People don’t realize how easy it is to get into raiding in this game

[Gurgeh]

incoming! 0123456789... XD

I think it is less realizing and more no interest in High end raiding....

Yes! OMG someone gets it!
In a nutshell, I don't want to do savage raiding.
But...
The casual game appart from M1-4 (which HAS NO REWARDS if your not gearing for high end) was dismal. Yeah the dungeons were ok, meh-ok. The trials were great (0 rewards, literally 0) but when was the last time those popped in a roul after your MSQ? So they litteraly don't apply. (Its been like that forever. CB3 never rethink existing things afresh. Conservatism of that type is a VERY Japanese thing. Its not going to get better.)
Its screamingly clear form CB3 unapologetic stance on not providing casual, not rewarding it, ("try ultimate") stance, is that if content is an issue:
{Is there content you haven't done yet?}-(Y)->{Do that then and like it}
Also said to me by every person still playing the game when 'every' casual community I was a part of had fckd off and fallen appart. (especially the one focused on sheperding people from casual to high end.)

I’ve noticed a lot of discourse about add-ons and whatever else; having to spend money on gear to join raids. When I see these complaints, I feel like these people haven’t played any other MMO’s.

I’ve played guild wars2 , Lord of the rings online, and Tera before it went defunct. In guild wars 2, people hardly pug raids, and you have to have decent gear and the Meta builds to even get considered to join a group. Lord of the rings online is a really old game and nobody is pugging tier 2+ raids (where the good gear drops.)

Tera struggled from not having much content to begin with, but let’s say you want to tank in Tera. To even be considered a viable tank and hold Aggro you had to enchant your weapon to +12 with RNG. A lot of these Asian games love the gacha rng to upgrade. So, you would waste these materials on RNG hoping to enchant your tank weapon to the next level just so you could hold Aggro.

In FF 14 the minimum is just adding materia and getting crafted gear to enter a raid with literally anyone. Yeah you may get a clear, or you may not, but at least you can enter and be on the relatively same playing field as anyone else.

I'll start with an insight into my mindset. As far as I'm concerned unless you have a 'lot' of spare cash (and many people do have a lot of spare cash, if you are dev working in defence you probably do have a decent bit of liquid to enjoy) if you are playing gatcha Genshin, you have a mental vulnerability problem. I don't mean that dissparagingly, but there is a difference between being a entreprenureal speculator, and spunking your future home deposit away on equipment gems to change some numbers in servers RAM memory somewhere, that you know will be worthless next season.

All MMO's are pretty unhealthy if yo play them at all properly. But its about degrees.
I'm not intrested in how much more degenerate I could be than I already am if I were playing other more degernerate 'worse' games. We shouldn't ever be discussing other games.
"I'm cocaine whore! But that's ok because at least I'm not meth/heroine whore!"
No. Non-sequiter. I'm not dignifying that perverse imitation of 'reasoning' any further.
I don't blame people for thinking it, because you've heard it so much you just think its a 'thing'. And once upon a time you were a meth whore, in which case being cocaine whore is indeed objectively 'better' in that specific case. But its flawed. Lots of people think Trump is good for america, it doesn't make them any more right. Myself I've never been a meth whore, so I can't get a 'sense of well being' from now being a cocaine whore. I'm just trying not to become a crack whore.

Either provide more casual content, a 'lot' more.
You dropped 1 Ex this patch.
I'll be blunt, I expect to receive 4 challenging pieces of content I can play, (Extremes) per patch, not 1. Ex4 was supposed to come out before 7.2 in my book.
And I'm not interested in running old Exs once mechanics are being skipped like they were for Ex2, by the time we got to pre 7.2. Even normals don't get that bad. You at least get to see all the mechs, and people do them, even if they don't have to. Rewards are never enough for me, the content has to be engaging. I only start doing unsynced farms if I feel I'm also heling others who want to.
Basically, after I've cleared an Ex once, that's it I'm moving on. I find them way too hard, clearing them is a wonderful challenge, repeating them is a chore. People who find them easy are welcome to grind them, 3 a night possibly for no rewards. 6pm Ex1, 8pm Ex2, 9pm Ex3. But I'm not burning out doing nothing but Ex3 that I already cleared, for 2 hours and then again the same instance the next day because the party couldn't clear this time. I'm fine being a cocaine whore, I'm not prepared to be crack whore.
I know I haven't cleared Ex4, but at the end - of - the - day - its because I don't want to anymore.
I did Ex 1,2,3. I cleared those in 1.5-2.25 weeks. I've spent 4 weeks at Bloom 4, because: - I can't be bothered to host my own PFs. - I'm done waiting for the right PF after suffering Chaotic filling I'm jumping in whatever instance will fill first that I'm 'qualified' for, and I already knew that I was going to unsub anway. Fruther more after 60 minutes I was done, this time I was not sticking around after reset with the same party to prog further. Just don't care like I did for Ex1-3, I'm unsubbing, I'm not progressing to anyting, zero chance of clearing enough to earn a reward that I'm hardly lusting after in the first place.

