Cultural Differences, North American Strangers

[Yoko_Kurama]

**Edit due to how many people have an issue with culture being attached**
TLR- first off this was all opinion based off my own personal experiences, even when I was in the Navy and our ship pulled up next to a japanese Naval ship I saw how much more organized and team oriented they were compared to my own shipmates who were more about being the most badass guy on board etc.. I basically made this post about culture because personally I feel the unity thing or lack there of IS a cultural difference and whether you are among or not among the general types of people I speak of, it's fine, because i'm talking about a huge majority of humans within the country not every single person.

Finally the post is primarily about the lack of mechanics tailored to the American gamer type in which if given things like Duty Finder and Fates will simply use them to progress individually through the game rather than go out of the way to form a group when it's ultimately unnecessary until end game. If you guys don't agree or understand then I suppose you'll never understand.
** edit over**

First allow me to say I do wish sincerely for this message to be viewed and at least considered by those at square enix and the devs there. I have spent a lot of time pondering how to organize this idea properly so please hear me out.

The thesis statement here is simple, this game feels designed with mechanics which contradict and oppose American personalities. Before you misunderstand let me explain.

Duty Finder and Fates, these are systems which provide a means for complete strangers to interact and form temporary groups thereby completing a singular goal. On the surface the idea sounds great, many people don't want to be inconvenienced with having to get to know people and spend hours trying to form parties to play a game...However, in truth your company have decided to implement these systems all over the worlds and constantly through every map all the time. This has created a system where players can progress easily without the stress of Ever needing to form trustworthy groups.

The point I'm making is this, the game deters the act of grouping unless you are doing end game content and want trustworthy people to farm with but during the vast majority of the game partying with people is optional.

The reason I title this cultural differences is this, I understand the Japanese people have much more compassion and respect for each other even when meeting total strangers, I remember during the meltdown of the nuclear plant many people (without being told) drove from all over Japan to help out those in need providing shelter and food for no reason at all but to help their fellow man. Here in America during Hurricane Kattrina we had people robbing stores and stealing tvs, noone cared about anyone.

Why was what I just said relevant? Because it tells you that we (Not all of us but generally speaking) go by a "screw strangers" policy. When do Americans group together? When they find people who are like minded and have a lot in common. How do they group? They group when various factors motivate them to go out of their comfort zone to find those like minded individuals. We tend to not naturally respect strangers, THUS! the systems you have in place completely as i said deter your North American base of individuals from having a real Massively Multiplayer feel. You see a lot of people running around, but nothing is motivating these people to go out of their comfort zone to be friendly or form emotional bonds with these people.

At this point obviously you cannot take out duty finder although I wish that things like Duty Finder and FATES were much more rare, something you look forward to as a break from the constant grouping...not the other way around. Your system makes going out of your way and really forming groups an unnecessarily pointless objective when I can simply use duty finder for every dungeon and use fates for all exp.

My proposed solution? Keep in mind everything i'm saying is what i personally feel is in the best interest of the Final Fantasy franchise pertaining to the North American base, but I think that in whatever future patches you have planned, you should really consider adding open areas which force people to form groups (Big groups) to get through, and i mean having that group formed before you arrive at said area. You need to start thinking of how to make this game cause people to form bonds. I imagine in Japan that isn't difficult since everyone is already courteous, but you said you want this game to have huge subscribers for years to come. As of now the system seems capable of holding the average American MMO players attention for about 3 months at most until they farm all the gears they want and get tired. To hold our attention for years, you need a game that has caused us to form tight bonds with other players, the kind of bonds that last years because you have gone through many hardships with those players and you don't want to forget them or lose them.

I urge you to please take what I have said here to heart. I will keep playing as long as I can but i can assure you, unless i start to feel like grouping with friends in all kinds of zones is a commonplace thing, this will probably feel just like SWTOR which was in essence a single player game with multi player options and that is not what a massively multiplayer game should be.

[Catharsis]

How did you post something this long without hitting the 1000 character limit? Serious question.

[Luvbunny]

NA group will band together if they "need" something of value. They always run off first killing everything, they don't sleep the mob, the tank are clueless, and generally people do not read - even as the game is hand holding you all the way. Make character in Japan server. There is a HUGE difference between random PUG duty finder with all japanese and PUG on NA/EU server. Even if you get a bunch of newbies japan group, the respect factor and desire to work together as a group usually will be able to get you finish your dungeon run even if you have a few hurdles. You would think it would be easier on NA group - but dealing with people who go "don't tell me what to do" is enough to make you want to switch server.

[Skinwalker]

How did you post something this long without hitting the 1000 character limit? Serious question.

JP button! :P

... or edit ... who knows ...

[Velox]

How did you post something this long without hitting the 1000 character limit? Serious question.

