All this talk about community...

[OSUBuckeye4]

And no one gets to the real root of the problem.

The real problem with this game is that there is little to nothing for the community to band together and do. It's not a toxic community, there is no community.

There are a number of reasons for this, and they boil down to the paths that SE have taken with their promotion and development of the game.


CRAFTING

When everyone can do everything, there is no need to ever forge a community.

This is the biggest problem facing crafting/economy, and it's one that I think SE needs to address with the expansion.

In most MMORPG's, if you want to tackle end-game crafting, you're forced to interact with others because they have access to certain crafting trees that you can't access. In FF14, that's not the case at all. You can literally be the greatest Goldsmith, the greatest Gladiator, the greater Miner, the greater Botanist, the greatest Weaver... ect.

If you want to craft the best weapon, you can do that without talking to anyone else. If you want to craft the best dish after that, you cand do that too.

This leads to people making a mad dash towards lvl 50 across the board, becoming their own empire, and shutting themselves out from the rest of the community.

Then you get all these threads about how the economy is unfair, and it's impossible to make a profit and blah blah blah... the problem isn't the economy, the economy is great, it's so deep and there are so many paths. The issue is that no one is ever forced to depend on anyone else, so you get a subsection of hardcore gamers who reach the end-end-game and are able to control the market because they literally have nothing else to do outside of gather and craft at essentially 0 cost (minus repairs). That's not thier fault either, I don't blame them.

It all leads to the creation of a very toxic community. The "have nots" (those who didn't get to end-end-game first) complain that there is no way to play on equal footing with the "haves"... and in some respects, they are right. You can't really carve a niche when everyone can do everything and never needs to depend on anyone else. There's no community when no one ever has to depend on anyone else.

That's a problem.



FREE COMPANIES

FC's are kind of a joke now that most FC's have their house and have pimped it out... there is nothing for FC's to do together, outside of garden... but, that takes what? One cilck an hour to fertilize crops?

The FC system in itself is great and there is so much potential. Maybe Frontlines will fix some of this, if they allow FC vs. FC vs. FC combat... but, right now I generally log on every night and ask my FC what they are doing. The responses? Dailies, Roulette, crafting... there's almost never anyone who says, "hey, I need help with something". Why? Because getting help from people in your FC offers no reward.

About the only thing I can do to help my FC... is kill time gathering materials for their crafts for free. That, and joining up and running roulette with others who need their daily bonus.

And I do suppose SE came a little closer to a solution by letting pre-formed parties que up for DF Roulette, but, this is still a problem.

There's really nothing for FC's to do after they get their house.

Maybe add in some additional uses for FC credits, or add in FC PvP, or add in some kind of FC ranking system that requires FC members to work together to move up the leaderboard.

Something to get FC's more involved. Right now, outside of housing and buffs, there is no reason to join a FC. And those things don't even require FC's to band together at all... you only need one person to craft to furnish your house and provide the seals for credits to purchase buffs.


LACK OF CHALLENGING OPEN WORLD CONTENT

The open-world in this game is a joke. I can eat lunch while groups of lvl 45-50 mobs hack away at me, and not die.

Outside of Behemoth and Odin... which spawn infrequently and at rather random intervals... there is really nothing for the community to do in the open world. I never played FF11, so this isn't a "bring back notorious monsters and hamlet defense" ralying cry.

I don't care what SE does, they need to do something that allows the community to interact together in the open world.


SUMMARY

Honestly, when was the last time in this game that you were forced to work with someone else towards anything other than end-game dungeon progression?

Its not that there is a toxic community, it's that there is no community. No one ever needs to work with each other for more than 20 minutes (the time it takes to beat an end-game dungeon). After you're done you go on your way and never have to deal with those people again if you don't want too, you just gain access to the next dungeon or trial and DF que it on up. If the raid is a fail, you rush to the boards and post your, "can you believe these people!?" thread, and the cycle continues.


SE needs to figure out ways to get players to work together, and it needs to be doing something other than extreme primals and Coil.

Community Events like the one with the egg hats/rings and the bitter chocolates were a step in the right direction... those lasted such a short time though, and when you were done, you were right back to the drawing board looking for something to do.

I don't know what the answer is. Though, I would suggest that SE move away from the "you can do it all if you put enough time into it" menality that they have. I do know what the problem is. No one ever has to depend on anyone for anything (outside of individual runs at end-game content). That's a huge problem in a MMORPG.

[PixelPirate]

Speak for yourself. My FC is super team oriented and does everything together... It's a matter of choice, NOT poor game design.

[Daragust]

Speak for yourself. My FC is super team oriented and does everything together... It's a matter of choice, NOT poor game design.

Going to have to agree here. Community has never been a function of game design, but of how people choose to act. My FC plays together daily doing all sorts of normal things as well as crazy things like the no tank Titan HM we ran last weekend. It is the FC's choice how they spend their time.

[OSUBuckeye4]

Speak for yourself. My FC is super team oriented and does everything together... It's a matter of choice, NOT poor game design.

