Is anyone else bothered by the lack of incentive for mediocre players to improve?

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Maybe if people as a whole were better at their jobs people wouldn't feel the need to enforce high ilevel caps, which comes back to the topic of this thread.

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It is not really being good at your job, it is working as a team with random players who may or may not know the fight, of course everyone wants to play it safe and demand higher ilvl's. and if we go back to garuda ex, I really don't understand how can it be hard for anyone to realise why most pf recruitment's ilvl's are higher than 65, just think about how quickly an ilvl65 tank will fall to double wicked wheel, it is completely understandable to want to complete the encounter more easily with less risks. And to be fair usually the ilvl requirements are 5-10 level's higher than the minimum ilvl required to enter the instance, I rarely see outrageous ilvl's like 80+

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the people asking for higher as a precaution are being unreasonable. PF and DF are luck of the draw, and there's way more bad out there than good. But to say that the fight is straight up impossible at the minimum level is something I take issue with.

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Why? There are DPS checks in a lot of fights: You have to deal a certain # of damage in a certain # of time. If your #s aren't up to par with what's needed, you lose, end of story. Dodging is a seperate issue, but there are still plenty of fights where it's at least partly a numbers game (welcome to RPGs).

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

It's probably not that they're missing the point, so much as that these are the guys who this thread is talking about. Anyone who would make the argument that someone getting the same reward as you after putting in less than a fraction of the work as you isn't a bad thing is obviously not the guy putting in the work.

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Edellis' post is very relevant to this. Anyone that has their equipment got it the legitimate way; by playing the game. Thank you, untradeable equipment. They didn't put "less work" into it than you. They probably did take the game a lot less seriously than you do.

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

Plain fact is, this game is flawed from the ground up, giving people fates as an easy way to jump to 50 without having to do any real practice for their role, then allowing them to jump straight into a dungeon which drops i80 gear while letting you farm for i70 gear.

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This is not what a Fact is. I'm not pointing it out to be the Grammar Police, but because this philosophy is a huge problem in the game on the forums. Your beliefs about how seriously players should take this game are creating an atmosphere of hostility, rather than enjoyment, which is making everyone suffer. And your entitlement about it ("Plain fact is...") is degrading and unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

The whole arguement I keep seeing people make about how you should "just worry about yourself" and "the way others play doesn't affect you" are, yet again, clearly the people the OP was talking about. You can make the arguement all you want that other people don't affect you, but lets see you try to do titan ex with a pug who's wearing i90 gear but still can't hold aggro or, as I've had the chance to witness, tanks Garuda hard while standing in two twisters. Not one, he actually pulled her to the point where two of the twisters were overlapping and tried to tank her there despite being told over and over to get out of the aoes. He died, then we all died, and people still want to tell me that "the way they play doesn't affect you".

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As far as I know, nobody has claimed that DF doesn't affect you. Taking less personal offense to someone playing their character in a less efficient manner is not saying "let it go, the way they play doesn't affect you." It's saying, "You have three options in these situations: 1.) You could be a leader and a role model, 2.) You can ignore it and play the cards you're dealt, or 3.) You could be a jerk about it."

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Why? There are DPS checks in a lot of fights: You have to deal a certain # of damage in a certain # of time. If your #s aren't up to par with what's needed, you lose, end of story. Dodging is a seperate issue, but there are still plenty of fights where it's at least partly a numbers game (welcome to RPGs).

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Everything you just said is true. What you're not accounting for, though, is that most of the time people aren't playing anywhere near optimally and on top of that are using strategies that assume higher-than-minimum levels of gear (in some cases much higher).

I'm not saying that people can go in with the minimum requirements and use the current strategies to win. It's probably not doable. I don't think I'm alone in saying that an ilvl 65 tank is going to have a hard time surviving 2xWW, especially with ilvl 65 heals. But, then, we know there are strategies that split the wheels apart so no one eats 2 of them. We know there are strategies where a DD tanks one mob, etc. Without seeing some people try, I'm not going to just assume that the devs picked a number out of a hat. Especially not when I know how much people over-estimate required gear.

As far as dps checks, a lot of people can't dps their way out of a wet paper bag. And yes, for those people, gear can help pull them through content they couldn't otherwise clear. But when the game flat out tells you "This is the minimum ilvl you can have to attempt this content," I assume that it's not trolling us and that the content is indeed beatable at that ilvl, even if it's not easy.

You will rarely see ilvl requirements below 80, on Midgard, for Ultima HM, Garuda Ex, and Titan Ex or even coil 1-4. Ifrit Ex is just flat out I85, if you manage to spot a PF for it, even though it's the easiest fight out of the 3 primals.

People just want to be carried and take the easy way out. What's the best way of doing that? By heavily outgearing content. The funny thing is that most of these high ilvl groups still can't even accomplish the task given the gear. How many Garuda Ex groups do you see that are ranged heavy for ease? And how many posts on forums say that it's done with melee compositions?

Fact is, like it's been stated multiple times, this is a game where casuals will always get their way and it's pointless to ask them to do anymore than press 1-2-3. It's sad that the game isn't even hard to begin with but asking other players to play their class a little better results in "You're just an elitest who needs to stfu" or "we do w/e the fuck we want". It's sad when you can barely find brds, which is the easiest class to play, to do more than 130 dps on ANY fight. And you guys want to trash on the people who want YOU to help YOUR teammates more by playing more appropriately given that YOU ask for the high ilvl. The high ilvl that you can just log on one day of the week to get 1 i90 piece.

