Worth starting all over???

[sabitbol]

I used to play this game religiously for a good solid 3 years, had multiple jobs up to the 60's. I am thinking about starting all over, but I'd have to purchase the game and literally start ALL over again from level 1 with brand new character, is it really worth it for me? Will it be difficult for me to find people to party with and level with? Is the game still somewhat ok populated? Thanks in advanced.

[Raydeus]

Re: Worth starting all over???

It will be difficult to find people to party and do stuff with unless you look for a LS beforehand and star on their server. On the plus side leveling up is much faster nowadays and once you get your first job to 99 you'll be able to solo most of the older content with ease so you'll be able to catch up fairly quickly.

[Mezlo]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Dont start over, not worth it, play ffxiv when it comes back. It will be ffxi in HD, and you'll be starting a new with alot of people, not having to play catchup.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Actually Raydeus is pretty spot-on.

[Melody]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Dont start over, not worth it, play ffxiv when it comes back. It will be ffxi in HD, and you'll be starting a new with alot of people, not having to play catchup.

This. Playing and starting over on XI is ridiculous unless you get into an endgame shell that's willing to even lift a finger to help you. Sure there are the low man groups, but those usually have bad time zones which won't work into your schedule the way you planned. Also making a shell is annoying to deal with on XI since everyone wants something and everyone will put their two cents in on what you want to do, if you can't handle that, don't bother even trying to start a shell. However...there is some what of a bright side to XI if you meet good people. But as far as I am concerned, relinquish the thought of starting over. Nothing good will come of it unless you have patience.

You'll have some people who will try to charm you, don't be fooled either. Most players who "I" have met on XI are just ungrateful and manipulative, but this is in my opinion because of Abyssea. Abyssea ruined XI for most of the veterans and newer players.

Auction House prices went sky high due to the expansion due to all the new gear that came out with it and Voidwatch.
Nobody sells low gear anymore so finding the right gear is hard, and if your going for your Maat fight, good luck getting help on the Limit Breaks getting to that point.
Nobody will do teleport runs in Jueno anymore like they used to, Maws now have made WHM Teleports obselete and unprofitable. The only other teleport service that would be meaningful is outpost.
Not many players know their jobs anymore, most will just group up in Gusgen Mines and simple tear away at Skeletons and not learning their roles. Not to mention with the release of the Destrier Beret that holds your hand until level 30. Level 30 being the exact level when you can enter Abyssea.
Dune Parties/Garlaige Citadel/Quifim Parties/Yuhtunga Jungle parties. Non-existant anymore, this killed the "meet & greet" aspect of the game. Which in turn got rid of people teaming up and forming parties the correct way to take down mobs. Now people just mash together and wail on stuff until 99. The idealism behind making a party only works if your doing VNMs now. Also a lot of the latter jobs are become obselete. PUP/RDM/PLD/COR/RNG/DRG. Most jobs played now on XI are the following.

NIN WAR DNC BLU WHM BST DRK BRD.

Out of 21 jobs, those are what I see the most. I excluded some, but those are up for debate and your choice on whether you play them or not. Some people who catch wind early of XI who are new and have OLD friends who will help them usually turn out just fine. But the way the game is now is just not worth it in my opinion.

You will also get the pig headed veterans who have a superiority complex and will mock you based on gear. Unless your Empy +2 or VWNM geared with 99 stuff, most players won't even bother with you. Everything on XI is about money/gear.

Now I once again state; in my opinion of XI.

[Raydeus]

Re: Worth starting all over???

It really depends on what you enjoy doing though.

If it's doing quests and missions and learning about Vana and it's world right now is the best time to get on board and see it all. Nation Missions, quests, Zilart, CoP, Aht Urgan, WotG it can all be soloed for the most part once you hit 99, so you have some very good content for months if not years already there. And XIV on the other hand will barely have 1/50th of the content when it starts with 2.0 anyway.

Now if you like the End-game crap (notice I don't like it <_<; ) then you are indeed better off skipping XI and waiting for XIV, that crap takes way too long and you will never see the end of it if you start from scratch now.


Choose wisely.

