Tank Trusts and Turning

[Raydeus]

With the player base shrinking daily, FFXI is more and more becoming a single-player game for many people. While it actually hurts to type that, that's reality in a nutshell. Unless there is going to be some unprecedented marketing campaign for a game with no new major updates in the plans to add new blood to the game... then making solo-play function effectively as the primary intent for your remaining player base is the longest player retention method available... so the lack of plans surprises me. It's nice to say we want players to team up but that's not reality.

I agree with you.

The dev team seems to be trying to refocus on making people casually team up (Ambuscade, RoV adjustments, etc.) but that is just not going to happen nowadays. Nowadays either you are still playing with a group of friends/LS or you are soloing most of the time. Old school casual grouping just isn't a thing anymore and hasn't been since the Abyssea debacle.

In my opinion what they should focus on is making QoL adjustments for the people that are still playing the game in their own ways, instead of trying to herd us all into a particular playstyle or a particular type of community (that ship's long gone mateys.) So I hope they reconsider and start accommodating people that wont party for a myriad of reasons instead of only focusing on a casual party play that just doesn't exist anymore.

[Immortta]

Actually the party play does exist, look at every server there are aeonics everywhere. You can't do those NMs solo so people are teaming up somehow to do it? Also I find it incredibly hard to believe you literally cannot find one other person in any server to do stuff with? They do need to merge servers but I disagree that they should make the entire game solo based, that would make me quit.

[Diavolo]

And what should happen as the playerbase dwindles? Or what should happen when there are simply no players online to fulfill those roles? Are we being told to pay monthly to simply wait for others to login when we have this mechanism in place?

With the player base shrinking daily, FFXI is more and more becoming a single-player game for many people. While it actually hurts to type that, that's reality in a nutshell.

Actually the party play does exist, look at every server there are aeonics everywhere. You can't do those NMs solo so people are teaming up somehow to do it? Also I find it incredibly hard to believe you literally cannot find one other person in any server to do stuff with? They do need to merge servers but I disagree that they should make the entire game solo based, that would make me quit.

Players have been making this argument for years and it's the reason I started posting here on the official forums at all - the game is in desperate need of server merges. There is absolutely no reason why we still have sixteen servers with the active population being as low as it is today.

As Sicycre pointed out, the dev team doesn't want trusts replacing actual players, thankfully. Who would spend the time partying up with other players if they could call up five trusts capable of doing everything they needed whenever they wanted? There has to be a limit to their convenience or we would all just be playing an MMORPG as if it was a single player game and I don't know about you, but that's a really undesirable idea to me.

[Sirmarki]

Actually the party play does exist, look at every server there are aeonics everywhere. You can't do those NMs solo so people are teaming up somehow to do it?

Not quite true, many many people multibox. Most peeps I've seen whom have got almost everything is because they seem to have around three of their own characters playing simultaneously.

[Raydeus]

Actually the party play does exist, look at every server there are aeonics everywhere. You can't do those NMs solo so people are teaming up somehow to do it? Also I find it incredibly hard to believe you literally cannot find one other person in any server to do stuff with? They do need to merge servers but I disagree that they should make the entire game solo based, that would make me quit.

The current situation isn't something a server merge can fix. The only thing that had any chance of doing so was the LS concierge system, and not many Linkshells even bothered with the system, so in it's current form that ship's been long gone now. Also, I'll repost part of my previous post because it seems it didn't sink in.

Nowadays either you are still playing with a group of friends/LS or you are soloing most of the time. Old school casual grouping just isn't a thing anymore and hasn't been since the Abyssea debacle.

See, I'm not talking about party play not existing, I'm talking about the "Let's make casual parties on the fly and have fun grinding together!" that happened in the game before Abyssea and that made the XI community so strong back in the day not existing anymore. Although the dev team seems to think it still exists in the game for some reason.

But right now for most players it seems to be that either:

A) You are getting your Aeonics with your LS mates. Because you have time to dedicate to a LS on a regular basis.
B) You are playing mostly on your own, doing your own stuff on your own terms. Because you have a time consuming job and/or other activities that make your play time irregular enough to prevent you from functioning in a LS.

Neither of those things can be fixed with server merges, because if you are already capable of doing stuff with a LS then you are already doing so, and a the only thing a merge will accomplish is add more competition and lag. And if you are playing irregularly having more people on the server will only mean you'll have more people getting in your way when you are trying to do stuff on your own.

That is why I think the best choice would be giving players a free server transfer every 6 months and making the concierge system more prominent by making it cross server (this includes making LS chat cross server as well.) Also, if the system could feature an in-game message board big enough where LS leaders could go in detail about their LS schedule and activities that could potentially give players a much better chance to connect with each other without using the shotgun of server merges.

/.2gil

[Immortta]

Except what you just described happens on Asura all the time. You are probably on a dead server but people randomly team up for everything here from CP parties to Ambuscade and beyond so you're wrong. Also if you don't have time you probably shouldn't be playing an MMO, there are plenty of phone games like candy crush for casual gamers. You shouldn't ask SE to dumb everything down so you can complete the entire game in one sitting and then quit and ruin it for everyone else.

