Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[Halfrek62]

I know there has been a lot of chatter about player drop off recently, and it has mostly been attributed to lack of content. However, I think there may be another factor at play here, and this is coming from a personal pov, so please hear me out.

There is a player base in this game that likes to do stuff at max level and ins't doing the latest difficulty dungeon ... they enjoy housing, glam and a myriad of other things, which has been the attraction of ffxiv in the first place ... and this for a long time has been the draw of the game for many players, including older players, disabled players, those who may play for themselves, with their children, or even grandchildren in some cases. They happily made their way through the MSQ, making mistakes and learning, not burdening other players with their lack of speed and reactions, and making their way via duty support to end game.

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. Not as an older/disabled player.

I think that it's not only the lack of content, diffuculty of content or whatever ... I think alot of older and/or disabled players that enjoyed the game and invested a lot of money through subs and/or online store purchases, have now decided it all too much and cancelled their subs. They cannnot progress any further, especially if, as Yoshi has said, it will get even more difficult.

I know my post is coming from only one part of the fandom, but I also know that many other parts are unhappy, so what should they do ... or will they go down the Blizz route and not listen to anyone?

[Atreus]

So what is your proposed solution? And what instances are you saying are difficult? Because just saying the game is too hard is vague and likely to get hostile responses from the other side of the community that finds this isn't nearly challenging enough.

[Myotis]

if more people would be able to clear the raids each tier nobody would lose over it there are still ultimates to prove and shine.

Futher accessibility could help revive the content if it could also provide a valuabe rewards.
For now I can't start FRU because i'am unable to find people to learn from start the previous 4th fight. - And after weeks the situation doesn't change for me as people are not intrested in doing the outdated content.

I don't trully understand what is there to gain if the hard content is being made by 3% of total ammount of people.
I ain't want to play a dead game where i'am unable to socialise because others just left.

Wasn't XIV made to be for everyone?

Edit : I want to add that DDR over the long-term is tiring as you ain't feel skilled it's another dance and position to memorize where most of the boss indicators are just messy and flashy with the FX from the game - not mentioning the responsibility.
Long term it's not pleasurable it's just annoying and right now it apprears that majority of people feel like it. After all we dropped 75% of playerbase and the game feels really empty.

Tl:dr - more people can clear the content in the game the more people are in the game due to sense of accomplishment and satisfaction making a game for top 3-7% cleares where who knows how many of them cheat as after all the top teams are cought on cheating all the time on each ultimate - leads to a place where we are today.
Alone - without friends to pair up and have an enjoyment.
It's a video game guys - not some life achievment.

[Moonlite]

So what is your proposed solution? And what instances are you saying are difficult? Because just saying the game is too hard is vague and likely to get hostile responses from the other side of the community that finds this isn't nearly challenging enough.

Not the OP. But I feel if we time DT markers to markers before this expansion they do not line up. Either the attack is going off faster or the marker is appearing later. I am not sure which, but the margin of error is less. That I am sure of. You have to watch visual ques more instead of reacting to markers. Except the camera is kind of unhelpful, some bosses flash text because camera can't see the visual needed. How is that good design if the camera can't show arms being raised.


Now with less time and people who need to concentrate more on rotation. The difficulty scales way harder for them. You probably don't even think of what skill to use next. Some players don't get that muscle memory. So keeping track of rotation and the new less forgiving markers. It should be easy to see how DT has been difficult for some.


The final issue and you might have seen a post about someone failing over and over with trusts. Trusts are bad for players that have trouble with the new markers. DPS gets one hit maybe two and then they die and they have to restart the fight from the beginning. If they would just be a little more social and get a group together their mistakes wouldn't be so punished.

If telegraphs are hidden until the last second, then there was another telegraph in the environment that was not noticed. They wouldn't just give you a second to dodge. It's much more like 3-10 seconds but you're meant to observe the environment or "learn the fight" which mostly happens the same way every time.
You need to be knocked back diagonally to have enough ground to remain on the platform. This is pretty obvious. It's why the blue circle is at a corner. Do not be inside the circle or it'll kill.
All telegraphed like 10 seconds before. Need to read the environmental clues so you can pre-position.

If you can't dodge fast, I suggest playing a tank because they can survive hits.

