Please Allow/Encourage Players to Opt Into Harder Content

I've played the game for a long time and have come to accumulate some thoughts about how the player base engages with hard content as well as the hard content that they're given. I know major changes are coming in Evercold, so I thought I'd posit some ideas of my own.

The core thought, and fear, is that players will treat the third tier of raids coming in EC the same way they do Extremes: In NA, they are relegated exclusively to PF, basically. As someone who does Mentor Roulette and has friends on the JP Data Centers, I really don't like how Extremes are basically abandoned in the Duty Finder. Free Trial players can't make a PF, but want to clear Titan Extreme. Mentors queue in and then get upset that they have to help with Extremes. Can't we get some sort of push to encourage players specifically to queue into Duty Finder Extremes? Wondrous Tails has Extremes on it, but you can (and most likely will!) undersize these.

If there was side content like Wondrous Tails that required being synced but perhaps gave better rewards, I think people would run them more and thus newer players could experience older Extremes as "intended" and I genuinely believe overall player skill would increase. Roulettes that you /opt into/ (like any roulette currently!) could be made that are harder: Higher difficulty instances, "mutations (no limit break, perpetual gloom, etc)" on existing dungeons, or other variations could be implemented. Something that both increases the amount of mid-level content or even reuses the existing stuff in smart ways, while also making sure it's not easily bypassed or relegated to having to join a static or deal with a party finder.

It is easy to deal with PF (if you're allowed to! Once again, free trial players can't!), but sometimes, I just wanna queue up for a few things and wait. I'm not out here joining PF's for Heavyweight normals, after all! Extremes are easy enough with some co-operation and some uplifting to be cleared, especially if we put in the effort to raise each other up. I hope this idea makes sense, because I want to have more exciting tales from the duty finder that aren't just "I second monitor'd the normal mode content while farming for 125,000 uncapped tomes for relics".

On the note of encouraging people to try hard content, we could use roulette for PvP modes that aren't Frontlines.

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Originally Posted by LeCorbeaux

On the note of encouraging people to try hard content, we could use roulette for PvP modes that aren't Frontlines.

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Very much agree! Just even so much as to encourage a daily trip into Crystal Conflict or Rival Wings (Pleaseeeeee more maps) to inject activity (Mostly for rival wings!!!).

The only way they could do it is to make it required to try out an Extreme for MSQ. Then a lot of people would realize "oh, I actually can do this content". They are just too anxious to try in many cases.

But that could prevent certain players from being able to progress as well, because some players really are not gamers and aren't good at playing games generally, and are just doing the story or playing for social reasons. SE wants to avoid putting a wall on their progression like that, and have even mostly made the MSQ soloable with trials being a breeze.

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Originally Posted by PeekayTom

players will treat the third tier of raids coming in EC the same way they do Extremes: In NA, they are relegated exclusively to PF

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If they are Extreme difficulty, yes. If they are more like Advanced, then people may just queue at first, because Advanced was something I could queue in blind and clear within 1-2 tries on each boss and it was easy for people to carry me through things I hadn't got used to yet.

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Free Trial players can't make a PF, but want to clear Titan Extreme.

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They could make an Extreme roulette, so that it's not just Mentor Roulette supplying them. That would be ideal. In any case, it will be a long time before the Free Trial reaches level 110 and it is a free trial that is meant to have restrictions.

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If there was side content like Wondrous Tails that required being synced but perhaps gave better rewards, I think people would run them more and thus newer players could experience older Extremes as "intended"

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Agreed but the bigger potential is for them to add Faux Hollows to a random old Extreme trial for doing it Minimum Item Level / Silence Echo, to help people catch up on the sheer amount of rewards there are for it now. It genuinely would take years to get all the Faux Hollows rewards without gil, especially when they are added to over time.

This has been directly put to Yoshi-P and he wasn't completely opposed to it but doesn't want to make players feel like it's required. Yet, it works fine for Unreal, so it makes no sense why they haven't done it. It's just leaving old content to rot, despite many players having never experienced it.

Your section about wondrous tails is a neat idea. Maybe not have it be a a tile on the main board itself but as one single additional thing to aim for with the tail. It could, perhaps, give up to three stickers for completing an extreme while synced or a separate payout of some kind.

