FFXIV could do a better job easing peoples into endgame

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[@Ratix24]

Man, I'm glad he made this video. This game can be deceptively difficult. It's like playing an eight-player co-op on battletoads.

[@Lilybellmusic]

The gap from MSQ stuff to extreme is very steep, and the gap from extreme to savage can be very steep too. From ex to savage is more manageable but it's the initial MSQ to ex that I think people struggle the most with. I have a theory that lack of bozja-like content actually added a lot to this problem. Since there were so many people in critical engagements, there wasn't any huge pressure on 1 person to perform and a lot of CEs had extreme trial level of mechanics. Great place for people to jump in and learn the pacing of raids that is more difficult than MSQ level.

[@chrono414]

Alliance and normal raids were meant to bridge this gap. Unfortunately they have severely dumbed down both normal and alliance raids this expansion to MSQ trial levels. I've died much more to any other alliance raid pre-EW than anything by the twelve.

[@capo3645]

Yeah big agree, plus the fact that Alliance raids are significantly easier than what they used to be (eg Dun Scaith, Weeping City, pretty much all of Ivalice). I used to feel like alliance raids were a nice baby step toward some of the easier extremes because they taught you for how to watch the boss mechanics and would punish you pretty harshly for failure, but now alliance feels like barely a step up from the average dungeon.

[@24hr-Gaming]

The job quests should teach how to play the job. Teach basic 123 single target then 123 aoe. Then ogcd weaving and a basic burst window. That is more than enough to get started. Then smooth out the curve where below 50 you should have a complete outline of how the job plays then post 50 is building on that foundation. Other games I have not seen the problem this bad. But the game puts you at doormat level and never expects you to actually progress. That and a culture that actively looks down at learning how to play because that's seen as "elitist". Both of those combined is why the player progression system is so garbage.

[@-cat-..]

They really should, I played DRG through the entire story when I picked the game up last year and literally spent an expansion and a half doing my rotation wrong See back at level 64 you get a trait that turns your two 4-hit GCD combos into 5-hit GCD combos, and with this added combo length youre supposed to alternate between combos back and forth (previously you would hit one combo once, then the other twice, then repeat) so you can keep the DoT and damage buff from the first combo up 100% of the time, while doing the raw damage combo after so you dont refresh the DoT too soon. From level 64 until the first boss in Anamnesis Anyder (I remember the exact moment I realized this lmao) I would hit the raw damage combo twice in a row before swapping back to the DoT combo, so the DoT which should have 100% uptime had like 66% and i would hit 3 completely unbuffed GCDs every ~30s, one of which was my highest potency weaponskill.

[@jgrathwohl1]

I disagree. Min Maxing DPS isnt something that should be a core game learning mechanic. Most people don't care and also the DPS difference between doing it wrong and doing it right long as you're doing SOMETHING isn't that vast in FFXIV. In Savage it will make a difference and cost you the fight but thats savage not EX. The core game shouldnt be training you for Savage, Endgame, the community and experience should.

[@Ventus_Wraith]

I dont think min maxing is what the OC is aiming for. I literally think it boils down to how do I press my buttons in a semi consistent manner and give me the tools and knowledge to preform at a decent level. Also to your point it's not the community job to foster the gameplay teaching of the game its the devs job because they make the game we just pay to play it.

[@NarutoUzumaki-jl9hk]

​@@jgrathwohl1what are u talking about ?? Bro the differnce bettwen doing a rotation wrong and doing it right is big. Like have u never wondered why the tanks are doing more dmg than said dps .Its bc that dps isnt even trying while said tank is. I think what u should say is that the differnce bettwen almost doing it right vs doing it perfect isnt that big yes but if u put one guy that isnt trying vs one atleast knows something u will 100% notice a big difference. Also i think the idea went way over ur head the guy didnt mean min maxing what they ment is atleast teach them what to do not go in clueless pressing random buttons bc "it doesnt matter " and when they do something that requires any more effort than an msq solo duty they would be overwhelmed and just leave and say "this isnt for me" which is fine but thats the game's fault bc it doesnt teach anything to new players

[@CogniVision]

The fact the game allows you to get from 1-90 through MSQ without ever learning how to properly play is why you either get players in your group that are amazing at the game or absolute dogshit. Dungeon runs either take 10min or 20min. You have most the game, which allows bad players to be bad and still succeed which makes them THINK they're good at the game, and then you suddenly have Ultimate. There's no in-between in 14. You just have dumpsters and the elite. Sometimes I'll host PFs looking for someone to duo farm certain high level content with. 90% of the people that join end up being unable to do it, think it's impossible, and then leave... the fact they even joined at such a skill level baffles me. I've 2-man farmed ShB EX Trials when it's me and someone who actually knows their basic dps rotation, whereas I've had parties with me and 2 other people and can't kill it before enrage because I'm doing more damage than they are combined.

[@toasternoodle2938]

I agree there is a learning curve, but one of the bigger problems is where these curves often are. The game does okay, teaching you some of the markers, what they mean, and how mechanics can be resolved. It doesn't do a good job teaching you mechanics only seen in 8-man content and reworking the guildheist could fix some of these problems. Especially ones that are in old content that most newer players are not aware exist. Now, some people have no trouble seeing something and parsing through it on their own on how to deal with it, and it comes down to them playing their job. People don't learn how to properly use cooldowns because most content is easy enough that you can 123 and stand out of the soup and finish it with no problem. The bigger learning curve of the game is how to play the game when it's not in story mode. People do not need to min-max. You can easily clear the game with a low-end performance if you dance the dance, but you cannot struggle to dance if you don't know how even to put your dance shoes on. Edit: fixed up some of the godawful mobile typing

[@littleperlmonk]

In my personal opinion, there is a "weird" gap between extreme and savage (well, it exists even before savage but comes more into view a tad bit later with savage). Extremes you can, especially at the time of their release, do in a PUG and at least learn the basic concepts of the fight and, if you are lucky, even beat it. But with savage, I feel so intimidated that the PF is just not something I'd use, assuming that most groups are (unsurprisingly) there to clear and not to teach (at least in my perception). Sure, there are Discords for finding /setting up a static but these tools, at least in their basic form, should be available in the game (or at least the game should point you to the most established community projects). If one looks only at the game itself, you will just run into a wall of "wtf, how am I supposed to find a group for an extreme/savage?" TLDR: I think the PF (and associated tooling) is in dire need of an upgrade and would help A LOT with learning the mechanics of the game.

[@aliasonarcotics]

your perception of savage is wrong. if it's a clear party, it will be labeled as a clear party. if it's a learning party, the prog point will be indicated in the pf description. if they are starting from scratch, it will be labelled as a fresh prog. i've progged the entirety of pandaemonium in pf from fresh to clear and it's completely untrue that most groups are clear groups. nobody expects people to join and clear a savage fight they've never seen in 1 lockout, least of all in pf for fresh prog parties, usually the minimum expectation is that you have read/watched a guide and you have skimmed over the pf listings for the fight to observe what strats are commonly being done. if you can't find a fresh prog party, make one. after the first week, strats are usually fairly settled with one or two mechanics maybe having some modifications over the course of the tier and you can just copypaste the strats being used from another pf listing that being said, while some people are proactive in correcting other people's mistakes and you can ask questions if you don't understand how a mechanic works, you are ultimately still your own teacher in pf. you shouldn't expect others to hold your hand and teach you every mechanic (unless it is the rare teaching pf where someone is teaching a friend and they're allowing others to join in)

[@littleperlmonk]

​@@aliasonarcotics First off, thanks for the response/explanation :) I didn't want to imply that I expect others to teach, as everyone should try to prepare by themselves first, as you said. I just got/get really intimidated by the term "savage", and my imagination ran wild with how difficult it would be even though even FC mates say that at least the first ones in an expansion are (relatively) easy to do, and I should not worry that much (if I recall correctly). Again, it's probably just me getting way too intimidated :( But yeah, that's something I have to contend with ;)

[@valonquar1]

The amount of debuffs used in complex savage/ultimate mechanics shows the real limitations of the current system. There is no feasible way a console player has time to receive a new debuff, be able to read the tooltip text to understand what the debuff actually is and is requiring, and then execute the actual mechanic successfully. On PC it's at least a minor bit easier to hover mouse over the debuff, but even that isn't very great at communicating something. Only through a lot of trial and error can you see what the game is trying to tell you.

