The general player base needs to improve

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

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And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

The question, to me, is just how big of a spread in player skill is acceptable to you, Kaiva? It's impossible to get everyone on an equal footing, so there will always be good players and comparatively bad players. The only question is how wide the gap is between them.

It's pretty wide right now. But the game is designed to tolerate that. I mean, expert and the 70 dungeons (with a couple of exceptions) don't punish failure at all. Being "bad" by the standard of the playerbase is plenty good to clear that content, and with a name like "expert", that must mean you're not that bad, right? Even if you eat absolutely every mechanic on every boss in Kugane castle, an awake healer will get you through it.

The game doesn't tell you what your DPS is or if you're doing your rotation correctly, and technically someone else telling you is against ToS. The message being sent there below Ex/Savage tier is that it doesn't matter a whole lot if you are using skills effectively or not.

Lots of content puts two healers in it but only really needs one. Then you get runs where both get killed and the tank can heal it long enough for someone else to bring them back up, so no real consequence there (except the tank getting to show off).

Tanking is extremely forgiving if you don't care about DPS, with enmity being easy to generate and more than enough defensive cooldowns to mitigate everything in the vast majority of content.

And I mean... that's deliberate. They don't want story content gated behind hard content (aside from Shinryu at release, although people outgear it so much now that it's kind of a joke since it oddly has no item level sync), and they want people to have something to do weekly to gear up. So none of that stuff is very hard, aiming at the wider demographic of people who don't care about the game enough to want to invest a lot of effort into learning how to do difficult content.

These things are hard to get right, because having the playerbase improve means slowly cranking up the difficulty such that people will adjust and learn without hitting a wall of frustration and quitting in response. If wipes and failure are more frequent, is that a thing we want? Look at how often Rabanastre comes up as a problem, when the "problem" is that failure actually happens there? Do we want EVERYTHING to look like that, with the risk that the bottom 20% might quit the game entirely as a result (and the revenue implications that brings)?

I don't know. I do know that right now the game is very forgiving to people who don't want to invest a lot of effort into learning how to play better, to the point that it doesn't even give you the tools to do that effectively (which is why everyone keen on self improvement is using third party tools/sites). How much harder should it be before it's hard enough and we're all content with the skill gap as being acceptable?

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Originally Posted by fumofu

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

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1-Players need to improve because they play with other people. It's not fun to play with people that don't play accordingly. That applies to every game ever.
2-Yes, you have options for difficulty: Dungeons, NM primals, NM raids, EX primals, Savage raids, Ultimate.
3-Adding a middle ground: Midcore content, will help with their learning curve. If everything is faceroll easy, these attitudes will carry over harder content.
4-The topic aims to find a way to educate "bad players" and find a way to teach them how to play accordingly, see point 1.

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Originally Posted by fumofu

I think we need more easier content. It's not fun wiping at ex primals and 24 raids. And wipes happens, because it's too hard.

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But if it's so easy that failure is impossible, what's the point of doing it? There's no sense of accomplishment or progression in that.

I find expert so unsatisfying to run because it's so easy. Rabanastre, wipes and all, at least makes me pay attention and try.

Ex primals are also supposed to be hard content. So they should be hard.

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Originally Posted by fumofu

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

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Maybe if you'd read my initial post instead of throwing your microaggression at me, you'd see that a huge portion of my topic, and my replies, have been directed towards endgame content. As in Level 70. I have not touched on storyline dungeons, the overworld map, FATEs, PoTD, Guildhests, crafting, the Gold Saucer...I haven't spoken on those, but just answering your first sentence, those are amongst the many things that all types of players (casual, midcore, hardcore) can all enjoy. I imagine that Eureka will follow a similar trend with being casual accessible.

I did not once say that content in this game is too easy. I feel like a lot of content is easy, yeah, but I did not open a discussion about how easy some content can be as it relates to endgame fights. Do I want players to improve? Yes.

