New Difficulty Mode Suggestion: (Chaos)

At this point, I think the vast majority of players are fairly familiar with the various difficulty "tags" we see attached to various pieces of content, things like (extreme), (savage), and (ultimate), amongst a few others. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest a new difficulty tag: (chaos).

What is (Chaos) difficulty?

(Chaos) difficulty would be about taking content that's relatively easy, ranging from dungeon bosses to normal raid bosses and arranging them in a sort of rogue-lite randomized fashion where each fight has no mechanical changes, but now adds randomized hazard-type effects to each fight. Think FF7's Gold Saucer Colosseum. At certain set intervals, a random hazard is applied to the fight for the rest of that fight, and gradually, those hazards start making the fight more and more hectic the longer it takes you, things like adding a thunderstorm to the fight that has small circle AOEs striking around the arena, a flickering ice floor that turns on and off, adding that giant rolling ball from Alexander 7, etc.

The different releases we could see would be categories of which bosses would be randomly pulled from, like A Realm Reborn (Chaos) would pit you against random ARR Dungeon bosses with random trial bosses every X fights, to a total of Y fights. Outside of expansion based challenges, you could also do things like Variant (Chaos) Set I, which features Variant Dungeon bosses from EW, whereas a future Variant (Chaos) Set II could feature random Variant bosses that we eventually see in DT.

What are your thoughts on a difficulty mode like that?

You had me at rogue-lite. I think taking normal mode content is a really good idea because those fights feature a lot more leeway when it comes to adding random arena hazards. Even if those random hazards overlap all safe zones in a mechanic it's still probably going to be liveable.

For me a roguelite game mode should also include gaining randomized actions or be made up completely from randomized actions, leading to unique rotations every run ideally. Balance does not need be the primary concern here since every run should be different anyway.

Adding randomized effects to increase the fight's difficulty would be introducing mechanical changes to an already existing fight. This already happens to a certain extent in the EX/Savage versions of existing NM 8-man encounters. Not necessarily random, but adding additional mechanics not present in the NM fights.

What the Gold Saucer colosseum did was take existing monsters in the world of FFVII and introduce handicaps to the player. Things such as breaking their materia, weapon, armor, etc. In a sense, we have this as well in Deep Dungeon content which also handicaps players by taking away their natural regen, abilities, making the enemies stronger, and so forth.

However, I still like your idea and I think something like a boss rush mode wherein players face random bosses that could essentially be just about any encounter currently in the game that introduces a random handicap that stacks with the handicap from the previous round. You can also give each boss an enrage timer to increase the stakes of each encounter. The handicaps can be anything from level reduction, DoT infliction with increasing potency, stat breaks (ilv reduction), movement speed reduction (making it more difficult to escape enemy telegraphs and positioning, removing items like pots and tinkers, taking away raise, among other things.

Rewards would have to be pretty good that increase in value as the rounds progress and get more difficult due to the handicaps. It would be interesting to let players know what they will win should they succeed so they can make the collective decision to continue, or walk away with their current rewards. If they fail though, they lose everything and get a consolation prize akin to a fete present that more often than not turns into something like a token that can be accumulated and traded to a NPC for an item of their choice that is still somewhat useful.

This could be a new type of treasure map instance. I like this. Make it happen SE.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Adding randomized effects to increase the fight's difficulty would be introducing mechanical changes to an already existing fight. This already happens to a certain extent in the EX/Savage versions of existing NM 8-man encounters. Not necessarily random, but adding additional mechanics not present in the NM fights.

What the Gold Saucer colosseum did was take existing monsters in the world of FFVII and introduce handicaps to the player. Things such as breaking their materia, weapon, armor, etc. In a sense, we have this as well in Deep Dungeon content which also handicaps players by taking away their natural regen, abilities, making the enemies stronger, and so forth.

However, I still like your idea and I think something like a boss rush mode wherein players face random bosses that could essentially be just about any encounter currently in the game that introduces a random handicap that stacks with the handicap from the previous round. You can also give each boss an enrage timer to increase the stakes of each encounter. The handicaps can be anything from level reduction, DoT infliction with increasing potency, stat breaks (ilv reduction), movement speed reduction (making it more difficult to escape enemy telegraphs and positioning, removing items like pots and tinkers, taking away raise, among other things.

