Mediocrity should NOT be the standard for players in any content.

[Valic]

Keep in mind that, in a multiplayer game, it does not depend solely on the content to teach you how to play, but players should be helping each other. What the content needs to ensure is consistency in how it displays tells for mechanics such that people can learn more easily from content to content. I think FFXIV has been doing an adequate job in that department, for the most part, especially with newer contents.

In terms of how to do your job well, while there may be an optimal way, reading the tool tips should get you to be able to perform adequately as well.

Solely? No. But it can't hurt to require a challenge in the most basic content that let's the player know they need to keep up. I agree with your statement on the display tells though as I said earlier, we have a mixed variety of those that aren't consistent. As for the last sentence.... you'd be surprised how many people don't read their tooltips. Or they come back from a break assuming everything is the same. Things like Arm's length, players still don't know causes slow on targets that it hits.

I feel like the issue is less 'the game's content is not hard enough to force people to learn to play their class effectively and figure out mechanics'. I think the issue is more 'the game's content is really bad at instructing players in their class/job and role'.

The Hall of the Novice is great for teaching the absolute basic concepts of a role. If you rely on it and your class/job quests to learn how to tank, however, you're probably going to be a mediocre tank at best. Not through any direct fault of yours as a player, but because the game has not really given you the tools to learn to do better. That tank you had who isn't holding aggro well? What content in the game taught them how best to hold aggro on multiple mobs? What content actually demonstrated to them that single-target rotations without AoE are going to potentially backfire if DPS rips the mob away from the tank? What content even taught the them the appropriate use of cooldowns?

For that matter, what content even taught them how to read the aggro table? I've taught that one to at least three sprout tanks in the past month, all of whom were like "this is a revelation and makes my life so much easier".

To use an analogy, imagine you want to bake a cake. It's your very first cake! You have an Easy-Bake Oven with little packets of cake mix, and you put that into a pan and it goes through the little oven, and you have a cake! It's not a great cake, but it's a cake you made. Now you want to make a better cake. A real cake.

You'd go use a real oven to make a real cake, right? Maybe later an industrial kitchen oven if you wanted to get into making those spectacular cakes they show on the Food Network. The problem is, the game doesn't give you those. In fact, the game doesn't even tell you other ovens exist. Some folks go out and find better ovens anyway; they hit up the Balance, they ask experienced players in their FC for advice (finding guides for 'how to tank in Heavensward content as of patch 5.1' isn't really easy), and so on.

But for the folks who don't have that network? Who don't even know the Balance exists to go look at it? They don't even know that other ovens exist. They just know they're trying to make a nice normal chocolate cake in this Easy-Bake Oven, which can be really hard, and sometimes other people go "Your cake really sucks. How does it suck this bad? It's a simple recipe."

Turning up the difficulty of MSQ content and disabling the 'Very Easy' mode on solo duties will not appreciably improve the skill of players, merely frustrate them further. (And it will block folks with legitimate handicaps from progressing as easily to enjoy the story, which is an entirely different topic to discuss, but one worth noting.)

If you want to change things, I think you're starting in the wrong place. Address the game's woeful lack of any really good instructional mechanism for players who want to learn and improve, then consider tackling increasing the complexity.

I agree but I feel as though making things like hall of novice mandatory and at least one form of content that is unaffected by balancing issues that requires the player to learn... would be simpler to implement from a developer standing point than to rework a lot of misleading tells/mechanics from each expansion/patch to the next.

As for the very easy and easy setting.... how did we get this far without it then? I don't mean to sound harsh or rude, but we went this far without those settings, how did handicapped and even just casual players manage to do things like that Sadu instance or the role quests before the end of ShB without the "very easy" and "easy" options? I would imagine it took them a couple tries but they ended up learning what they needed to do, right?

[Elladie]

As for the very easy and easy setting.... how did we get this far without it then? I don't mean to sound harsh or rude, but we went this far without those settings, how did handicapped and even just casual players manage to do things like that Sadu instance or the role quests before the end of ShB without the "very easy" and "easy" options? I would imagine it took them a couple tries but they ended up learning what they needed to do, right?

The problem isn't not knowing what you need to do to beat a solo MSQ fight, it's being able to do it. Most people aren't stupid, it may take a few goes but they'll realise they need to hide behind X before B explodes or they need to keep A alive.

