There just isn't that many people to play FFXI with anymore.

[Zumi]

Every so often I been checking to see how many people are on the server seems to be 1200-1500 on average.

Anyway the problem I am seeing with the game is that there is delve pretty much the only thing left in the game to do. Now its 18 man content. Plasma farming can only take you so far and it gets pretty boring fast.

To kill bosses you need a fair amount of dedicated people who play their jobs well. Something like the old days of FFXI had with when people had large HNM LS. Now there may be a couple of groups on each server I am talking like 2-3, but they don't usually accept any new members for the most part. Back in the day there were a lot of linkshells you could join to get stuff done, currently not so much anymore.

More or less abyssea killed the majority of large scale linkshells, leaving a bunch of smaller groups. It was fairly common to grab 1 or 2 friends get stuff done in abyssea, in some peoples cases they just duo boxed everything. Now that I might now 6 or so people still that play the game but is that enough to do bosses no its not. Can you pug them like VW? not really because it takes a level of coordination most people don't have.

Basically I finished plasm farming is the only thing left to do now is bosses which I can't do since I can't find anyone to do them with. Is it easy to find a linkshell to do the new endgame content? No its not. It use to be very easy to get a endgame linkshell back in FFXI's prime but not anymore. Server forums on this site are pretty dead, along with recruitment forums on fansites like BG or FFXIAH. How are you suppose to find a linkshell in this game anymore?

I played since NA PC release had an active subscription. I want to still play FFXI but with nobody to play with and me sitting in Jeuno or Adoulin, its fairly boring. My sub just renewed but I probably won't renew once it runs out in August unless something drastic changes, because there just isn't anyone to play with. Maybe its the current state of the game that drove people off.

Honestly they need to offer stuff to 6 man groups as well as 18, its just really unreasonable to find a constant group of 18 to do stuff with.

[Daemon]

Every so often I been checking to see how many people are on the server seems to be 1200-1500 on average.

Anyway the problem I am seeing with the game is that there is delve pretty much the only thing left in the game to do. Now its 18 man content. Plasma farming can only take you so far and it gets pretty boring fast.

To kill bosses you need a fair amount of dedicated people who play their jobs well. Something like the old days of FFXI had with when people had large HNM LS. Now there may be a couple of groups on each server I am talking like 2-3, but they don't usually accept any new members for the most part. Back in the day there were a lot of linkshells you could join to get stuff done, currently not so much anymore.

More or less abyssea killed the majority of large scale linkshells, leaving a bunch of smaller groups. It was fairly common to grab 1 or 2 friends get stuff done in abyssea, in some peoples cases they just duo boxed everything. Now that I might now 6 or so people still that play the game but is that enough to do bosses no its not. Can you pug them like VW? not really because it takes a level of coordination most people don't have.

Basically I finished plasm farming is the only thing left to do now is bosses which I can't do since I can't find anyone to do them with. Is it easy to find a linkshell to do the new endgame content? No its not. It use to be very easy to get a endgame linkshell back in FFXI's prime but not anymore. Server forums on this site are pretty dead, along with recruitment forums on fansites like BG or FFXIAH. How are you suppose to find a linkshell in this game anymore?

I played since NA PC release had an active subscription. I want to still play FFXI but with nobody to play with and me sitting in Jeuno or Adoulin, its fairly boring. My sub just renewed but I probably won't renew once it runs out in August unless something drastic changes, because there just isn't anyone to play with. Maybe its the current state of the game that drove people off.

Honestly they need to offer stuff to 6 man groups as well as 18, its just really unreasonable to find a constant group of 18 to do stuff with.

PM me in game Zumi, our LS is Delve Events.

As for your topic. This is why I said in several posts and even put up one in Battle Content that SE needs to give us more power and lighten up on making us depend on 18 man alliances. While I understand they want us to depend on each other as a whole group to make us more active between each other. The issue is, there's too many things we can't do independently. Therefore many many people have a long massive list of personal things they need to get done but can't.

Those who already have everything they need aren't going to go back and help others. And why should they? Because they are busy enjoying the end game content and the money they spent buying the new expansion.

It's funny if only we had the same power that we gain from abbysea Temps, atmas, Cruor buffs. Even still I don't believe that's being over powered. Overpowered would be Primeval Brew.

