All this talk about community...

Incentivized interaction is not community, it is business. I am in a FC with a great group of people who roll together on all kinds of content and have a great time doing it. I play content that I currently have no use for just to help others out and build stronger bonds with my mates. While I see your point and understand where you're coming from... I think you look at the merits of mutual benefits as a solution to build community, and it isn't. Mutual benefit is what DF and roulette give us. A group of people we can use for mutual gain and then forget about for a week or so. Philanthropy builds community and this is, and always will be a choice.

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

Sorry, I mispoke, there is one thing that I do think needs to be made more group-based, and that is crafting. It is a huge problem that everyone can craft everything if they sink enough hours into it. That's the one area where I think SE needs to shift course. You shouldn't be able to gather every HQ mat and make every HQ craftable item in the game, that's a terrible model for an in-game economy. Being a jack of all trades is fine, being a master of everything is just stupid.

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Even in some of the most social MMO's trade doesn't make up much of the social environment. As pointed out earlier, if you restrict someone from making the crafting classes on their main, they will simply create alts to craft on. Heck, people have been known to have multiple active accounts just to avoid being reliant on others in some MMOs. If you really wanted to see crafters affecting the social community, you'd need to make them valuable to everyone instead of a select few. Making crafters involved in end game gear would go much farther to add to the community than limiting an individuals ability to craft everything.

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Originally Posted by Clavaat

I misunderstood that until the post you made that actually showed up when I posted mine haha. My point still stands, you can make those kinds of things happen. People set up raffles and gambling events all the time. That and chocobo races, mazes, scavenger hunts, etc. Yes, it would be nice if the game provided more options for this, and I believe they are (look at Hunts). They made the FC Rankings on the Lodestone, which admittedly, is not very helpful considering it's about GC Points, but it's still something.

As far as FFXI goes, it's not really like it used to be, which is what people are normally referring to. It's actually a lot like FFXIV now, sans queues, so everything takes waaaaay longer.

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Just so you know, I am liking all of your posts and I agree with your points.

Perhaps it really just a matter of sticking it out and letting SE catch up to all of the systems that they have in game, which aren't really tapped into (Grand Companies for example).

In the meantime, you're right in the fact that instead of waiting for SE to implement Choco Racing, I could have my FC set up our own races within our district and award prizes.

In the end, you're right... I just hope that SE also sees some of these suggestions and adds some of these types of things in-game. They have the outline, it's just a matter of filling in the gaps.

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Originally Posted by Skander

-snip, point about philanthropy-

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^^Also a very good point.



(A few others have made the same point, I agree, valid points)

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

-snip-

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All good man, good on you for being a rational person on General Discussion. Frontlines and Hunts look like they'd be right up your alley, so that's just 2 weeks away. Golden Saucer is not too far, either, unless you happen to be in China. But I'm willing to guess you're in Ohio, so shouldn't be a problem :P

There is nothing wrong with the community or game.
There are always some douchebags. If its IRL or in a Game.
The problem is human and not the game.

I believe that this game is what you make of it. It isn't perfect but you, as an individual, can influence the way you and others interact with each other. Case in point, I joined my company through a friend's friend's membership only to watch the original members, along with some of those friends leave one by one. They were all very talented and helpful but tried to do everything at once. Faced with a choice of either switching companies or going down with the current one, my friend and I decided to keep things going while people were gone, only to then inherit the company for doing so. We weren't really sure what to do so we started making decisions based on what we wanted out of the game.

Now, we have brought the company back from the dead and not only have we brought it back, we have expanded and grown. We are still growing. My goals are to not have to use duty finder for raids and to create a casual company that members enjoy helping each other play the game. I put off raiding because I didn't like duty finder. I still don't. Now, I'm constantly running everything to help those in the company. It makes the game fun. But I had to make it like that.

The game isn't broken. It just needs time to mature.

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

That is a very good point, and you are most definitely entitled to your opinions (even if they run contrary to some of mine).

The reason I'm sticking around is because I have hope that the developers are going to put more community based content into the game.

