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

[Damane]

But you then run into the problem of having people who will just get carried around, not really improving themselves and stay a dead weight... but still manage to pass the hardest end game raids and get the stuff they want, even if they're just mostly lying on the ground.
You then won't be able to tell who is "good" and who can't pass certain gameplay mechanics by themselves.

At least, the "team rope jumping" lessen that effect.
If you see a full High Allagan dude walking around, you know that, this player, has at least a certain level of skill and teamplay.

Oh I am not advocating to make things be done really by everyone or that you can carry everyone through the "current" highest endgame, by all means not. but for example stuff that has an "echo" buff should be steamrolled. This is not the case in 14 because mechanics still one shot people no matter what gear your party has equiped, in that essence the "Echo" fails because of mechanics. That is clearly a flaw in design/nerfing the content.

The problem is even in EX primal battles you cant take 2-3 friends with you that play the game occasionally. Some of that even applies to some hardmode battles. There should be a possibility that you can do relevant story driven "olde" fights with just 4 very good people, so you can let friends join in that are behind or need the clear or whatever.

I am totally fine if they design the current highest endgame content for 8 people partys for the hardcore people, but once you roll with the "echo" buff/nerf, adjust the mechanics so 4 very good geared people can clear the content so they can take friends with them if they wanted. This is what the Dev team failed to adress in alot of Trial battles, because the mechanics wont let you handle it differently then with 8 people. New players have almost no hope to advancing in FF14, at some point they hit a brick wall midway through they just cant climb over due to various reasons: lack of people doign it, difficulty wasnt adjusted correctly so people dont bother with it etc. etc. Those people will just turn away and unsub after some time.



Lets take for an example Delve 1.0 in FFXI:
- this event was originally designed for 18 people
- when it was released your ally had to have the best equiped or close to excellent equipment
- your ally had to apply the different job roles/pt roles perfectly on point
- only the hardcore could clear it at first

lets take a look at delve 1.0 after 6 months:
- the Dev team added skill+ on ilvl items so accuracy and attack wasnt much an issue anymore
- the dev team adjusted mob HP according to PT size. if you enter it with 6 people or less the mobs/NMs would have less HP then if you would enter with 18 people.
- various mainstream gear releases in between those 6 months made it easy to get properly geared for it np
- it was now possible to clear delve with a PT of 6 people and you could even take 2-3 friends along side of you if you wanted to get them the clear without much trouble

lets take a look at delve 1.0 after 9 months:
- various new gear releases and job adjustments have made it possible that you can 3-4 man delve 1.0