As for Evercold's new difficulty I think we'd be best considering it from a JP player base perspective. Over there they use raid finder more than party finder for their harder content. So what could this look like for a new difficulty? Would this, also, just be a raid finder thing or would they prefer it to be duty finder, assuming party finder isn't an option? If they go duty finder I would imagine they would add two roulettes: one for a current set and one for all of the previous. Additionally, knowing how difficult the content is intended to be can be valuable in this speculation.

I would support having roulettes for both extremes and for new difficulty duties with commensurate tome/other rewards.

Adding an extreme roulette would somehow get more people to cry about having nothing to do as a casual player and people who like high end content would never join something as cursed as an extreme roulette

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The only way they could do it is to make it required to try out an Extreme for MSQ. Then a lot of people would realize "oh, I actually can do this content". They are just too anxious to try in many cases.

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I'm a carry in the normal MSQ trials, so I wouldn't mind to be a carry in an Extreme. Whenever someone complains they have to scratch me from the floor 20 times in a run I'll direct them your way :D

BTT: I don't mind specific roulettes for harder content - as long as I'm not forced to do them, of course.

A lot of it is anxiety driven, but in the same vein, people are too very individual-goal-driven for things like this to work, I think.. Plus, with extreme-difficulty, even people that queue up for that specific primal, is still more often than not close to a duty lockout to clear for your average player still getting accustomed to that fight (Which is going to be a lot of players considering roulette).

If people want it, I'm in support for it, but I just don't think it's the best solution for encouraging players to opt into harder content... Some players are nerve-driven and some simply have no interest in it for a myriad of reasons.

As long as you carry while i tank the floor

Extreme Roulette would be fun.

Getting people into harder content is not only a gearing problem with how ilvl works, but also a design problem that is intentionally never going to be fixed so long as enrage timers, instant kill mechanics, and uncleanseable debuffs that make it harder to beat the enrage timer to begin with exist in said harder content due to how Final Fantasy XIV is a live service like World of Warcraft.

Once again going back to expanding the hall of novice to add like a training roulette, where mentors could join for a better reward to actually help people. would be cool.

I definitely do feel that a Roulette for the new difficulty tier is pretty much a necessity for it to see any use at all.

That said, I think it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of players who just don't want to do harder content regardless. It can be for a variety of reasons but it doesn't necessarily matter how many on ramps you put in, how many tutorials you put in, how good the rewards are, etc. because beating challenging content (as in challenging for them) is just not something they're going to be interested in. Some players are just legitimately happy going through the story and hanging out RPing all day, or fishing, or crafting, or decorating a house, or whatever.

The ramps should be in there if people wanna use them, and there should be lots of em. Excluding them outright over rpers is wack.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They could make an Extreme roulette, so that it's not just Mentor Roulette supplying them. That would be ideal. In any case, it will be a long time before the Free Trial reaches level 110 and it is a free trial that is meant to have restrictions.

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I think an Extreme Roulette would be wonderful. It's Opt-in, and then I could just queue in once a day and see "Ah, what's the experience of the day", and use it to help keep the extreme level rust off. I feel like it'd start out with a lot of ARR trials and then normalize out over time, so those who opt-in would very much be able to acclimate to a DF experience rather than a PF experience.

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Agreed but the bigger potential is for them to add Faux Hollows to a random old Extreme trial for doing it Minimum Item Level / Silence Echo, to help people catch up on the sheer amount of rewards there are for it now. It genuinely would take years to get all the Faux Hollows rewards without gil, especially when they are added to over time.

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Faux Hollows or Wondrous Tails (or a new third thing!) would be interesting. My thought for WT would be like, "Here's the normal book, and then here's the Advanced Book". Same rewards, but the Advanced has better odds and higher risk. Essentially more opt-in challenges in general.

I'm reading a lot of the responses and I appreciate both the support as well as the meaningful criticism (I'm not sure how opt-in content would affect people who don't want to opt-in!), and I want to share a couple experiences recently I've had for Mentor Roulette. The other day I specifically ran 5 in a row and got Titan EX, Bismarck EX, and Garuda EX. These were not first pull clears; however, upon the wipes, we'd talk, place markers, and make sure we understood before pulling again. No run took longer than 25 minutes. The only friction I genuinely felt in these EX's was another mentor's behavior which amounted to "who cares just do it" when asking how a mechanic worked. That's not very mentor-like, let alone productive or co-operative. I think that new players are willing to learn and capable of learning if we help lift them up, and I think if we treat each other with that same patience and co-operation any of us could clear content easily, if we want to run that content.

