Has it Been Mentioned? -- Guildhests

[Post]

As much as I would like variation...I can see myself getting really annoyed when I tell people "Hey you have to split the damage up and try to finish them off in quick succession or else they just keep coming back forever" and somehow what I said was unclear...so they keep focusing one at a time.

That one shouldn't take 10 minutes and it usually does.

This is pretty much the reason content is the way that it is.

FFXIV does a great job in limiting player 'frustration from failure' by limiting time loss on things like dungeon wipes (always a shortcut after every boss) and major boss (free instant reset).

But in spite of this, players of course still prefer not to wipe, and the most common cause of wipes on any encounter is going to be lack of coordination after lack of knowledge. The only way to coordinate in some of those Guildhests is for folks to read and chat, and, taking Ward Up, if they didn't read the description telling them what to do, odds are they aren't going to read what the party says to do. The party probably won't say anything until that player makes a mistake, too. So, this just echoes forever everywhere in the game.

LotA has the 3 Atomos paths and you can easily have a group that doesn't know what to do that you can't actively assist if you already split up, all you can do is chat. For almost every 24 man raid series after that, all parties coexist in the same arena, even on fights like Hobbes where you appear to be separated (he'll automatically reposition players if they're rezzed elsewhere).

Normal raids like Alexander or trials like Leviathan, where the party wipes unless at least one person knows what to do, don't exist anymore and instead you get fights like e12n where you can aim all avoidable damage at the memories in the interphase and they still won't shatter. Yes, I think Hero on the Halfshell requires more coordination and party awareness to complete than most raids.

Most fights knowledge with the direction they choose just equates to 'how to dodge' instead of 'coordination', which helps players not have to engage with each other: just watch where the one player that doesn't die keeps going if you're getting hit.

This feeling of not wanting to have to chat is even so pervasive on NA that we have waymarks set up to organize who's going where and doing what in advance of the pull even starting while the other regions at least post a macro in the chat and players type out their positions.

I mean heck, people are still annoyed about coordination required in Guildhests here, the content designed to be easy and low-pressure for learning.

Edit: Even the 'newer' (patch 2.3) Novice training area teaches things like 'sometimes, you need to interact with an object' or 'adds will show up while fighting boss', but these are mechanics that are incredibly rare. The last thing you had to click on in a boss fight might have been the shadow circles vs Rofocale, and adds have shown up while the game allows you to still attack the main boss twice in EW: Savage Phoinix Black Fires (cuz it's really an ARR mechanic), and normal Hephaestus. Neither of these have aggro tables so the tanks don't have to pay special attention. Technically Cindruvha summons the other two Magus Sisters, so congrats there, but they just copy aggro anyways, and you're not meant to switch targets. The ghost heads in Troia ARE the boss.

The most interesting thing they've done with adds in years has been the trash pulls in the Criterion, so kudos to that developer.

[Amnmaat]

Tanks should get a required "how to do wall to wall pulls" tutorial, as that's what tanking in xiv boils down to, unless you're a hard content raider.

Healers should get a required
"how to use focus target" tutorial
"how to move party list to a place where you can see who needs healing" tutorial
"healing wall to wall pull tanks" tutorial

Once healers experience and are successful at those tutorials there will be less crying coming from those 2 roles.

As for adding guildhest-like mechanics, it was ok in variant dungeon as some have pointed out, but notice how barren variant dungeons are. Making unique and mechanics-heavy content means you'll only get 2 bosses instead of 3 and trash mobs will amount to striking dummies.
I guess the only way forward is even more boring trash mobs and seeing the same 2 bosses, so overall less content but slightly more engaging?

[TheMightyMollusk]

Go all the way up to level 50, with an 8-player boss that has a frontal cleave or beam or something, to show how tanks need to coordinate and not spin the enemy around.

Ifrit Hard already does that. Unfortunately, the overtuned level sync means he hits like a wet noodle unless the victim is a fresh 50 who just barely made the gear requirement.

[Renalt]

Ifrit Hard already does that. Unfortunately, the overtuned level sync means he hits like a wet noodle unless the victim is a fresh 50 who just barely made the gear requirement.

Titan normal also does it. He does a cone one and I think even if max Ilvl it'll hurt a ton for healer/dps.

[Renathras]

Deal lord...

I feel like people consistently don't understand that the game is what it is today because of people asking for it. And not "casuals" asking it be "dumbed down".

1) The 2 minute meta came from raiders complaining about Jobs having different personal CDs that didn't align.

2) MOST homogenization came from players complaining some other Job got a thing and their Job either didn't have it or had a worse version. This is especially apparent in Healers, but also in Tanks (one of the few things they have distinct now, their Ultimates, we see DRKs constantly be asking theirs become more like either WAR or PLD's, despite these same people complaining about how similar DRK is to WAR).