Do I want players to improve so that developers can make harder and harder content? No, not for the sole reason of making harder content. It's like you read just the title and just went off saying that I started complaining without even reading any of the original post. Not only that, but you have yet to even answer the question I posed to you a page back. So let's try again.

Here is the question I posed:

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

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Originally Posted by fumofu

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

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Like you said it's not a single player game. When you are doing it wrong you affect 3-7-23 other players. Don't play a mmo if you're planning to be a burden and if it is not your goal then try to become better or stay away from group content.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

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I'd say the gap is pretty big, though perhaps not as bad as it was back in HW (I glimpsed a little bit of it in 3.56). I do feel like the last two dungeons ramped up the difficulty a little bit. I think the highest that the bar should get for casual players should be Shinryu. Anything higher than that would be hitting Savage territory, and that would do more harm than good, I feel. Fractal and Hells Lid are a pretty good step-up I think, because while they are still not absolutely dangerous, they will still punish you if you mess up. Byakko felt like an appropriate difficulty from Lakshmi (the orbs and dealing with Leg Sweep can be nasty if one doesn't pay attention). I've said it before, but rather than having mobs consisting of 5-6 enemies, I'd like to see unique mobs with mechanics. Something that actually requires more than just the same old stuff.

Of course, it has to be balanced, and ideally if Fractal and Hells Lid were to be the dungeons that started the trend of scaling difficulty, then it should continue into 5.0. Maybe by the end of that expansion, optional dungeon content can start to be tuned towards Shinryu (with balance in mind...don't want the devs to overtune the enemies.)

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

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To put shortly: you don't know why we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I'd say the gap is pretty big, though perhaps not as bad as it was back in HW (I glimpsed a little bit of it in 3.56). I do feel like the last two dungeons ramped up the difficulty a little bit. I think the highest that the bar should get for casual players should be Shinryu. Anything higher than that would be hitting Savage territory, and that would do more harm than good, I feel. Fractal and Hells Lid are a pretty good step-up I think, because while they are still not absolutely dangerous, they will still punish you if you mess up.

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Seems reasonable. :) I find Hells Lid better than Fractal on that, though, probably because they use vuln up more liberally and the bosses have attacks that punch back harder. Fractal doesn't feel like much is a threat to kill me. But conceptually I do think expert is the place that needs the difficulty boost, so I'd go for that plan.

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I've said it before, but rather than having mobs consisting of 5-6 enemies, I'd like to see unique mobs with mechanics. Something that actually requires more than just the same old stuff.

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Remember the old days when trash required stuff like CC and was more than "round up 3 packs and AoE it?" Good itmes.

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Of course, it has to be balanced, and ideally if Fractal and Hells Lid were to be the dungeons that started the trend of scaling difficulty, then it should continue into 5.0. Maybe by the end of that expansion, optional dungeon content can start to be tuned towards Shinryu (with balance in mind...don't want the devs to overtune the enemies.)

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Sounds good. I think we're largely on the same page. I don't want to chase people out of the game, but expert really shouldn't be named that if it's sleepwalk content.

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Originally Posted by fumofu

To put shortly: you don't know we we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

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Why are you putting words in my mouth? I never said anything about not enjoying the easier content...quit trying to avoid the question and actually answer it. See, the issue is that you aren't providing any answers...you're just talking. This is twice now that you've said words that I haven't said. If you don't want to do Savage, hey, then don't do Savage. I haven't advocated against easy content. As a matter of fact, I've stated a few times that I'm not touching on the difficulty on storyline dungeons/content. I actually am satisfied with FFXIV as a whole, from my personal experience, from all I've personally done. And on top of that, my posting extends to Rabanastre...which to a lot of casual players...

Wait wait wait...

So my words are not taken out of context, I'm going to bold this next part. I will be completely dumbfounded if someone misses what I am about to say below:

...to a lot of casual players (as in, a decent amount of casual players; not most casual players, not all casual players, not even the general base...just a lot of casual players in this example)

...Rabanastre probably feels like Savage to them. So...what...you don't do it because it's hard? If that's the case, then don't do it.

