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

[Ironman2ooo]

Sorry if its been mentioned before (27 pages is a LOT to read through). Have you leveled up any other jobs on that character? I find sometimes I have a hard time with one job, I swap to something else like going from DPS to Tank or Caster to Melee DPS, etc. Seems to work for me when I hit that wall with any of my characters and the point I did see about making sure you've the highest level gear you can for your job is good too. Good luck and I hope you get it done!

[Carin-Eri]

Don't give up! Watch a lvl 1-90 Bard guide on YouTube and set up your hot bar in a way that makes sense to you. Then go to a dummy and practice your rotation if it's still complicated. A lot of it is muscle memory. It also helps to ask if someone who knows the mechanics can put a Doritos on their head and just follow them around. I don't know the mechanics in a lot of content and just follow people around. I think there's also an issue when you are Lalafell or a smaller race, it's hard to see the boss. I'm female aura and often have trouble seeing the mechanics. You can move your camera higher with the command /tiltcamera 100. I have macros for /tiltcamera 100 and /tiltcamera 0 to be able to move the camera up or down quickly.

Thank for the advice! To be honest, I'm not completely useless as Bard anymore, thanks to guides and practice. Not particularly great either but I do at least understand the rotation etc and can at least deliver attacks/ team buffs/NPC debuffs etc that are, at the very least, useful.

Sorry if its been mentioned before (27 pages is a LOT to read through). Have you leveled up any other jobs on that character? I find sometimes I have a hard time with one job, I swap to something else like going from DPS to Tank or Caster to Melee DPS, etc. Seems to work for me when I hit that wall with any of my characters and the point I did see about making sure you've the highest level gear you can for your job is good too. Good luck and I hope you get it done!

Yes - I levelled Red Mage to 90 and played that job for a while, and have Summoner up to level 87. I do tend to keep returning to Bard though, as I love that playstyle.

[novamare]

Out of curiosity (and maybe you mentioned this somewhere in this thread; I'll admit to skimming lol), have you tried watching fight guides? I like to go blind the first time for MSQ fights, but after that, I've found watching guides on youtube to be extremely helpful in terms of learning/recognizing mechanics.

What I really like about them is that you get to see the mechanic--and see it resolved correctly--without the stress of doing it yourself (while keeping up dps). Also, lots of good guides explain how to really read the mechanics, which has always helped me have a deeper understanding of them and recognize them faster. You can also slow down the playback speed or repeat a segment a few times to really see it. I'm a visual learner, too, so seeing mechs happen in the guide helps cement the telegraphs in my memory.

Of course it's still a matter of actually implementing that knowledge for yourself in game, but after watching guides, I'm usually better able to recognize telegraphs and visualize what I'm supposed to do. Most (but not all) fights give you ample time to resolve a mechanic as long as you recognized its telegraph early. And even if you need to cover a lot of distance to avoid an aoe, don't forget that you have sprint (keybind it!) or mobility skills depending on the job.

(If you like phys ranged, try dancer! It has some incredible mobility with its dash that's saved my butt on many, many occasions. Just don't...y'know, dancer dash off the edge of the arena, if you can help it...totally not speaking from experience or anything...)

[ADarklore]

My question is this... have you considered playing a different job?? Bard is not the easiest to play in the first place, so if you're struggling with it... perhaps it might be time to try a different job that has an easier rotation. Dancer and Machinist are both easier (IMO) than Bard and are both range physical DPS... otherwise even Red Mage is pretty easy and they've made Summoner easier as well. Just a thought. I know there have been content that I've played with one job and failed... then tried again with a job that I was more confident on, and succeeded. Just something to consider.

[Carin-Eri]

My question is this... have you considered playing a different job?? Bard is not the easiest to play in the first place, so if you're struggling with it... perhaps it might be time to try a different job that has an easier rotation. Dancer and Machinist are both easier (IMO) than Bard and are both range physical DPS... otherwise even Red Mage is pretty easy and they've made Summoner easier as well. Just a thought. I know there have been content that I've played with one job and failed... then tried again with a job that I was more confident on, and succeeded. Just something to consider.

Yeah - I played as a Red Mage for a good few months, as well as levelling a Summoner to 87 (so far - I work on that as and when it takes my fancy) but I tend to get drawn back to Bard as I love it. As you say, it isn't easy and I did come to realise that I was getting it wrong, therefore when I did return to playing Bard I made sure to read guides (particularly the one on 'The Balance' from Discord) and watch a few YouTube guides.

I won't go so far as to say I'm good, but I do have a fair idea of what not to do now and it generally feels like I'm playing it, more or less, as it should be - my biggest hinderance is how poor I am at reacting to/remembering mechanics.

[Snorky]

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

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.

