I can finally be at peace

Today, I finally got my Sword of the South title after defeating Gabriel. The nerd screams were ripe and echoed though my home.

Said primal howling included:
"It is over."
"I am free."
"Now I can play the game."
"I can finally be at peace."

...Those aren't screams of joy. Those are desperate screams of relief. And even then, more waves of relief came over the course of the night, and once, I almost came to tears. All of this was due to two and half weeks of grinding Bozja 1v1s.

In the beginning, after a couple days, I sought out the most badass content this game has implemented: solo, difficult PvE content. (The Brawler's Guild, WoW’s solo PvE content, was my favorite feature, ever, and yielded my most exhilarating experience in my MMO history.)

I started studying the fights and the mechanics. After almost a week of trying to get in to any 1v1s, I got my Sartauvoir defeat on Wednesday, Oct 21. I howled with nerd screams of pure bliss. It was a very exciting day. With my sights on the other two bosses, I kept at it. …After, again, almost a week, I get my fantastic, blood-pumping Lyon defeat on Monday, Oct 26. …Granted it took me three tries, but I considered myself incredibly lucky on the sheer number of attempts.

....Then came the grueling trek of Gabriel. It was a nightmare. I would burn through most evenings, just trying to spend what free time I had. I would hop instance after instance asking people if Gabriel had been fought. If not, I would then drain 30-60 minutes spawning him, only to lose the lottery roll to the other 7-18 people.

Finally, on Friday, Oct 30, after TWO WEEKS of trying to fight Gabriel, I finally get in. ....And I, laughably, die because my nerves paralyzed my brain and I faced the wrong way for the knock-backs.

"That went different than I expected." -Anon watching

By the grace of the Twelve themselves, I was allowed back, that very night, to fight Gabriel. Again, paralyzed by nerves, I spaghetti-ed hard on the first Extreme Caution, and waited far too long to get out. Dead. (Reraise wasn’t very helpful.) The following weekend was mental torture. I hardly went in to Bozja, only dedicating a few hours. My soul was crushed.

Today (Monday, November 2), I decide to go back in. After sinking 45 minutes to drudge through the miscellaneous CEs, the More Machine Now Than Man pre-fate spawned. Conveniently, Castrum spawned at the same time. Only 10 people made it into the Vigil for the Lost CE. Of those 10, only two tanks survived because towers were missed at the very end. We both wanted the Gabriel kill, and again, by the grace of those above I won the 50/50 roll off. After hardening my resolve and doing my best to calm my nerves I finally finished the goal -- beating all 1v1s.

This content has been the worst experience I have had in this game. I felt helpless. I felt utter anger at seeing so many "wasted" 1v1s on people who were unprepared, or heck, didn't have any Lost Actions at all. Was I ever upset at the people, themselves? No. Not really. The game encourages them -- rewards them -- by being good at dodging: "Go take a shot at this fun, but tough, boss!" ..So I don’t blame the players; I blame the design.

I’ve never felt so locked out of doing content -- the content that, I feel, was the best content this game has ever added. (I am quite biased, obviously.) It was so anger-inducing to see sooooo many attempts lost to the lottery boss. I even made memes about it in other social media. But worst of all, the anger seeped into my psyche. I noticed I was quick to anger with my coworkers, and basically any other simple aggravation in my daily life would set me off.

But now it is done. I am relieved that I don't need to go in there again, unless I want to either level an alt or help my girlfriend reach max rank.

Overall, I know I was one of the lucky ones. A friend of mine has seen a boss only one time. My heart goes out to him and all of the others who are borderline torturing themselves on this content. I pray that Square sees these cries of desperation from all of us out there and learn from this disaster.

Thank you for hearing me out, and good luck to those grinding.


P.S. Waiting for an instance to die, farm Magitek, by myself, solo, waiting for a CE to spawn, hoping it is the right one, and then FIGHT the CE.... That isn't fun, and it was too much for me to do. Killing Magitek for 40 minutes with no CEs spawning is downright frustrating, and if you can muster doing that long enough, then fight the CE boss perfectly for 20 minutes straight, then more power to you and your iron-clad sanity. ...That route isn't for me. ...And besides... wouldn't you rather share the excitement of killing it with the people around you?

Just a heads up you can edit your first post to bypass the character limits.

Otherwise grats on your win! I do wish that they had a system akin to the priority passes for the CEs where you had a better chance of making it into the 1v1 matches if you meet the requirements.

May I suggest not getting emotionally invested to that degree in a video game? It's unhealthy, especially if they are negative emotions.

That being said: yeah the lottery crap is pretty damn lame. The bosses themselves don't look too hard to me but getting in is such a low probability that I never considered trying to do them. WAY more time than I want to spend in Bozja.

