Alternate Main Quest/GC Quest storyline for solo players

Please do this in 2.0.

I understand that some people lack the coordination, attentiveness, or time to form a party to do a meaningful quest. But the way you are developing the game now with all the story being delivered through truly awful quests (gameplay wise not cutscene/dialogue wise) is really hurting the experience for what I think is the majority of us.

Bring back the challenge and fun that was CoP/Sky etc. Then develop an alternative storyline for solo players. That way the experience isn't ruined for one group of players.

I am almost certain the job quests will be the same, which is a real shame. I hope that the AF derives at least from drops in the Dungeon but I'm not holding my breath on that one either.

If SE learned anything from launch, it should be that when you dumb down everything for the lowest common denominator you alienate everyone else with a lackluster gaming experience.

In before casuals complain that they wan't to solo the storyline in a MMO they paid for!

I have to agree with OP tho, the story in XIV so far hasn't been very meroable at all, in fact I found it incredibly boring, mainly do to the lack of any feeling of engagement or challenge whatsoever, but then again the storyline we have so far was designed to be doable as a non combat class.

Let the game have challenging and fun "main" storylines which will require party play for boss fights etc, as well as soloable side stories.
And theres nothing saying they couldn't make the solo storylines challenging as well.

I however strongly disagree with AF items being based on dungeon drops, I'd be fine with a piece or two being obtained in a hard groupquest fight to get a guaranteed quest item to turn in for a final armor piece, but I'd hate to leave it up to a shitty RNG drop %, leave that for non AF dungeon armor sets.

they really really need sandbox style game quest, a.k.a. wow dailys in other words, but unlimited and different scenario's thats not kill quest only for when you finsh everything you still have things to do.

as for AF i hope they handle it like ffxi where you do a quest gather things to kill something then get a item to finsh and get your AF piece 100%. a dungeon drop would be 100% stupid alot of people wont finsh the job quest.

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Originally Posted by Choyi

I however strongly disagree with AF items being based on dungeon drops, I'd be fine with a piece or two being obtained in a hard groupquest fight to get a guaranteed quest item to turn in for a final armor piece, but I'd hate to leave it up to a shitty RNG drop %, leave that for non AF dungeon armor sets.

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This. I'd rather see some group based content akin to the AF3 quests in FFXI than rely on the rather abysmal droprate that's currently seen in instances. If they were to make it a 100% drop from the last boss in a dungeon then that would be worth it. WoW tends to do the same thing for certain epic items where you have to beat the mega-boss of an instance to get a drop to turn in to complete a quest and get your item.

Of course the system has already been designed and scheduled to come out this week so I guess we'll see how it'll really go down...

If there was one GC quest that was pretty dumb and forced you to group it was the Ifrit lv25 one. Had to shout in town in order to get 4 people for about an hour to find 3 people to join to kill a boss that died in 2 hits. There is no reason to have a minimum number of people for a battlefield quest.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

If there was one GC quest that was pretty dumb and forced you to group it was the Ifrit lv25 one. Had to shout in town in order to get 4 people for about an hour to find 3 people to join to kill a boss that died in 2 hits. There is no reason to have a minimum number of people for a battlefield quest.

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Agree with this, minimum requirments of number people to be able to enter shouldn't exist, as long as you meet any other pre requirements such as quest lines etc nothing should stop you from going inside solo, duo etc to explore a dungeon or low man content for extra challenge or whatever the reason may be.

First off, the main storyline can already be soloed, even by a DoL (by means of parley and what not). Screw having an entire storyline set aside for the casuals, they've mostly left this game to play the flavor-of-the-month MMO; just bring on the CoP-style challenge already. If they want to solo the difficult stuff, they can wait for summoner or beastmaster.

I do, however, agree with removing the minimum requirement for party members, as a 50 can solo the lvl25 Ifrit battle fairly quickly. If people want to try their luck solo'ing or duo'ing DH, let them, would provide for more filler content in the meantime.

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Originally Posted by Theplatter

First off, the main storyline can already be soloed, even by a DoL (by means of parley and what not). Screw having an entire storyline set aside for the casuals, they've mostly left this game to play the flavor-of-the-month MMO; just bring on the CoP-style challenge already. If they want to solo the difficult stuff, they can wait for summoner or beastmaster.

I do, however, agree with removing the minimum requirement for party members, as a 50 can solo the lvl25 Ifrit battle fairly quickly. If people want to try their luck solo'ing or duo'ing DH, let them, would provide for more filler content in the meantime.

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The point is that they put all this work into the story/cutscenes and deliver it through content that is simply not enjoyable for a very large portion of their players. So to fix this they need to make them group based, and challenging/fun. If solo players will raise a fuss over that, simply give them an alternative way of progressing through the storyline but don't change the main/original path for most players to be crap just so it is accessible by everyone (like the current implementation).

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Originally Posted by Murugan

The point is that they put all this work into the story/cutscenes and deliver it through content that is simply not enjoyable for a very large portion of their players. So to fix this they need to make them group based, and challenging/fun. If solo players will raise a fuss over that, simply give them an alternative way of progressing through the storyline but don't change the main/original path for most players to be crap just so it is accessible by everyone (like the current implementation).

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All I'm saying is why go through the trouble to suit the needs of a few, and detract from work already being fleshed out by the design team for future, engaging content? Heaven forbid they have to gather some LS mates to progress the main storyline, or learn some party play? Bring on the group-related/difficult content and don't look back! Make it an achievement that you've reached this milestone, not some soloable bump in the road!

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Originally Posted by Theplatter

All I'm saying is why go through the trouble to suit the needs of a few, and detract from work already being fleshed out by the design team for future, engaging content? Heaven forbid they have to gather some LS mates to progress the main storyline, or learn some party play? Bring on the group-related/difficult content and don't look back! Make it an achievement that you've reached this milestone, not some soloable bump in the road!

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Because soloers point to statistics like how 9 out of 10 of all MMO players (including I guess free trial players and F2P MMO's) do not do group/raid content.

If SE wants to cater them too that's fine, but I do not enjoy having the entire story monopolized by these boring solo quests. It hasn't worked out, and unfortunately since taking over despite some lip service for the most part Yoshida has continued Tanaka's trend of boring, entirely solo lackluster storyline quests.