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I figured it's been a while since I actually talked about FFXI in this forum for a while, so I might as well jot down my thoughts on where the game stands, here on the cusp of a new increase to the level cap.
It's a mixed bag, really. SE has made the game vastly more accessible to most people in the past year or so, with Abyssea acting as the great leveler, supplanting old content with a range of gear that is a significant improvement on what had traditionally been the most sought-after pieces in endgame.
Which... isn't actually all that much of a blessing, in many ways. From an account-retention perspective, it's irritating for people who spent literally years working their way up to suddenly find that the pixels they spent so much time attaining are now considered sub-optimal. And that the gear that replaced them is attainable in a matter of days. Sure, it tended to weed out some of the really obnoxious elitists for whom the game died when it moved out of the Aery, but even I was rather vexed when I realized that my Adaman Hauberk was gonna be sitting in storage for the foreseeable future. SE has repeatedly stated, or at least implied, that they intended to offer upgrade potential for the gear people spent so much time acquiring, but the augment system they added for Abjuration and Sky gear is still rather unimpressive compared to most of the "new endgame" gear.
And I still want to get my damn Hauteclaire to 90. I miss it. Even though I only play PLD once in a blue moon these days.
The process of getting to the level cap is what has arguably changed the most, and SE has been left rather flat-footed in responding to this change, from what I can tell. Between book burns, Abyssea burns, and every other variation of methods by which full alliances of people get more experience per-hour than the very best merit parties could manage pre-Abyssea, it has again been a great leveler; people without nearly so much time to play can now level functionally any job they want to cap without having to give up any other aspect of their gaming experience.
Except that it doesn't really work that way. You wind up with a lot of people at what is theoretically endgame level, with the skill levels of a job at level 40, and functionally zero experience playing the class they're theoretically trying to participate with in an event that might not be so forgiving of the fact that they have no idea what they're doing.
It's also been interesting to see how the party composition and class dynamics have shifted. Tanking is now typically done by a pure DD, with cure-spamming taking the place of damage mitigation in many instances. Monks can achieve positively ridiculous counter rates, and with a decent -MDT set, can tank functionally any NM in Abyssea without much difficulty, and without taking that much damage besides.
Paladin, as a consequence, has rather been on the outs. Sure, you can take a PLD, and sure, a good PLD is still very hard to kill. A PLD with Ochain is damn near invincible to some NMs, as a matter of fact, as is an Aegis PLD on others.
But who cares? In Abyssea you don't have to worry nearly as much about damage mitigation; your White Mages are getting 12-15 MP/tick, and are running around with +50% cure potency. I can, and have, tanked quite effectively on Dark Knight with only Seigan/Third Eye as a defensive measure, and between the massive cures and massive HP bonuses in Abyssea, never been any particular risk of dying.
So PLD is a job in search of a role, though they do have one in the new Voidwatch content. As the game transitions out of Abyssea, I expect we'll see more of the old dynamic re-emerging, with dedicated tanks whose primary role is to not die and hold a reasonable amount of hate, and healers that invest a bit more effort in -enmity gear over pure cure spam.
One of the jobs that's really going to be hard for SE to bring back into the spotlight though, in my opinion, is Red Mage. Even with Refresh II, the job just doesn't have that same utility as it used to; PLDs can Phalanx themselves now, anyone subbing RDM had Refresh and Convert to boost their MP pool, and in general it just feels like RDM has lost some of its defined role, and I'm not sure how SE can give it back, short of some truly beastly buff/debuffs. Haste II or some such; something that makes RDM highly desirable.
In some ways I find it ironic that SE actually went and did the one thing I never expected them to for Dark Knight: Extended the duration of Last Resort to three minutes without nerfing Desperate Blows.
Frankly, give me a pocket Bard to keep me running with Haste/March/March, and I am an ebon god of death. It's insane, and a little unbalancing, when you realize that a well-geared DRK can be running around with 80% haste 72% of the time. Put said DRK into Abyssea, with things like Atma of the Apocalypse, and that DRK will be swinging their weapon around like a meth-addled Cuisinart with rabies.
