FFXIV needs to stop accommodating Solo Players

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They mentioned it already in the stream, that they will make more multiplayer content in Dawntrail.


Cheers

If SE can do everything they say they want to in DT, looking like a legit good expansion.

I agree it's a mmo go play one of the 14 other ff games if you can't work with other people.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

I agree it's a mmo go play one of the 14 other ff games if you can't work with other people.

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The idea is to draw in anxious players who think they want to play solo (there are many of these), then as they go through the story solo they will often get pulled into the social aspect of the game by talking to people outside of dungeons, getting invited to an FC or the Novice Network.

There are actually a lot of these players, who avoid this game because of the multiplayer aspects but still play the other FFs. It's actually clever to draw them in this way, because a lot of people who were once solo players just needed the push to interact with others. And drawing them in with solo content can work.

Dawntrail is going to focus on multiplayer MMORPG content anyway, including field operations, large-scale raids and social interaction in cosmic exploration like there was with The Firmament. But it will maintain the solo stuff (Duty Support and variant dungeons) alongside it.

What is accommodating "solo players" tho? Do you mean people looking to play a single player game within an MMO. I like to Solo play a lot, like I PF alone, do dungeons alone, do my rouls alone, that's solo play, you're not going in with friends or Fc mates, just you joining randoms alone for the sake of completing content. Or we can take it back to the OG meaning back when MMOs allowed you to literally solo content if you were good enough and were an actual solo player, because thats not possible in XIV at all.

Solo players can go find another game. When you try to make everyone happy you make noone happy. This has always been true. IDK why Yoshi P and CBUIII keep trying to learn a lesson that's already been learned a million times by a million people. The game is called FFXIV ONLINE.

Noone ever will say this was a good solo game. EVER. Let's get that out of the way. So hopefully it's a great multiplayer game, and they focus on that. The framework of the game is for multiplayer gameplay, so any solo experience will always be compromised because the game isn't meant for that.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

What is accommodating "solo players" tho? Do you mean people looking to play a single player game within an MMO. I like to Solo play a lot, like I PF alone, do dungeons alone, do my rouls alone, that's solo play, you're not going in with friends or Fc mates, just you joining randoms alone for the sake of completing content. Or we can take it back to the OG meaning back when MMOs allowed you to literally solo content if you were good enough and were an actual solo player, because thats not possible in XIV at all.

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I think you know what I'm implying, so I'm not going to waste my time explaining.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

I think you know what I'm implying, so I'm not going to waste my time explaining.

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The reason I'm asking isn;t to play coy, it's to help you make a correction as their is a Distinct difference between "Solo Players" which I stated, and "People who want to play the MMO like it's a single player game" which can affect how your feed back comes across when translated. The Term for Solo player is a well known term used for a specific player type and MMOs rarely cater to them as they're usually higher end players who are very skilled at the game and can carry by themselves or just outright solo group content with pure skill, a play style XIV functionally doesn't allow to exist. The latter are people who literally don't wanna play the MMO as an MMO.


But you can be that way to and possibly make a point that can't be translated to Nihongo(The Japanese language) properly, or just outright not translated as some words we use literally do not exist in Nihongo. So it'll end up being them winging it with an explination that may still be wrong.

Or you can be like that and miss the point, that works to.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

The reason I'm asking isn;t to play coy, it's to help you make a correction as their is a Distinct difference between "Solo Players" which I stated, and "People who want to play the MMO like it's a single player game" which can affect how your feed back comes across when translated. The Term for Solo player is a well known term used for a specific player type and MMOs rarely cater to them as they're usually higher end players who are very skilled at the game and can carry by themselves or just outright solo group content with pure skill, a play style XIV functionally doesn't allow to exist. The latter are people who literally don't wanna play the MMO as an MMO.


But you can be that way to and possibly make a point that can't be translated to Nihongo(The Japanese language) properly, or just outright not translated as some words we use literally do not exist in Nihongo. So it'll end up being them winging it with an explination that may still be wrong.

Or you can be like that and miss the point, that works to.

