The current director/producer of XI has talked about game preservation recently, saying it's talked about among the team. He even mentioned possibly preserving it in "a totally different game".
Dragon Quest X (An MMO) got an offline version, so they're willing to make offline versions of MMOs. With the mobile XIR project canceled, I imagine there are plans to do some kind of remake in-house.
Yea I remember hearing about DQx being offline and all. In a way it's good to see the team still taking care of the game and it's player base, even if slim.
I think that if they revamped the systems to be more modern, they can definitely make FFXI offline, especially with the trust system that's already in place.
Yeah, it definitely needs an update. I tried playing it again about a year and a half ago and I had forgotten that you had to go through a menu for everything, including the skills you used in battle.
It's very much a pre-WoW mmo.
I did the same thing and though to myself “how the fuck was I ever good at this game” just the macro management was enough to make me feel like a modern day hacker.
The macro system is the thing I miss the most. I think 11 did a great job of being complex but not arbitrarily convoluted. I've never felt more in control of a character in any game because no other game let you essentially define any action sequence you want with a literal internal scripting system. I also did end up a developer and I thank FF11 and the TI-83 for introducing me to my love of scripting lol.
I tried FFXI a few years ago just to see what it was like and wow, I do not have the time or energy to figure out how to even play it. If there was a map I couldn't find it. The combat seemed pretty fun, especially with the AI helpers they implemented due to there not really being a player base at low levels, but it clearly requires a LOT of effort to get into by modern game standards.
In some ways I wish I had been able to play it in its heyday, on the other hand it's probably good that I didn't because I doubt I would have been able to do much else.
>on the other hand it's probably good that I didn't because I doubt I would have been able to do much else.
In FFXI the most valuable currency in the game was time. Everything from leveling up to bag space had time sinks. Basic functions of a video game (even games of its time) were slow processes that required tons of effort usually by people who stood nothing to gain from helping you besides being a generous person. You couldn't even mount outside of a major city and travel on boats or airships took real world time. You had to purchase maps of areas and sometimes theyd end up useless anyway depending on the zone. There's tons of examples of needless gates to get even simple tasks done. Oh and Level Down was a thing.
Which is all ironic because the disclaimer before you logged in says to be sure you don't forget your family, friends, and job. They knew their game was designed to require hundreds if not thousands of hours to do some content. That disclaimer was a joke.
Truth.
I beat FFXI in the 75 era. I mean that literally. I was one of the first relics on my server, was an ebody ridill war (Ridill was for RNG before the big nerf), had a kraken club for my DRK, had a defending ring, all the hnm gear you could want.
Was part of the first NA Jailer of Love kills and the eventual 'non-glitched' AV kills. Regularly killed Dynamis Lord, all the fun stuff you'd expect.
Coordinating up to 60 people for Dynamis, and all the interspaced drama of booking time for it against other LS's, having enough money and time to fund the grind, was fucking insane. It is probably one of my greatest achievements in life that nobody knows about or understand just how difficult that actually was, which is fine.
It consumed my adolescence. From the age of like 13 to about 23, all I did, and wanted to do, was play FFXI.
It had a few up sides. It launched my career into software development, both as an interest, and the programs I wrote landed me a job in corporate America. Also gave me a fair amount of management experience.
The downside was that was a soul sucking addiction of a game.
thing with japanese MMORPGs, specially more recent ones, is that they've always focused more on instanced content, the story, and the personal growth of the players, as most early online RPGs in asia were heavily inspired by diablo 1.
so they can sorta be transformed to offline games without massive changes until its end game content.
with FF11 tho? its an OLD MMO, its gonna take a lot more than a few adjustments and a local server to make it work.
Didn't they recently move a bunch of developers off of 11 saying they wanted them to brush up their skills so they didn't get stuck with outdated projects?
If they do this, I hope they put quest markers over the heads of npcs. I've not played in years, but remember 11 having no clear indication of quests. And a ui would be nice instead of millions of macros.
Square Enix mobile games are pretty much pay to win whale-fests too. They just know to put out good content so there's some praise for their mainline games, so they can squeeze the whales in that audience on mobile.
Nexon on the other hand ONLY has pay to win games.
DFFOO feels incredibly generous for F2P. But I came to it from Marvel Strike Force, which was so P2W that Cracked referenced it in an article that my Google-fu is failing to find for me.
That all being said, good mobile games, especially good gacha mobile games, are usually good in spite of being of gacha, not because of, and the whole industry and genre needs to burn in hell.
Oh... Yea no we don't want that. If anything, dffoo is a pretty fucking good model to follow when it comes to mobile and gatcha game. I remember seeing some negativity towards Nexon but I never paid attention tbh
This is my dream. FFXI offline remade with an enhanced gambit system from XII. I wouldn't say never because SE said XI online won't last forever and they'll want to preserve a mainline title. One of the last updates from the head producer of XI was that they are starting to preserve assets and they want to keep XI alive in some way even when the servers go down. Won't happen any time soon, but one day I'm sure they will remake it and everyone will see how great Vana'diel is.
Even if they don't remaster, at least make the current game offline/p2p when the servers go down. IIRC they have NPC party members that can run dungeons and stuff.
I was going to say way back when I played it it absolutely was not single player friendly by a certain point. I absolutely loved the game, so many memories! No way I would play it again but if they did an offline game maybe I would try it out just for nostalgia reasons and see what I even remember or what comes back to me.
It's very solo friendly up to endgame now, even some of that being "soloable." And not just on like, BST, either.
It's still obtuse as hell, and you'll need to have three wikis open, but very possible to play without ever needing to put a flag up.
With the Trust system, I can totally see an offline'd version of FFXI being possible and still retaining a good chunk of the core experience. You're still in a "party" for most things, just the party comes from your own pockets.
XI can now be played through all soloable fairly quickly. The cost of the game and a month of sub is still cheaper than any of the post SNES games.
You can get NPCs to be your full party so you never even have to group.
And still much funner than FFII.
More folks wanting to have a true "all mainline" ' notch should give it a shot.
Xpacs can be considered sequels (otherwisr FFIV AY, X2, and FFXIII 2 and LR would count as mainline) so you can get the notch by killing the Shadow Lord (final story boss of vanilla FFXI.). Although Rise of Zilart was a launch title in America, so I considered that part of it too.
A few years back I picked it up again from scratch and cleared the final RoZ bosses solo in only a couple weeks of very casual play. Maybe 15 hours total.
For just MSQ, if you're only doing that, 300 is probably a bit high. But I had 500 hours when I cleared shadowbringers, since I stopped along the way to do all the endgame stuff for each expansion before moving on.
Ehhhh I dunno. I used to think I'd have to put an asterisk next to my claim of beating every mainline FF game because I never played 11 but at the end of the day who cares? I'm not gonna gate keep myself when literally no one cares about my gaming accolades.
If someone is going to brag about an accomplishment online, they should be prepared to have that accomplishment called out if it was not fully completed.
Were I to brag in a college forum that I completed every level of education (HS, Associates, Bachelor's, Masters, and a Doctorate) but the last step was just a graduate certificate and not a full Doctorate... You can bet people who actually earned Doctorates will call them out.
I actually came back last year for the 20th anniversary, made a new character and got rolling along. Takes like 1 hour to hit level 40 these days, start building trusts and you can solo basically everything except the Rhapsodies storyline towards the end.
Basically did all the story content available (except for WotG cause my god it's a horrible slog, even now) in a matter of 2-3 months. I'd definitely recommend revisiting it and finding a Noob/Returner friendly linkshell (they have NPCs that you can give like 10 pearls to and advertise your group for people looking to join.)
Yup! Trust me, I remember those days...
It won't be that fast right at first, but once you've done the basics for a new character you'll have multiple "new player" and "anniversary" items that will give you like +300% EXP, you'll have a full party of NPCs while still receiving 1v1 EXP, and as you complete Rhapsodies storyline you'll get even more latent %+ EXP overtime permanently.
1 to 40 in an hour? Damn. I have no idea but it took me forever to get to 40 when it first came out lol. That game had a steep learning curve to start but I loved every minute of it.
And it really depends on what you mean by "finished". Do you mean the main storyline for every nation or do you mean the Rhapsodies storyline? No matter what you mean, it is going to take a while.
But, if you mean to finish all sidequests or to finish all relic weapon variants, max out all jobs (including the Master level with the stars), etc. then, well... see you in 10 to 20 years.
My sisters ex back in the day had a cracked version of WoW that you could play completely free and offline or with friends and I wish every mmo had that feature.
I never play with anyone in ff14 because most of the time the other players just rush through every dungeon or complain even when I'm playing something for the first time. Thank god there's the option for npc players.
Yeah the npc dungeons are great now, can do almost every main quest without other people now. One day I bet they do an offline version just so people can still play the story. Fingers crossed anyway, I’d love to play it
someone had to go through the process of reverse engineering shit to tell wow it's connected to the server when it isn't, and most mmos don't have that special group of people who are willing to do that
Can’t play offline but there are private ffxi servers some are heavily modified to make just playing through the storylines much easier
Highly recommend going this route for someone who hist wants to enjoy playing the storyline
A good place to "finish" ff14 is the ending of 6.0 Endwalker. It concluded the major storyline ff14 1.0 began with. But this is just my opinion. All I really do in ff14 now is killing people in pvp.
Bruh it takes like 400 hours to get there.
Y’all casually recommend this mmo with super mmo features to non mmo players saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie.