[Melody]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Agreeing with Raydeus. Most Endgame is very difficult to do alone. Unless your going religious on BST/DNC and just want to solo everything, even then you have to balance out your checkbook accordingly to get anything accomplished. Most players who come back end up failing miserably going towards end-game unless they have a Linkshell pushing them along. Yeah the game was nice and was at its prime maybe five years back, but now it's a complete waste bin of what used to be a good standard P2P MMORPG. This new expansion is just going to make it worse for newer players to catch up and will just add more to the work load of what already needs to be done for you. I tried to sell my copy back to Gamestop, they refused, I simply left it on the counter and walked out of the store. Five years of my life was spent on that game, the memories are nice but that's all they are now. I can't turn back and rewind time and bring back the old friends that I missed. I am going to wait for XIV to come out and let me remind you of this, people will blatently not accept XIV over XI due to the simple fact of how much content is put into XI over XIV. When of course XI has had 10 years of work put into it. Bug fixes, patches, updates.I stick by that XIV is superior to XI in each and every way, which is in my opinion. I am by no means not telling you not to play XI, but I am giving you heads up of what your going to be in for in the long run if you do start over. You pay for the game and it's your account, play how you want to play. - Melody

[Squiggs]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Both of Raydeus' posts hit the nail on the head. It is easier and faster to level up (even solo), but finding a group will be tough. Even the GoV spots, other than Gusgen, are pretty much dead nowadays. You can ignore anything else in this thread (up to and including my post). I would post on a couple of different forums that you are looking to come back and see if anyone has a suggestion on which server to start on and see if you can find help that way.

[Hayde]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Pretty much the whole "know-people-to-help you-thing". I enjoy the game still, so my opinion would obviously clash with Melody's but I'm not here to start a fight over that. She is spot on, and so is Raydeus--if you have a friend, or group of friends that are established, you are going to blaze through levels and gear up like woah. There's some guy that came back no more than a month or two ago on Valefor, he got hooked up pretty quickly and he's pretty much outgeared me--who returned about 2-3 years ago and have been playing on and off.

I suppose this really true for any MMO--have friends and you'll get shit done, no questions asked...but the simple thing is, in reference to your question "is the game still populated?" Well Valefor will rarely break 1,000 to 1,500 players during NA peak time, though reports on FFXIAH seem to indicate it tends to cross over 2k during EU/JP time. That being said, you probably remember the prime days of FFXI in circa 2005~2008 with an upwards of 3-5k players, so certainly the number has gone down. With general numbers coming down, it is harder to find groups because long-time players will certainly have capped every job to 99, or at least every job they'd ever care about playing.

I have experienced the same problem as Squiggs--I generally burn a low level job to 30+ through Gusgen, and I'm stuck there at that point. Crawler's and Bostineaux' GoV spots are more or less dead with the exception of Friday and the weekends, so I'm usually having to key an Abyssea group or my other option would be to pay an FC party. Long story-short, it's going to be quite painful for you to level up NOW than it was, say a few months ago in the summer when GoV spots were crammed with people. You won't have the cruor to key an Abyssea group, nor will you have the traverser stones. If you go the FC cleave route--which I will inform that it's likelyhood of being run by RMT, you likely won't have the gil to pay them. Even if you did, these sessions tend to go for hours and you'd have to drop group every 5 levels to break a limit, thus wasting your gil to begin with.

Even I'm starting to sound like a Negative Nancy here, but the very truth is unless you have help at this point, it's not worth it. Even one person will make a world of difference.

[Mezlo]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Melody your sig makes me

[Melody]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Pretty much the whole "know-people-to-help you-thing". I enjoy the game still, so my opinion would obviously clash with Melody's but I'm not here to start a fight over that. She is spot on, and so is Raydeus--if you have a friend, or group of friends that are established, you are going to blaze through levels and gear up like woah. There's some guy that came back no more than a month or two ago on Valefor, he got hooked up pretty quickly and he's pretty much outgeared me--who returned about 2-3 years ago and have been playing on and off.

I suppose this really true for any MMO--have friends and you'll get shit done, no questions asked...but the simple thing is, in reference to your question "is the game still populated?" Well Valefor will rarely break 1,000 to 1,500 players during NA peak time, though reports on FFXIAH seem to indicate it tends to cross over 2k during EU/JP time. That being said, you probably remember the prime days of FFXI in circa 2005~2008 with an upwards of 3-5k players, so certainly the number has gone down. With general numbers coming down, it is harder to find groups because long-time players will certainly have capped every job to 99, or at least every job they'd ever care about playing.

