the normal content is too easy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kyrj

Also if you don't have every single skill on your hotbar, you're playing your Job wrong. Everything has a use, this is what separates the good players from the bad.

---

No it doesn't. A good player wouldn't be using Ice 2 on BLM as early as shadowbringers or healing with a summoner as of right now.

But I understand the general sentiment people should use their resources.

Normal mode fights could use enrage timers. Not just DPS checks, an actual "you took too long, here's an ultimate, better luck next time" fight-enders. A handful of fights have some kind of timer (whether a simple time limit or a "soft" enrage, like Shinryu breaking the platform), but in most fights you can just tickle the boss to death forever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SilverObi

Easy for me is not easy for someone else. Difficult for you is not difficult for someone else. The normal content is balanced around the average skill of the majority of the playerbase and whether or not that's undertuned will depend on individual perspectives and frankly that's all there is to it. We have people who used to call Extremes difficult and now say they're easy based on any number of variables while that easy content stomps others who may not be as skilled.

You don't have to agree with it and you're very welcome to rail against it but that's the path the devs have chosen for the content that the majority of players will interact with. Personally I'd like to see lower iLvl caps on older content so they regain/retain some of their teeth but that's just my singular want in a sea of others, and I'm okay with that in the end. If I wasn't I'd probably find another game to meet that personal demand (no this isn't a "leave then" statement).

Also amazingly spicy topic to post from a sockpuppet alt.

---

I call bs. The game is balanced to the skill level of someone who doesn't know how to play. You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

If Elden Ring has proven anything is that you don’t need snooze fest difficulty levels to be a successful and popular game. People enjoy and will rise up to challenge.

For the people that dodge or cheese to get easier dungeons what is needed is more aggressive consequences to their actions not the dumbing down of content for everyone.

If Normal is too easy there's always Hard, Extreme, Savage and Ultimate tho?

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They haven't. There are Extremes, Savage, and Ultimate. You realize that group of people have entire levels of content only they will ever experience, right? The normal content isn't going to challenge them. It's not made for them. This is a game that accommodates a wide variety of experience and ability levels. It has something for people who just want to enjoy a fun game to those who strive for the hardest challenges. We all have the do the normal content, so it's going to be designed to be accessible to that entire spectrum of players and it's not going to challenge all of them. And that's okay. There is challenge for those who want to look for it.

---

Again, its a poor argument. The game requires all players to spend an exhorbitant amount of time on normal content (getting tomes, progging through msq, roulettes, etc). When all of the normal content is boring and chorelike, it will push players away. We all have to get tomes each week, play daily roulettes, and spend a decent amount of time on normal content. It makes the game unenjoyable when such a large amount of time is spent on monotonous, unstimulating, uninteresting content. Again, they will lose more players by making the game childish for the loud few, than the players they would lose by making the game more challenging and interesting for the rest of us.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzian

Even endwalker. the level 90 tank quest for example just tells you to interupt an ability. so i and apparantly quite a few other players were getting frustrated because stuns are interupts and they weren't working.... and the solution to the quest was use a role skill thats basically been obselete since second coil. (minus maybe a handfull of very rare situationally niche uses) and as a result is a skill that 99% (exagerated) of tanks never even have on there hotbars...

---

so you're why i keep getting paralyzed in Puppets' Bunker.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

---

I'm not really concern about people quitting or not because today, most people play multiple games within their possible play time. A person playing an hour of ff14 for some roulettes or an ultimate player progging/erping 12 hours a day is still a player in ff14. Since its impossible to determine easy or difficult to the total amount of players participating in a co op matchmaking system, its just impossible to impose a blanket setting or change.

