The general player base needs to improve

[Jijifli]

People enjoy fishing.... which I find mind numbing. Its all a matter of personal perspective.

I don't see how anyone can get enjoyment from not even doing basics by "expert."

I can see why fishing, it's the 1 gatherer that has some paying attention instead of "hit this rock until it's gone enjoy free lootz." But I cannot see why someone would have fun pressing 1 button for 30 minutes, yawning away as they eat every mechanic since it doesn't kill.

[RiyahArp]

Eventually, yes, make it so that we'll come to a point where Expert dungeons can harshly punish mistakes. But the way things are set up now, that shouldn't happen until the end of 5.0 when you unlock those exclusive Expert dungeons after whatever story is in there. The game has room for gradual difficulty. You can't just suddenly throw in Nid Hard bosses - that will definitely kill Expert runs right now. You say that gradual and optional is dumb, yet you fail to recognize that some of us have already thrown in some ideas on how this could work, whereas, once again, you have not provided anything and now you're on the 'git gud' train. Some of these dungeons shouldn't be labeled 'Expert' if they are practically no different from the rest of the other dungeons, save for the level and the scenery. Lemme pose another question.

This one is specifically for you, Riyah.

What's wrong with having optional, harder dungeons that actually feel like Expert? If they are harder and the rewards are increased enough that they offer rewards like just-below-raid-level gear, materia, exclusive mounts, maybe even tomestones that you can find during a run (though those will have to be capped...maybe implement a system where these harder, Expert dungeons can give you tomestones around 200 above the weekly cap), how is that a bad thing?

1. To make the boss expert, you are going to have to do things that aren't gradual.

Let's say boss has a cone aoe attack that targets a dps. It hits him for 50% of his health if he doesn't dodge. This is too easy, so you boost the damage to 75%.

The thing is...there's no difference. The healer just patches him up. We have bosses that can drop a player to 1% HP or lower as a mechanic, and it still doesn't change; the healer still patches him back up if he screws up. You can stand in the fire no matter how much damage it does as long as it doesn't kill you.

SE tries to make it gradual, so they add vuln stacks. If you get hit enough, you will eventually get one-shot. But the boss doesn't do their attacks fast enough to be an issue in a normal fight. You get jiji standing in a puddle with six stacks on him.

So in the end, you make it so that two hits of the cone aoe wipe you; the first gives enough vuln for the second to kill you, or maybe even the next aoe. but even then, all the healer has to do is raise the person and they can fight again, just a lot slower due to penalized stats.

So to make the boss not able to be zombied through, you add a strong dps check that penalizes any dps who is at 50% stats. If you get raised too much, it's a wipe.

You go from "let's try to make gradual difficulty increase" to, well, pretty much the same thing you get in an ex fight. Because you really need to have those kinds of things to make the fight expert; you can't gradually make it a challenge in any real way because the healer can fix things, and the dps can still complete things, just a lot slower. To teach the kind of skills you want the players to have, you pretty much replicate the stuff you find in savage. The bosses may not have as much HP, and the mechanics may be slower than them, but the way the game is, you really need to wipe people and have dps checks to add any sense of difficulty to the game. And if you look at some of the harder old dungeons, they do this exactly. Qarn will one shot you if you don't get on the suare to avoid doom. Bees will one-shot you if they are allowed to live. If you do not clear out bombs and fast, the last boss in brayflox hard will wipe everyone over and over again. But Aurum vale is exactly what happens when you try to make a gradual boss; a good healer can keep someone up with 4-5 stacks on some of the bosses, and even if they die, nothing really happens; they just get raised and go back in there.

As for optional experts, go nuts. We have them already, we call them ex trials. You even can get unique mounts from them. They don't really seem to work in the sense of "lets make the playerbase better, though." Because you can ignore them if you like. Heck, the ARR ex primals are already the perfect difficulty for this kind of thing. Its just unless you force people to do them, the people who would learn from doing it won't, and the people who think everything is easy will, and we are back to where we started.

[Astral145]

I dont think BLM was neutered.... In fact I absolutely love BLM as it is now... Have you not seen the double to triple flares? The job is so so satisfying to play now.

Anyway back to discussion... lets look at this from a different angle. We have a lot of casual players and I would bet some of the casual players that started playing after Stormblood hit the server have yet to hit level 70.

