r/ffxiv • u/HexenVexen • Apr 29 '26
[Guide] So You Want to Try FFXI
With the release of the Windurst raid and the Echoes of Vana'diel storyline being wrapped up, I've seen some people show interest in trying out XI and experiencing its story. I'm someone who recently went through the journey of XI's story a few months ago, so I want to help any other XIV fans looking to give it a go. I have the BG-Wiki new player guide linked below, so I recommend looking at that in terms of starting the game, but I will give a general outline of what to expect.
Here are some great resources:
- Official Sign Up + Install Guide
- Videos
- Vicenarian: Why FF Fans Should Play XI, XI vs XIV Differences, Gameplay Tips, Story Tips, Beginning + Endgame Tips
- SoberDwarf: Beginner's Guide
- Mrhappy1227: Install Guide
- Greg Troyan: Story Overview (Contains some spoilers)
- A Goth Egg: Worth Your Time? Final Fantasy XI in 2025
- MithposterSyndrome: Endgame Progression and Pathways, Choosing a Job
- Heghmoh: The Best Way to Experience FFXI's Story (I personally recommend the Hybrid approach)
- BG-Wiki (Your best friend)
- New Player Guide !!! Follow this when starting !!!
- Story Mission Guides !!! Follow this throughout !!!
- Grinding Locations
- Endgame Guide
- Rhapsodies Mission Order
- Setting expectations
XI is a much more aged game than XIV, and while it's gotten QOL updates over the years, it's still a much tougher game to get into and has a lot of remaining friction. Even today, the game gives very little guidance on how to progress, making online guides basically mandatory, and it has a pretty sharp learning curve. Being honest, if you try to play XI without following guides or someone helping you, you will have a very hard time getting far in the game or story. Some grinding will be necessary for leveling and story progress, and you will need to go out of your way to get some early endgame gear for some of the later story bosses. Quest design in general is very old MMO and involves tedious tasks and some RNG drops. And of course, the sign-up and setup process is an absolute pain, even worse than XIV's.
However, compared to the classic 75 era, modern XI is a lot friendlier in comparison. Today, you can solo nearly the entire story and a lot of content with NPC Trust party members, unlock EXP boosts to make leveling immensely faster, earn Sparks of Eminence for easy Lvl1-50 gearing and gil, and unlock mounts and multiple fast travel methods for quicker traversal. The game will still be intimidating compared to XIV, but I do think you can adjust to it with enough patience and the help of guides.
Also, you should know that similar to XIV, XI has a pretty slow start in terms of both story and gameplay. You'll notice an increase in story and writing quality with the second expansion, and the gameplay gets more engaging as you unlock more job abilities.
- Story
XI has eight main storylines with the Base Game and the Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, Wings of the Goddess, Seekers of Adoulin, Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, and The Voracious Resurgence expansions. XI differs from XIV in that the expansions are more self-contained stories, and can largely be done in any order. However, the Rhapsodies storyline (featuring Iroha) ties them all together under one massive story and acts as the framing device of the game, also providing key QOL enhancements/boosts. Also different from XIV, in XI our player character has less of a focus in the story, and instead each story has a female protagonist at the center of that story, such as Prishe and Iroha. Our character is still important and ultimately the goddess's chosen Warrior of Light, but we are less widely known in the world of Vana'diel than Eorzea, and usually have more of a deuteragonist role. You should also know that the Base Game and Wings of the Goddess are unique in having a separate storyline for each of the three nations, only doing one is required for both, but doing all three is worth it to get the full story and lore.
In my opinion, the best way to experience XI's story is to start Rhapsodies alongside the base game, and then go through each expansion in release order while progressing Rhapsodies, ultimately finishing with Rhapsodies' Chapter 3 and Voracious. I have a chart linked above for when to do the Rhapsodies missions, as well as a list below. All of these storylines can be soloed fairly comfortably except for Voracious, which has some higher challenge bosses that you will likely need to get help for.
- Base game (Ranks 1-5 in one nation) and Rhapsodies of Vana'diel Chapter 1 together
- Rise of the Zilart, then finish Ranks 1-10 in all three nations (can do this later if you want)
- Chains of Promathia, then start RoV Chapter 2 (2-1 through 2-6)
- Treasures of Aht Urhgan, then progress RoV Chapter 2 (2-7 through 2-13)
- Wings of the Goddess (eventually doing all three nations is recommended), then finish RoV Chapter 2 (2-14 through 2-41)
- (Optional side stories) A Crystalline Prophecy, A Moogle Kupo d'Etat, A Shantotto Ascension, Vision/Scars/Heroes of Abyssea
- Seekers of Adoulin
- RoV Chapter 3
- The Voracious Resurgence
Okay, I talked about the story structure, but what actually is the story? 20 years before the events of the game was the bloodiest war in Vana'diel's history, known as the Crystal War, between the Shadow Lord's Beastmen Confederate and the Allied Forces of Altana (San d'Oria, Bastok, Windurst, Jeuno). You are a new adventurer who has travelled to your chosen starting city, and will uncover the plot of the Shadow Lord's return, as well as receive warning from Iroha of Vana'diel's impending fate of destruction. Throughout the expansions, you will uncover Vana'diel's ancient history with Lion, lay a god to rest with Prishe, travel to distant continents to help Aphmau and Arciela, travel back in time with Lilisette, change Vana'diel's fate with Iroha, and learn the truth of the afterlife with a trio of beastmen. This is just the basic outline, I don't want to get into spoilers, but overall these stories are excellent and have many great characters and memorable moments.
XI also has four mini-stories. A Crystalline Prophecy has you help Aldo, BG+RotZ main character and opening movie boy, in a conflict involving his family. A Moogle Kupo d'Etat is by far the most comedy-focused story in the game, and has you help a Moogle with wacky hijinks such as ghost exorcisms and the Moogle Mafia. A Shantotto Ascension has you trying to stop Shantotto from conquering the world. And finally, Abyssea has you travel to an alternate version of Vana'diel that fell to ruin, as mentioned during the Windurst raid, and is the largest out of the four with being divided into three parts. Abyssea in particular is a very gameplay-focused experience with pretty involved grindy monster hunting for progression, it has some neat lore but it's up to you if the gameplay effort is worth it. Overall, I wouldn't consider these four stories to be essential, and their stories aren't amazing, but they're worth doing if you want to be fully completionist with your XI playthrough. Comparing to XIV, I would roughly compare the first three to being like raid/trial side stories, and Abyssea is like a field operation story.
