How Could SE Realistically Improve Modern FFXI?

It's very hard to cap attack on T3's, they have really high defense, high resistance to geomancy and you need to use buff slots on defensive buffs to survive long enough to kill them.


We tried swapping Aria in but it didn't help on Ngai, Kalunga, Xevioso or Arribati. The first three you end up having to use song slots for defense, the last one you have no debuffs on the 2nd KI. Our bard has a major hardon for Aria and was trying to fit it into everything, the T3 V25's just have too many requirements. Plus the first three you can already kill in plenty of time, provided you survive long enough to kill it.

Abyssea was actually solid contrary to the hate it gets. For "You've finished the game" zones, it took people some weeks to figure out the mechanics but like classic FFXI once people started figuring everything out it became better and better. Abyssea rewarded progression at a set pace even if some of it was RNG based it was still relatively progressive. Empryean Progression (weapons) while difficult (actually nigh impossible) if you did not have atma or Ki's for power scaling (I'm looking at you NM's like Carabosse during Visions of Abyssea at level 80 with no atma, people compared her to AV initially.)

Much like old style FFXI if you were geared, had proper progression knew your mechanics you were a god in Abyssea.

I've stayed loyal to my liking of its base design and really hope to see something like it again in the future.

They are super useful, not for the PDL, but for adding an extra powerful WS to the set, which greatly helps with wall. Opashoro's AM3 can almost negate ongo's magic attack down aura.

Add in an XIV style crossbar.

That's what they've already been doing, and is probably the only reason XI stays afloat. The publisher has never cared about XI, despite how much money it's made them. FFXI and DQO have been the only things keeping the lights on for the last 16 years of uninterrupted failures.

That's the point of this brainstorm. How could they possibly make meaningful improvements without big costs? The first couple of pages in particular (before everything derailed, as it always tends to) had some really good ideas.

Oh yeah, FFXIV has been losing SE crazy amounts of money for the last 16 years. They have had absolutely no success with it in the last 16 years, it's been a nonstop unmitigated disaster with no profit to be found anywhere. Practically nobody has even heard of the game and there's no money to be made there.

Plus, everyone knows that both FF7 remakes, FF15, and FF16 were colossal failures that nobody bought or played.

Triangle Strategy, Tactics Ogre: Reborn, Octopath Traveler 2, all known failures that everyone hated and nobody bought.

Thank Altana they have that FFXI money or they'd be bankrupt by now!

FFXI is the easiest mmorpg in the world to add new content for.

Add +1 white box malignant gear to Lillith fight for instance, a dev can do this in a few days and it will keep people busy for a long time.


You know that XI is part of XIV operations and that all the money, player numbers and everything else XI makes is and has been added to XIV operations since Yoshida was given the game to run right?

XI was the most profitable FF game for a long time (not only cause it has a lot of players but because it was laughably cheap to run), and only when the games were merged and XI was no longer officially making any money did XIV surpass it in terms of profits (and it even has a cash shop, and it still took that long).

The thing with XIV, is that it makes a lot of money but it has obscene running costs due to having a large dev team that have to continually make expensive new content over and over due to its casual nature.

If XI didn't matter, Yoshida would not have put a raid into XIV knowing full well that would encourage lots of XIV players to come sub to it, and that directly pushing up the profits of XIV at a time they needed a boost (Dawntrail won't be as big as past expansions, for a few reasons and they need some boosts to make it appear to be doing better than it will on its own).

Notice XI is never mentioned on any financial reports to investors since Tanaka left? I mean it is but not by name. It's attached to XIV. Even the account systems are the same.

I think the shield is underrated for a few of them. The combined block rate and magic reduction seems like it would be really valuable for certain fights even at p3, mainly Kalunga and a few T2s, possibly others. I know traditional wisdom is to use Aegis on most of these as PLD, but close to Aegis with a much higher block rate and physical damage mitigation seems really valuable and opens up more opportunities IMO. The ability to mitigate physical hits seems to be really impactful in some cases provided you can survive the one or two big damage magic moves. Even using Duban at stage 2 is borderline better for a lot of them short one or two major damage moves that are all magic based. I've loosely tested this on fights that were traditionally using Aegis and I'm pretty sure the added MDTII combined with block rate would be superior.

Trivialize? No, but if it cuts burdens on healers with fights then it can make a huge difference.

The scythe being able to heal and restore MP for Schere seems good also, but I don't know how the damage is vs v25s with either Origin or Cross Reaper.

I can't bring myself to do enough Sortie to even finish a phase 3, I get bored so damn fast with it and the carrot is too far out there, so I'm just theorizing. I agree they are largely weapons for smashing old content, but a few of them might be better than just "good" in v25. The question is whether they are good enough to justify the grind, the shield might be usable at p3 but getting damage weapons to p5...idk if it's worth it.

