In Defense of Dawntrail's Difficulty.

It seems like the increase of difficulty within normal content has sparked some controversy for some reason? I think the implementation of harder and more unique mechanics in battle content is highly welcome and helps spice this game up a little bit. Especially in Endwalker, raids for example felt like a watered down "free trial" version of what they are supposed to be compared to savage. And yes while no one is expecting normal content to be nearly as difficult as savage, I felt like Endwalker was so neutered down (and Shadowbringers too to some degree), that it ended up hurting the encounter design on a casual level.

It is especially astonishing to see people complain about the raid difficulty in the very first week. We will be stuck with every raid tier for around 6-8 months, plenty of time to learn the fights and get better. But if someone complains a single day into the raid tier, that just shows their sheer unwillingness to learn, improve and engage with the games mechanics at a fundamental level.

And for dungeons, I think they should keep this difficulty coming. In Endwalker healers were so redundant, that tanks had 0 issues keeping the entire party alive (yes that includes Dark Knight) thanks to the absolutely pathetic damage output from trash and bosses. At this point ARR dungeons are harder to heal/tank than endwalker dungeons. Especially the more hardcore crowd are forced to run these dungeons to farm tomes for savage with barely any alternatives. Dungeons like Alzadaal's legacy and the Aetherfont from Endwalker were so mind numbingly boring that I'd rather farm tomes through POTD solo attempts. Even Yoshida admitted that he fell asleep during dungeons in Endwalker. Who can blame him? There is only so many basic stack/spread markers someone can take over running the same dungeons for months before going absolutely insane.

Everyone is forced to do the msq dungeons at least once. Nobody is forced to do Expert Dungeons, Raids, Savage content, etc. - That is the more difficult content. As one of those casual players who prefer the content not hard, I accept that and I don't do raids/expert dungeons/savage/ultimate, etc.

But I don't want "my" content, basically the only stuff I can do without being frustrated, getting more and more difficult until it blocks me from finishing the msq.

Leveling dungeons, or better dungeons we're forced to do in the MSQ, need to be easy because everyone has to do them.

Nobody forces me to do difficult content in this game. so I don't do it. I'm still forced to do the MSQ though. Also, nobody forces you to do the "easy" content more than once, just don't do it.

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Originally Posted by CatWeazle

Everyone is forced to do the msq dungeons at least once. Nobody is forced to do Expert Dungeons, Raids, Savage content, etc. - That is the more difficult content. As one of those casual players who prefer the content not hard, I accept that and I don't do raids/expert dungeons/savage/ultimate, etc.

But I don't want "my" content, basically the only stuff I can do without being frustrated, getting more and more difficult until it blocks me from finishing the msq.

Leveling dungeons, or better dungeons we're forced to do in the MSQ, need to be easy because everyone has to do them.

Nobody forces me to do difficult content in this game. so I don't do it. I'm still forced to do the MSQ though. Also, nobody forces you to do the "easy" content more than once, just don't do it.

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Every MSQ dungeon after the .0 expansion launch is added to expert roulette.
Levelling alt jobs requires redoing the levelling dungeons.
High level roulette is also important for tomestones.
You need to do 5 expert roulettes per week to cap tomestones if you want to keep up to date with raiding.

You clear the content once, and then don't touch it again. For players like me, I have to do it over and over and over again for tomestones. You aren't forced to do the MSQ, but you do need to do it if you want to play the game. You can either learn how to beat it (it really isn't that hard, and if you asked for help many people - myself included - would be happy to help you improve), or just not play. You can't expect the game to never demand more of its players. Especially not when the game has actually dumbed itself down for ShB and EW's MSQ content to the point that many people I know quit from how boring the casual content is.

When this content is too easy, the people who play the game the most are affected. When this content is 'too hard' (by your standards) the people who play the game the least are affected. If I were the devs, the answer is obvious.

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Originally Posted by VioletCatastrophe

When this content is too easy, the people who play the game the most are affected. When this content is 'too hard' (by your standards) the people who play the game the least are affected. If I were the devs, the answer is obvious.

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Adding on to this, the people who play the game the most are also the ones giving square the most money through subscriptions and cosmetic items. They are also the ones most likely to keep playing the game in the future through pre-orders and deluxe editions. Catering to dedicated players is always the smart business move.

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Originally Posted by VioletCatastrophe

Every MSQ dungeon after the .0 expansion launch is added to expert roulette.
Levelling alt jobs requires redoing the levelling dungeons.
High level roulette is also important for tomestones.
You need to do 5 expert roulettes per week to cap tomestones if you want to keep up to date with raiding.

You clear the content once, and then don't touch it again. For players like me, I have to do it over and over and over again for tomestones. You aren't forced to do the MSQ, but you do need to do it if you want to play the game. You can either learn how to beat it (it really isn't that hard, and if you asked for help many people - myself included - would be happy to help you improve), or just not play. You can't expect the game to never demand more of its players. Especially not when the game has actually dumbed itself down for ShB and EW's MSQ content to the point that many people I know quit from how boring the casual content is.

