Endgame should be challenging - that's the point (from a casual player)

I see a lot of posts asking for easier endgame content or complaining that certain fights are too difficult. As someone who spends most of their time playing casually, I think we're missing something important - we already have casual-friendly content. It's called the entire leveling experience, story mode trials, dungeons, and side quests. These teach you your job, let you enjoy the story/worldbuilding, and provide accessible group content.

When I do reach endgame and want to engage with that content, I expect it to challenge me. That's what makes it rewarding. If everything at endgame becomes accessible to the most casual approach, then what's the point of progression at all?

I think the so-called "mid-core" players who want casual content at endgame may be lower in number than it seems. I suspect more players follow irregular cycles like mine - casual most of the time, then occasionally hardcore - and I wouldn't be surprised if SE has the numbers on this. These mid-core voices are probably overrepresented on these forums, while others are underrepresented because they're either busy doing the more "hardcore" content or taking a break from the game, avoiding the huge time sink that is forum discussions.

Some people may misunderstand what "accessibility" means in MMO design. It doesn't mean making all content equally easy - it means having content that matches different time investments and commitment levels. The leveling experience and normal content already serve casual players well. Endgame should remain challenging for those who seek it out, even if that means mid-core players sometimes need to either step up or step back.

If SE embraced this mentality more - keeping endgame genuinely challenging rather than making concessions for broader accessibility - the game would probably feel much less stale. Again, having something truly difficult to work toward gives the entire progression system meaning, even for those who may never actually reach that level.

That's just my perspective as someone who appreciates both sides of the game.

first time i see someone saying midcore player want more casual content

First of all, generally speaking there are some huge issues the FFXIV has right now

1. "Midcore" is a Term which was created from player which didnt want to call themselfes "casual" so the actually term "midcore" doesnt exist like casual or hardcore, and the first time i heard about it was literally in FFXIV, never heard it before in my 18y MMO experience

2.People here think "Casuals" doesnt raid or if you raid and want challenging content you arent a "Casual" you are a "Hardcoreplayer" which is dumb as hell sorry to tell ya but if you raid or want challening content you can still be a casual, the difference between Casual and Hardcore is just the amount of Time they spend on certain content, take as example one of my best friends, he raids 2h each week still cleared the tier and is in the 95+ log area, and he still says he is not hardcore he is casual

3. People which refuses to join discords or statics or anything and complain then "ohhh that content needs again social interaction" bruhh you are playing a MMO if you dont wanna social interactions its YOUR problem, not SE´s problem or the Community´s Problem is one and only YOUR problem, dont play a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE Game if you dont wanna bother with social interactions

4. People which refuses to do any content which involves learning a fight or playing the class properly and then complaining about "the game is too hard there is nothing to do for casuals" mimimi, like i said previous you arent a casual you are a imbecile,

not once in my 18 years mmo experience was there a MMORPG which didnt had Challening Content as Endgame Activity, only FFXIV has the issue with the crybabys to such a huge extend so yea maybe its really time to start being a true MMORPG with a Endgame and start to even increase the Difficulity of the Content more, Eat or Die, if you dont like it? Leave, after all FFXIV IS A MMORPG

Freaking final bubble with all the crybabys

im absolutly for increasing difficulity and creating even more challening content.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

3. People which refuses to join discords or statics or anything and complain then "ohhh that content needs again social interaction" bruhh you are playing a MMO if you dont wanna social interactions its YOUR problem, not SE´s problem or the Community´s Problem is one and only YOUR problem, dont play a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE Game if you dont wanna bother with social interactions

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This is insanely stupid to me...I've been playing mmos for decades, and in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, most of the content could be done on pick up, while still providing some kind of challenge. Only the highest lvl of difficulty asked for organised runs on discords. Pretending the need of a static or a discord server to do anything in a MMO is a blatant proof you have forgotten everything about others MMO than FFXIV. Sure Teamspeak/Mumble/discord always have been there, but it was more "I reunited a team, now let's go there, it'll be more practical to communicate". In FFXIV it's "If you don't have a static, good luck to run the content". It's funny to me that someone with 18 years of mmo experience doesn't seem to see that. I also spend 20 years playing mmo, yet achieved to always have thing to do in each of them despite rarely engaging in high end content. I also did in FFXIV until EW. This whole "you don't understand what a MMO" is so out of touch, especially since the lack of casual content is not compared to other mmo, but to previous iteration of FFXIV. Honestly you just look like an angry little elitist with this post.

It seems you also can't understand what you read. The complaint is not the existence of high end activities, it's the lack of anything else. Check the last weeks of post about Forked Tower : I've seen post saying there should be an easier version, but none that said the hard version should not exists. MMO wise FFXIV content is poor : it's not a problem, because it the proposition of the game, giving a mmo that doesn't ask for every second of your time. But it used to give things to do for people that didn't want to engage into High end content.

Midcore player here. My kind of content is Extremes and the easier Savage floors. I have never seen a player call themselves midcore and ask for easier content. What people do ask for is an actual level of difficulty between Normal and Savage. I, too, was incredibly disappointed by Chaotic - not only is it a Savage fight, it became so gatekept that I gave up on it.

