Put back Extreme trial on raid finder again...please

[aleph_null]

You said that if "those players who want to clear/farm won't queue, then even the newbies won't benefit at all since there's literally no chance for them to clear" but the alternative (the raid finder option, which is what is being asked for in this thread) is that the people who are farming will queue and the newbies still won't benefit at all, because they can't queue with them. Unless you mean that newbies will be able to use the duty finder to queue with other newbies who also don't have clears, but I don't know why that would improve their chances either.

They have a chance to get queued together with people who want to learn/help in the duty incomplete queue. Of course there will be much less people who are helping new players to clear the fight, compared to people who just want to farm the fight. As I've said multiple times, sometimes helping others learn the fight means not clearing the fight itself, which means you earn nothing from spending 60-90 minutes with them, other than the pleasure of helping others and helping the playerbase get better as a whole (which admittedly, doesn't help much to get your bird mount or weapons/tokens/whatever).

This thread is about an option to prevent people without a clear from queuing with people who don't want to queue with them. If those people learn the fight, or have even done it on another character, they still can't queue with them in the raid finder. So how does them learning the fight help them here?

There's a queue for aim to clear group (duty completion + duty incomplete). You make it sound like it's impossible to clear the fight together with others who haven't clear too. It's hard but doable. I did it in thordan ex, which arguably is the hardest ex trial in heavensward, just by joining practice/clear PF groups. Some of these fights are hard enough that you won't clear even if you're the only person in the group who haven't cleared. If you're late to the content it'll obviously be harder for you to find people to learn and clear the fight together, but that's just how it works in this game. You can't really avoid obsolescence in a vertical progression MMO.

Let's go further and think about the reason why most cleared people only want to go with people who have cleared too. The answer is quite simple, because the content is difficult enough. It's hard to carry people who know little to nothing about the fight. It takes a very long time to completely teach them the fight. You can probably slip into a ravana or bismarck clear party with bonus, and people will just ignore you and clear the fight while pretending you never existed, because they still can. That fight is so easy due to overgearing that you don't see half of the whole fight. It's a different problem if you slip into a12s queue without knowing anything, and if I was going to farm a12s then I'll definitely have problem with it since that pretty much means it's impossible to clear it. It takes hours (even weeks/months) for people to learn a12s before they clear it. When I join a practice or clear party for a12s I do so while keeping in mind that I don't expect a clear, but when I farm of course I expect clears (preferably smooth and easy ones too).

[Talraen]

They have a chance to get queued together with people who want to learn/help in the duty incomplete queue. Of course there will be much less people who are helping new players to clear the fight, compared to people who just want to farm the fight. As I've said multiple times, sometimes helping others learn the fight means not clearing the fight itself, which means you earn nothing from spending 60-90 minutes with them, other than the pleasure of helping others and helping the playerbase get better as a whole (which admittedly, doesn't help much to get your bird mount or weapons/tokens/whatever).

Let me make this explicitly clear: you're right. Having bad players in your group can derail the group. I acknowledge that. Can you acknowledge that removing that risk is not the only effect the duty finder has?

There's a queue for aim to clear group (duty completion + duty incomplete). You make it sound like it's impossible to clear the fight together with others who haven't clear too. It's hard but doable. I did it in thordan ex, which arguably is the hardest ex trial in heavensward, just by joining practice/clear PF groups. Some of these fights are hard enough that you won't clear even if you're the only person in the group who haven't cleared. If you're late to the content it'll obviously be harder for you to find people to learn and clear the fight together, but that's just how it works in this game. You can't really avoid obsolescence in a vertical progression MMO.

Let's go further and think about the reason why most cleared people only want to go with people who have cleared too. The answer is quite simple, because the content is difficult enough. It's hard to carry people who know little to nothing about the fight. It takes a very long time to completely teach them the fight. You can probably slip into a ravana or bismarck clear party with bonus, and people will just ignore you and clear the fight while pretending you never existed, because they still can. That fight is so easy due to overgearing that you don't see half of the whole fight. It's a different problem if you slip into a12s queue without knowing anything, and if I was going to farm a12s then I'll definitely have problem with it since that pretty much means it's impossible to clear it. It takes hours (even weeks/months) for people to learn a12s before they clear it. When I join a practice or clear party for a12s I do so while keeping in mind that I don't expect a clear, but when I farm of course I expect clears (preferably smooth and easy ones too).

