My Joining Asura Experience

as a returning player me and my friends decided to give a more populated server a run. we shot big and came to Asura
however its been a rough move so far.

Pros:
1. Population. lots of people always doing some events. finding a group might be slightly easier
2. more people to meet. there are a bunch of nice new people. but also the other end of that spectrum... more on that in a bit.
3. more options for linkshells?
4. more active market! buying and selling is more enjoyable. less time camping the AH for that one wierd item.
things seem to move faster when your selling too!

Cons:
1. more people. like number 1 and 2 says. there are good. but there also bad. and when camps get cramped from population. the real dbags show trying to steal your mobs and entire pulls. sadly the bad eggs tend to stick out more than the good players. which kinda suck
2. more options to not get invited to linkshells. i don't know why. but iv shouted a few times seeing if LSes are recruiting and got no responses. i checked the LS guys in town and checked a few of the random LSes on there. however they ether turn out to be dead or unhelpful in any way.
3. drama. with all the shouts comes lots of drama. like number 1. the bad eggs tend to stick out here shouting and instigating augments.
4. more people more demand. more bots! there are bots everywhere
and this isn't just an Asura thing. however with more population means there are more competition for these items and the bots don't help in the least bit. SE just needs to go on a banning spree with bots...

so far the experience has been unenjoyable and a possible move back to a less populated and less chaotic server, if anyone has any suggestions or linkshell recommendations it would be much appreciated.

You're probably right on the majority of points, granted in my opinion you're slightly exagerating towards the empty-glass side of things, but then again what do I know?

About the Con number 2. Were you talking about a generic social shell? In which case I got nothing to say other than: have you tried the Reddit one? Have you tried the Linkshell NPCs who give pearls for free in every town?

If you meant a semi-social or any other sort of LS who does content in any form or sort, maybe you haven't been accepted in any LS because you're too far behind and people cba to help other players grow up and want to recruit exclusively players who are "up-to-date"? Selfish/egoistical approach, but I'm sure you can understand it?

And next we'll learn his/her only jobs are PUP, BST, NIN or other equally useless job for high end game play and groups are passing on him/her because he/she simply can't contribute.

This has been the pattern I've noticed as our group use's the newbie groups as recruiting and training grounds. As experienced people retire from the game or take extended breaks, new blood is needed to take their now vacant positions. Everyone in the high end is multi-role, the very definition of success in this game is being very good at a bunch of roles. We've established a system of taking fresh potential and developing it towards a high end capable player and as so far our experience has been the characteristic that predicts success has been the players desire to learn and master a multitude of necessary jobs.

If a potential recruit opens with "I have a rag WAR" they immediately get noped. If instead they say "I'm working on a REMA BRD" or "I'm 900 Dunna GEO wanting to get Idris" or even "I've been doing WHM and I'm open to help tweaking my gearsets" they get serious consideration. Getting someone a REMA is easy for an accomplished group, we don't want to waste our time on someone who's never gonna be versatile.

i messed with those trying to find one but the limited to 1 per real life day and constantly coming across shells that only have 1-2 people in them.. not a great mechanic if you ask me. needs to be an option if you trade the pearl back, you reset the timer. but yea. id be glad to join the Reddit LS as well as a couple friends that i'm playing with. just a group we can get some pointers from would be great!

I appreciate your contribution to the thought bubble on Asura. It's uncommon to see fair criticism of the server besides propaganda. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. :(

Are you suggesting that my Exalted Staff Drg can't contribute?

You can get a pearl from the NPC once per game day; not real life 24 hours.

I've noticed linkshells on Asura that are open to the public (not endgame event shells; just social) are either always so full that sometimes you can't get in or very dead. Good luck with your endeavors on Asura. Don't let the spam yell trolling get you down. Honestly, if you can read it, then you're just sitting in town and not really getting anything accomplished anyway so it shouldn't hurt too bad. If you're out in the field (out of town) then you can't see yells and it's out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Edit: I keep one of those empty shells on me at all times as my secondary and it has pearls on the NPC. I havn't seen you come in or if you did come in, you should have talked. Talking = attracts attention of others to stick around. People sticking around = how a ls grows. If you pop in and no one is talking and you leave because no one is talking and you didn't ever say anything, it's not entirely the fault of the people lurking in the empty shell.

Edit #2: If you're looking to get into an established shell, you're in the correct place to ask.

Oh boy.

i can deal with the shout drama. its the people not giving a toss about respect and stealing pulls and trying to AOE your pulls that have me in a rage. no respect what so ever. and its not just the 1 in a while thing. EVERY time i go mass cleveing. there is a guaranteed instance or three where somebody tries to kill my pull. don't know if there is a list of *poop emoji* players. but i have a few i can contribute with nvidia shadow play evidence.

