If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

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Originally Posted by Bearded

I think players in this thread need to remember that these are MSQ duties that have been adjusted and for good reasons - start as a new player (not a vet) and play DPS then find yourself stuck in queue after queue just to progress your storyline.

Harder content without the AI systems is there and continues to be added. This is all about keeping the new players progressing instead of dropping out because they cant face wasting time in another queue.

I am darn sure the devs would not have added it otherwise.

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I want to agrre with you at the point that some stuff here is exaggerated but also i believe in the fact that the game caters to too much groups of people and tries to be playable by everyone. IN my opinion that is a futile idea and will lead to very bad things and no the dev are not some otherwordly beeings that cant do wrong. A game needs a target audience, you will not get everyone and this lesson is something Yoshida needs to learn at the momen.

They should just give players the option to skip ARR and not spend so much time reworking it.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Dark Souls isn't even hard, and I don't know why it's constantly brought up are the barometer for difficulty in video game. Y'all out acting like it's Ninja Gaiden or something smh.

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Do you think the type of player who thinks people are asking for FFXIV to turn into dark souls even know what ninja gaiden is???

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Originally Posted by Bearded

I think players in this thread need to remember that these are MSQ duties that have been adjusted and for good reasons - start as a new player (not a vet) and play DPS then find yourself stuck in queue after queue just to progress your storyline.

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Was able to witness this fairly recently by observing others I have invited to play. Remember them waiting outside cutters cry for fifteen minutes as two dps almost ready to quit.

Upon asking them I was informed that the queue times would not be so awful if the experience inside of the dungeon were better. Something close to (can always ask when they wake up :) ); "Would not be so bad but waiting fifteen minutes for THAT sucked". Twas not the queue alone it was the single pulling no stance tank dance thirty minute harang inside of the boring dungeons.

Alright so go in with trusts then! Oh wait, then they cannot play together which was also major reason for them continuing on with the game. Will ask others how they feel about it in the later times. I see much boredom in the future for new players and kinda feel for them. Ohhhh forgot to mention! Toto (looks amazing!) now walls at double pulls. No more yeet boy into the boss room with the whole dungeon following in there anymore. Double pulls only! Six mobs and no more!

Did test, AI healed me without cooldowns through those pulls. Am certain it could handle bigger pulls without issue provided cooldowns are used.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

I see much boredom in the future for new players and kinda feel for them. Ohhhh forgot to mention! Toto (looks amazing!) now walls at double pulls. No more yeet boy into the boss room with the whole dungeon following in there anymore. Double pulls only! Six mobs and no more!

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That's disgusting. Doing entire dungeon pulls is the most fun part about ARR dungeons. Drives me insane that we're losing these dungeons and getting more crummy endwalker FFXIII hallway dungeons.

I don't get why we can't have options. It's always filthy casuals vs. master racers or something. Both need to exist. The MSQ needs to be easy, sure. But solo fights already have easy and very easy as an option. You can also finish the game with pressing 3 or so buttons.

The skill floor has been sufficiently lowered. And soon you'll be able to do all dungeons without ever having to talk to someone. In an MMO. I think the game has achieved ultimate casual friendliness. That's fine. But please don't make up excuses like button bloat for taking stuff away. Give back the challenge for people who want it. So far it's either baby's first MMO or Ultimate. I'm not keen on either honestly. I'd prefer more mid-tier stuff but anyway. Where is the middle ground?

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Originally Posted by D6Damager

"If you want a challenge play Ultimate" this is straight from the developer's mouth. Otherwise, the game has thrived for years being casual friendly. If you're bored and unhappy then switch games, there's tons of more challenging games out there and they aren't going to change what has been successful for them.

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I don't know if you were here for before shadowbringers, but the casual content that you're talking about used to be harder and was a nice comfy challange before going into energy draining savage. Then shadowbringers came around and halfway through it they decided to make all normal content easier and then kept doing this until now.

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Originally Posted by MagicalChase

I don't know if you were here for before shadowbringers, but the casual content that you're talking about used to be harder and was a nice comfy challange before going into energy draining savage. Then shadowbringers came around and halfway through it they decided to make all normal content easier and then kept doing this until now.

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You are absolutely correct, but that doesn't seem like the direction they are taking anymore since SHB (nearly 3 years ago now + a pandemic).

