If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Edit: I left because abyssea made years of working for gear irrelevant, and I stayed away because they made lvling so easy.
If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Not to take away what you had accomplished in game as far as leveling goes, it amounts to about 10% of the game content. For me personally I got through most of my job leveling in the first 6 months I played. My pride in the game came from end game gear and accomplishments.
If leveling is all you had then you're right, FFXI is definetally not the game for you anymore. But the sheer amount of content after leveling is so huge that if you like doing events it's worth returning.
If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Not to take away what you had accomplished in game as far as leveling goes, it amounts to about 10% of the game content. For me personally I got through most of my job leveling in the first 6 months I played. My pride in the game came from end game gear and accomplishments.
If leveling is all you had then you're right, FFXI is definetally not the game for you anymore. But the sheer amount of content after leveling is so huge that if you like doing events it's worth returning.
I had all the gear I wanted or needed except relic weapons. I started lvling jobs to use all the gear I had. FFXI had great endgame, but I wouldn't say the lvling was only 10% of the game. I'd say it was 90% of the game because every job you took to lvl 75 added to the endgame. more gear you needed, different playstyle, different solo opportunities. If someone played one job in ffxi they could finish all the content and get all the gear they needed in 6 months.
Edit: So maybe it wasn't the "lvling" that was what increased the content, but having jobs lvl 75 added to the content. It also ment I never was LFG or was ever left out of anything.
If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
We're not making a big deal about nothing. If your post is any indication, you don't seem to understand the bigger picture of what Abyssea did to the game overall and why it turned away so many people. It's not just that there's faster leveling. The faster leveling is only one part of a much bigger picture.
Abyssea totally changed what people expect from the game, it changed the dynamic of how it's played. It changed people's focus on "what's important" and "what's worthwhile" in the game.
Unfortunately, because SE decided to try and capture the typical "need everything faster and easier!" gamer by uncapping much of that older content, and then introducing the ability to get from 30 to level cap within a couple days, or faster, completely possible with Abyssea - not to mention all the changes they made elsewhere to similar effect - they essentially turned the game into a power-leveler's paradise that left people feeling like there was no point in grouping up for just about any mission/story content anymore.
It fundamentally changed the game and the way it's played. It threw everything out of whack. I know people who've gone back to check it out since the changes you mention and they've all, independently, found the same thing. It's still all screwed up. Abyssea has left a major stain on the game, and it's not coming out unless or until SE introduces some major game changes that bring it back to the sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic storylines that attracted people to the game in the first place, and then kept them playing for all those years.
This is something even SE has since come out and admitted. They went too far with Abyssea, threw the rest of the game out of whack and now have the challenge of trying to right the ship again, without pissing off either side any further in the process.
Now, if SE's answer to the situation truly is "well, you can either have a level grind, or you can have a gear grind", as your characterization seems to indicate, then they have truly lost the plot, and forgotten what it was about XI that earned them a large and loyal playerbase to begin with. It wasn't the level grind, and it wasn't the gear grind alone that won over so many people for so long. XI's appeal went far beyond that. Levels and, to a lesser degree, better gear were a means to an end in XI, not an end in themselves.
If this new expansion somehow manages to bring back some of what XI had been for years prior to Abyssea, then I'll happily come back and give it another go. Until then, though, nothing they've added or done to try and "fix it" will do.
If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Not to take away what you had accomplished in game as far as leveling goes, it amounts to about 10% of the game content. For me personally I got through most of my job leveling in the first 6 months I played. My pride in the game came from end game gear and accomplishments.
If leveling is all you had then you're right, FFXI is definetally not the game for you anymore. But the sheer amount of content after leveling is so huge that if you like doing events it's worth returning.
Curious.
Why did you leave out the bit of why they left the game in your quote, especially considering it's the one that's most relevant to why they left? It's not like his post is so long that it needed to be trimmed down for brevity's sake.
He says, quote: "Edit: I left because abyssea made years of working for gear irrelevant, and I stayed away because they made lvling so easy."
That sums up why he left the game, and yet that's the line you leave out, then proceeding to dismiss his achievements so you could come back with your argument about all the content that's in the game. Yet you left it out completely.
