Irony?

[Lemuria]

The problem with the 'endgame' is that it tries to negate all of the previous content. With each update, more and more of yesteryear's content becomes meaningless, with huge chunks of game being effectively skipped over by new players because they can outgear it in days. The rewards in this game are such that only the very best equipment is actually worth pursuing, and anything else is a stop-gap.

The problem we face now is that these stop-gaps are so close together that many players can skip over several in one bound. New jobs are going from level 55 to 90 in one bound, and then straight on to 120 or higher. This will only worsen as more high strength gear is released and more of yesterday's quests and dungeons become obsolete. The life-support that is the zodiac quest will be dead once Heavensward arrives, and I don't expect they'll be focused enough on vanilla gameplay to fix it afterwards.

[JayCommon]

You shouldn't be finding any main class tanks who don't know how to tank or healers who dps in the new dungeons. These would be legitimate problems otherwise that was extremely apparent in dungeons like Brayflox's Longstop and The Stone Vigil(which is when it became extremely crucial that tanks hold threat).

"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two very separate terms.

.....are you telling me that you haven't encountered a terrible tank in Stone Vigil who obviously knew nothing about their job? Warrior's without Defiance turned on, Paladin's get Shield Oath at level 40 but going into SV with Sword Oath still on. Telling them to switch to Shield Oath only to find that they haven't done their level 40 Job quest yet?? And then, these tanks who refuse to pop into their stance also don't rotate cooldowns on big pulls or bosses. I've had a Warrior tell me he won't turn Defiance on because it lowers his DPS....in a 4man low level dungeon.

And heals who DPS is a legitimate problem? If a healer (especially a scholar) can keep the party alive and throw out some dots or any DPS at all it is an absolute delight to have in the party because it makes killing that much quicker. I won't be the one to chastise a healer who doesn't DPS, but in a lot of low level content if the tank is doing his job correctly there is a LOT of downtime as a healer. I had absolutely no problem DPSing twice as much as healing when leveling my WHM to 50 in every low level dungeon outside of the final 3, because the damage is real from Stone Vigil onwards.

I have seen my fair share of tanks/healers who don't effectively play their role correctly in all levels of content, and I hardly ever use the DF. "Having to do" story missions means nothing when you can do them on any class, and most people in the game are more comfortable completing those missions on a DPS where they can perform average or sub-par and get away with it because they are being carried by a good tank/heal combo, or the other DPS is outputting enough damage to make up for the lack of the other.

[Spiritreaver1217]

..Snip..

What you describe is not a solely FFXIV problem and imo it is not so much a problem as a part of mmo's in general. Not a good part, but a part all the same. I mean for all the flash and cool graphics and such, mmo's haven't really changed that much since they first hit in the '90's.

New content hits and old content is replaced. Yeah, companies put their own spin on the cycle and some like SE even try to keep old content semi-relevant(Roulettes for examplethat have you replay old content for current rewards that are periodically updated), but the cycle is what it is.

..Snip..

You are right that there isn't a whole lot of actual EG cntent in FFXIV at present. I would put forward though that the game is still very early in its life-cycle. Using SE's only other MMO that i have played for comparison, where the game is right now is just before the Rise of the Zilart expansion for FFXI. And that is way early to really expect a super robust EG scene imo.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two very separate terms.

.....are you telling me that you haven't encountered a terrible tank in Stone Vigil who obviously knew nothing about their job? Warrior's without Defiance turned on, Paladin's get Shield Oath at level 40 but going into SV with Sword Oath still on. Telling them to switch to Shield Oath only to find that they haven't done their level 40 Job quest yet?? And then, these tanks who refuse to pop into their stance also don't rotate cooldowns on big pulls or bosses. I've had a Warrior tell me he won't turn Defiance on because it lowers his DPS....in a 4man low level dungeon.


And heals who DPS is a legitimate problem? If a healer (especially a scholar) can keep the party alive and throw out some dots or any DPS at all it is an absolute delight to have in the party because it makes killing that much quicker. I won't be the one to chastise a healer who doesn't DPS, but in a lot of low level content if the tank is doing his job correctly there is a LOT of downtime as a healer. I had absolutely no problem DPSing twice as much as healing when leveling my WHM to 50 in every low level dungeon outside of the final 3, because the damage is real from Stone Vigil onwards.