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 referring 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?

I know exactly how you feel. I feel like I let my team mates down. But.. There is always a but, I play this game to have fun too. I have improved. As much as I would like to think people are mostly understanding of others I know there are a few out there who expect nothing less than perfection on each and every dungeon or raid that they go on. I only hope I get those groups where people play for fun and not for perfection. I don't intentionally try to bring others down, I have one instance where I die to the same mechanic over and over and I have not been able to overcome it even playing in a trust. I remember being admonished by the healer of a group I ended up with during this instance. It was the worst feeling. I said to myself I wonder if this person were to see me face to face if they would take that attitude? I'm old over 60 wear reading glasses and just trying to play a game I love. No doubt I could have been her granny. But besides the point there are plenty of nice people out there who just are trying to have fun and enjoy the story too. I know that's why I stay because of those people and the story! Hang in there. Try and find a friend who might help you overcome the things that are hard for you. There are so many nice people playing this game and I for one am thankful for that.

[Carin-Eri]

I know exactly how you feel. I feel like I let my team mates down. But.. There is always a but, I play this game to have fun too. I have improved. As much as I would like to think people are mostly understanding of others I know there are a few out there who expect nothing less than perfection on each and every dungeon or raid that they go on. I only hope I get those groups where people play for fun and not for perfection. I don't intentionally try to bring others down, I have one instance where I die to the same mechanic over and over and I have not been able to overcome it even playing in a trust. I remember being admonished by the healer of a group I ended up with during this instance. It was the worst feeling. I said to myself I wonder if this person were to see me face to face if they would take that attitude? I'm old over 60 wear reading glasses and just trying to play a game I love. No doubt I could have been her granny. But besides the point there are plenty of nice people out there who just are trying to have fun and enjoy the story too. I know that's why I stay because of those people and the story! Hang in there. Try and find a friend who might help you overcome the things that are hard for you. There are so many nice people playing this game and I for one am thankful for that.

Thank you for your reply

Same issue in some ways - I'm no spring chicken either and my gaming reaction speed is nothing like it was 30+ years ago when I was playing on my old Amstrad CPC-464 or Sega Master System!

As you say, though, there are nice people playing the game and there are nice people on the forum too; whilst I don't expect you/anyone to trawl through this entire thread I will say that the help, advice and encouragement to push on was much appreciated and I wouldn't have experienced the amazing journey that the MSQ of this game has been otherwise

[Packetdancer]

Its mostly my reaction (or, often, lack thereof) to them to be honest. I don't often recall which mechanic does what and even when I do I often find myself a bit too slow to react.

As others have pointed out, "mechanics panic" is often a thing when you're less familiar with a fight. And the game tries to inspire that by making mechanics visually flashy/noisy in many places. So falling prey to that doesn't mean you're a bad player, it means the fight design is "working as intended", really.

But as I noted earlier in the thread, almost every mechanic has some easy mnemonic and some simple solution... the game just likes to play at being a stage magician and try to hide them from you behind those flashy visuals.

As such, I end up coming up with a lot of mnemonics to help folks in the FC, sprouts I encounter in various roulettes, folks in savage PF, etc.

A simple example are the chimeras you see throughout the game. (Or garms, shadowcourt hounds, whatever.) They have two noteworthy attacks: Ram's Voice and Dragon's Voice. In Cutter's Cry, it tries to teach you the difference between the two by throwing up a giant toast text of "The ram's eyes glow blue!" or "The dragon's eyes glow violet!"... but that's not really super helpful with any other chimera in the game; all the others will only show the Ram's Voice or Dragon's Voice castbar.

So what I teach sprouts in Cutter's Cry is "'Ram' means 'scram'!" -- e.g., Ram's Voice is the point blank AoE and you want to get away from the chimera (or interrupt/silence it to stop the cast, either way), while Dragon's Voice is thus the donut AoE (where you can stay close and keep fighting).

This mnemonic not only works for Cutter's Cry, but also for the chimera you fight for the Realm Reborn relic questline, the ones you can fight as FATEs in both ARR and Heavensward, the garms in Palace of the Dead, the garms in the World of Darkness raid, the shadowcourt hounds in one fight in Dun Scaith, etc. Because that mechanic is used many, many places throughout the game, you can use the same approach to encountering it basically anywhere.

And that's true of most mechanics: once you recognize the piece of the mechanic, it's easy to see it elsewhere in the game -- and usually, to apply the same resolution.

As another example, any time you see "Pyretic" -- or honestly, something like two-thirds of all casts involving fire in some form -- being cast, you need to be not moving by the time the cast goes off (including not auto-attacking) or you'll take damage. Any time you see something involving "Blizzard", conversely, there's a solid chance you need to keep moving, because if you are standing in place when the cast finishes you'll be frozen solid (and sometimes take a really nasty frostbite DoT).