[@olabystrom5265]

They should really add a log of the fights which could save and show the tooltips you’ve encountered during prog.

[@BigChilla420]

I can do that on console too it's called plugging in my mouse don't patronize me.

[@oEXTRA]

​@@olabystrom5265they already do with the battle or attack tab. Not only does it show all attacks, damage, misses, who did/received then, etc, it even shows all buffs and debuffs. I recommend customizing these tabs so you're not overwhelmed with information. It's a huge help in figuring out mechanics since you can see what debuffs were casted, target them and read their descriptions. I also recommend console players to record their pulls with the share button and review the videos to get an even better understanding. I did this all the time during EW.

[@ericfang2666]

I don't know if it's just me but, I feel like the obvious thing to do is just watch a guide beforehand? Unless you're purposefully going in blind but like at that point what are you really expecting. I'm a pc player myself and I don't think I have ever stopped to read a mechanic related debuff in the middle of a fight either lmao. I do agree that within the game itself there aren't a lot of resources or guides for how to play better but outside the game there are SO many options and in fact whenever I'm trying to learn something my go to solution is just to google it and I pretty much always find what I need.

[@WikiED]

I think FF has great learning curve but only to someone that has general knowledge of game mechanics and can draw a lot of conclusions and parallels from tiniest information bits. (Obviously i'm referring to how duties keep adding mechanics slowly and you get class abilities, not to paid skip as that's immense info dump) I've watched Preach's wife playing FF on 2nd monitor and it showed me how difficult it is to someone that's never played games before. Ability to read UI alone is often completely ignored in discussions about new players. I think the most criminal part for new players is FF not showing how to tinker with UI and keybinds as just knowing these things can help new player that doesn't think about checking out all the settings. On top of that the settings windows are complete garbage having 'Element Size' above the bar of transparency while the tab changing size of an element feels completely detached from the label, that's just an example of non-intuitive design. It's also too easy to ignore and close the tutorials, Emma (Preach's wife) treated the tutorials like spam ads that need to be closed asap. Some things are not explained at all and while someone that plays games can make assumptions, ppl completely new to games won't even think that there is some underlaying mechanic going on. I think what the game truly needs is rework of mentor system. Mentors are a joke as there is no encouragement to be a good teacher and no punishments for being trash player. The concept of mentors is really good for the game, just execution of it is garbage. If you leave a duty you should get a strike, few of these and you lose mentor status plus to regain it you need extra 500 commendations (every status lost adds up to total so very quickly you'd get to impossible numbers required if you abandon duties). Mentors also should be judged by first-timers to weed out ppl unwilling to use chat as mentor (as garbage ppl are filtered out by reports from TOS). Also status should require upkeep of doing X mentor duties in a week to get rid of these fake mentors keeping the badge next to their name. As you keep piling restrictions and requirements you should give mentors some benefits (idk, reduced tp costs maybe or gil 'salary' for great rating or sth else that is constant benefit and not this mount that attracts grinders that aim for guildhests, mentors should want to roll extremes and rewards for helping first timers with them should be worth it, even if you run out of time for the duty). FF did a great job making a non-toxic in-game community (outside varies) which results in chat being dead silent most of the time. When ppl see a new player most of the time they will carry them in silence. New players are not encouraged to ask for help and the rest is not encouraged to help them unless there is a critical mistake being done making clear impossible as often you can just carry dead body around through instance and it's often faster than explaining what to do. While almost always you have ppl answering if there are questions asked it's super rare to proactively give advice, most ppl will watch silent newbie getting beat up and just carry the corpse to the end. The way to solve this issue is prob empowering commendation system so ppl feel like it's worth lose time explaining for the reward the first timer will give via commendation.

[@jgrathwohl1]

FF has had the most toxic players ive seen in an MMO due to all the militant LGBT people in it raging on people. It's literally the opposite of all the toxic virulent children on WoW. I just generally just keep to myself because of everything I see.

[@Second_UNIT]

​@@jgrathwohl1 you are targeting the wrong group of people. Its hyper-casuals. The people who get into the game and then refuse to actually learn mechanics because they'd rather just have a "mobile game experience" where they get on every so often, play for a few hours with people they know, and then log off. A lot of people who get into FFXIV dont actually want to play it as an MMO. A lot of my IRL friends who joined me in playing XIV have all said something to the same extent of: "I dont intend on playing with random players. I just dont feel comfortable being judged for playing the way I want to." Because an MMO is no longer just an MMO. It needs to carry a solo experience, and some people HARD commit to that because the idea of people telling them they're playing *wrong* is worse than just ignoring the player base and clearing shit. Squeenix facilitates this mentality by also penalizes actual mentors in plenty of ways that make it basically impossible to actually tell sprouts with this mentality that maybe they should, yknow, not stand in piss puddles and look at chat every so often so they know if Tank stance is on. Edit for clarification, dont get me wrong, im pretty casual myself. I was considering raiding but I dont like the competitive aspects of parsing and, following some technical issues, likely wont even be able to stay connected to servers long enough to finish a Pull. I drift GCD all the time and press the wrong damn buttons in my rotations, and frankly, im pretty shit at the game overall. But I can at least realize that knowing mechanics over not knowing them is the better alternative and that jobs *have* rotations instead of pressing whatever buttons catch my fancy

[@WikiED]

@@Second_UNIT I think you're right that it's fair to say mentality is core issue which i'd say is facilitated by poor execution of mentor concept. If Squeenix would encourage helping each other with proper mentor system it'd bring better environment and better mentality. There is nothing sadder to see than endgame players not knowing the most basic concepts. How can tank reach lvl90 and use dmg reduction abilities only at 15% hp remaining and not earlier. Dancer with under 50% uptime on standard finish. FFXIV is not a hard game, the hard things are teeny tiny part of the game but so many deluded themselves it's fine to be worse than a Trust npc, and Xeno's point is completely right: it's not fine, you're wasting everyone else's time. The rotten mindset is core of the issues, to fix that you need the community and to move community you need a system to give protection/excuse to point out mistakes and give tips which has to be complete rework and overhaul of mentor system.

[@ErinXIV]

@@jgrathwohl1 my man came from the 1960s with the "its the gays" angle. get a fucking grip lmao

[@glimoreganajai2206]

@@Second_UNIT u are not obliged to parse, also to parse u have to kill the boss, and lets be honest here, kill is a kill, even if its grey parse, as u get more geared and your rotation becames autopiloted it will improve drastically, just dont even think to have good parse untill u get BIS gear. Parsing becames a thing once u kill boss several times and u need to entertain yourself somehow, or when u have good enough gear and wanna see how u doing compared to others to maybe fix issues or analyse what can be changed. For me FFlogs was a gateway into FF analysis, the tool that analyses your skills and tells u what u could do defferently. Issue with savage/ultimate is..... its linear and boring, at some point u will realise "here boss will turn to OT because of tank buster so i can use my side positional". When i was learning ultimate i found a skillsheet of ALL skills used by guy during prog and i just repeat his shit, include mitigations etc lmao. And funniest thing of all, thats most optimal way to play.

