Just realized something: FFXIV is a terrible DPS player's DREAM come true...

[Tridus]

The only thing ambiguous about Wildfire for example is the "most" in the description, because nothing tells you which damage is compiled and which isn't. But it's common epic rarity sense that this essentially amounts to a 25% damage buff for the duration and you wanna cram as much skills as possible into it and thus... you wanna use it shortly before you unload.

It says "25% of most damage is compiled and dealt at the end." The first time I read that, I read it to mean literally what it says: 25% of the damage is taken, compiled, and dealt at the end. As in, only 75% of the damage is dealt up front. Why such a thing would exist made no sense to me and I found out what it really did when I googled it. A clearer wording might be "When Wildfire expires, it deals additional damage equal to 25% of damage you inflicted during the duration."

Does that make me dumb? Maybe . But if I'm willing to admit it, you know there's lots of people who had the same confusion and aren't.

If the average user really has issues with that... I suppose I'm an exceptional user and shouldn't project my standards.

The single hardest part of my job is understanding what an "average user" actually is, because my experience is so far removed from theirs. If you're engaging in this discussion on this forum at all, you are almost certainly not average. You'd probably be shocked at just what an "average user" knows and doesn't know, but it's closer to that person who asks for computer help and then drags it out forever because they can't follow basic instructions than it is to you.

Now imagine trying to design a game where both that and the elite level players can have things to do and thus remain interested and subscribed for months on end. That's the challenge SE has, and it drives some of the decisions they make. It's also why the forum isn't a great place to get feedback exclusively: only a certain segment of the playerbase is here, and it's not very representative.

[Vstarstruck]

But when are you supposed to use Wildfire? The game doesn't help you with that all. Hell, I had to read Wildfire a few times to figure out what it actually does, because the way it's worded you can read it as deferring damage until later (rather than adding more later). It's pretty easy to miss the damage number on it when it does go off if it's mixed in with other damage numbers, so your average person can get this wrong very easily. Unless they have some way to measure how effective it is or already know how fast everything should be dying (which they probably don't because the people most affected are new to the game and don't have a frame of reference), it's something of a black box.

The fact they have an ability named cooldown.. and that tooltip.. is interesting to say the least, it is very confusing at first.

But yes some of the ability details on some things is very confusing on top of things, the game needs this:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...able-to-use-DF.
badly

[era1Ne]

The fact they have an ability named cooldown.. and that tooltip.. is interesting to say the least, it is very confusing at first.

But yes some of the ability details on some things is very confusing on top of things, the game needs this:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...able-to-use-DF.
badly

I believe this won't really fix anything, because many people do not care about tutorials or getting better at the game. Simple as that. Do you know 3 person that read the "guide book" delivered with every game many years ago? I don't, because almost nobody cares and you can see that in the novice network aswell. Don't get me wrong, i always encourage people to ask questions, because i want to help, but you can easily see that many questions could've been answered, if they didn't click the tutorial box away asap. On the other hand, if you want to get better than you search on the internet, read the tooltips or ask good players, how to improve and imo this works better than an very detailed developer guide for various reasons. With that said, i would like if Square would add an mentor class/role chat, so people can ask and discuss stuff about their class more easily and maybe this would encourage some to get better at their class or let them realize that they are doing sth wrong.

Of course some tooltips are not good enough and dots potency aren't fully detailed/explained, because you have to calculate the overall potency yourself. initial dmg+((dot potency*duration)/3). Thats something Square should improve. But if those players would take 5-20 min to read their tooltips, then they could easily understand what skills are more efficient for mob groups in most cases and if they don't do aoe skills during huge pulls, then those players either don't care or haven't even read the tooltips. An forced tutorial won't change anything imo, if an person can't even be ask to read the tooltips.

[RichardButte]

Also smart people do not kick a healer for a single mistake

You just explained exactly why healers can still get kicked, though.

likewise can point out who is lacking severe DPS before checking gear. Sometimes in 8 or 24 man it can be easy to tell as well, they are laying on the floor for longer time then they spend attacking things.

I mean, if they're dead 70% of the fight, sure, but when you have a group of DPS (especially if they're stacking) watching their rotations long enough to gauge who is seriously slacking is going to be difficult at best and cause YOU to die because you're not paying attention to what you're doing.

Hi, I'd like you to meet tooltips.

It'd be amazing if it was that simple...

[Wolf_Heartnet]

I agree, this game is in desperate need of DPS parsers for all to see. Would love to see the modding feature that was promised and never delivered on.

[Krotoan]

I agree, this game is in desperate need of DPS parsers for all to see. Would love to see the modding feature that was promised and never delivered on.

