FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

[VelKallor]

When Prae goes solo, a lot of good experiences for new players because

They wont be left behind with a load of trash pulled and abandoned by the tank at the portal stations.

The giant robots wont be pulled to the entrance to try and kill them when they try and enter after being left behind

They wont be stranded at the top of a lift when two of the group leaves the rest behind

How do I know this?

Im in a Prae group right now and thats whats happened to this point. The tanks had to be TOLD wait there are people coming.

They didnt.

[Theodric]

It remains to be seen, I suppose. I'd argue that there's comparatively few decent MMO's out there but by far many more excellent single player games that are built around being single player games. Spending so much time tweaking large swathes of FFXIV's content in order to accommodate a single player experience risks backfiring and there's no guarantee that the same people holding off on trying FFXI and FFXIV will embrace them just because they're made to be 'solo friendly'.

I never tried FFXI because it was far too grindy but even after being changed to be more solo friendly I didn't feel compelled to try it since I generally don't like jumping into a new MMO many years after it first launches.

FFXIV also pulls too many punches where its story is concerned and many of the major characters we're forced to interact with exist to fawn over the player character and agree with each other at every turn. Which leads to stagnation. So far, I've found the typical cast in the actual single player games to be far more memorable and engaging.

[ACE135]

There were a couple of times during endwalkers story where I'd just unlocked a dungeon had a friend say they'd come with me. Queue up get in. Be like "hey first time". and then get remarks like "wtf? Why haven't you done it with your trust?"

"Because its a bloody nmo. I play to play with friends and people."

if that mentality grows then single players dungeons could end up feeling forced and not optional at all.

"Use trusts" for dungeons and trials will then be the new "watch a guide" like when doing extremes and savage?

[Dzian]

.Personally I would have been very happy if this had been an option when I first started the game - I enjoyed previous FFs and those are, as has been pointed out correctly, solo games. The MMO aspect of FFXIV almost made me not play the game - I'm glad I bit the bullet eventually, but coming here to seek the FF experience is as valid to me as coming here to seek the MMO experience - people who enjoy MMOs sometimes come across as if they believe they hold a certain monopoly about the game (aka "ITs an MMO!!!") and want to force that on everyone else whos enjoying different aspects of the game, which in my opinion is simply wrong.

I dunno. I mean the game is very clearly advertised as an mmo so players should expect it to be an mmo.

It'd be like someone picking up call of duty and complaining they're forced to play an FPS...

[Shikiseki]

To be honest, the main story part of this game feels very much like a single player experience already considering the sheer amount of dialogue and being able to set your own pace.
Since you'll be able to do the story related content on your own now with AI instead of others, you'll enhance that experience even further instead of having to wait 20m+ for a low level dungeon random players will probably rush through and ignore the little details like scattered notes lying around to read in your own pace.

And it's not like that'll be the only way going further, it just adds an option to do so if you prefer that route.
To add to that, I think it's pretty smart especially if the game popularity dies down or you happen to be on newer/emptier servers, your MSQ experience won't be affected at all.

[Jkap_Goat]

That is kind of a poor excuse.

FFXI, was a MMO and a numbered Final Fantasy game. It did not go through the same length of game play changes to make it more of a single player experience as far as I am aware. They added the trust system to allow you to solo most of the games content which there is nothing wrong with, as long as you are not ruining other players experience by changing the game play. But I have not played the game in a long time and there may be other people that could shine a better light on how FFXI made the game more solo friendly.

I can speak< I've been playing FFXI for three years now coming from XIV

the trust was able to carry me though the expansions and Rapsodies of Vanadiel, there are some instances where you will ask for help like the Level cap quest ( I think it was 60-70)
and the Siren Fight in the RoV storyline, it's because you can get charmed and all your trusts disappear and she's very strong, ask someone to help you

oh and I forgot, the Last Boss Fight of The Rapsodies of Vanadiel storyline, Yes Cloud of darkness is strong and yes I asked for help on that too.

other than that I did all the storylines with trust, Chains of Promitha, Treasure of Arhgan, Seekers of Adoulin ect



now there are alot of content you can do with people, like Ambuscade, Dynamis-D, Omen, BCNMs, Deleve, Unity NMs, Job Point farming, ect That requires real People because once you hit 99, the trusts are not as good as you are, Assuming your ilvl119 and have okayish gear

you can also make a party with people and Trusts too which is very nice

so trusts are there to beat the storyline and level up to 99

I also like how every trust is very different from each other ( unlike xiv trusts)



- here is me doing ambuscade with real people

I'm just your friendly Mithra dancer on Asura, I hope I was able to help









( also FFXI has costumes, why doesn't XIV have that feature?)

