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

[Rubeus_Carcer]

Can we get back on topic before we all start wearing white powdered wigs?

For the record, a lot of those "logical fallacy" arguments? You're using them incorrectly.

[Anyssa]

And I can agree 100% to what you said... I think every oldschool player experienced this in some way or another...

Update: Have found it

Thank you for finding that quote - it's enlightening!

Sadly, it wasn't the answer I was looking for. With that sort of mentality in mind, I just don't see myself having much fun in FFXIV in the future. The options before me are thus:

1. Grind miserable, unfun Fates for days
2. Grind the same old dungeons I've run dozens, if not hundreds, of times by now
3. Continue trying to beat Titan Ex and hope for a lucky group
4. Cancel and find a new game that will bring me more enjoyment

I went with option 4.

[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.

[Nukocafe]

The options before me are thus:

1. Grind miserable, unfun Fates for days
2. Grind the same old dungeons I've run dozens, if not hundreds, of times by now
3. Continue trying to beat Titan Ex and hope for a lucky group
4. Cancel and find a new game that will bring me more enjoyment

I went with option 4.

I like this game too much to cancel it so I'm playing other games while passing time. My current options are:

1. Attempt to clear 2nd coil every week (still stuck on turn 6 as my group is a bit slow). Every pug I join has been terrible or they don't want a BLM in the group.
2. Attempt to finish my sightseeing log but I spent all day teleporting between 3 locations waiting for the right weather - and it just never came.
3. Working on my garden at the house
4. Making some money on the side just in case I need it
5. Attempt to find a non-fail group that can farm leviathan so I can get weapons for my sub classes



#1, 2 and 5 have been rather frustrating but I've been ok just doing 3 and 4 while playing my PSP game backlog. I know when I was stuck on titan ex I felt like quitting the game too. Duty finder groups are beyond any saving grace and I feel like a lot of party finder groups on my server seem to start late at night when I'm ready to go to bed. (I don't get why on a Sunday all parties form at 9PM when I had a whole day of playing and only atma grind parties were up )

[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.

---

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.

[Iriadysa]

Punishing content = good?

Time to read up on game design!

Titan Extreme is not an example of what you quoted. I suspect you didn't understand the video you linked, as it often happens with most people that link Extra Credits stuff. This usually happens because they don't understand what they are really talking about.

But here, I will try to help you out.

What I said (which btw is taken completely out of context): "Titan extreme punishes you for being a pathetic dodger". What this means to anyone that isn't trying sound smart quoting Extra Credits is that when you fail at Titan it's because you suck at dodging. It's simple, you cannot dodge = you get punished by it.

What the EC video talks about is the concept of "Punishing Difficulty", which is difficulty specifically designed to have a strong negative impact for failure. Let's talk about Titan Extreme now and think about this: what happens when you wipe at Titan Extreme? Simple, you recover instantly, the fight restarts and you can give it another shot. Yet another, another, another, another.

Let's talk more about the EC video. It talks about the consistency of rules and how it relates to difficulty, giving an example with Dark Souls being consistent with its rules. Is Titan Extreme consistent? Well, what do you know, it is in fact amazingly consistent in the rules it sets for the fight. The rotation of his abilities is always the same, the effect of all of his abilities is always the same, everything is predictable and as consistent as a game can be. So it actually fits with what the EC video is trying to defend.

The video goes out to explain "telegraphing" as well,saying how even "split second decisions" have to be telegraphed. While some in this thread will defend that "split second gameplay is bad design", truth is Titan telegraphs every single thing. You are not required to memorize anything. You have the option to do so, but it's by no means required as every single attack has a build up of seconds. From animations to area effects, there's telegraphs everywhere.

Next, it talks about "Iteration time". It claims a punishing game has a high iteration time, while one with good difficulty will have a low iteration time. This is exactly what Titan does. You die, you respawn instantly and can try again.

Then it talks about usability. Considering FFXIV is so easy to understand, this is yet another check that Titan Extreme complies with the EC video.

Then explains how important timing is when introducing hard content. Titan Extreme is introduced deep into the game, after you have already beaten many things with progressively increasing difficulty. Another check.

So I ask to you, did you actually understand what the video was about? Or did you just think quoting someone else would save you the trouble from thinking by yourself?



But wait, there's more!


Let me quote the OP which you all venerate so much and contrast it with some of the EC tid bits:

Weekly lockouts and other time-gate measures

There are a number of weekly lockouts in FFXIV, however, there are no attempt lockouts. You can try something for as many times as you want until you win. This is another factor that pushes the system towards being mechanics-driven.

