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

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Originally Posted by Ragecake

Respect lost to the OP AND the translator and those who agree with this post.

I'm not even sorry.

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No one is sorry you don't respect them really

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Originally Posted by Ragecake

I love how you apologize like you're being hurtful.

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It's called being polite

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Originally Posted by Ragecake

LEARNING?

What is there to learn in a tank and spank?

WHAT!?

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Aiatar (Brayflox story mode) is a tank and spank fight. Yet there are a few gimmicks to know (OMG poison pools, gotta move)

On a certain extent, Ultima is also a tank and spank. HM version has a tank swap, and there are a few things to dodge, but mostly you just hit a dummy while some shit happens around. Especially in the phase with no primal power.

Tank and spank isn't necessarily a joke. Mobs usually hit really hard and you have to keep up with tanking, healing and dealing enough dps to get the shit done before no mp/CDs left. And at equal gear the fight remains hard no matter how many time you did it.

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Originally Posted by Litre

Ya I don't agree with the OPs suggestions, but the issues he brought up are too true to ignore. We are going to bleed players to Wildstar and the likes unless we do something to appease the casual/mainstream players stuck on Titan or whatever. Making content more accessible over time through something more comprehensive than just echo buffs is a start.

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from what I can see, wildstar is trying to become "the most hardcore raid game ever" with..... only insta death mechanics. FFXIv has nothing to worry about losing people bored of the system to wildstar

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Originally Posted by Kuroyasha

Overall I disagree with the OP. I like the mechanics-driven fights. I like learning the dance, and dealing with a little randomness here and there. I liked finally getting titan ex with a grp of people in an LS who also wanted to get it down no matter how many times they wiped at first. Not saying the game cant improve, i just dont think OP's suggestions would improve it. But alas, i do not feel like writing an essay on the matter. So I bid you adieu.

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Ya I don't agree with the OPs suggestions, but the issues he brought up are too true to ignore. We are going to bleed players to Wildstar and the likes unless we do something to appease the casual/mainstream players stuck on Titan or whatever. Making content more accessible over time through something more comprehensive than just echo buffs is a start.

This is the most well thought-out post I have read on these forums, and while I still enjoy the game much, I believe the OP is correct.

Something has always felt off to me about these save-or-die mechanics. The inability to compensate for weakness or recover outright feels minimal, and the ilvl can feel very pointless compared to the mechanics. Echo and Titan EX is proof of this.

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Originally Posted by Litre

Ya but people hitting a roadblock, then playing less and less because they're frustrated and see no way around that roadblock is exactly the problem we're trying to address. And it sounds like you have personal experience with that, so in cases like this I rather these players see something on the horizon that lets them know that eventually, at their skill level they will be able to clear that content.

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That I agree with and I stated it in the start of this thread that one of the ways to address this issue is to simply make separate content as long as it gets released evenly and consistently with the other content.

I simply stated my personal experience because I know I can cope with it but I agree expecting others to do so as well, since money is involved, wont work out so well. There's no consistent gain but constant delay in trying to address that demograph of players.

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Originally Posted by Litre

It might take a bit more work (ATMA farming, farming gil for better gear/materia, etc) but eventually! Right now there is no light at the end of the tunnel for these guys, and they'll leave, there's plenty of MMOs out there, but I don't want to see FFXIV fail. Now with the JP post the OP translated, seeing the agreement and constructive arguments here, I have a renewed sense of optimism, that heck if we're making a big deal out of this on both sides of the pacific, maybe they'll listen.

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Yeah there isn't. There's many ways to address this easier but the issue will always arise that those "hardcore" players and especially "elitist" are not gonna enjoy seeing casual and mainstream players get loot because they don't deem that they deserve it and it's an impossible issue to tackle because they wont compromise. As far as I've noticed the majority end up agreeing with "get good or take a hike" and that's a bad mentality to have since it kills communities.

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Originally Posted by Litre

And once again we're not asking for drastic changes, we are asking for a balancing of some mechanics, "mechanics" that insta-kill now should still be "mechanics" that insta-kill now, but one day with proper gear they "won't insta-kill". So maybe they become auto-dodgable, or when you have a certain iLvl they should do 25% less damage/knockback whatever. If casual players knew that, they would be a lot more eager to reach that iLvl/dodge skill and try again.

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One of the simplest solutions would be to have some way to "nerf" bosses or "buff" a group.

As an example lets say that in turn 6 there were 2 paths which the group can take instead of going straight for Rafflesia. 1 of them buffs the group, akin to giving echo. The other you simply block the bee's from appearing or there's a way to get Rafflesia to lose those devour stacks.

The downside is that it take time as one would need to deviate from the path to go tackle those optional objectives and they only last for a certain amount of time. Aside from taking longer to start the boss fight you also get penalized by losing a piece of loot in the process.

Yet I doubt this idea will swing. Since those hardcore will feel like gear is being handed to bad players. Yet it's just an idea to try and address the issue. Sadly there needs to be a way to get "hardcore" and especially "elitist" to come to terms in agreeing with something justifiable.

Ya there's a whole other thread about it - titan and echo, it's a wonder why a moderator hasn't added something yet given the attention this is getting. If they added echo to help players through itI think they're already seeing the flaw in that.

The OP resonated with me the most because of this: "In other MMOs I loved helping my friends and guildmates clear older content, I wanted them to catch up and enjoy the new content with me, and as I started the game I was helped by many extremely nice players too!"

I wanted to show them lots of fun content, and I definitely didn't like seeing them getting stuck, frustrated or quit. But now in FFXIV there is some content that is just so difficult to help others clear! Like it'd be ok if 4 really good players could compensate for 4 casual/average players, but if I need to find 6-7 people just to carry a couple players through? Not everyone has that kind of time! It's easy to see why it has created a toxic community.

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Originally Posted by Litre

what we are saying is that even that content should be doable EVENTUALLY by players that are simply unable to dodge every mechanic.

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I think eventually it will be. Yoshida had said before that he wants players to be able to move on to the newer contents, but probably he wants it at a controlled pace? :confused:

I feel that a certain degree of balance will be good. While I do welcome more players to pass coil1 and enter coil2, but I do hope that they reach coil2 with some basic lessons learnt. Look around the forums, enough of threads complaining about bad players. I can't imagine Yoshida blindly pushes through say 90% of the player base into coil2... Probably every hour you will see a new thread complaining about bad players in coil2 :(

I get the sense that things will get nerfed down in a gradual pace. Looking back at some of the oldest content since 2.0 - AK for example. With higher level gears more accessible and high level players entering via roulette, it is some form of a soft nerf to what was one of the toughest dungeons back in 2.0. A further nerf by removing the bees from Demon Wall made the fight a full pushover.

