the normal content is too easy

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The 24-mans aren’t nearly as difficult as the likes of Weeping City, Dun Scaith, and Orbonne on release. Extremes are so easy they can be done with one or no healers at release, which the latter was a completely new phenomenon. They’re definitely not the same difficulty as the HW ones. Or even some of the SB Extremes. And Savage itself is not as difficult as it used to be. And I don’t mean the overtuned mess that was Gordias, but Midas. Or even some of the Creator fights (Cruise Chaser). There are a handful of redeeming fights after HW (O3S, O4S door boss, O11S, E8S, E12S door boss), and some still that are fun enough to excuse their easier difficulty.

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I, too, like to compare the first tier of content to late expansion tiers and pretend it's a valid comparison.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

I, too, like to compare the first tier of content to late expansion tiers and pretend it's a valid comparison.

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What are you even talking about? Did you read what I wrote, or did you just opt to spout off nonsense? It’s a fact that a lot of older content was a lot more challenging on release when you compare it to what we have now.

Anyone who says that Aglaia or Hydaelyn EX or Zodiark EX or P1S are harder than some of the content I mentioned clearly never did the old fights when they were relevant.

Rabanastre was more challenging than Aglaia was, since you’re so insistent on a “first tier only” comparison. Rabanastre was more challenging than Copied Factory. Weeping City was harder than Puppet’s Bunker. I’d say it was also harder than Ridorana. Dun Scaith and Orbonne are relatively the same difficulty, but they both torch Tower at Paradigm’s Breach. I have no expectations that the second and third tiers of The Twelve will live up to the absolute insanity that was Orbonne when it was relevant. Considering how much people complained about the latter.

Cruise Chaser (A11S) and Omega (O11S) were most certainly harder than Daddy Thancred (E11S). Daddy’s Thancred’s most complicated phase is the last one and a decent party skipped 2/3 of his cycles at the end.

As crappy as Bismarck EX was, you weren’t seeing it done with NO HEALERS during its relevant patch. Same with Ravana EX. Lakshmi could be done with one healer, but not with none. Neither could Susano. People didn’t start dropping the healer until the end of the expansion. No other EX have lived up to Thordan EX or Sephirot EX, relevant patch equivalent or later. For the latter, you’re speaking nonsense if you try to say Byakko EX or Ruby Weapon EX were anywhere close to the difficulty of Sephirot. And I doubt any x.2 EX will ever beat him. Shinryu and Hades EX were good fights, but Thordan wipes the floor with both of them. And we don’t talk about the massive disappointment that is Endsinger EX.

Midas in and of itself was harder than Sigmascape and Eden’s Verse combined. I enjoyed God Kefka (O8S) and Shiva (E8S) as fights, but it’s laughable to say they hold a torch to Brute Justice (A8S). Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots (A6S) were nerfed while relevant; meanwhile, Chadarnook (O6S) was a literal striking dummy. Ifrit/Garuda and their love child boss (E6S) were harder than Chadarnook, but that’s a low bar to beat.

But tell me you never did the fights I listed when they were relevant without telling me you never did them when they were relevant.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

What are you even talking about? Did you read what I wrote, or did you just opt to spout off nonsense? It’s a fact that a lot of older content was a lot more challenging on release when you compare it to what we have now.

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You were comparing Aglaia (the first raid in its series) to the later raids of other series. Instead of comparing it to Dun Scaith, for example, the equivalent comparison would be Void Ark, which is absurdly easier compared to Dun Scaith.

Your response here then sends the entire rest of its time talking about EX and Savage content, when the thread itself is specifically about normal content.

It seems like a massive passive-aggressive rant to detract from the reality that a good point was made refuting your original post.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

You were comparing Aglaia (the first raid in its series) to the later raids of other series. Instead of comparing it to Dun Scaith, for example, the equivalent comparison would be Void Ark, which is absurdly easier compared to Dun Scaith.

Your response here then sends the entire rest of its time talking about EX and Savage content, when the thread itself is specifically about normal content.

It seems like a massive passive-aggressive rant to detract from the reality that a good point was made refuting your original post.

