Server merging

[Damane]

Is there any Server merging planned from the Devs?

At the moment its very hard to find people to play in FFXI because all Servers have low population (more so when you play during European prime time). Its getting to the point where you cant find barely anyone to do anything.

Is there anythign planned in the direction of Server merges? I would welcome a merge for now

[Feary]

at this point they are going to need at least 3+ servers to merge or i feel like it would be a bust. it wouldnt make any noticeable difference, if there are another 200-500 active players and 3-4 active linkshells. it just be like it was 6-10 months ago and we all know where that was headed.

since we've moved in to vertical progression with new content, i think this would be best time to do a merge if any.

then again i can do with the AH competition. oh well i dont care either way.

also if there is an indication,

they have already made adjustments so that content like delve doesnt "need" 20 ppl. i think this is their answer.

unless the login campaign is secretly a mission to figure out how many ppl are actively playing. when they do merge server it wont be epically self descriptive because they have a some real data enticed by unlimited sky points and beastly shanks!

sorry though will this login stuff ever end?

[Damane]

at this point they are going to need at least 3+ servers to merge or i feel like it would be a bust. it wouldnt make any noticeable difference, if there are another 200-500 active players and 3-4 active linkshells. it just be like it was 6-10 months ago and we all know where that was headed.

since we've moved in to vertical progression with new content, i think this would be best time to do a merge if any.

then again i can do with the AH competition. oh well i dont care either way.

also if there is an indication,

they have already made adjustments so that content like delve doesnt "need" 20 ppl. i think this is their answer.

unless the login campaign is secretly a mission to figure out how many ppl are actively playing. when they do merge server it wont be epically self descriptive because they have a some real data enticed by unlimited sky points and beastly shanks!

sorry though will this login stuff ever end?

while I welcomed the delve "fix", we didnt have any struggle clearing it pre FF14, but we have lost so many people that we cant even fill a PT up to 6 man without useing mules and shouting isnt an option either sometimes :/. its really hard to find any decent players during EU prime time

[Deifact]

I actually started a new character because I wanted to try out the new noob friendly starter content and I see maybe 2 other people running around. Most of the time I'm the only person in a zone. I just talk to my trust NPC's.

[Numquam]

People shouldn't be asking for this. What they should be asking is: Can we please form alliances with other players that have their trust NPCs active?

Now that is the real solution to low player populations across servers.

I hope they allow to max out with 5 NPCs instead of just 3. Filling out all the party slots would make life a lot easier.

[Peepiopi]

+1 for the OP

Too many servers for too few people left playing the game. I think it has a considerably negative effect on the ability to progress in the current state of the game due to the low populations.

[Feary]

People shouldn't be asking for this. What they should be asking is: Can we please form alliances with other players that have their trust NPCs active?

Now that is the real solution to low player populations across servers.

I hope they allow to max out with 5 NPCs instead of just 3. Filling out all the party slots would make life a lot easier.

this is bad and you should feel bad.

[Feary]

while I welcomed the delve "fix", we didnt have any struggle clearing it pre FF14, but we have lost so many people that we cant even fill a PT up to 6 man without useing mules and shouting isnt an option either sometimes :/. its really hard to find any decent players during EU prime time

the delve "fix" wasnt a fix because the same ppl who had issues with delve still have those issues. this did not fix anything, it was makeup on a pig. the pig still requires lazy and/or unskilled players to be better than they were. now they cant just be a number in an alliance and have just given up.

New delve still would of been what it is (not requiring skilled stunners) and ppl wouldnt just go with 6-18 players, shutting out majority of the server. lol

i was never for this nerf and told ppl it wont "fix" stupid or lazy.

oh well. i do like not having to drag 18 ppl to do an event and or shouting 4 hours a night.


i welcome a merge.

only problem i see with this is that for a server economy. supply is going to be much higher than demand for most items. since we get updates every 3-4 weeks and most ppl finish with content on thier mains before the next update. hopefully the next vertical updates are nice enough to change that. s.e has been better about moving items and pushing content.

[Sapphires]

People shouldnt be asking for merges, they should be asking why only a few jobs are wanted for any content in this game, that's really what is killing this game.

