Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[Shistar]

I play games to relax and unwind, but fast paced "gotcha" mechs aren't that. FFXIV was made and billed as an MMORPG, not an action game, and so I think a lot of us who came for an MMORPG experience are sort of losing interest. My class fantasy is being killed off, as we no longer have class quests to explain our new moves, and the fast-paced nature of the fights no longer feel like the game I signed up for.

I agree that it's getting faster and faster. I think it's because they're doing less convoluted mechanics (random example: in Amdapor, there was this zombie gobbue that would eat a party member, but he'd taken his sweet time with it. I think they removed it, but you used to be able to give the tether to someone else to avoid being eaten lol) so they consider you need less time to solve them effectively.
However, pretty much none of these mechanics are actually "gotchas" unless it's the very first time you see one of its type back when you start the MSQ. Like some others on this thread mentioned before, the orange aoe has gone from being the "this is the danger zone" marker to a confirmation on whether you solve it correctly or not, and if not, it will punish you as appropriate. Older content mostly relies on castbars and mechanics that interacts with other things that aren't the boss's model, but nowadays they want you to look at the boss/arena for clues on how to solve a mech, stand where you think you will be safe, and see the confirmation on if you were right or not.


Could you please give me an example of a gotcha mechanic that got you? I know there are some still, but I can't quite remember them off the top of my head and Google isn't doing me any favors right now...

[ViinaS]

[...]

However, come DT and things changed.. The speed with which aoe's are chucked out is ridiculous for some players except almost professional players. Yes, we can work out our mistakes, yes, we can move when need, but not at that speed. [...]

Ho boy, another one of those.
No the speed is not ridiculous, no not only professionals can do mechanics,
no you can move at the required speed.

And you obviously do not work on your mistakes cause if you did all of this about DTs slightly faster telegraphs would be obsolete.
They have been almost exclusively regurtitating mechanics we have seen for years now.
Not Ultimate mechanics, not Savage mechanics, maybe a few easy EX mechanics here and there. But most of them are mechanics you should have seen in dungeons, ARs and other content before.

The dungeons are even designed to be doable with NPCs it's not the mechanics, its not the telegraphs.
It's you not reading or noticing the telegraphs.

Go in. Die. Do it again. Do the mechanic that killed you before. That's as basic as it gets for MMORPG Dungeons, cuz most of the time the mechanics you won't even really need to learn as almost everything nowadays is "dont stand there".

[NovaStella]

I've seen more people quit or fail to stick with this game because the difficulty is too low, not the other way around. I feel bad for you if this game really is too difficult, but right now we're at a point where a lot of people aren't having fun because it's too simple. There's a lot of content I just don't do because it's boring. I'll grind it out for the rewards, but as soon as I don't need it anymore I drop it. Which is, most of the content in the game right now. I like when games are entertaining, not when YouTube is entertaining because the game itself is too boring to hold my attention.

I wish we had a "story mode" for trusts, where it's almost impossible to die without really trying. Like, everything hits for very little damage, and mechanics are explained by NPCs in case you can't figure out the tells (as many have mentioned, it's not always the orange AoE on the ground). That way people that find the game hard can still do the MSQ, but without making the game bad for everyone else. Same thing for solo instances, make a "story mode" where you can't fail.

I think this way people who want to play without effort can have fun, and people who have fun through effort can also have fun.

[Myotis]

I've seen more people quit or fail to stick with this game because the difficulty is too low, not the other way around. I feel bad for you if this game really is too difficult, but right now we're at a point where a lot of people aren't having fun because it's too simple. There's a lot of content I just don't do because it's boring. I'll grind it out for the rewards, but as soon as I don't need it anymore I drop it. Which is, most of the content in the game right now. I like when games are entertaining, not when YouTube is entertaining because the game itself is too boring to hold my attention.

I wish we had a "story mode" for trusts, where it's almost impossible to die without really trying. Like, everything hits for very little damage, and mechanics are explained by NPCs in case you can't figure out the tells (as many have mentioned, it's not always the orange AoE on the ground). That way people that find the game hard can still do the MSQ, but without making the game bad for everyone else. Same thing for solo instances, make a "story mode" where you can't fail.

I think this way people who want to play without effort can have fun, and people who have fun through effort can also have fun.

I think this discussion should be split in two where people want the easier dungeons - here the issue is that the game doesn't introduce the harder mechanics over the time in each expansion

from quite boring savage where you are forced to restart all the time and your personal skill is not meaningful due to DDR formula what is soooo outdated in modern gaming.

[Stroodle]

I think this discussion should be split in two where people want the easier dungeons - here the issue is that the game doesn't introduce the harder mechanics over the time in each expansion

from quite boring savage where you are forced to restart all the time and your personal skill is not meaningful due to DDR formula what is soooo outdated in modern gaming.

There absolutely is personal skill involved in savage (and ult) fights that can make meaningful changes and even save runs.

For healers, one example is if something goes wrong such as a player dying, being able to rez them while still doing mechanics means keeping the fight going and preventing total failure (this can be done even in all ultimates too because windows of time exist where a death wont wipe you).
For even more healer skill expression, knowing to top off the party and mit before rezzing a player, not tunnel visioning the moment someone dies and forgetting to keep everyone alive first. Want more? Noticing that mit is missing on at attack that may kill everyone and then adding the requisite missing amount to save the run.

For tanks, the mit thing also applies. Another example for tanks is if a player is low and needs to be healthy before a mechanic begins, they can quickly throw their mit to that player, doing things like that in a split second to save someone and potentially saving an entire run is skill expression.