I also think it's safe to assume that all the players from the 'WoW exodus' are not all going to stick with the game. People will make up all kinds of reasons for why they think they are leaving; but at the end of the day this game isn't WoW and isn't going to appeal to all MMO players (and that's OK).

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Originally Posted by D6Damager

You are absolutely correct, but that doesn't seem like the direction they are taking anymore since SHB (nearly 3 years ago now + a pandemic).

I also think it's safe to assume that all the players from the 'WoW exodus' are not all going to stick with the game. People will make up all kinds of reasons for why they think they are leaving; but at the end of the day this game isn't WoW and isn't going to appeal to all MMO players (and that's OK).

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But then....as a veteran player who's been with the game since 2.1....Who's literally subbed for years on end....what do I do? No other game let's me look like my miqote or express myself like this one does. But all the content feels like it's designed to push me away.
well except the new PVP that's pretty great .

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Originally Posted by MagicalChase

That's disgusting. Doing entire dungeon pulls is the most fun part about ARR dungeons. Drives me insane that we're losing these dungeons and getting more crummy endwalker FFXIII hallway dungeons.

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Some later pulls are still okay, I suppose. Stone Vigil first pull has lost several mobs however it is now possible to more consistently survive full wall pull to the boss room there. Frog Death canyon will likely no longer be the meme that kept on giving, it has been altered and are no longer able to fall there. Like the Vigil pull though can just pull to boss room to re-create original big pull.

Last Vigil boss is boring as all heck. Anything that made that dargon threatening is gone.

Haukke final boss is rather neat so not all things about this are the negative. Lanterns are gone buuuuut you get to learn about gaze mechanics from eyeball of doooooom soooner. This will help assist sprouts for later gaze mechanics.

Copper hell is drastic improvement over original. Bosses in there have actual mechanics now that are familiar. This will also assist in the teaching of new players.

Toto looks pretty but is somehow even more of the boring. At the least it seems shorter. Tested new trusts and you can plow through in no time with them. First and second boss cannot cleanse poision anymore? Do not understand this change as Toto was great dungeon for teaching about cleanse.

We collectively despise the tank buster marker for reasons most varied so seeing it implemented here is not happy change. Vwamp Vwamp Vwamp use cooldowns dummy! Vwamp! Just.. delete that please, it is also distracting having my entire character glowing bright red like that. No new player is going to go ohhh big red marker that means mitigate when first seeing that. Cannot wait for all the sprout tanks to run around with that marker confused then not press cooldowns anyways. Worse about this is not all bosses were adjusted for this. Many still lack the marker so there is still no consistency in these dungeons.

Warrior AOE can go die in a hole. Same drift issues that Paladin aoe has resulting in you wiffing constantly.

Sam just spams Shinten at 52 now, yawn.

Team is capable of doing good things so.. wish they would just keep doing that and leave unbroken things alone.

Old players are not wanted by SE. MMO design has been about chasing the "millions" of supercasual players that are now firmly lodged in Idle games in mobile. If you just simplify, streamline and shorten your MMO enough, suddenly a huge influx of players will arrive that have been waiting, and you wont even notice the old people disappearing.

The game is, according to the SE defenders here, still far far far too hard and punishing for a vast majority of players, who just wish to open their hearts and wallets if only they could complete every content one-handed with their DPS paladin build and their broken USB steering wheel as controller that they love since it brought them joy in Need for Speed 2.
Also, not everyone wants to press buttons all the time! Savage DPS requirements are still far too hard, why do we get all these emotes if we cannot use them in between watching out beautiful skill animations? And of course my 6 year old nephew wants to join in on the fun, so we need to create a class he can play and complete the content with.

Tbh as a MnK player, I like havinga ton of skills but I understand the struggles of a controller players. Maybe if SE would rework how hotbars worked rather than changing how the jobs work may be better for all of us. For example, add a feature that allows players to make a custom variant to the PvP job bar system but outside of pvp. for example, Allow players to stack up to a maximum of 3 skills on a single button on the hot bar. I think this will greatly improve the game for controller players and also allow us who like the busier job bars to be happy.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

The game is, according to the SE defenders here, still far far far too hard and punishing for a vast majority of players

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I don't think anyone is saying that.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

They should just give players the option to skip ARR and not spend so much time reworking it.

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It's called a story skip + job skip. Works for skipping ARR/HW/STB/SHB story lines, job skip would be better set to that same thing, except it'd cost you a fortune.

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Originally Posted by Thorio

I don't think anyone is saying that.

