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

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Contrarians strike again! As per usual...

I guess we need to start saying the game needs to be easier and then they'll come out and say it needs to be harder. Or just double down.

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Ah. So anyone with a different opinion is just having one to be difficult. No diversity of thought or anything like that.

Don’t stray from the echo chamber you darn “contrarians”

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Making the game harder isn't going to magically make people better, it's just going to lose players who don't want to (or cannot) put that effort in. If your goal is to up the "average" then I guess whatever.. but if you're a game company that relies on player retention, then you're probably not going to want to cut player base just to make it so some players don't have slightly slower runs.

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Yep, this is true.

I think SE should work on ways to help players improve, though. No one should need an external website or discord channel to learn how to play their Job correctly.

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Originally Posted by Floortank

Yep, this is true.

I think SE should work on ways to help players improve, though. No one should need an external website or discord channel to learn how to play their Job correctly.

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Tbf what defines the term "correctly" though?

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Tbf what defines the term "correctly" though?

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I’d say it’s a loose term but there are definitely “incorrect” ways to play.

As an example, I had a red mage yesterday hard casting veraero and verthunder instead of dual casting them as a follow up to jolt. This is definitely not correct when you consider the individual cast times

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

I get annoyed by it when people say crap like 'I cant do savage because I have a life'. I don't know what the hell people think is going on in this content, so to me, it just reads as you want to be different for the sake of it or are being a disingenuous contrarian.

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Ah. That explains your position better

/thumbs up

I can understand your frustration

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

I’d say it’s a loose term but there are definitely “incorrect” ways to play.

As an example, I had a red mage yesterday hard casting veraero and verthunder instead of dual casting them as a follow up to jolt. This is definitely not correct when you consider the individual cast times

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Wdym. Hardcasting means they hit harder. That only makes sense! /s

But yeah playing incorrectly is easier to pinpoint. For me playing correctly is simply following combos and positionals. Buffs n such when you can. For others playing correctly in is following rotations to a T

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I feel it very important for you to realize just how important individual skill actually is. How skilled you are is an individual relates directly to your ability to contribute in a group setting. If you perform poorly, you could easily be the reason a group gets wiped by an enrage rather than managing the clear, even should the other members of that group be performing their roles adequately. You assert that any challenge in this game can be overcome solely through teamwork, and that as a result of this the perceived difficulty of content is in no way related to player skill. However, I submit to you that your skill as an individual is in fact integral to and reflective of your ability to work as a team. Lack of coordination in a team, even in random PF learning groups, can often be traced to players that are making no meaningful progress in their personal fight understanding or teamwork, as the two are indeed demonstrably linked.

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I'm glad you've ditched the attitude. It allows for a more civil discussion, and makes the sides of the argument much easier to comprehend. That said, I never implied that individual player skill is not important, but that's not what this is about. What this discussion pertains to is the difficulty of content along the middle ground. As I mentioned before, a group of skilled players can and will trivialize how challenging the content is, but that does not increase or decrease the difficulty of it. At the EX level, the content stops playing around and lets players know that knowledge of mechanics, obeying them, and group coordination are required to clear it. It also lets them know that if they do not know how to play their job properly and how their skills tie together, they will not be pulling their weight, and avoiding enrage will be difficult. The difficulty of any particular EX encounter is set by how many mistakes are allowed to be made and the clear still be possible. EX encounters become easier over time due to ilv increases, which allow more mistakes to happen along with the party causing more damage overall. The Echo by itself also makes the encounter less difficult each time the party wipes.

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The vast majority of players are unable to work effectively as a team. Even when taught how to do fights - even when provided with callouts and markers, most of them simply cannot or will not do it. There are also those that have the potential to improve to that degree but become demoralized and ultimately give up instead of continuing to push themselves. Additionally, it is important to consider that what is difficult for one person might not be difficult for another, which is why we use the majority as the basis for determining the actual difficulty of content relative to player-base. A minority being able to overcome a challenge does not mean everyone can, or that they would be willing to try to begin with.

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Nearly every person is capable of overcoming a challenge. That is what I feel is very important to take to heart. I don't think there is a single player who decides to participate in an EX encounter who does not think there will be challenges that will have to be overcome. That just confirms that middle ground content does exist, because in nearly all the content below the EX level, players don't have to worry about this at all. They will clear those duties one way or the other.

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Now, to your last point; the failings of others are not my responsibility. I'll gladly go out of my way to teach people that are willing to learn, but the ones that can't or won't, which does sadly appear to be the majority, are not problem. If being unwilling to tolerate those that won't better themselves means I'm "not a good team-player," that's fine. My opinion hasn't stopped me from clearing content, and it certainly won't magically start hindering me now.

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It's a team effort. Regardless if you feel it is your responsibility or not, you win or lose as a team. If someone screws up a mechanic that wipes the whole group, you can pin the blame on that one player, but this doesn't accomplish anything. When everyone helps this player understand their role in the mechanic they fail, and if that player communicates what exactly it is they do not understand to the others, the result more often than not is success. Especially opposed to just pointing the finger at them, and telling them they suck, or get better. A good example of this is when a player is confused on their clock position, or where a healer is supposed to take their stack marker. If it is unclear, wipes will happen. Help them to understand, and the content won't be harder than it needs to be.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I'm glad you've ditched the attitude. It allows for a more civil discussion, and makes the sides of the argument much easier to comprehend.

