New Content After Sortie / Master Levels?

How in the hell can anyone say... make two parties of 4, when for example, you want to farm Odyssey to the best of your ability, but doing it with 4 in two different parties drags everyone down. You’re better off leaving two out and bring them in for the next, but somebody is always losing out not being able to go for two runs, or any at all. This applies for high tier battlefields, too. Say, for example, you’re only just managing wins with 6 (not everyone has god tier skills/gear to low man these), you can’t merely split that into two groups of 4 and expect to win.

Again, you’re having to rotate, and sometimes that means losing a key player who is helping you win no matter who you bring in. You spend the next few pops trying to get a win, and those two you leave out have to sit there and think, man... we’d have won if we were in the party. The point people are making, that some are obviously glossing over because they don’t care, is that 6-person content is extremely restrictive for most groups. It’s different if you’re multi-boxing, or you have a friend who also multi-boxes, and you essentially duo the content. That’s fine for you! It’s all good. But when you have a group of 7 to 11 people, some people who don’t have the jobs or whatever else holding them back will be left out and feel that pain of not being able to play with their friends.

This is a MMORPG. Massively multiplayer. That doesn’t mean you restrict content to 6 players, because there’s nothing massively multiplayer about it. At least give groups the option of doing it with more than six, even if that comes with some form of penalty. They’d still gladly play the content with that penalty because they won’t leave their friends out.

If, and it’s a huge if, a 12-person group can split in two and have 1) leaders who can sufficiently direct both in real time, 2) the jobs, and 3) the ability to win, then it’s an easy decision. But don’t expect all linkshells to have that, it’s not feasible. And people definitely aren’t gearing a bard, a healer, or whatever you need for that one piece of content in a day. Saying that is unrealistic for 95% of players. They don’t have the time or resources to pimp out a job that quickly with the sole purpose of joining the content, and then knowing how to play that job decently as well.

Yeah, some jobs you can simply jump on and smash TP/WS macros, but don’t tell me that somebody jumping on BRD will know exactly how, when, and what songs they need for every situation, on top of DDing efficiently. Same goes for tanking and healing. On anything challenging, I wouldn’t trust somebody who geared WHM in a day and said “HEY MAN I’LL CURE YOU TONIGHT!”. No way... I’d tell them to come back in a month after they’ve got some experience. I’m not trusting them to keep me alive on something with fine margins.

As was stated before, it’s about flexibility. Nobody is expecting content where you NEED 18 players, but at least allow us to have more than 6 without it being a major penalty. We just want to play with friends without having to tell them “sorry bro, you can’t play with us tonight because you refuse to play a job you hate like BRD or WHM”. I know if anyone ever told me it was a necessity that I play WHM for the group, I’d tell them fine, I’ll just leave and join another linkshell who won’t tell me to play a job I clearly don’t want to play. I agree players need to be flexible and willing to play several types of jobs, but you can’t force people on to jobs they have no interest in. This is a game and people want to have fun.

6 Mann encourages bots and multi boxing also. Noone wants to be the tank or healer you right so they should be punished by having to wait for content. You can carry people in 6 man content also not hard at all tbh most do it now. Not only that you seem to be whining for more 6 man content than people whining for 18 man content. I get what you mean by carry but since when do people care about merc and carrying when it doesn't hurt them one bit?

Inferior players in your shell? Shitty of you to say that. Mix the parties better. Stop trying to put your 6 good players in everything and leaving your other 2 as tagalong shitstain second class citizens.

There's no point in having the conversation at all. None of you can influence square to give a ***.

It is how it is and that's it. Be better people and stop trying to minmax every second of your playtime.

This is easy because I did it many times in Omen and while making Aeonics. You put in jobs like RDM, GEO, and a second WHM into this party. Pet jobs perform well here. If you have extra melee DD, they will want a healer at least. They can still contribute, just not at the same rate as those in the main party (rotate the BRD+COR if you like).

Speaking of which, the main party will usually look something like: Tank DDx2 BRD COR Healer, DDx3 BRD COR Healer, or Tank DD BRD COR GEO Healer - If that second party is 4x DD... then yeah, that will suck. Ideally you'd want at least a healer and buffer to support two DD.

Eiryl be talking ***and trolling most of the time but every now and then there's a gem. (he was being sarcastic there but that's exactly EXACTLY how a lot of players think)

I guess we can't have a conversation because it won't affect SE's plans? Like that was the aim of the thread. It's not... the point is to have a conversation about the game's future because this is a Final Fantasy XI forum created for players to discuss. Whether or not that brings about change is moot.

The goal is to converse and get differing points of view. It's subjective and that's why you post a subject like this. I'm glad to see others thinking how I am, but am also not surprised or offended that some prefer 6-person content. That's what you want of any healthy discussion. Let's hope SE introduces more fun content in the near future.

Merc culture is exactly why there's only 6-man content now, and the people that actually did 18-man content with their 10 LS mates get to suffer now because of it. Suggesting to run the same event twice to include everyone is quite the ***take that I hope was sarcasm.

