FF14 needs more difficulty levels

The gradient of difficulty in this game is so steep even a mountain goat will struggle to climb it. A big reason why so many players of all skill levels are unsatisfied is because there isn't a good gradient that can keep these players hooked and challenged without being too hard.

The jump from normal duties to Extreme is fairly significant. Even in a decent static, you'd still need 1 to 2 hours of wiping to Endsinger to clear it. It'll be far harder in a PUG. This is massive step up from normal duties which pretty much almost never wipes.

The jump from Savage to Ultimate this tier is also very significant. You already have players complaining that this Ultimate was unreasonably difficult. Those people need to shut up but there is some truth behind that complaint: Savage has become so easy for seasoned veterans that it becomes mindnumbingly boring for them after the clear. In my honest opinion P4S does not adequately prepare anyone for an Ultimate encounter. This particular Ultimate is only adequately prepared for by actually doing on-patch Ultimates, the most recent of which took place a whole 2.5 years ago. This is why so many players who only did Savage and SB Ultimates in ShB (which is seriously only as hard as a Savage level difficulty fight, and this isn't just a meme) are struggling with DSR and even breaking up over it.

There needs to be far, far more content of all kinds of difficulty levels. I would propose an Extreme difficulty alliance raid where players will wipe two or three times each encounter, but give players individual extreme/savage-difficulty mechanics that, when failed, only result in their own deaths. This would be pretty similar to Baldesion Arsenal, where the mechanics may be challenging for newer players but ultimately don't impact the group that much, resulting in a low-stress environment for people to get used to harder mechanics and reacting to those mechanics faster. To save developer time they can start with making the Extreme difficulty raid then shave off mechanics and DPS checks to make the normal difficulty version.

There also needs to be something between Savage and Ultimate, both to satisfy veterans who are only challenged by Ultimate these days, and to help players bridge the gap between Savage and Ultimate. Once again, they can simply make a harder variation of the Savage fight and tune it to the max ilvl for that patch. In many of the Savage fights, they are already starting with difficult mechanics and trimming off mechanics that are too difficult. They simply need to preserve the pre-nerf version and make it Savage+.

This game absolutely does not help players get better and it is a serious shortfall that has been getting worse and worse since Heavensward.

The Creator difficulty gradient was in my opinion the best difficulty gradient the game has been at in its history. Normal content has a significant chance of wiping (Mhach and Dun Scaith in Heavensward) which serve as training for the player to get better. Sophia and Zurvan were no pushovers, but their mechanics are simple enough that I felt that they were only a few steps up above an alliance raid. Finally, A9S-A12S were much simpler than Gordias and Midas, which allow for people who have tackled an extreme trial to go on to Savage pretty comfortably.

I wouldn't say no if criterion dungeons turned out to be FFXIV equivalent of WoW mythic+ dungeons with a difficulty set between extreme and savage or normal and extreme.
But seeing as they have already stated criterion dungeons will have four layers of difficulty, then maybe all the above are possible different layers of difficulty. The first layer being a normal difficulty as an introduction to the new content, with the second being somewhere between normal and extreme, the third being between extreme and savage, and the last layer being a savage difficulty dungeon.
I think that might satisfy players who like running content with fewer people and would prefer killing mobs and a bit of exploration around rather than fighting a boss in an arena.

I'd be down for all this. I would also like stuff that's as challenging as Ultimate mechanically but not quite as lengthy. Part of what's so daunting about Ultimate is both the fight length and the massive time investment required to complete it. People that want something brutal but might not be ready for the 150+ hour time investment and 15 minute+ fight length of Ultimate.

Imo the game needs more challenging solo content.

Casuals are far more likely to try out gradual difficulty solo content than bother to meet and talk with people to get into a static to do raids, that takes times, mental effort and also requires specific times for raid and organize that many do not like being limited to.

