What does the community need?

[KaivaC]

Deleted. Disregard my original post.

[Joven]

I've been thinking about this for a good while...seriously, it's like 5am in the morning as I write this. For all the wrong things I have done to this community, I can't help but wonder if there is anything one could to do help it. I got to thinking about recent threads lately, and it really made me wonder what the community, particularly NA/EU, would want and/or need. And I keep drawing blanks because of my own actions. But, I'm sure that there are ways that the community could grow, could improve. Not just server side, either - I mean, as a whole. I see Pvp revitalizations on discord, min ilvl discords, and things of that nature cropping up quite a bit. When I saw them, I thought there were so many amazing ideas that just...happened. Because folks wanted it, people banded together and made it happen.

So I turn to the forums in hopes of a nice little discussion. As I said, I'm drawing complete blanks here. Not suggesting that the community is bad in any way - especially when compared to other MMOs. But I wonder what the community could use more of? What do you think, OF? What could the community use, whether it's a need or a want?

I would say a need to stop taking itself so seriously. I remember posting on one thread that was essentially a troll post, but wasn't done out of spite or with malicious intent and everyone on there was vying for the OP to be banned claiming they were "fostering a negative and toxic environment".

[Rhus]

To have fun and remember what that was like. Feels like people spend so much time moaning and lamenting what the devs didn't do, haven't done or won't do that we forget what there is to do and that we can make our own fun. Instead of taking what we have and making it fun we would rather sit in our houses and complain because I want all the new stuff now so that in 6 weeks time when I'm bored of it and got nothing to do I can continue to moan there is nothing to do. Why not spice up your dungeon runs? get a tank group for Raba or a whm group or something. The game is what you make it, much like life, you have control. It's like when you have young kids and they complain they're bored during the holidays yet there is a cupboard full of games and coloring books they haven't touched and they've got an Xbox with 127 games and a phonebook with 20 friends in it they can call and go out to play with...but they sit in the living room and moap about complaining they're bored and got nothing to do.
mabe I'm wrong but it just feels like at end game people lose the fun from the game and it becomes all a bit too serious. relax, chill and have a good time. Go find a newbie at a duneon entrance and help them out with a quick run or something xD

[Sebazy]

Personally:

I think SE are missing a trick by allowing external sites such as Reddit to become regarded as the central hub for discussion of this game for many. Having this stuff on a site that's under your control makes it a lot easier to keep ontop of the current sentiment, it helps to prevent communities becoming fractured and polarised and there's also benefits when glaring issues arise such as Ungarmax.

As far as the community on these boards go, we need more stability and certainty. Am I putting my posting rights in someone elses hands by trying to help someone else or participate in a discussion whilst providing data to do so? Is there a way I can still back up my thoughts whilst ensuring that I don't cross the line? Where even is the line anyway?

Whilst we're at it. A 'lighter touch' subsection of the forums disclaimered up that allows things such as parser talk, logs and other grey areas (obviously, there would need to be a line in the sand here as well, both in regards to ettiquite as well as clarity on things that are not considered ok, bots? modding? and so forth).

The health of the community in game is a separate matter really and I've got some unsurprisingly strong views on this as well

IMHO, the friends thread on here is super telling. A lot of people play this much like a single player back with a chat room client running alongside it. Eureka is a bit of a success in this regard as for all it's issues and shortcomings, it does force people together and to cooperate to a fair extent. I also think that the manner in which you actually have to go the NPC to queue for it is a good thing too (same with HoH).

I can't be the only one who misses the days of Wineport through to Hinterlands where you had to gather at the raid entrance to go in. This is something I'd love to see return not only for Savage, but Ultimate and 24 man as well.

The rest of my suggestions all pretty much branch off of that suggestion. Any additional content that shoves the community together with the aim of getting people talking and interacting with each other is a good thing imho.

[QueenSophie]

Intelligence and education about the game..

[Nixxe]

Having seen how WoW has changed and observing that FFXIV has on numerous occasions added big features from WoW in some fashion, I'm a bit concerned that convenience and asocialness will come to rule the game. A good example of this is fates. In ARR, they were arguably the primary way to level alt battle jobs, though tanks and healers were a bit better off with dungeon spam. However, the dungeon spam was tedious enough many would still do fates. Relic and Anima weapons were also used to boost fate participation. This created a populated world full of players for you to interact with. Fates were casual and somewhat slow paced content, so it wasn't uncommon to chat in /p to people you were spending several hours with.

After the addition of Palace of the Dead, fate grinding basically died. Heaven on High is of course continuing that tradition. Instead of being out in the world, interacting with your servermates, you're tucked away in an instance somewhere with randoms from other servers. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but it is a blow to server communities and an active populated world. I don't think they need to discontinue deep dungeons, but perhaps they should make fates a better way to level alts, while leaving deep dungeons as somewhat competitive, though inferior. Deep dungeons have unique rewards other than XP, so people still have incentive to do them, and if the XP is reasonably close to fate grinding, even if not necessarily better, people will still do them to either kill two birds with one stone or for a change of pace. Fates also act as some bonus XP while leveling, so perhaps they shouldn't get buffed XP until you've already hit the level cap from their level bracket (ie 50, 60, 70, 80? for ARR, HW, SB, nextpac), which would keep them as a leveling method specifically for alt jobs.

That's just one thing, but in general, convenience, standardization, and streamlining are the enemies of community. Players will always form their own communities, but to keep those communities in the game where they belong, you need to make sure people have a reason to come together, not just once, but over and over. There are already elements of this game that have grown less sociable, such as dungeons. Some of this is likely inevitable as the game ages and the average player becomes more experienced, but I'd like to see SE actively fight against community erosion in the way they design.

[Urthdigger]

Well, people need to come together and realize that we're all playing a game together, to do their best so their teammates aren't let down, to have the drive to self-improve at least a little bit. But I don't see any way to change that in people, it's just too much a part of our culture.

So... I'm gonna go with more PvP revitalization. Astagalos and such are fun, but the queue times suuuuuuuck!

[Zojha]

Error 301, Faulty Premise.

"The community" is a conglomerate of individuals, each and every with their own 'needs' and desires, many of which are incompatible with each other. The only thing connecting them is that they're playing the same game, but as soon as you look at how or why they're playing it, the results differ drastically from person to person.

The only thing it needs to grow thus is more people playing the game. And if given the tools to do so, they just might cluster into groups with semi-homogenous interests in order to enhance their experience by keeping a close company of like-minded people. And if one such cluster becomes too big, we blame Balmung. Such is life.

[DeaconMoore]

Cowbell. The community needs more cowbell.

[KaivaC]

Error 301, Faulty Premise.

"The community" is a conglomerate of individuals, each and every with their own 'needs' and desires, many of which are incompatible with each other. The only thing connecting them is that they're playing the same game, but as soon as you look at how or why they're playing it, the results differ drastically from person to person.

The only thing it needs to grow thus is more people playing the game. And if given the tools to do so, they just might cluster into groups with semi-homogenous interests in order to enhance their experience by keeping a close company of like-minded people. And if one such cluster becomes too big, we blame Balmung. Such is life.

True, and to be honest, I am not the right person to have even brought up this thread...but I couldn't help but bring it up because I've seen the good folks on reddit start up those two things that I mentioned (min ilvl runs and PVP restoration). Limsa Lominsa is seemingly the accepted hangout spot for most of the big Aether servers (dunno about the other datacenters), which I think it pretty nice. I'd love to see more of this within the game - not really to improve the game, per se, but just to foster something bigger than just a conglomerate of individuals coming together.