FFXI in 2022 - Difficult MMOs Would Work!

FFXI in 2022 - Difficult MMOs Would Work!
Final Fantasy XI is still as challenging as ever, but that challenge has been shifted to mostly end game. As successes like Elden Ring, and Destiny 2s new "Hard Mode" for the story seem to show, players enjoy difficulty. So why hasn't this bled over into the MMOs of today?
New gaming videos every week! Nostalgic throwbacks, Top Tips, and just random hilarity fumbling my way through Final Fantasy XI, XIV, and a myriad of others. Released every Saturday.
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PC Specs: Ryzen 9 3900x
16GB 3200mhz RAM
GTX 2070 Super
Game Footage: Final Fantasy XI
Developers: Square Enix
Platform: PC
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Language and content of this video may be considered offensive to younger parties.
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#Huntin4Games #ffxi #MMORPG

[@sentinel7376]

The thing I hate most about new mmorpgs is the world itself is completely irrelevant and travelling through it is uneventful. Part of the charm of ff11 is just getting to your camp or mission area/bcnm. Having to stay alert just travelling through a zone is just one of the many reasons I still play ff11 (on private servers). The feeling of adventure is completely absent from most new mmorpgs.

[@Skyshadow733]

100% agree

[@kokukokubin6092]

Travel is one of the major sources of spontaneous community content, and its a shame it was side railed for instant dungeons. WoW classic highlighted that for me with the raid portals being one of the most dangerous aspects of raiding on a PvP server. Travel time is important, and having other people provide that dynamic is important.

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

well said!

[@hiflyer000]

I agree with this. I loved the danger aspect of FFXI's world, with losing experience for dying, having sneak/invis be on a random timer, and avoiding high level mobs that could kill you in seconds. Sure it could be annoying but it forced you to pay attention to the environment and develop stealth skills, as well as learn about enemies aggro range and aggro type. The first trip to Jeuno was a huge right of passage for new players and something I still remember nearly 20 years later.

[@tinyblackmage]

💯% agree. The lack of danger just makes the world feels so dull

[@raabm5292]

I’m a brand new player as of December, love your videos , gets me excited to get home from work and login!

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

Have fun!

[@raabm5292]

@@Huntin4GamesChannel I regret not playing In it’s hay day, but it is here for me now. The whole experience is so refreshing. Granted the first few hours of figuring out the groove of the game was a bit frustrating but now that I grasp the systems I’m loving it

[@jagosto5]

Welcome to 2003 my friend 🙂

[@leiyoh3311]

welcome to xi

[@raabm5292]

@@jagosto5 do you still play?

[@Rusty_Buttons]

I played XI for 9 years at launch. My highest level was 62. I had 9 years of amazing play and great times and never touched endgame. I loved preparing for what lies ahead. Going in and failing, then trying to figure out what we can do to be better and such. I come back been at it a month so I can finish the storyline and maybe do some of that endgame stuff I missed out on. I gain 3 levels in my 30's solo doing nothing. I want to be rewarded! I want to enjoy the journey, not just the finish. There will never be a MMO that I can enjoy. FFXI launch ruined that for me and I am sad.....

[@smallville4351]

Yes FFXI focused on the journey not the destination! That is a great way to describe the game! So many little milestones along the way with new gear and a new weapon skill made it a fun ride!

[@CreativityBM21]

My friend had a similar story to this. He got his BLM to 55 and quit due to the BLMs being subjected to burn only parties. Not to mention the quick leveling due to level sync and book burning. But before all that happened, he was having so much fun doing exactly what you described.

[@davidsaf4907]

eden p server has that same feel!!

[@UKERU00]

Not only the enemies but the maps in FFXI are challenges too. This is the biggest thing I hate about 14, having a pt finder where you dont need to wait and socialize to find a pt is ok but the dungeons being straight corridors is so bad, I frequently thought how it was such a shame how there are so much graphics works put into them (cool modeling and textures) for it to be such simple traversal, no way to appreciate anything on them to make them memorable. Dungeons in 11 felt like such an adventure, having to buy the map being the first requirement, them getting to the dungeon, the traversal being a puzzle in itself with different floors having specific connections and requirements, and of course the mobs being even more dangerous than the overworld...

[@jackatlus666]

I love the little details they put into the maps, the "lore-like" spots they put in dungeons where there's bones/skeletons laying around (like the dragon skeleton structure in Meriphitaud and Maze of Shakrami) that there are really no solid information on except us adventurers filling in the gaps with our imagination. But at the same time ain't no one in this day and age (unless you're rich and privileged enough to) got the time to traverse those kinds of dungeons anymore unfortunately (Fei'Yin, Attowha Chasm, not being able to go from point A to B, but A to D to C then B or waiting for spouts of Lava, Miasma or fucking rocks that appear out of no where, I'm looking at you Kuftal Tunnel, lol). Hunter even says it in the private server videos, days where he only has 1, 2 or 3 hours to play just isn't enough to get things done in the classic private servers. I think though that, that is why they've worked so hard on the new game plus and trust system in XIV, and have talked about the single player experience for the roadmap for the next 10 years. Soloing dungeons w/ trust allows you to enjoy relevant dialogue that they will only say in that dungeon in regards to where it is in the story and the player being able to enjoy the scenery (especially when it comes to dungeons like Tam-Tara Deepcroft Hard which is one of the most famous lore dungeon).

[@philiptky5310]

Silent Oils and some kind of invisibility I remember was a must in some zones in the past. It was epic to consider that getting to a levelling zone require preparation in FFXI

[@cortaliaailiosua3157]

Agreed and having played XIV for so long (finally stopped 2 years ago). It just seemed to get worse over time. Like if you look at the original ARR dungeons they had mechanics, or alternate rooms, extra chests in side corridors, locked doors and stuff but by the end of heavensward its just Trash Trash Boss Trash Trash Boss Trash Trash Boss. Its the exact same thing with a different winding path and yet despite this XIV fanbois will rave that the dungeon design has gotten BETTER. It's gotten flasher... that's it. they throw in wind currents, slip and slides, massive falls and other attraction rides to "wow" you but at its core it's everything people hated about FFXIII.