I'm not asking that everything in the game require gigantic FC's to accomplish. This isn't a, "everything is broke, SE needs to fix it all overnight" thread. I just think that a lot of problems that exist within the game are because SE took the path of allowing everyone to do everything on their own (via DF, and the ability to level every class to max)... and then threw in some challenging content that kind of requires a group at the end of it. It's a very conflicting design and I think it's responsible for a lot of the negative threads (well, the non-grind complaint ones).



The only reason I posted this is because its a topic that my FC and I have spoke about at length over the course of the last month, after watching about half of our existing members leave.



I never played FF11...

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Awesome, I kinda got that impression from your OP. It wasn't an Doom and Gloom, the game is dead thread. I do hear your complaints and they are valid, right now. But if you look at the just the 2.0 release to now and all the changes they have done and how much new stuff (core systems and gameplay) they have added, you can tell this is still a work in progress. Honestly I'm playing this game right now with the idea in mind "this is an extended beta". That's not to say something is wrong with what we have just that it is not a complete game (They havent added golden saucer, FC summons, Chocobo raising, personal housing, etc. Just some of the things YP has said will be introduced between now and 3.0) If you look at FFXI (not sure if you played that one) it wasnt even released in the west until after their first expansion (rise of the Zilart).

This game is in a unique situation to most MMO's where it was released and bombed, then was re-teamed and rebuilt from the ground up. I've followed since 1.0 beta and poured over every scrap i could find from the dev team so i have a good idea of where the game is headed and i'm not worried in the slightest. I recently came back from a 2 month break and the changes even in that time are excellent. If you are dissatisfied with the game, take a break. Let your sub run out then wait till the next major patch to hit and resub for a month. That way you arent burning yourself out. Also realize that some of the things you want in this game are not compatible with the vision the devs have for the game, after all this is their game we are playing. If you want more open world stuff, try out Wildstar or EQN. Those might satisfy your cravings better than this game can.

Its just a game.

EDIT:
It seems like your issues with the game boil down to "group content" and stuff to do as a group. Its there, all over the place. FATE's, dungeons, Prinal battles, all of it. its all group content. Nothing is stopping you from gathering 4-8 people together and then FATE farming or dungeon crawling. The OPTION is there its just not forced upon us. FFXI was like that, after level 15 you couldnt effectively do ANYTHING without a party and it made you group up with no party grouping mechanics, just the shout chat. (at least it was like that when I played). while it was fun and worked for some people, it was really hard for people who couldnt get into a LS because you were inexperienced. I remember waiting for 4 hours to get a party to get exp to finally kill one monster then party disbanded. This is not fun.

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Originally Posted by Clavaat

Hey look it's my post that lasted a day! :P

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But you tried which in essence is enough proof that there is a real community because people try in game as well not just spout stuff in forums we have a LS on goblet 5 for members of the housing district and we go do things or we don't but we are still working together.

I think you can not see the forest for the trees OP, I will jump in and help story runs in PF, will craft people gear for free, even help low level fates doomed to failure all strangers I pass by. I am not the only one because those events would fail if no one else stepped up, and this is on Balmung which isn't massive but no way small nor is the server all casuals or all hardcore. People make a community out of what is around them. And for those that say duty finder is an issue are missing the fact that the community of the game exists.

Reddit galmour community while I am not a part of is there and multiserver, this forums while it is the internet is there. That is what makes a community, firefly fan community was not known by even the crew of firefly but it was and is there. We have mathmaticians, linguistist, graphic designers, programmers, soccor mom's, stay at home dads, and even the accompanying trolls. All have some dedication to game, and the people that are in it (even if there purpose is to piss people off). So the community, the massiveness, the multiplayer is there. But the seclusion and separation of belonging and not isn't. I can't change your mind or how you feel personally about the game but white knight or hater if you look around you see what is there and destorying the community none of the functions are they just allow people to do things even if they aren't apart of the "community". You not ever being able to see them again is no different then me helping you and then leaving with out a friend request or another word.

So lets blame the lack of content that you feel doesn't reward you (force you) to be a community, not your assumption that a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common is not a community if its not also a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

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Originally Posted by Sakasa

But you tried which in essence is enough proof that there is a real community because people try in game as well not just spout stuff in forums we have a LS on goblet 5 for members of the housing district and we go do things or we don't but we are still working together.

