Repopulating Gridania and Limsa Lominsa (how can we spread out?)

Introduction:

It's hard to speak for everyone since I know server population distribution may vastly differ, but I've heard a fairly general consensus that ul'dah seems to be the only city with any "life" in it these days. Gridania and Limsa Lominsa are merely unspeakable ghost towns only providing use for guild marks and perhaps grand company gear (only temporary trips, fleeting things that do not plant you to the city).

So if this is not an issue on your server and I'm merely mistaken then to you I say "you lucky SOB =/", but as for others I ask you this:

What do you think SE should do to give incentive to spread out to Limsa and Gridania?

The last time I remember my home town of limsa having a healthy population was since launch and I'd like to be able to go back one day and see it booming and healthy as it was before :(.

Current Factors Helping Distribution:

1. Allow class guild marks to be allocated only in their home city

2. Have specific grand companies and gear associated with each different city

3. (as of patch 1.19) airships that go across to each city

I think airships will be a big help in increasing distribution since the convenience of uldah will become less significant geographically. However, I still fear it is not enough.

Current Factors Harming Distribution:

1. Well everyone is already packed there so finding groups is better

2. Everyone I know is in ul'dah (linkshell/friends/etc)

3. Ul'dah has the superior market economy and widest list of items

4. I've already dedicated my grand company to ul'dah since it is my current home city

Among these I feel the market economy is a huge factor keeping people in ul'dah. They want to sell and buy with a healthy population to circulate money.

Closing Statement:

As we are all aware, SE is doing their best to get us to spread out but I'd like to hear what ideas we can bring up to help the situation. Anyways, let me know what you guys think and thanks for reading! :)

This happened in FFXI as well, jeuno was the major place to be, the center of everything happening. I havent been on in a month or so, but one thing they changed was linking all the AH's together. So you didnt have to go to Jeuno to find the best price or items you needed. I believe if this was the first change they did way back when FFXI first was released, it would help other citys survive. But with FFXIV, its hard to say, i guess my only idea (maybe not the best) but to allow you to choose 8 more leves in each city. Keep all the rules, but each city will allow 8 leves each reset. Might bring more traffic to them?!

You cannot get rid of it, every mmo in history has 1 central location for everyone togather.

Just like how in XI everyone gathered in Jueno, then Whitegate, then Jueno again

Linking the AH's in XI helped populate the other towns i believe.

Plus when we have airships, i think we will see another increase in the population since 1.18 (Guild Marks only from cities with the guild.)

So maybe linking AH's will help. Influx of new players too will repopulate the area. Grid was very very busy during the first few weeks of the game on Gyshal. But died down as players progressed in the story, sending them to Ul'dah. Then the whole abandon leve thing caused players to stick in Ul'dah.

But basically like Xatsh said ppl will flock to Ishguard when it opens up and we wont see any players in the cities at all.

If FFXIV closed off the main zones via rank 30 agro mobs, so you have to be rank 25 to get to other cities, then new players would essentially stay in their "home zone".
Then you change the levelling curve so instead of hitting 25 in 2 days it takes a few weeks, but getting from rank 40-50 takes a lot less. This way people spend a fair bit of their starting time in their home city and get used to it.
Then have "universal wards" instead of city specific ones.

And now your population is balanced between the three cities.

Merge the wards across all cities, and maybe add a new buying interface that doesn't involve actually entering the wards, because it's already too crowded without merged wards... Not to mention down the road, when we get more retainers, and more people playing per server... The wards as they currently are just won't be able to accommodate that, even if they don't get merged. I don't wanna say we need an AH, but basically, the closest thing to what we have now that will actually work down the road, is a retainer driven AH. ;/

Seems to me that a good portion of the population in Uldah is because that's the ward center of the game. If you could buy and sell equally as well in the other cities, than I'm sure a lot more people would hang out in their favorite city, which for me, has always been grid, followed by limsa... I don't even like uldah really, but often when I'm crafting or w/e else, I find myself in need of some item, and there's like a 0% chance of finding it outside uldah at any reasonable price.

