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

[Melithea]

Ok sure, the main flaw with this post's reasoning is that it ignores TIME

I haven't ignored time. I brought it up in a different post on page 72.

Now, should 100% of players be able to kill Twin today? Some posters in this thread seem to think yes. Yoshi says no. If they wanted 100% of players to have downed Twintania today, they would have continued to increase the echo buff, which has been proven effective in increasing the number of players who kill her. So basically, what you're asking for here already exists. You just want it to happen faster than the Producer does.

Not completely true, the OP points to many mechanics, we are using Titan EX landslide and Twintania divebombs to point out that insta-kill mechanics negate any ease introduced by overgearing content.

It's indisputable that Titan EX and Twintania are both easier now than they were on release, even without changing their hardest mechanics. The easing hasn't been negated, it just hasn't been applied 100%, either.

Here's the problem, it's not balanced in this way, the mechanics are the primary determining factor in victory, and always will be, years after content release unless they fix insta-kill, miss a divebomb, you wipe your party, end of story.

This isn't even true today. I've seen lots of people screw up divebombs without wiping the party. I've also seen the OT get landslided off the platform during heart phase, before the first adds and the party still won on that attempt. Stop pretending things are insurmountable obstacles just because they can't be ignored with a Cure II.

So I'll tell you what's not fun, being elitist and subjecting casual players to the same arrogant standards you have for game difficulty and assuming because it's fun for you, that if they just worked harder they'd experience the fun that you experience. I'm sorry it doesn't work that way, they are just getting frustrated and giving up and quitting, sure some players improve but that takes dedication, time, practice, etc... Not something casual players usually have the time for.

If you had read any of my posts you would have known better than to say this. I've played heavily since Closed Beta. My first Twin kill was on April 25th, which was patch 2.25. I still haven't cleared Turn 6 (no group). Stick to addressing my arguments instead of attacking me, because you clearly know nothing about me.

From page 67:

Just to make this perfectly clear: I'm not trolling and I'm not even "on the other side of the argument". I very deliberately staked out neutral ground and positioned myself as a non-hardcore, non-elitist who hasn't even cleared T6. My purpose here is to figure out exactly what changes people think need to be made. Because any changes made are obviously going to affect me, too. That's why I keep challenging people to be more clear, more specific, more detailed, and pointing out problems with their answers. It helps them refine their arguments.

[Yukiko]

You didn't have to make a plan and make sure everyone knew what to do.

/snip

Sorry to disapoint you, but the challlenge was to fight a unknown Boss without reading any guides and you do NOT have a plan! The difference is in FXIV you can not recover and EXPERIENCE the combat, its life or death, you do not have HOPE...

Its like that:
Boss Phase 1 -> 5 to 10 trys, wipe
Boss Phase 2 -> 10 to 20 trys, wipe
Boss Phase 3 -> ...

You do not feel an adventure at all, its just DEATH everywhere you go untill you mastered the mechanics like a machine without fails! You have progress, indeed, but you do not feel like its fun... There is no "struggle" in the combat its just "perfect" or "death".

[Colvin]

I have said before in previous posts (sadly which did not get traction), that a great way to fix this would be to have:

1. a practice feature where after beating a phase and dying you start over from that phase. Of course nothing is dropped from this other than a title when you beat it. However, this would give practice groups a place to actually practice end phases without spending hours of time getting there.

2. Consider having a save feature in the regular fights in an increasing way. If you beat phase 1 10 times in a row, you start at phase 2... etc.

Lots of people liked the idea, it just didnt stick around because there wasnt enough arguing to keep it afloat :/

[Iriadysa]

I'm not going to answer to the rest of your post because this will be my last one here and I can't really be arsed to spark more arguments, but let me address this bit.

No, you don't have to memorize, but it sure helps a lot, because you're multi-tasking combat too. So if you know the next 3 moves that are coming up you can prepare for them and focus more on the combat.

Once again that comes down to bias, this may be easy for you, you are probably a very skilled player, but for many others they need to memorize at least the critical sections or they get overwhelmed.

I understand there's encounters that are impossible to beat for some people. And I argue that if they cannot beat them they should not be nerfed just so they can, end of story, because the content that can actually be marked as "impossible for some people" is Titan Ex, Twintania and Coil 2.

