Is anyone else fed up with the single player trend of FF14?

[WrenElessedil]

Not sure what you guys want. You share your life online on several platforms, pictures of your food, yourself, your pets, your vacations and post on the forums to share with others. But ingame you suddenly turn 180°. What is that schizophrenic attitude all about?

This is some incredibly presumptuous nonsense. Unless you're going to show a direct connection between the people who do what you describe and the people playing FFXIV, then you have no point here.

This is a game first and multiplayer second. Some people like the game but aren't big fans of multiplayer. I don't play the game because I want to play with other people (though I don't often mind playing with other people) but because I want to play the game, and there is every reason to want single player content if you like the game but not multiplayer. When they make a fully single player version of the game (obviously not happening), then you can complain about people who want single player on this version.

[BroFists]

If the single player portions are well-embedded, I am very fine. When I started, the forced dungeons were really strange.
Look at Titan for example: You are about to face him, trapped in a hell-like setting, facing a face-to-face fight about life and death and - you are stuck in a waiting room that I can even escaping by teleporting home.

On the other hand, I am playing for the interaction. It's weird there are many people coming up with "It's an MMO, but it does not have to be multiplayer". What the heck is that contradictory nonsense? Are these the "vegan burger" and "vegan sausage" tofu eaters of the online gaming world?

If the game keeps enough people in the Duty Roulettes I am fine, but Squeenix really need to find the balance lopsided on the multiplayer part. Playing with bots is absolutely unsatisfying. It was a blast to play with bots in UT99, but now it's not.

Not sure what you guys want. You share your life online on several platforms, pictures of your food, yourself, your pets, your vacations and post on the forums to share with others. But ingame you suddenly turn 180°. What is that schizophrenic attitude all about?

I love you

[HiroesX81]

5 signs you're dealing with a troll

They'll try to make you angry. Trolls exist for the sole purpose of upsetting people. ...
They act entitled. Many trolls have an inflated sense of worth. ...
They exaggerate. A lot. ...
They make it personal. ...
They often can't spell.

[linay]

I mean, it was a detail I liked in Aion back before it went to garbage. The start of it gives you the whole "chosen one" nonsense but down the road it finally classifies you as just another soldier. Another rank in the battlefield. Not this goody 2 shoes that's different from everyone else. It was a nice way to mesh everyone back together in the later half of the game so everyone could be anything as far as the lore went. I'm not fond of "not trying to think about it" because it just comes off as odd to me. I'd like more of that concern for actual players than just the focus on me being the chosen one once again with the select NPC's that apparently I the chosen one am only ever able to communicate with or adventure with as it seems.

The thing is, "just another soldier" doesn't work when you're facing powerful enemies, and Final Fantasy is known for having powerful enemies. Specifically to FFXIV, the player character has to be able to face primals without being tempered. That doesn't work if the player character is "just another soldier." And since that's the case, it's nice to develop the reason why the player character is special. That's why the reveals in Shadowbringers are great because they're like payoffs for the player character's story.

I would say it's the opposite of "not trying to think about it" because it's acknowledging the player character's role in the story and actually thinking through the ramifications of what it means for the player character to be able to do all the quests. "Just another soldier" facing against powerful enemies would actually be an example of "not trying to think of it" when you have to ask yourself why this regular soldier is here doing this this heroic stuff and defeating this dangerous enemy.

Maybe I shouldn't say Mary Sue, but they're still the arbitrary "you're destined to be the one" trope you see in every mmo story. Kinda why I liked HW and the beginning of ShB so much, it reminded me of how I'm just an adventurer... Not this god killing OP plot device. Being out in the woods asking for directions or just trying to get by in the cold snow.... Now it's like we're just reading a magazine waiting for the next "big calamity" for us to smash... ya know... again...

That's a matter of, either proper setup beforehand, or progressive revelation afterward. That's why I said it's nice that we might be getting some information about the WoL in Shadowbringers.

Also, you can't be "asking for directions" or "trying to get by" forever unless you want to only be tasked with killing 10 squirrels forever. To be fair, the player character still does that type of quests, but as the WoL gains fame and becomes more integrated with the world, the WoL will be assigned more important tasks. That's just part of character progression.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

No. Original Final Fantasy continues to be developed for single-player and while yes, I understand that this iteration is an MMO (and I actually know what that stands for) I don't find what little the game offers for solo play to be offensive or undermining. Anyone who plays a lot of co-op will tell you that constant dependence on other players gets old fast.

Now the story solo instance battles can get annoying because the goal of the fight isn't always obvious. Many times there's semi-hidden objectives that aren't killing all the things and surviving. Sometimes certain NPCs can't die. Sometimes you literally just have to survive.

With that said, I respect the choices we've been given. Those who mostly enjoy the social aspects and the story can still enjoy those parts without the stress of being paired with more performance driven individuals. Its also a nice alternative to a 20 minute que when you just want to get some leveling in. For someone like me, whose FC is largely made up of people who are logging off for the evening well before I log on, solo content gives me some more options too. I mean honestly, 90% of the time I'm playing this game alone anyway. If I want company, all I have to do is leave the housing ward or use DF. People who want to just have a quiet night to themselves but still enjoy the game have it a little harder but honestly I don't really see the solo options in a negative light. Its just more options.

[BroFists]

5 signs you're dealing with a troll

They'll try to make you angry. Trolls exist for the sole purpose of upsetting people. ...
They act entitled. Many trolls have an inflated sense of worth. ...
They exaggerate. A lot. ...
They make it personal. ...
They often can't spell.

