Request: I don't want to solo the main scenario

[Corrderio]

Because I wasn't all 50 when 1.21 came out I am really struggling to find a party to get some of the AF gear now. One player in the biggest LS on the server spent at least 5 hours yesterday getting to 3/8 people for doing the last bard quest and I still need 3 levels of ARC to do that. I am not looking forward to trying to get together a group for that when I hit 50 and for the people who recently started; God help them, they will have an absolute nightmare getting the AF gear and will be totally at the mercy of kind strangers.

This is the general problem with small content such as quests, AF, etc. that were developed with a party concept in mind. If you don't jump on the train within the first couple of days to a week, the amount of people looking for groups significantly dies down. And sadly, most people are unwilling to help or compromise to get stuff done. They'd rather continue shouting for members instead of taking a step or two back to help someone to secure more people.

When a story's challenge actually revolves around finding people than the actual fight itself, something needs to change.

[Halvaard_Vidan]

I've played the game "you", the OP, speak of, I quit it awhile ago.
I'm not interested in playing it again.
There are some features and scenarios that I wouldn't mind seeing carried over, but forcing groups for the main story is not one of them.

[Viritess]

(all the follwoing like ANY post on the internet is almost entirely opinion!)

I'm not sure really where to start here. But let me start with a real sad trend in MMO terminology. Hardcore and casuals. I don't me to be offensive to anyone but i may "type" heatedly. Casual, hardcore really? As if theres is just so much hard core in many MMOs these days to see so many people decide they are hardcore. Its really lost its meaning.

Hardcore should not be concidered time spent! Its almost sad that people think that spending lots of hours doing any sort of grind/group yelling or finding/repetative action is hardcore. Whats hardcore? Risk. Risk is hard core. Perma death, is hardcore. The loss of an expensive item apon failure is hardcore.

Getting beaten in an instance untill you can dance to a bosses tune is practice, its dance lessons, its not hardcore. Now if your armor got torn to shreds when you lost with no way to recover it, welcome to hardcore. Hardcore is not 30000 gil/gold/credits for repairs per item, "please come again".

(eve-online reference) Hardcore is watching your buddy place months of time based skill gain on the line (Cause he already soent every cent he had to buy ships to defend) to try and save a base (station) your guild (Corporation) put months of work into claiming, supplying, harvesting and protecting because all that play, could be gone. And watching him do it in a ship hes carefully outfitted for a year of special modules. because he, balls to the wall gives a damn. If it goes boom, its gone for good. That is hardcore.

And casual, casual is what to some folks, that they have 2 hours after the kids go to bed to play? means they dont want a challenge? want it easy? I've known plenty of people who under the definition in the paragraph above qualify as hardcore despite the little time they can play, cause they were willing to put everything they played for on the line. Was it as much totale "Value" as someone who played 8 hours? If its everything they have in a game, its everything, no matter the total count.

The whole arguement of Casual/hardcore as a time sink counter just disgusts me to no end. Feel free to check my posting history, you'll see i'm not any sort of rage poster, but this topic deserves a little anger.

My opinion on group and solo is its in the hands and the imagination of the developer and those giving suggestions. Interesting mechanics make the difficulty, not head count. Theres been posts in this thread about if its solo you stand there and mash buttons. Or it can't be hard alone.

Bullocks. If you put no imagination. no mechanics that take advantage of class, enviroment or skill in place to make it a challenge, then it won't be a challenge of course. You can have 8 people or 100. If its tank and spank its tank and spank, the difference between solo TnS and group TnS? Raw damage output and someone else besides you yourself does the healing/tanking/damage. Folks complain they don't want tank and spank Instance/boss/raid content they want interesting mechanics for raid fights, yet they will claim its written in stone that any solo content can be nothing but tank and spank(stand in one place and push buttons).

Don't stand in the fire can apply to 1 person or 1000. Would be nice to maybe teach that valuable lesson to those just starting out in a game so you can maybe not call them "Noob" when they group with you?

Or would you prefer the chance to call them a "Noob" when they are level 2 asking for a 4 man to do the first storyline quest. This ins't the first, second, tenth of fifteenth MMO i've played, Nor am i old (but getting there ) Keep in mind for those of you whom may not know. Many of the "Hardcore" players that "Don't seem to exsist anymore" are the Fathers and Mothers who you now refer to as "Casuals" whom "Are lazy and want everything handed to them".

