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After many years away from 11, I've been checking it out recently (mostly to hang out with a few friends on Quetz who still play). I can vouch for the game itself being very very friendly now in regards to travel, leveling, and (leveling and initial endgame) gearing. However, the game's community that still plays, is still whoever managed to stick with the game through all that bullshit. Which means they're still the good old people furiously attached to min-max optimization and "Must Have X Job With Y Gear", who are willing (when desperate) to ease up on the gear requirements for some less-played support jobs. This isn't universal of course, especially if playing casually with friends, but it's still a deeply rooted mentality.
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May 5, 2015 20:34
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Starting FF11 from scratch is still an incredible pain in the rear end, too, VS people who are like "wow I came back to my account with 10 million gil on it and the game is way better now!" Leveling up now is really easy and you can powerlevel anything to 50 in like an evening by hopping in public chain farm groups, but good loving luck doing anything with that character once you get there. You'll have to grind multiple weapon/magic skills and figure out some way to get gear which is basically impossible because making money is incredibly difficult for new players and even vendor poo poo is too expensive to buy with the drops you'll get from powerleveling. You'll have to unlock every character class, often by doing quests that require you to spend literal hours running back and forth around the world. Also gently caress how slow and obnoxious the travel is, it's from that era of MMOs where they thought teleportation should be linked to specific classes and obscure unlock requirements and every zone is a huge empty poo poo with nothing but mobs aimlessly roaming.
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May 5, 2015 20:37
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I played FFXI pre-Aht Urhgan and did literally everything. Still difficult to recommend playing now, even knowing the upgrades it's gotten, because FFXIV exists. It's that good. edit: never play a MMO that doesn't have Triple Triad
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May 5, 2015 20:39
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Starting FF11 from scratch is still an incredible pain in the rear end, too, VS people who are like "wow I came back to my account with 10 million gil on it and the game is way better now!" The game's actually got a pretty robust fast travel system in it now. It doesn't particularly speed up getting to a location in the first place but it makes it super quick to get back there at a later point. The game now has an objective-based system called Records of Eminence which you can easily take advantage of while leveling. This shits a special currency at you which you can use to buy leveling gear, items that give you skillups when consumed, and items you can vendor for gil (if nothing else, gil is still useful to pay for the fast travel options). When you eventually hit level 99, you can buy a starter set of endgame gear with that as well. I still think 14 is a much better game than revamped-11, but I'll give revamped-11 credit where it's due and say that a lot of these things are not really all that bad any more. Endgame and its toxic insular community still suck (although this is true for most MMOs), but the game itself doesn't really hate you any more.
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May 5, 2015 20:55
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How's playing FF11 if I'm only interested in the story stuff and not so much the actual MMO part? My only real MMO experience is FF14 for the record, which is great but I don't have the time to play it anymore.
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May 5, 2015 20:59
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Starting FF11 from scratch is still an incredible pain in the rear end, too, VS people who are like "wow I came back to my account with 10 million gil on it and the game is way better now!" Yeah, I don't think I would recommended starting it from scratch either unless you have a friend who's experienced. It has had a million quality of life adjustments, but it's still pretty unintuitive and unwelcoming to newcomers and unless you have an experienced friend \ the wiki open in your browser at all times, you aren't going to know what the gently caress to do. It just kinda throws you into the world and says "have at it, hoss." There isn't like, a tutorial or anything. The game also had a lot of things that are needlessly complicated. Zombies' Downfall posted:Also gently caress how slow and obnoxious the travel is, it's from that era of MMOs where they thought teleportation should be linked to specific classes and obscure unlock requirements and every zone is a huge empty poo poo with nothing but mobs aimlessly roaming. Another thing they did, is you can immediately warp to any crystal you've been to in the game, just like XIV, so even the travel isn't bad anymore. Vil posted:After many years away from 11, I've been checking it out recently (mostly to hang out with a few friends on Quetz who still play). I can vouch for the game itself being very very friendly now in regards to travel, leveling, and (leveling and initial endgame) gearing. Yeah. The community is awful because in its early days it alienated most all normal people who actually had like, jobs and lives and things. The worst are people who are like "Abyssea and the raised level cap RUINED THE GAME because it made it too CASUAL like crappy rear end WoW!!!" gently caress these people. These folks and the sorta people who think old-FFXI and Everquest 1 were designed well are toxic and can tank an MMO if they ever take over development for one. Hey, what's up Star Trek Online? That said, I don't really interact with FFXI's community outside my group of friends \ goons. Hell, I'm like that in 14 and most MMOs. I don't even interact with most goons in 14. I ignore the FC chat 90% of the time. Can you blame me? Mega64 posted:How's playing FF11 if I'm only interested in the story stuff and not so much the actual MMO part? My only real MMO experience is FF14 for the record, which is great but I don't have the time to play it anymore. Honestly, I think playing FF11 for the story stuff is the only reason to play. Here's how to play FFXI properly: 1) level a job to 99. 2) Do the story missions. 3) Quit the game satisfied and go play XIV now. 4) Do not do the endgame poo poo, come on man.
