what I wish this game had...Follow

One thing that I have found to help with landslide is to stop moving. Once you get into position in the safe area dont move anymore, dont wiggle, dont continue to run in the safe zone. For some reason no matter where I am in the safe area if I am moving the game thinks I am no and will hit me. Ever since I have stopped moving I have never fell off from landslide again.

Bleah... Typed out a response and it didn't post... Anyway I think preparation is key and the real fights are always going to be different from anything you do videos, text guides, or even a trial mode. But being able to practice against various moves would still be useful IMO.

I'll definately try the standing still thing, I do believe I was still moving further out of the way each time. I just never had this much trouble with lanslide in any other content.

So let me ask this a different way then... If there's no drops on a trial mode, and you both would never use it, then what would be the problem of having one? There are people I believe such a mode would benefit, you guys say HM is the trainer... But if you're trying to learn a new mechanic you're still reducing the chances of winning for people who may have been waiting on DF for up to an hour.

I said the game provides training for those fights through gradual difficulty bumps over the course of the game. From story mode to hard mode to extreme. Story mode primals are quite easy and they generally let you feel out the mechanics of the fight without being really punishing if you get something wrong. Hard modes take what you've learned, assume you've learned it, and give you something new to deal with, then extremes do it again. That seems like a pretty reasonable period of adjustment to me.

My question to you is, where would they start? Do you suggest they create a training version of every boss fight? Isn't part of the draw of an MMO learning the game and playing with others? Your suggestion seems to be that everyone should do their fight progression individually and not as a group. For me anyway, that'd be removing the interesting part of the game. Learning is fun. Beating a boss you've been struggling with is fun. Farming is boring.

Now that I'm doing the dungeons again as a DPS, I'm noticing how some of the mechanics are used as training modes for other dungeons and for the boss fights. Like you get a preview of the Demon Wall dance when you fight Isgebind in Stone Vigil.

Titan EX is it's own training mode. There are basically 4 phases to a player's Titan EX experience.

1. You're the problem. You are still getting used to the fight, and you're either getting hit by plumes, bombs, or landslides, or you're so focused on avoiding everything that you completely mess up the other stuff that you're supposed to be doing (i.e. tanking, or healing, or DPS rotation).
2. Everyone else is the problem. You can handle everything through the heart phase, and you continue to amass tons and tons of experience for those first 4 phases while your parties have 1 or more players still in phase 1.
3. You're the problem, again. You finally get past the heart phase, and flounder trying to deal with Gaolers, funky bomb drops, and double plumes.
4. Everyone else is the problem, again. You finally get enough practice with the final phase (which takes many, many runs due to players who are either at phases 1, thus making reaching the final phase rare), and hope to finally get into a group where everyone else is at this phase too.

My problem with a training mode is the expectation that people have to be perfect before they can play the content with other people. You shouldn't have to practice a game to perfection before playing the game. You should be able to practice the game by playing the game.

The problem with Titan EX is that there's such a small margin for error. Rather than adding a training mode for players to reach a point of perfection, the fight should simply be tuned to be a bit more forgiving.

Hinestly the problem lies with the mechanics of the game. One shot mechanics are whats creating this "elitist" mentality. One death can cause a wipe if a tank dies. Or a healer dies. If a dps dies maybe the mob will enrage. The game is not forgivin enough.

I can understand peoples mentality on this though. Wiping to the same mechanics over and over isnt fun, especially when you know you could do it with a competent group. Part of the problem are unskilled players trying to get carried and joining clear/farm groups when they shouldnt be. People raging in practice groups are being hypocrits.

This is my personal opinion as a hardcore player (im currently practicing t9 with my fc), but the one shot mechanics shouldnt be a thing. It should come down to how well you can play and manage your resources. Raising people costs a lot of MP but as it is its better to wipe and try to not die than raise the person and risk hittig the death timer. The MP management should be the tough part and we should be allowed to continue after someone dies. T8 is extremely strict on the dps time. We clear it with 20 seconds left. Thats easily a wipe if someone dies and doesnt get up quickly. And were talking just one person.

I like the game and am lucky to be able to do the content but it is a little rediculous that perfect is demanded. It should be about how well we can handle ourselves and our jobs.