The minimum requirements for the dungeons are for people who do know how to play efficiently. It isn't hard for them at that ilvl because they know whats coming and what to do in the situations. All the primal fights are scripted and the interviews already stated that you should be memorizing the fights. It's one thing if you don't know a fight and are learning it, but its another thing when you're already at a high ilvl and are trying to do new content but STILL don't know how to play you're class.

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Originally Posted by illuminapanic

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On shiva I have never seen any pf groups the are "ranged only", I have seen people talking about them here on the forums but I have literally seen them 0 times.

On the topic, you really should avoid sentences like "casuals will always get their way", it doesn't take much brain to figure out why people call you elitist if you use language like that. I just don't see the problem here, If I understand your problem right, it is that you think "casuals" can get their gear too easily. What you have to understand here is that this game is designed in a way that is has hard content which will reward you with great gear, and then it has gear that takes time instead of effort. Players who have full myth gear by now have invested a good load of time to get that gear. Now first of all you are trying to force your own way of getting gear to everyone, sorry, but this game is designed in a way that you can get good gear by not doing the hardest of all the content. It is a very brilliant game design: "casuals" can enjoy it, and guys who like to get absolutely the best(allagan weapon is the only ilvl95 gear right now) and challenge the hardest content, can do the hardest content and enjoy it. What is the problem here? You will always have bad players in a game that requires team play, what gear they get has nothing to do with that, join a good fc, form your own group and play with them. I don't see any reason to be anal pained over the fact that other players get their gear in a certain way.

If you just simply can't stand that and you still can't enjoy the game I have something to say for you: You indeed are an elitist and the solution for you is: Please stop playing the game, it is designed the way it is, and it might not be for you. The community won't lose anything if guys like you leave.

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Originally Posted by Inflorescence

Edellis' post
This is not what a Fact is. I'm not pointing it out to be the Grammar Police, but because this philosophy is a huge problem in the game on the forums. Your beliefs about how seriously players should take this game are creating an atmosphere of hostility, rather than enjoyment, which is making everyone suffer. And your entitlement about it ("Plain fact is...") is degrading and unnecessary.


As far as I know, nobody has claimed that DF doesn't affect you. Taking less personal offense to someone playing their character in a less efficient manner is not saying "let it go, the way they play doesn't affect you." It's saying, "You have three options in these situations: 1.) You could be a leader and a role model, 2.) You can ignore it and play the cards you're dealt, or 3.) You could be a jerk about it."

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Fact:a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true:

True: fates can be run starting at lvl 1 and can be ground all the way to lvl 50.
True: starting at lvl 50 you can go straight into ct to farm i80, i70, and myth tomes for i90 gear.
True: most fate farm areas for people grinding to 50 are done in decent numbered zergs and thus require little effort on the part of those grinding.
True: it's very rare for me to see a ct run where people aren't killing skeletons right beside bone dragon, dropping comets on iron giant or behemoth, or ignoring napalms despite at least one person per trip giving instruction before each fight. Personal experiences vary, but given that I've done well over 100 ct runs at this point, I'm going to go with the idea that experience doesn't lie.

So far I've yet to see where what I stated ceases to be a fact. My beliefs on how players at lvl 50 should know at least enough about their jobs to do their jobs does not affect the facts listed above. In regards to your idea of my "getting insulted" by people who don't play as well as I do. I'm not insulted by those people, I'm that guy who joins random titan hard runs with my zenith weapons to help random pugs. I couldn't care less about people not knowing the game as well as I do or not being as good as I am. I get agitated by people who run around in i90 gear and getting the party wiped for the fourth time (not choosing a random number, I've seen in plenty of times) by making the exact same simple mistake because they're so used to not having to try that they just don't want to, or they're so used to not having to try that when they have to they don't know how to. The vast majority of my ct runs have resulted in my alliance sitting in front of KB trying to convince at least one tank to MT or OT because none of the tanks can, or none of them want to because it's so much easier to stand by the tower and do nothing. This of course just being another fun example.

If you've actually read all the posts, btw, instead of just skipping to the last one and reading it then posting, you'd notice that several people have actually made the comment "the way they play doesn't affect you", though their wording may vary somewhat.

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Originally Posted by Yenn

There's basically none.

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Oh I agree. And sadly this is one case where I have to agree WoW did some things right early on (now I hear you can do raids in their DF which is retarded)

But giving raid level gear to people who never step foot into raid zones boggles my mind.

I was helping a guildy plan out gear for his alt monk (I'm a monk main) and he made a comment like "I'm just looking at what I could get since I am not going to be able to raid and get gear like you have".... It hit me at that moment that the gear I'm wearing requires barely any raiding and the little it does can be run by just about any 8 people PF throws together.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

Jibber jabber

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Never said ranged only and no you did not understand my problem right. I never stated anywhere that I cared about how they got their gear. My problem is that people want to be carried through content, as per their absurd high ilvl requirement, while not being able to perform correctly and not even caring. It's not just in 2.1 content either, it's in low level dungeons where people refuse to even take any advice. Plds who try to flash mobs before even reaching the pack and don't try to keep threat on multiple mobs anymore, Blm's who spam blizzard because they like the full mp, drgs and mnks who don't know their positionals, and the list can go on. Some of these are relic/myth people who join duty roulettes and tell you to "mind your own business" when you try to give them advice.

Maybe I should assume you are one of these lowly players who refuse any advice since you make such silly assumptions. I join duty finders and party finders because i'm bored with doing content with my group so I try and help the community. The player's who don't have the luxury of having groups to play with. But if players ask others to carry them but can't even hold their own, it's really bad. The community gets shitty from people like you.

To be fair, the way fights are designed (basically, you have to memorize the script) it's very easy to see why people use a high iLevel.

