Please Allow/Encourage Players to Opt Into Harder Content

I've played the game for a long time and have come to accumulate some thoughts about how the player base engages with hard content as well as the hard content that they're given. I know major changes are coming in Evercold, so I thought I'd posit some ideas of my own.

The core thought, and fear, is that players will treat the third tier of raids coming in EC the same way they do Extremes: In NA, they are relegated exclusively to PF, basically. As someone who does Mentor Roulette and has friends on the JP Data Centers, I really don't like how Extremes are basically abandoned in the Duty Finder. Free Trial players can't make a PF, but want to clear Titan Extreme. Mentors queue in and then get upset that they have to help with Extremes. Can't we get some sort of push to encourage players specifically to queue into Duty Finder Extremes? Wondrous Tails has Extremes on it, but you can (and most likely will!) undersize these.

If there was side content like Wondrous Tails that required being synced but perhaps gave better rewards, I think people would run them more and thus newer players could experience older Extremes as "intended" and I genuinely believe overall player skill would increase. Roulettes that you /opt into/ (like any roulette currently!) could be made that are harder: Higher difficulty instances, "mutations (no limit break, perpetual gloom, etc)" on existing dungeons, or other variations could be implemented. Something that both increases the amount of mid-level content or even reuses the existing stuff in smart ways, while also making sure it's not easily bypassed or relegated to having to join a static or deal with a party finder.

It is easy to deal with PF (if you're allowed to! Once again, free trial players can't!), but sometimes, I just wanna queue up for a few things and wait. I'm not out here joining PF's for Heavyweight normals, after all! Extremes are easy enough with some co-operation and some uplifting to be cleared, especially if we put in the effort to raise each other up. I hope this idea makes sense, because I want to have more exciting tales from the duty finder that aren't just "I second monitor'd the normal mode content while farming for 125,000 uncapped tomes for relics".

On the note of encouraging people to try hard content, we could use roulette for PvP modes that aren't Frontlines.

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Originally Posted by LeCorbeaux

On the note of encouraging people to try hard content, we could use roulette for PvP modes that aren't Frontlines.

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Very much agree! Just even so much as to encourage a daily trip into Crystal Conflict or Rival Wings (Pleaseeeeee more maps) to inject activity (Mostly for rival wings!!!).

The only way they could do it is to make it required to try out an Extreme for MSQ. Then a lot of people would realize "oh, I actually can do this content". They are just too anxious to try in many cases.

But that could prevent certain players from being able to progress as well, because some players really are not gamers and aren't good at playing games generally, and are just doing the story or playing for social reasons. SE wants to avoid putting a wall on their progression like that, and have even mostly made the MSQ soloable with trials being a breeze.

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Originally Posted by PeekayTom

players will treat the third tier of raids coming in EC the same way they do Extremes: In NA, they are relegated exclusively to PF

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If they are Extreme difficulty, yes. If they are more like Advanced, then people may just queue at first, because Advanced was something I could queue in blind and clear within 1-2 tries on each boss and it was easy for people to carry me through things I hadn't got used to yet.

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Free Trial players can't make a PF, but want to clear Titan Extreme.

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They could make an Extreme roulette, so that it's not just Mentor Roulette supplying them. That would be ideal. In any case, it will be a long time before the Free Trial reaches level 110 and it is a free trial that is meant to have restrictions.

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If there was side content like Wondrous Tails that required being synced but perhaps gave better rewards, I think people would run them more and thus newer players could experience older Extremes as "intended"

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Agreed but the bigger potential is for them to add Faux Hollows to a random old Extreme trial for doing it Minimum Item Level / Silence Echo, to help people catch up on the sheer amount of rewards there are for it now. It genuinely would take years to get all the Faux Hollows rewards without gil, especially when they are added to over time.

This has been directly put to Yoshi-P and he wasn't completely opposed to it but doesn't want to make players feel like it's required. Yet, it works fine for Unreal, so it makes no sense why they haven't done it. It's just leaving old content to rot, despite many players having never experienced it.

Your section about wondrous tails is a neat idea. Maybe not have it be a a tile on the main board itself but as one single additional thing to aim for with the tail. It could, perhaps, give up to three stickers for completing an extreme while synced or a separate payout of some kind.

As for Evercold's new difficulty I think we'd be best considering it from a JP player base perspective. Over there they use raid finder more than party finder for their harder content. So what could this look like for a new difficulty? Would this, also, just be a raid finder thing or would they prefer it to be duty finder, assuming party finder isn't an option? If they go duty finder I would imagine they would add two roulettes: one for a current set and one for all of the previous. Additionally, knowing how difficult the content is intended to be can be valuable in this speculation.

I would support having roulettes for both extremes and for new difficulty duties with commensurate tome/other rewards.

Adding an extreme roulette would somehow get more people to cry about having nothing to do as a casual player and people who like high end content would never join something as cursed as an extreme roulette

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The only way they could do it is to make it required to try out an Extreme for MSQ. Then a lot of people would realize "oh, I actually can do this content". They are just too anxious to try in many cases.

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I'm a carry in the normal MSQ trials, so I wouldn't mind to be a carry in an Extreme. Whenever someone complains they have to scratch me from the floor 20 times in a run I'll direct them your way :D

BTT: I don't mind specific roulettes for harder content - as long as I'm not forced to do them, of course.

A lot of it is anxiety driven, but in the same vein, people are too very individual-goal-driven for things like this to work, I think.. Plus, with extreme-difficulty, even people that queue up for that specific primal, is still more often than not close to a duty lockout to clear for your average player still getting accustomed to that fight (Which is going to be a lot of players considering roulette).

If people want it, I'm in support for it, but I just don't think it's the best solution for encouraging players to opt into harder content... Some players are nerve-driven and some simply have no interest in it for a myriad of reasons.

As long as you carry while i tank the floor