Living in an Inhospitable World

[Maea]

GIANT WALL OF TEXT, so I'm sorry for that. TL;DR: I feel like my character is a stranger almost everywhere I go in Eorzea, likely for several reasons: inhospitable NPCs, no player housing, no fame system, and no loyalty to one's hometown.

I've fallen in love with FFXIV, and I've always felt it has the potential to be a really great game, but there's one thing that's nagged at me since Day 1 and made me a little less enthusiastic about diving into the world of Hydaelyn. Fair warning: there will be FFXI comparisons, since I played that game for years before switching to XIV, and I feel like it tackled this particular issue in a different way (which I personally enjoyed more). Anyway, on to the issue:

From the day I set foot in Eorzea (wayyy back during closed beta), I've never felt quite welcomed by its NPC inhabitants almost anywhere I go. In Gridania I'm not "forest-born" and I'm tainted with woodsin, in Ul'dah I'm considered a naive country bumpkin who obviously "isn't from around here," and in Limsa Lominsa I'm threatened and told I stick out like a sore thumb. Most NPCs I encounter are either making fun of me (playfully or mean-spiritedly), taking advantage of me, or being flat-out hostile. Some are neutral, and a very few (particularly those involved in the Path of the Twelve storyline) are genuinely nice.

Even in the city in which I started (Gridania in beta, Ul'dah in retail), which I would think would be the closest thing to my character's home, I'm treated as an outsider and end up having little reason to feel loyalty to it. This particular issue of loyalty has been dealt with somewhat by the introduction of Grand Companies, but since you can join any company you choose, it doesn't inspire the same kind of hometown dedication that might otherwise exist.

Part of this feeling of not belonging is probably inspired by the fact that we currently don't have player housing, and therefore our characters don't actually have anywhere to call home. Fortunately this will be remedied some time in the future.

However, I think another key cause is the nature of NPC dialogue: the demeaning, swindling, threatening conduct that makes me feel like I'm not wanted unless I'm running an errand, spending money, or otherwise doing favors for NPCs. I understand that FFXIV is intended to be a more mature game than FFXI ever was, and because of that it's a little more gritty and realistic, but the NPCs' change of tone between the two is pretty drastic. I still remember being shocked and indignant in FFXI when Halver called me a furball, since that kind of blatant verbal abuse was so rare, but in FFXIV it's par for the course. Nowadays I just feel embarrassed that my character doesn't stick up for herself, but the fact that I'm being badmouthed is no longer a surprise.

Another facet of this is the lack of changing NPC reactions as your character grows, aside from new quests being opened to you. In FFXI, NPCs would take notice when you gained levels, specifically giving you quests because they felt that you looked strong and experienced enough to handle it. In XIV (outside of the main storyline and maybe class quests) I've only ever been told that I look sufficiently bored, that I must have lots of time on my hands, or that doing quests is just what adventurers do, so obviously I must want to help out. In the case of class quests, it's usually implied that the guild is doing me a favor by allowing me to help out with their affairs; rarely am I called upon because they genuinely feel I would be the best person for the job.

Furthermore, FFXI had a fame system that allowed you to unlock even more quests after you had completed enough to build up a reputation around town. NPCs would start recognizing you and knowing that you had helped out their neighbors and made the city a better place. This really made me feel like I was a part of the in-game world and that my character was someone that people appreciated, rather than just a nuisance or another sucker to manipulate.

I know that this game is still young and that our characters are basically nobodies so far, and plus we are kind of weirdos what with the Echo and all. I may also be oversensitive and just reading too much into the way NPCs treat us, but for me it makes interacting with the realm of Eorzea noticeably less pleasant. (I also miss having monsters think I'm so cool that they follow me around, but that's an entirely different discussion...) Has anyone else felt this way? Does it become less noticeable at level 50, or do you just grow accustomed to it? Would you change it, and if so, how? Sorry again for the giant wall of text, and if you've made it this far, thanks for reading and for any feedback you may give!