I'm not trying to make it sound like it's impossible to win with people who haven't cleared; that's the premise of this request. People want to be able to completely exclude these people because they feel that their presence makes a clear hard or impossible. Yet those same people expect those people to get those clears among only themselves. Or maybe they don't expect them to get clears at all? I'm not sure, because most of said people have barely acknowledged that people who haven't cleared the content even exist, except insofar as they not be allowed to queue with them.

Like I've said a few times, I completely understand why you'd want to have every clear be smooth and easy, and only ever get grouped with people who are well-geared and know the content. I want that too! While I'm perfectly willing to help people with random dungeon mechanics and whatnot, obviously I'd prefer if every run was done in 15 minutes with no fuss. However, I realize that there are implications of a system that allows that, and those implications can be dangerous. I'm not even entirely sure the downside for new players outweighs the upside for farming, but I'd like to at least acknowledge that there is a downside for new players. The mental gymnastics in this thread justifying that no, this is actually better for new players, are interesting to watch, but they don't do much to convince me.

I dont actually believe/agree a 100% with this because you forget another reason to give people this incentive: Its in place to keep them playing and give them "something to do". Ypu gotta keep people busy or they'll unsub - so putting this drops in place turns ex-primals into a grind, thats going to make people stick to the game. Its not only to help new people to get their clears, its also to make sure that experienced people have a reason to keep playing after they killed that primal.

Giving people something to do is important, but it's a side benefit here. Everything about the duty finder is there for only one reason: to make sure every piece of content is queuable. Look at the introduction of roulettes, how relic and anima worked, Wondrous Tails, etc. Look at the new player bonus. Everything is about keeping content relevant. That is the primary goal. Keeping players subscribed is important, but so is growth, and the game can't grow if new players can't complete old content. (That said, new players don't have to do Extreme primals so I don't know how important it is that they stay relevant. But I have no doubt that's why the mounts were implemented.)

[aleph_null]

Let me make this explicitly clear: you're right. Having bad players in your group can derail the group. I acknowledge that. Can you acknowledge that removing that risk is not the only effect the duty finder has?

However, I realize that there are implications of a system that allows that, and those implications can be dangerous. I'm not even entirely sure the downside for new players outweighs the upside for farming, but I'd like to at least acknowledge that there is a downside for new players.

For contents below certain level of difficulty yeah maybe new players can slip in without knowing anything and get carried through it and get an easy clear, you can consider that a good thing I guess? The problem is that a lot of ex/savage contents, despite being obsolete, don't allow such thing. Even fights outgeared by 30-70 ilv can be impossible to clear if certain players don't know how to execute the mechanics properly. I guess in most cases they're more forgiving to dps not knowing mechanics.

Look at a6s-a8s DF queues, or maybe a4s, do they even pop? Even if they do, will you have any reasonable chance to clear it? If you're able to filter based on clear status maybe many if not all of previous savage floors will be farmable for glamour/mount/achievements.

The mental gymnastics in this thread justifying that no, this is actually better for new players, are interesting to watch, but they don't do much to convince me.

Well I'm not going to argue for/against that, as I've said there are contents where you can know nothing and expect to get carried after all. Though personally I think the harm of not having clear filter in difficult contents is a bigger problem, since that'll pretty much make the single queue unusable except for early phase practice.

The JP data center community worked around it by agreeing that you should join DF queues when you're ready to clear (watched guides, practiced, whatever), so at least the DF is usable despite not having clear filter. On the other hand in NA/EU data centers DF queues for hard contents are pretty much only usable for first phase practice, which pretty much means you won't have any reasonable chance to clear. I guess it's subjective but I'd prefer the former, even if I have to exclude newer players or be excluded in contents I'm behind.

Keeping players subscribed is important, but so is growth, and the game can't grow if new players can't complete old content. (That said, new players don't have to do Extreme primals so I don't know how important it is that they stay relevant. But I have no doubt that's why the mounts were implemented.)

Now this is something I don't really agree. In a vertical progression MMO like this you don't have to complete past contents to be able to reach current end game. I started in 3.0, I never had to look back at coil to learn how to play my job at lv 50 to be good at lv 60. I have friends who started raiding at 3.2/3.4, they didn't have to clear gordias/midas savage before starting in midas/creator savage. Gear dropped in those old contents are obsolete for current raids/trials, and it's not like the raid difficulty curve starts low at gordias and grows higher throughout midas and creator. Heck it's the other way around, gordias and midas are much harder than creator savage.