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Originally Posted by illuminapanic

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How exactly does high ilvl requirement mean you want to be carried through content? People just want to take less risks, which is understandable. So you are having problem with people in this game? But that is not something a game can fix. I mean right now you are just blabbering about "lowly players" "the do not even care" and I have a really hard time getting your point, the game itself can't fix the player base. You really can't carry anyone through the hardest content, you need everyone to be good to complete those fights, so I don't understand how would you fix this problem of yours. A problem that I don't even recognize, sure I have seen some bad players but it's not any major problem, the things you talk about (especially the blizzard spamming) sound really weird, I have never seen that.


And again why do you care about what other people do, surely they don't affect your playing experience if you have a fc that you can run content with? The rest of your post I am just gonna ignore but I will say this: players who truly help the community don't have to repeatedly stress that fact on the forums like you do.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

You really can't carry anyone through the hardest content, you need everyone to be good to complete those fights, so I don't understand how would you fix this problem of yours.

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I'm sure I'm a broken record at this point but there is nothing in the game that you can't carry. Nothing is that tightly tuned to the top gear, which makes sense since nothing should be tuned to the gear it drops.

I do really hope though that coil 6-9 is a lot tighter than 1-5 overall, and the difficulty is more progressive. 1-4 is just way too easy, and yes even considering i70-i80 gear which is what I first cleared it in. It just encourages bad play to have most of the loot drop in such easy content.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

As a different way of looking at it, you could say that if they're good enough to get the tomes required to get the gear, why then don't they deserve it? I mean, if I work hard to be able buy something I'm going to need in order to TRY to face a harder challenge, then how can you say I didn't earn it? Gear isn't a substitute for skill, period. That doesn't mean people with less skill deserve lesser gear.

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problem with this is you can get carried into myth gear. gear should be the reward for skill, and yes people with less skill should have less gear because they arent able to complete content for better loots, this is what is called progression.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

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So are you saying that when you see an i80+ requirement group, that you feel more able to complete the dungeon? I guess everyone doesn't have the perfect environment like you because from personal experience, I see the same problems from a minimum entry group as an i80+ group. The failure rate is the same if people don't know how to play.

Echo buff, btw, is suppose to "fix people" in this game. It boosts you everytime or every week (I'm not sure which) you fail at turn 1-5. It'll be at the point where you will face roll it even just pressing 3 buttons. At the moment it's only for coil but I wouldn't be surprised as time goes on that it gets implemented for the extreme primals as well for every wipe that occurs . And who ever said anything about wanting the game to fix people? I simply stated that people want to be carried in this game and it's a problem.

Who truly helps the community? The people that tell you to fuck off while playing improperly and refusing to listen to advice? Nope. The people that offer the advice? Sure. The people who give false hopes by requiring an absurd entry but fail to do their part? Nope. I don't "truly" help the community by going completely out of my way, of course not, but I do join df's and pf's and do my part. I TRY to help people who aren't able to form groups or have an fc/ls to help them.

There are way more ppl who appreciate an advice than who don't. It is just selective recognition to think otherwise, because we recognize bad things 3-5 times more intensive than good things, psychological stuff.

Whatever illuminapanic says, I can second it. When I'm bored and in the mood to help and no friends are online for sell runs then it is Titan HM where I join through party finder. Nicest group I had was a fresh random Titan HM group, 6 out of the 7 others were willing to listen. We weeded out the stubborn guy and replaced him and got another newcomer. It took 9 runs from "First touch to Titan HM" to "Fck his stony ass down to little tidbits" and they were all really thankful for receiving advice, how to tackle his mechanics. The technically hardest part about any Titan fight is dodging bombs combined with Landslide until you got the clue about it. Some are simply not the researcher type of player who can figure out such mechanics by themselves completely, but if you explain it with reasoning they understand and learn it. Same with raid groups, normally you have a raid leader who is smart enough to guide his troup, which doesn't mean that the others don't have to think to figure out mechanics, but as said, some aren't researchers. I think that is ok.

This thread = TL;DR now

Luckly, the devs don't think anything like the OP, so this discussion is moot.

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Originally Posted by illuminapanic

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When I see groups with high ilvl requirements I get assured that we are not going to fail because of gear or because people make small mistakes. It is about leaving room for error, if you have the change to do it more safely why wouldn't you? It is just a human nature, of course I don't think the actual ilvl has anything to do with actual skill level of players who join, but the changes of success are still higher, because you can make more mistakes that would maybe wipe the party if played with lower ilvl, but now they maybe are recoverable.

I can't really add anything to this, I am just wondering why you are complaining here if you do not want to fix this situation of yours. I myself have not experienced these things so often that I would consider them to be a problem, and even if I would I don't see any point posting here without the goal of fixing this and offering solutions. There will always be baddies, that is just how it is.

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Originally Posted by Yenn

There's basically none. If they continue with their mediocrity (really, sub-mediocrity in most cases), they'll eventually be handed the gear they couldn't normally attain, without making an effort to improve themselves.

Further, the developers' stance on 'strategies' like the Turn 2 enrage garbage makes it seem like they have no intention of challenging these players to improve; every turn of Bahamut's Coil, excluding Twintania, can be powered through just by having enough gear, which is handed out for free in Turn 1 and Turn 2.

This degrades the sense of accomplishment for everyone, both the skilled players who worked hard to down the bosses, and the bad players who are just whacking loot pinatas and patting themselves on the back.

