Quitting FFXI

After 5 months of playing Final Fantasy XI, I cancelled my account today. I still think FFXI is a good game, but it was getting boring. As I mentioned in the last blog, I'm the explorer type of MMORPG player, and after some months you simply run out of areas to explore in any game. But if anything in particular drove me out of FFXI, it was the group system.

Now I love fighting in groups. It is a lot more interesting than soloing in most cases. But FFXI has a system that seems particularly designed to make finding a group difficult. The experience points a group earns are solely based on the level of the highest level character in the group. So if there are 5 people of the same level looking for a 6th, and you are 2 levels higher, they won't invite you, as you would kill everybodies xp. And if you are 3 levels lower they will only invite you if you are a white mage, this being the only class where level isn't that important. A warrior of 3 levels lower would have problems hitting the mob, while a black mages spell simply wouldn't deal much damage if he was too low in level.

So we end up with a game in which it is nearly impossible to gain xp outside of a group, and that group has to be near perfect in composition, with a very narrow level range. This results in a high rate of "unemployment", people that would like to play, but are forced to wait for an opening in a group. There are some character classes, like white mage, where the problem is less pressing, as every group needs one. But damage dealing fighter classes are a dime a dozen, and your cool Dragoon might simply have to wait over an hour before getting into a group.

Part 2 of that grouping problem is transport. It doesn't help you to find a group at the other end of the world, because getting somewhere in FFXI is often slow. Up to level 20 you can only walk, then you can get a chocobo to ride on at a few places. Teleport spells are level 36, and around level 50 you can finally get an airship pass that allows you to take a flying ship from city to city.

So in order to get a group without a transport problem, people head to the most popular zone for their level. Everybody from level 10 to 20 is in Valkurm Dunes. The Buburimu Peninsula zone, which is identical in level range, is nearly deserted. I counted 10 times more players in the dunes than on the peninsula at any given time. If you wanted to fight on the peninsula instead of the dunes, it would take hours to get a group together. And the same thing continues at higher levels, from 20 to 25 everybody is in Qufim, from 25 to 32 in Kazham jungle, and so on. It's a vicious circle, to find a group you need to go to the most popular places, but that in turn makes them overcrowded and a lot less fun.

Changing the way group experience points are given out would already make FFXI a much better game. It is okay for a game design to encourage people to group instead of playing solo. But this has to be designed in a way that makes finding a group easy, not by simply forcing people into groups by not giving them xp if they don't. Groups should be easy to set up, allowing a wide range of levels and character classes, so you can play with your guild mates even if the match isn't perfect. In FFXI the xp drop from moving away from the perfect template just a bit is simply too harsh.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:45 AM Permanent Link