Why is FFXIV considered to be so hard/hardcore?

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Originally Posted by Altena

Difficulty is subjective. That is why some people would consider it hard, while others consider it easy.
There are also many elements that require quite a lot of grind, which is why some would consider it reasonably "hardcore".

I think you are over-inflating people's opinions of this game however. I haven't seen any comments saying that it is the hardest MMO on the market..

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Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content. SCOB and EX Trials (Titan & Ramuh) are actually on the higher end of difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Edli

I'm not saying FFXI is easy, just that being good at FFXI doesn't automatically makes you good at FFXIV. They're different.

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FFXI in a nutshell: knows your jobs and its abilities, do have macros, be quick with status removal, and your stunner better be on top of things, and by the love of god, you better have up to date gears, merited correctly, and eat the right kind of food. Everything else in the game - you do nothing much, no dodging, no perfectly synchronized mechanic, no paying attention to bunch of mechanics happening at the same time. It's easy peasy if you pass all the checks above. Occasionally you must kite, or people need to watch their auto attack and not be a retard, and your team mate must dispel stuffs ASAP. But overall the game play consist of stun the deadly TP moves, be fast with hitting your macro for status removal and cures, as for the rest - just spams your WS and Job Abilities (really no different than FF14, our JAs is mere seconds, FFXI JAs are minutes). There may be a few of these: kill mobs at the same time, kill mobs with specific job abilities, kill mobs with one type of damage, kill mobs with elemental damage, mobs with weakness to certain type of damage at certain phases of their HP, etc.

You wipe if your teammates are under geared, your whm is too slow, and your support jobs don't do their rotation well. As for melee DD, just auto attack, spam your WS when its ready, and in the off chances, please try to skill chain with your other teammates. Ridiculously easy to be honest playing as melee DD. Hence FFXI is now suffering from the lack of Bard, White Mage, Stun Scholar, and well geared Paladin, everyone wants to play DPS. No different than in here, just less dodging and less one hit kill or dance-a-thon mechanic to watch out.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

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I agree. On past MMOs the challenge was in rotation and gear. On XIV gear sometimes doesn't really matter all that much. You're a tank with 12k hp, big deal, you get hit by landslide and the fight is over. Your strength is through the roof? A lack of concentration for a moment and you trapped everyone on conflagration. It doesn't matter how well geared everyone is on these fights, it takes one out of 8 to do one mistake and the fight is over. I've been playing MMOs for ages and these kind of fights were new to me. So reliant on moving around and so reliant for all party members to not mess a single time from start to finish. You cannot do these kind of fights with random pugs.

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content.

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It is. Overall the game as a whole is easy as hell but OP was talking about coil and some of the primal ex.

TL;DR, only up to 6th page

Personally, I don't think people are actually bad or not skillful.

So from what I have observed, I asked those who gets killed by dodge-able aoe attacks, most of them says they get hit even they are out of the aoe area, or they described that how short the time frame it actually is for them to react. (Yes apparently, laggy people sees AoEs later than everyone, which also makes it shorter for them to actually react, or even no time to react, confirmed myself by updating 5 steam games simultaneously while doing titan EX)

But of course lag issue can be easily fixed, but thing is...:

1. People fail to acknowledge that they are lagging and causing wipes
2. Misconception of fixing internet = paying more money (and is a sensitive subject for some)
3. Lack of knowledge on possible ways to optimize their connection to the server
4. Refuse to fix the issue or research about it for various reason

Sorry for double posting, but 1000 characters is not enough.

So I wanted to add that... Surprisingly, players in FFXIV lacks some kind of flexibility to react in certain unexpected scenarios, rendering them unable to react to most special situations which may save a wipe or two in this game. To be honest, I am against the fact that people are relying on videos, it's a bad influences, it's causing people to only know how to "read from the book" instead of reacting to the current situation. Videos are not a bad thing, but it should never be used as a strict guidelines and be followed 100% flawlessly.

I think you may have mistaken may statement, quoting just that line puts it out of context.

I actually consider myself a casual player I haven't even completed Turn 6 or touched the expert dungeons or Rahmuh EX yet because I don't have time, i don't think i'm the best player in the whole world either but I have played games for about 25 years and I know the difference between a hardcore game and an easy one, I was simply stating that the only things that might be difficult are the unforgiving mechanics which dont leave room for casual players, because they don't have the time to do the same instance over and over and over until they are familiar with the mechanics. I think my mistake was putting Casual and Lazy in the same sentence as they are 2 very different types of players which these potential difficulties would affect.

