Vana'diel Update
I thought, for a change, I'd make a normal post more in line with the original intent of this journal. While I doubt anyone still inhabits this site (occasionally, a figure from the past magically appears to comment, but that's become much less common), I felt like sharing an update about what's been happening in XI.
Where to begin...
For starters, I hopped servers with Sekai and am now on Asura. Seraph as we knew it no longer exists, as it has merged with Bismarck. Even though I would still sometimes see people I knew there, the reduced player population made it a lonely place. I had a nice shell that helped a lot with gearing up my beastmaster when that job was king (prior to it getting nerfed by SE), but the server never really felt like home after the merger. People who log on from the past do so sporadically and quickly leave, I assume because of the enormous gulf that exists between returning and current players (and, of course, real life obligations). Some of the players who did stay seem to have handed their accounts over to the many people who now multi-box, making seeing them around somewhat eerie. For those players who have stayed and held onto their accounts, it's nice sometimes to say hi to them, but, more often than not, they're very involved in their own gameplay and not always very friendly: After more two decades, there has evidently been a process of self-selection that has taken place. Linkshells like BtL are apparently still around, but, with the end of the HNM era, they mostly do things like Odyssey and keep more to themselves. In short, Bismarck-- what was formerly to me Seraph-- is more of a memory than a still lived experience, and that gives the game a tinge of melancholy.
So here we are on Asura now, which is the most populated server. With that and 20 running years now of this game, it's a pretty competitive place. To summarize some of the major changes that have taken place in the game, the level cap went from 75 to 90 and then to 99, after which capacity points are collected on every job until one reaches master, and from there one has 50 master levels. Gear now comes with its own levels, meaning that most of what one equips one's self with is level 119 gear. The HNMs we knew in the past are now force popped, and are easily soloable (I probably killed KB about 100 times solo getting my D ring). Things like Khimaira, the wyrms, etc, still pop in the old way, but they're hardly worth the time beyond satisfying occasional nostalgia. Traveling around is cake now, as hp crystals are used to teleport around, together with survival guides and VW/Unity warps (depressingly, all those outpost warps I collected in the past never get used anymore). Relic, empyrean and mythic weapons are easier to get, but still require effort (with relic weapons being by far and away the easiest to obtain, empyrean weapons requiring a little more and being much more expensive, and mythic weapons still being considered the hardest to get). Ergon weapons have been added since Adoulin, and, while they have totally different requirements, they're thought of in the same category as mythic weapons (being, of course, exclusive to runefencers and geomancers); and aeonic weapons have also now been added which allow ultimate skillchains and are roughly as difficult to get as empyrean weapons (but a lot cheaper). JSE has been reforged now and can be upgraded all the way to +3, requiring the player to do new events like Omen, Dynamis Divergence, Sortie, Vagary and high-tier mission battlefields. There's also a new~ish thing called ambuscade, which introduced a new class of weapons that are inferior to ultimate weapons, but which are generally much cheaper and easier to acquire, as well as some pretty useful gear for those who haven't yet attained some of the very best stuff.
In all, the spirit of FFXI over the past several years has been making what's old new again, mostly by re-introducing content at a higher level. Most major missions from the past can be redone now at a much higher level in order to obtain unique items and gear, AV/Kirin/the gods are back as poppable monsters that start at level 140, sky and sea have been merged into a new (and kind of bizarre) zone, unity NMs offer HQ versions of older HNMs, substantial effort is directed towards upgrading relic/artifact/empyrean equipment from the past, and the ultimate weapons have undergone some real overhauls. With the huge proliferation of new gear which, unlike the past, tends to offer things dramatically better than marginal improvements that were only cumulatively noticeable, gearsets have become a science, and every job is expected to have multiple such sets. Indeed, gear has become so important that, if you're lacking much of it, you'll find yourself much reduced as a player with little prospect of getting into important events. A real snobbery about this has taken hold, particularly on competitive servers like Asura, and gearchecks at the door have become commonplace. This makes for a problematic situation for returning players, as, in order to get good gear, one needs access to the best content, but, in order to be invited to participate in it, they have to have good gear in the first place. Not surprisingly, some have emerged to fill that void, as virtually anything and everything is now routinely sold via yells by multi-boxing mercenaries. RMT have also mushroomed, as being able to pay for clears/items/gear/cp/masterlevels (not to mention gear and weapon upgrades) requires huge amounts of gil. Things like old school Dynamis, consequently, have been taken over by RMT bots who farm things like currency 24 hours a day and make the experience miserable for normal players. In a world where anything and everything is for sale, mercs and RMT work together to make everything unbelievably expensive and to part players with real money. As mercs/RMT generally pay for multiple accounts, SE has little incentive to crack down on them, meaning that they now call the tune of both the economy and the larger game. Simply put, where buying gil and paying for mercs is so common, it's hard not to participate in this if you want to stay competitive: If you fail to stay competitive, you can expect to find yourself either begging others for help (and frequently being disappointed), or, more likely, playing a very lonely game.
