the normal content is too easy

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

I just want to chime in on the ilvl cheese for Alliance Raids.

I would actually love to do Orbonne. Yet when my friend asks me to queue with him for Alliance Roulette, I ask him to ilvl cheese. Why? Because while I find Orbonne easy, and I trust him and the rest of our FC to be able to beat TG Cid, I have negative levels of trust in the rest of the player base. As a result, we never see Orbonne.

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I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

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They nerfed it big time. Before it was long and fun. Now its just long and boring. So its even less of a reason to do it.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

I would LOVE to have SE's raw demographic information and a really dense survey of the population to dig into. That would be incredibly interesting to tease apart.

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Same same, perhaps I am correct perhaps am most wrong but at the least it would settle the debate. Will not hold the breath, companies almost never share this data.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

You know it was the enthusiasts that kept this game going when it sucked in 2010

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And yet they still destroyed the entire world and started over because they acknowledged that the game couldn't survive on enthusiasts alone. I'm not saying there's no place for enthusiasts, nor am I saying that they should completely ignore them. That's why they continue to put out Savage and Extreme content, and I think it's great. I just don't think that it's a good idea to go back and fill the rest of the game with Savage-level mechanics because a handful of Extreme raiders decided that the MSQ, Normal raids, and Normal dungeons are just too boring for them. Throwing them a bone is fine. That's what Savage and Extreme content is. The common suggestion of introducing more button bloat and the OP's suggestion of putting Normal raids on steroids, however, is not just "throwing them a bone." It's screwing up everyone else's experience just to make a handful of players happier.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

And yet they still destroyed the entire world and started over because they acknowledged that the game couldn't survive on enthusiasts alone.

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Oh believe me the enthusiasts thought the game sucked too. They merely put up with it because Square promised changes were being made. So they had nothing to do with the decision to release a bad game.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

I just don't think that it's a good idea to go back and fill the rest of the game with Savage-level mechanics because a handful of extreme raiders

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And this right here is the logical failure point of everyone arguing against making the game challenging. They tend to take it to extremes and radicalize and distort the intentions of the OP every time this gets brought up. Noone is arguing this should be the case. In fact, I think you enjoy making up imaginary people making this argument so you can make it sound valid. No one is asking this, so you are answering to people who don't exist.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

The current population is now lower than during that Pre-EW content drought, indicating EW has a lower player retention rate than previous expansions.

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Curious what you're basing this off? SE publishes no active playercounts, all available player counts are usually based on tangential population numbers (like reddit pops).

I've seen people cite steam of all places for player count, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of FFXIV players avoid using steam for this game specifically due to the way it works over there.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

In just this expansion alone, I have done every dungeon, on every role, at min ilvl. I've solo'd Hermes in full i530 gear on both WAR and GNB.

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That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

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Some of us also have physical disabilities (such as Parkinson's disease in my case) that prevent us from being able to master harder content. I do not know what specifically these proponents for "more challenging content" are calling for, but if it were to result in the level of difficulty being raised across the board, I might not be able to play this game anymore.

Looking at ffcollect, the desire for difficult/high end content isn't really that high. Even "easy" high end content like Alexander (Savage) right now only have 52% completion and lesser the closer it is to current expansion.

https://ffxivcollect.com/achievements/types/1

I think most ff14 players play for the story. 85% completed endwalker vs 11% completion of current raid tier

https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...=shadowbringer
https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...t%5D=endwalker

Doubt there will be any real impact on game population health if MSQ/Normal level content difficulty is ramped up or not but the stats show that most ff14 players aren't that about playing a game because its difficult or easy but treating it as another rpg in the ff series.

For now I guess anyone can manipulate the difficulty setting and find like minded people via pf to enjoy the game this way tho

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

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What do you mean people entering for endwalker with only 8 days? You still have to play through 3 other expansions before you get there. That’s more than enough time for you to learn your job and the basics of your role. Unless they use a level and story skip in which case any struggling or difficulty is entirely on them and other players shouldn’t have to pay for that.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

What do you mean people entering for endwalker with only 8 days? You still have to play through 3 other expansions before you get there. That’s more than enough time for you to learn your job and the basics of your role. Unless they use a level and story skip in which case any struggling or difficulty is entirely on them and other players shouldn’t have to pay for that.