You could do a number of other things to encourage people to spread out, but as long as uldah is the ward center, it will never really work. People will just go to the other cities, get what they need asap, and then 'get back to uldah'. Nobody will set their return at other cities, nobody will hang out there when not doing anything else, nobody will gather there for teles, or shout there for services/parties, etc.

Of course, once Ishgard comes along, assuming it too has a ward, I'm sure that will become the new uldah, and the old uldah will be just as barren as the other 2 cities are atm.

There are two main things I think need to be done just to allow people to hang out in their city-state of choice.

The first is a proper search system, which is coming with the server rebuild. If you want a group for a dungeon, for EXP, or for any future content that will require one, you currently need to be where other people are because no one uses the confusing search system and just shouts instead. You're not going to see such a shout or get a response to your own shouts in, say, Gridania. Once people can look for you there though, you'll be more free to do so and still get invited.

The other is somehow fixing the market wards system to make it so centralization is no longer advantageous. Linking them all together and then making it so when you leave you exit back out to the city-state you were in, for instance, would accomplish this. Being able to search all three from the same place and then buy without entering would too, but then that would just be an auction house. Whatever is done, there needs to be a way for people to buy and sell items just the same from separate locations, rather than gathering together being superior.

Both of these things revolve around the idea of making it easier to be wherever you want. Other solutions would involve enforcing distribution, such as how guild marks are currently distributed. Those solutions force people to do something in a specific place rather than allowing them to be where they choose, but control even distribution by giving equal reason to need to be in all three.

How about having all of the guilds in every town? Like when I first started, I wanted to start in Gridania, 'cause it's so purdy. But I am a Pugilist, and I saw, "Oh. Ul'Dah is the home of Pugilists, so I should start there."

Just a newbie's perspective.

Well what I can see from everyone opinions is two main topic. Items search "Market Wards" and the other will be Party search.. Fixing those 2 things will bring a little more distribution to other city...I like the idea of Linking the items search to all market wards .. It helps with the economy of the game.. I think this should be the next priority after 1.19


edit: lol... i guess this is a double post. ^_^ but it just show that its definitely the main problem..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ydp002

Well what I can see from everyone opinions is two main topic. Items search "Market Wards" and the other will be Party search.. Fixing those 2 things will bring a little more distribution to other city...I like the idea of Linking the items search to all market wards .. It helps with the economy of the game.. I think this should be the next priority after 1.19

edit: lol... i guess this is a double post. ^_^ but it just show that its definitely the main problem..

---

oops didn't know that someone else posted this topic before =/

I've noticed alot more people in Grid and LL since 1.18. However the markets are still complete empty. Have to go to Uldah to buy anything. Or sell.

Link the Market Wards together and give us a real seek/search interface. That should help more than anything else if you ask me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MeowyWowie

Link the Market Wards together and give us a real seek/search interface. That should help more than anything else if you ask me.

---

Yep. /10chars

And this is why chat channels are good.

There's really no way to fix this and it's not an issue with only FFXIV. Almost all games will have a central player hub including, but not limited to, FFXI (Jueno/Whitegate) and WoW (Org>Shattrath>Dalaran>Org). The devs are doing a good job trying to balance the importance of each city through levequests, grand companies, task board, and guilds but at the end of the day, Ul'dah is the most centralized location and thus will be the most populated.

Airships may change this but for now it's simply common sense to make your base at Ul'dah where it is easiest to reach the other cities from.

Link Wards, and create a party or Global Shout channel that all three cities have access, so anywhere you go you aren't missing someone looking for group or you advertising for a party or trade.

Treespeak and Nine Ivies camps are more crowded on my server than Halatali or Broken Water during JP prime.

