There just isn't that many people to play FFXI with anymore.

[FrankReynolds]

So make a group for something? I made my groups for Meebles, took about 20 minutes last night to get my party going and we did a T1 run. I doubt you would have a hard time getting together a group for events few people do since few people do them, everyone does plasm so everyone is burnt out on it, no one does Meebles, so a lot of people want to try it or need things from it. If you just wait for shouts, expect to be disappointed.

A lot of people aren't doing anything because there is an incredibly high chance that the devs will come out with a piece of gear that is 10X as good as whatever they were aiming for long before the random number generator, or event entrance limitations, or incredibly disproportionate work / reward ratios allow them to reach their goal. I mean they came out with weapons that can be obtained in a day that are more powerful than weapons that take months and didn't even bother to make the old weapons easier to obtain.

I mean the way things stand atm, it should cost 1 one hundred piece for a 99 relic, 1 Glavoid shell for a 99 ukon and 1 alex pouch for an empy mythic. The reward to work ratios are all shot to shit.

The whole game is in limbo because most of the old events / gear are crap compared to the new stuff and the stuff that is still good probably won't stay that way for long enough to be worth the effort.

I think they imagined this gear leveling thing working like leveling did in the past where you would gear for the level of stuff you were fighting and go after new stronger gear when you reached a higher level.

The problem is that all the gear people have / want now is R/E, so you can't just sell off all your level 101 gear and use the money to buy level 115 gear. That makes people very weary of doing anything that doesn't show long term potential... which is pretty much anything right now.

[Mostfowl]

Outside of the 3-4 hrs of peak times we have maybe 1 person /sh for something like seals or a vw and sometimes nothing at all for hrs at a time but a seller or something. I literally walked away from my puter to watch tv, came back a couple hours later and there had been only 2 /sh the whole time I was gone. One day after 5 hrs of afking while running errands, I didn't even have to scroll through my log to see the last /sh I saw before I left. Everyone just logs in and afks. Even peak times are slow and pts are taking hrs to fill, whether its for seals, +2s, VW, etc. Ive been in VW pts that just disbanded after 2 hrs and only being at 7/18.

I'm just hanging in there until I can cash in my mog bonanza pearls (for fun is all really) and then giving it the old cancelation after 7 yrs of play and moving to xiv. I was in Eorzea from beta to Bahamut and even the crappy v1 had more content and more thrills than xi currently has. My f2p subs have more going on at any given moment so there is no need to actually pay to afk.

It's really sad though. I stuck with this game for so long because it was a good game. There was always plenty to do, excitement to be had and friends to be made. But since they dropped the aby-bomb nothing has been the same.

After all is said and done if they would rework the game to be an off-line solo game where you could control a 6 man group (kindda like any other offline ff title) I would buy it in a heartbeat. If given the option I wouldn't even install anything post-mini expansions so I could enjoy the game in its old glory.

[Xantavia]

And like it or not, the devs in my opinion do know that the vocal minority of 10% of hardcore players, are NOT the ones that will kill the game if they all leave. It's the 90% of casual bumming around players like myself that they are trying to keep most of all.

Even here, I think it is just a subset of casual players who will kill the game, and those are the casuals who are trying to push hardcore playstyle into everything. The ones who require a Delve weapon no matter the content. I'm not just talking Aldouin stuff, but content that came earlier. The str sword or dagger I made are not good enough anymore in the eyes of some people. I'm not asking to go fight a delve boss, but say for a low level VW fight it should be good enough.

These casual players who got stuff done early on by getting in the right groups or whatever are now the ones denying entry to those who came late. They are causing the problems with a "I got mine, you can go rot" attitude.

[Zumi]

So make a group for something? I made my groups for Meebles, took about 20 minutes last night to get my party going and we did a T1 run. I doubt you would have a hard time getting together a group for events few people do since few people do them, everyone does plasm so everyone is burnt out on it, no one does Meebles, so a lot of people want to try it or need things from it. If you just wait for shouts, expect to be disappointed.