I hate to bring in World of Warcraft as a comparison, but I think they did it right, with the three sets of gear (Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic). If you're a sub-par player who wants to whack a loot pinata, you get sub-par gear for it. Those who want to challenge themselves get regular gear, and those who want to really push the encounters get higher tier gear.

There's no way this is healthy for the game in the long term.

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Just an FYI, WoW is the game that started the whole dumbing down raids and handing gear and making it easily accessible for casual players. As soon as a new patch comes out, they always gave everyone a way of getting the previous level gear.

And seeing as how WoW has been going for how many years? Yes it does seem to work. The problem is people are starting to want the hardcore back, the true MMO where you had to work to get what you wanted, but from a current money standpoint, that model no longer works, if you keep making games where everyone can get the uber loot, then more people will play, but what they fail to see if while initial numbers will always be high, they fall off very quickly.

Look at FF11, even now it still has a somewhat strong fan base, and that game you had to work HARD to get what you wanted, it was not designed for the casual players, and FF11's biggest complaint is also it's greatest accomplishment, it was HARD.. Same with Everquest, same with Vanilla WoW. Heck look at Rift, some of the new raids have been out for months and STILL haven't been beating, the game does have VERY loyal fan base, and is a great game (their fate/rift system destroys this insult of a fate system that ff14 has). But if you also notice, when it was pay to play it started out great, the game was too hard, and casual players dropped like flies. It is now free to play, and casual players have a way of getting the gear.. they can buy it for a few hundrend dollars.

Now the turn 2 strat, that was found by people LOOKING for an exploit because they couldn't figure out how to pass the rot while dpsing while avoiding lazers, etc. These strategies will ALWAYS be found because people need to exploit it. AK, first boss, have the healer jump up into the tree and now you don't have to deal with the golems.. really? Dealing with the golems was what made the boss fight interesting, but people couldn't do it, because they had to take their focus off the boss and lower their dps so they wouldn't do it and the healer would wipe from healing agro.

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Originally Posted by Hiroradius

Now the turn 2 strat, that was found by people LOOKING for an exploit because they couldn't figure out how to pass the rot while dpsing while avoiding lazers, etc. These strategies will ALWAYS be found because people need to exploit it. AK, first boss, have the healer jump up into the tree and now you don't have to deal with the golems.. really? Dealing with the golems was what made the boss fight interesting, but people couldn't do it, because they had to take their focus off the boss and lower their dps so they wouldn't do it and the healer would wipe from healing agro.

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This is a sad but true statement, and what's even more depressing is the fact that a lot of these strategies take just as long to figure out as it would've taken to just master the normal strategies.With the upcoming support for addons this problem is only going to get worse because people will then be able to apply addons to show their dps and so the race to be top dps will only get more intense. Going to go with another ct example, just because I have to run ct so many times each week for gear, but the Vassago are one of the more fun examples of this. Groups tend to focus on their vassago and ignore napalms/balloons because they want to be the first group to down their vassago because, for some reason, being the first party to kill your vassago makes you look so impressive despite the fact that your party was responsible for a wipe or two in the attempt because you failed to kill the napalms that spawned at your side of the arena.

As is, being mediocre often requires just as much skill as actually being skilled which is a sad irony. A lot of these strategies were discovered by parties wiping over and over, trying and failing enough times to realize that the exploit exists or just spending an hour or two sneaking around in these areas because they wiped so many times that they've decided they can't do it the legit way so they need to find an exploit. These players then decide that they should tell a friend, who tells a friend, who posts it on youtube and the next thing you know everyone's doing it that way. It's like that idiot everyone knows at work who puts more effort into getting out of doing a task than it would've taken to just do the task, only that guy's usually not stupid enough to announce to the world that he's doing it. Unfortunately, SE's decision to support this behavior has only encouraged people to do it more and more, but they are the ones investing money and they're the ones at risk should the fan base start to wain. It's just too bad they don't realize that a lot of their fan base from FFXI actually enjoyed the challenge and that's a big part of the reason the game was so successful for so long. A rather large chunk of my friends who play FFXIV only still play it because, at the moment, there's not a lot of options on what to play MMO wise. Once something else comes out, pretty much anything else at this point, SE is going to lose a lot of it's less casual players.

There is an easy way to solve your problem OP. Find 7 friends who are as amazing as you and run every piece of content exclusively with them.

You will never have to deal with random people who stink ever again (unless you want to get some lol'z in CT).

I have to admit, it's really annoying to put together a group for the weekly EX primal quest and have "experienced" players join that can't deal with the most simple of mechanics. I've been in a Titan EX with an i90 DRG that got hit by every single WotL. I've done Garuda EX with i90 OT's that can't pull a twin when they spawn. And I've done Ifrit EX with i90 white mages that insist upon standing in the center with the dps when they have searing wind, and not understanding why the group is mad at them when we wipe.

I don't have a problem with people that use the Turn 2 enrage strat. I use it myself. If you can clear coil, regardless of how you do it, then you deserve the gear. Period. The problem comes when myth gear is on par with allagan, but is basically handed out for free. This, mixed with FC's selling EX primal runs, creates a population of players who can't clear content legitimately, that claims it can by lying about it's achievements and showing off the gear they "bought."

Since SE implemented the average ilevel system, that's what players use as a gauge for player skill. This doesn't work, however, because of what I mentioned above. If SE is going to continue to hand out top-tier gear for free, then there needs to be a different system in place for filtering out skilled players from un-skilled players when using the party finder. There is absolutely no reason to die 30 times on Titan every week because full i90 players do less than 100 dps while being unable to dodge WotL.

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Originally Posted by Hiroradius

Just an FYI, WoW is the game that started the whole dumbing down raids and handing gear and making it easily accessible for casual players. As soon as a new patch comes out, they always gave everyone a way of getting the previous level gear.

