[dev1020] Party system changes. The maximum party size.

[Gracious]

I have no problem with a 4 member party but an alliance should be able to have 18.

[Nephera]

Cant design encounters where you need 15+ people to attend with the state of the game. There just aren't that many of us left to do that content. 4 and 8 man content for now then after the game is up to par with current MMO standards they will have their welcome back campaign and release some bigger alliance stuffs.

Right now it's just not feasible.

My LS had 64 people from FFXI (old LSmates and their friends) 2 weeks after release. Now we're lucky to see even 10 online at any given time.

Yeah

sadface

[Zaris]

Like Yoshi-P, I think optimizing parties as a group of four is pretty swell -- a tribute to the maximum party size of Final Fantasy IX. Doubling that size for tougher, larger scale events seem all right to me (in this game). Other than behest, much of the content that I have seen look well built and accomplish-able on groups of eight or less.

Of course, finding that optimum ideal number for party and alliance play will depend largely on the subjective variables of the individual gamer.

[Amsai]

I agree with Kuroki. However, I will also say that I love low-man content and find it to not only be more fun but more challenging as well. Think CoP missions before they were nerfed. It is my opinion that Large endgame events only seems more epic due to the chaos. In my experience, it ends up being either a zerg fest or people endlessly throwing bodies at the mob til it dies. There is nothing epic or even remotely challenging about that. Sometimes Large-Scale content can be good, but the only examples I can think of are Besieged and Campaign. Now I will say that I would not want LSs to have a limit to members. Think of it more as different teams under the same flag. You could still have leadership, LS banks, strategy sessions, and call for back up in the event of an absence.
Here is my list of things that would be better: less drama, less being 40th in line for a sought after drop, less chaos, more challenge (especially with lower numbers which would decrease the margin of error), less ninja looting, less fair-weather LS mates that leave the min they get that uber drop, less canceling events because not enough show up, closer bonds due to smaller size, more synergy and coordination from working together, no more trying to get a large group of people to listen to a strategy session only to have it blow up in your face because someone was afk/not paying attention/wanted to play hero.

[Kurokikaze]

I think the best part of all this is Yoshi-P coming out and telling everyone that the accepted "party" sizes are going to be 4 and 8. We've been going through so much crap testing trying to see how many people we can in parties before we get drastically reduced SP bonus/gains.

Him telling us its going to be 4 is just like FFXI force-feeding us 6 man PTs. Sometimes the players need to be told that way they can design encounters and balance regular mobs around the many class combinations that will be available in the 4 man groups.

It's a good step forward. Personally I would've liked 5 or 6 but 4 is good too.

[Reika]

I dont mind this change, however they need to keep 15 man parties doable, unless they plan to adjust the current Field NM strength. Haughtpox Bloatbelly would not be doable with just 8 people unless they change the encounter (less adds and/or HP and defense.

[Kurokikaze]

I dont mind this change, however they need to keep 15 man parties doable, unless they plan to adjust the current Field NM strength. Haughtpox Bloatbelly would not be doable with just 8 people unless they change the encounter (less adds and/or HP and defense.

A THM soloed that... I think you guys can manage.

I believe the party systems should be changed to an alliance system with 6 member parties. I do not believe 4 man parties will be efficient once new content/jobs are released because we are going to want certain classes in certain parties in the alliance and if the party size is only 4 people.

And you think that 4 man groups wont be balanced for FUTURE content... If that even happens it'll be a big sign of failure for Yoshi-P.

[arlee]

I dont mind this change, however they need to keep 15 man parties doable, unless they plan to adjust the current Field NM strength. Haughtpox Bloatbelly would not be doable with just 8 people unless they change the encounter (less adds and/or HP and defense.

Uhm its been 4 man'd and even solo'd. Just goes to show probably half the population right now just zergs NMs and can't do anything if it wasn;t 15 manned.

Thing is if they introduce instanced dungeons or whatever limiting the party to 8 would be fine You have a big LS you can still get everyone to do the endgame stuff just break up into say 2 or 3 grps and everyone can experience the content and not be limited to just 1 group

[Ava]

I think that designing a majority of the content around low man groups is great, I feel that they should also do -something- for those that want large scale chaos as well. I'm all for low man stuff and probably the only thing that would make me play WoW again would be them doing away with 10 and 25 mans and just focusing on 5. So, in my opinion, good for you SE, I'm totally with you!

However, I also loved Campaign and Dynamis. I didn't really care for Salvage or Limbus but if it weren't for Campaign I would have shaved about 2 years off my FFXI subscription. Abyssea was alright, but I think would be a lot more difficult to implement in an HD game like XIV.

So what I, personally, would like to see Square do is focus on 4/8 but down the line maybe after PS3 release, enable players to create an alliance of either 2 (16), or 3 (24) parties to take on things like Dynamis and Campaign. Not so much for Campaign since you can go solo just fine, but you get my point!

I'd like to see this down the line, though. Right now SE needs to focus on new players and keeping the few they have. I think low man content is the way to go with that. It's not very good for linkshells since you end up with a bunch of cliques that eventually want to break off, but at least people will have something to do.

[Reika]

Uhm its been 4 man'd and even solo'd. Just goes to show probably half the population right now just zergs NMs and can't do anything if it wasn;t 15 manned.

Thing is if they introduce instanced dungeons or whatever limiting the party to 8 would be fine You have a big LS you can still get everyone to do the endgame stuff just break up into say 2 or 3 grps and everyone can experience the content and not be limited to just 1 group

That Thm wasnt just a R50 THm, but a R50 almost everything else too. If I had every defense skill, the highest heals debuffs and dots, I would go get myself some Dodore wings >.>.