Didn't vibe with endgame: Alternatives?

[Kansene]

Hello there.

So, a bit of backstory for my dilemma:

I am, due to medical and work-related conditions stuck with nearly no IRL social life.
Almost all my social interaction is online, and as such, the interaction I do engage in online is very important to me.

So I struggle a lot with pattern recognition and memory, both muscle and mental.
Patterns don't stick. Sequences don't stick.
As I entered the endgame scene and was taken to a few EX trials, I was told that this is what basically all fights are about in FFXIV's PvE.

Disclaimer:
This is not criticism of the way the fights are made. People LOVE these fights, and I wouldn't want it to change just because it doesn't jam with me.

When I tried my hand at EX, I expected to be bad, and to lag behind the rest in performance, but then reality struck, and I found out that the game is exclusively asking me to perfect skills I'm innately terrible at.

It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't letting my team down by being so slow at learning.
I mean incredibly slow. I need lots of time to learn a pattern. By the time everyone else had most of the fight completely figured out (there were several other newbies) I was still not able to process the first minute of the fight.
Now, put that on top of having to remember a pattern of probably 50+ button presses, and which order to press them in, was enough to just have me throw in the towel.

The static having to do 50+ extra pulls on a fight because I'm holding them back is an absolutely horrible thought, so I bowed out.

So my dilemma:
I love the game, and I'd love to be at least average at playing it.
I've played other games in the past, where I did well, but those games have not had FFXIV's rigidity. The tight DPS checks that require tanks to use their gap closers as part of their DPS rotation, the constant sequencing, I've come to realize that EX and Savage is completely and utterly out of my reach. And that'd be okay, if not for one thing:
I need that feeling that I'm useful to someone.

In the past, raiding in other games filled a very important void in my life. Meeting up with friends, having fun doing something tough and rewarding, and feeling good about being in a team.
I had this with my previous game, I did lots of content that could feasibly be classed as "midcore" and "decently challenging" though obviously not top-tier.
I left that game, can't really go back either.

If you've stayed with me through these ramblings, the question, I guess, is:

Is there content that could fill that void in my life?
To my knowledge, EX and Savage is the only challenging non-pug content in the game.
And I guess that if other challenging group content exists, it would be designed more or less identically to those, that being "train your rotation into muscle memory, then dance?"

Is there a part of the game that can scratch that itch?
Or is FFXIV endgame simply not for me at all?

Thank you for your patience.

[Brightamethyst]

To some extent this is a matter of time. Right now the content is brand new so everyone is doing it at essentially minimum ilevel. Over time people (including non-raiders gearing up with tomes) will have a much easier time with the EX and savage content. Not that better gear will make savage easy, but it'll be a bit more forgiving.

Really though, not every type of content is for everyone. If the XIV style of raiding isn't for you there's not much you can do about it and no advice from other people will magically make it better.

[Risvertasashi]

Is there content that could fill that void in my life?
To my knowledge, EX and Savage is the only challenging non-pug content in the game.
And I guess that if other challenging group content exists, it would be designed more or less identically to those, that being "train your rotation into muscle memory, then dance?"

Is there a part of the game that can scratch that itch?
Or is FFXIV endgame simply not for me at all?

So it's worth noting there's a lot of activities outside of what people might think of as the most traditional endgame grind to better gear.

Just to give a few examples, there's bozja, potd/hoh, eureka, hunts, and even things like chocobo racing. Hey, there's even people that organize races up Kugane's tower. All sorts of social things and activities that happen with FCs - far from the ERP stereotype.

All of these things have dedicated communities that may be a bit niche, but that can be all the better for making friends in them. I'm afraid I (obviously) don't know you well enough to give specific recommendations. But there's a lot of alternate activities out there, and communities around them.

Though... if you want to feel useful, perhaps crafting and gathering could be your thing? A lot of players just don't want to touch it but always need food, potions, crafted raid gear when it's relevant, and people looking to get started will need crafted gear for their own gatherers and crafters. Supply your FC and they'll love you.

