we need solo play

[Iphel]

I is *confused*

I find this game to be very solo friendly. I've reached level 36 (my highest) by mostly exp'ing through leves and killing random mobs I happen upon that I find to be interesting -- whether in appearance or humorous name. I've been sort of shy about shouting to join a party as I feel my knowledge of the game, play style and DoW class are probably lacking compared to the many long time players. Perhaps one day I'll be brave enough to answer a /shout for my desired level and class, but until then I'll hack my way through vile gnats and marmots waiting to lose my LFP cherry.

Reading forums is both a blessing and curse: gaining useful knowledge of mob levels or requirements for grand company quests obviously a bonus but having to constantly read whining about the downfalls or shortcomings of the game weighs heavily. I'm not sure how people who want the population of the game and the overall environment to improve expect such things when they scare away potential new players with their criticisms. This game does not have to be played in large numbers (so far) and if you choose to sit idly wasting time shouting in a city to join a group instead of venturing out beyond the comforts of the walls to test your abilities, gear, weapons and dare I say skill on mobs that will not only garner exp but potentially fun and excitement then why bother taking the role of adventurer at all??

Thank you. Thank you so much.

It amuses me beyond belief that people complain about 'Oh, the Hate-O-Meter totally ruins immersion,' and yet these are the same people who sit in Ul'Dah and shout '43LNC LFP NO NOOBS LOL OPOS ONLY' so on, so forth. I fail to see any immersion that might be lost to a Hate-O-Meter when that is how you spend your game time. Last I checked, not a single hero in the rest of the franchise (or, dare I say, in all of gaming history,) just stood in the middle of a city whining that people should go kill shit with him because he's too chickenshit to do it himself. Immersion indeed.

[dreamliner]

@Iphel whatever dude! There are times when leves have you must have at least 2+ players. If the leve is lesser than Natalan, Ifrit, Moogle forget it. Spam /shout's. That is a Rabanastre experience. There are kind players that will help you sometimes but they get bummed out as well if you can't recruit anymore.

@Retribution I agree wholeheartedly. I have the solutions below:

Solution 1: Items and party requirement abolished
Remember the good ol days playing with Cloud, Tifa and Barret? They were a party of 3 and they had:
- potions (/)
- hi-potions (X)
- phoenix down (/)
- elixir (X)
- megalixir (X)
- remedy (X)
If these boxes were ticked in FF14 and the party requirement abolished. Players could manage Easy mate.

Solution 2: Introduce Mercenaries
Mercenaries cost gill or seals to use. You summon them from the NPC next to the crystal. If you have the mercenary Tifa on your party most of your hires she will go on a date with you in a love boat through Gridania.

This is a game dammit! You shouldn't have to rely on other real people to complete your party to do a party quest. Partys are good don't get me wrong. They should feel like the fun type of parties though. Not a "/shout Into the dark (Limsa Lominsa) please assist" spam festival. Which I still spam!

Please Square Enix

Please Final Fantasy XIV Development team

Please post this idea

/grovel

Final Fantasy XIV is double Final Fantasy VII so it should be proportional in awesomeness.

[BlaiseLallaise]

@Iphel whatever dude! There are times when leves have you must have at least 2+ players.

Coming from someone who leveled my only level 50 class mostly solo with leves, I know for a fact that it it completely possible to do leves solo the entire way. Not only that, it takes at best an hour and a half to do a set of 8 leves, and that's taking my time. Not only that, it takes no more than 2 or 3 rounds of leves (depending on guardian favor) to gain a level. Is it slower than a party? You bet it is. Is it too slow? Only for those in a hurry to rush to 50. I'm perfectly fine with the pace. Anything faster is a treat.

Any leve that takes 2 or more people is going to be a dungeon or end-game, which has nothing to do with the leveling process, kinda like your entire post.

[dreamliner]

@BlaiseLallaise whatever Blaise!!! Move to Rabanastre and try doing your 2+ player missions...

Hmm do you like the personal chocobo? Is it handy? Does it save time? Is it endgame? huh? HUH??? Here on Rabanastre it takes forever to make partys for those required missions.

The purpose of this post is "We need solo play". My post above is totally relevant. I have the solutions there. What bridge did you come from under?

[grandm]

well new party search, out next week, your problem will be solved then, you will be able to go out and kill things and do quick searches every 10 mins or so. so no more shouting in ul'dah

[auritribe]

I solo'd the majority of my levels to rank 50. I started at the end of December. The only time I really felt I outright needed help was doing toto-rak when I was level 25 for seals for the chocobo.

Aside from that, killing monsters over and over (while kind of boring after awhile) was perfectly doable for exp.

I found FFXI to be far more difficult(if not impossible) to solo in, so I honestly don't understand the complaining. Leve's and behests are fine for solo XP.

As an aside, I got a friend to play about a week after I started. He actually chooses to solo even when given the opportunity to party because he doesn't really like dealing with people. He hit MRD rank 50 a couple days ago.

That means both of us got a rank 50 in roughly a month or less, with very little partying involved.

[Kata]

Wow looking back at my post I stated 36 was my highest and that was November lol here it is nearly the end of January and I'm still not 50

Just an update for anyone who cares I did have my exp cherry popped by a group from Prestige (special shout-out right there yeah!) and I wasn't LFP nor standing around in Uldah reading shouts. Can you believe I was out at Nophica's Wells doing LEVES when I received a /tell from Magnus asking me to join an exp party. I had fun and despite the fast exp that partying garners I wouldnt take away any of my solo play. I've had fun and probably paid more attention to the class than I would have rushing through trying to chase that magic 50 marker.

And another side note is this what ya call trolling or w/e, just wondering why a thread from early December is popping up. And if it is trolling then woot me for +1 to posting

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

Wow looking back at my post I stated 36 was my highest and that was November lol here it is nearly the end of January and I'm still not 50

Just an update for anyone who cares I did have my exp cherry popped by a group from Prestige (special shout-out right there yeah!) and I wasn't LFP nor standing around in Uldah reading shouts. Can you believe I was out at Nophica's Wells doing LEVES when I received a /tell from Magnus asking me to join an exp party. I had fun and despite the fast exp that partying garners I wouldnt take away any of my solo play. I've had fun and probably paid more attention to the class than I would have rushing through trying to chase that magic 50 marker.

And another side note is this what ya call trolling or w/e, just wondering why a thread from early December is popping up. And if it is trolling then woot me for +1 to posting

Not trolling at all. I didn't notice the date either. It showed up in new posts and I jumped on it, lost signal for two hours, and posteded

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

I admit that soloing seems pretty slow at the lower levels. It seemed like once company leves kick in at 30, soloing starts to happen at a decent pace. 5-6 company leves starred properly with guardian favor can net a level.

Sometimes it may be worth sending a whisper to folks already in a party out in the fields to see if they're looking for one more. Some of them may be down to 7 and don't check to replace since they're doing fine. But it seems like they wouldn't mind if you catch them at the right time.

[zaviermhigo]

Honestly I've played this game since Open Beta, I'm a Senior in college now, and I've hit 50 on one class, and then I just quit partying and enjoy the end game content. I have no time to play this game, but because my server has more people if I do shout for a party, an hour waiting is like a dead week day on the server. So I'd say the fix for this is to merge the lesser populated servers, but if they try to merge selbina I'll be mad, I'm sure besaid people would be too, since we get hit the hardest for crashes with our population, we know our servers aren't stable for more population.