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

[chococo]

It's just going to get worse. Just a few days ago I watched a raids preview for Wildstar, and thought to myself "That does not look like fun. It looks like hours upon hours of wipes."

That's the current definition of challenge in MMOs, unfortunately. I dun see people clearing HNMs in FFXI that easily at first even if it was tank and spank.

Also, people against OPs line of thoughts are arguing with the most extreme cases. There's always a middle ground. For e.g. if titan EX was more random with his abilities, the effects of its abilities would be toned down accordingly. This may or may not make fights harder.

[Kuwagami]

For the majority of hardcore players, clearing mechanics-laden contents is actually quite boring.

What the? That's the exactly what "hardcore" players strive and wish for. To actually have fights where you have to put your head into the battle and the mechanics..

Wait what ? Hardcore people want content hard for like 2 weeks of trying then becoming faceroll easy content because they know every mechanic ins and outs ?

You cannot be serious. You cannot call yourself "hardcore". Hardcore players want real challenge, not scripted challenge that lasts 2 weeks

[Cap75]

I think the reliance on rote memory, time limits and insta-death mechanics is slowly going to wear down the community unless SE gets more creative in their encounter design. The lack of dynamism or any chance for improvisation in many of the encounters makes for play that's rigidly predefined every step of the fight. The minutia of every strategy is set in stone and almost any deviation means failure unless you're overgeared enough to ignore a particular mechanic. Still, it's always the exact same order with everyone doing the exact same thing. Luckily I have a cool FC going through coil and EX primals together but people who don't have a near insurmountable barrier of entry after a certain point. Pugging a lot of this stuff is an exercise in frustration in the least and near impossible at its worst. This leads to rage quits, arguments, and a general inability to even progress after a certain point without a static. A game is going to have a hard time surviving when a large portion of its community is functionally locked out of progression. And echo buffs or making gear easier to obtain really doesn't alleviate the issue of insta-death mechanics or fights that are so invariable that the slightest deviation means you might as well wipe and start over.

All this rigidity creates another issue too. A certain lack of epicness, for lack of a better term. Timed enrages, DPS checks, and timed phase changes all leading to situations that can’t be recovered from means you never get those epic boss fights that last a long time with swings and momentum, awesome recoveries from the brink of failure, or improvised “wow, I can’t believe we just pulled that off” moments. Those types of moments build communities whereas the current state of things makes it so any deviation, or even just someone trying to learn, leads to insta-wipes which leads to finger pointing, kicks, rage quits, etc., in the pug community. Which, in turn, leads to the community becoming more and more stratified and less and less people playing.

[NightReach]

I just find it really funny that he uses T4 as an example of a well designed fight. T4 is possibly the worst designed fight in the game, it has no mechanics, a complete and utter gear check, and there is nothing epic about it.

What also hilarious is that people are asking for more RNG, when they can't even beat the current tier of contents, RNG is what makes people quit. If you cant beat a scripted with small bit of RNG in every fight (there is plenty small RNG), then how do you expect to beat completely randomized encounter, which no designer have ever come up with.

More casual mode coil with lower tier drop sure w.e, but then people will start complaining how they can't get max lv gear.

[Okashii]

One solution could be AI-driven fights instead of scripted. An enemy that wants to target healers/top dps more often, ignoring the tank. An enemy that when for example blm starts slow-casting long skill, he instantly puts a heavy hitting aoe under him. Or enemy that uses some standard pvp strategies against players like cc'ing healers.

It would be fun to have maybe a couple of fights like that where its really difficult to get moves done because the boss is "smart". No enrage. Just really tough because the boss is reactive and pushing melee away and interrupting casters. But having the whole game like that would be even more annoying than what it is currently I think.

[Okashii]

Take T6 and T7 for example.
If someone gets eaten by mistake, it is not an instant wipe. Its not an instant wipe at a certain amount of stacks either, it depends on your skill and gear.
If someone accidentally sends out voice in the wrong direction and gets a person or two, its not an instant wipe. If it's a healer(s), the tank just has to hold it out for 30 seconds. If it's a melee DPS, just move the boss away. If it's the offtank and adds are coming, the party just has to stop attacking for a while. If someone is stoned where they are and gets shriek, everyone needs to run to the hiding spot (This happened to our party once and we actually made it through in the end).

If thats' what OP wants, then I don't understand OP's point at all then. Because that's the kind of stuff that most of the game is already.

[IgnisFatuus]

OP hits perfectly the point on what has been bugging me since i cleared twinty a few weeks ago and tried to get other fc members there as well. besides all the rummaging about being hardcore and skillzzz, i simply think that current endgame design is simply no fun.

currently my fc is working on t6 and every time they get back from dozens of wipes there's a cold, bitter and disappointed atmosphere in fc chat. that's not exactly what i would expect from a game feature whose reason of existence is to keep people tied to the game.

[Scaevolicious]

Also, as somebody who raided in Vanilla WoW's first two tiers and thus actually has experience with a raid environment without very many one-shot avoidable mechanics, softish DPS requirements, generally healable raid damage provided people aren't TOO terrible all at once, etc., I would like to point out that that sort of design has to put HUGE pressure on tanks to gear up if it is to provide any sense of progression whatsoever.

[Yumi_umi]

Imo the 1 shot mechanics should only be in phase transitions.
Like it's just too cheap and lazy to make a fight only have 1 supposedly route to follow.
There's barely any variety in endgame strats. Cuz every other strat always funnel into the same drain because of the " in your face jump rope" 1 shot wipe raid mechanics. Oh well !

[Velhart]

While I don't really think the FFXI style set up would work well, I do 100% agree on your stance against how end game battles work. I hope the developers see this, it was a very well written post and thank you for translating it for us.