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Final Fantasy XIV - In Defense of Content Most Will Never See - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Final Fantasy XIV - In Defense of Content Most Will Never See - MMORPG.com
There’s a lot of content in Final Fantasy XIV I’ll never see. Of course, everything’s on YouTube, but stuff that my character will actually reach is another matter. That comes from someone who has seen far more than many others — I’ve been in and out of savage and extreme primals for a good few patches now, and that’s content most of the playerbase has never touched.
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I've recently returned to World of Warcraft and the disappointment in how faceroll the end game content is infinite. It doesn't feel like the WoW I remember. It's still fun, but it's crap compared to how it used to be.
It definitely sucks to miss out on content because it's too difficult and you can't get into a party that's doing it. But I think that's a lot better and far more rewarding than going into a game like WoW in its current state and literally doing nothing while bosses fall before your group.
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I used to raid in WoW early on when we were still in vanilla but between the time needed and the consumables and how much of my time I spent farming for money I realised I was not at all enjoying it any more so I reduced my expectations and when I was playing FFXIV I just stayed at the difficulties I was comfortable with.
I did enjoy that with the dungeon system they had you could still work towards some decent gear and feel like you achieved some measure of success even if they were not the really hard stuff. I think people need to suspend the expectation that everything must be within reach. Some of the really hard stuff has to be there to make the game memorable and also a dream for the rest of us fools who play that may be one day we might get there.
Doing a fight without knowing the mechanics -- having to figure them out for yourself -- is incredibly hard to do (in that you constantly wipe while doing such). Beyond that, what you are describing is playing a game how it's meant (or perhaps a better term is "balanced") to play. It is a shame that most people do just button mash -- and that games catered to this on most degrees -- but saying you have to know "what to do when" is difficult, to me, is just knowing how to play the game. There's no difficulty in it. The real difficulty is getting 20 people together that actually do care enough to "learn what to do and when" and then let addons do the rest for them.
It used to be that classes had their own difficulty curve as well. In addition to addons not being so sophisticated. This in tandem with multiple difficulties (or even one difficulty with no compromise, or having to do special things to make a fight harder, etc) made for a game where you could edit said difficulty yourself in some small way. Play the easiest spec. or class with the least mechanics to know, decide whether you need the extra help of an addon and be spoiled (as opposed to things such as DBM and others being mandatory), etc. The guild could also collectively decide if they want to challenge themselves.
This is why WoW has fallen from grace for many, and why I personally scoff at anyone who says "difficult" and "WoW" in the same sentence if they're not in the race for world first and don't have all the answers and special addons given to them for the "hardest" fights of a raid. I mean, seriously... I've seen addons that tell you distance between players, give warning signs and loud noises when you're standing in something (or about to be), for phase switches, attacks, when to use abilities, how to use abilities... even have pictures and sound telling you your entire rotation (and if you have a debuff). Plowing through an unknown boss 600 times in a row takes patience and dedication; the most difficult thing there is finding people that have that. Followed by them all actually playing the game correctly.
WoW lost a certain charm for me when to took out Challenge Modes this expansion -- as well as the ridiculous amounts of RNG. Those who say that these Mythic Dungeons replaced it never did full gold runs on CMs in MoP and WoD. They were runs that exceptional teamwork, class play, etc. was needed. Item levels were dropped and normal mobs could hit harder than raid bosses. Indeed, tips and tricks and efficiency had to be developed and executed to perfection, and one wrong button press from your tank meant you had to restart the whole dungeon and not just the last boss. Knowing when to kite, burst, constantly CCing everything imaginable, watching for ground effects that killed you in less than a second, mobs with one shot attacks. There was nothing like it.
