Final Fantasy XI

I found the Final Fantasy XI Vana'diel Collection 2007 for cheap, so I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any previous posts about this MMO.

FFXI is notorious for its grind. In this, it's kind of an old-school MMO. Further putting some people off, the game works best when controlled by… a gamepad! Designed for consoles, this isn't surprising, but certainly not the norm for MMORPG's. I actually like it, because I play on the big screen in the living room, anyway, and can do so with my wireless controller from the couch. Definitely a unique experience.

However, I'm not sure if I'm up for the grind. You also need groups for most of the interesting things in this game. Maybe I just don't have the stomach for it and should go back to the *cough* "casual-friendly" WoW.

But the mission stories are supposed to be good…

The story missions are good just like in LOTR or Guild Wars. The game was originally desgined for ps2 (graphics) and ui is based on gamepad. The grind was horrid but was eased a bit over the years. Still its often called "japanese torture grind". Also there are not much of solomissions so you must find other players to form groups for the grind. If you cant find other players - you cant play the game at all.

Yes, indeed. Although, almost surprisingly, I have been able to find people to play with quite easily so far and without much effort. I'm not sure if that will keep up. I want to at least see a few of these missions before I throw in the towel.

Depending on your main job and variety of subjobs for it getting a team in FFXI is either easy (white mage sub any mage class, bard/whm, paladin/warrior) or terrible (monk/anything pre level 50 or so where they finally become a decent DD class, thief/anything, dragoon/anything, puppetmaster/anything….).

The grind is kind of hellish because it's consistant. That said I found it faster to get a level in the 70s in FFXI than in the 40s in City of Heroes or an un-rested level in the 60s in WoW. Once you get a party (sometimes an hour or two wait). Once you get to a good levelling camp (used to take forever, but the Treasure of Whateveryacallit new areas are quickly accessible for high level characters).

It's a very old game and it shows. Casual unfriendly, slow traveling, heavy grinding, quests do not award experience, gear driven, playerbase prejudice against suboptimal class combinations, etc. I only stuck it out to 75 because all my friends played it… and they still do, two years after I left, still trying in desperation to get the best loot for the same classes we leveled together.