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

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Originally Posted by Kallera

That and the problem is still an issue in the content that we have now. How do we know there have been appropriate changes to content if we haven't seen it yet? There is still wild speculation about what an standard difficulty Alexander would be like. Is it going to help address the divisiveness coil created?

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2 months form now, please look forward to it.

If they fix team jump rope I will be very pleasantly surprised :x

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Thats not really true, there is a lot of pie thrown at you in the entire game. Coils do not equal every single part of the game, lots of the game's mechanics are "You must do this, or something bad happens." I have done a lot of the extreme modes. They are really fun fights!

A lot of low level mechanics are the same.

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Extreme Mode's are the same as normal dungeons and coil.
You're still dancing to the beat of the drums.
Walking contradiction here lol. I just don't think people here can handle random stuff, or
types of punishment because people try and exploit the system and bypass it.
I think...Allagan's Rot was something cool? Never met the thing. I'm all in for variety though.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

If they fix team jump rope I will be very pleasantly surprised :x

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Stupid question, but what is "Team Jump Rope"? I think I know but not too sure.
@Itaru: I thought so, thank you for the clarification!

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

Stupid question, but what is "Team Jump Rope"? I think I know but not too sure.

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Basically, it means that if a single person fails, everyone fails. Just like jumping rope with other people, if one persons fails and grab the rope, everyone will fall.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseArath

Okay, so, seriously, all the people giving Nektulos crap, its easy for you to use every logical fallacy at your disposal but can you actually discount anything he says? So far i haven't seen any of you do that at all.

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I dunno, I think he does a good job of dismantling his own arguments, since he seems to care more about getting a reaction than staying consistent. Same guy who wants the MSQ to be easier for new players also wants SoF to have a higher ilvl requirement. For example:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

No, he wants the fights to actually not be the same fights every time. They are far too mechanics based and its true. Its a test, and if you get one score wrong on the test you fail.

Memorization isn't fun.

They should focus on more dynamic fights where you can do more then 1 thing to kill the boss, and not be locked in a room.

He wants fights to be more "Off the rails!" so to speak.

It doesn't matter if your the best player or gamer in the world, if you don't do the mechanics, or don't know them you fail.

That is not fun.

The game should be more focused on how well you can play your character and adapt to the battlefield rather then how well you can memorize a fight.

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Nothing big here. Heck, I can almost agree with this, even though I think reacting when you're first learning stuff *is* fun. But, that's subjective, so I'll ignore that part. But then there's this:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Thats not really true, there is a lot of pie thrown at you in the entire game. Coils do not equal every single part of the game, lots of the game's mechanics are "You must do this, or something bad happens." I have done a lot of the extreme modes. They are really fun fights!

A lot of low level mechanics are the same.

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Emphasis mine.

So, mechanics driven fights aren't fun, but Extreme modes are fun? There's only one set of "Extreme Modes," and those are the Primalas. Almost all of which are extremely scripted, pardon the pun. And they're all mechanics-driven. You mess up the Spiney Plume in GX, you die. You get hit by AOE in TX, you die. You ignore Searing Wind or Chains or Nails on IX, you die. You kill moogles too soon on Moggle, you die. You attack the wrong body part or don't CC the fear add in LX, you die. You mess up Chaotic Strike in RX, you die. You don't split the damage of Icebrand in SX, you die.

And yet, these fights "are really fun fights." Even though they're pure mechanics (though, LX has an enrage timer).

Fights you have to memorize are not fun.
These fights you have to memorize are really fun.

They can't both be true.

But, hey, maybe you care more about his Coil statements. Okay, let's talk about Coil. Let's go back to this quote again:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

No, he wants the fights to actually not be the same fights every time. They are far too mechanics based and its true. Its a test, and if you get one score wrong on the test you fail.

Memorization isn't fun.

They should focus on more dynamic fights where you can do more then 1 thing to kill the boss, and not be locked in a room.

