Keeping Content Hard and Helping People Learn

[Shistar]

[...] the English translator apparently decided to be a dick by naming Omega's attacks Starboard and Larboard like anyone who doesn't know maritime terms is going to know or remember that. From what I read somewhere, English is the only version of the game where it's not just Left and Right.

That is why whenever I get thrown into that one for my roulette I make a point to say "Larboard = hits HIS left side" "Starboard = hits HIS right side" because I feel like most people understand the concept, but they get lost at the "it's Omega's left or right, not ours" specially when he starts spinning like crazy. I find that mechanic really fun personally. I love the chaos that ensues with a party of sprouts.
I don't love, however, getting punished because a sprout decided to leave and empty tower and die later into that same fight. Why is it my fault? lol he already got punished by dying, and I couldn't have done nothing to prevent his mistake. Even when you tell them, sometimes they don't read chat (or simply can't understand the language)

[...]I do have a few issues where the devs use enemy anatomy/posing as attack cues but that's a little bit self-inflicted because I don't want to turn people's animations off. I think it's reasonable, since all these animations are enabled by default, that this is the intended way to play the game and that all the cues you need to complete an encounter perfectly should be visible with all these effects on but that's a slightly different matter.

Every fight always has multiple ways/cues to get information on the next attack. The most obvious two are the cast bar and, more rencetly, animations, but often times you can also aid yourself by the arena's floor design (if one part of the arena got hit before, it is fair to assume the opposite version of that attack would affect the previous safe spot, things labeled as "left", "right", "fore", "hind" are likely to affect the arena in the relevant area, divided by the arena's floor design) or even other environmental cues (in Nald'Thal's fight, you can tell if it's a donut or an aoe based on the background's color, blue/orange and also the floating lamps design).
There are also some sound cues in some fights, such as UWU Garuda's laughter before the feather baits.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it's part of our skillset to seek out the easiest cue for us to identify when we are learning a fight.


We can all agree the default settings and HUD are horrendous, but that doesn't mean you have to play like that. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered adding ways for you to move and change the size of almost every part of your HUD, and choose how nameplates, VFX and other stuff shows up in your screen. It's up to you to adjust the game to make for the best experience for you. I find it a little silly to complain about how bright the sun is while staring directly at it, when someone handed you a pair of sunglasses and a hat that same day.


It's understandable if you don't want to disable animations for everyone, or disable them everywhere. There are commands you can put into macros to tweak nearly everything in your game with a single click. I highly recommend checking out the Lodestone page on commands and trying any that catch your eye on your game. I personally have different HUD setups based on roles, and different VFX settings based on job. It's a game changer!


Example: You make two macros. One for the duties that are easy for you, or just for hanging out. This one has your usual HUD and full VFX on. The other macro, let's say you label it "hard duties", has a bigger enemy cast bar in a visible place for you, a bigger list of debuffs where your cursor usually hangs out so you can hover and check over them quickly without much fuss, and your party's (maybe even your own if you find your own skills distracting) VFX set to Limited so you can still see healer bubbles, DRK/NIN puddles, etc. so you can have an easier time focusing on what is important while not losing your usual, comfy setup you like for everything else. It only took you a slightly modified copy of your HUD and 15min of your time to set that up + your macros. If you want, you can even add a /p message to each macro, the comfy one with your usual greeting and the difficult duties macro with a warning that you may struggle and you will still do your best, if you are worried about the party being annoyed at you dying. If you need any help setting it up, I'm happy to give you some more pointers. Macros are my #1 QoL upgrade to my setup and I just want to spread the word lol

This is one of the most destructive attitudes currently blighting the game.

We could say the same about yours, Mawlzy... I don't understand what is wrong with having a positive and go-getter attitude about challenge.