The Aurum Vale requires the Darkhold quest is a bad idea.

[KenPeach]

You waited until this time to complained about this? Why not do this earlier? There is a thing called shout and you can get in with 4 and you can easily cleared DH within 10min or less. All you have to do is kill the Deepvoid (You don't have to kill baatral to completed the quest) then you go into captain's room and kills till you get objective completed. (Im not trying to be mean eh).

[Tibian]

How would pre-reqs create a scarcity of upper lvl players? This confuses me.

Lowers the available recruitment pool. It can be mitigated if linkshells are willing to "train" new players. Ultimately you won't find a majority of linkshells who want to do this with no incentive to go back and clear new content for someone who might be a terrible end game raider.

Actually it does not. Using xi as an example how many ppl would have completely ignored all the pre-reqs CoP or ToAU had to get access to areas, rewards and what not. There would have been tons of content that would have fallen into oblivion if you could just walk into sea or sky. It actually makes it so new players do not ignore content.

It does. I can personally attest to that. I completely ignored Sea/Sky for my entire XI experience because I could not find a group/linkshell to run me through. Finding a linkshell/group to do the quests was the most significant challenge for me and many others I have spoken to. I understand your reasoning behind your statement though.

If you dont wanna spend time to find ppl to play an mmo just play a standard console game. Very few players quit due to lack of groups and if they do they simply didnt want to put effort into it and if they werent even up for putting effort into finding a group they wouldnt be any help to a group since they have very little initiative. Again this goes back to play a single person game if you cant take the time to meet ppl

Ignorant statement. Being classified as an MMORPG does not mean a game will dictate or force you to party with anyone. It is classified because the game itself is played by hundreds/thousands/millions of people at the same time and is continually updated with new content on a regular basis. If MMORPGs demanded party involvement it should be POORPG or Party Oriented Online Roleplaying Game. I think you underestimate the value of content accessibility.

Yes some, a few, those need to go offline to play. They simply dont understand what MMO means I guess, even a solo-friendly game like WoW had group required content

Again, completely ignorant statement, one which I see time and time again from antiquated players that can not accept or adapt to changing gaming experiences. I am going to completely reverse the situation on you, and simply say "if you cannot accept people having solo content, go back to playing XI, your kind isn't wanted here." Ultimately I don't believe in the last sentence, but you see my point? Such blatant ignorance such as that is not a meaningful way to approach balancing the game -- so stop using stupid phrases as such.

[Madruk]

I could care less if you have solo content so long as the rewards aren't as good or better than group content. Solo away.

[MicahZerrshia]

@Tibian
I meant no disrespect by any means, so hopefully you dont take it all as such. I had issues in xi as well, finding ppl to run me thru things and get stuff done. I just created my own shell, found ppl in a simular situation (which wasnt hard) and got everything done. Ended up playing with the same core group for yrs and we had a new player friendly ls that always had 2+ newbies in it who we would help and show the ropes to. Im still like that. I have no issues helping ppl get thru things if need be. Its a shame more ppl dont want to...but we are out there!

And I can understand the want for solo-friendly content but an mmo cannot be completely solo-friendly, there has to be group oriented content or it may as well be an offline game. Its not that "your kind isnt wanted" its just that without group content there is no need to play with thousands of other ppl from all over the world. And making everything soloable takes something away from game like ffxi, ffxiv, wow and others.

[Wirritosama]

I was shouting for dark hold a few weeks ago and managed to get one person before we gbe up lol. But yeah hopefully some people are on the same page and need the thing done.

[Wirritosama]

I'll need your help after server merge Micah Lol! I'm moving to gungnir

[MicahZerrshia]

I'll need your help after server merge Micah Lol! I'm moving to gungnir

Send me a /t when you get here

[Kiote]

Most people are not recruiting its very hard to get in a linkshell in this game.

Then your server Sucks and you need to move to Sargatanas.

[Forlorn]

yea go figure i played since beta
I know noone in this game , let alone have a linkshell.
I figured if people are so ignoring/ignorant i gotto do it all alone and , people do not care about anyone / others not in their guild/ friendlist
It's sad because i will never do a raid or kill ifrit.
The main problem is theres no chatting area unlike many mmo rpg's.. people dont talk dont get to know one another and theresfor ignore everyone.. this game isnt a social game at all

I quit a while for that reason.. because things seem to be ipossible.. i see now i am back thing havent changed at all yet.

I kinda agree with the game not being very social. Maybe it's lack of players, I'm not sure. It actually makes me very sad cause I remember the days from FFXI. I'm sure people get sick of others bringing up FFXI but it's hard not to lol. On FFXI you had the /shout just like FFXI. You stand around in the main city for gatherings, whichever it may be at that time, and you can't make a peep without someone replying. Conversations going on everywhere, in /shout in /say in /ls. On here, you very rarely seen anyone talking. I've been back about a week and made several /shouts. Some of them for questions, some of them just to try and get people talking, I've only ever gotten a reply ONCE. The community here, at least on my server, is nothing like FFXI and that's a pity cause the FFXI community, at least on the three different servers I played on, were so friendly, talkative, and just all around more socially inclined. I hope with server merges this changes for FFXIV1

[tekka]

Newer players rising through the ranks will constantly struggle to catch up and it isn't a very enjoyable gaming experience playing catch up.

You're right. Make new players start at level 50 with coffer gear. Not raid gear; that would be cheating. VoA anyone? Log in, play for 30min, free epics, log out. I'm UBER!