Please close Asura

shiva's is surprisingly decent for its size. Can't *always* find what you need but it will show up eventually.

there's some really crazy ppl as well who will go to asura, buy up all sorts of stuff and then move back to another server to sell it lol.

This is getting ridiculous, ppl making money by using bots and lots of alt characters, it is rare to find an exp pty as everyone is jumping into mercenary one.
And when you finally get an exp party, you'll have to fight over an army of bots using all the best camp.
It is easy to recognize ppl using automated action.
A GM Call wont do anything as they are unable since STF to do something, we have to rely on a website to report and not doing it in game...

Please, Square Enix...

SE business plan is to retain the sub payments being paid by these scoundrels. So they won't punish accounts that are clearly performing harmful conduct many players have reported on numerous topics involving numerous transgressions. The real solution is to separate those who value honorable conduct from those who do not. Again; I call for a "Traditionalist" server so those who do not wish to share a server with these miscreants can have a safe harbor to inhabit.

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Originally Posted by ninja4life

Peeps have been crying about it for years but it won't change. Just let it go, move servers, or go play 14!

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Exactly. Wait until free-to-play is inactive.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

Again; I call for a "Traditionalist" server so those who do not wish to share a server with these miscreants can have a safe harbor to inhabit.

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He may understand no one is interested but try it even though his suggestion might not be perfect.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

SE business plan is to retain the sub payments being paid by these scoundrels. So they won't punish accounts that are clearly performing harmful conduct many players have reported on numerous topics involving numerous transgressions. The real solution is to separate those who value honorable conduct from those who do not. Again; I call for a "Traditionalist" server so those who do not wish to share a server with these miscreants can have a safe harbor to inhabit.

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keep they sub on, dont ban them, but dont allow them to earn exp/capacity point anymore and lock it to their group so no one in their group can earn Capacity / Exp point.
Erase theirs gils to 0, downgrade their stuff to NQ. So that they can still play their char but gonna be limited, and then, they get what they deserve.

Don't think there is much that can be done. Large factor why this is happening is there not enough people to play with and Trusts aren't exactly good at cp parties when you don't already have a rema or fully geared and have at least 500+ job points. Plus this exp campaigns make it so people don't want to exp when there aren't any campaigns going on.

Plus large factor of camps in the game where the mobs don't agroo, link or use skills to allow for very static combat to happen.
Another factor is you can't really play the game at lv99 unless your 1500+ in job points or you can't find any groups to do endgame content for progression. That's why we got dominion points so new players can get gear from xiv style of fates.

I have seen my fair share of new and returning players hit tha lv99 1500 job point requirement for stuff like ambu, omen and so on and just quit the game again when they're done with RoV. They need to dial down the OP of remas and the high lvl ambu content so new comers at lv99 can get groups so there is less of a gap between players. Plus if there isn't any new content being added to this game there really isn't a point in caring. Think SE about to move us all on ffxi mobile at least.

I see this mmo ending like ff14 1.0 did. Free rema weapons for every job in the final month of this game then server shutdown.

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Originally Posted by Venat

Don't think there is much that can be done. Large factor why this is happening is there not enough people to play with and Trusts aren't exactly good at cp parties when you don't already have a rema or fully geared and have at least 500+ job points. Plus this exp campaigns make it so people don't want to exp when there aren't any campaigns going on.

Plus large factor of camps in the game where the mobs don't agroo, link or use skills to allow for very static combat to happen.
Another factor is you can't really play the game at lv99 unless your 1500+ in job points or you can't find any groups to do endgame content for progression. That's why we got dominion points so new players can get gear from xiv style of fates.

I have seen my fair share of new and returning players hit tha lv99 1500 job point requirement for stuff like ambu, omen and so on and just quit the game again when they're done with RoV. They need to dial down the OP of remas and the high lvl ambu content so new comers at lv99 can get groups so there is less of a gap between players. Plus if there isn't any new content being added to this game there really isn't a point in caring. Think SE about to move us all on ffxi mobile at least.

I see this mmo ending like ff14 1.0 did. Free rema weapons for every job in the final month of this game then server shutdown.

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Honestly, this game is not going to slowdown no time soon. Already new plans in place for this game to carry it for another 5+ years. As for FFXI Mobile, yeah...you can just forget about that. SE put out so many mobile games before and after that announcement, some where even "napkin ideas" like DFFOO (DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY OPERA OMNIA) was created, published, and very successful. Not to sound bitter, but I don't see FFXI happening at all.

I cannot comment on the economic part of things, but I would like to address the other points the OP and others have brought up in this thread.