My issue is that increased difficulty in these or any other mandatory content can stop players progressing any further in the game. That's when they quit if there isn't a way to lower the difficulty. I have personal experience of this - I could not beat the solo MSQ fight against Lakshmi in the Throne Room. I tried so many times. The issue wasn't me not knowing what to do, it was a physical inability to move fast enough to deal with the orbs before they tempered someone and I failed the duty. There was no option to turn the difficulty down in those days, although I don't even know if that would have helped, since the Echo wasn't helping. I didn't need more HP or more ooomph, I needed to hit my WASD keys faster, and I physically couldn't (older person with RSI in one arm/hand, yes it's caused by too much gaming). In the end a friend came to stay and I asked him if he could help, I logged into my main and he did the fight for me.

I have been playing since 1.0 but that fight nearly ended my journey with this game. Yes I've beaten every other solo MSQ duty with no issues, but saying 'disabled' people are fine is definitely a bit of an assumption. I'm not asking for anything dumbing down, just that people should stop assuming that folks are 'bad' because they struggle with something. I stay out of optional content for the most part (I do normal raids and alliance raids with friends until I know the mechanics very well) so as not to be a burden on my party. Also because I have been harassed and abused for struggling with mechanics in the past

[Valic]

*snip*

I feel like the "and then they quit" idea is very "the cup is half full". I feel like this is understandably the case in earlier content like in ARR or up to mid HW.... but once you've beaten HW and onward, difficulty SHOULD rise. It likely won't cause the player to outright just give up either, they've invested too much time and they've hopefully met some friends along the way that may be able to help too. I don't support that idea at all, I also don't think people are stupid, but they are/can be lazy.

As for the throne room example for Lakshmi, I remember doing the exact same. It was difficult, it caused me to question multiple times what I was doing wrong because I genuinely knew the developers wouldn't put something impossible to do or progress through unless it was on purpose for some form of story element. I failed to it for the same reason as you, not fast enough. So what did I do? Well I was too enticed to find out what was going to happen next to give up. I realized my dps was negligible atm, and that taking the orbs was more important. So I sent my focus on using sprint as best as I can and lining my character up in a way to assure the orbs never made it. I also had to pay more attention to the other NPC taking them too and learned where to be ahead of time for the sake of the instance. I wouldn't say it's the best made solo instance out of the lot of them....

Not once will I however say disabled are fine, I genuinely just asked how they made it through some of these sections. I'm also not going to say folks are bad for struggling either. The whole point of this thread is that the game should encourage proper learning rather than dimming things down. Now, personally I'll agree, that fight is a lil BS, even for someone not disabled, and the easy/very easy wouldn't have helped with it either. I'm all for making things more accessible, but I'm not for dimming things down because people don't want to learn how to press 1-2-3 and then stand in a marker they've seen at least 20 times. I'm not for us getting rewarded for just mashing a singular key through an entire fight and not having to pay attention to anything. I did alexander's normal raid the other day.. healer. The one with the gobtanks and bombs, people are supposed to get into the gobtanks and do some things with the bombs and the adds right? Well... Just to give you an idea, I popped regen on the MT, that was about it. No one even got inside the gobtanks, no one bothered with the bombs that dropped and are supposed to be moved, we just kept pressing our dps buttons the whole time.... I was literally examining someone's weapon the entire time. I'm not even over exaggerating or claiming I'm this amazing AST or anything... I literally spammed malefic... and put a regen on a target, ONCE. Watched the other healer too, same thing.... was double AST, she cast malefic and that was it. Mechanics to do to win? None. DPS needed to be done? just hit the first part of your combo or anything that deals even a double digit potency, and you'll pass. This is something that cannot continue.

If I could personally adjust that one instance myself... I would in fact add a speed boost or remove just a couple orbs at the point where it becomes a lil too hectic. I would not however nerf the damage the boss does to the player, not reduce how much health the boss has or what is needed to kill her before she enrages, nor would I remove the base mechanic of needing to run to orbs and use the duty ability you're given to block them. I would treat this with a metaphor of it being like a parking space for someone in a wheel chair available vs people directly handing you every single grocery to your car without you having to get up(let's ignore grocery pickup is a thing for the moment). The former, offering someone who's handicapped to walking and requires a wheelchair... it's nice that they get a spot closer to the store so there's less of a strain to getting there. They still have to shop, pick out their items, pay the cashier for the items they select. V.S. someone comes up to your car and hand delivers it all to you... You don't have to do anything at all in that case, someone will do it for you and it's over with. The difference here is, that's a task/work thing, I don't see many people complaining at getting an easy time with their groceries being handled... But Video Games? Especially ones such as mmo's with stats, scaling, challenges.... typically games are worth playing for the challenges they offer. They differ in what's required and deliver rewarding sensations in various ways, but the majority of masses will play a game because they want to overcome something. If you remove the requirement of the challenge, you remove the necessity to improve or learn. Accessibility should not equate to the difficulty.