[Atoli]

1. Just a few days ago, the dev team said they are looking into it to bring monsters back which follow you around.
2. We are getting player housing, so no point complaining about that.
3. Grand company always makes me feel at home, I see no problem with players having the option to choose.
Think about real life: the place most people call "home" is not where they were born. It's just where they decided to move to because they like it better there, because they have a better wage there, etc.
4. I like the NPC dialouges. Especially the ones you are complaining about the most - the class quests.
At first I was just this strange weakling with MAYBE! some potential.
But from quest to quest their tone changed, and they said stuff like "only you can help him!" and so on.
So no, I wouldn't want it to change.
It makes the world so much more engaging to me, because I don't want to be treated as a hero for doing nothing but beating up some thieves or rats.

[Sothis]

I, for one, don't mind the general hostility of the NPCs. Eorzea isn't a friendly, kind world; it's natural that the natives that live there are somewhat harsh as well. Besides, we clearly aren't from whatever city we start in (the opening cutscene shows us arriving there from elsewhere maybe we're Garlean) and we're adventurers to boot. Adventurers are regarded as wanderers, and seemingly they don't consider what we do a real occupation (which, to be fair, is sort of true, we're always running off and doing god knows what, compared to the NPCs who dedicate their lives to whatever occupation they hold). And beyond that, we are oddballs, what with the Echo and the Path of the Twelve and such.

[Bearforce]

Furthermore, FFXI had a fame system that allowed you to unlock even more quests after you had completed enough to build up a reputation around town. NPCs would start recognizing you and knowing that you had helped out their neighbors and made the city a better place. This really made me feel like I was a part of the in-game world and that my character was someone that people appreciated, rather than just a nuisance or another sucker to manipulate.!

ffxiv is much better then XI because norg/tenshodo fame needed for utsemi:ni/blackbelt. these 2 critical items required from you to get into party,s/HNM scenes

tl;dr ffxi fame quest line is boring/ monotonous/repetitive grinding

[zaviermhigo]

One thing I thought was cool about XI were the homelands. They should have this for XIV, please PLEASE PLEASE. While not really a homeland automatically we could have encampments in certain regions where they talk about our homelands. For those who played XI think Kazham and mithras. But for XIV we have clans, so add a moon keeper somewhere in the black shroud, have a dunesfolk encampment in thanalan, and make sure to have encampments for elezen too, just because its their land first doesn't mean they don't maybe have one major city or town (small size) that is made predominantly of their race. My boyfriend is a hellsgaurd and when we read that lore we wanted to meet the hellsguard by the volcano and see the "keepers of hell." I'd like fame but I'd like fame to be attached to quest they know you're likely to do, not main storyline but guild quests, if you do stuff for your guild which is in one of the three city-states why wouldn't you become more famous? Do a tiered system, you get crap fame for sidequests from npcs, you get better fame from Guild quests, you get even better fame for grand company, and maybe a little less fame for main storyline, since its secretive, you would only get fame in a way that people in that organization know you.

If anyone is playing skyrim right now, to become a thane in the other holds, you have to do 5 good deeds and when you do one major deed for the city like the Nettlebane quest people pass by you and say "oh hey I know you, you save blah blah", while we can't do that in XIV, I'm thinking the things you do should all tie into fame not just fodder easy quests.

[Zenaku]

One thing I thought was cool about XI were the homelands. They should have this for XIV, please PLEASE PLEASE. While not really a homeland automatically we could have encampments in certain regions where they talk about our homelands. For those who played XI think Kazham and mithras. But for XIV we have clans, so add a moon keeper somewhere in the black shroud, have a dunesfolk encampment in thanalan, and make sure to have encampments for elezen too, just because its their land first doesn't mean they don't maybe have one major city or town (small size) that is made predominantly of their race. My boyfriend is a hellsgaurd and when we read that lore we wanted to meet the hellsguard by the volcano and see the "keepers of hell." I'd like fame but I'd like fame to be attached to quest they know you're likely to do, not main storyline but guild quests, if you do stuff for your guild which is in one of the three city-states why wouldn't you become more famous? Do a tiered system, you get crap fame for sidequests from npcs, you get better fame from Guild quests, you get even better fame for grand company, and maybe a little less fame for main storyline, since its secretive, you would only get fame in a way that people in that organization know you.