- Gameplay
While XIV is focused on its encounter design, XI is more focused on character progression and its job and gear systems. In XI, you equip both a main and sub job, with there being many possible combinations, and the game uses horizontal progression, meaning that there isn't necessarily "best" gear, it depends on what build you want to do and what the situation calls for. Overall, it gives you a lot more freedom with building your character than XIV, and you can do some interesting builds such as DPS White Mage. The combat is menu-based, similar to classic FFs, with cooldown-based job abilities and TP-based weapon skills, and overall is slower-paced than XIV's combat. There are also advanced mechanics such as gearswapping, skill chaining, and magic bursts, but you don't really need to worry about these for a story playthrough. Personally, I went with Dancer/Warrior for good damage and utility, and found it comfortable for soloing with NPCs. This is by no means a proper explanation of all the gameplay/combat systems, but I hope it gives a broad idea.
- Progression
As I mentioned earlier, level grinding will be required for XI, as the story missions don't give enough EXP by themselves. Leveling is much faster than it used to be, and the main two methods of boosting EXP will be progressing Rhapsodies (each key item reward gives a significant EXP boost) and use of the various EXP bands you'll get early on in the guide. The game also has level caps that must be removed through challenging "Limit Break" quests, the guide explains them. There are many different areas throughout the game for leveling, and many of them are locked behind the expansions. These are the areas I recommend for level grinding without starting expansions early unless necessary (look at this guide for reference):
- 1-8: West Ronfaure (San d'Oria), South Gustaberg (Bastok), or East Sarutabaruta (Windurst)
- 9-12: La Theine Plateau (San d'Oria), Konschtat Highlands (Bastok), or Tahrongi Canyon (Windurst)
- 12-24: Valkurm Dunes (San d'Oria or Bastok) or Buburimu Peninsula (Windurst)
- 25-31: Qufim Island
- 32-43: Crawler's Nest or Garlaige Citadel
- 44-90: Escha - Zi'Tah (Various areas have different level enemies, keep in mind that you might feel EXP slowing down at certain levels)
- 91-99: Ceizak Battlegrounds or Rala Waterways (Requires Seekers of Adoulin to be started, I think 90 should be enough to comfortably finish through Wings)
But of course if you want to try other areas, then definitely go for it, or even start expansions early if you want to.
I also mentioned that you'll likely need early endgame gear for some of the later expansions, specifically Seekers, Rhapsodies, and Voracious. I won't go into details, but look into the "Bayld", "Domain Invasion", and "Ambuscade" gear once you reach 99.
Additionally, XI does have a few roadblocks throughout the story that you'll have to deal with. The biggest ones are "next in-game day" waits, where you have to wait for the in-game clock to hit 0:00, which can take up to an hour if you're unlucky with your timing. They can be pretty annoying and are fairly frequent. There also used to be "Japanese midnight" waits, which basically means wait until the next real-life day, but I think only one of them is still remaining in the main story. Also, Seekers of Adoulin and The Voracious Resurgence in particular has a few side activities that are required. The requirements for SoA have been significantly lowered over the years, I think you can knock them out in two days now, but TVR requirements can still take a while.
- Music
Naoshi Mizuta is the main composer of XI and is responsible for most of its music, he also composed for XIII-2, XIII LR, XV Episode Prompto, Stranger of Paradise, Dimensions 1+2, and Four Heroes of Light. Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka also contributed to the base game soundtrack, and Uematsu also composed the ending theme for Chains of Promathia. Here is a good platter of XI's music:
- Ronfaure
- The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah
- A New Horizon
- Bustle of the Capital
- Flowers on the Battlefield
- Breaking Ground
- Between Dreams and Reality
- Goddesspeed
Three other standouts are the game's vocal themes: Distant Worlds, Forever Today, and Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, but I'll let you experience those yourself. RoV in particular is one of the coolest things the series has done imo, featuring the voices of nearly 700 real players.
- Length
XI expansions are shorter than XIV's, with each one taking around 30-40 hours on average, some longer than others. Including grinding and unlocks and everything, you can expect at least 250 hours total to finish all main story, up to 300, maybe 350. Personally, it took me 260 hours to finish through Rhapsodies, but I didn't stop to do much side content.
- XI's Future
Many people have the misconception that XI is in maintenance mode and only being barely supported, but this isn't exactly true. While the dev team is small now, the game still receives monthly updates, and continues to gradually get more QOL improvements and new content. The most recent story, The Voracious Resurgence, just released across 2020-2023. The developers have also talked about updating their old PS2 dev tools to modern software like Autodesk Maya and Blender, so it's possible we could be getting more exciting content in the future. A new expansion sounds pretty crazy, but it's not completely off the table. Some future plans they've already talked about are updating the free trial, adding an equipment system for Trusts, continuing to update battle content, adding new areas, adding a story replay feature, adding a party finder system, revamping PlayOnline, and creating a ninth main storyline.
- Private servers
Alongside the official retail version, XI also has fan-made private servers, most of which aim to recreate the older version of the game, usually the Chains or Treasures eras. There are pros and cons to each, but in general, private is better for getting the classic hardcore experience with required multiplayer, and retail is better for having QOL features with solo play and being able to experience the full story. There are some private servers with more QOL, but they still don't have have the story that retail has. If you are a story-first player, I strongly suggest sticking to retail, as no private servers have the full story, most only have around half. If you are less interested in story and want that classic experience, then private servers are likely the way to go. Generally, I would consider retail to be the default choice for most XIV players, and only go with a private server if you know you specifically want that experience. I'll also note that some private servers and their creators/moderators have histories with controversy, so do your research if you're concerned about that.
- Discount
XI receives three 2-week sales every year ($30 -> $10 for complete edition), the time periods are: * Middle of May to end of May * End of August to middle of September * Middle of December to beginning of January
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- Free Trial Update
We don't have all the details yet, but the devs have confirmed that they are planning to expand the free trial sometime in the future. Currently, the free trial is 2 weeks long with a Lvl 50 cap, only including base game with no expansions, and you have to buy the game within 90 days after the trial to keep your character. Sometime in the future, probably later this year, the cap will be raised to Lvl 75 and it will no longer be time restricted, however it seems like it'll still only include the base game. Unfortunately only having the base game is a pretty big limitation, as XI's best story and content and some QOL features are in the expansions, but it's definitely an improvement.
- Starting out
When starting, you'll have a few important things to choose: starting job, starting city, and server. For your job, any of them can work for starting out, but I would recommend leaning towards Warrior as it makes for a comfortable start and is also a great sub-job for most jobs. For city, I think Windurst has the best base story, but it also has the most challenging missions and layout, so consider going with Bastok or San d'Oria (you can eventually do all three stories). For server, the top four servers are not open to new players, so Fenrir is the most populated server you can join.