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May 5, 2015 21:00
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Vil posted:The game's actually got a pretty robust fast travel system in it now. It doesn't particularly speed up getting to a location in the first place but it makes it super quick to get back there at a later point. Huh, all of this poo poo was either introduced after I returned (which I think has been 2 years ago now?) or there was absolutely no documentation of it ingame or in the SA thread or anything and thus no way for me to find out it existed. Cool to hear, I guess.
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May 5, 2015 21:02
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Mega64 posted:How's playing FF11 if I'm only interested in the story stuff and not so much the actual MMO part? My only real MMO experience is FF14 for the record, which is great but I don't have the time to play it anymore. Honestly, playing the game for the story part is the only good reason to play it. Here's how to play FFXI right: 1) Get a job to a high enough level \ get some friends \ NPC party members. 2) Breeze through all the story missions. 3) Once you are done with the story, quit the game and play XIV instead. 4) Do NOT actually try doing the endgame poo poo. Granted, this is what I'm probably going to do with XIV, too. I'm not really interested in having THE BEST +1 EQUIPMENT SO I CAN BE THE MOST BADASS GUY ON THE SERVER, I just want to play the game and have fun. Honestly, I think good advice in any MMO period is to just play it casually and have fun, and not care too much about gear or being an "elite player" or whatever. If you are the best player in an MMO, that generally means you're the worst at real life. I mean, once you beat everything in the game and have the best gear, what are you gonna use that super good gear for? edit: The story missions in Neo-FFXI are also so easy that you don't really need the best equipment, anyway. Or even a party. You can solo with a bunch of NPC party members. It can effectively be a single player game now.
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May 5, 2015 21:07
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Mega64 posted:How's playing FF11 if I'm only interested in the story stuff and not so much the actual MMO part? My only real MMO experience is FF14 for the record, which is great but I don't have the time to play it anymore. With level 99 and the stuff (gear, skillups) you can get from Records of Eminence, plus the Trust system (up to three summonable NPC party members, who on the whole do a decent enough job at what they're supposed to do), you can pretty trivially solo all the old story stuff prior to the current expansion. And there's a lot of old story stuff, and with the exception of the very first parts of it from the vanilla game while they were still getting their feet wet (those story bits are kinda blah), it's all quite good. Quite a few of the sidequests have story and cutscenes to them as well. I can't speak to how soloable the current stuff is, though I hear that you can solo a lot of it and low-man the exceptions.
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May 5, 2015 21:12
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Mega64 posted:How's playing FF11 if I'm only interested in the story stuff and not so much the actual MMO part? My only real MMO experience is FF14 for the record, which is great but I don't have the time to play it anymore. You'd be able to get the bulk of the basic story but alot of the underlying threads are behind quests that are everywhere.
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May 5, 2015 21:38
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I think FF3 would be a less terrible choice than FF11 for a job fiesta. And that said, FF3 would be a pretty dang bad choice. Pity that Bravely Default is a constant trickle of jobs instead of giving them in big chunks, otherwise it'd be a great candidate.
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May 5, 2015 21:56
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Gammatron 64 posted:Yeah, I don't think I would recommended starting it from scratch either unless you have a friend who's experienced. It has had a million quality of life adjustments, but it's still pretty unintuitive and unwelcoming to newcomers and unless you have an experienced friend \ the wiki open in your browser at all times, you aren't going to know what the gently caress to do. It just kinda throws you into the world and says "have at it, hoss." There isn't like, a tutorial or anything. The game also had a lot of things that are needlessly complicated. Thats basically what i wanted to do. I'm one of the richest, spergiest and oldest goon players of ffxi. I'd have the experience, money and knowledge to push a group of 4 to 6 people purely thru the storylines of all the expansions while avoiding or mitigating the crap.
