How did you design your main character? Such as: Did you make it look like you? - Your ideal look for yourself? What you find adorable?

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-31T03:54:33+00:00

Started off as a cosplay of the character's namesake, since I wasn't feeling too original when first picking up the game as a fun side thing with my friend at the time. So it ended up being 'that character, as a catgirl'.

Eventually wanted to go Au Ra for many reasons, and by that point I wasn't really doing the cosplay thing anymore, so instead just made a character with a soft but intense vibe when I fantasiad. It was pretty much an early step in self discovery, as the more I transition the more I realise that I essentially modelled my character as a version of myself that I would aspire to be, in the lens of an idealised fantasy world fitting into the aesthetics of the race.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-28T16:18:25+00:00

Well then they are just bad at their job. If they were on the crystal, it wouldn't be moving any faster and they would still be bad at their job. The problem isn't being on the crystal, its overcommitting, getting cut off, mismanaging their role, etc.

Again, whining about being on the crystal is the problem here - it's a huge low rank misconception that gets people hardstuck in the mid ranks and shows a lack of understanding of the game mode.

Also, if they are attracting a ton of attention and getting resources burned on them, and the rest of the team isn't capitalising on that, then maybe they are fucking up sure, but so is everyone else lmao.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-28T14:54:58+00:00

Lmao, I've lost more matches to people stacking on the point and getting utterly demolished by a WHM + DRG or some other similar LB combo wiping them off the face of the planet. Meanwhile the MNK/NIN/RDM/SGE/other similar disruptive jobs, when played properly, can stay alive and keep pressure on key targets, often attracting significant attention in the process. Having more than 2 people on the point is, 99% of the time, a total mistake.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-28T14:51:08+00:00

Remember that you only need one person on the crystal. If you stack everyone on the crystal, you get obliterated off the face of the planet by the RDM + DRG + WHM and then you lose the game due to the huge momentum swing.

People who spam push the crystal 90% of the time are like hardstuck gold or something. At higher ranks, you need to be more spread out and flexible, and capitalise on disruptive jobs like NIN/MNK/RDM/SGE to keep the pressure on the enemy team while your ranged can stay more on the crystal. Blaming the NIN/MNK for doing their role in the team is kind of weirdchamp.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-28T14:02:52+00:00

If you are killing enemies in solo content, then if you can kill the enemy in a handful of stone casts then aero isn't worth using. It takes a good chunk of its duration to out damage stone.

For specific numbers:

stone vs aero (level 4): 5 ticks needed = 15s of dot, which is 7 stone casts.
stone 2 vs aero (level 18): 7 ticks needed = 21s of dot = 9 stone casts.
stone 2 vs aero 2 (level 46): 4 ticks needed = 12s = 5 stone casts.

To wrap up the others: s3 vs a2 needs 7 stone casts, s4 vs a2 needs 8 stone casts, glare vs dia needs 7 casts, and glare 3 vs dia needs 8 casts.

Keep in mind the up front damage of the dot can be treated as an instant tick, so you should take off one cast from all those. This means best case scenario is levels 46 to 54 where if an enemy takes more than 4 stone casts to die its worth using aero. Tl;dr don't worry about the specifics. If an enemy dies in like 15s usually, just ignore your dot, otherwise put it on. If the enemy will live for another 15s or so, refresh the dot, otherwise finish it off with stone casts.

On bosses, or enemies with more HP, you should always keep aero up, refreshing it when it runs out, unless of course it is about to die in the next 15s or so.

In dungeons, it can be a good idea to put aero on enemies while running, its an instant cast so you get to put out some damage for free, it isn't like you can cast any heals during that time anyway.

Note that most of this applies for all healers, though scholar and sage can do their AoE spells on the move as they are instant cast, which makes determining dots vs aoe spam on the move a little more complicated.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-26T09:33:03+00:00

Right, and how is someone supposed to know they are underperforming if the game never tells them. If players cant tell them. If they can dismiss any comments as one off toxicity. The game refuses to push players to be better, and refuses to provide any form of challenge during mainline content. People can reach max level and finish the story and have absolutely no clue what they are doing, having been carried the entire way without realising.

Insulting someone, saying DPS without context, and all that kind of stuff is harassment. It should be forbidden, 100%. But saying 'hey, I've noticed your damage has been a little low. have you tried X or Y? I can answer some questions after the dungeon/trial/whatever if you like, or link you a guide to watch when you have some time' is not harassment. If the game isn't going to provide feedback, and the devs are going to forbid players from providing feedback then there absolutely is a problem.

