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

[Melithea]

The flaw with this argument is that Ablegamers rates mainstream titles for accessibility by disabled gamers, and by accessibility they mean the ability for a disabled gamer to enjoy the main portions of the game's content. This includes the ability for colorblind players to determine mechanics or hazards and clearly read text and for deaf players to do the same, so they can enjoy what the game has to offer despite disability. I doubt Ablegamers has thoroughly gone through the endgame content.

My argument doesn't hinge on this. It was more of a side mention. This is also still the most casual MMO released in the past 10 years; consider the award a "fun fact" if it bothers or distracts you that much. It certainly shuts down any arguments that the game is in any way hard to play or enjoy.

[Asra]

My argument doesn't hinge on this. It was more of a side mention. This is also still the most casual MMO released in the past 10 years; consider the award a "fun fact" if it bothers or distracts you that much. It certainly shuts down any arguments that the game is in any way hard to play or enjoy.

You can keep calling this game casual paradise as much as you want and keep quoting "fun facts."

The original argument is that the current design of the fights and of the game overall is not fun to many in the playerbase across every play style. The brewing toxicity in the playerbase isn't really helping that either

[Melithea]

The original argument is that the current design of the fights and of the game overall is not fun to many in the playerbase across every play style.

Right. I've seen the arguments that apparently Turn 4 is the perfect balance of fun and challenging. It's no coincidence, then, that Turn 4 is about the hardest content in the game that you can simply overgear and faceroll with 0 thought process required from anyone but the off-tank for about 6 seconds toward the end. Is that really what fun is? Getting carried by your gear? The current battles have a place in the game. The problem with Titan isn't even the infamous instant-death shots. It's the unraisable death. Which oddly enough, is shared by Leviathan EX and yet practically nobody complains about this fight.

There's also a huge issue with the way this problem is being framed. People are taking issue with "mechanics-driven battles". The alternative to this would be battles with no mechanics. Think about what that would be. NO mechanics would mean every fight is basically the same as trash mobs. Are trash mobs fun? The only suggestion that the OP comes even close to making is truly randomized fights that use moves in an unpredictable order. I'm not sure if people realize that this would actually be both harder and less fun than what we have now. Yoshida has already explained why this is a terrible idea and basically takes victory out of the hands of the players entirely. Nobody has offered a real solution of how to remove mechanics and make content fun while keeping it challenging other than making the monsters stronger.

That's like saying grinding FATEs in Coerthas is more fun than grinding FATEs in East Shroud because the monsters are stronger.

[Kuwagami]

The problem with Titan isn't even the infamous instant-death shots. It's the unraisable death. Which oddly enough, is shared by Leviathan EX and yet practically nobody complains about this fight.

Leviathan is actually way more manageable with death. The only cause of unraisable death are derped slams or derped hysteria. It's not a race against lag. Both can be overcome by players eventually. While landslide is mostly overcome by your connection nowadays. Skill or reflex or whatever comes after the lag check (even if now server lag is out of the problem. SE can't fix every FAI problem individually obviously)

Coming from a "400ms on bad days" player, there is a whole world between both fight's unraisable mechanics. But yeah "fundamentally" they're not different.

There's also a huge issue with the way this problem is being framed. People are taking issue with "mechanics-driven battles". The alternative to this would be battles with no mechanics. Think about what that would be.

Why do people always see the world in black or white ? Couldn't the alternative to "mechanics-driven battles" just be "battle with mechanics" ?

Think hydra : few things to dodge, a grand total of 2 mechanics (adds and hysteria)
chimera : actually a bad example but still, 1 AoE to dodge, an other to silence, and a skill to avoid. Others are "don't stand in cones or it'll hurt"

Moogle Ex : only mechanics are "the king will revive his minions" and "the king will periodically buff nearby minions" (and delta strike if you want). All the other things to do in this fight is damage management to hit the king as hard as possible between each phase.