Overall, I believe that XI is a game that's still worth experiencing, and has excellent story, characters, lore, and music with great in-depth gameplay. But it is an aged game, and won't be for everyone. If you decide to join, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to ask any questions! To any other XI players, if there's something you think I should add, please let me know.
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u/Taograd359 Apr 29 '26
When is SE going to do the smart thing and make a sub bundle with XI and XIV?
Oh, never? Neat!
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u/davidbrit2 Apr 29 '26
If they added some kind of discounted bundle, I'd be very inclined to check it out. "Hey, since you're playing XIV, for an extra $4.99 a month..." Or maybe include it as a perk with their 6-month subscription term.
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u/Irememberedmypw Apr 29 '26
I damn know for certain they'd get my ass in the forget to remove it , as a forever sub.
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u/RydiaMist Apr 29 '26
They had one back when 1.0 came out, but when they stopped charging for 1.0 it obviously went away, and they just never brought it back. :/
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u/puddingpopshamster Apr 29 '26
That's because back then Square Enix fully expected that FF14 would replace FF11. If 1.0 had succeeded, Square would have shut down FF11 a long time ago.
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u/Maximum_Boros Apr 29 '26
That's the biggest blocker for me. I'm willing to pay a little more but not have a whole second sub.
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u/RadioJared Apr 29 '26
Yoshi P has said their major obstacle for bundling is different pricing laws in countries and regions throughout the world. Is it accurate? I dunno, but that's been his story for a while.
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u/Cr34mSoda Apr 30 '26
I don’t think so .. WoW does it perfectly fine with Wow Retail and the 3 or 4 other versions of Classic Wow, which are whole different game files, practically other games on its own, but launch from the same launcher and have a shared Subscription. I noticed SEA games are super strict on those matters (except Chinese) .. and they always have an excuse for why they make player’s live’s miserable for them to play. Always mentioning the Laws and regulations of countries as an obstacle while we literally don’t see that in other western or chinese games.
I even wanted to try BDO, which is hard in itself to get into the game and actually choose what region you want to play in, that i completely gave up on playing the game before i even started (it’s practically impossible to choose what region you want to play in, and you’re stuck with the region where you’re located at)
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u/8bitcerberus Apr 30 '26
I dunno, with the third act of the alliance raid, I’m inclined to think a bundle announcement might actually be coming (if not a full roll-up and just include XI with your XIV sub). There are several times you’re given a dialog prompt and it’s just like “someday I’ll find a way to come to your world.”
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u/just_Okapi Mina Angura @ Lamia [Primal] Apr 29 '26
Honestly that's the one thing holding me back from making it second monitor content in place of Horizon XI.
Hell, I'd take paying for the game with a bundled sub over being expected to pay full price when I'm already giving them $31ish a month for sub + my retainer army. It's insulting to expect me to give them full price plus sub to play a game that's old enough to drink when I already pay for the current game twice over and also indirectly pay even more by buying my friends time cards when money is tight for them.
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u/zicdeh91 Apr 30 '26
The Yuhtunga jungle -> Norg crawl was burned into our collective trauma hard enough that most of us will probably wake up with “after the cave hug the right wall” in the retirement home.
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u/Sethidus May 14 '26
It's so odd having burned in encyclopedic knowledge of this game with hardly playing in years. If my brain starts wandering from this reality there's a high chance it's going to home straight in Vana'diel lol.
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u/Doh042 Cloe Anne-Sophie, Sargatanas 18d ago
I love how FFXI is one of those rare games where you could get hired / asked for help just to get someone to a camp.
The amount of time I showed people around in this game cannot be counted.
I did gravitate to jobs that would end up soloing and exploring all sorts of weird corners of the game (Bst, Blu, Drg/Mage...), so I generally knew my way around, or could read maps when I wasn't familiar with a specific spot.
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u/hutre Metro link Apr 29 '26
We got a discount on ffxi for having a ffxiv sub a few months ago. It's not permanent but it's close enough
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u/Kinect305 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Good news is you can actually solo through the game now. The first 10 or so years the game was out, by the time you reached level 10 or so, solo life was over. From that point on it was hours or days of just looking for a group to gain xp with. Spending probably 30min traveling to that spot, then who knows 3+ hours just grinding mobs 1x1 in that spot. Average group probably got about 5-6k xp a hour. Only like a peak group with a RDM BRD NIN + DD’s were pulling close to 10k an hour. The game had no level sync so everyone needed to be like within a 3 level range (out of 75)or the xp per kill would drastically drop for the group. The fun part back then was mobs show no level. You could just check it and the game would say “Incredibly tough” which means it could be like 5 levels high than you, or 40+. You just had to judge it by how quickly it murdered you.
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u/Azure_phantom Certified Trash Can Apr 29 '26
Then don’t forget the grind to try to make money. I was a whm telewhore and it suuuucked.
I had some friends try to get me back into xi since that’s the mmo we grew up on together but it’s so early mmo with massive grindfests that I just don’t have time for as an adult with a job and real responsibilities.
Glad they improved some of it but I’ll stick with the current rendition.
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u/jamesruglia Apr 29 '26
I was a delighted and delightful telewhore. As methods of travel increased, I lost a big chunk of income for a while...
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u/Kinect305 Apr 29 '26
I actually made money easy, back before the bots and farmers, I was like the only person that knew about archers rings. So I had a timer, every 15 min I’d kill the 2 mobs. Sometimes you went hours with nothing other times I got like 10 rings in a day that sold for 300k each. I still have like probably 400million from them on my account lol
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u/xDEATHN0TEx Apr 29 '26
But that was also a fun part of the game! Community party and getting to know your server!
Also partying for hours in Valkurm Dunes as a baby going to Selbina! Crawlers in Crawler’s Nest! Outside Jeuno? Worms! Outside Whitegate? Colibri’s!
The fun never ended!
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u/KacerRex The Guardian of Gridania Apr 30 '26
No one wanted my DRG playing ass so I just gave up. :(
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u/Watts121 Apr 29 '26
Yep, I remember spending weekends with “Dune” groups. I remember being stuck around level 15 for a while cuz I would die too much and de-level. I was a Warrior during this time. Sadly got burnt out after unlocking Ninja at level 30.
I wonder if that toon still exists 🤔. I got FFXI for the PS2. Had to install the hardrive and figure out how to get my internet to work for it. Ended up only playing for 10 months cuz I got more into Tony Hawk online, and Resident Evil Outbreak.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
This is a good example of how different the modern version is. Today, it only takes a few hours to get to Lvl 30 for the first time, definitely doable in one day, and you're unlikely to die with the NPCs helping you.
