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

[Kletian]

I disagree that limited attempt rather than limited successes would be a better time gate- it leads to more frustration and intolerance of people learning.

[OmniEx]

Was a well written post but if this is serious what people think god help us all. I've seen so many posts from people where they get all upset and call people elitist or whatnot because people judge them based on their gear. These very same people will always argue "Gear does not equal skill" and now there's this post where this guy suggests that the game should be balanced to where GEAR>SKILL. There's really only 2 places where you can't expect to win by overgearing and rolling your face across your keyboard anyway (SCoB and some of the Ex Primals) but apparently that's still too much. If people actually want what this guy is suggesting maybe they should go play MapleStory or some crap like that.

[Gormogon]

snip

Well I'm not a mind reader so I can't tell what the person was actually trying to convey.

To me though when people bring up those points it's not because they want gear handed to them and they want it easier. To me it's more about wanting a more social friendly environment while downing content.

Something that you can't really have when end-game bosses revolve around rotations of 5 abilities going off back to back and then some of those abilities being very punishable. Which leads to players being singled out and harassed. Personally something like DBM would really help out the community instead of parsers. In the end it's all up to every person in the group to decide what they make out of their time spent in there. Be it fun, gratifying, stressful, well spent, a waste, and so on.

[Garlyle]

I disagree that limited attempt rather than limited successes would be a better time gate- it leads to more frustration and intolerance of people learning.

This exactly. When I was playing The Secret World, this was one of the biggest s***storms among the community - Nightmare Mode raids had a time lockout, win or lose. So everyone insisted that you have to have cleared before to go with them, and it was nearly impossible for those who hadn't already done it to get a group to even attempt it.

At least here I can create practice groups, or even on occasion jump into farm groups after talking to the PF's leader, who'll usually give me an "Okay, but if you screw up twice you're out." Because they're not risking their entire set of attempts for a day/week or hours of effort to do so.

[ZReport]

I do not agree with this guy, and I think he is everything wrong with the game's population.

He basically wants crystal tower. Where "oh you messed up? Well we'll just raise you and we're good as new. la de dah". Thats BORING. Challenging mechanics where if you mess it up you DIE are fun. Because when you win, it doesn't feel like you just spent time in a long ass grind, it feels like you deserved it.

And people are complaining that you can do coil in lower tier gear if you can deal with the mechanics? READ THAT AS YOU CAN DO CONTENT IF YOU ARE SKILLED, NOT IF YOU ARE BUFFED OUT ON GEAR. Jesus, imagine if you were playing Starcraft and you started with double the workers because you had more "gear" compared to another player. NO. Ideally the game should be 100% skill based. Do you know how boring T4 is now that you can just faceroll it with crazy gear? Or T1 even. And this guy prides T1 and T4 as being awesome and T5 as bad because you actually need to do something in the turn? Is this a joke? Is this what mainstream players really want?

And he wants tokens for dungeon entries? Have any of you guys actually played 1.0 ffxiv? Collecting tapers and stuff for iffy was BORING. SO GODDAM BORING. Practising in coil is FUN. Because if you are not winning, it means it is HARD, so when you do win, you'll feel a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Please take your easy mode content and shove it elsewhere. Do not ruin the game for the rest of us who actually enjoy a challenge.

I did not interpret it in this way. I think he's looking for a middle ground and more of a diversified field of various types of fights, instead of just excessively hard or excessively easy (which is the current). He made it a note to constantly mention that it's fights against mechanics instead of just general "tough" fights that existed in FFXI. To that end it limits the playing field of who you want to go with. Do you want to go with your best friend, whos awesome as a person but really bad at the game? Or do you want to go with your LS/FC mate who you barely know, but know him or her to be amazing at dodging mechanics and good at their role? Of course you will want to go with the person who knows how to dodge things, because you want to win. In short, the further the game moves into higher and higher difficulty, the further away it moves from being social-friendly environment. Keep in mind he made mention of him having successes in Second Coil, so it's not like he's completely devoid of care when it comes to doing hardcore content.

Tell you what though, I completely agree with you on T4. That fight was fun as hell to tackle during 2.0~2.1, because of how well everyone had to be on point to ensure success. Essentially it became a fight where gear did not matter at all outside of a simple DPS check. Now you can simply faceroll it with gear and obtain easy reward.

[jellosnake]

I'd like to make this known to SE, if they ever come across this: this is the opinion of one person, please don't take his advice.

I had trouble getting passed the point where the author kept whining about mechanics. I look at it like this: if a person comes to a fight with a low ilvl, but survives the whole fight, he's more important to the group than the person who grinds for a few extra ilvls and dies. Please leave the mechanics in game, and if you feel the need to make the game more difficult, don't put a wall up of this arbitrary number, but keep bringing mechanics that challenge the players to play in a way that isn't as comfortable as spamming a rotation. That's what makes the game fun.

[Memoe]

The most accurate post across all forums. Amen to that.

[Garlyle]

Tell you what though, I completely agree with you on T4. That fight was fun as hell to tackle during 2.0~2.1, because of how well everyone had to be on point to ensure success. Essentially it became a fight where gear did not matter at all outside of a simple DPS check. Now you can simply faceroll it with gear and obtain easy reward.

That's kinda the trick though, isn't it? There's no mechanics you Absolutely Must deal with, so the mechanics that do exist can be increasingly ignored as gear and general power continue to increase, and slowly the fight will lose identity, and ultimately challenge.

[MartaDemireux]

I'd like a happy mix of mechanics and tank and spank. Basically just ditch the instant death mechanics.

[NovaUltimatum]

I'd like to make this known to SE, if they ever come across this: this is the opinion of one person, please don't take his advice.

I had trouble getting passed the point where the author kept whining about mechanics. I look at it like this: if a person comes to a fight with a low ilvl, but survives the whole fight, he's more important to the group than the person who grinds for a few extra ilvls and dies. Please leave the mechanics in game, and if you feel the need to make the game more difficult, don't put a wall up of this arbitrary number, but keep bringing mechanics that challenge the players to play in a way that isn't as comfortable as spamming a rotation. That's what makes the game fun.

It's not just one man's opinion. It's a feeling many in the community share. Also he's not saying get rid of mechanics, he's saying that when they are the main focus (including one-shot mechanics), then the game is either boring/frustrating/unplayable by players depending on their play style.

He also realises that this is not the most effective way to handle challenging content in a 'fun' way, and at least he is trying to offer an alternative, adaptive style solution to the dev team aimed at keeping players from leaving the game for the reasons stated.