People don’t realize how easy it is to get into raiding in this game

[Mawlzy]

Some MMORPG players like to be in character 100% of the time, even when having mechanical conversations. Kinda a rare thing but you come across it once in a while.

While I'm not as committed to the principle as Mao, it's the primary reason I would never do any content requiring voice chat.

[Kandraxx]

Its more like that its a pointless experience. Its just a single player learned choreography x8 to add artificial difficulty and stretch the content, because this game doesn't have real mechanics like WoW. There's no real group interaction and you don't get better at anything because there's nothing to get better at and then you go to learn the next script from zero.

[TheInsomniac13]

My college once wonder how I can memorize so many mechanics and I was like what? Only then I notice since I did back then a lot of Duty Rouletts I hat learend many many mechanics of Trials dungeons etc. Thing is, reflecting back on then I notice a lot of attacks that are Instant kills or very close to especaly in later stages of the game... but there is no way of knowing the first time you encounter them.
And a game mechanic which biggest chalange it is that you do not yet know what it will do... is not good game design.

[TakoyakiLala]

I have interest! My retarded little ass just has anxiety with following the guides for raids. I'm starting with Summoner and the raid guide for it ironically made me like it more because it pointed out a few little tricks I hadn't thought of doing to make me better as a DPS with it.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm starting with Summoner and the raid guide for it ironically made me like it more because it pointed out a few little tricks I hadn't thought of doing to make me better as a DPS with it.

I'd suggest also watching a "SMN PoV" clear on YouTube, not just guides. Search terms like:

• "Everkeep clear SMN PoV"
• "Worqo Lar Dor clear SMN PoV" or "Valigarmanda clear SMN PoV"
• "Sphene's Burden clear SMN PoV"
• "Recollection clear SMN PoV"
• "M5S clear SMN PoV"
• "M6S clear SMN PoV"
• "M7S clear SMN PoV"
• "M8S clear SMN PoV"

The reason for watching these is they give a better sense of the timing and pacing of the fight, and show how someone clears it in real time using your class. It can help a lot because once you see it, you can copy a lot of their methods of tackling things with your same job. They also give a sense of what actually matters from the guide and what doesn't, what is actually obvious in the moment and what isn't.

[Practice] parties that say "fresh prog" are a good starting point. They are pretty chill and all the people in it are really in the same boat and often pretty anxious themselves due to having no experience in the fight.

If you see a list of strats in the Party Finder description, some of them get broken down on thepfstrat.com.

[Rithy255]

Raiding is just learning a fights dance patterns, anyone can do it given enough time.

It's honestly not that difficult to pf most fights (maybe ultimate's? I've never done one) it's more or less just a time investment of learning what to do and when to things. Just expect a bunch of trial and error and you'll be fine.

[TakoyakiLala]

I'd suggest also watching a "SMN PoV" clear on YouTube, not just guides. Search terms like:

• "Everkeep clear SMN PoV"
• "Worqo Lar Dor clear SMN PoV" or "Valigarmanda clear SMN PoV"
• "Sphene's Burden clear SMN PoV"
• "Recollection clear SMN PoV"
• "M5S clear SMN PoV"
• "M6S clear SMN PoV"
• "M7S clear SMN PoV"
• "M8S clear SMN PoV"

The reason for watching these is they give a better sense of the timing and pacing of the fight, and show how someone clears it in real time using your class. It can help a lot because once you see it, you can copy a lot of their methods of tackling things with your same job. They also give a sense of what actually matters from the guide and what doesn't, what is actually obvious in the moment and what isn't.

[Practice] parties that say "fresh prog" are a good starting point. They are pretty chill and all the people in it are really in the same boat and often pretty anxious themselves due to having no experience in the fight.

If you see a list of strats in the Party Finder description, some of them get broken down on thepfstrat.com.

Ooh, thanks for the extra tips, Jeeqbit! I play on controller, so it may take me a few goes on some of those vids to accurately see what the PoV player is pressing exactly at which given time, but it shouldn't be too hard since it's SMN. xD

And bookmarked thepfstrat.com. Thanks again for the help, dude; I really appreciate it!

