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FFXI is THE most well rounded, solid, deep, and immersing mmo ever created.
ProfRed
Member UncommonPosts: 3,495
FFXI is THE most well rounded, solid, deep, and immersing mmo ever created. I have played over 12 different MMO's and i've experienced online gaming all of my life starting with DOOM Co-op and old school mudds. I am still saying that FFXI is THE best well kept secret among MMO players.
I will start out by addressing people's complaints about the game.
- You have to seek for hours to get a party.
No you don't. I have leveled SAM and DRG and i've never had to wait more than 30 minutes for a party. These are two of the hardest jobs to find parties. All you have to do is make your own. I know some people are against this and would rather complain about long seek times, but if you want to level then make your party. You will need a healer so type /sea all smn (-2 to +2) and /sea all whm (-2 to +2) and invite every single person in the list. All of them including the ones in parties. To the ones in parties you ask if they are interested in partying anytime soon. Repeat for the other members in your party based on where you are leveling. www.campsitaurus.com is extremely helpful in making your parties. On average I can make an entire party in about 15-20 minutes at any given time. This is important: You have to party because this is a socially immersing MMO so make friends as you go and you will wind up having 3 or more party spots full everytime with regulars.
- Getting anywhere with acquiring items or advancing takes alot of allies.
Yes it does. This is an immersive MMO. It encourages socializing with other gamers inside the game environment which might turn some people off in the beginning but these same people will go play a game like WoW and complain that no one helps them and at the end of the day how many friends have they not made? The greatest thing about an MMO is the relationships you develop because when the uber gear and items are finally obtained what is there? Your adventuring partners. This will become the most valuable part of this game and will be the reason players will continue to come back to it after they try every other game out there right now. This is a blessing in disguise.
- The game has been out for so long now that everyone is max level and starting off will be lonely and hard.
This is true in that a huge majority of the server will have at least one job to level 75. The great thing about FFXI in dealing with the age of a game is that every character can level any of the many many jobs in the game by switching their job/class in their moghouse. Also new players are still flowing into FFXI. There are always a lot of players in all starting areas and FFXI has a mentoring program where new players can get help and get in good with a group of experienced players. High level players leveling lower level jobs mesh with new players in the first 20 levels and by level 20 every player will have made a group of friends and experienced players to help them with their journey. Compare this to other games that have some age on them and you will find that FFXI is going stronger than any of them.
- The servers are mixed with foreign players.
They definately are and this aspect turned out to be a really nice aspect to the game. There will always be racists to shoot this down, and skeptical players but after time spent in the game most people realize how nice this is. I'll explain. Take any other MMO and get on at 8am and see how populated the server is. In most games especially the older ones the servers are dead. It can be a really humbling experience when your server has 300 players on it even if it is an awkward time to play. On FFXI due to all nations merging on servers the server is populated at all times. Communication is really easy using FFXI's auto translate tool and over time it becomes extremely easy to talk to foreign players. This is also nice because each nation has a different playstyle/community that you can experience. It makes the game universe feel more real in a sense.
- The game is such a grind.
Getting a job to max level the first time takes a long time. The main reasons are inexperience, inexperience in making parties, so much to do, and lack of friends/adventuring partners. I spent a couple of years getting my SAM to 75, but I never even realized I was grinding. Actually I really wasn't grinding. There is so much to do besides leveling it is overwhelming. Multiple story lines/arcs that can takes months and months to complete, notorious monsters to camp for rare items, burning circles/instance boss fights, crafting, leveling sub-jobs, quests, helping friends, etc., etc. The list goes on and on, and with the Treasures of Aht Urghan expansion instanced missions with specific goals, and monsters invading a player city are added also. I took DRG from 1-75 in 3 months making my own parties with friends and the grind still didn't feel bad until the 70's. With the aforementioned expansion leveling has been made easier in the later levels as well.
I have played this game since launch for years and years off and on and I can fully stand behind my opening statement. No matter what games I stray off to or try out I come back to FFXI in some amount of time. It is almost like a curse to know what FFXI has to fully offer compared to other games out there. It is continuously growing also. People will grow tired of the game at some point as people grow tired of anything over time but most of them will come back to the game. Most of them find something they don't like about the game and go off on a tangent about it. These things above are the most commons things listed. This is the best game out there and is still going strong. If you haven't tried it out it is never too late.
I will start out by addressing people's complaints about the game.
- You have to seek for hours to get a party.
No you don't. I have leveled SAM and DRG and i've never had to wait more than 30 minutes for a party. These are two of the hardest jobs to find parties. All you have to do is make your own. I know some people are against this and would rather complain about long seek times, but if you want to level then make your party. You will need a healer so type /sea all smn (-2 to +2) and /sea all whm (-2 to +2) and invite every single person in the list. All of them including the ones in parties. To the ones in parties you ask if they are interested in partying anytime soon. Repeat for the other members in your party based on where you are leveling. www.campsitaurus.com is extremely helpful in making your parties. On average I can make an entire party in about 15-20 minutes at any given time. This is important: You have to party because this is a socially immersing MMO so make friends as you go and you will wind up having 3 or more party spots full everytime with regulars.