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That's...actually an awesome idea. I'll see if I can start one up in Mist 3. Joint District Events? :o

I agree with the OP. I'm not saying its a bad game (I don't think he is either), but you can do basically everything by yourself and I think that is a downer for the community.

I don't see any point of a massively multiplayer game that can be played single player for basically everything. Yes you have to team up with people for dungeons, but regarding that, allow me to leave this quote from yoshi-p:

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In FFXIV ARR we have the Duty Finder so you’ll be able to form a party quickly. When going through contents it doesn’t require much communication so you don’t need to plan ahead, you can play as if other players were NPC’s.

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http://www.wutaicompany.com/reddit/1...with%20Yoshi-P

So even for dungeons, it's pretty clear they don't want you to feel like you need to treat them like human beings. It's designed to be a MMO that you only interact with NPCs....

Don't get me wrong, just because it's set up that way, don't think that you *must* treat people that way. But if that is the baseline, what do you think that does for people not as considerate as us?

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Originally Posted by Sakasa

But you tried which in essence is enough proof that there is a real community because people try in game as well not just spout stuff in forums we have a LS on goblet 5 for members of the housing district and we go do things or we don't but we are still working together.

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That is fantastic. I'm setting up one as soon as I get home for my district (assuming there's not one already). My FC is already pretty social with our close neighbors; it'd be nice to have a dedicated linkshell.

While I can support what the OP is saying to some degree, the one thing that I really disagree on is the crafting aspect. Short of restricting the account itself from doing so, those of us that are dedicated enough do still manage to do it all ourselves. Even in a game like FFXI, which imo has the most "challenging" (see stressful) and restrictive crafting system in a live MMORPG, folks like myself would bypass the limitations by having crafting alts. Essentially, we built ourselves up to what we can do here. What makes it unique here, however, is their apparent focus on this fact. You can't reliably craft HQ items without certain skills that you can get from leveling others to 50. With the upcoming Desynthesis, you'll also gain access to certain skills for having these crafts leveled. In the future, there's currently plans to allow FC crafters to build airships. It's actually a rather effective path they're taking.

The idea that people rely on others for crafting needs, that results in building a community, is nothing but a dream. Relying on crafters does little beyond having people look at these crafters as tools to be used. You're essentially a shop that can possibly be haggled with... that's not much of a buildup for a social community. I can't tell you how often I would get tells by people looking for me to craft something for them. Some would think that's a good thing, and it can be... when done on rare occasion. It's a completely different matter when you get constantly spammed for help on crafting stuff. My association with them does little for my income and does nothing for endgame progression (it's not like they'll invite you to do things afterall).

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Originally Posted by PixelPirate

Speak for yourself. My FC is super team oriented and does everything together... It's a matter of choice, NOT poor game design.

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This can't be stressed enough. The player base is responsible for how things turn out. We're given the tools we need to build something, but how we use those tools is another story. Unless we need SE to tell us how to be nice and friendly to each other, I don't think it's necessary. I'm going to take a huge leap of faith and put a spec of trust in that I assume we all know how, just many choose not to be.

I agree with OP.

I made a thread in the User Interface section (but no one ever reads that section of the forums lol) asking if the Dev. team could add something like an icon next to players names in Duty Finder if they are on the same server as you.
As it is now, I feel like "why bother chit chatting if I'll most likely never see these people again" I know I could go all stalker-mode and write down the names of people I team up with in Duty Finder and search them on the Lodestone to see if their on my sever. But that's weird... and takes time XD
I'm lazy, so I actually kind of like Duty Finder (although I bet the game is populated enough to manage just fine without it and only use Party Finder) But it just feels like I'm playing with a bunch of anonymous NPCs.

Or maybe they should add a bonus for parties composed of members that are all from the same server.

P.S. Here is the thread I mentioned earlier in my post: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...server-players

Well, I think that a lot of really good points have been made.

My intent of making this thread wasn't to shout gloom and doom. If it came across that way, I apologize. I'm still actively playing the game, so, obviously I don't hate it (I rather enjoy it). If I did, I wouldn't have bothered to log on and say anything... I would have just left.


