Tired of PF limited content

[Asari5]

weekly reset? really? how convenient.


on a work day? and not everyone did the new ex. so there might be a prog necessary first
and you probably dont even get a weapon for your first kill so you might need a second group xD

[Colt47]

I mean, whether someone does it for you or you do it yourself it's about the same thing ultimately. The other thing is that for EX content the problem is a lot worse than for Savage. People organize around savage but the EX fights it is just FFA and it takes forever to even get a prog group going.

[Jeeqbit]

The game's gearing system is extremely casual considering you can just do the normal raids or get crafted 740 real quick. It seems you're trying to argue it's not casual enough because of the off chance it might take you longer than a few minutes to gear up under certain circumstances (ie. lack of gil, just beat Dawntrail) which isn't even the case for many players and, as I mentioned, I've done it in 1 day on raid alts with limited gil before.

There are other games where gearing up for raids has taken months of work and wouldn't be possible by a casual player. FFXIV's gearing is nothing like that. Probably the only thing that would satisfy you then is to get the gear the same way you get 690 artifact gear, so you don't even have to expend the strenuous effort of doing the normal raids to gear up for savage.

As for prog parties filling, sometimes it takes a while but that could even be where Aether is problematic, because parties can get buried under 200 other PFs and be hard to find. But all I can say is I have helped lots and lots of ex4 progs clear over the last two weeks. I join, wipe with them, teach them things they are confused about and then we usually clear.

[Nadda]

This game has a serious people problem when it comes to end game, and it's largely that there's not enough people to do it with at the same prog points, or there's not enough incentives to help others to go back and help clear end game content. Considering Aether feels like the only place where anyone clears anything in a decent amount of time this is not exactly helping things.

That and with the game on a bit of a slumping downturn compared to last expansion at the same point in time the weaknesses of content that require 8 dedicated people to learn a specific dance and have the will to go through it all is showing.

Difficult content:
Much like dangerous worlds in old school MMOs is supposed to necessitate people coming together.

So, social systems are in place to help gather like-minded people. But the game itself cannot create these interactions that's what makes it an MMO.

You mention people being at different prog points, but also that there's less incentive to help others to go back. (Side Note: In my experience, many players far better than me go into PFs all the time for fun)

But as an example, let's take the new EX as an example.



Say you got to Bloom 6/,Enrage but the groups you see posted are on Bloom 4 or EF2.

Well in that case you can go to the group at an earlier prog point to help them since you got more experience with later phases.

---

The only issue with PF is that people are good at the game. THEY CAN DO IT. But they get discouraged and quit before achieving their potential.

It sucks having to form your own group because of the responsibility that entails but just remember everyone in that group is there to achieve the same goal. Just by making a group you're helping others gain experience at the very least.
And say for example your group doesn't make it.

That's fine because maybe by the time your group disbands there's a new group posted at your same progress.

Ultimately. You can only control in game and in life is yourself. If you focus on yourself, it doesn't matter what stage a group is at long as you're doing your best, eventually you'll land in the winning group.

All you can do is show up, do your best, and keep showing up.

You can only ever ‘Never’ do something by not trying at all.
We might not clear today, but we’ll all be better by the time we disband.

[Sharindel]

This game has a serious people problem...

Correct, FF14 Endgame is like assemble an IKEA furniture. You get your "assembly instructions" and than you go, if you do not follow the exact order you are doomed.
That is why FF14 endgame for me is not existing. It is boring as assemble a furniture over and over again, its the sweatshop version of raiding! Is this fun? Not for me!

The problems:

• The "assembly instructions" are mostly done in 1-2 days and the fun of exploring the mechanics is gone!
• After the "assembly instructions" are valid and confirmed, everybody expect from you that you know them, it is not possible to say "lets learn it on the fly and have fun with it".
• "But there are learning groups?!" is the most well known lie they want to told you that that system works. No learning groups are mostly gone after 1-2 days. Last ex mode it was not even 24 hours!
• In Japan it is even worse, where the "assembly instructions" also contains the exact spots for the exact classes and the fun is even more gone!

