Suggestion: Expand Sortie Event to Accommodate Alliances of 18 Players

[Ahlen]

Hello fellow adventurers,

I wanted to share a suggestion regarding the Sortie event in Final Fantasy XI MMO. Currently, the Sortie event allows parties of up to 6 players to embark on thrilling adventures together. While this format works well for smaller groups, I believe it would be fantastic to expand the event to accommodate larger alliances of 18 players. This change would provide us with more opportunities to play and enjoy the game with a greater number of friends.

By increasing the party size to allow alliances in the Sortie event, we would experience a myriad of benefits. Here are a few key points to consider:

Enhanced Social Experience: Allowing alliances would foster stronger bonds within our community. We would be able to include more friends, linkshell mates, and fellow adventurers, creating a sense of camaraderie and teamwork.

Diverse Strategies and Roles: Larger alliances would encourage the development of diverse strategies and tactics for the Sortie event. With more players, we could explore different roles, job combinations, and coordinate our abilities to overcome challenges in unique ways.

Inclusive Gameplay: Expanding the party size to accommodate alliances would ensure that no one gets left out due to limited space. It can be disheartening when you have a group of friends eager to participate, but you can only include a fraction of them. With alliances, we would have the opportunity to adventure together as a united force.

Increased Replayability: The Sortie event, already an exciting and engaging experience, would become even more replayable with larger alliances. With more players involved, each playthrough would offer a fresh and dynamic encounter, ensuring that we have new and exciting adventures each time we participate.

I understand that implementing this change may require some adjustments to the game's mechanics, but I believe it would be well worth the effort. The benefits of expanding the Sortie event to accommodate alliances far outweigh the potential challenges. By embracing larger group sizes, Final Fantasy XI MMO can continue to provide an outstanding multiplayer experience that encourages social interaction, teamwork, and long-lasting friendships.

I invite you all to share your thoughts and opinions on this suggestion. Together, let's voice our desire for an expanded Sortie event and make our voices heard to the developers. With the support of the community, we can enhance the gameplay experience for everyone and further solidify Final Fantasy XI MMO as a remarkable MMO adventure.

Safe travels, adventurers!

-Ahlen

[Gabe]

To would be great solution!

[Sp1cyryan]

The game is well past 18-person events.

[Tobaluk]

I would like to see sortie become an alliance event.

[Alhanelem]

I would not. It doesn't need more players, so the only reason to make it alliance is to let 12 people freeload gallimuffins.

[Tarmarkvar]

I would not. It doesn't need more players, so the only reason to make it alliance is to let 12 people freeload gallimuffins.

I wonder what the mercs would charge for that.

[Sirmarki]

I wonder what the mercs would charge for that.

Mercs..............

[Velner]

I agree completely with this idea. The fact is, Sortie is 1-hour per day EVERY DAY. Because it's 6-man content, it has further alienated me and my Linkshell. We are at a point now that we have to sideline the content we do as a large group in favor of splintering into smaller groups. Odyssey was hard enough to manage and it did lead to a massive dip in our Linkshell size/participation.

And this content is 7 hours per week. No other endgame content has required this type of time commitment. I would much rather have this time be spent having fun with the entire Linkshell rather than being hyper focused with a small group everyday. Even if this slowed my Prime Weapon progress, I would welcome it because than this grind might actually be FUN. Could you imagine??

And I get that some people are concerned that people could be "carried." To you I say, so what? If you don't want to "carry" people, don't! Problem solved!! I hope the development team will take this suggestion to heart. I want to play with my friends again!

[ManaKing]

Currently, the Sortie event allows parties of up to 6 players to embark on thrilling adventures together.

Lies


The game is well past 18-person events.

Also Lies

--

Sortie is not going to become alliance content. What is really being said is that the player base would like alliance content to be considered for future updates. Alliance content supports larger linkshells and more social play. That's what we want.

If we're getting less because the staff is getting scaled back, we'd like what we get to be actually what we want.

[Sp1cyryan]

Lies



Also Lies

There is a difference between your preference, desires, and self-interest, and the current state of XI. The game is done with alliance content in any healthy and meaningful way.

[Pixela]

The amount of data that gets sent around when in an alliance today makes it problematic, it works if it's a load of casual players but if you are in an alliance of min/maxers it will be hellish.

The only way they could make this work would be to allow alliances to queue, but break them into 3 groups inside as with Omen or something. Or people to communicate in chat still but remove all the alliance ui stuff.

