Stories that focus on the individual should never require parties.

[viion]

I don't play D3, but i will comment about GW2, In GW2 all class is as strong as another, there are no holy trinities there (Support, Tank, DD), everyone have solo capabilities, the game really revolve around the abilities to solo, Whereas in FFXIV we have jobs like PLD that can't damage for shit, BLM that can't take hit for shit, BRD that can't combo in close range that will hinders his ability to solo.

While yes you might argue. GW2 job balancing is better and should be enforced, take a look at the community, there are basically little to zero communcation ingame because everyone is busy doing their own thing, doing chain quests alone, participating in dynamic quests alone (yes, it doesnt feels alone but u ignore another anyway and do your own thing.)

Granted, for people that have little time, the game might be alot more fun because you can progress and do alot of stuff in the short time you have. But, will it be something you play for long period of time? Will you be investing years upon it?

What kept people playing in this game or FFXI was the community, everyone came back because they miss playing with others and it should be that way. Playing and interracting with others is the point of playing MMO from my point of view (before people start calling me out for forcing my view)

My only argument is clearly you did not play it much.

Go try solo some of the higher bosses on Mage and then do it on Guardian lol. You will "go back" on your words.

While a Red Mage (in old days) could solo some of the Sky Stuff, it wanst recommended, people still used full alliance, you could duo a lot of stuff as well, but people still used full alliance.

While it was never "scaled" you was not restricted. I dont care much for Restrictions, just let me try fight Ifrit with 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 people, why must I have 8 all the time. Give me the choice, the chance, even if it isnt scaled, at least let me try! lol.

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

I think the OP would love SWTOR.

[Otaku]

I think Murugan Raj lives in a magical world, and plays on a wonderful server where people join shout stuff and do things together.

Actually I think we do, everyday I log on I'm glad I chose Selbina/Ridill as my starting server, almost everyone is helpful and we have a great community on our server. I enjoy going out to Hamlet and giving/getting /wave's from everyone out there and talking about how things are going that night. I am also an officer in one of the biggest social LS's on the server and I am always telling my members to help others out because they might need help one day, remember it's a two way street and if you are not helping others on your server then chances are they are not gonna drop what they are doing to help you. The one thing that will save people that have little time to do things will be the content finder, I will not be using it personally but I actually think it is needed (this is kinda your scale-able content as I think people in FC's that complete content together will get more rewards)
If you live in a bad community you can stay inside and keep to yourself or you can go out and make the community better, if you say see a /sh for BRD body AF and you need MNK body AF /tell them you will help if they can help you, don't think you will get too many "no" answers.
Bottom line, yes maybe we need some more solo content but no don't make everything "soloable", make some friends and better your servers community, it's a win/win so to say.

[Dragon]

Because I hate resorting to /shouts for hours or even days just to progress in a plot. I enjoyed running through the main scenario's plot because I could go at my own pace if I was leveled high enough to do it. Job quests, and the latest grand company quest in castrum novum, however, give me headaches.

I'm not really in a position to have a full LS ready to help me whenever I need it (they have lives), and at times I feel like more of an annoyance when shouting for random people to come help me. I even used the search/party options, but it seems like no one ever really uses them on my server, even after the merge.

CC/AV/Primal (hard) raids for rare kick ass loot when beating them I am more than fine with having a full party. If I don't finish those, all I miss out on are some rare items.

I realize the job quests, mini primal runs, and a few GC missions are promoting party play, but when it deals with a story line centering on only one person, and no one else is interested in doing them because they already rushed through them after an update, it turns fun into frustration because now my progress is forced to a halt.

I'm not asking for everything to be spoon fed to me, things should be challenging, but I just mainly want my character to experience what happens next in his story whenever I have time to do it myself.

Games that are mainly single-player should never be online-only DRMfests. I'm not willing to waste my bandwidth to play a game online that I can solo, and neither should anyone else because it's just stupid.

[Chardrizard]

My only argument is clearly you did not play it much.

Go try solo some of the higher bosses on Mage and then do it on Guardian lol. You will "go back" on your words.

While a Red Mage (in old days) could solo some of the Sky Stuff, it wanst recommended, people still used full alliance, you could duo a lot of stuff as well, but people still used full alliance.

While it was never "scaled" you was not restricted. I dont care much for Restrictions, just let me try fight Ifrit with 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 people, why must I have 8 all the time. Give me the choice, the chance, even if it isnt scaled, at least let me try! lol.

Oh yes i didn't play it much in fact i didnt even bother with last BWE lol. I am sure there are some higher bosses that requires party and other contents that requires party, still doesn't change the fact the game is really solo friendly even from the job balancing-wise. It have this solo solo solo everything vibe probably until you hit higher level raids, i don't think they even let you solo these raids, maybe you can enter but they do not dumb/scale it down so you can win it solo.

Regarding restrictions, i very much agree. I did 4man Ifrit before, but i had to invite the other 4 just to enter and ask them to return to homepoint so we can attempt to 4man it, it was an unnecessary hassle.

I still don't agree with scaling down to solo though, easy-mode ifrit/garuda was good scaling. Do-able with 4 (Light party) and all u need to know the story and not obtain loot.

