FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

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Originally Posted by Fubous

sounds like you are just burnt out on the game. there's a great amount of content on it's way imo, if you've done literally everything that interests you and you're bored, that's not really the game's fault lol. clearly the advice to take breaks is healthy for the game because it's doing great by every metric, better than it ever has. and it is sound advice. I got tired of the stale combat, took a month off to play other games, came back and it's fun to play again. as for solo play, the trust system is already developed so reworking old content, which needed some tlc anyways, realistically wouldn't take as much dev time as you're assuming.

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Not burnt out, tired of getting burnt. And No there is not a great amount of content on it's way. It's the same amount of content as patches 4.1, 4.3, 4.5, 5.1, 5.3, and 5.5 and will likely be about the same amount as 6.3 and 6.5. I will bet my house, my car, and a ps5 that the new dungeon is going to be 3 trash pulls we do wall to wall then a boss fight x3. So why you going to lie to my like this, I've seen these patches for a decade I know what's going to be in each one.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

See when you just join the game in EW and tell me that, I can't really take your opinion with much merit. I envy how much content you have to do, where I have played this for a decade. The new patch will be a day or two of new content, outside of the gated weekly lock out for the 24man or if I want to climb pvp ranks after that I will be back to nothing to really do in the game again.

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Its okay if you don't like or agree with my opinion xD but it really doesn't change the fact that I pretty much have became you, in the sense of "there's nothing much to do rn except wait because I done it all" If I did not take all my leave to play FF14 from ARR till EW, I would have probably enjoyed FF14 more and for longer too. I literally just finished that tasty and expensive block of cheese and now I don't have nothing good to eat no more.

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Now I know what people are going to say Yoshi P says to take breaks. At the same time, is it a good sign that I want to play the game, but I am taking a break because there is nothing in it for me to do? Should I come back from a break play the game two days only to go back to a break because the lack of content longevity? How is that healthy for the game?

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In the case for my short experience so far, if I were to pace my play I would have gotten more value from the enjoyment I should be getting when playing a game. In the context of Yoshi P saying its ok to take breaks, I'm sure its just the Japanese way of being polite that they can only put out that much content humanly possible. Using Bozja as an example, my bro told me I could get it all done in 3 days tops in the context of me utilizing my work leave however when I tried to break it down to my normal routine, would prolly take me a month or so :/

Another point of view is that in relation of entertainment sources and its value, a 90 minute movie takes maybe 4 years to produce and costs $15 where I live. The 2 year FF14 content costs me $13 for 30 days of play and looking at the quarterly content release cycle, I'd only need to sub for 6 months max to play the entirety of endwalker and its expansions since I'm never keeping up with the Jones on content while Lost Ark cost only time. I'd prolly be grinding in Lost Ark for 2 years for ungodly hours everyday to hit endgame as a free player.

1/3

The value for playing FF14 is still good in relation to other forms of entertainment to fill my work life balance. Of course its always better to receive more than you bargained for but the limitations of story based MMO is apparent because its just difficult to put in content that doesn't jive with the story in anyway at all and realistically corporations would want to maximize their production costs against the customers perceived value. SE could prolly go the grindy content route for players that only play FF14 since it doesn't require as much time and resources for cinematics and worldbuilding but that would prolly cause another outrage of SE cheating players with grindy content :/

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Don't come at me with the just cause the content isn't for you doesn't mean it isn't content either, cause that's just a childish excuse no brainer excuse you can make about any piece of content. Who defends a game having less content it just blows my mind people will defend this. Not saying you did but just in general this community is just so mind blowingly shallow.

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Well realistically in any product in the market, corporations would want to maximize profits at minimum cost. While its evident SE do attempt to bloat play time with slight inconveniences its not as major as the industry standard. It's as good as it gets, most Japanese are overworked and I'm sure the dev team in SE is no different that the average salaryman in Japan. I can empathize with humans doing what's humanly possible for their corporations to make money and then it trickles down back to them. :D

2/3

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The game needs a better focal point

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Seeing how content transition over expansions so far I doubt SE would act against the majority target market to which we wouldnt know. I enjoy online play with other people, after all its an MMO and that comes with a social aspect but to those that just want to play FF14 like any other non FF11 titles, they should get that chance to be fair and who knows? these JRPG players may eventually meld into the robust MMO community later on :D

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It is also a huge amount of work, and money to make this work during a time where this game has hit a huge peak in player count where those resources could be allocated to more content..

