FFXIV needs to stop accommodating Solo Players

[AmiableApkallu]

When I run a dungeon via Duty Finder, you can tell me all you want that I'm "cooperating" with three other people, and it might even fit the dictionary definition, but it still feels like solo content half the time because there's no real "coordination." As long as the tank follows the tank script, the healer follows the healer script, and the DPS push buttons, the job gets done. Everyone I partied up with is forgettable and (literally) replaceable.

I don't even need real people to get that imperfect, scuffed, "OMG what are these people doing" feel. I just did a Trust run where Alphinaud let Thancred die to Superbolide and then couldn't be bothered to raise him until we were all out of combat.

[ty_taurus]

Hello again, new day! I have a question I would like to ask you, Supersnow845. You're a healer, yes? Could you, as a scholar, queue up in party finder and take on the whole instance by yourself? No help from the tank, no help from the dps, but just you and you alone? And no, I am not talking about using trusts. I am talking about you queueing up with three other people, telling them to sit back and afk while you solo the entire instance by yourself? Are you capable of doing that?

I couldn't do a level 90 dungeon because it doesn't let you que with an undersized party, and I didn't want to waste anyone's time or ask anyone to eat a penalty to appease my unnecessary challenge run, but I did just successfully solo a level 80 dungeon, synched, as Sage. Sage and Scholar are basically the same thing, so that counts in my book. I died once because I didn't barrier myself during a buffed tankbuster from the last boss, who gives himself damage buffs if I can't grab all the orbs in time, and still had about 10 minutes left before I'd run out of time. I didn't think to take pics until after the second boss, but here's some evidence:

Level 90 dungeons are actually easier than level 80 ones (did you know the second boss has an untelegraphed, instant cast double tankbuster? I didn't). So I can't imagine it's any more challenging to do that at level 90 if the game allowed you to. And it wasn't until I was almost done that I also remembered, there's a guy making a series of videos on how far you can get soloing FF14. So yeah, there's plenty of evidence of much of the multiplayer elements being very much soloable. Just to note, his interpretation of "solo" means you also cant obtain items that came from another player. You can't use the market board, for example. He's doing everything by himself, from gathering gear to crafting... everything.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I've missed the forums. It's always entertaining to see that anyone who says "um akchually the game is fine as is and you need to go back to wow" is just straight up wrong and literally all evidence shows that. Endwalker has not FELT massively multiplayer. It's felt like a solo game where you occasionally work with other players for the sake of saving time on easy, mundane activities.

[MonteCristo]

I've missed the forums. It's always entertaining to see that anyone who says "um akchually the game is fine as is and you need to go back to wow" is just straight up wrong and literally all evidence shows that. Endwalker has not FELT massively multiplayer. It's felt like a solo game where you occasionally work with other players for the sake of saving time on easy, mundane activities.

Big ole facts

[Mawlzy]

I've missed the forums. It's always entertaining to see that anyone who says "um akchually the game is fine as is and you need to go back to wow" is just straight up wrong and literally all evidence shows that. Endwalker has not FELT massively multiplayer. It's felt like a solo game where you occasionally work with other players for the sake of saving time on easy, mundane activities.

Given that SE will continue to accommodate solo players, is there a path forward that generates the kind of content you would like to see?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Gotta love how when people have nothing of value to add to the conversation, they just turn to semantics as a thinly veiled attempt to shut off or deflect points.

Do you count cheering someone on from the sidelines as they watch you solo the boss as cooperation? Honestly curious. I've been in parties where the healer died early, and the two dps immediately died from failing the mechanic in quick succession from full hp. They all raised outside the dungeon and they told me to keep going because WAR is broken instead of just wiping directly and resetting... It took me well over 10 minutes alone on taking the boss down.

I hate this behavior. So much for wanting a 'cooperation/coordination'---yeah no, it's not. That's dumping their workload to my hands after deliberately participating in a duty as the role of their own choice. I've had that happened several times as a tank in dungeon. All 4 incl DRK. They are fun first few times if you're trying to see how far you can get on your own. They are not fun when it's slowly being normalized.

[AmiableApkallu]

Given that SE will continue to accommodate solo players, is there a path forward that generates the kind of content you would like to see?

For bread-and-butter Duty Finder-able content, I would aim to make it feel like you're playing with other players without necessarily requiring any more communication than running in a direction and jumping up and down.

One way we get there is with a return of mechanics where somebody needs to act, but it doesn't matter exactly who. For example, picking up fire sand and hitting the detonator in Copperbell Mines. Or swatting away the bombs in A5N. Moments where I wonder how the party will self-organize.

Another way we get there is with a return to mechanics where you notice the effects of another player's choice. Where is someone going to drop that AoE, or take that flare? Where is that other alliance going to aim the death laser? Moments where someone else's choice might make my life… interesting.

[ZiraZ]

Given that SE will continue to accommodate solo players, is there a path forward that generates the kind of content you would like to see?

First of all nuke tank self-sustain defensive capabilities into the ground, a lone tank should not be able to last very long without a healer. This alone makes peoples eyes glaze over the second they load into a 90 dungeons they know its time to watch a movie on their 2nd monitor because the tank can solo the dungeon (while he also watches a movie). Absolutely tragic 90 roulette content is far easier than most 50(hard) dungeons.

Then they could learn from crit dungeons, instead of boring fodder trash enemies we could have more specialized trash packs with mini mechanics the entire group needs to follow.

I know most of the reworked dungeons were turned into TRASH to accommodate for Duty Support but there is one exception I think was very well reworked, the last boss in Aetherochemical Research Facility felt pretty good, it required actual healing, it required light levels of teamwork and it even had a light enrage. SO they do have the capability to make dungeon bosses fun and enable duty support at the same time.

[SieyaM]

I get the feeling that what some people want is a design that necessitates certain jobs working together to clear content, which is all fine and good until content becomes outdated and new players cannot clear because no one is running those things anymore. Even with the duty finder queueing for something that is old and not in one of the more commonly run roulettes can mean a queue of an hour or so. Adding to that the restriction of jobs having to play in sync with each other to even be functional in said content means that if the queue fills and the older players participating don't remember how to coordinate this dungeon or don't want to bother with it then they will just leave and the new player is left to try and queue again. This will probably also lean even heavier into a META where if you are not one of the META jobs this patch cycle you might as well not even bother playing, your job will be rejected from even normal dungeon queues because you do not have the most favorable interactions with other jobs that make the content an easy fast run.

[IDontPetLalas]

I get the feeling that what some people want is a design that necessitates certain jobs working together to clear content, which is all fine and good until content becomes outdated and new players cannot clear because no one is running those things anymore. Even with the duty finder queueing for something that is old and not in one of the more commonly run roulettes can mean a queue of an hour or so. Adding to that the restriction of jobs having to play in sync with each other to even be functional in said content means that if the queue fills and the older players participating don't remember how to coordinate this dungeon or don't want to bother with it then they will just leave and the new player is left to try and queue again. This will probably also lean even heavier into a META where if you are not one of the META jobs this patch cycle you might as well not even bother playing, your job will be rejected from even normal dungeon queues because you do not have the most favorable interactions with other jobs that make the content an easy fast run.

I haven't seen anyone asking for specific jobs working together, rather it's for the existing roles to work together. That wouldn't lead to an increased demand for a meta nor a job restriction.
if on the other hand that lead to it being considerably more difficult to queue and complete dungeons as- let's say- 3 DPS and a tank, and not the more traditional 2 DPS 1 tank and 1 heal- and dungeons were more engaging as a result- I would consider that an improvement, since "easy fast run" can get quite boring.