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

[Rubeus_Carcer]

Can we get back on topic before we all start wearing white powdered wigs?

For the record, a lot of those "logical fallacy" arguments? You're using them incorrectly.

[Darske]

I do have to agree with OSU about disbanding groups being incredibly frustrating. However, I feel like this is a problem that stems from the community more than it does the game design itself.

I mean, when you have 60 mins left, you've gotten really close a few times, and then the vote disband comes up after two or three attempts, it seems to me that it's a negative mindset a lot of players seem to get into. To raise a parallel to another game, it's sort of like how there are players in League of Legends where one or two things go wrong and they immediately begin spamming surrender because they have given up on victory, and feel it's a waste of time to even try once something goes wrong.

What this mindset stems from, I honestly couldn't say, but it both puzzles and vexes me every time I see it. It's like there's this huge chunk of gamers who just can't rise to a challenge.

[Rosy]

snip.

Yup, nobody these days seems willing to stay on and try, try, try again, which is frustrating....unless of course you are fortunate enough to be in a static, which is another can of worms. It's the first game I've played where "statics" are almost required. I prefer to do things with guildies not strangers in a static.

[Rosy]

What I find unacceptable about FFXIV mechanics is that they have the most appalling servers I have ever had the displeasure to play an mmorpg on, yet the majority of mechanics require that you dodge stuff. In other games you dodge and you're out...you're OUT, in this game you may or may not be...all according to server lag, so what you see on your screen is not what is actually happening.

In fact it's the only game I've played where people see DIFFERENT things on their screen, we used to often laugh in CT when we're on TS, as one member would say "I'm in the lead!" as we raced to the next boss, whereas another member would say "no you're not you're sitting in 3rd"....minions...the wolf pup and coerl pup who interact with each other, everybody sees them doing something totally different on their screen. I'm not sure if this is something to do with server lag, but if you see you're out of something you have to dodge, I can bet that somebody would have seen you standing slap bang in the middle of it.

There is absolutely no way to 100% ensure you have dodged something unless you react in advance (and as many have said, learn the rotations) reaction to situations is irrelevant in this game, you have to know what's coming next and in all honesty that makes a game boring. Learning anything by rote is boring....something that should be left in school, not part of a game.

[Cap75]

The main issue I find with nearly completely scripted fights is they feel less like fights and more a puzzle game. There feels like there's minimal player agency. We're always reacting but the thing you're fighting only reacts at prescribed moments in the fight.

In the best boss fights in recent games like the Soul series or Dragon's Dogma there's a risk/reward strategy in play. I know, these games are vastly different in design, but I think some of the mechanics could be borrowed. Even simple things: a ranged player is doing ungodly damage so the boss does a move that closes the gap. Against melee maybe it has a grab or a way to increase the gap. And maybe said moves leave it open to a different kind of attack. It would be cool if there were more proactive measures players could take rather than constantly reactive ones. The by product of which usually also means there ends up being more than one (okay, sometimes two) strategies to any given fight.

[Roris]

LOL, wut?!

You heard me, I like it because it's not a boring, strict, heavily scripted fight. Most fights in this game are like this, mostly a not as entirely accurate but still accurate enough Second Coil comparison:

In phase 1 A will always happen every 15 seconds, B will always happen at HP%, C will always spawn at HP% or time and you have to burn it really fast, when D happens at another HP% you always have to move to X or Y position.
In phase 2 E and F will happen at the same time every 30 seconds on top of previous mechanics, at a determinate time or HP% G will happen so you have to move to X or Y position
In phase 3 A and B will stop happening but H will start happening on top of previous mechanics, when I happens you have to move really quickly to Z position

Moogle EX is like this:

On phase 1, A and B can happen.
On phase 2 A, B, C, D and E can happen in any order and you have to act accordingly.
On phase 3 A, B, C, D, E, F and G can happen in any order, on phase 2 end it's better to move to X but not entirely necessary
On phase 4 A, B, C , D , E, F, G and H can happen in any order and you have to act accordingly, phase end is dictated by the players and you have to react accordingly.

Does the first example take more skill? I guess, but it sure is more mechanized and unfun. Should more fights in this game be more randomized? Not really but I wish, if they were as well or even better randomized. Keep the precious moving and dodging but don't make stuff always happen at the same time every time. Add more stun and silence opportunities to cancel certain attacks, even Pacification or Dispel if that was a real thing for most classes and not just a Monk ability that's only somewhat useful for PvP. Reacting to stuff as it goes is just more fun for me than following a set script, as long as give enough leeway and time to do it to compensate for the inherent latency of MMOs, like this game really doesn't.

