Dev response to Server Merge please.

[InpendingDeath]

Yeah and then you send them a tell or say hi out loud and they ignore you. Maybe I've just had bad luck but I find people out and about in the world are often really really unfriendly.

I know it was different in the past but today's XI - a lot of people rely on shouts to do group content. The archaic linkshell design makes it so shells can die out in a matter of a week (seen it happen several times this year, I go away for a week come back and there is never more than 2 people in the shell anymore) - the playerbase is fragmented, most people aren't in solid, dependable shells. A lot of people play infrequently (hello, that's me!) and so can't really do statics etc, even if people wanted to do them.

Then on top of it, most of the jobs are considered crap tier, so god forbid you actually want to play a job you like... then you are screwed shouts or not.

And then SE makes matters worse by having "variable difficulty" content - where most of the difficulties drop nothing, and have extremely high costs to enter. It's nuts. Either E/VE should just be eliminated altogether, or they should cost less to enter, or their drop rates need to increase.

You know when was a good time to play? During abyssea. Why? Because the content was easy - and people were happy to invite scrubs just to help them out because they didn't lose out. If these new battlefields actually dropped anything on lower difficulty - or cost less to enter even, then people could do causal shouts with less than perfect jobs.

Instead most people are locked out of playing at all because the developers think it is necessary to punish people for being casual or daring to like a job that they feel should suck.

Anyway, server merge won't fix any of this. What the game needs is more causal content that can be completed by mediocre/reject job groups. They also need to stop punishing people for being casuals. Seriously.

Yes more people ignore others rather than even giving a simple reply. Most of the merit BCs can be done on normal with whatever setup you like, but finding the people is the issue the most time, more people would be helpfull especially when it comes to voidwatch.

[Ulth]

I'm sure there will be a lot of varying opinions of this. Mostly because some servers have more players than others. Personally I think my server is at the right amount of population. The economy is alright, every now and then there are shouts for pick ups, and I have a very nice linkshell. That being said I don't want it merged with another server, or have a server merged into it. However if you are on a dying or poor server maybe you should think about world transfer before asking to have the server shut down. Maybe instead they should have a free world transfer event and see how the chips fall. If enough people willing transfer out of a server then it might be time to merge it.

[InpendingDeath]

I'm sure there will be a lot of varying opinions of this. Mostly because some servers have more players than others. Personally I think my server is at the right amount of population. The economy is alright, every now and then there are shouts for pick ups, and I have a very nice linkshell. That being said I don't want it merged with another server, or have a server merged into it. However if you are on a dying or poor server maybe you should think about world transfer before asking to have the server shut down. Maybe instead they should have a free world transfer event and see how the chips fall. If enough people willing transfer out of a server then it might be time to merge it.

Yeah everyone will have a different opinion, and I do not know current populations on other servers. Just hard to call a game a MMORPG with such low numbers considering any other has 2k+ at any given time shouldn't this one have atleast 1,000 at any given time? Currently /sea all = 478. And of that more than half are AFK Bazaar/Peoples 2nd-3rd char.

[Ulth]

Then just don't call it a mmorpg. You don't need thousands of people on at once to do something. Pretty much anything can be done with just a party of six. Sometimes it's bigger and you need an alliance of 18. Even with wildskeeper reives once the number of people get to about 40 it feels crowded. What doesn't matter is how many people need to active at one time for you to consider the game massive. What does matter is what works.

[Pixela]

Read then post, orders of operation.

Well this is your problem. Almost everyone that is capable has already done this content, you're late to the party and asking people to do stuff that very few need. All you're going to get now is the people that were unable to do it before, which means they will be undergeared or simply not very skilled/experienced.

I'm not sure what you're shouting for, if it's bcnms for papers then many are capped or solo those now. If it's high tier delve, people won't join unless you're highly geared and known to be a good leader. Shout for stuff like WKR and you'll usually get a big group there.

Server merge won't fix the problem you're having, what would fix it is an updated party finder system, but chances of that are slim.
Yeah everyone will have a different opinion, and I do not know current populations on other servers. Just hard to call a game a MMORPG with such low numbers considering any other has 2k+ at any given time shouldn't this one have atleast 1,000 at any given time?

FFXI is one of the very few games that you can tell how many are online, I can't think of any other mmo that lets you know how many are online at once. Thinking all these games have thousands of players on at any time is kinda silly.

[Dale]

Yeah and then you send them a tell or say hi out loud and they ignore you. Maybe I've just had bad luck but I find people out and about in the world are often really really unfriendly.

I know it was different in the past but today's XI - a lot of people rely on shouts to do group content. The archaic linkshell design makes it so shells can die out in a matter of a week (seen it happen several times this year, I go away for a week come back and there is never more than 2 people in the shell anymore) - the playerbase is fragmented, most people aren't in solid, dependable shells. A lot of people play infrequently (hello, that's me!) and so can't really do statics etc, even if people wanted to do them.

Then on top of it, most of the jobs are considered crap tier, so god forbid you actually want to play a job you like... then you are screwed shouts or not.

And then SE makes matters worse by having "variable difficulty" content - where most of the difficulties drop nothing, and have extremely high costs to enter. It's nuts. Either E/VE should just be eliminated altogether, or they should cost less to enter, or their drop rates need to increase.

You know when was a good time to play? During abyssea. Why? Because the content was easy - and people were happy to invite scrubs just to help them out because they didn't lose out. If these new battlefields actually dropped anything on lower difficulty - or cost less to enter even, then people could do causal shouts with less than perfect jobs.