I have experienced the same problem as Squiggs--I generally burn a low level job to 30+ through Gusgen, and I'm stuck there at that point. Crawler's and Bostineaux' GoV spots are more or less dead with the exception of Friday and the weekends, so I'm usually having to key an Abyssea group or my other option would be to pay an FC party. Long story-short, it's going to be quite painful for you to level up NOW than it was, say a few months ago in the summer when GoV spots were crammed with people. You won't have the cruor to key an Abyssea group, nor will you have the traverser stones. If you go the FC cleave route--which I will inform that it's likelyhood of being run by RMT, you likely won't have the gil to pay them. Even if you did, these sessions tend to go for hours and you'd have to drop group every 5 levels to break a limit, thus wasting your gil to begin with.

Even I'm starting to sound like a Negative Nancy here, but the very truth is unless you have help at this point, it's not worth it. Even one person will make a world of difference.

I don't want to agree with Hayde, but he pretty much covered everything I left out. There are however threads on the forums if your looking for guides and such and we'll all try to help you the best we can if you do start over. As for the RMT deal, I honestly don't trust FC parties and I've never paid for one but I've keyed for them and had someone nicely drop 300k on me for one. But that was maybe when FC's were first starting. They are a very easy way to make money if you bring up WAR. Here's how it usually goes.

x 1 WAR
x 1 RDM

It used to be WAR/RDM/BLM but BLM got bumped out.

RDM is used to build Azure Lights which is used to get Time Extenders which helps keep people's time up in Abyssea. (I'll explain that in a bit.) When you get a Time Extender it increases the time you can stay by 10 minutes. Your default time you can stay in Abyssea is 30 minutes. Your capped time is 120 minutes. The amount of time you can stay is near endless, I've broken 1k minutes, but that was from literally from sitting in Abyssea for almost 24 hours real time. Moving on.

People usually do the following when FC. Also FC is short for Fell Cleave a WAR skill you get with Martial Mastery I do believe. (I don't play WAR)

The setup to make money goes as following. You can have 6 people in one party. However you can add two more parties to that one party which is called an Alliance
An Alliance can have up to 18 people. Since it goes by 6 x 6 x 6 = 18. Let's do some more math. Excluding the WAR and RDM your knocked down to 16 and let's not forget a keyer to open all the chest for you. So 15.

People usually charge 100k/1hr 300k/4h 600k/7h. So on and so forth. But we'll be basic here. You have 15 people paying 100k for their first hour so that is already money going into your pocket or is being split (depending on if you dual box) now mind you that share is split between usually only two people or just one. If you have a RDM friend then yes your splitting profit and losing money. However if your dual boxing your getting everything. Moving on. 100k(100,000) x 15 =1,500,000. One point five million. Now let's say people stay for 6 hours. More math. 600,000 x 15 = 9,000,000. 9 Million. But all that money doesn't come easily, you have to manage gear carefully and WAR is one of the hardest jobs to skill up due to them being able to use I do believe nearly every weapon the game has to offer.

@Mezlo - I don't see the problem with it.


Melody

[Mezlo]

Re: Worth starting all over???

@Mezlo - I don't see the problem with it.

It's sad.

[Hayde]

Re: Worth starting all over???

Regardless of everyone's differing opinion--I think our main point is, unless you find an established LS willing to take you in or friends welcoming you back with open arms, you're looking to spend at least a month establishing yourself back up to the 99 base, from slowly soloing/GoVing the levels to finding help for your limit breaks to finding means of farming gil for your gear and other expenses. If you couple that fact with any intentions of remotely gearing your job up (+1/+2 abyssea gear, +2 relic gear, voidwatch(lol) gear, neo nyzul, etc.) you're looking to spend at least a few months to get there, and of course I say this with full presumption that you are unable to find a helpful community.

FFXIV 2.0's Japanese alpha started some weeks back, and the global alpha is due on the 26th of this month. According to the latest interview, beta is scheduled to start early next year and you're probably looking at a retail launch some time in Spring or early Summer 2013 (assuming no ground-breaking bug is found, I guess). Knowing that, you really just have to ask yourself if you want to spend that time in FFXI, knowing by the time you get yourself re-established, FFXIV is due around the corner. Don't get me wrong, FFXIV may not be your cup of tea, and I know plenty of people are jaded with the initial launch--but there is no denying that SE has pulled all their company's resource into this revamp, to the point you start to even see FFXI is being neglected with updates. Given that, I'd say it's at least worth it to give it a shot, if nothing more.