You can bypass it with an edit

[Luvbunny]

Though the game now is almost perfect. I understand cultural difference is a big issue. It's the same reason why I love and hate the duty finder at the same time. Getting almost instant group while doing something else is great - but dealing with clueless players who have no idea on playing their roles are a pain - the "individuality" cultural aspect of NA is what killing the game. (Most) everyone care only about "me, myself, and I" instead of what can I do to the group to ensure it works instead of "I do what I want when I want - ain't nobody telling me shit" attitude. I for one wish Yoshi keep implementing unique boss method that will insta wipe any party that uses stun zerg strategy - or throw any warm bodies at it till it dies. It's one thing that is "somewhat fresh" about this game. Auto attack gets you killed and wiped

[Alhanelem]

The point I'm making is this, the game deters the act of grouping unless you are doing end game content and want trustworthy people to farm with but during the vast majority of the game partying with people is optional.

Actually, you're totally wrong. The DF doesn't deter this at all. I've made more locally formed groups than I've played duty finder parties. There are plenty of people out there willing to form parties on the server- Part of the reason for this is it gives you more freedom to use different party setups. If you use the duty finder to form a party, you're forced into using a 1:1:2 role ratio. But if you form your own party, you can bring whatever the hell you want, e.g. use ACN/SMN as a tank, 3 DPS and a healer, 3 warriors and a healer, more healers if you think you need them, 4 arcanists, there are a lot more possibilities when you form your own party.

Besides that, joining a duty finder gtroup and having it fail is a pretty swift deterrent to using it if you don't have to. The duty finder exists to help people find groups when they might not be able to otherwise. If you ARE able to find one otherwise, you'll just use that.

This is very true, however even you inadvertently just admitted that using the implemented game mechanics forces you to work with strangers in a set way, going out of your way to form parties is secondary,

Actually no, that's not what I said at all. Making your own parties is primary. People are shouting for parties all the time. You don't have to use the duty finder- especially for higher level content, you'll probably get in a lot faster if you just form your own.

The point is, there are many reasons to form your own party. The duty finder supplements, not deters it. The best part is you can even use a combo of both. If you do stick to the standard party formula, if you can't find a tank, or cant find a whatever, and have 3 guys ready to go, you can queue the three of yourselves up and the DF will find you that last man.

The duty finder is there to help you, not to deter anything, and it's very successful at that. Ther eare tons of oppertunities to make friends and forge bonds, even with the duty finder's existence.

If you truly believe the average american will just see the duty finder as something extra to help and not a constant crutch which deters responsibility to form actual bonds then you don't know much about average american culture which is what this entire thread is about my friend.

I truly believe it because it happens. I don't know why you're specifying Americans here though. This has nothing to do with American culture. Eorzea isn't America, either. There are people all over the world playing this game, even on the NA servers (especially on the NA servers, actually). You are just spurting opinions based on your alleged understanding of American culture without actually looking at what happens in practice. In practice, shout parties formed by random people happen all the time. GUilds form their own parties all the time. The duty finder is a handy tool in some circumstances, but it doesn't take long for people to realize they'll do better with a handpicked party. It really doesn't.

(And he deleted his post because he knows I'm right ;p )

[AridElf]

The problem with making people band together and form large groups is that people already do it for FATE zerging. I think that loading priorities need to be sorted first so that we no longer have invisible enemies or wait 3 minutes for the NPC right next to us to load while that dragoon on the other side of camp who has been afk for 5 hours loads first.

I would like to have a reason to form bonds with people more often, however I think we need to wait for the initial boom to pass and allow players to settle. I'm also tired of helping people in the field and have them abandon me when it's my turn to kill a quest target :|

[Naiser]

I disagree with "forcing" big party formations as the primary way to form group.

No one is forcing you to use the duty finder and you shouldn't be suggesting to force us not to.

Your primary mode of forming a party is YOUR choice, even now. If you like to group up with familiar faces, do it.

The duty finder benefits the casual player who wants to queue up, craft a little, pop into the dungeon when the party is formed.

Wanting to force players to spend time forming a group themselves on the fly, especially those without an active FC, is going back to the dark days of "JP-onry" and "monks need not apply" parties in FFXI. That system only brought out the worst in elitists.

As it is now, all players have a choice to form their own party or take a stab through the finder. No change needed.

[JT1]

I miss the XP grind parties they had in Final Fantasy XI. Fun times being in groups trying to chain as many mobs to get the maximum xp per hr. Many Linkshells were formed after establishing friendships with these xp parties. Final Fantasy XI was also a lot more of a challenge than this game is so far. I remember how hard it was just to break the level 50 cap barrier with the three items you had to get. Pretty much nothing was given to you in that game. Everything that a player got in that game took a lot of effort. Fates, well they weren't called Fates in FFXI, but NM were claimed by the person or group that hit it first and nobody else could take it unless the claiming group wiped. Here Fates are just one big mass with no challenge at all. It would be nice if maybe they did something of a cap on Fates. In other words say the first 10 or 20 people to hit a fate mob will have it claimed. Those would be the only ones who can complete the fate. It would make it more of a challenge.