Is this game too easy?

Discuss. I want to hear your thoughts. I'm level 50, but haven't had a chance to do all end game content yet. I'm hoping for a real challenge. Something which makes your group wipe over and over, before you make any progress.
How are the raids in general?

Coil is well tuned, rest is a bit too easy and a bit too grindy, but that is how MMO's are :)

It has a lot of easy content, some mid content (extreme primals) that can't always be learned on your first go but not impossible to get down at all, and then some of the more difficult content that has a higher learning curve, (second coil) and then of course, some rather hardcore stuff (savage coil).

For a post WoW era type of MMO, this has a fair difficulty. Overwhelming majority of other online game developers have taken the "make it easy so everyone can play it" approach. While FFXIV is certainly less grindy than traditionally designed MMO's, it still isn't for everyone.

In my opinion the definition of MMORPG is "Not for Everyone."

Difficulty? Fair.

Greatly depends on you and your group's skill level. Some people only find Savage 7 hard, some people find Titan HM and beyond hard.

Every aspect of the game is easy the only hard thing is finding 7 other competent players

I find the player base more challenging than the content.

Basically, everything is easy if you know to mechanics for each fight. The hardest part is creating a party with skilled, competent players. Good party= easy Okay party= kinda hard Bad party= difficult

I'd say the overall difficulty is pretty fair for most of the time. I remember having a hard time on Garuda HM back then with i60 but it actually was fun. I wiped quite a few times on some of the more difficult dungeons during my adventure like Aurum Vale, Stone Vigil etc.

I can see why some people think it's super easy and QQ all day because if you're leaning towards a hardcore gamer side, things appear super easy, especially when you have your static team with you.

That said.. a major part that trivializes the difficulty is that many think all players in this game should watch a guide before entering literally every content.

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Originally Posted by Finaltime101

Basically, everything is easy if you know to mechanics for each fight. The hardest part is creating a party with skilled, competent players. Good party= easy Okay party= kinda hard Bad party= difficult

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I agree with that. For example, the first time I did Aurum Vale. my party wiped over and over on the first boss. The healer was kinda undergeared, which didn't help. The second time I did it with no problem. Back in LOTRO my team used to wipe over and over on the rift raid, but only once the fight was learned, it was achievable. Would you say it was the same for the coil and syrcus tower?

There's reasonably difficult content out there. Coil can seem daunting at first but all the fights are scripted so it's just a matter of learning the mechanics then having the required capability to meet the tanking/healing/dps checks.

As others have said, finding 7 other competent people is a huge challenge in itself.

I don't know where people get off making fun of other people for not knowing the encounter. People should get 8 players new to any of the coils, primals HM or EX, and got at it without watching video. If you haven't memorized the scripted encounters, is it easy to figure out what is going on? It is actually fun trying to figure it for the first time. At least wipe a dozen times going in blind.

After that you can check for answers on youtube or something, because truth be told none of the scripted encounter is obvious or intuitive. How are you suppose to know beforehand that miasma will bind the renauds, or if you move during blighted you will die, or you must stand on the neural link during the big blue flash, or healer and DPS need to be at opposite ends during Gaol, or don't kill off a little moogle too quickly, or any of the stuff people take for granted after a few iterations. And then even if you know the answers, you will need practice to execute the moves. But after a while, if you got a good group that play together consistently, it will all be 1-shots.

So what is easy? Is it easy to get to point of 1-shot/farm status? Is anything hard when you have everything on 1-shot farm status? What percent of the player base has it all on 1-shot farm status?

Game only gets addded diffulty because of select group of people deliberately being mean to others. The do things like "no myth bonus" or "no newbies allowed", and then turn around and sell SCOB turns for 60 Mil or so.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

I don't know where people get off making fun of other people for not knowing the encounter. People should get 8 players new to any of the coils, primals HM or EX, and got at it without watching video. If you haven't memorized the scripted encounters, is it easy to figure out what is going on? It is actually fun trying to figure it for the first time. At least wipe a dozen times doing in blind.

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Yeah doing coil first day after patch is actually quite fun. There's no pressure on anyone and it's a learning experience for all. The frustration comes when you keep wiping on T7 despite having had it on farm for 5 months, but that happens to the best of us.

