Will WoW Classic Affect FFXI Playability?

There's basically no point in doing Omen once you have all non body/hand drops unless you are a sadist, so few groups exist for those. Finding people for pick up groups is hard because now everyone only wants bodies and people don't want to be 1/6 to lot on a 0.5% drop rate item.

Most Dynamis groups that emerged did their clears and most people quit or they changed solely to RP farming. I do dynamis with one shell but they are explicit in not doing boss kills forever also.

Ambu PuG is not a problem. Arguably the "normal" way to do this content.

Aeonics; as there are only a few worth getting people and groups lost interest (same as most content) and stopped going like most groups. Finding PuG for these got harder for a while but it seems more people just geared SMN to do them now.

There isn't a great deal of reason to be in a static group for the difficulty of content in game. Hence there is nothing wrong with expecting SE to provide people with the ability to do things in PuG (again, not so much of an issue for me but on small servers this is brutal).

You're focusing on the events, which just makes it more clear you couldn't give less of a ***about the people. If you're in a group with people you actually like, you could enjoy content instead of seeing it as a chore. You get on for a couple hours, do some stuff with your friends(maybe you need it, maybe they need it and you don't), you get off. It doesn't need to be a 24 hour a day thing.

Still not seeing a single person actually crying that they can't afford transfer fee and are stuck off of Asura.

Only about... 20 people post on this forum regularly.

As per my previous post, I believe the content is easy enough with full numbers to not need statics and that is not because people don't give a ***about people (99.9% of people never did in this game anyway) but because of the stage of life we are mostly in now. I think that it would be right of SE to facilitate more casual play, i.e. via having populations large enough to make that a possibility.

Could you provide five examples, if there are 20?

City of Heroes?
This is not a feature unique to WoW clones... I have the impression that the gear treadmill in FFXI is going very strong.

You're purposely being obtuse now. You know that's not even a realistic question to ask. Most common posters are end game and well accomplished so are not affected.

You just said there were 20 people who post on this forum regularly that can't afford to swap to Asura and are rotting on small servers. Surely you can locate 5 of them.

No, I meant in general. Common posters. Most new players or more casual players don't even post on forums, you know that.

I also never once said it was about "affording" and raised 2 points you choose to ignore to be obtuse;
1. Morals - SE should provide a good service, you shouldn't have to pay extra to get a population that facilitates an MMO.
2. Because all their associates will not move.

So, who are you arguing on the behalf of? These invisible players who don't care to get on forums, play XI enough to be affected by endgame numbers, pay the 12.95(+wardrobe/mules if applicable), but can't spare an extra $9-18 to move?

You must realize how ridiculous you sound.

In my time playing FFXI I have noticed a definite difference in attitudes between US and EU players, especially UK players. I've usually found US players to be much more generous with their time and generally more laid back (obvs with exceptions). I've had very few friendships with UK based players. I blame Margaret Thatcher.

People I know from Leviathan and Cerberus, for example. (Most who came to Asura) The desperate posting of trying to find members to join Linkshells and statics posted on the server forums.

All the people currently enjoying their small server experience would consider it a disservice for SE to merge them. It's been well established that Asura is an option for players who want a larger playerbase and more access to shout content.

So, we should force them all to move for the 1 disenfranchised player who needs a bigger population but is too close to their friends to leave them? Would the 1 player even support forcing all their friends to move with them?

The game is infinitely more playable and enjoyable 00:00-06:00 (like 18:00-00:00 EST) but of course not every EU player can do that.

Are you not now doing what you 5mins ago accused me of doing? Speaking for masses of other people? How do you know the majority would not prefer a more populated server? Hell, some new players might not even know they exist!

How would they suffer? Noone is proposing merges into Asura-sized servers necessarily. How would going from 300 online to 600 online ruin anyone's game? Even 1200? Please answer this one.

I personally know over 30 people who are happy with the population on Leviathan and are strongly against any sort of merge. Many of them are not in my linkshell, some post here(Celebrindal comes to mind). I am one of them. There's no hypothetical about it.

I can't say I've ever come across anyone ingame or on the forum who's crying that they want to be on Asura but can't afford to swap.

Twice as many people at every contested spot in the game? Four times as many? ***tier bait.

