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

[Nasibihc]

After reading this I have to say that I completely agree with you. Great post and below are a few thoughts that came to mind:

This is a huge problem with the game. IF this is fixed, it would also fix the "ffs haven't you watch the video of this fight?!" *player gets kicked* -problem, because after that it wouldn't matter so much if someone is new to a fight or even if 2 people are new if there aren't many instant death/wipe mechanics involved. It would significantly lessen the steps of clearing the fight without having to perfect the gimmicks. The other players who have done the fight before would still be able to save possible screw ups with their skill alone, while still leaving a chance for the new players to learn the fight.

I have beaten T5 in coil, but I haven't gone past that even if I have i120'ish gear at the moment. What I've found out is that I have lost interest in going further with the game because of the sheer fact I have to learn every coming fight perfectly or I screw up the party in most cases. It makes me not want to advance in content knowing the first times I'd probably get shouted at, a lot. I doesn't feel nice, even if I know the shouting will eventually stop when I learn the mechanics. I know I'm a really skilled player and I have a very long history with mmo's. I could learn these mechanics quite easily if I actually wanted to and would join the top few who have cleared the content, it wouldn't actually even be a hard thing for me, but for others it might be and it is. No matter how long they'd practice the fights, they'd still mess up even if they're not doing it intentionally. Some of us just can't follow mechanics as well as others, it's as simple as that.

I just don't want to invest that much time anymore with learning the fights perfectly, because for me to learn the fight, it will also require others to have the patience to wait for me to perfect my skills to actually get to join them. These people have cleared the content many times before, without wipes. When I, as a new person happen to join the fight, I do one mistake and the party wipes, just because I don't know the fight perfectly. I don't want to do that. I know it drives them mad to wipe because they know they can do it, but it's entirely my fault that they lose. Do this enough times and everyone loses their mind with an easy fight to them.

I understand that OP doesn't want to make the game a faceroll in terms of gameplay, but rather make it so that while there are still challenging mechanics that need skill to be avoided, one's personal gears (iLvl) and character level would also affect to the fight more than they do now, without having the need for instant death/wipe mechanics and allowing some screw ups if your gear is high enough to withstand them. As said you can easily clear up any mechanics driven content with less gear if you just know the mechanics, if you don't however, you will still wipe, no matter what gear you have on you and you will never clear it unless others carry it for you or you perfect the mechanics, which then results in many of the casual players quitting the game because they don't find this fun.

[Gardes]

I have beaten T5 in coil, but I haven't gone past that even if I have i120'ish gear at the moment. What I've found out is that I have lost interest in going further with the game because of the sheer fact I have to learn every coming fight perfectly or I screw up the party in most cases. It makes me not want to advance in content knowing the first times I'd probably get shouted at, a lot. I doesn't feel nice, even if I know the shouting will eventually stop when I learn the mechanics. I know I'm a really skilled player and I have a very long history with mmo's. I could learn these mechanics quite easily if I actually wanted to and would join the top few who have cleared the content, it wouldn't actually even be a hard thing for me, but for others it might be and it is. No matter how long they'd practice the fights, they'd still mess up even if they're not doing it intentionally. Some of us just can't follow mechanics as well as others, it's as simple as that.

What is with XIV players and self boasting and their enthusiasm for excuses to replace their inability to proof that their claims is more than just a delusion? It's bloody every where! Is this some kind of plague? I pray I never get infected with this!

[Yukiko]

- snip -

Switch from healer to DPS or from DPS to tank or from Tank to healer...
You will cause wipes for sure even when you have known the fight before!

Once the tank is down: no tankswap,
once the healer is down: no grouphealing,
once the DPS is down: boss going into enrage mode because of tight DPS checks...

So, are you just trolling?

[tjw]

Switch from healer to DPS or from DPS to tank or from Tank to healer...
You will cause wipes for sure even when you have known the fight before!

Once the tank is down: no tankswap,
once the healer is down: no grouphealing,
once the DPS is down: boss going into enrage mode because of tight DPS checks...