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I think he was specifically referring to their umm... "gamer level tiers" within a single content release.
That's how I took it anyway. As in they have Heroic dungeons for those casuals who want to pretend they aren't casual. And they leave raids for just raiders (prior to that duty finder raid system I heard about).

I agree with everything you said though. MMO developers no longer care about "how much money will this game make us in its life" they just care about "in the 1st 2 months how much money can we suck out of people before it tanks. Personally I'd rather make a game that nets me (as in if I was the sole person) 10k a month for the rest of my life and lets me never work again than one that gets me 200k in 1 month then dies so I have to work 3 years to make another one.

EQ and FFXI still turn a profit. That should say something. WoW makes its money off the casuals (and honestly they have excellent marketing. These days I would guess WoW is the gateway MMO of just about every "new" MMO player) But if you get on WoW and ask around just about every raid team loses over half their raid force over the course of a year. EQ you can log on and ask guilds and they still have like 35 people who have been in the guild for 10 years (personal experience) I imagine XI is the same way.

The next MMO developer who makes a MMO to truly replace EQ/XI will get basically every player from both those MMOs + a good chunk of retired people who no longer play MMOs because there aren't any good ones out. 14 is great but only in comparison to the other "modern" MMOs. If EQ releases a good expansion (last 2 sucked) I'd go back in a heart beat.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

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I'm sorry, I don't blame gear when they have minimal requirements for dungeons. I don't blame gear when dungeons are easily completed with full DL gear. I blame tanks who continuously eat double wheels from garuda without cd's. I blame dps who tunnel too much and fail to realize that wheel is coming as well. I blame tanks who fail to use cd's appropriately during incinerates from ifrit or healers who get players seared at middle before ifrit hellfires. When there are mechanics that can possibly one shot an i90 player, I don't blame the gear, I blame the players who thought that higher ilvl would make them gods. Being more geared lets you make up for the slack of other players. If you need gears to make up for slackers then, imo, that is carrying. So to me, gear doesn't raise your chances of success, it just raises your chances of not dying.


I also didn't start this thread, I was more of replying to all the people who just tell the OP to fuck off and mind his own business or to solely play with only people he knows. You can't help a community who refuses to listen to others whom state what the problems are, which have been brought up by multiple posts and multiple thoughts. It would be redundant to suggest solutions that are already mentioned.

If you remember in Beta, there were 2 topics of chat conversation.

1) Wow, I can't believe this game is so much easier then Final Fantasy 11.

2) This is a WoW clone.

Those were the conversations everyday.

Look at almost any mmo, the popular topic.. "This game reminds me of WoW.."

World of Warcraft redefined MMO's, just like Ultima, and Everquest, and Final Fantasy 11, but none were as profitable as WoW because WoW also went after the casual players and made them feel just as important as the hardcore raiders. Now games are either WoW clones with an added twist to try and seperate themselves from WoW, or just flat out fails.


What developers need to realize is this... It's great to have initial high figures, but usually the casual players who request the housing, and vanity and the haircuts and cry because dungeons are too hard or they can't beat the end game raid, are also the players who don't stick around very long. The hardcore raiders are the one's who usually keep playing the game. When a casual hits a point that is too hard, they quit the game, and come back in the next patch because what they hit that was too hard, they expect to be nerf'd.

Failures of FF14 that will make this game become an Aion, LOTRO, Rift, or similiar very soon.

1) Leveling was too easy and too fast. (Even now that's a huge complaint in WoW, you level your alts too fast)
2) Not enough end game content.
3) Nothing to strive for in game (everything is handed to you, and when something isn't handed people cry on the forums and then they hand it to you)
4) No reason for alts (why create an alt when one character can do everything)
5) Crafting system (since everyone can do everything, it takes away from the supply and demand aspect of the economy, if someone sees high potions are selling for 1k each, eveyrone switches to their alchemist and floods the market bringing them down to 5 gil each)
6) Fates... (Fates are suppose to be something you do to keep you interested in the game, not a focus point. Look at Rift, their fates are something that is a focus but not something you can do just that and nothing else.)

Final Fantasy 14 will most likely follow Aion, Rift, etc and become free to play, cash shop but since we know the japanense do not like this concept, it may not and instead just close down.

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Originally Posted by illuminapanic

gear doesn't raise your chances of success, it just raises your chances of not dying.

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What ? : D you fail by dying, so if the chance of not dying is increased, your change of failing will be lowered and change of success will raise. That statement of yours doesn't really make sense.

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Originally Posted by Yenn

A prime example.

I just attempted to kill Ultima on my tank.
An i88 tank said 'first time here, what do i have to do,' to which I responded 'Just taunt off me at 3 stacks and move out of things. Don't touch the glowing balls when they spawn,' and he said 'xD ok'
I start tanking, I get to 3 stacks, I said 'Okay take it.' He just keeps comboing, no attempt at taunting. Four stacks, I start spamming 'Taunt him' with sound effects. Nope. Five stacks, I Hallowed Ground and continue spamming. Nope. I die and then he moves into place, eats every ability, and dies.

This player should not have been able to obtain that much i90 gear, but it could, because you can get a full set just by logging in every week.

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Maybe you should have used game terminology that is actually in the game, and not a remnant of wow - the word is Provoke!

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Originally Posted by Samsta

What ? : D you fail by dying, so if the chance of not dying is increased, your change of failing will be lowered and change of success will raise. That statement of yours doesn't really make sense.

