Is FFXI Gonna Be More Of A Challenge Again?

I am a day one NA player, I was there for all those LS orgasm moments and all those uber rare gear drops that only the top echelon of buddy buddies get. I got gear because I spent the 1795 points on one item from all the countless hours I could spend on the game versus the person who also wanted the item. Let me tell you, none of it meant you were good, it simply meant you could be on more than the other guy or you cyber-sexed the linkshell leader.

All this stuff you yearn for...funny back then you complained about it. You complained as we stood for 3 hours in the Aery, you complained when that JP linkshell bot-claimed Nidhogg every single time. You complained when we had 3 people trying to hold while the rest of your linkshell members decided now that KB has popped they will stop EXPing and show up and put their umpteenth million points up on D. Ring and get it over you, even though you were one of the three that showed up for all windows and claimed the mob.

Relic weapons were always about who bought gil, otherwise it would literally take people years to get them. Nothing changed. Nothing like getting 17 other people at minimum to farm your sea pops to fight JoL, when maybe one other person was interested in that Novio or torque. Nothing like chasing down those people who unequiped the shell in an attempt to not show up for Kirin, but then the LS leader found them and to be a douche-nozzle they lotted 3250 points on W. Legs for their level 15 Paladin and then complained the next day as you had trouble kiting mob X, Y and Z.

If you still think gear back then meant any more than who is best buds with who, what linkshell bots and tri-boxes bought accounts or accounts of people who quit so they didn't have to invite new members, which would mean new competition for the 1-3-3-7 gearz, then you didn't really plat back then.

I'm sorry, but this new FFXI, is better than all the rest. You can't put down your awesome gear on your job resume, or use it to raise your children, or pay your bills. It truly means nothing. We all pay the same 12.95 a month and we should all be able to attain our goals without having to pass out cell phone numbers so the linkshell leader can call us at 3 AM to tell us Charbydis popped and we got claim to get member number 21 his Joytoy.

That's how it really was back then.

We had to have been in the same linkshell!! I just had some horrible flashbacks reading that but damn it was all true lol

We used to call it the batphone.

yar

Might as well call it the bat phone. I remember our two week plus campfest for Joytoys. People who couldn't even use it made us get it cause they didn't think we would help in the future.

I was one of the few schmucks who could afford to level Ninja and have it decently geared. That meant I was put into a 12 hour rotation, where at any given time during those 12 hours each day, I had to log on and fight that cursed sea monk. For almost three weeks straight playing FFXI for me meant seeing the same four walls of his little pop room.

You didn't play FFXI back then, you waited.

Yep, you want challenge, Botulus Rex go

if you hated it so much why did you play? >_>

if your linkshell made you do ***you didn't want to do and you never got gear, why'd you stay? >_>



I know I remember camping things as one of the better ffxi experiences. :x most of the old stuff are my fondest xi memories (sounds sad, i know D:). The people I "hung out" with at the time would more than likely say the same.

this goes to you... Serj, Ang, Fei, Slay, Aero, Lakey, Carz, Cev, Kaio, and the rest of you who I didn't mention.. but you know who you are :3

but i mean, think about it. how many "fond memory" moments in xi can you remember that were post level cap increase?



edit: loooooooooooooooooooooooooooool just went through some of the screenshots i still have... lost a lot of the funny ones when i got this computer Q_Q wish i transferred them over...

Half of them are Kaio saying things that seem funny out of context -_-

or nm drops :3 looooooooooooool, still have an ss of that one time me and serj found mee deggi up and he randomly dropped okotes... I don't even remember why that was so funny. The time ang got trotters... and the aspid that dropped my abody and cev's egg (that was 80 cap i think, though). And then a bunch of me in jail >_> <_<... wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

this was okotes -_-



as for what i can find that was posted here >_>

For the same reason all us other dumb teenagers played back then, to walk through Jeuno and get mass-checkga'd because you had on item X and everyone else wanted it. Now everyone else can get it at their leisure and I am more than okay with that.