However as most players will know how they are feeling, needs and wants etc, challenges can be setup for a good time such as -1 player count, lower ilvl gear, unoptimized gearset, playing with a pizza controller etc. Default settings should always be welcoming and inclusive. Nobody is expected to learn calculus on the 1st grade and the school wouldn't know if this one kid already done with calculus before the first grade unless specifically notified to which a jump in grade can occur, thus normalizing or even increasing the difficulty for the kid that don't need basic arithmetic like other 1st graders.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

I call bs. The game is balanced to the skill level of someone who doesn't know how to play. You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

---

You can't just say others experiences aren't. Other people have different skill levels than you in many things. I'm gonna bet that you are absolutely horrible at a bunch of things others find laughably easy, just like everyone in the world is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Normal mode fights could use enrage timers. Not just DPS checks, an actual "you took too long, here's an ultimate, better luck next time" fight-enders. A handful of fights have some kind of timer (whether a simple time limit or a "soft" enrage, like Shinryu breaking the platform), but in most fights you can just tickle the boss to death forever.

---

I endorse soft enrages in more content (PTSD of math-bot ensues)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

---

True, you can clear anything with practice and effort. How little or how much depends on the individual and circumstances like getting carried by more skilled group members.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kyrj

Zodiark is one of the easiest fights both normal and EX we've ever had. All it requires is two people to know where to go and the rest to follow their assigned shape.

---

I had to do it on an alt I was taking through EW. They wiped. They had no idea where to go or what to do and got hit by everything. So I shrugged and put a dorito on myself and they cleared. That doesn't mean it's easy. It's just easy if someone who has farmed it a lot carries you. For the person with the dorito, they have to actually do the maths of calculating where mechanics will land and sometimes they get it wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ath192

But I understand the general sentiment people should use their resources.

---

Then why bother saying anything?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I had to do it on an alt I was taking through EW. They wiped. They had no idea where to go or what to do and got hit by everything. So I shrugged and put a dorito on myself and they cleared. That doesn't mean it's easy. It's just easy if someone who has farmed it a lot carries you. For the person with the dorito, they have to actually do the maths of calculating where mechanics will land and sometimes they get it wrong.

---

You follow someone who knows what they're doing and learn that way, next time you're in there you can lead. There's no "math" or w/e involved. It's a rotating floor, not rocket science.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

---

Most every mmo has some form of telegraph for everything including WoW. Only in that game you need to install an add on to do the exact same easy to see circles that FFXIV has by default. Every single serious raider uses DBM in WoW and it puts up the same exact telegraph markers. It has done that for ages. People in FFXIV and WoW fail all the time at avoiding the insanely obvious markers too. I’d also argue normal mode content is accessible and trivial in all MMOs. It is pretty much standard in the genre these days. Even so called heroic content in WoW was trivial from Wrath onward. Normal mode raids were accessible and trivial as well. They are designed as stepping stones for freshly leveled players to practice and gear for harder content.

Back in the days of EQ, the telegraphs weren’t necessarily obvious so you needed a raid lead to set timers and call stuff out. Trakanon for example. So many people don’t know how to get out even with someone shouting it in your ear and spamming chat in red letters.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Yep. I'm pretty sure I can do every mechanic wrong in norm Thordan and not die.

---

If you eat the purple marker by yourself in WoD from the 2nd boss, you die instantly. So what exactly is your point, other than cherry picking instances you likely over gear by around double the minimum requirement to clear?

Anywho, difficulty is subjective, and can even be relative to the players that are grouped together. My first clear of P2N took multiple attempts and ate up about half the clock. It was really fun though. No one raged quit, and those who knew the fight were patient. Second time I cleared it, it went smooth as silk, and no one said a word.... yay?..

I'm bit torn on the difficulty of Normal content, while I personally would love to see it being bit harder, I can see a lot of other players already struggling with some of it. For example: last boss of 81 dungeon, EW trials, 90 dungeon and most of the Pandemonium Raid - I've seen decent amount of people dying over and over, though they often end up getting dragged through them unless too many of them got to same group by chance. There's already quite a lot of internal dissonance with the difficulty in how the 81 last boss is tougher than basically any of the later dungeon bosses (aside from like two from 90 dungeon), where too many of them have like 3 abilities that repeat over and over. It would benefit them to have more clear progress in difficulty, though they do build up well based on earlier seen mechanics.
Then again you sometimes get level 80+ player who runs away from people with Stack marker. Maybe some advanced or updated version of Hall of Novice would be in place?

At least with the addition of difficulty selection for solo duties they have bit more freedom to make them tougher.