Things like echo, combined with high voltage nerf really made T2 another pushover fight. Most things are quite nerfed down as it is, there might be further nerfs in the future if data still shows that a significant amount of players are stuck there. I don't think the development team would want to see players stuck there forever either, but probably like I've said earlier, they didn't want them to go past them easily to the point that they learnt nothing, and suddenly got a shock when they reached coil2 which is the real deal. The same kind of shock when new players reaching Brayflox NM and Stone Vigil and then, Garuda NM - which is a great spike in difficulty. Not only players may feel disheartened and also possibly subjected to verbal abuses by other players who got there before the nerf.

All in all I think there is a rationale behind the amount of nerf applied. I'm not Yoshida thou so that's as much as I could conjecture here. But it's a fact that there is a lot of things that have been nerfed down with Twintania and Titan EX as the final placeholder.

I find it a good thing that the devs hasn't overly nerfed them yet - because these fights does teach players a couple of things. Landslide still serves as a reminder that coil 2 will have things you need to note. Like for example - Cursed Voice - both landside and cursed voice have a significant amount of time before it is actually triggered, and if you don't handle it it's easily gone case for you. Divebombs is some sort of a repeated mechanic in T9 and it also reminds you about stacking, which again stacking is part of Titan EX's strategy and also for T6's Acid Rain. Some of these things really taught me well and prepared me for future contents - I'm somewhat glad that they aren't nerfed down too fast.

It is not that I am an elitist and doesn't want people to pass thru content so I feel like a special snowflake, but from a more objective point of view, what good does it do, really? Maybe players feel satisfied when clearing content, which is undoubtedly true, but again if they are clearing it mindlessly without learning things and ended up facing current contents with a steeper than intended difficulty spike, what would happen? I guess some of them would come to forums to lament about the crazy difficulty of coil2 although it shouldn't be that bad if they did learn something or coil2 players coming to forums to lament about the influx of bad players etc. Both are not a good thing to me. :(

I don't think gear needs to be handed down to bad players, there are many ways to make even second coil accessible, but that won't need to be addressed for a while. But yes in general, more creative solutions need to be made to address accessibility of content, instead of just, give them an echo boost! Which failed spectacularily, give them gear progression paths that take longer but do eventually make it possible to clear the content.

I think the hardcore should always get the best gear of course, the other players just need to wait, and when they get access to that gear, the hardcore should be at the next tier. Totally fine, anyone arguing that is going into the whole "I paid for this so I should get everything" entitlement argument, which is just not how MMOs work. But I am of the belief that most casual/mainstream players understand this and don't care if they have the best gear, as long as they have something to aim for and a concrete path to follow.

Ooshima, totally agree, pacing is key, hard content should stay hard for a long time, if that content ever becomes nerfed to a certain point it's accessible by mainstream players there must be something just as hard and exciting to replace it for the hardcore players. Coil 2 ya should not be nerfed for a while.

It's just that Titan EX has been around for months and is unnecessarily frustrating, I just hate to see FFXIV lose players because of it.

One thing that begs to be reiterated, there are players that will NEVER clear Primals EX, second coil, or even turn 5 before echo at their skill level. But I respect them, they have jobs, or are new to MMOs, or both so they don't have the time to be good at games. Many of us grew up playing games so it's unfair to say "just practice" some may like the challenge others won't find it fun at all. They will always progress behind the rest of us players, beating content at the eased difficulty, and so things need to be balanced properly and at a proper pace.

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Originally Posted by Litre

I don't think gear needs to be handed down to bad players, there are many ways to make even second coil accessible, but that won't need to be addressed for a while. But yes in general, more creative solutions need to be made to address accessibility of content, instead of just, give them an echo boost! Which failed spectacularily, give them gear progression paths that take longer but do eventually make it possible to clear the content.

I think the hardcore should always get the best gear of course, the other players just need to wait, and when they get access to that gear, the hardcore should be at the next tier. Totally fine, anyone arguing that is going into the whole "I paid for this so I should get everything" entitlement argument, which is just not how MMOs work. But I am of the belief that most casual/mainstream players understand this and don't care if they have the best gear, as long as they have something to aim for and a concrete path to follow.

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Originally Posted by Litre

Ooshima, totally agree, pacing is key, hard content should stay hard for a long time, if that content ever becomes nerfed to a certain point it's accessible by mainstream players there must be something just as hard and exciting to replace it for the hardcore players. Coil 2 ya should not be nerfed for a while.

It's just that Titan EX has been around for months and is unnecessarily frustrating, I just hate to see FFXIV lose players because of it.

One thing that begs to be reiterated, there are players that will NEVER clear Primals EX, second coil, or even turn 5 before echo at their skill level. But I respect them, they have jobs, or are new to MMOs, or both so they don't have the time to be good at games. Many of us grew up playing games so it's unfair to say "just practice" some may like the challenge others won't find it fun at all. They will always progress behind the rest of us players, beating content at the eased difficulty, and so things need to be balanced properly and at a proper pace.

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I think our exchanges have come to some sort of agreement :) I agree with whatever you've just said. I think Yoshida does have a good intention in mind but probably the ideas and execution needs further refinement, definitely. I can understand players getting impatient and sometimes I get impatient at certain things too, but sometimes I look back again and see that ARR is just under one year, I can cut them some slack, maybe. Not trying to be SE's White Knight (I won't bother because some things really sucks about them which my #1 complain is server inconsistency and lag and 90k) but I think Yoshida was given a daunting task to overturn the fortune of FF14 1.0 to what it is right now, in quite a short period of time, while gathering feedback and implement as much QoL improvements and changes as he could afford to, in his own judgement. As I said earlier, I would give them more time in view of this, but of course after a year or two it's still the same old methods then I think it's something really worth complaining to the max :)

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Originally Posted by Litre

I don't think gear needs to be handed down to bad players, there are many ways to make even second coil accessible, but that won't need to be addressed for a while. But yes in general, more creative solutions need to be made to address accessibility of content, instead of just, give them an echo boost! Which failed spectacularily, give them gear progression paths that take longer but do eventually make it possible to clear the content.

I think the hardcore should always get the best gear of course, the other players just need to wait, and when they get access to that gear, the hardcore should be at the next tier. Totally fine, anyone arguing that is going into the whole "I paid for this so I should get everything" entitlement argument, which is just not how MMOs work. But I am of the belief that most casual/mainstream players understand this and don't care if they have the best gear, as long as they have something to aim for and a concrete path to follow.