Finally, I'll put my disclaimer here: I'm not bashing FFXI. I log on at least a couple hours every day, just to talk with friends even if I don't have time to do anything. I have an upwards of 5 or 6 level 99 jobs (although, not that impressive given how easy it is to aby burn jobs) and I find ways to keep myself busy generally when I do find the free time to play. I'm merely telling how hard it would be to start now without anyone to help you along the way. I'm not deferring you from playing this game, I just strongly recommend you check out the official FFXI forums, FFXI @ Zam, and so forth--look for an LS that's willing to take you in rather than randomly creating a character on an unknown server.

[Melody]

Re: Worth starting all over???

It's sad.

To me there is nothing sad about it.

Regardless of everyone's differing opinion--I think our main point is, unless you find an established LS willing to take you in or friends welcoming you back with open arms, you're looking to spend at least a month establishing yourself back up to the 99 base, from slowly soloing/GoVing the levels to finding help for your limit breaks to finding means of farming gil for your gear and other expenses. If you couple that fact with any intentions of remotely gearing your job up (+1/+2 abyssea gear, +2 relic gear, voidwatch(lol) gear, neo nyzul, etc.) you're looking to spend at least a few months to get there, and of course I say this with full presumption that you are unable to find a helpful community.

FFXIV 2.0's Japanese alpha started some weeks back, and the global alpha is due on the 26th of this month. According to the latest interview, beta is scheduled to start early next year and you're probably looking at a retail launch some time in Spring or early Summer 2013 (assuming no ground-breaking bug is found, I guess). Knowing that, you really just have to ask yourself if you want to spend that time in FFXI, knowing by the time you get yourself re-established, FFXIV is due around the corner. Don't get me wrong, FFXIV may not be your cup of tea, and I know plenty of people are jaded with the initial launch--but there is no denying that SE has pulled all their company's resource into this revamp, to the point you start to even see FFXI is being neglected with updates. Given that, I'd say it's at least worth it to give it a shot, if nothing more.

Finally, I'll put my disclaimer here: I'm not bashing FFXI. I log on at least a couple hours every day, just to talk with friends even if I don't have time to do anything. I have an upwards of 5 or 6 level 99 jobs (although, not that impressive given how easy it is to aby burn jobs) and I find ways to keep myself busy generally when I do find the free time to play. I'm merely telling how hard it would be to start now without anyone to help you along the way. I'm not deferring you from playing this game, I just strongly recommend you check out the official FFXI forums, FFXI @ Zam, and so forth--look for an LS that's willing to take you in rather than randomly creating a character on an unknown server.

What Hayde said is correct. I also hate to be a Negative Nancy here but the new Expansion coming out is going to be even worse if you can't catch up in time. But that doesn't come out until next year, so you may have at minimum a 1-2 month time gap between now and the day the expansion is released to get caught up. It's however you make the game out to be, its your experience that makes the game fun, not our words. I plan to move onto XIV when it does hit shelves so I am set on that game.

@Hayde I thought we were supposed to be getting a PS3 Beta come this month or was the time table for that bumped up?

[Hayde]

Re: Worth starting all over???

@Hayde I thought we were supposed to be getting a PS3 Beta come this month or was the time table for that bumped up?

Compilation of all the Questions and Answers from Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IV - FFXIVCore.com - Final Fantasy XIV Fansite

Q35: I would like to know when the Beta Test will start and I'd like an updated version of the road map.
A35: Currently we are about two months and two weeks behind schedule compared to the road map that was released on Oct. 14, 2011. The main reason of the delay is the vast amount of adjustments that needed to be taken care of two months ago. While we'd like to stay on schedule, we want to make sure we create a top-tier MMORPG that can compete against the rest of the MMORPGs in the market. Therefore, we wanted to spend as much as time as we need until we are satisfied with the product.

Sorry to keep you all waiting, but we plan on releasing a new roadmap around the end of November/early December.

We're starting to prepare for the Beta Test which we would like to implement at the end of January or early February. However, we are doing our best to make it so we can have the servers open 24 hours to allow for more and more players to participate in the Alpha Test, so please hang in there a bit longer for finalized details.

Yeah, it sucks...but I'd rather they not rush this game again.