Zepla: The Players Endwalker Left Behind

[ForteNightshade]

The leap between easy/normal content and extremes is not big.

It is though. I can basically collect vuln stacks as a tank in any normal mode content without any hindrance whatsoever to the healers because the bosses simply don't deal enough damage. Just the other day, I had eight and stood in multiple AoEs during the last boss of Aetherfont. I only took 100k, which isn't enough to proc Holmgang. Now yes, I did that with full BiS but even with i660, I shouldn't be able to cheese max level content to such an absurd degree when it's relevant. I couldn't collect anywhere near that amount in Extremes.

Basically, you more or less have to go out of your way to die in a good chunk of normal mode content because everything is scaled so low, it's practically impossible to kill you. Just look at the current 24 man series. Europhsyne is such a joke, you don't even get LB3 for Menphina. She just explodes.

And the game doesn't teach you how to play your job. It never has. You don't even unlock White Mage's core mechanic until level 52. Which turns out to be mostly useless anyone since you'll rarely need what is essentially instant cast Cure II. How about Samurai and the whole looping system? A big reason for the simplification we've seen starting from Shadowbringers and being double downed on for Endwalker is because people didn't know how to play their jobs. That, or they just weren't willing to learn. Yoshida even outright stated maintenance buffs like Heavy Thrust and String Shot were removed entirely due to casual players forgetting to maintain them. Which is more than a little ironic when the new Melee releases (Reaper) with a maintenance buff almost identical to Heavy Thrust.

That all said, I think Zepla trying to define demographics was never a good idea. They're all too subjective.

[Kes13a]

I mean inherently, some of these changes aren't necessarily overly detrimental, as you still have fundamental mechanics present in the normal mode counterpart, which do get expanded on across other tiers of difficulty. It's just a shame they were changed, but IMO, with all the content between Level 1-to-89, there's a significant amount of learning opportunities, assuming you go through the natural process of doing story > optional trials/24-man raids. -

which would be valid, until they get around to gutting things like Aurum Vale. as a young healer I dreaded that place, but I learned a lot from it. now, its a snoozefest. what few boss mechanics there are have been dumbed into submission. so while there are a few learning opportunities, they seem determined to remove even those lol

[ReynTime]

assuming ren's summary is accurate her takes about what counts as midcore are fairly off but her point about no midcore content is spot on


Extreme fights are midcore. In theory. They run the gamut of being barely above casual to harder than some savage floors. Zodiark for example is a joke of an extreme but Sephirot is harder than some savage fights.
BA is hardcore. Too big punishments for death, too much prep work in terms of study and grouping requirements. Its closest competitor is delubrum savage.

Delubrum normal however is just an alliance raid with inflated hp bars and not in the duty finder for some bizarre reason.

Dalriada and Castrum are midcore. They have some penalty and the fights can trip you up sometimes and some coordination is neccessary but the lack of enrages means a couple of people can scrape an eventual clear.

Shes completely correct on criterion being normal, savage and ultimate difficulty instead of normal (easy) extreme (medium) hard (savage). Some of those mechanics are killer.
Fun fact: alexander was supposed to have 3 tiers of difficulty but time constraints meant they had to cut it to 2.

Just came to agree with this. There's no way BA can be considered 'mid' core, and Extremes can vary a lot, specially some from ARR and Heavensward.

[Lyth]

Disagreement exists because players react to these labels as a reflection of personal skill, rather than as a measure of how and when they're engaging with content. If you wanted to work through last expansion's savage content now, you probably could crack through all of it in an incredibly relaxed fashion. But that's a completely different experience from scheduling time off on patch release to clear the same fights in blind progression during the first few days of release. Some people really dislike the stress of that, others thrive off it.

Zepla herself is probably aware of this. From what I gather, she previously worked her way through every Ultimate that was released. With TOP, she attempted to do early blind prog, hit a progression wall, and quit the game after getting burnt out. This has nothing to do with personal skill or challenging yourself, and everything to do with engaging with content at a pace that you simply don't enjoy. For context, Xeno made some fairly astute observations following her previous departure from the game that sums the issue up quite well, and Zepla outlines her personal experiences with burnout in that video very honestly as well.

[anna-steele]

i like eureka

[Elissar]

It is though. I can basically collect vuln stacks as a tank in any normal mode content without any hindrance whatsoever to the healers because

Ma'am, the really casual player avoid responsibility like a plague. They won't play as a tank unless they know deeply how the instance works. See "tank anxiety".

Basically, you more or less have to go out of your way to die in a good chunk of normal mode content because everything is scaled so low, it's practically impossible to kill you. Just look at the current 24 man series. Europhsyne is such a joke, you don't even get LB3 for Menphina. She just explodes.

Really depends of your groups, alliance raid day 1 is a wipe fest. You can re-watch ultimate raiders playing and dying in their first try. You are right if you are saying that such content is short lived - as soon as everyone gets higher iLVL, it's harder to die. However, this phrase is objectively speaking, wrong.

