Zepla: The Players Endwalker Left Behind

[Jirah]

Nah, the sheep will just dismiss her opinion because she is a content creator.

Pokemon community has the issue aswell but majority of their “content creators” foam at the mouth for every move (bad or worse) gamefreak does while the ones that want better design are seen as a pariah….until they bootlick again

I dont think FF14 is much different from the pokemon evangelical community besides the fact one loses the “child” argument. But the thing people really need to hear is the people that hate the game are gone or never played. We all love the game but some of us are not enablers

[Avoidy]

I like how she addressed the midcore issue of like, "yeah we have extremes, a whole 3 bosses every year, big whoop." Midcore basically doesn't exist in this game. You're either a hella chilled out casualbro (nothing wrong with this) or a sweaty pf/static raider with barely an inbetween and it's been talked about here for years and nothing changed. Maybe now that a sTrEaMEr is bringing it up, SE will listen but let's be real. Dawntrail's devteam are probably already done with its core elements and even if it weren't I doubt they'd revamp their successful (from a $ standpoint) structure just because a few people are burned out on it. Especially not when the majority of their players are fine with the same old.

Realistically all they had to do was tune variants for ex-tier difficulty and then give it rewards to make objective/goal-oriented types of players want to participate and they probably could've white-knuckled through the content drought. But they didn't. And they dropped the ball on relics too. And there's no exploratory zone either. And the cash shop gets monthly updates while the main game stagnates, which, yeah, different teams work on those things, but from an optics standpoint it looks terrible. And so now people are finally asking why they're paying monthly to play this game, and a lot of people are dropping it. I know a guy who's stayed subbed for years just to keep his house. He didn't even play the damn game, he'd just stay subbed to maintain his large mansion. I thought he'd never quit. Yesterday he DMed me saying he was gonna finally just let go of his house because there're other better games and he can't be bothered with this one. I'm glad Zepla mentioned the risk of telling people to "jUsT pLaY oTheR gAmeS" because people really don't get it. I've been saying it for a while and so have others but maybe now that someone with clout is saying it, it'll resonate. When you push people out like that, oftentimes they'll just stay gone. Hell, I've been playing other games lately too. Know what? I'm seeing a lot of former XIV players who don't know what a Zepla is, but their reasons for leaving echo her videos at an eerie 1:1 ratio.

So yeah.

[Boblawblah]

Does Zepla see something like Eureka mid-core, or the type of content she's looking for?

[VerdeLuck]

Does Zepla see something like Eureka mid-core, or the type of content she's looking for?

She said that she thinks Eureka and BA are some of the only existing midcore content in the game, which I would disagree with given how hostile and unfriendly that content is to new players trying it out, and how much the zones, particularly BA rely on outside organization through discord servers to attempt.

[SargeTheSeagull]

This is why I have always disliked the blanket titles of “casual” and “hardcore “.

I would consider myself a “hardcore” player as I’ve been around since 2.0, got many jobs to 90, a combat mentor, and much more. I do take breaks (mostly because of money issues) and I don’t do savage content because I know I can’t commit to such a thing.

I’m trying hard to understand the points being brought up but don’t seem to find the same when I play. It’s like I’m playing a different game. Maybe I haven’t reached that content or don’t do it? I don’t know.

I wouldn't call that hardcore. I'd call that "been playing the game a long time." Getting every job to cap isn't remotely difficult or skill intensive, neither is being a mentor (which is a huge part of the reason mentors are such a meme). And if you don't do savage content then your perspective on what difficulties the game offers is just lacking.

[R041]

She said that she thinks Eureka and BA are some of the only existing midcore content in the game, which I would disagree with given how hostile and unfriendly that content is to new players trying it out, and how much the zones, particularly BA rely on outside organization through discord servers to attempt.

For the zones themselves, I can agree it really just depends on the type of activity going on. It's frustrating that BA requires Discord, which is why I give Eureka and Bozja a partial pass.

The most frustrating part about each zone is their ramp-up time. There's just not enough to do for the first half of each tier, and it can be a struggle if there aren't other lowbies around. BUT - Once you get past that small hump, it's smooth and engaging.

Man I shouldn't even be posting here, it's another bait thread by a weird narcissist. lol

[AngelCheese77]

I wouldn't call that hardcore. I'd call that "been playing the game a long time." Getting every job to cap isn't remotely difficult or skill intensive, neither is being a mentor (which is a huge part of the reason mentors are such a meme). And if you don't do savage content then your perspective on what difficulties the game offers is just lacking.

This is what I mean in my replies.

How I see myself isn’t correct for the label of “hardcore”. Also took me 3 years to get battle mentor, which is a great achievement for me (meme or no).

This is why some players, like myself, feel upset or ignored when we give thoughts because we aren’t the “right ppl who can”.

Games need good end game, that’s true. But I’ve seen many MMOs focus so hard on pleasing end game players that the early or mid game suffers.

The stat squash FF14 did was something that changed the way the game was. Removing TP as well. Did the game start to feel dumbed down then?

I do hope any concerns get looked at though.

[Renathras]

The game can't teach you muscular memory, just practice can do.
...
The casual player is also playing a MMORPG, researching for stuff is part of the immersion.