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It doesn't change that some new players are buying the skip potions and so we must deal with them.

Also, going through 3 expansions worth of content does not mean someone has developed superior skill. Many players have a skill cap they cannot exceed due to physical limitations. Whether you like it or not, SE wants those players to be able to enjoy all of the MSQ and not just the portions you've decided they should be allowed to see.

If you feel that you are "suffering" when in a group with players less skilled than you are, use Party Finder so you can pick and choose who will be in a duty with you.

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Originally Posted by Sabora_Makingai

Ok had to comment on this one lol. I've done 2/3 ultimates and do savage raids frequently but even I had a lot of trouble with this quest. Id agree with those that say this quest was a little too difficult.

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This is actually a really good example of a point that many try to make on these forums: people have different ability and experience levels.

I do not do Ultimate or Savage but I breezed through that quest because my favorite genre is stealth and I've immersed myself in the techniques and tactics that make someone successful at that sort of game. I would definitely not be in the camp who says this quest is too difficult if I just used my own experience.

However, I can empathize with those who had issues because I know not everyone else has the same experience or abilities. Same with any content in this game. People say it's easy and there's nothing wrong with someone saying something is easy for them and offering feedback on what would appeal to them more. I have a few suggestions for that particular quest to integrate stealth ideas better. But then these same people cast judgment on others who have difficulty and claim they're just not trying hard enough or they don't care enough or they don't deserve to play this game because they don't meet some random person's arbitrary standard for what is acceptable in their presence. They cry to the heavens that this is a team based game, but don't actually want to cooperate and work together like a real team does. It's just rude, gatekeepy, and isn't a mentality (not saying your post is, it was just a good example) that we should be encouraging. And frankly threads like this one do exactly that.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

This is actually a really good example of a point that many try to make on these forums: people have different ability and experience levels.

I do not do Ultimate or Savage but I breezed through that quest because my favorite genre is stealth and I've immersed myself in the techniques and tactics that make someone successful at that sort of game. I would definitely not be in the camp who says this quest is too difficult if I just used my own experience.

However, I can empathize with those who had issues because I know not everyone else has the same experience or abilities. Same with any content in this game. People say it's easy and there's nothing wrong with someone saying something is easy for them and offering feedback on what would appeal to them more. I have a few suggestions for that particular quest to integrate stealth ideas better. But then these same people cast judgment on others who have difficulty and claim they're just not trying hard enough or they don't care enough or they don't deserve to play this game because they don't meet some random person's arbitrary standard for what is acceptable in their presence. They cry to the heavens that this is a team based game, but don't actually want to cooperate and work together like a real team does. It's just rude, gatekeepy, and isn't a mentality (not saying your post is, it was just a good example) that we should be encouraging. And frankly threads like this one do exactly that.

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Amen to that! Expecting wide sweeping changes when there are so many factors to consider won't work. I wasn't even playing ff14 last December when my bro rage screaming stuck in that "Garlemald quest" but I clear it on 1st try before the nerf for him. He already clear ALL the ultimate and savage fights up to Shadowbringers btw xD

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

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Funny you mention that. Know why LotA and ST come up way more than WoD in Alliance Roulette? Because people cheese below the ilvl for WoD, too. Know why? Because people can't understand simple things like "Don't stand in front of the giant eye when it shoots a great big laser out of its face."

I'm very happy with how Tower of Zot turned out in terms of mechanics.

Its about the baseline level of mechanics I'd expect from the 4th expansion of a game, in regular dungeons.

Its a pity the level 90 dungeons didn't follow suit, since they are so easy in comparison.

Harder casual content keeps people engaged.

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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.

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I personally would like the game to be a little harder (or more complex) in regards to normal content, but I think this is kind of a weird comparison. The entire premise of fromsoft games is that they're really difficult. For most people who enjoy them, the enjoyable part of the game is dying over and over again to a boss while slowly getting better at fighting it until you finally beat it. As in, they're playing the game specifically because they want to play something that's challenging and requires a lot of effort to succeed at.