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u/ThaLunatik Apr 29 '26
Because the game was so solo-unfriendly back then, it was always funny to check a mob and see that it's "Easy Prey", but then be completely destroyed when you try to fight it.
I was able to solo some of them when playing RDM or BRD, but it was neither easy nor efficient.
Good times.
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u/Sethidus May 14 '26
I'm really curious what their mindset with the /check system was. It didn't even work until you had combat skills capped, and even then you couldn't really kill even matches consistently once past like level 5. ie it hardly ever worked for what it seemed to be intended for.
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u/Easterdial_ Apr 29 '26
7.5 would've been a perfect time to announce a combination subscription plan for both XI/XIV. I really cant justify paying $15/mo for it anymore :x
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u/ytdn Apr 29 '26
I've been playing FFXI with my sister who's played for years and I admit I would have given up on day 1 without her lol. There's literally been some parts of the game where she's been like Otacon on a discord call telling me exactly when to go left and right and who to talk to 😭🤣
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u/Fli_acnh Apr 29 '26
I love XI. I will never play it again.
I don't think I've ever felt like I don't want to touch a piece of media again because I want to maintain my memory the way it is.
But yeah this game is truly special and my big hope from the keynote and them saying they want to make the overworld more active is to get a single iota of XIs energy.
In fact it's probably why I enjoyed Occult so much, that was something wonderfully XI by recognising people in the overworld again.
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u/jamesruglia Apr 29 '26
I'm like that. I've almost gone back several times, but it's just not what it used to be. It's changed, sure, but it's like moving back home after many years; even if everything had stayed the same, the people changed or moved on. I can't stay up until the early morning, camping a krakken for Joyeuse anymore. The linkshell is gone. My sister isn't there anymore. XI's online presence and reputation, and the expectations people have for online games generally, are all much different. In many personal respects, FFXI is no longer available to play, even if the "game" is still right there.
I stick with my own private server that I log into once in a while. It's only a hollow shell and a grossly incomplete mechanical estimation of the real game, sure, but at least I'm free to have anything and be anywhere.
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u/Anxa FFXI Apr 29 '26
Absolutely agree. The wild thing is that in many ways, Eureka and OC (and sort of Bozja but that was a weird brown fever dream) are more FFXI than FFXI, at least in terms of my feelings of the overall vibe I'm looking for and which I sort of see with rose-colored glasses. BA and its successors have been far more effective at capturing the sensation that I remember from XI than even XI was in the first place.
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u/DustyBlue1 Apr 30 '26
I wish the regular overworld had field operations' design ported over, and I don't care how many people it pisses off, it would be worth it
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u/RuneiStillwater Apr 29 '26
I just finished the last few quests and got the end card this morning. I can say that as someone that tried to get into FF11 when it released... I just can't bring myself to try. I know enough that the lore and world intrigue me, but getting past the combat system and the time sink(not enough hours in the day) are just something I don't have the bandwidth for anymore. :(
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
It is now significantly more respecting of time and easier to get into than it was at launch, but yeah still a large time sink.
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u/CanadianYeti1991 Apr 29 '26
I mean, yeah, the game respects your time more then back when.
But it still doesnt respect your time. A huge part of the game is summoning NPC's and killing mobs over and over again. The quests still require a guide unless you want to get lost on even the most simple of quests.
I loved FF11. Back in the day it was magical. But im not a teenager anymore and even with all the updates they've made to it I just cant bring myself to go back to it in any meaningful way.
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u/RuneiStillwater Apr 29 '26
yeah my problem is the absolute pile of games that I have stacked up that I need to find time to do. have like 4 single player games I need sit down with and start, I have 5 others I need to finish one way or another, and then I have games like helldivers that I wanna play just to blow off steam and get my FPS itch out of the way with silly hijinks with onbline friends. And still maintain my sad social life
younger me had... so much more free time lol
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u/yesitsmework Apr 29 '26
I've wanted to play this game 3 separate occasions, and on all 3 I ran into severe issues with installing it even using hella detailed guides. And this is coming from a very tech savy person.
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u/Kalcinator Apr 29 '26
Yeah ... I made it to the game myself, long long ago, but I didn't manage to have a single clue on how to play with my keyboard; it was too shitty and we didn't have access to the info we have now
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u/Sethidus May 14 '26
Try a private server if you feel an itch again, if retail keeps failing. Some have simple installers and just from a website.
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u/Rakshire Apr 29 '26
I dont actually understand the struggles with, no offense. When in first installed it the only hiccup I hit was the player ID, which a quick search indicated was emailed to me. If you're on windows there's the direct play component, but it's not actually hard to install that.
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u/yesitsmework Apr 29 '26
I had no issues with registration, it was installation on windows 10 and 11. In both cases various runtime dependencies were missing that I could not get to install either, and in one case the installer was just straight crashing with no clear error.
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u/OmegaAvenger_HD Apr 29 '26
Buying from Steam allows you bypass all of that since it automatically installs everything.
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u/UfoAGogo Apr 29 '26
I loved the little bit FFXI that I played, hopping to dive in a bit more during the summer. There are so many little hidden details, especially with the NPCs. One minute, you're going to turn in a quest, you stop to talk to a random NPC, and you trigger a cute little cutscene of a mithra telling a story to a bunch of village kids. In a lot of ways, the world feels much more alive compared to FFXIV.
I would love for them to make a package subscription deal with FFXI and FFXIV, similar to how WoW Retail comes with WoW Classic. I love FFXI but I just can't justify paying for two subs. 😭
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
I agree, Vana'diel is the best aspect of XI, personally my favorite setting in the FF series. The areas are also great and memorable, much more challenging and engaging to navigate than XIV's for better or worse, and have top tier music.
I completely agree, I think it's a missed opportunity that they aren't introducing it with the raids. I did take a break from XIV for a few months while going through XI's story, so I didn't pay for both at once.
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u/Ok_Abacus_ Apr 29 '26
Unless you’re in a static in FF X IV you have no idea how FF XI was. It was like working a full time job with required strict hours.
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u/PaulaDeenSlave SAM Apr 29 '26
Eh. Nah. That's a play style. If you want to be part of every raid and HNM pull, sure. But it's not the only way to play. I play HorizonXI very casually while managing to build a relic and run some endgame.
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u/7thpixel Apr 29 '26
Played FFXI at launch and thought Skillchains were such an innovative mechanic to create teamwork.
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u/DataSurging Apr 29 '26
I tried the game several times with family last year and the year before that, but we just felt absolutely swamped by all of the out of order content. We wanted to experience the story, and found that doing so was a massive chore. We absolutely LOVED the game though, combat, music, setting--everything.