(Side note: it seems I have hit my posting limit for the day, so guess I'll be replying when my limit resets.)

bads gonna bad

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Originally Posted by fumofu

To put shortly: you don't know we we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

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This isn't about more content that is difficult but rather about building a bridge so that the content that is difficult now is accessible to more people.


If you had to pay attention in an Expert roulette people would still do expert roulette because it's the easiest way to get mendacity. Use the draw of a reward people want already to bring them a little bit further from absolutely awful.

I will say there are players out there that are bad at their chosen jobs, the issue is that the ilvl gate on content is one that continually gets eliminated in the next patch.

There are people doing Rabanastre now that have no business being there. In my run last night one of my group members informed me that I was first in DPS for the group by 500 dps on RDM aka the DPS job with the lowest personal DPS. No new player message, this was not anyone's first rodeo. Those other dps should need to clear some kind of Stone, Sky, Sea dummy to enter group content where dps matters.

Right now SE is relying on the comparatively small portion of their playerbase that cares about performance to wind up in situations lile this and be able to carry the hypercasual players through, the problem is when you get unlucky enough to not have more than a few competent dps in an encounter with multiple dps checks. Arrogant as it may sound I think that group would have disbanded on Mateus if I hadn't been there and instead my slot was filled with another dps doing less damage there than I do on WHM.

These situations crop up all over. I've seen a Ravana HM disband because one healer didn't even have a job stone equipped and the other healer wasn't skilled enough to keep the group alive basically alone. SE's current theory seems to just be "let's hope the DF adds enough competent players to any given group for them to have a chance at clearing" and to me that is the attitude of a dev team that has given up all hope of educating their playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

Like you said it's not a single player game. When you are doing it wrong you affect 3-7-23 other players. Don't play a mmo if you're planning to be a burden and if it is not your goal then try to become better or stay away from group content.

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And why should i stay from group content? I feel I do my job good enough at content I'm doing, thing is that i'm just not obsessed with optimisation and perfection. You know why? Because when you try to be perfect - you fail a lot, cos each little mistake is fail. Omg, I pressed cd 0.2sec too late! DPS loss! Oh no, boss turned and i screwed my positional. DPS loss! /o\ Hey, there's so many ways things can go wrong or not according to plan, so if you are all about perfection - you are bound to be constantly disappointed and frustrated.

So I think it's best not to push myself hard, just try to play at acceptable level and it's all good. And no, i don't treat regular dungeons as content who is meant to prepare you for harder content.... No, they are quite enjoyable, until party joins some elitist who complains that tank and healer should dps more...

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Originally Posted by fumofu

So I think it's best not to push myself hard

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i'm quite sure there's a happy medium between obsessing with optimization and perfection, and simply trying to do better and be better to make a more enjoyable experience for those around you and, by proxy, yourself, since as you said it becomes less enjoyable when some "elitist" joins and complains. they're literally just asking you to press more buttons, it's not really a huge request

I honestly think they should implement a mechanics-only solo instance that increased in difficulty the more successful you got.

Each stage could be different and have different obstacles with no actual combat.

Thinking more like fighting Bardam in Bardam's Mettle, but on a larger, solo instance scale.

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

1-Players need to improve because they play with other people. It's not fun to play with people that don't play accordingly. That applies to every game ever.
2-Yes, you have options for difficulty: Dungeons, NM primals, NM raids, EX primals, Savage raids, Ultimate.
3-Adding a middle ground: Midcore content, will help with their learning curve. If everything is faceroll easy, these attitudes will carry over harder content.
4-The topic aims to find a way to educate "bad players" and find a way to teach them how to play accordingly, see point 1.

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My question is... are EX Primals intended to be that midcore content?