But, in short, there's many many activities. Take a look around - and, sincerely, I hope you find the right ones for you and make some good friends doing them.

[Mjollnir]

Is there content that could fill that void in my life?
To my knowledge, EX and Savage is the only challenging non-pug content in the game.
And I guess that if other challenging group content exists, it would be designed more or less identically to those, that being "train your rotation into muscle memory, then dance?"

Is there a part of the game that can scratch that itch?
Or is FFXIV endgame simply not for me at all?

Thank you for your patience.

It sounds like you may have seen PvP and discounted it as not for you. If so, I'd recommend giving it a serious try with a team of players (rather than pug).

[Kansene]

Thank you so much for replying, I appreciate it a lot.
My original post was very long, I had to cut out details you've touched upon with your replies. I'll try to address them.

To some extent this is a matter of time. Right now the content is brand new so everyone is doing it at essentially minimum ilevel. Over time people (including non-raiders gearing up with tomes) will have a much easier time with the EX and savage content.

Among the details I had to edit out is that the EXes were done in late ShB. We actually outgeared the content. The others cleared them despite me being dead 80% of the fights.
The other sprouts in the group were much faster learners than me, and had it down by an hour or so. I, on the other hand, would need literal weeks or more to learn a single EX fight, and I hear EX is incredibly simple compared to savage.

Just to give a few examples, there's bozja, potd/hoh, eureka, hunts, and even things like chocobo racing. Hey, there's even people that organize races up Kugane's tower. All sorts of social things and activities that happen with FCs - far from the ERP stereotype.

Though... if you want to feel useful, perhaps crafting and gathering could be your thing? A lot of players just don't want to touch it but always need food, potions, crafted raid gear when it's relevant, and people looking to get started will need crafted gear for their own gatherers and crafters. Supply your FC and they'll love you.

But, in short, there's many many activities. Take a look around - and, sincerely, I hope you find the right ones for you and make some good friends doing them.

From what I've gathered, Eureka/Bozja/Deep Dungeons fall into the same PvE pattern of having to know sequences and perfecting strict rotations. I understand that this is literally the core gameplay loop though, I'm just really desperate to find something that somehow circumvents it.

I'm leveling DoH/DoL, and I'm looking a bit at blue mage, but to me they're distractions to what I'd actually like to do as my main thing.
My favorite content in the game is the stuff that involves fighting and teamwork. It's just very unfortunate for me personally that the way it's designed is playing so much to my weaknesses.

I've not checked out chocobo racing or hunts, maybe I will. I know literally nothing about them.

It sounds like you may have seen PvP and discounted it as not for you. If so, I'd recommend giving it a serious try with a team of players (rather than pug).

I hear they're reworking it for 6.1, so I'm hoping it will be a fun experience. I'm going to try joining a PvP static with the person who invited me to the EXes, I think that I'll mesh a lot better with gameplay that relies more on reflexes, improvisation and reactions than the memorization that PvE requires.

[Risvertasashi]

From what I've gathered, Eureka/Bozja/Deep Dungeons fall into the same PvE pattern of having to know sequences and perfecting strict rotations. I understand that this is literally the core gameplay loop though, I'm just really desperate to find something that somehow circumvents it.

Fairly true of Eureka and Bozja.

Deep Dungeons... they're "hard" at the upper levels, but hard in a different way. It's not as much about memorizing patterns or perfecting a rotation. It's more like "One of our party just spawned 3 monsters by hitting a luring trap and a chimera patrol will be here soon, how do we handle this?"

Though that might not be different enough, but, there's much less "memorize these boss moves and complex telegraph sequences", nor do you need to do a perfect rotation for 8+ minutes.

I'm leveling DoH/DoL, and I'm looking a bit at blue mage, but to me they're distractions to what I'd actually like to do as my main thing.
My favorite content in the game is the stuff that involves fighting and teamwork. It's just very unfortunate for me personally that the way it's designed is playing so much to my weaknesses.