Now they could also make a solo savage raid option where the npcs behave very average or slightly below average so victory COMPLETELY depends on your own PERSONAL performance but that is probably a lot of work instead of some solo designed deep dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

I wouldn't say no if criterion dungeons turned out to be FFXIV equivalent of WoW mythic+ dungeons with a difficulty set between extreme and savage or normal and extreme.
But seeing as they have already stated criterion dungeons will have four layers of difficulty, then maybe all the above are possible different layers of difficulty. The first layer being a normal difficulty as an introduction to the new content, with the second being somewhere between normal and extreme, the third being between extreme and savage, and the last layer being a savage difficulty dungeon.
I think that might satisfy players who like running content with fewer people and would prefer killing mobs and a bit of exploration around rather than fighting a boss in an arena.

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Didn't they say that criterion dungeons difficulty would scale to the number of players, rather than having 4 difficulty settings to choose from ? In my opinion it is very likely, if you go with 4 players, to be the same difficulty as the normal content we have now. With the mobs damage and hp being a bit lower if you go with 3 players, cut in half for 2 players, and reduced by 75% for a solo player. Which is totally different from what you said.

FF14's community has a long history of hyping itself way too much for future content, and ending up being disappointed when things are delivered. Remember how dancer should have been a healer ? Do you see all these people thinking that sanctuary island will be instanced housing, even though we have nearly no infos about it, and that Yoshida already said to keep our expectations low ? If i were you i seriously wouldn't expect criterion dungeons to be some intermediate extreme/savage content. Especially if it is going to be tied to the next relics, which are supposed to be completed by everyone.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Imo the game needs more challenging solo content.

Casuals are far more likely to try out gradual difficulty solo content than bother to meet and talk with people to get into a static to do raids, that takes times, mental effort and also requires specific times for raid and organize that many do not like being limited to.

Now they could also make a solo savage raid option where the npcs behave very average or slightly below average so victory COMPLETELY depends on your own PERSONAL performance but that is probably a lot of work instead of some solo designed deep dungeon.

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The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

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MSQ understandably gates the story so it needs to be beatable for even the most slow player, that isnt something that can ever be changed, even MSQ duties are designed to be beatable with only 1 good player in the group to give the illusion of difficulty, but extra content could be tuned to have high solo difficulty that increases gradually, extra things like deep dungeons or somekind of challenge that progresses and gives better rewards the higher you go and is of course viable for all classes since from what I understand, some classes are way worse in solo places like PotD/HoH and melee often have to rely on spinning which honestly doesnt feel like a great system but that is because the deep dungeons were created with groups in mind

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

I wouldn't say no if criterion dungeons turned out to be FFXIV equivalent of WoW mythic+ dungeons with a difficulty set between extreme and savage or normal and extreme.
But seeing as they have already stated criterion dungeons will have four layers of difficulty, then maybe all the above are possible different layers of difficulty. The first layer being a normal difficulty as an introduction to the new content, with the second being somewhere between normal and extreme, the third being between extreme and savage, and the last layer being a savage difficulty dungeon.
I think that might satisfy players who like running content with fewer people and would prefer killing mobs and a bit of exploration around rather than fighting a boss in an arena.

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They never said it would have four layers of difficulty. The only thing we know about it is that difficulty will scale based on number of players. This could be as simple a change as HP of mobs, damage they do, or number of mobs.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

MSQ understandably gates the story so it needs to be beatable for even the most slow player, that isnt something that can ever be changed, even MSQ duties are designed to be beatable with only 1 good player in the group to give the illusion of difficulty, but extra content could be tuned to have high solo difficulty that increases gradually, extra things like deep dungeons or somekind of challenge that progresses and gives better rewards the higher you go and is of course viable for all classes since from what I understand, some classes are way worse in solo places like PotD/HoH and melee often have to rely on spinning which honestly doesnt feel like a great system but that is because the deep dungeons were created with groups in mind

