is it worth it?

[Murphie]

Re: is it worth it?

Well, that's some blatant post count raising if I've ever seen it. Hey Kutch, how bad has it gotten on Leviathan with RMT? I left originally because of those jerks, they made it impossible to get moneys.

Thanks for your input! I genuinely thought his post was a bit over the top, but whatever. I'll be sure to check with you in the future before posting.

[dirtyclown]

Re: is it worth it?

Thanks for your input! I genuinely thought his post was a bit over the top, but whatever. I'll be sure to check with you in the future before posting.

I LOL'd.

EDIT: Removed attached image link as it is excessively large

Please try to stay on-topic and take your flames to PMs.

Icemage
FFXIOnline Forum Super Moderator

[Murphie]

Re: is it worth it?

Ok!

[DieselBoy09]

Re: is it worth it?

I have actually seen a mass lowering of prices on everything on my server. Scorp Harness is going for 3mil, Irique thingy (that level 72 BLM armor) is about 1mil, astrals are about 900k. At least on my server RMT doesn't seem so much of a problem. We are constantly beating the RMT teams on HNMs. As far as if you should start the game? I'd say yes, I love it and will probably play it till the day it gets shut down.

On my server there is also a mass reduction in prices on most items and we still have a problem with RMT. The worst hit is probably farmers. Gear has stayed the same for the most part, but crafting items and farmables have dropped significantly due to undercutting. Beehive chips are 10k a stack and last I checked silk was down to 30k.




Oh and to answer your question... There is a decent player base, sometimes there are not enough people to form a general party and sometimes there is an excess. I do wish the server was alittle more populated, but I guess its not bad. So its really up to you.

[tdh]

Re: is it worth it?

Prices on Lakshmi have been dropping/leveling out for some time now. 1M for Woodsman's rings. As I recall they were 5.5M just after Christmas when the RMT problem was as big as it's ever been. Prices have been dropping at a pretty steady rate. DRG in my LS bought his Scrp. Harness for 2M. I recently spent 4.75M for my Hauby when another LS Member spent 13M on his back in January or so. I'm finding it's harder to raise that kind of gil, but at the same time prices are much lower. An item I used to sell 2~4 times a month for 1.9M is now going for about 600~900k.

As far as it taking you two years to hit Lv.75... Well I've been playing from June 2003 to present. I started in PS2 NA Beta test, took a forced 6 months off until PS2 NA retail was released, and then another year break for personal reasons. In that time, check out all the "work" I've done. (My Signature has all my updated jobs.) I hit my first Lv.75 in mid June I think it was, DRK61 a month ago, and a huge range of my other jobs. I don't mind the EXP grind. I rather enjoyed pushing through in the 60's, but there's always something to do it seems.

FFXI is very socially oriented. Many people I know have tons of different Linkshells, but one always seems to be their "social" one. I know there have been times where I haven't really done anything in game but goof off with LS mates, never leaving my Mog House.

For me, as soon as I'm starting to find myself bored with the game, an update /change, or expansion seems to come out. Before the latest Expansion was released I was feeling pretty bored with things. Was taking big breaks from EXP, not bothering to farm or do much of anything. Then new jobs and new areas got me very excited and I was doing everything I could. New missions, new mobs to EXP on, new jobs to enjoy, new party setups, and the list goes on. You may not find that when you hit a rough patch with the game that something news excites you again, but a lot of us have had the chance to say that.

[levish]

Re: is it worth it?

The active population is pretty steady, but FF is not a very accessible game. It requires lots of time in general.

[capitalistnihilist]

Re: is it worth it?

I won't try to derail this into a FFXI vs. WoW thread but due to my personal experience with both games, I feel the need to draw some comparisons. *dons flame suit*

I played FFXI for roughly 8 months and for the first 6 months or so found it very enjoyable. Forced grouping for experience was at times an annoyance but this was allievated the second you started chaining mobs in a great party. Nothing in the game came close to a well geared, highly skilled group either in an experience points/meripo setting or in an endgame dynamis/HNM fight.

