Dev response to Server Merge please.

[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.