/Accuse @ the devs: have you set us up to fail...?

The community also set itself up to fail, if you ask me. Doing "SE standards" level of DPS has never been hard - it's usually just doing your combo(s) as fluently as possible - the problem is simply that they've listened to community feedback and have implemented nerfs to middle of the road content that originally did expect more of players. Meanwhile, the stuff at the end of the road has continued on its upward trajectory resulting in a bit of a wonky difficulty spike. And no, I do not mean actual endgame (EX Primals, Savage, w/e).

Because they nerfed things like Garuda (normal), The Chrysalis, Steps of Faith and The Aery, and because The Singularity Reactor is/was a joke, some people got smacked down by Final Steps of Faith harder than they probably should have. And harder still when they reached Royal Menagerie, which is more daunting than FSoF without there being a required trial in between to bridge the gap.

The fact that so many groups have trouble with Limitless Blue HM, Thok ast Thok HM and The Pool of Tribute is pretty telling for whereabouts the problems are; the fights themselves seem appropriately difficult.

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Originally Posted by Darrcyphfeid

Because they nerfed things like Garuda HM, The Chrysalis, Steps of Faith and The Aery, and because The Singularity Reactor is/was a joke, some people got smacked down by Final Steps of Faith harder than they probably should have.

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Fun fact, if everyone in the party for Steps of Faith now does really good dps, you can do it synched and kill the dragon half way without any use of dragonkillers.

That's a bit sad actually, you can just pretend the fight built around its mechanics has no mechanics and you'll do fine.

Bad people are going to play badly and good people are going to play well. You have plenty of opportunities to improve during the leveling process. If your tank isn't going below 90% either hes not pulling enough or the healer is babysitting him when they shouldn't be. Thats an example of both players intentionally not putting in their best effort. Its not like the game is preventing them the opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

Fun fact, if everyone in the party for Steps of Faith now does really good dps, you can do it synched and kill the dragon half way without any use of dragonkillers.

That's a bit sad actually, you can just pretend the fight built around its mechanics has no mechanics and you'll do fine.

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Yup, this is exactly what I do when I get it in Trials on DPS; I never stop attacking Vishap. All 7 people besides myself have to be completely asleep for it to actually reach the end now.

Actually, I agree with Richard since the lack of DPS feedback is a huge factor in why I don't like to play DPS. I was there.

It's much harder for a "bad" tank or healer to make it to high level play since you can't easily carry them, and, as Richard said, we do the same stuff at level 20 as we do at 70, just bigger and fancier.

A DPS player can go for ages under the impression they are doing fine! You'll have a DPS that has a rotation they feel is good and are getting by no problem only to get to EX and be told that everything they do is wrong.

"Your opener is missing, your rotation is wrong, it's your job to stun, why are you using that skill, why are you so bad?"
"But I've never struggled before."

This might be a part of the unending issue found with the over abundance of DPS players, since DPS seems so easy.

I'm anti-parser, myself, but I've of the opinion we need the hall of the novice to have an "intermediate" or "advanced" hall set to talk about those things.

No, I think you are assuming the wrong premise

What really goes on:
DPS is carried though content, rarely being told they are doing it wrong.
DPS meets some experienced player that is able to notice, gets told some advice
DPS in question assumes they been doing it right this whole time and shouldn't be given advice in 60+ content , leading to you do not pay for my sub.
A large amount of DPS in the situation above meets in The royal city of rabanastre.
After 3-4 attempts of not meeting a basic and low bar DPS check, vote abandon passes.
DPS in turn are clueless why this happens, queues again till they get a group where competent players are the majority and gets carried.

Lastly I made a thread on this same subject:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...able-to-use-DF.

Basically is its both the development of this game and the community. The community is at fault for not communicating with new players enough, and development is at fault for making things too complex (in the views of new players) rotations, while having very low bars to clear content, on the level that is outlined in the OP (really comes close to that). If you have a good tank leveling up, the group can be carried. If you have a good healer in the group, everyone can get carried. That is the issue, the game is simply too easy so people do not care about improving or being ready to play when they hit 70.