Though WoD's break down of classes and Legion's "Fantasy classes" really eliminated much of class difficulty option as a whole. I'm starting to see signs of this in Final Fantasy, though many of the "difficult" individual classes are still incredibly rough to play perfectly. If not just flat out exhausting. Match that with level sync and normal dungons still having multiple one shot mechanics and an absence of addons... Well, it's the closest thing I have to how things used to be in WoW. Especially in Stormblood where I still see people get owned on the new Primal Fights (the easiest difficulty, no less). Kind of insane that they're so unforgiving to players who just "button mash" or "don't care". There are still tiers of "difficulty" that you can combine starting from how advanced a specific class is to play (or how face roll it is, if you want an easy class) matched with other variables and different types of content beyond just dungeons and raids (and even making it so the "Mythic" raids and "Heroic" dungeons are unique and not just a math increase with maybe an extra ability or phase (on the last boss); different paths, aesthetics, mobs, bosses, music, areas, story, etc). You can pick what you like and just stick with it.
I used to do the harder dungeons in FFXIV at a difficulty that was manageable for me as a healer. I was able to do them with a 12 button mouse but anything beyond those dungeons would have been too difficult and frustrating for anyone with me in the group. Perhaps I am just too slow as I am old and slow. So it's not only about being lazy or wanting things to be easy, there are people out there for whom this type of gaming is simply too hard.
The most fun I ever had in an MMO recently was doing a Mythic dungeon in Legion, the group I got matched up with was all newbs (including me) to this particular dungeon. We decided screw it, let's figure it out. Was the most fun I have had since old school days. Luckily everyone was a mature adult and did not mind the pace or the few wipes we had. It was an absolute thrill to explore this place and the achievement felt when we beat it was like no other. If only this could be replicated over and over.
Mythic raiding isn't faceroll. Particularly the current tier...
The hardest content in the game should always yield exclusive top-tier rewards. Anything else will make raiding pointless and completely kill it.
What FFXIV needs is to change up their endgame formula in general. It's old, stale, and boring.
Could you imagine what the reaction would be if a modern single player RPG prevented players from seeing the ending of the game unless they beat it on the most difficult mode?
"Thank you for playing TES VI: Black Marsh! Unfortunately, you're playing on normal difficulty, and the story for the last fifth of the game is exclusive to those who play on the hardest difficulty. So 'git gud' and try again, scrub!"
Somehow I don't see that going over very well...
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Think all developers should follow that trend if there is story or lore locked behind raid or an especially hard instance. Games like FFXIV which are 100% story fest should never have content that the majority will not see it just doesn't make sense when you think about what the base of the game is. The main reason a large portion of players play that particular game is that it is a story and lore based game. If you click thru the quest and just rush everything that really isn't the game for you to be honest as you miss 90% of what the game is.
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Lotro smashes any game for community. But FFXIV has been the second best community I have been a part of.
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It would be a shame (and a slap in the face) if XIV didn't take advantage.
The people who don't raid actually do more in game than the raiders do. It's still just a lack of content problem. Raiders want more raids and PVErs want more PVE content... the difference being, raiders don't care to do PVE content but PVErs would do raid content if they could. They however, would be more inclined to do more PVE content... if it were available.
Well said. Many people who post on forums seem to be skill-blind and believe that everyone has the same capability to do content, which is completely untrue. The "git gud" mantra ignores the real world constraints many players face. I have fast reaction times. I'm almost always that 10th of a second faster than anyone else. I have good eye to hand coordination. That makes me a fairly good player. But I'm also hyper focused, which means I'll stand in one spot and not move. I'm also excessively attack oriented and almost always forget that I have defensive maneuvers. For these reasons, I suck big-time with classes that are primarily defense oriented.
My innate abilities have nothing to do with my being "gud", I just happen to born with them. Just as my predilection for intense focus has made me successful in other areas, it dooms me in raid content because it is just as innate as my reaction time. I have to work hard to remember to move, to pay attention to defensive possibilities, all of which makes group content very stressful, especially if I'm tanking or healing. I'm okay with dying when it's just me. I'm not okay with dying when others are depending on me to be an efficient actor in the group.