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I'm afraid I don't follow. My attitude and opinions are completely unchanged.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Nearly every person is capable of overcoming a challenge. That is what I feel is very important to take to heart. I don't think there is a single player who decides to participate in an EX encounter who does not think there will be challenges that will have to be overcome. That just confirms that middle ground content does exist, because in nearly all the content below the EX level, players don't have to worry about this at all. They will clear those duties one way or the other.

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This, I believe, is where we disagree fundamentally. I'm not saying mid-content doesn't exist. I'm saying not every EX falls into that category. Some of them are basically MSQ level, and some of them manage to be worse than savage. Of this expansion's EX fights, most are not what your typical "midcore" player would consider approachable. One cannot, in my opinion, simply go "extreme trials are midcore" without additional commentary to this effect, if they wish to be correct. This partly stems from the fact the skill level of the player-base as a whole is quite low, with many of them simply being unwilling to learn regardless of how kindly or constructively advice is offered them.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Wdym. Hardcasting means they hit harder. That only makes sense! /s

But yeah playing incorrectly is easier to pinpoint. For me playing correctly is simply following combos and positionals. Buffs n such when you can. For others playing correctly in is following rotations to a T

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Following rotations to a T I consider to be pushing damage. What you considering to be playing correctly I consider to be at least trying, and I want everybody to try.

According to the World of Darkness I was just in a few minutes before, please don’t do this.
7 years playing this game and tonight a saw an enrage I have never seen before, on the 3 boss on separated platform (I didn’t knew the floor will be burning if no one activate the teleports…)

From what I’ve seen in other threads the general consensus for the ffxiv community is that the ‘average player’ is super trash. 0 dps GCD only healers, ice mages, tanks with no cool downs. It doesn’t seem to fair to ask for average content to be harder when everyone claims the average player is bad. If that were true, shouldn’t it be easier lol

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Originally Posted by Gwen_Lavellan

According to the World of Darkness I was just in a few minutes before, please don’t do this.
7 years playing this game and tonight a saw an enrage I have never seen before, on the 3 boss on separated platform (I didn’t knew the floor will be burning if no one activate the teleports…)

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I wiped on the first boss because no one bothered with the add.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I feel it very important for you to realize just how important individual skill actually is. How skilled you are is an individual relates directly to your ability to contribute in a group setting. If you perform poorly, you could easily be the reason a group gets wiped by an enrage rather than managing the clear, even should the other members of that group be performing their roles adequately.

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This is why I don't play difficult content. I have poor rote memory, and although I've considered writing scripts to help me remember boss sequences, I don't consider playing to a spreadsheet fun. So rather than hold people back, I don't play ex, savage, or even normal (after the first clear) trials. They just aren't fun for me, nor do I like to hold back the group. My idea of difficulty would be flexible, on-the-toes thinking because the AI/dungeon is being unpredictable, not fighting against my memory bandwidth.

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Originally Posted by Anxin

This is why I don't play difficult content. I have poor rote memory, and although I've considered writing scripts to help me remember boss sequences, I don't consider playing to a spreadsheet fun. So rather than hold people back, I don't play ex, savage, or even normal (after the first clear) trials. They just aren't fun for me, nor do I like to hold back the group. My idea of difficulty would be flexible, on-the-toes thinking because the AI/dungeon is being unpredictable, not fighting against my memory bandwidth.

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This is exactly, 100% my issue as well.
I deal well with evolving, dynamic situations, and I'm good at split-second decision making.

But show me a 10-key sequence and I'll NEVER get it right.
Put me in front of a boss that needs me to be in 3 specific spots in a row and watch me fail 80+ times in a row.

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Originally Posted by Anxin

This is why I don't play difficult content. I have poor rote memory, and although I've considered writing scripts to help me remember boss sequences, I don't consider playing to a spreadsheet fun. So rather than hold people back, I don't play ex, savage, or even normal (after the first clear) trials. They just aren't fun for me, nor do I like to hold back the group. My idea of difficulty would be flexible, on-the-toes thinking because the AI/dungeon is being unpredictable, not fighting against my memory bandwidth.

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Very respectable. Fact is, rote memorization is something quite a few people struggle with. Given every notable fight in FFXIV essentially being a dance one memorizes the moves to, it can really get frustrating for people not so up on rote memory. While I am confident you could find groups willing to slog through the process with you, I can certainly understand not wanting to put that expectation on others.

Not gonna lie, I kinda wish the fights were less memorization and more reaction too. The engine and bass ackwards netcode can't handle it, sadly. Closest we've gotten to a truly reactionary fight is Rathalos, which I'll grant was actually pretty enjoyable. If you haven't touched it, I'd highly recommend doing so despite it being outdated. You can get a really badass mount out of the deal.

I would love to see them put one of the priority mechanics on Normals just to see the reaction. If Snakes is anything to go by, it would decimate groups.

