Time commitment

[Loki09]

Ive seen quite a few people say that this game will "change your lifestyle". Now, me personally, I have some free time on my hands at night. No wife, no kids, but Im at work all day and am consistently busy until about 8ish. How much of a time commitment is this game? Am I really going to enjoy it and get into it if I only play 1-2 hours a day? I just got the 360 version and have the free trial, so I can experiment for myself, but I thought Id ask the rest of the community what they think.

[Icemage]

Re: Time commitment

Unless you are very good at time management, 1-2 hours isn't going to get you very far in FFXI. Whether you're ok with this or not is subjective - I know a lot of players who are content to take the game at their own pace.

Nonetheless, if you're really interested in seeing all the content the game has to offer, I'd say you'd need a solid 3+ hour block of time at least a couple times a week to make steady progress, and more if you want to get to any of the end-game content in anything under 2 years of play.


Icemage

[neighbortaru]

Re: Time commitment

Put it this way, i started playing on NA PC release (2003). i have a full time job, am married and have various family stuff to do. My play time was similar to yours too (1-2 hours a day).

I have never broken 60 on any of my characters. Everything just takes too freaking long to be able to squeeze something meaningful in a 1-2 hour window.

However, I still have fun with the game. Sure it's kinda depressing when all your gaming buddies surpass you in levels and are doing all kinds of cool stuff, but maybe one day.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Time commitment

And don't forget that a lot of the game is in endgame. Endgame really sucks the life out of you if you want to experience it fully. Three hour camps for a CHANCE at getting to kill a HNM. About the only thing you can do reasonably are some of the bcnm's (18 man Ouryu, etc) or killing Gods (though farming the pop items can take a good chunk of time....Ulli anyone?).

One of the things I noticed is that if your a "casual" player, you must have a lot of patience. You'll make friends and see them whiz past you in lvls, you'll see people wearing cool stuff that you wish you could get, and you'll see new content put in, talked about, and explored thats going to take you a long time to get to if ever. Everything in the game takes time. You want to travel somewhere, even the airship takes a good piece of time. Travelling on foot or chocobo takes even more time. You want equips but you have to farm to get the gil, well that takes a huge chunk of time. Want to get a pt and get some exp? Let's say you have a hot job that people want so you only have to seek a 1/2 hour, then you have to wait until your pt is fully formed and that is on average 45 mins to an hour, then you have to travel to your camp which is about a 1/2 hour, and so you've racked up 2 hours approx just getting a pt and getting to your hunting grounds. See how 1-2 hours just won't work?

[Loki09]

Re: Time commitment

Wow, thats pretty ridiculous. I wish I started playing this game in college when free time was plentiful. I guess Im okay with that though. I should be able to log in more than two hours any given night. Who needs sleep, right?

GrandMom, Im a newb, so your endgame comments just confused the hell out of me From what Im hearing however, I wont have to deal with that for quite awhile

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Time commitment

Well the entire point of the game is to reach endgame. There are activities you can not do until your high lvl. It's something that majority of players strive to achieve. And endgame is even more intense than getting there.

[Kitalrez]

Re: Time commitment

Well the entire point of the game is to reach endgame. There are activities you can not do until your high lvl. It's something that majority of players strive to achieve. And endgame is even more intense than getting there.

No, the *entire point* of the game is not to reach the endgame. The point of the game is to do missions. 1st three nations are all missions, Rise of the Zilaart is missions, Chains of Promathia is Missions, TAU is missions, and Dynamis is even missions (if unrecorded ones). The majority of your drive space isn't taken up with King Behemoth or Fafnir's drops, it's cutscene materials, sound effects, and mob information.

Endgame stuff is nice, but half the crap you HNMLSs do on a daily basis is simply there to kill time 'til the next expansion missions are released. This game is built like a story, you play the missions to hit the main plot points, and the quests provide backstory to explain those points. It's not Everquest or Diablo II where you spent 50 some odd levels grasping around in the dark until you finally got some major quest that was supposed to explain what everything else was about.
Yes, lvl 75 on two jobs and full relic/AFv2 or +1s is nice, but a good 90% of the mission content in this game can be beaten by a party of lvl 65-70s in their regular Artifact gear unless you're dead set on Dynamis.

