Who is this game targeting?

[Sotek]

I honestly don't mind the randomness of Duty Roulette anymore, Crystal Tower on the other hand... Despite not having a large Free Company, I find that prospect complete bullshit. Has there been any news on PvP at all yet? If that is putting you together with random people as well... I remember stuff about your name being hidden because apparently we're all five, but Christ, if you can't even enter with three friends...

What's the point of this being a MMO? The social aspect is completely lacking... If you have friends, great, enjoy probably not being able to play with them as much as you like. If you don't, enjoy going through random automatic groups with people you will probably never see again. Want to join a Linkshell with helpful people? Tough, the only people you're going to meet are people in the Duty Finder, people who in all likelihood aren't even on your server. Not until you get up to Chimera for your Relic will you actually have to interact with your server, and then that's it until Coil. Nowhere prior to that does the game require you to ever interact with other players on your server, but it should, that's part of the joy of a MMO. Meeting new friends and continuing to play with them is the whole damn point...

It's sort of like the old "Give a man a fish" proverb... Give a man a party (through the Duty Finder), he plays for a day. Teach him how to party... OK, this really sounded better in my head... I'm sure you get the idea though... People who log on and use the Duty Finder (because that's all the game teaches you) wont stick around for long, people who log on for their in game friends though, they are the ones who stick around... The game should be focusing on making players form groups, not handing you a group at every turn...

Maybe I just have an insanely irrational hatred for the Duty Finder (I do), but I really think they should be focusing this stuff onto the new Server Boards function. Lets say you're a newb who needs to beat the storyline Garuda fight still, I imagine getting help with that is quite difficult. Duty Roulette would have you paired up with complete strangers you'll never see again. If you could instead give the same rewards through the Server Board, complete strangers who are definitely on your server will help you. What's more, they'd have to send you a tell asking if you need their help, rather than entering an instance through the Duty Finder to stone cold silence...