[Personal Opinion] FFXIV is too casual friendly

[Bourne_Endeavor]

To be frank, they can up difficultly without it being Savage level. WC is the common example but probably the best: fairly easy, but there are STILL numerous problems. Difficulty is both by design and by what a player brings to the table.

Exactly. In fact, I'll cite PotD as an even better one. Floors 101+ aren't necessarily some massive challenge for your standard Tank, Healer 2 DPS. It simply demands you all pay attention and function as a group. If the tank attempts a massive pull, those mobs will beat you all into the ground. The healer usually has to keep an actual eye on HP because even smaller packs still hurt, plus you have patrols or random spawns to be mindful off. DPS have to focus down certain "killer mobs" who will eventually use some debilitating effect or inflict massive damage on the tank. All of this makes the flow of combat feel just a little more dynamic. If the devs used that as a basis and included a few more alternatives-- mobs potentially breaking aggro so tanks can't keep spamming enmity abilities being one such example-- I feel it would improve dungeons as a whole without making them overly difficult.

What I find interesting is people constantly citing how only few people raid or prefer easier content. It's no coincidence the devs put the current Anima step into Experts. My own experiences has been much slower queues on Expert Roulette before that change. As for raiding. If we use the unofficial census Lucky Bancho did. Between January and August nearly 300,000 characters were deemed inactive; leaving 500,000. Considering that time period came on the cusp of Savage killing statics. It suggests more people may attempt raiding than are given credit. Keep in mind, there is a sizable midcore playerbase too. People tend to jump from casual to hardcore. Raiders aren't just hardcore.

[Frowny]

Between January and August nearly 300,000 characters were deemed inactive; leaving 500,000. Considering that time period came on the cusp of Savage killing statics. It suggests more people may attempt raiding than are given credit. Keep in mind, there is a sizable midcore playerbase too. People tend to jump from casual to hardcore. Raiders aren't just hardcore.

So much of this. Myself and some friends are trying Savage for the first time because it is within our grasp but we're also not the tip of the spear. You can shift difficultly upwards a bit without going nuclear.

Your PoTD example is again dead on as... it basically asks you to play your class. Tanks need to be mindful of pulls, healers need to heal and DPS need to prioritize mobs. Nothing more than just playing your role.

[Genaxx]

I guess no one liked my idea D:

[Frowny]

I guess no one liked my idea D:

It isn't a bad idea, but SE can honestly raise the difficultly overall and it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Again, not Savage level but something that requires some competence. This is true for a lot of content, but ESPECIALLY end game. 1-59 I can understand the "training wheels", but once you hit 60 expectations should be a bit higher.

[Naunet]

This is a fallacy. No one is asking for extremely difficult dungeons.

Well actually, I would LOVE to have extremely difficult dungeons. It's frustrating that the only remotely challenging content comes in 8-person style. Don't have to remove the faceroll ones I guess, but some kind of challenge mode would be nice.

[RizenSaga]

You contradict yourself, you can't say don't run a dungeon if not over geared, and also say don't tell me how to play. And furthermore it's not an opinion that every fight in this game follows nearly the same exact formula, the only difference between the difficulty of each content level is the rate of how quickly the mechanics happen and the dps checks.

SE can make things as easy and hard as they want, recall A3s, that fight broke many raid groups, now recall Steps of Faith, that fight caused many players to scream and cry. Now look at the current raid and dungeons, players are burning through them with such ease it's remarkable. But weakening or strengthening content isn't the answer to issues SE has, they need to revamp their formula as a whole and find a constant, or develop fights that don't follow the current system that 98% of the entire game follows.

That whole first part that you quoted was satire except for the one bold word. Did you even read the second part?

[bardaboo]

Instead of ilvl requirements for dungeons have dps requirements. You get to the dungeon entrance to attune yourself and you have 2 minutes to beat a monster that pops up. No outside help allowed.

[Brannigan]

1-59 I can understand the "training wheels", but once you hit 60 expectations should be a bit higher.

What's great is that in the 1-49 dungeons they slowly ramp the difficulty up an add more mechanics for you to learn but then they throw that all away for max level content. Compare any "expert" dungeon released nowadays to Aurum Vale or Dzemael Darkhold or the (pre-nerf) Vault.

This is a game and the goal is to win, but winning only feels good if it's actually possible to fail. No one likes it when your opponent lets you win at chess or whatever, so why is it different when it's a computer taking it super easy on you?

[Lambdafish]

What's great is that in the 1-49 dungeons they slowly ramp the difficulty up an add more mechanics for you to learn but then they throw that all away for max level content. Compare any "expert" dungeon released nowadays to Aurum Vale or Dzemael Darkhold or the (pre-nerf) Vault.

This is my thinking too. It's not that the game is "too easy", if the entire game set a precedent of being easy then I would respect it for what it is. The issue is that the levelling process conditions us to expect more. Levelling is exciting and getting through these dungeons takes actual thought and on the first time through it feels like endgame. The postgame dungeons however go completely against this, and in many cases are far easier than the levelling dungeons that are trying to teach the player on how to play endgame. What was the point of making levelling dungeons difficult if it is going to be scrapped once you reach 60?

I feel like the devs should follow this guide when designing content difficulty:

- Casual: Mechanic moderate-intensive for individual players, failure is felt by individuals (wipes are rare, but deaths can happen easily)
- Midcore: Mechanic intensive for the entire team, forgiving in the event of deaths
- Hardcore (raid): Mechanic intensive for the entire team, deaths are not recommended

Naturally this is a loose formula but it eliminates what makes current casual content so poor which is this philosophy:

- Casual: Mechanic light-moderate, failure is not felt and mechanics can be messed up/skipped easily.


Gear scaling also needs to be fixed, dungeons should be difficult on patch day and only become mild in difficult once players have a few pieces of gear.

[Kaurie]

Since we get one story dungeon and one hm dungeon, Perhaps they should keep the story one the current faceroll difficulty and make the hm normal difficulty (oh the irony). It is an optional dungeon after all.

They would really need to be in separate roulettes if that were the case.

Personally, I think we already have the "faceroll" roulette (level 60 roulette), where people are over-geared to the point that the mechanics are negligble. This seems like a perfect roulette for people who want an easy time, or for people who are catching up in gear. We then have an expert roulette which seems like the perfect opportunity for dungeons that could face a challenge, require more attention and reward a little bit more to compensate.

Unfortunately, the devs have taken the route that expert roulette is the faceroll roulette, and level 60 roueltte is the outdated content that no one plays roulette.