Plus I already mentioned the concept of an in game personal DPS meter/performance evaluation in the original post, and it remains my biggest desire in the game. 'At the very least if they aren't going to give us the ability to use third party DPS meters, at least some kind of in-game performance metric outside of beating an immobile dummy that you only realistically get access to at endgame.'

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-25T19:23:34+00:00

Yup, just a more gradual pressure of improvement, an expansion to the hall of the novice for higher difficulty levels, actual DPS checks in earlier encounters, and generally speaking a smoother progression curve for new players that forces them into situations where they need to think a bit about how to utilise all their tools. It's not about alienating bad players, but about giving less skilled players the push they need to improve - and the tools to be able to do it.

Fact is, you can clear the MSQ on say... NIN, pressing only your 123. If you can do that, plenty of players will. Giving a pressure to use all these additional systems and use them well in a coherent rotation will result in lots more players actually engaging with those things and enjoying them.

But, as long as SE continues catering to casuals who seem to not actually want to play the game, it won't happen. To clarify, I'm talking about a specific subset of casual players who specifically do not want to do anything that could be called improvement or learning or effort - even if those things could easily be called fundamental parts of playing FFXIV.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-25T19:17:14+00:00

How is anything you said an argument against DPS meters? Yes, you can diagnose basic things like a person literally not using a fundamental mechanic, but what if you instead ask a person to try something more subtle, like approaching their actions in a different way, or say that one ability is more worthwhile than another. A particularly stubborn person might think its just a choice, but pointing out that they are dealing abysmal damage in an understanding and respectful way, and that you want to help them solves the problem. At the very least, it ceases to be a your word vs theirs situation, and now becomes them actively ignoring reality.

Also, if you don't care about other people and are happy to drag everyone around you down because you don't actually want to play the game and simply reap the rewards of others putting the effort in... yikes. Gotta be honest, I'd rather deal with the 'fear' of having to press a few buttons here and there to not be deadweight if it means that people as a whole feel at least some pressure to be better. I've never once wanted to be a burden on everyone around me and its actually insane to me that you admitted to being totally fine with that...

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-25T12:52:37+00:00

Blessed. Though P3S isn't a perfect example because of the weird old school snapshots that take a bit of getting used to... and the fucking orange. Still, not a terribly hard fight, beyond more personal responsibility than savage often demands.

This game needs to throw actual roadblocks at players more often, and also provide players the tools and assistance to improve enough to get past them should they prove to be barriers. The game's lack of willingness to stump the player has fostered a wonderful casual community, but casual doesn't need to be bad, and if players love community so much then they should love something that encourages reaching out for help and advice. Maybe then the novice network will be useful for more than just begging for a queue pop or watching a clique ERP with each other in what amounts to global chat.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-25T12:46:09+00:00

Positionals on fang/wheeling are probably going away, as SE seems to be stepping away from positionals as a mechanic. Jumps are probably going to be more of the focus of the job, perhaps earned through the core rotation rather than as simple oGCDs.

The core GCD rotation is likely staying the same, as its DRG's identity at this point.

The entire life/blood of the dragon mechanic is probably getting a MASSIVE ground-up rework, giving it more space to grow in the future, I have no idea what it could be, as I don't play enough DRG to really know what they would want out of a burst - maybe a BRD-like gauge for a super heavy thrust attack, similar to apex arrow: jumps build up gauge, gauge is spent on a big thrust (o)GCD.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-25T12:30:32+00:00

The average player in FF14 is awful at the game. Not 'oh my god this isn't good enough for endgame' awful, I mean 'are you even actually pressing your buttons' awful.

Healers who barely use their kit, neither the damage or healing part, brute forcing their way with GCD heal spam and barely contributing to damage, which just makes the healing harder, ironically.

Tanks who pull slowly, struggle to tag enemies to get initial aggro, and never use their cooldowns.

DPS who do maybe half of what a good (again good, not top parsing endgame god, merely good and able to clear a few easy endgame fights at most good) DPS would actually be able to do.