I think valid points are with difficulty but even the difficult content people have been caught using tools to make it "easier". No matter what they do or change people will say it's too easy for everyone or too difficult (See Heavensward raid scene). I think the levels of normal, extreme, savage, ultimate is great because it forces you to get better either at your job or mechanics. Let players choose their comfort zone is my vote. Let the casual players that enjoy the story enjoy the story. And let the hard core raiders get through the "easy content" to enjoy their pace.

It's easy to forget about 24 and normal raid 'cause if you're a savage player, you likely dismiss the former and rarely step back into the latter once you unlock savage. But those 2 are the perfect environment to practice and improve ... assuming one is willing. There are enough things going on in those raid to practice basic situation awareness, mechanic memorizing/solving, and rotation. If someone can consistently go through those raid without repeating getting hit/dying while maintaining a basic rotation, then I consider those are decent players and probably just a level below EX trial.

Some people may said it hinder the incentive learning by giving people a free pass, I would argue from an education perspective, a safe environment where you have the opportunity to improve at your own space while the consequence of failure (and frustration) are minimize is the ideal environment. All that requires is the person have the will to do it. However, if someone tank the floor into the 2 digits yet at the end of the raid walk away thinking "yeah that's fine, it doesn't matter 'cause other gonna carry me anyway" then I'm sorry, those players ain't gonna try to improve themselves no matter how much you want to tune the content to force them.


Although I live in the US I came from a different culture where people are more live and let's live. I kinda find it weird in the US that in the last decade or so there seem to be this obsession about "people who not doing what I want or up to my standard, thus I demand rule/law/regulation to be created to bring everyone else to my level". For me, sink or swim idc. Either I welcome you to the hardcore content, or I don't know you. It's not like there isn't enough people for me to run high end content with so I don't see the issue. I'm curious, do people actually have a problem with not finding enough people playing with you in high level content, or people just simply pissed at other being bad for no reason?

Its funny this is being talked about because Elder Scrolls Players and other MMO communities of Triple A Companies are complaining lately about the Normal Difficulty being too easy.

for ESO overland content has been bad for years.

I fear that MMO Developers are creating too many Gaming Design sins, and its favoring too much of one group of players and while alienating another. That has to stop or else its just going to destroy what video games should be about or it ends either being way too masochistic or too much of a Social RP game (by which I mean there is no gameplay because the game plays itself and FFXIV leans way hard in this direction).

We need to figure out solutions that is best for both Casual Players & Hardcore Players without stomping over eachother.

Right now it seems Story & Overworld Content of some Modern MMOs are the most affected issue, I don't know what they're teaching Developers in College these days but I hope they realize this is becoming a problem or whether these big corporates look at eachother thinking this is a good idea when it is not so. You want to leave good lasting impressions on players with challenging story content instead of hollow victories,

To satisfy this I think giving Normal & Extreme Variations of Story Solo Bosses would be a good step forward for both Casual & Hardcore Players and Final Bosses of Story Content (from Ultima Weapon to the Bird of Depression) should be given a Hard Mode Version of their Normal Variant in Story Mode (since we have Extreme Bosses already, but its not part of the story).

Also hard mode trials seems to becoming a relic lately of days gone by, I think the Devs should revisit that mainly for the final story bosses. As a incentive give the Hard Mode variations more tomestones, gold, and a weapon drop that is normally from Extreme but does not have the mount (least in my opinion anyway). Also give the Hard Mode Variations the same mechanics seen in Extreme, but hits not as hard, so that gives casual players more confidence in learning for Extreme.

I'm not asking for Dark Souls level of crazyness, but definitely something needs to be done before it gets even worse.

The issue is any time normal content is made that requires pressing more than 1 button you get the same group of 4 ppl and their alts on here claiming they have every disability in the world on top of having no arms and legs demanding it be nerfed.

I suppose will chime in some other ideas I had while catching up on the thread

Trial 1 and Trial 2 from Endwalker were amazing on the release month. People wiped, chatted on how the mechanic could be solved, asked and gave advice, and generally that ended in a clear after a few attempts

Now, what I wanna make important about this is that both of those trials were very important bosses in the narrative, so making them as hard as they are (specially trial 2), in my opinion, makes the victory and first clear so much more fullfilling

(And if you really struggled with it, you could either follow *that* NPC in trust, or get help from other players, wich kinda makes sense in a MMO)

If you wanna go back to ShB, maybe they could have done a bit more with the dungeon wardens, like thrice-come ruin to make them feel more like a active threat. Going as back as to ARR, you have the leveling trials with very decent difficulty spikes to emphasise how the primals are strong enemies

To wrap the idea what im trying to say is, they could, and have used difficulty to make the MSQ presentation of a foe, feel more accurate. If something is presented as a big enemy, it should feel like a big enemy in the combat.

I personally think the Four lord series, Titania, EW trial 2 and even the Sky pirate series are great examples of difficulty used well in a narrative game, and even as someone that does Savage nowdays, I still find great enjoyment in any of these instances as they are a straight foward, but enjoyable challenge, packed into fun fights

I feel like Dixie is more sick of the "Square peg, into the square hole, circle peg... into the square hole" design that a lot of normal mode suffers from, than the difficulty itself being "easy"

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

I'm afraid I don't follow. My attitude and opinions are completely unchanged.

