How healthy is your server?

[kisada]

When your core audience plays <5 hours a week, and considers farming Esoterics to be serious "endgame," your bar is pretty fucking low for success. Add in the masses of sycophants from the OF and here we are.

for a long time i was deluding myself into thinking that they'd eventually focus more on what the higher progression and end-game players wanted and actually give us what we should want.

it's my fault though for deluding myself and never really coming to terms with my own idiotic expectations. i guess it's why i'm so fucking over this game now, more than i've ever been before. because while i had SOME hope before, i have absolutely zero now.

[FHT]

for a long time i was deluding myself into thinking that they'd eventually focus more on what the higher progression and end-game players wanted and actually give us what we should want.

it's my fault though for deluding myself and never really coming to terms with my own idiotic expectations. i guess it's why i'm so fucking over this game now, more than i've ever been before. because while i had SOME hope before, i have absolutely zero now.

Don't beat yourself so hard, its not like you were the only one in that situation.

[Yugl]

I find it interesting that people would leave Ultros for local competition on Gilgamesh. As of this post, there are only nine AS4 clear groups. Seven of them come from Elysium. The other two have no free company association. The first tagless team consisted of a mix of Elysium/Modified/Synergy/Drakkh' Order/Legacy members. The second one consisted of EM/Dark Sentinels/Wings of Unity(Though this is a casual FC)/Ascended members.

I would not say this is the first instance of players leaving for Gilgamesh though. I recall that a large number of Faerie people left for Gilgamesh about a year ago. Around the time of Collision's movement, Ultros people moved as well. Recently, there has been an influx of Leviathan players. In all these instances, I'm fairly certain that the server first heroes ended up moving to Gilgamesh and that tends to be what triggers the vast movement.

The strength of Gilgamesh tends to be the quantity of raiders rather than the breadth of skilled players. The party finder tends to range from AS2-4, so there is definitely a variety in experience. Furthermore, the concentration of AS4 clears means that even the Ultros group you mentioned in the OP would have been server second FC if they were on Gilgamesh, so there is very little reason for someone to leave that FC for Gilgamesh in my opinion.

On a more personal note, I have noticed my company becoming heavily involved in the party finder community. We have several members that join AS3 raids just because they enjoy the fight. I personally put up PFs that say I will help review gameplay/sub in for raid teams comfortable with one chest clears. My WHM's GF tends to drag several members into these raids to help the most random people get clears. The consequence of these events is stronger feedback and strategy review. For example, the on-the-spot diagram I made for our raid teams AS3 progression somehow became part of PUG groups. I had not even realized this until a random player asked me to join their PUG group a few weeks ago. Overall, I feel that these type of interactions and the saturation of players are the biggest benefits of Gilgamesh.

[Renavi]

Most people who leave Diabolos to Gilgamesh or any other larger server say it's because the server is what's holding them back from clearing content. PF is active sometimes, mostly for FATEs/unsynced runs/Bis+Rav clear/farms, not very many pug A1-2 and virtually 0 A3-4 groups, just people looking for temps. I always laugh though when I hear that somehow switching servers is going to help a group clear content faster than before.

[Seravi Edalborez]

for a long time i was deluding myself into thinking that they'd eventually focus more on what the higher progression and end-game players wanted and actually give us what we should want.

it's my fault though for deluding myself and never really coming to terms with my own idiotic expectations. i guess it's why i'm so fucking over this game now, more than i've ever been before. because while i had SOME hope before, i have absolutely zero now.

After being forced to quit, I'm surprised that I don't miss this game nearly as much as I thought I would. I have small curiosities (airship islands, Veminion, storyline) but not enough that I'm really dying to return with what now-limited playtime I have (I have a job like regular people now yay).

Only thing that would make me want to return is a serious PvP revamp, since like many I'm pretty sure PvE is a dead end. I could come back to reading a post about the raid meta in patch 4.3 and probably be able to tell every idiot on Reddit/OF, with no further context, that the problem is they still suck and not that they are lacking i500 gear.

