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

[Gardes]

Titan EX the bane, if you can't beat that. Dear, mercy, I don't want you in some later mechanics. It's basically something you learn, and micro manage that has you doing in later fights.

The shear fact of it is. if you suck you will continue to suck. It's no single fight, you just suck in general, just like not learning algebra is never going to allow you to tackle geometry, and so on all the way up to college.

Not true. What kills people in Titan EX is the latency check required to dodge everything in the fight. Some of the 2nd coil's turn mechanic might seem complicated as a whole but each player would only have to deal with a portion of it and have way less latency requirement to pass them, even if just tripping on a little rock would instantly wipe the whole party. I'm still working on T9 but from T6-T8, the only attack that requires fast reflexes is circle blade (I have 280ms and I have to stand at maximum melee range to ATTEMPT to dodge it). Titan EX on the other hand, almost everyone has to deal with the same dodge-a-thon and latency and reflex combo requirement is simply killer for some people. I have a handful of wins ever since my first titan ex win, usually from assisting FC members for their first titan ex kill but I still can't dodge all the plumes at a 99.99% rate despite knowing every single move that titan does by heart by now.

Telling people to get better internet isn't a full solution by the way. The game was marketed as an international game and most players who havent been keeping up up to the release of the game didn't even know that there's only 2 data centers for the whole world. I have a train of thought: yoship wants to start cheap and only have 2 data centers, but then he goes to design a fight that requires very decent and stable latency, but then the fight becomes a lot harder for a lot of people, so he says he knew about this and that's why he designed the fight so that you can predict every single move the boss does, but for decent players that doesnt even have to think about latency, the fight becomes very easy, so this fight is supposed to be extreme for...who?

It's just odd to have a primal of earth requiring speed on the player's part way more than a primal of wind, by the way.

[Rosy]

Thank you so much for the translation, it's a brilliant OP. I've read a LOT of the posts in this thread, but not all, to get a feeling of what players are feeling. There are quite a few "I like it as it is and to hell with the casuals" but there are a lot who agree with the OP.

What the former "to hell with the casuals" people still can't get through their heads is that without the casuals you will have NO GAME.

I love FFXIV, was totally enthralled with it when first entering the world, loved the levelling experience, enjoy raiding (have raided in many, many games since UO). I don't enjoy raiding in this game as I can't do it with ALL of my FC as we could in other games. This game relies too much on "statics" and the Free Company (guild) is pointless, except to those of us who have come with a bunch of our old guildies from other games, who are now left out in the cold because "raids" are 8 people. EIGHT PEOPLE FOR A RAID???? puhlease.

Anyway, back to the point in hand, and the overall end point of the OP was that unless something changes, "non hardcore" people will leave, subs will dry up and there will be no more FFXIV...which by the way will take quite a while I should imagine, it doesn't all happen in a day, but it is inevitable nontheless...or the game will become FTP.

I have to admit to looking at other games at the moment (especially the "new" UO *drool at sandbox*) whereas a few months ago (before getting stuck on T5 and Titan Ex) I was determined to persevere and stay in this game. But....there is a vast difference between persevering and improving to banging your head on a brick wall, because my improvement doesn't help me at all unless I can find 7 other people (statics...pfft) who have also "improved".

[kukurumei]

Not true. What kills people in Titan EX is the latency check required to dodge everything in the fight. Some of the 2nd coil's turn mechanic might seem complicated as a whole but each player would only have to deal with a portion of it and have way less latency requirement to pass them, even if just tripping on a little rock would instantly wipe the whole party. I'm still working on T9 but from T6-T8, the only attack that requires fast reflexes is circle blade (I have 280ms and I have to stand at maximum melee range to ATTEMPT to dodge it). Titan EX on the other hand, almost everyone has to deal with the same dodge-a-thon and latency and reflex combo requirement is simply killer for some people. I have a handful of wins ever since my first titan ex win, usually from assisting FC members for their first titan ex kill but I still can't dodge all the plumes at a 99.99% rate despite knowing every single move that titan does by heart by now.

Somewhat right. Mostly wrong. The fact that you blame it on your latency proves one thing. You will fail with a clutch as with not. Latency hurts, lag spike hurts. They hurt a lot in titan, that is true, but they hurt pretty much in any content and game, and it's basically your own short coming in the end.

It's your fault for trying to beat titan ex on reaction if you can't react.

Titan is fully scripted. If you are using your own reaction to pit yourself against something that's highly proactive. You failure at titan will be as much as failing at later content.

While one can't completely control basic problems on twitch timing, there is a large amount of simple experiance that is purely personal skills inherent or aquired (btw what you said is wrong, you obviously haven't learn titan enough)


And this is why ARR has this double good/bad situation. A person is rewarded for "effort" put into content. Natural skills and good machines only go so far. Most of it is hard work of 8 individuals. It is both a wall of frustration rage quit and a pride of self praise.

Again. Learn.to.dodge. Is really LEARN. And it's both beautiful and ugly about ARR

[GalkaBikini]

You know, I see so many people complaining that "I can do my part in the fight, dodge, etc, but I get in groups with other people that can't." Are there really that many people that aren't in FCs and are having to pug so much content? That aren't in FCs that will help their FC mates with content? When I formed my FC, I built it on the foundation that we WILL help each other. I don't want people in my FC that are just going to only do content that they themselves need or want. I use a google spreadsheet to track each members progress and so I have a list of players that need Titan X. Each week I try to get at least 1 or 2 people thru it by taking them in a group of 6 or 7 of us that have beaten the fight before.
Are there really so few FCs out there that do things this way? I mean, this is pretty much the whole point of the game for me personally...