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First, "do more than 1 thing to kill the boss" is vague as hell. I assume he means "more than one way to handle a mechanic." Since, y'know, killing the boss is always going to be a matter of getting his HP to zero. So, more than one way to kill the boss makes no sense. But more than one way to handle a mechanic is something we already have. Do you LOS Rafflesia, or do you hop in a briar patch? Do you feed the slugs or not? Do you keep 4 Renauds petrified, or do you only keep one? Do you split T9 meteors 3/3/2, spread out and watch, or do a counter-clockwise run across one side of the map? These are all things that change how the fight plays out. I can't speak for FCoB, but I know there's more than one way to skin a cat in SCoB. I could actually even argue that T2 lets you choose your own mechanics for the end.

But, then, maybe he does actually want more than one way to kill things. Like, say, Steps of Faith, where you have the options of burning adds with cannons, burning them with AOE spells, stunning their big attacks with cannons, stunning them with normal abilities, using that one strategy that has the tanks and a healer aggro everything way back at the starting area and the DPS and other healer focus boss while all adds go to the back. . .Only, wait, he wants to increase the ilvl requirement for that to 110. Even though he also wants to be able to play with his friend who would have to level through that as a new player.

Or let's take this quote:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

What about a buff where every time someone dies in the raid, the boss heals himself by 1-4%?
What about a buff where every time someone dies in the raid, the boss gets damage reduction?
What about a buff where every time someone dies in the raid, the boss deals more damage?
What about a buff where every time someone dies in the raid, the boss summons a minion that is strong?
What about knockbacks, he knock backs the tank if he gets stunned too much and throws him back?
What about randomly losing aggro and going after a random class?

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If he weren't so focused on the dying part, he'd realize we have fights with mechanics like this in the game. Did you feed a slime to Caduceus with full HP (which, I'm fairly sure which panels light up is random, btw)? He just healed up a bit. Did you get hit by Lunar Dynamo? That hurt, and you just healed Nael. Did you go east in T2? Your tanks better be good at aggro. Did you go west instead? Hope all your DPS aren't melee, because that's gonna hurt their DPS. Did Rafflesia eat half your group? That's 4 stacks of damage up. Did someone Cursed Voice Melusine? That's a damage up, assuming they didn't just splat the tank. Did the DPS build up resistance on Ifrit? Hope they can dodge Eruptions! Did they Leg Sweep the fear add in LX? Someone's probably going off the edge, unless someone does a clutch knockback to interrupt the fear. And of course, we have a few enemies with no aggro table, including the last boss of SV HM. If you can predict everything that both bosses are going to do in that fight, you're much better at predictions than I.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just some person on the forums with 2,800+ posts. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by ItaruKarin

Basically, it means that if a single person fails, everyone fails. Just like jumping rope with other people, if one persons fails and grab the rope, everyone will fall.

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In all fairness, this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Sure, we can argue that 2nd Coil had a lot of mechanics that took only one person to mess it all up. Final Coil however is the much lesser extent of that. The game should have it so that everyone has an understanding of the mechanics. If not, then we have an extreme on the other side of the fence, where the fights can become too forgiving and the value of the fight decreases.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

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I think this was what the OP translation was pointing at; the fights in SCoB ended up being so mechanically focused, that theres really not much room for any players. Experienced players get bored at the tedium and the casuals get walled by it due to the amount of coordination they need with 7 other players. I mean at some points, I justl ook at some of the mechanics and some of them break my willing suspension of belief when it came to the fights (such as a renaud instantly one shotting you with an auto attack. Like literally it's an auto attack, not a named ability like Terminal Sting)

FCoB imo is how the fights should be. You have the mechanics, but you also have the high numbers where everyone needs to be spot on with their roles whether it be tanking (CD management and snap aggro), healing (topping everyone off and pre-emptive heals with mp management), dps (enrage timers and add spawns), and overall understanding of the fight (mechanics and reducing incoming damage). It also makes gear/echo meaningful because these sort of fights would become easier as you have more buffer room with hp/damage/mana.

