What made you quit FFXI?

[SephYuyX]

I have never quit, and have been playing since 2002.
I however did take a break many a moon ago for about a half a year due to something I dont recall.

[Aylee]

Played till level 30 at us ps2 release and quit for about 6 months mainly because I was to young for the game and didn't like how hard it was (I was like 14). Came back and Played for some long ass time, got my GF in it. Ended up getting banned for warp hacks. played gf's char and got another char. That char got banned for some unknown reason after about 4 months. Keep playing Gfs char with her and we quit for about a year. Came back, made a new character and built it up so we both had one. Ended up getting both characters banned about 2 months ago and started playing rift. Realized how much more fun and NON addicting it was, while still feeling my need for mmo's. Now gf and I play rift 0-4 hours a day and life has really improved

[D44kpunk]

Personally for me it was a mixture of everything, but mainly the shit community. Literally seen this place go from "botting is bad l0l fk botters" to "oh ok, botting is alright" "flee hacking? we're down." it's like a bunch of high school kids in a pissing contest to do whatever the cool kids are doing. when it comes to the endgame community and there's nothing even remotely competitive, yet constant shit talking was one of the main factors and every other person in the endgame community was a douchebag. oh and foreigners, JP sure, they can go play with their other JP friends and not really bother me but the UAE/broken English crowd are just stupid to the point of irritation if you can even understand what they are trying to communicate

[Siatdiat]

Kind of silly to say Abyssea shouldn't be the end all to the game when its currently at 90 cap and we know there is 2 more raises coming. When the cap is 99 and there is newer level 99 endgame, Abyssea is still going to be used to gear up new jobs with base gear for level 99 content. I view AF3+2, 90 emps, and whatever other Aby drops are needed as the base gear for the future content coming at 99 cap so even if it drags now, it ultimately will always be useful to revisit any time you level a new job.

[Leva]

Back when I had quit I had attained just about everything I wanted for my Drg. Only needed an Ace's helm and I wasn't about to camp for weeks on end for a shitty percentage drop of a single item. It just stopped meaning the same things that it previously did, so I left, and never really looked back. PVP had long-since been dead, and everything about the game was either the drama HNM camping or running semi-instanced content like Nyuzul and Salvage, which wasn't my cup of tea, especially as a Drg. I also didn't feel like Brd-whoring my way through another "tier" of content, so that was that.

You didn't have N.Head

[Kaisha]

Whenever I do quit, it'll be because I'm fed up with the lack of content they're putting out each quarterly update. More detailed rant in the spoilers along with other shit.

Spoiler: show

I already took two extended breaks (once after ACP, another after Visions) because I wasn't going to give them my money to deliver me almost jack shit for a content update after four months unless I ponied up $10 for what amounted to the greatest series of fetch-quests/cotent-recycling ever.

Getting to the point where I'll be taking an indefinite break sometime after this month's update if I don't hear word of a proper expansion coming out. My LS is a bit of the oldschool type where we'd have set days for events which we'd spend 5+ hours doing what was designated as a large group (12+ attendance). I'm sick and tired of Abyssea/VW, but we do them anyway as there is nothing else to do other than grind emps or +2 items for our 5th/6th jobs or watch our desired VW loot not drop yet again.

I understand the need to re-tool/purpose the old content, especially if they plan on porting FFXI to PSV, but it's coming at the cost of everything else. FFXI is a money-maker for SE, why can't they budget another team to further events for lvl90-99 content, rather than having it barely trickle in with barely a word about the future of this game from the devs? Everquest still shits out new completed expansions each year. FFXI's last expansion took over 4 years to 'complete' and we've yet to hear what's coming for us, still.