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This response seems like an attempt at a witty response that also didn’t actually read my original post. I stated 24-mans in general—not Aglaia specifically. If you want a specific equivalent comparison, I already supplied them in the response you called a *checks notes* “massive passive-aggressive rant”. For Void Ark specifically, considering the developers themselves said they made the raid too easy, I think that says all that needs to be said there. I doubt part 2 in this series will live up to Weeping City on content. Ridorana didn’t. Puppet’s Bunker certainly didn’t. Same for part 3.

As for the rest: if the Extreme and Savage content is getting progressively easier, what do you think normal content is doing? Also getting progressively easier. Dungeons are about as boring as they’ve always been, but EW didn’t even have that one that stood out as spicy the way HW (The Vault), SB (Bardam’s Mettle), or even ShB (Holminster Switch) did. Tower of Zot has one spicy pull before the last boss. That’s about it.

But keep trying to act like normal content is somehow more challenging than it was in the past. Or even in general.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

You were comparing Aglaia (the first raid in its series) to the later raids of other series. Instead of comparing it to Dun Scaith, for example, the equivalent comparison would be Void Ark, which is absurdly easier compared to Dun Scaith.

Your response here then sends the entire rest of its time talking about EX and Savage content, when the thread itself is specifically about normal content.

It seems like a massive passive-aggressive rant to detract from the reality that a good point was made refuting your original post.

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It may have been a decent rebuttal... if the person HyoMin originally quoted wasn't talking about high-end content. Her response is directly in regards to endgame content equally becoming watered down so players have even less to partake it with some actual teeth.

As for Aglaia. The whole "first raid" argument doesn't work when you consider alliance raids have never been balanced like that. Rabanastre, for example, was noticeably harder than anything Nier offered at release despite it being the first raid of the series. Weeping City eclipsed World of Darkness, Ridorana, Nier and even matched up to Dun Scaith yet was only the second raid. Void Ark is the one exception which even the devs themselves admitted was significantly undertuned. 24 mans haven't followed a set difficulty pattern for the most part.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Ifrit/Garuda and their love child boss (E6S) were harder than Chadarnook, but that’s a low bar to beat.

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I'd also posit that an unfortunate amount of E6S' own difficulty may have come from the arena design; I know a lot of people who didn't know they had partial colorblindness until they discovered they literally could not see the wind nails against the arena floor.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

What are you even talking about? Did you read what I wrote, or did you just opt to spout off nonsense? It’s a fact that a lot of older content was a lot more challenging on release when you compare it to what we have now.

Anyone who says that Aglaia or Hydaelyn EX or Zodiark EX or P1S are harder than some of the content I mentioned clearly never did the old fights when they were relevant.

Rabanastre was more challenging than Aglaia was, since you’re so insistent on a “first tier only” comparison. Rabanastre was more challenging than Copied Factory. Weeping City was harder than Puppet’s Bunker. I’d say it was also harder than Ridorana. Dun Scaith and Orbonne are relatively the same difficulty, but they both torch Tower at Paradigm’s Breach. I have no expectations that the second and third tiers of The Twelve will live up to the absolute insanity that was Orbonne when it was relevant. Considering how much people complained about the latter.

Cruise Chaser (A11S) and Omega (O11S) were most certainly harder than Daddy Thancred (E11S). Daddy’s Thancred’s most complicated phase is the last one and a decent party skipped 2/3 of his cycles at the end.

As crappy as Bismarck EX was, you weren’t seeing it done with NO HEALERS during its relevant patch. Same with Ravana EX. Lakshmi could be done with one healer, but not with none. Neither could Susano. People didn’t start dropping the healer until the end of the expansion. No other EX have lived up to Thordan EX or Sephirot EX, relevant patch equivalent or later. For the latter, you’re speaking nonsense if you try to say Byakko EX or Ruby Weapon EX were anywhere close to the difficulty of Sephirot. And I doubt any x.2 EX will ever beat him. Shinryu and Hades EX were good fights, but Thordan wipes the floor with both of them. And we don’t talk about the massive disappointment that is Endsinger EX.

