Idea: Why not make a solo version of every class?

[Hyren575]

On a personal level I completely agree with you. However what one person finds boring another person finds fun. What one person finds easy to understand another person finds frusterating. From a marketing perspective it makes sense why you'd want to have the game very accessible even if it meant making everything extremely samey for balance purposes. On top of that when you have to create content like dungeons it becomes exponentially harder to balance for every player option available. As awesome as it is to fantasize about the possibility the reality is all this stuff takes money and time to do. Unfortunately neither is as infinite of a resource as we would like it to be for a developer.

That's why I think splitting it into seperate modes is a good idea. You can give them the same base content with some exceptions on either side. Solo side could get some unique duties and normal side can get things like raids. It would give people who want these extra options a place for them yet wouldn't destroy the balance of the game for those who like it as it is. That way you make as many people as happy as possible and, let's be honest, from a financial perspective that's what you want to do. Reworking huge chunks of the game is a good way to upset half the playerbase into dropping immediately especially when the game has been established as the way it is for many years now.

One thing that could be done, though, is allow "Solo Mode" builds into duties together unsynced. Basically a "Let's just all be OP" type of thing. It is still an MMO after all, and showing off builds can be a lot of fun. The entire point of solo is to not be concerned about balance in order to bring in unique ideas and player diversity. Unsynced has always been a way to simply curbstomp everything without care for balance. It's a natural fit.

[WellFooled]

As awesome as it is to fantasize about the possibility the reality is all this stuff takes money and time to do. Unfortunately neither is as infinite resource as we would like it to be for a developer.

That's why I think splitting it into seperate modes is a good idea.

I see what you're saying, but you can't make the argument that balancing a more complex game would cost too many resources while simultaneously suggesting doubling the workload of the job and content design from now on. To do what you're suggesting would take a very large amount of time and work. I suggest if the devs would do that work, make it for the entire game and not limit the benefits of that work to soloing content, particularly not in an MMORPG.

The argument that a more complex system would confuse players is not one I consider valid. No other MMO on the market has such a lack of customization as FFXIV and yet the playerbases on those games can understand the mechanics (and FFXIV has its fair share of complicated mechanics, just not ones that include gameplay customization. Chocobo breeding is complicated for example and takes some research to understand), tutorials can be introduced to explain any new concepts as per usual, and naturally online guides will be abundant for those who don't enjoy creating their own builds.