Another "they quit" thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elirion

I'm seeing the strain placed on FCs because of the 8 man end game instances and weekly lockouts. If you don't have an exact multiple of 8 then people get left out each week. My FC's leaders have tried different strats to fix this but I'm not sure it's fixable under the current system. People always get left out. PUGing turn 5 is just an exercise in frustration and not really an option unless you are able to spend all week hopping from PUG to PUG until you get a win. This system is getting frustrating.

---

Yeah man. I have exacly the same problem. Ppl always left out. And week for week I feel bad for the ppl that can't run with us because we are forced to be in 8 man pts ....

my sub ran out today i don't plan to resub till 2.2 cause there is nothing to do. Of course Sub will be on the rise because They just put there product out on steam and because Most people don't cancel a sub untill it runs out. On my server i have seen 2 guilds with over 100 people all 50's go from all active to about 10 active now. I am in 7 link shells with 50-110 people. I logged in yesterday before my sub ran out to find each of them had 5-8 people in each. Its really sad. the content is to easy and scripted which makes for a boring game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CHunterX

People are quitting because this isn't an MMO; it's an eight-player co-op game.

You do the same content weekly with the same eight people; you aren't even allowed to help others once you've done the end-game content for the week. If you don't manage to have exactly 7 friends, you suffer the party finder. If you have over 7 friends, the rest get screwed.

The lockout is largely to blame.

---

This, and I'm not confident that it is going to get better in 2.2 either. Yeah sure, Turns 1-5 are being added to the Duty Finder. Hip hip hooray. But now that content is outdated with the new Coils coming in, which ARE going to be locked out. So, in a sense, we just repeat this same vicious cycle all over again.

I really hate telling someone else who is newly 50, got their Relic and looking to start Coil: "Oh, sorry mate. I can't help you with your first Coil because I have a static but good luck." I'm perfectly willing to go in and teach them, even if we wipe multiple times. But all they get 90% of the time is dead silence or "I'm sorry, but lockouts." I had to do this today, and all I could do was wish them luck. I'm not even sure if they even managed to do Coil, and I hate this feeling of I can't do anything about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Royze

or tell the white knights "I told you so".

---

Well were is your link showing all the ppl quitting and or this game failing so much? ppl think oh my FC dose not play much so that means the games failing but in my server i see new ppl everyday so????

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

what happened to the social and community aspect?

---

It went out the window with the implementation of duty finder and lockouts.

hard to foster a community when you can't help anyone do the content. Sure you have the pre-coil stuff to help people with but at a point it becomes anti community with the endgame.

People are leaving? Well on Ragnarok I see low lvl areas more lively latelly, Revenants Toll just a little less crowded, and the 3 capitals lively, specially LL, for obvious reasons.
I see lots of FC shouting daily too.

And even if the palyer base is decreasing what does it matter ?
It's not like 5000 will stop playing tomorrow, old ones go, new ones come.
You should check the low lvl areas.

Also maybe it's just your server, who knows.

While some people leave, maybe 10 - 15 of your fc that most people notice, another group comes into the game. Some of those people will leave, some will stay, thus the nature of an mmo. When you find your particular taste of a game, you stick with it. Every game has forums threads about people leaving. Last game I played for 5 years, in that 5 years tons of threads of planning to quit and people deserting that game type apocalyptic threads, but the game is still played and running 5 years later just the same.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ulti_19

While some people leave, maybe 10 - 15 of your fc that most people notice, another group comes into the game. Some of those people will leave, some will stay, thus the nature of an mmo. When you find your particular taste of a game, you stick with it. Every game has forums threads about people leaving. Last game I played for 5 years, in that 5 years tons of threads of planning to quit and people deserting that game type apocalyptic threads, but the game is still played and running 5 years later just the same.

---

Also there are no "I started playing" threads or not alot at least comared tp the "I quit" ones.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

It went out the window with the implementation of duty finder and lockouts.

---

That's why we need to make more effort to foster the community.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jynx

hard to foster a community when you can't help anyone do the content. Sure you have the pre-coil stuff to help people with but at a point it becomes anti community with the endgame.

---

As I said before...

Quote:

---

The cliques formed by the emphasis on ... a static group are utterly antisocial and toxic to the health of a Free Company and the community in general. ...The very heavy need to form static groups of 8 hurts Free Companies and Link Shells, they become fragmented. Turning to Duty Finder simply takes the people left out of the static groups and puts them with strangers, further distancing those players from their 'friends' in the statics. That too is pretty much a cancer to Free companies.

