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

[Litre]

Even in FF XIV 1.0 (like Ifrit Extreme) it was more forgiving, but still MORE challenging than 2.0's Ifrit Extreme. I remember a few runs in random /shout parties in 1.0, where we had 4 - 5 deaths (back then, we also had people who could use a Raise GC Item), and we were still able to recover and kill Ifrit EX. That wouldn't be possible in 2.0.

Another great point is the feeling that if you're a good enough player (or have enough of them), that they can "combine" and overcome a few mistakes from lesser-skilled players and still have success for the whole party.

Totally agree, without this feeling, there is a less of a community because older players can't efficiently help newer players.

[Alkimi]

Even in FF XIV 1.0 (like Ifrit Extreme) it was more forgiving, but still MORE challenging than 2.0's Ifrit Extreme. I remember a few runs in random /shout parties in 1.0, where we had 4 - 5 deaths (back then, we also had people who could use a Raise GC Item), and we were still able to recover and kill Ifrit EX. That wouldn't be possible in 2.0.

1.0's Ifrit Ex was not challenging in the way you would expect. The only difficulty in that fight was fighting the unresponsive UI and horrible servers. 2.0's Ifrit Ex only has 1 insta-wipe mechanic, failing to kill nails in time, exactly the same as 1.0. You can also recover fine from many deaths in the new version and still win.

[Xine]

Pretty much agree with the entire post, there's absolutely nothing challenging with a scripted predetermined fight when you know exactly what a boss or group of mobs are about to do. Once you've memorized it, you can eventually get it down to the point of being able to do the entire fight without being hit once. But in all honesty, screw scripted fights, I'd rather have the old fights from FFXI back where its either kill it or be killed, none of this dodge or die crap anymore.

I loved the idea of being able to do content with as many or few people as I wanted, hell I used to dualbox Salvage around the time I quit FFXI because I could and it was easy simply due to the immense difference in content lv vs my own lv and gear/skill. What actually got me to quitting FFXI, was the fact I couldn't do half of the harder content because the people who were able to do it weren't there anymore or their group(s) were full already. On top of the fact that the relics and empyrean weapons I managed to make were made useless at the release of SoA.

Adding ilvs to REMDs and other gear in XI is what killed the game for me since it was forced on the game after it'd been around for so long already. Item Levels are a part of XIV and have been since it's re-release which is fine, but I can't stand not being able to do content because a majority of the players who do play the game can't handle it, or better yet, someone's computer/system or internet can't handle the fight and causes wipes, looking at you Titan EX. I don't consider myself an elitist/hardcore gamer, nor do I expect other people to be able to dodge every single thing in the game, let alone memorize every single attack pattern of every single boss fight in the game just to clear anything....that's just plain retarded.

The coil group that I used to have which disbanded due to one or more people not wanting to really learn the new content (SCoB t1) was a fun group and all, but some of the people couldn't handle learning and executing the proper movements to be able to dodge certain mechanics in t5, so it took the group something like 2-3 months of practicing the fight to finally be able to clear it once and in all honesty it was nothing but pure luck, mostly due to connections working properly to a point and a decent recovery. But they took one attempt in SCoB t1 (t6) and it was a complete and utter failure, managed to see phase2 for a brief 5 seconds before wiping. But what did I hear the entire time over TeamSpeak? "The mechanics aren't fun" and they're right, its not fun learning brand new mechanics for every single boss fight in the game that's released simply to memorize a specific rotation of skills that a boss/mobs uses throughout the fight until it dies. This isn't content, this is a game of memory that honestly not everyone can handle, that is NOT what endgame should be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I hate the game, I actually enjoy it a lot and I'll give props to the dev team for being able to revive a game that was practically considered dead. But I think they may want to replay FFXI and a few other games back around the time they were really good and do a bit more thinking before adding some more "end-game content". However at the same time, the endgame content is rather dull and boring since its nothing but "learn boss rotation" and win. Tank and spank can be boring, but I enjoy seeing how quickly I can kill something in the game and trying to beat personal records, then again I'm also a DPS so obviously I enjoy DPS checks.