- Getting anywhere with acquiring items or advancing takes alot of allies.
Yes it does. This is an immersive MMO. It encourages socializing with other gamers inside the game environment which might turn some people off in the beginning but these same people will go play a game like WoW and complain that no one helps them and at the end of the day how many friends have they not made? The greatest thing about an MMO is the relationships you develop because when the uber gear and items are finally obtained what is there? Your adventuring partners. This will become the most valuable part of this game and will be the reason players will continue to come back to it after they try every other game out there right now. This is a blessing in disguise.
- The game has been out for so long now that everyone is max level and starting off will be lonely and hard.
This is true in that a huge majority of the server will have at least one job to level 75. The great thing about FFXI in dealing with the age of a game is that every character can level any of the many many jobs in the game by switching their job/class in their moghouse. Also new players are still flowing into FFXI. There are always a lot of players in all starting areas and FFXI has a mentoring program where new players can get help and get in good with a group of experienced players. High level players leveling lower level jobs mesh with new players in the first 20 levels and by level 20 every player will have made a group of friends and experienced players to help them with their journey. Compare this to other games that have some age on them and you will find that FFXI is going stronger than any of them.
- The servers are mixed with foreign players.
They definately are and this aspect turned out to be a really nice aspect to the game. There will always be racists to shoot this down, and skeptical players but after time spent in the game most people realize how nice this is. I'll explain. Take any other MMO and get on at 8am and see how populated the server is. In most games especially the older ones the servers are dead. It can be a really humbling experience when your server has 300 players on it even if it is an awkward time to play. On FFXI due to all nations merging on servers the server is populated at all times. Communication is really easy using FFXI's auto translate tool and over time it becomes extremely easy to talk to foreign players. This is also nice because each nation has a different playstyle/community that you can experience. It makes the game universe feel more real in a sense.
- The game is such a grind.
Getting a job to max level the first time takes a long time. The main reasons are inexperience, inexperience in making parties, so much to do, and lack of friends/adventuring partners. I spent a couple of years getting my SAM to 75, but I never even realized I was grinding. Actually I really wasn't grinding. There is so much to do besides leveling it is overwhelming. Multiple story lines/arcs that can takes months and months to complete, notorious monsters to camp for rare items, burning circles/instance boss fights, crafting, leveling sub-jobs, quests, helping friends, etc., etc. The list goes on and on, and with the Treasures of Aht Urghan expansion instanced missions with specific goals, and monsters invading a player city are added also. I took DRG from 1-75 in 3 months making my own parties with friends and the grind still didn't feel bad until the 70's. With the aforementioned expansion leveling has been made easier in the later levels as well.
I have played this game since launch for years and years off and on and I can fully stand behind my opening statement. No matter what games I stray off to or try out I come back to FFXI in some amount of time. It is almost like a curse to know what FFXI has to fully offer compared to other games out there. It is continuously growing also. People will grow tired of the game at some point as people grow tired of anything over time but most of them will come back to the game. Most of them find something they don't like about the game and go off on a tangent about it. These things above are the most commons things listed. This is the best game out there and is still going strong. If you haven't tried it out it is never too late.
Comments
Imo, FFXI is the best MMO ever created, or at least the best I've ever seen. When that is said, I'd like to comment the section from your post which I'm quoting.
I'm on Fenrir, and things seems to work VERY different there from what you describe. DRG after lvl 50 is THE worst job to get a party for, no matter if you try to join one or if you try to create your own. There are 2 exceptions: bats in KRT and colibris in new areas. Parties doing these seems to welcome a DRG as an job equal to other DMG jobs.
When I try to get a party with my DRG, I get all the usual "lolDRG" comments - trust me, I've heard them all. Sure, it might be better to create your own party, but 2 issues in your post are not good ideas, at least not on Fenrir:
If you do this, and if you keep on doing this, you will be considered rude, or at least very unpolite, and will quickly end up in a lot of blacklists.
Can't agree with you there. My main job is a WHM75/BLM37, and using a controller isn't an option for me at all. Keeping party members buffed and healthy, and occationally debuffing mobs (if we don't have a RDM or something to do it), requires LOTS of macros. I don't see how a controller can be used to effectively handle ie. 2 macro sets + quick-target functions.
I play on pc, and I don't use the mouse at all. Controlling the game via keyboard is very quick to learn, and get used to, not a problem at all.
Yes i did use a Keyboard and mouse. I realise it was originally made as a console game but for an MMO i found it very inpractical to use the same interface the FF series has used for its offline games. Still an amazing game though.