When this content is too easy, the people who play the game the most are affected. When this content is 'too hard' (by your standards) the people who play the game the least are affected. If I were the devs, the answer is obvious.

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The sad thing is they ALWAYS bend the knee to the other and make things easier because they are the only ones who come on the forums. Thank god i seen all this stuff on other places like you tube so i can make sure the devs see real peoples opinions not just the worst of the players.

No one is forced to do the MSQ/play FF14, everyone can decide what they want to play, and there are lots of MMORPGs out there

Having said that, I think some helper mechanism for people who find the MSQ dungeons too difficult still makes sense.
I read through some of the comment of the 1000000 threads about dungeon diffuculty and I have the suspicion that most of the people who complain about the difficulty are
- older gamers
- gamers with some kind of disability/handicap
- gamers with low self-confidence/anxiety

Those people neither have the reflexes and learnability of young healthy people nor the mental resilience against "dying very often", it just stresses them out.
That means it's not their "sheer unwillingness to learn, improve and engage with the games mechanics at a fundamental level" - they do want to learn, but their bodies and brains say no.
The controversy came about because they identify themselves as "average casual player", but they're actually not the typical casual player (not meant offensively).

So I would suggest some easy-to-implement barriere-free mechanism to aid those people but without changing the difficulty for the normal healthy player.
The easiest way I can think of is adding a voluntary echo option for duty support in MSQ fights. So if you enter with Wuk Lamat + Scions, you still see the same mechanics with the same speed, but you won't die so easily.

You can't have fun, without any difficulty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83KQxW8ZLtI

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Originally Posted by Riotas

Those people neither have the reflexes and learnability of young healthy people nor the mental resilience against "dying very often", it just stresses them out.
That means it's not their "sheer unwillingness to learn, improve and engage with the games mechanics at a fundamental level" - they do want to learn, but their bodies and brains say no.

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I can sympathize with people who are struggling due to either anxiety, old age or other health conditions, I myself struggle with anxiety. However as many people on other posts pointed out, the community overall is incredibly willing to offer their assistance and guidance. If one can complain about difficulty a day into the content on the forums, then one should have the ability to ask a FC member for help... or even make a partyfinder.

However I like your idea of adding "voluntary echo option". I think you can add the 1 self revive mechanic from trust trials to trust dungeons as well. Perhaps even something like stone, sea, sky but instead for rotation, you just learn about various mechanics (since the novice hall is incredibly outdated).

IMO - it's fine as it is. I'm certainly a casual player, I don't do savage/extremes as I'm a UK player playing on US servers so my latency is usually averaging around 120-150ms, and I suffer with anxiety too (which is ironic considering I main healer job types which are one of the most anxiety-inducing roles going). I've had no problem with the difficulty of the new dungeons/raids at all.

I'd say the only two dungeons that have frustrated me were the last two of the MSQ, and the fourth raid - only because I got snapshotted by the mechanics a few times due to lag and pretty much got one-shotted. That said, I wouldn't want SE to reduce the difficulty at all - making the game too easy just takes away some of the fun or sense of accomplishment. It removes that strive to work harder and improve, to overcome difficulties and keep pressing on.

Personally, I tend to try new dungeons in Duty Support first - great way to learn mechanics (just follow the NPCs) and get through them to progress the story.

Appreciate some may struggle due to disabilities and the like and yeah, the idea of an optional "echo" to make encounters easier may benefit. Maybe something that can be added to duty support just with balance of reduced rewards?

The only problem I have is clearing is the solo NPC fights where have to play some class they never played just to advance the story so can go to the new area for crafting materials. Maybe add skip solo fight option so can advance the story.

I think you can survive playing for 5 minutes with a character that has literally 5 skills against an enemy that does the same 3 mechanics over and over again.

At this point you people sound like "why should I play the game in order to play the game?"

I put off doing the Expert dungeons after hearing how hard they were, but in the first dungeon I did, when everyone but the tank died at like 65%, he just soloed it. While it's true the new dungeons are harder, if you have an experienced tank and/or healer they can carry the group.

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Originally Posted by LilithKha

Adding on to this, the people who play the game the most are also the ones giving square the most money through subscriptions and cosmetic items. They are also the ones most likely to keep playing the game in the future through pre-orders and deluxe editions. Catering to dedicated players is always the smart business move.

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Whatever one's position is on difficulty, the above claim is unsupported.

