Everyone is so on edge in this thread it's amazing. I can only give my perspective as a long time MMO'er and one who has tried many times to 'get into' FFXI. In that respect I hope I can be of some assistance.
So far I've 3 times to play FFXI, the last (which is the most relevant), I was able to get to lvl 29. As a side note that was on Jan. 16ish of this year.
I originally started off as a Galk warrior and had a great expectations to be a paladin eventually and tank in parties. At around lvl 13 I bought my "warrior belt +1" for 30Kgil (very fair price i think) and headed out to dunes. I sat at 13 for 2 nights and only got 1 invite. Now granted one night I only waited for an hour and logged so I am sure in many old timer's eyes, that day did not count cause I didn't wait long enough. Rest assured though it was an active 1 hour where I was semi constantly pm-ing pt leaders while also trying to form my own pt. On the third day I quit my warrior and rolled a taru whm.
Of course I had much more success in the dunes, and even was able to get in to a few pl-ing pt's. 20-28 went by really fast and by then, I had joined a relatively large linkshell on Unicorn. I had applied with a main healer resume spanning multiple games in raid situations so they took me in warmly and started showing me the ropes.
At 20-29, grouping was still going strong (with so many alts around, not very many pure new comers though) in that castle area right out side of Jeuno. Now remember I was a whm/blm so I did have a decided advantage over melee classes finding a group. But at 28 I hit a wall. I wanted to go to the island but could never find anyone to run me through that quest chain (where you get 3 items from the different mob camps) and with so few new people hitting that level I couldn't even find a second person to try and 2 man with.
The LS said they would spot me the 500K to buy an air ship pass but I hate owing anyone money/gil/gold and I was not about to support farmers, so I tried my best roll new classes and sell crystals but that eventually grew stale and I had to abandon my whm/blm and my poor little baby chocobo. =(
Anyways, from a design standpoint there are many things FFXI does well and many it does poorly.
+++ great group dynamics
+++ class roles are well filled and thought out (sub classes 4tw)
+++ battle, while not being overly responsive, is very fun
+++ great mini games
+++ the best story / cut scene of any mmorpg
+++ imo a great system for an AH (even though it is easier to exploit, it feels more like a real market place instead of selling safely to other players who might as well be NPC's with as stagnant some AH systems are)
+++ the AH prices at the time seemed about right, crystals are still easy to come by and a new comer can make tons of money those first levels if they hit the market right with their stacks of crystals.
--- lack of healing classes in the game. 1 more would do wonders imo for finding groups, not a main healer by any stretch but a dedicated off healer that has great regen and efficiency but bad total burst output healing. Let them have good buffs and HoT's and good large heals, but no fast "oh shit that mage is dieing" heals.
--- A more interesting first 10-13 levels would be a breath of fresh air to new comers. Anyone who says levels 0-13 of FFXI are great has not played almost every other MMO on the market. The low levels are the time to grab and inspire new comers, not bore them with endless mass bee / rabbit / orc genocide.
I am not even saying to change the questing system but the zones look and feel dated compared to the newer zones in the more recent xpacks. Or another idea is to eliminate the xp penalty for parting for up to 3 people up to level 10. Then Square could add more group content earlier and expose the newer people to the fun part of the game (party dynamics) earlier.
--- I know it won't / can't but the UI has to change. It has always seemed to me to be clunky, cumbersome and dated do to them trying to get it to work with the PS2 interface. There really are quite a number of new players who can't get past the UI (my girl friend was one of the casualties) and/or it takes them entirely too long to get used to it.
To me it was actually more fun healing in FFXI cause it was harder because of the UI. My friends didn't believe me it took more buttons and time to heal 6 people in FFXI then it took me to heal 40 people in WoW, or back in the day 50-80 in EQ (though of course with rotations I didn't have to heal all 50-80 lol).
And I completely agree that FF would benefit greatly from Mentoring. But then again every game would benefit from Mentoring so that is a good point, but a moot point. FF is not dieing, but starting now from scratch is a tremendous task and many can't/don't see the benefit with the rumors of a new FF online style game slated sometime in the next 3-5 years by SE.
Final Score for me as of Jan, 07: B (83%)
--Dominia
BTW: The community is fairly good. There are people on both good and bad a like. I did notice that even the nicest people will bitterly defend FFXI because of how much time and energy they have put into it. Their passion can often be mis interpreted as elitism, and sometimes for just cause. Just understand that the FFXI community cares about their game, like a baby much like the hard core EQ guys after they had put 7+ years of their life in that game.
