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

[rwyan]

I actually love those I just don't like that losing one person in this game can essentially mean you're going to wipe no matter what.

Tank and spank generally implies that nothing interesting is going to happen in the fight ever.

I think that is the primary concern and complaint. A skillful group of players should be able to recover from a stumble. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case. A skillful player makes a mistake and it takes the whole group down with him/her.

[EnverHoxha]

So many of you understand nothing of the point that was trying to be made. No one wants it easier. What OP (and myself) want is to be able to say "I know I'm a good Paladin/Dragoon/Scholar/etc because I fulfilled my role appropriately and lended to us clearing the content in a fun manner." What currently happens is, "I watched a video and have better reaction skills. I'm must truly be skilled." Sorry, but if that satisfies you, you're a simpleton. No one is advocating for easy mode. If you took that from this thread, I imagine the only brain power you do have is the ability to follow steps 1 through 3 and call it skill. Skill is choosing a class, mastering it, and lending your abilities to clearing difficult content that in fact may need exactly what your job has to offer, assuming you've mastered your class and can actually offer that. People want to feel like they matter to the ability to clear content, not that they are a cog in a machine.

[Luvbunny]

LOL it cracks me up, everyone complaint about the scripted moves... but they will not be able to deal with "random fast pace" move, period. I mean small numbers of people will be able to deal with it, the majority will quit. Case point, Ultima Hard Mode which is a mix of random and scripted - and it is one of the most challenging battle, with so many wipes, and nerd rages. If scripted moves is already hard enough because your reaction time is just not up there, random moves will wipe the entire alliance within seconds because people have no idea what to do. Unless you want the slower pace battle style a la FFXI.

[Tiggy]

Ultima hard mode random elements? Lol, what? Maybe where the beams point but the rest is pretty straight forward.

[Jynx]

Ultima Hard Mode which is a mix of random and scripted - and it is one of the most challenging battle, with so many wipes, and nerd rages.

What about ultima hard mode was random? asides the mentioned beams...we might as well call Ifrit random as well as he doesn't always charge the same side of the arena...

[Colt47]

I was thinking about this earlier and really the game is balanced between dps, tank, and heal were as other MMOs tend to leave the fight on the shoulders of healers and tanks. If healer fails, no heals for party thus wipe. If tank fails the mob goes wild thus wipe. Now we have it were if dps fails bad things happen thus wipe. Is it really fair for two roles to bare the full responsibility of the fight like the old days?

I do agree that the elitist have shown their colors and made end game a very inaccessible for new players but on the other end of the spectrum I hardly ever see learning parties in PF.

The old system gave a place for people who couldn't devote the time to learn fights without having to hamper people who did, thus it allowed experienced hardcore vets to team up with mainstream and casual players to tackle hard content. The less experienced players would probably die, but they'd be able to learn from the fight without impacting the success of the players who are further along. This fosters a better community experience compared to forcing everyone to have to be responsible for the success of the entire group. One size does not fit all in an MMO.

[skaterger]

So many of you understand nothing of the point that was trying to be made. No one wants it easier. What OP (and myself) want is to be able to say "I know I'm a good Paladin/Dragoon/Scholar/etc because I fulfilled my role appropriately and lended to us clearing the content in a fun manner." What currently happens is, "I watched a video and have better reaction skills. I'm must truly be skilled." Sorry, but if that satisfies you, you're a simpleton. No one is advocating for easy mode. If you took that from this thread, I imagine the only brain power you do have is the ability to follow steps 1 through 3 and call it skill. Skill is choosing a class, mastering it, and lending your abilities to clearing difficult content that in fact may need exactly what your job has to offer, assuming you've mastered your class and can actually offer that. People want to feel like they matter to the ability to clear content, not that they are a cog in a machine.

Lol this kind of kind of BS falls right in line with the "Coil is easymode, the only reason I can't is because others are holding me back" and "wah people always ragequit because it's their fault and never my fault" mentality. I can't believe people actually agree with you on this. How about you guys getting off your lazy bums and actually proving something/show some results instead of being keyboard warriors and blowing puffs of smoke on the internet, because you know, anyone can do that.

By the way, in a 4 man party, you are one quarter of your team. If you are consistently meeting bad parties, its a high chance that you might be the problem. I have played for over 6 months and I can say 99% of my DF roulettes have been drama free. Point is, it's much easier to point the fingers at others than looking if the problem is yourself.

You say that learning mechanics and good having reaction time is unskilled, yet offer no alternatives other than "choosing and mastering a class and using your abilities appropriately". Why, I didn't realize that you could clear coil just by knowing the boss's abilities and dodging them, because there are no dps checks in coil at all /sarcasm. One shot mechanics are annoying, yes, but isn't staying alive one of the oldest and important adages of being good (dead dps do no dps)?

I would like to see scripted mechanics removed, but for totally different reasons that most of you. Making abilities less scripted and more random actually makes the fights harder. In addition to having to know how to play your class. It would be fun to see even more whining about how content is so hard and we can truly separate the chaff from the wheat.

[SDaemon]

What's wrong with that? I love tank and spank. I have fun in tank and spank matches. I don't have fun when every 5 seconds some gigantic, unavoidable AOE blows everyones face off.

To each their own and I mean no offense to you by this, but how could nothing but tank and spank fights be fun? It doesn't challenge, engage or do much of anything really except fill your screen with flashy animations as you stand there spamming keys and hoping your gear beats whatever dps/hps/health check they might have attached, while you and the boss chill there awkwardly attacking each other....

[zlotjko]

Ok am gonna tell you a little story with a little battle log. 2 Weeks ago my fc downed T9 for the first time. The log goes something like this:

We were all alive and well till the second behemut's claw.
Extra fire stacks killed the healer.
Tank survived the nuke due to a proper planned and timed cd with ofc help of the other healer.
We got the healer up, then she died again cause the fire stack didn't go away.
Then i, as a mnk died on divebombs.
Healer was ressed, i was ressed.
One bard died, i died again, healer died again.
The poor sch who did everything properly was running out of mana even thou the second bard was playing the mana song as much as he could.
I was ressed again with double weakness (and the healer too) to use the lb. Bard was ressed. Then the blm died. Healer died again. Other bard died.
Last 4-5% of boss hp the team was with 1 tank (pld), 1 healer (sch), 1 dps with double weakness (le me, a mnk), 1 bard with 1 weakness and a smn.
My weakness passed on 2% on the bosses hp.
Sch didn't have mana for ress and was poping a second pot for mana just to be able to heal the bosses autoattacks and was willing to sacrifice a lala for more dps crits before the next behe's claw. On 30k hp on the boss, shouts were started to go out of control ("Kill it!!!Kill it!!!!).
10-15 sec later (maybe was more, seemed like eternity at that moment), boss was killed, and the shouts of joy (for some, through tears) could be heard on ts.

And you want to take that from us?

ps. we have a recording of that kill on youtube, messy as 3 hells

[Colt47]

Well, the only stop gap I can think of for now to mend the community would be to increase the new member benefits to something actually worth the time investment those people are going to have to put in. If we use Expert roulette as a base, the reward would probably have to be around 13500 gil, 200 soldiery, a lot of myth, and probably a bonus item or pet.