Thoughts on changes made to the game

[KenZentra]

And yet, you're still here, giving them money and paying for fantasias.

[SieyaM]

This game's community is a laughing stock to everyone else in the gaming world because of how overly self-righteous its fans are. You get less and less with each expansion and yet constantly beg everyone else to come play FFXIV as if it's the best game ever made. You refuse to accept that some people have opinions about the game. As we're headed into the longest drought in FFXIV history, the copes are becoming more and more outlandish. It's like FFXIV players are turning into a parody of themselves.

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration. Your friends will leave the game too and it will wither away until there's nothing left because everyone hates playing while hating those who also hate playing. Funny how that works. Whatever good used to be in this game has been replaced by "fans" bashing other people while they barely play the game themselves.

Which begs the question why are you here, if you're a real gamer you will cancel your sub immediately and go play something that worth the consideration of the gaming community.

[KenZentra]

That is the worst version of that meme I've ever seen. Comparing someone who supports the same corporation they supposedly hate to someone who has no choice but to participate in society to have basic needs met. That's..wow lol

"Why would you buy or own a car if you are going to complain about how it could be better?"

Also, they have yet to say they hate the game. I'd assume most critics actually... like the game and want the game to be better? Maybe even that they used to like the game and want to CONTINUE to like it? God forbid.

[Boblawblah]

"Why would you buy or own a car if you are going to complain about how it could be better?"

No one said this. Here, let me make it clear, if you're going to actively mock people that ENJOY the game, accusing them of paying to defend a game, while YOU YOURSELF are paying for the game, be prepared to get called out for it.

[IDontPetLalas]

"Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves
and have natural interactions rather than try to limit them so much that you dont even know if you get banned for having a normal argument."

They're nothing to stop anyone from having a "normal" , or civil discussion with anyone- aside from in a mode such as CC, when it's restricted. People should still be able to resolve a situation through discussion, I can understand if there's an actual language barrier it can be difficult, otherwise it's probably due to a lack of empathy.

What one person considers to be a "natural interaction" can be seen as extremely rude by someone else. People don't need to be mute. I think it helps to realize that the other party members aren't trusts/NPCs, sometimes I think some people may forget that there is a person on the other end who could be a child or a senior citizen. Just take a second to think before blurting something out.

[Jeeqbit]

Powercreep has made you able to skip mechanics, so why make the mechanics in the first place.

This bothers me a lot, particularly for previous expansions. Gear progression is important when the expansion is current, but it is irrelevant for previous expansions because everyone can just get max poetic gear, so they may as well sync them to minimum IL.

Mob packs/most bosses are meaningless because you have overloaded kits and the potencies of dps skills are too high.

That is mainly true in old content because it wasn't designed for the current potencies.

There is no danger in dungeons, most normal trials and now in 24 man content.

Not really true. I've seen multiple full wipes in the previous normal trial and the current one does often lead to a death on people's first time. The more accurate statement would be that they stop feeling dangerous once you understand the mechanics, which is when it's no longer your first time. They do telegraph things more now though, and telegraphs make it significantly easier compared to content where they are removed like Extreme, Savage and Ultimate.

I do not feel that normal trials are challenging enough for me personally, so I do the extreme versions.

Having more states of failure makes gameplay interesting.

I agree. I especially think this is relevant for solo duties where you are not relying on others. It's alright to struggle with duties such as In From The Cold or following characters in stealth because that's what a video game is (yet people on these forums have complained about the difficulty of these things).

Making everything too easy develops a toxic mindset as well (class responsibility, laziness, babying players, no responsibility over anything).

Making everything too hard develops a toxic mindset as well (demanding people watch guides and know all these things that they didn't know, just so they can complete the story and watch a cutscene).

Class interaction is nonexistent. Tp/aggro/debuffs offered varying gameplay.

I'm all for class interaction, but the examples you mention here are not good ones.

TP was mostly useless and you would only notice it if DPS was extraordinarily low while doing AoE or if you accidently pressed Sprint in battle.