The passion hardcore FFXI players have for their game is only matched now a days by the passion of hardcore EvE players, and both for completely different reasons, both good though.
Currently Playing: GW2 Retired: Shadowbane, DAoC, WoW, FFXI, Eve Online, SWToR
Comments
So far I've 3 times to play FFXI, the last (which is the most relevant), I was able to get to lvl 29. As a side note that was on Jan. 16ish of this year.
I originally started off as a Galk warrior and had a great expectations to be a paladin eventually and tank in parties. At around lvl 13 I bought my "warrior belt +1" for 30Kgil (very fair price i think) and headed out to dunes. I sat at 13 for 2 nights and only got 1 invite. Now granted one night I only waited for an hour and logged so I am sure in many old timer's eyes, that day did not count cause I didn't wait long enough. Rest assured though it was an active 1 hour where I was semi constantly pm-ing pt leaders while also trying to form my own pt. On the third day I quit my warrior and rolled a taru whm.
Of course I had much more success in the dunes, and even was able to get in to a few pl-ing pt's. 20-28 went by really fast and by then, I had joined a relatively large linkshell on Unicorn. I had applied with a main healer resume spanning multiple games in raid situations so they took me in warmly and started showing me the ropes.
At 20-29, grouping was still going strong (with so many alts around, not very many pure new comers though) in that castle area right out side of Jeuno. Now remember I was a whm/blm so I did have a decided advantage over melee classes finding a group. But at 28 I hit a wall. I wanted to go to the island but could never find anyone to run me through that quest chain (where you get 3 items from the different mob camps) and with so few new people hitting that level I couldn't even find a second person to try and 2 man with.
The LS said they would spot me the 500K to buy an air ship pass but I hate owing anyone money/gil/gold and I was not about to support farmers, so I tried my best roll new classes and sell crystals but that eventually grew stale and I had to abandon my whm/blm and my poor little baby chocobo. =(
Anyways, from a design standpoint there are many things FFXI does well and many it does poorly.
- --- A more interesting first 10-13 levels would be a breath of fresh air to new comers. Anyone who says levels 0-13 of FFXI are great has not played almost every other MMO on the market. The low levels are the time to grab and inspire new comers, not bore them with endless mass bee / rabbit / orc genocide.
I am not even saying to change the questing system but the zones look and feel dated compared to the newer zones in the more recent xpacks. Or another idea is to eliminate the xp penalty for parting for up to 3 people up to level 10. Then Square could add more group content earlier and expose the newer people to the fun part of the game (party dynamics) earlier.- --- I know it won't / can't but the UI has to change. It has always seemed to me to be clunky, cumbersome and dated do to them trying to get it to work with the PS2 interface. There really are quite a number of new players who can't get past the UI (my girl friend was one of the casualties) and/or it takes them entirely too long to get used to it.
To me it was actually more fun healing in FFXI cause it was harder because of the UI. My friends didn't believe me it took more buttons and time to heal 6 people in FFXI then it took me to heal 40 people in WoW, or back in the day 50-80 in EQ (though of course with rotations I didn't have to heal all 50-80 lol).And I completely agree that FF would benefit greatly from Mentoring. But then again every game would benefit from Mentoring so that is a good point, but a moot point. FF is not dieing, but starting now from scratch is a tremendous task and many can't/don't see the benefit with the rumors of a new FF online style game slated sometime in the next 3-5 years by SE.
Final Score for me as of Jan, 07: B (83%)
--Dominia
BTW: The community is fairly good. There are people on both good and bad a like. I did notice that even the nicest people will bitterly defend FFXI because of how much time and energy they have put into it. Their passion can often be mis interpreted as elitism, and sometimes for just cause. Just understand that the FFXI community cares about their game, like a baby much like the hard core EQ guys after they had put 7+ years of their life in that game.
The passion hardcore FFXI players have for their game is only matched now a days by the passion of hardcore EvE players, and both for completely different reasons, both good though.
Currently Playing: GW2
Retired: Shadowbane, DAoC, WoW, FFXI, Eve Online, SWToR
The Aphelion MMO Blog - GW2 Initial Impressions