Would you improve if the content required it?

http://www.strawpoll.me/11714129

I wish to see the general consensus on improvement. Please do answer honestly.

Um... Yes? Hard content does require a greater level of competency from everyone in general.

See: How the community reacted to Ozma.

Unless you meant this in a different way, but this is a really vague and yet very straightforward question at the same time.

I simply mean if you faced a challenge, would you get better or leave it alone?

I supposedly made it a straightforward question and i expect straightforward answers. Dont read too much into, just give your opinion on the question at hand.

Im honestly excited to see the results. Will post them in 48 hours.

I have a fair feeling that while many would click 'yes,' very few would mean it. If main story dungeons and whatnot became something like The Weeping City of Mhach, especially during the first week, there'd be more of an outcry of rage than rising to meet the standards. Look at the Steps of Faith.

isn't that logical?
If you want to beat said content, you need to improve.
Otherwise you're not going to beat it...

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I have a fair feeling that while many would click 'yes,' very few would mean it. If main story dungeons and whatnot became something like The Weeping City of Mhach, especially during the first week, there'd be more of an outcry of rage than rising to meet the standards. Look at the Steps of Faith.

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I think this one nailed it. Steps of Faith was never a hard fight, but a lot of people were willing to invest more time in the forums to get the fight nerfed rather than talk to their teammates and get the fight down.

Granted, I do believe that Story Mode content should be somewhat easy, but the community reaction back then was absolutely ridiculous.

Yes big time. It would make the game even more interesting than the way it is now.

Yes, I play for the challenge, which FF14 kind of lacks.
Beating the current hardest content is what keeps me going (In all games).
#StopTheNerfs

Yes, if I thought the content was worth doing for me.

The first time I tried Mhach, it was hard. I wanted to improve so I could get better gear.
I asked more veteran healers for advice. Took their advice and practiced and improved and got my gear.

I wanted to clear Nidhogg extreme with my FC. It was my first unsynced extreme "primal" fight.
Because I wanted to do it with my FC, I had to improve a lot. Eventually we cleared it.

After 3.4, I wanted to become active in raiding. And I wanted better gear. I wanted a challenge.
So I had to improve a lot. I decided to raid as a Ninja. I had to learn my rotations and practiced a lot on wooden dummies.
At the time, clearing Alexander was worth it for me. I enjoy the new gear I have, but I have not cleared A12S and probably won't.


Why? Simple answer. It isn't worth it for me anymore. My thinking has changed. 1 weapon (which will be obsolete soon), a mount (not interested in it), and body armor (ninja's isn't very good).
I could improve to clear it, but it isn't worth the time or energy. Hours and hours of bad parties / unprepared people and buying so much food and potions is not worth a weapon, mount, and achievement.
I also no longer have the patience to deal with people who come to "clear parties" without having enough practice first and get hit by every avoidable damage.

In fact, this week I haven't even finished A11S because yesterday I got in groups with people who have "cleared" it, but still haven't learned the fight at all.
Too many have been carried.

What we need is not only challenging content, but challenging content worth doing.

No. I don't play FF XIV for the challenge. I enjoy FF XIV as a relaxing game, I play for the story, the exploration, the social aspect, etc.. . Back then when The Binding Coil of Bahamut was released for the first time, I did not even bother with it, I just ignored it. If the game was made to be a constant challenge, I would simply play something else.

No - I'd just quit that content and, if too much content required it, I'd quit the game.

I don't improve just because content wants me to improve. I improve on my own simply because playing better tends to be more fun. It's why I can't really cope with BRD/MCH - I know how I could play them better, but doing so isn't fun, so I ditched the jobs entirely.

And from that base, I engage in content I can comfortably do with my current skill level and ditch the content outside of it. Plain and simple.

It depends on many factors. If to be accepted into that hard content I would need to spend a lot of time earning money for food, potions and materia for gear, forget it, I won't even try.

If it means learning a fight with people that expect me to know everything beforehand and will not accept me or kick me at the first mistake, then again I'll leave that be.

If however it means trying to play better and learning with accepting people, sure count me in.

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Originally Posted by Enur

I simply mean if you faced a challenge, would you get better or leave it alone?

I supposedly made it a straightforward question and i expect straightforward answers. Dont read too much into, just give your opinion on the question at hand.

Im honestly excited to see the results. Will post them in 48 hours.

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That would very much depend on how hard the challenge was.
One that I could almost manage right off and where only minor improvements are needed: Yeah, sure - I'd try to get better so I can beat it.
One where I would need major improvements just to have a chance: Nah, sounds like too much work - I'd leave it alone and do something else instead.

