FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

[hagare]

You either know exactly what I meant about moving in and out of tank stance or you didn't play during Heavensward. I was under the impression that you were playing back then.

Tank stance was a debuff for damage back then. It is not so at this point in time. Moving in and out of tank stance was a means of increasing damage, not about threat at all. The meta was 'tanks out of tank stance = more damage', along with 'tanks wearing strength gear to more damage, healers adjust'.

I remember sword and shield stance. I forgot the other tanks stance names.
Wasn't it that you start with tank stance then change it once you have sufficient agro.
I kinda remember thinking that was why they made shirk in the first place.
So the OT can help MT manage threat better.

[IdowhatIwant]

You either know exactly what I meant about moving in and out of tank stance or you didn't play during Heavensward. I was under the impression that you were playing back then.

Tank stance was a debuff for damage back then. It is not so at this point in time. Moving in and out of tank stance was a means of increasing damage, not about threat at all. The meta was 'tanks out of tank stance = more damage', along with 'tanks wearing strength gear to more damage, healers adjust'.

It was a debuff to damage, and sure to be very optimal in HW you would pull in tank stance, do one emnity rotation, then go to dps stance for most of the fight outside of swaps, and maybe a tank buster if ya got nothing else to pop. Does not change that it was designed to move in and out of tank stance which was done. This was also mostly popular, because emnity generation was over tuned, DPS checks were way to high, and Warrior was stronger than most DPS due to poor balance. Did it need tweaked? Absolutely but it didn't need to be removed. You can probably do the exact same thing now, but there is no reason to outside of swaps.

I remember sword and shield stance. I forgot the other tanks stance names.
Wasn't it that you start with tank stance then change it once you have sufficient agro.
I kinda remember thinking that was why they made shirk in the first place.
So the OT can help MT manage threat better.

Shirk was designed to kill the annoying party member. That was it's only purpose, do not try to make any other one up.
It's even more useful in dungeons now that you don't need those pesky healers trying to over heal the tank like they are helping.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Wait so, I thought I saw a similar thread...?

So which one belongs to a troll?

[Sardonyx_Eternal]

So, this would be my first post here on these forums. Been a player of FFXIV for over five years on and off and have lurked here for just as long, and I want to thank Kuritzkale for creating a thread containing a subject that has finally attracted me enough to come out of the shadows and make my first post.

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.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game you play? Come on SE, it's IN THE NAME.

So, this right here is absolutely the oldest, the most tired and easily the most laughable misconception that social gamers will utilize when trying to establish social play as king in the genre over solo play. The idea is that, because the acronym of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) has the words Massively and Multiplayer in it then that absolutely means that you MUST play with others. No exceptions. I mean, it's in the acronym right?!!111 I've been hearing this one for a very, very long time and it's no more true now than it was then, and continues to be made of the finest high quality straw that money can buy.

Here's the thing: massively multiplayer has never meant that play with others is the rule. It simply means that one is choosing to play a video game that has other players occupying the same digital space as you, and that play with others is optional, and subjectively recommended.

Now, while it's true that MMORPG's of old tended to lean more towards play with others being more recommended than playing solo, as time has moved on this has become more and more a thing of the past, especially as MMORPG development studios have come to understand that there are those who are not necessarily interested in heavy social play but still want to experience a genre that can offer a never ending source of adventure (something that single player games are unable to accomplish for obvious reasons) and the ability to live an amazing fantasy life where social interaction is something that can be dipped in and out of at will.

The reality is, that there are solo players out there that want these things...and that means additional dollar signs, perhaps even more than those who play strictly for the social aspects. Thus, this is the reason why games like Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls Online have become more and more solo friendly in recent years. Sorry bud, but just because a game is an MMORPG, doesn't mean that solo play has no place. This has never been true, is not true at present, nor will it ever be true in the future so long as this genre exists, and I think current development trends in the genre is solid proof of this (case in point: FFXIV).

[Sardonyx_Eternal]

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.

Oh boy. So, does anyone here remember a little South Korean MMORPG that came out wayyyyy back in 2009 called Aion: The Tower of Eternity? Was there on day one, because I thought the idea of living a fantasy life as a wing-spanning Daeva while slaying monsters was incredibly cool. I played the game solo for a good long while and then found out the hard way (and much to my disappointment) that character progress could only be achieved solo up to a certain point, and that in order to proceed I would have to play with others while engaging in what I consider the true bane of all introvert MMORPG players: the dreaded forced PvP.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the number one cause for quitting solo players the world over. Suffice it to say, I canceled my subscription and pulled the plug. I wasn't about to become a form of endless victimized entertainment for a bunch of 13 year old ganking trolls who got their kicks jumping folks while trying to turn in a quest at an NPC. By quitting, the developers lost my interest and my business.

So, what's the lesson? It is never, ever, EVER a good idea to force players into something, whether it's forced PvP or socialized content of any kind. It is the mark of an immature and amateurish development studio that practices a fundamental misunderstanding of what the ENTIRE span of a gaming community wants. Truth is, not everyone wants to socialize, not everyone wants to engage in PvP content, and not everyone appreciates being forced into social situations where they're going to be berated and humiliated just because they didn't play in the exact way that someone wanted them to play, and if a gaming studio wants to continue receiving these peoples' money, they better change things quick and in a hurry. You personally may not think it's bad to force someone into something they don't want to do...and this is why I'm relieved that you are not an MMORPG developer. No offense.

I don't necessarily have a problem with people playing the game as a mostly solo experience,

Well, clearly you do or you wouldn't have created this thread. Just saying.

I'll end it here. Please note: this post was not made to attack or insult the OP, but rather to educate, and no offense was intended. I'm open to a conversation about this subject if anyone is interested. Thank you for reading.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Snip

Since you're new to the forum, there's something you can oughta use: editing post allows you to bypass the inconvenient word limit. You can copy paste the 2nd post and edit it into your first post to merge them. I usually copy my own text into Notepad if it bypasses the word limit.

[Sardonyx_Eternal]

Since you're new to the forum, there's something you can oughta use: editing post allows you to bypass the inconvenient word limit. You can copy paste the 2nd post and edit it into your first post to merge them. I usually copy my own text into Notepad if it bypasses the word limit.

Ahh, thank you very much for this. It's appreciated.

[Ayche]

It is more like they are preparing the oldest content for possibility of being archived in singleplayer format in some near or far future.
To me this is just a sign that Unit III gives the story the amount of respect it deserves, I know and play certain other games that just straight up deleted all of the old story content when they decided they were just tired of keeping it around. Imagine having a series of books that have been written over the years but the author just decides to burn the first half of the series, because "ran out of space on the bookshelves".

[zylo1010]

Honestly I just hope they let us use blu with our trusts and stuff.....

[Xavier_Firbold]

The problem with this is that the "trust" system simply doesn't have the AI available to it to be able to deal with multiple mechanics at once.... unlike humans. Which makes the content insatiably boring for the rest of us.

So you can have your solo experience, fine. But don't make the rest of us sacrifice actual difficulty so those of you that don't want a challenge can be carried through content.

In my eyes if you want a solo version of 14 you should be paying extra so the dev team can expand and have their own section dedicated to it. That way we can keep the difficulty and scale it up, I'd rather everyone be made as happy as possible than those that are crying because they can't get through the content, and then punish the rest of us that actually want to play a game with some form of challenge.