Can't we do anything solo and improve?

[NefGP]

Uh, because this is an MMO?

Technically you can gather crafting materials & make 2-star i70 for melding (and spirit bond for materia) on your own, but other than that the endgame situation is fine in terms of grouping. If you wanted a SP experience you're in the wrong genre entirely.

[Zarzak]

Why do we always have to rely on Duty and Party just to improve your character? where you can't really get any party mostly at the time when people are sleeping and you're one of those people who play very late? Once you get a Duty/Party, there's a chance that there will be a person with a negative attitude that you have to deal with or get irritated even if you try to ignore.

I mean, can't you play anytime you wish anymore? Yes, you can log-in very late, but to what?

are you kidding me? 90% of the game is solo. The only thing you CAN'T get solo is raid gear. SO can you get raid gear solo? No


MMO = Massively MULTIPLAYER online

If you want to play the game by yourself... There are single player games

[Zantetsuken]

It's kind of annoying that all current endgame content is 8-man party or GTFO.

I'm looking forward to the new 4-player dungeons in 2.2.

Some soloable endgame content would be nice as well... as others have pointed out, FFXI had NMs you could solo camp for gear that would be useful even into endgame.

[Artemiz]

MMO = Massively MULTIPLAYER online

If you want to play the game by yourself... There are single player games

A lot of you guys are sayin stuff like this but there is plenty of scope for single player play in an MMO, FF11 had this nailed for nearly a decade. You'd spend a few hours doing group play and then spend some time farming, working on trials, skilling up or leveling your NPC or whatever, there was never nothing do do, solo or in a group. It's not a case of one or the other, we can have both, quite easily.

[Rhindas]

FFXI has changed now, yes, but until a couple years ago, FFXI was a game where you grinded with others or you didn't play, and that included skilling up if you fell behind. FFXI was probably one of the most solo *un*friendly games at the time. Even BST was grindy. The more solo friendly content didn't occur until after Chains of Promathia, and even then, "friendly" is debatable.

The only thing that spanned "decades" in your description were skilling up and farming, which you did because you had to, and for not for any other reason. People immediately noticed when all you were doing was missing or didn't have the best gear because you couldn't afford it (Haubergeon, Scorpion Harness, etc) because the game's content was extremely reliant on everyone in the party doing their job correctly and doing it well. You know how people hate the perfection that the primal fights require? Put that kind of expectations in *every single mob pull* for almost the entirety of your gaming experience, because if you died in FFXI, you lost EXP, a good chunk of which just took you almost two hours to earn, and even better, you could level down upon death. People didn't take failure very well in that game.

And those NPCs were either in Chains of Promathia or Treasures of Aht Urghan, I forget which, which is the second or third expansion pack. They were implemented only because the playstyles of people had changed so dramatically because of games like WoW that FFXI had no choice but to adapt. Magian Trials came after the NPCs, and if you ask around, those aren't remembered very fondly. And the first actual solo friendly experience point content, the book trials, Fields of Valor, were in 2008, and they were limited so much upon inception that it was still more efficient to grind in a party. Then Abyssea came out and threw the whole game on its head (which, also, is not solo content).

The game has changed dramatically, yes, but it is impossible to call FFXI the better solo game. It's mostly as a result of play styles and gaming climate changes. Grinding was "the thing" in MMOs when FFXI came out and games like WoW changed that. But you can solo FFXIV from 1 to max level, doing nothing but quests, FATEs, or what have you. You couldn't do that in FFXI unless you were a BST (which you couldn't unlock till lv 30) or a very skilled (and very patient) Red Mage until they changed the game years later.

[RaideDuku]

FFXIV is a throw-back to the dark ages with the likes of EQ and FFXI where this is concerned.

As someone that played both those games when they first came out (or came out in America in the case of FFXI), allow me to tell you that Final Fantasy XIV is NOTHING like those games. Do you have to have a group to simply cross the continent? Do you have to wait hours just to get a group, then once you get one, end up disbanding after killing two monsters? Do you have to group to essentially make any progress AT ALL past the first 10 levels?

