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

[Edli]

If tanks don't have their special lovely orb buff, Shock Strike is instant death.

That still doesn't make it "every other attack". So you have one or two instant death mechanisms, big deal.

Imagine tanks wouldn't die without the buff, you wouldn't need two tanks and the whole fight would be ridiculously easy. If chaos wasn't instant death, that whole mechanic of prioritizing who wakes whom would be pointless. It's exactly those two instant death mechanics that actually make the whole fight interesting.

[filene]

Team jump rope is why everyone I know in RL that had this game cancelled their accounts. Team jump rope requires no ability to adapt or think. It could be done by a bot program.

[SDaemon]

And that is an entirely non-random element. So that doesn't lend anything to your case.

Um what? The direction of that was at instant death mechanics, not random element mechanics. My original comment was that I would be fine with more random element mechanics as long as they were not instant death. I never said they were overly present. He in turn said it added tension. I said having an abundance of instant death would be ridiculous. He then brought up instant death in Ramuh and I added one to his list. Not sure what you are trying to get at here.

[Yukiko]

Team jump rope is why everyone I know in RL that had this game cancelled their accounts. Team jump rope requires no ability to adapt or think. It could be done by a bot program.

One negative thing, yes, but not the only reason why players are leaving...
RNG and grinding are 2 other points very high ranked when asking players who had left.

[SekhmetM]

I agree on all parts. Especially the part about the dungeons pre-lv50 that tested the skill of the players and dungeons that have instant-kill mechanics.

This game at lv50 is now a battle of whether can you live through these instant-kill mechanics or not.

God have mercy on your soul if your internet connection is "bad". It's not because of Square-Enix, no. It's not like having the servers for NA/EU based in eastern Canada isn't making keeping a stable connection difficult or anything.

[Wishangel]

I thought this post was going to address an important issue, but I was disappointed. This game isn't about combat, but rather story and the story is the most important and significant aspect of the game. The story is the very reason you're tasked with the dragon slaying the game offers and if you forget that and are not immersed you'll start feeling like this game matters less and less. That being said this game has an excellent story.

To be more relevant with the OP I'll add this: That the way encounters are, are perfectly acceptable to me, instead of the encounters, we should add dynamic activities and puzzles. By dynamic, I mean to say that with each clear the dungeon puzzles will shift in such a way to make it impossible to look up the answers online or in a guide book. Maybe a maze mechanic, or more dungeon traps. That sort of thing would add much needed excitement into any mmorpg.

[Mikita]

Fights would definitely be more interesting if it wasn't completely scripted.

Agreed.

For those who missed it, here's a gem from the "GIFs for those FFXIV moments" thread.

Sums up pretty much every boss fight in this game.

[Dashuto]

"GIFs for those FFXIV moments"

5/5
A+++
Fast delivery would read post again!

[Edli]

This game isn't about combat, but rather story and the story is the most important and significant aspect of the game.

What? No. Saying that story and not gameplay is the most important aspect of some game is a strange thing to say. When people talk about 1.0 and ARR story never gets mentioned. 1.0 presented story better than ARR yet it failed because ultimately gameplay is what matters in a game. That is why it failed and that is what ARR improved even at the expense of cutscene and voice acting quality.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like the fights in this game. Branding team rope as something negative in a coop game is something I don't get. Yes the success in a coop game comes from the performance of the whole party not from the performance of an individual. That has been the case for every multiplayer game.

[Damane]

What? No. Saying that story and not gameplay is the most important aspect of some game is a strange thing to say. When people talk about 1.0 and ARR story never gets mentioned. 1.0 presented story better than ARR yet it failed because ultimately gameplay is what matters in a game. That is why it failed and that is what ARR improved even at the expense of cutscene and voice acting quality.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like the fights in this game. Branding team rope as something negative in a coop game is something I don't get. Yes the success in a coop game comes from the performance of the whole party not from the performance of an individual. That has been the case for every multiplayer game.

while teamplay is important. if 1 or 2 people fail in your party there is no way to save the fight, this is something I dislike immensly here, especially when useing the duty finder. The comparison the OP made was: ok if you have 2-3 people failing an EX primal fight in 14 there was no way for you to win the fight no matter how much individual effort you put in. This is extremly frustrating for people that can deal with the mechanics, but cant get through the fights because they get dragged down by 2-3 other people in the Duty finder. Whereas compared to other MMOs or in this case FFXI you could still save the fight from failing if you were: skilled, had the gear and had the 2-3 key jobs covered, half your alliance/party could wipe to a fight, but you still had the chance to recover by different means, if the remaining people had the skill/gear/and knowledge to hold the mob/fight it while the rest was recovering. This isnt possible here, because the mechanics make a recover nearly impossible in most cases, which in the end renders echo buffs useless.