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PC Final Fantasy XI
- Thread starter GwJumpman
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I'm the local XI vet. Been on and off the game for almost 11 years now, which is a significantly longer period of time than 75-era existed. 
Met my fiancee through the game, a handful of people that are still good friends to this day, and I will bang the drums 'til the end of time that nothing - in the series, perhaps in the genre - can match it when it's firing on all cylinders and you've got a good group of derpy friends at your side. Gearswap and horizontal progression for life.
But hard no on ever looking at, much less joining, a private server. Nosomi, Eden, Horizon - they're all just full of people chasing white whales and pretending what's there is what they want. It's not. Horizon is especially bad insofar that it's not even pretending to be 75-era balance, it's just broken fanficion-esque nonsense that I am tickled pink to see piss off a lot of my OG NA Beta friends. One was so excited he actually stopped playing retail for nearly 6 months. Now, of course, he's back on retail and bemoans Horizon anytime anyone remotely references it.
Met my fiancee through the game, a handful of people that are still good friends to this day, and I will bang the drums 'til the end of time that nothing - in the series, perhaps in the genre - can match it when it's firing on all cylinders and you've got a good group of derpy friends at your side. Gearswap and horizontal progression for life.But hard no on ever looking at, much less joining, a private server. Nosomi, Eden, Horizon - they're all just full of people chasing white whales and pretending what's there is what they want. It's not. Horizon is especially bad insofar that it's not even pretending to be 75-era balance, it's just broken fanficion-esque nonsense that I am tickled pink to see piss off a lot of my OG NA Beta friends. One was so excited he actually stopped playing retail for nearly 6 months. Now, of course, he's back on retail and bemoans Horizon anytime anyone remotely references it.
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But since we have a thread for the game now, mayhaps it's worth mentioning that a lot of XIV streamers - helmed by MrHappy - some of whom are themselves XI vets, have on-boarded a supply of past and current XI players with the express purpose of helping new, first-time players coming to the game from XIV get through the story. In advance of XIV itself doing ostensibly an homage to XI with the upcoming 7.X Alliance Raid series. There are... many problems with this idea, in practice and in theory, both relating to how XI progression works and how much XIV has already borrowed/taken from XI to use as fodder content already.
Nevertheless, they are trying. Apparently their target server is/was Bahamut, the (formerly?) second largest XI server. And... yeah that's about all I know of them.
For my part, I'm - as noted above - on Sylph. Started there, fully set up there, staying there. I haven't had an active subscription in around 18 months in favor of pursuing Xbox achievements and dabbling in XIV misery (which are now the same thing, hooray!). However, I can absolutely change that if people here wanted to spin up a character on Sylph to get power leveled, Genkai/Limit broke, escorted through the more difficult stories or what have you.
XI is a gameplay-first kind of deal, but its stories are mostly (lolBastok) enjoyable and I vastly prefer its approach to storytelling compared to the likes of XIV or Kingdom Hearts with their singular narrative through-line that gets made up as they go to varying degrees of success.
Nevertheless, they are trying. Apparently their target server is/was Bahamut, the (formerly?) second largest XI server. And... yeah that's about all I know of them.
For my part, I'm - as noted above - on Sylph. Started there, fully set up there, staying there. I haven't had an active subscription in around 18 months in favor of pursuing Xbox achievements and dabbling in XIV misery (which are now the same thing, hooray!). However, I can absolutely change that if people here wanted to spin up a character on Sylph to get power leveled, Genkai/Limit broke, escorted through the more difficult stories or what have you.
XI is a gameplay-first kind of deal, but its stories are mostly (lolBastok) enjoyable and I vastly prefer its approach to storytelling compared to the likes of XIV or Kingdom Hearts with their singular narrative through-line that gets made up as they go to varying degrees of success.
