Here we go again

[Shistar]

Saying that, much like you, I had someone whom I thought was a friend say this to me once (on Discord):



Which admittedly hurt, because it's not as if I wasn't trying - I really was. Needless to say I'm no longer friends with that person.

I'm, arguably, marginally better at the game now then I was at that time but that wasn't the only time someone judged my performance and it led to my concern about being a burden to any team I join.

Dang, just what happened there??? That's seriously mean. "Oh don't worry, I won't report you!" bro...
I'm sorry that happened to you. Although I believe there is room for improvement in everyone's performance, no one has to be this cruel about it. I'm glad you've improved since then and you're working on your mentality, and I hope you keep up the good work!


If you need help, I'm in Phoenix almost weekly these days. Feel free to send me a tell if you see me online!

[Carin-Eri]

Dang, just what happened there??? That's seriously mean. "Oh don't worry, I won't report you!" bro...
I'm sorry that happened to you. Although I believe there is room for improvement in everyone's performance, no one has to be this cruel about it. I'm glad you've improved since then and you're working on your mentality, and I hope you keep up the good work!


If you need help, I'm in Phoenix almost weekly these days. Feel free to send me a tell if you see me online!

Thank you!

As said, I lean toward thinking I've improved a little since that time - I quite recently cleared 'Recollection Extreme' with a group of supportive, and patient, friends who regularly team up on Discord and gave verbal, audio, guidance. They took sympathy on me when I said I'd love to own the QueensKnight Syrinxi but likely never would as I wouldn't be good enough to engage in Ex content, particularly not current (at the time) Ex content.

And to be fair, it did take a few days and numerous attempts for us to clear it - mostly because, due to work and family commitments, I could only spare around two hours at 22:00 each evening to join them.
I guess I'll have to acknowledge that it took a lot of guidance in terms of being told where and when to move but I guess it must've sunk in, as we did clear it:

[Shistar]

Yes, I remember you mentioning this trial! ^o^ great job, and super cute screenshot!

[Carin-Eri]

Yes, I remember you mentioning this trial! ^o^ great job, and super cute screenshot!

Sorry - yes, guess I have mentioned it before.

I guess clearing Ex trials is trivial to most, but for someone like me, with my performance limitations, who received a message like the one I displayed a few posts ago clearing an Extreme Trial - and a current (at the time) one at that - felt like a major achievement.

[Shistar]

Sorry - yes, guess I have mentioned it before.

I guess clearing Ex trials is trivial to most, but for someone like me, with my performance limitations, who received a message like the one I displayed a few posts ago clearing an Extreme Trial - and a current (at the time) one at that - felt like a major achievement.

Oh yes of course, I didn't mean it like that at all :'D I believe we talked about this trial in another thread, so I remember you cleared it!
It's a great achievement, keep up the good work and you will beat many more!

[Carin-Eri]

Oh yes of course, I didn't mean it like that at all :'D I believe we talked about this trial in another thread, so I remember you cleared it!
It's a great achievement, keep up the good work and you will beat many more!

Well, I did have my first foray into trying Savage content a few weeks ago too, admittedly unsynched though - P11S:


Said group have invited me to try Unreal content with them and they're planning to try the newest Trial in a few weeks and have been invited to participate in that too. Feel a bit out of my depth playing that sort of content to be honest, but it helps that those friends are so supportive!

[Shistar]

That's amazing, I hope you have tons of fun! If you cleared Recollection, I'm confident you'll kill Seiryu just fine.

[FlorineC]

Nevermind the fact that every frickin' major job change that people have hated throughout Dawntrail, from VPR's Gnoxious Gnash being taken away to BLM's recent lobotomy were all done due to HARDCORE CONTENT DEMANDING IT

I don't really think this is true. The hardcore players who do savage and whatnot largely don't have problems performing with how the jobs were. I believe the changes were more likely made in order to make the jobs easier and more accessible to more casual players who were struggling wrapping their heads around the rotation. Granted it's probably a mixture of both, or for the intersection of players who do savage but aren't very good at the game, but I think it's kind of silly to solely place the blame on hardcore content/players demanding it when a large portion of the hardcore audience didn't like these changes.

It is true that I could get carried through this duty, or I could spend a weekend developing that muscle memory to find the safe spots. But I think the question players and SE need to ask is: are people who struggle with this specific design choice going to bother jumping through such hoops? My friends all decided paying for a game that they'd always played primarily for the story had simply become a complete PITA. People don't pay to get annoyed. One referred to it as a Ponzi scheme.

If grouping up with other people or practicing a fight for a while is jumping through hoops to you, I'm really sorry to say this but I honestly just don't think this game, or the genre is for you. It's an MMO, and while 14 has gone through great efforts to make group play avoidable, at the end of the day you are expected to play the game with others. If you or your friends primarily played for the story, they can still access all of it on youtube for free and avoid any combat that they don't enjoy. If being challenged is annoying to someone, I honestly don't understand how or why such a person even enjoys video games by and large (obviously there are some exceptions without fail states like Animal Crossing that I think would be enjoyable for this hypothetical person). And calling it a ponzi scheme is beyond ridiculous quite frankly.