[Kuritzkale]

When Prae goes solo, a lot of good experiences for new players because

They wont be left behind with a load of trash pulled and abandoned by the tank at the portal stations.

The giant robots wont be pulled to the entrance to try and kill them when they try and enter after being left behind

They wont be stranded at the top of a lift when two of the group leaves the rest behind

How do I know this?

Im in a Prae group right now and thats whats happened to this point. The tanks had to be TOLD wait there are people coming.

They didnt.

There are always going to be bad groups, doesn't mean most players will encounter that kind of thing. Also using prae as an example of multiplayer sucking is really dumb, it's one of, what, TWO dungeons that have forced cutscene watching, so sometimes players actually talk to eachother, and it makes the dungeon WAY more enjoyable when you are laughing along with other players and actually having a good time with them. Yeah, sometimes you get groups that ignore newbies and pull shit but so what? The occasional bad group doesn't justify removing an integral part of the game experience.

[Thaciscokidd]

I'm kinda torn.

On one hand its a Solo experience, They could have done it the same way that they did DQX and sell it as a stand alone game because if you get someone who goes from 1-90(eventually) entirely solo why charge a sub fee, that changes it from a MMO to a live service which Squenix is actively trying to do.

On the other hand. Every now and then you get that one person that says "If you gonna do X then run a dungeon with trust." My main problem with this mind set is if you're not gonna help them out then how are they gonna learn(unless they are just a bad egg). And if you get that one person who doesn't get bad habits out of there system(thru lack of knowing) once they reach the end of there solo experience and join the greater 14 community in group content it might cause a potential problem for that player where they get frustrated and lash out or get frustrated and just quit the game.

[Nyxs]

People wanting to just play solo should play singleplayer games. Resources are being wasted on this when we could be getting more content but alas that seems to be the trend lately.

[Kranel_San]

Does anybody else really dislike the direction the devs seem to be interested in taking the game? When I hear them say things like how they want the game to be more solo friendly my head starts to swim, like... it's an MMO. There are singleplayer final fantasy games. FFXIV is not one of them. FFXIV should not cater to people looking for a singleplayer game. I don't necessarily have a problem with people playing the game as a mostly solo experience, but like 90% of story content is ALREADY solo, why make it even more disconnected from the community?

I don't think it's bad to occasionally force the player to interact with the community in the form of a dungeon run, or a trial completion. Why would a new player EVER choose to run dungeons with other players when every dungeon and trial needed for MSQ completion is doable with trusts? Not to mention the issues that crop up with needing every piece of new content (besides maybe savages and ultimates) to be doable by NPCs as well. And just to be clear, there are arguments for doing all of these things I dislike, I personally just do not think they justify the negatives that come with removing social aspects from your MMO.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've been lurking the forums like a psycho for the past couple of days hoping somebody else might bring this topic up, but no luck. I've just never seen a game with such a friendly and interactive community completely ignore that aspect of their MMO. The players keep the community interaction in this game afloat because the devs seem completely unwilling to. To anyone who doesn't run content that requires party finder, when was the last time you NEEDED to interact with another player, in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game you play? Come on SE, it's IN THE NAME.

There are two reasons why I approve of making FFXIV more solo-friendly.
The first is that while this may not happen anytime in the foreseeable future. One day the game will have a much lower number of players just like FFXI if not even an abandoned MMO. Reasons could vary such as new type of MMOs emerging and dominating the future market, someone else taking the position of YoshiP, and making continuously bad decisions (See WoW) or anything really. Making the game solo-friendly would help mitigate the effect of having no players around to a degree. True its not a full mitigation but at least it helps in that regard.
The second reason is that some players are introverts, or prefer playing solo. I had a friend who I managed to convince him to try MMOs but didn't like the aspect of online. In one of the Live letters, YoshiP said they did a survey on players who're not playing ffxiv and the main reason was that its online. From a business standpoint, making the game solo-friendly does not just prolong its lifespan but also increases the number of playerbase. People who want to go full online can still do that really, and players who want to solo throughout the MSQ will be capable of doing that. Its a win-win