So, not so straightforward question or answer.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I have a fair feeling that while many would click 'yes,' very few would mean it. If main story dungeons and whatnot became something like The Weeping City of Mhach, especially during the first week, there'd be more of an outcry of rage than rising to meet the standards. Look at the Steps of Faith.

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Nothing particular against what you said, im just gonna grab your lines to point out something.
The weeping city of Mhach was never ever hard. It is infact extremely easy with a really stupid mechanic splattered all over the fights. The problem with the community and modern casual gaming is that the people who complain about its difficulty (that again is unexistant) is just coming from the fact that 1) they didnt spend a single minute even tryin to figure out what is going on 2) they didnt bother to ask for clarification to someone who might know the fight better. But once you tell someone the 2 stupid mechanic Ozma has, voilà the fight becomes idiotically easy.

Now the problem is that the behaviour of people approaching 24 man content is "lets have other people carry me, we are in 24, im just gonna hide back here and get carried". This behaviour lasted the first weeks, and that is what brought people to complain about weeping city difficulty, but in reality the dungeon itself is extremely easy to a point where is completely dumb, like the whole game.

The biggest issue with Steps was that it was a very long fight and even if things went badly and you knew there was NO WAY you were going to pull out a victory, you still had to wait for the dragon to waddle ALL THE WAY down to the other end and end the fight.

Depends on the kind of difficulty we're talking about.

Are we talking about real difficulty (mechanics are challenging), or are we talking about putting arbitrary timers on things to force you to be good enough with your job and have enough gear to pass?

The former I'm all for. The latter is something that really annoys me. Not that I hate the idea of 'gittin' gud, scrub' or anything, but being unable to beat something soley because I didn't go and grind enough gear ticks me off.

Not that I'm saying gear should never be a factor either - but for example, I don't have any motivation to challenge most of the superbosses in the Final Fantasy series. Because I'd have to spend hours grinding just to get strong enough to be able to fight it. For a payoff that's not worth it. In FF14, if I had to grind for hours to get strong enough to do basic stuff like MSQ scenarios, that wouldn't be worth it.

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Originally Posted by Enur

http://www.strawpoll.me/11714129

I wish to see the general consensus on improvement. Please do answer honestly.

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That's a bad question. The right question would be to ask wether people would want to improve to beat a challenging fun and entertaining content.

The issue with the so called endgame community in MMORPG is that it give only feedback to the developpers regarding the difficulty of a content, but not on the entertaining factor of the encounter. Yet the only way will get out of their way and try to challenge hard content is if said content is entertaining. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty (as in the first floors of alexander savage) is not entertaining (hence the small number of players who actually attempted that content).

the most basic answer is "Challange vs Reward" to u'r question OP, if its stupid hard for something super lame (Mount/title) then only those who have masocistic tendencies will grind it (or those who just want the challange) now if the reward was a buff or slight stat boost (like u beat coil t5 & get the achievement u get 5 more of those selectable bonus stats) or gear that actually lasts more than next patch then u might make a masocist outa ppl who normally arn't (& the clear runner sellers would probably increase as well... but I'd exspect it by now)

Now put said "Stupid Hard" challange in MSQ with a "u can't reach end game stuff without it" like Steps of Faith was then u get something thats bad for buisness, especially in a game that even the creators treat like a "Theampark MMO". Prime example is the uber-nerf they gave Steps when they realized the player bace as a whole ant that good... or wanted to be (yes ppl did beat it pre-nerf, I was 1, it was hard for a person who hadn't touched Coil back then)

my personal answer to the y/n question is: Yes but as long as the challange was hard enouf to teach u something that u could learn & better u'rself from & not insta-death, unrecoverable, party-wipefest of salty rage tears... that just is asking for internal conflict & unsubbing.

I have no interest in making the game harder. If I want challenge, I'll play a hard single-player game where I'm not going to feel bad for screwing up or get mad at someone else for screwing up.

It's also a question of how they made it harder. If they used the exact system they have now, but required better gear, that would be terrible because people at minimum item levels wouldn't be able to keep up. If they increase minimum item levels, the content becomes too hard to get to. If they decrease the gap between minimum item levels and maximum item levels, there's nothing to look forward to. If they synced every content to a specific item level to prevent it from getting easier over time, there's no reason to get more gear. On the other hand, if they made mechanics harder, it would turn off a lot of players and make PUG runs exponentially more frustrating. Keep the challenge in raids and not everywhere, please.

