No Community

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Originally Posted by Enthy

I know I could just ask "hey what server are you all from?" every Duty Finder run I do... But it would be really convenient if you could just see who's on the same server (especially for new players trying to make friends)

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Menu -> Social -> Contacts

Not sure if it works in duty, but shows adtet duty.

Having an icon next to name in duty could be another step in the right direction.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Been playing since ... well my forum join date atleast... I don't know anyone on my server well enough to call a friend other than the ones that came with me from ffxi. I blame DF and a severe lack of server side content. You don't meet people leveling your character, you don't meet people trying to group for story, you don't do alot of things with people from your server in this game. I dunno, I see where the OPs coming from but I see it from different reasonings. If I hadn't played ffxi for years and years I probably could have adapted to the come and go social aspect of this game alot easier. FFXI forced you to be very active/outgoing if you wanted to get anything done.

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There is a simple change that SE could make, and have laid the groundwork to make, that would help. Cross server friend lists, and cross server moogle mail. The contact list that they added is a step in the right direction, but when I meet some players (or player) in a DF instance and we talk and have fun in the instance, I'd like to know what server they come from and be able to friend them. That would help.

So would people in general communicating, but short of twisting their arms, I don't know how we can encourage players in general to communicate better.

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Originally Posted by FunkYeahDragons

You get what you put in--if you're not meeting people, it's your approach to socializing in an MMO. People respond to those who take the time for them and are around them often, although some places (dungeons, etc) aren't where people normally go to "hang out". FCs are generally better, as are Linkshells or Discord servers where people can slow down and have more friendly chats, or start to associate voices with characters.

Not all of them are a good fit, but there are many out there. Also, people see what they want to see.

I met a player (former friend) in-game who complained that my FC didn't like them when they were in our Discord as my friend. They said that no one would talk to them except one, while I saw multiple people talking. Meanwhile, everyone was asking me in private when they were going to join us. I personally invited them to a voice channel when they wouldn't join on their own. They never stopped to ask anyone about their lives, and very rarely accepted invitations, and only to things that benefited them like a bird farm they wanted.

Eventually, they left. This was a person who frequently complained about being disliked, unwanted, etc. And to this day, as far as I know, they've never stopped to think if their attitude might be part of the problem.

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I have seen this type of thing happen many times. It blows my mind how some people can complain bitterly about being left out, or not being talked to, when in fact I see most people in the FC talking to them. Of course the fact is that when they do little or nothing in response, and take no interest in their FC mates, people tend to become more superficial in their communication in reaction to that. The net result is that the uncommunicative player feels left out and gets angry because "no one talks to them", when in fact the opposite is true, and the problem was their own silence and distance.

TL;DR - TALK TO PEOPLE, be friendly, engage in social conversation, be civil, be respectful of all players, don't be a jerk. It's all easy stuff really.

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Originally Posted by Parisstilton

This absolutely! And everyday I yearn for the adulation my peers had for me when I was the first person in our street to 'go round the clock' in space invaders :p

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Nice, my guilty pleasure was Atari VCS (predates the 2600) Missile Command.

I remember fondly the early days of Ragnarok Online, before fast travel. Simply travelling to a dungeon or meeting up with friends was a dangerous and thrilling experience. It could take hours to reach somewhere, and if you died, you had to start over from the last town. Sometimes players would set up merchants outside or even in dungeons selling much needed recovery items! Bringing along friends was a great way to mitigate the risk... and you really had to look out for each other. Everything was terribly imbalanced, there was no respec, and the best builds were often extremely difficult to level up at first. I took on Crusader, requiring me to level Swordsman first with Int instead of Str. It was a grueling experience and not many people took it on... but once I hit crusader, I was a powerhouse self-healing goliath that could tear apart the undead and dominate all of Niflheim and the guild wars castle defenses (which were undead). I became the lynchpin of my guild's castle attack strategy and we got us a castle!

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Nice, my guilty pleasure was Atari VCS (predates the 2600) Missile Command.

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Wow you were so lucky! Up until recently I still had every gaming device I ever had including pong and the Atari. I decided to sell them all and before they went I set them up on my nans old television and let my 9 year old nephew play. He wasn't impressed lol

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Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Thank you again to everyone who has posted here. I realize that I’ve been harsh in my appraisals but I think this is an important issue to raise for the next generation of MMO’s. I do not expect XIV to do an about-face**snip**

I’m realizing now having read all your comments that my use of the word “friendship” has obfuscated the issue. Many of you have shared anecdotes of in game connections that bloom into real-life friendships. Some of you may even have found significant others here. This was never under contention.

