Let's assume you were to pick up the game again, you'd pretty much do the following. First of all, you'd go online to Steam and purchase the Ultimate Collection Abyssea addition for the price of a monthly payment, which will net you all possible expansions and all rewards that reside with it. While they advertise a Beret that'll help you in level from 1 - 30, they don't mention all other little goodies you get for having complete expansion sets like the Nexus Cloak which you will pick up from a red chest in the Tenshodo. This cloak allows you to warp directly to your party leader's location if they are in any of the first two game zones FFXI and Rise of Zilart.
Secondly, you'll proceed to Port Jeuno like a good puppy and sign up for Abyssea. At this point you'll be provided with a complimentary stone, and you'd have to wait a little while - perhaps a day or two before you gather about two or three stones before proceeding into Abyssea. You'd join into an Abyssea Altepa Dominion Ops Experience Points Party, which means you'll have to set off to Bastok, exit the city into South Gustaberg and enter the highest level Abyssea with stupid ease. Then you'd proceed to walk you way to the farthest point on the map, after signing up for Visitation Status of course, and activating Conflux 8.
After that, you do as the above post states and Book Burn. You talk to a Taru, sign up for Page 1 of the book which tells your team to kill 5 Sand Sweepers which are these robot Doll mobs that explode. Your team will kill 5 of them in about, 2 minutes? You walk back to the Taru, and boom.. 5100 exp for doing practically nothing. Rense and repeat until you max your Merits. Request you lot on all the Crests too. Then you jump back to Jeuno, spend your Merit Points and Crests to unlock 75 - 80 from the Moogle you unlocked all your other levels with. Proceed back to Altep, level from 75 - 80.
Repeat this process until you are 90.
When you hit 80, use the Curor from the Altepa Dom Ops to buy a complete set of level 78 set from the earlier tiers of Abyssea. Each Tier of Abyssea, of which there are 3, has different items to buy from the NPCs. This gear is actually very decent to wear even at 90, and will hold you over for a while.
Once you hit 90, seek out a 6 person Static consisting of a Black Mage, Warrior, Thief, Ninja, (Blue Mage/Dark Knight/Monk/Red mage), and White Mage. Run with these 6 people only, learn from them, and go into Abyssea together. Try not to use too many stones, and have your Party use the Red Mage + Warrior combo to Fell Cleave up time inside Abyssea by gathering Azure Light, Pearl Light, and Amber Light. You'll learn how to unlock those through doing it.
Gather up Time Exentions via Blue Chests (Azure Light) and get about 300+ minutes for that zone, then proceed to gather pop items for powerful bosses.. Pop them, kill them, share the look. Then work on Trial bosses that'll you have to kill roughly 50+ times to gather 2+ materials for your AF armor set called Empryean. When not in Abyssea, do trials by hunting NMs to develop your Empryeans weapons. When not doing that, solo Missions you never could find groups for. When not doing that, Skill Up your abilities. When not doing that, learn how the hell Synergy works. When not doing that, level Thief in about a day and farm all the crap you always wanted to farm.. When not doing that, try own Dynamis now that you can solo it.
Hmm... Oh, when doing that.. um.. Go to White Gate and laugh at how deserted it is now. Yeah.. and when not doing that, try doing your Nation Quests but realize that being 90 means nothing because they stuck 90+ mobs in your way in all the basic FFXI zones now so it's a complete bitch to do them now as they hit STUPIDLY hard.. 150 - 300 basic attacks when 90 armor. OUCH. When not doing that? Level up all your classes to 90 because you can. Or farm seals for your Empryean set, and understand the pain of having to fight for a pop-spawn with two or three other groups, and understand the meaning of the term Ninja-Popping the hard way.
LOL!! So basically the game is easy to lvl and a bitch at end game... The only thing that kept me tied to the game was doing the Missions, either reg, Rize of the Zilar, Chains of Promathia, and ToAU. But if what you mention is true, lvl 90 mobs (WTF!!!) Then I might as well not even come back, since it will be impossible to do them prob harder now than it was back in the day. Thank you for your explanation though.