Now, give me a reason to stay subbed... like another 3 Exs to conquer that will keep me here another 3 months, and I'll stay! And start making an effort again
Make it easier for me to gear another job, so I can more easily find a PF that fits my prog point, and I'll make better prog, and have more fun, and a probably would stay. But meh, stuck at bloom 4, I'm not doing Ex4 to progress to anything or any 'tangible' reward... so I'm off... If you enjoy Exs farms in a chill way like Jeeqbit does then 99 tomes is healthy,and no different from farming normals. But iF you find the full 99 tomes, and then some, unfun stress like every person I've spoken to 'personally' then we are now back in Genshin meth whore territory. I'll give that a hardcore-pass!

... think the primary reason, for most people, is anxiety. That anxiety can stem from:
- Being afraid of toxicity...

100%. I love Exs, zero anxiety, right up until I've cleared and its time to join [COMPLETED] farm parties then I guess the anxiety does set in if I'm honest.
My belief, and experience, and anxiety is that farm parties are full of people who will waste my time, disappoint me just because today, this hour, they might not get their precious clear, and leave me re-filling inPF all over again. Turn my bright eyed excitement about just having some fun, into the crushing dispppointment of "I don't want to play with you. I don't even want to say 'I'm looking for a more expeirinced party thanks sorry, buy for now good luck." just 'poof', before even the third pull.
If your that kind of person, I don't like you. I don't want to play with you. And my anxeity is that that's what every Ex farm party is. You're not here to say hi to me. You're not here to make the best of any issues that arise. You're hear to get your totem, and frankly you'd rather we were all bots. You've experienced clearing savage with a consistent static, and you do outright resent doing challenging content with anything less now. "progliar progliar"

(not you Jeeqbit. You are what playing games with other people, multiplayer, should be all about. Having fun, being kind when it rarely costs anything.)
But it only takes 1-2 people to leaving after 2nd pull to collapse an entire party.


Or if you want me to get into high-end (and yes, you do, CB3 and savage raiders who don't want resources spent on casual and just want more savage. You know you do.) make it effortless and fun for me to drift into savage organically.
Actually queuing EX and savage is the only time I am prepare to concede to using PF. I will not use PF for maps.
I will not repeat the same instance again and again for maps. I 'love' doing maps. The way I 'love' doing maps is they are an occasional fresh treat, run with other people who also enjoy them 'as' an occasional fresh and exciting treat. They are an 'occasion!'.
I will only play content that is at least moderately engaging like dungeons. One hit spanks like hunt farms are out. (you will need make those scaling, slow them down and increase rewards. I will run a mindless hunt farm, but in needs to leave in the next 5-10 minutes as of the whim I decide I'm up for it. I'm not waiting 15 minutes. I'm not scheduling that kind of tedium my inconvenience.)
And CB3, fellow players, yes you 'do' want me to progress to savage. You do not want any resources spent on casual. If there are resources free, you want it spent on more savage. You know you do.
I want more Ex level casual. (Ex is casual) Enough to be worth my sub, and enough to keep me around long enough to build my friends back up and make connections. Not interested unless there is enough to keep me going 10/12 months a year.
I demand no less than 12 Exs per expansion.
7 isn't even close. Get the F out of here.


All of the above:- Those are my terms.