When you have 3 parties, and half of them or more are using gearswap to constantly change gear for every possible reason the amount of UI HP/MP updates being sent to everyone is insanity, which normally would not matter but when you run a game with 56k cap it does.

Either that or just add a ui option to hide block data being sent about mp bars of anyone outside your party at a bare minimum or something.

Make a video of an alliance with a lot of people using GS and their hp and mp bars are constantly bouncing around, and every single change from every single player is sent to everyone's client every second.

Try Dyna D with a group of casual players in an alliance and then try it with a load of people using gearswap, and awe at the lag as the connection gets congested.

[Feanorsof]

I agree with this, please make Sortie 18 man or provide us with some alliance content before the developers leave for other projects...

This game has kept us all playing not just for the content but the community and was built on linkshells and alliance content for its endgame. There are still linkshells out here who need alliance content and we've been doing dynamis for almost 6 years.
Forcing us into 6 man content is just breaking up these communities and ruining this aspect of the game.

[Alhanelem]

And I get that some people are concerned that people could be "carried." To you I say, so what? If you don't want to "carry" people, don't! Problem solved!!Except problem not solved because some people did the work and others didn't. Of course the people who aren't carrying people don't want to carry people, and already don't. Duh? The problem is that allowing this minimizes the work other people put into getting what they want.

You can still play with friends. Why do 18 of you have to do it simultaneously? Play with different people each day, you still have odyssey.

This content wasn't designed for 18 players, just letting 18 people in with no changes absolutely and completely trivializes the content and also trivializes Prime Weapon progression. And I don't see how they can adjust the content for 18 players without punishing the people who were doing it with just a few before and don't have 18 friends.

This gets a hard no from me. You might have a whole army of friends but a lot of us don't and doing something like this puts the have-nots at a disadvantage.



Forcing us into 6 man content is just breaking up these communities and ruining this aspect of the game. Form three groups and go in at the same time. Chat with eachother in linkshell. I fail to see how this is a problem.

Again, you may have 18 buddies to do stuff with at all hours of the day but a lot of people don't. This is why they leaned heavily towards 6 man content. I don't get it, this isn't a problem in other games, which have all generally moved away from massive groups for content. WoW used to have 40 man raids and it doesn't anymore.

I've generally disliked alliance content anyway, since it usually takes like an hour just to prepare for it, then you gotta wait for that one guy to go onto three mules to swap out the gear for the job he's playing and yadayada yeah no thanks.



Sortie is not going to become alliance content. What is really being said is that the player base would like alliance content to be considered for future updates. Alliance content supports larger linkshells and more social play. That's what we want. Then say that. This thread is clearly about sortie, not new content.

[RichLester]

Well, making Sortie 18-man would allow people to get to the 1 mil gal we need to at least get one prime weapon stage 2 but there is the issue of now that Resurgence has finished, it's pretty much the last expansion so servers may dwindle down to just a few people on at any one time, depending on the time of day & server.

At the moment, I'm finding I'm stacking loads of sapphires & eikondrites with no way of trading them in for gal for the prime weapon stage 2. We still have stages 3 & 4 to go with 2 new items. If they are 2 mil & 3 mil gal respectively, I feel there's no point getting the prime weapons as we'll never get there. Focusing on getting empy+3 gear for jobs is much more beneficial. Also, the text said 1 mil gal to have the prime weapon "fully upgraded"? That's plain wrong as its stage 2 with 3 and 4 left to go.

As for the community, depends which linkshells you're in & if they are active enough at the time or you'll be soloing Sortie to get 5k gal to not waste time.

All this needs fixing somehow. I don't mind a bit of a grind, just not 1 mil gal just for prime weapon stage 2.

[Alhanelem]

Well, ask yourself what you're going to do after you complete your prime weapon. There's nothing that especially requires it so.... the only thing to do is grind more prime weapons.

That's why the grind is long. It is specifically an objective to keep us busy as long as possible. While the devs have indicated that there will be some updates in the future, it's going to be a while.

[RichLester]

I play the game casually, knowing that once i got high level weapons & gear, I go and complete a load of outstanding quests I have stored up over the years, just to watch the cutscenes. I did the missions & quests I needed to do. Did a load of quests in the 3 main cities but have plenty in WotG & Aht Urghan to be getting on with. The ones who will continue grinding for prime weapons are those who have completed all the quests & got jobs up to lvl 99 already.