The problem is not poor encounter design, but poor server latency. The encounters are all designed around what the reactions for an average or above average player(normal and HM respectively) would be expected to have under normal conditions. Poor server latency isn't the norm. I don't think this is one you'd be able to pin on encounter design.

If you're allegedly practicing turn 9, then your post makes no sense at all.

Wiping to the same thing over and over is called progression. If you do not like doing progression (which will always exist in MMO endgame), then stop doing it.

You would think you would have learned this lesson in turn 7 progression (arguably, one of the more brutal encounters in the SCoB) and if you didn't learn it there you certainly will learn it in turn 9.

Yes: it requires perfection until you get gear as time progresses. These fights were most likely never intended to be completed with what we have now. And if they were, it would only be the most skilled and geared players completing them. We currently cannot have any DPS die post 47% on Turn 9 or we wipe due to enrage. That is how strict it is. But what DPS are we doing it with? An i102 BLM, i100 SMN, i109 MNK, and an i91 BRD. Of course we are going to run into this strict timer.

So here's what a normal group should be doing: practicing T9 casually while farming sands for a few weeks and getting more gear. I honestly believe T9 should be accomplished at i103 (for everyone). Anyone who completes it any other way is just more skilled than the rest.

Keep in mind: T9 has only been cleared with 3 sanded weapons minimum. Never have I seen a report with a T9 clear of less than 3 sanded weapons.

However, let me tell you an interesting story. I recently switched from my main job (BLM, i102 w/ T9 pants) to another job (BRD, i91 w/ no pants). I still was able to function in T9 and we downed it as a result. Player skill does matter. If your DPS died on T8, it was a fault of their own. This fault is attributed to their skill (or lack thereof). Same goes for T9. All the mechanics in T9 make the player accountable for their own actions. This is why I like Levi Ex so much.

I'm honestly getting tired of the Titan Ex complaints or T5 complaints. A FC mate summarized it best for me, "Some people just don't have the skill required to do these fights and have trouble facing that reality." Harsh? Yes. True? Most certainly.

As for latency...if you can't deal with your own connection problems, time to invest in a VPN. Not serious enough to get a VPN? Not serious enough to download ACT or FFXIVApp and set timers and alarms for abilities and events? Not using Twintracker on T5? You probably shouldn't be doing this content then.

Edited, May 27th 2014 4:32am by HitomeOfBismarck

This. I have beaten the extremes three times now and each time has been hellish. The Extremes are actually getting worse at the moment as those who got the weapons originally have moved on and there's a whole bunch of new players trying them. I just got my third weapon over the weekend.

The Primal fights are the only thing which stress me out (and yes, I know that's nuts). I could just do with a different form of fight. Even the experienced friends I have who spammed it back when it came out, can't guarantee getting through Titan Ex easily.

I'm struggling with Levi Ex right now. I can see that it's not especially hard (it's not Titan) but I'm struggling with how to see the water spouts and where to anticipate them coming from. I see endless farming runs and have set up a learning run or two but for some reason I'm struggling to get this one right. I don't feel a sense of achievement by beating these, I feel a sense of relief and that's kinda sad.

I feel some rose-tinted, CoP-fueled sentimentality coming on. I just want a different form of challenge. I have access to T6+ but no static (the one we had, fell apart). I'm not sure when I'll get to try it but perhaps the second Coil is more fun...

But is dying a little later better than dying now? Melee DPS and tanks need TP to do their job right. And if your melee DPS is being starved of their TP on a regular basis, you might not meet the necessary DPS to break people out of gaols or to clear the heart phase.

Even if you don't need the TP, Sprint is no guarantee either. I've been banging my head against Titan EX for several weeks now, and lag was never a problem for me until last night. Even the first queue up for Titan EX didn't give me any issues. But for some reason, once we re-queued for the fight, I could not get out of Plumes to the game's satisfaction. I was constantly winding up dead well outside of the plume radius. I finally decided to try relying on Sprint (which is a habit I broke myself of when I started leveling a tank job), and that worked right up until there were two plumes in the rotation fairly close to each other, and Sprint was still on cool down.

One of my FC mates had the same problem I was having, being clear with time to spare but still getting hit. They suggested trying wtfast which has a free 30 day trial and good reviews. It solved the issue for them and I plan on testing it out this weekend.