It honestly was. But you know what? I'll break it down for you anyways. I have no intention of preserving the format since it's a gigantic wall of text so I'll just respond as I go along.
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You often hear comments from people saying they personally feel the game is fun or not fun.
Yes, just like you do in every other MMO. That is nothing new. Just look at the Blizzard WoW forums.
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After all, the less people we have subscribed to an MMORPG, the less money there is to go towards future development costs, the game will begin to die out and then it's Game Over.
Except, many MMOs have survived past their 'expiration' dates.
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Once again, this is not a post about making arguments like "well I think the game is fun because I can clear the contents" or "you just don't think it's fun because you can't clear the contents".
I do not intend to write about the end-game contents from such a one-sided standpoint.
That's good because I feel, from reading the OP, that he/she would not be able to give a credible argument for either of these points.
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A mechanics-driven battle system Quote:
The current end-game battle system in FFXIV can be summarized in one word: mechanics. In a boss fight, you often feel like you're not actually fighting the boss but rather the fight-specifc mechanics (aka “gimmicksâ€).
I'm sorry but we must be playing different games. As explained earlier, T7 is a great example of an encounter that is entirely controlled by the user.
And I'd actually argue that mechanic-driven fights are vastly superior to the counterpart which is throw a bunch of half-awake bodies at it (in large numbers) till it dies..which is what 11 and WoW were for a long time. WoW actually did have some really cool mechanics and yes: they did one-shot you and wipe your raid if you weren't careful. This is not new.
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If one person in your party fails to address the mechanic, that person will usually die instantly and/or cause the party to wipe. Of course, such a mechanic is a valid and important element in a fight, but if you must repeat this process quickly, over and over again (in 30, 45, 60 second intervals, for example), then it becomes something commonly referred to (by Japanese players) as "team rope jumping" (大縄跳ã³).
1) This does not always cause a wipe and 2) team 'rope jumping' is actually a very good strategy for designing end game content.
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Of course, failure to address the mechanics usually requires a restart, with very little chance of recovery.
Actually, it doesn't. If you are skilled enough at your job, you can recover from situations that you normally wouldn't be able to.
Deaths in T6 and T7 happen. Everything can be recovered from. Deaths in T9 happen all the time: these can all be recovered from. Doesn't matter what role you play: each can be resurrected and go back to performing their duties.
This statement alone tells me that the OP does not have a solid grasp on mechanics that currently exist in the SCoB.
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In Turn 2, Allagan Rot is (still) the faster method. However, anyone who cannot properly handle the mechanic will still die and possibly wipe the party. The mechanics has been eased to the point where even if one or two people mess up you may still be able to clear it. Nevertheless, the enrage method remains the mainstream strategy.
Responsibility for your own debuffs is a huge part of almost EVERY MMO ON THE MARKET RIGHT NOW and has been for the past 5 years. This mechanic is extremely prevalent in WoW.
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In Turn 5, if you cannot deal with the mechanics of divebombs, twister, etc., you will not be able to win no matter what your character or equipment level is, with or without Echo. In fact, if your DPS is too high, you will actually run into trouble with Conflag/Fire Balls.
1) Bullsh*t 2) if your DPS is too high, you actually revert back to a normal conflag/fireball rotation. If the OP had done any of this content with the echo buff, he/she would have known this. It appears he/she hasn't, though.
If you aren't familiar with T5, fireball and conflag can become misaligned due to when Twintania transitions phases (at 85%). Even if they're misaligned, it isn't a huge deal. It doesn't ***** you over at all. My group had to deal with this mechanic for around 2 months after we kept gearing up.
It's bullsh*t because you CAN survive a divebomb now with the HP buff, you don't NEED all the DPS alive to down a stunned target in the twister phase due to DPS increases, and EVERY job can be picked up if someone dies: it isn't a wipe.
The biggest problem people actually have in this fight seems to be the DPS check on the snakes..which is really embarassing with the echo buff. This points to a player skill problem: lack of knowledge about your own job and role and not a flaw in the fight itself.
Right now, my FC does T5 and we kill the big snake...then we have to wait around 25 seconds before Twintania comes back down to perform aetheric profusion. When I do this with PF groups, we barely get the big snake down in time. And yes: I run parses on all my groups. I study the outgoing damage of my other members. I /know/ they are ******** up their rotations and this is definitely a player skill problem.
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So despite the first Coil being nerfed to cater to the supposedly mainstream crowd, the "if you cannot deal with the mechanics, then you can't win" principle remains unchanged.
Glad we cleared up this misconception.
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In T5, there may be situations where you can recover from a poorly handled mechanic. But if you were to ask someone whether you can still win if the tanks died to a divebomb, the answer will always be "no".
Do you know what swiftcast raise/res is? Do you know how to pop big cooldowns and use cover on your healers to make up for the death?
How is your PLD even dying on the divebombs with tempered will. WARs have plenty of HP to mitigate 2 divebombs with the current echo buff assuming they aren't knocked into a wall.
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What about the Second Coil then? Now that everyone has more HP, more DPS, more healing power... do you have any chance of winning without handling all mechanics perfectly?
We just went over this. In fact, I've posted T9 videos where we've had multiple deaths but have succeeded in the end.
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In the future, even when the contents get nerfed, they don't actually get "eased". You will still have your Allagan Rot mistakes and your Voice/Shriek mistakes. For those players who dislike dealing with such mechanics, the contents will become no less annoying and no more entertaining even after a nerf.
And that is their problem and their choice. This is what endgame raiding is about: sorry to say. If we are going to follow WoW models (heroic or not), this is what you're going to have to deal with.
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I noticed this myself for the first time when I easily cleared T6 on my Scholar, despite White Mage being my main job.
I have only limited experience with my Scholar, and only cleared T5 with it a couple of times. Suddenly I'm clearing the Second Coil with it easily.
There is not much of a difference between SCH and WHM on T6 so this is completely irrelevant.
Edited, Jun 5th 2014 3:53am by HitomeOfBismarck