Turn Shout/Yell filters on if you're kind of just playing with a friend and aren't looking to join any activity. Blacklist trolls, or just ignore them. It's really just a silly thing they like to do, but not really anything to get too worked up over. If you're constantly doing things, you won't see it because you won't be in towns for long. If you choose to shout for people to do things with, see if you can add some to FL and develop a few relationships. Many of the LS Concierge I've seen are definitely dead LS, and shouting isn't that good either. I'd suggest doing simple things like zone clears, HTBF/Delve etc and shout to add members, and if theres one or two cool players, you can ask if you may join their ls or if they know of any you might be able to join. I wouldn't let anybody else ruin your joy playing a video game, as that's counter productive.

Some of the pros that may didnt mention are a constant supply of items, crafters, rare gear, and options to join things you might need. Yes there are a lot of children who enjoy attention on Asura, but I would just ignore them and have fun. GL.

Nothing selfish about not wanting to carry people.

If you don't keep some standard you can very end up just ending up in a revolving door of returning ppl helping them gear up till they quit or leave

yea. i could add that. i do like how much more active the AH is. however there is a con to that. notably with the crafting spheres. BOTS! lots-o-bots.

I came from a small server and I'd never go back. Sure there are vocal *** on the server but there are great, knowledgeable, and helpful players as well. The economy on Asura is also much healthier in comparison. There are shout groups who clear end-game content, that's been big for me personally.

Work on your jobs, check out some of the big social shells, and join pickup groups for Ambu/cp/etc. which are appropriate to your level of gear and capacity. You'll likely find a good group of people. I was in your shoes and I found a niche where I'm happy, still able to play and enjoy this game 16 years after I started...


Yes, it's easy for an established group to recruit support ***, particularly GEO/BRD/WHM, to follow you around and do the grunt work to make your dps look good, and support/heals tend to burn out more quickly because those jobs are either not glamorous or are taxing, so there's more turnover there to begin with.

Just, if your selling point is, well if you spend months in a support role, then maybe at some point you'll get to do something else, that's not a great draw for returners or new players who want to jump in and play with their favorite job, or who are even willing to do support but who don't want to full-time it for months on end. It may be a necessary evil but it makes this game much less approachable.

joining for endgame content is why we moved. as for getting REMA. me and my friends have no issues farming up relics or Emperion. however Mythics can go straight to hell. just damn annoying things to get. and i don't think we are well geared enough to go for Aionics.

i am working on GEO on my alt account as a "tool" but i don't know how that will effect my main. i'm currently working on BLU as a main job. i still have plenty of work to do. most content now requires a stupid amount of gil and SU5 to equp the new hotnesses. so thats a target i guess.

I'm sure he'd find his way into XCHRONOTRIGGERX and get used and abused with the promise of gear one day.

reminds me of the first "endgame" LS i joined. was promised some gear. that day never came.

Is it named Fedora?

Yes. There are constantly bots on everything involving crafting shield spheres. It was sofa king stupid of SE to make quest items involved. There are a lot of other monsters out of the way that aren't being used that could have been perfect. All of those Idle monsters in Promyvion that nobody ever messes with? The ones with elemental cores. Anyhoo, no point in complaining here about bots.

Sorry about your cleaving experience. I havn't done it in ages, but there are viable cleaving locations if you just ignore the majority of anything in Zitah. Yeah. People dgaf about stealing pulls. GMs won't do anything. Best thing you can do is find another camp. Sorry it's like that, but the game's claiming system was never designed with cleaving pulls in mind so there isn't much to be done about it.

Actually, up where I said "GMs won't do anything"; that applies to basically anything in this game atm. Like... I have not seen a GM NOT give an automated answer to anything in a while. Oh, and the fun thing is that when they do give that automated message when you report obvious third party tool use to repeat an action, the response they give you is actually wrong. They say to go to this SE page and click "Contact" and yet there is not a single tab for "contact" anywhere on the page. Yeah. Good luck.

Just suck it up and realize that you knew going into your server transfer that there would be drawbacks to joining Asura along with the good that higher population brings. If you thought it was going to be sunshine and rainbows, I'm sorry that you were mistaken.

If you have some friends...and need to move to asura to progress your characters...you guys are playing the wrong jobs.

the only camps i know of are the dragsons/puks. and alternatively the efts/bugards. if you know of any other camps for AOE burns for a newish-returning players i would love to know about it. or even single target camps would be great. defanitly need lots-o-job points. (sparks are a huge bonus to help boost gil)

This...I don't understand the talk of "if you don't play support you can't do endgame" sort of statement in this thread, it's almost like rl job that you need to apply for an entry level job before moving to a more senior position.....Which shouldn't be how a game is played. Why can't someone do endgame with a ragnarok war?

Many endgame is that I know of recruit based on reputation and connection, unless the ls is really really full, most of the time people get into ls because friend of a friend wants in. So a person's trait and synergy with the rest of the group will come before what they have.

Small server has the advantage of reputation spreads fast because you often play with same small circle people that others get to know you more easily. One can start in a social ls and from there they can build reputation with high end players who also has a pearl in that ls.