Reading your response, it's clear that your remarks about content at level cap would be irrelevant to his reasons for leaving, since "lack of content" wasn't one of them. Is that why you left that last bit out? So you could force your response, even though it doesn't actually address what he said?
He last edited his post 5 minutes before yours was posted, so it's not like he went back and edited that bit in after you posted your reply.
We're not making a big deal about nothing. If your post is any indication, you don't seem to understand the bigger picture of what Abyssea did to the game overall and why it turned away so many people. It's not just that there's faster leveling. The faster leveling is only one part of a much bigger picture.
Abyssea totally changed what people expect from the game, it changed the dynamic of how it's played. It changed people's focus on "what's important" and "what's worthwhile" in the game.
Once upon a time, I could find help to do things like different story missions and such. It could be tough sometimes because people had other things they were doing and so you'd have to plan ahead a bit, but you could get it done. Now it's just "You don't need help with those missions. Just spend a couple days in Abyssea, get your jobs to level cap, and you can solo them easily". I don't want to solo them easily. I don't want them to be easy at all. I want to experience the challenges at the level range they were designed for.
The irony is, I've been accused of being "lazy" for not wanting to power-level my jobs to cap in Abyssea so I could solo them. I'm lazy because I want there to be challenge in what I'm playing, with the chance of failure, instead of it being a cake walk. Right. Sure.
Unfortunately, because SE decided to try and capture the typical "need everything faster and easier!" gamer by uncapping much of that older content, and then introducing the ability to get from 30 to level cap within a couple days, or faster, completely possible with Abyssea.. they essentially turned the game into a power-leveler's paradise that left people feeling like there was no point in grouping up for just about any mission/story content anymore.
It fundamentally changed the game and the way it's played. It threw everything out of whack. I know people who've gone back to check it out since the changes you mention and they've all, independently, found the same thing. It's still all screwed up. Abyssea has left a major stain on the game, and it's not coming out unless or until SE introduces some major game changes that bring it back to the sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic storylines that attracted people to the game in the first place, and then kept them playing for all those years.
This is something even SE has since come out and admitted. They went too far with Abyssea, threw the rest of the game out of whack and now have the challenge of trying to right the ship again, without pissing off either side any further in the process.
Now, if SE's answer to the situation truly is "well, you can either have a level grind, or you can have a gear grind", as your characterization seems to indicate, then they have truly lost the plot, and forgotten what it was about XI that earned them a large and loyal playerbase to begin with. It wasn't the level grind, and it wasn't the gear grind.
If this new expansion somehow manages to bring back some of what XI had been for years prior to Abyssea, then I'll happily come back and give it another go. Until then, though, nothing they've added or done to try and "fix it" will do.
Even with Abyssea, XI is still the only MMO I know of where you work your way through storylines, breaking through milestones like getting a Chocobo License, an Airship License, Limit Breaks, etc. The game is still group oriented, is still focused on storylines, and endgame is the same.
Abyssea just gives an option for faster levels. It does allow players to level beyond means and solo most earlier milestones, but it's an option to the player. Find some friends and do it at the right level. If you can't find anyone, that's how it was like when the game was older and you didn't have the option to solo through them.
The game is still better than any other game out there IMO, even with the faster leveling speed. That's why I still play, and will continue to play. I'm looking forward to the new expansion only because I know it will renew the endgame for level 99's, more so than them updating the old endgame systems like Dynamis and Einherjar.
We're not making a big deal about nothing. If your post is any indication, you don't seem to understand the bigger picture of what Abyssea did to the game overall and why it turned away so many people. It's not just that there's faster leveling. The faster leveling is only one part of a much bigger picture.
Abyssea totally changed what people expect from the game, it changed the dynamic of how it's played. It changed people's focus on "what's important" and "what's worthwhile" in the game.
Once upon a time, I could find help to do things like different story missions and such. It could be tough sometimes because people had other things they were doing and so you'd have to plan ahead a bit, but you could get it done. Now it's just "You don't need help with those missions. Just spend a couple days in Abyssea, get your jobs to level cap, and you can solo them easily". I don't want to solo them easily. I don't want them to be easy at all. I want to experience the challenges at the level range they were designed for.