[Naiser]

+1 support for OP. Do away with the one hit kill effects but retain the mechanics. Let it deal some major debuff that would test the skills of the team in using their jobs.

For example, healer gets stoned in T7. The other healer needs to buck up and other players need to watch for AOE moves to interrupt (yeah requires the team to avoid stun spamming to avoid stun resistance) to keep stoned player alive.

In T5, stepping into a Twister throws the player high into the air and he\\'ll drop with 1hp left. The team is inconvenienced for maybe 2 GCDs, team has to compensate for this dynamically. If OT gets thrown, MT or DPS helps with stunning of DK. Healer stand by to big heal player when he lands.

I\\'d also like to see new end game dungeon crawlers instead of the current arcade game style raids. These dungeons should test players on their ability to play their jobs well, instead of reacting to one hit kill gimmicks.

[KoujiMoreno]

I\\'d also like to see new end game dungeon crawlers instead of the current arcade game style raids. These dungeons should test players on their ability to play their jobs well, instead of reacting to one hit kill gimmicks.

No. This is what SE wants. They knew this going into the game.

[Chayala]

I agree with a good amount of what the OP talks about. I quit and unsubbed months and months ago. This was caused by my leading the third coil group in or FC when it got big enough that we needed it. A dubious honor at best. And I got burned out and I will explain why in a way that relates to the OP.
I did not want to pay monthly to do the equivalent of the combined task of herding cats while having them perform synchronized swimming. The claw marks and headaches were not worth the possible feline Olympic medals.

Due to the fact that I was the third coil group to be made I had to take our members who were the least talented and couldn't cut it for the other groups. This made me log on less and less. As we lost members who just couldn't do it, or who were grabbed for the other coil groups or times for people didn't sync up we'd end up with 4 core people who showed constantly who were awesome. 1 person who was awesome but her schedule was a little shaky. 1 who showed up who did her best. She honest to god did, but had a lot of problems.

Due to the limited number of people in our FC who were good enough to do coil and other end game content without being dragged through by force(This said as a paladin and warrior who ilvl 55 weapon tanked through HM titan for both relics early on) we had to start trying to recruit people on a Legacy server. We'd make huge progress with two people,. then lose them. We had some people switch their main jobs to accommodate strategies and assist with recruiting(Much props to Cupcake and Urd if they read these boards still). But each time we lost the non FC people who'd want a group that got frustrated at some of our turn 4 failures(Which included our 1 ok healer screwing up and their own mistakes mostly) or who ended up having schedule changes it would set us back weeks as we'd recruit and them get the new members up to speed.

Now why did I type all that? Because I'm going to break it down to how the OP brings up all those problems.

1a) Setting the groups as they have now is too stifling. There is no creativity or even ROOM for it with the lack of classes that feel different. People talk about the good ole XI. There was some good to it. One thing even old FFXI had that nobody really credits is that all monsters had a "Desperation" type AI in that they fought more tenaciously depending on how their health got (Less HP left more often they'd use TP attacks). Everything is do things exactly how others do to win with the only changes made after wipes. IMO one of the best games before it got muddled by EA was actually DAoC. Even though it's focus on PVP was the primary part of it and totally awesome, you had PVE encounters that were the SECONDARY part of the game but were fun and had multiple ways to deal with it. DPS tanks? Yep. Look at blademaster/Mercenary. pet tanks? Yep. Every pet class but hunters. All games have mechanics. The OP doesn't say mechanics are bad. The OP basically says that mechanics for the sake of mechanics are bad. Challenging can be fun. I wouldn't have beat Fire Emblem: Awakening on Lunatic+ if it wasn't(Although I'll admit I turned it off many times before i threw my 3ds against a wall on the path to that victory. Also I think I'm less sane than when I started it).