If you don't enjoy soloing content, then you better be a rng,mnk,sch,4song bard,cor, or a whm, or be making your own parties to do things. Over half of the 22 jobs offered in this game are pretty much shunned or have extremely niche roles.
Obsession with max efficiency and aversion to failure has narrowed down who you bring and what jobs are allowed to participate in content.

Ask yourself, how many people really want to login and play XI or hold out hoping their favorite job that isnt one of the favored ones i've listed is going to get a party slot with a 2-3x server merged populace still having the same narrow minded approach to who they play with?

[Spellcaster]

Need a server merge. The game is barely playable because low population, it defeats the purpose of online multiplayer, not even enough players to socialize. Last time i logged on lakshmi the population was about 301. It's sad srsly

[Deifact]

People shouldnt be asking for merges, they should be asking why only a few jobs are wanted for any content in this game, that's really what is killing this game.

These are two separate issues really.

Population will never increase from this point onwards because the game is old, there will be fluctuations but we are definitely at the beginning of the end. A server merge at least makes the game fun for the few people still playing.

Job preferences for events is inevitable, at least you can change jobs any time you like.

[Sfchakan]

Want more people to play with right now? Try moving to a more densely populated server. Odin seems good still, though I can't say anything about it's EU population.

I've always seen EU groups struggling to fill their ranks on every server I've been on.

[Olor]

People shouldnt be asking for merges, they should be asking why only a few jobs are wanted for any content in this game, that's really what is killing this game.

If you don't enjoy soloing content, then you better be a rng,mnk,sch,4song bard,cor, or a whm, or be making your own parties to do things. Over half of the 22 jobs offered in this game are pretty much shunned or have extremely niche roles.
Obsession with max efficiency and aversion to failure has narrowed down who you bring and what jobs are allowed to participate in content.

Ask yourself, how many people really want to login and play XI or hold out hoping their favorite job that isnt one of the favored ones i've listed is going to get a party slot with a 2-3x server merged populace still having the same narrow minded approach to who they play with?

I agree with this quite a bit. Part of what is making it so hard for people to complete content is how few jobs are usable in that content. If jobs were put on a more equal footing, it might actually be possible to fill slots easier. But all you see all day is shouts that say BRD3-4song, COR, STUN SCH, A/O PLD

People don't even shout for MNK cause there are so many Oats mnks that there is no trouble finding one. If underpowered jobs were given a boost, it would be easier to complete content and find people for groups. The fact that so many jobs are so far behind makes the low population problem even worse, because 80 per cent of players on can't do what you need in a group.

Still, been having problems even getting more than 5 people to do voidwatch of any kind with - even though the drops are actually worth a half decent amount - and of course, that's just the voidwatch battles that drop something worthwhile - most of it is not of interest to anyone. And that's a event that can use people on any job. Can't find anyone practically to do it with. Populations are a problem.

[Damane]

People shouldnt be asking for merges, they should be asking why only a few jobs are wanted for any content in this game, that's really what is killing this game.

If you don't enjoy soloing content, then you better be a rng,mnk,sch,4song bard,cor, or a whm, or be making your own parties to do things. Over half of the 22 jobs offered in this game are pretty much shunned or have extremely niche roles.
Obsession with max efficiency and aversion to failure has narrowed down who you bring and what jobs are allowed to participate in content.

Ask yourself, how many people really want to login and play XI or hold out hoping their favorite job that isnt one of the favored ones i've listed is going to get a party slot with a 2-3x server merged populace still having the same narrow minded approach to who they play with?

Thats a totally different issue.

The biggest issue is still low population, servers need to be merged together.
I started to accomodate a behaviour where I am not logging into FFXI unless there is a LS event up for sign up. I go do directly somethign different, because i have given up hope to do anything random-like via shouts/random people, because there arent any people to play with. I even started again to play FFXIV (ended last october) because of this.

No LS event in FFXI up: -----> automaticly starting to do anything else non FFXI related


after a while this behaviour might lead to the part where I dont even log in at all.


even in our LS events we struggle sometime to fill up our 6 man PT with the 1 Job we lack/need because 1-2 persons are missing.
Its getting to the point that you need to poor so much effort into being actually ABLE to enjoy the game with its content, that its frustrating at some times. I want to Enjoy the game, i dont want to put 1.5 hours effort into gathering people to get something going... because there arent any people on during my play time (EU prime time)

[Frankbrodie]

The figures are ok at JP prime time. It's a JP game.