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I'm pretty sure that the 2 year development cycle of each expansion release were planned ahead and minor tweaking done as needed. The content release have to be staggered or there will be content drought in the 2nd month of every expansion release till the next 2 year development cycle is completed . I took 3 weeks leave to play FF14 because its 10 years worth of content, if SE told me they are releasing 2 year worth of content tomorrow, I'll be on a week leave to finish all of it and then I can complaint there's nothing else to play in this game for the remainder of my sub. xD

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SE should not detract the current game play for the current players for a group of players that likely are not going to jump ship onto this game

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Undying loyalty to brands is a thing of the past, very few people still suggest having an AMEX when you travel and the reason is the competition is tight, margins are tight, player's time is tight. The changes on expansion content seem to reflect a cohesiveness to the greater entertainment market, dominance in market is no longer possible lol evident as streaming services toppling Hollywood, Adult entertainment, music and etc. I personally believe the costs to ensure continuous dominance is not worthwhile as consumers will always look for the most value in everything eg watching netflix while doing roulettes, eating/cooking while watching tiktok, netflix and chill, listening to curiosity stream podcasts while working and more. SE would prolly aim to be an entertainment source you can have when you want, instead of in your face best game ever play me or else! It may seem counter productive but this is as good as it gets for the health any product. People don't like being told anything xD

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By all means, I would love people to give me 3 reasons

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Well that's a question you know nobody can answer xD but in relation to FF14, its much more complicated than that as brands enjoying primacy all these while can be cancelled overnight but thats the nature of things lol

Anyway I'm sure SE would love to add that thing you love and want over time as resources and time are made available. I'm glad the 10 year content I blaze thru did not have as much bloat as I expected :D

3/3

It's definitely a problem in the long run . Thing is in this community it's some what of a forbidden thing to talk to people as it is. Now you can join the many active communitys In the game ,that 100% exist on discord onlly.but there no one big FF14 one in game as SE never did 1 thing for it to be a thing. Now they do things that never let it be a thing as well.

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Originally Posted by hagare

slow down.
You're gonna hurt yourself.
Enjoy the experience.
Take in the sights.
The journey is as good as the goal.

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That is true! I regret approaching the game initially to just "defeat" it with the goal I can beat the game before my leave ends and now I am the same with people that complaints there's nothing to do in game except wait for 6.1 xD

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Originally Posted by Lunalepsy

It's not even an MMO anymore at this point.

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To be fair, no MMO element was taken away, only the element of solo is added tho? Maybe that part where we cant gang up 8 on 1 Lahabrea any longer xD

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

To be fair, no MMO element was taken away, only the element of solo is added tho? Maybe that part where we cant gang up 8 on 1 Lahabrea any longer xD

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Correct me if im wrong but arent castrum prae westwind etc now only done solo?

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Seeing how content transition over expansions so far I doubt SE would act against the majority target market to which we wouldnt know. I enjoy online play with other people, after all its an MMO and that comes with a social aspect but to those that just want to play FF14 like any other non FF11 titles, they should get that chance to be fair and who knows? these JRPG players may eventually meld into the robust MMO community later on :D

Undying loyalty to brands is a thing of the past

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Love the detailed response, I can agree and disagree on various things, but these are two that stick out that I would prefer to discuss in light of this thread topic at least. Sadly the reasons why I think the focal point of adding a more solo experience to the game to attract more JRPS fans into FFXIV is two big issues that I feel SE has not really thought through. A large majority of players choose not to play a MMO not because of a social aspect but because they do not like the MMO game play (tab target system). Another large majority of players and FF fans would also opt out due to the monthly subscription fee. So although it is possible to get some new players through this route, it is not going to be a large profit margin in the grand scheme, and would be a even better profit margin, if this game were in a dying state which it isn't. This sort of target market just looks like poor decision to try and make quick profit. If I really had to guess, I think SE is ready to try and milk FFXIV and dial back that budget very hard, at what would be the worst time to do.


To the part I have bolded, you clearly have not seen this games player base.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

To be fair, no MMO element was taken away, only the element of solo is added tho? Maybe that part where we cant gang up 8 on 1 Lahabrea any longer xD

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Sorry wanted to respond to this as well, I will say over time this game has catered more towards the casual and more solo oriented players, and classes have been changed to appease this. So both MMO and RPG elements have been taken away as the classes get more homogenized for casual play at the loss of class identity.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

This is, first and foremost, in Yoshi-P's own words, "a numbered Final Fantasy". That makes it a game whose primary goal is to tell a story, and there are Final Fantasy fans both new and old who want to play it for that story. So do I begrudge a developer, whose lifelong dream has been to tell a story in one of Square's flagship RPGs, for taking steps to make sure more people can enjoy that story, even people who don't want to take what they might perceive as a gamble by subjecting themselves to unpredictable social experiences? Not at all.

