Solo dungeons and raids!

[Zorvan]

Why? There is no point to do the dungeon without loot. There is no point to playing an MMO if you don't play with others.

I don't understand why people play a MMORPG if they want to solo everything; might as well just play a RPG.

There should never be solo raids or dungeons in a mmo. MMOs are designed to be played in groups. XIV is already way way way too focused on solo/lowman everything.

If people want to play solo they need to stop playing mmos and stop asking for things that have no place in a multiplayer focused genre.

Thankfully, the world has moved on and you are no longer in the majority. Massively singleplayer is the new reality.

Why play an mmo solo? Because a.) the content keeps coming and $15 a month is cheaper than $60+ a month for a comparable amount of content by buying multiple offline singleplayer games and b) other players almost qualify as moderately advanced AI. Until the AI gets better, you're all we have.

Plus, I like Final Fantasy, so here we are.

[Gunspec]

Why play an mmo solo? Because a.) the content keeps coming and $15 a month is cheaper than $60+ a month for a comparable amount of content by buying multiple offline singleplayer games and b) other players almost qualify as moderately advanced AI. Until the AI gets better, you're all we have.

Plus, I like Final Fantasy, so here we are.

Pretty much this. You can't find expansive world content like FFXIV in other games, especially other Final Fantasy titles. And when you compare FFXIV to FFXI, it's a joke to say that this game is multiplayer only. You can't blow your nose in FFXI without a full party supporting you. With the exception of about 4 or 5 fate bosses and the later hunts, every single aspect of the open world is soloable in FFXIV, and most group content can be done with random duty finder players requiring zero coordination.

I think group content in FFXIV is fine the way it is, but people who don't understand the solo play appeal of FFXIV blow my mind.

[AdamFyi]

I think group content in FFXIV is fine the way it is, but people who don't understand the solo play appeal of FFXIV blow my mind.

The main problem when it comes to introducing solo play to current content is balance. Let's take Wanderer's Palace (Hard) as an example. One of the mechanics of the final boss fight introduces Doom as a debuff that kills you if you cannot get back to full health in time. This means that only certain jobs and classes may complete it; namely the healers, Summoners and Warriors to an extent. Other classes are thrown out of the loop.

They probably can do away with that mechanic by removing it entirely. However, BLMs face the problem of not being able to tank the incoming physical damage nor can he displace the damage with healing. Melee also faces this due to most if their HP restoring abilities locked onto a cooldown and also having small MP pools to keep them up for long battles. Bards may face a similar issue as kiting the bosses is very difficult since recent bosses have ranged attacks in their kit or run faster than the player.

Of course, they could add in NPC adventurers, but that is going to require reworking the AI for the NPCs, and that's for one dungeon out of many.

Anyway, I'm not completely against having solo instances of the old content; provided that the content is outdated. Just pointing out the issues when it comes to balancing group content into solo content.