I don't remember them ever promising modding capabilities.. I actually remember them specifically saying we WOULDN'T be able to mod the game.. but then again they have said a lot of things. Save me a google and link that post or interview?

[Wolf_Heartnet]

I don't remember them ever promising modding capabilities.. I actually remember them specifically saying we WOULDN'T be able to mod the game.. but then again they have said a lot of things. Save me a google and link that post or interview?

Its been talked about since before 2.X with alot of the juicy info in live letters. Heres the easy stuff to find on it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLAYwDLvUk
G: When A Realm Reborn was announced at the beginning, you mentioned or promised the implementation of user-made UI mods. We don't hear much mention any more. Is the plan still coming around and when can we expect to hear something about them?

Y: After we announced this feature, we needed to tackle the legal side of things as well as how much freedom to give to players, as we need to give them scripts. It's taking time but slowly, it's proceeding.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ff.../1100-6425730/

[Crysten]

When designing any game, the #1 priority is to teach the player how to play well enough early on that they are prepared for the challenges they'll face later in the game.

I will agree with 99.99% of everything you've said in this thread, and I don't have a whole lot more to contribute to the discussion that hasn't already been said to death. That said, in terms of in-game tutorials I can think of only one single instance where anything akin to teaching a rotation was implemented (and even then...eeeeeegh) and that was the level 30-40 NIN job questline.

The game went out of it's way to introduce mudras to you at that stage and had specific solo instances where you were using them in combat situations. This was fantastic in teaching the basics of NIN's core job mechanic.

Then they screwed it up entirely at level 45 by giving you your final mudra (which is linked to NIN's bread and butter in regards to DPS) and then saying "no time to explain this one, we need to do the plot thing!"

Result? Tons of level 50 NINs that didn't know how to Huton (and still don't, to this day).

So, to be fair, the idea has existed (albeit barely and never done again since), so I would absolutely love more of this where abilities and their usage and application in your rotation is explained somewhat in the job quest storylines.

[RichardButte]

Its been talked about since before 2.X with alot of the juicy info in live letters. Heres the easy stuff to find on it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLAYwDLvUk
G: When A Realm Reborn was announced at the beginning, you mentioned or promised the implementation of user-made UI mods. We don't hear much mention any more. Is the plan still coming around and when can we expect to hear something about them?

Y: After we announced this feature, we needed to tackle the legal side of things as well as how much freedom to give to players, as we need to give them scripts. It's taking time but slowly, it's proceeding.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ff.../1100-6425730/

Also still waiting on the mobile companion and all that...

I will agree with 99.99% of everything you've said in this thread, and I don't have a whole lot more to contribute to the discussion that hasn't already been said to death. That said, in terms of in-game tutorials I can think of only one single instance where anything akin to teaching a rotation was implemented (and even then...eeeeeegh) and that was the level 30-40 NIN job questline.

The game went out of it's way to introduce mudras to you at that stage and had specific solo instances where you were using them in combat situations. This was fantastic in teaching the basics of NIN's core job mechanic.

Then they screwed it up entirely at level 45 by giving you your final mudra (which is linked to NIN's bread and butter in regards to DPS) and then saying "no time to explain this one, we need to do the plot thing!"

Result? Tons of level 50 NINs that didn't know how to Huton (and still don't, to this day).

So, to be fair, the idea has existed (albeit barely and never done again since), so I would absolutely love more of this where abilities and their usage and application in your rotation is explained somewhat in the job quest storylines.

Someone in another thread suggested that class quests do more of this as well, and it's not a bad idea.

Also, there was a mod in WoW (which I laughed at the idea of using, frankly) that made the buttons of your ideal rotation appear in a row for you.

XIV could have a special training area that could light up the buttons in the rotation order that would result in the highest damage output or something like that.

I realize we have to adjust skills in different situations, but this would still be a good starting point.

I feel like 90% of players who are "bad" actually just haven't been properly educated on getting the most from their class.

[Vstarstruck]

Also still waiting on the mobile companion and all that...



Someone in another thread suggested that class quests do more of this as well, and it's not a bad idea.

Also, there was a mod in WoW (which I laughed at the idea of using, frankly) that made the buttons of your ideal rotation appear in a row for you.

XIV could have a special training area that could light up the buttons in the rotation order that would result in the highest damage output or something like that.

I realize we have to adjust skills in different situations, but this would still be a good starting point.

I feel like 90% of players who are "bad" actually just haven't been properly educated on getting the most from their class.

Ya I really think its simply lack of information, they do not realize how BIG the difference can be, even pressing your next action before the CD resets can lead to big differences and people are not going to see how much so because they are not doing high end rotations with another DPS that does the same for 14-18 min runs.