Players and the game design's mindset has become increasingly individualistic

[Valence]

The more we go back into the past of the game and talk about it, the more it becomes clear to me that there is those days a big divide between two major types of players:

- One side does really miss a lot of of the old party teamwork, resource management, resource scarcity, aggro control, actual skill gaps in how to use the battle system and job toolkits, role identity, etc.
- The other side never liked losing aggro, or seeing a DPS rip off aggro because they didn't manage it properly (maybe one side, maybe both sides, doesn't matter). They didn't like being drained out of TP/MP during fights. They didn't like when their team mates were playing worse than the bar they expected of them (this is actually still something you widely read all over the internet and ingame, people complaining about how bad their random team mates were in that last run). They don't want to see a lack of performance or failure from others affect their perfect gameplay. They don't like unexpected variations.

Well, when it comes to myself, I actually do think that the former are more collectively minded than the latter. I don't mind losing a couple of minutes or even five minutes to a dungeon run because someone is having difficulties (or even slacking). I like carrying. I like adjusting to make up for the weakest link in the team. I like being required to do put more effort and find creative solutions to salvage a run. I also do like the unexpected, for that a never changing script is boring. The very reason I like playing healers in some alliance raids like Ivalice or Nier is that I can raise dead bodies or turbo heal through scuffed runs even though I don't like healing otherwise.

So yes, I used to like tanking before ShB because I had to adjust my enmity control depending on my team mates and healer. If my DPS were doing wild DPS, I had to play a bit more conservative. If my team was not using their aggro properly, or the healer overhealing, I had to adjust and do my actual role as a tank. Today, I don't like tanking because i'm invulnerable and I don't have to adjust for anything. I just follow a predetermined script. Even if my whole party dies in a dungeon, I still follow the script and I can solo the mobs or the boss down and waste everybody's time (unless I'm a DRK... and even then...).

I used to like healing (I actually started the game in HW as a healer, funnily enough), because I had to adjust to my tank's gear, how well they used their defensives, which granted, is still somewhat true today. But I also had to adjust when a tank was not positioning mobs properly and eating crits from the back like there was no tomorrow. I had to adjust when I was overhealing and generating too much aggro, and sometimes just because I had to else the tank or the party would die. I had to adjust my playstyle when the tank decided to pull more, or to pull less, and sometimes they pulled less when they were playing well, and sometimes more when they were not good players. It generated pretty wild gaps in what was required of me. On top of it, I had to also manage my MP, and if pulls took too long, my MP would run dry. I had to find a constant balance between spamming Holy and healing the tank, and this also changed according to all those factors. Back then, MP also was tied to varying pools depending on gear and builds, and regened very slowly overall, which put more emphasis on Lucid, party MP refreshes, etc. The time it took to kill trash directly impacted into my MP reserves and they would NOT regen fully between pulls. Sometimes it was scuffed I misaimed, and I had to go through pulls with very scarse resources, which meant no holy and sparing my use of heals. Today on the other hand, resources are not a problem anymore and tanks are undying. All I have to do is spamm my single AoE button after applying a glorified regen or prepull shields/mits.

I used to like DPS because depending on who you got in your team, damage was not equal, which is still true today, yes, but it also meant that the slower we killed the mobs, the faster we'd run out of MP/TP. Some say it wasn't fun, but to me it was because then it forced me to adjust and play with new constraints. It forced me to manage my resources like for healers, and I knew I could start pumping turret promotion, manasong, tp song, tactician, etc. As a DPS I could immediately measure my contribution to the group by indirectly helping the supports (healer and tank) in how much resources they had to pour into each pull as well. Today, I just have to do my rotation, but I can still measure somewhat if I'm being efficient by how fast stuff dies, and that's why I play DPS and nothing else. It's been hurt less overall and it's easier to carry for the weakest link with that role, ironically, if it even still means anything today.

