Is there any reason to focus on 'solo' players..?

[ARoy]

EDIT: Okay, I didn't really know how to start this thread out, but it's basically here for me to brainstorm ways to improve the game's battle system. Someone pointed out some things to me that are kind of fairly obvious to any experienced MMO player, so I've decided to change my stance on the issue a little, but I'm leaving the original post under as is to preserve the integrity of the debate that took place. I'm now going to use this thread to list my ideas and suggestions for the current system.

So far what I've come up with is:

• More variety in enemy abilities; things like spells that induce statuses
• The introduction of a Market-wards like search function that allows you to create parties
• Advanced Class definition at higher levels
• More intuitive tutorial/instructions for things like how and where to buy new friggin' armor.
• More sub-bosses that are level reasonable-per the area they are found in.
• More variety in enemy stats - give some higher evasion, some higher defense, some higher attack... etc. etc.
• Make NPCs more helpful. Having someone that can tell you where shops are, where to get materials for crafting, little things like that.
• Make the story quests more intuitive. No "Look for NPC X" from one person and then checking your journal and finding out that you're actually looking for NPC Y.

Just something I've been wondering about since I started playing... but I heard that this game was originally touted as being better for soloists, and indeed, the class customization as it is now is really good at letting you do that in certain instances.

However... even starting at rank 10, leve quests for your rank become too hard to do alone even on solo difficulty, what with some of the monsters coming in groups of 2 or 3 and for the same reason Behest is downright impossible. Not only that, but with such horrific limitations on guild leves, you have a spike of SP in one class and then your only other choice is grindgrindgrindgrind.

Whereas if you join a party, things become immediately better; you can increase quest difficulty for gil bonuses, you can leve link, you can do more leves, and behest spawns more monsters.

Now, I'm fairly new to the MMO scene, having started this game at the start of this month with my only experience being Runescape and the DOTA-spawned League of Legends, but this strikes me as counter-intuitive for a solo game.

Considering it's an MMO in the first place, why would you want to solo anyway? Personal glory? Aren't there offline games for that?

I'll admit, one of the reasons (if not the main and only one at this point) I play is just that. I'd like to max out every skill rank in the game myself, just for the awesome factor. But I'm thinking the classes in this game are the way they are is because they tried to focus explicitly on solo-players. And that result in the poorly defined class roles that people are complaining about.

Soo... anyone think they should stop focusing on the solo-aspects of this game if they still are? I know the development team has changed, so I'm not sure if that's a major focus of theirs, but if it is, I think it's eating the game quality away.

Instead, focus exclusively on group play.

Focus on making it easier to create parties, and for the love of god, make the Adventure guild NPCs stress the importance of joining one so casual noobs don't solo until they are rank 20 in some class or another without leaving the level 1 camp leves or their starting clothing breaks and all they have is underwear and whatever weapon they can buy from NPCs (Yes, I know someone who this has happened to... fortunately not me, I got help from PCs around rank 15)

I suggest an area in the Adventurer's guild with a search function like the one in the market wards, where you can announce a leve and people can sign up to join your party - first come, first serve. You can ideally optionally restrict the number of people, restrict it to members of your linkshell, or restrict it to those who have the same leve (so you can link it).

I'm also in agreement with the ideas that have been floating around about making classes more focused; as it is now Con and Thm are very red-magey. But give the player a choice to access new healing/buffs and increased effect, while retaining red-mage as someone with access to multiple spells but less effect... makes sense to me. Other classes could similarly be re-balanced and given new focus.

At the same time, make the monsters more challenging... something that requires a party to take down, and actually feels rewarding when you do. More elemental strengths/weaknesses/immunities, more variety and more overall strategy requirements will make this a really, really good game.

I would say that the areas in the level 1 camps are fine as they are; noobs need that nursery type deal to get into the game. But make it so that a player would really be testing themselves to wander around level 10 and beyond alone.

[TonyMontana]

Expecting people to always party in a game where 30~ thousand players are spread across 18 servers isnt exactly realistic expecially when not everyone is willing to party with people who dont speak their language. I solo a good bit and i duo with my wife a good bit BUT because I choose to play FFXIV in limsa and not uldah I dont have access to parties very often. So should I be forced to play only in the uldah area for the sake of partying?

[Seif]

Expecting people to always party in a game where 30~ thousand players are spread across 18 servers isnt exactly realistic expecially when not everyone is willing to party with people who dont speak their language. I solo a good bit and i duo with my wife a good bit BUT because I choose to play FFXIV in limsa and not uldah I dont have access to parties very often. So should I be forced to play only in the uldah area for the sake of partying?

