Why is FFXIV considered to be so hard/hardcore?

[Kazama]

Difficulty is subjective. That is why some people would consider it hard, while others consider it easy.
There are also many elements that require quite a lot of grind, which is why some would consider it reasonably "hardcore".

I think you are over-inflating people's opinions of this game however. I haven't seen any comments saying that it is the hardest MMO on the market..

Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content. SCOB and EX Trials (Titan & Ramuh) are actually on the higher end of difficulty.

[Luvbunny]

I'm not saying FFXI is easy, just that being good at FFXI doesn't automatically makes you good at FFXIV. They're different.

FFXI in a nutshell: knows your jobs and its abilities, do have macros, be quick with status removal, and your stunner better be on top of things, and by the love of god, you better have up to date gears, merited correctly, and eat the right kind of food. Everything else in the game - you do nothing much, no dodging, no perfectly synchronized mechanic, no paying attention to bunch of mechanics happening at the same time. It's easy peasy if you pass all the checks above. Occasionally you must kite, or people need to watch their auto attack and not be a retard, and your team mate must dispel stuffs ASAP. But overall the game play consist of stun the deadly TP moves, be fast with hitting your macro for status removal and cures, as for the rest - just spams your WS and Job Abilities (really no different than FF14, our JAs is mere seconds, FFXI JAs are minutes). There may be a few of these: kill mobs at the same time, kill mobs with specific job abilities, kill mobs with one type of damage, kill mobs with elemental damage, mobs with weakness to certain type of damage at certain phases of their HP, etc.

You wipe if your teammates are under geared, your whm is too slow, and your support jobs don't do their rotation well. As for melee DD, just auto attack, spam your WS when its ready, and in the off chances, please try to skill chain with your other teammates. Ridiculously easy to be honest playing as melee DD. Hence FFXI is now suffering from the lack of Bard, White Mage, Stun Scholar, and well geared Paladin, everyone wants to play DPS. No different than in here, just less dodging and less one hit kill or dance-a-thon mechanic to watch out.

[Edli]

snip

I agree. On past MMOs the challenge was in rotation and gear. On XIV gear sometimes doesn't really matter all that much. You're a tank with 12k hp, big deal, you get hit by landslide and the fight is over. Your strength is through the roof? A lack of concentration for a moment and you trapped everyone on conflagration. It doesn't matter how well geared everyone is on these fights, it takes one out of 8 to do one mistake and the fight is over. I've been playing MMOs for ages and these kind of fights were new to me. So reliant on moving around and so reliant for all party members to not mess a single time from start to finish. You cannot do these kind of fights with random pugs.

Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content.

It is. Overall the game as a whole is easy as hell but OP was talking about coil and some of the primal ex.

[Ampheni]

TL;DR, only up to 6th page

Personally, I don't think people are actually bad or not skillful.

So from what I have observed, I asked those who gets killed by dodge-able aoe attacks, most of them says they get hit even they are out of the aoe area, or they described that how short the time frame it actually is for them to react. (Yes apparently, laggy people sees AoEs later than everyone, which also makes it shorter for them to actually react, or even no time to react, confirmed myself by updating 5 steam games simultaneously while doing titan EX)

But of course lag issue can be easily fixed, but thing is...:

1. People fail to acknowledge that they are lagging and causing wipes
2. Misconception of fixing internet = paying more money (and is a sensitive subject for some)
3. Lack of knowledge on possible ways to optimize their connection to the server
4. Refuse to fix the issue or research about it for various reason

[Ampheni]

Sorry for double posting, but 1000 characters is not enough.

So I wanted to add that... Surprisingly, players in FFXIV lacks some kind of flexibility to react in certain unexpected scenarios, rendering them unable to react to most special situations which may save a wipe or two in this game. To be honest, I am against the fact that people are relying on videos, it's a bad influences, it's causing people to only know how to "read from the book" instead of reacting to the current situation. Videos are not a bad thing, but it should never be used as a strict guidelines and be followed 100% flawlessly.

[Mattlex]

I think you may have mistaken may statement, quoting just that line puts it out of context.

I actually consider myself a casual player I haven't even completed Turn 6 or touched the expert dungeons or Rahmuh EX yet because I don't have time, i don't think i'm the best player in the whole world either but I have played games for about 25 years and I know the difference between a hardcore game and an easy one, I was simply stating that the only things that might be difficult are the unforgiving mechanics which dont leave room for casual players, because they don't have the time to do the same instance over and over and over until they are familiar with the mechanics. I think my mistake was putting Casual and Lazy in the same sentence as they are 2 very different types of players which these potential difficulties would affect.

[Luvbunny]

I would guess most of the players here are just not used to these kind of battle mechanics at all.... If you are FF11 hardcore, most likely you will hate this as DDs (let's face it, the majority of FF11 players are DPS...). Here skills, quickness, alertness, paying attention, working together as a team, TRUMPS everything else. Going in with ME and my biggest EPEEN DPS ever and so freaking elite to the max gears ala FFXI means jack squat. The game does not give a shart on your e-peen damage, only how fast your reaction (and your internet connection) and how well you work together as a team (and memorizing pattern).

It's just different type of game mechanic. Here you can get clear after you get used to the mechanic and anticipating the moves. Once you get that, the battle is much easier and less prone to massive wipe. Watching video helps to give you a better understanding of what will be going on, but it's just that, until you experience it, it only helps to a degree. FF14 definitely has two part of the game. The casual easy breezy somewhat solo offline RPG for the major storyline with a few online components and then the after level 50 - which is more endgame theme park with dungeon rides where you need to get used to the mechanics. From easy walk in the park to other more difficult content.

I do have a big huge problem with the Hunt system though - it's extremely good reward wise that is absolutely destroying the other game contents. It is a fertile breeding ground to "gear everyone" ASAP and does not really help to foster skillful players. This Hunt was suppose to be casual things you do while you wait for other stuffs, and not become the only reasons to play... It's disheartening that SE has not giving us any fixes in regards to the Hunt.

[Stanelis]

So many people consider Coil to be impossible to get a group for and incredibly difficult. People struggle on extreme primals for months... Etc.. Etc..

Personally I have never understood it, nor have I seen an MMO community with this kind of fear of the content.

That's mostly because a huge part of FFXIV players are casual players (especially in Japan).

Actually, has anyone cleared savage 2nd coil? Gee maybe if it dropped something nice maybe if it was actually interesting and more than recycled overtuned content,more people would attempt it

Fixed

[Rainsworth]

Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content.

Nope. WoW is easily much easier than FFXIV in those 2 categories. You can also get a character to max lvl with real cash. So no, FFXIV is not the easiest (nor the hardest) MMO on the market.

[Barimu]

Nope. WoW is easily much easier than FFXIV in those 2 categories. You can also get a character to max lvl with real cash. So no, FFXIV is not the easiest (nor the hardest) MMO on the market.

This is a whole debate by itself, however, in FFXIV I don't think there was ever a quest(other than dungeons or something related to that matter) where you needed another person's help. At least in WoW you had group quests, and WoW most definitely has more open world content than FFXIV does.