Horizon Strikes Again

In the same sense that flicking a gunshot victim on the nose hurts them, sure.

Nothing hurts retail nearly as much as retail.

I will preface this by saying - I no longer play either, I keep up with FFXI because I liked the game a lot.

I played Horizon til like, level 30, and stopped because I felt that crawling addiction feeling I felt when I originally played retail. I kinda liked what they were going for in Horizon, but I think some of their changes were unbalanced, and I found their staff to be way too adversarial when it came to feedback. I quit retail a long time ago, before Rhapsodies.

All that said, the idea of going from what my character was in retail (pretty crappy) to the standard of endgame now. All the MLvl and Master Levels. All that seems way more daunting than going from 1-75 in Horizon.

Not to mention, anyone that quit retail in the 75 era will be absolutely overwhelmed by retail XI.

I don't know that there's a really effective way to get people back to retail XI. Especially those that quit pre-Abyssea. It's just a very different game than it was. And there's so much you need before you can engage with up-to-date content. A lot of what people liked about XI is gone also. 1-75 grind gone, all the content pre-99 is useless. I think that loop was what was addictive to people.

Except none of that is true, it was all repurposed, a lot of it still relevant for some weapons. Job point/ML grind Is equivalent to 1 to 75. Very different game... like back in 75 era when someone who quit or just joined had to sit in a LS point list behind a billion others for lotting rights, back when most groups had statics and cliques for most important things outside LS events. Or how it took ages for most to get a single job to 75 and God forbid it wasn't a popular job. There was no/barely a PUG scene. People need to stop pretending it's so hard to play retail nowcompared to then when anyone can if they had the willpower. Just easier to say you gave up and abandoned the game (poor time too when that was a really good addon) another nostalgia goggled person. Complaining there's so much to do to until you can be bored in town, weird.

It's really simple to get people back, the damn company needs to give a damm and give the game funding. The game was fine when it had steady content and funding.

It's really not hard to progress in retail, the trick is to start a new character and learn all the new stuff naturally as you go with no pressure.

I quit at probably a few years after Abyssea and came back after they added RoE, Ilevel, Trusts etc and I was completely overwhelmed standing in my BiS king hnm gear. Started a new character on my account and just took it easy, it all came naturally and with no pressure. I remember learning that you make glamor sets (and it not impact your stats) from the menu and hide head armors, and that blowing my mind at the time. If you try to learn everything at once, it's too much but because of the way I was learned I had time to take in these little things and it being memorable and impressive to me.

I leveled up, learned how Trusts and RoE worked and got to 99, got a ls, learned how sparks (ilevel worked) and spent time farming job points, merits, ambuscade etc fixated on RoE and killing the last boss etc etc

The reason you think 1 to 75 isn't a big deal is because you know how it works (like doing something for work you have done before, as opposed to something you haven't done before but that is easy enough), when in reality getting to 99 and getting all the other stuff is probably even easier than that cause you're not waiting around for invites, farming crap for gil for months, trying to figure out why broken aspects of the server aren't matching to the wiki etc.

Because you don't know how it works you're intimidated by not knowing. The fun however is in not knowing and learning it imo, retreading the path you already walked years ago but in a inferior version of the game is honestly to me utterly depressing. Cause it will never be as good as it was cause people aren't the same these days and private server communities are not like old retail was (there is no wonderment, no wanting to make actual friends and it's all very mechanical, overly goal oriented and performative).

The reason I don't like private servers is cause you already know what it is 100% cause you already did it all, all the people on them are "real ale drinker" types so you're not making any kind of friendships with these forced leveling parties like we did back in the day, it's not real (it's some dudes fanfic) and it can shut down anytime they want with no warning at all. At least on retail, they own the thing, make money from thing and if they did decide to shut it down you get 3-4 months warning.

This needs more emphasis. It's not that retail is harder or more time consuming, it's that you already know how to do everything correctly at 75. It's like replaying a farming sim, you win everything easily and you're just doing it for the timesink.

The same applies for people who fully understand the current game. There are tons of shortcuts you can use to get a powered character quickly, a group of 6 top endgame players being thrown back to level 1 would be clearing V20s again in 3 months(probably 2 if not for segment lockout).

i dunno why we can't just let people like old/nostalgic things and that be reason enough.

no one in the car community is screeching at people driving 63 corvettes because they don't have android auto

No one cares about your no-life post count kiddo. You have a problem.



10% of private server players are playing both, no harm done.



That's the problem...

Folks that play retail still, it is all about sunk cost. It is like playing TF2 still because you have lots of rare hats.

