Square Enix has lost their mind (FFXI)
Okay. Maybe someone can explain this to me, because I just can't figure it out.
Here's the server situation prior to the most recent update:
- Populations nearing 2000 from the last server merge
- Massive competition for a very small number of end-game events (read: Abyssea is the only thing worth doing and everybody wants to do it)
--- elaborating on that: AF3+2 droppers in ridiculous competition, as only one such monster can be present at a time, and you need 6-8 of each item to upgrade one piece of armor - and each such monster only drops 1-4 of said upgrade items, and requires at least 2-4 very skilled people for each (you generally have closer to 6-10 at each...)
- AF3+1 seal droppers in the same amount of competition... free spawners taking upwards of fifteen minutes to respawn, sometimes in the competition of dozens of players (oh, and they only drop 0-3 seals of four jobs, picked at random, when one piece of armor needs 8 of the same job seal to upgrade...)
- Free-spawning NMs in the main world massively overcamped
- No real reason to do anything else in the game; Abyssea equipment has completely overshadowed all gear in the game by several orders of magnitude, and is far more entertaining to play in, due to the Cruor bonuses and Atma that can literally multiply your base stats while in Abyssea. Imagine playing Dissidia with +100 Attack and Defense and perfect critical hit rate, x2 critical hit damage, while regenning 300 HP/second and 150 Bravery/second, while your opponents are unchanged. That is Abyssea. (Scaled the Bravery and HP by ten to make it relative to HP and MP regens, but everything else is to scale.) Oh, and you can get the best armor and weapons in the game. Best by a ridiculous margin.
So, of course, as per flawless SE logic, in the May update, SE did another server merge..
...
- Average server population increased from 2,000 to 3,500
- Abyssea NMs are almost completely monopolized by end-game linkshells
- Every single little thing in the world is camped. NMs, Missions, Fields of Valor, Grounds of Valor, Dynamis, Sky, anything that has any value at all worth doing is in competition.
And what's the common thread in all these events?
- Requires a group
- Requires time to set up the event
- Requires some sort of triggering event
- Only one group can do it at a time
- Very limited rewards; such that it would take the group multiple times in order to get a legitimate, complete reward for even one member of the group
- Long cooldowns.
And these are the sorts of things that are in competition. I mean, why?
And SE isn't blind of what they're doing. They consciously implemented measures like Grounds of Valor, a complete revamping of Dynamis, and increased spawn points for Abyssea monsters, to 'combat the forecasted congestion in certain areas.'
Except that those things would have barely helped the congestion BEFORE the merge.
And what's worse is how people are taking it. Instead of open invitations to Abyssea leveling alliances, leaders are selling spots. Selling the fucking spots to the people who will pay the most in order to be a part of an ordinary leveling party. Because too many people want to join parties. Abyssea is being completely overrun as is.
And to add insult to injury? A vast majority of players on Titan (the merged server) had to change their names, because their character names were taken on Phoenix (the mergee server). Including my two characters, of eight years each. What the fuck. And I have yet to see those character names online, which means that they are probably someone's mule character that isn't ever used, or a deleted character, but that still use my name that I have actively been using for eight years. And they get priority, on ZERO LOGICAL GROUND. Aaaghhhh.
Since they didn't give a fucking reason for the merge, I'm going to assume that they are too embarrassed to admit that they can't fund the number of servers they had.
Really, the only way to possibly fix things now is to either instance, or completely revamp, mid and end game events from the ground up. Abyssea almost needs to be instanced at this point, or nobody (outside of officers of massively corrupt end-game LS's) will get anything accomplished. It's just fucking ridiculous, and I would quit the game in a heartbeat, were it not for my dear friends who still played. I don't want to lose them over the circumstances of a shared game we play. But still.
SE had it right with Abyssea. They were going strong! People were actually joining the game at an active pace! I just want to know why the hell the server merge happened, because that's really the one thing that truly fucked everything up. And it can't be pinned solely on economic blame. If the merge was required on their end for economic reasons, then they could have done so much more; so many easy things to at least help the congestion, not make it fucking worse than it would have been. If the merge was intended for content, then they have completely and utterly failed. Either way, SE fucked up. Hard. I really hope they catch on and do something by the next update.