Rewards would have to be pretty good that increase in value as the rounds progress and get more difficult due to the handicaps. It would be interesting to let players know what they will win should they succeed so they can make the collective decision to continue, or walk away with their current rewards. If they fail though, they lose everything and get a consolation prize akin to a fete present that more often than not turns into something like a token that can be accumulated and traded to a NPC for an item of their choice that is still somewhat useful.

This could be a new type of treasure map instance. I like this. Make it happen SE.

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I dont think people should be punished for trying and failing. IMO games/gamemodes like this function well and are engaging when you can enter at any time and when you keep rewards/unlocks even if you do fail. We should encourage people to try and go beyond their abilities in a game mode like that.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

I dont think people should be punished for trying and failing. IMO games/gamemodes like this function well and are engaging when you can enter at any time and when you keep rewards/unlocks even if you do fail. We should encourage people to try and go beyond their abilities in a game mode like that.

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On the contrary, you accomplish encouraging players to go above and beyond through trial and failure. There is far too much handholding and participation trophies given in this game as is. It has made it stale and strips longevity away from the content. Players absolutely should not be rewarded for failure. Like I said, they can quit after the completion of any round with the rewards they have acquired. Knowing they can try the next round and still keep what they've earned lowers the stakes, and when you reduce the stakes you take away tension along with the motivation to do better and give it your best. This type of content would give the game a run on the treadmill that it seriously needs right now.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Adding randomized effects to increase the fight's difficulty would be introducing mechanical changes to an already existing fight. This already happens to a certain extent in the EX/Savage versions of existing NM 8-man encounters. Not necessarily random, but adding additional mechanics not present in the NM fights.

What the Gold Saucer colosseum did was take existing monsters in the world of FFVII and introduce handicaps to the player. Things such as breaking their materia, weapon, armor, etc. In a sense, we have this as well in Deep Dungeon content which also handicaps players by taking away their natural regen, abilities, making the enemies stronger, and so forth.

However, I still like your idea and I think something like a boss rush mode wherein players face random bosses that could essentially be just about any encounter currently in the game that introduces a random handicap that stacks with the handicap from the previous round. You can also give each boss an enrage timer to increase the stakes of each encounter. The handicaps can be anything from level reduction, DoT infliction with increasing potency, stat breaks (ilv reduction), movement speed reduction (making it more difficult to escape enemy telegraphs and positioning, removing items like pots and tinkers, taking away raise, among other things.

Rewards would have to be pretty good that increase in value as the rounds progress and get more difficult due to the handicaps. It would be interesting to let players know what they will win should they succeed so they can make the collective decision to continue, or walk away with their current rewards. If they fail though, they lose everything and get a consolation prize akin to a fete present that more often than not turns into something like a token that can be accumulated and traded to a NPC for an item of their choice that is still somewhat useful.

This could be a new type of treasure map instance. I like this. Make it happen SE.

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Agree with the person above me that nuking rewards would probably demotivate those who don't want to bash their head into something over and over again (i.e. non-savage crowd or the non-deep dungeon crowd). I'd say rolling back a tier or two of rewards upon failure would be more suitable as it's still a punishment but doesn't feel like a complete waste of time (if I spent like 3-4h in here and died and only got a fete present I'd probably never touch it again lol). If that's not acceptable than perhaps an "Accursed Hoard" option could be available so people can pick up sack equivalents on the way that they can't lose and roll for rewards afterwards. As far as tokens go, I'm open to it but I don't believe it should be double digit tokens to get one item. Ultimately it needs to respect the time of the player attempting it in some form, otherwise I feel a large percentage of people will avoid it for other content that is more flexible with its offerings.

