FFXIV is one of the shittiest games ever made.

[J1M]

What I remember about Final Fantasy XI, and my memory is a little fuzzy, but I remember being on a full team just roaming around on a beach and we had to pull single enemies that were our level range, if you pulled 2, the team was ripped. And this is one of the things I do remember, because I was asshurt over losing a boatload of exp to "beach slugs". This was really early in the game's life, it may have changed a lot near the end. I also remember teams needing at least 2 people with taunt because 1 tank couldn't keep aggro the entire time even if they did everything they were supposed to do. Successful teams had 2 tanks who worked together to cycle their taunt cooldowns. I was a warrior/monk tank, and I tried to coordinate this with others, but not everyone wanted to listen. Retarded players made the game difficult for everyone who was teamed with them. And my experience with this game shaped my view that I'd rather solo, or not play at all than roll the dice with a team of random players.

I never invested in this myself, but my understanding is that you could solo the game as a beast master with a pet. Probably still needed to group to unlock the job and level up a support job.

Aside: one of the great things about the FFXI economy was the way elemental crystals were distributed. Basically, you got them for killing mobs while having a certain buff. Low level characters would get a lot of crystals since they were soloing and high level characters got less due to splitting loot with their group. This meant new players had materials to sell on the auction house that high level players wanted, giving them enough currency to afford crafted equipment.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

What I remember about Final Fantasy XI, and my memory is a little fuzzy, but I remember being on a full team just roaming around on a beach and we had to pull single enemies that were our level range, if you pulled 2, the team was ripped. And this is one of the things I do remember, because I was asshurt over losing a boatload of exp to "beach slugs". This was really early in the game's life, it may have changed a lot near the end. I also remember teams needing at least 2 people with taunt because 1 tank couldn't keep aggro the entire time even if they did everything they were supposed to do. Successful teams had 2 tanks who worked together to cycle their taunt cooldowns. I was a warrior/monk tank, and I tried to coordinate this with others, but not everyone wanted to listen. Retarded players made the game difficult for everyone who was teamed with them. And my experience with this game shaped my view that I'd rather solo, or not play at all than roll the dice with a team of random players.

You only need one tank. To maintain aggro, the tank has to have the highest amount of threat. This can be done either one of two ways: 1. the easiest way is to just equip the Warrior job (as a main or subjob) and use the Provoke ability when you begin your damage burst so that you have the highest threat. The threat gained by Provoke wears off over time so you have to keep spamming it and try to use your damage abilities right after you pop it. The other method is to equip gear that increases your threat (so you can have tanks who do not have warrior equipped as either a main or subjob). You still need to be dealing a lot of damage to maintain aggro. In either case, even if the tank is doing everything correctly, it is still possible for other DPS to spike and exceed the tank's threat and get aggro. So the DPS also have a responsibility to not pop their damage abilities immediately and wait until after the tank has built up enough threat before going ham.

I never invested in this myself, but my understanding is that you could solo the game as a beast master with a pet. Probably still needed to group to unlock the job and level up a support job.

Any job can theoretically grind mobs lower level than the player to level cap, but it takes a long time. The most efficient way to level is always in a party. In the Beastmaster's case, exp is split between the player and their pet, so you need to be fighting tougher mobs, which takes more time and is more dangerous.

A couple weeks into Horizon's launch, I was a level 35 Dragoon in a leveling party farming wasps in Yuhtunga Jungle when word got out who the highest level players were. There was a party of players who were in the high 60s. A warrior tank, 4 beastmasters, and a white mage healer. Because most gear in FFXI is crafted and it was a fresh server and everyone was poor, the party was funneling all of their gear to the tank so he could survive and hold aggro. Since the damage Beastmaster Pet's do isn't dependent upon the gear the player is wearing, it was okay that the Beastmaster players had crappy gear. The pets did the damage. That also gave the party more leeway in case the tank died, as the mob would go after the four pets while the rest of the party could run away.

[Ranselknulf]

If memory serves me, a lot of those button bloat damage abilities were separated out like that so specific attack combos could be created for more damage.

Most players sucked at making those combos and would just treat them all like individual damage button spams. If you got into a good group though, that understood the interactions of magic elements, combat abilities, and specific enemy weaknesses, then you could really increase your xp gain and damage output.

[rusty_shackleford]

FF14 being popular is proof we don't deserve anything good.

[Ranselknulf]

I tried it for a shortwhile earlier this year. I just didn't have time to really get into it.

My quick analysis of the chat channels showed that 25% of them were literally erotic roleplay channels.

[Kalarion]

What I remember about Final Fantasy XI, and my memory is a little fuzzy, but I remember being on a full team just roaming around on a beach and we had to pull single enemies that were our level range, if you pulled 2, the team was ripped. And this is one of the things I do remember, because I was asshurt over losing a boatload of exp to "beach slugs". This was really early in the game's life, it may have changed a lot near the end. I also remember teams needing at least 2 people with taunt because 1 tank couldn't keep aggro the entire time even if they did everything they were supposed to do. Successful teams had 2 tanks who worked together to cycle their taunt cooldowns. I was a warrior/monk tank, and I tried to coordinate this with others, but not everyone wanted to listen. Retarded players made the game difficult for everyone who was teamed with them. And my experience with this game shaped my view that I'd rather solo, or not play at all than roll the dice with a team of random players.

