Dungeon reqs

The dungeons - I assume these are FFs equivalent of raids?

What are the party size requirements? Are they soloable or duoable?

Eco

nothing really seperates a dungeon from a raid here but for whatever reason crystal tower and binding coil are considered the raids and the rest are dungeons

there are only 2 types, 4 man or 8 man, nothing is soloable

Does that mean they're impossible to complete solo mechanically once you're in them, or that they can't be started woth less than 4 (or 8) in your party?

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

Does that mean they're impossible to complete solo mechanically once you're in them, or that they can't be started woth less than 4 (or 8) in your party?

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The latter - you only need to have the required amount of members to join the dungeon, once in and if someone leaves you're not restricted in any way by completing it in less than required amount of players. However - the game will automatically sync (decrease the level) of your gear and available actions if you join with character more than 3 levels above the level of the dungeon. So - for example - if you join lvl 16 dungeon with lvl 50 character your overall level will be synced down to lvl 19 including removing temporarily any ability above that level from your skills as well so it will be pretty hard to complete the whole dungeon on your own like that. As DPS - you can forget about "soloing" dungeons as you'll be unable to deal with most of the bosses or any groups of mobs of size more than 3.

There has been people who've been able to complete at least some of the dungeons solo (Kaeko soloed many on SCH), but for standard players and most jobs it's closer to impossible than possible. Group instances can't be entered without a party of 4/8 (if you try to enter with two people, Duty Finder will fill rest slots) but if some group members leave it's possible to continue with smaller group or alone (although it's likely to be very difficult depending on which roles you have).

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

Does that mean they're impossible to complete solo mechanically once you're in them, or that they can't be started woth less than 4 (or 8) in your party?

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Because you have to use duty finder to enter a dungeon there is no way to go in there solo or duo. Even if you had a party of two people, when you que up in the DF it will make you wait until they find two other players (or 6 for 8 man dungeon) to enter the instance. I suppose if you really wanted to try and solo a low man dungeon once you hit 50 you could ask some LS mates to go in with you and drop as soon as you load in. But, as far as soloing a lvl 50 dugeon, I think would be pretty tough since there are alway large packs that ALWAYS agro together, no way to do single pulls and mobs won't deagro until you're dead.

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Originally Posted by HEC

The latter - you only need to have the required amount of members to join the dungeon, once in and if someone leaves you're not restricted in any way by completing it in less than required amount of players. However - the game will automatically sync (decrease the level) of your gear and available actions if you join with character more than 3 levels above the level of the dungeon. So - for example - if you join lvl 16 dungeon with lvl 50 character your overall level will be synced down to lvl 19 including removing temporarily any ability above that level from your skills as well so it will be pretty hard to complete the whole dungeon on your own like that. As DPS - you can forget about "soloing" dungeons as you'll be unable to deal with most of the bosses or any groups of mobs of size more than 3.

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Duh, forgot about the lvl sync - been awhil;e since I ran a low man dungeon. Yeah, pretty tough to solo those. I can understand wanting the challenge though.

Solo would be nearly impossible in most cases. A duo could perhaps manage to complete some of the easier ones, turning those easy dungeons into a real challenge. Completing 4-man content with 3 can be managed so long as they know what they're doing. (And in fact, completions that are a player short aren't unusual, as it's common enough for one player to leave or get disconnected during a run.)

But, as pointed out, you have to initially enter with a full group.

I don't want to do it for the challemge, specifically, I'd just rather team woth my friend and we can take our time, get some cool screenshots maybe, have a natter over voicechat while we do it, than team with strangers who're more than likely going to be on some sort of speec trip.

It's a shame so many MMOs like forced grouping.

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

I don't want to do it for the challemge, specifically, I'd just rather team woth my friend and we can take our time, get some cool screenshots maybe, have a natter over voicechat while we do it, than team with strangers who're more than likely going to be on some sort of speec trip.

It's a shame so many MMOs like forced grouping.

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Keep in mind that there's also a time limit on how long you have to complete the dungeons/instances as well. It fill fail if you don't complete within that time. Granted, it's a high number but still there is a limit.

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Originally Posted by Failia

Keep in mind that there's also a time limit on how long you have to complete the dungeons/instances as well. It fill fail if you don't complete within that time. Granted, it's a high number but still there is a limit.

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Really? Without knowing if there's a good thematic reason for this, that strikes me as needlessly limiting. Forced grouping AND a timed mission? All that's needed now is 'keep this cretinous AI companion alive while he aggros the world'.