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I'm totally looking forward to how end game raiding gets address in 2.3. With CT2, new primals, new classes/jobs, and if the limit break revamp makes it out by 2.3 how that will impact T6-T9. I feel more optimistic from all these options over Novus.

Yet as far as Coil 3 goes. I hope the cycle we experienced in Coil and Coil 2 don't repeat again.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Look around the forums, enough of threads complaining about bad players. I can't imagine Yoshida blindly pushes through say 90% of the player base into coil2... Probably every hour you will see a new thread complaining about bad players in coil2 :(

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I would like to correct this part real quick :
There aren't a lot of bad players. In fact, there are tons of average-to-good players.

But there are tons of people who don't have the time/will/success in learning do-or-die mechanics.

no time => well, speaks for itself.
no will => their problem I guess ?
no success => this is the bothering point. They can't learn mainly because of 2 things : it's do-or-wipe, and noone wants to let them take the time to learn.

"Don't waste my time"
"you're just so noob get out of my party"
"your dps is crappy l2p"
"OMG why you can't dodge such an easy thing ?"
and so on. These are only examples, and anyone PUGing something to learn it 2 weeks after the content is live has experienced it at least once.

Heck, for 2.2, it was TWO FREAKING DAYS after the patch going live that people were "know levi ex ins and outs or GTFO. Weapon proof, 1 fail = kick". One week after, the same applied to T6. Cmon people....

Hell, a T1 learning party got flamed because they couldn't handle the split (2 new tanks) the first time they tried, and 3 people raged out after a single wipe. We replaced them, wiped at the ADS, 4 new people left. How are they supposed to learn that way ?

Do a test, form a levi Ex learning party, and intentionally die at fear add or right when the rails go off. People will quit, the party will disband, noone will have learned anything.

In moggle mog, people rage out if you take the delta attack once. They rage out if noone cancels the pom flare/holy (although they didn't do anything about that). I could continue for a long time....


Honestly, I can only see 2 fixes about that problem :

1) Fix the community. An attempt about as useful as trying to erode the Everest with a knife.

2) design more forgiving fights. There is no need for a fight to be "A mechanic every 3 seconds and every one of them is insta death". A few fights like that are fine. Just don't do that for all

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

I think our exchanges have come to some sort of agreement :) I agree with whatever you've just said. I think Yoshida does have a good intention in mind but probably the ideas and execution needs further refinement, definitely. I can understand players getting impatient and sometimes I get impatient at certain things too, but sometimes I look back again and see that ARR is just under one year, I can cut them some slack, maybe. Not trying to be SE's White Knight (I won't bother because some things really sucks about them which my #1 complain is server inconsistency and lag and 90k) but I think Yoshida was given a daunting task to overturn the fortune of FF14 1.0 to what it is right now, in quite a short period of time, while gathering feedback and implement as much QoL improvements and changes as he could afford to, in his own judgement. As I said earlier, I would give them more time in view of this, but of course after a year or two it's still the same old methods then I think it's something really worth complaining to the max :)

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I would like to thank you for this post. It sums up a lot of things I've been thinking about recently. Give them time, judge them on what they do or don't do after a significant period.

Extension (3.0 right ?) will be the decisive step for ARR probably

the op have raise some interesting point.
the end game is not really challenging. understand me, i don't say it's hard, i say it's not a mmorpg challenge! it's a dance challenge, we must learn the step for avoid the gimmick and survive the insta kill skill. mmorpg is more than gimmick fight... actually is not gimmick fight. but let's be honest, some mmorpg like WoW did put this in front for long...

they say random is not possible... i say is not true! i say they need to have some sort of random into the fight... we can't have fight like T5 with multiple phase with 1-2 gimmick per phase for a long time per phase... is not fun, is not challenging! it's boring! people say it's challenging because they don't want to learn to play them class or be able to adapt to a fight. they want simple and predictable fight.

i hope they will change them way to bring fight and make true mmorpg challenge! what the point to level up a class have tons of skill if we only repeat over and over a cycle.

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Originally Posted by Gormogon

[...]Yet coil and it's difficulty doesn't need to change, in fact it can get harder.

Thing about optimizing for more players having fun is having separate forms of entertainment all which progress at a steady and enjoyable pace evenly for every category of player.[...]

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Not sure if Coil should be harder. I am not even sure why the Endgame in Coil is as tough to beat as it is.

I have beaten T5 last week (finally) and saw a nice Feature on the PS4 telling you the rating for each trophy you receive. The "Twintania defeated and Coil 5 cleared"-trophy is rated as "ultra rare" with a whoppin' 4,5% success rate for the PS3 and PS4 players.

Something feels terribly wrong about this since this is content that was already available in 2.0 and it got nerfed with Echo and changes/removal of certain boss skills have been applied as well.

But still, not even 5% of the console players have beaten it. And SE has decided to leave Echo as it is because their research showed that many people have cleared the content. But about what kind of people are they talking about? Good groups who clear it numerous time? Joe Average surely does not profit that much from Echo.

Doing Trials and receiving Titan HM clearly shows me that for Joe Average, the main problems are about mechanics, concentration, memorization and reaction time and those problems start way before considering jumping into Coil.

Not sure how it is looking on the PC but thinking that not even 5% of the player base has beaten this content makes me wonder for whom this content is designed for.

I know, lots of people on this Forum are Hardcore players who would like to have it even harder. Nothing wrong with that. But seeing the rating of this trophy clearly shows me that they belong to an absolute minority. So is Endgame in Coil something for a minority? Normally, designers want that their developed content can be enjoyed from as many people as possible. But when it is a bout Coil, a small percentage of the user base seems to be enough already.

I also know it is tough to please everybody. But the system as it is, is favoring a minority and that just seems odd to me. And before those comments come in, no I do not want everything to be handed over instantly without efforts at all. I just wished that the Coil and Ex mechanics would not demand such a level of perfection of playing a job as they do because the majority doesn’t meet these requirements.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

I would like to correct this part real quick :
There aren't a lot of bad players. In fact, there are tons of average-to-good players.

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Well, there's a lot of ways to see it. On surface value of what you have said, it's also true. But from the more "elite" players who cleared them easily, if you are not above average you are probably labeled as bad. See the difference? :p

And like you said, those things like "CLEARED ONLY", "NO NOOBS" PF recruitment that appeared few days after a new patch can be discouraging. I see from both sides of view thou as I have been on both sides before. Once I've cleared a content and my intention is to smoothly then of course I would probably have a "noobs please get out and don't waste our time" attitude. I think it's a bit of human nature.

