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Community based. Let there be light
GlowingMoon
Member Posts: 44
I really hope they do not make grouping second tier to soloing.
I think Square-Enix would be wise to give the option to do some soloing and effectively get certain things done when you can't find a group or get one together smoothly. So instead of being left with nothing to do, you can actually do some decent things while you wait to get a nice group going.
I really hope they create their game design around encouraging community and friendships.
I personally believe that a good MMORPG is not about a Single Player game type of experience and also is not about a really quick play sessions all the time, such as 30 minutes. In my opinion the essence of MMORPG's can truly be enjoyed when you can give some of your time to the game ( 2 + hours )
WSIMike made some great points in a thread over at the pub.
''It's kinda sad, though, that the OP touches on two things - down-time and community (the latter seeming to result from the former) - are two things that many players these days seem to want *less* of. They don't want comraderie in a game... they just want people there to help them get their "phat lewt" on that end-game raid run they're doing for the 30th time, so they can move on to the next.
They don't care who you are, what your interests are, what you think about a given topic... They only care if you're the right class and have the optimal character build to help make sure they get their newest 'purple', so they can move on to getting the next one. Beyond that, they couldn't care less who's on the controlling side of that character. Many new MMOs have become *very* anti-social and the gameplay becoming more solo-friendly, with less down-time and a faster pace has only helped that happen.
Aside from the social aspects, downtime facilitates other things...
- cigarette/food/bathroom breaks
- time re-supply for reagents, arrows, etc.
- stretch the legs, etc.
- rest your eyes for a few having stared at the monitor non-stop for an hour or more straight
and so on...
One important thing that, I think, serves as the foundation of all of that, though, is the idea that MMORPGs were conceived as long-term "online hobbies" that could persist, moreso than just short-term "games" that would be "finished" and then left behind to move on to the next. They've leaned more toward the "game" side in recent years and I think that's why we haven't seen as much community... you can't build community when players are ripping through the content and moving on to the next game so quickly.'' - WSIMike
Comments
I dont think any game ever intentionally made soloing better than grouping. The goal is always to make soloing doable but grouping more valuable. The trick is whether they pull it off or not, not whether they will choose to do it that way.
In my opinion when you make soloing doable and grouping just ''more valuable'' then grouping becomes more uncommon and kind of messy.
When you make the core of the game group focused but give some meek solo options just for when you can't get a group or you don't have enough time to dedicate to a group for that play session, grouping shines.
One thing I don't think a lot of players who do a lot of soloing understand Is that when you have soloing and grouping equal, that game becomes a solo based game because everyone ends up soloing and occasionally grouping when they feel like It, not the other way around. If you really like grouping, It's really noticeable in games with the aforesaid design.
In my opinion when you make soloing doable and grouping just ''more valuable'' then grouping becomes more uncommon and kind of messy.
When you make the core of the game group focused but give some meek solo options just for when you can't get a group or you don't have enough time to dedicate to a group for that play session, grouping shines.
One thing I don't think a lot of players who do a lot of soloing understand Is that when you have soloing and grouping equal, that game becomes a solo based game because everyone ends up soloing and occasionally grouping when they feel like It, not the other way around. If you really like grouping, It's really noticeable in games with the aforesaid design.
I like your way of thinking Glowingmoon. I agree if a game has equal solo and equal grouping people will go towards the solo. Like in Age of Conan (PvE server) you could have grouped up to do quests or solo and for the most part people were soloing, well they were before the bosses got upscaled. I'm sure SE not going to make this a 50% solo and 50% group. I would guess that it will be bout 80% group and 20% solo and not counting the early lvls of the game. I think most of the guild leves will be there if you want to solo but will have some for grouping and the rest will be like XI.
Agree I wouldn't mind some solo play but I don't want to play through an MMO like a single player game.
Good post and quote Glow. Mikey knows what he is talking about.
Id like to add that where once MMOGs had been "niche" WOW has made them look way more popular then they shold look. No game developer should hope to attain WOW numbers, and when they do they may ruin any original ideas they might have had.