[Immortal]

I am always open to more options, I dont see any problem with it

[Alhanelem]

I am always open to more options, I dont see any problem with it
More options is not always a good thing.

As I said, allowing 18 players would mainly have negative effects:
- It would trivialize the content without a massive rebalancing which would exclude solos and small groups
- By extension it would mean you can add a bunch of people who don't have to do anything to get content currency, and/or let people get it a lot faster than originally intended without rebalancing
- Without said massive rebalancing, the content would simply be less fun becuase any challenge the content might have is reduced.

Playing with more friends at the same time doesn't really outweigh these problems from my perspective.
The desires of big linkshells shouldn't outweigh the desires of solo players and smaller circles of friends either.

And rebalancing = work, and there is limited dev time avialable.

[Sp1cyryan]

More options is not always a good thing.

As I said, allowing 18 players would mainly have negative effects:
- It would trivialize the content without a massive rebalancing which would exclude solos and small groups
- By extension it would mean you can add a bunch of people who don't have to do anything to get content currency, and/or let people get it a lot faster than originally intended without rebalancing
- Without said massive rebalancing, the content would simply be less fun becuase any challenge the content might have is reduced.

Playing with more friends at the same time doesn't really outweigh these problems from my perspective.
The desires of big linkshells shouldn't outweigh the desires of solo players and smaller circles of friends either.

And rebalancing = work, and there is limited dev time avialable.

I agree.

They just have half a party of botting mules that they want to leech points. Their viewpoint is inherently bias and without regard to balance.

[Sirmarki]

They just have half a party of botting mules that they want to leech points. Their viewpoint is inherently bias and without regard to balance.

It just opens it up to more Mercing.

So, it's a no from me.

[Gwydion]

I think Sortie will/should eventually be Alliance content, just like Omen.

It's bad for the player base as whole to splinter into groups of 6 for multiple daily content.

[Sp1cyryan]

I think Sortie will/should eventually be Alliance content, just like Omen.

It's bad for the player base as whole to splinter into groups of 6 for multiple daily content.

It's good for the playerbase when all the ton of multibox mules can't just leech the content. The game isn't balanced to 18 players anymore, and never will be again.

[Gwydion]

It's good for the playerbase when all the ton of multibox mules can't just leech the content. The game isn't balanced to 18 players anymore, and never will be again.


I haven't known a single time that SE said something is "done", to actually mean that it is done. I guess we'll see what the future holds.

[Gwydion]

It just opens it up to more Mercing.

So, it's a no from me.

Everyone is merc'ing. You just pay your friends and LSmates, zero gil. :)

[Immortal]

I agree.

They just have half a party of botting mules that they want to leech points. Their viewpoint is inherently bias and without regard to balance.

You have honestly no clue. People don't need an alliance to allow mules in to bot and leech, they have mules capable of clearing the content already alone. It would not be a benefit for them at all to allow alliances unless they plan to merc and even then they can do it without needed all 6 characters. You are the biased one, you think you know everything about x poster and automatically assume their intentions, but you're wrong.


More options is not always a good thing.

As I said, allowing 18 players would mainly have negative effects:
- It would trivialize the content without a massive rebalancing which would exclude solos and small groups
- By extension it would mean you can add a bunch of people who don't have to do anything to get content currency, and/or let people get it a lot faster than originally intended without rebalancing
- Without said massive rebalancing, the content would simply be less fun becuase any challenge the content might have is reduced.

Playing with more friends at the same time doesn't really outweigh these problems from my perspective.
The desires of big linkshells shouldn't outweigh the desires of solo players and smaller circles of friends either.

And rebalancing = work, and there is limited dev time avialable.

More options is always a good thing, always.

- Does not trivialize content, its been done many times in the past and there are methods to offset it. In fact, every content that had the option for alliances with the tradeoff being higher HP, was HARDER, not easier. Especially considering certain mechanics that became a headache the more people you had.
- That has been the case for any content added to this game since inception. People have been leeching, mercing and all since day1. You aren't going to stop that by limiting the amount of people entering.
- Wrong, see evidence: every other alliance event added previously, as I said it only gets harder the more people you have and a headache. Theres a reason people kept to low manning things.

We are at a point in the game where the main priority should be people playing with friends, who cares about content like Sortie? Stop using limited dev garbage as an excuse, we are all paying full monthly subs.