Let the man play, as long as he sets his goals realistically, he'll have a great time even on his limited play schedule.

[x1ang]

Re: Time commitment

well wouldn't the point of the game be subjective? i mean, for some people it is to get the best EQ and whatnot while for others its to finish the storyline >.>

[Loki09]

Re: Time commitment

Im looking mainly to finish the storyline. I realize that to be "teh 1337 k1ll@h" with the best equipment would be pretty taxing. I could even see that when I was playing Diablo 2, the people selling/trading/farming all the best items played all day every day. Kital, thanks for the positive reinforcement. Guess I'll have to steal a keyboard from the office :-)

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Time commitment

No, the *entire point* of the game is not to reach the endgame. The point of the game is to do missions.

And to do most of the mission to completion you must reach endgame, its a vicious cycle. There is no real end to the game or the storyline either. If there were an end, there wouldn't be so many people still playing straight for years. New expansion, another arch in the story and another push to do it all.

Let the man play, as long as he sets his goals realistically, he'll have a great time even on his limited play schedule.

FYI, no one here is telling anyone how to play or not to play. People are presenting the facts about the game being a time sink if you want to achieve most of what the game has to offer.

well wouldn't the point of the game be subjective? i mean, for some people it is to get the best EQ...

Again, that requires a high lvl character at endgame. The point of the game is endgame so you're able to do the things that look so cool or obtain the items that look so cool, etc.

[Icemage]

Re: Time commitment

The goal of any MMORPG is subjective, but if your objective is to finish every mission, you DO need to reach endgame (level 75 on a job that is at least moderately useful).

There's no getting around it, since quite a lot of storyline requires high level abilities - and there are parts of the storyline that simply aren't available without HEAVY investment into endgame activities (for instance, defeating Dynamis Lord, which only a very tiny percentage of the FFXI population has done).


Icemage

[Jei]

Re: Time commitment

I enjoy levelling up ^^ And I enjoy fishing.
Lately I just fish when I have nothing to do, and when I have something to do they are usually helping LS friends. Showing them around, go raise, etc.
It's a happy hobby for me.

When I start the game the first year, I felt the need to rush my level up and do the high-end stuff. It's something unavoidable for most people I guess ^^
But as time goes by those feeling slowly dies. I don't care much about end game stuff anymore. Just enjoying whatever i can in my time frame.

[Taskmage]

Re: Time commitment

I disagree that the entire point is endgame as well. Endgame activities certainly factor into some of my goals, but at my rate of play I recognize I may never reach some of them and I'm just enjoying the journey so far. To each their own.

[Macht]

Re: Time commitment

The point of the game is the adventure, to many players get caught up though in wanting to finish stuff in one fail swoop that they beat themselves to death in heavy taxing parties that they exp for hrs on hrs on hrs.

Nearly every mission or event has points were you can start working on them. The original missions are doable right from lv. 5, and progresses from there. For EXP needs "Chains of Promethia" provided new methods of getting great EXP to cover for needs of leveling 1 time every 5 days. Some of those are only 15 min. - 20 min. long and get you 2k-4k for doing them and have 0 EXP loss if you fail that single fight.

So as far as reach endgame there is lot you can do to get there, but to keep the game intresting they provided tons of quests and missions to do as you progress not once you've reach max level then progress through them.

Double Post Edited:

I disagree that the entire point is endgame as well. Endgame activities certainly factor into some of my goals, but at my rate of play I recognize I may never reach some of them and I'm just enjoying the journey so far. To each their own.

Alright Taskmage, you're freaking me out... Almost every post I find with you post something that come seriously close to the same thing I was going to say...

STOP READING MY MIND!!!
/me cringes in fear.

[Taskmage]

Re: Time commitment

*goes into his Blue Magic menu and un-sets Macht*

Sorry