FFXI, Horizon, Conflict, Renaissance, And You.

I live again!!!

I used to play FF11, so did my SO. But that was long ago~
We’ve been playing FF14 for several years now with another couple, and a handful of family members and mutual friends. Every one of them has a prior history with the final fantasy franchise as a whole, though from different generations. In our banter at one time or another everyone has expressed a curiosity for FF11 which they had heard was both a masterpiece in its own right, as well as a rather daunting and at times a crushing experience. There is also a perception of boring gameplay (somehow the classic ‘I hit you, you hit me, then I hit you again’ RPG gameplay loop just isn’t doing it for em. Spoiled). Sadly, I corroborated this for them and helped to solidify that opinion. I’m sure many similar conversations have been had from former players of FF11 to curious people of a younger gaming generation about FF11 in its early iterations. I suspect this mentality and perspective is a factor in people seeking out private servers. It certainly was in the case of my group.

After Yoshi P announced the upcoming raid with ties to FF11, each of the people in our group became instantly interested in playing the game. Our messiah Yoshi Pesus had spoken. Everyone asked me, with clear apprehension "how should we go about it?? What do we have to do to experience the story and clear the 'main content'"? Initially I facepalmed and rolled my eyes, but I also figured I too would like to see the close of the FF11 story I never completed. As the pied piper considering getting ready to lead his flock into the *** dunes, I started to dread the learning curve everyone was going to hit more or less immediately upon login.

To counter that, I figured a private server would likely be the way to go. Presumably, we could just “godmode” or something and stomp our way through all the ***, speed/position hack and see the story as painlessly as possible. Well not quite. It turns out I knew nothing about private servers, and it turns out “godmode” is the trust system and other QOL and travel adjustments they made to retail over the years. But let me back up for a second. In researching options for private servers I found out a lot of concerning information about private servers, and the general lack of options (WIP pet projects). All of it covered in the other threads, ranging from leadership concerns, to absolutely stupid changes to the game itself (e.g. THF changes), and a butchered soundtrack. The final nail in the coffin really being that if you want to see the full story it’s going to have to be on retail. But even without story as a consideration, after researching enough about Horizon and other private servers it’s become a no brainer for the group. *** it, just play retail. Turns out that was a great decision.

The learning curve for everyone is still steep, but there are guides. Everyone has been enjoying it so far, they love the story, they enjoy the simplified “zen” of exp grinding (which I bitter-sweetly remind them is “not as painful as it used to be”). They’re around lvl 70 now, starting on CoP, finished Nation rank ups, and the Zilart missions. They suck, every new moment is a challenge for them. It’s been a blast.

Now, none of this would have happened within my group without Yoshi P giving FF11 a major publicity bump by attaching it to FF14. I suspect that’s a significant factor going on for Horizons success. Just lucky with great timing. FF11 got the Yoshi P bump, but FF11 has a sort of infamy to it that gamers are aware of, and subsequently might be more likely to consider a private server first. Especially if they have had any influence on their perspective either from past play of 11 like myself, or opinions and anecdotes of past players. Horizon is definitely riding on that wave.

It’s just a perfect storm of opportunity and timing for Horizons leadership. I don’t think they’re that smart (look at their administrative in-house drama), they might be finding ways to capitalize on it now sure, but I think it’s mostly just luck and timing.

Now having said all that… I definitely now think the hostility to Horizon is warranted. My group alone resulted in 6 people buying the game and starting a sub, and the renewal of my and my SO’s sub. While 8 people is not that many people, I think its fair to say that if I didn’t look closely into private servers vs retail, I and my crew would likely have found ourselves on Horizon, and there would be that much less money going to FF11. I wonder how many other people responding to the Yoshi P bump are being funneled to horizon instead of retail due to aforementioned reasons, and what a waste that is since as far as I can tell, Yoshi P doing this crossover raid is an attempt at the initial steps for extending a lifeline to FF11.

