Looking For More Players On Cerberus.

[Kylos]

I never said -you- were, or at least that's not what I meant. I was talking about the endgame culture as a whole, the vast majority are like that. Maybe you are the exception, and if you are, that's good to hear, but sadly there's just not enough players like that around. My apologies if you took that personally; it really wasn't meant as such.



Well, ok, "yelling at SGMs" might have been the wrong phrase... I meant "paging them repeatedly" or something along those lines.



That bit I tacked on about people not helping other people was more of a rant at the endgame community itself, and not aimed at you personally. I have seen other people who, like you, post stuff like this, but some of those very people turn around and point their Seattle Space Needle noses up in the air at newbies because they ain't "good enough" and it's a sore spot with me. My apologies if I worded that in such a way that you took it as a jab at you specifically; it was not.



You're of course free to do that... but I still am not sure what your goal was in trying to address this to SGMs or even the developers unless you're asking for server merges of some of the lower population servers (which I think should happen, to be honest). Nobody should be merged with Asura, but yet I think they could take 3-5 of the lowest population servers and merge those together, and it would make everybody's play experience better IMO.

EDIT: Also I'd like to again apologize for any snark or snipping in that post of mine you quoted.. I was not having the best of days and it kinda leaked out into my reply. These last couple weeks RL have been hectic and such, and that CP campaign screwed up my sleeping schedules, and now I got problems at RL work because of a couple problem employees, blah blah. I just want things to go back to normal, lol. But it was wrong of me to dump that in a post in reply to you, and I'll apologize for that.

It sounded like it was directed at me which is why I assumed you were judging me. I accept the apology, it's cool.

In lighter news I think my linkshell is getting healthier by the day. We had someone jump from Quetz a couple of days ago, and the recent recruitment drive should make things easier.

However, I still stand by the fact we need more players, no matter how it's done. I never stated we should have a merge, but I'm sure others would be happy to see the lower populated servers merged together. Not that that's the reason why I made the OP, it was done out of frustration as we couldn't get a sufficient group for harder content despite weeks of warning. When we miserably failed our event the other week (we had to do something, better than sitting in Adoulin), it was yet another reminder of the limitations of smaller servers. And as I already stated, acknowledgement would go a long way in giving players peace of mind.

To further this, during EU times through the week we've started seeing average numbers dip under 200 players. This is concerning, and I'm not sure when SE believes it to be critical. I already see this as dire, and the SGM I contacted also expressed frustration (stated he played the game too) with the lack of players. All he could do was apologize and state it's bound to happen with such an old game, in which I responded by saying it's even more important for such an old game to keep players interested by ensuring the remaining are not spread too thin. Any old game has to shut some down eventually, even to the point there's only one server remaining. Clearly we ain't at that stage yet, I firmly believe if we lost 3 of the 17 servers and merged them in to other low populated servers the benefits to the economies and enjoyment of players on each server would be immediately clear.

This seems like a lost cause though. It seems moderators only respond to subjects which are either seriously popular, or points to a major bug/exploit which effects the game. They'd rather not respond and make money from server transfers than appeal to players who struggle on the servers they enjoy playing on. It feels wrong though, to have to pay extra money (doesn't matter how much) on top of what we already do .. just so we can find a server with plenty of choice. We'd like to know if servers like Cerberus will always be around, or if there's a big chance it won't be by 2018. Having this knowledge would help us to determine whether the server is a lost cause, or if there's a chance we'll see an influx of new talent due to other means.

[Aysha]

I do know that one thing they could do that would really help, would be if they would simply change their attitude towards the game.

They have a good number of players, enough that they could surely assign at least 1-2 more people to the development team to actually try to fix up some stuff and add in a few of the easier requests from people instead of just throwing the game on life support and calling it a day.

Don't really get why the upper management at SE got lazy over the game when it still had a dedicated die-hard fanbase and we still get occasional new players. Throwing the game on life support is guaranteed to eventually kill it. But yet who knows, if you keep fixing the game up and adding stuff, it could actually grow healthier. of course, it would never be as popular as FFXIV or WoW, but you could get a respectable playerbase if you'd give the players more to do and/or show that you're willing to actually support the game.

