Suggestion: Party Finder "Practice Mode"

Suggestion: "Practice Mode" in Party Finder for high-end duty.

In this mode, if you die you will automatically be rezzed, immediately. If the raid wipes though, it's over.
Rezzing this way will incur no sickness debuff, but you will get a buff which counts how many times you died.

If you clear a boss using this method, you will receive no rewards.
Furthermore, to balance this, it can be considered that tokens earnable, exchangeable or buyable will need to be spent for every auto-rez you use in this mode.

Reason for Suggestion:
Most people that I know agree the party finder experience for high-end content is extremely unsatisfying. Some people take hundreds of pulls, dozens of hours, wiping a whole week from Tuesday till Sunday, before they can clear a boss. And even if they clear a boss, many people have received but a single piece of actual gear since week 1. One person received not even a single piece of actual gear, but had to buy all their gear with books. Jealousy, despirit, confusion, many negative things come with this. SE should stop pretending this is normal, and acknowledge that this is not the way the game is meant to be played and experienced, and that this is mostly their fault in design.

Practice mode enables efficient practice and first-hand experiencing of the whole fight, from start to finish, without interruption. I personally believe this is the most efficient way to practice a fight possible.

While it can be argued "Practice Mode" is not immersive, etc. I think it is infinitely more preferable than millions of minutes of millions of players' time wasted, and their immersive experience ruined anyways.

"Practice Mode" is only a single suggestion, and does not address problems such as
Healers and tanks being tools and not fun to play and even less fun to experience through the party-finder experience.
It does not address the limitations in the design philosophy for current savage raids and other endgame content.
It does not address class balance and party composition philosophy.
It does not address playability and accessibility concerns of gameplay.
Etc.

So future and continued in-depth discussion is necessary.
Also please find my suggestion for advanced PF tools below. Thank you.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...y-Finder-Tools

No. Just no.

Seriously, this game doesnt need to be even less punishing to people who mess up mechanics. We dont need even more hand holding, specially not in content thats supposed to be a challenge.
Is it frustrating when people die to simple mechanics? Yes, yes it is. Frustrating and annoying as hell. But this isnt going to lead to them learning to do those mechanics well - this is teaching them that hey, it doesnt matter if they mess it up, they'll get raised straight away! Oh, we're not in "practice mode" anymore? Well, we got two healers, a summoner and a RDM! One of those can just raise the dragoon who didnt bother to move because thats what they learned during practice!

Sorry... no. It doesnt enable "efficient practice", it would only give people a wrong idea of how the fight works. If they cant do the mechanics (and/or keep everyone alive, when being a healer) they dont deserve to clear the fight under any circumstances. Not even without loot.
The issue that people dont manage to clear those fights with pugs is that a lot of people who are pugging this content actually shouldnt, at least not until they get a better grasp of their job and how those fights work. "Practice mode" will do nothing to fix those issues, because those people who arent good enough to clear this without wiping 50 times wont bother with it - we have Stone, Sky, Sea for people to practice their rotations and check wether or not their damage output is good enough. Do you believe that those 4k-BLMs went over their and parcticed? (If they did, they surely didnt do the decent thing of not subjecting other people to their subpar-performance)
I'd also like to point out that you mentioned something about the books - so... would a practice-mode-kill reward those? Or am I missunderstanding something...?

Bottomline either way:
This would accomplish nothing - at least nothing good.
Those people who need more practice and are dragging down PF-clear-groups wont bother with it, because they're not self-aware and reflective enough to realise that they would need more practice.
And those who'd genuily try to use would get a wrong idea of those fights and potentially learn harmful "strategies" or the mechanics incorrectly because "Hey, it doesnt matter, I'll get a raise straight away!"

As far as SE is concerned the way Savage-content is meant to be played is in a static - or at least in a group that communicates well with each other. While pugging surely is possible, its not the intended way so...

If savage raids aren't meant to be doable in Party Finder then they should outright say so. Perhaps my solution is not the best solution, but having o solution is not right either. I have FC members who are good people but are softcore raiders, they are just starting savage modes right now, and are wiping every night in inefficient party finder groups. I wish I could help, but the awful 2-chest lockout system means I cannot help without reducing their rewards, and as I mentioned, rewards factor in a long way to motivate people to clear.

So the problem isn't just party finder groups being inconsistent, and one person's mistake can set back party progress to the beginning again and again before people quit and leave and hours are wasted just sitting around waiting for more people and doing nothing. It's the inconsistency of getting loot, the bias against "underpowered" classes, being unable to just get some quality practice in so everyone can be good at the fight.