If players do their homework and still decide to play on a… quasi-elementary-school-birdhouse-project-failure of a private server like Horizon, aight cool homie, whatever makes you happy, the world could use more happy people. Go play it champ. Throw some Ridill’s on some ***. Go get that E-body. And a pair of gaiters.

Horizon keeps getting attributed as having a sense of community, but if people come over to FF11 with their own community already from FF14, as is the case in my group. Well, that becomes a moot point. So does FF11's existing stale community. What you'll have is an opportunity for people to just start importing their own communities into your greater one. Your feelings on FF14 tourists bringing their culture to this antique game may vary, but that's another topic.

Yoshi P, and Horizon have created a renaissance opportunity for FF11 I think. The conflict you all are having is actually probably good for the game. And that will be my last point for now that I wish to make, and also a thank you of sorts to the people here who care enough about the game to make noise.

I don’t wanna name names or anything, Draylo. Because I’m definitely not here to point fingers, Homsar. But seeing everyone aggressively hash it out here was indeed a significant factor in my groups decision of where to play. It gave me things to consider and trails of information to investigate elsewhere so I could make the right decision for my groups needs/interests.

So like… thanks you guys. Please don’t stop fighting the good/stupid fight. I need you. We need you. And you didn’t even know it. Promote whatever you want, and promote with all your sincerity. Sane or not.

Never stop duking it out.
Yall are like the ROV conclusion (spoilers)

Thanks for taking the time to make this post you clearly poured a lot of thought into it! The details is great I especially like the info about your thought process as you were looking into where to play.

Find no issue with FF14 players having a different mindset. I remember playing with groups who jumped from other MMOs like WoW adapting to XI. If you jumped to a smaller server, the communities are naturally very welcome to have more players to do things with. We are all Final Fantasy fans, so we're not that much different.

It is true that if you want to experience the entirety of XI's story, you have to play retail. Also, you naturally get more content to play with. There are no limitations, other than what you are prepared to spend time doing. The only con is that you have to pay, but if you are starting from scratch, XI has so much content that it is worth paying for. It is when you are at endgame with only Odyssey/Sortie left to do that the sub feels steep, but you can always unsub, come back in a year, and catch up with endgame within 6-9 months.

Not here to criticize private servers, because I already gave feedback on this in two other threads. However, what I will say is that they are purely for the 75-era nostalgia factor, and that is it. If you want anything else out of XI, including all of its story, then it won't satisfy you. Once that nostalgia factor wears off, you might stay for the community, but even that might not be enough after finding yourself excessively repeating the same content you did 15+ years ago.

It reminds me of Sonic The Hedgehog 1. I'll go back and clear that once a year because it fills with me that warm, fuzzy nostalgia of playing it as a young kid nearly 30 years ago. Still plays well, and I know it is dated, but I'm not playing it every week, it is just nice to revisit sometimes. And that is what private servers provide, a means to play something that somewhat resembles the "good old days" for free. That's fine! But it isn't replacing what retail offers. Not by a long shot. And that is why SE isn't bothered by them. I cannot understand why there needs to be constant arguments over retail vs. private. It is tiresome.

I play 14, it's a good game, but it's also a different game. Honestly, I play 14 like it's a solo game, and the game lets me.

Then again a lot of times I play 11 like a solo game so I guess I don't know what I'm saying.

I agree with everything the OP said about the private server experience.

Pound for pound and packet for packet, I think Private Servers are only popular because they are free. (Also, admittedly, it feels easier to install and setup the client for a private server than retail, but that's Retail POL's fault).

I know in the last thread that was locked, Rooks found himself questioning the value of this forum category. it's nice to see some of the discussion(if that's what you can call it) pay off.

as much of a mess as this topics have been, at least the conflict it's generated has made people stop and think about why they enjoy playing FFXI, and getting creative to get even more enjoyment out of it. it's even bred fun challenges like this iron man challenge that some seem to be getting involved with.

perfect comparison with the RoV conclusion btw

If you consider "paying off" being "Wow, private servers are ***and no one should use them, and if they do they shouldn't *** try to drag other people into their shithole", then yes.

