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

[Zyrusticae]

If I had a dollar for everytime I heard this... I guess there would be no fail parties? Since everyone is so good that its NEVER their fault.

The ones who are failing are generally not the type to go about proclaiming how much they fail on public forums. Not sure what you want from us.

The same concept applies here. Until players can start taking responsibility for their own mistakes, things are never going to change. It's much easier to accept failure at a lower level then wait until you reach the harder content.

"Taking responsibility" doesn't magically allow players who can't react on time or move to the correct locations to do so if they simply lack the reflexes or their connection is too shoddy (and the latter is a legitimate concern that is largely out of the player's hands, short of using a booster program like Pingzapper or WTFast).

I've run with players who KNOW that they are the problem and admit as such... but they just lose heart after a dozen attempts and stop trying, and that's terrible.

I didn't realize that raiding was a 6 man effort, not 8. Let me put it to you simply, if you want to succeed, get rid of those that are dead weights.

Not an option. Extreme primals WILL eventually be added to the roulette, and obviously simply shedding the "dead weight" WILL NOT BE AN OPTION.

This is besides the fact that you should want those players to eventually, at some point, be able to clear the content after the content is obsoleted. This is the whole point behind the Echo mechanic, after all. If the Echo doesn't help these players clear the content, something else must be done instead.

Try running with friends or good players who you met through PF instead of random people. Or stop whining when these players start making mistakes.

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Head

I stopped reading here.

Quite frankly, given your attitude I shouldn't even be dignifying you with a response in the first place, but it would still be nice if you would extend the courtesy of showing mutual respect and actually addressing the points given instead of brushing them off with elitist bullshit.

[DishSoap]

Worth the read.

[Exstal]

I stopped reading here.

That's unfortunate because the part after that was reasonable. It's like in every other MMO..except this one.

[Dashuto]

"No new players allowed" is the system

"Please link gear to join"
"Please link proof of previous win"
"If new player message, reform"

And then you'll say "but just make your own party!"
And then the instant wipe mechanics have you messing around for 3 hours because 1-2 people can't clear it. Then you break apart
So you make another party and the same things happens.
And another and the same thing happens.
And you know the fight so well you dont screw up at all, and you try to join a team that you can tell knows how to clear it.

But they want you to prove you've already won!!!



Stop saying there is nothing wrong with this system.
It is absolutely awful.
They put in the myth reward to encourage people to help newbs and its done nothing but been used as a weapon against newbs. Because apparently being a sociopath is hip in 14.

[skaterger]

The ones who are failing are generally not the type to go about proclaiming how much they fail on public forums. Not sure what you want from us.

Possibly, but the more likely scenario is those who can't deal with the mechanics are more than likely to come to public forums to nerf said mechanics.

I've run with players who KNOW that they are the problem and admit as such... but they just lose heart after a dozen attempts and stop trying, and that's terrible.

So we should cheer and encourage them for at least trying? Should we give them a candy and say "Well at least you tried, its better than not trying. Its this terrible attitude of giving up that plagues most games today that cultivates this vicious cycle of bad players.

Not an option. Extreme primals WILL eventually be added to the roulette, and obviously simply shedding the "dead weight" WILL NOT BE AN OPTION.

This is besides the fact that you should want those players to eventually, at some point, be able to clear the content after the content is obsoleted. This is the whole point behind the Echo mechanic, after all. If the Echo doesn't help these players clear the content, something else must be done instead.

Square Enix knows the number of players who have cleared coil, they know the number of people who have done atma, they know the number of players who have certain mounts, do you think they not know if there is a sizable number of people who have problems with Ex primals? They mentioned that they found the 20% echo buff for T5 to be sufficient, and that is probably from their numbers that the actual number of players is equal to the intended numbers. If there comes a time where a huge number of new players are struggling with ex primals, they WILL nerf the content, you can be sure of that. That however is no excuse to design new content in a braindead fashion like tank and spank to cater for new or inexperienced players many months or years down the road.

That's unfortunate because the part after that was reasonable. It's like in every other MMO..except this one.

I went back to read it. However, the claims of 1 death=instant wipe and no chance of recovery is hugely exaggerated. I've cleared titan ex with only me (dps), 1 tank and 1 healer alive.

[Zyrusticae]

At this point I have to point out some parts of the OP that you seem to have glossed over or otherwise ignored:

http://ffxiv-fan.com/endcon225

First of all, a word regarding perspective

This blog post is not written from the perspective of what I think about the game based on which contents I can or cannot clear. It is primarily written from the standpoint of "how can we prevent players from leaving FFXIV, or to gain more new players?"

You often hear comments from people saying they personally feel the game is fun or not fun. My goal here is to explore how we can maximize the number of people who thinks the game is fun.

After all, the less people we have subscribed to an MMORPG, the less money there is to go towards future development costs, the game will begin to die out and then it's Game Over.

So, from the perspective of how we can keep people entertained and playing, the following is my own opinion on the current state of end-game contents.

Once again, this is not a post about making arguments like "well I think the game is fun because I can clear the contents" or "you just don't think it's fun because you can't clear the contents" .

To make such an argument is like having someone say to you "I have practiced, reviewed and studied hard to learn English and now I can read and write English at the top-university level and have no problems with daily English conversations so it's fun for me. A ton of people in the world also speak English, so if you work hard at it you can be just like us too!" (You'd think "what a snob!")

I do not intend to write about the end-game contents from such a one-sided standpoint.

