My Thoughts

Some things have been going through my mind lately about FFXI. Back when I started playing leveling was an adventure, as much as a pain in my ***. Okay, 10% adventure 90% a pain in my ***. Still, actually hitting level 75 meant something to me back then. Leveling was rough before Aht Urhgan (not so much Lumoria (sea) if you were one of those people that had it before Aht Urhgan and actually leveled there). I'm talking about the days when you got 75 in Tu'Lia (sky) killing Aura Statues maybe pulling off 5k exp an hour, maybe! And then getting your *** handed to you when Ullikummi popped, or being forced to level on Aura Weapons and Decorative Weapons when there were Linkshells/botters/hackers/gil sellers abusing the area around Ullikummi at a much slower pace than 5k exp an hour.

Being able to use a ring to give you extra exp per kill, being able to level with people level 10 or 30 when your level 60 through level sync. Everyone of these examples, and more unmentioned because I don't want to think of all the ways you can make EXP stupidly (before abyssea), are ways SE have given into our demands to be lazy and get what we want easier demeaning the work that others have done in the past to get what you want right now even if you don't truly deserve it.

Even considering you could get 1200 exp in a chest back then was crazy, let alone getting 100,000 exp in 30-60 minutes by killing a handful of mobs and building "lights".

All of us are being spoiled by Abyssea, no matter how you look at it. The game is so unbalanced at the moment. Why would anyone spend 5 hours doing 5k-10k an hour when you could do Abyssea. The fact you can level with 18 people and not have EXP penalties is ridiculous. Whats more ridiculous is 99% of the FFXI community are in Abyssea or AFK in Jeuno/Whitegate.

But Abyssea has given us the opportunity to level jobs we once wished we had but didn't have the time/motivation to do so because it could take months just to get the levels for the job. I have leveled jobs in Abyssea, but who wouldn't given the opportunity to through a buy-able expansion...

Honestly, SE needs to make the minimum level required to enter Abyssea level 75 since it came out when the level cap was raised after 9 years. No one is learning ***about their jobs leveling it from 30-90 in a few hours. SE slapped all its loyal players in the face for making the minimum level so low. All their hard work that they put in leveling for months, and seeking for hours and hours and hours..., because they wanted to be that job, means nothing now. Forget about armor, its always been replaced slowly update after update. It's the time we spent into leveling that really bothers me. Square-Enix make the required level to enter Abyssea level 75.

I miss when a Maats cap actually was an awesome achievement.

I'd be surprised if any of the players who started when Abyssea came out actually has a map of crawlers nest, or knows what a stone monument is. Or has leveled a craft, fished, leveled in any place other than Abyssea past level 30... has walked up to the throne room or has done dynamis. Hell, if they even have any of the CoP missions done.

There was an important progression leveling up to 75. You got to experience so much of the game, so many zones. Done so many activities and met so many people. The people, seriously. Anyone who has leveled before level sync knows this, that when you leveled you leveled with the same group of people (kinda), but you saw a lot of people and teamed up and made friends. Instead we are practically forced to visit 9 areas of the game and that's it.

Everything else is just so empty... :\

If I was SE I would want my players to use all the areas that they released and for everyone to experience them and experience the game, not just 9 areas. This is a game we should all experience together and have adventures and experiences but for me I don't see what they are thinking. The monsters in those areas make NO sense. They don't correspond to the area really... a corpselight is a scary lil thing, why are they even near cockatrices or scorpions or...adamantoises?! Okay, maybe they should of introduced more adamantoises in the game, and Wyrms. Not a whole lot of people got to experience those besides mission/quest versions which was actually a really cool way to get to experience a Wyrm (Ouryu) when most of them are monopolized by HNM LS's. But now you can experience just about any type of monster in the game by walking through 1 single area... its so stupid.

I'm not going to quit over it, but its just aggravating when this game was so fun once upon a time, and now its so much...smaller.

a 90 whm without haste
whitegate without astral candy
mages that dont have a high level magic skill and wonder why their enfeebles dont stick
every tard with twilight gear full time
drk's thinking that they dont need haste

is what abyssea gave us

That existed before abyssea, (well besides not having *** candy),

There will always be gimps no matter what, NO MATTER WHAT!!!!!

For the love of Christ will you people stop complaining about this game! It's just Q *** Q threads one after the other always complaining about something.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT DON'T PLAY IT!

you forgot redmages without refresh and phalanx and blues with no spells

i want to play with your avatar's QQ's

I love the game lol, why would I still be playing? Its a long post but come on, I'm talking about being stuck in 9 areas of the game that are just recolored and thrown together. There is absolutely no exploration going on and you dont see anyone anywhere else but abyssea or AFK.

i used to insta-kick rdm for not having refresh, now they can get away with it

Kalilla I agree completely with you. Pro tip everyone: You can still enjoy and play a game, whilst not liking every facet of it.

If you know how to do some basic research, you'll be fine any way you look at it. FFXI isn't a hard game and it's not hard to learn jobs.

If you can't do this, then you probably would have sucked anyway, even if you lv'd it regularly.

Not with things that require practice, math is math but practice puts those numbers into action. But I agree 90% with that

True, but knowing what to do and when is key, and being babied through to level 90 basically destroys your opportunities to develop and practice that needed "skill" if you will.

Yes, practice is practice. Let's say you can abyssea in 2 days to 90. Then let's say you lv regularly and take a month. They both start at the same day. At the end of the 30 days, who is going to have more practice as a lv 90 [insert job here]?

