Echoes of Vana’diel finally gave me the push I needed to try this game
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(puts on the fan hat)
i played starting FF11 back in the Wings Era (2007~2009) and stopped before Aduolin (2013)
i one day around 2018ish i stumbled across FF11 Private servers
i'm gunna skip the whole "Private servers are technically legal as long as X" discussion
* the jank install process actually works in Private servers favor, as you can just install it before making an account and without a subscription
* if you're playing FF11 on PC via keyboard. try hitting numpad5 for first person and 2,4,6,8 numpad to move {1st person MMOs is such a unique experience i don't see} bonus points if you're a tarutaru as that does effect the FP camera
* you can make the UI/hud bigger
* FF11 is a unique experience to go back too. it's like going to back Dragon warrior 1~3 after playing Bravely Default or something. the sheer lack of QoL serves both as a kick in the nuts but also a refreshing view on what it's like to not be hand held. there is little point A to B to C to D because the devs knew that wasn't gunna happen. alot of it can be tackled out of order and it's actually encouraged to a point
* the game serves as an amazing contrast for what was. and how things changed, making you both appreciate and question some modern things. it does make you realize how linear modern mmos are
* as for post game, while i can't speak from experience on Retail modern post game… FF11 has a odd habit of low balling everything regarding stats, most of it will be from gear but these numbers are low. i think the best Store TP {TP gain stat} is like 30%ish total? which is notable but doesn't change much. they did this for 3 reasons. if everything is underpowered it's balanced. it allows almost any job and subjob combo to be viable. and it forces group play, as 6 noods will do better the 3 geared players. but this also meant. that stats where secondary, which lead to jank feature based exploits (6 black mages in perfect sync can juggle hate making the boss never auto attack or throwing 30 people at a boss, because it can't kill them faster then they get back up)
* Private Servers come in 2 flavors, Time Capsules and Custom. Time capsules are as they sound, an Era of FF11 remade. with elements before and after hand picked for that era. Custom is basically Modded. new systems, either inserted where there was none or by cannibalizing an existing thing… some even change the stating system by allowing you to push the limits of the stat system. turns out 500% TP gain means you're Weapon skills give you enough TP back to just do it again. and because the game was built on low numbers, bosses can very easily be scaled to these new limits, where the damage cap isn't a myth but the norm
* some Custom PSs are more Solo/duo Friendly as the stat changes allow you enough customization to allow skill to be a factor.
streams and maybe VODs would be cool, I can't always catch streams but having the VODs on here could be really nice, even if it's not your usual content
Ejin! 🎉
OMG YESS FF11 !!!
Oops just got to the Horizon part, I don't have too much experience with other old school MMOs, I know EQOA frontiers was very similar in levellin style, but WoW as far as I know was completely different and a lot of games went for the WoW approach instead of the EQ/11 approach
Maybe one day you'll give it a try! Personally old school XI levelling is one of my favourite parts about it, but I also understand it's not for everyone
I don't know much about the insides of FF 11, but from what I'm hearing here, it doesn't seem to be all that different from Lineage 2, other than it being more slow phased and team-oriented.
That consumable recall item sure rang a bell for me.
I always wanted to try FF 11, but I sure won't be buying any subscription nor trying any convoluted demos/trials.
NGL, i love thebfact that 20 years later FFXI is still a pain in the ass to start playing. And it uses to be worse if you can believe it.
i love the game and want to play it more. But damn is it lonely as hell. Everyone seems to use trusts until max level from what i can tell.
11 is the only game I've ever bought currency for. Back around 2011 it was pretty much the only way to make early game progress if you were new and had no connections to other players
My experience with ff11 was me making a monk character with friends, then hanging out, figuring out controls, and me saying "oh hey i am going to try keyboard and mouse!" and tried to turn, and instantly got so nauseous i had to turn off the game
I returned this game on steam when it was on sale a few months back. Too way too long to setup my account and then the actual game was awful.
The main thing that would get me to try this game is if the sub fee for this game would be included in the FF14 sub.
They would have to do a lot to update the game for the FF14 audience included the dreaded playonline, the true final fantasy final boss.
I just love Horizon XI, YMMV because I'm a boomer but it's easier to install at least!
I hope you continue this, I'm interested in XI as well as a XIV player who started mid shb
Blue Mage is where its at. Its an actual proper job unlike in 14.
Heyo Trin, 10 year FFXI vet here. First of all, let's address the fee. There was a time where XI and XIV had a bundle deal… if you could call it that. It wasn't a lot off, and I don't even think you can get it once it went to ARR. If you can, well good luck locating it on XI's crap site. Yeah, it's terrible, awesome, horrid, and many other adjectives I could add here.
Skillchains. Yes, they are combos you CAN do with party members, or even solo if you're good enough. Samurai is the king of that, actually. Skillchains do extra damage and open up an enemy for a magic burst as well. They used to be very important for combat back when I played to speed up fights.