Midas in and of itself was harder than Sigmascape and Eden’s Verse combined. I enjoyed God Kefka (O8S) and Shiva (E8S) as fights, but it’s laughable to say they hold a torch to Brute Justice (A8S). Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots (A6S) were nerfed while relevant; meanwhile, Chadarnook (O6S) was a literal striking dummy. Ifrit/Garuda and their love child boss (E6S) were harder than Chadarnook, but that’s a low bar to beat.

But tell me you never did the fights I listed when they were relevant without telling me you never did them when they were relevant.

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This is 100% accurate!

Older Content was more Challenging and also more fun. It was not unfair it just needed some practice and effort for most of the players.
But sadly those hardcore Casuals don't want to put a little bit of effort in something and are requesting nerfs instead.
This Mindset will ruin the Game some day. It already started.

FFXIV should be at his Peak right now, but it is not nearly as good as it was in ARR and HW. Even SB was better.

Edit: I want to add A3S, A4S, A6S and also A8S to the list. ;)
Those were awesome and challenging Raids and a lot of Statics broke here, but it was so good when you cleared them.
Right now, Savage is nothing.

if you don't like normal do hard and leave the first alone for the normal players it keeps us busy

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Originally Posted by george357

if you don't like normal do hard and leave the first alone for the normal players it keeps us busy

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That’s half the problem there isn’t enough hard content, we get what 4 savage fights every second patch and maybe an ultimate once an expansion, plus savage gets easier and easier every expansion to the point current ultimate is basically old savage

Plus there is a difference between “the third alliance raid should be like old orbonne” and “make the MSQ force you to clear savage to progress”

Normal fights are fine difficulty wise, not everyone is as good as the combat as we might be so just let them get through the story and be on your way.

My only gripe with the difficulty however is the item level sync on the last bosses of each expansion. These should be heavily restricted in order to give the true experience of the fight. A lot of new people don't have the luxury of playing with 8 premade and ilvl sync on and it's always a shame as when as a mentor I'm going into these fights that were so good when I done them back in the day just to see them melt and ruin the entire buildup of the story.

The last boss of HW and SB are especially bad as they were both huge spectacles that just come off as boring when you beat them in less than 2mins.

Most people beating the last boss of HW are capped at 270ilvl when storywise you would only be 150 after main scenario. That's 120ilvl extra per player. Far too much.

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Originally Posted by Asako

Normal fights are fine difficulty wise, not everyone is as good as the combat as we might be so just let them get through the story and be on your way.

My only gripe with the difficulty however is the item level sync on the last bosses of each expansion. These should be heavily restricted in order to give the true experience of the fight. A lot of new people don't have the luxury of playing with 8 premade and ilvl sync on and it's always a shame as when as a mentor I'm going into these fights that were so good when I done them back in the day just to see them melt and ruin the entire buildup of the story.

The last boss of HW and SB are especially bad as they were both huge spectacles that just come off as boring when you beat them in less than 2mins.

Most people beating the last boss of HW are capped at 270ilvl when storywise you would only be 150 after main scenario. That's 120ilvl extra per player. Far too much.

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Do thordran at MINE, he is still a complete joke

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Originally Posted by Asako

Normal fights are fine difficulty wise, not everyone is as good as the combat as we might be so just let them get through the story and be on your way.

My only gripe with the difficulty however is the item level sync on the last bosses of each expansion. These should be heavily restricted in order to give the true experience of the fight. A lot of new people don't have the luxury of playing with 8 premade and ilvl sync on and it's always a shame as when as a mentor I'm going into these fights that were so good when I done them back in the day just to see them melt and ruin the entire buildup of the story.

The last boss of HW and SB are especially bad as they were both huge spectacles that just come off as boring when you beat them in less than 2mins.

Most people beating the last boss of HW are capped at 270ilvl when storywise you would only be 150 after main scenario. That's 120ilvl extra per player. Far too much.

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agree with this

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Cruise Chaser (A11S) and Omega (O11S) were most certainly harder than Daddy Thancred (E11S). Daddy’s Thancred’s most complicated phase is the last one and a decent party skipped 2/3 of his cycles at the end.