1b) Side note here. FFXI was not perfect but people are always so quick to judge it harshly. They're also too quick to damn every expansion past what the thought was "the real" game. I'll admit, sky farming was more about socializing than any real challenge unless you did it lowman. No arguments. Most of the BCNM's were pretty fun esp the story ones. Bone parties involving white mages and monks? Fun as hell. Nin/rng/rng/rng/rng/rdm static? That was just fun to heal. Divine might was brought up and to this day I still feel badass when I hear the Warrior's of the Crystal. But NM's? Hated the waiting back then, hated it when I had to do them for my Ukko's in aby. I feel Abysea had some of the most interesting and diverse content especially before the 99 level cap increase. I hear they even give out a bunch of the great Atmas free now. Although would be hard to get groups for the procs now so I guess that's ok. But before the caps were raised the monsters there were unique and if you had skill you could low man them. Or you could take your whole LS and beat stuff up. But you still had procs and other stuff. The expansions from Promy+ were amazing in groupable content and kept learning from previous expansions. Even Zilart which was the equivalent of 2.0, had a lot of VERY interesting fights, gear that you coudl get through both NM farming, crafting or HNM/sky. Or BCNM. The point was OPTIONS even when Zilart first came out. Make no mistake, this game is a Realm Reborn. It pretty much IS the first expansion.

2) At least on my server my friends list plummeted before I quit which was a major factor in me quitting. I'd meet good players. I'd meet great players. I'd meet excellent players. I'd friend them all and group with them for stuff that was applicable. IE at the time I would not take 7 good players to titan HM. Maybe 3-4 and hope that all but 1 can dodge. At first I was fairly successful and happy at pulling my friends list people into coil but many of them stopped playing because just having coil was a pretty piss poor thing for most of them since they were relic and everything already. Guess that's partially our fault for being Legacy characters and having supported the game before it came out as 2.0. But in the end almost all of them just stopped logging on. People I had fun with and grouped with just disappeared. To say people aren't quitting is false. There may be new people coming into the game but think very carefully on if they're going to stay and why they might leave. Did people before them leave? Why. I left because the game was too stressful and I wasn't having fun but I felt responsible to continue doing coil with my FC while i still played(Self imposed and probably foolish but aren't we all foolish?). This is a truth you can all ignore or deny but it doesn't make it any less true. Less players = less money. Less money = less of everything. I still come to this board every once in a while to see if things are changing. I want this game to succeed and I want to maybe come back someday but I've got entirely too many other games I can play and things to do that it's not worth the stress as of now. One thing I am noticing is less voices of reason and more people who just shoot off from the hip acting like jerks to anyone who hasn't done what they've done or looks down on everyone. People who agree or disagree with the OP, that's fine. People who are jerks about it and don't add anything to the convo but keep insulting people you're laughable. If you want a complicated game, and want to be truly "Elite" in the real sense of the gaming word, go to EQ. App to Triton on Povar-Rodcet-Quellius. Make it to members and we'll talk about being "Elite" or "Hardcore". Been there, done that. Some of the most skilled gamers I know in that guild but they'd rip most people to pieces.

3) This partially ties in to 2, loss of a member of a static often leads to trying to find someone who can fill that role. I knew Turn 5 wasn't going to beat itself. I knew that just because we cleared turn 4 before didn't mean we'd get it with 2 fresh no 50's in the group who hadn't played with us before. But god forbid with ragequit mindset this game has that someone make a mistake on turn 1. Or turn 2. Keep this in mind, we had a few weeks where we'd do turn 2/3 without a single wipe. No wipe on Cad either. But you can sure as hell bet we SOMEHOW wiped on ADS because we were just getting warmed up, some of us were distracted or someone lagged. Now with the people I went with we laughed it up and then went to beat up the snake. But many people would ragequit out of a group that did that. As a matter of fact we had a bard ragequit our because they didn't silence once on one of those wipes(With the other bard DCing when power went out and me as the paladin tank having only one silence). We repped them and moved on. Things happen. And while this was a case purely bad luck and a terrible pug, unless you're able to sell wins to certain fights you often aren't geared enough to carry 2 people. Now you might think "Well just get more people." But the thing is, if the other 6 people can't say do stuff that picks up the slack for people from the get go you have those 6 people constantly wiping. They get frustrated because where we breezed through stuff before we now were limping again and waiting on people to learn. People then showed up late or decided to 'accidentally' get grabbed by the older more established Coil groups. When I left a number of other people had already prepared me for the possibility that they were likely to quit soon so I was also looking for possible reps for them. I then dumped that on our Drg who took over. But it's a domino effect. Having wiggle room in a fight does NOT mean it has to be easy. There is nothing truly inspired by the fights. Nothing really new unless you count the lag some people had(Thankfully I didn't know anyone with the always on super lag that some people complained about). but back to that point, you now have a Coil group of 6. It became a coil group of 4. That had lost it's main tank and a Bard / white mage. I honestly dunno if the group is still going but if it's not that's one less group of people doing stuff. I know the other tank was thinking about quitting and if you lose both tanks and are down that much you're probably looking at the death of a group. And while we had some great players we also had some great people in that group who were willing to help/recruit people and provided they put the effort in run with them. Each less group of people that leaves is one less opportunity for newer people hitting endgame to break in.

