Solo dungeons and raids!

[TheEnygma]

I wouldn't mind story versions of dungeons and raids though. Many quests force you to do either or and with upcoming expansion, I wonder how queue times will be for those who aren't caught up (like me). Without my guild, I would've been somewhat stuck waiting for the 2.1 quest where you gotta enter Qarn so can't imagine people trying to catch up and it's like "guys, I need to do dungeon to get into story, is everyone in expansion?....hello?"

[nuyu11]

Hmm...

I sense some emotional rage there...

Why you play this game?
Because you want to find more challenging multiplayer game?
You want some social community game?
Or because of Final Fantasy?
I choose this game because of Final Fantasy and social interaction concept, seriously marriage is totally new to me in MMO.

I have play Wildstar with the challenge is triple than this, but stop play because of latency and bug.
I have no issue at all with the difficulty in this game, I have complete my Coil by DF alone only, not complete yet my t13 due to to lack ilvl and acc cap, just got my belt and glove but still need to improve my dps with blood for blood.

There is 2 groups of player in this game Pure MMO player and casual FF fans player.
The Pure MMO player normally will not have any interest on helping FF fans because they will slow them down.
Why don't we give some room for FF fans to play casually?
Even they can go there its not like they can have the loots or achievements.
From your angry statements sounds like the Coil is only exclusively for Pro or hotshot player only, which is not that so good I've seen, even some player still boasting about zerg fest WoD.

I'm fully support OP suggestion. Yes MMO.... But I never heard people must do everything together to make it as a MMO, it's a community. Even if you do your content solo you still can chat with your FC, that's is MMO from my perspective, communication and interactions which is we lack here.

[Zorvan]

Why? There is no point to do the dungeon without loot. There is no point to playing an MMO if you don't play with others.

I don't understand why people play a MMORPG if they want to solo everything; might as well just play a RPG.

There should never be solo raids or dungeons in a mmo. MMOs are designed to be played in groups. XIV is already way way way too focused on solo/lowman everything.

If people want to play solo they need to stop playing mmos and stop asking for things that have no place in a multiplayer focused genre.

Thankfully, the world has moved on and you are no longer in the majority. Massively singleplayer is the new reality.

Why play an mmo solo? Because a.) the content keeps coming and $15 a month is cheaper than $60+ a month for a comparable amount of content by buying multiple offline singleplayer games and b) other players almost qualify as moderately advanced AI. Until the AI gets better, you're all we have.

Plus, I like Final Fantasy, so here we are.

[dayspring83]

I'd be ok with this as long as the EXP/loot rewards are not as high as light/full party dungeons.

I think this could be a great alternative to FATEs and Dungeon Parties, but if you make the rewards to high then people would not do FATEs/Dungeons in parties. That obviously causes an issue for new people who want to do that content.

Maybe make it a weekly run? either that or something with lower exp/loot rewards.

[AdamFyi]

Personally, I think that adding solo content to current content would cause more harm than good and may deviate the playerbase even further as it is. We already have players who throw communication and cooperation out the window. Next thing you know, asking others for help would end with them telling you to just solo everything.

On that note, it would be extremely difficult for SE to balance out all the jobs to work with every piece of solo content. This will lead to the exclusion of certain jobs. Scholars and White Mages would reign supreme and the other jobs are given the shaft. Of course, NPC members would probably be included, but for raid content as it is, the NPC AI would need a complete rework to react to mechanics and changes to the boss.

Having an option to solo content would be nice if content becomes extremely irrelevant such as introducing solo instances for 2.0 content when 4.0 rolls over. For current content, no way.

[Belhi]

I wouldn't mind story versions of dungeons and raids though. Many quests force you to do either or and with upcoming expansion, I wonder how queue times will be for those who aren't caught up (like me). Without my guild, I would've been somewhat stuck waiting for the 2.1 quest where you gotta enter Qarn so can't imagine people trying to catch up and it's like "guys, I need to do dungeon to get into story, is everyone in expansion?....hello?"

