dark_chris
Gold Member
This!
This is what made me love FFXI a lot yet hate it. I loved exploring the unknown and vast amount of land. Simple enemies could be dangerous as hell, it was literally a dangerous world out there.
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Future of Final Fantasy XI press conference ended [OP updated with details]
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This!
This is what made me love FFXI a lot yet hate it. I loved exploring the unknown and vast amount of land. Simple enemies could be dangerous as hell, it was literally a dangerous world out there.
DrROBschiz
Member
Yup
One of the biggest draws of XI was that it had a MASSIVE set of tools and techniques at your disposal that lead to some really interesting discovery scenarios for players.
It was enriching stuff to play with for the most part (a lot of stuff didnt scale properly rendering over half of learned abilities utterly useless).
As someone who played FFXI for... way too many years, I think the way I'd sum it up is FFXI was developed at a time when a lot of rules about how MMOs "should" be developed didn't exist yet, which makes it deeply flawed in some ways but is also part of its charm. The original EverQuest is viewed the same way by many who were heavily into that game; a lot of the things they loved about it would be considered design flaws that you just don't see in modern MMOs. I do play XIV but I'm super casual about it, if I played it anymore than I do the hamster wheels become apparent and I feel deeply bored.
Primarily in Japan, yeah.
dark_chris
Gold Member
Alex
Member
XIV is a great Final Fantasy game and a very poor MMO. It's not surprising for people to yearn for XI which held it's balance in that regard significantly better.
I could never go back to XI, it's just too archaic and I despise some of the idiosyncrasies that popped up eons ago but I understand entirely. I'll be really surprised if they put it down... Wouldn't make a lot of sense.
I could never go back to XI, it's just too archaic and I despise some of the idiosyncrasies that popped up eons ago but I understand entirely. I'll be really surprised if they put it down... Wouldn't make a lot of sense.
DrROBschiz
Member
Nail on the head on FFXIV
ITs a shame that the game shed so much of its JRPG roots. It was kind of a nasty tradoff since its so pretty and has MANY awesome QOL improvements that allow you to make the most out of play sessions.. (FFXI did not respect your time very well)
That said the gameplay itself... is far less rewarding the further into you go. Its a game that dazzles at the start and fizzles at the finish
In Japan yes. I don't have the numbers off-hand but even though the PS2 version of the most recent expansion was not released outside of Japan it still garnered like 12k sells on the PS2 when it released in Japan a couple years ago. Not exactly an amount worthy of keeping the support alive but they did still sell it and support it up to now. Some of the more recent changes to the game are more focused on expanding functionality for PC support and neglecting the consoles so there is 'hope' they are finally going to kill PS2 support soon which should in turn hopefully open up limitations for the game to do new things in a hypothetical expansion announcement. FYI the game is still designed not just for the PS2 in mind but for a Dial up Modem lol.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Were there any known reasons as to why SE didn't release the game on the PS3? Seems like an obvious thing to do and would have probably help move the players from the PS2 to the PS3 instead.
Was there some kind of deal in place? It did appear on 360 after all
They only have 1 million subscribers for those 3 games? That doesn't sound really good.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
cuz its a fucking terrible game...
As someone still playing XI, I fear this cant be good news
DrROBschiz
Member
The entire game could use a massive Edit and retooling in much the same way FFXIV 1.0 was
I just highly doubt they would do it given the sheer amount of investment it would take. Seems very unrealistic.
Pankratous
Member
If they re-make this any form - remastered, singleplayer version, anything, I will be right on it. Best game ever made, hands down.
DrROBschiz
Member
Its always been an 50/50 game for me but certainly the best MMO I ever played
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Not really, the game is basically fully soloable apart from some of the highest level content already.
OsirisBlack
Banned
I wouldn't say 14 is a terrible game but it is not as good as XI. I am actually of a different mind and think this announcement will be good news. If they did a HD remaster of this game it would make a lot of vets come back and give me a reason to pull out the aegis..... would love to see a graphical overhaul of XI.
DrROBschiz
Member
Yeah but think of the adjustments they made to get it there
AI companions, handouts, bonuses... it kind of flies in the face of the original. Did they modify enemy damage and HP? Stat scaling?
And any other ingame mechanics tha needed balancing?
I remember that a lof of the bosses had the arena level cap removed which would trivialize them had you power leveled (which is now encouraged)
I dont want a rebalance of a game to just hand me an express ticket to the finish line. Thats not a rebalance... thats a band aid
Nose Master
Member
XIV is completely different. It's fine, but it's missing some major things from XI. Most notably the gear treadmill in that game now is boring as shit. Pretty much zero options.
Monster Zero
Junior Member
Man, a current gen port would be awesome-0, didn't old dude say he wanted all the numbered FF's on current gen consoles?
AlimNassor
Banned
I hope they're not ending service.
Isn't the game still super popular and making money? Didn't they just come out with another expansion?
The most recent expansion came out in 2013, and was only developed because FF14 1.0 tanked. They've said it's the last one several times since. As for popularity, I would not call it super popular. It has a community of dedicated players, but it isn't huge. If they're not ending service, they would do well to do some server merges.
DrROBschiz
Member
They have too much history and too many long held accounts to shake things up the way they would need to be
Would be too disruptive which is a shame because the game would greatly benefit form a huge disruption on the scale of what they did for ARR (minus turning it into WOW/Diablo)
OsirisBlack
Banned
It still does decently not huge numbers but its still fun and yes seekers was released not too long ago.
