Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Kaonis]

This is essentially all my complaints worded probably far better.

Hell this hits home since my static just fell apart because as they put it, "no one was having fun anymore". No one wanted to spend hours in coil trying to memorize the fight and dealing with a single person causing a mistake and wiping us.

My static was at our most fun when we did T1-4 and had it on farm. Even with learning those fights it wasn't bad. We simply had fun, then with extremes and T5 on wards it's just been hell trying to get everyone on to do the content and wipe for hours until we get it.

One problem I think with the current content is it's heavily balanced with the mindset that you have a solid static of 8 hardcore players who are very good at the game, or you're going to spend many hours trying to memorize a scripted fight.

Hell for anyone who doesn't agree with the OP, the 2 biggest pieces of damning evidence supporting how annoying this content is, is the fact that 1, people sell carries because for some people it's the only way they can clear this content, and 2, look in PF and see the number of endgame groups with 1-3 strike policies. This sort of content encourages elitism, because these fights are long and stressful and single mistakes can cause a do-over.

[Garlyle]

When I think of other MMO's I've played, the names of the bosses don't come to mind first, nor do the mob models (typically), but the mechanics that made them different from the last fight.

This. At the end of the day, this.

I honestly love a lot of XIV's bosses - even several of the ones in pre-50 dungeons have some rather neat stuff going on, some of which is fairly subtle. It's the mechanics that make a boss fight to me, which is why I get disappointed at content that's easily overgeared and turns into a tank & spank 'till you win - which is probably 75% of the content post-50 right now, once you're geared enough.

Remember Leviathan Hard Mode? Me neither. But you'll remember Extreme.

Yeah, there's some related issues that do generally come from it. Player frustration (with other players often). Statics falling apart because one person can't keep up (or being necessary because of gear lockouts, although that's a completely different issue. But at the end of the day I remember these fights, they're going to stay with me for a very, very long time, and they're what I'm here for. They're why this is the only MMORPG I've ever even stuck with for more than 3-ish months, nevermind paid a continuing subscription for.

90%+ of the content added to this game doesn't require that extreme level of execution. That's fine. That remaining percentage is aimed at a different crowd, and if that's not you, that's fine, because you're not expected to be in love with absolutely everything the game does. And that's not even talking about just party content either; there are players who will never touch Atmas, never touch FC housing or personal housing, never touch crafting, never touch the Golden Saucer, etc.; and that's okay. There is a portion of the playerbase to whom each of these things is really important, too. It goes the same way with this 'perfectionist' level content.

[Eagleheart]

CT is as forgiving as it gets for endgame and has a lot of chances to recover if things get messy and I still dread PFing that because people are, in fact, that bad.

FFXI is still running, by the way.

FFXI doesn't really have any mechanics to speak of, is heavily dated graphicswise, is deeply entrenched and seemingly uninviting to new players, is not advertised, nor is it looking to maintain two million subscribers going forward.

I realize that Spartan wit is a thing to be desirous of, but there is a point in debate where exposition is necessary.

[Kuwagami]

I disagree that limited attempt rather than limited successes would be a better time gate- it leads to more frustration and intolerance of people learning.

I really do hate to break your bubble, but there is no tolerance for people learning already, unless there are 8/8 people learning.

Remember Leviathan Hard Mode? Me neither. But you'll remember Extreme.

hmmm nope. It's the exact same fight with a grand total one 2 new mechanics :

1) adds
2) heal debuff

new spumes are just new spumes. Same, the rails going out are just a "you'll die" thingie. Nothing new.

On the other side, I'll remember Chimera from Cutter's cry, or Brayflox (story) last boss, or Qarn last boss. They aren't that hard, only a few gimmicks, but they are fun. Fun to learn, fun to fight, not THAT unforgiving (read here, no one-shot mechanics) but if you mess up too much you'll die. And no amount of gear can help you.

All in all, I'd prefer more bosses of this type but with synced ilevel.

Like, T1 would be synced down to i75 max. T5 would be i90 max, and so on (i60 max for Hard DR, 70 max for expert DR....), without so many insta death mechanics. It would be hard, but feasible, and echo would have a meaning

[Sylkis]

OP doesn't want to make the game easier, but more forgiving (which doesn't mean it will be easier).

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

Making a mistake makes the fight harder instead of impossible, and this is balanced by the ease of making the mistake. It's also not always easy to be able to recover, and it gives a chance for good players to shine. I think this is what OP wants.

