My honest opinions on combat and endgame in FFXIV. I cant help but feel that its gotten super streamlined and trying to appeal to hyper-casuals isn’t a good idea.
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Good video, but there's a lot of thoughts that need refining imo, as someone who loves MMO's and ESPECIALLY raiding, mostly in FF, WOW and LA (RU servers ) right now, here are my thoughts :
1. Combat is not dynamic :
Yes its not, but the issue I have with your argument is that you dont dissociate between combat, balance, and encounters. The combat is not dynamic at all due to the nature of how FF's netcode handles registering querries, that makes for a fairly unique combat which honestly looks very bad on paper, they completely counteract that with very good encounters, but alas that is something you only really get to experience in boss fights, for any sort of casual content the combat will always be bland and boring, that would be a point I'd completely agree with. However most of the issues you criticize the combat for are actually … balance issues with class identity, which actually is completely understandable (I played healers since HW so obviously I'm not happy about it).
Now the balance is a whole other debate, this will be a tug of war between making the jobs more accessible and homogenized for the casual's sake or making them more unique and less accessible, that's a Buildcraft issue that you can observe in many other games, one of the most blatant issues of good buildcraft/class identity but very poor community understanding would be GW2, which is one of my favorite games but the disconnect between designers trying to make the classes more unique and personal versus the balance devs completely losing it, you end up with some classes that have less than 2% class distribution (ele for example ), and others with more than 33% (guardian elite specs for example ). Now in a perfect world it would be perfect of course, but we both know it never is, I'm not defending SE on that point, i'd love more class identity as well, I'm just telling you its not as "easy" as you think, and there's a huge disconnect between us "endgame" players, and the casuals that dont even know what twitch is (Which believe it or not, represent the majority of most MMO's playerbase, they're the target audience and rightfully so)
2. Arenas are all squares or circles
Very very delicate subject, now again this is a two point argument, I dont know if you're criticizing the fact that the arenas are squares or circles OR you just want more "set design" to look at on your journey, its two fundamentally different things, hopefully we've got both in WoW so let me show you some example from the last raid tier, basically from a month or two ago ( https://imgur.com/a/NQgibjC ). Yep everything is fundamentally either a square or circle (Except very very few fights like sylvanas last year, modern wow is nowhere near ICC design, it's much more refined ) the main difference is the hallways you traverse on your way in, and that is something that you only enjoy on your first clear, as soon as prog is done, it becomes a hassle, we spent days on Nathria just trying to find strats to skip the trash with rogues and going through it faster, I'm not sure if its fundamentally a good format, but one thing that is for sure true is that its memorable, but again, 40 man raids are also more memorable, in fact one of the most memorable WoW raids is Molten Core, does that mean MC is what raid designers should strive for ? If you've ever done it again lately you'd know the answer, hell no.
I dont know what a correct format is, I'm just letting you know the grass is always greener outside, in fact one of the things Limit and Echo liked the most about FFXIV when trying out the raids lately is that you had no useless hallways to go through and no trash mobs to waste your time, that was their reccuring theme in terms of things they'd want in WoW, seems like the grass is always greener outside afterall. Personally I like Lost ark's format the most, they're basically the same as FF's trials BUT with more interaction with the "terrain", which some fights like E4S/E3S did very well in FF, but needs to be a consistent thing in all future raids. I dont know how realistic (Or not) it is but that's my sentiment !
3. Gearing is boring
Very true sadly, I dont like how savage locks you out for rolls as opposed to normal as well, gearing is one of the easiest and safest ways to introduce buildcraft as long as its not overdone (Hello GW2's 40+ stat distributions + runes), WoW and Lost Ark both have great gearing in terms of how rewarding it feels, but they also both suffer from many other gearing problems (Gear gating content, too much RNG, too much scaling). So its an issue that is also very hard to tackle. There's one thing that is pretty much repeated in all of my thoughts, and that will be the TLDR of this
TLDR : Every single design choice has pros and cons, yes, even the things we hate end up benefitting us in other ways, if a perfect system existed we would all be pointing it out as solutions, but alas it doesnt. Hope you dont take my messages as a "defense" of wathever I'm arguing with, because it doesnt, I'm not playing devil's advocate but moreso saying my opinion as someone who loves raiding, and mainly just raiding, in any MMO I can play, and I really really really love FFXIV's raiding format (One of the only popular MMO's I didnt raid in yet is Destiny 2, and i'll make that happen soon !) If you love end game content/raiding, i'd suggest you take some breaks and play other raiding games, that's really some of the best fun you can have, and it will also give you insights on some issues/solutions you might have !
I may have crazy idea. But hear me out. SE should make 4 content savage with actions and trait from PvP. I always think rathalos ex have potential but badly implemented because PvE actions and trait is not compatible with monster hunter style
I agree with you on everything ive been saying this since shadowbringer.
