All this talk about community...

[Sonofbaldo]

It's because gamers today want the option to solo everything. They want to be able to log in for 5 hours a week yet somehow keep up with people who put in 30 hours a week. FFXI was beautiful at forcing you to work with others but then Wings of the Goddess came out and you were suddenly able to efficiently solo levels and everyone went off on their own. I fear this is just the future of MMOs.

[Nadrojj]

The only thing bad about the community are these boards, I see none of the ridiculousness that goes on here in game.

[Billie21]

[...]

I kinda agree with the problem you are raising, although I disagree with your analysis.

I don't believe that interactions should be forced, and I believe that the game in its current state already has possibilities for people to interact, as far as content and mechanism go.

The problem, in my opinion, is that the game prevents people to interact as they should.


- You cannot do quests with other people. Scratch that, you cannot even stay in a group to solo your quests. As soon as an instance comes up, you have to disband. The fact that you have to deteam to do it is antithesis to what a MMORPG is supposed to be. I've never seen this in any of the MMOs I've played before, and it blows my mind.
When you see other games doing the exact opposite, like GW2, in which you can not only invite other people into your personal quest, but they get rewarded for it (they get some karma, which can be used to purchase some gear). It doesn't have to be powerful gear, even some vanity or gadget or achievement or title would be enough.

- You cannot even communicate with people while you are in a dungeon or in a quest instance. WTH? Communication is the base of a multiplayer game. No communication, no bound possible. To restrict it is, again, antithesis to what a MMO is supposed to be.
Again, I've never seen this before, and again, other games not only allow you to sent tells and messages to people anytime anywhere, but you can even do this with people from other servers (how many people would have liked to keep in touch with players they met in DF and maybe play again together another time?).

- The lack of big pre-made activities. Many FCs were very disapointed when CT came out and didn't held up its promises for 24 man content. The game currently offers no activities for big groups to do together, except stuff like Odin, as OP pointed out.
It doesn't have to be dungeons (though that would be nice), anything would be an improvement, like some dangerous zones in open world, where some rare nodes can be found for miners, and having friends go with you make it easier to harvest. Just an example from the top of my head, there are many possibilities.
On this point, I agree with OP that some open world content is needed too.

- The Coil lockouts forcing people into statics. Again, people are prevented from doing stuff together. They have to limit the number of people they are interacting with, in order to play part of the content. How is that helping people be social and interact with each others?


In short:
You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

My first MMO was T4C, where there was litterally no group content, no FC gameplay (people formed "guilds" by creating linkshells and renaming their char to add a tag at the end), yet it did have a strong sense of community.
This is why I am convinced that it is not necessary to *force* people to interact, you only need to give them the possibility, and some incentive.

[katyablue]

this is the only MMo that i've ever played that prevents you from ever seeing the random people you do DF with, and also i can't /tell my friends while they're in a dungeon or i am. none of this makes sense. at least i can talk to my FC, otherwise i probably wouldn't play this game.

[OSUBuckeye4]

i disagree with you on the leveling all the classes part. the issue isn't that you can level everything. the problem is that they made leveling everything so easy.

-snip the rest-

I agree with this.

SE took the approach of making leveling additional classes easier (with the 50% bonus and the ability to buy books with GC's), when it should be the opposite.

Make it easy to go from 1-50 on your main through the quests... make each additional class that you level progressively harder.

-snip-

I agree with your points. My initial criticims were meant to be a bit polarizing. I meant what I typed, but, I know I came off strongly, it's the only way to really get both sides to respond. I was hoping that with continued disucssion we could chip away at them and get to the real issues.

I think we're getting there, if we already haven't.

I ran into the same problem when I was first playing the game. My brother (who has since cancelled his subscription) and I had the plan for me to be a tank and him to be a healer. We ended up giving that up when we figured out that we had to constantly keep de-grouping in order to advance in the storyline. It was extremely frustrating.

Neither of us are big into the MMO genre (we've each tried a few games, but none really stuck for more than a few months), but, it was the first time we ever tried to play a game together that kept forcing us to de-group in order to advance. It seemed so opposite of the point of a MMO.

[ZephyrAM]

It's because gamers today want the option to solo everything. They want to be able to log in for 5 hours a week yet somehow keep up with people who put in 30 hours a week. FFXI was beautiful at forcing you to work with others but then Wings of the Goddess came out and you were suddenly able to efficiently solo levels and everyone went off on their own. I fear this is just the future of MMOs.

This absolutely is the future of MMO's.

People are different then they used to be. Expectations and what game mechanics they're willing to forgive are different. The game market is absolutely flooded with options compared to a decade ago and people don't have to put up with things they don't like to enjoy a game anymore, they can simply choose a different one.

The niche market of gamers in the past enjoyed the old school type of MMO's, but the mainstream market absolutely won't deal with the same hassle's. And gaming is here to stay as a mainstream business.

[Yukiko]

FFXIV needs more Sandbox Elements, on that point i agree with OP.

The niche market of gamers in the past enjoyed the old school type of MMO's, but the mainstream market absolutely won't deal with the same hassle's. And gaming is here to stay as a mainstream business.

You also could say: Kids back then grown and have now family and jobs...

You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

^this

[darkstarpoet1]

I agree with this.

SE took the approach of making leveling additional classes easier (with the 50% bonus and the ability to buy books with GC's), when it should be the opposite.

Make it easy to go from 1-50 on your main through the quests... make each additional class that you level progressively harder.

when it comes to dol/doh i don't even think the first should be really easy. i can agree with you on the battle classes, but not on the dol/doh. those are optional side things and i think they should all take time and effort to level as they are done 100% solo.

sure take a dow and a dom and make the first easy to level like it is now and make the rest take much more time, but i think all dol/doh should take quite a bit of time. it's not the fact that they made each job after the first easier to level than the first it's also the fact it's too easy to level the first.

if they just slowed down the leveling process then after level cap raise less would be able to get all to cap before the next raise. after that next raise even less would be able to cap them all. basically they would do exactly what you stated you wanted, but not by limiting people to only 1 of each, but by the amount of time it'd take eventually to level 1 that they wouldn't have time to level them all. sure some of the hardcore members would still be able to cap them all probably, but that would be a very very small percentage.

[blowfin]

In short:
You don't have to force people to interact. Start with taking off the current restrictions put on player interaction, and give the players stuff to do together, and there will be more bonding and socializing.

Exactly, it should be fostered by the game design, and a natural process. It's all well and good to say "put in some effort and find a good group", but the reality is that the game does very little to encourage building a solid community. Beyond coil there's nothing you need to band together for, and the nature of the lockout means coil doesn't actually foster social interaction either.

[Hurlstone]

Yes, you could run everything with your static or FC.... or you could just go lone wolf and literally never talk to a soul and get to end-end-game in every aspect of the game.

Is that really a good thing?

Yes. Why not? If someone wants to take the 'lone wolf' approach to the game, then why should that be a problem? People have the option to do that, or join FC's and interacting with players. Besides, they still need to interact with other players in DF and the actual end-game content. I personally like how more MMO's are adding more solo content, it was something that I found extremely lacking back in FFXI (Or at least when I played it, I have heard it has been improved in that area). Just because it is a MMO, that dose not mean every little task should force you to have a FC and twenty people to complete.

Still, each to their own. Everyone will have a different idea of what 'community' entails anyway.