So what you have in the end, a boring raid, where you must learn to de-assemble the boss with a instruction list. Great?! No! I don't like sweatshops! I want random mechanics, i want chaos! Honey B. Lovely was a nice exception in the last raids, even on normal, because you have some random mechanics. It was fun to evade the aoes, because they where random! Sometimes you must heal, sometimes you run with zero debuffs in a heart to rescue somebody, sometimes you waste it. But it was funny chaos! This is raiding, not all the savages and ultimates .

The next big problem is the design of the raids. The raids are mostly disconnected from the normal version to the ex/savage version. The mechanics are mostly not an upgrade, its something different. So you can't even learn in the normal version to went later to the hard version. That leads to one thing "elitism", because the only way where you can learn the mechanics, is while you doing it with people that expect from you to know what you do! Even worse "no no, you don't join without a clear flag on your character". What disconnect the casuals from the pro raiders. And the design of the raids is garbage, its always a room, always many many AoE and that was it, its boring and frustrating, to much Aoe, to less other mechanics.

We need more, better designs and versions for solo and coop people!

[DiaDeem]

[Colt47]

The game's gearing system is extremely casual considering you can just do the normal raids or get crafted 740 real quick. It seems you're trying to argue it's not casual enough because of the off chance it might take you longer than a few minutes to gear up under certain circumstances (ie. lack of gil, just beat Dawntrail) which isn't even the case for many players and, as I mentioned, I've done it in 1 day on raid alts with limited gil before.

There are other games where gearing up for raids has taken months of work and wouldn't be possible by a casual player. FFXIV's gearing is nothing like that. Probably the only thing that would satisfy you then is to get the gear the same way you get 690 artifact gear, so you don't even have to expend the strenuous effort of doing the normal raids to gear up for savage.

As for prog parties filling, sometimes it takes a while but that could even be where Aether is problematic, because parties can get buried under 200 other PFs and be hard to find. But all I can say is I have helped lots and lots of ex4 progs clear over the last two weeks. I join, wipe with them, teach them things they are confused about and then we usually clear.

I don't care about the gear, I care about doing things. The DOING is supposed to be the thing that is fun and the gear is the final bit you get at the end, and someone isn't really doing much if they are sitting in PF waiting for a group to fill for an hour. Again, Aether is not the norm here the norm is what is outside of Aether. I remember being able to hop onto this game and being able to literally get into even EX fights within 20 minutes of logging in back in Endwalker because aether had so many groups. The game is nothing like that now it is a random pile of luck to get a group going in under an hour.

And in-case people haven't noticed yet, grinding for tomestones doing the same thing every day is not a whole lot of fun. It's either hop on a kill train for an hour to max out the weekly tomestones, or do the same roulette every day. In all honesty, doing savage is a bit liberating with a static in comparison.

This feels like a problem with this entire expansion, though. FC is a ghost town and people who would play regularly don't even bother logging on for weekly tomecap. It might just be an expansion worth skipping and praying they do something to flip it around, honestly. In truth it feels like the same people that want to clear EX fights also are into doing savage and ultimates now, which is kind of leaving EX fights in a weird spot. The Unreal also looks kind of forgotten as well.

[Jeeqbit]

Again, Aether is not the norm here the norm is what is outside of Aether.

In that case though, DC travel is the issue so no point blaming it on other things like raid pop when there are 200 High-End PFs, holding up to 1600 people. The travel limits might actually be reducing the people who can actually join as well, so it's worth merging PFs where possible.

I remember being able to hop onto this game and being able to literally get into even EX fights within 20 minutes of logging in back in Endwalker because aether had so many groups. The game is nothing like that now it is a random pile of luck to get a group going in under an hour.

Happened in EW sometimes, depends how buried the PF is. Obviously people won't always scroll through 5 pages, and just join the first few listed ones. The ex fight also has lots of slightly different strats so no 2 parties are the same strats, which affects people joining. They might not like the strats.

FC is a ghost town and people who would play regularly don't even bother logging on

Can't relate, obviously going to depend on the FC.

The Unreal also looks kind of forgotten as well.

I see them still, just got to get round to it while doing the new content so it might not be a priority for some. I've cleared it both weeks in PF so far and seen others talking about doing it in FC and LS.