I plowed through week 1 clears and even E4S prog in PF, before finally deciding I've had enough of it and finding myself a static on discord. Supposedly, consistency will be preferable over flexible time raiding from PF, and the joy of helping other people out. But it's still sad to hear elitists claim "bad people deserve to be bad and suffer inconsistency/ inefficiency" because "the content isn't for them". It's the same type of attitude as "poor people are poor because their own fault".

I look forward to hearing actual solutions and discussion. If not, I take solace in that SE is probably better at this than us players.

This is why there is a 6 month gap between savage raid tiers and a catch up patch. it helps people who are less inclined to get better gear to help them as time goes on. as for player skill well that's always a crap shoot.

I personally don't think it needs to be changed, but if they do a practice version then a better option would just be to allow starting the fight at the transition points in the fight. This would let your group practice each phase in chunks without needing to start from the beginning. No rewards, obviously. That said, there's definitely something to be said for having to repeat earlier phases in order to reach later phases to practice them since it provides additional practice at those earlier phases making it easier to get to the later phases over time.

I mean... it was more or less the playerbase who "requested" to have this stuff put into dutyfinder - and with that into partyfinder. Back in Coil-days you had to assemble a party yourself and could only enter through the gate... So I consider it a bit shady by you to argue that they should outright say that its not meant for PF when the truth is that those fights can be cleared in PF (specially after the content is out for a few months) but is designed with a static in mind. Just because the main-focus of this content are well organised groups and not stumbling-through-mechanics-PFs doesnt mean that PFs cant clear it.

I also cant agree with your argument that you cant help them without deminishing their rewards - yes, thats true at first sight. But if you think about it for a second two things become clear:
1) They dont gain anything - no chests, no tokens, specially no experience - if they just sit it out because they'll lose a chest. If you can help them thats the way better alternative, that way they might get a chest less this week, but at least they'll get more experience for the next one and might not require your help again.
2) Even if they'll lose a chest, they'll still get the token - not as good, but still better than nothing.
In addition to this: If gear, aka ilvl is the main motivation for people who are not that intrested in challenging content, I'd like to remind everyone that we have several months with catch-up patches that will allow everyone to get ilvl470 gear before the next raidtier hits. Even without struggling through Savage-PFs.

I'd also like to adress the issue of "the content isnt for them" - to which I have to say: Yes, maybe thats the case. Before you call me an elitist, hear me out!
The difficulty of Savage can be above the difficulty of a dungeon, trial or ex-primal because the team works with the assumption that they're creating content for dedicacted players who are willing to put in the hours of learning the content and maintaining a static. To keep those entertainted they have to increase the difficulty, which in turn means that people who dont fullfill those requirements will struggle. But as far as I'm concerned thats okay - not every content has to be designed for everyone and sometimes pleasing one crowd will lockout another because not everyone likes the same stuff or has the same abilities.
Most of the game is fairly casual so I can understand any confusion when it comes to Savage where you're suddenly faced with not being able to do it whenever and with whom ever. Doesnt mean that has to change though - specially not because most of those changes would most likely effect the difficulty of the content... and at least I dont want that, since I like having this challenge.

I do agree with Mhaeric - most fights seem to have a natural "pause" or a first and second phase. I could imagine setting a checkpoint that allows you to start from that checkpoint, under the condition that you reached it before during the encounter.
Example: Lets take E1S and set the checkpoint after beating the adds and the cutscene. Once you've reached that with everyone alive you'll get the option to start at that point. Skills wont reset, though, to prevent you from cheating any mechanics. Having everyone alive is a condition to trigger the checkpoint, again to avoid cheating mechanics.
That would be a way in which I could see the difficulty not compromised but practice made a little less frustrating.

Still... I dont think that the most challenging content in the game needs any form of hand-hold-mode, sorry. Not everything will be for everyone.

{| Practice Run |}


Drop that into Party Finder and you're good to go. Roulette shouldn't exist for it, because it throws people not ready for it into the mix, but it's a feature people requested. Now that it's there, the hardcores are wishing it wasn't. It's a lose lose.


But I disagree with a need to add a practice run to the duty roulette. Party Finder exists for things like that.

I like your idea, a lot. +1 from me.

This...isn't how raiding works. Not in FFXIV, not in WoW. This is silly.

Well, I wouldn't mind some system to help practice specific mechanics. E2S for instance.. All the mechanics are spread through the fight and don't repeat much, so my skill level drops as we get further in. I've only done Quietus a handful of times and can barely keep my DPS up through it. I don't really see how that's going to change much since I have to go through a 10 minute fight to even see it.
This actually makes me appreciate E4S more, since all the hardest mechanics are front loaded. On the other hand, I've never even seen P2 of the fight..

