Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[Crafoutis]

It's not very rpg-like if we're not doing any decision making with the player's kit imo, seems more like a shmup really.

The distinction I'm making is one that spotlights the distinct control available to players via games like Monster Hunter or Metal Gear Solid, who have much more broad character control than tab-hotbar MMO's (Everquest, WoW, FFXIV). Characters in the aforementioned games (MGS, Monster Hunter) have a much more complex suite of actions/controls than any character in FFXIV could dream of having, given the limits of the system, but the actions performed by the players are inherently intuitive. Tab-Hotbar MMO's are disadvantaged in that every distinct action is a dedicated button, heedless of Context, character-state, etc.

Despite games like Monster Hunter and Metal Gear having far more freedom of character control and capabilities for actions, they are easier to control.

The point I'm arriving at is that without a sufficient solution in the engine for intuitive character manipulation, I'm not of the opinion that complicating a character's kit in a tab-hotbar MMO provides enrichment for the player. Before the solution of more complicated kits is explored, I'd rather years of development be spent gutting the entire concept of Actions/Spells as they stand now in lieu of a system of intuitive and bespoke character control, where class-expression then arises from artful and skillful expression.

I'd close with an example: Take a skillfully executed Ultimate in FFXIV, versus a moderately well executed hunt with 4 players in Monster Hunter; while observing the fight in FFXIV, what you interpret as skill, immediately, is the navigation of the fight's mechanics itself. You can't, as an observer, readily identify skillful execution of a job's kit. But you can see them navigating the mechanics and that is impressive. By contrast, whether someone is doing well or doing poorly (and as a player whether they feel fulfilment while playing) is immediately apparent in games like MonHun/MGS, both due to execution and navigation of an encounter. It's my opinion that to seek skillful expression in a game, doing so in the tab-hotbar MMO format is a flawed headspace, and we should seek to work within these limitations (leaning into encounter design rather than kit complexity), or forsake it completely and play a game where skill expression actually matters.

[RajNish]

I never said people need to enjoy the content, they don't, the devs are also free to make whatever type of game they want instead of catering to what a specific group of people want.

Okay, I'll make it more clear. For some reason, developers of other games have found a way to make hard content accessible to people with disabilities, while you're talking about an animal crossing farm. And by the way, you just said what disabled players should enjoy, although that's not up to you to decide. “If you can’t clear the content, either play another game or suffer the pain” is the most disgusting approach you can come up with.

[Yeonhee]

I really do hope you are right about chaotic, because another of those should never,ever see the light of day, all that development time wasted for a week of content for so few people.
Fun fact, it barely has a higher clear rate than Cruiserweight Savage. A 24 man fight has barely higher clear rate than an 8 man savage raid, that is rough.

Forked Tower is a travesty, they should have worked on a normal mode all hands on deck after the backlash... its currently sitting at a 3.7% completion rate on lalachievements. Ultimates have higher clear rate than that...which is beyond embarassing.

Like i said, deep dungeon is debateable, its not hardcore by any means but its definitely not casual either and not because of the difficulty, but the accessibility.
PoTD should not be a requirement for this, plain and simple. Imagine if Occult crestent would require you to complete Eureka and Bozja because it has the same structure, makes 0 sense. Its not hard to create a 5 level tutorial in the unlock quest to teach them how it works, instead they are sent out to PotD...nice one.

Aside from that dumb unlock requirement, it should be in the duty finder, because while at the moment we dont have a population problem with it and parties fill fast, this will not be the case a few weeks from now on and you will be unable to complete it in a reasonable time with the que system and fixed party will be your only option and content that NEEDS you to organize people and keep them around for a relatively long time, is by no means a casual content.

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

Forked Tower I agree completely. I just cannot understand how they could have thought that making the final raid of a content that is largely casual into savage-level was a good idea. And seeing that even the raiders aren't even interested in it, it makes the dev's decision even more ridiculous.

I honestly think the PotD requirement is fine. It doesn't require you to have completed it all, only the first 50 floors. That's something you can solo in about an evening without that much issues and would also teach you how deep dungeons work. Sure, they could have do it differently but let's be honest here, the requirement isn't so difficult and convoluted that no casual player could do it. Tho I do agree it would be better for everyone if they at least remove the fixed party.

But overall, I don't have much faith that any of these issues would be addressed at some point. People have complained for years now that healers aren't interesting to play in the vast majority of content and yet they still have a 2 buttons damage rotation.

[Supersnow845]

From someone for who things come easily: doing the thing isn't the hard part.

I shouldn't find it difficult to make my Warrior combo correctly, that should be instinct.

The difficulty should come in the decision-making from the outside (the encounter), not from the execution (the player's kit)

There is nothing in the job kits that allows the encounter to be anything besides “do this or die” because there is nothing meaningful utility in the kits which is exactly why the encounters are the way they are

The closest is literally shield bash being a lifesaver in deep dungeons because you can basically infinitely stun mobs when too many roamers get pulled at once, but that only works in deep dungeons

[Valence]

It's my opinion that to seek skillful expression in a game, doing so in the tab-hotbar MMO format is a flawed headspace, and we should seek to work within these limitations (leaning into encounter design rather than kit complexity), or forsake it completely and play a game where skill expression actually matters.

Or unironically just play XIV pvp for skill expression.

[MayuAmakura]

If only pvp was that good lmao. You will get beaten very soon by people who abuse 3rd party tools or imbalanced teams. So don't bother.

[Neon231]

Okay, I'll make it more clear. For some reason, developers of other games have found a way to make hard content accessible to people with disabilities, while you're talking about an animal crossing farm. And by the way, you just said what disabled players should enjoy, although that's not up to you to decide. “If you can’t clear the content, either play another game or suffer the pain” is the most disgusting approach you can come up with.

How is this such a bad approach? This has been a very normal thing since the beginning of gaming. Not every video game is made for everybody. If you don't like a video game or can't play it for any reason... go find one that you do enjoy or that you can play.
I've seen people cry about spiders in a horror game.. like... its a horror game... it is supposed to make you uncomfortable.

[Valence]

How is this such a bad approach? This has been a very normal thing since the beginning of gaming. Not every video game is made for everybody. If you don't like a video game or can't play it for any reason... go find one that you do enjoy or that you can play.
I've seen people cry about spiders in a horror game.. like... its a horror game... it is supposed to make you uncomfortable.

Arachnophobia is nothing more than just about making people uncomfortable. Noted.

[Xapapetsu]

Okay, I'll make it more clear. For some reason, developers of other games have found a way to make hard content accessible to people with disabilities, while you're talking about an animal crossing farm. And by the way, you just said what disabled players should enjoy, although that's not up to you to decide. “If you can’t clear the content, either play another game or suffer the pain” is the most disgusting approach you can come up with.

Could you give me references? Specifically in action based games. Fromsoft doesn't work, maybe ff15 works since you just hold down one button to dodge, or ff12 since you just setup party macros and walk away. Aside from that I can only think of difficulty sliders but that doesn't work when speaking on difficult content since difficulty content would be like setting the difficulty to hard or the hardest difficulty.

[Kohashi]

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

And what exactly is savage worthee mechanic in that raid? The hands telegraph? The towers? Sitting with your alliance? The stored mechanics?

Take Rubicante as an example, that fight was vastly more complex than any mechanic Chaotic has. Let's not kid ourselves and shift the blame to the design. There should come a time when people actually take accountability and admit that what made it savage and miserable overall was the people.