Live Presentation Event: The Future of Final Fantasy XI (03/19/2015)

[Seha]

XIV so far has been setting foundations for its story. The real evaluation starts with Heavensward, if that story doesn't prove to be something more than what it's been so far then...yeah, throw tomatoes at SE all you want.

Anyway I'm always of the opinion that there's no reason to shoot something down before witnessing it. So let's hope for the best there too.

[urat]

Overall, between the two games (ilvl 105 in 14, 119 in ffxi, been playing both since they came out respectively) I have to say I prefer ffxi overall.

Call me a hardcore gamer or whatever, but I really enjoy a challenge, I love playing G rank on monster hunter, hardcore on diablo 3, I play starcraft 2 ladder, binding of isaac, spelunky.. Im a gaming masochist, because beating hard games and huge challenges feels awesome

FFXI was rife with challenge, still is a little bit, but not as much. 14 doesnt have any of that 'babe in the woods' feel to it. FFXI threw you into the middle of nowhere, you had your shitty brady guide that covered like 50% of the content, the game didn't even let you have maps for some zones until you hunted for them.

We had 0 idea how any stats worked, 0 idea what hidden stats food may have given, some armor had hidden stats, no idea how crafting worked, and there were countless stats that had hidden trickery to them. Treasure hunter is a great example of the 'magic' of ffxi. This kind of took away a lot of the 'lololol your gear sucks' of the game at lv 75, because a lot of people weren't 100% sure what was strictly better, so having good gear was acceptable for the first few years.

Grinding 1-75 was a magical experience when you just started 11, it was something fresh and new. This huge world, so big that you didnt even know how big it was yet, these random strangers running around, you had no idea what you were doing. And so it was, and here's the key...

FFXI forced you to team up with others, and make friends, you literally had to make friends with people by design of the game. Its hard not to make a buddy or two when you grind with parties for hours on end working as a team, eventually you'll find someone you like. Every piece of pre abyssea content was designed around parties and teams. Most content in the game has TEAMWORK stamped into its principles.

Think about it, skillchains, magic bursts, trick attack, etc etc... So many potent core mechanics revolved around fighting monsters as a team. Which I love! This game outright demanded planning, teamwork, and flawless execution from its players, and it made us grow closer as groups. This website is a proponent of that, consider how many of us posting here are here talking to each other because of this game.

14 doesn't have any of that. It holds your hand constantly with its map markers and tooltips and icons. It tells you where to go. It forms parties for you. Every bit of its content is designed around solo play, being able to get things done in case you don't have any friends.

It feels like an overbearing parent smothering me with affection, whereas ffxi feels like a parent that pointed me in general directions in life but had the decency to let me learn on my own.

14 feels like the parent that has trouble letting their kid go out and play outside because I might hurt myself. 11 feels like the parent that kicks me out the door and tells me to go make some friends.

And for that, 11 will always have a special place in my heart as the most badass game Ive ever played.

[Rocl]

I've kept from posting too much in this thread other than random shitposts as I really only keep up with FFXI as sort of like an ex-boyfriend facebook stalk type deal.

@Kincard
The latest patches have incurred into serious translation issues. Dialogues from dragons, from Midgarsorrmr, the things Iceheart says etc.
Granted that they are subtle things, they change quite a lot of shades and as a result a lot of information gets lost. Dunno why they went that route for the last patches. There are quite a few reddit discussions showing the original text and the translated, cut and changed english version.
Shame, really.

But I hate this. There's a lot of differences between the lore of XI and XIV, too much to go into it and people will always have well, different opinions on it. (Even little things like the Middle Lands being important because the Zilart settled there vs Eorzea being so important that the Allagans settled there) I love both stories dearly, and up until very recently I could probably tell you just about everything about the San d'Oria Mission line.