4) Hardcore. I've raided in just about every game i've played. The most true hardcore raiding was in DAoC vs other players. They were the most challenging opponents. Here everyone calls themselves hardcore if they can dodge some mechanics and pull a simple rotation. I you want to do something that any bot could do more power to you. And saying there were no mechanics to the turn 4 means you never tanked or healed it in all likelyhood because you needed to know when the mechanics of spiders and spinner Rooks and the wonderful kill order for your group on the knights and such. The thing is though, that fight over time will become clearable by anyone according to gear and echo upgrades. Now for people who get pissed at that, I ask... Why? It's old. Nobody cares. People did it months ago. I did it months and months ago when I still played. It was a challenge then and you could actually make up for things there with amazing gameplay and correct rotations of cooldowns(Skill with your job rather than dancing). Regardless of calling into question Turn 4's difficulty before all the new gear that's out now, does someone doing it with echo stacks and gear that outshines anything that could have been gotten back when you did it diminish what you did if you beat it when it was still 'hard'? Does you having breakfast in the morning and living a comfortable life in the winter with clean water and comforts diminish the achievements of the people who came before us who didn't have such things? No. It doesn't. It's like you complaining someone got a 2008 Cobalt for less than you. When you bought it back when it was brand new, and they're getting it with 80k miles on it with some moderate use. I dunno why I picked that but my friend does own a 2008 although it's not a Cobalt but I did see one that beat up as hell at the VA today).

5) Looking at the OP as a whole rather than just picking points out, and saying "They want an easy game anyone can do" they're more saying that they want a game that people can play, have fun with and encourages a social experience without killing the challenge for the people who enjoy it while giving them the rewards for that challenge. They don't want people driven off by a lack of things to do. And for all the people talking about "casual content" Beast man Dailies, chocobo leveling and other crap wasn't fun. Never will be fun. Makes me want to kick a puppy. Just because a person CAN do something doesn't mean they should or will want to. Does everyone here want to go watch moss grow on a rock outside? It's casual. Anyone can do it. Not fun, but it's an option. And that's the SAME thing you idiots who won't even have a constructive conversation are saying.

And that's me being done again for a few months. To those who were constructive but disagreed with some parts of the OP. Litre is one who shows a great deal of thought and respect to those he talks to and seems to consider both sides of the argument. There are others on both sides of the argument who were also respectful and it gives me some hope but for now, I'm betting the game is even more toxic than when I left with rage quits and trolls as far as the eye can see. So with that, I bid you all good day if this thing will stop logging me out for some unknown damned reason.

[PandaOnAcid]

They have nerfed coil mechanics in the past, like High Voltage being cleansable, and probably the first set of T5 nerfs that I don't really remember well.

I can probably see them making it so Esuna/Leeches can remove T7's petrification and stuff like that in the future.

[Naiser]

It's not so much about nerfing content but more about offering a new end game challenge build around testing players' ability to play their jobs well as opposed to dodging one shot kill mechanisms.

It could be about content that need tanks to know how to put up the best hate best damage mitigation while generating high snap aggro.