The irony is, I've been accused of being "lazy" for not wanting to power-level my jobs to cap in Abyssea so I could solo them. I'm lazy because I want there to be challenge in what I'm playing, with the chance of failure, instead of it being a cake walk. Right. Sure.
Unfortunately, because SE decided to try and capture the typical "need everything faster and easier!" gamer by uncapping much of that older content, and then introducing the ability to get from 30 to level cap within a couple days, or faster, completely possible with Abyssea.. they essentially turned the game into a power-leveler's paradise that left people feeling like there was no point in grouping up for just about any mission/story content anymore.
It fundamentally changed the game and the way it's played. It threw everything out of whack. I know people who've gone back to check it out since the changes you mention and they've all, independently, found the same thing. It's still all screwed up. Abyssea has left a major stain on the game, and it's not coming out unless or until SE introduces some major game changes that bring it back to the sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic storylines that attracted people to the game in the first place, and then kept them playing for all those years.
This is something even SE has since come out and admitted. They went too far with Abyssea, threw the rest of the game out of whack and now have the challenge of trying to right the ship again, without pissing off either side any further in the process.
Now, if SE's answer to the situation truly is "well, you can either have a level grind, or you can have a gear grind", as your characterization seems to indicate, then they have truly lost the plot, and forgotten what it was about XI that earned them a large and loyal playerbase to begin with. It wasn't the level grind, and it wasn't the gear grind.
If this new expansion somehow manages to bring back some of what XI had been for years prior to Abyssea, then I'll happily come back and give it another go. Until then, though, nothing they've added or done to try and "fix it" will do.
Even with Abyssea, XI is still the only MMO I know of where you work your way through storylines, breaking through milestones like getting a Chocobo License, an Airship License, Limit Breaks, etc. The game is still group oriented, is still focused on storylines, and endgame is the same.
Abyssea just gives an option for faster levels. It does allow players to level beyond means and solo most earlier milestones, but it's an option to the player. Find some friends and do it at the right level. If you can't find anyone, that's how it was like when the game was older and you didn't have the option to solo through them.
The game is still better than any other game out there IMO, even with the faster leveling speed. That's why I still play, and will continue to play. I'm looking forward to the new expansion only because I know it will renew the endgame for level 99's, more so than them updating the old endgame systems like Dynamis and Einherjar.
What you described there goes completely against what my and others experiences have been.
I came back to the game about 4 times with Abyssea. Each time was the same. No matter what I was trying to get a group together to do, no one was interested.
Story missions? "Nope. Do Abyssea and then solo them later."
Assault? "Nope. Waste of time. Do Abyssea."
Why are CB's so dead? "lol CB. Do Abyssea"
Why is there no one in Whitegate? They're doing Abyssea.
My PLD is level 14, anyone want to group up for some xp? "Groups are a waste of time. Do Astral Burn, then go to Abyssea and you can get to level cap inside of a day if you're in a good group".
... and on and on and on...
It's not jokingly called "Final Abyssea XI" or "Final Abyssea Online" by so many for nothing. Over the course of well over a year, every time I came back to check the game out again, that's what I was met with. The only thing anyone cared about, was interested in or felt was worth their, or my time... was doing Abyssea.
Further, SE didn't come out admitting that they went overboard with Abyssea and threw the rest of the game out of whack for nothing. They swent too far. They screwed up. And they knew it.
The only people I see fully defending Abyssea or what it did to FFXI as a whole are those who love the idea that they can power-level to cap in record times, and who love the fact that they can solo almost all the missions, 'cause they never really wanted to group up for them anyway. They love the fact that the only time they have to deal with other players is for higher end raids that can't be soloed. I saw many people trying to defend Abyssea to me as "what the game should have been like since day 1", that "SE finally got it right", that "FFXI was finally a real MMO". I had people defending Abyssea so aggressively that they outright started attacking me personally because I dared to express that I wasn't enjoying it, as though it were their own child or something.
For everyone else who enjoyed and embrace the much larger game, the myriad activities, the long-term goals, the activity of grouping up with others to gain xp or do missions or quests... the community, the sense of adventure.. everything that XI was designed to focus on for the first 7+ years of its existence, Abyssea was a death knell.
