Dev Tracker - Discussion

You know how statics are formed? One person finds 1-2 more people that also want to do Sortie and are competent players.

They group up and fill some spots with randos/alts. Slowly seek to add real people.

What do you know, now it's a static. Amazing.

They can choose not to get carried away, if they so wish?
Granted that a lot of these players have no clue what's going on so they cannot even realize to which point they are getting carried around, unless they have a lot of experience with other old MMOs.

Either way, your point is: "these players won't have fun and will wonder where the fun is in FFXI".
Well that is certainly true for some players, I won't deny it.
Majority? Minority? Who knows.
And?
I mean even if things are like this, what's the big problem with that?

Afraid that those new players who just arrived to FFXI won't "stick" with the game and will just drop it after X months?
Possibly.
Are we really at the point where we're being so naive to believe a constant stream of new, long-term players will be coming to FFXI proving to be beneficial for the game's health?
Because I think we're long past that point, in a way that we cannot turn back things anymore.

I think you're being a bit too narrow-sighted here.
I'm completely sure it's totally gonna be like that for some players (in which case they can choose not to resort to such methods, but I digress).
But it won't be like that for many others, trust me on that.
I personally know a very considerable amount of people of the latter group, for instance. They're not something existing just on a theoretical level.

You wouldn't have fun playin that way? I absolutely agree with you, I probably wouldn't either.
Does it do personal damage to you and your playstyle, allowing people to play with a different method that you don't agree with?

Or are you making a point of "I don't agree with this method because I don't like it, and as such it shouldn't exist, period".
Because that seems a bit extreme and narrow.

Personally I believe it wouldn't affect you in any way, but if I'm wrong then please say it, I'm honestly curious in listening.
I'm not the kind of person who never changes his mind no matter what.

said this before, but all we need is a carrot on a stick to motivate us to play with others more often. ffxiv duty finder forces people to group, and you suck it up and deal with that shitty healer for 30minutes, or worse case just eat the penalty from leaving (but you go right back and queue again when able). so i do feel SE is responsible for fostering group play with strangers to some degree. just a little nudge to get people moving.

i fall into the unreliable player category myself, so i understand taint's frustration. that's probably why the duty finder system appeals to me, can still participate and accomplish things even when you aren't able to fill a consistent role in a static group. but being able to bring that 7th or 9th member when they are able to make it would be pretty cool.

Self-imposed restrictions only work for tryhards who already know the game. Everyone else sees the easiest path and does it, thinking that's how the game is meant to be. Look at it another way, how did the average person's willingness to make exp groups change when cleave mercs became available in late abyssea? Was there ever a return to a state where a meaningful amount of players were willing to exp by hand together?

Did pokemon become more fun for you when you borrowed your friend's gameshark to 'make it more accessible'?

I was always a fan of 18 person content over 6man, but mostly because my fondest memories of the game aren't of success in a hard fight, but of that one screw up or goofy person doing something hilariously wrong on accident and making the rest of us laugh. And with 18 man content, a lot of the times you can still salvage the run and be OK and win! Not so much with 6 man screw ups.

I guess I like content with good/relevant rewards, but that is also easy enough to not have to care and just be able to casually approach it without being perfect. I played ffxi for reasons that weren't challenge related

I was perfectly aware of this, and I guess that's why I haven't played in over 2 years now. I achieved my goals with the game already (titles, mastery rank, etc), and the remaining difficult content in the game isn't for me. But that's OK and I'm fine with it. I can't expect the company to cater just to my wants in an mmo.

(although they could be cool enough to add mastery rank 9)

I was in a static group for a while in all but name, we ran Ody stuff every night. It was great. Then my kid ended up in the hospital for several weeks and I had to drop. Those that knew were really supportive and the people who didn't weren't butthurt, but then there was a hole in the static where I was. I've seen this same story play out several times and ultimately result in the static dissolving.

