The constant disbanding of Steps of Faith

[VTanner]

Biggest issue I have with Steps of Faith is that you can wipe very early on, but you still have to wait for Vishap to walk slowly to the end. They really should just make it so you can't respawn and a full wipe results in a restart. Not sure if that would keep people around for it, but it would at least make the fight a lot less frustrating to drag people through. It is a fight where people can make a lot of small mistakes and those mistakes will quickly add up to a wipe, though that wipe will come slowly and waste a lot of your time.

As far as resetting is concerned why not have it automatically reset when all 8 players are incapacitated and have not revived in 30's (not all 8, just anyone). That way players can decide that after missing the dragon killers, the tank is dead and healer is running around doing his best Bennie Hill impression that it's not going to work and needs a restart. I'd probably have fared better in DF if we could reset it but as it stands you only get like 3-4 tries before the timer runs out (this is of course you don't have players leave and you sit around waiting).

[BreathlessTao]

This population needs, badly, an investigation as to whether the 82 RMT outfits who are spamming the crap out of us are getting people buying characters, because the level of players who don't even deserve a Level 50, much less an ilevel one hundred and something, truly makes me fear for the future of this game.

It's time to stop accumulating character numbers when half of them (I hope it's not that, but would not be shocked!) are RMT and a lot of the rest should belong back in Vana'diel.

Harsh... but can't argue the truth in it.

The problem is people going into SoF drop when they zone in, or drop after 1 wipe, so there's no opportunity to learn for them with one consistent group.
Plus some people just don't care.

It's not a problem only related to SoF, tbh... everywhere you go, even in PF listings, everyone just expects you to know everything. Willing to teach or practice with you? Nope. But you can buy clears if you want to get the content done anyway.

Not the point -- I think they overestimated the skill level of this playerbase, and did so HORRIBLY.

It's not overestimation, if you ask me... It's the fact that about 99% (ok, let's be generous, 98%) of all MSQ, and even most sidequests, is such an incredible faceroll... especially with the ridiculously (and admittedly!) overgeared state most everyone is in for those... that something like SoF was just too jarring a difference, when it comes to complexity and the whole permanent-progress-style of it. We're being led, both hands held, through almost the entire game, with candy-like handouts, and then thrown into something that's akin to deep, stormy sea to someone who's freshly learned how to swim. Yes, there's Coil, but on one hand it's completely optional, on the other it's a whole different thing, especially when it comes to learning. So, considering only MSQ, you can't be surprised at people who rush through everything can't cope with what SoF is.

[VTanner]

I don't know why everyone keeps debating the difficulty and ability of players to play the game properly when it has absolutely nothing to do with why people are exiting upon entering. They're exiting immediately because every other trial in the roulette takes about five minutes, while this one takes a minimum of 15.

Though they do (or the first person does at least) incur a 30-minute penalty for leaving, that's 30 minutes they can go do something else, even not play FFXIV, so they take it. They were looking for something quick, they didn't get it, so they leave.

So say for instance if T9/T13 was thrown into Trial roulette with all the singing and dancing mechanics they have would you stay? Okay it's no where near that difficulty but the difficulty of SoF comes from it's deviation of the normal Tank & Spank zerg fest many have become accustomed to and as such you can eat a 30min timer or spend at least 15mins failing then arguing then leaving and doing it all again...or just leave on entering which is what is happening. Sometimes you just know when a group will not pass a fight and sadly SoF contains more of them and it's much much harder to just carry the dead weight. Fire up Garu HM and some fresh lvl50's in i40>i50 will probably die quickly but the rest are so overgeared that they'll just blast through it with ease. In SoF if you're not doing at least moderately well it's a fail with a really really long reset.

I think the problem is too many players now are being carried through once difficult fights by overgeared players (willingly or not) and are missing all the learning of those battles. Most of the primal fights now can be simply DPS at lightning speed with complete disregard for any of the original mechanic's so a new player will never know those or learn them. In turn they'll get to newer content and have missed all that previous experience that many of us who have played before the nerfs had to learn.

[JimboTCB]

Better comparison to WoW encounters i've seen would be the Oculus. Something that's completely outside the norm for encounters up to that point that everyone avoids because it's completely outside the norm for encounters up to that point.

