Quote Originally Posted by Jynx View Post
The duty finder removed a lot of the game's forced interaction. Sadly this leads to players being able to remain insular and not need to community build to enjoy the game.

XI had a robust community due to all the forced interaction. It's the stuff people decry that made it bring people together.

Look at something like experience loss. Terrible if you ask anyone, but mechanically it made players aware of their surroundings and at worst have a white mage friend on call to recoup your losses. Encouraging team play.
I hear this argument a lot and what it ignores are the times that there isn't any sort of interaction to be had at all.

Duty Finder has it's downsides, no argument, but for me the upside is better. I don't want to have to wait for a party to possibly form and having to shout throughout the various zones to find willing people. Having a party finder sit empty until I have to log off for the night because either people aren't on or because nobody is interested in whatever older content I need. I don't have that kind of time. While I've had bad interactions in DF, I've had some stand-out-good ones as well. Mostly it's just middle of the road but my experience has been roughly 50-50 good/bad on the exceptional runs.