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Just about every game has a story. Requiring someone to learn how to play the game isn't gating them out of content. Claiming it does is nothing but an enabling phase to excuse laziness. If they don't want to actually play the game then why play it? To me it's essentially punishing everyone else because some people want a visual novel. If their goal is to just watch the main story and all the cutscenes they can do it for free watching online videos without paying retail for the game and a monthly subscription. The actual result that's come about from dumbing that content down and adding things like easy mode to solo duties is basically clearing the way for unprepared players jumping into DF for higher end duties and dragging everyone else down. This resulting in the decline of PUG's on that content and more people adopting the mindset that it can only be done with a static.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

MSQ understandably gates the story so it needs to be beatable for even the most slow player, that isnt something that can ever be changed, even MSQ duties are designed to be beatable with only 1 good player in the group to give the illusion of difficulty, but extra content could be tuned to have high solo difficulty that increases gradually, extra things like deep dungeons or somekind of challenge that progresses and gives better rewards the higher you go and is of course viable for all classes since from what I understand, some classes are way worse in solo places like PotD/HoH and melee often have to rely on spinning which honestly doesnt feel like a great system but that is because the deep dungeons were created with groups in mind

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I don't know man, when I play a video game story, typically the further I get the more the difficulty tends to ramp up, as it puts the skills and things I have learned through played the game to a test. This game keeps a pretty stagnant difficulty, which can be as equal a problem. There is a reason both the players and the devs know what the MSQ doesn't teach players how to play the game, and it's simply because it never has a player test there skills. The MSQ in this game is more a theme park tour, or a visual novel / audio book, than it is a video game.

More difficulty options would not do anything. People would only play the harder difficulty after a few days anyways.
The only thing I absolutely think would be good is a hard mode for the dungeons, with a difficulty level a bit lower than EX fights and higher than story mode dungeons.
I don't see the point of having something between savage and ultimate. If you find Savage not challenging enough, there is a high chance nothing other than Ultimate will be fulfilling.
That's why Ultimates are such stupidly long multi-phases fights, because the endurance check is basically the challenge on top of the challenge. Without that, it would just be "one more fight" in the raid tier really...
Of course people always want more, so no matter how much they add, people will not have enough.
But I think overall, they should rather invest more time in side content that everybody will participate in, even though some will hate it (like Bozja for example).

Squeenix was always known for insulting their Playerbases intelligence. It wouldnt suprise me at all, if Criterion Dungeons will just turn out to be some halfassed solo Dungeon that has the Difficulty of early HoH Floors (1-30).

And whats the point of adding more combat related content anyway, if the very Jobs, that are suppoest to enter them, are blandly designed, overtuned and lack any identity?

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Originally Posted by Kleeya

Didn't they say that criterion dungeons difficulty would scale to the number of players, rather than having 4 difficulty settings to choose from ? In my opinion it is very likely, if you go with 4 players, to be the same difficulty as the normal content we have now. With the mobs damage and hp being a bit lower if you go with 3 players, cut in half for 2 players, and reduced by 75% for a solo player. Which is totally different from what you said.

FF14's community has a long history of hyping itself way too much for future content, and ending up being disappointed when things are delivered. Remember how dancer should have been a healer ? Do you see all these people thinking that sanctuary island will be instanced housing, even though we have nearly no infos about it, and that Yoshida already said to keep our expectations low ? If i were you i seriously wouldn't expect criterion dungeons to be some intermediate extreme/savage content. Especially if it is going to be tied to the next relics, which are supposed to be completed by everyone.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They never said it would have four layers of difficulty. The only thing we know about it is that difficulty will scale based on number of players. This could be as simple a change as HP of mobs, damage they do, or number of mobs.

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I have just searched about it. Its strange, I clearly remember multiple websites stating it would be an instance with 4 layer difficulties. Must have been a mistranslation or something.
In any case, doesn't change the fact I'm hoping it would be something more difficult than the normal dungeons.

Not that I can say a grand deal as more of an observer, outside of a few far-and-between experiences, but I'd much rather they just rethink their design strategy going forward. They shouldn't need to resolve such issues by incorporating another difficulty (Which depending on expectation can just be a needless resource sinkhole). They just need to be more open to taking some risks until they find a healthy balance between difficulty and accessibility, and how well they prepare for subsequent content. As it stands with many avenues in the game they always manage to be excessive in their adjustments by overextending how accommodating they are to certain crowds, or by over-streamlining. This IMO has remained a prominent issue across a few avenues of content and is not really exclusive to one particular area. Outside of a few nuances, they struck a healthy balance in Stormblood.

