Current State of FFXI

ScarlettPheonix · Post by **ScarlettPheonix** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:53 pm

Really going to have to disagree with you about there not being raids in FFXI.

NM and HNM camping are only a small part of "endgame"- its entirely possible to not camp HNM or get involved in the usual Sky madness yet still be a part of endgame.

Dynamis, Limbus, Assault and the new Salvage all fit most definitions of "raiding".

They all have some sort of time limit on them, which means that you can pick and choose which events you want to do while leaving time to just kick around, level a sub or work on a craft, yet still be involved in "endgame".

I don't blame you for being tired/bitter at the game- a lot of people get burned out just doing HNM/Sky stuff, but look at the big picture. Endgame is a lot deeper then a lot of people are willing to admit- and Tivia really wasn't asking too much about endgame in FFXI anway, since Tivia's starting over from scratch, it'll take awhile to reach endgame.

In my opinion, FFXI is still going strong and I'm still enjoying playing after almost 2 1/2 years in game.

Post by **Sugami** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:09 pm

HNM/Sky is boring and sucks.

Dynamis was fun to start with but is quite boring now.

Sea is too hard to get.

Assaults are fun IF you can get the right group together (that's a big "IF").

Salvage yet to try 'cause it needs Assault Points and I need Pahluwan with those points first >.> (another great idea by SE, 'tards

).

Besieged is too long and boring usually.

That's my breakdown of FFXI's so-called "endgame".

Bitneko · Post by **Bitneko** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:52 pm

Sugami wrote:HNM/Sky is boring and sucks.

Dynamis was fun to start with but is quite boring now.

Sea is too hard to get.

Assaults are fun IF you can get the right group together (that's a big "IF").

Salvage yet to try 'cause it needs Assault Points and I need Pahluwan with those points first >.> (another great idea by SE, 'tards ).

Besieged is too long and boring usually.

That's my breakdown of FFXI's so-called "endgame".

I don't wanna lvl past 50 now.

Time to pick up DRG again so I'll have a sub after this very factual message wears off.

Kintrra · Post by **Kintrra** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:07 pm

Also, on the end-game note, I hate the camping aspect. I mean, I HATE it. It's devolved into one shell's botters versus another shell's botters. A shell with no botters has a (guesstimating) 5% chance of actually claiming ANY big NM. To be perfectly honest, I wish SE would implement a way to scan your Game Mechanics files or background programs to detect bots. I recently joined a big HNM shell, and it made me realize that every end-game shell has multiple botters. The only shells I've seen that do not have them, are the ones who never get anything. That alone I think, has been something that has knocked the biggest hole in my faith in FFXI's end-game. I've always had a VERY strong anti-bot standpoint. And yet now, because I want to be able to get the same gear as other end-game players, to make my own character better...I'm forced to side with those same botters that I hate.

Sky has become the same deal. The most wanted piece from Sky, is Byakko's Haidate. You can't get Byakko's Haidate without killing Ullikumi for an Autumnstone. And the RMT bot Ulli to death. To stand any chance of out-claiming them, you need botters, or the gil to buy the stone from the RMT. Those factors alone, are what have killed Sky.

Sea, like Sugami said, is an absolute pain in the tail to get. CoP missions are, to be quite blunt, a bitch. Getting intelligent groups to do them is a bitch, and then still getting them done is a bitch.

Assaults are fun, but short, and you're limited to 1 per day basically. Dynamis so far is one of the few things I'm enjoying lately, but it's eating my buffers on my jobs so fast (I'm a tank, go figure, ne?) that merits are something I may not see for quite some time.

....okay, didn't mean to rant, but I guess I kinda did.

I still <3 FFXI {Long time}, but hell...I might as well go back to just leveling every job for the fun of it, cuz end-game quite honestly, is beginning to look VERY crappy.

Okuza · Post by **Okuza** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:45 pm

ScarlettPheonix wrote:Really going to have to disagree with you about there not being raids in FFXI.[...]

Dynamis, Limbus, Assault and the new Salvage all fit most definitions of "raiding".

They all have some sort of time limit on them, which means that you can pick and choose which events you want to do while leaving time to just kick around, level a sub or work on a craft, yet still be involved in "endgame".

I think the only reason you're saying this is because you don't know what really fun end-game is like. The last game I played that had fun end-game was pre-POP EQ -- particularly Vellious expansion. It had it's own problems and some are replicated in FFXI, but you could definitely do end-game stuff every single moment you were logged on. You didn't need to spend 3 days off for one 3H session of end-game.

Dynamis is the only end-game FFXI has and it's got a 3day cool-down is not instanced (overcrowding is shutting down dynamis for us right now). Dynamis would not qualify as end-game due to the entry costs if it weren't for the fact that you can sell off the drops to make it self-financing.

