FFXI dying or in a dry spell?

[Nawesemo]

Seekers of higher edumakation grasshopper. That am some really new toys coming out... It's happened before and will again.

[Zagen]

Maybe your server is truly dead but I highly doubt it.

Lvling is done mostly solo as book burns are few, even the FC pts have come to virtually a stop.

RMTs either get banned or have finally realized gil buying just isn't worth it anymore to most players. "Lead your own". Start shouting for a worms party, even if you don't have keys get 2 keyers and fill the rest with DD/mages. It's not hard to get EXP unless you're lazy.

VW /sh have become few and far between (took me 2 months to get the 3 cities and Im still stuck on Jeuno 1 for progression, the other paths I have no hope for).

Again "lead your own" to get clears, can't find a full 18 people? Don't worry up to Jeuno is doable by a party, might have to kill time to use /fume to reset staggers if they don't happen to be what you need but having a WAR and BLM in your group covers a lot of procs reducing the odds of falling short on 100% white !! for KIs you'd need/want. Once you get to Jeuno if you can't entice enough people to join still then don't worry there's displacers to help out.

Again only a problem if you're lazy or happen to have a terrible play time where everyone who speaks your language is asleep and/or at work.

Havent heard 1 /sh for meeble burrows yet or any other form of endgame.

You don't have at least 2 friends? If your answer is "no I don't" then why play a MMO? If you still insist on playing a MMO without friends and are unwilling to make some then I point you back to "lead your own"

Nearly impossible to get ppl for CoP, ToAU, WotG missions and so on. Even empy item and seal pts are nearly impossible to fill.

Again where are you friends? Still don't have 'em? Hop on Beastmaster and make friends with Faithful Falcorr. Feed it and medicate it as needed and your new best friend will help you accomplish all of these.

I have tried setting up pts for all the above and after at least an hr I give up.

This is your problem, There was one person shouting for days to get the final limit break done. I wondered what happened to them as the shouts disappeared one day and you know what, they were on a 99 job...

A friend of mine actually has been working on an empy for awhile since he needs glavoid, he said the easiest/fastest way he found to get it done is to gold box farm the KI and then just brew them til you get 50 drops.

Absurd.

WAR + RDM (WHM if you're worried about curing potential for some reason) all you need to gold box farm, also all you need to kill Glavoid. No brew, and yes it is absurd how ridiculously easy it is to get any emp weapon done especially now that we're at 99 cap.

[Mostfowl]

All the above in Zagen's post is totally true...

if you have the ability to lvl, which agreed is hard these days even with all the easy exp

all those displacers he talks about is great...if you have the gil to buy them but since you dont have gil to burn for exp its doubtful you do for displacers.

Friends are hard to find due to the lack of interest in helping returners and new players by the current population and even the difficulty of finding a ls that will take you so yeah I can see not being able to get missions done

Hopping on bst is an answer, but if you dislike the job you shouldnt be forced to play it to accomplish the basics of the game.

War+Rdm is an answer, again you need to actually have those jobs at 99, which you are having problems getting and you stated you had a lack of atma problem.

List goes on.

Needless to say, all that crap is easy for him to say im sure as he has probally been around for ages and did everything when it was shiney and new and easy to accomplish and has built a steady group of linkmates, something thats not the easiest thing to do if your new or recently returned. Plus he probally has enough gil to fund what he wants and needs or has the crour oor means to make alot fast.

So basically he is a troll and its best to ignore him.

This game HAS been slowing down, moreso than usual it seems. Heck my xiv server is busier than my xi server, and thats sayin something. It's not at all new player or returner friendly and thats being reflected in the ppl who start out and quit. We had tons of ppl who joined our ls that were new, we were helping out and still just up and quit out of frustration. The new producer needs to address these issues first and foremost because the numbers do seem to be dwindling. Ive noticed a loss of nearly 1k players online during peak times lately, and thats huge.

Its easy for ppl like Zagen to talk but I can understand your dilemma

[Rambus]

I recently came back. SoA was too much temptation and things went really good for awhile. Now it seems you can hear the crickets chirp most days.

Lvling is done mostly solo as book burns are few, even the FC pts have come to virtually a stop. VW /sh have become few and far between (took me 2 months to get the 3 cities and Im still stuck on Jeuno 1 for progression, the other paths I have no hope for). Havent heard 1 /sh for meeble burrows yet or any other form of endgame. Nearly impossible to get ppl for CoP, ToAU, WotG missions and so on. Even empy item and seal pts are nearly impossible to fill. I have tried setting up pts for all the above and after at least an hr I give up.

Where the heck is everyone?

I think FFXI is dieing, here is my experience when i came back.

