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

[Velhart]

I can say this much..the 1.xx battle system and fights did not feel scripted at ALL. Gear and skill meant quite a lot more then simple memorization in 1.23. Why they took what we had away for this..I'll never know.

1.xx was the same for at least since the new team came in. Gear was relevant not because of the content itself necessarily, but because you needed any small "oomph" you could get to push content underneath the 17 minute mark.

Also, skill in fights like Ifrit was more towards knowing dealing with the system than the content itself. Things such as animation lock, latency, and crashes were definitely more of an issue than actually dealing with the mechanics itself. Like the game wasn't built for that type of content, but they put it in anyways.

Not holding a candle to ARR, because I have my own complaints, but 1.xx was definitely not great to deal with.

[Asuras]

I have always disliked insta-death boss abilities in MMOs. It is simply a cop-out for lazy design. When it is difficult to design challenging fights with increasing gear level (meaning higher HP, DPS, etc) and player skill, lazy designers just throw in "death-touch" abilities.

If anyone remembers the old Everquest days, bosses would just randomly target players and "death-touch" them. The only difference in FFXIV is that the designers disguised the unpopular "death-touch" as avoidable Titan/Leviathan knockout abilities and Melusine petrification. Such abilities totally ignore gear level and character stats and eliminate players from the battle.

No matter how much you disguise the archaic "death-touch," you can't fool the player. Design innovative ways to challenge higher geared and skilled players without insta-killing them. Otherwise, people will catch on soon enough on just how lazy the boss fights are... as evidenced by this extremely long post from the OP.

[Lemon8or]

The only difference in FFXIV is that the designers disguised the unpopular "death-touch" as avoidable Titan/Leviathan knockout abilities and Melusine petrification.

I much prefer the ones you can dodge with player skill than random any day. I feel that it cheapens an encounter when you're just able to outgear it.

[Melithea]

Can someone explain to me why it's bad to have the ability to overgear content?

Was reading back and picked up on this, I think it's a good opportunity to summarize the concepts at work here again.

First of all, it depends what you mean by "overgear content". It's already true that the content in this game becomes much easier with item level increases, so it's already possible to reduce difficulty by overgearing the content. So when people say they want to be more able to overgear content, the implication is that they want to be able to circumvent the challenge of a fight with gear (think killing Demon Wall before the hornets could spawn, back when they still did). Then, in the same breath, they say they want fights with more depth, more fun, more interaction, and more random play. To this I say, which is it? So far, no proposed solution addresses both of these desires. In fact, as far as I can tell every solution makes one of these problems or the other even worse.

The most popular suggestion is making fights "random". For one, this only creates the illusion of choice compared to the "scripted" battles we have now. You'll still react the same way to the same attack, you'll just be doing it in a different order. Additionally, this will make the battles harder for people who can't dodge/react to the current system where you literally know what is coming next. The only way to avoid this is to make failure less "punishing", and this is tied to the idea that gear should be the primary determining factor in victory. Now, you don't have to dodge. Just heal through it and do whatever you want. Suddenly, no depth, no challenge, no fun, no better off than we were before, just different for the sake of being different.

People have come up with some very creative ways to randomize fights. In my opinion, none of them actually solve the proposition of the OP and the competing interests of the different groups of players.

The OP also wants to reintroduce attempt lock-outs on content as opposed to the clear lock-outs we now have. While this may free up the developers to make battles less mechanics driven as the OP suggests, there are two issues. 1. People complain about attempt lock-outs just as much as they do about clear lock-outs. 2. Attempt lock-out systems worked because loot followed the rare drop system rather than our guaranteed drop system. This is another one of those ugly unintended consequences I keep bringing up.

Do you see now why it's not so simple? This idea of "Let me overgear content and let me do it NAO!" would solve one problem (casuals feeling left out). But it would also completely ignore another problem (recognizing player skill) while making yet another one worse (these battles are no fun).