Like was stated, linking the Wards, making Party search more intuitive and getting more people to use it, and airships should fix the issue of people being only in Ul'dah by bringing the other cities up to par in convenience.

i'd say simply making free ports to each city only would of helped everyone spread out, they are adding easy gil costing boats instead that take us directly to cities, this might help a little. i know i'll be going to towns way more the second they implement this but i still think free port would really make the difference. free port is like making all city one entity.

other then that really just lots of stuff to do in all of them, mix up the places to grind zone to zone so people stay around cities more, like when game came out i stay in limsa alot cause crab parties, but then dobs came and i lived in uldah. but in all this i chose gridania but almost never there after i hit my 50carpenter, but no need for support makes this no need. so yeah, absolutly free ports i say is best way to do this.

or what estellios mentions, free port links from wards to wards but that would be bout same thing, though i do like the idea of linking all battle wards in all 3 cities an same with all the other ward types and being able to exit out to those cities.

don't think they will do either of these since they made boats to link cities in next patch>< ...they just love waisting our time on boats afk, se secretly has stock in coffee beans since boats are coffee and pee breaks.

This is a good topic.
There is a critical mass of concurrent players needed to force people to spill over to the other Wards.
I miss the days of hanging out in Gridania but what kept me there for the first few months was being low-mid rank, starting new Classes and Main Storyline.
When the storyline moved to Ul'dah, i kinda just stayed there. :(

I don't think the game needs to encourage people to go to Limsa/Gridania more personally. I mean for the guilds in those cities fine, but it is just like XI the central city is the social capital. Games need a social capital, and until Ishgard opens that is Ul'dah.

@Murugan
I agree. Let's face it, there is reason to visit other cities already in place... however, ppl collect to Ul'dah for parties and market. The market in Ul'dah on my server doesn't even provide 30% of my desired items that i want to buy. And I can't always find a party in Ul'dah... no one uses party search either.... so why would i want the population to spread out any more? i'd rather know my best chance is in Ul'dah rather than have to guess day-to-day where the best chance was.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by weeble

don't think they will do either of these since they made boats to link cities in next patch>< ...they just love waisting our time on boats afk, se secretly has stock in coffee beans since boats are coffee and pee breaks.

---

LMAO makes sense dose it not? i mean the sound of the ocean alone makes me want to go.....

Part of what contributed to Ul'dah becoming the hub is that following the main story sends you there.

Would much rather stay in Gridania, but so many things are causing people to gravitate to Ul'dah. And now that Ul'dah has become the gathering place coupled with the majority of the economy being there, it is going to be hard to split things back up.

Economically, the only thing I can think of would involve adjusting the tax rates. Maybe something along the lines of steeper rates for certain items in some locations, and in others giving additional gil for selling the item there. As an example will use lances. Say you want to sell a lance for 10,000 gil, if you were to sell it in Gridania you make 12,000 gil, while if you sell it in limsa you make 10,000, but sell it in Ul'dah make 8,000. I do see some issues with this, such as the specific item types only show up where they make extra, and a few others I can think of if expand upon this idea.

As to socially, that would be significantly harder without introducing some form of world chat, or better search means.

As to the idea of using R30 agro mobs to block off the paths to other cities, remember the main quest that sends a new person to Ul'dah is currently a R18 mission.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tsukino

The first is a proper search system, which is coming with the server rebuild. If you want a group for a dungeon, for EXP, or for any future content that will require one, you currently need to be where other people are because no one uses the confusing search system and just shouts instead. You're not going to see such a shout or get a response to your own shouts in, say, Gridania. Once people can look for you there though, you'll be more free to do so and still get invited.

---

Totally agree. But. I have for some reason missed when this was publicly adressed. Could anyone provide a reference to the statement where it says the search system will be completely revised? Thanks!

Another thing that SE could do to help spread out the population across the 3 city-states is to incorporate a Global Channel for chatting. A channel that can be read by players in any town. This way you don't have to be in just Ul'Dah to see if someone is making a party.