I know people will continue to defend Abyssea as something great that happened to FFXI. I (and many others who can, and have, speak for themselves) will continue to disagree. SE claims they've learned from their mistakes with Abyssea, of how they went wrong with it, and are striving to fix what they messed up. Perhaps this expansion will be a major step toward that end. I'll wait and see.
If you left because you thought Abyssea ruined the game for you now is the time to come back and play. Abyssea is pretty much a non factor now (except for leveling, which has already been talked about in this thread).
There is now the gear grind which is known as Voidwatch. They have also revamped Nyzul Isle, Einherjar, and Limbus. There is Legion for 18-36 people and it's not newbie freindly at all.
Fact is once you get through Abyssea and get your jobs to cap, Empy armor, and Empy weapons, there is really no reason to ever return.
I think people who left when Abyssea was released are still making a big deal out of nothing. I have been playing since 2005, I played through the Abyssea content and the game has turned back into the old gear grind that everyone loves minus the domination of EGLSs.
I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Not to take away what you had accomplished in game as far as leveling goes, it amounts to about 10% of the game content. For me personally I got through most of my job leveling in the first 6 months I played. My pride in the game came from end game gear and accomplishments.
If leveling is all you had then you're right, FFXI is definetally not the game for you anymore. But the sheer amount of content after leveling is so huge that if you like doing events it's worth returning.
Curious.
Why did you leave out the bit of why they left the game in your quote, especially considering it's the one that's most relevant to why they left? It's not like his post is so long that it needed to be trimmed down for brevity's sake.
He says, quote: "Edit: I left because abyssea made years of working for gear irrelevant, and I stayed away because they made lvling so easy."
That sums up why he left the game, and yet that's the line you leave out, then proceeding to dismiss his achievements so you could come back with your argument about all the content that's in the game. Yet you left it out completely.
Reading your response, it's clear that your remarks about content at level cap would be irrelevant to his reasons for leaving, since "lack of content" wasn't one of them. Is that why you left that last bit out? So you could force your response, even though it doesn't actually address what he said?
He last edited his post 5 minutes before yours was posted, so it's not like he went back and edited that bit in after you posted your reply.
Just because you quote someone does not mean you have to cover everything in the quote. I covered what I thought was important. Not everyone needs to write long-winded responses that make people want to slit their wrists with mindless whining about a game they have no clue about anymore.
I was simply trying to help some people understand the game dynamics in todays FFXI, not from the point of view from one of your friends that came back and played for a week and quit but someone who stuck it out and is still playing today.
You can use Abyssea as an excuse to not play anymore but you will be wrong. The fact is, unless you come back and play through Abyssea and move on to the new content you have no idea what the game is like today and cannot comment on it's current state without looking stupid.
I have already gone over the new content but nobody want's to comment on something that will negate the mindless bitching about how "bad" Abyssea was for the game. Incase you hadn't noticed, since Abyssea came out subs have increased. Bad for the game? I think not. Bad for people who want to stand around in whitegate and feel special about jobs they leveled, maybe.
Don't worry though, this will be my last reply in this thread. It's not worth trying to argue with a bunch of people who no longer play. Why post things about exciting new content on a site full of people that don't play anymore, right?
Play it, don't play it, I don't really give a shit.
Edit: Before you even say it and so I don't have to reply to it; I finished all my misions before abyssea came out. I also took every current 99 job to 75 the old fashoined way. Mindlessly killing Colibri over and over.
What you described there goes completely against what my and others experiences have been.
I came back to the game about 4 times with Abyssea. Each time was the same. No matter what I was trying to get a group together to do, no one was interested.
Story missions? "Nope. Do Abyssea and then solo them later."
Assault? "Nope. Waste of time. Do Abyssea."
Why are CB's so dead? "lol CB. Do Abyssea"
Why is there no one in Whitegate? They're doing Abyssea.
My PLD is level 14, anyone want to group up for some xp? "Groups are a waste of time. Do Astral Burn, then go to Abyssea and you can get to level cap inside of a day if you're in a good group".
Abyssea is used for leveling, it doesn't replace storylines/endgame/etc. You can't solo all story missions. Assault gives worthwhile rewards still. And Juno is just amain hub now as Whitegate. There ARE parties out there that will help with such things. Saying there's none is just a plain lie.
