So What Was The Game Like When ..........

I agree in terms of it being a mistake in that sense.
The psychological blow doesn't really come into play when I'm playing myself, I always turn my head the other way when people demand I wear 119 24/7 (on BRD) and when I suggest why a certain piece is more efficient for a certain action or circumstance.. Well it turns into a crapfest.

I definitely agree the jump from 117>119 does make it feel like a huge difference but if it wasn't there to tell you would we really notice the jump that much? I wonder that sometimes.

I definitely noticed it from an accuracy standpoint.

I mean we'd notice it hugely in terms of stats and playing in general.

I meant in the way of without the little number to tell us, would people still act the same pompous way about it. (A handful yes like it's always been) I do feel this system has contributed a little too much to some peoples decisions on runs and setups.

Of course now that we're stuck at ilevel 119 it's kind of become meaningless again as some 119 gear is considerably better than other 119 gear.

there wouldn't have been nearly so many shouts for 119 or r/m/e only DDs, that's for sure.

I'm just glad we're back to a gear progression that feels more like XI used to feel. more things are viable now that the stopping point is 119 and gear is starting to spread out there.

I'm worried about that aspect though. A lot of players now won't be used to how it was at 75 cap. Where there was no level/ilvl progression. Pieces remained 75 or less and it stayed that way a long time.

A lot of players who came in when the level cap went up gradually and into the Seeker's era might find that slow and going backwards to what they've been used too. That's my take on it though

I liked it because it kept a lot of events relevant for a good long time. we're not always moving on to the next big thing because some of the older things are still needed.

I could see it being a problem that new blood gets driven away, though.

I promise I'm not being snarky at all with this question, but... are there really that many people around who aren't total lifers? I just assumed anyone who was still here was here because they had a decade into this thing and wanted to ride it out. I've not met any new people, but I admittedly don't PUG anything, so I don't know. Is this actually a sizable demographic?

I guess by new blood I mean post aby people and the occasional person that just picks up a 13 year old MMO on a whim. I met a guy about a month ago that started from scratch and just read like 6 years worth of patch notes to get current on the game.

I would assume it's not a large amount of new players but I'd still class a lot of Abyssea starters as new and there was a lot during that period if I recall.

That's a lot of work and gosh some dedication lol

i was blown away. he kept answering all of these obscure questions about nyzul and mythics and stuff and we were like "didn't you start last week?" like, we helped him with Genkai.

I can't decide if that's awesome or worrying. A little of both, really.

it was very easy to help him do stuff since he basically knew what to do already.

It was fun times. When it came out I spend 4 hours losing sleep trying to be one of the first group of people to take out Tax'et. Then its joining a crapload of people trying to do reives. And then trying to get into alliances for delve plasm farming. Level of excitements was high.

Yeah I remember zoning in there and learning about the coalitions and how we had to spam reives to get them built up with edifications. So many people were tired of grinding reives. That was when the grind really hit the game even more so then usual exp grinding. Delve really did change things, and made people take notice. I remember before delve people were so disappointed with the expansion.

Been 119 on a number of jobs for some time. If they are like me at all they will take time to get 119. After that it's access to content previously inaccessible, all delve wins, DM2, vagary, etc. Maybe a RME.

Also how long was it between 99 became cap and adoulin release? During that time the 99 to 99 with good gear step was similar. Unless you speak of those who were pink on all their melees, etc.

They went too overboard with how fast they released 119 gear, then they had no choice but to release 119 gear which appears to be higher level than many older 119 gear in practice.

If anything, they shouldn't have given 119 drops to delve 1 bosses. Morimar was the earliest to be figured out, due to simpler mechanics in comparison to other two, and Oatixur created a huge power gap and an inevitable bandwagon took off.

Delve 1 augmentable armors are ilvl 110 and weapons 113 so why not just make the boss drops ilvl 116~ and give this system more time to progress in a more gradual way?

It could have been like this:
Delve 1 armor 110 weapon 113 boss 116
Delve 2 armor 115 weapon 117 boss 119

Despite the lack of content and the overall feeling of rushed/incomplete the expansion was hinting at every corner, I have very nice memories of those first months.

People getting back together (FFXIV was on break before the release of ARR), finally new zones, new areas, new jobs, new stuff to do. Lots of new mechanics, lots of new stuff to ease players' woes (warping around through waypoints etc).

It was fun doing those Colonization Reives at start, they were hard back then, challenging, took time to clear and mobs were actually hitting a lot and evading a lot when you didn't have ilevel gear.



Overall the atmosphere was really nice.
It got even better when Delve got released shortly after, it was really challenging and it proved to be content for all sort of people.
For random noobs who joined NQ mobs runs to slowly farm Plasm, other groups killing mobs outside, and serious LS trying to do the real content.
It made Linkshell communities come back, they resurrected, suddenly people wanted to apply to shells instead of doing everything lowmen or with 2000 mules.

For me? One of the best periods in FFXI's life. Despite how they *** it up with the scaling or with the fact that full runs were giving WAY MORE PLASM than they ever should've, I think Delve is probably one of the better thought content SE ever released for FFXI.
Quality, variation, challenge, drops, loot system, currency... simply fantastic.



Things kinda started going downwards sometimes after the release of Delve2, imho.

I think there is a big jump from 117 to 119. Bigger than those 2 levels would suggest otherwise.

I think it's like this for another reason though, and that's becaue there's a very wide array of incredibly powerful 119 items, whereas for 117 you mostly have underpar generic items.
If they spent more time designing special/powerful 117 items then the level gap between 117 and 119 wouldn't feel that big, imho.