I also share D44kpunk's opinion about the 3rd-party situation. STF have been pretty much dead ever since the RMT situation has been made dead (didn't SE move that 'team' to XIV also?), but why haven't they put in proper countermeasures for blatant tool abuse? Rather than banning players, just give them extended suspensions when caught (1-2 weeks?) making use of clipping/pos-hacking or automated scripts if they're worried about losing subscribers if they were to do a mass banning a la Salvage. It'll at least make the community think twice about how they're using their ToS-breaking programs and be a little more transparent about it.

[Ragnus]

I quit before Abyssea's first expansion came out. It was mostly out of a dislike of the XP grind for the third time while taking Rng up. It pushed me over the edge when it came to how I felt about the game when I was already feeling down and out from my general lack of usefulness on Ninja / newfound hatred of Whm after I started feeling more like a babysitter than a healer.

On top of that Magian trials and Synergy were clearly becoming the route that SE was taking for better gear at the time and I had no patience for it.

So yea I guess that would fall under game mechanics.

[Sira]

Played for a year and a half and quit in 09. Came back after a year away from the game and I got bored after getting almost everything I needed or wanted/Didn't really have the time after moving back to TX (which I left 5 months later to come back to CO. Fuck TX) so I quite the game again.

Also lacked the internet connection and my LS sucked so I burned bridges to help make sure I never come back. I still get urges to play until I remember that 99% of my friends quit and I have no LS. Almost another year since I last quit.

I'm screwed once TERA comes out though.

[solanis]

I play like an hour a week now just to banter with friends I met on bg. when my ex quit that was it for me, I can't see myself going back to ffxi.

[Ghostsix.Midgard]

I quit in 2009. Constant salvage runs with zero drops, being burnt out from Dynamis runs with zero wanted drops (Full MNK,PUP,RNG sets yet zero D. Chap drops) My linkshell started disbanding right when the servers merged.. It was a great game for me in the beginning, had some great memories. But ultimately the drop rates just killed it for me.

[Tagus]

I just came back from a pretty long break recently. Reason why I had quit was basically because the game design pissed me off. It feels alot of times like the game is literally designed to waste your time. I really had a hard time finding a console game I didn't burn through in a week, and at $60 bucks a pop, FFXI started to make sense again. Abyssea seems alot less of a timesink and it's enjoyable, but the reskinning of zones is pretty weak imo. My thought process is that the current Abyssea gear is going to mimic the original AF's place in the level 75 heirarchy, and 99 will give us alot of new stuff with at least 1 expansion. At least that's what I think we're all hoping for at this point.

I had a friend who quit a couple of years ago, and when I asked him why, he just said "what's the point?" I didn't have an answer then, and I still don't.

[Raen Ryong]

I had a friend who quit a couple of years ago, and when I asked him why, he just said "what's the point?" I didn't have an answer then, and I still don't.

To enjoy your free time; same as any other activity.

Sure, nothing you do is likely to be important to you in ten years. Most stuff you could do in its place won't either. As long as you don't sacrifice things to spend all of your time on FFXI, I don't see it as any different from any other hobby.

[dasva]

To enjoy your free time; same as any other activity.

Sure, nothing you do is likely to be important to you in ten years. Most stuff you could do in its place won't either. As long as you don't sacrifice things to spend all of your time on FFXI, I don't see it as any different from any other hobby.

But but my stamp collection is going to pay off one of these days!!!

[Isiolia]

If there was on trigger that got me off of XI, it was the downtime from the earthquake. I wasn't planning on quitting - hell, I was up in the wee hours (for EST) when the system message went out. Last thing I did was polish off all my available WSNMs, logged off minutes before the servers shut down...and by the time they came back up I just didn't really feel like playing anymore. Had the servers stayed up, I'm fairly sure I'd still be playing.

What led to that was a combination of factors. First, that I didn't want to be spending so much time in the game. I'd played since NA PC release, and put in a lot of time over the years for all sorts of stuff/people. I just couldn't bring myself to up and quit because I did still enjoy hanging out with LS folks, still had some fun/satisfaction/etc from doing stuff in game (sometimes at least). Every time I got close to calling it, I'd have a good week, and it'd return to becoming a nagging feeling that maybe it'd be nice to spend that time elsewhere. I'd try to cut down, but always wind up in another static or showing up for something or other.