Also, for those of you who think the current state of FFXIV is awesome, reading this might feel like a bit of a downer, so maybe you should not read any further if you're happy with things the way they are now.

Let's take a look at the first Coil as an example:

In Turn 1, you no longer need to feed the slimes to Caduceus, so that's a huge easing of difficulty.

In Turn 2, Allagan Rot is (still) the faster method. However, anyone who cannot properly handle the mechanic will still die and possibly wipe the party. The mechanics has been eased to the point where even if one or two people mess up you may still be able to clear it. Nevertheless, the enrage method remains the mainstream strategy.

Turn 4 has been unquestionably eased.

In Turn 5, if you cannot deal with the mechanics of divebombs, twister, etc., you will not be able to win no matter what your character or equipment level is, with or without Echo. In fact, if your DPS is too high, you will actually run into trouble with Conflag/Fire Balls.

So despite the first Coil being nerfed to cater to the supposedly mainstream crowd, the "if you cannot deal with the mechanics, then you can't win" principle remains unchanged.

In T5, there may be situations where you can recover from a poorly handled mechanic. But if you were to ask someone whether you can still win if the tanks died to a divebomb, the answer will always be "no".

Nevertheless, there are probably people out there who thinks it's not that bad and that it's easier to get people carried through.

What about the Second Coil then? Now that everyone has more HP, more DPS, more healing power... do you have any chance of winning without handling all mechanics perfectly?

Personally, I believe this "mechanics-driven battle system" that makes character level, item level, and Echo all feel more or less irrelevant is what's going to drive many players away.

In the future, even when the contents get nerfed, they don't actually get "eased". You will still have your Allagan Rot mistakes and your Voice/Shriek mistakes. For those players who dislike dealing with such mechanics, the contents will become no less annoying and no more entertaining even after a nerf.

I noticed this myself for the first time when I easily cleared T6 on my Scholar, despite White Mage being my main job.
I have only limited experience with my Scholar, and only cleared T5 with it a couple of times. Suddenly I'm clearing the Second Coil with it easily.

And this is precisely because the battle system is tuned to be heavily driven by mechanics. The fights are designed so that you can probably clear it as long as you have a basic understanding of your role and know the mechanics of the fight. Experience and gear only comes after that.

In a mechanics-driven battle system, an understanding of the mechanics makes the fight easier, not higher character or item levels.

Your character or item level is nothing but a measurement of the "minimum requirement" necessary for clearing the content.

That's why many end-game fights in this game - including Coil - can be cleared quickly if everyone fully understands and can respond to the mechanics. On the other hand, if you cannot adequately respond to the mechanics, then you will never be able to clear those contents.

It doesn't matter if they raise the level cap or increase the ilvl of your gear, if you cannot address the mechanics, then you cannot hope to clear the Second Coil.

If the development team changes the instant-death mechanics of these fights when the time comes to nerf the Second Coil, it will only serve as proof of how unbalanced the battle design currently is.

(emphasis mine)

It's worth noting that Square Enix can be wrong about their ideas of how many people should be able to clear certain content. Making it difficult for "mainstream" players to simply find groups to do initial clears and making it literally impossible for the majority casual playerbase to complete the content AT ALL is not good for business.

Remember, this isn't about ME, PERSONALLY being unable to get clears - though that certainly doesn't help my impressions of the system as it stands. The original Japanese poster himself has already cleared the content. This is about the long-term health of the game and how the current system may be self-defeating.

Anyway, the OP did a very admirable job of touching on all of this in the one post, so I won't keep reiterating their points here. Just try not to approach it from the perspective of "oh, they just want to clear it more easily!" and instead look at it from the perspective of the long-term health of the game and the difficulty for new players of getting into the endgame.

[Edli]

After so many pages I'm still struggling to understand what the solution to this "problem" would be. Complaining about mechanics? Every game has mechanics. Always did since the era of arcades. You would play a level over and over again until you became familiar with enemy positions, the tactics of the boss, the layout of the maps. Eventually you became good at the game and beat it. That's what a game is.

I've played on raids with no mechanics on old MMOs and it was so boring. I would just park my healer in a corner and click on names to heal. I would park my DPS on the feet of some giant boss and go 123, 123 for 10 min. Is this OP's answer to the "problem"?

[Dashuto]

After so many pages I'm still struggling to understand what the solution to this "problem" would be.

Fights that are difficult without instant wipes from 1 persons tiny mistake. This is possible, as its in many MMORPG.

Or make bringing someone new through much more rewarding. Because as it currently stands the myth bonus is only used as a flag to seek out and assassinate new players.

[Edli]

Fights that are difficult without instant wipes from 1 persons tiny mistake. This is possible, as its in many MMORPG.

That's still a vague suggestion. If you get rid of these instant wipes then you're left with tank and spank which many of these MMOs you mention had and which I found incredibly dull.

[Kydi]

Mechanic based fights are pretty much par for the course now. However, the problem FF has is that it doesn't tier these fights. I would suggest that they just need to add story mode, hard mode and savage mode.

Story mode - some mechanics, 1 easy instant death (curtain call type). Mechanics do reduced damage. Drops BIS i95.

Hard mode - all mechanics, one easy instant death one harder. Other mechanics do normal damage. Drops BIS i100

Savage mode - all mechanics, all instant death intended in the fight. No damage scaling. Drops BIS i110

The suggested gear drops are for second coil as it currently stands.