FFXIV is a terrible coop game to play with your friends.

Given MMOs are so you can play with your friends and strangers alike I feel this game does the worst job at a coop/play with friends mode ever. Not only is the MSQ a solo experience but there are even those instanced battles where you can't take anyone with you as well. Only mainstream duties are available as a cooperative experience and they only happen ever so often during hours of solo MSQ. The PVP is a solo experience too. They are scared people in VC may have an edge in PVP against others and force you to play CC alone and yet shrug it off when a ton of players cheat in PVP using mods and hacks or whatever.

This game feels like it's a solo experience for people who don't have friends but want the presence of other strangers moving around in the same game so they don't feel lonely. Even if they're not actually doing anything together.

Yeah. The game never advertises itself as 'coop'. Its a solo story experience and then social hangout simulator AFTER youre done with the story.

The story dungeons can be done with a group but I know what you mean. In WoW Classic for example, we aren't a hero or anything we are just a bloke running around in garbage armor that happens to bumble about with a bunch of other guys, so you can do stuff with people all over the place, even in the open world.

FFXIV has this habit where no one else exists but you and the scions, because the story writers don't know how to write things so that it is in reference to a group of people rather than "warrior of light" main OP protagonist. I've grown numb to the experience over the course of a decade with the game but this is a central problem to maybe the entirety of the game. Also yeah I have it as a pain point with the game and even mentioned this back ages ago in ARR days.

the trend lately, of which I am not a huge fan, is to push the game further into solo territory. I started for the mmo experience, so I am not sure how far down the path of a solo game I am willing to travel with Yoshi and crew, but we'll see.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Given MMOs are so you can play with your friends and strangers alike I feel this game does the worst job at a coop/play with friends mode ever. Not only is the MSQ a solo experience but there are even those instanced battles where you can't take anyone with you as well.

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I agree that it's really made for a solo experience. The worst part is SE has admitted they thought a lot about it and chose to make the lore not account for other players ie. the other scions with the Echo aren't other players when they should be.

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Only mainstream duties are available as a cooperative experience and they only happen ever so often during hours of solo MSQ.

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It is true that the dungeons and trials can be done together and that is where SE has always advertised that you're fighting with your adventuring buddies. In reality, you're going to queue with a bunch of randoms or do it with duty support, because 7 players are not gonna do the MSQ with you.

A friend can follow you around while you click and read text and watch cutscenes, but that is a miserable and boring experience for the friend, unlike SWTOR.

Although, friends waiting for eachother to be available and get off work just to progress story is often difficult anyway tbh. The temptation to just continue alone is high.

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The PVP is a solo experience too. They are scared people in VC may have an edge in PVP against others

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That kinda is a problem though. The queues for coordinated PvP should be separate to group PvP because it's not really a level playing field otherwise. However this opens up the potential for coordinated win trading, so they have had to not attach reward to it.

So it's much more understandable for PvP tbh.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Given MMOs are so you can play with your friends and strangers alike I feel this game does the worst job at a coop/play with friends mode ever. Not only is the MSQ a solo experience but there are even those instanced battles where you can't take anyone with you as well. Only mainstream duties are available as a cooperative experience and they only happen ever so often during hours of solo MSQ. The PVP is a solo experience too. They are scared people in VC may have an edge in PVP against others and force you to play CC alone and yet shrug it off when a ton of players cheat in PVP using mods and hacks or whatever.

This game feels like it's a solo experience for people who don't have friends but want the presence of other strangers moving around in the same game so they don't feel lonely. Even if they're not actually doing anything together.

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If you think the MSQ is a solo experience, it's because you're treating it like one. You can do most of it in a party. The only time it goes truly solo is the solo duties, and those are a small part of the overall MSQ.

I've done MSQ with friends on many occasions and will continue to do so. The one change I wish they could make is for us to stay in party together when doing solo duties but I think that's a problem with how instanced duties are programmed. Perhaps now they've created Variant dungeons with flexible group size, they can use Variant duties in place of the solo duties going forward (though I'm not going to hold my breath).

Something that does improve the experience when playing with friends is being in voice chat together. You can continue to talk when in the solo duties and you don't have to be annoyed with typing to communicate.

Real life schedule conflicts are more of a hindrance to playing with friends than the MSQ design is.

Yoshida openly wanted this expansion to be built like this for people to have time to play FFXVI, let that settle in, a whole MMO expansion built like a single player RPG, for a games release, that you can't guarantee people can play let alone afford on the day it came out.

So all of our normal content structure bar, something like Deep Dungeons, was changed to suit this change. The idea being if the game felt more solo friendly and straight forward and easy to do, people can feel Rewarded, and not pressed for time to play FFXVI. And I can understand how In Japan, people will stay at work longer even after their time to leave has come and gone as a sign of respect, but this is also an international MMO and not all of us have an issue with Time management like people in JP do due to their dated work culture.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

FFXIV has this habit where no one else exists but you and the scions, because the story writers don't know how to write things so that it is in reference to a group of people rather than "warrior of light" main OP protagonist. I've grown numb to the experience over the course of a decade with the game but this is a central problem to maybe the entirety of the game. Also yeah I have it as a pain point with the game and even mentioned this back ages ago in ARR days.