Depends on the content and how far off I was from being able to complete it.
Overall I'd say no though. I play XIV for relaxation not challenge.

Yes I would like to improve, but I am turned off to raiding not, because it's hard, but because of the uppity d'bags that swarm to it and talk crap to people who are trying to learn it. People learn by making mistakes, these types of "hardcore" will have none of it. I watch videos to prepare, but you don't learn really until you're in it and fail here and there.

In summary, I like difficult content, but dislike the attitude of the people that run them.

Seeing how disinterested I am in anything (Savage), think it's fair to say I would put in the effort but not really make myself sweat. At this point in life I know I'm capable of performing extremely well but, I just don't really care to focus that hard, especially during business days. The rewards from our current hard(est) content are not worth it to me and I've conquered many a difficult game in all these years that I'm just kinda "meh" about mastering a game. Voted no.

No not really. I raided during the first and second coils. It lead to fighting over positions, loot, and DPS. Running the same boss over and over and considering it progress if we wiped a little later than normal. I don't raid now because I don't find that kind of play fun. I would probably just go and do/play something else.

For sure. I just started getting into Savage and am quickly learning how to optimize my cooldowns. The content asked for more from me, so I'm delivering.

To add onto the WC tangent: this is very true. The raid itself is easy, but you have those who just refuse to learn for some reason. There's a fine line between playing for fun/relaxation and just mashing keys for no apparent reason.

Yes, if i intressted in the content and/or reward


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also 100 % if is it somekind of group content, i not such an egoist that im going to waste the time of other people because im entitled or something like that

I did. I had to. I wanted to start clearing extreme and 8-man raid content, so I started researching my job, rotations, optimal skills, watching videos. I changed jobs to something that is a better fit. Did old extreme content and learned a lot. I started up a raiding static and we sucked a lot. We got better. We got some clears. I changed FCs when that static fell apart, found a new group, and I've been progression raiding ever since.

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Originally Posted by Nuinn

Seeing how disinterested I am in anything (Savage), think it's fair to say I would put in the effort but not really make myself sweat. At this point in life I know I'm capable of performing extremely well but, I just don't really care to focus that hard, especially during business days. The rewards from our current hard(est) content are not worth it to me and I've conquered many a difficult game in all these years that I'm just kinda "meh" about mastering a game. Voted no.

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Basically that. Real life presents enough challenges that I don't feel the need to prove myself. I play games to relax. If I find that the amount of effort required is greater than the enjoyment gained then I am no longer "relaxing" and the activity is counter-productive. Also I prefer puzzle games over twitch games so I am more likely to put effort into something that requires thought over something that requires reflexes.

I do as much content as I can. I feel content that is "difficult" is fine for me to do and grind. However content that is tedious, and requires over thousands of attempts/entries/wins... is just ridiculous. I'll either do the content over time at that point and reap the rewards much later than I would if I forced myself to do that content in a matter of minutes.

So yeah, I will better myself if the content demands it, but I won't "better" myself if the content is dull and long.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

I do as much content as I can. I feel content that is "difficult" is fine for me to do and grind. However content that is tedious, and requires over thousands of attempts/entries/wins... is just ridiculous. I'll either do the content over time at that point and reap the rewards much later than I would if I forced myself to do that content in a matter of minutes.

So yeah, I will better myself if the content demands it, but I won't "better" myself if the content is dull and long.

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thats funny because the timesink content exist largerly because people want the best ilvl things but dont want to do the harder content

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Originally Posted by Enur

I simply mean if you faced a challenge, would you get better or leave it alone?

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Most of my challenge comes from the community. Let me give you an example:

I never completed Gordias because I was a PLD and NIN. People wanted DRK and WAR, and we were flooded with NINs. Since 2.x I have been a VIT tank and never gave in the the STR thing that went on. That said, I improved on learning the content itself, but did NOT improve on optimizing my gear (I ignored STR stuff).

Another thing is WAR. I can't seem to grasp it from a DPS perspective; I'll play WAR as MT in Defiance. I don't think I'll improve in content with WAR regardless of the contents' changes.

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Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

Yes I would like to improve, but I am turned off to raiding not, because it's hard, but because of the uppity d'bags that swarm to it and talk crap to people who are trying to learn it. People learn by making mistakes, these types of "hardcore" will have none of it. I watch videos to prepare, but you don't learn really until you're in it and fail here and there.

In summary, I like difficult content, but dislike the attitude of the people that run them.

