The more things stay the same...

Well, I've given the game a few months after returning for a haitus to see how things have shaped up with the latest patch, and while nothing really stuck out as being extremely horrible, there's a lot of room for improvement. So, for those now looking at the horizon for patch 2.5 and beyond, what are the things you are hoping they either fix or change in the future?

My top list of things that feel like they need to fix or implement...
1. Bring back the story, HM, and EX model for primal fights and reward people for completing HM and EX versions. The old primal fights worked great as they iteratively introduced players to the bosses set of mechanics. That and the HM versions provided rewards for completion, so players would repeat doing them and get better at the basic move sets. Right now, the 2.4 primal just has a "story mode" and a EX mode with no real gradual introduction of the mechanics and no rewards for anything but the EX mode.

2. Fix Chocobos so we can use them in groups. AI companions are a great idea for expanding what can be done in fights and encounters for any job, and with so much focus on chocobo breeding and customization it's a crime not to do so.

3. Drop Lockouts based on previous patch content. If someone is coming back after a hiatus, the last thing they are going to want to do is be forced through content they chose NOT to do when they left just to see the newer content.

4. Stop basing content around the idea people will form statics (Ramuh EX, Coil). Statics formed because people wanted to make better use of their time, not because they wanted to have content built to ever higher difficulty standards to make sure they didn't mow through things too quickly. It would also help people with time constraints learn fights if they could just queue is the Duty Finder for some learning attempts instead of fishing for 30 minutes to an hour in PF trying to build a group themselves. The PF makes sense if someone is trying to build a party of people with prior knowledge of the fight, it makes no sense not to allow DF for simple learning.

I agree with all but the last thing you talked about in your (4), PF is for making learning parties, DF is for sure kill, or at least was intended to be.
you can't train in DF when 80% of your team comes from a different server, the moment your party breaks up you restart from scratch.

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Originally Posted by Phyllo

I agree with all but the last thing you talked about in your (4), PF is for making learning parties, DF is for sure kill, or at least was intended to be.
you can't train in DF when 80% of your team comes from a different server, the moment your party breaks up you restart from scratch.

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That's a problem with how they are designing the encounters in the first place and goes back to the fact they are only really implementing two modes now. Either people are on cruise control in story mode or have to be balls to the walls active for EX. They removed the HM mode entirely from the equation and have kept the HM moniker strictly for consistency. People could originally see the types of things the boss does from start to finish in HM mode, then have to learn a few extra things for EX, thus making DF learning completely plausible. This idea of forming a static that has to meet up for nights on end to crush content benefits nobody, including the people making the static. This is coming from someone who has been a dedicated raider for 8+ years in previous MMOs, spent tons of time on minimal drip fed content, and finding none of it is worth it in the end because eventually the game is going to grow old and all those achievements mean nothing.

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Originally Posted by Phyllo

I agree with all but the last thing you talked about in your (4), PF is for making learning parties, DF is for sure kill, or at least was intended to be.
you can't train in DF when 80% of your team comes from a different server, the moment your party breaks up you restart from scratch.

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DF is more for joining a party or filling up a missing member slot.

1) I agree the "story mode" EVERYTHING should have some tangible reward beyond a paltry myth bonus.
2) Chocobos are meant to supplement extra players for overworld content like fates, hunts, etc. They're not meant to replace actual players. I doubt we will EVER see chocobos usable in Duties as it goes against the nature of what MMOs are.
3) This isn't going to happen in the way you want it to. From what I can glean, SE's plan is to require playing things in order for the content update "chunk" that's currently in play. They've already said the "after coil" from 3.0 and beyond won't require coil to access, but you're simply not going to get rid of the unlock progression in this game. It's actually much easier and more fair than the lion's share of games I've seen with content locking. All you gotta do in this game is watch some cut scenes, fetch some stuff, and beat an easy-ish boss to unlock the good stuff.
4) This isn't going to happen. As Phyllo said, the PF is for training and the DF is for when it's a "sure thing." You have what each one is intended to do backwards. Granted what people ACTUALLY use them for is completely different, but that's not the way it was designed. Currently the DF is there precisely BECAUSE of what you want from #3. What you want here is so counter to the decades of MMO history it's laughable. Statics ARE how content is intended to be done. The DF is there for the same reason chocobos exist for overworld content: to supplement any deficiencies in your group. It's just most peoples' deficiencies happen to be "doesn't have a group."

