The current state of end-of-life FFXI

I'd consider FFXI "end of life". There is a clear replacement game for it out right now (even if it does suck), the development team for FFXI was transferred to it, and there aren't any announcements or even hints of further content coming to FFXI. WoTG content is complete, Abyssea content is complete, there's nothing else coming down yet. Some people are saying that there will be another level cap raise to 99 since the devs promised so... but there isn't necessarily going to be any new content.

Furthermore, the game has been changed to be as new-player unfriendly as possible right now. A new player trying out WoW for the first time has more than enough content to be entertained solo for a good... 2-3 months at the very least, and a path to the level cap. A new player joining FFXI has enough solo content to reach level 10, after which will be completely stuck unless they know someone who can help them to level 30, most likely through 1-2 Astral burn sessions. Upon reaching level 30, the gameplay of FFXI will consist of opening chests and solo skilling up to the level cap.

Basically, there is no chance in hell FFXI will be getting any new players. The game was never newbie friendly, but with the changes that Abyssea made to the game, it locked any chance of someone brand new to the game of actually staying interested. That leaves existing players, and possibly returning players. The existing player base can only go down as people lose interest in the game and quit, sometimes with notice, and other times without. That leaves only the returning players. In this blog post, I will lay out what the current state of end-of-life FFXI and let those who have left comment on whether what they see is interesting.

Current gameplay / endgame mechanics
As I stated in many previous blog posts, Abyssea is the new endgame. Previous content (Dynamis, Einherjar, Salvage, Nyzul, etc.) is all obsolete and nobody ever does it anymore except as a break from doing Abyssea. With Abyssea, the following is true:

Gil is irrelevant
Almost everything worth getting in Abyssea is Rare/Ex. There aren't really any items that can be sold on AH that are worth anything. About the only reason why you would need gil is to buy pop items so that you can pop the NMs to get those rare/ex items instead of spending 5-500 minutes farming them. It even shows in crafters as there are fewer and fewer people actually crafting anymore. This is kinda amusing as it leads to expendables such as food and ninjitsu tools increasing in price, but it also means that they are less necessary. Food isn't needed anymore. Ninjitsu still is, and to an extent, Shihei is still needed, so any gil that I get from selling pop items basically goes into funding shihei.

You can low-man anything
Mobs in Abyssea are easy. You can low-man just about anything, which leads to lots of people doing so. A NIN + WHM, DNC + BRD, or BSTs & SMNs can take out any mob. I don't even use shihei on DNC/NIN unless it's a serious boss since I know that I will be generating enough TP to instantly cure myself up to max HP at any time, or be doing enough damage to a mob that no matter how much a WHM cure-bombs me, they won't pull hate. And for the mobs you can't low-man, you can simply use the cheat code of a Primeval Brew. This of course, leads to lots of people standing around waiting for an slow pair of people to finish a mob. Wiping is nearly unheard of now that you can get instant Reraise 3.

JP button is back.
Claiming NMs or the ability to pop NMs is all about latency. The sooner you see something pop on your screen, the faster you can claim something. It's back to the FFXI of erm...2004 I guess? Except this time you don't have 24 hours between windows so it doesn't seem as frustrating until you sit around for an hour waiting for that low-man NIN & WHM pair to finish fighting a mob that will take you ~3 minutes to kill. There are no more instanced areas where you can do things undisturbed, or unaffected by latency. Even the Shinryu fight, which is technically a BCNM, suffers from this as it only has a limited number a instances, and everyone wants to enter the fight during a specific time. The JP win claim even over BCNM zones.

Job discrimination is back.
Look at any forum. All you need now are the following jobs:
* NIN -- Tank, red proc, blue-proc, green-proc
* WAR -- Red-proc, blue-proc
* BLM -- Green-proc
* BRD -- Green-proc
* WHM -- Green-proc, healer
* BLU -- Green-proc
Let me explain a little about "proccing". In Abyssea, in order to increase drop rates of the items that people want, you have to perform specific actions on them. Each mob has a weakness to two different weapon skills, one elemental, one non-elemental, and one magic spell. The FFXI community has, through lots of trial & error, determined what the specific weapon skills and magic spells needed for these different procs.

If you really want more details, Rooks(Kelhor) has put together a nice chart at http://track.probablyworks.com/proc.html which details the various skills needed. The above jobs are exactly what you need to be successful.

The following jobs are completely obsolete and are no longer needed: COR, DRK, DRG, BST, SMN, PUP, SCH, SAM, RDM, PLD. The following jobs have some use, but aren't completely necessary -- DNC(properly equipped as a tank), THF(TH still comes into play, though the effectiveness is much diminished with proper procs), MNK(good tank due to high HP + Counterstance) and RNG(occassional blue-proc)

Battle mechanics have changed
I've described a bit about how the overall picture has changed. Let's say you win despite the JP button, or find a NM that isn't completely camped at the moment and manage to get claim or pop it. How has gameplay changed?

