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

[Colt47]

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.

That's basically what I was suggesting earlier. Largely the tightness of the fights is due to the focus on needing a certain amount of damage to make it through. I've been playing a lot of MMOs recently both past and present and greatly prefer the older system where there are no damage per second checks as much as control checks. The primary reason being that it lets less skilled players into end game fights without being dead weight by putting them in charge of simpler mechanics.

[zlotjko]

simple mechanics = do your job
advanced mechanics = do your job + more stuff

hint: learn your class, do not think about your actions, let it become your second nature and do it on instinct, then you will have time for the advanced things.
Then learn the fight, and with enough practice you will make it. What you want to do is do a half-ass job at both and get the rewards of the full commitment.

[Colt47]

simple mechanics = do your job
advanced mechanics = do your job + more stuff

hint: learn your class, do not think about your actions, let it become your second nature and do it on instinct, then you will have time for the advanced things.
Then learn the fight, and with enough practice you will make it. What you want to do is do a half-ass job at both and get the rewards of the full commitment.

With people playing multiple roles "doing your job" is often the more challenging thing to pick up than the fight mechanics. This is especially true in Final Fantasy XIV where people have multiple end game jobs that they may play. There doesn't seem to be many "relearning" ramps for return players.

I mean, would you say it's harder to learn not to do an action during Turn 6 Raffelasia Death Bouquet, breaking vines, and going to the front of the boss when you are about to be devoured or to master the dragoon/monk damage rotation to the point of consistently doing maximum dps?

[Exstal]

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.

I agree..for the most part. Sometimes a death or a screwed up mechanic means everyone dies. For example, if the divebomb marker for Second Coil: Turn 4 is placed improperly, you're all going to be blasted into the wall. Or in Turn 2, a person who doesn't get behind the cyclops with Shriek freezes everyone. Turn 3 has Allagan Field and, and far as I can remember, Turn 1 has nothing like that.

[Colt47]

I agree..for the most part. Sometimes a death or a screwed up mechanic means everyone dies. For example, if the divebomb marker for Second Coil: Turn 4 is placed improperly, you're all going to be blasted into the wall. Or in Turn 2, a person who doesn't get behind the cyclops with Shriek freezes everyone. Turn 3 has Allagan Field and, and far as I can remember, Turn 1 has nothing like that.

Best not to bring up turn 5. That thing is a tragedy of combat design and naming conventions the likes of which haven't been seen since the original Final Fantasy Tactics. Yes Square Enix: I will forever remember the fact Ultima was called Altima, and the plethora of weird move flavor text that didn't get fixed until years later in the War of the Lions remake... also I miss cloud.

[Exstal]

Best not to bring up turn 5. That thing is a tragedy of combat design and naming conventions the likes of which haven't been seen since the original Final Fantasy Tactics. Yes Square Enix: I will forever remember the fact Ultima was called Altima, and the plethora of weird move flavor text that didn't get fixed until years later in the War of the Lions remake... also I miss cloud.

Well, Binding Coil: Turn 5 has some as well. Twister, if tanks stand on each other, you're pretty much boned. Divebombs, if done the way players do it, screw everyone as well.

[Colt47]

On a completely different subject, I think that the hunts have been over all beneficial to end game, as we haven't really seen such a global coming together of the community in Final Fantasy XIV ARR ever. Yes there are frustrations with early pulls and sometimes there's trolling, but we even have people building websites to help coordinate everyone and let them know when the best time to go hunt is. On the down side, hunts are just about as broken as binding coil and Ramuh EX are, but for a different reason.

I like using the D&D 5th edition spell casters as an example: Basically, D&D 5th ed. has it so spell casters can't cast spells when wearing armor if they lack the proficiency, but without armor the survival rate if someone gets into melee combat is pretty low. So, they can either take an armor proficiency at 3rd level... or they can just take one level of fighter and get all the proficiencies they need. (That and the cantrip spell damage is pretty high). So taking that one level of fighter isn't so much a choice as a requirement.

Hunts are like that in they have a very high seals cap, reward soldiery and myth, and allow people quick access to iLvL 110 gear. It basically renders all the other content pointless unless that individual has a devoted static going into Binding Coil and grinding Ramuh EX (which is the first primal I'm going to say needs some toning down. Titan EX was easier than this guy.) Hunts aren't a choice, they are a requirement. Nothing else competes with them.

[zlotjko]

With people playing multiple roles "doing your job" is often the more challenging thing to pick up than the fight mechanics. This is especially true in Final Fantasy XIV where people have multiple end game jobs that they may play. There doesn't seem to be many "relearning" ramps for return players.

I mean, would you say it's harder to learn not to do an action during Turn 6 Raffelasia Death Bouquet, breaking vines, and going to the front of the boss when you are about to be devoured or to master the dragoon/monk damage rotation to the point of consistently doing maximum dps?

Well you need both.

What some people do not understand, is that you need to know your class / optimal rotation. When people know their classes and their limitation its not that hard just to concentrate on the mechanics.

Imagine a musician, who has a melody in his mind, but just doesn't have the trained technique to let that melody out on an instrument. The frustration of not being able to do what you imagined. But after he learns and trains on an instrument he can play (almost) whatever pops in his mind.

What some people think, is that they are able to play in a band in some grand concert, without learning the instrument or songs. It just doesn't go that way.

And like in a song, there are battles, where you like some parts, or don't like. But you need to satisfy a certain requirements in all parts if you want to play in a band. If you don't want to practice, get better, you get replaced by someone who wants.

That is the truth behind all this.

Players that do not want to practice got the option to get the 110 gear.
In 2.4 Titan Ex will not be required anymore for other primals.
Echo buff that makes things laughable on the top of the higher ilvl gear.
Now with all that, you want to redesign the fights, by eliminating the only danger that bypasses the already overpowered gear. Its already like a cheat, now you want a god mode.
Put some effort in it and claim your deserved loot.
If people used half of the time they use on the forums, to actually learn and train their classes, research videos and guides, this thread would not be 93 pages long.
The only thing that i think is really valuable here, is the discussion of balancing the rope-jumping, rng mechanics, and different checks (dps, awareness, heal). But still some fights will have more of one, some other more of other, which is what makes them different.

Sorry for the rant, but i hope some people at least understand that fights have different components and you need to meet the minimum requirement of everyone of them.
By lowering the minimum requirement, you don't solve the problem. Just more people would ask for more lowering and so on till people can just faceroll the content.

Which is already the case when you can 4 man titan hm.

[Dyvid]

I don't know. It's starting to sound less about instant kill mechanic and more like people don't want DPS to have that much impact on fights. It's not fair to expect new healer and tanks to be perfect while new dps can wipe over and over without impacting the fight. Case in point was my last Tam HM run. Had a DRG that wouldn't dodge and couldn't kill adds fast enough, basically made the whole team wipe over and over. This is the issue I bring up because it sounds harsh but MMOs are a team building game, not solo adventure. Everyone needs to do their part.

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.

This isn't a bad idea. Having started my Novus Weapon it would be nice to earn extra Alex from helping new players win things like EX Primals or a run through coil.

[Elven]

All this made me think about is I want easy loot and if I don't get easy loot I'll move to the next game and come back when it's free to play. I'm not sure how they intend to hold everyone's interest if more and more people decide grinding is getting a bit much. I suppose hard-core players will still play it just means they will have to either switch with peoples play style or let them go.