If anyone is playing skyrim right now, to become a thane in the other holds, you have to do 5 good deeds and when you do one major deed for the city like the Nettlebane quest people pass by you and say "oh hey I know you, you save blah blah", while we can't do that in XIV, I'm thinking the things you do should all tie into fame not just fodder easy quests.

@op: they adding a fame type system don't know when.

@zav I like the idea of all 5 race being together but the Miqo'te race really does hate the other race and like to hang out with there own. Just like the Duskwight that live in the dark and dislike being with the other race and only the wildwood are the version that like being with the others. Maybe if they show more of that i think it would fit more with ffxiv then using ffxi where race 1 live in Area B. But i think they can also do something later on where you can go to the homeland of each of the race and see there world and how they live.

Lalafall does live in a world that is full of Poison and they are born to be resisted to there homeland Poison but not the one in eorzea. So it nice to go see there world with poison type mobs and flowers and such and see how they live sure it be hard to go there for the other race but that the point .

I think that what best for ffxiv but even now they messing up the main story plot by releasing female highlanders when they said there very little of them left same story with the mithra from ffxi i wish yoshi-p can give us more info on why now highlander female are allow to leave and fight.

[Felis]

I think that what best for ffxiv but even now they messing up the main story plot by releasing female highlanders when they said there very little of them left same story with the mithra from ffxi i wish yoshi-p can give us more info on why now highlander female are allow to leave and fight.

From the german Highlander lore translated in english:

After the fall Ala Mhigos many of them fled into exile, where they often hire themselves out as mercenaries. Since then, almost no Highlander women were seen anymore.

I would say the womans are still in Ala Mhigo, waiting for a chance to flee.

[Mikita]

I'm not sure if the translators were told to take on a demeaning tone towards players with the NPC dialog, but as far as I've seen the Japanese dialog doesn't have any of the indifference or belittling that is present in English.

But the whole premise is still there -- we being adventurers who set forth to fight a battle that never came. So we are still basically homeless wanderers. ^^;

[Maea]

1. Just a few days ago, the dev team said they are looking into it to bring monsters back which follow you around.

@op: they adding a fame type system don't know when.
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tl;dr ffxi fame quest line is boring/ monotonous/repetitive grinding

I didn't see where devs mentioned reconsidering monster AI; if so that would be interesting. I also hadn't heard that they were actually implementing fame, so that's cool. I know some people found it annoying in FFXI, especially in the case of Tenshodo fame, but in most cases I found that I accrued fame fairly naturally and ended up with max fame in the three starter cities and Jeuno without even trying. As long as they didn't make an important quest depend on fame in some obscure hamlet like they did in FFXI, I would think it shouldn't be a hindrance.

2. We are getting player housing, so no point complaining about that.

I know player housing is coming, and I'm sure Yoshi-P's idea for player-owned estates is going to be well worth the wait, but I just wanted to include it because I feel like it's a significant contributor to my feeling of being a stranger. As of yet, these NPCs I'm interacting with aren't my neighbors or countrymen in any way, which is something I miss.

3. Grand company always makes me feel at home, I see no problem with players having the option to choose.
Think about real life: the place most people call "home" is not where they were born. It's just where they decided to move to because they like it better there, because they have a better wage there, etc.

As you may have guessed from my "furball" comment, my character in FFXI was a Mithra from Windurst. Even when I quit the game for a while and then came back with a new character, I remained a Mithra from Windurst because I had developed such affinity for both. I loved fighting for my country in Ballista, Conquest, and even Campaign in the past, and in beta I really hoped I would fall in love with Gridania much in the same way. However, when I was treated like an outsider the second I started interacting with Gridanians, it made it difficult to think of the town as home. I decided to switch to Ul'dah in hopes that the big city would be more forgiving than the tight-knit forest town (and because the region's layout was driving me a little crazy), but nowadays I feel little connection to my character's "hometown" aside from thinking it's the best laid-out and most majestic-looking. I ended up joining Gridania's Grand Company instead. I agree that the freedom to choose between the three Grand Companies was a good decision (kind of like how you can pick your nation in Campaign), but I do wish there were a system like Conquest in place that would encourage a little loyalty to one's starter nation. Given how much the three nations bicker, it's almost surprising they're not fighting over land already...

