I actually feel sory for the designer of the next 24man raid

[SuperZay]

people treat it like a piece of second-class or even third-class content to be done in disdain and to be rid of as fast as possible.

And it always will be like this as long as it drops unupgradeable second-class gear which is usually useless on release day.

[Niyuka]

Pretty much every game, especially MMORPGs, develop a community that is barely able, but still able, to consume the majority of the content. Its the game training its players, rather than the other way around.

Harder games make better players to a large extent (there are limits to this, obviously. But look at the level at which the average OW or LoL player plays his chosen game: People are pretty good in the mid-ranks already).

24s that are more difficult (World of Darkness, for example) and require you to do mechanics because you will wipe, every time, without fail, will train players to play better, because they HAVE to.

Unfortunately, almost regardless of how easy or difficult something in a game is, you will always have those whose limits of playing skill (whether actual skill or, more usually, the will to try actually playing decent) are just below the current expected cap, and thus they feel uncomfortably stressed when trying to stretch up to the expected skill level to get their shinies. And they will complain.

Basically, in any game, nothing is ever easy enough, yet still fun. There is no sweet spot of "no complaints, maximum happiness". So, there is no point lowering standards to the point of content being boring upon release.

I think the wheeping city of mhach has the more interesting fights and mechanics, but numbers (and thus mistake tolerance) are a little undertuned. I think the Scathach is a good fight, the Cloud of Darkness was quite well-tuned at its release, whereas the entirety of the Syrcus Tower, Void Ark, most of the Labyrinth of the Ancients (exception being possibly the Behemoth) and the Diabolos fight(s) in Dun Scaith are untertuned.

I think we could do with a slight, but not big, increase in difficulty, or (actually better) a scaling down of equipment stats in the new 24s, but just use mechanics that you MUST do in order to succeed. People will adapt. We learned how to handle the skeletons in LoA, we learned how to go to the Hounds belly, to dodge the Cloud of Darkness, to dance with Titan Extreme, and to handle the Final Steps of Faith with weak gear on its release. We, as the playerbase, can be expected to stretch our legs a little more than just Dun Scaith.

[Kit-Kat]

/facepalm had a friend in Phoenix who use to tell me similar stories...He came to Balmung...Not 100% fix but less complaining that is for sure. I'm not saying it's the server it self, IT IS THOSE WHO PLAY IN IT. Welcome to MMO Raids. It's heart breaking yes. People Troll all you can do is black list them, before exiting so you no longer party with them. Eventually you can weed them out...unless you black list hits max.

You don't queue with people from your server, but datacenter too. The server card is pointless here.

[BigRed5392]

This isn't a server issue.
This is a player attitude issue - and that's why I feel sorry.

People swagger into 24man, leave their brains at the entrance (or somewhere further back) and just abjectly refuse to put in effort, to the cynical comment that there are no roles in 24man, just 3 different kinds of dps: red, green and blue.

its a NA issue, 24 man raids NA side are chaotic messes. JP side are way more organized, explain things to new players and have it set up that B tanks A/C does adds and stuff. I really wish NA data centers took a page from them.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I hope they bring the same difficulty of the emergency mission in diadem to the new 24-man raids.

This!

The new Diadem itself was a failure, but the EM itself is extremely fun and actually difficult. I hope to see bosses that pushes us to communicate and work together instead of just whack on the boss until death.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be getting anything particularly new from outside devs.

[ZioSerpe]

its a NA issue, 24 man raids NA side are chaotic messes. JP side are way more organized, explain things to new players and have it set up that B tanks A/C does adds and stuff. I really wish NA data centers took a page from them.

Yeah.... that is not entirely true, no one explains jack 90% of the time on JP realms too, but it is true that we tend not to wipe.
I've never wiped in any lvl60 alliance raid. and I always pug em.
Yes, B is the main tank, A is emergency if B tank dies (seen it happen once on Irminsu) C pretty much just DPS, unless there are things he needs to tank (sinister in weeping city). For group split mechanic is alliance A that goes (Diabolos door, knots on the spider thingy)

[caponesavage]

I think part of the problem is the community itself. There is a culture (not everyone mind you) that if your new to content or only ran it a few times that somehow negatively reflects on you as the player. I feel people who might have only done the content a few times or dont completely get the mechanics wont speak up in fear of being flamed. No one likes to be the odd man out.

[St0rmchild]

I think part of the problem is the community itself. There is a culture (not everyone mind you) that if your new to content or only ran it a few times that somehow negatively reflects on you as the player. I feel people who might have only done the content a few times or dont completely get the mechanics wont speak up in fear of being flamed. No one likes to be the odd man out.

Actually when someone speaks up that they're new (and there's the rub) I've found a majority of people are willing to pitch in information or explain stuff - even something as brief as "if you're not sure what to do, follow [me/group/person x]" ... but getting people to speak up that they're not confident with the mechanics or new to the place is the hard part to begin with.

It's a small minority that -really- doesn't care and wants to 'get it over with' that fastpulls bosses and leaves little to no time to explain stuff ... but also a lot of people have gotten to timid (due to this toxic minority) to speak up -because of- their inexperience.

Rewards wise (@SuperZay) I find the argument moot -- outside of gear you still get (weekly) token loot you can use to upgrade your upgradable gear (and nobody is forcing you to roll on the gear, and besides if 'bad gear' was a reason to not care - why do people perform acceptably in dungeons then ?

[TaleraRistain]

I think it's a bit hit or miss. I've had simply horrible Dun Scaith runs but then I've had fantastic ones like I had last night with minimal deaths and most people on point or at least able to recover from the occasional oops quickly. But I think that raid is one that still forces you to do mechanics and this is a good thing. I see a lot of attempts to cheese in WC as well. And there are some things you can cheese, but some you can't. I think so long as the raid doesn't offer an alternative to skip this phase or that mechanic, then we will see more good than bad.

[Zojha]

But look at the level at which the average OW or LoL player plays his chosen game: People are pretty good in the mid-ranks already

Define "Mid-Ranks". Over 70% are in Silver and Bronze. If you're gold, even low gold, you're already in the top 30%. And that's just among the around 10% of competitive players that bother getting ranked in the first place, the vast majority doesn't even participate in it.

Personally, I wholly agree that harder games will have a better playerbase on average. But I do disagree that this is because the game makes people better - people who are not good enough simply stop playing the game. That's part of why PvP games are very successful nowadays - Matchmaking ensures that people are getting a matching level of difficulty, regardless of how good or bad they are. The difficulty of the content adapts to the player instead of the other way around. Thus, these games are able to reach people regardless of their skill level, whereas PvE games with a set difficulty can only cater to players skilled enough for the content or better.

Difficulty is a basic design issue of PvE games that historically has been solved by simply adding difficulty options. Sometimes you pick it when starting a new game, other time it's in the options menu. Either way, it allowed games to reach a broader audience and increase their sales. That is something MMORPG sorely lack.