zoning out/center extreme focus

[Voryn]

As someone with attention issues I’m curious about what content OP is doing (I’m not sure if anything more specific was mentioned than “pve” since this thread is kinda long now) and as which jobs.

While I understand it’s not appropriate to generalize since things can affect people’s mental health/functioning in different ways, I’ve have been diagnosed with ADHD and am doing duty roulette content, extreme trials, savage raids, and ultimate raids, and as I play it seems to me like there’s a lot of variety in how much stimulation is provided based on the content and the jobs. I have problems if the level of stimulation is too high (getting overwhelmed) or too low (zoning out and making more mistakes) although I’m fortunate not to have issues with dissociation.

If I’m playing a job and trying to not make mistakes with the rotation, then the amount of stimulation varies based on the job’s level of complexity and on how familiar I am with it. If I’m playing DRK there’s little mental effort since it’s a conceptually simple job and I’ve played it a lot, but I felt overwhelmed when I tried DRG in Endwalker since it has more things going on and I didn’t have much experience with it but wanted to actually play it properly. And although I haven’t played it that much, PLD is boring enough to me that I’m unwilling to play with it.

If I’m in duty roulette and am in something like Crystal Tower or Praetorium then I’m bored out of my mind since I’m familiar enough with the game for those to be way too easy/simple, which is compounded by my job only being level 50. The polar opposite is when Hallowed Wing 1 happens in DSR (the one mechanic I’ve personally struggled with the most of any I’ve had to do so far) where I get overwhelmed because I simultaneously have to figure out which half of the arena Hraesvelgr is cleaving (north or south), which half Nidhogg is cleaving (east or west), whether tanks need to be close or away from Hrae, which tank position I take based on whether I’m MT or OT, which mitigation to press for the incoming damage, while also trying do my rotation properly so the boss actually dies.

In general the end result is that the amount of stimulation is combined value from the job + the content, although that’s probably stating the obvious.

I wouldn’t argue that jobs shouldn’t have variation in how complicated they are, as I like more engaging jobs as well, but I’d want to ask OP about
-Which pve content are you talking about?
-Which jobs are you playing?
-How much of a “tryhard” are you about your job’s rotation (or if you’re a healer or caster, your uptime and movement)?

In my own case I definitely think there’s content that’s not interesting enough, and also jobs that aren’t interesting enough, so I’m primarily doing the content that’s interesting to me (endgame raiding with the jobs that are actually interesting to me, plus now trying to learn pvp) and just doing a very minimal amount of the things that are boring to me.

[BigCheez]

They might very well be pushed to reinvent FF14 if things go too far south... but not in the way a lot of players would like. Take Final Fantasy 11 for example, where once the player count cratered enough, they simply redid the whole game to basically be a single-player online game by making as much content as possible doable with a lone player being accompanied by NPCs everywhere. Today's FF11 is NOTHING compared to how it was in the beginning or even right before it switched over.

This is an absolutely massive misrepresentation of what actually happened to FFXI.

Beyond level 10 or so, it was effectively impossible to progress in FFXI without a party of other players. This was great because it forced players to interact with each other constantly and made the game feel like a real world... but guess what happened once they were competing with WoW (which exploded in popularity) for new players, and the entire existing playerbase was already at endgame. There was no one in the early game zones, no one doing any of the early game missions, and no one selling low level gear on the auction house. It effectively became impossible to start playing the game despite the fact that there was still a healthy population at endgame.

The game would have died eventually if they didn't add NPC trusts and the sparks NPC to allow players to buy leveling gear. These were necessary changes to make it possible to get a foothold in the game.

In modern FFXI, you can play through almost all of the story content solo with trusts, but you still need a party for anything at endgame unless you're incredibly well geared. It's also still very active (at least on asura, bahamut or odin, anyways) and definitely not a singleplayer game.

[Bubblesong]

As someone with attention issues I’m curious about what content OP is doing (I’m not sure if anything more specific was mentioned than “pve” since this thread is kinda long now) and as which jobs.

While I understand it’s not appropriate to generalize since things can affect people’s mental health/functioning in different ways, I’ve have been diagnosed with ADHD and am doing duty roulette content, extreme trials, savage raids, and ultimate raids, and as I play it seems to me like there’s a lot of variety in how much stimulation is provided based on the content and the jobs.