*put flag up for an exp pt and nothing happens*
I shout why this is
The reply was people are too lazy to search or make part's anymore, they just wait for shouts.
*Goes afk and out for a few hours*
No tell, no shouts no nothing. One day i even searched every abyssea zone and it was like 10 or less people in each.

Then I see a strange shout something about 300k/3 hour, 800k/10 hour, looking for keyer pst

whatever i forget the line but i was like ooh exp maybe i can get 99 now!
(I have all jobs 90+ so keying is not appealing)
So I sent a tell to them saying "I can key but I can do good damage so I can be replaced by someone who really wants to key.
The reply was > "Keying does not cost money"
I thought a while if i really wanted to join this because I hate the "Pretend to understand you"

so after a while they asked me will you join? I said ok

So i ran to this party and saw a ton of nakked people, anon people , etc.. I was like no way.. So i asked the person that went to pull "RMT?" The reply was "RMT not rude." I said > "I did not say anything about RMT being rude" they said> "I know"

Then after they pulled the person was no doing nothing but getting beaten on by like 30 mobs. They had to use hp items, a rdm chainspell cures them and finally they start wsing the mobs. The war died and went after the rdm so i tried to kill a few and a few more linked but most depopped. I was not prepared for any of this so i end up dieing with the war and rdm.

Then I found out it was common for RMT to make parties -.-

sad day when RMT are more active then players, regretting banning people for stupid things yet? like the unfair savage bans or banning people for making too meany trades between two accounts?

Since then I had a LS member make a pt by shouting so now i have 3-99s now.

Maybe it is because of old me but i hate starting parties off shouting. I mean a year go it was not an issue to see 10-80 people looking for party and asking people to party.

Once I saw 900 people on worldwide....

Hard to find people farming seals or +2s unless it has to do with an emp path.

Sure getting DNC,PLD,BLM, and w/e the 4th job was, was nice getting them with no effort but getting that last blue body seal is sure a pain. (I/E NMs that drop KIs for emp weapon drop nms are easier then random nms that does not drop them)
(YAY for having 19 balance jewels on mule but no jewels of voage -.-)

It feels like no one exps because everyone has all the exp they need, in the old days everyone exped because you had to make up for the lost exp doing events -.-

Now said endgame events gives you exp too, so annoying no one wants to do anything, or does less.

Even if there isn't a GoV party/alliance going on somewhere every time you're logged in, you can actually levelup reasonably fast with two people, targeting the right mobs while doing pages, for so to join bigger GoV parties when they show up. Of course, you might not reach level 75+ in a day, but I would say if it takes more than a week, you're doing something wrong. Even if a week might sound like a long time for a single job to 75, I seriously don't think it is a severe issue to have a job abyssea-ready just a week after you decided you wanted it.

My pre ATU (art urtgan (I can't spell this)) self wanted to die reading this. back in my day you where happy if you got 75 in 6 months.

I have no idea what these pages are since all my jobs where 75 when abyssea came out XD

[hiko]

i think SE should set a "recommanded server" for new/returning player and offer transfert to this server only for account that got reactivated (add a minimum inactivate time to prevent people transfer char only for cross server purchase)
this way it is easier for people to find player to team up

there is "a lot" of returning/new player but they are spread on different server

[Mirage]

I think FFXI is dieing, here is my experience when i came back.

*put flag up for an exp pt and nothing happens*
I shout why this is
The reply was people are too lazy to search or make part's anymore, they just wait for shouts.
*Goes afk and out for a few hours*
No tell, no shouts no nothing. One day i even searched every abyssea zone and it was like 10 or less people in each.

You're doing it wrong if you're waiting for a shout. You need to be proactive. Enter abyssea, put your flag up, go to the usual camps (either worms, dolls, or something like that), and do a "/sh Party Can I have it? <job> Do you need it? Please invite me." right where they are fighting, then you'll either get a spot right away if they have a party slot free, or within 10-15 minutes if you need to wait for someone to leave. This works roughly 90% of the time for me.

A lack of exp party shouts isn't a sign of the game dying, it is a sign of most people having the jobs they like at 99 already, and only spend time getting gear/making money instead of exp/merits. This is however also why SE needs to severely increase the amounts of merits we can get, so that those who are currently capped on everything would start meriting again, letting low-levels get help with leveling up. Adding enough merits to require something like ten times as many merit points as what it takes to cap out today would be all right.

Group 3 job merits that have huge merit point costs, come on, do it, SE.

My pre ATU (art urtgan (I can't spell this)) self wanted to die reading this. back in my day you where happy if you got 75 in 6 months.

I have no idea what these pages are since all my jobs where 75 when abyssea came out XD

So then what is the problem? Even without a burn alliance, you can still do it 20 times faster than in the old days. That sounds to me like there is absolutely no problem in getting levels.

[Vold]

Where the heck is everyone?