[@MoxieNeon]

He is so right, I've been playing since launch, but i've introduced people to the game, and people who even think they're being "helpful" but telling the new player they're not doing their rotation right - scares them away from wanting to play. I usually will only tell people they're doing something wrong if its causing multiple wipes/cant carry them through it - or they ask. If its not affecting me, or if i can compensate for them learning/bad play - then i will not say anything and go about my business and people are usually grateful. I've heard people say a lot "trusts" are for those people - they're really not. Trusts do not actually explain the game to you, sure if you've played for a while you can work things out for yourself, and trusts are for those of us who want to take a scenic stroll, learn mechanics ourselves without spoilers. But new players learning the game who don't understand what the markers etc mean - trusts do not work for them, they wipe over and over and get frustrated and quit. So if I'm taking a sprout though thats my friend, I usually get on call with them and coach them through it if they need it. I can't stress this enough, if you're introducing a friend to the game - do not throw them into the deep end and abandon them expecting them to learn to swim. Be willing to do that shitty levelling dungeon with them and teach them through it - then you're more likely to get someone who will keep playing other them to leave them to fend for themselves, them going "this sucks - my friend is doing cool shit while im stuck here" and quit.

[@redcatte5253]

You said it "hard to get into and only way to master is to keep playing". While I can't really pinpoint the moment where it happened, I can tell I was the same as your wife up until a point doing Eden's Promise, where everything just suddenly began to "click" for me, where I understood things I was completely oblivious before, snapshots, oGCD weaving, things that were an alien language to me, suddenly started making more sense.

[@backyardshorts5505]

From a personal prospective the reason ive kept away from raiding is not having enough time and the only incentive to raid is to cellect mounts. Maybe if i spent enough time as i do in housing i could be better at the game. Also after finishing EW i stoped doing MSQ and now whenever i login i only do my AAR relic grind.

[@GarnetDust24]

5:25 Reminds me of when politicians realize that women have feelings and are real people once they get wives and daughters 🤣

[@Sephvion]

There was a white mage who couldn't heal us properly, during the rework on Ultima. Yeah, the MSQ one. The dps players and I had to explain that they needed to teach them their job, even though we all didn't really know healers. We popped open the skills page and read it together and just explained, "use this when you see this attack" or "use medica 2 if you see that we'll have an incoking raid wide," etc. They kept being down on themselves and kept saying, "I really shouldn't play this game. I'm just keeping people back." It's disheartening. I hope they are still around and succeeding. If the people who I went into Sastasha with, when I first joined, didn't give me a relaxed and "you'll get it" attitude, I don't know if I'd be tanking today. Everyone learns at different levels, but given enough time, I think we'll get decent.

[@Fndlord]

The difficulty spike in raids across the board were INCREASED, compared to the last expansion. While it wasnt as HUGE as the 6.0 - 6.1 drop in players, a BIG reason alot of long-time players quit, it was because of the ramp up in difficulty (Expecially in Savage Tier two of this expansion, and DSR rejects THERE WERE MANY who were burned out by this raid, not to mention TOP) While we did have massive player numbers, quickly, people realized the game is pretty challenging and at end game there's nothing to do, if you aren't a decent player (or lack that kind of free time, because let me remind you, most MMO players are ADULTS). From of the perspective of someone who has been playing for over 5 - 10 years, this is as they say, "Just another Tuesday". However, from the perspective of a brand new player (maybe one who hasn't even ever played this genre), this game is actually pretty sweaty if you think about it.

[@EternalPancake1]

I thought about getting into extremes and savages before, but unfortunately nothing teaches you raid speak and you have to figure it out from guilds or something. But I'm not that social a person so I simply did not attempt to learn because there was no videos or anything or real tutorial for understanding raid speak, everyone just kind of said stuff and I had to automatically figure out wtf was happening somehow. It was pretty...overwhelming. In short, getting into extremes and savages is REALLY confusing.

[@GuyN0ir]

I’m like 90% sure Xeno has a video about raid lingo. I have some kind of memory of him explaining what a wild charge was.

[@Darksora79]

I feel like I’m at that part, where my FC let me get a taste of 2 savages and I got my ass beat to the point it made me nervous to commit to an ultimate. Also I going through the Eden series didnt help at all. It feels like there are times where the game wants you to know what a dungeon/trial is doing and loves you and other times the dungeon/trial hates your guts and FF14 doesn’t want you playing it.

[@ToxicFume]

I really hope they understand the nessecity of shortening the length of the msq to current. It was already bad enough getting people to play for hours on end for ShB, but for dawn trail now? No way.

[@brennanlable]

I'll be honest I started in shadowbringers and finally reached endgame when Shiva unreal came out. I thought that that would be a good entry for myself to try extreme for the very first time. and I was so wrong. I thought the fight would be similar to the normal mode and the leader yelled at me and kicked me after 1 wipe. I turned off the game and didn't touch it for 3 days. from then on I really only tried joining the unsyncd stuff in PF and only started ex trials again in endwalker. it can be really demoralizing even though I know now how annoying I must have been just showing up to a fight I hadn't cleared or known the mechanics of.

[@ivankrizanic507]

Shiva Unreal was also the only Unreal that was a hard dps check as having a single death meant enrage was pretty certain. Titan Unreal was insanely punishing and probably hardest but Shiva Unreal was insanely demoralizing since that dps check was pretty tight and you really didn't know when you were out of time until it was too late. Every single Unreal since has WAY too lenient dps checks and none have reached the level of punishing Titan had. I'd say all Unreals in EW have been on the same level of difficulty of... an EX on farm (usually a clear with maybe a single wipe on both runs) with the exception of Ultima, which was insanely easy.

[@GuyN0ir]

Almost everybody has done that at some point. We’ve all joined a pf not knowing anything and then realized we were in way over our heads. Best thing you can do is watch a guide and get back in.

[@McNoobySon]

That is really sad, i hope the leader wasnt someone you personally knew, kind of a dick move if you ask me. But don't feel too down about it! Alot of us have similar experiences joining parties when clearly unprepared. Take me for example, i play on JP Elemental for 2 years now (for better ping, but i dont speak a word of japanese), and when i first started raiding i was studying fricking hector lecture guides (JP does different strats than NA) so of course when I hopped into pf I caused so many deaths. It also didnt help that i joined when most people were already done with savage, so most english speaking parties were casual players that weren't really good. So i had a lot of difficulty clearing content, and started joining japanese parties because I cleared p5s in 1 pull in a JP-only party (luckily P5S hector guide was same strat as JP). But P6S was when it got really bad, i kept killing my poor japanese peeps by standing on the wrong sides because i followed the video. Worse of all because i was in a JP-only party i couldn't understand what they were saying. But they were nice enough to prog till the end of the instance. Well, eventually i found out what i was doing wrong after speaking to my FC peeps and cleared the savage tier after about 2 months. Nowadays, there are much less JP parties in Kujata, and i know i am part of the reason why most of them moved to raiding in Mana (much more JP people there). I do regret what i did, but i think we all have to start somewhere. At the end of the day its just a game. But i hope you continue to have fun raiding in ffxiv knowing you are not alone in your experience!

[@hammsuke3981]

Agree with that the game did not teach you how to your rotation or game mechanics, it's all back again to the individual, do they want to learn or not, if yes then search, join raiding servers like aether raiding, lpdu, elemental raid macros, the balance, etc. However i still find people who easily feel attacked when someone just wanna teach them their rotation or simple things as align 2min buff or use feint rep addle as necessary, this kind of people will just stuck and never improve.

[@hazardyoutube1121]

yea i think that why duty finder is good for the most part we know the sprouts are new so we never get mad but if they got gear form current expansion we wonder why they messing up so much maybe there like this

[@melissas4874]

I think it is silly to get mad if they do have current gear. You probably have played the game for a long time and had to do months of roulettes for 2.0+ content while some of us did not. So I don't assume people know the fights just because they don't have a sprout or have current gear.

