Is FFXI Dying?

Except thats not the discussion

Homies talkin more or less about how "Gaol forced you to have job diversity so they could sell wardrobes". They sold wardrobes because the people who insisted on having fully usable jobs available at any given time were running out of inventory to make it work. SE decided "hey, we like extra money", so they did a thing.

Hot take: no one is using all 22 jobs on a regular basis. There is no need to have 22 jobs geared up on one character. No one, not even a single boxer, is using all 22 jobs out of necessity, they're doing it by choice "because they want to have variety". And thats fine, but thats a choice, not a requirement.


I have no problem using organizer with with multiple ambu capes, which is a very basic example of "augmented equipment" that most people would run into. The only time organizer "downright quits" is the few times post-patch when I'm doing the gardening RoE. However, seeing as how jobchange fails to function properly as well after I've been in the gardening menu, I suspect something changes within the player status that causes certain interactive addons to fail. Beyond that one instance, which I can replicate every time, I've never had organizer fail on me. This all sounds like a skill issue on your part.

Your point is user error, the individual should learn to code? Can we conclude it can be inconvenient to setup organizer?

After they released prime weapon's final stage requirements, the entire game is just milking you for money.

Not necessary, the addon works fine. You're the only one suggesting that "it frequently downright quits". This is a skill issue on your part.


No. It is not inconvenient to set up organizer.

Step 1: Add "require 'organizer-lib'" to your GS lua
Step 2: edit organizer settings.xml to set bag priority, to assign dump bags, set what to retain in inventory
Step 3: Thats it, theres only two steps you need to use organizer to ensure you have all your equipment for your job

You can set up the freeze bags if you want, but its not necessary.

If its not working, its because your gearswap isnt setup properly and/or you have gear listed in functions other than init_gear_sets aka skill issue

Wise words! Fun stuff this FFXI.

I counted earlier and I think I have ~93 pieces of BRD gear, including absolutely everything I might ever equip on BRD, including all the cross-over gear that's also worn by any other job.

If I were to put some of this on slips while not using it, plus using some of that (hello nyame, accessories, etc) then I could EASILY fit 3 jobs, especially less gear-intensive jobs, on 2 wardrobes plus inventory and slips.

People buy wardrobes because they want to play 12 jobs, not use slips, and frankly they want to carry around a bunch of gear they never/rarely use, or gear that increases DPS by .05 in a glass cannon situation they never swap to.

It's absolutely easy to fully gear 3+ jobs without buying a single wardrobe. If you expand to satchel, sack, and case you can gear a *** of jobs without buying any wardrobes.

Also yeah...I'm not convinced SE is making any design decisions to sell wardrobes. They only added the last 4 wardrobes well after Odyssey was released...

Trying to have all 22 jobs useable is dumb (though I doubt anyone tries to do that), but saying you can get everything done with 3 jobs is too. Unless they're BRD COR RDM or something.

If you have a static group, which is more or less required to properly do current content, why do you need 6+++ jobs geared to the nines?

If you're gonna say "Gaol RP cheese", you dont need S-tier geared jobs to deal the 6% damage required.

FFXI is like Weekend at Bernie's, except it's 1 person propping up 3-5 'dead' players with automation. Dead? No. Alive and well? Not hardly.

Ever since my bro quit, I'm pretty done with the game, so -1 Sortie/v25 Odyssey/Dyna w3 player.

I loved my time with FFXI, 20 years of memories, friends, experiences, late nights, REMAs, all that, and nothing will ever replace it, but after 47 REMAs and beating everything except that latest 2 master trials, I'm just kinda burnt out and done with it.

I always thought I'd be a "until the servers shut down" kinda player but nah man, I'm checked out.

Vana'diel was the most special FF world for me, and it will always be the best FF game to me personally, but I just can't keep playing it knowing all I'm doing is grinding the same repetitive ***.

Much love to everyone who continues to play, and the music, the cutscenes, the stories, the memories, everything that has made this game so special to the people have who straight up dedicated a significant portion of their lives to the betterment of this game should be celebrated.