I know it's meant to be a rare title etc blah blah but there are better ways than leaving everything to RNG and frustrating a ton of players, SE. Not that you'd care about that, your absurd infatuation with RNG shows at pretty much every opportunity.

These duels are yet another example of a good idea with horrible execution.

I'm all for more battle challenges that aren't extreme/savage/ultimates, but gating them behind a wall of pure RNG was foolish, and I'm not a fan of them having the silly "Use this action to not die" requirements because it's just artificial difficulty.

The sheer mental pressure you have to contend with knowing that it might be days before you get another chance at a duel is also an obstacle in its own right.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

The sheer mental pressure you have to contend with knowing that it might be days before you get another chance at a duel is also an obstacle in its own right.

---

This is precisely why the nerves were elevated to brain-numbing levels on the first two attempts at Gabriel. Did I have some nerves on the other two fights? Yeah. However, they weren't as high because I knew I could get back in there more easily, as I was only going up against 2-5 other people for the lottery boss. ...Then again, I did lose my first Sartauvoir attempt by being numb to the last major mechanic in the first fire phase.......

Whoa take it easy.

Agreed. 1v1's are such great potential yet utterly wasted. Sometimes I wish ff14 didn't try so hard to leave their mark and be "different" when they create content other MMO's have because it almost always ends up worse. BLU, Verminion, Fellowships and so on are good examples. Great potential spoiled by gimmicks, restrictions and gates. Personally I simply decline duel because I haven't read up so I feel it's unfair to deny someone a spot who really wants it. The system discourages me from even stepping foot in there.

WoW has it's flaws but despite balance issues, they did solo content well. The Mage Tower, Endless Proving Grounds and the Brawlers Guild were fun, really satisfying to beat and far easier to access. I don't get what happened to ff14's "if it isn't fun you're doing it wrong". It doesn't feel like fun is the primary focus for 1v1's, it feels like artificially stretching out and gating the content is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Personally I simply decline duel because I haven't read up so I feel it's unfair to deny someone a spot who really wants it. The system discourages me from even stepping foot in there.

---

What really discourages you? Is it the system or the more toxic players who berate those that go in unprepared? Or you own personal belief that you should be prepared for difficult content?

Sure the system provides the ability to watch the fight, encouraging new players to watch and learn. But that's not how people, fundamentally, work. You don't wanna watch others eat the candy; you want to eat the candy, yourself. ...And, conversely, there are the 1% "unicorns" who actually want to be prepared before undergoing difficult content. If everybody was like that, then this problem would be mitigated, maybe to the point of being enjoyable... maybe.

I got picked for the 1v1 fight once. I lasted all of 5 seconds because I had no idea (and still don't) what to do. I know you need certain abilities or what have you in there, but I don't know the strategy at all.

But yes, it's an awful fight. Absolutely wretched. Interesting idea, terrible execution.

You mean the 1v1's are not just dev executions of random players? Hmm lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stormfur

I got picked for the 1v1 fight once. I lasted all of 5 seconds because I had no idea (and still don't) what to do. I know you need certain abilities or what have you in there, but I don't know the strategy at all.

But yes, it's an awful fight. Absolutely wretched. Interesting idea, terrible execution.

---

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the fights are poorly designed. I think they have a nice difficulty for those seeking a challenge. In fact, Gabriel may be a bit undertuned, in that regard.

However, Kage did bring up a good point, earlier...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KageTokage

...and I'm not a fan of them having the silly "Use this action to not die" requirements because it's just artificial difficulty.

---

I think Sartauvoir was the only one that got this right. Using Manawall to survive the damage so you can be pushed above the one quadrant that is safe. And you don't have much time, either, because if you move slow, the line aoe, after, gets ya. This is a fun mechanic. ...Lyon and Gabriel was just: press button; don't die.

Now if people could just get past the lottery boss to try these fun fights out..........

Well, I finally managed to get the Sword of the South achievement after overcoming a slight hiccup with the Lyon fight (Memorizing when the Heart of Nature quakes + exaflares happen and pre-positioning for it) but like the TC I felt more relieved then genuinely proud of the achievement as the fights honestly aren't THAT tough in terms of mechanical complexity; just insanely punishing due to the fact that almost all avoidable damage instakills. The biggest hurdle overall is actually getting into them and it made the whole experience insanely stressful; particularly when I kept failing the "no vuln stacks" requirement on Red Choctober due to Reflect cheesers baiting the meteor AoEs into the safe zones.

I like the concept overall, but they need to be made more accessible in some form or fashion; whether via more frequent spawns or allowing more people to attempt it per spawn.