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I don't get why you're trying to debate something that apparently has no effect on you. Everyone else here knows what I mean, and everyone is painfully aware of what Endwalker became of this; to people who wanted the game to have more singleplayer aspects.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

I don't get why you're trying to debate something that apparently has no effect on you. Everyone else here knows what I mean, and everyone is painfully aware of what Endwalker became of this; to people who wanted the game to have more singleplayer aspects.

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I'm not debating, just trying to help so your point is understood is all. As if this is taken literally without nuance as it stands it could have effects on the game. Your base point when read in both languages has no nuance and Solo player within the language means something totally different to people who want to play an MMO like a single player game. Thats all.


Or a better way is yes we understand you in english, but when translated it's taken very literally, as in Solo players who don't play with friends, not solo players who don't want to play MMOs.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

What is accommodating "solo players" tho? Do you mean people looking to play a single player game within an MMO. I like to Solo play a lot, like I PF alone, do dungeons alone, do my rouls alone, that's solo play, you're not going in with friends or Fc mates, just you joining randoms alone for the sake of completing content. Or we can take it back to the OG meaning back when MMOs allowed you to literally solo content if you were good enough and were an actual solo player, because thats not possible in XIV at all.

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I agree. The game is basically a solo MMORPG. Outside the new extreme, savage, unreal modes, you basically doing MSQ solo; now that there are the trusts & duty support, you can do the MSQ dungeons alone. I do alot of the old dungeons & extreme trials for the gear to turn into the GC. Most of the exploratory content can be done either solo or with a party, same goes for the deep dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Solo players can go find another game. When you try to make everyone happy you make noone happy. This has always been true. IDK why Yoshi P and CBUIII keep trying to learn a lesson that's already been learned a million times by a million people. The game is called FFXIV ONLINE.

Noone ever will say this was a good solo game. EVER. Let's get that out of the way. So hopefully it's a great multiplayer game, and they focus on that. The framework of the game is for multiplayer gameplay, so any solo experience will always be compromised because the game isn't meant for that.

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I disagree. FFXIV is my first MMOrpg That I started playing almost 10 years ago. The games is basically a single player mmo. Outside doing the newest extreme/savage content or new exploration content that require multi-players, the game is basically solo.
With the of NPCs, squadrons, Trusts all of the MSQ dungeons can be done solo.
The game should be balanced. You want to invite all people to join the experience, whether they are casual players such as myself, mid-carders, or high-end raiders. I believe the game should cater to all groups.

There is a decent mix in my opinion. I do like that they have offered a way to do dungeon content with NPC's but hope they don't go overboard. As long as they keep the community interaction in check (Which they have) then I think it works out for more group content. I never tried to do group content in WoW cause I heard the horror stories of what I might encounter. This game pretty much cured that so I do that content here and there with zero issues.

Allowing you to do dungeons with trusts is fine but the trust AI is so bad they are going back and remaking old fights into the same boring cookie cutter modern design that the modern dungeons run off

I don’t mind allowing people to clear sor khai with trusts, I mind that when I get it with players I don’t get the old hraesvalger fight because the trusts couldn’t do it

Besides maybe Toto rak and cooperbell they should have left the old dungeons for the players because in this situation as someone who has no interest in trusts my experience is being made worse to accomodate them

If you mean making basic MSQ dungeons doable with duty support NPCs, then I don't see where the problem is. If anything, I like having that option for story immersion the first time I do run them. And for people that just play for the story, it's great, while it doesnt hinder the experience of MMO players in any way, shape or form. It's a win win as far as I'm concerned, as long as they continue focusing on making multiplayer content (as they confirmed at PAX).

I do agree though that if they do'nt improve the trust AI, they're definitely not going to meet their new expectations of surprise and variations in dungeon encounters...

Now then if you had something else in mind with that nebulous title entirely, I'd be curious to hear about it, perhaps I could actually agree?

Dear SE,

To add feedback to this post from a different perspective, I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to do the main story beats solo and hope that you continue with Duty Support and the capability of completing the content in the game solo in Dawntrail.

You've created an incredibly amazing but sometimes frustrating MMO community where a majority of your player base (at least in NA) are painfully terrible at the game in almost every aspect and almost proud of it. Then due to your TOS changes, we're forced to pretend this isn't the case due to your insistence on toxic positivity.