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Asura does not need any new characters. Just close Asura. As a bonus, make anyone that gets banned also have to move servers.

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Asura is flooded with accounts that utilize gil farming bots. It's by far the issue that needs to be addressed on Asura.

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Honestrly I think the game is way better on any other server at this point. It was a mistake to get people to pile on asura.

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It is not a nice place to be for genuine players, especially players who played FFXI in the hay day. The community is dead and any kind of challenges have been taken out the game because people creating 'fake parties' by multi-boxing are selling everything and anything (Job points, treasure, EXP, clears, you name it). Give FFXI the justice it deserves and rid of this culture of toxicity.

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So, just by going with the first few comments here, there seems to be an issue with gil/RMT bots and "mercs" which are players who box multiple accounts at one time (boxxing is a term I am more familiar with from EverQuest).

1. If there is to be a decision to close down Asura, then there needs to be a decision to possibly merge servers to raise up the populations. There have been complaints on how the others servers are "dead" compared to Asura. EverQuest and other MMOs have done server merging in the past, and it can help to some degree.

2. In regards to gil farming bots. This is an issue that plagues many MMOs, FF14 included. There needs to be; a. An easy way to report said bots, b. A good system to find and remove them.

Both are things FF14 still struggles with. Because they can ban thousands of bots (which they have) and they are back in droves the next day. This is all on SE's side of things. FF14 has a small Special Task Force that deals with botters etc, so who knows how big it is here (or if they have one).

3. I'm not sure if it was SE's or the playerbase's decision to "pile on Asura" but I can tell you that for myself and my husband, when we were looking for a place to come to after 11 or so years, many guides and posts we found online said "Asura was the place to go for population/activity". And for the times we are active, Asura fits the best.

4. Multi-boxing has been around since the original EverQuest days, though back then it was much harder to do. Now, with better software and hardware to use, any Joe-Schmoe can buy multiple accounts, a few key pads on the cheap on E-Bay, and slap a few macros together with possibly a 3rd-party program to use it with. This is nothing new at all, and still goes on in tons of MMOs to this day.

5. On the point of the community is "dead" and challenges are "taken out", when Trusts were placed int he game, that is pretty much where a lot of it possibly happened. Think about it, no reason to wait long queues to get flesh and blood people. Just slap a few NPC Trusts on and BAM quest is done. So that is less the player's creating the issue than SE creating it.

6. Much of the issue is found int he /yell channel, so I just turned mine off, got a friendly LS on Asura, and had zero issues from there. Now granted, the /yell is used for everything here (blame the poor UI choices for chat) so that can be a pain, sure, but sometimes one has to decisde what is the "lesser of two evils" so to speak.

So what can be done about these first few points? Here are my suggestions.

1. Close down Asura to all new players and transfers.
2. Possibly look into merging some of the very low population servers.
3. Look into creating a few "Preferred" servers. These servers would welcome new players and transferrs, possibly giving newly created players bonus exp to a certian level (FF14 has a Road to 70 buff on certian servers).
4. Create a better way to report gil spammers/bots. I've always been a fan of the good old "right click to report as well as blacklist" combination after picking the correct selection from a r-click menu.
5. Players need to realize that multi-boxing is part of MMOs now. Heck, EverQuest tried to curb it by making a special "no-boxing" server and that did next to nothing to stop people from doing it. /shrug

Players need to find what is best for them. Figure out your playtimes and how the server you are on or want to go on works with that. That is the ultimate descision, is it not?

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Originally Posted by Alphie

4. Multi-boxing has been around since the original EverQuest days, though back then it was much harder to do. Now, with better software and hardware to use, any Joe-Schmoe can buy multiple accounts, a few key pads on the cheap on E-Bay, and slap a few macros together with possibly a 3rd-party program to use it with. This is nothing new at all, and still goes on in tons of MMOs to this day.

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It has been around, but it was more underground. Now it is just overkill on Asura. I understand people like to play with themselves using 5 other characters, just don't sell everything under the sun.
FFXI can't be run in multiple instances on the same machine - It would require 3rd party software (unless said person is sitting around 5 physical PC's). That, at the very least breaks the terms of service, and for a reason.

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Billboard advertising in /yell is being done by accounts using intrusive third party programs to either procure what they're advertising, spam the yell channel or both.

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I have been on Asura since I started the game 9000 years ago. If you don't understand how medal duping and other people doing constant server transfers to sell items on Asura is bad for the economy then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That doesn't mean I don't want the prices of things I sell to make gil to go back to what they used to be. There is no reason to keep letting more new accounts be made on Asura. Make new people play on a server where they actually have to play the game. And when RMT/bot accounts get banned, they can't just go make a new account in 6 hours and be right back doing the same thing.