[Raydeus]

Except what you just described happens on Asura all the time. You are probably on a dead server but people randomly team up for everything here from CP parties to Ambuscade and beyond so you're wrong. Also if you don't have time you probably shouldn't be playing an MMO, there are plenty of phone games like candy crush for casual gamers. You shouldn't ask SE to dumb everything down so you can complete the entire game in one sitting and then quit and ruin it for everyone else.

Just out of curiosity, how long have you been playing XI?

[Jile]

Except what you just described happens on Asura all the time. You are probably on a dead server but people randomly team up for everything here from CP parties to Ambuscade and beyond so you're wrong. Also if you don't have time you probably shouldn't be playing an MMO, there are plenty of phone games like candy crush for casual gamers. You shouldn't ask SE to dumb everything down so you can complete the entire game in one sitting and then quit and ruin it for everyone else.

The majority of servers and players are not hard core, in 2016. The server counts are dropping steadily and without some extreme turn of events where SE changes their mind and releases a new expansion along with fresh advertising we're basically biding our time, getting our last fulfillments in the game before we say goodbye.

I love this game and I'm not after dumbing it down or ruining it any more than it already is but let's be honest here.... this isn't 2005 anymore and 99% of the extreme linkshells and players moved on long ago.... my friend list, if it were full of active people would equate to 1/2 my server's typical online bazaar mules er um I mean players... So while I appreciate and understand your desire to maintain what you view as something that is still working effectively, it's simply not working for the majority of people left playing.

Most of us are 'forced' to do content "solo" with trusts. I duobox or triplebox when my wife doesn't feel like loading her Taru up >.<... and if I don't feel like doing that I'm left crafting or fishing...

On my server, for the most part, you can Ambuscade or Apex party - all other content is dead so if you want to do anything else its solo time. Sure, there is I believe 1 or 2 English linkshells left that do high teir Resin fights but they rightfully expect people to be on at a scheduled time/day and like other's have brought up for them, that doesn't work for myself either.

So the question is - should the game be turned off for the majority of us that still play and can't play on a set schedule like we did a decade ago? Is that the way it should be? Support the few people that, like yourself, that can play on a set time in a dedicated linkshell but forget the majority of others?

It's unfortunate but a reality that for SE to keep most people paying and playing they're going to have to keep a solo-friendly playstyle open for content.... While I miss the push and grind of yesteryear (well not so much the grind lol) it's gone, dead, over and this solo-ish play is what most of us have. I would say too though before you push too many people over to candy crush (LOL) that you keep in mind that without us paying, SE isn't going to keep the servers running for the handful of people that still think they're hardcore players, there just are not that many left.

In short... Embrace your fellow players as we solo(ish) players are paying the majority of the subscriptions

[Hyrist]

Even as a soloist. I don't agree with the concept of having the AI avoid gaze mechanics. The fact that they exist ads depth to the necessity of smart planning when using mechanics.

There is a couple existing in-game solutions to gaze mechanics with tanking, depending if it is conal or not. And one you don't want to hear, but is the dead truth.

Conal gazes can be done with two trusts on opposite ends of your party listing. (Summon one first, one last) and engaging the enemy by curving in on its flank, if possible. This puts the two tanks on opposing sides and when one is hit with the mechanic, the other can take over. Sadly , this puts your other trusts at risk, as well as the other disadvantages of a two-tank set up with trusts, but it does enable a two-trust-tank set up to be more durable against gaze and breath attacks.

Alternatively, the most simple solution is this is the one you don't want to hear: Play a tank. As the population shrinks, the players themselves are going to have to accommodate themselves within existing mechanics, because as the population shrinks, the less likely the development team is going to weigh in on altering major mechanics above considering shutting down the servers. There are multiple flavors of tanking to choose from (and some DPS classes are going to wind up tanking anyways through out-damaging their counterparts) so there's no excuse not to at least experiment with them to see if one feels good for you. There is plenty of existing content that does not need you to play a specific way that you can be flexible enough to switch tactics and be one on occasion.

Also, soloists are going to have to accept that some content just isn't solo friendly, and that's fine. Most the gear you'll be getting in non-soloable content is for non-soloable content anyways, so don't sweat it so much.

[Mithlas]

Even as a soloist. I don't agree with the concept of having the AI avoid gaze mechanics...

I have leveled both RUN and PLD. I am gearing them up now. I believe I mentioned that one of my posts on the first page?
The main problem for me with PLD is that people don't want to work with me yet as I don't have Ochain or Aegis yet. Not being my main jobs, and with my limited playtime, it's going to take quite a bit of time to get those shields.

Farm currency for gil right? Well... that's pointless as my source of income is Dynamis currency - which I am saving up for Aegis. I'm really glad SE lowered the amount of time between stages. When I do eventually get the currency for Aegis it'll be so much faster to get through it.