 | 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:
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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. submitted by /u/HexenVexen [link] [comments] |
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