The point of this thread was really to critique some issues that myself and a few other longer-time members of my FC (6+ months active subscriptions) have brought up, and start a discussion to see if others feel the same way, and/or are running into FC-mates that are feeling that way.

Thank you to everyone who has, so far, contributed to this discussion.



Regardless of where this thread progresses, I think the one thing that I will take away from it... is that I need to start focusing more on the progress that has been made, and less on complaining about what is still not there.

If I could re-write my initial post, I would include the fact that FF14 has the framework with Grand and Free Companies to incorporate some really cool community elements. The developers have even made mention of a few of these things on the horizon.

I would also shift the tone a bit from coming across like I wanted a complete re-vamp of the entire game (from theme park to old-school open world grindfest), to stating that I was simply looking for a little more variety, and a few "bigger picture" type things that I could do when I got tired of the vertical progression treadmill. I really don't want a game where you need to gather 80 people to complete vital things, I have a hard enough time finding 7 people... let alone coordinating gigantic groups.

I would just like to see some mini-game type events/content where you could work with an entire Grand Company, or pit FC vs. FC in friendly competition... and have those type of events serve as community-building "distractions" from the primarily instance based nature of the game.

Far too many people in my FC get burnt out with vertical progression. They figure they need to log in and do daliies, complete roulette, run Coil weekly.. and if they don't, they are somehow falling behind. It's just a vicious cycle that I see wearing a lot of people out of this game. I'd like to see SE implement some healthy distractions, and maybe point some of the community down those paths, instead of just pumping out end-game instance after end-game instance with higher and higher gear drops.

As far as crafting, I don't think we'll ever have a concensus. I have my thoughts on it, and they seem to conflict with others. I can agree to disagree on that. The developers are going to pick the path they want to go down, both sides apparently have advantages and drawbacks.



Anyways, I'll sum it all up by saying that I suppose patience is a virtue that I need to apply towards this game. The things I want have been mentioned by the developers. I need to be patient and see if they follow through on their already stated vision. I'm hoping they will, and in the meantime there is no shortage of things to do (even if they aren't exactly the options I wish existed).

Also, I'm not trying to end things here. I just figured this was a good point to jump in and re-vise my mission statement a bit.

I definitely do welcome further discussion on the topic. If it ends here though, I think a lot of good points were made on both sides and I know I have a healthier perspective on the game after reading through a lot of these comments.

A lot of what you have posted are things that have been proven to be poison for MMOs. There's a good reason that most MMOs are moving away from them.

Rewards for doing things within a FC(guild) leads to an obligation to do those things together and often leads to clique groups excluding other parts of the FC (guild). Which leads to FCs falling apart after vicious arguments start over who is obligated to help out and who is not. In-fact, this happens whenever you tack a reward onto something that doesn't really require one. The core functionality of MMOs has always been Guild>Individual>Community. And there's a good reason "community" comes last. MMOs (and the Internet in general) work best with small groups of like minded people working together.As soon as you move into larger groups, you get ... issues.

Oh, and crafting with single trees simply leads to people levelling multiple alts to fill in the gaps rather than have to rely on others.

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Originally Posted by Baneus

A lot of what you have posted are things that have been proven to be poison for MMOs. There's a good reason that most MMOs are moving away from them.

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I guess I haven't played enough MMO's...

I don't see how fun little community relkated mini-games with non-game breaking and non-progression related rewards would be poison... but, maybe they would?

i disagree with you on the leveling all the classes part. the issue isn't that you can level everything. the problem is that they made leveling everything so easy. when you can level a craft from 1-50 in less than a day without crafting a single item that is your problem. early in 1.0 leveling took much longer and was much closer to the speed in which leveling should have been kept. when you level fast and have week long lockouts on the only content worth doing then you are going to have everything leveled fast without even half trying.

leveling speed needs to be drastically reduced after the cap increase and the number of people with everything to cap will automatically go down. in 1.0 there were very few people with everything capped before the ignorant decision to give people 3k exp per synth and 100k for every few minutes inside the wolf camp. if you want to blame anyone for the fact everyone has everything capped you can look no farther than the developer in charge.

besides if you limit me to only one battle, craft, or gathering past 50 i'll just use my alts that i am already paying for and level those. there's no difference between me leveling them on my main and leveling them on the other 7 characters i am already paying on for my server besides those extra 7 characters will keep 7 individual people from being able to get in the server and play.