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When you are willing to express your PoV in a civil manner instead of just saying the playerbase sucks, it makes it easier to have a conversation with you. Even if you still feel that way, your restraint from continuing to express those thoughts is a change of attitude.

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This, I believe, is where we disagree fundamentally. I'm not saying mid-content doesn't exist. I'm saying not every EX falls into that category. Some of them are basically MSQ level, and some of them manage to be worse than savage. Of this expansion's EX fights, most are not what your typical "midcore" player would consider approachable. One cannot, in my opinion, simply go "extreme trials are midcore" without additional commentary to this effect, if they wish to be correct. This partly stems from the fact the skill level of the player-base as a whole is quite low, with many of them simply being unwilling to learn regardless of how kindly or constructively advice is offered them.

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Not a single EX encounter in EW is MSQ level of difficulty. However, they are also not the same strength either. Some are definitely easier/harder than others. However, they are still middle ground level. This goes back to where I said that skilled players can and will trivialize the content, that does not mean the difficulty all of a sudden gets lesser. The opposite is also true if you feel the overall skill level of the playerbase is low. Their unwillingness to go into the content for whatever reasons those might be does not make the difficulty of content greater. Where we fundamentally disagree is that you somehow think that player skill level and the difficulty of the content conflate with each other.

Players who might want to try EX content but are a bit anxious about it is normal. Those players understand that the game changes in this content, and they might feel like their skill level isn't up to par and don't want to hold other players back. If more players express a friendly and good demeanor, more of them will venture into it. This is how I feel the community can increase the overall skill level of the playerbase. Not increasing the difficulty of NM casual content and shoving it down their throats.

Y'know, to hark back to what I said earlier...if any of you that do savage or extremes are criticising normal content as "too easy" , yet have third party programs..lets see you do it with a normal UI..because I suspect that the moment those addons are taken away, it will be a very different story.

"Normal content is too easy"...in the same breath "I cant do savage or extreme content without addons , callouts and a dps meter".

So.....which is it?

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I get annoyed by it when people say crap like 'I cant do savage because I have a life'

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I get annoyed when someone tells me to schedule my life around a video game.

This is 2023 not 1980.

The age disparity between then and now is huge, the average gamer is now in their mid to late 30's or older,

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The average age of a video game in Australia has remained at 34 years old and nearly half of all players are female.

Older Australians also getting in on the act with 42 per cent of those aged 65 and over identifying as gamers...the perception that gaming is a young person’s domain has also been shattered with news that less than a quarter of videogame players are under 18.

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So yes, people do have lives, they have kids and jobs that take more than enough of their time, by end of the day they are ALREADY worn out and dont want to have to deal with yet more stress and hassle and schedules. This..surprises you?

No one works 9-5 anymore, an INCREASING number of people work from home ( and for anyone who dislikes this trend, allow me to illustrate )....what happens when you scream "get back to the office or be fired" to your staff, add in a "manager" who apparently has been living under a rock for the last three years ...orders a staffmember to come in sick..what was the end result?

200 cases of COVID

( It didnt happen you say? Ohhhh yes it did....that particular company is now in a 300 foot fwe heap. )

Offices are Petri dishes..lemme clue you in in something btw, when I worked fulltime in an office I lost COUNT of the days I got sick, coughs, colds, flu, you name it.....what happened after I stopped working and was at home? I didnt get sick AT ALL and have had maybe one bout of flu in five years. Work from home has zero to do with "skill in a video game", with the current trends being what they are, I predict that in ten years offices will be a thing of the past, a few scattered here and there maybe, but thats all.

WFH will be the norm across a swathe of industries.

As ages increase, as the gaming population ages, normal content will become the go to area for ALL MMO's, things like savage etc will become a niche area, far more than they are now. A person in FF 14 at age 65 will have far less interest in extremes, Ultimates etc, and a lot more into story and casual content that can be cleared with a modicum of effort.

Ive said this before but it bears repeating: Demographics drive game design.

Times change, attitudes change, there is little to nothing wrong with normal content as it is now. You have hard mode for solo scenarios, you have Criterion Variant, Extreme, Savage, Ultimate...so I dont see an issue here.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue is any time normal content is made that requires pressing more than 1 button you get the same group of 4 ppl and their alts on here claiming they have every disability in the world on top of having no arms and legs demanding it be nerfed.

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The issue with expressing anything is too difficult for oneself is that you get the same group of elite "Ultimate raiders but only in their mind" people on here claiming that anyone who can't play on their level is stupid and/or faking disability.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

there is little to nothing wrong with normal content as it is now.

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lol
lmao even

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue is any time normal content is made that requires pressing more than 1 button you get the same group of 4 ppl and their alts on here claiming they have every disability in the world on top of having no arms and legs demanding it be nerfed.

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Wtf? Man these exaggerations are insane at this point. Per the stupid logic that this is you'd ALWAYS see people asking for nerfs. I've not seen that since In From The Cold dropped with 6.0. We've had plenty of content since then and I've not once seen any call for a nerf or any claim of disability. So who is this supposed 4 man group with alts making these claims? Who are these agents banding together to do this?

