No Community

[Hito-Shura]

I would like to add a little something.

I think some people feel a lack of community because the game enforces players to create cliques and remain in those cliques. Although FCs and linkshells exists to further improve the means for players to communicate and make friends, it still forces people to remain in their little chatrooms and ignore the rest of the world. I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I got the chance to witness gameplay of Black Desert and I can't say it enough, the server chat is amazing. It keeps the community together despite all the guilds and wars with a constant barrage of news, jokes and drama. Such is missing in FF14 and sadly, the best someone can do at times is just stare at the their screen, go idle in Idyllshire and wait for their FC or linkshell to introduce a subject of conversation.

Towns feels like they are filled with silent, immobile zombies. Sure there is a shout option for announcement and stuff like that but since it's uncommon, I see it rarely used. Hell, even I am too shy of using it.

I think we need to connect the community together with a server chat(With a minimum level restriction to prevent bots) and allow people to enjoy its insanity with the option of turning it off. It would bring much more life and would allow some player interactions instead of the random emote from a silent observer. At least for those who have not made friends with anyone yet.

[Newmanxeno]

They deleted his profanity laced screed.
He said FFXI players are winners and we FFXIV players are all living with our parents. He also put he rp and erp'd with hundreds of people...

[BCRD]

I agree with the OP that FFXI had far better world immersion. It ultimately makes me think of the "which is better, sandbox or theme park mmo style" argument. As for the community my experience between the two games has been about equal.

[Greedalox]

I think a lot of the immersion with the world of FFXI came from prolonged activities, like camping NM's for 12+ hours at a time, or waiting for a group for 3 days. You don't want to log out because you've already invested so much time that leaving now would be a waste, so you don't have the same "freedom" to just log out like you do in FF14- which effectively feels like a lack of immersion when you can just leave. Same goes for community, XI felt like it had great community because you couldn't do much besides chat with people while you were on your 6th coffee waiting for Kreutzet or a party.

[Dzian]

I would like to add a little something.

I think some people feel a lack of community because the game enforces players to create cliques and remain in those cliques. Although FCs and linkshells exists to further improve the means for players to communicate and make friends, it still forces people to remain in their little chatrooms and ignore the rest of the world. I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I got the chance to witness gameplay of Black Desert and I can't say it enough, the server chat is amazing. It keeps the community together despite all the guilds and wars with a constant barrage of news, jokes and drama. Such is missing in FF14 and sadly, the best someone can do at times is just stare at the their screen, go idle in Idyllshire and wait for their FC or linkshell to introduce a subject of conversation.

Towns feels like they are filled with silent, immobile zombies. Sure there is a shout option for announcement and stuff like that but since it's uncommon, I see it rarely used. Hell, even I am too shy of using it.

I think we need to connect the community together with a server chat(With a minimum level restriction to prevent bots) and allow people to enjoy its insanity with the option of turning it off. It would bring much more life and would allow some player interactions instead of the random emote from a silent observer. At least for those who have not made friends with anyone yet.

Something to note regarding chat in general is it's often frowned upon entirely.

a dozen people having a conversation in iddyllshire via the /s or /sh. and people frown upon it and say take it to your linkshell or even /tells... it's very anti communication.

the same can be said in duty finder, people say be friendly talk to your group. yet if and when you do theres always going to be them people that tell you to stop talking and start fighting, again it's very anti communication... I did a weeping city for tails and 7 or 8 of us were cracking jokes and having a laugh, and people were complaining we were filling the alliance chat with to much talk and not killing the bosses. if we wanted to talk we should do it after the raid... so once again its very anti communication...