Blue mage is another good one, and there can be teamwork involved, but... still the same basics ultimately, unfortunately.

I've not checked out chocobo racing or hunts, maybe I will. I know literally nothing about them.

Since you do want combat and teamwork, I'll focus on hunts (Maybe you'll love chocobo racing, a select few people do, but it's pretty solo).

Hunts are when certain tough monsters spawn in the overworld, and people organize to run through the various field areas and kill them. Depending on the zone/expansion they're associated with the rewards vary, but you can get materia (they sell well right now even if you don't want to use them), minions, glamourable armors, mounts, and so forth from them.

For the new endwalker hunts, right now they're near impossible to solo and even when several parties take them on, there's a lot of deaths - so, always a need for rezzers. For all that said there's not much complexity to them, just a lot of chaos - most people just faceroll and get full rewards.

So, why do it? Well, for a lot of people it's a somewhat social thing as well. People organize hunt trains, which tend to occur at certain times of day - and also need a conductor, a scout, and each party a leader that can report their status back to the conductor. If you try hunting and like it, perhaps you could eventually look into filling one of those roles - it does seem to offer a sort of fulfillment for the people that do them, and of course, people are appreciate to those that take the time to organize them.

I'd offer up a hunt community but sadly it's datacenter-specific and I'm not on Light. Still, ask around in game or in any Light/Odin-specific discords you have and I bet there's plenty of people that would be glad to help you get started.

[Jeeqbit]

I think you are right that the endgame might not be for you, but I second trying pvp because it's completely reactionary instead of having mechanics to do. There are plenty of other fun things to do in the game like chocobo racing, triple triad, doman mahjong, verminion, gates, potd/hoh, roleplaying, crafting/gathering, blue mage, hunts, but these are usually either pugged or done solo and I think you wanted it to be things done with a static.

The easiest rotations would be that of healers who just spam a single button for damage and refresh a dot sometimes. Blue Mages can form a static and do endgame content together and there is some flexibility in which actions you can use, so you could create your own rotation that works for you even if it's not the best one.

[Kansene]

Deep Dungeons

I've only read about deep dungeons from a solo perspective so far, so knowing people actually do run it as a group is nice. Whether it is for me, I won't know before I try it, so I'm likely to try pugging it a few times to see if the content itself is appealing. If it turns out to be, maybe there are likeminded statics out there I can get my sense of belonging on with. Thank you.

I think you are right that the endgame might not be for you, but I second trying pvp because it's completely reactionary instead of having mechanics to do.

Indeed. I deal a lot better with priority, reaction and thinking on my feet than I do memorization and muscle memory.
I very much prefer thinking "This person might do this, in which case I should prepare to do this" than "This will happen, so I go there, then this will happen, so I must be there." It's just much, much easier for my brain to wrap around.

The easiest rotations would be that of healers who just spam a single button for damage and refresh a dot sometimes.

I adore the kits of the healer jobs, it's actually right up my alley, in theory. Healing tools that, while premeditated, are used with decision making and consequence in mind. While doing casual content, I think being a healer is really fun, there's always someone getting hurt, and I really feel like I'm in my element when things start going wrong and I can start hectically improvising forth solutions and save the day through using my kit well.
My view of healers was shattered for other reasons when approaching endgame though. I was very surprised and pretty bummed out to find out just how important maintaining that DPS rotation is on a healer, simple or no. I don't know if my friend was overemphasizing it, but to my understanding, if you're doing savage, healers basically base everything they do around doing as little healing as humanly possible in order to squeeze out every ounce of DPS they can, which just isn't how I'd like to play a healer in an MMO.
It's fairly irrelevant though, considering I'd still be facing those dance mechanics that I just can't handle, albeit with a less complex rotation to worry about.
And I think many healers are enjoying the fact that they get to DPS a lot, dealing damage is generally considered more fun by people than healing, I think.
Thank you.