[@hazardyoutube1121]

@@melissas4874 I don't asume any one knows a fight I just watch them fail over and over I even say you getting hit because of this mech and this is call out from boss or the tell for it I don't get mad at them I'm just confused why they don't understand mechanics at level 90 getting hit one time is one thing getting hit every time is not trying in my mind and if you are busy don't q when I get hit because of something irl I say sorry I'm distracted I don't ignore if some one ask me if I need help most players ignore the help or report you I know like you said I been playing a long time I seen it all ithink

[@hazardyoutube1121]

@@melissas4874 there are also times players take the help and the run go's smoother .I always try to help others but if they ignore me or get mad there is nothing that I can do that's why the game needs a better system to teach players mechanics and tells they could even tell you to look at boss more and that would help like 30% of things that get players killed or make them feel bad that they can't figure things out I was a newb one time I always asked for help I understand not all players are like that but this is a mmo q with friends if you don't like some one trying to help you

[@Blagno4]

I think the learning curve isn't actually that hard, it's that there is no actual reward to playing well if your audience doesn't want to play well. I barely touched savage or end-game in general (because reasons) but I remember when I cleared E9S, my first savage, and the disparity of skills in the team when we cleared was fucking WILD.

[@SiopeR]

Few hundre hours long mandatory single player msq also don't help getting new players. A lot of my friends quit before they even reached Stormblood o_o

[@BigChilla420]

If they didn't buy story skips or didnt just cutscene skip, I'm sorry but they just didn't wanna play with you that bad. Dogshit way to structure an MMO for anyone who isn't into story for sure though.

[@oEXTRA]

Imo they should give a free story skip up to whatever expansion you purchase. They should also trim down the quests in previous expansions (ARR is the hugest hurdle). It shouldn't take more than 10-20 hours max to beat an expansion. I personally don't like skipping the MSQ, but it should be an option for new players, especially when DT drops since it's a new beginning. Also new game+ is a thing, and you can also watch all MSQ cutscenes in your room. So it wouldn't hurt them to do this.

[@oEXTRA]

​​@@BigChilla420have you went back and replayed ARR? It's a completely underwhelming experience and I guarantee OP's friends didn't make it past it (EDIT: just re-read op and he said they quit before SB and honestly I'm surprised they made it past ARR). HW is much better but still not enough to hook most people. SB has a lot of fun content but the MSQ is meh. People mainly get hooked for life when they get to and beat ShB.

[@BigChilla420]

​@@oEXTRAYes I've played through it twice in Eng and JP, if you're not an FF fan you'll find it rough I'm not a delusional cultist fan I literally said earlier its dogshit gameplay compared to most other MMOs but makes sense with the ARR history. But again story skip is there, if someone wanna play together they'll drop $20 on a sub. Do you want them to let people speed run like PoE or just kill mobs then run dungeons 100 times or something? Would be interesting in a seasonal event server like Hardcore WoW but never happening when the devs keep things as stale as they do.

[@oEXTRA]

@@BigChilla420 yeah I personally think they should just give new players a free optional skip. They shouldn't have to drop extra money because each expansion (especially the older ones) are filled with padding. Personally I would like them to make the maps more like a sandbox environment, get to the point with the written dialogue (like they do with the voiced scenes), and have way less fetch quests. This will never happen but I wish it could.

[@dingding12321]

IMO 24-mans, max lvl dungeons and easy extremes like Zeromus do help with this issue at least somewhat. However there absolutely should be in-game guides on HUD modification, keybinds and rotations per DoW job between each expansion. People shouldn't get to endgame and be surprised they don't have enough space for all their buttons in their 2 default Action Bars haha. The lack of direction the game gives players in all this even goes so far as to make them feel completely isolated in-game as they're managing buttons as they level and getting used to rotations in at-level content. You have no idea if you're anywhere near optimal with your rotation/keybinds until you've put tons of hours into the game. We don't need a For Dummies guide at level 1 - we need a For Players With

[@penultimania4295]

NO. You can't have 'ingame rotation guides' because it doesn't make any sense. First of all your rotation and opener might change between different encounters even. You have tooltips - that should be enough yo figure out a basic DECENT rotation on your own. If not just fucking Google it - considering it's an mmo you have internet access.

[@shawnscouten5184]

Yeah, I agree. ff14 has nothing between casual content that is incredibly easy with a nonexistent difficulty curve post Arr, and content that will require dozens of wipes and watching a guide and understanding raid acronyms and a bunch of outside info. There is no content at a difficultly that I would call “Standard game difficulty” by which I mean, in a standard game, when a boss fight happens, there is a decent chance you might wipe if nobody knows what to do, but it would probably only take like 3 retries at most to beat it. There are fights I would consider that difficulty in ff14 They are: Odin, A5n, A9n, Shinryu, O10n, Titania, Seat of Sacrifice, p10n, Orbonne, Dun Scaith, Tower at Paradigm’s beach and most critical engagements. Those fights are the gold standard for normal modes, though some may have been nerfed or out-scaled. If we had more fights like those, I think extremes would be a lot more approachable by the time people hit max level. That and tutorials need to be much better, Hall of the Novice was good, make a Hall of the Intermediate and Hall of the Expert, teach people things like Tank swaps, and managing Healing while still doing dps, and teach people things like “Always be casting” or even basic rotations. Yeah, some people will always suck, but most people will improve if you give them the chance and don’t overwhelm them.

[@merisaxchi]

I was (and still feel like) the sort of "newest player" in this game. I had never played an MMORPG before so I had no expectations of END GAME CONTENT - I was just doing all of the content. But when I played with people other than the one friend I had who got me into the game, their attitudes were so bad about my rate of progression (time I took for story content) to the extent where I just played by myself as much as possible. Someone would recommend a streamer to me for "improvement" (while I was still probably in Stormblood tbh) and all I would see is the streamer yelling about things that didn't make sense to me, had nothing to do with what I was learning as a sprout with no gaming background, and everyone around me just magically seemed to KNOW. It thoroughly put me off the end game raiding scene. This was until the one friend who got me into the game sent me the youtube link for one streamer group in particular who just seemed to mess around and have a good time in savage raids. I got to see how excited they were for a "transition" with a SECRET BOSS on the final floor of Eden, and I was so hyped that I taught myself everything to go into savage SPOILER FREE for a new story experience.... and then I had to go find a static, find all the external resources to keep teaching myself the game, and deal with everyone who'd cleared "on content" shitting on new players constantly. I had to keep my mouth shut while everyone around me spewed garbage about "obvious" things that I was fighting to implement, or when people would tell me "yeah you're on easy mode because it was way harder when X" for everything I accomplished, telling me my goals weren't worth it when I was "so far behind". Now almost all of them have quit raiding because every tier this expansion was too hard for them, because they couldn't clear UWU or TEA or some other fight, and I cleared every savage on content and my first ultimate was Dragonsong. I'm getting better every tier and faster at prog from the accumulation of experience. But I had to fight for that experience because so many people were assholes. If I hadn't been here for the STORY EXPERIENCE and convinced myself that savages and ultimates were just part of the story, I probably would never have bothered with endgame content. It's still frustrating for me to see the raiding community in general browbeat new players (or players doing any other kind of content). There are also players I see that go from New Raider to Jaded Raider within six months and leap on the hater train with zero self-awareness for how JUST SIX MONTHS AGO they were just as bad as someone they're trash talking. ps: also because the levels of content difficulty are so obscured, I skipped extreme prog and went straight into E9S. I didn't clear an extreme until I was progging E11S, and I didn't clear an on-content extreme until Zodiark.