I, for one, don't mind the general hostility of the NPCs. Eorzea isn't a friendly, kind world; it's natural that the natives that live there are somewhat harsh as well. Besides, we clearly aren't from whatever city we start in (the opening cutscene shows us arriving there from elsewhere maybe we're Garlean) and we're adventurers to boot. Adventurers are regarded as wanderers, and seemingly they don't consider what we do a real occupation (which, to be fair, is sort of true, we're always running off and doing god knows what, compared to the NPCs who dedicate their lives to whatever occupation they hold). And beyond that, we are oddballs, what with the Echo and the Path of the Twelve and such.

I absolutely agree that it makes sense for NPCs to be less friendly than they were in FFXI, given that Eorzea is basically under threat of invasion and spies could be anywhere. Plus, we are kind of homeless, Echo-seeing weirdos right now, so the differences between us and the common man might make people wary. Looking back at the lore, it seems like the Adventurer's Guild is basically an attempt at rehabbing wayward mercenaries, so in that way it sort of makes sense that NPCs would expect the worst from us. However, you'd think that since we adventurers were the ones fighting on behalf of our countries before official armies were organized, they'd at least give us the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I just don't like people assuming I'm dumb/weak/selfish before proven otherwise

4. I like the NPC dialouges. Especially the ones you are complaining about the most - the class quests.
At first I was just this strange weakling with MAYBE! some potential.
But from quest to quest their tone changed, and they said stuff like "only you can help him!" and so on.
So no, I wouldn't want it to change.
It makes the world so much more engaging to me, because I don't want to be treated as a hero for doing nothing but beating up some thieves or rats.

I also agree that we shouldn't be treated like heroes just for slaying a few rats, but I'd rather not start off as an antihero, I guess. As I start to get into higher levels (PGL 38 now, not sure why it hasn't updated) I am encountering more quest NPCs who have faith in me, seek me out, or otherwise think I'm worth talking to, so this makes me feel a little better about my standing in the world. I've also encountered a few sequential side-quests (i.e. after I complete one quest for the NPC he asks me for help again later), which gives me a stronger connection to the NPCs I'm interacting with. I'll always remember the Star Onion Brigade quest line from FFXI, so I'm glad to see the devs start incorporating more things somewhat like it.

One thing I thought was cool about XI were the homelands. They should have this for XIV, please PLEASE PLEASE. While not really a homeland automatically we could have encampments in certain regions where they talk about our homelands. For those who played XI think Kazham and mithras.
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I really like this idea; I remember the first time I went to Kazham I was just so excited to see where my race was from. I also liked the fact that different races tended to have homes in different starter cities (i.e. Tarus and Mithras in Windurst, etc.), and to some extent they've implemented this in FFXIV, but it's a lot less significant. This is probably because they wanted to make the races more equal this time and not tie them down to certain cities, though, which totally makes sense. I do feel that attempting to make everyone equal has sort of ended up making everyone the same, which ends up with things being a little more bland (though certainly less frustrating for the purposes of stat allocation and such).

I'm not sure if the translators were told to take on a demeaning tone towards players with the NPC dialog, but as far as I've seen the Japanese dialog doesn't have any of the indifference or belittling that is present in English.
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It's interesting to hear that the tone of the dialogue differs between the Japanese and English versions. Sometimes I do wonder if the people doing translation and localization have taken some liberty with the original text and added in their own creative vision to what was initially there, but that's a discussion for another thread...

Anyway, thanks for all the replies and discussion I really didn't intend this to be a thread full of complaints, just discussion of an issue I hadn't seen mentioned before. It seems like I may be in the minority by feeling this way though, so perhaps i just need to toughen up and/or level up to feel like a real hero

[normalforce]

ffxiv is much better then XI because norg/tenshodo fame needed for utsemi:ni/blackbelt. these 2 critical items required from you to get into party,s/HNM scenes

tl;dr ffxi fame quest line is boring/ monotonous/repetitive grinding

I think that has more to do with people wanting to gain fame quickly so they'd spend hours on end doing nothing but farming items (Yagudo necklaces, anyone) as opposed to taking the long view on things and turn items in bit by bit when they'd collected enough. I understand why it was monotonous and grueling, but it didn't have to be that way.