MSQ - Makes this game feel like a solo grind

[RamenDeep]

A small group of friends and myself have come back to this game after roughly 2 years away. I decided to pickup a new class and my friends and I have been having a good time leveling up alts in dungeons and playing together.

Enter level 50+
Since this point playing the game together has basically been a chore. We're spending most of our time running solo quests in order to unlock dungeons so we have something level appropriate to run. By the time you unlock the dungeon you've leveled 2-3 times and are pretty much ready for the next one. So onto more MSQ you go, there's very little point in running the dungeon it's self more than one or two times before you're high enough level that it's time to go back to MSQ to unlock more content.

I really don't get what Square was thinking when they put simple dungeon unlocks behind 3+ hours of teleporting around and running errands. Making me contemplate dropping the game for something I can actually *play* with friends.

[Sandpark]

A solo option is a good thing.

A multiplayer option for MSQ would be welcome too, since the whole basis for playing an mmo over a single player is too make friends, form bonds, and save the world.

It would take group scaling though or the MSQ would be way too easy.

[Kaurhz]

Interestingly enough, this does have 2 sides.

On one hand, the MSQ being a 'solo' thing just gives the opportunity to grow/learn at their own pace, which later in the game you rarely, if ever find that luxury. On the other hand doing the MSQ with other people is a perfect chance to make friends, as I personally feel that it can be a little disjointed, and many hardly ever make friends until later on anyway.

It would be nice for open world mobs to be far more challenging though, to the perspective that it almost necessitates the needs for a party. Not a full one of course, just something to where you meet new people and has the added benefit of being able to explore the realm with friends as you go by

[HyoMinPark]

Back when the dungeons were actually first released, you weren't 2-3 levels over the minimum level for the dungeon, nor did you outlevel it in 2-3 runs either. But, since the game is into it's second expansion now 4 years later, MSQ experience from ARR and HW have been buffed, so now you usually end up outleveling older dungeons and content faster than you would have if you were doing them back during their relative patch. SE can't exactly nerf the exp back to what it used to be without suffering a massive influx of complaints about the "slow leveling grind," so it is what it is now. With regards to the 2.x dungeons (and now the 3.x dungeons), they were originally unlocked while you were at current level cap, so there was no original exp gain from them. With the sheer number of both 2.x and 3.x dungeons and MSQ quests in between, it makes sense now that one would out-level them at a faster pace, especially since SE keeps buffing older content's exp gains.

With regards to group MSQ experiences, I think that would be a really neat thing to have; it would definitely promote meeting new people and making friends, and promote the more social aspects of an MMO in general. I leveled up my main with a friend's alt (she made an alt and took me through the entire ARR, 2.x, and HW storylines), and it was a very fun experience, but kind of annoying to have to disband for the MSQ solo-instances and reform the party after we both finished them. We still made it work, though, and I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. One of my fondest moments with regards to this game. It would have been even fonder if FFXIV offered grouping for solo MSQ instances, though the instances would have to be tuned to accommodate the number of players doing it for the sake of not being completely faceroll.