/sea all job 1-50

[MeowyWowie]

The current system is not as effective as XI's system. It works, sure, but for a person that's looking for a party they have to keep checking over and over and over and over again. This is why people don't use it.

As far as looking for a party goes, "set it and forget it" should be the main approach, not search, search, search, wait 5 min, search again, "OK F**k it, I'll go solo/log off."

[Jaide]

The current system is not as effective as XI's system. It works, sure, but for a person that's looking for a party they have to keep checking over and over and over and over again. This is why people don't use it.

As far as looking for a party goes, "set it and forget it" should be the main approach, not search, search, search, wait 5 min, search again, "OK F**k it, I'll go solo/log off."

Yeah, exactly! I check it once, see that nobody is using it, and give up. After getting the same result a number of times, I eventually just stop checking. I want to be able to do locals or other activities without having to be checking this all the time.

[syntaxlies]

i always use the party feature although i haven't had any join by it since 1.17

[Volsung]

/sea was a feature that was included with the games release. This new recruitment/search feature was built upon as the game went free to play. /sea was then removed. This was done because SE did not want players to be able to see the population of the servers. I believe they favored the current system because it does work (though its lame) because you are unable to ascertain the population playing at any given moment.

There is a chance we may get it back when PS3 is released (or when they come to their senses).

[MeowyWowie]

/sea was a feature that was included with the games release. This new recruitment/search feature was built upon as the game went free to play. /sea was then removed. This was done because SE did not want players to be able to see the population of the servers. I believe they favored the current system because it does work (though its lame) because you are unable to ascertain the population playing at any given moment.

There is a chance we may get it back when PS3 is released (or when they come to their senses).

FFXIV never had a /sea command. The world population was just displayed when you opened the party window, which was later removed.

[VisionHolder]

The difference between the seek option in XI and the backwards way they're doing it in XIV is that in XI you have the ability to see everyone who wants to party and know there are enough people willing to form one. In XIV you can only look for existing parties or put up recruiting and hope there are people actually using the tool who want to join. I prefer it the original way over XIV's blind system, and from the adoption rate it seems like most other people do as well. It was simple and it worked just fine.

Now there is a good counter-argument. Yes, the current system has its flaws. This is one of them. The other is that people can't join or leave a party when the party is engaged in combat... making it hard for new people to join an in-progress party.

But this is why I support the proposal linked to in a post near the top of the thread. It would be nice to be able to flag multiple jobs and activity types as stuff you would be willing to work on, yet allow you to do something else (like crafting) in the meantime. As long as people can't use a "/sea all" command to search for everyone playing a certain job at a certain level so they can harass them to join their party, I'm fine with a change.

But as for the existing system, it does work better than people give it credit for... and it works better than what people are resorting to: shouting, soloing, quitting, and forming LS-only parties. The system isn't as broken as badly as... say... the market wards were when we first started. Back then, people still used the market wards, but did not bother with the new party recruitment system. Why? Simple: Rigid thinking. With the market wards, people were used to combing multiple bazaars outside Jeuno in FFXI, so the market ward approach wasn't that alien. The party recruitment system, on the other hand, was completely new and counter to what people understood and expected.

I'll say it again, the current system may not be perfect and could use a replacement, but as it stands now, it's better than what people are currently doing to form parties. All we need is for people to start using it. In the meantime, keep petitioning for a new system while making the most of the tools we have available.

[Zetonegi]

I'd guess one reason people don't like the current party making system is they have no control over who joins their party. In general, people like to have a sense of control and this system takes it all away. In addition to helping with parties, having a search function allows for other things like checking if someone is camping NM X before you head out as people can seacom it. It also helps you feel connected to other players a bit.

The current party system also feels like its a bit more catered to the Japanese party style in FFXI, you get people together, go out and XP for a while then when someone has to go the party breaks completely. The English speaking community's style was adapted so if someone had to leave they would be replaced. The Japanese started to use that style, especially after Abyssea was released, but this game really the current system really doesn't allow the 'replace people' parties that can go on for hours, pausing only to swap members.

Another small thing having a player search function lets you do is see who's LFP in a level range if say you wanna level your Rank 40 CON and your Rank 25 GLD but aren't really sure which one to LFP on. Maybe you'd prefer one over the other but two quick searches and you know if you can get a party together with either of them or if it looks impossible with one of them at the moment.

[miqokini]

/sea was a feature that was included with the games release. This new recruitment/search feature was built upon as the game went free to play. /sea was then removed. This was done because SE did not want players to be able to see the population of the servers. I believe they favored the current system because it does work (though its lame) because you are unable to ascertain the population playing at any given moment.

There is a chance we may get it back when PS3 is released (or when they come to their senses).

Pretty much this. Surprised it wasn't said sooner.

SE doesn't want us to see the population of the game. They are afraid that if we see the low numbers, even more of us will leave.

Well, here's news, SE: Those of us left are not going to quit over something so stupid. We will continue to play the game. So add the damn /sea function already!!

[MattyWS]

Everyone knows FFXIV has no population at the moment, like /sea all will make people think"Oh snap, this game must suck due to lack of people!"

Lets not forget not everyone has a decent pc either, which is a pretty large reason for people not playing it. It's not like people don't play just because they think the game sucks. I know pretty much all of my friends played FFXI but didn't bother with this game because they simply cannot with the crappy laptops they own, because they only use the internet they don't need to upgrade and think games should be on console.

[MeowyWowie]

It's not impossible to add a /sea function without displaying population.