In a way though I see this game as kinda like face book. I mean sure people have 500+ facebook friends, but how many of them are actually friends....
same thing in XIV, I've got social connections all over the place. 80+ people on my friendlist. plus quite active and social in my fc and ls's. yet if asked I could probably name 10 of these people. because that's how many actually have any kind of bond with...
another example is work. I work in a pretty large company 200 members of staff sociable and friendly with most of them. yet when employees leaves noone ever sees them again. because the connections are so superficial. 200 people there but maybe 3 i'd invite to a wedding or some other meaningfull life event....

then you get big free companies that have 500 members and people say they're great and friendly. but how many of those memebers could you actually name without looking at the roster......
or if 100 of them suddenly left. how many of them would you remember?

while social aspects do exist they are incredibly shallow and superficial for the most part. and sometimes I think they do need to work on that.

I see in threads quite frequently people say ffxiv isn't great and it isn't. but the only reason they play is because some of their friends do. so comments like these show that good social connections help the player base. even when the game isn't that great in there opinions.. so if they could bolster the social aspect and give it some actually depth and meaning it could help a lot in keeping players around.

also see the opposite being true. how many people pick up the game and put it donw in there first months cos the social element is so superficial they don't make many friends or meaningfull ones at least and again the game isn't that great so they drop it....

[Vidu]

while social aspects do exist they are incredibly shallow and superficial for the most part. and sometimes I think they do need to work on that.

And how would they do that? Please no more FFXI-nostalgia as answer though - I dont mean to be rude, but from what I've heard so far FFXI wasnt all cake and sugar either, not even when it came to the great social aspects of the game. I havent played it myself, but feel I have both sides of those stories a bit now - needing an escort to a city? Sure, great way to bond! But also hella annoying to relay on other people all the time - Having to wait for your casters mana to refill? Nice, time for a little chat! But also infact a time when the game fails as game, because its not letting you play it.

Maybe they do need to work on the social aspect of the game - and I would actually consider a "marketboard" for FCs and LSs a good idea, that would make it easier to find like minded mini-communities within the game.
Because heres actually my next point: I dont agree with "we need to connect the people more as one big community" - specially not when we're talking about forming meaningful bonds. You cant form and maintain meanigful bonds with a hundred people, its simply impossible. (And personally I'll take one very good friend about 5 "just" good ones, but that might be me)
Same with the server-wide-chat - I cant really imagine having hundred people talk in there and it being anything but "noise" for most of the time. In a way the community decided against this by already not using shut that frequently to chat (granted, its annyoing that you always need to "confirm" that you really want to shout...) - maybe a compromis can be reached by having "town-chats"? As in: chats that are only active in the larger cities and always only for there city, so if you want to have a chat with people, you can go into the town and well, talk!


Now, for my last bit... you'll say that I'm white knighting here but thats not what I'm having in mind - I guess we all know that this game is not perfect. But saying its not a great game doesnt seem fair to me.
There are a number of questions we have to answer here:
1) What is a "great game"?
2) What kind of game does FFXIV WANT to be?
3) What kind of game IS it?
4) What kind of expectations do/did you have for FFXIV?

No one can answer 1) ofc, or well - everyone can answer that for themself, I guess.
4) is totally down to everyone themself aswell, obviously - and if your expectation is/was another FFXI, you're asking a banana to taste like an apple. So either learn to like bananas too or stop eating them - you're doing no one a favour if you're forcing yourself to consume something that you dont like.

2) and 3) now - I'm not gonna answer those in length, but in regard to this thread and all that talk about oldschool-MMOs: Does FFXIV wants to be an oldschool-MMO that was up-to-date 15 years ago? No, it does not.
It wants to appeal to a larger variety of people and yes, thats often sad for those who witnessed the rise of a genre, I get that
With appealing to a larger variety of people there are ofc also more complaints - and they're going into every direction (more gates, less gates - more dungeons, more new stuff) They obviously cant please everyone, but that doesnt make this game "bad".
And they have to find a compromis for the topic of "more player interaction" too - to make it possible for anyone who would to prefer to play alone or doesnt want to join some sort of a static to enjoy the game aswell (that is: if they want to keep the income from those more casual people too - and seeing how much money they're spending on this game, they probably want that... and if thats benefitting me too by giving me quality content, I'm game!)

