Better Partying System needs to be added.

Final Fantasy 14's partying system is so broken for players who do not have friends an have came into the game as a solo players without a Guild or Linkshell .
Square-Enix you may have wanted to change how players build party's but i as a player
would much rather whisper/tell AFK players an not get a reply back then not be able to communicate with anyone i don't want to play Final Fantasy 14 to solo for that i would play FF8 an 9 all day like i used to you guys need to add the same type of system
Final Fantasy 11 has so we can find players ourselves instead of just starting a party search an wait sitting on the ground an shouting our shouts only go 4-6block radius on the map .
I hope anyone who understands what im trying to say would be glad to agree

[Thumbs Up If They Should Bring Back FF11 Partying System]

Not entirely sure what you are asking here...

But the party search feature works phenomenally... it's just that no one uses it. If people actively used it instead of waiting in Ul'Dah shouting, this wouldn't be a problem

Edit: SE gave us the proper tools for this. We, as players, choose to ignore this option and thus make it harder.

Already been confirmed to being worked on.

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

Not entirely sure what you are asking here...

But the party search feature works phenomenally... it's just that no one uses it. If people actively used it instead of waiting in Ul'Dah shouting, this wouldn't be a problem

Edit: SE gave us the proper tools for this. We, as players, choose to ignore this option and thus make it harder.

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our partying system isn't really that good if we can only search for party leaders searching for a party meaning if theres no leaders theres no party an yeah i guess its pretty good if people used it right but it has flaws its like a one way street u can search 1 way but not the other meaning if i was a party leader searching for players i can't do that ,an that alone is not good i have to sit wait an shout .

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Originally Posted by Nemo5990

our partying system isn't really that good if we can only search for party leaders searching for a party meaning if theres no leaders theres no party an yeah i guess its pretty good if people used it right but it has flaws its like a one way street u can search 1 way but not the other meaning if i was a party leader searching for players i can't do that ,an that alone is not good i have to sit wait an shout .

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Or you could just start your own recruit and then people will join you. I am not against the idea of adding a seeking party feature but I do think the current system is enough if people would just use the damn thing. If you want a party run a search if there is none set your own recruit up and anyone else who wants a party can join, easy.

I think the major problem is the complete lack of a reason to party, as grind parties are pretty much non existent and people usually do Leve's with their LS's there is very little reason to group up with random people and that is a bigger problem than adding a new way to find players.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

Or you could just start your own recruit and then people will join you. I am not against the idea of adding a seeking party feature but I do think the current system is enough if people would just use the damn thing.

I think the major problem is the complete lack of a reason to party, as grind parties are pretty much non existent and people usually do Leve's with their LS's there is very little reason to group up with random people and that is a bigger problem.

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Exactly. With the ability to both search out a party and recruit for your own, we really have everything we need. But as mentioned, most people are content with their own group of people in the LS. I remember quite fondly of party searching back during the pre-Nov patch and doing eft parties.

i think they need to add some of the old visual aspects, seeing the person with the invite over their heads let you know they were up for invites, as well made you aware there was a party seeking system. the actual party thing they have now is pretty good, but its like a hidden secret.
also it would help if people could let you know they are up for whatever then both sides could work together to make pts, the party seekers use the party recruitment, and the party makers set the party, but can also send tells to people who might be interested.

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

Exactly. With the ability to both search out a party and recruit for your own, we really have everything we need. But as mentioned, most people are content with their own group of people in the LS. I remember quite fondly of party searching back during the pre-Nov patch and doing eft parties.

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Yeah exactly before the great nerf of Nov. 2010 parties were going on all the time, we would always have 15 player Eft parties on the go but then they killed it and everyone went to cob/dob solo/duo and now they killed that it's Leve abandon or nothing pretty much.

They need to give us a reason to party, they could have the best party making system in the world but still no one would use it as there is very little reason to.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

Yeah exactly before the great nerf of Nov. 2010 parties were going on all the time, we would always have 15 player Eft parties on the go but then they killed it and everyone went to cob/dob solo/duo and now they killed that it's Leve abandon or nothing pretty much.

They need to give us a reason to party, they could have the best party making system in the world but still no one would use it as there is very little reason to.