I have a feeling, like others have expressed, that big wigs in companies look at WOW and tell their Dev team to create similar aspects in thier game to the big Giant; which dilutes the core idealogy of the original game and probably dooms it to either "Wow Clone Fail" or just fail for a number of other reasons.
The reason I included the above comments is that game companies should not be afraid to create a group and downtime intensive game, if that is part of the idealogy of their creation. They should be happy to create their baby and take into consideration that a well made "niche" game can bring in a good sized money making crowd, with less turnover and reliable income.
But who am I? Companies will continue to copy from WOW and hope for "a piece" . After all its money-making-chasing-money and Im just the gamer playing what the game comanies decide to create.
Because hell yes FF11 copied other games that came before it- but every aspect fit and they owned it. Heres to hoping FF14 has a clear idealogy and makes solo-ing fit so well that grouping and community still thrive.
WOOT
www.eorzeapedia.com
(Great FF14 source)
If they 'divided' MMOs into another 'genre' they might be able to put up a hardcore community game AND get new people to play.
Sorta like when MMORPGs first came out. Then MMOFPS.
Genres form all the time; FPS, RPG, Strat, Puzzle, Racing, MMOs, ect. Just need to make a new genre name up and sell the same old shit with a new name.
WSI Mike and Glowingmoon, you guys make some great points.
I have to agree here on what you guys are saying.
I don't think people are necessarily against grouping, they are just against all the logistical problems of grouping. Waiting long periods for an invite, long travel times, not playing one of the ideal classes, not being able to switch to another class while LFP, no content to keep you occupied while you wait, not being able to leave a group when you want/need to, etc. Those are the problems that need to be addressed, and the answer isn't making it more "solo friendly". FFXI was group-dependent, but it wasn't group-friendly. For FFXIV, they need to keep the group dependency but make it more group friendly.
I totally agree.
When you make grouping a main focus you get people that take more pride in their "job/class". Like "Oh hey! Remember when we rocked that camp for hours last night?! /addfriend". My point is it makes for a closer knit community.
I would take a game with 1 million players i know and consider friends over a game of 8 million nameless strangers.
You guys are being a bit silly, imho. In my experience people group up readily enough in most games. Heck, I grouped up a lot in WoW doing regular quests with people I just ran across (and I made friends that way) -- this is notable because generally grouping for normal quests in WoW hurts more than helps (things die easier, but given the proportion of experience you get from mobs and how questing zones work you get hurt overall). We're social creatures and so grouping up comes naturally to us.
Now, if you can solo things in the game, certainly people will use that option, but that hardly means it is something that will ruin the game forever. FFXI had a major problem in that it forced grouping AND made proper grouping very difficult and time-consuming (I hope you can at least agree with the latter). It looks like they plan on changing both of these things in FFXIV, thankfully. If you can only log on for an hour, then you can actually get some questing done if you want. There's NOTHING wrong with that, and certainly later when you have more time you can group up with friends (or solo and make some friends).
Generally it is a LOT better to make friends WHILE questing than to do it while you are waiting in town hoping for a group. Certainly in FFXI, when I played it, I made my friends that way during the transition between being able to solo and not being able to solo. I might have made some friends later, but the vast majority were during this period. Keeping this experience alive during later levels is good and can do a lot to improve natural socializing. You simply don't have to beat people over the head to do things together when we evolved to be like that anyhow, and this can be enhanced with a little in-game encouragement (like better experience rates or more engaging gameplay).
Now, I don't know entirely how things are going to be done in FFXIV, but I know they have this Guildleve system so that you make custom quests, you can load up on many at a time, and there is some method that lets you do these quests with others even if you haven't customized them the same way. Given this, there is every reason to think the natural socializing, as I mentioned above, will be able to happen. This also indicates that, in all likelihood, these Guildleve quests will scale up with more players in a party, giving an inventive WoW doesn't have to group (e.g. WoW hits you in the face if you group on normal quests, if FFXIV doesn't have quests like this but everything is group friendly, then that should eliminate most of the factors that make people not want to quest with others, save for time limitations or someone being a moron that are the case anyhow).