Instead most people are locked out of playing at all because the developers think it is necessary to punish people for being casual or daring to like a job that they feel should suck.

Anyway, server merge won't fix any of this. What the game needs is more causal content that can be completed by mediocre/reject job groups. They also need to stop punishing people for being casuals. Seriously.

Yes I know. Heaven forbid you a play a job you enjoy because it might take a couple more minutes to beat a battlefield or clear a raid. You are singing to the choir on that one. So I won't disagree with you. And this type of business-approach to video games is something that was less prevalent in the past. So you make a good point.

But as you say, server merges wouldn't fix this. And there are still nice people out there. But I'll concede you will probably have to look harder to find them.

I do slightly disagree with you about them needing to add more casual content for rejects though. Because it's been my experience the content can be completed by unusual jobs that don't fit the typical mold. I'm a casual player myself - and enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to succeed using different strategies. The ideal set up isn't needed to win on this game. Though you would never know that if you were to listen to some of these elite players who believe they have a monopoly on how to play the game.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say this game punishes people for being casuals. I can certainly understand how other players do. But if you could elaborate on why you feel the game does I would comment.

[Dale]

Then just don't call it a mmorpg. You don't need thousands of people on at once to do something. Pretty much anything can be done with just a party of six. Sometimes it's bigger and you need an alliance of 18. Even with wildskeeper reives once the number of people get to about 40 it feels crowded. What doesn't matter is how many people need to active at one time for you to consider the game massive. What does matter is what works.

Just to add to your point, I beat the first WKR with just 3 people the other day. Was a long fight, but in the end we won.

Probably what would go a long way to making this game more friendly to casuals and smaller-numbers would be to simply do away with all of these time-limits on everything. That would be a nice start. That way smaller groups of players would have a better shot at being able to complete more content.

[InpendingDeath]

Yes I know. Heaven forbid you a play a job you enjoy because it might take a couple more minutes to beat a battlefield or clear a raid. You are singing to the choir on that one. So I won't disagree with you. And this type of business-approach to video games is something that was less prevalent in the past. So you make a good point.

But as you say, server merges wouldn't fix this. And there are still nice people out there. But I'll concede you will probably have to look harder to find them.

I do slightly disagree with you about them needing to add more casual content for rejects though. Because it's been my experience the content can be completed by unusual jobs that don't fit the typical mold. I'm a casual player myself - and enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to succeed using different strategies. The ideal set up isn't needed to win on this game. Though you would never know that if you were to listen to some of these elite players who believe they have a monopoly on how to play the game.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say this game punishes people for being casuals. I can certainly understand how other players do. But if you could elaborate on why you feel the game does I would comment.

I agree I have done most all Merit BCs with unique-non cookie cutter build setups but the fact is people are too stubborn to try. Maybe the real problem is lacking people who are willing to help others with nothing to gain for themselves. Maybe they should add a function like WKR to AA's and once clear them all can chose an item of your choice or something. I understand what he means by saying they punish people for being casuals because casual players are left to do content no one is doing nor willing to do because they have better harder things to do that you can't do yet. So if your left behind your not catching up without people not needing something from said event to help you, which is rare. Maybe a server merge would bring more people not so elite to the table, those willing to help others without getting anything from it.

[InpendingDeath]

Just to add to your point, I beat the first WKR with just 3 people the other day. Was a long fight, but in the end we won.

Probably what would go a long way to making this game more friendly to casuals and smaller-numbers would be to simply do away with all of these time-limits on everything. That would be a nice start. That way smaller groups of players would have a better shot at being able to complete more content.

I don't know what time limits you are talking about but 30mins in a battlefield is fine imo, Delves never really an issue of time either.

[Dale]

I agree I have done most all Merit BCs with unique-non cookie cutter build setups but the fact is people are too stubborn to try. Maybe the real problem is lacking people who are willing to help others with nothing to gain for themselves. Maybe they should add a function like WKR to AA's and once clear them all can chose an item of your choice or something. I understand what he means by saying they punish people for being casuals because casual players are left to do content no one is doing nor willing to do because they have better harder things to do that you can't do yet. So if your left behind your not catching up without people not needing something from said event to help you, which is rare. Maybe a server merge would bring more people not so elite to the table, those willing to help others without getting anything from it.

Maybe but I doubt it. Chances are the amount of open-minded players would be drowned out by the influx of new elite-minded players; especially in regards to activities on shout. Rarely if ever do I see people shouting for all-comers. They usually always want very specific and ideal job combinations - the cookie-cutter set ups as you refer to them. And I doubt this would change after a server merge even though having these specific set ups isn't necessary at all.

Part of the problem is after someone views themselves as becoming an elite and taste the so-called endgame they have this habit of viewing the entire game in that very limited context. So even when doing something as simple as a chapter 1 REM battlefield for example they act as if they are getting ready to do some very difficult endgame alliance raid. I see it happen all the time. A battlefield you can solo yet I see players making a huge fuss about what job and gear everyone has. It's silly and very punishing to casuals who are trying to gear up I agree. I wish I could change their minds but I can't. They are set in their ways and for some it makes them feel special to exclude others.

I don't really think there is a good solution to this. I wish there was. But there isn't. That's why my best advice is to try and build a circle of friends you can depend on to help you with content and not nitpick of every minor detail. But I do now recognize that may be more difficult to do in today's climate. Most of my friends are from older times when the difficulty on this game was merciless and people were all but forced to befriend each other if they wanted to succeed. That is less the case now - so I'm sure that has lead to people being a lot more anti-social.