In general the end result is that the amount of stimulation is combined value from the job + the content, although that’s probably stating the obvious.

So i'm going to try to break it down, to why its an issue to me

First, I need to think otherwise my mind starts to process, both negative and past things when that happens mentally 2 things happen, and I have 0 way of preventing it either I disassociate and lose track of reality/time and space basically both physically and thoughts freeze up in essence into blackness or at times another place/period (like to when I was 8.. and not a good thing)

Or two Hypersexual/playful sets off Which gets me into more trouble than anything else, when I'm in a good mood/hyper, is when I get into the most trouble everywhere, This is why I need the distraction of requiring brain triggers to think about things and process so what happans to me is being focused into a method that helps me (idk if I'm explaining it right) But for example I'm a biomedical major, the classes and stuff I have really allow me to be for the most part "okay", something I have been working on in therapy to use my extreme states and overthinking in ways that would keep me out of trouble/ from being drawn into the flames like a moth. (ps what I have isn't adhd although it has similar traits to it).


I don't care about difficulty things can be easy and still require thought process and some mental engagement. (this is why all jobs and all content is an issue, it falls under motor skill engagement not mental engagement. ) Its basicly a dance routine in all content/combat pve wise its always step one step two repeat step four step 3 etc, these are motor skills being engaged not mental engagement.


An easy game to show this is really minecraft easy game, but when your building your castle or w/e you have to mentally draw out a blueprint for your build and get to work (very easy) yet mentally it is highly engaging. This is why I don't understand why people are saying this has to do with diffuculty it doesn't it wouldnt matter if the game was made hard with highly complex try hard job systems the PROPLEM would still be there even if it was extremely hard, because its still only motor skills being engaged

[Valence]

Maybe they're equally disappointed with the state of things, but realizing their criticisms and complaints have fallen on deaf ears to the developers (as we've all experienced), they've decided to take out their anger on their fellow players because at least they know they're being heard, and a negative response is better to them then no response at all.

They don't have criticisms or complaints about the game. They don't even think the game is in a bad state or anything.
They're the complete definition of white knights, the average raider edition.

[Voryn]

[description of the dissociation problem]

What you’re saying makes checks out when thinking about how people with issues relating to attention or trauma can be when they’re in certain situations. And I get what you mean about “difficulty” not necessarily being what gives the engagement that avoids those things, since an activity that only asks motor skills only can still not occupy your brain.

But to me it seems like
-There is variation is how conceptually simple the jobs are, and how much brainpower they ask for (not counting motor/execution skills, I wasn’t talking about them)
-There is variation in how much various types of content ask the player to be paying attention to read the mechanics
-You’re wanting an experience that provides more engagement than what you’re getting
-It’s not obvious which jobs and content you’re playing and having the complaints about

There’s many complaints to be had but you’re making blanket statements.

For example, a casual player who picks Red Mage (a job often seem as relatively simple) in normal difficulty content might only be thinking about doing 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3, occasionally replacing 1 with a proc, and then occasionally a melee combo to dump their meter. In harder a raid there’s more to think about, such as
-how to slidecast the best they can for the mechanics
-how exactly to spend their meter since they won’t want to waste it but need to be close to the boss to spend it, ideally save meter for the burst windows, and also potentially have 50 meter or Acceleration to be able to move when they need to for mechanics
-when Fleche and Contre Sixte are coming up so they can be pressed right away, maybe needing Swiftcast or Acceleration so a long cast time doesn’t force them the be delayed
-when Engagement/Displacements and Corps a Corps are coming up so that they don’t get wasted but can also provide movement options while also ideally being used twice per burst window
-whether to use Manafiction on cooldown or hold it for the burst window
-if possible, managing the balance of the meters so they can get the guaranteed proc from a melee combo
And other stuff I’m forgetting because I only have a small amount of experience raiding as RDM.

These are two completely different ways of looking at a job, with other perspectives in between. Which way is the one you have a problem with, which content are you talking about playing in (and of which difficulty), and which specific things are the problems?

In my case I used to main Dark Knight but got bored of it just being 1 2 3 when not doing burst windows, with the resource system not being engaging enough to make up for it even when I’m doing a Savage raid. There’s also raids that are “hard” but don’t have enough variety to be engaging, like Garuda phase in UWU. But if I make a thread that’s mostly just blanket statements about jobs and encounters generally being unengaging then my point doesn’t get across.