For these fights, even if eventually you may end up doing the same things every time you do them, are not driven by the mechanics. Once the mechanics are dealt with, you can do whatever you want. As opposed to (let's say) Titan HM/EX or T6 where you have to deal with a new mechanic as soon as the previous ends. Or as opposed to a plain "tank and spank" fight

[Iriadysa]

Leviathan is actually way more manageable with death. The only cause of unraisable death are derped slams or derped hysteria. It's not a race against lag. Both can be overcome by players eventually. While landslide is mostly overcome by your connection nowadays. Skill or reflex or whatever comes after the lag check (even if now server lag is out of the problem. SE can't fix every FAI problem individually obviously)

Coming from a "400ms on bad days" player, there is a whole world between both fight's unraisable mechanics. But yeah "fundamentally" they're not different.

Good god, you lagging players simply cannot see other people happy, can you? Listen, "400ms on bad days" is not a connection fit for online gaming. You shouldn't be demanding an easier game just because you have subpar gear, this is just ridiculous. Of course you will have problems in Titan Ex with that piece of shit connection you use. If you can't do anything about it I pity you, but stop making that everyone else's problem. It's your own problem.

I do Titan Ex with 160+ms latency and everything is easy to dodge once you've understood the mechanics. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE.

Moogle Ex : only mechanics are "the king will revive his minions" and "the king will periodically buff nearby minions" (and delta strike if you want). All the other things to do in this fight is damage management to hit the king as hard as possible between each phase.

Incidentally, Moogle Ex is miles easier than any other Ex primal. A fun one, however. The design of the fight is spot on to the intention and it's one of my favorite primals.

Should everything be like this? No.

Every time you see these people make their arguments they bring up examples of "acceptable content design" while the "unacceptable content" is limited to Titan Ex, T5 and Coil 2. And yet they won't realize that means most of the content is exactly what they want.

It's hilarious that you replied to someone who agreed with you. You did the very thing you accuse other people of doing, except change it to "omg, someone thinks like me!" "omg, trying to reason with casuals is impossible!".

Stay classy, hypocrisy.

Unless you have a reading impediment, for which I apologize if this insults you, I'm sure you will be able to see that I argument my position further than just circle jerking agreement.

[Kuwagami]

Good god, you lagging players simply cannot see other people happy, can you? Listen, "400ms on bad days" is not a connection fit for online gaming. You shouldn't be demanding an easier game just because you have subpar gear, this is just ridiculous. Of course you will have problems in Titan Ex with that piece of shit connection you use. If you can't do anything about it I pity you, but stop making that everyone else's problem. It's your own problem.

1) obviously enough I have beaten Titan Ex. If you had an argument with that, it's irrelevant. If not, please continue.

2) 400ms isn't fitting for FPS games. However, it's perfectly fine to play RPGs. Even more when you don't forget to read on bad days.

3) Have I ever said that my lag was anyone else's problem ? I don't think so.

Oh and "piece of shit connection" ? Come on... Great for you if your ISP isn't blocking gaming data because it's not "essential". Not everyone has your chance. Still irrelevant though.


Argument was : Leviathan has unraisable mechanics as well as Titan, yet only Titan makes people rage. Answer was : because Leviathan mechanics relies more on player's capacities than on lag.

Please try to stick to subject, instead of trying to down people you don't agree with with ridiculous attacks..

Incidentally, Moogle Ex is miles easier than any other Ex primal. A fun one, however. The design of the fight is spot on to the intention and it's one of my favorite primals.

Should everything be like this? No.

Every time you see these people make their arguments they bring up examples of "acceptable content design" while the "unacceptable content" is limited to Titan Ex, T5 and Coil 2. And yet they won't realize that means most of the content is exactly what they want.

After reading that, I noticed that in fact you had no idea at all about what we were talking about.

Let's take your words : "Moggle Ex is fun"

On that we agree.
Now, what we are labelling as "unacceptable content" is content that is not fun for most of the people. T5 is somehow fun for a few times, then becomes boring. Titan is just plainly boring. Coil2 is not fun at all (spec. with the toxic behaviour on PF for that) because of relying only on "mechanics-after-mechanics" design.

Don't try to transform the "top end content is not fun due to its nature" in a "we are not pleased by the game change it all". There are a lot of good stuff. It's just a pity that the top end content is not fun.



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Side note, not intended for particular people here. Do take note however, it might be useful :

[Iriadysa]

1) obviously enough I have beaten Titan Ex. If you had an argument with that, it's irrelevant. If not, please continue.

If you can beat Titan with 400ms+ then there's absolutely nothing to complain about it.