FFXIV is very different from that. While there's a small number of players who play the game because they want to experience difficult content (savage/ultimate raiders), the vast majority of players enjoy the game because of the story, or life skills/casual activities, or glams, or so on. I encounter far more players in the game that just want to play casually and have a relaxing experience then I do people who want to wipe to the same boss over and over again. like, if they suddenly made normal/story content in ffxiv way harder, I'm pretty sure a large number of people would just stop playing. High difficulty games are very popular and have a huge audience of people who love playing them, but the target market for fromsoft games and ffxiv is completely different.

Like I said, I would personally enjoy the game more if content was more difficult. Although my main gripe is with lower level content, because ilvl sync is busted and you can basically faceroll a ton of dungeons/trials without actually taking that much damage (which honestly just makes me avoid roulettes a lot, because I hate getting pre-stormblood content), I also find endwalker story content kind of boring because of how faceroll it feels. But the vast majority of the people I know who play this game refuse to go into savage content, or even extreme trials in most cases, because they think it's too difficult.

Admittedly though, I play on crystal, so maybe I'm super out of touch with other datacenters. The raiding community here is very very small compared to the number of more casual players. But I've levelled alts on aether/primal and honestly, the average level of gameplay I see in df there is very similar (as in, very low in most cases).

also sorry double post bc i ran out of space, but as a side note, I genuinely think one of the largest contributing factors to the average skill level of the playerbase is the complete lack of info or direction new players get. There's hall of the novice, but it's pretty easy to miss and also doesn't do a particularly good job at actually teaching people how to play. I see a large number of players in max level content who don't understand really basic things about combat in the game (like people using single target in dungeon pulls, healers who only gcd heal and ignore half of their kit, people who don't know what a stack marker is, and so on). When I started playing, I didn't really understand anything at all, and the only reason why I was able to improve was because I had friends who directed me to resources like guides on youtube and the balance. I'm pretty sure if I didn't know about those (out of the game) resources, I would end up spamming cure 1 in dungeons for the freecure proc too.

I'm not saying that they should put an entire number-crunched super uptime 100% optimized rotation guide in the game, but it would be nice if they explained the basics somehow. Even stuff that might seem intuitive isn't very obvious to people who haven't played mmos or similar games before, which is honestly a large amount of ffxiv players.

more ex/savage/ult level content would be nice, though. what with the long time between patches, it kind of feels like you burn through content really fast and then just mindlessly farm it until the next patch drops. ultimates are better for this, but they're also a big time investment and a lot more mentally draining than savage. I'd love to see more stuff like unreal trials and delubrum savage.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

And this right here is the logical failure point of everyone arguing against making the game challenging. They tend to take it to extremes and radicalize and distort the intentions of the OP every time this gets brought up. Noone is arguing this should be the case. In fact, I think you enjoy making up imaginary people making this argument so you can make it sound valid. No one is asking this, so you are answering to people who don't exist.

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just look at their post history, lol, should tell you enough

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

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seconding this, I've had multiple +1h runs of WoD in the span of 1 week last year, where I saw the danger noodles during cloud of darkness multiple times, while even during slow orbonne's, it was never ever +1h with multiple wipes bad, even if the players themselves weren't good

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Originally Posted by Serious-Cat

Looking at ffcollect, the desire for difficult/high end content isn't really that high. Even "easy" high end content like Alexander (Savage) right now only have 52% completion and lesser the closer it is to current expansion.

https://ffxivcollect.com/achievements/types/1

I think most ff14 players play for the story. 85% completed endwalker vs 11% completion of current raid tier

https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...=shadowbringer
https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...t%5D=endwalker

Doubt there will be any real impact on game population health if MSQ/Normal level content difficulty is ramped up or not but the stats show that most ff14 players aren't that about playing a game because its difficult or easy but treating it as another rpg in the ff series.

