My favorite MMO of all time, and the replacement

Deathofsage

Edit: By "replacement", I mean replacing something to play and enjoy in the vein of XI but XI will always be my favorite MMO.

So many xp parties.. I remember when I found out I couldn't heal drunk (irl drunk), I remember ... just awesome repreated praise for my paladin. I feel like I'm pretty good at mmos but I just.... I was damn good at XI. It all felt how a game should be. If XIV would just become XI 2.0, I'd haul butt to it.

FFXI will always reign as my favorite MMO. I've played WoW, RIFT and several others and they all just pale in comparison.

I went back for Abyssea, and some of my old lsmates were still around. I had too much of a good time and then.. I left the game for personal reason and while I do regret it.. It is what it is. Abyssea kind of ruined so much of the game anyway. The worst Abyssea xp party destroyed the very best merit parties and that made me sad. I had my screenshots of chain 350 from birds. I miss being surrounded by sleeping colibri all wanting to kill me then the bard or red mage panics and Sleepgas. lol.

My main love for FFXI came in tanking. Paladin, Ninja, and Monk tanking. (I was monk tanking when people thought monks couldn't tank). Noone understood that, quite honestly, bosses hit every player at nearly floored defense so using counterstance was just too good. Most bosses were allso not immune to stun and throwing a shoulder tackle in before tossing up Ichi was a very nice thing.

My best memory of XI comes from tanking monk tanking charby with a terrible ninja who came to "tank", a red mage, and a white mage. I was being very easy on his hate and still pulling hate. Alternating Asuran Fists and Shoulder tackle. Finally when I realized it was hopeless I just tanked the damn thing from about 80% to 0. That's what started me on my quest to monk tank and taught me respect for counterstance.

* * *

This weekend, my friend got me into the CBT for Tera, and let me tell you this. If you liked ninja tanking, /nin tanking, or lol sam tanking, this game is for you.  This game isn't "press holy shield and block stuff", this game is actually press your block button when you need to block the next attack or move out of the way (for warrior tanks). It's way more quest driven than XI (oh I long for Crawlers' nest parties, and not book burns, but I don't think we'll see that again.

I harp on WoW-clones. I hate them. Greedy devs who lack creativity trying to get a piece of the pie WoW made, but I really just long for XI V2. I hoped that was what XIV was going to be. I want my ninja back. I want xp parties back. I want dangerous mobs back, but most of that isn't ever coming back. TERA's the closest I've found because it is so grindy and the tank's life is back in the tank's hands. 

Blazeyer

I've been playing XI since 2004. I've done every thing possible in the game.

 

TERA is fun. I plan on playing it at launch. However, I doubt many ff fans will actually like the game. It is very different in terms of gameplay. The combat is much different, it's quest driven, and pvp is a huge part of the game. That's not to say things are better one way or another, but I can't see how liking one would translate to the other. One huge thing that TERA is missing compared to ffxi though, is the depth. I don't mean with endgame because of course I haven't experienced that (FFXI does have the best endgame system in any MMO). I mean with the story. I would be hardpressed to tell you that myself, or anyone I've come into contact with actually knows what's going on in TERA.

Deathofsage

Originally posted by Blazeyer

I've been playing XI since 2004. I've done every thing possible in the game.

 

TERA is fun. I plan on playing it at launch. However, I doubt many ff fans will actually like the game. It is very different in terms of gameplay. The combat is much different, it's quest driven, and pvp is a huge part of the game. That's not to say things are better one way or another, but I can't see how liking one would translate to the other. One huge thing that TERA is missing compared to ffxi though, is the depth. I don't mean with endgame because of course I haven't experienced that (FFXI does have the best endgame system in any MMO). I mean with the story. I would be hardpressed to tell you that myself, or anyone I've come into contact with actually knows what's going on in TERA.

I actually do know, because a cinema told me and I try to watch cinemas the first time, unless it's a boss or such things. If it had been quest text, I'd have no clue.

The army is at war, under attack by some force and creatures and other enemies are taking advantage of the army being away. The story we see by 22 is that Velika needs us to defend her front yard because they are vulnerable.

You're right, liking FFXI does not translate to liking TERA, but it took a specific sort of person to like XI and frankly...nothing else compares to XI. No game is like it, and though I've scoured, no tank is as responsible for their own life, in my opinion, as XI's tanks.

Seriously, Byakko's Claw Cyclone could lead to a killing blow and triple attack, with three unblocked crits, could just be it (he was my favorite boss, even through ToAU bosses and my two month return for Abyssea. In WoW and games like it, your life is usually in the healer's hands. A good healer covers a bad tank on a boss better than a good tank covers a bad healer.

XI is just aging poorly and Abyssea is an affront to what XI was. Abyssea caters to casuals and insults all of our old achievements.

One of my best XI memories is when I joined a terrible little LS and solo tanked byakko after the other two tanks went down and my PLD mentor (the guy who tought me everything about the game) whispers me and goes "Man...I've never seen anyone tank like that".

Obviously kitty is a chump now, and wasn't a mega threat in those days, but was a threat for that LS and for the guy who taught me the game....Damnit I miss old XI. Not "have a 90 in a day XI" but work for it. XPing, not being able to carry people really, etc etc.

I miss stealing hate from outside the party because most tanks didn't understand enmity at all .

Laughing-man

As a former nin tank for several years myself I was extremely excited by the prospects of the warrior in TERA, then I kept reading how under powered and under used they are, I became sad.

Tried TERA out this weekend, was rather fun, my wrist hurt after a few hours though, would have to pick up a controller for this game.

I miss FFXI, it was great how for so many years I could always go back to it and it would always be there for me, but now its an entirely different game, and they changed it forever in ways that cannot be taken back. 

Someday we'll have another game that hybridized the virtual world and the themepark elements so well that we barely could tell it wasn't a sandbox, I have hopes for TERA but we'll see.

k11keeper

I would use a lot of the same arguments you used against Abyssea ruining the game but replace abysea with ToAU. I was also and avid tanker, mostly pld, occasionaly ninja. I personally thought ToAU ruined tanking outside of LS events and those bird parties made xp into super easy mode dd zerg fests, no strategy other than speed involved. The really only thing I liked about ToAU was Nyzule Isle mainly because it was fun and random. But now xp is 10x easier. I recently returned after losing my old account, it's been 3 weeks I'm already lvl 70 halfway through CoP about to blast through Zilart right after I finish skilling up and beating Maat.

I've left and came back to ffxi so many times. I left very early on to play Lineage 2 then came back and then again shortly after ToAU, I came back for a while to try out WoTG, and now have recently returned with Abyssea and Voidwatch being the main content. What I've learned over the years is ffxi constantly progresses and has TONS of content. At first dynamis, HNMs, and sky was the best content for reward, then came limbus, and sea, then came salvage, ZNMs, and einherjar, later it was WoTG missions and add on expansions and as the game goes on eventually those old accomplishments are meaningless or not needed anymore. It's how it progresses.

So I will say this, don't let abysea ruin the game for you. Yes the days of needing an organized LS and massive amounts of time to complete content are gone but it has ushered in a new era. This new era is centered around the idea that you can just go and do stuff. Nothing is holding you back anymore. If you want to kill byakko go do it, if you want to kill AV go and do it, only thing you need a group for is Voidwatch and people are constantly shouting for them. No more LS banks and point systems that can be fair for some and not for others ruling your game experience it's just you grabbing a handful of people and getting whatever it is you want to do done. And honestly I love that.

 

Ninel

I'm with you OP. Every single new mmo I try is boring as shit and tedious. I just used the char reactivation program and I'm back.