Observations from a New Player

[Belhi]

Firstly, thank you for actually reading and responding to my posts! It is nice to be able to have an actual conversation.
Secondly, I have found in FF that I do not have many friends, as most of the content seems designed for Solo play. I have a few IRL friends that I play with, but they are not much further along than I. As for dungeons past 50, I have not played any yet, I don't think. The duty finder has not been enjoyable.
I do hope that at some I get to experience the HW dungeons, but it seems that small changes to lower level duties could improve the game experience for new players. FF is still a relatively new MMO, and bringing in new players is important to keep the game going. There are many duties from 15th level to 50th which are painfully dull.

Its worth noting what you find challenging vs dull doesn't match everyone. The story content, that is most of the levelling dungeons, are designed to gradually go up in difficulty to accommodate people who don't naturally take to mechanics. Challenge is important to keeping content entertaining but it has to be balanced against accessibility. What you find challenging might feeling like a frustrating barrier to another player and drive them off.

Gamers often make the mistake off assuming their viewpoint and opinion matches the majority. In reality for every opinion someone gives there is almost certainly someone else giving the very opposite opinion. There lies the real challenge for developers. Finding a balance that at least makes the majority reasonably satisfied.

I also suggest getting a firm understanding of the full spectrum of content before assuming certain things are unnecessary. I've had every item in your list be of value to me quite frequently. Even Guildhests. Sure they seem unimportant but they do hold value particularly to people very new to games to dip their toes into content and try out their class in a group without feeling the pressure of a dungeon.

[Ryans]

I'll never understand this request.

I mean, if you memorize the tactic, at the end of the day... isn't that pretty much the same? It works the same way here. If you face an encounter for the first time, you see what mechanics the boss can do, then you counter them with tactics. I guess you have yet to experience raid content. It's a different world compared to the bosses you find in dungeons. But in order to clarify the point I've quoted, can you please provide me an example in an existing MMO that has this system or the way you want it to be? Mostly because the dev team is always welcome to receive feedback on the forums.

The difference between seeing the move-set of a boss and memorizing a script is pretty simple. Stone Vigil (Hard) has a final boss that with a random attack pattern and no visual clues on the ground. It requires you to pay attention to how the boss is behaving. The majority of the boss fights in FFXIV follow a script. Boss does move A then B then C then B then A. At XX%, they use Z special. It has it's own layer of challenge, but it requires less skill to execute. But it doesn't matter either way as Yoshi has already stated they are going to stick to the scripted encounters so that every fight is the same for every party instead of one group getting lucky on random attack pattern bosses and getting a win.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Snip

And there're random elements involved in some fights, but it's more visible in raid content, where the difficutly of said fights are for players looking for a challenge. Let's take T9, for example, which is a clusterf* of mechanics. Meteors target random members, Thermionic Beam targets random members, golems pop at random positions, Garrote targets random targets, Firescorch targets random members, Thunderstruck targets random members, divebombs target random members and the dragons dive in 3 possible combinations in NM and 10-ish possible positions in Savage.

You have random elements where you have to be reactive in order to overcome it. How you do it? You have possibilities: Either follow step by step the tedious Mr. Happy videos or develop your own method. You had random elements which people studied and found the best way to overcome them, despite the different possiibilities, however. They figured how divebombs work and it requires you to pay attention to where the dragons are. People sometimes will be needed to callout certain mechanics (Fire in, fire out, thunder). And even if these mechanics occur in a rotation, you can or cannot be victim of one of them. Or you can get affected by someone not excecuting them in the right way.

But if you want to pay attention to the boss: Ravana Ex is a good example of this. Either with the shields or what he is casting or which players are getting targeted. Bismarck Ex has 3 random weathers where the bubbles, which are the triggers for certain elements in such weathers pop at random places. Old bosses like Chimera required you to pay attention, to see which kind of voice it was using before you could determine what to do.