I'm getting more and more disillusioned with this game every day :(

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

Really? Without knowing if there's a good thematic reason for this

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People afk for 12 hours in dungeons use up an instance on the server

multiply that by 50, 50 instances

Why should the game reserve so many resources for an afk player?

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

People afk for 12 hours in dungeons use up an instance on the server

multiply that by 50, 50 instances

Why should the game reserve so many resources for an afk player?

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Why would people go afk for 12 hours in a dungeon?

It doesn't really matter, tbh. I'm sure some loon would find some reason to do that lol. But how about if you're ingame without doing anything for 20mins, you get a popup 'click this to avoid being auto-booted from the game'. And autorun doesn't count.

The details could be tweaked to avoid exploits, but something like this would address your objection. I must confess I've never heard of server load being used as an excuse for limiting instances, though. I would have thought it neglivible.

I actually assumed this game had an auto-boot system in place for inactivew characters. I thought that was standard nowadays to avoid afk levelling exploits etc.

Of course, if the time limit is sufficiently long for my friend and I to have a reasonable amble through it, then a timed quest isn't too onerous. It depends on how long the timer is. Anyone jhave any metrics for average time needed vs total time available?

Anyway - most instanced dungeons and trial have time limit 90 minutes, some more "difficult" / longer ones 120 minutes and a few "only" 60 minutes while vaste majority of them could befinished inabout 1 third of the limit so there is really no that much of limiting factor there. If you wipe 10 or more times on the same trial no time limit is going to help you anyway.

can also finish the dungeon and then you and your friend can run back and take screenshots after the other guys have left

Take screenshots of an empty dungeon? Sounds great, that.

taking screenshots of anything sounds mundane to me, so i don't know the criteria for fun-screenshotting :)

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

Really? Without knowing if there's a good thematic reason for this, that strikes me as needlessly limiting. Forced grouping AND a timed mission? All that's needed now is 'keep this cretinous AI companion alive while he aggros the world'.

I'm getting more and more disillusioned with this game every day :(

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Devs make a system where its easier to group with people and work together in an MMO.
You find a way to turn it into "Forced Grouping".
You may be disillusioned to the concept of MMO's in general.

There is already a system to kick you if you are AFK. When a tank drops from a run and I am sitting there after about 8 mins or so I get a message that I have been idle and will be kicked after 10 mins for inactivity.

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Originally Posted by Bixillarla

There is already a system to kick you if you are AFK. When a tank drops from a run and I am sitting there after about 8 mins or so I get a message that I have been idle and will be kicked after 10 mins for inactivity.

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Well that puts paid to the server-load objection, then.

I'm a big fan of MMOs, but all too often MMO devs make the mistake of taking choice away from players in the assumption that if we can do what we want, when we want, without having artificial reins lowing us down, we'll go crazy and stop playing after a week. WoW has also trained players and devs to think that's how it is, the holy trinity and fetch quests and nothing else.

FF14 is very limiting in lots of ways. I was very surprised to see on entering my first hengequest (or whayever its called) that it not only restricts the numbers to exactly 4 but insists on exactly 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS. No room for creativity in these things, then?

The game has invisible walls in more ways than the obvious ones, which are also massively annoying.

Eco

If you pre-make a party of four, you do not need to follow the rules about class composition. It's only if you're picking up random folks, in which case it insists on those numbers so you don't get screwed over.

If you make your own teams of 4 you can go in as any classes you want. You're not restricted to the standard 2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer setup. I've done some weird groupings with FC mates just for the lols.

Ah, that's not so bad then. I was in error.

Eco

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

Why would people go afk for 12 hours in a dungeon?

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Biggest reason would be to troll anybody that joins. Read too many stories about tanks just AFKing for free tomes before and after votekick was implemented.

Second biggest would be to clog the instance servers causing lag to happen, instance servers to be full and thus granting NOBODY the ability to run the dungeon at all

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Originally Posted by NintenPyjak64

Biggest reason would be to troll anybody that joins. Read too many stories about tanks just AFKing for free tomes before and after votekick was implemented.

Second biggest would be to clog the instance servers causing lag to happen, instance servers to be full and thus granting NOBODY the ability to run the dungeon at all

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If you read on further you'll see this objection doesn't stand up as there's an AFK autoboot in place.

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

If you read on further you'll see this objection doesn't stand up as there's an AFK autoboot in place.

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It was removed a patch or 2 ago. So there's that.

I believe he's talking about the in-dungeon auto kick. I think it boots you if you haven't done anything in 10 minutes.