Longstop Kicks The Bucket : FFXIV:ARR

Brayflox's Longstop is behind me at last. Getting there kicked up a good deal of debate and analysis in our linkshell, in various struggling groups and downstairs in our kitchen while making tea. The dungeon itself and its place in the overall narrative seem to me to exemplify a number of FFXIV's strengths and weaknesses, aspects of gameplay that I can only imagine will become more pronounced the further we progress both in levels and in the lifetime of the game.

The peculiar architectonics, wherein travel along a central narrative highway is both mandated yet perpetually interrupted, have already been covered here quite extensively. It's not an unfamiliar approach in MMO design but I can't recall any time I've ever seen it employed this zealously and intrusively.

Accepting, like it or not, that this is the framework within which we have no choice but to operate, we come to the flaws in the structure itself. Some of these appear to derive from the way the Duty Finder operates and some from the underlying rules about dungeon play.

Brace! Brace!

Dungeons in FFXIV are instanced and require a group of four to enter. Each dungeon has a level cap. It doesn't prevent higher level characters from entering but they will be down-leveled to the dungeon cap with any skills or abilities above that becoming unusable.

Entry to all dungeons is via the Duty Finder, at least as far as I can tell. Information in-game is non-existent and sources out-of-game are contradictory. You can pre-make your party but you still have to use the DF to gain access. I've seen it claimed that by pre-making a party you can avoid the DF's insistence on Tank/Healer/Two DPS. Even if that's the case, you still must have your full tally of four people.

Certain dungeons are added to your Duty Finder only when you reach a specific point in the main storyline. Whether there's another way to enter those I don't know. I somewhat doubt it. The intention seems to be that all dungeon access should be channeled through the Duty Finder, probably because FFXIV's server capacity for instances is limited. There are a lot of complaints about this at high level.

I am Dragon, hear me roar.

The Duty Finder, of course, is FFXIV's take on the Dungeon Finder first introduced to the genre by WoW and quickly adopted as standard by most MMOs. GW2, which took the brave decision of launching without one, is in the process of trialling its own version right now. They are notoriously awkward and unforgiving devices and this one is no exception.

Enough with the exposition already! On with the anecdotes.

Brayflox's Longstop is a beautifully designed hidden valley in which an adorable tribe of goblins has made its home. You arrive there in search of cheese (yes, really) only to find the poor goblins quivering in fear at the invasion of their peacefully valley by a bunch of scaly bullies. Oh, those pesky dragons!

There are four main battles, all with reptiles or amphibians: a Pelican (yes, I know. Trust me, it's a lizard), a Drake, an Eft and a Dragon. The first three are straightforward enough. The Dragon is a right old pain. IGN has a good, succinct rundown on the mechanics if anyone's interested.

Oh, you all look very determined now.

It took me several days and about a dozen attempts to get a party via the DF that was capable of killing that dragon. There's an option to join a party in progress, which I always check, and about 50% of the time I arrived with the whole dungeon bar the Dragon already cleared, as a replacement for someone who'd bailed as the party repeatedly wiped on the final battle. If only one DPS had bailed to let me in then on we'd go, inevitably to another failure because swapping in a new DPS is hardly likely to make much difference unless the new DPS is of the super-uber-awesome variety, which clearly I am not.

If, as occurred more than once, either the Healer or the Tank had left too, we'd all stand around twiddling our thumbs and whistling for a while just to appear sociable. Occasionally a Healer might pop in, take a look around, see there was no Tank and vanish. I never saw a Tank arrive to join a party in progress and the general feeling is, why would they bother? Soon enough someone would decide they'd counted off the requisite seconds to pass as adequately socialized, make a brief comment and leave. Anyone else left would follow, pronto. 

This pattern also occurred a couple of times at the start of the dungeon, where the original four members had been unable to defeat even the Pelican, who is the very first thing you have to get past even to get inside. When this happened I made my excuses very quickly and left, which turned embarrassing when the DF put me straight back into the same party after I re-queued. From that I learned to go and make a coffee between attempts.

Are you by any chance related to Tequatl? .

Only once did I join a party mid-dungeon, and it was one of the most enjoyable, if unproductive, runs I had. The Tank and one DPS had left. I didn't ask why but from what ensued I can only imagine whatever had happened had been their "fault", because the Scholar and Thaumaturge were both highly competent and pleasant company. They were also as aware as I was that we wouldn't be getting a Tank, but the Scholar suggested carrying on using my pet instead, not to finish the dungeon but at least to get some loot.

I dismissed Eggy the Ifrit and called up Carby the Squirrel-Bunny and off we went. We downed the Drake with Carby tanking like a good 'un. A nice upgrade belt dropped, on which I lost the roll. Then we cleared all the mobs on the way to two more chests in side rooms before moving on to the Hellbender fight. On the way the Thaumaturge managed to keep up to four mobs mezzed simultaneously in a bravura display of old-school crowd control. I complimented him on his mezzing and he replied "I don't know what that is, lol". I felt old.