In Patch 2.2 I concentrated my first week on 3 star crafting and thus by the time I wanted to clear Levi EX, I am way behind everyone. Yes PF are all filled up with "PROS ONLY" parties and hardly any learning parties but eventually I cleared it with a semi learning party.

I haven't been subjected to much raging during learning parties - probably I'm in a JP server where people are probably more mindful with their words and only complain behind their friends, FC and LS about really underperfoming players. I think the situation is worse at NA servers, I was from NA server before so I'm guessing so. But that's really player issues I have to say. Tough to change a human.. I think Yoshida rather bang his head on how to improve the game than player attitude and behavior. Well, toxic people are everywhere..

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

I would like to thank you for this post. It sums up a lot of things I've been thinking about recently. Give them time, judge them on what they do or don't do after a significant period.

Extension (3.0 right ?) will be the decisive step for ARR probably

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NP. Sometimes I rage over a lot of things but it's good to take a step back and think about a bigger picture. I think a good testing point will be either the 1 year mark or coil 3 (suspected to be the last coil before expansion), which I think by then it is really a lot of time for the development to have a good grasp of where they should, and want to head to.

I don't really get what the OP is asking for here. Make all the fights easier so people don't quit?

There's basically only 2 ways to make boss fights difficult, gear checks and mechanics. Remove the mechanics part and all you have is gear checks which can eventually be overcome by anyone.

As an example Turns 6 and 7 are very much mechanics based fights, you could probably beat them both in i80 gear, possibly lower. If you do Turn 6 in a certain way (Feed 1 slug to each slime) then there are basically zero dps checks on that fight and you can take as long as you want (maybe the bee but it still takes a while before it starts one shotting people). The only real dps checks in Turn 7 are the first set of adds who can overwhelm you if the first 2 aren't killed quick enough. The Prosector is made trivial through use of LB3. Melusine does have an enrage but it's extremely lenient and very few people will ever see it.

Turn 8 is a lot more of a gear check, but it's also a massive test of your DPS's ability to perform at their jobs properly. They probably need to be doing 330+ to beat the enrage and the vast majority of DPS in DF/PF parties I see simply couldn't manage half that. Many will need to heavily overgear it AND require echo, so will have to wait til 2.4. It does have mechanics but they're fairly simple in comparison to the other 3 turns.

Turn 9 basically brings everything together and tests you at everything.

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Originally Posted by TomTom1968

Not sure if Coil should be harder. I am not even sure why the Endgame in Coil is as tough to beat as it is.

snip

I also know it is tough to please everybody. But the system as it is, is favoring a minority and that just seems odd to me. And before those comments come in, no I do not want everything to be handed over instantly without efforts at all. I just wished that the Coil and Ex mechanics would not demand such a level of perfection of playing a job as they do because the majority doesn’t meet these requirements.

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See now this is the thing that worries about this kind of threads.

Take a look from the perspective of people that want to do do raid progression, they have 1 , 1 piece of content released every SIX months(although it appears they're introducing a super hard fight this patch 2.3), "casuals"(or people who can't/want for whatever reason progress through raids) get every other type of content this makes up for more than 90% of the content in the game(EXs, dungeons for tomes, crystal towers, pretty much every pve piece of content that isn't coil).

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.

Now let me clarify, i have absolutely nothing against "casuals" and i realize they are maybe the majority playing the game and i understand coil has story and some are interested in it.

Taking all this in consideration my hopes for the future would be that for coils AND ct(please yes) we get 2 versions of the fight: 1 version for DF that is fairly easy to complete ala current ct1, and 1 version of the fight that provides a bigger challenge and reward for those that want that. This way, everyone can experience the story and see all big bosses and what not, and everyone can try their hand at a more challenging version, please make it happen SE.

Anyway what you said(reducing difficulty in content) isn't what the JP OP wants, I truly believe he only wants same/more difficulty but a difficulty that is closer to the true sense of the word, even though i don't agree with how he/she says that would be achieved.

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Originally Posted by Pibz

[...]Take a look from the perspective of people that want to do do raid progression, they have 1 , 1 piece of content released every SIX months(although it appears they're introducing a super hard fight this patch 2.3), "casuals"(or people who can't/want for whatever reason progress through raids) get every other type of content this makes up for more than 90% of the content in the game(EXs, dungeons for tomes, crystal towers, pretty much every pve piece of content that isn't coil).

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.[...]

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I know the problem exists for both sides and I can partially agree to what you said. But imo, Coil and Ex Primals are far more than 5% of the Game. I am somehwere inbetween a Casual player (I like my DOH and DOL very much and make regular use of them) and a progressive player because I also enjoy the Endgame contents. I need longer than people focussung solely on this kind of content but so far there was no fight I could not clear. And I am not complaining because of my situation. I can handle the content even with my slow speed of learning things. But all in all, speaking of non hardcore elements, there is not that much for me to do so I need the mixture of casual and endgame contents to keep my busy.

There are three dungeons of which one is played regularly (Brayflox). I can spend half an hour with tribe quests and 15 minutes with gathering a map and defeating the enemies. Once per week, I can spend 2-3 hours on the Agenda. But that's pretty much it speaking of things I am interested in. When I reflect the last months, 80% of the time I have spent was with Ex primals and Coil. Patch 2.3 will hit us in Summer and I by this time, I will prolly have just started to dive into Leviathan Ex.

I know players who are in my FC or on my friend list who have not even started with Ex Primals and/or Coil. But the new content demands that the old one was cleared so these people will fall more and more behind. There should be more than the Echo buff to help them. Don't get me wrong, there should be hard content to make the progress orientated players happy. But the content in this Game is partially so hard that it divides the playership too much in my opinion. The suggestion of the OP to have two version of Endgame content might be a solution to this. I think it is not that people want the best and ultimate Gear for free. It is more that they know that there are many fights and dungeons in this Game they will probably never see. It can be frustrating knowing that the situation will get worse with each new patch they release. Reduce loot quality and keep the best gear for the hardest content but give them a true chance to enjoy the Endgame content in an easier version.

I agree with the OP on few points. What I feel lacking in FF14 is the lack of freedom. Mainly, it is the way bosses are "solved".

FF14 requires ONE method of killing a boss - thus, you need to memorise the solution. This is challenging in the beginning, but once you've learnt it, it becomes boring. It also creates frustration between players at different levels of memorisation. This lack of randomness makes it initially-hard, ultimately-easy instances, which reduces its longevity.