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Originally Posted by kyuven

1)
...
4) This isn't going to happen. As Phyllo said, the PF is for training and the DF is for when it's a "sure thing." You have what each one is intended to do backwards. Granted what people ACTUALLY use them for is completely different, but that's not the way it was designed. Currently the DF is there precisely BECAUSE of what you want from #3. What you want here is so counter to the decades of MMO history it's laughable. Statics ARE how content is intended to be done. The DF is there for the same reason chocobos exist for overworld content: to supplement any deficiencies in your group. It's just most peoples' deficiencies happen to be "doesn't have a group."

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I think your logic is backwards. You are saying that "the designers designed it this way so it shouldn't change... even though people aren't using it this way..." You do realize the point is to design things that meet the needs of the audience, right? If people are using something in a way that is unexpected, the designer doesn't shoehorn those people to use it as expected they change it so that it fits the use case.

I totally get what you mean but honestly, if you are alone and go to DF you don't really expect to train there, you usually go there cuz you expect the kill (now I mean, back in 2.0/2.1 trying a trial on DF was for everything but the kill xD newcomers have it easy with their relic now xD)

True, but the problem is that it's in human nature to avoid complications, if there's a loose end in how they designed it, be sure people will use it.

Getting people to do old content is always a hard thing to do especially if you've been gone awhile. They just need to change the rewards to match the content at the time. Since allied seals are all the rave right now put them in the primal ex fights etc... Or other loot that would lure people back and the game becomes lively again.

DF is not here to find a training party or experienced party. For both there exist PF.
DF is here to find fast 7 or 3 other random players and nothing more

I believe the dificult of EM mode for levi & ramuh is around the difficult of HM. I would like to have primal story, Hm and EM again

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Originally Posted by Phyllo

I totally get what you mean but honestly, if you are alone and go to DF you don't really expect to train there, you usually go there cuz you expect the kill (now I mean, back in 2.0/2.1 trying a trial on DF was for everything but the kill xD newcomers have it easy with their relic now xD)

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The DF should let people go in alone even if they don't know anything about the content. People have to get started somehow on content with how the community is shaping up, and as things are standing it is easier for a player to get their feet into the water with a quick DF than it is to fish around for a learning group or forming one themselves. That's without even going into the impact that the coil weekly lockout has on when certain kinds of groups show up in the PF. Good luck getting a decent Learning group for coil T6 on weekends. :(

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Originally Posted by Colt47

snip.

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It's about a disparity between design and practical application. How it's DESIGNED is also how it's used, but since it's designed that way, it can also be used in a different way. It's a little confusing to explain, but the way it is now allows for groups to fill holes AND for people to get practice. It may have originally been intended for the former, but the latter may have been an unexpected but welcome consequence. However, shifting more towards one or the other will not benefit anyone. But yes you can also say they specifically designed it to please both camps as well. That's actually why roulettes were put in.
Bottom line is it's not changing, either because of the happy accident or intentional design.
Let me also add that hearing antipathy to forming a static raid group is increasingly silly to me given my own background...back then that was the ONLY way to get things done. Matchmaking systems didn't even exist for MMOs for a good while.

why you guys feeding the troll anyways, this is the same thread 10 million people have made b4, cry cry its to hard, let me have my stuff for free.
I don't like something stamp my feet have a tantrum.

Why do people bother with these threads, just leave the game. It really simple.
The designers aren't going to be like, AMG this one guy complained, lets change the whole game for him!

Perhaps its a good thing you don't like this game, you can spend some time out of game maturing.

as to your points.
1) you just don't like the rewards, not that there isn't any. And no ones stopping you from playing HM.
2) Chocobos aren't meant to replace people.
3) you have to do something you don't want to to get what you want, welcome to life.
4)You want thing even easier than they are now, so you don't have to be in a group with other people, why are you playing an MMO. A lot of people want the game more difficult not less. This is purely your biased opinion.

If you want an expemple of why DF is not made for training, neither by the developers design nor the players use;

The other day I was pissed off that FL queue takes so long so I got my scholar guildie in my party and we tagged for moogle ex, without any experience, I just wanted to change my mind and told the people in the df about it and why I did it and apologized for it, do you know what the answer was?

"It's not really nice for those who trained for it beforehand" (exact words, I know it's weird I expected to be insulted too xD)
(We actually almost won, and would have if one of our dps did not had to leave for personal reasons and be replaced by some thick head moron who did not listened to a single word)

So yeah, people do think DF is not for training, your opinion is not absolute, none is, however majority wins, wether they're right or wrong.
People use DF because they expect easy win, easy tokens, easy prize, no complication, there's a black sheep? Kick him.
So yeah people also use PF for wins, but different wins; farm, they use it to set groups who want to run it hundreds of time for their pony, not a one time kill.

Well king said it all :)

Also, you want a good T6 training party? Set up a static that will train with you for T6 AND the upcoming raids, raids are group content, not solo, if you wanna play solo, this is the wrong kind of game :/

Edit (daily limit)

I said majority wins, but i never said my opinion (pf training, df kill) is the majority's, after all I did said that no one's opinion is absolute, and honestly I'm glad I haven't played with the majority of players in ARR cuz in that case it'd mean there are not that many players, it's just that most of the people I have played with seems to think alike.

However I have one last thing to say, what I agree the most is about your title, no matter the game, if it always is the same it'll end up boring, we need new stuff, not rehashed stuff :/

The power of DF is anonymity. People who queue for DF are going to do it for a lot of reasons and just because one group is more vocal than the other does not make it the majority. In general, people tend to be more vocal when they have something to complain about, and it's the same thing with DF and people complaining about inexperienced players entering the queue.

I mean we can go back and forth on it all day.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

... not because they wanted to have content built to ever higher difficulty standards to make sure they didn't mow through things too quickly. ... PF makes sense if someone is trying to build a party of people with prior knowledge of the fight, it makes no sense not to allow DF for simple learning.

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Static group form because DF just doesn't work with this kind of "whole party dance in sync or you wipe" content that we have been getting.

In DF, you get 90 mins to do something, and it takes really only <15 minute to complete if you have a party that knows what they are doing. The other 75 minutes is teaching others what to do, if no one rage quits after the 1st wipe.

New content? Yeah, I made a post and suggested SE should bring back the 1.23 multi-job style multi-phase boss fights, and I got blasted. Basically, people are too contempt with theme park play and only wants it simple. We have 2 tanks, 2 heals, and 5 dps jobs, but all of that might as well just be 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 range dps, and 1 melee dps as the job distinction is non-existence. Multi-job would work for something like ST Extreme. Shame.

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Originally Posted by kingatlas

why you guys feeding the troll anyways, this is the same thread 10 million people have made b4, cry cry its to hard, let me have my stuff for free.
I don't like something stamp my feet have a tantrum.

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Don't cry when people make a thread you disagree with? And for that matter you really like making assumptions.

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Originally Posted by AttacKat

Static group form because DF just doesn't work with this kind of "whole party dance in sync or you wipe" content that we have been getting.

In DF, you get 90 mins to do something, and it takes really only <15 minute to complete if you have a party that knows what they are doing. The other 75 minutes is teaching others what to do, if no one rage quits after the 1st wipe.

New content? Yeah, I made a post and suggested SE should bring back the 1.23 multi-job style multi-phase boss fights, and I got blasted. Basically, people are too contempt with theme park play and only wants it simple. We have 2 tanks, 2 heals, and 5 dps jobs, but all of that might as well just be 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 range dps, and 1 melee dps as the job distinction is non-existence. Multi-job would work for something like ST Extreme. Shame.

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You pretty much nailed it with the first sentence. They basically designed end game with the group dance methodology, then implemented Duty Finder roulette to reduce the time it takes to group up, only to not really address the issue that the Duty finder group has to learn how to operate together in addition to the group dance. Hence why some people often say the purpose of the DF is for guaranteed kills.

1) Can't really agree on this. The HM versions of the new primals (Mog, Levi, Ramuh) are scaled to the same tier of difficulty that the HM primals are. With your method we'd have a "story mode" Leviathan be what Levi HM currently is, and then a Leviathan HM takes the place of Levi EX even though EX is -definitely- in the realm of EX primals, and then we'd also have a Levi EX that'd have to be even harder... meaning what, Twintania-level hard? It just doesn't fit.

2) We'd all love this. The devs know that we want it. At this point making more threads on something the devs have put the PLFTI stamp on is borderline harassment.

3) There's exactly two things in the game that have a lockout: Second Coil, and Syrcus Tower. The latter is locked behind CT, which is pathetically easy to clear at this point, and the former is locked behind echo-nerfed Twintania, and frankly if you can't beat her you're not going to be able to handle Melusine or Nael. (Raff maybe, and The Avatar is easymodo, but not those two.)

4) Not sure who said DF isn't for simple learning, other than a gaggle of elitist punks who don't belong playing a social game in the first place. You wanna learn in DF that's fine, just be equally willing to teach if you jump into a DF and find a new player. Hell, I landed in a T4 once with a tank who hadn't looked up even the slightest bit of information on it, and y'know what? I was all set to (begrudgingly) explain things before one of the other members bawled her out to the point where she quit.

Not to mention, you can't -use- DF for the very hardest content anyways. The only major difficulties in trying to DF lie with Titan EX and Twintania, and both of those have echo support.

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Originally Posted by Phyllo

I agree with all but the last thing you talked about in your (4), PF is for making learning parties, DF is for sure kill, or at least was intended to be.
you can't train in DF when 80% of your team comes from a different server, the moment your party breaks up you restart from scratch.

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Hahahaa lol ... Ahem yeah.
Df pt is NEVER a sure kill for EX fights. Treat it as learning only. The pt breaks up after but you'll have the experience anyway.

2.4 aint out bro or else you`d be seeing ninjas everywhere

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Stuff

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1) Suggestions and not just QQ. Yes, some of the EX primals are not worth doing anymore. But what type of "reward" are you suggesting?
2) Pretty sure they working on it.
3) Locksouts on previous patch content? Huh? Only lock outs right now is SCoB and ST and both pretty new. CT and T1-5 are unlocked?
4) NA data center problem

I don't get why people keep insisting that the Duty Finder is for win groups. The game herds all new players to the Duty Finder, not the Party Finder.

The Party Finder is the one for win groups.

1. Bring back the story, HM, and EX model for primal fights and reward people for completing HM and EX versions.
We do receive Rewards, and the Daily random duty roulette not only gives us those rewards - But helps out people who are going to those instances for the first time.

2. Fix Chocobos so we can use them in groups.
The only 'fix' will be to severely nerf the Chocobos, there is a balance to maintain and it breaks it if you have a 16 member Party.
I can understand wanting to use your Chocobo in more areas, but what you are asking is a little silly. Maybe you didn't hear about the future plans for being able to use Chocobos in dungeon etc?


3. Drop Lockouts based on previous patch content.
Are you talking about BCoB? It's rather important to finish turn 5 so the cut scenes in the SCoB make sense... Doing it in order is a good thing ^^

4. Stop basing content around the idea people will form statics (Ramuh EX, Coil). Statics formed because people wanted to make better use of their time

Maybe you use a static as a tool... but not everyone does. A lot of people prefer to make friends and play with people they know both by personality and by ability.

The idea doesn't seem to be making a new static for every patch like you seem to think is 'normal' - but is based on the ideal that you will be playing the entire story line with the same people and have those instances of 'hey this fight is kind of like that one time we did this - let's try use the same tactics and see if we get further'

You are talking about end game content and it really is not for everyone right away.
Later it will receive the Echo, then the people who don't like to figure out tough fights and work hard at it will have loads of resources and a huge advantage and will be able to clear what used to be the hardest content in the game and receive multiple allowances of loot a day. Even then... they have the option to turn the Echo off if they so desire.
But till then, you need to respect other peoples wishes too.

PF is a fantastic tool for making the party you want ie. 'Practice party, Experienced party, ATMA party, Party at my house lets make friends (lol)'
DF is a gamble naturally but is great for those with less time/do other things while you wait for your DF to pop.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

1. Bring back the story, HM, and EX model for primal fights and reward people for completing HM and EX versions.
We do receive Rewards, and the Daily random duty roulette not only gives us those rewards - But helps out people who are going to those instances for the first time.

2. Fix Chocobos so we can use them in groups.
The only 'fix' will be to severely nerf the Chocobos, there is a balance to maintain and it breaks it if you have a 16 member Party.
I can understand wanting to use your Chocobo in more areas, but what you are asking is a little silly. Maybe you didn't hear about the future plans for being able to use Chocobos in dungeon etc?


3. Drop Lockouts based on previous patch content.
Are you talking about BCoB? It's rather important to finish turn 5 so the cut scenes in the SCoB make sense... Doing it in order is a good thing ^^

4. Stop basing content around the idea people will form statics (Ramuh EX, Coil). Statics formed because people wanted to make better use of their time

Maybe you use a static as a tool... but not everyone does. A lot of people prefer to make friends and play with people they know both by personality and by ability.

The idea doesn't seem to be making a new static for every patch like you seem to think is 'normal' - but is based on the ideal that you will be playing the entire story line with the same people and have those instances of 'hey this fight is kind of like that one time we did this - let's try use the same tactics and see if we get further'

You are talking about end game content and it really is not for everyone right away.
Later it will receive the Echo, then the people who don't like to figure out tough fights and work hard at it will have loads of resources and a huge advantage and will be able to clear what used to be the hardest content in the game and receive multiple allowances of loot a day. Even then... they have the option to turn the Echo off if they so desire.
But till then, you need to respect other peoples wishes too.

PF is a fantastic tool for making the party you want ie. 'Practice party, Experienced party, ATMA party, Party at my house lets make friends (lol)'
DF is a gamble naturally but is great for those with less time/do other things while you wait for your DF to pop.

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Uh, Niqote? Quoting someone and only quoting a small part of the comment that does not reflect the whole idea doesn't really lend itself to much except generating more thread confusion for people stepping into this.

My last comment was not meant to infer pure utilitarianism and what you stated still doesn't counter the main point of the original statement: that we aren't grouping together and playing in statics because we want the developers to participate in some kind of boss fight arms race.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Uh, Niqote? Quoting someone and only quoting a small part of the comment that does not reflect the whole idea doesn't really lend itself to much except generating more thread confusion for people stepping into this.

My last comment was not meant to infer pure utilitarianism and what you stated still doesn't counter the main point of the original statement: that we aren't grouping together and playing in statics because we want the developers to participate in some kind of boss fight arms race.

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Oh, please don't misunderstand. I shorten it to make the post tidy, not to cut out anything you said. Since its OP its easily accessible, that's all.

And I suppose I don't understand this statement at all ''that we aren't grouping together and playing in statics because we want the developers to participate in some kind of boss fight arms race.'' ... its hard to respond to that as it's rather jumbled, perhaps rephrase? ^^;;;

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Originally Posted by Niqote

Oh, please don't misunderstand. I shorten it to make the post tidy, not to cut out anything you said. Since its OP its easily accessible, that's all.

And I suppose I don't understand this statement at all ''that we aren't grouping together and playing in statics because we want the developers to participate in some kind of boss fight arms race.'' ... its hard to respond to that as it's rather jumbled, perhaps rephrase? ^^;;;

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I can't honestly say what he meant, as it seems like he slipped up when editing his post or something. I think the gist of it is that the raid progression is a crazy-making process. Eventually people break down either from the difficulty of content or they break down from repetitively grinding it, thus leaving the game long before the next patch hits. It's one of the reasons I rarely play P2P MMOs myself. Strict roles and linear scripted boss strategies don't have the holding power they once did ten years ago. Too much competition and too many games covering the same ground.

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Originally Posted by Niqote

SNIP.

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You pretty much nailed it all, and someone earlier explained the Primals very well. You would wind up with three fights of the same Primal all within less than 10 ilevels of one another if you tried to shoehorn in a "Story Mode" Tier like the OP asks for. All Im hearing from you OP is that you want to skip content you don't like by quitting and rejoining for the next content patch and you want everything nerfed so that random DF parties can one shot everything... Go play Maple Story or something dude.

Some nice ideas. If only the devs would listen from this point forward. I am really getting bored in the game to be honest. Grear is outdated before you have it, dungeons mostly are the same old thing with new skins and some fights leave litte room for error. I have 89 days left on my sub and not sure I will resub to be honest. All I do anymore is garden and gather....

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Originally Posted by Colt47

I think your logic is backwards. You are saying that "the designers designed it this way so it shouldn't change... even though people aren't using it this way..." You do realize the point is to design things that meet the needs of the audience, right? If people are using something in a way that is unexpected, the designer doesn't shoehorn those people to use it as expected they change it so that it fits the use case.

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This is the saddest post, this is why video games are the state they are in. You seriously believe they are not independent projects made from the artistic talent and vision of the developer, but a product that meets an audience needs. It is pathetic, customer feedback is to be listened to but acted only on the sole discretion of the developer because they are video games not your internet provider's call center.

You have reduced games to a consumer product and the thing that makes this sad is that the whole problem is that video game development is exactly like that, and it kills creativity. You should not wonder why every Christmas we get the shelves lined with nothing but sequels of all the most tired franchises because you are the reason. The logical end game with this thinking is that they don't make MMOs anymore, because the best money is in other online games anyway.

Duty Finder can be what you want it to be. If it doesn't work out, who cares just re-queue again, no big deal.
The leet "Clear Only, prove to me your achievements" crowd can stick to Party Finder.
People who use Duty Finder to learn usually get the hang of things fairly quickly and become clear capable. They aren't idiots who will never clear.
There is no good reason to keep 2nd Coil locked. It's been long enough for the server first, look at me in my full HA set people to stand around holding out their T9 weapons^. I quit my static due to time constraints and am waiting for it to be added to solo queue Duty Finder so I can do it on my own time. I accept that there will be a lot of people new to 2nd Coil and look forward to helping them out. I'd rather play with them than those who are over reliant on their parsing software and long term statics.

This culture of having to wait several patches to even set foot into Coil and Primal battles for quite a large amount of players is one of the biggest problems this game has right now. It's not because they are "casuals", it's because the system by design makes the content difficult to access for a variety of reasons. The content then ends up being nerfed (Echo buffed and mechanics eased) which also encourages people to wait and not bother attempting said content anywhere close to when it's released.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

1. Bring back the story, HM, and EX model for primal fights and reward people for completing HM and EX versions. The old primal fights worked great as they iteratively introduced players to the bosses set of mechanics. That and the HM versions provided rewards for completion, so players would repeat doing them and get better at the basic move sets. Right now, the 2.4 primal just has a "story mode" and a EX mode with no real gradual introduction of the mechanics and no rewards for anything but the EX mode.

2. Fix Chocobos so we can use them in groups. AI companions are a great idea for expanding what can be done in fights and encounters for any job, and with so much focus on chocobo breeding and customization it's a crime not to do so.

3. Drop Lockouts based on previous patch content. If someone is coming back after a hiatus, the last thing they are going to want to do is be forced through content they chose NOT to do when they left just to see the newer content.

4. Stop basing content around the idea people will form statics (Ramuh EX, Coil). Statics formed because people wanted to make better use of their time, not because they wanted to have content built to ever higher difficulty standards to make sure they didn't mow through things too quickly. It would also help people with time constraints learn fights if they could just queue is the Duty Finder for some learning attempts instead of fishing for 30 minutes to an hour in PF trying to build a group themselves. The PF makes sense if someone is trying to build a party of people with prior knowledge of the fight, it makes no sense not to allow DF for simple learning.

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1: Rewards are there. i90 weapons from HM and accessories from EX.
HMs already exist for Mog, Levi, and Ramuh, they are the story fights. This leads me to believe that the classification of HM is based on ilvl requirements and thus can not graduate the fights without going one step above extreme. Although, Ramuh HM and Garuda EX have the same ilvl but they obviously can not be compared to one another like that as Ramuh is a later fight and thus is bound to be more challenging.

2: As chocobos count towards being a party member, the restrictions are set. Nothing to stop them being used in a light party. Unfortunately if you want to be able to control them like a pet, that would prove difficult as it would mean any pet classes may prove to be fair more difficult in doing both.

3: Lockouts are gradually lifted from older content as newer content comes in. The requirements foe entering a duty are not exactly extreme and if you haven't done the previous content and come in to try the stuff you haven't done, I don't see what the issue here is. Also, loot lockouts are also being lifted in the likes of CT as the newer one is released or it becomes relatively old content.

4: Firstly, the DF isn't there for you to learn the fight, that's why people form statics. If I am going in, I don't want to play with someone who hasn't either looked up a single thing or attempted the fight previously and learned from it. I'm not saying people should have exp or should have a kill, but looking the content up isn't difficult. Before anyone tries to use the argument that it's a spoiler, well it's a spoiling other peoples' time by having to wait around for you or you just end up having it explained to you anyway which is no real different to looking it up online. You can also use the PF for creating a first time, or learning party.

The diffyculty level of EXes is not something the players can fix.

I love the challenge but from game design standpoint the barrier of entry to those fights us set waaay too low for the skill level of the players.

Here's an idea: why not teach the players in-game how those fights work by dividing them into 3 guildhests?
Only after clearing every single guildhest let's you enter the real full fight.

As it is queing into an EX fight and expecting people in there to be "in the know" of how to work in those instances is unrealistic.

Take this from someone who mistakenly tried to clear Tiran EX via DF for three months before switching to PF. Even watching a video is simply not enough you have to know the rotation by heart via practice. This is especially true if anyone has even tiny bit of lag.

An example could be the heart phase: "Damage the heart before time runs out. Deal with gaols like in the previous guildhest"

Then in last GH: grab adds away from titan and clear a safezone for your party during super bombs"

Layers of diffyculty are thus introduced and you can focus on learning the new things while needing skill from previous challenges.
Then unlock the full mode once you've proved to the game that you know the steps.

Some of the videos online are over 15mins long and even those leave out a lot of things out. Thinking any player could absorb all that info at once is unrealistic.