- Make it easier for me to organically, casually, progress into savage WHILE ITS CURRENT AND HIP, and enjoy ALL my casual, enjoy my sprout friends, RELISH MSQ and take my time like for the past 4 years, and mix things up, and not have to do totally different content that isn't my thing like crafting unless I get bored and actually want to enjoy for its own sake, and enable to have enough jobs geared that I AM LIKELY to be able to go when someone has a party going.
Or
-provide way more, more quality, casual.
Or I'm gone.

I'm gone.
But I'm not the only one who's gone, am I.
I might be ony one who actually does think you could get more people into savage.
But not by changing literally nothing, and doing literally nothing to make it happen.

XIV is not anything like other MMOs.
It's audience/demographic has never been 'anything' like other MMOS. It's community has prided itself on 'not' being like other MMOs (neither a good thing not a bad thing) Why are we now trying to compare it to other MMOs.

[SophiaDL]

.

Now, give me a reason to stay subbed... like another 3 Exs to conquer that will keep me here another 3 months, and I'll stay! And start making an effort again

Basically, after I've cleared an Ex once, that's it I'm moving on. I find them way too hard

[Misutoraru]

Use to do it back in ARR and HW

As I get older, more real life commitments. A static become less convenient for me

Pug group usually lack the patience, back in SB I remember joining practice party, take ages to fill and just disband after few wipes.

FFXIV content have a little bit more “party efforts” than many MMO I used to play. Like you could have 20 skilled players carry 5 very unskilled. In FFXIV, everyone need to up to certain standard or one player could get party wipe after wipe which in a way i think is a better system but could also get quite frustrating

[Valence]

I can say for me. I don't enter on raiders because:

1. My main job is WHM. I think first thing they'll tell me is to equip AST soul stone. I think raiding guys won't accept a White Mage, specially when he's new at raiding.

2. 200ms lag doesn't help me.

3. I have no experience raiding. So I have no parse in my name, much less an orange parse. And to be even considered viable I must have one of those.

4. Equips: I must have BiS gear. Or I'll be kicked asap. Leniency with gear? Only if I already proved myself.

5. And healer is not even needed depending on the content. Even less the worse of them.

1. There is white mages everywhere, don't worry about it.

2. I've raided with 200ms ping on MCH out of all jobs in SB, it was annoying but fine. Now though? I wouldn't suggest it. Everything has become very fast, about DDR and visual cues. This makes the whole experience a lot more latency sensitive. Your personal tolerance threshold will vary of course, but I think current XIV is extremely latency hostile, more than it has ever been.

3. It's becoming an increasing problem, especially with the emergence of tools like tomestone and whatnot. I have never had to really face those increasing entry needs when I started raiding in SB, but I'd say you can still do perfectly fine by either finding a casual/lightcore static, or just start with friends from your FC, as I still see a lot of those groups among friends that do extremes and savage at their own pace. PF can also be an option, if nothing else. You'll clear things and get logs soon enough.

4. Go in with crafted gear and normal melds at least. Nobody will bat an eye.

5. You need healers for raiding. The game is balanced around savage which includes healers. Without healers, the party dies to party wides, that need to also be mitigated. Is this engaging enough for healers? That's another can of worms, but, the role is definitely needed (on top of required for some mechanics like who gets targeted by what). If you're referring to ultimates cleared without healers, that's a level of effort and skill that is way beyond what is reasonable. Is it a problem in terms of design? Sure, it can be discussed, but that's again beyond the scope of this savage accessibility.

Its more like that its a pointless experience. Its just a single player learned choreography x8 to add artificial difficulty and stretch the content, because this game doesn't have real mechanics like WoW. There's no real group interaction and you don't get better at anything because there's nothing to get better at and then you go to learn the next script from zero.

Pretty much this. You end up raiding for many expansions like I have, only to realize that it's been going down that slope more and more and that the only reason I actually did it was at first out of curiosity, and then out of habit and a fear of missing out on experiencing the content. SB still had the benefit to have some enjoyable and varied encounters that sometimes got out of the formula (phantom train, O11s, etc), but as soon as ShB dropped I actually had a miserable time in raids. I was doing well, but I'm not sure I was having FUN, until EW and its incredibly dull raids came out. And DT has gotten even worse on everything that's just terrible in this game: fast paced DDR and fast paced visual cues everywhere over the same basic spread/stack/donut slop.

