Yuweyawata Field Station is so wrong

[Mawlzy]

Yesterday i did Leveling roulette, i got the outpost.

The enemies and first boss died suspiciously slow, so i observed what the black mage was doing and observed that he was only casting fire 1 and fire 3 like you do on lvl 50, he also switched back to ice while still having half of his MP.
When i told him he is casting the wrong spells and maybe should look up how to play black mage, the response was:

"It is just a dungeon, who cares"
He then wanted to tell me that i play Warrior wrong and if he should explain how to do it right.
The Open minded person i am, i said, "sure go ahead".
"Nah it is just a dungeon, doesnt matter" he said..

Well at the last boss i must have accidentaly turned off my tank stance and shirked him, so he died to a tankbuster, which got him a little mad, but i said i "It is just a dungeon, mistakes happen"

after all i don't know how to play Warrior.

This has nothing to do with why some people find content hard.

Unfortunately there are few players likely to share their difficulties on these boards because they can see they'll expose themselves to ridicule.

Xapapetsu tells us "no casual content is hard."

The statement is ridiculous. The difficulty of content is largely subjective. One can discuss relative levels of difficulty in the same kind of content. Clearly "normal" content is less difficult than EX, Savage, Ult. So what?

Is tensor calculus hard? Not to me. I'm a retired mathematician.

Is driving a Formula 1 card hard? Very hard for me, I'm blind in one eye.

Is chess hard? Backgammon? Skiing? Mountain climbing? Tetris?

Different people excel at different things.

Unfortunately the one thing many in this thread excel at is being completely dismissive of the struggles of others, stating categorically it the problem is that "people just want to shut their brain off."

Why would they do that? Why pay for a game with which you refuse to engage. It's completely implausible.

Sure you'll find individuals on occasion dogging a dungeon. Frontline is plagued by people just there for the rewards who literally AFK. That's not who we're talking about.

All that said, I like your solution in the dungeon. Vote dismiss is also available, and this individual was arguably breaking ToS.

[Arohk]

Xapapetsu tells us "no casual content is hard.

This is correct, but buying a game, or any game, doesnt entitle you to also win at that game, you pay to own and play it, if you are unable to finish it, that is on you.

Why should the game be made so mindnumbingly easy that you should still succeed while doing everything wrong?
Every time i see someone complaining about the difficulty of the game, they are doing everything wrong to begin with, bad UI, bad Hud, clicking their skills, generally not dodging any mechanics unless there is a big circle under them. In general not giving a damn about their performance.

Here is what FFXIV SHOULD do, just a few examples.

- reduce the button bloat on all jobs (max 15-20 hotkeys instead of 30)
- consolidate combos to one button (optional settings, and/or custimization for combos like some plugins have it)
- add a dps meter for everyone, so you can see how you perform. (nobody knows how bad they are if they can't compare to other players)
- add more newbie Arena tutorials that teach all mechanics and different types of markers. *mandatory to progress MSQ.

[Mawlzy]

This is correct, but buying a game, or any game, doesnt entitle you to also win at that game, you pay to own and play it, if you are unable to finish it, that is on you.

Why should the game be made so mindnumbingly easy that you should still succeed while doing everything wrong?
Every time i see someone complaining about the difficulty of the game, they are doing everything wrong to begin with, bad UI, bad Hud, clicking their skills, generally not dodging any mechanics unless there is a big circle under them. In general not giving a damn about their performance.

Here is what FFXIV SHOULD do, just a few examples.

- reduce the button bloat on all jobs (max 15-20 hotkeys instead of 30)
- consolidate combos to one button (optional settings, and/or custimization for combos like some plugins have it)
- add a dps meter for everyone, so you can see how you perform. (nobody knows how bad they are if they can't compare to other players)
- add more newbie Arena tutorials that teach all mechanics and different types of markers. *mandatory to progress MSQ.

I'm fine with all your suggestions. I think all would help players better learn their jobs and game mechanics. But the assertion made by some in this thread is that struggling players willfully refuse to learn their jobs and the game mechanics. While I don't believe this, your suggestions would do nothing to address this hypothetical population. Further, many struggling players care deeply about their performance and are painfully aware that in higher level MSQ dungeons it falls short of the median.

Your assumption that all weak players are weak because they don't try hard enough is simply wrong.

As to "winning" the game, that is a concept that simply doesn't apply to MMOs. Combat constitutes a tiny fraction of the overall available content. For many, that combat is very far from "mindnumbingly easy." You might as well claim the only way to win the game is to follow Cider Spider and get all available achievements.