What you described there goes completely against what my and others experiences have been.
I came back to the game about 4 times with Abyssea. Each time was the same. No matter what I was trying to get a group together to do, no one was interested.
Story missions? "Nope. Do Abyssea and then solo them later."
Assault? "Nope. Waste of time. Do Abyssea."
Why are CB's so dead? "lol CB. Do Abyssea"
Why is there no one in Whitegate? They're doing Abyssea.
My PLD is level 14, anyone want to group up for some xp? "Groups are a waste of time. Do Astral Burn, then go to Abyssea and you can get to level cap inside of a day if you're in a good group".
... and on and on and on...
It's not jokingly called "Final Abyssea XI" or "Final Abyssea Online" by so many for nothing. Over the course of well over a year, every time I came back to check the game out again, that's what I was met with. The only thing anyone cared about, was interested in or felt was worth their, or my time... was doing Abyssea.
Further, SE didn't come out admitting that they went overboard with Abyssea and threw the rest of the game out of whack for nothing. They swent too far. They screwed up. And they knew it.
The only people I see fully defending Abyssea or what it did to FFXI as a whole are those who love the idea that they can power-level to cap in record times, and who love the fact that they can solo almost all the missions, 'cause they never really wanted to group up for them anyway. They love the fact that the only time they have to deal with other players is for higher end raids that can't be soloed. I saw many people trying to defend Abyssea to me as "what the game should have been like since day 1", that "SE finally got it right", that "FFXI was finally a real MMO". I had people defending Abyssea so aggressively that they outright started attacking me personally because I dared to express that I wasn't enjoying it, as though it were their own child or something.
For everyone else who enjoyed and embrace the much larger game, the myriad activities, the long-term goals, the activity of grouping up with others to gain xp or do missions or quests... the community, the sense of adventure.. everything that XI was designed to focus on for the first 7+ years of its existence, Abyssea was a death knell.
I know people will continue to defend Abyssea as something great that happened to FFXI. I (and many others who can, and have, speak for themselves) will continue to disagree. SE claims they've learned from their mistakes with Abyssea, of how they went wrong with it, and are striving to fix what they messed up. Perhaps this expansion will be a major step toward that end. I'll wait and see.
I'm very interested to know when the last time you were “back to the game” recently. You've clearly made up your mind on how Abyssea is the devil and it ruined the game, but I would like to address a couple of things you've said.
Missions: I'm sure you're aware most missions that used to have a level cap such as CoP no longer do, therefore making the storyline completely solo-able by anyone with a 99 job. Whether or not you leveled in Abyssea to get your job to 99 is irrelevant, it's still solo-able. You could have partied on colibri the entire time, guess what? Still don't need a group for it. I fail to see how Abyssea is responsible for the fact that no one you know wants to team up to do missions that no longer require a 40-50-60 capped group. People still shout or party up with their friends for parts of the mission that have a battle that can't be, or might be too tricky to be done alone. In fact, my newbie friendly social linkshell is heading up to sky with a few people to do DM as I write this.
Assault: Assault was ever relevant? The only thing I ever did Assault for was points for Salvage or mercenary rank ups. I suppose you could argue that Empyrean armor made Salvage gear obsolete, and you'd be partially correct. But so has Voidwatch gear, Relic+2, Neo-Nyzul Isle sets, new abjuration gear, and revamped Homam/Nashira sets. Old content is old.
Campaign: To be fair, Campaign on my server was never really what you'd call active, but I have no idea where you are from so I can't comment on the state of it on your server. People do it once in awhile here to get AN because you can buy items that allow you to do Voidwatch more often with it. In the old days, it was only full because BSTs, PLDs, THFs, DNCs, and other jobs were not desired for traditional exp or merit parties.
Whitegate: No one is there because people idle in Jeuno. Yes, initially we migrated back to Jeuno because Abyssea NPCs were there, but when Voidwatch was first introduced SE didn't place any in NPCs for it in Whitegate. Therefore, Jeuno remains the central place for people to hang out and shout (or watch for shouts) for groups, because you can get pretty much anywhere in the game from there. Remember when ToAU was released and Jeuno became a ghost town? Same deal. Shit changes.