Limbus doesn't qualify due to access. I do think access quests are good and I loved the difficulty and scenes in COP, but when 95% of your friends don't have access after working on it for years, this is a problem. Most of the server has no access to sea and will never have access to sea. Another problem here is that Limbus access is obtained only via group effort and yet it's an alliance zone. Alliance access things should all benefit from obtaining that access as an alliance.

Salvage is even worse than Limbus. Not only can't you obtain access as an alliance, but you have to flag everyone in the alliance every 3days by doing small group-level activities that no one would ever want to do otherwise and have no other rewards. It's also very short, has a 3 day cool-down, and bad drops (selected items are very nice, but they're multi-item quested -- it's a nightmare to administrate loot in salvage). No, salvage is a prime example of precisely how not to design an end-game activity.

End-game means logging on and doing a raid or other activity that will progress your level-capped character (or at least someone's level-capped character). Yes, sometimes for some activities, preparation activities are fun when designed well. FFXI end-game is 90% preparation that no one wants to do followed by 10% real end-game.

Tivia wrote:Playing VG currently, it is the one in debate. Great game..Fantastic really. Not sure how long i can take them abusing my class..yes I am a rogue. Level 33 at the time of this posting to be exact, will be 34 shortly.

Diplo system I hate, and Crafting is just an insane grind..I really disagree about it being the best.

There's too much in the game right now that is unfinished. They released too quickly, imho. So, I'm making lots of characters there and I keep flitting around from alt to alt. When I find an area that needs fixing, I change to a different character.

Diplomacy is wonderful until you reach civic. Then it's all just a boring grind. The newbie->horse lines for each race are all very fun. Well, except Khal. Khal dip was so incredibly annoying I was ready to hunt down and throttle the dev that designed it. The others are all fun with really nice story-lines.

Crafting in VG is both really cool and the ugly grind you called it. The actual process is pretty neat. Once you get up to the level at which you can make something you want, the process for making it is kinda fun. Having WO's that self-finance it is nice, too. OTH, having to grind out WOs for skill was another thing that had me ready to go murder a dev somewhere. But, if you compare the skill grind in FFXI crafting to VG, I'm not sure which one I prefer. They're both painful. I'd give a slight edge to VG because once you get there in VG, you can actually deliberately work at making "HQ" items. It's all dumb luck in FFXI.

BTW, one of my characters is a rogue. Solo rogue just sucks. Group, the stealth speed is incredibly annoying to everyone. But, if the group is good and can work to give the back of the critter to the rogue, then the rogue shines. IMHO, the rogue still needs a lot of help -- more than any other class -- but I'm still having fun with it when I manage to snag a group.

Post by **Tivia** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 4:35 am

I should of specified though,

class problems will not drive me from VG. I am patient enough to wait those out. Clearly at the level I am now, I am not about to reroll. I play Vg for one reason and one reason only, End Game Raiding. This is what I thrive for, it is what I have missed since EQ. I raided hard for nearly 5 years in EQ, and I loved every minute of it, until I just realized it was time for a change of scenery. Since then I have played casually and raided some trying to find my place again. I played Casually in FFXI, and DDO, I Raided in EQ2 and WoW. I came away with if i have to be a Casual player then FFXI is by far the most enjoyable MMO I have ever played. If I have to raid, well EQ2 just felt empty to me, and wow was a joke. VG feels like it has potential to bring back what i had in EQ. It might not, and in the end if it does not it might not be the fault of the game, it might be I am simply searching for a feeling that is impossible to achieve a second time around. I will know soon enough, my gut however tells me I am searching for the impossible, but that has never stopped me in the past from at least trying.

Overall I have found myself enamored with VG, problems or no. The game is Visually stunning, the world is massive. the beauty is you do not have to get into the upper levels to be impressed with the sheer complexity of the world, it starts at level 1. With that said, I cannot play this game as a casual player. It does not feel casual to me, and I cannot make myself play the game in a manner that it does not feel right to me. It really is hard to describe, I cannot properly convey into words why I can play FFXI as a casual player and be happy, and not play VG as a casual player and be happy. Suffice to say it is just a core difference in how the game appeals to me as an individual player.

Okuza · Post by **Okuza** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:57 am

LOL. It sounds like you're in exactly the same position I'm in. I like playing FFXI casually. I don't like trying to end-game it. I really really miss old style EQ raids (Vellious era stuff and maybe some of Luclin -- Earth Council & Time killed EQ for me).

I'm hoping VG will have some pretty awesome end-game. One of the reasons I'm flitting around from character to character is to give them time to get the end-game into the game. At end of beta, there was zero content over level 35. It's been only a month since beta ended. If I race up to 50 now, there won't be anything to do and a big portion of that XP'ing will be in the level ranges that they have yet to fully flesh out.

