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

[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.

[Gormogon]

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.

[Kuwagami]

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

Except that I'm complaining about the lack of fun. Lag is a factor that makes Titan not fun. It's not the only one.

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.

If a game is designed on lag checks, it's a design flaw. But that's an other debate.

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.

I never asked that. And once again you're ignoring the important part : on bad days

I think you could learn a few things from the image I posted before

snip

what's the point ? This whole post and the ones I was answering before fall under #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #9. Mine do fall under some, but not as much as you claim.


and just to prove it :

#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.

ever heard of Dofus ? MMORPG, not relying on latency. so your claims about #3, #4 are applying on your "counter argument". Also, you are heavily falling under #5 by raising "Korean MMOs" as a counter example

This is gold. Do you understand why it's such a funny quote?

Because it's irrelevant to the OP ? or irrelevant to the whole point of the thread. Let's agree on a disagreement.

[Iriadysa]

If a game is designed on lag checks, it's a design flaw. But that's an other debate.

This is gold. Do you understand why it's such a funny quote?

[NovaUltimatum]

It's nowhere the same intention of Titan Extreme, which is to punish you for being a pathetic dodger.

Punishing content = good?

Time to read up on game design!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs

[Anyssa]

Punishing content = good?

Time to read up on game design!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs

I really liked that video. Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls II were difficult, but I could always feel like a solution was right around the corner if I just knew what had to be done. Some of these boss fights - it's not knowing what has to be done and doing it, it's relying on an entire group of people to do it flawlessly that is imo wrong.

I'll have to watch more videos in that series though, I liked his points.