[Immortal]

Also what is there to "bot and leech" in Sortie? lol, more AF3 for mules? There is barely, if any, resources for Gil or other things. It would be more of a concern if they allowed 18 into segment farms in Odyssey due to the gil handout at the end, yet you are complaining for more people to enter an event where there is no Gil essentially. Surely showing how biased you are, just some vendetta against multi-boxers or mercs at the expense of actual players wanting to join their linkshells and not being forced into cliques or statics of 6 max

[Sirmarki]

Everyone is merc'ing. You just pay your friends and LSmates, zero gil. :)

I don't think you would have many friends left if you just stood there in say, Sortie :P

[Alhanelem]

More options is always a good thing, always. No. It isn't.
They could add an option to enable poop emoji on everyone and every NPC's heads, but:
1) it would be an absolute waste of developer time
2) No one actually wants that (at least, not that I'm aware of, but who knows?)

So no. More options is not always a good thing. Yes, this example is ridiculous, but it's ridiculous to prove a point. Dealing in absolutes is usually bad.

Ever heard of "feature creep?" It's when you have too many options in a piece of software, which leads to more bugs and time spent debugging them and also overwhelms the user with choices to make. Devleopment gets bogged down implementing and supporting/maintaining these options in new builds and causes other things to be delayed or even not get implemented.

But you're simply going to oppose me for the sake of opposing me, purely out of spite since you regularly accuse me of the same.



Wrong, see evidence: every other alliance event added previously, There is no evidence. . "every other alliance event added previously" were all designed from the beginning to be alliance content. There is no pre-existing example of a 6 man content later being made into 18 man content.

As I said, changing it to be alliance content requires rebalancing. Rebalancing requires work and development work time available is significantly limited now. If it isn't rebalanced, then Sortie will be extremely trivial for 18 players, and/or will just result in merc parties letting people pay to leech gallimuffins. And unless you're the sort of person who would be mercing themselves, it's unlikely you would actually want to promote mercing.

Once again, you're opposing me just for the sake of opposing me. You're on a holy crusade against me and Spicy (and maybe even others, but especially us) and you are not doing much/anything to demonstrate that this isn't the case.

[Alhanelem]

It's bad for the player base as whole to splinter into groups of 6 for multiple daily content. , no, it really isn't. 6 man content is easier for ordinary people to access. I'm sorry your massive linkshell needs to split into parties but you aren't the only players in the game.

Even though I have a linkshell with people who run this content (since it's kinda the main focus of the game right now, obviously), it is generally done on the fly and not in a super organized fashion. I'm grateful for the ability to go in alone as well, even if it's slow going, as it's better than getting nothing if your friends aren't available that day. Regardless, the nature of it being 6 man content makes it relatively easy to just say in LS (or even yell) "who wants to do sortie?" and get multiple responses.

[Tarmarkvar]

Also what is there to "bot and leech" in Sortie? lol, more AF3 for mules?

Do you seriously not know that Prime Weapons -- a new category of powerful weapons -- are now available in the game? Because that's exactly what people would leech, gallimaufry.

[Immortal]

No. It isn't.
They could add an option to enable poop emoji on everyone and every NPC's heads, but:
1) it would be an absolute waste of developer time
2) No one actually wants that (at least, not that I'm aware of, but who knows?)

So no. More options is not always a good thing. Yes, this example is ridiculous, but it's ridiculous to prove a point. Dealing in absolutes is usually bad.

Ever heard of "feature creep?" It's when you have too many options in a piece of software, which leads to more bugs and time spent debugging them and also overwhelms the user with choices to make. Devleopment gets bogged down implementing and supporting/maintaining these options in new builds and causes other things to be delayed or even not get implemented.

But you're simply going to oppose me for the sake of opposing me, purely out of spite since you regularly accuse me of the same.


There is no evidence. . "every other alliance event added previously" were all designed from the beginning to be alliance content. There is no pre-existing example of a 6 man content later being made into 18 man content.

As I said, changing it to be alliance content requires rebalancing. Rebalancing requires work and development work time available is significantly limited now. If it isn't rebalanced, then Sortie will be extremely trivial for 18 players, and/or will just result in merc parties letting people pay to leech gallimuffins. And unless you're the sort of person who would be mercing themselves, it's unlikely you would actually want to promote mercing.

Once again, you're opposing me just for the sake of opposing me. You're on a holy crusade against me and Spicy (and maybe even others, but especially us) and you are not doing much/anything to demonstrate that this isn't the case.

You said it yourself, that example is ridiculous. You will literally disagree with ANYTHING I say, you are the most contrarian person I have ever seen on forums.

