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Solo Player Integration into the Community
SKIPADI
Member UncommonPosts: 37
First, I am generally an MMORPG Soloist and I pray to the entire Final Fantasy Pantheon that FFXIV is NOT like WOW, or LOTRO or EQII. In fact, I believe it would be a fatal business decision to do so. Just give me my BeastMaster and I'll be happy. I loved soloing in FFXI, it was a blast and you had be on your toes all the time.
That said; FFXIV is going to be more solo friendly, this is a given.
On the positive side, this may bring back a lot of old friends that just didn't have time to play FFXI anymore, for whatever reason.
On the other hand, it will also bring casual/solo players whose only MMORPG experience is games like WOW. Count on this.
Some, like me prefer the challenge of soloing in difficult environments, but I propose that most soloist do so because they feel somewhat intimidated. They don't want to have their 'chops busted', by some guy whose leveled to max a dozen times, and been gaming since the Circus Maximus went gold.
I won't be any help 'cause I'll just help them to go BST, or whatever the available equivalents are.
You Groupies are going to have to be welcoming and go out of your way to bring those people to your way of thinking. One clue I'll give you, telling them to play a single player game or go back to WOW does not increase the life expectancy of FFXIV.
Now SE has big responsibility here as well, and you guys need to help them with suggestions. They need to provide non-threatening opportunities for social interaction between different playstyles.
Here one suggestion:
As part of questing, SE could have certain Solo goals. When one of these is accomplished, a global message is broadcast letting everyone know. In the message their name will be selectable, so you can send them congratulations and engage them in conversation. Maybe let them know that you've got a friendly, helpful, linkshell that they might enjoy.
Anyway, I am sure you guys could come up with even better stuff. But you gotta let SE know.
Just remember, I'll be welcoming too. GO BST!!
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato
Comments
Good advice. ^^ I like group play; but genearlly solely with a good guild/LS, or group of friends. That being said, 98% of my game time is spent solo. (Yay! for BST!)
Following how the FF devs work, i would imagine that solo leveling will be possible, but not the best way to level. They always encourage socialization.
Just out of curiosity ... why are you playing only to solo? Wouldn't that be the same and an offline game? Why pay the subscription then. I have spend about a grand on this game and if i spend a grand on teh game just to solo I'd feel something is wrong.
The more I think about it, I love the forced grouping in FFXI. Its like none other out there and really makes you learn to like and get to know your fellow players and work together toward a common goal. Most of all though it teaches you how to play the game with no forgiveness, but when you do learn and are successful you are rewarded very well, and you get this amazing feeling of just "holy Frick" that was awesome.....I want more!!!
However, all these little changes like Fields of Valor, the Treasure Caskets, increased XP for Easy/Decent Prey I have come to welcome as a great upgrade to FFXI. It allows one to solo a little inbetween downtimes and make a little progress each day if only a little bit, and it doesn't take away that feeling you get from working together in a group.
I hope FFXIV will end up being similar to this, but not much more. I still want to have enforced partying if you want to make better progress, and the feeling of death and loss at every turn no matter where you go. Every enemy no matter the type of class or family it belongs too is a danger to you every step of the way and I loved that! Especially the aggro table, with sneak/invis/deodorize and then when true of those came into play...it wasn't just a proximity aggro like everything else!
The problem I found myself into in FFXI was that the most players I saw were near or top lvl so few groups were possible, all in linkshell were on 50+ so they had things to do.
Most groups would want only specific jobs else your out or bunch of noobs.
With this comming out I can say atleast I won't try playing it when most of the ppl are max lvl like what happened to me on FFXI ;D
Your question is fair and deserves an answer so I'll try to explain. Of course, these are just my reasons.
An offline game, however deep and complex, has at some point an end. At some point , no matter how high I set the difficulty I will beat the game. With online games, particularly soloing, that will never be the case. It will not be 'game over' until that sad day they shut the servers down.
In an offline game, its you and the computer NPCs. The online world is inherently more vibrant and alive just because, in addition to the NPCs, you have mostly human controlled characters doing all those varied and unpredictable things that humans do. (I will make an exception at this point. I really NEVER need to see a player character dancing on top of a mail box in their underwear ever again. WOW, ugh!)
Last, is freedom. If I want to group, I can. In FFXI, I would switch from BST to either my RDM or WHM jobs and would volunteer to heal...never had trouble finding a group for some reason
. I like solo hunting and exploring, but I am not anti-social, always happy to help out.