Facing reality I'm easy to replace, but as "easy" as it is to form a static, it is even easier for them to fall apart. I'd venture at least 70% of the statics I know of failed within weeks or because one member bailed out and it took weeks or months to form another one, then the same thing happened. None of us are young anymore: young children, aging parents, work, our own health, we're all teetering on the edge of something happening that puts an end to us doing anything for periods of time. People who are able to commit the time to doing these things don't realize how lucky they are until they can't do it anymore. Multiply this by six and it is a recipe for a volatile situation especially combined with burnout. How long do you really think the same six people are going to want to repeat Sortie? A year? 2 years? Overall point being, keeping a static together is the real challenge, not forming one.

Basing this game on statics at this phase is a poor decision. It was fine when you had 100k+ players. Now, it'll just contribute to the death of the population when people get annoyed they can't get anywhere because all the major content at the end is only doable to any efficiency with a consistent group and keeping one together is really difficult. I'm not saying alliances solve this problem, but it mitigates it.

Job selection are what does it all in. It's the primary reason we should expect it to accept 18 people without screwing with HP scaling. Allowing those extra people without optimal job selection the opportunity to go in, experience the content and contribute meaningfully to the groups success.


I would agree that only a small number are making primes, but that's only because of how ridiculous it's grind is. Upgrading Empy 2/3 is something that can be done piecemeal and not boss farming. A weapon is only really useful at stage 4, 3,500,000 muffins in, while a full set of Empy +3 is "only" 400,000 muffins. A skilled group that can do 8~9 boss's per run can farm enough points to make Prime T4 reasonably attainable, vs pugs that only do a few basement bosses at a time.

Most of the enjoyment comes from the people you are doing the activity with. Experiencing success and failure with a team is a very different experience then solo.


This was another really big reason to open up the participation. You can build statics around 8~9 people, that way up to three can have life situations and the event still moves forward. Right now you have six people, but sometimes people can't make it and so you have a another two or three alternates that you rely on. Eventually those alternates get rolled into their own statics and you wind up in situations where there is no one to cover for an absence. Where as you could of instead had them come along every time and just rotation positions.

I miss the mentality where if people couldn't find help, they would make help. Find a less experienced person and raise them up. Invest your time in them.

Sure it'll slow you down in the short term but for me personally, that's what MMOs are all about: the community. The other players.

I've been playing over 20 years, and at any given moment of those 20 years I've always had at least 1 or 2 people who were way behind me that I was coaching and helping to progress in the game. And not by dragging them through content, but by showing them how to improve.

I'll fight and die on the hill that multiboxing is the bane of modern FFXI's existence. It's why so many modern players are garbage and expect to be carried, because the vets would rather carry them with alts than teach them how to (or force them to) contribute. Oh you only have DRG and it's in full NQ Ambu gear? Ok that's fine, I'll bring my alt WHM/BRD/COR/GEO army, you can just sit there and watch me smash stuff. I'll make you stronger, hold my beer! Are you really surprised that they show up to Sortie PUGs and they're garbage DDs with zero support jobs? They never had to learn, so they didn't.

Force people to learn, and they will. Force people to contribute, and they will. Or they'll quit, and I say good riddance if so.

Don't get me wrong, I like that there's some content that allows more people than is necessary such as Omen. Omen is great casual fun and gives a way for beginners to watch teamwork happening and learn from it without having much burden on themselves! But in my opinion, it's good that this is the exception rather than the norm.

You used to be able to pick up a noob, train and enslave them. Good times.

Now you invest time and they just quit. Womp womp. Reality of the times, can't groom your victims anymore.

i agree with the idea in theory, but after helping so many that don't stick around you begin to question the time spent. the motivation to keep teaching is something not everyone will have.

The core issue is that out of those jobs, WHM has the least gear requirements but the most skill requirements, the rest require quite a bit of investment to be remotely serviceable. Attempting to do content with unserviceable people is no different then wasting your very valuable time. That hour you just wasted could of been better spent going to the park with your kids, watching another episode of your favorite show on <insert streaming service here> or enjoying a completely different game.

What it boils down to is that all players need to have some combination of those support jobs and know how to play them.

For the large, large, large majority of people it's gonna be exactly that way.
Which implies that (tryin to get slightly back on the topic) if Sortie granted an easier way to farm it, the majority of people would do it.