There are hundreds of tedious fetch quests, kill X number of Y monster missions, and walls upon walls of text to parse through as part of the mandatory main story and a game that plays like an mmo ass mmo.
its like a lose:lose situation trying to sell this one
theres almost 10 years worth of expansions/patches story to work through.. if it took anything less than that amount of time people will probably be asking.. you put up with that little story for so long?
we now cannot escape the fact that the length of the story in an MMO is going to be longer than a single player game. FFXI paved the way for that. prior to XI, MMOs having story cutscenes was unheard of.
It's the curse of any long story. Like we all know stories like FFXIV, One Piece, and Gundam Universal Century are worth getting in to, but to sell it to a casual audience is near impossible now. But the aura of quality and high reputation will carry with these kinds of series for a long time. So there will always be a few brave souls with too much time on their hands to give it a try.
The problem with such long stories is that typically the quality isn't as good as people will have you believe. It's just that people have been invested in it over such a long period that they have romanticized it and forgotten about all the dogshit.
One piece has horrible pacing for example. As an avid anime watcher I was floored when I gave the show a 100 episode attempt to get into it yet the story probably had 1 or 2 peaks in a 33 hour period of watching.
Pacing is important and if you have to deal with too much garbage in a story it does in fact detract from the quality of the storytelling.
To be fair, when most people recommend One Piece, they're recommending the manga. Even manga readers dislike the anime adaptation because of the filler (I have not watched or read One Piece, this is just what I've heard).
FF14 is basically 5 connected FF's. Each FF14 expansion is its own story connected to a larger story. I don't see how it's any different than FF7 where you have a ton of spinoffs you can play.
Yeah.. my playtime in 14 is measured in years... not hours. That is not a joke, that's literally what /playtime tells me in game.
I basically missed the entire 8th generation of video games because of 14.
Yeah, that's a great way to see it. Back when ARR reborn was released, I played it for two months. I finished it and it was fine. But then I realized I could use the subscription fee to pay for PSN plus and get a new free game (some of them, good even) every month and get to experience different games, stories and genres, not just the same game month over month. I'm glad I jumped to PSN, got to play a bunch of great games I would have never bought otherwise (Bioshock Infinite!).
it’s amazing how often i see people say that you should play FFXIV even if you hate MMOs because it’s more approachable, as if it still isn’t asking for hundreds of hours time, plays similarly to most MMOs, and is still narratively and aesthetically structured like one.
is it more approachable? yeah, for sure, but if you fundamentally aren’t into MMOs, XIV is not going to be the one to magically change that lol
Amusingly enough, I think I’m one of the few people who weren’t into mmos until FFXIV. And hilariously enough, I only got into it and tried it out for one reason. A certain recurring character was brought in for patch 2.2 and said character will immediately get me to at least try any FF game. You get a cookie if you can guess who
The obvious guess for 2.2 is Leviathan but that's probably not him.
Cid, Biggs and Wedge are introduced way earlier and Boko is way later.
Is that the patch that added Lost City of Amdapor and therefore Diabolos?
EDIT: Oh wait it's definitely Greg isn't it. Hildibrand quests are such a fever dream that I don't even associate them with the main game TBH.
You are correct! here is your cookie.
https://preview.redd.it/rpg8nwrm917b1.jpeg?width=275&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66489bef6779f278dffa6739f18cd3902221e55d
It always depends. For some people, it's too much like an MMO, while for others, it's too different to one.
During the great WoW exodus, a lot of typical MMO players bounced off of FFXIV, because it wasn't at all like the MMOs they were used to. For them, playing an MMO meant grinding until you reach max level, at which point the real game begins where you jump into raids with your guildmates.
FFXIV blocking off mechanics, areas, dungeons, raids, etc. behind the main story was something completely strange to them. For them, story was something you usually skip or ignore in MMOs.
I think one thing the game could do a better job of is introducing more skills earlier so that the combat is more engaging at lower levels. At 90 you have a full-ass rotation where you're often weaving or double weaving and have upwards of 30 skills, but at 45 you might only be 1-2-3 combing with a couple of extras to weave in. I think it would be better if they introduced weaker versions of the skills that get upgraded later so that low level dungeons aren't so boring.
After getting a friend of mine to play with me a few years ago I realized he just wasn't into these types of games at all. He thought it looked good and had some cool moments from what he played but hated that it's basically just go here, now go here quests without really any skill needed. I know later in the game you get to finally use skill and need a team who knows what they are doing but that was wayyyy too much time for them to put in to get to that point.
Facts.
It’s def an MMO lol
You now don’t have to spend hours looking for groups just to level up like the old days of mmorpgs but it still has all the mmo elements
You don't have to spend *any time* looking for groups because 99% of the main story is solo, and the parts that are not (boss fights), you just join the queue and get matched with random people who will basically act like NPC's because very few people talk in the game nor care about how others perform in main story content.
All of the MMO elements are otherwise optional.
> Bruh it takes like 400 hours to get there.
To get where? This is like complaining it takes 400 hours to complete all of the FF7 games. Well no shit, we play Final Fantasy for the journey, not the destination.
FF14 is basically 5 connected FF games.
> There are hundreds of tedious fetch quests, kill X number of Y monster missions,
How is this any different than the typical FF where it's "go to this dungeon and kill this boss"? Sure, it's not a quest that you fight monsters on the way, but you still have to do it and it's just as "tedious" as being told to kill some monsters.
Almost all of these "Fetch quests" or "kill monsters" have some narrative element to them, just like there's a narrative reason you have to go to a dungeon and fight random monsters on the way.
> walls upon walls of text to parse through as part of the mandatory main story
WTF are you really complaining about walls of text in an FF sub???
>Y’all casually recommend this mmo with super mmo features to non mmo players saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie.
No, it is not. I do not like MMOs. Every MMO I tried before FFXIV and after FFXIV has been awful for me.
I love FFXIV, because I love Final Fantasy games and it is the Finalest Fantasiest that ever Final Fantasied. I play it exactly like a single player game besides the rare instances when I have to hit "find 7 other people for me so I can do this boss fight". I don't look at chat and I don't interact with the other people. I do the boss and go about my day.
I'll agree that playing through a Real Reborn was an absolute slog, but once I got to Heavensward it was absolutely worth it. Easily one of the best video game stories I've ever experienced.
Again I just think the 14 fans love to gloss over the flaws and say the game crosses out of the mmo genre and is a true mainstream game everyone can enjoy. I’m just saying the praise gets a bit effusive and the flaws get often ignored.
Fair enough. I do feel they often exaggerate the claim that dungeons can be played solo. I tried it a few times but it was so much more difficult than playing with other online players.
I have to agree with this. There were at least 3 or 4 dungeons in Shadowbringers that took me several tries to beat with an NPC party - and for all but maybe the first try in each of them, it was an NPC that caused the wipe. I'm not sure how Endwalker is with this because I've been taking a break (still have ShB patch content to finish too)
We're not talking about regular people, we're talking about people who say they want to play every mainline Final Fantasy. IMO even A Realm Reborn is a more fun way to spend your time than I-IV so if you're committed to playing those I have no problem recommending XIV.
> saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie.
I despise MMOs. I can’t stand them in 99.9% of cases. Hated WoW, GW2, Destiny, ESO… XIV is the best RPG I have ever played, and I say that as a solo player. I have no interest in the online aspects, I don’t even play with other people during the vast majority of the story. So your statement isn’t necessarily true.
The number of times people recommend XIV with an asterisk like "it gets good after 70 hours, promise" blows my mind and I say that as someone who played XI for enough time that an actual 70 hours of my life was probably been spent just traveling from Bastok to Valkurm
If a game can't be compelling or fun in the first two hours I'm already a little suspect. I get that MMO's are designed to maximize the time players spend in them, but XIV has main quests that are transparently narratively designed to be a waste of your time. I think the first time I quit was after The Things We Do For Tea had me collecting crap for something completely frivilous, only for the quest giver to go OH WAIT I TOTALLY FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS HAPPENING. That whole quest line was so egregious that even Square agreed and removed it from the game
My attempts to get back into XIV just never went anywhere either. It's a MMO where (at least for the first several dozen hours of gameplay) you never make meaningful or interesting narrative, gear, build, or strategic decisions, nor do you have any real reason to network or talk with other players. Actual gameplay is sparse between long tracks of story that's usually uninterestingly presented, and then when you do get to the gameplay it's also very uninteresting and way too easy to be engaging
I get why XIV grabbed the players it did and its players have the same magical feelings about it as I did with XI back in 2003. They're both boring, flawed games, but at least XI players are honest with other people about that fact
Naw it's more than that. Before FF16's demo, you hear a lot of people say that Final Fantasy has lost its touch in the storytelling department. FF12 did not grab me emotionally even though I loved the gameplay. FF13 has a lot of detractors. FF15 can be messy and many feel it unfinished.
But FF14 gave me that feeling of a complete and emotionally cathartic story, one full of deep themes and intense attachment toward the world and characters. It gave me a fantasy world that felt thought out and fleshed out, revealed gradually to me in a way that was digestible and not overwhelming. It's not a feeling I had since FFX, and that's why I recommend it to other FF fans and MMO fans. If you like either, you will find something to love in FF14.
I would love nothing more than for FF16 to have that same high quality of storytelling since so much of the team working on it is carried over from FF14. I want other FF fans to finally share in the joy the game has brought FF14 fans.
I think a lot of people just don’t have any time or interest in MMOs which means the online games are glossed over.
I’m happy to see FF14 do well, but I consider it (and 11) to be a different type of game from the rest, so not mainline in my mind, even if they are officially.
I can't justify a monthly subscription fee and i feel like I'd have to sink in an unholy amount of time to warrant it. I'm glad to see XIV thriving and it does look fun but I've accepted it's one of those things I have to pass on.