---

The persistently negative tone in this forum doesn't help much either, we need to work together to improve things, rather than simply pointing at the faults and grinding our teeth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

The persistently negative tone in this forum doesn't help much either, we need to work together to improve things, rather than simply pointing at the faults and grinding our teeth.

---

What do you want or expect people to do? All I see is you complaining in the same way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ufufu

What do you want or expect people to do? All I see is you complaining in the same way.

---

I expect people to act like adults with civility and respect. I expect that of my free company members, and I see no reason I should not expect it from the community in general. It seems to me that improving on those two things alone would be very helpful to everyone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vensaval

Except for the fact that XI is still alive and kicking. Just wanted to point that out.

---

XI is still around but ever since Abbysea it is not the same game as TOAU and before. SE casualized it to the extent where it is barely the same game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Not everyone measures progress in the same manner. I am often reminded of a line from "It's a wonderful life"...

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

This is an MMORPG, what happened to the social and community aspect? Where is the working together? Why is everything a race to get the best gear, and then NOT help others because then they would have it too?

---

It isn't a race to get the best gear per say as much as a race to be the first to beat the content. What is awesome about progression endgame FCs is that they work as a group to beat content, comparing notes, streaming for each other, giving positive criticism to performance, etc. This and what you named is what makes MMOs fun for me and I would assume a good majority of the progression community. You make friends and help friends that can actually clear content.


To all:

2.1 was the casual content patch, as will be 2.3, let the progression community have fun with our content, you'll be able to wipe to the next round of Casual Tower soon enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xayoc

2.1 was the casual content patch, as will be 2.3, let the progression community have fun with our content, you'll be able to wipe to the next round of Casual Tower soon enough.

---

A lot of people would say that the vertical progression in this game limits the end-game to the 'progression' crowd, and the 5% statistic that has been banded about recently, for completing various end-game events would tend to back that up.

I will Not White Knight Square Enix but.

FFXI was running for over 10 years with a player base between 400 - 500k of users, was proven FFXI was the FF game, made more earnings to square enix. Until the numbers in ARR drops less of 500k, i will start get worry.

Most the smart people who value their time. Play 1 Month, cap the content and quit the game for two months.

In the actual state of ARR, this game is a wonderfull game for to be your secondary mmrpg, for the casual.

After of read the interview where are involved Matsui, Yoshida and Saito. Yoshi-P have a project of work. "My priority are the casual players" is his philosophy.

I see very difficult Yoshida start create content for 12, 16, 20 players, i see imposible for now he release content more often, the 3 months update will be there "Long time".

Even a Small FC have over 12 - 16 players active. The "8" man raid force to the FC leave out some members.

I think a posible "Quick" Fix without waste lots of resources is.

Create versions of 16 players of Titan, Garuda, Ifrit, Leviathan, Ultima, Coil.
Create versions of 16 players of some Revamped Hard dungeons.

Obvious the 16 man version will be a lot harder than the 8 man ver, with ILV 95, 100 and 105.

One day I was about to call it a quit, didn’t have a static group and got sick of DF/PF fails, and I loged in to say goodbye to my FC, and before I do so, the leader of our FC (who has a static) /tell asking me if I want ti join his static since one dropped, I said sure.

Now there are few new people with us 3/8 who didn’t do the end game yet, we started doing coil and EX, but, we couldn’t win T5 or titan EX, and this goes on for 4 weeks.
Day in and day out, people started to play less and less, they are sick of wiping 5 hours a day to titan EX, some of them started to form new groups with all I90 people, and made the win once or twice.

The others started to log on only on Mondays to do coil t1-t4 and that’s it.
Things are getting bad again, and other than coil we have nothing to do and so I started to do the same and log in only on Monday, hopping that the new patch will take the lockout off and we can farm coil and this static will get back on its feet again.

Until then I hope that people don’t quit before that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I expect people to act like adults with civility and respect. I expect that of my free company members, and I see no reason I should not expect it from the community in general. It seems to me that improving on those two things alone would be very helpful to everyone.

---

That's an oblique response. How about this: a problem you've identified is that new people don't have more experienced players to help them through content. Because of the weekly lockout on Coil, and because of the high learning curve in some parts of coil, expecting statics to split up and help sets of new people through is unrealistic. Why don't you encourage new people to form a party finder group to learn the fights, or point them to a guide, or suggest they watch one of the statics in your FC that streams?

i think it will happen around the same time after every patch, people will come back with new content
it7s true that now you are pretty much locked in many ways

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

A lot of people would say that the vertical progression in this game limits the end-game to the 'progression' crowd, and the 5% statistic that has been banded about recently, for completing various end-game events would tend to back that up.

