Final Fantasy XI: The Lure of the Blue Mage

So FFXI, the grind-grind-asian-happy MMO is getting an expansion come Tuesday. Normally this would go over like a lead balloon for me, since FFXI was, you know, grind-grind, but Squeenix decided to throw a wrench in the gears:

They’re adding a Blue Mage class.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve got this Blue Mage fetish. I love them. At the end of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, my main character was a Blue Mage with the Ninja’s TwoSwords ability – kicking ass with the unique Blue Mage shamshirs and occasionally stopping to drop White Wind and Mighty Guard was a hoot.

So, can anyone try and dissuade me from buying this expansion? I played FFXI at release, and it sucked eggs, and I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed, but fuck, BLUE MAGES. Fuck.

-Blue Mage-, amirite?

I hear there is a “puppetmaster” class. Does anyone know if this class is one you can pick from the start, or is it one of their “play till level gabillion before you can choose this” kind of classes? I’d be willing to put up with the slowness and the grind and all the other horrible things if that class is fun.

This expansion is quite interesting and I would play it for sure if Square had solved the high number of accessibility problems. But they haven’t and the game is still horribly crippled.

The three new classes are Blue Mage, Puppetmaster and Corsair (but I don’t know if they are accessible since level 1). There are interesting new gameplay modes added (a city zerged by mobs that you have to defend and then counterattack raiding the lair of the mobs) and even the possibility to grow your own chocobo and have chocobo races later on.

And the new zones and monsters look amazing even if they still have to make everything compatible with the PSX 2.

no sry

Without linking to your blog, what do you mean by accessibility problems? I remember that godawful frontend POS loader thing… but I’m assuming you’re talking about mechanics? Admittedly I never got past level, oh, five, in my time with the game, so the only things I learned were soloing is next to impossible and you lose a shitload of exp on death.

well, if you want to play again get ready to buy everything over again since PlayOnline won’t let you reactivate old accounts last I checked and the serials are bound to it…

What a horrible policy. Having retarted old accounts in DAoC and WoW, I’d never bother with an MMO that deleted dormant accounts.

Yeah, I’d actually think about picking this up again, if my account still existed. Despite all the problems and the insane difficulty curve, I liked the game a lot (mostly because I’m a Final Fantasy geek). I actually got to like level 35 in the game and had unlocked almost all of the extra classes.

Well I don’t have any of the discs anymore, so that’s not really a big issue.

Plus the core game with all expansions before this new one is like $20.

Unless the expansion is stand-alone, like EQ’s Kunark… anyone know?

I think the new expansion is stand alone and requires another purchase.

You can reactivate old accounts if you haven’t played… look into “return to vana’diel.” I don’t really find the game to be that inaccessible though. It’s just a little more hard core than most.

Hello-wello! Long-time FFXI player here. While I enjoy the game, it is a bit more hardcore than some would like. My advice to the original poster is, if you played it before and didn’t like it, I doubt that the new jobs will save it for you, Blue Mage love or no. Especially since you’re probably going to need a level 30 job to get the quests for the new jobs… same as usual.

  • Cannot play in a window without cheat programs
  • Cannot easily resubscribe
  • Stupid billing system (if you subscribe the 30 April you will be billed again the 1 May)
  • Harsh death penalties
  • Slow travel system (it takes ages to move between the zones and in the cities)
  • Unusable, counterintuitive quest system
  • Impossibility to solo
  • Slow content progression
  • Terribly restrictive group requirements

And so on.

It’s just absurdly hard to get involved into the game. Insanely long LFG downtimes (hours), unbalance in the classes that are group-friendly, unbalance with the healers, difficulty to build decent groups without absolutely perfect combination of classes.

There are HUGE flaws that undermine this game. For me most of these are impassable barriers. For example I started in the TaruTaru capital and it was simly impossible to get a group past 10 because the “default” zone where everyone else is (Valkrum) is many zones away. So it would take me a lot of time and probably many deaths to arrive there.

The travelling system is very harsh for new players as everything else in the game. It just doesn’t allow you to enjoy it.

  • a frontloader for FFXI lets you play windowed without any other cheats. technically against TOS but I’ve never had problems with it.
  • you can easily resubscribe
  • the billing system is indeed shady, unfortunately
  • ease of travel is a reward for progression in the game. The newer garrison quests make it much easier than it used to be.
  • has some of the best quests of any MMO, heck, better than many single player RPG’s
  • soloing is a breeze for all but a couple specific classes
  • you won’t blow through all the content in 2 months. There is a ton of world there for you to enjoy and explore.
  • no powerlevelling l33t d00ds insisting that they keep their level 4 friend in the group.