Beyond the ideas of Extreme based stuff, it's just also wanting something that can be part of my daily or weekly routine that is as easy as running roulettes but isn't the same 10+ year old dungeon methodology that currently about half of the roulettes will place you into, while two other roulettes will place you into normal difficulty content that gets pushed through easily now. A large number of things could be implemented to address this and that makes me really excited for Evercold, hearing about some of the planned changes. I hope the changes are good and that we all feel more engaged and we all work together a lot more going forward.

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Originally Posted by Sigma5

Once again going back to expanding the hall of novice to add like a training roulette, where mentors could join for a better reward to actually help people. would be cool.

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I actually have been bouncing the idea in my head of a new ARR level dungeon that's Hall of the Novice but with a matched party. It could feature bosses similar to the Executioners from 7.3 or the second boss from Bardam's Mettle, while allowing players to learn these lessons in a group environment. Maybe treat it like Castrum or Prae and put it in MSQ roulette instead of other roulettes. The roulette would reward veteran players and the dungeon could maybe drop non-earring or Second ring type accessories that have EXP or Stat boosts, like the Brand-New Ring does for normal HotN. It could be an interesting addition!

You want extreme roulette? Go and do mentor daily roulette, that's your extreme right there.

In all seriousness, nobody would like this because we all know that this roulette would prolong for hours before completing it and would frustrate players even more. Mentor roulette was just meant to be as a "fill this gap for people that queue random things", nothing else. All its purpose is to get you into ARR or HW extreme trials (because people queue for this) and then you need to spend miserable hours before the group finally gives up and you realize you have done nothing.

Extremes sadly cannot work that well as normals. They require some knowledge and majority of people queue them blind because they except mentors or someone else to carry them while they sleep on the floor. In my opinion extremes beyond ARR are just not doable that much due to how much knowledge you must gather for safe spots, certain mechanics, before actually managing to do it + clock spots. Pair this with laziness of people and you get a very nice waste of time feature.

The only thing discouraging people trying hard content is other people.

It's simply disinterest.
People don't just ignore hard content because the game doesn't give a reason but because they simply don't want to. That should be respected.
Everyone who wants to do harder content can just do it, there doesn't need to be a roulette for it and tbh, no one would truly use it anyway because Ex fights are enough of a pain already with special PF's for them. You get into, f.e. Golbez Ex after years and good luck with anyone remembering were to stand or how to partner up.
Given the mentality of PF even now with the paranoia of "dead weight", you would only see premade parties queueing up.

We also already have special rewards like unique mounts, glamour and titles behind harder content. If that is not enough to get people to do them, then nothing will.
People have to accept at some point that the majority of players in this game are more casual driven, even in japan.

Here is a hot take:
Before we introduce more reasons to do harder content, the community itself should actually start with being better in PF instead of what we have now and stop delegating everything that needs coordination into Discord.
Then more people might actually show interest.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Here is a hot take:
Before we introduce more reasons to do harder content, the community itself should actually start with being better in PF instead of what we have now and stop delegating everything that needs coordination into Discord.
Then more people might actually show interest.

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Absolutely. I don't want to join discords to do content I should be able to do without it. On your point of PF, what we'd also need is, in my opinion, people to be more patient, like, ever since EW people's patience has completely dropped off a cliff and everyone is at each others throat for the smallest mistake

Doing the trail roulette now for the relic weapon is already awful, don't remember a single one of these bosses so ppl are dying a lot and you want a group of randoms to do the harder version? Lol this sounds like an extreme disaster that I would watch but definitely not do.

Well, I've seen lost sprouts queue into ARR Ex's via DF and it's not a great exp for everyone, but I can't stop them from trying each time. Also, this would be the single least popular rous if they added it since alot of old Ex's at sync'd need some kind of video guide and you can't force everyone to watch them or read one even. No one would do a rous that could take up to the full hour and even then they might not clear it at all since it would be madness to do for a daily.