To take another post, having a computer with 5 frames per second vs someone who has a comp running 60 fps..... Should the person with 5 dps get a penalty/handicap by themselves? Or should the whole instance be nuked in favor of those who can't afford a decent enough computer. I had this such computer, 5 frames a second in many instances, and still managed to do all of the content up to date. I recognized the difficulty too and figured it's probably much easier to handle if I had a better computer. I didn't whine on the forums though that it was "too hard" or "needs a nerf". I accepted the difficulty for what it was an new I had to either deal with what I have, or eventually get a new computer. It sucked but I did it, and it wasn't through fault of SE, my inability to do the mechanic right, or anyone else... Simply my computer wasn't good enough. In the end, I would sooner the developers find a good middle ground for instances to require a set of perimeters be met within reason by forcing the player to do X to succeed, than to outright give players a "get out free" card.

Just to clarify. I am not without empathy, I do understand the circumstances you're going through and I'm not at all saying it's not a struggle for players with genuine handicaps and I apologize if I at all come off that way. I will however say that the difficulty of a game should not nudge downward to appease those who lack finances for better tech, have a handicap, or ESPECIALLY players UNWILLING to learn or improve. To quote Getting Over it with Bennet Foddy....

"Imaginary mountains build themselves from our efforts to climb them, and repeated attempts to reach the summit, turns those mountains into something real."

Without the intense and over-romanticized theory writing on this quote... Simply put, I would rather the game give us genuine difficultly that rewards the player with the satisfaction of learning something and overcoming it through their own capability of doing so. Than it be something made to "go through" like it's another morning routine of going to the bathroom and taking out the garbage. Something that gives the player that "AHA!" moment over the "here we go again" we experience daily in just dealing damage to enemies that numbs the average player's willingness to learn something new. I would rather come out of something going "dang that was rough but once I figured out this, it meant this happened, I got it!" than nothing and carry on to the next "task" at hand like it was a chore to do to begin with. Even if(and especially) it makes me wipe multiple times just to understand it or learn what to do, or if it punishes me for using gear that was obsolete 2 patches ago.

[Liam_Harper]

I feel like the issue is less 'the game's content is not hard enough to force people to learn to play their class effectively and figure out mechanics'. I think the issue is more 'the game's content is really bad at instructing players in their class/job and role'.

Personally I feel the issue is that very little motivates people to improve. People can learn if they want to, but they simply don't.

MMO's are multiplayer. Even if you aren't a show-off, it's a nice feeling to impress others or be seen as good at something. To be a valued member of a group and to see those hours of grind, leveling and gearing pay off. You might never brag, but it feels satisfying.

FF14 seems to actively discourage this. So much that you do in ff14 means nothing. No one will ever care if you beat the MSQ, beat E4N, beat the dungeons, beat Nier. It's afk difficulty. No one cares if you're a maxed crafter, that's easy now. No one cares much what mounts you have, you don't see them in instances and eh, can just get that in 4 months when echo and droprate buffs kick in.
Did really well in an instance? No one can see it because performance display tools are evil. Out-healed your co-healer and did triple their dps, no one will know. You might even get abuse for dpsing. Mitigating well as tank, most people won't see it. Did huge dps as dps and avoided all mechanics while your co-dps died 3 times each? The medica II spamming healer gets the praise.
Got full Savage gear? Who cares, I'll have nearly the same ilv in a month or two from tomes. Beat Savage? "Everyone knows Savage is easy now anyway lol".
Beat Hades EX 100 times? Whups bad rng, no mount to show for it, should have waited a few months to pick one up on hand-out difficulty with little Timmy.
Beast tribes? Face roll 10 minute a day catch-up, who cares if you got the mount. Got lots of MGP? We all do, just get 80 in fashion report once a week. Relic weapon? Doomed to be weaker than the tome weapon right up to the final patch, where there will have been numerous nerfs introduced to make it easier.

