Has anyone else notice over the past 7 months the server has gotten increasingly 'empty'. It went from seeing English yells every day -> maybe 1-2 every other day.
Aside from all the RMT of course*
Odin Might Be A Dead Server For PUGs |
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Odin might be a dead server for PUGs
Waiting for yells, or trying to form via PUGs on Odin be like:
Has anyone else notice over the past 7 months the server has gotten increasingly 'empty'. It went from seeing English yells every day -> maybe 1-2 every other day.
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Yes its a major problem with ffxi now.
All you see is merc cp/ep shouts. It's SE fault, they created the time gated content that penalizes failed attempts at their content instead of a fun trying atmosphere of social game togetherness. To be fair, there are systems in place that the playerbase could use to create that atmosphere, for example, flaggin up and commenting. In the past, this is how we got a party, and we had many a great party with people of all nationalities including JP, TW etc. Auto translate was really important back then and fun. Yes, the game is going thru a dry period atm. Since their abysmal anniversary "event" didn't really introduce anything important, people have felt a slow stagnation and its bleeding subs. That would have been their perfect time to announce an expansion or literally anything important to give people something to look forward to, but it is what it is. Currently a lot don't care to go thru the higher Odyssey V levels for augments, so really the only other thing is Sortie and its quite boring (in my opinion.)
I also think SE not policing their game has lead to a bit of a decline as well. Rampant RMT and multi-boxing using everything under the sun has created a more isolationist community in addition to a lot of people hating on the game atm. If you think about it, if people teamed up for these master levels like the past, it would be another thing to do socially. The problem is SE has yet to add any EP bonuses to anything aside from Corsair roll and most figure they can do it afk anyway. I also think something like gifts should be introduced to give more incentive aside from the SJ increases. I remember a lot of people teaming up for capacity points when that was a thing but it had more benefits generally. My LP alt is on Odin, and I definitely never see English yells/shouts.
Hell, I barely see English players lol. I did help a JP player I met a while back with his first ever Dynamis run though. His English is pretty good, but he's got some weird ideas about playing the game (doesn't know a lot and doesn't look stuff up, I guess?). Hopalong said: » flaggin up and commenting They added a half assed LFG system to try and help with that but it really is never used. I do like using it to bug my friend with "X requests to join your party" Or I dont even know what they imagined that system would be for
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Well when most of your shouts are looking for a BRD and you can never find a BRD and you choose not to have BRD available to you as a baseline, yeah groups are going to be hard to form. Granted a majority of NA BRDs are multi-boxed anyways and generally speaking multi-boxing Ody and Sortie is terrible so people are less likely going to want to do it.
That being said game is kind of in a pretty bad state ATM. V25s are out of a majority of players reach especially pugs considering those groups are more likely to need to do a 2 KI entry and it's hard enough to put together a group requiring the needed jobs for a single entry, juggling another 6 jobs is going to be nearly impossible. The WS bug was probably one of the dumbest things to have happened in recent memory that left a lot of people souring their opinion and motivation for the game. Also at this point people have already gotten all their jobs +2 Empy gear and a handful of +3 for the jobs they actually care about or like. Then there is the +2 earring lottery, and there isn't enough of a draw for the content long term, especially with how unreliable the drop rates for them are to actively pull people in. Not to mention most of Odin NA have already filtered into their own groups with little reason to do pugs or shout for people. Oh and the moogle ambuscade is absolutely miserable to do with randos so that certainly doesn't help the current situation either. This has been a thing on smaller servers for years now. Yes, years. Even before the pandemic you didn’t see that many yells. There are several reasons for this:
TLDR version: Only the biggest servers see PUGs. Veteran groups don’t want randoms. The current endgame is without soul, and the old content is pointless. Shoddy policing means bots run wild, so you don’t have to grind the boring stuff. And many leaders have given up leading because there are only so many times you can do that before you need to stop and move on. And yes, I still love this game despite its poor state. Serjero said: » Well when most of your shouts are looking for a BRD and you can never find a BRD and you choose not to have BRD available to you as a baseline. To the contrary. I geared a brd alt to near BiS. That being said, it’s not just Brd. I’ve been as of late struggling to find all ‘positions’ for content: Cor, healers, DD, even tanks. And I mean 30min - 1hr of yelling in town, unable to find a Cor and having to disband. Ex) Ongo V20. It’s possible, as people have stated above that players are all in statics.
