Alternative Servers

Greetings,

I have thought for a while if SE could create a server that would host a different rule set with custom behaviors in the future. I have those in mind who have asked for a world to be a lot more difficult and punishing experience like how older MMOs were like. I don't know how difficult or cost for something like this but here is my request.

What do others think?

Please keep it constructive and be respectful of others.

From what I hear the Chinese Servers are gonna be different...

What exactly do you mean by a "more difficult and punishing" server?

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Originally Posted by Alukah

What exactly do you mean by a "more difficult and punishing" server?

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Nothing but Titan EX

You only get 1/1 HP.

Get hit by anything and it's game over man! Game over!

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Originally Posted by Alukah

What exactly do you mean by a "more difficult and punishing" server?

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Pre-Abyssea FFXI (Hell maybe pre-Aht Urghan), is exactly what he is getting at. Crazy time sinks, can only max one craft, time spawns high level NM's (24-36hr) with 2% drop rates, xp grind that is laborious to say the least.

Stuff like that, you know the "good old days."

There are WORLDS between old FFXI and Eorzea Now.

the difficulty of 1.0 was higher, and I don't mean by interface problems but the world.

Running around, seeing NMs to kill for your log was fun, and also needed a bit of skill.

Now you rush each fate that pops, faceroll faceroll haha won fate (But still have no Atma)-Enertron Noise

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Originally Posted by Kimikryo

There are WORLDS between old FFXI and Eorzea Now.

the difficulty of 1.0 was higher, and I don't mean by interface problems but the world.

Running around, seeing NMs to kill for your log was fun, and also needed a bit of skill.



Now you rush each fate that pops, faceroll faceroll haha won fate (But still have no Atma)-Enertron Noise

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+1 for Chrono Trigger. However, there are some aspects of 1.0 that were harder, but none of it was *that* punishing. Crappy servers made stuff like Garuda and Ifrit Extreme just all manner of fun. They have to appeal to a wider audience to remain popular and solvent. The days of waking up at 3am for a rare boss spawns are gone, being that I'm getting older and would like my work to not suffer I'm thankful for that.

They are not going to make everyone happy but they added many QoL changes and there are still several challenging battles to take on.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

From what I hear the Chinese Servers are gonna be different...

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Only thing they changing is everything to do with the Undead everything else may be the same.

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Originally Posted by Wobi

The days of waking up at 3am for a rare boss spawns are gone

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Not completely. They're just optional now.

Not to be the Debbie Downer here but they didn't even designate an official RP server, the players had to do it. So I highly doubt they would do this. I would be curious though at how many people would play on these "good ole day" servers.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

You only get 1/1 HP.

Get hit by anything and it's game over man! Game over!

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No. Not so extreme as this but each mob would provide a challenge for a small party is the way I see it.

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Originally Posted by Wobi

Pre-Abyssea FFXI (Hell maybe pre-Aht Urghan), is exactly what he is getting at. Crazy time sinks, can only max one craft, time spawns high level NM's (24-36hr) with 2% drop rates, xp grind that is laborious to say the least.

Stuff like that, you know the "good old days."

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Not a chance. I loved "Pre-Abyssea FFXI" but those time sinks I do not want to see again (Maybe 2-4hr on those) As for crafting I prefere it the way it is now.

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Originally Posted by Gemma

Not to be the Debbie Downer here but they didn't even designate an official RP server, the players had to do it. So I highly doubt they would do this. I would be curious though at how many people would play on these "good ole day" servers.

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I believe there is an audience for this but its just an idea. Many have shared ideas and have asked SE to focus on more open world content with a sense of danger but not everyone cares for this.

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Originally Posted by Kimikryo

There are WORLDS between old FFXI and Eorzea Now.

the difficulty of 1.0 was higher, and I don't mean by interface problems but the world.

Running around, seeing NMs to kill for your log was fun, and also needed a bit of skill.

Now you rush each fate that pops, faceroll faceroll haha won fate (But still have no Atma)-Enertron Noise

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There is no need, to have a raised difficulty outside of dungeons.

Also i dont get why so much people act like 1.0 was alot harder .. it was just crappy gameplay and bad balances.

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Originally Posted by Charisma

There is no need, to have a raised difficulty outside of dungeons.

