FINAL FANTASY® XI: Ultimate Collection Seekers Edition NA (230330)

[Ebojager]

Compatibility Report

• FINAL FANTASY® XI: Ultimate Collection Seekers Edition NA
• Steam AppID of the game: 230330

System Information

• GPU: GTX-1070 FE
• Driver/LLVM version: 418.56
• Kernel version: 5.0.0-15
• https://gist.github.com/Ebojager/b31ce4431e8ea9ab5ffc8d01221e1a1f
• Proton version: 4.2-4 and others

I confirm:

• that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

steam-230330.log

Symptoms:

When Steam for Linux does any kind of update for this title it breaks the game and the game no longer runs in Proton. The POL Client runs, but the launching from the client to the actual game gets broken and requires a complete removal and reinstall, which is about 5 hours. The game and client updates are handled by Square-Enix, so not sure what Steam is doing that's causing this. Even using the built in "VIEW INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES" option causes corruption and requires a complete reinstall as when it tries to fix something, it replaces the PlayOnline client with an incompatible version, which requires a complete reinstall of the game. There is no need for Steam to update this program and should be exluded from Steam updates.

Reproduction:

Wait for Steam to notify of an update or run the "VIEW INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES" option.
Launch game
Login if possible
If Possible, launch game from Client
Screen goes black and returns to client.

I recommend an option to exclude this title from any Steam updates as a work around and they are not needed for this title.

[Chiitoo]

When Steam for Linux does any kind of update for this title it breaks the game and the game no longer runs in Proton. The POL Client runs, but the launching from the client to the actual game gets broken and requires a complete removal and reinstall, which is about 5 hours. The game and client updates are handled by Square-Enix, so not sure what Steam is doing that's causing this. Even using the built in "VIEW INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES" option causes corruption and requires a complete reinstall as when it tries to fix something, it replaces the PlayOnline client with an incompatible version, which requires a complete reinstall of the game.

I saw someone report something very similar, if not identical, at the official FFXI forums [1], and I'd guess they're running with Windows.

This would make it seem like this is an issue with the Steam version itself, not with something that happens on Linux/Proton specifically.

1. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/55378

[Ebojager]

I had been hearing that on reddit too, but I had the issue when running the file checker in Steam for Linux before the update. I actually ran the file checker twice with the same results. But maybe your right. I never tried the game via Steam when I was on Windows.
It does sound like a Steam version itself issue. I actually sent a ticket to steam and they told me to post here.
Let me know if I should close this then? This is my first post.

[Chiitoo]

Thank you for your first post! :]

I'd imagine it's good to leave it open at least until someone can test that this indeed also happens in a native Windows environment as described, and if it does, I would create a bug report over at the official FFXI forums, if no one has got to it yet.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's up to the game publisher to tweak what Steam downloads, and if it should indeed download and install anything at all (after the initial install I would deem this at least dangerous, as it can potentially get rid of user data such as saved macro and configuration settings).