---

The only games with 'horizontal' progression were pre~2007 eg Vanilla WoW, EQ1 and FFXI, etc and to a lesser extent 1.0. Those days are long gone. Look at Aion, Post-Cataclysm WoW, SWToR, LII, or any of the other myriad MMOs to come out in the last 6 years and with few exceptions they use vertical progression for raiding. The days of killing King Behemoth for 2 years straight with no Defending Ring is over and thankfully so.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrAZYVIC

I will Not White Knight Square Enix but.

FFXI was running for over 10 years with a player base between 400 - 500k of users, was proven FFXI was the FF game, made more earnings to square enix. Until the numbers in ARR drops less of 500k, i will start get worry.

Most the smart people who value their time. Play 1 Month, cap the content and quit the game for two months.

In the actual state of ARR, this game is a wonderfull game for to be your secondary mmrpg, for the casual.

After of read the interview where are involved Matsui, Yoshida and Saito. Yoshi-P have a project of work. "My priority are the casual players" is his philosophy.

I see very difficult Yoshida start create content for 12, 16, 20 players, i see imposible for now he release content more often, the 3 months update will be there "Long time".

Even a Small FC have over 12 - 16 players active. The "8" man raid force to the FC leave out some members.

I think a posible "Quick" Fix without waste lots of resources is.

Create versions of 16 players of Titan, Garuda, Ifrit, Leviathan, Ultima, Coil.
Create versions of 16 players of some Revamped Hard dungeons.

Obvious the 16 man version will be a lot harder than the 8 man ver, with ILV 95, 100 and 105.

---

16-man content like you are asking for would be amazing, but wont happen. SE just doesn't have the development resources to support it, not to mention entirely re-engineering the combat system and mechanics of those fights to support it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I've never been treated in a more condescending manner than by players among that '5%'. If they got bored, it's their own fault for being so damned selfish and anti-social.

---

Silly condescending reply. The "5%" players are bored due to a lack of content, not because of not "socialising". IF you want to setup a welfare anonymous in a MMO, that's perfectly fine. Just don't get upset when others don't have time/interest in your endeavours.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ufufu

That's an oblique response. How about this: a problem you've identified is that new people don't have more experienced players to help them through content. Because of the weekly lockout on Coil, and because of the high learning curve in some parts of coil, expecting statics to split up and help sets of new people through is unrealistic. Why don't you encourage new people to form a party finder group to learn the fights, or point them to a guide, or suggest they watch one of the statics in your FC that streams?

---

because a) we're a free company that is meant to mean we work together, not apart. b)not sure how it's unrealistic to rotate one slot in and out when a group can beat something regularly, c) why do we all have to watch someone else play the game before we try? Some people like to learn by doing, I do, and I hope that people in my company respect that with others as well.

I think the key thing here is that to me the concept of a Free company is about a community of friends working together to help each other, not a federation of 8 person cliques worried about little more than their own gear progression.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xayoc

The only games with 'horizontal' progression were pre~2007 eg Vanilla WoW, EQ1 and FFXI, etc and to a lesser extent 1.0. Those days are long gone. Look at Aion, Post-Cataclysm WoW, SWToR, LII, or any of the other myriad MMOs to come out in the last 6 years and with few exceptions they use vertical progression for raiding. The days of killing King Behemoth for 2 years straight with no Defending Ring is over and thankfully so.

---

I was not suggesting that anyone return to that. Just commenting that the vertical progression in this game and the way that it is implemented is profoundly anti-social for groups of more than 8.

My FC has now 3 Coil Groups. If I leave out the facts, it's pretty hard to rectuit new players for our FC, I cannot agree that the people drop out like flies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moriganna

Silly condescending reply. The "5%" players are bored due to a lack of content, not because of not "socialising". IF you want to setup a welfare anonymous in a MMO, that's perfectly fine. Just don't get upset when others don't have time/interest in your endeavours.

---

You're such a nice person, has anyone ever told you that? So very nice, and helpful, and constructive. Awesome really. Just don't get upset when people that helped you level your character get pissed off when you won't turn around and pay it forward by helping them or others. Thanks awfully for just being you though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I was not suggesting that anyone return to that. Just commenting that the vertical progression in this game and the way that it is implemented is profoundly anti-social for groups of more than 8.

