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

[Clavaat]

-snip-

The big difference: You were all of those characters at once.

You didn't have to make a plan and make sure everyone knew what to do. You knew the plan already, you knew what you had to do already. That's how you played the game. What if someone from Tanzania didn't know the plan and died? That's ok, because you that person didn't affect your game. This is an MMO. It isn't your game or Bob from Tanzania's game. It's our game. We work together. That's the challenge.

Memorizing mechanics will not win you a fight. Being coordinated, and knowing what to do when things don't always go by the plan will win you a fight. That takes leadership and coordination on top of understanding your Job and what role it fills and how to do it to the best of your ability for all scenario. Your Party becomes more important, because you have to know them, and know what the individual's strengths and weaknesses are. And, despite what you may think, you can recover from a lot of scenarios with a simple backup plan.

[Kuwagami]

Memorizing mechanics will not win you a fight. Being coordinated, and knowing what to do when things don't always go by the plan will win you a fight. That takes leadership and coordination on top of understanding your Job and what role it fills and how to do it to the best of your ability for all scenario. Your Party becomes more important, because you have to know them, and know what the individual's strengths and weaknesses are.

that would mean that PUGs have no chance to ever win a high-end fight. Memorization plays a huge part, you can't ignore it


Edit :

I beg to differ. If the people in said PUG have a designated leader, or actually communicate politely and effectively, they still have a possibility of winning. This is much more difficult to come to terms on with a PUG, but it is possible nonetheless. Essentially that would come down to the whole "toxic community" argument. And I only meant memorization is not the only factor as many seem to be saying/thinking. The bigger factor is being able to adapt when the pattern doesn't always apply (phase is a little early/late, some moves overlap, you make an error in judgment, etc).

I see the point, nvm

[Clavaat]

that would mean that PUGs have no chance to ever win a high-end fight. Memorization plays a huge part, you can't ignore it

I beg to differ. If the people in said PUG have a designated leader, or actually communicate politely and effectively, they still have a possibility of winning. This is much more difficult to come to terms on with a PUG, but it is possible nonetheless. Essentially that would come down to the whole "toxic community" argument. And I only meant memorization is not the only factor as many seem to be saying/thinking. The bigger factor is being able to adapt when the pattern doesn't always apply (phase is a little early/late, some moves overlap, you make an error in judgment, etc).

[OSUBuckeye4]

I beg to differ. If the people in said PUG have a designated leader, or actually communicate politely and effectively, they still have a possibility of winning. This is much more difficult to come to terms on with a PUG, but it is possible nonetheless. Essentially that would come down to the whole "toxic community" argument. And I only meant memorization is not the only factor as many seem to be saying/thinking. The bigger factor is being able to adapt when the pattern doesn't always apply (phase is a little early/late, some moves overlap, you make an error in judgment, etc).

This is all great in theory, but, you only get 60 minutes in Primals and 90 minutes in dungeons.

You're basically suggesting that people que up for DF, enter a dungeon and spend time voting on a leader and getting to know each others strengths/weaknesses and setting up backup plans. At the end of it, everyone goes their seperate ways.

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

[Clavaat]

This is all great in theory, but, you only get 60 minutes in Primals and 90 minutes in dungeons.

You're basically suggesting that people que up for DF, enter a dungeon and spend time voting on a leader and getting to know each others strengths/weaknesses and setting up backup plans. At the end of it, everyone goes their seperate ways.

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

Yeah, I can understand that. I was speaking mostly for PF. DF, I truly don't know. Those are whole other debates. Either way, the general point I was trying to make is that even though this content is fairly unforgiving towards people of a lower skill-ceiling, it's very possible for everyone to clear it and enjoy it, if you tweak your attitude/understanding a bit. And that the challenge comes from actually working together, not necessarily from the fight itself on you as an individual. I'm not sure how else to word it, but I've seen evidence in my experience to show that the possibility is there.

[OSUBuckeye4]

Yeah, I can understand that. I was speaking mostly for PF. DF, I truly don't know. Those are whole other debates. Either way, the general point I was trying to make is that even though this content is fairly unforgiving towards people of a lower skill-ceiling, it's very possible for everyone to clear it and enjoy it, if you tweak your attitude/understanding a bit. And that the challenge comes from actually working together, not necessarily from the fight itself on you as an individual. I'm not sure how else to word it, but I've seen evidence in my experience to show that the possibility is there.

I know what you're saying, but, I've run across people who lierally can't clear certain content because of connection issues.

I run content with them, their rotations are good, their adaptability is good, they know when to pop skills, if things go wrong they know when to improvise... they just have unavoidable lag spikes that lead to them getting woosh'ed off platforms to their non-recoverable death in content like Titan EX.

You'll say, "oh, they just say they have lag"... no, the same spikes happen in dungeons like Brayflox and Halitali... they just spike and have 8-10 seconds where they can't do anything.

There's really nothing they can do (except pray for 15 minutes or so without a spike, or for the spike to occur while Titan isn't popping landslides)... they can run the content flawlessly for 8 mintues, but then a spike hits and it's bye bye and then you're running the rest of the fight with 7 people and it just got that much more difficult.

Is it technically possible to defeat Titan EX with 7 people? Sure, if that person who got insta-gibbed isn't a healer or tank. Should that really be the way the game is designed though?

It's really just poor and lazy game design to have a fight that continously pops insta-die mechanics with no possiblity of recovery for 10-15 minutes straight.

You might disagree though, and we can agree to disagree I guess.

[Clavaat]

-snip-

I wasn't debating latency at all, though. The OP doesn't even mention connection or lag issues, it was purely for the context of game mechanics so I saw no reason to bring it up. Regardless, that's a much trickier issue, and will always be for any online game. There's so many factors: ISP, upload/download rate, CDN, Server power, location, programming, hardware limitations client-side, etc. That is a debate for a whole other thread, though.

[Gormogon]

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

Yeah it is not realistic especially when the continual growth on difficulty has increased the negativity and toxicity of the players in DF, PF, etc on average. It is the price for desiring harder content and it is to be expected, imho.

[Yukiko]

You didn't have to make a plan and make sure everyone knew what to do.

/snip

Sorry to disapoint you, but the challlenge was to fight a unknown Boss without reading any guides and you do NOT have a plan! The difference is in FXIV you can not recover and EXPERIENCE the combat, its life or death, you do not have HOPE...

Its like that:
Boss Phase 1 -> 5 to 10 trys, wipe
Boss Phase 2 -> 10 to 20 trys, wipe
Boss Phase 3 -> ...

You do not feel an adventure at all, its just DEATH everywhere you go untill you mastered the mechanics like a machine without fails! You have progress, indeed, but you do not feel like its fun... There is no "struggle" in the combat its just "perfect" or "death".

[Clavaat]

-snip-

Firstly, guides exist for RPGs...so I don't understand what you mean there. I never mentioned guides in my post anyway. When I say plan, I could mean, trial and error, which would be the same thing as going in blind to a boss fight in any other RPG.

Secondly, I don't know to what fights you are referring to, but you totally can recover for most fights. You still have Raise, potions for when you get raised, etc. It's difficult, but not impossible. If you're referring to Divebombs, these will only kill everyone if you are truly not standing properly. If you're referring to Twisters, you can survive them, and/or be Raised and still win. If you're referring to Landslide, you can still win being down a member. This is no different than other RPGs. You might not be able to sacrifice the turn to Raise someone, so you win with 3. There are abilities that will instantly kill in those games too...

All in all, sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but I'm not seeing a point to that comparison and it's relevancy to the topic.