As far as Party and Solo goes i like both. I do both. I enjoy both. Think of many storylines in games you've played, heck the Final fantasy series itself. Party members, characters who were in your group sometimes left, and then you found them again, discovered what they did, what they learned and how they improved and then came back to join you again.

I don't really want to touch on what should be done as far as Solo and Party play. Its a plague ridden topic that poisons discussion on any game forum. What i will say is everyone is different and you will never have a subscriber number in the count that SE, or any big title company wants if you force one segemnt's style of playing on the entire population.

[Duelle]

Those are the kinds of players that will stick with an MMO for years and years and years. What we have now is going to be a constant hit and quit fest as the casual crowd wanders off or loses interest when they can keep pumping out end game raids fast enough to keep up with their insane leveling ability.

Contrary to popular belief, boredom is not what drives casuals away. It's asinine decisions and changes in design that drive casuals away. I eventually got sick of FFXI's snail-paced progression. I spent close to 3 years in WoW, then WoW made very stupid design choices that caused me to start looking around. Then abyssea came out, which prompted me (and many others) to return under the hopes of finally being able to progress. When the jobisms facilitated by the proc system and RDM's standing at the time became apparent, I started looking around again. WoW had made their apologies for their earlier stupidity with patches 3.2 and 3.3. So I returned again.

Believe me, none of my switches were because I got bored of content. I just chose to not stick around like a battered wife.

[mbncd]

I like being able to play at my own pace. Being a slow reader means I have to skip through entire stories if I'm in a group because otherwise I hold others up. I was with someone for the GC quest that has Cid explaining about what Dalamud is but I missed the whole thing because the many, many pages of dialogue was just something I couldn't get through in time. I didn't even know what he talked about until someone mentioned the quest to me later. If the books in the inn rooms allowed us to view those sorts of scenes again then it would be fine, I could just fly through it without reading a word and then go back to the privacy of my room to see what I missed. As it stands though, we don't really have that option. I've tried watching YouTube videos too but they often have kids speaking over it and difficult to read text.

I agree with the many in this thread who say that choice is paramount. Don't lock soloists OR party-goers alike out of what should be a basic experience for all.

There are many challenges in games that are single player, the number of players does not equate difficulty. Followers can take the place of fellow players if their AI is spiced up a little (my follower was useless, a tank standing still while squishy me got ganged up on and pummelled, the followers should have at least a basic target>heal/attack AI based on their own class) and there are other types of challenges than simply fighting. Speed, accuracy, manipulating outside objects and scenery (like cannons and cave ins), harder parley (yes, I actually like that game, I just wish the NPC's provided more of a challenge), monsters that can be confused into fighting each other, etc, all of those things and many more can make for much more varied and difficult gameplay, and even for non combat classes.

As has already been suggested many times, those who wish to party may be able to accomplish more. When defeating an enemy solo, it may run away, but when fighting as a party it may be surrounded so forced to fight to the death, thus providing awesome drops or unlocking triggers for other things like deeper chambers.

We've had scalable difficulty since day 1 with leves, I can see no reason not to have scalable difficulty in quests too. In a party with your friends but no one cares about drops and they all just want to steam roll through it just to get to the next part of the quest? Fine, they choose 1 star and lose out on both rewards and possibly more depth to the quest. Soloing but want a hard core battle that could make you scream with rage and joy? Select the hardest setting and succeed for a fancy death dodging achievement and title.

There are so many ways to present different options, difficulties and party sizes AND solo content and I really can't see any reason not to. Sure, the more options and variations there are, the longer it will take to develop, but if the core content is still generally the same across all versions (locations the same, mobs the same or with locked/unlocked specials, basic dialogue the same, etc) then the variations should take minimum time to design and implement.

What I'm saying might come across as an ideal "give us everything!" scenario, and I suppose it is, but the real point I'm trying to get across is that locking one type of player out of basic content is not a good way to go about it, regardless of whether that player prefers solo or party play.



TL;DR version: many different types of players in this game, don't lock any of them out, please allow both party and solo play for basic elements like central story lines, thank you.