Now, as to it being worth it to cap out and do late game stuff. That, I cannot say. I quit over 10 years ago, and coming back just saw me clawing to understand the new systems and changes. The last expansion I was aware of took a vast investment to get started in, and you usually had to do so in an alliance. Regardless, there are some catch up gear points and such, so it's not impossible, but it will be long.
Late game encounter mechanics can get rather complex for some of the fights. Absolute Virtue and Pandemonium Warden being two rather infamous examples. There weren't "raids" per se when I was playing, though they could exist now. Most were open world events, where anyone could come to and experience them. The only instanced content were Dynamis raids, but those worked very differently and have since been changed to just be another zone you can go to. Most encounters though are tank and spank affairs, though.
Also, macros. Macros are essential for FFXI. You have to build those out, and you can swap gear in them. They become vital to min-max out your abilities. They also make it much faster to react than going through the huge menus to dig up stuff.
Finally, is it fun? It can be. The later stories are cool, some of the systems are really awesome. The sub job system is still the best job system I've ever seen for customizing your playstyle. I have very fond memories of my time in the game, but frankly, if you go for it, understand you're in for a LONG grind. You'll need to level at least two jobs, one to 99, another to 50, then grind more after that to cap out your mastery, then grind some end game sections to get geared up. It's a long road, so if you do it, be prepared.
Play horizon, i promise you'll enjoy it. Tons of people who are willing to help you figure out the game and you won't have to deal with any bots/gilsellers ruining your experience.
downloading XI USED to be worse, you had the base install and the rest was downloaded in client using FTP.
City of Heroes is no longer dead. Give City of Heroes Homecoming a search.
You think it's a pain in the ass to install it now, I first got this back in thanksgiving 2003 and I had my dad helping me install it on the pc because 12 year old caveman couldn't fully work it out alone, and with 2003 internet speeds it took at least 15 hours to install and update everything on top of figuring out the playonline account. The menu-based slower combat is also a hurdle that I can't overcome in regards to getting my friends to try the game out. Especially at this point when so many are used to fast paced, twitch reflex action games or the relatively faster paced macro bar mmo's like 14 and wow, it's becoming increasingly harder to find others who appreciate a more relaxed, slower tactical combat system.
One thing you didn't experience yet either is that mage jobs don't auto learn spells when they level up, they don't even automatically have their starting spell learned and need to use the scroll in their inventory. All spells in the game are on scroll items that you get as mob drops, treasure chest drops or as a reward from the BCNM fights. The more base spells are at vendors, and you can buy most every spell scroll at the auction house. This means that every mage you come across could have a different set of spells learned depending on how much they put into finding or buying their spells. It also meant jobs like red mage had a nightmare of a time because they not only had the more expensive heavier gear to buy, but they also had access to a good chunk of white and black magic on top of red magic, making a prepared red mage will a filled out spell list a heavily sought commodity.
Speaking of the jobs, the subjob mechanic gave such an immense amount of customization and variety to the game that it became an addiction to unlock and level jobs just to see how they performed paired together. As a prime example, red mage in 11 was still the legitimate jack of all trades and not just a caster dps with a couple of support spells like 14's version. They used sword and shield plus the heavier/tankier armor, meaning they could stay up in melee and deal decent melee damage with their en- buffs and contribute to magic bursts in both setting one up and casting the spell to make use of the burst. They could sub white mage and be a very effective healer and support, sub black mage to really dish out the magic burst damage and enfeeble, sub ninja to dual wield swords if the mobs were more susceptible to melee damage on top of utsusemi spells to stay safer in melee range. Even back when 14 had more variety in their jobs with the cross-class system, it never came close to what you could achieve in 11 and it always felt more dull because of it, and at this point with how much they've homogenized the jobs I would legitimately prefer 11 over 14 right now.
As far as the old school mmo design, I grew up playing some of the first mmo's and I'm admittedly fully used to this kind of design and honestly still prefer it to an extent. As someone who is socialphobic in real life, even when I was a kid, this old design was ironically perfect for me and I could be heavily social and chatty without the physical interaction that for some reason triggers my fight or flight response. Having a game like this that not only encouraged and relied upon making friends and doing everything together, it actually introduced me to lifelong friends that I still talk to to this day. Some of my best gaming memories are logging on at night and having the entire linkshell there and chatting as we prepped to do dynamis. That genuine excitement and joy of messing around with the group while raiding and setting a list of who worked their relic weapon in order. It's something I've never really gotten in 14, even with a consistent static. You can do so much content solo or with randoms that there was never that strong bond formed.
The fact that 11 aggressively forced social interaction and cooperation at such an early point gave it a deeper impact when you did accomplish something. I vividly remember my linkshell hosting nights where we'd hunt down the three treasure keys to get the kazham airship pass, I remember getting my AF gear, doing my limit breaks to increase the level cap past 50. The dozens of people cheering me on in linkshell chat when I went to fight maat for the first time, the wall of congratulations and hype when I managed to beat him. I have never had anything close to these moments in modern mmo design because it so heavily caters to solo play and making the main content so ungodly braindead easy. If I could sacrifice wow and 14 to bring back 11 I would do it in a heartbeat.
endgame raid content in FFXI used to be about preparation, positioning, aggro management and mitigating effects. Status curing potions might be required, you may also need to poison yourself if a mob uses sleep, as poison will wake you up every time it ticks.