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This statement can be taken onlly if they did not fucked up the story so bad in end walker. They smashed at last 2 if not 3bexpansions in to 1 rushing all the plot point to show a new bad girl taken out of no where. To ultimately not even have an effect on the game world. So care for the story my ass.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Love the detailed response, I can agree and disagree on various things, but these are two that stick out that I would prefer to discuss in light of this thread topic at least. Sadly the reasons why I think the focal point of adding a more solo experience to the game to attract more JRPS fans into FFXIV is two big issues that I feel SE has not really thought through. A large majority of players choose not to play a MMO not because of a social aspect but because they do not like the MMO game play (tab target system). Another large majority of players and FF fans would also opt out due to the monthly subscription fee. So although it is possible to get some new players through this route, it is not going to be a large profit margin in the grand scheme, and would be a even better profit margin, if this game were in a dying state which it isn't. This sort of target market just looks like poor decision to try and make quick profit. If I really had to guess, I think SE is ready to try and milk FFXIV and dial back that budget very hard, at what would be the worst time to do.

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Dark times my friend! if there's a way to get some money in for the business they gotta do it or risk an unhealthy career. I felt FF14 would be much better if it has been another episode in the FF universe, making it a monthly sub force it to diverge from its form. If FF7 or anything were to be made a sub based game, it would suffer the exact same problems as FF14. I can imagine Yoshi P is told to increase a certain metric by the board, that's why the team decide to rope in solo JRPG players since its not far off from the FF14 base, occasionally "forcing" xD content with other players hopefully to win them over to the MMO aspect of FF14. Core problem of everything really is corporations expect infinite growth with finite resources but that's another topic not suitable here xD

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To the part I have bolded, you clearly have not seen this games player base.

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Its evident thru this forum, ingame lore explained to me in detail in game and how there are Ultimate/Savage raiders looking to help people in party finder complete normal content xD The remaining few unpaid brand ambassadors is rare in the whole entertainment business tho as circles of friends downsize over time and new shiny thing keeps popping up lol

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Correct me if im wrong but arent castrum prae westwind etc now only done solo?

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Oof Im not sure really, my understanding is that Lahabrea is a solo instance, cape westwind is removed completely? and castrum + prae is downsized to 4 person duty? xD

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Core problem of everything really is corporations expect infinite growth with finite resources but that's another topic not suitable here xD

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Sadly it is not suitable for here, but I do think for this thread it is actually pretty on topic.

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I will say over time this game has catered more towards the casual and more solo oriented players, and classes have been changed to appease this. So both MMO and RPG elements have been taken away as the classes get more homogenized for casual play at the loss of class identity.

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Well we know the reason why tho although I believe nothing really essential was taken away from the old ways since the button condensation is just to make room for more skills as the game code allows xD Mathematically, pressing 1-2-3 or 1-1-1 still takes the same amount of effort and repetition tho. 1 to = is 12 buttons but if 3 actions are condensed each, that's a whopping 36 button potential which would be important to maximize high end duties clears but to the average solo player for the story only where pressing 1 to = is sufficient shouldn't have bothered anyone really. Everyone wins actually? xD

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Well we know the reason why tho although I believe nothing really essential was taken away from the old ways since the button condensation is just to make room for more skills as the game code allows xD Mathematically, pressing 1-2-3 or 1-1-1 still takes the same amount of effort and repetition tho. 1 to = is 12 buttons but if 3 actions are condensed each, that's a whopping 36 button potential which would be important to maximize high end duties clears but to the average solo player for the story only where pressing 1 to = is sufficient shouldn't have bothered anyone really. Everyone wins actually? xD

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Healers would disagree. To quote myself on the issue with button bloat and how it is being handled from a different thread.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Now you are right more buttons doesn't always mean more complex, but it also depends on what those buttons do. Remember my stance dance thing, it was one less button but it made a huge difference in tank identity and a huge cut to over all game play for tanks specifically. So yes you are right more buttons does not matter no one will argue this game just needs more buttons like why can't my combo be 18 hits instead of 3. It is more about what those buttons do and how they function in the class specifically that matters. Many of the buttons that have been getting cut have been very vital to many classes identity as a whole and that is where the problem lies. So stop talking about the amount of buttons that is not what the complaints are about, it's about the specific buttons.