Anyways, the thing I hated was "translation issues" in regards to Dragons. XIV's Lore team is a collaborative effort between EN, JP, FR, and DE. All four Localization teams help build the world's lore and terminology, as opposed to what I can only assume is the translation of JP -> EN/FR/DE for FFXI (they never really did say a lot about this part of FFXI, then again any dev interaction w/ the playerbase was rare when i played). So the idea of a "translation issue" confuses me, when like Kincard said things are localized, not 'faithfully translated.' It's doubly annoying when people complain about Midgardsormr (or any dragon's) dialogue. AFAIK Koji-Fox (head of EN Localization) is the guy who invented Dravanian (and Old Sylphic but w/e) and wrote out any dragonspeech in that language. Koji-Fox is a native English speaker. If anything the JP translation which is more 'direct' is more 'translation' than 'localization' as it lacks the intended subtleties that Dravanian is supposed to have (according to Koji-Fox)

So finally we get to 2.5. In this patch are scenes in which a certain dragon speaks directly with the player. Here, the dragon has chosen to use the tongue of the player rather than his own language. When the EN Localization team received the relatively wordy Japanese lines for this scene, we felt that it would fit the character and his native language better if we localized it in a manner that seemed a natural fit with the dragon language I had created—that being something that was far more compact, but still contained the main core that was in the Japanese.

idk, again opinions, but it always bugs me to see people moan about Midgardsormr's dialogue being obtuse and vague in English when it's more faithful to the character/world if not the "original japanese"

[Damane]

@urat: with an averafe ilvl of 105 you clearly havent done 2. or final coil of bahamut. 11 challenge lies in luck and grind but noneof the fights are as intense as going against bahamut in fucking final coil or against phoenix. those fights pretty much require a static

14 final coil demand teamwork and the correct utilizatin as a team too. if mnk sch blm tanks wouldnt synchronize the usage of their skills together then fights get increasingly difficult in final coil.

[urat]

@urat: with an averafe ilvl of 105 you clearly havent done 2. or final coil of bahamut. 11 challenge lies in luck and grind but noneof the fights are as intense as going against bahamut in fucking final coil or against phoenix. those fights pretty much require a static

14 final coil demand teamwork and the correct utilizatin as a team too. if mnk sch blm tanks wouldnt synchronize the usage of their skills together then fights get increasingly difficult in final coil.

The fact the first real challenges of the game dont show up until literally the last couple of fights of the game shows my point.

Is 14 entirely 100% easy mode? No of course not it has challenge here and there.

But 11 was challenge after challenge after grueling challenge right out of the gate. I mean exp parties aside (which is step 1, and alone requires a huge amount of skill to do well), the very first couple missions of the game took skilled groups of 6+ players to pull off.

14 has nothing even close to the first run to jeuno, when you dont have a choco yet and have to spend 45 mins+ slowly trekking across the world, constantly dodging monsters that will not hesitate to fuck your shit up. Definitely nothing close to the 2-3 dragon fight.

Nowadays we scoff at these fights, but back when the game first came out 2-3 was the first taste of challenge a player would face, generally around level 20~30. It took quite a bit of shouting to gather up the group for it, and the level of intensity attached to that first big boss fight was something else.

I think a lot of it was the simple fact that mmo culture wasnt as organized as it is now. Today, new content comes out on 11 and 14 and within 1~2 days theirs youtube video guides and wiki articles detailing full loot tables and etc.

But back then, the brady guide was just like "lol you gotta fight a dragon, figure that shit out for yourself"

This sense of grasping around in total darkness, with nothing but the guiding hands of random fellow players and helpful ls mates was something special to old school 11 that no game has ever come remotely close to touching, and never will simply due to the existance of the internet and its culture today.

It was a golden age, where MMOs allowed us to form communities, but the communities weren't so fast and interconnected that we cleared content hours after it came out.

We simply can't have that again now, and its kind of bitter sweet. I love how diverse and fulfilling the mmo community is now, I love having thousands of people to discuss these games with here, right now.

But I also miss that sense of lighthearted, bright eyed wonder games like ff11 used to bring.

I genuinely hope some genius company in the future will recapture this feeling somehow. Until then, I can only get that feeling back in the real world, on trips to new places and new sights, but never in the virtual world again

And this is what makes 11 special.

[ronin sparthos]

idk, again opinions, but it always bugs me to see people moan about Midgardsormr's dialogue being obtuse and vague in English when it's more faithful to the character/world if not the "original japanese"

Comes down to if you rather be immersed in lore or just know what the fuck is going on. JP covered the latter with a very by the numbers explanation whereas the localization team had fun fleshing out a character and how exactly a god-like creature would speak to man.

