I wish everything was harder and there was capped level content.

The game should have an exponential difficulty. Ramping up every dungeon. By level 40-45 I want to be failing dungeons because it requires skill. Not just breeze by them because I can dodge two easy mechanics etc. Implement Merit Points. Make my level 60 quests and dungeons have an actual point to them. Not just some thing to get bad gear, and some tomes... Please. Merit Points. Have 1 Merit Point cost 1million EXP. Give us just that please.

I wish they removed levels from the game.

Who needs em? Just start everyone at max level and remove levels. This game has a story that already makes you do it to unlock dungeons and get gear, no need to have levels.

Unless the rewards are worth it, no one is going to bother bashing their heads in the wall.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Unless the rewards are worth it, no one is going to bother bashing their heads in the wall.

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Or: Gordias Savage.

In all seriousness, the game does need to be just a bit more difficult, but the ease we see now is mostly because we're all grossly overgeared. I remember harrowing fights against that there dude in the Fractal Continuum, uhh... what's his name... Phantom Ray, because we weren't overgeared and so DPS wasn't high enough to down him at 1-2 damage up stacks. I've also utterly failed in some low-level dungeons, like Aurum Vale, because the healer wasn't in level-appropriate equipment and couldn't heal though the first freakin' boss. The only thing that was really disappointing, difficulty-wise, in 3.0 was the Knights of the Round fight (of all things!).

... XIV might not be balls-hard like old-school MMOs were, but difficulty is there for people who want it.

I think there's still value in leveling up out of principle, but there's no reason it should be as easy as it is. Starting out at max level would be bogus in my opinion. It would only introduce more problems with people not understanding how to play their jobs. But to go along with what you're saying. The whole game fees like a massive tutorial up until the final mission of Heavensward.

I, too, wish that my random groups would be utterly decimated on a more frequent occasion due to the uncontrollable factor of having a single moron in the group. Then we would be forced to kick that moron to progress, and instead of having more "I want hard game" threads, we'd have more "remove vote kick, my feelings were hurt" threads.

Give me a game where random players don't afk to text chat their social linkshells every pull, first. THEN we can start talking about a more difficult game.

Can always queue for Friday Night Wolves' Den matches. You only have to wait 10-20 minutes and we'll punch your face in for free.

I am for more ilevel downsyncing in dungeons, so low DPS and certain mechanics can't be outmaneuvered anymore by overgearing it.

@Cilia

I wish endgame difficulty was more midgame. Making midgame harder from the get go would have giving more of a sense of accomplishment.

I just think back to my FFXI 75 cap lifestyle and the sense of accomplishment I had for doing literally everything I had to do. Even mid-level stuff was hard/took time to do. The sense of accomplishment was real. Getting AF (artifact gear) was a relatively epic accomplishment and quite a glamour, but it felt better. FFXIV is like having your parent hold your hand through every step making it easy for you. And don't get me wrong. I still love it and have fun doing it, I just don't feel the challenge, nor do I see the general audience of players have a higher skill level like they did in FFXI. Lv60 ppl who haven't a clue what they're doing is common. Which is totally messed up cause by then you should know what you're doing. Even I'm relatively new with 2 lvl 60's and shouldn't really judge much, but oh man. Game needs to be harder overall.

Another note. I took me about 8 month of grinding to reach my first capped level job in FFXI. A serious time sink and effort of straight up hard work. I felt so baller once I got there. So much pride. I got to 60 in under a month casually playing FFXIV. Someone can easily cap literally every job, DoL, DoH in under a year. What... the... f*ck is that... Zero pride in my two level 60s.

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Originally Posted by FunkYeahDragons

we'll punch your face in for free.

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This is all i saw when I read that. xD

To Eyervan:

Welcome to the 2010's and the new standard for MMOs. It's been trending that way since the early 20-oughts.

For some reason, game developers found they received more sales/subscriptions using the new standard than they did the old. I'm not sure you could even find a brand-new MMO that would give you that same sense of accomplishment, although I hear that the failed Wildstar (prior to going F2P) might have had the grindy-sense-of-accomplishment features you remember.

