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:healer
PS 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.
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:healer
PS 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.