First and foremost, it's not like Sortie would suddenly become absolutely trivial (but your point of Sortie becoming irrelevant in a few weeks for some players, is still perfectly valid and I won't deny that).
Secondly, what's so wrong with that?
Some people would keep farming sortie the same as before.
Some people would be able to farm it in a more relaxed way, same speed.
Some people would be able to farm it faster than they could before.
Some people would start taking part in sortie when they couldn't/didn't want to before.
Some people would update all their empys to +3 in a month and say goodbye to Sortie.

Ok, and what's the problem with that? I mean it doesn't exactly seem like a particularly bad scenario to me, given the state the game is in.
Or is there something I'm failing to see?


I get your point, I agree with you on this.
But the thing is, did the game die? Because despite all the whiners about those changes, it seems to me the game kept going on quite good despite all odds and doomsdayers.


Here you're making the same point as Maletaru. Which I won't deny, but the thing is it's not the same for everyone.
Some people would burn out and "complete" everything the game has to offer in 2 days only to pass to another game, whereas instead he could've stayed on Pokemon for months.
Other people would've loved it instead.
It's not the same for everyone and honestsly, while I get your comparison which is meaningful to some extent, this is a very large exxageration.
One thing is completely breaking a game's mechanic through gameshark, another thing is to allow an alliance inside Sortie.

Ok, I'm going to limit the replies to 280 chars only.

We've geared multiple people for our static and then they disappear or are forced to quit. I've unlocked H for countless souls. Its the starting over part that gets old.

Salvage had a good systems from a certain point of view where you could bring 7+ but the penalty was gear unlocks. 6 was the perfect number but if 7,8,9 wanted to come they could, they just got their unlocks last or not at all.

Ehhhh ok, I suppose that's fair... it does happen a lot. But I like to think those people took the positive experiences they shared with me outside of the game and into their next adventure, whatever that may be. Perhaps if I can inspire even a few of those people to pay it forward in their next endeavor, future MMOs will also be slightly more positive and community-oriented, rather than self-servicing and self-centered.

Maybe that's just what I tell myself to make it feel like less of a waste on my part...

It's a video game. If you're doing things with 5 other super-competent players and smashing through top content guess what, you're still wasting your time playing a video game. It's still time you could've instead spent at the park or watching your favorite show. In the end, the only thing that's real are the memories you make and the other players you impact.

To clarify, I'm not saying take an unserviceable player to Sortie, I'm saying find out what content they're ready for and take them to that. Ambu, Escha, whatever.

Again, yes this slows down your own progress, I'm aware of that. Sometimes even to a glacial pace. It's a video game though. You aren't going to go to the grave thinking "man I really wish I'd finished that prime weapon instead of wasting time with those noobs." At least, I hope you won't...

I'm reminded of a fortune cookie I once got which said "the riches of others makes you more valuable." It's cheesy, but it stuck with me.

This is one possible (albeit, likely) scenario, but you've completely ignored the other scenario, where real people get to play with their friends in endgame, which is the scenario I care about. I'm not arguing one way or another how this would impact the longevity of the game, but all the hypothetical problems that would arise from allowing more than 6 into Sortie, already exist in the game in all other content, as Ninja pointed out, and the player base hasn't really changed. If the game is going to die, I don't think it's going to be because Sortie might be too easy with 6+, it's going to be because people can't play with their friends.

I also don't think scaling is the solution. The mechanics of Sortie would need to be completely reworked. Have the gigachad "A Team" run around doing the bosses, have the lesser geared/skilled "B Team" running around doing the KI unlocks and chest objectives, implement flipping levers and opening doors/paths, introduce solving puzzles, add omen-like or vagary-like trash mob objectives, something where "B" and "C" teams can still contribute meaningfully to the totality of the run without having to be 9-boss geared and skilled. Obviously, muffins/drops would have to be shared across parties, regardless of which floor you're on or boss room you're in.


Is that not the game we're playing right now? Before Sweaty Sortie and V25s were around, every other content in the game is exactly as you/Dodik just described (maybe sans Master Trials), is it not?

Assuming you agree, then what's the difference? Those same people either already quit because the game "never got fun", or they're still here "looking for the fun" or ***, maybe they're already having fun, I don't know. I don't think we'd see a massive shift in population in either direction, even if they did open the floodgates. The addicts are here to stay, the casuals still only login during free campaigns, and the quitters already quit.