In comparison, in FF11, perhaps because most of the bosses were "open world" (sky, dynamis, world bosses), there was no real limit to how many members can participate and it was possible to change a standard strategy to cover an individual's deficiency.

Although, were actual FF11 fights "hard"? Not really... it was just more welcoming and forgiving to individual mistakes. But I do miss the range of things one could do in FF11 as small team... like soloing sky-keys as RDM/NIN... In FF11, you set your own difficulty bar. In FF14, I think it'd be impossible purely due to the lack of abilities a class has and the world-CD, and plus the rigid instance party setting (must be 4 or 8 men for instance).


One easy solution to this problem, is to let the players adjust the difficulty of the current FF14 by free'ing the instance entry restriction. E.g. Even if it's 8 men Titan-Ex, let 6 men try it if they want to. Even if it's 4 men Brayflox, let 2 people duo it if they wish.

Also, as some other ppl mentioned, introduce a certain degree of randomness in a fight. I'm sure it's possible to "control" the randomness so that for example, 4 plumes wouldn't go off in a row (although it'd be fun if it did tbh). Part of "fun" comes from being surprised, which FF14 lacks direly.

For a long time solution, perhaps FF14 needs to release a few open world bosses so that players can choose to participate killing bosses in less-restricted style, both in terms of being free to make their own parties and creating a "solution" for the boss.

The problem with this, is that then we come back to a LFG waiting game (but already, DPS has to wait for up to an hour for instances so, perhaps that's not a big deal...).

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Originally Posted by Ashgarth

The echo was suposed to help casual players clear the harder fights to make up for the lack of gear.
The problem is that gear has nothing to do with it, it's the spam of instant death mecanics by almost every single boss in this game post 50 that makes it impossible to beat by most casual players.

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This is ridiculous though. Once hardcores have won, then you want less hardcores to win BUT NOT people below that. You want people to win in waves based on skill so that everyone can have a sense of accomplishment. And a lot of lesser skilled players are clearing this content. Even pretty low skilled players can actually dodge divebombs but only now can they handle healing in that fight better.
theres not a spam of instant death mechanics. some are instant death, others are a lot more recoverable than that. gear helps a lot. helps push phases to see less of something. helps carry you through OTHER hits you may take so that you can focus more on the more difficult mechanics.

I think there is a fine line. I consider myself a casual player (have always been, even all the way back to my EQ days). However, I was always captivated by the more hardcore content. It simply existing added some sense of mystery to the game. In EQ, I knew I'd never get a Fiery Avenger but the fact that it existed gave me something to strive for - even if I never really actively strove for it.

I also believe you need a healthy mix of "hardcore" and "casual" players (and those folks in between) if you wish to have a successful game. The "hardcore" crowd will typically help promote all the cool things that exist in the game simply by walking around in really cool gear or talking about their experiences.

However, you still need to have forms of meaningful progression for all players at all points in the game. If the end-game is all "hardcore" content, your casuals will leave (as they will feel gated by the game and any community standards developed). If everything is easily accomplished, then your hardcore crowd will leave (as they simply chew through stuff to quickly) followed by your casuals (as they will eventually also run out of things to do or get bored).

As it stands, the end-game vertical progression revolves around item level. The horizontal progression comes from leveling other classes, future Grand Company ranks, and Beastman reputation.

Thankfully, the game has added a variety of pathways to go up in item level. Soldiery and myth tokens are rewarded through a variety of activities... duty content still being the most efficient way (but roulette makes that relatively simple).

Right now, it does seem that only time and social establishments separate the "hardcore" and "casual" crowds. The "hardcore" crowd typically will have the social connections to run things like Coil and Crystal Tower more frequently.

I do think that the "hardcore" crowd needs at least one other something to feed it. Something that truly tests their actual skills with comparable rewards. The trick is to making this content both fun, engaging but not "required" to progress in other avenues of end-game. In EQ, getting that fiery avenger would've been awesome, but it was not necessary in order for to enjoy the other awesome end-game content in EQ for example.

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

You would get along well with rei ayanami she doesnt understand human stupidity either

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..she says as she is confused by players asking for a varied style of content to satisfy a varied style of gameplay.

It's not a hard concept.

Calling players who like varied style of challenges "human stupidity" doesn't make anyone "leet" or "uber"... it just makes them look like un-socialized teenagers.

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Originally Posted by Pibz

So you are saying that the 5% that want a challenge aren't allowed to have 5% of the content dedicated to them? Seems pretty unfair to me.

Now let me clarify, i have absolutely nothing against "casuals" and i realize they are maybe the majority playing the game and i understand coil has story and some are interested in it.

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This is precisely what other games have done to GREAT success. LFR over in WoW is one of the most popular things they ever did. People could see content and get a modest amount of gear that was good enough for a casual that couldn't commit to progression raiding, and the elite % still have their hard mode content that they can barely clear by the next xpac.

Would be great to see that here, and I *thought* that SE was on the right track with "Story mode" and then the other fights, but maybe it needs to be more widely implemented.

I kinda agree with the OP.

However I think that allowing a greater party size than normal to help clear a content, should only be allowed for old content (and it would be more fun and flexible party group wise instead of having an ECHO BUFF), but certainly not for the new released end-content. Current-End content should only be something to be merited by the "best" groups with not artificial help.

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Originally Posted by rwyan

The trick is to making this content both fun, engaging but not "required" to progress in other avenues of end-game. In EQ, getting that fiery avenger would've been awesome, but it was not necessary in order for to enjoy the other awesome end-game content in EQ for example.

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I thought people in this thread are saying equipment as well as echo didnt matter in any of these fights as long as you know how to dodge, so based on that, you don't really need any equipment to enjoy any content of this game. In fact, that is the bases of the original blog.

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Originally Posted by Bizniztyme

I thought people in this thread are saying equipment as well as echo didnt matter in any of these fights as long as you know how to dodge, so based on that, you don't really need any equipment to enjoy any content of this game. In fact, that is the bases of the original blog.

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Yes, you would still need varied content beyond the mechanics driven system in place to create this other content.

A good game should have different types of encounter design, anyway. Some encounters might have these mechanic driven insta-kill mechanics... other encounters might have other design features.

They have been repeating the same design with different mechanics... they need to start mixing it up. FF used to be known as innovative. They are not bringing much in the way of innovation or even variation to the table currently. There's no reason why they can't use the current design, but add new designs in new content to reach more players.

Additionally, the incredibly linear system is an issue. Unlike some games, where a raid (even if not the hardest in the world) could open up new zones or places... in this game they are just instances that are gateways to copied bosses with more mechanics. This contributes to the game feeling smaller than it could feel. The "coil of Bahamut" is a couple of rooms... not even a real zone. Same with CT. This feels to me very "lobby game" like.

