Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Printable Version +- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18) +-- Forum: RPC (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=25) +--- Forum: Welcome Desk (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=10) +--- Thread: Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. (/showthread.php?tid=19463)

Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Discus - 05-20-2017 So, I recently got back to the point in my life where I have time for an MMO, but only one. I had some friends wanting me to join another game and some on here. I  chose here based on it having a larger RP community, bought a physical copy of the game, and then found out the next day I would not be able to join my friends on their server for the foreseeable future — and none of them want anymore alts, so I'd be alone on Mateus. Bummer. I'm looking again at my options and want to get some varied opinions about this game before I choose what to sink my time and money into it. Obviously I can't predict the future, but for simplicity's sake, could the Balmung people humor me and answer on behalf of their server? I'm operating under the assumption that Mateus will end up fairly similar if it succeeds, so it's still helpful. Question 1: What are some actual quirks, not "my friend's uncle's dogwalker sees it all the time!" quirks, someone would find in the RP community here? I've heard the Miqo'te vastly outnumber everyone else and rarely follow the lore. I've heard that if I roll a Roegadyn (what I'm leaning toward), people will presume I'm some sort of futa fetishist and won't give me the time of day. I tend to err on the side of caution with rumors, so I'd definitely appreciate some insight on this in particular. Question 2: How active is the PvP here? Follow up, how active is the RPvP, and what's the general temperament? Some MMOs I've been on have more sore losers / winners than others. What's your take on this? Question 3: What are current class dynamics OOC / in PvE? When I was on FFXI, I could barely log in before my White Mage and/or Bard got spammed with invites, whereas my dragoon had to make its own parties for years. Are there any classes that are oversaturated? Any in demand? Or does the fact this game permits more soloing than FFXI did make it more of a moot point? Question 4: More for Mateus in specific, be honest, how common is RP outside tavern settings so far? I left GW2 because megaserver killed open world RP. I can't just idle in bars all day, man. Question 5: Generally speaking, how many people do you feel follow the lore versus "fanon" RPers? How solid is the lore (I've read a bit, still have a lot to go) and do the devs make an effort to sustain / follow it? Thanks to anyone who actually reads this wall of text and replies. I was really looking forward to this game but I'm hesitating now with the recent lockdown. RE: Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Hilde - 05-20-2017 1. I'm not quite sure what you're asking here with this example? No one really cares enough to spread rumors about your character even if they are futa, from what I've seen in open world RP. I've never seen anyone seriously judge someone for playing a certain race. Saying miqo'te rarely follow the lore is broad - your friends may be talking about the fact that Miqo'te aren't played exclusively in tribe storylines, or the fact that male miqo'te are rare, but they're reasonable stretches when you have as many players in FFXIV as there are. Not everyone wants to play the tribe miqo'te dynamic or roll catgirls. 2. There is no solid PvP community. The PvP system is more of a running joke at this point. 3. Everyone plays dps, tanks and heals are the lesser chosen for obvious reasons. Just play what you want - world party finder have taken the difficulty out of getting the parties you need.  4. N/A, I'm on Balmung. However, regardless of server, even in the populated RP server you have to make the effort to put yourself out there for RP. There is open world RP, but a majority of it happens with pre-established groups. Cities are usually the hubs for roleplayers and random interactions. 5. It's pretty impossible to answer how many people follow lore (Balmung has 50k players for example) and there is no one to police whether people follow it - it's dependent on what players you RP with and their own personal limits/liberties, and whether it crosses lines of lore that they prefer to adhere to. As for the lore being sustained, I'm unsure of what you mean about it being solid or whether they make the effort to sustain it.. are you asking whether the story is consistent? Honestly, you should play the game vs. asking the community questions, because ultimately we don't know your tastes or what you're looking for in your content/roleplaying experience. I don't think there's any insight we can give you that isn't too basic/broad with these questions, so you might bite the bullet and just play the trial. RE: Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Gabineaux - 05-21-2017 There IS a pvp community. https://www.pioneer2.co/ pvppaissa has all the guides you need and the tryhard discord is where pvpers from all datacenters/servers chill RE: Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Unnamed Mercenary - 05-21-2017 I've been on Balmung since we called it Besaid back in 1.0. I didn't RP until 2014, but here're the answers I can provide. 