Your logic reeks of the toxic "uber elite" that no one in the community really likes or resonates with and that's not a good thing. It's dangerous

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue is any time normal content is made that requires pressing more than 1 button you get the same group of 4 ppl and their alts on here claiming they have every disability in the world on top of having no arms and legs demanding it be nerfed.

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You have a knack for telling fictional stories. Considered turning that into a career endeavour?

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Y'know, to hark back to what I said earlier...if any of you that do savage or extremes are criticising normal content as "too easy" , yet have third party programs..lets see you do it with a normal UI..because I suspect that the moment those addons are taken away, it will be a very different story.

"Normal content is too easy"...in the same breath "I cant do savage or extreme content without addons , callouts and a dps meter".

So.....which is it?

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Even if we indulge in your vision that everyone who complains about the game being too easy is a dirty cheater in EX/savage, this argument makes no logical sense.
There is a well-known gap in intensity between those two types of content, so finding EX/savage too hard has absolutely no relation to normal content being too easy. Both could potentially be true. If people cheated in normal mode, you'd maybe have a point, but instead a lot of people complain about a lack of content between normal and EX. If anything your strawman proves that such content is needed.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I'm curious, do people actually have a problem with not finding enough people playing with you in high level content, or people just simply pissed at other being bad for no reason?

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Much has to do with RL here, I expect. People that are unemployed, collegiate, or are fortunate to work a 9-5 office job and thus can regularly play with the peak herd find it easy.

People that work, say, retail? Not so much. Second shift where I work has you getting home after 10 PM, first shift would mean being at work at 5 (or is it 4?) AM. The former you miss the rush and the latter you have to go to bed as it picks up. Also if you are not Eastern Time things get pushed around too because you have to consider the ET folks' bedtimes.

Add in the extreme (much more than WoW) antipathy XIV raiders have at losing even one scheduled static night and things like Comcast (and SE) maintenance habits and night owls have a bit of an issue. Something in early Stormblood seems to have caused a shift as well because I remember the night life on Aether being very abuzz in 4.0-4.1, then around 4.2 or so people started going to bed early, and if you couldn't shift your schedule you mostly just got to watch your temporally privileged friends one by one happily join statics while you were stuck with late-tier PF.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I'm not asking for Dark Souls level of crazyness, but definitely something needs to be done before it gets even worse.

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Funnily I've wondered if Dark Souls was actually a catalyst for this decline.

It was just that popular, and not only forced that many people to get unusually good at action RPG gameplay compared to the past, but also presumably attracted a lot of people who weren't into "traditional" RPGs but had hitherto mainly played things like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry.

These people then came to dominate the genre, meanwhile most of us that feel the pinch of modern MMO culture seem to be the ones that arrived here from a gaming career of mainly traditional RPGs. We're dinosaurs, I guess, though, since we barely get anything anymore besides remasters, other than a bunch of cheap RPG Maker stuff and "adult" RPGs on Steam ...

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue is any time normal content is made that requires pressing more than 1 button you get the same group of 4 ppl and their alts on here claiming they have every disability in the world on top of having no arms and legs demanding it be nerfed.

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In solo duties some phases can get pretty frantic (think 4.1, or the Level 86 EW story duty last phases). I can imagine a motor disability making them really hard (especially when the benefit from Easy or Very Easy is minimal, such as in these cases), and really frustrating because there's no (TOS-acceptable, anyway) way to get a leg up (another casualty of modern gaming, back in those days you used to hand your friend the keyboard and have them do it for you, now you'll possibly get banned for the equivalent online) so what can you do? Just shelve the game and wait for the paid story boost to be available past that point? That's pretty disheartening.

There's also the unexpected gameplay shifts that can be fun sometimes but also easily frustrating, especially if you're in a RPG mindset instead of the "Gaming Decathlon" mindset MMOs seem to ask for now - or if, as sometimes (hi azure haired boy) it requires developing a play skill to a degree that you will use just the once and then is of little or no use thereafter.

In group content, the fear is presumably getting stuck because you're good enough but mechanics mean you can't carry and you get paired with people that can't hack it you get stuck as well (thus fueling even more of a "rush it at release" mindset - do we really want 7.0 to be a repeat of Queue Savage?).

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Originally Posted by Raraka

If you wanna go back to ShB, maybe they could have done a bit more with the dungeon wardens, like thrice-come ruin to make them feel more like a active threat.

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The trouble is this makes the healer situation even more stark. Healers feel like green DPS enough as it is, if you push individual responsibility any further you essentially might as well just phase out the Healer role altogether, as some of the newer Korean MMOs have done ...

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I get annoyed when someone tells me to schedule my life around a video game.

This is 2023 not 1980.

The age disparity between then and now is huge, the average gamer is now in their mid to late 30's or older,

So yes, people do have lives, they have kids and jobs that take more than enough of their time, by end of the day they are ALREADY worn out and dont want to have to deal with yet more stress and hassle and schedules. This..surprises you?

WFH will be the norm across a swathe of industries.

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Yep. And if there's one group that I see ROUTINELY get the short end of the stick in MMO communities, it's the working adult. Especially the working adult who does not have the privilege of working at home.