I would certainly abandon FFXI pretty quickly (as I did with Wildstar) if it were my brand new subscription MMO of the month in 2016. I don't have time for that sort of thing anymore.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

The game should have an exponential difficulty.

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Yes, so by the time you get to the level 24 dungeon your tank is taking 10k damage from trash with less than a 1/4 of the HP.

I'm not sure you understand what "exponential" means.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

To Eyervan:

I would certainly abandon FFXI pretty quickly (as I did with Wildstar) if it were my brand new subscription MMO of the month in 2016. I don't have time for that sort of thing anymore.

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Yeah. I guess it makes sense. However, I do wish they'd cater to diehards rather than people who play for a few months then quit cause they lose interest. Die-hards will spend hundred of dollars/thousands of hours playing your game for years, and casuals will play your game until some new hype game comes out and jump ship. If they really cared about money they'd make more micro-transaction content via mogstation items. Monthy fee's might make you 13-15 bucks per person, but new cosmetics will make you much more and the beauty is, they are optional. I know I've spent like 700+ dollars on Dota2 cosmetics in under a year... <.<

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Originally Posted by Theonekitten

This is all i saw when I read that. xD

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It's the only part that matters.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

Yeah. I guess it makes sense. However, I do wish they'd cater to diehards rather than people who play for a few months then quit cause they lose interest. Die-hards will spend hundred of dollars/thousands of hours playing your game for years, and casuals will play your game until some new hype game comes out and jump ship. If they really cared about money they'd make more micro-transaction content via mogstation items. Monthy fee's might make you 13-15 bucks per person, but new cosmetics will make you much more and the beauty is, they are optional. I know I've spent like 700+ dollars on Dota2 cosmetics in under a year... <.<

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Money talks -- it is infinitely more profitable to make an accessible, easily consumable game. Your diehard hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours are a drop in the bucket compared to what you can make by opening the game up to all types of players. The "glory days" of hard MMO's from 15 years ago are gone, and will not return because money trumps all.

Also having a ton of micro-transactions in your game to access full content is widely despised by many players and has been part of the reason this game has been a success on the sub model, by not providing special perks to those who want to pay for them.

I guess you haven't tried Titan Extreme via Duty Finder lately.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

... the ease we see now is mostly because we're all grossly overgeared. ...

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Agree with this. What it needs to fix the over-simplification isn't changes in the fights themselves (or most of them anyway), it's improving level sync and item level sync. There's enough challenge there already if your whole team is on-level and in on-level gear.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Or: Gordias Savage.

In all seriousness, the game does need to be just a bit more difficult, but the ease we see now is mostly because we're all grossly overgeared. I remember harrowing fights against that there dude in the Fractal Continuum, uhh... what's his name... Phantom Ray, because we weren't overgeared and so DPS wasn't high enough to down him at 1-2 damage up stacks. I've also utterly failed in some low-level dungeons, like Aurum Vale, because the healer wasn't in level-appropriate equipment and couldn't heal though the first freakin' boss. The only thing that was really disappointing, difficulty-wise, in 3.0 was the Knights of the Round fight (of all things!).

... XIV might not be balls-hard like old-school MMOs were, but difficulty is there for people who want it.

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Nope. There are too many of us who only want to play Softcore. Making everything hard will cause unsubscribers.

Or maybe pull a FFVIII where enemies scale based on your Level, in this case, total group's average Item Level.

I'd like it if open world enemies were a bit harder... And if there were open world quests where you had to party up (or be very overleveled) to kill strong monsters. Honestly one of the few things I miss from older MMO's were open world quests that you actually needed a party for because the monsters were that strong.

I personally don't really see the point in leveling taking longer. Like if the game wasn't all about being at the cap and only the cap I'd say we should level slower. But you can't really do anything except level until you're capped when you're below level cap and do MSQ that are at your level. The game honestly is all about endgame and pretty much any content coming out will require you to be level capped.

If you didn't get wipes in Void ark, id agree. but the average player cant do basic easy mechanics. I think at this point I've wiped on the first boss, the 2nd trash pull, the 2nd boss, the 3rd boss, and the 4th boss. because people cant do the most basic thing required.