[@monsutaman1]

In terms of socializing, what sucked was getting help. Players will simply get theirs, and not engage in said content anymore lol. Example, if you earned gallantry or hallmarks by level syncing, ppl would be incentivized to do it. If you earn a $hit ton of gallantry or hallmarks for killing specific difficult AF monsters.....ppl will be lining up to "Help" with those lol. Players want MMO to respect their time it seems.

[@robertlyons8199]

Absolute Virtue - 18 hour fight, Pandemonium Warden 18+hours. Old school ffxi was a trip……………….

[@nameless646]

Yeah, those were horrible. That, and 4 expansions in: "Alright everyone, pile into the Dragon's Aery lagfest for up to 3 hours".

[@kevingallagher1867]

As an olde HNM Linkshell member (Armada - Cerberus server) I truly miss this game. We’d set alarms for spawn timers. You weren’t serious enough if you didn’t. Hearing shouts of “Claimed!” at 4 am meant a 2 hour fight and no class that morning. - - Whether it was endless nights in Sky/Sea or a 256 exp chain Puk party, the End Game was truly endless! When your shell killed an HNM everyone knew, the crafters paid you for the hides, ingots, or cloths. They were FINITE and truly RARE. Linkshell benefitted and grew its coffers. Monthly profit sharing. It felt like a true enterprise of monster hunters. - - My biggest regret was not going for a Relic. - - FFXIV is beautiful. Enjoyed it for two years, but everything felt inconsequential, and so consequently I quit. - - We need more immersive, persistent, unforgiving worlds.

[@nathanlee6099]

I loved the difficulty in FFXI. I also loved that the open world was where you leveled. Combat was slow and allowed time to socialize with your group and make friends. Sure 14s dungeons are flashy and cool but they aren’t nearly as fun as 11. The world was dangerous and you had to rely on other players to travel.

[@kprime1981]

Thank you for always using the music that you do. It's such a relaxing vibe, and makes the XI discussion and content even more enjoyable. Kind of wish your opening music and the music in the background were in XI back in the day.

[@pierce607]

Like you said, sometimes the difficult parts of games call to some people, and other aspects of the games call to different types of players. I loved FFXI more than any other game. And I loved a lot of the aspects. "The slow-paced grind" as you call it, back then is what was appealing to me. Now, it wouldn't work in my life because of how life has changed. I wouldn't change my life, as I feel very blessed, so I wouldn't go back to that. I did enjoy it though!

[@burningflag3679]

For years I've thought of FFXI like so. FFXI is the better rpg. And imo the best looter I've ever played. While FFXIV is the better game. With its modern mechanics. And far more inviting learning curve. And in regards to diffituly I think all we need are Yoshi-P's thoughts on 11. He didn't add 11 style macros "because that became the default way to play". And gear is so how to put this. Homogeneous, "so that players don't feel forced to grind for gear". While I do play 14, Destiny 2, PSO2:NGS and several other live services. It's really all chasing a modern fix to replace 11.

[@dontcare3]

just imagining the sheer wall of things you have to do in order to catch up in ffxi is absolutely mind boggling, it would take months upon months of hardcore play in some cases. Then you have the actual quests lol, even with a guide/pictures it can still be amazingly confusing with where to go next and who you are supposed to talk to. ffxi while being one of my favorite games of all time is also just one of the absolute hardest games to get in to and thats coming from someone who played it for years.. couldn't imagine a new player walking in and seeing the amount of content that needs to be completed as well as the totally silent world with no community or talking.. just a bunch of elite people with their 10+ year accounts doing content with other elite level players. There are no newbs, no lighthearted conversation happening in the world or cities. Couldn't actually imagine a harder game to try and get in to than FFXI in 2022.

[@cortaliaailiosua3157]

It's not that bad. I've been at it for a week. Already 21 mnk, 16thf, 12 war. Once you hit lv 4 you get trusts and everything just dumps XP onto you. The lowest xp an xp mob has given me is 160... not 16.. 160. Once you hit 4 you get trusts so your always walking around with a party. You do a simply quest in selbina, go 1-3 shot bees by dem for pollen instead of the brutal subjob quest. Leveling solo is not an issue. But you have to get good at unlocking the random chests because that's where your gonna get your gear from especially in the lower levels because the market is inflated. Level 1 Cesti... 132gil from NPC, 20k on the AH and it takes FOREVER for most things to sell. So money at the start is a real hurdle.. other than setting up the game. It takes A ton of third party stuff (Ashita + ReShade + RTGI) to get the game to look decent. However between Trusts and chests and the fact you can just fight stupid easy stuff for massive XP means you don't need +1's, or even current level gear. I ran my level 1 dagger on my thf till level 15.. when I finally stopped getting xp from hornets on N.Gusta. I'm really enjoying it so far but part of me kinda feels like I'm paying 20 bucks CAD a month for a single player version of a MMO I loved.