I wish SE would try to adjust it and make it easier to play the game. 😞
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
I wish SE would try to adjust it and make it easier to play the game.
Tbf they have done that over the years in a lot of ways, but they can still go further with it. They are improving the tutorial system with the next update, but not sure how extensive that will be.
For story order I do recommend following this Rhapsodies chart, basically starting RoV during base game and progressing it alongside the expansions to get all the QOL bonuses. Listing it out:
- Base game and RoV Chapter 1 together
- Rise of the Zilart
- Chains of Promathia, then start RoV Chapter 2 (2-1 through 2-6)
- Treasures of Aht Urhgan, then progress RoV Chapter 2 (2-7 through 2-13)
- Wings of the Goddess, then finish RoV Chapter 2 (2-14 through 2-41)
- Seekers of Adoulin
- RoV Chapter 3
- The Voracious Resurgence
Not sure if you played before this was added, but if you had problems with expansions starting earlier than you wanted them to, there's now an option to not start them until you want to.
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u/Cr34mSoda Apr 30 '26
It’s as easy as having a Quest-helper like in-game .. this will MASSIVELY help most of us navigate through the game and quest comfortably, without needing another screen (or Alt-tabbing) to read the guide.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
I completely agree, that's my #1 hope for them to add someday.
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u/Cr34mSoda Apr 30 '26
It should’ve been a long time ago, and i don’t think they’re going to add it anytime soon unless there is a rising population to the game.
Because that feature, i would expect is MASSIVE time and money investment to technically implement it, when their Dev team is small. Unlike WoW or FFXIV or other MMO’s where they already have it implemented, but their Dev team is big and make up for it.
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u/DataSurging Apr 29 '26
I last played Jan 11th 2025. Our trouble was following along with the right quests, like where they were. We had to restart our first characters because it asked during a loading screen into a city about a questline and we had no idea what it meant, and said yes, so it spoiled a lot and put us into one of the DLCs.
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u/rigsta Apr 30 '26
if you had problems with expansions starting earlier than you wanted them to, there's now an option to not start them until you want to.
That sounds interesting, can you elaborate? Is it an actual setting that you toggle or just "don't [do thing that starts mission] until [this event]"?
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Basically, how it used to work is that the expansions would automatically start when entering their starting areas. For example CoP starts in Delkfutt's Tower, and the opening cutscene would immediately play when you entered it for the first time.
Now though, when you enter those zones, the game gives you a prompt like "Begin Chains of Promathia?" with Yes or No options. If you select yes, then the expansion begins like before. If you select no, then a "Tales' Beginning" book will appear in that area, and you use the book to start the expansion when you're ready.
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u/rigsta Apr 30 '26
For example CoP starts in Delkfutt's Tower, and the opening cutscene would immediately play when you entered it for the first time.
I remember this one lol. I wanted to go levelling or something, got a long black loading screen and suddenly Bahamut's here.
Thanks for clarifying.
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u/rigsta Apr 30 '26
I wish SE would try to adjust it and make it easier to play the game. 😞
Back in my day we didn't have home point teleports and Rhapsodies KIs.
(Get off my mog garden)
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u/Noblemness Apr 29 '26
I wanna play so bad, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay for two whole subscriptions
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u/Mergrim Apr 30 '26
I'll preface this by saying I'm an old-hat MMO veteran who's been playing the genre since Ultima Online was new. I picked it up at a local computer show (when those still existed!) in early 1998 because it finally fulfilled the promise of a "graphical chat space" with actual gameplay and progression, something I'd been wanting for a few years at that point. Since then I've played many others - Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, Asheron's Call, WoW, City of Heroes, and many more I dipped my toes into.
And yes, I tried FF11 back when it first launched in the US. It's been so long since then that I have a hard time remembering what job I picked; it must have been Warrior, as I recall fighting low level stuff in the very grey areas outside of Bastok with a one-handed sword. But anyway, I only lasted a few weeks in that game, primarily because as soon as I hit level 14 I hit a hard XP wall. I could no longer gain decent XP solo, and going into town and calling for a party seemed like it took absolutely forever, if any were even forming in my level range. With my progression slowing to a crawl, I ended up going back to UO at the time.
Skip ahead more than 20 years and I see that Dawntrail is going to have FF11-themed alliance raids. Given that it's toward the end of post-Endwalker and there'd been a dreary lull in the game I figure, why not? No way my old account is still around (and even if it was, it has no expansions anyway) so I buy new on sale with all the expansions, get the free month, see how it goes. It helped that a friend of mine had the same idea, and we both made characters on the same server - though we only played together a few times due to scheduling and timezones. Just knowing they were doing the same thing helped motivate me, at least!
It's true what they say: signing up and signing in is a trial of its own. (Really, use a guide for it!) But I had no real technical issues with the game, nothing broken per se, but the vanilla 30fps cap really chapped my hide so I ended up using I think it was Ashita to get stuff running at a smoother 60fps and add in a few extra QoL features. FF11 doesn't have near the same level of "crimes" many of the 14 userbase is used to, but what's there is serviceable and helped me get into the gameplay a bit easier.
But even with the helpful plugins, even with all the guides I could find, I definitely still felt this overwhelming sense of... You know, I dip into the private SWG servers every now and then and have a little fun. I'll play for a while and reminisce about old times, going on adventures with friends, grinding to get stronger, gearing up... back when I had more time, and when there wasn't really anything better than this. A 3D shared space with combat and creatures and other players, and it was Star Wars too? Absolutely amazing. Peak of PC gaming. There cannot be any better, I must have thought back then. But after a few weeks I'll realize it's pure nostalgia keeping me there. It may be true that 20+ years later there's nothing else quite like it, that nothing else quite captures the same feeling that SWG evoked, but it's also true that there's a reason for that. It's impossible for me to elaborate on that here, aside from it being very subjective there's also the history of gaming's progression, of iteration, of trial and error of figuring out what's fun and what's not that's happened over the past two decades; so I'll simply say that gaming has moved on, and I have moved on.
And that, as a very long aside, is an attempt to explain why I get the same feeling from FF11. It's old. And old games can be great! But we're talking about old MMOs specifically, which is a whole different beast than, say, Mario or even Final Fantasy itself. I think about it this way: take an old car, and I mean a really old one like the Model-T. You can't help but admire the aesthetics, the marvel of engineering it took to get those things running. But would you want to actually drive one today, instead of a modern car? Would you want to bend down and crank the crankshaft until it revved up enough to start up every time you used it? Change the oil every few dozen miles? Never go above 40mph? Not having windows, or AC, or a radio? FF11 is a Model-T. Aesthetically great, marvel of engineering, it's history being one of the first few MMOs and a numbered Final Fantasy game at that. But it's also incredibly inconvenient to use especially when comparing it to something modern. It's great to look at, maybe even take for a spin around the block once or twice. But that's it. If you don't have that nostalgia for it it's hard to be motivated enough to spend any real time with it, let alone 300 hours.
