FF14 Endgame?

[Roda]

Yes and no, and there is a huge difference as you pointed earlier about blind/ follow a guide too.
Once you know the dance, you rarely fail afterward that's true for that but that's basically the same thing for almost everything in life ? You want to learn to play guitar and piano you """""just""""" learn in what order you press each key and that's it, easy.
And with 2.5 gcd and console limitation not mention the core of the game ( dodging especially, if you're inside the circle when it's out you're dead, even if you stepped out of it 0.1 sec after and the animation needs 5 sec to come ) it's nearly impossible for them to make fights more than that.
And while it's fairly easy for good players, try to make 95 % of the player pay attention for 13+ min and do their rotation ( which most dont know ) is nearly impossible.
So yeah if you're used to it i would call it fairly easy, but it's easy for a very small part of the community and it's near impossible for almost everyone else.

I mean thats the thing, yeah? You have to get used to it, but if you've been raiding in this game long enough to want more than savage, then you probably are very familiar with the raid problem solving process.

And the complaint about the dance fights aren't that dance fights are inherently bad, its that its the only problem solving genre that the game asks of us at high end 99% of the time. (The other 1% is DRS and maybe BA, haven't done that one yet.)

As for the "good players vs 95% of players" thing... I just don't subscribe to that way of thinking. People aren't born good videogame players, it takes practice and a desire to improve that's stronger than one's own ego. And barring physical disabilities and potato pcs, most people have the CAPACITY to "git gud" and clear savages/ultimates. It just depends on those individuals' desire to do so, how much time they have to spare, and a little social luck in finding a group with good chemistry.
This "most mmo players CAN'T participate in endgame encounters" mindset is just super pessimistic and honestly is a bit gatekeepy. I know early on in my mmo career I was discouraged by people blowing up raiding to be a bigger deal than it really was.

And I'm not saying ultimates are "easy". They do require you to be a savvy player. But the mechanics themselves are not the walls that statics find themselves having trouble with. Its burnout from progging a long fight. Its one player having consistency issues on one mechanic and the group needing to figure out how to deal with it. Its finding the time at all for 8 adults to have long prog times. Interpersonal drama.. egos... someone having the energy to be a raid lead and to make sure everyone is prepared for raid night.. it's pretty much all people problems. 'Cause the solution to mechanic problems is just "practice/study more" people problems are a bit more... nuanced.

Tldr: "hard right now" doesn't mean "impossible forever"
If you're a savage raider and you're curious about ultimates, go for it. Make sure you know your job down to the nittiest and grittiest detail, with openers, reopeners, phase specific rotations, and recovery options. make sure you have the gear, the consumables, the time, and the patience. Study up, and find yourself a static you mesh well with, and prepare to die hundreds of times while you're learning (and a few while you're farming) it's fun, I promise! Take the prog slow, focus on one phase, miniphase, and even one mechanic at a time. A lot of things happen at once, but you have to be able to tell what's worth paying attention to.

If you're an extreme trials player interested in savage raiding, give yourself a refresher on your job rotation, know your best in slot targets, study up on the current savage tier and dive on in. I recommend a static for better team cohesion.

If you're a casual player who is interested in seeing the big scary raiding scene, read up on your job, make sure you know why your rotation is the way the guides tell you to play. Grab a mentor if at all possible (like a real mentor that will sit with you, not the burger King shitposter kind. (I am both)) Go over the basic tells and rhythms of boss fights and analyze clear videos from the perspective of your main job. Start with doing your normal content to the best of your ability. Then move to extremes, and so on. And understand that if an approach to a problem isn't reliable, then it is worth scrapping that approach and finding something that is reliable. (Aka, don't be stubborn and insist you're doing something right when something is going wrong. your first response is to ask "how did I fuck up, and what should I do differently?" Even if it might not be on you)
If you're interested in something, don't give up! /flex

Particle physics is surprisingly easier than it's built up to be. If you can do advanced math, have the proper particle accelerators, sensors, and software, can keep attention and memory for ~13 sentences straight, and (here's the real wall) can find 30 other researchers who can do all that and work together smoothly, AND you have all the time and patience for months of experimenting while you all individually document/analyze every condition and result of the experiment, while recovering from equipment failures or natural disasters, then you can 100% do particle physics. Especially once it's been a while and you're just replicating old experiments.

It's just the people, time, (education, funding, diligence), and patience that are the hard parts. The science itself is comparatively simple once you know how the experiment works.

(I'm not a scientist, so I apologize if this meme is inaccurate.)

I mean I know you're being cute, but like yeah? Yeah exactly tho? Plus, the game is fun so you have even more incentive to practice. And the education is free and usually HELLA stylish. And you make friends? And there are like ZERO stakes outside of some minor personal embarassment if you fuck up? (In my personal experience its usually really funny)

If you're interested in something that requires experience and practice, and some social luck, then experience and practice, and some social luck is all that sit between you and that thing. Endgame ain't scary, folks. Like if all thats stopping you is that you're not interested in what goes into prog, that's fine, but "not being good enough for x" isn't some curse that is etched onto 95% of the playerbase's souls.