Do you ever think about how people play games to escape yet...

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Originally Posted by Melorie

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.

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I prefer the challenge to come from the unique mechanics of the battle and what I see happening on the screen, not from learning a fixed sequence of buttons that you need to perform the same way every time.

It's why I like red mage, where at every turn you just need to do an action based on the current state of your gauge.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I prefer the challenge to come from the unique mechanics of the battle and what I see happening on the screen, not from learning a fixed sequence of buttons that you need to perform the same way every time.

It's why I like red mage, where at every turn you just need to do an action based on the current state of your gauge.

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As I said, taste. I enjoy the fights and the mechanics as well but with how syncing and powercapping works in this game there's very little available when it comes to that. At least a rotation that keeps you involved can save you from a boring fight, that ends up being a huge amount of the game if you're not doing current-content, which is the vast majority of the game. Even the cool fights with interesting mechanics end up meaningless.

Imo I don't see the reason why we can't have both tbh.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

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I feel like some of this explains a lot of what I was feeling. This game feels like a massive creative outlet for all sorts of things and I'm not against it. I appreciate a lot of the different works that comes out of it. It just sometimes feels really overwhelming.

Here's some background on myself I came from a really old game/virtual space called IMVU. I was on there for 3-4 years but at some point it just started dying, and I end up following other people here. I had a trial account for a long while but I wasn't really into this like I am now, but that was also partly due to me being in the phase of going from secondary school to college. When I came back and tried I had more time to spend on it and I actually got into it.

Even coming from IMVU though it's a bit of a culture shock it feels? It's way more cliquey, and it feels weird that people focus so much on purely social stuff when there's activities that you can actually do. A lot of people don't even feel like they're that interested in the game either. You go into any FF14 discord and you find people talking about other games or literally anything else but the game. I've joined specialized discords for different group activities in-game and I've had people in there literally tell me they don't play the game anymore.

There's nothing wrong with people being social, and people can do it however they like, but I guess it's just coming down to a case of me not feel like I fit in. Even if I hadn't gained a taste for playing the actual game and enjoyed doing the content in it, I still don't really think I'd have fit in with the super social cliques on here.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

Even coming from IMVU though it's a bit of a culture shock it feels? It's way more cliquey, and it feels weird that people focus so much on purely social stuff when there's activities that you can actually do. A lot of people don't even feel like they're that interested in the game either. You go into any FF14 discord and you find people talking about other games or literally anything else but the game. I've joined specialized discords for different group activities in-game and I've had people in there literally tell me they don't play the game anymore.

There's nothing wrong with people being social, and people can do it however they like, but I guess it's just coming down to a case of me not feel like I fit in. Even if I hadn't gained a taste for playing the actual game and enjoyed doing the content in it, I still don't really think I'd have fit in with the super social cliques on here.

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This probably has a lot to do with lockdowns, tbh. Although it became more and more prominent with the democratization of mods/add-ons/shaders, I feel like Vyrerus was right when he said a majority of players are not gamers.

IMVU was, in the social circles I've been in, pretty frowned upon, and I mean no offense in that, I never despised it myself, but people around me always thought it was weird, self centric, or creepy. With lockdowns happening, social events came to an halt, so many people turned to ffxiv for those (hence the nightclubs). The society also became much more focused on... self-representation, with instagram and such. So yeah, basically, FFXIV became the cooler IMVU, but in a society that focuses much more on what made IMVU great.

Regarding the fact that FFXIV discord servers don't talk that much about FFXIV... I can't disagree, and I really don't like those discord for that reason, but I still found some nice communities that got me what I asked for, raids, advice, whatever. It's just a mess to navigate within, but it's the same as FCs, you just can't always find the right one right away. If there is a right one.

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Originally Posted by Melorie

I feel like you've summarized it perfectly.



Regardless of your personal experience, this is by far the MMO where I have meet the biggest amount of people that barely plays other games. Or other MMOS. It's actually a curious thing about it. And many of them don't really care about the gameplay aspect, at all. They sub because they have this social experience.

There are probably people that aren't like that, obviously, but that doesn't really exclude the point.

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.

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To be fair, i'm sure they are talking about the basic combos that most melees have. Funny enough, the _____ that the person is talking about doesn't really mess with dancer too much, just consolidates the basic combos into a single button. I'm shocked that the devs don't just add that to the game imo. They complain about button bloat and that would remove a minimum of two buttons for most melee jobs, lol.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

To be fair, i'm sure they are talking about the basic combos that most melees have. Funny enough, the _____ that the person is talking about doesn't really mess with dancer too much, just consolidates the basic combos into a single button. I'm shocked that the devs don't just add that to the game imo. They complain about button bloat and that would remove a minimum of two buttons for most melee jobs, lol.

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I see. I'm not familiar with melee gameplay. I'm a healer main so I can attest to tendinitis by pressing 1 button 80% of the gameplay in the majority content of the game.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

There's a massive crowd of people on FF14 that seem determined to bring real life aspects to the game?