I would guess most of the players here are just not used to these kind of battle mechanics at all.... If you are FF11 hardcore, most likely you will hate this as DDs (let's face it, the majority of FF11 players are DPS...). Here skills, quickness, alertness, paying attention, working together as a team, TRUMPS everything else. Going in with ME and my biggest EPEEN DPS ever and so freaking elite to the max gears ala FFXI means jack squat. The game does not give a shart on your e-peen damage, only how fast your reaction (and your internet connection) and how well you work together as a team (and memorizing pattern).

It's just different type of game mechanic. Here you can get clear after you get used to the mechanic and anticipating the moves. Once you get that, the battle is much easier and less prone to massive wipe. Watching video helps to give you a better understanding of what will be going on, but it's just that, until you experience it, it only helps to a degree. FF14 definitely has two part of the game. The casual easy breezy somewhat solo offline RPG for the major storyline with a few online components and then the after level 50 - which is more endgame theme park with dungeon rides where you need to get used to the mechanics. From easy walk in the park to other more difficult content.

I do have a big huge problem with the Hunt system though - it's extremely good reward wise that is absolutely destroying the other game contents. It is a fertile breeding ground to "gear everyone" ASAP and does not really help to foster skillful players. This Hunt was suppose to be casual things you do while you wait for other stuffs, and not become the only reasons to play... It's disheartening that SE has not giving us any fixes in regards to the Hunt.

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So many people consider Coil to be impossible to get a group for and incredibly difficult. People struggle on extreme primals for months... Etc.. Etc..

Personally I have never understood it, nor have I seen an MMO community with this kind of fear of the content.

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That's mostly because a huge part of FFXIV players are casual players (especially in Japan).

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Actually, has anyone cleared savage 2nd coil? Gee maybe if it dropped something nice maybe if it was actually interesting and more than recycled overtuned content,more people would attempt it

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Fixed

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Originally Posted by Kazama

Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content.

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Nope. WoW is easily much easier than FFXIV in those 2 categories. You can also get a character to max lvl with real cash. So no, FFXIV is not the easiest (nor the hardest) MMO on the market.

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Originally Posted by Rainsworth

Nope. WoW is easily much easier than FFXIV in those 2 categories. You can also get a character to max lvl with real cash. So no, FFXIV is not the easiest (nor the hardest) MMO on the market.

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This is a whole debate by itself, however, in FFXIV I don't think there was ever a quest(other than dungeons or something related to that matter) where you needed another person's help. At least in WoW you had group quests, and WoW most definitely has more open world content than FFXIV does.

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Originally Posted by Ampheni

To be honest, I am against the fact that people are relying on videos, it's a bad influences, it's causing people to only know how to "read from the book" instead of reacting to the current situation. Videos are not a bad thing, but it should never be used as a strict guidelines and be followed 100% flawlessly.

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Your second sentence is exactly what videos are for. Knowing visually what to watch out for is often more helpful than reading a description of it (subjective). Videos are only there to show you what the boss is going to do. They may have tips on how to handle each mechanic, but anyone treating them as gospel is doing it wrong. The player still needs to know how to adapt. I do not understand why people in this game are so against researching mechanics (that's all a video is). /Rant

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Originally Posted by Priya

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I feel the same way. Getting informed of the fight really speeds up things, and I really don't understand the "I want to go in blind" people, because unless you're making a blind PF, you're only relegating responsibility to someone else in the group.

At the same time, people that treat videos like gospel are just as bad, because inflexibility will get you killed. A good adventurer is someone who not only know how to deal with a mechanic, but also know how a mechanic works and why they deal with it that way, because that grants flexibility and a chance to recover if things go wrong.

As much as I'm grateful for people like Mrhappy who post guides on youtube, we have to treat those guides with a grain of salt. They're there for information, and nothing more. Him saying "this is how my group handled it" and you doing it the same way expecting the same results will oftentimes not happen, because they are some of the best players in this game, and your group does not have that skill level. Videos are there to get informed, but as far as strategies, that's up to your group to discuss, and that's where the social aspect comes in. Being knowledge-blind to the "why" of mechanics and handling something a certain way because "mrhappy said so" will only get you so far.

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Originally Posted by Odett

I feel the same way. Getting informed of the fight really speeds up things, and I really don't understand the "I want to go in blind" people, because unless you're making a blind PF, you're only relegating responsibility to someone else in the group.