Here's the server situation prior to the most recent update:
- Populations nearing 2000 from the last server merge
- Massive competition for a very small number of end-game events (read: Abyssea is the only thing worth doing and everybody wants to do it)
--- elaborating on that: AF3+2 droppers in ridiculous competition, as only one such monster can be present at a time, and you need 6-8 of each item to upgrade one piece of armor - and each such monster only drops 1-4 of said upgrade items, and requires at least 2-4 very skilled people for each (you generally have closer to 6-10 at each...)
- AF3+1 seal droppers in the same amount of competition... free spawners taking upwards of fifteen minutes to respawn, sometimes in the competition of dozens of players (oh, and they only drop 0-3 seals of four jobs, picked at random, when one piece of armor needs 8 of the same job seal to upgrade...)
- Free-spawning NMs in the main world massively overcamped
- No real reason to do anything else in the game; Abyssea equipment has completely overshadowed all gear in the game by several orders of magnitude, and is far more entertaining to play in, due to the Cruor bonuses and Atma that can literally multiply your base stats while in Abyssea. Imagine playing Dissidia with +100 Attack and Defense and perfect critical hit rate, x2 critical hit damage, while regenning 300 HP/second and 150 Bravery/second, while your opponents are unchanged. That is Abyssea. (Scaled the Bravery and HP by ten to make it relative to HP and MP regens, but everything else is to scale.) Oh, and you can get the best armor and weapons in the game. Best by a ridiculous margin.
So, of course, as per flawless SE logic, in the May update, SE did another server merge..
...
- Average server population increased from 2,000 to 3,500
- Abyssea NMs are almost completely monopolized by end-game linkshells
- Every single little thing in the world is camped. NMs, Missions, Fields of Valor, Grounds of Valor, Dynamis, Sky, anything that has any value at all worth doing is in competition.
And what's the common thread in all these events?
- Requires a group
- Requires time to set up the event
- Requires some sort of triggering event
- Only one group can do it at a time
- Very limited rewards; such that it would take the group multiple times in order to get a legitimate, complete reward for even one member of the group
- Long cooldowns.
And these are the sorts of things that are in competition. I mean, why?
And SE isn't blind of what they're doing. They consciously implemented measures like Grounds of Valor, a complete revamping of Dynamis, and increased spawn points for Abyssea monsters, to 'combat the forecasted congestion in certain areas.'
Except that those things would have barely helped the congestion BEFORE the merge.
And what's worse is how people are taking it. Instead of open invitations to Abyssea leveling alliances, leaders are selling spots. Selling the fucking spots to the people who will pay the most in order to be a part of an ordinary leveling party. Because too many people want to join parties. Abyssea is being completely overrun as is.
And to add insult to injury? A vast majority of players on Titan (the merged server) had to change their names, because their character names were taken on Phoenix (the mergee server). Including my two characters, of eight years each. What the fuck. And I have yet to see those character names online, which means that they are probably someone's mule character that isn't ever used, or a deleted character, but that still use my name that I have actively been using for eight years. And they get priority, on ZERO LOGICAL GROUND. Aaaghhhh.
Since they didn't give a fucking reason for the merge, I'm going to assume that they are too embarrassed to admit that they can't fund the number of servers they had.
Really, the only way to possibly fix things now is to either instance, or completely revamp, mid and end game events from the ground up. Abyssea almost needs to be instanced at this point, or nobody (outside of officers of massively corrupt end-game LS's) will get anything accomplished. It's just fucking ridiculous, and I would quit the game in a heartbeat, were it not for my dear friends who still played. I don't want to lose them over the circumstances of a shared game we play. But still.
SE had it right with Abyssea. They were going strong! People were actually joining the game at an active pace! I just want to know why the hell the server merge happened, because that's really the one thing that truly fucked everything up. And it can't be pinned solely on economic blame. If the merge was required on their end for economic reasons, then they could have done so much more; so many easy things to at least help the congestion, not make it fucking worse than it would have been. If the merge was intended for content, then they have completely and utterly failed. Either way, SE fucked up. Hard. I really hope they catch on and do something by the next update.