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

[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.

[Dyvid]

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.

Well if you lost 2 healer or tanks then it would have been wipe in any game. The problem I'm seeing is now DPS are just as much responsible the groups success. And let's be clear, if one or two die it isn't insta wipe it's one or two continually die over and over that is insta wipe. Also the reference to FFXI doesn't work be if you compare alliance to alliance then you don't see a lot of wipes in CT/ST unless they are completely clueless.

[Damane]

Well if you lost 2 healer or tanks then it would have been wipe in any game. The problem I'm seeing is now DPS are just as much responsible the groups success. And let's be clear, if one or two die it isn't insta wipe it's one or two continually die over and over that is insta wipe. Also the reference to FFXI doesn't work be if you compare alliance to alliance then you don't see a lot of wipes in CT/ST unless they are completely clueless.

you are misinformed, even if your tank or healer dies in FFXI, you can still recover. Hybrid jobs can cover alot of ground if your healer is dead and recovering, and melees are the usual tanks in FFXI, even if your designated tank dies, a melee or in some cases a mage can take the spot and tank stuff for some time until the rest recovers.

[Edli]

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.

2-3 people failing? That's 1/3 of the whole party, of course the party should fail.

[Damane]

2-3 people failing? That's 1/3 of the whole party, of course the party should fail.

why should it? if 1/2 or 2/3 of the PT is badass i dont see why they should be hammered with a fail, just because mechanics dont alow for a recovery or progression through the fight. Its all about covering your weakspots in a PT. This is frankly not possible in FFXIV, where as in 11 you can do that, you can cover your PT weakspots with dedicated people that have the excellent gear/skill/knowledge. In that sense even if 2-3 of your friends arent a top notch player you can still take them with you, because you can cover the ground by your hardcore people. I still play FFXI, and we have people that dont have the gear/skill on the same playing lvl as our hardcore members, but we can do raids/events with them, because we can cover their weakspots. This isnt possible in 14.

This makes fights that much more interesting is if you can recover from an almost wipe.

[Fyce]

[...]
This makes fights that much more interesting is if you can recover from an almost wipe.

But you then run into the problem of having people who will just get carried around, not really improving themselves and stay a dead weight... but still manage to pass the hardest end game raids and get the stuff they want, even if they're just mostly lying on the ground.
You then won't be able to tell who is "good" and who can't pass certain gameplay mechanics by themselves.

At least, the "team rope jumping" lessen that effect.
If you see a full High Allagan dude walking around, you know that, this player, has at least a certain level of skill and teamplay.

[Damane]

But you then run into the problem of having people who will just get carried around, not really improving themselves and stay a dead weight... but still manage to pass the hardest end game raids and get the stuff they want, even if they're just mostly lying on the ground.
You then won't be able to tell who is "good" and who can't pass certain gameplay mechanics by themselves.

At least, the "team rope jumping" lessen that effect.
If you see a full High Allagan dude walking around, you know that, this player, has at least a certain level of skill and teamplay.

Oh I am not advocating to make things be done really by everyone or that you can carry everyone through the "current" highest endgame, by all means not. but for example stuff that has an "echo" buff should be steamrolled. This is not the case in 14 because mechanics still one shot people no matter what gear your party has equiped, in that essence the "Echo" fails because of mechanics. That is clearly a flaw in design/nerfing the content.

The problem is even in EX primal battles you cant take 2-3 friends with you that play the game occasionally. Some of that even applies to some hardmode battles. There should be a possibility that you can do relevant story driven "olde" fights with just 4 very good people, so you can let friends join in that are behind or need the clear or whatever.

I am totally fine if they design the current highest endgame content for 8 people partys for the hardcore people, but once you roll with the "echo" buff/nerf, adjust the mechanics so 4 very good geared people can clear the content so they can take friends with them if they wanted. This is what the Dev team failed to adress in alot of Trial battles, because the mechanics wont let you handle it differently then with 8 people. New players have almost no hope to advancing in FF14, at some point they hit a brick wall midway through they just cant climb over due to various reasons: lack of people doign it, difficulty wasnt adjusted correctly so people dont bother with it etc. etc. Those people will just turn away and unsub after some time.