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From a personal, more subjective standpoint:
Have you ever run a new dungeon with an entire group of people who didn't know what to expect? It's an incredible amount of fun and for that first (and maybe only) run the game doesn't feel so heavily scripted. Flexibility, improvisation and skill are most important instead of being a slave to routine. The first run through Stone Vigil HM, the appearance of a second Giruveganaus while we were trying to figure out how the first one worked instantly killed two players in our party. We actually managed to win that battle (yay SMN battle rez!), but it was touch and go for a little bit and that was far more exciting than it is now where the only danger is falling asleep from boredom. People want to go in blind to experience that exhilaration and the surprise of the reveal.

From an objective standpoint:
The game tells players to sign themselves up in Duty Finder and defeat X. It doesn't say, "Look up a video or read a guide, then register for Duty Finder." When I started playing I never said I was new because... well, because why? I don't know if it's standard MMO practice or not because this is my first MMO, but I will say it's completely reasonable for players to stay quiet about doing something the first time, or not understand/wanting to watch a video of a dungeon before they do it because nothing in-game states otherwise and FFXIV is designed so that everything but Coil + EX primals (give or take a Levi) can be beaten totally blind. Now I will say if I'm new to content, just so nobody goes ballistic in the midst of an instance but I still won't look up a guide. The one time I did, for Twintania, it made things worse because the group I was in was doing it differently from the video and I was stuck with trying to reconcile what we were doing in-game with what I watched online. It made things much harder and the video only ended up hindering me.

Ultimately, it all comes down to player skill. I've seen first-timers do really well in endgame content with hardly any explanation, and I've seen first-timers with paragraphs of clarification or explanations via voice-chat fail utterly. A bad player that watches a video is still a bad player.

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Originally Posted by Eclipsed

Please give me a fight where you can't... Lodestone me... I have raided as every job except healers in this game...

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Ever been to T8 savage?
How about dealing with 4 bio-towers(with RANDOM placements and a new tower that lowers everyones hp by about 20%), 2 allagan fields, ballistic missiles that push everyone out of the circles first(except the target ofc) and a dread that cant be tanked near the boss ALL AT THE SAME TIME

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Originally Posted by Wizhard

Ever been to T8 savage?

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No one likes wasting time, though.

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Originally Posted by Taruranto

No one likes wasting time, though.

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Believe it or not, people that raid for fun, still exist.

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Originally Posted by Charisma

Believe it or not, people that raid for fun, still exist.

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Yes, people raid every night the same raid, for years, for "fun".

Sure, sure. *wink*wink*

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Originally Posted by Taruranto

Yes, people raid every night the same raid, for years, for "fun".

Sure, sure. *wink*wink*

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Well the fact that there are people out there trying to beat savage proves you wrong wink wink wink

There are plenty of games that do not have carrots. Why do people play them according to you?

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Originally Posted by Edli

Well the fact that there are people out there trying to beat savage proves you wrong wink wink wink

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Some people like wasting time and do everything SE tells them, yeah

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There are plenty of games that do not have carrots. Why do people play them according to you?

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These games are not mmorpg.

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Originally Posted by Taruranto

Some people like wasting time and do everything SE tells them, yeah



These games are not mmorpg.

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You're trying a little to hard brah, Bottom line, some people do not think the same way you do. Let it go.

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Originally Posted by Taruranto

These games are not mmorpg.

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Why does that matter, like at all? A game is a game and people play it for fun. People play games for the challenge.

As for some people liking wasting time. If you want to be technical every game is a waste of time. You think you're making good use of your time by farming for myth all day? C'mon now. I have a feeling the guys that are trying to beat savage are having more fun than you who is trying to play for the carrot only. At the end of the day this is just entertainment and not work. Either nobody or everyone is wasting their time, depends on how you look at it. The question is who's having fun.

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Originally Posted by givemeraptors

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I am not talking about dungeons because a 4 person fight takes no more than one minute to type. Anyone can go in blind and I will be more than glad to explain it, or not if they want to experience it blind because they're easy fights anyway. If someone refuses to explain a four person fight to you, then they suck as people :D

Explanation of Stone Vigil HM last boss: "The bosses don't have an agro table and no aoe markers, so try to dodge accordingly. I would also always try to stay away from their front, and they will also do a tail swipe." See? Easy to explain, digest, and even if people die, that thing can be 2 manned or even 1 manned by a BRD.

