FF14 Becoming More "Solo Friendly" is bad, Maybe

[Kuritzkale]

Does anybody else really dislike the direction the devs seem to be interested in taking the game? When I hear them say things like how they want the game to be more solo friendly my head starts to swim, like... it's an MMO. There are singleplayer final fantasy games. FFXIV is not one of them. FFXIV should not cater to people looking for a singleplayer game. I don't necessarily have a problem with people playing the game as a mostly solo experience, but like 90% of story content is ALREADY solo, why make it even more disconnected from the community?

I don't think it's bad to occasionally force the player to interact with the community in the form of a dungeon run, or a trial completion. Why would a new player EVER choose to run dungeons with other players when every dungeon and trial needed for MSQ completion is doable with trusts? Not to mention the issues that crop up with needing every piece of new content (besides maybe savages and ultimates) to be doable by NPCs as well. And just to be clear, there are arguments for doing all of these things I dislike, I personally just do not think they justify the negatives that come with removing social aspects from your MMO.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've been lurking the forums like a psycho for the past couple of days hoping somebody else might bring this topic up, but no luck. I've just never seen a game with such a friendly and interactive community completely ignore that aspect of their MMO. The players keep the community interaction in this game afloat because the devs seem completely unwilling to. To anyone who doesn't run content that requires party finder, when was the last time you NEEDED to interact with another player, in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game you play? Come on SE, it's IN THE NAME.

[Dzian]

Given thats it's an MMO yeah I think pushing it more and more single player is incredibly backwards.

It also seems to be a very common opinion that it's friends and connections that keep people playing and not the quality of the game itself. This seems to be highly visible when it comes to keeping new players interested, Without those friends or social connections the game gets boring very quickly and as a result most new players drop the game very quickly. So pushing it in an even more single player direction seems like it would only make that worse by removing what few opportunites players have left to interact with each other.

It seems they don't know there audience anymore. Alienating MMO players by focussing so hard on single player. Alienating Final Fantasy fans by trying so hard to be so simplistic shallow and dull and getting rid of all those final fantasy nuances, elemental weaknesses, statuses, debuffs, etc.

I know more than a few people that literally only stay subbed because it's where they interact with friends and social connections built up over the years. Some of my friends I've known 20 years at this point since meeting them in XI.

The game needs to remember what it is. An MMO and a Final Fantasy, and thats what it needs to build on. But at the same time at this point it's pretty safe to say it's too late.

To anyone who doesn't run content that requires party finder, when was the last time you NEEDED to interact with another player, in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game you play? Come on SE, it's IN THE NAME.

That depends on how you define interaction. But my answer "Rarely ever"
You could argue "Everyday in the duty finder." BUt thats not team work or social bonding / interaction.
It's just 4 or 8 players all soloing the same thing.

What were the names of the players in your last roulette? Can't remember? Because there was no meaningful interaction between them. You'd be lucky if you got a o/ at the start of the duty.

You could probably apply the same question to the last party finder farm or whatever you joined.

[Hasrat]

It's the introvert's MMO.

At least this way, if I'm going to be wasting anyone's time, it's only going to be my own.

Maybe, after years of community interaction, they've finally realized, "Man, people are just exhausting."

Take your pick. End of the day, prolly doesn't matter a great deal one way or the other. Never going to have everyone satisfied.

[IdowhatIwant]

I don't think this is something the dev team decided. I have mentioned in another thread that this sounds like a decision made by the board of directors or at least some one that is far from understanding the product and it's consumers. It is a decision that is soley thought out for profits. I believe some one mentioned Yoshi P stating in live letter 77 that hopefully they reach live letter 100. If I had to guess SE is ready to try to sap as much profit out of FFXIV as possible and move on from the project, now that the 6.0 expansion has completed its story that started 10 years ago. Sadly I don't think asking the devs to change this will make any difference in this case.

Now that being said, I do not really care about the idea over all as long as the game play is not affected, but I do not think it will work. It will result in 1 of 2 things, a decrease in over all player count due to unfavorable changes to make the game more solo friendly. The second would be no real change in the over all game play but no new players purchase it for it's new single player type mode. I think they misunderstand that people that don't have interest in MMO's is not because of having to play with others, community, or online experience in general. Most people that avoid MMO's strictly do it because they do not like the game play, or they do not like the monthly subscription as well as MMOs have a time commitment to consider as well. The only potential type of people that may enjoy a MMO like FFXIV are people that enjoy games like Xenoblade chronicles, but that does not change the monthly subscription issue these people may have.