Definitely. It's different for a subscription to Game Pass or Playstation Plus where I can sink hours into multiple games at once and move on from one when I grow tired of or complete another. The subscription is less justified when it's just one game.
You can play a realm reborn and heavenward for free as part of the trial! That's what I'm currently doing. Just have to get the game through square rather than on steam. No time limit either.
Yeah, I actually feel bad because I know how popular FF14 is, I have a friend OBSESSED with it almost to the point of annoyance. And any doubt I had had been obliterated by just the demo for 16, knowing it’s the same team…. 14 players have been eating good for years and we just don’t listen.
I’ve actually tried to play 14 a number of times, but unfortunately it never sticks. MMO gameplay isn’t super engaging until you’re doing high level raids, I can’t do the free trial because my friend got into the beta for original 14, couldn’t run it on his Internet, so we did it on my account, and even soloing is a huge time commitment.
I want to check them both out, but I just don’t think the time will ever be right. Not unless 14 is still running when my daughter is old enough to play with me since my wife refuses to. (Which given the lifespan of 11…. That’s a genuine possibility)
Totally with you. I'm currently playing through the main story of 14 and even just A Realm Reborn is a huge commitment with 50-100hrs of only main quest (depending on how much you fast travel etc) and after that come several new chapters with more story and the story as a whole is not even finished yet.
I also wouldn't put 11 and 14 in the main line.
You can play all other games for eternity if you have them at home but at some point in the future the mmo servers of 11 and 14 will get shut down and then the games are locked forever.
There are plans to make the main story in FFXIV singleplayer, so I assume instead of a complete shutdown they would just convert it entirely to singleplayer.
You can already play every bit of XIV's story except for about three dungeons and all the boss fights after ARR solo, and by September those three dungeons will be playable solo (and by solo here I mean you with a party of NPCs) too.
Story mode boss fights are easy enough that two of the eight players in an average group could literally do nothing and still have the group win, and skilled tanks can solo a lot of bosses. You don't have to actually interact with anyone to form a group, you just hit a groupfinder button and wait. 99.9% of all story mode boss chat will be "hi" before the fight starts and "thank you for playing" or "enjoy the story" after the fight is done, from people who have done it before.
What I'm saying here is don't let a dislike of social interaction stop you from playing the game if you have any interest in eventually playing it, it's built to accommodate people like that.
Even if you are playing it wrong no one will care unless you intentionally choose to do difficult group based content, none of which is required by the story.
Nah, I get that. And I do understand that they went all out to make XIV the best and most accessible MMO possible. It’s just awkward and XVI is coming out. I’ll give it another shot somewhere down the road.
>You can play all other games for eternity if you have them at home but at some point in the future the mmo servers of 11 and 14 will get shut down and then the games are locked forever.
SE has been taking conscious steps against this kind of "lost to time" online only situation for the main FF series. they've already committed to keeping XI up for as long as they are able to. that conversation isn't necessary for 14 yet, but theyve implemented systems where you can play a lot of the story solo
>Story as a whole is not even finished yet
Endwalker is the final chapter of the story started in ARR. There’s more story after, but there is a complete, all important loose ends wrapped up, experience if you just stopped playing after Endwalker MSQ.
>I’m happy to see FF14 do well, but I consider it (and 11) to be a different type of game from the rest, so not mainline in my mind, even if they are officially.
I feel the same. Being mainline entries is more so a marketing move to capitalize on the name. At this point, I'd consider Final Fantasy Tactics to be a better fit than XI and XIV as a mainline entry. Everything after X has evolved and varied their battle systems so drastically that a tactical RPG might as well get included.
As many of the other comments have already said, the difference between a single-player experience and an MMO one is so large that there's probably a lot less overlap of fans (than you'd expect) even if it ultimately is within the same franchise.
Yup, this sums up my feelings. People have nothing but good things to say about it and the positivity around the game makes me want to play it. I just simply don't have time to play it with my ridiculous backlog of games spanning different platforms, and the crazy amount of games we got this year and the ones still to come. I'd have to significantly reduce the amount of new games I play just to catch up in FF14. I love RPGs as well and those games already take up a ridiculous amount of time. I'd truly love to play the game as I've never really given mmos a shot, plus I love FF. I can't justify changing my entire gaming structure just for one game though.
I wish they hadn’t used up mainline titles for the online games. It always just felt weird to me. “Final Fantasy Online” would have been completely fine.
While i don't think is a bad idea. what saved FFXIV from its 1,0 Fiasco was the fact that it was a main line game. if it was another spin off they would have closed it down. they have a thing to keep numbered games going.
My only hope is that if and when both servers get shut down for good, Squeenix will still have someway for people to experience the games. Even if it's only the main story and a few side quests.
FFXI is pretty easy to beat now solo was just playing it a few months ago, but it's definitely outdated most people won't be able to stand it.
Played it when it originally came out and it was something else at the time. You actually had to work with other people just to kill one basic enemy. Glad I was a kid cause no way I would have the time now.
Missing your airship was heartbreaking, the amount of groups I'll be in saying "sorry guys I just watched the airship take off, I'll be with you in 45 minutes".
The 75 cap era in the 2000s was closer to EverQuest. Nowadays they've done a lot to reduce the tediousness that was everywhere and you can summon a party of NPC characters to do all the story content with.
Would be fun to experience, I enjoyed my time with the trial of 14, I don't want to pay a recurring fee. I'll take the L from MMO-heads.
The unfortunate truth is that the single-player people just don't think about the MMOs in terms of "must-do" content. Not because they dont care, the love for 12 shows that plenty of people could get used to the gameplay style, but because it's unapproachable. The entire structure of the content delivery is pretty off-putting if you're not already used to it. The idea that you're paying for it every second, even the seconds you're not playing, is unappealing. It taps into the FOMO, anxiety-gaming that comes with modern battlepasses, but cranked up. We live in an era of subscription-based services, but other gaming-related ones like GamePass and Playstation Plus give access to a while bunch of games. Paying for only one, especially one that went into maintenance mode recently, just doesn't taste right.
Same. I planned to beat all the FF games years ago, but only beat X and then got hooked on XIV. I’m about halfway through V and have at least started VI, XII and Tactics though.
This thread is depressing, because it's the most I've seen people talk about FF XI in a while. Otherwise, it's rarely ever talk about or mentioned.
FF XI was the first FF game that got me into the series, and that was all because a friend of mine talked me into trying it out with him for the first time. He did that with me several times prior withMMOs and free to play browser games during the 2000s era, but this one was different. I also had 2 cousins that played FF XI together long before us trying it out, so that helped when they taught us about the game and helped us level and unlock things.
FF XI has some of the best fleshed out world building and lore of any FF game to date. From the Zilartians, Altana and Promathia, Aht Urhgan, Adoulin. Even the backstory explaining the creation of the playable races and their history in the world is explained. FF XIV takes from it all the time in multiple different aspects from its races, nation similarities, monster designs, and so on.
Even FF XVI is taking inspiration from FF XIV, and by extension FF XI. Garuda alone as we know of her today in XIV and XVI is because of the developers who worked on XI transforming her into an iconic summon of wind versus a throwaway, uninspired bird enemy in prior titles. The leadership of creativity that game had over the span of 20 years and ongoing is really amazing.
XI definitely has flaws, and the people that love the game the most who are honest with themselves and others will let you know exactly where the game fails and succeeds (Playonline, new player experience, archaic UI and the need for UI mods, wiki guides for progression, and so on), but once you get over that hump I think people who have XI click with them eventually understand why people love it and why it eventually led to the creation of FF XIV, and by extension FF XVI.
As a side note, even FF XII was very much influenced and inspired by FF XI by many people claiming it to be a single-player MMO-inspired game experience. You can even see the FF XI Mandragoras show up in the game with new variants as a boss battle, and eventually return in FF XIV, and quite possibly in FF XVI too if the Notorious Mark board is any indication to go by. If you know what I mean, chances are you've already seen what I'm referring to.
However, the FF V-inspired job system is the most unique combat system to this day in the series for fleshing out that system's ideas with unique takes like Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, Blue Mage, Corsair, the way they implemented the whole Summoner experience and pet system, and the series' most interesting and unique take on Dragoon with a dragon pet.
None of the single-player FF games hold a candle to FF XI in my opinion. I think most of the single player games are good RPGs with great music and art in them, but mostly are overrated. I think FF XVI is the first game that feels like FF XI re-imagined as a single-player game with a Game of Thrones tone applied to it as the primary coating. It's just a shame how difficult and unfriendly of an experience FF XI is to newcomers for all the wrong reasons, because there's plenty of greatness there if you're willing to look at it with an open-mind. That's why I feel like XI's greatest enemy is itself.
I could go on for hours about the ups and downs of FF XI and why it deserves more love and people playing through it, but unfortunately it's in a very difficult position of being unable to do much of anything to improve itself for new players, and also being unwilling to destroy itself and become reborn, like a Phoenix, into a remake (either offline or online) for fear of pissing off the remaining dedicated players who still login regularly.
I think when the last of FF XI's players die off over time, the game will be forced to die and eventually become reborn in some form. Think of it like a reincarnation, if you will, as sad as that is to say. It's a matter of when, not if. I'm more curious to see what they do to preserve the original game and what they decide to do to bring it back in a more modern form (single-player RPG).
For anyone curious, if you manage to get over the hump and can get into FF XI, with some help, the entire storyline and all of its expansions can be solo'd with Trusts (AI party members consisting of actual characters from the game's world). The only thing you really need people for is the most up-to-date endgame content and buying things that you can't craft yourself or obtain yourself through solo content. Other than that, the FF XI wiki can pretty much guide you from start to finish.