Explanation of T5: Kill ads, then on Twintania. If you get a fireball (red triangle), go on soak team (soak team will consist of bla bla bla), if you get conflag (blue triangle)go inside twintania. Kill conflag. If you have fireball while conflag is up, go inside conflag. Ok, now Divebombs. Stack on the bottom ditch. As soon as you see green circle on someone, run to top, then back down. Do this 2 more times. If you get hit by a divebomb, wait until after the next one to rejoin your team. Then get 3 snakes will spawn. Get the small ones (Hygegas) to ~60% (or whatever your group strategy is), then focus on Asclepius for the time being. Ok, now 3 more Divebombs. Now go near middle, kill all Hygegas before focusing fire Asclepius. When Twintania descends, get inside a neurolink to soak up the damage from the attack she's doing. Ok, now, Twisters and Dreadknights. Focus target her, if you see that she's casting twister, start running to a position that you and other players were originally not in, avoid crossing paths with other players. Ok, now dreadknights, stun/slow it, kill it fast while avoiding twisters. Ok now last phase, OT will soak up Hatches, but bait Liquid Hells to the edges of the arena. 'K, that's it."

See the difference in the length of the explanation? I do not expect anyone to take up all that info and execute it for the fight if they've never even seen it before. If you watch a video, you're saving someone the time of typing all that, as well as knowing what things will LOOK like, which will put you at a step higher in terms of survivability.

You mentioned that watching a T5 video made things worse because your group was using a different strategy than the video. That's not what watching videos is for. You watch a video so you can be informed about a fight. However your group handles a mechanic is up to the group, if you're watching videos to choreograph what the players are doing, then you're doing it wrong. You watch a video so you know what a divebomb is, what a conflag is, what a fireball is, what a twister is....and so on, as well as what they look like instead of going "wtf was that thing that killed me??"

Yes, a bad player that watches a video is still a bad player, but, not many bad players watch videos in the first place. You think that the guy that says "don't tell me how to play my job" when they're not DPSing, mitigating damage/holding agro, or healing correctly will watch a video? I highly doubt that.

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Originally Posted by Barimu

This is a whole debate by itself, however, in FFXIV I don't think there was ever a quest(other than dungeons or something related to that matter) where you needed another person's help. At least in WoW you had group quests, and WoW most definitely has more open world content than FFXIV does.

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Group quests are now soloable in WoW. WoW has more open world content than FFXIV because it's 10 years old. I assume that open world group content will come back in WOD but as of right now, you can solo your way to lvl 90. The age of hardcore gaming is no more (well almost no more) and both Blizzard and SE know that way too well.

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Originally Posted by Rainsworth

Group quests are now soloable in WoW. WoW has more open world content than FFXIV because it's 10 years old.

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Even when WoW started, it had more open world content than FFXIV. I prefer FFXIV to WoW any day, but in terms of open world, WoW is has been undisputed.

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Originally Posted by Odett

Even when WoW started, it had more open world content than FFXIV. I prefer FFXIV to WoW any day, but in terms of open world, WoW is has been undisputed.

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10 years ago the market was a bit different from today too. LFG and battlegrounds didn't exist until later.

Nothing in this game gives me even the slightest bit of thrill that I still get from hearing this song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEOLbjMdQhc

A decade later and it still gives me chills. Theme park rides are cute... but there has to be "more".

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Originally Posted by ToffeeCoffee

The o
One week you might 1-shot T6, 7 or 8 and the next week spend 4 or 5 hours stuck on one turn because 2 or more members of your static couldn't make it to the raid.

2nd Coil in and of itself isn't actually hard, I'm more than competent with Turn 6-8 but I just refuse to bother revolving my life around a dysfunctional static in the middle of the night, or joining a PUG group where my DPS and skill rotations get critiqued by a bunch of elitists. I'd rather join a practice group and help players who actually appreciate it.

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You don´t mention T9 once but you say that Coil 2 istn hard at all. How can you know? Yes, T9 is easier than pre-nerf T5 back then but still nice of a challenge to get used to it, especially the last phase took us a bit

That music is a combination of creepy, mystery, scary, adventure-y, and epic-y!

Y'know, I always wanted Everquest 2 to be the next EQ because I was too young to experience EQ. I think I was 10 or 11 when I "heard" of EQ.

When another EQ was announced, I thought they were going back to EQ roots but it ended up being a free to play lame building game like Minecraft.