Not against the idea, it's interesting. I just am wondering with the way the devs are currently modeling the game (making things easier), if they'd be open to throwing something like this into the game if it's supposed to be extremely punishing. I agree that the game needs more harder content for midcore and I'm hoping that in DT we start to see the signs of the trend shifting to more harder activities, but who knows.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

On the contrary, you accomplish encouraging players to go above and beyond through trial and failure. There is far too much handholding and participation trophies given in this game as is. It has made it stale and strips longevity away from the content. Players absolutely should not be rewarded for failure. Like I said, they can quit after the completion of any round with the rewards they have acquired. Knowing they can try the next round and still keep what they've earned lowers the stakes, and when you reduce the stakes you take away tension along with the motivation to do better and give it your best. This type of content would give the game a run on the treadmill that it seriously needs right now.

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You should get the rewards for the fights you beat and you dont get the rewards for the fight you dont beat. That's not rewarding failure.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What are your thoughts on a difficulty mode like that?

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Interesting idea in execution, but it would require a lot of playtesting and a 'per-fight' selection of hazards due to some combos being instantly lethal with no counterplay.
For example, take the final trial of EW, where one of the mechanics involves expanding AoEs that cover about 98% of the arena's surface and force you close to the arena's edge. Trying to slip and slide into that small safe spot without sliding off will be very difficult, or if those safe spots get covered by aoes, you result in what is effectively RNG failure states outside of player control.

Or take something like the buzzsaw add phase during Engels in Copied factory, where you're forced into a small section of the arena - trying to avoid the Alexander death ball during that part will be effectively impossible.

Not that I dislike the idea, mind you. But it would likely be something akin to unreal where they would realistically only release one (or a small number) of fight(s) that have been vigorously playtested to make sure even with all combinations of hazards and mechanics, it will still be entirely within player execution hands on whether they succeed or fail. Haphazardly slapping them onto any fight with no playtesting would be a recipe for disaster.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

At this point, I think the vast majority of players are fairly familiar with the various difficulty "tags" we see attached to various pieces of content, things like (extreme), (savage), and (ultimate), amongst a few others. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest a new difficulty tag: (chaos).

What is (Chaos) difficulty?

(Chaos) difficulty would be about taking content that's relatively easy, ranging from dungeon bosses to normal raid bosses and arranging them in a sort of rogue-lite randomized fashion where each fight has no mechanical changes, but now adds randomized hazard-type effects to each fight. Think FF7's Gold Saucer Colosseum. At certain set intervals, a random hazard is applied to the fight for the rest of that fight, and gradually, those hazards start making the fight more and more hectic the longer it takes you, things like adding a thunderstorm to the fight that has small circle AOEs striking around the arena, a flickering ice floor that turns on and off, adding that giant rolling ball from Alexander 7, etc.

The different releases we could see would be categories of which bosses would be randomly pulled from, like A Realm Reborn (Chaos) would pit you against random ARR Dungeon bosses with random trial bosses every X fights, to a total of Y fights. Outside of expansion based challenges, you could also do things like Variant (Chaos) Set I, which features Variant Dungeon bosses from EW, whereas a future Variant (Chaos) Set II could feature random Variant bosses that we eventually see in DT.

What are your thoughts on a difficulty mode like that?

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Yeah, this is a rad as fuck idea.

I'll add that you should be able to mix and match the sets or just turn them all on so the boss rush can pull from any fight in the game.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Interesting idea in execution, but it would require a lot of playtesting and a 'per-fight' selection of hazards due to some combos being instantly lethal with no counterplay.
For example, take the final trial of EW, where one of the mechanics involves expanding AoEs that cover about 98% of the arena's surface and force you close to the arena's edge. Trying to slip and slide into that small safe spot without sliding off will be very difficult, or if those safe spots get covered by aoes, you result in what is effectively RNG failure states outside of player control.

Or take something like the buzzsaw add phase during Engels in Copied factory, where you're forced into a small section of the arena - trying to avoid the Alexander death ball during that part will be effectively impossible.

Not that I dislike the idea, mind you. But it would likely be something akin to unreal where they would realistically only release one (or a small number) of fight(s) that have been vigorously playtested to make sure even with all combinations of hazards and mechanics, it will still be entirely within player execution hands on whether they succeed or fail. Haphazardly slapping them onto any fight with no playtesting would be a recipe for disaster.