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Wait, what? For most of the early "half" of the MSQ at this point, the game constantly references you doing things like "gathering your fellow adventurers" (that you would know from the Adventurers' Guild) to do the party-based content. While you may be the main protagonist, the PC's of other players are directly considered your fellow adventurers. Later on, once you've become so powerful and the stakes so large that it's no longer sensible for other "common" adventurers to be joining you, it gets explained in various other ways (other WoL's from the reflections, Azem's thingamabob, etc.). Throughout the entire MSQ, the game directly acknowledges other players besides just you and the Scions...

Cool.

I like the game but I don't like the people so that's a win to me.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Given MMOs are so you can play with your friends and strangers alike I feel this game does the worst job at a coop/play with friends mode ever. Not only is the MSQ a solo experience but there are even those instanced battles where you can't take anyone with you as well. Only mainstream duties are available as a cooperative experience and they only happen ever so often during hours of solo MSQ. The PVP is a solo experience too. They are scared people in VC may have an edge in PVP against others and force you to play CC alone and yet shrug it off when a ton of players cheat in PVP using mods and hacks or whatever.

This game feels like it's a solo experience for people who don't have friends but want the presence of other strangers moving around in the same game so they don't feel lonely. Even if they're not actually doing anything together.

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While the PVP thing I can understand for ranked, I don't understand it for casual. As for the story being a solo experience I don't get why everybody says this. Yes their parts where you have to do a solo thing in your isolated, but me, my gf and best friend all did it together. Yeah we were solo but we were still in discord with each other we discussed what happened, reacted together, we did every dungeon and trial together and experienced it as a group. It was a ton of fun and we loved every part of it especially discussing Story bits for after they happened with each other. Could there be more to make it better co-op yeah definitely but if you want to experience it with somebody you certainly can

I've played this game (and other MMOs) with my wife for 20+ years. Maybe the OP has different wants/needs. We run MSQ together, along with whatever dungeons/raids are necessary. Obviously, the solo instances are solo, but we are running them simultaneously so we talk about what's going on. Palace of the Dead, Heaven on High and Eureka Orthos are "co-op" - albeit, with higher difficulty because they are meant to be run with 4 players, not 2. Variant Dungeons are co-op.

When we are learning BLU skills, some of the content we can duo. Some we can't. Then we hop in party finder and run it with a few other strangers.

It would be cool if you could watch cutscenes together. I was partied with a friend while he finished shb and was just kind of sitting there bored af while he finished up the cutscenes before the trial. Would've been cool to watch them alongside him or something, like a synced viewparty.
MSQ is basically a solo slog and anyone who pretends like partying with someone and running alongside them between cutscenes is "multiplayer" is coping hard tbh

I like it because unlike my friends, I can't do 8 hour sessions so I do a dungeon I unlocked or a few roulettes and then say "I'm gonna do my job quest and then go do <insert other thing here, like eat or sleep or draw or walk or whatever>"

PVP tho... Yeah. Hate it. The netcode alone is bad enough as it is with or without friends but the weird limitations on how many people you can party with or the inability to party at all really sucks. I know its because they don't want roaming gangs in VC ruining it for everyone else but just implement a rudimentrary ranking system based on how many recent wins/losses you had a la splatoon tbh.

The one thing I do wish was updated is with the solo instances. I don't mind waiting or doing something else while my new player friend is doing the instance, but at the very least make it so that you don't have to disband the party. It really breaks the flow of playing together.

I do agree that this is mostly because of the story they've chosen to tell. Instead of framing the character you create as just an exceptionally talented adventurer or even just a normal adventurer involved in these plot points, you are the one and only chosen warrior that can save all of existence. It means that content has to be designed in such a way that any time it intersects with the narrative you have to be the only one they are speaking to or the only one seen achieving things.

I'm all for making the whole experience solo if there is a market for it, as YoshiP already explained (and this is why they're implementing duty support everywhere). But only as long as they also make the whole experience multiplayer/coop friendly, which isn't the case for the content you cited (quests, pvp...).

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I do agree that this is mostly because of the story they've chosen to tell. Instead of framing the character you create as just an exceptionally talented adventurer or even just a normal adventurer involved in these plot points, you are the one and only chosen warrior that can save all of existence. It means that content has to be designed in such a way that any time it intersects with the narrative you have to be the only one they are speaking to or the only one seen achieving things.

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For most of the game's life, they've framed us exactly as a random adventurer with the "talent" of the Echo that leads us to being pulled into the Scions. But even there, we're just a regular Scion doing standard investigations and the like.

The thing is, over time in any story of this sort, you have to get more powerful and take on bigger tasks. At some point, your list of accomplishments grows so large that it just doesn't make sense for you to still be doing only menial odd-jobs like a rookie. So the stakes have to get larger. But even then, the other Scions are doing similarly important things right alongside us. In EW, Alisaie and Alphinaud are in charge of establishing and growing ties with the remnant from Garlemald. Krile helps us obtain the Sharlayan Forum's help to change the purpose of their starship. ALL of us go to Ultima Thule together.