[@McNoobySon]

I agree with you so much! People tend to disparage others' efforts in a vain attempt to make themselves feel better seeing someone clear content that they previously struggled to clear. It happens everywhere, in any game and even in real life. It's just human nature at this point. I also got my fair share of "Oh when I cleared this content it was way harder". But really, we should try to be nice to people and appreciate their efforts. It's not easy, and in an online environment, we might even find ourselves tempted to say the same things to people, not knowing some of the effects that it may have on them. So, let's just try to be nice together and don't let your experience bother you too much!

[@CybersteelEx]

just git gud we dont want know casuls here skibidi

[@kubasliwa204]

I think this is not that simple of a matter. If this game was to make it easier to get into endgame content, it would simultaneously have to also provide more forms of it. Even now, when endgame is supposedly not that accessible, you have plenty of players who are bored out of their minds because they cleared savage and don't have anything else to do. If the learning curve were to flatten down, you'd have even more people like this, and even more complaining. So to even it out, more forms of VALID (so no, savage criterion doesn't count) midcore endgame content would have to follow - and this would most likely take a significant chunk of development resources. Of course, all of this would be extremely welcome, but we probably shouldn't expect it to realistically happen before 8.0.

[@TorManiak]

Many problems we currently have this Expansion also contribute to making it harder for people to get into endgame hard content. -The lack of Field Op(aka Eureka/Bozja) creates an even bigger gap between a good and a bad player, since usually, those require more work than what is required in the MSQ solo duties to not die in. -The order abilities are given during leveling doesn't make sense on many of the jobs and they aren't explained in any way except on the tooltip, so players who don't think about reading what they got will play their Job wrong, despite the rotation at a basic level being easy to do(don't have to get into openers at this level of skill yet). -Variant and Criterion is also a big gap of skill requirements between dungeon-level and Savage-level, even though it is 4-man content. It would be much better as an introduction to endgame hard content because of the lower player count making coordination easier, yet we only have virtually 1 difficulty in this, and it's way too high for a casual non-Savage raider to go through. The reward incentives' absence don't make this any better. -Relics being Tomestones instead of your usual grind, just like field Ops being absent, don't incentivize being better than you were before doing it even by a slight margin, because what you're doing is just content that don't actually require much thinking nor reacting(both raid roulettes being the only ones that even remotely place a challenge, albeit a laughably easy one). If there was a way to get Relics faster through harder than dailies content(which Bozja Relics filled that niche, although through a bigger grind than it should've before the end of the expansion) you would have a sizable amount of people being incentivized to actually get better at the game, even if its for a small reward. A lot of those problems are most likely getting fixed next expansion, but it shows how essential they are to get even remotely better than garbage. It won't magically make players that are absolute dogshit better at the game, but it will at least make it easier to get into hard content, and make PF more bearable, because there would be a bigger amount of players who know how the game actually works beyond MSQ.

[@NotBer]

Freaking Bozja enjoyers linking ANY issue with the game to not having any Bozja-like zone in EW lol.

[@dracopo8862]

I'm pretty sure word hunger is also caused by the lack of Field Op, lmao. None of what you said is the cause of the difficulty spike, this problem existed in SB, it existed in ShB and it exists in EW. The problem is that the commitment needed to clear an Extreme is way bigger than anything in the "Normal" tier. Both Eureka and Bozja can be cleared by following your Party during the various mechanics, you never really need to learn a fight

[@ouromov2895]

The game needs to teach your rotations, though they probably won't do it in a guise of "Just play how you want and have fun" I suppose extremes are somewhat of a training wheel, but I think the game needs more mid content to lead you to savage and ultimate. They should tone down criterion and have that be it maybe.

[@christopherbailey3547]

this is an excuse, because the information to access optimal rotations is at the tip of your fingers. The average casual player just doesn't care enough to learn their rotation, that is the reality of it.

[@zackaerith1872]

I think they should have a full Simulation of past savages and 1 ultimate like ucob, so the players can have a safe place to practice by themselves. Or they can bring along a friend or true mentor to teach them. Everyone keeps emphasising on saving time in a game, so the newbies will find it harder and harder to get better. As a slow learner myself even after clearing DSR I still need time to get better DPS wise. TBH I don’t understand the survival of the fittest in a game. It felt like people just wana gatekeep. It’s really not a game that needs galaxy brain. You don’t do algebra or derivatives here. All You just need are practice. But the issue is just the time each and everyone needs to get there. Some fast some slow. And at the probability of 8 people over the 5 percentile of players who tried end game , it’s not easy to get all at the same pace plus no drama. People always forget to factor in external human factors.

[@aliasonarcotics]

they already waste a huge amount of their veteran developers' time to make a rudimentary ai do simple mechanics for basic braindead dungeons, you think they have the ability or manhours to make a simulator for savage and ultimates? everything has a cost, and given how much duty support has costed us in terms of content, i would rather square enix put the resources into making new content than make an official simulator. this idea is way too expensive for a relatively small benefit

[@zackaerith1872]

@@aliasonarcotics I don’t really know the technicalities. But XIV SIM , though very basic is able to push out sections of the fights for many to practice relatively fast. But if (as I assume) SE focus allot on aesthetic as they usually tend to do, then of course this idea is not feasible. But having just 1 -2 practice field with the code they have and just shut off the damage should not have been so hard? It could possibly help players and maybe would have been beneficial instead of infinite homogenisation they had been doing for the past expansion.

[@maracaegrizzley8734]

I've been playing, fairly consistently (apart from unavoidable gaps for health reasons) for about five years now? I started FFXIV after I fled WoW during BfA and landed in Eorzea about two months, give or take, before Shadowbringers dropped. That initial learning curve has been absolute hell on me because it is very possible to outlevel one's skill within the first month. Particularly if someone wasn't a "High End Raider" to begin with. I'm not a *good* player. I'm a *stubborn* one. Usually that has the same effect, but there have been duties, one in particular at the time I first experienced it, that asked more of me than I was capable of giving. I didn't run Crystal Tower the first time (alt-oholic, I'm very good at playing the MSQ repeatedly) I unlocked it because I saw "requires 24 players" and panicked. Rule of thumb for WoW was "the more players it requires, the more difficult it is" and 24 players made me think that it WAS going to be "Ultimate" difficulty before I even knew that "Ultimate" was an actual thing. I didn't run Crystal Tower until after I'd cleared 5.0 the first time. I didn't do Alexander, or Void Ark, or Omega, or Ivalice, or Eden when I reached those points in the MSQ (or Eden when it was current at all) because that was RAIDING. I can hear the scoffs now, but to new players, that's actual RAIDING. And if a person isn't a Raider, why would they do that content? After five years of play, I *finally* completed a *Normal Raid Series* as current content with Pandaemonium. I still have yet to complete an Extreme Trial without Unsync. I have never even *attempted* any Savage Raid without Unsync. So yeah, we need the progression curve to be evened out because it's throttling the numbers of players who can even attempt to make that leap. But are you willing to accept what has to happen for that to take place? Because it's that initial jump that's the biggest issue. And an in-game tutorial isn't going to cut it. Yeah, they're never going to give us an in-game tutorial to do what players seem to want it to do because the game, and the ways to play it, change so much just between patches that keeping it up to date and accurate for all jobs is a nightmare even worse than attempting the cursed "FFXIV Classic" nonsense. Prior to Shadowbringers, any sort of "endgame tutorial" would have required covering "stance dancing" for both Tanks and Healers. Oop! In Shadowbringers, that vanished entirely. And all to the good, to my mind. We need more steps along that ladder, and whether that's adding content that is going to continue to be "too easy" for the highest end players or easing the difficulty of Extreme Trials, or something like that it's going to be met by screaming from people who just want more content for them on the highest end. So the question I pose to the player base as a whole, what are you willing to give up to get more players into the higher end content so that there's the numbers to support more content for you?

