Will WoW Classic Affect FFXI Playability?

Can't agree with this more but once people realised how useful having multiple characters was they could never go back to having just one character. This hurt the game a lot after Abyssea was no longer the main end game content, but people had the mules from it because it helped to farm Empyrean items.

The killer for FFXI's community was partly players general increase in knowledge (mechanics of the game and how best to approach them), and partly that they started designing the majority of end-game content for 6 people which is easier to multibox than content designed for 18 people. This destroyed the reason for large Linkshells to exist to begin with and broke groups down into fragments.

'Course you could also argue that they started designing for 6 people because there were fewer players overall. Which came first the chicken or the egg?

Same design approach they used in FFXIV. I know of a few Linkshells from XI that struggled to make the jump. Going from content in XI where 11-18 people would turn up, to end-game raids for 8 people.

The problem isn't multi-boxing, the problem is the players lives changed and so multi-boxing (and then trusts) became the only way to viably play the game for a lot of people.

Multi-boxing (and then trusts) didn't ruin the game, multi-boxing is why it didn't shut down 5-6 years ago. The desire to solo is even more popular in Japan than here, which is why trusts are a thing.


When some people say they like a games community, it doesn't always mean from a point of view of playing with people directly, it is everything around the game from a human standpoint. It can mean world chat, random encounters where people are more laidback about leveling or doing content beside other people (manners basically), forum communities, asking for help (either with clearing content or just information), the mindset of the people who play etc.

Every game has a specific community mindset, ffxi is a lot more laidback and friendly than most are because most of us are older than the communities of other games.

FFXI seems to attract less "*** you and die right now" people, also because it's an older game you get less 14 year olds triggered by anything and everything and want to get you banned for them being offended over nothing. The slower pace also attracts different kinds of people.

The stuff you hear on global or linkshell chat on ffxi would get you continually banned on lots of other games (especially 14), and it's not even bad stuff. Just that what is acceptable to ffxi players is totally different than on most other games playerbases and how they react to it.

Like, you can troll global and make 20-50 people "mad" on ffxi and people will be "mad" at you and large scale "arguments" will go on for 2-3 hours and people will be laughing at it. They won't call a GM to get you banned though, on almost any other online game there will be about 20 GM calls if you annoy people, they go direct to authority to solve any problems and you will be silenced for annoying them.

So people are far less likely to even talk on world chat systems at all on most games, it's not worth it because the authority figures will be called almost instantly over anything and you'll get action taken on your account.

they just used different words, they mean the same tho.

The people in XI's community got old. Remember being barely in my teens when I started and the people I played were all between 12-28. Fast forward like 16 years later and everyone doesn't have the time, got old, married etc. Tis and old game but the community still one of the best parts. Met tons of cool people that I'm friends with still today

I don't agree with this as a blanket statement. Stuff which was hard, but not super hard (Einherjar, Odin v1, T4 Zeni NMs, Omega/Ultima) all come to mind) were just as easy to multibox as 6 man content. When Delve V1 was hard it was less easy to multibox than those, partially because you can be stationary during the other events. Sea was a bit less suitable for multiboxing too, I guess, but old Dynamis was fine.

Delve 1 prior to Items upgrade was the hardest content to ever exist. 90% of the people prolly dont remember it, pretty sure it was harder than whatever we have now.

100% it was. Add a few stun bots, rotating buffers etc and it got manageable though!

still not that hard, did all 3 with my 9box and my friends 7box and 2 leeches


on that note, not much of 75 stuff needed an alliance either, we did omega with 4, ultima with 6, kirin with 7, jol with 9 or 10, lesser jailers all with 6 or less(most solo or duo)

i'm of the opinion that giving advanced automation to the general public is the biggest problem contributing to the game's current state, multiboxing is one thing but having bots that can basically outplay new players makes it impossible for new players to legitimately justify their position in a group even if playing the token support job

to elaborate on that, if you go back to delve era, a returning player will be able to get a position by making a roll only cor, a buff only geo, or a modest whm

now, any established group has mules doing all of those things and doesn't even benefit from adding a non-idris geo, a roll only cor, or a whm without yagrush.. if they were just hand played mules, people would have an incentive to replace them(less stress multiboxing), but since they're all botted with things like roller, bringing the new guy means weaker buffs with no upside besides the fuzzy feeling of helping someone

I thought we already established the fact that online interactions are just *** being ***.

So, there's no such thing as "fuzzy feelings of helping anyone" both online and ingame. Because it doesn't exist anymore (one could even make the point of "at all").

ur clearly talking about after the ILVL upgrade, there was no magic evasion, evasion weapon skill's

idris did not exist then, your talking about the ilvl adjustments lol.

It mostly depend on whether someone in your group cleared morimar at least once for Oat access. It wasn't so bad if a LS cleared once and one or two DD were OaT MNKs. My LS pretty much had close to 100% win rate pre ilv after 1st clear.

Pre ilv delve was pretty unbalanced in a way because it's either very easy with Oat or sucked without.

Someone said something something stun bot that weren't the key. Just get a JP stunner or something, they didnt suffer from lag as much as NA.