At least with a sub game they know that people won't tolerate bullshit and leave. With anet we have no recourse but to buy our own lube so our assholes don't get too stretched out from getting bent over a table at Anets will. - Hrimnir
I played back in the day when the game first launched in NA for PC. I loved it... loved the challenge, loved the grind, loved that it took people who knew how to play their jobs and parties that knew wtf they were doing to get shit done. I will admit that I didn't complete a lot of the game's content... I spent a lot of my time crafting, fishing, and *gasp* RP'ing. Ultimately, I had to stop playing after 5-6 years of devoted gaming and I canceled my sub when the demands of RL became too great, but I always held a special place in my heart for FFXI and the friends I made and adventures I had while playing it.
Now, I come back and to what? Easy-mode everything. People who don't know shit about how to play their jobs. Nobody willing to do anything except Abyssea and book burning. <(;>_<)>
Well, even if I get nowhere, I am going to play the old style. I know that it won't matter because mobs give more XP now, so it's not the old rule set (and equipment is different), but I don't give a shit. This game isn't fun the new way. The old way is where it was at and still is at. If this means that I will sit by myself in the Dunes or Bubu, unable to find fellow players to grind with like back in the old days, then so be it. I won't put up with this easy-mode bullshit.
As far as I'm concerned, game devs can go to hell. Every game now is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and I for one am sick of it. SE and the rest of the publishers out there can kiss my tiny Tarutaru ass. They long ago demonstrated that they no longer make games for the people who put RPG's on the map. Now, it is all cookie-cutter bullshit and all they want to do is cater to the masses.
The game sucks now, but I will play it the way I want to (not the way they want me to) and I don't give a shit if that means I am back to crafting and fishing and just flipping a loud and proud bird to the devs and asshats who play now and think they are big and bad because they have reached lvl cap (even though they truly don't have the first clue about what they are doing).
If anybody plays on Odin and wants to grind (and play) in the old style, hit me up. The name is Spek. I might not be that great of a player, but I could appreciate the game for what it offered and despite it's many flaws, I loved how it was back then. I seek like minded individuals who will forego the easy-mode xp'ing and are willing to play the way the game was originally designed (or, at least as close to that as possible)....
I can't help but feel the same kind of betrayal as I felt when EA gutted UO. I would give my right arm for ONE pre-Abyssea server with the old rule set (or a pre-trammel UO experience with the magical community that no longer exists, I'm sad to say).
Devs don't care about us anymore. This game, as with so many others, is now shit unless you're a mouth-breather who wants to level up for doing almost nothing. What a disappointment.
I know the game was dying and they wanted to do something to keep things fresh, but this is simply a bridge too far............ Shinrai, Eldoras, Konoruck.... I'm so sorry I had to leave and couldn't experience all the game had to offer before they did this to it. Now all of you are gone and the game reminds me of those lost halcyon days, but fails to deliver that sense of accomplishment when you manage to muddle through the muck and actually achieve something that was a bit challenging to pull off.
I wonder if it will ever be profitable enough for devs to cater to us gamers who loved UO, DAoC, EQ, (and now FFXI). What are we to do when even the companies like CCP are selling out great works of art for the almighty $$$?
What was it they say about the killing the goose who lays golden eggs? I guess game publishers missed that fable/fairy tale/whatever the **** it is.....
FFXI was and still is fun but the fact of having only select jobs being able to due most of the newer content is annoying. Now I only had DRK and PLD leveled pre abyssea and used both now think they are both 90 but when I left a few months back rarely had any use for either. It was a pain to find a linkshell so I could work on my Emp Weapons and Armor and was not about to sit there and grind out quests for seals.
All in all FFXI is still good but lack of job diversity being used in Abyssea is no fun. I already heard level one of those jobs but I shouldn't have to I should be able to play what I want and still get a group.
Well my next article will be about Empyrean Armor.Weapons and such, just to illuminate what a lot of people are currently doing in the game right now. I'l ltake some time to work it out, because I have to break down a lot of elements.
Cheers folks. The next Article will be a new thread of course, but both are related.