Learning cannot be forced, which is something they've yet to really ingrain in their design strategy. Oversimplification is not going to resolve that indifference to adequately learning the game.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

More difficulty options would not do anything. People would only play the harder difficulty after a few days anyways.
The only thing I absolutely think would be good is a hard mode for the dungeons, with a difficulty level a bit lower than EX fights and higher than story mode dungeons.
I don't see the point of having something between savage and ultimate. If you find Savage not challenging enough, there is a high chance nothing other than Ultimate will be fulfilling.
That's why Ultimates are such stupidly long multi-phases fights, because the endurance check is basically the challenge on top of the challenge. Without that, it would just be "one more fight" in the raid tier really...
Of course people always want more, so no matter how much they add, people will not have enough.
But I think overall, they should rather invest more time in side content that everybody will participate in, even though some will hate it (like Bozja for example).

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The amount of statics who are imploding because of DSR but have formerly memed that P4S is ridiculously easy says otherwise.

I must admit I have a bit of schadenfreude seeing these hotshots get brought low, but every serious raider right now are on the same page - that on-patch Ultimates are actually a very steep difficulty spike from Savage, both because Savages get easier and also because Ultimates actually get harder.

I'm only on Eyes enrage so far but from talking to my FC and other high-end raiders a lot of them think that this is probably harder than on-patch UCoB, which was regarded as the hardest ultimate on release. I have to agree - Nidhogg is harder than Nael, while Sanctity makes Twintania look like an absolute joke.

Meanwhile Savage difficulty resets every expansion while jobs are only getting easier and easier. The combined effect is that Savage overall has gotten easier and easier and the clear rates reflect that.

JP Savage clear rates are above 40% at the very LEAST, on patch.

This Ultimate will 100% have a clear rate below 1%. Probably even 0.1%.

You seriously don't see the gap? There are a lot of players who find Savage too easy while finding Ultimate too hard.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Imo the game needs more challenging solo content.

Casuals are far more likely to try out gradual difficulty solo content than bother to meet and talk with people to get into a static to do raids, that takes times, mental effort and also requires specific times for raid and organize that many do not like being limited to.

Now they could also make a solo savage raid option where the npcs behave very average or slightly below average so victory COMPLETELY depends on your own PERSONAL performance but that is probably a lot of work instead of some solo designed deep dungeon.

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It already exists in the form of solo deep dungeon and Bozja duels. But there are two significant problems:

Solo deep dungeon is way too hardcore for the majority of players. HoH solo took me around 40 hours which is the same amount of time you'd dedicate to an entire Savage tier. There is no incentive for players to solo deep dungeons up to any point other than the top floor, which IMO is an extremely bad implementation.

Solution:

The new deep dungeon should remain extremely tough for those who want to solo up to the max floor. However, there needs to be significant rewards every 10 levels beyond a certain "hard" floor so that players can actually feel good about soloing them without feeling like it's a drag.

I think the new deep dungeon needs to have 150 floors. It should start getting as hard as HoH floors 50-60 at floor 80. Then allow people to choose between three starting points: 1, 41, and 81.

IMO, for rewards:

Reaching floor 90: a title and an exclusive minion (one-time). Difficulty: HoH 61-70, PotD 151-170.

Reaching floor 100: 360 weekly tomes (weekly reset) Difficulty: Hoh 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 110: an exclusive mount and glamour (one-time) Difficulty: HoH 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 120: a title and a one-time significant boost to relic weapon completion of your choice (e.g. skip the Harrowing Memory step) Difficulty: HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 130: 20M gil (one-time) and 24 Savage books of your choice (one-time). One relic step completion of your choice (weekly reset). HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 140: An exclusive mount and glamour (one-time). 3M gil (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/PotD.

