FF14 devs just keep doing your thing because my god

[Penthea]

Honestly I believe it's more with how gaming has evolved and the impact the internet has than just addons. In the past raid bosses with 3 mechanics worked fine because we were all essentially nubs (in a nice way). Very few people read guides and information was harder to come by, you'd just stumble through, put on whatever gear you scraped together and it was plenty because everyone else was in a similar boat.

I agree I just didn't want to dive too much in this particular part of the subject because frankly my post was already an essay without even getting in to that. Another thing to add to what you have said is very advanced boss design would have been too punishing back in the early days of WoW because it was common to disconnect or lag due to the game and player pcs not being as good at handling such a large number of things happening as well as internet connections in general not being anywhere near as powerful as they are now. Old WoW bosses were a product of their time for many reasons. I just focused mostly on the add-ons aspect as this was directly related to the question I was answering.

Even FF14's bosses, with no addons, are probably even more mechanically complex than WoW's at endgame. I've seen WoW heroic raid bosses summed up in 5-6 lines where Savage bosses are usually several pages.

The biggest difference between WoW and FFXIV high end raiding is the size of the team. In WoW's mythic (what used to be called heroic) you have 20 people, but you only have 8 in FFXIV's savage. While the mechanics of some FFXIV bosses can be more complex sometimes, it doesn't change the fact that managing 20 people is significantly more work than managing only 8.

And this is partially why WoW high end raiders rely so heavily on add-ons. Add-ons can quite significantly reduce the complication and work load of coordinating 20 people. They can relay information better than a human ever could, and without clogging up voice chat.

In one way it has positive sides too. I personally find bosses with a whole range of mechanics and factors to watch out for a lot more interesting than 3 mechanic target dummies. Once you've had a taste of advanced raiding and in-depth strategizing, it's hard to go back to simplistic gameplay.

Oh man I completely understand this. I quit hardcore raiding for a number of reasons but none of them were because I grew tired of the challenge of the content. That alone is what kept me raiding in WoW for so long despite enduring a lot of other things that I grew to hate.

FFXIV has become the ideal for me. I no longer raid hardcore and can never do so again due to developing a disability (it affects the use of my hands), but you don't need to be anywhere near hardcore in FFXIV to clear a tier. My team cleared the last two Eden tiers on only four hours of raiding per week. Clearing a tier on only that in WoW would be a difficult goal to say the least because of the huge number of raid bosses per tier. WoW typically has 9 to 14 bosses per tier, FFXIV only has 4. Maybe 5 if you include ultimate if there is one in the tier.

In FFXIV I can still scratch the itch I get to experience something challenging, but without sacrificing so much time to do it and without risking putting myself in physical pain by trying to do more than my body can currently handle. In WoW I would have to accept the fact that I could never do challenging raid content again. Unsurprisingly I am so thankful for how raiding is developed in FFXIV. It's more accessible than WoW's raiding due to needing a smaller time commitment.

And as a disclaimer in case anyone looks us up in fflogs: we are very late starting this tier due to two in our team being unavailable for the start of the tier. We started savage only last week.

[Garet]

Hope you get well soon. I too recently have been diagnosed with a worsening Ankylosing Spondylitis and Essential Tremors on my hands that makes gaming not what it used to be. And FFXIV having a more relaxed and social feature to its game is a big plus for me.

Like you the challenge of mythic dungeons and raids in WoW is indeed satisfying but can be hard now. I am lucky to be in a bit of a chill group of raiders at the moment hence can raid a bit but I am more of a back up and I do not mind it

[Penthea]

Hope you get well soon. I too recently have been diagnosed with a worsening Ankylosing Spondylitis and Essential Tremors on my hands that makes gaming not what it used to be. And FFXIV having a more relaxed and social feature to its game is a big plus for me.

Thank you. Therapy can work for what I have but it has mixed results, and given there's a pandemic now it's not an option I can access yet. However things improved when I learned to deal with my new limitations. Figuring out the point of when something becomes too much improved things a lot for me. I'm sorry to read that you can relate to my situation, it's not something I'd wish on anyone. I'm glad that FFXIV has content that you can still enjoy despite your difficulties. During the time when the pain in my hands was at its worst I could still enjoy DoL and DoH, and furnishing my house, so I consider myself lucky to have found FFXIV when I did. It kept me sane. Had I stayed in WoW my options for what I could do at the time would have been slim at best considering combat was something I struggled with back then.

I hope your condition will also improve soon.

Like you the challenge of mythic dungeons and raids in WoW is indeed satisfying but can be hard now. I am lucky to be in a bit of a chill group of raiders at the moment hence can raid a bit but I am more of a back up and I do not mind it

I'm happy that you found some good peeps who allow you to still enjoy raiding