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May 5, 2015 22:01
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One of these days I need to beat FF3. FF3, 12 and 13 are the only numbered games I haven't beaten, not counting sequels. Yes, I know this is loving shameful and I'm not proud that I've beaten almost all the main series FF games. frodnonnag posted:Thats basically what i wanted to do. I'm one of the richest, spergiest and oldest goon players of ffxi. I'd have the experience, money and knowledge to push a group of 4 to 6 people purely thru the storylines of all the expansions while avoiding or mitigating the crap. Part of me wants to do a FFXI let's play that's mainly just the story missions, cutting out poo poo nobody wants to see like people killing crabs over and over, but I'm also loving lazy and it would take me like a year to do it. And I'd probably just do it through CoP and be like "gently caress it, I'm done."
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May 5, 2015 22:02
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Srice posted:Pity that Bravely Default is a constant trickle of jobs instead of giving them in big chunks, otherwise it'd be a great candidate. Bravely Default allows you to start a NG+ with all jobs but no other bonuses so that's one potential idea.
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May 5, 2015 22:03
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Gammatron 64 posted:One of these days I need to beat FF3. FF3, 12 and 13 are the only numbered games I haven't beaten, not counting sequels. But then you wouldn't get the amazing plot points like "everything is odin's fault... everything" and poo poo like the mini stories.
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May 5, 2015 22:07
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ImpAtom posted:Bravely Default allows you to start a NG+ with all jobs but no other bonuses so that's one potential idea. Yeah. Pity that it requires people to beat the game first though, I know there's a decent amount of people that play FF5 for the first time during the Fiesta.
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May 5, 2015 22:07
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I always do the fiesta with a friend using the SNES co-op where we each control two characters, so any alternative fiestas must support 2 player. It's the law now.
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May 5, 2015 22:09
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Electromax posted:I've been putzing around with some data to learn Tableau better this week, and I decided to write a python scraper for Terence Fergusson's FF7 Mechanics guide to pull the encounter and enemy data. That's pretty cool. I don't have anything constructive to add; but it would be a handy reference if I were to ever play the game again.
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May 5, 2015 22:14
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I played FF11 at NA launch and again in 2010. It was fun at launch in that "I'm playing a brand new MMO and it's Final Fantasy" sort of way and that was it. I quit after 3 months because it was grindy garbage. In 2010, it was actually pretty fun but suffered from all the weirdness that makes it a dated game like the incredibly slow and floaty movement, equipment swap macros when doing hard content, etc. I only ever beat vanilla and a couple of the early expansions but the writing, especially in vanilla, was really quite good. Honestly, I'd love to see them take the world, characters, and script and do some weird single-player retro-engine version on handheld or mobile.ImpAtom posted:Bravely Default allows you to start a NG+ with all jobs but no other bonuses so that's one potential idea. That would actually be a pretty cool one, with "I'm done with this" opt-out points in each chapter from 6 onward. With the game in Hard, some combos might be actually impossible to True Ending unless you did some really crazy grinding, but it would take some playing and experimenting to see what would be most difficult. bloodychill fucked around with this message at 23:19 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 22:44
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frodnonnag posted:But then you wouldn't get the amazing plot points like "everything is odin's fault... everything" and poo poo like the mini stories. Yeah. Honestly, I think it would be really cool to do a goon-run let's play with a party of multiple victim- er... I mean, volunteers, as they play through the story content. I don't feel like I have the time to edit the whole thing \ make a new character from scratch \ participate in literally everything, but I would definitely resub and help out. I feel that as the game is nearing its end, it would be good to document it in its final state so interested people could see what its story was like before the pull down the servers and replace it with the Nexon iOS version. If I were to do an outline, I would have to include: *Vanilla FFXI story, ranks 1-6 (Shadow Lord) *Rise of the Zilart *An artifact armor quest or two *The summon unlock quests *Nation storylines ranks 7-10 *Chains of Promathia *Bahamut fight \ Apocalypse Nigh *Treasures of Aht Urghan *Wings of the Goddess *Abyssea storyline maybe? *Seekers of Aldouin? *Rhapsodies of Vana'diel I feel like you could easily skip the Crystal and Moogle scenarios, but the Shantotto one is pretty funny and needs to be seen to be believed. You could also include basic stuff like getting a subjob, chocobo license, what Dynamis \ Limbus was like, Nyzul Isle, and so on. You'd also have to touch on the history of the game and what it used to be like, warts and all. Anything I'm missing, frod?