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I was going to put that in my argument but didn't feel I needed to. Just because you don't die doesn't mean you will necessarily win. There are lots of fights with dps checks and if you fail at those, you hit the enrage and will wipe. The only fight where you can survive the enrage, afaik, is turn 2 enrage. There are also fights with one shot mechanics regardless of gear and can take you out of the fight. Titan Ex is the most unforgiving. EX Garuda + Suparnas wicked wheel will pretty much 1 shot any tank without a cd and will definitly 1 shot anybody else that gets hit. Ifrit Ex, eruptions will kill you if you get hit by 2 of them at once, and plumes will kill you if you get hit by more than 1. These are stacked attacks that occur frequently.

For personal experience, I've been in a Titan EX where everybody dodged landslides and plumes (maybe got clipped by 1 or 2 without dying) but never got past heart phase. This was due to the lack of dps. We'd go through 2-3 rotations before switching phases. I've had Garuda Ex groups where they never killed the 2nd sister in time. An Ifrit Ex fight where we hit the enrage 5 times in a row. These were df groups with people of i80+. Actually, I've rarely been in a df or pf where people were below i80. Majority are primal/relic/myth/allagan geared.

I hate to bring up the same fights but these are the only content really that people are attempting on the regular.

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Originally Posted by Royze

Maybe you should have used game terminology that is actually in the game, and not a remnant of wow - the word is Provoke!

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if your going to try and sound smart.. At least do it right and don't pretend WoW invented MMOs.

Taunt has been around LONG LONG LONG before the abomination that is WoW ever saw the internet

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Originally Posted by Zarzak

Taunt has been around LONG LONG LONG before the abomination that is WoW ever saw the internet

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Haterz gonna hate.

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Originally Posted by Ishmachiah

Haterz gonna hate.

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Love the irony of that statement, given your signature. Both heretic and unclean are words often used by self righteous religious figures to discriminate against people who are of other religions or non religious, and the word mutant is often used negatively even though mutations are often natural and progressive for evolution. I dunno, maybe I just needed a good laugh today given the night I had last night, but this struck me as hilarious.

People will quote WoW, you might as well accept it. WoW is considered one of the Shakespeares of MMOs (holy crap, someone who knows who Shakespeare is), and for better or worse, people will be quoting it for years to come. Debating over lingo will not prove your point nor disprove your opposite, and as long as both people know what the definition of "provoke" and "taunt" are you're not going to misunderstand each other. That's like two people fighting because their accents are different, they can still clearly understand each other because they're able argue which leads to the suggestion that they're arguing for the sake of argument. Misquoting, now that's something else entirely.

You're point is valid, Illuminapanic, but what you seem to fail to understand is that a higher ilvl allows parties to make mistakes that they could not afford at lower levels. Where I once had issues healing people because of them being one-shot, I now have the chance to heal that person because they will often survive with a sliver of health. This allows us to make it further into the fight which, in return, allows us to get more practice for those parts that we couldn't otherwise reach successively enough to practice. Take titan hm for example, back when it was still fresh. People were constantly getting killed by plumes and it was exceedingly rare (still is rather rare) to make it past the heart phase because it was very common to have at least one dps die in the heart phase. Once my fc started running titan, with people who were all adequately geared, we were able to practice post heart combat and we can now four man phase 5. Ilvl has nothing to do with skill, I agree full heartedly, but it does help counter lack of skill by giving a small cusion which can often save a party from a wipe.

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

Love the irony of that statement, given your signature. Both heretic and unclean are words often used by self righteous religious figures to discriminate against people who are of other religions or non religious, and the word mutant is often used negatively even though mutations are often natural and progressive for evolution. I dunno, maybe I just needed a good laugh today given the night I had last night, but this struck me as hilarious.

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Glad you liked it.

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

People will quote WoW, you might as well accept it. WoW is considered one of the Shakespeares of MMOs (holy crap, someone who knows who Shakespeare is), and for better or worse, people will be quoting it for years to come.

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I called him out as a hater because he called a game I thoroughly enjoy, an abomination. I don't care what players call provoke or taunt. Just hold enmity.

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Originally Posted by Hiroradius

If you remember in Beta, there were 2 topics of chat conversation.

1) Wow, I can't believe this game is so much easier then Final Fantasy 11.

2) This is a WoW clone.

Those were the conversations everyday.

Look at almost any mmo, the popular topic.. "This game reminds me of WoW.."

World of Warcraft redefined MMO's, just like Ultima, and Everquest, and Final Fantasy 11, but none were as profitable as WoW because WoW also went after the casual players and made them feel just as important as the hardcore raiders. Now games are either WoW clones with an added twist to try and seperate themselves from WoW, or just flat out fails.


What developers need to realize is this... It's great to have initial high figures, but usually the casual players who request the housing, and vanity and the haircuts and cry because dungeons are too hard or they can't beat the end game raid, are also the players who don't stick around very long. The hardcore raiders are the one's who usually keep playing the game. When a casual hits a point that is too hard, they quit the game, and come back in the next patch because what they hit that was too hard, they expect to be nerf'd.

Failures of FF14 that will make this game become an Aion, LOTRO, Rift, or similiar very soon.

1) Leveling was too easy and too fast. (Even now that's a huge complaint in WoW, you level your alts too fast)
2) Not enough end game content.
3) Nothing to strive for in game (everything is handed to you, and when something isn't handed people cry on the forums and then they hand it to you)
4) No reason for alts (why create an alt when one character can do everything)
5) Crafting system (since everyone can do everything, it takes away from the supply and demand aspect of the economy, if someone sees high potions are selling for 1k each, eveyrone switches to their alchemist and floods the market bringing them down to 5 gil each)
6) Fates... (Fates are suppose to be something you do to keep you interested in the game, not a focus point. Look at Rift, their fates are something that is a focus but not something you can do just that and nothing else.)