The funny thing is that I recently went to learn about that Pirate Software incident in WoW out of curiosity, and without getting into the drama details that are irrelevant here, the very things the man could have done to save his party are things that have become completely absent from XIV over time (past ARR/HW and even there, they were already moribund). Having mana to manage and some left to make tactical choices like casting blizzard or nova to slow down mispulled enemies about to wipe everybody? Or choosing to cast mage armor to save yourself? All of this at a cost in party resources? Having non linear dungeons where enemies also have to be managed?

In short, player agency as simple as this, isn't a thing in XIV (except in pvp, which is why XIV 6.1+ pvp is good actually). That's what a RPG should be about, and not rehearsing a dance performance in a ballet group.

My college once wonder how I can memorize so many mechanics and I was like what? Only then I notice since I did back then a lot of Duty Rouletts I hat learend many many mechanics of Trials dungeons etc. Thing is, reflecting back on then I notice a lot of attacks that are Instant kills or very close to especaly in later stages of the game... but there is no way of knowing the first time you encounter them.
And a game mechanic which biggest chalange it is that you do not yet know what it will do... is not good game design.

I feel it's been a problem in a lot of modern games, including Souls (hate me all you like, souls aficionados). You only learn to recognize patterns by experiencing them first. With experience you get better at understanding them and solving them faster, but the design is fundamentally tailored around you failing and eating shit first before addressing it.

[PercibelTheren]

I can say for me. I don't enter on raiders because:

1. My main job is WHM. I think first thing they'll tell me is to equip AST soul stone. I think raiding guys won't accept a White Mage, specially when he's new at raiding.

2. 200ms lag doesn't help me.

3. I have no experience raiding. So I have no parse in my name, much less an orange parse. And to be even considered viable I must have one of those.

4. Equips: I must have BiS gear. Or I'll be kicked asap. Leniency with gear? Only if I already proved myself.

5. And healer is not even needed depending on the content. Even less the worse of them.

1. Nonsense. Plenty of statics run a WHM. Mine does, a friend's does, too. If you're aiming for a more casual group, they won't care much and will work with you. We have had zero problems with mit/healing.

2. This one is an actual problem.

3. Stop trying to join a static through PF. I can guarantee there are plenty of statics who are beginner friendly. Be willing to learn and transparent about being new. That's it. You don't want to join the static that requires an orange parse anyway unless you enjoy chasing numbers.

4. Again, not really. The current crafted set is fine. You gradually upgrade it with tome gear and later with alliance raid coins.

5. The vast majority of people still run two healers. Is it necessary? No. But it's usually vastly more comfortable.

[TheInsomniac13]

I feel it's been a problem in a lot of modern games, including Souls (hate me all you like, souls aficionados). You only learn to recognize patterns by experiencing them first. With experience you get better at understanding them and solving them faster, but the design is fundamentally tailored around you failing and eating shit first before addressing it.

Thing is in a well made Souls like game you still can learn the mechanics without having to die by them, by baiting attacks or looking for tells on the boss and making an educated guss you still have good chances to predict what is coming and even if you mess up it rarley ends in a one shot kill if you went into it at full health.

This I do not have in FF 14 in older content if I messed up a mechanic I would get an Marker which increses the damage I take but do´s not outright kill me. But over the years this was more and more replaced with mechanics that outright kill you if you don´t know what is expected.
I think a good example of this is Containment Bay Z1T9 [Zurvan] near the end of his fight he marks you with fire or Ice and spots apear on the stage with fire or ice... all the debuff tells you you are makred with this element... soo... do I have to stack with the same element? Do I have to stand in the oposide to negate the Debuff? you cannot know you are in a 50/50 situation and if you make the wrong call the entire Party wipes (Honestly I wiped so often on this deam fight simply because 1 or 2 players did not know what to do and recovering from the damage that puts out is freaking hard.

[PercibelTheren]

I struggle even with normal Trials, in that I find the mechanics to be counterintuitive, non-understandable, and overall annoying. I go in blind, die a couple of times to whatever, and am glad when it's over. If there was an option to skip any MSQ trial, I would happily activate it.
I wouldn't raid in this game, even if they automatically gave me the ilvl, materia, foodbuff and whatnot when I enter the instance.