My process of making ambuscade VD pt is often inviting 1-2 people in endgame ls, then I will ask them to find people in their social ls, then I'd make room for the jobs they have. I ended up inviting a random ragnarok war last month and I just make room for him. And once this process is done the person is now part of connection and they'd be getting invite more easily in the future.

IMO, when I comes to endgame, right people is far more valuable than wrong people with the right jobs. A ragnarok war with good synergy with the rest of the team will be far more valuable than a "versatile" player that has support but doesn't work well in the team.

It's also much easier to build such tight knit connections on small servers when you play with in a small community with 100 people that constantly log on and know each other very well for a while, and have these people be your reference and open doors to high end content.

Its much harder to do the same thing when you play on a 2900 people server with many of them only play for story, or quit after 2 months because they play for nostalgia after they see a twitch stream or something. You'll just ended up building connections that leads to dead end more often.

@Danznukem

What content are you and your friends currently clearing? What content are you looking to start doing more of?

*Edit
Hope this isn't too late, but "End-game" content is really Dynamis D and Omen. Most end-game linkshells that are clearing these regularly are probably not just openly recruiting on Asura and you'll have to join shouts until you build up connections.

Other content like Ambuscade, Vagary, SR, Aeonic clears (up to HELMS), and various others – it will be much easier to find a linkshell with people doing these things.

There are effectively two methods of progressing right now in the game:

1) Make your own LS or find a low-gear progression LS and slowly get through content and up to endgame.

2) Play support for a high end LS and get some huge boosts for all your jobs and work on your preferred job(s) in your spare time.

You can do either, that choice is yours. If you think you're the type to get burned out playing #2, go join a newbie LS and struggle through Omen and Ambu easy/normals for months. It's not for everyone, but you aren't forced to do one way or the other.

All of this is spot on but also there's another side to this, once your small server finds out your a terribad, everyone knows... you'll hit a wall for group content. Asura is full of quetz refugees.

currently, 1 friend lost his account ALL together so he started from scratch. recently got his runefencer to 99 and hes currently working on GEO as well. anotehr friend is working on his alt account he is currently getting BLU leveled and plans to go on a spell hunting spree. iv been pretty much carrying them AOE burning on my BLU/BST as a trio we can't accomplish mush at the moment. i have some gear but i wouldn't exactly call it end game worthy. or heck i might even have trouble at apex mobs. so basicly 2/3 are in fresh 99 status. and i'm in a limbo phase where i have some gear to help carry on leveling and grindy things. but not exactly kitted out to carry them on other content like ambuscade or even AA fights other than VE for papers. trusts don't work well at all in these instances and are basically tissue papper. only smart trust is aparuru

having to gear a job you don't like to play for the off chance of getting a peace for the one you want is not enjoyable for me. iv played LSes (or more like they played me) 1 time too many like this.

Job versatility is exactly what high end FFXI meta is about right now. The number of DD slots in alliance content is severely limited vs the number of support slots.

Take a typical "DD Party" for example

DD x 2
COR
BRD
GEO
WHM

That is only 1/3rd DD while 2/3rd are support, specific support jobs. Other super players aren't going to waste their time playing "support" while the "DD" is some new guy who's gear level is such that a normally super fast fight drags on. It's far more efficient for a "basic support" player to pair up with high end DD's / super COR's and plow through content to level up the "basic support" player.

Myself for example, I have super DD / tank / super BLU along with some support and a mule who's able to provide basic healing / geo-ing for the purpose of leveling people up. If a new player has a general 3-song BRD, 900 Dunna GEO or WHM I can ~guarantee~ them fast powerups. If their DD is on those same levels, nobody is even going to waste the time. Further more if their not showing an understanding of this game meta and an openness to learn and grow with it, then they are going to be a huge *** albatross to any group they join.

I'm saying this so the new players because groups do *need* a constant supply of new blood and going about this the right way is great for the community. As those new players work with groups, they will get the gear, the advice, the lua's and eventually the experience to go DD.


Then you can not participate in the high end meta of FFXI, go play another game, seriously. Nobody is recruiting an entry level "snowflake". Nobody is going to give the big finger to all their members who did build up super BRD's / GEO's / ect.. and not let them use their infinitely superior DD jobs to the greenhorn.

Hell I even called this early

Honestly nobody cares. If you can't get stuff done on Asura, go back to your shitty server. Not getting stuff done on Asura means you suck, and therefore not worth the time.

Eh. Some of us prefer to play support. I dislike playing DD.


Wrong game mate. FFXI is a game about filling up your tool box, If all you got in there is a hammer, no one's gonna ask you to fix their car.

So you guys are basically just starting from scratch. It sounds like you just need a group of people to play with / do content with – not necessarily a full-blown end-game shell.

There is so much to do when you first hit 99 / come back to the game.

Unlocking all HPs
Reforging Relic / AF / Empy
Doing all of the missions and finishing RoV
Grinding JPs
UNMs
Working on getting all of the old content items that are still BiS.
Clearing Delve, WKR, and Incursion for the few things / unlocks you need there.
Ambuscade
Vagary
Sinister Reign

A lot of that can be done with a very small group