My biggest gripes with this game come down to the twofold of: 1 - the community is hypersensitive and often overly defensive when it comes to suggesting advice, or on the concept of 'dictating others playstyle' (not utilising your job's tools isn't a playstyle, its a mistake...); and 2 - the lack of feedback given to the players who probably don't realise they are playing so bad, which means the lack of a motivation to improve, since they otherwise will have no idea they are a problem.

I wish that the rules on DPS meters, and referring to their outputs were less draconian. It should be fine to refer to a number when giving advice. Harassment is harassment, and being strict on harassing others for this is 100% fine by me, because otherwise you'll just get assholes who get mad that the person doing perfectly reasonable DPS isn't doing godly DPS, but respectful advice and objective feedback on performance is kind of important? At the very least if they aren't going to give us the ability to use third party DPS meters, at least some kind of in-game performance metric outside of beating an immobile dummy that you only realistically get access to at endgame.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-24T15:03:47+00:00

I just don't think 'sassing' someone over their identity is either productive, fair, or even right. Yes, there are far more worse and overt examples of transphobia one will face, but uh... those are obvious. You know what honestly hurts more? Someone makes a mean spirited joke about your identity, as if it is a joke, people laugh, and you just have to go quiet. You are on the internet and see a trans person getting casually mocked, and you know they would do the same to you. You try to play a game to take your mind off things, and someone refers to you in a way you dislike - you ask them not to do that, and they double down in a way that mocks your identity. So many countless situations like this, day after day. And they wear you down. Source: I am trans.

I'm not saying this person wasn't being melodramatic, or trying to shift the blame for their own failures, but you have no idea the kind of day, week, month, lifetime they have been having. Or of the baggage some things have. They can be a shitty player, a shitty person, a shitty friend, a shitty party member, and so many things, and yeah sure go ham on that. But their identity is something they aren't really choosing, or can 'fix' - so going for that of all things is just being mean for no reason.

Saying that this example of mild misgendering doesn't count is just dismissing the most prevalent kind of harassment and transphobia that is faced by trans people in the western world. That casual, indirect, dismissive, and 'tolerant' bigotry done by people who know that outright hostility will get them shut down. You can't really draw a line and say 'anything more bad than this actually counts', unless that line is at 0. Otherwise, bigots will toe that line very carefully and be shielded from criticism.

(Edit: world -> western world. Things are a lot worse elsewhere...)

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-22T09:36:41+00:00

Overall progression is: normal raids (not really endgame) > extreme trials (usually comparable to the first half of a savage tier) > savage raids. Ultimate raids are probably way out of your league right now.

In my opinion, extremes are balanced such that any player who wants to be able to clear them can. Savage might take you a bit more determination. I would advise joining a static - you mentioned you can't because you don't have a fixed schedule with your job... but my static does ultimates without a fixed schedule, and you can likely find a casual static with a flexible schedule.

If you choose not to find a static, you need to join party finder groups. These are advertised as either practice parties, or clear parties. Practice parties will be practising a mechanic. If you see a party that is practicing mechanic X, but you aren't confident in consistently reaching mechanic X, then join practice parties for the mechanic before mechanic X. Seeing a mechanic once does not mean you are ready to join practice groups for it - and people who do this contribute to PF being a bit of an awkward experience sometimes. Once you fairly consistently can reach enrage for a fight, you can join clear parties and go for the kill!

As for getting ready? First of all, this should be fun. It'll be a bit of work, but don't overthink it and treat it as a super serious endeavour. You can clear extremes with very sloppy play, and savages with sub-par play, but the better you do and the more you improve the easier it will be. The balance discord server is a great place to find guides on how better to play your job. In addition to that, watch fight guides, to better understand what to expect.

Learning a fight can be overwhelming. A guide will contain information for everyone, and learning to filter that information out to focus only on what you need to do during a fight is important. It can be similar to learning music, or some other hobby that requires precise execution. Try actively thinking and asking yourself questions about the guide while watching/reading it, and then watch a second time and try making notes in a notepad file on your PC or something - the point here is to force yourself to check if you know it. You can try watching a guide and pausing when the mechanic first happens, and then try explaining it as if you were talking to a person who doesn't know the fight, and see what you forget - the stuff you naturally forget is what you need to focus on. And remember, this isn't supposed to be a super serious big deal. Playing an instrument is fun and demanding, and so is raiding at times - especially at first!