Partying/Astral Burning: This is interesting to me, as I have not seen anyone SMN burning in a very long time. Do they still do it on your server? Here people mostly do (level synced) Gusgen Mines book parties at lowbie levels, then move on to Garlaige or Crawler's Nest. Normally just have to go to the area, hang out, and put your flag up with a seacom, just like the “old days”. If you're level 14 and want to go to like, the Dunes or something then yeah, I'd tell you you were SOL as well... since I soloed my way past those levels years ago for a reason! No offense.
Personally, I think Abyssea was good for the game at the time, but these days I treat it just like every other in-game activity. If I need something from it, I go do it until I get what I want, just like I do with Voidwatch, or Dynamis, or any other event in the game.
Oh, and last thing: I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on what kept everyone playing prior to Abyssea – because it sure wasn't “sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic story lines”... it was gear grind, so you could stand around looking better than everyone else. To the people who miss that, come back to the game! Voidwatch has all you can ask for in terms of great gear with a .01% drop rate.
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I started in 2004.. i think it was. I lvl'd 15 jobs to lvl 75 over the course of those years, and then one expansion comes out and you can do it in 2-3 days. The lvling is one of the major reasons i left. All the pride I had in the jobs I had lvl'd and the amount of diversity I brought to any end game situation was made irrelevant.
Edit: I left because abyssea made years of working for gear irrelevant, and I stayed away because they made lvling so easy.
Not to take away what you had accomplished in game as far as leveling goes, it amounts to about 10% of the game content. For me personally I got through most of my job leveling in the first 6 months I played. My pride in the game came from end game gear and accomplishments.
If leveling is all you had then you're right, FFXI is definetally not the game for you anymore. But the sheer amount of content after leveling is so huge that if you like doing events it's worth returning.
I had all the gear I wanted or needed except relic weapons. I started lvling jobs to use all the gear I had. FFXI had great endgame, but I wouldn't say the lvling was only 10% of the game. I'd say it was 90% of the game because every job you took to lvl 75 added to the endgame. more gear you needed, different playstyle, different solo opportunities. If someone played one job in ffxi they could finish all the content and get all the gear they needed in 6 months.
Edit: So maybe it wasn't the "lvling" that was what increased the content, but having jobs lvl 75 added to the content. It also ment I never was LFG or was ever left out of anything.
We're not making a big deal about nothing. If your post is any indication, you don't seem to understand the bigger picture of what Abyssea did to the game overall and why it turned away so many people. It's not just that there's faster leveling. The faster leveling is only one part of a much bigger picture.
Abyssea totally changed what people expect from the game, it changed the dynamic of how it's played. It changed people's focus on "what's important" and "what's worthwhile" in the game.
Unfortunately, because SE decided to try and capture the typical "need everything faster and easier!" gamer by uncapping much of that older content, and then introducing the ability to get from 30 to level cap within a couple days, or faster, completely possible with Abyssea - not to mention all the changes they made elsewhere to similar effect - they essentially turned the game into a power-leveler's paradise that left people feeling like there was no point in grouping up for just about any mission/story content anymore.
It fundamentally changed the game and the way it's played. It threw everything out of whack. I know people who've gone back to check it out since the changes you mention and they've all, independently, found the same thing. It's still all screwed up. Abyssea has left a major stain on the game, and it's not coming out unless or until SE introduces some major game changes that bring it back to the sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic storylines that attracted people to the game in the first place, and then kept them playing for all those years.
This is something even SE has since come out and admitted. They went too far with Abyssea, threw the rest of the game out of whack and now have the challenge of trying to right the ship again, without pissing off either side any further in the process.
Now, if SE's answer to the situation truly is "well, you can either have a level grind, or you can have a gear grind", as your characterization seems to indicate, then they have truly lost the plot, and forgotten what it was about XI that earned them a large and loyal playerbase to begin with. It wasn't the level grind, and it wasn't the gear grind alone that won over so many people for so long. XI's appeal went far beyond that. Levels and, to a lesser degree, better gear were a means to an end in XI, not an end in themselves.