But the oddity to me is that we used to see yells all the time. And now it’s just like, none. So I’m trying to figure out what happened. Offline
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I think a lot of people made a resolution to not play in January. Even on Asura, aside from RMT yells, the yells are drastically reduced here too. Odyssey seems dead as we haven't had a long queue like when we were doing V20s. Minimal stat upgrades so lack of interest I guess. Sortie sees some pick up action, but largely shouting for the same job (Tanks and Scholar) for quite a bit. Same 2-3 JP groups shouting at night for events, but they don't really want to play with NA people.
I don't see how Odyssey is content w/o a soul. Its interesting and something new we haven't gotten before. The bosses are challenging and I really don't see the barrier to entry being that high outside of raising the cap on how many Moglophones you can hold before they get wasted. I don't see the prep work for it being vastly different than previous events we got in the past. Maybe people are just more lazy now.
The older content would be fun to try as item level so they are relevant but it seems understandable they can't keep decade+ content going for long outside of a few pieces. Maybe if they added the augment system to the gear, like they did UNM, and we could get some interesting stats. Side grades should be better for most rewards now.. we don't need anything like Odyssey gear (didn't need it then when it came out either.) I think they made some things too easy to accomplish and didn't think long term, which still baffles me why they made the choices they did knowing that anniversary event was literally nothing but feels. Like why give everyone access to v0 Odyssey NM gear just from 1 battle. Then sometimes they would do weird stuff like make drop rates super low on Shinryu, but the boss itself is easy.. Compared to Lilith where most struggled on her at VD on release. Not very consistent planning from the devs. They need to make things more long term goal oriented in my opinion, for literally anything they plan to release. This age we are in, people burn thru content too fast. Ranoutofspace said: » I think a lot of people made a resolution to not play in January. Even on Asura, aside from RMT yells, the yells are drastically reduced here too. Odyssey seems dead as we haven't had a long queue like when we were doing V20s. Minimal stat upgrades so lack of interest I guess. Sortie sees some pick up action, but largely shouting for the same job (Tanks and Scholar) for quite a bit. Same 2-3 JP groups shouting at night for events, but they don't really want to play with NA people. Odyssey is challenging and I enjoy it, but I can also see how people would start burning out on v25 really fast at T3. I got called a 'glutton for punishment' the other day because I keep doing it, by a vet player who seems to have little desire to do it just because of how random and tedious it is. I think for most there are only so many times they want to do the same fight over and over again, do it correctly, and lose over and over due to factors outside of their control.
This was an issue at v20 but it seemed like you could push through a lot of it and still win, at v25 there are just too many factors that can cause you to fail even if you do everything right and I think that becomes frustrating over time. I get they want to drag the content out and avoid people burning through it, I don't necessarily disagree with doing that, but it reaches a breaking point where people just get tired of it especially if they are scrambling for segments and don't have a ton saved up. The number of attempts it takes to clear means players who don't have a ton of segments saved up can't really participate because they can't stick around long enough to give it enough tries, slowing the group down. So people who aren't geared to the max with the right jobs (some of which are niche) are excluded, they are excluded if they don't have a bunch of segments saved up, and they get annoyed when you do everything right and still lose over and over again. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I get why people don't do it. I also pugged a bit of v20 near the end of last year, a lot of those fights are out of reach for many players, v25 is only going to be worse. I've seen a good number of v15 and v20 shouts lately though, but I just don't think v25 is going to be content you can do in a PUG unless you get really lucky. I think many will max out at r20 or r25, then deal with v25 when it mellows out some, some seem to think Prime weapons will make a difference also. Gluttons for punishment (masochists) is literally who the game is designed for. Just sayin.