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the update on the 25th of Nov. is think it was is what killed everything from that update it was a solo coblyn grind fest an with everyone being cob hungry players couldnt level nor make partys worth leveling

I think they should let us seek party in conjunction with the party recruitment system. No harm in that. Sometimes I would like to sit there do my thing and seek party for anyone who needs me. They need to get people looking for one another, or make the party recruitment more in your face: they can make it so that when someone is recruiting a party in your range and say you're seeking that same type of party (i.e., say a dungeon party specific to a dungeon) it'll give you a little alert in the corner of your screen or something, something to get people's attention.

It's not the fault of the system, its the fault of the people on the server. if they refuse to use it, then its on them. My server uses the party search/recruit function quite well, at least the Japanese base, which just happens to be the majority as well. so, most of my server makes proper use of it.

It seems its all NA/EU players that absolutely cant manage to make it work.

Also, it seems that your main problem is, people on your server tend to play only within their shells. If that is the case, they wouldn't even use FFXI's LFG function, or this party search function. Nothing will change.

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Originally Posted by Reika

It's not the fault of the system, its the fault of the people on the server. if they refuse to use it, then its on them. My server uses the party search/recruit function quite well, at least the Japanese base, which just happens to be the majority as well. so, most of my server makes proper use of it.

It seems its all NA/EU players that absolutely cant manage to make it work.

Also, it seems that your main problem is, people on your server tend to play only within their shells. If that is the case, they wouldn't even use FFXI's LFG function, or this party search function. Nothing will change.

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well i play on Saronia server when they took out the player online thing i remember seeing around 700player online most of the time so idk if it is because my server is underpopulated but 700isn't really that much when over 500,000 copys of FF14 were sold theres not Server Transfer license so i can't move to another server i really don't wanna delete my character

Well I know for a fact that EVERY NA LS on my server only parties within their LS's, save for a handful of people. and I mean a handful, 2 or 3 other NA players on my server play during Japan prime time as well. Almost every Japanese player on my server is fine with playing with random people. I rarely see party recruits or searches from NA players, only Japanese. Seemingly, when it comes to playing with other NA players, its probably best to get into a LS with people that go do leves and/or grinding together a lot.

They should give us alerts that popup top right or bottom right corner of screen or somewhere on the side that say something like "2 people currently recruiting for party in your level range" for instance. 100% this would get more people on board with the system because currently the system is buried in the menu and you need to click about 5 different things just to check and see if someone is recruiting and people have built this conception in their head that no one uses the recruitment system anymore so they don't even bother looking. So therefore, the game should tell us that someone is recruiting as an alert.

I dont like the system, primarally because:

It forces you to put in effort, pssh! I dont want to be the leader so I have to keep searching (like a leader would do..) very annoying. Not everyone wants to be the leader.

Also I don't want to be checking it every 5 minutes, I'd much rather put up a flag and then tab onto a movie or another game or do something else and then have a leader contact me, i shouldnt be forced into search every 5 minutes hoping there is one up.

If your server designates some time to do their levequests, there would be no hoping one is up. but it goes back to the issue I stated: If people are going to party within their own LS's, or i will add just people they know well, they aren't going to put up recruitment's, and with that LFG, they aren't going to contact you either.

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Originally Posted by Reika

If your server designates some time to do their levequests, there would be no hoping one is up. but it goes back to the issue I stated: If people are going to party within their own LS's, or i will add just people they know well, they aren't going to put up recruitment's, and with that LFG, they aren't going to contact you either.

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can't really get at what your saying beside u saying none LS players will never get a party

bump. I think this thread is too important to get buried.

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

Not entirely sure what you are asking here...

But the party search feature works phenomenally... it's just that no one uses it. If people actively used it instead of waiting in Ul'Dah shouting, this wouldn't be a problem

Edit: SE gave us the proper tools for this. We, as players, choose to ignore this option and thus make it harder.

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Our party search feature is too confusing to use, do not care how good it potentially is.

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Originally Posted by Xeno

Our party search feature is too confusing to use, do not care how good it potentially is.