1. For the most part, you're not going to see IC distribution of races in towns like the lorebook/NPCs would suggest. Never happens in any MMO. There are running gags that Miqo'te vastly outnumber all the other races, but it's not true. Sure, there are more Miqo'te characters than the lore would suggest, but honestly, people can play what they want. Nobody's going to get judged for their character creation choices unless it's something out of this world or something. Some race selections have somehow gotten negative rumors attached. Especially around the Quicksand which is used for actual RP and also apparently considered an ERP hub. (Hint: actual ERPers aren't going to send you tells unless your search info has ERP in it. They're gonna be busy playing the game how they see fit.) I'm not sure exactly when the Quicksand got the ERP buzz, but it was around the same time a large group of people from 4chan and 8chan moved over. I suppose they succeeded in their goals. Again. Play what you want. In the case of Balmung, the server's so full of people SE has had normal character creation locked down for years and had to finally stop all transfers coming in. That's a LOT of people. Now we're trying to figure out where to help direct new players/transfers! (Short-term, Balmung waiting room. Long term, actually viable additional RP ers maybe?) 2. Pretty much only Square Enix takes PvP seriously in this game. It's instanced content aside from the more recently added /duel. There are communities for it, but not like, a ton of them. Outside of the zone that has all the NPCs for PvP things? You can't attack other players with OOC mechanics. If you're talking in-character PvP, people have come up with a variety of methods both balanced and RNG-based. The most common ones are basically a battle of bigger /random number wins the roll, or free form. It ultimately depends on your RP style and if you trust the people you're RPing with to stay within some theoretical power limit boundary. (If you go seeking an lore-breaking edgemaster, you're gonna get a much more fantastical attack than the low-fantasy guard RPer around the corner.) 3. FFXIV's follows the "holy trinity" of roles. Tank - hold enmity on mobs Healer - keep the party alive, maybe DPSing on the side if the battle allows DPS - primary damage dealers Like any holy trinity game, it's about 60% or more DPS-only players. Depending on content, you'll have either a 1:1:2 or 1:2:5 ratio of tank:healerPS for content, depending on how many tanks were available when that content was released. As a tank/healer, your queue times for duty finder content are -generally- going to be better, but if you're queueing as a group that can change depending on what you got. I've personally queued into stuff that had to wait for DPS before. (It was kinda weird.) 4. Mateus' RP population is growing quite a bit. Right now, we've got some listing coming in from them on Linkshells and FCs. They've also got some general server-wide coordination discord groups and linkshells. (Said linkshells are getting full and they'll likely be outgrown if Mateus becomes the de-facto additional RP server for NA datacenter). I made an alt and I did see a little, but I also wasn't really looking. Some friends of mine who also made alts attended an event though! 5. The developers LOVE L O V E their lore. But NPCs lie. The lore itself is largely unchanged all the way from 1.0. (The battle system is not lore-compliant necessarily.) There is so much of it, that yes, we've got a lore book now and that doesn't even cover everything. (But it's a good start and we knew quite a lot of what it covered too.) Player-wise, it varies. You're going to find all kinds of RPers with varied lore-adherence. Remember, two completely different RPers can be lore-compliant is completely different ways. It's more complicated than a yes/no answer. On Balmung, there's a gradient of low-fantasy to high-fantasy characters of varied lore-compliancy. Typically, the low-fantasy ones are almost always compliant by default, but there's the occasional story that might not check out. Likewise, you can find lore-compliant people with the Echo or people RPing out the Main Scenerio Quests, which tend to be higher-fantasy. Still lore-compliant, but definitely way more powerful than those low-fantasy RPers. Yes, Balmung also has people who just don't care about the lore and RP too. What RP community doesn't? As long as you're having fun and can find the people who match your RP preferences, go for it. If you're RP style is to emulate something like .Hack, Log Horizon, Sword Art Online or other "real person trapped in the game" style RP, I've yet to see any of that on Balmung. Most of the characters I've encountered exist within the game's setting. Call us player-made NPCs if you want. RE: Hey! Considering joining. Some questions. - Thunderbolt300 - 05-22-2017 Hey there and welcome aboard to the RPC!  As has previously been mentioned, there isn't an RP-PvP community- or at least, with all the barriers to entry for it, it's probably not worth doing. You can only duel in a specific area- not at-will the way it is in WoW.  Can't speak to much on the other points that hasn't been covered already, though. Best of luck on your search!