Put of the problem is consistency. The game should have a hard rule for how markers appear. Not oh one you have to watch weapon and one look for the visual in the background. But oh this one you can follow the markers. Some systems can be unique. Some should not. I don't want to play any game where I have to guess how combat is going to work fight to fight.

[CidHeiral]

Put of the problem is consistency. The game should have a hard rule for how markers appear. Not oh one you have to watch weapon and one look for the visual in the background. But oh this one you can follow the markers. Some systems can be unique. Some should not. I don't want to play any game where I have to guess how combat is going to work fight to fight.

That's nothing unusual in the realm of video games. In Souls games for example a boss could telegraph its attack by raising its arm or glowing a part of its body or leaping to a certain area of the arena. Even bosses in Nintendo platformers for children have different tells and ways you have to approach the encounter. Mixing things up keeps the encounters fresh.

FFXIV also introduces you to those concepts in normal dungeons and whatnot over time. If you're in a combat encounter at level 100 you have seen bosses telegraph attacks with various markers and body language countless times before. None of it should come as a surprise outside of whatever the unique gimmick of that particular fight is, which itself is often just a spin on an existing concept you've already seen.

[Jeeqbit]

Not the OP. But I feel if we time DT markers to markers before this expansion they do not line up. Either the attack is going off faster or the marker is appearing later.

I don't know what markers you are referring to. You would need to be more specific. I haven't noticed a difference in any case.

They are trying to make fights "more exciting". But I guarantee it is nothing they haven't done before. There was a lot of "fast" dancing in Qitana Ravel second boss, Eden's Gate Sepulture (aka Titan) and Tower of Zot, which is going back to Shadowbringers. Don't believe me? Queue for them again and see.

I am not sure which, but the margin of error is less. That I am sure of. You have to watch visual ques more instead of reacting to markers.

As I've mentioned, there are usually clues in the environment, and that has been the case since even Heavensward and Stormblood where widescreen was the accepted norm. If you were still stuck with a square monitor you were hard-pressed to see any environmental clues at all. Sometimes you're still at a bit of a disadvantage on 1080p so you have to rotate the camera and look.

If you think that environmental clues were not relevant that far back, it's likely because the content gets melted due to excessive gear. But I guarantee there are still lots of environmental clues in old content. Take Hullbreaker Isle HM which involves looking at the treasure chests, Sophia from Heavensward which requires looking at the meteors to see how the knockback will go, or the 4th Sigmascape raid that involves looking at the environment to see what type of attack or knockback is happening. We could try an ARR example in Lost City of Amdapor that is meant to involve looking at the door symbols (but most of us just skip it with DPS).

My point is that if you think this is new, you're too used to overpowering old content and ignoring their mechanics that have always been there, and were enjoyed by older players years ago.

Except the camera is kind of unhelpful, some bosses flash text because camera can't see the visual needed. How is that good design if the camera can't show arms being raised.

The text is not necessary in the slightest. It was added to help "spell it out" to casual players that don't understand the game ie. people that don't look at the cast bar or chatbox and ignore mechanics. I don't pay attention to the flash text because there are other ways to identify the mechanics.

I feel that I haven't noticed it lately and I wonder if they silently abandoned the concept except to solve issues in older duties that involved the chatbox. Either that or I got very used to ignoring it.

Now with less time and people who need to concentrate more on rotation. The difficulty scales way harder for them. You probably don't even think of what skill to use next.

That has always been the entire challenge of the game. This is what literally made the game hard in Heavensward. The older mechanics are as simple as they are because, back then, it was hard to do those "simple" mechanics with the tunnel vision rotations we had. We had 3 seconds to continue our combo or it reset. Doing a positional wrong could wreck everything. We had to maintain a buff that expired if we didn't continue our rotation. Tunnel vision cost us a giant percentage of our damage by reducing our main stats when we died, but so did pausing our rotation.

Tunnel vision can still happen, but it's far, far less of a thing than it was in Heavensward and it's barely punishing in the slightest. So while you raise tunnel vision as a concern, you are playing a version of the game where tunnel vision is less of a problem than it has ever been in the game's history. As the game is now, you can pause a rotation for 30 seconds without consequence, pressing a button wrong is likely not going to be noticed, positionals are hardly significant now and intentionally ignorable, and rotations are simplified enough that you don't have to pay as much attention to the nuances. Buffs that are key to your whole rotation no longer expire if you stop to look at the environment for a few seconds.