T13 is a perfect example of this; If you're not topped off or have damage mitigation, dps will die to 6k megaflares. Tanks need to be spot on with their cooldowns or swapping for HG when dealing with akh morn. Huge dps check on phase 3 to make for a clean transition. Then you have mechanics to deal with such as managing the megaflares, the towers and flare stars. Got a bit of both worlds rather than being SCoB-esiqe and focusing entirely on the mechanics.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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So wouldn't this mean that SE is going in the right direction? It does seem like a lot of the feedback given is making it's way to Heavenward.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

So wouldn't this mean that SE is going in the right direction? It does seem like a lot of the feedback given is making it's way to Heavenward.

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IMO, I'd say so. The fights in FCoB are done in a way that it naturally gets easier as time passes without making drastic changes to it. I mean if you look at SCoB, the mechanics were what made the difficulty, not the number requirement. But because the actual difficulty was so hinged on those mechanics, the only way to make it easier was to change the mechanics itself (which becomes a problem of nutering it since that's really its only source of difficulty).

With FCoB, the difficulty is still there since it was mostly because it involved getting the numbers and having people be able to perform the role. The concept of the fight and its original mechanics (which is not so heavily focused this time around) is left intact, and infact you can simply disable echo or enforce your own ilvl restriction to maintain it.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

So wouldn't this mean that SE is going in the right direction? It does seem like a lot of the feedback given is making it's way to Heavenward.

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It means the base fights have gotten easier, would you say gotten easier is the right direction?

The worst raiding tier was dragon soul in WOW and the main reason was because it was the easiest tier pretty much blizzard ever made and people just did not have fun very much.

End of the tier and expansion signalled the worst subscriber loss in its history.

I think the biggest part of the "problem" is going to be solved with 3.0 in the way they are doing Alexander with 2 modes. One mode is a normal mode for those wanting to just experience the story content then there will be a hard mode for the hardcore endgamers looking for BiS gear and a greater challenge. The reason there are so many "bad's" in coil is there are people just wanting to experience the story part of it but cant. I am one of them. I cant get a full premade static party to run this but I can do it bit by bit on my own, except players have no patience.

I do agree that for hard mode there should be fewer instakill mechanics, I wasnt on that side of the fence before but after doing the majority of the game now, I see why this is a kind of cop-out. They arent a terrible tactic but it shouldnt be the only thing in the bag of tricks. But they are growing the game and therefore I'm sure they will grow the bag of tricks.

EDIT:
Also, why necro this? Maybe I'll necro one of my complaint threads that is still vaguely valid.

I hope they add some contested dungeons in the game with roaming mobs, bosses, and other interesting mechanics so people have to deal with other players and be social again. Having to take risks and not wait/sit back in little instances again would be refreshing, fighting for content has always been one of my favorite activities, but every game seems to have removed that.

It won't be added. Yoshi likes zerg fests content.

One personal issue I have is this:

Me and my wife have both played ffxiv for a long time and we're good at situational awareness as well as utilizing our jobs correctly. I've cleared up to t7 and shes cleared t9.

I had to leave the game due to RL issues and lost my spot in a good coil static and now after returning can't get a competent group to clear anything t5 or higher.

Is this fair? Neither me nor my wife are bad players but it seems like the content is out of our reach because we're just too late to the party. Most people I've talked to about this just give me the attitude of "tough luck, not my problem". <--- which is what eventually forced me to leave the legacy server I started on years ago and move to a different data center. Its like no one cares. Its a pretty bad feeling to be left behind.

Sometimes it seems to me that the top content isn't just for " the best players". I've seen another side, the side that says its exclusive to players who have the right connections. What about the good players who had unlucky circumstances or are just breaking into the end game scene or just aren't as socially adept as some others but still try and play very well?