Again, this is far from the end of the world, and given that they are moving away from a Tank-Healer-DPS system, this will make grouping even easier to do. Quick job switches help this as well. This ensures that if you run across anyone you should be able to group with them without any problems. It also means if someone leaves the party it shouldn't be a big difficulty replacing them (or time consuming, since you can probably keep going without a hitch). There will also be nothing stopping you from forming a group with friends before you quest (and in fact it might well be easier, since meeting friends will be easier).
Now, sure, we'll have the oddball who never groups now and then, but the rare person who is like that isn't going to hurt anyone, so there's no reason to complain about it. The mechanics they've announced for FFXIV look extremely promising and I haven't heard one piece of bad news yet.
The game will be made to appeal to current gamer desires/trends in order to make money.
Welcome to capitalism!
Why are there so many cutesie, fantasy, childish MMO's. Give me blood, gore and a long lasting challenge. I don't need my hand being held along the way. Thanks.
Yes, I imagine it is very difficult to retain the original vision and focus when facing potentially very high profits.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I was actually watching an interview with the people behind the game and they made the quest system in favor for what you're wishing for. What they're doing now is having these crystal things set out in hunting areas that you get all your quests from. They give you the option of what kind of quest you want to partake, whether it be a one man job or a group quest. Not only that but I also think they said something about having a quick and easy grouping option. If you want to look for a group all you need to do is go to the crystal and either set a party invitation for others to join, or join someone's party already in the process of grouping. I'm looking forward to FFXIV, not only from the features I listed above but because of the new leveling system. Instead of leveling up your character as a whole, you level up your weapon level instead. So if you want to go out and work on your shield level and your white magic, go ahead! It plays alot like FFXI but it makes job swtiching much easier, in fact I don't think they even have jobs in this one, you just kind of create your own. I'm not sure about that they probably will have set jobs, but I do know that you level up through weapon skill.
First.. thanks for quoting me
. It's a bit weird seeing others put up my own posts to make a point... but flattering as well 
.
That said... I have a different way of thinking about it...
I think FFXI is very group friendly; it's the *players* who aren't.
I'll explain.
Many players in FFXI (and in other MMOs, to be fair) are stuck on this concept of "the optimum party setup" and "the optimum character build" and "the optimum place/way to level" and "how you're supposed to play". Many are absolutely hung up on those concepts and they'll never "settle for anything less" - even when the alternative is just as ideal, just not what they're used to. And many times, those concepts defy plain common-sense, but players won't bother to look far enough beyond that "optimum xp rate" to see it.
In short, too many players (in my opinion) are far too hung up on having to do/have/be the best, at the expense of simply doing whatever they enjoy, because they want to - not because "they're supposed to" according to some guide.
Just one example:
Before Ninja became "THE Tank", Paladins were very well regarded. Even Warriors did fine as tanks - particularly in the pre Advanced job levels up to 30. If you were pre-30, Warrior was a perfectly viable tank. The reasons being A: You can't unlock Paladin 'til level 30, and *something* has to fill that role. B: Warrior, having the tools (provoke, etc), fits that role fine. That's common sense just from looking at the way the game is set up.
However, once people discovered "blink tanking" with Ninjas, and realized that the WHM could heal less and such, it became "THE Tank". For a long time, if you weren't Ninja on your main or sub, you were considered gimped and were rarely invited to parties. I remember being passed up for party after party after party in Garlaige, because I was WAR and didn't have NIN subbed, so "I wasn't a good tank". Of course I was, no less so than I'd been at any time before that. But, players had come to define "tank" at that time as requiring Ninja. That was the "optimal setup for tanking" and they refused to see it any other way or "accept any less". For a time, even Paladins were being turned down as tanks (which they most certainly *are*) in favor of Ninja.
If you've ever experienced the frustration of someone telling you "you can't do that" when you know damn well, from personal experience, that you can... then you can imagine how aggravating the whole "can't tank well without Ninja" period was.
Even SE explained initially that Ninja had never even been intended to be a tank. That was something the players figured out on their own.