1. There is no evidence of any kind that hours played translates to dollars spent.

2. There is no evidence that current hours played translates to long term continuous subscription continuity.

3. None of this has any impact on the issue of dungeon difficulty.

4. Evidence actually shows the opposite of the notion that default dungeon difficulty leads to increased subscriptions, as the dual expansions of Shadowbringees and Endwalker both are associated with less challenging dungeons, alongside significant growth in playerbase. This is not to claim a causal relationship between them, only that there was not a measurable exodus which coincides by a lower challenge level.

5. In the MMO industry, the conclusion that you reached is quite literally the opposite of what has occurred. Catering to "dedicated players", especially those who call for standard content to be a significant step up in difficulty have historically led to catastrophic population collapses.

There are much better arguments in defense of the current difficulty level, and even though I am strongly in favor of an additional, lower tier across the board of dungeon boss challenge, I too enjoy it as it currently is, and would make the case that repetition takes the edge off of the harder encounters, and that given enough time, not only do those who struggle have a strong chance of overcoming, but the rest of the teams become much better as well, increasing the carry potential of even one who just can't get it (with the excption being healers, who are harder to carry if they aren't getting it).

There's a line between difficult and obnoxious, and honestly a number of the boss encounters in DT feel like they dip more into obnoxious territory. The swarming adds that pin you down during the first Strayborough boss are a perfect example of an obnoxious boss mechanic. Sure, it's more difficult than the average mechanic, but it's also just incredibly irritating to constantly deal with and makes the entire boss fight unenjoyable for me. And it's not that I fail at it, I get through it perfectly fine the majority of the time. I just don't enjoy the fight at all because there's too much going on at once, and of course the game's janky netcode makes dodging moving encounter mechanics really finnicky.

The hardcore and midcore love the new dungeons... the casuals in my guild want to quit the game over them. Hardcore and Midcore always have raids and other content to enjoy... Making MSQ dungeons be like prog lite raids will ultimately cause this game to lose subs. The pattern is clear from Endwalker on the dungeon team has ramping up the difficulty of MSQ dungeons. You will cheer this on i guess, but the vocal hardcore and others who claim MSQ dungeons are boring, ignore the fact that if you keep making the dungeons harder and harder you will alienate a large group of subs from your game. It happened in WoW it will happen here. I know of at least 2 10 year veterans of this game are contemplating canceling their subs over this. You may say, don't let the door hit you on the way out, but is that our community?

This has become a very dividing issue in the community with loud screaming the DUNGEONS ARE AWESOME, and frustrated silence from players who feel like they are hitting a wall and cannot get over it.

Do we just wish them well and goodbye? Or can we find a way to bring everyone forward? Too many posts seem to say get gone you bad players.

I just wish we could make it so everyone can get through Dawntrail without mental breakdowns, abandoning FFXIV or whatever. Yoshi wanted to stress us he said, he has succeeded.

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Originally Posted by sarahnight

The hardcore and midcore love the new dungeons... the casuals in my guild want to quit the game over them. Hardcore and Midcore always have raids and other content to enjoy... Making MSQ dungeons be like prog lite raids will ultimately cause this game to lose subs. The pattern is clear from Endwalker on the dungeon team has ramping up the difficulty of MSQ dungeons. You will cheer this on i guess, but the vocal hardcore and others who claim MSQ dungeons are boring, ignore the fact that if you keep making the dungeons harder and harder you will alienate a large group of subs from your game. It happened in WoW it will happen here. I know of at least 2 10 year veterans of this game are contemplating canceling their subs over this. You may say, don't let the door hit you on the way out, but is that our community?

This has become a very dividing issue in the community with loud screaming the DUNGEONS ARE AWESOME, and frustrated silence from players who feel like they are hitting a wall and cannot get over it.

Do we just wish them well and goodbye? Or can we find a way to bring everyone forward? Too many posts seem to say get gone you bad players.

I just wish we could make it so everyone can get through Dawntrail without mental breakdowns, abandoning FFXIV or whatever. Yoshi wanted to stress us he said, he has succeeded.

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Let's be honest here...what are we considering "hard" from the MSQ dungeons? Because on my first time on each we defeated every boss with no more than 1 wipe (always caused by some funny unexpected mechanic that you learn, laugh and try again). Where is the difficulty? AOE markers on the floor that we have been dealing with since lvl5? The boss holding his sword marking the RIGHT side of the arena for whole 6 seconds showing "i'm gonna cleave this whole area?" The zig zag pattern of the lizard-guy soldier that gets dodged by just staying not moving on the "curve" side of the whole marker? I really can't see where is this so called difficulty spike. If something, the dungeons are funnier and more entertaining that the borefest that was the Endwalker MSQ dungeons.

The people complaining sound like people that have 0 tolerance to frustration or dying in a videogame and that have 0 intention of learning how to play the game. Like...come on you have the "trust" system, just follow the AI if you think everything is so hard.

We are level 100 now. If players can't deal with mechanics that we have been seeing since lvl18 in Tam-Tara it's on the players and not on the game.