Would anyone at all be interested in restarting from scratch* with a fixed party?

[ReynTime]

This has been on my mind for a long time.

I'm aware XIV was designed so that you can make it to the endgame by playing solo 90% of the time.

But one thing I always wanted to try was start over with a new character, and experience the whole game in the least solo manner possible, with a fixed party from the beginning, progressing through the scenario, quests, leveling together with one or more players, and doing unlockable content as soon as possible without the undersized option, without gear that didn't exist when that content was introduced.
Basically, without the usual rush for endgame or, well, any rush at all.

And I don't mean I want to do this for sake of achieving it. I want to do this because I just want to try and see how much more fun the experience will be.
I'm getting tired of the strange loneliness of the normal experience I have. I get being on our own separate ways to do crafting stuff, but I really miss going on an adventure TOGETHER, not just queuing for instances once in a while.

I got curious if anyone would think this sounded like fun or not. Because the people I do talk with over discord and such are just too interested in just going on with the story at their own pace and/or not interested in making a new character just for this.

I would go in more detail about how I imagined this would be organized, but I'm not optimistic people would be very interested so I won't bother.
I'll just say it would be great to reach a consensus in how to get such thing done without making it feel stressful and a huge commitment but also not done so sparingly the steam would be lost due inactivity.

Yeah I know this would be a hundred times easier to do with friends. But for some people that option never exists.


By the way about starting from *scratch I mean account-wide mail items would be fine. Although it could get unbalanced with specific items like aetheryte earrings and friendship circlets, I guess?

[Jojoya]

It is fun but it can also be a headache when you run into scheduling conflicts. A friend and I have run into this with just 2 of us to worry about. I'm sure it would be worse trying to coordinate 4 people. No matter someone's good intent when they agree to an initial schedule, things inevitably happen so they can't show up and that ends up delaying everyone's progress.

If you want reduce possible stress, make certain everyone is in agreement upfront and willing to be very flexible about how fast the group progresses. There should be no set goal of completing content within a certain time frame.

Only alts made specifically for the group should be used so everyone can progress separately on their other characters at their own pace.

Pick meeting days/times that can be adjusted if someone needs to be late or leave early (not a good idea to schedule a 6:30 start time if someone normally doesn't get home from work until 6 but occasionally has to work overtime or gets stuck in traffic).

Some members leveling up faster than others shouldn't be a big deal considering everyone would be blocked by the same MSQ progress. If you feel like level differences might create balance problems, you can always ask everyone to limit equipped gear to items intended for the MSQ level or lower.

[tdb]

I was kinda doing that for a while with some friends. Only kinda, because I was playing a new class on my existing character, rather than an entirely new character. So I didn't get to participate in the quests and cutscenes. Still, that was enough to get the idea that FFXIV is not designed for that kind of play. Conversations and cutscenes don't acknowledge others in your party at all. World enemies are even more of a cakewalk than they are when playing solo. And there's semi-frequent solo battles which force you to break up the party.

If you want an MMORPG which really can be played as a group from start to finish, I recommend Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's designed as a multiplayer experience; all characters in your party will appear in cutscenes, and aside from class quests, everyone gets a chance speak or choose paths of action too. There's a lot of speaking for the PCs, unlike FFXIV which gives you maybe one line every five conversations. And it's all voiced. You even get to help each other in class quest instances. I recommend picking different classes though, otherwise you must do the same class quests multiple times. World enemies are not any more difficult when playing as a party, but the game does feature heroic quests which are designed to be done with two or four players (two-player heroics generally can be done solo if you're careful, take your time, and utilize your companion well).

[ItMe]

I have a friend doing this. They've been playing since Heavensward and they're only just hitting Shadow Bringers.
Like Jojoya said, thanks to trying to get everyone's schedules to synch up it takes time.

[HyoMinPark]

This was actually how I started out the game. I started right around the start of 3.1, and went through ARR and HW with the friend that brought me into this game. She made an alt and we would play together for a couple hours in the evening after I was off work. We did the entire MSQ together, unlocked every trial together—even did the ARR EXs synced (since it was still easy to find synced parties for them back then on Aether). It was fun. And I want to do it again with my best friend on a different Data Center whenever we have more time. So I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to go through the story again, and not alone. Just make sure you’re able to coordinate when everyone can log in. As a result, I’d recommend only doing it with 1 other person. Easier to resolve conflicting schedules that way.

[ReynTime]

It is fun but it can also be a headache when you run into scheduling conflicts. A friend and I have run into this with just 2 of us to worry about. I'm sure it would be worse trying to coordinate 4 people. No matter someone's good intent when they agree to an initial schedule, things inevitably happen so they can't show up and that ends up delaying everyone's progress.