[AdvancedWind]

I understand OP's view as well, but I think the problem is just that there's zero incentive to do those quests after you finish them. If they made the GC / AF quests drop a somewhat useful item, give some gil or exp or other similar stuff, more people would be interested in helping pickup groups after they've done them. Making them soloable would kill the point of a MMO.

Sorta offtopic, but I also think that more cutscenes and NPC text should change slightly if there's more people with the player when they're done. The "United We Stand" quest and cs was a perfect example of making you feel like the whole thng was group achievement while also focusing in the player character, something that works wonders in a MMO setting.

[viion]

Actually I think we do, everyday I log on I'm glad I chose Selbina/Ridill as my starting server, almost everyone is helpful and we have a great community on our server. I enjoy going out to Hamlet and giving/getting /wave's from everyone out there and talking about how things are going that night. I am also an officer in one of the biggest social LS's on the server and I am always telling my members to help others out because they might need help one day, remember it's a two way street and if you are not helping others on your server then chances are they are not gonna drop what they are doing to help you.

The one thing that will save people that have little time to do things will be the content finder, I will not be using it personally but I actually think it is needed (this is kinda your scale-able content as I think people in FC's that complete content together will get more rewards)

If you live in a bad community you can stay inside and keep to yourself or you can go out and make the community better, if you say see a /sh for BRD body AF and you need MNK body AF /tell them you will help if they can help you, don't think you will get too many "no" answers.

Bottom line, yes maybe we need some more solo content but no don't make everything "soloable", make some friends and better your servers community, it's a win/win so to say.

You act like i havent tried any of this, you completely ignored when I stated i have tons of friends on my friends list, 50+ prolly 100, to lazy to count but well full enough of 1 page online at a time, a lot just dont have time to help, or they're in endgame ls's and "cant help" or dont want to because they've done "x content x amount of times" and strained out on it.

I've joined shouts, i've shouted myself, I've helped tons of people, i've joined many linkshells, social and endgame.

Gungnir is a lot different, and it is HUGELY different if you're not EU. EU have it worst i think, as there is very few linkshells. Maybe I should have gone to Ragnarok, but everyone says its bad there lol. But its seeming to be my only choice right now.

With only a few hundred people online when I play, many of them dont do things, with people shouting for hours. I have joined to just get stuff done for the sake of it, like an AV win or CC win, but no go, because these are hotzones for "endgame onry" and people dont like PUG for them.

You also missed the fact that i said it took me 3 weeks to get my blm af body, that was coming on every damn day, shouting or joining shouts until eventually just got really lucky that 4 people needed it and some was litterally begging, saying they will give 100k then 200k to people to just join...

Dont need 8 people for Ifrit, dont need 8 for everything out there, sure scale it for 8 but remove the restriction, it is not needed but just causes hassle.

[Chardrizard]

Yea, Gungnir is pretty dead NA/EU wise when it comes to PUGing lol, only PUG i went to is JP parties and only active EU endgame LS i know of is Kupo.

[Nox]

I disagree with the OP 100%. A mmo is all about working with others, it is one of the great things in XI. Coming together and beating things you cannot do alone is one of the pillars of a good mmo.

If you want a Solo focused story go play a solo player game. Not saying keep things large scale partys but the story SHOULD force you to play with others.

pretty much this. While I get the OP's argument this is an MMO. I mean I will agree to some things being soloable but honestly even with the main story when it gets close to the end of it, it should require party play to get through it. Besides, soloing gets to a point where it becomes relatively stale IMO.

[Otaku]

You act like i havent tried any of this, you completely ignored when I stated i have tons of friends on my friends list, 50+ prolly 100, to lazy to count but well full enough of 1 page online at a time, a lot just dont have time to help, or they're in endgame ls's and "cant help" or dont want to because they've done "x content x amount of times" and strained out on it.

I've joined shouts, i've shouted myself, I've helped tons of people, i've joined many linkshells, social and endgame.

Gungnir is a lot different, and it is HUGELY different if you're not EU. EU have it worst i think, as there is very few linkshells. Maybe I should have gone to Ragnarok, but everyone says its bad there lol. But its seeming to be my only choice right now.

With only a few hundred people online when I play, many of them dont do things, with people shouting for hours. I have joined to just get stuff done for the sake of it, like an AV win or CC win, but no go, because these are hotzones for "endgame onry" and people dont like PUG for them.

You also missed the fact that i said it took me 3 weeks to get my blm af body, that was coming on every damn day, shouting or joining shouts until eventually just got really lucky that 4 people needed it and some was litterally begging, saying they will give 100k then 200k to people to just join...

Dont need 8 people for Ifrit, dont need 8 for everything out there, sure scale it for 8 but remove the restriction, it is not needed but just causes hassle.

I didn't mean to single you out sorry, just thought your quote fit what I wanted to say. It's a shame that your server doesn't have many people on it when you are on, and hopefully the content finder will help you in this aspect. But changing the content to "scaleable" while might sound good would only hinder the drive to make this a "social" game. They have lessened the restrictions on alot of content, AV/CC/DH are all enterable with 4 people and the final AF fights are not that hard to 6 man (except BRD, that one always pisses me off) I was just trying to get people to raise their server community up to what we have on Ridill. See someone you partied with, /wave to them; see a /sh in town that you have cleared with ease, teach new players how to also; these people will remember that, there are not that many people on a server that you shouldn't know a vast majority of them. Don't kill me but "Coming in 2.0" ><