"Taking a stand" quest

[Paineofvoid]

This is too hard for on "very easy" help.

[Jojoya]

What specifically is making you feel this is too difficult? Just saying "it's too hard" doesn't give the developers anything concrete to focus on for possible adjustments.

[Warpsberger]

Since the beginning of Stormblood, Square Enix has forced us to play as an NPC character in an MSQ event. In my case, it's always been a class/job that I never wanted to play, have no interest in playing, and have no experience playing.
This game is supposed to be fun, not an opportunity for some sadistic moron game designer to frustrate players needlessly.
Well, "Taking a stand" is the worst of all, IMHO. I'm sure that some players enjoy this sort of thing, and that's fine, keep it in the game. BUT DON'T MAKE IT PART OF THE MSQ!
I have tried multiple times to pass this, and failed each and every time. I am unable to discern ANY difference in difficulty between the normal mode and what is laughably called "very easy." It's not at all "very easy," as my repeated attempts and repeated failures evidence.
I find the mechanics difficult to understand and difficult to counter; I lose health for no apparent reason. In the end, I die, and I never know why. It's impossible to learn when I never know why.
This is the sort of idiotic game design that will chase casual players away. It should either be nerfed or removed.

[TTB-Kun]

you have 4 buttons when you play as other characters... you just have to do mechanics like you should whith your normal job.
really just a big skill issue on your side

[moahrs]

I thought it was just me who hated it, but no... I even ended up making a long post about it here on the forum, but the DEV's probably don't even care about what we complain or claim here

[Priddy]

Since the beginning of Stormblood, Square Enix has forced us to play as an NPC character in an MSQ event. In my case, it's always been a class/job that I never wanted to play, have no interest in playing, and have no experience playing.
This game is supposed to be fun, not an opportunity for some sadistic moron game designer to frustrate players needlessly.
Well, "Taking a stand" is the worst of all, IMHO. I'm sure that some players enjoy this sort of thing, and that's fine, keep it in the game. BUT DON'T MAKE IT PART OF THE MSQ!
I have tried multiple times to pass this, and failed each and every time. I am unable to discern ANY difference in difficulty between the normal mode and what is laughably called "very easy." It's not at all "very easy," as my repeated attempts and repeated failures evidence.
I find the mechanics difficult to understand and difficult to counter; I lose health for no apparent reason. In the end, I die, and I never know why. It's impossible to learn when I never know why.
This is the sort of idiotic game design that will chase casual players away. It should either be nerfed or removed.

There is a certain bare minimum expectation of skill that is requested of the player in any video game. I do not say this to condescend, but if you are struggling to complete this duty on the Very Easy difficulty, you are overwhelmingly below your average player's skill level. I promise you can beat it if you give it any semblance of an effort. Yes, maybe it will take you a few tries. That does not make it bad game design.

EDIT: All that being said, I see no harm in them making the 'Very Easy' setting so monumentally easy that the game literally makes it impossible to lose, for the people who want that. I'm just a bit baffled at how somebody could struggle even half as much to do this on the easiest difficulty as some people in this thread are making it out to be (physical/mental disabilities aside, of course)

[Post]

I'm coming away thinking sometimes from these threads that some of the players that struggle with these types of duties are just fundamentally focused on things that don't matter, like worrying about whether or not they're experienced as whatever class they're being or what Wuk Lamat's gear is.

The things that do matter continuously go unnoticed to the point where they seem invisible and so it really is so frustrating that many feel their only recourse is to go somewhere they can vent about it.

And, it doesn't help that often in these venues we can't share what the struggles or questions are specifically. That would really help, and taking the time to break things down like moahrs and Fae_Valwynd are doing is very time consuming, so it's easy to see why it doesn't always shake out like that.

From my own experience, I remember one of my good friends playing this game and me having trouble understanding why he was struggling with some stuff in the game (he's very good at video games in general, he just hasn't played this one as much as I have). When I visited him at some point, I realized that his UI was TINY, so it made sense that he'd constantly be missing really vital information like a boss' cast to know when the AoE is going off or when it's safe to move into the ground telegraph.

Stuff like that isn't easy to explain to people that don't already know to look for it. Like, tethers in this game, no matter when the show up, are meant to draw your eye to the other end of the tether. This is especially important when they go beyond the arena, because that means that something's going to happen from that area beyond the arena, whether it be Sophia's scales rocking you that direction, or a crystal exploding from over there, or even just the boss is looking that direction. But, if you've never noticed the tethers, or if you did and didn't make that connection, then it's just useless noise and it will never be anything but that.

I also think that the ground-aoe 'flashes' that are common now might be doing more harm than good for some players, too. Like, if a boss shoots a rocket at you and it has a big visual explosion and you get hit, sure, it's obvious you got hit, but if it shoots a rocket and you DON'T NOTICE and then suddenly the whole arena flashes red for half a second (battle designers trying to say, 'this is how big the rocket explosion is' or maybe 'just so you know, you were supposed to move earlier'), you might come away thinking that you're supposed to dodge the red flash and it seems impossible to avoid and you have no idea how or what hit you and it's incredibly frustrating.

[Sacae]

There is a certain bare minimum expectation of skill that is requested of the player in any video game. I do not say this to condescend, but if you are struggling to complete this duty on the Very Easy difficulty, you are overwhelmingly below your average player's skill level. I promise you can beat it if you give it any semblance of an effort. Yes, maybe it will take you a few tries. That does not make it bad game design.

EDIT: All that being said, I see no harm in them making the 'Very Easy' setting so monumentally easy that the game literally makes it impossible to lose, for the people who want that. I'm just a bit baffled at how somebody could struggle even half as much to do this on the easiest difficulty as some people in this thread are making it out to be (physical/mental disabilities aside, of course)

At least someone is saying this. This is level 100 content. There has to be some level of skill check, otherwise you're not playing a game, you're reading a visual novel.

[HappyHubris]

At least someone is saying this. This is level 100 content. There has to be some level of skill check, otherwise you're not playing a game, you're reading a visual novel.

To be fair, FFXIV's MSQ is a visual novel 95% of the time, with a few dungeons, trials, and instanced fights thrown in. And a party can drag weaker players through the dungeons and trials.

[MillyBays]

I also fear it requires forgetting significant portions of the game prior to this. I think Zenos was a much more demanding solo duty, for one. I know there were some particularly challenging solo duties in certain job questlines (looking at you, that one RDM finale). Playing Zero fighting the hordes of voidsent in EW is about the same difficulty. Thancred's stealth mission, you have to carefully pick your fights and easily can end up having to reset a few times.

I remember not realizing one move in "Taking a stand" being somewhat confusing until I realized it was a donut marker, and toward the end, they start pressing you to finish by ramping up the DPS from Bakool Ja Ja and his lackeys, but its super scripted, and you get LB faster from your AoE attacks on the packs. I imagine dropping the difficulty will make it trivial.

I am struggling to understand how one got through the entire MSQ of the past 4 expansions, only to get stuck here.