As for too many items being circulated into making economy fail? Rare/Ex.

Upgrades? Well those can't be sold either. Sky gear shows us that.

Afraid we will never party for events? Legion, WoW, places where up to 36 people shows us that we will gather for it.

Had SE allowed us more power to depend on ourselves, we all wouldn't be complaining about the lack of people. How many quit because they couldn't get anything done? Greed? Self Gain? Well if we could solo most of our stuff this wouldn't be so severe.

Again Lack of teaming up? Why gain gear ect if we can't show it off? Anyways just my opinion.

SE could adjust monsters HP in several content to balance out power.

[Demon6324236]

Anyway the problem I am seeing with the game is that there is delve pretty much the only thing left in the game to do. Now its 18 man content. Plasma farming can only take you so far and it gets pretty boring fast.To sum up my response to this idea real fast. Today I did a Meebles group, filled in 2 shouts, in the last week I have done 2 groups for VW wins, 1 T4~5, 1 T6. I also have done the VWNM in MountZ for a run of 6, seen multiple shouts for Qilin & other VW like a Kaggen I participated in, as well as doing some NNI & Skirmish on the side. I fail to understand how there is nothing but Delve, I seem to find a ton of things.

[Daemon]

To sum up my response to this idea real fast. Today I did a Meebles group, filled in 2 shouts, in the last week I have done 2 groups for VW wins, 1 T4~5, 1 T6. I also have done the VWNM in MountZ for a run of 6, seen multiple shouts for Qilin & other VW like a Kaggen I participated in, as well as doing some NNI & Skirmish on the side. I fail to understand how there is nothing but Delve, I seem to find a ton of things.

What times are you playing? The server seems lack of interest than before SoA. I've seen people shouting for over an hour and a half on small things like NNI and VW.

[Demon6324236]

I have been on around 5PM~9AM EST. Admittedly I play at weird times, but the majority of what I do with large groups happens between 4~midnight EST.

[Karah]

This is my biggest problem right now, lack of people worth playing with.

Been around since the beginning, and I've always managed to get by, I could blacklist one moron and still have 3000 other people to test out. But lately.... this is not the case.

The current player base I'm seeing I've either completely blacklisted, or want nothing to do with. ( I still have integrity ).

There are no quality people, just gimps with elitest attitudes, barely any legit elitests, before anyone makes that argument. I can't name names... and I can't post "reasons" why they are, so you'll just have to take my word...

I'm finding my literal only options are chillin' in my afk spot in the port, cause it's not even worth my time to move. Not because I don't want to do the things there are to do, there is no one worth doing it with.

[Daemon]

This is my biggest problem right now, lack of people worth playing with.

Been around since the beginning, and I've always managed to get by, I could blacklist one moron and still have 3000 other people to test out. But lately.... this is not the case.

The current player base I'm seeing I've either completely blacklisted, or want nothing to do with. ( I still have integrity ).

There are no quality people, just gimps with elitest attitudes, barely any legit elitests, before anyone makes that argument. I can't name names... and I can't post "reasons" why they are, so you'll just have to take my word...

I'm finding my literal only options are chillin' in my afk spot in the port, cause it's not even worth my time to move. Not because I don't want to do the things there are to do, there is no one worth doing it with.

Lol... This definitely deserves a +1 Like.

[Zumi]

To sum up my response to this idea real fast. Today I did a Meebles group, filled in 2 shouts, in the last week I have done 2 groups for VW wins, 1 T4~5, 1 T6. I also have done the VWNM in MountZ for a run of 6, seen multiple shouts for Qilin & other VW like a Kaggen I participated in, as well as doing some NNI & Skirmish on the side. I fail to understand how there is nothing but Delve, I seem to find a ton of things.

I finished all of NNI, VW, Meebles a long time ago. Only thing left I really need stuff from is delve bosses, which is the problem its just that not many want to do those. Yea I see stuff like abyssea, nyzul, salvage shouts but all that stuff is old content that i finished long ago.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I also have done the VWNM in MountZ for a run of 6Could someone clarify this for me?

[Daemon]

Could someone clarify this for me?

I have no doubt in this, Ive seen DJ. He's pretty beast when it comes to DDing and other jobs. Rare to see skilled players like him these days.