[@kurphyc.danish5669]

Time demand disguised as "difficulty" was I think the key issue with older MMOs. I like that games like FFXIV don't demand a lot of my time to get something done, and if I hadn't been a kid with little more than school to worry about during the 75 era of XI, I would have found exceptional difficulty getting things done. To contrast, on XIV I can jump on the party finder menu and try end game content with total strangers (albeit with mixed success) and enter the fight instantly from anywhere, whereas trying to arrange something like Dynamis back in the day with a shout group was largely unheard of. You might do something as simple as a Promathia mission, and if you wiped you'd find yourself spending maybe 30 minutes returning back to the BC to try again. On the reverse side of the coin however, I made an enormous roster of friends and human experiences with the people I met in XI (some of which I still speak to regularly 15 years on!) because of the effective requirement to create bonds and linkshells to progress efficiently. While I play XIV with friends, I don't think I can name a single one that I actually met on the game, and with the exception of savage raid content, I find am not even required to say so much as "hello" to the people I end up grouped with. I feel the most time one wasted in XI was largely whilst travelling (scheduled airships, limited teleport points, *fucking Beaucedine* etc.) and cleaning stuff up like that a lot earlier than they did could have made it a substantially more accessible game. But with regard to difficuly, the sheer wealth of character customization, instanced and non-instanced content across the whole of Vana'Diel and basically not having your hand held throughout quests and missions made for an enormously satisfying play experience. XIV in this regard is more like just ticking little things off a list.

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

yeah I agree, definitely have to be careful of just adding "time sinks"

[@shperax]

11 does respect your time now, and you can get a lot done in a short time. It's a totally different game then it was.

[@smallville4351]

I feel like the time sync was the game itself and that EG was just something to push you to keep going. Once I got to EG stuff I would fantasize about going back and starting over as it was more fun than the demands of an EG LS

[@CreativityBM21]

It’s part of world building. Airships and big zones is all part of world building and those are usually the things you remember. I’ve played through 3 expansions of XIV and I can’t tell you one thing I enjoyed as much as XI. To each their own though. Just cause a vendor is closed on a specific day, doesn’t make it a true time sink. Just go do something else… that’s what XI was good at. There is so much other things to do while you wait for whatever.

[@Tetsu9701]

@@CreativityBM21 That really reminds me of when I first played Shenmue on the Dreamcast. It really felt like I was in a small town in Japan. The NPCs had lifes and scheudles and I had to adjust to them, I was *their* world. IF the shop was closed or I missed the bus I'd go make a phone callor, play a game at the arcade, sharpen my skills at the dojo.

[@Quantarum]

I played FFXI for nearly seven years compared to just under three years for FFXIV. I think the biggest thing missing from XIV was the sense of accomplishment and camaraderie. I don't think I was ever top tier at anything in FFXI, but I was willing to show up and demonstrate patience with whatever goal was being chased and that was worth something. I came to expect the shared successes and failures, loyalty wasn't always rewarded, but it was enough that I gravitated to where I found it and could give it. XIV offered very little of that. I was in a group trying to do the Binding Coils of Bahamut, we met every few days and worked our way up to level five pretty quickly, but the Twintania fight proved much more difficult to get down and after eight tries two of the regulars permanently left the group in frustration. It felt like such a betrayal, but I couldn't blame them, the kind of dogged determination I witnessed in FFXI just wasn't needed, if the group you were in couldn't get you through quick enough, there probably another forming somewhere you could try. I felt like a dinosaur in XIV, I think I quit right after the second round of artifact weapon upgrades came out, it all seemed pointless to me then.

[@thanganbabp5570]

difficulty in multiplayer games makes you appreciate the multiplayer

[@Glenningway]

As crazy as this sounds, Elden Ring plays like a single player FFXI. No quest markers, tons of customization, every dungeon is explorable. ER I got to play a mock Rune Fencer (Faith + Greatswords) since I was unable to gear it during Adoulin's heyday. Always wondered if they've balanced jobs or do people still insist on a certain meta comp. That and the hostile community (for endgame) and lack of help from my own LS it was time for me to move on.

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

totally agree! I think Elden ring shows that there's a huge market for that "difficult immersive multiplayer experience" that so many developers don't seem to think has a place in the current market

[@NeraThun]

YoshiP seems to disagree with you ^^ Recent interview (last year for sure) he said that there isn't enough market to tackle this kind of MMO (FFXI is more than enough in it self). Further more, they'll ease the solo experience of FFXIV with trust (kinda like XI) through the whole story aspect of the game with next patch for 2.0 content and other expansion further patch down the line. I won't say that I carve for this kind of difficulty (quite the opposite I think ?) but it's true that I'm for more challenging content through the levelling process to help/force people to learn some aspect of the game they play. FFXIV is a really good example of doing it bad (despite having a great tutorial right before the first dungeon). Every solo content that was somehow challenging at some point were nerfed. They event added an easy mode option upon 1st defeat. They left all the challenging content locked behind extreme & savage duties. There's no learning curve because of the story must be experienced by everyone despite how bad and/or unwilling to learn how to play a video game people are and it's make me sad... To this day, XI still is the best coop experience I ever had. MHW was the closest in recent year. I do enjoy XIV but it's mostly because it became an easy go to for most of my friends to "where" we can all settle despite our preferences in video game... but even that one start to fall in interest (game getting older and we even more... our peak ffxi was already more than a decade ago ... and our peak in XIV never reached that in fact =S )

[@hiflyer000]

The sad truth is that gamers these days don't want to be challenged or to work for anything, they just want rewards and instant gratification. You'd be amazed how much people complain about the "grind" in some games where you can get almost everything in just a few weeks of casual play. These people wouldn't last 2 days in an early 2000's MMO.

[@gabrielhersey5546]

FFxi was the most difficult most challenging most team work demanding mmorpg ever Until after Abyssea. Super easy leveling super OP gear After Seekers trusts allow you to solo everything FFxi isn’t an mmorpg anymore it’s a solo online adventure game

[@guyleclerc7324]

totally!!! i quit after lvl cap pass 75 .. the good old days were 2003 2004 2005 when fighting Nidhogg Tiamat all those NM was a 30min+ fight .... now i see ppl soloing Fafnir srsly wtf is FFVI .... hours of Sky Sea farming was priceless . FFXI will forever be the best MMO ever made . we wont see a game like this ever ever ever again......