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't clarify enough on that point. I'm fully agreeing with what you're saying, because yes, I've run into Tanks/Heals who haven't done their job quest yet, and the result is that the dungeon quite literally becomes impossible unless everyone else is over-geared. I was trying to say that by making it so that players cannot skip that content, it makes it so that (hopefully) this problem doesn't spread to the new content. I put "shouldn't" because you can't stop lv50 players from fate grinding out their brand new Dark Knight and then running dungeons with it to speed through the new story.

I've run into the tanks and healers that you describe, and I was trying to say that I see them as a very serious problem. Mostly because these people are usually apprehensive and possibly already have a lv50 class, but have never played their role before. It also doesn't help that these people can't really even be kicked, because if they have the in-progress option checked then they will normally just re-insert themselves into the group. That's not to say that they aren't all that way though, and I've helped players know what they need to do in order to unlock that job class and then kick them if it's apparent that the dungeon can't be done with how they currently are.

I'm not against heals dps'ing and I share your stance that it does in fact make the run MUCH smoother in level sync'd dungeons, I've legitimately met healers in the DF who think that they queued as damage. I specifically remember it happening in Cutter's Cry. They don't heal at all, and since most players are over-geared by now, it doesn't become apparent unless the tank speaks up or, in our case, when all of the adds in the first boss didn't follow the healer because he wasn't healing.

[Edenholt]

I think keep ARR's content relevant (or rather "mandatory") for a new player is a plus for this game. A new player coming after one or two expansions will have the equivalent of three brand new games (to him!) to play. The concept of "only the end-game matter" is bad for the game and specially for us, gamers, because we steal ourselves the pleasure of experiencing the game, since most of us will just rush through it all, reaching the top and feeling the game didn't worth the subscription.

[Izsha]

Story quests aren't endgame. Endgame content is what do you do when you finish leveling to cap, unlock everything, and then go play (usually with a slant towards combat content. Buying a house is generally not most people's definition of 'endgame'). Finish story, unlocked all dungeons/areas (heavensward areas in a month) and then see what you have left to do. Right now it's:
*Grind weekly tomes.
*4 coil bosses.
*WoD (before they unlocked fcob. Now you'd just do more fcob)

Think of a single player rpg. Many have an serious of trial beyond the story. Super crazy side bosses. Playing it again on higher difficulty, replaying with harder objectives for special endings etc. Endgame is AFTER the story.

[Gardes]

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of walking through the park by the time they hit Heavensward content.

Fixed that for you.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

snip

I didn't say they'd be experts, but they certainly should know a successful rotation as tanks/dps and heals should know how to best deal with a multitude of situations by the time they're done with story content. Sure, it's nothing Coil worthy, but you shouldn't see players playing Gladiators or Conjurers without their job class in the new expansion dungeons or a tank that doesn't know how to use Flash/Overpower. The alternative is to let players skip the 2.0 story entirely, which would quite literally lead to players who don't know anything trying to do the new content.

[GenJoe]

I didn't say they'd be experts, but they certainly should know a successful rotation as tanks/dps and heals should know how to best deal with a multitude of situations by the time they're done with story content.

Nah, I still only tank with flash, flash, overpower, overpower,1,2,3,1,2,4,1,2,3,1,2,4
It's even easier on WHM, I just use medica 2 and cure 2 and move around.

The getting the basics down you're talking about isn't something that's built over the entire game.. Sure that's what it's "intended" to do.. But more than likely, tanks hit a road block at some point where they have trouble holding aggro (depends on the person, some run into this wall in Satasha, some in Brayflox, some just don't run into that issue ever) then realize they're doing something wrong.. Google something, 20 minutes later, voila! They're good to go.


You're suggesting that 200 hrs of gameplay from beginning to 2.55 is necessary to teaching that to newcomers.. It simply isn't, when somebody hits a roadblock, they'll learn and improve. OR NOT, some just simply refuse to improve.. Point is.. MSQ, job quests, guildhests etc. don't shape a good player, it's the personal inadequacy each individual feels that will lead them to learn, disastrous dungeon runs usually have that impact on people, not the tedious 200hrs of repeated quests.

[Xatsh]

Lol too much endgame.

85% of my guild stopped logging in until the expansion because they are bored out of their mind from the lack of worthwhile things to do.

This game has like 25% of the endgame it needs to keep people who play more then 10hrs a week occupied.

ENDGAME constantly negates itself in XIV. There is less then 10hrs of relevant endgame a week in XIV. Sure there is hundreds of hours of fluff and vanity content, but that is not going to work for the endgame players.