Zepla: The Players Endwalker Left Behind

[ZephyrMenodora]

RE: oGCDs

Very fair and by no means was I trying to mock. While I picked up on a lot of this stuff naturally, I can understand it taking time for people not used to the systems here.

1. oGCD weaving being preferred healing: Still hate this having long histories of playing games where healing mattered more than it does here. I still cringe at "Assize is a DPS skill to cast on cooldown." Hate that for a lot of content, that's pretty much all it is. I actually pick healer because I want to use my regular heal skills with cast times - as a caster player I like cast times. But those are last resort casts in this game. Very unsatisfying as a healer.
2. oGCDs are routine healing: Get that too. In other MMOs with interesting healing, our emergency heals were for emergencies and in those games there were actual emergencies. Here for the content I do, I just press my emergency buttons just so they get use. Most of the time they aren't needed at all but I just like seeing my glowy rings and bell.
5. Slidecasting: I think I just picked this up naturally due to the number of times I wanted to finish a heal but needed to move. It pretty early clicked that I could get in the very last part of a cast while moving, but it does take some intuition and practice for new players to know when that is versus just interrupting your cast.

I did look at the website that lists all our skills and they don't seem to distinguish GCD skills from oGCD skills at all in the guides the game provides. Nor is this covered in the newbie training exercises you get.

So, compared to how other MMOs work I can see XIV taking a little learning.

[Renathras]

I just glanced through all the jobs and it seems most of them still do. DRG gets Life Surge at Lv. 6, MCH has Reassemble at Lv. 10, Berserk on WAR at Lv. 6, Raging Strikes on BRD at Lvl. 4, etc. Even the healers get one pretty early on.

One thing I did want to say about this: It could be feedback.

Like, when you use a self-buff, that's different than an attack or heal. You don't "see" anything happen. If you use Heavy Swing and then Berserk (not Inner Release; THAT is visually apparent), it's not clear EXACTLY WHEN the Berserk activates unless you're watching your own buff bar like a hawk, which I'd wager few people do. You just know it activated "sometime before" you hit Maim...probably. Not only that, the CDs tend to be longish (1 or 2 mins), so you don't get a really rapid, consistent feedback that is noticeable or blatantly apparent to people.

And when I started, back in ARR, WHM didn't have any direct feedback oGCDs other than Aqua Veil (Bene had that weird lag and the others were all self-buffs; Presence of Mind, Divine Seal, and Shroud of Saints...and I guess Cleric...? Though that one was also weird since it had no animation when you dropped it other than the "swish" sound effect of the buff being removed.)

It's a lot more apparent with, for example, Spirit's Within than it is with Fight or Flight, if that makes sense. But even there, that depends on you getting used to the general cadence of your abilities and noting the timing is different.

I think, back then, I thought they just qued faster somehow (again, playing casters/healers, weaving wasn't as noticeable in general, too), but the game didn't really indicate they WERE different.

EDIT:

Very fair and by no means was I trying to mock. While I picked up on a lot of this stuff naturally, I can understand it taking time for people not used to the systems here.
...
I did look at the website that lists all our skills and they don't seem to distinguish GCD skills from oGCD skills at all in the guides the game provides. Nor is this covered in the newbie training exercises you get.

So, compared to how other MMOs work I can see XIV taking a little learning.

Some was also hit and miss. Like you, I figured out Slidecasting was SOMETHING going on, but not the nuances of it until much later.

As for the website, yeah, it doesn't at all. If you look RIGHT under the name on your in-game tooltips, or in the third column (under "Type") on https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/battle/ 's Job pages, you'll see either Weaponskill, Spell, or Ability. That's it. But that's how you tell. Ability means oGCD, Weaponskill and Spell are GCD, with Spells being blocked by Silence (not all Spells have cast times) and Weaponskills being blocked by Pacification instead (while most are instant, Iaijutsu is not); with those two effects no longer happening so no longer being relevant.

The game, btw, tells you this LITERALLY nowhere. If you asked someone who didn't know that how they know if a spell is oGCD, their answer would probably be something like "The ones that don't go dark when I use other abilities", not "The ones labeled Ability instead of Weaponskill or Spell".

[CidHeiral]

Like, when you use a self-buff, that's different than an attack or heal. You don't "see" anything happen. If you use Heavy Swing and then Berserk (not Inner Release; THAT is visually apparent), it's not clear EXACTLY WHEN the Berserk activates unless you're watching your own buff bar like a hawk, which I'd wager few people do.

Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean, self buffs all have animations like anything else. Could you elaborate?

Berserk's animation would cut off Heavy Swing's animation to play out. At low level you wouldn't be weaving a million things in quick succession to cut off Berserk's animation either. For the purposes of a sprout learning what weaving is though, it doesn't matter when it activates, although I would imagine most sprouts would just assume it activates when you press the button. The main point is realizing that some buttons are available when other buttons are not, which would be clear from the combo buttons being greyed out and Berserk being available. Even if you were to just press your 2-3 combo buttons and berserk at random, you would quickly stumble upon the concept of weaving.

And when I started, back in ARR, WHM didn't have any direct feedback oGCDs other than Aqua Veil (Bene had that weird lag and the others were all self-buffs; Presence of Mind, Divine Seal, and Shroud of Saints...and I guess Cleric...? Though that one was also weird since it had no animation when you dropped it other than the "swish" sound effect of the buff being removed.)

Fair enough. I wasn't playing at that time and I don't play WHM so I'll take your word for it.

It's a lot more apparent with, for example, Spirit's Within than it is with Fight or Flight, if that makes sense. But even there, that depends on you getting used to the general cadence of your abilities and noting the timing is different.

I would disagree with that point. Fight or Flight is pretty distinct and only one of two abilities you have when you get it. Someone would have to be incredibly oblivious to hit Fast Blade and stare at the screen for 2.5 seconds not noticing that the one other button available is still useable. The same concept applies to most other oGCDs at low levels, although I concede it's probably not as noticeable on jobs where you're sitting there casting long spells that eat up most of the GCD time.

[Ephremjlm]

So I’m not ripping on anyone or what people like, just how i am as a player. Full disclosure I’ve played tons of other MMO's going back to MMO directory days. My favorites were FFXI, Diablo, OSRS, and PRO. I’m used to making friends online. 99% of my IRL friends don't play games. I'm not a Zepla fan. I'm not subscribed, nor do I follow her. Hopefully my perspective makes sense.

Ripping the band-aid off I really resonate with what Zepla said. My biggest gripe is that if you took Yoshi P's advice and played other games, especially for a while, you see that a lot of FFXIV's problems are circular, and self-created, even with examples from their past, FFXI, and other games. BU3 has been developing themselves into a corner for years, its just been a slow burn. Games need balance of QOL and Tedium, as well as "ultra casual", "casual", and "hardcore" difficulties (easy, medium, hard). And within those difficulties, variances of the same and/or different content (we probably don't need savage crafting lol). With this expansion, it looks like we have only been getting hardcore content(though some people argue the difficulty isn't hard enough), and ultra casual content like Island Sanctuary, the relic tombstone weapon(what’s the point), MSQ, and now fall guys. One could argue VC and DD are medium but that goes to another issue. There is literally no reason to do VC and its either easy, or things one shot you. And DD is already dead with no real reason to replay it or sometimes finish it. DD is easy as well. Also this is a personal gripe, but wasn’t the goal with VC to make a more free flowing dungeon which encourage reruns and exploration? Yet its still strait hallways, 3 trash/boss with no rewards. Theres lore and I’m a lore nerd but it’s a bummer because the amount you get is little and once again FFXIV makes us read instead of showing or experiencing. Again, they have plenty of examples to pull from of good midcore content, including their own that they could rework like Diadem where instead of taking Dynamis as an example and incorporating it as part of the relic step via another currency, it had a chance to random drop a bis weapon better than the relic, sometimes making the relic a useless waste of time, the instance not have lasting replayability, and having many (including SE) write it off as bad and failed content that "people didn't want". Now I hear people say "you weren't there for that", or "you don't want that type of content", when in reality its just negligence or purposeful cut corners on the development side (not saying devs are bad, because time and budget constraints happen too). I'll go into this more later but these "failed content" examples seem to be used as reasons why they shouldn't do more when easing player frustrating.

[Ephremjlm]

From my perspective, it seems like ultra cassual makes up 80% of content, while hardcore makes up 15% leaving about 5% for midcore. And as someone who mostly wants to play an MMO as an adventurer of some kind(not a farmer, not a fashion model showing off my clothes all day in a city, and not a home decorator etc.), aside from one off fights that don't require me to travel anywhere and experience the beautiful world that is Etheris, it feels like the only medium level content that currently has any effort behind it is Blue Mage, Bozja, and Eureka, even then they have problems of their own. I would include hunts but you generally need train and if you don't people get pissed, and to figure out any of the open world bosses I need to use like one or two 3rd party resources in which a million people spam it and then its over in like a minute.