So, are you just trolling?

Considering that two or even three deaths in all content is quite capable of being recoverable...I don't really see your point?

If your tank is down long enough that the tankswap mechanic comes along again, or DPS down long enough that you hit enrage, or your solo healer is incapable of using AoE heals, those are different issues altogether.

There are issues with end-game right now. No one is denying it. Blaming it solely on DEATHS and one shot mechanics is, IMO, not feasible at all.

[BlaiseArath]

Considering that two or even three deaths in all content is quite capable of being recoverable...I don't really see your point?

If your tank is down long enough that the tankswap mechanic comes along again, or DPS down long enough that you hit enrage, or your solo healer is incapable of using AoE heals, those are different issues altogether.

There are issues with end-game right now. No one is denying it. Blaming it solely on DEATHS and one shot mechanics is, IMO, not feasible at all.

Still though, it would be not be wise to ignore there are an alarming amount of fights where a tank or healer dying means game over, period. Especially in Dungeons where you only have one of each. A DPS dying doesn't really hurt unless you're in a DPS check phase or ones approaching... but Healer/Tank just means *Well fuck, try over* in a lot of fights. Especially since even if they got raised, with Weakness, they're much more susceptible to being killed again, especially in a lot of the high-aoe type fights.

Anyway, I just wanted to pop my head in cause I've never seen this post before, and say I really agree with the OP. It verbalizes a lot of the complaints I have with fights in this game that I could not find words for. The part where he said "It feels like you're fighting the mechanics, not the boss" is especially resounding with me. All these big bad bosses in XIV and personally they're all forgetable and meaningless because there is no time to appreciate them at all and you spend 99% of your time "Team Jump rope" as the OP put it.

I realized this even more so in another thread here comparing Arioch to Einhander, and i realized I had absolutely no idea what Arioch looked like up close despite having tanked it more than a dozen times. For all the flash and zeal of bosses and all the detail they etch into dungeons and the open world, its all for naught because the Mechanics driven bosses and fast paced action-style combat means you have 0 time to stop and appreciate it. I didn't even know the second part of T9 took place on the Cart. Flats with Dalamud clear in the sky because I spent so much time of that phase remembering all the mechanics being thrown at you. It wasn't until I died and spanned around that I saw the battlefield, and it was awesome. Shame it doesn't f**king matter.

Yoshi, You've done an amazing thing making XIV a profitable game, but Mechanics driven fights and this fast paced action combat makes every minor detail, every piece of blood/sweat/tears you put into designing an enemy and battlefield and maps completely meaningless as no one has time to stop and smell the roses, let alone the fact that it makes socializing impossible, which is devestating to an MMO. The reason I oft' lose interesting in logging in XIV is because I feel that, even though I'm surrounded by players in my FC and LS, that I'm playing alone, because there is absolutely no time for talking and no incentive to team up with other players. f**k you made more than half of the Roulettes un-queueable with friends, forcing you to solo them.

You have turned an MMO into a solo game, and that's what will lose players the fastest. When you feel like your companions are pointless or are forced to disband with them just to do your daily roulette's... it leads to a very sad experience.

(Also, a lot of butthurt Tags in this thread)

[Sapphic]

You have turned an MMO into a solo game, and that's what will lose players the fastest. When you feel like your companions are pointless or are forced to disband with them just to do your daily roulette's... it leads to a very sad experience.

(Also, a lot of butthurt Tags in this thread)

REasoning behind that is they want players to add to the pool queing for the lower level dungeons to make it easier for new players to find a party to clear said content. If they made them queable as a party it would reduce immensely the pool of players to fill parties for new players thus increasing exponentially the que times for them.

[BlaiseArath]

REasoning behind that is they want players to add to the pool queing for the lower level dungeons to make it easier for new players to find a party to clear said content. If they made them queable as a party it would reduce immensely the pool of players to fill parties for new players thus increasing exponentially the que times for them.