Their content since Abyssea has been a big step backwards. So what players they held on to during Abyssea are now being lost post Abyssea. It's just not very fun end game content. Or maybe it's not so much fun factor as it is being compelled to play. As I said before, I miss the days of old end game. I felt compelled to go to sky or sea or whatever because it was damn interesting. Just like Abyssea(copy paste zones aside) VW ain't interesting. Legion ain't interesting. Etc.

[lllen]

My server is also very very quiet, one day there were only about 900 people on, use to be close to 2k. No shouts lately, except the occasional VW. Have seen one leigon shout since it started. I've played a few years, done my duty and leveled up several jobs the old fashion way. Love being able to lvl quickly on jobs that I'm already skilled up on, Dnc...have dagger from thief who got her skill from my Rdm. But Jeuno is dead was beginning to wonder if while I was a way for 3 weeks new place became the favorite hang out. But just like my Job boomed because of school starting if that isn't the reason that things have quieted down on the server.

[Mirage]

Legion generally isn't shouted for, because the event is pretty demanding and people generally go with people they know are good, not random pick-ups.

[Zagen]

Needless to say, all that crap is easy for him to say im sure as he has probally been around for ages and did everything when it was shiney and new and easy to accomplish and has built a steady group of linkmates, something thats not the easiest thing to do if your new or recently returned. Plus he probally has enough gil to fund what he wants and needs or has the crour oor means to make alot fast.

So basically he is a troll and its best to ignore him.

This game HAS been slowing down, moreso than usual it seems. Heck my xiv server is busier than my xi server, and thats sayin something. It's not at all new player or returner friendly and thats being reflected in the ppl who start out and quit. We had tons of ppl who joined our ls that were new, we were helping out and still just up and quit out of frustration. The new producer needs to address these issues first and foremost because the numbers do seem to be dwindling. Ive noticed a loss of nearly 1k players online during peak times lately, and thats huge.

Its easy for ppl like Zagen to talk but I can understand your dilemma

It's easy for me to say because I have done it on extra characters... Guess what I do have gil but at the time all of that gil was for me not my mule so that doesn't apply.

Here's the secret since you can't figure it out.

1. Start the game, pick your race, and pick your job (the first one you pick doesn't matter as the items they give you are trival at best)

2. Switch to MNK, why? Because it's easy to pound on monsters and you don't actually ever need a weapon for 1-30, don't get me wrong weapons and armor help but not much at this point.

3. Level up to 10-14. Make sure to use Fields of Valor or Grounds of Valor pages as you'll get bonus EXP from completing them and once a game day you'll get gil and tabs. I recommend Grounds of Valor personally as it scales up the EXP/Gil/Tabs.

4. Make your way to Gusgen Mines (Page 1 from the book btw). If there aren't people actually there leveling (odd but happens) then head back outside to highlands and grind away until 16-18 range then go back inside as you can solo the skeletons now, and beat up skeletons until 26. You could move further down to hit 30 but it becomes sketchy on safety at that point. Once you're 26 you can shift over to several different locations, check the FoV/GoV links to see what works out.

5. Now that you're level 30 you'll notice a few things: You're gimp but that's ok at this point pimp doesn't matter. You have no sub job (find the quests (hint: search "sub job quest") on the site I linked for FoV/GoV and you'll be on your way. Here's the cool thing now that you're level 30 MNK you can go do all of the advanced job quests that you want, with the exception of SCH (sort of) read up on the jobs from that site (gamerescape) and you're good to go.

6. Let's say your goal is making gil fast then your 2 jobs to unlock and focus on are Dancer and Beastmaster. Repeat steps 1-4 on both of those jobs.

7. Now that you have Dancer and Beastmaster at 30 you can leech them in Abyssea. It'll take you a few hours to hit 50 level cap. If you got Dancer to 50 and don't plan to level it to 99 at some point you can forget about that job as it is ready for a sub job and can focus on Beastmaster.

8. Again refer to gamerescape or any good resource you prefer for your information. With info in hand so to speak complete the limit break quests and return to leeching in Abyssea. Note: thanks to a lot of changes SE has made excluding the final limit break quest you can now solo all of them.

9. Congratulations you now have a level BST95/DNC47 which is more than enough to start farming Dynamis. Here's the catch you need to do missions to gain access to Dynamis as all you've done up to this point is level up jobs. Again refer to whatever source for info you want. Also you'll have to skill up axe which is fairly easy to do especially on BST since you can make your pets do all the tanking allowing you not to worry about keeping your HP up.

10. Congratulations you've gotten access to Dynamis and can begin making 1mil+ gil 2hours out of every day.

So ya it's easy for me to talk not because I have an established character or friends but because the game is seriously that easy to play if you aren't lazy and spend time researching instead of crying.