2) 400ms isn't fitting for FPS games. However, it's perfectly fine to play RPGs. Even more when you don't forget to read on bad days.

That's your opinion. I'm sure Koreans don't agree with you though. Wonder if you ever tried to play Aion or TERA with anything over 100ms, haha. Ohh, you are a funny guy.

3) Have I ever said that my lag was anyone else's problem ? I don't think so.

You do so when the basis for the argument of removing mechanics like Titan Ex is "they are lag dependent". Read any Titan Ex complain thread and it's always the same.

Oh and "piece of shit connection" ? Come on... Great for you if your ISP isn't blocking gaming data because it's not "essential". Not everyone has your chance. Still irrelevant though.

It's a POS connection. If your ISP blocks gaming data, then your ISP is a POS. Look, I pity you if you don't have the same chances as everyone else, but you cannot expect to bring everyone down because of it.

Argument was : Leviathan has unraisable mechanics as well as Titan, yet only Titan makes people rage. Answer was : because Leviathan mechanics relies more on player's capacities than on lag.

Please try to stick to subject, instead of trying to down people you don't agree with with ridiculous attacks..

Leviathan's "unraisable" mechanic is nothing but a gimmick to stop you from going zombie on him. It's nowhere the same intention of Titan Extreme, which is to punish you for being a pathetic dodger. Or as you'll probably argument again with your personal circular logic: "as a lag check".

The whole point is that it doesn't matter if Titan makes people rage because along with T5 and Coil2 it is the only content that makes this set of people rage. But all of you dodge this argument like pros. I guess you don't have lag here, eh?

After reading that, I noticed that in fact you had no idea at all about what we were talking about.

Let's take your words : "Moggle Ex is fun"

On that we agree.
Now, what we are labelling as "unacceptable content" is content that is not fun for most of the people. T5 is somehow fun for a few times, then becomes boring. Titan is just plainly boring. Coil2 is not fun at all (spec. with the toxic behaviour on PF for that) because of relying only on "mechanics-after-mechanics" design.

Don't try to transform the "top end content is not fun due to its nature" in a "we are not pleased by the game change it all". There are a lot of good stuff. It's just a pity that the top end content is not fun.

And this top content is a minimal amount of it. Moogle Ex is fun, but it doesn't mean Titan Ex isn't. I prefer Titan Extreme to Moogle Extreme. In fact, Titan Extreme is my favorite fight in this game.

So you honestly think there's only two types of players in this game? That's pretty sad.

There's 3 types of fun but you can't seem to distinguish between two.

No, I think that thinking Coil 1 and CT is "semi hardcore" is ludicrous. You can enter Coil 1 and CT without having done it a single time and still come out victorious. There's no semblance of "hardcore" there, not even "semi".

Because Coil 1 never existed before CT and echo.

There's people that ran CT simply to gear their alts so they can later use them in Coil without needing to philo and myth farm all over again.

Seems that you are only narrow minded for the sole benefit of your arguments.

Do you live in the past? What part of Coil and CT today is anywhere near hardcore? Seriously, take your own advice.

[Iriadysa]

might be useful :

I love that you linked this because here I am going to rip just one of your posts apart with it:

2) 400ms isn't fitting for FPS games. However, it's perfectly fine to play RPGs. Even more when you don't forget to read on bad days.

#3 Hasty Generalization. Only some RPGs are fit to play with high latency, others aren't.
#4 Begging the Question. Your premise is not true and can be demonstrated easily. See Korean RPGs.
#5 Post Hoc. Assuming you base this argument on your previous RPG experience.

Argument was : Leviathan has unraisable mechanics as well as Titan, yet only Titan makes people rage. Answer was : because Leviathan mechanics relies more on player's capacities than on lag.

#9 Non sequitur. You are linking multiple arguments incorrectly. Titan makes people rage; Titan requires a better reaction time (less latency); Leviathan's mechanics require less reaction time (allows for higher latency). -->Therefore Leviathan relies more on player's capacities than on lag? Wat. Given the same latency, Titan is still harder than Leviathan. Your premise is twisted.

Please try to stick to subject, instead of trying to down people you don't agree with with ridiculous attacks..

After reading that, I noticed that in fact you had no idea at all about what we were talking about.

#1. Ad Hominem. Great argumentation there, way to go.