Although the job complexity, not just the tanks and dps, healers too man.
And i have to disagree with the change on alliance and savage raid.
I think you messed up the suggestion abit.
It makes no sense to turn Alliance raid into savage raid and then turn it to 8 man when alliance raid need 24 people.
Do you mean the order of release content where they should swap the content release schedule around and randomize difficulty more?
That would make sense.
And yes, I wish they have more creative dynamic fight. They did in coil and A2S, but ppl complained about them so….
You're right but some of this game's fans (more like fanatics) will deny it no matter how true.
Only a small portion of players actually do real endgame content and shit I’ve quit the game like at least once or twice an expansion I wouldn’t mind being the trash pulls back from the coils I just know a lot of people complained about that and that’s why they are gone which led us to the squares and circle platforms and I would say ex trails are the mid core difficulty in the game they are usually easily done by the hardcore players
I dont think adding trash mobs in savage is the right call, at prog is kinda painful. You criticize arenas as always circles or squares but P2S (current tier) addes some twists to it. We have Extreme trials as pre savage difficult. About job homogenization i agree 100%.
Gearing is very boring. Theres no real variation within the actual jobs themselves, essentially all drks or rdms at 90 with full 590 gear will have identical pieces of gear. There's very very little variation in terms of how your character performs and synergizes their gear with abilities. Additionally because there's really no variation of gear, it makes end game for people who don't want to raid savage/extreme/ultimates very underwhelming. The tomestones in the game also provide such an easy alternative for end game gear that grinding their beautiful dungeons is pointless for anything other than said tomestones essentially making the gear in max level dungeons useless for anything other than glamour.
I think introducing some kind of relic or power that could slightly alter abilities within the specified job would be cool. For example, drg could have a relic that could augment their jumps or lengthen their buffs or debuffs. Rdm could find themselves choosing between an increase in their melee abilities or allowing their spell casting to gain benefits, the player chooses depending on their preference.
I understand in grand scheme of ffxiv, this could never happen because the devs would have too much trouble balancing something like this. I just feels nice stating my thoughts and greivances 😁
True, especially about the immersion of raids and the lack of midcore content.
I agree with you the playerbsse has been asking for a mythic+ system for years now
Though I see many of your points, and agree with some of them, you have it wrong where mid tier is concerned: those are covered by ex trials. Though trickey they are doable and a propet step-up from normal raids: difficult enough to keep you on your toes, easy enough to beat them before giving up out of frustration. Also alli raids would fall into that category: overwhelming at first, but after a few tries you see the pattern and adjust accordingly. Then the raids themselves: the first two bosses of each wing are very accessible (trickey but nothing you can't figuere out in time – unless you want to beat them all within a week). Its only the 3rd and 4th boss that really test your mettle.
Also, please no trash in raids. I dont want to waste my six hours per week raid time with fighting waves of mobs that drop nothing just because its supposed to be "immersive".
As for shapes of boss fight arenas… well, when it comes down to it its (almost) always a circle or square, no matter the fancy decor 😀
Do people quit quietly? Maybe. But they always (mostly? in general?) return next patch. Thats not to say thats a good thing, after all, many issues people might have remain undisclosed and the game cant improve – we have that problem at the moment with 3rd party tools: as long as we had them, the game didnt need to improve. Now people want these changes, and fast. – On the other hand, some time off if there is nothing else for you to do… maybe step back for a time and return with fresh eyes? Sometimes the things we criticise arent as bad if we shift perspective.
The whole game feels bland. There is tons of content but in the end you know what you do is not gonna have an impact in the medium and definetly long run. If you don't like collecting mount and glam, learning choreographies there is little in this game.
1. This game will never really be dynamic in that sense. It never was (with the exception of jobs with rng), and it never will be, reason being it's core to the game, it's a design principle. the fun of endgame raiding to me and everyone I know is custom-tailoring your rotation to eek out damage, and the mechanics themselves. With that being said, from someone who has raided savage on every role, homogenization is something that has specifically affected tanks very harshly, with Healers in the middle, and dps feeling it the least. this is 100% because dps have the least responsibility in casual content, and I agree that their fear to give tanks and healers unique challenges is problematic. That being said, I don't want those old systems back. I want them to add mechanics to these jobs which are better than emnity management, better than the mechanics they removed for more reasons than just simplifying the game. Personally, I think mitigation should become much more nuanced. Right now tanks usually either kitchen sink or invuln, and the addition of short CD absolutely OP mitigations damaged the mechanic even further. IMO I think mitigation should become significantly more powerful, with more varied CD's on each mitigation, efforts made to make each mitigation a unique ability, and lastly be unable to stack (you can have both the buffs, but only the highest priority will be active). That's just me personally though, there's a lot of ways to add to a design, and they just need to do something.