Almost anything I can think of involving "Choir" -- "Imp Choir", "Toad Choir", etc. -- will either be an untelegraphed frontal cone AoE from the enemy casting it where, if you are standing in that cone, you will get turned into a thing... or a look-away mechanic. So if there's a "Choir" cast of some form and no look-away eye over the caster's head... don't be in front, basically.

Almost every time a boss tethers to every single player, they're going to then do a cleave towards each player, and you can only survive your own cleave... so don't overlap. Etc.

Moreover, the same thing will often appear with different names. "Pyretic" -- the fire-based "stop moving by the time this cast is done" mechanic I mentioned above -- also appears as "Acceleration Bomb" or "Extreme Caution" in other fights.

Usually Pyretic is a cast that puts a debuff on you for like 2 seconds once the cast finishes (and you cannot move until the debuff is gone), whereas Acceleration Bomb and Extreme Caution tend to be debuffs (sometimes with a visible countdown) on the individual affected players. And Acceleration Bomb is usually used by Allagan stuff, while Extreme Caution is usually used by Garlean magitek stuff, and Pyretic is usually used by casters or Voidsent. (Though that's not always true; Seat of Sacrifice, for instance, will put a countdown over your head a'la Acceleration Bomb's usual form, and if the Imbued cast was fire, you resolve that countdown as though it were a Pyretic castbar.)

But regardless of where they're used and in what context... they are all, functionally, the same exact mechanic under three different names: when the countdown finishes or the castbar is done, you need to be not doing anything.

And regardless of which one it is, when it's used as part of a fight, they're frequently used to bait you into moving during them.

For instance, putting an AoE marker directly under you, and then giving you Extreme Caution; the immediate instinct is to move out of the AoE to safely... but that'll cause you to explode due to Extreme Caution. If they do that, I guarantee you 100% of the time, the AoE telegraph will go off well after the Extreme Caution falls off -- the game baits you into moving immediately (because you're standing in the Bad Red Place), when the real solution is to still deliberately stand in the bad until Extreme Caution is gone, and then move to safety before the bad actually becomes bad.

Because as I've noted in other posts, this game plays with a fairly limited set of Lego bricks where mechanics are concerned.

And if you look at every single mechanic as "okay, this entire mechanic is this thing", you're looking at whatever Lego monstrosity they built using those pieces; there are so, so many individual mechanics with different names in this game, trying to remember every one of them is a recipe for madness.

But remembering the individual pieces? That lets you carve any mechanic up into bite-size chunks, and there's a whole lot less of those to remember; it's actually a surprisingly small set of Legos the fight designers play with.

(And breaking everything down into the reused pieces means the places that do have something relatively unique -- like the hot/cold mechanics in Delubrum Reginae, for instance -- are rare enough to be memorable.)

So like I said, if there's a particular fight you find you often struggle with parsing the mechanics quickly enough, feel free to name it here; many of us are used to looking at the mechanics in this game as "okay, which Lego pieces got used" and breaking down a fight into those bite-size pieces, as well as often having simple tricks or mnemonics to help folks remember how to resolve things.

But otherwise... I highly recommend trying to look at mechanics and recognize the components rather than trying to remember the entire mechanic. Because trying to remember every single mechanic in the game is a fool's errand -- even the best raiders aren't going to be able to reel off every single attack/cast of every fight in this game... but trying to remember and recognize the individual pieces used to build those mechanics?

That's absolutely, 100% doable... and honestly, within the capabilities of most players. Even those who feel intimidated. And recognizing those pieces early on tends to give you a lot more time to react to things than you think you might have.

The game's just really good at using visual flash to obscure that fact.

[Illmaeran]

Yes - I levelled Red Mage to 90 and played that job for a while, and have Summoner up to level 87. I do tend to keep returning to Bard though, as I love that playstyle.

Congratulations!! You've come a long way since your first post, you should be proud of yourself.

[AmiableApkallu]

As others have pointed out, "mechanics panic" is often a thing when you're less familiar with a fight. And the game tries to inspire that by making mechanics visually flashy/noisy in many places. So falling prey to that doesn't mean you're a bad player, it means the fight design is "working as intended", really.

*snip*

To all that, I might add that newer fights (at least starting somewhere in ShB) often start with a "teaching" phase: "Here are the Lego bricks this fight will be using." When a cast bar pops up, you take a look at the boss and around the arena, try to spot any "tells", and react as best as you can. For me, that's often enough to jog my memory, if it's not my first time.

Then, later parts of the fight start to combine those Lego bricks into flashier, more complex mechanics.