Odin Might Be A Dead Server For PUGs

1) Casual players/leaders who may set up or join PUGS migrated to Asura or Bahamut because the higher populations make doing so workable. This happened because SE refuses to merge its smaller servers, as it makes more money from transfers. It would stand to lose money merging servers so the average player has a better “quality of life” with a healthier economy and social circle. From a player’s perspective, merging the smallest servers together would be exceptional, but developers would not be able to justify the cost to higher ups.

2) Veterans who never left have their groups and rarely need outsiders to help them with content. You may rarely see a yell for one job to fill out a party because someone didn’t show up for whatever reason, but that’s only if you’re lucky. 6-person content becoming so prevalent has killed alliances, so most groups don’t feel the need to fill those up. They struggle to decide which of their 8-12 players will fit into 6-person runs, so adding outsiders further complicates this.

3) There is so little motivation to grind the current content for most people. It just isn’t fun. The replay value isn’t enough to satisfy folks like it used to be. Most of the games areas go unused. There are so many battle systems that go untouched. Had SE systematically improved and updated these systems, it would have kept some of this nostalgic content that so many people enjoy... relevant.

Like Limbus, for example. That was fun back in the day, but does anyone use it now? Outside of getting a Brutal Earring or Shedir Seraweels, what’s it really for? It’s insane how many files this game has, and the majority barely see the light of day. They introduced “new” (rehashed) content with no soul. No one seriously cares for Odyssey or Sortie like they do the original content. Dynamis-D is similar. The original Dynamis was far more dynamic, but the new Dynamis lost so much of that. Once you have wave 3 clears... well, that’s it. There’s little point in doing it after that. There’s no benefit to farming wave 3, when it should be super rewarding to any group who can tackle it.

4) Like said above, the lack of policing shows a serious lack of care by SE to stamp out some of the obvious botting going on. We know that in the past, they always had this stance where they’d only step in when something was game breaking, but nowadays... it’s painful to watch all the bots floating around. The third-party tools are so advanced that half the players, whether or not they are RMT, play the game automated, or at least borderline automated. Sure, quality of life add-ons are sweet. Things that SE should have introduced anyway? Fair enough, I can live with those. But we know it goes way further than that. Many players would quit immediately without having all the tools at their disposal.

And lastly 5) There’s a sheer lack of leaders. Those who would step up and shout/yell regularly got sick of doing it. Every week, they would step up, set things in motion, and that was how they got things done for themselves and others. But for those who follow, do they seriously know how taxing that is on leaders over many months and years? Some have the patience to keep doing it, but eventually, some leading players get sick and tired. They want someone else to step up so that they can follow for a change. But will they? Hell no. Because most players don’t want to do all the extra work that is entailed to organize a group. FFXI requires this skill for groups to do any kind of challenging content. And that is where we are.