If FFXIV Fails... What Does That Mean For FFXI?

Why so serious? FFxi has been easy mode for years... and even to this day, still is.

Taking a break is not quitting. Sometimes you do need a long break, while waiting for substantial update being done to FF11. Which at this stage, really needs tons of updates. Abyssea is not EASY, maybe now, but it was not easy when it was first came out at all.... But what it does give us is choices and options to play the game at our own pace without having to depend to 17 other people or 14. Before SoA they have a good mix between contents for small group, solo, and 18 people. Everyone has something to do, tons of options, tons of magian trials to do.

SoA pretty much destroy all of those and make them irrelevant. Now you are stuck - if you did not get in the free train before May update, you are at the mercy of other group who may let you join. Colonization is dying, and a lot of players are stuck unable to progress. This is bad game design. They acknowledge this in many of their posting and promise to focus on solo and small group content from now on and will introduce "easy mode" (however you want to call this) so that everyone can progress with very little difficulty.

I choose to sit it out while they do their works and updating the game. It won't happen overnight. It may take a good 6 months to a year. In the meantime, I get to use my time to do other things, play other games, and for sure will try FF14 when it launches. Our time is now precious, people have low tolerance for grinding and waiting, and the fight for our entertainment time is fierce (between TV, movies, books, mobile gaming, facebooking, porn, internet, social interaction, etc...). No one has the patience nor time that FFXI is asking for - Matsui should know this. He would have been better off copying the rift system of random enemy popping out (which FF14 happily clone as FATE) than forcing us to beat rocks and roots over and over...

I have four friends that quit FFXI in the last three years. They all played the v2.0 ARR Alpha and Beta tests. I asked them if they'll play when the game launches again why they'd rather go to FF14 than 11.

Their answers varied, but were the following (summarized):
Friend 1: "... the combat system... it feels like a better FFXI..."
Friend 2: "... much more improved than XI. FFXI feels like SE is neglecting it and putting everything into FF14..."
Friend 3: "... job system, graphics, music, and the ability to solo as much as we want to..."
Friend 4: "... too many broken bridges in XI between other players, that and SE has ignored the FFXI community a lot. I can't forgive them for that..."

Am I going to FF14 and quit XI again?

Well, I came back to XI but I don't think I'll quit again this time. I have spent too much time, money and effort into my character that I don't want to see it go to waste.

I'll play FF14 as well since not only are my friends playing it, but the game feels much more improved than v1.0. And, for that, I'm impressed with all the changes so far. I'm looking forward to Scholar and, if added, Musketeer.

Playing 1 role in a MMO to perfection is and always has been a joke. That doesn't mean that organizing a successful alliance fight from baseline is easy.

Garuda died in 8 hours.

Muyingwa took how many weeks..?

WoW has the right idea with all the things that a player can do. Their problem is lolgraphics and their player base having the maturity of 10-12 year olds.

mounts isn't all a bad idea... Giving customization to players in MMOs is what SHOULD happen. That way they like their character more, giving more likelihood for them to come back.

The problem with today's FFXI is that there is no middle ground at the endgame: You're either good enough to tackle the neo-Naakuals or you're farming plasm in perpetuity. Period.

Even the most horrid AF gimps could hope to take on Kirin if they were willing to struggle-kite it for 4hours until its MP bar ran dry (like my first kill!) or gather up a group for NMs like Vrtra or things like Waking the Beast.

:) It has been easy mode after Abyssea - which was great, it lets people do what they want, play however they want, and not really having to depend on large alliance. It also have options for those who like the 18 people style. It was a great mix of casual and hardcore, people can progress at their own pace and making their own relic or empy weapons with very little fuss. Even the ultra casual can still do magian trials weapon. Almost all missions can be soloed with certain jobs. Meeble Burrow give you plenty of challenges for low man group while still reward you with plenty of points to buy the gears of your choosing. Then SoA came, and with it everything else is rendered moot. And now we are stuck with roots and rocks, and delve or bust lol.

Yes that was Matsui's mistake - he should have introduce the low man and small party content first and not put the crazy numbers on Wildskeeper Reive. He should focus on casuals and get everyone up to speed with the new gears with very little fuss. And only then introduce the harder "18 people or go home" type of content. Slower progression to ease everyone up to the new way of doing things. Now he is stuck to remedy his own mistakes and have to refocus the work on solo and small party content and tweaking reives to become more solo friendly. He should have seen it coming, from WoTG that these so called server wide activities will not work in the long run. Expecting FF11 players to drop everything they do to help the newbies is a lofty goal, sadly it does not work too well in reality.

I logged in just to drop my 2 cents here.

FFXIV is awesome, I can't do anything but sing it's praises. Me leaving XI wasn't due to XIV, but me going to XIV was due to XI.

But, regardless of this, if XIV fails, the main thing it'll mean for XI is that the creators of it cease to exist and XI shuts down.

But based on the fact the beta last weekend was more populated than I've seen XI in the past 3 years, I'm not too worried about it failing.