I think some of the main problems currently comes from the newer skill adjustments (massive potency creep over the years) and lenience of the ilvl sync. This leads to most of the older content becoming completely unchallenging and often uninteresting as people can ignore and skip mechanics and are barely punished at all for failing, along with having very few skills to use which are very back loaded on some Jobs and doesn't really teach much about playing it. How can people learn to play or keep their interest up if everything is a breeze? You miss some fancy attacks and the base level challenge as things are now.
Most of the stuff wasn't impossible hurdle to players back in day, so could they at least make the optional Trials, Alliance and Normal raids closer to what they were during their launch? Even better if the mandatory ones would be too so experiencing those fights would be exciting instead of just pretty much ignoring everything.
If rebalancing or tightening the ilvl seems too time consuming, then just give us options to run roulettes and stuff on minimum ilvl and give greater rewards or ensure some of the rarer drops.

Then again a lot of people would probably be upset if their fast and easy roulettes were slower and slightly challenging.

Overall I'm fine with the current level as long as there's enough of Ex and up stuff to play through, but would like to see the older content given some love.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThaCa

I'm bit torn on the difficulty of Normal content, while I personally would love to see it being bit harder, I can see a lot of other players already struggling with some of it.

---

This is a major point that needs to be considered. We literally had a thread complaining about how bad DF is that it got closed for running so long it was lagging the forums. We have posts all the time about how players have no idea what they're doing and how better players are forced to carry the whole team.
While I still maintain that the vast majority of that complaining is based on overdramatized rare experiences and not the actual frequent occurrences that some people claim, what is the logical result of making the basic story mode content harder? Yep, the better players being asked to and/or outright expected to carry even harder.

I wouldn't really have any issue with the story mode content being harder you're dreaming if you think that just making the game harder will all of a sudden make the average (and worse than average) players better. And it's also not really that easy to just "make the game harder" while still keeping it fun and enjoyable.

This is an MMO not Elden Ring.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzian

IMO the issue has been long running.. ever since ARR. when something has been seen as difficult it's usually not been that it's actually difficult its usually just been a case of the game does a terrible job of explaining what you're supposed to do at the time..

---

Many of these are explained via NPC chats. I'm not sure what else you want them to do other than pausing the game every time to pop up those active help windows.

Quote:

---

There's been hundreds of examples.. but the common connection between them is that rarther that fixing the quests by providing better clarity on what players are expected to do they just nerfed it to the point you didnt need to do any of it and could just zerg everything... and if that didnt work then they added a very easy mode on top...

---

Yeah, that's unfortunate, but when people in multiplayer contents would rather leave at the start of a duty rather than take the time to explain to their fellow players, it kind of shows the solo mentality of the community, so I can see why easier content is better for most people.

Quote:

---

Even endwalker. the level 90 tank quest for example just tells you to interupt an ability. so i and apparantly quite a few other players were getting frustrated because stuns are interupts and they weren't working.... and the solution to the quest was use a role skill thats basically been obselete since second coil. (minus maybe a handfull of very rare situationally niche uses) and as a result is a skill that 99% (exagerated) of tanks never even have on there hotbars...

---

That was the first role quest I did and I don't remember having difficulty with an "obsolete" role action. What was it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I have literally tried to die on normal-mode Thordan and couldn't pull it off. Even standing in every AoE, running face first into every mechanic, and telling the healers to not touch me for the sake of the experiment, I still couldn't manage it.

I mean, not counting running as BLU and just killing myself, but that's cheating.

---

Out of curiosity, did you do it at the ilvl that was available when Thordan was first released or just rely on the sync that probably will put you at max level 60 ilvl?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bad_Luck

This is an MMO not Elden Ring.

---

You said that before, and you’re logic is still as flawed as it was before.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kyrj

Then why bother saying anything?

---

Because you are empirically wrong, incorrect, your statement is false. And you are spreading misinformation. And I corrected you, lest some SMN starts healing around because he read your comment in these forums and you contribute to the issue.