PC players out there need to also embrace that Final Fantasy XI is nearly impossible play without Windower and ApRadar - two 3rd party programs which give you all the things the game should have had in the first place. Not to mention the ability to track those god awful annoying monsters who you have to kill to upgrade you weapons. The worst of which are Void Walkers, whom are invisible and can be spawned using special stones you grow and develop with repeated use in combat.
I have to say... there is *far* too much in that article that is 110% personal opinion being passed off as fact. I played FFXI from day 1 of its US PC launch and my experience has been *far*, *FAR* different from how you describe it.
Reading your description of "the early days" of FFXI is like reading the description of an entirely different game I never even tried. The omissions, hyperbole and misrepresentation you use to describe elements of the game - especially in its early-to-mid years in service - is an extreme injustice to the actual game that SE created and developed over all that time.
For one, per your post, and the things you emphasize, you seem to fall into the group who feels that "the main goal" is, or should be, getting to level cap; if not by directly stating as much, certainly through the emphasis you place on that aspect of the game in your post.
You mention how it's "punishing" that it could take upwards of a year to get to level cap. Not only is that hyperbolic, it's 100% subjective. It's based entirely on the player's personal expectations or "wants". There is no objective, "universal measure of how long it should take to reach level cap in a MMO".
This aspect is also where you demonstrate possibly your greatest (though, by far, not your only) omission regarding the game... You neglect to mention that people aren't spending 100% of their time leveling a single job in FFXI; that their time is split up between unlocking and/or leveling main jobs, leveling sub-jobs, etc. FFXI is not set up like other MMOs where you pick your class at character creation, and then that's your class on that character for as long as you play it. If FFXI were set up with that typical "one class only per character" model (and thankfully it isn't), players would certainly be able to level to cap in much less time.
You completely neglect to mention the myriad short and long-term goals people pursue throughout their time playing that have nothing to do with farming xp. You neglect to mention the many quests, major storyline missions and other side-activities people engage in along the way. FFXI has ~20 different activities people may partake in throughout their time playing the game, not counting the major milestones along the way. Most all of those activities have nothing to do with "grinding xp".
In all, your entire article is painted in extremely broad strokes, using a very one-sided brush, with a number of very important bristles conspicuously removed. As such, you are not, at all, giving a fair - nor even accurate - representation of the game as it was in its earlier years, or even now. Again, reading your post was like reading a description of an entirely different game... certainly entirely different from the one I played almost solid for over 7 years.
There's a reason so many people stuck around with the game, and it maintained a healthy population of ~500,000 players for at least 6.5-7 years of its time online. There's a reason why in the time before FFXI had its first server merge, many other MMOs have had their 2nd or even 3rd. It isn't because "people were being punished". It's because FFXI provided an experience that many people came to appreciate for what it was, your characterization of it notwithstanding. Many people left the game once SE turned that corner toward going "casual friendly" or "easy mode" as you put it, because it was no longer the game they had come to love for all those years. SE had jumped the shark, big time, and many people saw it.
And finally... the bit of your post I quoted (for the sake of brevity, and also for emphasis). It is far from impossible to play FFXI without Windower on PC. For all the time I played it, I never used Windower more than *once*, and that was only to check out the option to make the game render farther so I could see more distant land and have less pop-up. FFXI is, and always has been, 100% perfectly playable without any add-ons. The statment you make about "things that should have been there at launch" is just a quaint justification for using add-ons to get around elements of the gameplay you'd rather not have to figure out for yourself. PS2 and 360 players didn't have access to those add-ons... and did just fine without them. So, no, it was not "nearly impossible" to play without those add-ons and to make such a statement is another example of how grossly you misrepresent the game.
Your entire post is comprised of two things:
1. Your personal opinions stated as fact
2. Facts colored by your personal opinion
To those reading this "article", I would take everything it says with a grain of salt. Do not take any of it as "objective fact". Instead, go to resources that describe the game in a completely objective, "just the facts" manner, such as ffxiclopedia.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Comments
LOL!! So basically the game is easy to lvl and a bitch at end game... The only thing that kept me tied to the game was doing the Missions, either reg, Rize of the Zilar, Chains of Promathia, and ToAU. But if what you mention is true, lvl 90 mobs (WTF!!!) Then I might as well not even come back, since it will be impossible to do them prob harder now than it was back in the day. Thank you for your explanation though.