Tough to answer. They still fall into that "don't know the mechanics = wipe" category, but they do, once you know the mechanics, come into the "easy" category.

I don't know how to implement it, or what is considered midcore in this game... is it the 24man stuff?

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Originally Posted by fumofu

To put shortly: you don't know we we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

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so if savage is the only type of hard content in the game, why does there need to be more easy content?

Every dungeon, normal primal, and Delta/Sigma normal, are by all accounts, easy content.

I’m of the mind that it’s not exclusively a lack of skill, but also a lack of effort.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

My question is... are EX Primals intended to be that midcore content?

Tough to answer. They still fall into that "don't know the mechanics = wipe" category, but they do, once you know the mechanics, come into the "easy" category.

I don't know how to implement it, or what is considered midcore in this game... is it the 24man stuff?

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The only midcore content I've seen in the game so far is Raubahn and Pipin EX.

We already have rab and shinryu, and on release they really weren't all that fun content to do the few times they popped up after, with appropriate ilvl. I really don't want launch rab and shin to be the standards for experts i have to do once per day. The easy content is nice because you aren't spending 45 min to an hour because your party keeps wiping at a particular boss. And apparently, even that level of content doesn't breed good players, since we still get all the complaints.

If you constantly get annoyed by others, just get a good FC and do everything in a static. Because I really don't think making this game harder will make players better.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I'm curious...have you done endgame yourself? I dunno about how it was in the 1.0-1.23b series, I'm most familiar with current endgame in 4.x. Just wondering because of your comment about WoW and raiding, and your character level as it is currently. Unless this is an alt of yours.



Yeah, I learned this the last time I was there as well. I tunnel visioned when I was a PLD on the final boss and got hit by one of his attacks...was barely noticable when I had a healer topping me off every time I took damage. Sometimes, I kinda wish for mobs to inflict something like healing down penalties or infirmary.

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Ya I've mentioned in other post, I've done the first coil with my static(before nerf,not very hardcore), it was fun,
but after I tried XIV1.1x-1.2x, the "End game" thing isn't my objective when I play a MMO now,

I mean, you buy FF15 because you just want to fight the final boss & watch the ending CG movie & the staff roll?
guess not, you buy it because the stroy, because the contents in it,process is more important than the result.

I played very hardcore in WOW, because I want to know how good I can be when raiding, I've proven myself in WOW,I don't need to prove it again,
& I don't play MMO just for the gears or boss fights ,
I take the gears so I can win the next boss, if I don't raid, then highend gears mean nothing to me, I won't bother with it, ILV340 is already enough for me
if I just want to fight some boss, I will play Monster hunter, Nier, these games are a lot more fun than the heavily scripted battle in ARR.

I play MMO because the people,the community, the player-created events & contents,
but there's no such things in ARR, well.... then I play it for some rest, play it super casually,
I've played many games, XIV ARR is far from the worst , just not the real "Final Fantasy MMO" to me, a fake MMO

People being so acceptable people playing bad and get away with it, is one of the bigger reasons why it's still an issue for improvent. While I agree there is a difference between harrasing and telling people tips how to improve, there are too many players who loves to brush it off and say it's fine they way they play it. I know some people I helped clearing shinryu for and they did as good as tanks or just worse. The clear would never happened if the tank dps and healer dps wasn't as strong. This game can let you get away with 1-2 players being bad and the rest doing good, as long mechanics are done. I love to help people but I would like them to carry their own weight. I think it's unfair to help them clear content and they end up with same type of players and never kill the content, wondering why they can't. This happens too often.

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Originally Posted by fumofu

And why should i stay from group content? I feel I do my job good enough at content I'm doing, thing is that i'm just not obsessed with optimisation and perfection. You know why? Because when you try to be perfect - you fail a lot, cos each little mistake is fail. Omg, I pressed cd 0.2sec too late! DPS loss! Oh no, boss turned and i screwed my positional. DPS loss! /o\ Hey, there's so many ways things can go wrong or not according to plan, so if you are all about perfection - you are bound to be constantly disappointed and frustrated.