English is more faithful but I could see how some confusion could occur regarding Midgarsormrs intentions... at least until later on.

[dasva]

But back then, the brady guide was just like "lol you gotta fight a dragon, figure that shit out for yourself"

What you talking about? Brady guide told us to get a war/whm to tank it and be just fine because that was clearly just as good as a pld but with more dmg!

[Guyverarmor]

I think I still have my Brady Guide somewhere in the house...

[Marootsoobutsu]

What you talking about? Brady guide told us to get a war/whm to tank it and be just fine because that was clearly just as good as a pld but with more dmg!

That guide was 100% the reason I quit FFXI the first time. The advice it gave (and that I followed) made the game so completely and totally frustrating that it wasn't even a little fun. I reluctantly came about about 7 months later, and the only times I've quit since were basically money-related.

[dasva]

I think I still have my Brady Guide somewhere in the house...

I think I have 2 or did. Because they updated it or something and it was so lulz worthy

[Spira]

Comes down to if you rather be immersed in lore or just know what the fuck is going on. JP covered the latter with a very by the numbers explanation whereas the localization team had fun fleshing out a character and how exactly a god-like creature would speak to man.

English is more faithful but I could see how some confusion could occur regarding Midgarsormrs intentions... at least until later on.

The midgardsormr one is particularly bad tho. English version is so obtuse it makes him seem like an enemy and u have no idea what's happening, whereas in the jP version he clearly states that he's putting u to a trial.

[Cream Soda]

Overall, between the two games (ilvl 105 in 14, 119 in ffxi, been playing both since they came out respectively) I have to say I prefer ffxi overall.

Call me a hardcore gamer or whatever, but I really enjoy a challenge, I love playing G rank on monster hunter, hardcore on diablo 3, I play starcraft 2 ladder, binding of isaac, spelunky.. Im a gaming masochist, because beating hard games and huge challenges feels awesome

FFXI was rife with challenge, still is a little bit, but not as much. 14 doesnt have any of that 'babe in the woods' feel to it. FFXI threw you into the middle of nowhere, you had your shitty brady guide that covered like 50% of the content, the game didn't even let you have maps for some zones until you hunted for them.

We had 0 idea how any stats worked, 0 idea what hidden stats food may have given, some armor had hidden stats, no idea how crafting worked, and there were countless stats that had hidden trickery to them. Treasure hunter is a great example of the 'magic' of ffxi. This kind of took away a lot of the 'lololol your gear sucks' of the game at lv 75, because a lot of people weren't 100% sure what was strictly better, so having good gear was acceptable for the first few years.

Grinding 1-75 was a magical experience when you just started 11, it was something fresh and new. This huge world, so big that you didnt even know how big it was yet, these random strangers running around, you had no idea what you were doing. And so it was, and here's the key...

FFXI forced you to team up with others, and make friends, you literally had to make friends with people by design of the game. Its hard not to make a buddy or two when you grind with parties for hours on end working as a team, eventually you'll find someone you like. Every piece of pre abyssea content was designed around parties and teams. Most content in the game has TEAMWORK stamped into its principles.

Think about it, skillchains, magic bursts, trick attack, etc etc... So many potent core mechanics revolved around fighting monsters as a team. Which I love! This game outright demanded planning, teamwork, and flawless execution from its players, and it made us grow closer as groups. This website is a proponent of that, consider how many of us posting here are here talking to each other because of this game.

14 doesn't have any of that. It holds your hand constantly with its map markers and tooltips and icons. It tells you where to go. It forms parties for you. Every bit of its content is designed around solo play, being able to get things done in case you don't have any friends.

It feels like an overbearing parent smothering me with affection, whereas ffxi feels like a parent that pointed me in general directions in life but had the decency to let me learn on my own.

14 feels like the parent that has trouble letting their kid go out and play outside because I might hurt myself. 11 feels like the parent that kicks me out the door and tells me to go make some friends.

And for that, 11 will always have a special place in my heart as the most badass game Ive ever played.

This fucking post so much.

Most fun I had in FFXI was when I was so noob, I didn't know where any of the camps were and ppl had to come get me from the jungle mandy camp and walk me to the Gob camp. Would bullshit with people, set up SC, SATA, MB. Get excited for chain 5. Get lost when we all leveled up and had to find a new camp. Endgame FFXI was the shit, but man I loved taking that first job to 75. (Subsequent jobs of course were a grind, but the first one was a downright magical experience as I went to new maps I hadn't been before as I leveled up and just explored/met new ppl each pt.)

