This game prepares no one for raid/hard content

[Hasrat]

After seeing how the new GATE works, I've got in my head a new proposal. Devs should make more minigames like that, teaching some of the more unusual mechanics to newer players from early on, long before they ever reach it (as long as they ever go to GS).

Personally, I was late to the Ivalice raids; I just don't ever really concern myself with catching up and staying current. So I haven't really run them a whole lot. And, one mechanic that still hasn't really clicked with me is how those tower attacks work. I can sorta understand it, but not at the reaction time needed.

I see The Slice is Right as a good training ground for that. There's a time component, waiting for the GATE to pop, and you only get the one shot, that is unfortunate. And obviously, if they were to add additional mechanic minigames, it would get difficult to easily see them all unless you're sitting and waiting, unless they change how these work, or just put this idea elsewhere. Point is, there's no real punishment for failure, you can even continue to stand and watch the GATE even if you fail, allowing you to observe and learn. It's short, and short iterations are always best for learning.

In conclusion, more mechanic minigames. GATEs, FATEs, Leves, I don't care. Just anything, so that encountering a mechanic that is not initially intuitive doesn't have to be so stressful and frustrating. But, I am also crazy, and think that learning can be fun, and especially interesting to see all the ways teaching elements can be implemented.

[FantasyFan06]

Well I'm not sure but this weekend I went through the Labyrinth of the Ancients raid and the ones that came after it because I heard that there was some relevant story content. I'm glad I did as I enjoyed the questline. I'm currently in the early part of Stormblood so I've been through quite a few dungeons and trials by now but these were the first raids I have ever done. But there were a couple of times during the raids where I just got taken out instantly and wasn't really sure why. Of course I could've simply missed something due to all of the action on screen but there didn't seem to be any obvious AOE to avoid. Though maybe there was and I just didn't catch it. It wasn't a case of failing to kill adds in time either because I was the only one to get taken out.

Also I'm aware this isn't hard content. I know I'd likely wouldn't be able to perform as well as the other players in hard high end content so I stay out of it.

[BloodRubyXII]

People get to 80 and don't even know what a stack marker is lol.

[MistakeNot]

People get to 80 and don't even know what a stack marker is lol.

Is that so strange?
There are very few stack markers in the mandatory dungeons and trials, and you can often get through them even if you failed the mechanic.
There are a gazillion different markers occuring through the various dungeons, trials, and raids, and the game never tells you what any of them does - you have to learn through trial and error.
And even if you have seen a stack marker before, and know how to handle the mechanic, you might not know that it is called "stack marker" since that term is never used by the game.

[Berethos]

Is that so strange?
There are very few stack markers in the mandatory dungeons and trials, and you can often get through them even if you failed the mechanic.

The first time you encounter one in a required fight is during the 3.3 trial, and it's also one that reinforces the notion of staying put inside of that attack since it follows up with more attacks that have to be shared.

By the time you've reached 80, you will have encountered in numerous times, including in required MSQ fights at 70 that have the NPCs stack with you.

So yeah, not knowing how the mechanic works by the time you've made it to 80 is just a little strange.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Is that so strange?
There are very few stack markers in the mandatory dungeons and trials, and you can often get through them even if you failed the mechanic.
There are a gazillion different markers occuring through the various dungeons, trials, and raids, and the game never tells you what any of them does - you have to learn through trial and error.
And even if you have seen a stack marker before, and know how to handle the mechanic, you might not know that it is called "stack marker" since that term is never used by the game.

While the game never actually calls them by any name, stack markers are all over the place from Final Steps of Faith onward, in both dungeons and trials. Susano, Lakshmi, Shinryu, Tsukuyomi, and Titania all come to mind, just from fights required by the main story.

[BloodRubyXII]

Is that so strange?
There are very few stack markers in the mandatory dungeons and trials, and you can often get through them even if you failed the mechanic.
There are a gazillion different markers occuring through the various dungeons, trials, and raids, and the game never tells you what any of them does - you have to learn through trial and error.
And even if you have seen a stack marker before, and know how to handle the mechanic, you might not know that it is called "stack marker" since that term is never used by the game.