The key points / counterarguments I seem to take from Vidu's standpoint is that, and from others:

1. Difficulty is demanded by players, and it is only logical that SE designs raids to be difficult, to both entertain and challenge these dedicated players.
2. The urgency to gain rewards is not actually that high as even purely via tokens or low efficiency raiding, you'll be well geared before the next tier of content hits.
3. Any changes will substantially alter the nature / form of the content, not to mention will be difficult to code / implement. Current doability does not warrant dismissal of the viability of current content as a natural and balanced form of progression in the game.
4. Other people point out there are no existing examples of such a system in similar game design, probably for good reason.
5. Other people point out be careful what you wish for: Systems were not meant to be slotted into each other, or modified to address singular problems.
6. The actual efficiency of the key idea under inspection (no-death / wipe practice mode) is doubted, or questioned to not target actual problem points.

I think some of those would be quite difficult to discuss. Not to mention SE seems to have their own raid design philosophy already, and what a raid "should be". How the game should provide its entertainment efficiently, etc.

However my own motive for thinking up this idea, was mainly for the following points:
1. Having to re-run all prior mechanics before seeing later mechanics is highly inefficient, especially when factoring in the inconsistency and inefficiency of PF practice, with people leaving, failing randomly, new groups and tactics and positions every group.
2. Not having to worry about death will lessen mental pressure on players. This is a good thing. They will learn better when happy.
3. Being able to run a whole fight coherently from start to finish, players can focus on the actual mechanics, observing raid, memorize timing and rotations, experimenting with raid cds. Try out new tactics and strats.
4. A successful run does not mean the end of a night of raiding. When I practice music I don't stop when I happen to do a piece perfectly. You can also run it again and again until you can do it in your sleep. At any rate, being a "successful" run by definition is much more satisfying than wiping in PF more times in 1 week than you've done for the whole expansion.
5. If the general efficiency of the whole playerbase increases, SE can experiment with new forms of content, new content scheduling, new design philosophy. Utilizing this system and data from it to create even more creativity and content. It's a compounding effect. It's all about creating "systems", with better PF tools, etc.
5. Having a leisure mode allows helping out others, such as FC members, practice before they "go out into the wild" and find their own clear groups.

Doing the hard stuff without the "hard" part is just tasteless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raqrie_Tohka

If savage raids aren't meant to be doable in Party Finder then they should outright say so.

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They are meant to be doable in party finder. They're even designed to be doable with raid finder groups. The design concept is log in jump into raid finder and go accessibility.

The only reason people dont use raid finder is because too many idiots who never entered a fight can go into raid finder and click duty completion instead of practice. And ultimately waste everyone else's time.

If you look at the jp side if the game (or at least used to be the case I'm a bit out of touch on that side.) But raid finder works very well over there because people ove there generally dont queue for things they aren't capable of. Where over here people feel almost entitled to queue for whatever they want and be carried by the rest of the group.

I don't think I've actually used raid finder since farming Susano and Lakshmi early 4.0. Never really had the time for farm parties but jumping in raid finder for 2-3 quick clears was usually quick enough.

The other issue is the lack of scaling difficulty. 99% of the game is actually harder to lose than it is to win the line is so low. And the other 1% is a sheer vertical line that shoots into orbit...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The other issue is the lack of scaling difficulty. 99% of the game is actually harder to lose than it is to win the line is so low. And the other 1% is a sheer vertical line that shoots into orbit...

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Eh, semantics, but I'd say it's more steps. Progression through the story, and therefore access to further content, has you going against trials that are actually mildly difficult for the average player, hence why Ravana, Lakshmi, Shinryu, Tsukiyomi, and now Titania and last MSQ trial tend to be such painful experiences when you see half the party sitting in "Viewing Cutscene" when they zone in, especially when they were current content. And this isn't a knock on the average player, but the fights demand a bit more attention than the none-at-all the zergfests that the level 50 trials have become need.

On further reflection, one thing I actually kinda liked about Blade and Soul was their practice room. You could practice specific mechanics on bosses without actually progressing in any meaningful way. The problem is, Blade and Soul required a lot of personal responsibility, and mechanics were very much on you, solely, and you are the only one who tends to get punished, whereas fights in this game are tend to be group focused, and failing one thing will cause your other party members to die, ie Vice and Virtue on E1S. With the battle system we have, having a "practice room" would be very untenable, and you're better off just finding a Practice party in party finder to learn the fights.

What you suggest, OP, is basically what we already have; just add "practice" to your party finder thing and just learn mechanics as you go through the fight. If you've already done Eden Normal and the other trials, then you actually have a somewhat decent idea of the mechanics you'll have to go through, with some new twists that can be learned via a guide. If you're the type of person to go in completely blind to a fight, you do so to the detriment of your entire party. If it's for low stakes dungeons and normal/hard mode trials? It's fine, there isn't much issue there. For Extreme and Savage? You're actively making things worse on your party for doing so.

Raise.
It has no zed.