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There was entire thread about Endwalker trials (mother crystal specifically) being far too punishing for newer players. What amused me most about that confusing newer players with her swapping weapons is Shiva teaches you about this at level 50. Shiva swaps Sword/Bow/Staff before doing mechanics and her mechanics depend on equipped weapon.

Plenty of players posting here that would have much much better experience with the game if they actually interacted with it instead of watching Netflix.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

It's called a story skip + job skip. Works for skipping ARR/HW/STB/SHB story lines, job skip would be better set to that same thing, except it'd cost you a fortune.

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Yeah, but those should be free. It would free up the team to focus of new stuff.

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Originally Posted by Thorio

I don't think anyone is saying that.

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There's literally a guy in here who's saying that and then calls everyone who disagrees a "hardcore minority"

I wonder how long it'll take them to nerf the second boss in the new dungeon lel.
Too big brain :(.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The lack of content is a common enough complaint for FFXIV as well. Many of us have played WoW and have seen its decline in real time over the years and are now identifying similar trends where this game is concerned. Much like FFXIV, even to this very day WoW has long had some very vocal players seeking to downplay concerns and try and dismiss concerns as the voices of a 'minority'. In actuality, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that many of those deliberately seeking the game's official forum to post on are doing so because of passion and investment.

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Like WoW, there is a minority of a minority here on the forums that believes it's their way or the highway. Unlike WoW, SE isn't caving into those ridiculous demands. Here's what was done at the behest of the forum goers in WoW that has completely tanked the game:

• Flying was removed from relevant endgame areas.
• Rewards for max-level Normal and Heroic Dungeons were nerfed to the point where they're not even as good as the MSQ-equivalent rewards.
• Leveling was reduced from a multi-month joyride for the average player to a 26-hour borefest.
• The currency vendors were removed for everyone except Mythic players.
• The endgame dungeons that drop relevant gear are no longer available via the dungeon finder (WoW's version of the Roulette)
• Crafting is completely worthless for anyone who is not willing to play the game 24/7 in the first few weeks of a given content drop.

Sorry, but revamping the talent system to make it easier to balance classes doesn't even make the list of my grievances against that game. FFXIV has always worked the same way in that regard, too. When you play a job, you play that job with the skills you're given. Am I sad that instead of worrying bout 18 buttons on my Samurai I now only have 17? Not really. I'm more bummed about the cool animation going away, but it doesn't completely destroy the class the way so many seem be suggesting.

So, how many of you did Endsinger Extreme so far? IMO it's definitely as difficult as Yoshi P warned. It is just one Trial so maybe not enough for some, but I really don't think it's a sign that they're dumbing things down.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

So, how many of you did Endsinger Extreme so far? IMO it's definitely as difficult as Yoshi P warned. It is just one Trial so maybe not enough for some, but I really don't think it's a sign that they're dumbing things down.

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I haven't tried it yet, I just hope it's not too gimmicky.
I didn't like most of the EX1 fight because it relied too heavily on the platform gimmick and EX2 was too easy ( EX1 was easy too if you were good at the platform spin ).

I loved the Alliance Raid tho.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

Am I sad that instead of worrying bout 18 buttons on my Samurai I now only have 17? Not really. I'm more bummed about the cool animation going away, but it doesn't completely destroy the class the way so many seem be suggesting.

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It's not about the number of buttons...
It's about which button and what was lost versus other buttons that would actually make sense to merge...

I really feel like people talk about it but don't even understand what the problem is.
No one cares about your list, that doesn't dictate what's important to others.
And yeah we're forced to play with the skills we're given that doesn't mean that we can't criticize the devs for their decisions..

Kaiten being removed = destroying SAM is hyperbole, something doesn't have to DESTROY something for us to criticize it and feel like we don't want to play it anymore tho.
Your SAM is lvl 71 too so it's ridiculous to lecture others about it especially SAM mains who are very passionate about it and have a lot more experience with the Job than you.