So I think it's best not to push myself hard, just try to play at acceptable level and it's all good. And no, i don't treat regular dungeons as content who is meant to prepare you for harder content.... No, they are quite enjoyable, until party joins some elitist who complains that tank and healer should dps more...

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I want to chime in on this one.

I don't consider myself one of the "best" Machinists. I am however quite competent at it because I've always made the effort to be good at it, even when people said the job was bad. Naturally, I give my all in Savage content, but that doesn't mean dungeons are just an excuse to coast along in easy mode. Hell, if anything, dungeons are where I quietly make my little adjustments and optimizations that I can then perhaps take into harder content. I find myself regularly practicing on dummies in idle moments now - the habit formed before I even knew it. And PvP's taught me to think on my feet and build stronger reaction time; dodging telegraphed, scripted attacks are easy after you've learned how to do it when you're NOT expecting it.

I'm not going to say that you shouldn't take it easy or not push yourself hard, but playing at an acceptable level will only ever be just that; acceptable. When the content or perhaps something in the moment happens that calls for more than that, your acceptable play won't be enough to see you through it. It's hardly about perfection or always doing it right; it's about being capable of performing to the best of your ability, even in the worst conditions or situations. Aiming for par won't accomplish that.

We've had this player base complaining about how people DON'T read guides and watch videos and now we've got complaining about how people relay on guides too much!

Come on guys make up your minds......

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Originally Posted by Rockette

Unpopular opinion: I enjoyed Gordias. It took us months but we cleared it just after Thordan came out. It was way too hard for a starter raid into a new expansion but it was good none the less. We busted our asses and I cried when we cleared 4. I wish we got a title for it. Midas was the right balance I thought..

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Although before my time playing, I actually agree, if only based on hearsay and video clips. I suspect with minor tweaks to eliminate gear checks and maybe ease Digititis a touch, A3S would have been a perfect fight... as the last tier. Frankly, the loudest complaints I hear in regards to Gordias is how utterly boring and poorly designed Manipulator was; primarily due to the insane gear check, lack of interesting mechanics and, of course, Nisi.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I agree, but unfortunately, we'll still get those players who seem to think that the only way to increase difficulty is by taking it to Savage levels...which is not what is suggested. I wouldn't mind starting to see some open-ended dungeons, with mobs having varying degrees of difficulty. Lock the best type of loot behind more difficult mobs. The devs could just make one of these dungeons and tie it into the lore by the WoL missing the adventure...this was alluded to in the quest line for Skalla.

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I repeatedly turn to the higher floors of PotD as my go-to example. Running with friends several weeks ago, we did aggressive chain pulls to speed through 50-100. That reckless play caught up with us around 110-120 and resulted in a wipe due to hitting a trap and being stun/sleep locked. I was honestly more impressed than disappointed because it was entirely our fault and the game slapped us for it. Now imagine if Expert dungeons worked in a similar facet—with priority mobs to focus down, traps and even patrol packs that could result in high outgoing damage. In many ways, PotD 101+ accomplished what dungeons rarely have: a solid difficulty curve.

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Originally Posted by Rockette

Now, we're finding "savage" in stormblood pretty tame. Week one / two clears. I understood they were pretty scared of making the same mistakes as Gordias but I thought they would turn it up a little for Sigma :/ In fact I'm sure they said the raids would scale up in difficulty so it's a little disappointing that they haven't.

I'm glad they're doing the Ultimate's. At least that's something to prog on while Savage has become the weeklies.

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They did. Yoshida changed his mind due to Ultimate; preferring to keep Savage as "mid-core" content more or less.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

These things are hard to get right, because having the playerbase improve means slowly cranking up the difficulty such that people will adjust and learn without hitting a wall of frustration and quitting in response. If wipes and failure are more frequent, is that a thing we want? Look at how often Rabanastre comes up as a problem, when the "problem" is that failure actually happens there? Do we want EVERYTHING to look like that, with the risk that the bottom 20% might quit the game entirely as a result (and the revenue implications that brings)?