The downtime let me experience my "normal" routine without XI, and it was good.

The second factor was more a culmination of dissatisfaction about the game. I stopped seeing things in the game for anything other than deliberate timesinks and Skinner box mechanisms. I looked at the months/years spent religiously showing up to get items, which were now being pissed on in favor of some new grind, which would be replaced by something else later. Just an endless cycle, not designed for good gameplay, but to collect a monthly fee.

Nothing particularly new...but again, the downtime helped me reconsider whether I really wanted to spend my time working towards that one new shiny, or use the time for something else.

I voted for mechanics over time, because I honestly have the time if I wanted to spend it on XI. I just don't. Were the game better designed from the start, were the more recent changes less of a "screw your previous efforts", maybe I'd feel differently. How they were handled just made things too transparent to me, particularly when given a few weeks downtime to think about it.

[Limlight]

I play for the same reason that I always have, to hear the screams on vent as I slaughter charmed RL friends. (and the smack talking we have during ballista)

The only thing that will make me quit is if they do.

[bungiefan]

Technically I've quit, but I'd continue playing if they'd take my money. Right now I am in a financial crisis, recovering from the entire household being unemployed for over a month simultaneously. If they'll take my payment method again, I'll come back when I am caught up on the bills I fell behind on.

I actually was making more progress than I had ever been doing since Abyssea came out, and having tons of fun with it. I didn't want to quit. There's been a ton of stuff I wanted to do, but always needed more people than I could gather or more playtime than I had at once, and now it was becoming soloable.

I don't know what to pick in the survey. My issue is with SquareEnix themselves, not the game or my satisfaction with it. Their billing changes have gradually been putting barriers in the way of me paying, and their support representatives have been giving ridiculous solutions to the problem, such as taking a several thousand dollar vacation to Japan to pay a $13 bill...

[S N K]

Not only did all the people I enjoyed playing with quit, but a number of the remaining people in my LS were outright hostile to me.

I'm kinda curious as to how this happened seeing as you were one of the original members of TG.

[Mathayus]

I quit once. Back in 2003 when I Lv.Down form 15 to 14 I was gone for 3 weeks. If I hadn't been banned from VAC servers I probably wouldn't have started playing again.

However now I find it very hard to justify the monthly cost since I stand in my mog house almost all of the time. I considered looking for a new linkshell after the merger, but optimistically thought my friends would play more. If this upcoming update disappoints, then it'll probably be the end for me.

[Buttons]

I had originally quit for FFXIV and still play that, but I had also tried to come back to XI for a bit.

Abyssea had changed the game a lot and it all seemed exciting at first. It however became quickly clear that for everything I always had to rely on other people and by the time I started getting AF3 gear for my Bard, most friends had either quit and those that still did play were so bored of Abyssea, that they were not always happy about having to get more seals.
I just felt left alone, I tried levelling some subs so I could maybe even get a new job like WHM to 90 but it felt so sloow in the low levels I was just put off.

I did have some fun for like a month and my friends did help me get my AF3+1 set, but when I wanted to get my +2 set almost the entire LS disappeared and literally no-one wanted to help with hand or body seals.

So I did have fun, but it was also sad to see how jobs had changed. My samurai was useless now, I still had no rose strap and with campaign dead that was a lost cause. I did not really want to do tedious magian trials for a new gkatana either.
Bard at least still had some of its uses, but I still often found myself feeling a bit useless.

Not to mention that I had lost my name during the merger, which was a real blow.

I love FFXI and do miss it, but it's just so hard to come back when you've been out of it for a while, especially if you don't have tons of classes levelled or a whm mule to rely on.

[Linliel]

I quit a long time ago to get my life sorted. That should be an option.