FFXI is still hobbled by extremely slow server clock ticks and the user client being a crashtastic hunk of junk that needs about 30 3rd party programs running in the background to make it remotely tolerable.

Story's good and the localization is top flight though. If you can get in on a server with a helpful gang to see you through the bits that can't be soloed (i.e. the back third of Adoulin and the Rhapsodies finale) it's a pretty rewarding grind.

Quit before you get the temptation to make a relic/mythic/empyrean weapon tho.

 

[Nida]

They got huge buffs to their weapon skill damage and separated all the Jump cooldowns. Monk is also finally good (again).
Not that they were terrible before but now they can do massive damage while shedding enmity and building TP about as fast as a Samurai.

FFXI is still hobbled by extremely slow server clock ticks and the user client being a crashtastic hunk of junk that needs about 30 3rd party programs running in the background to make it remotely tolerable.

Story's good and the localization is top flight though. If you can get in on a server with a helpful gang to see you through the bits that can't be soloed (i.e. the back third of Adoulin and the Rhapsodies finale) it's a pretty rewarding grind.

Quit before you get the temptation to make a relic/mythic/empyrean weapon tho.

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Weren't Jump, High Jump, and Super Jump always on different timers?

 

[Fionel]

Last time I played this game was like 15 years ago and every once in a while I think about resubbing to see what changed, but when I actually tried doing that once Square enix said they can't find my data anymore... SMFH

 

[Gentlemen]

Weren't Jump, High Jump, and Super Jump always on different timers?

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They added new jumps that shared timers with jump/high jump

 

[Nida]

They added new jumps that shared timers with jump/high jump

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Oh cool. Sad I missed out on that. I fantasized about all sorts of Dragoon abilities when I played. I though weapons like claws for your Wyvern would be neat.

 

[Bradford]

It's in a great spot. I highly recommend checking it out.

I play it multiple times per week.

 

[Deleted member 6215]

That's so sad. When I played it many many years ago the community was by far the best part of the game.

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It's been a very long time since I played, but I get the impression that the decent parts of the community have moved on to FFXIV.

 

[Olimar]

What would probably truly piss people off today would be the boats, and just how you get around the world in general.

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I bought this game while it was on-sale for $10 considering it was the only mainline Final Fantasy game that I had never tried. I had a fantastic couple of months with the game, despite how dated some of it's mechanics are, but this was a crime against my time. Almost 15 minutes to get to new locations... A total disrespect of player's time. I'm sure back when the servers were very populated that this was a fun pass-time to chat with players, but now being the only fool on a boat... It physically hurts.

 

[Zen]

I never played XI but I did play Ragnarok Online which also did an exp penalty upon death. Leveling in that game could take literal days or longer to gain just one, and the exp penalty was 1% no matter what level you were. This meant dying once could lose you half a day's worth of progress or more depending on where you were trying to level up, and mind you dying was incredibly easy in that game because of how strong enemies were. It's bonkers to see people not only defending but actively praising such a mechanic.

 

[Johann Mistletoe]

Used to run a social/endgamey linkshell on Sylph a few years ago, before quitting. Somehow I managed to attract a lot of fun, kind people and there was definitely that sense of community and camaraderie that you'd want from a game like this. Eventually I felt like I ran out of fun stuff to do though, and with a busy schedule, I couldn't justify spending more time on it. If I ever went back, I'd definitely rebuild that linkshell for anyone who wanted some good fun without the rampant douchebaggery found on the big servers.

 

[blonded]

Finally ended up buying this and the thing that's infuriating me already is why tf are there three windows before I get to the game window that allows me to select my character?! You'd think on PC they'd update the client so you can launch directly into game like FF14...

 

[Deleted member 81119]

Finally ended up buying this and the thing that's infuriating me already is why tf are there three windows before I get to the game window that allows me to select my character?! You'd think on PC they'd update the client so you can launch directly into game like FF14...

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Oh jeez this is not gonna be a fun ride for you if that annoys you.

Wait until you realise you need a walkthrough to play the story, and how annoying finding NPCs is.