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I would still want this even if it took a lot of dev time and trial and error to work out the kinks. This is like the perfect I have nothing to do content and I can just boot into a boss rush.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What are your thoughts on a difficulty mode like that?

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:shrug: I don't understand why a new mode needs to be made out of this.

Randomization should be a feature of all encounters. Not necessarily in the exact way proposed here, perhaps, but nonetheless, it's tiresome walking into an encounter already knowing how it will play out.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

:shrug: I don't understand why a new mode needs to be made out of this.

Randomization should be a feature of all encounters. Not necessarily in the exact way proposed here, perhaps, but nonetheless, it's tiresome walking into an encounter already knowing how it will play out.

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The benefit of making it its own game mode is you can chain together tons of already existing fights in a boss rush.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Agree with the person above me that nuking rewards would probably demotivate those who don't want to bash their head into something over and over again (i.e. non-savage crowd or the non-deep dungeon crowd). I'd say rolling back a tier or two of rewards upon failure would be more suitable as it's still a punishment but doesn't feel like a complete waste of time (if I spent like 3-4h in here and died and only got a fete present I'd probably never touch it again lol). If that's not acceptable than perhaps an "Accursed Hoard" option could be available so people can pick up sack equivalents on the way that they can't lose and roll for rewards afterwards. As far as tokens go, I'm open to it but I don't believe it should be double digit tokens to get one item. Ultimately it needs to respect the time of the player attempting it in some form, otherwise I feel a large percentage of people will avoid it for other content that is more flexible with its offerings.

Not against the idea, it's interesting. I just am wondering with the way the devs are currently modeling the game (making things easier), if they'd be open to throwing something like this into the game if it's supposed to be extremely punishing. I agree that the game needs more harder content for midcore and I'm hoping that in DT we start to see the signs of the trend shifting to more harder activities, but who knows.

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The only reason why I think players would be deterred to continue running the content is because they want to go down easy street to get the rewards. Eff that. And I mean that in the biggest way possible. I'm sick of it. This isn't like the current treasure dungeons where there is a ton of RNG involved. There would be with the bosses you face and the handicaps received, but not so much with the rewards. If players want the next long hairstyle, or glamours typically found only in the cash shop, they are simply going to have to git gud. There could be things they do keep such as gil and tomes that's rewarded after each encounter, but not what's in the loot box.

There simply must be a risk vs reward aspect to this content, or it will undoubtedly fail. We have this already with Faux Hallows. You only get to play the grid game if you beat the current unreal trial. If you don't. Then too bad. Get better. There needs to be more content like this, especially at the casual level to help players desire to get to higher ground.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

The benefit of making it its own game mode is you can chain together tons of already existing fights in a boss rush.

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The idea of a "boss rush" mode is independent of the idea of making encounters more "chaotic." One can exist without the other.

If you want to tell me that I can only have more engaging, less predictable encounters by running this separate "boss rush" mode, there's a thread for that already.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

The only reason why I think players would be deterred to continue running the content is because they want to go down easy street to get the rewards. Eff that. And I mean that in the biggest way possible. I'm sick of it. This isn't like the current treasure dungeons where there is a ton of RNG involved. There would be with the bosses you face and the handicaps received, but not so much with the rewards. If players want the next long hairstyle, or glamours typically found only in the cash shop, they are simply going to have to git gud. There could be things they do keep such as gil and tomes that's rewarded after each encounter, but not what's in the loot box.

There simply must be a risk vs reward aspect to this content, or it will undoubtedly fail. We have this already with Faux Hallows. You only get to play the grid game if you beat the current unreal trial. If you don't. Then too bad. Get better. There needs to be more content like this, especially at the casual level to help players desire to get to higher ground.

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Glad you mentioned faux hollow because as far as i'm aware beating unreal once and then going back in for the second weekly reward doesnt take away the reward for the first clear if you wipe on it.