Everywhere I look ingame, it just feels like most people are just going through the motions, doing what they're used to doing. There's enough in the game to find enjoyment in and stay subbed, glamour, housing, the aesthetics, those occasional good groups but the bulk of the content, content that looks amazing and must have taken time on the part of the developers, is just devoured in a week and feels lukewarm. Who wants to excel at something lukewarm that no one else cares about?

[QT_Melon]

The problem is that number of actually "UNWILLING" people in this game is so marginally small, but highly memorable. Our human consciousness remembers negative encounters over positives.

Then we hit the average person that may have had a bad day or was just frustrated, and jump to the conclusion that they are one of those unwilling people.


I remember an instance in the Grand Cosmos, where I was running with my friend who was the healer for the party and I was the DPS. The experience was a bit aggravating as a DPS because I was doing way more damage than the Black mage, and I was in a job that wasn't supposed to be doing more. Not double the amount anyways. So my timings were off for CDs and GCDs for the next pull. It was also equally frustrating because the tank on a number occasions wasn't holding hate, which often times I don't care too much during a chain pull because I don't kite/run away with mobs, I run TO the tank. The tank wasn't really mitigating damage either and I am in chat hearing the frustration with my friend healing the fight - who is very much a casual player. Anywhere from him/her moving constatnly around with mobs, not using cooldowns, to running out of healing bubbles CONSTANTLY.

We get to the final boss, with fire boss and furniture. Some of the moves the tank was doing had us so stumped WE were messing up the mechanics of the fight. He/she of course points it out, and I do tell him I know the fight - but don't have the time to sit there and explain so he understands that the reason we're messing up is that this entire run he and the other DPS was frustrating us with his moves cuz he already pulls the boss and starts the fight again.

I'm pretty sure his/her perspective was that we were bad, and didn't understand the final fight. OUR perspective was different because we were frustrated and weren't sure what to tell the tank without starting a fight/discourse (you know the kind of discussion we're talking about). In retrospect. I think it's both sides fault. I should have tried to say something sooner (just couldn't really type something out because of the chain pulling and such) but wasn't sure how it would be received. I should have at least tried anyways. It's definitely the tanks fault for not playing well and the DPS for not DPSing more so that the dungeon didn't feel like a struggle.

To other players is it worth their time to point out these problems? A lot want to just go on with the next part of the theme park to cap their tomes. Others can't wait to join in on those long standing threads or start one up on their BAD DF EXPERIENCE, with a majority of the intent of those threads want the echo chamber around them, confirmation they they did nothing wrong, instead of having a genuine discussion on what or how to say something that could be better received.

Honestly, it's harder these days with the way instance lockouts go (though I understand you don't want people AFKing outside the instance) to actually explain things to a new player. You just get pulled in the middle of a fight whether you like it or not, or reasons you're not ready. As a player that still doesn't mind after all these years giving help to players not understanding mechanics, it's one of the few QoL changes that I despise since it interferes with the aspect that I feel an MMO needs which is communication with other members.

[DynnDiablos]

I would like to add that I feel many times people aren't given the opportunity to improve. I've mentioned on several occasions as a new healer I was still learning and if the tank could please refrain from pulling the whole zone. I've been told "can't keep up I will vote kick."

I think there are many people who have no desire to improve and there are others who would genuinely like to but placers won't allow them to learn/struggle/not be on point.

[Dzian]

The problem isn't not knowing what you need to do to beat a solo MSQ fight, it's being able to do it. Most people aren't stupid, it may take a few goes but they'll realise they need to hide behind X before B explodes or they need to keep A alive.

My issue is that increased difficulty in these or any other mandatory content can stop players progressing any further in the game. That's when they quit if there isn't a way to lower the difficulty. I have personal experience of this - I could not beat the solo MSQ fight against Lakshmi in the Throne Room. I tried so many times. The issue wasn't me not knowing what to do, it was a physical inability to move fast enough to deal with the orbs before they tempered someone and I failed the duty. There was no option to turn the difficulty down in those days, although I don't even know if that would have helped, since the Echo wasn't helping. I didn't need more HP or more ooomph, I needed to hit my WASD keys faster, and I physically couldn't (older person with RSI in one arm/hand, yes it's caused by too much gaming). In the end a friend came to stay and I asked him if he could help, I logged into my main and he did the fight for me.