It could be about content that need healers to clear debuffs fast. Or DPS using their utility skills to disrupt enemy moves or debuff the boss.

It could be a randomised dungeon crawl filled with deadly enemies...

Just do away with the irrecoverable one hit kill.

[TinyRedLeaf]

So lets reiterate this again, get off your high horse, what's easy for you is not for others.

(1)
Less-skilled players? Who are we talking about here, remember Yoshida said under 5% of the player-base has beaten Turn 5. Yes so the PROs, you are skilled, and the less-skilled are the mainstream players. You are completely overlooking a large swath of players who tried Titan once and said "this isn't fun".

What do you mean by win in waves based on skill? You think they will keep regrouping, practicing and attempting it at the current difficulty, until there are enough people it reaches critical mass and then a wave of players beat it? Wrong, perhaps a few, but others will just quit (what we don't want). You don't know it, but you are coming off as really elitist, like you can't understand why it's so hard for others simply because you find it so easy.

(2)
But newsflash, I know a lot of people, who don't like that level of challenge.. They are playing the game for the story line and the experience, and when they beat it, they are happy to play on easy/normal mode.

At the current rate, we will simply bleed casual players until all we have left are your regular MMO players, it won't be Final Fantasy anymore. Just another MMO with FF style.

Firstly, a BIG thank you to EmiliM for translating an extremely well-thought post by a Japanese player, and for stimulating a highly constructive discussion among the community.

Secondly, an even BIGGER thank you to Litre for reiterating the two key points I quoted above.

I suppose that I qualify as a "casual" player, in that my key focus in playing any RPG, be it single-player or an MMO, is to experience the story. This has always been the reason that I love the Final Fantasy franchise so much — it gave me a whole new way of looking at gaming. Games like FFX and FFVI, for example, showed me how video games could actually be a valid platform for storytelling, just like the tabletop, pen-and-paper RPGs of old.

That's not to say that I don't feel that games shouldn't be challenging. If they're too easy, then they're boring, and quite frankly, not fun. Also, I'm fully aware that I'm playing with other people when I play an MMORPG like FFXIV, and that gives me further motivation to do the best I can, in whatever role I choose, because I don't want to be the guy who wastes other people's time by my lack of prepardness.

==============

But I'd be the first to openly admit that I'll never be as "good" as a hardcore gamer with hours upon hours of previous experience in other games. Simply because that's just not the kind of gamer I am. I play for the story and role-play experience, and I don't particularly care about being "elite" or "uber". I just want to be good enough to make sure that I pull my weight.

And the way things are right now, I just can't get past Turn 5, simply because of bad luck. I've been stuck there since mid-April, having started playing the game regularly from last Christmas. And it's not for the lack of trying. It's simply the case that even if I get my role correct, there's bound to be one guy or another who doesn't.

I would love to stick it out to the end with the raid group, but sooner or later, those who are more experienced would simply throw up their arms in frustration and vote to abandon after two or three failures. I respect their decision but, inside, I'm saddened by the clear lack of solidarity to help the less-experienced players pull through.

Up until Turn 5, I've been able to complete major milestones at a steady clip, all the way through Turns 1 to 4. And it was this sense of steady progression that made me want to continue playing.

And the challenge level was still there back in mid-April, sufficient enough that the first pick-up raid group that I did Turn 4 with eventually abandoned it after three failed rounds.

Now, though, I don't feel like it's worth continuing any more, at least until the expansion comes around to give me sufficient story-based content to bother. Because I'm stuck, and I don't feel like there's a point to keep bashing my head against an obstacle that exists not entirely because of my own shortcomings.

So, yes, I do hope that Yoshida and his developers take not of this major post and consider a greater variety of end-game content that will satisfy not just the hardcore gamers, but also casuals like me. I don't want nerfed content. But I do want content that doesn't punish players so severely for simply not being able to follow a set script.

[kog985]

The important point that the writer want to point out is the game mechanics currently are really "scripted", which isn't good at all. He (or she) doesn't say want to nerf or make the game more and more casual.