Another good idea would be to make the wards universal. Wards that can be accessed/searched/purchased/sold in from any city-state (Ishgard included).

The above two ideas would do the most in helping spread out the population and easing the lag in Ul'Dah.

- Kurokikaze

P.S. If a rep does respond to the two ideas in this post, I guarantee you the response will be somewhere along the lines of "It's a little difficult at the moment because of server issues." and to that I say "Get your **** together."

im against global chats. they cheapen overall mmo communities. they become the focus of all activities in game and they are filled with trolls and greedy ppl with no other way to gain parties. a proper LFG system is all they need. i don't know if the current one works fine but i can't decipher it. i can only look for raids or leves, not just normal sp parties (not to mention it asks so many other questions, i give up). .... and no one ever seems to be applying for pt or looking to recruit. anyone got a link on why their current LFG is so useless?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Overkill9000

im against global chats. they cheapen overall mmo communities. they become the focus of all activities in game and they are filled with trolls and greedy ppl with no other way to gain parties. a proper LFG system is all they need. i don't know if the current one works fine but i can't decipher it. i can only look for raids or leves, not just normal sp parties (not to mention it asks so many other questions, i give up). .... and no one ever seems to be applying for pt or looking to recruit. anyone got a link on why their current LFG is so useless?

---

This is the most insightful thing I've ever read... Global chats are full of trolls... Not that there happen to be trolls playing the game. But the chat brings the trolls.

If you don't understand what I'm trying to get at; lemme spell it out. That was incredibly stupid.

- Kurokikaze

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starflare

This is the most insightful thing I've ever read... Global chats are full of trolls... Not that there happen to be trolls playing the game. But the chat brings the trolls.

If you don't understand what I'm trying to get at; lemme spell it out. That was incredibly stupid.

- Kurokikaze

---

have you ever played a game with a global chat in replace of a good lfg system? aion for instance. for ages you listen to troll banter and 0.4% of the time you get a worth-while post that ANYONE would respond to. Sure for the LOL's lets add a global chat but don't be surprised if it doesn't fix jack.

No. I've played various games with not only a global chat but a fully functioning LFG system/Group Finder and they have very little issues as far as functionality or people congregating in a particular area in order to find others to play with.

- Kurokikaze

Market wards is the biggest problem and also Ul'dah being the center between Mor Dhona, La Noscea, and the Black Shroud. I'm sick of Ul'dah. I miss Limsa but seeing it so empty at times takes me back to January... when no one played

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starflare

No. I've played various games with not only a global chat but a fully functioning LFG system/Group Finder and they have very little issues as far as functionality or people congregating in a particular area in order to find others to play with.

- Kurokikaze

---

yeah. that's fine then. i suppose i might just have a bit of global chat hatred built up. it does have it's benefits. it helps ppl find the RIGHT community for them, (as you said) it can help grps (thought i prefer a good lfg system; sometimes certain aspects of the raid grp are not communicated well thro lfg systems), and it MOST IMPORTANTLY lets ppl blow off steam in some place where no one gives a flying F.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Overkill9000

yeah. that's fine then. i suppose i might just have a bit of global chat hatred built up. it does have it's benefits. it helps ppl find the RIGHT community for them, (as you said) it can help grps (thought i prefer a good lfg system; sometimes certain aspects of the raid grp are not communicated well thro lfg systems), and it MOST IMPORTANTLY lets ppl blow off steam in some place where no one gives a flying F.

---

1 or the other shouldn't be done. They should both be implemented. And no I don't feel like I'm asking for much. I'm asking for SE to join other MMO companies on delivering the status-quo in respects to functionality and ease of use.

- Kurokikaze

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starflare

1 or the other shouldn't be done. They should both be implemented. And no I don't feel like I'm asking for much. I'm asking for SE to join other MMO companies on delivering the status-quo in respects to functionality and ease of use.