One of the good things about flipping about from char to char is that I'm getting to know what a lot of different classes both need and can do. They're all fun, too. Rogue is really only the one that needs some developer help.

-=-=-=-

BTW, dunno if you deleted your character when you quit, but there might be some hope you can recover it. I'm not really sure how that works, but I've seen people "quit" and then come back and get their character back. It's not 100% the way it was with EQ (bad move by SE there), but it can be done.

If you can do that, you might want to do something like I'm doing. I log into FFXI twice a week for dynamis. You stay in touch with peeps and the game that way, but there's none of the slogging through farms or claim fights end-game usually has in FFXI.

'Course I'm going to need to rebuild the XP buffer on my THF soon. I'm dreading that. XP'ing THF in FFXI is so painful. Well, XP'ing is fun, it's the group formation that sucks.

Post by **Sugami** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:40 pm

Most fun I have in FFXI is leveling/meriting but I can't/won't continue on WAR till I have my WS and oglay hat so I'm stuck doing nothing all day now

Main reason I quit the first time was 'cause I got everything I saw as achievable, now I'm back to that same place. Even these small things require a party of 70+s and there's never enough help when I need it

I also thought Salvage was once every 24 hours if you had the points to do it again. They should have made it Imperial Standings, I'm still pissed it uses Assault Points, which aren't the easiest things to get. 2000 AP, which is anything from 2-4 Assault runs, and you come out with nothing in the end

Post by **Tivia** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:34 pm

My account and original character are still active Okuza, I gave them to Tsybil when I left.

If I come back I would be starting over purposefully.

Okuza · Post by **Okuza** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:02 pm

Don't you wonder what you've been doing in game when you weren't you?

Post by **Tivia** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:25 am

Nope.

Okuza · Post by **Okuza** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:39 am

The road to bliss is paved with ignorance -- or was it chocolate?

If you happen to be on Florendyl server in VG, give me a wave. Okuza exists over there, too (she's my rogue).

Post by **Karou Ariyen** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:52 am

Personally, HNM = Teh Ghey

Post by **Tivia** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:38 pm

I am on Hilsbury, so far according to Vg-stationplayers I remain the only Tivia in the game.

Post by **Alya Mizar (Tsybil)** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:49 pm

Okuza wrote:The road to bliss is paved with ignorance -- or was it chocolate?

I'll take the chocolate.

ScarlettPheonix · Post by **ScarlettPheonix** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:46 pm

Well, when you do come back Tivia you should be able to choose what server you want w/o a world pass.

Today's SE Topic:

World Selection Made Easier! (03/02/2007)

Starting March 8, 2007, players will be able to create new characters on the World of their choice. Up until now, Worlds would be randomly assigned to characters upon their creation, while only players with World Passes could join their friends. However, with this new adjustment, all players, even ones without World Passes, will have the option to select their realm at the character selection screen.

Originally, the World Pass system was introduced to maintain a balance among all the Worlds and prevent overpopulation. However, with the continued stablization of each World's adventurer community and recent technical advances in server technology, it has been determined that allowing players to create new characters on Worlds of their choice would not greatly affect the current population balance.

In conjunction with this change, we have updated the character creation screen to include a new pull-down window from which players can select the World of their choice. Also, additional characters added to an account will no longer be automatically assigned to the same World as the first character. Players will be free to choose where they wish that new character to reside, be it the same World, or a completely different one.

Finally, the development team is continuing their work on World selection by making preparations for a new service that will allow players to move their characters to different Worlds. Please keep a close watch on the Topics page for further updates on this exciting feature.

*While all World Passes will become void after March 8, 2007, Gold World Passes will continue to be distributed to players who wish to purchase them. Any adventurers who would like to invite their friends to Vana'diel can still utilize the Gold World Pass feature and take advantage of the special benefits this unique system has to offer.

To access a beginner's guide to FINAL FANTASY XI, click here.

Post by **Alya Mizar (Tsybil)** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:21 pm

Bitneko · Post by **Bitneko** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:32 pm

I'm so happy now.

Ima mess with this when it's implemented.

Kintrra · Post by **Kintrra** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:54 am

Finally, the development team is continuing their work on World selection by making preparations for a new service that will allow players to move their characters to different Worlds. Please keep a close watch on the Topics page for further updates on this exciting feature.

See this part? It means if you're REALLY fed up with your server, you can move hopefully soon.

Okuza · Post by **Okuza** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:13 pm

Heh. You could always pick the server you wanted. The means by which you planted a character on that server was just excessively tedious. SE is about 10 years behind the times on this lil feature.

