FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

[IdowhatIwant]

I think this guy really covers well a lot of my concerns of the over all game. It goes over, the lack of content, single player focus, ect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYqkuju_Fc

[Serious-Cat]

Sometimes I felt playing online in FF14 makes no difference playing solo :/ It's just awkward that some people don't chat back at all, people not being considerate to other party members eg tanks not using mitigation at all xD ,dps using mobility to pull mobs for tank? (kinda rude i think) and some healers just spam glare/malefic with no heals/utility at all

Although I'm happy that solo play is available since it will allow those that treats this MMO as a solo JRPG to their own and let the people that wants to play with other people together with respect and consideration for other human players Although it is concerning people are becoming more reclusive, evident thru the lack of social interaction in MMO's these days.

[Serious-Cat]

I think this guy really covers well a lot of my concerns of the over all game. It goes over, the lack of content, single player focus, ect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYqkuju_Fc

I personally felt that the content is sufficient for those with limited amount of time to play games or playing several games at a time. I've been rushing from ARR to EW so I can do the upcoming 6.1 stuff and it made me realize I rush thru 10 years content in 10 days :/ but filling the content gap with community made content will work for those that play this game full time

[KizuyaKatogami]

I think this guy really covers well a lot of my concerns of the over all game. It goes over, the lack of content, single player focus, ect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYqkuju_Fc

He makes very good points. It’s strange to me to see people building up 6.1 as if it’s some huge patch…compare it to 4.1 and i don’t think the sentiments would be the same. Stormblood gave us primal weapons for the new jobs, unique ultimate weapon models for the new jobs, we had more dungeons back then, an entire housing district, etc etc and it didn’t come at the cost of anything else. Meanwhile now we’ve had to lose out on things for some reason despite the game making more money and supposedly having many players.

[Jagick]

I'm wondering if perhaps there could be a compromise and it wouldn't require immense story re-works. Perhaps have the entirety of the MSQ (and its dungeon content) available for solo play-through for story's sake, but remove the chests and glamour rewards, minions, etc from the solo story versions. Incentivize people to party up with others for the multiplayer versions of the content which will be the only way to get the rewards you want. It will allow them to have their story that everyone can experience but then also save the multiplayer content and incentivize people to use it in that way.

Not going to get into unsynced runs or anything like that, just shower thoughts. I'm not a game dev though, what do I know? I don't particularly care one way or another as long as the game is here to play and I can still see and interact with other people.

[IdowhatIwant]

I personally felt that the content is sufficient for those with limited amount of time to play games or playing several games at a time. I've been rushing from ARR to EW so I can do the upcoming 6.1 stuff and it made me realize I rush thru 10 years content in 10 days :/ but filling the content gap with community made content will work for those that play this game full time

See when you just join the game in EW and tell me that, I can't really take your opinion with much merit. I envy how much content you have to do, where I have played this for a decade. The new patch will be a day or two of new content, outside of the gated weekly lock out for the 24man or if I want to climb pvp ranks after that I will be back to nothing to really do in the game again. Now I know what people are going to say Yoshi P says to take breaks. At the same time, is it a good sign that I want to play the game, but I am taking a break because there is nothing in it for me to do? Should I come back from a break play the game two days only to go back to a break because the lack of content longevity? How is that healthy for the game? Don't come at me with the just cause the content isn't for you doesn't mean it isn't content either, cause that's just a childish excuse no brainer excuse you can make about any piece of content. Who defends a game having less content it just blows my mind people will defend this. Not saying you did but just in general this community is just so mind blowingly shallow.

The game needs a better focal point, and I don't think a solo friendly experience is needed at this time. Again, I don't really care that it is being added, I think many players will like it. The reasons for adding I think are for the wrong reasons and are not going to work the way SE is hoping. It is also a huge amount of work, and money to make this work during a time where this game has hit a huge peak in player count where those resources could be allocated to more content. I also really don't like the direction the game play is taking and I only feel these changes are happening to make the game feel more solo friendly and that is a problem. SE should not detract the current game play for the current players for a group of players that likely are not going to jump ship onto this game. Most of this game is already very solo friendly as is in its current iteration so this all just feels unnecessary to focus on at this time.

By all means, I would love people to give me 3 reasons why this game as far along as it is should not be getting more content. (Budget does not count, cause I can blame that on Yoshi P not allocating the funds correctly so I don't wanna hear that BS)

[hagare]

I personally felt that the content is sufficient for those with limited amount of time to play games or playing several games at a time. I've been rushing from ARR to EW so I can do the upcoming 6.1 stuff and it made me realize I rush thru 10 years content in 10 days :/ but filling the content gap with community made content will work for those that play this game full time

slow down.
You're gonna hurt yourself.
Enjoy the experience.
Take in the sights.
The journey is as good as the goal.

[Fubous]

snip

sounds like you are just burnt out on the game. there's a great amount of content on it's way imo, if you've done literally everything that interests you and you're bored, that's not really the game's fault lol. clearly the advice to take breaks is healthy for the game because it's doing great by every metric, better than it ever has. and it is sound advice. I got tired of the stale combat, took a month off to play other games, came back and it's fun to play again. as for solo play, the trust system is already developed so reworking old content, which needed some tlc anyways, realistically wouldn't take as much dev time as you're assuming.

[Lunalepsy]

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.

It's not even an MMO anymore at this point.

[Deveryn]

There are people that skip over this FF (and XI) because it can't be played solo. Apparently there are enough of them that it's been thought that at least MSQ should be a (mostly) solo affair to at least get people to try it.

It's not a bad thing, as people still have to learn fights to get through them. Maybe some of these folks will hang around and play with other people after running enough duty support dungeons.

As far as Castrum / Prae goes, that's been long overdue for an update. They just don't fit with the rest of the game. There needs to be more consistency in the game and this patch is going to do a good amount to alleviate that problem.