7.0 MMO to a Single Player Game

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

On the flip side however is has the exact opposite problem. If someone wants to play this game with friends they get slapped in the face by solo MSQ instances that force everyone split up.

If you plan to go through the game with friends then the supposeed main draw of XIV, the story, is an absolutely terrible experience because you are forced to play solo frequently until you finish it and reach the endgame.

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Making the MSQ entirely solo content would also mean the actual multiplayer content wouldn't have to be gated behind the MSQ for access. The MSQ for the most part anyway is written with you as the 1 and only hero with NPC support characters every now and then for plot devices.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

If you split Trusts off into "first time Story content", and then created a second version of "The Real Instance" that actually shows up in Roulettes, it'd solve both issues.

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Does that mean a new person has to do the Trust version alone and can't queue up with others instead? The whole idea of their MSQ revamp was to allow people to progress solo or with others.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I agree that in Castrum Abania it changed because many people didn't know the mechanic and never figured it out, so they would take an extreme amount of damage that other people did not or the party would wipe.

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I maintain the belief this is an engine proem more than anything to do with player skill..

There is a pretty jarring disconnect between what a player sees happening on screen and what is actually happening at that exact moment..

This can make resolving mechanics tricky because you can go over there stand if a safe spot and and bam get smacked down to the floor with no idea what hit you. Because on your screen you did that mechanic so it wasn't that. And as f8ghts go on and mechanics start to overlap that visual disconnect gets even more jarring.

This is why new players often get confused when they're running out of stupid and everyone else is running in to it... the floor is on fire but they are taking zero damage. I,m stood here out of the fire and I'm dead wtf???

It's a big part of why they can't break away from scripted battles because that visual disconnect would be impossible to deal with if you hadn't memorised the entire scripted sequence of a fight.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

On the flip side however is has the exact opposite problem. If someone wants to play this game with friends they get slapped in the face by solo MSQ instances that force everyone split up.

If you plan to go through the game with friends then the supposeed main draw of XIV, the story, is an absolutely terrible experience because you are forced to play solo frequently until you finish it and reach the endgame.

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Given the game is advertised as an MMORPG that's quite common to want to play the game with your friends. So yeah the msq forcing you to play alone is a total bummer..

"You cannot proceed with this quest because you are in a party"

it's a bloody MMO. Let me play with my friends

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

problem is, as a healer "main" how do you expect to learn the wonderful variety that comes with learning how to heal with real people? personally that just boggles my mind. npc's will rarely stand in things...because they are designed not to. as a healer main, never had any problems with queues, so that point is not valid. dps yes, tank, kinda sorta.. healer... never had a problem aside from one time when in Endwalker a friend needed/wanted to do the neir series...

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I dont "heal" when it's an NPC party, why would I? And you're clearly dismissing my point: que times are much longer for characters leveled through story as dps: it takes just that much longer to get to endgame. Not everyone likes watching paint dray, after all.

And I'm also not talking about people putting their tenth character through story, I'm talking about people doing it for the first or second time.

YoshiP stated during the Live Letter that included the 10 year roadmap that they don't want FFXIV to continue to be seen as a MMO. They want it to be seen as a game that can be played alone or with friends. He's also said that they want to create a new starting point for new players.

We'll have to wait for the FanFests to find out what changes they're making to accomplish those things.

My guesses:

We will see the new starting point introduced since 7.0 will have an all new story. Likely there will be some solo scenario for new characters to complete that will introduce them to FFXIV history and give them an opportunity to learn their core job abilities before they're moved into the main 7.0 story for 90+.

MSQ will be designed around the solo player using Duty Support, including trials. If dungeons and trials end up dumbed down, it won't be because of the NPCs. Remember how hated Tower of Zot was at EW launch? Yet it was designed to be done with Duty Support. If things are dumbed down, it will be because new players lacking 90 levels of previous experience will need to be able to complete those duties.

This doesn't mean that there won't still be high end duties for those more interested in multi-player content. The raids and EX trials can still fill that role. The concerns about CT being required for MSQ won't matter if there's a new starting point. Hopefully they will be adding in an alternate path for unlocking group duties as others have said is needed for those with no interest in the story or who have already done it on other characters.

But this will put huge pressure on the development team to finally add some midcore content. New players wanting to experience multi-player content after going through MSQ solo will have no group experience. They're going to need the right stepping stones more than ever and Alliance raid zergs is not one of them.

At this point I have 0 faith that they can create actual proper midcore content that can have longevity, you are giving them too much faith.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

YoshiP stated during the Live Letter that included the 10 year roadmap that they don't want FFXIV to continue to be seen as a MMO. They want it to be seen as a game that can be played alone or with friends. He's also said that they want to create a new starting point for new players.

We'll have to wait for the FanFests to find out what changes they're making to accomplish those things.

My guesses:

We will see the new starting point introduced since 7.0 will have an all new story. Likely there will be some solo scenario for new characters to complete that will introduce them to FFXIV history and give them an opportunity to learn their core job abilities before they're moved into the main 7.0 story for 90+.

MSQ will be designed around the solo player using Duty Support, including trials. If dungeons and trials end up dumbed down, it won't be because of the NPCs. Remember how hated Tower of Zot was at EW launch? Yet it was designed to be done with Duty Support. If things are dumbed down, it will be because new players lacking 90 levels of previous experience will need to be able to complete those duties.

This doesn't mean that there won't still be high end duties for those more interested in multi-player content. The raids and EX trials can still fill that role. The concerns about CT being required for MSQ won't matter if there's a new starting point. Hopefully they will be adding in an alternate path for unlocking group duties as others have said is needed for those with no interest in the story or who have already done it on other characters.

But this will put huge pressure on the development team to finally add some midcore content. New players wanting to experience multi-player content after going through MSQ solo will have no group experience. They're going to need the right stepping stones more than ever and Alliance raid zergs is not one of them.

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Thats some interesting thought processes there and I didn't think about it like that, this sort of direction wouldn't be good for a new MMO but an 11 year old one it makes a lot of sense to give those options. Im sure they could story wise make it so the echo allows you to relive the past to do anything pre-7.0

Either way its a lot of speculation and I think they've done almost enough work to the old content revamps to sort of say that's good now focus at the endgame or new expansion stuff. I would like them maybe just go back through ARR-SB main scenario and condense it a little more. There is filler in HW and SB as well that could be chopped or put to side quests like they did in the first trim.

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Originally Posted by kcj

I dont "heal" when it's an NPC party, why would I? And you're clearly dismissing my point: que times are much longer for characters leveled through story as dps: it takes just that much longer to get to endgame. Not everyone likes watching paint dray, after all.

And I'm also not talking about people putting their tenth character through story, I'm talking about people doing it for the first or second time.

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that was kind of my point, with an NPC party, what are you learning about healing? if you noticed, I did not dismiss your point about queue times being longer as a dps. I agree, dps queues are longer because most people, want to run as a dps, I was saying that as a healer, I very very very rarely saw longer queue times.

There're so many single player ff games
why are they trying to make the mmo one more single player oriented
just go play one of the single player ones if you want to play alone
like, what even is this lol

If they are going to continue to adjust trusts to do more content then my only request would be to let us do a mix of players and trusts. Let me take 2 trusts and a friend, or let my 3 many party fill that last spot with an NPC if we want.