My issue with "challenging" fights in this game is that they rely on two methods - speed and memory tests. I don't particularly enjoy either of those. Arcady Nights Encore was a nightmare for me in prog because it's really damn fast and I have issues processing information at that kind of speed. I still fail the mech about 30% of the time if I get a cursed pattern. Having to remember what a boss stored for later is also just...lame? I would rather have the mechanics be slightly easier and the jobs more challenging, so the real skill expression would be optimizing your job for the particular fight. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of the direction this game is going. We are making jobs braindead and fights DDR.

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Originally Posted by CNitsah

This is insanely stupid to me...I've been playing mmos for decades, and in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, most of the content could be done on pick up, while still providing some kind of challenge. Only the highest lvl of difficulty asked for organised runs on discords. Pretending the need of a static or a discord server to do anything in a MMO is a blatant proof you have forgotten everything about others MMO than FFXIV. Sure Teamspeak/Mumble/discord always have been there, but it was more "I reunited a team, now let's go there, it'll be more usefull to communicate". In FFXIV it's "If you don't have a static, good luck to run the content". It's funny to me that someone with 18 years of mmo experience doesn't seem to see that. I also spend 20 years playing mmo, yet achieved to always have thing to do in each of them despite rarely engaging in high end content. I also did in FFXIV until EW. This whole "you don't understand what a MMO is so out of touch", especially since the lack of casual content is not compared to other mmo, but to previous iteration of FFXIV. Honestly you just look like an angry little elitist with this post.

It seems you also can't understand what you read. The complaint is not the existence of high end activities, it's the lack of anything else. Check the last weeks of post about Forked Tower : I've seen post saying there should be an easier version, but none that said the hard version should not exists. MMO wise FFXIV content is poor : it's not a problem, because it the proposition of the game, giving a mmo that doesn't ask for every second of your time. But it used to give things to do for people that didn't want to engage into High end content.

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You can do everything in FFXIV without Discord or a Static it was a example, i cleared Ultimates with PF, i cleared Savage Tiers with the PF, Criterion the higher Difficulity even a PotD 200 Run, its about that there are so many people which refuses any kind of social interaction, you cant believe how many times i asked someone in a PF group something if he understood the mech, if someone has a question or anything, what do you think how often someone answered ? 1% thats it and that is my point its a MMORPG if you not even be able to answer in the chat ingame or anything because you really want zero social interaction a MMORPG it not for you

and i read it, but i need to say that game dont need anything other then high end activities, give me a few example a few MMORPGS which has Endgame based on everything which wasnt high end or has content which is only for "the super casuals"

The problem is not "casuals want easier content". It's "people want content that doesn't force them to play this game like its a second job".
All the content recently (becides the normal EX and Savage) is either laughably easy, or forces you to find people to run it with you on Discord.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

3. People which refuses to join discords or statics or anything and complain then "ohhh that content needs again social interaction" bruhh you are playing a MMO if you dont wanna social interactions its YOUR problem, not SE´s problem or the Community´s Problem is one and only YOUR problem, dont play a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE Game if you dont wanna bother with social interactions

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Literally every other game I play that involves social interactions I don't have to go on Discord just to play parts of it. I love meeting people in game and partying up, and working together to meet a goal. Using Discord for its intended purpose (using it as a way to communicate for statics/harder content with random people) is fine, and it's also fine for trying to hunt down people to run older content. But when fresh new content comes out that you're immediately forced to use it just to find a way to get a party... Something wrong happened.

The issue is mainly anxiety. A section of the playerbase is afraid to join PF so they avoid even the easiest High-End duties such as Unreal and Extreme, despite that it's not actually that different to what the CEs are in Occult, and may even arguably be slower paced than CEs. Others just don't like how the entire party wipes when one thing goes wrong and don't want to engage with it due to that. And others just don't want to do raid content or have disabilities that affect it.

Whether MMOs have traditionally had non-raid content or not, there has always been an audience for non-raid content in them. Just because they were ignored in the past in other games doesn't necessarily mean they should be now. I think they just would get by due to the social nature of them, PvP, RP, grinds or their many engaging, sophisticated, open-world systems.

Speaking of other MMOs though, the casual content such as seasonal events was always better in every one I've played, often classes have been more customizable, and content in general was typically more like what Field Operations are so that even a simple quest was socially engaging in the sense of seeing other players in the area or potentially having to party like you do for Calamity Unbound. Oddly enough, it's like they create a traditional MMO in an isolated instance then don't for the rest of the game, which makes sense when Eureka was inspired by FF11.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

The problem is not "casuals want easier content". It's "people want content that doesn't force them to play this game like its a second job".
All the content recently (becides the normal EX and Savage) is either laughably easy, or forces you to find people to run it with you on Discord.



Literally every other game I play that involves social interactions I don't have to go on Discord just to play parts of it. I love meeting people in game and partying up, and working together to meet a goal. Using Discord for its intended purpose (using it as a way to communicate for statics/harder content with random people) is fine, and it's also fine for trying to hunt down people to run older content. But when fresh new content comes out that you're immediately forced to use it just to find a way to get a party... Something wrong happened.

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I said it in my previous post, it was a example, you can literally clear every content in this game without joining a static or discord, its about the "social interaction" because many people arent even able to write in the chat if you ask them a question be it it "do you understand the mech" or "any question" or something, there are so many people which literally want 0 social interaction not even the ingame chat

I cannot help but laugh, seeing people go at each others throat, based on some artificial term which everybody defines differently.
I identify as a semi-hardcore player with a casual interest in the more lo-core parts of the game, so please let me know what FF14 problem I am responsible for now?