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So yeah changing 1-2-3 to 1-1-1 isn't really the what many players are upset about, it's when buttons that made the class diverse and gave it an identity are removed which causes the issue. Believe me I have complained about why devilment does not turn into starfall dance like technical finish and tilana, hypercharge to heatblast, ikkoshoten to ogi namikiri the list can go on. But instead we are getting other skills tapered off that gave some of these classes an identity? They also have made weird decisions where some skills upgrade and replace skills while others do not, good example is shoha and shoha 2, hissatsu: gurren can and hissatsu: senei could have easily had it's level swapped and been a simple upgrade. And yes these are single target vs AOE, but so many skills now do X amount of damage to your target and Y amount of AOE damage to everything else.

Developing solo-friendliness even for an mmo should be a standard. Because as much as people would like the game to be endless there will always come a point where there is suddenly too few players to consistently participate in cooperative content and/or the servers gets shut down and therefore they already got a backup system they can use to still sell this as a product and art-piece.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Healers would disagree. To quote myself on the issue with button bloat and how it is being handled from a different thread.

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Since I started this game as a healer where I don't get the to experience the difference in muscle memory I think its ok so far and accepted as is xD I guess SE could improve the heal potency and cooldown of some skills to change more gcd heals to gcd dps skills? Maybe a compromise of when used on friendly target = heal, on unfriendly target = damage? I guess I cant see the issue yet on my end since Glare, Dia and Afflatus Misery seem smooth in normal play with cleansing, mitigation and healing but maybe in a perfect play comp where there's not much healing needed unless raidwide its super boring xD

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So yeah changing 1-2-3 to 1-1-1 isn't really the what many players are upset about, it's when buttons that made the class diverse and gave it an identity are removed which causes the issue. Believe me I have complained about why devilment does not turn into starfall dance like technical finish and tilana, hypercharge to heatblast, ikkoshoten to ogi namikiri the list can go on. But instead we are getting other skills tapered off that gave some of these classes an identity? They also have made weird decisions where some skills upgrade and replace skills while others do not, good example is shoha and shoha 2, hissatsu: gurren can and hissatsu: senei could have easily had it's level swapped and been a simple upgrade. And yes these are single target vs AOE, but so many skills now do X amount of damage to your target and Y amount of AOE damage to everything else.

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I dont know any of those skills nor have been here long enough to know a job's identity:p I saw on the ff14 site there's pure healers and barrier healers, are these the identity thing? I've only play summoner as a pure dps class so far and it does summon stuff to deal damage lol Hmm might it be nostalgia?

Too many similar skills would be boring to play, so far I've only really play the following jobs.White mage vs Astrologian and Darknight vs Gunbreaker, every skill feels different tho? No doubt every job have their basic single and aoe rotation. Although I notice darknight get's their aoe combo at a later level from the average tank skill :/ is this a remnant from the job identity you might be referring to?

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

That is true! I regret approaching the game initially to just "defeat" it with the goal I can beat the game before my leave ends and now I am the same with people that complaints there's nothing to do in game except wait for 6.1 xD

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just like how people have said. It's okay to play other games when you're bored.
It'll be here when you come back.
*looking at my backlog*
yeah.... I should probably do that too.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Well we know the reason why tho although I believe nothing really essential was taken away from the old ways since the button condensation is just to make room for more skills as the game code allows xD Mathematically, pressing 1-2-3 or 1-1-1 still takes the same amount of effort and repetition tho. 1 to = is 12 buttons but if 3 actions are condensed each, that's a whopping 36 button potential which would be important to maximize high end duties clears but to the average solo player for the story only where pressing 1 to = is sufficient shouldn't have bothered anyone really. Everyone wins actually? xD

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the amount of objections in the other thread shows otherwise.
Even though doing it this way won't change rotations. Won't change APM. Only the placements.
Hell, it might even have saved kaiten xD

But eh. SE's gonna streamline anyway.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Developing solo-friendliness even for an mmo should be a standard. Because as much as people would like the game to be endless there will always come a point where there is suddenly too few players to consistently participate in cooperative content and/or the servers gets shut down and therefore they already got a backup system they can use to still sell this as a product and art-piece.