However - and this is typical of players, I've noticed - instead of seeing Ninja as an additional alternative to Warrior or Paladin, they saw it as a replacement for those jobs. Using Ninja in your build became "how you're supposed to play", and they held rigidly to that concept. Luckily, the honeymoon ended eventually and people realized that, at best, a Ninja tank is situational and not the "one-size fits all" tank they'd initially believed it to be.
In short... Square didn't enforce those "rules" on the players. They didn't say "you must have a Ninja in your party to tank; nothing else will work". The *players* did that. Many times, if a party I was in couldn't find a Ninja to tank, many parties would simply disband... even when a Paladin - still a perfectly good tank class - was available and seeking. Was that FFXI being unfriendly to groups? Nope, it was closed-minded, inflexible players being unfriendly to groups.
If you look back over all the different setups and all the different builds that have been deemed "how you're supposed to play" and consider that those are all *options*, not absolutes... FFXI offers plenty of variety to the game and is very party friendly. It's the *players* who lock everything down to a single way of doing almost anything that make it unfriendly to parties.
And what's really sad is, so many times players didn't even *enjoy* what they were doing. They didn't *want* to play Ninja. They hated everything about it. They did it because they wanted to level Warrior, and so, *had* to or no one would invite them... because you were "supposed to sub Ninja with Warrior", it's "how you were supposed to play". A friend of mine would often refer to it as "biting the bullet and getting it over with" to level a job he didn't like.
And the problem was exacerbated by another restriction players imposed on themself (and then of course blamed SE for - gotta love that): "Where you're supposed to level" at a given level range.
Instead of building parties and then picking a spot with mobs suitable to that setup, players insisted on leveling in a specific location, because "that's where you're supposed to level from level x to y". If they couldn't get the "perfect party setup" for that "perfect leveling spot', then the whole thing was bust and the group would disband. I can't tell you how many times I've suggested other areas in a similar level range that we would have been fine for, only to be shot down because "you're not supposed to level there". It was frustrating, to say the least.
How many times I saw people bitch, piss and moan about how horrible the Dunes was (which I always felt was an exaggeration), yet would *refuse* to level anywhere else in that level range... because "that's where you're supposed to level from 10-20". I've seen people blame SE for making The Dunes the only place you can level to 20. When I explain to them that it isn't, and give other areas that I'd personally leveled in before just fine, they'd tell me I didn't know what I was talking about. They'd read a guide, or heard from all their friends that you're supposed to level in the Dunes until 20 and so that's how it was and there was no other alternative.
And that's just one example... They go on and on (just like my posts, apparently >.>). Where to level, what job combos are the best, what gear setups are the best, etc. etc. People are so damn caught up in making sure they're playing the job "perfectly" that it's no wonder they end up feeling the game is a grind... All they're doing is going through the motions, repeating what others have already done.
In short, in many areas of the game - but grouping in particular since that's the topic of this thread - the *players* are their own worst enemies... They make the game unfriendly for groups... not the game itself.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
First.. thanks for quoting me
. It's a bit weird seeing others put up my own posts to make a point... but flattering as well 
.
That said... I have a different way of thinking about it...
I think FFXI is very group friendly; it's the *players* who aren't.
I'll explain.
Many players in FFXI (and in other MMOs, to be fair) are stuck on this concept of "the optimum party setup" and "the optimum character build" and "the optimum place/way to level" and "how you're supposed to play". Many are absolutely hung up on those concepts and they'll never "settle for anything less" - even when the alternative is just as ideal, just not what they're used to. And many times, those concepts defy plain common-sense, but players won't bother to look far enough beyond that "optimum xp rate" to see it.
In short, too many players (in my opinion) are far too hung up on having to do/have/be the best, at the expense of simply doing whatever they enjoy, because they want to - not because "they're supposed to" according to some guide.