Now reconsider what your chances are of getting server merges.

My advice? Start playing at JP prime time.

[detlef]

The figures are ok at JP prime time. It's a JP game.

Now reconsider what your chances are of getting server merges.

My advice? Start playing at JP prime time.This. While populations are low during NA and EU prime times, your server's population may very well be over 2,000 during JP prime time. Should SE cater to the 800 NA's on during NA prime time or those 2,000 JPs during JP prime time? Even if you ignore that it is a JP game, far more players would be adversely impacted by the merge than would benefit.

You'd have to think that they'd be especially vocal about things like Ark Angel instances, colorless souls, and things of that nature.

[Brightshadow]

I thought these servers can hold up to 10k people at once.

[Mirage]

I can fit 6 people in my 5-seat car too. One of them needs to sit in the trunk, but as long as he gets to our destination, that doesn't matter, right?

Both your question and my answer is completely irrelevant to this thread, though. It's not server capacity that is the issue.

[Deifact]

What are the downsides to a merge BTW? I can understand JP master race and SE want to please them, but if there's no downside to doing it anyway...

[Mirage]

More crowded areas during peak times for regions that have a higher population. Merging two servers where the EU/NA primetime is at 800 and the JP primetime is at 2000 would change NA/EU primetime into a nice 1600 players that we all can enjoy, while japanese players suddenly have 4000 players trying to do the same things.

[Lithera]

Along with the name stealing bs that seems to happen during merges

[Mirage]

There are probably thousands of legitimately created characters that aren't in use anymore but just happen to take up names that are currently used on other servers. It's not always intentional although some are. They blocked character creation for merging servers before they announced the merge last time, though.

[Sapphires]

What are the downsides to a merge BTW? I can understand JP master race and SE want to please them, but if there's no downside to doing it anyway...

Downsides:
-You now get 2-3x more competition in dynamis. This is still an extremely popular activity and people have grown accustomed to little to no competition for their favorite spot at certain times. Huge negative for people that farm regularly.

-Salvage congestion+lag and being locked out of entering since the instances are limited.
-Myself or friends would probably have to rename their characters and linkshells due to name collisions.

Merges in mmos have a rather destructive effect on communities, people that you know casually or just see regularly day to day (they arent in your guild, but you've maybe known of that person through their deeds or grouped with them a few times, or whatever) those people get 'erased' with name collisions.
That seems like not a big deal but it makes people feel like they have been removed from their old server entirely because many of those people 'disappear' due to name changes and other players really do disappear because they view merges as a sign of a game thats bound to die soon (why make another RME if the game is gonna die right?)

-increased congestion for AA/DM which is still making alot of people money
-even higher population during jp time so content bottlenecks get even worse for them
-higher congestion and demand for limited resources will also bring about a wave of inflation on items.
-players from merged server communities can still strongly identify with their old server and stick to just hanging out with their 'own kind'. This means you have extra people running around on your server that are for all intents and purposed someone that you wont have any interactions with, except for competition over a shared resource (AH items, a world NM, battlefield event, etc).

Alliance content is mostly dead, so even if you triple the people on the server, social circles (linkshells) will probably remain numerous, but small and fragmented.

Many people stand to lose more than they gain with a merge.

A merge just means double the worm party shouts , and maybe twice as many people doing some random delve/skc/aa once an hour with 4/6 slots filled shouting for a whm or brd. If you're lucky.

[Damane]

Downsides:
-You now get 2-3x more competition in dynamis. This is still an extremely popular activity and people have grown accustomed to little to no competition for their favorite spot at certain times. Huge negative for people that farm regularly.

-Salvage congestion+lag and being locked out of entering since the instances are limited.
-Myself or friends would probably have to rename their characters and linkshells due to name collisions.

Merges in mmos have a rather destructive effect on communities, people that you know casually or just see regularly day to day (they arent in your guild, but you've maybe known of that person through their deeds or grouped with them a few times, or whatever) those people get 'erased' with name collisions.
That seems like not a big deal but it makes people feel like they have been removed from their old server entirely because many of those people 'disappear' due to name changes and other players really do disappear because they view merges as a sign of a game thats bound to die soon (why make another RME if the game is gonna die right?)

