The Case For or Against Cross-World Dungeons

[Jinko]

No I said you could walk into a dungeon no questions asked if you made a "full" party on your own server, just as you would do it now.

How can you enter an instance with people from another server if you can't invite them to a party anyway ?

[Sorel]

I wasn't asking about people from another server, though. I was asking about three of us on the same server (Server A). You, me, and that guy over there choco to the geographic location of the dungeon. The dungeon has a light party minimum (4). At that point what are our options?

• Can we shout for a fourth player on our server and have them choco to us?
• Does the fourth even have to choco to our location?
• Can we three amigos go into the queue as a party, and say we are looking for a fourth from another server?
• Would we have any advantage in the queue since we at the geographical location of the dungeon?
• Would a party even have access to that dungeon's queue if they are outside that dungeon's zone?
• What happens when the only other people in the queue are parties also only looking for a fourth?

I know it's alot of questions. But what I'm looking to understand is how the other MMO's cross-server systems address these questions. IF cross-server dungeons are inevitable in FFXIV, I would like to think we can learn from the mistakes of other games and try and shape it so that we can avoid the horror stories associated with those systems.

[Jinko]

I wasn't asking about people from another server, though. I was asking about three of us on the same server (Server A). You, me, and that guy over there choco to the geographic location of the dungeon. The dungeon has a light party minimum (4). At that point what are our options?

• Can we shout for a fourth player on our server and have them choco to us?
• Does the fourth even have to choco to our location?
• Can we three amigos go into the queue as a party, and say we are looking for a fourth from another server?
• Would we have any advantage in the queue since we at the geographical location of the dungeon?
• Would a party even have access to that dungeon's queue if they are outside that dungeon's zone?
• What happens when the only other people in the queue are parties also only looking for a fourth?

I know it's alot of questions. But what I'm looking to understand is how the other MMO's cross-server systems address these questions. IF cross-server dungeons are inevitable in FFXIV, I would like to think we can learn from the mistakes of other games and try and shape it so that we can avoid the horror stories associated with those systems.

In the case of a light party situation and having 3 people in a party already you have these options (this is based on WoW's dungeon finder and there is no way of knowing if FFXIV's will be as functional)

• You can add a fourth member from your server/your LS and have him/her come to you.
• You can add a fourth member and use the dungeon finder to have everyone teleported to that dungeon regardless of where you are in the world.
• You can join the queue as a 3 man party to look for the 4th member.
• Your 3 man party can enter the dungeon and then use the dungeon finder to find the 4th person. (this works in WoW but may not in FF14)

Hard to say if you would get an advantage, I'm not really sure how this works and obviously its all dependent on how the dev team program it.

Yes the party could use the dungeon finder outside the dungeon (in wow's cause inside as well)

If all the other parties in the queue are also semi formed then you have to wait for the right class/job/role to come along, its very unlikely this will happen, even more so on FF14 due to the international nature of the game there is generally always people playing which will increase the chances of finding people to form parties with especially at odd hours.

[Ruisu]

I'm torn between this subject, personally.

Pros
+Easier parties
+No more shouting

Cons
-Possibility of becoming completely detached from your server
-servers being meaningless

Honestly, the cons would be the fault of the playerbase. Just like Abyssea in FFXI. Abyssea itself wasn't terrible, but what it did to the community was bad. That's my fear for this game. Though I'm not going to outright say no, because a LFG would be a godsend for Ifrit/Darkhold/etc.

[RemVye]

I'm torn between this subject, personally.

Pros
+Easier parties
+No more shouting

Cons
-Possibility of becoming completely detached from your server
-servers being meaningless

Honestly, the cons would be the fault of the playerbase. Just like Abyssea in FFXI. Abyssea itself wasn't terrible, but what it did to the community was bad. That's my fear for this game. Though I'm not going to outright say no, because a LFG would be a godsend for Ifrit/Darkhold/etc.

I can see it now...

Ok, so who knows the Ifrit fight.. raise your flag!

you: /

...
......
........

1 person: I know the fight! I've just never beaten it! We got him down to 50% though!!)$!

......