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What kind of stuff in Horizon would you say isn't balanced for a classic experience? Some things I know are different is different mobs (additional in horizon i think), stronger level sync exp, no party exp scaling for beastmaster's pet (you would get less exp in retail because the pet counts as a party member?), and I think a handful of abilities/traits had their levels changed. I know recently they did a big update that I think has a lot of "original" changes to the game so I see what you mean on that aspect. This has been my first experience with XI so I'm not really familiar with how it's normally supposed to beI'm the local XI vet. Been on and off the game for almost 11 years now, which is a significantly longer period of time than 75-era existed.
But hard no on ever looking at, much less joining, a private server. Nosomi, Eden, Horizon - they're all just full of people chasing white whales and pretending what's there is what they want. It's not. Horizon is especially bad insofar that it's not even pretending to be 75-era balance, it's just broken fanficion-esque nonsense that I am tickled pink to see piss off a lot of my OG NA Beta friends. One was so excited he actually stopped playing retail for nearly 6 months. Now, of course, he's back on retail and bemoans Horizon anytime anyone remotely references it.
This is me:
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I assume Horizon itself would be the best source for what all has been changed, but in a very genuine sense: Everything is different because nobody knows how XI actually works. Things like Nosomi and Eden attempt(ed) to emulate based on the work of dataminers and stat nerds essentially reverse-engineering - with lots of guesses and assumptions - to get a rough approximation. Weapon Skill elements, their stat weights, what their modifiers are at varying TP thresholds - that's all sourced from endgame minmaxers, not Square or the game/server itself.
Horizon, then, goes a step beyond and intentionally changed an endless list of things that I see people bitch about whenever I pop my head into an XI Discord or check FFXIAH or what have you. BST is almost universally the #2 thing people complain most about because it's allegedly overtuned and more reflects how stupidly out of sync it was circa 2015, not 2005 where it was essentially a joke outside of very niche things like slowly solo-leveling (which no other job could vaguely accomplish). Nobody ever wanted a BST in their party during "Classic" times, or so I'm told.
#1 thing people bitch about is the server operator(s) selling Gil, generating extraordinarily rare high-end items for themselves and their inner circle, and things like that. ...As if that wasn't always going to be the case, I suppose.
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For better or worse, XI and XIV could not possibly be more different than one another. Everything from central design ethos to endgame realities is just so very, wildly incomparable - and, invariably, XI wins in all categories once you're inside the game. In my totally humble opinion, of course.
It's fuckin' bizarre how much XI really does feel like a "Final Fantasy (but) Online," too. I would say that, if XII was actually XI's combat system but offline (and still with Gambits, obviously), it would've genuinely been the GOAT regardless of narrative failings.
Even discounting things like changing gear pieces mid-combat (which sounds weird but just think of it like shifting Mana/Aether/whatever alignment) to accomplish different things per action, stuff like Weapon Skills into Skill Chain into Magic Burst is just very satisfying. The huge importance of buffing and debuffing, all of the status ailments to stay on top of, etc. Love it.
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I'd honestly lose my shit over a single player FF game letting me micromanage gear swaps for abilitiesFor better or worse, XI and XIV could not possibly be more different than one another. Everything from central design ethos to endgame realities is just so very, wildly incomparable - and, invariably, XI wins in all categories once you're inside the game. In my totally humble opinion, of course.
It's fuckin' bizarre how much XI really does feel like a "Final Fantasy (but) Online," too. I would say that, if XII was actually XI's combat system but offline (and still with Gambits, obviously), it would've genuinely been the GOAT regardless of narrative failings.
Even discounting things like changing gear pieces mid-combat (which sounds weird but just think of it like shifting Mana/Aether/whatever alignment) to accomplish different things per action, stuff like Weapon Skills into Skill Chain into Magic Burst is just very satisfying. The huge importance of buffing and debuffing, all of the status ailments to stay on top of, etc. Love it.
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Oh man, I’ve spent so much time inside The Boyahda Tree. Killing the spiders and funguar for EXP, killing the Ancient Goobbue up on the third floor (post-75 cap) for Wisteria Lumber and various Moss items to NPC/AH for cold, hard Gil.