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I'll give you O11s since that fight had an actual dps check, but considering how ridiculously hard you could skip entire phases of it, A11s was an absolute joke compared to E11s. Non-existent dps check even on week 1 (Even Angered's W1st clear had like, 5-7 deaths, something that would never fly in week 1 E11s), and the hardest part of the fight was the spread out hawk blaster & limit cut right at the end, with everything else being a complete snoozefest. My week 1 static of the time absolutely demolished A11s due to how unpunishing half the mechanics in that fight are, whereas at least in E11s, almost every mistake is punished harshly with instant death, with a much more balanced dps check that made those deaths actually relevant. I'd legitimately put A10s as harder than A11s, but that's my opinion from my own world prog experience.

Even besides all that, whether newer content is harder or not literally just comes down to who's in charge of the fight design. E8s, due to its incredibly high dps check and mechanics that were extremely punishing for any failure with harsh dps downs or instant kills, blew every single capstone boss out of the water since Midas in terms of difficulty, and still remains as the hardest savage fight since Midas for its notoriety.

Honestly though, I never understand people pointing to Midas & Gordias and saying how current day savage needs to be more like them difficulty wise. Even with my own experience as week 2(pre-tome weapons)/world 6th A3s & World 4th A8s, those tier's fight designs were more tedious than difficult where everything was so needlessly punishing (Oh someone died in an intermission? Permanent 20% damage up meaning you might as well wall it due to zero chance for recovery). A3s was pretty much the only fight from either tier I'd want current savage to be anything like, since it was extremely well done mechanic wise. Even the devs admitted they were massive mistakes. Keep that level of tediousness to the occasional ultimate fight and make things more like Eden's Verse; a fair challenge without tediousness.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

As crappy as Bismarck EX was, you weren’t seeing it done with NO HEALERS during its relevant patch.

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To be fair, that has nothing to do with the difficulty of the encounter and all about the massive difference of power in toolkits available at each point in time, coupled with the fight design of the actual fight. Bismark, even back at launch, was 100,000% easier than either of the EX's in EW, mechanic wise. The literal hardest mechanic in bismark is 'stand middle during wind weather/spread out during lightning'. The only reason Zodiark can be no-healed is due to fight design being composited of mostly avoidable damage, combined with insane amounts of self healing tools dps & tanks have these days.

Back then, WAR was pretty much the only non-healer job that could do any decent amount of self healing. Clemency costed 2121/5211 MP (~40% of MP gauge), making it extremely slow to use when PLD's MP generation was ultra slow. Compared to EW where Clemency now costs only 2000MP and can be chucked left and right like candy. If Bismark was released today as the exact same fight, I have no doubts it would be no heal'd relatively easily on patch, on the primary notion that the fight is 90% tank damage, and Equil/Bloodwhetting/Clemency laugh at such fight design.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

I'll give you O11s since that fight had an actual dps check, but considering how ridiculously hard you could skip entire phases of it, A11s was an absolute joke compared to E11s. Non-existent dps check even on week 1 (Even Angered's W1st clear had like, 5-7 deaths, something that would never fly in week 1 E11s), and the hardest part of the fight was the spread out hawk blaster & limit cut right at the end, with everything else being a complete snoozefest. My week 1 static of the time absolutely demolished A11s due to how unpunishing half the mechanics in that fight are, whereas at least in E11s, almost every mistake is punished harshly with instant death, with a much more balanced dps check that made those deaths actually relevant. I'd legitimately put A10s as harder than A11s, but that's my opinion from my own world prog experience.

Even besides all that, whether newer content is harder or not literally just comes down to who's in charge of the fight design. E8s, due to its incredibly high dps check and mechanics that were extremely punishing for any failure with harsh dps downs or instant kills, blew every single capstone boss out of the water since Midas in terms of difficulty, and still remains as the hardest savage fight since Midas for its notoriety.