Lets take for an example Delve 1.0 in FFXI:
- this event was originally designed for 18 people
- when it was released your ally had to have the best equiped or close to excellent equipment
- your ally had to apply the different job roles/pt roles perfectly on point
- only the hardcore could clear it at first

lets take a look at delve 1.0 after 6 months:
- the Dev team added skill+ on ilvl items so accuracy and attack wasnt much an issue anymore
- the dev team adjusted mob HP according to PT size. if you enter it with 6 people or less the mobs/NMs would have less HP then if you would enter with 18 people.
- various mainstream gear releases in between those 6 months made it easy to get properly geared for it np
- it was now possible to clear delve with a PT of 6 people and you could even take 2-3 friends along side of you if you wanted to get them the clear without much trouble

lets take a look at delve 1.0 after 9 months:
- various new gear releases and job adjustments have made it possible that you can 3-4 man delve 1.0

[Edli]

but for example stuff that has an "echo" buff should be steamrolled.

That's a whole other discussion though. I guess you can tweak mechanics for old content. Still a lot of what you said before can be achieved on echo buffed content. You can clear it with only 7 or 6 players so yeah you can carry two other players. There have been twintania and titan wins with even 4 players.

[Fyce]

but for example stuff that has an "echo" buff should be steamrolled.

As Edli said, it's debatable.
But that made me think about something: the current echo buff is poorly designed. Or, at least, only helps in a non-instalkill situations.

As you said, stats only won't suddenly make a bad player avoid Twintania's dashes or tornadoes. It help getting through a few "checks" but it doesn't keeps you safe from some insta-death stuff.

I'm currently fine with it, but I would like to see another kind of echo for really late people.
For example, when 3rd Coil will get its weekly restriction removed, everyone, at that point, should be able to down T5 no matter what. It's currently the case with HM primals (except for Titan, which still has some insta-death stuff, but most of the deaths at Titan don't come from Landslide. Plumes are the real killers here, and that can be avoided with echo+overgear).

So, what can we do against insta-death stuff which will hold some people back? Well, I would actually like to see an Echo buff which, instead of giving you a stat buff, would allow you to die once, and then get you back up automatically at the same spot you died, with a little complete invulnerability frame (so you can get out of T5 fire, for example) and would not give you the "revived" debuff.
This would allow your whole team to survive a team wipe because of, say, a failed Twintania dash or a late Twister escape. Same goes for Primals "Ultimates". For example, Ifrit's nails would be completly optionnal (you would still have the option of doing it in order to boost your LB bar up) because the team wipe that would follow will be completly negated.

Obviously, this "echo rez" would only be put on very old content which can hold people back.

[RiceisNice]

2-3 people failing? That's 1/3 of the whole party, of course the party should fail.

Two would be 1/4th of your party. This would also turn around to how the party size restriction can lead to problems like this, but you can't add more players either because of the 8-member enforcement, and the nature of the fight mechanics making it unfeasible to add more players anyway. You might not see it as a bad thing persay (and I don't either, to an extent), but it just further enforces people playing with a small collective group and essentially locking out others who can't get into or find one)

There's also the problem that if the tank dies, the party dies stemming from the dps (or anyone else in the party) being unable to tank for even a second and no contingency plan to do so (especially the case if the fight has a mechanic that keeps the OT occupied at all times, such as adds or stacking debuffs). Sure the DRG has keen flurry (which is next to goddamn useless because PLDs and WARs cant cross into it), but chances are, he (and any other dps) will still get one shot'd to an auto attack.


Being able to recover with losing 1/2 members shouldn't be possible under most circumstances. I mean it shouldn't sentence the entire party to the wipe when the boss is down to like 5% or so, but if half your party is dead (out of eight), it's essentially a carry at that point. But like OP has mentioned, the mechanic-driven nature of the fight discourages from having 1 or 2 people messing up that it will lead to a wipe, and as mentioned above, make you bring the same people in over and over just so you don't risk having a new person be unfamiliar/unexperienced to the mechanics and wipe the entire raid. This sort of thing allows for no lee-way or room for compromise (such as outgearing or echo in the case of T5)