FFXIV needs more community content

[SXTC]

FFXIV is an MMO yet I feel it lacks content that helps form and maintain communities. Fall guys implementation is exactly what we need in this region so kudos for that choice!

I have various ideas but I have heard SE is understaffed as it is so I think we can still mend this issue with a one time combined effort. They basically provide us with the tools and we do the rest.

I realise they do not want to put more pressure on the servers and I also know there's often a lack of housing so keeping that in mind I would do it like this:

Assume you have both an FC and private house and you stuff it... you'd have a certain amount of slots that puts pressure on server load.

So for my idea/suggestion you would be able to buy/unlock an Aether Realm to your FC which would count as a private plot built into your FC plot (so you can't do this if you already own a private house).

If the Aether Realm would be active it would show in the FC profile with a button to head there directly. You would only see that button if it was enabled for you. This would be divided in 2 options, Enabled for FC use or Enabled for all/public.

If an FC leader owns 1 FC house and Aether Realm, that would mean there would be 1 house for everyone else since Aether Realms would count as a private plot, therefor an FC leader cannot own an FC with Aether Realm if they already have a private plot.

To avoid stress on the server this Aether Realm would have the amount of interior slots of a small house (interior and exterior slots combined obviously). The Aether Realm would look like the FC plot "without" the FC house on it so it could be used entirely to set up a mini game that can be selected/loaded.

To use items in the Aether Realm members could "sacrifice/donate" items to the Realm, adding it to the list of items we can then freely use and copy for as many times as we want. If a realm is completed this would be stored on our PC just like the HUD file (meaning it is loaded to the server at the last moment). In this same situation you could store an infinite amount of pre-built games on your PC/disk. The server would only ever be stressed with the realm layout you happen to have loaded at that moment in time so the stress should always be similar to someone owning both a large and small house.

(obviously items from the realm can't be sold and will be unloaded from your inventory if you leave the Realm)

I can imagine it would be great for community FC's that love to set up mini games like a maze, floor is lava/jumping puzzle, hide & seek, etc... and I can imagine people would enjoy themselves a lot more if they get to share games that were pre-made by other FC's who also happen to enjoy the presence of outsiders to do competitions with shared prizes

[Mr_Gyactus]

I can imagine it would be great for community FC's that love to set up mini games like a maze, floor is lava/jumping puzzle, hide & seek, etc... and I can imagine people would enjoy themselves a lot more if they get to share games that were pre-made by other FC's who also happen to enjoy the presence of outsiders to do competitions with shared prizes

Right now in Cerberus there are 891 available plots.

4 Large 19 medium, rest small.

That said, and I mean "don't worry about a company resources if it's not your job", I don't understand your idea.
Don't we have the island sanctuary for that kind of things?

[Jeeqbit]

FFXIV is an MMO yet I feel it lacks content that helps form and maintain communities.

There are literally hundreds of large discord servers for all the different content that has a community around it (I could list many of them but not going to). I remember in early Shadowbringers one of the FFXIV discord bots was in almost 80,000 servers so the amount of servers must be even larger now.

One of their main focuses right now is "second life" content such as bard music, roleplaying, more house and garden furniture, ocean fishing and island sanctuary. There are a lot of large communities around this sort of stuff, especially houses, venues and glamour.

But much of the other content in the game has a community as well, such as as deep dungeons, blue mage, savage, ultimate, criterion, maps, hunt trains, S ranks, crafting/gathering, achievements, free companies and leveling content/new players.

For all the hundreds of discords I referred to, there are thousands of small ones. I get dragged into them all the time when pugging, and the people in them will do things together, sometimes raids, sometimes eureka, or sometimes other games. Just about every FC tends to have a discord community.

[Blossoming]

So one thing I’ll say as someone who’s helped run and organize multiple different community groups over the years for XIV, they are most certainly out there but mostly confined to discord servers. I will say I’ve seen definitely a drop in some of the more ambitious open world stuff you would see around in shadowbringers. I hosted an open world Ren faire last fall that had a really good turnout so they are still out there you just need to know where to look.

[Absimiliard]

FFXIV needs fewer (read as: no) venues.

[Jojoya]

You begin by talking about community then move to asking for client-side housing for FC Masters that could be used to set up mini-games using items "donated" by FC members that people would only be able to access if the FC Master was online since the build information is sitting on the FC Master's client.

That doesn't sound very community oriented to me. It sounds like a new toy for FC Masters even if the intent is to invite members of the player community to play once it is established.

It would also still need make use of game server resources if you were going to invite other players in. If the build were to be created on your own client, it would crash after a small number of players entered.

Why not just propose a new instanced area that any player, FC Master or not, could acquire to create mini-games to share with the community?