So, there used to be a lot of failure states directly built into the system, and they could snowball to an entropic party death beyond just failing mechanics. The great thing was that you could make up for someone else's mistakes, up to a point where you got overwhelmed and wiped. It actually favored skill expression a lot more than what we have today, and I'm really not speaking about complicated job rotations actually, quite the opposite. Today, the only failure state there is left is failing encounter mechanics. You can only help your weakest links go through those so far if it doesn't outright wipe the party. But surprise, in savage, the only way to keep things difficult is to introduce body checks everywhere so if someone fucks up mechanics constantly, then you're screwed, you can't even help or use your skills to make up for it.

It's turned into a semi solo game experience where you just rage when somebody fucks up a mechanic.


Edit: And you know what? Seeing the BLM rip aggro and get shredded by the boss was hilarious and I'll die on that hill.

[Pip_Chick]

All we have gained is a mediocre single player expirience.
The MMO part of this game is dead. The players are only in their ERP head space, there is no flavour or texture. You just go in a dungeon with 3 or more other players who are so robotic, they may as well be bots. The expirience is so much on rails that you start falling asleep not even half way through the first boss.
I used to like doing the daily roulettes and talking with other players. Now I can't even do more than 3 at a time cause I start falling asleep, and even then I need some sort of distraction like a YT video or music to even get through. No role is engaging enough after the 3rd run, no job is interesting after a few days of playing.
Everything is just boring. The most fun I had in game recently was when the tank got disconnected and the rest of us didn't notice, we got to the last boss by the time the tank returned. And it is sad.

[Jeeqbit]

The more we go back into the past of the game and talk about it, the more it becomes clear to me that there is those days a big divide between two major types of players

I can certainly confirm there was always a divide. This divide is not new, but perhaps it is even more fractured than it has ever been, because the game has more variety and features than back then.

One side does really miss a lot of of the old party teamwork, resource management, resource scarcity, aggro control, actual skill gaps in how to use the battle system and job toolkits, role identity, etc.

I miss it to a degree, I just accept that casual players rarely learned these things so an average sprout/returner you met in a dungeon wasn't doing these things.

I can accept it being significantly reduced, but bringing some aspects of it back would be nice. To a degree, these things have been replaced by other things though. Like tanks applying support buffs to other tanks wasn't so much of a thing in Heavensward for example and this has allowed me to save runs and clear extreme/savage. Tank AoE mitigation wasn't so much of a thing beside Divine Veil. I love Reprisal so much, because I just find it more versatile than applying a Strength down via the Rage of Halone combo for example.

The other side never liked losing aggro, or seeing a DPS rip off aggro because they didn't manage it properly (maybe one side, maybe both sides, doesn't matter). They didn't like being drained out of TP/MP during fights. They didn't like when their team mates were playing worse than the bar they expected of them (this is actually still something you widely read all over the internet and ingame, people complaining about how bad their random team mates were in that last run). They don't want to see a lack of performance or failure from others affect their perfect gameplay. They don't like unexpected variations.

It was extremely common for people to talk poorly of people in DF and their skill level. For example, a PLD that spammed Rage of Halone in tank stance despite having a Goring Blade combo and Royal Authority combo. People would get frustrated over aggro loss and things going on them and killing them, as well. In many other cases, it just made for conversation or something you could joke about.

Of all those things, I only didn't think enmity combos were healthy for the game on the basis that it was hard to explain this concept to a new player. Many other games have damage dealers and medics, but they don't necessarily have tanks. Tanking isn't a universal concept so explaining to people in Sastasha that they don't just run up to enemies and hit them and that there's enmity combos was like, how do I explain this.

As much as I liked stance dancing personally, I didn't feel like it was healthy for half of players to "believe" in using tank stance 100% of the time "because they're a tank" and the more min-max oriented being like "DPS stance 99% of the time". Maybe if the damage difference between the two was a lot smaller it would be alright.