"Very few" I could list all the ones that you absolutely must see by the end of the MSQ, and even filter out the ones that won't probably wipe you if you miss them - in fact there are even solo duties that'll kill you if you don't stack up.
There might be loads of different "markers" occuring through the dungeons, trials and raids to 80, but the most common ones are red overhead, purple overhead and yellow stack. You learn through trial and error but by 80 yes, it is very strange if one hasn't killed you, or you see someone else get killed by one. It's very strange and also extremely lucky if you make it to 80 having never had a group sit through too long on a boss due to multiple wipes from a lack of damage soaking.
"And even if you have seen a stack marker before and know how to handle the mechanic, you might not know it is called a stack marker" - I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make here is, so I'm simply going to automatically assume you misunderstood my post. If you see a flashing yellow symbol or whatever you want to call it that has arrows literally pointing to the affected player, removing all the weirder savage/extreme ones out of the occasion - yes, you should know by 80 what action you take when you see one. The same way general common sense should be used that if you have a debuff that when it expires, is going to hit everyone in the affected area vs one that is shared damage to an area, the two don't go on top of each other.

I find this defence very odd, sorry.

[Enla]

The game teaches you a good deal. Even single encounters in most raids, especially the 24 mans and Extremes, go out of their way to teach you the mechanics you're going to face in a gradual fashion before they ramp up the difficulty later in the fight. An example would be Mustadio in Orbonne. His first 'Maintenance' cast only tethers two adds outside the arena which allows you to see the mechanic that's about to happen but have a wide area to dodge into when the animation goes off. Second time Maintenance happens he adds a new mechanic where two blue adds spawn and cover a quarter of the arena each, you can infer once the cast goes off that being in the same pie slice as those blue adds will hurt after you've seen the mechanic and will stay away from them the next time. Then the next time he uses Maintenance he combines the two mechanics. Since the game already showed you how to do both parts, you should be able to infer where you need to go based on the visual queues.

Then more recently there's the Hades fight. A lot of the mechanics from the normal mode are present there, with the added fun of 'double' and the Cleaver mechanic from Eden Savage 2, and a good chunk of the fight is basically recycled mechanics from past Extremes. If you've done the normal mode you can work out at least 40% of the fight on your own even without having touched any other Extreme content. Heck you could have only done the normal eight man raid stories and recognized a good chunk of the mechanics you need to perform and learn how they work in that particular fight.

FF14 is constantly reusing mechanics, the stack marker for example as others have pointed out is a staple even in the MSQ. It's just a matter of paying attention and being willing to take a few knocks before they click in any given fight. If you aren't sure about any given mechanic you can also always ask your party for help or look up a guide before hand.

[Hasrat]

Just for the sake of argument, the stack marker indicator has also changed over time. It would genuinely be nice to have more clear instructions for many of the markers in the game, rather than just assuming and hoping you're right.

[AbelArchaniEA]

I've been playing the game for a good few months now, I've got through most raids and did the new nier raid last week which is all fine and dandy, but then I got to thinking again about leveling up dungeons, end game dungeons, and then comparing them to raids and ext trials etc.

Leveling up, the game holds your hand in such a way in that you're not even slightly prepared for end game content, mechanics used in raids and ext trials are changed in such a way in that the player has absolutally no clue what's happening to the degree where they can't go "ohhhh right, I should of done this or that", you spend your dungeon/journey to 80 staring at orange markers on the floor or seeing a boss doing a very telegraphed mechanic, whereas you can go into a raid like Dun Scaith and not have the slightest clue what's happening regardless of how many times you do the mechanic "wrong".

I think what baffles me the most is why there isn't an easy mode of some of these raids before throwing people into what is basically the hard version, in which the telegraph for a big damage mechanic ends up being a "look at the small boss spread its wings in a certain direction and avoid being in line with it", it's fine having a gigantic boss move it's massive arm back before swinging down 1 half of the arena as it's "obvious" enough to learn from it once its happened, but even then, I go back to the whole "you spend your dungeon/journey to 80 staring at orange markers on the floor" to suddenly just dying out of nowhere and wondering why.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine learning dungeons, and I've done most the content fine, I'm simply making a post on my confusion about the inconsistency with this game and the random sporadic difficulty in dungeons, raids and trials, such as why is the nier raid actually quite easy compared to some of the previous raids? after 2 nier runs I thought "ok I've learnt all the mechs with relative ease", yet I can go back to older raids that I wasn't about during their release and still have trouble with some of them.

It does. Just requires effort