A huge part of ffxiv's culture is gpose, but there's such an obession over it that it's almost like being on instagram. I haven't looked at my insta since the pandemic ended, but I was recently thinking and it just hit me that FFXIV is basically virtual insta at this point.

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Or they openly talk about their irl issues & drama
like, please I didn't log on to learn this crap. it's probably why I have no friends but I'm here to do video game stuff

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Originally Posted by HeyMcFly

Or they openly talk about their irl issues & drama
like, please I didn't log on to learn this crap. it's probably why I have no friends but I'm here to do video game stuff

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But isn't that how you make friends? Do you strive to have like a separation as of "gaming friends" and "real life friends"? I have meet many amazing people through FFXIV (and other MMOS), that are now part of my life. That's the beauty of social games.
At some point you can't talk about the game anylonger. There isn't even that amount of things to talk.
You're going to talk about the roulette every week? That sounds so boring.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

There's a massive crowd of people on FF14 that seem determined to bring real life aspects to the game?

A huge part of ffxiv's culture is gpose, but there's such an obession over it that it's almost like being on instagram. I haven't looked at my insta since the pandemic ended, but I was recently thinking and it just hit me that FFXIV is basically virtual insta at this point.

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In a way, both are the same thing:

- Instagram is a social, virtual, network to share pictures. Some or most of them are full of filters, editions, etc.
- In game gpose is a social, virtual, network to share pictures. Some or most of them are full of filters, editions, etc.

The only difference is the model. In the first one are people trying to avoid their visual flaws aspects. In the second are people behind a character made ingame. (joking) :3 )

What I mean is: instagram and MMO are both virtual sharing stuff about someone or something someone is doing. No wonder why they have similarities. Of course, Instagram is more close to real life than MMOs, but both are virtual environments with not-so-real people. :)

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Originally Posted by Melorie

But isn't that how you make friends? Do you strive to have like a separation as of "gaming friends" and "real life friends"? I have meet many amazing people through FFXIV (and other MMOS), that are now part of my life. That's the beauty of social games.
At some point you can't talk about the game anylonger. There isn't even that amount of things to talk.
You're going to talk about the roulette every week? That sounds so boring.

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It's all well and good until there is a disagreement about some rl "things" and suddenly the one on the wrong side of the discussion has to make the call if they need to stay silent or double down on what they feel and pray that what they say doesn't infringe the open ended nature that is the ToS. Personally, I would stay quiet in those moments because my personal opinions are not worth losing/getting a mark on my account, lol.

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Originally Posted by Melorie

But isn't that how you make friends? Do you strive to have like a separation as of "gaming friends" and "real life friends"? I have meet many amazing people through FFXIV (and other MMOS), that are now part of my life. That's the beauty of social games.
At some point you can't talk about the game anylonger. There isn't even that amount of things to talk.
You're going to talk about the roulette every week? That sounds so boring.

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Eh I made a lot of "acquaintances" over the years, but I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm trying to make friends. We talk about a lot of crap outside of the games. And guess what, the groups that filter the content to stuffs that we mutually enjoy, and make sure we don't burden each other with our own real life issue - are the group that last. There is an implicit understanding that we're all here to have fun, I'm not here to carry your burden neither I expect you to carry mine. That's why we're gaming groups and not bands of BFFs. Groups that does not respect that boundaries ... well, tend to have a much shorter life span.

The friends that I have in RL, they're very different.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

It's all well and good until there is a disagreement about some rl "things" and suddenly the one on the wrong side of the discussion has to make the call if they need to stay silent or double down on what they feel and pray that what they say doesn't infringe the open ended nature that is the ToS. Personally, I would stay quiet in those moments because my personal opinions are not worth losing/getting a mark on my account, lol.

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That seems to be a very personal experience. Usually if I'm playing with someone and getting access to their worldviews to the point that it's over my limits I just decrease the contact slowly. It's not a big deal.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Eh I made a lot of "acquaintances" over the years, but I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm trying to make friends. We talk about a lot of crap outside of the games. And guess what, the groups that filter the content to stuffs that we mutually enjoy, and make sure we don't burden each other with our own real life issue - are the group that last. There is an implicit understanding that we're all here to have fun, I'm not here to carry your burden neither I expect you to carry mine. That's why we're gaming groups and not bands of BFFs. Groups that does not respect that boundaries ... well, tend to have a much shorter life span.

The friends that I have in RL, they're very different.

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I don't really see how talking about your life or daily things isn't "having fun" or sharing a burden. Talking about non-gaming stuff shouldn't be about giving people a burden. No one enjoys having someone dropping their entire life on you all of sudden, but if I'm playing a game every week and interacting with a particular group, then eventually we get more intimate.

Anyway, I never had "gaming groups", I had people that I meet in-game and that turned out to be my friends eventually. We talk about the game and talk about ourselves and our lives. I probably have a few people around that I do content it with eventually but it is 500x more fun if I'm doing it with people that know me and I'm actually friends with. Most of the people that I tend to do just content with are honestly bland or forgettable for me.