I love FFXI but my recommendation to anyone at this point is WAIT FOR FFXI R. The latest leaks suggest it is now in development.

 

[Bradford]

The game is completely solo-able. I've played it solo for over 2 years.

It's excellent and worth playing. You'll get used to the launcher eventually.

 

[Dekuman]

Oh jeez this is not gonna be a fun ride for you if that annoys you.

Wait until you realise you need a walkthrough to play the story, and how annoying finding NPCs is.

I love FFXI but my recommendation to anyone at this point is WAIT FOR FFXI R. The latest leaks suggest it is now in development.

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There are wikis , i mean i even use them for FFXIV.

we do not know what form the mobile FFXI game will take, its been 5 years, seems stuck in dev hell. The PC original is going to be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2022 and there are concrete announced plans for that milestone, there's no reason to discourage people from coming back, it's super soloable these days.

Finally ended up buying this and the thing that's infuriating me already is why tf are there three windows before I get to the game window that allows me to select my character?! You'd think on PC they'd update the client so you can launch directly into game like FF14...

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The original plan was to let players zone into XIV from XI and vice versa, bue because XI was built around playonline and PS2 hardware they couldn't make it work.

 

[Valkerion]

Finally ended up buying this and the thing that's infuriating me already is why tf are there three windows before I get to the game window that allows me to select my character?! You'd think on PC they'd update the client so you can launch directly into game like FF14...

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I recommend using the Windower app and what not but yes, FFXI needed an overhaul to its systems even 15 years ago. It's a hassle just getting into the game compared to other games even when it was new. I just stopped playing about two months ago after coming back for a summer to do the story. Really fun story stuff, but I skipped 2 expansions stories and went for the originals when I was playing and the final one, and even made me tear up when I got credits.

Its a nostalgic and fun ride if you played back in the day. It's got way more shortcuts and can do stuff in a few hours that could take a week or more of daily logging in to do before. It will definitely feel dated if not though and the game is obscure af in just everything it does.

 

[blonded]

When I first started the game there were only a few classes I could choose? Was looking to try beastmaster as I heard it's the most solo-friendly class but it wasn't there. I'm guessing I can eventually choose the job ingame if I've levelled a certain class first?

 

[Gloam]

I picked up the complete bundle on Steam earlier this year. First time playing, the game was confounding to me. Really couldn't make sense of it all. Even logging into the game was a trial, I do like the art and the characters though, those little guys are cute. I wanted to try the game because I remember people saying Dragon Quest 10 played a little like it, but I think that the difference there is that DQ10 streamlined a lot of what FF11 did. I think I've come to this too late, don't think it will ever work for me. Maybe the mobile remake will be more accessible.

 

[Deleted member 18021]

When I first started the game there were only a few classes I could choose? Was looking to try beastmaster as I heard it's the most solo-friendly class but it wasn't there. I'm guessing I can eventually choose the job ingame if I've levelled a certain class first?

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You just have access to the original FF1 jobs at first. Later, you'll unlock the advanced classes through quests.

BST was originally the most solo-friendly, but with the trust system, that basically doesn't matter anymore. I thiiiiink the quest for it started in Jeuno.

 

[Favio Bolo]

How is this game today? Is the story soloeable or do you have to find people to do story content with? Is it even worth playing through solely for the story? I enjoy FFXIV's mmo combat but not sure if I'd be able to stomach 2002-era mmo combat for long.

I've heard a lot of good things about FFXI in general so curious to see how people feel about the current state of the game.

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it is definitely worth playing, some of the best FF stories are in there. it's also pretty much completely soloable at this point since you can summon npc party members. you can also geet gear with the sparks system so you don't even need to rack up gils. i'd say go for it.
remember that every city has its own storyline so complete those before starting the expansions

but play with a guide always ready, because it was a game heavily dependant on its community so it doesn't give you much hints on things to do

FFXIclopedia

FFXI-only open-content wiki including information useful for all players from beginners to end-game. Site also contains forums, blogs, and information on in-game seasonal events.

ffxiclopedia.fandom.com