[Garlyle]

On the other side, I'll remember Chimera from Cutter's cry, or Brayflox (story) last boss, or Qarn last boss. They aren't that hard, only a few gimmicks, but they are fun. Fun to learn, fun to fight, not THAT unforgiving (read here, no one-shot mechanics) but if you mess up too much you'll die. And no amount of gear can help you.

All in all, I'd prefer more bosses of this type but with synced ilevel.

Like, T1 would be synced down to i75 max. T5 would be i90 max, and so on (i60 max for Hard DR, 70 max for expert DR....), without so many insta death mechanics. It would be hard, but feasible, and echo would have a meaning

No amount of gear will help you in those because they're literally synced to a cap. (Also Chimera is a one-shot on many characters, unless you're being synced down). With that said, if the tradeoff for loosening up execution is to instead cap our strength going into it? I am super okay with that, and have been requesting an iLvl sync for content for a long time.

What matters most is that I have to actually give a damn about the mechanics. When mechanics are easily outstripped and ignored, then they're forgettable to me. It doesn't work. That's why I'm fine with one shot mechanics - you have to care about them. And right now, in postgame content, without any sort of relevant capability cap on 80% of content, we can just ignore the majority of what's going on around us.

[Scaevolicious]

I can agree to your points but then we have to consider what is also fun. Wouldn't you have more fun having to make decisions on the go or those decisions being made for you by a mechanic driven system? This is the defining question most people don't watch videos and depend on luck to get past a script that can be read which has a rippling effect through the community.

It's fun to move on to different, newer content once you've mastered a given fight. "Oh, this time Titan EX is going to use mountain buster THREE times instead of two! This is a completely new, engaging take on this fight I've already done 3 dozen times!"

The original poster claims the most fun he ever had in FFXI was camping sea and sky for years, so I am going to need some convincing not to just dismiss his opinions about what the people do and do not want entirely.

OP doesn't want to make the game easier, but more forgiving (which doesn't mean it will be easier).

Huh? Making it more forgiving will absolutely make it easier. Of those players he categorizes as "casual", the majority of them are most likely capable of clearing the content they're struggling on (EX primals, early Coil 2) and certainly with echo; the problem is they are perpetually stuck in runs with other casual players who are not. If a raid of mediocre players could lose two people and still beat an EX primal, even with echo, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[Nadrojj]

After clearing t7 last night, I agree with this guy. The jumprope mechanics are boring. Avoiding voice isn't a challenge, it's an annoyance.

[Bizniztyme]

Cop-out response. But OK.

I'm not going to argue with someone I'm never going to agree with, it's just going back and forth. Let it go, there's no copout, it's pointless.

[ZReport]

OP doesn't want to make the game easier, but more forgiving (which doesn't mean it will be easier).

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

Making a mistake makes the fight harder instead of impossible, and this is balanced by the ease of making the mistake. It's also not always easy to be able to recover, and it gives a chance for good players to shine. I think this is what OP wants.

That and the fact that the OP wants the game to be more social-friendly in the way of having social-friendly battles. The current metagame is very well oriented around having a very serious mindset with every fight, and it does not lend itself at all to being friendly or even making jokes midbattle, etc. Simply because you have mechanic after mechanic after mechanic thrown at you with little time to type anything outside of movement. The OP all so sutlely made posts about how he's "In Coil all day":

After each patch, you'll see your FC/LS's static teams in coil all day, and wonder whether anyone will even have time to talk to you.

The obstacle here (besides the obvious 8-man design limitation) is the instant death mechanics. As long as these mechanics exist, people will only want to play with those who won't make mistakes and would never want to *add* more people into their party.

And it's very true. Yes, your friend might be the coolest person on the planet, but if he's bad at the game, most people except the nicest of friends will not tolerate the jokes and playing around during serious high end battles and bosses. To this the OP offers an alternate to current content, one that's much more friendly to all, one that also has multiple members outside of the 8-man focus. Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar or FFXI all had this dynamic. Yes, they had some serious fights too with unforgiving mechanics, but you had multiple chances of recovery during an on going wipe. More so than that, you as a player had a sense of camraderie with those who you play with as well. Not only because it had more forgiving mechanics, but also the fact that the types of battles allowed for people to be socialble in chat, and not have an as-serious attitude towards them.