[Personal Opinion] FFXIV is too casual friendly

[Frowny]

snip

Part of the problem, I'd argue, is the difference between a 60 dungeon and EX/Savage. 60 dungeons are so face roll easy while Savage/EX will kick your teeth in; there's not much in the middle. WC illustrates this VERY well and to a degree still does: difficultly increases kind of while leveling, then drops like a rock. So we have 2 extremes and when something comes along in the middle, all hell breaks loose.

[Gemina]

Part of the problem, I'd argue, is the difference between a 60 dungeon and EX/Savage. 60 dungeons are so face roll easy while Savage/EX will kick your teeth in; there's not much in the middle. WC illustrates this VERY well and to a degree still does: difficultly increases kind of while leveling, then drops like a rock. So we have 2 extremes and when something comes along in the middle, all hell breaks loose.

I can kind of see an issue there. I mean you can only level a job once, right? Which is why I am perfectly ok with releasing more difficult content. But I am absolutely not ok with making current content more difficult with some exceptions.

[Lambdafish]

I can kind of see an issue there. I mean you can only level a job once, right? Which is why I am perfectly ok with releasing more difficult content. But I am absolutely not ok with making current content more difficult with some exceptions.

Do you think it was a bad thing increasing the difficulty between void ark and weeping city? Curious question

[Naunet]

I understand now, you have only seen XIV up to level 55, so in a way, yeah we are playing a different game. Without spoiling too much, Heavensward dungeons ramp up in difficulty (the Vault is a level 57 dungeon, and a very popular dungeon amoungst players) from where you are now, but at level 60 suddenly become painfully easy (a SCH pet could comfortably solo heal some of them)

That doesn't negate the fact that NONE of the dungeons so far have been challenging at all and certainly don't equate to the claim made by the post I quoted regarding leveling being "exciting" and building up an expectation for very challenging content.

[Belhi]

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?

I'd say two things to this.

Firstly Max lvl dungeons are things people will grind daily at end game and most people will find the thrill of challenged replaced with annoyance at obstacles the 20th time they run a dungeon. Making things too easy runs the risk of making the place boring. Making it too challenging will just cause people not to bother (original Steps of Faith).

Secondly, the primary reason dungeons tend to be easy is gear rather than mechanics. A bunch of the EX dungeon bosses have plenty of mechanics but their mechanics are forgiving because people can survive through them because generally most people are running the place in gear anywhere from 20 to 40 ilvls above the dungeons balanced difficulty. Rerun those dungeons with ilvl sync and you will find mechanics you barely payed attention to become much more dangerous.

The issue with ilvl is that its naturally going to happen. Bumping up the minimum Ilvl isn't likely to happen as that would make it harder to access for newer players. They could just apply an ilvl sync but then people would likely become annoyed that they don't feel they are going any stronger when they get new gear and people would complain that higher level gear is devalued. On solution would be, as I said earlier, create a system where doing a dungeon with ilvl synced (which is already in the game) would give some kind of additional reward. This would encourage people who wanted to do it the hard way to do it that way without inconveniencing people who just want to breeze through.

[Ilan]

So why should casual players roll over for what you want again? To help us improve? Because I'd rather not pay for a game forcing me to be super srs when I just want to run around like a spaz and have fun.

It would be interesting to read what you think about dungeons like aurum vale and the vault. They are way harder than the actual "casual" endcontent dungeons aka. expert dungeons and they are just level dungeons.

[NekoNova]

See,

I recently returned to FFXIV, and I've decided to level a new character from scratch.
Due burnout from other games, I've also made up my mind that I want to play casually.
I have no idle hope that I will clear AS12 on this character before the next expansion hits.
So I'm one of these "casuals that demands easy stuff"

Do I want to see this raid content eventually? Hell yes
Do I want it to be dumbed down? No, pretty sure the Echo is going to carry me through it already.
Do I want to see optional challenging content in the next expansion? Absolutely! As long as it does not block me from progressing the game , then by all means make it as hard as you want. I can live with the fact I might not get a certain mount/title/minion/gear because I cannot clear said content.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The issue with ilvl is that its naturally going to happen. Bumping up the minimum Ilvl isn't likely to happen as that would make it harder to access for newer players. They could just apply an ilvl sync but then people would likely become annoyed that they don't feel they are going any stronger when they get new gear and people would complain that higher level gear is devalued. On solution would be, as I said earlier, create a system where doing a dungeon with ilvl synced (which is already in the game) would give some kind of additional reward. This would encourage people who wanted to do it the hard way to do it that way without inconveniencing people who just want to breeze through.

Accessibility is perfectly easy. Let's say Xelphatol and GGH were set to ilvl 240. Brand new players only have to acquire lore gear to access them. They'll also cap Scriptures along the way, thus bumping their ilvl up even further. Frankly, ilvl 230 would be better than what we have now. There will come a point where content made this easy will drive people away. I can, once again, only speak for myself, but prior to the 260 Anima step, I had 10-15 minute queues on Expert. That's never happened before, especially on Aether. I suspect it's because people are fed up and bored of dungeons nowadays. They're so bloody easy, you barely have to push more than two buttons.

[Theodric]

As it stands it's a real shame that something like Sophia EX - which requires players to be attentive - rewards less tomes than the Expert roulette that can usually be done in 10-20 minutes by most groups and is incredibly forgiving.

[Belhi]

Accessibility is perfectly easy. Let's say Xelphatol and GGH were set to ilvl 240. Brand new players only have to acquire lore gear to access them. They'll also cap Scriptures along the way, thus bumping their ilvl up even further. Frankly, ilvl 230 would be better than what we have now. There will come a point where content made this easy will drive people away. I can, once again, only speak for myself, but prior to the 260 Anima step, I had 10-15 minute queues on Expert. That's never happened before, especially on Aether. I suspect it's because people are fed up and bored of dungeons nowadays. They're so bloody easy, you barely have to push more than two buttons.

No actually if the ilvl was 240 they would have to get every piece of lore gear which is several thousand lore as well as a weapon of around the same level as well as run Void Ark and Weeping City 12 times each. Even then it would help for maybe a patch before it became trivial again. This would make catching up both extremely grindy as well as time consuming and linear as the options for gearing up would be limited.

It would also rend the gear from their useless unless it was substantially higher than 240 which would either mean pushing up ilvl on gear across the board, leading back to the original problem, or devaluing the gear rewards from other content sources. The only logical solution I can see is ilvl syncing, which again is likely to lead people to complaining that their better gear seems pointless as there is little they can do that actually makes them feel more powerful for having better gear.

I've never had a EX queue longer than 10 mins with any role at any time of the day and most times its under 5 minutes even as dps.

As it stands it's a real shame that something like Sophia EX - which requires players to be attentive - rewards less tomes than the Expert roulette that can usually be done in 10-20 minutes by most groups and is incredibly forgiving.

While true, a roulette can only be done once a day and Sophia EX offers better gear. Plus once your farming it Sophia EX doesn't take long at all to complete.