The fact that you have a choice to do everything on your own IS in iteself poor game design, in a MMORPG.

That's my point.


Yes, you could run everything with your static or FC.... or you could just go lone wolf and literally never talk to a soul and get to end-end-game in every aspect of the game.

Is that really a good thing?

Yes. The game is not a mmorpg, it's pretty much a modern rpg featuring co-op.

Modern MMORPG designers and players hardly understand what MMORPG are about, hence the invention of thing like DF.

^^this

[Moriix]

The fact that you have a choice to do everything on your own IS in iteself poor game design, in a MMORPG.

That's my point.

If I have to do everything in the game with group of people I would quite the game long ago , I need to have my own space sometimes .

[FritoBandito]

The fact that you have a choice to do everything on your own IS in iteself poor game design, in a MMORPG.

Perhaps for you. The way the game is designed might be just right for other players, and it's worth reminding you that, despite your claims of poor design, the game is doing quite well and has been a huge success.

[Daragust]

The fact that you have a choice to do everything on your own IS in iteself poor game design, in a MMORPG.

I have played several MMOs that allowed for plenty of choice that still had a strong guild affiliation. There needs to be a differentiation made between FC Community, Server Community, and the game Community as a whole.

FC Community is built by the individual members and the direction of their leadership. If a leader doesn't care about who they invite, their FC will be an apathetic mess. General rule of thumb, if there isn't an initiation period, the leadership doesn't care enough to be sure you fit in and that your needs and the guild's needs are being met.

Server Community is one of the places where any game with a cross server df queue will flounder. Server communities are built by continual interaction with the population of your server. It reinforces good play habits because you can be called out for your behavior because people know you; you aren't just a face in the crowd. This is where FFXIV, like most modern MMO's, is failing. I can list very few names of players from my server because I am never driven to interact with them in a meaningful way. This is where your game design argument fits.

Finally there is the community that gets talked about regularly on these forums. That is the game as a whole, with its elitists, casuals, carebears, ect. These community issues exist due to large groups of conflicting opinions residing in the same game. Trying to build an MMO is like trying to get only children to share their toys. No one ends up happy because everyone feels like they are getting the short end of the stick.

With those definitions in place, lets talk a bit about FC Community. FC's are social groups that at times have other social groups within them depending on their size. You cannot design content to force FC's to have something to do. It is the FC's decision what they do. I won't argue having larger scale content that can be tackled by an FC would be bad. But the FC's choice of focus is just that, a choice. If everyone in the FC does their own thing, its not really a focused group, its an affiliation that shares a company house, chest and crest. If you feel that you need a FC to give you direction or that plays together, then it is on you to find the group that fits you. If you are leading an FC and feel like no one is acting together, you need to examine how you are getting your members and what you are doing to give them direction.

[PixelPirate]

The fact that you have a choice to do everything on your own IS in iteself poor game design, in a MMORPG.

Oh yes, now I remember. Which game was it that forced us to group in order to do absolutely anything? Let me see here... it's coming to me. FINAL FANTASY XI!!! OMG I caught up with you, this game isn't like FFXI. lol Dood, the freedom to choose is exactly what makes this game worth playing.

[OSUBuckeye4]

Oh yes, now I remember. Which game was it that forced us to group in order to do absolutely anything? Let me see here... it's coming to me. FINAL FANTASY XI!!! OMG I caught up with you, this game isn't like FFXI. lol Dood, the freedom to choose is exactly what makes this game worth playing.

I've never played FF11!

Honestly, with the reaction I get whenever I point out an area of improvement though, I'm really tempted to just jump over to FFXI and see what it is all about.

Seems like any time I say something that isn't, "this game is amazing!" people tell me to go back to FF11, even though I've never had an account or played a second of that game.

I really don't get it. I'm not asking for everything to be group based... I'm asking for some mini-games be added in that gives the game more of a community feel. Right now, there's nothing that really exists along those lines.


Sorry, I mispoke, there is one thing that I do think needs to be made more group-based, and that is crafting. It is a huge problem that everyone can craft everything if they sink enough hours into it. That's the one area where I think SE needs to shift course. You shouldn't be able to gather every HQ mat and make every HQ craftable item in the game, that's a terrible model for an in-game economy. Being a jack of all trades is fine, being a master of everything is just stupid.

[Clavaat]

I'm not asking for everything to be group based... I'm asking for some mini-games be added in that gives the game more of a community feel. Right now, there's nothing that really exists along those lines.

I misunderstood that until the post you made that actually showed up when I posted mine haha. My point still stands, you can make those kinds of things happen. People set up raffles and gambling events all the time. That and chocobo races, mazes, scavenger hunts, etc. Yes, it would be nice if the game provided more options for this, and I believe they are (look at Hunts). They made the FC Rankings on the Lodestone, which admittedly, is not very helpful considering it's about GC Points, but it's still something.

As far as FFXI goes, it's not really like it used to be, which is what people are normally referring to. It's actually a lot like FFXIV now, sans queues, so everything takes waaaaay longer.