Sorry to use FFXI as an example again, but in that game there are attempt lockouts such as with “trigger items” and daily lockouts.
Without meeting the proper prerequisites and having collected all of the trigger items, you could not fight the last boss. So for many people they could only actually meet and fight the boss once every 2 – 4 weeks or so.

Now, time gates like these have always been the subject of complaints and many people thought they were “annoying” and wanted them gone. And in reality, most of these gates have now been removed.

In FFXIV, there's no such entry limitation, and the system is designed so that you're basically expected to keep retrying until you can finally beat the content.

Just by my own personal estimate, you'd need maybe around 10 hours of “practice” before you can clear a particular fight reliably (some people might say even that's too short).

It might just be me but... aren't we just simply replacing entry lockouts or time spent on collecting trigger items with these “practice time” then?

Of course, once you are able to clear a content reliably, you may no longer need to wait out a daily lockout or collect trigger items the next time around, and in a sense that is certainly “convenient”. However, the price that had to be paid for this “convenience” is necessarily difficult battle mechanics; the need to force all new players through this required “practice” period; and diminishing the meaning of party size, party composition, and gear choice. Is that a price worth paying?

And although I don't know how other people feel, I personally feel that a lack of attempt "cap" is causing people to lose concentration as the number of attempts pile on. Yet, for many people in a static it's simply coil all day, every day, and you just get burned out.

I have maybe 3 hours to play in a day, and when almost all of this time is spent in coil, I'm beginning to wish there actually was a weekly limit on the number of attempts.

Because there is no limit on attempts, many people in your FC or LS may simply spend all day in coil, especially right after a patch. And it becomes impossible even just to have a conversation with them, much less try to play together (now, this is not limited to FFXIV. FFXI can be like this too).

The price to pay for being able to “attempt as many times as you like” is the introduction of “difficult mechanics that require long practices”. You gain some and you lose some. But as I have explained up to this point, as an MMORPG, I feel we have lost more than we gained.

Read that piece of crap.

And now tell me how this fits with the EC video, specifically the "Iteration time" aspect.

I'll give you some time to think about it.

...

Exactly.


But wait, there's more!

For example, if Titan randomly decides to use mountain buster (table flip) 3 times in the row, then every single party following the existing strategy today will have their tank die after the second hit.

So now he's advocating for... inconsistency!

I seriously don't know if you people really are trying to follow the argument here or sabotaging your own butts.

[Clavaat]

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.

To me, this is a bit of a stretch for comparison's sake. The DS series is primarily a solo game. It's mechanics are driven by the fact that most of the game, you are alone, and cannot rely on friends. The solution is around the corner in FFXIV, also. Relying on the team, is the truly difficult mechanic. It requires coordination and managing your team, often consisting of friends, which a lot of people are not willing to do, or properly for that matter. That's where, I feel the challenge comes from. For me, dodging/handling mechanics are not that difficult, but to others it may be. I'm not one to give up on people, so I try to help them out on an individual level until we get it. That's a challenge.

I may have just made a logical stretch as well, but I think you'll understand my point.

That being said, I would appreciate a bit less pattern, and a bit more forgiveness for mistakes in certain fights, as others are asking. To some extent, both of these things already exist (you never know who conflags are going to target, landslides are going to aim toward, etc), but it wouldn't hurt to balance it a bit more.

[Yukiko]

Mechanic driven like we have in FFXIV is no fun because: (trying to sum up a bit)

1) once knowing, it becomes easy and boring because always the same - we are just machines playing a product
2) unforgiving mechanics and death of one mostly is death of group - machines are perfect and they can stay focused for hours
3) avoid, avoid, DPS, avoid, avoid, DPS... - machines do not need variation just plain simple
4) interaction between players or player and objects is limited - machines do not need social content

[OSUBuckeye4]

Mechanic driven like we have in FFXIV is no fun because: (trying to sum up a bit)

1) once knowing, it becomes easy and boring because always the same - we are just machines playing a product
2) unforgiving mechanics and death of one mostly is death of group - machines are perfect and they can stay focused for hours
3) avoid, avoid, DPS, avoid, avoid, DPS... - machines do not need variation just plain simple
4) interaction between players or player and objects is limited - machines do not need social content

For me, it boils down to...

1) Mechanics are fine, really, go one step further... they are necessary.

2) Scripting is also fine, to a point.

3) Battles that are the same script every time without deviation are not fun for all.


You end up either in a static that breezes through everything, or, you end up wanting to throw your controller through the TV because someone in your 12th PF group that day messed up and yet another group disbanded despite you doing everything correctly according to script.