It seems to me that they took a perfectly good game and just tossed it aside, shrugged their shoulders and walked away from it, letting it collect as much sub money as it will until it dies completely, not really caring when exactly that will happen.

Now to make it clear, I am NOT talking about the current development team of FFXI, I'm talking about their bosses, the upper management of SE, the suits and ties that make these decisions. It just seems so stupid to let a whole game go to waste when people WANT to play and enjoy it if only they'd support it properly.

But then again, SE Isn't the only Japanese video game company that does this kind of stuff. Nintendo is right there with them, letting popular IPs sit and rot for years and years and years despite players asking for more.

[Nyarlko]

We are playing Final Fantasy XI, they want the numbered series to be focused on the newest/highest number in that series, even if the play style is something entirely different. It does make sense business-wise to focus on your newest product rather than last year's (or last decade's in this case) model. They've probably been wanting to shut down the servers for the last decade tbh, but are keeping the lights on out of respect for the players' company loyalty (and the steady income that comes along with it.)

[Kishr]

Asura.
Thread closed.

[Justuas]

Pretty sure you can't get done much of the harder content on less populated servers unless you are in an active ls or have friends (or have mules/alts). And since there aren't much yells you'll end up doing easy stuff solo.
And for the "overblown population" claim, I haven't seen that much myself. Plenty of free nm spots in escha, healthy amount of supplies in ah, and ambuscade queues haven't been that bad recently. What's not to love?

Also this is a mmorpg.

[Aysha]

, and ambuscade queues haven't been that bad recently.

That's because Ambuscade sucks to solo/low-man this month.

I remember the ridiculous amount of complaints about Ambuscade Queues on Asura last month when it was far more solo-friendly. And just you wait, if the devs swap the Total Hallmarks vouchers... you'll see ridiculous queues again, esp if it's another solo-friendly Ambuscade.

[Justuas]

That's because Ambuscade sucks to solo/low-man this month.

I remember the ridiculous amount of complaints about Ambuscade Queues on Asura last month when it was far more solo-friendly. And just you wait, if the devs swap the Total Hallmarks vouchers... you'll see ridiculous queues again, esp if it's another solo-friendly Ambuscade.

I agree that the soloers are a problem... we can't do anything about them unfortunately.

[DarkValefor]

Everyone or almost everyone prefers getting both hallmarks and gallantry rather than just hallmarks, in most case, soloers solo because people get really picky with setups. I was one of those soloers in Asura because I was not a BLU, was just an AG mythic + empy dnc and mythic smn.

Here in Carbuncle I allways find the group to do ambuscade with, I never solo

[Aysha]

Everyone or almost everyone prefers getting both hallmarks and gallantry rather than just hallmarks, in most case, soloers solo because people get really picky with setups. I was one of those soloers in Asura because I was not a BLU, was just an AG mythic + empy dnc and mythic smn.

Here in Carbuncle I allways find the group to do ambuscade with, I never solo

Family member and I solo on Sylph, because we've been carrying mules, lol. I doubt anybody wants to carry a 117 mule through Ambuscade to get a full suit of armor, lol. So, we use our best geared jobs to do it. But then, on Sylph, there is almost never a queue and if there is, we simply don't bother, we'll wait and do it some other time.

[DarkValefor]

Family member and I solo on Sylph, because we've been carrying mules, lol. I doubt anybody wants to carry a 117 mule through Ambuscade to get a full suit of armor, lol. So, we use our best geared jobs to do it. But then, on Sylph, there is almost never a queue and if there is, we simply don't bother, we'll wait and do it some other time.

Oh I usually try to bring one or two LS members who are low iLvl to vol 2 runs, This month's ambuscade sucks but normally you are fine with 3 or 4 geared players or even just one geared player, one healer and support. Not like trusts are very well "geared" so I try to bring new players as ambuscade is a good way to start for them.