For now I guess anyone can manipulate the difficulty setting and find like minded people via pf to enjoy the game this way tho

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Count me as one of those players who played for the story above all else. And yeah, I found it hard. And that's difficult to admit in a thread full of forumites implying that bad players shouldn't be bad and don't deserve to play the game.
Partly due to my lacking performance at least, I have no intention of going anywhere near anything above 'Normal' level content.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

This is actually a really good example of a point that many try to make on these forums: people have different ability and experience levels.

I do not do Ultimate or Savage but I breezed through that quest because my favorite genre is stealth and I've immersed myself in the techniques and tactics that make someone successful at that sort of game. I would definitely not be in the camp who says this quest is too difficult if I just used my own experience.

However, I can empathize with those who had issues because I know not everyone else has the same experience or abilities. Same with any content in this game. People say it's easy and there's nothing wrong with someone saying something is easy for them and offering feedback on what would appeal to them more. I have a few suggestions for that particular quest to integrate stealth ideas better. But then these same people cast judgment on others who have difficulty and claim they're just not trying hard enough or they don't care enough or they don't deserve to play this game because they don't meet some random person's arbitrary standard for what is acceptable in their presence. They cry to the heavens that this is a team based game, but don't actually want to cooperate and work together like a real team does. It's just rude, gatekeepy, and isn't a mentality (not saying your post is, it was just a good example) that we should be encouraging. And frankly threads like this one do exactly that.

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QFT.

Isn't the whole point of adding more of a single player mode to encourage those who have skipped XIV because it is an "MMO" to play it for the story?

It seems like Yoshi P and the game devs have chosen to prioritize the Plot Watchers.

Which.... I get it. Not everyone has the time or commitment for an MMO. Even my husband has said he'd consider playing through XIV in "plot watcher" only mode, and he's actively avoided this game for a decade now.

There’s just so many entertainment options and it’s just hard to only be entertained by one source when you can be doing that other thing rn

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It doesn't change that some new players are buying the skip potions and so we must deal with them.

Also, going through 3 expansions worth of content does not mean someone has developed superior skill. Many players have a skill cap they cannot exceed due to physical limitations. Whether you like it or not, SE wants those players to be able to enjoy all of the MSQ and not just the portions you've decided they should be allowed to see.

If you feel that you are "suffering" when in a group with players less skilled than you are, use Party Finder so you can pick and choose who will be in a duty with you.

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We have to deal with them yes, but it doesn’t mean content should be balanced around them. I understand there’s people with limitations, and that’s perfectly fine. Trusts exist now, they’re even making trials trust-runnable now too. So what’s the excuse at this point? People who don’t think their good at the game or people who have limitations have the options available to continue with the msq despite all that. So why can’t things be tuned up a bit more?

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

We have to deal with them yes, but it doesn’t mean content should be balanced around them. I understand there’s people with limitations, and that’s perfectly fine. Trusts exist now, they’re even making trials trust-runnable now too. So what’s the excuse at this point? People who don’t think their good at the game or people who have limitations have the options available to continue with the msq despite all that. So why can’t things be tuned up a bit more?

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Having limitations or being less skilled is not a reason to say those players don't get to play with other people. People should be able to play multiplayer or single player and enjoy the game regardless. It's not a situation of "you're not good enough for people so go play with bots."

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Having limitations or being less skilled is not a reason to say those players don't get to play with other people. People should be able to play multiplayer or single player and enjoy the game regardless. It's not a situation of "you're not good enough for people so go play with bots."

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This ^

Additionally, whilst it definitely has benefits, the downsides of playing that way are:
- takes a lot longer
- NPCs rarely use AOE attacks
- I found that I picked up aggro before the NPC tank did (since the NPC tanks tend to, as noted, focus on single-target attacks)
- you don't receive player commendations
- it's rather unforgiving if you die - none of the NPCs can revive you and you get sent back to the start, which can often mean quite a trek to reach the point you were at before being KO'ed.

Personally, I also missed the sense of 'community' that often follows - whilst it doesn't always happen, I've sometimes encountered players who wanted to offer some encouragement.

However, in contrast to the generally low opinions of poorly-performing players being expressed here on the forums, my experience of in-game teams is that they're almost always very forgiving of inexperienced or low-performing players, particularly if you take the time to tell them (in chat).