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Can you explain why?

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Originally Posted by Calevr

As for crafting I prefere it the way it is now.

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The way crafting is right now is the reason the economy in this game is almost non-existent. Everyone can raise all crafting classes to max = everyone can be self sufficient = a crap ton of people making things with almost no one to buy them because they can just make the things themselves.

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Originally Posted by Ikeda

The way crafting is right now is the reason the economy in this game is almost non-existent. Everyone can raise all crafting classes to max = everyone can be self sufficient = a crap ton of people making things with almost no one to buy them because they can just make the things themselves.

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I don't know how it is in a legacy server, but here people tend to neglect low-mid level stuff and only focus on high level, making a simple lvl 15 or lvl 20 gear piece more profitable than lvl 50 recipes, with just two retainers you could make 300~400k a day and you only spend a few mins a day crafting, enough time to do other stuff like SBing.

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Originally Posted by Calevr

No. Not so extreme as this but each mob would provide a challenge for a small party is the way I see it.

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Like lv1 Ladybug hit you with 1/3 of your max. HP?
Or increasing the level of every open-word enemy by 10? (the lowest enemy would be at level 11 and the highest at level 60)

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Originally Posted by Ikeda

The way crafting is right now is the reason the economy in this game is almost non-existent. Everyone can raise all crafting classes to max = everyone can be self sufficient = a crap ton of people making things with almost no one to buy them because they can just make the things themselves.

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Perhaps I don't know alot about that but I like the idea that if I work at something I can get good at it. I think one of the coolest features on this game is that I can be all classes on one character.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Like lv1 Ladybug hit you with 1/3 of your max. HP?
Or increasing the level of every open-word enemy by 10? (the lowest enemy would be at level 11 and the highest at level 60)

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I don't mind something like this but at the moment I can solo three maybe four lv1 Ladybugs at once with a class lv1 and win comfortably. This is okay for me at low levels but I would expect after lv20 they got alot harder, like increasing the level of every open-word enemy by 10?

Why not have level 2 enemies be as strong as 2 level 1 enemies, so your level 50 enemies would be as strong as 50 level 49 enemies?

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Originally Posted by Ikeda

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Pre 2.2 maybe. Not sure what you have been playing since 2.2 but the economy boomed and has showed no signs of stagnation in my server (which is much smaller than Sarg)

This has happened because it is a severe time-sink to have all of these crafts at "Master" ability now. How many crafters do you know that have all 8 DoH classes with their ilvl 70 weapon? If so, that person is most likely sitting on a 9 digit bankroll (or broke themselves spending as much gil as they needed to penta-meld every bodyworn piece of every class so they could actually meet the reqs to craft the 3 star recipes)

Either way, the economy right now is absolutely NOT non-existent. I sell a total of like 6-7 items regularly and make no less than 1-2 million a week. Not all of that is from crafting, but people sure love glamouring Giantsgall weapons.

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Originally Posted by Calevr

I don't mind something like this but at the moment I can solo three maybe four lv1 Ladybugs at once with a class lv1 and win comfortably. This is okay for me at low levels but I would expect after lv20 they got alot harder, like increasing the level of every open-word enemy by 10?

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Rose tinted FFXI glasses...The difficulty ramp in the open world in FFXI was there to literally force you into partying to exp. not a bad thing persay but that isn't FFXIVs exping style. It would end up just being a pain in the ass. It's already wipe city if you try to do dailies as a sub-50 class. Run into the depths of the Mines and see how long you last at 47-48 with all the Elite kobolds.

Ugh, some people seem to be sith only talking in absolutes to a level of trolling stubborness.

As it is, there is very little on the "overworld" that is challenging. Some fates for soloing maybe when on the "wrong" class, with soloing I also mean without Chocobo. If you disagree with that and say it is difficult, maybe upgrade your gear or eat some food (what a NQ food can change for those instanced story fights is insane).
Everything feels so awkwardly easy, that you barely need to use your brain, crying "To Hard" over something like this really brings me pain.
Some Mobs hit insanely hard though, while others, while you expect to hit them like a truck, just tickle you.