[Bubblesong]

snip

Okay so, currents all fall under the blanket because lets think what does mental engagement mean, It means something you have to think about not something u just hit the next glowy button and move on job abilitys that we have to keep up with and pay attention to timers, buffs debuffs constantly is mental engagement which they TOOK AWAY the only job right now you can even consider somewhat mentally engaging is ninja with the madras.


Im using blanket terms because everything falls under the same blanket anymore they removed 98% of positions and timers along with any other thought process like the old Stormblood ast cards and spreading/knowing what each did and where they go, they did this for everyone and everything in the game there what 6 positions total in the game anymore nearly any job maintenance we have to focus on is gone now no more timers to focus on keeping up, they changed it into hit the glowy button and it will be perfect nonsense lol

Nearly every dot has been removed at this point or in tanks cased locked behind a buff so you really can't keep it up anymore so you dont have even think it just hit it when its not grayed out, thats what I mean it falls under blanket terms BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS THAT BAD. These things that weren't even difficult to do if you were playing the game instead of looking at Netflix lol

[Astronis]

These things that weren't even difficult to do if you were playing the game instead of looking at Netflix lol

Yes, but are you watching Netflix while learning an Ultimate or are you watching Netflix while running through Prae? That's kind of what Voryn is getting at.

[Bubblesong]

Yes, but are you watching Netflix while learning an Ultimate or are you watching Netflix while running through Prae? That's kind of what Voryn is getting at.

A. It shouldn't matter its sad that does and B. "learning" is a strong word it takes 2 YouTube videos and like 3 runs to get your body used to it, there is 0 learning involved just adjusting your body to remember the patterns lol physically. That is why it doesn't matter anyways,
which is why encounters don't really matter in games I'm sorry but they don't not unless you give them a human-like mind with AI to change and adapt with 0 patterns to detect physically
And again this isn't about diffuculty this is about engagment, if 98% of your game is brain-dead zombified, you might as well be saying RMT is 100% legal so long as it isn't in the 2% of the game that requires any thoughts/abilities

[Astronis]

A. It shouldn't matter its sad that does and B. "learning" is a strong word it takes 2 YouTube videos and like 3 runs to get your body used to it, there is 0 learning involved just adjusting your body to remember the patterns lol physically. That is why it doesn't matter anyways,
which is why encounters don't really matter in games I'm sorry but they don't not unless you give them a human-like mind with AI to change and adapt with 0 patterns to detect physically
And again this isn't about diffuculty this is about engagment, if 98% of your game is brain-dead zombified, you might as well be saying RMT is 100% legal so long as it isn't in the 2% of the game that requires any thoughts/abilities

If it takes you three runs to clear an Ultimate while you're watching Netflix and you still zone out...once again, you really need to find a different game to play for your own sanity.

[Bubblesong]

If it takes you three runs to clear an Ultimate while you're watching Netflix and you still zone out...once again, you really need to find a different game to play for your own sanity.

Your not understanding w hat I'm saying lol, Your all fixation on one thing and if I was talking about DIFFICULTY RATHER IT HARD OR easy that would have a place (which is a different conversation altogether)


Whatever the encounter is DOESN'T matter, everyone fixation over all these "different encounters" (which aren't different there are top 7 different encounter abilities in the game that TRULY ACT DIFFERENT, Encounters in 99% of games will never matter talking about them is irrelevant to the discussion, why because game devs won't let you skip an ability a boss uses by out powering it or stunning it at the right time (typically), Encounters MEAN NOTHING because they will always be like a rerun on tv or as dance routine no matter what that singler fight will always be the same and once your BODY physically via muscle memory the fight its once again braindead that applys to every encounter in the game which is why I won't talk about encounters they don't matter.

Job design however should change based on a persons thought process, speed of abilitys what abilitys do postionals dots and timers along with rng in some cases to keep them enganging and always ALWAYS Fun to use, because nothing A DEV DOES will make an encounter always fun because it is always A PATTERN period.

Things like always making the mp cost of mages abilities always go up so no matter what level you are on a job like black mage you are set to X AMOUNT OF FIRES no matter what, no matter what level you are the pattern of that job does not change much at all (to a point that matters to a person can reshape a job plays based on their own mastery and thought process/how they use the selected job) making mp always 10k was horrible mistake honestly