And by that I mean no, it has no *** value.

Before that thread got locked down I was just telling dude that his replies are incorrigible at best.

Also I'll take the L on the fact that I didn't know Ninja was
1. Even back on Twitch
2. Plays/funds HXI
I 100% thought he faded into irrelevancy on Mixer or whatever he was sponsored to switch to.

He can hold on to the L of calling me a Horizon Player out here trolling retail though because I'm pretty sure I have my AH history open to the public and if you click on my name and look at me and my alt you can tell I play retail DAILY. Like I'm running around working on my Empy weapon right now after getting hit with 3 mimics in a row on my AMAN trove runs after maintenance. I also help new players whenever I see them ask a question in the assist channels/LS/shouts. I also also like long walks on the beach =)

7 of the 10 threads in this subforum are locked. Please explain to me why this subforum exists. Please explain to me how this subforum is beneficial to FFXIAH as a whole.

It makes it more active.

This thread is about to go the same way it looks like because people can't let things go from locked threads.

The OP actually wrote a coherent and well thought out post as to their own experiences but I fear that will get drowned out.

I feel like healthy debate can help people become more informed and led to the OP making their decision on what/where they want to play so having this subforum in an ideal world would be great. In reality though that just doesn't happen and if anything more people get scared away from all communities because of the conflict/people coming in here just to troll.

When I picked up FFXI 20 years ago, I had no experience with MMOs, but my friend at school did.

His advice was: "If your friend introduces you to an MMO, they're an ***". I still laugh about it.

That is basically what inspired me to say something.

In spite of everything, and people making *** out of themselves along the way, the back and forth banter about horizon vs retail did prove helpful to me trying to re-orient myself to the current state of the game as well as the private server scene.

Cost wasn't an issue for me. Retail sadly does't provide the content, or rather, the experience that the original FFXI had. Party play was essentially required to get anything done, this experience is something that retail no longer provides outside of end-game content. The essential requirement to have a party has been removed and the trust system is the replacement.

Retail rightfully so has moved on from it's old content and made it acessible solo, it probably wouldn't have survived if it remained this way, but it's nice to have the option to play FFXI as it was originally intened for people that want it.



The usual response to any of this is "You can just do it with trusts". Which is and isn't the point; people want to play with people not trusts with out-scaled gear that reduce content down to a 10 second fight. A fantastic option for people looking to experience the story for the first time or to create alts.


It's a content/experience issue, it's something that's no longer available and the private servers are offering that experience for people that want it.

I do enjoy both retail and classic XI, they're two completley different games a this point.

I just don't get the "it doesn't require a party" thing that keeps getting repeated.

Yea, there is a lot of lower content that you can do that once required a group and can now be soloed. This has been true from the start of the game and basically every other MMO. Hitting 99 is no longer 'endgame' anymore, rather gearing systems like Odyssey and Sortie are, but once you hit 99 there are a number of systems that require a group and fit into that early (UNM, Ambuscade, HTBFs, DI)/mid (Dyna-D, Omen, JP) game category. Some of this is literal high level carbon copies of old content, others are modified. They even added a weapons system to mimic a low-tier relic grind in Primes and EXP parties in the form of locus/apex mobs and MLs, if that's your thing. For all SEs flaws, they really do seem to be trying to cater to this complaint. The vast majority of these things can't be done to any level of efficiency with trusts, if at all. No one is making progress solo outside of old tier content and just because you are lvl99 doesn't mean you are anywhere near endgame, arguably the game starts at that point these days.