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That would be good business sense to continue monetization of their products and its always the deep lore of the world that ensure it continue to be profitable eg D&D, LotR, SW and more xD

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Originally Posted by hagare

just like how people have said. It's okay to play other games when you're bored.
It'll be here when you come back.
*looking at my backlog*
yeah.... I should probably do that too.

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IM GUILTY. Part of me is nooooooo 24 hour maintainence and part of me is like phew its finally time to play warhammer3 that I preordered a few months ago xD

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Oof Im not sure really, my understanding is that Lahabrea is a solo instance, cape westwind is removed completely? and castrum + prae is downsized to 4 person duty? xD

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Westwind is a solo instance, Castrum is a 4-man dungeon, Prae is a 4-man dungeon that ends with Gaius, Ultima is a trial, and Lahabrea is another solo instance

@OP: i think that making the game solo-friendly is fine, so that people who just want to be here for the (really good) story can do so without any pressures if they want, as well as providing a sort of layer of protection against the game winding down--when expansion 12 comes out and people dont want to boost to level 150 and have no earthly idea what's going on, and all pre-EW content is so ancient that queues are eternally empty (like trying to actually regularly queue for coils right now), or if the game shifts to maintenance mode when the next SQEX final fantasy mmo is inevitably released and the playerbase largely dies out here (barring some catastrophic incident like 1.0). it's a great final fantasy game, full stop, the MMO part is secondary there.

of course the tradeoff there is that it sure does open the door to further disregarding some gameplay issues--queues taking forever because healers not fun and nobody's playing them (or because we hit a 12:1:1 role ratio by expansion 8 and dps are now entirely oversaturated)? just do the content solo! unless you want to solo as BLU, in which case we must politely ask you to leave the building.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Since I started this game as a healer where I don't get the to experience the difference in muscle memory I think its ok so far and accepted as is xD I guess SE could improve the heal potency and cooldown of some skills to change more gcd heals to gcd dps skills? Maybe a compromise of when used on friendly target = heal, on unfriendly target = damage? I guess I cant see the issue yet on my end since Glare, Dia and Afflatus Misery seem smooth in normal play with cleansing, mitigation and healing but maybe in a perfect play comp where there's not much healing needed unless raidwide its super boring xD

I dont know any of those skills nor have been here long enough to know a job's identity:p I saw on the ff14 site there's pure healers and barrier healers, are these the identity thing? I've only play summoner as a pure dps class so far and it does summon stuff to deal damage lol Hmm might it be nostalgia?

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See your knowledge is a bit limited on the subject as a whole, which is why I said many opinions you have do not hold as much merit. Barrier healers and pure healers is essentially new to this expansion, and was another step of homogenization between the classes. Astrologian, use to have two different stances, one which provided regens, and one that provided barriers. The card system was completely different from what it is now, where most cards now improve damage on x and y roles, they used to apply different buffs so would have to think as to who would benefit most from the differing buffs. It was a very support oriented healer compared to the other healers and had a lot of spell speed buffs for itself to cast fast. Scholar used to have a large part of summoners kit, which is not the kit it has currently. It was a very high DPS healer that also provided shields and direct heals from it's fairy (which also provided various buffs to dps and to healing as well). WHM used to be a very strong single target and aoe healer, with dots and direct damage spells that was never expanded upon. Biggest problem, is most of your healers simply heal through OGCDs, and the content doesn't promote much healing outside of raid wide healing which like you said is super boring. It has been a problem for several expansions now which is why a lot of healers are fed up.

Job identity can be a little more complicated to really dive into with out getting into specifics. A good example is summoner right now has a pretty good identity as a summoner, but its identity used to be a dot mage. Now I think the direction they have moved in summoner is good, but its game play has taken major steps backwards.
Machinest, is now the pure ranged DPS with no buffs, summons a robot and uses various random tools to blast enemies with. This class use to actually be a ranged class that provided a bit of damage buff support with various turrets, and relied on a ammo system to increase the damage of there attacks and make them combo into other attacks. Machinest has also always had a heat gauge but it served a different purpose than it does now. The current heat gauge builds up and you dump it on heat blasts pretty boring. The old gauge would buff your skills and damage based off the heat level while guass barrel was on (ie 10 heat was a 10% damage buff). When the gauge was between 50 - 100 heat your skills would upgrade to stronger skills, once the gun would over heat, you would keep the 100% damage buff for about 10 seconds before the gun would cool off and gauss barrel would be unusable for 10 seconds. I know in heavensward you had to actually reactive gauss barrel after each over heat, I can't remember if you had to in Stormblood.