If you want reduce possible stress, make certain everyone is in agreement upfront and willing to be very flexible about how fast the group progresses. There should be no set goal of completing content within a certain time frame.

Only alts made specifically for the group should be used so everyone can progress separately on their other characters at their own pace.

Pick meeting days/times that can be adjusted if someone needs to be late or leave early (not a good idea to schedule a 6:30 start time if someone normally doesn't get home from work until 6 but occasionally has to work overtime or gets stuck in traffic).

Some members leveling up faster than others shouldn't be a big deal considering everyone would be blocked by the same MSQ progress. If you feel like level differences might create balance problems, you can always ask everyone to limit equipped gear to items intended for the MSQ level or lower.

Yeah the idea would be to not really abandon whatever main you have. The new characters would be made specifically to do this, and when everyone is available. I guess worrying too much about job level is not something to consider since there are so many factors that would get us above ARR range anyway. For duties and fates it's really the ilvl and gear that would be a problem and that can be controlled.

I was kinda doing that for a while with some friends. Only kinda, because I was playing a new class on my existing character, rather than an entirely new character. So I didn't get to participate in the quests and cutscenes. Still, that was enough to get the idea that FFXIV is not designed for that kind of play. Conversations and cutscenes don't acknowledge others in your party at all. World enemies are even more of a cakewalk than they are when playing solo. And there's semi-frequent solo battles which force you to break up the party.

(CUT TO FIT IN POST LIMIT)

Thanks, but I already considered other MMORPGs before I got stuck with this in my head. But none of the existing ones I've looked into are as appealing as XIV in general for other reasons. For instance, I really can't stand Star Wars or Warcraft lore.

This wouldn't prevent the MSQ related targets from being unexciting pushovers but I also considered trying to clear FATEs within reach as they happen during the "journey". At the end of the day in the game's current state it's inevitable to outlevel ARR content before reaching Castrum anyway, might as well not worry about character/job level shooting up specifically and just focus on the gear.

[Avatre]

Tried to do something like with with Eureka Pagos...yeah, that lasted all of 3 hours while I was at work and the person who I was going to be running it with was practically done the leveling there. So I gave up on those relics for a while...eventually did go back and finish Pagos, but still have the rest to do.

[SugarPuff]

I did this with my husband and another couple, for a time. It was fun but the other couple mostly lost interest in the game. When we were down to meeting (at best) once every three weeks, I decided it was time to move on with that character.

What I took away from it -

Scheduling is tough. In the beginning our ideal was to get together once a week for a session of about four hours and we made decent progress that way. Even during the "go here, fetch that, and fight these weak mobs" intervals, having a group keeping pace with you and running around together is a fun experience.

Everyone must be very patient and committed to the group because there will be varying skill levels. Dungeons like Arum Vale and The Vault can still be frustrating with new characters and (possibly) players.

Overall, I found it was definitely worthwhile.

[ReynTime]

I did this with my husband and another couple, for a time. It was fun but the other couple mostly lost interest in the game. When we were down to meeting (at best) once every three weeks, I decided it was time to move on with that character.

What I took away from it -

Scheduling is tough. In the beginning our ideal was to get together once a week for a session of about four hours and we made decent progress that way. Even during the "go here, fetch that, and fight these weak mobs" intervals, having a group keeping pace with you and running around together is a fun experience.

Everyone must be very patient and committed to the group because there will be varying skill levels. Dungeons like Arum Vale and The Vault can still be frustrating with new characters and (possibly) players.

Overall, I found it was definitely worthwhile.

The scheduling issue alone makes me think just one person should be enough. 3 (total) would be AMAZING. Although having to use DF would be an inevitable bummer for min ilvl clearing and such.

[Lumivyory]

Conversations and cutscenes don't acknowledge others in your party at all.

It's still nice when you can commence a cutscene at around the same time and then everyone has funny reactions to what's happening and since cutscenes are more or less synced it's fun cuz you know what they're reacting to.

I have 2 characters that are past ShB story.
On my main I always play with 2-3 friends and we go through the story together whenever possible. It's been like this since I started back in 2.0 and I must say it's really fun to be able to experience the story with friends and discuss it on the go.
On my alt I play alone and the experience really hasn't been the same. While I still enjoy the story it just feels like doing it with at least one friend brought something extra to it.

I sometimes wait for months to be able to do the next story just to do it with friends because it's worth it.
So just find those people that would be willing to wait for others :')