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

..she says as she is confused by players asking for a varied style of content to satisfy a varied style of gameplay.

It's not a hard concept.

Calling players who like varied style of challenges "human stupidity" doesn't make anyone "leet" or "uber"... it just makes them look like un-socialized teenagers.

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But the game has varied styles.

You keep repeating this absurd argument where apparently every fight in the game has a version of Landslide. This is not true, and here's a list for you of lv50 content with no auto wipe mechanics:

Admapor Keep (unless your party sucks so much they can't even deal with one guy down during Wall...), Haukke HM, Pharos, Admapor City, Halatil HM, Brayflox HM, the whole atma quest line, Coil T1, T2, T3, T4, Labyrinth of the Ancients, all crafting content, all leveling content, all pvp content, Gilgamesh, Thornmarch HM, all beat tribe quests, all gathering content, all leves... the list probably goes on.

Challenges that include an auto wipe, yet they aren't exactly a big deal because it simply shows a full party inability to finish it (and not a single person's inability):

Garuda HM, Garuda Ex, Ifrit HM, Ifrit Ex, Leviathan HM, Ultima HM.


So the actual thing people are bitching about in this behemoth of a whine thread is:

Coil T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, Titan HM and Titan Ex, Leviathan Ex.

It's not about lack of content that adapts to your wants, no. You know what this really is about? Not getting top gear with the easy content. Thing is, none of you want to actually accept that because everyone knows how petty that is.

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Originally Posted by Iriadysa

It's not about lack of content that adapts to your wants, no. You know what this really is about? Not getting top gear with the easy content. Thing is, none of you want to actually accept that because everyone knows how petty that is.

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Well, that is several encounters in a linear gated line.

It's not about gear. I know gear is all some players care about, but not all players. You can farm tokens for gear and I don't bother anymore, because the gear is pointless.

At some point, you might stop projecting your mindset onto others and realize that casual players are doing those coils and CT... and Thorn. But beyond that, there is still more than half the endgame gated behind those mechanics. That's fine. If they want Coil 2 and rehashed primals for "hardcore" - no problem! But give people more to do than just a couple of rooms in coil, and CT for farming for alt classes.

Sure there is the small group stuff that everyone can do - but those are the same rehashed instances from leveling. (cept for a couple of new ones - which is great... but we have been farming the same instances now for 3 sets of gear!)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Crystal Tower exactly the thing for people like the OP's blog post? A more casual, much easier raid that drops lower ilvl gear? Nothing in Labyrinth was at all difficult and if they introduce 24-man pre-mades in 2.3's CT I think it'd be perfect.

Really, they should be introducing CT-tiers alongside Coil. Kinda sucks there's not a lot for lesser skilled players to do at end-game.

Also the OP's blog post is ridiculous and if every encounter in the game was T4 I'd want to quit. T4 (and T8) are nothing but gear check encounters, and they have their place in any progression MMO.

I do agree they could possibly go a little bit lighter on the instant kill mechanics, but I think that's just a natural problem deriving from the default raid size being 8. Small raid sizes = more individual responsibility = tougher to recover when a single player dies.

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

Sure there is the small group stuff that everyone can do - but those are the same rehashed instances from leveling. (cept for a couple of new ones - which is great... but we have been farming the same instances now for 3 sets of gear!)

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They are adding all kinds of stuff for all kinds of play types. I believe they just need time. Just look at this latest patch. Supposed to be a small patch but they added quite a bit of new stuff for people to do. It's not always about battle content and getting loot.

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Originally Posted by Bizniztyme

They are adding all kinds of stuff for all kinds of play types. I believe they just need time. Just look at this latest patch. Supposed to be a small patch but they added quite a bit of new stuff for people to do. It's not always about battle content and getting loot.

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They definitely need time, no doubt.

I am just here asking them to take a wide view and design varied content. I don't think anyone is asking for "everything to be X or Y".

The content they have been putting out, though is following the exact same pattern... so at this point my concern is that future content will be more of the same... but hopefully they will get creative.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

They definitely need time, no doubt.

I am just here asking them to take a wide view and design varied content. I don't think anyone is asking for "everything to be X or Y".

The content they have been putting out, though is following the exact same pattern... so at this point my concern is that future content will be more of the same... but hopefully they will get creative.

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Let's hope so. :)

We're digressing again, and I think the OP needs to put this part in BOLD because many of you are so biased and don't see it :

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Originally Posted by EmiliM

this is not a post about making arguments like "well I think the game is fun because I can clear the contents" or "you just don't think it's fun because you can't clear the contents" .[/COLOR]

To make such an argument is like having someone say to you "I have practiced, reviewed and studied hard to learn English and now I can read and write English at the top-university level and have no problems with daily English conversations so it's fun for me. A ton of people in the world also speak English, so if you work hard at it you can be just like us too!" (You'd think "what a snob!")

I do not intend to write about the end-game contents from such a one-sided standpoint.

The largest group here, the casual players, have all yet to still challenge the Extreme Primals and Coil. But the reality is that a large portion of this group have already stopped playing altogether.

Many players are stuck on Extreme Primals due to the mechanics-driven nature of the fights. They can't react to them even if it's explained to them. They simply cannot clear unless they get lucky.

Even with the power of Echo, as mentioned earlier, it does nothing to help them clear the fight if they cannot deal with the mechanics. If they could then they would have cleared them long ago even without the Echo buff or the now-higher gear level.

Even with a new patch, there's not much for them to do (since they're still stuck on old contents), and so they get bored of the game and quit. It's only natural.

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For example "bias":

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

I don't really get what the OP is asking for here. Make all the fights easier so people don't quit?

There's basically only 2 ways to make boss fights difficult, gear checks and mechanics. Remove the mechanics part and all you have is gear checks which can eventually be overcome by anyone.

As an example Turns 6 and 7 are very much mechanics based fights, you could probably beat them both in i80 gear, possibly lower...

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- No, the OP is not asking for a decrease in difficulty (read the Follow-Up) because many people have that misconception
- No, the OP is not asking to remove mechanics, but merely keep them and ease/balance it so the mechanics can "EVENTUALLY" be overcome by gear, albeit months after the content is released
- But this highlights your bias completely, see you're a competent player, this probably isn't your first MMO - you've got good reflexes and good mouse/keypad control I'm sure. Ok when my girlfriend plays she can barely control her camera and the character at the same time, and her mouse control isn't the best, she didn't grow up playing CounterStrike like me, oh really?
- Your quote "you could probably beat them both in i80 gear" simply shows your ignorance, I am not attacking you, lots of us here are like that - there are people that couldn't beat it even if they had iLvl120 gear, try to understand that. These are not gamers, imagine you trying to get your mom or dad to play, (generalizing here, maybe ur whole family are PRO gamers), but you get my point right? They'd be like... cooldowns what are those? Even after 2 months of playing they'd understand many things, but still.