With that being said, the last 2 months I played the game gradually revealed to me the main problem with this game. The developers don't want a large amount of people getting good gear and they also choose to ignore the idea of progression. In fact, some of the best (reasonably obtainable) gear for my melee jobs (75MNK and 75NIN) was equippable at level 33 and 34 respectively (PCC and O-kotes).

Endgame in FFXI turned out to be rather pointless in many respects- what I mean by this is that the gear you work for doesn't really allow you to accomplish anything you couldn't have done without the gear. In WoW- you run instances to get gear in order to be able to clear the next level of instances. For example, a guild needs to get characters geared up in MC/ZG/AQ20 before they have a snowballs chance in hell of clearing BWL. Furthermore, the gear in BWL is almost universally BETTER than the gear in the lower instances.

On the other hand, in FFXI the best gear in the game is either craftable and buyable on the auctionhouse or it drops off mobs that have been in the game for 3 years. None of this really matters since that gear is far from required to defeat any HNM or instance (dynamis/limbus/assult) in the game. Essentially you camp kings and run dynamis to get gear that helps you beat kings and clear dynamis zones more easily.

Now that I'm done complaining about endgame I'll bring up another point. Most of the fun encounters in FFXI really can't be experienced until you are at endgame. I'm talking about dynamis/limbus/hnm fights here, of course you could do capped missions in CoP much earlier but most first time level 30s aren't going to have the experience to run a prommy without much trial and error and headache as well.

In WoW there are proper instances that can be run at levels as low as 13 (RFC for horde) and drop good loot consistanly while also being a good source of exp. Many people say that the soloablity of WoW makes players less skilled at endgame as opposed to FFXI. I for one have found this to be patently false and I will tell you why.

In FFXI, while grouping for experience, most jobs are doing things compeltely differently than they would be in an endgame fight. Even as a tank on NIN I found that tanking exp mobs was a far cry from tanking a god or some other NM. When grouping in WoW for instances, 9 times out of 10 you are doing what you would be doing in a raid. This forces players to learn how to do thier jobs much quicker. Not only that but for tanks there are instance bosses even in these low level instances that are much more like what an endgame raid boss would be like to tank.

I know people will counter this claim with "people don't have to group in wow though, they could just solo to 60!" However, most of the best gear in the game is bind on pick up (EX) and drops in these instances along the way. So if a player wishes to be well geared on his way to 60 he will more often than not be running instances.

The main reason I quit FFXI was time. I felt that the developers purposely added uneeded timesinks to the game (ESPECIALLY IN TRAVEL omg- taking 30+ min to get to a camp is ridiculous) that I didn't feel the need to deal with any longer. Besides, having to camp Ullikumi for 8 hours against RMT only to watch them get claim and bazaar the stone for 10million for the 3rd straight time kinda gets you in a bad mood. I wasn't in the mood to wait another 2 months to have a chance at B. Haidate or Osode which even when I received them, wouldn't do all that much to improve my character anyway.

In summation- if you have insane amounts of free time and enjoy grinding and competing with other bots(players) for claim just to get gear to enhance e-peen play FFXI.

If you want to just have fun with an MMO and enjoy games with well defined progression play WoW. I will say though that in WoW you will have to deal with more stupidity than FFXI. 5million>500k = more morons playing the game.

[Kutch]

Re: is it worth it?

To answer the question about Leviathan server:

For the last couple of years, Gilsellers have mainly focussed their efforts on killsteals in the higher NM areas. This has changed dramatically lately. Before, you would suspect someone of being a gilseller, but you'd be far away from where everyone else is (deep inside gusgen or something like that).

Now, it's different - VERY different. These guys put entire sets of parties that they log on to work up their farming accounts - EN MASSE - I was in kuftal working on one of my jobs when three entire PT's logged in at the same time, disregarding our presence totally, and starting to pull and fight mobs right on top of our heads.
Silent as ever, and completely BAD players, getting killed almost every single fight.

I thoght this was a one-timer - a glitch or so, but I've had this happen to me a number of times now, basically all over where you'd go for experience points. Apparently SE has given up on doing anything about them, so they no longer hide, and instead, accumulate more and more POL accounts to farm with.