I’m speaking more to cohesion, culture and camaraderie. So many of you have challenged the notion that bonds are forged under pressure. I think you’re young and naive.**snippage of FFXI (and UO) rose tinted nostalgia**
I get it, they’re not for everyone and maybe not even for me anymore**snip**

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I think I get it now. You want FFXIV to be FFXI, but it's not, and you don't like that. You could have just said that at the beginning.

He's "winning." He went full Charlie Sheen. Warlock post to follow.

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Originally Posted by FoxPaw

Very nice.

Edit: No Warlock posts coming, I think I've got all the poison out :)

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But seriously, why are you so worried about what other people like and do?

...nope, still not getting what you're problem is. Or what you want to change - I know its a cheap argument to say "If you dont like it, look somewhere else" but it seems to be that in the end.


The relaunch of this game obviously happend with the idea in mind to appeal to a larger group of people because otherwise SE would have lost money on this project (read: it wouldnt have happend at all). I dont know when you, OP, started playing this game and what expectations you had, but FFXIV cant seen to fullfill those - and from what I've read from you, not because the game is to "bad" to do that but because the game isnt meant/designed to do that. Sorry to break it to you but if you game here because you wanted a remake of FFXI, you're wrong. (Just as my brother was wrong when he bought FFXIII and expected a game like FX - we all know that Final Fantasy games dont work like that! And I'd like to repeat my point here: SEs target group included most likely FF-Fans, so fans of a genre that tradionally solo and not catering to the typical MMO-player)

Maybe the focus of games shifted from "serious hard earned work!" to "just fun and relax", but yeah... the industry and the society evolved and apparently some of you got stuck in the past.

If there are enough people who share your view, maybe initiating an unofficial "oldschool"-server would be a solution? Or you just surronding yourself with friends who despite neon-green and punny-namens and enter dungeons only by traveling to the gate by mount and sit and wait around until everyone made - including that guy that used to have all the time in the world 14 years ago when he was 16 and in school and was running late from an important buisness meeting tonight.

I'm sure there are "hardcore"-games out there - just like we got Dark Souls for a hardcore-solo-experience. But they are niche, meaning: you'd have to dig a bit more for them and dont expect them in a AAA-production, since that wouldnt work from a buisness point of view.

You bought a product that isnt what you wanted - but the fault probably lies with you here. If I go to the store and buy "some green fruits" and am disappointed that I got pears and not apples, its my fault for picking the first green fruits I saw. Going back to the store and telling them "Hey, this doesnt taste like apple!" isnt going to achieve anything (or well, if they're nice, they'll point me towards the apples)

I disagree. I've played a lot of MMO's and this is one of the most friendly and social ones i've played. I've made so many amazing friends through this game. My best friends at this stage in my life I have met through this game. This game has a lot of social elements and functions and the way progression is (mostly) achieved through group content makes it a very ripe place to make friends.
OP, I think you just need to find a community and become a part of it, friends aren't magically going to show up on your doorstep you must make an effort to talk to people and form friendships. Just start small, like saying "hello" at the start of a dungeon or trying to start some conversation, go into a social hub on your server and start talking, look on PF for some linkshells or FC's that suit what you're looking for. This game has loads of really awesome people playing it you just gotta find em!

I would like to add a little something.

I think some people feel a lack of community because the game enforces players to create cliques and remain in those cliques. Although FCs and linkshells exists to further improve the means for players to communicate and make friends, it still forces people to remain in their little chatrooms and ignore the rest of the world. I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I got the chance to witness gameplay of Black Desert and I can't say it enough, the server chat is amazing. It keeps the community together despite all the guilds and wars with a constant barrage of news, jokes and drama. Such is missing in FF14 and sadly, the best someone can do at times is just stare at the their screen, go idle in Idyllshire and wait for their FC or linkshell to introduce a subject of conversation.

Towns feels like they are filled with silent, immobile zombies. Sure there is a shout option for announcement and stuff like that but since it's uncommon, I see it rarely used. Hell, even I am too shy of using it.

I think we need to connect the community together with a server chat(With a minimum level restriction to prevent bots) and allow people to enjoy its insanity with the option of turning it off. It would bring much more life and would allow some player interactions instead of the random emote from a silent observer. At least for those who have not made friends with anyone yet.

They deleted his profanity laced screed.
He said FFXI players are winners and we FFXIV players are all living with our parents. He also put he rp and erp'd with hundreds of people...

I agree with the OP that FFXI had far better world immersion. It ultimately makes me think of the "which is better, sandbox or theme park mmo style" argument. As for the community my experience between the two games has been about equal.