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Originally Posted by ryouma17

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

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Now we are pressing 499 buttons, look way less cool doing it and lost a cool part of the class that made resource management fun. Now we spam one ability. Like come on. Whining about button bloat and being weirdly happy that 1 button got taken away makes me think you dont even play the class.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

Like WoW, there is a minority of a minority here on the forums that believes it's their way or the highway. Unlike WoW, SE isn't caving into those ridiculous demands. Here's what was done at the behest of the forum goers in WoW that has completely tanked the game:

• Flying was removed from relevant endgame areas.
• Rewards for max-level Normal and Heroic Dungeons were nerfed to the point where they're not even as good as the MSQ-equivalent rewards.
• Leveling was reduced from a multi-month joyride for the average player to a 26-hour borefest.
• The currency vendors were removed for everyone except Mythic players.
• The endgame dungeons that drop relevant gear are no longer available via the dungeon finder (WoW's version of the Roulette)
• Crafting is completely worthless for anyone who is not willing to play the game 24/7 in the first few weeks of a given content drop.

Sorry, but revamping the talent system to make it easier to balance classes doesn't even make the list of my grievances against that game. FFXIV has always worked the same way in that regard, too. When you play a job, you play that job with the skills you're given. Am I sad that instead of worrying bout 18 buttons on my Samurai I now only have 17? Not really. I'm more bummed about the cool animation going away, but it doesn't completely destroy the class the way so many seem be suggesting.

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Tell this to the healer mains in the healer megathread. Lets see how they feel about your comments lol. We played a job with the skills we were given, those skills were then ripped away from us with no choice and the role is a hollow shell of what it once was.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

Like WoW, there is a minority of a minority here on the forums that believes it's their way or the highway. Unlike WoW, SE isn't caving into those ridiculous demands. Here's what was done at the behest of the forum goers in WoW that has completely tanked the game:

• Flying was removed from relevant endgame areas.
• Rewards for max-level Normal and Heroic Dungeons were nerfed to the point where they're not even as good as the MSQ-equivalent rewards.
• Leveling was reduced from a multi-month joyride for the average player to a 26-hour borefest.
• The currency vendors were removed for everyone except Mythic players.
• The endgame dungeons that drop relevant gear are no longer available via the dungeon finder (WoW's version of the Roulette)
• Crafting is completely worthless for anyone who is not willing to play the game 24/7 in the first few weeks of a given content drop.

Sorry, but revamping the talent system to make it easier to balance classes doesn't even make the list of my grievances against that game. FFXIV has always worked the same way in that regard, too. When you play a job, you play that job with the skills you're given. Am I sad that instead of worrying bout 18 buttons on my Samurai I now only have 17? Not really. I'm more bummed about the cool animation going away, but it doesn't completely destroy the class the way so many seem be suggesting.

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Pretty much this.
Same Avatars
Same Complaints.
Different day.

Hi, I just wanted to say that I think the 6.1 content is cool, and I only do PvE, Kiss !

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Originally Posted by TiF

Tbh as a MnK player, I like havinga ton of skills but I understand the struggles of a controller players.

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What struggles?

I dont know why this myth is so widespread that controller users are struggling with the amount of buttons.
I would wager its K+M users without a MMO mouse that struggle with button bloat more

Additionally, as a controller user I miss the old monk because I found the positionals really fun and fluid on a controller.

So very disappointed with the PvP changes. And here I was actually going to do more PvP, much to my surprise when I went into the BG and saw ALL MY SPELLS GONE and replaced with about 8-9 spells.

Who’s bright idea was that? They should be fired!

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

So, how many of you did Endsinger Extreme so far? IMO it's definitely as difficult as Yoshi P warned. It is just one Trial so maybe not enough for some, but I really don't think it's a sign that they're dumbing things down.

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It’s not a hard trial. Trust me.

I do think it's a step up from just about every trial since SoS EX in terms of difficulty. What that means is up to you, but it's hard to deny that it's comparatively more difficult.

And besides, fight difficulty has never really been a problem and they're definitely not getting easier over time. They've remained mostly consistent across their difficulty levels with some outliers here and there.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

So, how many of you did Endsinger Extreme so far? IMO it's definitely as difficult as Yoshi P warned. It is just one Trial so maybe not enough for some, but I really don't think it's a sign that they're dumbing things down.

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My first clear had 10+ deaths and still successfully killed the boss. The encounter is honestly kind of a joke, and extremely rudimentary and unpolished compared to previous final-boss EX trials (Thordan, Shinryu, Hades). It feels like they didn't even want to make it and just slapped it together in a few days because they felt like they had to.

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Originally Posted by ryouma17

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

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While you are correct that having a stupidly high amount (like the example'd 500) is not a great way to go about things, neither is dragging that number lower and lower until eventually there's nothing else.

Healers got heavily shafted in the damage department, having only 3 dps spells PERIOD, and you're basically just spamming the same one. It's painfully boring, and it's why I hate healing in this game when I use to main it.

