Parties? Linkshells?

[Chemo]

One of my favorite things about FFXI was the party and ls system and how one was almost always part of one. Did that carry on to this game or is it more solo now?

[Raim]

Both are of course still in. You get many benefits from grouping up to do leves as well. That being said, theres plenty of opportunity to solo if you want, but it will be slower.

[Pangy]

If you want a FFXI vs. FFXIV for those mechanics:


In XIV you can hold up to eight Linkshells, and they do not use inventory space.
You can read chat from all 8 of them at once, but you speak with one at a time only.


Parties have a maximum size (as of this writing) of 15 members. There are no alliances, but a PT of 15 is already a buttonmash fest.
Parties are very very common for leves (a kind of in-the-field Assault, but you get 8/day), but pickup EXP/SP parties are hard to come by, and are far less rewarding than leve groups.

If you miss the grouping up with 5 strangers for hours of grinding---some of whom will become your friends, others your blacklist content---you probably won't get that here.
The general consensus seems to be get into an LS, then party up for leves with them.

If you've got friends playing, or you're good/quick to make friends, you might enjoy the game in its current state.

If I didn't like the people I'm playing with as much as I do I'd have quit by now- I miss XI's party grinding more and more every day. I loved meeting strangers for EXP, and every PT was a new group.


I don't want to discourage anyone from playing XIV, but I don't wanna be like "come play, it's social/strategic/finished/awesome" and have people be disappointed.

I've told my RL friends to wait until the game's ready, but don't forget it's currently FREE. If you're looking to sample it and already have the game or a buddy pass, it won't cost you anything to find out if you like it or not.

[Xatsh]

The General NA community is treating the game like a Western solo mmo, which is very evident by everyone soloing everything outside leves and at least half the players soloing leves. The FFXI ppl in general have made linkshells and do almost everything in house.

Literally no one uses the search feature outside JP players, and it really does work when ppl use it.

Group sp is far better in both grind and leve groups though, the reason ppl do not group like in XI is a complete mystery to me. Half the people on the forums complains they want it but yet no one attempt to make it work.

[Pangy]

Literally no one uses the search feature outside JP players, and it really does work when ppl use it.

It's true that the search is completely neglected by all but JPs. Probably 'cause (like you said) the XI players just make linkshells and ignore the rest of their server. Non-XI, non-JP players I'm assuming either just choose solo, or don't know about/understand the search mechanic.

Group sp is far better in both grind and leve groups though, the reason ppl do not group like in XI is a complete mystery to me. Half the people on the forums complains they want it but yet no one attempt to make it work.

Leves are really nice SP made even nicer when linked with PT. In a group of 4-5 people you can get 8-12k+ per leve, and average around 30-40k SP/hour.

The last time I tried to party for SP, we were a group of 4 and couldn't find a camp to support us. Raptors were good SP, and died quickly, but we'd run out of spawns and be stuck waiting for repops- I'd never get more than 12k ish per hour.

That was before the increased SP rewards from tougher mobs...now a single night of leves takes me from a fresh reset to tier 1 or 2 fatigue, and the rest of the week can take me up another 1-3 tiers off and on. I'd get greatly reduced SP if I did PT grind- that's why I don't do it, personally. Instead I spend that time crafting, hoping the fatigue cools down a bit before the next leve session.



In XI, there was no fatigue, no leves, and grinding camps were filled with enough mobs (and with appropriate respawn timers) to support parties.

I'm not trying to argue one's better than the other etc---though I REALLY miss my grind PTs---but XIV is definitely set up differently ._.

I hope they make some adjustments to encourage PT grinding in the near future. <3

[Dreamer]

The General NA community is treating the game like a Western solo mmo, which is very evident by everyone soloing everything outside leves and at least half the players soloing leves. The FFXI ppl in general have made linkshells and do almost everything in house.

Literally no one uses the search feature outside JP players, and it really does work when ppl use it.

Group sp is far better in both grind and leve groups though, the reason ppl do not group like in XI is a complete mystery to me. Half the people on the forums complains they want it but yet no one attempt to make it work.

I barely touched FFXI, yet the above has been driving me up the wall. My LS is fine, but trying to form random groups outside of it is absurdly more difficult than just about any other MMO I've played. I'm completely mystified at how anti-social the majority of the populace seems to be.