Community activities don't even have to involve special resources. Blossoming mentions a Ren Faire they hosted last year. Last month, I hosted a road trip for members of my FC's Discord (which is not just limited to FC members) and we invited players to join us as we went from zone to zone with everyone getting gifts at the end of the road trip (except for the trial players that joined us since I couldn't trade with them). A FC one of my alts belonged to a couple of years back liked to play "Lala Darts" - going to one of the towers in Coerthas Central Highlands and jumping off to see who would land closest to a specific target.

All we need for community activities to happen is for members of the community to step forward to make them happen. Put the onus on SE to provide the means and they're not really community activities, they're game activities. It would also stifle creativity in events since players would come to rely on what the game provides instead of using their imaginations.

As for community tools in-game in general, I agree that we're lacking some good in-game tools to coordinate events. PF can be helpful but event announcements would be lost in all the repeat venue listings and random message listings. Fellowships are limited because someone would need to belong to the specific Fellowship coordinating the event to see any related messages.

Outside of game, Lodestone has a Community page that includes an option for Community Event recruitment. There are other useful features as well that I think get ignored because there's no quick guide to introduce players to them.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/community/

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/event/

We can make community activities happen if we put in the effort.

[Avoidy]

It's funny to me, because when I hear "community content" I think about things created by the community that other members of the community can enjoy. In that context, this game actually only survives because of its community content. While XIV undergoes 4-5 months of no additional content outside of maybe a 15 minute cutscene "event" or a moogle tome event if we're lucky, the people actually creating content are the players with their RP venues, or the players with their (dare I say it??) cosmetic mods. For thousands of people, player made content like this is their only reason to even play the game thanks to how starved it is of actual attention from the devs who nevertheless reap 15 a month (plus expac costs [plus cash shop]) from everyone logged in except the trialboys. If anything, I'd say the current game is forced to rely too much on community content and the actual devs should step up and implement something every month to warrant the subscription cost.

[NekoMataMata]

So one thing I’ll say as someone who’s helped run and organize multiple different community groups over the years for XIV, they are most certainly out there but mostly confined to discord servers. I will say I’ve seen definitely a drop in some of the more ambitious open world stuff you would see around in shadowbringers. I hosted an open world Ren faire last fall that had a really good turnout so they are still out there you just need to know where to look.

Isn't that an issue? I don't know, maybe people should focus on bringing things out of discord and making it more accessible.

This isn't a problem with the game. It's a problem with the community.

[Blossoming]

Isn't that an issue? I don't know, maybe people should focus on bringing things out of discord and making it more accessible.

This isn't a problem with the game. It's a problem with the community.

Yeah nice in theory but there’s a lot of wild things that happen within the community, people think the drama on the forums is bad? RP is a whole other level with it and yes a lot of community made content falls within the same circle as RP because usually it’s the same crowd creating these events. There’s multiple reasons why these things are run and organized through discord and we’d be here all day discussing them. Unfortunately you end up with a lot of trolls or an over saturation of people all attempting to access the area which can cause the zone to crash (seen this multiple times) and for the record I actually did feel the exact same way. I was about including everyone and it was actually quite shocking to me how gatekeepy the whole rp/community scene felt. I made attempts to try and change things and it got the mob after me and ever since then I’ve kept my stuff on a more inner circle level. The modding scene is actually scary with what I’ve seen and by far the worst. So I do agree there is some serious issues with the community as a whole, it’s not as nice and accessible as everyone wants to pretend

[NekoMataMata]

Yeah nice in theory but there’s a lot of wild things that happen within the community, people think the drama on the forums is bad? RP is a whole other level with it and yes a lot of community made content falls within the same circle as RP because usually it’s the same crowd creating these events. There’s multiple reasons why these things are run and organized through discord and we’d be here all day discussing them. Unfortunately you end up with a lot of trolls or an over saturation of people all attempting to access the area which can cause the zone to crash (seen this multiple times) and for the record I actually did feel the exact same way. I was about including everyone and it was actually quite shocking to me how gatekeepy the whole rp/community scene felt. I made attempts to try and change things and it got the mob after me and ever since then I’ve kept my stuff on a more inner circle level. The modding scene is actually scary with what I’ve seen and by far the worst. So I do agree there is some serious issues with the community as a whole, it’s not as nice and accessible as everyone wants to pretend

I mean I'm aware of the drama that happens within a lot of inner circles because it leaks out occasionally. To me, it just reads like a cover up.

People don't want community events to be inclusive despite preaching inclusivity because they want to cover up their drama and hide in their own little circles.

Reminds me too much of my experiences with various community discords where you're essentially there as an extra, even if you show interest before hand in events. The reason I left discords like the Dynamis community discord was because sign ups didn't mean anything when the server moderators and community event organizers always planned on bringing their friends from across different DCs in for events and using you to fill in whatever was left over.