Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Sylkis]

OP doesn't want to make the game easier, but more forgiving (which doesn't mean it will be easier).

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

Making a mistake makes the fight harder instead of impossible, and this is balanced by the ease of making the mistake. It's also not always easy to be able to recover, and it gives a chance for good players to shine. I think this is what OP wants.

[ZReport]

OP doesn't want to make the game easier, but more forgiving (which doesn't mean it will be easier).

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

Making a mistake makes the fight harder instead of impossible, and this is balanced by the ease of making the mistake. It's also not always easy to be able to recover, and it gives a chance for good players to shine. I think this is what OP wants.

That and the fact that the OP wants the game to be more social-friendly in the way of having social-friendly battles. The current metagame is very well oriented around having a very serious mindset with every fight, and it does not lend itself at all to being friendly or even making jokes midbattle, etc. Simply because you have mechanic after mechanic after mechanic thrown at you with little time to type anything outside of movement. The OP all so sutlely made posts about how he's "In Coil all day":

After each patch, you'll see your FC/LS's static teams in coil all day, and wonder whether anyone will even have time to talk to you.

The obstacle here (besides the obvious 8-man design limitation) is the instant death mechanics. As long as these mechanics exist, people will only want to play with those who won't make mistakes and would never want to *add* more people into their party.

And it's very true. Yes, your friend might be the coolest person on the planet, but if he's bad at the game, most people except the nicest of friends will not tolerate the jokes and playing around during serious high end battles and bosses. To this the OP offers an alternate to current content, one that's much more friendly to all, one that also has multiple members outside of the 8-man focus. Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar or FFXI all had this dynamic. Yes, they had some serious fights too with unforgiving mechanics, but you had multiple chances of recovery during an on going wipe. More so than that, you as a player had a sense of camraderie with those who you play with as well. Not only because it had more forgiving mechanics, but also the fact that the types of battles allowed for people to be socialble in chat, and not have an as-serious attitude towards them.

[Okashii]

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

If thats' what OP wants, then I don't understand OP's point at all then. Because that's the kind of stuff that most of the game is already.

[Nadrojj]

After clearing t7 last night, I agree with this guy. The jumprope mechanics are boring. Avoiding voice isn't a challenge, it's an annoyance.

[Cap75]

I think the reliance on rote memory, time limits and insta-death mechanics is slowly going to wear down the community unless SE gets more creative in their encounter design. The lack of dynamism or any chance for improvisation in many of the encounters makes for play that's rigidly predefined every step of the fight. The minutia of every strategy is set in stone and almost any deviation means failure unless you're overgeared enough to ignore a particular mechanic. Still, it's always the exact same order with everyone doing the exact same thing. Luckily I have a cool FC going through coil and EX primals together but people who don't have a near insurmountable barrier of entry after a certain point. Pugging a lot of this stuff is an exercise in frustration in the least and near impossible at its worst. This leads to rage quits, arguments, and a general inability to even progress after a certain point without a static. A game is going to have a hard time surviving when a large portion of its community is functionally locked out of progression. And echo buffs or making gear easier to obtain really doesn't alleviate the issue of insta-death mechanics or fights that are so invariable that the slightest deviation means you might as well wipe and start over.

All this rigidity creates another issue too. A certain lack of epicness, for lack of a better term. Timed enrages, DPS checks, and timed phase changes all leading to situations that can’t be recovered from means you never get those epic boss fights that last a long time with swings and momentum, awesome recoveries from the brink of failure, or improvised “wow, I can’t believe we just pulled that off” moments. Those types of moments build communities whereas the current state of things makes it so any deviation, or even just someone trying to learn, leads to insta-wipes which leads to finger pointing, kicks, rage quits, etc., in the pug community. Which, in turn, leads to the community becoming more and more stratified and less and less people playing.

[NightReach]

I just find it really funny that he uses T4 as an example of a well designed fight. T4 is possibly the worst designed fight in the game, it has no mechanics, a complete and utter gear check, and there is nothing epic about it.

What also hilarious is that people are asking for more RNG, when they can't even beat the current tier of contents, RNG is what makes people quit. If you cant beat a scripted with small bit of RNG in every fight (there is plenty small RNG), then how do you expect to beat completely randomized encounter, which no designer have ever come up with.

More casual mode coil with lower tier drop sure w.e, but then people will start complaining how they can't get max lv gear.

[IgnisFatuus]

OP hits perfectly the point on what has been bugging me since i cleared twinty a few weeks ago and tried to get other fc members there as well. besides all the rummaging about being hardcore and skillzzz, i simply think that current endgame design is simply no fun.

currently my fc is working on t6 and every time they get back from dozens of wipes there's a cold, bitter and disappointed atmosphere in fc chat. that's not exactly what i would expect from a game feature whose reason of existence is to keep people tied to the game.

[Cap75]

OP hits perfectly the point on what has been bugging me since i cleared twinty a few weeks ago and tried to get other fc members there as well. besides all the rummaging about being hardcore and skillzzz, i simply think that current endgame design is simply no fun.

currently my fc is working on t6 and every time they get back from dozens of wipes there's a cold, bitter and disappointed atmosphere in fc chat. that's not exactly what i would expect from a game feature whose reason of existence is to keep people tied to the game.

That's because the current mechanics being so rigid can make one mistake a wipe. The same person makes that same mistake multiple times and I don't care how friendly you are with them frustration creeps in. Or you get that sorted and then somebody else misses one thing and causes a wipe on something they've done a million times and, boom, wipe again. More frustration. And I think the fact that fights go almost exactly the same every single time just adds to the frustration because, well, repetition is usually frustrating on its own let alone in a group setting.

It would just be nice if there was more variance in mechanics overall. Meaningful resistances for both players and bosses. Functional CC that could add more support from a class and change strategies. Mechanics that punish mistakes by forcing a change of plan, the use of cooldowns or spells you weren't planning on for instance, and in turn make the fight harder and longer but don't necessarily illicit a "just wipe" from the group because you'll never recover before the next phase pops so just start over.

[Bizniztyme]

More frustration. And I think the fact that fights go almost exactly the same every single time just adds to the frustration because, well, repetition is usually frustrating on its own let alone in a group setting.

It would just be nice if there was more variance in mechanics overall. Meaningful resistances for both players and bosses. Functional CC that could add more support from a class and change strategies. Mechanics that punish mistakes by forcing a change of plan, the use of cooldowns or spells you weren't planning on for instance, and in turn make the fight harder and longer but don't necessarily illicit a "just wipe" from the group because you'll never recover before the next phase pops so just start over.

People dont even have the skill to simply memorize and dodge how the hell are they going to manage all that. There will be alot more frustrations. lol

[Cap75]

People dont even have the skill to simply memorize and dodge how the hell are they going to manage all that. There will be alot more frustrations. lol

Most people react far better than they memorize and enjoy reactive dynamics moreso, hence the extreme popularity of shooters in general and online shooters specifically. And more options allow people to customize their playstyle to something that suits them. Those more adept players in the group can cover the mistakes of others, even if it may drag out the fight. Too many mistakes should always mean certain failure of course but variance would be nice and more thinking on your feet, as opposed to simply executing the same strategy each time, is something i think a lot of people would welcome.