Lets talk about the social aspects....

[RiyahArp]

The worst thing to happen to MMOs was Discord. That's where all the socialization went. They are all talking out of game on it.

[Vidu]

The worst thing to happen to MMOs was Discord. That's where all the socialization went. They are all talking out of game on it.

...and why is that such a bad thing? I'm very happy about it - I enjoy the voice chats with friends far more than having to type everything in chat and its great that I dont have to be logged into the game if all I'm doing is talking to my friends anyways (aka: not playing the game and just using it as a chat-programm with a pretty interface).
You can still meet people in the game, if you want to.
But whats the difference if an FC talks in there private FC-chat or on their private discord-server because thats more convient?

[RiyahArp]

...and why is that such a bad thing?

It divides FCs for one. You end up getting cliques based on who uses it and who doesn't, and it tends to make normal FC chat very silent. Also its hard to split focus since you might text chat with it or swap files, so you often keep the Discord window/app open over in game stuff.

and before that we had mIRC, msn, icq, aoe, yahoo msg etc. So yea. Only time i rly chatted (ingame) is when there needed some organisation or everybody who was online in the game. If not i used other chat programs to talk to my guild mates.

None of these really replaced ingame chat though. Even vent and teamspeak tended to be limited to raids; the culture was different then. Discord manages to draw people out of the game to socialize a lot more, during actual gameplay.

[AphraelAmarantha]

I just don't like people in general, in game or irl. I don't know, why would I want to talk to you? I just want to do my play vs environment and do the story mode when its available. If I had the option I would solo the dungeons, but since I cant, I have to tolerate three to 23 other people depending on the content. I am not adverse to making friends but I have trust issues so its usually a problem that I don't want to deal with anymore.

inb4 play single player game: There is no single player game rn that satisfies my itch for a good fantasy rpg like FFXIV does. If there is a single player game that has the same aesthetic and has a better story, I would love to know what that is (and I already played Skyrim to death lol).

[Vidu]

It divides FCs for one. You end up getting cliques based on who uses it and who doesn't, and it tends to make normal FC chat very silent. Also its hard to split focus since you might text chat with it or swap files, so you often keep the Discord window/app open over in game stuff.

As soon as a group reaches a certain size, it will always divide into cliques - using discord or not might not just be another criteria. Also: Discord is free, you can use it on your phone if you're on Ps4, so there is no reason not to use it - unless you dont want to for personal reasons, but thats on you.

I get that you dont like it, but for a lot of people it makes communicating with their FC easier and more convient... so it enhances social aspects of the game, even outside of the game - at least for me.
If you'd rather use the FC-chat ingame, you can always look for like minded people to form an FC with

[Alestorm]

The worst thing to happen to MMOs was Discord. That's where all the socialization went. They are all talking out of game on it.

And before that was Ventrilo and Skype; using voice chat is nothing new in MMO's.

[Akor]

The worst thing to happen to MMOs was Discord. That's where all the socialization went. They are all talking out of game on it.

and before that we had mIRC, msn, icq, aoe, yahoo msg etc. So yea. Only time i rly chatted (ingame) is when there needed some organisation or everybody who was online in the game. If not i used other chat programs to talk to my guild mates.

I mean let us be honest, not everybody likes to start chating with randoms, only if u know you have something common with that person to start of a conversation.

I think today's age is way more easier to find someone in common than it was 10years ago, bc we have now twitch + discord.

[HyoMinPark]

The worst thing to happen to MMOs was Discord. That's where all the socialization went. They are all talking out of game on it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Discord. Until very recently you couldn't even /tell people that you were friends with on other servers; you had to either make a cross-server PF (another feature that isn't that old compared to this game's lifecycle) or speak to each other externally. Cross-server PFs prevent other activities, so external communication was the better option. And don't say Discord is some new thing--before Discord, there was Teamspeak. Before Teamspeak, way back in the day, was MSN, AOL, Yahoo! Messenger. There's Skype and Facebook messenger. Online chatting is not something new.

And to address your later comments about "cliques" and "division"--that exists everywhere in life, and it existed way before Discord was a thing. My very first FC back in 2015 had cliques. Cliques exist in small groups and larger groups--smaller groups have 1~2 cliques, larger ones have many multiples of that. That's a societal aspect certainly not limited to this game, nor directly fueled by the creation of Discord. It has always existed.

I have an FC to talk with. I just find the game at large was more social in ARR and HW. That said I have changed servers since that time.

So.... contributing to your observed "problem". In other words.

That's fine if you want to address the lack of communication in things like duties. But when you don't even practice what you're complaining about there being a lack of, it makes you look hypocritical.

[Kaethra]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Discord.

To back this up.. I was using Rogerwilco and Battlecom back in the mid 90s. People talking out of game isn't anything new. Some of us have been using voice comms in online games for longer or nearly as long as some players have been alive. Predates the genre of FFXIV too.