Just one example:
Before Ninja became "THE Tank", Paladins were very well regarded. Even Warriors did fine as tanks - particularly in the pre Advanced job levels up to 30. If you were pre-30, Warrior was a perfectly viable tank. The reasons being A: You can't unlock Paladin 'til level 30, and *something* has to fill that role. B: Warrior, having the tools (provoke, etc), fits that role fine. That's common sense just from looking at the way the game is set up.
However, once people discovered "blink tanking" with Ninjas, and realized that the WHM could heal less and such, it became "THE Tank". For a long time, if you weren't Ninja on your main or sub, you were considered gimped and were rarely invited to parties. I remember being passed up for party after party after party in Garlaige, because I was WAR and didn't have NIN subbed, so "I wasn't a good tank". Of course I was, no less so than I'd been at any time before that. But, players had come to define "tank" at that time as requiring Ninja. That was the "optimal setup for tanking" and they refused to see it any other way or "accept any less". For a time, even Paladins were being turned down as tanks (which they most certainly *are*) in favor of Ninja.
If you've ever experienced the frustration of someone telling you "you can't do that" when you know damn well, from personal experience, that you can... then you can imagine how aggravating the whole "can't tank well without Ninja" period was.
Even SE explained initially that Ninja had never even been intended to be a tank. That was something the players figured out on their own.
However - and this is typical of players, I've noticed - instead of seeing Ninja as an additional alternative to Warrior or Paladin, they saw it as a replacement for those jobs. Using Ninja in your build became "how you're supposed to play", and they held rigidly to that concept. Luckily, the honeymoon ended eventually and people realized that, at best, a Ninja tank is situational and not the "one-size fits all" tank they'd initially believed it to be.
In short... Square didn't enforce those "rules" on the players. They didn't say "you must have a Ninja in your party to tank; nothing else will work". The *players* did that. Many times, if a party I was in couldn't find a Ninja to tank, many parties would simply disband... even when a Paladin - still a perfectly good tank class - was available and seeking. Was that FFXI being unfriendly to groups? Nope, it was closed-minded, inflexible players being unfriendly to groups.
If you look back over all the different setups and all the different builds that have been deemed "how you're supposed to play" and consider that those are all *options*, not absolutes... FFXI offers plenty of variety to the game and is very party friendly. It's the *players* who lock everything down to a single way of doing almost anything that make it unfriendly to parties.
And what's really sad is, so many times players didn't even *enjoy* what they were doing. They didn't *want* to play Ninja. They hated everything about it. They did it because they wanted to level Warrior, and so, *had* to or no one would invite them... because you were "supposed to sub Ninja with Warrior", it's "how you were supposed to play". A friend of mine would often refer to it as "biting the bullet and getting it over with" to level a job he didn't like.
And the problem was exacerbated by another restriction players imposed on themself (and then of course blamed SE for - gotta love that): "Where you're supposed to level" at a given level range.
Instead of building parties and then picking a spot with mobs suitable to that setup, players insisted on leveling in a specific location, because "that's where you're supposed to level from level x to y". If they couldn't get the "perfect party setup" for that "perfect leveling spot', then the whole thing was bust and the group would disband. I can't tell you how many times I've suggested other areas in a similar level range that we would have been fine for, only to be shot down because "you're not supposed to level there". It was frustrating, to say the least.
How many times I saw people bitch, piss and moan about how horrible the Dunes was (which I always felt was an exaggeration), yet would *refuse* to level anywhere else in that level range... because "that's where you're supposed to level from 10-20". I've seen people blame SE for making The Dunes the only place you can level to 20. When I explain to them that it isn't, and give other areas that I'd personally leveled in before just fine, they'd tell me I didn't know what I was talking about. They'd read a guide, or heard from all their friends that you're supposed to level in the Dunes until 20 and so that's how it was and there was no other alternative.
And that's just one example... They go on and on. Where to level, what job combos are the best, what gear setups are the best, etc. etc. People are so damn caught up in making sure they're playing the job "perfectly" that it's no wonder they end up feeling the game is a grind... All they're doing is going through the motions, repeating what others have already done.
In short, in many areas of the game - but grouping in particular since that's the topic of this thread - the *players* are their own worst enemies... They make the game unfriendly for groups... not the game itself.
