Content should be challenging to execute... Not challenging to learn

[QiLymePye]

I kinda agree with OP. I feel like by accepting these type of mechanics, we are selling ourselves short. I like to think that almost everybody that plays this game could beat lots of endgame content without watching videos. I believe you all could. I think its because we live in this society that wants instant gratification and don't want to apply ourselves. Im 36 years old. Ive played games like Ninja Gaiden and mega man, etc. that relied on memory, but it was your own memory of what you saw during your time playing, not studying someone else's play. Thats what made games fun and challenging. Like the other person said, if I told you what my moves are and told you when they were coming, how is that more challenging than just knowing what they are? If there weren't videos online, how many can say they can pass those bosses? I think most of you can, just you don't want to take the time to figure it out, you want someone else to do the thinking for you. Stop selling yourselves short. You are smarter than that. You are capable.

Look at it like this, football players watch video film on other teams to learn what they run and what it looks like. Watching a vid of a fight in this game is akin to watching a football game a week before it happens, then going back in time to play in said game knowing exactly when and where play is going. Thats not "gettin gud" or "learning mechanics", thats called cheating. And the person giving away said info would be called names just as bad...think about it. Would what you do in this game to win was done anywhere else, would you be praised? Or condemned?

[Khalithar]

I'd be fine with going in blind in learning mechanics if they gave you some idea of what to do. For instance in A1, one of my party members ran through the add debuff and got shrunk, that's when we came up with the idea of putting it under the missiles, none of us had done the fight before.

While in A4 with the judgment debuff, it doesn't accurately explain what to do with it or what it does. That is what I'd call a bad way to do things, they shouldn't be stingy with information.

I really think this game needs a dungeon journal like WoW where it tells you what the boss mechanics are and what they do so you have some idea of what will happen when you go in. But just because you have an idea of what the mechanics are, you still need to figure out the specific strategy around the mechanics and practice until you know what they look like and what to watch out for.

Edit:

This is easy mode and alot of the mechanics are similar to coil.

Not everyone that plays the game ever did coil. I've already cleared Alexander, all four floors, and started the game about a month and a half ago at the end of may. I didn't have time to do coil as I was focused on Main Story Quests and getting my ilevel up before HW, I have no idea what any of the coil mechanics are, what the zones are like, or exactly what coil even is. It would be a better bet to assume that the people doing Alexander right now have never done coil.

[Gallus]

The problem about this is that you can't have reflex based fights when the game itself has a natural delay of like half second... this is why they make very scripted fights where the key to succeeding is knowing what's coming to you beforehand.

People already die like no tomorrow to things like landslide and plumes in a fixed Titan rotation...and blame "lag" for it. Imagine those 2 attacks in a complete random rotation. The outrage lol.

[Khalithar]

People already die like no tomorrow to things like landslide and plumes in a fixed Titan rotation...and blame "lag" for it. Imagine those 2 attacks in a complete random rotation. The outrage lol.

For the record that titan hitbox on landslide is BS, there are plenty of times where I was out of it on my screen and the server disagreed. It's even better when he landslides in one direction, I'm out of it on my screen, and get hit in the opposite direction anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the damage on the telegraphs shouldn't be calculated until the actual animation goes off, as is, if you're in the telegraph when the cast finishes, you get hit once it goes off. Instead, you shouldn't take damage unless you're standing where it is when the attack actually goes off.

[Chihaya]

It was me explaining why Alexander was cleared within 2hrs after release, because raider are already used to dealing with the mechanics (not exactly the same but many similarities) and the whole thing is very simple compared to previous raids. I also cleared it on the first day it was released - I had people that cleared it earlier act as guides. I didn't do any reading/video watching myself beforehand. I would say I was carried in the first round but as we get more and more new people through I began to carry more weight in the runs.

And yes there are definitely more people doing Alexander that never done coil before that's why there's this other thread complaining how hard it is to PUG A4 and your mention of Judgement.

[Khalithar]

And yes there are definitely more people doing Alexander that never done coil before that's why there's this other thread complaining how hard it is to PUG A4 and your mention of Judgement.

I personally don't think A4 pugging is too hard on anyone except the healers! I don't think the fight itself is too hard, I'm just annoyed by the lack of information about things like perpetual laser and how the judgment debuff works.

[Eisenhower]

I'd be fine with going in blind in learning mechanics if they gave you some idea of what to do. For instance in A1, one of my party members ran through the add debuff and got shrunk, that's when we came up with the idea of putting it under the missiles, none of us had done the fight before.

While in A4 with the judgment debuff, it doesn't accurately explain what to do with it or what it does. That is what I'd call a bad way to do things, they shouldn't be stingy with information.

If you're referring to the Judgement Nisi A/B ability, it is clear from the tooltip of the debuff. It says "You have Judgment A or B and that receiving the other judgement will result in a death sentence". It is not a stretch of the imagination to infer from this that you do not want the other debuff. Considering the fact that the Judgement Nisi only applies to healers (unless you're busy wiping) that spend their time watching the party list anyway, it is also not a challenging task to see that another debuff has been placed among the party members. I argue that there's no lack or obfuscation of information happening.

I really think this game needs a dungeon journal like WoW where it tells you what the boss mechanics are and what they do so you have some idea of what will happen when you go in. But just because you have an idea of what the mechanics are, you still need to figure out the specific strategy around the mechanics and practice until you know what they look like and what to watch out for.

Let me apologize in advance for my french, so to speak. But the dungeon journal in WoW is a piece of shit that should never exist in the form it does now. The level of information it provides and the time at which it provides that information makes it a guide to solve an encounter from the very developers themselves.

If the journal provided this information some time after the release of content, then sure. It helps those people that have fallen behind. If the journal provided information that was diffuse but acted as hints to figure out a strange mechanic, then sure, it helps players overcome a hurdle. Unless I'm mistaken the journal provides detailed information (e.g. At 10% the boss will do <thing>, this is how you conteract it.) the moment the patch hits, or even before that if PTRs are involved.

Endgame encounters are in essence puzzles that are solved with coordination and violence. Half the challenge is figuring out what the pieces of the puzzle is. With the dungeon journal, that half of the challenge is removed and just placed in front of the user.

The journal coddles the player. It removes incentive for players to be attentive and catch audiovisual cues from the game environment as well as for players to read tooltips and piece the fragments of information together to form a solution to the problem set before them.

You said yourself that players shared information. That is exactly the same as watching a video or reading a strategy.

Are you telling me that going in blind, wiping, observing and then chatting with your party members in order to devise a strategy against the boss is the same as watching a video or reading a guide text online? Gods forfend.