I don't know. I do know that right now the game is very forgiving to people who don't want to invest a lot of effort into learning how to play better, to the point that it doesn't even give you the tools to do that effectively (which is why everyone keen on self improvement is using third party tools/sites). How much harder should it be before it's hard enough and we're all content with the skill gap as being acceptable?

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To be fair, those failure lessen if the game encouraged better play beforehand. Some good examples were The Aery and Vault, which hit particularly hard prior to Stormblood. As stated above, I feel higher floors of PotD are perfect benchmarks for what Expert dungeons ought to be. Not only does it offer a reasonable challenge, it helps break up the monotony a bit since certain mobs need to be focused down quickly, thus AoE spamming won't necessarily work. I wouldn't be opposed to them steadily testing things throughout the expansion but they seem entirely averse to the idea yet remain at a loss why player skill just doesn't improve.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Although before my time playing, I actually agree, if only based on hearsay and video clips. I suspect with minor tweaks to eliminate gear checks and maybe ease Digititis a touch, A3S would have been a perfect fight... as the last tier. Frankly, the loudest complaints I hear in regards to Gordias is how utterly boring and poorly designed Manipulator was; primarily due to the insane gear check, lack of interesting mechanics and, of course, Nisi.

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You're hearing only the survivors; a lot of people left over it, and don't really show up when we talk about it. This game actually has some seriously massive turnover.

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To be fair, those failure lessen if the game encouraged better play beforehand. Some good examples were The Aery and Vault, which hit particularly hard prior to Stormblood. As stated above, I feel higher floors of PotD are perfect benchmarks for what Expert dungeons ought to be. Not only does it offer a reasonable challenge, it helps break up the monotony a bit since certain mobs need to be focused down quickly, thus AoE spamming won't necessarily work.

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They aren't a challenge. The only challenge is from roaming mobs, if you get two or more on you. When POTD came out, you didn't really spam aoes and ignore stuff, because you didn't have +99/99 gear that doubled your attack pool, nor did you confine yourself to the easiest floors to grind and ignore the tougher ones. You died then the same way you die at 101+, going too fast for random traps and getting too many adds on you.

That's not hard in any sense that it will teach you to play a class better, it's just now "standing in the fire" ends the run, so to say. And even it can be cheapened a little by the classes you take; get rid of DPS and its much easier, since tanks and healers have much more survivability.

Idk what people want, really. You'd need to make savage-styled content to teach people to be good at savage level play, because you can't learn to be good at a harsh dps check without a harsh dps check. You learn not to fall off platforms in titan or rav by being out the whole fight and dealing with the shame of it.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Idk what people want, really. You'd need to make savage-styled content to teach people to be good at savage level play, because you can't learn to be good at a harsh dps check without a harsh dps check. You learn not to fall off platforms in titan or rav by being out the whole fight and dealing with the shame of it.

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Making hard checks from the beginning is not a solution either, the gap from doing nothing to something making everything as hard from the beginning wont change anything. What this game need is a checkpoint in the game where you need to rotations a certain amount of times on dummy strike with mechanics and forfil the dps check. And also make fights slightly harder in dungeons as well, because it's just too much of a faceroll tbh.

When the hard enrage in one of the new experts won't happen if you have even 1 dps doing damage.

Something is def wrong.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

Making hard checks from the beginning is not a solution either, the gap from doing nothing to something making everything as hard from the beginning wont change anything. What this game need is a checkpoint in the game where you need to rotations a certain amount of times on dummy strike with mechanics and forfil the dps check. And also make fights slightly harder in dungeons as well, because it's just too much of a faceroll tbh.

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If you ever played FFXI, a better suggestion would be to gate your level 70 quest behind a Maat fight.