[@chrishorsey3277]

FFXI's notoriously hard difficulty in the golden days raises some interesting questions. You can find alot of information about this if you look up info still around to this day of people documenting battles with Pandemonium Warden and Absolute Virtue. You could do a whole video on this topic i bet! Take a look at it. Questions i ask myself are: Were some things were designed to be pretty much unbeatable, potentially serving as base placeholder for future game mechanics, or the players that didnt know FF titles before this game came along werent thinking about how to beat it in the right way?

[@dashhuber2901]

I have played the souls games, and enjoyed them thoroughly, and they can be quite frustrating. But I will say this, dark souls is the kind of game I would play to relax from difficult stuff in FF11. Playing from launch in the US, was a trip. Massive exp party wipes from the dunes, all the way to the boyada tree, were constant and more less an accepted part of life. The quests to unlock additional jobs at 30, required travel all over the world of vana'diel, through areas no level 30 should be. I think the Maat fight (75 era), is one of the greatest challenges ever placed in a video game. He required grinding, good gear, strategy, and the use of expendable items. Getting the required gear, capping skills, and other prep could take an entire month in the case of a job like Red Mage. The game was beautiful, and incredibly challenging. It ate years of my life whole.

[@paddy1144]

Anyone playing current retail FFXI doesn’t know difficulty

[@HYDRAdude]

I just want content that is challenging enough for my friends/guild to have something to work towards.

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

they should remaster FFXI and bundle it with FFXIV and make them together and have FFXI (classic) and FFXIV (Retail).

[@Rockzo1982]

If ffxi rereleased I’d lose my Rocket league addiction real quick

[@delphidelion]

It's going to take Miyazaki making the next jump from open world to soulsborn mmorpg before we get difficulty back in mmos

[@rollincrossa]

i think the addition of sheol Gaol in oddesey has brought back alot of that challenging aspect to XI, i mean, its heck challenging at V20 with the additional monster add, really throws your V15 strats out the window at times

[@Generallyannoyed2024]

I understood like… seven of those words. But damn it now I’m curious to how the game changed.

[@80sToyBoy]

IMO a good amount of players are starving for a more complex, difficult MMO. Any MMO that comes out is immediately jumped on to see if it's any good. And most are soon left after the newness wears off.

[@almightygerm9919]

I was thinking last night.. idk if you have done a video on this or not. I don't remember seeing one. Remember FFXI jail and the moderators that had their own special gear when you examine them? If you did that video it would be so nostalgic for me..

[@Generallyannoyed2024]

GM’s and level 1 Judge armor. Saw that jail up close at least once.

[@nameless646]

Mordion Gaol and the GMs with their weird heat effect. I wish there was a video of the GM that had to kill Vrtra at the zone's entrance after someone glitched it there in an attempt to POS hack away from it.

[@kenslizle]

Awesome breakdown of difficulty within FFXI. I agree FFXI mobs with there crazy sometimes over the top mechanics which spawn conversation and testing make for an awesome game. The trial and error make for an incredibly satisfying user experience and feeling of accomplishment when you achieve victory. Far superior to tank and spank keep it moving snore fests. As always Thanks Hunter for the ongoing FF11 insite and support!

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

thanks dude!

[@kasaioni7680]

The best thing about XI is that you didn't have to memorize a rotation.

[@wiseman4953]

These kind of games can still work but they will be niche like you said. The company I want most to do this SE probably will not. This is why I keep hoping for a graphical and UI overhaul. Or a remake consisting of Zilart and Cop then a brand new adventure from then on. The depth/complexity is what always draws me back to FFXI. Auto attack speeds, delay, renkei, day/night/season/weather cycles, aggro/link enemy tendencies, sub jobs, etc. People can claim XI was easy all they want. But the fact was that it was hard mostly because you needed party planning prior to making the game more accessible. Outside a few players, there was no brute forcing hard fights or soloing stuff you were not supposed to.

[@smallville4351]

Another things that made FFXI so hard was the lack of guides and information available to the players. With FFXIV there seems to be a how to video for all dungeons ASAP and with quest we get a GPS to take us to our destination. FFXI had few guides and forquest a NPC would say something silly and it would mean go across the would and kill a bat for me lol.

[@imJGott]

Ff11 was dark souls before dark souls.

[@kythrathesuntamer9715]

I can't relate to a lot of the classic server sentiment though with FFXI because I love challenging content but But my nostalgia lens looks back on what we all dealt with in the old days with a huge dose of like it was madness and we were part of things early days before they really even figured out how to deliver the formula and i' not saying say they fully have yet either but we were on a learning journey along side the staff who were surprised at how people played too. and the old days were just... awful. like its unfathomable how we ever put up with that. I hear people talk about it like yeah it was great having to spend hours gathering a party in order to do some endgame mission where you had a huge chance of wiping 45 minutes into things and wasting 4+ hours of time playing. Not that I didn't have time to burn but like I could be watching anime I could be doing a lot of other things with that time and instead I'm neglecting a growing backlog of want to watch content in favor of chasing after a goal that I'm probably not even going to succeed at and having to laugh at it because it is only a game- but what I mean is can you understand feeling frustrated and like that isn't a lot of fun? It would have more fun to catch up on that anime backlog.

[@russellyork9027]

What server u playing in bro?