[FrankReynolds]

I have been on around 5PM~9AM EST. Admittedly I play at weird times, but the majority of what I do with large groups happens between 4~midnight EST.

I had the shout page from FFXIAH up yesterday pretty much all day on my server while I doing dominion ops in altep in order to PL my mule (went from 30-68). I saw one guy try to get a group together for Jeuno tier 5 and 6. He was shouting for 4.5 hours.

I saw one Toji run that took a little over an hour to form (they only wanted 3/4 song bards as usual). They also specifically said "No Monks please".

I saw one NNI shout for floor 100 wins... he was selling them at 10,000,000 per run.

I saw 1 plasm farm group (didn't pay attention to how long it took).

I saw 1 guy offering to pay someone to help him enter salvage.

I saw a guy trying to get people to help him farm +2 items from alfard... He wanted everything but the fangs.

I saw the same guy looking for people for the same worm party several times throughout the day.

Everything else was basically just people shouting to sell items.

Cerberus is a Dead zone for those not in a good LS.

[Demon6324236]

Could someone clarify this for me?Drops an Ingot which only comes from a few specific NMs in VW and Legion, no one does Legion and its not exactly shout-able still so people do the VWNMs for a 1% shot at it.

[Eijii]

Yeah not that many at least for me on Carbuncle.. everyone on carbuncle is mainly EU or JP so being an eastern player there isn't really anything going on 7pm est - midnight in terms of LS outside of the 2 main NA LSs.

[erish]

Coming from someone in one of the few big shells still about these days.

I agree with alot of whats been said here but to show the view point of those still in these shells. Most of us are hurting for members big time, its not due to lack of people wanting to join its simply getting people good enough to join. There was a comment in here that Abyssea created alot of people with big attitudes and honestly i think thats a large part of the problem with the community all around.

Many people are trying to skip content and push themselves forward without clearing the content they really need to make there jobs worthwhile. As an example we have had members who were let in because they said they had a geared RDM, event time rolls around and they dont have any af3, phalanx2 or even refresh2 ( if your a cerb native im sure you know this taru whm lol ), needless to say they didnt last. This seems to be common place these days with people wanting to apply to the endgame ( i use this term losely ) shells.

That being said its also alot to do with the design of these encounters, one mistake such as a missed stun or melee not using there DT sets correctly can basically cost the run, The margin for error is pretty slim and extremly punishing should you mess up. Add to this that alot of these fights are also on time limits, DD are required to push the NM down quickly and if we are honest most peoples gear is not good enough to accomplish this. Again there are many reasons for this but its just one of those things that contribute to people not getting invited into linkshells/delve bosses w/e really.

I dont think there is any real quick solution to this but its not something we should ignore and hope it goes away.

[FrankReynolds]

Coming from someone in one of the few big shells still about these days.

I agree with alot of whats been said here but to show the view point of those still in these shells. Most of us are hurting for members big time, its not due to lack of people wanting to join its simply getting people good enough to join. There was a comment in here that Abyssea created alot of people with big attitudes and honestly i think thats a large part of the problem with the community all around.

Many people are trying to skip content and push themselves forward without clearing the content they really need to make there jobs worthwhile. As an example we have had members who were let in because they said they had a geared RDM, event time rolls around and they dont have any af3, phalanx2 or even refresh2 ( if your a cerb native im sure you know this taru whm lol ), needless to say they didnt last. This seems to be common place these days with people wanting to apply to the endgame ( i use this term losely ) shells.

That being said its also alot to do with the design of these encounters, one mistake such as a missed stun or melee not using there DT sets correctly can basically cost the run, The margin for error is pretty slim and extremly punishing should you mess up. Add to this that alot of these fights are also on time limits, DD are required to push the NM down quickly and if we are honest most peoples gear is not good enough to accomplish this. Again there are many reasons for this but its just one of those things that contribute to people not getting invited into linkshells/delve bosses w/e really.

I dont think there is any real quick solution to this but its not something we should ignore and hope it goes away.

I think it's due to an overly optimistic attitude from the devs.

See they think that if they make really hard content that only large groups of well geared people can beat, then people will be motivated to step up their game and form large shells to get the necessary gear / jobs and beat it.

Wishful thinking.