At least with a sub game they know that people won't tolerate bullshit and leave. With anet we have no recourse but to buy our own lube so our assholes don't get too stretched out from getting bent over a table at Anets will. - Hrimnir
Nation Quests have levle 90 Mobs. The original game. Zilart and beyond have not been scaled up. I'm currently soloing ToAU.
All changes that should have been made 5 years ago.
I played back in the day when the game first launched in NA for PC. I loved it... loved the challenge, loved the grind, loved that it took people who knew how to play their jobs and parties that knew wtf they were doing to get shit done. I will admit that I didn't complete a lot of the game's content... I spent a lot of my time crafting, fishing, and *gasp* RP'ing. Ultimately, I had to stop playing after 5-6 years of devoted gaming and I canceled my sub when the demands of RL became too great, but I always held a special place in my heart for FFXI and the friends I made and adventures I had while playing it.
Now, I come back and to what? Easy-mode everything. People who don't know shit about how to play their jobs. Nobody willing to do anything except Abyssea and book burning. <(;>_<)>
Well, even if I get nowhere, I am going to play the old style. I know that it won't matter because mobs give more XP now, so it's not the old rule set (and equipment is different), but I don't give a shit. This game isn't fun the new way. The old way is where it was at and still is at. If this means that I will sit by myself in the Dunes or Bubu, unable to find fellow players to grind with like back in the old days, then so be it. I won't put up with this easy-mode bullshit.
As far as I'm concerned, game devs can go to hell. Every game now is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and I for one am sick of it. SE and the rest of the publishers out there can kiss my tiny Tarutaru ass. They long ago demonstrated that they no longer make games for the people who put RPG's on the map. Now, it is all cookie-cutter bullshit and all they want to do is cater to the masses.
The game sucks now, but I will play it the way I want to (not the way they want me to) and I don't give a shit if that means I am back to crafting and fishing and just flipping a loud and proud bird to the devs and asshats who play now and think they are big and bad because they have reached lvl cap (even though they truly don't have the first clue about what they are doing).
If anybody plays on Odin and wants to grind (and play) in the old style, hit me up. The name is Spek. I might not be that great of a player, but I could appreciate the game for what it offered and despite it's many flaws, I loved how it was back then. I seek like minded individuals who will forego the easy-mode xp'ing and are willing to play the way the game was originally designed (or, at least as close to that as possible)....
I can't help but feel the same kind of betrayal as I felt when EA gutted UO. I would give my right arm for ONE pre-Abyssea server with the old rule set (or a pre-trammel UO experience with the magical community that no longer exists, I'm sad to say).
Devs don't care about us anymore. This game, as with so many others, is now shit unless you're a mouth-breather who wants to level up for doing almost nothing. What a disappointment.
I know the game was dying and they wanted to do something to keep things fresh, but this is simply a bridge too far............ Shinrai, Eldoras, Konoruck.... I'm so sorry I had to leave and couldn't experience all the game had to offer before they did this to it. Now all of you are gone and the game reminds me of those lost halcyon days, but fails to deliver that sense of accomplishment when you manage to muddle through the muck and actually achieve something that was a bit challenging to pull off.
I wonder if it will ever be profitable enough for devs to cater to us gamers who loved UO, DAoC, EQ, (and now FFXI). What are we to do when even the companies like CCP are selling out great works of art for the almighty $$$?
What was it they say about the killing the goose who lays golden eggs? I guess game publishers missed that fable/fairy tale/whatever the **** it is.....
FFXI was and still is fun but the fact of having only select jobs being able to due most of the newer content is annoying. Now I only had DRK and PLD leveled pre abyssea and used both now think they are both 90 but when I left a few months back rarely had any use for either. It was a pain to find a linkshell so I could work on my Emp Weapons and Armor and was not about to sit there and grind out quests for seals.