With that said FFXIV still uses old base MMO style game play and the players who only own a console will be thrown into an environment that is very different then most console style games, especially current gen games. So be patient with the players you run with and teach them what you know. Some players might have learning disabilities or handicaps that may prevent them from learning content quickly or respond to mechanics quickly and they may need to run it 20+ time to overcome whatever issue they may have.

Veteran players always be kind as everyone has there own issues and making an effort to help others just might add another descent player in the long run. Encourage players to fight through their fears, disabilities or whatever it may be that holds them back. Yelling or rage quitting only proves nothing and doesn't solve the problem. Fighting with each other has never solved a problem... brain storming with one another to figuring out a solution to a problem is the only way to solve a problem.

Here is a way to approach a problem:

"Hey NAME HERE thanks for joining the party, awesome glamor btw, I noticed you were having issues with x-mechanic and x-phase change, what issues are you having? I will be happy to answer any question you may have. Help us help you " Different approach for different folks can be the difference from a party falling apart or finally clearing the content.

Happy Questing

[Raven2014]

Anyway back to discussion... lets look at this from a different angle. We have a lot of casual players and I would bet some of the casual players that started playing after Stormblood hit the server have yet to hit level 70.

With that said FFXIV still uses old base MMO style game play and the players who only own a console will be thrown into an environment that is very different then most console style games, especially current gen games.

These 2 sentences are contradiction. I believe casual or hardcore are more about the level commitment of a player, not their skill. A casual is someone don't spend a lot of time on something, it doesn't mean that player will be a bad one, a hardcore is simply someone putting a lot of time doing clearing as fast as possible, but that doesn't necessary mean the player is good.You can find a "midcore" group that only put in a few hours in progression a week, but all are solid players with deep understanding of their class. On the other hand, you can find a hardcore groups that requires member to skip work/school and put in 40+ hours of progression a week, yet the member's skill ceiling can be pretty low. For the lack of better word (since my vocab is rather limited), I find it's rather insulting that most people seem to have a misconception about this, but: hardcore =/= good, casual =/= bad.

What you see as the base skill set of vast FF14's players have more things to do with the game philosophy and nature, and that is it encourage bad play by setting the bar very low. You'll always have hardcore and casual in any MMO, even in the "old" MMO like classic WoW or Everquest. The only thing difference is those game set the bard high even for entry content. Think about this example:

- Rushing dungeon is an age old argument you see popping up on this forum once a while, about how people enjoy their running dungeon differently. Yet, the core if this issue is because the system is set up to allow that problem to exist. People can pull wall to wall because - simply put - if they are good enough they can do it, and do it without breaking a sweat most of the time.
- I personally NEVER hear about this problem before I came into this game, why? Because other MMO does not allow it. For example, Wow up until Wrath of the Lich King is a serious business even in normal dungeon. Each pull is a wipe potential, each boss fight is a wipe potential. Difficult pull requires some basic coordination in the group i.e CC, focus target ...etc... You don't even dare to do 2 groups pull, in fact, when the patrols overlaps each other, the party is required to "patiently" wait for them to pass each other before pulling one group without aggro the others. These were not "optional" tactic for good group, but "requirement" for every party. Even if you're in raid gears, accidentally pulling a patrol when fighting a pack is not a pleasant experience.

For example, we have a certain "tank" in another topic just now that claim "I got into another group and we cleared just fine" despite himself admitting that he's pretty much doing every about tanking wrong, thus got him kicked from his previous group. (I don't comment in that thread because if I do I won't have something nice to say). But that tank will be kicked from any "old" MMO really fast if he does not listen to people "advice" because it's not even a problem of the run taking longer, it'll just be impossible to clear. The DPS doesn't do its job meaning the healer will run out of MP and the tank gonna die, the tank doesn't do his job meaning the DPS or the healer gonna die (if the tank doesn't die himself first) and the healer doesn't do his job mean the tank will pretty much guarantee to die. But that's not how FF14 is set up, in a dungeon in this game I feel as long as you have one solid player, you can drag the party to the finishing life even if the other 3 are bad. And because of that, those 3 other bad players will continue to move one thinking they had not done something wrong ... until they ran into a party that won't put up with their level of play, and force to face reality (like the mentioned tank did).

But, this is not the fault of the players, but the system. It sets the bar low, and the players base simply conforming to that standard. In another other MMO, that tank would have learn the lesson he's learning now at level 25 in the latest or he would never finish another dungeon, and not start learning it at lvl 51. So @OP, people does not have to become better, the game gives them no reason to.