I've now met them more than once in:
- Kuftal Tunnel
- Cape Terrigan
- Valley of Sorrows
- Castle Oztroja
- Labyrinth of Onzono
- Crawler's Nest

I've also ran past these guys in otehr locations, but not yet twice. Today, I was skilling up staff in Kuftal tunnel when I got this tell:

- "Do you help Chinese?"

So, on Leviathan at the least, the "invasion" of RMT is clear. I cannot speak of HNM battles, for I have not done them, but in regular exp areas, they're becoming a severe nuicance

[Soul Society]

Re: is it worth it?

the thing is most of my friends have stop playing the game

and i only can play for 3 or 4 hours

i guess i'll start playing it anyway one of my friends is a noob (like me) he's going to start playing it as well

thanks guys that was realy helpful

[Raydeus]

Re: is it worth it?

I played FFXI for roughly 8 months and for the first 6 months or so found it very enjoyable. Forced grouping for experience was at times an annoyance but this was allievated the second you started chaining mobs in a great party. Nothing in the game came close to a well geared, highly skilled group either in an experience points/meripo setting or in an endgame dynamis/HNM fight.

Whoah, how many hours a day did you play to be able to see all the endgame content and other things in the game in only 6 months (+2 months)?

I've been playing for more than two years now and I still feel like a newbie just from the sheer amount of things I still have left to do.

It sounds to me like you just rushed through the game and just burned up, this game is slower paced than games like WoW (or so I've been told) so if you only play to lvl up and rush your way to the "end game" content it doesn't surprise me you got tired of it so fast.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: is it worth it?

In summation- if you have insane amounts of free time and enjoy grinding and competing with other bots(players) for claim just to get gear to enhance e-peen play FFXI.

If you want to just have fun with an MMO and enjoy games with well defined progression play WoW. I will say though that in WoW you will have to deal with more stupidity than FFXI. 5million>500k = more morons playing the game.

I'm sorry but I'm gonna interject on this part, I apologize for derailing the thread. The EXACT same thing happens in WoW. I played WoW before playing FFXI, and almost finished BWL before I dropped it. Going by what your complaining about FFXI endgame, the endgame in WoW is just as bad, in the fact that you can skip some endgame pieces for certain jobs in FFXI and still not be gimp. Yet you compared a Tier 0 or Tier 0.5 character to Tier 1, 2 or 3 and your gimped beyond belief.

And the larger problem is getting to endgame is alot easier than getting to endgame in FFXI. You could hit 60 in a month if you really pushed it. And so far, Blizzards only solution to this is 'lets add a harder instance with better gear thats needs the last set of gear to complete'. And because, like you mentioned, all the best gear is BoP, you have to do them. If I needed money in FFXI for lets say a Scorpion Harness, I can just run BCNM's or farm crafting mats, sell what I get, and buy it. And since even low level BCNM's drop amazing gear(selling Astrals made me lots of money), almost anyone can make money.

And there is alot of low level encounters in FFXI, only the large and highend mission encounters require being high level. You can do a large majority of the rank missions and quests pre 40, and unless you PuG it, 30 cap CoP is tons of fun, mostly because besides being a challenge and a relief from leveling and also allowing you to make unorthodox party setups, CoP has an amazing story. FFXI has an amazing story if you actually pay attention to it, while alot of WoW's lore isn't up to par with older Warcraft lore.

Instances in WoW is basically just grouping with less exp and gear drops, and most of them can be skipped(RFC is only worth running once for the quests, and maybe twice if you need that robe one of the bosses drops). Not that much different from FFXI. And because the community doesn't punish ignorance like in FFXI, you have warriors who can't tank, rogues and mages who don't know how to manage aggro, ALL THE WAY TO 60. It's not fun AT ALL to do something as simple as UBRS and have a Warrior who didn't do his Defensive Stance quest. Its very rare to find someone 40+ get invited to a party and be that ignorant in FFXI, and if they are they get booted and blacklisted quick. Also your comment on roles in instances and raids is extremely false. I leveled a Druid, Paladin and Rogue to 60 while playing WoW, among other classes that didn't hit 60. While my Rogue did the same thing in raids, my Paladin and Druid who were capable of also playing tanking roles from 1-60 by speccing properly were stuck doing NOTHING but healbotting and cleansebot/decursebot and respeccing to Holy/Restoration. Nothing like the roles they played in instances such as RFK, Uldaman, Sunken Temple, Scarlet Monastary, etc etc.

