A Crazy Solution To The Growing Problems of Inadequate Preparation For Duties.

[Niyuka]

I am saddened to see how the expectation is that a player who is entirely disinterested, unable to memorize anything beyond a simple 3-step rotation, doesnt really see what is going on, has no practice, is not interested in practicing to gain skill, has successfully dodged any challenging situation, plays undergeared, the wrong class, in the wrong setup, is now suddenly the baseline for what the game should allow as "performance".

Is this the standard to which all games should be designed, to allow the least invested, able and caring individual to succeed?

[Just-Communication]

I am saddened to see how the expectation is that a player who is entirely disinterested, unable to memorize anything beyond a simple 3-step rotation, doesnt really see what is going on, has no practice, is not interested in practicing to gain skill, has successfully dodged any challenging situation, plays undergeared, the wrong class, in the wrong setup, is now suddenly the baseline for what the game should allow as "performance".

Is this the standard to which all games should be designed, to allow the least invested, able and caring individual to succeed?

Sounds like freedom to me. Unless you want to start dictating what type of person should be allowed to purchase and play video games.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Did I claim that? No. What I claimed was that finger gymnastics are not needed and I think that's true, because there are several ways to reduce the amount of finger movement needed. Some people click, others buy a gaming mouse with 16 buttons, again others bind the hotbars to their mousewheel so they don't need to bother with CTRL/Shift, again others bind all the keys around their movement keys to hotbar slots, again others play without mouse entirely and use both hands, while others go straight for a controller. The technique is fairly individual, you gotta find what works for you.

I do think, though, that if someone is using the term "finger gymnastics" to describe playing a DPS, it sounds like something is wrong with their technique because none such gymnastics are necessary in the first place. It gives off the impression of someone who makes things harder for themselves than need be and then blames the game that it's too hard.
Now, it can of course be that you're just plain old or disabled. There are people with ADHD, there's alzheimer's, knuckle rot and a great many other things that can impair a person both physically and mentally. If that's your case, my condolences and apologies. In my argument, I'm assuming a healthy person somewhere between 18 and 50, because that's where the majority of gamers is gonna lie.

Ultimately when I say finger gymnastics I am saying there's too many buttons that need to be hit too frequently during dps rotations for me to perform them well enough to not be considered "terribad".

There are classes that have maintenance buffs that need refreshing every 15+ seconds or so.
There are classes that have abilities that can only be used while they have buff from something else.
There are classes that have procs to take advantage of.
There are classes with combo abilities that must be hit in a certain order.
There are classes that have positional abilities to worry about.

How many classes have more than one of the above? Do any of the classes have ALL of the above?

You said

You say finger gymnastics, but I literally just press my skills with left click except for the easily reach-able 1-2-3 and I can perform quite decently.

In doing so you implied that its not difficult for anyone to "perform quite decently" by just hitting 1-2-3 and left clicking the rest. Which is why I replied as I did. That's great that 1-2-3 and left clicking the rest works for you and that you can perform at a level adequate enough to avoid the scorn of your peers in the doing. But that does not mean that anyone can "hit 1-2-3 and left click the rest" and perform well enough to not be considered bad dps. I know I certainly can't. I can't juggle Enochian/Fire IV/Blizzard IV well enough to put out the expected dps. Maybe you can. Maybe its really easy for you to do that. It's not for me.

The problem is not my "technique". The problem is that I am not you. I do not think think and react in the same way you do or at the same speed you do. I may not have the same physical dexterity as you do. My brain may not be capable of keeping track of too many different things going on at the same time in the way yours is. While health and age do play a role in these things (and for me specifically both apply), assuming a healthy 18-50 year old "should" be capable of doing what you are capable of doing is ridiculous.

You're saying it's not difficult to do "adequately" by hitting 1-2-3 and left clicking the rest.

I'm saying it's not difficult for YOU to do "adequately" by hitting 1-2-3 and left clicking the rest, but that it doesn't mean that its not difficult for someone who isn't you, young and healthy or not.