[@NarutoUzumaki-jl9hk]

From what i can read i can tell u the solution its very easy actually and it would only fix things. Make msq require effort to do like the solo duty is the perfect tool to teach new players things but guess what they are all a walk in the park and they are so easy that the person who only does msq will never go and try ex savage or ultimates bc the jump of effort goes from 0 to 10 then 50% ex to 85% savage and then to 110% on ultimates so ofc that person will never bother doing these contents bc the jump is too big (unless that player is only eager to get better then the jump is fine they will learn regardless) . The jump in diffculty should be msq at 10 to 15%effort dungeons should all get a dps check (not a hard one but just one for the sake of teaching that taking long will kill u and their mechs should be a little harder so they should be at 25 to 35%)and the rest can stay as it is.

[@zydeox1221]

You say that the learning curve should to be less steep to bring new players in, but you have also gone into a podcast with mrhappy and claimed that you wanted an Ultimate to be much harder than what the current ones are, that you wanted an ultimate to bring you to absolute "despair" or something I remember vaguely. If they make the fight this hard, isn't that gonna go against your point of complaining about the learning curve being to steep? It will surely at the very least increase the steepness of the curve for that fight. Or is that all just a personal opinion that applies to you and does not take into account the playerbase?

[@chrono414]

I presume he meant to have another bump after the plateau from clearing ultimates

[@derryair9419]

I assumed in that podcast he was referring to the plateau after clearing an ultimate. Once you've cleared a current ulti WHILE its current, it doesnt really get harder (using standard raiding, not challenges like Tank-cob). In this video hes referring to the difference between Casual and Savage, which definitely needs adjusting. There currently is no decent curve, its just a large wall with a few rocks to use to help you climb it. Try Endsinger and then P5S, the difference is ridiculous. Imo theres only 1 or 2 decent midway points and thats Endwalker's Ex2 and Ex4, thats it. The game has been made even easier to play at the start, but theres nothing to help you improve. The job quests dont help at all with rotations/abilities, theres no midcore content to practise/learn mechanics and people can get aggressively toxic regarding playstyle(either being aggressive towards someone offering help saying stuff like "let them play how they want", or they insult people who struggly). The curve is too steep and needs to be adjusted, and at the same time, he personally wants harder content because thats what he likes. Basically "Arthas wants harder content because he likes that content, but he also acknowledges that the difference between casual and high end is too steep"

[@bellamango6708]

it sux even in high end when you have something like brain fog or processing disorders or even visual/sound overwhelm at times, in VCs with new people who are really distracting while some ppl in your PF can do these fights in their sleep it hurts when you have say, one clear. wanna get more solid on a fight, and you try your hardest and just are making more mistakes and bitched at for it. sux

[@Madlyaza1]

its ironic, i never really cared about the story much. Only really started paying full attention and reading everything in SHB and then again in EW. I skip everything that isn't MSQ, yet i still loved leveling because i love grinding and seeing my funny numbers going up. Had the most fun while leveling classes, making money etc etc. Now that im maxed on everything, filthy rich and have done all but TOP for ultimates. I am finally "good" at this game, and now i am out of things to do. its very sad

[@lukapitkanen3333]

I think most job rotations are not very clear for new players. I played the whole game one way and once reached the end game I looked online for tips and realized the rotations and openers are played very differently, and I was immediately thrown off the loop. Mix that with having to do more complicated mechanics in the fights, and there are all sorts of social rules for doing the end game content which are not very clear for a new player (like using party finder vs duty finder, food buffs etc., being able to read raid macros which are not present at all during the msq playthrough), the transition to end game content is not very intuitive. It’s like playing a whole different game than what you have played the last 300h watching cutscenes and doing normal fights and dungeons.

[@zeeder7975]

This laissez faire approach works on other MMO games including FF11 but FF14 is not a game for such approach. A lot of new players miss out on other encounters. As for rotation, this game doesn't teach on buffs and AoE buttons. I watched a top JP streamer, Hendy, playing ff14 and he didn't press either buttons at all.

[@wontononionslicer1004]

My problem is communication, why are raids require a communication app to be completed? I don’t want to listen other people and talk to them, but if I don’t use it, how am I able to clear a raid.

[@chrono414]

pf strats allow no communication, nobody joins discord voice for pf duties and almost everything is pf-able nowadays with standardised strats. I'm not sure what you're talking about? Having voice chat is mainly for last-minute adjusts, but in pf you'd just wipe and restart

[@falseking5441]

You can unironically clear DSR and TOP in pf with no vc, what are you on about ?

[@wg_rey]

If you have issues communicating with others , please don’t raid.

[@24hr-Gaming]

You're playing with 7 other people in content that requires coordination. If you don't want to communicate with anyone, don't play with people. You can do raids with no vc just fine, but at bare minimum you should be willing to talk to and communicate with your party. Otherwise you're just wasting the time of 7 other people.

[@falseking5441]

I would agree if everyone was blind progging, but strats are standardized and everyone uses guides / the strats you are using are usually clearly communicated beforehand. Some of the most consistent players I meet in this game are the ones that never speak a word. @@24hr-Gaming

[@DeadEye935]

FFXIV has a similar issue to some fighting games. Developers are trying their hardest to reach new players, which is good, but ultimately what people need are better tutorials and resources for learning. Fan resources can bridge the gap here, but unfortunately fan resources for FFXIV are pretty bad for new players. Lots of guides on optimization, very very few guides are aimed towards people that don't understand what weaving is or why clipping gcds is a bad thing to do. I've seen a lot of people even in savage that can do their opener but within a couple minutes their rotation has gone completely out of alignment, or they die and their rotation becomes almost random button presses because they only understand their rotation as a straight line sequence of button presses. Ideally fan resources wouldn't have to pick up so much slack, but even if we do get job tutorials in the game, we'll still need better resources on our end for better preparing for high end content.

[@jgrathwohl1]

I think the game has a very bad learning curve jump because personally i find the games difficulty to be smooth brain until Extreme Trials, which offer a moderate challenge, takes a few tries to memorize and are pretty fun. Savage feels like "real" Raiding if you're an MMO Vet as it requires everyone to be experienced or have a good raid leader and does indeed have a notable jump up from EX in Difficulty. Now Ultimate is where there is a gigantic leap in difficulty. it is seriously galaxy brain level or just masochistic memorization through repitiion (how most people conquer them) - not for me, but also makes me feel inadequate as a raider. The Unreals i thought were just high damage gimmicks and easy. it really felt no harder than the content was when it was new. I don't know if i am missing anything there or if that was the intention.

[@penultimania4295]

That was the intention i guess.

[@DawnAfternoon]

@@penultimania4295 One of the problem is that, unless you raid, everything is super braindead. But when you get into raiding, everything is super complicated all of the sudden. There's no inbetween. You either play supercasual or supersweat. Extreme is a decent middle ground but you only get one of those per patch.

[@penultimania4295]

@@DawnAfternoon that's because they made it so - it didn't used to be the case. But frankly you either understand the game or you don't and I feel like this is how this playerbase is split up - you either have complete idiots who can't even do a dungeon without fcking up or you have people capable of high-level raiding.

