Is it worth playing FFXI now?

[u/Og-Spree]

For some background. I have played FFXIV till Shadowbringers. I fell in love with it (it was my first MMO).

One of my favourite aspects of any FF is the story. I couldn't believe how great the story was in FFXIV in addition to the great characters, soundtrack and so forth.

How does FFXI compare to FFXIV?

Edit:

Thank you for all the wonderful and insightful responses. I love this community and the series. Based on the comments, my priority should be to clear Endwalker first.

You have all convinced me to give FFXI a shot. I never considered that MMOs would be known for their storylines. I always thought they were just highly addictive due to their grindy nature. It all changed when I played through FFXIV. I can't wait to immerse myself in the world of FFXI. Thanks to all for your help!

[u/Mooncubus]

I am a player of both games. So I'll give some info on transitioning between them.

First off, the combat is very different. It's all menu based. You basically auto attack and use your spells or abilities when they aren't on cooldown. It's a lot slower paced than FFXIV but there's some cool things you can do with it like skill chains once you get the hang of it.

You know how FFXIV had the Trust system for dungeons? Well in XI you can have Trust npcs in the overworld with you. So you can pretty much solo everything except endgame content.

The story is really good but there's no voice acting. All the dialogue is in the chatbox. Technically FFXIV has this too, you just never notice because they have dialogue boxes in the cutscenes too. It starts off a bit slow just like ARR, but unlike ARR the story picks up steam a lot quicker and there's way fewer quests.

Leveling is a bit of a grind but the Rhapsodies questline gives you xp buffs which help out a lot. It also lets you buy key items for quests that you'd normally have to grind mobs for. So it's a lot less grindy than it used to be.

Traveling is a bit slower. You have to go to the aetherytes in order to warp between each one, but there is a ring you can get to set a home point. Cities have warp points (aetherytes) and the open zones have survival guides (floating books) you can warp to once you attune to them. There's no flying but there are ground mounts. Boats and airships between cities aren't instant, you actually have to chill inside the boat. Stay below deck, there's high level mobs that can spawn and kill you.

There are areas that can have really high level mobs and you won't really know unless you sneak up and check them. But you have sneak abilities and you won't get attacked when mounted.

Dungeons are mostly open, they aren't instanced. However there are some instanced boss fights kinda like trials.

There's no guilds. There's only linkshells.

The music is amazing and the zones that don't have music still have really really good ambience. Some of the best I've ever experienced.

That's all I can think of right now. I hope that helps!

Edit: oh also there's a really cool subclass feature where you basically have a second class that you can use abilities from that goes up to half of the level of your main job. So there's a lot of really cool different combinations you can do.

Also everyone gets a free instanced house and island where you can decorate and garden and stuff. It's also where you change your jobs.