I'm really not sure how SE would solve this "problem" - and I'm also not really sure if its actually their job at all. After all they're a games company, not some sort of... "social networking" developers. We have asked for more flexibilty when it came to form groups and such (changing how lockouts in raids are working for example), so apparently the majority of players today prefers not binding their game progress to another person and I can understand why.
Form bonds if you wish - but thats down to you, after all.

[Jetstream_Fox]

You are right OP. It's because this game is crossplay with PS4. Console players aren't meant to socialize (pretty casual they are), just do quests, dungeons and enjoy their little limited fun they have been enforced to. Then also there is no massive PVP which is very important thing for a MMORPG. Too casual i say, too much.

Not meant to socialize? Yet PS4 is linked to twitch, facebook, youtube, and even twitter, 4 massive social platforms that are used to not only share content, meet new people, and you know socialize. Where are we getting console players aren't social?

[Niroken]

While this may not be directed at me, I find this a good jumping off point. Helps meh brain cogs less scattered.

And how would they do that? Please no more FFXI-nostalgia as answer though - I dont mean to be rude, but from what I've heard so far FFXI wasnt all cake and sugar either, not even when it came to the great social aspects of the game. I havent played it myself, but feel I have both sides of those stories a bit now - needing an escort to a city? Sure, great way to bond! But also hella annoying to relay on other people all the time - Having to wait for your casters mana to refill? Nice, time for a little chat! But also infact a time when the game fails as game, because its not letting you play it.

I've played FFXI for the whole of 1 month because of the trial period, while I may still be honeymooning what I experienced I do think it was (and at the time still is better then any other mmorpg) social experiences to date and for the very reasons you have stated. The game gave you a time and place to socialize at the cost of convenience and at times it basically put you in a room with a bunch of strangers and said "Hey, your going to be here a while so you might as well try to enjoy the company".

It's not like FFXIV didn't have examples of this either, in the beta version you didn't really have Duty Finder. You would find most people huddled around the entrance point of Tam Tara Deepcroft (as that was the end dungeon at that time) and they would be talking to each other, getting into groups. Was it slower? Yes (although it was still faster then most DPS queue times today) but it was honestly more enjoyable.

Urth's Gift spiritbond parties were also a thing. Today you can get a good supply of materia (highest grade materia, III's and IV's rain from the sky these days) pretty easy but back in 2.0 you went to gift to put on usually crafted crappy gear and joined a party to continually endanger the water sprite population (I still have more water crystals then I know what to do with during that era). Was it a pain to spend hours and hours grinding spiritbond? Yes but oddly I can't remember that part of the activity, I do remember chatting with people who I would have never had the opportunity otherwise and enjoying myself.

Pretty much any raid group bonds together because of the time and effort it takes for the one piece of content that really "requires" (just makes it easier) a continuous party. Even with raid finder these groups will generally stick together because it's not meant to be a throwaway group like most other instanced parties. This depending on how good the raid content is though as we've seen with Alexander. Still, I've seen these group members solo non-raid content in DF.

Maybe they do need to work on the social aspect of the game - and I would actually consider a "marketboard" for FCs and LSs a good idea, that would make it easier to find like minded mini-communities within the game.
Because heres actually my next point: I dont agree with "we need to connect the people more as one big community" - specially not when we're talking about forming meaningful bonds. You cant form and maintain meanigful bonds with a hundred people, its simply impossible. (And personally I'll take one very good friend about 5 "just" good ones, but that might be me)
Same with the server-wide-chat - I cant really imagine having hundred people talk in there and it being anything but "noise" for most of the time. In a way the community decided against this by already not using shut that frequently to chat (granted, its annyoing that you always need to "confirm" that you really want to shout...) - maybe a compromis can be reached by having "town-chats"? As in: chats that are only active in the larger cities and always only for there city, so if you want to have a chat with people, you can go into the town and well, talk!

