Is FFXI Worth Returning To?

Why people think 1.1k players online is enough? that's very low. I also don't see how fun would be to solo most of the content (specially for new players). That's boring and sad, It defeats the purpose of coming back and playing online with friends. Many people contradicting themselves on this subject btw.

For a returning player and depending on the break durations one would have, FFXI is worth returning to.

The system has become user friendly.

Currently FFXI has a combination of revised content & new content which is updated on a frequent basis.

Long or short durations are player dependant, though FFXI has fun content and a reasonable community.

Because when most content is designed around 6-18 players, 1.1k players is honestly more than enough to pool from to accomplish whatever you need for any relevant content. The trick is to just build statics if you REALLY want something, as it's a good bet there's other people on your server that likely need / want whatever it is you're willing to take down. It's part of that whole "socializing" aspect that seems lost on many MMOs nowadays, as people prefer to just hop on a solo job or pull out $30+ a month to multibox and "solo" their content so they don't have to deal with other people.

Besides, there's just some stuff you'll have to solo nowadays, as it's a waste of time of others. It's far easier just to whip out the Trust NPCs or your ilvl gear to mow down things like VNM for trials than it is to grab a group like before. Farming a drop or gear? Trust it up! There's 21 jobs with a plethora of skills that most players likely don't have capped still, so doesn't hurt to go off and skill those up on your own time.

There's always down time in this game, since it's slower paced and the community is aging. A player can sit in town idling and waiting for a shout or for their friends to log in, or they have the option to go out and do just about anything they want now with mixed results solo. New players are given these options as well, since they have the same tools, and likely are going to run into times where they're on and their friends are not.

All of this.

I came back knowing that most of my friends I had quit. I knew that I would be playing the game for the most part solo, but with a good LS, that solo time is cut a bit with events. Even if I am soloing, the LS I'm in is very active all day, so there's never a dull moment.

1k players isn't bad at all considering the age of the game. And more people are coming back every day. I play another game where the population is roughly 1k at any given time (I was a GM for it for a short time), and that community is very active too, and it doesn't have the age that XI does.

I would like to point out that if you can't find anyone to play with out of a 1k player pool, then the problem is probably you, and not them.

What the hell gear did you want off the AH, anyways? Functional gear is easier to get now than ever.

I'm considering coming back as well. However being a NIN main, and stopping pretty much right after the abyssea craze, not really sure where I'd fit with the new events and such. Any input?

Well you have several 90s and I see full Emp +2 on that NIN, so you're in luck as far as being in a position to get back into the swing of things. Due to merits being relevant again thanks to the recent battlefields, there's usually worm party shouts going on throughout the day once more (You'll want to check your server's shout page here on AH to monitor maybe, I'm just speaking from Lak's perspective), letting you grind skills as well as exp and merits til you're back in the swing of things.

Matsui seems to want to balance the game where just about every job is viable to a degree for his content, so your NIN main should be able to see a bit of action if you're doing things with a LS or friends. NIN can get... 5 shadows nowadays I think, which would let you destroy older content once you grind out enough points in RoE to get your free ilvl 109 set and weapon.

1.1k is more than enough to get people for 6 man content quite quickly unless you dont have a 99horn/harp brd friend.


I got back after a 6 month break a few weeks ago and did 1 shout for ls got a few replies and found one with about 25-30 people in. They were having to turn people down last night for tojil. Most of the ilvl gear you have to do fights for you cant just buy it from the ah. Anything lower level you can get from sparks

I essentially had "ideal" gear for NIN before I left, minus the empy that I was like 30 skins away from completing. I guess the main question is what jobs are even really useful nowadays and whether or not they're ones I enjoy playing. NIN, THF, BRD, SMN were the 4 that I really enjoyed, and SAM to an extent.

Out of those... just brd but majority of people want 99 horn and 90 harp minimum. For AAs its mnk brd whm rng(with 119 relic) pld(with relic and empy shields).

no

Nin is useful for AA - but sadly people don't really want to sway away from rng strategy in PUGs so that would only work if you have a ls/friends to go with.

Bard is still very much needed in many events. Though for high end content you might want to invest in a empy harp/ghorn to be useful.. but I think a lot of PUGs settle with 2song too in a lot of content. This is probably easiest to gear up to be end game ready.

THF is useful for some AA even with rng setup (like TT for larceny), and TH in general.