Those dungeons will be available for the same reason as they are now. The Roulette. You can bet that the Low Level Roulette will still be around and people will be using it because it gives fantastic exp. This is almost certainly how other dungeons in the main scenario will be handled.

On the OPs topic, while I don't have a particular issue with the idea of solo versions (though they do tend to feel pretty anticlimactic compared to the real thing) my concern is the issue of how much work it would take. Your basically asking for a majorly striped down version all raids and dungeons with reworking of mechanics to accommodate for single play. Infact not just reworking. In many cases for the fights to be doable and in any way engaging your talking about redesigning from scratch. Everything in the game has story linked too it.

That sounds like a hell of a lot of work. That's work not being spent on making NEW content. Not just new raid content. New content for everyone.

I certainly understand your disappointment and I think their efforts to create a two tier difficulty in Alexander is a way to accommodate that. However I don't think the effort required to make raids and dungeons solo playable at current difficulty levels is wise used of resources.

When ever you have something like this you want always consider what portion of the game that you personally enjoy and play would you be willing to give up to have it. That might give you a sense of wether it's really worth it. There is always a give and take in this.

[StrejdaTom]

No loot and titles and I really don't care.
If people want to experience the story without any rewards, let them.

[Gunspec]

Why play an mmo solo? Because a.) the content keeps coming and $15 a month is cheaper than $60+ a month for a comparable amount of content by buying multiple offline singleplayer games and b) other players almost qualify as moderately advanced AI. Until the AI gets better, you're all we have.

Plus, I like Final Fantasy, so here we are.

Pretty much this. You can't find expansive world content like FFXIV in other games, especially other Final Fantasy titles. And when you compare FFXIV to FFXI, it's a joke to say that this game is multiplayer only. You can't blow your nose in FFXI without a full party supporting you. With the exception of about 4 or 5 fate bosses and the later hunts, every single aspect of the open world is soloable in FFXIV, and most group content can be done with random duty finder players requiring zero coordination.

I think group content in FFXIV is fine the way it is, but people who don't understand the solo play appeal of FFXIV blow my mind.

[AdamFyi]

I think group content in FFXIV is fine the way it is, but people who don't understand the solo play appeal of FFXIV blow my mind.

The main problem when it comes to introducing solo play to current content is balance. Let's take Wanderer's Palace (Hard) as an example. One of the mechanics of the final boss fight introduces Doom as a debuff that kills you if you cannot get back to full health in time. This means that only certain jobs and classes may complete it; namely the healers, Summoners and Warriors to an extent. Other classes are thrown out of the loop.

They probably can do away with that mechanic by removing it entirely. However, BLMs face the problem of not being able to tank the incoming physical damage nor can he displace the damage with healing. Melee also faces this due to most if their HP restoring abilities locked onto a cooldown and also having small MP pools to keep them up for long battles. Bards may face a similar issue as kiting the bosses is very difficult since recent bosses have ranged attacks in their kit or run faster than the player.

Of course, they could add in NPC adventurers, but that is going to require reworking the AI for the NPCs, and that's for one dungeon out of many.

Anyway, I'm not completely against having solo instances of the old content; provided that the content is outdated. Just pointing out the issues when it comes to balancing group content into solo content.

[Gralna]

There should never be solo raids or dungeons in a mmo. MMOs are designed to be played in groups. XIV is already way way way too focused on solo/lowman everything.

If people want to play solo they need to stop playing mmos and stop asking for things that have no place in a multiplayer focused genre.

I personally would like solo versions of duties (imo trials and raids should still require a party), just to be able to farm glamours without wasting other peoples time. As more and more new content is released, older content will be run less and less, meaning longer queue times, when you're trying to farm anything from that content, it makes it that much more frustrating.

Ex, I want to get the Infantry Bandana, my best chance of getting it is to queue into Brayflox as a physical dps, however since it isn't run very often, I'm looking at a 30 min or longer queue, then the bandana has to actually drop, and if there is another physical dps, I have to roll against them. All of this taking anywhere from 40 min to over an hour, just to have a chance of getting the item.

Other way is to rope 3 friends into running it with me, but then I'm wasting their time when they could be doing something else, just so I can get a piece of vanity gear.