There's no single case scenario which justifies end game in ffxiv being exclusive as it is now.

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Originally Posted by raelgun

It means the base fights have gotten easier, would you say gotten easier is the right direction?

The worst raiding tier was dragon soul in WOW and the main reason was because it was the easiest tier pretty much blizzard ever made and people just did not have fun very much.

End of the tier and expansion signalled the worst subscriber loss in its history.

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It depends on your context of "easier". It's definitely not as focus oriented on mechanics that will one shot you for tripping.

The amount of times my group wiped in T13 because "they weren't topped off" is much more numerous than dying because "they moved during blighted".

In the end, I've never really revisisted the SCoB fights even before hte nerf because they just weren't fun for me. There was no sense of urgency in doing my role when it came to dps checks, just watching for some marker to appear over my head.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

There's this thing that's kinda universal, doesn't really apply solely to XIV, where people will say "I can do X and I will explain to you why it's too easy/too hard/too whatever... but I haven't actually done it". While this game really is easy enough where there's a very low barrier of entry for even the hardest of content (FCoB/Savage), you still have to actually do it for your thoughts on it to hold any weight. You can have an opinion, sure, but people aren't really going to take you seriously if you go "T13 is really easy" and haven't cleared it. --snip

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This trend literally exists in every thread related to this topic. And it's bordering on hilarity at this point. Half of the time I feel that the sole purpose of those comments are to provoke arguments to devolve the thread further into some "toxic elitists vs casual scrubs" rage fest to just butt heads for hours.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I think the biggest part of the "problem" is going to be solved with 3.0 in the way they are doing Alexander with 2 modes. One mode is a normal mode for those wanting to just experience the story content then there will be a hard mode for the hardcore endgamers looking for BiS gear and a greater challenge. The reason there are so many "bad's" in coil is there are people just wanting to experience the story part of it but cant. I am one of them. I cant get a full premade static party to run this but I can do it bit by bit on my own, except players have no patience.

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Yoshi-P has said that the story version will be equivalent difficulty to Coil with echo.

There are huge swathes of the player base who still can't clear T5 or T9, even with 20% echo and gear 20-40 item levels above what was intended, so unless they also make some fundamental changes to their encounter design strategies, the volume of complaints may not decrease that much.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Yoshi-P has said that the story version will be equivalent difficulty to Coil with echo.

There are huge swathes of the player base who still can't clear T5 or T9, even with 20% echo and gear 20-40 item levels above what was intended, so unless they also make some fundamental changes to their encounter design strategies, the volume of complaints may not decrease that much.

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Pretty much this even with Echo/ 3.0 Alexander nm people will stay say "it's to hard" please nerf it so maybe add in a I win button ;)

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Originally Posted by Darra

The second point I think you've missed is that you're assuming people don't do Coil because they do not want to. There are a lot of people that want to do it, but they don't know enough people, they aren't in the "IT" crowd or they can't find enough people that're good at memorizing AND competent with their job.

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I knew no-one when I started FFXIV 2.0 back in beta, and after launch I made an effort to reach out and find an FC. about 6 months and 3 FCs later I found one that I made the effort to help people out, showed I was a competent player and got invited to join a static that I'm still in to this day.

There are plenty of players in the situation that you bring up, but it's only themselves stopping from reaching out and activally finding other like minded players to start to form a team to run with. To be honest many don't want to make any type of effort to obtain their goals (aka the shinies) they just want them handed to them with the least amount of "effort". Don't bring up "Real life responsibilities" many Raid statics are able to organise around them on a week to week basis. As we do with members with families, full time employement, 2 are even full time teachers. We change the weekly schedule to fit members RL schedules. We aren't the only one that does that. Most of those with members in the same situation do also. So if we can do it, there is nothing stopping anyone else doing it, except themselves and there misconcieved notion that you can only raid succesfully if you are unemployed or a student.