I completely agree that the game needs to encourage player growth, but I don't think helping them slip into old content queues and get carried will help them grow. I personally think this game needs to give some sort of feedback on new players' performance level and a smoother difficulty curve, starting from easier contents like dungeons, normal trials and raids, 24 man raids to harder contents like ex trials and savage raids. Right now the gap between the difficulty of dungeons, normal trials/raids and ex/savage is too big. People may not even know how "bad" they are until they step into ex/savage and fail miserably.

[Talraen]

Now this is something I don't really agree. In a vertical progression MMO like this you don't have to complete past contents to be able to reach current end game. I started in 3.0, I never had to look back at coil to learn how to play my job at lv 50 to be good at lv 60. I have friends who started raiding at 3.2/3.4, they didn't have to clear gordias/midas savage before starting in midas/creator savage. Gear dropped in those old contents are obsolete for current raids/trials, and it's not like the raid difficulty curve starts low at gordias and grows higher throughout midas and creator. Heck it's the other way around, gordias and midas are much harder than creator savage.

I completely agree that the game needs to encourage player growth, but I don't think helping them slip into old content queues and get carried will help them grow. I personally think this game needs to give some sort of feedback on new players' performance level and a smoother difficulty curve, starting from easier contents like dungeons, normal trials and raids, 24 man raids to harder contents like ex trials and savage raids. Right now the gap between the difficulty of dungeons, normal trials/raids and ex/savage is too big. People may not even know how "bad" they are until they step into ex/savage and fail miserably.

No, you don't have to clear coil for any mechanical reason, but coil in particular has a very good story, and a new player might want to experience that. Extreme primals are generally a tougher argument to make, since the only practical benefit are the mounts and possibly weapons for glamour purposes, but some people might just want to complete them for the sake of doing so. Square Enix doesn't want to have content that is literally impossible for a new player to ever clear. No one wants this to become FFXI where no one had any incentive to do content with you so if you were late to the party you were basically screwed. (Actually scratch that, I think a lot of people here want exactly that, but I don't!)

I actually don't think the difficulty gap is as extreme as you present it, at least not for primals. Certainly there are terrible players that can barely clear a basic dungeon, and should be nowhere near extremes. But most of the "skill" involved in completing the hardest content is just learning the fight. Of course someone who's never done the fight is going to be worse at it, but given teaching, you can get most decent players through an extreme. (I've never actually done savage or original coil pre-echo, so I'm not going to presume to comment on how hard they actually are.) That's not a skill gap, it's an experience gap; indeed, the fact that it's an experience gap is why an "I've already cleared this content" button is useful. There are plenty of people without clears who are much better players than some people who've been carried to a clear.

More important than any of that, though, is that my point is not that new players should be able to "slip into old content queues and get carried." It's that if you give players the option to exclude new players, they will take that option, thus reducing the pool of players available to help them get those important first clears. You need to look at this problem deeper than just on the surface.

[Vidu]

More important than any of that, though, is that my point is not that new players should be able to "slip into old content queues and get carried." It's that if you give players the option to exclude new players, they will take that option, thus reducing the pool of players available to help them get those important first clears. You need to look at this problem deeper than just on the surface.

First off I'd like to point out that there are certain achievements in this game, mostly PvP related that are very difficult to achieve now because the content you get them from is dead. I am, ofc, talking about the wins in old level 50 frontline content - no one does that anymore, because people have moved on to the level 60 versions. And even there you can notice how a new version often kills the others. Now, the achievments could be easly adjusted to let every frontline-win count for example instead of making it extremly difficult to ever get them (some have tied gear, monuts and titles to them); infact its probably way more difficult to get those wins than to get any of your EX-primal clears.
So there is actually something in place thats screwing those who are late to the party.

Now, to the point I quoted here... I'll repeat again: This is a game, that everyone plays for their enjoyment. It should give us the option to actually make sure we can enjoy the content we want to do. And if enjoying it means not teaching it right now, the game should give me the option for that. I dont take that option because I dislike new players - I take this option because I want to enjoy the game I'm playing. By "forcing" me into a queue with people that simply make my game less enjoyable (without that being their fault, really) you turn this game into stressful, frustrating "work" for me. My hobby shouldnt make me do things I dont want to do. I might sound very selfish right now, and even more selfish than I am or would like to sound, but you really have to understand that asking people to do something they dont want to do (if they want to teach people, they'll queue for that option) is bad - specially when its happening in a game.