[Destinye]

Well luckily for you, they're wasting 3.2 on PvP focus..but I doubt it'll be a huge revamp to the point people will flood to wolves den again...since all they'll probably do is take lords of verminion ranking system and slap it into WD.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Yeah, a "serious PvP revamp" is so unlikely that the statement is just a dare to SE. Even I don't know what I want out of it exactly. People to give a fuck I guess. The matches could be garbage and I wouldn't care as much if the playerbase wasn't so apathetic. And not even the people who do it just to cap Esoterics.

[Churchill]

I mean, I could grab threads on this forum of elite FFXIV'ers talking about how PvP is lame because deep down PvP takes more skill than they have to give.

On that same note, it's a tab target GCD MMO and MMO/Online PvP has simply moved past that as being relevant. I care more about Structured in GW2 and I thought it was awful and terribly balanced. People have LoL for that fix now as well.

[Ryo]

I would be happy they just get rid of the GC requirement in Seal Rock so my que times are not 30+ minutes while Adders have 5-10 que time.

[Seravi Edalborez]

I mean, I could grab threads on this forum of elite FFXIV'ers talking about how PvP is lame because deep down PvP takes more skill than they have to give.

This cuts both ways. I do truly believe PvP here has enough depth to make it work, but maybe 1% of people who PvP (already a minority) care that much. 99% took one run at it and thought it was dumb or shallow and felt they did not need to put any effort into it; you can't bluff an idiot. If literally nobody wants to agree that it has depth, it pretty much doesn't. And you can't make a sweeping opinion change like that at this point.

My only problem with PvP in this game has ever been with the people that played it and don't give a single fuck. The ones that just run around lone wolf in Seize, get themselves killed, say fuck-of-all-nothing, and disappear into the mist of DF. Or the loudmouth idiots complaining about being told what to do when they clearly have no idea. Same as PvE but it's just the gift that keeps on giving.

^ Though to be fair GC restrictions and the initially tepid reception of Wolves Den have gone a long way towards giving PvP its awful reception. Slaughter and Seize turning it into zerg-city, easymode participation rewards is basically SE pulling a late-1.x and putting up smokescreens so we don't notice how fucked the base system is.

I'm waiting for PvP to have a literal 2nd Calamity.

[Aiurily]

On a more personal note, I have noticed my company becoming heavily involved in the party finder community. We have several members that join AS3 raids just because they enjoy the fight. I personally put up PFs that say I will help review gameplay/sub in for raid teams comfortable with one chest clears. My WHM's GF tends to drag several members into these raids to help the most random people get clears. The consequence of these events is stronger feedback and strategy review. For example, the on-the-spot diagram I made for our raid teams AS3 progression somehow became part of PUG groups. I had not even realized this until a random player asked me to join their PUG group a few weeks ago. Overall, I feel that these type of interactions and the saturation of players are the biggest benefits of Gilgamesh.

pretty jelly of this. after a4s is on farm, other than sales (which people aren't really interested in; 7/10.5m is too much for a1s/a2s apparently, and lower isn't worth the effort), there's not much to do other than have fun with these kind of pug groups as far as raiding goes. but here, they're really few and far between; i've seen like maybe 2-3 A3S PFs? and 0 A4S ofc.

[Twilight Sky]

Balmung is the AFK server.

[Carth]

After being forced to quit, I'm surprised that I don't miss this game nearly as much as I thought I would.

Same experience for myself once I got a job back in 2.1 which ate up all my time for raiding Coil, which lead me to turn off my sub.

PvE is in serious need of restructure. The way how things are now won't work for players who want to really invest in this game since the reliance on gear lockout and weekly caps is truly starting to make any non-OFtard self-aware. To enjoy PvE you pretty much have to be so busy that you can only play the game about 5 hours a week.

I've honestly never enjoyed PvP in any MMO. I think the attitude that breeds from it is a serious turn-off to me.

[Fondue]

Why pvp doesn't show names or let you talk shit are the biggest mysteries to me, the only people I can berate are on my own team??