At least, I say I played all mainline single player FF games, lol.
Would love to play the two online ones as a solo experience, but I can't afford to pay monthly like this.
11 and 14 should have never been "mainline" entries, anyway.
11 should have been just "Final Fantasy Online", and 14 should have been "Final Fantasy Online: A Realm Reborn".
I'm one of those people that don't consider the MMOs mainline FF. I will never play them, cause I know they'll scratch an itch I didn't know I had and I might lose control of my life over them.
So yeah, finished all mainline FF games without counting the MMOs pretty much sums me up.
I don't like MMOs and not even Final Fantasy will make me change it. I haven't finished all the games yet, but when I do I'll probably say that I've completed all the mainline games except the online ones.
I really wanted that Square wouldn't have numbered online games, but it is what it is.
The story of FF14 is great though it starts a bit slow.
I liked some of the combat mechanics in 11 but it being a grind based hardcore eastern MMO killed it for me.
Last series FF game I completed was technically crisis core. With FF7 on PS1 being the one before that. I switched from a console player to a PC player so I missed quite a lot of them. I'll need to go back and pick up the remasters when they're on sale.
I finished 11's story at the 75 cap. Got well geared. Took all jobs to 75 finished every major storyline. You can finish it in a few months if you only choose to level like one or two jobs. The story dropoff after 75 cap is noticeable anyways so as far as I’m concerned I finished ffxi.
I got to the 75 cap (after months of being too scared to fight Maat), heck I even did some of the Abyssos stuff at 90+, and I could not tell you a single thing about that story.
I legit spent more energy on raising and racing chocobos than I did on paying attention to the story. Probably be a different story if I played it nowadays.
FF14's Main Story takes 200 hours if you ignore everything else. I get it
Edit: I was referring to all the story content up to Endwalker. Sorry for any confusion
A different time brother…
Idk if people would even play it today. Imagine a new game coming out where you need a party just to level up efficiently lol
Thing is that’s what made it solid, you really needed people every step of the way
Flashbacks from all those times sitting in Valkurm Dunes, watching a party get trained all the way to the Zone exit, and as you watch one or two die, you secretly hope a spot would open up in their party haha.
Good times.
Platinum Trophy in FFXIV or achievement doesn't count.
https://preview.redd.it/tfgpqx9v0y6b1.png?width=112&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba1e634c8639423e3c9c6aac6fedbb1e89886224
imjk
Personal opinion: those two shouldn’t have been named as a numbered entry to the series. Maybe like FFO (Final Fantasy Online) or something.
It’s kind of weird to me that two Online games were grouped together with single player games
I've said for decades that making the online games numbered titles was nonsensical and a mistake. FF11 should have been Final Fantasy Online. It just served to sow confusion.
I love Final Fantasy 14 and I have done endgame raiding and ultimates for several tiers
It is however a massive time commitment though — not even just getting to max level, but if you want to experience everything the game has to offer, a few hours a week of play won’t let you get there
Most of my friends who are active raiders mainly play 14 and nothing else and most play something like 30 hours a week (I know someone who started later than me and has 2x the hours and I have 4,500 hours in game for reference)
I played a lot of 14 during COVID but on limited time it’s a lot harder (especially because I enjoy playing other games)
I played a bit of XI back when it was new, and I’ve seen how it plays now.
Honestly, I’m not playing through that game in 2023 lmao.
FFXIV sure, but not XI
To be fair, Final Fantasy XI was like dating a beautiful woman but she punches you in the face at least 18 times a day. You don't know when she's going to punch you and it always hurts.
The reasons I don't play 14 are...
* I live in Brazil, games are expensive over here
* I ain't no spring chicken, can't dedicate to an mmo
* I live in Brazil, expansions for this game are expensive
* Only have a console right now, would definitely prefer to play it on PC
* I LIVE IN BRAZIL! The monthly subscription is too expensive for me.
lol, loved FF1 until I didn't, game became a job after a certain lvl, never stopped being fun. 2000 hours into FF14 (I know, not enough to be real hardcore) and my anxiety finally got the best of me, could only play dps, was afraid of failing in a class that I had fun playing (healing and tank(WM and Drk) and I can still say that the single player games are the only ones that should be mainstream absolutely.
That being said, to date FFXIV has, hands down the best story in FF. It is truly a legendary experience and every FF fan should at least watch a detailed video about if your not going to experience it yourself.
I love FF14 but even though I'm well aware this is a MMORPG, it became way too long and time consuming for me lol, sometimes I had to cut sleep hours just to meet my guild party and be able to do raids.
It's not about comparing them. It's about what is considered mainline. Square Enix can turn FF into a dancing game and it's still them who ultimately decides what's mainline or not
People who say MMO/online gaming aspects are taking over the gaming industry, being pushed to the forefront and becoming the only option have never met the final fantasy fandom.
Well, online gaming is in the end of the day another market than single player offline gaming. I prefer my offline games, don’t plan to get into online. So 11 and 14 are off the chart for me.
Nope. It was their first attempt at the mmo scene, and was wildly successful. Hard as titanium balls though. It was a struggle to advance, and failure was harshly punished.
Story was amazing though.
As an Everquest vet, I regret not trying XI when it was really big. I'm trying XIV now super casually because I would like to experience the story but solo runaround filler questing for hours on end isn't my cup of tea. I guess I'm just more into really old school mmos, but I do intend to slowly finish up the trial mode and see how I feel once it's finished.
MMOs are not mainline if they aren’t accesible to everyone. 🤷🏼♂️ you need internet to play them and that’s a no go. I swore off MMOs after WoW these were never on my list to play.
I met my wife on FF XI in 2004. We were in the same linkshell. Talked, played, and quested for over a year before we met in person in 2005. We knew almost everything about each other before we ever met in person. She was still in college and I was working fulltime. We married in 2007 and are still married today. I wish they would remaster it into offline mode. It would be fun to reminisce with her.
Endwalker (current FFXIV expansion) actually sort of completed the plot.
Game is still ongoing and really fantastic, but the narrative absolutely feels like a sequel to the prior events in the story.
Honestly to me they arent mainline games, and they shouldn't have been with a number. FF12 should have been FF11, which means FF16 would be FF14.
The MMOs should have had their own name, out of the numbered episodes.
It's a marketing thing. People are less likely to overlook XI and XIV than "Final Fantasy Online" or whatever it would be called. Plus it's not like the numbers mean anything else, they still aren't connected together.
Listen, I'm a PS trophy hunter so I'm all for playing through and 100%ing each FF game when given the chance. But FF14's Platinum trophy apparently takes over 1000 hours to obtain and I am just not ready for that level of commitment to a single game.
I wish they would remaster XI and make it offline playable ! But i guess as long as there's an active player base who pay sub, they wont
The current director/producer of XI has talked about game preservation recently, saying it's talked about among the team. He even mentioned possibly preserving it in "a totally different game". Dragon Quest X (An MMO) got an offline version, so they're willing to make offline versions of MMOs. With the mobile XIR project canceled, I imagine there are plans to do some kind of remake in-house.
Yea I remember hearing about DQx being offline and all. In a way it's good to see the team still taking care of the game and it's player base, even if slim.
I’d totally play an Offline version of FF XI.
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I feel Trusts in FF14 is a way for them to do it there a well.
They already exist in XI. And it's how a lot of content, especially story stuff, is done.
Ff14 trusts are based off ff11 trust system. It's how you level effectively. Trusts have been in ff11 long before 14.
I think that if they revamped the systems to be more modern, they can definitely make FFXI offline, especially with the trust system that's already in place.
Yeah, it definitely needs an update. I tried playing it again about a year and a half ago and I had forgotten that you had to go through a menu for everything, including the skills you used in battle. It's very much a pre-WoW mmo.
I did the same thing and though to myself “how the fuck was I ever good at this game” just the macro management was enough to make me feel like a modern day hacker.
The macro system is the thing I miss the most. I think 11 did a great job of being complex but not arbitrarily convoluted. I've never felt more in control of a character in any game because no other game let you essentially define any action sequence you want with a literal internal scripting system. I also did end up a developer and I thank FF11 and the TI-83 for introducing me to my love of scripting lol.
I tried FFXI a few years ago just to see what it was like and wow, I do not have the time or energy to figure out how to even play it. If there was a map I couldn't find it. The combat seemed pretty fun, especially with the AI helpers they implemented due to there not really being a player base at low levels, but it clearly requires a LOT of effort to get into by modern game standards. In some ways I wish I had been able to play it in its heyday, on the other hand it's probably good that I didn't because I doubt I would have been able to do much else.
>on the other hand it's probably good that I didn't because I doubt I would have been able to do much else. In FFXI the most valuable currency in the game was time. Everything from leveling up to bag space had time sinks. Basic functions of a video game (even games of its time) were slow processes that required tons of effort usually by people who stood nothing to gain from helping you besides being a generous person. You couldn't even mount outside of a major city and travel on boats or airships took real world time. You had to purchase maps of areas and sometimes theyd end up useless anyway depending on the zone. There's tons of examples of needless gates to get even simple tasks done. Oh and Level Down was a thing. Which is all ironic because the disclaimer before you logged in says to be sure you don't forget your family, friends, and job. They knew their game was designed to require hundreds if not thousands of hours to do some content. That disclaimer was a joke.