Maat was an NPC that basically gated you from levelling your character to the cap. In this game, you could still be level 70 when fighting whatever iteration of it, but it would gate you in some other way (to lazy to think about a fair/balanced way right now). He was basically a clone of you, and used all the abilites plus some others of the class you were fighting him with. To beat him, it was a test of whether or not you knew how to adequately play the class at a high(er) level.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

If you ever played FFXI, a better suggestion would be to gate your level 70 quest behind a Maat fight.

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As much as I would love that, most of the FFXIV playerbase wouldn't pass it or wouldn't bother because it's something they are forced to do. I mean a propper gate in this game is absolutely needed, but at the same time we need to be realistic about how they can do it.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

If you ever played FFXI, a better suggestion would be to gate your level 70 quest behind a Maat fight..

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Ma'at sucked. I went through him too, but he seriously sucked. His difficulty varied a lot depending on what job you challenged him at (I think RDM was the hardest) and what he taught had zero to do with your job, as opposed to reading a walkthrough and praying to god RNG wouldnt screw you. You actually didn't need him in that game; just surviving the leveling process alone made you skilled enough. Ma'aat was more like those BCNMs that seemed impossible to do but could be done only with fairly precise strategies, and relied on a fair bit of luck too.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You're hearing only the survivors; a lot of people left over it, and don't really show up when we talk about it. This game actually has some seriously massive turnover.

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Because Gordias was not properly balanced. Shifting Living Liquid to the fourth fight allows for an easier boss to precede him, thus better preparing players for the upcoming difficulty. I also specifically highlighted tweaking him a bit for balance sake. Regardless, you're also neglecting to mention 3.1 offered no content whatsoever. I would argue people quit more due to the fact outside of Savage you had the following...

Thordon EX
Void Ark
Diadem
Lord of Verminion

This content drought lasted for eight months. Considering Diadem and LoV were universal flops, it's far more likely people left the game due to the utter lack of content, especially since Savage has always remained somewhat niche.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

They aren't a challenge. The only challenge is from roaming mobs, if you get two or more on you. When POTD came out, you didn't really spam aoes and ignore stuff, because you didn't have +99/99 gear that doubled your attack pool, nor did you confine yourself to the easiest floors to grind and ignore the tougher ones. You died then the same way you die at 101+, going too fast for random traps and getting too many adds on you.

That's not hard in any sense that it will teach you to play a class better, it's just now "standing in the fire" ends the run, so to say. And even it can be cheapened a little by the classes you take; get rid of DPS and its much easier, since tanks and healers have much more survivability.

Idk what people want, really. You'd need to make savage-styled content to teach people to be good at savage level play, because you can't learn to be good at a harsh dps check without a harsh dps check. You learn not to fall off platforms in titan or rav by being out the whole fight and dealing with the shame of it.

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Ironically, you just described difficulty scaling. PotD got easier as you gained strength until it increased again to compensate. If dungeons followed a similar trend, Leveling would be the initial 1-100 floors that eventually get out-scaled while Expert compensates. Unfortunately, the latter has been rendered so braindead easy you scarcely require a pulse.

Actively punishing players for failing mechanics is teaching them—in the same sense making it devoid of any risk inventives ignoring them entirely. When I can get 2-3 vulnerability stacks as the MT in Kefka normal, why do I care to dodge his mechanics? They clearly aren't going to kill me. Now if after a single stack I took substantially higher damage—perhaps being forced back into tank stance—I'll care a whole lot more to avoid them.

You do not require Savage level content to learn the basics. A difficulty curves to steadily increase the challenge at a reasoned pace and can be seen utilized in numerous games. For example sake, let's grab Seymour from FFX. He becomes increasingly more challenging with each encounter assuming you don't overlevel, yet at no point is he ever unbeatable. DPS checks aren't what you need to learn going into Savage, especially as they aren't "harsh" by any standards. You need to learn mechanics and how to properly perform your job—all of which can be readily taught as early as dungeons. Alas, FFXIV refuses to relay any information towards the player and instead hopes better players just pick up the slack.