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This is getting ridiculous, ppl making money by using bots and lots of alt characters, it is rare to find an exp pty as everyone is jumping into mercenary one. And when you finally get an exp party, you'll have to fight over an army of bots using all the best camp. It is easy to recognize ppl using automated action. A GM Call wont do anything as they are unable since STF to do something, we have to rely on a website to report and not doing it in game. Please, Square Enix...

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1. How do you know 3rd party software is being used? Yes sure it could look like it, but how do you know for certain? Reason I'm saying this, is right now, there is a big converstaion on FF14 about 3rd party software being used to remotely place waypoints in battles, and SE decided to do a blanket change that really fubars all types of players because of a teeny tiny handful of jerks.

Some players have brought up the point of "What about using something like EasyCheat" to catch those who do it? Well, SE is against it, and I'm not sure how many people here would like to have some program sniffing around their pc and screwing stuff up (it went over VERY poorly on FF14 forums).

2. I don't know about medal duping, but if SE has not stopped it being done, they they personally don't see it as an issue IMO. As for transfers, I am of the likemind that you should only be able to transfer servers once in a 30 day period. Or heck, just once over all per character or something.

3. One needs to understand how bots/RMT account work. When an account gets banned, they completely abandon it, get another credit card number (usually stolen from those who bought gil through them or other means) and just create another account with that. So they will be back to doing what they do in less than an hour.

4. We have the same issue in FF14, where we can clearly see botting is being done, but nothing seems to be done about it no matter how much we report it. Those same botters are around months later, and even to this day they still are years later (no joke).

So what can be done about it? Hm ...

Honestly, these few concerns/aggrivations are all on SE's side to deal with. But one can at least try with bringing down the prices on the AH. It is different than what I'm used to but if you see the prices go up, do what you can to bring them down.

Overall it's frustrating. But it seems to be the norm in many MMOs of the times. Remember, that as much as the devs do to stop these things, hackers and RMTers will find ways to get around it .. and the circle continues.

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Originally Posted by Sirmarki

It has been around, but it was more underground. Now it is just overkill on Asura. I understand people like to play with themselves using 5 other characters, just don't sell everything under the sun.
FFXI can't be run in multiple instances on the same machine - It would require 3rd party software (unless said person is sitting around 5 physical PC's). That, at the very least breaks the terms of service, and for a reason.

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Yup, and like I said, it's easy to get around it. Laptops are hella cheap in many places, so you don't need to jump all crazy to get what you want. So no extra software needed.

EQ's new server was to stop people from using the same pc/3rd party software from doing boxing, and I kid you not, there wer pictures of players who bought 6 laptops and keypads, hooked them up with a long pole to press the same button along with macros, and BAM, got a 6 man party right there.

If a player wants to do it, it can be done.

As for the selling thing, heh, this here is nothing. EQ had people training each other (forcing a mob to attack others by pulling said mob and feigning death so the mob attaks the intended victim in range) just to kill a mob for Efreeti Boots and sell at exuberant prices in channels. Why? Because players know what items sell and what other players are looking for! And it's the same thing here.

Unless SE makes those wanted items useless, it will continue. But then, of course, another item will be chosen and the circle continues.

I wanted to just pop back on here and say that I'm not trying to bash the idea of closing Asura. The main issue is it has to be SE's choice.

A lot of the concerns here and what I see in a few other posts, are all things SE has to do something about. So until then, we as players have to find a way to play the game we enjoy around those few annoying things in game.

Asura is the Capitalist server.

I'm not in favor of this, but they could possibly remove Asura from the half price server transfers they have.

This would make it more expensive to server swap just to sell items from smaller servers on Asura (sucking up all the supply of big ticket items on those smaller servers) and also create the possibility of a player movement to make an Asura mk2.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

I'm not in favor of this, but they could possibly remove Asura from the half price server transfers they have.

This would make it more expensive to server swap just to sell items from smaller servers on Asura (sucking up all the supply of big ticket items on those smaller servers) and also create the possibility of a player movement to make an Asura mk2.

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Much as I don't like the asura situation, I think it's more often that people go to asura to exploit its economy and then bring stuff back with them to their main server to sell or use.

Hi all.
So I am a returning player having played last time some 13-14 years ago. From what I see from this discussion is not really clear in which server I should end up. I have a free trial character in Asura but can’t really tell what’s going on.
I am looking to find some of the old glory of the community when you had friends all over and active linkshells helping out. I am in Europe GMT +2.
Any suggestions on where to go?

