Zepla: The Players Endwalker Left Behind

[Sindele]

The problem with Extremes in my opinion is, in increasing order of importance, 1) inconsistency in designed difficulty, 2) poor telegraphing of what Extreme difficulty is to unfamiliar and nervous players, 3) SE's abject failure to account for non-JP community behavior - and I put a lot of weight on #3 here.

For the average NA/EU player, Extremes are usually going to be your first serious brush with people demanding study ahead of time, people demanding specific strategies without explaining them, people regularly stroking out at people "underperforming" (which may or may not include actual underperformance), people pulling up the ladders for entry requirements, people pulling all kinds of shenanigans to scam other people into carrying them, and a few other derangements besides. The difficulty may not be a very high step in the curve, but the shift in mentality might as well be a cliff if you're not expecting it and not familiar with it - especially with how laissez-faire people are in basically all other forms of content. There is no common, communal gradient of expectations. And they've done very little to even recognize the problem, much less try to build that ladder. We can surely speculate on why - I'm sure you can guess my opinion from the content of this post - but there's no way to argue that they're doing their best in this regard.

[SargeTheSeagull]

The problem with Extremes in my opinion is, in increasing order of importance … 3) SE's abject failure to account for non-JP community behavior - and I put a lot of weight on #3 here.
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What do you mean? How do extremes work on JP servers? I know they use duty finder for them but beyond that

[Sindele]

I'm sure someone with more personal experience could provide more useful elucidation (or just pick at the threads of what I'm paraphrasing), but the big points in my estimation:

* A greater communally known expectation that you either have experience or have at least read a guide before queueing in - I'm not a huge fan of these expectations, but they're still a relatively known factor for the community before you start doing that level of content; ask any two NA players on whether you should watch guides before doing any content and you may well wind up with three different answers (and a death threat);
* Strat macros for everything, often with fixed positions - I know this has been making the jump more and more in recent years, but IME it's still very inconsistent in NA;
* Less insistence on 'going my own way' - the macro typically sets the script, and if it's clearly trash, it falls apart after a pull or three; in NA you're more likely to run into people who will immediately argue with your strat, argue with their position ("I'm always East though"), etc. regardless

There's certainly a tendency for people to stereotype and mythologize the experience to the (heh) extreme, but even avoiding that it's hard to deny that there are also observable cultural differences that make the gap larger for a fresh NA player by comparison. The social minefield that is NA PF play is drastically unlike anything else in the game if you don't have previous MMO experience.

[Lyth]

Disagreement exists because players react to these labels as a reflection of personal skill, rather than as a measure of how and when they're engaging with content. If you wanted to work through last expansion's savage content now, you probably could crack through all of it in an incredibly relaxed fashion. But that's a completely different experience from scheduling time off on patch release to clear the same fights in blind progression during the first few days of release. Some people really dislike the stress of that, others thrive off it.

Zepla herself is probably aware of this. From what I gather, she previously worked her way through every Ultimate that was released. With TOP, she attempted to do early blind prog, hit a progression wall, and quit the game after getting burnt out. This has nothing to do with personal skill or challenging yourself, and everything to do with engaging with content at a pace that you simply don't enjoy. For context, Xeno made some fairly astute observations following her previous departure from the game that sums the issue up quite well, and Zepla outlines her personal experiences with burnout in that video very honestly as well.

[anna-steele]

i like eureka

[Denji]

i've found that NA servers emphasize going your own way and figuring out how to do things that work for you rather than doing any accepted strat/mechanic and the few fights that require following a mechanic in a specific way are the fights that NA players struggle the most with.

instead of assuming other people are going to do the right thing and just doing what you need to do, people think "oh, they suck. i'll do it for them."

which - my sibling in christ - is the opposite of what you need to do.

if you want someone to learn a strat, you need to give them an environment where everyone else is stable and doing the correct thing. they have a harder time learning if someone keeps flying in and changing things up as they're trying to figure things out. they don't need additional voices or people changing what they do and where they go. they don't need you deciding you want to stand on the left this time and resolve the left mechanic when they started off on the right and did the right one several times already.

NA players also just like going to different places, standing on different areas/platforms. they don't have a "comfy" spot where they chill out during that fight and don't move unless it's to resolve something. the monk could be to your left, to your right, behind you, in front of you -- the blm might be far away this time, they might be close and that can mess up stacking up or what tethers to who.

this results in minor slip-ups that, when combined with someone failing an important mechanic, can cause wipes.

jp servers don't have this issue. sorry non-jp server folk but we're pretty miserable when it comes to handling raid mechanics. we lack consistency and coherence.

as for the original op post, i miss having something like bozja tbh.

[DamianFatale]

I absolutely loved Zepla's points about Eureka, and Bozja bringing so many different types of players together. Whether you agree or not that it is midcore or not, it does seem like a bridge between all of the players contentwise. I think that the game does show its cracks when it doesn't have new exploratory content.

[CNitsah]

As much as I agreed nearly 100% on last week video, this one is supposed to be the one about cusuals, but it's about midcore players. Even if I agree with what she says about content for them (I don't play neither extreme or harder content because I don't like the idea of having to connect to for a raid, and organize myself around that), it's exactly what she said in the previous video. In FFXIV terms, midcore content is content that with a long shelf life with low barrier entry but no punishment to leave. Things she already talked about. That could be a difficulty between normal and Extreme, but even with that, if it's not doable in pickup and need premade to work well, it seems to me the problem gonna be the same.

Overall this one has a lot less meat than the previous one. A lot harder to watch, she circles around her point far too long before getting to it.

[WhataCrow]

hello, just register today to join the discuss

this may be controversial, but I think "casual content" is overall where you can be relaxed without have the possibility to getting other player's toxic intent or uncomfortable pressure,
such as msq, fates, hunts, grinding, crafting, fishing, housing, Gold Saucer, Mahjong, Triple Triad... etc. (in a non-objective sense, those activities that others may find boring, but you may enjoy)
ps: does relics / Big Fish / Jack of all card should count as midcore/hardcore of the casual? and I didn't mention mini-games, because their frequency of updates, depth and replayability is too low.

and midcore is something you can get through DF alone with 7 other players, or at least (you know it will) under 3 times tried (in theory)
they're mostly or totally blind, and might don't have well prepared equipment (yet mostly better than min ilvl), without guide macro (mainly refers to behavior that requires other player to "just" follow the script/guide)
ps: players who are unwilling to communicate or read chats may not be suitable for this consideration, as it will be a frustrating experience for both them and their teammates,
and yes, this consideration may be biased due to cultures, introverts, and pressure of the partying itself would already make players feel they MUST read the strategy or guide first before anything.

due to its punitive nature of gameplay and independent, I would say even Eureka/Bozja itself may not be a good casual content standard already, and I'm saying this as a Eureka enjoyer,
also same as how people don't like DD would not care about Eureka Orthos's innovate, I don't think other "Bozja 2.0" is Panacea.

[Elissar]

The game never teaches you an optimal rotation. And with some jobs, they're not exactly intuitive, either. I had to actively look for them and find resources outside the game. The really casual players won't think of doing that because they're here to have fun, not to study.

The game can't teach you muscular memory, just practice can do. As BLM, some players like to use ley libes at the middle of Golbez arena, i prefer to use it on the corner. No guide will make me prefer X or Y.

The casual player is also playing a MMORPG, researching for stuff is part of the immersion.