FFXI is a straight up masterpiece and has absolutely stood the test of time. It should be in every top 10 list. While I look on to greener pastures, I want to thank absolutely everyone who contributed to the knowledge and expertise and experience of this game, who did the testing and data consolidation and and helped the rest of us build the best sets possible to top the parse.

Good luck to everyone who still plays and I hope you all have the best time of your lives in Vana'diel.

Beautifully said my man. I haven't really partied up with you but I've heard great things about you through mutual friends. As far as I know I'm best friends with anyone that loves this game. With that said, I'll see you next year when SE decides to augment the primes.

Lol, likewise, and I hope one day the game has something to offer that compels me to come back. It's such a special place and I almost feel bad not paying a sub anymore (Stockholm's?!)

Edit: Spelling (Filed divorce paperwork today, sauced out of my fuggin' gourd.)

Definitely don't need wardrobe3+4 if you use addons for organization. I use sack for consumables/ammo, satchel for pops, case for in-progress stuff, and everything else gets muled periodically. Leaves ~310 spaces in safe/storage/locker/safe2, 160 in wardrobes, and 20ish in inventory for gear without clogging, for a total of 490 pieces. Set Packer(I'm sure Organizer can do similar) to freely shove things in those bags and fill my wardrobes with current jobs gear, and good to go. No advanced settings needed, I just treat safe/storage/locker/safe2 as interchangable and anything my current job isn't using ends up there.

I still have space leftover, and definitely have things I could toss from prior to capping odyssey augments. Typically have 5 jobs per char ready to go without portering, and there are addons for that too.

Opening gardening or furniture menus puts the client in a state where it doesn't send any outgoing packets until you do something else. Since addons inject packets by adding on to already outgoing packets, packets injected by addons will be delayed until that state ends. You can rest, talk, move, or manually change jobs to fix it.

I mean that is the question. Where is this fun game you speak of that will still feel the same about in a year?

What is latest and greatest that will fill up my free time, have meaningful social interactions, and offer enough complexity that I can appreciate my own effort and the effort of others?

I've been working on my addiction trying other games lately, the past few weeks since 1.1 I've been playing Last Epoch and, while it's not at all in the same nature as 11, it's been interesting watching the way EHG deals with the community.

They respond to forum posts, you see them chatting in-game and Discord, and they actually take input from the community and turn into updates. You see them actually playing the game and fixing bugs, every update has something good in it, and the roadmap has a lot more content being added. It's nice to see. The game is not in the same nature as FFXI by any means, but the skill system provides a lot of variation and it's not a game I'd define as shallow. I do wish they'd let you examine other peoples gear, though.

The funny thing is people still complain EHG doesn't listen, doesn't play the game, etc. After giving it the LOL because they clearly do and those folks have no clue what it means to not be listening, it kinda made me poke around other forums/pages forums to see what was going on and kinda made me conclude no companies are really satisfying their hardcore base. The UO threads were LOL after they talked about banning 3rd party clients also. That's not to relieve SE or any of these studios for their bad decisions, just that it's a combination of effects: we aren't alone in our feelings, many gamers feel isolated or ignored by the studios that make the games, and some people will just never be happy.

I think this is more profound than you might realize and really hits at the core of the problem. Even if you attempted to put in some "fix" for a perceived "issue" by "the community" you'd still end up pissing off a whole bunch of other people because "The community" isn't a monolith and people have different opinions, goals, and perspectives.

Easiest example of this in FFXI context is server mergers. Just say those words on any FFXI forum and you'll immediately see that there's no right answer.

See also: enforcement of the ToS.

You can't win; no matter what you do, you will piss off part of your community and there will be people who are upset about whatever decision you made.

Exception: I'm sure most FFXI players would appreciate more new content. The problem there is obviously that it's expensive but also: the type/difficulty/grindiness of the content you put out will piss off some people. Some people have infinite free time and others want to play 1 hr/wk, go ahead and satisfy both of them.