If we have to have rewards at stake what I'd like to see is the content awarding its own (wallet!!) currency, which each fight giving you the option to wager that currency for a stacking multiplier the longer your win streak keeps going.
Until you either cash it in and reset the multiplier or lose and all your wagered currency and multiplier is gone.

That'd give people the option to slowly grind out rewards without wagering, speeding the process up a little with "safe" wagers or trying to quickly earn a reward with a risky wager if they think they have the skills to pull it off.
One could even make the wager contingent on individual character KO rather than the party clearing the encounter if people carrying/selling clears is a concern (I mean they still could but at least one would need to do mechanics correctly even if not providing any dps).

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

:shrug: I don't understand why a new mode needs to be made out of this.

Randomization should be a feature of all encounters. Not necessarily in the exact way proposed here, perhaps, but nonetheless, it's tiresome walking into an encounter already knowing how it will play out.

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The attacks in most content could possibly be a little more randomized... But the idea would be to add extra random things happening in the fight.

Which on a base level could be fun, but the main problem I see is the possibility of a random effect possibly making the entire fight unwinnable.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

The attacks in most content could possibly be a little more randomized... But the idea would be to add extra random things happening in the fight.

Which on a base level could be fun, but the main problem I see is the possibility of a random effect possibly making the entire fight unwinnable.

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I suppose… Randomness and unpredictability is not a binary, on/off thing, nor does it require that everything be at the mercy of a roll of the dice.

What I want to see is some amount of unpredictability as the baseline for all encounters. I don't want to be a bot following a plan recorded in a spreadsheet; I don't want to rely on my fellow players being "creative" to make this run different from that run.

At the same time, I think the developers can weight the dice so that certain things simply don't happen. They should understand the space of Things That Might Happen well enough to ensure that certain Terrible Combinations happen with little or no chance. And even should one roll of the dice lead to an unwinnable scenario, that's little different from my cat suddently walking on my keyboard and ruining an encounter: sad and unfortunate, but as long as it doesn't happen too often, easily shrugged off.

None of that argues against the OP's proposal. I simply want some notion of "chaos" to make its way into other content.

Not a bad suggestion but speaking on the software development side, I'd want to see how high demand was and if there was going to be adequate return for the development resources invested. Now they could do this with surveys and such so that's one area where they could try to more accurately gauge community interest.

If it's low dev time, then that would make it more attractive as a low-hanging fruit win that could be pushed out which would make some players happy but others mad at the dev time possibly taken away from something else. So I think they'd want to balance that, too, along with how much it may take away from current projects.

I like the idea, think it's great. I won't dive into specifics too much but the idea of random bosses, and random environmental hazards and other mechanics seems like a big old mess of chaotic fun. If it were to happen I'd like to see solo and party mode options as well as normal and hard mode

I was thinking the other day about how the gold saucer is missing the combat arena and how it would be nice to have in xiv. And snowboarding.

Difficulty in XIV seems to equate to more instant death mechanics.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/014a2a20...1e3ed716e4.gif

Do I win?

+1, but make bosses moves randomized within their move set. No A then B then C… unless it’s a raidwide/signature move/ boss “limit break” kinda thing.

Titan randomized would be a hoot.

I would also want the game to rework/remove the weird game mode monickers like Savage or Ex or Hard. Just make boss (story mode), then give them stars or whatnot to designate difficulty levels. This allows future proofing difficulty modes without a weird new system or name like “unreal”, and further allows (eventually) joining a fight or dungeon and selecting a difficulty with increased rewards.

One thing I really dislike about this game is the convoluted different systems with all these weird names that don’t really gel together.


Also, I like the idea of a boss rush mode that just doesn’t end. Like you get rewards sure, but an actual session just doesn’t end until you’re dead. Get a high score! Survive some amount of time! But there is no “you cleared it! You did everything! No reason to play this again!” Think Tetris, if it didn’t crash at a certain point.

Like old school arcade games.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

The only reason why I think players would be deterred to continue running the content is because they want to go down easy street to get the rewards. Eff that. And I mean that in the biggest way possible. I'm sick of it. This isn't like the current treasure dungeons where there is a ton of RNG involved. There would be with the bosses you face and the handicaps received, but not so much with the rewards. If players want the next long hairstyle, or glamours typically found only in the cash shop, they are simply going to have to git gud. There could be things they do keep such as gil and tomes that's rewarded after each encounter, but not what's in the loot box.

