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

[Iriadysa]

You know what's the most recurring fallacy in this thread? This:

"You have to memorize rotations! Memorizing is not difficulty".

Nope, you all are wrong. You don't have to memorize anything at all. In fact, the game is so soft on everyone that it allows you to either react or memorize.

The more I read this thread the more I'm convinced about my opinions on the ones defending this shitty concept. Which, btw, you aren't as many as you believe you are. Page after page it's the same 4 or 5 faces repeating the same arguments and ignoring the actual crux of the problem, which I quote from 7 pages back (and which I have brought numerous times as well, always to be completely ignored):

Was reading back and picked up on this, I think it's a good opportunity to summarize the concepts at work here again.

First of all, it depends what you mean by "overgear content". It's already true that the content in this game becomes much easier with item level increases, so it's already possible to reduce difficulty by overgearing the content. So when people say they want to be more able to overgear content, the implication is that they want to be able to circumvent the challenge of a fight with gear (think killing Demon Wall before the hornets could spawn, back when they still did). Then, in the same breath, they say they want fights with more depth, more fun, more interaction, and more random play. To this I say, which is it? So far, no proposed solution addresses both of these desires. In fact, as far as I can tell every solution makes one of these problems or the other even worse.

The most popular suggestion is making fights "random". For one, this only creates the illusion of choice compared to the "scripted" battles we have now. You'll still react the same way to the same attack, you'll just be doing it in a different order. Additionally, this will make the battles harder for people who can't dodge/react to the current system where you literally know what is coming next. The only way to avoid this is to make failure less "punishing", and this is tied to the idea that gear should be the primary determining factor in victory. Now, you don't have to dodge. Just heal through it and do whatever you want. Suddenly, no depth, no challenge, no fun, no better off than we were before, just different for the sake of being different.

People have come up with some very creative ways to randomize fights. In my opinion, none of them actually solve the proposition of the OP and the competing interests of the different groups of players.

The OP also wants to reintroduce attempt lock-outs on content as opposed to the clear lock-outs we now have. While this may free up the developers to make battles less mechanics driven as the OP suggests, there are two issues. 1. People complain about attempt lock-outs just as much as they do about clear lock-outs. 2. Attempt lock-out systems worked because loot followed the rare drop system rather than our guaranteed drop system. This is another one of those ugly unintended consequences I keep bringing up.

Do you see now why it's not so simple? This idea of "Let me overgear content and let me do it NAO!" would solve one problem (casuals feeling left out). But it would also completely ignore another problem (recognizing player skill) while making yet another one worse (these battles are no fun).

Address that or stop crying, because in the end that's really what you are all doing when you decide to not answer this argument.

ARR follows WoW's model almost exactly. It is accessible, in the early levels, everything is charted out and spoon fed to you in rapid succession. When you finally get to endgame, it layers on difficulty by being punishing if you don't follow the exact scripted steps that the game designers intend for you to take.

I think the following sums up what is wrong with this model, from one of the people who designed it:



ARR tries to artificially infuse challenge and longevity into this model by implementing punishing group memorization tests.

But the flaws in cloning WoW are fundamental, and simply making Titan EX or T5 easier won't fix them.

The game needs challenge... REAL challenge based on DEPTH (meaningful decision making) rather than mere EXECUTION (group jump-rope)

We can agree with the quoted WoW text. And I wish people understood that the worshiped OP does not advocate for this. Whoever thinks it does has not understood anything.
You, however, are performing a brutal fallacious trick here: the quoted text has nothing to do with your conclusion.

I recommend a career in politics if you are not already considering it.