I have been playing since 1.0 but that fight nearly ended my journey with this game. Yes I've beaten every other solo MSQ duty with no issues, but saying 'disabled' people are fine is definitely a bit of an assumption. I'm not asking for anything dumbing down, just that people should stop assuming that folks are 'bad' because they struggle with something. I stay out of optional content for the most part (I do normal raids and alliance raids with friends until I know the mechanics very well) so as not to be a burden on my party. Also because I have been harassed and abused for struggling with mechanics in the past

That Lakshmi fight is easy with A tiny bit of thought. It's simply a case of ignoring many of the orbs until a point where they group together it even showed you the tethers so you could easily see where a bunch of those orbs would cluster up and then you get them all in one go. Rather than running around all over the place trying to grab them all individually.

Also while increases in difficulty can make some players quit. The opposite is also true. Making things too easy also makes people quit because it takes away the satisfaction or accomplishment of overcoming a challenge. And easy things dont feel rewarding. And when things arent rewarding they players stop playing because its ultimately boring.

[linay]

I'm sick and too lazy to bother going to use the Will Smith 'tada' meme generator, but imagine one of those right now with "the thread about the mentor system being broken" as the target of the 'tada'.

I mean, you're 100% right on this point, but there's literally a thread even longer than this one talking about all the reasons people don't help each other as easily/smoothly/often as they could in the game. People don't accept advice readily so it's not given, people are rude so folks don't ask for advice, mentors are terrible, players are terrible to mentors, it's Tuesday, etc. So, yes, point entirely conceded, but it only raises another potential place things could be smoothed out and improved a bit.

And even still, I feel that adding content that helps with, say, the slightly more advanced concepts of tanking—or at the very least explains the aggro table—would not hurt the situation, even if there's other ways to address it.

I feel like that's more of a community issue, rather than a game issue. I learned most mechanics in this game from other players.

I'm not sure what you mean by more advanced concepts of tanking or the aggro table. I thought the hall of novice quests were sufficient for the basics. And, especially in Shadowbringers, there really isn't much more advanced form of tanking unless you mean optimizing the rotation of your particular job. In which case, as I said, reading the tool tips should help for the standard duties and, for high end duties, you have other players to help, or should have other players anyway.

Solely? No. But it can't hurt to require a challenge in the most basic content that let's the player know they need to keep up. I agree with your statement on the display tells though as I said earlier, we have a mixed variety of those that aren't consistent. As for the last sentence.... you'd be surprised how many people don't read their tooltips. Or they come back from a break assuming everything is the same. Things like Arm's length, players still don't know causes slow on targets that it hits.

As I said in another thread, as long as the easy modes in solo contents exist as apparent as they do now (whether or not it existed before in another form is irrelevant), I do not trust that a challenge in other "basic" contents would help. I know people say that solo content doesn't matter, but I disagree. I don't think it matters in terms of the actual mechanics (though I've also said they test the same basic mechanics as group contents), but in the principle that people don't have to rise to the challenge. (Again, I think solo content can be made very easy if they want to account for disabled players or whatever, just not have the "option" to make "easier" on demand.)

So, regardless, I think a challenge in basic content would just end up in a nerf, and it doesn't feel good to see that content is nerfed. So, I'm ok with them finding a difficulty level that they would not need to nerf in the future. Leave the challenge for optional content like raids and optional trials.

Hopefully the inconsistent tells are all behind us and people just need to watch out for those in specific duties and learn them there.

Once people have been playing an MMORPG for a while, they should realize that patches may come with job adjustments, and if they don't, that's a failure of the player that the game cannot fix.

[MonsutaMan]

Every-time I realize I have been playing solo since 2019

Threads like this arise & I realize I have mad the right decision.... I have not gotten into an argument or altercation with an NPC party member since I starting playing XIV again. Feels good, real good.

Valaineral is still the best tank I played with in FFXI. Maybe a bit squishier....., less power, but none of the drama.....

[QT_Melon]

Every-time I realize I have been playing solo since 2019

Threads like this arise & I realize I have mad the right decision.... I have not gotten into an argument or altercation with an NPC party member since I starting playing XIV again. Feels good, real good.

Valaineral is still the best tank I played with in FFXI. Maybe a bit squishier....., less power, but none of the drama.....

Not getting into any conflicts to learn how to resolve them is not healthy whatsoever.

Avoidance is not helpful either on a social game, and playing ostrich isn't the solution.

It's also why I generally don't understand why people come in proudly making threads saying this, like they're helpful.

And look, don't take it as me knocking on your playstyle or how you want to play. It's fine, you want to play solo like that and feel proud in your decision to do so - that's great.