There simply must be a risk vs reward aspect to this content, or it will undoubtedly fail. We have this already with Faux Hallows. You only get to play the grid game if you beat the current unreal trial. If you don't. Then too bad. Get better. There needs to be more content like this, especially at the casual level to help players desire to get to higher ground.

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Casual players aren't interested in hard content...that's why they're casual. Also, I'm confused about the cash shop comparison as Square wouldn't put anything that could be monetized well as a grindable reward, long hair especially would be paywalled imo because of how desired it is by the community. Or are you suggesting they lock cash shop items to only people who clear this new mode?

Taking all of that out of the picture, most likely whatever it is that would be there as a reward would end up on the market board and casuals could buy it that way (since you can breathe and make money tbh) instead of hitting the wall over and over.

If it isn't, it'll just become another thing to be RMT carried through and funded by people who can't be bothered to grind it and prefer convenience (like the people who pay for ultimate clears but can't even do a basic rotation).

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Casual players aren't interested in hard content...that's why they're casual. Also, I'm confused about the cash shop comparison as Square wouldn't put anything that could be monetized well as a grindable reward, long hair especially would be paywalled imo because of how desired it is by the community. Or are you suggesting they lock cash shop items to only people who clear this new mode?

Taking all of that out of the picture, most likely whatever it is that would be there as a reward would end up on the market board and casuals could buy it that way (since you can breathe and make money tbh) instead of hitting the wall over and over.

If it isn't, it'll just become another thing to be RMT carried through and funded by people who can't be bothered to grind it and prefer convenience (like the people who pay for ultimate clears but can't even do a basic rotation).

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What are you talking about? Nearly everyone who plays the game at the EX level are casual players seeking out harder content.

Also, not a single long hairstyle in this game is paywalled. Unless you want to count Lyse's, which I don't. And I only mentioned glamour that is worthy of being in the cash shop but aren't. There are plenty in the game such a 2B's outfit, YorHa gear, and nearly everything PvP.

Drops being made marketable doesn't kill content, it incentivizes it. Players too lazy to do JS will always exist. There are players who like a challenge. Plenty of them. OPs suggestions targets this demographic of players. Or is it crime to do anything outside of the box that doesn't require hand holding and coddling people who can't be bothered to actually play the game?

Your lack of faith in your fellow players is really sad. I don't say this to offend you. But it remains the same that your in game experiences has lead to you feeling the way you do nonetheless. You might want to take a step back and reflect on why you're still paying your sub.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

What are you talking about? Nearly everyone who plays the game at the EX level are casual players seeking out harder content.

Also, not a single long hairstyle in this game is paywalled. Unless you want to count Lyse's, which I don't. And I only mentioned glamour that is worthy of being in the cash shop but aren't. There are plenty in the game such a 2B's outfit, YorHa gear, and nearly everything PvP.

Drops being made marketable doesn't kill content, it incentivizes it. Players too lazy to do JS will always exist. There are players who like a challenge. Plenty of them. OPs suggestions targets this demographic of players. Or is it crime to do anything outside of the box that doesn't require hand holding and coddling people who can't be bothered to actually play the game?

Your lack of faith in your fellow players is really sad. I don't say this to offend you. But it remains the same that your in game experiences has lead to you feeling the way you do nonetheless. You might want to take a step back and reflect on why you're still paying your sub.

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Let me start off by saying that we both have different definitions of what "casual" is. You say EX is casual, I say it's not. I know plenty of people who are terrified to even touch EX because they think it'll be too hard or they'll get bullied by other people who have certain expectations of how people should play the game. In my eyes, anyone who doesn't want to touch anything past typical roulette content is a casual player with EX players stepping into the midcore side of things. It's cool if you disagree and I respect your perspective but that's just how I see it.