These higher end fights were battles of attrition where you'd use everything you could to eke out an edge in the fight. Red Mages and Bards would buff/debuff, or apply DoTs, the tank would kite the boss to minimize auto-attack damage, and a thief might even be required if you're doing a NIN tank to use sneak attack/trick attack to give aggro to them.
It required a lot of coordination and planning.
FFXI was one of the first MMOs i ever played when i was a teen. Game is 1000000x more solo friendly now than it was back in the mid 2000s thanks to the trust system and overall MUCH higher exp output from mobs, pages, and sparks. I hopped on during a returner campaign and got my dark knight from lvl 5 to 80 or 90 solo in a night or two. That used to take weeks.
Had a ton of fun and met a lot of friends just levelling lower level jobs back in the day. Killed so many goddamn crabs, lizards, and crawlers…
Had a couple bad parties too. I was trying to level red mage at lvl 30ish in Yuhtunga Jungle, got into a mandragora lvling party. The lead told me "RDM heal/haste/refresh only!" I didnt, cause i wasnt high enough level for haste or refresh (too poor to buy the spells even if i could ise them too) and we had a lvl 75 friend outside the party healing us, and i got booted from the party for putting enfeebles and casting fire… There was literally nothing for me to heal. This was back when word got around on the servers too, had issues getting into parties after that until i started levelling another job. Was some bs.
Old FFXI player here. Hard to say what is possible in the max level range today. I can tell you once upon a time there was a player by the name of Avesta that used to solo content that was made for raids. They couldn't solo everything, but definitely did some things that no one else could. If you wanna see what level 75 solo content looks like back in the day, you should search him up.
I picked up XI about 6 months ago and it's been quite fun. It definetely has it's low points, frustrations and annoyances but when it gets good, it's really good. But i do recommend playing the game with someone as that would alleviate the chores of waking around, being lost and grinding. Makes for quite a good time.
I've still not completed the game myself, i believe i'm in one of the expansions (tbh, they kind of blend together as a lot of them don't limit you from starting it's story before completing other expansions, but a guide solves that problem)
I would love to see you experience XI but ofc, if you don't find it very fun or isn't for you then feel free to pick up any other game, but it would be quite enjoyable to see your particular experience through the game.
they will rather shut 11 down than include it in 14's sub lmao, as much as it would be nice
like and obligatory comment for the Might algorithm
Sadly the free trial kinda sucks and needed to be updated over a decade ago.
There's a warp ring that you can get. I think it was from the conquest npc if you had looked at the items you can buy with your conquest points. It recharges every 10 minutes.
As far as helpfulness, generally people are willing to help even if its not as social as it used to be. How quickly you're shouting depends entirely on how populated the server is as most will at least have some interest in helping you if they aren't doing something else at the time. We've also got a website or two that streams the game shouts in real time so some of them might actually have to log in first to even help you.
There is actually an instruction manual in the menus hiding around for you.
Veteran players trivializing content is a bit of a gamble since the difference between the really good players and the ones on the weaker end can get a bit huge. There is also an option you wouldn't know about due to being on free trial called level sync. It's basically what it says on the label. The party leader forces everyone above the level of the person in party you select to drop down to said person's level. Essentially it will depend on the specific fight and RNG as to whether or not a veteran knows how to cheese it while having the right combination of players to do so. There's also an influx of players trying out xi right now for exactly the same reasons you are , so you won't necessarily have to deal with veterans. The game is often tuned towards 6 man parties so you're generally going to be fine. Trusts are stronger than players until around lv 99. After that is when you start wanting to use players over trusts. Certain WHM trusts last much longer and only stop being as useful in the really dangerous fights because a real player is obviously better at the game. Trust tanks are in between where dps and healers are in utility. Not quite out of date, but they are gonna hit a ceiling when post 99 content gets difficult enough.
There is room for some creativity with strategies, but we aren't that experimental as a playerbase anymore since it's easier to go with what works when most of the time it's somebody proposing something silly everyone figured out was bad years ago instead of actually relevant stuff.
SE tries to streamline your character progression to pretty close to the latest endgame which can make some of the ever so slightly older content a little annoying to catch up on since you might want an item or two from older content for certain jobs or play styles but won't be experienced enough to do a decent job of soloing like a better geared or more experienced player.
The meta might be "solved" but weird new stuff sometimes gets discovered everyone once in a while. For instance there's a bunch of low level weaponskills that used to be rather weak which are now the strongest ones in the game when you have the gear and the levels because the buffs/debuffs the players got evolved and they eventually noticed a massive improvement for them.
SE also forces us every once in a while to have to get creative by making something that they absolutely should have playtested first if they had resources.
Players have also made more than a few quality of life updates if you were ok with third party tools.For instance I have a tendency to recommend an xiv style crossbar. SE has the same policy as they do with XIV though so don't stream with that on imo.