[Alhanelem]

You said it yourself, that example is ridiculous. You will literally disagree with ANYTHING I say, you are the most contrarian person I have ever seen on forums. Except it's you, not me. And the example was exaggerating to make a point. And yet, you still missed it, as you didn't even address it. And the point is, you can't say "always" when it isn't always. Even if the excample to the contrary is stupid it's still valid and "always" can no longer be used.

To be contrarian requires that the other's opinion be the popular one by its very definition of taking a position that goes against popular opinion (And you know, popular doesn't equate to good, just fyi). And quite frankly, there is plenty of disagreement here, not just with me and you. Some agree with me and some agree with you. Decisively prove your position or stop labeling me and maybe better yet, just block me already. Continuing to reply to me and not block me despite your obvious disdain indicates to everyone that your sole purpose here is to attack me and that you enjoy these endless last word disputes. I've given you countless oppertunities to prove you're not simply antagonizing and time and time again you continue to antagonize.

[Immortal]

I don't have disdain lol, its not that serious. I just find it a little annoying that you constantly have to be opposing my opinion in literally every thread. If I engage you, you will NEVER concede or discuss your opinion without forcing it on others, its almost pointless. You even have to take words like "always" and debate and dissect it, jeeze. Yes 90% of the time, more choice is a good thing. In that miniscule 10% like your ridiculous example, its probably not a good thing. Allowing alliances just means they have to change numbers around for HP, they've only done that EVER for every single event that allowed alliances. Delve, Vagary, Omen all have simply added +x% HP to the mobs and changed the objectives to be harder. That does not take dev time to simple change a few numbers around. In Dyna D they did not do that, and nobody complained then either and that event has way more things to leech and bot.

[Alhanelem]

I don't have disdain lol, its not that serious.If you're being true and honest here, then you really need to dial back the hostility. I believe in what I say and will argue it with passion, but I will not be deliberately insulting whether it for fun or otherwise.

[Immortal]

What hostility? Where in my posts do you see insults

[Tarmarkvar]

Decisively prove your position or stop labeling me and maybe better yet, just block me already. Continuing to reply to me and not block me despite your obvious disdain indicates to everyone that your sole purpose here is to attack me and that you enjoy these endless last word disputes. I've given you countless oppertunities to prove you're not simply antagonizing and time and time again you continue to antagonize.

The problem is that it takes two to tango. You could just ignore Immortal and you two wouldn't have these endless arguments clogging up every damn thread.

[Alhanelem]

The problem is that it takes two to tango. You could just ignore Immortal and you two wouldn't have these endless arguments clogging up every damn thread.
It does, but I really don't like blocking people. I'd rather find some way to resolve the dispute, but maybe that will never happen.

Also, I've been advising them to just do that for a while now.

[BobbinT]

The problem is that it takes two to tango. You could just ignore Immortal and you two wouldn't have these endless arguments clogging up every damn thread.


highly obvious doing them for post count bragging rights.https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/images/smilies/tongue.png
... & i guess a good exercise on wordplay. lawl

[Immortal]

I'm not even worked up, I don't get angry over internet arguments in 2023, especially over this game. I do get into debate mode, but I don't tend to personally insult people so I don't see where you are getting that unless you mean "contrarian" which is not an insult lol.

I don't need to block anyone

[Tarmarkvar]

It does, but I really don't like blocking people. I'd rather find some way to resolve the dispute, but maybe that will never happen.

Also, I've been advising them to just do that for a while now.

I didn't even mean blocking. I meant just keep your trap shut. Neither of you come out looking good from this.

[Sp1cyryan]

If you're being true and honest here, then you really need to dial back the hostility. I believe in what I say and will argue it with passion, but I will not be deliberately insulting whether it for fun or otherwise.

He is never going to concede because he is that dug in.

[Alhanelem]

but I don't tend to personally insult people so I don't see where you are getting that unless you mean "contrarian" which is not an insult lol. I consider it to be. As I've said many times, I'm not just taking opposite positions for the fun of it or to start disputes, so I very much resent that label.

This may be the internet, but I'd still rather get along than not.

[BobbinT]

I didn't even mean blocking. I meant just keep your trap shut. Neither of you come out looking good from this.


since u're quoting the post I've been blocking since the person himself says blocked mine 1st, the visible post kinda shows how hypocrite he is, whether he's actually blocking or did block but still occasionally peeked. In the ends, it's still obvious that post counts is all he cared. lol