Well ff14 is affectively a dress up game that got some rpg element to it. By the point I get to where I can do the harder content I lose interest from the brain dead things. But it what "people want". Not lot of people do the harder things . But not because they don't want but because the it's go from 1 to 10 no in between.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

I call bs. The game is balanced to the skill level of someone who doesn't know how to play. You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

---

Then why do we see so many wipes in current expansion trial content if it's easy enough even for those that have no idea how to play?

Think I need to call bs back at you. I'm not claiming the content is hard but it's also not nearly as easy as you want to think for those without experience and skill. If players without skill and experience are getting through the content, it's because they're being carried by those who do have it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ath192

If Elden Ring has proven anything is that you don’t need snooze fest difficulty levels to be a successful and popular game. People enjoy and will rise up to challenge.

For the people that dodge or cheese to get easier dungeons what is needed is more aggressive consequences to their actions not the dumbing down of content for everyone.

---

You're not talking about a MMORPG. You're talking about a single player ARPG with a multiplayer (not massively multiplayer) mode. There's a big difference between the genres. Some people enjoy it. Some don't.

If you're looking for Elden Ring level of difficulty, that is the game you want to be playing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

Well ff14 is affectively a dress up game that got some rpg element to it. By the point I get to where I can do the harder content I lose interest from the brain dead things. But it what "people want". Not lot of people do the harder things . But not because they don't want but because the it's go from 1 to 10 no in between.

---

So then play the other games that keep you interested.

SE has their vision of what they want for this game. If their vision is not what you're looking for, then why stick around?

It's not up to game developers to change their games for the sake of individual players. It's up to individual players to seek out the game developers who are making the games they want.

Certainly they listen to player feedback but when they have an essentially satisfied player base they're usually not going to risk upending their game design and alienating those who were happy. The only reason 1.0 got scrapped and remade into ARR was because almost no one was satisfied with the newly released game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nick124

I call bs. The game is balanced to the skill level of someone who doesn't know how to play. You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

---

Are you sure about that, because until now I still see sprouts running away with stack marker :)

I remember when I 1st started FFXIV. It was my 1st MMO and I was obviously a noob to the genre. I started off as a CNJ and was a nervous wreck for every instance that I got put in. At some point, I was told to go unlock Swiftcast on BLM so I could quick rez people.

The level 15 THM quest bodied me. The mobs just spawned quicker than I could kill them and would ultimately overwhelm and kill me, which was frustrating to say the least. I thought it was weird that I was struggling so much since I was more than properly geared for the role, having saved up plenty of caster gear leveling up my WHM and had been doing relatively fine on THM thus far, or so I though. I was wrong. I was switching between Fire/Ice after 1 cast each thinking that was how you were supposed to play the job but this quest showed me how wrong I was. I failed the quest twice before I decided to learn what I was doing wrong and decided to read my tooltips more thoroughly. It didn't help because back then, tooltips had a ton of unusual phrasing and made it seem much more confusing than it actually was so I decided to try attacking some of the target dummies and figure out if there was a way I could do more damage that way. Turns out, staying in Fire boosted my damage and once I figured that out, I cleared the quest on my next attempt and that feeling of relief was euphoric.

I was a new player that had never played an MMO a day in his life. I got stonewalled by a quest and instead of asking for nerfs, I improved so I could continue on with the game. You don't see that nowadays because I know I wouldn't be seeing level 90 Ice Mages in Expert roulette if that was still the case. I'm all for adding back that level of difficulty if it improved the quality of players from being whiny children that ask for a nerf to solve their problems rather than, you know, get good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by linayar

Out of curiosity, did you do it at the ilvl that was available when Thordan was first released or just rely on the sync that probably will put you at max level 60 ilvl?

---

I did. It was even more egregiously easy than Hades and Endsinger, given you spent the last 50% of the fight with the boss impotently swinging at you instead of the last 20-15% (given your damage doubles in the last phases of both Hades and Endsinger).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I did. It was even more egregiously easy than Hades and Endsinger, given you spent the last 50% of the fight with the boss impotently swinging at you instead of the last 20-15% (given your damage doubles in the last phases of both Hades and Endsinger).