[Arohk]

Combat constitutes a tiny fraction of the overall available content.

wrong, the MSQ is the tiny fraction of the content, Fighting Bosses is the majority of what the game has to offer, yes there are non-combat activities like crafting or housing, but combat is the main content that is repeatable, or is the entire goal to just beat the Story and then not play anymore until one new quest comes along? there are better or cheaper alternatives than waiting months for a tiny drop of new story that is done in half an hour(if you dont skip the dialogue).

Your assumption that all weak players are weak because they don't try hard enough is simply wrong.

I am not saying they aren't trying, i am saying the game does a terrible job at teaching how to play. And is also very inaccesible due to the overbloated amount of skills.
Those who don't even care to improve are the worst anyway.

Hence it even took me a whole lot of effort back in Shadowbringes(thast when i started the game) to learn how to play properly, only once i started to do Savage Eden i actually had to do it, because i never had to engage with the nuances and optimizations before that point, i really thought i am not that terrible at the game but i had no idea how shit i was.

[Mawlzy]

wrong, the MSQ is the tiny fraction of the content, Fighting Bosses is the majority of what the game has to offer, yes there are non-combat activities like crafting or housing, but combat is the main content that is repeatable, or is the entire goal to just beat the Story and then not play anymore until one new quest comes along? there are better or cheaper alternatives than waiting months for a tiny drop of new story that is done in half an hour(if you dont skip the dialogue).



I am not saying they aren't trying, i am saying the game does a terrible job at teaching how to play. And is also very inaccesible due to the overbloated amount of skills.
Those who don't even care to improve are the worst anyway.

Hence it even took me a whole lot of effort back in Shadowbringes(thast when i started the game) to learn how to play properly, only once i started to do Savage Eden i actually had to do it, because i never had to engage with the nuances and optimizations before that point, i really thought i am not that terrible at the game but i had no idea how shit i was.

Again, this simply isn't true. Most of NA/EU engage in no combat beyond normal and run most MSQ dungeons precisely once.

I mostly play PvP. As such, my time engaged in dungeons/trials is no more than 2% of my total engagement with the game. This is common.

I spend more time playing triple triad than in dungeons/trials, and I'm not that fond of triple triad.

[Arohk]

Again, this simply isn't true. Most of NA/EU engage in no combat beyond normal and run most MSQ dungeons precisely once.

i would like to see some hard data for that claim.

[Mawlzy]

i would like to see some hard data for that claim.

NA clear rate for savage on cycle is less than 25%? Thought that was generally accepted and similar in EU.

I'll solo EX unsynched occasionally if I want a mount.

Those numbers might increase if PvE in 14 was actually interesting, but unfortunately it's formulaic slop.

[Yeonhee]

I'm fine with all your suggestions. I think all would help players better learn their jobs and game mechanics. But the assertion made by some in this thread is that struggling players willfully refuse to learn their jobs and the game mechanics. While I don't believe this, your suggestions would do nothing to address this hypothetical population. Further, many struggling players care deeply about their performance and are painfully aware that in higher level MSQ dungeons it falls short of the median.

Your assumption that all weak players are weak because they don't try hard enough is simply wrong.

As to "winning" the game, that is a concept that simply doesn't apply to MMOs. Combat constitutes a tiny fraction of the overall available content. For many, that combat is very far from "mindnumbingly easy." You might as well claim the only way to win the game is to follow Cider Spider and get all available achievements.

Not all weak players are weak because they don't try enough, that's for sure. But a good chunk of them are. You pretty much only singled out "lol Cure1 myth" to dismiss all my previous exemples. But for those, skill doesn't matter. So tell me, why a level 100 player wouldn't know to use AoEs on large pull ? All throught the leveling process, you have big messages poping on your screens saying "Hey, look at this cool new skill you just unlocked !" yet some people seems to never bothered reading what they do. Or still not knowing what stack markers ou buster markers are despite having seen them hundred of times up until then. How many times I was running like an idiot behind someone with a doritos marker yelling in my head "STACK WITH MEEEEE PLEAAAAAASE". Yes, some people play the game for the social aspect of it, for housing, for PvP or anything else and just doesn't give a damn about PvE combat and couldn't be bottered to improve.
.
However, I do respect people that are struggling but still trying their best. When I see someone that seems to have issues, I usually try to offer advices (And no, that's not "Stop watching Netflix" kind of advices). You offer dual-track difficulty as a solution and I might agree with it(Tho rewards should be limited for the "easy mode") despite thinking that Trust is already quite easy. But a lot of people on this forum are asking for straight up nerf of DT normal content, which is pretty bad. As someone else said, if devs balance the normal content around the weakest link of the chain, you end up with a very boring game for the vast majority of players.

There's also the issue that dying or wiping on normal content seems to have become such an unacceptable thing that should never happen and is shameful. Wiping while learning is completely normal and there's no shame to have with it.