WTB beta >:(

I just signed up for ps3 beta. Let's see where it goes.

Genuinely curious, how many times have you used wiki to find out what on earth you have to do cause the game does a piss poor attempt at ever telling you where to go. If you have even used wiki once to look up anything quest related or mission related, you sir are not in the bracket of players you so describe.... Just saying.

XI was friggen horrible with quest directions. I welcome this type as long as there are some difficult things to fight.

I have no doubt that challenges will come in spades. There are many hints already if you look at the cutscene - one is being airshipped in the background. Obviously most of the starting quests are easy and speedy to get everyone up to speed, but it ramps up after level 10 and slowly stabilize to a comfortable level (not too fast or too slow) and really force people to move around and explore the areas. There are some handholding, gently, to make sure you are not lost for hours and getting frustrated without knowing what to do. You will be lost here and there and have to reorient yourself with the map and gasp.. "reading" the quest logs to know where and what to do.

I had no issue with XI other then the fact that I was so far behind, and couldn't really realistically catch up without having to sacrifice an arm and a leg, XIV is a nice fresh start (having played it from day one) and I can at least stay on top of it alot better.


I can't say I see XIV failing (or XI for that matter, as long as people are playing it ... unless it dips below a certain number of players total... then they might be forced to make some changes or merge, or shut down...)

i discovered new naakuals exist when the wall came down on its own and i saw tojil standing behind it

i've used wiki, but there's a difference between using occasional reference material if you can't figure out what's going on vs being spoonfed everything

allow me to repeat

garuda died in 8h, muyingnwa took weeks

Beta's are always packed. Make ffxi free and it will be packed too hehe. Charge people 13 bucks to play beta and it will be barren. Heck they did do that on 14's release.

Pandy took way more time... And required more people... Lets not talk about av

Allow me to repeat... Why so serious? FFxi has been easy mode for years... and even to this day, still is.

I believe that 14 is a new challenge so quitting 11 isn't a big deal for me. I also hadn't finished some of the content before SoA but no one does them anymore. Even if you shout for help, it isn't coming. So for me I'd rather give up on sitting in a city watching shouts and go try something new and exciting that has a chance to entertain.

Maybe I'll try looking for a Social LS that does events other than the mind-numbing Delve/Plasma farming. I still have hope that FFXI hasn't become a total waste of time but high-level players and mid-level gamers have the largest divide in the history of the game. If you came back to the game recently, I feel sorry for you.

Great post.

As a player with my NIN almost done, my SCH almost done and my RNG almost done (meaning top endgame gear but not the best) you are done in FFXI. I didn't even get to try NNI, Salvage II or Reive/Colonization as no one does them anymore.

Hell, I went on and shouted for 1 healer to help me kill the two NM's for my Sylvan back and I was going to brew. No replies just a shout here and there for exp party. Then you'll see a 16/18 shout for Plasma farming Delve and that is about it.

I think today I'll shout for a Social LS before I give up on FFXI. I love this game but you always get the feeling that 400 of the 1000 online are AFK with bazaars up. Maybe even more.

Regardless by your definition you do not fall into the category of players FFXI is designed for by your own choice of words. Regardless of wether it took 10 hours or 50 hours. AV fight went for over 24 hours before they quit. Delve NM's before nerf took HOURS to kill not 20 minutes before nerf. YOUr point doesnt stand or im clearly missing it..

So many great XI players that I know who left the game for RL issues (marriage, kids, work demands, graduation, etc) that tried to come back left right away.

If you aren't ahead of the curve you are lost it seems. I put in a lot of time to catch up and now the server is too small and too few people are at the 80% job range that I am. I'm still trying to learn about the new equipment and how to upgrade it and my point is that I have to go to a third party webpage or forum to learn that.

Is it too much to ask to simply have the game lead you into that progression?

Again, not giving up hope but rather going to try to add a new Social LS and rely on the people of FFXI to help out like they always have.

Ask Comeatmebro... He seems to never use wiki and know exactly what is what and how to do everything. All jokes aside this game has NEVER been that way and there's is nothing to say it will start now. Yes i agree those that missed the gravy train of the 2-4 hour fights at the start are likely to quit. Its obvious lol. Then the elite that remain per server (maybe 100? 150?) will go oh ***, we got no one to buy our gears no more, wtf where is everyone. Even then, they probably wont realise that it was them that pushed others out lol. Me i help where i can. However now im on like once a week or every 2 weeks..... period is getting bigger each time lol. And yes im 6/6 KI, 2/3 Naakuals, and 0/3 Delve Mega Boss. In a social so that's really not gonna happen any time soon lol nor do i have the interest xD

Let's look at some different examples of easy/difficult.

A group of people with an IQ of 110 and willingness to work together take a strategy from the leading group at the time and attempt to mimic it. - Easy. This applies to ANY mmo. More gear-centric ones will require prior farming, which is equally easy under the same conditions.