[gti443]

When it took up to 10-25% of the group to carry the rest

While I think those numbers are completely distorted to start with, you're harkening back to 40 person content; 10-25% of an 8 person group is basically 1 or 2 people. While I guess I can see avoiding drama as a noble goal on some level, you're basically asking for an environment where you're looking for nothing more than warm bodies for most content. Or warm bodies who are on different loot tables. That just doesn't sound like a particularly healthy or fun MMO to me. While we're on the subject of WoW comparisons - one of the larger criticisms as it became more 'accessible' was that server communities just kind of died as content became focused more and more on single player activities.

I dunno, feel free to call me an elitist, but I prefer content that rewards teamwork; as I keep going through this thread it just seems like the 'rope jump' isn't so much the complaint as the 'team' element.

[Asuras]

I much prefer the ones you can dodge with player skill than random any day. I feel that it cheapens an encounter when you're just able to outgear it.

I disagree that player skill equates to memorizing boss fight mechanics. Part of the reward of getting advanced gear and levels is feeling powerful when going through older content. I certainly enjoy going back to starting zones and one-shotting level 2 and 3 mobs from time to time. I certainly see nothing wrong with that. When you outgear older content, you steam-roll through it. Of course, when designers make content with disguised "death-touch" abilities and phases that can be deadly when pushed (stronger DPS), it shows an element of laziness in the design. They did not want to account for gear level at all. It simply makes designing the fight more difficult. You have to do things the way it was scripted (albeit short-cuts or mechanic-cheats that players have developed).

[Gormogon]

I prefer content that rewards teamwork

Take it as you will. All I see is teamwork at the cost of alienating and harassing others players for being part of a different demograph.

[Lemon8or]

I disagree that player skill equates to memorizing boss fight mechanics. Part of the reward of getting advanced gear and levels is feeling powerful when going through older content. I certainly enjoy going back to starting zones and one-shotting level 2 and 3 mobs from time to time. I certainly see nothing wrong with that. When you outgear older content, you steam-roll through it.

Different cup of tea for different people I guess. Besides turn 9 phase 1, I don't think I memorize any fight's rotation. I memorize how to deal with each mechanics as it comes up. I always felt it cheapens the fight in older RPG when you can get so powerful you just massacre everything. For example, when I played Pokemon Blue for the first time, I ignore every single pokemon and just level my starter Squirtle into Blastoise. Sure it was fun one-shotting the Elite Four when my Blastoise was like level 100 (mind you Blastoise could learn Earthquake so I plowed through the Electric gym and use Normal type moves for Water type Pokemon) but it's not as fun as leveling different pokemons trying to anticipate different scenarios. Or more recently Disgaea. You can grind yourself, rebirth a couple times and be the strongest character ever then go through the story but what's the point in that? I surely don't appreciate it. If you ask me "then what's the point of getting stronger items and better yourself". Well it's to challenge harder fights, not to steam roll through easy ones.

[Zarzak]

While I think those numbers are completely distorted to start with, you're harkening back to 40 person content; 10-25% of an 8 person group is basically 1 or 2 people. While I guess I can see avoiding drama as a noble goal on some level, you're basically asking for an environment where you're looking for nothing more than warm bodies for most content. Or warm bodies who are on different loot tables. That just doesn't sound like a particularly healthy or fun MMO to me. While we're on the subject of WoW comparisons - one of the larger criticisms as it became more 'accessible' was that server communities just kind of died as content became focused more and more on single player activities.

I dunno, feel free to call me an elitist, but I prefer content that rewards teamwork; as I keep going through this thread it just seems like the 'rope jump' isn't so much the complaint as the 'team' element.

THIS.

Take it as you will. All I see is teamwork at the cost of alienating and harassing others players for being part of a different demograph.

2 short reasons this is flawed logic.

1. MMO MULTIPLAYER. Playing a MMO and complaining about TEAMS is the most ridiculous thing I have heard. And sadly has been harped on since the new generation of MMO players got access to the internet.

2. I like football. Tony Romo likes football. Do you see me crying the NFL doesn't let me play? Different demographics exist EVERYWHERE. You are no more entitled to raid just because you want to than I am to play for the NFL. Put in the time, effort, and energy into getting good at the game and become a raider if you want to raid. If you want all the perks with none of the effort. Tell me how that works out for you in life.

[Gormogon]

snip

This isn't MLG so it's very contradicting treating it like if it was MLG.