[Felis]

I don't beleive you're asking more more difficulty as you are asking for something more dynamic. Because if it's more difficult, the process would be the same, just with a greater number:

Form a party with 4other players, go to the black shroud, kill 2 wolves, finish .

That does not sound any more appealing to me than your unmodified quote.

Instead, why not gather 0-5 other individuals, go to the location, fend off an entire PACK of wolves, with an Alpha-wolf that co-ordinates them that you can disorientate the entire pack by killing the wolf or scattering them with a farmed item that triggers a flee instinct in them. Have a selectable difficulty (1-5 stars) and choose how you approach the fight?

The wolf fight, more or less, is a Leve instance, works with the same basic components. There's no reason why the fight can not have both more dynamic feel, AND a choice of difficulty.

And I believe the player base sells itself short by fighting with each other instead of demanding more for all.

Believe it or not, this is what I mean. What I mean with more difficulty is not to go with more poeple to the fight (this is not difficult, because you can kill the two wolves already solo), but put there more enemys instead of only 2 wolves. Something like 6 wolves and 10 Garlean scouts. The Garleans are hunting a spy, why are there only 2 wolves?

[Zaaku]

Contrary to popular belief, boredom is not what drives casuals away. It's asinine decisions and changes in design that drive casuals away. I eventually got sick of FFXI's snail-paced progression. I spent close to 3 years in WoW, then WoW made very stupid design choices that caused me to start looking around. Then abyssea came out, which prompted me (and many others) to return under the hopes of finally being able to progress. When the jobisms facilitated by the proc system and RDM's standing at the time became apparent, I started looking around again. WoW had made their apologies for their earlier stupidity with patches 3.2 and 3.3. So I returned again.

Believe me, none of my switches were because I got bored of content. I just chose to not stick around like a battered wife.

You just said you were not driven away by boredom yet you left because of something inherent to the game design. The slower leveling progress. How was that an asinine change in design?

Thank you for proving my point.

FFXI drove away all but the dedicated. They stayed in most of the cases for years upon years. FFXI: Abbeysea's more causalized content attracted a player back whom ultimately left once again when some other game came beckoning.

[Duelle]

You just said you were not driven away by boredom yet you left because of something inherent to the game design. The slower leveling progress. How was that an asinine change in design?

Slower leveling had nothing to do with it, but thanks for failing to read between the lines. Built-in timesinks, community issues when it came to who got to party and who didn't, shoddy rarity-based economy, that's not even getting into my prior-mentioned anecdote of me being stuck at Windurst rank 9 for close to 3 years. I hit a point where I said "fuck it" and left.

Abyssea's problem was the fact that, again, people abused the proc system in a way that parties were largely what I have already called the official Abyssea party. I wasn't getting into those between RDM's lack of procs and where the job stood when not in posession of Almace and Chant du Signe.

FFXI drove away all but the dedicated.

I already addressed this:

stick around like a battered wife

Nice try, though.

[Dragon]

I like being able to play at my own pace. Being a slow reader means I have to skip through entire stories if I'm in a group because otherwise I hold others up.

No.

Being in a group means telling the people waiting on you to shut the hell up and let you watch the damn cutscene when you've not seen it before. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

[Zaaku]

Sounds like a rather extensive case of you not giving a damn about getting rank 10. I got my Sandy Flag, Windy Flag, and Bastok Flag all hanging up in my Mog House when PUP was my only 75.

No I didn't have someone drag me through it all.
No my LS wasn't burning them.

I simply said to myself, "I want those flags." Then I got it done. I scanned /sea I looked up anyone in my current rank and I began inviting them for runs. Hardly took any real effort in the end since most of the fights were pretty easy. A few of them were more difficult and actually required the PT to be awake but I had a blast going through those missions and felt awesome afterwards.

Just another example of someone who expects things to fall into his lap instead of putting in the effort. I never really had much problems in FFXI because I didn't wait for my goals to just happen. It is a vital skill every player should be taught. Having everything casual as hell and not forcing group from an early level is going to rob players of this critical knowledge. Hell most people I invite to party aren't even flagged or in Uldahn. I just go through the list of players in range and ask them in /tell if they would like some EXP.

People need to stop equating FFXI and hard work to the boogey man. Those who give a damn about finishing something will find a way in a timely manner. You were only beating yourself. the game had nothing to do with it.