For DPS, I would agree there that there is not as many options for them to show it, but the best they can do is doing their rotation as perfectly as possible so that if anyone messes up their rotation or a player dies, we would be so far ahead of the dps check that the death would be negligible. This could also be said for healers slidecasting properly and tanks doing their rotos properly as well, any extra damage you squeeze out gives you more room for error.

Skill expression does exist in this game in many forms, although it is definitely not that exciting now with current encounter and job design.

[Absurdity]

There absolutely is personal skill involved in savage (and ult) fights that can make meaningful changes and even save runs.

For healers, one example is if something goes wrong such as a player dying, being able to rez them while still doing mechanics means keeping the fight going and preventing total failure (this can be done even in all ultimates too because windows of time exist where a death wont wipe you).

Sure, it can be done but it depends heavily on when the death happens. If it's right before a body check there is basically nothing you can do. The other issue is that since most mechanics nowadays are designed to need exactly 8 people to solve it correctly, even if they aren't a guaranteed wipe, that one death will very likely cause additional ones since someone else is now getting hit by two mechanics.

For even more healer skill expression, knowing to top off the party and mit before rezzing a player, not tunnel visioning the moment someone dies and forgetting to keep everyone alive first. Want more? Noticing that mit is missing on at attack that may kill everyone and then adding the requisite missing amount to save the run.

True, it's one of the few remaining avenues for skill expression, but even here it's a "it depends".
Because now you're missing that cooldown for the mechanic that it was intended to cover, potentially just postponing a wipe by a few seconds.
Usually fine if you're in comms with your team, not so much when you're dealing with PF.

[Stroodle]

Sure, it can be done but it depends heavily on when the death happens. If it's right before a body check there is basically nothing you can do. The other issue is that since most mechanics nowadays are designed to need exactly 8 people to solve it correctly, even if they aren't a guaranteed wipe, that one death will very likely cause additional ones since someone else is now getting hit by two mechanics.

Yeah it all depends on the timing, a badly timed death and its all over, but all fights have moments that can be saved.

True, it's one of the few remaining avenues for skill expression, but even here it's a "it depends".
Because now you're missing that cooldown for the mechanic that it was intended to cover, potentially just postponing a wipe by a few seconds.
Usually fine if you're in comms with your team, not so much when you're dealing with PF.

Yeah that one has its ups and downs too, you either are with someone you can coordinate with or hope the PF members notice something was amiss and can compensate later in the fight.

I wanted to show some ways that skill expression does exist and its not just 0, but the ways they can be shown aren't the greatest either, since a lot of conditions need to be met. Another dig at the bad job a fight design.

[Myotis]

There absolutely is personal skill involved in savage (and ult) fights that can make meaningful changes and even save runs.

For healers, one example is if something goes wrong such as a player dying, being able to rez them while still doing mechanics means keeping the fight going and preventing total failure (this can be done even in all ultimates too because windows of time exist where a death wont wipe you).
For even more healer skill expression, knowing to top off the party and mit before rezzing a player, not tunnel visioning the moment someone dies and forgetting to keep everyone alive first. Want more? Noticing that mit is missing on at attack that may kill everyone and then adding the requisite missing amount to save the run.

For tanks, the mit thing also applies. Another example for tanks is if a player is low and needs to be healthy before a mechanic begins, they can quickly throw their mit to that player, doing things like that in a split second to save someone and potentially saving an entire run is skill expression.

For DPS, I would agree there that there is not as many options for them to show it, but the best they can do is doing their rotation as perfectly as possible so that if anyone messes up their rotation or a player dies, we would be so far ahead of the dps check that the death would be negligible. This could also be said for healers slidecasting properly and tanks doing their rotos properly as well, any extra damage you squeeze out gives you more room for error.

Skill expression does exist in this game in many forms, although it is definitely not that exciting now with current encounter and job design.

As a healer main doing progging the Ultimates i would say no.
Even if you res someone the next mechanic will just pop the window is quite small then they still have the debuff so there is a dps loss all depends on the fight - Is it really something super skillful? I don't feel it is they did not been standing on the right pixel - so the next body check mechanic will wipe the grup quite easly.

As for tanks missed mitigation usually does wipe out the party so i don't agree with your arguments.

Whole fight is just scripted and it is against a personal player skill do as they say or embrace the restart.

[Absurdity]

As for tanks missed mitigation usually does wipe out the party so i don't agree with your arguments.

If we're talking about the usual party mitigation from tanks then yes, the party just dies if you don't use it when you're supposed to, there is no decision to be made.

Stroodle is most likely talking about the short cooldown mitigation that every tank has.
Since tank damage is a joke in most fights you only need it for a tank buster, which leaves you with a lot of opportunities to throw a Heart of Corundum or Nascent Flash on someone that's too low on HP to survive the next raidwide.

Unfortunately that situation is rather rare.
If a DPS does a mechanic wrong in savage they're usually just dead.
And if it's the expected damage they should take from a mechanic then it already gets covered by the healer's planned AoE, since modern mechanics pretty much always hit the entire party and everyone needs healing anyway.

It used to happen a bit more often that someone was lower HP than expected because the heal didn't catch them, before they buffed healer AoE range into outer space.
But notice a pattern here, everything that could potentially have lead to player skill expression got patched out of the game at some point because it was deemed "inconvenient".

[Burmecia]

I realized doing it isn't FUN [...] fast paced "gotcha" mechs aren't that.

My opinion about EW >> DT "difficulty" bump, too.
I'm casual player too, yadda yadda, can do anything on difficulty level MSQ basically in.
I've quit doing certain things in game because the current difficulty expressio isn't my cup of tea.