I missed the heydays of Nidhogg down inside The Dragon’s Aery, but I’ve heard all about the abject terror of OG Spike Flail. Sounded like a good time.
I grabbed screens of my characters when I logged in for Bonanza Marbles like a week ago. Will post them sometime after I manage to return home.
I missed the heydays of Nidhogg down inside The Dragon’s Aery, but I’ve heard all about the abject terror of OG Spike Flail. Sounded like a good time.
I grabbed screens of my characters when I logged in for Bonanza Marbles like a week ago. Will post them sometime after I manage to return home.
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I remember things, sometimes!
My main character: He started life as a WAR, with the original intention of becoming a PLD. With maybe a DRK or DRG on the side (this never actually happened, though I did wind up dual maining WAR and DRG in XIV over the last ~9 years), for cases where someone else had the tank duty covered. Things almost immediately went off course, but I will say that squaring off against One-eyed Gwajboj solo, with potions and shit, in my early career before I even knew about (or really had enough gear to begin) gear swapping, is one of the highlights of my ~11 years off and on with the game.
Amusingly, to me anyway, it went something like this. I got WAR to lv30-ish to unlock PLD, got that to lv70 and took down Maat for the Genkai/Limit Break. But then I noticed, in my efforts to get my friends caught up and through their Artifact Quests, particularly WHM's, that... we were severely lacking in offensive power. So I became a BST, and that was my first lv99. Used Dipper Yuly extensively - to farm the aforementioned Goobbue for Gil, to tank and spank dangerous NMs my little friend group was otherwise not ready for, and ultimately did what I could to get our resident MNK his Black Belt. ...Sadly, BST wasn't good enough to get all the way through. But we'll get to that in a moment.
As the rest of the group started coming into their own, and especially as we started entering Abyssea and beyond, I left BST behind. I returned to WAR; I put a ton of effort into capping all of the Combat Skills with it, I went out of my way to secure Abyssea procs for easier farming of NMs, and I even entered endgame - Seeker of Adoulin's "Delve," at the time - with it. Which earned me the, at the time, impressively powerful Oatixur hand-to-hand weapon. And so, eventually, I wound up becoming a MNK. ...And then a RNG. And finally, in my original stint, a SAM. My MNK, RNG and SAM were all very well geared, and there wasn't much my group couldn't tackle. But then I quit - I had to, for myriad personal reasons - and that was that.
I eventually returned, as we all do, some 3 or 4 years later. Alongside my now fiancee, whom I originally met during my XI stint and who came with me over to XIV. Wherein I left all of those jobs behind, and finally succumbed and picked up and kitted out BLU. BLU and SAM are now functionally the only jobs I have/use on my main because of the introduction of Job Points and Master Levels, but I do actually have every job at 99, every Combat and Magic Skill is capped, Merit Points are fully capped, and many jobs have at least some reasonable progression into Job Points. If I ever care enough to finish off my bucket list.
My second character: My first alt. Sort of in a time before I really, uh, "knew" myself. If you will. She came into being because of that MNK in my friend group that needed his Black Belt. One of the enemies required was a dragon; while in flight, you can only hurt it with ranged attacks or magic attacks. Nobody in the group had either. So, she was created as a BLM. And... I made her into a powerhouse. Despite being ~4 months younger than my main, she quickly became - and remained - the strongest character in the group during our first year. She single-handedly carried entire groups of people through higher tiers of Adoulin's "Skirmish" content, and got dozens of people/characters geared up enough to help topple Delve.
When she wasn't killing things herself, because I had the wherewithal to create her on a second account separate from the main and could therefore use both at once, she alternated between WHM and RDM to support him. And together, they proved more than a match for everything everybody needed to get done and ready for endgame. Which, unfortunately, was about as far as she could go; maintaining focus to manually operate both characters (I have never, and will never, use things like the command console to turn her into a Curebot or whatever) wasn't really in the cards. Especially while being the leader of the group.
