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

[TaleraRistain]

Fair is fair - I'm not adverse to a difference in opinion and I do understand that some who find the game easy will find it more difficult to see the viewpoint of someone who finds it difficult.

There are plenty of people in this thread who I know find the game easy that have been supportive, constructive, informative, and encouraging. Replies like the one quoted are unnecessary and pointless and have no place here. They can keep that nonsense in the other threads.

[Carin-Eri]

There are plenty of people in this thread who I know find the game easy that have been supportive, constructive, informative, and encouraging. Replies like the one quoted are unnecessary and pointless and have no place here. They can keep that nonsense in the other threads.

No argument there, and to be clear I have really appreciated the support that was offered!

However, I guess that it would be easy for one to jump to conclusions about this thread if they were to judge it by it's title alone.

[forsakee]

No argument there, and to be clear I have really appreciated the support that was offered!

However, I guess that it would be easy for one to jump to conclusions about this thread if they were to judge it by it's title alone.

OP hit level 90!!! Congrats remember seeing this post a couple weeks ago!

[Carin-Eri]

OP hit level 90!!! Congrats remember seeing this post a couple weeks ago!

Level 90 Bard. As said earlier in the thread, the job I started with - and wanted to play through the MSQ from start to (current) end with.

Currently working on Red Mage and at level 80 on that job. And sadly still pretty rubbish at the game play.... but I am enjoying it at least

[EnnCee]

this is so much me, I know EXACTLY how you feel. my main problem is that I really am an elder gamer, and I first learned video gaming on an old school atari. I never really learned to use the w-a-s-d keys to move. until this day, my reactions are geared toward a joystick style of play, BUT I use a computer, mouse, and a keyboard for MMO's. my muscle memory is stubborn. it links to the old atari style responses even after so much time, and the wasd keys are not my first response to move under fire. I accepted that the issue was my timing and have been working (trial-and-error for a long time) to make a setup that works for me. it's on-going and many times a struggle, but I occasionally make progress. my advice to you is to look at your set up and experiment with how you move in game using all your hardware. I link my strafe and target keys to my extra mouse function buttons and have created an entire extra line of asdf hot bar keys (you really don't need the keyboard QoL shortcuts because SQEnix has made hot buttons you can drag onto a hotbar) so use up as many asdf keys as you need. (stay away from the Fkeys, and the qwerty line, etc.) also run trust dungeons to sharpen your skills.

I may never approach the skill of folks who mastered the wasd movement set up when they were learning to play, but I keep trying. the keys you use really are the key, and practicing in dungeons with trusts can help you hone your responses.

[Packetdancer]

People who says game easy people who did same dungeon multiple times.. so they know every mechanic and order.

While this is true -- folks who have run a dungeon many times will know every mechanic and the order they can appear in, so will potentially find it easy -- I'll reiterate one thing I did say earlier: this game is very good at making simple mechanics look complicated.

Most mechanics in this game are built out of a surprisingly small set of what I'll call "combat LEGOs", because the imagery amuses me. And because LEGO bricks are the equivalent of morbols; if you cross one -- or step on it, in the case of a LEGO -- you get all the debuffs. (+2 stacks Vulnerability, +1 stack Damage Down, +Paralysis, +3 stacks Bleed, +1 stack Vehement Pained Cursing.)

"Stand here to soak a tower." "Stack with this person to share damage." "Do not be next to the tank right now." "These things are going to explode in a certain order; stand in the last one until the first one goes off, then move into the first one." "The boss is going to draw a line from it to every player, and anything along that line other than the targeted player is about to have a bad day." "The boss just made shields on three sides; attack from the fourth, or your attacks will bounce off and damage you instead." "A thing is about to happen, and the closer you are to it, the worse your day is going to be." Etc.

The mechanics will just often -- at least in the 'big' fights -- be hidden among a whole bunch of other things. Because the game will try to trick you, like a stage magician using sleight-of-hand. Look over here, the magician says, waving the thing in their right hand while hiding the tankbuster up their sleeve with the left.

As such, if you've done a lot of content -- especially a lot of high-end content, where you may only have the environmental tells, no other telegraphs -- you become very used to peering through the smoke and mirrors of that stage magic and learning to recognize the familiar LEGO pieces fairly quickly. Which does make other content feel potentially easier.

And people can forget that content feels "easy" to them -- sometimes even on the first run -- not because they're better players necessarily... just because they're a lot more practiced at spotting and recognizing those LEGO pieces quickly. At looking through the game's smoke and mirrors to see how to read a mechanic and react.

For every "complicated" mechanic, there is pretty much always a simple solution... and some trick to read it easily. And if you can't find that trick, it's not necessarily a comment on skill, just on familiarity with the tricks this game uses. But if something's giving you trouble, there are also many people willing to show you what that trick is -- to break down the stage magician's illusion and show you the simple way it actually works. Be it on Discords, YouTube fight breakdowns, or even here on the forums.

[Carin-Eri]

Okay, so even after five months of playing this game I still kinda suck.... however, was playing Castrum Meridianum earlier (roulette, levelling RDM) and encountered a White Mage player who wasn't actually healing anyone. Didn't really think too much of it for the majority of the instance - but during the Livia sas Junius fight I managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was KO'ed. Decided to wait in the hope that the healer might help me out. They didn't; they did the 'point' emote, and then the laugh one, instead. Asked them, in chat, if they could possibly do what healers do. Their response? "You shouldn't have been standing in shit". And they continued to ignore me.

Question is, is behaviour like theirs reportable? I mean, yeah I'm crap at the game but a healer who refuses to heal??

[GeminiReed]

Question is, is behaviour like theirs reportable? I mean, yeah I'm crap at the game but a healer who refuses to heal??

Absolutely. If you don't recall their name you can find it in the Contacts List which can get to from the Social menu by clicking Contacts.

[TaleraRistain]

Question is, is behaviour like theirs reportable? I mean, yeah I'm crap at the game but a healer who refuses to heal??

Yes, absolutely. It's not like they're silently not healing where the reason is vague. They outright admitted in chat they were intentionally not doing their job as a punitive measure against you.

[IdowhatIwant]

If you did a mechanic wrong, and you reported the healer because you died from it. How is that the healers fault?