I think a lot of the immersion with the world of FFXI came from prolonged activities, like camping NM's for 12+ hours at a time, or waiting for a group for 3 days. You don't want to log out because you've already invested so much time that leaving now would be a waste, so you don't have the same "freedom" to just log out like you do in FF14- which effectively feels like a lack of immersion when you can just leave. Same goes for community, XI felt like it had great community because you couldn't do much besides chat with people while you were on your 6th coffee waiting for Kreutzet or a party.

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Originally Posted by Hito-Shura

I would like to add a little something.

I think some people feel a lack of community because the game enforces players to create cliques and remain in those cliques. Although FCs and linkshells exists to further improve the means for players to communicate and make friends, it still forces people to remain in their little chatrooms and ignore the rest of the world. I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I got the chance to witness gameplay of Black Desert and I can't say it enough, the server chat is amazing. It keeps the community together despite all the guilds and wars with a constant barrage of news, jokes and drama. Such is missing in FF14 and sadly, the best someone can do at times is just stare at the their screen, go idle in Idyllshire and wait for their FC or linkshell to introduce a subject of conversation.

Towns feels like they are filled with silent, immobile zombies. Sure there is a shout option for announcement and stuff like that but since it's uncommon, I see it rarely used. Hell, even I am too shy of using it.

I think we need to connect the community together with a server chat(With a minimum level restriction to prevent bots) and allow people to enjoy its insanity with the option of turning it off. It would bring much more life and would allow some player interactions instead of the random emote from a silent observer. At least for those who have not made friends with anyone yet.

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Something to note regarding chat in general is it's often frowned upon entirely.

a dozen people having a conversation in iddyllshire via the /s or /sh. and people frown upon it and say take it to your linkshell or even /tells... it's very anti communication.

the same can be said in duty finder, people say be friendly talk to your group. yet if and when you do theres always going to be them people that tell you to stop talking and start fighting, again it's very anti communication... I did a weeping city for tails and 7 or 8 of us were cracking jokes and having a laugh, and people were complaining we were filling the alliance chat with to much talk and not killing the bosses. if we wanted to talk we should do it after the raid... so once again its very anti communication...

In a way though I see this game as kinda like face book. I mean sure people have 500+ facebook friends, but how many of them are actually friends....
same thing in XIV, I've got social connections all over the place. 80+ people on my friendlist. plus quite active and social in my fc and ls's. yet if asked I could probably name 10 of these people. because that's how many actually have any kind of bond with...
another example is work. I work in a pretty large company 200 members of staff sociable and friendly with most of them. yet when employees leaves noone ever sees them again. because the connections are so superficial. 200 people there but maybe 3 i'd invite to a wedding or some other meaningfull life event....

then you get big free companies that have 500 members and people say they're great and friendly. but how many of those memebers could you actually name without looking at the roster......
or if 100 of them suddenly left. how many of them would you remember?

while social aspects do exist they are incredibly shallow and superficial for the most part. and sometimes I think they do need to work on that.

I see in threads quite frequently people say ffxiv isn't great and it isn't. but the only reason they play is because some of their friends do. so comments like these show that good social connections help the player base. even when the game isn't that great in there opinions.. so if they could bolster the social aspect and give it some actually depth and meaning it could help a lot in keeping players around.

also see the opposite being true. how many people pick up the game and put it donw in there first months cos the social element is so superficial they don't make many friends or meaningfull ones at least and again the game isn't that great so they drop it....

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Originally Posted by Dzian

while social aspects do exist they are incredibly shallow and superficial for the most part. and sometimes I think they do need to work on that.

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And how would they do that? Please no more FFXI-nostalgia as answer though - I dont mean to be rude, but from what I've heard so far FFXI wasnt all cake and sugar either, not even when it came to the great social aspects of the game. I havent played it myself, but feel I have both sides of those stories a bit now - needing an escort to a city? Sure, great way to bond! But also hella annoying to relay on other people all the time - Having to wait for your casters mana to refill? Nice, time for a little chat! But also infact a time when the game fails as game, because its not letting you play it.

Maybe they do need to work on the social aspect of the game - and I would actually consider a "marketboard" for FCs and LSs a good idea, that would make it easier to find like minded mini-communities within the game.
Because heres actually my next point: I dont agree with "we need to connect the people more as one big community" - specially not when we're talking about forming meaningful bonds. You cant form and maintain meanigful bonds with a hundred people, its simply impossible. (And personally I'll take one very good friend about 5 "just" good ones, but that might be me)
Same with the server-wide-chat - I cant really imagine having hundred people talk in there and it being anything but "noise" for most of the time. In a way the community decided against this by already not using shut that frequently to chat (granted, its annyoing that you always need to "confirm" that you really want to shout...) - maybe a compromis can be reached by having "town-chats"? As in: chats that are only active in the larger cities and always only for there city, so if you want to have a chat with people, you can go into the town and well, talk!