You've made it fairly obvious you know nothing about WoW's endgame personally, so please don't comment on it. If you left FFXI for time issues(which is an issue this game has), thats fine because it happens to alot of people. But don't lie and say WoW endgame is better than FFXI endgame when you haven't even hit it yet, someone who might be interested in deciding to get FFXI can read it and get the wrong idea of the game because of what you wrote. And it's not fair for them or for us to be subjected to it because you are talking about things you haven't personally done yet.

I apologize again for derailing the topic, but it really irks me when I see someone say WoW endgame is better than FFXI's or viceversa. Their both the same; fight big boss for gear, rinse and repeat for a few weeks/months. New place opens up, farm it again. Only difference is in FFXI you fight world spawning bosses also and fight bosses in dungeons like Sky and Sea less, which becomes a pain in the rear to camp with competition around -_-.

[capitalistnihilist]

Re: is it worth it?

I apologize again for derailing the topic, but it really irks me when I see someone say WoW endgame is better than FFXI's or viceversa. Their both the same; fight big boss for gear, rinse and repeat for a few weeks/months. New place opens up, farm it again. Only difference is in FFXI you fight world spawning bosses also and fight bosses in dungeons like Sky and Sea less, which becomes a pain in the rear to camp with competition around -_-.

Ok, you do make some valid points, and I'll freely admit I'm not very far in WoW endgame (only on ZG/AQ20/MC so far). However, to equate the two situations is ludicrous.

Yes, both endgames involve fighting big bosses for gear numerous times for months. However, bosses in WoW actually drop useful gear more often than not whereas most of the new bosses in FFXI(lolHydra, lolCarebear) only drop gear that could at best be considered a side-grade or completely useless.

The only difference between FFXI and WoW is world spawning bosses? Hardly. The difference I see as the most damning is the fact that of those "bosses" there are a select few that actually drop anything worthwhile. And as I already said, none of that gear is required to beat anything. I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that a skilled enough group could defeat kirin/nid/aspid/kb wearing only AF and AH purchased gear.

Furthermore, the best way to improve your groups performance in FFXI endgame is hardly gearing them out. Rather, it is forcing them to level "useful" jobs like BLM, SMN, RDM, BRD. The most effiecent way to defeat most endgame mobs (unless you are the rare linkshell that is overflowing with ridill warriors and kraken drks) is to throw more BLM or SMN at them. If you don't see that as a huge flaw then you are wearing rose colored glasses in regards to this game.

Don't get me wrong, the game is a hell of a lot of fun and the combat system is very well thought out. I am especially impressed with skillchains. However, when a melee's job becomes sleep pot/opo-opo neck to 100-300tp, join alliance, WS, drop in many cases, wtf is the point of the game?

**Yes, I may have contridicted myself in my mention of kraken and ridill but I will say that I believe those to be the two of the small number of gears in this entire game that have a dramatic enough impact on a character to persue them. (Black Belt is the only other gear I would say has an equal effect).

[Clever Ninja]

Re: is it worth it?

Ok, you do make some valid points, and I'll freely admit I'm not very far in WoW endgame (only on ZG/AQ20/MC so far). However, to equate the two situations is ludicrous.

Yes, both endgames involve fighting big bosses for gear numerous times for months. However, bosses in WoW actually drop useful gear more often than not whereas most of the new bosses in FFXI(lolHydra, lolCarebear) only drop gear that could at best be considered a side-grade or completely useless.