[Saefinn]

On the other hand, I am playing for the interaction. It's weird there are many people coming up with "It's an MMO, but it does not have to be multiplayer". What the heck is that contradictory nonsense? Are these the "vegan burger" and "vegan sausage" tofu eaters of the online gaming world?

If the game keeps enough people in the Duty Roulettes I am fine, but Squeenix really need to find the balance lopsided on the multiplayer part. Playing with bots is absolutely unsatisfying. It was a blast to play with bots in UT99, but now it's not.

Not sure what you guys want. You share your life online on several platforms, pictures of your food, yourself, your pets, your vacations and post on the forums to share with others. But ingame you suddenly turn 180°. What is that schizophrenic attitude all about?

I know the OP is a troll, but you're normally a serious poster, so I'm gonna assume you're not joining the troll here.

I feel the flaw is perhaps that MMO's whilst they are multiplayer but not in the same sense it is playing multiplayer in Unreal Tournament (as you've referenced), or for that matter Call of Duty, Team Fortress, PUBG and so on. And there are multiplayer games that give plenty of room for single player play too, like Minecraft, ARK, Terraria and so on, but these aren't apt as comparisons.

MMO's I feel have many faces to them. Some tasks or activities may not be group content. In XIV this is mostly story stuff and side quests. But two points on this, MMO's are a type of game where you might log in and may not want to do something social or with a group. So in comparison to other games, it's playing Single Player mode of Call of Duty, in Minecraft, it's running a solo game. In an MMO setting, that could be side quests you can do casually in your own time.

And I think story stuff is where it gets the most 'single player' in this game. Personally? I think they've found a good balance for it. ARR felt like they were learning their balance, but I think they've got it. Sure it gets broken up by group content, but group content is all a part of the experience and the most I've felt this whole experience is in Shadowbringers, each dungeon you do could plausibly be done as though you're in a group with other adventurers and not only that but felt important or integral to the plot rather than thrown in and you feel the need to push through it one first run (now that I've done them all several times, of course that feeling is much lesser). And how they handled the last fight of the game, the transition was subtle, but it was effective. Where the explanation of having 7 other people with you blended with the story at the point.

But I don't think it is contradictory to have a single player experience for something like the most of story. Because the more you make a story a group effort, it can be harder to sustain the quality and the engagement. I've yet to find an MMO with a good quality plot that makes it a group experience. In places SW:TOR tried, but later expansions it gravitated more towards solo story experiences again (which we fun and cinematic). Actually FFXI, FFXIV and SW:TOR I feel have been the strongest I've played for story. And I don't think Shadowbringer's plot would have been anywhere near as good if they pushed harder for a group approach to it.

Yet, it's not contradictory because there are many faces to an MMO and not every aspect you do with other people.

And I get there's also trusts, these haven't been added to replace players doing group content because in terms of efficiency and how quickly you clear those dungeons is counter productive. But some may like it for the immersive experience of doing stuff with the scions, but it also serves as a good practice or learning tool. Say you're not a confident tank, you've decided to take it up in Shadowbringers or you're one of those people who used jump potions? You can jump in without ruining somebody else's run. It is also an aid should you be unlucky to find yourself at a time in the day when your queue times are looking really bad.

But it is no replacement even for a mediocre group.

However, your last analogy is incredibly flawed. If I were to treat it with equivalency:

Sharing pictures: I have a whole screenshot folder of stuff. I've shared screenshots of parts of the story I enjoyed. Moments I thought were fun to screenshot and talk about. This would be like me sharing photos of my vacation, or my pets and so on.
Sharing stuff on forums: we do it here, I share things on these forums none of you have participated in with me, I talk story with people in my FC and theorycraft and talk speculation and lore. It's a very social kind of bonding over something that's experienced individually.

The stuff I share about my pets or on vacation on Facebook (I'm not hip enough for Instagram) the people I'm sharing them with weren't there to experience it with me.

Even then, there's a lot of activities in real life we do solo.

So it's an equivalency that doesn't illustrated there's any kind of contradiction in having single player experiences within an MMO. Nothing about being massively multiplayer requires that every single aspect of the game is, nor is it bad design that it isn't.

[Dogempire]

I mean, the trust doesn't exist for high end content, just 4 man dungeons, so it's fine.

Plus honestly the trusts do such crappy damage it's better to just go with people.

Trust dps tends to add up to equal a really good dps player and then a little more, which doesn't sound too bad until you factor in that you have to single pull usually because the trust characters don't AOE.

[Tyssyn]

Trusts are actually very useful for leveling those classes you aren't very good at or think you aren't very good at. I leveled the melee classes with trusts, and now working on tanks. They aren't that much slower than a group of 4 players. I can do a dungeon in 30 minutes with trusts. They take about 20 minutes with a group of players who are decent (and we all know you don't always get a decent group) As a dps, the queue time can be anywhere from 10 minutes to the next forever, so really, trusts can be a huge time saver. I am slowly getting used to tanking but still more comfortable with the trusts than a real group of strangers. Trusts have their place.

And as others have said, the dialogue the Scions have is really amusing.

[HyoMinPark]

Not sure what you guys want. You share your life online on several platforms, pictures of your food, yourself, your pets, your vacations and post on the forums to share with others. But ingame you suddenly turn 180°. What is that schizophrenic attitude all about?

The difference between social media and other kinds of interactions is that players can choose when and where to interact on things like Facebook, Instagram...even here. I can choose when and where to post, and to whom I want to respond to (and when I want to respond to them). On the other hand, other kinds of interactions can feel forced upon people when they don’t necessarily feel like interacting in that moment. That’s just how I see it.