There are only a couple of top notch CP camps, abyssea NMs quickly become tiring with even a single opposing group, and so on. Doubling the population doubles the amount of competition you'll run into in these places. Even with our '60 active players', you'll find most/all of the CP camps taken at any point during a CP campaign. So, obviously this is a problem that continues to scale with more people.

Edit: Almost forgot about Gain Experience. Best camps taken from 5 minutes before it starts until it ends, every time. Fun.

So 30 people out of the technically 3600-4000 characters (probably 2k not mules/2nd chars?) that are active on Leviathan is a big enough sample also? I know more than 30 that moved from Leviathan. Or are you talking about numbers of people who actually play the game? What would you put that as during EST play time?

You're obsessed with Asura. I have been explicit about not recommending Asura-sized as the only way or recommended way of being. I also made the point about affordance explicit repeatedly but you're trolling for some unknown reason.

In a game this big with as much content as there is I really question your honesty on this point. You know full well the numbers of people wanting to do specific content at exactly the same time would not double, not even remotely. Abyssea NMs are not even really a problem on Asura and there are enough people to buy the pops on AH (much easier to make the gil for the most part) so that is a non-issue.

You're intentionally being obtuse or trolling now. There is no way you can believe that 2x numbers of people would ever result in the claims you are making of 2x the people at every bit of content at the same time. That is just ridiculous, and you know it is.

CP camps only became an issue on Asura in the last 2 months because there are probably 8+ RMT groups selling CP now. Otherwise it was fine. That is an issue of banning RMT and bots though, not of a lack of camps necessarily. This is with a server 4x the size I mentioned.

Is it really that hard to understand that twice as many players = (roughly) twice as many people who need a given content? You may not have twice the competition at abyssea NMs, but you're twice as likely to have competition.

Things like gain exp and CP campaign are much more ubiquitous and you will absolutely have more competition.

This is tired, you aren't on a small server, nobody on a small server is here asking for this. You can tell yourself what you like, I'm done.

SE doesn't give a damn about the community, they care about the extra cash. the guys arguing against merges are usually from asura and dig pay2win or straight up RMT.

even if you find/build a static group chances are you dealing with multi boxers. since people now a days have a RL with families (fools, i know...) and sometimes can't show up for that reason you have to replace multiple jobs short term on a lowpop server, good luck with that.
and lets not act like there is no congestion on lowpop servers right after the ambu update. they also have long queues and wait times up to 20-30 minutes/run, the difference is on a high pop server you can wait out the initial inrush without beeing afraid everyone is already done later that month.

i agree, lots of people prefer to solo but there is no way around grouping up for endgame content. so you have players that soloed their way thru till endgame on their own schedule and all of a sudden you want to force linkshell schedules on them like its a job? this game was overdue for a decent party finder almost a decade ago.

I would agree for something common and commonly done, like Ambuscade, yes. Abyssea NMs absolutely not as there is not 1 set of NMs for all weapons. Dynamis and Omen and Aeonics this is all entirely irrelevant.

CP would be irrelevant at a population of 1200 with no RMT. I say that with an online population of 2200 on Asura. Gain exp I don't know about - but is that really so important to most people or just for a few who abuse it for afk/botted gil?

There is 1 person here asking for merges, it started the discussion.... Also the groaning in recruitment threads is apparent.

I respect your opinion, but I disagree.

idc what happens, as long as no more servers merge into asura. Infact, Asura should be permenantly greyed out when creating a new character, and remove asura from the transfer list. That would be a nice start.

It's less busy in EU times now than 6-12 months back. I know a lot of people who moved here as a last resort but then just quit anyway to go to FFXIV and other crap like Fortnite.

I said I was done, but I feel a need to point out that your hypotheticals are entirely wrong.

CP is currently an issue on Leviathan every time the campaign comes up. This isn't a theoretical, it's not some imaginary problem, if you go out to the good camps in Doh, Woh, or Rakaznar during a CP campaign they will each have a party. Doh usually has 3-5. Maybe your standards are lower and you're fine with multiple parties per camp, maybe for some reason we have a higher percentage of active players out of our total population, I don't know. I do know that if I can run out of mobs at an apex camp, I'm being impacted by the competition.