[KaivaC]

snip

Why don’t we just think of Expert as practice for Savage/Ex fights? With everything we’ve seen thus far, there are plenty of mechanics that could be brought in. Widen your scope a little bit. You don’t need to have enemies one or two shotting players. Since we don’t have crowd control abilities ourselves, why not let the enemies have them? You’re right, healers are capable of fixing pretty much any mistake.

So how do you fix that?

Hit all characters with Infirmary. Or give the healers an HP penalty down debuff from an enemy that is never in a fixed location for players to be prepared for ahead of time. Things like that. Hit tanks with vuln stacks. Start giving DPS some damage down debuffs and start a hard DPS check. Have some bosses use skills specific to the jobs in a party. Throw in a mechanic that resets aggro, forcing players to use their enmity dumps.

There are so many ways you can increase difficulty without going the tired route of ‘this boss hits so much harder…healers, top him off’. There’s room to bring in some very interesting ways of beating a boss. I loved the second boss in Bardam’s Mettle, because it was 100% pure mechanics and no DPS. Honestly, I dunno what happens if everybody fails It, but stuff like that would be great in Expert. Not the 100% mechanics part, but something similar where it is unique.

Aurum Vale was punishing because by this point, it is ingrained into players to push forward no matter what. Qarn forced you to do mechanics, because if you didn’t, a lot healers were not capable of saving a wipe at that point. Same with Brayflox…you needed AOEs to be efficient at getting the bombs the hell away from the party.

Ex trials are not expert dungeons…they’re trials. Don’t wanna mess with the rewards there. But with actual expert dungeons, set the item level to about 5 below the latest ex trial. And again, I have to emphasize giving good incentives for completing it. Yeah, maybe players will ignore harder, optional dungeons – just like players ignore SSS…but the option would be there. You’re right, you can’t force players to do hard content…but if you put the option out there, at the very least, it will do a better job of allowing players to be prepared for what they will see in the hard fights.

Who thinks everything is easy? I certainly never said that. A lot of raiders that we’ve talked to on many occasions don’t think that either. I mean, shoot, I just got completely owned by Byakko tonight, and I’ve cleared it several dozen times. Twitch streamers who have gotten through Ultimate and are capable of clearing the latest Savage raid in days may find everything easy, but a lot of us here on the forums who actively raid don’t find everything easy. The ones who find everything easy are a small minority that probably don’t even have the desire to check these forums, and thus they are not included in my original discussion topic, nor are they relevant in this topic.

[Minako_Nightsong]

I don't see how anyone can get enjoyment from not even doing basics by "expert."

I can see why fishing, it's the 1 gatherer that has some paying attention instead of "hit this rock until it's gone enjoy free lootz." But I cannot see why someone would have fun pressing 1 button for 30 minutes, yawning away as they eat every mechanic since it doesn't kill.

I keep seeing these kinds of post in a lot of threads and I have to say I have never experienced this. People using 1 or 3 buttons and running into aoe's to take damage. I have seen afk'ers and people who don't play well but I wonder if this is just hyperbole or are people really doing this stuff?

[Shurrikhan]

I keep seeing these kinds of post in a lot of threads and I have to say I have never experienced this. People using 1 or 3 buttons and running into aoe's to take damage. I have seen afk'ers and people who don't play well but I wonder if this is just hyperbole or are people really doing this stuff?

Basic rotators definitely exist, though rare. No AoEs, no abilities except signatures such as (maybe) Enochian, BotD, or Ninjutsu, one combo only -- on repeat. Panicked and late attempts to dodge things if at all. Even those Monks using Tornado Kick on cooldown are a vast improvement.

[RiyahArp]

Why don’t we just think of Expert as practice for Savage/Ex fights? With everything we’ve seen thus far, there are plenty of mechanics that could be brought in. Widen your scope a little bit. You don’t need to have enemies one or two shotting players. Since we don’t have crowd control abilities ourselves, why not let the enemies have them?.

Either the healer uses esuna, and they go, or its the same thing we already have, uncleansable debuffs. The worst we have is paralysis.

So how do you fix that? You’re right, healers are capable of fixing pretty much any mistake. Hit all characters with Infirmary. Or give the healers an HP penalty down debuff from an enemy that is never in a fixed location for players to be prepared for ahead of time. Things like that. Hit tanks with vuln stacks. Start giving DPS some damage down debuffs and start a hard DPS check. Have some bosses use skills specific to the jobs in a party. Throw in a mechanic that resets aggro, forcing players to use their enmity dumps.