Debuffs applied to players were useless and mostly just a nuisance, such as mobs applying random paralysis, sleep, silence and stuns on you and you didn't even know which enemy did it and it interrupted your strict rotation. Players applying debuffs to enemies is alright if it's like a DoT or a stun, but when it comes to slow, sleep or bind they are virtually not on people's hotbar.

Aggro was alright, but it was complicated to explain this to a new player. When someone starts tanking, they are usually afraid of it and have anxiety, so when you started explaining all this stuff like enmity combos and stance dancing, it confirmed their suspicion that tanking is hard (even though it's not). We had a massive gap between people who played tanks exclusively to spam enmity and people who played them like a DPS and it didn't feel right to have such a massive gap between player performance.

Why have different classes if the gameplay is almost the same?

Glamour, animations, is the obvious answer.

Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves

The problem is that many people in this game are not capable of resolving it themselves because they are unreasonable. It could be for various reasons, including personality disorders or substances they take, but it is fairly common to meet people who are just not chill, reasonable people.

I was once in a party with someone that I agreed to do a dungeon with and as we went through the dungeon, they stunned me by berating the tank constantly. The tank didn't do anything wrong and they kept quiet until near the end, then explained they had farmed dungeons all day without any problem. The truth is that the person I was in a party with just had aggression issues and was being unreasonable.

People grow when they get to resolve things themselves rather than trying to limit them with arbitrary rules that make them feel caged

I've heard it was really, really bad in games that didn't police it such as WoW, LoL or Halo. I didn't play them but they have a certain reputation... https://youtu.be/8cMkQRBknto?t=133

[KenZentra]

Because of powercreep you can defeat a boss in EW and never see half of the mechanics.

Take Nald'Thal. The scales, You may never see it anymore because he dies too fast, let alone all of the "Underworld" stuff he does with switching colors and heads. And this is not to mention the remainder of the game. So many trials, raids, and dungeons, are just complete push overs form older content.
Take A9, The Refurbisher. It routinely kills folks because no one knows the mechanics, but also dies just after Full-Metal Faust is defeated. Cruise Chaser skips entire phases and will go straight into Eternal Darkness easily. Alexander Prime can die before or just as it casts "Summon Alexander", doing Time stop once or twice.

The content is completely trivialized, you can fail mechanics several times in a row, and never die. You almost have to TRY to fail, so if someone does fail, its always "this guy must be trolling".

"Go do Savage". What a lame answer. I do Savage and it sucks. Partner up, Spread, Light Party Stacks, Raid Wide, Tank Swap. The entire experience is so rigid, planned, scripted, whatever you want to call it. With the number of body checks in savage force you to restart time and time again after small mistakes. I've seen many people refer to it this way, its like playing Dance Dance Revolution. Savage isn't hard as much as its tedious. What will you say next? Go do Ultimates? What then?

The two-minute meta is the end result of homogenization and lazy design/balancing. And should honestly just have a whole essay about by itself. Its a culmination of several different factors that I could go on literally forever.

The TOS is a problem. And without trying to sound like a certain someone who frequents the forums, they do not enforce their "3rd party tools are cheating" bit. They, however, will take action if you are even just a little frustrated or in disagreement. I've had a friend who just started the game after EW released. In Sastasha, he was only single pulling and a DPS told him to pull everything. He said he wasn't going to. He was reported and had to talk to a GM shortly after. He tried the game and at the first disagreement someone had with him, his first interaction with another player, and he got a strike on his account. He has not played since.

[Sindele]

Because of powercreep you can defeat a boss in EW and never see half of the mechanics.

Take Nald'Thal. The scales, You may never see it anymore because he dies too fast, let alone all of the "Underworld" stuff he does with switching colors and heads. And this is not to mention the remainder of the game. So many trials, raids, and dungeons, are just complete push overs form older content.
Take A9, The Refurbisher. It routinely kills folks because no one knows the mechanics, but also dies just after Full-Metal Faust is defeated. Cruise Chaser skips entire phases and will go straight into Eternal Darkness easily. Alexander Prime can die before or just as it casts "Summon Alexander", doing Time stop once or twice.