[@SageLakshmi]

There is absolutely a call for more difficult mmos. Ffxiv does great in accessibility but imo falls flat as far putting players in a situation where they MUST group up. I stopped playing ffxiv because in the time that i had played, i had yet to meet friends or a free company that i felt like i belonged. In ffxi i found friends and linkshells i absolutely adored to be a part of but that was mostly through situations in ffxi that forced grouping. Dont get me wrong the duty finder is great it really cuts wait time for groups, but it takes a lot of the personal elements away from formung your own group

[@johnmrke2786]

FFXI was one of the most difficult games in living memory, back in 2003-2006. While the current game has shifted the difficulty to end game group content, the main reason you don't want floor level difficulty in an MMORPG to mirror that of Elden Ring, is because you would lose your customer base quickly. MMORPGs are different from Elden Ring. In Elden Ring, everything can be solo'd. Literally everything. The difficulty of each encounter is totally up to the player. It can be easier or harder depending entirely on their level, gear, and strategy. That is not true of an MMORPG, where everyone has a role to fulfill and one person can screw it up for everyone else. MMORPGs are built so that players function within a group and do not have the flexible power, vertically and horizontally, to clear every bit of content themselves. A game where you can do that makes multiplayer completely optional. Which is how Elden Ring works. You never have to get help from another player.

[@darschpugs4690]

There is a reason this style of design was abandoned, it just does not work in the long run anymore when the modern typical gamers are playing for 7 hours and 7 minutes each week no more. XI reduced the time required to lvl for this very reason, it needed to respect the players time more in a growing market and changing world where the target audience has changed and aged and on average has far less time to invest. Increased Difficulty adds to the required time investment, EVERY mmo that has tried to capitalize on the nostalgia of stuff like UO EQ and XI where it was difficult and time intensive have failed. We can not compare Xi or mmorpgs like XI to things like destiny and Elden ring as they are completely different genres and designed in a completely different way with completely different gameplay. Its like comparing a potato to an apple. I have over 150 hours invested in Elden Ring, it is not a hard game, it is not difficult, its an illusion of difficulty, it tricks you into believing the game is hard. Every encounter can be summed up as dodge roll, hit enemy, run away, rinse repeat except for fights like Malenia where it is completely RNG based on what attack she will do and if you get one shot or not by her combo. I love Elden ring, I love Dark Souls, I love Bloodborne, and I Love Armored Core, I would love an MMO in any of those worlds especially Elden Ring or Armored Core. If done right a Difficult MMO could work as long as it respected a players time investment from the get go. So far though history has proven they fail.

[@jeffpalaganas7404]

Whats the name if the back ground track?

[@SpoonySamurai]

Lol I played this for years from launch till late 2008....it was haaaaaard before they added level sync. Some of my best memories gaming though. Had a linkshell of very close old friends called pandagopanda on carbuncle. I will toot my own horn when at least, at the time, I was the best skillchainer around.

[@marishiten5944]

As much as I want this, I don't think SE is going to add difficulty to XI. They got slammed pretty hard over the PW thing and AV really made people super salty. I don't know if you were in endgame LS' at the time of Sea and AV, but EVERYONE bitched about it. They really backed off on the difficulty curve after that. There was nasty stuff like Limbus/Promy, but you could limp through that if you needed to. People just stopped attempting AV after awhile. I guess they could do stupid hard stuff through Walk of Echo's, but like ... where's the fun in nothing but instanced content or fights where anyone can just jump in? Half of the fun was to hold an HNM and see other Linkshells throw fits of jealousy.

[@chrishorsey3277]

This 100%. The competitiveness with non instanced 24 hour Nms were without a doubt the most fun

[@deathbyvamp]

Imagine if fromsoftware teamed with square enix to remake ff11 into a modern action mmo...where instead of auto attacking your actually swinging to build your tp to do weapon skills while avoiding attacks.. Tanks not just having to come but actually block swing and avoid ... You know like a should game PlayStyle with ff abilities and spells.....kinda like a half way point between strangers of paradise and elden rings....I feel like ff11 system would be a perfect transition to a souls like mmo

[@jimjones9631]

I think difficult mmos could work but there's a few things. 1. Accessibility- it needs to be accessible. If the game wants to be difficult it needs to be accessible in the way it explains things. Difficultly should be made by challenging the player, not by obfuscation of knowledge. Players need to have an environment to learn. 2. Penalties- there needs to be less harsh penalties. It'd the one thing older mmos did that I highly disliked. Giving things like xp loss and stuff rewards a more passive playstyle and doesn't allow players to experiment and adds a fear into stepping into difficult content.

[@marishiten5944]

Why? Why does it HAVE to be accessible? Why does it HAVE to cater to the lowest common denominator? You know why FFXI was special and it stood out from WoW? Because it didn't pander to the stupid or lazy. You were REQUIRED to have intimate knowledge of what was going on. If you saw a level 75 player, you KNEW he we proficient. He could have no gear on and you could tell, just by the level, that he knew how to play and knew the score. Because it took time, patience, and cooperation just to get to level cap. Some games are made to appeal to specific gamers. There's nothing wrong with that. It's when devs try to appeal to everyone is when no one wins and everyone is unhappy. Penalties are there for a reason. To penalize you for making mistakes or getting greedy. It makes it so you play carefully. So you don't just try to zombie everything. When things like death come as no consequence, it has no meaning and who cares? In XI, you build an exp buffer because you know you're going to die and you know you're going to lose exp. It's not a big deal. But you think about what you're doing and how you're doing it though. It doesn't stop people from attempting difficult stuff. What does that is the closed off linkshells that do run difficult stuff. The "elites" if you will. But that's a people problem. Not a game problem.

[@wisdomandy9361]

I'm hoping for a retail server reset or vanilla esk server preferably remastered or remade. Please, if there is a god, HEAR ME!

[@Amocoru]

I think XI was great because it wasn't crazy difficult. I enjoy a challenge myself but modern MMOs have just gone too far. I have to pay attention to five things at once while also maintaining perfect DPS. I just want to chill with my friends and pull mobs. It's amazing just how it is. Besides you had things like Salvage and Einherjar that provided ample difficulty without discluding people that weren't as good at the game.

