Friends List - Do you think they're superficial?

[Violet_Galaxy]

Fuck this place lol

[StriderShinryu]

I barely ever use the friends list in FF14. I don't have any issues with it but I just find that my interactions in FF14 pretty much boil down to either a short interaction like a dungeon run, FATE farm, etc. or a long term connection through my FC where I don't need to use a friend list to keep track of them. I've got a few people on my friends list but that was mainly because they asked to invite me and I accepted. I usually do remember them but that's just because I don't add many people to the list in general. I don't usually interact with them much in the future though unless I happen to run across them in a city while hitting the market or something. I never send them tells asking to do any content.

All that said, do I think they're superficial? Not really. They don't do much for me but if you're someone who does approach the game as more of a social hub or who interacts with a lot of people outside of just their FC, I'm sure it could probably be very useful. Now, if you run around bragging about how full your friends list is then that's just dumb and could be seen as superficial, but that's more of a reflection of the person than the feature.

[Jojoya]

I think of it as what it is - a Contact list, not a friends list. I just wish we had a better way of making notes about why we know the person beyond assigning a Contact group (which the game for unknown reasons wants to call a "Friend Group").

I know which are my friends - I talk to them on a regular basis. I don't need a list to remind me of whether or not they're a friend.

Social media has sadly distorted the meaning of friend over the years to turn it into some sort of popularity contest as opposed to a meaningful relationship with another person. It's a pity.

[Macleod]

If they would allow us to set an overhead name color for FC members, I probably wouldn't have a friend list...but as it is, it's the only thing I can use to distinguish the people I actually know when I'm running around in the sea of floating names, since I CAN set a different color for "friends"...

[SeanCody]

Dear Violet Galaxy,

My favorite food is pork belly.

My favorite color is teal.

Best,

Sc

[Controller]

It pretty much is useless honestly. Blame social media. Tho funny enough I don't have any social media but XIV. No facebook, twitter, instagram or anything. I still use my note 20 ultra 5G to call my actual friends. But Social media has made a friend into nothing more then random contact.

The few friends I DO have on my list I actually talk too and make it a point to talk to them. But my list is small, like stupid small. might have 3 on there. If that honestly. Tho to be honest, the FC I'm in helps with that. No need to add them all when you talk to the mon discord. So there's that also.

[WhyAmIHere]

If they would allow us to set an overhead name color for FC members, I probably wouldn't have a friend list...but as it is, it's the only thing I can use to distinguish the people I actually know when I'm running around in the sea of floating names, since I CAN set a different color for "friends"...

isnt the FC tag enough for that though?

[Jojoya]

isnt the FC tag enough for that though?

FC tags aren't unique - multiple FCs on a world can use the same one.

They also don't make the other members stand out in a huge crowd. We just completed the last Firmament FATE on Coeurl - if it weren't for most of us being in the same group and having each other on our friends list, it would have been next to impossible to find each other.

[Vyrerus]

Blame social media? Nah. That's not why the Friends list on FFXIV is largely useless. It's just the nature of the game itself that makes a friends list useless.

Let me explain with a list of reasons.

1. Top reason friends list is useless in this game. The nature of the combat content. It almost all requires groups, but none of it, except for Ultimate, really requires a lot of group communication and commitment. This means there's no need for long term socialization, and on top of that, there is also no time. Since even the harder fights are on average 12 minute affairs (extremes/Savages), once you're done progging them, it's barely any time spent together in game. On top of that, they aren't too hard to PUG, so it's not unrealistic to do them with complete strangers even. This trickles down to all other forms of combat content, meaning there is no need to make friends at all, ever.

2. The combat design is active, meaning there isn't both room to chat and to kill. Sure, you can, but if you are, you're slowing down kills. It's fine in more casual content like dungeons, but even there it has a noticeable impact if too much talking and not enough hitting occurs. As such, there's again, a lot less time to chat and form bonds.

3. Duty Finder, Raid Finder, and Cross World Party Finder -> By increasing the pool of players you can choose from, it decreases the importance of forming bonds, yet again.

4. Ease of world traversal -> World traversal in FFXIV is simple and easy. You can explore the entire base ARR at level 15, and you will have enough HP to live through one auto attack from a level 49 monster. There is teleportation to every zone, often two or three teleport points per zone in later expansions. The amount that you can just cut out walking and actually being in any part of the world is staggering, to say the least. This is yet another element that reduces possibility to connect with other players. Mounts and flying also contribute to the problem.

5. Leveling to maximum is very short, even for combat classes. You can guess what I'm going to say already, right? Less time spent playing, less time and possibility to connect with someone.

6. Roulette daily bonuses. Most of the roulettes you can queue with friends, so that's good. Yet, originally you couldn't, and for most people, they don't want to wait even two minutes after someone asks in LS or FC if they want to go on an Expert or a Trials roulette. Roulettes are viewed as a daily thing too, and while you may be encouraged to play more, they soak up limited time, and most people don't meet new friends in roulettes, seeking to finish them ASAP.

7. Game design focuses on quality of life, so that the game eats up as little of your life as possible, but by making a very non-committal affair, where catching back up is as easy as coming back and participating, discourages people from putting in the effort to form relationships/friendships. This is sort of an unintentional play of player psychology that causes us to not want to make friends, because that would be inconvenient if we had to put in energy to get on and see them/play with them.

8. We cannot send tells to players while they are in duties, even though we have cross server tells now. This makes in game communication with friends that are active impossible, without also being in the same FC or Linkshell.

9. The introduction of Trusts. Because of Trusts, there is an entire subset of people whose social anxiety and aversion is being enabled by the game itself allowing them to play a good portion of it alone. These same people call for Trusts to be implemented for Trials too. Nothing like playing an MMO and specifically trying to avoid playing with people.

10. The fact that the combat leans more on individual player performance than on tactical skill leads to friendships being damaged or broken due to a gap in performance between friends. Seen it before. Friends spend less time together, because not all of them can do Savage or Ultimate together. This leads those that can to adopt new friends as they spend more time doing the higher end content with different people, leaving their friends behind. For the aforementioned reasons, this leads both people to being lonelier and less likely to seek new friends.

It's all one giant negative feedback loop.

TL; DR - No, I don't really use the friends list. I add people who I already know, who I'm in LSes and FCs with. We do most of our socialization on Discord and in days of yore, Teamspeak or Skype.

[Stepjam]

I just use it as a convenient way to invite friends of my in my FC to stuff. Simpler than scrolling through the FC member list. It doesn't have to be something deep, it's just a convenient tool