I truly cannot think of a time that warranted this gif more.

[Felis]

Why do we always have to rely on Duty and Party just to improve your character? where you can't really get any party mostly at the time when people are sleeping and you're one of those people who play very late? Once you get a Duty/Party, there's a chance that there will be a person with a negative attitude that you have to deal with or get irritated even if you try to ignore.

I mean, can't you play anytime you wish anymore? Yes, you can log-in very late, but to what?

But there are already contents ingame that you can do solo and get exp.
FATE and battle leves.

[Autymnfyres]

MMORPG is a genre.
RPG is a genre (different from MMORPG).

As to the comparison EQ to this game, you are wrong. When EQ started, it required grouping to get beyond the beginning. Later they were made to allow solo because their population dropped making it harder to find groups.

-------------------------
MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH later; and even then that was an addition to, not a complete replacement for grouping up. You still HAD to group up for leveling content along the way. MMORPG.

[Artemiz]

FFXI has changed now, yes, but until a couple years ago, FFXI was a game where you grinded with others or you didn't play, and that included skilling up if you fell behind. FFXI was probably one of the most solo *un*friendly games at the time. Even BST was grindy. The more solo friendly content didn't occur until after Chains of Promathia, and even then, "friendly" is debatable.

The only thing that spanned "decades" in your description were skilling up and farming, which you did because you had to, and for not for any other reason. People immediately noticed when all you were doing was missing or didn't have the best gear because you couldn't afford it (Haubergeon, Scorpion Harness, etc) because the game's content was extremely reliant on everyone in the party doing their job correctly and doing it well. You know how people hate the perfection that the primal fights require? Put that kind of expectations in *every single mob pull* for almost the entirety of your gaming experience, because if you died in FFXI, you lost EXP, a good chunk of which just took you almost two hours to earn, and even better, you could level down upon death. People didn't take failure very well in that game.

And those NPCs were either in Chains of Promathia or Treasures of Aht Urghan, I forget which, which is the second or third expansion pack. They were implemented only because the playstyles of people had changed so dramatically because of games like WoW that FFXI had no choice but to adapt. Magian Trials came after the NPCs, and if you ask around, those aren't remembered very fondly. And the first actual solo friendly experience point content, the book trials, Fields of Valor, were in 2008, and they were limited so much upon inception that it was still more efficient to grind in a party. Then Abyssea came out and threw the whole game on its head (which, also, is not solo content).

The game has changed dramatically, yes, but it is impossible to call FFXI the better solo game. It's mostly as a result of play styles and gaming climate changes. Grinding was "the thing" in MMOs when FFXI came out and games like WoW changed that. But you can solo FFXIV from 1 to max level, doing nothing but quests, FATEs, or what have you. You couldn't do that in FFXI unless you were a BST (which you couldn't unlock till lv 30) or a very skilled (and very patient) Red Mage until they changed the game years later.

I don't agree with any of this post, I solo'd tons if FF11 and franky can only assume we played a different game. You're also exaggerating massively when you suggest it took 2 hours to regain the exp from one death, it took 15 minutes at the most unless your party was hopeless or you where soloing easy prey mobs. Deconstructing this post however is pointless because the discussion isn't "did you enjoy the solo content of FF11?" which you seem to have answered. The point I made is that we can have both solo and group content, we don't have to choose between one or the other like some are suggesting.

[ShadowDan]

Meh, if you play an MMO with the intent to solo everything, you picked the wrong game. Go play something else. I for one an rather astonished at how much content you can actually solo. I was expecting much more of a dependance on parties.

And besides, I play everyday during the so called off hours (5-7am before work) and the PF is as fast as ever. For instance, I did some Dzemael Darkhold this morning and waited 3 minutes in queue as a Monk (average time showed 16 minutes). That was not an aberration, my queue times as dps are always under 20 minutes, usually under 10 minutes, since patch 2.2. The only exception to this is CT since it's a Withdrawers festival.