I do agree that rushing to skip to endgame to get gear you don't need is a dumb paradigm. I think the issue really boils down to, unlike XIV, where they release lots of content for different group sizes and skill levels, we get 1 content release with 1 group size limitation. Get 6 or get ***.

Sorry to hear about your situation, truly. I do find this a hilarious example though. Where are all those "7th and 8th" members that are DYING to get into statics, but couldn't make it in because it's 6 man content?

Based on how people on this forum talk about it, it should be really easy to replace you and continue the static...

I can't speak to everyone else, but I can say I feel really grateful and fortunate for the people who spent that time on me, both more recent and in previous years. I think you came in around or just before the time things for me became kindof volatile for a lot of reasons, but I'll always be grateful for the folks in our LS/groups/Discord that spent the time and patience to help me improve even when I royally *** up. You know who they all are, I won't name the others, but some of my best memories/moments in the years I've been playing are due to their patience/support. It's definitely had a positive influence on me and the way I view others outside of the game and had a lasting effect. I wish things were more conducive towards me sticking around the year and a half or so ago I had to quit for a while, but that's just what happens.

I think this could still exist in the context of a more permissive/open game, though, especially with content like Sortie. I think we're seeing the game population dwindle, in part, because of the way they've implemented mechanics that force people into small groups.


I've seen this situation play out numerous times already: static forms, runs for 2-3 months, player quits due to boredom/life/situations/whatever, group tries to PUG replacement, people get frustrated and the static slows down to a few days a week, then people start to leave or move on. Sometimes they leave in groups, one persons bff leaves and they just kinda move on, now you have to replace two people. So whatever that case may be, it's really not easy to keep going when people are rotating in and out and this situation plays out more than I think you realize. The point being that life circumstances happen quickly and tends to create a chain reaction of people leaving.

Sometimes they split because people can't play nice but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

In theory, I agree with you, but it doesn't work that way in practice. This isn't isolated to MMOs or games even, I can point out other examples with the same issue.

Making sortie an alliance event will not brake the game, let’s say you kill everything, bosses, mini bosses, respawn every mob, nakuals and ***, and the alliance get 100K muffins or so, it will still take 5 runs for empy +3 set, 85 runs (3 months) for your first prime (actually more because of the RoE lock). So let’s say you have a static alliance that has zero “real life” life, no kid no family, no friends, you still looking at 3+ years…. Let that sink in. Odyssey is perfect as it is, don’t touch that one but sortie, yeah open that b***h up.

The problem is the same it's always been, too many people having that special and exclusive trophy that is reserved for only the hardest of the hard core willing to invest the time, effort and energy into obtaining it.

Only the truly dedicated should be allowed near the trophy (aka, prime weapons).

“You should make a new group and build those new people up”

Yall sayin that ***like thats not the *** goal. The ability to bring a 7th, 8th, 9th means when someone misses a run or quits, your day or group isnt ruined and you can keep rollin. It also gives the freedom to add to the group. It also allows your casual FRIEND with two kids an opportunity to join in on the fun.

I take solace in knowing that one day I'll be able to stand next to Bakerboy and diminish some of his glow with my own.

Back in the day, the truly dedicated were also the best players, only the best truly elites got the shinies.

War/nin with ridill and ebody using ruby rings? Didnt exist
Rdm with dalm and dueli chap using a dark staff? Didnt exist
Mnk with black belt losing parse to a destroyers brown belt mnk in krt? Didnt exist

You'll have to find a different ledge to sit on and overlook the peons, that one is taken

Sure, cause no one sold or bought accounts back then.

“Alliances are bad because RMT and Mercs”
“Just use RMT to buy an account to replace your friend who quit”

Did i just read what I think I read???? Or is he replying to my previous post about the ridill war/nin in ruby rings being a bought account? The logic of the statement is flawed from the get go as the original account had all the shinies had nq pleb equipment. The rdm didnt sell their plutos to get a dark.

Luckily, I'm a regal long-necked Elvaan with superior height, so I can stand in front of the ledge and steal his glory.

No glow is capable of shining behind the glorious Shadow Throne.

No. I don't know where you're seeing "replace friend with RMT account".