Working as Intended

As the old FFXI forums used to claim, usually quite rightfully, you never truly quit Final Fantasy XI, you just take a sudden, extended break. For me, that 'break' has been since about... March/April 2009. I left the game in quite the huff due to Wings of the Goddess being embarrassingly milked out, despite the severe lack of content it could display in comparison to the other expansions, and the ever-growing realization that the development team at the time was just pissing about.

A Crystalline Prophecy was the first mini Add-On released at the time (early March, if memory serves) and the final boss still reigns in as the champion of horrible battle design. Shame, too, since I'd actually rather like the Neuvo armour that comes from it, but oh wells. Anyway, between that gigantic waste of $10 and the decision of the development team to not work on balancing jobs or fixing levels or events, but instead to focus on goddamn bell emotes-- to the point where you need a frackin' chart just to follow it --I decided this clearly wasn't the game for me and left.

While I've signed on and off every couple of months during that time, it was almost entirely to just chat to friends I couldn't reliably contact elsewhere, and very little else, outside of a brief checking out of Abyssea.

Anywho, within the last few months, Final Fantasy XI has gotten a new Director, and a entirely new breath of life since that massive pile of awful gameplay decisions known as Hiromichi Tanaka was given the boot to work on FFXIV, and then subsequently given the boot from that as well. With this has come a... honestly, nice new approach to the game.

First off, Square-Enix did what nobody ever expected them to do, and opened up a Twitter account, and actually responds to fans and makes whimsical, non-PR-bullcrap, messages on it. While this is standard for most games/companies, for this to come from XI honestly nearly made my, and others, jaws drop.

To be truthful, it was probably that alone that made me start contemplating playing XI seriously again. Nothing dissuades me from an MMO faster then the feeling that the company in charge doesn't give two shits, so XI's Twitter account being surprisingly light-hearted, yet still informative, was a very welcoming move.

So, I dusted off the ol' PlayOnline account (which, after XIV's 'update' process, feels like a work of genius in comparison) and thought I'd take an honest stab at leveling a new job, to test out all the new stuff. After a whole.. 30 minutes of thinking (or what I do that may or may not actually be considered thinking by some) I picked up a lance and decided on the always awesome Dragoon, for two reasons:

1) I get an adorable Wyvern pet.
2) Most of my favorite characters in the series have been Dragoons, so fuck it, why not?






With shiny stabby stick of death in hand, and a good friend tagging along on his Dancer (complete with disturbing subligar and pom-poms) we went off to check out the leveling (this being a few weeks before a certain update I'll blab on about in a sec'). And it's surprisingly fun. It's repetitive, as one would honestly expect from a pre-WoW MMO, but this is probably the best this sort of gameplay can possibly hope to achieve, outside of increasing the leveling pace itself. It's sort of like going back and playing a SNES/PSX-era Final Fantasy battle system. It's dated, but it's still the best of its particular kind available.

As I was leveling, one particular problem did arise. There's currently a severe lack of low-level items and weapons on the Auction House. Since a lot of people get to Level 30 and then leech EXP in Abyssea parties all the way to 90, it means that demand is pretty damn low for equipment. It's certainly not impossible to find by any means, but some waiting or looking for alternatives may be required at times.

Though SE has said they're going to look into this, and specifically items that drop off NMs and the whole NM system itself, so here's hoping it all turns out good.

One of the biggest changes in the game for me when I returned was that 6-man parties were no longer the norm. You either went to Abyssea to leech EXP, or you formed a 2-3 man party and just roamed around beating shit up. To me, this is the way FFXI should've been in the first place. Well, not the EXP leeching bit, but y'know. Waiting for hours to make/be invited to a party, just to camp in a corner on the arse end of the world for even more hours was one of the most mind-bogglingly dull aspects of XI. It still happens, but it's no longer the one and true way to level, and thank Altana for that...

With Fields of Valor now quite popular (basically WoW-like quests, except a tad more restrictive and 100% about bashing X amount of Y mobs), most people just grab a friend or stranger and run around killing shit for a few hours, and get quite a respectable amount of EXP for it. The problem with Fields of Valor though, at the time, was that you could only do one every 45 minutes or so. This would be the sort of limitation the old FFXI staff put in, most likely with an insufferably smug shit-eating grin on their face.

When I hit about Level 35 (22 -> 35 in about 7-8 hours of gameplay) I hit another issue. Money, and the making thereof.



If you don't have a respectably leveled craft already in FFXI (or a lot of money to power level it), you're basically stuffed. While things are much, much, much cheaper then they were 'back in the day', you're still expected to develop and then vigorously shake your money-maker. I could have leveled a craft, but instead I opted to fight Avatars for moolah. 70,000 gil goes a very long way in this game now. Also helped by a friend lending me quite the sum of gil to make up for the fact that I'm impatient and lazy <3

So, with money bursting quite smugfully from my virtual wallet, I basically went and bought everything I needed for my Dragoon between 35 -> 75. Except Polearms, as they seem to be made out of the true cross and excrete solid ambrosia for how shit-slippingly difficult they are to find readily these days. But I already discussed that, so whatever.

