Interested in Suggestions for Solo Content

Caveat before I start, some of these issues are because of my on preferences and are in no way designed to take away from what others enjoy. Just looking for some ideas so that I may be able to enjoy this game as my primary time spender.

Ok, I’ve struggled consistently to enjoy this game outside the dungeons, trials, and raids. Once my buddies log off, I’m finding it hard to find things to do that I enjoy while solo.

Here’s a list of things I’ve tried or looked into:

Story/side quest grind: I did not enjoy the overall story in this game despite everyone claiming it was phenomenal. I figure this must be most peoples only MMO, because overall it was bland with some weird immersion breaking moments. Basically anytime something cool happened it would be rendered obsolete because you either backtracked to an earlier area (screw you waking sands) or a new group of people wanted you to tend their garden, deliver sandwiches, ect (Shadowbringers did this with every new group you meet). So side quests seem about as appealing as stabbing my own eyes with a pen.

Fates: Fates aren’t bad, because they center around the combat which in end game is fairly fluid and amazing, if a bit slow for the genre. While the shared fate is a grind of rather insane portions, it’s not bad. Much like dungeon roulette it sucks losing 10-50% of your abilities if it happens to be a lower level one, though. That makes it less fun.

Grind other classes: I’ve never been much for alts. I’ve always approached MMOs as ‘this is me in the world’ similar to old school tabletop roleplaying. So while I’m slowly grinding other classes, my hearts not in it. (GNB-80, PLD-80, DRK-75, MCH-71, SAM-54, WAR-19). Plus, as stated earlier, questing even the MSQ, is god awful boring.

Crafting/Gathering: have a few friends who do this (one just got his shark mount from fishing) and from his colorful language during the whole thing, none of it sounded like a good time. It looks deep and complicated, but crafting has never been my thing, outside of the random game (star wars galaxies, eve online, alchemy in WoW).

Hunts: I like these, but can’t do them forever. Plus, really need to get in the linkshell for the S plus ones. Make it way easier to find the buggers.

POTD/HOH/Eureka: not bad content. Just really repetitive and grindy. Which isn’t always fun. Especially when the good drops seem to be similar to dungeon/raid percentages.

Relic Weapon: Got my relic on the GNB. Probably get it on the PLD as well, but really into trying the others.

I’m really trying to stay engaged in this, but I’m slowly wondering if maybe this just isn’t for my style of entertainment. If anyone could post what they find enjoyable to solo while in game, I’d appreciate it. Trying to find other things which may draw me in and excite me.

Thanks and appreciate the time you took to fight thru the wall of text in order to assist.

FSH is pretty solid for a solo activity, filling up your fishing log is reminiscent of finishing the pokedex and the satisfaction you get from fishing up a really rare big fish just leaves you feeling all sorts of goodness and relief

As you've pointed out, most of the repeatable content at "end game" is heavily skewed towards groups unless you want to go back and level another class (or do something other than combat entirely, but you seem fairly focused on the combat elements of the game).

I'm not really sure I can suggest much. Since you seem to enjoy tanking, maybe trying to solo older content? Even if you know the mechanics of a fight it can be fun to figure out how to accomplish those tasks when you're the only target, and tanks are probably the most prepared to handle this sort of thing. There's not really much reward in it outside of mount or special gear drops for cosmetics, but the accomplishment can possibly be reward enough.

I tend to do a variety of things when I'm playing solo but that largely involves raising different classes and the occasional crafting and gathering so it may not float your boat.

Honestly, it sounds like you may want to make FF14 more of a sometimes food where you play it with others and then dip into another game when there isn't fresh content to push through. FF14 generally does encourage a "sample everything" type of approach if you're going to be playing it a lot, but it sounds like you've already sampled everything and found it not to your tastes.

I’ve thought about possible trying it out. They’ve been trying to explain bait types and ‘spectral’ and such. But it seems like so much, I may just need to figure it out by trial and error. Fishing has never been a big pull for me in any game, but at this point I may as well at least try.

I hadn’t tried the solo thru older content. May be worth taking a crack at. Would also help reinforce my remembering mechanics for what dungeons. Thank you for the idea. As far as using it as a part time game, that what I’m leaning towards. It’s rough because, like I said, I tend to stay focused on one character/game when it comes to my MMOs. When Cyberpunk finally drops I think I’ll be ok, but it’s just frustrating when I really want to throw myself into this world as ‘the one’.