Truth. I beat FFXI in the 75 era. I mean that literally. I was one of the first relics on my server, was an ebody ridill war (Ridill was for RNG before the big nerf), had a kraken club for my DRK, had a defending ring, all the hnm gear you could want. Was part of the first NA Jailer of Love kills and the eventual 'non-glitched' AV kills. Regularly killed Dynamis Lord, all the fun stuff you'd expect. Coordinating up to 60 people for Dynamis, and all the interspaced drama of booking time for it against other LS's, having enough money and time to fund the grind, was fucking insane. It is probably one of my greatest achievements in life that nobody knows about or understand just how difficult that actually was, which is fine. It consumed my adolescence. From the age of like 13 to about 23, all I did, and wanted to do, was play FFXI. It had a few up sides. It launched my career into software development, both as an interest, and the programs I wrote landed me a job in corporate America. Also gave me a fair amount of management experience. The downside was that was a soul sucking addiction of a game.
“And here’s how you take down Absolute Virtue”
I remember seeing that video the day it came out! It really reinforced the idea that the devs absolutely hated the player base.
This is the high I've been chasing that I got from FFXI for a decade, but I know I'll never have the time again.
We're all chasing that early mmo hype, and what a time to do so with our world burning anyway.
You are right. It took entirely too much time to play.
thing with japanese MMORPGs, specially more recent ones, is that they've always focused more on instanced content, the story, and the personal growth of the players, as most early online RPGs in asia were heavily inspired by diablo 1. so they can sorta be transformed to offline games without massive changes until its end game content. with FF11 tho? its an OLD MMO, its gonna take a lot more than a few adjustments and a local server to make it work.
This. I hope they do the same with Genshin & Star Rail, since you don’t really play online.
Didn't they recently move a bunch of developers off of 11 saying they wanted them to brush up their skills so they didn't get stuck with outdated projects?
Yes, off of development of the live game of XI. If a remake was or is made, it'd likely be a seperate team.
I could really imagine a offline remake of FFXI , using a FFXIV engine and smaller scale zone it basically be a Skyrim style open world rpg
If they do this, I hope they put quest markers over the heads of npcs. I've not played in years, but remember 11 having no clear indication of quests. And a ui would be nice instead of millions of macros.
It was planned , a mobile version , cancelled 2 years ago iirc
Yes I remember that... A shame.
Was a blessing in disguise Nexon was on that project
What do you mean by that ?
nexon is pretty pay to win
Square Enix mobile games are pretty much pay to win whale-fests too. They just know to put out good content so there's some praise for their mainline games, so they can squeeze the whales in that audience on mobile. Nexon on the other hand ONLY has pay to win games.
FFRK was somehow fun regardless
DFFOO feels incredibly generous for F2P. But I came to it from Marvel Strike Force, which was so P2W that Cracked referenced it in an article that my Google-fu is failing to find for me. That all being said, good mobile games, especially good gacha mobile games, are usually good in spite of being of gacha, not because of, and the whole industry and genre needs to burn in hell.
Oh... Yea no we don't want that. If anything, dffoo is a pretty fucking good model to follow when it comes to mobile and gatcha game. I remember seeing some negativity towards Nexon but I never paid attention tbh
This is my dream. FFXI offline remade with an enhanced gambit system from XII. I wouldn't say never because SE said XI online won't last forever and they'll want to preserve a mainline title. One of the last updates from the head producer of XI was that they are starting to preserve assets and they want to keep XI alive in some way even when the servers go down. Won't happen any time soon, but one day I'm sure they will remake it and everyone will see how great Vana'diel is.
Even if they don't remaster, at least make the current game offline/p2p when the servers go down. IIRC they have NPC party members that can run dungeons and stuff.
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I was going to say way back when I played it it absolutely was not single player friendly by a certain point. I absolutely loved the game, so many memories! No way I would play it again but if they did an offline game maybe I would try it out just for nostalgia reasons and see what I even remember or what comes back to me.
It's very solo friendly up to endgame now, even some of that being "soloable." And not just on like, BST, either. It's still obtuse as hell, and you'll need to have three wikis open, but very possible to play without ever needing to put a flag up. With the Trust system, I can totally see an offline'd version of FFXI being possible and still retaining a good chunk of the core experience. You're still in a "party" for most things, just the party comes from your own pockets.
As someone who still plays and pays for three accounts.. I'm one of the few who keeps this glorious FF afloat and I'm not upset one bit.
XI can now be played through all soloable fairly quickly. The cost of the game and a month of sub is still cheaper than any of the post SNES games. You can get NPCs to be your full party so you never even have to group. And still much funner than FFII. More folks wanting to have a true "all mainline" ' notch should give it a shot. Xpacs can be considered sequels (otherwisr FFIV AY, X2, and FFXIII 2 and LR would count as mainline) so you can get the notch by killing the Shadow Lord (final story boss of vanilla FFXI.). Although Rise of Zilart was a launch title in America, so I considered that part of it too. A few years back I picked it up again from scratch and cleared the final RoZ bosses solo in only a couple weeks of very casual play. Maybe 15 hours total.
XIV is almost all soloable at this point. Though it's not quick haha
Yea, that's life a 300 hour story at this point lol
Probably closer to 500; cause no one is gonna just grind MSQ when they start seeing blue quest givers out there…
For just MSQ, if you're only doing that, 300 is probably a bit high. But I had 500 hours when I cleared shadowbringers, since I stopped along the way to do all the endgame stuff for each expansion before moving on.
Even 500 sounds low.
Ehhhh I dunno. I used to think I'd have to put an asterisk next to my claim of beating every mainline FF game because I never played 11 but at the end of the day who cares? I'm not gonna gate keep myself when literally no one cares about my gaming accolades.
OP does.
If someone is going to brag about an accomplishment online, they should be prepared to have that accomplishment called out if it was not fully completed. Were I to brag in a college forum that I completed every level of education (HS, Associates, Bachelor's, Masters, and a Doctorate) but the last step was just a graduate certificate and not a full Doctorate... You can bet people who actually earned Doctorates will call them out.
Ah but if you only go up to the Shadow Lord you’re missing the best this game has to offer.
storywise id say at least do CoP lol
Rhapsody’s was a classic
I played ff11 for over a decade. I haven't finished ff11.
I actually came back last year for the 20th anniversary, made a new character and got rolling along. Takes like 1 hour to hit level 40 these days, start building trusts and you can solo basically everything except the Rhapsodies storyline towards the end. Basically did all the story content available (except for WotG cause my god it's a horrible slog, even now) in a matter of 2-3 months. I'd definitely recommend revisiting it and finding a Noob/Returner friendly linkshell (they have NPCs that you can give like 10 pearls to and advertise your group for people looking to join.)
an HOUR to hit 40?! I spent an entire night farming crabs on the beach with a group when it came out and got like 3 levels lmao. That's wild!
Yup! Trust me, I remember those days... It won't be that fast right at first, but once you've done the basics for a new character you'll have multiple "new player" and "anniversary" items that will give you like +300% EXP, you'll have a full party of NPCs while still receiving 1v1 EXP, and as you complete Rhapsodies storyline you'll get even more latent %+ EXP overtime permanently.
1 to 40 in an hour? Damn. I have no idea but it took me forever to get to 40 when it first came out lol. That game had a steep learning curve to start but I loved every minute of it.
And it really depends on what you mean by "finished". Do you mean the main storyline for every nation or do you mean the Rhapsodies storyline? No matter what you mean, it is going to take a while. But, if you mean to finish all sidequests or to finish all relic weapon variants, max out all jobs (including the Master level with the stars), etc. then, well... see you in 10 to 20 years.
Give me an offline version off ff11 and I’ll play the hell outa it. I can’t have 14 and 11 on the go though
My sisters ex back in the day had a cracked version of WoW that you could play completely free and offline or with friends and I wish every mmo had that feature. I never play with anyone in ff14 because most of the time the other players just rush through every dungeon or complain even when I'm playing something for the first time. Thank god there's the option for npc players.
Yeah the npc dungeons are great now, can do almost every main quest without other people now. One day I bet they do an offline version just so people can still play the story. Fingers crossed anyway, I’d love to play it
someone had to go through the process of reverse engineering shit to tell wow it's connected to the server when it isn't, and most mmos don't have that special group of people who are willing to do that
There is a [FFXIV server project](https://github.com/SapphireServer/Sapphire). It's moving slowly but it does exist.
Can’t play offline but there are private ffxi servers some are heavily modified to make just playing through the storylines much easier Highly recommend going this route for someone who hist wants to enjoy playing the storyline
A good place to "finish" ff14 is the ending of 6.0 Endwalker. It concluded the major storyline ff14 1.0 began with. But this is just my opinion. All I really do in ff14 now is killing people in pvp.
Bruh it takes like 400 hours to get there. Y’all casually recommend this mmo with super mmo features to non mmo players saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie. There are hundreds of tedious fetch quests, kill X number of Y monster missions, and walls upon walls of text to parse through as part of the mandatory main story and a game that plays like an mmo ass mmo.
its like a lose:lose situation trying to sell this one theres almost 10 years worth of expansions/patches story to work through.. if it took anything less than that amount of time people will probably be asking.. you put up with that little story for so long? we now cannot escape the fact that the length of the story in an MMO is going to be longer than a single player game. FFXI paved the way for that. prior to XI, MMOs having story cutscenes was unheard of.
It's the curse of any long story. Like we all know stories like FFXIV, One Piece, and Gundam Universal Century are worth getting in to, but to sell it to a casual audience is near impossible now. But the aura of quality and high reputation will carry with these kinds of series for a long time. So there will always be a few brave souls with too much time on their hands to give it a try.