Most of the tanks used to have a specific identity as well which came from there tank and dps stances. For tank stances Warrior would get increased health, increased healing. Paladin and Dark Knight would take reduced damage and all tank stances would reduce damage dealt. Warrior specifically also had different skills based on the stances. For DPS stance, Warrior would get increased damage, as well as build stacks (later gauge) that would also increase it's crit stance but could be dumped on Fell Cleave for high damage (the stacks and gauge was built in both stances but provided a parry buff in tank stance IIRC). Paladin dps stance would cause there auto attacks to double attack. Darkknight dps stance would increase it's damage by 15% IIRC and was usable while tank stance was on. Dark Knight also played much more differently as it had to manage MP due to it's dps stance halting MP regeneration and slowly draining it as well. It hard a skill called Dark Arts which would buff up various skills at the cost of a large chunk of mp. Gun Breaker never really had stance identity attached to it, as it came after DPS stances was removed and tank stance was turned into emnity generation on / off. I guess Gun Breaker can be the lots of combos tank.

I could go on and how these classes used to play and how they are now, but I wanted to give a couple specific examples some you may be familiar with some you may not be to help you understand why people don't like the pruning and want class identity and engagement back. As you can clearly kind of see where that engagement fell off as pruning and reworks happened, and it is really a matter of opinion as to which versions were better. Personally I preferred the older versions of most of the classes.

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Originally Posted by SpiralMask

@OP: i think that making the game solo-friendly is fine, so that people who just want to be here for the (really good) story can do so without any pressures if they want, as well as providing a sort of layer of protection against the game winding down--when expansion 12 comes out and people dont want to boost to level 150 and have no earthly idea what's going on, and all pre-EW content is so ancient that queues are eternally empty (like trying to actually regularly queue for coils right now), or if the game shifts to maintenance mode when the next SQEX final fantasy mmo is inevitably released and the playerbase largely dies out here (barring some catastrophic incident like 1.0). it's a great final fantasy game, full stop, the MMO part is secondary there.

of course the tradeoff there is that it sure does open the door to further disregarding some gameplay issues--queues taking forever because healers not fun and nobody's playing them (or because we hit a 12:1:1 role ratio by expansion 8 and dps are now entirely oversaturated)? just do the content solo! unless you want to solo as BLU, in which case we must politely ask you to leave the building.

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"Really good story"....

Reeaalllyyyyy

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Personally I preferred the older versions of most of the classes.

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And this is what the entire argument boils down to ... personal preference.

Tanks were not designed to move in and out of Tank Stance, players found a way to make it work and called it 'complexity'.

Healers were not designed to move in and out of Cleric Stance, players found a way to make it work and called it 'complexity'

Some people really enjoyed that unintended style of play. Others did not. The people who enjoyed it look nostalgically on the heydey of those classes, mostly those who played Heavensward when the expansion came out.

The problem is that only a small number of players can actually pull off that kind of 'complexity'. The rest reverted to DPS, since 'pew-pew' is relatively uncomplicated. The complicated playstyle many veterans on the forums fondly recall became less complicated because of changes to the tank and healer classes to encourage DPS players to work on those sorts of jobs.

What all of that has to do with Solo Friendly trusts is anyone's guess.

I will point out that SE has stats on how many people leveled alts through Trusts in Shadowbringers and came to some conclusions about its utility that inevitably led to its current direction. This includes many posts on these very forums about how it should be used to replace the MSQ roulette.

It's the players that have chosen to make FFXIV a more solo focused game.

If you just try to run through the dungeons as fast as possible, without even stopping to say hi or comment on someone's ridiculous/cool glam, and dont even comm when its over whats the difference if its done with all NPCs?

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Originally Posted by Broken_Wind

It's the players that have chosen to make FFXIV a more solo focused game.

If you just try to run through the dungeons as fast as possible, without even stopping to say hi or comment on someone's ridiculous/cool glam, and dont even comm when its over whats the difference if its done with all NPCs?

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The complexity of the dungeons becoming braindead is not the same as not talking when in/out of a instanced area. There are THOUSANDS of socially inept players in this game, I'm sure there are many in their number dissatisfied with the current state of the game and the direction in which it's heading...

I prefer the solo experience.