---

Not if the groups work together on the content and have fun intra-FC competitions for example. An FC turning into a loose confederation of statics is the sole result of complacent and poor leadership.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xayoc

The only games with 'horizontal' progression were pre~2007 eg Vanilla WoW

---

Just have to focus on this little bit.. Did you even play vanilla WoW? Progression was very much vertical, it just wasn't in big steps like it was in later expansions. Dungeon Blues were outclassed by MC. MC outdone by BWL. BWL outdone by AQ. AQ outdone by Naxx. There were very few pieces, primarily trinkets, and a couple legendary weapons that stayed relevant beyond their respective tiers. This held true all throughout WoW's lifetime. Horizontal progression was never a thing in that game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Royze

I'd like to know if this will be the norm and the producers are happy with it, because if it is I just don't think I can invest any more time in it as it isn't living up to my expectations. That's not a threat, or an ultimatum. I'm no special snowflake, and the game will continue to prosper without me for sure. But I'm most definitely not happy with the current state of affairs.

---

Multiple examples show - it works this way. If someone likes the game - he can sub, if not - can unsub. Most of game content has been shown in 1-50 progression within the free sub month, ending with lv50 story dungeons, - answer is clear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xayoc

Not if the groups work together on the content and have fun intra-FC competitions for example. An FC turning into a loose confederation of statics is the sole result of complacent and poor leadership.

---

Oh, nice, I love that little sly critique in your comment. Poor leadership eh. Yeah, whatever you say. The problems with the static groups have been building since September, the end result is where we are now - and no, I am not referring to my Free company, but the community in general.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrAZYVIC

Even a Small FC have over 12 - 16 players active. The "8" man raid force to the FC leave out some members.

I think a posible "Quick" Fix without waste lots of resources is.

Create versions of 16 players of Titan, Garuda, Ifrit, Leviathan, Ultima, Coil.
Create versions of 16 players of some Revamped Hard dungeons.

Obvious the 16 man version will be a lot harder than the 8 man ver, with ILV 95, 100 and 105.

---

first of all, you greatly overestimated the number of FC which are having more than 8-10 people active, simply because FC qhould not be LS-like hubs. They are meant to be close groups of friends who play together. That said, it's pretty obvious that many FCs will stay around 10 people for the content, and then have a LS for the social aspect..

16-24 men raids would be cool though (supposing we can all tag them without cheating the DF), but please, stop asking for some boring rehashed fights. Titan again ? seriously ? Do you realize the ammount of players who can't even beat the HM version ? How little are these who have beaten Ex version ? You'd really like an harder version which would definitively lock out of content 99% of the players just because a few would find it "fun" ?

In a general way, please stop revamping the primals. Once was good (excep Titan), twice was great cause story mode is a joke, thrice was boring. I won't play a 4th time unless it's absolutely necessary for the story, and even then I would probably stop subbing for 3-6 month to wait for new iL to be released...

According to a recent interview by Yoshi-P, there are about 1.8 millions total account, and over 500k unique users every day -- with the total active users well above those 500k obviously since most people don't log in every day. As we are just before a new big content patch, this seems pretty good, and nowhere like the disaster the OP is describing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Oh, nice, I love that little sly critique in your comment. Poor leadership eh. Yeah, whatever you say. The problems with the static groups have been building since September, the end result is where we are now - and no, I am not referring to my Free company, but the community in general.

---

Not intended at as a jibe at you or your FC, but simply an observation as to why Static focused FC have issues. Have been in and seen a myriad of FCs fail miserably because the leadership was inept at holding the group together as a whole. Analogy: an FC run more like the US under the Articles of Confederation vs the Constitution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

because a) we're a free company that is meant to mean we work together, not apart.

---

Okay. But does that mean you need to control who and what does which raiding?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

b)not sure how it's unrealistic to rotate one slot in and out when a group can beat something regularly,

---

Mostly referring to the fact that people are already unreceptive to your idea; telling them to rotate someone new in when a static is already a close-knit group is kind of insulting, in my opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

c) why do we all have to watch someone else play the game before we try? Some people like to learn by doing, I do, and I hope that people in my company respect that with others as well.

---

That was only one example, and not my first one. Hence the "encourage them to form a learning party finder group" idea. That's exactly what I did when I first started Coil and, wouldn't you know it, I've been clearing turn 5 for the past two months.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I think the key thing here is that to me the concept of a Free company is about a community of friends working together to help each other, not a federation of 8 person cliques worried about little more than their own gear progression.

---

I suppose we have different ideas of what an FC should be. Mine has 130+ active members, with 7 or 8 Coil statics running weekly, many of which have turn 5 on farm. (As an example, my static ran through turns 1-5 tonight in around an hour and a half.) I would see raiding as an optional activity that doesn't necessarily need to be governed by the FC leader; rather, while there should definitely be FC statics, there should be other activities organized that are open to all members. We recently did a full FC Crystal Tower run that was a lot of fun, we have a house, organize map parties, etc. Honestly, I'd even suggest helping organize a new static, or getting a few of the new people together and helping them put together their own PF group or something.