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Having limitations or being less skilled is not a reason to say those players don't get to play with other people. People should be able to play multiplayer or single player and enjoy the game regardless. It's not a situation of "you're not good enough for people so go play with bots."

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They can play with other people, no one is saying they can’t please don’t put words in anyones mouths. My point is, if they find that a trial or dungeon is too hard for them, then trusts exist to help them. But we shouldn’t be balancing content around such a niche minority. Which, before you bring it up, i can already say that the minority of players with disabilities that actually hinders their playstyle to an extreme degree are much more of a minority than those asking for some harder normal content.

As for the other people though, i’d like to think harder normal content would actually help people improve. I don’t think anyone is asking for savage level mechanics in normal content lol. Just a slight increase in difficulty to not make the content so absolutely boring and braindead. You have people in here literally saying they’ve dozed off during dungeon runs because it’s not engaging enough. There’s people literally falling asleep out of boredom for the game. That is a major problem.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

- takes a lot longer
- I found that I picked up aggro before the NPC tank did (since the NPC tanks tend to, as noted, focus on single-target attacks)

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I will content these 2 points.
I've had runs with players that have taken much longer than some trusts either due to single pull tanks, single target rotation DPS, bad players that constantly die, etc; I've had 40 minute Holmester Switch runs with players that with trusts would have taken 20-25 minutes tops. Also, unlike players, SE can actually improve Trusts in the future so that maybe they'll actually use AoE skills to make runs even faster.

I've also never had a problem with the NPC tank, other than them being a little slow on the initial pull. Once it starts, they jump in and start AoEing pretty much instantly, I just have to stand by them for a second for them to get all the mobs but after that, it's pretty normal overall.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

And this right here is the logical failure point of everyone arguing against making the game challenging. They tend to take it to extremes and radicalize and distort the intentions of the OP every time this gets brought up. Noone is arguing this should be the case. In fact, I think you enjoy making up imaginary people making this argument so you can make it sound valid. No one is asking this, so you are answering to people who don't exist.

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But it's the logical conclusion to what they're asking for. We've seen it in WoW. The high end community's chants of "make it harder make it harder" have made the game unrecognizable. The contrast was pronounced when I played Classic a couple of years ago and saw how the original raid mechanics weren't even as hard as the original LFR mechanics. If you run LFR now in WoW, its mechanics are on par with heroic raid mechanics from Cataclysm, with the difference being that it's a little more tolerant of deaths before the DPS checks wipe the raid. Please understand that difficulty is relative. Players who have been at this game for years will have naturally mastered mechanics that new players are still struggling with. They're barely even aware that these mechanics are a challenge anymore. So naturally, if SE perpetually scrambles to keep these players challenged at lower levels and in Normal content, they will eventually ratchet up the difficulty to a point where the learning curve becomes so steep that average players won't even want to bother with it. That's why it's not a productive goal for them. There's a time and place for everything, and the time and place for difficulty in raids is in Extreme and Savage content.

Plus, contrary to your claim, the OP explicitly suggested that SE should bring some of the difficulty from Extreme and Savage into Normal. In their own words, the rest of the game has absolutely zero difficulty:

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Originally Posted by nick124

Why is the game so easy a person who is half asleep could play it with no problem? You wonder why no one knows how to play well, yet make all of the content ridiculously easy. I'm no pro, but its kinda silly how all of the content save extremes and savage is so easy to learn and play with no difficulty whatsoever. People play games to enjoy mental stimulation, and when every single mechanic is telegraphed, repetitive, and predictable, the content becomes very linear and boring.

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And here you are accusing me of going to extremes...

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Additionally, whilst it definitely has benefits, the downsides of playing that way are:
- takes a lot longer
- NPCs rarely use AOE attacks
- I found that I picked up aggro before the NPC tank did (since the NPC tanks tend to, as noted, focus on single-target attacks)
- you don't receive player commendations
- it's rather unforgiving if you die - none of the NPCs can revive you and you get sent back to the start, which can often mean quite a trek to reach the point you were at before being KO'ed.