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Actually not really, its really simple to use and straight to the point, I can't understand how anyone would find it confusing lol. However I agree we need something that works or that people adopt so to speak and I think my idea, which I'm going to repeat for the sake of repeating because I think it could really help the system out a lot, would work wonders:

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They should give us alerts that popup top right or bottom right corner of screen or somewhere on the side that say something like "2 people currently recruiting for party in your level range" for instance. 100% this would get more people on board with the system because currently the system is buried in the menu and you need to click about 5 different things just to check and see if someone is recruiting and people have built this conception in their head that no one uses the recruitment system anymore so they don't even bother looking. So therefore, the game should tell us that someone is recruiting as an alert.

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Does anyone agree with me? seriously, I'm being serious here, I don't care that its *my idea* or anything I'm sure plenty others have thought of something similar but if you guys think this would help the system out give me a thumbs up please. I think this could potentially get people using the system in place now without the need for a seek party flag. IF they don't want to improve on the party recruitment system, then a seek party flag is a viable option so for those of us that don't want to recruit can just put up a flag and sit there. I think the party recruit system however would work wonders if people actually used it - with the idea I imposed above I think people would start using it quite a bit because they will start seeing how easy it is to use.

Of course, this would need other tweaks like more options for "Reason" of party (for example, add SP party in there, add Dungeon party in there, etc.) It would also need to adjust for jobs/classes, and moreover it would need to allow us to use the auto translate in the message portion of it as well. But once people start seeing "popups" alerting them that a recruitment is available in their level range, they would quickly see how useful the system is and would adopt it faster than you can blink. The main problem now is that its buried in the menu and the only way to check to see if someone is recruiting is clicking a whole bunch of buttons, on top of the UI lag (albeit minimal now) and the fact that no one uses the recruit system, people just stay away from it.

EDIT: I know someone will say that popups would become annoying, I agree, I say that they could let us activate it on or off. So for instance, if I feel like just crafting tonight I would just turn off the recruitment alerts and If I feel like crafting while waiting for a party to show up I can either start one myself or craft and turn my recruitment alerts on and soon as I join a party they automatically turn off again.

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Originally Posted by Mack

Actually not really, its really simple to use and straight to the point, I can't understand how anyone would find it confusing lol.

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I've only tried to use it once and I didn't know wtf to do because everything I did didn't get any results. I would rather have a LFG flag and a message that we can edit to show what kind of party we want. I'm pretty sure that 99% of the people who have played FFXIV gave it one look and said screw it. If that isn't a sign of it being broken or sucking then I don't know what is.

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Originally Posted by Xeno

I've only tried to use it once and I didn't know wtf to do because everything I did didn't get any results. I would rather have a LFG flag and a message that we can edit to show what kind of party we want. I'm pretty sure that 99% of the people who have played FFXIV gave it one look and said screw it. If that isn't a sign of it being broken or sucking then I don't know what is.

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Actually no. People stopped using it initially because there was no reason to party to begin with. Until recently leve parties weren't that popular, people preferred to solo. What this caused is people adjoining themselves into groups as in static party of friends or LSs and because the game's population dwindled there is hardly anyone playing that doesn't belong to a group or LS.

The reason you didn't get results when you used it isn't because its a difficult system to use, its actually easy and straight to the point, but its because no one uses it for the reason above. IF on the other hand they make it more in your face: say you're a R30 Gladiator and two people are recruiting for a party that require R30 gladiator - a popup alert on the side shows up automatically (unless you turn it off) telling you there are 2 parties seeking you - you then proceed to click the alert and find that, for instance, one party wants you for a dungeon run and another for a leve run and you make your choice. I think if the system is more in your face its very intuitive and will work much better than FFXI's system.

The system in FFXIV works exactly the opposite of FFXI's. In FFXI say you were making a party, you were placed with the burden of seeking 5 different people individually and that wasn't always an easy task. This time its reversed, the person making a party puts up a "recruitment flag" and the person seeking can quickly pop in, see what he is making the party for, and decide whether he wants to join or not. Its really intuitive but just needs to be more in your face. That's my opinion anyway, and I think it can work well.

I think the party search feature is a good idea, but its either too complicated to use or there are no parties out there. Every time I've tried to use it I get 0 results.

