When you Love the Story, but are Really Bad at the Gameplay

[Yeol]

Point in fact - I hit a proverbial brick wall a few days ago. Try as I may (and I've tried repeatedly) I cannot complete the 'A Requiem for Heroes' duty - I can just about scrape past he first stage (playing as Hien) but when it swaps to my character Ascian Zenos just keeps wiping me out no matter what I do or try. To my utter humiliation I can't even defeat him when have tried setting the difficulty level to 'Very Easy'.

If you ever get stuck on MSQ duty for too long, look it up on Youtube. Might give you an idea of what you can do better.

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

Congratulations!

[Garnix]

Okay, to start at the beginning, I started playing FFXIV mid-December (last year), on a Free Trial account (I registered several months before but hadn't actually played the game) and was instantly hooked - the story the game is telling is amazing and really does leave you with a 'just one more quest/cutscene' feeling at almost every step. I've subscribed and played through to the post-Stormblood/pre Shadowbringers quests so far.

As much as I love the game and it's story... I'm really, really bad at the gameplay element. My character is at level 73 now although I'm not sure how I scraped my way to said level. I feel like I should have enough experience to play my favored job (Bard) at least fairly competently by now but that isn't the case - I don't think a single MSQ duty finder goes by where I don't spend a great deal of time being resurrected by healers, or just completely failing at a mechanic (repeatedly). Anything involving waiting for visual cues ends poorly because I'm usually either too slow on the uptake or staring at my hotbar and trying to figure out what I should press. None of this is coming naturally to me and I feel like I'm a burden to the teams I join when teaming is necessary. I did try reading guides/watching videos and such but haven't been able to put what I learnt to good use.

Point in fact - I hit a proverbial brick wall a few days ago. Try as I may (and I've tried repeatedly) I cannot complete the 'A Requiem for Heroes' duty - I can just about scrape past he first stage (playing as Hien) but when it swaps to my character Ascian Zenos just keeps wiping me out no matter what I do or try. To my utter humiliation I can't even defeat him when have tried setting the difficulty level to 'Very Easy'.

I've seen threads/posts on this forum referering how many feel the the game is too easy and tried talking to a friend who dismissed my comments as me being defeatist - so I have to ask - since I don't feel as if I am really competent enough to play the game at this point, should I continue?

Thing is: you learn how the game works over time.

Basically on a first run of a dungeon, a newcomer would not be able to figure out/understand the mechanics. However, a veteran player will often be able to guess what will happen.
By farming content over and over again, you "quickly" get the gist of the battle design.
But, since the MSQ is very linear, and you just have to do dungeons once, as a newcomer it's possible that you wouldn't take the time to learn the various ways the game tells you what is going on, and still manage to make your way through it thanks to being rezzed by the healers.

You basically just need to figure out how to read abilities, and other visual tells.
If you are stuck, either watch a guide, or try to go back to old content and try figuring out how the encounters work.
A lot of mechanics are reused over time.

[Tsukino]

Congratulations!

I missed all the cool people offering useful fight-specific device, but I wanted to say that if you're enjoying the story I really hope you stick it out. Not only are you about to head off to the parts that many of us consider the best, I really don't think anyone needs to master the game to have fun and witness the story. There are many, many single-player games out there where I've had to fight a boss 20 times over before I just barely eke out a victory, and I think that should be totally fine for FFXIV too if that's what it takes you.

[Ceridwenae]

Hey, OP! Obviously I'm a little late as you resolved your fight - however! I just wanted to say how you took ownership of your problem was heartwarming (as were the lovely responses you got). This is a strength and something to be proud of. I think, give yourself enough time and practice, and you're going to be asset to any team you might be on. They'll be lucky to have you barding for them! You go, Glen Coco!

[forsakee]

If you find yourself only looking at your action bars I recommend spending an hour or two hitting a dummy until your able to do your entire rotation without looking. It will help you big time especially if you plan to raid at level cap. Anyways glad your not stuck anymore

[LeonKeyh]

Honestly, I would suggest maybe swapping to Dancer; Dancer was a class that I wasn't interested in at all, but I ended up really liking it (Bard is my favorite ranged physical still, but Dancer is up there).