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Quickstart_1-119_Guide

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Originally Posted by Mokdur

Hi all.
So I am a returning player having played last time some 13-14 years ago. From what I see from this discussion is not really clear in which server I should end up. I have a free trial character in Asura but can’t really tell what’s going on.
I am looking to find some of the old glory of the community when you had friends all over and active linkshells helping out. I am in Europe GMT +2.
Any suggestions on where to go?

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It's really up to you. Asura is the biggest and for some that's all that matters. Wherever you go though, ask around enough and you'll find willing people to get you on track. The guide linked above should also help you get an idea of early progression.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

Asura is flooded with accounts that utilize gil farming bots. It's by far the issue that needs to be addressed on Asura.

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its easy if you see a bot or think you find a bot just file a special task force report or a gm report and they will work it out. its the best way to deal with them.

I would invite you to click on my profile name. Go to view profile. Go to }Find all started threads{ .
Click there and enjoy the particular post about special task force.

I think Asura is like /pol/ in this instance, you really need a server to contain anything you don't want spreading onto other servers.

Isn't Asura the server they do the fan streams on? One of the chicks I watch on Twitch was on Asura I think, during the last stream.

Anyway, I feel like Asura is the least of FFXI issues, because mercs are heavy on Bahamut too, and Bismarck when I was on it years ago. My issue is updates. Justifying paying for this, when you can play stuff like PSO2, Lost Ark, Kritika, Guild Wars, and Black Desert Online for free; or simply a low priced purchase of the game & you are good to go forever (With true updates...).

I feel like mercs are magnified, because there isn't really much going on in XI in terms of development. It is akin to the twitter people canceling everyone because they have nothing better to do due to the quarantine......Tropic Thunder is a 12 year old movie.......If you are just now discovering something funny style about it.........

.....Merc is a very old concept.

Asura is not the only server that mercs, or the only server with destroyed economy. Asura is just better at it than everyone else......

When has XI economy ever been good? With the 10 million Ochiudo's Kote & Fuma Kyahan? & the same people were selling the item every-time? Cross-Counter & Spartan's?

But like the SoA era, that was when the main game was updated, so we tolerated it. It is magnified now due to the lack of development. Delve was pretty much the only way to attain the best gear, and mercs were advertising this on FFXI Ah for several servers.

Old news, magnified by a lack of attention to the game. Also, thanks for letting me still post while not having an active character.....
(Think I said too much)

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Anyway, I feel like Asura is the least of FFXI issues, because mercs are heavy on Bahamut too, and Bismarck when I was on it years ago. My issue is updates. Justifying paying for this, when you can play stuff like PSO2, Lost Ark, Kritika, Guild Wars, and Black Desert Online for free; or simply a low priced purchase of the game & you are good to go forever (With true updates...).

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It's not to say that other servers don't have these problems at all, they do, but its disporportionately more severe on asura, because that's the server the bulk of the population decided to start transferring to one day (I really don't understand how that happened), and so now it's more crowded than any server was in FFXI's heyday. Of course, a lot of people don't understand there are significant downsides to an overpopulated server, and this is one of them. (Then there's also the potential for more lag, queues for content, harder to find good CP camps, etc.- Except on like the first day of an update, have never had to wait more than like 10 seconds for ambuscade on Shiva)

Everyone would benefit from a more balanced population- it forces the RMT to spread their wings too, which means lower stocks (on asura for sure) and higher prices, potentially deterring some people who might consider going down that path. This is why FFXI originally didn't let you choose your server without a world pass.

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Originally Posted by Beastorizer

I feel like mercs are magnified, because there isn't really much going on in XI in terms of development. It is akin to the twitter people canceling everyone because they have nothing better to do due to the quarantine......Tropic Thunder is a 12 year old movie.......If you are just now discovering something funny style about it.........

.....Merc is a very old concept.

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REMA weapons cost many hundreds of millions of gil to make, there simply aren't good ways to make that kind of gil without mercing.

Since REMA are the main avenue for hardcore players to progress they have to merc now, and Asura has the most new players.

Some think it's RMT or something, it's really not. REMA just cost stupid about of gil to fully 119.

If you goto a smaller server you can easily make a REMA in terms of the starter parts, because so few people are doing them. Without mercing there are far fewer players willing to do the entire thing. Only on Asura are they widespread.

The answer is actually pretty simple, add a new type of content players can do in order to get upgrade mats in a R/E form. Then they won't have to merc.