Final Fantasy 14 will most likely follow Aion, Rift, etc and become free to play, cash shop but since we know the japanense do not like this concept, it may not and instead just close down.

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On the contrary the hardcore are usually the first to leave when they've finished their content. They tend to be considerably more picky about their content. Casuals typically stay around much, much longer but their cut-off point is when the game isn't fun anymore. That being said Casuals do live their online lives in a pro/con point where they will quit when the cost of the game specifically outweighs the fun they're having. As long as they're still having fun they will continue to pay for the account and stay around. Remove the fun, remove the player. Subscription MMOs can't survive on the 2% of the group that is actually hardcore and not the middle-of-the-pack players that assume they're hardcore because they got world #128 Twintania kill months after release. You need the casuals to keep paying for the game to get new content, so stop biting the hand that feeds you because you're a douche.

Also this is the second incarnation of this game. They already grabbed a bunch of subscribers and tanked the game in 2 months. They then rebuilt it to where it is now because that strategy isn't what they're after. They also stated well before 2.0 started that they had no interest in a free-to-play model.

As for your list of failures
1) Leveling shouldn't feel like a chore, which after your first or second class hitting 50 and running out of quests it definitely felt like a chore. It has a decent pace now.
2) This is a complaint on EVERY MMO, FFXIV is no different. Was just coil enough? No, which is why Crystal Tower was supposed to be ready at launch but was held up. New content should be out in the next month, and I'm of a mind that 6 months between content is acceptable. Any player that assumes an MMO is like a console game where once they hit 50 that EVERYTHING the game will ever have is available is just plain idiotic.
3) My Paladin is ilvl 88, my Warrior is (I think) 85, and my newly 50 Monk is 75. I worked my ass off for that and nothing was handed to me. The closest I may have to getting something handed to me was my Bravura where a LS on my server was giving away free Titan clears for Xmas, but even then I still pulled my weight to the best of my ability. I may not have been clearing coil the second week after release, but I still put in plenty of time and effort into my gear on my classes. Single-path gear progression is what gets a lot of games into trouble lately. "You need X to get Y to get Z" may have been acceptable in the past, but it's no longer acceptable on any MMO.
4) Alts are a personal preference, not something a game should ever require. You leveled alts on most games because you were bored. If you're too hung up about switching classes on one character instead of making a new one then that issue is all on you. I much prefer having just the one toon. Makes leveling alt classes easier with gear I collected in previous dungeons.
5) What you described is exactly how supply and demand is supposed to work. If there is a demand and you can supply it, then have at it. if the supply outweighs the demand then prices drop. Prices drop people stop making them and the supply dwindles but the demand doesn't. Prices go back up, rinse and repeat. The big issue is that demand is finite and in some cases zero. Any crafter on any server who actually believed that 2-star gear or anything using philo mats was going to be an endless money maker was deluded, naive, and completely misguided. You can't make a player want inferior gear, so the prices tanked but crafters still kept flooding the AH with HQ 2-star gear until it just stopped selling. Economies are fickle things, and I think the real danger to them are AH barons who play solely to make money cornering the market board and controlling prices.
6) FATEs are in the game, it's a sytem that's just not viable to ignore. It gets done what needs to be done and probably requires less memory. Add in that it's a stable source of experience once quests run out and you're waiting out a dungeon queue. Free money and seals doesn't hurt either.

I would like to share a scenario that happened to me on Titan HM,

My character was a Level 50 Paladin,Was acting DPS for my relic, Probably one notch undergeared, I watched video probably 5 times,
Wiped in P/U groups many times, and through the kindness of someone in my FC they gathered a proper group and we went in...
I made it all the way to the beginning of phase 5 and got taken out, so i'm watching and 30 secs another gets taken out and this happened down to 5 members left, their skill truely showed and I'm very grateful to them(They actually did it!)- so much so that at the very end I felt a little guilty.
It occured to me later that if I would have been resurrected once I would have made it, it also occured to me that I was doing quite well until phase 5, so with all these facts I would like Everyones opinion on this (especially Yenns),-I do plan on going back till I feel I've performed through the whole fight,do I deserve my relic or no?

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Originally Posted by Ishmachiah

I thoroughly enjoy, an abomination. I don't care what players call provoke or taunt. Just hold enmity.

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Enjoy it all you want it still destroyed MMOs and basically turned the false sterotype of gamers in the 90s into truth.

"gamers are all antisocial people who hide inside and never do anything"

pre WoW mmos? Jesus you had to socialize with at least 6-7 people every second you were online.. raids? fk 100+ people.

post WoW? *solos 1-lvl cap then sits in town until random preformed party for instanced dungeon pops and everyone rushes to finish it and get away from the other people in the party*

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Originally Posted by Zarzak

Enjoy it all you want it still destroyed MMOs and basically turned the false sterotype of gamers

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WoW did not bring out that stereotype, Everquest did. And I hate to bring this up, but even pre-WoW, socialising was optional. You could level from 1-cap without having to speak to anyone in every MMO, Including FFXI.

Beastmaster is a prime example of me not having not only not deal with people like you, I could enjoy the game and walk away with equally spectacular gear.

I am beginning to believe the primary complaint of the people who hate WoW is that they believe that they are god's gift to MMOs and how dare anyone tell them to go to h3ll or ignore them. Does it bruise your ego that I can outright ignore people like you and still have a good time?

