Thread: 4.5 Patch notes are live

Originally Posted by purgatori

I have no problem with there being challenging content in the game, as otherwise a portion of the playerbase would have nothing to interest them over the long term. But the more challenging content in the game already rewards the best loot, so I question whether it's really necessary to also lock story content---which has a fairly universal appeal---behind a wall that is going to either impossible or extremely unpleasant to scale seems a bit much from the vantage point of someone in precisely that situation.

On the point of sticking at it: I generally put off doing raids for quite a long time, so by the time I get to them most participants have generally learned the mechanics... But there still ends up being wipes and drama. I don't enjoy the content at all, so the only reason I eventually tackle it is for the storyline, and then I feel bad for stinking so bad and making the raid that much harder to get through, so that turns me off the content even more. Challenging single player games are my bread and butter, and have been since buying my first game, Castlevania, on the NES; but something about traditional MMO combat just doesn't click with me, and I can't seem to get past the point of being terrible... Add a fear of public scrutiny/humiliation on top of that, and I just don't think raids are ever going to be for me.

If SE ever deign to throw a reasonable challenge (i.e., not something like HoH) the way of mostly-solo players like me, great! But until then, I'll continue to stick to the casual stuff and keep on wishing that all the significant story content was accessible to us scrubs.

As someone who often has trouble in raids and dungeons, i can sympathize with many of your remarks. However, i strongly suggest not putting off content for later. When content is new, no one can throw stones at one another over new mechanics.

Originally Posted by purgatori

On the point of sticking at it: I generally put off doing raids for quite a long time, so by the time I get to them most participants have generally learned the mechanics... But there still ends up being wipes and drama.

That's not because that content is hard, but because Final Fantasy XIV have way too LITTLE challenge for the individual players. Quite literally...most players you will meet in party content are really, really bad.

Look at dungeons. They are simple. Simple mechanics that you can learn on your first run through most of the time. Heck, many mechanics are slowly introduced at the beginning of a fight or are taken straight from other fights earlier in the game.

But wipes still happen. Because people ignore these simple mechanics. Time and again, even when told. Qarn is a perfect example with the first boss and the third bosses stone heads in first phase.


If you can do the solo content no problem and you avoid unnecessary damage in dungeons consistently...the wipes in 24-man dungeons are not on you. It's not you that plays bad, it's several other people from across the three parties. 24-man dungeons have instant-wipe mechanics that dungeons do not. Mechanics that you can find in some trials in a simpler form...but people either don't run trials past their first run and a roulette here or there...or they do the extreme, so they are more 'hardcore' and are probably more after savage than the alliance raids. So you get tons of people that assume that they can ignore mechanics and the healers will pop them back up like it was nothing...only to cause an unavoidable wipe at some point.

The roulette doesn't help since the lvl50 alliance raids can be steamrolled by ignoring all the mechanics...well, Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower. World of Darkness...not exactly. Cerberus is going to wipe you still if you don't do it properly.


So yes. Read a guide, watch a guide video, learn the crucial mechanics. Then just pay attention to how many of them you do successfully. And often still wipe.


Granted...that doesn't make them any more enjoyable...even less so in fact...but that's what you get when the game does everything it can to wave personal responsibility.

Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Wipes happen in the beginning because people are learning mechanics. It's pretty normal in my opinion so stick it out. To ask that story content not be locked behind more challenging content is simply not going to happen. Story is important but so is the fact that not all content has to be so easy to run that they eliminate it form the more challenging duties.

Yeah, like... I'm not hardcore, I don't do savage, I do EXes when I'm like, 20-40 ilvls higher than when it's released, and I find these 24-man raids to be snooze-worthy. Yeah, you can get some rude people (just turn off alliance chat), yeah you get dumb people messing up mechanics either deliberately or because they don't know, but... it's no harder than a 4-man dungeon, once you have 24 people in there working.

Originally Posted by purgatori

That definitely hasn't been my experience. When I did Lighthouse there were a ton of wipes, and the whole thing was almost aborted (granted, apparently some players were apparently trolling and deliberately messing up mechanics), and I've been yelled at a lot in both 24 and 8 man raids. I guess I don't have a basic level of awareness.

If I can be a bit of encouragement, I generally will die a lot the first few times I run something I have ADHD and aspergers so I learn mechanics a bit slower than most people but I still figure things out in the end, just stick with it and you’ll be able to run it smoothly =) if people yell at you that’s on them not you, if you can try to bring in a few friends who are supportive of you to help drown out the negativity

Originally Posted by Rokke

24 & 8 man raids are for casuals to gear up without having to step foot in harder content. Running them on/close to patch day is more or less expected to be rough since everyone is figuring things out, but if you're consistently struggling with them you'll need to sink more time into recognizing mechanics & how to best react to said mechanics as your job.

As for the notes -
Theres a whole lotta QoL changes I'm happy to see: Flying ponies, blank partitions, friendlist organizing, GUARANTEED MINON DROPS IN THE OLD RAIDS. Good stuff

Yeah I’ll run day one to start learning the fights when wiping is excepted and people are less likely to starting chewing people out.

I think ilevel makes a lot of difference to raids though. Ridorana (the first raid released since I reached endgame) seems to have gotten easier since we went up to i380-90 gear, and it seemed like the Dun Scaith raid back in Heavensward started going smoother than it had been before that point. And then there's the Crystal Tower raids, where people are starting to out-DPS boss mechanics by miles. I've seen Phlegethon killed before he can cast his second Ancient Flare, and Amon before he completes his Curtain Call.

Blue Mage is live? Really?

Originally Posted by ksuyen

Blue Mage is live? Really?

No, next week.

Also good news, the Ivalice story has been completely, absolutely, unapologetically bad. Of course, I would say the same for just about every other raid for the first and 2nd tier, but they all manage to turn it around with their final tier and I suspect this won't be any different.

This is the only patch this whole expansion I've been legitimately excited for. Pumped to level blu and mess around with it's solo content. Excited to learn Mahjong. The story looks like it may finally be going somewhere and both orbonne and ghimlyt look cool, although who knows for sure until we actually do mechanics.