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

[Bizniztyme]

He's just making a point that many people do agree with the blogger's viewpoints. One can assure themselves that the vocal majority agrees with his sentiments as well.

And many people disagree so how can someone assume that the vocal majority agrees just from this thread? There is no way to know so don't say it's the vocal majority.

[Luxx]

I really don't want this game more easier than it already is.
When I re-sub I'm going to continue coil and do the ex Primals because the rest of the things are joke in this game.
While I LOVE CT, it really is so easy the dungeons even HM are soo easy. The great Pharos Sirius, Child's play...I actually like struggling a bit in this game and trying to get the plays down in the game.
I don't play all that seriously, but the baby crap does get boring.

Also, I agree with Marta: Stop the insta death mechanics.
I really like Sylkis idea. Can't like it enough.

-Change instant wipes as a result of a failed DPS check or a failed "rope jump" by a single person to some sort of resource drain or detrimental effect for the party, and/or buff for the boss
--Examples
--If Titan heart is not broken, then empty everyone's MP and the limit bar
--Rot should kill the one person who had it only and buff the boss etc

-Change unrecoverable deaths so that it is possible to get back into the game
--Examples
--If you fall of the edge in titan/leviathan, you have to take time to climb/swim back up (which may cause a failed DPS check)
--If you have weakness then you might not be able to survive. Change it so that weakness reduces your capability to do your job well rather than reduce HP.

[ZReport]

And many people disagree so how can someone assume that the vocal majority agrees just from this thread? There is no way to know so don't say it's the vocal majority.

That's why I said one can assume this to be so. We can't tell, but we can make a very good inference. Look at these official forums. Look at other FFXIV forums. Look at FFXI Reddit. What do you read? Listen to people doing these fights (and failing) in Teamspeak/Mumble/Skype. In fact, start at the beginning of this thread and count how many people "agree" and how many people "disagree."

You can see a ton of different threads or subthreads depicting the disdain for specfic mechanics in the game currently. Much more than those that disagree. Yes, there are people who are completely fine with the current state of affairs. If fact, I'm one of them. However this group of people are in a smaller minority. It's only now that someone has very eloqently posted his opinion on the matter.

[Iriadysa]

Believe it or not, however, most people I know only care about the loot.

This seems to be the underlying driving force behind the outcries to make content easier or, as the OP proposes, gear carried.

I do believe that loot is required to guide people towards doing content, specially when you have already beaten a piece of it to the point where you master it, but it seems that there is a big portion of the MMO gamer community that uses these games as therapy for some kind of hoarder problem and not for actual entertainment, thus finding every single roadblock a problem instead of a challenge.

The only reason I have to dislike huge roadblocks is the fact that it stops me from accessing other content. This would never be a problem if there was a shit ton of content to choose from, which is not the case in XIV due to its self-obsolescence tendencies, but this is a completely different topic.

[Tsunenori]

snip

I'm pretty sure you're talking about my static specifically, because everything you said is exactly what's been bothering my group lately. That and one of our healers is probably the weakest mechanically of the entire group and dies to Acid Rain every time we get to Phase 3. It's frustrating spending well over a month on a fight, doing enough damage to push phases, and being completely incapable of progressing because of a few individuals whom, while they're generally good people and friends of the whole group, are slower on the take. The only T6 clear we had was when two of them were out for a night and we pugged a couple of players.

The answer however isn't "get a better raid" or "kick those scrubnubs" because that's exactly what the blogger was talking about being the problem. Because my friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then should they really not be friends of mine? I don't necessarily agree with that. I'm a patient person, but my patience with the instakill mechanics is wearing thin. I can handle them, but it feels like the majority cannot and over time that will be unhealthy for the state of the game. It'll be interesting to see how fight design progresses through the next year.

[ZReport]

@Bizniztyme Just to run it back, I took out the time to quickly jot down who was for and against the bloggers subject matter in the OP.

Agree: 15
Disagree: 11
Middle Ground: 7

A couple of the posters could be argue between agree and middle ground, but one can safely say using this as a very rough testbed that the opinon is just about split even, with just a few more leaning towards the Blogger's viewpoints. Of course one would have to magnify this amongst 1 million plus subscribers, and then pare that down to just those who attempt any form of endgame. However, you can safely say 55/45 or 60/40 in favor of the Blogger guy.

[Eagleheart]

Weakness already does reduce your vital statistics, not just HP. o.o

The blogger had some good points, and dev team has some good points. One hopes that Balance™ between the two will one day be found.

[Bizniztyme]

You can see a ton of different threads or subthreads depicting the disdain for specfic mechanics in the game currently. Much more than those that disagree. Yes, there are people who are completely fine with the current state of affairs. If fact, I'm one of them. However this group of people are in a smaller minority. It's only now that someone has very eloqently posted his opinion on the matter.

You can also see a ton of threads of people complaining that the game is faceroll. So you go on assuming everyone agrees with you and I'll assume that everyone agrees with me and lets move on.

[jellosnake]

Also he's not saying get rid of mechanics, he's saying that when they are the main focus (including one-shot mechanics), then the game is either boring/frustrating/unplayable by players depending on their play style.

With this in mind, if the mechanics aren't the focus of the boss fight, what makes one different from the next? When I think of other MMO's I've played, the names of the bosses don't come to mind first, nor do the mob models (typically), but the mechanics that made them different from the last fight. The first boss I think of when MMO's comes to mind is from another game where everyone had to "dance" around erupting green liquid from cracks in the floor a few times during the fight. Maxing my numbers didn't define the fight, nor did his wicked beard. It was the uniqueness. For the record, if you got caught as a DPS in the liquid, it was a one shot. Now consider that you had 25 players who all had to do the same thing.

[Eagleheart]

You can also see a ton of threads of people complaining that the game is faceroll. So you go on assuming everyone agrees with you and I'll assume that everyone agrees with me and lets move on.

How about this, then, for event structure criticisms, perhaps we can agree on this one:

I'm sick to death of having to leave people out of endgame content because of this antediluvian concept of X NUMBER OF PEOPLE ONLY, NO MORE NO LESS, LOCKOUT FOR WEEK AFTER COMPLETION.

As a person who maintains a small LS with lots of folks who would like to participate in content, I object stringently to this nonsensical idea that Dev Team has no choice but to enforce lockouts in order to keep gear rare from hyper-hardcore groups who would run Turn 6 through 9 eight times a week to gear up everyone's alts one by one.

Holy cow, Batman, if they want to, let them. Don't screw over the regular players because of folks who have no job and play XIV all day. Don't screw over groups of pals who want to play a damn game together (novel concept, I know, I'm an original thinker) because of individuals or groups consisting of a minute fraction of the populace who have sublimated into their computer chair for the sake of endless raiding.

Dev Team could also change drops structure in many ways, if need be. They could tokenize it. They could increase or decrease drop rates depending on # of folks who have cleared that content for the week. They could have one base drop per Turn, and an additional drop with x% chance of an additional drop, with x representing the number of people who had not completed that content for the week. If they were really insistent about overgearing, they could make the first drop only guaranteed if everyone in the content had not cleared it for the week, and any/all additional drops were x% chance. Something. Anything. Would beat the hell out of being hamstrung for the balance of the week.

Dev Team replies to issues about overgearing as if they do not have any control over the matter. Why?

Not kosher, kids.

Señor Yoshida, huge fan, love ya forever for saving the game, but damn if you didn't rip the social aspects of playing an MMO right out of the game's core and toss them into Vesper Bay. Work with us here.