[@KhallDrake]

I have been raiding in FFXIV and overall it is boring. It is a complex dance puzzle, not a difficult fight. Everything is telegraphed, everything is a set scripted pattern. Even your actions. You have a basic set rotation that you just keep looping through with very little deviation unless the situation calls for it.

[@kythrathesuntamer9715]

People get this impression of FFXI because you can lose levels that it's like the worst but any veteran will reassure you like just build a buffer and don't worry about it. like I have a friend i've tried to talk into playing and shes like I don't know it sounds hella hard and I'm like compared to FFXIV? Really? I mean I hear you that you don't have to be an endgame gear snob and that's not the only playstyle valid in it but Its what I like being like I ENJOY dungeon crawls a lot which I guess FFXI does sort of lack but I started to realize toward the tailend of WOW that they were making my life too much like what I mean is just you might be clear on the other side of the battle field and have to polymorph something to prevent it from eatting your tank and everyone will be shouting at you to do so but no one will actually throw a fucking marker down on the thing so you can actually SEE it to aim at it and it will get Stupidly small with how huge the raids can be they make the mages job a nightmare to deal with and while it might TAKE me a bit of time to cycle through targets or point at it and aim I still can pretty much always manage to target something that needs to be dispelled or enfeebled before it can cause a crisis for the party. and it is HARD but it's not like FFXIV where everything boils down to having to change position to get out of somethings way constantly. I hate that bullshit. FFXI is more a "How much do you know about the fight?" and knowledge check and usually if enough people in your party know how to do it you will sail through hard or not. I should rephrase though. if enough of the right jobs know what they're doing you'll win.

[@laftiskuno1357]

It will be super if they let us all play our character as a baby version. I will play again if that happen:)

[@Jambara]

to me FFXI was a "Knowledge" based type of difficulty while FFXIV is a "skill" based difficulty. FFXI had tons of overlapping quirky mechanics and the more you understood about the game the better you were at it, and those quirks got SUPER deep, like understanding mob family weakness and attacks, the elemental wheel, damage types etc etc. FFXIV on the other hand requires you to practice a rotation and fight patterns over and over until you optimize the hell out of it, everything is reaction time and memorization.

[@SageLakshmi]

But i can still think of plenty of instances in ffxi where you maintaining a rotation. Mage or dd

[@robzombiex8422]

Ffxi doesn't have the pop to be hard anymore

[@rory-red]

What MMO has leveling down and forces your freshly put on armor off your body.

[@adamsmith6285]

Numerous hardcore MMORPGs have proved numerous times that it doesn't work because the vast majority isn't interested in it. Even in WoW it was like 15%

[@laftiskuno1357]

Is this on Odin server?

[@FarelForever]

I do like how you bring up the "for everyone" aspect, cause I hear it a lot these days, and it grinds my gears, but I will give people some credit: MMOs are expensive games to make, expensive games to keep running, hence why you need to attract a lot of people and make money for a very lengthy period of time. It's a lot easier to justify a niche single player game. It'll only appeal to certain people, but that's fine, cause you put some money in, and might get some back. But to be fair: I loved FF11, but the fact that FF14 was so much more accessible, allowed me to get invested in it, and now I'm doing some intense collect-a-thons in game, that people call me hardcore for. Even if as a whole its an easier game, the fact that it let me get far into it, feel like I can tackle some hard stuff, gave me courage, and now I'm where I never was in FF11.

[@mosley3485]

99.99% of content in Destiny 2 is mind numbingly easy. I stopped playing because it got to the point where I was grinding boring seasonal events all year so I could actually enjoy the game for 1 day when the new raid comes out with contest mode enabled.

[@cashnelson2306]

I was typing a comment about how modern MMOs are much harder than old ones but as I listened on I realized you and I have different ideas of what difficulty in an MMO is, or where it should lie - I'm always confused when people say MMOs are easier now, because Mythic/Savage/Ultimate are wayyyyy harder than anything the older games ever required of you, ever. But you're talking about the open world, the leveling process. To me, that's just the fluff between raid bosses and I don't mind at all that it's been neutered to the level any idiot can bumble through it, and as long as that difficult raid (or please god give me difficult dungeon content in FF pleeeeease I miss m+) content is still being made. That's my issue with all the 'retro-style' throwback MMOs being made lately - they always drop the ball when it comes to the endgame! That's the stuff I play for. Everything else is just a means to that end to me.

[@jamiehav0k62]

thats the whole problem though. They're no longer mmos, they might as well be single player games with lobby instanced multiplayer. They're also bad single player games because most single player games are at least somewhat challenging so it just makes a bad game allround

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

You're definitely not alone in that mindset, which I think definitely shows its value. A lot of players really only want the boss fights, raids, etc, and I'm glad there are games out there that are pushing in that direction!

[@craigjohnston5781]

Not sure a totality statement of Savage etc raids are more difficult than anything older games offered is entirely accurate. For the 4 years I played 14 there wasn't a Savage/Exteme raid that I didn't complete with relative ease. However prior to level cap raise, I, like the vast majority of players of 11, never even sniffed a defeat of Absolute Virtue.

[@jamiehav0k62]

@@craigjohnston5781 i dont think you can count Absolute Virtue. They made him unkillable. The whole concept of the boss was something killable in theory but not practice. When a group first exploit killed it, it didn't even have a loot pool! Yeah if you were right next to the server you might have been able to lock its 2 hours.. in theory.