Personally, I think the "theme park" mentality means we cannot have really difficult lower level content.

Things are so centered around Duty Finder and "hop in, hop out" random parties, so the content needs to be clearable by uncoordinated groups where people just play at a minimum level of competence. With no social connection/obligation to the people you play with, there is no need to stick it out, and parties will simply disband after a wipe or two.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that is what the game is now and there is probably no going back to rejig lower level content. The only challenge is endgame.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

If you didn't get wipes in Void ark, id agree. but the average player cant do basic easy mechanics. I think at this point I've wiped on the first boss, the 2nd trash pull, the 2nd boss, the 3rd boss, and the 4th boss. because people cant do the most basic thing required.

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To this day, ranged DPS, mostly BLMs, STILL camp on the pad even when asked not to.

*EDIT*
And not to mention the magic and physical resists on the Dog and Tree, as well as NOT killing Keds.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

The game should have an exponential difficulty. Ramping up every dungeon. By level 40-45 I want to be failing dungeons because it requires skill. Not just breeze by them because I can dodge two easy mechanics etc. Implement Merit Points. Make my level 60 quests and dungeons have an actual point to them. Not just some thing to get bad gear, and some tomes... Please. Merit Points. Have 1 Merit Point cost 1million EXP. Give us just that please.

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For a single player game, maybe.
In an MMORPG? Not unless you want to have nobody show up for new content.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

Another note. I took me about 8 month of grinding to reach my first capped level job in FFXI. A serious time sink and effort of straight up hard work. I felt so baller once I got there. So much pride. I got to 60 in under a month casually playing FFXIV. Someone can easily cap literally every job, DoL, DoH in under a year. What... the... f*ck is that... Zero pride in my two level 60s.

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well it's a lot easier now since we have all these roulette bonuses and weekly bonuses and increased exp gain from dugeons,fates etc.

While I do feel there needs to be much more midcore content. The fact less than 1% of players have cleared A3S is why we will never again see that scope of difficulty. It just doesn't make sense from a financial perspective to invest resources into challenging content few players can readily complete. Sure, you can use the adage, they will learn, But the thing is, few players do. Most will simply complain or give up, instead of buckling down and actually evaluating what they are doing wrong. Hell, I know people personally who have abandoned the game entirely because they reached a point too challenging and refused to grind or accept advice.

People like instant gratification. And unfortunately, so long as that garners high profits. That is exactly what any smart company will cater towards.

A feature already exists to set your ilvl to the entry level of the content. If they just added a bonus reward system to that so players who used it got bonus rewards it would actually facilitate a system that allowed players to remove the overgearing factor to increase rewards.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

@Cilia

I just think back to my FFXI 75 cap lifestyle and the sense of accomplishment I had for doing literally everything I had to do. Even mid-level stuff was hard/took time to do. The sense of accomplishment was real. Getting AF (artifact gear) was a relatively epic accomplishment and quite a glamour, but it felt better. FFXIV is like having your parent hold your hand through every step making it easy for you. And don't get me wrong. I still love it and have fun doing it, I just don't feel the challenge, nor do I see the general audience of players have a higher skill level like they did in FFXI. Even I'm relatively new with 2 lvl 60's and shouldn't really judge much, but oh man. Game needs to be harder overall.

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While I understand you and many have this sentiment, you have to understand what you see as difficult, many of us see as boring and tedious. Getting to 75 was not hard, in fact I feel the worst part of it was sitting in Jeuno looking for a party. lol xD Different people with different mentalities. :) I think you'll get more of that sense of accomplishment you seek once you get your first job over i200.

Alex savage is overtuned but nearly every other piece of content is undertuned. It's pretty stupid that you can drag some crap 300 DPS whatever through """"""Expert""""" dungeons. Some of the bosses in this game have pretty neat mechanics but you never get to see them since they have about a fourth of the HP and a third of the damage they should have.

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

@Cilia

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And making the early game harder from the get-go while ramping up the difficulty throughout the story would provide more a sense of accomplishment as well. Why not just make it stupidly hard from the beginning, so you feel really accomplished for finishing? ... because that's not enjoyable to more people than it is, and the game needs to appeal to as broad an audience as possible to be profitable.