Honestly though, I never understand people pointing to Midas & Gordias and saying how current day savage needs to be more like them difficulty wise. Even with my own experience as week 2/world 6th A3s & World 4th A8s, those tier's fight designs were more tedious than difficult where everything was so needlessly punishing (Oh someone died in an intermission? Permanent 20% damage up meaning you might as well wall it). Even the devs admitted they were massive mistakes. Keep that level of tediousness to the occasional ultimate fight and make things more like Eden's Verse; a fair challenge without tediousness..

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To be fair edens verse was only good because of shiva, ramuh was kinda tolerable though a fight that had literally zero healing and a lot of his mechanics were solvable using dumb strats (not that that is necessarily the designers fault but like fury’s 14 should not have been able to be solved by just running in a circle till it was over) , E6 was E6, E7 was an easy extreme masquerading as a third floor savage and even shiva barely had any healing she just punished you really really hard for mistakes

The best tier we have had since Midas is probably edens promise and even that has 10 and 11 as more lower points and still doesn’t challenge healers (except doorboss)

One of the reasons older content was more challenging, especially for healers, is that we also had far fewer abilities than the ones we had needed to be used well. With healers having so many incredibly strong tools at their disposal it's hard to feel any kind of danger in most content unless you're really eating avoidable damage, and most of the time they turn that into just an instant death anyway. It has also increased the amount of DPS healers can offer to groups since most of their tools are now oGCD, where in the past they had to dip into the GCD heals more often. So I feel it's not just a case of content not being designed to be as challenging, but also the tools we have are too strong for what we are doing.

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Originally Posted by ADarklore

Although, having played MMOs for years, it wouldn't take long before you'd have players screaming that even the middle difficulty was too easy.

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I think this is a key part that many people ignore or overlook. Right now people above the current bar are calling for the bar to be raised. Okay, say SE does that. Now people who were okay at the previous bar will not be able to clear and will quit the game. And players will be happy for a bit. But eventually, that will become the current bar and those above that bar will call for the bar to be raised. So SE raises it again, more people get frustrated and quit the game and those who can clear the current bar are happy. Then the next set above that bar...etc. It would never end. SE is doing the right thing by sticking to their guns that the main story that everyone is required to progress through is easy and appeals to a wide player base.

Some of the conflict comes because those above the bar players who do the harder optional content are in conflict with SE on this idea because they think the MSQ needs to prepare others for that harder optional content. But there are many players like Tizane up there (if you don't mind me using you as an example) who are interested in only the story. That's all the MSQ really needs to do, just tell a story. There can be arguments for more in-between content as that preparatory step to optional content and those are fair. But SE doesn't intend for the MSQ to prepare anyone for harder content. The MSQ is its own experience. I think they've been cementing this point more by making the MSQ soloable. Before with required group instances the lines blurred a bit. Now it's much solidly "This is the base JRPG story that everyone can play. And these are the optional MMO trimmings players can choose to do that may require more from the player."

Now, they have been making some optional content more accessible. I think the jury's still out on that one. I get that they want people to do that content, but I think they're trying to entice players who just don't aren't interested and it's been at the expense of those who do. But it's possible they have some data that says its a worthwhile endeavor. I think we'll have to wait and see and give feedback where we can. Both from those who enjoy that optional content and want it to be a challenge, but also from those who don't telling SE it's just not their type of content so don't try to design it to their standards.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Why is there only normal, easy and very easy for solo instances for example? Why not trusts but you can min ilvl? It's either pathetically easy or find a 8 people. As someone who works shifts and loves an actual challenge XIV doesn't really appeal atm.

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I could definitely see an argument for this and I wonder if they're test-driving more variable difficulty options with the Variant and Criterion dungeons. It felt a lot to me like they were test driving Duty Support with the Squadron. So they may be trying it in optional content first before seeing if they can integrate it into MSQ. And to gauge reception. Optional difficulty sliders for solo in the MSQ is a great idea. They would need to consider if it could work with random matching, if the slider was automatically set or such. Since having it go on each person's personal difficulty slider might make it difficult to fill the queue.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Do thordran at MINE, he is still a complete joke

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Aye even at Ilvl150 he's still easy. However the difference is for less skilled or new players the boss doesn't melt instantly. Takes the sting out of the story when the big bad they have been building up is a complete faceroll.

