[Personal Opinion] FFXIV is too casual friendly

[Platinumstorm]

I'm far more interested in FFXIV as a casual game, with varied activities. Raiding is a tried endgame, and we need variety.

The story, by the way, should absolutely not have any unique aspects with savage modes.

[Frowny]

I'm far more interested in FFXIV as a casual game, with varied activities. Raiding is a tried endgame, and we need variety.

The story, by the way, should absolutely not have any unique aspects with savage modes.

Not savage levels, but take WC. There's the point on the 2nd boss when the MT is almost dead. Benediction/Essential Dignity will top em off. I STILL see this cause chaos.

We don't need savage levels of hard, but we need to take the training wheels off. Casual should not be an excuse for auto-pilot.

Edit: I keep seeing WC mentioned. Gotta admit, SE did a DAMN good job here. Difficult, but not ball-busting.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Not savage levels, but take WC. There's the point on the 2nd boss when the MT is almost dead. Benediction/Essential Dignity will top em off. I STILL see this cause chaos.

We don't need savage levels of hard, but we need to take the training wheels off. Casual should not be an excuse for auto-pilot.

Exactly!

People continuous to misconstrued these two factors. There is a middle ground between brain dead easy and savage. I mean, you could even build around extreme primals as a template. There just needs to be something that actually requires effort, lest the game suffer for it in the long run. I want to feel like a tank whenever I run a dungeon. I want to actual heal in said dungeon. Right now? If I don't pull the entire room, I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my bar unless I get some truly awful players. Friends and I are even planning a no healer run of Xelphatol and GGL just to see how absurdly easy it actually is. That shouldn't be remotely possible yet I think even a Dark Knight can pull it off and they don't have good self healing against bosses.

[Frowny]

Snip

Off-topic but to be frank, sometimes even savage can be "easy". My group only struggled on A9S acid rains on 2nd alarum (mostly getting ranged to get out of mine and the MNK's way). Otherwise we had it under control... and only 2 of us (to my knowledge) had previous experience.

You CAN up difficultly without going to extremes.

[Belhi]

Exactly!

People continuous to misconstrued these two factors. There is a middle ground between brain dead easy and savage. I mean, you could even build around extreme primals as a template. There just needs to be something that actually requires effort, lest the game suffer for it in the long run. I want to feel like a tank whenever I run a dungeon. I want to actual heal in said dungeon. Right now? If I don't pull the entire room, I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my bar unless I get some truly awful players. Friends and I are even planning a no healer run of Xelphatol and GGL just to see how absurdly easy it actually is. That shouldn't be remotely possible yet I think even a Dark Knight can pull it off and they don't have good self healing against bosses.

Overbearing is going to cause that to happen no matter how difficult the mechanics. Even WC isn't particularly challenging anymore and Ravana EX dies so quick he barely uses half his mechanics if that.

Your also measuring what difficulty for everyone should be by your personal preferences which isn't necessarily a good measure for the player base as a whole.

Some people who log on at the end of a day of work just want the equivalent of watching the television levels of difficulty. They just look for things to keep them occupied, not feel particularly challenged.

[Frowny]

You can still up the challenge without it being overbearing. We're at the opposite extreme right now where most content is on auto-pilot.

[DamianFatale]

Filthy elitist logic needs to stay out of our mmo.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Off-topic but to be frank, sometimes even savage can be "easy". My group only struggled on A9S acid rains on 2nd alarum (mostly getting ranged to get out of mine and the MNK's way). Otherwise we had it under control... and only 2 of us (to my knowledge) had previous experience.

You CAN up difficultly without going to extremes.

Oh, definitely. Having done all of Savage, A9S is pretty much a target dummy. I wouldn't mind it being the gate way to harder content if we had six fights per raid tier, but it does feel a little underwhelming. Frankly, I'd rank Refurbisher below even Sophia EX, and she is easy. Lamebrix is a bit better because of all his mechanics. Cruise Chaser is where I found it really picked up. I don't have too many complaints with Creator though. The raid community needed something more welcoming after the disaster that was Gordias.

Overbearing is going to cause that to happen no matter how difficult the mechanics. Even WC isn't particularly challenging anymore and Ravana EX dies so quick he barely uses half his mechanics if that.

Your also measuring what difficulty for everyone should be by your personal preferences which isn't necessarily a good measure for the player base as a whole.

Some people who log on at the end of a day of work just want the equivalent of watching the television levels of difficulty. They just look for things to keep them occupied, not feel particularly challenged.

Despite their ease nowadays, I still find both enjoyable. Weeping City lasted its entire patch cycle and even now still gives a little pause. Compare that to Xelphatol that was rendered irrelevant on release.

And that is fine. They can queue for older dungeons which will have long lost their relevancy. Expert is intended for us to run through over an entire patch cycle yet is an absolute joke. There is no incentive to bother gearing your job or performing at even a sub-par level when Augmented Esoteric gear meets the requirements-- gear released at Heavensward's launch over a year ago. It remains little coincidence the current Anima step puts us all back to doing Roulettes. Queues have slowed done because it's considered boring. An Expert dungeon should actually have me tanking or healing. As it stands, I either pull the room or I may as well remove my defensive cooldowns from my hotbars because I'll never need any of them. If I'm 'healing', I'll spend more than half the fight in Cleric Stance.

There's such a thing as catering too much in one direction. XIV has a far larger midcore playerbase than it's often given credit. If they continue to develop primarily brain dead content, they'll inevitably loss these players. In fact, the census done by Lucky Bancho has shown a steady decline in active characters over the year. That isn't a good sign.

To cite your example. Should that television show be dumb downed because other people might not understand its subtlety?

[PondHollow]

I suppose it depends on whether you want people to even reach the end of the story in the first place.

Imho, the Vault, as it is, is hard. The Steps of Faith (as it is - I cleared it after it was nerfed), The Final Steps of Faith (story), Mhach, and Sephirot (base) are also hard. A number of solo missions, such as the Reason Roaille, are also hard.


Maybe something in between normal endgame content (ie expert roulette) and savage and extreme content is justified, but kicking away intermediate steps in the ladder is counterproductive.

Since more people can clear Sophia Extreme and A9S than Sephirot Extreme (upon release) or A1S (upon release), that is a step in the right direction.

I agree there should be something harder than normal, but I believe Squeenix is obviously making strides towards that. It has come at the expense of super-difficult content (though there are still plenty things that challenge the most extreme players? Sephex, Thordex, Nidex, Midas Savage, A11S and A12S?) but that is to be expected. They are just so insignificant. Honestly the energy might be more lucrative for both the company and the players if they made more stuff for crafting and roleplay. There is certainly unmet demand for erping!

[Mature]

Alexander the creator savage has the perfect balance just like coil. Is great!

I'm loving everything about this game! Adjustments are being made and team are listening.

Keep going SE! All for the best! And for a greater 2017!