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Yep, and fflogs makes it worse. People seem to use fflogs to bash others rather than saying, "Hey, Jim... On fflogs, I saw that your dps was only 1k. Did you know that you can do 1.2k if you used more Dark Arts before Souleater?" But nope. It's "Your DRK OT is crappy with only 800 dps."

Forget gaming, that's how LIFE works.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Forget gaming, that's how LIFE works.

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Ok, so what about it?

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Originally Posted by Eimian_Eda

Yes, I play for the challenge, which FF14 kind of lacks.
Beating the current hardest content is what keeps me going (In all games).
#StopTheNerfs

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Basically the same for me; the challenges are what keep me going and my reason to try to actually get better gear, for example ( not much of a point in gearing up if there's nothing to gear for ). Plus I like a challenge, even if it means I have to try several times to be able to do it (and learn it); the satisfaction on knowing I was able to despite failing hard at first is great (for me)

Depends if I find it fun. Challenging fights with true randomness, where you can never have a perfectly straightforward and easily memorizable cool down rotation, where not every single gcd can be mapped out to perfection from start to finish? Yes, yes.YES.

Kind of a shame the devs said they'd never do that, but ah well. I prefer things that test your adaptability. Memorization isn't an actual skill.

Fights that simply have bigger numbers, but easily mapped out? Not particularly fun.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Depends if I find it fun. Challenging fights with true randomness, where you can never have a perfectly straightforward and easily memorizable cool down rotation, where not every single gcd can be mapped out to perfection from start to finish? Yes, yes.YES.

Kind of a shame the devs said they'd never do that, but ah well. I prefer things that test your adaptability. Memorization isn't an actual skill.

Fights that simply have bigger numbers, but easily mapped out? Not particularly fun.

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People tend to want their victories earned through their own merits and skill rather than coming out on top just because they got lucky that the boss did not use a tankbuster move 3 times in a row.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

People tend to want their victories earned through easy predictable and rehearsed fights rather than through skill.

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I agree, people don't want to get better or adapt, generally speaking, they want fights that are extremely predictable with no deviation from an easily mapped out rotation. Anything that's easily mapped out isn't hard, it's just about being able to memorize a spreadsheet. Even if it's new people are still able to map everything out.

I don't like 'challenging' fights where you can reliably say, "We pushed into phase X, tank buster in 20, raid wide AoE right after, then white damage after for 30 seconds." Just as an example.

For casual content? Sure, whatever, that lends itself nicely to easy content. Stuff that's supposed to be hard? Doesn't really mesh for me

Simply put, the ability to adapt is far more difficult a challenge than the ability to memorize.

That's sort of a non-question in my eyes.

I don't think people *only* improve when content requires it, they will just already be playing as well as they can, and if that's not good enough they will either just not do the content or wait/slog through multiple groups until they can be carried through it. Some folks have "improved" all that they can already and sometimes that just will still not be enough.

Sure, there's always going to be people who don't give as much of a shit and very well could "improve" but I think in the case of most people that have already been playing the same class(es) for a year or more, there isn't much room left for improvement in terms of what they are actually capable of (which is not to say that everyone is potentially capable of doing the hardest content, because sometimes they just aren't). The only way they will see "improvement" from then on is through the obtainment of higher level equipment.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Ok, so what about it?

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This should really be self-explanatory.

Throughout life you're going to be challenged, more often than not, you will need to improve yourself in some way to overcome that challenge, whether it's learning, trying a different method, trying an older method, improvising, etc. Those who adapt and improve reap the benefits and rewards, those who don't get left behind. And it goes without saying, art imitates life.

SE doesn't need to hold players' hands forever. All the levels and all the gear and all the different content should not only help you improve, but be a record of said improvement. Otherwise what's the point of getting them? Would it be at all fun if you were faced with the same difficulty at level 70 as you did at 60?

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Originally Posted by ShaneDawn

I think this one nailed it. Steps of Faith was never a hard fight, but a lot of people were willing to invest more time in the forums to get the fight nerfed rather than talk to their teammates and get the fight down.

Granted, I do believe that Story Mode content should be somewhat easy, but the community reaction back then was absolutely ridiculous.

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Because there was little incentive. Steps of Faith was long, somewhat tedious and any job with positionals just had a bad time. Compare that to say, Shiva, and people outright dropped out because it wasn't worth doing from a reward perspective. Weeping City, on the other hand, was the only option outside Savage if you wanted to upgrade your gear. If Stormblood made it so dungeons were challenging from the get go, people would grudgingly get over it because if they wanted to cap tomes efficiently, they have to.