6-man restriction won't stop merc culture anyways. Players will just dominate it first until they have everything they need then sell a spot for "40k gallimaufry 2-4 stone chances, must have roll Cor 50m". "Bumba v20 clear 150m". Price will compensate for not being able to bring multiple buyers along with the difficulty scale, so in the end it's the same thing. I wouldn't put that recent change on merc culture entirely.

You might even have fun!

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The idea that SE will make 2 party/12 person max AND NOT bug the ***out of it for months is laughable.

More laughable is anyone with an opinion who doesn't have a tank, support, or healer geared and ready to go. Just 1.

Like stfu. we want 18 man content. Having the best gear in the game locked behind 6man was a *** bad idea.

Hmm I don't want "18 man onry", but being limited to only 6 is bad. I would rather prefer it was like delve, where you could do it with 6, but it didn't prevent you from bringing in more.

If it were fun, you think you'd spend less time complaining about it

And less time copy pasting gearswap files into cookiecutter prepackaged party setups

Seems like it would be a lot more fun to just split your group and do 2 runs slightly less optimally than saying tough ***you extras

It's almost like fun isn't in the equation at all. How weird.

Yes, splitting up friends is exactly what I had in mind for fun in an MMO.

Which is more fun? Splitting up and still doing it or bitching about it and leaving those 2 "friends" left out.

You can either make lemonade or complain the lemons are sour.

Ignoring the content even exists honestly.

This is unironically the correct answer, so there is that. Good for you.

Look, the ship has sailed. All the content for the next two to five years is in. The only next surprise will be the prime weapons which will just be another slap in the face grind instead of actually caring about the player experience.

They had three chances. Odyssey: ultimately fail because not accessible and the player base made that even more so, Sortie fail because its so *** stupid in the minutia, Prime weapons just gonna grind and be horizontal not really needed.

If ffxi was free to play pay for new content then that would be cool cause I wouldnt pay for the new content, but 20+ bucks a month and essentially playing something like mario bros just for nostaligia is seesawing towards not worth it.

They can always add more to the end of TVR. But I'm betting it's just a battlefield and not a full event.

Hard to say what is going to be involved in prime weapons but vertical to current options is a really safe bet. I'm personally hoping for new WSs or that they can ne used in the offhand for 1h jobs but both of those feel unlikely until we know more.

Odyssey tier coming out is not going to change the minds of people who aren't already willing to do the content past the unlocks.

So yeah, the comments that you're paying a monthly sub to not be able to play with friends is pretty valid when the best part of this game is playing with friends. I only play with 3 other people so definitely don't make more than 2 more friends

Wishlist for future content/adjustments:

- A new battle zone in old Tavnazia so we can finally visit the the 20+ year old cutscene spot. I'm imagining something similar to Abyssea/Escha.

- New set of augmentable accessories from this content with a system similar to Skirmish so you can get niche augments to fill out sets for newer players, but still have over the top options for veterans from laborious zone objectives, like Empyrean/Magian style belts/earrings/rings/necks with 119 stats. Many accessories from old content are still useful just because SE isn't adding anything that much better.

- HTMB for Cloud of Darkness that drops dark matter so you can farm something other than Vagary to get it.

- Crazy dream tier WSD gear for WHM/GEO just because I wanna Hexa things.

- Prime weapons are actually good, specifically the Bow and Axe, and farmable for free like Sortie gear, just time investment.

- 6 man content allowing up to 18 in but scaling based on number of members like Geas Fate. Makes it so you can bring friends but you're not gonna be able to carry a ton of people through to prevent mercs from taking over.

- BST gets native dual wield at 70-something similar to THF. BST is basically locked to NIN/DNC sub atm, and I haven't found too many situations where BST single wielding is a superior option. I'd love to be able to sub WAR/DRK/DRG and still be able to DW.

- Something similar to DRG to let BST/PUP transfer songs/rolls to pet.

- TVR battlefield at the end has the same KI system as Omen.

- Odyssey gets the same KI system as Omen.

- Removal of 3 man requirement for Dyna-D/Delve/Vagary.

I'll throw in my two cents: I'd be happiest seeing more in-world content. Instanced content has its benefits, sure, but Final Fantasy XI has always been outstanding in how much stuff it allows you to do in the world itself. Especially with a smaller population now, it's one of the things that really makes the game feel alive. And it makes the world feel interactive instead of just as a hub.

Jupitor Orb for 15 silver vouchers. Exclusive gear can drop from this orb only, including K Club.

Because why not at this point.

Was thinking mercury orb instead of jupiter for 12, jupiter for 20 basically be the next tiers of Mars/Venus whatever the difference is between the two.

I like the idea of eliminating trash from the LT pools for a higher(double) cost, hexed+cards+shards+voids+crafting+VW+Pop items going away would be worth all of the vouchers.

I don't know. 20 vouchers for a mimic on the first chest would feel like a real kick in the nuts.

Exactly this

While I have nothing against events that allow up to 18 people, I know that if they released something that actually required 18 geared human players to clear, our LS would have to skip it entirely.

Also, I don't get the hateboner for Sortie that some people seem to have. Besides the cooldown and some objectives being complete random ***, it seems pretty well designed, allowing setups and jobs that have been underused recently to shine again.