In regards to delve, no. Spaa and I did it with 2 real players, 16 total characters, and 2 buyers in it's original state. After Ilevel, before hp scaling, I 9boxed all of them by myself. Silly easy then.

The Idris comment is about a seperate issue entirely: there's no beginner role for anyone any more because it has been replaced by bots. In the delve era, a beginner could have been valuable on GEO or COR or WHM with relatively little gear. Now, a beginner is useless because everyone has idris geo, roll+7/8 highly geared COR, and yagrush WHM available as mules with supporting bots.

Delve 1 prior to getting a win was not easy, it was pretty challenging for the time period and for myself the most fun I've had with the game. Not everyone had access to synchronized mules with all the bots available to them, I'm not sure why you are using that example to suggest it was easy content. For the general public it was not as easy.

I'd say I agree with the access of all these programs and 0 repercussions from SE, has created a more toxic environment. I am actually baffled as I look around and see what has been happening (at least on this populated server.) Everyone 5-6 boxes with all the bots available at all times. I'm surprised there are even regular players left these days.

I was chatting with someone who quit and they made me laugh by saying its like the Matrix, and Thorny is Mr. Smith as he assimilates everyone into him.

Ok so like delve seemed hard because we didn't do the thing we always do.

We went straight to melee. No blm phase. No ranger phase. No pet phase.

If we went straight to melee for anything, it was inherently more stressful.

I'm not really sure why it went that way though. Everything gets learned during the safety kill phase. Then you melee it. But that didn't happen in delve I.

Also, it was kinda designed with geo in mind... and our group/server never even considered geo as a job until almost two full years later. 15' geo still wasn't even on the radar.

It was some of the hardest content to date, sure. It was easier than master trials when they were new. I didn't say it wasn't some of the hardest, I said it still wasn't hard.

The biggest issue then is still the biggest issue now; their instances drop packets constantly and response time from server is pitiful. That gave stun bots a decent advantage over real players(and JP players too, allegedly?). We don't have hard content, we have server limitations making simple content harder than it should be.

With upgraded ranged weapons not being able to use coro/namas, hate was an issue. Throw in that Daku and Tojil resisted piercing a majority of the time, the lower tier NMs had specific mechanics, and the time gate was tight. I don't think ranged or magic would have made them easier at that point in time. It was head and shoulders above the content we've gotten recently for sure.

I don't remember your friend being there with you when you were doing Delve v1 clears in August/September 2013. I thought it was just your chars plus a few random people then, and that was before ilvl.

Went with a few different groups. Some of Draylo's members came with Spaa and I for our initial clears because he ticked them off. Then we had issues with Emra(?) or w.e stamos's egf's name was just running some crappy cure bot and afking during the megabosses, so Spaa and I duoed for a couple months.

We still did runs with ls members and whoever needed throughout. So really, didn't make too much difference who came as long as roles were filled.

I mean you were doing them with more like 14 people than 16 even before ilvl. It was still the hardest content at the point of release and that maintained difficulty for longest in my opinion.

In reality it was too hard given that it required stun bot locking.

I honestly couldn't remember, but it's certainly possible we were. I know when I did it w/ Spaa we had the 16, but with more real players it's possible we cut it lower.

The thing is, stun was the only reflex check and using the correct jobs/gear/setup made everything very procedural. If not for the servers being ***, a non-bot stun would've been more than adequate. It had much more room for failure/mistake than master trials did at release.

I really wish they would come out with a master trial Delve or something crazy where you face all of the mobs from each zone haha. I miss Delve a lot.

It's still there, go do it.

I'm 90% sure Sept 2013 was post ilv. My LS pretty much disbanded on that time for 14 after its on farm status for months.

I think ilv was introduced in July or August?

Delve 1 was the hardest content on April to June 2013 when entire community has no access to Oat. Without good dps there are WAY less room for error and stun may run into resist wall if fight takes too long. OAT MNK was like what...50% more dps than next best weapon? The difference is so huge.

1st clear happened in June then as more and more people got Oat they join different groups to help out, delve 1 got a lot easier with MUCH faster kill speed.

After August(?) 2013 update it's pretty much a joke. Basically the difficulty nerfed greatly in just a couple of months. So comparing the difficulty of delve before world 1st and 5 months after release is kinda silly. They were not the same and not even close. Hell I was PUGGing them with great success in Sept/October 2013 or something.

https://www.ffxiah.com/screenshots/72226

august 8 2013, post ilevel, so directx just has his timeline all out of sorts apparently

Stun was never the main reason why delve was hard before June 2013. If it's that simple people wouldn't need 2 months to get world 1st clear. I still remember Ejiins LS had to lv RNG back then to even get a 1st clear.

So idk why someone keep making comment like "oh ***it's easy with stun bot" or something. Of course once community got Oat it was just the matter of stuns. That doesn't mean it was easy.

Sometimes I like how people call content easy just by watching others do it. Next time I'm going to watch NBA and say whatever LeBron James does is easy too. Maybe that would make me a better basketball player.

I wasn't sure at first but I really don't remember my gear having ilvl on then. Maybe I wasn't paying attention because I only briefly played for 2 months or so then.

Lol, I made this exact same reference to Matix (a LS mate) on Ragnarok 2 years ago.