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Originally Posted by Asako

Aye even at Ilvl150 he's still easy. However the difference is for less skilled or new players the boss doesn't melt instantly. Takes the sting out of the story when the big bad they have been building up is a complete faceroll.

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No even at ilvl150 you can stand in every AOE he has an you will suffer no repercussions for it, the fight is just too easy it’s got nothing to do with ilvl scaling

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Originally Posted by Asako

Aye even at Ilvl150 he's still easy. However the difference is for less skilled or new players the boss doesn't melt instantly. Takes the sting out of the story when the big bad they have been building up is a complete faceroll.

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Well keep in mind, they're not up to revamping that part of the MSQ yet. If they stick with current trends, it will go to a solo instance or 4-man duty. They gave the end of ARR back some of its teeth with recent changes.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Well keep in mind, they're not up to revamping that part of the MSQ yet. If they stick with current trends, it will go to a solo instance or 4-man duty. They gave the end of ARR back some of its teeth with recent changes.

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I know and it's great what they have done for the old content. I still believe the Ilvl cap would be a nice stop gap though until they get around to reworks. Gives them more time to concentrate on other things.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Well keep in mind, they're not up to revamping that part of the MSQ yet. If they stick with current trends, it will go to a solo instance or 4-man duty. They gave the end of ARR back some of its teeth with recent changes.

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Why should every instance that’s not hard be revamped into a solo instance or a 4 man duty, thordran works well as a trial he is just too easy, much make him as difficult as he is supposed to be and it fixes everything, he doesn’t need to be fully redesigned

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Originally Posted by Asako

I know and it's great what they have done for the old content. I still believe the Ilvl cap would be a nice stop gap though until they get around to reworks. Gives them more time to concentrate on other things.

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I don't know if it would be worth it at this point to mess with the formula. Next patch is already up to The Vault. They're almost there. So if the plan is to revamp Thordan, they're probably already working on that.

There's no guarantee they will. They didn't mention having redone Ravana. But we have seen the end of ARR and entry to HW revamped now, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to see Thordan completely redone.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Why should every instance that’s not hard be revamped into a solo instance or a 4 man duty, thordran works well as a trial he is just too easy, much make him as difficult as he is supposed to be and it fixes everything, he doesn’t need to be fully redesigned

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Because they're making the MSQ soloable and so far that seems to be their pattern on many things? Not all, since Moggle Mog is still a trial and they didn't talk about changing Ravana. It could be they're getting dungeons and will circle back. We don't know for sure. But my point is that they may fix the new player experience with these changes the way they did with Ultima and especially Lahabrea. Those changes have received a lot of positive feedback, so it wouldn't be unreasonable if they continued that trend.

They just need to make stat templates for old content instead of using sync. Syncs will break over time, and the more we go on without tuning what these numbers look like from Satasha to the Nier Raids it will continue to reflect poorly on otherwise good encounter design.

Crystal Tower wouldn't be my abandoned daily duty if I could see at least *some* of the old mechanics again.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Because they're making the MSQ soloable and so far that seems to be their pattern on many things? Not all, since Moggle Mog is still a trial and they didn't talk about changing Ravana. It could be they're getting dungeons and will circle back. We don't know for sure. But my point is that they may fix the new player experience with these changes the way they did with Ultima and especially Lahabrea. Those changes have received a lot of positive feedback, so it wouldn't be unreasonable if they continued that trend.

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Which circles back to the original point, the casual content is too easy, why does everything need to be soloable in an MMO of all things, sure they want to conserve the storyline of a main line FF game but why do they need to take actual development time away from new content to deal with a problem that won’t be a problem for like 10 years at best

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Which circles back to the original point, the casual content is too easy, why does everything need to be soloable in an MMO of all things, sure they want to conserve the storyline of a main line FF game but why do they need to take actual development time away from new content to deal with a problem that won’t be a problem for like 10 years at best

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Because their new stated path forward is to modify the MSQ only to be able to be done by yourself or with friends. Some, but probably not all, reasoning they gave for that is to draw in fans of the single player games who haven't wanted to try XIV since it was an MMO. Some still won't because they don't want an online game at all, but some will because not being a single-player experience was the point they didn't enjoy and now that will be alleviated.