[@cashnelson2306]

@@craigjohnston5781 I'm speaking strictly mechanically - the difficulty with Virtue is one of endurance, not mechanics. Which is certainly a type of difficulty, but I think it's safe to say no one really enjoys that particular variety of difficulty or thinks we should have more content like it, as seen by the fact we didn't get any other 24 hour long fights

[@nameless646]

Making FFXI difficult wouldn't return it to its former glory. When they did those Salvage bans and made significant changes to the game's system and how it was played, they essentially did away with the older communities for good. Honestly, even if the game played exactly the way that it did when I quit playing, the lack of community would still be a deterrent. I quit playing before they made all of those changes not long after the Salvage bans. They kept relying on Dragon's Aery to maintain monthly subscriptions, and then banned a huge portion of their senior player base in the endgame community, then decided to wipe away everything that gave the game a sense of achievement to it. Cheap enemy mechanics (like Absolute Virtue), job nerfs, abysmal drop rates... almost everything truly great was virtually unobtainable as a result of botting, horrible drop rates, ridiculous amounts of difficulty, and forcing players to play the game a certain way while punishing creative strategies as a means of getting around what were horrible design choices. Raising the level cap and introducing new spells, abilities, and gear was a good idea. Making the game more player friendly and getting away from HNMs with garbage drop rates that were botted was a good idea. Punishing their players was a terrible idea. Banning people who were tired of the inexcusable drop rates from Salvage and exploited glitches so that multiple people could receive the same drop, etc. really sent the message that the only thing that Square Enix cared about was monthly subscriptions and getting their way. FFXI is now either new players, or older players who are like Grandmas and Grandpas who get confused by confounded cockamamie smartphones and social media selfies who have the old ways engrained in them, and quit not long after they returned to see all the new stuff only to discover how unrewarding and ultimately pointless it all is anyway.

[@danny123451]

There really needs to be some sort of middleground. 14's world is by far its weakest aspect.

[@SuperRamos619]

You can absolutely brute force bosses in Elden ring, since there is no scaling. It's probably the easiest to succeed out of all the Soulsborn games.

[@monkeypolice3048]

I only play FF14 because there's nothing else to play and my end is hanging out at limsa lominsa. There's nothing challenge or rewarding out in the field except newbies leveling.

[@AldorasDeranor]

of course harder games have a place in the gaming space not everyone wants to play them, sure, but not everyone wants to play lite-games all the time too i really liked Gris for example (not really on the hard side ...) but i also loved Chronos Before the Ashes plus, i'm so tired of all those samey MMOs where your character is like a god, vanquishing everything he looks at in 2 seconds

[@MrStevethefox]

Man sorry to say the game falls off hard after you reach 50 I don't mind the quest to advance further but then it becomes so tedious every 5 levels then its ridiculous level quests half the time. I gave up at 60 man played for a week it was fun combat everything else is a nightmare. Plays best with a controller also In my opinion. I dont want my game to be easy mode baby status but i just wanted to reach the end game on FF11 and check out the raids and what have you. Games has alot of DLCs and stories also it has many good points in it to.

[@Terixofevermore]

Wow wasn’t difficult, it was just slower. Like someone else here said, developers have forgotten what made the mmo, and that’s the world. The journey matters waay more than the endgame. It’s what teaches you, changes your perspective, even makes you learn what you like and don’t like about whatever your playing. These days it’s all about the end game; and it sucks.

[@Odinarcade00]

I’m sorry man that game was super hard when it came out and over the years it doesn’t really matter what they tweak on the game it’s hard to get into and get immersed honestly. I played the game for hours and every single person I met played way too much and had all these loop holes to get through the game to the point where none of the story matters none of the content matters and your character is just a vehicle to grind with. And it’s not a bad game. I play things like etrain odyssey every once and a while but this game is too hard to setup even for someone who has done it a few times in the past. It’s worth playing but it’s not worth paying for and setting up just to go and meet a shell of a game. Shame too since I loved the graphics and music and combat but the story needs work out of the gate and the weird grind work around a that I’ve experienced defeat the purpose of everything

[@Jozaros]

I agree with you in everything lol.

[@TheNiktus]

Me returning player after 10years. Doing rhapsodie of vanadiel smilling easy, get to the last boss and get detroyed! Then quit back the game coz the community is still toxic even after 10years lol yeah my linkshell dont give a f to an old man like me who was a master 10y ago in this game.

[@Delarius86]

Relaxation in FFXI? Level sync dune party!!! (talking about pre-abyssea time) Nothing is more therapeutic than that.

[@HollowRick]

I agree 👍💯

[@EvilAndy-os6bz]

Bring back death and heavy experience loss!

[@SageAtoreis]

They kinda did it. You lose quite a lot of EP when you die. I have seen people crying about it on forum already :)

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

ya I haven't explored this yet, but we do now lose Master Level Exp when we die, which could be significant as we get higher and higher Master Levels!

[@SAINTDENIS22]

This game needs new content period.

[@lynchmob72]

People talk about how hard Elden Ring is, but when i think about pre- nerf COP missions ( i must have went 1/50 on 3-5 Diabolos fight before people figured out a really good strat) and going 1-100 at least for my stupid moldavite earring, i just laugh a little to myself. Not to mention RDM maat fight.

[@edwardb4730]

Ffxi is in a great spot atm. It’s nowhere near the time sink it was during 75 era unless you want it to be, all the while having plenty of challenging engaging content. If you have not beat all v20 odyssey don’t tell me xi is easy.

[@ChampDietingAndFitness]

FFXI was never difficult only time consuming. Most bosses have like 2 main mechanics and let's be real 99% of players cheat because of the time sink. I played on xbox back in the day where u couldn't cheat then switched to pc and lost all respect for the game.

[@monkeypolice3048]

Why can't they remake ff11? 😫

[@joshuaa.kennedy8837]

I do miss the hard games. But the second problem is they don't use real currency so deep down you will find your self just wasting time. Until they solve that I'm not going back until they create CCMMORPG. Also why the delay in the video they drop on the weekend⁉️

[@mathewgurney2033]

FF11 difficulty was dropped to zero when trusts were released.

[@Itachi_Cheverez]

I need this game on PS5 or something else. I miss this game so much.