The only thing I didn't like on a personal level was simply running out of TP. It just sucked to use Total Eclipse on PLD, then run out of TP because DPS was low and having to stop attacking altogether.

I like carrying. I like adjusting to make up for the weakest link in the team. I like being required to do put more effort and find creative solutions to salvage a run.

Same, and I believe the game was actually designed with that in mind originally. They knew some players would be not as good, but the veterans would be matched with them via roulettes and salvage their runs and show off their raid weapons and relic weapons etc. That worked well, in my opinion, so it doesn't feel so good that a casual Warrior that doesn't even know how to play a Warrior can probably solo a boss with how it is now.

So yes, I used to like tanking before ShB because I had to adjust my enmity control depending on my team mates and healer. If my DPS were doing wild DPS, I had to play a bit more conservative.

I did feel this was the case in Stormblood, but it also gave me some anxiety because I couldn't really know for sure how good my team was going to be. So I decide my team is moderately good but not the best, I might just do 2 enmity combos then switch out but if they then performed better than expected, I was like drat, I have to generate more enmity because I misjudged them. Sometimes they would use their enmtiy-reduction abilities but not always so it was difficult to know if you were wasting your damage managing aggro or not.

Today, I don't like tanking because i'm invulnerable and I don't have to adjust for anything.

I was able to solo low-level bosses (level 50 and 60 bosses) in Stormblood, actually. It's really always been possible, it just got easier over time due to extra self-heals and battle system adjustments. I like it to be possible, but hard to pull off and right now anyone could get to a point of soloing something on Warrior or Paladin, so it's gone overboard. They should have some survival tools that when pushed to their limit, might just allow a very skilled player to survive with a few HP, but not to the degree that healers are intentionally irrelevant and that they can solo something in their sleep without even trying.

Just to give an example here. In Stormblood, I played Warrior in The Great Gubal Library (Hard) and solo'd the last boss. To do this, I had to do all of the mechanics flawless and spam my Storm's Path combo and make good use of mits, Thrill and Equilibrium. Sometimes I'd get low and I had to really do it all right to survive.

I did the same in Keeper of the Lake last boss, except I didn't have Equilibrium. I solo'd it.

Now you'd just use Bloodwhetting on CD and wouldn't have to think at all. Anyone can do it now, even with 5 vulns. If we could get back to where it was with my above examples it would be more balanced.

Another factor is you couldn't survive solo against 8-person content in Heavensward. I vividly remember that if everyone wiped in Heart of the Creator normal, all the clemency spam and Hallowed Ground I could bring out wasn't enough to survive their auto attacks. Now bosses rarely get round to using autos or they don't hurt enough. Now you can solo through half of an extreme trial as a tank just to "preview the mechanics".

I used to like healing (I actually started the game in HW as a healer, funnily enough), because I had to adjust to my tank's gear, how well they used their defensives

I agree it's still true. You still might get a tank that forgets stance the entire dungeon. It's fun not to mention this so that you can have fun with it. But it would probably be the case more often if tank self-heals weren't as overboard as they have become.

[Lyth]

...

I agree that support roles in particular benefit from being more interdependent and having more opportunities to contribute to their team's success. But some of the systems cited were removed because they were genuinely bad. Modern resource systems allow you to at least perform parts of your base rotation if you run out of resources (if that could happen). Running out of TP left you with auto-attacks.

Likewise, you generally didn't need to adjust your gameplay to compensate for your teammates enmity generation if you were capable of doing raid content in ARR/HW. A tank using STR accessories in ARR/HW would overlap with physical ranged DPS output, so you definitely weren't going to lose enmity once established. The only point that really mattered was transition points like the opener or during add spawns. Both of these could be resolved with WAR's baseline toolkit (and WAR was in every group at the time), and having a NIN around worked out even better due to Shadewalker/Smokescreen.

In short, I agree with your sentiment, but I think you're remembering the past with rose coloured glasses.