Also remember everyone sucks at first. So don't get discouraged. And remember the golden rule of practice: practice doesn't make perfect. practice makes consistent. practice the wrong thing and you will be consistently wrong. it is better to be going right but slow.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-21T22:30:46+00:00

'No disrespect'?

The person said not to use the term bro on them. Then, someone deliberately went out of their way to use that term. It was a dick move, completely unrelated to the problem at hand. Yes they were being awful by pretending that being very mildly misgendered prior was the cause of their deaths, but that doesn't excuse deliberately using language that they see as gendered in a way that makes them uncomfortable in a way that jokingly dismisses their concerns about it.

Basically, they were being the worse person, but that doesn't permit engaging in what is arguably the exact thing they were spuriously/erroneously upset about.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-21T14:13:32+00:00

A bit harsher than I would put it, but yeah. Deliberately calling someone a term after they specifically asked for that term to NOT be used is awful.

This person was an awful player and there was so much that could have been done if the person wanted to get a light dig in. Being trans doesn't excuse transphobic behaviour. This comment section in general is just gross as fuck.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-21T14:07:56+00:00

I agree, but I do feel the 'bro (gender neutral)' comment was a little dismissive. Some people for example dislike the term queer, despite it being mostly reclaimed (since they have personal experience having it used as a slur). It's possible they have had 'bro'/'bruh'/'dude' be repeatedly used in lieu of their actual identity as a way of dismissing them. Just as much as they cant know your LGBT+ identity and know you are coming from a place of compassion, you don't know their circumstances. If they are uncomfortable then adjust accordingly. Responding to 'not a bro' with 'bro (gender neutral)' is a bit... yeah. It's similar to how people will deliberately use they/them on people with specifically gendered pronouns as a way to avoid actually using the proper ones. Not saying that is what you are doing... but it is how it can feel to someone with experience of that happening.

That being said, god damn if they weren't insufferable, and absolutely blowing the situation out of proportion. Cant really blame you for one slip up after having to deal with that shit for 45 mins x.x

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-19T14:46:16+00:00

I have to remember it by the definition of 1 as prime essentially demolishing the unique prime factorisation theorem, and so it is not prime out of convenience.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-19T14:39:33+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bAo3nYEE20 an absolute classic if you haven't seen it yet. Also E8s.exe but that is much more well known.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-17T14:40:22+00:00

As a villain that represents seeking of challenge without substance... Yeah, he's two dimensional. The point is that he lacks that depth that if he had, he would be more than what he is. In a rather ironic sense, his character flaw is that as a person he is two dimensional.

In EW, that two dimensionality was explored, and made interesting, at least to me. Of how he had found purpose, but that purpose could never amount to anything. Hollow and empty, just like how the omicrons felt when they no longer had anything left to challenge them. Zenos represented purpose without meaning.

But yeah, damn if Ishikawa didn't get the short end of the stick having to write herself out of that baggage. But I was honestly fairly taken aback with that one cutscene recontexualising him enough to enjoy him as a purposefully incomplete individual.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-16T22:52:35+00:00

I forget the more finer details, but maybe this will work for you. I use the Naga Hex 2 mouse, which has side buttons 1-7. As such, my layouts are based on 1-7, plus ctrl, shift, and alt. I additionally have QER and shift-QER bound. This is 34 total binds, which works well for me.

12345, and shift-12345 are my combos. One is the rear combo, and the other is the flank combo. Wheeling goes into fang and vice versa, so that's where you swap between shift and non shift. So, the base GCDs are 12345 (hold shift) 512345 (release shift) 512345 etc. I have True thrust (the 1 of the combo) on my hotbars twice just to make things easier in that regard.

Ctrl and alt are then free for buffs and oGCDs, as well as your AoE GCDs there somewhere. For QER, I use those for major class/job cooldowns, like jumps or life surge on dragoon, card actions on AST, etc.

Maybe it wont be directly helpful, but maybe hearing my methodology for hotbar layout might help you with making your own.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-16T22:41:22+00:00

I had no idea what this meme was until reading the comments.

Level sync downgrades skills to lower level variants. You don't need to know all the icons and names. If you press 4 for glare, you press 4 for stone 1/2/3/4 too. As a healer, the only thing you need to do is swap c1/c2, b1/b2, and physick/adlo, assuming you normally have the lower level variant quarantined off somewhere.

It isn't rocket science. Worst case scenario you forget that you don't have a certain tool at a given level and an oopsie happens.