Yeah yeah, "I'm good everyone else is bad so this would never work" or "well that's just like your opinion and I like the first example more so that's that", sure hope no one really uses that as an argument.

[kukurumei]

For all the blame, of lag, or whatever excuse, the sad fact is it's still 90% excecution. I see a lot of Titan EX fight that go "arrggh stupid lag" or whatever reason....is sadly stupid excuse to shift the blame trying to brute force dodging with reaction and fail miserably when it's excution problem.

example:
Most common wipe: Landslide row bombs

player eyes: blame lag for their wipe, flame the boards
My eyes: bad execution for not baiting landslide middle that forces players into a no-win tight dodge situation, their own fault for wiping

This is what usually happens in fights. Sure some mechanics are pretty brutal, but they are in fact many times player executed poorly and they just won't admit it.

Extremes are suppose to be EXTREME.

The one problem here is that ARR whether in lack of content, or unbalance in content, has turn into a community where everything is "easy", and then when people fail "easy" stuff, they decry it's not fun because it's not "easy".

This naming creep is bad, and perhaps too much community abuse problem. Not winning on an extreme, coil, etc, should be the normal. But people think they can walk in a few times with randoms and win, worse this whole echo thing expects them to steam roll.

again Extreme.

[OSUBuckeye4]

This naming creep is bad, and perhaps too much community abuse problem. Not winning on an extreme, coil, etc, should be the normal. But people think they can walk in a few times with randoms and win, worse this whole echo thing expects them to steam roll.

again Extreme.

It's extreme, but, it's required for progression (to what many say is easier "extreme" content)...... that is a bit of a problem.

If a developer wants to put stuff with unforgiveable mechanics in, but make it brick wall content, I say that's fine. By brick wall, I mean that you get a title or minion or mount or something otherwise inconsequental for defeating it. I have no problem with that, and I bet others wouldn't either.

To put really difficult stuff out there, and then require people to beat it in order to view other storyline elements, is kind of ridiculous.

The brutal mode stuff that is coming up, I have no intentions of being able to defeat it. I'll probably give it a few tries when I'm bored, but, I will expect to fail. I'm not going to complain about that content, because, defeating it isn't required to progess towards additional content. I won't feel like I'm missing anything as I wipe over and over to it.


Titan EX is (at least it was) required to progess on to Ifrit/Moogle/Leviathian, that's kind of a problem. What happens is that you get a percentage of the playerbase that grinds away at the content, defeats it, and then never wants to run it again. That leaves another percentage of the population in the dust and a lot of people just end up quiting because they get the feeling they will never catch up. (I'm not quiting, but others in my FC have because they felt like they would never be able to find a static to progress through T5... let alone T6+)


Before I get completely flamed with QQ garbage... I'm really not trying to boo hoo hoo cry about this, just pointing out what I'm seeing on my server with my friends.

Personally, I'm a very patient person. I know that there is always something else in game that I could be doing. There's leves to be run, dailies to be done, roulettes to undertake, sub-classes to level up (I started after 2.1)... a lot of people don't have my level of patience though.

They see a "beat this in order to progess to the next big thing" sign and they fail 50 times (doing the same thing over and over) and say something along the lines of, "eff it I hate watching other people screw up, this is boring" and leave.

It's just poor game design on the part of SE to make something so difficult for such a large percentage of the server required for progression. And to make it the same scripted battle over and over again... it's just yuck.

[Gormogon]

For all the blame, of lag, or whatever excuse, the sad fact is it's still 90% excecution. I see a lot of Titan EX fight that go "arrggh stupid lag" or whatever reason....is sadly stupid excuse to shift the blame trying to brute force dodging with reaction and fail miserably when it's excution problem.

It's also a fact that is does happen. People do stream and others do record their gameplay and upload it. This http://youtu.be/OUVdRFGracY?t=30s does happen to player. I don't know why you act like it's some made up excuse. Especially when a fight like Titan has WotL and Landslide go off constantly throughout the fight which only increases the chances of that happening to players even though they can react yet it doesn't register.

Putting up with that kinda bs with any 1 shot mechanic is pretty frustrating for players because it's not their lack of skill that's in question but having to deal with latency issues.

[Vahlnir]

-snip-

I agree with you on this, though I believe problems stemming from a lack of coordination or experience (possibly skill depending on the player) are much more common than the lag issues. Don't get me wrong, there are people who genuinely have issues with their connection and it's understandable. It does make it harder on the player experiencing the lag as well as the people they are grouped with. But in my experience the bigger problem is people lacking raid awareness.