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Originally Posted by Enthy

I agree with OP.

I made a thread in the User Interface section (but no one ever reads that section of the forums lol) asking if the Dev. team could add something like an icon next to players names in Duty Finder if they are on the same server as you.
As it is now, I feel like "why bother chit chatting if I'll most likely never see these people again"[/URL]

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While I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, why don't you just ask who is from your server? I regularly ask who is from what server. It gets the group talking and generally leads to a far more lively run.

Need more server wide events, like large FATEs similar to Behemoth/Odin, or something like Besieged from FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

Need more server wide events, like large FATEs similar to Behemoth/Odin, or something like Besieged from FFXI.

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Besieged/Campaign Battles, Notorious Monsters, Void Watch, Bigger Maps, and Walk of Echoes pls.

That'd give us plenty to do outside of dungeons.

It's because gamers today want the option to solo everything. They want to be able to log in for 5 hours a week yet somehow keep up with people who put in 30 hours a week. FFXI was beautiful at forcing you to work with others but then Wings of the Goddess came out and you were suddenly able to efficiently solo levels and everyone went off on their own. I fear this is just the future of MMOs.

The only thing bad about the community are these boards, I see none of the ridiculousness that goes on here in game.

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

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I kinda agree with the problem you are raising, although I disagree with your analysis.

I don't believe that interactions should be forced, and I believe that the game in its current state already has possibilities for people to interact, as far as content and mechanism go.

The problem, in my opinion, is that the game prevents people to interact as they should.


- You cannot do quests with other people. Scratch that, you cannot even stay in a group to solo your quests. As soon as an instance comes up, you have to disband. The fact that you have to deteam to do it is antithesis to what a MMORPG is supposed to be. I've never seen this in any of the MMOs I've played before, and it blows my mind.
When you see other games doing the exact opposite, like GW2, in which you can not only invite other people into your personal quest, but they get rewarded for it (they get some karma, which can be used to purchase some gear). It doesn't have to be powerful gear, even some vanity or gadget or achievement or title would be enough.

- You cannot even communicate with people while you are in a dungeon or in a quest instance. WTH? Communication is the base of a multiplayer game. No communication, no bound possible. To restrict it is, again, antithesis to what a MMO is supposed to be.
Again, I've never seen this before, and again, other games not only allow you to sent tells and messages to people anytime anywhere, but you can even do this with people from other servers (how many people would have liked to keep in touch with players they met in DF and maybe play again together another time?).

- The lack of big pre-made activities. Many FCs were very disapointed when CT came out and didn't held up its promises for 24 man content. The game currently offers no activities for big groups to do together, except stuff like Odin, as OP pointed out.
It doesn't have to be dungeons (though that would be nice), anything would be an improvement, like some dangerous zones in open world, where some rare nodes can be found for miners, and having friends go with you make it easier to harvest. Just an example from the top of my head, there are many possibilities.
On this point, I agree with OP that some open world content is needed too.

- The Coil lockouts forcing people into statics. Again, people are prevented from doing stuff together. They have to limit the number of people they are interacting with, in order to play part of the content. How is that helping people be social and interact with each others?


In short:
You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

My first MMO was T4C, where there was litterally no group content, no FC gameplay (people formed "guilds" by creating linkshells and renaming their char to add a tag at the end), yet it did have a strong sense of community.
This is why I am convinced that it is not necessary to *force* people to interact, you only need to give them the possibility, and some incentive.

this is the only MMo that i've ever played that prevents you from ever seeing the random people you do DF with, and also i can't /tell my friends while they're in a dungeon or i am. none of this makes sense. at least i can talk to my FC, otherwise i probably wouldn't play this game.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

i disagree with you on the leveling all the classes part. the issue isn't that you can level everything. the problem is that they made leveling everything so easy.

-snip the rest-

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I agree with this.

SE took the approach of making leveling additional classes easier (with the 50% bonus and the ability to buy books with GC's), when it should be the opposite.