*Gives your leg an honorable lala hug of appreciation*

[Ekymus]

I’ve noticed a lot of discourse about add-ons and whatever else; having to spend money on gear to join raids. When I see these complaints, I feel like these people haven’t played any other MMO’s.

I’ve played guild wars2 , Lord of the rings online, and Tera before it went defunct. In guild wars 2, people hardly pug raids, and you have to have decent gear and the Meta builds to even get considered to join a group. Lord of the rings online is a really old game and nobody is pugging tier 2+ raids (where the good gear drops.)

Tera struggled from not having much content to begin with, but let’s say you want to tank in Tera. To even be considered a viable tank and hold Aggro you had to enchant your weapon to +12 with RNG. A lot of these Asian games love the gacha rng to upgrade. So, you would waste these materials on RNG hoping to enchant your tank weapon to the next level just so you could hold Aggro.

In FF 14 the minimum is just adding materia and getting crafted gear to enter a raid with literally anyone. Yeah you may get a clear, or you may not, but at least you can enter and be on the relatively same playing field as anyone else.

You may have missed something.

I have done every normal raid and every normal alliance raid that's out so far. But I refuse to do any of the Savage raids, the Chaotic raid, Unreal trials, or Ultimate raids. The reason is that I don't need that level of frustration in my life.

Normal raids and the normal alliance raids are super easy to get into, like you said, but for people who don't raid at all, they just hear the world raid and they think it's always like what they see the streamers grinding out online, which is mostly the Ultimates.

There are also a fair number of players that have played other games like LoTRO and WoW who tried raiding there and had bad experiences so they just avoid it now.

But if you can get more people doing at least the normal raids, more power to you.

[Ekymus]

I struggle even with normal Trials, in that I find the mechanics to be counterintuitive, non-understandable, and overall annoying. I go in blind, die a couple of times to whatever, and am glad when it's over. If there was an option to skip any MSQ trial, I would happily activate it.
I wouldn't raid in this game, even if they automatically gave me the ilvl, materia, foodbuff and whatnot when I enter the instance.

I have played Black Mage through every normal trial and normal raid in the game. I understand the pain of dealing with mechanics.

Is there a specific fight or mechanic from a fight that you don't get or have trouble with that you can tell about here? If so, I'd be more than happy to try and help explain what's going on, if I can.

[SlickPaws]

Getting into raiding? I'd say it's pretty easy. Just get yourself some decent gear, some practice in on a dummy to nail your rotation and some friends to boost your confidence. Staying interested in raiding? That's the real issue for me.
I dabbled a little in Savage last expansion and at the tail end of ShB, but I see no point in continuing because of the way raids are designed.
You learn a fight by guide and by rote because that's just the most efficient way to keep 8 strangers in some kind of coordinated state, you wipe to a bunch of insta-kill mechanics and you wall whenever more than one person takes a big hit because it's easier to just restart than to attempt to recover. Repeat until you're sick of it, or you clear. Roll for a chance to get some loot, repeat until you get something. And then do it all over again for the remaining 3 fights so you can max out your iLvl for the next 6 - 8 months or so until you can do it all over again in two patches time. I know this isn't news to anyone who does raid but I'm just sick of the formula and sick of the loop.

I'm also not a fan of FFXIV's insistence on making increased mental load and increasingly shorter windows to react the key to the difficulty curve. Presumably it's because they've hemmed themselves in to a choreographed "Dance Dance Revolution" style of fights where the only way you really can ramp up the difficulty by increasing the speed and number of AOEs resolving at once, or by shrinking the safe spots or forcing some directional movement but it's just getting too hard for me to keep up. I also find that these raids and level 100 content in general isn't exactly forgiving when you do mess up because you reacted too slowly, and I'm just not thrilled about the game punishing me for a lack of clairvoyance. From what I hear, some of the newest raids do some stuff to switch up the formula but at this point I've completely lost interest in the high-end content.