Instead of being the backbone of the customer base, we're apparently just a bunch of inexperienced gamers dragging everyone down with our lack of time and energy that's treated as laziness by the "terminally online" crowd who dominate the community watering holes.

And barely anyone seems to be interested in fixing this. You mostly see people wanting to push content to entertain the folks who have put aside everything else in life to perfect themselves at the game, and anyone else should ... apparently just be there to boost their Twitch views, I guess?

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

The issue with expressing anything is too difficult for oneself is that you get the same group of elite "Ultimate raiders but only in their mind" people on here claiming that anyone who can't play on their level is stupid and/or faking disability.

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Yep. "Savage is easy, you're just bad." I can't count how many times I've caught that canard from elite players.

I partly blame it on the Discord ecosystem, but due to the extreme popularity and the terms of service of Discord, I'm not entirely sure what the way back from this brink is ...

I have only cleared a pair of savage fights before, when I feel up for it. I otherwise have more investment in the casual content. And yet I fully agree: most normal content, especially nowadays, is incredibly easy.

I rather enjoyed Shinryu's level of difficulty when it came out, because I hadn't seen anything mandatory demand so much attention. It was honestly refreshing for me... but other people certainly disagreed at the time, with many people asking the fight to be toned down.
I absolutely loved Orbonne because of the more demanding fight style with mechanics that required group coordination, know-how and realizing there were more details than just "lol stand on the place".
That's why I liked POTD back then, because doing deep dives with my friends was so fun. We had to coordinate, we had to be careful, we had to know mechanics, we had to figure ourselves out whenever stuff went wrong...
It's why I loved stuff like Dun Scaith or Ozma's fight.
And that's also why I like CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae. Because they were casual content, yes, but they didn't hold your hand all the time either like the majority of the dungeons do.

Sure, you can argue "well, everything in the game eventually gets easier through repetition". But I'm talking to things that, at least for me, posed a bit more of a challenge at base than the rest. Certainly nothing to the point of a Savage, but also requiring a bit more coordination than most other fights.

To me, the Crystal Tower raids are absolutely boring.
Euphrosyne is really, really bland apart from Halone that at least tries to be challenging.

:p I like to tryhard. But I know several people don't, and that happens to be the demographic SE pays attention to. Because those people are the ones that are subbed into the game, take their time with content and just want to chill and explore.

So... yeah. I'm not a raider under any stretch, I'm as casuul as it can get. And even then I think we're getting stuff that's honestly pretty easy.

honestly all they need to do is just bring back TP for melees. A system where there is a direct consequence for your actions speaks louder than any difficulty curve. Spamming your aoes on just one or two mobs? Too bad now you have no TP. Spamming just your ranged attack? Too bad now you have no TP. Caster's get penalized for dying but not melees? The fact that you can go through the entire MSQ from ARR to EW, only spamming your aoes as a tank should worry the FFXIV devs. Though it would make for an awkward video compilation. "Can you clear FFXIV with only Overpower"?

However, they also need to introduce an incentive system with the TP. For example, let's say you do your 123 rotation, each costing 100 TP respectively. First action will cost the full amount (100 TP), the second will be 50% (50 TP), and the last will be free (0 TP). Players can actually visualize and see that if I do my combo rotation correctly I don't lose a lot of TP for playing correctly. It would also instinctively teach them to always complete your combo rotation.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

I have only cleared a pair of savage fights before, when I feel up for it. I otherwise have more investment in the casual content. And yet I fully agree: most normal content, especially nowadays, is incredibly easy.

I rather enjoyed Shinryu's level of difficulty when it came out, because I hadn't seen anything mandatory demand so much attention. It was honestly refreshing for me... but other people certainly disagreed at the time, with many people asking the fight to be toned down.
I absolutely loved Orbonne because of the more demanding fight style with mechanics that required group coordination, know-how and realizing there were more details than just "lol stand on the place".
That's why I liked POTD back then, because doing deep dives with my friends was so fun. We had to coordinate, we had to be careful, we had to know mechanics, we had to figure ourselves out whenever stuff went wrong...
It's why I loved stuff like Dun Scaith or Ozma's fight.
And that's also why I like CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae. Because they were casual content, yes, but they didn't hold your hand all the time either like the majority of the dungeons do.

Sure, you can argue "well, everything in the game eventually gets easier through repetition". But I'm talking to things that, at least for me, posed a bit more of a challenge at base than the rest. Certainly nothing to the point of a Savage, but also requiring a bit more coordination than most other fights.

To me, the Crystal Tower raids are absolutely boring.
Euphrosyne is really, really bland apart from Halone that at least tries to be challenging.

:p I like to tryhard. But I know several people don't, and that happens to be the demographic SE pays attention to. Because those people are the ones that are subbed into the game, take their time with content and just want to chill and explore.

So... yeah. I'm not a raider under any stretch, I'm as casuul as it can get. And even then I think we're getting stuff that's honestly pretty easy.

