Doubling down on "Playing solo" is a stupid direction

[Shin96]

I’ve said this before on Reddit and got downvoted to hell “A community so good, that you can disregard them entirely”

That's their definition of a community. Someone or something you can use when you need them but screw them after that. Narcissists the lot of them.

[Insertusernamehere]

I think it is clever or very silly decision.. we will see outcome at future when it is complete.
Imagine selling a single player game but player have to pay you monthly sub fee.. very clever (and profitable) way to include "single player crowd" in your MMORPG.
Assuming if they buy your game and subscribe.

IMO having a option to include NPCs in dungeons good idea. DPS queue times problematic especially if you are new to game.

[Oizen]

Maybe they want to avoid the overuse of the duty finder to keep giving new players people to play with.
Especially with how new players from the launch of the game up until 6.1 basically never REALLY got to expierence shit like Praetorium legitimately due to players doing Praetorium Speedrun Any% [WR] runs to just maximize it for EXP gain.

I think its a fantastic option, especially for anyone who doesn't want to wait absurd q times, and its not like party content is going anywhere.

[Dzian]

However, the general idea/direction behind it is just misguided. Am I the only one who's annoyed that me and a few other friends who decided to play FFXIV essentially have to play solo 80% of the time through MSQ? And we eventually just decide to not bother and play something like Civ6 for our game nights.

It's been something many friends and I've said quite a few times over the years and others aswell.
"Let players do the MSQ together. it's an MMO people want to play with there friends.."

It'd only benefit everyone to let players do it. Those notorious bottlenecks you get in quests like "cold steel" where there's hundreds on players crowded around an npc trying to get in an instance and progress the story. and spending days stuck there.
Letting players group up with friends would ultimately reduce server load.. If 5 of my friends and I are all on the same quest.. thats ONE instance the server needs to run not SIX....
multiply that by x number of players grouped up and that could equate to hundreds lesser instances needed. and speed things up even for the player that wants to go solo.

Not to mention it'd be so much cooler to see my friends in the Cutscenes.. Especially some of the ones after you've done a dungeon where the scions magically appear behind you when you win, Wheres the friends I just ran with?? I want to see them..

In the earlier days players used to say that it'd be broken to let people group up as it'd make things too easy but even thats BS these days baecause you can dumb it right down to breaindead easy mode anyway and win.

FFXIV is bad for multiplayer through MSQ, and the way to fix it is not "to make solo experience better". Please make MSQ more multiplayer friendly.

FFXIV is bad for multiplayer full stop.. One of the reasons people can't do the harder content is not because its hard. but because the push on single player means they dont make connections or friends. so content becomes difficult simply because getting a group is difficult.

It's an MMO it needs to be an MMO, not a single player game...
dont get me wrong im all for solo friendly,, but solo focussed is just wrong imo. and is the cause for most of this games problems. right down to housing.... community housing, neighbourhoods, players working together and building bonds... nice idea but doomed because of the push to be a single player game

Personally I'm very pleased that XIV is embracing it's franchise single player traditions.

So where are all those Final fantasy traditions.. Elemental weaknesses, buffs, debuffs, status effects, diversity between jobs and characters, strengths and weakness of different characters, bosses and monsters.. Deep engaging battle systems.. All those other things you traditionally see in the franchises single player games... WHERE ARE THEY?

[Jaquan]

Talking to other people and enjoying your time together doesn't add anything to the experience? Then why attaching a monthly subscription to a singleplayer oriented game at all. If that's the way they like to dance then remove the subscription model indefinitely and make it a once in a lifetime purchase. Including buying the expansions seperately.

Yeah how many times does it happen if you don't have static? Let's be fair the dungeons aren't exactly filled with people that want to heavily socialize. At least not most of them. We get vets that just want to tick the leveling queue out of their "to do list" and want to do it as soon as possible. Not exactly talkative barely exchanging greetings and leaving ASAP. Not to say I didn't have some social experiences but they were drop in the ocean of just going fast.

[Shin96]

Yeah how many times does it happen if you don't have static? Let's be fair the dungeons aren't exactly filled with peoples that want to heavily socialize. At least not most of them. We get vets that just want to tick the leveling queue out of their "to do list" and want to do it as soon as possible. Not exactly talkative barely exchanging greetings and leaving ASAP. Not to say I didn't have some social experiences but they were drop in the ocean of just going fast.

Well I don't want to socialize with them either but I don't reject a good conversation when I see one. The game isn't build to be social since you can't even tell people inside content but I prefer doing things with people over bots, just my preference.

[Jaquan]

Well I don't want to socialize with them either but I don't reject a good conversation when I see one. The game isn't build to be social since you can't even tell people inside content but I prefer doing things with people over bots, just my preference.

I don't know if it's social issue or just people tuning everything off when they start doing things just for rewards. Me? Not exactly a social butterfly and also someone who joined the game on their own without even an option of having a friend to do stuff with. And a bitter Vet from games like EVE where your typical Player Interaction devolves into both sides trying to take advantage of one another. But yeah I generally prefer to do stuff with other players but at the same time... That kinda ruined Praetorium for me at the time when it was my grand finale. Failed to keep up with others and was just tad to slow to get onto elevator... Ended up staying there for half the run before they reached Nero. Not exactly what I'd call good experience of final piece of first chapter of the story. On that front I appreciate Duty Support and Thrusts. They let me take it on my pace without fear of being bashed because I held party back by watching a cutscene in a new Dungeon (and yes that also did happen to me once or twice, party wiped because welp... I was a Healer xD)

[Shin96]

I don't know if it's social issue or just people tuning everything off when they start doing things just for rewards. Me? Not exactly a social butterfly and also someone who joined the game on their own without even an option of having a friend to do stuff with. And a bitter Vet from games like EVE where your typical Player Interaction devolves into both sides trying to take advantage of one another. But yeah I generally prefer to do stuff with other players but at the same time... That kinda ruined Praetorium for me at the time when it was my grand finale. Failed to keep up with others and was just tad to slow to get onto elevator... Ended up staying there for half the run before they reached Nero. Not exactly what I'd call good experience of final piece of first chapter of the story. On that front I appreciate Duty Support and Thrusts. They let me take it on my pace without fear of being bashed because I held party back by watching a cutscene in a new Dungeon (and yes that also did happen to me once or twice, party wiped because welp... I was a Healer xD)

Ah sorry to hear that. If you're new to stuff just tell them to take it slow and they won't bother most of the time. When I started playing I had alot of encounters like that.

[Warpstone]

I prefer to play solo or with my wife. I just wish we could fill the last 2 spots with npc. There is nothing wrong with giving multiple options. People can play both solo and multiplayer. Ask Blizzard, they made the solo experience a pita, and look where my sub money is going now.

[KariTheFox]

I don't understand, the option to queue up normally for dungeons while leveling has not been removed? And those dungeons will still be populated by people who are trying to do their daily roulettes.