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

[Clavaat]

that would mean that PUGs have no chance to ever win a high-end fight. Memorization plays a huge part, you can't ignore it

I beg to differ. If the people in said PUG have a designated leader, or actually communicate politely and effectively, they still have a possibility of winning. This is much more difficult to come to terms on with a PUG, but it is possible nonetheless. Essentially that would come down to the whole "toxic community" argument. And I only meant memorization is not the only factor as many seem to be saying/thinking. The bigger factor is being able to adapt when the pattern doesn't always apply (phase is a little early/late, some moves overlap, you make an error in judgment, etc).

[OSUBuckeye4]

I beg to differ. If the people in said PUG have a designated leader, or actually communicate politely and effectively, they still have a possibility of winning. This is much more difficult to come to terms on with a PUG, but it is possible nonetheless. Essentially that would come down to the whole "toxic community" argument. And I only meant memorization is not the only factor as many seem to be saying/thinking. The bigger factor is being able to adapt when the pattern doesn't always apply (phase is a little early/late, some moves overlap, you make an error in judgment, etc).

This is all great in theory, but, you only get 60 minutes in Primals and 90 minutes in dungeons.

You're basically suggesting that people que up for DF, enter a dungeon and spend time voting on a leader and getting to know each others strengths/weaknesses and setting up backup plans. At the end of it, everyone goes their seperate ways.

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

[Clavaat]

This is all great in theory, but, you only get 60 minutes in Primals and 90 minutes in dungeons.

You're basically suggesting that people que up for DF, enter a dungeon and spend time voting on a leader and getting to know each others strengths/weaknesses and setting up backup plans. At the end of it, everyone goes their seperate ways.

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

Yeah, I can understand that. I was speaking mostly for PF. DF, I truly don't know. Those are whole other debates. Either way, the general point I was trying to make is that even though this content is fairly unforgiving towards people of a lower skill-ceiling, it's very possible for everyone to clear it and enjoy it, if you tweak your attitude/understanding a bit. And that the challenge comes from actually working together, not necessarily from the fight itself on you as an individual. I'm not sure how else to word it, but I've seen evidence in my experience to show that the possibility is there.

[OSUBuckeye4]

Yeah, I can understand that. I was speaking mostly for PF. DF, I truly don't know. Those are whole other debates. Either way, the general point I was trying to make is that even though this content is fairly unforgiving towards people of a lower skill-ceiling, it's very possible for everyone to clear it and enjoy it, if you tweak your attitude/understanding a bit. And that the challenge comes from actually working together, not necessarily from the fight itself on you as an individual. I'm not sure how else to word it, but I've seen evidence in my experience to show that the possibility is there.

I know what you're saying, but, I've run across people who lierally can't clear certain content because of connection issues.

I run content with them, their rotations are good, their adaptability is good, they know when to pop skills, if things go wrong they know when to improvise... they just have unavoidable lag spikes that lead to them getting woosh'ed off platforms to their non-recoverable death in content like Titan EX.

You'll say, "oh, they just say they have lag"... no, the same spikes happen in dungeons like Brayflox and Halitali... they just spike and have 8-10 seconds where they can't do anything.

There's really nothing they can do (except pray for 15 minutes or so without a spike, or for the spike to occur while Titan isn't popping landslides)... they can run the content flawlessly for 8 mintues, but then a spike hits and it's bye bye and then you're running the rest of the fight with 7 people and it just got that much more difficult.

Is it technically possible to defeat Titan EX with 7 people? Sure, if that person who got insta-gibbed isn't a healer or tank. Should that really be the way the game is designed though?

It's really just poor and lazy game design to have a fight that continously pops insta-die mechanics with no possiblity of recovery for 10-15 minutes straight.

You might disagree though, and we can agree to disagree I guess.

[Clavaat]

-snip-

I wasn't debating latency at all, though. The OP doesn't even mention connection or lag issues, it was purely for the context of game mechanics so I saw no reason to bring it up. Regardless, that's a much trickier issue, and will always be for any online game. There's so many factors: ISP, upload/download rate, CDN, Server power, location, programming, hardware limitations client-side, etc. That is a debate for a whole other thread, though.

[Litre]

Ya we can't cater for everyone, anyone with 8-10 second lag spikes as the result of a connection, well is probably locked out of many other games as well. Nerfing content, even super old content to the point where you can lag out for 8-10 seconds and still win is a bit extreme.

[OSUBuckeye4]

I wasn't debating latency at all, though. The OP doesn't even mention connection or lag issues, it was purely for the context of game mechanics so I saw no reason to bring it up. Regardless, that's a much trickier issue, and will always be for any online game. There's so many factors: ISP, upload/download rate, CDN, Server power, location, programming, hardware limitations client-side, etc. That is a debate for a whole other thread, though.

I agree with you.

You've made some good points, as have a lot of others in this thread.

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This is slightly off-topic, but, I do think that a big part of the problem with FF14, was the way SE rolled it out. Too many people reached end-game way too quickly (instant gratification). There's really nothing that can be done about that now though.


Then again, MMORPG developers are kind of darned if they do and darned if they don't. If they release something that 90% of the playerbase can't get to end-game on within 6 months... lots of casual players get discouraged and never make the purcahse in the first place.

If they release something that you can get to end-game on in less than 3 months... everyone gets bottlenecked and the developers can't release additional content quickly enough to keep up with demand, and they have to implement lockouts and unnecessarily tediously grindy content.


That's definitely a different discussion for a different thread though.

[Gormogon]

That's very noble and whimsicle... but, it's not realistic with the current limitations that SE puts on their content.

Yeah it is not realistic especially when the continual growth on difficulty has increased the negativity and toxicity of the players in DF, PF, etc on average. It is the price for desiring harder content and it is to be expected, imho.