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May 5, 2015 23:05
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Gammatron 64 posted:Yeah. Things i'd add: Limbus 75 bosses: could probably skip most runs and get the chips for the normal boss. dynamis bosses (including COP & tav) : prefarm the boss pops ACP Carby Prime DIablos Prime Odin Prime Atomos Prime Caitsith Prime Starting city choice matches with WOTG city choice. AF quests for people's 'favorite' jobs. Fellow NPC Questline (maybe) Pretty much everything listed i'd bet a group of 4 could do within reason, and anything they wouldn't be able to finish i could just outright wreck on my main if it becomes a roadblock.
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May 5, 2015 23:30
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Srice posted:I think FF3 would be a less terrible choice than FF11 for a job fiesta. FF3 would be terrible because you get a lot of classes way late in the game, and because there are parts where you pretty much need certain classes. FF5 gives you a lot of flexibility in how you approach its challenges, which is why the fiesta works so well.
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May 6, 2015 00:18
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:
But that's 99% of them! Also this talk of "no, fiesta-ing this game or this game or this game etc. is impossible because x" feels a lot like how people approached Twitch Plays Pokemon. I reckon some people just need to roll up their proverbial britches and just do it, and then say whether or not it can be done with certainty.
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May 6, 2015 01:53
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Fister Roboto posted:FF3 would be terrible because you get a lot of classes way late in the game, and because there are parts where you pretty much need certain classes. FF5 gives you a lot of flexibility in how you approach its challenges, which is why the fiesta works so well. Yeah that's basically the reason why I said it'd be bad! Plus all the classes that only have a single purpose and are really bad, like scholar.
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May 6, 2015 02:45
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Help Im Alive posted:I wonder if the four job fiesta thing works with X-2 dress spheres You could do that, you'd just miss out on X-2's uniqueness with changing jobs mid-battle, which is a real shame. It would be better to create a challenge that's more relevant to X-2's battle system. Having said that, I recently completed a playthrough where YRP were Samurai/Berserker/Trainer for the whole game, and it was a blast. I did a quick playthrough beforehand where I blitzed through the game and acquired all the dresspheres without gaining any AP towards them, and I used that as a base file for my NG+ playthrough.
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May 6, 2015 06:51
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Gologle posted:But that's 99% of them! It is, and he's not wrong.
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May 6, 2015 12:25
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FXIII where you get one role per party member.
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May 6, 2015 13:37
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Mega64 posted:FF5 is a weird case because you get all the jobs but one in the first third of the game. Pretty sure only Tactics lets you access all jobs that early on, and that requires a ton of grinding anyway, especially for the later jobs. Plus FF5 gives its jobs in plot-designated batches, with only one job locked behind a side quest (and even then it's a gimmicky one anyway). The closest any other FF game comes to fitting the Fiesta is FF1, and that one's hurt by having only six jobs to choose from and having nothing interesting to learn from. 12 IZJS could work, but that's not nearly as easy for people to access as FF5. The other problem for tactics is that while the jobs themselves are accessible technically from the first time you unlock a random battle, the equipment is all plot-locked akin to 5. And tactics has a lot more gradual progression it seems. So in spell caster cases, it's no problem at all to grind immediately to your caster class and start accumulating spells (also drastically different from 5 because you can get any spell at any time as long as you want to invest the time grinding JP), the physical classes are kind of boned. Well, just dragoon and samurai I suppose since their unique weapons are part of the power of the class.
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May 6, 2015 13:39
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The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a FF1 Fiesta if only because it would result in a bunch of people playing it for the first time.
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May 6, 2015 13:50
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Srice posted:The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a FF1 Fiesta if only because it would result in a bunch of people playing it for the first time. A ff1 Fiesta could be made pretty interesting with optional randomized equipment/spell restrictions to spice things up for more experienced players. Ninja is such a mediocre advanced class but it would suddenly become far more appealing when your knight is restricted to using knives and staves and your red wizard isn't allowed to learn FAST. FF1 has been so heavily modded and disassembled that it probably wouldn't be a stretch to make a Fiesta randomizer that provides a unique rom patch for each player that signs up for a non-vanilla experience- then you could end up with weird variants that aren't possible in the core game, like having white mages that can't learn the CURE line of spells but can equip axes and red mage armor
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May 6, 2015 14:14
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just have people do a run through of that FF6 randomizer
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May 6, 2015 14:22
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You know... isn't playing a four job fiesta in FF1 just... I dunno... playing FF1 like normal?