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Originally Posted by Darrcyphfeid

Yup, this is exactly what I do when I get it in Trials on DPS; I never stop attacking Vishap. All 7 people besides myself have to be completely asleep for it to actually reach the end now.

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Its really sad too, steps of faith (Ignoring awful camera views) was one of the very few fights that was more about focusing together as a group and not doing high DPS. it wasnt like every other HM primals, you were rewarded for breaking away from the boss, it wasnt a dps race.It was fun to me.

What annoys me is some fundamental job mechanics that change everything about how you play your job...appearing in the later to near last levels. I understand the expac adding new things, but even so far back as ARR: You get Dragon Kick at Lv50. You get Geirskogul at Lv60. You don't see LotD until Lv70. You don't have any heat management for MCH until you get Cooldown, which instead of being slid in pre-60 or as soon after GB as possible, is left until like, Lv62-ish.

As soon as Samurai gets Enhanced Kenki (especially so with hagakure) the job's entire priority (get to get all your sens to hit them with a strong midare) is flipped on its head as "burn your sens into more kenki for more shintens / guren". I understand and support learning the job piecemeal, but so often with these DPS jobs the entire thing is flipped on its head and worse still, the game still offers no help with whatever you just learned.

The job quests need to go over what these abilities are and how they're used. MCH Lv30 is the only one that comes to mind as even mentioning DPS cooldowns ("Use Rapid Fire and Reassemble if you're having trouble!"). If they're adamant about us not having to turn to third party tools, then they should be better about giving us first party information.

The problem is that game difficulty kind of sucks in this game. You wind up with only a few types.

1. Mechanic will one shot you, or virtually one shot you unless one job (healer) can fix it.
2. Mechanic oneshots the raid or multiple people.
3. Deaths over time wipe the raid due to lowered stats preventing DPS check. Even if you do rotation well, doing 50% less damage due to two deaths is harsh.
4. "Gimmick" mechanics require one person not to screw up something not usual to their job. QTE, Steps of Faith, etc.
5. Mechanic is obscured or is executed very fast.

This isn't stuff you can just push down the pipe to force people to get used to. Especially since, as posted above, you don't even get your full kit till 70.

Every game needs an easy mode in order to attract a wider audience. In modern MMORPGs, this is the damage dealer role.

You cannot have a difficulty switch in such game, therefore, there are easier options available. Precisely because this is the "easy mode role", damage dealers cannot receive the same treatment as tanks and healers. It is only normal that once you are stepping into hard content, all roles matter. You cannot have an easy mode on content designed to be hard, therefore this is the moment "real damage dealers" are separated from "easy mode players". If you make damage dealer a role equally demanding than tanking or healing, then you remove the easy mode for the various players that enjoy this style of gaming.

Do not forget that there is no requirement to get into hard content while it is hard. You can wait until the content becomes easier (through higher gear and level) and do just fine. FFXIV does a fairly good job at identifying the content designed to be hard and the content that is designed to be easier. The "wake up call" a damage dealer goes through is another necessity. Either the player will push through or give up. It is the tangible point that marks a "you must be this tall to proceed". It helps a player identify which content is suitable for its play style. If the "you must be this tall" mark is a mandatory element, which stops the player in its tracks, then it signals the player that he/she better find another game.

This has nothing to do with an "aging" community. Players had jobs and families 20 years ago just as they have now. They had young and old players then, we have young and old players now. What changed is that there are so many options and alternatives, that you need to pull every possible tricks from your hat to convince players to invest their money into your game. Competition is so fierce that you have free MMORPGs. One of the most expansive game genre to produce has free titles on the market. Worse, sometimes those free titles are able to provide a similar experience and graphics than the paid options.