There are much better options for pruning anyways than completely deleting a skill that was vital to the dopamine loop (Yes. It was. I do not feel that dopamine when I Midare anymore). I'd rather not watch more jobs in the game go towards the direction of healers, even if it's slow, it's happening.

I feel we have easy and hard classes already. For instance, summoner, which I main, is easy rotation wise, which lets me focus on learning mechanics more, while monk is so non-combo spam-ish that even the combo addon built to emulate pvp skill structure can't do anything for it. And then there is samurai, that has to juggle buffs, dots, resources, positionals, and situational attacks. Overcomplication is just as bad as oversimplification, and I think they are trying to find a good in-between, but here is a good stopping point. Now start adding new skills or buffing/reworking those there are without making it simpler.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

Healers got heavily shafted in the damage department, having only 3 dps spells PERIOD, and you're basically just spamming the same one. It's painfully boring, and it's why I hate healing in this game when I use to main it.

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I don't get this, people want to have more damage skills when your focus is healing? Then playing anything but healer should be better imo.

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Originally Posted by Thorio

I don't get this, people want to have more damage skills when your focus is healing? Then playing anything but healer should be better imo.

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Maybe they like healing, but understand that most healing can be done using oGCDs, and would like to do something else with their GCD than spam the same button 90% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Imoye

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

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Not to be too dismissive... but could you please state your specific grievances? A generic comment like this doesn't really help the dev team know what you're actually upset about.

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Originally Posted by Thorio

I don't get this, people want to have more damage skills when your focus is healing? Then playing anything but healer should be better imo.

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The issue is that FFXIV is designed around the idea of healers spending time DPSing. If that is going to be the case, then the act of dpsing as a healer should still be at least somewhat interesting.

If they wish to redesign FFXIV around the idea of healers NOT spending time DPSing, that's fine. Most healers would probably be okay with that. But it would mean a fundamental rebalancing of nearly every encounter in the game as well as a re-design of mana efficiency, gearsets, healing efficiency, etc... and that seems like a much bigger ask than simply asking 'hey if we're gonna DPS can you make it a bit more interesting please?'.

To me the PvP rework made all the jobs feel better with a stronger job identity. I would much rather see limited skills with stronger identity and impact than multiple of the same with low impact.

F to doubt.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

To me the PvP rework made all the jobs feel better with a stronger job identity. I would much rather see limited skills with stronger identity and impact than multiple of the same with low impact.

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hilarious they added kaiten to pvp

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

I feel we have easy and hard classes already. For instance, summoner, which I main, is easy rotation wise, which lets me focus on learning mechanics more, while monk is so non-combo spam-ish that even the combo addon built to emulate pvp skill structure can't do anything for it. And then there is samurai, that has to juggle buffs, dots, resources, positionals, and situational attacks. Overcomplication is just as bad as oversimplification, and I think they are trying to find a good in-between, but here is a good stopping point. Now start adding new skills or buffing/reworking those there are without making it simpler.

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My issue, is that in ShB SMN was complex, and Monk was fluid and straightforward
Then in EW, SMN was completely reworked and MNK was completely worked. One became easier and had better class identity, the other had unnecessary complexity added, using something similar to a concept another class's core mechanic. It went from smooth to janky.

So as a whole we are left with one simple class, one less simple, but in reversed positions with two classes having their feel changed completely. if it was just simplification or giving better class identity then why was monk changed? Because it did neither for Monk.


And the choices they are making: removing Kaiten, nerfing overpower for no reason at all. These don't make sense.


'dumbing down' isnt an issue. Not everything is being made easier or less complex. But the changes being made often leave people scratching their heads

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Originally Posted by Elesh

The issue is that FFXIV is designed around the idea of healers spending time DPSing.

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Yeah, I don't think it was designed around that. Rather, it's an expectation that's taken root in the modern MMO community for some reason. I get that a lot of healers are complaining that they have nothing to do, but these same people are likely raiding high end content with static groups of very competent players. Naturally, you're not going to have to heal very much in those scenarios. If you want to spend your time healing as a healer, then you need to run with random sprouts who constantly stand in stuff and collect vuln stacks. I can tell you that this makes for a much more engaging healing experience that doesn't even treat DPS as anything but filler. That's what the game is really designed around, but the high end community doesn't like to hear that. They want to run with the best of the best and then complain that the best of the best are too easily healed.