The "Go Solo It" fever

[Kjara]

Okay first and foremost, this is *not* a thread to complain or troll or anything, so if you disagree with my ideas simply say so and why, without raging on me for whatever reason. This is just a topic I did discuss with friends in game lately and felt like sharing my opinion to others.
On second place, please do not use this thread to troll or complain either, I don't like that kind of stuff as it would make the thread not constructive in anyway.
And lastly, forgive my possible grammar errors, English is not my first language.

Okay so with FFXI population decreasing SE has done great things to assist the new players in achieving goals that would once require far greater numbers and longer time (like CoP, exping, and soon dynamis) and I really appreciated all of this, but I still do notice something's wrong.

Often I have to watch poor newbies getting their requests of help bashed by higher level players who will tell them to get their things done on their own, with the now abused answer "go solo it".

A fair example was this BLU newcomer who, at lv40, asked for help to go through promies so he could reach Tavnazia and try learn Refueling and other blu spells in a few levels, these were the answers he got.
"you can solo promy now lol"
"but I'm only 40"
"then grind to 60 and then go solo it"
"I would like to get Refueling before 60 if possible"
"then grind another job to 60 and then go solo it"
Am I the only one that thinks this sounds a bit wrong? And this is just one example.

Even as a high level player I have experienced this kind of treatment, in particular with VNMs. Many times I'd ask for help only to be replied with
"grind nin to 90 and go solo it"
Well, even if I had 90 nin, it is not always possible to job change. some trials require killing VNMs while equipping the choosen weapon, and what if my trial weapon doesn't allow me to go as a job that can solo the VNM?

Now this is not a thread to cuss out people who won't help out. We all pay RL money for this game and spend our real time and would like to do it while having fun, without having to costantly work for other's benefit, but the main meaning of MMORPG implies cooperation (massive multiplayer part in particular) and I feel this part of the game is being forgotten lately.

So to finally get to the point, I would like SE to find a way to incentivate people in repeating some things for a new gain, so that others can get assistance and at the same time the helpers can be rewarded with more than the simple satisfaction of helping someone in need (since sadly seems to be no longer enough for most).

SE did something like that by adding exp rewards to CoP mission BCs for those that would repeat them a long time ago. But maybe something more could be done.

An idea could be a substantial gil reward from defeating a VNM or mission BC or anything else, but I feel that would end up abused by potential RMTs.

Post any suggestion to help here, and again please no raging, I come in peace^^;

[HFX7686]

Make friends.

[rog]

I'm going to have to take the middle road here. If you have the means to solo something, then stop bothering me, and go do it. If however you are incapable of soloing something (because you don't have the job/means to do so), then by all means, ask for help.

[Cream_Soda]

I'm going to have to take the middle road here. If you have the means to solo something, then stop bothering me, and go do it. If however you are incapable of soloing something (because you don't have the job/means to do so), then by all means, ask for help.

Ok, we're done here

/thread

[Greatguardian]

I'm going to have to take the middle road here. If you have the means to solo something, then stop bothering me, and go do it. If however you are incapable of soloing something (because you don't have the job/means to do so), then by all means, ask for help.

This ^. A thousand times, this. If I enjoy your company, and you haven't worn my patience down to nothing by begging me to give you gil or help you farm yagudo necklaces or something else completely soloable, then I'll probably *want* to help you with the things you can't solo even if you don't ask.

[Yopop]

I'm going to have to take the road Rog is on in this.

If you can solo something or "should" be able to solo something then attempt to try it out. It's how we learn to master our jobs and our skills. The worst thing that can happen is you die.

If you are unable to solo something by all means there are a couple thousand people on the server and I am sure someone will assist in the situation.

there is not 1 person that has walked in FFXI and not had someone assist them with something. I do agree that we pay RL money and use our time and thus some can't be bothered to assist, but there are also tons of people out there that pay real life money and totally enjoy helping if they actually know are in need. I actually spend more time now a days helping people get stuff then i do getting my own stuff lol

A tip for the BLU

When I started there were FAR greater amounts of JPN players versus NA players. We got flooded with "JPN ONLY" tells, messages, and comments. Being apart of a small group of players who wanted to level during JPN Prime we found ourselves having to sit and wait and wait to get help on things. I found a neat trick. I would /sea all and filter to the zone I needed something from and I would see people in the zone and I'd go to that zone and ask the people in the zone if they could assist.