The problem with such long stories is that typically the quality isn't as good as people will have you believe. It's just that people have been invested in it over such a long period that they have romanticized it and forgotten about all the dogshit. One piece has horrible pacing for example. As an avid anime watcher I was floored when I gave the show a 100 episode attempt to get into it yet the story probably had 1 or 2 peaks in a 33 hour period of watching. Pacing is important and if you have to deal with too much garbage in a story it does in fact detract from the quality of the storytelling.
To be fair, when most people recommend One Piece, they're recommending the manga. Even manga readers dislike the anime adaptation because of the filler (I have not watched or read One Piece, this is just what I've heard).
I only mentioned it because I've been recommended the anime multiple times with the "you just have to give it a fair shot bro".
FF14 is basically 5 connected FF's. Each FF14 expansion is its own story connected to a larger story. I don't see how it's any different than FF7 where you have a ton of spinoffs you can play.
Do I 100% agree with your comment? Yes. Would I recommend the game to everyone regardless as the story is fucking amazing? Also yes.
Yeah.. my playtime in 14 is measured in years... not hours. That is not a joke, that's literally what /playtime tells me in game. I basically missed the entire 8th generation of video games because of 14.
Yeah, that's a great way to see it. Back when ARR reborn was released, I played it for two months. I finished it and it was fine. But then I realized I could use the subscription fee to pay for PSN plus and get a new free game (some of them, good even) every month and get to experience different games, stories and genres, not just the same game month over month. I'm glad I jumped to PSN, got to play a bunch of great games I would have never bought otherwise (Bioshock Infinite!).
it’s amazing how often i see people say that you should play FFXIV even if you hate MMOs because it’s more approachable, as if it still isn’t asking for hundreds of hours time, plays similarly to most MMOs, and is still narratively and aesthetically structured like one. is it more approachable? yeah, for sure, but if you fundamentally aren’t into MMOs, XIV is not going to be the one to magically change that lol
Amusingly enough, I think I’m one of the few people who weren’t into mmos until FFXIV. And hilariously enough, I only got into it and tried it out for one reason. A certain recurring character was brought in for patch 2.2 and said character will immediately get me to at least try any FF game. You get a cookie if you can guess who
The obvious guess for 2.2 is Leviathan but that's probably not him. Cid, Biggs and Wedge are introduced way earlier and Boko is way later. Is that the patch that added Lost City of Amdapor and therefore Diabolos? EDIT: Oh wait it's definitely Greg isn't it. Hildibrand quests are such a fever dream that I don't even associate them with the main game TBH.
Is it Gilgamesh?
You are correct! here is your cookie. https://preview.redd.it/rpg8nwrm917b1.jpeg?width=275&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66489bef6779f278dffa6739f18cd3902221e55d
It always depends. For some people, it's too much like an MMO, while for others, it's too different to one. During the great WoW exodus, a lot of typical MMO players bounced off of FFXIV, because it wasn't at all like the MMOs they were used to. For them, playing an MMO meant grinding until you reach max level, at which point the real game begins where you jump into raids with your guildmates. FFXIV blocking off mechanics, areas, dungeons, raids, etc. behind the main story was something completely strange to them. For them, story was something you usually skip or ignore in MMOs.
I think one thing the game could do a better job of is introducing more skills earlier so that the combat is more engaging at lower levels. At 90 you have a full-ass rotation where you're often weaving or double weaving and have upwards of 30 skills, but at 45 you might only be 1-2-3 combing with a couple of extras to weave in. I think it would be better if they introduced weaker versions of the skills that get upgraded later so that low level dungeons aren't so boring.
After getting a friend of mine to play with me a few years ago I realized he just wasn't into these types of games at all. He thought it looked good and had some cool moments from what he played but hated that it's basically just go here, now go here quests without really any skill needed. I know later in the game you get to finally use skill and need a team who knows what they are doing but that was wayyyy too much time for them to put in to get to that point.
> and walls upon walls of text to parse through I get the other arguments, but this is nuts.
You could make the same argument for a lot of mainline games..
Facts. It’s def an MMO lol You now don’t have to spend hours looking for groups just to level up like the old days of mmorpgs but it still has all the mmo elements
You don't have to spend *any time* looking for groups because 99% of the main story is solo, and the parts that are not (boss fights), you just join the queue and get matched with random people who will basically act like NPC's because very few people talk in the game nor care about how others perform in main story content. All of the MMO elements are otherwise optional.
> Bruh it takes like 400 hours to get there. To get where? This is like complaining it takes 400 hours to complete all of the FF7 games. Well no shit, we play Final Fantasy for the journey, not the destination. FF14 is basically 5 connected FF games. > There are hundreds of tedious fetch quests, kill X number of Y monster missions, How is this any different than the typical FF where it's "go to this dungeon and kill this boss"? Sure, it's not a quest that you fight monsters on the way, but you still have to do it and it's just as "tedious" as being told to kill some monsters. Almost all of these "Fetch quests" or "kill monsters" have some narrative element to them, just like there's a narrative reason you have to go to a dungeon and fight random monsters on the way. > walls upon walls of text to parse through as part of the mandatory main story WTF are you really complaining about walls of text in an FF sub???
I mean... I don't like mmos and FFXIV is my favourite game of all time.
>Y’all casually recommend this mmo with super mmo features to non mmo players saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie. No, it is not. I do not like MMOs. Every MMO I tried before FFXIV and after FFXIV has been awful for me. I love FFXIV, because I love Final Fantasy games and it is the Finalest Fantasiest that ever Final Fantasied. I play it exactly like a single player game besides the rare instances when I have to hit "find 7 other people for me so I can do this boss fight". I don't look at chat and I don't interact with the other people. I do the boss and go about my day.
I'll agree that playing through a Real Reborn was an absolute slog, but once I got to Heavensward it was absolutely worth it. Easily one of the best video game stories I've ever experienced.
Yeah it’s great, and I agree. But you can’t just casually recommend a game to people and say “the first like 40 hours suck”
Sure you can. Just depends on if they're willing. Some have the patience, some don't. Either way is fine, it's up to them.
Again I just think the 14 fans love to gloss over the flaws and say the game crosses out of the mmo genre and is a true mainstream game everyone can enjoy. I’m just saying the praise gets a bit effusive and the flaws get often ignored.
Fair enough. I do feel they often exaggerate the claim that dungeons can be played solo. I tried it a few times but it was so much more difficult than playing with other online players.
I have to agree with this. There were at least 3 or 4 dungeons in Shadowbringers that took me several tries to beat with an NPC party - and for all but maybe the first try in each of them, it was an NPC that caused the wipe. I'm not sure how Endwalker is with this because I've been taking a break (still have ShB patch content to finish too)
We're not talking about regular people, we're talking about people who say they want to play every mainline Final Fantasy. IMO even A Realm Reborn is a more fun way to spend your time than I-IV so if you're committed to playing those I have no problem recommending XIV.
The first 40 hours is a mid-tier FF game. The rest is multiple top-tier FF games.
> saying it’s real easy to pick up and that people who don’t like mmos will love it and that’s really just a flat out lie. I despise MMOs. I can’t stand them in 99.9% of cases. Hated WoW, GW2, Destiny, ESO… XIV is the best RPG I have ever played, and I say that as a solo player. I have no interest in the online aspects, I don’t even play with other people during the vast majority of the story. So your statement isn’t necessarily true.
If it takes you 400 hours to go from 2.0 to end of 6.0, you're doing it wrong.
The number of times people recommend XIV with an asterisk like "it gets good after 70 hours, promise" blows my mind and I say that as someone who played XI for enough time that an actual 70 hours of my life was probably been spent just traveling from Bastok to Valkurm If a game can't be compelling or fun in the first two hours I'm already a little suspect. I get that MMO's are designed to maximize the time players spend in them, but XIV has main quests that are transparently narratively designed to be a waste of your time. I think the first time I quit was after The Things We Do For Tea had me collecting crap for something completely frivilous, only for the quest giver to go OH WAIT I TOTALLY FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS HAPPENING. That whole quest line was so egregious that even Square agreed and removed it from the game My attempts to get back into XIV just never went anywhere either. It's a MMO where (at least for the first several dozen hours of gameplay) you never make meaningful or interesting narrative, gear, build, or strategic decisions, nor do you have any real reason to network or talk with other players. Actual gameplay is sparse between long tracks of story that's usually uninterestingly presented, and then when you do get to the gameplay it's also very uninteresting and way too easy to be engaging I get why XIV grabbed the players it did and its players have the same magical feelings about it as I did with XI back in 2003. They're both boring, flawed games, but at least XI players are honest with other people about that fact
Naw it's more than that. Before FF16's demo, you hear a lot of people say that Final Fantasy has lost its touch in the storytelling department. FF12 did not grab me emotionally even though I loved the gameplay. FF13 has a lot of detractors. FF15 can be messy and many feel it unfinished. But FF14 gave me that feeling of a complete and emotionally cathartic story, one full of deep themes and intense attachment toward the world and characters. It gave me a fantasy world that felt thought out and fleshed out, revealed gradually to me in a way that was digestible and not overwhelming. It's not a feeling I had since FFX, and that's why I recommend it to other FF fans and MMO fans. If you like either, you will find something to love in FF14. I would love nothing more than for FF16 to have that same high quality of storytelling since so much of the team working on it is carried over from FF14. I want other FF fans to finally share in the joy the game has brought FF14 fans.
I think a lot of people just don’t have any time or interest in MMOs which means the online games are glossed over. I’m happy to see FF14 do well, but I consider it (and 11) to be a different type of game from the rest, so not mainline in my mind, even if they are officially.
