Poll: How would you like that FFXIV developed around challenging/complex content

Hi! I made this poll inspired by this thread, where a lot of different opinions were voiced: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ntent-gameplay

I want to get a more clear overview of players' view by making a poll. I would like to understand if players would find the game more or less interesting if proportionally more challenging/complex content was added. In the sense that devs would spend proportionally more time on such content making, with the consequence of less challenging/complex content would decrease proportionally.

https://strawpoll.com/j1byos423

Please come with feedback on the poll itself! It was tricky to formulate the questions.

Are you posting this poll anywhere else?
Because just sampling from the forums you're gonna get a pretty skewed view of things.

Also, the word "proportionately" is pretty vague.
Can you give us a better sense of how much of a difficulty change you mean?

I did, you can follow it here. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ped_in_regard/

In terms of what I mean with more of a difficulty change, I feel it is hard to define since everyone's perception of difficulty is different.
Could you give me an example of you how you would phrase yourself?

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Originally Posted by Picea

In terms of what I mean with more of a difficulty change, I feel it is hard to define since everyone's perception of difficulty is different.
Could you give me an example of you how you would phrase yourself?

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Maybe instead of "proportionately" (which begs the question "in proportion to what?") you could simply say "notably."
It would be another modular word that can mean whatever jump suits the reader, but one less able to confuse the reader.

Unfortunately the problem is that what counts as challenging and complex tends to be subjective. For example; for me, personally, the boss that kills me more than any other is Adrammelech. Despite just being a series of re-used mechanics cranked up to eleven, I can't wrap my head around it and die all the time. I find that specific boss more complicated and difficult than any other raid boss or trial I've done. But most people who hear that will laugh and call me a casual baby for not being able to sleep walk through it - despite my favorite encounters being some of the ones that other people hate or find too convoluted and complex. So when it comes to a poll that doesn't go into too much detail about what it means, you're not going to be getting detail about whether the people saying yes are the people who want more bosses puzzle-like encounters, more trials like Seat of Sacrifice or if maybe they're people who find Leviathan complex and difficult and don't want more things like that because they still struggle to figure out the logic behind where he pops out on the sides of the raft.

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Originally Posted by Dewslam

Unfortunately the problem is that what counts as challenging and complex tends to be subjective. For example; for me, personally, the boss that kills me more than any other is Adrammelech. Despite just being a series of re-used mechanics cranked up to eleven, I can't wrap my head around it and die all the time. I find that specific boss more complicated and difficult than any other raid boss or trial I've done. But most people who hear that will laugh and call me a casual baby for not being able to sleep walk through it - despite my favorite encounters being some of the ones that other people hate or find too convoluted and complex. So when it comes to a poll that doesn't go into too much detail about what it means, you're not going to be getting detail about whether the people saying yes are the people who want more bosses puzzle-like encounters, more trials like Seat of Sacrifice or if maybe they're people who find Leviathan complex and difficult and don't want more things like that because they still struggle to figure out the logic behind where he pops out on the sides of the raft.

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While you're correct in general, being able to run through 2 rooms, pull / kill everything with no real threat and move on is objectively easier than having to carefully pull 1 group at a time or die. Some people might argue that it would only slow down gameplay without adding anything, which is true if you half-ass it and say, adjust things so that now you can only pull ONE room instead of 2 but still have no real risk of dying.

It needs to be one or the other - you may as well just remove them entirely and make dungeons a series of boss fights because nobody's stopping to look at the beautiful architecture / textures when speeding through the place to the next boss, OR you make every encounter dangerous. For example, a room with 3 groups of 3 mobs, where to be safe you'd have to pull the groups 1 at a time and perma CC one of the 3, but if you accidentally pull 2 groups you have about 10 seconds to say good bye to your wife and kids before going pop.

If people want to speed run dungeons, then fine - let them! There's nothing wrong with that, but with how big of a player base ff14 has an obvious (though not necessarily easy to implement) solution would be 2 queues. 1 for those who "just want to get it over with", and another for people who are way more focused on the experience than just getting done. There are arguments to be made on how you would make the dungeons harder, but there's absolutely no doubt in my mind (and the poll, while a small sample size, does support this) that there's a very significant portion of the player base who would LOVE this.

I'd start playing again in a fucking heartbeat. I know a lot of older gamers (30+) who grew up with challenging PvE experiences and are all disgruntled with the current state of things. That's not everyone over 30, obviously, but that's my experience.

*raises hand* I for one miss crowd control and mezzes. Gosh, does anyone who plays MMOs these days even know what a mez is? Am I that old?

I think its fine how it is. Dungeons are not meant to be overly difficult and even then some of the boss fights are quite creative and people fail them pretty often. The game has harder content in end game for those that want the challenge.

MSQ is fine if your want harder content there is savage extreme etc..

While i´m up for any challenging content, my whole post wasn´t just about "a harder game". It´s more about the lack of new and interesting content and the homogenziation of all classes.
As i´ve written down, ARR had more possibilities on all classes, not a straight linear story-system, maps filled with more love and not 20 quests appearing at once, dungeons to explore, loot which had some use, and and and...

With all expansions, the devs showed more and more lazyness. We move completely braindead from 1 spot to another to complete our MSQ just to afk in limsa in the end, waiting for the finder to get into any content. And there we either do pointless wall to wall bangs or we move from marker A to marker B. The short times, where we revisit any big map, are blocked behind heavy fategrind or hunttrains.

ARR have been a real MMORPG with a learning curve, interesting ideas and possibilities. 2 Weeks ago i just started a new alt in Ul´dah while waiting for Endwalker. Even the leveling phase is way more fun than in the expansions. Walking through the better designed maps, having a handful of spreaded quests directing you in the last corner or to little outposts on the map. It plays so much better.

FF14 with all its dumbdowns is not a real MMO anymore. There is no real learning curve for newcomers since you can play all in easy mode. Even the latest dungeons can be finished with your "trusts". It has become more of a worse singleplayer RPG with some automatically multiplayer-aspects.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I think its fine how it is. Dungeons are not meant to be overly difficult and even then some of the boss fights are quite creative and people fail them pretty often. The game has harder content in end game for those that want the challenge.

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There are more than enough games which show the opposit. Dungeons are the core of any MMORPG. While the standard dungeons aren´t too hard, no other games has so somplified one than FF14 has. The most do even have harder ones for the endgame. Those we would call "expert" here, but offer more of a challenge and prepare the players for raidcontent, not those stupid rundowns FF14 offers.

With Endwalker even a worse milestones reached dungeons. Wall to wall bang with less adds to pull and on top no XP from them anymore. I believe you never played any other MMO? Once with dungeons to explore, loot which is highly needed and elite-adds you´ve to cc or interupt? (Not saying everything somewhere else is way more challenging, but way more interesting and rewarding than dungeons are in FF.)