[@Tyantreides]

Wow. I dont know if im special at this point but please dont put music below your speech. Its so loud and distracting. I had to turn the video off. Im not able to follow your words. At llast turn the volume down or something....

[@kenshinhimura9387]

I don't think difficult MMOS would work. Look at Lost Ark. That game is brain dead easy. You can get all the way to level 50 without ever needing to put a single point into your skills. You can play that game while sleeping. It's a joke yet it's the most popular game out right now with millions of people playing it. Everyone's excuse on this game is "bro just grind the boring shit until you hit level 50 and then the real game/fun starts".... like who the fuck wants to waste hours of their life grinding a boring ass game to level 50 before you can actually start having fun? FFXI is fun from level 1 until end game and it's a challenge the entire way through. That's just one of many reasons why it's the best MMO ever made and most likely will remain the best MMO ever made because modern MMOS are easy kids mode garbage. I tell people that FFXI is the Dark Souls of MMOs.

[@SageAtoreis]

and they have plans to nerf some tier 2 bosses, because apparently people cry that they are too hard XD

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

ya I think by making the core game "easy" they're frustrating players, not drawing them in

[@networknomad5600]

Games like Lost Ark die in a few months. Simply making easy games means people burn through the content, hell look at FFXIV. You can get finish an expansion MSQ in a few days and not encounter anything of moderate difficulty or anything that slows you down. The game should make you stay in an area for long periods of time to let it soak in so you can make memories and get a sense of accomplishment, and FFXI’s design did that, though I would say FFXI went a little too far in that regard.

[@guyleclerc7324]

jesus ppl still playing on 2022 ???? i quit on 2007 after winning it all ....

[@EtherImperial]

The concept of MMO difficulty and it's decline didn't really sink in until XIV. When they removed the elements as a substat, I looked around at the game and realized they were simplifying it for the masses. Status effects are pretty irrelevant for content that matters, overworld mobs being completely able to be ignored, etc just rubs me the wrong way. If i'm running as a BLM, I don't want the new sun I just created over someone's head to deal "unaspected" damage or just take "X damage". I want the Ice based boss I hit it with to take extra damage and wish it hadn't had the misfortune of running across me in a party. Life choices need to be reconsidered on either side. The same if I hit a fire based boss with the same skill and it heals from it. I will happily go through the same forehead slapping moment. Why? I want more than "Push the same sequence of buttons for the 10000th time until enemy stops moving". Modern MMOs are more a dance than they are difficult. I want to have to think, I want a raid that if you started the pull when the seconds on the server clock was divisible by 4 on the in game equivalent of wednesday and the zone the entrance was located in was experiencing rain, the first auto attack was replaced with an instant cast tank buster that flattened the MT into a pile of spreadable paste. I want literally every encounter to contain a moment for the party of "WTF just happened, it didn't do that last time?!". Game devs shouldn't be just designing content, they should be designing new ways to screw with a player's sanity. Bring back the gaslighting of the olden days where what you swear worked yesterday suddenly doesn't work today.

[@rikardbrenkle7769]

Spotlight Ukraina war plz

[@biiigbearrrr]

No, it doesn't.

[@AndyPlaysGames]

Ffxi hard mode is just called Nasomi.

[@SageAtoreis]

It's not a hard mode, it's a skeleton mode. there is soooo much stuff that they added since 75. It would feel extremely boring to go back to 75 era now, with just several HNMs and merits as whole endgame, no good abilities, no WS rework etc. Hard mode FFXI is simply solo mode or limit mode on retail. You can just try to solo end game content or you can just try to kill something by putting limits on yourself, like not using some gear or some jobs or some ja/magic or using level sync w/e.

[@AndyPlaysGames]

I see what you are saying, but no QoL stuff is what for me means hard mode. No trusts, no hp warps etc. If they somehow many a solo version of endgame content I would totally be down. I got burned out of group content very long ago.

[@jamiehav0k62]

lol dont play nasomi. its completely broken and has been since release due to a really old version of the server emu project that's barely been updated. It was only popular once because it was the only option. if you want 75 cap ffxi play literally any other classic server like eden or wings, stuff actually works properly for the most part on those servers.

[@SageAtoreis]

@@AndyPlaysGames but none force you to use Trusts or hp warps XD

[@raabm5292]

@@AndyPlaysGames that’s what I like tho, you can completely avoid using trusts and the exp rings and get a small feeling of what it was like back then, but the trusts and added benefits is what gives me time to play, it’s easy to dedicate 45 mins of leveling at night when I can just summon a party to help me and not waste what time I have finding other people.

[@kenshinhimura9387]

In my opinion Elden Ring is by far the easiest of the souls games. They added a LOT of features that made this game way easier. I've got 28 hours in the game already and I love it. Dark Souls 1 is my favorite game of all time.

[@Huntin4GamesChannel]

ya in my 2 hours so far it does seem a lot easier, or at least more tools at our disposal. The higher levels of power obtainable seem nuts too haha

[@kenshinhimura9387]

@@Huntin4GamesChannel Yup they made the game easier to start out as a new player and removed the punishment for death. You used to lose your humanity and have to use items to get it back. Now you can just craft the coop item and you finds hundreds of the material required pretty easily. I think it's a win for the franchise. More players coming to the game while still keeping what makes a Souls game a Souls game.

[@TehParismio]

I don't believe they made it easier. Its really difficult. They just took what they learned from their previous games, and made it a less "frustrating" experience. A lot of their early work was "hard" because they had mechanics that were stiff cause they were new at making souls games.

[@jakeantoine5429]

Doubt this scrub has any Odyssey V20 clears...

[@MisteRRYouTuby]

What do you mean “WOULD” work? This and Elden Ring DO work and Elden Ring isn’t even an MMORPG!