It should be easy to see how DT has been difficult for some.

It's easy to see how it's been difficult, yes. It's the developer's intention for it to be a little bit difficult. The answer is simply to try it again. People who don't want to put in effort don't have to, really. They can just wait until the content is old and unsync it. It's a perfectly valid way to play the game, and there are plenty of people that just focus on old content they can unsync without thinking. Likewise, there are plenty of people who simply accept they die a lot and others who play a tank so they can eat vuln stacks and get a lot of mechanics wrong without dying.

The final issue and you might have seen a post about someone failing over and over with trusts. Trusts are bad for players that have trouble with the new markers. DPS gets one hit maybe two and then they die and they have to restart the fight from the beginning.

They should ideally make the fight not reset when the player dies with Duty Support, given how people aren't using NPCs for the challenge but rather due to a lack of confidence either in their fighting abilities or in their social abilities.

Put of the problem is consistency. The game should have a hard rule for how markers appear. Not oh one you have to watch weapon and one look for the visual in the background. But oh this one you can follow the markers. Some systems can be unique. Some should not. I don't want to play any game where I have to guess how combat is going to work fight to fight.

This game has some of the most consistent mechanics and markers. They reuse mechanics so much. In and out AoEs, tethers, tank buster indicators, stack markers, "shiva" patterns, exaflares, knockback indicators. To the point they can teach them in a recent revamp to Hall of the Novice, which teaches many of these indicators.

That said, they (obviously) got feedback that these markers are boring and repetitive, so I forget when but it was probably headed into Shadowbringers that they started making mechanics at least "look" unique instead of just being orange circles, which led us into having environmental clues as a main way to identify mechanics. Throughout Endwalker, dungeons weren't about looking for orange circles anymore; they were about looking at the environment for lasers, octopus arms and things like that.

Despite that, SE still has consistent telegraphs - for example, a boss will typically spin around in a circle or spin something they wield in a circle to indicate you need to be inside the hitbox. Or, they will push their arms out (to indicate the inside of the hitbox is safe). In reverse, they will push their arms out close to themselves or otherwise indicate a full circle somehow if you need to run out. This is consistent enough that I can actually guess it on each brand new boss that just released.

[Alicie]

> they enjoy housing
Which is not available to 99% of the people
> glam
Which is all in ffxiv store

I think we need to address elephants in the room. Yes, elephants, multiple ones.

[SkankyRoe]

> glam
Which is all in ffxiv store.

This statement is, quite literally, 100% objectively false

[CCheshire]

> they enjoy housing
Which is not available to 99% of the people
> glam
Which is all in ffxiv store

I think we need to address elephants in the room. Yes, elephants, multiple ones.

Wdym the NA demo timer released 2k-3k empty plots and we've all spent the last few months bidding on them and I see 4 open FC plots on my small Aether world ward but there's 150 open plots overall.

Also, we have many free in-game glams, like we just got a diving suit from the Moonfire rewards during the summer.

@Halfrek62: Finally, are the "professional players" in the room with us now? I'm quite bad at games, and for solo RP fights, we have the Very Easy setting.

If it's too much, SE will always continue to nerf content over time as we get better gear, and for most 4 man duties you can play as DPS where there's zero expectations beyond carrying some feathers for emergencies.

FWIW: I wouldn't mind more accessibility settings like reducing VFX and AoE spam during hectic raids and not making the arena red/orange the entire time on top of glowing blue orbs.

[Azurarok]

My take's been that MSQ dungeons shouldn't have been made faster or had telegraphs hidden until last minute, or at least not have been so strict on their enforcement. The last boss of the Cenote dungeon's got some strangely strict positioning with the knockback mechanics, and the second boss of the latest one catches quite a few players with the one move where a bunch of aoes go off one after another. The phoenix down change did help counterbalance it a little, but it should've happened much earlier.

Also you know what isn't as strictly enforced in normal content? DPS checks.
Playing a job well, while encouraged, is a lot more optional in comparison and job complexity allowed players to adjust the challenge for themselves but we don't even have that now. They went a route where the game caters to a much more specific crowd than it used to.