As depressing as I've made everything sound, there is still an undeniable pull to the game, and a real sense of achievement one gets from completing major projects. Upon my most recent return, I took up blue mage in earnest, as it's an extremely versatile job that offers a lot in the way of soloing. That job is now mastered, and I managed through extreme persistence to get full malignance attire for it: That has dramatically improved life for me. I also have taken bard back up, and, in order to be a bard these days, one needs basically all the REMA (relic/empyrean/mythic/aeonic) instruments to function: After a very committed couple of weeks, I managed to get everything except the mythic dagger (which, while extremely nice for things like lullaby, is generally considered to be optional). The combination of these instruments and more mandatory gear means I have a constant 5 songs up on bard most of the time that are all +8, as well as the new honor march (20mp/tick ballad, do you need it?). At present, I'm now working on getting my summoner back online by completing nirvana: While it's hard to say how long that will take, as this is my first mythic weapon, I think I should be able to finish that in about a month. Sekai has taken up runefencer full-time, and, after winning a mog bonanza prize, he is hoping to complete his ergon sword sometime in the future (that said, he's been working on it for about 6 months now, and, given his very casual gameplay, it's an open question if he'll ever actually finish it). My hope with getting my bard and summoner back online is that this opens up a lot of content for me with other players, as both jobs are seriously in demand when properly geared, but, unlike in the past, it's not so easy to gear multiple jobs by leveraging one or two really popular ones because of the present mechanics of the game. While I've tried out a couple of linkshells on Asura, the game continues to be one I play largely solo by choice until I feel more confident playing in this era.
I may update this again, depending on if I get any feedback. Feel free to say hi! I miss all the people I used to play with. You guys seriously made the game worthwhile.
Where to begin...
For starters, I hopped servers with Sekai and am now on Asura. Seraph as we knew it no longer exists, as it has merged with Bismarck. Even though I would still sometimes see people I knew there, the reduced player population made it a lonely place. I had a nice shell that helped a lot with gearing up my beastmaster when that job was king (prior to it getting nerfed by SE), but the server never really felt like home after the merger. People who log on from the past do so sporadically and quickly leave, I assume because of the enormous gulf that exists between returning and current players (and, of course, real life obligations). Some of the players who did stay seem to have handed their accounts over to the many people who now multi-box, making seeing them around somewhat eerie. For those players who have stayed and held onto their accounts, it's nice sometimes to say hi to them, but, more often than not, they're very involved in their own gameplay and not always very friendly: After more two decades, there has evidently been a process of self-selection that has taken place. Linkshells like BtL are apparently still around, but, with the end of the HNM era, they mostly do things like Odyssey and keep more to themselves. In short, Bismarck-- what was formerly to me Seraph-- is more of a memory than a still lived experience, and that gives the game a tinge of melancholy.
So here we are on Asura now, which is the most populated server. With that and 20 running years now of this game, it's a pretty competitive place. To summarize some of the major changes that have taken place in the game, the level cap went from 75 to 90 and then to 99, after which capacity points are collected on every job until one reaches master, and from there one has 50 master levels. Gear now comes with its own levels, meaning that most of what one equips one's self with is level 119 gear. The HNMs we knew in the past are now force popped, and are easily soloable (I probably killed KB about 100 times solo getting my D ring). Things like Khimaira, the wyrms, etc, still pop in the old way, but they're hardly worth the time beyond satisfying occasional nostalgia. Traveling around is cake now, as hp crystals are used to teleport around, together with survival guides and VW/Unity warps (depressingly, all those outpost warps I collected in the past never get used anymore). Relic, empyrean and mythic weapons are easier to get, but still require effort (with relic weapons being by far and away the easiest to obtain, empyrean weapons requiring a little more and being much more expensive, and mythic weapons still being considered the hardest to get). Ergon weapons have been added since Adoulin, and, while they have totally different requirements, they're thought of in the same category as mythic weapons (being, of course, exclusive to runefencers and geomancers); and aeonic weapons have also now been added which allow ultimate skillchains and are roughly as difficult to get as empyrean weapons (but a lot cheaper). JSE has been reforged now and can be upgraded all the way to +3, requiring the player to do new events like Omen, Dynamis Divergence, Sortie, Vagary and high-tier mission battlefields. There's also a new~ish thing called ambuscade, which introduced a new class of weapons that are inferior to ultimate weapons, but which are generally much cheaper and easier to acquire, as well as some pretty useful gear for those who haven't yet attained some of the very best stuff.
