Can we have challenging and rewarding 4 man content, please?

[Felis]

2nd boss in Sastasha hard is challenging for some players

[Themis]

I'd love to see them implement something like this because it's similar to what FF XI did a layer of its end-game with Rem's Chapters (Fights ranging from Very Easy to Very Hard with layered rewards that increase in type and number as you go up in difficulty) but they've just shown such a lack of ability or desire to do anything that would make dungeons anything more than "Here's where you get your tomes (And as of 2.4, not even vanity is present since it's all recycled gear this time)".Honestly that's my biggest problem with this game, that Coil is the end goal and everything else has to be warped around "This is how you transition to Coil, this is how you make Coil easier, this is to help you catch up to Coil after X amount of time". It just warps the entire focus of the game into a single set of instances rather than even attempting to make a majority of the fights worthwhile to people who are progression focused.

I don't think it is a "lack of ability or desire" to do something different. The current plan for content design for all of 2.x was already decided before 2.0 was even released (it's been said many times). Which would mean that development on the content was likely also started a long time before the patch is actually released (but not finished/fine tuned/bug fixed etc until close to release time). A lot of the design appears, to me, to assume that each patch will bring in new players. And "new players" include those new to MMOs and those new to games in general. For them, the content and 4-man dungeons are far less irrelevant than those who are at a higher gear level and have been playing since day 1 (or from an earlier patch). And then you had something like Hunts which, during 2.3, completely broke the plan of progression because people simply zerged for seals and got to i110 far faster than desired.

But it does really on affect those who are more progression focused than those are not. I enjoy doing the 4 man dungeons because they are quite casual and straight forward, and not always do I want some high skill demanding content. I couldn't really care what iLevel the gear rewards are. But then, I'm not the kind of person who is focused heavily on high end content and don't feel a need to keep seeing my iLevel increase in order to enjoy the game.

[Warlyx]

Ifrit, Garuda and Titan Story mode are 4 man

I think we need a sort of Boss Rush fight for 4 man; a gauntlet.

i always wanted something like that , lets hope Gold saucer bring us something similar with the Arena , fight after fight until u wipe

[Renik]

Do you understand why is coil hard? it's because you need 8 players to perform perfectly to win, the higher the number the harder the content, and that's why SE refuses to give us 24man difficult content for now, because it would be impossible, the same way they can't make difficult 4 man content with the current system, the most difficult content we could have for 4 players would be like the old pharos when it was released, and after the first win it was already too easy.

I'm up for difficult 4 man content, but the way they design the battles must be changed or it will never be really difficult.

[LalaRu]

... there seems to be virtually no challenge for small groups... I'd really love some content that's actually difficult but for a party size of 4 instead of 8...

Do you remember what happened to Pharos Sirius, right? Do you remember The Wall?Those are reasons that content no more implemented.
Challenge = latest Raid implementation. That's it. Live with it.

[Kiara1]

I really want content like this. My fcis very small we are like 5 active members currently, so doing 8 man content can be soo painful if we happen to get bad ppl in our group.
Would love to try out hard 4 man content with them.

The only reward I can think of is like allied seals or something, or maybe different tokens to get ilvl 125 items with unique designs (and maybe cap them at 100 per week or so)
I'm just brainstorming

[CUTS3R]

Im still waiting for the day SE finally implements a serie of truly challenging 4man dungeons ala Coil.
Loot could be Allied seals ( less than A ranks ) and gear could be better than regular dungeons or even CT but still lower tier than Coil ( FcoB at least ). And could be used as a temporary alternative for players not being able to play Coil.
I would be happy even if it has a weekly lockout.

[Zumi]

Yoshi P said at fanfest part of the challenge in Coil is forming a team of 8 players to take it on and thus it offers better rewards then 4 mans they will not make 4 mans harder.

[Sapphic]

It doesn't matter how low the drop rate is, people would farm it because once you're done with your cap or you run into a wall in Coil there's nothing else to spend your time on anyways.

Then proceed to come to the forums and complain the drop rate is too low :P

[Riepah]

Do you remember what happened to Pharos Sirius, right? Do you remember The Wall?Those are reasons that content no more implemented.
Challenge = latest Raid implementation. That's it. Live with it.

Pharos Sirius was treated the same as the other dungeons released in the same patch, it gave the same rewards but it was more difficult. People tend to take the path of least resistance to the loot/rewards. If Pharos Sirius had given better or different rewards than the other dungeons and had had its own roulette, separate from the easier ones, it would've been okay.

Yoshi P said at fanfest part of the challenge in Coil is forming a team of 8 players to take it on and thus it offers better rewards then 4 mans they will not make 4 mans harder.

Yoshi P also said that personal housing would be separate from FC housing and much more affordable - Yoshi P can change his mind.
The whole forcing people to make big groups, while making the content for them unforgiving enough for ~1-2 new people in the group to make it impossible for everyone else to complete only makes people rage at each other, keep new people out and make accessing the content more of a pain than actually playing it - I sincerely hope that isn't going according to Yoshi's plan. The content should be the challenge, not the people.
In any case, if there is enough demand for challenging 4 people content, it's possible enough that we'll get something nice.