Retail is objectively not easier. 75 cap endgame content requires no advanced strategy coordination, no advanced positioning. You have around 60% less actions per minute on a melee or tank, and even less on a mage due to TP gain difference, ability recast time difference, amount of abilities, time spent literally resting. Very little content has timers, and none has timers that are less than double what an ideal group takes to clear the content.

Retail and 75 cap are similar in time investment and difficulty of execution, if you already understand the game and content thoroughly. If you're starting fresh or unfamiliar with new content, they are worlds apart and you can objectively support the conclusion that 75 cap is substantially easier.

If you want to call idling at a NM spawn or praying for claim on a king hard, that's your choice. Most would prefer 'exclusionary' or 'time consuming' though.

Oh and apparently the new friends I made on Horizon aren't real. Its just in my head, implanted fanfic by Aerec? You are deranged.

No one's going to say it? Ok I'll say it:

If playing an 20-year old MMO on a (free) private server as your primary choice for recreation, you're probably not doing OK in life.

I mean, there are people who choose to pay for a pack of Marlboro Reds over a $12.95 retail subscription. Some people go so far as to smoke used cigarette butts off the ground, too. So, maybe re-examine one's priorities?

I kind of feel the same about any 20 year old mmo, paid or not. And to be fair if you're comparing a pack of cigarettes with the sub fee, the average FFXI player would be buying a carton not a pack, with the 12 accounts everyone runs (SMH), the sub is prolly closer to $100 a month. Priorities are fuct here too just saying. Some people just bum a smoke.

Ignorance is what made "75 era" "difficult". Many formulas were still not understood and many people still didn't do full gear changes.

People have to defend their opinion on the thousands of hours spent and the thousands of dollars they spent on retail either buying billions of gil or having 4-8 accounts to bypass the MMO part of game which is still paying to win imo.

legal or illegal, too easy or too hard, the fact is you're making a conscious choice to not support the people who created the thing you love. if you can do that with without feeling entitled because it isn't the same game it used to be, or feel no guilt in cheating the system, then fine. enjoy your nostalgia while you can, history has proven it will be short-lived.

Who cares if people play retail or not anyways? It doesn't support SE? So, SE doesn't support FFXI anymore either other than paying the electric bill, they just take your money. Screw em. People don't want to read about private servers tho go advertise some where else even if noone is there to read it. Maybe make a Horizon recruitment post on playonline.com but i think you have to actually be a paying customer to post on there lol.

I don't care what people play , I don't play either currently. I did 75 cap once and retail is just filled with automation, duping and mass gil buying. I mean the newest event sortie is flee hacked to death. I just cant be bothered at the moment. When I do play retail I just play for a week or 2 to scratch a itch but mostly my time is over in 11.

Well i did it without hacks but def not 8 bosses;(

True you needed windower and an updated windower to gearswap the game manually allowes 5 to 6 iteem from what i remember so no its not a true classic era

Wallah inta noob you can not recreate 75 era ever again, an example will be the addon and gearswap, there were barely any addons i even remember it was frond upon to talk about add-ons like xiv, hell when i finished cop we could not even *** alt tab of the game without it crashing

I think half the posts in this thread clearly care if people are playing retail. so this comments seems weird to make on page 4

Why? If YOU want to play retail go ahead, if others want to play somewhere else it's their prerogative. What i find weird is how someone can't understand this or why anyone would care. If i could post that on the 1st page i would.

Since private servers are so fun, why not go play on private servers instead of posting on retail XI forums about how great private servers are.

When people look up FFXI on Twitch what do they see?
They see a single account player playing with 5+ other on Horizon.
But when they see a streamer on retail its a player multiboxing talking to themselves.

The darkest days

Or all the players on retail running 6 accounts that won't even look at another person when you try to play. Which seems to be the vast majority. I never played on a private server, but this was one of the huge factors of why I quit retail, that and the way everyone cheese's everything now when you do find players.

I'd like to think that the multi-boxers and the like are still doing group content with real people, and are just filling the dead time with multi-boxing to get things done with others aren't online. I definitely have my own projects that I work on with mules when my group is offline and things I'd like to get done without taking up others' time.

That's the thing they claim they are doing.

It is ***. Full stop. For the majority of them.

I only bring my own bard and cor and geo and whm when I can't find one. Horseshit.

Only for PC players on a single PC.

Back then I was on my PS2, the other TV in the room on Cartoon Network or TBS or something. My computer with Catalina Cruz or Milf Cruiser pulled up.

^.~ How about them PS2 limitations?