Flaws of the combat system

[Caurcas]

Dungeons don't matter for role balance as they are just their for fluff content.

[SeverianLyonesse]

As a tank new to the game I agree with the sentiment in this thread.

I don't mind that aggro is easy to maintain for trials and other boss fights...it turns them into a different sort of experience for tanks that revolves more around aoe dancing and timing mitigation. I think the change up is great and important for tanks to have varied experiences.

But dungeons, for all of their aesthetic flair, are so boring. Unless I was substantially undergeared, I never had an issue maintaining aggro. And to me, the whole appeal of tanking dungeons is going out of your way to lure aggro, the constant herding of cats. That simply doesn't exist in the XIV dungeon experience right now.

While I am sure some portion of the playerbase would complain if dungeons were slowed down by aggro shuffling, and some other portion would quit tanking altogether due to higher stress levels...I would love the game to shift at least some of the content in that direction.

[ToodlesElNoodles]

Maybe high-end duties (Savage, Extremes, Unreal) should be it’s own unique content like PvP and players get to use an endgame hotbar.

Endgame elitist folks get their cake and casual folks can still eat their’s too.

Those high-end duties aren’t canonical anyway, so who cares if they have a different kit.

[Jeeqbit]

High-end duties are far more busy for tanks already. Bosses go from being something you sleep through to requiring mitigation for tank busters, tank swaps, proper boss positioning, lots of tank-specific mechanics, doing mechanics meant for other roles so the other roles can DPS, party mitigation when the content is new. In addition to doing all the mechanics that the entire party has to do. There isn't a need for further aggro management in that content because the game gives us plenty of other things to do.

[Tsukino]

I definitely miss the days of old-school MMOs like FFXI where it was impossible for tanks to hold hate on anything if a damage dealer was going all out or a healer was just blindly topping off the HP of anyone who took any damage immediately. It was everyone's job to manage their own hate and keep the enemy on the tank. Not only did this make everyone's job much more engaging without making them hit 50 buttons in some arcane "rotation," but it also made it so that everyone really had to learn what they needed to do to contribute to the group, because not doing so would get either yourself or everyone killed and it was very obvious. There was also way less emphasis on just damage and speed above all else, because there were effective caps on those things being useful instead of detrimental.

But realistically I know that they'd never be able to make XIV or any game now like that. A tiny amount of people would love that it did something like that, but the other 95% of people who play now because the game is fun and super accessible and easy to get into would all quit and then the game would die without them. There's a reason that none of those old MMOs like EverQuest or Asheron's Call or FFXI had anywhere near the number of subscribers as WoW or FFXIV.

[LioJen]

There's a reason that none of those old MMOs like EverQuest or Asheron's Call or FFXI had anywhere near the number of subscribers as WoW or FFXIV.

That might also have a lot to do with the lack of reliable internet connection for most of the world in the early 2000s. Broadband was still new and novel (and expensive), and PC building was still a niche geek pastime so your average Hewlett-Packard prebuilt couldn't handle anything more intense than Solitaire. There are simply much more people into gaming now, with high speed internet and computers/consoles strong enough to run an MMO.

[Lanadra]

One thing to keep in mind for topics like this (and we've seen this topic so many times already) is that alongside this we also have topics complaining that tanks don't know what they're doing, healers don't know how to heal and/or dps, DPS players don't know their rotations/how to AoE/etc.

So on one hand the game is too simple and easy and boring to play, but on the other hand the vast majority of the player base doesn't know what they're doing. If the game, according to some people, is already just too damn hard for the casuals to understand and you go and make it even harder, how are you planning to square that off?

People will often only look from their own perspective. Rarely do I see 'all these dungeons are so boring and easy' people acknowledge that it may not be 'boring and easy' for everyone. In fact.. it'll usually be higher end players who then also try to make the point that 'make it all at least twice as hard and punish people for failing' will supposedly make people less bad.. all the while mocking people who do find some things more challenging.

I would argue that it would make people quit due to not being able to progress.. which SE does not want. All in all there's not much that can or will be done pertaining anything to do with MSQ content, leveling dungeons, MSQ mandated trials. They are kept manageable even by 'bad' players by design because they are primarily the medium through which SE wants us to experience the story. There's a reason we have Extreme, Savage and Ultimates, that is where challenge is the focus, even if one could argue about the difficulty of Extremes as some would.

[Poporito_Popoto]

That might also have a lot to do with the lack of reliable internet connection for most of the world in the early 2000s. Broadband was still new and novel (and expensive), and PC building was still a niche geek pastime so your average Hewlett-Packard prebuilt couldn't handle anything more intense than Solitaire. There are simply much more people into gaming now, with high speed internet and computers/consoles strong enough to run an MMO.

WoW was released in 2004. People were tired of the difficulty of EQ.

[Boizinho]

What it all boils down to is that the devs adamantly refuse to let what other players do have a real impact on your experience. We can't have tanks actually taking damage because that means their lives are in the hands of the healer. We can't have support DPS actually supporting because that means the encounter is harder if they just refuse to do it. We can't have Esuna have any purpose whatsoever because the existence of an Esuna-able debuff comes with the existence of a healer, somewhere, that won't dispel it. In Savage, if someone fails a mechanic, either they blow up or the entire party wipes, because recoverable mistakes create a skill gap between bad healers and good ones. So does randomized damage, which is why encounters are designed to be so scripted the healing and tanking portions can pretty much both be done completely blindfolded.

There is no personal responsibility in this game. They never want to have a situation where failure or success is one person's fault in particular. There can't be any nuance to the combat as long as this philosophy remains. Opportunities for individual players to stand out are purposefully crushed at any opportunity.

[Lanadra]

What it all boils down to is that the devs adamantly refuse to let what other players do have a real impact on your experience. We can't have tanks actually taking damage because that means their lives are in the hands of the healer. We can't have support DPS actually supporting because that means the encounter is harder if they just refuse to do it. We can't have Esuna have any purpose whatsoever because the existence of an Esuna-able debuff comes with the existence of a healer, somewhere, that won't dispel it. In Savage, if someone fails a mechanic, either they blow up or the entire party wipes, because recoverable mistakes create a skill gap between bad healers and good ones. So does randomized damage, which is why encounters are designed to be so scripted the healing and tanking portions can pretty much both be done completely blindfolded.

There is no personal responsibility in this game. They never want to have a situation where failure or success is one person's fault in particular. There can't be any nuance to the combat as long as this philosophy remains. Opportunities for individual players to stand out are purposefully crushed at any opportunity.

Precisely.. and as far as anything not made with challenge as the focus goes.. that is exactly how Yoshi P intends for it to be. The very bottom of the barrel is who must still be able to clear anything required by the story. There's plenty of people on this very forum who absolutely hate it, either because it means they may run into someone in the DF that doesn't meet their standards, or because anything not Savage or Ultimate is just boring to them.

Additionally.. as plenty of us will know, Yoshi P is also on record stating that yes.. he does in fact expect better players to pick up the slack for worse ones. What we more commonly call 'carrying'.