With that noted, I think we are sadly seeing the 1st happen where the game play is being changed to favor a better single player experience. Not sure how the over all community feels, I know I personally have not liked the direction that the game has been going, and I have seen others on the forums express similar feelings. From what I understand there are also players in the JP community that are also expressing concerns about this direction. But in reality, I have major doubts that Yoshi P or anyone in his dev team have any say in this.

It sucks but corporate greed and appeasing shareholders always wins.

[Knot_D]

You guys play with friends??

I've been sitting at my house like a hermit and barely do conversation at Limsa, mostly at FC chat...

[Rongway]

This is, first and foremost, in Yoshi-P's own words, "a numbered Final Fantasy". That makes it a game whose primary goal is to tell a story, and there are Final Fantasy fans both new and old who want to play it for that story. So do I begrudge a developer, whose lifelong dream has been to tell a story in one of Square's flagship RPGs, for taking steps to make sure more people can enjoy that story, even people who don't want to take what they might perceive as a gamble by subjecting themselves to unpredictable social experiences? Not at all.

[IdowhatIwant]

This is, first and foremost, in Yoshi-P's own words, "a numbered Final Fantasy". That makes it a game whose primary goal is to tell a story, and there are Final Fantasy fans both new and old who want to play it for that story. So do I begrudge a developer, whose lifelong dream has been to tell a story in one of Square's flagship RPGs, for taking steps to make sure more people can enjoy that story, even people who don't want to take what they might perceive as a gamble by subjecting themselves to unpredictable social experiences? Not at all.

That is kind of a poor excuse.

FFXI, was a MMO and a numbered Final Fantasy game. It did not go through the same length of game play changes to make it more of a single player experience as far as I am aware. They added the trust system to allow you to solo most of the games content which there is nothing wrong with, as long as you are not ruining other players experience by changing the game play. But I have not played the game in a long time and there may be other people that could shine a better light on how FFXI made the game more solo friendly.

Also Yoshi P is working on FFXVI so that's 2 flagship RPGs he can practice his single player mechanics there.

But once again, I doubt they have any say on making a single player experience in the game, but I do feel they can go about it in various ways that would be least impactful to the current player base.

[Kyuuen]

That is kind of a poor excuse.

FFXI, was a MMO and a numbered Final Fantasy game. It did not go through the same length of game play changes to make it more of a single player experience as far as I am aware. They added the trust system to allow you to solo most of the games content which there is nothing wrong with, as long as you are not ruining other players experience by changing the game play. But I have not played the game in a long time and there may be other people that could shine a better light on how FFXI made the game more solo friendly.

Also Yoshi P is working on FFXVI so that's 2 flagship RPGs he can practice his single player mechanics there.

But once again, I doubt they have any say on making a single player experience in the game, but I do feel they can go about it in various ways that would be least impactful to the current player base.

As far as XI goes, you are unawares then. As XI is where the trust system comes from, moreover if I'm not mistaken (if anyone knows better by all means correct me) the trust system in XI is used in open world content, but XI open world content is built differently from XIV's and XI since it's heyday has long since become far more solo friendly from my understanding.

[sagacious]

This is, first and foremost, in Yoshi-P's own words, "a numbered Final Fantasy". That makes it a game whose primary goal is to tell a story, and there are Final Fantasy fans both new and old who want to play it for that story. So do I begrudge a developer, whose lifelong dream has been to tell a story in one of Square's flagship RPGs, for taking steps to make sure more people can enjoy that story, even people who don't want to take what they might perceive as a gamble by subjecting themselves to unpredictable social experiences? Not at all.

I agree with you the story is the game and I loved every moment, but the crafting noises I cannot take and as soon as I hear them I leave. Yes I can turn off the special effects but I have to do that every time I see someone crafting. My ears simply cannot take the punishment and id rather be alone.

[Anemic]

I agree with you the story is the game and I loved every moment, but the crafting noises I cannot take and as soon as I hear them I leave. Yes I can turn off the special effects but I have to do that every time I see someone crafting. My ears simply cannot take the punishment and id rather be alone.

As a max crafter, lately I have been feeling this way about hearing those noises. I tend to just leave the area But this is a ME problem and I know that.