Your fix for people not wanting to teach/help new randoms in DF is simply forcing them to do so by not allowing them to avoid an experience they dont want to make. Thats really not a good solution - specially not when it involves taking away the option they previously had to make sure they could play the game the way they wanted.
A new players person experience and enjoyment of the game is NOT more important than that of a person who has been here since 1.0. Their first clear is not more important than my 99th that will give me the token to get my bird - their first clear is ofc very important to them, as is the token very important to me.
Both sides need to be emphatic (...okay, that word seems wrong, if someone can suggest a better one, I would be thankful - not native, sorry >.<) here and have an understanding for the wishes of the other side. You are basically saying to everyone who has cleared the fight yet "Well, yeah, to bad that you still want drops from here and be rewarded for your knowledge of the fight now - get back to square one, please, because its more important that stranger XY learns the fight too than that you get what you want now"
You are currently looking at the problem only from the side of the new person, because you decided that they are more important and that can not and should not be the case.

I totally see the problem of people not queueing for "learning" - but the solution for that problem is not to take that away from them but instead give them a better reason NOT to do that.
Besides... we really need to get rid of the idea that you can clear EX-primals in DF. The game is very missleading in my opionion when it suggests that you can just go on and queue for them solo. I dare to say that it is impossible for a party of 8 random people to get a clear of any EX-primals when they all go in blind - those fights take more than 60 minutes to be understood and learned. By just letting you queue for them like you're used to from dungeons (all CAN easly be cleared within thegiven timeframe of 90 minutes, even with everyone going in blind) the game is giving you false hope and a wrong idea of this content.

[aleph_null]

No, you don't have to clear coil for any mechanical reason, but coil in particular has a very good story, and a new player might want to experience that. Extreme primals are generally a tougher argument to make, since the only practical benefit are the mounts and possibly weapons for glamour purposes, but some people might just want to complete them for the sake of doing so.

I did coil undersized, I meant that doing coil the proper way isn't necessary to progress in current contents. I think it's important to draw the line somewhere, some contents are just way too hard to teach/carry people through it, which is why queues for some contents are completely dead. For easy contents like 24 man raids or normal trials/raids people won't mind teaching/carrying new players.

I actually don't think the difficulty gap is as extreme as you present it, at least not for primals. Certainly there are terrible players that can barely clear a basic dungeon, and should be nowhere near extremes. But most of the "skill" involved in completing the hardest content is just learning the fight. Of course someone who's never done the fight is going to be worse at it, but given teaching, you can get most decent players through an extreme. (I've never actually done savage or original coil pre-echo, so I'm not going to presume to comment on how hard they actually are.) That's not a skill gap, it's an experience gap; indeed, the fact that it's an experience gap is why an "I've already cleared this content" button is useful. There are plenty of people without clears who are much better players than some people who've been carried to a clear.

The gap is much lessened since 3.4 since the devs decided to bring the roof much lower, so instead of filling the gap(s) they just brought all the contents closer by lowering the difficulties of the latest ex trials and savage raids. I'm not going to argue whether that was a good or bad decision, that's for a completely different thread.

The main problem with some of the previous fights is that there are some mechanics that must be executed perfectly by all 8 people in the group, or otherwise you'll wipe. From all of them a8s is definitely the one most guilty of this. There are many mechanics that'll bring down half or more of the party if one person messes up, and in some parts of the fight, someone's death will give a damage up buff on the boss (stackable), making the final phase unmanageable. Even the video guides for this fight were over half an hour long. Of course that's a very extreme case, compared to some of the easier floors like a1s, a5s, a9s, a10s, but such mechanics are also seen in other savage floors and even some ex trials have really punishing mechanics (thordan last few phases, though overgearing allowed us to kill him before those parts, then sephirot's last phase with buffs, towers and knockbacks).

More important than any of that, though, is that my point is not that new players should be able to "slip into old content queues and get carried." It's that if you give players the option to exclude new players, they will take that option, thus reducing the pool of players available to help them get those important first clears. You need to look at this problem deeper than just on the surface.

You may think that, but the only players who benefit from the lack of clear filter are those who "slip into old content queues and get carried," either with or without their knowledge (new players may now know how difficult the thing they're queuing for is). Those who want to actually learn the hard fights won't be able to do it. The queues will be dead since for those hard fights it's impossible to clear while teaching new players. In that case the only people who queue for those fights are those who want to practice early parts, and those who have cleared and want to help, which is exactly what the RF non-cleared queues are right now. Someone who's intending to farm, not teach newbies most likely won't suddenly change their mind and spend 90 minutes wiping to teach the newbies. Even in JP servers if you slip to difficult old contents via DF without knowing anything, they'll give you one or two pulls and then either kick you out or disband, or even instantly leave.