Yea, absolutely, and despite my criticism I recognize that. The question I fall back on with them, though, is who are they listening to and where are they taking feedback from?

It's not really evident to me that the FFXI devs play the game with any level of consistency, especially not at the endgame level. Some of the bugs, updates, and comments they've made make me think that and you very rarely see them comment on boards, never in game (I'd concede this is a rare thing and I was surprised to see EHG had tagged employees playing), and they feel kindof like a brick wall. I think if they were more involved, some of the decisions they make would be a little different. I gather there's a cultural gap there too, as well as the clear language barrier. The grass is always greener, though, it's just given me a little more perspective on the way newer titles are handled by other studios and the way it manifested itself into updates, along with community perception.

I do think it's slightly different in the FFXI case though, because the community and playerbase for a lot of these other games I was reading about is larger and more diverse. Maybe not on the upswing but not on a downward trend like FFXI either.

Even new content isn't a broad scale win, people will *** their gear isn't relevant anymore, old content is now trivialized, etc.


Funny timing on this one. The UO studio announced they are cracking down on use of unofficial clients, something that's been going on for nearly two decades or so I gather. It sounds like a very similar situation to FFXI: many use them for QoL improvements, better performance, better combability, etc while others use them to cheat. It sounds like an all out ban on anything but the old-*** official client.

The technical aspects of this are interesting to me and I'm not clear how they plan on doing that detection, but it is also something that wouldn't surprise me to see something similar if the SE devs managed to find a way to do that detection (which is unlikely).

There is a right answer to "server merge"

But it's a bad financial decision.

There is a correct answer to every question, but they're all bad business decisions. Fundamentally different.

It's not community at odds with community, it's profit at odds with community. Profit is what drives death of a product.

From my perspective, FFXI-RETAIL is far from dying; people are working on their second Prime Weapon. In fact, it's the private servers that are dying.

Horizon, which used to have 4,500 players, now has about 1,250-1,500 players during NA peak hours and an average of around 750 the rest of the day. While FFXI-RETAIL, being a fast-paced game, can function with an average of 500 players, Classic is a different story. It needs at least 1,000 players, but to provide a pleasant experience similar to 2007, it requires around 2,000 players 24/7.

Eden and Cat's Eye have maintained their 400-500 average without changes, 24/7.

When you return to FFXI-RETAIL after 2-3 years of break, you have to do all this:

Let's use SAM as an example, assuming you're forever alone.

1. Two Ambuscade capes: one for TP and another for WS.
2. Farm Escha-Beads for the Aeonic, so you have access to Radiance and can start doing other content more effectively.
3. Buy two sets of Valorous Gear and, by playing the "RNG" game, make one set with Double Attack for TP and another with WS-DMG.
4. Solo farm OMEN to get the AF +2/+3.
5. Solo farm Odyssey-A. In the last two floors, you can earn between 800-1100 segments on average. You need 9,000 to get the basic wins for the Mpaca's Attire Set and Nyame Armor set V0.
6. Solo farm sortie for the EMPY +2/+3.
7. Get your Wins in Dynamis D to R15 your Aeonic weapon and upgrade your RELIC +2/+3.
8. Earn your 2,100 Job Points. From 1 to 100, you'll get about 35-50 per hour; from 100-500, around 50-75 per hour. But once you have 500+ JP, I've made between 75-100 per hour "solo."

For DRK APOC, SYLVIE, QULTADA, KING OF HEARTS, CORNELIA, (The old-Moogle or Cherukiki), both comps give me peaks of over 100 JP per solo.

It's much more fun to play with your character in "high-buffs" scenarios, self-SC, doing 3-4 multi-SCs with a fast-paced battle rhythm, without pauses, than to play CLASSIC with its "slow" gameplay, lacking "dynamism," and always requiring help from others. Like, "I want to go kill Bubble Bernie; alliance of 40 guys and you can only SATA+Shark Bite every 60 seconds," uhhh...