You: Ok, well that's fine... who has Sentinel for Hellfire and Chain Spell + Raise incase people die during it? Flag!

You: /

.....
.......

2 person: My shield skill isn't leveled sorry and I'm a melee I refuse to play mage!

3 person: Well me and the other healer have raise, we can pick up people that die

/facepalm

All should be good and fine when jobs comes out *cross fingers here*

[Aldora]

I've been reading around the forums about what the community thinks of a Cross Server Content Finder (i specificly chose to use this term because Yoshi-P always referred to a Content Finder rather then just a Dungeon Finder). But, I honestly don't understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to Cross Server Content.

I remember a time where i wanted to level my Dragoon in FFXI and halfway to 75 a patch was released which nerfed the Dragoon in such a way that nobody wanted to form a party with me. There were other jobs that would deal a lot more damage then a Dragoon, or at least had more "use" with a party. The same would apply for my Puppetmaster. On my server, Puppetmasters, Dancers, Dragoons and Thiefs would have to wait hours on end and still not get an invite (or enough players to form a party).

I do not have the luxury to wait for hours before getting a party started, nor do i want to waste my time "waiting" for a party to form. Fortunately there were other jobs i wanted to play as well, so i never really had to wait for hours in order to do things in the game.

However, when i was playing WoW i never had any problems on getting a party in order to take on the Dungeons because of the Dungeon Finder. Sure, most of the time i would be playing with complete strangers from other servers, but at least i was doing something i wanted to do. If i was lucky and members from the Guild wouldn't mind tagging along, i would even have familiar faces in my party when tackling a dungeon. For me, compared to forming parties in FFXI, was a win-win situation for me.

Ofcourse, the Dungeon Finder had it's drawbacks. But, like Ruisu mentioned in his post, it's mostly for the fault of the playerbase. Because it was a lot easier to form a party and tackle a dungeon, people would get a lot more... Let's say... Arrogant. Impatient. On a regular basis, if the dungeon finder would assign us to a dungeon like "The Oculus", the tank would leave the group within seconds resulting in us having to wait for another tank. Rage quitting a dungeon was also very popular.

But, still... Is it "fair" to put the blame on the Dungeon Finder alone? There were plenty of other people who actually put some effort in those dungeon runs. Which brings me back to FFXI. Is it "fair" to put the blame on "Seek party"/"Form party" system in FFXI because some jobs where isolated from parties and would have to wait for hours before getting a party together?

Both systems have their pro's and con's. And these pro's and con's will most likely be determined by the playerbase if these systems were to be implemented in FFXIV as well.

In my honest opinion, it would be good to have a "Seek Party" system as well as a "Dungeon Finder" in FFXIV so that players can chose which of the two they prefer. Plus, since Yoshi-P keeps on calling it a "Content Finder", it would be presumable that it will be used for more then just dungeons. F.i. Primal Battles, (Company) Quests, the "Crystal Tower", Empire Strongholds, etc.

[Estellios]

I sincerely doubt they would set it up to use the Archetype tags (Tank/Attacker/Caster/Healer etc) to restrict the dungeon finder. It's most likely so if you start a party you can say "I am looking for a Tank" and someone would be able to join your party on a relevant class.

Like Jinko has said, you will still be able to do dungeons and things with only a party from your server just by heading there like normal. You'd be able to use the dungeon finder to fill whatever spots you needed if necessary.

[Majidah]

You need to grab a dreamcast, travel back in time and play PSO. The greatest mmorpg ever.

[Berndherbert]

I am definitely in favor of cross-server dungeons because from the experience I have with WoW it really does make the game more enjoyable by facilitating the ability to just get on and do something. That being said, I sympathize with the concerns of a loss of community and server identity. I think the best way to preserve server identity would be to prioritize grouping with people all from the same server. So the auto-grouper would only group you with people from your server and if there for some reason weren't enough people to make a full group it will then pull from other servers.

This would put the people together who likely would have found each other through shouts anyway and then if there weren't enough people that wanted to do it on the server it would not stop the group from doing what they want to do.

[Jinko]

I like that idea berndherbert, hopefully they do this.