What actually happens is: A few LS actually do beat the content regularly, A fair number of people use gil they have made on some other event (and / or just buy the gil) to pay the big LS to do it for them because they don't have the time, jobs, gear, desire, or w/e to do the content properly, and a another large portion of the populace just up and say "Screw it. I guess I don't get to have nice things. Why do I play this again?". The longer this goes on, the bigger the gap between the haves and the have nots becomes.

Is it the people's fault? Yes and no. People do have shitty attitudes. That is their fault. The devs could do a lot to prevent those shitty attitudes from ruining the game though. Programming is far easier to do than changing the attitudes of thousands of people.

[Kojo]

I dunno, I'm not here to make a scene or whine about quitting or anything, but I cancelled my sub. I've just lost interest, I'm not interested in the grindy events in SoA. I've been testing XIV and it seems more doable, for me personally, I can either sit playing from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, or I can play and walk away. I don't hold hatred for XI, XI provided me with entertainment for years and quitting was actually very painful for me, but I just needed to do it. I think alot of people are like this, they just aren't interested in the new stuff, though many currently playing are, the FFXI population has been spoiled by Abyssea, Abyssea killed the HNM days and replaced the camping with pop items. I quit end game before Abyssea so I saw Abyssea as enjoyable, but after Abyssea, this new content in SoA is... well, not so attractive on an aging community who now are in serious relationships, living their lives, in college, married, have kids, etc.

That's my take on it, disgree if you want, it doesn't really matter to me anymore. But I wish you all luck in XI and hope you enjoy whatever is to come. It's been a fun 9 years for me, and I'm grateful for them, but I'm moving on. :D

[Vivivivi]

Not disagreeing with the OP necessarily, but things are changing for sure. All of my previous social linkshells have dispersed into Delve or other event shells. I don't consider myself has "hardcore" about the game as I once was, so I'm not interested in a delve static. As a result there are a lot less random fun things to do, since typically the majority of shouts you'll see on my server are to fill a spot from a static group with specific requirements.

I think Delve is great content overall, but it's not very pick up group friendly unless you're doing a mediocre plasm farming run, which then becomes very boring. I've been on a few runs with attempts to fight all of the NMs and by contrast, that was insanely fun, but again since it was mostly a pick up group, we could only progress past the third NM. Additionally, being a pickup group, there was no opportunity to "learn" from our mistakes because that same group of 18 people won't be doing it together again.

I think it's clear the days of 18 person static groups are over. I don't think 18-36 person content is bad in the games current state, I enjoyed most of the wildskeeper reives I did, VW mostly worked also for this.

[Zumi]

In a 12 hour period I saw this in the yells/shouts

-someone wanting to buy Ocelomeh head, Mustela Feet
-Plasm farm morimar fields, need dd whm brd cor, sac
-shouting for a group for jewel and stone of voyage
-a shout to sell HMP for 70k
-Another Plasm farm needing Sac, cor brd and whm
-A guy wanting to buy Itzapopatol Pops for 500k each
-Someone wanting to buy all dynamis currency for 3k / 300k each
-A guy wanting to sell HMP for 80k each
-Trolls attacking 1/5 generals, gather together al zahbi
- Yet another Plasm farm morimar fields wanting monk and cor
- A shout for EXP party on abyssea frogs.

Any given day its something similar to this. Why do I even bother playing this game anymore? Its so boring without a endgame linkshell, your stuck pretty much with your choice of morimar plasm farms, abyssea exp, or random seal/+2 farm in abyssea.

[Demon6324236]

So make a group for something? I made my groups for Meebles, took about 20 minutes last night to get my party going and we did a T1 run. I doubt you would have a hard time getting together a group for events few people do since few people do them, everyone does plasm so everyone is burnt out on it, no one does Meebles, so a lot of people want to try it or need things from it. If you just wait for shouts, expect to be disappointed.

[Frankbrodie]

As a gamer since about 1976 it's my opinion that people just change.
In regards to playing habits I mean.

Over an 11 year period (this games life span so far) you're going to see massive changes in people's attitudes. And what they want to, or are prepared to do.

The massive mistake I see happening on all the online forums that I visit to read about FFXI, is that because the average person who uses the forums is a dedicated hardcore player, they assume that that is the norm within the game.
- It's not.