This is so true sometimes even the LL leve counter is empty.

[viion]

Its not exactly "solo" its more like "anything anytime", they wanted it so you could just login, and straight away get on with things. The biggest complaint in XI was the fact that everything from the get-go needed people, straight away at 10 you needed 5 people to level. Take too long otherwise and people clung onto this and then wasted hours waiting around. so they said "okay instead of making it so you need x amount of people, we will make it work with 1 person, but add more makes it better".

Only this didnt go to plan and has ruined a massive amount of joy. They went to the extreme with trying to make it work from 6people pt down to 1, when people wanted something in the middle.

They are now just realising this (seriously pathetic imo) and will be basing the game upon 4-8 people content, so you only need 3 others to do most things. Which isnt all to bad.

but it is very annoying that a lot of the good content is solo. all class quests are solo, story is solo till about 40, its very frustrating.

The problem they have is a extremely strong hardcore base but also know that many of the XI players left due to being to casual in a non casual game and XIV was supposed to fix this but had to cator for hardcore and these are 2 different worlds.

hardcore want long leveling grinds and lots of endgame content because they have the time and want to work for it, casual on the other hand would rather get enjoyment right away and be able to progress far within a very small amount, hence why WoW is probably very popular because of the easy-levelling curve.

Its now getting to the point where its almost balanced, though there is absolutely nothing to do so all enjoyment is pre 40, then its dead after.

[Laughlyn]

There's always 1 good reason to do just that.

1 is to see how good, how far you can go as solo, learn from the
experience & become the best of your own abilities.

But take it too serious and you wont perform well in parties.

New Edit:
I have to agree with Viion above, FFXIV is way too easy now...
so i find it ridiculous that ppl complain about low sp gain as it is right now.
It's fine as it is & gives a fair amount of time to level up.

And im not saying this only cuz i have a r50 class, hell i have loads of low level classes still below 20, and that's because i chose to, im saving a few to level up with until they add some more content etc, but after you more or less hit 40+ on 1 class u know where to go, what to grind level up with, what you can solo & what not.

The problem here is that almost 90% of the leves are soloble even at 2-3 star at certain ranks.
But if running around in crap gear / Weapons & sub-abilities well... then no wonder your in trouble.

I want more tactical gameplay, harder mobs.
(Intelligent mobs, unlike the coblyns exploding head, even though its funny as hell.)

I mean crazy / insane hard mobs... idc if we get Dynamis 2.0 / Sky type of mobs,
just as it keeps us busy & wanting for more.

[Wolfie]

I don't understand why people, including you, keep consistently thinking that "solo" equates to "I only ever want to play alone and never group with with other people, forever" and that it's one and the same as playing single player, off line games.

The largest slice of the MMO customer pie is people who don't like having to rely on other people, but will occasionally group up with the LS/guild/friends. They like persistent worlds, they like being able to compare themselves to others, and they enjoy the social aspect of the game when it's not forced on them.

I hope for the sake of the game that they do not return to the early FFXI model of zero solo options. Something like that is going to ensure that it never recovers.

[Leonesaurus]

I don't understand why people, including you, keep consistently thinking that "solo" equates to "I only ever want to play alone and never group with with other people, forever" and that it's one and the same as playing single player, off line games.

The largest slice of the MMO customer pie is people who don't like having to rely on other people, but will occasionally group up with the LS/guild/friends. They like persistent worlds, they like being able to compare themselves to others, and they enjoy the social aspect of the game when it's not forced on them.

I hope for the sake of the game that they do not return to the early FFXI model of zero solo options. Something like that is going to ensure that it never recovers.

Agreed. I play like this now in a similar fashion. I do not like forced to group with people to enjoy the game's story and content. I like having the option to enjoy both avenues. If people don't like our preferences, then that's their problem.

[Ayerc]

There is plenty of reasons to continue to focus on solo content...every solo player out there...

Leves do get more difficult, but I was soloing R40 leves on PUG @42 easy. It's all about your cross-class skills. The reason I did them solo? My LS had already done theirs and were doing other things, and there were very few players at that rank at the time. I loved that I could at least spend my time productively, even if it was at a slower pace.

Besides, the main reason I left XI was because of the requirement of parties. Not that I'm a solo player at heart, but when I only had a couple hours to play and that time got eaten by LFG or trying to form a party...it was frustrating. Imagine that in XIV now, with it's already low player base.