I also wouldn't consider Lyse's hair to be an example as its a ponytail. The only one I'd consider to be closest to long hair is Great Lengths (since it goes down past the shoulder blades) but it's still not a "hair all the way down your back" type of long hair style that has been asked for for a while (ex. Ysayle's hair that was left out of her cash shop outfit).

I agree that having a marketable item up for drop can incentivize players to run the content for a while (I think it's fair to say that it also does dwindle down after the initial hype wears off) and I'm not against the idea of this content being made for a specific group of people. I would like there to be something in the game for everyone. I just feel like the way this is being spoken about now leans more towards a pressure tool to make casuals "get gud" rather than just a piece of content to provide to the demographic.

I'd like to see this implemented but for the right reasons: "providing a fun piece of content for people who enjoy that style of content". I think that's more than fair to ask for and as I said, I'm on board.

My lack of faith comes from the thousand person discords specifically made to purchase carries (from EX to Ultimate) and how it's evolved into a something of a joke now to have an Ultimate weapon because it's 50/50 on whether or not you paid for it. As for my sub, I still pay it because I enjoy the parts of the game that I play (achievement hunting, running DRS, relic grinding, helping random people in PF, etc.). Not entirely sure why we're now resulting to personal prods and telling me to consider quitting the game in a manner of speaking...but I feel it's a bit unnecessary considering nothing of what I said in any of my posts was a jab at you.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Let me start off by saying that we both have different definitions of what "casual" is. You say EX is casual, I say it's not. I know plenty of people who are terrified to even touch EX because they think it'll be too hard or they'll get bullied by other people who have certain expectations of how people should play the game. In my eyes, anyone who doesn't want to touch anything past typical roulette content is a casual player with EX players stepping into the midcore side of things. It's cool if you disagree and I respect your perspective but that's just how I see it.

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I might have specified what is and is not casual, but the definition is not mine. I believe the general consensus in the mmo genre is that casual is anything that is not raiding. I can only speak from my own experience, but I find the fear of being bullied and ridiculed in the game's more difficult content to be entirely unfounded. I have encountered more player toxicity in the game's casual content. Far more. I don't believe that players fear others as much as they fear themselves and disappointing their teammates because they are not sure they are good enough. The anonymity of the internet has hardened most players from the toxicity of others. However, the fear of failure is something they can never escape. They can only face it.

Of course, I understand that no player should be forced to do this. But I will always be in favor of content that incentivizes players to step outside their comfort zones and challenge themselves.

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I'd like to see this implemented but for the right reasons: "providing a fun piece of content for people who enjoy that style of content". I think that's more than fair to ask for and as I said, I'm on board.

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Players want to do mechanics. You see it all the time. Meteor circles with more than one player in them. How quickly players swarm to the player with a stack marker in order to save them. Players taking their spread marker away from others to avoid clipping. Players rushing to the aid of another with a prey tether. Players don't ignore these mechanics because there are consequences if they do. And you know what? They enjoy it. Resources absolutely should go towards creating content to accommodate these players. I guarantee you that content that is actually fun to do will incentivize itself. Rewards are a cherry on top of that.

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My lack of faith comes from the thousand person discords specifically made to purchase carries (from EX to Ultimate) and how it's evolved into a something of a joke now to have an Ultimate weapon because it's 50/50 on whether or not you paid for it. As for my sub, I still pay it because I enjoy the parts of the game that I play (achievement hunting, running DRS, relic grinding, helping random people in PF, etc.). Not entirely sure why we're now resulting to personal prods and telling me to consider quitting the game in a manner of speaking...but I feel it's a bit unnecessary considering nothing of what I said in any of my posts was a jab at you.

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I never told you to quit the game. I meant no offense in my last post to you, and understand that your feelings come from a place of disheartenment. I frown upon the players who made you feel that way, and it is unfortunate. When I say to reflect on why you are subbed, it is only to remember what you enjoy about the game to help wash out that goo. I am glad you are able to do so. It is also why I mentioned my last point about players rushing to the aid of others. This is truly how most players are. Place your faith in them, and keep them in mind when you experience the things you have mentioned.

Best wishes.