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May 6, 2015 14:24
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Gammatron 64 posted:You know... isn't playing a four job fiesta in FF1 just... I dunno... playing FF1 like normal? Yah but it'd give folks motivation to try FF1 out and/or beat it, and these days a lot of people who like FF haven't done that. Plus there can be some fun ways to spice it up.
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May 6, 2015 15:16
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Srice posted:Yah but it'd give folks motivation to try FF1 out and/or beat it, and these days a lot of people who like FF haven't done that. I like the GBA version of FF1. Never could get very far in the original NES one though.
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May 6, 2015 15:27
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Srice posted:Yah but it'd give folks motivation to try FF1 out and/or beat it, and these days a lot of people who like FF haven't done that. I like FF1 quite a bit but I would pity anyone who got more than 2 white mages. I know there are clever ways that it can be done even with a party of 4 white mages, but ugh...I think most people would just quit.
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May 6, 2015 15:38
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The more i think about it, the better the idea of running a group or two thru ffxi's story would be. I can easily mitigate or eliminate almost all of the barriers/grind to 'completing' the game story all while being able to explain and reminisce about past aspects of the game. All the complaints in this thread so far are either completely wrong now, or can be entirely mitigated via experience, planning, budget or avoidance. Gear is almost entirely a nonissue, as are most combat skills. Im thinking groups of 4-6 people. 1 veteran 'leader' in each group to organize and explain with the goonshell to fall back on for muscle and grind mitigation.
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May 6, 2015 17:56
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ImpAtom posted:Bravely Default allows you to start a NG+ with all jobs but no other bonuses so that's one potential idea.
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May 6, 2015 18:25
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frodnonnag posted:The more i think about it, the better the idea of running a group or two thru ffxi's story would be. I can easily mitigate or eliminate almost all of the barriers/grind to 'completing' the game story all while being able to explain and reminisce about past aspects of the game. All the complaints in this thread so far are either completely wrong now, or can be entirely mitigated via experience, planning, budget or avoidance. Gear is almost entirely a nonissue, as are most combat skills. Depending on how far you want to go, a lot of private servers are super easy mode and support storyline missions through aht urghan so you could do a solo playthrough. A lot of things aren't quite calculated like retail does though so you can do stuff like have a red mage off hand a kraken club and hit with enspell iis for 50 additional damage a swing, or jack up a ninja's int/mab to ridiculous levels and sling 500 damage elemental: ni nukes constantly (Despite access to these things the torama camp in onzozo is still terrible. Go camp your assault jerkin on your own time, thf or drg) pretty soft girl fucked around with this message at 18:32 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 18:30
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You could always split it up by plot with a bit of finagling, and do a run where each character gets one job from the bunch. If it's randomized, you'd have to actually think pretty hard about how to make use of the tools available to you. The groupings would probably be Getting the Airship (White Mage, Monk, Black Mage, Knight), First Crystal (Thief, Merchant, Spell Fencer, Time Mage), Second Crystal (Summoner, Ranger, Valkyrie, Red Mage), Third Crystal (Pirate, Performer, Salve-maker, Ninja), Last Crystal (Swordmaster, Arcanist, Spiritmaster, Templar) and Chapter 7 (Dark Knight, Vampire, Conjurer, Freelancer). Or something to that effect. The important part is each "section" having four jobs, so that every character ends up with 6 to choose from. You could drop the end for 5 jobs apiece, barring access to the absurd power of the Dark Knight and Vampire (and as an added bonus letting you finish the game any time after chapter... 5?)
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May 6, 2015 18:37
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pretty soft girl posted:Depending on how far you want to go, a lot of private servers are super easy mode and support storyline missions through aht urghan so you could do a solo playthrough. A lot of things aren't quite calculated like retail does though so you can do stuff like have a red mage off hand a kraken club and hit with enspell iis for 50 additional damage a swing, or jack up a ninja's int/mab to ridiculous levels and sling 500 damage elemental: ni nukes constantly Well, the alterior motive for this is to have a group of newbies who are prepped for Rhapsodies, the final expansion/update to the game which ends this november. Doing this means that old vets who quit or new people who are interested would be able to experience the actual end of the game.
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May 6, 2015 18:48
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