---

That is interesting. Maybe our jobs are just more powerful than they were relatively at similar ilvl, or it was a choice given how much harder Extreme would be, especially as that was also the era of Gordias.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by linayar

That is interesting. Maybe our jobs are just more powerful than they were relatively at similar ilvl, or it was a choice given how much harder Extreme would be, especially as that was also the era of Gordias.

---

Yes, they're actually a lot more powerful. Potencies are higher across the board, partly because more potency was consolidated into fewer buttons given at lower levels on average.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

If Normal is too easy there's always Hard, Extreme, Savage and Ultimate tho?

---

We are talking about Roulettes/MSQ I mean NORMAL/regular content.

Extreme/Savage/Ultimate requires statics/FCs not just your everyday roulette/ dungeon finder.

When people hear this, they jump to 'EXTREME/SAVAGE/ULTIMATE' and "DARKSOULS" way too quickly. What about midcore content, if you want to enjoy a challenge without having to watch 30 minutes of guides and partyfinder a coordinated group? You can make engaging content that can still be cleared in one or two tries. For example, what about (Hard) dungeons from ARR/HW? Those had interesting and unique mechanics that weren't immediately obvious but fun to figure out, and punishing, but not so much that failing a single mechanic immediately wiped the run. Why not do something actually interesting with expert dungeons again since they're OPTIONAL content? Why apply the same cookie cutter design to them to make everyone ages 5 and up able to clear them when they're optional? I'm fine with the core MSQ content being baseline easy mode, but the midcore of the game used to exist and now it does not and this is a problem that can absolutely be solved with slightly more complex optional content. So why don't they?

I would like content to remain the "difficulty" it has on release or getting a just little bit easier through better gear over the years, but not to the amount how it currently is.

On the other side, how would it be if, let's say, the final endwalker trial on release would be of the same "difficulty" an older trial has where mechanis almost doesn't matter anymore.
I just don't like that content is literally just made to be played within the first few months after release and after that "the way it's meant to be played" isn't really possible anymore because of the scaling systems the game has, even if you take the hurdles on you to find enough players to do it MINE.

The normal modes will always be easy because in the past they weren't and the result was that vast numbers of players couldn't experience the stories that go with them

Players on here deal only in extremes. When players ask for something more engaging then faceroll, the first answer is "do savage", why cant there be anything between faceroll and savage/extremes. If a tank can solo a dungeon or raid, maybe consider addressing this. We don't ask for a tank nerf we ask for something more engaging.

Why cant 4 man content be tuned to the point it needs 4 ppl to work together, is it to much to ask for this on lv 80/90 after you done about 200 duties and have like a 50-75hours in combat? Let players who are here solely for the story do the dungeon with trusts but anything else including roulettes should not be doable by 1-2 ppl and 2 players afk. That way they can get their story done on easy mode, they wont need tome gear if the hardest thing they do is a dungeon with trusts.

Imagine doing a EXPERT dungeon that needs a healer. Difficulty in a game should always be a incline, we are not asking for a wall we ask for a incline after hundreds of hours of combat. In FFXIV combat starts as a incline and eventually it becomes a straight line.

Up the difficulty of "normal" content and give players who are not up for that an option to enter with 100% echo for no tome reward and no raid reward. If all you want is the story, you don't need the gear anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Players on here deal only in extremes. When players ask for something more engaging then faceroll, the first answer is "do savage", why cant there be anything between faceroll and savage/extremes. If a tank can solo a dungeon or raid, maybe consider addressing this. We don't ask for a tank nerf we ask for something more engaging.

---

This right here.

As a Savage and Ultimate raider, I don't want the normal modes or dungeons to be blisteringly hard but simply more engaging. Weeping City and Dun Scaith on release were some of the most fun I've had and either were some immense challenge. In fact, Weeping City was my very first 24 man. Final Steps of Faith is another stand out as is Alexander. Unfortunately, all of them are a shell of themselves nowadays due to job changes and no consideration whatsoever for balance below 80. Weeping City completely melts now. Even fights not that old like E3 and E4 fall over before any of their major mechanics happen. Speaking of, a good number of these encounters don't have fundamentals they really should. Why even bother introducing a tank swap debuff in E4N when it's so pathetically weak tanks won't swap? Why have stack markers that two people can survive with barely a scratch?