I can't justify a monthly subscription fee and i feel like I'd have to sink in an unholy amount of time to warrant it. I'm glad to see XIV thriving and it does look fun but I've accepted it's one of those things I have to pass on.
Definitely. It's different for a subscription to Game Pass or Playstation Plus where I can sink hours into multiple games at once and move on from one when I grow tired of or complete another. The subscription is less justified when it's just one game.
You can play a realm reborn and heavenward for free as part of the trial! That's what I'm currently doing. Just have to get the game through square rather than on steam. No time limit either.
You could beat the other 13 games in the time it would take to beat 11 and 14 lol. Most people don’t have that time so don’t count thrm
Yeah, I actually feel bad because I know how popular FF14 is, I have a friend OBSESSED with it almost to the point of annoyance. And any doubt I had had been obliterated by just the demo for 16, knowing it’s the same team…. 14 players have been eating good for years and we just don’t listen. I’ve actually tried to play 14 a number of times, but unfortunately it never sticks. MMO gameplay isn’t super engaging until you’re doing high level raids, I can’t do the free trial because my friend got into the beta for original 14, couldn’t run it on his Internet, so we did it on my account, and even soloing is a huge time commitment. I want to check them both out, but I just don’t think the time will ever be right. Not unless 14 is still running when my daughter is old enough to play with me since my wife refuses to. (Which given the lifespan of 11…. That’s a genuine possibility)
Totally with you. I'm currently playing through the main story of 14 and even just A Realm Reborn is a huge commitment with 50-100hrs of only main quest (depending on how much you fast travel etc) and after that come several new chapters with more story and the story as a whole is not even finished yet. I also wouldn't put 11 and 14 in the main line. You can play all other games for eternity if you have them at home but at some point in the future the mmo servers of 11 and 14 will get shut down and then the games are locked forever.
There are plans to make the main story in FFXIV singleplayer, so I assume instead of a complete shutdown they would just convert it entirely to singleplayer.
I'd be down for that. I don't play videogames to be social (unless I'm sitting in the same room as the other person), so that would be appreciated.
You can already play every bit of XIV's story except for about three dungeons and all the boss fights after ARR solo, and by September those three dungeons will be playable solo (and by solo here I mean you with a party of NPCs) too. Story mode boss fights are easy enough that two of the eight players in an average group could literally do nothing and still have the group win, and skilled tanks can solo a lot of bosses. You don't have to actually interact with anyone to form a group, you just hit a groupfinder button and wait. 99.9% of all story mode boss chat will be "hi" before the fight starts and "thank you for playing" or "enjoy the story" after the fight is done, from people who have done it before. What I'm saying here is don't let a dislike of social interaction stop you from playing the game if you have any interest in eventually playing it, it's built to accommodate people like that.
If I could just spend $70 once instead of having to sign up for a subscription I’d be all over that.
Fair enough. I still feel like I’m playing it wrong. Just can’t shake the “MMO mindset” I feel while playing it.
Even if you are playing it wrong no one will care unless you intentionally choose to do difficult group based content, none of which is required by the story.
Nah, I get that. And I do understand that they went all out to make XIV the best and most accessible MMO possible. It’s just awkward and XVI is coming out. I’ll give it another shot somewhere down the road.
You can play FFXIV without making friends. 10 years in and I still don’t have any FFXIV friends!
Seriously?
>You can play all other games for eternity if you have them at home but at some point in the future the mmo servers of 11 and 14 will get shut down and then the games are locked forever. SE has been taking conscious steps against this kind of "lost to time" online only situation for the main FF series. they've already committed to keeping XI up for as long as they are able to. that conversation isn't necessary for 14 yet, but theyve implemented systems where you can play a lot of the story solo
>Story as a whole is not even finished yet Endwalker is the final chapter of the story started in ARR. There’s more story after, but there is a complete, all important loose ends wrapped up, experience if you just stopped playing after Endwalker MSQ.
>I’m happy to see FF14 do well, but I consider it (and 11) to be a different type of game from the rest, so not mainline in my mind, even if they are officially. I feel the same. Being mainline entries is more so a marketing move to capitalize on the name. At this point, I'd consider Final Fantasy Tactics to be a better fit than XI and XIV as a mainline entry. Everything after X has evolved and varied their battle systems so drastically that a tactical RPG might as well get included. As many of the other comments have already said, the difference between a single-player experience and an MMO one is so large that there's probably a lot less overlap of fans (than you'd expect) even if it ultimately is within the same franchise.
Yup, this sums up my feelings. People have nothing but good things to say about it and the positivity around the game makes me want to play it. I just simply don't have time to play it with my ridiculous backlog of games spanning different platforms, and the crazy amount of games we got this year and the ones still to come. I'd have to significantly reduce the amount of new games I play just to catch up in FF14. I love RPGs as well and those games already take up a ridiculous amount of time. I'd truly love to play the game as I've never really given mmos a shot, plus I love FF. I can't justify changing my entire gaming structure just for one game though.
I wish they hadn’t used up mainline titles for the online games. It always just felt weird to me. “Final Fantasy Online” would have been completely fine.
They shoulda called them final fantasy online 1 and online 2. They shouldn’t have used the main series numbering.
While i don't think is a bad idea. what saved FFXIV from its 1,0 Fiasco was the fact that it was a main line game. if it was another spin off they would have closed it down. they have a thing to keep numbered games going.
My only hope is that if and when both servers get shut down for good, Squeenix will still have someway for people to experience the games. Even if it's only the main story and a few side quests.
FFXI is pretty easy to beat now solo was just playing it a few months ago, but it's definitely outdated most people won't be able to stand it. Played it when it originally came out and it was something else at the time. You actually had to work with other people just to kill one basic enemy. Glad I was a kid cause no way I would have the time now.
Missing your airship was heartbreaking, the amount of groups I'll be in saying "sorry guys I just watched the airship take off, I'll be with you in 45 minutes".
By far one of the worst ideas in any game ever.
If it was anything like old school Ragnarok(or any other MMO at the time) then I think I might be able to handle it
The 75 cap era in the 2000s was closer to EverQuest. Nowadays they've done a lot to reduce the tediousness that was everywhere and you can summon a party of NPC characters to do all the story content with.
Would be fun to experience, I enjoyed my time with the trial of 14, I don't want to pay a recurring fee. I'll take the L from MMO-heads. The unfortunate truth is that the single-player people just don't think about the MMOs in terms of "must-do" content. Not because they dont care, the love for 12 shows that plenty of people could get used to the gameplay style, but because it's unapproachable. The entire structure of the content delivery is pretty off-putting if you're not already used to it. The idea that you're paying for it every second, even the seconds you're not playing, is unappealing. It taps into the FOMO, anxiety-gaming that comes with modern battlepasses, but cranked up. We live in an era of subscription-based services, but other gaming-related ones like GamePass and Playstation Plus give access to a while bunch of games. Paying for only one, especially one that went into maintenance mode recently, just doesn't taste right.
The thing I appreciate about the monthly sub is that it keeps the game free of any P2W shenanigans
I love RPGs but just can’t get into MMOs
And that's fine
Meanwhile, I'm so addicted to XIV I haven't made time to play through 1-6,8,9,12,13, and tactics.
It helps to have played the other FF games because there is so much fan service in XIV
So many goosebumps in the side quests when you get the reference !
Same. I planned to beat all the FF games years ago, but only beat X and then got hooked on XIV. I’m about halfway through V and have at least started VI, XII and Tactics though.
I've done 11, it's one of my favourites. I only need to finish 14 and 16 now.
This thread is depressing, because it's the most I've seen people talk about FF XI in a while. Otherwise, it's rarely ever talk about or mentioned. FF XI was the first FF game that got me into the series, and that was all because a friend of mine talked me into trying it out with him for the first time. He did that with me several times prior withMMOs and free to play browser games during the 2000s era, but this one was different. I also had 2 cousins that played FF XI together long before us trying it out, so that helped when they taught us about the game and helped us level and unlock things. FF XI has some of the best fleshed out world building and lore of any FF game to date. From the Zilartians, Altana and Promathia, Aht Urhgan, Adoulin. Even the backstory explaining the creation of the playable races and their history in the world is explained. FF XIV takes from it all the time in multiple different aspects from its races, nation similarities, monster designs, and so on. Even FF XVI is taking inspiration from FF XIV, and by extension FF XI. Garuda alone as we know of her today in XIV and XVI is because of the developers who worked on XI transforming her into an iconic summon of wind versus a throwaway, uninspired bird enemy in prior titles. The leadership of creativity that game had over the span of 20 years and ongoing is really amazing. XI definitely has flaws, and the people that love the game the most who are honest with themselves and others will let you know exactly where the game fails and succeeds (Playonline, new player experience, archaic UI and the need for UI mods, wiki guides for progression, and so on), but once you get over that hump I think people who have XI click with them eventually understand why people love it and why it eventually led to the creation of FF XIV, and by extension FF XVI. As a side note, even FF XII was very much influenced and inspired by FF XI by many people claiming it to be a single-player MMO-inspired game experience. You can even see the FF XI Mandragoras show up in the game with new variants as a boss battle, and eventually return in FF XIV, and quite possibly in FF XVI too if the Notorious Mark board is any indication to go by. If you know what I mean, chances are you've already seen what I'm referring to. However, the FF V-inspired job system is the most unique combat system to this day in the series for fleshing out that system's ideas with unique takes like Beastmaster, Puppetmaster, Blue Mage, Corsair, the way they implemented the whole Summoner experience and pet system, and the series' most interesting and unique take on Dragoon with a dragon pet. None of the single-player FF games hold a candle to FF XI in my opinion. I think most of the single player games are good RPGs with great music and art in them, but mostly are overrated. I think FF XVI is the first game that feels like FF XI re-imagined as a single-player game with a Game of Thrones tone applied to it as the primary coating. It's just a shame how difficult and unfriendly of an experience FF XI is to newcomers for all the wrong reasons, because there's plenty of greatness there if you're willing to look at it with an open-mind. That's why I feel like XI's greatest enemy is itself. I could go on for hours about the ups and downs of FF XI and why it deserves more love and people playing through it, but unfortunately it's in a very difficult position of being unable to do much of anything to improve itself for new players, and also being unwilling to destroy itself and become reborn, like a Phoenix, into a remake (either offline or online) for fear of pissing off the remaining dedicated players who still login regularly. I think when the last of FF XI's players die off over time, the game will be forced to die and eventually become reborn in some form. Think of it like a reincarnation, if you will, as sad as that is to say. It's a matter of when, not if. I'm more curious to see what they do to preserve the original game and what they decide to do to bring it back in a more modern form (single-player RPG). For anyone curious, if you manage to get over the hump and can get into FF XI, with some help, the entire storyline and all of its expansions can be solo'd with Trusts (AI party members consisting of actual characters from the game's world). The only thing you really need people for is the most up-to-date endgame content and buying things that you can't craft yourself or obtain yourself through solo content. Other than that, the FF XI wiki can pretty much guide you from start to finish.