Maybe it was the last expansion... for PS2.
It was only offered on PS2 for Japan anyway.
I'm not into MMOs, but I was always interested in FFXI's story and lore. I planned on playing it eventually, if only to get a short taste -- but a single-player remake/reworking of the game would be a godsend. It could sell me on a Vita if it secured an exclusivity, although I reckon it would release on PS4 and beyond before Vita at this point.
You could play the game on the original PS3 hardware but only as a PS2 game. My guess is the 360 release muddied up any hopes of it releasing on the PS3 properly especially given Microsoft's increasing stance on no multiplatform servers, they probably gave a bone to FFXI because 1) they really, really wanted to be able to say they had a Final Fantasy Game on their system to get more Japanese developer support and 2) It was released on Ps2 and not the current console they were competing with, the other release was on PC which they have shown reluctance but not out right disregard to having shared servers with.
This is in part why I think 360 support alongside PS2 support dying might be required for them to port the game to the PS4. Its a calculated risk but I think if they port the game using the PC client to the PS4, and made a pricing bundle with FFXIV alongside an expansion announcement it could really breath some life into the game, that and open a cash shop (I loathe saying this) for all the Trust NPCs people missed during login campaigns.
The largest barometer for me coming back into the game at the moment is all the content I missed because I didn't login into the game every single day due to those campaigns. What was once a boon to get people to stick around has now become a detractor for people wanting to return knowing a ton of content either can't be seen again or won't be for a year plus, at least having those in a cash shop would give players the option of getting those NPC's again while also giving the game some much needed additional revenue.
DrROBschiz
Member
Oh the combat was much more satisfying.... for the most part
You still ran into issues because the game was so tightly balanced for 6-man party play to the point of being painful
There were a lot of limitations placed on the player, every enemy felt like a brick wall, and abilities didn't scale in logical ways which made them obsolete, inaccurate and ineffective.
Damnit man... all those XI memories. The good always comes with the bad in that game but damn if it wasn't compelling
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
The game as a whole has been made drastically easier, everything from movement speed to weaponskill damage and gear availability has been improved.
Right now, just doing RoE quests augmented with GoV/FoV training regimes is all you need to do to reach 99. The limit breaks are all easily soloable and given the way that the xp curve has been tweaked some of the earlier hurdles (like getting sub-job) are now a lot less annoying to do. Bear in mind that not only do all mobs give more xp, the con-range (level difference within which mobs give xp) has been pushed out, making for levelling on fodder enemies being vastly more efficient than it was.
Itemizing all the quality-of-life tweaks would result in a post as long as my arm... it is literally night-and-day compared to how it was for the first half of the game's life.
its not to bad with FoV being around now though....you can solo a huge chunk of levels now.
Baleoce
Member
I can't see them holding a press conference for the latter. (well, or the former tbh) Not in a clear cut way at least. Then again, if they're changing up the business model / restructuring in general, the merges will probably be a likely consequence of that.
Edvardelis
Member
First MMORPG I ever played... explicitly because they had a PS2 version, I didn't have a good PC at the time.
It cost $100 and came on a Hard Disk.
I found out that the network adapter that my PS2 came bundled with was bad and I had to track down a Gamestop with one in stock. Another $40.
Back then Aht'Urgan had just been released. I got up to level 54 (PLD). Never really touched that expansion despite buying it.
I gave up due to the insanely inflated economy, I couldn't afford anything and I didn't want to spend the zillion hours farming stuff just to be able to buy basic gear.
The fact that I was staring the class level quests in the face and they were stupid hard, even in a group, made me decide to stop playing.
It cost $100 and came on a Hard Disk.
I found out that the network adapter that my PS2 came bundled with was bad and I had to track down a Gamestop with one in stock. Another $40.
Back then Aht'Urgan had just been released. I got up to level 54 (PLD). Never really touched that expansion despite buying it.
I gave up due to the insanely inflated economy, I couldn't afford anything and I didn't want to spend the zillion hours farming stuff just to be able to buy basic gear.
The fact that I was staring the class level quests in the face and they were stupid hard, even in a group, made me decide to stop playing.
Even if the game is now solo friendly, the "structure" is vastly different than an SP game. It would need a huge retooling of the game (basically a remake), and I dont think it's worth for SE right now. (wish I would be wrong though, FFXI vanilla+RoTZ+CoP is IMO the best FF storyline.)
I also not see porting to PS4, when the platform has already XIV, that it's more popular now.
I guess the announcement will be new add-ons like Abyssea, and some kind of changes like maybe dropping PS2 support.
DrROBschiz
Member
Exactly.
Using the a newer expansion as a power leveling platform is pretty lame. I would rather see a huge structural edit that, while preserving player freedom, still guides them on a logical path towards learning the game, experimenting with mechanics and moves them along at a more evenly curved path
Dropping new players in, handing them a bunch of shortcuts and shoving them into FoV to max out their character makes them miss out on so much
Rising_Hei
Member
A rehashed version of XI would be many times better than XIV, but the XI i liked doesn't exist since 2009 :/
DrROBschiz
Member
I agree
but we are talking TOTAL overhaul here. Something that would likely alienate the entire existing playerbase lol
Then again...