I've always wanted a LS marketboard style because that would make it way easier to join one that fits with that person however I find a lot of the time that Linkshells are barely used for communication at all except for specific purposes like hunts. Even with cross FC linkshells I see that most people would rather talk to people in their FC then someone who is not, perhaps the function of Linkshells are misunderstood from what the developers intended?

Server-wide-chat in rare cases can be used for a good degree of socialization but unless it is heavily regulated/restricted most of the times ends up being spammed by gold sellers or guilds. Other games i've seen combat this with single use rare items that allows you to do so and makes it so that your level must be high enough to use, some make it a payed for feature (while really annoying it'll prevent a lot of misuse). I have seen people do comedy routines, quiz shows or just discussions in server chat which was a lot of fun in those games though, so it has extreme upsides and downsides.

I'm really not sure how SE would solve this "problem" - and I'm also not really sure if its actually their job at all. After all they're a games company, not some sort of... "social networking" developers. We have asked for more flexibilty when it came to form groups and such (changing how lockouts in raids are working for example), so apparently the majority of players today prefers not binding their game progress to another person and I can understand why.
Form bonds if you wish - but thats down to you, after all.

Social activity in mmorpg's generally work off of how the game is developed, how you develop a game and it's environment will effect how the player interacts within that world. It seems SE decided to go with lower social interaction to get high accessibility, while it can turn out high sub numbers the amount of sustained gameplay is lower which is why you hear suggestions from Yoshi-P to take breaks between content. Duty Finder allows a person to easily jump into content even from a low populated server relatively easily, it comes at a cost of server options looking subpar. Easy and cheap teleportation, lack of server side content, easy FC creation, massive solo-able content, meaningless non-instanced areas (which are server confined), etc. All of those make it easier for a solo experience made bite sized which doesn't encourage social interaction.

While you may not be suggesting this but I don't think people who see less interaction in FFXIV are more anti-social, it's one of the first things I've noticed while starting this game and I don't consider myself anti-social (as I've played many, many other mmorpg's and had no problems socializing with various guilds/groups). While a great game in almost every other respect, FFXIV does have it's problems encouraging and (more importantly) maintaining social activity, which is one of the main features of a mmorpg which I don't think can be contributed merely to the modern age.

Character limitations is dumb, SE. Let me write my novel.

[Magic-Mal]

I think the most important aspect of a server community is lacking and that would be server chat.

I'm on board with this. Although I'd probably mute it within the first millisecond, I do think this would be a step in the right direction for a stronger "immediate" community. If you wanna call it that.

[Marcellus_Cassius]

Chatting, meeting new players, doing random things with randoms or people on your friends list, I don't think thats the type of socializing many of us old mmo fools are asking for.

People like to throw things about XI (03-08) because its endgame forced your FC to work together, you could log in and say oh so and so are working for the pop items to be used Saturday for the big boss spawn or something which gave people something to do when they logged on cause they could say oh ok I'll go to this area and participate giving them the feeling they were contributing to something greater within their "community" (FC). (This would also create open world endgame activities)

At this point, that some type of system hasn't been implemented, and it doesn't have to take away your savage or 24 mans, is suspicious that perhaps the devs don't know what some of us old mmo fools are asking for because they never experienced it. I don't have time to join a static or commit to anything in game so I appreciate that I can log on and have plenty of battle content to pick from which I can quickly engage in - it doesn't have to take that away either.

I thought Diadem was meant to address this layer of endgame thats missing but the first turned out to be just another dungeon queue, and the new Diadem looks to be missing the point again, they think all we want is super large scale battles. Which yes, thats half the equation but they are missing the most important aspect, how we access it.

In the end its all content, they are capable of creating battle content, what they are missing is how we <COULD< access >SOME< of the content. Not everyone gets to be part of a static because of time commitment constraints, this would be a way for us to feel part of a wolf pack hunting down our meal, the key to community is >HOW< we access content.