Summery: Players can be selfish and it bring down the game as a whole and perpetuates a sociopathic view of a virtual world without consequences brought about by selfishness, elitism, entitlement. In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast. Thank you.
Summery: Players can be selfish and it bring down the game as a whole and perpetuates a sociopathic view of a virtual world without consequences brought about by selfishness, elitism, entitlement. In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast. Thank you.
Errrr... right on... I think?
I know I have the whole "wall-o-text" thing... but I've found that on these forums (and others), if you want to make a point, you have to give some detailed examples or some people will take it completely the wrong way, completely miss the point, and flip out on you.
So.. yeah... I erred on the more verbose side of caution
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
So instead of enjoying a great game because of it's content, graphics, style, etc you'll be at the mercy of the community (which tend to suck). LoL, way to bring down your own gaming experience, oh well your loss.
Trolls = Hardcore
Fanbois = Carebears
The only posts I read in threads are my own.
I vote for the D2 method of encouraging grouping... make the drops random and if you have more people you have more drops... so better odds that you get the item you need. But you can still solo the content if you are a Clint Eastwood fan like me.
I am fine with running it ten times to your one to get what I need.
Edit - what I don't like was in FFXI when I realized in order to get my AF gear I would have to stand around Jueno begging for a 70 to run me through it... and hence I quit.
Sad, still my favorite game. - in spite of that.
It's always bothered me in FFXI. But, so long as there's people who insist on reducing playing a MMO to number-crunching, optimal everything, xp-per-hour parsers and so on... and then insist on projecting their ideal character/party/xp builds as "the right way to play", it'll be a problem.
But yeah... FFXI offers far more options than the players seem willing to bother with.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I hope they make the majority of the game group based and just sprinkle in some soloable quests. One of the stong points of FFXI was the community and I see it being no different in FFXIV. I may just have to give FFXI another whirl until FFXIV releases.
If they make this game primarily group based I will be all over it despite my dislike for the graphics. One of the things that bugs me about the communities I come across now is when people just up and leave a group at the end of a run and doesn't bother to say anything. Not a "good run everyone" or "thanks for the group" they just up and leave. They got what they wanted from you and the others and the bolt when they are done with you.
I miss the community that I experienced in games that forced group play (most notably EQ). People would chit chat away while filling in thier roles in the party and both co-existed nicely with one another. Sure someone would occasionally pull an extra mob or two because they were autorunning while they were finishing up a line of text but I didn't mind.
I don't want to get away from the games and join a chat room but a game isn't very difficult and having a good group of people to chat with while you have fun playing the game just makes it that much better of an experience. Sure guilds are good for those experiences now (in some cases anyways) but it's also nice to just PuG and meet new people while you do your hunting.
This can happen in ANY game. It's an issue of individuals, and not something game mechanics can properly fix. Certainly even in FFXI you can have almost no talking in a group situation if people don't want to talk. The exception might be, as you said, forced wait time while forming a group, but a game shouldn't force people to sit around like that. The best way to handle this as a player is simply to talk when you can and make friends with who will talk, rather than expecting developers to essentially lock you in a room with other players where all you can really do is talk. On the plus side, it is easier with voice chatting, since you can talk while doing other things (the main reason why text talk is difficult while doing something is that your hands are occupied doing something else).
This can happen in ANY game. It's an issue of individuals, and not something game mechanics can properly fix. Certainly even in FFXI you can have almost no talking in a group situation if people don't want to talk. The exception might be, as you said, forced wait time while forming a group, but a game shouldn't force people to sit around like that. The best way to handle this as a player is simply to talk when you can and make friends with who will talk, rather than expecting developers to essentially lock you in a room with other players where all you can really do is talk. On the plus side, it is easier with voice chatting, since you can talk while doing other things (the main reason why text talk is difficult while doing something is that your hands are occupied doing something else).
There's a lot wrong with that post.