IDK which V25s you're referring to but, for example:
Kalunga has 4 magical WS, 1 physical, and 1 breath (fetter move)
Xevioso has only magical WS
Ngai has only magical WS
Mboze has only magical WS
Ongo is obviously all magic
Arebati has all magical WS

Stage 5 duban takes 2x the magic damage that aegis does, and any shield that doesn't have MDT II takes 4x the magic damage that aegis does.

I think if SE just upgraded many of the past content to be current content, just basically redo all XXNM, Dynamis, Limbus, Besieged, Campaign, Abyssea, WoE, Delve, skirmish, assault, nyzul, MMM, meeble, legion etc to be current difficulty, dropping current gear that would increase the draw of FFXI. Right now its just Sorties, Odyssey, Sorties, Odyssey.

Also make gil great again. If I want to make a Relic, Empy or Mythic, there's a varieties of contents I can do to turn into gil then currencies to make those weapons, which, while not comprising all the duties, tasks, and deeds needed to make them, is most painful parts. While for Prime, its sorties sorties sorties until you're bored out of your mind. So much muffins I'm getting diabetes.

This is exactly my thoughts on the current state of the game. I think the content with absolutely no use in modern endgame should be prioritized. The Sea NM system is a huge one, but also, Meeble, Campaign, MMM, Legion, etc. Which older content would you most like to see revitalized?

Add additional ROE objectives, things for Sortie, Ambu, ody, omen etc, Weekly, monthly etc. Will help newer players and soloers. People running with groups wouldn't complain about the boost either.

They revamped chocobo Digging to add Conquest points and other "newer" goodies, Add more to things like this. HELM used to be a good way to make money.

Add other ways of getting Ra/Ex items, More mog Vouchers for decent things, not just glamour gear. Add new things to monthly login campaigns, while i don't mind the influx of Beastmen Seals, we can do better.

LISTEN to player and community requests. Generally, players have good feedback.

And as its been said many times, the average playtime for players isn't 10 hrs a day, we are older, have lives that don't revolve around a 20+ year old game. We want to play this game for fun, not a second job. And we are paying to play this job at this stage.. Im not saying make things so easy that you can be done in 5 minutes. But alternate methods for casual players where if you can't get a group you can do. But a group will always be more rewarding.

Give "the one ring" A single item.. that has 1 charge, recharges every 2 hours, that boosts the currency of whatever content you use it for by 100%. Aka use it, and run a sortie, and get double Gall for that run. Once you zone, the enhancement wears off.
Pop the ring and then try an Ody Boss, you'll get double the Points. Or an Ody farm, get double the segments for the run.

It's a 20 year old game, i think at this point it should be a bit more rewarding doing the daily grind. Hell, even lock it behind a $20 RL ring. I'm sure people would happily pay a one time $20 fee for something like that.

For the first point, I don't think it's THAT hard to resolve. Specific to Sortie, brainstorming some examples of ways to adequately (even if not perfectly) address those concerns:
- Could give a galli penalty for # of players above 6. Maybe you end up netting a little more galli if using more than a 6-man party, maybe you get less - but as long as it's not a crazy difference I'd be fine with that as a way to offer more flexibility on group size. For me, if I have 8 people in the LS who want to go, I would rather do that and be able to play with all of my friends, even if it resulted in slightly LESS total galli.
- Or, maybe just put a cap on personal galli per run, setting that cap at something similar to what a high end 6-person group could get today. Meaning that adding more people isn't going to significantly increase your maximum yield, and you're still limited primarily by the KI stock.
- Hell, for a variation on the previous point, apply a galli cap only if you have 7+ people, and keep it uncapped for 6 or less. That way the elite groups can still do their 6-man Aminon runs and make out with more Galli per run than the commoners, but the vast majority of players who aren't at that level can do Alliance runs and still make more points than they do today - while also getting to actually include everyone, for those who would like play with more than 5 other people.


For your third point, I don't agree that reducing time to complete Primes would necessarily make the "there's no content" problem worse. As it currently stands, I ignore that Sortie even exists outside of Empy upgrades. Prime acquisition in its current state is just not content I will even do, so that lack of engagement is actually MORE of a "no content" problem than if they relaxed the requirements a bit so that I'd be more willing to engage with it at all. Hell, if they made it easier, I might not just try to complete one Prime, I'd likely go back and make MORE Primes. Ultimately probably spending more total time on the content than I would if I finished a single weapon under the current requirements.