-increased congestion for AA/DM which is still making alot of people money
-even higher population during jp time so content bottlenecks get even worse for them
-higher congestion and demand for limited resources will also bring about a wave of inflation on items.
-players from merged server communities can still strongly identify with their old server and stick to just hanging out with their 'own kind'. This means you have extra people running around on your server that are for all intents and purposed someone that you wont have any interactions with, except for competition over a shared resource (AH items, a world NM, battlefield event, etc).

Alliance content is mostly dead, so even if you triple the people on the server, social circles (linkshells) will probably remain numerous, but small and fragmented.

Many people stand to lose more than they gain with a merge.

A merge just means double the worm party shouts , and maybe twice as many people doing some random delve/skc/aa once an hour with 4/6 slots filled shouting for a whm or brd. If you're lucky.

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

[Deifact]

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

Yeah that's a good suggestion!

[Rainehx]

As a company selling subscriptions another merge would be a very bad idea, so don't expect it any time soon imo.

They will want to have as much capacity for "new/returning" players as possible. I understand to us this sounds silly
but lets say they merge..every server is 2-3k peek time aside from the obvious problems with events etc what will they do
with all the "new/returning" people they have to expect when the next expansion hits? a new server? no.

I think when they give up with the game we will see a merge, but I hope that's no time soon as it will
likely spell the end of updates or any chance of another exp pack.

Careful what you wish for.

[Byrth]

Lakshmi was an anemic 2k during JP peak times shortly after Adoulin's release. The servers used to handle 5k, so I don't think that merging two servers would necessarily cause mass hysteria.

Their decision to make Delve scale from 6-18 people means that server merges are no longer quite as essential as they once were. You now only need 6-7 people to clear all current content (albeit well-geared people), so it isn't like I'm hunting up an alliance of friends anymore. If they were going to merge servers, they would really have to do something about their horrible BCNM system.

That being said, I'd like to see more new faces on my server. What they need to do is:
1) Announce there will be a server merge in June. Explain exactly how it will work.
2) Merge worlds 1:1, giving name priority to active accounts and filtering by hours of playtime in the event of naming conflicts (so mules don't get priority over mains).
And there you go, 90% of the merge problems gone.

[Dazusu]

giving name priority to active accounts and filtering by hours of playtime in the event of naming conflicts (so mules don't get priority over mains).


People definitely don't leave mules logged in 24/7. Sometimes more than their mains. Do agree with the bolded part, though.

[Castanica]

The problem isn't server populations, it's the kind of content they are making now.

Server merges have multiple negatives also.

Overcrowding for JP players, being unable to do content because the dungeons/spawn points etc are full, lag issues, name loss, not knowing who anyone is because even the people you are familiar with will mostly all lose their names, linkshell issues.

More people quit after a server merge than any other time, they are only done if they absolutely have to.

[Sapphires]

One thing that kind of makes this population/merger thing such a big deal is that SE sort of abandoned a certain class of game content that made servers feel busier.

-Wildkeeper reives used to have very meaningful rewards so we all piled into them (and died alot, but hey we were all playing together).

-JSE cape farming in marjami back when the zone was fresh and we wanted ALL THE CAPES (something else where a bunch of random people came together and did something together cooperatively)

-Voidwatch - was quite popular for a time, and one of the most inclusive activities because you wanted 18 people of various jobs. The mechanics required diversity, and the weapons+armor were relevant, and you didnt have to be overly picky about who came until T6/Prov

-Delve 1.0 when people would do shouts for alliance plasm farm and kill a random NM or two inside before we all wised up and knew how to burn through the place with an LS alliance.

I keep wondering why SE isnt making more 'easily social' content like this.
I felt like I got to know more people on my server when these things were popular. Those activities were pretty good at building community and just having random people playing together.

Now many people just break off into their own 6 man groups(statics) hidden away inside some AA/SKC/random battlefield, not really being that social and making the world feel even more empty.
And SE encourages that because that's where all the best loot is.

They can merge servers, but they also need to make more content that brings people together+playing more easily, preferably in larger numbers.

[Ravenmore]

There are probably thousands of legitimately created characters that aren't in use anymore but just happen to take up names that are currently used on other servers. It's not always intentional although some are. They blocked character creation for merging servers before they announced the merge last time, though.

