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

[Fyce]

There's something I don't really understand: why are some people saying that executing precise things at a precise time to beat a scripted boss doesn't require skill?

I mean, isn't that exactly the same as watching a ballet? Would you tell to those dancers that what they're doing isn't difficult or that they don't deserve to be applauded at the end?
They trained hours upon hours, doing the exact same thing over and over again to get it right. They don't just pop on stage and do whatever they want to show the public how good they are at improvising because the show is just a random mess... not to mention that it's not what the spectators came to see.

Also, I will point at the fact that RNG and overall randomness is the complete opposite of being skilled. If you win just because you were lucky during an encounter, it doesn't make you skilled, it just makes you a lucky player.
Same thing goes for loosing, but instead, it generates a high level of frustration when it happens, just because there's nothing you could have done to prevent it.


Finally, I've red a few pages of this thread, and somewhere, I saw someone saying something like "a battle is random! Fighting is not a scripted thing!".
Bloody hell yes it's scripted. Maybe the last bar fight you had was full of drunk people punching randomly in the air, hoping to reach the face of someone... but armies and, in a lesser extent, special forces interventions are everything but random.
These guys are training everyday to be able to execute a pattern perfectly for a specific situation. Just like the dancers of a ballet I was talking about.

So, while some points of the OP and some people here are correct, I have no idea what some of you are talking about when you associate randomness to skill.

[Amberion]

There's something I don't really understand: why are some people saying that executing precise things at a precise time to beat a scripted boss doesn't require skill?

But what does your mad dances move have to do with your characters skills/stats? Your characters skills/stats, and how you use them should be the main focus. In this game you can have mediocre skill with your character, but godlike dodging skills and pretty much beat all fights. Now reverse those skills, and you won't have a chance.

I mean, isn't that exactly the same as watching a ballet? Would you tell to those dancers that what they're doing isn't difficult or that they don't deserve to be applauded at the end?
They trained hours upon hours, doing the exact same thing over and over again to get it right. They don't just pop on stage and do whatever they want to show the public how good they are at improvising because the show is just a random mess... not to mention that it's not what the spectators came to see.

Take a comedy act. Who has more skill in it, the one who made a good show with coming up with and rehearsing for 1 month, or the one who made a good show with improvisation?

[Magis]

But what does your mad dances move have to do with your characters skills/stats? Your characters skills/stats, and how you use them should be the main focus. In this game you can have mediocre skill with your character, but godlike dodging skills and pretty much beat all fights. Now reverse those skills, and you won't have a chance.

This right here!!! It's like people forgot this is an RPG, not an action game.

[Fyce]

But what does your mad dances move have to do with your characters skills/stats? Your characters skills/stats, and how you use them should be the main focus.

But why? Why is it more important to you to be able to do a perfect DPS rotation rather than executing precise moves at a specific time? It just comes to personnal preferences here.

In this game you can have mediocre skill with your character, but godlike dodging skills and pretty much beat all fights. Now reverse those skills, and you won't have a chance.

I'm sorry but this is not true.

If your healer is doing nothing but spamming Cure II, overhealing like crazy and not using his selfbuffs at the right time, no matter how good at dodging he is, you'll die. If your DPS is mediocre because of bad rotations, you'll not pass some DPS checks. If your tank doesn't know when to pop his cooldowns when necessary, wipe is incoming... unless you have very good healer, but then, if proves that skill is important.

I cannot let you say that you can clear out all the content if you are just good at dodging and executing a pattern.
Plus, it makes no sense to say that: someone good enough to perform all the actions needed during a fight is more likely to be able to react accordingly to a certain situation, because he/she have experience in the fight.
Currently, you need to be at least decent with your skills/rotations AND be able to perform godlike dodges to clear all the content.

It just seems that some people here want the opposite and try to enfore the idea that "randomness" and "non-wipe inducing moves" should do the trick. But they're wrong. Maybe it will surprises you the first times, but in the end, fights will become dull and tasteless while the only objective will be to be overgeared to reduce the effect of the randomness in order to minimise the skill level required.

Take a comedy act. Who has more skill in it, the one who made a good show with coming up with and rehearsing for 1 month, or the one who made a good show with improvisation?

There're actually less improvisation shows than scripted ones. In fact, I don't really see the former type being represented at all besides acting/theater teaching lessons.
You'll sometimes see a humorist being asked to react to something, throwing a few good jokes and call it a day, but you'll never see an unscripted opera or, like I said, a ballet... because it makes no sense.

The point of training and being good at what you do is to put that into a well defined context. In FFXIV, if you want to be flawless in a boss battle, you indeed have to be a dodging god, but if you are mediocre with your character skills, you'll hold everyone down, sometimes causing wipes.

[AttacKat]

There's something I don't really understand: why are some people saying that executing precise things at a precise time to beat a scripted boss doesn't require skill?

A bot can do this. So, are you a skilled player, or are you a bot?

Skill = knowing how to deal with a situation that may or may not happen at any given moment.

[Gilthas]

A bot can do this. So, are you a skilled player, or are you a bot?

Skill = knowing how to deal with a situation that may or may not happen at any given moment.

You think that bots can't be programmed to deal with more "random" battles? That's a non argument if I ever saw one.

And yes, having to execute precise movements/commands is indeed a measure of skill. As anyone that actually lives in the real world could tell you. Sometimes it feels like these forums are living in their own little pretend world.