RIP kaiten, but button bloat is an actual issue in this game, the solution for samurai's just was to merge shoha and shoha 2 imo, not remove a fun ability.
2. it's worth noting that there are people like myself who simply do not care about the scenery in a raid. I am the polar opposite of your experience; I remember the coolest mechanics and the most satisfying sequences to do correctly, and maybe the music (which I will forever be sad we don't get more, even if every savage had a unique theme). I also love the story, played the msq through fully twice, pay attention to even side quest dialogue and every scrap of lore I can find, and love wandering in the zones of the game. I just personally prefer those two things separated because I tend to get laser focused on things.
3. on midcore content, 100% agree.
4. I would loathe gear that effects gameplay. I know I am very much a minority on this aspect but I would actually prefer that gear being 100% cosmetic and that jobs be 100% balanced by level at endgame, so that content stays as difficult as day 1, much like ultimate's emulate. The different gear skills and everything in WoW is actually the primary reason I don't play it, even if I were to find a private server/modded client that fixed every issue with the game and the undue levels of grinding. The one and only thing I care about is overcoming unique and fun challenges, and the only thing I need in return is a cool thing to show off that I did it.
On the second and fourth point, I specifically wanted to bring this up to share differing preferences more than anything, rather than 'disagree' with the video.
lastly, and I'm just throwing this out there in general, Try DSR. I think everyone should, even if you don't clear, even if you don't get past phase 1. Progging it now, it is the most fun I have had in this game in 6 years, having cleared every ShB tier and this EW tier, raided on almost every job in the game, and done a good portion of endgame content period. It also fundamentally changed how I view this game.
Oh well, bye, LOL
I agree with what you say besides switching alliance Raids and normal Raids. This would basicly force you to manually recruit 20+ players which killed the mythic raiding scene in WoW. Instead they should make cool normal raid arenas with a purpose.
Also the square or circle form of the arena is supposed to help you play mechanics. For example in P3s you place the darkened fire on a corner square and the two squares next to the tornado help you position yourself for the knock back. Without those geometric helpers, savage would be too hard. Imagine having to do such precise mechanics based on estimation. That's rough.
Stop playing it than easy even playing same every day and every year make u bored…
I can't stan a game after a month how u mmo guys play same thing for over and over it's makes me sick even thinking of it 🤢
Somthing Like Mythic Plus should be cool, and pls stop saying " no. it make toxic blablabla ".. If you want to join them you do cause you want to be competitive, instead you can keep doing regular dngs etc
Seems like the fun well has run dry for you. It happens. You had a good run.
That being said, I would also like more mid content for endgame. I've no interest in savages or extremes, but want something more than dungeons.
Hopefully the new dungeons, with selectable skill level, will do the trick.
Stop complaining!!!! You do harm to the game!
Beware the attack of the mindless drooling idiot fanboys!
Any healthy criticism of the game is a direct personal attack on them.
I don't know, sounds like you played tank too much. I see your point tho, the main problem is that most of the old jobs' uniqueness were designed in extremely clunky, unintuitive, and frankly unfun ways. The mechanics didn't make anything fun imo, it just made everything more complex, and therefore more engaging. It also participated in making jobs more unique.
I think a lot of the OG DRK players miss Dark Arts, I certainly don't. Call me bad, but when I got that ability and until I hit max level in HW, I could not figure out what it was actually good for or in which case I would ever use it, so I just never used it.
Totally agree on arenas, they could use some work. I think they like to put spectacle in alliance raids because that's what matters to a casual player, and focus a lot more on mechanics in a savage fight, which matters a lot more to more hardcore players. So I kinda get why it works that way too. Fighting on the palm of a giant is cool, but it's gimmicky at best. Gimmicks are best served in easy, short fights like alliance raids.
Also Kaiten was an objectively boring ability, it just felt good to press. It doesn't matter that they removed it, what matters is they didn't replace it with anything else. Kaiten itself didn't do anything for your gameplay, you never had to think about when to press it, or even about keeping enough Kenki for it since you're swimming in it. but the absence of Kaiten leaves you with loads of "useless" Kenki that you need to weave every other GCD.
Basically I half agree and half disagree with everything you're saying. Take a break from the game, maybe play another class.
Yeah I get bored with certain classes. And I agree they are starting to blur together
Tanking needs a rework, every tank plays almost identical, I've dropped it all together recently which is painful as I love my warrior, moving onto dps as they do play different at least
I mained whm since 2.0. after 6.0 I quit. ITS SO BORING. I have been playing support in guild wars 2 raids over the past two months and it's so much better. If FFXIV didn't have the ff name it would be dead on arrival