Now, for my last bit... you'll say that I'm white knighting here but thats not what I'm having in mind - I guess we all know that this game is not perfect. But saying its not a great game doesnt seem fair to me.
There are a number of questions we have to answer here:
1) What is a "great game"?
2) What kind of game does FFXIV WANT to be?
3) What kind of game IS it?
4) What kind of expectations do/did you have for FFXIV?

No one can answer 1) ofc, or well - everyone can answer that for themself, I guess.
4) is totally down to everyone themself aswell, obviously - and if your expectation is/was another FFXI, you're asking a banana to taste like an apple. So either learn to like bananas too or stop eating them - you're doing no one a favour if you're forcing yourself to consume something that you dont like.

2) and 3) now - I'm not gonna answer those in length, but in regard to this thread and all that talk about oldschool-MMOs: Does FFXIV wants to be an oldschool-MMO that was up-to-date 15 years ago? No, it does not.
It wants to appeal to a larger variety of people and yes, thats often sad for those who witnessed the rise of a genre, I get that :(
With appealing to a larger variety of people there are ofc also more complaints - and they're going into every direction (more gates, less gates - more dungeons, more new stuff) They obviously cant please everyone, but that doesnt make this game "bad".
And they have to find a compromis for the topic of "more player interaction" too - to make it possible for anyone who would to prefer to play alone or doesnt want to join some sort of a static to enjoy the game aswell (that is: if they want to keep the income from those more casual people too - and seeing how much money they're spending on this game, they probably want that... and if thats benefitting me too by giving me quality content, I'm game!)

I'm really not sure how SE would solve this "problem" - and I'm also not really sure if its actually their job at all. After all they're a games company, not some sort of... "social networking" developers. We have asked for more flexibilty when it came to form groups and such (changing how lockouts in raids are working for example), so apparently the majority of players today prefers not binding their game progress to another person and I can understand why.
Form bonds if you wish - but thats down to you, after all.

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Originally Posted by gastovski

You are right OP. It's because this game is crossplay with PS4. Console players aren't meant to socialize (pretty casual they are), just do quests, dungeons and enjoy their little limited fun they have been enforced to. Then also there is no massive PVP which is very important thing for a MMORPG. Too casual i say, too much.

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Not meant to socialize? Yet PS4 is linked to twitch, facebook, youtube, and even twitter, 4 massive social platforms that are used to not only share content, meet new people, and you know socialize. Where are we getting console players aren't social?

While this may not be directed at me, I find this a good jumping off point. Helps meh brain cogs less scattered.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

And how would they do that? Please no more FFXI-nostalgia as answer though - I dont mean to be rude, but from what I've heard so far FFXI wasnt all cake and sugar either, not even when it came to the great social aspects of the game. I havent played it myself, but feel I have both sides of those stories a bit now - needing an escort to a city? Sure, great way to bond! But also hella annoying to relay on other people all the time - Having to wait for your casters mana to refill? Nice, time for a little chat! But also infact a time when the game fails as game, because its not letting you play it.

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I've played FFXI for the whole of 1 month because of the trial period, while I may still be honeymooning what I experienced I do think it was (and at the time still is better then any other mmorpg) social experiences to date and for the very reasons you have stated. The game gave you a time and place to socialize at the cost of convenience and at times it basically put you in a room with a bunch of strangers and said "Hey, your going to be here a while so you might as well try to enjoy the company".

It's not like FFXIV didn't have examples of this either, in the beta version you didn't really have Duty Finder. You would find most people huddled around the entrance point of Tam Tara Deepcroft (as that was the end dungeon at that time) and they would be talking to each other, getting into groups. Was it slower? Yes (although it was still faster then most DPS queue times today) but it was honestly more enjoyable.

Urth's Gift spiritbond parties were also a thing. Today you can get a good supply of materia (highest grade materia, III's and IV's rain from the sky these days) pretty easy but back in 2.0 you went to gift to put on usually crafted crappy gear and joined a party to continually endanger the water sprite population (I still have more water crystals then I know what to do with during that era). Was it a pain to spend hours and hours grinding spiritbond? Yes but oddly I can't remember that part of the activity, I do remember chatting with people who I would have never had the opportunity otherwise and enjoying myself.