If you missed out on playing 75-cap as it was during era and want to play some bastardized version of it, then great, I really don't care (although I do wish those resources would be spent on improving retail but w/e). That will require a group, and despite some of this content being available in group form in retail, I kinda get it. At the same time, don't login to retail then complain you don't need a party when you did the equivalent of getting to level 14 during lvl75 cap.

so we're just straight up letting people create sock accounts and post fan-fic now?

People argue back and fourth, but once the realization kicks in that the arguing does nothing apathy and demoralization takes over.

The private server forums should be removed from a place as important as this for the game.

I understand your response, but I think you've half-missed my point.

There's party play in retail XI, but the vast majority like you said in a few pieces of end-game content.

All of the older content, that was originall party play is now solo play. You spend the vast majority of your initial time outside of specific end-game activites playing on your own. That's a huge chunk of content that you end up doing solo with trusts that just isn't the same.

Horizontal progression is pretty much dead in FFXI, it's now a more traditional MMO vertical progresison track now.

The original early game party play doesn't exist anymore. Which is still the vast majority of content in the game. If you're looking to play with others for that original content, classic XI is really your only choice.

I wish there was an option to do-so on retail, sadly, there isn't one.

You can 100% find players to do early content with on retail, you just have to look for it and not choose the path of least resistance. Joining a noob-friendly LS is a start. Just because content can be soloed it doesn't mean it has to be. I used to solo content in the 75-era as rdm, it's always been an option (bst).

I actually genuinely tried this for months; it's simply not possible to find enough players to do this.

The path of least resistance is to actually play private, which is what people have done, where there's 1-3k people willing to play at that cap because there's no alternative or easier option immediately available like there is on retail.

I understand what you mean, but sadly, it just doesn't happen or in the same way.

Shio makes a good point.

About four or five years ago, I returned to retail after leaving post-Abyssea. Initially, my goal was to cap my level at 75 and focus on the story. I even joined a 75 cap linkshell for this purpose. However, when I tried to do the story, I was disheartened to find that no one, not even in the new player linkshells, was interested in joining me. The response was always "just do it with trusts," which easily overpower the story missions due to their overtuned nature compared to players at that level. While I didn't mind using trusts for levelling, I wanted the classic experience of a challenge, like in 6-4, which trusts couldn't provide.

I persevered, reached level 75, and joined the 75 cap shell. The experience was far from enjoyable. Almost everyone had a relic, with their magian trials maxed to the point before the weapon became the level 80 version. Those without relics resorted to using Savage Blade excessively because of how OP it is now. This led to the complete trivialisation of content with no real challenge. It wasn't the same at all. You guys really don't realise how much the retuning of weapon skills and abilities has wrecked low level content.

The reality is that if you're seeking that kind of experience, retail is no longer structured to support it. The only viable alternative is private servers, where there's a community with shared objectives. This is the key difference: private servers are designed to gather individuals who seek that classic experience, whereas in retail, it's increasingly difficult to find players with similar aspirations. Additionally, private servers maintain certain limitations that prevent players from becoming so powerful that they trivialize content.

People like Draylo and others bash on about how most people are just levelling in exp parties, but that's not the point. What's important is the opportunity to play with others who share your goals and to encounter some level of resistance as you pursue those goals. Unfortunately, retail no longer offers this experience until 119.

But Horizon isn't even a 75-era server. It has a lot of changes from what 75 was like. Job changes, QoL changes etc. Its also not going to be the same because you know that content, you know what awaits you at the top of promys and how to beat them. You can't erase your memories. People work that out eventually and that's why people quit these classic era servers quite quickly because after getting that quick hit of nostalgia the magic wears off.

Thanos was right.

It all comes down to leveling. Currently on live, RoV, trusts and warp crystals, survival guides and mounts make it much easier to level to 75. You don't have to wait 1~2 hours for a shout that you can join, to then spend 15~20 minutes getting to camp, to then fight monsters at 200XP each for chain 5 before resting. Then everybody quits after two hours.