[@rionyascaret1004]

My static is pretty much pf warrior this expac since we can’t get full 8 person party. It’s really hard to find people to prog especially this tier 😢 I do hope YoshiP will give better skill progression for players to do Savage so that more people will try it. Normal dungeon is too easy, normal trial isn’t punishing enough, extreme and savage difficulty gap is a bit too big for people to try savage.. More rewards or more bonus story from Savage too please so it’ll invite more people to try it 🥲

[@gameplayerone3917]

I was one of those that started right when Asmon was playing, so from the very start I wanted to eventually do ultimate content. The biggest problem I find is that there simply isn't any external reason to want to do the harder content. Even at the very beginning, the extremes, specifically Ramuh, the people were toxic and uncoordinated/unskilled. Which is to be expected but, why suffer through all of that? For me, I had all the intrinsic motivation I needed, but that's rarer to come by. The titles are bland, and the mounts are okay, but you can easily get them by doing the fights unsynced. What if Ramuh dropped a beard and you could only get by doing it unsynced? Not only do people get a cool, rare glam, but they learn what it takes to do harder content.

[@misterwoods4630]

I dont think this problem exhists, extremes are difficult even if you teach new players. Its a matter of execution more than knowledge. Execution requires tons of hours that most people don't have

[@tyedean2582]

Or in this situation as a community we can teach the new blood

[@aiu941]

I think the learning curve is a bit exagerrated just because ultimately the game isn't that hard to learn. I was a complete noobie, no idea what I did only, only did MSQ and visited RP houses. My first savage was P1S and I was awful at the game and still cleared the tier relatively quickly, about 6-7 months after starting the game. It's more about how willing you are to look at guides and external stuff but if you are putting in a bit of effort it's not hard. The main issue I think is that you HAVE to do it outside the game. The game demands zero input from you to clear, everything is so braindead and forgiving. And even if it did ask a little more of you, then there still would be no in-game way to learn your job really. There needs to be more of an ask of players in normal trials, dungeons and raids and some basic information on your job's rotation.

[@Jus7here]

They really to put the skill upgrade thing in the garbage. you get to level 90 and you are playing a completly different character that makes no sense.

[@kennys6288]

They need to teach people how to play the game first.

[@dragonmares59110]

It is even worse this expansion, extremes are way harder than SB or ShB extremes. Meanwhile normal raid, dungeon and alliances are a snooze fest. The game is doing a very bad job at teaching players. It put a wall in front of them but no tools to break it

[@GuyN0ir]

Are the extremes harder? I didn’t really farm them this xpac. First two seemed about on par. Third was pretty hard. I don’t think fourth was, and the rest I only did one or two clears of. 100% agree on the normal and alliance raids though. No wipes patch morning in the second or third is a disappointment.

[@gallion4804]

Hell no SHB was harder extreme

[@PKrazorleaf]

Thats cap, Seat of Sacrifice is harder than every EW Trial

[@NotBer]

Casual content (normals) get easier because actual casual players who usually only play them don't like challenging content. Raiders prefer challenging fights, that's why Ex, Savage, Ultimates tend to get harder. The devs listen to their players..

[@melvin3681]

@@NotBer That's the problem. Casual players don't want to go through the steep learning curve and those that went through it wants harder content (else they have nothing to do). To satisfy both, you end up with braindead normal content and hard asf savage/ultimate. Extreme is supposed to be the middle ground but I would say the difficulty is much closer to savage and does not serve as a good stepping stone.

[@ruthnovena40]

there is no real " end game."bec, the players all do diff. things. in between the patches and have always done so. Diff. players have diff, goals .

[@penultimania4295]

The DUNGEONS are too easy. They completely fucked it up. If you can't even learn the basics in dungeons, what's the point of even attempting extreme+ content?

[@BigChilla420]

It doesn't matter because there is no endgame for new player who isn't ready to jump straight into sweaty salty world of Savage and Ultimate. Just keep grinding your tomes for relic and being dripfed dogshit and enjoy it.

[@melissas4874]

They claim to teach during solo duties, but I feel solo duties only teach you to optimize solo play. EW was my first time I was at end game at the same as everyone else. I only did one savage and one extreme. I attempted other savages and UCOB and I quit mainly because the communication between players is bad. You ranting at people when they mess up is not good communication and is just complaining. People quitting over one wipe is not communicating. Putting markers around a spot on the floor and not typing at all when we fail a mechanic and wipe is not communication. So I just quit trying.

[@lushen952]

I don't know why they can't make EXs like bozja content. Make them fast paced and tricky to do individually but zero party wipes. I don't think EX should be intro to raiding it should be a lot more accessible. Normal players shouldn't have to know about partner stacks and crazy movement strats. Right now if you don't want to really get into challenging group content there is nothing for you in this game.

[@24hr-Gaming]

Normal raids exist. Progression should be Trial -> Normal Raid -> Extreme -> Savage.

[@Thienthan]

@@24hr-Gaming what about Unreal

[@lushen952]

@@24hr-Gaming Normal raids are completely inconsequential. Three is no real difference between regular trial, normal raid, or dungeons. If you can't figure them out you aren't bad at the game you're just not smart.

[@undercoverspy123]

nah progression is actually completely fine the resources are just bad, new players dont have their U.I set up, some of them dont keybind and click buttons, they dont know how to move party list, they dont know how to use focus target, they don't understand markers things like clocks, partners ect, doesnt help all the raiding boomers use outdated non descriptive language like "diamond limit cut", or terms like dynamos/chariots shrouding the language in "you had to be there" to understand for new players. Outside tools like ACT, and XIV analysis, the Sim, ect aren't known by new players and vet's always hand hold or completely 180 and treat them like trash, instead of giving them the tools to build themselves up as players, this is mostly on the community tbh.

[@DawnAfternoon]

@@24hr-Gaming Normal raids are just as easy as dungeon. It's Trial == Normal Raid -> Extreme -> [giant missing gap in the middle] -> Savage

[@xL0stKIlah]

This game needs a voice chat. The community is the one that brings people into endgame

[@Raionhardt]

I seriously don't understand why the devs keep trying to pander to brain dead people who want to play through the main story quest with zero friction and have the game be boring

[@NotBer]

They also pander to raiders that's why any content beyond Extreme are pretty much harder than previous expansions...

[@CybersteelEx]

@@NotBer they should make the game for the normal people who are the real gamers with appropriate difficulty. not breaindead casul coomers or masochist no life raiders.

[@Hankster9001]

you play with Plugins.

[@dixiebellau]

Said it for years. The game is fucking bad at preparing people for endgame. The msq is a snooze, even at level 80+, it's as hard as level 20. I'd even say some of the earlier content is harder than current. Old normal raids required mechanics, new normal raids require a single braincell, or none at all.

[@one_eyeddd473]

The game taught me....i had zero mmo experience and i thugged it out and now im actually progging ultimates, but only bc i stuck with it. My passion for the game never faded bc i constantly had goals i was striving for. Was 2 years before i touched ultimate. theres 4 expansions filled with extreme fights and alliance raids that all increase in difficulty over time that serve as a way to teach raid mechanics and slowly spoon feed you a mechanical language that most dedicated player pick up over time. This is part of the reason the player can actually feel their skill increase bc you pick these things up. All these people who jump in with wowbrain trying to rush to endgame wonder why they dont learn. Even more so contributing to players being mechanically handicapped is the option to UNSYNC....majority of the player base unsyncs their content n claims theyve cleared it. Its pathetic. Then when you actually do content min I no echo you get 5 ppl saying oh i thought this was unsyncd n none of em can do mechs. Its not bc final fantasy does a shit job teaching. Its bc final fantasy gives you the option to UNSYNC. The game allows you to not learn. And people are okay with it...the longevity of this game depends on the individual players ability to contiuously set different goals and delv into all kind of content.

[@oEXTRA]

That's only a part of the problem. Aside from the game doing an absolute trash job at teaching new players to properly play it, it also gives most players absolutely no reason to go back and do older extreme/raid content synced. So no one directs new players to join a discord and take lord knows how long to form/join a group/static to slowly progress all the way up to current content, since most people aren't trying to play them synced. Long story short, if the game at least gave incentives to go back and beat older content synced, you would actually have a thriving raiding community on multiple levels. Instead we have a small percentage of players looking to clear the current tier before it becomes irrelevant in a few months. Personally I think a good way to go about this is giving each tier it's own set of relic armor that can only be obtained through synced clears.