[LadyVal]

You know, I see so many people complaining that "I can do my part in the fight, dodge, etc, but I get in groups with other people that can't." Are there really that many people that aren't in FCs and are having to pug so much content? That aren't in FCs that will help their FC mates with content? When I formed my FC, I built it on the foundation that we WILL help each other. I don't want people in my FC that are just going to only do content that they themselves need or want. I use a google spreadsheet to track each members progress and so I have a list of players that need Titan X. Each week I try to get at least 1 or 2 people thru it by taking them in a group of 6 or 7 of us that have beaten the fight before.
Are there really so few FCs out there that do things this way? I mean, this is pretty much the whole point of the game for me personally...

I can't speak for every server, but on Siren, FCs =/= friends. Many FCs are focused on raiding. One of our larger FCs is actually just groups of 8 that meet to raid and solo when not raiding. Many people are focused on being the best and having the gear to show off, and have no interest at all in having friends. They also don't have a team attitude like you do. My first and only static group was very team-oriented, as was the FC we were based in, in that we all worked to keep each other strong and we thought of ourselves as a unit. Most statics now are just 8 people thinking they run perfectly and expect the other 7 to run perfectly so they can get the best loot to strut around town and hope to garner some attention from that.

Tl,dr; you're very unique in how you run your FC (imo) because on my server, most want to do their own thing and have no interest in helping, being helped, or having friends. They just want to solo to being the shining star of the server.

[GalkaBikini]

Tl,dr; you're very unique in how you run your FC (imo) because on my server, most want to do their own thing and have no interest in helping, being helped, or having friends. They just want to solo to being the shining star of the server.

That makes me want to cry.

[Yukiko]

That makes me want to cry.

FFXIV does not support Group play with groups more than 8 players.
I do not say it is impossible, because as you said with effort you can keep track and manage to compensate downsides of game support but still it is life draining.
Questing often require you to leave group, with chocobo you cant be invited any more, not to mention DF where you cant do dailys in group...

Our FC is a group of people who have played together in other games for over 3 years...varying skills, varying ages, varying interests, and we are all friends and want to stay together, which, as I pointed out, is not really catered for in this game. So there is no "I don't want people that....." applicable

While time passes, friends coming and going...
I am glad there are some good groups out there, but what will be in 3 more years? life continues and the problem is you will not be able to login at same times each day, can you still form a static then?

[Xine]

That makes me want to cry.

I'd have to agree with her, I've been in at least 3 different FCs since the release of 2.0 and in every one of them, the group was more focused on doing things solo. The second FC I was in was great at the start but then the original left after raging at people for having problems with some of the other members and handled their problems extremely poorly. Shortly after he left the game the next person who took over the FC did an even more horrible job at being an FC leader and the FC is even more toxic then the rest of the server and Duty Finder.The FC USED to help people out and make sure everyone knew how to handle fights and would teach new people how to do the fights. However since the FC is under "new" leadership, they went in the complete opposite direction and its falling apart and the leadership is extremely selfish and only out for themselves. I've long since left the FC and this is just what I've heard about them. My FC I'm in now is practically empty and nobody ever logs in anymore save like 5 people. My old static fell apart because people couldn't gather for more than 30-60 minutes once a week to do any content, but the group was great while it lasted and at least managed to clear t5.

There's nothing wrong with group content at all, but I don't even bother touching EX Primals or SCoB because the random groups attempting to do the fights now fail so hard at it that its not worth my time and the migraines that ensue with it to even give them my time. Because I HAVE tried with randoms and honestly, I have better luck in Duty Finder with people on other servers than people from my own server.

[Rosy]

You know, I see so many people complaining that "I can do my part in the fight, dodge, etc, but I get in groups with other people that can't." Are there really that many people that aren't in FCs and are having to pug so much content? That aren't in FCs that will help their FC mates with content? When I formed my FC, I built it on the foundation that we WILL help each other. I don't want people in my FC that are just going to only do content that they themselves need or want...... snip

Our FC is a group of people who have played together in other games for over 3 years...varying skills, varying ages, varying interests, and we are all friends and want to stay together, which, as I pointed out, is not really catered for in this game. So there is no "I don't want people that....." applicable

[RyuDragnier]

You know, I see so many people complaining that "I can do my part in the fight, dodge, etc, but I get in groups with other people that can't." Are there really that many people that aren't in FCs and are having to pug so much content? That aren't in FCs that will help their FC mates with content? When I formed my FC, I built it on the foundation that we WILL help each other. I don't want people in my FC that are just going to only do content that they themselves need or want. I use a google spreadsheet to track each members progress and so I have a list of players that need Titan X. Each week I try to get at least 1 or 2 people thru it by taking them in a group of 6 or 7 of us that have beaten the fight before.
Are there really so few FCs out there that do things this way? I mean, this is pretty much the whole point of the game for me personally...

Once upon a time my former FC had people willing to help others, officers willing to get people through things. But that all changed after 2nd Coil came out along with the Echo. The officers kept shunning FC members and didn't bother asking if we wanted to do things, instead doing things with other FCs, such as Levi Ex, Mog Ex, and Turn 5 until they completed it. This hurt me (one of the shunned despite being an amazing MNK who knows Turn 5 and Levi Ex very well) and my irl friend, who was formerly one of the officers. But we both left after they started not doing anything with anybody not an officer.

I'm pretty sure that FC is currently dying or dead because of this, and I really hope they are (because if you want to do things with just officers, make your own FC or boot everybody else out of it). This is also part of the reason why I no longer have any motivation to do Turn 5 currently or any other endgame content, I can't trust statics to remain static any longer or the people in them (other than my irl friend).