Finally, and I'm not saying this to you specifically Zojha, cause you aren't someone saying this sort of thing, but there’s nothing more horrible than feeling like a idiot because something is really hard for you — and then having some irritating expert say “No, no, no, actually it’s super-easy”.

It’s not. At least, not necessarily, and certainly not for everyone.

The problem isn't my technique. The problem is, and SE agrees it's a problem, that dps rotations have become too complex and SE intends to address it in Stormblood.

—Can you tell us more about what’s planned for the battle system revamp?

Yoshida: We’re not going to be rebuilding it from the ground up. We’re concentrating on two things with this revamp. During 3.x, the action rotation for high DPS became very complex. We saw a large gap form regarding DPS from skilled and technical players and more casual players and so we wanted to bring up the bottom.

When the developers of the game say "During 3.x, the action rotation for high DPS became very complex" how can anyone argue with that? I certainly can't. Post-50 skills jumped the difficulty tremendously for me at the very least. I doubt I am the only one.

[Kaethra]

Now this is something I'd love to see implemented on a much wider scale... but it'd kill off content quite hard I feel - you see people want superzergrushmustkillinrecordtimenostoppingjustgogogogogogogo - make content more difficult and people will try to avoid it where possible (even going so far as to quit the game if needed, which is bad business for SE). So I'm not sure if this would work.

Slightly off topic, but yeah I won't lie that I have a slight bias towards getting that implemented.

I just did some older dungeons with a friend who came back today. I was not punished as hard as I should have been for mistakes I've made in content that I haven't played in a minute. But due to how items scale (even my friend's ilvl 90 stuff was blowing through), its a snooze fest. I mean I can make a mistake, realize I made it, and then cover for it and I'm good. Its like riding a bike.

But what about those newbies that get stuck in the run with some of us vets (gearwise)? They don't get the same experience I did in 2.0. Let's bring that back. Those that want quick runs can grind FATES till 60 and run their stuff unsync'd. I don't care about them. I want my nostalgia and I want to share it with newbies. They'll be better for it.

[Niyuka]

Sounds like freedom to me. Unless you want to start dictating what type of person should be allowed to purchase and play video games.

Hahah where do I even start. No, "Freedom" doesnt even apply here. Freedom, in the sense you are using, is that everyone can purchase the game. Unless virtually any activity in this world is running counter to "Freedom" by not automatically letting everyone succeed. Ah well, suppose this is a troll attempt anyway.

If I could, I would have some content (maybe one dungeon per content patch or so) at Pharos Sirius (original, unnerfed) level

[Naunet]

Sounds like freedom to me. Unless you want to start dictating what type of person should be allowed to purchase and play video games.

Anyone is free to purchase and play any game they like. Whether or not they succeed at playing through it well is another matter.

[Ama_Hamada]

Thanks for proving my point. You honestly think a tutorial would change that? You just told us that BLM what to do and he went 'lol singledps'. He'd do the same after a tutorial.

If people are there to troll to troll, it would be made more clear when the game tells you how to before advancing. Right now it is too easy just to pull "my play style defense and you are wrong because i said so"

—Can you tell us more about what’s planned for the battle system revamp?

Yoshida: We’re not going to be rebuilding it from the ground up. We’re concentrating on two things with this revamp. During 3.x, the action rotation for high DPS became very complex. We saw a large gap form regarding DPS from skilled and technical players and more casual players and so we wanted to bring up the bottom.

When the developers of the game say "During 3.x, the action rotation for high DPS became very complex" how can anyone argue with that? I certainly can't. Post-50 skills jumped the difficulty tremendously for me at the very least. I doubt I am the only one.

https://youtu.be/eHTCwDXVeWY?t=103

all I got to say about that. If obey is also "required" for SCH, at least let her heal on her own like garuda. I am not going to mach a button every 3 sec WHILE doing dps/healing "rotations, I simply can't do that. For SMN, you are hitting ruin II/swiftcast shadow flare so you can hit 2/3 things while the ocgd is on cooldown. That is much more involve then keeping Enochian on. Also keeping Enochian on say a dummy should be easy, it becomes hard when actually doing content because of the vanishing bosses and such.