How can you attempt to take it seriously when not even your fragile self esteem is at stake

[Aiurily]

have you checked what game you're playing? it's like one of their highest priorities to make sure no ones feelings gets hurt

[Edelweiss]

RMT spam as of last night is including direct advertising of iLv.180-equipped combat class characters, and Lv.60 (and geared) DoH characters.

Guess this is a sign that players really are bailing out. lol

[Destinye]

RMT spam as of last night is including direct advertising of iLv.180-equipped combat class characters, and Lv.60 (and geared) DoH characters.

Guess this is a sign that players really are bailing out. lol

Yep they're setting up shop on accounts and such now lol. But you know "It's fine the game is perfect, the only people complaining are the ones who shouldn't be playing anyways." or whatever other excuse.

[Edelweiss]

Someone on my server is arguing that we're stupid for thinking RMT being involved in the buying and selling of accounts is new.

No you dumb shit, the fact that they're advertising the (seemingly) vast availibility of iLv.180+ Lv.60 combat and Lv.60 geared DoHs is the new development.

[nyttyn]

honestly i think gil sellers are just getting desperate and are hijacking or buying off people's accounts to have SOMETHING to sell.

Let's face it, anyone who actually was going to buy gil bought it for housing, or carries, and the ship on both of those has long since sailed. Legitimately nobody's dumb enough, not even XIV players, to buy gil just to get the terrible excuse for gear that is the current crafting offerings, and even if they were, the offerings on any server are so slim as to severely curtail any possible market.

That is not to say that the games not in decline, it most certainly is and at a rapid pace, but I think this showcases moreso gil sellers changing tactics to try and make profit rather than anything else. I highly doubt most of those accounts were acquired legit anyway, doesn't really fit the gil seller agenda. probably just people who desubbed waiting for 3.1 who're going to be in for a rude awakening when they try to log back in.

[Destinye]

honestly i think gil sellers are just getting desperate and are hijacking or buying off people's accounts to have SOMETHING to sell.

As much as I'd think this...given the current state of game, I haven't seen anything about hijacking as, per history, it would DEFINITELY be a big discussion currently if there were mass hijacking. Especially like 2.0-2.1 era of XIV and around ToAU era of XI or whenever they introduced the security token. Gil selling is only profitable due to housing, run selling and glamour. So if your server isn't one of the servers that sell runs and such, gil sellers definitely won't have much business, but they're still around because they get business lol.

If they're buying accounts that makes sense, because yeah, people indeed are jumping ship at a high rate but probably not enough to matter much to SE yet. If it's anything like when RMT bought XI accounts, I'm not attached enough to XIV that $2-3k would definitely not cause me to second guess.

Let's face it, anyone who actually was going to buy gil bought it for housing, or carries, and the ship on both of those has long since sailed. Legitimately nobody's dumb enough, not even XIV players, to buy gil just to get the terrible excuse for gear that is the current crafting offerings, and even if they were, the offerings on any server are so slim as to severely curtail any possible market.

Yep as you said mainly those - but there are people who do indeed buy currency because they don't know how to make it themselves but trust me...the fact on one of my servers someone bought THREE high end houses and I know they don't craft or sell runs...it's questionable. No sugar daddy/momma could buy 3 houses for this person lol. (Babycakez on Sarga btw.)

That is not to say that the games not in decline, it most certainly is and at a rapid pace, but I think this showcases moreso gil sellers changing tactics to try and make profit rather than anything else. I highly doubt most of those accounts were acquired legit anyway, doesn't really fit the gil seller agenda. probably just people who desubbed waiting for 3.1 who're going to be in for a rude awakening when they try to log back in.

Unless there's a rampant exploit somewhere we haven't heard about yet akin to the retainer/market board one back in 2.0-2.1 it's unlikely that'll happen and it is people who are just cutting their losses and selling off the account. I don't blame people or doubt there could be an exploit, but the fact accounts are now being advertised and I haven't read anything about mass hackings or such, hard to really determine - especially since unsubbed accounts can't be access at all, let alone logged into without flagging the person there were logins attempted (especially if they have a token.)

So we'll definitely see.