At the point I quit circa 2015, she had a pretty respectable BLM, WHM and RDM, with pretty extensive plans and some decent progression made towards shifting her into a WHM/BRD/BLU. When I came back, dropped the BRD - one of my partner's characters picked that up instead - and just focused on WHM and BLU. ...Yes I had/have two BLUs. Casual cleaving was too beneficial to not pursue, for everything from Gil to EXP.
And this is the baby of the group - also on her own account, for a total of three (six, with my partner's three). ...Yes 600 hours is still in baby territory. This is XI.
I really just have her as a THF and a COR, depending on needs. And if I were to actually pursue a tank it would be with her, finally making a PLD. Admittedly the main has a lot of progression towards Ochain already, and Aegis may as well be a freebie in this day and age, but I can't really envision a scenario with just me and my partner where we're fighting something that actually requires a tank, but don't also require our primary damage dealer.
By all accounts, this is the really real end of life for XI. At least until such time that hubris catches up with XIV, or a third FF MMO/live service materializes. So that does make it hard to care enough to put more work into the game and my characters - and my partner's characters, really, since I built her BRD's Relic and Empyrean solo during a two week vacation some years back - and as a consequence we haven't really maintained a subscription/presence since the end of 2021.
Still, the plans are still there. And we're only a couple of rungs outside of "proper" endgame territory, so it wouldn't take an immense effort by XI standards to get back on the saddle.
Content like Odyssey would be a pain for some of the dualboxes, but we'd find a way to make it work I'm sure.
No I don't really expect anyone to understand anything about this post, I'm just nerding and reminiscing alongside posting the pictures lol
My main character: He started life as a WAR, with the original intention of becoming a PLD. With maybe a DRK or DRG on the side (this never actually happened, though I did wind up dual maining WAR and DRG in XIV over the last ~9 years), for cases where someone else had the tank duty covered. Things almost immediately went off course, but I will say that squaring off against One-eyed Gwajboj solo, with potions and shit, in my early career before I even knew about (or really had enough gear to begin) gear swapping, is one of the highlights of my ~11 years off and on with the game.
Amusingly, to me anyway, it went something like this. I got WAR to lv30-ish to unlock PLD, got that to lv70 and took down Maat for the Genkai/Limit Break. But then I noticed, in my efforts to get my friends caught up and through their Artifact Quests, particularly WHM's, that... we were severely lacking in offensive power. So I became a BST, and that was my first lv99. Used Dipper Yuly extensively - to farm the aforementioned Goobbue for Gil, to tank and spank dangerous NMs my little friend group was otherwise not ready for, and ultimately did what I could to get our resident MNK his Black Belt. ...Sadly, BST wasn't good enough to get all the way through. But we'll get to that in a moment.
As the rest of the group started coming into their own, and especially as we started entering Abyssea and beyond, I left BST behind. I returned to WAR; I put a ton of effort into capping all of the Combat Skills with it, I went out of my way to secure Abyssea procs for easier farming of NMs, and I even entered endgame - Seeker of Adoulin's "Delve," at the time - with it. Which earned me the, at the time, impressively powerful Oatixur hand-to-hand weapon. And so, eventually, I wound up becoming a MNK. ...And then a RNG. And finally, in my original stint, a SAM. My MNK, RNG and SAM were all very well geared, and there wasn't much my group couldn't tackle. But then I quit - I had to, for myriad personal reasons - and that was that.
I eventually returned, as we all do, some 3 or 4 years later. Alongside my now fiancee, whom I originally met during my XI stint and who came with me over to XIV. Wherein I left all of those jobs behind, and finally succumbed and picked up and kitted out BLU. BLU and SAM are now functionally the only jobs I have/use on my main because of the introduction of Job Points and Master Levels, but I do actually have every job at 99, every Combat and Magic Skill is capped, Merit Points are fully capped, and many jobs have at least some reasonable progression into Job Points. If I ever care enough to finish off my bucket list.
