Merge the darn servers already!

[Stompa]

My server has like maybe 800 at peak. Usually closer to 350. A few years ago there used to be 2500 at any given time. I highly doubt that server overload is a thing.

Yes. But back in the 2500 players per server days, those 2500 players did not have trusts or ilvl gear. The old 75-era content was manpower-intensive, you needed a lot of people for most events and also xp/merit parties. Even in the early Aby years you needed alliance for serious farming.

Today a player with 119 gear set, and five trusts in their solo party, can solo most things in the game. Even areas where trust is not allowed, a 119 player can solo and clear whole zones of mobs without problems.

I define congestion overload not in population numbers, but in player-power vs. events. Currently I never need to form parties for Meebles, I just go and solo it, and the same with other events. Most people seem to do the same. This is different to when Meebles required 6/6 people just to win. That means that you got 6 players through the instanced zone at the same time. Now it is six times longer, because there are six solo players. The same at Jobpoints camps etc. If you see a few Soulpyres on the way to the camp, that means somebody else is soloing there and will want to keep soloing with their five glowy trusts, so you have to find another camp. In the past, 6 players could use the same xp camp, now each of those players is heading to six different camps with their trusts.

And the situation today works. But if you look at this last RoV chapter updates, with the new battlefields which are extremely popular, and project forward, let's say that the final content this year is some major popular event with a lot of pulling power, it is possible that the many ex-players who were undecided about returning, will return at the end of this year. And if we have merged servers before then, and people soloing with 5 trusts each, plus returning players, would mean that a lot of camps and instanced battles became heavily congested. So I think SE are waiting to see what the server populations are like, after they release the grand-finale content. If this final firework show does not draw crowds, I imagine server merges would follow. I know about fifty serious ffxi players who are undecided on returning to the game, some real dynamite content would bring most of those players back, and then multiply this across all servers.

[bazookatooth]

Yes. But back in the 2500 players per server days, those 2500 players did not have trusts or ilvl gear. The old 75-era content was manpower-intensive, you needed a lot of people for most events and also xp/merit parties. Even in the early Aby years you needed alliance for serious farming.

Today a player with 119 gear set, and five trusts in their solo party, can solo most things in the game. Even areas where trust is not allowed, a 119 player can solo and clear whole zones of mobs without problems.

I define congestion overload not in population numbers, but in player-power vs. events. Currently I never need to form parties for Meebles, I just go and solo it, and the same with other events. Most people seem to do the same. This is different to when Meebles required 6/6 people just to win. That means that you got 6 players through the instanced zone at the same time. Now it is six times longer, because there are six solo players. The same at Jobpoints camps etc. If you see a few Soulpyres on the way to the camp, that means somebody else is soloing there and will want to keep soloing with their five glowy trusts, so you have to find another camp. In the past, 6 players could use the same xp camp, now each of those players is heading to six different camps with their trusts.

And the situation today works. But if you look at this last RoV chapter updates, with the new battlefields which are extremely popular, and project forward, let's say that the final content this year is some major popular event with a lot of pulling power, it is possible that the many ex-players who were undecided about returning, will return at the end of this year. And if we have merged servers before then, and people soloing with 5 trusts each, plus returning players, would mean that a lot of camps and instanced battles became heavily congested. So I think SE are waiting to see what the server populations are like, after they release the grand-finale content. If this final firework show does not draw crowds, I imagine server merges would follow. I know about fifty serious ffxi players who are undecided on returning to the game, some real dynamite content would bring most of those players back, and then multiply this across all servers.

crowding in events and camps is a matter of poor planning on SE's part. They could make more instances of new events. They could make more viable exp camps. 90% of adoulin areas go completely unused because the mobs there suck / are too low level to be worth while. The same goes for Escha. Most of it is just space that people run through once and never visit again unless the ??? at another spot is being used. All this stuff could be fixed by adjusting some mob levels and / or how many pops there are. Personally, I much preferred having a ??? claim war in abyssea to standing around shouting for people for UC, Vagary, Etc. because nobody cares. People solo Exp because of SEs decision to force people to be on the job that they are earning the JP for. A party of 6 paladins sucks, so people are forced to solo. Again. bad planning on SE's part that could easily be fixed by making JP like merits without leaving all the servers dead.


Let's be honest. We're at 2/3 of the last major updates and have seen no major uptick in server populations. Many servers have less people. That giant rush at the end isn't going to happen and everyone knows it. And whatever servers get shutdown in a merge can be repurposed for instances, so that solves that anyways.