If you want to dictate who each group takes, then be my guest, but considering that your own members don't want that... I don't think it's a good idea.

FFXI was more casual friendly in the sense that you can bring new players in and they won't be as much of a dead weight as FFXIV. If you try to help a new player do Titan EX or Coil, it can take weeks of wiping over and over again in early phases. Also FFXI had way more interesting and varied content than FFXIV. Most players in FFXIV care too much about cool looking mounts and vanity gear rather than game play.

In my opinion, we're seeing the twilight days of MMOs now so regardless of which direction the devs take this game it's going to go the way of the dodo anyway.

I've played MMOs pretty much since '99 when Everquest started out as being almost an underground movement not many people knew or discussed about. That was a world where people immersed and lost themselves in. Then we had FFXI, EQ2, etc until WoW came along. Love it or hate it WoW brought MMOs to the masses and the genre was forever changed. Sadly, that led to where we are now with this watered-down, tepid crap where everything has to be achievable by everybody with the minimum amount of effort/brainless repetition. Eventually even the lowest common denominators will move on long after the supposed hardcore crowd have migrated to the next big MMO which in turn will prove to never match the expectations of their "first" MMO experience.

Ramble over. The genre is on the wane and the best you can hope for is a pleasant distraction till the next new thing comes along but right now I'm not seeing anything on the horizon. The industry has no room anymore for a couple of guys with a love for gaming churning out the amazing experience that was early Everquest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

The industry has no room anymore for a couple of guys with a love for gaming churning out the amazing experience that was early Everquest.

---

I think this has to do more with investors then developers. Investors only see numbers, and when they compare WoW to anything else, they think that must be the working formula. They just don't see that the chance of that happening again, is like being struck by lightning... and a meteor... at the same time.

I'm almost glad FFXIV is my first MMO, but as someone mentioned earlier it is kinda an 8-man multiplayer game... Our static has 9 people, 8 of them are real life friends(yeah I feel like dead weight sometimes), gets old planning out who's sitting out each turn in coil then always having someone stay out in t5 progression... considered finding a new static so the others can go at their own pace since half isn't giving their all in t5 attempts and half of us have cleared Titan ex, the rest hates him too much to care when we do it. We had to make a different primal static.

But still I don't see people dropping like flies either, Mor Dhona is packed every day and I know the starting areas are too. Sure more people on Mondays, but not so much that it's concerning and I think the game is ending really...

From what I have seen personally, groups that have people getting fed up and leaving are ONLY those who focus on "statics", "world/server first or early clear", and "must have this on farm". My FC is holding pretty steady numbers-wise. If someone leaves server or unsubs, I get someone new to replace them (new to the FC not always new to the game). I have one member in the FC that won't participate in anything with the rest of us because we don't have a static and don't have coil or EX primals on farm. To be honest, his attitude sucks. :( The rest of us are just happy to try new things (or old content) with new people to see if we can't get everyone familiar with all the fights. It's a game, we're just here to have fun. ^_^

Oh! And if you want to know where all the threads of "I just started this game" are, go check the New Player Help board.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amberion

I think this has to do more with investors then developers. Investors only see numbers, and when they compare WoW to anything else, they think that must be the working formula. They just don't see that the chance of that happening again, is like being struck by lightning... and a meteor... at the same time.

---

I'm inclined to agree with your post here. This is entirely speculation but...... I think investors are the key behind the decline in mmo's due to WoW's success myself. Yoshida was, and still is, under pressure to deliver an economically viable game. This is his take on it, likely with suits breathing down his neck. I'm not a big fan of it myself, but.... it is what it is.

In any case, I would love to ask these investors for which other game has succeeded with WoW's formula, aside from WoW itself. The answer is rather "ovular". lol This is not FF. It's WoW with FF character models. A good part of the reason why the community is so torn. Loses it's appeal rather quick when playing mechanics you've already been playing for 12 or so years to date. Great for new to the genre players, bad for anyone who's been in mmo's for a few years.

I'm really sorry to hear that this has been your experience. Personally mine has been the exact opposite. We are organically growing each week and we have more active players at the same time. It's all about trying to build a community within your free company. Our goal was never progression, but just to hang out and have fun. Some of us progress and others don't and for the most party this seems to work out. I understand though that I may be in the exception and not the rule.\

P.S. Also in the last few weeks and the coming weeks a whole bunch of new games will be coming out. This probably isn't helping.

Personally, when the quitting players are those who calls "successful" who goes to coil farm stage, and "failure" all others, I'm just happy and makes me want subs for another five years in a row.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Royze

Look to your community and please be honest with us and yourselves; aren't people dropping like flies?

---

No.

/thread