- Kurokikaze

---

AMEN then! so long as no one asks for global chat in replace of lfg system; i am more than content. *liked*

I think SE is doing a great job in spreading people to differant citys with the guilds locations.
The new craft changes change this a lot.. sadfully.

But to answer the main question in my own opinion, I would say linking the wards would do it very easily.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LuciBlack

But to answer the main question in my own opinion, I would say linking the wards would do it very easily.

---

the wards are filled with too much lag already. it's like rolanberry fields on crack..... and oh a search function. mind you, i'm all for independent enterprise but they have no benefits that an entrepreneur would gain nor any benefits of a corporation.... (that i was waiting for; i thought that was the premises behind companies >.> stupid me thinking it had anything to do with the economy).... thus, they better make the market wards more market-like or follow suit of their current actions and over-simplifying everything and pleasing the 90% ffxi population.

I am against Market Ward merger at this point as there may still be other options to try first.

It would be a little scary if Wutai's Ul'dah population were spread equally through Limsa and Grid, the game would feel so empty, just not enough people to go around.

If the servers population was 3x bigger then people would have no choice but to move to another city. The recent increase in the Ul'Dah Market Wards was baffling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hubert

There's really no way to fix this and it's not an issue with only FFXIV. Almost all games will have a central player hub including, but not limited to, FFXI (Jueno/Whitegate) and WoW (Org>Shattrath>Dalaran>Org). The devs are doing a good job trying to balance the importance of each city through levequests, grand companies, task board, and guilds but at the end of the day, Ul'dah is the most centralized location and thus will be the most populated.

Airships may change this but for now it's simply common sense to make your base at Ul'dah where it is easiest to reach the other cities from.

---

Hmm. . . it was less of an issue in WoW. Yes, everyone set Shattrath/Dalaran as their homes, but neither of those places had market access (not counting trade chat). As such, in order to do business, people would take the convenient portals from those cities back to whichever capital city they liked most. I don't recall ever seeing Stormwind or Orgrimmar as deserted as LL and Grid are. Heck, they usually had more people in front of their AHs than LL and Grid have in their entire cities. . .

Yes, transportation is a large part of it. Also important, though, is giving players a reason to frequent multiple cities. They've started this with the leve changes and the grand companies, but they took a step backwards by increasing the retainer limit in Uldah. . .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tsukino

Being able to search all three from the same place and then buy without entering would too, but then that would just be an auction house.

---

While I agree with most of your post, I disagree here... There would still be one distinction between a wards based AH and a regular AH...

With an AH, you have to put things up for sale, either as stacks or singles,(or possible inbetween set quantities) and then after so long they get returned...

With a retainer based AH, you would be free to still list things as you now do on your retainers, then just send them to the AH as you normally would set them up in a ward.

The end result being all the best aspects of both an AH and the wards systems. Imo, it would be much better than either the current wards, or any AH I've seen. No wasting a bunch of slots selling items one by one, when you could just put the whole stack on the retainer, and people would be free to buy however many they want, instead of all or none. No more listing tons of stuff, then dealing with a bunch of returned items when someone lists a thousand of them at 1 gil under your price... No more AH related hassles in general.

And on the other side, you wouldn't have to go ward diving and sift through a thousand retainers either, because even with the search,(which is a complete godsend, and SCREW anyone who was opposed to it) it's still kind of a pain when it takes a bit to load all those retainers... Plus merging the wards with a system like that would take care of one of the core issues preventing any chance of all the cities being used.

So yeah, not to derail the topic or anything, but I felt that note was worth pointing out. And yes, that plus a /search would really take care of the problem all together imo, and I think you'd see a much more evenly distributed population.

When looking at the maps of the cities it looks like the aetheryte plazas, market wards, and adventure's guilds are close to one another but it feels like Ul'dah is alot more convenient; plus the repair npc is right outside "The Quicksand" which creates a disadvantage for the other two cities.

I don't know maybe I'm just crazy 'cause I haven't seen anone else bring this up.