You only need one tank. To maintain aggro, the tank has to have the highest amount of threat. This can be done either one of two ways: 1. the easiest way is to just equip the Warrior job (as a main or subjob) and use the Provoke ability when you begin your damage burst so that you have the highest threat. The threat gained by Provoke wears off over time so you have to keep spamming it and try to use your damage abilities right after you pop it. The other method is to equip gear that increases your threat (so you can have tanks who do not have warrior equipped as either a main or subjob). You still need to be dealing a lot of damage to maintain aggro. In either case, even if the tank is doing everything correctly, it is still possible for other DPS to spike and exceed the tank's threat and get aggro. So the DPS also have a responsibility to not pop their damage abilities immediately and wait until after the tank has built up enough threat before going ham.

This isn't quite right. At low levels and pre-subjob basically your only option for tanking was WAR, for provoke. At higher levels, with subjobs, and with access to advanced classes, options opened up. The key to tanking in XI (at least in groups, raids were absolute chaos with very weird setups) was your subjob, and whether you had a THF (which made tanking easy-mode). Your choices for subjob were either: WAR (Provoke, breaks), SAM (for fast TP gain, Third Eye and Hachi), THF (could do a weak SATA once you hit 60), DRK (could maintain threat forever through pure damage, but no defensive value at all) and NIN (Utsu:Ni, dual-wield, utility through self-invis and self-sneak). MNK was never a desirable subjob for tanking.

The premier tank job was PLD (stuns and heals, defensive abilities and the ability to cast a lesser version of Protect and Shell, could hold group agro forever). But SATA made most group tanking considerations moot: the tank could consistently start with a massive threat lead that the DPS would have a hard time overtaking prior to mob death.

I don't remember ever, even as a lowbie with no subjob, feeling like IT mobs of a proper level range (+3-5 levels over the pt) outclassed us to the point xping was a threat. It was only doing experimental or dangerous stuff (+7-10 levels over the pt using SC and MB, etc) that I felt seriously in danger. If we were dying a lot during a standard grind session it was almost always down to either having to settle for a non-standard tank in subpar gear, or having a shitty healer.

The great thing about XI, especially pre-WOTG, was there was a near-infinite ceiling for group skill expression through SC and MB. The difference between a standard, no-effort grind pt and one that coordinated for proper SC and MB was absolutely incredible. You could literally double or triple xp over time if you were with players who knew what they were doing. The only limit was mob density (very good groups could easily depopulate portions of the zone, leaving 2-3 mins before respawns).

[somerandomdude]

My perspective on FF XI was when the game was very early in its life, like within a month or 2 launch. I understand that they made the game a lot easier and a lot more solo friendly later on in the game's life.

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

I don't remember why I made this topic. It's pretty gay looking back at it now. Wish I could headbutt myself from ever creating it. Fuck Ukraine.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I am still subbed to FF14, mainly because I have a house. You lose your house if you don't enter it at least once every 45 days, and the housing shortage is awful so if I lost it I'd probably never get a house again, or at least a desirable plot. Also, I spent a lot of time decorating it and don't want to do it again. Trying to use glitches to float up objects is a pain. But I have been caring less and less about the house. 7.0 will make or break my interest in the game so I might unsub there. I do ocassionally log in to level up a job or do Eureka, but I mainly play other games. Last year I was playing GW2 and finished that, and over the last few months I've been playing WoW again, but I've done pretty much done all of the content and achieved my goals there. I will play through the new WoW dungeon releasing next week, maybe attain this season's Mythic Keystone Master (requires a score of 2,000 and I am at 1,273), and then quit.

[Derringer]

I tried it for a shortwhile earlier this year. I just didn't have time to really get into it.

My quick analysis of the chat channels showed that 25% of them were literally erotic roleplay channels.

That sound like WoW to be frank, or at least what people talked about it being like.

My perspective on FF XI was when the game was very early in its life, like within a month or 2 launch. I understand that they made the game a lot easier and a lot more solo friendly later on in the game's life.

People have bitched about XI either being too hard or being casualized to death. I liked some of the design from when I tried out one of the private servers people set up but I couldn't be assed to play through it.

[rusty_shackleford]

I am still subbed to FF14, mainly because I have a house. You lose your house if you don't enter it at least once every 45 days

I can go enter my house from EQ2 that I first created probably before some of the posters on this forum were born and it will work just fine.
You're being jewed.

[KnightoftheWind]

I hear these games haven't been good since Final Fantasy IX, and it sure looks that way. It really doesn't get more predatory than having your in-game house vanish if you don't log-in to play often enough. The Jew loves the Samurai, it seems.

We may bear witness to the final days of Square Enix, unless they merge with some other company. Maybe we'll end up with Square Enix Embracer?, Square Enix Activision Blizzard & Knuckles?.

[maidenhaver]

Square hasn't been good since Square Soft.

[somerandomdude]

Square hasn't been good since Square Soft.

I can't think of any examples where the quality of games actually improved after larger studios merged. Likewise, Enix was also better before the merger.

[Derringer]

Enix had less crap to manage before the merger, they were and still are a publishing company for smaller company products, after the merger they had to juggle more retards.