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- I'll be honest; most of the recent runs in the dungeons that are able to be finished with Trusts have taken longer with human players than they would have done with bots
Trust damage also varies: If you do a lot of damage, they do less, if you half-afk, their attacks do more damage so it always ends up being around 23-25 minutes, which is preferable to dungeons that should take around 15 minutes, taking 30 or more
- Those are honestly non-issues, tbh
- Commendations mean absolutely nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing
- That is true, but that's also true if your party doesn't have someone who can rez you

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Personally, I also missed the sense of 'community' that often follows - whilst it doesn't always happen, I've sometimes encountered players who wanted to offer some encouragement.

However, in contrast to the generally low opinions of poorly-performing players being expressed here on the forums, my experience of in-game teams is that they're almost always very forgiving of inexperienced or low-performing players, particularly if you take the time to tell them (in chat).

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Then you are really, really lucky, as in my (and most of my friends') experiences, encouragement and advice is met with hostility and anger, even if you're telling someone they're doing good.
People are forgiving when it comes to inexperienced players, but they're rightfully not forgiving of those who have spent hundreds of hours and still play as if they're in Sastasha and especially of those who do not put in any effort whatsoever. And honestly, it'd be weird to blame them for that.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

They can play with other people, no one is saying they can’t please don’t put words in anyones mouths. My point is, if they find that a trial or dungeon is too hard for them, then trusts exist to help them. But we shouldn’t be balancing content around such a niche minority. Which, before you bring it up, i can already say that the minority of players with disabilities that actually hinders their playstyle to an extreme degree are much more of a minority than those asking for some harder normal content.

As for the other people though, i’d like to think harder normal content would actually help people improve. I don’t think anyone is asking for savage level mechanics in normal content lol. Just a slight increase in difficulty to not make the content so absolutely boring and braindead. You have people in here literally saying they’ve dozed off during dungeon runs because it’s not engaging enough. There’s people literally falling asleep out of boredom for the game. That is a major problem.

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Then the solution would be to find a way to bring that engagement up without alienating people who just can't operate at a higher level. I will not ever agree with the idea that people with disabilities don't get to play the game. If you raise the difficulty without keeping those needs in mind then you risk making it unplayable for them. I also don't like the idea of majority or minority. Accessibility is my concern. Do I think the state of the game properly reflects that? No. Do I think it can be improved? Yes. But I want those improvements to be done without throwing others under the buss.

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Originally Posted by Xirean

Then the solution would be to find a way to bring that engagement up without alienating people who just can't operate at a higher level. I will not ever agree with the idea that people with disabilities don't get to play the game. If you raise the difficulty without keeping those needs in mind then you risk making it unplayable for them. I also don't like the idea of majority or minority. Accessibility is my concern. Do I think the state of the game properly reflects that? No. Do I think it can be improved? Yes. But I want those improvements to be done without throwing others under the buss.

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That’s exactly why i bring up trusts though. People can still have that engagement without difficulty by running trusts. No one, again, literally no one is saying they can’t play the game. You’re making up scenarios that no one is even stating. The people advocating for more engaging and slightly harder normal content aren’t going around saying f people with disabilities. But i will say it is incredibly difficult to balance a game around the minority with disabilities. But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed. It’s a win/win. If at some point they want to play with other players, there’s loads of casual content tailored to that. Deep dungeons,maps, i would say eureka/bozja but i haven’t a clue if that’s too hard with people with disabilities.

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

No one here is saying that. We want the game to be harder yes but harder doesnt mean savage. Harder means engagement. ARR on release had a good difficulty. It was easy but you had to pay attention. Power creep ruined that. Trusts can fix the issue to give players who need a super easy mode an option and SE should increase difficulty of non trust normal. It sucks having people quit because its too easy and you know what people who find the game hard can improve woth a proper difficulty curve.

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Originally Posted by WildTamarind

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

No one here is saying that. We want the game to be harder yes but harder doesnt mean savage. Harder means engagement. ARR on release had a good difficulty. It was easy but you had to pay attention. Power creep ruined that. Trusts can fix the issue to give players who need a super easy mode an option and SE should increase difficulty of non trust normal. It sucks having people quit because its too easy and you know what people who find the game hard can improve woth a proper difficulty curve.

