FFXIV players are so obsessed with DPS

[Shialan]

I know this isn't only FFXIV but MMOs as a genre,

But why? I play video games from many other genres

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Why are you comparing them to the MMO genre?

[Kennar]

Why do players care so much about DPS? Because it's the only thing that matters. Combat has been boiled down to how well a player can maintain uptime while avoiding mechanics in a restricted battle space. There is no enmity management, no crowd control, no enfeebling effects to weaken a boss, no elemental alignments to work around, resource management has been all but eliminated--the only strategy to combat is to memorize the dance steps and push your buttons in the correct order at the right time.

Over a decade of encounter design, the gear treadmill, and the content release schedule has created a culture that values high damage output. Low DPS means not being able to beat enrage in difficult content, or makes casual content take longer than it should. I'm not going to get mad if an Expert dungeon takes longer than I want, but I will notice it. Most duties will get quite tedious after a few dozen runs; I just want to get my tomes and get the heck out.

[Rolder50]

The only thing that matters in this game IS dps. There are no relevant crowd controls abilities, almost non-existent interrupts, and so on. When the only thing you CAN do is damage, then of course that's going to be an important metric.

[Rithy255]

The game is designed around damage, hence why what's "meta" is the job that can give a tiny bit extra damage rather then a job that brings "utility" This also leads to balance being that every job needs to feel very samey, no job can offer anything too unique on the table ect.

at the end of the day damage doesn't matter that much to most players, but also theirs no reason not to bring the highest damage option if you are trying to optimise, Things like mitigation, healing ect. Don't really matter much as long as you've got the bare minimum so even tanks and healers full in line for damage being the most important.

I personally don't like how slight damage differences are so important, but if it was less important it would also take a lot of fundamental changes about the game, which I doubt will happen in these later years of the games cycle.

[Jeeqbit]

But why? I play video games from many other genres that doesn't have this problem

Most other genres are: PvP or single player.

What makes MMORPGs different is it is cooperative PvE, with bosses that have ridiculously huge health pools.

Since the health pools are so big, humans being humans, developed tools to give themselves an advantage. This is what humans have done at least since they stopped walking on their hands.

Those tools then became a competitive measuring contest in and of themselves and what followed that was dopamine hits and using it to judge others.

While FFXIV wanted to avoid all this by not implementing DPS measuring stats, it has still influenced a lot of design decisions such as job simplification and the large hitboxes we got in Endwalker to improve uptime.

Of course, only competitive people care about this, and a large percentage of humans including myself aren't competitive, so if you don't get it then maybe you're in the same camp as me.

[BabyYoda]

Most other genres are: PvP or single player.

What makes MMORPGs different is it is cooperative PvE, with bosses that have ridiculously huge health pools.

Since the health pools are so big, humans being humans, developed tools to give themselves an advantage. This is what humans have done at least since they stopped walking on their hands.

Those tools then became a competitive measuring contest in and of themselves and what followed that was dopamine hits and using it to judge others.

While FFXIV wanted to avoid all this by not implementing DPS measuring stats, it has still influenced a lot of design decisions such as job simplification and the large hitboxes we got in Endwalker to improve uptime.

Of course, only competitive people care about this, and a large percentage of humans including myself aren't competitive, so if you don't get it then maybe you're in the same camp as me.

When I said other genres I mean also PVE cooperative games like monster hunter, granblue fantasy and dauntless are PvE cooperative games that succeeded to have other things that as important as DPS.

this problem is in FFXIV and other MMOs which is it is one dimensional view that is DPS and only DPS.

PvE games that I mentioned even in high end content there is much more things that is important more than DPS, even DPS has a different variation of it, crit, weak-points and elemental damage and weapon type.
FFXIV doesn't have these things or at least it is not as important as it seems.

Players who plays FFXIV and players who is playing other PvE games are all humans, it is a design choice that lead us to be in this extreme narrow view.

[FuturePastNow]

It's only a competition in this game because you make it one.

And you people wonder why people play solo.

?

I don't wonder any such thing. How other people play doesn't affect me unless they queue up for things and don't try at all. I'm answering the OP's question: Why are FFXIV players like this? The answer is that they're the same as players of every other game. It's a nonsense question.

[Kaecilius]

When I said other genres I mean also PVE cooperative games like monster hunter, granblue fantasy and dauntless are PvE cooperative games that succeeded to have other things that as important as DPS.

this problem is in FFXIV and other MMOs which is it is one dimensional view that is DPS and only DPS.

PvE games that I mentioned even in high end content there is much more things that is important more than DPS, even DPS has a different variation of it, crit, weak-points and elemental damage and weapon type.
FFXIV doesn't have these things or at least it is not as important as it seems.

Players who plays FFXIV and players who is playing other PvE games are all humans, it is a design choice that lead us to be in this extreme narrow view.

Adding all those variations in an MMO is just illusion of choice. The community will settle in one optimal strategy and will start excluding players that don't conform, or you will be forced to farm specific equipment to deal with specific bosses, at which point we're back to the same DPS discussion because the assumption is everyone is using the optimal equipment for the best odds of success.

The alternative is running content that doesn't involve DPS checks, at which point... Sure, do whatever you want. I don't think anyone cares about the DPS of a random player in Roulette #536.

[BabyYoda]

Adding all those variations in an MMO is just illusion of choice. The community will settle in one optimal strategy and will start excluding players that don't conform, or you will be forced to farm specific equipment to deal with specific bosses, at which point we're back to the same DPS discussion because the assumption is everyone is using the optimal equipment for the best odds of success.

The alternative is running content that doesn't involve DPS checks, at which point... Sure, do whatever you want. I don't think anyone cares about the DPS of a random player in Roulette #536.

Why PvE games exceeded to not make it "illusion of choice" while MMOs like FFXIV is?

it is just a skill issue

Crit in FFXIV is just a random percentage or 100%, Direct hit is the same thing.

there is no mechanic gameplay for it , it is gutted with boring execution

[ForteNightshade]

It's only a competition in this game because you make it one.

And you people wonder why people play solo.

It's not that the community makes it one per se, it's that there is literally nothing else to care about. Take the new 24 man or Sphene EX. Once you've cleared them both half a dozen times, the novelty factor wears off. So you either stop doing them entirely, which leaves woefully little else to actually do, or you find alternative ways to extend their longevity. For a lot of players that comes in the form of performance, i.e. DPS. This is especially true at the higher levels where good performance means you skip mechanics. Not having to do Ice phase in Sphene EX isn't just good for your parse, it significantly lowers the failure chance because that's often where people mess up.

I'd love to optimize around crowd control, debuffs or what have you, but they don't exist. So it's DPS or nothing.