That's my main worry, really. We had a really good balance between the single player and group player focus since ARR. Neither totally satisfied (because obviously both camps would want the game to be 100% in their favor), but the fact both persist and continue to love the experience means it was successful in accomplishing what it set out to do.

Pushing more towards designing content with the solo experience in mind feels like trying to layer the wedding cake in the wrong order.

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Originally Posted by LisSquid

That's my main worry, really. We had a really good balance between the single player and group player focus since ARR. Neither totally satisfied (because obviously both camps would want the game to be 100% in their favor), but the fact both persist and continue to love the experience means it was successful in accomplishing what it set out to do.

Pushing more towards designing content with the solo experience in mind feels like trying to layer the wedding cake in the wrong order.

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Was it really a good balance, though? I mentioned this in I think the live letter thread but with this change they're cementing the MSQ as the base JRPG experience and that will allow them to expand the optional content with the normal MMO standards. The lines here have been a bit blurred in the past and it feels like that's where some conflict comes from.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

snip

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With some exceptions, I think the balance where we have solo duties for story beats have been used with great effect. Especially lately. Dungeons and trials have been sporadic enough (giving the solo player the feeling of a satisfying narrative ride), with dungeons and trials (frequent enough to quench the thirst of the group player) punctuating appropriate moments.

Pushing it to be 100% solo is going to cause more conflict than not.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Was it really a good balance, though? I mentioned this in I think the live letter thread but with this change they're cementing the MSQ as the base JRPG experience and that will allow them to expand the optional content with the normal MMO standards. The lines here have been a bit blurred in the past and it feels like that's where some conflict comes from.

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Yes because they also simplified every facet of the game so that the MSQ was accessible to everyone, so now we have a job and encounter design system they spent 2 expansions working on that caters to the lowest common denominator so that the MSQ was accessible now they are devoting even more resources to making the MSQ even more accessible and we are still stuck with the horrid modern job an encounter design system

Do one or the other but both both because all it means is it leads to an actively worse experience for people who actually want to play this as an MMO

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Yes because they also simplified every facet of the game so that the MSQ was accessible to everyone, so now we have a job and encounter design system they spent 2 expansions working on that caters to the lowest common denominator so that the MSQ was accessible now they are devoting even more resources to making the MSQ even more accessible and we are still stuck with the horrid modern job an encounter design system

Do one or the other but both both because all it means is it leads to an actively worse experience for people who actually want to play this as an MMO

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I'm going to dispute the idea that job changes were a direct correlation to the MSQ. Encounters have changed from ARR to now to requiring a higher response time and more necessary mobility in the fight, along with having more mechanics that utilized the entire arena and triggers in unexpected areas like the sides. Having to try to maintain a strict rotation may have limited them in what mechanics they could introduce. I know as a white mage it would be a lot more challenging to support my party if I didn't have my lily abilities and they hadn't adjusted Assize. Especially in something like say Zodiark. Previous encounters I could manage with Medicas and Cures which made me a lot less mobile, because the encounter required less mobility.

We don't know either way for sure. I'm just presenting a different viewpoint. I think it will be helpful going forward if they start explaining changes more, which is something they said they will start doing in the most recent live letter.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I'm going to dispute the idea that job changes were a direct correlation to the MSQ. Encounters have changed from ARR to now to requiring a higher response time and more necessary mobility in the fight, along with having more mechanics that utilized the entire arena and triggers in unexpected areas like the sides. Having to try to maintain a strict rotation may have limited them in what mechanics they could introduce. I know as a white mage it would be a lot more challenging to support my party if I didn't have my lily abilities and they hadn't adjusted Assize. Especially in something like say Zodiark. Previous encounters I could manage with Medicas and Cures which made me a lot less mobile, because the encounter required less mobility.

We don't know either way for sure. I'm just presenting a different viewpoint. I think it will be helpful going forward if they start explaining changes more, which is something they said they will start doing in the most recent live letter.