And the game doesn't teach you how to play your job. It never has. You don't even unlock White Mage's core mechanic until level 52. Which turns out to be mostly useless anyone since you'll rarely need what is essentially instant cast Cure II. How about Samurai and the whole looping system? A big reason for the simplification we've seen starting from Shadowbringers and being double downed on for Endwalker is because people didn't know how to play their jobs. That, or they just weren't willing to learn. Yoshida even outright stated maintenance buffs like Heavy Thrust and String Shot were removed entirely due to casual players forgetting to maintain them. Which is more than a little ironic when the new Melee releases (Reaper) with a maintenance buff almost identical to Heavy Thrust.

If jobs are simplified, there is no need for deep in-game guide. You need to decide: jobs are harder than the average player is able to learn for extremes, savages, etc...or they are too easy and the game doens't have anything else to explain because it's obvious.
Personally, i believe in midterm. Just like healing, it's not the role/job itself that defines difficulty, but battle design and your group performance. In any case, if you are trying to optimize your rotation and performance, you are not an average joe already.

People do not fail in extremes/savages because they don't know their rotation enough, they fail because many battles need group coordination. Any battle that you can be carried is easier.

Dais extreme (requires group coordination, has enrage): 24% clear
Mothercrystal (sometimes requires group coordination, small DPS test): 46% clear
Zodiark (it's so easy that you can clear following a donut, barely has DPS test): 46% clear
source: https://ffxivcollect.com

That all said, I think Zepla trying to define demographics was never a good idea. They're all too subjective.

it's not.

[Supersnow845]

Just came to agree with this. There's no way BA can be considered 'mid' core, and Extremes can vary a lot, specially some from ARR and Heavensward.

People seriously overstate the “punishment” for dying in BA, if you are anywhere besides ozma extremely likely a healer will sac you, if you are at ozma and you are a new player often a vet will sac you anyway even if it means they get sucked out instead, if you get sucked out to ozma well you still got 15 obscures, 18 eureka fragments for upgrades and a chance at both zenteksuken swords and the conditional virtue, that’s how BA was setup to work, you chipped away at it and used eureka fragments to do more damage and get further in

In the extremely rare case there is a wipe or too many die for the number of sacs the party has then it takes about 10 minutes at sprite island to get back to 60 and you get 500 conceptuals/fundamentals out of it

New player setups for logos actions are also easy as hell these days, bring a damage essence, bring a support action or 2, have SOTR up and don’t bring platebearer

Considering you can oneshot it (and the majority of people do) just by mindlessly following someone else’s call-outs I think it’s pretty hard to justify BA as hardcore

[Denji]

i've found that NA servers emphasize going your own way and figuring out how to do things that work for you rather than doing any accepted strat/mechanic and the few fights that require following a mechanic in a specific way are the fights that NA players struggle the most with.

instead of assuming other people are going to do the right thing and just doing what you need to do, people think "oh, they suck. i'll do it for them."

which - my sibling in christ - is the opposite of what you need to do.

if you want someone to learn a strat, you need to give them an environment where everyone else is stable and doing the correct thing. they have a harder time learning if someone keeps flying in and changing things up as they're trying to figure things out. they don't need additional voices or people changing what they do and where they go. they don't need you deciding you want to stand on the left this time and resolve the left mechanic when they started off on the right and did the right one several times already.

NA players also just like going to different places, standing on different areas/platforms. they don't have a "comfy" spot where they chill out during that fight and don't move unless it's to resolve something. the monk could be to your left, to your right, behind you, in front of you -- the blm might be far away this time, they might be close and that can mess up stacking up or what tethers to who.

this results in minor slip-ups that, when combined with someone failing an important mechanic, can cause wipes.

jp servers don't have this issue. sorry non-jp server folk but we're pretty miserable when it comes to handling raid mechanics. we lack consistency and coherence.

as for the original op post, i miss having something like bozja tbh.

[DamianFatale]

I absolutely loved Zepla's points about Eureka, and Bozja bringing so many different types of players together. Whether you agree or not that it is midcore or not, it does seem like a bridge between all of the players contentwise. I think that the game does show its cracks when it doesn't have new exploratory content.

[PercibelTheren]

This video is objectively speaking, wrong.
The way she describes the casual player is awful. The leap between easy/normal content and extremes is not big. Each fight teach you as the battle goes on (Golbez is a good example), you don't need a static to clear extremes. Savage is a different thing, they do more puzzles and positioning than extremes. It's more complicated to clear Savage in party finder.

Tbh if you reached lv90 and have no main or any idea of your rotation, you need to explore more. Variant/criterion content can be great for training. We have dummies for a reason. The game does what it can do to stimulate your progress. She said "the game doens't teach you about your rotation", what else do you need? lol

As i said, weird video, feels like she started to play ANY GAME last week.

This one was made just to pay her bills.

The game never teaches you an optimal rotation. And with some jobs, they're not exactly intuitive, either. I had to actively look for them and find resources outside the game. The really casual players won't think of doing that because they're here to have fun, not to study.