FFXIV Has the Population to Support an ELO system for Duty Finder / Party Finder

[Snorky]

Do you, as a chocobo, have you papers? Do you have the proper permits? Licenses? Vaccinations? You'll need to present a 50 page resume as well just for consideration. Oh, and make sure you have a voice chat program so you can chat with a GC representative. They've been trying to reach you about your chocobo's extended warranty.

I'm sorry Chocobo are on the endangered species list now so your wait in the queue will be 2.5 hours.

[Breakbeat]

I find it really amusing to imagine this kind of talk in the context of other recreational activities.

Playing a pickup game of basketball at the rec center and the neighborhood kid ends up on your team? HUMAN BAGGAGE.

So much this.

1000000000000x this.

There is a crucial detail missing from your analogy - lack of any kind of reward for purely "recreational" activity.

Theres literally no reward from FFXIV either. Ahhhhh, the insanity.

You're looking at pixels on a rectangular piece of plastic. You are receiving no rewards other than your dopamine releases. Which, I'll insist from personal experience, playground basketball can certainly provide.

[DPZ2]

The game itself doesn't really do a good job at explaining this stuff to players.

When it comes down to it, what game [MMORPG] does a good job at explaining this stuff to players?

A few examples for why I think that "explaining" is vapor:

I've played through the 'starting island' on WoW recently, and it's great at setting up "here's how to ..." for bags, items, and stuff like that. Does it prepare you for end game raids? Not a chance.

Blade & Soul has a really nice introductory section, where you learn the basics about combos. Does it really prepare you for dungeon content, or PvP content? Nope.

Every MMORPG I've played over the last 15 years or so has enough information about "how to play" suitable for your average novice. FFXIV actually provides tips on How To Dungeon through the Novice Hall (and if your avatar doesn't go through that at level 15 on each and every Role, you're missing out).

Not a single one explains more than the basics. Heck, you don't even have to visit a dungeon or instance, ever, in Rift, SW:TOR, TESO, WoW, ArcheAge, Blade & Soul, GW2 or any of the dozens of other MMORPGs I've sampled over the years. FFXIV is the only one that actually requires dungeon and trial instances as part of the storyline.

[Vahlnir]

When it comes down to it, what game [MMORPG] does a good job at explaining this stuff to players?

A few examples for why I think that "explaining" is vapor:

I've played through the 'starting island' on WoW recently, and it's great at setting up "here's how to ..." for bags, items, and stuff like that. Does it prepare you for end game raids? Not a chance.

Blade & Soul has a really nice introductory section, where you learn the basics about combos. Does it really prepare you for dungeon content, or PvP content? Nope.

Every MMORPG I've played over the last 15 years or so has enough information about "how to play" suitable for your average novice. FFXIV actually provides tips on How To Dungeon through the Novice Hall (and if your avatar doesn't go through that at level 15 on each and every Role, you're missing out).

Not a single one explains more than the basics. Heck, you don't even have to visit a dungeon or instance, ever, in Rift, SW:TOR, TESO, WoW, ArcheAge, Blade & Soul, GW2 or any of the dozens of other MMORPGs I've sampled over the years. FFXIV is the only one that actually requires dungeon and trial instances as part of the storyline.

Oh yeah, it's definitely not something that this game does (or doesn't) do specifically. It's an MMO thing. Warframe is especially guilty of this. And I get them wanting to foster community interaction and discussion in this regard, but what tends to divide some of the player base more than not telling them is letting them go into a piece of content half-cocked with 0 idea of what to expect. I think every game would benefit from telling people when they first unlock an Extreme or Savage raid tier something via an in-game message along the lines of "This content is meant for x players at y level with z item level. It is recommended that you prepare accordingly." That would leave some of it open to interpretation I guess, but it would get the overall message across, that being that they are signing up for harder than average content.