[Kosmos992k]

When I first read the title it sounded liks some new sardonic slice of life RPG comedic Anime....but it wasn't.

As someone has already said, and I frequently point out in topics about damage meters and parsers, no amount of cajoling or nudging, or restrictions or tutorials will make players who don't want to improve, or don't see the need to improve, improve. It always comes back to this;

1. Players that want to improve will improve, no matter what facilities the game offers - because they read their skill descriptions, listen to advice and try things out.
2. Players that do not want or care to, will not improve, until such time as they want to.
3. Nothing can change 1 or 2 above.

Ramp out difficulty how? People really need to stop saying this. the dungeons are easy because you are overpowered for them do them at the item level they require to get in and you'll find a bit of resistance.

This seems to be a kind of mental blindspot in the FFXIV community in general. The perception that dungeons are easy as pie comes from being overgeared regardless of level sync, because both level and ilvl sync do not strongly enough nerf you, and in content with no sync, overgearing is horrendous.

The best examples are the original hard mode primals, specifically Garuda and Titan. Mention those now and people at like they are nothing but cake walks. Except that when encountered in 2013 with gear in the ilvl 60-80 range. The funny thing about it is that I just looked up a thread on a gaming site from then and someone is talking about requiring ilvl 90 gear, especially on DPS, for Titan. Titan was more about the AoE dance, tanks who knew how to handle Tumult and everyone making the DPS check during the heart phase. Of course back then Garuda got to deploy her mechanics before she was burned to the ground and the tank had to move her around the arena correctly to prevent the party wiping. But, with appropriate gear those fights were a challenge, and a lot of parties wiped, and ultimately needed the rather sad nerfs and Echo that were applied later.

But the point is exactly what you said "dungeons are easy because you are overpowered". Every time someone whines about dungeons being too easy, I think I will need to requote you, or at least paraphrase you.

[SenorPatty]

I am saddened to see how the expectation is that a player who is entirely disinterested, unable to memorize anything beyond a simple 3-step rotation, doesnt really see what is going on, has no practice, is not interested in practicing to gain skill, has successfully dodged any challenging situation, plays undergeared, the wrong class, in the wrong setup, is now suddenly the baseline for what the game should allow as "performance".

Is this the standard to which all games should be designed, to allow the least invested, able and caring individual to succeed?

I feel like like this is what some online game developers are mostly interested in. Making sure that most of their content can be passed with base or below performance and then creating a niche set of content (like savage for example) for those who want to exert themselves more.

Edit: The problem is that once a player's done most of the base content, they're already ingrained by reflex to play ordinarily as well in that niche content. And that creates problems for the side of players who basically invested themselves wholly to playing the game at their best at all times.

Edit: ^ofc, not every player, just the ones that don't realize that they're going to have to up their game up if they want to do the harder content

[Dzian]

But the point is exactly what you said "dungeons are easy because you are overpowered". Every time someone whines about dungeons being too easy, I think I will need to requote you, or at least paraphrase you.

Yes we are over powered but we are deliberately overpowered... it's deliberately done to be made easy.

The current ex dungeons for example are i230 but they were added at a time when everyone was already i250 or even higher.

It isn't then a case if players out gearing the content. It's a case of the content is deliberately aimed to be lower than the players.. players essentially out geared belsaers wall by 20-30 ilevels months before the dungeon was even added. That's why players overpower everything. Because it's obsolete content before its even implemented..

That said even at i230 belsaers wall is ridiculous easy. Even at i235 Zurvan normal is almost impossible to fail. Overpowering isn't why things are easy...

Being 40 levels above a dungeon for example doesn't matter if you are only doing 50% of what you are capable of... and still able to clear

Even if you overpower content by 50 I levels you can still perform at a bare minimum level and clear the content.. the Overpowering here is an illusion because players simply don't put that power to use. That's why the skill gap is as big as it is. The

It isn't just the fact players are overpowered that creates the belief everything is easy. It's the fact that everything really is easy... if anything the fact we over power it just hides the fact it was never a challenge to start with...