Why:

I play mostly at night when my kids are in bed. Queues are always 30+ minutes and party finder is dead.

As a hands-on player, trusts and solo play gives me a chance to learn content without having to waste anyone else's time or patience.

This gives me a chance to learn content AND classes at my own pace.

There's some days where I'm just so burnt out from the grind of the normal day, I just want to sit back and hit things and not deal with anyone else. There's only so much socializing a person can do before they snap. When the game becomes a chore, it's not fun anymore.

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

IM GUILTY. Part of me is nooooooo 24 hour maintainence and part of me is like phew its finally time to play warhammer3 that I preordered a few months ago xD

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I'm finally getting to paint that Tifa garage kit that's sitting in the cubby next to me.. Whoops!

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Originally Posted by cactusbees

I prefer the solo experience.

Why:

I play mostly at night when my kids are in bed. Queues are always 30+ minutes and party finder is dead.

As a hands-on player, trusts and solo play gives me a chance to learn content without having to waste anyone else's time or patience.

This gives me a chance to learn content AND classes at my own pace.

There's some days where I'm just so burnt out from the grind of the normal day, I just want to sit back and hit things and not deal with anyone else. There's only so much socializing a person can do before they snap. When the game becomes a chore, it's not fun anymore.

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Yes it sounds like you main DPS characters so the queues are tough. I am hoping most of the raids get converted to Trusts as I love soloing content and taking my time. Multiplayer is required for leveling characters quickly.

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Originally Posted by cactusbees

I prefer the solo experience.

Why:

I play mostly at night when my kids are in bed. Queues are always 30+ minutes and party finder is dead.

As a hands-on player, trusts and solo play gives me a chance to learn content without having to waste anyone else's time or patience.

This gives me a chance to learn content AND classes at my own pace.

There's some days where I'm just so burnt out from the grind of the normal day, I just want to sit back and hit things and not deal with anyone else. There's only so much socializing a person can do before they snap. When the game becomes a chore, it's not fun anymore.

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This is a great example and I'm glad you've found your niche. If I may ask though, does the "hands on" aspect include doing literally anything other than trust dungeons or are you specifically logging in to complete your dailies and log off?

If so, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for the dev team to create a more "ASMR chill experience" that some players can hop in and out of, while the other side has their complexity, difficult content and general "more high energy" environments. The Dev team seem to enjoy wasting their time on things like Hrothgar Ear-less hair for example, why not create a new game++ where this is possible?

I haven't read through the thread yet but I, for one, am happy with the changes. I'd rather just play with a Trust system in as much content as possible than to have to deal with a majority of the community I always seem partnered up with in group content.

At least normal dungeons is fine, I for one would like a deeper npc system kind of like it is in ffxi. Raids, trials and of course pvp should be only with other players imo.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

And this is what the entire argument boils down to ... personal preference.

Tanks were not designed to move in and out of Tank Stance, players found a way to make it work and called it 'complexity'.

Healers were not designed to move in and out of Cleric Stance, players found a way to make it work and called it 'complexity'

Some people really enjoyed that unintended style of play. Others did not. The people who enjoyed it look nostalgically on the heydey of those classes, mostly those who played Heavensward when the expansion came out.

The problem is that only a small number of players can actually pull off that kind of 'complexity'. The rest reverted to DPS, since 'pew-pew' is relatively uncomplicated. The complicated playstyle many veterans on the forums fondly recall became less complicated because of changes to the tank and healer classes to encourage DPS players to work on those sorts of jobs.

What all of that has to do with Solo Friendly trusts is anyone's guess.

I will point out that SE has stats on how many people leveled alts through Trusts in Shadowbringers and came to some conclusions about its utility that inevitably led to its current direction. This includes many posts on these very forums about how it should be used to replace the MSQ roulette.

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Underlined: This is completely incorrect as tanks are still designed to move in and out of tank stance. There was just more of a benefit to doing this correctly and optimally than now as it would improve DPS output. Now the only benefit to doing this optimally is not stealing threat off the other tank which is the primary reason you even stance danced to begin with.

Italic: Healers were designed to move in and out of cleric stance as fights used to have much tighter DPS checks. These were removed and healers gutted of DPS skills and given and overwhelming amount of healing skills that are not needed to actually heal the outgoing damage in most content thus making the classes less interesting. View healer forums for more information.

Bold: Where is the evidence of this? Unless SE comes out and makes a statement on this, this is nothing more than a hypothesis.