As for Dragoon itself, I'm pleasantly surprised by it. Essentially the name of the game is:

10: Jump
20: Go to 10

But it still has some quirks that I'm finding fun to discover on my own. Namely, the lovely little Wyvern buddy you get. The breaths he fires off depend on your subjob and, if you're soloing with a BLU/RDM subjob, are nothing short of a lifesaver. No better way to make a player feel attached to a virtual pet then by making it save said player's arse about 10 times.

Once I figured out the quirks things become pretty formulaic, but still quite enjoyable. Variety when leveling stuff isn't very high in this game. In fact, if it wasn't for the constantly swapping areas and mobs, it'd be practically zero. But in order to bring a variety of workable quests into the game, most of the zones and mob layouts therein would need to be completely overhauled, which I think is asking just a bit too much.




In non-Dragoon news, I ventured back into Abyssea to try out some of the non-leveling content when the Cake Linkshell decided to toddle off there to bop a few NMs over the head. I'm... not sure if I'm sold on Abyssea as the go-to place for new content. While it has some nice system mechanics (NM respawns, quests involved, ect), I think I just honestly had a rather poor experience. About 2 hours of running about and doing mostly nothing will probably have that effect.

I think it's the time-limit for Abyssea that throws me off. It's the same reason I had some trepidations about Dynamis and Limbus when I was about to start them. A time limit, especially in a game like XI, generally brings out the worst in people, as they start demanding absolute precision and timing to get anything done. Limbus actually turned out pretty cool, and I'd welcome more events like it, but Dynamis is still just... ugh...

Thankfully hardly anyone does Dynamis anymore, so no worries about that!

Abyssea is mostly casual, but I wouldn't mind being given a bit more time while in there, if only to lessen the sense of urgency that often drives some players to becoming insufferable twats. Though that's entirely a playerbase issue and not a game issue, so I don't hold it against the developers. Or my complete retardation and constant knack to forget about stones for Abyssea until I'm already standing at the Maw going, "Golly, I wonder how much time I can get in Ab---AH FUCK!"

On the plus side, Abyssea does have a giant, awesome worm in it.

Something that someone in the LS practically solo'd, using a brew item that can only be described as the Brew of the Monocle-Dropping Gods, due to it practically giving you God Mode for a respectable amount of time. Enough time to make a five story tall worm your little bitch, in any case.




Anyway, things in XI were going pretty well. Not WoW levels of pace, but what can ya do?

Well, apparently the new XI development staff can do quite a lot about that, actually.

A few days ago, Square-Enix performed a mini-update for the game that, amongst other things, significantly increased the amount of EXP outside of Abyssea. Nobody really knew by how much it was going to be ramped up by, and were this the old XI staff it probably would've been by... 5-10 EXP a mob at best? Just for the sake of clarity, I killed an Ivory Lizard in Yuhtunga Jungle the day beforehand and got 50 EXP for it. Which is par the course for an Easy Prey mob. Honestly, I figured at most I'd now get 60-70, maybe 80 per mob. That would've been a good increase, in my book.

Instead...




Holy. Freaking. Crap.

For the uninitiated, that's the amount of EXP you used to get in a 6-man party for defeating a Very Tough mob. I was now getting that solo. Off Easy Prey enemies. I went from 39 -> 49 in about 5-6 hours of total leveling. Between that and the increase of skill-ups (which was always a giant dark spot on XI's mechanics) I would honestly try and have the development team's babies, despite being the completely wrong gender for such an undertaking. I'd find a way, damn it!

Oh, and also Fields of Valor's limitation was removed, so now players could undertake it as many times as they wanted whenever. You know, the way it should have been in the first place. I can't help but imagine Tanaka looking at the overwhelmingly positive feedback from XI since his departure, then locking himself in the bathroom while he acquaints himself with Mr. Daniels and cries in the jacuzzi.

And this is just the mini-update. For the first time in nearly three and a half years, I'm actually positively looking forward to a new FFXI Version Update. Something that'll make most of my friends go, "YeahbutWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA??"

So, yeah, XI is back to becoming an increasingly enjoyable and changing place to be in, after a depressingly long bout of stagnation. It certainly still has some issues, with Crafting and obtaining pre-70 items being the two big offenders, but I can't say that I'm not really having fun!

If, for whatever, reason, I was asked what I'd change about the game right now in ways that are considered reasonable, I'd have to go with...


1) Increased EXP rates from 50-60+. I imagine even with the increases, that'll become quite the grind outside of Abyssea. At least in comparison to pre-50 leveling.

2) Overhaul the Crafting system. While this is probably unreasonable, given the bulk work that'd be required, nobody makes use of 90% of the available recipes these days, and having to reach level 80 in a craft just to make a level 30-40 weapon/armour is simply ridiculous. A way to make low level items more readily available, or some sort of incentive to make them, is much needed.

3) Another proper expansion. I can dream! ; ;


I'll probably continue writing my thoughts and feelings about FFXI as I rapidly run my way through Dragoon levels (hee!), so, uh, I guess stay tuned for more if you're into this kind of stuff. If you're not, why the hell did you read this far, you silly person!