Expert dungeons are probably the stand out example of simply poor design. We've reached a point where healers literally aren't required. Naturally, this is partly because tank sustain is enormous this expansion but it's still ridiculous that dungeons are such a joke an entire role can be omitted without a second thought.

When people ask for the game to be harder, they aren't wanting Savage or even Extreme difficulty. They're wanting to feel engaged. Going into a dungeon or trial you know you'll utterly obliterate isn't all that fun for a lot of people. It also leads to poor habits being formed. Why dodge an AoE and lose uptime as a melee DPS when you know it'll do next to nothing damage wise? We see all these arguments about YPYT without discussing the actual reason people do it. They can. A healer isn't threatened by three mobs with the ferocity of a six month old kitten.

All in all, making the game easy and approachable is perfectly fine. There is, however, a middle ground between easy mode and "so incredibly safe a toddler could clear."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaurhz

As far as normal content goes, this has been the case since (and inclusive of) Heavensward, excluding the major story trial. E.g. Shinryu, Hades, Endsinger on launch. I don't really see why they should maintain or gravitate towards incremental difficulty curves for normal mode content. From experience, at any point we've had 'difficult' normal content, people have only ever generally avoided it at all costs. See the number of people trying to avoid anything beyond Weeping City by shafting their own item level. Also referring to Shinryu here where people would go as far as either AFK on entry, or duty leave for a 30-minute penalty on release. Granted, the community has come a long way, but personally, I don't really see many people standing by this directive beyond just platitudes.

---

ilvl cheesing has nothing to do with difficulty but efficiency. Tower of Paradigm Breach gives the exact same rewards as Syrcus Tower. One takes upwards of 40+ minutes while the other takes 10-15 tops with zero chance of wiping. If all you care about is EXP, which most people ilvl cheesing do, then why would you want to double your time required for the same reward?

Since someone brought it up, Steps of Faith also suffered from a similar problem: the rewards simply didn't outweigh the time investment. Prior to being nerfed into the ground, it could take upwards of 15+ minutes, and unlike every other fight in the game, had no wipe condition. Which meant if you failed the Dragon Slayer mechanic, you had to wait until Vishap reached the end and gave you a Duty Failed before trying again. Adding insult to injury, the DPS check was incredibly high. You either needed two Slayers to hit or absolutely insane DPS to clear. All of this meant taking the 30 minute penalty was often better as you may actually be waiting less than if you stayed. We've seen this exact scenario play out with MSQ Roulette. People constantly leave Castrum because Praetorium gives double the EXP for only 15 minutes more "effort".

If they nerfed Crystal Tower's EXP; forced us to be synced properly so the raids aren't laughably easy or buffed the EXP in the higher level raids, you'd see far less people cheesing their ilvl because it wouldn't matter anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soxxx

When people hear this, they jump to 'EXTREME/SAVAGE/ULTIMATE' and "DARKSOULS" way too quickly. What about midcore content

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Players on here deal only in extremes. When players ask for something more engaging then faceroll, the first answer is "do savage", why cant there be anything between faceroll and savage/extremes.

---

We are getting Criterion dungeons through this expansion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kyrj

You follow someone who knows what they're doing and learn that way, next time you're in there you can lead. There's no "math" or w/e involved. It's a rotating floor, not rocket science.

---

For the normal version, yes. For extreme it's different because it combines two of them at once forcing you to work out the safe spot with no telegraphs. For extreme, it seemed evident that the people I talked to in parties did not learn to lead after only one clear, but after enough clears where they actually tried to identify the safe spots themselves.

One thing I wouldn't mind is: try to have the story content always be around as difficult as it was at release. The old stuff is far too easy these days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

.