When I tried 14, 1.0 I played for about a month and ended up with about 3 people on my friend list, none of which ever wanted to talk about anything or do anything. There was no dunes. There was just follow the marker on the map. Got halfway to 50 on 2.0 (had 50 on 1.0) and just got bored of doing everything solo and didn't care for the battle system on 2.0 either so that didn't help (kinda liked it in the original though)

Edit: The Brady guide was fucking amaznig.

We had 4 XI players at our job and we'd all take turns reading that shit during our respective lunch breaks

[Koul]

is this the shitty strategy guide?

http://www.amazon.com/FINAL-FANTASY-.../dp/0744002869

I really wanna buy the shitty one to read when I'm on the shitter and lulz

[Cream Soda]

That's the one

[Draylo]

lol the best

[Arthars]

can buy those cute JP ones too

have very cute comic stories as well

i remember some classics like tarutaru PLD died while pulling and the galka rdm tanked instead

also thief that always fail opening SATA because the DD died after provoke

[Fwahm]

While the strategy guide was horrible for well, strategy, I got a ton of use out of it when it came to monster level information. It was the only source with comprehensive monster levels until FFXI somepage went up.

[Sho]

is this the shitty strategy guide?

http://www.amazon.com/FINAL-FANTASY-.../dp/0744002869

I really wanna buy the shitty one to read when I'm on the shitter and lulz

I'll read a couple of inserts from the unholy XI Brady Guide:

From "The Way of Things" - Breath of Life, The Races

People who play Tarutaru will most likely opt to be cute and friendly. Even with a name like Butcher or Mangler, it's unlikely that the intimidation factor will affect anyone. Friendly sorts may want to use the overly-cutesy speech that is so common to Windurst (doubly so if they choose that city for their home). Greetings of "Hello-wello" and "Please don't smashy-washy my little head" are perfectly normal -- at least for a Tarutaru.

From "The Way of Things" - Breath of Life, Tips for Non-Roleplayers

Although it's strange to join a group of roleplayers if it's something that you aren't particularly interested in, there are ways to go with the flow. Smile, don't talk much if you don't feel like it, and just say that you are the quiet type.

If you are chatty by nature but just don't like to be in character for whatever reason, find out if that bothers the roleplayers you are with. If it does, the combination just doesn't work well for the party amd you can find another group the next time you head out for an adventure.

From "Walking Your Path" - On the Job, Warrior as a Main Job

WARRIOR/PALADIN

This is the reversal of the usual combination. A Warrior who has a Paladin as a support job will have the ability to survive under grueling circumstances, With wonderful armor, supreme defense, and the Hit Points to match, it seems like this combo would be unstoppable. What gets in the way is this duo's limited magic. Paladins usually have light magic. When you switch Paladin to a support job, this is compounded. Still a solid and enjoyable combination, the Warrior/Paladin is all the tank you will ever need.

From "Walking Your Path" - On the Job, The Invisible Hand Guides Without Consent

Do not move but listen to what I have to say. Those who show prowess in stealth, guile and discretion have the potential to find something beautiful in their training. If you find that black magic and battle provocation are too mundane, ponder the lotus blossom and the wayward crane. Seek to destroy an enemy though misdirection and win allies through survival. We do not meet the gale head-on, but bend with it as the grass and clouds. If your mind is a greater waeapon than strength and wizardry, then try to follow me. There is much to teach.

If you are high as fuck on marijuana, the guide is a glorious read. I can imagine the only way to enhance the experience further is by somehow hiring Morgan Freeman to read the book to you while you're high, that would be epic.

7/10 For general luls and absurdity.

10/10 While high.

[Guyverarmor]

I would pay Top Dollar to hear Morgan Freeman narrate the Warrior/Paladin bit.

[ronin sparthos]

SUPREME DEFENSE.
ALL THE TANK YOU'LL EVER NEED.

lol

Pretty sure that Water Ore quest reward buried in there made me rage. I think it was a Bastok quest that claimed you got one. Also Tonberries agro by scent was in there IIRC.