Wanna bet that the next thing they do is add support for ALT-TAB on PCs? SE/FFXI is following the in footsteps of EQ-1. When EQ-1 started to loose people right at left, they suddenly woke up and started adding all the features everyone had been clambering for and which SOE swore never to add (alt-tab being one of them).

I just hope they get around to instancing dynamis before I quit. That would keep me going in FFXI for a looooong time. Years, probably.

Eviticus · Post by **Eviticus** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:38 pm

If anyone wants to come to Cerberus to help reinstate our MithraPride LS, I know a handful of kitties that would follow any willing leader. ^.^;

Post by **Tivia** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:21 pm

Yea I saw that, nice change. Always thought that system was stupid.

What is the gold pass system?

ScarlettPheonix · Post by **ScarlettPheonix** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:35 pm

Unlike normal world passes, a gold pass is one use only and costs a little more than a normal pass. It works just like a normal pass but has some added features.

After certain time periods both the Gold Pass User and the Buyer get prizes. After 24 hrs, the user gets like 7 chocopasses, after 3 weeks or so the GP user gets something else and the buyer can choose a prize from a list of items (typically past event items) and so on. At some point both people get a mandragora beret (one's white, the other is black) that lets both players be the same level, but the higher leveled player doesn't gain any exp while under this particular level cap.

Its designed to be a pass you use with friends who are new to the game, the berets are supposed to be so you can level/explore/do whatever together with said friend as well.

It can also only be used when you make a character for the first time, not with additional characters.

Post by **Tivia** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:28 pm

Hmm depending on how much choco's cost these days I might have to convince someone to consider two of those.

Sounds like it benefits both parties quite a bit.

Post by **Shirai** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:07 pm

Tivia wrote:Hmm depending on how much choco's cost these days I might have to convince someone to consider two of those. Sounds like it benefits both parties quite a bit.

On Titan the chocobo costs are pretty good actually.
I pay between 250 to 500 gil for a ride from each crag and cities also hover around the minimum depending on where you get it.

I don't know the situation on other servers, but on Titan chocobos aren't that bad to get these days.

Post by **Leane** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:36 pm

Tivia wrote:Hmm depending on how much choco's cost these days I might have to convince someone to consider two of those. Sounds like it benefits both parties quite a bit.

its a chocopass not a chocobo ticket, a ticket is a free ride if you have a license a pass is a like 1 or 2 minute ride that you don't need a license for and can be any level

ScarlettPheonix · Post by **ScarlettPheonix** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:18 pm

Since the version update last spring that changed how quickly chocobo rental prices fluctuate, prices on Remora have been rock bottom.

Before the update it wasn't unusual to see chocobo prices edging close to 10k a rental (@ Mea) during peak times. Lower Jueno was just as expensive, with it being cheap to get a bird for 2k there.

My linkshell at the time used to comment on choco prices the same way people do with high priced items- "OMG- 6k in L. Jueno?? I'll walk!!"

Now its rare to see a rental price for 1k+ anywhere. The chocobo whistle @ 1k per use is actually more expensive a lot of the time. As much as I enjoy raising chocobos, I actually prefer to use rentals unless I'm going for a long distance (more than 1 area).

Post by **Alya Mizar (Tsybil)** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:05 am

Leane wrote: a pass is a like 1 or 2 minute ride that you don't need a license for and can be any level

I had no idea it was that short.

Choco changes; you can rent at L 15 if you have the license, but only in towns. You can raise and ride your own so no one with their own bird will ever pay over 1K. You HAVE to go a lost bird quest before you can flag the license quest. The prices of Choco tickets, formerly 1K ea, 10K/12 have plummeted like a sheep.

The new continent has taken the pressure off rental prices at Mea, hardly anyone parties in Bibiki Bay anymore.

I haven't paid over 400 in like forever.

Post by **Tivia** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:44 pm

Ah ok, well that more or less renders the pass to uselessness outside to power level a friend which I am not looking for.

1k still sounds high to me though, when I played everyone B$#@%ed when it hit 1k. I was used to paying 100 or so.

Of course I am sure the econ has changed and its not like 1k is really a big deal if it hits that high.

ScarlettPheonix · Post by **ScarlettPheonix** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:47 pm

Its really not- nowadays, as Tysbil said, its rare to pay more then 400 or so at any rental place.

The Chocobo whistle which you use to ride the chocobo(s) you've raised costs 24k for 24 charges so ~ 1k per use.

Last year, 1k would've been cheap for a choco, but now its kinda expensive- especially if your choco isn't as fast as a rental- so alot of people just prefer to use rentals instead of the whistle.

I use the whistle if I'm going for long distances, but for shorter distances or choco-digging I use rentals usually. So, instead of spending 24k every couple of weeks to recharge my whistle, its 24k every couple of months which is much easier on my budget^^