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

[Jacost]

Titan EX is a terrible difficulty spike. Everything after him up to T5 is easier than he is, the difficulty curve should be more level. Even just swapping the difficulty levels of Titan-EX and Ifrit-EX would make this less egregious.

[Lemon8or]

Titan EX is a terrible difficulty spike. Everything after him up to T5 is easier than he is, the difficulty curve should be more level. Even just swapping the difficulty levels of Titan-EX and Ifrit-EX would make this less egregious.

Ifrit EX is a joke yes. T5 is not after Titan EX. It's after Titan HM since you need to clear Titan HM to unlock Coil. Titan EX is somewhere around same level of progression as first Coil since they both drop i90.

[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.

[Gormogon]

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.

I prefer to call it situational awareness. Yet I agree I see it happen a lot in MOBA's where someone's going across the screen despite there being wards they can't react to it. Some times those players react to that visual awareness, but others rely on pings, texts, or over VoIP to realize what's happening around them.

Yet as far as the fights in FFXIV I time VoiP is really needed is with Twintania's Twisters since there's no focus target where you can keep track of what Twintania is casting. The rest of the VoIP chat regarding the rotation coming up is mainly there to help players be aware that it's gonna happen within the next few seconds and to move accordingly.

[Vahlnir]

I prefer to call it situational awareness.

Situational...that was the word I was looking for which eluded me. Didn't really think of it this way either but again I agree that everyone handles various situations differently, all we can really do though is give them options. What they do with them is a different story. Not really a fan of voice chats because it isn't all that necessary, but there are times when it helps a lot.

[Nero]

VoiP is really needed is with Twintania's Twisters since there's no focus target where you can keep track of what Twintania is casting.

/focustarget

You are welcome.

[Goodberry]

This game has 2000 hours of casual content and 2 hours of hardcore content, and the developers are catering to the elitists? Are you for real?

Without some difficult content, this is a Final Fantasy-flavored Second Life. Nobody should want that.



Patch 2.3 is Casual Gamer Catering: The Patch. Are we playing the same game?

Obviously we aren't. I don't even think we live in the same world. :P

[Kuwagami]

I want to take you more seriously, but your entire concept of acceptable mechanics appears to be adds and AOE attacks.

Are you just messing with me? Do you want another chance to come up with some better examples?

The examples weren't here to give "acceptable mechanics". They are fun fights at some point, but they tend to turn extremely easy after a time (at least for hydra and chimera).

The point was that a fight should not be
"Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > Mechanic > end of boss"
Or, to explain it better, these mechanics should not just come one after an other every 5 seconds with no room to do anything else. Coil2 is pretty much "Follow the path the devs have set or die" and I can't think of anything which can go out of this path. You still have the choice in your party set-up, but that's pretty much all.

In moggle ex, you have choice for pretty much everything (assuming the enrage timer doesn't start at pull, I'm not sure of that) : order to weaken the minions, when you change phases, how you tank the boss (titan egi shines there)






Sorry, I'm at a point where I can't find more words to explain what I want to say. I'll say one thing and hope it achieves to be understandable, wether people agree or not :
one shot mechanics are fine, as long as they are not overused.
A fight should not be :
insta-kill > insta-kill > insta-kill > super hard hitting unavoidable hit > insta-kill > repeat.

Nor it should be :
weak Aoe > adds > medium Aoe > weak Aoe > repeat. (

The first allows no room for error and becomes quickly boring if you can't find consistent players, or after a few consistent wins (doing the same exact dance everytime is not really appealing). The second is obviously not fitting a raid. It's fine for a dungeon though, but shouldn't be overused as well.

Rather than that, if you have a pool of attacks, like :
- strong unavoidable hit on tank *3
- room medium AoE *2
- one shot mechanic *1
- hard hitting AoE *2

and if the boss picks randomly 4 attacks from the pool then repeat, you'll have a fight overall more fun, and while better groups can win every mechanics, less skilled groups can hope to have an easier time on that phase. (more fun because it wouldn't be always the same fight)

Keep some timed mechanics (let's say like a 30 sec timer on blighted bouquet), phase changes with "do it or lose" mechanics, as the firsts can be a good reactivity check if you can't keep track of the timer, and the seconds are somehow necessary to give a "tough boss" feeling : they're growing in rage and show they aren't here as garden plants.

Just do not rely solely on them. They do not make a fight fun if they are overused.


(Numbers and examples are purely made up. I know there aren't fights that much of a cliche in the game yet. But a vast majority of top-end content at the moment relies solely on "do it or lose" mechanics.)

[Iriadysa]

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.

Who would've thought that if your connection has high latency it would be harder to move away from danger. Who would've thought that given too high latency it would become impossible.

I'm starting to suspect many of the people that complain about "lag" don't understand the physical reason of the phenomenon. I could sit down right now and record a video of me having lag and dying to mechanics when it looks like I'm outside, because that's exactly how the game reacts when your connection is poor. All I need to do is turn on a torrent, get in the game and off we go!

The whole point is you shouldn't expect to have a good time playing online if you have a poor connection.

Yet as far as the fights in FFXIV I time VoiP is really needed is with Twintania's Twisters since there's no focus target where you can keep track of what Twintania is casting. The rest of the VoIP chat regarding the rotation coming up is mainly there to help players be aware that it's gonna happen within the next few seconds and to move accordingly.

Holy shit... no wonder you complain so much about this game. Do you really not know about focus target? Do you really think you need VoIP for Twintania?

All, I repeat absolutely all of my Twintania kills have been with PF pugs and not a single time have I bothered to even ask if they had VoIP. Done it as SCH, MNK and WAR. All of which are of equal difficulty.

Rather than that, if you have a pool of attacks, like :
- strong unavoidable hit on tank *3
- room medium AoE *2
- one shot mechanic *1
- hard hitting AoE *2

and if the boss picks randomly 4 attacks from the pool then repeat, you'll have a fight overall more fun, and while better groups can win every mechanics, less skilled groups can hope to have an easier time on that phase. (more fun because it wouldn't be always the same fight)

Skipping the rest of the stuff that, honestly, interest me very little, I want to bring this into the light. If fights were to be legitimately hard in the sense that the abilities used by the monster would be truly hard to deal with, your proposal would make for exponentially harder fights. Your little bit there about "less skilled groups hoping to have an easier time" is really wishful thinking.

I'm having a hard time understanding how you cannot see that having a fixed rotation is one of the reasons why the fights in this game are so easy. Everything is predictable. If you know how to react, you don't need to memorize. If you suck at reacting, you can memorize.

If you suck at both, perhaps play a turn based game instead.