FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

I feel as if people freak out at the idea of "solo friendly." Being solo friendly doesn't have to be extremely restrictive towards group content. It can even mean making it easier for solo players to group together in-game for content or making players want to group together more often despite playing solo.

I've always preferred for MMOs to have a sort of "together but apart" play style. Other people are there, doing things around you. You interact with them naturally, you interact with them for group content such as dungeons, trials, raids and otherwise as you see fit but it's not forced. It's casual. And I like for it to be kept some what casual because that means when I do feel like interacting with the community in various ways, I should be able to log in at any time and have those interactions. If I don't feel like it though, then there's also no pressure.

I don't know if anyone really gets this though.

I don't mind, trusts are extremely useful for leveling my dps jobs so I don't have to sit in a 30 minute queue. Considering a large number of the story dungeons have extremely long dps queues even on Aether during prime time, trusts will help keep moving new players through the story. I think if there's players out there that truly never want to play with another person, it's not like they would have tried the game anyway without trusts so it really doesn't effect anything. Now I do think they could do things to make the trust system more interesting, as right now it's pretty boring and I use it as a last resort because slowly going through a dungeon for 30 minutes with NPCs is rough. But I'm not really sure what else they could do to make it not a snooze fest beyond adding extra mechanics.

Tell that to the solo duties we do during MSQ. We can't even be in a group at all, let alone play with friends.

This game has always forced players to go solo. There's nothing new here except more options that don't affect people who don't want to use them.

Like group play? Keep running dungeons with friends. The guy running with trusts isn't affecting you in the slightest bit.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

I feel as if people freak out at the idea of "solo friendly." Being solo friendly doesn't have to be extremely restrictive towards group content. It can even mean making it easier for solo players to group together in-game for content or making players want to group together more often despite playing solo.

I've always preferred for MMOs to have a sort of "together but apart" play style. Other people are there, doing things around you. You interact with them naturally, you interact with them for group content such as dungeons, trials, raids and otherwise as you see fit but it's not forced. It's casual. And I like for it to be kept some what casual because that means when I do feel like interacting with the community in various ways, I should be able to log in at any time and have those interactions. If I don't feel like it though, then there's also no pressure.

I don't know if anyone really gets this though.

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I get it. I don't do more challenging group content in XIV because I don't like someone else having claim over my time anymore. I did that in EQ and the people I raided with were great, but it was not a good feeling that your time wasn't your own to decide on. Others were relying on you to be there and if you weren't feeling it, well you still had to go. Either they would be upset and you'd catch hell, you'd be docked with points, or you just felt bad letting people down. I had alts no one knew so I could hide sometimes.

So I completely get how enjoyable not having that pressure to interact is. And how it's much more real and casual when you're brought together because you want to be there instead of the content design making you do it.

There is nothing bad, people are not just going to disappear from duty finder content. There is content for everyone solo and group alike. People just find things to be mad about with no real rationale.

not sure what else solo friendly is to come beyond the trust system for the HW/STB dungeons

on the whole not too worried tbh, lvling dps via dungeons feels horrible with the insane queue times, at least there is an alternative now, human groups r still better but if it saves a ton of time on the whole, super worth

if they convert more content into solo friendly category (such as expert dungeons, normal raids etc) then i would start getting troubled

https://c.tenor.com/9TT1Y4_quzoAAAAC...-rotenberg.gif

I wonder if they're pushing this because (and if we're being honest here) that most of the game world's maps tend to be barren and empty of players thus player interaction isn't very great.

and that has always bothered me because this MMO boasts that so many players play this game but I never see them except at the newest expansion.

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

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When it comes down to it, you can't have an MMO without multiplayer. Otherwise, it will just be a solo game with multiplayer features being a highlight. I'd say "Let them manufacture a single player version of FFXIV, and see how well it sells" but I am doubtful they'd be willing to invest in an experiment like that. it'd likely fail.

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Originally Posted by Vav2021

When it comes down to it, you can't have an MMO without multiplayer. Otherwise, it will just be a solo game with multiplayer features being a highlight. I'd say "Let them manufacture a single player version of FFXIV, and see how well it sells" but I am doubtful they'd be willing to invest in an experiment like that. it'd likely fail.

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k. I guess.