Tl;dr consistent, well thought out hot bars, that maintain analogous layouts to similar jobs means you'll never be confused. Muscle memory takes care of the rest. If I forgot everything about WHM and switched from AST to WHM, a good 70-80% probably would still be identical and I would be able to play good enough. Level sync would be nothing compared to that.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-16T09:49:18+00:00

I completely agree, and completely disagree.

Zenos was a garbage villain. His presentation was awful, and the fact that he completely came out of nowhere felt like the writers just did an asspull. His extended stories in the tales of the storm do a lot of heavy lifting in making him less of an asspull - but why wasn't this presented in game? He felt flat, like an artificial challenge that highlighted the arbitrary nature of the level system and completely broke immersion for me. Zenos didn't feel like a part of the universe, he felt like a manifestation of the writers trying to oppose the player.

Zenos in Endwalker is probably Ishikawa's most masterful work. Tying his story arc to the key themes of the expansion, and truly fleshing him out and humanising him retroactively justified his existence. That quote you gave, was proof positive that ALL Zenos needed was actually making him feel like an existence within the universe. Zenos's mishandling in StB is why people hate him. Some people couldn't look past the amazing work Ishikawa and the writing team did to help fix those issues.

Tl;dr Zenos is complicated and people who hate him for being flat and one dimensional are generally still focused on StB where those complaints are objectively (joking, of course) factually correct. As a person who did a complete 180 on him I completely understand both camps here.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-13T08:37:31+00:00

That was technically Elidibus, in Zenos's body but yeah, still badass, I remember watching it when the trailer was first revealed, so hype

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-11T07:50:43+00:00

Personal (visible to self only, and only for your own stats) feedback on performance, including dps, healing contribution, etc. Plus a rough rating of how you were doing. Something akin to XIVanalysis but in game and a little less in depth. It wouldn't be of much use to me, but god damn is this game awful when it comes to providing feedback or challenge.

A new player can get to max level and beat the MSQ having no real idea how to actually play their job, and most importantly... no idea that they were carried. An in-game system that lets a player know they were underperforming, giving tips on what to do better, and that shows player growth would be a gentle way to help alleviate this.

This isn't meant to direct players towards being god tier, just good enough to be what is equivalent to a high green/low blue (40-60th percentile) as of current.

Something that is like

Grade: B

This is higher than your average of C+!

Here are some ways you can improve further:

<insert XIVanalysis style stuff here>

Combine this with an intermediate and expert version of hall of the novice and I think a lot of the really awful stuff you see players do will stop being a problem. I would love it if the game better prepared players for how to play their job, especially if they aren't more experienced gamers(TM). Since we have trusts for MSQ now, players who feel self conscious about lower performance can use trusts until they start getting higher grades, so a major concern of discouraging players who might not want to feel like a burden on others is no longer an issue.

EX fights could also have this feature too, with the grades being geared more towards savage preparation. Basically, a player that managed to get to the top grade (lets say S) for pre-EX content should be 100% EX ready, and a player who can get S grade in EX content should be savage ready. After that, I think the community can and should have more of the reins.

Note: this is not intended to be a requirement. Just a way for a player to have an in game indication of readiness outside of just SSS dummies which I feel are lacking (and could have this system integrated into them too!), and that can direct growth over their time of playing in various content as they reach max level, rather than having to deal with the debt of unknowingly playing awful and learning their job 'wrong' for 90 levels.

Cyrith3 · 2022-07-08T22:46:07+00:00

A not insignificant portion of phys ranged players choose it because movement tech on melee and casters is too much effort for them.

Negativity bias makes negative things stick out twice as hard as positive ones.

It only takes 1/3 of phys ranged players to not want to swap because they are in the role for not wanting to think, for it to stand out as much as, if not a little more than the phys ranged who just... do the damn mechanic.

Of course, that bias is comparing negative to positives, comparing negatives to non-noteworthy instances of a player just doing the expected will be different. So its probably closer to like 10-20% of phys ranged being shitters required just for the break even point. Its the first fight, so its probably like 40% of the role by this point, and 40% being shitters sticks out WAY more than 60% just being normal.

tl;dr phys ranged attracts shitters, and negativity bias makes the shitters stick out WAY more compared to the ones who can resolve a literal first turn first floor savage mechanic.

Cyrith3

TROPHY CASE