First... No one "forces you to sit down and talk" when you're partied, nor even when a group is coming together. It happens naturally. Second, in 6+ years playing FFXI, I can think of maybe 3 times I was in a party when no one really talked - and it was primarily Japanese players who didn't know English. It simply didn't happen.
Second... Downtime was often the result of people needing to take a break to get food, or to run to the store, to go to the bathroom, etc. etc. It wasn't always because of gameplay mechanics, though often, reasons overlapped.
Third... Again, the problem of groups coming together is too often mischaracterized and/or exaggerated. Could parties be difficult to assemble at times? Absolutely. However, many times people have complained about sitting around waiting for an invite, there were enough people seeking to fill out a few parties in Lower Jeuno alone. The reason they didn't come together is because every one of them was sitting around waiting for someone else to invite them.
There was also the problem of people only wanting parties with a specific setup... only wanting a Ninja to tank when a Paladin was perfectly viable... and so they'd sit around waiting for a Ninja to show up. And so on.
Again, it bugs me when I see people take such a narrow view toward things and always assume it's the developer's/game's fault without stopping and looking at what *they're* doing.
A classic example is people complaining about how FFXI is nothing but a level grind and there's nothing else to do. You ask them:
"Did you do any quests?" "No"
"Did you do Dynamis?" 'No"
"Missions?" "Only those I have to"
"Salvage?" "No"
"Assault?" "No"
"BCNMs?" No"
"Craft?" "No"
"Fish?" "No"
... and so on with at least another handful of possible activities...
Finally you get to asking them "well, if you had all those other things to do, but didn't... then what did you spend most of your time doing?" "Grinding levels".
Well there ya go... They chose to do nothing but grind levels and ignore everything else they could have... and then they blame the game for "being nothing but a level grind". Go figure.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
This can happen in ANY game. It's an issue of individuals, and not something game mechanics can properly fix. Certainly even in FFXI you can have almost no talking in a group situation if people don't want to talk. The exception might be, as you said, forced wait time while forming a group, but a game shouldn't force people to sit around like that. The best way to handle this as a player is simply to talk when you can and make friends with who will talk, rather than expecting developers to essentially lock you in a room with other players where all you can really do is talk. On the plus side, it is easier with voice chatting, since you can talk while doing other things (the main reason why text talk is difficult while doing something is that your hands are occupied doing something else).
There's a lot wrong with that post.
First... No one "forces you to sit down and talk" when you're partied, nor even when a group is coming together. It happens naturally. Second, in 6+ years playing FFXI, I can think of maybe 3 times I was in a party when no one really talked - and it was primarily Japanese players who didn't know English. It simply didn't happen.
Second... Downtime was often the result of people needing to take a break to get food, or to run to the store, to go to the bathroom, etc. etc. It wasn't always because of gameplay mechanics, though often, reasons overlapped.
Third... Again, the problem of groups coming together is too often mischaracterized and/or exaggerated. Could parties be difficult to assemble at times? Absolutely. However, many times people have complained about sitting around waiting for an invite, there were enough people seeking to fill out a few parties in Lower Jeuno alone. The reason they didn't come together is because every one of them was sitting around waiting for someone else to invite them.
There was also the problem of people only wanting parties with a specific setup... only wanting a Ninja to tank when a Paladin was perfectly viable... and so they'd sit around waiting for a Ninja to show up. And so on.
Again, it bugs me when I see people take such a narrow view toward things and always assume it's the developer's/game's fault without stopping and looking at what *they're* doing.
A classic example is people complaining about how FFXI is nothing but a level grind and there's nothing else to do. You ask them:
"Did you do any quests?" "No"
"Did you do Dynamis?" 'No"
"Missions?" "Only those I have to"
"Salvage?" "No"
"Assault?" "No"
"BCNMs?" No"
"Craft?" "No"
"Fish?" "No"
... and so on with at least another handful of possible activities...
Finally you get to asking them "well, if you had all those other things to do, but didn't... then what did you spend most of your time doing?" "Grinding levels".
Well there ya go... They chose to do nothing but grind levels and ignore everything else they could have... and then they blame the game for "being nothing but a level grind". Go figure.
QFT, awesome post