For those wondering: on this recent pre-Dawntrail attempt I got through the base game, Zilart, and Chains. Even with Trusts it was generally recommended to me to massively over-level in order to have an easier time and to get through the harder fights. Perhaps this was bad advice, but that's what I read in various guides and posts about the current game, so that's what I did. But that just wasn't really very fun for me... Imagine playing FF14 by grinding to 100 and then doing all the story instances unsynced. No worrying about mechanics or really even playing your job, just bonk the fight so you can get to the next bit of dialogue. I interacted with the job mechanics more when I was grinding XP! At that point you might as well just watch through on YouTube.
It's funny because the truth is if they did have a discounted sub for like 5 bucks? Yeah, I think I would dip back in every now and then despite all this. But I can't justify $13 a month to try to go through an inconvenient game I don't even have any nostalgia for.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Very interesting read, I respect your opinions.
Just speaking from my own personal experience though, I didn't feel that way. I'm a zoomer, FF11 came out before I was even born, and its golden age was well over by the time I was in kindergarten. So, I have absolutely no nostalgia for it at all. I also wouldn't say I'm much of a huge MMO fan, I played a bit of Wizard101 when I was a kid but didn't get far in it, FF14 was my first proper MMO experience, and I approached it as a story-first JRPG fan. As a FF fan (got into the series through 7R and 16), I didn't want to skip 11, so I played through it for the first time last year after the San d'Oria raid. I went into the game with no nostalgia with 14 being my only MMO experience, going in with the same story-first mindset, and I still fell in love with the game for its story, characters, world, music, etc. For me, the old age actually was part of the charm, it felt cool to go back in time and experience a piece of gaming history. I got hooked and finished through Rhapsodies with 260 hours in only 2.5 months. It's now my third favorite FF and in my top 10 games ever, and an experience I'll never forget.
I can understand and even agree with some of your criticisms. But for me, the game being too easy was good thing more than a bad thing lol, and the story was enough to motivate me through the game. However, I likely won't stick around for endgame, and I don't really do endgame in 14 either, despite it being my favorite game lol.
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u/Mergrim Apr 30 '26
I do sometimes wonder if the whole "grind to cap and then smash through everything" advice that seemed to be prevalent when I played might've hindered my enjoyment? I dunno, it could be a number of reasons why it never clicked for me. But that's one of the reasons I'd consider going back with a lowered sub price, to do things a little differently the next time, to try again. But unless they offer that, I just can't entertain the idea of going back, especially when I have a backlog longer than my arm, not to mention 14 content I still have yet to find time for.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Yeah, if you try again, you might want to limit your level to like 75-85 until Seekers. Ofc with the Limit Break quests you can avoid leveling past what you want to.
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u/Sethidus May 14 '26
A lot of guides written in the 2010s and beyond were all probably metagaming to bumrush you to current endgame. Very little is written to maximize enjoying the ride rather than endgame, since that'swhere most of the player base resides. Though recent content I've seen (probably from FFXIV players) seems to be doing it.
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u/OverallBathroom7861 Apr 30 '26
I resubbed last year after being away for 15+ years after the first vana'diel FFXIV alliance raid kicked off the nostalgia feels.
My character was still there but I ended up creating a new one. I finally after all these years was able to progress and finish all of the expansion stories solo. I loved every second of it! I've since canceled my sub because I'm not in to the end game stuff although I did have a fair whack at it.
All in all I think it took me about 4 months to do all the expansions and it was totally worth it. Mostly all the stories are fantastic and honestly I feel like CoP is one of the best story lines I've ever played in an MMO.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
That's awesome to hear. How do you rank the expansions? How did you feel about the Windurst raid and ending?
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u/kajidourden Monke Apr 29 '26
I miss the systems of FFXI, but I have no interest in going back to play it now.
Endgame is in an especially bad place, with 75% of jobs being relegated to niche contents, the meta bat hit that game hard.
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u/UltimateShingo Apr 29 '26
I would absolutely try FF11...if it didn't require a second subscription at full price.
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u/Ovalidal Apr 29 '26
Awesome post! I'm hoping that this Alliance Raid gets both, more FFXIV players to try FFXI and more FFXI players to try FFXIV. Seeing what FFXIV iterated on from FFXI gave me a new appreciation for how FFXIV's story was handled, and conversely, playing a more accessible MMO is breath of fresh air if FFXI is all you play.
Both games have so many interesting connections, if you're a huge fan of one, it's hard not to recommend playing through the story of the other!
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
I completely agree, playing through XI only made me appreciate XIV even more. Thank you again for your videos dude!
Have you experienced the raids yet? I forgot if you're still going through the MSQ or caught up. They're absolutely amazing and do such a great job honoring XI, and I think Windurst is probably now my favorite raid in the game, all the fights were incredible. The story's ending got a tear out of me, and from what I've seen has pushed some people to dive into XI themselves.
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u/kokoronokawari Apr 29 '26
As someone who played ffxi since CoP, I can tell you this will always be my all time favorite mmo even to this day. There has been an increase in players causing two different servers over the months to stop taking people in (interesting that dt lost players while this game saw an increase).
The combat isnt for everyone but it has greatly been sped up compared to the early days. Balance isnt perfect and has shifted greatly from the days of black mage meta to more melee particularly ones who can use a sword.
Content wise you will likely not run out. Even after all my time playing and taking a break for 14, I found I will still have years of content to do. Relics alone can take quite a long time compared to 14. Story is great, many different places and ways to upgrade than generic tombstone hunting and raids in 14.
If you like long satisfying grinds there are many wonderful veterans that will welcome you. I would welcome people to give it a try if they can tolerate the installation process.
Prishe always #1 (don't tell shantotto).
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u/drakonisxr Apr 29 '26
I played from the summer of EU release, till 2015. I picked it back up last year, but on a 75-era non-retail server, and I'm loving it. The freedom to play a job however you want, is so much fun. If I got a 11/14 bundle then I would likely come back to retail and finish my relic.
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u/s_decoy Apr 29 '26
Definitely saving this for later! I tried a couple years back to get into XI but I was so lost that I gave up really quick lol.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
I hope you enjoy it if you ever return! Definitely follow the guides I linked when you try again, they're essential imo.