So lets reiterate this again, get off your high horse, what's easy for you is not for others, Many players are stuck on Extreme Primals due to the mechanics-driven nature of the fights. They can't react to them even if it's explained to them. They simply cannot clear unless they get lucky. Please don't forget that FFXIV has a large influx of players who joined simply because it was FF not realizing what they got themselves into.


Then there's this, this is called "sample bias", this person probably plays with a pretty good FC, tackling end-game content and is completely oblivious to the many casual players who haven't even figured out how to join a FC (just an exaggeration but you know).

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Originally Posted by Okashii

This is ridiculous though. Once hardcores have won, then you want less hardcores to win BUT NOT people below that. You want people to win in waves based on skill so that everyone can have a sense of accomplishment. And a lot of lesser skilled players are clearing this content. Even pretty low skilled players can actually dodge divebombs but only now can they handle healing in that fight better.

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Lesser-skilled players? Who are we talking about here, remember Yoshida said under 5% of the player-base has beaten Turn 5. Yes so the PROs, you are skilled, and the lesser-skilled are the mainstream players. You are completely overlooking a large swath of players who tried Titan once and said "this isn't fun". So many people only hang out with other skilled players that they have a false sense of who the average player is, truth is, you probably don't even know any within your 5 LS and 1 FC, well probably there'd be a few but you probably don't party with them or talk to them much, they're probably still lvl 43 or something.

- What do you mean by win in waves based on skill? You think they will keep regrouping, practicing and attempting it at the current difficulty, until there are enough people it reaches critical mass and then a wave of players beat it? Wrong, perhaps a few, but others will just quit (what we don't want). You don't know it, but you are coming off as really elitist, like you can't understand why it's so hard for others simply because you find it so easy. Perhaps investing time and practice will eventually help them beat it, but you also make the false assumption that these players have the time to do it, and that they enjoy it enough to do it (for that sense of accomplishment). But newsflash, I know a lot of people, who don't like that level of challenge, you probably know a few kids like this, when they played other FFs they grind on the world map, leveling up to 10+ the required level to beat the boss. Ring a bell? They are playing the game for the story line and the experience, and when they beat it, they are happy to play on easy/normal mode.

Ok I'm going to keep iterating this, at the current difficulty, many players will not EVERRRR beat this stuff, I have, but I also know players who have 2 second reflexes and will eat 1/3 landslides, I don't want to imagine them at harder dungeons.

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Originally Posted by EmiliM

This blog post is not written from the perspective of what I think about the game based on which contents I can or cannot clear. It is primarily written from the standpoint of "how can we prevent players from leaving FFXIV, or to gain more new players?"

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At the current rate, we will simply bleed casual players until all we have left are your regular MMO players, it won't be Final Fantasy anymore. Just another MMO with FF style.


So what many us here are asking is: when you nerf old content, do it comprehensively so that the mechanics are also nerfed to not be insta-kill but hurt a lot, then they have at least the "hope" of one day getting good gear another way, quests, buying it, materia, etc and then beating it And at the rate these players are progressing, by the time they reach the content they only need to experience a fight that's "hard" for them, even though you find it hilariously easy, try to be respectful that there are a variety of different people.

You're playing on hard mode, you deserve the cool stuff first, that's fine, please realize there are players that never play "any" games on hard, they play on easy, they enjoy playing games, and it's challenging enough for them. They want to relax, not watch YouTube videos, practice and get harassed by you hardcore players, who simply don't understand their difficulties, coming from a non-gamer background. And we need these people to support the game/developers so FF can continue to flourish.

Thank you, Litre... and +1 to you as well for writing this.

Yet again, a large number of people are STILL concluding that the OP is suggesting that content be made simpler... even after there are at least five instances where both Emile and the Japanese player mentioned otherwise. Heck, even I mentioned it in my last post... and still several people are making this wrong assumption.

Sigh... anyway, the ancient saying still rings true... that assumption is a constant human weakness.

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

I don't really get what the OP is asking for here. Make all the fights easier so people don't quit?

There's basically only 2 ways to make boss fights difficult, gear checks and mechanics. Remove the mechanics part and all you have is gear checks which can eventually be overcome by anyone.

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Once more, as already explained by Litre above, it must be understood that the intention of the OPs suggestions are not to make the game easier so everyone can breeze through Coil 6 to 9. There is a lot more going on in the OP's post that you need to consider before making these assumptions. A lot of people who are unfamiliar with the evolution of this game and the gaming industry in general are still just throwing words and assumptions at this problem. Part of this problem actually started waaaay back during the Alpha test of December 2012 where there were some certain players who were new to the FF franchise. Thus, they didn't have that FFXI or FFXIV 1.0 mentality and proceeded to either compare the Alpha build to WoW or complained about almost every single thing that the Devs had created.

There were times that the Alpha forums got disgustingly ugly and I had a new level of respect for how horribly the humans could treat each other. By the time Beta arrived in February, there was already the beginnings of a divide... the old hardcore players of FFXIV 1.0 who were giving useful feedback and the new players from other games who had no respect for what it meant to be a Beta tester for FFXIV. And by March, there were some Legacy players who openly swore on the forums to create a wall between themselves and the new "rabble"... and who could blame them? There was a lot of wailing and ranting from the rabble (the new testers) about the difficulty of content, about them not being able to bulldoze through everything in one weekend, about the UI, about the graphics... heck, they even complained about the grass.