In order to make a boss run, I would basically have to interview each person that sends me a tell, if they have proper gear sets, spells, certain merit abilities. Like does the RDM have a M.acc enfebeling set, do the Monks have proper pdt, hp gear, along with formless merits, mantra merits, agumented body, legs, feet, along with proper gear. Would have to ask if brd have 3-4 songs, would have to ask if the geos actually capped their skill, do the sch have stun sets.

Basically would have to do a mini interview with each person you invite and you know that will turn off a lot of people in this game.

Boss runs aren't like meebles where you can pretty much take anyone.

[Demon6324236]

I know that, who said boss things are the only thing you can do? If your interest lies only in a single event in the game and its something your not able to do, maybe you should think about that more than complaining about no shouts you want to do.

[Alpheus]

I think for Zumi the reason Delve fracture mega bosses spring to mind is because it is the best bet a player can make as far as earning gear that is insulated from becoming obsolete and hence the best use of one's time. As an example there is a better chance that YOLO helmet from Tojil will stay relevant than say those MAB pants off the the Simian Meebles Mega Boss (random example im aware that Morri +1 pants prob repped them far before SoA)

[Zumi]

I know that, who said boss things are the only thing you can do? If your interest lies only in a single event in the game and its something your not able to do, maybe you should think about that more than complaining about no shouts you want to do.

I think I already said this that I finished everything else in the game. I started offering 30m for 1 run for a group that has cleared it before but still couldn't even find any groups willing to take me.

I did join a shout today they went 2/6 on NMs killed, it was a good set up but it could of been executed better. I saw many things which could of been improved but I wasn't leading the run so I didn't really want to say anything. The group fell apart after the loss, that's that biggest problem with pick up groups on these you will have different people all the time they won't learn from their mistakes and the group won't have synergy because always having different people.

[kylani]

Even here, I think it is just a subset of casual players who will kill the game, and those are the casuals who are trying to push hardcore playstyle into everything. The ones who require a Delve weapon no matter the content. I'm not just talking Aldouin stuff, but content that came earlier. The str sword or dagger I made are not good enough anymore in the eyes of some people. I'm not asking to go fight a delve boss, but say for a low level VW fight it should be good enough.

These casual players who got stuff done early on by getting in the right groups or whatever are now the ones denying entry to those who came late. They are causing the problems with a "I got mine, you can go rot" attitude.

I returned to the game recently and am amazed at people with good gear that don't seem to understand how to play their job or understand strategy. I wonder if the problem is so many people leech the good gear that don't know how to play, so they need other players who play well, and they believe the only way to tell is by gear.

I take my time and research and go for what I can accomplish. I've gotten to where I dread it when someone asks to join us in Abyssea for a kill, not because I mind them getting the kill, but some of the things people do are ridiculous. We can be pet killing, heeling our pets to avoid healing the mob when it switches modes, and someone asks to join as the mob is near death. We let them join, and they run up and just attack the mob when it's in heal mode after it's taken us forever to whittle it down. No matter how much you ask them to stop, they just keep attacking, and don't seem to understand mode switching. Its quite frustrating. You'd assume someone in twilight gear would know how to play or at least understand when you've told them they are healing the mob, or to stay out of AOE range because the mob has a killer tp move, or don't debuff because the mob will heal itself, etc, but it's like they only have one mode.

I make a lot of mistakes, but I learn and can figure stuff out from failing. I love teamwork and love the game for all the fun I had in the past with friends, whether great wins or mega losses, but what I've seen lately seems to be a lot of Leroy Jenkins who don't even seem to realize they don't know what they are doing or want to be a better player. They think great gear automatically makes them leet, and it seems pretty sad because new players do need help for quite a bit of old content, but good help is hard to come by. Delve sounds like it is more old school, so I can only imagine what it may be like with folks like these in groups there with what I'm seeing in the old content.