If this new expansion somehow manages to bring back some of what XI had been for years prior to Abyssea, then I'll happily come back and give it another go. Until then, though, nothing they've added or done to try and "fix it" will do.
Curious.
Why did you leave out the bit of why they left the game in your quote, especially considering it's the one that's most relevant to why they left? It's not like his post is so long that it needed to be trimmed down for brevity's sake.
He says, quote: "Edit: I left because abyssea made years of working for gear irrelevant, and I stayed away because they made lvling so easy."
That sums up why he left the game, and yet that's the line you leave out, then proceeding to dismiss his achievements so you could come back with your argument about all the content that's in the game. Yet you left it out completely.
Reading your response, it's clear that your remarks about content at level cap would be irrelevant to his reasons for leaving, since "lack of content" wasn't one of them. Is that why you left that last bit out? So you could force your response, even though it doesn't actually address what he said?
He last edited his post 5 minutes before yours was posted, so it's not like he went back and edited that bit in after you posted your reply.
Even with Abyssea, XI is still the only MMO I know of where you work your way through storylines, breaking through milestones like getting a Chocobo License, an Airship License, Limit Breaks, etc. The game is still group oriented, is still focused on storylines, and endgame is the same.
Abyssea just gives an option for faster levels. It does allow players to level beyond means and solo most earlier milestones, but it's an option to the player. Find some friends and do it at the right level. If you can't find anyone, that's how it was like when the game was older and you didn't have the option to solo through them.
The game is still better than any other game out there IMO, even with the faster leveling speed. That's why I still play, and will continue to play. I'm looking forward to the new expansion only because I know it will renew the endgame for level 99's, more so than them updating the old endgame systems like Dynamis and Einherjar.
What you described there goes completely against what my and others experiences have been.
I came back to the game about 4 times with Abyssea. Each time was the same. No matter what I was trying to get a group together to do, no one was interested.
Story missions? "Nope. Do Abyssea and then solo them later."
Assault? "Nope. Waste of time. Do Abyssea."
Why are CB's so dead? "lol CB. Do Abyssea"
Why is there no one in Whitegate? They're doing Abyssea.
My PLD is level 14, anyone want to group up for some xp? "Groups are a waste of time. Do Astral Burn, then go to Abyssea and you can get to level cap inside of a day if you're in a good group".
... and on and on and on...
It's not jokingly called "Final Abyssea XI" or "Final Abyssea Online" by so many for nothing. Over the course of well over a year, every time I came back to check the game out again, that's what I was met with. The only thing anyone cared about, was interested in or felt was worth their, or my time... was doing Abyssea.
Further, SE didn't come out admitting that they went overboard with Abyssea and threw the rest of the game out of whack for nothing. They swent too far. They screwed up. And they knew it.
The only people I see fully defending Abyssea or what it did to FFXI as a whole are those who love the idea that they can power-level to cap in record times, and who love the fact that they can solo almost all the missions, 'cause they never really wanted to group up for them anyway. They love the fact that the only time they have to deal with other players is for higher end raids that can't be soloed. I saw many people trying to defend Abyssea to me as "what the game should have been like since day 1", that "SE finally got it right", that "FFXI was finally a real MMO". I had people defending Abyssea so aggressively that they outright started attacking me personally because I dared to express that I wasn't enjoying it, as though it were their own child or something.
For everyone else who enjoyed and embrace the much larger game, the myriad activities, the long-term goals, the activity of grouping up with others to gain xp or do missions or quests... the community, the sense of adventure.. everything that XI was designed to focus on for the first 7+ years of its existence, Abyssea was a death knell.
I know people will continue to defend Abyssea as something great that happened to FFXI. I (and many others who can, and have, speak for themselves) will continue to disagree. SE claims they've learned from their mistakes with Abyssea, of how they went wrong with it, and are striving to fix what they messed up. Perhaps this expansion will be a major step toward that end. I'll wait and see.
Just because you quote someone does not mean you have to cover everything in the quote. I covered what I thought was important. Not everyone needs to write long-winded responses that make people want to slit their wrists with mindless whining about a game they have no clue about anymore.
I was simply trying to help some people understand the game dynamics in todays FFXI, not from the point of view from one of your friends that came back and played for a week and quit but someone who stuck it out and is still playing today.