One of the main reasons I decided to play XIV was because of the soloability factor being in place when it suited my play schedule. Take that away and the world would be a lot lonelier for you.

The classes are screwed up because they made them too flexible. In the end, there's no class distinction. You can still have class distinction and play solo, these factors are mutually exclusive. The trick is in balancing the situational usage of skills against particular monster types, so all classes can solo effectively, just against different targets.

[AlexiaKidd]

I think the Armoury System was made mainly to cater for solo so that you could make a balance, if you were DD you could add cure's and buff's to keep yourself alive and so on. This is where they went wrong, I believe they should have utilised the "Companion" more so we could have had set classes and if you were on your own you just call your companion to fight along side you. With this they would not have needed to cater for solo play as much and then group play could have been more of a focus.

[ARoy]

Like I said, I'm entirely new to the MMO scene. Don't rage at me because I'm unfamiliar with your mysterious statistics from who-knows-where.

Okay. So sure, there's reasons for them to have solo-play as an option. But from what I can tell, all the customization and poorly defined class roles stemmed from seeming to focus exclusively on solo play. Meanwhile, Party play has been reduced to A) Some mook hitting them and B) Some mook healing/buffing the guys in A and occasionally attracting tons of hate for doing so and getting killed in one shot.

That gets old really, really fast.

The two games I mentioned, being my only MMO experience: Runescape is, as far as free quests are concerned, entirely a solo game (I wouldn't know anything beyond that) and League of Legends/DOTA exactly the opposite. This game needs a balance of both. But it's hard to cater to both, as their attempts have shown us. So my suggestion is increase party-based contentand make it easier to do so.

If someone wants to Rank to 20 without moving on thats their decision. Their time, their money, not yours. Maybe they are having fun? Some people play for fun and not the 'awesome factor'.

The person I'm talking about was getting two-shotted, sometimes one-shotted by monsters under her rank because she had noarmor. She was frustrated and kept apologizing about how bad she was at the game and how she had no idea what she was doing. One of my LS members got a friend to give her free stuff and we offered to help out whenever we could.

It's not that it was her decision, it's that this game happens to lack any real kind of instruction that you don't have to search high and low for.

At the same time, make the monsters more challenging... something that requires a party to take down, and actually feels rewarding when you do. More elemental strengths/weaknesses/immunities, more variety and more overall strategy requirements will make this a really, really good game.

Are you sure you play this game? Have you heard of Notorious Monsters?...

Notorious Monsters are sub-bosses IMO. I mean the monsters in general. All they do is spam attack. Random fights rarely have any element of strategy to them. Bombs and Djigga are the closest examples of what I'm saying this game needs more of. But, something that can inflict classic status ailments would be a nice change. Give me a reason to have a Usable battle inventory other than eating.

I would say that the areas in the level 1 camps are fine as they are; noobs need that nursery type deal to get into the game. But make it so that a player would really be testing themselves to wander around level 10 and beyond alone.

Why can we not punch people through the internet yet? Someone get on that technology please.

I'm sorry, but if, as I asked for above, monsters are throwing around statuses like stone, confusion, or beserk, you're kidding yourself by going around alone. That's all they really need.

The same goes for monsters which have high Physical Defense and low Magic Defense or vice versa, given you can't change classes once a battle has started. Though that's mitigated a bit by mixing and matching your abilities, it'd still be far more challenging.

As it is now, we have A) Monsters you can kill and B) Monsters that can oneshot you.

And, for the record, Notorious Monsters need to be more level appropriate per the areas they're in.

EDIT: I can see where you're coming from, though. To make the game more challenging for both types of play, they could change how encounters work. Let's say that, while solo, you're fighting the monster you see as per normal, but if you're in a party, then, perhaps, according to your level, nearby monsters join in, or more of the same kind you're facing will spawn and attack you as well?

And if you're the type who likes testing their skills, like I said earlier, crank up some kind of difficulty setting to make it so it reacts as though you're in a party when you're alone.

I quit reading when you said that levequests at rank 10 were too hard.

Dude, at rank 12 Gladiator, before I had any source of income that wasn't quests and didn't even know about behest, it was literally impossible to do the Emerald Moss levequest with the sand yarzons. They were packing like 90 HP a hit and would always attack in teams of three - meanwhile I had my trusty weathered gladius that did maybe 50 dmg an attack. It was literally impossible.

Sure, once you've got your multi-class powers quests are totally soloable at the appropriate level, but for a completely new player, no way.