There is difficult and/or time-consuming content to do. For difficulty, find a static and do Gordias Savage. For time-consuming, get a Zodiac or Anima weapon. Also remember that a lot of the content you do from 1-50 has been nerfed into the ground. Both Titan and Garuda were serious challenges during 2.0's story, their respective Hard Modes (which everybody did for their Relic weapon) even more so. Steps of Faith? You were lucky to get a group where people didn't drop when it was first released, because it took serious effort and a few tries to succeed, and even then it was a close shave.

Ravana was difficult on 3.0 release because people were used to being able to just overpower the content through gear and ignore mechanics; he's the first fight where you can't do that in 3.0. Bismarck similarly throws a curveball, requiring attentiveness and having a DPS check that some groups can't clear; I still die to this day in Bismarck HM (normal) because people just can't hit the shield generator when he dips down and can't burn adds quick enough.

Content is usually more difficult when it's first released and later made easier so people who join (or people who suck) can catch up to the endgame raiding scene, which is what the game's built around. When content is easy people complain it's not hard enough, but when they're taken out of their comfort zone by new content they complain and quit (or: Halls of Reflection). The glory days of requiring tremendous effort to get anywhere in an MMO is gone, and I agree it should be a little harder (just a little), but...

WAIT! Wait...

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

I just think back to my FFXI 75 cap lifestyle and the sense of accomplishment I had for doing literally everything I had to do.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

I just think back to my FFXI 75 cap lifestyle and the sense of accomplishment...

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Originally Posted by Eyervan

I just think back to my FFXI...

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Dang, just another XI vet with rose-tinted nostalgia goggles on reminiscing about how great XI was.

Putting it as politely as I can: XIV was not, is not, and never will be XI-2 mechanically or in terms of the world. Wanting or expecting it to be or to become as such will only lead to disappointment. It's a very different game, made to compete with the contemporary market, not the MMO market of 15 years past.

To everyone else: there's nothing to see here. Move along. Keep moving.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

Nope. There are too many of us who only want to play Softcore. Making everything hard will cause unsubscribers.

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I'm not suggesting it be made too hard, but the current content is boring to casual players because it's so easy. Also my main gripe is with the Knights of the Round fight, since even on release it was absolutely pathetic for being derived from one of the most awe-inspiring summons from the franchise ever. I just hope they don't butcher Ark if they put it in...

Also, "softcore?" *snicker*

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Originally Posted by Arrius

I am for more ilevel downsyncing in dungeons, so low DPS and certain mechanics can't be outmaneuvered anymore by overgearing it.

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But then why bother gearing at all?

If the current dungeons that drop 180 and are meant to be beatable before i180 were to sync to 180, then gearing up wouldn't help in them at all and it'd only be useful to the average player for doing Void Ark, and if Void Ark were to sync to 200 to keep that about where it's meant to be, little over really, what would be the point of upgrading to 210?

If you don't allow people to utilize their higher ilevels in anything outside of the current end game raids, then people are left with no reason to upgrade gear, which is the only reason to bother grinding the same dungeons day in and day out, and without the reason to do that. . . there's not much left to do in the game.

All we really need is for ilevel growth to slow down a bit so that we don't all out gear the next experts by the time they drop (like we did with the current ones, and which also robs people, or at least me, of any incentive to really gear much more), and for people to quit going "THIS IS TOO EASY NOW THAT I'M 30 ITEM LEVELS PAST IT!"

Titan Hard/Extreme mode
The original Pharos Sirius
Second Coil of Bahamut: Turn 4 (Turn 9)
Steps of Faith
Alexander: Gordias Savage

All examples of when they attempted harder (with the exception of Alex Savage, which they admitted they overdid it on) and it was met with much distaste and a lack of improvement/demands for nerfs from the player community.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Titan Hard/Extreme
original Pharos Sirius
SCoB: T4 (T9)
Steps of Faith
Alexander: Gordias Savage

All examples of when they attempted harder ... and it was met with much distaste

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Maybe what's missing is a proper difficulty scale and what relative difficult content goes where. The mechanics on some of those, even post nerfing, are more tedious morethan anything else. Was the only thing nerfed the DPS intensity? Tedious mechanics have their appropriate place, but MSQ should still be designed to be beatable by the community at large.

