The reason 18 player content is important.

[Pixela]

I don't mean 18 player only raid content but rather content that allows 18 to enter and boosts HP or number of monsters based on that.

Omen is a prime example of a good system.

The main reason is that less skilled players can do the content too, or less stress is put upon each person. It makes content far more inclusive and it makes it far easier to build groups from LFG.

Omen groups are made quite often via /yell, and most of the time the shout groups are alliances.

[Sp1cyryan]

Yes, please make more events that provide optimal rewards for people that get carried.

Don't worry, there are plenty of unskilled 6 person groups too. It is hardly any justification for the impractical design that is 18 person content.

[Alhanelem]

Doesn't even wow limit most content to 10 players max?

I don't like the idea of cotnent that doesn't really require a full alliance being made alliance content just so you can carry people. If it is going to be a thing, it should be a thing because it's challenge enough that you need that many people with a diverse job setup to clear. At the VERY minimum, needing that many people to pass a DPS check, but I don't really like that because it leaves a lot of jobs out.

But ultimately the real reason people want 18 man content is so they can carry their friends. And if the content is easy enough that multiple ppl in the group don't really need to do much/anything, then there's no good reason for it to be alliance content.

especiially in the early days, 18 man content wasnt meant to be "inclusive." It was meant to test you- it was there for people who wanted a challenge.

[VoiceMemo]

Yes back in the day alliance content NEEDED alot of people to win. I remember old dynamis with hourglass reservation, leading 3 allies via linkshell chat, as there was not discord back in the day. Yeah there was ventrilo and teamspeak, but some were on PS2 a the time so it never worked out. DynamisLordsII linkshell back in the day cleared every dynamis zone, back in the 75 days alliance content definitely needed the players, which is why now SE is focused on 6 man content. Yes this won't allow everyone to participate at one time, but with a lower population(on most servers excluding asura) it seems to make sense.

[Pixela]

Some of the nicest people I've met on this game were in alliances (even in modern times) because it's more relaxed and allows less geared / skilled players to come along. From a social aspect it is a great thing.

[Alhanelem]

Some of the nicest people I've met on this game were in alliances (even in modern times) because it's more relaxed and allows less geared / skilled players to come along. From a social aspect it is a great thing.
Older alliance content is more "relaxed" because we gained a lot of power since then. It generally wasn't "relaxed" when it came out. I don't think you were chilling and relaxing in einherjar back when that was the hardest content.

And I can counter by saying "some of the nicest people I met on this game were in a 6 man party because <insert reason here>." And I wrote it that way because it is very, very subjective and we all have different experiences.

When we were still grinding in old fashioned exp parties most of the time, there was plenty of time to chat because of FFXI's slow combat pasce meaning we didn't need tons of input to play. It had absolutely nothing to do with the size of the group.

Content should only use alliances if (at least at the time of the content's release) the content is actually designed to need an alliance to be successful. You can meet "some of the nicest people" anywhere in the game, you don't specifically need alliances for that.

[Sp1cyryan]

Some of the nicest people I've met on this game were in alliances (even in modern times) because it's more relaxed and allows less geared / skilled players to come along. From a social aspect it is a great thing.

So if some of the nicest people you met were solo players you would post we need more solo content?

[Alhanelem]

That's one way of illustrating the flaws in their logic lol....

[Whirlin]

It's more about the volatility of real life nowadays with an aging demographic, and 6 man statics having incredibly little wiggle room. With one or two alternates, it's painful for someone to sit out so often on events, while also having similar restrictions on point farming/etc in odyssey.

Given what they did with Gaes Fete, I'm sure it can be scaled with varying number of participants, unlike Dynamis or Omen.

[Alhanelem]

It's more about the volatility of real life nowadays with an aging demographic, and 6 man statics having incredibly little wiggle room. With one or two alternates, it's painful for someone to sit out so often on events, while also having similar restrictions on point farming/etc in odyssey.

Given what they did with Gaes Fete, I'm sure it can be scaled with varying number of participants, unlike Dynamis or Omen.

The vast majority of party content, no one has to "sit out." Split into two parties and fill the gaps with trusts. Most 6 man content can still be played and enjoyed this way. It's one of the reasons we have difficulty levels for a lot of content now. If you can't build another complete party, lowering the difficulty is an option.

Scaling content by increasing HP values doesn't really work as well as people think. It only affects the speed of clearing, it is still far more trivial for 18 people to kill a boss with more HP and no other changes, compared to a 6 man party killing the same target that only has less HP.

Plus there's also the obligatory "make more friends" argument. I don't like that one admittedly, but instead of making someone "sit out" why not recruit some people to fill the gap? Asura is overcrowded, surely you can find a few people by /yelling or shouting. Hell, with the wait times people are claiming, you could help everyone by working with the other people there waiting.

This is aside from the fact that content that actually demands a full alliance will be harder to get groups for on not-Asura.

I just don't see this problem being what people are making it out to be. I'm in a completely full linkshell here on lil' ol' Shiva, and we all do different things at different times. There's usually enough people around to do whatever content you want to do, and anyone who's "left out" can just make another party with other people in the linkshell later. It certainly seems to be working out well enough for us.

Ultimately current content designed for 6 players doesn't need more than 6 players, and so there's no reason to enable them for alliances other than to trivialize the content (and as I said, increasing HP doesn't really solve that problem).

[Pixela]

So if some of the nicest people you met were solo players you would post we need more solo content?

The point was that alliance content makes the game far more social for far more people.

Again the main point was not to make forced 18 player content, the point was to make 6 player content that can scale up to 18.

[Sp1cyryan]

The point was that alliance content makes the game far more social for far more people.

Again the main point was not to make forced 18 player content, the point was to make 6 player content that can scale up to 18.

What they really need to do then is extend yell to every zone. So it can be more social.

18 player content doesn't scale to 6 well, and vice versa.

[Alhanelem]

What they really need to do then is extend yell to every zone. So it can be more social.

18 player content doesn't scale to 6 well, and vice versa.

My understanding is the reason this isn't a thing is because of "server load." Which is why even in its current state there's a cooldown on /yell chat.