I doubt I'm alone here. As it is, I don't personally know a single player who is interested in doing a second Prime. And I only know a handful willing to put up with it for a first Prime. I know way more people (including myself) who aren't even bothering to attempt ONE Prime due to the ridiculous daily grind.

For some context, I have made 35 REMAs across my 2 characters, with a little less than half of those being Mythics and Empys. Still actively doing it too, I just finished an Empy this month and I'm now turning to chipping away on a Mythic. I say this to highlight that I am not an example of somebody who just refuses to engage in grindy content. But I won't touch Primes. If even people like me aren't willing to do it, that's a PROBLEM.

"People will finish primes faster" is just plain wrong. Even if you can get 200k muffins per run, theres still the 5 Voracious Psyche per month limit.

You're right, AND...

My big point is that even if people CAN finish faster (or with less Galli runs or whatever) - so f'ing what? People will just make more Primes and continue to engage with Sortie. Did people all stop at one Aeonic? Heck no.

Are a lot of people either not doing any Primes, or willing to do 1 only and never again, due to the grind? Absolutely. I'd wager that's the overwhelming majority of players. TBH, I would be very surprised if slashing the grind requirement didn't result in MORE total player/hours doing Sortie.

I think my 0 minutes of Sortie per week is probably closer to the average than the people who do the event daily. If they made it less oppressive, I'd do the event. Probably a lot of other people out there approaching it like me.

Update the old dynamis goblins to work like aurix

Sortie = Walking Sim

It takes resources to add to a game, plain and simple. This is something SE is hesitant to do with XI beyond Maintenace.

Personally, I would like to see them allow Monstrosity Monsters to participate outside of monstrosity. Yep, you can have a Crawlers party in Crawlers nest......(Broken, like Sams in CP.....)

Incentivize dated content through current in-demand currency from ROE objectives or something. Even if they updated Besieged to 119, players will do it, then eventually stop lol.

Now, if players could earn a good deal of Gallantry and Hallmarks for doing updated Besieged.......????????????

You cooking with hot fish grease on a hot Sunday afternoon.

If the prime you have is compatible with the damage type for a given T3+ fight, sure. They're nice to have and can give you an edge, but having a Prime does not turn v25 into EZ mode by any stretch of the imagination.

A group would need to make a lot of stage 4 Primes for the DD's to use them in every fight, so I really don't think Primes were intended to be that kind of crutch per se.

Hey Meeble, we're gonna try this Kalunga in two rounds. Gonna need you on BRD for round 1 so get your Aria horn out. SAM for round 2, so go make a Kusanagi st4 too. Then after that we're gonna do an Ongo too, so make a Prime staff while you're at it.

This is the genius of adding currencies to Ambuscade, along with the monthly rotation to keep it semi-fresh.

And I get that they won't want to make something to allow you to just skip THE endgame events, so wouldn't expect like... Gallimaufry or Starstones or something from any event other than Sortie.

But if you could get a decent amount of segments as an RoE reward for doing a Besieged or Incursion, a free Moglophone II for clearing a weekly Sinister Reign ROE, an Old Case for doing an Omen boss... that isn't wrecking game balance, but might be enough of a little incentive to make those events a bit more appealing. There are certainly some people out there who would do it.

I think you presumed my position was one of trying to guard my (or others') trophies' special status or something, but that's not what I'm talking about here.

My point #1 is that it trivializes the content, not that it would be too easy for people to get and therefore the elites would look down their noses at how easy the plebs have it. My point is that the people engaged in the activity wouldn't enjoy it because it would be absurdly easy to the point of being boring as hell, like doing original dynamis, the hardest part is not killing too fast. With an alliance in Sortie, you can send an entire party to do each objective and have them all done in < 5 minutes, then have every single debuff in the entire game on the bosses, 2 dedicated tanks with 4 supports on them, a full DD party, and a full MB party (if you want). The mob would die in about 10 seconds and on to the next one. Or you have 6 people soloing the entire event while 12 other people watch and pretend like they're participating. I think this is, trophies and items aside, really boring content. Have you ever seen an alliance with 9 people doing nothing while the other 9 do an aeonic run? Would you say those 9 people leeching are having a great time playing the content?


You're bitter about the fact that you can't get 8 people into Sortie and that's why you don't do it, I get that. Allowing 7-18 people into the event won't make it any less "walking simulator" than it is currently, I promise.

Either way, my point wasn't really about Sortie because that can only get so much shorter than it is, I think people primarily make this point about Ody, saying that it's so grindy and takes forever, they want a boost to segments, boost to RP, open Ody to alliance, remove RNG from bosses, make them weaker, etc. I think all of these are shitty ideas because once you beat an Ody boss and RP'd the gear, you've got no reason to do it anymore, hence: no content problem.