You can do 90% of this content solo; you'll only need a mercenary for your Aeonic, which costs 25M, and the Dynamis-Jeuno win 15M

As for Bumba V0 and Arebati V0, they can be defeated with a group of PuGs with Ambuscade +2/Reinsejima Gear/HQ adjurations gear. I've seen PUPs solo Bumba V0 and groups of three players + 3 trusts take down Arebati V0.

You can spend an amazing month, and to me, that's a lot more content than what private servers offer.

FFXI isn't dying because there's nothing for a returning player to do; there is an absolutely gigantic amount of stuff for a new or returning player to do, they'll probably never be bored or without goals.

The problems are, in my opinion:
There aren't ENOUGH new players to do group content together
Even when there are enough new players, there is a lack of leadership and people willing to take on the less desireable jobs
Seasoned players who know how to do the content and can carry people are quitting and being banned

I think this is slowly whittling down the player base as not enough people are joining to replace the players quitting, and people who are joining are becoming frustrated when they can't group up for endgame, hitting a wall and then quitting.

I've definitely noticed a trend toward fewer items being on AH, lots of my friends/acquaintances not logging in as much (or at all), non-existent queues for stuff like Ambu, Ody, etc. Population seems to be taking a downturn, in my experience.

Still 1000x better than private servers though, obviously.

It's also a willpower issue.


When people are given the opportunity to play content daily, they're not going to leave anything behind. New/returning players race to gear and level jobs to participate in endgame and burn themselves out. Veterans run Ody/Sortie daily, sometimes on multiple characters and at separate times and burn themselves out.


People acting concerned for the longevity of the game, yet they play like they want to be finished with it as quickly as possible. Interesting style of play.

You are 100% correct. Nobody wants to enjoy the game and the ride for what it is.

“You need 6+ S-tier geared jobs to be useful in FFXI”

And then you have Papesse who gets through content playing one of the less desirable jobs 95% of the time.

Nope.

A year off of FFXI does the mind very good.

The same can be said for taking a few days off every week.


You don't get to write the 'goodbye FFXI' post, but you can keep up with your other friends who stuck around and you'll end up with the same ***they would have when they come back from mental hiatus? Your race, your pace I guess...

Clintbeastwood, you are a gentleman and a scholar. A pillar of the boomer community and you will be greatly missed. Can I have your things good sir?

This. And there's no solution.

Tell someone to play/lvl a job they don't like for their own greater good? 'No thx boomer, I'll get my serotonin shot someplace else.'

Doing anything you don't want to do so that your life will ultimately get better is sooooo pre-2018. And no one will change until the power company shuts off their lights.

Solve that problem, devs.

I remember I was super pumped to gear more jobs anticipating prime weapons - And then I read it would take six months - Me a person of noble knowledge assumed that would be for solo players.

A wise person told me not to assume as you would make an *** out of yourself and boy did I. I watched my FFXI friend list liquidate faster than toilet paper during covid when that 6 months gate was for the gohards while those poor solo players got *** hard. I never knew a company could create such a terrible grind of this size, of this proportion, and not get any backlash. Such loss of hindsight and lack of care of their consumers. It's just a terrible tale of Square Enix just turning its back on FFXI players. Not the first time.

I mean we kinda realized after the anniversary they gave zero ***. We know they create ***games now so they don't even have the talent to fix FFXI anymore.

I have money to burn and don't mind paying for my 1 character till I kill Bumba but I implore people to quit and look for something else to do with the time, especially if you're muti-boxing everything, that ***is not healthy. This game should be F2p with the lack of new content it will never get. This game should have way care and love for it being a monthly sub-game. This game should be getting new players instead of hemorrhaging them every month. Updating the game engine, Graphics, QOL, Etc.

Current FFXI for returnees have fun if you have friends who play or pay mercs and dailies ("*Donald Trump Voice*: Sad). Join shouts and pray they don't kick you. Pray you find people in the same boat as you. Pray you have the stomach deal with rng.

I wish people the best of luck with their grinds and the games they play. Value your time and don't waste in sortie every day. They don't deserve you.