The only difference between FFXI and WoW is world spawning bosses? Hardly. The difference I see as the most damning is the fact that of those "bosses" there are a select few that actually drop anything worthwhile. And as I already said, none of that gear is required to beat anything. I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that a skilled enough group could defeat kirin/nid/aspid/kb wearing only AF and AH purchased gear.

Furthermore, the best way to improve your groups performance in FFXI endgame is hardly gearing them out. Rather, it is forcing them to level "useful" jobs like BLM, SMN, RDM, BRD. The most effiecent way to defeat most endgame mobs (unless you are the rare linkshell that is overflowing with ridill warriors and kraken drks) is to throw more BLM or SMN at them. If you don't see that as a huge flaw then you are wearing rose colored glasses in regards to this game.

Don't get me wrong, the game is a hell of a lot of fun and the combat system is very well thought out. I am especially impressed with skillchains. However, when a melee's job becomes sleep pot/opo-opo neck to 100-300tp, join alliance, WS, drop in many cases, wtf is the point of the game?

**Yes, I may have contridicted myself in my mention of kraken and ridill but I will say that I believe those to be the two of the small number of gears in this entire game that have a dramatic enough impact on a character to persue them. (Black Belt is the only other gear I would say has an equal effect).

No, in WoW the bosses drop gear that are UBER UPGRADES. There is a difference. Kirin's Osode is nice, but if your 75 and don't have it and have another good chest piece, your not that gimped. The difference between Tier 0 and Tier 1 is astounding. Why do you think casuals in WoW are complaining about the gap between raiding and casual gear? Because every new Tier is more overpowered than the last, making doing raids a NECESITY if you don't want to be gimped in PvE and PvP(as Tier 2+ is better than Grand Marshall gear sadly). All your proving with your equipment statement is you'll be in a timesink all over again, just like in FFXI, which was the reason you quit it in the first place.

An average raiding guild spends 3-6 hours every raiding night getting used to the raid. It's easier now with all the guides up on the internet, but you and your guild still waste tons of time just trying to get everything down. That's a commitment and timesink, just like FFXI was. Only, just like how you mentioned older gear in FFXI is still efficient, I can be in regular gear on my RDM and still fight Kirin! Meanwhile good luck trying to enter Naxx in MC stuff .So I dunno where your getting off talking about timesinks once again, their both the same in that retrospect.

Oh, and you know what the irony is in your post about WoW? From what I've heard from various endgame guilds I still talk to(including this college friend of mine I know in Death and Taxes), in endgame mages are becoming the primary DPS class. Classes like Rogues and Hunters aren't even making it to Naxx, while Mages are being recruited and making up a large part of the raid since their damage still owns compared to them. It's JUST like throwing abunch of BLM's at a boss in FFXI. Ironic eh? Like I said, their both the same. MC isn't truly endgame, it's the same mobs OVER AND OVER AND OVER again for 3+ hours, literally. That's not a challenge, that's just boring.

Oh, and on the comment on the melees in the alliance; using the same attacks/spell OVER AND OVER AGAIN in WoW is better, how? Melee classes only use a few abilities during fights. A Rogue will just stand there and do Backstab until 5 combo points, use a finisher, and Feint inbetween. That's it. They might sap in the beginning of the fight, BUT THATS ALL A ROGUE IN ENDGAME DOES(cause Dagger is the best PvE spec). Please, explain how hitting 3-4 buttons and moving every once in a while is SO much more involved than the TP regen in FFXI. I would love to hear how.

I dunno if its that WoW has made you extremely ignorant towards anything that isn't WoW, or that your just lieing and haven't even hit endgame at all in WoW, but once again you don't express you know alot about it, so I'll ask you again not to comment on it. Endgame in almost ALL MMO's are the same if you didn't know. If your not out farming new gear, there is a timesink with leveling involved that you have to do instead(like having your character reborn in Ragnarok Online). WoW isn't anymore unique in its endgame than anyone else, don't try to claim otherwise.

[neighbortaru]

Re: is it worth it?

ok enough with the WOW vs FFXI derail please

[Clever Ninja]

Re: is it worth it?

ok enough with the WOW vs FFXI derail please

>_>

<_<

/hug