SMN - some people seem to take it into AA but i never really seen it in action. WKR is the only thing i can think of that it is relevant for but someone else might have a better idea.

SAM - skirmish, delve, normal mode AA

to be fair at the moment it's fairly balanced and almost all jobs have some form of use somewhere, apart from rngs being the favourable job if you want to do D/VD AAs. Obviously to be able to participate in high end content you need to be well geared for the part. So don't expect to resub, buy a Katana off AH and people would take you into a lv 110+ content when you're in full AF3+2 gear. It will take you a bit of time to catch up, though the time it takes to catch up is shorter than before with the help of RoE and skirmish being incredibly easy.

What do you mean majority wants 99 horn and 90 harp? If the people want minimum 99 and 90 they going to be shouting for a very long time.

^^
I actually enjoy playing solo in the game. I have, for more than 9 years now. It's nice to do things with some people once in a while, but for 80% of the time that I have been on FFXI, it has been out on my own, doing whatever I want.

As for OP,

Lately, SE seems to be catering to us soloers. It's a lot easier to level now, but it's also a lot more enjoyable with the Trust Campaign. I don't have to worry so much about being beat up :D Plus it makes leveling some of the jobs a lot easier.

In the end, who cares what someone else thinks. You will be the one paying for the game time. Either you will have fun or you won't. You shouldn't let someone else influence your choices. The updates are pretty clear what the game play is like now, plus the game is ever changing. Only you can know if you will like it or not ;) I would say try it for month, $15 is pretty cheap for a month of entertainment. Heck, one movie nowadays can cost you that much, especially if you get Popcorn and a Coke :D

Majority of players would love to have a 99 horn 90 harp bard helping there ls out. It doesn't mean it will happen. For most conent at this time, (normal mode or lower) you could get away with a 2 song brd just fine. Of course everything depends on the players.
Most DDs in this game are extremely easy to make. Its having people being good at there support jobs is the problem.
You don't need Relic rngs or Relic/Ochain plds to beat normal mode AA fights. Yes I'm sure everyone wants to beat AAs on Very Tough mode, but its just not in the cards. Beating on normal still yeilds good rewards.

My two cents on coming back to ffxi. Go for it. There is plenty to do, plenty of jobs to be useful with. Granted some jobs are more wanted then others but there is enough content to every job in the game on.

Not really.

Serious brds will have these, leechers will just try to get by with some random gear and instruments.

I've certainly dreamed of having a horn. Especially being a BRD main when cap was 75 and BRD was king and fun to play, and having the best gear then besides horn. Aybssea era pretty much killed it in my eyes, but I still played it as much I could. Based on what you guys are saying I think I'm gonna give it a shot. 30$ for the game and a month isn't very much.

There's really not enough serious bards for all the aa or delve groups.

If you loved the game prior to your account being hacked id say go for it, i started over for the 3rd time as i always miss the game lol and there is plenty to do especially if you starting from nothing. Im on asura which still have few peeps on, so all id advise it make sure u get the right world so not empty and you can get a nice ls.

Come on you know you want to lol....

Id say its worth returning to, me and my fiance came back last month and were have a good time. The trust npcs really made it easier to solo and its really nice to lowman stuff like skirmish for very respectable gear.

Who would want to play a brd, winning the dps parse is all that matters.

So if no bards how we do aa fights? Or delve? For they reason I am now a 3 song bard

It used to be 1.1k players 1 year ago on most servers, and yet it was terrible and very hard to find alliance/help /someone else to play with (and now it seems that asura is the only server with such population). Lucky you that got invited to a LS, maybe they wanted people so bad because the current game crisis. Lakshmi and Levi barely reaches 300 players online and most of those numbers are non-active players
12.99 is not worth to pay for solo content/social chattery

Sounds like they really need to merge servers again. Bahamut never really goes below 780 people 99% of the time

Don't listen to that idiot. The population numbers have been rising. Three hundred people on levi? What are you smoking?

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/41299/server-pop-question/
This was back on november 2013, it should be worse now. There's no need to get mad for what i say, a lot of people Witnessed how levi and most servers suffers from low population. Try harder.

No you try harder. Do you even play? Go away already. Low population, yea it's low. 300 avg is not true.

You mad bro.

From my observations on my own server, the populations have gone up a little bit from the post-FFXIV release crash.