Titan Ex next patch will no longer be required to access Leviathan and Moogle, which effectively is like giving everyone a free kill.

By the time Coil 2 is open to the masses (I assume by the time Coil 3 hits, so 2.4), T5 will most likely not be a prerequisite to enter it as well as free entry to any turn, just like Coil 1 today.

Personally it boils down to.

A.) Those that want content to be joyful.
B.) Those that want content to be exclusive.

Those part of the B camp have a very big issue with A because they interpret joy as only meaning lazy and easy. No matter how much you say otherwise and no matter how many times it is explained and showcased they wont hear it.

It's an issue that hasn't be resolved for decade but throughout that course of time I've only heard 1 Lead Designer give his 2 cents on the matter.

When you describe the people on group B to your grand children don't forget to add the fact they had twisted horns and wings as dark as their souls.

[Clavaat]

-snip-

Firstly, guides exist for RPGs...so I don't understand what you mean there. I never mentioned guides in my post anyway. When I say plan, I could mean, trial and error, which would be the same thing as going in blind to a boss fight in any other RPG.

Secondly, I don't know to what fights you are referring to, but you totally can recover for most fights. You still have Raise, potions for when you get raised, etc. It's difficult, but not impossible. If you're referring to Divebombs, these will only kill everyone if you are truly not standing properly. If you're referring to Twisters, you can survive them, and/or be Raised and still win. If you're referring to Landslide, you can still win being down a member. This is no different than other RPGs. You might not be able to sacrifice the turn to Raise someone, so you win with 3. There are abilities that will instantly kill in those games too...

All in all, sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but I'm not seeing a point to that comparison and it's relevancy to the topic.

[Yukiko]

snip

Nice static you are in, i wonder why you think everyone must have one?
A MT (MainTank) with weakness definetly can no longer be MT any more, if the team at least manage to survive the Boss running havoc on the field.

[Zarzak]

Nice static you are in, i wonder why you think everyone must have one?
A MT (MainTank) with weakness definetly can no longer be MT any more, if the team at least manage to survive the Boss running havoc on the field.

Because raid content is tuned for organized groups? Not the least common denominator composed of a group of random people with no coordination or familiarity.

Uhh... Since when? This game allows for much more recovery than even the highly praised WoW (which has a # of raises your allowed to cast per event regardless of how many are available) And as a MT I really can't help but laugh at that statement. Rez effects turn "I don't need to use any cooldowns to survive" to "hrm maybe I should hit a couple to help the heals until this debuff goes away"



If a monk or DRG doesnt step up and pop all his defensive CDs to hold the boss for the 10 seconds it takes for the smn or sch to react and raise the tank... thats a problem with the group. Hell even beat the dreaded mastermind known as Titan EX by tanking a full 10% or so as monk back in 2.1

[Zarzak]

Could a EQ game even survive anymore?

Serious question and I know the term "survive" is a loaded one because in theory a game could survive just fine with 100,000 players if it was cost effective.

But can a MMO survive the budget required to make them nowadays on the EQ model. I've skimmed this thread for a few days and people bring up the MMOs of old, but could those MMOs of old survive this new era of the genre, or is everyone just thinking wistfully of the past?

EQ is still going strong. Last 2 expansions sucked I'll admit (they tried out the "modern" MMO style of 3 month release intervals... it was horrible) But the expansion releasing this Fall is supposed to go back to the 1 per year release model.

[Archulak]

Nice static you are in, i wonder why you think everyone must have one?
A MT (MainTank) with weakness definetly can no longer be MT any more, if the team at least manage to survive the Boss running havoc on the field.

Only 1 tank even in the party he dies at 30% they still get the kill.

[Gormogon]

Only 1 tank even in the party he dies at 30% they still get the kill.

Well that's not sloppy and a lot of players underestimate the value of the healer LB 3 especially bards.

A sloppy kill would be something you are most likely to experience in Titan HM/EX when you're left with 3-6 people and it takes an extra 4 minutes above normal to kill the primal and a healer LB3 isn't gonna revive those knocked off the platform.