Make it easy to go from 1-50 on your main through the quests... make each additional class that you level progressively harder.

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Originally Posted by Billie21

-snip-

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I agree with your points. My initial criticims were meant to be a bit polarizing. I meant what I typed, but, I know I came off strongly, it's the only way to really get both sides to respond. I was hoping that with continued disucssion we could chip away at them and get to the real issues.

I think we're getting there, if we already haven't.

I ran into the same problem when I was first playing the game. My brother (who has since cancelled his subscription) and I had the plan for me to be a tank and him to be a healer. We ended up giving that up when we figured out that we had to constantly keep de-grouping in order to advance in the storyline. It was extremely frustrating.

Neither of us are big into the MMO genre (we've each tried a few games, but none really stuck for more than a few months), but, it was the first time we ever tried to play a game together that kept forcing us to de-group in order to advance. It seemed so opposite of the point of a MMO.

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Originally Posted by Sonofbaldo

It's because gamers today want the option to solo everything. They want to be able to log in for 5 hours a week yet somehow keep up with people who put in 30 hours a week. FFXI was beautiful at forcing you to work with others but then Wings of the Goddess came out and you were suddenly able to efficiently solo levels and everyone went off on their own. I fear this is just the future of MMOs.

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This absolutely is the future of MMO's.

People are different then they used to be. Expectations and what game mechanics they're willing to forgive are different. The game market is absolutely flooded with options compared to a decade ago and people don't have to put up with things they don't like to enjoy a game anymore, they can simply choose a different one.

The niche market of gamers in the past enjoyed the old school type of MMO's, but the mainstream market absolutely won't deal with the same hassle's. And gaming is here to stay as a mainstream business.

FFXIV needs more Sandbox Elements, on that point i agree with OP.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrAM

The niche market of gamers in the past enjoyed the old school type of MMO's, but the mainstream market absolutely won't deal with the same hassle's. And gaming is here to stay as a mainstream business.

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You also could say: Kids back then grown and have now family and jobs...

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Originally Posted by Billie21

You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

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^this

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

I agree with this.

SE took the approach of making leveling additional classes easier (with the 50% bonus and the ability to buy books with GC's), when it should be the opposite.

Make it easy to go from 1-50 on your main through the quests... make each additional class that you level progressively harder.

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when it comes to dol/doh i don't even think the first should be really easy. i can agree with you on the battle classes, but not on the dol/doh. those are optional side things and i think they should all take time and effort to level as they are done 100% solo.

sure take a dow and a dom and make the first easy to level like it is now and make the rest take much more time, but i think all dol/doh should take quite a bit of time. it's not the fact that they made each job after the first easier to level than the first it's also the fact it's too easy to level the first.

if they just slowed down the leveling process then after level cap raise less would be able to get all to cap before the next raise. after that next raise even less would be able to cap them all. basically they would do exactly what you stated you wanted, but not by limiting people to only 1 of each, but by the amount of time it'd take eventually to level 1 that they wouldn't have time to level them all. sure some of the hardcore members would still be able to cap them all probably, but that would be a very very small percentage.

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In short:
You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

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Exactly, it should be fostered by the game design, and a natural process. It's all well and good to say "put in some effort and find a good group", but the reality is that the game does very little to encourage building a solid community. Beyond coil there's nothing you need to band together for, and the nature of the lockout means coil doesn't actually foster social interaction either.

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Originally Posted by OSUBuckeye4

Yes, you could run everything with your static or FC.... or you could just go lone wolf and literally never talk to a soul and get to end-end-game in every aspect of the game.

Is that really a good thing?

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Yes. Why not? If someone wants to take the 'lone wolf' approach to the game, then why should that be a problem? People have the option to do that, or join FC's and interacting with players. Besides, they still need to interact with other players in DF and the actual end-game content. I personally like how more MMO's are adding more solo content, it was something that I found extremely lacking back in FFXI (Or at least when I played it, I have heard it has been improved in that area). Just because it is a MMO, that dose not mean every little task should force you to have a FC and twenty people to complete.

Still, each to their own. Everyone will have a different idea of what 'community' entails anyway.