---

iLv cheesing also gives plenty of leeway to skipping potentially difficult mechanics that can serve as a barrier. E.g. Judgement Nissi in A4S, or giving you a larger vitality buffer pool allowing you to outright ignore mechanics that may otherwise kill. You take away the potentially stringent DPS checks, in addition to a much larger health pool and mechanic skips due to disproportionately high DPS than what the encounter otherwise requests then yes it becomes easier because it invariably potentially strips away the components of the fight which made it difficult in the first place. Once again, refer to A4S, and Ravana Ex - Whether artificial or otherwise. So yes, it has as much to do with difficulty as it does with efficiency. You'll have an incredibly hard time convincing me there's no relevance between iLv cheesing and difficulty, practically everything that happens as a result of cheesing can translate onto the difficulty. Shinryu doesn't exactly emanate the same level of threat or challenge when you do the encounter in full Valerian/Atiquated AF, versus when you do it in Scaevan, or even Ryumyaku for that matter Tidal wave is the only mechanic expressing any real potential threat unless you elect to ignore the ATE, diamond dust doesn't even exist anymore, really.

I don't even disagree with the other points because that is what I was attempting to highlight. Nobody is going to do encounters when the rewards aren't proportionally adequate. Especially if a more efficient viable alternative exists. This is the problem with making normal content incrementally difficult. In the end, nobody cares for that thirst for challenge versus the ease and efficiency with which they complete it when it comes to doing roulettes, and making something engaging is different from encounters being too difficult, or too easy. Again, this is the problem with these statements beyond platitudes. Going back to your own example. Why is someone going to do something like Paradigms Breach, or even the Stormblood 24-man raid series when a much more efficient viable solution exists in shafting your own item level and completing easier and more efficient duties in a fraction of the time. If we speak in terms of leveling here, then why would people bother with roulettes in any circumstance? I could effectively get the same, if not a better reward for time invested by doing something such as Bozja. People will seek efficiency regardless of whether you place it there, or somewhere else. 40 minutes of time yields much better rewards by doing Bozja than what it would doing Paradigms Breach - Heck at this point even open-world FATEs would.

Edit (for middle-ground):
Would I enjoy something that nicely fits between Extreme and Savage difficulty? Or even between story difficulty and Extreme difficulty? Yeah, sure. But would I want that to be the norm of content, inclusive of roulettes? No, not really. There are much better approaches they could elect to take. Story content and levelling content are just that. It's a chance for people to experience the story or level of jobs and classes they aren't as experienced with. They need an extra layer, and personally, I don't see that extra layer of difficulty coming at the expense of upscaling the norm of content barring certain trials, and nor should it, I don't think.

My main question for you really, is you mention it not being blisteringly difficult, which I think is a given. But what is your difficulty? AR-level difficulty? A bit beyond? Extreme difficulty without enrages? Or just the current difficulty except rewarding you for potentially utilizing your full toolkit? (e.g. stun, silence), and beyond that could you really see the community not being torn by it? Harder content ultimately comes at the expense of people being more woefully underprepared or ill-equipped for it <- This is personally why I don't advocate for it to be the new norm, versus a separate, optional system entirely at endgame. Sorry for the lengthy reply. Seemed like an interesting and reasonable topic of discussion.

Everyone talking about normal content being hard or not, but has anyone asked if the hard content is normal enough. Just food for thought.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ValStryder

Um...Stuns are NOT interrupts. They do interrupt, but they are not the same. Creatures that are immune to stuns can still be interrupted. How do you not know this as a tank? Interrupts also function differently mechanically. An interrupt will trigger a longer cooldown for the enemy than normal, whereas with a stun the enemy has a fair chance to immediately attempt to re-cast the ability once the stun expires.

---

Stuns are interrupts. Can't think of any game I've played where a stun is not considered an interrupt.

But when since early coil have I ever needed to Interupt anything??

It's a skill that's absolutely useless in 99% of content.and in the small amount of content where an interrupt has been required shield bash or something usually does the job...

It's like how many healers don't even slot esuna on there bars these days. Because debunks either can't be cleansed at all. Or are cleansed a different way. Like a full heal cleanses dooms. Or they drop off in 4 seconds anyway.so by the time you finish your current glare / broil / whatever the debuff has dropped off anyway so pointless casting esuna.