Because playing at lv 90 is more relevant to 90 than lv 1-89 is

I don't anymore.

@OP

I agree with you.

I didn't quit the game because others got the stuff I worked for years to get, in just a week. But because the game stopped beeing fun really.

The last few weeks I played i spent a lot of time with a new player in game. I think it took them around 2 weeks to get from lv 1-85 (mind you this person had never played this game before). When it was time for them to fight maat, they gave their game info to someone else and let them beat him for them (they were playing whm).

They were basically a WHM85/RDM10. They never took the time to stop leveling in order to either quest for spells or farm gil to buy spells. they had no tele spells, and only protectra/shellra 3, no raise 3. They were running around in lv 10 gear until they could equip AF3 (NQ). They were still rank 1, didnt have access to kazham etc etc.

Now This person obviously wasn't a bad person. They just did what SE gave them the ability to do.

level 20 jobs to 90 in a couple weeks, then quit a month later cause it was easier than wow

But Level 90 is much more than level 90, its learning how to use each individual skill you earned on your way up and someone with extensive practice on each skill. Experimenting with armor as you level, buying new pieces every 5-10 levels seeing what works out and what boosts the job and makes it better. You will know much more about the job than someone who burned through it in a few days. Some jobs are simple and you would benefit more burning through them, but there are some complex jobs that require knowledge on how to use the skills properly.

You can argue that you can learn that through research and hard work and you can to a point. But experience will triumph over efficiency any day in my opinion. To master a job takes a long time, knowledge about the job and game, and a lot of hard work and experiences. Leveling it in a month gives you that much more experience over someone who took 2 days to do it.

how you play 1-89 is totally different than 90. Again, you get more practice at 90 playing 90 than 1-89.


main healing as smn doesn't teach you ***about coming smn to an event to do damage, for example.

Mnk turning when he has hate so the tank can get hate back doesn't
teach you how to mnk tank, etc.



And what does this have to do with being lv 1-89? You can spend an equiv time on 1-89 as you do 90, and the person starting at 90 will have more experience on how the job works at lv 90

Yes, but what about lv'ing a month vs lving 2 days, and using the other 28 practicing the job?

The way you're saying it, the person lvs it 2 days and never touches it for the rest of the month.

i think what kililla is getting at is that because SE kicked in the easy mode option new players that join the game dont get the same sense of value that the people got 3-4 years ago.

and then we ate pickles.

Umm so.. Can you research your way to capped skills as well? Or is it perfectly fine in these days for a RDM 90 to have the enfeeb skills of a lv 45? Is it fine for a MNK 95 to not be able to use any ws above raging fists?

At 90, you can cap your skills faster than lv'ing it in an exp pt. Can have your skills capped before the person who didn't abyssea got to lv 90.

your point?

And even then, if they lv sync at all, they probably won't be capped, either.

guarding and parrying would be a bit more difficult to level when you are at 90 instead of progressively level it on constant IT mobs otw to 90

Depending on the skills used for that job, your going to spend a majority of that month catching up capping your skills.

Capping your skills wont take a month to do but its not something you can do in a day for most skills.

Then your talking about practicing the job and figuring out your way to play when you could of been doing that grinding through the levels while learning how to use your job with a team of people.

Abyssea has no teamwork other than don't kill with a weaponskill or I'll get angry with you for getting ruby light.

I still cant see how someone who burns will have the same knowledge and skill and skill levels and equipment as someone who grinded at the end of a month.

not at all. At lv 90, you have more utilities. While guard is a piece of ***and not worth lv'ing to begin with. You can grab multiple lower lv mobs at once and lv it much faster.


For example, you can go from 0 guard to 200ish in a few days. Get a rdm, and go to B tree. Get 15-20 mandies and phal II. They'll hit for 0-5. Easy to cure so you don't die, 20 mandies hitting twice per round and you think you'll lv it faster lv'ing? When I lv'd mnk the regular way, my guard skill was 96 at lv 75

I think the "damage" (if you will) has already been done..

setting limits wouldn't really be the way to go imo.. rather they should make some faster exp camps for lower levels

I dont think i'm going out on a limb here saying 95% (random stat ftw) who were playing when abyssea came out were already lvl 75

so i don't feel the update really limited their ability to find groups or gain exp with people (just changed the standard camps)

anybody who really enjoyed the level up grinding aspect of the game still has access to that also btw lol

the problem i see is the other 5% (not sure how many new accounts or w/e each month there are and idc enough to look it up >_>), they will have a hard time getting to the fun part of the game..

ffxi doesn't start till you are max level and can join others for nm run's, or salvage, or w/e other mayhem people get into.

guess my point is.. we shouldn't limit the exp for people who have been playing the game a long time and just want to enjoy the gameplay aspect of ffxi.

we should find ways to make newer players able to join us older players in abyssea and endgame stuff effectively.

the old ffxi was fun... unforgiving.. difficult.. hours upon hours of effort w/o reward many times.. but fun nonetheless

that ffxi is gone and i seriously doubt they will bring it back after all the excitement of abyssea.

tl/dr.. old ffxi is gone.. either move on to a new challenging game.. or enjoy the casual aspects of the new ffxi

How many times do i have to say it? Lv'ing in exp is totally diff from how you do it outside of exp. Your role in an exp group 99% of the time is going to be different from your role in endgame group.


I know plenty of people who I would consider to be top end for their jobs who lv'd in abyssea or smn burned that I'd take any day over a lot of the people who lv'd regularly and still *** suck at their job.