(Personally, Titan hard seems a good and reachable goal where it is right now, but Steps is still a mess if too many members are new via DF - while Steps may be perfectly simple and straightforward once a group is coordinated on it, PUGging doesn't offer the same depth of coordination options as a premade group and it is a duty which is imperative to clear for MSQ.)

The only problem with original Pharos is that it gave garbage rewards. The same tomestones and items came from far easier content. It's still probably their best dungeon. Also a lot of people love pre-nerf t9. :)

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Originally Posted by aesteval

Maybe what's missing is a proper difficulty scale and what relative difficult content goes where. The mechanics on some of those, even post nerfing, are more tedious morethan anything else. Was the only thing nerfed the DPS intensity? Tedious mechanics have their appropriate place, but MSQ should still be designed to be beatable by the community at large.

(Personally, Titan hard seems a good and reachable goal where it is right now, but Steps is still a mess if too many members are new via DF - while Steps may be perfectly simple and straightforward once a group is coordinated on it, PUGging doesn't offer the same depth of coordination options as a premade group and it is a duty which is imperative to clear for MSQ.)

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Except steps of faith wasn't difficult. It was a fight that was based on 90% reading the giant text bubbles the NPCs shout on the screen. You find out in 2 seconds the boss doesn't aggro so you have a free tank to use a cannon and a free healer since there isn't anyone but a single tank to heal. Everyone else just attacks the boss (tank gets adds of course) and do what the flying test says. What is hard?

there are many wiping 90 minutes in duty finder stories so it was too hard for many people, lol nobody but a single tank to heal, so many times people were flattenned to death by the dragon or killed by adds, your raiding party skill level is not the same skill level people have outside of raiding parties.

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

Except steps of faith wasn't difficult. It was a fight that was based on 90% reading the giant text bubbles the NPCs shout on the screen. You find out in 2 seconds the boss doesn't aggro so you have a free tank to use a cannon and a free healer since there isn't anyone but a single tank to heal. Everyone else just attacks the boss (tank gets adds of course) and do what the flying test says. What is hard?

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Reading is hard

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Originally Posted by RyuSaarva

there are many wiping 90 minutes in duty finder stories so it was too hard for many people, lol nobody but a single tank to heal, so many times people were flattenned to death by the dragon or killed by adds, your raiding party skill level is not the same skill level people have outside of raiding parties.

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Strategy does not account for people playing badly (dps getting hit by completely avoidable huge dragon feet and tanks not aggroing mobs). By the time you are level 50 you are expected to have completed the 50 level long tutorial explaining to you how to play the game. Maybe they should make leveling longer since apparently it's not enough time for people to learn how to play the game.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Dang, just another XI vet with rose-tinted nostalgia goggles on reminiscing about how great XI was.

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You mean you didn't enjoy doing merit parties on Colibri for hours at a time? xD

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

Maybe they should make leveling longer since apparently it's not enough time for people to learn how to play the game.

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And I somehow doubt even that would remedy anything. ;;; Bads will be bad and take shit to the face no matter what. (The VAAAAAAAULT being a prime example of this. QQ ) I suppose there could be more strict barriers in place to bar people who can't dodge the big glowy circle on the floor from progressing to certain high-level content, but I don't even want to think about how fast this game would crash and burn as a result of all the unsubs...

So yeah. Basically along the lines of what everyone else has been saying. I still wipe repeatedly in the most trivial of instances because people are just that incompetent. If the difficulty were ramped up as you're suggesting, very few people would be able to clear most of the content, if purely because there will inevitably be at least one idiot in a pug group who can't get their shit together. Commence mass rage quit, both of said idiots and the people who are having difficulty getting anywhere because of them.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing more "midcore" content. As for what's currently in the game, Alex Savage seems to be the only "real" challenge (maybe Thordan EX too). If you want to see what increasing the general difficulty would result in, as someone previously suggested... Do Titan EX in Duty Finder. XD;;;;