Things change when your standing there and someone is doing something in that region or with those mobs or even those missions and allow you to tag along or join in

That's how I got a LOT of stuff done in my career in the game. Persistence pays off.

[JagerForrester]

A fair example was this BLU newcomer who, at lv40, asked for help to go through promies so he could reach Tavnazia and try learn Refueling and other blu spells in a few levels, these were the answers he got.
"you can solo promy now lol"
"but I'm only 40"
"then grind to 60 and then go solo it"
"I would like to get Refueling before 60 if possible"
"then grind another job to 60 and then go solo it"
Am I the only one that thinks this sounds a bit wrong? And this is just one example.

This is a prime example how sometimes people can be really unfriendly. No one said making friends was easy. But Yopop had a very intelligent plan to get what he needed. I know I've been willing to help players in need if I am in a situation where I can help them very easily and doesn't require much effort on my part.

[Vangoh]

I'm not here to troll or anything but the reason why it gets harder to get help is because there are barely any new players, not like before. So now is harder to make friends and because of that is harder to have people that actually help you. I got over 40 people in friend list and most of them have quit and only 4 or 5 people will be there to help me from time to time.

Now, the truth of the matter is that people are very selfish and trust me you're not the first one to think this way, that people don't help anymore because people have ALWAYS been like this since way back in 2004 when I started playing. This is nothing new seriously.

About what you said of rewarding people for helping, I'm not sure if that's gonna cut it so my suggestion is to unite players, this is a good thread to post this idea I've thought for a while.

I always wanted to add something to let them socialize and get to know each other. It may sound very cliche but there should be like bars or something like that, back then before COP there weren't many places to go so I would wonder "what's with the outposts? are there people in there or what? would be nice to go inside and take a break from the fights and talk to people and whatever.

Another idea, and as silly as it sounds I think people would be interested in an alternate way of skilling up. So I thought some sort of gym would be perfect to know people and polish your skills. There are some jobs (mostly mages) that have problems skilling up their weapons and magic skills without worrying they're gonna get killed by the mob they're trying to skill up. It doesn't HAVE to be a gym, it can also be a boot camp during the shadow era and join the soldiers/knights/warlocks/rogues to boot camp. All that while talking with people.

YES it is hard to get things accomplish things because you need help, but there are going to be people that won't comply to help you no matter what you tell them or offer them and is not like you can force them. I tried to be as constructive as possible.

[Superbeast]

Personally I have always wanted to be able to solo anything/everything since I started playing several years ago for the simple fact that sometimes you cant get the help or items needed without RMT for gil to pay people ridiculous amounts(which I don't do btw). There are events in the game that would be nice to (solo) fit into a busy schedule (work and RL) for instance; Kirin, dynamis, bcnm's, ksnm's, vnm's, etc... I love playing this game despite certain people that sometimes make it difficult, but there comes a time when the multi-player aspect needs to take a back seat for those who want to achieve "end game" (if nothing else than to say I've done it and by myself since I couldn't get help).

Some my disagree and that's fine, but those are usually the ones that have the time to play to achieve groups for items/missions/whatever. So all we can really do is wait until everything is solo/duoable.

[katoplepa]

"solo" is fun, I've learned a lot of my jobs when I tried to solo something : pay attention to gear, strategy, timing, what to do, when, where... sometimes I died and retry, when I won it was adrenalin and satisfaction!

anyway, if you need help, it's better go to the place you have to do your stuff and find some help there, on the field, asking people in the zone, instead of remaining in jeuno and polemize in LS because maybe you just popped, pretending people stop to do their pt/aby/things and run to help you. Or simply ask : when you finished your thing, can you help me? or tomorrow this time? it's more easy to find help in this way.