Titan Extreme... i felt like i was a decent player and fairly well geared until i tried extreme...

Which is what I don't understand. it is a bit hypocritical to say "no newbies allowed" when they were once a newbie too. Fortunately I have a company, so I don't really have to deal with these jerks.

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Originally Posted by Cherryblossoms

Titan Extreme... i felt like i was a decent player and fairly well geared until i tried extreme...

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SO they weren't kidding when they said it was extreme? I'm just hoping that SE don't nerf the difficulty. Apparantly in SWTOR they nerfed nightmare, so it is really just hard and they nerfed hard, so it is like normal. As for normal mode, that is just easy now. Hope SE don't end up doing something similar.

I like the difficulty of Frontlines. The unscripted fights and on-the-fly decision making is refreshing compared to the static script memorization routine the rest of the game offers.

There are groups with veteran players for clears and there are groups for learning. Me and some friends do the latter until we beat it. We just dont have 8 people but we are usually lucky enough to find other players willing to learn with us or even better, critique us (nicely!).

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Originally Posted by Adelard

it is a bit hypocritical to say "no newbies allowed" when they were once a newbie too.

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There are plenty of learning parties where newbies can practice. I never had a problem learning fights with those parties.

Titan extreme is a pita. It has me questioning my abilities and my current pc setup lol. One has to be improved, probably both. Practice, breath, try again. With the right group of people its a blast and imagine that feeling when you beat it. For me, the accomplishment is huge.

Yes the game is too easy, but no matter how easy something is someone will always complain about it being "hard". IMO a lot of people want a "instant win" button.

After my group clears something once(and yeah we wipe a bunch of times while learning like everyone else), it's pretty much one shots every time after that unless someones client crashes or whatever. There's very little RNG involved in the current battle content which makes it easy to repeat without any issues. Final coil might not be the same, but I doubt that.

Far from it...

there is a reason why they dedicate patches for moderate difficulty.

Even if you are somewhat overgeared, you will have a rough time in Garuda Extreme or Titan Extreme while you are still not familiar with the fight.

They were reaaaaallly hard back when max item level was 90 and there was no Echo.

There still are hundreds if not thousands of people on full level 110 gear that wipe to titan with +25% Echo (meaning you already wiped at least 5 times before that), so if there are so many players that struggle so much, it can't be considered "easy content", even though it is kinda easy after you (and everyone else in the group) learn the fight and don't screw up on mechanics.

Coil is also hard, as people already mentioned.

I think this game is hard to the majority of people. After 5 tries at Titan EX through duty finder you will see that most people are really bad at learning mechanics. Some won't learn and makes the same mistake again and again.

Personally I think the game is a little too easy for me (i would put myself inbetween hardcore and casual) (can't say anything about coil cause I have never tried it, would probably like to if I could find some people who would want to learn the fights as well.)

I'm so happy for frontlines though, where I get to fight real people and don't have to learn a scripted fight. Fighting other people one on one is the hardest and most fun in this game to me.

I would love some hard 4 man content. Like EX dungeons

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Originally Posted by Edli

There are plenty of learning parties where newbies can practice. ...

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This is completely false. The fact that 1 exists every now and then is plenty?

It is so hard to get a learning a learning party filled. I saw my friends put up a PF for T7 the other day. The one expired waiting for a tank. They put it up again. Another 45 minutes in, still no tank.

I don't main a tank, and I've only cleared T7 using my main. But I decide to join them with my PLD so at least everyone gets to learn. After I joined I asked if there was anyone with an alt class that is a better tank? That was met with silence. I told them the more experienced tank should do OT and take on adds. That was ignored and no one said a word. But after the 5th wipe, the one time I had voice when the adds showed, and the monk got aggro on the add dies next to healer and healer ended up with the add leading to the wipe. And one them supposed "experience player" decides to take it out on me and wanting to vote kick. Obviously the vote kick failed, but then the verbal abuse started up. Yep some learning party. The experienced players in general don't want to put up with other people learning, and they don't really want to help with learning parties either which adds dramatically to the difficulty for everyone else.

