The issue nobody wants to address

[Hayward]

-snip-

This guy gets it.

I would also say that SE needs to ease up on the DPS checks because of the knock-on effects of hyper-competitiveness and outright rude behavior.

[MentheusDreyar]

This guy gets it.

I would also say that SE needs to ease up on the DPS checks because of the knock-on effects of hyper-competitiveness and outright rude behavior.

But here's the issue, SE can't win either way... they tried mechanic based stuff before (see Step's of Faith), and clearly far too many people aren't good enough to get past even easy mechanics because they don't want to put in any effort, therefore it gets nerfed to the ground and becomes useless or the good players carry other people through it and the cycle repeats later.

Now on the other hand, the only other real way of challenging players currently is DPS checks. Tight ones that force the entire party to actively push DPS to get past it until the content is over geared. And we all know how that turns out...

See what he common cause is? People who don't want to put in effort to learning or doing content joining and letting the rest of the able party down because they lack the skill to play the game to acceptable levels that both the game and players require.

This is what parser's are made to help with, it's the people that are the issue, NOT the tool.

I swear it's like people want the entire game to be faceroll content you can get past by spamming a single skill... honestly we need more "toxicity" to to encourage players to get better, otherwise nothing will change, and a parser is one step towards that.

This is, imho, the most valid argument against parsers. It also ties into the everything becoming a dps race point I made a few pages back.

A counter to this, is to look at the games current meta, everything is dps, tanks, healers, everything is dps centric. Not exactly on you point I agree. Part of the fault in this, and your feeling, lies with the developers I think. Developers tend to consistently fall back on dps, and dps checks as the main core mechanic in almost every encounter you come across. If encounters were designed to be less reliant on dps, then I think it would alleviate this problem. However, this is a problem with MMO's as a whole, not just FFXIV. And meant for another thread I would say.

The fault is not entirely on the dev's they have clearly tried mechanic based content before, but the majority of the player base has shown they can't handle anything other than spamming buttons mindlessly, therefore the only other current alternative is a DPS check.

[Whiteroom]

The fault is not entirely on the dev's they have clearly tried mechanic based content before, but the majority of the player base has shown they can't handle anything other than spamming buttons mindlessly, therefore the only other current alternative is a DPS check.

True, but they are the ones in the position to nudge the community in a different direction. Falling back on dps checks for almost everything is the easy way out.

[MentheusDreyar]

True, but they are the ones in the position to nudge the community in a different direction. Falling back on dps checks for almost everything is the easy way out.

Missed this earlier

Yes they are in the position to nudge the community, but what's it gonna cost them? If they can't introduce interesting mechanics because most of the players are hopeless, what can they really do?

They have to think about maintaining a steady amount of subs and income to keep the game running and the content coming for us every 3 or so months. Sure DPS checks might be the easy way out, but currently it's their only alternative and safe difficulty gate. Because they know the good players have the skill to do it on release, the less skilful players will eventually do it due to better gear, and when it gets to the hopeless players they know the better players and over geared players can help them clear the content as a fail safe to keep those players subs going.

If so many players weren't so incompetent we'd have much more mechanic based content that's fun and challenging to do. Sadly SE have to cater to the majority, which is greatly holding the game back from what it could really be.

[Whiteroom]

Missed this earlier

Yes they are in the position to nudge the community, but what's it gonna cost them? Sadly SE have to cater to the majority, which is greatly holding the game back from what it could really be.

Indeed they do, but at the same time, if they can't continue to keep people interested. ie, they are bored because everything is the same. But at the same time, they do also seem to have a bit of integrity with their product, look at MSQ gate to HW for example. They aren't simply in it to make the most possible money, they want to make the most possible money with the product they want to sell. So, one can hope.
But in the end, they are the only ones in the position to make the change. Do I think they would have to do it gradually over a few expacs, yes. Not saying they could just start introducing all mechanics heavy content in 3.1. They would essentially have to groom the player base. But then, isn't content supposed to get more challenging the further you get into a game?

I think the over reliance on dps checks is bad for the genre in the long run, but don't know that it will, or can, change.

[Archaell]

I think the over reliance on dps checks is bad for the genre in the long run, but don't know that it will, or can, change.

Dps checks themself aren't that bad, but when they are combined with big influx of stats on gear it creates issues. With better gear content should get easier, but it shouldn't turn older content into faceroll. It's great that it slows down end game during progression - but the second these players return to previous content they are massively overgeared and huge part of the game turns into mindless farm, which is also problematic for new players, especially tanks.

Just simple nerf to gear could increase difficulty significantly. If the gear was nerfed more and more players would have to seek improvement rather than waiting another week for their "free" gear upgrade.