[Boblawblah]

I see this is the week of "back in my day...<insert_how_things_were_better>" posts

[Souljacker]

I see this is the week of "back in my day...<insert_how_things_were_better>" posts

Yes.

All we have gained is a mediocre single player expirience.
The MMO part of this game is dead...

I don't talk with other players because there isn't a second I'm not pressing a button or hopping out of an AoE. The experience here is very different than in its predecessor - I think the game is weaker for it. Leveling parties - perhaps outside of well-geared and specifically tailored meripos - were a much more relaxing experience and I'd argue more engaging. You could talk to your party members and make friends, and you often did because you'd spend an hour+ with them. There's so few memorable group activities here.

I can still remember the first time I defeated the dragon in mission 2-3, the first time I defeated the Shadow Lord, the first time I helped OTHERS with those missions, getting through Promyvions, preparing for the fights (leveling summoner lol), getting to the top of Attohwa Chasm, getting to the final floor in Nyzul Isle, defeating all the sky nms and getting my byakko haidate, exploring every single inch of sea, defeating Maat, defeating Maat on a job other than WHM (lol), completing all the Dynamis zones and getting my relics, so many stories because they were engaging. Cutscenes were sparse because they were rewards, not forced movies we have to sit through before we can go back to playing the game.

It was a completely different feeling, that game was, and it was so beloved and has such a loyal fanbase that it's still profitable for them to run the servers even today. There is a serious open-source project to emulate it with over thirty thousand commits, and private servers running era-preserved systems, that's how much that game is loved.

The only reason I even remember Crystal Tower enough to describe it is because it's literally the only raids that come up in the roulette. I've had to work for exactly nothing in this game. Almost all my jobs are 90 now, progressing there by doing brain-dead roulettes and 71+ Bozja while netflix is on in the background. This game is exactly like every other mmo on the market except with FFXIV lore and graphics. There is nothing that really distinguishes it from other modern mmos, while XI was a defiantly differently experience and design while still being so far ahead of its time I'm not sure that SE hasn't developed some sort of game engine time travel.

I miss the complexity of the simplicity of the older systems. I know that doesn't make sense to some of you who might be new to the franchise... but if you had been there... you'd understand.

[GodModule]

All we have gained is a mediocre single player expirience.
The MMO part of this game is dead. The players are only in their ERP head space, there is no flavour or texture. You just go in a dungeon with 3 or more other players who are so robotic, they may as well be bots. The expirience is so much on rails that you start falling asleep not even half way through the first boss.
I used to like doing the daily roulettes and talking with other players. Now I can't even do more than 3 at a time cause I start falling asleep, and even then I need some sort of distraction like a YT video or music to even get through. No role is engaging enough after the 3rd run, no job is interesting after a few days of playing.
Everything is just boring. The most fun I had in game recently was when the tank got disconnected and the rest of us didn't notice, we got to the last boss by the time the tank returned. And it is sad.

Pretty much how I feel

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Yes.




I don't talk with other players because there isn't a second I'm not pressing a button or hopping out of an AoE. The experience here is very different than in its predecessor - I think the game is weaker for it. Leveling parties - perhaps outside of well-geared and specifically tailored meripos - were a much more relaxing experience and I'd argue more engaging. You could talk to your party members and make friends, and you often did because you'd spend an hour+ with them. There's so few memorable group activities here.

I can still remember the first time I defeated the dragon in mission 2-3, the first time I defeated the Shadow Lord, the first time I helped OTHERS with those missions, getting through Promyvions, preparing for the fights (leveling summoner lol), getting to the top of Attohwa Chasm, getting to the final floor in Nyzul Isle, defeating all the sky nms and getting my byakko haidate, exploring every single inch of sea, defeating Maat, defeating Maat on a job other than WHM (lol), completing all the Dynamis zones and getting my relics, so many stories because they were engaging. Cutscenes were sparse because they were rewards, not forced movies we have to sit through before we can go back to playing the game.