You can't expect players to ever learn a fight completely if they are not taught the mechanics. This even applies to easier content like dungeons. Some mechanics are obvious and don't need explaining, but this game has a lot of mechanics you can't learn based on observation alone. Some even require certain players to intentionally stand in an AOE that logic tells you to avoid. I tell people when it's my first time doing a duty, and 80% of the time not a single person in the party bothers to explain the mechanics. Some I figure out and some I never can. You also have to consider that this game is very mechanic heavy compared to a typical MMO, so having a good memory is more important than player skill. When there are bosses with 9 phases divided into multiple mechanics each, it's beyond ridiculous. Some bosses can take many weeks just to learn the mechanics by heart, and that's just to memorize it all, then once memorized, serious skill based attempts can be made. Videos don't help as you still have to memorize everything. Players with less than stellar memories will take longer to learn. They can be just as skilled as you, but have a worse memory than you.

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Originally Posted by ShanXiv

I've mentioned many times before: I am a casual or mid-core player now, I don't like the "jume rope" things, had played too much of these in WOW.

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Again, Extreme Primals is midcore content. Why else would I keep bringing it up? I recommend you try Lakshmi, Susano and Byakko Extreme.

Fun story, Byakko bugged out and got four people in my group KO'd (myself included). We contemplated on just wiping it, but instead we pushed on. Tank LB3'd as per usual and the healers gradually raises us. We still beat Byakko despite the huge DPS loss and we never saw Enrage. My static is also casual/mid-core, yet we still do Savage and Extremes because why not? It's fun and something to do.

I can't say I'm paired that with many awful players in dungeons or raids. Let's keep in mind job boost is a thing and a new player can skirt by to 70 with storyline and dailies pretty easily.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

If you constantly get annoyed by others, just get a good FC and do everything in a static. Because I really don't think making this game harder will make players better.

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The "if you dont like x about the general population you should only do things in a static" argument is a little dated at this point don't you think?

Don't like zero-DPS healers? Only use a static.

Don't like tanks that pull big? Only use a static.

Don't like wiping over and over to content of trivial difficulty? Well clearly the problem is not the people subjecting you to their poor play - it's you expecting them to be considerate of others! Use a static.

What's next? Don't like Miqo'te? Use a static.

God, it's so tiring explaining the same things to the same people over and over again.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

The "if you dont like x about the general population you should only do things in a static" argument is a little dated at this point don't you think?

Don't like zero-DPS healers? Only use a static.

Don't like tanks that pull big? Only use a static.

Don't like wiping over and over to content of trivial difficulty? Well clearly the problem is not the people subjecting you to their poor play - it's you expecting them to be considerate of others! Use a static.

What's next? Don't like Miqo'te? Use a static.

God, it's so tiring explaining the same things to the same people over and over again.

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Aaaaand this is going straight into my possible future use of siggys.

Now if could just find AxlStream's original quote and I could get this ball rolling...

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

Aaaaand this is going straight into my possible future use of siggys.

Now if could just find AxlStream's original quote and I could get this ball rolling...

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<3

/10char

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

The "if you dont like x about the general population you should only do things in a static" argument is a little dated at this point don't you think?

Don't like zero-DPS healers? Only use a static.

Don't like tanks that pull big? Only use a static.

Don't like wiping over and over to content of trivial difficulty? Well clearly the problem is not the people subjecting you to their poor play - it's you expecting them to be considerate of others! Use a static.

What's next? Don't like Miqo'te? Use a static.

God, it's so tiring explaining the same things to the same people over and over again.

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I can't help it...

Don't like explaining really obvious things to people on a forum? Only use a static.

I'll show myself out.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

I can't help it...

Don't like explaining really obvious things to people on a forum? Only use a static.

I'll show myself out.

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I am both amused and annoyed.

Thank you? I think...