And also like Oculus, it's annoying and over-long, requires explaining lots of stuff to new people, and the rewards are no better than anything else in the same content pool for all the effort it requires.

WOW "fixed" their Oculus by adding bonus loot to it, which largely stopped people quitting out of it the instant they saw it pop up on random dungeons. More carrot, less stick, no more nerfs. Just add a TT card, a pet, some vanity items or whatever as a potential reward for doing Steps via roulette and you'll see a whole bunch of people suddenly becoming very interested in seeing it through to the end when they land in it.

[DragonSlayer45]

I have a simple fix: Don't do trial roulette. Stay away from it, pretend it doesn't exist if you hate Steps that much. There is nothing wrong with the Steps of Faith fight, the problem is the community that is prone to ragequitting and extreme lack of teamwork in duty finder scenarios. This exact same scenario happened in 2.1 with the King Moogle fight and I'm honestly disappointed that the Steps fight is more than likely to get the nerf stick as well.

It makes me worry about the future of fights in this game. Does every fight besides the weekly raid and Extreme primals need to be tank and spank? If we put in a fight that requires a minimal amount of effort from players other than just pushing buttons and watching numbers pop up, is it going to be met with the same reception as Steps/Chrysalis/pre-nerf King Mog? Because heaven forbid we have to work as a team in an MMO.

[Nalien]

And also like Oculus, it's annoying and over-long, requires explaining lots of stuff to new people, and the rewards are no better than anything else in the same content pool for all the effort it requires.

Lots? When I beat it (and I doubt this was even the smart strategy in terms of delegating roles) I recall saying little more than;

<Person1> and me on cannons and hit Snare when needed (we were both DPS).
DPS kill adds.
Tanks pull adds in front of Vishap so cannons can hit.
<Person2> run up to Dragon Killer and fire when I say.
Everyone focus Vishap after adds/cannons dead.
(First Dragon Killer) Fire.
(After Snare) Fire.
(After Snare) Fire.

That's less than 50 words? I had to explain more for Garuda (Hard) and Titan (Hard), granted that was when they were new and not insanely easy to faceroll. Perhaps it's about time they put a level cap on those so people actually have to pay attention to mechanics there again... Always irked me how much of a joke they became, they were originally the only challenge outside Coil, not really surprised people are so incompetent now that they're so easy...

[Alistaire]

Better comparison to WoW encounters i've seen would be the Oculus. Something that's completely outside the norm for encounters up to that point that everyone avoids because it's completely outside the norm for encounters up to that point.

You guys make it sound like this "out of the norm" is hard or something. Tanks and healers on cannon duty before? Stone Vigil HM. DPS should avoid fighting adds? Tamtara HM. Fights where someone needs to run from the boss, click an object to do some mechanic? Copperbell HM.

I'd be really annoyed at running into players in any of these that couldn't grasp those mechanics. Yet somehow this happens quite a bit in Steps. I honestly don't get why people derp so hard on this fight.

[Zaft]

You guys make it sound like this "out of the norm" is hard or something. Tanks and healers on cannon duty before? Stone Vigil HM. DPS should avoid fighting adds? Tamtara HM. Fights where someone needs to run from the boss, click an object to do some mechanic? Copperbell HM.

I'd be really annoyed at running into players in any of these that couldn't grasp those mechanics. Yet somehow this happens quite a bit in Steps. I honestly don't get why people derp so hard on this fight.

That's the thing. This isn't like the Oculus, which introduced new things that had NEVER been done before (having to use the dragons as the combatants, fighting in the air, etc). This is just a combination of stuff we've already done. It's like taking a midterm or a final. Nothing is new, it's just a combination of previous stuff.

[Gardes]

To everyone complaining about the incoming nerf to Steps of Faith:

They gave plenty of time for people to try and clear this. Now it's time for everyone else to play catch-up. Besides, there are a lot of scrubs holding back some of the better potential players out there, who are just struggling to get this done so they can move on to progress. So just be happy you were able to fucking beat it, will you? The moment you beat it is the moment you lost your bitching privileges.

Of all the things SE has done for me, this is probably the most impressive one. Turning an innocent word into a disgusting and vile one for me.

[Raeletta]

Thanks for your feedback.

Adjustments to ease the Steps of Faith trial are in the works, and we'll be announcing more information about the how and when soon enough!

Officially saddened.