Well, now it's all about proccing, then killing. This is basically how combat goes now:
- Tank engages, holds hate (easily, it's not even a challenge now).
- One WHM might actually cure the tank, or if it's a DNC tank, simply haste the tank
- Depending on what we are after, the rest of the alliance will do the following:
  * BLM, BLU, NIN & BRDs -- Cast the appropriate spell as per the proc table on the mob and hope for a colored !! to appear on the mob
  * NIN, WAR, and if present, MNK, RNG, THF, DNC -- Perform the appropriate "blue-proc" weapon skills
- Keep in mind that proccing involves going in, casting or weapon skilling, then running out. You don't stay engaged to the mob as doing so will cause it to die too quickly. You don't even need to pull TP mobs due to the Regain atmas and abilities in the game. You can simply stand around and wait for your turn
- Once all the necessary procs are complete, go for a "red-proc". This will put the mob in a state of terror for 30 seconds where it cannot do anything. At this point, zerg the mob down and kill it.

So, battle mechanics is really reduced to
- Tank engages, fights
- Rest of you stand around and wait for TP
- Terror the mob, kill it.

There is almost no need for a stun rotation (in fact, stunning is frowned upon as it prevents proccing), no strategy requiring Bard rotations, or even for that matter, Bard buff really. Holding hate is no longer an issue. Everyone caps hate at some point, and if you pull hate, you simply become the tank and move up. With high hit points, BLMs are about the only ones who might be in risk of dying, and even then that rarely happens. Dying is a joke anyway since you'll cap exp with the next mob kill, especially with NMs giving anywhere from 1250 - 6000 exp per kill. Many people have been capped on limit points and exp for months already. Old strategies of kiting, or needing sac-pulls, or complicated things such as skillchains/magic bursts are completely unnecessary.

So, that's what gameplay is like in FFXI right now. What other MMOs have people been playing and how do they compare?


FFXI Content
I'll talk briefly about the actual content that exists. I generally think of FFXI content as being split into two different categories: Missions & Quest, and "Getting stuff"

Missions & Quests
Abyssea content has all been released. The actual plotline and cutscenes are pretty weak and basically ends up being an alternate ending to CoP. No big deal really. Abyssea finishes with the big Shinryu fight I covered in my last blog post.

WoTG has supposedly been completed, but so far nobody... I mean, seriously, nobody has really talked about going to do that. It'll be easy now at level 90, but nobody has really gone to the past zones in months except maybe to go after some VNMs. The stupid idea of splitting up the country questlines means that it is nearly impossible to get anyone together to do WoTG missions. Finally, there simply isn't any interest. The reward at the end is worthless compared to Abyssea gear, and the whole thing has taken so long to be released that people like me who like storylines have lost interest. I barely remember the premise behind WoTG anymore!

There was a very brief surge of interest in original nation missions after the release of the 2nd Abyssea expansion and people realized that there were rewards for completing missions. During that time, I managed to complete rank 10 in Bastok & Windurst. However, since then, interest has died down again as people have discovered that the rewards for finishing those nation missions is no longer relevant with new upgrades.

So.. basically there's really no interest in the remaining community to do missions and quests.

Getting stuff
Getting stuff is basically doing either Abyssea as described above, or magian trials which I've described in previous posts. Both of which are highly repetitive and do get boring fairly quickly. There isn't really any challenge left in FFXI. The only fighting you're doing is against probability with drop rates, and latency with the JP button. If you can pop a mob, you can definitely kill it. There is virtually no challenge left in the game.

Personal response
On a personal basis, I'd actually like to complete the WotG missions to get some closure. I know this is nearly impossible to organize, but if I can get 4-5 like-minded people together...

Basically, the challenge is this: If you're interested in finishing WotG, focus on the Sandy quests and we'll work on them together. Kelhor, Vanh and myself are currently at the Blood of Heroes Sandy quest, which according to the wiki, is between WoTG missions 26 & 27. If we can get another 1-2 people to meet us at this quest, then set up a regular time to meet up, we can plow through the rest of these missions and complete WoTG. The reason why I've chosen Sandy is... well, that's the only questline I've found that actually has people relatively far along! If you are up for it, leave a comment or send me a /tell. Vanh is currently on break, so if you see this Vanh, think about coming back in March... send me an IM though to make sure we can set this up. I'm considering using Sunday afternoons/evenings to finish up WotG.

"Getting stuff" wise, I'm down to 5 items that I'd actually like to have, but truthfully, even those 5 items would be such a minor incremental increase in performance that... well... if I finish WotG and there aren't any more content announcements for FFXI, I might just skip over them and consider FFXI "completed". Soooo... this may be one of the last blog posts I make!

Meanwhile, here are a few pics to entertain you.

First, this is how stupidly crazy DNC has become in terms of attacks/round. This is solo, no additional buffs beyond what DNC normally has. I'm also in evasion gear instead of haste gear:

Low-manning what used to be a tough mob:

New variety of taru! Or is it rarab? Or some form of cheerleader?

Schoolgirl look has been replaced by a professor look for SCH:

For Talint: This is what male Dancers look like now:

For everyone else: This is what male elvaan look like now: