SUGGESTION: Proving Grounds

Quick backstory: Recently helped a friend complete the final MSQ (not spoiling the story but those of you who did it, you know how hellish it can be) and it reminded me of something this game desperately needs, even more so with the addition of the paid boosts.

I saw people failing basic mechanics: Stacking what should be spread, not moving to safe zones or zones of least damage taken, not prioritizing the correct targets, I can go on and on. I would love to see SE take inspirition from what World of Warcraft has done: Make a proving grounds with bronze/silver/gold medals or similar.

You can read on WoW's proving grounds here: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Proving_Grounds

TL;DR: Every role has its own tiered proving grounds, progressively getting more difficult, progressively introducing more mechanics and progressively requiring more efficient dps rotation and cooldown/ability usage. Along the way mechanics and potential methods of dealing with everything is explained.

If this were to be introduced and you add an additional restriction to level cap content (dungeons requiring bronze, trials requiring silver, omega requiring gold for example) it would, in my opinion, VASTLY improve the experience for players that are actually trying to play the game as well as they can as they will not be stuck with players that are ignorant of what to do, single-handedly wiping parties.

Another thing you could do with the introduction of this system is up the difficulty of all content that requires proving grounds. Since you can't pass proving grounds if you're not good enough, you can expect a certain amount of competence from players that have completed it, allowing for more complex dungeons/bosses and an added challenge, maybe even an extra tier of content (extreme dungeons maybe?).

TL;DR for post if you're not interested in wanting a better game:
- Make proving grounds to improve player skill
- Add proving ground completion as a requirement to queue level cap content
- Make level cap content more difficult as player skill grows up for healthy added challenge

Sidenote: Make boss auto attacks hit harder so cure1 and 2 are actually useful ;3

We call this "Hall of the Novice" and it's fine being optional.

I played HotN and hardly found it decent preparation

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

We call this "Hall of the Novice" and it's fine being optional.

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No it really isn't. It's not even close to difficult enough and the type of people who would see that they need improving most are also probably the least likely to do it if it's optional.

Your current proving ground is the last MSQ boss of SB, he alone covers all the typical mechanics you encounter in any other place.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

Your current proving ground is the last MSQ boss of SB, he alone covers all the typical mechanics you encounter in any other place.

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Issue with this is though people should know what to do BEFORE you do that. He is literally impossible if you can't grasp basic mechanics which a lot of people can't.

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Originally Posted by ComradeVodka

Issue with this is though people should know what to do BEFORE you do that. He is literally impossible if you can't grasp basic mechanics which a lot of people can't.

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All SB dungeons/trials add one or two mechanics, we even have a dungeon showing most, if not all, AOE telegraphs.

No again about world of warcraft ..... I don't want FFXIV come same WoW.
(I'm played WoW from many year. Last months ago I leaved. I see many stupid thing WoW. Why FFXIV are better)

Please no.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

All SB dungeons/trials add one or two mechanics, we even have a dungeon showing most, if not all, AOE telegraphs.

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And still a substantial amount of people are terrible at spotting them and managing them. Forcing them to learn it in a well-tuned proving grounds would be a much better option. Imaging the stacking telegraph and have the player forced to move to a group of allied AI in the distance to soak it. Nobody else will cover for his own ignorance of the telegraph, he has to learn to manage it himself.

This is why I see proving grounds as an additional queuing requirement as a boon to prevent getting frustrated over ignorant players.

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Originally Posted by OwlBlackX

No again about world of warcraft ..... I don't want FFXIV come same WoW.
(I'm played WoW from many year. Last months ago I leaved. I see many stupid thing WoW. Why FFXIV are better)

Please no.

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How is adopting one concept making the game "the same as wow".

Why add Proving Ground when the mini boss in the level 65 dungeon is pretty much what you are describing. It essentially teaches all these jump potion people various mechanics work in the game.

Can we like.. just stop trying to make this game into a mini World of Warcraft? I quit that game because its trash, don't bring that trash here.

I wish they'd just unlock undersized (note for the paranoid: not unsynced) for current content so my group could go in and fail the first few mechanics a few times in advance before recruiting enough members to try fights properly. Not specifically talking about that encounter at all - I haven't even tried it as I'm deliberately taking the story slowly - but watching the intro, getting used to the lay of the land and seeing the first phase at least really helps my RL friends. Obviously this wouldn't help overconfident people at all, but helping people who want to experiment would raise the bar just a little bit for everyone else, right?

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Originally Posted by ComradeVodka

And still a substantial amount of people are terrible at spotting them and managing them. Forcing them to learn it in a well-tuned proving grounds would be a much better option. Imaging the stacking telegraph and have the player forced to move to a group of allied AI in the distance to soak it. Nobody else will cover for his own ignorance of the telegraph, he has to learn to manage it himself.

This is why I see proving grounds as an additional queuing requirement as a boon to prevent getting frustrated over ignorant players.

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Do you understand that Blizzard dropped the concept because still some player failed to archieve silver? (yeah, there is a popular case of a guy blaming everything but him for that) Also, the quality of people inside LFR and heroics never improved. If you mind so much bad player don't do anything with randoms.

As someone who played wow for years, I had gold pg for a healer by pressing random buttons on 2 randoms (druid and pally) I boosted (free legion boost and free wod boost) but never gold gold on my main, a Frost mage, I raided with that mage and was a top 3 dps in my guild, always over 90th percentile. I couldn't heal on the others if my life depended on it.

So wow style proving grounds are not the way to go, in my opinion. Updated hall of the novice? Maybe.

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Originally Posted by ComradeVodka

I saw people failing basic mechanics: Stacking what should be spread, not moving to safe zones or zones of least damage taken

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Don't make this into a wow clone I gave up on it 2 years ago, and as for your quote take the time to explain. If thats to much of a bother just run with premades.

Did it a week ago and had the most awesome people in there, we got it down the third try and everyone had fun. Goddess Kamy (Faerie) made the run succeed by explaining it.

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Originally Posted by Niraves

Can we like.. just stop trying to make this game into a mini World of Warcraft? I quit that game because its trash, don't bring that trash here.

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Just because you dislike a game doesn't mean it doesn't have some good ideas. MMO's have been borrowing ideas from each other for years.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

We call this "Hall of the Novice" and it's fine being optional.

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Hall of the Novice may be fine as optional, but a Hall of the Professional (Not optional) could do wonders towards raising the skill bar and decreasing the complaining about Royal Menagerie

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

decreasing the complaining about Royal Menagerie

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We'd just get complaints about "Hall of the Professional" instead.

1. It's the same as WoW, because you're making a WoW inspired suggestion. Your whole post is about what WoW does. 2. We have that. It's called Hall of Novice, and it works great. 3. In Final Fantasy XIII, the tutorial felt long and forced to a lot of people. I'm pretty sure SE will never let that happen again. Tutorials will always be optional from now on, and for a good reason. 4. I've seen this thread too many times. It rarely goes over well.

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Originally Posted by ComradeVodka

How is adopting one concept making the game "the same as wow".

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This happens anytime anyone brings up another feature in a differen't mmo, naturally it's mostly a feature from WoW. People overreact and instead of reading what the feature is, they resort to kneejerk reactions about not wanting FFXIV to become wow. Which is hysterical considering that every mmo, including FFXIV borrows concepts and ideas from WoW. While I enjoy FFXIV more, there are certain features that i wouldn't mind seeing translated over to FFXIV.

In regards to OP's point on jump potions, i would personally like to see them add a Obligatory Tutorial if you purchase a jump potion. a friend of mine was telling me about how in other MMOs with jump potions some of them litterally FORCE you to play a tutorial on how to play your class.

I feel like people don't know Guildhests exist anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

I feel like people don't know Guildhests exist anymore.

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They should probably expand on the Guildhests for some of the mechanics seen much later in the game.

None of your bright ideas will "fix" people being bad or refusing to learn the games mechanics. Making some sort of "proving ground" mandatory before attempting content would only add frustration and annoyance to the game, not something a game needs.

I'd rather not see it be a literal requirement to join. Perhaps if it was an option for hosts, just like [Duty Complete] is now.

As a healer main, I play for a challenge. If everyone is doing everything perfectly, it's too easy and therefore too boring. Heck, I already have to turn to undersizing random content, synced, in order to challenge myself as a healer. I frequently join Royal Menagerie just to help people clear because it's actually relatively fun and somewhat difficult to heal that fight when half or more of the party is dying every 2 minutes.

First off, WoW sucks, do not request that garbage here.

Secondly, I would like to see Sky Stone Sea incorporate fight mechanics instead of just be a dps check. Yeah, it was added initially because SE admitted they made the dps check in a couple savage fights too high (thanks, SE, now we have a plague of tanks and healers who think they are dps and refuse to accept anything else), but they could at least have the dummies do the mechanics. Better yet, have a Hall of Challenges where you get the npc healer/tank/dps from Novice to do a practice fight.

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Originally Posted by bearcat01

Why add Proving Ground when the mini boss in the level 65 dungeon is pretty much what you are describing. It essentially teaches all these jump potion people various mechanics work in the game.

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Beat me to it, well said sir.

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Originally Posted by bearcat01

Why add Proving Ground when the mini boss in the level 65 dungeon is pretty much what you are describing. It essentially teaches all these jump potion people various mechanics work in the game.

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Only issue is that you can be carried past it. I am pretty sure only one person needs to know what they are doing to get past that boss.

MSQ instances, job quest instances, and dungeons introduced a lot of AoE patterns and mechanics. Heck, there is even a dungeon boss where you just dance around AoEs.
I believe SE know what they are doing. As time passes, new players will get better.

I remember when I first joined FFXIV. I only started to actually play well after I hit level 40 (1.5 weeks). So give these new players some time and some of them might outperform old players :)

Hellish? It was a joke and my party one shot it. This was 2week ago.. So not many noobs at endgame then.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

We call this "Hall of the Novice" and it's fine being optional.

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There is also this thing called "Guildhests". I did all of them waaaay back at release, and then when I was looking through the Wiki it turns out, no I didn't do the last one, the 8-man one. Good luck waiting for 8 people to do them. Thus it remains not done.

What SE should do is expand Guildhests all the way to level 70 with everything from level 40+ as 8-man non-Trials versions of mechanics.

The Guildhests generally prompt you to do things (eg kill or target something) , it's not a stretch to get some AOE dodging, stacking, pillar stacking and such into some of these.

If you pass all of them, then you're good to go for the game. If you can't do all of them, then Trials and Dungeons with those AOE's should be locked off.