I REALLY would love to be able to hunt for rare mobs again. OUTSIDE of fates. Challenging, and fun to beat. Remember that NM outside of Bastok you had to beat as alliance full of (i think) max level 8? It didn't drop anything that good if memory serfs me right but LS did this for fun.


The crafting as it is now, is what I wished for, a mixture of FFXI and WoW. A list of all your recipes, possibility of chain crafts, but a "rather slow" level progression.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

Why not have level 2 enemies be as strong as 2 level 1 enemies, so your level 50 enemies would be as strong as 50 level 49 enemies?

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Haha that would be tough. What about this?

Levels 1-5 To remain as present
Levels 6-10 Rises 3lvs higher than present
Levels 11-20 Rises 6lvs higher than present
Levels 21-30 Rises 9lvs higher than present
Levels 31-40 Rises 12lvs higher than present
Levels 41-50 Rises 15lvs higher than present

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Originally Posted by Lithera

Rose tinted FFXI glasses...The difficulty ramp in the open world in FFXI was there to literally force you into partying to exp. not a bad thing persay but that isn't FFXIVs exping style. It would end up just being a pain in the ass. It's already wipe city if you try to do dailies as a sub-50 class. Run into the depths of the Mines and see how long you last at 47-48 with all the Elite kobolds.

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Lol yeah with the glasses :) With a group well equiped though I think you could run into the depths of the Mines, this could be managed. For me I see this style to be more sociable than how it is already.

I wish they made a lobby where you couldn't trade but people from different servers could go into that lobby and hang out maybe do some party finder.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

From what I hear the Chinese Servers are gonna be different...

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Chinese servers are "different" by law. And probably will not allow anyone outside China to connect.

I remember reading a bit ago that any game or service that operates in China must have its servers in China.

to actually address in the initial post:

Many developers from Blizzard to SE have explained why "Pre-Patch/Expansion X" Servers or after-the-fact "Hardcore" Servers are a complete no go.

IN the Case of the former it is a two fold reason, First, the population of players that would want to play on these servers is too small that maintaining different iteriations of the code is not cost effective. Second, as Blizzard pointed out, when a new iteration of the code is implemented onto the live servers, the old version is discarded...there is no rolling back to "Pre-Whatever" because the base code for "Pre-Whatever" doesn't exist and may need to be completely rewritten in order to reimplement it, which brings us back to the first reason of population being to low to justify the cost.

As to "Hardcore" servers, when none had existed before, well again it's a case of Population would be too low to justify the cost of coding and maintaining them, is the primary reason most developers say "No".

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Originally Posted by Calevr

No. Not so extreme as this but each mob would provide a challenge for a small party is the way I see it.

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Filthy casual!

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Originally Posted by Lithera

Rose tinted FFXI glasses...The difficulty ramp in the open world in FFXI was there to literally force you into partying to exp. not a bad thing persay but that isn't FFXIVs exping style. It would end up just being a pain in the ass. It's already wipe city if you try to do dailies as a sub-50 class. Run into the depths of the Mines and see how long you last at 47-48 with all the Elite kobolds.

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Actually that was FFXIV's xp style in 1.0. You could solo but the fastest way to level was through xp grind parties in the open world. Which is really how it should be. They really need to add more leveling content that encourages advanced party play so people can actually learn how to play their class before max level >.> the game suffers far too much from this problem.

Also I'm really getting sick of this "Rose tinted FFXI glasses" or "FFXI nostalgia" crap people say. Did you ever take the time to think that people think fondly of the game because in certain ways it was le gasp better than FFXIV? It was certainly more like a freaking mmo than ARR is. People long for a time before every mmo was just a generic clone of WoW for a very good reason.

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Originally Posted by Pandastirfry

As to "Hardcore" servers, when none had existed before, well again it's a case of Population would be too low to justify the cost of coding and maintaining them, is the primary reason most developers say "No".

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I see. I think there are a lot of people that would play on a server like this if the right criteria was met though. If the idea fits a group/community focused, difficult, immersive world, then I can see an audience for this. Thanks for the explanation.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

Filthy casual!

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How would you like it? Besides the 1/1 HP.

What would be the purpose of having level 90+ mobs like in 1.0 that could one shot you? Nobody did anything with those mobs except get annoyed when one aggroed you and you died while trying to do some main story quest.