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.