MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I recently did almost the whole last boss encounter in the level 87 dungeon with me as PLD and a melee. The other 2 members died. It should not be possible to clear a boss without a healer. If requiring healers (and other jobs) to cast spells in MSQ duties would exclude that small number of disabled people with such severe conditions that they cannot cast spells on demand, that's ok in my view. There are plenty of movies and TV series that aren't designed to be interactive.

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Fun fact ignoring just bosses you can run the entire damn dungeon without a healer

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

While I mostly agree, I'm still going to judge SQEX a bit on this one.

I know folks who only just got to level 80, who would really like their Resistance relics (because pretty weapons!), but who have found there isn't enough population in Bozja now for them to complete things like Castrum Lacus Litore or Delubrum Reginae. And I think having rewards tied to that content that people coming along later will want, but no other way to keep the content alive is at least mildly problematic once the initial waves are past; as you yourself note, people got the rewards and then noped out because there was some other newer reward they now wanted to grind towards -- or because they went "Okay, got my stuff, now I'm going to take my break and go play Other Game for a couple of months until the new raid tier drops." or whatever.

And while Discords like Primal Forays and Eurekan Explorers and whatnot exist—and I've directed the folks I've encountered to those sort of resources—someone trying to just do that content in the game is not necessarily going to know to go look for those.

So I do think SQEX could demonstrably do a little better at future-proofing some things here and incentivizing people to keep the older stuff alive for the newer players following along behind us: add weekly challenge log entries for critical engagements, put Delubrum Reginae into Wondrous Tails, make some of these sort of things give current capped tomestones if you run them with a level-capped character, etc.

I mean, they demonstrably know this does keep older content alive, because they incentivize specific instances of older content in that way already with Wondrous Tails, as well as incentivizing filling whatever older content needs people with daily roulettes.

It's just particularly unfortunate that the content which is poorly incentivized and so sort-of dies off happens to also generally be the best candidates we currently have for "the intermediate step(s) between the difficulty of the MSQ and that of higher-end stuff like savage".

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I'm really hoping these last two expansions have made it crystal clear to them that artificially propping these zones up with a highly desired weapon instead of making them places that people actually want to go to and do things in is not an effective way at all to future proof their content.

I'll compromise on adding DR to WT if they put it in, say, the PvP section. Or let it hog a trial option. We have plenty of those. I would be salty af if it used up an alliance option.

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I'm really hoping these last two expansions have made it crystal clear to them that artificially propping these zones up with a highly desired weapon instead of making them places that people actually want to go to and do things in is not an effective way at all to future proof their content

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Talera, we are in 100% accord...and I hope the devs are looking at doing this.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Talera, we are in 100% accord...and I hope the devs are looking at doing this.

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I don't think the idea of adventure zones is bad at all. They just need to make them worthwhile and retain that worth in continuing to interact with them. Otherwise, they really aren't worth the development time. They stick out like a sore thumb against so much other content in this game that has systems in place within the game itself to keep it relevant. It's a very old school MMO mentality and there was a reason that stopped being the norm.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I'll compromise on adding DR to WT if they put it in, say, the PvP section. Or let it hog a trial option. We have plenty of those. I would be salty af if it used up an alliance option.

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I dunno; I could go for it replacing an alliance if it took the place of the Crystal Tower raids. Alliance roulette is already unbalanced in favor of them enough as it is, we don't need to incentivize them further. And at this point, I would take anything that gets me out of having to do yet another run of the Crystal Tower raids. Delubrum. Baldesion Arsenal. Anything. Please. ;)

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

I dunno; I could go for it replacing an alliance if it took the place of the Crystal Tower raids. Alliance roulette is already unbalanced in favor of them enough as it is, we don't need to incentivize them further. And at this point, I would take anything that gets me out of having to do yet another run of the Crystal Tower raids. Delubrum. Baldesion Arsenal. Anything. Please. ;)

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My nearly 2 weeks of minimum 40 minute long Nier raids (thank you damage sponge bosses) would like to have a word with you :P

I very rarely see CT where I don't see a sprout message.

I haven't seen what the makeup is the past few days. Been playing the new Octopath Traveler mobile game and spring cleaning so I haven't been doing roulettes when I hopped in. I'm hoping to see more Void Ark given the requirement for the Tataru quests. I hardly ever see Void Ark unless it's on my WT bingo card and I queue directly.

Genuinely difficult content (Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate) is there for players who want it. The MSQ should not be designed to kill you; this game's focus is on it's story, whether or not you like a given line, and all content is set to "Easy Mode" by default. Besides which, you don't have a full toolbox below the level cap - and because of that ever growing toolbox, even simple 6.X bosses can be more complex than high difficulty 2.X ones.

Difficult story bosses can be incredibly rewarding (hello pre-nerf Shinryu!) but it's not the wisest course for drawing in and retaining non-hardcore players, and as an MMO there needs to be as wide an audience as possible.

I want everything to stay the same, except AST more cards so i can give more paper cuts pls :)

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Originally Posted by Cilia

The MSQ should not be designed to kill you; this game's focus is on it's story, whether or not you like a given line, and all content is set to "Easy Mode" by default.

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Why shouldn't it? Every other mainline Final Fantasy game was designed to kill you. It constantly presented you with challenges to overcome if you wanted to experience more of the story.


I remember regularly getting my ass handed to me when I first played FFX until I sat down and properly learned to use it's systems like the Sphere Grid, different elements and status effects.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Genuinely difficult content (Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate) is there for players who want it. The MSQ should not be designed to kill you; this game's focus is on it's story, whether or not you like a given line, and all content is set to "Easy Mode" by default. Besides which, you don't have a full toolbox below the level cap - and because of that ever growing toolbox, even simple 6.X bosses can be more complex than high difficulty 2.X ones.

Difficult story bosses can be incredibly rewarding (hello pre-nerf Shinryu!) but it's not the wisest course for drawing in and retaining non-hardcore players, and as an MMO there needs to be as wide an audience as possible.

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First and foremost, Shinryu was never nerfed. I really don't know why this keeps being mentioned. Trial bosses simply don't have an ilvl sync, thereby making them gradually easier as the expansion carries on. By the end of Stormblood, we were 120 ilvls over him. Naturally, Shinryu is going to melt by then.

Secondly, as Absurdity noted above. Why should the MSQ content be a toothless participation award? It certainly doesn't need to be expressively difficult but at the same time doesn't need to be a walk in the park that's near impossible to fail. Case in point, I just did Castrum Abania with a friend to help them level. I healed a grand total of seven times the entire dungeon. Of those seven heals, less than five were even necessary. The mobs and bosses alike utterly melted. The tank even did the huge pull at the end and I never needed to touch them once. Between Holy stuns and their paltry health, they were almost dead by the time stun immunity kicked in. This is the last dungeon before the big boss and that's the experience players get?

No mainline FF has ever been hard but they've certainly had bosses able to kill you. That's rarely the case in FFXIV outside of first time experiences. Even if you get a new player, the content is easy enough you can carry them through without a problem.