Pretty sure FFIV is turn based, XIV is not. So I'm failing to see your point. But crack on being an absolute tool. Once you have something better to argue with, come back to me.

Just as some players have trouble with games that demand quick reflexes, other players have trouble with games that demand mechanical planing and strategy. A good example of this is SMT3 Nocture, a game with a boss that to many players was considered extremely difficult when the solution to the boss was to put Wind resist on your party because the boss used Wind attacks. I don't see how the comparison isn't apt.

[FlorineC]

Not wanting to feel like a burden is why I don't really queue for anything synced anymore, or hell, even when I was still doing that I adamantly avoided playing tank or healer.

To put it bluntly, I think this is just a mentality you need to get over. Nobody cares if you're bad in normal mode content for the most part, and the people who do care aren't gonna say anything about it because they don't wanna get banned. At most someone might offer some advice. I've been in tons of parties where one or more players get hit by everything and die constantly, and nobody says a word. They keep getting raised until the fight is done. Of course this isn't universally true and there will always be jerks who are asses to players struggling, but in my experience they're very few and far between. And I get it, it sucks when you screw something up and people are mean to you about it. It's happened to me in the past and it definitely put me in a funk, but unfortunately that just comes with the territory of playing an online multiplayer game. But ultimately they're just some jackass stranger I'll never see again, and after an hour I remember that I don't give a shit about their opinion and move on with my life because it's a video game.

[Jeeqbit]

Firing quickly is highly subjective and may be actually too quick for some players to "read the mechanic in advance" and then process it.

It's not subjective in this case though. Objectively, the mechanic tells you a very, very, very long time in advance what it's doing. The only way OP could think it's fast is if they did not notice the environmental clue that was there for an extremely long time and allows pre-positioning in advance.

I think what frustrates me the most is that I am indeed playing other games that just do everything Final Fantasy 14 tries to do better.

I don't know what it is, but I think it's a combination of things. Many of their developers worked on FF11, so I think part of it is they just water down every single idea into the most boring implementation of it "because casual players". I think another part of it is they want to respect the "uniqueness" of this game, proven by the fact that they implemented FF15 and FF16 mechanics in this game during crossovers but then never used them again. Another part of it seems to be technical competence where a clearly simple tasks is extremely complex from their perspective, even when anyone with coding knowledge knows it's not that difficult regardless of code complexity. Finally, I think their organizational structure does not grant their programmers the authority to freely improve the game in response to feedback and they can only do what Yoshi-P specifically asks, and he only asks them to work on the next patch.

Same - although I am trying to stop worrying about what others think of me/my performance.

It's best to, because even long-time players that are good at lots of content and jobs often play unfamiliar jobs to shake things up, or they have a bad day or a bad pull. And despite that they may have cleared Ultimates, people will judge them for a single mistake because they decided to play a more challenging job. So it's not just you that people are going to form opinions like that about, it's really everyone because everyone can have a bad day or a bad pull. That said, you should also report anyone that says something rude.

I had someone whom I thought was a friend say this to me once

With friends like that, who needs enemies? But really, that isn't the sort of logic that I'm using. Mine is moreso that:

1. Every game should have an easy mode and a hard mode.
2. Regardless, being that it's an MMORPG, someone can just help you.
3. You can switch to a tank to eat vulns.
4. You can outgear it and clear it in the future.
5. But it's also an option to try and find ways to read the mechanics enough to survive.

I quite recently cleared 'Recollection Extreme'

Congrats. It's honestly not the easiest Extreme trial. Once you're used to it, it can feel easy, but it takes a lot of time to get used to it. I was farming it for quite a long time before I was completely flawless at every single mechanic (and I think this was the case with everyone I met farming it in PF). They were clearing with lots and lots of mistakes, and only scraped through because they were all good players that could recover from pretty catastrophic mistakes.

An example is you can clear while still getting vulns from some of the RBs and the sword cleaves. Can just take some time to not get caught out by those. However callouts can help with this for sure - I started calling out swaps and jumping to remind people where to gather for certain RBs, in case some of my parties were forgetful or distracted by other mechs.

As I said, it's not the trial I'd most recommend to a player looking to get comfortable with their first high-end duty. I'd actually have suggested Valigarmanda, Zoraal Ja, Byakko (when it was an unreal). So congrats.

are people who struggle with this specific design choice going to bother jumping through such hoops?

It's really going to depend on the person. I think the normal thing to do in a video game when you die is to try again. How many times people will try varies, but I think most people would agree that if the design intent is to die more than 3 times then it's probably going to annoy a player just trying to get through the story.

I don't think people have necessarily, universally said that dungeons should be harder, but rather that there should be options such as an "easy mode" with NPCs, a "hard mode" version of the dungeon with increased HP/damage output or a setting to disable telegraphs to make it a little harder for the players that disable it.

To be honest, I never saw anyone say that what they meant by hard was "faster". This is just SE's interpretation of it. I can see why it is, since it is an obvious thing that comes to mind, but I don't think that's what people actually wanted. I think they actually wanted it to have more randomness to keep it fresh, and historically and from other games I know that the holy trinity and players influencing eachother helps keep it a different experience each time. That said, I am rising to the challenge of this speed game for the time being and I'm finding that muscle memory over time solves it eventually.