Odin.Senaki said: » It’s possible, as people have stated above that players are all in statics. But the oddity to me is that we used to see yells all the time. And now it’s just like, none. So I’m trying to figure out what happened. People leaving the server, taking a break or quitting. Odin's EU/NA population was always on the lower end and tend to keep things within linkshells or statics. At JP prime time though there are loads of yells for Odyssey, Omen, Dyna and Sortie. To be honest, I've noticed similar even on Bahamut. It's not at drastic levels, but there has definitely been a slow decline of folx to do PUGs with...
AFK master leveling is basically rampant and is practically acceptable in most people's views. And small statics are pretty much the main source of Sortie Basement/Odyssey V20+ progress now. It's quite frustrating... Frustrating enough I've been considering picking up BRD. And I already play 10+ jobs as is... >.> Sylph.Brahmsz said: » It's quite frustrating... Frustrating enough I've been considering picking up BRD. And I already play 10+ jobs as is... >.> I want to play the game. But I get on, can’t find people. Then log annoyed. Because of my scheduling irl, I cannot commit to statics. So I’m a pug-only player. I’m seriously considering moving to asura. NVM you specifically said PUGs. Bahamut.Celebrindal
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Shout PUG'ing is a science, and most I see these days sound more like unwanted DDs looking for human beings to use as trusts so they get to have fun rather than trying to build successful parties.
The number of shouts seen that need all the buffers, healers, and tanks just so said shouter can Fudo all the things (or worse yet, Savage all the things) regardless of needed strat is mind blowing. I'm not saying this is the primary issue blocking successful PUG'ing everywhere, but it is an issue, and one that's shockingly easy to fix. Can't find BRDs? Then build one (even twice if needed!). No good GEOs around? Never been easier or cheaper to make an Idris. Maybe put down that Masa and learn to cure, because its a helluva lot easier to shout for 2 DDs when you've already got a trustworthy Tank, Healer and Bard guaranteed. Always been and will always be the problem. 16 DD jobs but a party only wants one. And every party wants every single buffer it can get.
Bahamut.Celebrindal
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Asura.Eiryl said: » Always been and will always be the problem. 16 DD jobs but a party only wants one. And every party wants every single buffer it can get. At least being a bard isnt *** miserable anymore. Party swapping essentially non-existent.
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Oh your server has shouts? Must be nice, I guess.
Some server's "Latest Shouts" box on FFXIAH is empty dude. Bahamut.Celebrindal said: » Asura.Eiryl said: » Always been and will always be the problem. 16 DD jobs but a party only wants one. And every party wants every single buffer it can get. The situation is worse on Odin. On my main, I have: iGeo, eRun, Drg, War, Bst, Sch (healer). I don’t mind swapping to play content. The issue I’ve been finding is that it doesn’t matter if I swap around my job. We still cannot find ppl to fill. And this is just from my own PUG attempts. I haven’t seen a NA ody c shout in 3 weeks. Odin.Senaki said: » Bahamut.Celebrindal said: » Asura.Eiryl said: » Always been and will always be the problem. 16 DD jobs but a party only wants one. And every party wants every single buffer it can get. The situation is worse on Odin. On my main, I have: iGeo, eRun, Drg, War, Bst, Sch (healer). I don’t mind swapping to play content. The issue I’ve been finding is that it doesn’t matter if I swap around my job. We still cannot find ppl to fill. And this is just from my own PUG attempts. I haven’t seen a NA ody c shout in 3 weeks. And now you know why everyone tri/quad/penta/hexaboxes. Congratulations, today you learned. And subsequently why people dislike multibox. It's a circle. No one to party. More multiboxes. Less to play with. More multiboxes. Less to play with. Odin.Senaki said: » I’m seriously considering moving to asura. These days, most of the "PUG" groups I join are people who ask me directly if I want to join, not me responding to yells. Groups would much rather send tells to everyone they know before having to resort to yelling and risking getting the guy who offhands Nagi "because it looks cool" or the WHM who tries to Cureplease their way through all content. Odin used to be top three in population.
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Pantafernando said: » Odin used to be top three in population. Sad times, sad times It has had, and still does have, a massive JP population. During JP prime time you see a shout every 5-10 minutes. But sadly JP typically won’t invite non JP players nor will a good portion of them join NA shouts. |
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