[@RM-eh3uq]

I disagree that unsync is really the underlying issue here for the sole fact that EX/Savage content has and always will be completely optional. From the perspective of a casual still going through the MSQ, there's really no reason to run old EXs as they're progressing through the game because: 1) rewards are pointless unless you're obsessed with collecting stuff, 2) the pool of players (veteran or not) that are willing to consistently queue for old MINE-type content is basically non-existent outside of Unreal. There's no reason for vets to bother with going back to queue for old, synced EX/Savage and the ones that do are a very small percentage of players. Thus, these fights can't be relied on to ease players into harder content. Same problem exists if you look at it from the perspective of someone who just finished MSQ and now wants to get into endgame content, why would anyone bother going back to old EXs just to learn fundamentals, unless you made it mandatory to unlock the ability to unsync those fights, or worse, force them to do the whole back catalog of endgame content. They just wouldn't bother if you throw up roadblocks. The way I see it, mandatory queued progression content is just too easy especially with aggressive ilvl syncs and readily available capstone gear. At this point, almost all of it is basically a free ride. For a better player experience, devs need to go back and rework old 4, 8 and 24 man content and reexamine how classes play at low-levels. But this approach is antithetical to their efforts to streamline the progression experience. The goal now seems to be to make it as easy as possible for new players to catch up to current content. What's more likely to happen is akin to the changes made to the final boss of ARR; i.e., What was previously part of an 8-man duty [part 3 of Porta Decumana] was turned into a solo quest duty (which when I replayed it on an alt, was actually pretty cool, though still just as trivial). The final boss battles of each expansion are totally trivial and outdated at this point and I could see them replacing them all with solo instance duties, but this still doesn't address the problem of easing people into endgame.

[@one_eyeddd473]

True, incenticize the old stuff syncd for exclusive raid mounts, weapons and armor and it really would fix soo much giving all skill levels a reason to play. I always wished they did that, the fact that you can get all ex trial and savage raid mounts by unsyncing totally trivializes the reward imo, I didn't start an mmo to trivialize the difficulty of the raids n get ez rewards I wanna grind for that sweet loot lol. I guess that's why I really like the older relics I got all the arr and hw relics..without unsyncing a single piece of content lol. I refuse to join in on such unsyncd heresy

[@one_eyeddd473]

@@RM-eh3uq I appreciate the perspective my friend instead of just shitting on me for my take. Yea I've seen alot of my discord mates do fun stuff like that that's only possible cuz of unsync...Lotta niche ways you can do cool stuff but even that is more like people who are advanced tryn stuff like that. Yea your right though unsyncd isn't tbe core reason new players don't learn but it has more to do with it than most players think or would like to admit. I learned how to raid from the ground up doing all the fights in order min item no echo. I still follow the same formula whi h is why I'm only just starting endwalker...but I know damn well what my raid experience is and that I know mechanics n the language of raiding and its really BECAUSE I played the way I did which is NOT the norm at all...so yea the GAME really does a shit job it really comes down to how bad the player wants it...n I wanted to be flexing on deez mean streets of eorzea...so flex I did.

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

i play for fun i love FFXIV im not the greatest i play this game for lke what 9 years almost and never done 1 savage raids lol ... thats ok :)

[@tyedean2582]

Up to 50 is nothing but ease 😂 Then they have ex for starters Then savage and ultimate We did but everyone complains when normal content become to hard so there no curve lol Just know raiding is another game and do little research or fail alot in pf you will learn one way Or watch youtube and do tutorials till you get the general idea If you wanna be really good (Balance)

[@user-nk5gb4ok5f]

What’s in it for me? How does clearing Ultimate raids help me in any way? Thats what most players ask themselves. Is it worth the time? This game is linear and most of the skills in it dont transfer to any other game. What’s in it for me? A title and a bad glam? No thanks ill save the sweat for other games with actual PVP

[@WhiteGryphus]

Don't speak for "most players" when it is literally your own opinion...

[@user-nk5gb4ok5f]

@@WhiteGryphus how many players do Ultimates again? Right then.

[@WhiteGryphus]

@@user-nk5gb4ok5f You speak for "most players".... you are the one who should be putting the data of "why you don't do ultimates". hell i'd guess most people don't even play any game with actual PvP, just watch them cuz they aren't worth their "time"... or don't even play ranked in said game cuz "too sweaty" or whatever... but that's just my speculation and i know i shouldn't speak for "most players" when that's just my opinion or guess...it's just dumb cuz everyone have different reasons to not do X or Y. in case you haven't noticed the point, it's not about "how many are playing ultimates", it's about "how many are sharing your reasons".... these two are different thing... which you can ask 100 and you get many different reasons...

[@user-nk5gb4ok5f]

@@WhiteGryphus Hey cool essay amigo. A lot of words to simply say nothing. This conversation is over.

[@shawnscouten5184]

@@user-nk5gb4ok5fI mean, clearing the hardest Pve content of almost any game out there, and being able to stand out to most other players, is plenty of a reward enough on its own. I’d suspect people thinking its too hard is a far far far more common reason than rewards.

[@Jay-rn2sf]

bad video did not show feet KEKW

[@handles_are_idiotic]

Game does an absolutely horrible job at explaining how a job works fully, I started the game as a tank (still am) and if I didn't have a casual friend leveling with me i don't doubt i would've been one of those sprouts getting dragged through the mud in reddit posts for "not doing the obvious" because a lot of people in this game don't realize that it isn't really "obvious" if the game gives you no inclination of doing so, an example? mitigation between pulls, any person who has played basic MMO's, will see the cooldown lengths of their buttons and think "man, i need to save these for the boss" and we all know how that ends up, the tank at a lvl 90 dungeon doing a w2w pressing MAYBE their short mit and just telling the healer "good luck" and using a 30% while the boss casts a raid-wide. And also, rotation is something I basically only learned when i was 90, don't get me wrong i pressed my buttons, but I only found out what "gcd" even meant when i was getting ready for my first time in an extreme (I had 120+ hours at this point), and it was only after many videos and many tries that i started "getting good" but even then i was faced with the issue of actually getting into pf. It's daunting as a new player, especially because the community overall shits on it so much, don't get me wrong pf does some dumb stuff, but for a new player who doesn't know anyone who raids at that time, you're not gonna shout in limsa for a static, that's the only thing you got, so the playerbase actively discourages you from starting endgame as it is. Then there's the raid difficulty themselves which in a vaccum are good, but if you compare a savage turn (depends on the fight) to an extreme you are insane if you expect a newbie like me (who had no dea of cooldown planning, no idea what "gcd" was let alone an "opener") to go off as a tank, when people in pf also use terms like "Oldbin, BPOG, playstation, THNDPSS", to have any idea what i'm doing, what guide to watch, who should i go to for help, not knowing what the word "prog" even means because the MMO's i used to play were basically "get in fight, press button, win" and you have yourself a recipe for disaster getting ready to be called a bunch of shit, accused of a whole more stuff meanwhile you're just using the tools the game itself gave you. Don't get me wrong after you get past that initial curve like Arthars mentioned, it's a breeze, but getting over that hurdle requires either help from someone who knows shit or for you to sit through a lot of shit thrown at you for simply existing because every player in the game thinks everything is "obvious", yes the devs can do better, but the playerbase also can.

[@86Corvus]

Gw2>wow>ff

[@86Corvus]

The issue isnt dificulty because ff is braindead easy. Its that the game is fucking boring. Its barely a fatntasy setting. Its tedious and the story is trash.