And even having done all of that, there are still plenty of "normal" people in the world that have heard of us, but have no clue who we actually are, what we look like, and so on.

To give an analogy to politics, people tend to steadily move "up" the ladder over time. When was the last time you saw the POTUS leave office and become Mayor of some random town? It's just the natural progression of any such story for people to start as random folk but become more important over time.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

Yeah. The game never advertises itself as 'coop'. Its a solo story experience and then social hangout simulator AFTER youre done with the story.

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This. FFXIV is a great way to network and meet other people who play the same other games that you do. In fact, for just $13 a month, you can play other games that are actually fun (sold separately). Try doing that in WoW. Game over, Bobby Kotick!

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/...pg-550x309.jpg

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

This. FFXIV is a great way to network and meet other people who play the same other games that you do. In fact, for just $13 a month, you can play other games that are actually fun (sold separately). Try doing that in WoW. Game over, Bobby Kotick!

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/...pg-550x309.jpg

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I do frontline with my friends all of the time. It's pretty fun once you get into the swing of it, honestly. I also do map parties, deep dungeons, criterium dungeons, bozja/eureka, Golden Saucer, etcetera, with one or more friends, routinely. That's putting aside just what most would consider to be the normal dungeon/trial/raid content which are things you can also do with a friend.

It's not a particularly great experience if you want to play out the 'story' aspects of the game with a friend, no, and tbh unless something is explicitly tailored for that, like, say, a co-op game, it's hard to pull off. But there are various content avenues within FFXIV that you can enjoy with a friend. I suppose you do have to unlock most of that content as a solo player but I don't think the game really has the capacity for a seamless, linear 'co-op' experience.

On the PvP front, I do wish you could at least queue with friends for CC casual matches if not a specific team based mode ranked, and I wish Rival Wings was not dead. But Frontline, while lacking in maps, is decent to play with buddies.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

For most of the game's life, they've framed us exactly as a random adventurer with the "talent" of the Echo that leads us to being pulled into the Scions. But even there, we're just a regular Scion doing standard investigations and the like.

The thing is, over time in any story of this sort, you have to get more powerful and take on bigger tasks. At some point, your list of accomplishments grows so large that it just doesn't make sense for you to still be doing only menial odd-jobs like a rookie. So the stakes have to get larger. But even then, the other Scions are doing similarly important things right alongside us. In EW, Alisaie and Alphinaud are in charge of establishing and growing ties with the remnant from Garlemald. Krile helps us obtain the Sharlayan Forum's help to change the purpose of their starship. ALL of us go to Ultima Thule together.

And even having done all of that, there are still plenty of "normal" people in the world that have heard of us, but have no clue who we actually are, what we look like, and so on.

To give an analogy to politics, people tend to steadily move "up" the ladder over time. When was the last time you saw the POTUS leave office and become Mayor of some random town? It's just the natural progression of any such story for people to start as random folk but become more important over time.

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In some other MMOs, the NPC characters are the ones who ultimately end up saving the world, or it's a team of people that are not named in the narrative. In XIV you are seen as the sole actor who saved the universe. They talk about how you kill the Primals in ARR, you defeated Nidhogg in HW, you defeated Zenos is StB, and you brought balance and defeated Emet in SB. None of the scions did those things, they may have helped you on the way but they acknowledge that is was you that actually achieved those things and the leaders of the city states and nearly anyone else in a position of power recognizes you alone as being their savior.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Given MMOs are so you can play with your friends and strangers alike I feel this game does the worst job at a coop/play with friends mode ever. Not only is the MSQ a solo experience but there are even those instanced battles where you can't take anyone with you as well. Only mainstream duties are available as a cooperative experience and they only happen ever so often during hours of solo MSQ. The PVP is a solo experience too. They are scared people in VC may have an edge in PVP against others and force you to play CC alone and yet shrug it off when a ton of players cheat in PVP using mods and hacks or whatever.

This game feels like it's a solo experience for people who don't have friends but want the presence of other strangers moving around in the same game so they don't feel lonely. Even if they're not actually doing anything together.

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Odd. I did the story with friends the whole way. Stop treating it solo lol.

Uh,

Whilst I don't entirely disagree, in the same vein, half of the problems you've described, especially surrounding the MSQ are almost entirely self-inflicted decisions. I've met people who have done the entire story solo across just a couple of weeks, just as I have met groups of people doing the story together across a much more extended period. Granted, the game could do more to facilitate group play, e.g., straying away from some reliance on solo duties, but aside from that it is self-inflicted, and is up to the player to involve themselves with other players, or a small community of players also at the same point.

I would also say, I think you would be surprised at the number of people who play MMOs, not necessarily for the social experience, but just the experience of being involved in a world that has strangers, or other people roaming around. Personally, I fall into this category, the only exception to this bizarrely enough being on a new expansion, where I usually get together with a few friends and play through the story.