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Counter argument here as another filthy casual who has dabbled into EW's EXs and Savages. I think the normal difficulty for dungeons and trials is mostly fine honestly. Its subjective between people but since a lot of this content gets shuffled into roulettes, you dont necessarily want you and the party spend extra time struggling to clear fights when these get queued on a basis for daily rewards. Its supposed to be just to get your fill and get out. I dont think the content needs to be difficult to be enjoyable, just the encounter design itself to be enjoyable enough. This is why we have EXs and Savages and WHY we dont have something as an EX roulette or Savage roulette (although now that I say that, that could be an interesting idea. Too bad the most likely scenario is that this'll just backfire) for those striving for tougher challenges. Leave normal content as how it is now.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Counter argument here as another filthy casual who has dabbled into EW's EXs and Savages. I think the normal difficulty for dungeons and trials is mostly fine honestly. Its subjective between people but since a lot of this content gets shuffled into roulettes, you dont necessarily want you and the party spend extra time struggling to clear fights when these get queued on a basis for daily rewards. Its supposed to be just to get your fill and get out. I dont think the content needs to be difficult to be enjoyable, just the encounter design itself to be enjoyable enough. This is why we have EXs and Savages and WHY we dont have something as an EX roulette or Savage roulette (although now that I say that, that could be an interesting idea. Too bad the most likely scenario is that this'll just backfire) for those striving for tougher challenges. Leave normal content as how it is now.

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Well...
1 - That's not an argument. That's an opinion :p I'm not advocating for anything. To you, the game doesn't need to have difficulty to be enjoyable. Well, I don't like Savage but I'm comfortable with the examples I listed. Does it mean that just because I want something a bit more complex, I need to start getting into Savage and EXes? Advocating for something extra doesn't imply the deletion of whatever there is right now. If anything, I'd say I want there to be more of such content, rather than it being so one-sided on either end. There is no spectrum half the time. I often need to wait and be surprised that complex content exists rather than knowing it's coming.

2 - I'd like the game to have more content like the one I described, but I understand why they don't do it. Amarande says it best: MMOs don't respect working adults, who already have to spend their energy daily and don't want to come home to a tryhardy game. Just because I'm fine with that doesn't mean that it's the best approach. And the approach they have does seem to work, since it's one of the reasons the game is so popular.

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

Edit: Also, just to clarify. I mostly wrote that in response to VelKallor's post which was directed at raiders.
It's kind of why I prefaced it with "I don't raid, I'm in the casual crowd, but I prefer the harder content". Because it's not just a matter of raiders disliking casual content, it's that there are casual players who do prefer the harder type of content. But they are not the only ones, and I daresay I'm probably in a minority. People who prefer the easier type of content likely vastly outnumber me. And I have no problem with that.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Well...
1 - That's not an argument. That's an opinion :p I'm not advocating for anything. To you, the game doesn't need to have difficulty to be enjoyable. Well, I don't like Savage but I'm comfortable with the examples I listed. Does it mean that just because I want something a bit more complex, I need to start getting into Savage and EXes? Advocating for something extra doesn't imply the deletion of whatever there is right now. If anything, I'd say I want there to be more of such content, rather than it being so one-sided on either end. There is no spectrum half the time. I often need to wait and be surprised that complex content exists rather than knowing it's coming.

2 - I'd like the game to have more content like the one I described, but I understand why they don't do it. Amarande says it best: MMOs don't respect working adults, who already have to spend their energy daily and don't want to come home to a tryhardy game. Just because I'm fine with that doesn't mean that it's the best approach. And the approach they have does seem to work, since it's one of the reasons the game is so popular.

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

Edit: Also, just to clarify. I mostly wrote that in response to VelKallor's post which was directed at raiders.
It's kind of why I prefaced it with "I don't raid, I'm in the casual crowd, but I prefer the harder content". Because it's not just a matter of raiders disliking casual content, it's that there are casual players who do prefer the harder type of content. But they are not the only ones, and I daresay I'm probably in a minority. People who prefer the easier type of content likely vastly outnumber me. And I have no problem with that.

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CLL and Orbonne arent hard at all and not as good examples as people like to make them out to be. The mechanics arent as punishing for new players. whats truly considered hard in this game is having a fight be an abundance of mechanics that each member must resolve themselves or else risk a wipe for the whole group and having tight dps check such as in Savage and EXs.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

CLL and Orbonne arent hard at all and not as good examples as people like to make them out to be. The mechanics arent as punishing for new players. whats truly considered hard in this game is having a fight be an abundance of mechanics that each member must resolve themselves or else risk a wipe for the whole group and having tight dps check such as in Savage and EXs.

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thats why I myself will not do Savage or Ex, I am a decent enough player, but ... my brain does not get some mechanics, and even worse, having to decide independently where to go if everyone has to go to a different spot. I forget which Eden one it is, but the one with the birds... it seems easy enough but my brain just does not process it. but thats a personal limitation and I am okay with missing those. I have a friend who does them so I live vicariously through her exploits lol

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

So you want STORY dungeons tuned to an OPTIONAL 8 MAN raid level? Thats insane.

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You either didn't read and had some epileptic knee jerk reaction or didn't understand what I said.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Y'know, to hark back to what I said earlier...if any of you that do savage or extremes are criticising normal content as "too easy" , yet have third party programs..lets see you do it with a normal UI..because I suspect that the moment those addons are taken away, it will be a very different story.