Because the most basic act of "progression", leveling up, required many people, you get to meet folks and make friends. You remembered who was good so you could invite them later and eventually form linkshells. This translated into having a group of known friends to do quests or higher level content. But because most of that basic progression can happen with trusts, people don't form those groups anymore. And all the high end progression is locked behind six man uber events where optimization is required.

I'm sorry, what? I have like 30 different hand pieces for each job. What exactly does horizontal progression mean to you? Getting Byakko's Haidate and then using that in your leg slot for the rest of your life? Is that the classic horizontal progression? Using Leaping Boots for 60 levels, until you can get the next boots you'll wear for the other 15, classic horizontal progression.

Retail FFXI involves getting 3-10 pieces per slot per job so you can fit a million situations, and era FFXI involves getting the one piece you use for 99% of the game, except 1 JSE macro swap for a JA. If you're lucky, maybe you have 2 pieces, 1 for TP and 1 for WS.

If you want horizontal progression, you should be playing retail.

As far as solo vs party goes sure, there's lots of stuff that is soloable now, but a new player coming to retail will find that if they want to progress their character the biggest problem they run into is the fact that so much content requires/encourages a party and their friends might not always be available to party up to help them with it. Here's a rough list of content that requires/heavily encourages party play:

Dynamis [D]
Omen
Vagary
Sinister Reign
Ambuscade
Unity NMs (some)
Master Trials (endgame)
Odyssey
Sortie
Gaes Fete
HTBF
Delve

There's probably more, this is just what springs to mind. There are dozens of events to do and they all incentivize you to do them as a group. The idea that you are mostly playing solo, with trusts, or multi-boxing is a fantasy conjured up by reddit and these forums, tbh. I very rarely play solo or if I do, it's just crafting or farming REMA stuff, and TBH I normally do all my mythic stuff in a group, not solo.

I really don't care if they've made their own changes. That's fine. I'm still able to experience the period of the game I'm interested in, in a more accurate experience than I can in retail.

I've read through all their changes, a lot of them are actually pretty good. There's of course some that I think are shitty, but SE had a lot of misses too with balancing.

You guys have to release that just releasing a classic version of an MMO isn't really a good idea because it's all solved. You have to make changes, even Blizzard realised this, that's why WoW classic is getting new content that it didn't have previously.

I suppose this is true depending on your situation.

In my case, we have 8 people. Since we have more than one party, what we end up doing is splitting into groups of 4, and each party can summon 2 trusts. Generally speaking, the 2 trusts are able to carry enough to make up for just how bad and under-geared everyone is collectively, but not perfectly. It works, but it doesn't shine quite as hard compared to 1 person 4 trusts (or 5 if they get to that point). As a group with 2 trusts, we don't feel as OP as we could.

Because we do it that way I suspect it has contributed to the challenge aspect. We only did it that way out of necessity to make it work with our numbers.

But I realize not everyone is going to come to this game with a pre-established gang of friends. Although I think the opportunity is there for some. We cant be the only FC in FF14 who has decided to dabble as a group. Considering that though, I think this could be a very lonely game to run through completely solo.

If trusts are too solo-friendly, do you think if trusts were scaled differently that would provide a better soloing experience? Or just, use less trusts to create your own challenge? But therein is a bit of a difference I suppose in motivation to play.

My group isn't looking for a challenge, although it comes naturally for them from ignorance and unfamiliarity. They just want to play the story, and it is more or less understood that at the end of it all we're not likely to stick around for much of the endgame. I guess you could say they are approaching it like a standalone game with a expectations of a distinct beginning and end. Not really as the MMO its intended to be.

It's a mix of both, I want the challenge and the social aspect. I could deal for the most part if trusts were a bit weaker, but then the challenge would probably feel more frustrating than fun, because you can't ask the trusts to improve, to learn, to get better, they're just pre-programmed if statements. With other people, you can help them get better gear, they can learn the fight, improve at their job etc. It's a lose-lose scenario. I can understand why SE just made them OP because of this.