A solo RPG with a communal social aspect is not a terrible thing.
Making one game cater to both people who want multiplayer dungeons and people who want solo dungeons is not a terrible thing.
Happily single with a rewarding career. I game because I don't have obligations outside of work. I have a roommate who also games so that helps too.
But then, I'm 46 and I've already laid the groundwork for where I am now. I spent almost a decade in the military. I have three Associate's Degrees in electronics. I have the job experience. I've even been married. I've earned the right to come home and game all day.
I'm a bit sorry, but the only way the FC can keep alive when master is around only a couple hours a day and maybe not every day, is have members on same boat.
Or officers that can fully replace you while you are absent.
The FC I'm in today have officers and master playing mostly on evenings, but our recruitment info (and rules) states clearly that our playing hours are only evenings.
And that is working good: no one complains there is little/no activity in at 3am or 3pm.
Why would you want to stay "fully active"? Or how do you define "fully active"?
I am personally rotating my games. One day I raise my bloodpressue with League of Legends, one day I play Styx etc. Yesterday I did a full day on FFXIV. This helps to keep the game fresh and I - and everyone mature - should consider it healthy to not be online everyday. If you are offline every 2 days nobody will really notice. When your schedule gets tighter, you will enjoy things more. That's probably the reason why I would never do Atma farming or why I don't have a house with stressfull things like "watering the virtual plants daily, else..." or "Train the Chocoboy daily, else...".
FFXIV is like a menu. You don't need to order all at once in order to have a good time eating out.
Sincerely,
https://imgur.com/9mjol58.png
Priorities. I have 2 jobs.
When applying, since I'd already been playing XIV prior, I set up my schedule to never work Tuesdays (reset and patch day).
As long as you change your mindset and tell yourself that you do NOT NEED to clear everything, get every job max level, don't need all the mounts and weapons for jobs you wont even play... you will be fine.
Took me a while to go from hardcore to very casual but now it works out.
I ironically play almost exclusively solo, and don't even talk in dungeons (unless I get addressed) nor have I joined any linkshells for chat (the ones I am in are for hunting, and a collection of people who farm extremes) or even bothered with the new fellowship system. My FC has about 4 active players, who I almost never play with, so yeah I get people wanting to play it solo. However, I do not think it is a good thing for an MMOrpg to be designed more for solo play. An mmo should encourage group play, if anything to at least match it's genre namesake. This game does a very poor job doing so, and not always for the better.
Even in games that practically force you to get a group for something, you can still hivemind strategize your way to getting through what you need and moving on. Maybe its different in other p2p games, since XIV is the only one I've played. No one's obligated to help or try and talk to me, and without RNG, a game will always have the same results once you follow the formula. Thus eliminating any social aspect with an A to B mentality or a want to group up in a friendlier sense.
The last time I recall actually having to communicate to succeed was the Saint's Eve event dungeon. And I'm glad you could get all the rewards with 1 run (unlike last year) because I never wanted to suffer through that again.
Sadly I don't. Combined with my family, job, and pets most weeks if I'm lucky I manage to have enough time to cap tombstones and maybe a few additional roulette runs. I work as a university professor so I'm usually pretty busy. There are, however, times during the year (mainly during holidays and the summer months) where I have much more free time and can really enjoy the game.
Over the years I've just learned to appreciate the time I have.