"Normal content is too easy"...in the same breath "I cant do savage or extreme content without addons , callouts and a dps meter".

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As much as I'm pro-addon and meters, I've cleared multiple tiers without any at all, while being the one doing the callouts, on an old laptop with an office mouse and found I even parsed well. And yes, Normal mode content, particularly 8 mans and Experts are a complete utter joke. Mechanically they're fine, but they hit like wet noodles and have no dps requirement. So try again.

These posts just come across as pure salt. If you're behind all the raiders, it's not because they're cheating. If we had no addons, we'd actually be completely fine. The source is you. Endgame content is accessible to almost anyone who wants to try it.

I feel like I should clarify?

I don't think that I'm lacking in content at all. I can fully enjoy "easy casual content" just fine. That does not get invalidated at all by me saying "but I prefer the content that's on the harder/challenging side". And saying so in turn doesn't mean I instantly only want to see EX and Savage level of content. Because... let's be honest, that's asinine. What sort of masochist wants that? ^^;

I prefer fights that are like "Oh, okay, so you've come this far, you know these mechanics, let's shake it up a little bit". Nothing too fancy. Take Kefka Normal. The core of the fight is taking mechanics that you've already seen umpteen times by then, and then reverse them. Look markers? Don't look. Don't stand markers? Stand on it.
Argath does this. Truth mask, Liar mask. So too does Ultima with her wind, changing the AoEs and pushing them up a bit. A bit less obvious than Kefka for sure, but that's the same.

It's not like I want this sort of content all the time either. Not to mention how some casual content like normal trials can also get a bit annoying by fight design alone? I know Barbariccia phase 2 is meant to be hectic, but for me it's just chaotic and I don't like it. Especially not as a caster.

If anything, I'd say the game needs more midcore-type content. MORE. Not delete everything else.
On one hand, I don't want dungeons to be so challenging that it bothers newcomers and casual people. Stuff that would impede progression. Even if I did enjoy Shinryu at launch, because I know people have a life outside the game. Some of us do touch grass.
On the other hand... I also don't want Syrcus Tower-levels of boredom either. If that's your prerrogative, great, but mine isn't, and there are pieces of content where I'd prefer to have a more challenging thing.

And that should not mean that I want Savage-level of content. I know what's being said: "You want harder content, you have it". But we rarely do, not to this level. This nice, comfortable level where it's not too easy to the point of falling asleep and actually respects the fact that you've learned the game up to that far. But also not hard enough to the point of frustration and requiring to prog things.

And lastly because I love this point:

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

thats why I myself will not do Savage or Ex, I am a decent enough player, but ... my brain does not get some mechanics, and even worse, having to decide independently where to go if everyone has to go to a different spot. I forget which Eden one it is, but the one with the birds... it seems easy enough but my brain just does not process it. but thats a personal limitation and I am okay with missing those. I have a friend who does them so I live vicariously through her exploits lol

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Yeah. I have colourblindness. I struggle with direction-based mechanics a lot. Zodiark's spins? Yeah no, my brain did not compute that on Extreme at all, I needed people to guide me. Yes, I make ridiculous efforts to deal with them sometimes (ask me how my clears of Tsukuyomi EX were, the method I have for knowing whether to go in/out left/right was so stupid that other people said that I made it harder than the fight actually was). It doesn't mean I expect people to do these efforts. I shouldn't and I don't. Because I'm not the one to go to people and say "You who are struggling should keep struggling because I find it amusing".


I do not want my sort of difficulty to replace the difficulty we currently have on casual content. And I never said so. But it's true that it's not something expected. It often comes bundled into something that's meant for casuals, but then turns out it ends up not being so. And what happens? People complain. People say it's too hard. People dislike it immensely. People say it's unfair. People go on forums and social media asking for it to be nerfed. And sometimes it does, often to the point of rendering the fight super piddly.
And there needs to be a better balance of that. Of side content that's more "midcore" than just Extremes. Of side content that isn't challenging but on content that's supposed to be for the average player. I don't find that fair.

And what I also don't find fair is that I prefer is being taken as what I feel the game should do. I happen to have a preference for these sorts of contents. I should not be told, however, to go play Savage just because of a preference for midcore content. Because yeah. I can enjoy and I do enjoy the easy content too. I like dungeons, I like Treasure Maps, I am amused by Euphrosyne. It's just not the sort of content that makes me go "Oh hell yeah!". And Savage isn't it either.

I'll just leave it at this bc I know it's going to leave people incensed either way, so... Just know that me being in support of normal content needing an increase in difficulty doesn't mean that there isn't a place for the easy content everyone loves.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

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Yeah, you're right. There's a significant difference. I would rather go back in time and resume slamming my head against pre-nerf Alexander Savage than I would set one foot in Orbonne Monastery again, especially with randoms.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Yeah, you're right. There's a significant difference. I would rather go back in time and resume slamming my head against pre-nerf Alexander Savage than I would set one foot in Orbonne Monastery again, especially with randoms.

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I liked Orbonne but too many times I had a wipe on Cid because someone misplaced the AOE and killed everybody followed by a vote abandon and completely wasted my time.