Casual-Midcore, Solo players.. How do you play Final Fantasy 14?

I'm quite busy at work that makes me play FF14 for about 1-2 hours only which is just quite a few dungeon runs(plus long queue time for DPS, longer if offpeak).

Solo- Since I have no time to chit chat around people because of daily time constraints, I play the game fully solo, of course given the fact you play FF14 with PUGs which form a party.

What do you suggest?
How do you play it?

Something that everyone who wants to solo in an MMORPG, regardless of how soloable the game might present itself, is that these games are designed around groups. Meaning that anything that is not designed specifically to be soloed (like daily quests here) is often content you will not be able to do solo no matter what you do. The DF system is there to help you experience these things with the time restraints you have (within some reason of course).

I play solo 95% of the time, as I rarely ever run things with DF unless I'm either used to the content beforehand or somewhat forced to do it to progress (e.g. story primal fights, CM, etc). I have never run Coil, WP, a majority of HM dungeons, Extreme fights, etc. I really don't care to neither, so that may or may not be how someone else feels in the same position. You really can't do very much in this game if you don't utilize the DF system. I have done things that I've wanted to though that defy the group intention, such as soloing some low level dungeons as SCH, which is how soloing in MMORPGs should always be understood. Asked a few friends/FC members to queue with me and drop. You're limiting yourself immensely to the variety of content in doing so though. If you choose to solo in a game that is not solo friendly with the bulk of its interesting repeat content (e.g. dungeons/raids require queuing a full group to do), you will run into problems. Thankfully, I've always been a crafter at heart, so that's where the majority of my time is spent... making dat gil. Not to mention leveling from time to time. I just really wish they'd abolish the need to run stuff with a full group. I'd love to try to find a way to solo more dungeons without any sort of nerf to the content. Or underman dungeons/raids with a few friends.

For the time being I'm a solo casual.

I spend my time crafting and gathering and farming on my battle classes. Every once in a while I'll DF to do a story quest dungeon.
I chat with my FC, help them out, and they help me out too. I do like my solo play so I try not to ask for too much, but every once in a while it's nice to get a little help.

I want to enjoy the leveling and crafting content for the time being. That isn't to say I won't go softcore/midcore, or even hardcore somewhere down the line.

Part of it is also that I have time constraints. Another part of it is that in the game I played previously I was an endgame raider and I feel like taking a break from that for a while. I'll probably start doing raids once I finish all the non-raid content I care about.

Hey, whats up!^^

I play mainly with my partner. I'm studying the preparatory year before university (we call it here "Bachiller"). It gives me almost no time between monday-thursday, so we do everything we can do except Coil (for obvious reasons).
Our weeks consist in: Monday to thurday: Tend or fertilize plants, log in at the exact time to gather soil, check retainers / marketboards AND sometimes a roulette for the daily alexandrite.
Friday to sunday: Cap poetics like crazy (dungeons & ST), crafting, spiritbond (relic upgrade), beastmen daily missions aaaand playing with our houses (redecorating, moving furnishing, etc...).

This game have plenty of things to do that sometimes we feel overwhelmed.

Just play the game at your own pace. ^^

Buy a ton of stuff from the cash shop and /drool over what your hard earned paycheck got you for the week.

I log in, I do dailies, my roulette, log off unless doing raids that night. That's about it. Oh, and frontlines ever so rarely.

Hmm, my suggestion as a leader of a casual mid-sized FC (therefore the viewpoint of someone NOT a solo player) is to perhaps look for a FC that welcomes solo players or mature gamers (ie those with full time jobs, families, and/or other time consuming responsibilities) and is there just to help with forming parties and reducing your queue times and is okay with minimal chit-chat from you.

I work every weekday and have only about 2 hours max per night to play (excluding weekends). I run a small, casual FC with people who are in similar situations related to work, school, friends, etc so more often than not I can find a member or three to help run leveling dungeons. I don't have time to dedicate myself to a progression group but I have my hands full soloing PvP and leveling crafting/gathering classes. A lot of the content outside of Coil is easily soloable for me but it is much more enjoyable when you can find friends or FC members to hang around with. Believe it or not, it doesn't take too much time to make casual friends in-game!