Other than that, jobs and abilities seem to be homogenized into the ground. Unless you are crafting and gathering there isn't much of a reason to go into the open world, and I mean actually be there for a while and experience it. Being fair Maps are a pretty cool but once you know the spawn point its just a zerg rush to the location and its another instanced set of easy fights. In my opinion its super boring having everything be a tombstone grind, standing in town for 10 to 15 minutes, queuing for the same dungeons or one off fights that don't require any communication, strategy or specific gear, and new gear that we don't even actually "need" that changes every patch.

[Ephremjlm]

ALL of these things and more have upset me at times and made me feel like a sucker. Its like being a hamster PAYING them to be on wheel that’s going nowhere, attracting other hamsters that don't know any better who then also pay to get on the wheel until they realize that "oh this cage looks sweet but all we do is run on the wheel". And it sucks because Final Fantasy XIV has a really good story and the world aesthetic mixed with the lore is really top tier. But that's it. All aesthetics with no soul. Enough to get you hooked but not enough to make you feel fulfilled. These things have pushed me away from the game for about a year until recently as I thought I was just burnt out. Pretty quickly started feeling the same things and realized there was a real problem that I needed to think through. I think Zepla nailed it when she said FFXIV needs to do better at fighting for our time. I can’t think of any other company or executive that pushes people away from its product. I want a reason to come back. I want a reason to want to play. I have proven that I can pay them consistently for a long time. I am literally what the marketing world would call the Hottest customer and there is no reason why I shouldn't be giving them my money. And I hear people when they say Yoshi P, is busy, and Covid affected development, but Square Enix and Yoshi P need to figure it out. Break from the mold, and adjust like any other business would have to. We pay a monthly sub on the expectation is that EVERY month they will be earning it. And if they say their game is for everyone, then they need to earn EVERYONES sub. That said, I also am not oblivious that in art and in business if you make something for everyone, then its actually made for no one. its possible that SE is starting to just make the game for a buyer personal that I'm not a part of. But if they will “spare no expense” why would that be the case?

If you read all of this, I am sorry to have bothered you but thank you for hearing me out. I don't need to be convinced one way or another, this is just how the game is currently making me feel.

[Supersnow845]

Nobody here, on the mainsub or the various Facebook groups I still need to remember to leave have actually told me what “play other games” actually achieves

Am I meant to play for 5 days every year (but have to sub for 30) doing a tiny bit of patch content they release and maybe a few roulettes

Or am I supposed to play just EW then drop the game till 2 weeks before DT to blast through the 2.5 years of patch content I can still do in 2 weeks then do DT and repeat

Neither of these solutions fix the problems I have with 14, it just proverbially kicks the can down the road

[OgruMogru]

Nobody here, on the mainsub or the various Facebook groups I still need to remember to leave have actually told me what “play other games” actually achieves

Am I meant to play for 5 days every year (but have to sub for 30) doing a tiny bit of patch content they release and maybe a few roulettes

Or am I supposed to play just EW then drop the game till 2 weeks before DT to blast through the 2.5 years of patch content I can still do in 2 weeks then do DT and repeat

Neither of these solutions fix the problems I have with 14, it just proverbially kicks the can down the road

They wanna shut people up so they don't have to think critically about their subjective experience.

[Nebelheim]

Nobody here, on the mainsub or the various Facebook groups I still need to remember to leave have actually told me what “play other games” actually achieves

Am I meant to play for 5 days every year (but have to sub for 30) doing a tiny bit of patch content they release and maybe a few roulettes

Or am I supposed to play just EW then drop the game till 2 weeks before DT to blast through the 2.5 years of patch content I can still do in 2 weeks then do DT and repeat

Neither of these solutions fix the problems I have with 14, it just proverbially kicks the can down the road

I wish that wasn't the case with ff14 but unfortunately once the base story of a expansion is done with how fast you can complete patches during endwalkers and seems dawntrail will be a repeat with it's patch cycle it seems like you can take a 2 year break come back a couple weeks before the next expansion and be done in less then 2 weeks.

[Sindele]

What are the possible merits of not expecting one game to deliver 100% of your entertainment? Truly an unsolvable mystery.