When my friends can't be on the game with me clearing, or doing the content. It's just significantly better experience to do the content alone. The daily roulettes is about as much tolerance as I can take of subpar play.

If you want to build a community that is forced to rely on each other for content, like in the olden MMO days, then let's look at how Eureka was upon release:

You cannot let tons of people AFK waiting to claim a reward for a NM while only a small percentage of people work to spawn it, and then ban the working people when they are justifiably upset at those afking.

Every iteration of group content that you release, you protect those that thrive in doing the bare minimum and that's fine. I am 100% willing to concede to the fact that this game can be however SE deems it to be.

But do not remove the solo option. It provides an amazing reprieve from this incredibly underperforming casual toxicity kingdom that you've created.

You have not built a game where people are held accountable for lack of participation. So do not force participation anymore than you already are through roulettes, the 24 mans, etc.

Your community is full of fun, well meaning but absolutely poor performing players for our battle content. Which is insane considering most fights are just one long script of the same mechanics in order every single time.

Feel free to add more community interaction in anyway that you want, as this is an MMO but continue with the solo opportunity for the MSQ and side content as you have been doing so far.

I'm only interested in being forced to rely on other people in 2024 when they know how to pull their weight. That might seem elitist, but I mean it's not. People are just really... really bad as the norm.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Solo players can go find another game.

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Not really no, because the game industry at large is obsessed with co-op games, as they know that social ties are one of the strongest driver of player retention. Many people keep playing games they don't otherwise really like anymore because they don't want to let their friends down. That's manipulative.

I don't like game where success requires playing with others. I prefer when socializing is something you do because (and when) you want to, rather than doing it because otherwise your progress is impeded.

In the later case, people often view other players are merely tools to further their own progression in the game, and that's why you have people who are so intolerant of people "not playing the game right" or not micro optimising their rotations and such. Socialization mandated by gameplay mechanics is not good socialization.

FFXIV is mostly fine as it is. It gives you plenty of options both if you want to play solo and if you want to play in a group. (It still sucks when you need to sit in a queue for half an hour to complete a MSQ duty, for instance).

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Originally Posted by Taliriah

Not really no, because the game industry at large is obsessed with co-op games, as they know that social ties are one of the strongest driver of player retention. Many people keep playing games they don't otherwise really like anymore because they don't want to let their friends down. That's manipulative.

I don't like game where success requires playing with others. I prefer when socializing is something you do because (and when) you want to, rather than doing it because otherwise your progress is impeded.

In the later case, people often view other players are merely tools to further their own progression in the game, and that's why you have people who are so intolerant of people "not playing the game right" or not micro optimising their rotations and such. Socialization mandated by gameplay mechanics is not good socialization.

FFXIV is mostly fine as it is. It gives you plenty of options both if you want to play solo and if you want to play in a group. (It still sucks when you need to sit in a queue for half an hour to complete a MSQ duty, for instance).

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I completely agree with this. It is awful when you are reliant upon others and their skill level to progress in the game. It's incredibly frustrating.

SE can have the best of both worlds, create tons of community interaction but ensure the MSQ at a minimum remains able to play solo. I will play with my friends or static for everything else.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

I don't get why you're trying to debate something that apparently has no effect on you. Everyone else here knows what I mean, and everyone is painfully aware of what Endwalker became of this; to people who wanted the game to have more singleplayer aspects.

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No, we don't know what you're referring to. Every MMORPG is solo friendly in some way or another because friends can't always be online at the same time but they still want for things to do when that happens. WoW became massively popular because it was extremely solo friendly compared to the other MMORPGs of the time.

If you can't be specific in making your point and just keep repeating that "everyone knows", you come across as a troll.

Despite the solo friendly aspects like Duty Support, the game is still ultimately pushing players into the social and group aspects. Can't do roulettes with Duty Support. If you want those roulette bonuses, you have to play with others. Can't do high content solo and synced. If you want those rewards while they remain meaningful to the community then you need to do the content with other players.

So what is your specific concern?