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Originally Posted by Lyrro

You're point is valid, Illuminapanic, but what you seem to fail to understand is that a higher ilvl allows parties to make mistakes that they could not afford at lower levels. Where I once had issues healing people because of them being one-shot, I now have the chance to heal that person because they will often survive with a sliver of health. This allows us to make it further into the fight which, in return, allows us to get more practice for those parts that we couldn't otherwise reach successively enough to practice. Take titan hm for example, back when it was still fresh. People were constantly getting killed by plumes and it was exceedingly rare (still is rather rare) to make it past the heart phase because it was very common to have at least one dps die in the heart phase. Once my fc started running titan, with people who were all adequately geared, we were able to practice post heart combat and we can now four man phase 5. Ilvl has nothing to do with skill, I agree full heartedly, but it does help counter lack of skill by giving a small cusion which can often save a party from a wipe.

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Okay I just want to point something out.

You had healing issues because someone was getting one-shotted.. that isn't considered healing issues that is someone not getting out of danger zones in time, unless it was the tank.. and if it's the tank then that is the tank not popping the correct cooldown.

The catch is, now with the higher ilvl they have the gear to survive these mistakes with a sliver of hp left, so now instead you HAVE healing issues because that said person with better gear is still standing in danger zones or tank is not popping correct cooldowns and causing you to have to cover their mistakes. So now by you covering for their mistakes they continue to not learn and continue to make the said mistake, and then when you get to harder content because they haven't learned to avoid the danger properly they make it harder on the rest of the group to near impossible, and cause the rest of the group to have to play perfectly just to cover their inability to avoid danger.

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Originally Posted by Ishmachiah

WoW did not bring out that stereotype, Everquest did. And I hate to bring this up, but even pre-WoW, socialising was optional. You could level from 1-cap without having to speak to anyone in every MMO, Including FFXI.

Beastmaster is a prime example of me not having not only not deal with people like you, I could enjoy the game and walk away with equally spectacular gear.


I am beginning to believe the primary complaint of the people who hate WoW is that they believe that they are god's gift to MMOs and how dare anyone tell them to go to h3ll or ignore them. Does it bruise your ego that I can outright ignore people like you and still have a good time?

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Okay but now correct me if I'm wrong, but Beastmaster, didn't you have to level 2 jobs(yes you probably could have done it with one, but most people would not invite you into their leveling parties unless you had the proper subjob leveled) that you had to around level 13 or 14 group with people and interact with people to continue leveling before you had the ability to use beastmaster? AND to get past level 50, didn't you have to find people to help you do the genkai quests, say with 55, 60, etc..

If you take out the people part of an mmo, then your just playing Final Fantasy 12

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Originally Posted by Ishmachiah

I am beginning to believe the primary complaint of the people who hate WoW is that they believe that they are god's gift to MMOs and how dare anyone tell them to go to h3ll or ignore them. Does it bruise your ego that I can outright ignore people like you and still have a good time?

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I don't like WOW because WOW killed the genre. Now, you cannot "fail" your char (in some games, you had to put your stats yourself without any possible reset, same goes for your skill tree), levelling was mostly grinding, but you had to build a decent char and do it with a group. Now, a "raid" is X people. Not X-1 or X+1, but X. In some games, crafting was a REAL job, and levelling it was hard (or expensive) but rewarding. Geez. I could continue for a week. I don't dislike the "new" MMO's, I just dislike Blizzard for killing a genre.

For the OP, please uninstall. Please do it, I'm tired to have this kind of players. I don't mind to wipes 50 times, I REALLY apologize when I fail but if some people are just wanting to play, let them play. Do you do any sport ? Are you really trying to become a pro and train a few hours every day ? You probably don't, then don't ask to some players to "improve". Just ignore them, play with your friends.

About stuff, I usualy check the stuff. And we created linkshells to complete groups. OMG, LINKSHELLS ARE NOT USELESS !!!!!

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Originally Posted by Alcyon1

I don't like WOW because WOW killed the genre. Now, you cannot "fail" your char (in some games, you had to put your stats yourself without any possible reset, same goes for your skill tree), levelling was mostly grinding, but you had to build a decent char and do it with a group. Now, a "raid" is X people. Not X-1 or X+1, but X. In some games, crafting was a REAL job, and levelling it was hard (or expensive) but rewarding. Geez. I could continue for a week. I don't dislike the "new" MMO's, I just dislike Blizzard for killing a genre.

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You've basically just argued the OP's point and then told him you were tired of people like him and asked him to stop playing. If you're going to post, at least do so in a manor that supports your own argument. In FFXIV you are allowed to make mistakes as often as you want, you don't need to build a decent char because as it stands, options for gear buffs are so limited that the only possible way your character could turn out badly is if you suck, because in the end you can always just turn around and reset your points and practice. The problem is, the only remotely challenging thing left in this game is t5 which is about to be nerfed anyways with 2.2. Even the worst of players can finish 99% of the game's content as long as they're able to spam 1,2,3 in that order and so many pugs can't even pull that off.

Sports require much more intense training than anything in this game, so that comparison falls flat simply for the fact that sports can take years to master while most of the content in this game can be mastered in minutes-an hour. That said, why should it be that the answer to people not wanting to take that few minutes be to nerf the game to the point that most of it can be played (and I've done it) without even looking at your screen? Rather than encouraging players to get better at the game, SE has taken a strong standing toward catering to players who don't want to try, which will inevitably lead to a game that is rated T but can be easily beaten by a five year old.

Your argument about always playing with friends falls flat simply for the fact that pugs exist. If people always had friends online to play with and who wanted to do all of the same things at the same time then there would be no need for duty finder or party finder.