Do you ever think about how people play games to escape yet...

[Vyrerus]

Honestly, the reason why FFXIV has such a heavy lean towards purely social content and interweaves so much with social media posting is because the majority of our playerbase are not gamers first and foremost.

They are writers, artists, photographers, creatives, and what have you. They aren't subscribed to XIV for its gameplay. They're subscribed to create social circles, share glams etc. There's a whole bevy of folks who want the gameplay dumbed down as much as possible, all combos consolidated into single buttons, and for Trusts to be available for all content.

Escapism for them is different than it is for others. They're not really into FFXIV because it's a fantasy world. For them it's just another place for them to get a muse from. Another place for them to find someone like minded who wants to talk about FFXIV and how it's just like their other favorite fiction, be that Buffy the Vampire Slayer, LoTR, or anything else.

Basically, some folks escape by slaying dragons. Others escape by drawing a still life of that dragon, and then showing it to all the people who know what that dragon is, and can comment on how accurate or cool their artistic interpretation of it is.

There's also the beauty angle of it. In FFXIV, even without mods, all of the player models have idealized body types. Some people want them to reflect the real world, while others take extreme comfort in the fact that everyone is presented as beautiful (less desirable face models not withstanding).

Anyway, it's only human nature to want to socialize with others like you. That's all it is, really. The game doesn't hard enforce you having to do battle content(or anything really) when you login, and so it attracts people who don't want that, or can handle doing the bare minimum to get access to what they want (glams, areas, vistas, venues etc).

[Iscah]

Honestly, the reason why FFXIV has such a heavy lean towards purely social content and interweaves so much with social media posting is because the majority of our playerbase are not gamers first and foremost.

They are writers, artists, photographers, creatives, and what have you. They aren't subscribed to XIV for its gameplay. They're subscribed to create social circles, share glams etc. There's a whole bevy of folks who want the gameplay dumbed down as much as possible, all combos consolidated into single buttons, and for Trusts to be available for all content.

I am "a gamer" and I still think it's silly having each step of a combo on a separate button. No other game I've played has that, except maybe if the combo is all that you have, and even then it's probably because you're expected to use those buttons in varying order to perform different attacks.

Having three buttons purely so you have to hit 1-2-3 instead of 1-1-1? This game is the only one I can think of.

Also, people can be creative in FFXIV and still enjoy a challenge in the gameplay.

[Melorie]

SNIP

I feel like you've summarized it perfectly.

I am "a gamer" and I still think it's silly having each step of a combo on a separate button. No other game I've played has that, except maybe if the combo is all that you have, and even then it's probably because you're expected to use those buttons in varying order to perform different attacks.

Regardless of your personal experience, this is by far the MMO where I have meet the biggest amount of people that barely plays other games. Or other MMOS. It's actually a curious thing about it. And many of them don't really care about the gameplay aspect, at all. They sub because they have this social experience.

There are probably people that aren't like that, obviously, but that doesn't really exclude the point.

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.

[Iscah]

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.

I prefer the challenge to come from the unique mechanics of the battle and what I see happening on the screen, not from learning a fixed sequence of buttons that you need to perform the same way every time.

It's why I like red mage, where at every turn you just need to do an action based on the current state of your gauge.

[Melorie]

I prefer the challenge to come from the unique mechanics of the battle and what I see happening on the screen, not from learning a fixed sequence of buttons that you need to perform the same way every time.

It's why I like red mage, where at every turn you just need to do an action based on the current state of your gauge.

As I said, taste. I enjoy the fights and the mechanics as well but with how syncing and powercapping works in this game there's very little available when it comes to that. At least a rotation that keeps you involved can save you from a boring fight, that ends up being a huge amount of the game if you're not doing current-content, which is the vast majority of the game. Even the cool fights with interesting mechanics end up meaningless.

Imo I don't see the reason why we can't have both tbh.

[Raoabolic]

I feel like you've summarized it perfectly.



Regardless of your personal experience, this is by far the MMO where I have meet the biggest amount of people that barely plays other games. Or other MMOS. It's actually a curious thing about it. And many of them don't really care about the gameplay aspect, at all. They sub because they have this social experience.

There are probably people that aren't like that, obviously, but that doesn't really exclude the point.

As for the combo, I don't see how pressing one button can be more fun than actually getting your dance of buttons right, but eh, it's taste.

To be fair, i'm sure they are talking about the basic combos that most melees have. Funny enough, the _____ that the person is talking about doesn't really mess with dancer too much, just consolidates the basic combos into a single button. I'm shocked that the devs don't just add that to the game imo. They complain about button bloat and that would remove a minimum of two buttons for most melee jobs, lol.

[Melorie]

To be fair, i'm sure they are talking about the basic combos that most melees have. Funny enough, the _____ that the person is talking about doesn't really mess with dancer too much, just consolidates the basic combos into a single button. I'm shocked that the devs don't just add that to the game imo. They complain about button bloat and that would remove a minimum of two buttons for most melee jobs, lol.

I see. I'm not familiar with melee gameplay. I'm a healer main so I can attest to tendinitis by pressing 1 button 80% of the gameplay in the majority content of the game.

[NekoMataMata]

Snippity

I feel like some of this explains a lot of what I was feeling. This game feels like a massive creative outlet for all sorts of things and I'm not against it. I appreciate a lot of the different works that comes out of it. It just sometimes feels really overwhelming.

Here's some background on myself I came from a really old game/virtual space called IMVU. I was on there for 3-4 years but at some point it just started dying, and I end up following other people here. I had a trial account for a long while but I wasn't really into this like I am now, but that was also partly due to me being in the phase of going from secondary school to college. When I came back and tried I had more time to spend on it and I actually got into it.

Even coming from IMVU though it's a bit of a culture shock it feels? It's way more cliquey, and it feels weird that people focus so much on purely social stuff when there's activities that you can actually do. A lot of people don't even feel like they're that interested in the game either. You go into any FF14 discord and you find people talking about other games or literally anything else but the game. I've joined specialized discords for different group activities in-game and I've had people in there literally tell me they don't play the game anymore.

There's nothing wrong with people being social, and people can do it however they like, but I guess it's just coming down to a case of me not feel like I fit in. Even if I hadn't gained a taste for playing the actual game and enjoyed doing the content in it, I still don't really think I'd have fit in with the super social cliques on here.