There are so many ways you can increase difficulty without going the tired route of ‘this boss hits so much harder…healers, top him off’. There’s room to bring in some very interesting ways of beating a boss. I loved the second boss in Bardam’s Mettle, because it was 100% pure mechanics and no DPS. Honestly, I dunno what happens if everybody fails It, but stuff like that would be great in Expert. Not the 100% mechanics part, but something similar where it is unique.

Those don't really do much. You give dps a damage down and have a dps check, its the same as just not giving them a dmg down and making it a harder dps check. You give them infirmary, you just end up balancing the attacks based on the lowered totals. It just goes back to whether or not what you do has a serious threat to wipe the player. If it doesn't, its the same as we already have.

Aurum Vale was punishing because by this point, it is ingrained into players to push forward no matter what. Qarn forced you to do mechanics, because if you didn’t, a lot healers were not capable of saving a wipe at that point. Same with Brayflox…you needed AOEs to be efficient at getting the bombs the hell away from the party.

Aurum was only hard because people tried to skip mobs. that's it honestly. If you just slowed down and fought them, no difficulty. But yeah, those two examples had risk to wipe the party, so they served as harder content.

Ex trials are not expert dungeons…they’re trials. Don’t wanna mess with the rewards there. But with actual expert dungeons, set the item level to about 5 below the latest ex trial. And again, I have to emphasize giving good incentives for completing it. Yeah, maybe players will ignore harder, optional dungeons – just like players ignore SSS…but the option would be there. You’re right, you can’t force players to do hard content…but if you put the option out there, at the very least, it will do a better job of allowing players to be prepared for what they will see in the hard fights.

Who thinks everything is easy? I certainly never said that. A lot of raiders that we’ve talked to on many occasions don’t think that either. I mean, shoot, I just got completely owned by Byakko tonight, and I’ve cleared it several dozen times. Twitch streamers who have gotten through Ultimate and are capable of clearing the latest Savage raid in days may find everything easy, but a lot of us here on the forums who actively raid don’t find everything easy. The ones who find everything easy are a small minority that probably don’t even have the desire to check these forums, and thus they are not included in my original discussion topic, nor are they relevant in this topic.

no no, my point was that we already have things that are optional, hard, teach players skills, and offer rewards better than the casual content that precedes them. those are ex trials. However, the problem with ex trials is not enough people do it, especially the people who could benefit from having their skills challenged by them. The people though who already find most content in the game easy are the ones who tend to do them, and then they complain its too easy. You can have those dungeons, but they might end up as another form of ex primals in terms of impact.

[VanilleFang]

Those don't really do much. You give dps a damage down and have a dps check, its the same as just not giving them a dmg down and making it a harder dps check.

Not entirely. If you have a tight DPS check you just need proper rotations and damage upkeep to beat it. If you include mechanics that will grant damage down debuffs when ignored you add an extra layer of difficulty. Instead of just having to deal as much damage as possible you will also have to handle mechanics while trying to deal your damage.

You give them infirmary, you just end up balancing the attacks based on the lowered totals. It just goes back to whether or not what you do has a serious threat to wipe the player. If it doesn't, its the same as we already have.

If damage is tweaked to a point that an infirmary debuff will make it impossible for a healer to keep up, it could help make a fight more difficult. For example, if the fight has a tight dps check but the tank dies because they ignored a mechanic and got inflicted with Infirmary. There's even ways to make it so DPS could be negatively effected by Infirmary. Here's some examples:

Mechanic that can inflict Infirmary > AoE that inflicts hefty DoT > AoE > AoE

There could even be a boss that would kill anyone with Infirmary outright, or inflicts a very powerful DoT if they are inflicted by Infirmary.

There's a lot of different things that could be introduced that could make fights more difficult. I can think of things that aren't that "same we already have".

[Gallus]

You can keep banging your heads on the wall trying to change other people's aspirations and aims in a mmo, or you can accept that the FFXIV community (like most communities) is diverse and that people play for different reasons.
There are no people standing on the aoes on purpose to ruin your lives and there are no people ignoring share damage mechanics as long as they notice them.

I said I'm familiar with the kind of player profile that just "harmlessly offers advice" when on reality most of the times they are nothing but people with temperamental attitudes (or a bad day). Perhaps the TC is actually not among these people and he/she is legit concerned about the average level of the players in this game? Possibly. But understand my skepticism when my experience has told me otherwise throughout all these years.