If anyone wants to try for old ARR Extremes sync'd they can always join a MINE discord or fellowship/FC and go from there too

For all that an extreme roulette would be slow and possibly painful, at least everyone who queues it would have at least some idea of what they were in for and would be queuing for it willingly instead of losing on the mentor roulette, so it would be a better experience for all involved.

I'm sure that the same people who queue into PF, knowing the duty and what is expected, who then go on to sandbag and tank runs, or expect to be carried, would never ever use an expert roulette to do the same thing. Not to mention the ones that are just completely oblivious to their own ability.
Sounds like a whole bunch of new Tales from Duty Finder posts waiting to happen.

I do not think, that having very hard content in the duty finder will change anything. I can only speak for myself, but i avoid doing the hard content because it is not worth the effort, that's it. Hard content in the duty finder will not change my mind.




Cheers

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The only way they could do it is to make it required to try out an Extreme for MSQ.

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I don't want to spend dozens of hours fighting the real boss of FFXIV (party finder) just to progress story. Between people constantly lying about their progress to parties disbanding over literally any friction, extremes and up are a waste of time unless you have a static.

If they made a bunch of fights ala mermaid from advanced variant, that sort of difficulty where you can bang your head against it a few times and get it, I would like that. But I'd never join a roulette where ppl expect you to have memorized a youtube video for every fight. No thanks. Not fun to me.

We have extreme roulette in a way, that’s mentor roulette. As to encouraging? You could offer incredible rewards and people would still stay away for many reasons. Some just can’t do it, others don’t have the time (myself included), they may be socially conflict adverse, don’t like the raiding culture in NA, etc.

Some content is not ment for everybody, savage level raiding is like professional sports, it’s a commitment and in many ways, it’s exactly like a second job. I know this as I did savage up through P8 and retired to have a family. It’s just not possible to reliably raid on a random 60 minute play window.

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Originally Posted by PeekayTom

Mentor Roulette. The other day I specifically ran 5 in a row and got Titan EX, Bismarck EX, and Garuda EX. These were not first pull clears; however, upon the wipes, we'd talk, place markers, and make sure we understood before pulling again. No run took longer than 25 minutes.

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Yes, most of the Extremes I got in Mentor Roulette were clears. But there is a context to this. The item level sync is not necessarily close to the original experience ie. Limitless Blue or Ravana Extreme you are around 100 item levels above it, and then benefit from Echo stacks with each wipe. You are so overpowered that, eventually, you are going to destroy it due to sheer buffs and gear, and that's how a lot of these sprout clears ultimately happen. We do teach them a few core mechanics which they may have to do, but a lot get carried through or skipped or are significantly more trivial. It depends on the party, because sometimes you've got lots of sprout gamers and sometimes they are just flat out not ready for this sort of content.

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I actually have been bouncing the idea in my head of a new ARR level dungeon that's Hall of the Novice but with a matched party. It could feature bosses similar to the Executioners from 7.3 or the second boss from Bardam's Mettle, while allowing players to learn these lessons in a group environment.

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The ideal scenario in easy content is giving a really hard role, but not to all of the players. Example is that in an Alliance Raid, 8 people could split off to do a hard mechanic while the other 16 that aren't as confident just do the easier role. This was proven to work in Castrum Lacus Litore for example. Advanced is another example where some people have to get it right, but you can pull through the whole thing by rezzing eachother repeatedly.

The people in CLL or Advanced who initially get carried, eventually become the experts that carry others, through repetition. It works really well if you don't require everyone to do it right.

It's disappointing how fearful SE got about doing this, to the point of even nerfing Orbonne.

The problem is that the vast majority of players would not simply queue up for a duty that is above normal difficulty. That is not something you can change by adding a roulette for extremes or better rewards, because what would happen is that they would relegate that to pf as well. Blind matchmaking is a massive gamble for players, and no one would risk entering a 60-min lockout with seven others who might not know all the mechanics.

The solution is to remove partyfinder option an donly be able to queu in via dutyfinder so you would encounter randoms only and the other solution would be to, removal of 50 to 70% of all skills for all jobs, it is ridiculous to have like 20 or more buttons you need to press, but increase the actually skill based way if defeating the bosses and add AI to bosses the way, so every clear would be a completely different experience.

To improvise during battle would be nice and to such a degree needed that you can't just wing it.