Dancer has a significantly simpler rotation when compared to Bard juggling songs, DoTs, and procs. A simpler rotation will allow you to pay more attention to what is going on in the fight which seems to be your overall problem right now. I'm not saying to give up on Bard completely, but spending more brain power paying attention to the fights will help you learn that portion quicker. Once you feel like you "get' the fight mechanisms and feel like you're doing better at that part, then you can try switching back to Bard.

Also/or, I would do trusts for dungeons from now on. That way you can go at your own speed without feeling like you're causing people issues. Also, you can just stop DPSing during fights and do the mechanisms. If you have a fight that you're having trouble with, just stop worrying about doing damage, and worry about moving around and staying alive, let the Trust kill the boss. Then you can start throwing a few attacks in during downtime, and then work your way up to fighting more and more.


To be clear, the game is easy for some people because they "get it." You just need to work on it and you'll get it at some point. I recommend trying what I suggested and being patient with yourself. The fact that you're seeking to better yourself already makes you better than a load of people.

[Erendis]

Perhaps for now you should focus less on pressing all your buttons and more on paying attention to mechanics. Once you get more comfortable with the game, pressing buttons will become easier. There are very little MSQ dungeons with DMG check and, anyway, you do more damage when you are alive.

[Illmaeran]

Finally! Granted, had to do it on Easy, which is a little humiliating, but finally finished that tiresome Duty! As was advised, focused on the Swords when they were cast, particularly throwing DoT attacks at them, and managed to finish them, and the obnoxious Zenos, off.

I have to confess, I was hesitant to submit this thread considering that I'd initally looked on Reddit for threads about this particular duty and found anyone who submitted threads pertaining to struggling with it received discouraging replies, with comments such as (quote) "your gear is bad and you are bad at your job".

Anyway, am glad I posted here - such a friendly community, and the advice everyone offerred was invaluable; whilst I may have had to resort to completeting it on 'Easy', I can at least progress to the next step!

Thank you

Congratulations!! Whether it's on max or min difficulty, you got through it and never have to do it again. Sometimes things like this just have to be gotten through for the sake of continuing the story and getting on to actually enjoyable things. There's no shame in doing them on Very Easy if that's what it takes to get past a fight that's meaningful from a narrative perspective but a complete PITA from a mechanics standpoint. I guarantee that you'll come against situations like this again, so just shift mental gears to focusing on simply getting past the fight itself, then enjoy the cutscenes that come after.

A tip from experience; go through all the MSQ dungeons you can using Trusts and stick like glue to one of the NPCs, they're generally good at avoiding mechanics, giving you more mental capacity to focus on doing damage than having to track everything at once and potentially dying a lot.

Also/or, I would do trusts for dungeons from now on. That way you can go at your own speed without feeling like you're causing people issues. Also, you can just stop DPSing during fights and do the mechanisms. If you have a fight that you're having trouble with, just stop worrying about doing damage, and worry about moving around and staying alive, let the Trust kill the boss. Then you can start throwing a few attacks in during downtime, and then work your way up to fighting more and more.

This is also excellent advice. Either method works, so find the one that suits you best.

[Shougun]

Finally! Granted, had to do it on Easy, which is a little humiliating, but finally finished that tiresome Duty! As was advised, focused on the Swords when they were cast, particularly throwing DoT attacks at them, and managed to finish them, and the obnoxious Zenos, off.

I have to confess, I was hesitant to submit this thread considering that I'd initally looked on Reddit for threads about this particular duty and found anyone who submitted threads pertaining to struggling with it received discouraging replies, with comments such as (quote) "your gear is bad and you are bad at your job".

Anyway, am glad I posted here - such a friendly community, and the advice everyone offerred was invaluable; whilst I may have had to resort to completeting it on 'Easy', I can at least progress to the next step!

Thank you

Congratulations !