Reaching floor 150: An exclusive title and two relic weapon step completions of your choice (one-time). One relic weapon step completion of your choice (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/Potad.

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Party mode rewards:

Floor 120: Title and one-time relic step completion.

Floor 150: Mount, 20M gil, glamours, and one-time relic step completion.

They do different things:

Floor 1 is for everyone to experience the new deep dungeon for the first time at a casual pace.

Floor 41 is for people who want to grind levels or other stuff.

Floor 81 is for the challenge mode and I hope that they enable achievements even if you start from Floor 81. At the moment HoH solo is a drag all the way until Floor 61, which is just a huge waste of time. I didn't even bother with PotD solo because I had to grind so many potions and grind through 150 floors of boring snoozefests. This needs to change. Make all floors starting from 81 challenging and engaging. This way you have 70 floors of challenging content.

This is the reward structure that I think should be used.

Also please make it a non-reskin deep dungeon. I don't think I will even touch it if it's just PotD reskin 3.0

I am not saying there is no gap. I am saying the gap doesn't matter at all and that no matter how much is added to fill in the gap people would still not be happy about it.
Also, people say savage is too easy but how many of those players you mention are capable of clearing fights without following guides and using min iLvl?...

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Originally Posted by Garnix

I am not saying there is no gap. I am saying the gap doesn't matter at all and that no matter how much is added to fill in the gap people would still not be happy about it.
Also, people say savage is too easy but how many of those players you mention are capable of clearing fights without following guides and using min iLvl?...

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So many baseless assumptions.

How will people not be happy about it? Have you asked all of them?

Also yes a lot of raiders are capable of clearing all Savages at min ilvl without looking at guides because they are genuinely not that hard and at this point people have already seen those mechanics used over and over again so much it's hardly blind.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Not that I can say a grand deal as more of an observer, outside of a few far-and-between experiences, but I'd much rather they just rethink their design strategy going forward. They shouldn't need to resolve such issues by incorporating another difficulty (Which depending on expectation can just be a needless resource sinkhole). They just need to be more open to taking some risks until they find a healthy balance between difficulty and accessibility, and how well they prepare for subsequent content. As it stands with many avenues in the game they always manage to be excessive in their adjustments by overextending how accommodating they are to certain crowds, or by over-streamlining. This IMO has remained a prominent issue across a few avenues of content and is not really exclusive to one particular area. Outside of a few nuances, they struck a healthy balance in Stormblood.

Learning cannot be forced, which is something they've yet to really ingrain in their design strategy. Oversimplification is not going to resolve that indifference to adequately learning the game.

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I think that makes sense but everyone is at a different stage of learning the game. Stormblood worked fine because outside of Ultimate, the difficulty gap was more narrow. Endwalker's difficulty gap is at the game's most extreme (for combat content) since its inception. On the one hand you have what is pretty much a visual novel. A very good one, but still a visual novel experience. On the other you have what is probably one of the hardest raid mechanically across all MMOs, period. This gap is too insane and like you said comes from trying to cater to people of all types.

But I think at this point the players themselves have a wide divide between them. While it would be nice in theory to strike a good balance, I think there needs to be at least one more difficulty level. Otherwise you'd have to narrow the gap to strike that balance. I am personally against narrowing the gap if it means lowering the difficulty of Ultimates. But I can also understand why some players wouldn't want to narrow the gap by increasing the difficulty of the MSQ.

Striking the balance would be great for midcore content like alliance raids, Bozja, EX and even Savage. But it doesn't really bridge the gap between the two extremes IMO: what you'll have left would be a big, packed island in the middle of an ocean (the midcore content) with MSQ lying all the way to the west by itself and Ultimate an entire ocean away.

The gap has to be filled somehow and adjusting the extremes would be something I'm against. But there isn't enough difficulty levels in the game so that they can fill in the gap without having a spike somewhere.