Forming the initial party could be part of the problem, one the addition of searching for members should fix.

Players wanting to party can look for an existing party to join, rather than sending a /tell to every leader in the zone to see if they have space. Its better for the player because they don't need to just sit around for hours hoping someone picks them from the dozens of players seeking and its better for the party because they don't need their leader stopping every few minutes to /sea for additional members.

But, if no suitable party already exists, giving players the option of a seeking flag too gives those looking for form to party some members to choose from.

The current System does work, and if you really think it is hard... then you never used any form of filter on excell, a website, or anything. It is simple and really strait to the point.

The issue is 2 fold.
1) No one uses it (major community issue, nothing square can do here... since now party play far exceeds solo play although it did back after Nov as well)
2) There are less leaders then followers

#2 is the big problem and I been saying it since release. In XI most people logged on and put their search up and went about their merry way and waited for someone to find them and get a group together. I would say less the 10% of XI's population ever made partys. Honestly outside linkshell I never once made a single party in my 8yrs of playing the game and I am not rare in that regard.

So there is the issue, FFXIV's system forces the 90% of those who refused to make party to make them, and they are still refusing to... in tern forcing the other 10% to be completely out of luck.

In the end, the system FFXIV has would work perfectly if people used it. Unfortunately People refuse to use it so it is the most worthless thing in the game bar none.

Square needs to flip it back around, so leaders seek members. I think alot more people would click a seek button and wait for a party then they would seek for a leader wanting members.

Please SE give us the options to flag ourselves and to search for people flagged, leaders should be able to tell players seeking directly, most often people who are seeking wont tell the leader beforehand to ask exactly whats going on.

Putting up a party and details simple isn't enough, we need direct communication both ways, I'm not talking about pure sp party's but leve link party's as well etc.

I played XI for a long time and thought the system was very good for those who were let's say 'leaders' I found it satisfying seeking out players and communicating with them directly, it also gave me the opportunity to use the auto translate and recruit JP/HK players as well as I'm UK most of my playtime was their primetime.

The system as it is doesn't work IMO, not just because of no sp camps either, there's just no way for a leader to communicate with players beforehand, and it also doesn't influence players who speak another language to join the party, again a simple short tell via auto translate goes a long way here, it worked for me all the time in XI, so why not in XIV? :(

Also if I could use auto translate in the description box and be able to copy Japanese into Google translate to get at least an idea of what the hell the party leader is doing would be a MASSIVE help as well.

Also I vaguely remember is XI you could tell who was the party leader on screen, this helped as well, and sometimes if I seen a party with a member short I could directly tell the leader asking if there was any vacancies, this would help for things like behest, party's, leves etc out in the field or if I was crafting at a camp and not require me to say it in say and sit around waiting for a tell that mostly wont come, no one likes waiting in the dark, whoever initiates the start of a private conversation will at least get a response IMO.

I still do not see the problem big issue with out current system. I can see if you don't want to be the party leader and just want to join, but this system already allows that. It's just the leaders themselves who refuse to seek other people.

I really think there needs to be a toggle for an auto-recruitment listing upon starting a party, for those who forget our current system exists.

I think the current system is weak, and I much rather prefer to flag myself as interested in partying or when I want to create my party, pick people who've flagged themselves.

The system is just too inefficient and time-consuming, as opposed to seing a direct list of people within a level range and a willingness to party.

They had a great system at their fingertips before even releasing their game, but then they dumbed it down for some reason

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Originally Posted by Nayt

I think the current system is weak, and I much rather prefer to flag myself as interested in partying or when I want to create my party, pick people who've flagged themselves.

The system is just too inefficient and time-consuming, as opposed to seing a direct list of people within a level range and a willingness to party.

They had a great system at their fingertips before even releasing their game, but then they dumbed it down for some reason

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i agree the current system doesnt work, partys r for only leve quest or behest only witch makes it near pointless even having a seek party fuction, there is no real icentive peeps to party anymore. they just spam behest or grind-abandon leves in ls exclusive groups so the partying plan they have wont change much unless they make it worthless going to behests and alter leve sp.
then theres the whole putting one together...