Skilling up guard is still a challenge. I_I

Yeah, it is. I will never bother doing it either. 99 Gimp MNK for life.

I'm working on it and it has been quite the chore. Been working on it for 7 days and nearly capped... Currently at 339... So... close...

I think mine's at 290 something and my mnk was abyssea burned... :x...

I just did my Shield tonight since I burned PLD to 99 since coming back. 301 to 424...eye bleeding bore.

totally shoulda waited till you got ochain :p

Grab 7+ mandies, 3x regen atmas, run afk for an hour and come back. /nod /nod

ftfy!

It definitely wasn't that simple.

Oh. That's what I did. Took a couple times of zoning out and in but got it through that method. I wish guard could be like that... but stupid MNKs and their stupid counter... Makes things very difficult. e.e;

Maybe if I had +2 Creed

ochain or gtfo!

but no seriously, shield really is that easy, guard is the same if you have a mule with rdm/sch and a phalanx spam script, just takes a little more time. Just read a book or watch a movie or get some work done or something... pull mobs when all of em die

I see your Ochain and I raise you my in progress Aegis.

was just meaning for skillups. Have both or don't play pld :p

unless you're me, then you're allowed to *try* and play it without either or an almace D:

stupid ban went off a little too soon, almace and ochain never got scanned D: (almace because i still had to do nm/vnm trials Q_Q)



think imma head to bed tho :3 ffxi nastalgia dreams inc D:<

Back at level 75 cap, and before, I saw ffxi as a very rewarding challenge at each turn. Strategies and friends were important to overcome obstacles. Since then, the challenges have ALL evlolved into huge time sinks and nothing more. This is just my opinion.

So you remember when strategy was an actual requirement as oppose to having 5/5 +2 gear, RR/GH/Apoc and simply zerging it down with crit WSs?! Yeah... I miss those days... One of the biggest blows to one of my favorite, and challenging memories, was Proto-Ultima at 90. I was with 14 people and... yeah... I wept. Finished in 8 minutes with no deaths. u.u;

I dunno about strategy, for the most part, things were "don't be stupid". I'd also say the largest part of XI's "challenge" before was hanging around past the timesink centered around a random number generator.

The majority of XI's content at 75 wasn't overly difficult, it just took longer to get the same thing.

Limbus? Simple.
Dynamis? Don't do something stupid and it was simple.
Land kings? Don't do something stupid and it was simple - though I'll admit, these could get ugly fast if the mob wanted to use a bad ws multiple times in a row.
Aht Urgan HNM (Cerb/Khimmy/Hydra)? Pretty simple, with a little preperation (a couple of BLM that knew how to stun).
Salvage? I only did it a couple of times, but again - pretty simple and straightforward.
I never killed Vrtra/Jormy/Tia (though.. no-one killed Vrtra and Jormy), but I'd guess they may have posed some form of challenge (Vrtra at least).
Einherjar? Not overly difficult (though I never got the chance to fight Odin - apparently he was superduperhard though?)

When working strategies were figured out for these, the fights were no longer challenging.

Not being stupid is a strategy and with Abyssea bred players, stupidity increases at alarming rates.

Abyssea was designed with a sole purpose in mind: To be easier than World of Warcraft to cater to the ultracasual market.

Admittedly Voidwatch was a bit of a redeeming factor but even so, FFXI was already ruined beyond recognition by the level cap increase. The game was built around the LV75 cap, anything beyond was never designed to function, let alone be the norm.

I'm still trying to figure out why casual and GAME don't go together. You can argue until your blue to the face, but casual MMOs, like WoW, have the winning formula. Winning formula = what attracts the most players.

Strip off your empy/relic/mythic. Not challenging enough? Strip all relic/empy armor and tack AH gear on. I don't understand why you need the dev to give you more challenging stuff in future content.

>MMO
>Challenge