A group of people with an IQ of 110 and willingness to work together devise their own strategy. - In the case of T6 delve, this wasn't easy. T1-T5 gear was obtained within a week for the most part, and it still took further weeks for someone to come up with and execute a working strategy.

A group of people with an IQ of 80 that just want gear band up in shout and try to tackle old content without reading strategies. - They lose.

It doesn't matter what mmo you look at, the challenge exists in creating and refining strategies. Being able to farm similar gear and copy an already-working strategy is not hard in ANY mmo. Being able to assemble a group of people that can read could be.

At the time 14 went down, every bit of content in the game was relatively easy to defeat with a pickup group. They've said it'll be harder this time around, but the battle system isn't yet sufficiently complicated to support 'harder' fights. You can argue semantics all you want, but at present, FF14 has no indication it'll be a challenging game and this is heavily represented in luvbunny's posts(see the emphasis on easy and the ridiculous love for abyssea).

Yeah that's the problem in this game, most people will not bend over backwards spending hours and hours of their free time to help newbies setting up comfortably. If you stop playing around ToAU or WoTG - when you come back in the game, it will seems very harsh and punishing, even if Abyssea is already deemed way too easy mode by the hardcore. For those returning players, Abyssea is not easy mode at all. Without the proper atmas and help from others, clearing the zone bosses x 9 is not easy, doing the 6 catures are no walk in the park. Even seal farming is borderline tedious, even if they force themselves to solo as ninja, thief, or beast master.

And then there is SoA to deal with... Matsui seems to be so out of touch with how the game has changed since the 2006-2007 years. I think his reasoning is good but his implementation is greatly flawed. He should have focused on solo and small group content above the 18 people set up with R/M/E minimum. If he would want to go the WoW route, new gears should be handed free simply via questings to get the newbies good set of gears so they can at least survive Reive easily. Wildskeeper Reive entry should have been a tag that is refreshed every 12 hours for a group of 3-6 to farm gears. And Delve should not even be introduced until Sept. He has chosen poorly by imitating WoTG - should have pick Abyssea. He wanted to emulate WoW but FF gears progression was never designed with that frame set to begin with. Rendering 10 years worth of content suddenly useless is a bad move.

I think you are a bit delusional if you think Abyssea is brain dead easy at launch. Obviously the content was designed as you progress it gets easier and easier, and it was build so that you have options to do things at your own pace with reward that is fair. I remember that it took a fair amount of works to clear Abyssea content at launch when level cap was still low and most people do not have the right gears or atmas. Some battle can last 30 mnts and half the alliance dead or have to resort to kiting and zombie method.

Voidwatch at launch was also hard, it revitalized LS and Paladin for a short time, but gets progressively easier when they introduced key items that act as brew. Legion was still hard until more tweaks were made. Even NNI took a few practice (and third party softwares) to get successful run.

At least we used to get a lot more variety at grinding for gears. And people have options, even for those who don't have hours to dedicate to this game. SoA mistake was pacing, Delve was introduced way too soon before the community has time to acclimate to the new way of doing things which renders everything else moot.

I 2-3boxed my Chloris Buds(sometimes gf played, sometimes I was on her char, but always had 3) and 2boxed my Ulhuadshi Fangs at 85. If you can't get your atmas at 99, you aren't trying hard enough. You can duo minikin as WAR and WHM without any prior atma at 99. From there, it's easy to get the rest. I'd agree if you had literally 0 friends to play with, but in that case I'd also say to quit anyway.

Take your duo partner to get atma first. Easy.

FFXI is an old game with an old playerbase. It doesn't have heavy new players. Giving the old guns something to work on is not a bad thing. Much of delve can be lowmanned with coordination, and plasma is very PUG-friendly.

You don't want to work for gear? Ok. I sure hope that logic continues up at the top: let's just give everyone every item and see how long that stays fun. There's a reason the absurd private servers have no players.

Ten years of content isn't suddenly useless. In the last couple weeks, to prepare for new content for myself and my friend who just restarted, we've done or are working on:

-Meeble Burrows(Letalis Mantle, for MNKs)
-Umagrhk(FC torque, for SCH stunners)
-Abyssea(ziel charm, anguinus belt, af3 for many jobs, daurdaubla for his brd mule)
-salvage2(marduk legs, usu head/feet)
-salvage1 will be on list after we finish plans
-Dynamis-Bastok(Af2 feet for mnk, legs for sch, augments for both)
-Legion(paean mitras for sch)
-Provenance(scarletite to make senbaaks and wohpes for rdms)
-Morta(cinder for daurdaubla, hedera cotehardies for sch stunners)
-ADL to 99 his new horn
-Limbus2 to get enif corazzas for drgs
-Sky for wlegs
-ks99 for black belts

I can 8box lower tiers, so we started with access to all of the delve gear besides T6. There's countless old content that's still relevant. Delve replaced a lot, but it left a lot more.

The population in XI is way to low to try to bring back large scale events.

Is it really too few people, or too many servers thinning out the population?