Abyssea isn't something you deal with every time you go out. Doubling the population won't make it that. But, with twice as many people, you have twice as much chance of seeing someone already at the NM you planned to farm. It isn't that it hurts you every time, it's that when it does it ruins your plans. Even if you're the kind of *** to camp on someone else in abyssea, you'll get half as many claims and be spending the same amount of time for half the productivity.

Gain exp is a primary gil source for quite a few people, so being unable to do it effectively would certainly hurt their experience.

Is any of this a huge deal that makes the game unplayable? Probably not. But, if you already have a group and you're not feeling any negatives to your group content experience from the lower population, why would you want to negatively impact your more solo-friendly stuff by dumping a bunch more randoms into your server? There is no upside to merges for people who have a solid group that they are happy with. It's that simple.

Gain exp, if done right is a fairly nice chunk of gil for playing just 12hrs a week. Per character your looking at 8-10mil per gainexp, running just 1 extra character, thats 50mil~ a week with minimal playtime, 6 characters thats 144mil~ a week. Thats without afk/botting. For alot of people thats there main gil income, and during the accolade event, you can add +50% to those figures easy.

The CP issue is interesting. To be honest, 99% of the CP on Asura is probably entirely botted so you still get the same amount over 12 hours sleeping even when competition is doubled than you would if you partied for a few hours manually (doubt many people have the time for more than that).

Also you are making out that all CP parties are as good as yours would be and there'd be no mobs anywhere. I don't think that is true. Some of the CP parties I watch would make you cry - my SAM can solo faster than most parties.

The Abyssea thing - I paid for 2 Daud from scratch and a Calad. All items were done when I slept (PEAK EST time) in 5-6 hours including Apademak horns and this was never an issue on a server the size of Asura. I don't think it would be if you had 600-1200 online if it is not with 2200.

@Chaos 6 chars isn't a realistic expectation for most people though. It surprises me how many people don't even have 2 accounts these days.

Doesn't have to be 'no mobs anywhere' to be a negative, just has to be 'no mob up when I'm ready to pull'. I find it hard to accept that botting or mercing while you sleep is a viable replacement for having empty camps, as well.

If you enjoy a larger population and aren't bothered by the congestion, that's great for you. I'm telling you, in as plain of terms as possible, that not everyone feels the same way.

You dont need 6 characters I was just saying that the more characters you have the more your income increases. Even with just one character, a guaranteed 25+mil a week with little effort isn't really anything to scoff at.

That is what I meant, there being no mobs. How many mobs does even the most perfect CP party need to do that? 7? Also, most parties need 3-4, 5 at most. Your situation isn't the norm.

I didn't mean to imply that botting is acceptable, only that people here probably don't really know the pain.

I've nowhere implied that everyone feels the same way. I believe, and neither of us can prove this objectively, that the experience of FFXI would be enhanced for the majority of people on small servers if they were merged. The fears of queus and competition on Asura is so overexaggerated.

there have been threads asking for server merges a couple of years ago on reddit and you get comments asking for merges off topic on different threads every now and then.

i don't think there are many that asking for server merges cause they can't afford them. those who complain do so cause they recognise the server jump fee for what it is, a greedy up-selling rip off buisness strategy for a service SE used to provide for free in the form of server merges in the past.

that you won't see constant ongoing riots over that topic makes sense for multiple reasons.
-there aren't many people left playing.
-asking anything from SE is like talking to a wall and since the thing you ask for would at least mean a short term lose for SE most ppl realise its a pointless endeavour.
-the larger masses who used to complain years ago either bit the bullet by now and payed the fee or quit cause why would you keep paying subscription fees if you can't do content.

the fact that this topic keeps coming up every now and then aswell as asurans complaining about congestion is good evidence that servers aren't in a good state. asura is too cluttered and the rest is too empty.

Also, I see it like this. SE market this game as a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. If that service is not provided, which 300 chars (80% AFK) online isn't, then asking people who want a better experience with the game to pay to move is actually offensive. If people are so anti-merging I think they should at least support the idea of allowing the people on tiny servers who would like a better experience a free move. It would be interesting to see then how many would take the opportunity.