Hope that answers your question. Oh and I like your sig.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato
You can't really say that everyone was max level, cause the only way you can really be max level is if you have all 20 jobs at lvl 75, which only a few thousand players at best have accomplished. Most of those players you see on higher level characters more than likely still have a job at least lvl 1 or up to 37. With the new level sync now you can ask those people if they'd like to join you, and even if they don't have a job your lvl range they can still use any of the other 20 jobs no matter the level or gear!
For me it's never like an offline game. I'm not speaking about FF XI or XIV here, but generally on soloing in MMOs. Grouping is just one part of the social experience in an online game. There are other things, and even just seeing characters you know are being played by real people change the whole deal.
I once saw a nice analogy on this: You may have a home office and work alone, you may just prefer working that way. But outside of work, maybe you just love going out and socializing. So, would you say "What's the point of living in a society if you're gonna work by yourself"?
By the way, I do group extensively - I'll admit combat is generally the part I like least in MMOs, so the faster I'm done with it, the better!
Though I do a lot of solo work, too, and I always like having the option. (Still, I'd agree about not making it too easy, I like having to give it a bit extra to be able to solo. It actually helps distinguish solo play, making it feel somewhat special)
If they are going to cater to casuals and soloers, it cannot be a token gesture. All that will do is alienate those very casuals who will jump ship if they even give the game a try. You cannot trreat them like second class players either, it only breeds resentment which also results in subscription loss.
If they do this half assed, they will not achieve the results they're looking for, the massive casual market. On top of that, they'll end up pissing off their hardcore base by even reaching out to casuals in the first place, so they would lose on both fronts. Personally, I think they should just go hardcore like their other games, it's obvious to me that SE is clueless about what casuals like and want and I can't see them implementing anything that would appeal to that segment of the player base or even remotely retain them.
WoW is the only MMO so far to really appeal to the casual market and even then they piss off that segment of the player base with their focus on end game raiding and PvP as the only avenues for max level progression. They still can't get more than 20% of their player base to even participate in raids, despite dropping them down to 10 and 25 mans. PvP has always been a hardcore play style and will always remain that way as long as developers allow them to prey on newbies and lowbies, who either lack the honed skills or the equipment to even compete. I mean, what other purpose is there to a 10 level spread per tier other than to provide fodder for the elite?
If SE wants to grab the soloers, they better be serious about it cuz we aren't going to hang around or even give it a try for token content or grinding 10,000 mobs at 15XP a piece.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Oxymoron
However, I do applaud your attempt at a solution.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Oxymoron
Well, I'm not buying that one. I group in MMOs all the time, and I've got several friends who almost exclusively solo and are integrated into the community far better than me.
Oxymoron
Well, I'm not buying that one. I group in MMOs all the time, and I've got several friends who almost exclusively solo and are integrated into the community far better than me.
Integrated how, you mean they farm all day and sell stuff in the AH?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
He probably means they solo stuff while chatting it up with guildies.
Sounds kinda like playing a Offline game while having your MSN up.
Please don't compare WoW with FFXI nor FFXIV because WoW is on a completely different scale (community, systems, etc. wise). FF deserves the respect it gets, not like WoW. WoW only gets its players from China (2 1/2 / 4 of all players) and they only want to reel in huge amounts of money, not like FF where it actually gets its respect from quality and dignity.
Its funny... on second thought not all that funny, it seems you are implying that players from China are not real people and do not deserve to be counted. Chinese do make up 1/6 of the worlds population too.. does that not count either? China is the #1 Internet using country in the world so it makes perfect sense that a lot of WoW's player base would be from there. Anyone would be stupid to ignore that market when making a game.
Its funny... on second thought not all that funny, it seems you are implying that players from China are not real people and do not deserve to be counted. Chinese do make up 1/6 of the worlds population too.. does that not count either? China is the #1 Internet using country in the world so it makes perfect sense that a lot of WoW's player base would be from there. Anyone would be stupid to ignore that market when making a game.
He's talking about how China is being counted as from a subscribers point. They don't pay monthly $14.99 subscription like all the other parts of the world do, only by the hour. Which means that 1 person could create a new account, purchase 10 hrs of time one day, but not play again for 3.5 weeks and buy another 10hrs, and they are being counted as a subscriber. That of course is how it works and is counted over there which is fine, but not everyone considers that as a subscription, and if they were not counted, I'd put WoW at say 6.7mil subscribers, not 12mil.