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

What is accommodating "solo players" tho? Do you mean people looking to play a single player game within an MMO. I like to Solo play a lot, like I PF alone, do dungeons alone, do my rouls alone, that's solo play, you're not going in with friends or Fc mates, just you joining randoms alone for the sake of completing content. Or we can take it back to the OG meaning back when MMOs allowed you to literally solo content if you were good enough and were an actual solo player, because thats not possible in XIV at all.

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It's possible if you're WAR at higher levels. Just takes longer.

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Originally Posted by LuciferNacht

I completely agree with this. It is awful when you are reliant upon others and their skill level to progress in the game. It's incredibly frustrating.

SE can have the best of both worlds, create tons of community interaction but ensure the MSQ at a minimum remains able to play solo. I will play with my friends or static for everything else.

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Out of curiosity, what would you suggest as a way to fix the subpar play? We've already had parsers suggested which people did not seem to like so I'm curious what other alternatives you had in mind.

Like, what could SE do to make people want to/force people to play better?

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

What is accommodating "solo players" tho? Do you mean people looking to play a single player game within an MMO. I like to Solo play a lot, like I PF alone, do dungeons alone, do my rouls alone, that's solo play, you're not going in with friends or Fc mates, just you joining randoms alone for the sake of completing content. Or we can take it back to the OG meaning back when MMOs allowed you to literally solo content if you were good enough and were an actual solo player, because thats not possible in XIV at all.

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By "accommodating", I assume the OP means, "force people to play in groups to do content"

What's wrong with solo content? It has zero affect on group content. The MSQ is already soloable. Other than that, we have Duty Support. Beyond that, what else is there that's catering to solo players? This thread makes a dumb argument. One of the things I like about FFXIV, and often use to bring in new players like me, is that it's more of an RPG-MMO than an MMO-RPG. Take that away, and it becomes another game sitting on my shelf that I no longer play. Such sentiments never used to be a problem. But then, Blizzard had that PR problem a while back. Now, the forum is starting to parrot WoW's. People play in different way, and for different reasons. To think some people have the attitude that everyone should play one particular way is beyond imbecilic.

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Originally Posted by SailorCeti

What's wrong with solo content? It has zero affect on group content. The MSQ is already soloable. Other than that, we have Duty Support. Beyond that, what else is there that's catering to solo players? This thread makes a dumb argument. One of the things I like about FFXIV, and often use to bring in new players like me, is that it's more of an RPG-MMO than an MMO-RPG. Take that away, and it becomes another game sitting on my shelf that I no longer play. Such sentiments never used to be a problem. But then, Blizzard had that PR problem a while back. Now, the forum is starting to parrot WoW's. People play in different way, and for different reasons. To think some people have the attitude that everyone should play one particular way is beyond imbecilic.

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Well I mean if you are asking about EW specifically besides the MSQ and duty support system eating up resources we had
-variant
-island sanctuary
-EO

The better question would be what was actually designed to be played like an MMO this expansion besides the usual boring cadence of extreme/savage, hell even the casual battle content you have to do with other people (AR’s trials) you barely have to acknowledge the other players you all just wail on the boss, hell if you are a tank the other players are straight up irrelevant to you

Criterion (kek)

It's wild how we been screamin for so long about how this was a problem only to get flamed here on these forums. Fast forward Yoshi P confirms how dead the multiplayer aspect is and how he himself has been bored. Id really LOVE to hear from the folks on here that gaslit several posts and acted like everything was just fine. "YaLL ArE dEluSional wE hAvE PLENTY of cOnTEnt"

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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

It's wild how we been screamin for so long about how this was a problem only to get flamed here on these forums. Fast forward Yoshi P confirms how dead the multiplayer aspect is and how he himself has been bored. Id really LOVE to hear from the folks on here that gaslit several posts and acted like everything was just fine. "YaLL ArE dEluSional wE hAvE PLENTY of cOnTEnt"

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They wont, they don't acknowledge anything and are happy to burn something to the ground defending every single bad decision, and when they are done killing the game, they wonder where everyone went, shrug, and go find another game to ruin.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

They wont, they don't acknowledge anything and are happy to burn something to the ground defending every single bad decision, and when they are done killing the game, they wonder where everyone went, shrug, and go find another game to ruin.

