The difficulty of Normal Content in this game needs to increase.

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Originally Posted by Gurgeh

Why didn't it?
Was it harder than extreme? Was that the consensus?
I'll still judge for myself. Just I'll be Chaotic levels of pissed off if I find it's savage difficulty. (Vs extra savage)
And I'll be even more pissed about Chaotic.

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Cuz Bozja and Eureka include maps worth of players all interacting with each other towards common goals, plus an extra "map dungeon", it doesn't follow the rigid combat system since you can bring lost actions with spells and buffs and items so it just felt extra fun.

Chaotic and Criterion Savage (and even savager) are just an extension of raiding. So it doesn't bridge the communities because people who aren't interested in raiding are not going to do it.

This issue with the game is not difficulty imo, it's the texture (things are too smooth). Even competitors are roughly similar (I don't die in regular wow dungeons either).

Adding challenges won't make the regular MMO player better, you'll only get a better pool by narrowing it. Many players don't want to sit down and fail for the hour they have to give the game.

I don't think generally making the game harder solves anything for anyone long term. As it isn't the core of the issue.

Healers can be valuable without a substantive increase in difficulty (meaning they feel important in regular content), content can gain variability without a large increase in difficulty, etc, etc.

I see this sentiment and I don't think they are hitting the nail on the head with difficulty. They want to feel alive again because each expansion their content loses flavors and ingredients, left with a basic oatmeal. They say if I had more ghost peppers I'd feel alive again, and maybe partially true- but they're making a terrible oatmeal doing that. Just add the actual dang ingredients back (and improve them).

It's not the difficulty but the texture of the game. Some texture may add minor challenges, but it wasn't the challenge that was making it more fun.

In the vast majority of games I almost never ever die, except for perhaps FromSoft's stuff. I don't only enjoy FromSoft's games. Death is not the key to happiness. Perhaps you weren't saying that, but honestly bad players biff it all the time in normal FFXIV content. You can almost always win without them. So really the only challenge to add then is failing the dungeon, and I think that would be bad to touch on very much if at all. In other words if challenge was a resource to allocate like exp on a sphere grid, we don't need more exp we need a better allotment of the same exp. It's not the quantity but quality, so you would read more 'exp' in challenge is the ghost pepper solution of feeling alive eating plain oatmeal. I'm saying with minimal changes to challenge you'd have a much better experience if it wasn't all so smooth (streamlined, optimized, homogenized, whatever catchy word you want to use).

Anyway game can be slightly harder and benefit but it will be through adding texture (depth) and not specifically just challenge (like harder hitting fight isn't the solution).

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Originally Posted by Shougun

This issue with the game is not difficulty imo, it's the texture (things are too smooth). Even competitors are roughly similar (I don't die in regular wow dungeons either).

Adding challenges won't make the regular MMO player better, you'll only get a better pool by narrowing it. Many players don't want to sit down and fail for the hour they have to give the game.

I don't think generally making the game harder solves anything for anyone long term. As it isn't the core of the issue.

Healers can be valuable without a substantive increase in difficulty (meaning they feel important in regular content), content can gain variability without a large increase in difficulty, etc, etc.

I see this sentiment and I don't think they are hitting the nail on the head with difficulty. They want to feel alive again because each expansion their content loses flavors and ingredients, left with a basic oatmeal. They say if I had more ghost peppers I'd feel alive again, and maybe partially true- but they're making a terrible oatmeal doing that. Just add the actual dang ingredients back (and improve them).

It's not the difficulty but the texture of the game. Some texture may add minor challenges, but it wasn't the challenge that was making it more fun.

In the vast majority of games I almost never ever die, except for perhaps FromSoft's stuff. I don't only enjoy FromSoft's games. Death is not the key to happiness. Perhaps you weren't saying that, but honestly bad players biff it all the time in normal FFXIV content. You can almost always win without them. So really the only challenge to add then is failing the dungeon, and I think that would be bad to touch on very much if at all.

Anyway game can be slightly harder and benefit but it will be through adding texture (depth) and not specifically just challenge (like harder hitting fight isn't the solution).

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I think it's hard because they have to rehaul their whole CORE system of things. To my mind and as an example:

Healers don't get challenged in healing. I barely use my kit during dungeons, there's no damage triage for me to make decisions on who to heal during pulls, even in savage it's very situational when I have to focus my healing on a particular person (P8S purple circle thing comes to mind).

Tanks don't get challenged in tanking, there's no aggro management in any of the normal content, and extreme and savage content have resorted to just tank swaps.

There's no gameplay difference between casters, melees and ranged. Something like a Ninja should be able to do things like SCOUTING, Ranged should be able to trap (MCH/BRD) or Charm (DNC) CC things, Casters should be able to nuke things (BLM, PCT, SMN), other than their rotations/buffs their role in any given content remains the same.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

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I think it's hard because they have to rehaul their whole CORE system of things. To my mind and as an example:

Healers don't get challenged in healing. I barely use my kit during dungeons, there's no damage triage for me to make decisions on who to heal during pulls, even in savage it's very situational when I have to focus my healing on a particular person (P8S purple circle thing comes to mind).