3) Encounter design moved away from interesting mechanics because raiders complained about it. Think back to the Alexander raid where someone has to become a monkey to punt the bombs or pilot the gobwalkers. In the modern era, people would be complaining about their parse taking a hit when they have to do it, or what happens if that mechanic comes up right into a 2 min burst window? Now you're a monkey for 15-30 seconds and have to start your burst after everyone else and can't realign for the rest of the encounter. While part of this IS the fault of the 2 min meta (see the (1) above), it's also part of the damage >>> all parse mentality.

4) People want to "get in and get out". The community would ill stomach launch Orbonne. I remember my first ever run of it, we cleared just 10 mins before the timer ran out. My later clears were faster, but it would still be an hour in there. As much as people complain about people stripping to do CT only, there's a reason for that - many people don't want adventures when they que for roulettes, they want tomes. And this INCLUDES hardcore players. A Savage raid team doesn't want to spend 2 hours in Orbonne with a bunch of people failing mechanics and wiping the raid. People consider 24 mans novel launch week, but 4-5 weeks later, don't want to be in them for hours at a time. This is also true of dungeons. The reason there are walls in 4 mans due to 2 pack-wall-2 pack-boss;repeatx3 designs are because PLAYERS WERE DOING THIS. Players would run and grab half the mobs, burn them down, then the other half, boss, rinse and repeat. It got to where really high end players could pull everything between bosses in some dungeons...and would berate any new Tanks or more casual players that didn't want to pull that big. So the Devs stepped in with the walls. The Devs didn't design this gameplay, THE PLAYERS DID.

...if people would realize that most of the things they complain about we have because they literally asked for them, it would help.

"But they were different people!" SOMEtimes, yes. But many times, no. What matters in the end is that we should be more measured in what we ask for and how we behave in game, since that's what the Devs base future design around.

.

EDIT:

Tanks should get a required "how to do wall to wall pulls" tutorial, as that's what tanking in xiv boils down to, unless you're a hard content raider.

Wait, what?

NO! XD

THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM.

We shouldn't be instilling the "wall to wall" mentality. THAT'S why dungeons are hallways now. BECAUSE of players having the incessant wall to wall mentality. We need to break from that, NOT enshrine it!

[Amnmaat]

Wait, what?

NO! XD

THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM.

We shouldn't be instilling the "wall to wall" mentality. THAT'S why dungeons are hallways now. BECAUSE of players having the incessant wall to wall mentality. We need to break from that, NOT enshrine it!

Haha! Don't blame me, that's cbu3's award winning game design. But I agree, it's time they start leading with creativity instead "what worked before."
xiv's stagnant, just because it worked in heavensward doesn't mean we should have the same game design 3 expansions in a row.

While they're at it get rid of the scions, I'm sick and tired of seeing them again.

[Iscah]

As much as I would like variation...I can see myself getting really annoyed when I tell people "Hey you have to split the damage up and try to finish them off in quick succession or else they just keep coming back forever" and somehow what I said was unclear...so they keep focusing one at a time.

I hated getting that in my mentor roulette grind so much. If someone is capable to keep you all hostage in there if they want, it's a bad mechanic.

The saving grace of Ward Up is that eventually the smaller demons spawn a single large one and you just have to defeat that.

But yes, a remarkable amount of people don't read the instructions, either from the game itself or from teammates. It should be straightforward but isn't.

It seems to be getting brute-forceable now, which is... convenient, I guess, but also disappointing. Same for some other guildhests like Stinging Back. I'd like to see them retuned a bit.

[Iscah]

I would definitely like to see some more additions to the guildhest list, or similar content.

The closest we've come to it is the critical encounters in Bozja – I would love it if they took those fights and created a roulette version of them that you can just do casually without being locked into an instance.

[VelKallor]

Tanks should get a required "how to do wall to wall pulls" tutorial, as that's what tanking in xiv boils down to, unless you're a hard content raider.

Rubbish.

No they should not. we did that with an overenthusiastic tank last night in Brayflox. All dead when we got swamped. I dont see the appeal in this warp ten mentality, theres no hurry and tanks should set their own pace.

While they're at it get rid of the scions, I'm sick and tired of seeing them again.

Im not.

[Jeeqbit]

Wall-to-wall pulls happen in large part because people pressure tanks to do them and are toxic if they don't. Once I started doing them, nobody was toxic again in well over 10,000 duties at this point (except 1 person in Shadowbringers so I swiftly reported them and moved on). Once you start doing them it's hard to go back because pulling 3 enemies is painfully boring for all the roles involved. But big pulls aren't as standard as some people say, because plenty of tanks just do single pulls, especially in non-expert dungeons and the point remains that if people weren't pressured to do it, then even less people would ever start doing it.

It's quite a good idea for SE to do it this way because if you want the easy mode you can do a single pull and if you want it to be challenging you can pull multiple packs. And I know a lot of people here may not see it as challenging but the fact is there can be wipes to big pulls, especially in leveling dungeons. With a single pull there is barely any prospect of that. If SE wanted big pulls to be the standard, I think they would just make all the packs aggro you at once when you reach the wall, rather than make a tutorial for it.

Anyway, this post isn't about dungeons, tutorials or big pulls. It's about guildhests.