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They were so loud before...makes me want to bump some of those old threads that aged terribly

One of the most fun content creators I've seen for FFXIV in the past year is literally doing a "solo as much as I can" run. So, no.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

There are actually a lot of these players, who avoid this game because of the multiplayer aspects but still play the other FFs. It's actually clever to draw them in this way, because a lot of people who were once solo players just needed the push to interact with others. And drawing them in with solo content can work.

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This describes me. I started playing the game cause I was told you could do a bunch of stuff solo and that's how I got to level cap: mostly solo and using DF when that wasn't an option. Now I play PVP multiple times a week (sometimes it's all I do in a single play session), I'm having banter in chat during alliance raids/MSQ roulettes, I've grouped up with randoms in Eureka.

So.. double no. Big disagree with the OP.

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Originally Posted by Kewitt

I agree it's a MMO go play one of the 14 other ff games if you can't work with other people.

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I totally disagree. FFXIV was my 1st MMORPG that I played almost 10 years ago. I did have many great people in the community help me with dungeons & learning about MMOs. But as I stated before, outside new trials, new extreme/savage content, new relic grinding& new exploration areas - the game is basically a single-player MMORPG, in my opinion.

The MSQ is single-player, the instances are single-player, and the MSQ dungeons, if you use the Trusts or Duty Support, are single-player. Hell, if you don't decide to do the new raids & alliance, you probably can go through the whole DT, 7.0, as a single player.

Now if SE wants to add more multiplayer content in FFXIV, that is fine but doesn't mean people have to do it. Players are going to play the game how they feel comfortable playing the game. Plain & simple.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Allowing you to do dungeons with trusts is fine but the trust AI is so bad they are going back and remaking old fights into the same boring cookie cutter modern design that the modern dungeons run off

I don’t mind allowing people to clear sor khai with trusts, I mind that when I get it with players I don’t get the old hraesvalger fight because the trusts couldn’t do it

Besides maybe Toto rak and cooperbell they should have left the old dungeons for the players because in this situation as someone who has no interest in trusts my experience is being made worse to accomodate them

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That is the most terrifying thing that I have read all day. I had no idea that the cost of trusts was annihilating gameplay. Very few people would have agreed to duty support if they were told these facts beforehand. FFXIV is now on the edge.

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

That is the most terrifying thing that I have read all day. I had no idea that the cost of trusts was annihilating gameplay. Very few people would have agreed to duty support if they were told these facts beforehand. FFXIV is now on the edge.

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And double post, sorry, but is this true ? Because if it is... Damn.

I played a lala for years and NEVER encountered one thing for me being a lala and that's been since 2013ish

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

That is the most terrifying thing that I have read all day. I had no idea that the cost of trusts was annihilating gameplay. Very few people would have agreed to duty support if they were told these facts beforehand. FFXIV is now on the edge.

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People keep saying this but there's no way trusts are the reason. So many mechanics that got changed can be boiled down to extremely simple aoes. The elemental tower in castrum abania is just a donut aoe if you think about it.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

People keep saying this but there's no way trusts are the reason. So many mechanics that got changed can be boiled down to extremely simple aoes. The elemental tower in castrum abania is just a donut aoe if you think about it.

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So if mechanics like the second boss of sorm al or the last boss of sor khai can easily be done with trusts and nothing about the mechanic besides its marker is out of date why did they redo all the bosses rather than change the marker exactly when the dungeon was given trust support

Can i ask what happend? I mean i know some people dont like Lalafell.

But i always take it as banter.

The only thing people do to me is hugging me!

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

So if mechanics like the second boss of sorm al or the last boss of sor khai can easily be done with trusts and nothing about the mechanic besides its marker is out of date why did they redo all the bosses rather than change the marker exactly when the dungeon was given trust support

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I dont think a good reason exists and that's why i am so confused about these dungeon reworks. Making them trustable is not an excuse that makes sense imo.

Even I that don't play lalafell (fortunately), I see on a DAILY basis someone writing here or there how lalas shoudln't be in the game, should be killed, should be burned, or how they ruin the game experience of someone else. And this is on the good days, when it's not about literally equating lala players with the p word.

Get this lalafell stuff out of my thread, it is not needed here or relevant.