Also you do realise SE has listened and is putting 2 versions of 8 person raid content in game going forwards? But you will still have some thinking they should be able to obtain the savage mode Alex gear without having to put in any effort to socialize or learn the fights.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Also you do realise SE has listened and is putting 2 versions of 8 person raid content in game going forwards? But you will still have some thinking they should be able to obtain the savage mode Alex gear without having to put in any effort to socialize or learn the fights.

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Ah, thank you for informing me of my thinking, even though it's not what you're telling me it is. Just because you're successful with being sociable, doesn't mean everyone is. Just because you've got the confidence to make and lead a raid group when you can't find an existing one with a spot for you, doesn't mean everyone is. Your entire argument is that the game design is "fine because I can do it" and that "if players can't it's their own fault". My argument is that the game lacks options, it's repeating the same old crap and it wouldn't hurt to cater to more players and give players a little of something else other than a memory game. I'm also glad that there's going to be 2 modes of Alexander, and that we can challenge content with fewer than the recommended number or players, but it still doesn't encourage people to "socialize" in groups bigger than 8. 8 is a pretty small number for an MMO wouldn't you agree?

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Originally Posted by Darra

Ah, thank you for informing me of my thinking, even though it's not what you're telling me it is. Just because you're successful with being sociable, doesn't mean everyone is. Just because you've got the confidence to make and lead a raid group when you can't find an existing one with a spot for you, doesn't mean everyone is. Your entire argument is that the game design is "fine because I can do it" and that "if players can't it's their own fault". My argument is that the game lacks options, it's repeating the same old crap and it wouldn't hurt to cater to more players and give players a little of something else other than a memory game. I'm also glad that there's going to be 2 modes of Alexander, and that we can challenge content with fewer than the recommended number or players, but it still doesn't encourage people to "socialize" in groups bigger than 8. 8 is a pretty small number for an MMO wouldn't you agree?

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Yes they already said they putting in 2 Alexander raids. The normal mode they said is CT like lockout so you can keep queuing up to get the piece of gear you want. Savage on the other hand is like the same as coil lockout was.

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Originally Posted by Darra

Ah, thank you for informing me of my thinking, even though it's not what you're telling me it is.

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In fairness, that sounded like a general statement. I can't be sure of intent, but my suspicion is that that wasn't meant to tell you how you think.

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Just because you're successful with being sociable, doesn't mean everyone is. Just because you've got the confidence to make and lead a raid group when you can't find an existing one with a spot for you, doesn't mean everyone is. Your entire argument is that the game design is "fine because I can do it" and that "if players can't it's their own fault".

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I feel you on this. I took it more as a 'you get back what you put in'. Endgame in pretty much every MMO requires you to pound the (virtual) pavement a bit (or a lot) and not every FC is as flexible as Sapphic's is, but they do exist. As she said, she went through three before finding it. Without a good FC or linkshell, you pretty much are out in the cold.

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My argument is that the game lacks options, it's repeating the same old crap and it wouldn't hurt to cater to more players and give players a little of something else other than a memory game. I'm also glad that there's going to be 2 modes of Alexander, and that we can challenge content with fewer than the recommended number or players, but it still doesn't encourage people to "socialize" in groups bigger than 8. 8 is a pretty small number for an MMO wouldn't you agree?

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It's around the sweet spot for endgame raiding. Organizing large groups of players is really really hard. My old FC had a hard time keeping its 8 person statics together, imagine having to fill a 24 person non alliance raid.

I still disagree with everything that massive wall of text has to say.

I don't like being able to face roll everything the game has to offer only because I have the gear for it.

One shot mechanics are a way to keep things in balence and the mechanics make every fight feel different. Not just another tank and spank dungeon. Gear also does help alot in the way of allowing you to take on more challenging content, which is how it should be. Try doing T13 with less then 6k hp and tell me it's just as easy as if you had more. Hell you even have to gear up just to meet the accuracy required to hit the damn thing, let alone kill it in time. And the team jump rope is part of the fun. If your not doing it with 7 complete strangers it actually is fun.