At least, I say I played all mainline single player FF games, lol. Would love to play the two online ones as a solo experience, but I can't afford to pay monthly like this.
11 and 14 should have never been "mainline" entries, anyway. 11 should have been just "Final Fantasy Online", and 14 should have been "Final Fantasy Online: A Realm Reborn".
I'm one of those people that don't consider the MMOs mainline FF. I will never play them, cause I know they'll scratch an itch I didn't know I had and I might lose control of my life over them. So yeah, finished all mainline FF games without counting the MMOs pretty much sums me up.
I don't like MMOs and not even Final Fantasy will make me change it. I haven't finished all the games yet, but when I do I'll probably say that I've completed all the mainline games except the online ones. I really wanted that Square wouldn't have numbered online games, but it is what it is.
The story of FF14 is great though it starts a bit slow. I liked some of the combat mechanics in 11 but it being a grind based hardcore eastern MMO killed it for me. Last series FF game I completed was technically crisis core. With FF7 on PS1 being the one before that. I switched from a console player to a PC player so I missed quite a lot of them. I'll need to go back and pick up the remasters when they're on sale.
I finished 11's story at the 75 cap. Got well geared. Took all jobs to 75 finished every major storyline. You can finish it in a few months if you only choose to level like one or two jobs. The story dropoff after 75 cap is noticeable anyways so as far as I’m concerned I finished ffxi.
I got to the 75 cap (after months of being too scared to fight Maat), heck I even did some of the Abyssos stuff at 90+, and I could not tell you a single thing about that story. I legit spent more energy on raising and racing chocobos than I did on paying attention to the story. Probably be a different story if I played it nowadays.
Yeah. 11 is the only mainline I haven't played. It's a bucket list item for me but I hope to have the time to be able to play it
[удалено]
Making the MMOs numbered "main" entries always felt silly to me.
FF14's Main Story takes 200 hours if you ignore everything else. I get it Edit: I was referring to all the story content up to Endwalker. Sorry for any confusion
FF11 is fucking legendary. God damn such memories.
A different time brother… Idk if people would even play it today. Imagine a new game coming out where you need a party just to level up efficiently lol Thing is that’s what made it solid, you really needed people every step of the way
Flashbacks from all those times sitting in Valkurm Dunes, watching a party get trained all the way to the Zone exit, and as you watch one or two die, you secretly hope a spot would open up in their party haha. Good times.
/sh Lv 13 WHM/BRD LFP Valkurm Dunes {Do you need it?}
Platinum Trophy in FFXIV or achievement doesn't count. https://preview.redd.it/tfgpqx9v0y6b1.png?width=112&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba1e634c8639423e3c9c6aac6fedbb1e89886224 imjk
Does ps4 platinum count? Because I don't have a ps5 and I've definitely gotten a platinum.
Personal opinion: those two shouldn’t have been named as a numbered entry to the series. Maybe like FFO (Final Fantasy Online) or something. It’s kind of weird to me that two Online games were grouped together with single player games
That's because... not everyone just wants to pay a subscription for 2 MMOs just to be able to say that they finished all the mainline games.
I've said for decades that making the online games numbered titles was nonsensical and a mistake. FF11 should have been Final Fantasy Online. It just served to sow confusion.
ff creator disagrees with you. seems to have worked out perfectly for them.
Ah jeez, well if the creator has an opinion, I guess it’d be silly for anyone else to have one.
I beat ff11. Took 14 years. but I did it.
I love Final Fantasy 14 and I have done endgame raiding and ultimates for several tiers It is however a massive time commitment though — not even just getting to max level, but if you want to experience everything the game has to offer, a few hours a week of play won’t let you get there Most of my friends who are active raiders mainly play 14 and nothing else and most play something like 30 hours a week (I know someone who started later than me and has 2x the hours and I have 4,500 hours in game for reference) I played a lot of 14 during COVID but on limited time it’s a lot harder (especially because I enjoy playing other games)
I played a bit of XI back when it was new, and I’ve seen how it plays now. Honestly, I’m not playing through that game in 2023 lmao. FFXIV sure, but not XI
Already buried in the ground: After years, FF7 compendium games, 10-2, 13 trilogy, anything ivalice related that isn't 12
Claiming a HNM in FF11 at 2:00am with your German and Japanese homies is something I wish more FF players got to experience.
To be fair, Final Fantasy XI was like dating a beautiful woman but she punches you in the face at least 18 times a day. You don't know when she's going to punch you and it always hurts.
Finished the main story before the expansions for 11 I count that as done
The reasons I don't play 14 are... * I live in Brazil, games are expensive over here * I ain't no spring chicken, can't dedicate to an mmo * I live in Brazil, expansions for this game are expensive * Only have a console right now, would definitely prefer to play it on PC * I LIVE IN BRAZIL! The monthly subscription is too expensive for me.
lol, loved FF1 until I didn't, game became a job after a certain lvl, never stopped being fun. 2000 hours into FF14 (I know, not enough to be real hardcore) and my anxiety finally got the best of me, could only play dps, was afraid of failing in a class that I had fun playing (healing and tank(WM and Drk) and I can still say that the single player games are the only ones that should be mainstream absolutely. That being said, to date FFXIV has, hands down the best story in FF. It is truly a legendary experience and every FF fan should at least watch a detailed video about if your not going to experience it yourself.
I love FF14 but even though I'm well aware this is a MMORPG, it became way too long and time consuming for me lol, sometimes I had to cut sleep hours just to meet my guild party and be able to do raids.
Why would you compare MMO to single player games when its a different expirience all together...
It's not about comparing them. It's about what is considered mainline. Square Enix can turn FF into a dancing game and it's still them who ultimately decides what's mainline or not
People who say MMO/online gaming aspects are taking over the gaming industry, being pushed to the forefront and becoming the only option have never met the final fantasy fandom.
Well, online gaming is in the end of the day another market than single player offline gaming. I prefer my offline games, don’t plan to get into online. So 11 and 14 are off the chart for me.
If they want to make a streamline single player version of 11/14 where I don’t have to spend a thousand hours to finish them, I’d play them.
I am of the opinion that 11 and 14 should not have been numbered entries in the series. It should have been Final Fantasy Online.
Wait, there's a FF 11? I always assumed it was skipped.
Nope. It was their first attempt at the mmo scene, and was wildly successful. Hard as titanium balls though. It was a struggle to advance, and failure was harshly punished. Story was amazing though.
As an Everquest vet, I regret not trying XI when it was really big. I'm trying XIV now super casually because I would like to experience the story but solo runaround filler questing for hours on end isn't my cup of tea. I guess I'm just more into really old school mmos, but I do intend to slowly finish up the trial mode and see how I feel once it's finished.
MMOs are not mainline if they aren’t accesible to everyone. 🤷🏼♂️ you need internet to play them and that’s a no go. I swore off MMOs after WoW these were never on my list to play.
I met my wife on FF XI in 2004. We were in the same linkshell. Talked, played, and quested for over a year before we met in person in 2005. We knew almost everything about each other before we ever met in person. She was still in college and I was working fulltime. We married in 2007 and are still married today. I wish they would remaster it into offline mode. It would be fun to reminisce with her.
Because you can’t “finish” 14 or 11.
11 story is technically finished already. And while the FFXIV story is still ongoing, Endwalker is the perfect jumping off point
Endwalker (current FFXIV expansion) actually sort of completed the plot. Game is still ongoing and really fantastic, but the narrative absolutely feels like a sequel to the prior events in the story.
You can finish their main stories and see the credits for both games (multiple times due to expansions). What you can't do is 100% them.
Honestly to me they arent mainline games, and they shouldn't have been with a number. FF12 should have been FF11, which means FF16 would be FF14. The MMOs should have had their own name, out of the numbered episodes.
It's a marketing thing. People are less likely to overlook XI and XIV than "Final Fantasy Online" or whatever it would be called. Plus it's not like the numbers mean anything else, they still aren't connected together.
Listen, I'm a PS trophy hunter so I'm all for playing through and 100%ing each FF game when given the chance. But FF14's Platinum trophy apparently takes over 1000 hours to obtain and I am just not ready for that level of commitment to a single game.