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^this so much. Wholeheartedly agree.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

That’s exactly why i bring up trusts though. People can still have that engagement without difficulty by running trusts. No one, again, literally no one is saying they can’t play the game. You’re making up scenarios that no one is even stating. The people advocating for more engaging and slightly harder normal content aren’t going around saying f people with disabilities. But i will say it is incredibly difficult to balance a game around the minority with disabilities. But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed. It’s a win/win. If at some point they want to play with other players, there’s loads of casual content tailored to that. Deep dungeons,maps, i would say eureka/bozja but i haven’t a clue if that’s too hard with people with disabilities.

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You can't say that I'm making stuff up then in the same post advocate for going into trusts as a solution. Trusts are a separate avenue of play for single player. They are not easy mode. I'm also not against adding more challenge into normal content. As I said earlier, if more challenge is to be introduced then I want it to be done properly without alienating people.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Count me as one of those players who played for the story above all else. And yeah, I found it hard. And that's difficult to admit in a thread full of forumites implying that bad players shouldn't be bad and don't deserve to play the game.
Partly due to my lacking performance at least, I have no intention of going anywhere near anything above 'Normal' level content.

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Why are you so self-defeating? Why is there a need to denigrate people and put words in their mouth? There is no need to strawman and reduce down some fairly valid opinions to "wow basement dwellers trying to gatekeep lmao" No one is saying bad players don't deserve to play the game, many people are blaming SQUARE ENIX for not instating proper tutorials, for having completely lopsided difficulty curves, no incentive for improvement, an atrocious leveling experience in both content and the jobs themselves, the total dissolution of the midcore, and for design decisions that don't seem to benefit ANYONE. If you want to draw the ire of anyone around here or in XIV in general, you have to have a selfish, overinflated ego combined with irrelevant or incorrect information, not "I'm just not very good at pressing buttons." Or be a "toxic raider elitist forumite", I guess.

You know what I'm here for? FFXIV, in it's entirety. I will consume any amount of content this game has to offer, because I love it, and believe most of it has value, even if some of it isn't exactly perfect, because I think the point of a theme park MMO is to have multiple types of content for multiple types of people. There was no problem with having dungeon/MSQ content be tuned the way it is in Heavensward/Stormblood, because every job had a skill ceiling that was actually worth something that gave opportunity for player growth. Every expansion since, they keep removing actions, they remove designs and systems, they dumb down the things that brought identity and uniqueness to each and every job to the point of irrelevance, and now, instead of participating in unengaging content with a engaging job that gives me the opportunity to have fun in even the most casual of content, Square Enix has dropped the ceiling of the entire game on the heads of playerbase, regardless of where you stood on the spectrum. I used to play jobs with mid-40 casts per minute, with variable timers. Now I'm lucky to reach high 30s as I mash my head into the same builder spender, 2 min burst window with zero variations that comprises the entire combat suite. Won't even go into the total lobotomy that has happened to the support role.

I can only play a fleshed-out, long term story experience ONE time every two years, over the course of maybe two weeks. The experience of actually playing XIV long-term compromises of much more of the overall play experience, and that long-term runway of gameplay, with a suitable skill ceiling, should be accommodated for.

This is probably why I've lost almost all my XIV friends from Heavensward. The game is boring to play. I have never played XIV LESS than I do right now.

You can keep your easy dungeons, and your easy MSQ, and your lack of consequences for any mistake or shortcoming or disability you may have, while also having significant developer resources allocated to the expansion of the Trust system. That's the correct way to develop, and I support that 100%. It doesn't affect me, we have different lanes. But I'd like my skill ceiling to return, because proper skill expression makes even the most braindead content fun, and prevents a spiraling dead end in your most dedicated players, the ones who champion the game the most. As long as the floor remains low for accessibility, it gives a solid middle ground for everyone, like it was on the path to becoming in Stormblood before Shadowbringers gutted the entire game. At this rate, every job is going to devolve into the same grey, tasteless mush.