Probably 80-90% of the people playing FFXI just play it for something to do. As a 'game' if you will.
Dressing up and running around thumping big monsters sort of thing.
Crafting because it's something you can do if you can only log on for 10-15 minutes at a time.

No one would sensibly go back to 35 years ago when we sat in our living rooms watching Commodore 64 games take 20 minutes to load a game from a cassette tape.
But these things happened. And they changed over the years. To the point that I can now load games in an instant a lot of the time if I want to play something offline that loads quickly.

And FFXI changed too.
And like it or not, the devs in my opinion do know that the vocal minority of 10% of hardcore players, are NOT the ones that will kill the game if they all leave. It's the 90% of casual bumming around players like myself that they are trying to keep most of all.

[FrankReynolds]

So make a group for something? I made my groups for Meebles, took about 20 minutes last night to get my party going and we did a T1 run. I doubt you would have a hard time getting together a group for events few people do since few people do them, everyone does plasm so everyone is burnt out on it, no one does Meebles, so a lot of people want to try it or need things from it. If you just wait for shouts, expect to be disappointed.

A lot of people aren't doing anything because there is an incredibly high chance that the devs will come out with a piece of gear that is 10X as good as whatever they were aiming for long before the random number generator, or event entrance limitations, or incredibly disproportionate work / reward ratios allow them to reach their goal. I mean they came out with weapons that can be obtained in a day that are more powerful than weapons that take months and didn't even bother to make the old weapons easier to obtain.

I mean the way things stand atm, it should cost 1 one hundred piece for a 99 relic, 1 Glavoid shell for a 99 ukon and 1 alex pouch for an empy mythic. The reward to work ratios are all shot to shit.

The whole game is in limbo because most of the old events / gear are crap compared to the new stuff and the stuff that is still good probably won't stay that way for long enough to be worth the effort.

I think they imagined this gear leveling thing working like leveling did in the past where you would gear for the level of stuff you were fighting and go after new stronger gear when you reached a higher level.

The problem is that all the gear people have / want now is R/E, so you can't just sell off all your level 101 gear and use the money to buy level 115 gear. That makes people very weary of doing anything that doesn't show long term potential... which is pretty much anything right now.

[Mostfowl]

Outside of the 3-4 hrs of peak times we have maybe 1 person /sh for something like seals or a vw and sometimes nothing at all for hrs at a time but a seller or something. I literally walked away from my puter to watch tv, came back a couple hours later and there had been only 2 /sh the whole time I was gone. One day after 5 hrs of afking while running errands, I didn't even have to scroll through my log to see the last /sh I saw before I left. Everyone just logs in and afks. Even peak times are slow and pts are taking hrs to fill, whether its for seals, +2s, VW, etc. Ive been in VW pts that just disbanded after 2 hrs and only being at 7/18.

I'm just hanging in there until I can cash in my mog bonanza pearls (for fun is all really) and then giving it the old cancelation after 7 yrs of play and moving to xiv. I was in Eorzea from beta to Bahamut and even the crappy v1 had more content and more thrills than xi currently has. My f2p subs have more going on at any given moment so there is no need to actually pay to afk.

It's really sad though. I stuck with this game for so long because it was a good game. There was always plenty to do, excitement to be had and friends to be made. But since they dropped the aby-bomb nothing has been the same.

After all is said and done if they would rework the game to be an off-line solo game where you could control a 6 man group (kindda like any other offline ff title) I would buy it in a heartbeat. If given the option I wouldn't even install anything post-mini expansions so I could enjoy the game in its old glory.

[Xantavia]

And like it or not, the devs in my opinion do know that the vocal minority of 10% of hardcore players, are NOT the ones that will kill the game if they all leave. It's the 90% of casual bumming around players like myself that they are trying to keep most of all.
Even here, I think it is just a subset of casual players who will kill the game, and those are the casuals who are trying to push hardcore playstyle into everything. The ones who require a Delve weapon no matter the content. I'm not just talking Aldouin stuff, but content that came earlier. The str sword or dagger I made are not good enough anymore in the eyes of some people. I'm not asking to go fight a delve boss, but say for a low level VW fight it should be good enough.

These casual players who got stuff done early on by getting in the right groups or whatever are now the ones denying entry to those who came late. They are causing the problems with a "I got mine, you can go rot" attitude.

