So this game has dps checks but we can't talk about our dps in game?

[TaleraRistain]

There are times I wish that instead of the Hall of the Novice and Stone, Sea, Sky, we had something akin to the original Secret World's "Gatekeeper".

To explain a bit: in the original pre-reboot version of the Secret World, if you wanted to do Nightmare content (more or less TSW's equivalent to savage), there was an NPC entity called the Gatekeeper who would force you to complete a challenge first. The challenge always had to be done solo, and while it wasn't ever too complex, it definitely was less forgiving than the general non-Nightmare content.

The challenge could be tackled for DPS, Tank, or Healer. The DPS challenge required you to beat an enrage timer while also executing mechanics (some of which could one-shot you), including (if I recall correctly) ones that involved things like dealing with buffs on the boss or debuffs on yourself, not just ground AoEs and whatnot. I think the tank challenge required you to hold aggro to protect bystanders and withstand damage while executing mechanics, but as I hated tanking at the time I admit I never did that one.

The healer challenge -- which still amuses me to reflect back on -- gave you a party of NPC avatars the Gatekeeper created who were deliberately designed to be the worst sort of PUG. They would stand in the bad in the name of uptime, they would do mechanics completely wrong, etc. And as the healer, you had to keep these complete jackasses alive -- and of course you had do it it while also executing said mechanics correctly yourself, and (if I recall correctly, though I may be wrong on this) still doing enough damage to ensure you and the NPC Disaster Team could beat the Gatekeeper's enrage timer.

I don't know that FFXIV needs a Gatekeeper that you have to pass in order to queue into savage. But I do think something like that -- something that forced you to do more than just hit a stationary training dummy -- would be a far more valuable tool for self-improvement than what we have now. Like, you have to beat the calculated DPS check for this fight while also moving out of the bad, or keeping this obnoxious NPC alive, or whatever.

That's a really great idea. And they've already been playing with 8 man Trusts so they could build on that structure.

It would also help quell the belief that Ronduwil mentions a couple comments past this that some people think the MSQ is preparing you for Savage and needs to be harder. But the MSQ is only preparing you for more MSQ. The extra work someone puts in prepares them for Extremes and Savage. Something like this I think would help make that distinction clearer. People would probably complain if it's too hard, but that's the point of the harder optional content. It's supposed to be a challenge.