I know the reasoning behind it and I understand it, but it still sacrifices friends for speeding up low level dungeons for random strangers you'll never see again. But still, Trials and Frontlines shouldn't be solo queue only. I understand Low Level + Hest + Storyline though, but I don't have to like it. Could at least limit it to parties of 2 or 3.

Come back when you've actually cleared the content and we will speak again and not just listened blindly to someone else who hasn't done the content either.

I wanna start by saing rather or not Memorizing is playing is a semantics debate I'm not going into. So I'm not arguing against/for that part (which Is I know what you were talking to him about)

I've cleared Coil 1 and Coil 2 (coil 2 quite recently >_>), as well as pretty much every other piece of endgame content to note (Coil 3 mainly irrelevant as the OP is about Coil 2 anyway).

The biggest and most crucial important factor to clearing any of them is memorizing the mechanics, if you don't memorize them, everything else you know is worthless. Its hard yes, I will not deny that there is a good amount of difficulty in memorizing patterns... but its not about how well you play your job, its about how well you memorize the mechanics. Some level of competency is required yes, but in he fights I was zerging him down before a third comet spawned we still failed, even though our DPS was better overall... but In the fight we cleared, we were getting 3 to 4 meteors before first golems... meaning our DPS were more gimp, but they memorized the fight better.

Though, I guess I should say, there is a baseline of "Doing your job" required for Healers/Tanks/DPS, but no amount of Proskills are going to get you a clear if you can't memorize mechanics. Because mechanics really are a "If you screw up you're dead". Place a meteor too close? Wipe. Golem ate too many? Wipe. Golem didn't eat enough? Wipe. Stand in wrong spot for Heavensfall? Dead. Position Dives wrong? Wipe. Mess up Fire-in/Fire-out? Wipe. No matter how much HP or DPS you have if you mess up the above mechanics you die, you wipe, game over.

Again, that doesn't mean these fights are easy. They are difficult in the way they are intended to be difficult, that being memorizing mechanics. It is a mechanics driven fight.

[Sapphic]

Considering that two or even three deaths in all content is quite capable of being recoverable...I don't really see your point?

Gearing up increases that possibility of clearing content even with numerous deaths. So gear does have a huge factor in clearing content. Our first t13 clear we couldn't lose people due to enrage being so tight due to our gear. Now as we are all in full 130 we are able to still clear even if people die during the fights. We have even had a clear where last 2% on 13 there was like 4 people alive XD

All I get from the posts in here are those complaining are ones who havn't done the end game raids. They wan't to take away the challenge so they can face roll it instead of having to learn it ^_^

[SpookyGhost]

What is with XIV players and self boasting and their enthusiasm for excuses to replace their inability to proof that their claims is more than just a delusion? It's bloody every where! Is this some kind of plague? I pray I never get infected with this!

There's this thing that's kinda universal, doesn't really apply solely to XIV, where people will say "I can do X and I will explain to you why it's too easy/too hard/too whatever... but I haven't actually done it". While this game really is easy enough where there's a very low barrier of entry for even the hardest of content (FCoB/Savage), you still have to actually do it for your thoughts on it to hold any weight. You can have an opinion, sure, but people aren't really going to take you seriously if you go "T13 is really easy" and haven't cleared it. Half the battle in MMOs is finding a static of competent people, if you can't manage that then the fight might as well be the hardest thing in human history.

[siverstorm]

There's this thing that's kinda universal, doesn't really apply solely to XIV, where people will say "I can do X and I will explain to you why it's too easy/too hard/too whatever... but I haven't actually done it". While this game really is easy enough where there's a very low barrier of entry for even the hardest of content (FCoB/Savage), you still have to actually do it for your thoughts on it to hold any weight. You can have an opinion, sure, but people aren't really going to take you seriously if you go "T13 is really easy" and haven't cleared it. --snip

This trend literally exists in every thread related to this topic. And it's bordering on hilarity at this point. Half of the time I feel that the sole purpose of those comments are to provoke arguments to devolve the thread further into some "toxic elitists vs casual scrubs" rage fest to just butt heads for hours.