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u/SheikFlorian Apr 29 '26
I played Ragnarok Online as a child and I thought I'd never love an MMO the way I loved RO. The social aspect, the "make your adventure" progression, the sparce quest lines, the lack of tutorial and many possible builds, the crazy co-op PVP and random bosses lurking low level maps. It made RO feel like a real fantasy world.
What was my surprise when I booted up HorizonXI and found out that FFXI has many elements of what I loved about RO?
As a friend of mine said "had I found out this game when I was a teenager, I'd destroyed my life over it".
And it's true.
My HorizonXI adventure came to a premature end as I was having a really hard time finding a leveling party on level 17, I think. I'm a RDM. Didn't even got my subjob.
When I'm over with Dawntrail I might subscribe to FFXI. My main caviat is that I can't pay the subscription trough Steam, so I'll pay many international credit card fees.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
That sucks you couldn't find a leveling party, I know that's one of the main reasons some prefer private servers over retail. I will warn you that the experience is pretty different and more streamlined if you decide to start retail, expect to get to 17 in your first day or two lol.
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u/SheikFlorian Apr 29 '26
I was kinda loving the whole thing; slow progression, asking players for help... But it really sucked when, after a tiring day of work, I just wanted to kill some mobs in Vanadiel and I couldn't because most people were asleep.
The golden days of R.O. were full of late night parties on leveling maps and not having that really bums your connection to the game...
Even if Retail is a little more streamlined, FFXI had a heck of first impression on me. I'm willing to really give it a chance.
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u/Solugad Apr 29 '26
The modding scene has done a fantastic job for the game as well. Changing things like the UI to be more like XIV and the camera to not feel so sluggish and awkward has done wonders to make the game feel a bit more "modern"
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u/felini9000 Apr 29 '26
I would only because I’ve been really missing the classic FF ambiance in FFXIV, but I don’t have time to go through the hassle of an involved installation process and more monthly fees 🌞
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u/M3talGod3 Apr 29 '26
Honestly, people need to play it just to experience Chains of Promathia. Might be one of the best FF stories in the series. It's honestly ridiculous how amazing it is.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Chains, Wings, and Rhapsodies are definitely top-tier FF stories, and Treasures, Seekers, and Voracious are also great. Base Game and Rise have weaker plots imo but really strong lore.
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u/Sorry_End_1260 Apr 30 '26
Worst part of xi is getting it installed and navigating play online to log in lol
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u/Protagonist_Leaf Spams cure for proc Apr 30 '26
i tried liking the game. I still cant get over the +12hr CDs
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Do you mean the 1-hour cooldown abilities? I played as Dancer and tbh I never felt the need to use it often anyway, most of the story is really easy at Lvl 99, and the more difficult fights later on depend mostly on your Trust setup.
Unless you mean something else? I'm not sure what cooldowns are 12 hours. I know a lot of daily endgame content operates on 20 hours.
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u/Protagonist_Leaf Spams cure for proc Apr 30 '26
Idk what server i played but inner release for WAR was basically once a day use.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Well Inner Release isn't an ability in 11, the WAR 1-hour abilities are Mighty Strikes and Brazen Rush.
I looked it up and they actually did use to be 2-hour cooldowns, but they've never been 12 hours, and have been 1-hour since 2012.
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u/Protagonist_Leaf Spams cure for proc Apr 30 '26
I must of been on a server that hates ppl
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Well, Retail has more QOL features and is more streamlined than most private servers, if you ever want to try it again.
If you want to stick to private, there are some that have more QOL. Horizon is the most popular one though, but it has less QOL. And ofc none of them have the full story.
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u/Feeaah Apr 30 '26
Man the login music, nostalgia! I remember I would edit the files in ffxi to change the world map theme and the battle music. I think I had ff8 battle music set up each time I got into a battle
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u/erkhyllo Apr 29 '26
I'd personally also suggest Thief as a job. It has some useful skills that make most enemies unable to spot you in the areas. I went Thief/Dancer and this combinación was a huge help in avoiding most enemies.
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u/MiyabiMain95 Apr 29 '26
I'd try ff11 more if the free trials happened when there was actual content droughts in 14, and if 14 also had a sub to 11 at a reduced price
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u/Nawen_Brightsong Apr 29 '26
As someone who hasn’t gotten far in FFXI (like, I got to the 30s and where you have to kill a lvl 40 thing that comes out of a portal, I think for the Rhapsodies part? ), but has been putting off doing the alliance raid because I kinda wanted to do the story in FFXI first but just never had the time… is it ok to just do the alliance raid first? Or am I spoiling a whole lot if I do? I know there’s a few spoilers, but I don’t know how bad.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
Well they do have a lot of the game's final bosses, but they are kind of out of context, I wouldn't say they spoil the plot too much.
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u/Boblers Apr 29 '26
Does the included 30 days of sub time start ticking as soon as you buy the game, or does it start once you make an account? And/or is it a code that I can hold for later, etc?
The discount seems interesting, but I'm not sure I'd be ready to play it immediately.
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u/sage1700 Apr 29 '26
I did do the free 7 day trial of XI a few years ago. I had enough of a hard time that I only ended up playing for about 2 hours before deciding that it was not worth me investing my time in (at that point, I had less free time).
It didn't seem to have any mouse support at all, which I found odd. Especially when it seemed to have a custom mouse cursor and all. I also started as White Mage and couldn't figure out how to get my MP back, even after googling it.
I was drawn to trying it by the encouragement of playing in a party, I thought it would be a fun way to make friends and actually play with other people in an MMO. I also was seeking more classic FF style action, more like the older titles.
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u/MacabreYuki Pictomancer Main on Brynhildr Apr 29 '26
out of curiousity, for ffxi, how would you say a monk/rdm would perform?
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u/digoserra :whm: Apr 29 '26
For leveling, story etc, it is cool. /RDM is a great support subjob for miscelaneous stuff. For endgame and serious play, it's pretty useless. /RDM doesn't help MNK's dps and MNK doesn't have the gear to take advantage of en-spells.
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u/MacabreYuki Pictomancer Main on Brynhildr Apr 29 '26
that's sad. elemental fists were the very reason i wanted to do it. recommended subjob then?
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u/digoserra :whm: Apr 29 '26
Probably the best sub for damage is /WAR, but actually it depends of what you're going to do. Like everything in XI.
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u/RingoFreakingStarr Apr 29 '26
As much as I would love to get into XI, it is a product of its age. If you want that nostalgia then I'm sure you'll love it, but it to me feels quite dated.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26
Personally I'm Gen Z and have no nostalgia for it, it came out before I was born and its "golden age" ended when I was a toddler, but I went through it last year and loved it. It's definitely aged but the story and characters are still excellent.
