July 2026 Version Update

maybe a more accurate phrase to get the idea across is "cooperative" game?

the issues with jobs being essential but not drawing in enough players to fill the gaps is a fascinating one to me because the contemporary dev answer seems to be making them less essential rather than making them more fun, interesting, or engaging. FFXIV's tank/heal issues come to mind, and i have plenty of suggestions for how to fix that because that game is new enough to have some wiggle room in design.

but XI's BRD looks like it's pretty boxed in at this point. songs work the way they do, that's extremely unlikely to ever change, and the way songs work is often confusing and annoying when it comes into contact with Oopsie! situations even if you spend the time to figure it all out and practice in advance. like with COR, they've worked in enough buff duration to make buff maintenance less of an all-consuming focal point, and the other things that BRD and COR do are....gain TP, spend TP. unless you're dealing with really specific gaol fights that have their own design issues. so, quite literally, what any other DD does but with more responsibilities and more steps.

part of why i really enjoy WHM in XI is that its buff maintenance is staggered out so i get that feeling of keeping the plates spinning on top of being strategic with decision-making under stress. deciding when and where to refresh a buff, top someone up, clear a low priority debuff, pop an important prophylactic JA, etc. is fun! and because newer games take more role-agnostic approaches XI is one of the last places i can get that experience.

It's a social game. Whether you choose to play it solo or not, it's designed specifically to force (or these days: strongly incentivize) group play. It requires coordination and planning between players, by design.

Sure, you can circumvent that by botting, but that doesn't change the intentions of the designers and developers.

I still play with my friends and chat about our lives, make jokes, and congratulate each other on achievements. We help each other through challenging times, we celebrate victories together.

Even outside of my static, I still socialize with other LS mates, we help each other out, we share stories, commiserate about abyssea NM farming, bad luck on malignance drops, and discuss the news of the day. We share memes and chat about upcoming campaigns, content, etc.

What the hell does socializing mean to you people if not this? If you're not experiencing this, then I'm sorry but your experience could be so much better if you stopped 6botting and actually spoke with another person while doing boring grindy ***. If it were meant to be a great solo experience, it would be designed very differently. It's not.

6 botting is a cancer on the population, community, and the people doing it.
Private servers are another great candidate for the worst problems facing the game, for similar reasons: removing players, support, and community.
RMT are not remotely close to the worst problems facing the game, I agree.
I don't think a lack of care or love for the game, from SE and the team, is even on the radar.

6 botting, did we coin a new term

That's what I call it because honestly, everyone playing 6 is botting and calling it 6boxing is an insult to 2boxers. Just my personal preference.

'Multibotting' is the general term because not every game has the same group size as XI.

I know its cool to Villanueva 6 boxers, but they dont do as much damage as you think. They probably dont have time to devote to groups or linkshells, so if they were forced to group up they would probably quit. And a lot do team up despiste what youre saying. They always include others or friends instead of doing everything solo. And if you look on here many people are recruiting for statics even tho they could easily fill with a mule. Its always more efficient to have a real person for the hardest content.

The people recruiting aren't 6 botters trying to replace one of their bots, they're 5 humans trying to find a 6th. IME, people who have an alt (or maybe 2) frequently help others and often drop their alt for another player. People with 6 play by themselves because they don't need anyone else. Sure, they may occasionally join up with others or help out, but they're much less likely to, again IME, because they are self-sufficient, among various other reasons.

I don't buy this "I'm too busy and my schedule is impossible" nonsense. Playing with others doesn't have to be a full-time commitment signed in blood, you can play with others twice a week, or once every 13 days on a random Tuesday at 10 am. People always make it out like it's a binary decision and that's why they HAD to bot, because they had no other choice. It's BS. I've known plenty of players who have weird schedules who have been able to find regular groups, plenty of others who randomly join/start/pop in to groups to do stuff with people. You can just send a random message to people in discord: I'm thinking of doing limbus tomorrow night, who wants in? I'd like to do this UNM, does anyone else want to work on it together? It's not a marriage proposal or a real estate contract.

People in my LS regularly ask if anyone wants to run a random seg farm. We just had an impromptu aeonic thrown together. Every time I run limbus, I ask in ls if anyone wants to come along. You don't have to be in a monogamous relationship with a contract to play with others, and, crucially, you don't need bots if you engage with people like this. You will make different bots called friends.

-boxer vs -botter is mostly to distinguish who is actually playing their accounts vs who is mostly toggling automation on or off. The number of accounts isn't really that important. I think it's fair to say that only one of these methods is 'gaming', which is probably why the alternative is banned in so many other MMOs as well.