All in all FFXI is still good but lack of job diversity being used in Abyssea is no fun. I already heard level one of those jobs but I shouldn't have to I should be able to play what I want and still get a group.
Well my next article will be about Empyrean Armor.Weapons and such, just to illuminate what a lot of people are currently doing in the game right now. I'l ltake some time to work it out, because I have to break down a lot of elements.
Cheers folks. The next Article will be a new thread of course, but both are related.
I have to say... there is *far* too much in that article that is 110% personal opinion being passed off as fact. I played FFXI from day 1 of its US PC launch and my experience has been *far*, *FAR* different from how you describe it.
Reading your description of "the early days" of FFXI is like reading the description of an entirely different game I never even tried. The omissions, hyperbole and misrepresentation you use to describe elements of the game - especially in its early-to-mid years in service - is an extreme injustice to the actual game that SE created and developed over all that time.
For one, per your post, and the things you emphasize, you seem to fall into the group who feels that "the main goal" is, or should be, getting to level cap; if not by directly stating as much, certainly through the emphasis you place on that aspect of the game in your post.
You mention how it's "punishing" that it could take upwards of a year to get to level cap. Not only is that hyperbolic, it's 100% subjective. It's based entirely on the player's personal expectations or "wants". There is no objective, "universal measure of how long it should take to reach level cap in a MMO".
This aspect is also where you demonstrate possibly your greatest (though, by far, not your only) omission regarding the game... You neglect to mention that people aren't spending 100% of their time leveling a single job in FFXI; that their time is split up between unlocking and/or leveling main jobs, leveling sub-jobs, etc. FFXI is not set up like other MMOs where you pick your class at character creation, and then that's your class on that character for as long as you play it. If FFXI were set up with that typical "one class only per character" model (and thankfully it isn't), players would certainly be able to level to cap in much less time.
You completely neglect to mention the myriad short and long-term goals people pursue throughout their time playing that have nothing to do with farming xp. You neglect to mention the many quests, major storyline missions and other side-activities people engage in along the way. FFXI has ~20 different activities people may partake in throughout their time playing the game, not counting the major milestones along the way. Most all of those activities have nothing to do with "grinding xp".
In all, your entire article is painted in extremely broad strokes, using a very one-sided brush, with a number of very important bristles conspicuously removed. As such, you are not, at all, giving a fair - nor even accurate - representation of the game as it was in its earlier years, or even now. Again, reading your post was like reading a description of an entirely different game... certainly entirely different from the one I played almost solid for over 7 years.
There's a reason so many people stuck around with the game, and it maintained a healthy population of ~500,000 players for at least 6.5-7 years of its time online. There's a reason why in the time before FFXI had its first server merge, many other MMOs have had their 2nd or even 3rd. It isn't because "people were being punished". It's because FFXI provided an experience that many people came to appreciate for what it was, your characterization of it notwithstanding. Many people left the game once SE turned that corner toward going "casual friendly" or "easy mode" as you put it, because it was no longer the game they had come to love for all those years. SE had jumped the shark, big time, and many people saw it.
And finally... the bit of your post I quoted (for the sake of brevity, and also for emphasis). It is far from impossible to play FFXI without Windower on PC. For all the time I played it, I never used Windower more than *once*, and that was only to check out the option to make the game render farther so I could see more distant land and have less pop-up. FFXI is, and always has been, 100% perfectly playable without any add-ons. The statment you make about "things that should have been there at launch" is just a quaint justification for using add-ons to get around elements of the gameplay you'd rather not have to figure out for yourself. PS2 and 360 players didn't have access to those add-ons... and did just fine without them. So, no, it was not "nearly impossible" to play without those add-ons and to make such a statement is another example of how grossly you misrepresent the game.
Your entire post is comprised of two things:
1. Your personal opinions stated as fact
2. Facts colored by your personal opinion
To those reading this "article", I would take everything it says with a grain of salt. Do not take any of it as "objective fact". Instead, go to resources that describe the game in a completely objective, "just the facts" manner, such as ffxiclopedia.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops