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My opinion of FFXIV = friendless solo game
Chasedagamer
Member UncommonPosts: 56
So I played this game for a couple months and got to level 46. My opinion of the game is that it is a solo game with a shallow storyline. I like to play mmorpgs to make friends and to explore the virtual world with them. This game is very linear and after playing the game for two months and getting to level 46 I never needed to play the game with anyone else.
The storyline doesn't encourage you to meet anybody or form friendships. The only time you ever group with anyone is if you do a dungeon through dungeon finder which puts you together with other players from different servers. Everyone in the game is in their own little world doing their own thing and nobody is interested in sharing the game with other people. I like to join a guild and be a part of a community with voice chat and all of that jazz. I did join a guild but people rarely did anything with each other.
The city is so linear that they have multiple zones just for one city. The world doesn't feel open and the loading screens take quite some time to load a zone. There are a lot of invisible walls everywhere too which is irritating. What is more irritating is there are places where you can actually fall so it is inconsistent.
I enjoy pvp but this game did not do it well. They have this thing called the wolves den which requires no skill and has nothing interesting about the small arena.
This is my rant concerning my time playing the game... what are your thoughts?
Comments
You also have to understand that this is the first MMO for a lot of people (especially playing right now) with the recent update, free trial - and with it being on PS4. The lack of communication does bother me as many console players do not use a wireless keyboard to communicate - and the game does a poor job at introducing players to the games targeting systems. But that's my personal pet peeves with any MMO that is on console + PC.
However. This is still my favorite MMO at the moment.
You chose to use the duty finder and for someone interested in the community / interaction of MMOs and "all that jazz" you sure didn't act on it. You could have formed a party in one of the towns (or any popular zone for that later) - got to know your group members, and then did the dungeon. Better yet.. they're on your server.. you guys could group up and do things together in the game.
I'm not even in a guild and a big portion of my time is with other players, chit chatting / emoting in taverns, doing leves - dungeons.. fishing.. you name it. I formed a "Link shell" / private chat channel and we all communicate that way. Some of which are in different guilds. All of these people are either prior friends - or people I've met in the game... by saying hello - hell in some cases all it took was an emote.
In short - if you took the time to get off the rails and "explore" your options - you'd be having a much more enjoyable experience I think.
I fail to understand why so many people think the solution to games not being social experiences for them is for games to force players to group. You should realize that a lot of these people who are only doing solo don't want to group, forcing them to group will only result in them leaving the game.
You can't force people to be social. That's not an issue with any game mechanic but with the mentality of modern MMO players and it's not something you can "fix" because what is good for you is not necessarily good for everyone.
Personally I've had too many bad experiences of when I was forced to group with people and it just lead me to be bitter about negative interactions with others because of it. I group with my friends, people who I can trust not to be dicks and ruin my gaming experience... I think a lot of people are that way these days. It comes with most games having so many anonymous jerks cruising around whose idea of fun is making everyone else miserable. Then there's the crowd who take the game too seriously and criticize you for everything you do. A lot of people don't trust strangers to be friendly, cooperative, or helpful anymore.
Played: DAoC, AC2, WoW, CoH, GW, GW2, WAR, AoC, Champions Online, Rift, Dragon Nest, Vindictus, Warframe, Neverwinter, Dungeon Fighter Online
Currently Playing: Dungeon Fighter Online Global
Waiting for: None
Good story. Thanks for posting.
Can I have your stuff?
You "like" making friends in mmorpgs yet you don't actually do it unless the game forces you.
People who want to make friends are open to being approached, and approaching, other people (people unlike you, since you are clearly not even trying). In this game and in any game. Don't act like there is no benefit to having friends in this game either. It makes the experience more fun and more efficient, as doing things with friends always does.
The only complaint you have here is that the game throws the ball to you as far as making friends is concerned and you don't like that. You have to be willing to put in the work for friendships to form, just like in real life. The game does not hold your hand.
Please explain to how FFXIV is any worse than any of the other MMO in the last 5 years? I feel your pain but all of that and more could be said about any recent MMO, some are even noticeably worse like ESO. This is like standard design now.
Also, the main story actually requires you to do dungeons to advanced. There have been many QQ threads about that as almost no other modern MMO requires even that tiny amount of human interaction to advance the main story line.
I completely agree splitting capital cities into two or three zones was just stupid.
Maybe you happen to be on a bad server or something, but socialization and doing things with others has never been an issue for me. In fact, although I am stopping playing for awhile as of this weekend, I have been until now the #2 in a 400+ member Free Company that is always chatty and doing group stuff, as well as a member of several very social linkshells.
Also the Wolves Den... yeah its pretty bad. I was so let down when they said they were adding PvP and then thats all they did. However, they have added Frontlines which is so much better. 72 man battles, 3 teams of 24, with multiple objectives to fight over. They are also going to be expanding on PvP in the future and adding multiple maps and modes.
I don't get this. You say you play MMORPGs to make friends, but the game has to force you to group with other people in order to accomplish this? The hell is the point?
Here's an idea: USE THE DAMN CHAT BOX. Say hello, ask how people are. Hop on the forums and see if there are any free companies recruiting. For that matter, ask that question in zone chat! Join a FATE group! The only thing making modern MMO's 'solo experiences' is the players who refuse to even attempt to communicate with others unless forced, then come here and bitch about the lack of community.
I agree with you about the capital cities. They shouldn't have split them into zones, that was a stupid decision to be sure. Some of the invisible walls are kind of annoying as well. Other than that I love the world. There's a ton of stuff to see packed into the zones, and some really breathtaking vistas. In every zone there's some old ruins, a former battlefield, the remains of a powerful beast wrapped around a gigantic airship, or an ancient citadel looming in the distance. What it lacks in size, the world more than makes up for in character and lore.
Speaking of lore, while the main scenario is a bit cliched, it serves its purpose. The class stories are mostly well done, Hildebrand's quest line is hilarious, and some of the smaller plot lines encountered over the course of the game are really well done. The one for the hard mode of Tam-Tara Deepcroft comes to mind.
To each their own, I suppose. I enjoy the game when I can tear myself away from Marvel Heroes.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
Got tired of sitting in long dungeon finder group queues and dealing with random rage just to progress the story.
To each their own but I'd still be playing that game if it was what you described.
A friendless solo game doing that, huh. How paradoxical indeed!
I hit the same wall around level 40. Just not my type of game.
To be fair, it's not quite so easy as that, either, though.
I'm a very social player by nature. I'm a complete chatterbox, and will chat it up with people even in Duty Finder. Most times, I'm talking to myself. On occasion, there's one person who's talkative, but that's it. I've congratulated people on successful first runs of content, they just ran off and exited the fight without even a word, or a 'Thank You'.
The thing is, people tend to follow the most "efficient" path of least resistance. In FFXIV, that largely entails doing a bunch of solo content where communication with others simply isn't required, and help isn't necessary.
I've tried using Party Finder for things and was only ever successful once, which was for one of the early BCoB turns. Even then, people didn't talk much, but just raced through the dungeon without hardly saying a word beyond "Hi" at the start and "Bye" at the end. I've been told "less talk, more killing, I'm not here for social time" in one dungeon by someone who apparently felt I was being too social - no joke.
Sure you can try to be outgoing and social. But it's not like simpy doing that is suddenly going to turn an otherwise quiet community into a giant social get-together. After all, if that many people were social and outgoing to begin with, you'd think they'd be making the effort to reach out as well. Yet that doesn't seem to be the case.
I find that to be a common theme with this MMO, and it bothers me. Again, even being a fan of the game myself, it bothers me when people make these suggestions, as though they're some kind of automagic solution to the problem. They aren't. You can try to be as outgoing and social as you want... when most of the game's community would prefer to keep to themselves and/or their personal clique, it's not going to make much of a difference.
Does a MMO have to "force" players to be social? No, it doesn't. It should, however, actively encourage them to. ARR really doesn't do that.
I've noticed this too, it seems like no one likes to talk. There are a lot of people, but the chat is always empty.
I know people don't like general chat, but I'm the opposite and love general chat. To me it feels more alive when people just shoot the shit in general chat.
Then you're probably the reason why the rest of us gets the hell out of there as soon as they can.
this boggles my mind because for me this game is one of the most social heavy mmorpgs ive come across in a long time. heck, if it were not for the people i have met in game i would have quit a long time ago. people tend to not talk as much in dungeons but if theyre out doing open world party stuff (fates, hunts, etc) theyre more likely to talk. theres a lot of people who are only there to play the game but theres also a large population that likes to fool around and just chat. i actually met some of my close friends in game by screaming at some random people telling them to get off our fc house lawn. shenanigans ensued from there and now we are good friends.
i think one of the most important things for a new person is to find a friendly and social FC, not a end game based one, but one that just likes to be chatty and to help each other out with content. there are a lot of those if you just look for them.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
I agree, communication is about non-existent. It wasn't like that at the "re-launch", but now it feels dead. I did get spammed with free company invites during this free weekend, but I know better than to accept a random invite. If any of those people that were spamming invites actually bothered to whisper me to ask if I'm interested and tell about their guild, I might have joined and actually stayed past free weekend. Plus there's a clear problem with server population. If SE isn't planning on going F2P, they should just do a server merge. I would love to give the game another try, but it is extremely boring to solo plus you actually need a stable group to actually do end-game content (for those hard modes and tomb stone grind).
Cheers.
Facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Your opinion doenst count this time ^^
*In the public channels spamming everyone's chat with their "funny" comments
Considering I've always thought the median age for these people to be ~15, I'm not sure why people want this kind of verbal vomit in ARR.
There are these things called Free Companies. If you join one, you will meet other people, and talk to them.
Weird complaint.
People who talk in dungeons kill others. They are not paying attention and we actually kicked someone who was busy typing to their FC or linkshell chat or some such rubbish because they killed us by not paying attention. You talk and you do not check what you're doing and you wipe us and you will be kicked. The dungeons require you to pay attention this is not WoW where you pull the whole dungeon and AOE.
Someone here suggested a server merge what are smoking ? Every zone is packed with people. Do not know what you're trying to pull but on Moogle the server if anything has too many people. I cannot even get to a Fate for my books before it has ended sometimes because that many people congregate to do fates. Of course the new class job probably has a lot to do with it.
The general chat is shout and yell ,there is no talking as such unless you talk in say to the people around you and in Free Company chat of course. Most people chat in their link shells or FC there is a lot of conversations going on. My chat is full everyday. This is to prevent zone wide gold spam.
I do not get how people who do not talk blame a game. What has the game got to do with the chat. I hated Barrens chat in WoW the most horrible example of conversation to be had and I am glad that in FFXIV ARR you do not have any such obnoxious general chat, Talking in game has nothing to do with the game itself it has to do with how you as a person interact with others. Why are you blaming the game when you do not bother to join any link shells or free company and make friends. The tools are there for you to be more social you just want others to come up to you and talk. You blame them and the game when you yourself have no inclination to talk .
I know making comparisons to real life is to be scorned at but do you go about daily shouting to people as you walk and yell at them on the train to work or do you wait till you get to work to talk or at a pub. People generally talk in confined areas not large zones where you shout absolute nonsense . Think about that.
Every single game I joined over the years have been continuous arguments about WoW this or WoW that. I am so fed up of every general chat turning into an argument about WoW. Thankfully I can have very nice conversations with the people around me or in my linkshell or FC chat. Adapt to the game as more games will do away with the toxic general chat because aside from gold spams ,lewd comments and fights about WoW I have seldom come across any quality talk. In Tera it even went further with outright pedophile remarks in chat.
Oddly enough, I actually had a great social experience when I was facing Garuda yesterday. Tried it with two parties and we couldn't beat it, but it was a pleasant time. Then after complaining in guild they set up a party and carried me through it.
Haven't had players coming together like that to help me in awhile.
But yeah, generally MMOs nowadays are very solo-friendly.
Maybe it's the fates, but I definitely did not feel as isolated while leveling in ffxiv as I had in most other games.
As for the chat thing, this is something I noticed in FFXI as well. I guess it's because of guilds and linkshells- most people are talking in channels other then the "general" channel.