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I don’t that’s necessarily true considering WHM was never less mobile than it was in ShB, more rigid rotations didn’t preclude more complex and different mechanics all it does is make it more punishing to mess them up, the obvious exception to this is ultimate which works better with modern design because of the amount of downtime not just ruining everyone’s rotation just because like it did in stormblood but that is a very small part of a much wider situation

Rotations should work around whatever they design not the other way around, it plays into the problem of the ranged tax and the stale nature of current arena and boss design as well

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I don’t that’s necessarily true considering WHM was never less mobile than it was in ShB

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As a WHM since ARR, I'm going to respectfully disagree with this point. I had easily mastered the sweet spot for movement on a cast so it would still go off before the lily system but I find that I am able to be much more fluidly mobile than the past. It's similar to when they removed Cleric Stance from being an actual stance. I could dps under old Cleric Stance. The change just made it a much more fluid experience.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

As a WHM since ARR, I'm going to respectfully disagree with this point. I had easily mastered the sweet spot for movement on a cast so it would still go off before the lily system but I find that I am able to be much more fluidly mobile than the past. It's similar to when they removed Cleric Stance from being an actual stance. I could dps under old Cleric Stance. The change just made it a much more fluid experience.

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WHM just had more movement options in older content because DOT’s had a shorter refresh timer and we had 2 (not counting aero 3 since it had a cast timer) WHM’s one movement option in 5.x was dia’s refresh timer (outside of slide casting), WHM was incredibly non mobile in ShB, it’s why I wanted Dia reverted to aero’s shorter duration rather than this stupid 1.5 seconds on every healer that just ruined the use of lily’s

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

WHM just had more movement options in older content because DOT’s had a shorter refresh timer and we had 2 (not counting aero 3 since it had a cast timer) WHM’s one movement option in 5.x was dia’s refresh timer (outside of slide casting), WHM was incredibly non mobile in ShB, it’s why I wanted Dia reverted to aero’s shorter duration rather than this stupid 1.5 seconds on every healer that just ruined the use of lily’s

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Our experiences may be different. I don't overly worry about optimizing so maybe it's something that only manifests in that situation. But encounters and jobs can't just be designed only around the hardest content or the most optimized playstyle. I didn't feel non-mobile at all in ShB and I've felt much more mobile since the introduction of the lily system, once they fixed it. Prior to the MSQ revamps, when I played WHM on lower level alts I also felt mechanics kept me in place more. I haven't tried on WHM on them since the recent changes.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Our experiences may be different. I don't overly worry about optimizing so maybe it's something that only manifests in that situation. But encounters and jobs can't just be designed only around the hardest content or the most optimized playstyle. I didn't feel non-mobile at all in ShB and I've felt much more mobile since the introduction of the lily system, once they fixed it. Prior to the MSQ revamps, when I played WHM on lower level alts I also felt mechanics kept me in place more. I haven't tried on WHM on them since the recent changes.

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Oh yeah that’s a difference I’m coming from the perspective of “lily’s were a DPS loss in ShB so don’t use them” in which case WHM was a disaster

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Well keep in mind, they're not up to revamping that part of the MSQ yet. If they stick with current trends, it will go to a solo instance or 4-man duty. They gave the end of ARR back some of its teeth with recent changes.

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And next they're taking some away as well by nerfing Thornmarch, even though it's already easier than the new Ultima Weapon. I have no idea what they're thinking.

I decided to test this theory, I gave my 3 year old nephew the controller of my PS4 and did a random roulette and compared the progress to somthing like Pokémon sword. He lost the battle because he kept switching back and forth and using growl, but cleared the instance!! (Also got a reported which was warranted, maybe I shouldn’t do this with pure strangers trapped in their chrome hamster wheel of monotony) the point is…it’s so easy a caveman can do it.

Why do you want the normal content to be harder? Just yesterday I did a Vanaspati (level 85 dungeon) run in roulette and got matched with a RPR that didn't use Enshroud once, it took us around 35 minutes to clear.
People give zero F's about doing even the bare minimum, imagine what would happen if the content was harder.
I'm all for making the normal content as braindead as possible.