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Originally Posted by Teryaani

In fairness, that sounded like a general statement. I can't be sure of intent, but my suspicion is that that wasn't meant to tell you how you think.

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I understand his concerns. Past experience with FFXI showed me that "raiding community" is often controlling and manipulative (while not actually caring about the storyline).

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I understand his concerns. Past experience with FFXI showed me that "raiding community" is often controlling and manipulative (while not actually caring about the storyline).

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Maybe, and I have no doubt that he's reading this through a different lens than I am, but I didn't see that in the post. I do this too when I'm too close to an argument. Everything is read with a tone that may not be there. I've had to retract or edit on a re-read because of it. He may be right and there's a tone there, but I'm not hearing it.

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Originally Posted by o3o

I still disagree with everything that massive wall of text has to say.

I don't like being able to face roll everything the game has to offer only because I have the gear for it.

One shot mechanics are a way to keep things in balence and the mechanics make every fight feel different. Not just another tank and spank dungeon. Gear also does help alot. Try doing T13 with less then 6k hp and tell me it's just as easy as if you had more. He'll you even have to gear up just to meet the accuracy required to hit the damn thing, let alone kill it in time. It let's you be able to take on more content. And the team jump rope is part of the fun. If your not doing with 7 complete strangers it actually is fun.

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What's amusing is that he uses T4 as a prime example of a 'great' fight. The whole thing is nothing but tank and spank adds with very basic rules: feed the bugs early or not at all and dont get hit by the rooks. Also eyeroll worthy is when someone claims that gear doesnt matter in coil and you only need the minimum to enter and getting better gear wouldnt really change a thing.

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I understand his concerns. Past experience with FFXI showed me that "raiding community" is often controlling and manipulative (while not actually caring about the storyline).

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My main drive for FCoB was to see the story, after clearing turn 12 the first time none of us cared about the loot until we had all watched the story unfold. Also, contrary to belief, most raiders are more patient than many who do not raid. As you have to be patient whilst running progression, it's a necessary talent XD Otherwise you would just explode from all the wipes from learning the fight.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

What's amusing is that he uses T4 as a prime example of a 'great' fight. The whole thing is nothing but tank and spank adds with very basic rules: feed the bugs early or not at all and dont get hit by the rooks. Also eyeroll worthy is when someone claims that gear doesnt matter in coil and you only need the minimum to enter and getting better gear wouldnt really change a thing.

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T4, when it was current content (no echo), would be an example of a good fight. You needed people who knew how to perform their roles (snap aggro, know how to dps, mp management). Now its an utter faceroll when you outgear it by 30 ilvls AND a 20% echo. Same with T1 and 2.

For SCoB, gear really didn't help at all and neither would have echo if they didn't make changes to the mechanics. No amount of hp would've saved you from getting smacked by a Renaud or a bad shriek. When you design a fight like that, it becomes hard to make it easier naturally without changing its mechanics.

I agree on a lot of points made by the OP. However for me FFXIV still is a better mix of casual/hardcore content compared to FFXI. I played FFXI for only a month and did not look back because of time contraint. FFXIV made me come back twice and am itching for the expansion. That said some of the mechanics like the flexible party size can be implemented to FFXIV :)

I want more content and bosses/even mobs that are more "Dark Souls" series style, where you have to do a bit more then tank and spank them. Doing cool moves and avoiding some and taking others, not watching the ground. Not being able to really predict where the boss is going to be.

You should always be watching the bosses and what they are going to do, not the ground. This would make fights more dynamic, also remove the "ground plates" that tell you where not to be.

Make the fight more random as well, not as predictable and not the same fight every time. The boss should destroy parts of the environment which change the fight depending on what he destroys. Maybe he has a giant hammer and when he swings it every so often it destroys the ground?