You can use Abyssea as an excuse to not play anymore but you will be wrong. The fact is, unless you come back and play through Abyssea and move on to the new content you have no idea what the game is like today and cannot comment on it's current state without looking stupid.
I have already gone over the new content but nobody want's to comment on something that will negate the mindless bitching about how "bad" Abyssea was for the game. Incase you hadn't noticed, since Abyssea came out subs have increased. Bad for the game? I think not. Bad for people who want to stand around in whitegate and feel special about jobs they leveled, maybe.
Don't worry though, this will be my last reply in this thread. It's not worth trying to argue with a bunch of people who no longer play. Why post things about exciting new content on a site full of people that don't play anymore, right?
Play it, don't play it, I don't really give a shit.
Edit: Before you even say it and so I don't have to reply to it; I finished all my misions before abyssea came out. I also took every current 99 job to 75 the old fashoined way. Mindlessly killing Colibri over and over.
Abyssea is used for leveling, it doesn't replace storylines/endgame/etc. You can't solo all story missions. Assault gives worthwhile rewards still. And Juno is just amain hub now as Whitegate. There ARE parties out there that will help with such things. Saying there's none is just a plain lie.
I'm very interested to know when the last time you were “back to the game” recently. You've clearly made up your mind on how Abyssea is the devil and it ruined the game, but I would like to address a couple of things you've said.
Missions: I'm sure you're aware most missions that used to have a level cap such as CoP no longer do, therefore making the storyline completely solo-able by anyone with a 99 job. Whether or not you leveled in Abyssea to get your job to 99 is irrelevant, it's still solo-able. You could have partied on colibri the entire time, guess what? Still don't need a group for it. I fail to see how Abyssea is responsible for the fact that no one you know wants to team up to do missions that no longer require a 40-50-60 capped group. People still shout or party up with their friends for parts of the mission that have a battle that can't be, or might be too tricky to be done alone. In fact, my newbie friendly social linkshell is heading up to sky with a few people to do DM as I write this.
Assault: Assault was ever relevant? The only thing I ever did Assault for was points for Salvage or mercenary rank ups. I suppose you could argue that Empyrean armor made Salvage gear obsolete, and you'd be partially correct. But so has Voidwatch gear, Relic+2, Neo-Nyzul Isle sets, new abjuration gear, and revamped Homam/Nashira sets. Old content is old.
Campaign: To be fair, Campaign on my server was never really what you'd call active, but I have no idea where you are from so I can't comment on the state of it on your server. People do it once in awhile here to get AN because you can buy items that allow you to do Voidwatch more often with it. In the old days, it was only full because BSTs, PLDs, THFs, DNCs, and other jobs were not desired for traditional exp or merit parties.
Whitegate: No one is there because people idle in Jeuno. Yes, initially we migrated back to Jeuno because Abyssea NPCs were there, but when Voidwatch was first introduced SE didn't place any in NPCs for it in Whitegate. Therefore, Jeuno remains the central place for people to hang out and shout (or watch for shouts) for groups, because you can get pretty much anywhere in the game from there. Remember when ToAU was released and Jeuno became a ghost town? Same deal. Shit changes.
Partying/Astral Burning: This is interesting to me, as I have not seen anyone SMN burning in a very long time. Do they still do it on your server? Here people mostly do (level synced) Gusgen Mines book parties at lowbie levels, then move on to Garlaige or Crawler's Nest. Normally just have to go to the area, hang out, and put your flag up with a seacom, just like the “old days”. If you're level 14 and want to go to like, the Dunes or something then yeah, I'd tell you you were SOL as well... since I soloed my way past those levels years ago for a reason! No offense.
Personally, I think Abyssea was good for the game at the time, but these days I treat it just like every other in-game activity. If I need something from it, I go do it until I get what I want, just like I do with Voidwatch, or Dynamis, or any other event in the game.
Oh, and last thing: I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on what kept everyone playing prior to Abyssea – because it sure wasn't “sense of community, and of helping other players out and of grand adventure and epic story lines”... it was gear grind, so you could stand around looking better than everyone else. To the people who miss that, come back to the game! Voidwatch has all you can ask for in terms of great gear with a .01% drop rate.