Here is a vid I made of the current system, sorry about the editing it is a department I admit I lack in ^^

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexi...10/I3VPEtzd6ds

The current system is great and much better than FFXI's system. There is so much I can do with it aside from just make a Grind Party. I can set a certain quest and gather a group to do it (not that it is needed atm but in the future maybe) I can even go as far as setting a recruit for a Crafter to make me an item from Mats I have or repair pieces of my gear.

It has a lot more possibilities than FFXI's system, but like I said the main problem is there is no reason to use it as people don't need to group up with random people.

Also just from reading this thread it would seem a lot of people that don't like it have issues with being a party leader and that is why they do not set a recruit up themselves and wait for someone else to do it. See I don't have that issue so that may be why the system is fine with me, first I do a search for a party if there is nothing there I set up a recruit for what I want and any like minded players can join. If you have issues being a party leader then I can see how this is a problem for you.

But as was said the main issue is a lack of reason to party. Before the Nov. update loads of people used the system and we would run 15 player Eft parties all the time but once that update hit everything stopped and people moved onto the solo/duo on dobs/cobs once that nerf came it all moved to Leve abandoning. If you do Leve abandoning then you do it with your LS or people you know have the same Leves so again you will rarely group up with random players.

Until SE gives us a reason to form random parties like grind parties then it doesn't matter how good the Party builder system is, people will still not use it.

That was a great video demonstration, and the system evidently is more flexible than I realized. I hadn't entirely grasped how it worked, because noone else was using it so it never yielded any results.

The only thing I'd like to add (on the top of my head) is a lfg flag option. It'd be nice as a leader to be able to see interested players myself and, if I find someone I'd like in particular, add him to my group.

Much thanks for that! Let's hope SE gives us reason to use it again in the future.

It is THAT easy. that video needs to be stickied somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Reika

It is THAT easy. that video needs to be stickied somewhere.

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indeed yes.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

Here is a vid I made of the current system, sorry about the editing it is a department I admit I lack in ^^

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexi...10/I3VPEtzd6ds

The current system is great and much better than FFXI's system. There is so much I can do with it aside from just make a Grind Party. I can set a certain quest and gather a group to do it (not that it is needed atm but in the future maybe) I can even go as far as setting a recruit for a Crafter to make me an item from Mats I have or repair pieces of my gear.

It has a lot more possibilities than FFXI's system, but like I said the main problem is there is no reason to use it as people don't need to group up with random people.

Also just from reading this thread it would seem a lot of people that don't like it have issues with being a party leader and that is why they do not set a recruit up themselves and wait for someone else to do it. See I don't have that issue so that may be why the system is fine with me, first I do a search for a party if there is nothing there I set up a recruit for what I want and any like minded players can join. If you have issues being a party leader then I can see how this is a problem for you.

But as was said the main issue is a lack of reason to party. Before the Nov. update loads of people used the system and we would run 15 player Eft parties all the time but once that update hit everything stopped and people moved onto the solo/duo on dobs/cobs once that nerf came it all moved to Leve abandoning. If you do Leve abandoning then you do it with your LS or people you know have the same Leves so again you will rarely group up with random players.

Until SE gives us a reason to form random parties like grind parties then it doesn't matter how good the Party builder system is, people will still not use it.

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That's not what i'm complaining about though its simple to search for partys an become a party leader but as a party leader u can't search for players there is no /sea all Arc or anything if party leaders were able to search for players with flags it would be much better because lets say im making a party an i searching for 1glad 1lancer 1mrd an 2DOM i as an archer an there is a guy that is a good glad but cant join because i already have a glad an i have everyone but the Mrd i dnt know that theres a Glad searching that could well be fitted to substitute the Mrd so we can get the party going nope i have to either wait for a Mrd to join an not know theres other good DPS's waiting for a party

that /sea all crap is really old. now adays they make windows for that kinds thing lol.

So what you really want is the party 'search' function to be transformed to flag you for searching.
Simultaneously you want the party 'recruit' function to list people searching for group.

Is there really a reason to flip around who does all the searching?

Players search for party leader, or party leader searches for players.
Current system, only party leader needs a flag up.
Old system, everybody else needs to put a flag up.

Which one sounds like it takes less time and less typing?