Pretty much any raid group bonds together because of the time and effort it takes for the one piece of content that really "requires" (just makes it easier) a continuous party. Even with raid finder these groups will generally stick together because it's not meant to be a throwaway group like most other instanced parties. This depending on how good the raid content is though as we've seen with Alexander. Still, I've seen these group members solo non-raid content in DF.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Maybe they do need to work on the social aspect of the game - and I would actually consider a "marketboard" for FCs and LSs a good idea, that would make it easier to find like minded mini-communities within the game.
Because heres actually my next point: I dont agree with "we need to connect the people more as one big community" - specially not when we're talking about forming meaningful bonds. You cant form and maintain meanigful bonds with a hundred people, its simply impossible. (And personally I'll take one very good friend about 5 "just" good ones, but that might be me)
Same with the server-wide-chat - I cant really imagine having hundred people talk in there and it being anything but "noise" for most of the time. In a way the community decided against this by already not using shut that frequently to chat (granted, its annyoing that you always need to "confirm" that you really want to shout...) - maybe a compromis can be reached by having "town-chats"? As in: chats that are only active in the larger cities and always only for there city, so if you want to have a chat with people, you can go into the town and well, talk!

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I've always wanted a LS marketboard style because that would make it way easier to join one that fits with that person however I find a lot of the time that Linkshells are barely used for communication at all except for specific purposes like hunts. Even with cross FC linkshells I see that most people would rather talk to people in their FC then someone who is not, perhaps the function of Linkshells are misunderstood from what the developers intended?

Server-wide-chat in rare cases can be used for a good degree of socialization but unless it is heavily regulated/restricted most of the times ends up being spammed by gold sellers or guilds. Other games i've seen combat this with single use rare items that allows you to do so and makes it so that your level must be high enough to use, some make it a payed for feature (while really annoying it'll prevent a lot of misuse). I have seen people do comedy routines, quiz shows or just discussions in server chat which was a lot of fun in those games though, so it has extreme upsides and downsides.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

I'm really not sure how SE would solve this "problem" - and I'm also not really sure if its actually their job at all. After all they're a games company, not some sort of... "social networking" developers. We have asked for more flexibilty when it came to form groups and such (changing how lockouts in raids are working for example), so apparently the majority of players today prefers not binding their game progress to another person and I can understand why.
Form bonds if you wish - but thats down to you, after all.

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Social activity in mmorpg's generally work off of how the game is developed, how you develop a game and it's environment will effect how the player interacts within that world. It seems SE decided to go with lower social interaction to get high accessibility, while it can turn out high sub numbers the amount of sustained gameplay is lower which is why you hear suggestions from Yoshi-P to take breaks between content. Duty Finder allows a person to easily jump into content even from a low populated server relatively easily, it comes at a cost of server options looking subpar. Easy and cheap teleportation, lack of server side content, easy FC creation, massive solo-able content, meaningless non-instanced areas (which are server confined), etc. All of those make it easier for a solo experience made bite sized which doesn't encourage social interaction.

While you may not be suggesting this but I don't think people who see less interaction in FFXIV are more anti-social, it's one of the first things I've noticed while starting this game and I don't consider myself anti-social (as I've played many, many other mmorpg's and had no problems socializing with various guilds/groups). While a great game in almost every other respect, FFXIV does have it's problems encouraging and (more importantly) maintaining social activity, which is one of the main features of a mmorpg which I don't think can be contributed merely to the modern age.

Character limitations is dumb, SE. Let me write my novel.

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Originally Posted by Hito-Shura

I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

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I'm on board with this. Although I'd probably mute it within the first millisecond, I do think this would be a step in the right direction for a stronger "immediate" community. If you wanna call it that.

Chatting, meeting new players, doing random things with randoms or people on your friends list, I don't think thats the type of socializing many of us old mmo fools are asking for.

People like to throw things about XI (03-08) because its endgame forced your FC to work together, you could log in and say oh so and so are working for the pop items to be used Saturday for the big boss spawn or something which gave people something to do when they logged on cause they could say oh ok I'll go to this area and participate giving them the feeling they were contributing to something greater within their "community" (FC). (This would also create open world endgame activities)

At this point, that some type of system hasn't been implemented, and it doesn't have to take away your savage or 24 mans, is suspicious that perhaps the devs don't know what some of us old mmo fools are asking for because they never experienced it. I don't have time to join a static or commit to anything in game so I appreciate that I can log on and have plenty of battle content to pick from which I can quickly engage in - it doesn't have to take that away either.