We eventually wiped after a spirited attempt on the Hellbender. The timer was too far gone for another try (all dungeons have a 90 minute kick-out) so we thanked each other for a good group and went our seperate ways. It was the most fun I had in Brayflox and exemplifies two things that I most dislike about the dungeon system in FFXIV: you should be able to go in with any number or kind of classes from solo up to four and there should not be a timer. Other MMOs with instanced dungeons and automated finders still permit you to go your own way at your own pace if you wish and so should this one.

The Intrepid Three. Plus Carby. And a Faery. Alright, The Fearless Five!

In all my dozen or so attempts, only once did I see the entire dungeon from start to finish. It took about 45 passably entertaining minutes to get to the Dragon and another 45 distinctly unentertaining ones to fail to kill him. The sense of an hour and a half wasted was palpable. That's another problem. It's bad enough having the roadblocks in the narrative to begin with, but when each attempt requires first a queue that could last anything from a few seconds to the best part of an hour, followed by three-quarters of an hour clearing to get to the fight you couldn't do the last time, which you now get to attempt for another half an hour until someone cracks and quits, well that's not my idea of time well-spent.

It's true that some of this could be avoided, or at least mitigated, by joining a good Free Company, FFXIV's name for Guilds. Good FC's, like good guilds in any game, aren't as easy to find as all that, however, and the way the Duty Finder has been implemented suggests strongly that Square aren't expecting most of this content to be done in guild groups but in PUGs.

Eventually I did end up in a Party capable, just about, of downing the Dragon. I joined at the final fight and stood outside the purple line watching as the other three wiped. All boss fights in FFXIV dungeons put up a barrier fifteen seconds into the fight. I once managed to be on the inside with my pet locked outside. Presumably the intention is to prevent attritional bind-rushing tactics. GW2 added something similar to its dungeons a while back. Games developers tend to be intolerant of player workarounds for content that's "supposed" to be done in a certain way.

There's always time to explore.

The three of them did pretty well so I was optimistic of our chances with four and indeed we might have succeeded on the first full-party try had the Tank been able to speak, or read, English. He was a good tank. He knew the correct tactic (spin the dragon on its axis, interrupt its breath attack) and what's more he was capable of executing it efficiently. Unfortunately he also liked to use the Limit Break.

The Limit Break is an odd duck. As the Party fights a bar in the top left corner of the screen fills up. Two bars in fact. At any time any member of the party can trigger this "Limit Break" to devastating effect, an effect which differs depending on who unleashes it. For melee DPS it's single-target damage, ranged DPS sets off a large AE, Healers some kind of group heal and Tanks a big defence buff.

Since we were fine on the healing and not dying front, and there was just the one Dragon to kill, clearly use the Limit Break belonged to the cat kicking the lizard in the ribs. Only, the Tank would keep using it. We wiped, then wiped again. In both cases we would probably have won with a full direct-damage LB.

We asked the Tank nicely. We asked him with authority. He was doing a great job otherwise so we certainly didn't want to upset him. The only result was that next time he used it earlier. I'm guessing "Limit Break" and his name were the only words we were typing that he understood so he figured we must be telling him to use it and since he already was, well we must just mean use it faster.

We crossed the line. No going back now.

Finally the melee used it at half strength. before the Tank could get his hands on it and we got the job done. It was satisfying, but mostly in that "at least I never have to do that again" kind of way. Except, of course, I will, just with the scenery and the name of the mob changed. And the names of the countless players with whom I will try and fail and will never meet again.

Even now, with the game both new and highly populated, this particular dungeon is hardly fizzing with activity. Soon enough it will be difficult to find Parties through the DF willing to attempt it at all, let alone ones capable of succeeding. Apparently Yoshi-P has plans for dealing with that when it happens. That will be very welcome but I think some different design decisions could have made for a much more enjoyable experience right from the start.

• Make the Storyline functionally optional
• Add dungeons to the Duty Finder according to character level not Story.
• Allow direct entry into dungeons without use of the Duty Finder.
• Allow free composition of parties by class.
• Allow solo, duo and trio access.
• Allow the use of Companions
• Remove the kick-out timer.

Those I would see as essential. I would personally also like to see the Level Cap become a Recommended Level. These are instances. If you want to farm a level 20 dungeon on your level 50, as you can in most other MMOs, that should be your choice. You're not getting in anyone's way.

Enough with the gratitude. Make with the cheese!

It would also allow for anti-social players to progress the storyline by overlevelling. It's not the business of game developers to socialize their customers, at least not beyond the basics covered by the EULA and its codes of behavior. If people want to keep themselves to themselves and it's possible to facilitate them without inconveniencing others that has to be a desirable outcome. After all, who wants to be grouped with people who don't want to group?

And finally, I would put a cap on failure for story quests. A Three Strikes Rule. Demonstrate your incompetence three times and you should get a pop-up asking you if you want to skip this stage. All games that purport to be telling a story as one of their primary attractions should have a "turn the page" mode that prevents roadblocks.

If that makes it less of a game and more of an Interactive Entertainment, well, I'm fine with that.