Not really there was a day long window where you could still make a char on any server so some stealing still happened.

As for 6 man content the players got down and begged for 6 man groups and to do less with alliance content so SE gave the payers what they wanted.

Then we have VW, even with increased numbers filling a alliance for old and boring content will still be hard. With how much the items go for and still people don't want to really do it.

[Damane]

As a company selling subscriptions another merge would be a very bad idea, so don't expect it any time soon imo.

They will want to have as much capacity for "new/returning" players as possible. I understand to us this sounds silly
but lets say they merge..every server is 2-3k peek time aside from the obvious problems with events etc what will they do
with all the "new/returning" people they have to expect when the next expansion hits? a new server? no.

I think when they give up with the game we will see a merge, but I hope that's no time soon as it will
likely spell the end of updates or any chance of another exp pack.

Careful what you wish for.

there arent alot new/returning players only a few... and at this rate i doubt we see another expansion. Like seriously, the numbers of people playing the game has halfed since adoulin release. There isnt gonna be a sudden surge of 1000 people returning on each server all of the sudden.

[bungiefanNA]

I dont see, the best solution would be of them to assign 1-2 NA and EU player servers and let people move for free over there.


and playing during JP primetime is not the solution, especially when you work during that hour, imho the only solution i see is either a designated EU/NA server where people move to/are moved to, or try plaiyng the game until its not anymore possible with the remaining shell members and call it then quits.

That doesn't change the peak hours that people play, and would make servers completely dead outside of JP prime-time, while crowding the servers moreso. Flooding all the NA/EU players to one or two servers would give us the opposite problem, too many players to be able to enter events in a timely manner.

[Draylo]

Voidwatch was something that brought the server community together, despite how much people hated it. Now I never do anything with the server outside of my linkshell.

[Ravenmore]

Voidwatch was something that brought the server community together, despite how much people hated it. Now I never do anything with the server outside of my linkshell.

Not at all it was the first to have every shout asking for REM weapons for DDs since DDs are a dime a dozen.

[Afania]

People shouldn't be asking for this. What they should be asking is: Can we please form alliances with other players that have their trust NPCs active?

Now that is the real solution to low player populations across servers.

I hope they allow to max out with 5 NPCs instead of just 3. Filling out all the party slots would make life a lot easier.

OP's issue was "he can't find good player, /shouting isn't an option", having NPC in party/alliance does not solve the issue.

[Draylo]

Not at all it was the first to have every shout asking for REM weapons for DDs since DDs are a dime a dozen.

That's why you come as a proc job if your DD weren't up to par. You can practically do that naked, so I fail to see how it excluded anyone.

[Olor]

Not at all it was the first to have every shout asking for REM weapons for DDs since DDs are a dime a dozen.

But there were lots of spaces for players without REM weapons. I never had trouble doing events back in the voidwatch days. It was WAY less exclusive. Now it's 3+ song BRD, A/O PLD or go home.

[detlef]

If you had BLU leveled with the proper spells you would never be turned away. RNG, COR, WAR were all great too. Even 2 song BRDs were more than accepted. Yeah the DD spots generally filled up first, but you could get into almost any ally if you put a little work into your character.

[Olor]

If you had BLU leveled with the proper spells you would never be turned away. RNG, COR, WAR were all great too. Even 2 song BRDs were more than accepted. Yeah the DD spots generally filled up first, but you could get into almost any ally if you put a little work into your character.

Yep, also SMN - as long as you had summons you were welcome. Obviously not something you can spam up as quick as some things - but a lot of people who just loved the job and had their summons were able to participate.

[Mefuki]

Low NA or EU population wouldn't be as big a problem if SE correctly implemented a sliding scale, from solo all the way up to 18-man, where monster statistics, reward quantity and drop rate/points earned(if it's a point/gear exchange system) scaled with how many you choose to bring. This way, you can log in and start playing any part of the game you want while also giving incentives to partying up. I don't know, am I wrong here?

Granted, I'm really not an authority on Delve because I really don't care for it but it doesn't make sense to me that a piece of "scaled to 6-man" content would only vary in how much HP an opponent has.

[Ravenmore]

Same BS we are dealing with now don't have a 3 song brd, A/O pld go whm, cor(can be burned with little down side), sch they are in just as high of demand. People were still forced to go jobs they really don't care for.