The problem was never that a small number of players can pull off that kind of complexity. It was normal to do these things back then. The real problem is to many players are lazy and entitled and do not feel they need to put forth any effort to learn to play the game and just want a carry through the content. Respect other peoples time learn to play the game and quit making BS excuses for your lazy entitlement.

But. on the bright side you all will have your solo mode so the majority of us that want to play this game, won't have to deal with you much longer.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

This is, first and foremost, in Yoshi-P's own words, "a numbered Final Fantasy". That makes it a game whose primary goal is to tell a story, and there are Final Fantasy fans both new and old who want to play it for that story. So do I begrudge a developer, whose lifelong dream has been to tell a story in one of Square's flagship RPGs, for taking steps to make sure more people can enjoy that story, even people who don't want to take what they might perceive as a gamble by subjecting themselves to unpredictable social experiences? Not at all.

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I agree with you the story is the game and I loved every moment, but the crafting noises I cannot take and as soon as I hear them I leave. Yes I can turn off the special effects but I have to do that every time I see someone crafting. My ears simply cannot take the punishment and id rather be alone.

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Originally Posted by sagacious

I agree with you the story is the game and I loved every moment, but the crafting noises I cannot take and as soon as I hear them I leave. Yes I can turn off the special effects but I have to do that every time I see someone crafting. My ears simply cannot take the punishment and id rather be alone.

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As a max crafter, lately I have been feeling this way about hearing those noises. I tend to just leave the area :( But this is a ME problem and I know that.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Italic: Healers were designed to move in and out of cleric stance as fights used to have much tighter DPS checks. These were removed and healers gutted of DPS skills and given and overwhelming amount of healing skills that are not needed to actually heal the outgoing damage in most content thus making the classes less interesting. View healer forums for more information.

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While I agree with you on tanks, this part is not true. Yoshi-P has been saying for years that healers weren’t meant to go hard on DPS. He said as much in an interview 5 years back with Mr Happy and in a separate one the same year he talked about how he personally hated cleric stance. Then again, he said it wasn’t going away in the same interview, but it ended up going away anyway. The main problem with healers is that the combat team hasn’t found a way to make healing interesting.

Just because people used things in a certain way doesn’t mean it was intended that way. Ninja and Samurai were used completely differently by players in FFXI than how they were designed, for example.

Ehh depends how far they take it msq sure let them solo it with some forced multi-player sprinked in or not but should stay there mist mmos you can solo the main story at least alot of it and we have it now in current msq so won't change anything but if they branch out beyond that much yeah be defeating the purpose of an mmo

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Originally Posted by sagacious

I agree with you the story is the game and I loved every moment, but the crafting noises I cannot take and as soon as I hear them I leave. Yes I can turn off the special effects but I have to do that every time I see someone crafting. My ears simply cannot take the punishment and id rather be alone.

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They should add a crafting noise toggle by its self

I agree that in an MMO the people around plays a viable part in the gaming experience.
But it's also not uncommon that people might not want to be forced to group up with others in content.
And I'm ofc thinking of all the Tank/Healer anxiety at first.
That people feel pressure of performing more than what they might feel comfortable with.
However, I do think in general that without obstacles people won't learn to get over them.
Making games easier just makes people make less effort and from that people become more sentitive to pressure.
So to make it even easier the option in MMOs to be able to do more and more content alone becomes a norm.

just my own 5 cents.

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Originally Posted by Xavier_Firbold

This is a great example and I'm glad you've found your niche. If I may ask though, does the "hands on" aspect include doing literally anything other than trust dungeons or are you specifically logging in to complete your dailies and log off?

If so, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for the dev team to create a more "ASMR chill experience" that some players can hop in and out of, while the other side has their complexity, difficult content and general "more high energy" environments. The Dev team seem to enjoy wasting their time on things like Hrothgar Ear-less hair for example, why not create a new game++ where this is possible?

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Not at all! I like to try various duties, because I know I suck pretty hard at this game. If I get annoyed enough at a class, I'll switch over to crafting and try to level one of those or try and work on the recipes for completion. If the mood hits, I'll take a peek at Party Finder and find someone who needs help with completing something and hop in, so they have a body to try and get through what they need. Obviously, this isn't something that appeals to everyone, but for someone with limited time, it's nice. There's also always new things to see in explorer mode. The maps are stunning when you have time to slow down and check them out and don't have someone pulling wall to wall.