I think this goes back to not only people not well defining the terms casual/midcore/hardcore, but people in one group are genuinely so far set apart, they don't see how what they're saying doesn't fit. I remember an old news report someone showed me of George Bush Sr going to the grocery store to show how "normal guy" he was. When he got to the checkout, he didn't know what it was or how it worked. He didn't understand the idea of having your stuff scanned and then paying for it. The last time he'd gone to a normal store to buy stuff was probably 20-30 years prior when people would just look at your stuff and add it up on one of those paper machines to give you your total. He'd become wealthy enough so long ago he had people that did the shopping for him outside of really big buys that went through contracts and lawyers, like buying homes or the like. Instead of showing him as a "normal guy", it apparently (this was a bit before my time, but the impression I got and from the person showing it to me) cemented in people's minds how out of touch he was.

To a hardcore person, "researching for stuff" like rotations and fight mechanics is so common, they think that's what everyone does. Shocking as it is to hear it...many people don't. I'm not sure how many, but it might even be a majority of the playerbase. We've all been in roulettes or 24 mans and seen plenty of people that have no idea what they're doing. And I don't mean "Ice Mages" that "want to be Ice Mages"; I mean people that basically press their 1-2-3 but that's about the extent. And sometimes, those are even weird, like SAM's branching combos or MNK's nonstandard "infinite combo" rotation. And that's BEFORE you get the Nadi things, which change up the order you do things (for the Dragonkick/Bootshine/Dragonkick bit) that outright upends it, or SAM's...that one ability where you just use the three finishers to get the seals and buffs. Sure, most anyone can read the WAR tooltip to see they need to open up with Storm's Eye and keep that buff up if they can, but some of those other cases aren't as apparent, and then you get to Jobs that don't do that. Like RDM, you want to weave oGCDs only after the second spell in your dualcast so you don't clip. Makes perfect sense once someone tells you that, but if no one's told you/you haven't read a guide? It's not so naturally intuitive.

The game doesn't even tell you what an oGCD or weaving is, despite this being essential to high end play. Not optional, not optimal; essential. I started in ARR and didn't figure that out until SB when I noticed getting the Pacification debuff in PotD didn't disable all my attacks (despite the debuff description), some things I could still use. When I started looking up guides for Jobs (specifically SCH) on YouTube, that's when I learned it was actually different, and around 5.0, I noticed (looking at the official "Job Guide" webpages) that there are those little "spell"/"weaponskill"/"ability" tags, and that's when I figured out, for the first time, how to tell which was which on my own. I'd been playing since 2.3. You can mock me if you want, I'd wager that's a fairly common story.

It's very easy, once you know a lot, to forget what not knowing a lot was like and what you had to do to know what you know, and I've yet to find someone in FFXIV who figured out what oGCDs and weaving were without either a guide or someone who HAD watched/read a guide explaining it to them.

Casual players don't generally research stuff, or don't research much. Researching using out of game resources is not generally part of immersion, and this is probably one of the best metrics we can use as a defining point of casuals vs midcores vs hardcores. Indeed, to many people, researching mechanical stuff breaks the game down from a world to a series of mechanics, which is immersion breaking. I'm not sure immersion is the right word at all to describe that...

I would consider myself a “hardcore” player...
It’s like I’m playing a different game. Maybe I haven’t reached that content or don’t do it? I don’t know.

I think hardcore is generally going to involve people doing coordinated content with others that requires a good deal of outside research and training/muscle memory. There are exceptions - like there are some insanely hardcore...crafters; and no, I don't mean that as a joke. There are some people who have done so much research and put in the hours, they can tell you what things sell well and poorly, where you can personally farm the mats, which enemies drop which things and which gathering nodes give which resources and what times of day they spawn and...and don't even get me started on the hardcore FISHING community in this game.

...but those are more exceptions substituting one form of hardcore for another. Same with solo deep dungeon runners, which is non-group content that still requires a lot of skill, research, and dedication.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Removing TP

Call it dumbed down, call me and everyone that agrees Stupid Casuals.
I still generally think Removing TP is a Good thing.
There was noting more annoying back in the day then running out of TP while trying to AOE Mobs, then getting yelled at for not using AOEs and running out of TP when teh Tank was going full force with their Wall-to-Wall Pulls.

Ok the one other thing I remember was Cleric Stance. Thank Goodness that Garbage is Gone. It was a cute idea, but was ultimately annoying and lead to more issues rather then this...skill gap or Complexity or whatever I hear about it.

[Renathras]

TP is one of those weird "it could have been tweaked to be good...but wasn't" things.

Effectively, MP is in a similar state. Other than chain Raising, there's really nothing else it...does. Except for BLM. Every other Caster, Healer, and the Tanks that use it (PLD and DRK) are designed to be somewhat MP neutral over time (when they're MP negative and run out eventually, this is seen as a problem and adjusted) so that MP is effectively not a limiting factor. Because basically no one wants to have to stop using actions and wait for MP to regen (imagine if RDM running out of MP and having to 1-2-3 unenchanted melee autoattack for 30 sec or so for it to regen before going back to casting; while that might be accurate to the single player FF game Red Mages, most MMO players in the modern era and game would find that bad...and a lot of other magic Jobs don't have those kinds of abilities to fall back on, like WHM or etc...)

It's one of those things that would make sense in a different kind of game, but...not really in this one based on how it works.

Though it does beg the question of why MP stuck around when TP didn't, but here we are. PvP kits often don't really use it, like WHM Cure 2 is based on charges (like Afflatus Solace), not MP cost in PvP; Recuperate is really the MP thing in PvP.