Honestly Hrose, I think you’re off your rocker with your complaints. I don’t ever see insanely long LFG downtimes, and I can always solo until I pick up a group. It’s easy to put together different types of groups that work well. Yes, you need a healer. Yes, you need a tank. OMG the horror! Getting from Windurst to Valkurm dunes is pretty easy. Sure, you can get aggro and die, but it’s not like travel is entirely without risk in other games either. I just don’t see how you consider the travelling system to be harsh. It makes no sense to me.

  • Cannot play in a window without cheat programs

This is true.

  • Cannot easily resubscribe

This is usually true. Now and then, however, Square-Enix runs promotions that let you buy a new account and recover your old characters. They are running one right now, as a matter of fact.

  • Stupid billing system (if you subscribe the 30 April you will be billed again the 1 May)

Um… no. Well, yes and no. Square bills on the 1st of the month. In your trial month, you will be prorated, so the first 30 days are still free. It is certainly true, however, that if you buy a content ID for an extra character on the last day of the month, you’ve mostly wasted a dollar, because the next billing period will ding you another dollar on the 1st.

  • Harsh death penalties

Yes, including delevelling.

  • Slow travel system (it takes ages to move between the zones and in the cities)

There is a quest in each of the major cities that gives you fast zone access by linking the mog houses in the various residential areas. There are “warping Tarus” in Windurst to help you get around. It is certainly true that travel between the cities is time consuming until you’ve progressed somewhat. Chocobo license at level 20, airship pass at rank 5. Outpost teleports available at various levels, capping out at the exotic zones around level 65. When I was starting out, I liked that travel was hard. The world felt very large, and I felt a great feeling of accomplishment after completing a journey of any significant length.

  • Unusable, counterintuitive quest system

It doesn’t lead you around by the hand like WoW does, but I would hardly call it unusable.

  • Impossibility to solo

Ummm… no. Beastmasters, while feeling some pain from a recent nerf, can still solo all the way to 75. Some other jobs are soloable as well, with patience. I agree that this is not a solo-friendly game in general.

If you played FFXI in the early days, you may be interested to know that the weaker mobs are worth more XP than they used to be. This makes soloing a viable proposition for longer… but you will want a group eventually.

I recently soloed DRG/WHM all the way to 18, and never visited Valkurm once.

  • Slow content progression

Would you care to elaborate?

  • Terribly restrictive group requirements

There are HUGE flaws that undermine this game. For me most of these are impassable barriers. For example I started in the TaruTaru capital and it was simly impossible to get a group past 10 because the “default” zone where everyone else is (Valkrum) is many zones away. So it would take me a lot of time and probably many deaths to arrive there.

Well, that’s your fault for following the cookie cutter progression. At 10, you really should be in Tahrongi Canyon. You don’t even need a full party to level there. From there, the Maze, and then Buburimu. If you really want to go to Valkurm, you can bust your hump to reach the ferry at Mhaura, but it is a crying shame that more people don’t use the opportunities available to them on the Windurst side of the ocean.

If your point is that FFXI isn’t WoW, OK, point taken. FFXI is a hardcore MMOG, parts of it suck, parts are very grindy, but despite all that, some parts are good and others are downright excellent. I have had some of the most satisfying moments in my gaming experience in FFXI. I think it’s a good game, but it requires a major time investment and it won’t suit everybody’s tastes.

Does anyone know which, if any of the new classes in the expansion are ‘default’ classes? I just lost all interest if I had to grind some newb character to 30 just to play a level 1 Blue Mage.

DRG with /WHM or /RDM or /BRD is soloable supposedly until 75… I can personally attest to its soloability as of 53.

Well, that’s your fault for following the cookie cutter progression.

Yeah, this is pretty much right, and addresses basically all of his gameplay-related complaints. For instance, the grouping isn’t as restrictive as you think. I hear all the time about people coming up with alternate party builds that perform as well as standard builds, if not better, and some aren’t even full parties. The real “problem” is that the classes are extremely well differentiated (as opposed to, oh say, WoW), and it takes a little creativity and thought to pull it off. Such a flaw.

Cannot play in a window without cheat programs

Yeah, that’s pretty lame. But you know, it’s quick and easy to install Windower, and, while technically against the rules, it’s not like they’re going to catch you. It’s not a big deal.

Does anyone know which, if any of the new classes in the expansion are ‘default’ classes? I just lost all interest if I had to grind some newb character to 30 just to play a level 1 Blue Mage.

AFAIK they haven’t made an official announcement on this, but I’d bet a hundred bucks or a million gil that the answer is “none of them.” In fact, it’s been fairly widely speculated among the (admittedly semi-retarded) FFXI community that the new jobs will unlock at 50 instead of 30. But that’s purely conjecture, unless something’s changed in the week or so that I’ve been playing Morrowind instead of FFXI.

Super.

What’s your fansite of choice for guides/discussion/information on the game?