In contrast what do I see most of the time. T5 farm, Levi EX no myth bonus, Ramuh EX must have multiple clears... etc. etc. Only hunt parties are more common than those, and the ever present T6-9 will sell for 60 mil party on the PF.

spending an entire year to look for coil statics never worked for me so I gave up on coils even though I would love to do them. I know the mechanics to most of them but its like every FC you join offers end game raids etc. Never follows through. I deleted my character I had for a year+ and re rolled to get back into the game and still end up in a nice and great fc but they do not do coils anymore they say so idk I hope there is more content for people like myself that do not have their middle school statics that are older guys like me wanting to enjoy some fun and challenging stuff.

P.S. The biggest issue in mmorpgs now a days is players do not communicate like we used to in past games, I would tank in an other mmo and we would all have a great time rather we wiped but we all were learning it and having a good time and that mmo I played had a 00.01% chance to even drop anything from a big boss battle *talk about rng lol* I think its people and greed is all but not everyone just a lot :(

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

This is completely false.

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I guess is different in Faerie. All the fights I learned I did them on learning parties. Each and everyone of them.

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Originally Posted by Kiara1

Personally I think the game is a little too easy for me (i would put myself inbetween hardcore and casual) (can't say anything about coil cause I have never tried it)

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This mindset boggles me. I guess it is due to availability of getting 8 other players to attempt Endgame?

I could understand someone saying that the easy content is easy for them, and they wish they could try the difficult endgame material, but to say that the entire game is easy...

Anyways, rant over.
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While a lot of the content does depend on finding 8 other competent players, there was a slight shift from First Coil to Second Coil.

Second Coil had some random elements that tested a team/players ability to adapt, that weren't really present in First Coil. This made Second Coil much more difficult for players compared to First Coil. I'm sure Final Coil will extend on that with even more difficult mechanics.

Join a Ramuh EX party and you will find out how many people are able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
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I would say the game is easy in the sense of accessibility to content, learning your party role and gearing up effectively. (Don't equip STR gear on Bard etc)

There is easy content for casual players, and for just levelling up and learning your class/job role or just learning the game in general.

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Do I think the game is "too easy"? No.

Its sad but some stuff are TOO easy (4 man dungeons - Primals HM- quest- Fates) with BAd rewards
Some are ok: Primals Ex but Titan (With some bad rewards like ilv 90 jewes)
And other are TOO hard for general playerbase (Coil t5+ and Titan Ex)

The game is not so much too easy, but more so lacks frequency or size of challenging endgame content for a select few of us. Having farmed T9 for the past 3 months could have been better. Despite that though, there's still plenty of alternative content to keep one entertained throughout the months of farming. And SE does a good job in extending the quantity of content outside of mere raids in every major patch.

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Originally Posted by Valoiz

Its sad but some stuff are TOO easy (4 man dungeons - Primals HM- quest- Fates) with BAd rewards
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The rewards not bad. They are appropriate for the level. And it is not easy if people actually learn and practice what they are supposed to do starting with Sastasha. But the problem is speed runners just want the rewards (duty roulette bonus asap), so any overgeared level synced DPS or healer can just totally ignore the new tank learning and blow thru the stuff skipping rooms. So it seems too easy, but that is because they are doing it all wrong and getting away with it. They are supposed to learn to let the tank mark target, grab aggro and control their own aggro. But NO! Must speed run and everyone else is just as speed bump.

Yes and no, fully scripted battles can't be hard, just exclusionary.

Easy in an online game environment is subjective term, it all depends on the gamer skill, or type of playing style each gamer is different in certain ways people tend to find groups that best fit their personnel type of gaming anything outside that realm is usually scrutinize on either side on the spectrum imo.

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Originally Posted by Renik

No, fully scripted battles can't be hard, just exclusionary.

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Fully scripted battles can be as challenging as any professional level PGA golf course, and it can probably get just as exclusionary, except that the pro golf people are actually nicer and they actually do teaching and outreach etc.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

The game is not so much too easy, but more so lacks frequency or size of challenging endgame content for a select few of us. Having farmed T9 for the past 3 months ...

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Instead of farming it, how about take on the challenge of teaching the new people to clear it? That is would be a worthy challenge, and the game certainly won't be easy. Truth be told, people want easy, not challenging.

I am not saying never farm it, but if you farmed it a couple of times, your group should split into 2 (1 tank, 2 dps, 1 hear)and get 4 new in each and get those groups to farm, and then split again and get more people to that and continue to do so spread the love of the game.