What you're suggesting could work if there was enough creativity and genius for them to design content that can bridge the gap while being repeatable so you can keep training to get better. For example, a Bozja duel that keeps getting harder and harder with more mechanics thrown at you over time, so that it acts like a difficulty slider in one single piece of encounter. But for the most part no such content exists in the game currently.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

Solo deep dungeon is way too hardcore for the majority of players.

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I personally don't find it too hardcore, I just find its not worth my time investment. It's strange that the devs ramble about how they can't make Mythic dungeons because it'll be stressful and punishing, yet they made a dungeon that literally erases hours of progress over a single wipe.

I'm just not motivated to run something that I could spend hours on and lose everything because I dc'd or had a string of really bad RNG on floor 199. Nor can I be bothered to run 150 floors of boredom just to reach the challenging part. It's like having an end tier Savage boss that requires you to beat 20 normal mode bosses, 10 EX bosses and the first few Savage bosses in a row without a wipe and then you finally get your challenging boss.
The save system is also rubbish. Imagine being bound to a static that you can never sub a player or pull someone in from PF without redoing the entire tier. Starting from Normal mode.

The only difficulty setting that would get interesting to add to the game is a Hard mode for solo instances.

I don't want them because I hate them all, but for those who love them it would be a fun addition.

If we're talking about CONTENT difficulty... Savage 4-man dungeons anyone? I have little hopes Criterion Dungeons would fill the midcore itch but it would be a start. Just difficult 4 man content at the equivilent of EX or Savage or ARR Hard Dungeons would be welcome.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I personally don't find it too hardcore, I just find its not worth my time investment. It's strange that the devs ramble about how they can't make Mythic dungeons because it'll be stressful and punishing, yet they made a dungeon that literally erases hours of progress over a single wipe.

I'm just not motivated to run something that I could spend hours on and lose everything because I dc'd or had a string of really bad RNG on floor 199. Nor can I be bothered to run 150 floors of boredom just to reach the challenging part. It's like having an end tier Savage boss that requires you to beat 20 normal mode bosses, 10 EX bosses and the first few Savage bosses in a row without a wipe and then you finally get your challenging boss.
The save system is also rubbish. Imagine being bound to a static that you can never sub a player or pull someone in from PF without redoing the entire tier. Starting from Normal mode.

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Excatly that... let us have saves and restart from them... id love to try, but the time... and as soon as im gettin tired in the evenings i dont even dare to try it, if something is up that needs me to leave i can trash my whole progress... If i could try 10 floors a time, id have cleared it years ago...

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They never said it would have four layers of difficulty. The only thing we know about it is that difficulty will scale based on number of players. This could be as simple a change as HP of mobs, damage they do, or number of mobs.

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Yeah, that doesn't sound like a true scale of difficulty. If anything it sounds kinda like Flex raiding in WoW where the HP of bosses scale to a certain point based on the total number of players present.

This thread instantly reminded me of a suggestion I made some years ago:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...parser-problem

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So, here's a different idea that just struck me..

Put a 'parser' of sorts in as a Gold Saucer mini game. Simply making an algorithm that works out each classes potential DPS at a given item level/weapon damage and offer up a sliding scale of targets for the player to aim for that's customised to their gear. Offering up modest MGP or even Card rewards for optimal DPS numbers would be all the motivation needed to get people trying it.

This would also allow you to simulate pretty much any mechanic or situation and make it part of the mini game without seeming clunky or out of place, add in some markers to dodge? Multiple targets for Aoeing?.

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Basically a mixture of a few things we eventually got later on down the line. Namely Stone Sky Sea and and the Slice is Right Gate.

Combing these into an encounter simulator of sorts could have so much potential if SE were willing to commit to it, and it could easily be made to be an entirely level playing field by working with Potency per Second instead of DPS.

Dooooo eeeeeet SE =(

As long as they don’t nerf the ultimate. That would be an insult. The old ultimates need some re-tuning as well. They are in a state of disrepair.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

The only difficulty setting that would get interesting to add to the game is a Hard mode for solo instances.

Savage 4-man dungeons anyone?

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yes please!