On fire.
It's a mixed bag, really. SE has made the game vastly more accessible to most people in the past year or so, with Abyssea acting as the great leveler, supplanting old content with a range of gear that is a significant improvement on what had traditionally been the most sought-after pieces in endgame.
Which... isn't actually all that much of a blessing, in many ways. From an account-retention perspective, it's irritating for people who spent literally years working their way up to suddenly find that the pixels they spent so much time attaining are now considered sub-optimal. And that the gear that replaced them is attainable in a matter of days. Sure, it tended to weed out some of the really obnoxious elitists for whom the game died when it moved out of the Aery, but even I was rather vexed when I realized that my Adaman Hauberk was gonna be sitting in storage for the foreseeable future. SE has repeatedly stated, or at least implied, that they intended to offer upgrade potential for the gear people spent so much time acquiring, but the augment system they added for Abjuration and Sky gear is still rather unimpressive compared to most of the "new endgame" gear.
And I still want to get my damn Hauteclaire to 90. I miss it. Even though I only play PLD once in a blue moon these days.
The process of getting to the level cap is what has arguably changed the most, and SE has been left rather flat-footed in responding to this change, from what I can tell. Between book burns, Abyssea burns, and every other variation of methods by which full alliances of people get more experience per-hour than the very best merit parties could manage pre-Abyssea, it has again been a great leveler; people without nearly so much time to play can now level functionally any job they want to cap without having to give up any other aspect of their gaming experience.
Except that it doesn't really work that way. You wind up with a lot of people at what is theoretically endgame level, with the skill levels of a job at level 40, and functionally zero experience playing the class they're theoretically trying to participate with in an event that might not be so forgiving of the fact that they have no idea what they're doing.
It's also been interesting to see how the party composition and class dynamics have shifted. Tanking is now typically done by a pure DD, with cure-spamming taking the place of damage mitigation in many instances. Monks can achieve positively ridiculous counter rates, and with a decent -MDT set, can tank functionally any NM in Abyssea without much difficulty, and without taking that much damage besides.
Paladin, as a consequence, has rather been on the outs. Sure, you can take a PLD, and sure, a good PLD is still very hard to kill. A PLD with Ochain is damn near invincible to some NMs, as a matter of fact, as is an Aegis PLD on others.
But who cares? In Abyssea you don't have to worry nearly as much about damage mitigation; your White Mages are getting 12-15 MP/tick, and are running around with +50% cure potency. I can, and have, tanked quite effectively on Dark Knight with only Seigan/Third Eye as a defensive measure, and between the massive cures and massive HP bonuses in Abyssea, never been any particular risk of dying.
So PLD is a job in search of a role, though they do have one in the new Voidwatch content. As the game transitions out of Abyssea, I expect we'll see more of the old dynamic re-emerging, with dedicated tanks whose primary role is to not die and hold a reasonable amount of hate, and healers that invest a bit more effort in -enmity gear over pure cure spam.
One of the jobs that's really going to be hard for SE to bring back into the spotlight though, in my opinion, is Red Mage. Even with Refresh II, the job just doesn't have that same utility as it used to; PLDs can Phalanx themselves now, anyone subbing RDM had Refresh and Convert to boost their MP pool, and in general it just feels like RDM has lost some of its defined role, and I'm not sure how SE can give it back, short of some truly beastly buff/debuffs. Haste II or some such; something that makes RDM highly desirable.
In some ways I find it ironic that SE actually went and did the one thing I never expected them to for Dark Knight: Extended the duration of Last Resort to three minutes without nerfing Desperate Blows.
Frankly, give me a pocket Bard to keep me running with Haste/March/March, and I am an ebon god of death. It's insane, and a little unbalancing, when you realize that a well-geared DRK can be running around with 80% haste 72% of the time. Put said DRK into Abyssea, with things like Atma of the Apocalypse, and that DRK will be swinging their weapon around like a meth-addled Cuisinart with rabies.
On fire.