The content is completely trivialized, you can fail mechanics several times in a row, and never die. You almost have to TRY to fail, so if someone does fail, its always "this guy must be trolling".

Sure. That things could be reeled back and sync levels dropped is a much more compelling argument. Being able to power through and skip mechanics just isn't anything new - this was happening in SB at the absolute latest and frankly good groups were doing it in HW. If anything, you could argue that the existence of scales - and subsequently skipping scales - has made it a much more obvious problem.

"Go do Savage". What a lame answer. I do Savage and it sucks. Partner up, Spread, Light Party Stacks, Raid Wide, Tank Swap. The entire experience is so rigid, planned, scripted, whatever you want to call it. With the number of body checks in savage force you to restart time and time again after small mistakes. I've seen many people refer to it this way, its like playing Dance Dance Revolution. Savage isn't hard as much as its tedious. What will you say next? Go do Ultimates? What then?

But again - it was always this way. You have been playing Dance Dance Revolution the entire time, apparently without realizing it. And let's be frank - have you ever seen what passed for difficult content in 2013? Again, this isn't a case of the game getting worse, or design principles changing significantly - it's you outpacing the average skill growth and expectation.

If you find Ultimates too easy, well, congratulations. You can comprehensively say at that point that you have beaten the game. Do you expect an infinite well of curated content specifically tuned to every skill level in all existence, dynamically adapting to your desired expression of skill? I would also love that, but there are some notable limits to what is possible in reality.

The two-minute meta is the end result of homogenization and lazy design/balancing. And should honestly just have a whole essay about by itself. Its a culmination of several different factors that I could go on literally forever.

I would love to see it, because I think on this point we're likely to agree. A lot has been lost in the pursuit of neutralization here. I just think it also deserves note that this is something some players have specifically asked for. You're not just being handed this from on high - some people actually wanted this, even if they got monkey's pawed in the exchange.

The TOS is a problem. And without trying to sound like a certain someone who frequents the forums, they do not enforce their "3rd party tools are cheating" bit. They, however, will take action if you are even just a little frustrated or in disagreement. I've had a friend who just started the game after EW released. In Sastasha, he was only single pulling and a DPS told him to pull everything. He said he wasn't going to. He was reported and had to talk to a GM shortly after. He tried the game and at the first disagreement someone had with him, his first interaction with another player, and he got a strike on his account. He has not played since.

I just can't agree from personal experiences, and I find a lot of the anecdotal claims to be short on evidence. I'd love to know what really goes on in the GM cubicles, but I have not yet been successful in bribing any current or former GMs into giving me a copy of the company policy book. Still trying, though. Cash prizes! Anyone?

[KenZentra]

But again - it was always this way. You have been playing Dance Dance Revolution the entire time, apparently without realizing it.

I dont think it has. Sure, we've always dodged AoEs, but we've had other mechanics in harder difficulties that didn't have a "Go here to dodge thing or prevent overlap".

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with, and constant knockbacks put onto healers. As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch. And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle. You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.
The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

Zodiark and most of Rubicante (for current expansion examples) can be cleared with a dorito on someone's head that knows where to go with everyone else being blind.

[Mikey_R]

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with,

Which amounted to just staying near each other, then, consider you always killed the nails in a certain order, it really wasn't that hard to do.

constant knockbacks put onto healers.

Which amounted to them standing in a certain spot to not be annoying.

As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch.

Normally 3, however, he does sometimes do 2 debuffs quickly one after the other, which is why you end up with 4 sometimes. Considering 5 is death, 3 is the best to swap at.

And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle.

Until you take too long and he kills you from enrage.

You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.

Of which buffs/debuffs/doing any mechanics comes down to solving what the devs are asking of you, then you just do the dance that is asked of you.

The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

Sorry, but all fights are DDR. You can try and say otherwise, but is is a case of, if you have X go to Y.