It requires memorization? Yes! Of course it does! Everything you learn is part of "memorization" because you understand how the mechanic works and you will follow the most efficient counter-measure to get over it. But when we talk about "level of skill", when people ask for weird ass encounters where the "skill is very important", allow me to tell you that these kind of encounters don't last and they are extremely difficult to balance, specially in 8-man groups. They require testing, they don't want overlapping of certain mechanics where you have no escape. They work better for single player games, where the player can get it down in matter of hours. The mechanics here are intended to make you wipe over and over until you get it. Why? because they don't want to run out of content on day 1.

I insist with raid content because the dungeons were designed for "casual" players, where they have to be very careful to not create a monster that might frustrate these players. That's why, the boss you quoted in SV, was super easy to figure how these mechanics work. If they ever do that again, I bet these bosses won't go ham on the players.

[Colt47]

I'll never understand this request.

I mean, if you memorize the tactic, at the end of the day... isn't that pretty much the same? It works the same way here. If you face an encounter for the first time, you see what mechanics the boss can do, then you counter them with tactics. I guess you have yet to experience raid content. It's a different world compared to the bosses you find in dungeons. But in order to clarify the point I've quoted, can you please provide me an example in an existing MMO that has this system or the way you want it to be? Mostly because the dev team is always welcome to receive feedback on the forums.

Oh, what he means is he is looking for something more like an attack that forces people to break pattern. Think like a musou attack in Dynasty Warriors where the boss suddenly does something not normally in his attack flow to force people to react differently.

[SecretCrowds]

I've got news for you.

What you think is useless and boring is liked by some others. And what you think is fun and needed is hated by others.

Sure, you can ask for things, but why delete stuff just because you find them boring? You mean the wants of others are not important?

I hate crafting but you don't see me asking for crafters and craft related activities to be deleted.

[Moonleg]

"I don't know what this is so get rid of it".

I hope you're never put in charge of maintaining anything important.

[Odstarva]

Potions have a different cool-down, meaning you don't need to wait to use another skill. If you can't see the use in this, you're part of the issue people are getting stuck in certain instances.

Same as above, if you can't see the use of food then you just aren't there. If a full party eats food that improves dps, it will make a difference. If both tanks eat food that gives them more HP it makes a difference (no matter how small it might be).


Those 5% CAN be the difference between clearing something or wiping.



Also, no, you don't have access to abilities that cure you of status-effects. If a healer is intensively healing the group (and it can happen) you ought to do your very best to alleviate their job - not make it harder.

[odie]

Potions are incredibly useful. Those should most definitely stay. I use them all the time.

[SpiritMuse]

Chocobo fighting can be useful if you're soloing. Some people prefer doing stuff like this solo instead of having to constantly bother other people to join them for one quest/fight.

The airships (and chocobo taxis) are useful when you're low level and don't yet have the Gil to teleport with impunity.

Treasure chests: just because you happen to outgear the loot found in them doesn't mean everyone does. I've plenty of times found stuff in chests that was an upgrade to me, especially in dungeons. Where are you getting your stuff from if not from chests?

Linkshells: they're a way for a group of people to communicate that aren't in the same FC. It's useful for hunts, for example. My FC has recently set up one for the FC and friends of the FC.

Irrelevant quest lines: it's not up to you to decide what is irrelevant. Some people might want the relic weapon for glamour or the achievements, for example.

[Garlyle]

But, here are some examples: Trash that is a challenge, bosses with random abilities, or abilities that are cast at random, fights where positioning matters (beyond just facing the boss away from the party and pulling him to the edge of the fighting space), mechanics that work differently based on your party make up, fights that require crowd control, and timed challenges.

A lot of these fall under content that you'd argue "shouldn't be here anymore" because it's not commonly queued for anymore.

Because that's basically a long list of Extreme Primals, Coil, Ultima's Ballad, etc

Also just because you don't necessarily use Linkshells doesn't mean there aren't some of us that are in several to keep connections with friends from other FCs or similarly minded individuals for certain purposes (hunts, challenge fights, etc). Why get rid of the ability for players to create chat channels?

A lot of your "things you want to see removed" are "things I'm not doing/using/understand why they're there", which is shortsighted and selfish.