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

[RakaMaimhov]

OP:

Wow. bosses should not just be "harder". Adding HP to bosses spamming random/scripted mechanics is boring.

Allowing for party setups to vary and party size to vary will inevitably lead to 8 ninjas and 1 healer so no.

Half your ideas are why FFXI sucked.

I agree with you this game and its system are not perfect, but the main page of an 87 page post shouldn't dictate the future of this game.

[Kiara]

I've come back fresh after a two month Hiatus for patch 2.3, and my experience thus far agrees with the OPs observations. Also, I completely agree with OP on the mechanics of fights being the wrong focus for end game difficulty. The design philosophy embraced by the current developers created a fight (Twintania) with little to no proper indicators for special attacks (especially when the opponent in question flies completely off the grid for dive bombs). Even the most hated primal fight in the game (Titan) gives you indicators and enough time to react to attacks.

For a new player, Twintania's abilities range from obscure and misleading to simply too fast and powerful. It is impossible for anyone to one shot Twintania without reading up the rotation and all abilities in great detail. Even then, chances of victory on a first attempt are miniscule.

Welcome back Orrin.

Definitely agree with your post; that's what happened to a few friends of mine (not on my server):

These instant-death gimmick mechanics are really debilitating and detrimental in many ways. Challenge is always a good thing; but when the gimmicks mean instant game over for the entire raid, it just leads to more ill-will, frustrated emotions from everyone and a really negative attitude.

I really hope Yoshi P and his team see this topic (at least the JP Blog and post about it, if not ours) and consider changes in the future.

[Ooshima]

For a new player, Twintania's abilities range from obscure and misleading to simply too fast and powerful. It is impossible for anyone to one shot Twintania without reading up the rotation and all abilities in great detail. Even then, chances of victory on a first attempt are miniscule.

Wait, you expect the superboss if a current patch (2.0-2.1) to be beatable on a first attempt, or even less than 50 wipes or so?

[Kuwagami]

Wait, you expect the superboss if a current patch (2.0-2.1) to be beatable on a first attempt, or even less than 50 wipes or so?

except that now (2.2-2.3) it's not "the superboss of a current patch", so yeah maybe it should require less than 50 wipes. (Maybe the same time as a brandly new Ex primal ?)

[Makado]

I think its great that the bosses retain their difficulty. You get some leeway with the Echo, for a mistake here or there, but no they should not be won in a few attempts. Why take away a new players sense of accomplishment of beating that hard boss? Why diminish all the work those who originally cleared it did?

If people want to give up and stop playing or whatever because there are instant death mechanics to fights and things you actually need to think about and form a strategy for then I'm sorry MMORPGs are not for you. You should have to think and problem solve whether a mechanic is blatantly scripted or something you just need time to figure out and learn. Its part of these games and part of the challenge. Otherwise what's the point in playing?

[Ooshima]

except that now (2.2-2.3) it's not "the superboss of a current patch", so yeah maybe it should require less than 50 wipes. (Maybe the same time as a brandly new Ex primal ?)

That's why you have 20% echo coming 2.3. That should ease a lot of things, such as DPS requirements on conflags, snake adds and of course, killing DKs faster meant less chances of DK killing the stunned member if your PLD screwed up his stun-lock and overall, lesser chance to hit enrage timer even in entry requirement (i82) gear. The only thing left to deal with is Twister and Divebombs, which i think it is still reasonable given that it still drops decent SCoB entry level gear and weapon. Without Twister and DBs, it's just another dungeon boss alike fight.

[Lillia]

It's still one of the hardest turns and I feel it should rightfully be hard considering it's before 6-9, it readies you for upper coils is just how I see it. Some of the new turns may seem easier for certain players but I'm sure the difficulty goes right back up in the turns near the end of second coil.

If shes focus target'd it's super easy to predict dives (you also see a green mark over you and hear a ding sound) and you just insta move out of the ditch... I don't consider this mechanic hard personally seeing it's more of a reaction thing but... I can understand there are different levels of playing. (I find it much harder to keep my characters toe from the edge flames than to avoid her dives myself though. >.<)

I do still feel like she readies you pretty well for higher turns though considering there is no echo for those at all and possibly smaller room for mistakes inside of them as well. For this reason I can understand why T5 is still allowed to be hard.

[Kuwagami]

That's why you have 20% echo coming 2.3. That should ease a lot of things, such as DPS requirements on conflags, snake adds and of course, killing DKs faster meant less chances of DK killing the stunned member if your PLD screwed up his stun-lock and overall, lesser chance to hit enrage timer even in entry requirement (i82) gear. The only thing left to deal with is Twister and Divebombs, which i think it is still reasonable given that it still drops decent SCoB entry level gear and weapon. Without Twister and DBs, it's just another dungeon boss alike fight.

sure and I totally agree. Dives and twisters together do not need more than roughly 20 attempts to know fully. That's a really good way to nerf a superboss while maintaining a sense of difficulty

[Ooshima]

sure and I totally agree. Dives and twisters together do not need more than roughly 20 attempts to know fully. That's a really good way to nerf a superboss while maintaining a sense of difficulty

Yeap. I think it's all good, easing the difficult without going overboard. Albeit with echo and the various EX primals and T1-4 being easily DF-able with all the geared and experience people DF-ing it for either tanking achievements or gearing all other jobs to i90+, I think the very skeletal basics of these fights, if the newer players does get them, does help them and prepare them for SCoB as similar mechanics appears there.

In fact, I think it was one of the reason why BG and many other groups that cleared T9 before Patch 2.3 actually managed to clear SCoB faster than BCoB - because SCoB deploys repeated/similar tactics from EX Primals and BCoB. Maintaining a sensible level of difficulty on these fights (those slightly "newer" ones like T5/Levi/Mog EX, older ones like Primal HM etc should be "cleared like free of charge" since they are really old and players should be allowed to progress to current contents appropriately) have their own benefits.

[Kuwagami]

In fact, I think it was one of the reason why BG and many other groups that cleared T9 before Patch 2.3 actually managed to clear SCoB faster than BCoB - because SCoB deploys repeated/similar tactics from EX Primals and BCoB.

I think it's mostly because T5 was off for a very long time with no chance to even try it

That and the military-level coordination of BG