Return to Vanadiel campaign is back November 10th-24th. Two free weeks for former players. Get yo fix.
Return to Vanadiel campaign is back November 10th-24th. Two free weeks for former players. Get yo fix.
WoW vanilla announcement got me and a friend talking about classic FFXI. He thinks CoP was the best era of the game, I vote for ToAU. Storyline wasn't as good as Promathia, but in terms of new content added there's really no comparison.
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CoP was the pinnacle of FFXI
I much preferred the CoP content for sure since there was triple the amount open world zones added compared to ToAU. I liked all the level cap zones and I liked sea too despite most people not. Limbus was probably my absolute favourite content in FFXI.
I suppose it's unfair for me to judge though since I quit mid-ToAU, directly after I completed the final mission that gave out some shitty ring. Assault was pretty much the only content at the time, and Salvage just got started. Einherjar didn't exist yet and Nyzul didn't exist yet. So my only real experience of ToAU was Assault, missions, and farming imperial standing for gear I didn't use.
It's kind of a tough one. COP was hard as fuck and just as rewarding, but at the same time ToAU did offer up some pretty fun content through Assaults/Salvage/Nyzul
It’s crazy that both of those expansions were also massive increases to amount already available to the game. They just don’t make expansions like that anymore for games.
Yeah I'm looking at it now and between the 2 expansions there were about 35 legitimate open world zones added. That's a lot potential running around and exploring.
No jumping though
Most hilarious oversight in gaming history lol
Seriously. I quit for WoW literally the day I saw you could jump.
CoP has my vote.
On the WoW thing... I don't think the average WoW player is good enough to beat stuff in Vanilla WoW. Not sure how long it will last. Orginal WoW players should be married with kids now.
I started XI before TOAU was released and didn't start CoP until after TOAU was released. So, I didn't get my first 75 until after Colibri/Imp camps were a thing. I truly loved the storytelling of CoP and haven't like anything MMO related since.
Personally preferred how XI told its story via cutscenes and such, but the actual story content was something I found lacking at times. For the most part, it's something no other MMO aside from XIV has really tried to emulate.
In terms of actual gameplay, I'd probably go for late WotG/Abyssea era where we weren't shackled to HNMs and progression for various things could be made at one's own pace without needing an army.
I personally hated how just about everything was locked behind linkshell raids and shit drop rates.
Like, who the hell wanted to sit in one spot all day for a pair of boots only for rando #2 to come by and get the drop so he could all his 17th pair (everyone).
There's only so much of that you can tolerate. I personally loved CoP and Wings because it forced cooperation and the rewards were actually good (CoP). I think the story derailed in Treasures but I always thought the War was the best story in the game.
I thought Limbus, ENMs, and Assault were good additions to content, in an era I actually played in, for people that wanted to do some kind of endgame without camping nms/needing 60 people.
I grew up in the RoZ era, and did actually enjoy RoZ content while I played, but it was definitely the most gated endgame content without question. The positive thing about all that continual sky nm camping though was you could cap all your combat skills without issue lol.
Pour one for all the taru mage brethren skilling their club/staff up only to get meltdowned by a groundskeeper 'cause the drk feel asleep.
CoP was the best story and skill check. Limbus was by a large margin my favorite event in the game. My friend and I ran a Limbus shell til the day we quit.
ToAU was great for variety and accessibility. It was easy to get around and most of the content was pretty good. I really liked assaults, got captain rank for myself. Nyzul was also great, even if a lot of I could be cheesed with wireframe mode in widower. Salvage sucked(or I sucked at Salvage). I had Morrigans body and a few other pieces but I never loved the event.
Edit: I miss RDM tanking so much.
I think I also liked ToAU so much because it was the first time I really put my own team together and cleared all the content, and also kicked ass at it. All the CoP stuff I was a member of other statics, for ToAU I carved out a leadership role. It was definitely the pinnacle of the game for me personally.
Not sure how many here had a chance to play ffxi before zilart but ya.
Pre-zilart: unfinished mmo of brutal nonsense, nothing figured out a true wildwest of "wtf is enmity" curebombs and facetanking everything. The magical period of pure wonderment where everything is new and fascinating and you're just starting so the lack of anything recognizable as endgame is irrelevant.
Zilart: Made the game what it was and started the trend for basically everything from that point forward. We got ninja which would be mandatory in a million different ways for the next decade. We get sky with gods/kirin and the big dick items like Wlegs/osode as well as 3 kings and even dynamis. In just this form the game was purely amazing, we had world spawns, instanced content that were challenging and went towards the ultimate goal of relics, and a tiered system of sky farming > gods > kirin which was a challenge at the time. Most people came to age in this expansion learning stun orders on genbu, kiting on kirin, sleeps/pulls in dynamis, and disappointment in Aery.
Chains of Promathia: By this point most of the top tier players were on farm status on everything and just grinding away on relics/dkp while the lower tier were still learning kirins and making their first forays into dynamis or leveling the 4th job they could never gear properly. COP was the big dick expansion that gave us a huge jump in difficulty that I think most endgame people at that point craved and enjoyed. We got ENM's, jorm/tiamat/vrtra/limbus/sea/bahamaut/dynamis accesory lands. The greatest enemy to ever grace our lands in the form of AV the unkillable fucktard and taught us what the phrase "working as intended" meant. Overall a great expansion that improved on and stayed similar to RoZ.
Treasures of Aht Urghan: This is where it started to take a dip imo, but also added a lot of very nice stuff towards the end of it. This expansion succeeded by merit of colibri parties alone, cerberus/khim/hydra were fun fights and stayed true to square enix policy of only ever being able to make 2/3 of their mobs drops worth fighting for. This expansion felt smaller than the rest and more addonish than the previous ones but we got corsair,nyzul isle,salvage and at least at the start a million minor nm's scattered around to make 100's millions of gil off of(hi2u lamia#9 etc). I personally loved the beastmen kings in Toau even though there was no reason to fight them for a couple years.
Wings of the goddess: Dark Ixion/Sandworm and a million missions no one wanted to do. Also campaign so drg's could finally level. This is the point in the game where myself and everyone in my linkshell started to get burnt out, it felt like the most hollow expansion to date being just a rehash of previous zones we didn't care about and 2 of the most obnoxious hnm's in the game that we of course felt the need to monopolize in lieu of sleep.
Abyssea expansions: Entirely new game at this point, where most people I knew including myself quit.
Adoulin: came back to try it and liked a lot of what it was had going on and would have liked it more if this was the expansion we got instead of abyssea and maintained the 75 cap and relatively sideways gear progression and some big pieces being replaced.
COP was the expansion where I came to power and started leading a linkshell and also the one I enjoyed the most. But then again I also spent a good 4-5 years forcing my linkshell to make attempts at AV whenever we had freetime so they may have felt differently. Unlike Kuro though I craved things that required linkshell alliances and were an extreme challenge. I do wish they were able to add some stuff that was meant for small groups that were exceptionally difficult and equally rewarding though, rather than stuff like salvage which was decent but more a thing of tedium and repetition than any semblance of challenge.