My second character: My first alt. Sort of in a time before I really, uh, "knew" myself. If you will. She came into being because of that MNK in my friend group that needed his Black Belt. One of the enemies required was a dragon; while in flight, you can only hurt it with ranged attacks or magic attacks. Nobody in the group had either. So, she was created as a BLM. And... I made her into a powerhouse. Despite being ~4 months younger than my main, she quickly became - and remained - the strongest character in the group during our first year. She single-handedly carried entire groups of people through higher tiers of Adoulin's "Skirmish" content, and got dozens of people/characters geared up enough to help topple Delve.
When she wasn't killing things herself, because I had the wherewithal to create her on a second account separate from the main and could therefore use both at once, she alternated between WHM and RDM to support him. And together, they proved more than a match for everything everybody needed to get done and ready for endgame. Which, unfortunately, was about as far as she could go; maintaining focus to manually operate both characters (I have never, and will never, use things like the command console to turn her into a Curebot or whatever) wasn't really in the cards. Especially while being the leader of the group.
At the point I quit circa 2015, she had a pretty respectable BLM, WHM and RDM, with pretty extensive plans and some decent progression made towards shifting her into a WHM/BRD/BLU. When I came back, dropped the BRD - one of my partner's characters picked that up instead - and just focused on WHM and BLU. ...Yes I had/have two BLUs. Casual cleaving was too beneficial to not pursue, for everything from Gil to EXP.
And this is the baby of the group - also on her own account, for a total of three (six, with my partner's three). ...Yes 600 hours is still in baby territory. This is XI.
I really just have her as a THF and a COR, depending on needs. And if I were to actually pursue a tank it would be with her, finally making a PLD. Admittedly the main has a lot of progression towards Ochain already, and Aegis may as well be a freebie in this day and age, but I can't really envision a scenario with just me and my partner where we're fighting something that actually requires a tank, but don't also require our primary damage dealer.
By all accounts, this is the really real end of life for XI. At least until such time that hubris catches up with XIV, or a third FF MMO/live service materializes. So that does make it hard to care enough to put more work into the game and my characters - and my partner's characters, really, since I built her BRD's Relic and Empyrean solo during a two week vacation some years back - and as a consequence we haven't really maintained a subscription/presence since the end of 2021.
Still, the plans are still there. And we're only a couple of rungs outside of "proper" endgame territory, so it wouldn't take an immense effort by XI standards to get back on the saddle.
Content like Odyssey would be a pain for some of the dualboxes, but we'd find a way to make it work I'm sure.
No I don't really expect anyone to understand anything about this post, I'm just nerding and reminiscing alongside posting the pictures lol
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Aye, Tu'Lia (Sky) was one quarter of endgame. Together with Al'Taieu (Sea), Dynamis and High Notorious Monsters that's the bulk of what 75-era nostalgia maniacs pine for. The rest is functionally all of the Treasures of Aht Urghan expansion; Salvage, Assault + Nyzul Isle, the Beast Kings, Besieged (Al Zahbi being attacked).
There's something magical about seeing a 75-era private server screenshot that has a million add-ons running given how many "veterans" piss and moan about all of that. Ashita is/was an alternative to Windower on the Retail/Official end of things, that I personally didn't use since it was far less scrupulous when it came to not supporting actual game-breaking stuff like Flee hacking, moving the position of your dead body, et al.
How much of that is there by default? Retail still doesn't have a mini-map (the layout of every zone is permanently etched into my memory), for example, and still requires purchasing or questing for maps you can open via the menu.
There's something magical about seeing a 75-era private server screenshot that has a million add-ons running given how many "veterans" piss and moan about all of that.
Ashita is/was an alternative to Windower on the Retail/Official end of things, that I personally didn't use since it was far less scrupulous when it came to not supporting actual game-breaking stuff like Flee hacking, moving the position of your dead body, et al.How much of that is there by default? Retail still doesn't have a mini-map (the layout of every zone is permanently etched into my memory
), for example, and still requires purchasing or questing for maps you can open via the menu.