I play with my hands. Oh, I also make use of my eyeballs.

I prefer to use a mouse and keyboard. ;)

I fit your profile well (though I have more than 1-2 hrs). I typically do what I find relaxing and/or enjoyable that day. It may be queuing for a DF and gathering animal bits for my crafts, straight-out gathering, or running a dungeon with my FC mates.

I'm not going to say an MMO isn't for you, given your time constraints, but you may need to accept that there will be things you won't be able to do if you've only got an hour to play. I found that relaxing my expectations and doing whatever was fun at the moment improved my gameplay satisfaction greatly during periods when I couldn't log on for extended periods in one go.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

I prefer to use a mouse and keyboard. ;)

I fit your profile well (though I have more than 1-2 hrs). I typically do what I find relaxing and/or enjoyable that day. It may be queuing for a DF and gathering animal bits for my crafts, straight-out gathering, or running a dungeon with my FC mates.

I'm not going to say an MMO isn't for you, given your time constraints, but you may need to accept that there will be things you won't be able to do if you've only got an hour to play. I found that relaxing my expectations and doing whatever was fun at the moment improved my gameplay satisfaction greatly during periods when I couldn't log on for extended periods in one go.

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I understand your point. The thing is, I really love playing FF14. it's just that, I hope there are more options for Solo/casual players.

These days it's pretty much just dailies. I always complete story and side quests where possible, but as that's usually finished within the first month after an update, most of my online time means running daily quests to get tomes for gear. Somehow throughout all this I managed to get an Animus weapon, but I'm having a hard time trying to justify moving onto the next stage given the abhorrent costs involved.

So for the time being i'm caught between levelling my rogue using dailies, getting gear for my 'main' and occasionally spiritbonding for crafting materia so I can upgrade myself to 4-star across all of them.

I play 7-10 hrs a week and I'm kind of positively surprised what can be achieved in that time.

I got a static with which I raid 2x 2 hrs a week Coil and Ex primals and the rest of the time i mostly try to get poetic tomes doing Roulette.

Only focusing on 1 job tho and I didnt even start this Relic Atma timesink.

Not sure what your definition of solo is, in the last years before ARR i have been soloing here and there because i got tired of raiding, for me, soloing is clearing group content alone, it's usually harder and takes much more time, but you can't do that here, the game right now is not solo friendly at all, if you want to avoid group content all you can do is, dailies, crafting and treasure maps.

Most MMOs are not designed for solo players, we just find our way to do it, but here we can't even try.

I like the idea behind this thread. I am a bit of a more casual player too and I oscillate between doing the brand new content (at Shiva EX atm) and leveling crafts and other jobs.

At times i feel really defeated at the pacing of the content in this game; It's way too fast! (i.e new stuff comes out way too fast and in essence hurries everyone along)

And other times i feel like i have wayy too much that I can do in a given session: Treasure map, craft and try to make some gil, try to cap tomes, try to work on relic, try to work on beast tribes, try to glamour my gear sets, etc...

I enjoy the game, but there are times i dont play because its overwhelming to feel like the game is a to-do list in addition to the fact that i do it solo.

I'm a full time parent, with a 22 month old and preschooler -- as such I can only ever play at night for about two hours. I think the main thing for someone who wants to experience the game, even if 'solo', is to get in a good FC full of fun people. Once there, you can make connections with people and make either a 4 man 'static' group who agrees to run things like experts each night (1 hour max time -- usually -30 mins to complete with a full FC party) or even group of 8 FC members who can make a full FC group to run ST (again, probably takes an hour at most). Being in a FC and making friends would mean you won't have to use DF, or wait, to do your expert roulette, and you'll get tomes for gear quickly while socializing and maybe progressing to casually doing Coil if your FC does that. I know you're on Tonberry, but there are tons of English speakers there, so I think there are quite a few friendly FCs. Good luck!!

*I was going to put the relic questline in as solo content, but it really isn't... TONS of dungeons to do and such -- and if you dislike DF = ick*

**If you ever feel like jumping over to Faerie, the FC I'm in, Orange Pekoe, is just such a FC** --shameless plug--