Dev Tracker - Discussion

I don't believe that is true based on my experience. I saw the weapons far more than I saw Freke ring. Had to drop that polearm so many times.

WELL SAID! I was just gonna drop a meme

Santa always smelled like the beer grandpa drank, so it was pretty obvious.

Classic Clamorers would be the first to quit within a month after complaining about how hard it is and how much time it takes to do anything.

Already have private servers containing those quitters. They have what they deserve

I think a lot of why most FFXI classic advocates push for a private server is because of how atrocious SE is at marketing FFXI. I spent several months having regular conversations with dozens of FFXI players for a video essay project, and I hear the same things.


I know SE's solution to these sorts of issues are far from flawless. But if SE spent more than the cost of dinner on this game's annual marketing budget, I think there would be far fewer people asking for private servers. They don't even spend enough to afford translating all the official streams for the game. It's been over a month since they announced Limbus 3.0, and people are still surprised when it comes up.

I think folks clamoring for classic ffxi underestimate the impact of a zillion tiny QoL improvements over the years.

So uh... do you point out to these people how incredibly wrong they are about every one of those points?

ML is easy, can cap in a weekend.

MT fights are easy, can solo them.

AF/Relic at level 3 have no good stats.

REM were junk when they were released.

Of course, many many times. I'll do you one better, I've convinced several dozen Abyssea quitters to resub, and surprise surprise, they message me several weeks later thanking me for reintroducing them to the game. I made a 7-part video essay series going over all the relevant content to modern endgame starting with the nation missions through to RoV. Every week, I have at least one Abyssea quitter message me, or comment saying they had no idea how much they actually liked modern FFXI till I convinced them to try it.

I assume this is well-crafted bait and not a real opinion.

No, these are people who haven't so far as looked at the game since 2011, right off the back of Abyssea. I've even played with a lot of them, helped them through the nation missions, watched them fall in love with the game all over again, etc.

If you've played FFXI for a long time, it may be difficult to understand. But, the amount of public awareness for what modern FFXI is, is borderline non-existent. I've gotten probably over 200 messages from fans of other FF games saying they either didn't know FFXI was still online, or that they didn't know FFXI is an MMO. This is why I spent 4 months of my life making an essay series, so people had an idea for how good this game actually is.

Edit: I thought you were responding to me, lol. Well, I hope that isn't bait...

There's a large caveat as to why this really cant happen and that's the fact what made that era so enjoyable for many was the community at the time all suffering together as that was the norm back then.

Much as i call early-mid AU the peak, it simply cant exist today, best we'd ever get is some kind of early adoulin-delve renaissance

No matter what, how, or when, it'd fun for about 2 months

It's not like you remember it. Trying to figure ***out. Experimenting. Exploring. It's just the same pre-packaged pre-planned meta-onry *** you have in the regular game.

There wouldn't be 5 dd whm slog parties that go all night. It'd just be meta grindfests that explode when the bard leaves. and there's only 5 on the server. Then 18 blms for all content. But no one will party with a blm, but expect you to have it at 75.

Every millimeter of this game is figured out (75) and it's always played as such. it's a big part of why gaming in 201X+ sucks. the guide is already made and the wiki is up before the *** game goes on sale.

I've tried to get several different friends hooked on FFXI retail, the result was that ALL of them quit the game because they didn't like it.
I then asked them to give it a try first on Nasomi/Eden, then on Horizon to 4 friends when this server launched, the result was that almost all of them got hooked on the game.

In these cases it didn't affect the nostalgia that you who want to discredit the design of classic MMORPGs use, you use nostalgia because you have no real arguments.

So when I have a friend who decides to try FFXI directly, I'll start by recommending them an era 75 server.

I stopped playing FFXI retail in 2023 and have been playing on HorizonXI, and it's very easy to see why FFXI is better on era 75, both in the beginning of the game (you start playing with people early, from lvl 10/12), midgame (genkais, cops/zilart/Ranking missions) and endgame (sky, limbus, dinamys, nyzul isle, assaults and a lot of endgame).

FFXI retail is currently poorly designed, boring daily tasks that weigh down the game, outdated content and focused on playing alone...

Not seeing how good FFXI Classic is is not wanting to see that the sky is blue.

Sigh. I see where this is going already.

Aww snap here we go again.

That they even brought it up means they thought about it even just a little, which is interesting to see. If you think it'd be free like your private servers, though, you're out of your mind. Can you convince your buds to start paying for the same thing they're getting for free now?

Thing is, a form of "classic game" already exists, at least on Asura. There is a LS dedicated to just doing 75 era content and they are some really cool people. The requirement is that you have at least one character who hasn't raised their level cap above 75. You can have other characters that are higher, but for events you need to just be on that capped one.

They have events scheduled almost every day, it's pretty wild.


Classic on live is a great way to do this. Make a new character, go through all the story quests including early RoV, job subs, unlock advanced jobs and so forth. Meet others doing the same, form groups, do content. The only caveat is to not do the level unlock quest for 80, keep the cap at 75. You keep all those QoL improvements, HP crystals, book warps, class tunings, curio moogle, and access to high level Crafters to make those HQ equipment.


