u/HexenVexen

Hey guys, FFXI's anniversary is tomorrow (already today in Japan), and there has been some exciting stuff for it recently, and I thought I'd compile it in one place to share here.

• FFXIV just finished its crossover raid series Echoes of Vana'diel, and is currently having the limited event The Maiden's Rhapsody until May 25th
• A new animation "Our Adventure Never Ends" has been created by Waboku, featuring many characters and a new song by Naoshi Mizuta
• The FFXI website has been updated to have a modern layout https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/
• FFXI Soundtrack Special Live Stream will be streamed May 17th 8:00 PM – 20th 5:00 AM (PDT), the channel has also been uploading the Priceless Remembrance album
• A few months ago, the developers finally replaced the old PS2 devkits with modern tools like Blender and Maya
• Several event campaigns are occuring or coming soon, featuring several rewards and boosts, such as the new Jubilee Ring
• Several discount campaigns:
  • Discount Campaign: From May 15th to June 9th, the Complete Edition will be 67% off ($30 -> $10)
  • Echoes of Vana'diel Discount: From May 27th to June 9th, players who are subscribed to XIV will receive a discounted 30 days of XI sub ($13 -> $7). If you are buying XI for the first time, it seems like this discount will still apply after the included first 30 days, as long as you buy the game within this window.
  • Return Home to Vana'diel: From May 15th to May 25th, players previously subscribed to XI will be able to play the game for free. (Must be unsubscribed as of May 12th)
• Updates we've gotten so far this year include a new upgrade system for Trust NPC party members, tutorial improvements, and updates to battle content Limbus, Beseiged, and Ambuscade
• Not a SE announcement, but the "Wing of War" Master Trial was finally defeated last month after nearly two years of efforts. This is likely the current hardest fight in the FF series. Here's a great video by Vicenarian about it

And now future updates that the devs have talked about in the recent past and this morning's Freshly Picked livestream (some are coming soon, some aren't concrete yet and may take a while):

• Later this year:
  • Free trial update: level cap will be raised to 75, will be unlimited in time, no longer limited to two weeks, seems to still only include the base game
  • Adding an equipment system for Trusts
  • Further updates to Limbus with new Notorious Monsters, music, and weapons
  • Updates to battle content Vana'bout
  • New field Notorious Monsters for mid-endgame things, including Trust equipment
  • Three new High-Tier Mission Battlefields (basically replayable harder versions of story bosses) for A Crystalline Prophecy, A Shantotto Accension, and A Moogle Kupo d’Etat, with iLvl 119 versions of their rewards
  • Mog Bonanza campaign will happen more times a year (lottery for powerful items/weapons)
• Planned for the future:
  • Adding new areas
  • A story replay feature
  • Consolidating teleportation systems
  • Adding a party finder system
  • Revamping PlayOnline

If you're interested in joining or returning to XI, now is a pretty exciting time to get into it, especially with the current discount and free period. I wrote an introduction post for anyone interested.

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.

Edit: Added sections for leveling, music, XI's future, and private servers, and bolded some of the key information to know.

Here are some great resources:

• Videos
  • Vicenarian: Why FF fans should play XI, XI vs XIV Differences, Gameplay tips, Story tips, Beginning + Endgame tips
  • SoberDwarf: Beginner's guide
  • Greg Troyan: Story Overview (Contains some spoilers)
• 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

1. 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.

2. 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. 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.

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 tame the underworld with Boudox. 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.

3. 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. 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.

4. Leveling

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 "Empress Band" you'll get early on in the guide. The game also has level caps that must be removed through "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)
• 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)

5. 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. The raids already give a great platter of XI's music, but here are some tracks that didn't make it into the raids:

• Flowers on the Battlefield
• The Cosmic Wheel
• Breaking Ground
• The Sacred City of Adoulin
• 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 players.!<

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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. 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 and being able to experience the full story. 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.

9. 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 three servers are currently not open to new players, so Phoenix 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're willing to wait a bit, the complete edition will go on sale for $10 next month, which is a perfect way to give it a try for a month (unfortunately the free trial is pretty limited, only 2 weeks long with only base game and Lvl 50 cap, you have to buy the game within 90 days after or your character gets deleted, I generally don't recommend it). 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.