In all, the spirit of FFXI over the past several years has been making what's old new again, mostly by re-introducing content at a higher level. Most major missions from the past can be redone now at a much higher level in order to obtain unique items and gear, AV/Kirin/the gods are back as poppable monsters that start at level 140, sky and sea have been merged into a new (and kind of bizarre) zone, unity NMs offer HQ versions of older HNMs, substantial effort is directed towards upgrading relic/artifact/empyrean equipment from the past, and the ultimate weapons have undergone some real overhauls. With the huge proliferation of new gear which, unlike the past, tends to offer things dramatically better than marginal improvements that were only cumulatively noticeable, gearsets have become a science, and every job is expected to have multiple such sets. Indeed, gear has become so important that, if you're lacking much of it, you'll find yourself much reduced as a player with little prospect of getting into important events. A real snobbery about this has taken hold, particularly on competitive servers like Asura, and gearchecks at the door have become commonplace. This makes for a problematic situation for returning players, as, in order to get good gear, one needs access to the best content, but, in order to be invited to participate in it, they have to have good gear in the first place. Not surprisingly, some have emerged to fill that void, as virtually anything and everything is now routinely sold via yells by multi-boxing mercenaries. RMT have also mushroomed, as being able to pay for clears/items/gear/cp/masterlevels (not to mention gear and weapon upgrades) requires huge amounts of gil. Things like old school Dynamis, consequently, have been taken over by RMT bots who farm things like currency 24 hours a day and make the experience miserable for normal players. In a world where anything and everything is for sale, mercs and RMT work together to make everything unbelievably expensive and to part players with real money. As mercs/RMT generally pay for multiple accounts, SE has little incentive to crack down on them, meaning that they now call the tune of both the economy and the larger game. Simply put, where buying gil and paying for mercs is so common, it's hard not to participate in this if you want to stay competitive: If you fail to stay competitive, you can expect to find yourself either begging others for help (and frequently being disappointed), or, more likely, playing a very lonely game.
As depressing as I've made everything sound, there is still an undeniable pull to the game, and a real sense of achievement one gets from completing major projects. Upon my most recent return, I took up blue mage in earnest, as it's an extremely versatile job that offers a lot in the way of soloing. That job is now mastered, and I managed through extreme persistence to get full malignance attire for it: That has dramatically improved life for me. I also have taken bard back up, and, in order to be a bard these days, one needs basically all the REMA (relic/empyrean/mythic/aeonic) instruments to function: After a very committed couple of weeks, I managed to get everything except the mythic dagger (which, while extremely nice for things like lullaby, is generally considered to be optional). The combination of these instruments and more mandatory gear means I have a constant 5 songs up on bard most of the time that are all +8, as well as the new honor march (20mp/tick ballad, do you need it?). At present, I'm now working on getting my summoner back online by completing nirvana: While it's hard to say how long that will take, as this is my first mythic weapon, I think I should be able to finish that in about a month. Sekai has taken up runefencer full-time, and, after winning a mog bonanza prize, he is hoping to complete his ergon sword sometime in the future (that said, he's been working on it for about 6 months now, and, given his very casual gameplay, it's an open question if he'll ever actually finish it). My hope with getting my bard and summoner back online is that this opens up a lot of content for me with other players, as both jobs are seriously in demand when properly geared, but, unlike in the past, it's not so easy to gear multiple jobs by leveraging one or two really popular ones because of the present mechanics of the game. While I've tried out a couple of linkshells on Asura, the game continues to be one I play largely solo by choice until I feel more confident playing in this era.
I may update this again, depending on if I get any feedback. Feel free to say hi! I miss all the people I used to play with. You guys seriously made the game worthwhile.