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

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The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

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I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to request that doing MSQ content requires using 2 brain cells instead of one. It's not something I expect to happen, but it would be nice. That doesn't equate to asking for Extreme/Savage or Mythic raid levels of difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to request that doing MSQ content requires using 2 brain cells instead of one. It's not something I expect to happen, but it would be nice. That doesn't equate to asking for Extreme/Savage or Mythic raid levels of difficulty.

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sure it does, I know a lot of people that HATE the msq. It's not that it's hard, it's not. They just don't like it at all. Don't care about the story and just want to be done with it. So expecting it to sort of "teach" anything is expecting way way way too much. It's just a story. In fact it should be totally optional. But it's not. So many people just want it done and over with.

You know all those post expansion patches where you have to spend like 2.5 hours playing as random NPC's you couldn't give a toss about and hate how the fights are drawn out to take 15 mins a piece. They're not hard, just annoying. If you add in more mechanics that most players will literally never see again will just make an already annoying quest end up being a game quitting quest.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

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I don't want to do extreme or savage, the Roulette duty finder is fine with me, if even that. I normally wait until the second raid come out before even trying the first. I'm happy with tomestone gear from the roulettes, I don't need anything better. And If they made the MSQ as hard as extreme or savage I would more than likely just quit playing. I want to enjoy playing not get frustrated because I can't do content, reflexes are not what they use to be, I'm getting old

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Originally Posted by Zer0

sure it does, I know a lot of people that HATE the msq. It's not that it's hard, it's not. They just don't like it at all. Don't care about the story and just want to be done with it. So expecting it to sort of "teach" anything is expecting way way way too much. It's just a story. In fact it should be totally optional. But it's not. So many people just want it done and over with.

You know all those post expansion patches where you have to spend like 2.5 hours playing as random NPC's you couldn't give a toss about and hate how the fights are drawn out to take 15 mins a piece. They're not hard, just annoying. If you add in more mechanics that most players will literally never see again will just make an already annoying quest end up being a game quitting quest.

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Literally no one asked for Extreme or Savage difficulty tuning for dungeons. But it would be nice if people had to like... think while doing normal content while playing the game. I honestly don't know how people can have fun in a game where the ability to lose is nonexistent.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

sure it does, I know a lot of people that HATE the msq. It's not that it's hard, it's not. They just don't like it at all. Don't care about the story and just want to be done with it. So expecting it to sort of "teach" anything is expecting way way way too much. It's just a story. In fact it should be totally optional. But it's not. So many people just want it done and over with.

You know all those post expansion patches where you have to spend like 2.5 hours playing as random NPC's you couldn't give a toss about and hate how the fights are drawn out to take 15 mins a piece. They're not hard, just annoying. If you add in more mechanics that most players will literally never see again will just make an already annoying quest end up being a game quitting quest.

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maybe people would hate it less if it was actually fun to play

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Originally Posted by Zer0

sure it does

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No, it really doesn't. lol

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Originally Posted by Gullis

maybe people would hate it less if it was actually fun to play

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The thing is, most of the post patches are chock full of un-needed quests for the sake of padding out a patch.

What should have happened was any post x.0 patch should be completely side stories and optional. So if you only did 6.0 and quit until 7.0 you shouldn't need to do the boring side stuff.

I hate boring quests purely for exposition to keep people entertained.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!!

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It's not even about specifically making the MSQ more challenging though. Look at the erratic difficulty of dungeons throughout the years. Some dungeons have some eye watering trash pull to the point where the bosses (not trash pulls sorry!) are often the breather. And then you hit the level cap, get a few bits of gear and the challenge all but evaporates.

A well designed and executed game will have a difficulty curve that is reasonably smooth and consistent overall. FFXIV's is akin to a drunk stumbling through wet concrete before promptly faceplanting into the lamppost that is Extremes.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

It's not even about specifically making the MSQ more challenging though. Look at the erratic difficulty of dungeons throughout the years. Some dungeons have some eye watering trash pull to the point where the trash pulls are often the breather. And then you hit the level cap, get a few bits of gear and the challenge all but evaporates.