I thought Diadem was meant to address this layer of endgame thats missing but the first turned out to be just another dungeon queue, and the new Diadem looks to be missing the point again, they think all we want is super large scale battles. Which yes, thats half the equation but they are missing the most important aspect, how we access it.

In the end its all content, they are capable of creating battle content, what they are missing is how we <COULD< access >SOME< of the content. Not everyone gets to be part of a static because of time commitment constraints, this would be a way for us to feel part of a wolf pack hunting down our meal, the key to community is >HOW< we access content.

I can see your point, Marcellus - thank you for sharing a different view on this issue and what people might seem to miss about XI :)
Your approach sounds far more reasonable and like something I can actually relate to than "It was so great to talk for 30 minutes while we were waiting for MP!"

Because I feel the same as you do - I dont want to commit to a static anymore and I cant imagine that any of the people that are talking about the good old times would actually want to give up on the convience that DF and PF are for the chance to might find a friend (something that can happen within both those systems aswell - well, PF is more likely, but yeah). Enjoying the game with your friends is great - but being able to just play the game when you want to, shouldnt be dismissed to easly either.

So yes, there probably has to be another solution - if enough people even want one. Diadem and workshops were supposed to go into that direction. Both were developed as FC-content, because people were asking for that...
...and then, when they got it, they realised "Okay, no, we dont want this - change it into solo-queues!"
Granted, the whole housing-situation totally didnt helped with that and the workshop is some pretty lame "group-content" (3 people afk, the last one putting in all the mats).
In a sense you might be able to say that treasure hunts and Aquapolis are the content thats closest to achieving something together?

At this point I'm not sure if they're really able to change their system though - looking at how they had to back down with diadem because people were complaining and how often I see people not wanting to join a FC or larger FCs that... well... dont know, dont provide any sense of community and dont care for their memembers (and they dont leave because: why?) I'm not sure if that can be changed now, being almost 4 years into the game again. Certain "standards" are established, certain aspects were choosen by the community to be important.
Having easy access to content seems to be one of those (seeing how people are having started several threads about "Please, put potd 100-200 into DF") - I'm honestly not sure how long content would stay FC-locked... and tbh: I dont want FC-locked content, seeing how I have friends from different FCs and would like to play with them too.

No. It's that simple. Stop trying to define MMORPG as anything other then Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Game. Nothing you have said about "what a MMO is" is a part of that statement. Everything else is a personal construct bias.

There is nothing else to say about it.


Stop pushing a personal gameplay bias on other players, this game is still going strong after 5 years of this argument.

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Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I think people spend the vast majority of their "free time" in game searching for social connections because the actual game doesn’t provide any. This game is suffering from a fatal lack of community. It sought thru mechanics to empower the solo gamer and in the process precluded them of ever making a real friend.

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Well, I found my husband on this game, so I don't really agree. There's more options to make friends in this game than other MMOs I have played.

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Originally Posted by Niroken

Character limitations is dumb, SE. Let me write my novel.

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I wish I only ever said that once....

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...a9&oe=5BDF2A9F

I do agree though that SE seems to be pushing more for subscription numbers over increased quality content, but I feel like there is just as much a factor of people being less social in general due to anxiety and other mental and social conditions as there is a factor of milk having a better shelf life than most patch content.

I'd also argue that it varies from server to server: the greater the server identity, the greater the sense of community you can find on it.

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Originally Posted by FoxPaw

I think people spend the vast majority of their "free time" in game searching for social connections because the actual game doesn’t provide any. This game is suffering from a fatal lack of community. It sought thru mechanics to empower the solo gamer and in the process precluded them of ever making a real friend. Some of the prerequisites to a meaningful friendship are shared hardship, sacrifice, and trust - all of which have been meticulously removed from this game lest it be “too hard". I think in not forcing people to eat their veggies they've gotten fat, unhappy and restless - which does not bode well for XIV.

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I know the post is old, and I may be missing your point here, but this is how I feel about the situation—

I think the tools are there for people to forge connections if they want to forge them. Not everyone wants to be a social butterfly, and I don’t particularly consider that a bad thing. I have my small group of friends (some I met on this very forum, not even in-game), and I don’t have much of a desire to have a larger group of them. I’ve never wanted to be in large, social linkshells. I’ve never wanted to be in large FCs, always preferring smaller ones. I’ve never seen the need to max out my friends list with people I rarely speak to. I prefer smaller, more personal connections with individual people, not an entire server’s community, and I don’t think that’s particularly “wrong”. I don’t agree with forcing interactions between players. But I suppose that’s the introvert in me speaking.