I think you're projecting your opinion on a lot of people here and once again: the "ridiculous daily grind" won't go away if you make it alliance content, it will just be ridiculous daily grind (with more people to talk to).

I feel like we're talking past each other here, hope this helps to clarify. I'm sure if they released alliance Sortie, double segs, and removed auras from Ody bosses it would suck all the life out of the game for a lot of people, myself especially, because there would be nothing in this game to pose a real challenge to anyone and I think most people would be done with all the content in a short period of time, wondering WTF to do with their days.

Here's a good example, you mentioned how many REMA you have and how you love making them, when was the last time you made an Aeonic weapon? For my part, I haven't made one in months and the last time I did it was some ***I didn't really want but I was just helping some friends out with theirs and grabbed one. I cannot remember the last time I popped a GF NM because...I already have all the Aeonics I want, so I literally never engage with that content anymore, I'm done with it. The exact same thing will happen to Ody if you make it quicker/easier to clear, people will get their ***in a month (or two or three) and then never do it anymore, making the content desert worse.

So which one is it? Sortie is already boring as hell in its current state. IMO, these kinds of changes wouldn't make it significantly more boring than it already is.

And I wasn't trying to imply you're trying to be elitist or anything, didn't even think of that.


I get what you're saying, but it's not impossible to give people a reason to do it again. How about after people get all lv25 clears, let them reset Ody progress/clear all NM wins, then if you beat them all again a second time you can buy a second set of Nyame gear and augment that sucker again?


I'm saying take ridiculous daily grind and make it a significantly less ridiculous daily grind (but still SOME grind), via something like a substantial increase in gallimaufry/run for the average player and less Sortie runs needed to finish a stage 4 weapon. I won't go every single day for months to make a Prime, and only doing it a couple times per week would stretch that out to years so I don't even bother. If I could do it on a somewhat more casual frequency - like, IDK, 4 runs a week where I can double up and do 2x Sortie on 2 different days - and then months later I get a Prime, that's enough to motivate me to do the event, and probably keep doing it for more Primes later.

Also, even the exact same grind with more people to talk to WOULD be an improvement. I don't love requiring a 6-person setup where people robotically play their role, and if any one person is absent it screws up your run. Would be pretty cool if my LS could say "hey, LS Sortie nights Wed/Sun, come if you want points for Empy upgrades, some amount of Prime progress, and people to talk to - and it's fine if you aren't willing to commit an hour every day for the next half a year". Maybe 10 people show up on Sunday, 9 on Wednesday, maybe one goes out of town for 2 weeks and doesn't mess up the static for everyone else - to me that's a better state than what we currently have. As it is now, it's "if you aren't already in our 6 person static with set jobs, you aren't invited".


I appreciate your perspective, but I also think you're overestimating the number of people who are so hardcore that such a change would make it so easy that they'd finish every Prime they want too quickly, and then quit the game for lack of content. Maybe some forum bias going on here, since the people who talk about this kind of stuff here are not a great representative sample of the entire population.

There isn't a perfect solution to make everyone happy. Decisions that really might drive people like you away due to lack of challenge may also increase engagement by people who currently think it's too much challenge or too much grind.

Hardcore groups who are doing daily statics aren't usually hurting much for segments. The average FFXI player IS. I play with a lot of people who I think are a better reflection of an average/above average player. They don't usually have the ability to push life to the side for a scheduled 90-120 minute daily static session for a Sortie and a segment farm. These aren't your top 1% of players, but they do play consistently and have always been able to keep up with endgame content in the past - doing events a couple times a week and clearing Dynamis runs, Omen bosses, Geas Fete for Aeonics, Vagary/Delve/Incursion (when they were relevant), Ambuscades for money/items, and still some time for solo/random stuff, ML/Exemplar farming (not everyone just bots it, and if you do and complain there's nothing to do in the game that's kinda on you!), etc.

That felt like a much healthier game than the current state of a lot of people struggling to even get enough segments to participate in Odyssey NMs (which have a pretty steep penalty for failure in the Moglophone II cost), or feeling like they have to dedicate a huge chunk of their regular play time to Sortie with 5 other people (at the exclusion of doing content with anyone else).


You're making my point for me. Aeonics are 8.5 year old content and you still made one within the past number of "months", even if it's not something that you were super excited about. I've made a couple in the past year. Yeah, we're both past getting the ones that we really prioritized - but while the content is getting long in the tooth, it still has some relevance today and a LOT of players still have weapons they'd still like to obtain. After 8.5 years. For content that can be cranked through pretty quickly by dedicated players.