This divide eventually transferred to launch and now made many things into a double edged sword. SOME (emphasis on "some") old hardcore FFXIV 1.0 and Legacy players decided to create a niche for themselves and just steamrolled through the content and intentionally shut out the new players. They said "Screw those noobs and their rude behaviour... this is our land and we helped save this bloody game. They have no right to be here or even talk to us"

Then you had a separate set of Legacy or old FFXIV 1.0 players who were somewhat Casuals due to their jobs and real-life commitments. Thus they had limited time to play per day but were mature enough to endure the new players. They were the ones who realized... "Ahhh, seems not all of these new players are so bad after all. They just want to have fun like we do"

But as time went on, even these "tolerant" Legacy casuals realized that they were being stuck now and again with a handful of new players who were adamantly rude, didnt want to become skilled or were just plain lazy and wanted everything handed to them on a platter. And when they tried to be reasonable with these "kids", they got jibes, insults and rage-quitters in return

Unfortunately, the general mechanics gimmicks of end-game content has now thrown them into the mix of another demographic of mainstream players which created a bottleneck for them... hence the double edged sword we are now experiencing. Thus, you now have a mainstream group that is further split into the following three groups:

• Many Legacy casuals cant advance to the ex primals of second coil because the Legacy hardcore who could have helped have already isolated themselves behind their walls.
• Many Legacy casuals who are actually skilled but can never find enough skilled players to help them get through this bottleneck created by the game's mechanics
• The new casuals who just want to have fun with the primals or basic-level end game content but are either shut out by the hardcore or insulted by the rude immature casuals

There are a couple more "grey area" groups... but hey, the truth is grey. There ARE competent players in every segment of those groups... and there ARE elitists in every segment of those groups. Truth of the matter is SE has to find a balance that maintains their player base or else people will start to leave. The key is that EVERYONE needs to be able to be advancing in SOMETHING without having to deal with bottlenecks or a ton of irrational people. When push comes to shove, SquareEnix must make a solid yearly balance sheet that screams profit.

FFXIV ARR should always be about progression with a healthy amount of mutual respect, risk and reward... and not offering a prayer everyday that you get online that you'll hit the lottery in finding seven other people who have the skills AND temperance endurance to get the job done

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Originally Posted by rhemi1

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Crystal Tower exactly the thing for people like the OP's blog post?

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From my point of view it ain't.

Coil is constant end game content and HM dungeons, EX primals, and CT are all part of that content. What is being developed constantly end-game that has such longevity that is on par to what Coil stands for? Main Scenarios, Hildebrand quest lines, relic, and beast tribe dailies even if put together are don't have the longevity, challenge, and goal that Coil provides.

One of the simplest ways to address the issue of casuals progression is to simply revamp the world to allow open world dungeons.

Where instead of being isolated to 8 man instances to do Twintania per se. You can now tackle Twintania in an open world environment dungeon as such as you would currently tackle FATEs in game.

Thanks for the response guys. I'm appreciative of those who are trying to help elaborate and further clarify my original post (thanks Litre lol). And while I see many other critical posts, I feel the great majority of those are borne out of misunderstanding and fear that shifting the fight away from gimmicks/mechanics would make things too easy or "tank-and-spank-y", which is obviously not the OP's intention.

It's hard to imagine how you can manage such a shift away from mechanics-driven fights while maintaining the same level of challenge (the OP certainly took his/her best stab at it), because non-mechanics-driven fights are incredibly hard to balance and have much shorter shelf-life (see T4). Nevertheless, I think we've simply reached a point where enough people are frustrated (if this thread is any indication) that Yoshida (and the rest of us) should stop and think whether we really want to keep going in this direction.

A couple of my FC mates needed to run Gilgamesh yesterday for the story. Absolutely no one was doing it in DF, so we ran it as a FC. The fight was super easy, nobody got any rewards.

Yet it was more fun than any other fight I've done in recent memory. Certainly more fun than your daily roulette chores and coil runs that are either filled with annoying fails or a few clears where the overwhelming sentiment was usually relief (that it's finally done with) rather than joy.

And as you walk about in your hard-earned shiny new high allagan gear and realize that - outside of the select few people who knows about the grueling rope jumping you needed to do for it - nobody else in the game around you actually cares and you'll still wipe the floor with it next week if even one person in your static is missing, you do really need to start to think whether it's all worth it.

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Originally Posted by EmiliM

And as you walk about in your hard-earned shiny new high allagan gear and realize that - outside of the select few people who knows about the grueling rope jumping you needed to do for it - nobody else in the game around you actually cares and you'll still wipe the floor with it next week if even one person in your static is missing, you do really need to start to think whether it's all worth it.

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There are a lot of posters here who simply are not able to believe that this is true. It would invalidate their playing and crush their sense of accomplishment. Some players need to believe that others "care" or "notice" or they will be faced with the prospect that they invested huge quantities of time into a video game for "nothing"

Hi EmiliM,

Thanks for translating. This is a GREAT Original Post and I absolutely agree. :)

With our current XIV being so heavily Mechanics-driven (Gimmicks), it really does spawn a bunch of problems stemming from this. As Sylkis pointed out, our current system is designed so it's like expecting a perfect "80/80 Jumps" (using the Group Jump Rope analogy, with 8 players doing 10 Jumps each), instead of allowing room for Player skill and flexibility.

The biggest problem with our current system is really that:

* If even one person screws up once / dies, it's usually a wipe. Reset.

Even in FF XIV 1.0 (like Ifrit Extreme) it was more forgiving, but still MORE challenging than 2.0's Ifrit Extreme. I remember a few runs in random /shout parties in 1.0, where we had 4 - 5 deaths (back then, we also had people who could use a Raise GC Item), and we were still able to recover and kill Ifrit EX. That wouldn't be possible in 2.0.

Another great point is the feeling that if you're a good enough player (or have enough of them), that they can "combine" and overcome a few mistakes from lesser-skilled players and still have success for the whole party.

Most of the hardcore fights in 2.0 right now are about Memorization more than anything.

One forum poster made a great analogy that it was like joining a "scripted dance": You join in and follow all the steps correctly, then you win. And you need 7 other people to memorize and follow the dance exactly as well. Otherwise, it's pretty punitive and you fail.

I definitely want challenging fights. I do find some of the Gimmicks that Yoshi P is using interesting and certainly better than plain old "tank and spank," but the vast majority of the fights are really about figuring out the obscure Gimmick / Trick and memorize what you have to do, when, and just do it. It should be a lot more than this.

It's a pretty good post with some very valid observations. A lot of it runs contrary to the design philosophy the development team seems to have adopted though. Hopefully the post gets a good look from the dev team, but it essentially asks them to change what are probably the long-term plans for this game. Maybe we'll see some of these ideas implemented by the first expansion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EmiliM

Thanks for the response guys. I'm appreciative of those who are trying to help elaborate and further clarify my original post (thanks Litre lol). And while I see many other critical posts, I feel the great majority of those are borne out of misunderstanding and fear that shifting the fight away from gimmicks/mechanics would make things too easy or "tank-and-spank-y", which is obviously not the OP's intention.

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Hi Emili,

BTW, did this blogger ever end up posting their thoughts on the JP Forums? It'd be nice if it got some notice on those forums as well for the devs to reply to.