It's the content. Pre-abyssea and post-abyssea have very different content designs. Content before abyssea were fairly straight forward and way more relaxed with how many people can participate. The bar wasn't nearly as high and people could not be meta and still eek out a victory. After abyssea content started all having strict timers and we had to start relying on stacking ridiculous amounts of buffs to push through the boss's equally ridiculous stats. The result is the gameplay shifted from content-focused to preparation-focused. SE continued designing content to beat the meta until we arrived at the utter silliness that is Odyssea Gaol and to a lessor extent Sortie.

This is really about content not so much jobs. All those pet jobs mentioned are specialists with niche capabilities. Depending on content they are either OP or weak sauce, very little in between.

Ninja is extremely powerful right now, off hand TP Bonus + Daken makes them a TP machine and they can just chose whatever sub helps them the most. ML's gave them a huge tanking buff in the form of /RUN, lots of hate tools and reduction to magic damage. The thing is, sortie is the only content that is "end game" and that requires a very specific setup. In theory they could replace the WAR in some Gaol fights, but you really want that Warcry, Tomahawk and sub-40 MS burst. If anything it's that Katana WS need tweaking to be better, otherwise it's another Naegling job.

you can be powerful and still be less effective than other jobs, which you ended up stating just using different words.

And here I am with 3 Zantetsukens from Odin before I saw a Gere ring and my only body is from trove... never saw the other two weapons either though so obviously just stupid lucky on the sword.

I've always been of the same inclination,but I also didn't play back then. It isn't rare to find someone who quit horizon,saying "it just isn't the same".

I *** around with horizon Nasomi, sorry! for 2 months. It's literally all PL parties and manaburn absolutely everything.

What made it entertaining 20 years ago was playing, not following the script of best possible outcome the entire time. That ship has sailed and can only exist in a place where you cannot use internet. When you couldn't just tab out to check the wiki every 5 seconds because you were scared to use windower. You can't ever recreate that.

There are (were) phases. Of course. Arrowburns. Manaburns. Boneburns. Things came in and out with nerfs and buffs, it stayed ever shifting, but that won't happen again. All the nerfs will come pre installed and you'll have no time of exploiting this strat or that strat until the next update (in six months) it's just one set. One meta. Unchanging. Unfun.

(In reference to a square run 75, not a private where they change ***on a whim)

Yes. Colibri parties.

I agree to a certain extent. You'll never recreate that original experience before everything was figured out. That period of time was magical.

Where I disagree is that it's still very fun just in a different way.

That being said, I'm still having a ton of fun with the game in it's current state but I will say that taking a long break from the grand from early 2014 until mid 2022 probably plays a huge role in that for me. I look forward to every night's Gaol clear attempt!

It's all content dependent. FFXI is more balanced right now then it's ever been in it's entire history.

Thought I think you subscribe to the "if your not first, your last" mindset.

FFXIV?

754 / 5.000
Of course it wouldn't be free, but are we really talking about paying 12/14€ a month being a problem?
Are we serious?

I understand that the price should include retail and classic, so it seems like a fair price, especially considering that there isn't a store with nonsense.

I've posted the results of the survey in my group of friends and some others and they've all been very happy about the possibility of FFXI Classic existing.

I thought you were just trolling, but do you really see a problem paying 12€ a month to play an MMORPG without a store? Do you live in Africa perhaps?

In any case, FFXI was never a mass game and anyone who expects otherwise is wrong, but it does seem necessary to me, like Everquest or WoW.

Ehh that was just merits and that was limited, I ended up doing most of mine in other places. Content refers to fights for drops, things like Sky, Sea, Dynamis, Limbus (not much here), Einjerjar, ZNM, Salvage, Assault, and Nyzule Isle. Looking into RetroSignalStyle's discord they have a channel for each with people organizing events frequently.

It really all boils down to time limited content and buff stacking. If you are operating on a super tight time limit, then you need to stack buffs to maximize DPS while nullifying the bad guys status effects. In the old days it was BRD, RDM and WHM as your "buffers" giving you plenty of room for party members. Then COR got introduced so it became BRD, COR and RDM or WHM. SoA introduced GEO so now it's BRD, COR, GEO and RDM or WHM. Party versatility has gone from two support and three to four DPS to four support and one to two DPS. Most jobs in the game are DPS, and with only one or two slots you have to chose the highest of the bunch.

That is why earlier content felt "more fun" then later content for casual players. More job flexibility combined with less stressful fight conditions. While a team of six good players could take down sky gods, groups could also chose to take alliance(s). Then SE introduced HP scaling and it all kinda fell apart due to how lopsided it was.

It won't exist, your getting your hopes up and it's going to be a big let down.

A form of that does exist on Asura as I've mentioned above. A group of players have come together and formed a 75-era LS that does all the old content with an LS enforced cap of 75, as in you can't participate if your level is higher then that. It's very fun with all the QoL changes from RoV. We can enter events back to back now instead of having to wait three days. Can warp to places instead of taking 30 minutes to get there the hard way. Newer foods available with a variety of stats, jobs are pretty well balanced.

Oh and a strong suggestion to anyone wanting to participate in this, avoid power leveling at all costs. Like actually go to the old camps, use trusts and leveling the old fashioned way. It's far more fulfilling then having someone cleave you to 75 in an hour.