I’ve met some good people in this game. I met my best friend initially on this forum. So I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely devoid of ways for people to connect...they just have to want to connect. Again, I could be missing the point entirely. These are just the thoughts I had when I read this post.

This isn't an issue for me. I'm here to play the game. I have a tight knit of peeps I keep close that includes FC mates, LS, and a couple of RL friends. I am always open to meeting new people, but in this day and age I'm surprised people meet at all. Both inside and outside the game. I actually don't blame SE for the lack of social interaction at all.

I think the main thing missing isn't the community itself, it's the tools to find like-minded people in game. Even figuring out how to join a FC is a pain if you don't know anyone in it already. There's no way in game to find linkshells that might interest you either.

#Necrobump

This still seems to me to be a conflict in what one wants out of an MMORPG.

The point in an MMORPG someone enjoys playing is not necessarily "The People", the point is whatever it is about the MMORPG that the player enjoys. I'm not saying people shouldn't criticize a game for lacking something they want, but that goes both ways; no one can simply lay down the absolute "Point" to any game or genre of games that objectively makes them enjoyable to anyone.

Personally, I like that there is in fact NOT always "another carrot" if I catch up to where I want to be in the game. I don't feel like it's an endless slog, I can take breaks and spend time playing other games with the limited free time that I have. But because it's an MMORPG, when I -do- play, I'm playing with other people who are playing the same game as myself. I still get together at a friend's house about once a month and we have pizza and play FFXIV together under the same roof, and often find ourselves playing together every weekend or so during the rest of the month. Meanwhile during the week I can still progress where I want to progress without my friends, but rather with other people who are playing at the same time as myself.

So again, I don't believe that FFXI or FFXIV can be objectively declared as "superior" over each other, they simply cater to different demographics of players.

I played XI for a number of years, and when I look back at it, I tend to think of it as the golden age of my online gaming life. My friends, the two LS I was in, the zones, the music, the whole game. When I was actually playing the game, day-to-day life was very ordinary. Sure, there was the occasional outstanding moment, like killing a particular HNM for the first time, or helping a friend through a particularly difficult fight.

My feelings about that game changed drastically as time passed. When I started playing XIV, I felt that it paled in comparison. I stopped and thought - maybe it's because I'm in the middle of my XIV experience, and perhaps my feeling about this game will be very different ten years from now.

Many years from now, I may feel that both games were equally incredible - but I try to not think about it. It may be that the OP is looking for something that cannot exist, but that's not for me to say.

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Originally Posted by Rennies

I've had a full friendlist four months from when I started playing. This isn't a community issue, this is a "learn to talk to people" issue.

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Okay but how many of these people actually talk to you and not just wave to you in cities? I'll wait.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I think the tools are there for people to forge connections if they want to forge them.

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The difference in the older games was that you didn't have these tools, but the games themselves forced social connections through gameplay. Here, you have some tools, but you could theorectically do the game entirely solo apart from anonymous pickup groups and not miss a thing.

And the tools have gotten worse. One of the reasons I hate Discord is that it removes social interaction completely from the game onto other mediums. Yeah, they did have teamspeak in the old days, but it generally was limited to raid nights. But Discord is everything now; every FC has one where half the members chat in, and things like pvp no longer use linkshells or fcs, but discord instead. A lot of old MMO socialization was done in game in event hubs.

The games have changed a lot to be much more antisocial in gameplay, and tools tend to take people out of the game to socialize.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The difference in the older games was that you didn't have these tools, but the games themselves forced social connections through gameplay. Here, you have some tools, but you could theorectically do the game entirely solo apart from anonymous pickup groups and not miss a thing.

And the tools have gotten worse. One of the reasons I hate Discord is that it removes social interaction completely from the game onto other mediums. Yeah, they did have teamspeak in the old days, but it generally was limited to raid nights. But Discord is everything now; every FC has one where half the members chat in, and things like pvp no longer use linkshells or fcs, but discord instead. A lot of old MMO socialization was done in game in event hubs.

The games have changed a lot to be much more antisocial in gameplay, and tools tend to take people out of the game to socialize.

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How - or why - is that so bad though? What do you gain from being forced to socialize like that? Whats wrong with using a more convient tool (like Discord) than the ingame-chat to stay in touch with your friends? I've got a few friends that I only talk to ingame and its extremly annoying to basically just be online and afk to wait for them to log in if all you really want to do is chat, not play the game.

I dont see the benefits of enforcing more socialising - after all this is a game we play in our freetime to do something we enjoy.
If you enjoy hanging out a lot with other people, you can do that.
But if you enjoy the game more for its gameplay, its great that you can absolulty do that too.