Being an oldschool MMORPG player, I don't find the game that difficult.
For someone completely new to the genre, it can be overwhelming when the hand holding on to you lets go at endgame. The game doesn't ever tell you how to play your class, what the accuracy cap for a boss is, etc. You have to find that out for yourself. You could be playing your class inefficiently and be completely oblivious to it, and knowing how to efficiently play your class is the first step you should take if you're doing endgame.

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Originally Posted by Renik

No, fully scripted battles can't be hard,

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Yes they can. Almost all old arcade games were scripted and hard as hell. Ninja gaiden was considered a hard game but every enemy position and attack was scripted. Dark souls, it all comes down to learning the attack pattern of the enemies.

A fight being hard or easy has little to do with it being scripted or not. A fight is hard when the vast majority of the playerbase has huge difficulties with it, that's all.

Its all on you do you find it to easy? or do you find it hard? to me the game has a good mix of both but that's just how i feel:D

The general content is fairly easy. The main storyline, the 4-man instances, the initial primal fights, these can all be completed mostly by yourself.

Then there's the more challenging content. The initial end-game stuff like the hard-mode primals, Crystal/Syrcus Tower, some of the higher level 4-man instances, and Coil 1-4 are all relatively mid-level difficulty. Admittedly, some of the difficulty for this content is finding the requisite number of people needed to do it.

Finally you have the harder content. Extreme primals (These are a challenge. Most people can beat them with little difficulty, but they all have mechanics that make them challenging, even with a massive iLevel delta), Turn 5 and the Second Coil (Turns 6 - 9).

TL;DR : There's enough content in-game and on the way to provide a challenge to 90% of gamers. If you're asking "Is it easy when compared to WoW or other mainstream MMO's", the answer is No.

In certain places yes, in others no.

50-Dungeons are too easy (primarily due to being dead-on-arrival, outgeared on release).

CT/ST is arguably too easy (mostly due to being outgeared on release) though I propose Savage versions of them be released (in the future, preferably simultaneously).

I think Primals (minus Ifrit Extreme) & Binding Coil are tuned impeccably well for their purposes (except that some of the OHKO's could stand to be changed under this difficulty tier, save more of that for Savage Difficulty).

However...

They just need to start supporting 3 difficulties for everything.

Normal/Story > Hard > Extreme/Savage.

Normal/Story ~ leveling or story-progression purposes.

Hard ~ gear-progression or skill-improvement.

Extreme/Savage ~ gear-progression or challenge-mode.

Story Coil is on its way, which I think is a welcome change (I consider the current difficulty to be set to "Hard").

I think Extreme/Savage Tiers should have a strict ilvl sync applied for the sake of balancing around a holistic skill-play approach.

Retired HM Content should eventually have an ilvl sync applied, though incremental & not as strict (in 2.4 they're applying an ilvl 110 sync to virtually all past 50-content which I think is personally a bit too high for some of it though I appreciate it as a first-step).

I don't think the ilvl sync applied to 50-content should exceed 40 ilvl's beyond the minimum requirement.

E.g. Garuda HM is min. 52, cap it at 92 ilvl, etc.

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Originally Posted by NyarukoW

Instead of farming it, how about take on the challenge of teaching the new people to clear it? That is would be a worthy challenge, and the game certainly won't be easy. Truth be told, people want easy, not challenging.

I am not saying never farm it, but if you farmed it a couple of times, your group should split into 2 (1 tank, 2 dps, 1 hear)and get 4 new in each and get those groups to farm, and then split again and get more people to that and continue to do so spread the love of the game.

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As even with all the farming, very few are yet fully geared. RNG at its best. It was actually not till last reset that I got my T8 shield for example.

With the SCoB restriction being removed we'll be getting guildies who haven't yet cleared it through soon enough. And we're also glad to see that in 2.4.5 (I believe it was set for that patch) it'd become possible to help others even in the latest raids already. Even with that though, I still foresee many months of farming content. Being able to take players through content will make it fairly quick to get people familiar with it themselves. Usually 2 or 3 full clears are enough to truly get the hang of a fight.

So after having taught the fights to guildies in teams which haven't cleared it yet themselves, it would remain farming once more till the occasional new guildie joins.