Its not a matter of a lack of effort. The problem is a lack of players at higher levels when the range is 10-15 and the fact that you only have a handful of viable camps to use. What's the exp/hr like at these other camps? I hesitate to call crab camps in the Tree viable.

As of the writing of this post, there are 10 players seeking past level 50. So out of the 524 characters online, only 10 are actually seeking parties 50+, and not all can even party together since the range is 15. What needs to be tracked is how many players are actually seeking parties in relation to the total population. I've said it multiple times, just because the total number of characters logged in is 500-600+ doesn't mean the number of players seeking a party has gone up proportionately along with it. Basing the sync range on the number of characters online is flawed and it makes building and maintaining parties unnecessarily difficult during peak hours.

I want a static sync range of at least 20.


KISS

This is just a guess, but pretty sure it holds true as far as number of people searching for party at levels 50+

Most people who have gotten this far in the game have established friendships/LS. When they want to start a high level party they simply talk with the people they know and form one. They may need 1 or 2 jobs out there, but probably over half the party was done before anyone even thought of looking for a group.

I have only been on this server a short time (couple months) and I think from retail so far this is a bit easier to level your char up. I have actually done 90% of my leveling duo'ing with my wife. (first time she has played) I am sure some of it has to do with the knowledge that I got from playing retail, but its not that hard.

I see a lot of players on these forums who don't seem happy with how the game is going. Something is too hard, takes too long, costs too much. I personally have enjoyed this server and 95% of the people who play on it. Most are very helpful, some are incredibly so. There are a few a-holes out there, but welcome to life. To the awesome people out there, thank you for all the help. To the A holes out there, its a small server and people have a long memory.

I enjoy this game because its not a race to level. Its about building a rounded character all the way around. No parties avail? Go do some BCNM's for drops. Go mine or fish for gil, there is a lot to do that your going to need to get done anyways.

Now, after all the praise..... Lets talk about Refresh...

I think you're both right. Pepsi is entirely right, that people hesitate to join parties that aren't in the very typical spots.. and that makes it feel like there are no places to party, when really there just aren't easy places to party. You can hesitate to call crabs in Tree viable all you want, but when it's compared to seeking party in Bastok for 4 hours.. It's incredibly viable.

On the other hand, Scaggles is right too. You can argue about how the sync should work, and what the best method is, because there are lots of options... but there's no arguing that tying the viability of making parties to overall population is an incredibly flawed concept, and the fact that Nas (and his admins) can't see that is pretty frightening. There's a very simple solution, of at least tying it to unique IPs which are already tracked and magnitudes more reasonable. There's also more overhaul that could be done to make it even better, but to just sit there and say that people struggling to XP is a lack of effort, instead of recognizing that the sync moving from 15 to 10 because 15 people logged on all of their characters and increased the population by 45 is flawed doesn't really do anyone any good.

_________________

Nas has no admins. It's only nas.

Simple solutions have been submitted to nas before. He likes this current system. The number he set on overall pop is set to reflect the changes in afk/active players as well as IPs. This ratio is almost always the same.

A true simple solution would involve no need to check what sync is. You shouldn't need any extra information besides the level of the player vs the lowest level in your party. I won't go into detail of the many suggestions but they're really good. It's a shame he isn't interested in changing it, but blaming 'his admins' isn't gonna help.

_________________
Returning/Existing Player? Trouble logging in? Click here |~| New player Gil guide |~| More Troubleshooting

If you don’t know who I was referring to, I’m sorry. Most do, official title notwithstanding, though.

_________________

If you mean me I've been the strongest proponent to nas about changing the sync system - so much so that he doesn't like talking to me anymore. About anything, not just sync. I even re-suggested it to him -today- and he wasn't interested.

<help> so
<help> sync?
<nas> no
<help> but why
<help> i know the 'why' is 'because i already made a system and im doing other stuff'
<help> but thats not a good 'why'!
<nas> hell it isn't
...
<nas> and no , i like the current system
<help> the current system doesnt scale nor represent the actual needs of sync
<nas> i'd rather a flat 10 levels
<help> flat 20 and its a deal.
<nas> look at you trying to negotiate
<help> ill help 10 people install for 20 sync
<nas> you'll do it anyway

Do not misunderstand my explanation of why and how sync works as an excuse for it. That's done to help people come up with better ideas about sync. I even made my own suggestions that people liked in this same thread, and said how bad the current sync system is. All in this thread.

Why I stick my neck out making nas mad by asking for things that affect all of you (and not me since I don't exp anymore) to be changed, just to be misunderstood and thought of poorly, I don't know.

_________________
Returning/Existing Player? Trouble logging in? Click here |~| New player Gil guide |~| More Troubleshooting

When it gets to the point I have to ask LS members to log off because noone is in our lvl range that can join us, it scares me.

_________________

Well ideally you wouldn't just be sitting with your flag up, you'd be doing something else productive that may be a better use of your time than getting 6k/hr on crabs. That's how I see it, instead of exping for 3 hours only to get 20k exp, I could have farmed, leveled a different job, crafted, done some missions or what have you instead of spending hours in that awful exp party when much, much better camps would have otherwise been usable.

I'll run out to any camp as long as the exp is good, but another part of the problem is that lots of mobs just aren't good to exp on here due to how often they use TP moves. We had tons of goblin camps on retail but they'll wipe your party with one bomb toss here, so no one wants to exp on them.


What I think should be tracked, if possible, is the number of players that are actually seeking a party relative to how many characters are currently logged in at that time. If that number doesn't go up proportionately with the number of characters logged in, something needs to change. When I posted yesterday, there were 524 characters online but only 10 players seeking parties past level 50. Right now, there are 594 players on and 13 people seeking past level 50, with 6 of them being THF, and the range is about to drop to 10 from 15, so not all of those players can party together either. Below 50 the sync range doesn't matter as much, you have plenty of camps and generally more players seeking, but once you get into the 60s it gets tougher.

I just found out about this server last week, but from what I understand there's been a good influx of newer players recently. The sync system sounds fine if you assume all people seeking are evenly spread out from 10-75, but in this case where we have lots of lower level players the low level inflation hurts the higher levels since it's weighted all towards the bottom.

Maybe in a month or so it might balance out more as people level up, but also we can assume the player base will continue to grow so maybe not.