I have an active FC, a handful of good friends to play with, even a static - and I barely play content alone, but once in a while its quite enjoyable that I can.
We keep arguing that more options are always great when it comes to glamour and stuff - why does this not hold true for fundamental ways to play the game? Its not like the game is not giving you the means to form social bonds - its just not kicking everyone who doesnt want to do that out...

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The difference in the older games was that you didn't have these tools, but the games themselves forced social connections through gameplay. Here, you have some tools, but you could theorectically do the game entirely solo apart from anonymous pickup groups and not miss a thing.

And the tools have gotten worse. One of the reasons I hate Discord is that it removes social interaction completely from the game onto other mediums. Yeah, they did have teamspeak in the old days, but it generally was limited to raid nights. But Discord is everything now; every FC has one where half the members chat in, and things like pvp no longer use linkshells or fcs, but discord instead. A lot of old MMO socialization was done in game in event hubs.

The games have changed a lot to be much more antisocial in gameplay, and tools tend to take people out of the game to socialize.

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No the games are fine. Chats, linkshells, grouping, and FCs are all the basic tools any MMO probably had back in the old day that you loved. It's not the games. It's Discord and 3rd party media. You said it yourself and you have a point.

Because we have things like Discord, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, and many more, there is no reason for a player to use the world chats, linkshells, or FCs like they would have probably 14 years ago. Back then they were forced to use the in-game tools. Because there was no Discord for example. Now it exists, and FFXIV's tools are outshined. I mean heck, we even have the Marriage Hookup Thread set up like a dating app so people can quick meet instead of just finding partners out and about in the game. Again, another 3rd party source of contact.

This isn't FFXIV's fault. This isn't Yoshi's fault. Blame social media and future times.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The difference in the older games was that you didn't have these tools, but the games themselves forced social connections through gameplay. Here, you have some tools, but you could theorectically do the game entirely solo apart from anonymous pickup groups and not miss a thing.

And the tools have gotten worse. One of the reasons I hate Discord is that it removes social interaction completely from the game onto other mediums. Yeah, they did have teamspeak in the old days, but it generally was limited to raid nights. But Discord is everything now; every FC has one where half the members chat in, and things like pvp no longer use linkshells or fcs, but discord instead. A lot of old MMO socialization was done in game in event hubs.

The games have changed a lot to be much more antisocial in gameplay, and tools tend to take people out of the game to socialize.

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Where in my post was I talking about Discord? Nowhere. I use both in-game and outside features to talk with the people I want to talk to - in-game features when I'm logged in, and outside features when I'm not logged in. I was more so addressing this idea of trying to force interactions and force a "community feeling" onto people who may not necessarily want that.

The irony is you're blaming social media for this; for me, personally, I've never been active on any social media platform. I'm more active on this forum than I ever have been on the personal Facebook I've had for a decade, surprisingly. Some people would just rather do their own thing, or pick and choose their interactions. As I said before, I don't consider that a bad thing.

I know a lot of people loved FFXI, and like to compare XIV to the way XI always did things, but XI was also in a different era. Considering I’m not a very social person, and never have been, I would not have enjoyed XI, nor done well in it. But that’s fine. I’ve never really been a big gamer — FFXIV is my first MMO I’ve ever stuck with for a long time — and I tend to prefer doing a lot of things on my own without forced interactions between me and other people.

I don't socialize in MMO in general so I'm actually glad for the single player like aspect of the game. I'd rather not be stuck with having to join a guild due to certain raid requirement. I absolutely don't mind challenging game content, but I do mind having to work with elitists and others that I'd rather not associate with. Even the best of guilds usually have a few of those people unfortunately so I find them unavoidable unless I make my own guild, which I no longer am interested in doing. Those that are genuinely interested in helping people are too few. :(

Just because you don't want to be social and make friends doesn't mean there isn't a community.......

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Originally Posted by Adventica6

Just because you don't want to be social and make friends doesn't mean there isn't a community.......

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Of course there is a community. What made you think that I thought otherwise?

If you can't make friends in this game, if you find yourself not caring about your behavior in duty finder... I have some news for you:

You are the problem.

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Originally Posted by Anatha

If you can't make friends in this game, if you find yourself not caring about your behavior in duty finder... I have some news for you:

You are the problem.

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That's a commonly recycled sentence that I see every now and then. I have a healthy circle of friends, and they are nothing like the general MMO community. They are mature, patient and pleasant to converse with. Even when we can't see each other as often now that we're all married, we stay in touch very often and it's as if we still hang out often.