By that thinking, even if you slashed the number of Sorties required to make a Prime in half, that's still YEARS of grind for even the most hardcore players to get all the Primes they'd want. Yeah, eventually they'll get em all and there's nothing left to do. But we're in maintenance mode anyway, if the hardcore dude who gets all his wanted primes decides in 2028 that there is no longer anything to do and quits... well, OK?

With what they're doing now, they are driving the less hardcore players away NOW, in 2024. Not a few years from now once the "Primes too easy, nothing to do" hardcores leave. More of the community fall into the "average" part of the bell curve who might be less likely to unsubscribe if they feel the endgame content is designed for them, and not focused on the small but dedicated group of addicts willing to do Sortie every damn day.

Aria might not be useful in v25, but I will admit that stage 5 horn probably makes most of the T3 fights much less hectic for Bards.

These are two different perspectives, mine and yours. I think the activity is engaging as a 6-person event because you have the potential to wipe to the bosses, you have to actually push the envelope to kill them, you barely have enough time to accomplish your goals, and you have to game out a plan to finish it all in time. Pretty much every piece of this is totally eliminated by an alliance and it becomes a snoozefest of safety, overkill, and boredom.

Other people say it's a boring, grindy, walking simulator. This would still be equally as true and frankly much worse if it were 18-man because it would be the same content, but with less asked of you as the player.


IDK, this just seems like a really weird thing to say. You say you like grindy stuff (Mythics, Empyreans) and that you would do a grindy prime...but the current prime is too grindy to motivate you. So you like grinds, but this one is too grindy and if it were half as grindy you would like the grind? Doing it twice/week for a year is ridiculous and too far out, but doing it twice/week for 6 months is OK? Sounds like you don't like grinds.


Again, conflating the two arguments. I think people would find Sortie BORING, not too fast. I think changes to make Ody easier would cause people to finish it and then never touch it again. There are LOADS of people who claim there's nothing to do in this game except Ody/Sortie every day...how do you think these people would feel if they suddenly got all their ody clears and RP...?

You're right that there's some forum bias here because newbs aren't coming on here and talking about how they can't get anything done, but the people on these forums are the mentors of the game and if they quit because there ain't ***to do, who's going to teach the newbs and help them with their clears? Hell, half the people on the forums can't even put together a WS set or make a SC for their prime weapons.


I wouldn't call an event you begrudgingly do for 1 day every 6 months to be "content" that will entertain your playerbase. If the game only had Aeonic weapons and I was finished with Ody/Sortie to my satisfaction, I wouldn't keep paying a sub on the off chance someone wanted to do GF NMs...I would unsubscribe.


Attitude problem, not a content problem. Casuals can casually do Sortie every 3rd night and eventually they'll get their weapons. The problem being "there's too much to do" is fine for a game in maintenance mode. Or, if you're a new/returning/casual player, you can just not make a prime weapon; there's already a shitload of content for the new/returning/casual player to do. Sortie/Primes/V25 Ody are busywork for the people who have everything else, not the content for brand new players to do as their first event. If we assume there are no updates coming to this game ever in the future, having something that can last years is good, not bad. Making that content last 1.5 years instead of 5 is a bad thing.

No one seems to understand this.

The problem isnt there "too much to do", its the fact they're forced (oh sorry people hate forced, lets go with "use it or lose it") dailies. You cant skip Sortie and do it twice the next day.

I don't LIKE grinds, but there's a balance between tolerable and too over the top to get that reward.

And Mythic/Empy are very different since I can do that on my own schedule without being part of a daily group with 5 other people. I recently went hardcore farming some Empy Abyssea items for a week, but had totally ignored it for the prior several weeks. That's fine! Not fine if other people are waiting on me to Sortie.

But yeah, if you're cool with current Sortie/Prime setup, I guess we do just have a very different perspective. From what I see in the circles I play with, it feels a little bleak at the moment as far as player motivation.

The power of Sortie compels you! The power of Sortie compels you!

*flicks Gallimaufry on you*

This, this so damn much. The gatekeepers can cry all they want about it, but exclusive content is toxic to a game this old. Opening up sortie to let more friends join for the ride would be such an improvement. More people knocking back some beers and just talking over discord is more enjoyable then a handful of silent nail chewing pretend-keyboard-warriors posturing about how awesome they are.

I'll resub if I can join sorties as an additional participant here and there, but there's not a snowball's chance in the Gehenna Desert I'm doing it every single day at 9 pm est 7 days a week, and if I miss a few days to touch grass or regain sanity everyone is annoyed because they had to take time away from their routine to find a 6th.

This is where you lost me and likely others (like Rua etc).