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Originally Posted by Electrowitch

You don´t mention T9 once but you say that Coil 2 istn hard at all. How can you know? Yes, T9 is easier than pre-nerf T5 back then but still nice of a challenge to get used to it, especially the last phase took us a bit

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I didn't mention T9 because I've never done it. My static fell to pieces (4 people quit) and I was sick of staying up til 2am on work nights waiting on late people and PUGs who didn't work out. T9 isn't the entire 2nd Coil you know, are you more leet than me for clearing it? Here's a cookie http://a.deviantart.net/avatars/m/a/...e-cookie.gif?2. I'm sure most statics who do T9 every week will tell you it's easy.

I don't know, why do people have difficulty killing Garrosh on normal every week? Why do people have difficulty sealing at least 5 rifts on Heroic Sha of Pride? What's so difficult to understand about needing to be assaulting the boss instead of padding meters on adds if you don't have 3 stacks of a debuff from attacking the boss? Why is it so difficult to coordinate an interrupt or raid cooldown rotation? Why don't people remember to use healthstones?

Why are there people who will never even experience this level of gameplay that is easily achieved, but have difficulty completing a raid on the easiest level of 5 different difficulties?

It's a mystery. I mean if you ask me a lot of relevant content in FFXIV is about not falling asleep while you wait for something relevant to happen.

I find that many of the encounters are not very complex at all, but mistakes are just very punishing.

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Originally Posted by Barimu

The only addon I agree with really is to change your HUD how you want it DBM you should not need that defeats the purpose and the game pretty much plays for you, npc scan is cheesy addons ruin mmos.

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To each their own. They might ruin them for you, but they improve them for me.

Good thing they are optional, huh?

When I started playing the game I was kind of upset there were no addons, like WoW. Now I'm kind of glad.

Addons make your like easier way too much.

Unlock your achievements on loadstone so we can see how swiftly you cleared this super easy content!

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Originally Posted by Raminax

This line reminds me of the Hot Heart of Magic/Shining Statue of Siel in Aion. *sniff* Oh, the pain.

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This.

(10 chars)

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Originally Posted by FritoBandito

To each their own. They might ruin them for you, but they improve them for me.

Good thing they are optional, huh?

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No, they actually don't improve them for you. Addons allow the community to start becoming bad. Having to rely on addons to play a game is a terrible way to want to play a game. Do you really need an addon telling you when a boss ability is coming? No, you don't, just pay attention to the fight. You don't need a single addon other than a HUD change to improve the game for you.

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Originally Posted by FritoBandito

To each their own. They might ruin them for you, but they improve them for me.

Good thing they are optional, huh?

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No. The game is easy enough. Are you that bad of a player?

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Originally Posted by Electrowitch

You don´t mention T9 once but you say that Coil 2 istn hard at all. How can you know? Yes, T9 is easier than pre-nerf T5 back then but still nice of a challenge to get used to it, especially the last phase took us a bit

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To be honest, certain instances that my friends find hard I find a breeze - Titan Ex before the Echo was my absolute favorite and I never had difficulties in it after I practiced and cleared (all in DF) many times. My friends to this day, will not touch it because they think it's hard. I think what ToffeeCoffee is pointing out that if you have the accessibility/chance to practice/try at any instance without restrictions, you WILL get to a point where the instance becomes "easy to you/second nature" and that the ONLY difficulty we face at the moment is having the LACK of accessibility to freely practice in DF.

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Originally Posted by PrimeEvilPanda

To be honest, certain instances that my friends find hard I find a breeze - Titan Ex before the Echo was my absolute favorite and I never had difficulties in it after I practiced and cleared (all in DF) many times. My friends to this day, will not touch it because they think it's hard. I think what ToffeeCoffee is pointing out that if you have the accessibility/chance to practice/try at any instance without restrictions, you WILL get to a point where the instance becomes "easy to you/second nature" and that the ONLY difficulty we face at the moment is having the LACK of accessibility to freely practice in DF.

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If thats what he was pointing out then i got it wrong and i agree

Final Fantasy isn't known for this type of system.

Even previous Final Fantasy were considered "difficult" simply due to the end bosses, especially optional end bosses, having a ridiculous amount of HP.

Now that some skill is required on top of that high HP value it's to be expected. The people playing FFXIV ARR aren't on average MMO raiding vets.

The only difficulty about XIV at the moment is the gimmick. Once you have mastered the gimmick, the rest becomes cake.

And so there is faux difficulty involved. Because some people, as you would expect, NEVER understand the gimmick.