I don't see games as some sort of "escape" where my life doesn't exist and I should just focus on having fun. It's just a hobby that's also part of my life. That's why I don't understand most of the time why people come up with these "I play game as a escape"... Because escape is not the same as having fun, which is not the same as forgetting about your own life or your day imo.
But, different folks with different strokes. Thank you for answering does, I guess it makes sense for some.

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Originally Posted by Melorie

I don't really see how talking about your life or daily things isn't "having fun" or sharing a burden. Talking about non-gaming stuff shouldn't be about giving people a burden.

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Neither did I. Rant, meme, we all talk about it. The different lie in the expectation. Even if I gonna make a rant in the group, I do not expect anyone to try to understand or empathy with it. In fact, most of the time we did it with the expectation people gonna make a meme out of it. And of course we talk about weather and food and the like.

The point is every topic is brought up almost exclusively for the express purpose of entertaining ourselves and others. No matter what it is, we always avoid bringing up something that we think may "trouble" each others.

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No one enjoys having someone dropping their entire life on you all of sudden, but if I'm playing a game every week and interacting with a particular group, then eventually we get more intimate.

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This may sound weird, but despite playing and talking with some of these guys for years (in the order of 5+ by now) we never really make the attempt to understand each others, and that's exactly how I like it. I don't know who or what kind of person they are, and neither they do me. I think that's precisely we never disappoint, because we have no expectation toward each others. Some time we laugh together, sometime we get pissed off at each others, but we never disappoint.

On the flip side, the majority time a more "intermate" groups break up (and yes I was part of some of those group too), it usually stars with the "I thought I understand you but I was wrong!" when people don't receive the reaction they expect on their "issue".

Friends? I have people I call that in real life, and like I said they're treat much differently.

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I don't see games as some sort of "escape" where my life doesn't exist and I should just focus on having fun. It's just a hobby that's also part of my life.

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I don't see it as an escape, but for me it is an outlet that's meant exclusively to have fun. The moment the fun stop, the plug will be pulled. Like ... the hell I'm doing playing a game if it's not fun? This applies not to just relationship about other players but to the whole medium. This is why it always mystified me why some people who appears not having fun and passionately hate the game but have to keep playing just to tell other how much they hate it. (not talking about you btw).

Never gave it too much thought, tried out the (beaten to death) club/casino once before they multiplied like rabbits. It was fun, but having it be 90% of your reason to play? That's a bit weird.
It's always the same as well thanks to oversaturation and everyone more or less will end up running out of ideas and they all blend together - so on and so forth.

You can socialize however you want, but I personally think having friends, free companies, linkshells, and groups on voice chats or whatever way to group people up is enough for me. It doesn't have to be always role play, know people who just login to chat with friends in-game while their gameplay actually doing something other than chatting is like 10% and that's fine to me. Don't get the need to turn it into 2nd life though, especially when people start making drama that would put highchool ones to shame.

I mean, I will always ask my Limsa peeps cursed food questions, cause if I have to see/read about them... Someone has got to go down with me.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

According to the forums, there’s an unlimited amount of gameplay content, so it’s really puzzling why people are using this game as a Second Life replacement. Many people say that modders, gposers and the “insta” players are all a minority. However, Mare has 20,000 people online at any given time. Those who don’t use Mare are even more numerous. And while there’s certainly an overlap between social players and raiders, the vast majority of parties in North America are for clubs and venues, not raids.

People need to re-think the broad consensus that FFXIV has an unlimited amount of gameplay content when people opt to spend most of their time not playing the game. And, as we can all predict, the social scene will only grow from here. While many people say that post-Endwalker has a ton of content, it’ll be two years until we get a new expac. You might not think that’s a big deal, but not everyone in FFXIV is satisfied with replaying ARR content all day. Some people are clearly not interested in farms and reclears.

This is what FFXIV is now, and unless if the game opens up to more long-term grinds, there’s no turning back.

https://files.catbox.moe/pvdr3y.jpg

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My eyes, pls have mercy

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

According to the forums, there’s an unlimited amount of gameplay content, so it’s really puzzling why people are using this game as a Second Life replacement. Many people say that modders, gposers and the “insta” players are all a minority. However, Mare has 20,000 people online at any given time. Those who don’t use Mare are even more numerous. And while there’s certainly an overlap between social players and raiders, the vast majority of parties in North America are for clubs and venues, not raids.

People need to re-think the broad consensus that FFXIV has an unlimited amount of gameplay content when people opt to spend most of their time not playing the game. And, as we can all predict, the social scene will only grow from here. While many people say that post-Endwalker has a ton of content, it’ll be two years until we get a new expac. You might not think that’s a big deal, but not everyone in FFXIV is satisfied with replaying ARR content all day. Some people are clearly not interested in farms and reclears.

This is what FFXIV is now, and unless if the game opens up to more long-term grinds, there’s no turning back.

https://files.catbox.moe/pvdr3y.jpg

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A lot of people undoubtedly still use TexTools despite its inferiority. It's rather common to forget that Mare is still a relatively young plugin. Not to mention those who simply don't want their character data uploaded to some random's server that they don't even know.