[Zumi]

So make a group for something? I made my groups for Meebles, took about 20 minutes last night to get my party going and we did a T1 run. I doubt you would have a hard time getting together a group for events few people do since few people do them, everyone does plasm so everyone is burnt out on it, no one does Meebles, so a lot of people want to try it or need things from it. If you just wait for shouts, expect to be disappointed.

In order to make a boss run, I would basically have to interview each person that sends me a tell, if they have proper gear sets, spells, certain merit abilities. Like does the RDM have a M.acc enfebeling set, do the Monks have proper pdt, hp gear, along with formless merits, mantra merits, agumented body, legs, feet, along with proper gear. Would have to ask if brd have 3-4 songs, would have to ask if the geos actually capped their skill, do the sch have stun sets.

Basically would have to do a mini interview with each person you invite and you know that will turn off a lot of people in this game.

Boss runs aren't like meebles where you can pretty much take anyone.

[Demon6324236]

I know that, who said boss things are the only thing you can do? If your interest lies only in a single event in the game and its something your not able to do, maybe you should think about that more than complaining about no shouts you want to do.

[Alpheus]

I think for Zumi the reason Delve fracture mega bosses spring to mind is because it is the best bet a player can make as far as earning gear that is insulated from becoming obsolete and hence the best use of one's time. As an example there is a better chance that YOLO helmet from Tojil will stay relevant than say those MAB pants off the the Simian Meebles Mega Boss (random example im aware that Morri +1 pants prob repped them far before SoA)

[Zumi]

I know that, who said boss things are the only thing you can do? If your interest lies only in a single event in the game and its something your not able to do, maybe you should think about that more than complaining about no shouts you want to do.

I think I already said this that I finished everything else in the game. I started offering 30m for 1 run for a group that has cleared it before but still couldn't even find any groups willing to take me.

I did join a shout today they went 2/6 on NMs killed, it was a good set up but it could of been executed better. I saw many things which could of been improved but I wasn't leading the run so I didn't really want to say anything. The group fell apart after the loss, that's that biggest problem with pick up groups on these you will have different people all the time they won't learn from their mistakes and the group won't have synergy because always having different people.

[kylani]

Even here, I think it is just a subset of casual players who will kill the game, and those are the casuals who are trying to push hardcore playstyle into everything. The ones who require a Delve weapon no matter the content. I'm not just talking Aldouin stuff, but content that came earlier. The str sword or dagger I made are not good enough anymore in the eyes of some people. I'm not asking to go fight a delve boss, but say for a low level VW fight it should be good enough.

These casual players who got stuff done early on by getting in the right groups or whatever are now the ones denying entry to those who came late. They are causing the problems with a "I got mine, you can go rot" attitude.

I returned to the game recently and am amazed at people with good gear that don't seem to understand how to play their job or understand strategy. I wonder if the problem is so many people leech the good gear that don't know how to play, so they need other players who play well, and they believe the only way to tell is by gear.

I take my time and research and go for what I can accomplish. I've gotten to where I dread it when someone asks to join us in Abyssea for a kill, not because I mind them getting the kill, but some of the things people do are ridiculous. We can be pet killing, heeling our pets to avoid healing the mob when it switches modes, and someone asks to join as the mob is near death. We let them join, and they run up and just attack the mob when it's in heal mode after it's taken us forever to whittle it down. No matter how much you ask them to stop, they just keep attacking, and don't seem to understand mode switching. Its quite frustrating. You'd assume someone in twilight gear would know how to play or at least understand when you've told them they are healing the mob, or to stay out of AOE range because the mob has a killer tp move, or don't debuff because the mob will heal itself, etc, but it's like they only have one mode.

I make a lot of mistakes, but I learn and can figure stuff out from failing. I love teamwork and love the game for all the fun I had in the past with friends, whether great wins or mega losses, but what I've seen lately seems to be a lot of Leroy Jenkins who don't even seem to realize they don't know what they are doing or want to be a better player. They think great gear automatically makes them leet, and it seems pretty sad because new players do need help for quite a bit of old content, but good help is hard to come by. Delve sounds like it is more old school, so I can only imagine what it may be like with folks like these in groups there with what I'm seeing in the old content.