I can relate to this because, especially as a newer player, the mechanics can be overwhelming. After you play for a longer period of time, you get good at guessing what it will be, but you will still get it wrong at times because many of the tells are pretty inconsistent and the only way to figure them out is to fail the mechanic and learn. Which would be fine if that didn't lead to people being mad at you, or, in the case of healers, potentially a wipe. My favourite example of an inconsistent mechanic is Doom (yes, I know you barely encounter it in Extreme and above, but bear with me here) - it can be Esuna'd sometimes, at other times you have to cleanse it by standing on something, yet other times you have to heal to full. I have had people argue with me in World of Darkness and blaming the healers even though they needed to cleanse their Doom themselves. And honestly, I don't really blame them because how were they supposed to know? The game doesn't explain it. Different colour debuffs are just as much of a mess - the only way to find out if you were supposed to match or go opposite is to see the mechanic, usually failing. In-out cleaves can also be in the same boat. Personally, I don't enjoy these "gotcha" mechanics at all.

Which brings me to the other problem - the lack of explanation. I'm pretty sure the game never tells you how to recognise which debuffs you can cleanse with Esuna and which you can't. Maybe I'm just an idiot for not noticing the white line myself, but I didn't. I had to be told. Same with interruptible casts. Personally, I think the game should teach you what you need to play it effectively. You shouldn't have to dig through wikis and Discords.

The funniest part is that even the NPCs don't understand fight mechanics. Zelenia Normal gives you hilariously wrong advice on how to dodge Shock.

[kajv95]

I'm confused as to why "slap some materia on and you're raid ready" is even still a thing at this point. They've eroded jobs to the point where materia is effectively a one size fits all type deal.

That's part of the reason why I can't be bothered raiding, though. There's functionally nothing I can do to better prepare my character for the fight ahead aside from buying the class-specific food and the class-specific pots that are then part of a pre-determined rotation. There's no reason to pick job X over Y, there's no "learning a different rotation to accomodate for different party members"

Just cookie cutter characters fighting a pre-ordained half cutscene of a boss fight. There's just not much of a game to play in this game. So, yeah :/

I dunno who this thread targets - I don't think I've ever met a person who thinks it's mechanically difficult to get into raiding. It's always about the mental toll that is dealing with other player's expectations. It's never the gear or even the "even playing field" as OP put it.

[Kaurhz]

For me personally it's less about the how easy or difficult it is to get into, and more just the 'How interested am I really in doing this?' type deal... Not everyone is interested in raiding, and back when I did have interest, it was almost pretty quickly turned into a miserable experience when quite a few encounters in this game have absolutely atrocious accessibility... Between the godawful use of colors, and electing to try and flashbang the player.

For a lot of things in this game it's just all so half-baked, that for people who do variety gaming, you will almost get a better experience in other games, than what you will out of one that has almost completely eroded itself.

[Gwenkatsu]

I have played Black Mage through every normal trial and normal raid in the game. I understand the pain of dealing with mechanics.

Is there a specific fight or mechanic from a fight that you don't get or have trouble with that you can tell about here? If so, I'd be more than happy to try and help explain what's going on, if I can.

Thanks for being helpful, but it's the overall style of mechanics. I know how to work with guides, I could prepare myself for every single boss fight by memorizing a long list of boss emotes ("boss raises sword = stand close", "boss glows green = turn around", "boss shouts oooomph -> start jumping", "boss farts aloud -> use duty action 1/gasmask" and so on) - but I just don't want to do that.

I mean, look at this Jeuno guide. The last boss alone has around 30 different mechanics to memorize. 30! Is this a game, or a school exam on Latin vocabulary?

Oh, and I simply cannot deal with this mechanics where they show 5 circle AEs, then 11 rectangle AEs, then 17 laser beams criss crossing the room... then hide them all, and I have to follow the pattern from memory. I hate this sort of BS, just show me what to dodge!

And the whiteouts they so love to use lately. I still remember the Zeromus fight. I spent half the fight with me eyes closed, and the other half dead on the floor (guess why).

And so on. I really like this game, but Trial and Raids mechanics are a horrible mess to me.