A lot of solo content is kind of peripheral.
You could rock some Triple Triad baby~
Become the Lord of Verminion champion.
Get involved in Chocobo Racing.
But those are all basically big minigames meant and most players do them when they have downtime, not as endgame content in themselves (though they can be).

Definitely need to hit the Golden Saucer. Maybe I could really get into the racing. I enjoyed that in VII

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Originally Posted by Raynn

Grind other classes: I’ve never been much for alts. I’ve always approached MMOs as ‘this is me in the world’ similar to old school tabletop roleplaying.

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I see how you can feel that way about alts, but I find that this game's permission to let you learn all the classes if you want, as the same "me in the world" is an attraction, and a positive difference between this and other class-based MMOs. And the benefit of not having to do the MSQ again seems like it would be a bonus for you. I'd think you can level entirely in dungeons if you wanted to avoid the whole stabbing eye compulsion that I completely understand you suffering from due to quests.

I see crafting as much more relevant in this game, too. You don't need some rare 50th level drop to build your level 40 armour and your crafted stuff is at least competitive with what you can get out of drops and rewards, for the most part. And figuring it out for yourself (rather than looking up all the optimised crafting rotations) might be a stimulating (if, possibly, expensive :) ) hobby.

The armor smithing (or whatever they call it) looks like it may be interesting. Just talking to friends and the gathering doesn’t seem half bad, the crafting side looks like a second job....lol. Maybe I just need to sit down with a bottle of scotch and music and hit it hard. Maybe it will beat the enjoyment into me.

It’s just a struggle, because this hands down has the best mechanics I’ve seen in group content (and I’ve played everything from WoW to Rift to Asheron’s Call). Just need to find that activity that really syncs with my enjoyment for those moments when I’m not dodging telegraphs or getting punched in the face by a boss.

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Originally Posted by Raynn

The armor smithing (or whatever they call it) looks like it may be interesting. Just talking to friends and the gathering doesn’t seem half bad, the crafting side looks like a second job....lol. Maybe I just need to sit down with a bottle of scotch and music and hit it hard. Maybe it will beat the enjoyment into me.

It’s just a struggle, because this hands down has the best mechanics I’ve seen in group content (and I’ve played everything from WoW to Rift to Asheron’s Call). Just need to find that activity that really syncs with my enjoyment for those moments when I’m not dodging telegraphs or getting punched in the face by a boss.

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They simplified crafting to some degree not that long ago and it's way more approachable than it used to be. There are soft incentives to levelling multiple crafting jobs as they make things others need to complete a job (a hat made by a weaver may need a gem made by a goldsmith for example) but you can always buy the extra stuff off the auctionhouse if you want to only focus on one specific craft. It's also nice to have a gatherer to supply your craft with gems, wood, metal, etc. but again you can just use the auction house if you want to focus on one thing. Anyway, I find it fun as a side gig. Might be worth a shot? If nothing else, your crafting skill rotation is almost like a more puzzle oriented combat system so just think about it as beating the metal into submission. :)

Yeah, I’ll probably gather as much as I can on my own. Heard it gets fairly expensive to rely on the AH for crafting, but we’ll see. Appreciate the help on looking at the broader scope of the games activities.

What content have you done in other MMOs that fits what you're looking for as solo content and lacks the limitations/drawbacks you've listed? You've mentioned everything you've tried or considered here but not what solo content kept you occupied elsewhere. If we knew what those things were, we could possibly find parallels in content here.

There's nothing wrong with playing a different game when your friends here go offline if you want something that's designed to be solo player. It's unrealistic to expect a single game to be capable of providing everything you're looking for. I might spend most of my gaming time here but I do have a couple of single player games I switch to when I want to be doing something different.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

What content have you done in other MMOs that fits what you're looking for as solo content and lacks the limitations/drawbacks you've listed? You've mentioned everything you've tried or considered here but not what solo content kept you occupied elsewhere. If we knew what those things were, we could possibly find parallels in content here.

There's nothing wrong with playing a different game when your friends here go offline if you want something that's designed to be solo player. It's unrealistic to expect a single game to be capable of providing everything you're looking for. I might spend most of my gaming time here but I do have a couple of single player games I switch to when I want to be doing something different.

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ESO/SWTOR had a ton of quality story content that was a nice turn to when friends were a little light. WoW has several artifact/reputation/gear grinds that went far beyond the normal beast quests. EvE/WoW/GW2 had exceptionally good PvP (which is lacking here in FF14, but I know that’s not the main draw for most of the player base). Wildstar/ESO/ Star Wars Galaxies/Asherons Call had a massive housing system which made collecting things from your travels and decorating a place to call home phenomenal.