Now, what we are labelling as "unacceptable content" is content that is not fun for most of the people.

#3 Hasty Generalization. You have no proof that this is not fun for "most people". All you can claim is a portion of the forum users agree with it.

T5 is somehow fun for a few times, then becomes boring. Titan is just plainly boring.

Coil2 is not fun at all (spec. with the toxic behaviour on PF for that) because of relying only on "mechanics-after-mechanics" design.

#4 Begging the Question. This premise may be true for you, but you certainly cannot say "Titan is just plainly boring" as it if was a fact. Same for Coil 2.

Don't try to transform the "top end content is not fun due to its nature" in a "we are not pleased by the game change it all". There are a lot of good stuff. It's just a pity that the top end content is not fun.

#2 Strawman Fallacy. You are trying to simplify the argument to the point where the argument becomes ridiculous.

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So do you really want to play this silly game of fallacy pointing? You hit 7 out of 10 in one single post.

[OSUBuckeye4]

There's also a huge issue with the way this problem is being framed. People are taking issue with "mechanics-driven battles". The alternative to this would be battles with no mechanics. Think about what that would be. NO mechanics would mean every fight is basically the same as trash mobs. Are trash mobs fun? The only suggestion that the OP comes even close to making is truly randomized fights that use moves in an unpredictable order. I'm not sure if people realize that this would actually be both harder and less fun than what we have now. Yoshida has already explained why this is a terrible idea and basically takes victory out of the hands of the players entirely. Nobody has offered a real solution of how to remove mechanics and make content fun while keeping it challenging other than making the monsters stronger.

Not sure if you're responding to me on this, or someone else.

My point isn't to get rid of mechanices, it is to get rid of 100% scripted battles.

Challenging content doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is when I join up with 20 "serious players only, let's clear this, 3 strikes and you're out!" PF groups, run the content flawlessly on my end, and watch others screw up and groups disband time after time.

The part that bothers me isn't that I have to try again... it's that I have to try again knowing that I'm going to do the exact same thing again because it's going to be the exact same battle.

If the contect had the possiblity of being a different experience each time, it wouldn't bother me as much.

It's the fact that I can literally run the first 90% of the Titan Extreme battle while sleeping, and still not be able to clear it... that ruins the entire game for me.

When I do eventually dedicate an entire day to attempting to find a group that can clear the content with me... it's not going to be a feeling of joy, it's basically going to be a feeling where I shrug my shoulders and say, "well, about time".

I mean, I've been in groups that have got past superbombs and then watched healers freak out and ruin the run, rather then run it again someone rages and leaves. It's just so frustrating because when you find another group and come back in, it's the EXACT same thing. No variation, no differences, run the exact same script over and over.



TLDR version....

Mechanics are fine. Battles that are the same script every time you run them are what is wrong with this game. It shows laziness on the part of the developers.

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Oh, and my suggestion?

Each boss has multiple scripts that you might encounter. You don't que up knowing that he's going to use the same 6 moves in a row until he gets to 80% health, then it's going to be 7 moves in the same order till 50%, then some adds will pop, then it's 7 moves in a fixed order till 20%, then you have a "do or die moment", then it's coast to the finish using the same set of moves.

It's not fun when it's the exact same script from start to finish every time. I hate fixed patterns, I like to have to adapt as the situation plays out.

If they need to nerf the difficulty slightly to add additional scripts for how a battle might play out, so be it. Make it challenging, but, don't punish people who aren't in statics by making them run the same thing over and over and over and over while trying to look for a group that can run the content with them.

I guess that's really the only option I have left... join a static and breeze through the same content every week. Then my problem is the other side of the coin though, I start complaining about how easy it is and how there is nothing to do because my static and I breeze through everything in an hour or two and then log off for the rest of the week.


This is the problem with the game... you're on one side of the coin or the other. You can either breeze through everyting because you have 7 other people along with you who have memorized the pattern, or, you are struggling in vain to find a group of 7... and constantly getting 3-4 people who are on board, and 3-4 who have no idea what they are doing.



Whatever, at the end of the day it's just a video game and it's first world problems and yada yada yada, I know, I get it, I have a healthy perspective on all of it... but, I like to vent and get up on my soapbox from time to time. Shoot me.