A well designed and executed game will have a difficulty curve that is reasonably smooth and consistent overall. FFXIV's is akin to a drunk stumbling through wet concrete before promptly faceplanting into the lamppost that is Extremes.

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...That is painfully accurate about how I felt going from Mt. Gulg/Amarout and Dead Ends to the other 80/90 dungeons.

too many difficulties for the same fight dilutes any sense of achievement.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

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I have played every final fantasy game, and many games that have a so called "MSQ". All these games slowly amp up the difficulty of the game up until the end where everything I have learned is finally put to a test. Why can't the games MSQ do this? I feel that is a pretty normal things for a video game. FFXIV MSQ feels more like a 200 hour visual novel than a video game which is what scares new players off more than a challenge. I don't think there is anything wrong with the MSQ presenting a challenge every now and than, in fact it sounds like what a normal video game would do. I feel a lot of people have never played a video game outside of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

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This thread is actually just full of FFXIV players. You know ARR required you to do hard mode trails and ex trails to unlock Coil, which only had a normal mode version which was on par with savage raids? I think many forget that this game started off very difficult and people did it back then.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

The new deep dungeon should remain extremely tough for those who want to solo up to the max floor. However, there needs to be significant rewards every 10 levels beyond a certain "hard" floor so that players can actually feel good about soloing them without feeling like it's a drag.

I think the new deep dungeon needs to have 150 floors. It should start getting as hard as HoH floors 50-60 at floor 80. Then allow people to choose between three starting points: 1, 41, and 81.

IMO, for rewards:

Reaching floor 90: a title and an exclusive minion (one-time). Difficulty: HoH 61-70, PotD 151-170.

Reaching floor 100: 360 weekly tomes (weekly reset) Difficulty: Hoh 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 110: an exclusive mount and glamour (one-time) Difficulty: HoH 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 120: a title and a one-time significant boost to relic weapon completion of your choice (e.g. skip the Harrowing Memory step) Difficulty: HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 130: 20M gil (one-time) and 24 Savage books of your choice (one-time). One relic step completion of your choice (weekly reset). HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 140: An exclusive mount and glamour (one-time). 3M gil (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/PotD.

Reaching floor 150: An exclusive title and two relic weapon step completions of your choice (one-time). One relic weapon step completion of your choice (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/Potad.

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That is absolutely something I would love to see. Especially since that gradual design allows you to ramp up difficulty in a good manner.

I have honestly not bothered with potd/hoh much due to lack of rewards like those and the fact that I was told that getting to max floor as certain melee classes is not possible unless you use the "spinning" around mob circle to cancel their auto attack which honestly sounds like bad design, that is not kiting, it is not positioning, it is doing something incredibly specific to bug out a mob so it stops auto attacking.
Instead auto attack damage should be survivable(as long as you dont take too long) for dps assuming good use of your personal health/leech skills and obviously not getting hit by mechanics and dealing with adds appropriately.

Also the fact that Potd is stuck at lvl 50 is another issue since classes feel very boring and simple at that level

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

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Hope you realize some people actually quit FF14 because they think the MSQ is so boring and unchallenging that the rest of the game is similarly braindead.

FF14's MSQ can only hook people who care about the story. Most other types of gamers are repelled.

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Originally Posted by Towowo

Literally no one asked for Extreme or Savage difficulty tuning for dungeons. But it would be nice if people had to like... think while doing normal content while playing the game. I honestly don't know how people can have fun in a game where the ability to lose is nonexistent.

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This is basically what made me completely lose interest in Endwalker's story, but I already knew it would happen. The MSQ and it's associated fights are sometimes so bafflingly easy, the possibility of failure so nonexistent, that it destroy any impact the story could've potentially had for me.

"Oh no this incredibly ancient and unbelievably powerful evil is threatening our entire world" and then you get to the boss and it's a 5 minute fight that you oneshot, where the ancient all-powerful menace... tickles you, throws out a few "dungeon boss"-level mechanics and then falls over.