All these things made good fillers for those times when you found yourself the only one online. Housing here is kind of a joke, story is sub par at best, and PvP isn’t as engaging due to the longer GCD. Which is why I asked what others do in their downtime to see if there’s something I’m missing that may align with my interest a bit more.

It’s hard for me to use an MMO as a ‘sometime’ play thing. I usually focus on one game to pour my effort into due to being military and being gone for extended times for RL. That’s why I was curious.

I don't know if this will be for you but personally the thing I enjoy most as a solo activity is personal improvement and by extension Party Finder.

In terms of improvement it's... like only sort of something that can actually be discussed on the forums. Blah blag, third party tools are bad blah. But essentially I treat the game like I do exercise - try to beat my previous best performance on a given fight. Can even work in normal mode raids and alliance and stuff, doesn't need to be Savage. Trying to totally perfect how to play a job in any given fight can give you that happy optimization feeling of knowing that because you modified a tiny thing in your opener you're getting a better reopened after a phase change or whatever. I dunno, it's dorky when I type it out but I find genuine enjoyment in it and it's easy enough to do solo.

As for PF in general I just like to join random groups that are looking for clears and try to help. I have a discord server set up that I just clean out regularly and I can use that to invite people for callouts if they need it. Just recently filled in and helped a static that had been stuck on the tail end of e8s as a PLD, they were all super pumped and I got to experience the fight on a new role. I was also invited to attend an ingame wedding some time in the future.

Not all PF stories are good and wholesome. A lot aren't. Either way, it can be a fun way to pass the time and make new friends.

I definitely recommend leveling your other jobs. You don't have to rush, but that's where a lot of the flavor of the game comes in, and it helps you make note of what skills are big deals. Which might make you more miserable if you have good attention to detail and play with others' animations on.

There's SE lodestone leader boards for Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High, so if you've got a competitive streak, those would let you experience jobs you're leveling up to level 70 while simultaneously helping you level them.

I myself enjoyed trying to solo old content, and recently I've gotten into crafting in a big way. I always kept one crafter and gatherer leveled for the associated beastmen dailies, but now I've been steadily taking the others up, and I really love being able to do my own materia melds and repair my own stuff. There's also a load of satisfaction when you've made your own weapons/armor, and you're using it to kill things.

As a last sort of thing, if your FC hasn't already, once you start getting crafters up, you can make group projects like Submersibles and Airships. That sorta thing is oddly fun too! For me, anyway.

As for the sidequests, if you truly don't care about their story aspects, you could at least skip your way through them while waiting on queues, assuming you ever level a DPS all the way :) They're nice EXP and go faster if you don't care about their story/lore implications :)

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I don't know if this will be for you but personally the thing I enjoy most as a solo activity is personal improvement and by extension Party Finder.

In terms of improvement it's... like only sort of something that can actually be discussed on the forums. Blah blag, third party tools are bad blah. But essentially I treat the game like I do exercise - try to beat my previous best performance on a given fight. Can even work in normal mode raids and alliance and stuff, doesn't need to be Savage. Trying to totally perfect how to play a job in any given fight can give you that happy optimization feeling of knowing that because you modified a tiny thing in your opener you're getting a better reopened after a phase change or whatever. I dunno, it's dorky when I type it out but I find genuine enjoyment in it and it's easy enough to do solo.

As for PF in general I just like to join random groups that are looking for clears and try to help. I have a discord server set up that I just clean out regularly and I can use that to invite people for callouts if they need it. Just recently filled in and helped a static that had been stuck on the tail end of e8s as a PLD, they were all super pumped and I got to experience the fight on a new role. I was also invited to attend an ingame wedding some time in the future.

Not all PF stories are good and wholesome. A lot aren't. Either way, it can be a fun way to pass the time and make new friends.

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That’s actually a great point. Especially as a GNB, I like learning where I can work my burst combo into a bosses rotation to maximize DMG output.

I think part of the problem is our FC. I’m back in FF14 (stopped after grinding to 70 a few months after SB launched) because they group of friends that used to play ESO got tired of their money grubbing techniques and wanted something more substantial. So naturally they wanted to start our own FC but there’s only like six of us. Maybe I need to look into a discord group (other than the Balance) to find something to fill time.

That’s actually a solid idea. Thanks for that!