If people being bad is accepted, people should also accept that people are allowed to be good and want more from their play experience even in mandatory content. We don't need to be in permanent conflict 24/7, those are not conflicting ideals, but SE seems determined to make the gameplay experience for one side totally miserable, just like they did in Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed.

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That's not how trusts work. It's not like you get to completely ignore mechanics once you're in trusts. In fact, you can argue that trusts are harder because you can't get carried through them. If you die in a trust, the run fails with no second chances. While it's true that 75% of the mechanics in trusts can be done by simply stacking on one of the more reliable NPCs, there are many mechanics that require you to be on the ball. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I like that there's some challenge even in trusts. I just don't think that trusts justify an increase in normal dungeon difficulty. Such an increase impacts trusts almost as much as it impacts roulette/PF runs.

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Originally Posted by WildTamarind

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

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I advise you to read it again. I didn't extrapolate anything. He was very specific in saying that he wanted the telegraphs to be removed and the mechanics to be randomized:

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Originally Posted by nick124

People play games to enjoy mental stimulation, and when every single mechanic is telegraphed, repetitive, and predictable, the content becomes very linear and boring.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

We have to deal with them yes, but it doesn’t mean content should be balanced around them. I understand there’s people with limitations, and that’s perfectly fine. Trusts exist now, they’re even making trials trust-runnable now too. So what’s the excuse at this point? People who don’t think their good at the game or people who have limitations have the options available to continue with the msq despite all that. So why can’t things be tuned up a bit more?

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Unfortunately, Trusts are designed for those who are uncomfortable in social situations, not for those with physical limitations.

How do you know that where MSQ is tuned now is not at the limit of those with the limitations? How many others with limitations already had to quit the game because the tuning was too high for what they could handle?

How are you harmed by difficulty being at the level it is? The game is still accessible to you. Making the difficulty harder will remove accessibility for others.

You can play this game when you're in the mood for casual story mode, or for the harder content you can unlock once story mode is completed. If you aren't in the mood for story mode but don't have the other content unlocked yet, there are plenty of other games to choose from that will give you the difficult content you desire and you can return here when you're back in the mood for story mode.

Trusts aren't available for trials though (except one) and won't be for awhile. Trials are specifically what I think are demanding of the average player. As someone who plays for the story and doesn't like group content, they're probably the worst part of the game for me and annoyingly consistent roadblocks in the MSQ. You don't get 'carried' when half the team or more are also new and going in blind. Brings back miserable memories of progression raiding, I didn't enjoy it then and I don't now.

I can't help but be reminded of an old Ghostcrawler quote from around the time of Cata: "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite."

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Unfortunately, Trusts are designed for those who are uncomfortable in social situations, not for those with physical limitations.

How do you know that where MSQ is tuned now is not at the limit of those with the limitations? How many others with limitations already had to quit the game because the tuning was too high for what they could handle?

How are you harmed by difficulty being at the level it is? The game is still accessible to you. Making the difficulty harder will remove accessibility for others.

You can play this game when you're in the mood for casual story mode, or for the harder content you can unlock once story mode is completed. If you aren't in the mood for story mode but don't have the other content unlocked yet, there are plenty of other games to choose from that will give you the difficult content you desire and you can return here when you're back in the mood for story mode.

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Making the difficulty easier will remove the will to player for other people as well though. There needs to be a balance. I brought up trusts because while they can’t exactly carry you, they are imo an excellent way to be able to learn your job and role in peace.

People with disabilities is a whole other ball game though, and again, you can’t expect every game to balance or cater to that. It’s the unfortunate truth. Because then at that point a larger number of people are having to suffer because of it, whether it be in engagement or enjoyment. I think if SE really wanted to do something for players with disabilities there would be a whole separate difficulty and mode for them that they could choose. As far as multiplayer dungeons go….i mean it’s multiplayer. Harder content is severely limited compared to the more “casual” kind like dungeons. We get 4 fights every 6-8 months. Meanwhile there’s dungeons,alli raids, normal trials etc. Not to mention you have to get through the story to be able to even unlock endgame content.