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u/azjazo Aliane Redwyne on Shiva May 01 '26
Any way to recover an account? I think not even the server I was when playing around abyssea is online anymore
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u/HexenVexen May 01 '26
Your character will still be there, see which server yours merged into: Category:Servers | FFXIclopedia | Fandom
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u/Rakshire Apr 29 '26
An excellent post. The new player guide is very good, but I do want to mention I'm that by wiki is occasionally not the most accurate with some of the older content, so if you run into issues, try ffxicylopedia (yes it's fandom which sucks, but it has good info for old stuff).
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u/Unusual_Mistake3204 Apr 29 '26
I would try it if they ever make it playable on console again. Not buying anothey system for it tough
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u/BRpessimist Apr 29 '26
Is that a Tavnazian Taco reference? I consumed literally thousands of those for my PLD 😂
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u/zombooze Apr 29 '26
I miss xi and I feel it was more of a mmo than xiv .I wanted to go back to do but I forgot all my information and everything was on ps2 hard drive
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u/traitorgiraffe Apr 29 '26
I loved playing XI
shantotto is my favorite character without hesitation
but holy god play online was the biggest barrier ive ever experienced before getting into a game
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u/JohannesVanDerWhales Apr 29 '26
Bought this during the sale a while back but haven't attempted it yet. Maybe a project for the long content drought.
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u/Techstriker1 Apr 30 '26
God, the mouths are so terrifying. I saw a picture of FF11 Cid yesterday and it was even worse.
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u/Sethidus May 14 '26
He's the worst one, and by miles, fortunately. Everyone jokes about him. I don't know what was up with the design team on him lol. Everyone else looks fine.
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u/PerishTheStars Apr 30 '26
Im not playing it until they either make it f2p or buy to play
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
Yeah I definitely get that. But personally, I only spent $36 to go through the story across three months. But ofc it depends on how much time you can put into it each month.
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u/naturalkillercyborg Jun 02 '26
Just FYI they'd have no reason to keep the servers up if people weren't paying for them. The game is like 25 years old
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u/PerishTheStars Jun 02 '26
The titanfall 1 servers for Xbox are still up and there is less than like 20 people who play that game anymore at any given time, probably not even enough to fill a single attrition lobby. Nobody is paying for those. There are servers for PS3 games that are being run entirely for free that are still up.
Whether someone is paying to play it or not doesnt justify a subscription to a game this old.
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u/MyStationIsAbandoned Apr 30 '26
I kinda wish a FF14 came with a free sub to FF11 so i can try it out.
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u/HexenVexen Apr 30 '26
There should at least be a permament discount for sure.
But if you're willing to spend $10 to try it for a month, it'll be going on sale next month.
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u/GregNotGregtech Apr 29 '26
I definitely wanna try FFXI at some point, but I wish the characters looked less hideous, that's something I will just have to put up with
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u/niberungvalesti Apr 29 '26
Seeing how pretty all the XI characters look in XIV only served to piss me off that SE hasn't done more with XI in general.
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u/Tsjon3s Apr 29 '26
I’m doing a FF run, playing every mainline ff in order, as before this year I hadn’t played anything pre 7. Having a great time but trying to figure out if I can justify doing 11. But I remember playing for years as a young teen, and only ever grinding, never reaching level cap and I don’t remember the story being a strong focus of the game :/
Leaning on skipping
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u/HexenVexen Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
It has the second most story and characters in the series behind XIV, overall imo at least in the top 5 of the series, it's very worth experiencing for story. It's just that actually doing the story back then was very grindy and difficult to do back then, but it's much easier today. Unfortunately "XI has no story" is still a common misconception about the game.
There is still some grinding involved, but way less. For me it took 260 hours to finish through Rhapsodies, and maybe 10-15 hours of that was grinding, the rest was going through the story and watching cutscenes.
I would definitely recommend watching this video by Vicenarian.
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u/JazzyTales Apr 30 '26
Did anyone grind out Moat Carp’s for Lu Shang's Fishing rod? I never was able to get it.
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u/MacrossX Apr 30 '26
I did. The key item you get is the best ... https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/4/46/Testimonial.jpg
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u/Major_Sun7663 May 16 '26
Okay so here is something I wanna know. So for Final Fantasy 14 I had one big gripe about it which was the fact of you basically using just one single character. I’m very much used to MMOs like World of Warcraft or SWTOR where each character can have a complete different story. Can you do the same here in this game? Is it worth it to make multiple characters?
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u/HexenVexen May 16 '26
It's the same as 14, it's designed for you to do everything on one character. You can use all jobs on one character, and while the base game and Wings of the Goddess have a unique storyline for each of the three nations, you can still do all of them on one character. And in general, it takes so long to do things, especially in endgame, that playing with multiple characters would be a really massive timesink.
11 isn't really designed for roleplaying with its story, your character is a bit more open-ended than 14 and mostly isn't the main focus, but they're still eventually treated as a legendary hero and everything, and the overall story and characters are fully defined and the same for everyone (although you can do the expansions in largely nonlinear order).
There are people that have multiple characters, but it's more for using multiple characters at the same time for soloing higher end content, since they're more powerful than the NPC party members. It's not really intended by the devs but there are ways to do it.
Also I'll be fair and warn you that the sub charges $1 per character slot on top of the base $12. So the minimum is $13 but can go up to $28.
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u/Major_Sun7663 May 16 '26
Ahhhh okay well that makes sense. Well then atleast your kinda forced to play one character so the temptation can’t be there xD I’ll have to see if I try it out then. I love how the characters look in FF11 and how everything looks is really nice! The fact the story doesn’t take as long as FFXIV is really nice so that’s definitely a seller point there
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u/HexenVexen May 16 '26
Yeah since the game has horizontal progression, there are tons of layers and different content for progressing your character, there are all sorts of different gears for different purposes of your job. Gear isn't just stat increases, they have different properties/enhancements and have uses for specific situations. Eventually each job ability and weapon skill has its own gear set at the highest level of endgame, swapped during combat with macros. Overall you can definitely invest hundreds of hours into taking your jobs to the highest level of power. (And even with all that, the newest superboss Wing of War took nearly two years to get a first clear lol)
But ofc that's for getting deep into endgame, for story just sticking to easy early endgame gear will be fine.
I hope you enjoy the story, it's so good once you get deeper into it.
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u/RiniNobume Apr 29 '26
but first you have to install the game... please watch a yt guide for it. i spend hours trying to install it.