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

[Ramzal]

I agree with the op. While the fights can be fun, it is ultimately frustrating to get to second coil and hit a brick wall because of players that do not understand the mechanics of a fight. And while the general solution to that is typically "Kick that guy and find someone else", it seems to me that's a great way to diminish the player base by excluding others. If the game were more rewarding for skill of using your job correctly and not so much mechanic heavy, so many people probably wouldn't leave. T6 for example, if you have a member that doesn't quite understand that breaking the vines come before doing damage or how to position themselves to not be devoured that can hold back the party.

They can be the best in the world at doing damage as a black mage/summoner/bard/dragoon/monk but if they don't understand the movements then they will never progress. Honestly, it's a cheap way to reward thrills and effort. Not saying mechanics should go away altogether but they shouldn't be as important as they are now.

[Raenryong]

snip

But your playing skill is how you adapt and handle the mechanics. To remove them means you're effectively hitting a training dummy, which has almost zero skill investment or fight variation.

[Litre]

They can be the best in the world at doing damage as a black mage/summoner/bard/dragoon/monk but if they don't understand the movements then they will never progress. Honestly, it's a cheap way to reward thrills and effort. Not saying mechanics should go away altogether but they shouldn't be as important as they are now.

I agree, but second coil is not the best example, I think the normal story line should be more forgiving and definitely needs to be looked at "for over-reliance on mechanics" - top-tier raids/dungeons on the other hand should remain hard for months before there is gear good enough to recover from some insta-kill mechanics.

[Litre]

But your playing skill is how you adapt and handle the mechanics. To remove them means you're effectively hitting a training dummy, which has almost zero skill investment or fight variation.

I don't call memorization of a completely scripted battle as skill or fight variation. If anything, in FFXIV the only time you'll be adapting to anything is if a pre-scripted mechanic hits someone who was careless and you have to raise them while juggling healing, push the phase, compensate the DPS loss, etc... And yes this requires skill, and you'll be able to show off just how good you are, if only that nasty mechanic didn't kill half your party and silence the other half.

If someone screws up, but having good gear was able to compensate for that, wouldn't that be a benefit? What's wrong with that? It gives you a damn good reason to strive for better gear, if the other reasons weren't enough.

[Litre]

gear should help but it should be a secondary factor not a primary one

Turn 4 is a moot point, but this quote is exactly the problem! See GEAR SHOULD HELP, that's the problem, it doesn't - it barely even matters! Most of the most frustrating fights are won and lost because someone else made a mistake and the unforgiving mechanics wiped the party. So right now, as long as you have basic gear, gear is not even a factor, let alone a secondary factor. The OP is complaining that this game is 90% mechanics, 10% gear, when really it should be 60/40 or maybe 70/30 at higher levels/end-game top-tier raids etc.



So turn 4:

The fight [turn 4] is pure tank and spank gear check no more, no less. Of course it helps if you know your role(rotations, when to use cooldowns etc) but the same happens in every single fight in this game.

Why was it mentioned as a good balance? Well I saw you initially write "this game is too easy" before you edited it, but regardless it's subjective right. I know many people who struggled in Turn 4, there are some mechanics not a lot, phases too, but also a good DPS check. And yes the same happens in every single fight (like many other bosses), but when people screw up the mechanics you could compensate and still pull through...

If the OT screwed up and couldn't grab a soldier, a black mage could even pull a hero and manawall kite it a bit! How was that not awesome, nothing mechanics based really insta-killed you. I've even tanked 2 dreads with 1 healer for 30s once with perfect buff rotation and won, or as OT if a healer died Hallow Ground and backup SS the MT for 10s while DPS finish off the 2nd dread.

Ask yourself this, people find Turn 4 easier than Titan EX, even though Turn 4 is meant to be further in the game, is that right? Why? Because when things go wrong in Turn 4, the better skilled players can compensate, in Titan EX they can't do anything except watch helplessly.

[Folsom]

Part of the post doesn't really make any sense, trying to separate "boss mechanics" and "player mechanics." I am unconvinced that a switch to more focus on being able to master a DPS, tanking or healing rotation (which rely just as much on memory or reaction as scripting does, since you're either doing a rotation, using a priority system, or playing whack-a-mole, which is all healing becomes if scripted mechanics are replaced with randomness or tank-and-spank) is going to be significantly more fun, especially considering that repeatedly doing the same thing more often makes you more bored than less often. So if there's more focus on keeping up DoTs as a Summoner, for example, Summoners will then get bored and complain that their rotation isn't complex enough and fights are too boring, etc.

The simple fact is, what you do to accomplish your role's goal with the buttons on your bar are mechanics. What the bosses do to damage you are mechanics. Shifting more focus from one to the other sounds like it might increase fun, but chances are it will neither make the game more nor less fun (because you'll be doing the same sharing of boss and player mechanics when you do a fight again, rather than mostly boss mechanics or mostly player mechanics, but it's not going to change significantly in future fights with any particular boss) and just be a novelty for a bit for people who aren't used to it.

Finally, anyone who has used Raid Finder in WoW or used the Duty Finder for CT will also know that frustration for all but the hardcore players (who become frustrated for different reasons, but tend not to use random match-making as much) will come when players can now work fine with simpler or less focus on mechanics, but can't, for the life of them, meet a DPS check even with fancy gear.

The feeling that there is a problem automatically causes people to think of things they don't like, and then label that thing "the problem," when often, the problem is actually something different. Perhaps the problem with "end game" is that there isn't enough variety in content, and because of that, people feel like they have to do particular things, like Extreme Primals and BCB2, which is content they might not like. So they blame that content for failure to satisfy, all while assuming that because they don't like it, "the majority" of people also don't, and identify things that frustrate them in that content. However, it's clear that other people do like the content, and that changing "the mechanics" would just trade off on alienating people. So the answer might not be that mechanics need to be changed or different, but more content for different players needs to be introduced.

That, unfortunately, is a tough thing to expect of developers. They can only produce so much content at once, and so it will necessarily be limited in some way. That doesn't mean they don't recognize it might be a problem and try to deliver more variety in the future.

[Ramzal]

But your playing skill is how you adapt and handle the mechanics. To remove them means you're effectively hitting a training dummy, which has almost zero skill investment or fight variation.

I didn't say remove them. In fact I noted that they shouldn't be removed but they shouldn't be the main focus of progression.

Not saying mechanics should go away altogether but they shouldn't be as important as they are now.

[TohruHonda]

Never understood serious players, and now one of them writes a 4000 word essay on the state of this game? Baffling.

[Raenryong]

snip

The more mechanical fights (such as T6/T7) are scripted, but the victims of abilities frequently changes, requiring different responses - adaptation. T7 has the nice "ramping difficulty" aspect with the arena becoming more dangerous as the fight progresses (and petrifaction being added). Mechanics being very deadly add a punishment for failure, as they should. If you could just ignore mechanics or power through failing them, they may as well not exist.

Gear does help a great deal, it just doesn't guarantee you victory from the outset.

I don't even know why people are complaining about mechanics suddenly - even Coil 2 is very mechanics-light compared to most MMOs... you haven't seen anything yet!

[Silvanoshi]

100% Agree.