It was a completely different feeling, that game was, and it was so beloved and has such a loyal fanbase that it's still profitable for them to run the servers even today. There is a serious open-source project to emulate it with over thirty thousand commits, and private servers running era-preserved systems, that's how much that game is loved.

The only reason I even remember Crystal Tower enough to describe it is because it's literally the only raids that come up in the roulette. I've had to work for exactly nothing in this game. Almost all my jobs are 90 now, progressing there by doing brain-dead roulettes and 71+ Bozja while netflix is on in the background. This game is exactly like every other mmo on the market except with FFXIV lore and graphics. There is nothing that really distinguishes it from other modern mmos, while XI was a defiantly differently experience and design while still being so far ahead of its time I'm not sure that SE hasn't developed some sort of game engine time travel.

I miss the complexity of the simplicity of the older systems. I know that doesn't make sense to some of you who might be new to the franchise... but if you had been there... you'd understand.

For every person that had this experience in XI, there is one who had an experience like mine, where people didn't want to help you level past the introductory areas, you get stuck in a loop of trying to form parties in the Dunes, being unable to level due to them not lasting long, and then repeat.

[Valence]

But some of the systems cited were removed because they were genuinely bad.

Your opinion.

But this is going back to the age old "improve and fix" vs "just delete what's imperfect in execution".

In short, I agree with your sentiment, but I think you're remembering the past with rose coloured glasses.

I am not, and I do think you're purposely colouring it in a bad light on purpose yourself with cherrypicking/nitpicking and overplaying certain aspects that were definitely not perfect (and it goes back again to the aforementioned point).
Any system has flaws, and the current one we have is no exception either. The whole point of the OP is to go over individualistic behaviors in XIV's history and the only thing you reply to me is "but X or Y were not perfect"?


Edit: I'll take the bait on tank aggro. Tanks didn't deal the same damage as rphys jobs, I don't know what you remember but you probably remember wrong. Tanks at top level were about 60 to 85% of the damage output of dps jobs depending on the jobs. If we remove the 10% piercing that rphys benefited from this still doesnt close the gap, even remotely close. If we're talking about AoE in dungeons, then it gets even messier, because AoE back then was crazy badly balanced, way more than raids, and the difference between a MNK (ludicrous AoE options) vs a SMN (completely busted with no falloff painflare/deathflare) was astronomical. Tank AoE was not on par with dps either, and this is even without talking about damage profiles, because if something bursts like crazy immediately, better than you do, then you'll lose aggro if you don't use at least some aggro moves.

Now I'll definitely agree that the higher your gear (BiS) and your skill, the less likely you'd have to spamm aggro moves, and I'd wager that you never really needed to do it because a lot of players didn't output way enough damage to remotely threaten you, even if they didn't use their quelling strikes either. Gear differences were definitely one of the limits of the system.

I see this is the week of "back in my day...<insert_how_things_were_better>" posts

If this is the only thing you chose to take from that thread, then you see me sorry hear it.

[HikariKurosawa]

What a miserable post lol. Member tank stance dance? Member kaiten? Member pulling aggro? I looked at the job actions back then and it was a simple game in comparison input-wise. It's like the illusion of difficulty. "But you had to pay attention to when you could actually do your rotation!" "But you had to switch off tank stance!"

Co-dependent game design isn't really good in my opinion. People should be able to just focus on their own execution. I shouldn't have to micromanage someone else's performance to see what I am allowed to do.

progressing there by doing brain-dead roulettes and 71+ Bozja while netflix is on in the background.

In a game with a low bar for success and a high skill ceiling, it is what you make it. You choose the experience you complain about. The problem with modern gamers is they're often just doing something else and brainlessly getting by in the game they're playing. Whether it is watching netflix and botting out in game or watching a streamer while doing the same. You want an engaging experience? Play the game and try your best.