Tanks don't get challenged in tanking, there's no aggro management in any of the normal content, and extreme and savage content have resorted to just tank swaps.

There's no gameplay difference between casters, melees and ranged. Something like a Ninja should be able to do things like SCOUTING, Ranged should be able to trap (MCH/BRD) or Charm (DNC) CC things, Casters should be able to nuke things (BLM, PCT, SMN), other than their rotations/buffs their role in any given content remains the same.

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I generally agree that there would need to be not just 1 change but many, some substantial for sure.


I don't think tank aggro is the biggest issue, for example id probably think of adding more consistent monsters that have quirks but generally maintain the mobs is still not that hard / annoying to control. Like those that just plainly ignore aggro mechanism, or like to use unavoidable skills on the non-primary, etc. To mix it up, but not so much making it so the 2.0 era of spaming aggro skills or everything turns into a circus.


Healers have a problem... In short my thought is to parse down healing power, number of healing spells, and give each healer thematic support skills. Either offensive or defensive based on healer, both adding to damage and control. Like WHM focuses on ally targeting with buffs, heals, and no target / target of my target offensive skills. While Sage focuses on healing through the enemy, with most skills working on the target, much more kardia and offensive abilities as a whole.


Depth in the others jobs agreed too. But to think of challenge I wouldn't expect these to change the success rate of the content much (like msq is still largely a join and win queue). Like I mentioned challenge being a resource, you might reallocate some of bullet hell into a few less hells but a couple more thoughtful mechanics. Or like how I explained tank aggro - I don't think we need 2.0 back but we do need diversity of activities.

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Originally Posted by Gurgeh

Anyone else like to bet that in 12 months time when casual/midcore are asking for more challenge in their content, high end are going to be going "well they gave you Chaotic and you complained it was too hard!"

I 'might' resub and have crack at 'non' savage criterion... (If it's got any kind of real rewards...
Brb...
4 drops per clear is not too bad.
But what difficulty is it? It's it Extreme difficulty or savage, where Savage is 'Extra' Savage..
I'll judge for myself.
Can it be queued though. Because I ain't discording 4 man content. I'm only interested in casual.

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Literally who asked for a 24 person Savage trial though...?

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Originally Posted by Gurgeh

Why didn't it?
Was it harder than extreme? Was that the consensus?
I'll still judge for myself. Just I'll be Chaotic levels of pissed off if I find it's savage difficulty. (Vs extra savage)
And I'll be even more pissed about Chaotic.

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It's savage difficulty and was always supposed to be savage difficulty. It was released after savage and tuned with the assumption that people doing it had savage gear.

It was never supposed to be extreme or easier. This is like saying you're going to do ultimate and will be pissed if it's harder than extreme.

Variant was the casual mode. There was no reason for criterion to be casual content.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

That's fair. Maybe the main requirement to be a successful raider is to have an extremely high threshold to the boredom of repetition.

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As someone who does Savage I can tell you that is definitely a requirement. You have to be willing to bang your head against the same five steps over and over and over in the dance for hours until you get it. Then you move on to the next five steps. I love it and I do get something out of it so it's rewarding for me, but you definitely need to be able to handle repetition. And we can definitely mess up even in easy content. I can clear the current Savage tier but I still get my behind swept around the arena on those stupid brooms. Never been able to get the movement on that boss down. Either I die (or get a million vulns so the healer wishes I were dead) when I dps or tank, or shield the heck out of myself on healer. If I forced myself to do Grand Cosmos over and over and over like I do Savage then I could probably get it down. But casual content is also a place where we can let our hair down a little and not have to be so uptight about things like getting a vuln or messing up our rotation. So I try to have a more casual mindset toward that content.

I still think that what everyone is really feeling is that the skill training ramp from Normal -> Extreme -> Savage is too bumpy, too short, too steep, and too loaded with random barrels of toxic waste you can run into.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

I still think that what everyone is really feeling is that the skill training ramp from Normal -> Extreme -> Savage is too bumpy, too short, too steep, and too loaded with random barrels of toxic waste you can run into.

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Yep, and it's tricky. You have people who are only ever going to do the story. So you want to keep that accessible. But the jump to optional harder content could use some streamlining and become a more even curve that gradually eases a player into higher and higher requirements. They've done some things to help, like Unreal. But this is probably where something like Unreal Alliance Raid could have helped more, instead of a Savage level Chaotic raid.

No as someone who was and is somewhat still disabled coming from ew to dt I prefer ew lol some things I just can't keep up with this expansion. I don't do the savage content or any of that stuff cause I can't keep up with it. I don't even touch expert anymore cause this expansions is to crazy for my carpal tunnel reflexes:/ I wish they offered more casual content. maybe once I get my second surgery I'll be okay but I'm just not having fun as casual player like I was the previous 3 expansions. I won't lie i have no more interest in doing the chaotic raid because people even said casual players don't belong in the party finder and they made it known since day 2