A Crazy Solution To The Growing Problems of Inadequate Preparation For Duties.

[thegreatonemal]

If the dungeons were a) more interesting, b) more challenging and c) more rewarding, then I believe most players would be OK putting more time and effort in, as long as the amount of reward they could obtain per hour was the same, which is preferable; mindless farming via speed, or an interesting run?

How, how and how?
A. the dungeons are already fairly interesting for why we go there and the looks of them this is more subjective then anything.
B. We've already been over this either everyone almost kills everyone all the time or it won't be a "challenge"
C. Was some of the best gear at any given patch cycle not reward enough?

This is an mmo everything turns into a mindless grind after a while. If it retains its challenge the content is only done for a few months at best after release and is never touched again

[dragonseth07]

If the dungeons were a) more interesting, b) more challenging and c) more rewarding, then I believe most players would be OK putting more time and effort in, as long as the amount of reward they could obtain per hour was the same, which is preferable; mindless farming via speed, or an interesting run?

Interesting is really cool the first time. After that, it loses the charm.

The safe spots from the eye blasts are interesting and add extra challenge in DD. So are the knockback enemies next to the cliff. So are the giant Tonberries in WP. There are other examples, but the end result is always the same. The charm wears off fast, and the interesting mechanic becomes nothing short of another roadblock when you're farming.

[Naunet]

it's not though. even at the minimum I level belsaers wall can be cleared by a group of players playing at a minimum level of skill of efficiency...

I have to agree here. The base difficulty of dungeons (and the vast majority of content) is super low. My husband and I scraped together ilvl 230 recently to finally be able to do Baelsar's Wall so that we could progress the story content. We had a third newbie in the dungeon and one person who had been there before, and we pretty much breezed through everything.

My biggest complaint is that the gearing itself is so opaque. We had zero clue how to get a better weapon than the ilvl 200 weapons we had from the hunt seal vendor (which in and of itself was pure coincidence that we found), outside of very slowly working on our animas. The vendors in Idyllshire are super spread out and NOT informative at all in neither name nor in how to access the bazillion different currencies you need to obtain all the different types of gear they sell. It took a lot of asking around in /sh to realize we had to 1) work our way through Alexander raids to tier 8, 2) kill the tier 8 boss four times for a specific item it drops, 3) buy 10 of an item off one vendor with 1k lore total, and finally 4) use the alexander items and the 10 vendor items on a DIFFERENT vendor in submenus to get ilvl 230 weapons.

Like, really, must it be so convoluted? And that was just for one type of weapon! Clicking through those vendors reveals what seems like a dozen different random currencies with no indication of where to get them. And I still have no idea how to make gear dyeable. The lack of clarity in the gearing design is horrid.

How, how and how?

I dunno, I still enjoy going into WildStar dungeons even though I massively outgear them. Mechanics are still threatening and the combat keeps everything engaging.

[Just-Communication]

I recall that one time when SE tried to increase the difficulty on a normal instance. Steps of Faith, anyone? When it first came out players were eating dirt left, right and center. And then came the torrent of complaints and, well, guess what - it got nerfed. Who here thinks they should have left Steps of Faith as it was as a gate for casual level 50?

And then you have the guy in the other thread talking about Coil of Bahamut? Well what do you know - guess you can't just faceroll/1-2-3 through content after all. So what's with all the comments about underperforming players who don't know their skills succeeding at the game? You mean, allowing them to complete normal content?

And when Titan EX first came out - I doubt that those uninterested, not invested, unmotivated players would have been able to clear that trial.

Or the Demon Wall way back when it was new content. Contrary to what others might claim, I remain unconvinced that lazy players are able to clear difficult content, in any period.

[Kaethra]

Or the Demon Wall way back when it was new content. Contrary to what others might claim, I remain unconvinced that lazy players are able to clear difficult content, in any period.

I got that dungeon a week ago in a roulette. Came on that boss and was like, "ooh this will be interesting," seeing as its been a few years since I last did it. Only to be told the adds don't appear anymore. Wth? Just step left and then right until the boss is dead? There's no fun in that.

[dragonseth07]

I got that dungeon a week ago in a roulette. Came on that boss and was like, "ooh this will be interesting," seeing as its been a few years since I last did it. Only to be told the adds don't appear anymore. Wth? Just step left and then right until the boss is dead? There's no fun in that.

And yet I STILL manage to get groups that all get knocked off... This playerbase is really just awful. :/

[Jetstream_Fox]

I recall that one time when SE tried to increase the difficulty on a normal instance. Steps of Faith, anyone? When it first came out players were eating dirt left, right and center. And then came the torrent of complaints and, well, guess what - it got nerfed. Who here thinks they should have left Steps of Faith as it was as a gate for casual level 50?

Steps was a challenge mainly due to the fact it's entire goal is to use the environment to clear it. There was never really any build up dungeons to that fight, everything was just AoE down and hit 1-2-3. You get thrown into it and have to contended with a new set of rules, tack on during release there was groups who could clear it getting matched with first time runners with 0 idea where placements were, and players who thought it could be burned before nurfs. SE released this ans it wasn't a smart thing to shoehorn in and hence the reason why we haven't had a single instance like it since.

Could argue the same thing for Castrum and Praetorium, sometimes SE just makes things that weren't really thought out.

[Vhailor]

From time to time I get a player who exibits issues like you all bring up in repost after repost. But usually a quick chiding gets them to play properly. Those that don't get booted. Seriously people, just use the vote kick. The devs gave you a tool, use it. Stop being a lazy player yourself. You're no different than the players you complain about.

Personally, I don't find the vote kick to be terribly effective. The problem with it is that it punishes everyone, not just the offender. It might be the case that a player is being lazy, but the calculus behind a vote kick decision takes into account the downtime associated with replacing the person, too. Usually it's longer than it's worth, unless the person is causing wipes.

Case in point, I tried vote kicking a few times in PotD. Each time involved a party member who basically wasn't even going through the motions of attacking (they were pre-40 floors); they were simply hopping about, sitting on top of the Cairn of Passage, not even putting forth the illusion of effort. Each time, my vote kick failed. Once I got a negative reaction from another party member just for initiating the vote, because the lazy party member wasn't "hurting" anyone.

In short, the vote kick function is FAR too blunt a tool for all but the most egregious of fails. Your allegations of players being lazy is, as a result, utter nonsense, and absurdly judgmental to boot.

That said, I do agree that the real problem is laziness. The structure that SE has foolishly built into FFXIV - loads of grinding, too much dungeon repetition, and far too little challenge - practically goads players into being lazy. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if half the time, a 'lazy' player was actually comatose from having run the same bloody dungeon three times in the past hour. Until and unless SE fixes the underlying structural issues, no tool or feature will really resolve the issue. People will rise, or sink, to meet expectations, and SE has set a really, really low bar in most of FFXIV's content.

PS - Others have pointed out that SE occasionally has tried to introduce difficulty, and it's been poorly received. That's worth pointing out, but I don't think it holds much weight in this particular discussion. The fact that SE has been incompetent when introducing difficulty (insta-death mechanics, boring gear checks, not balancing difficulty across similar content *coughs* Pharos Sirius *coughs*, pairing difficult content with a grind) doesn't mean that difficult content should be avoided. It simply means we need to hold SE to higher standards.

[LineageRazor]

And yet I STILL manage to get groups that all get knocked off... This playerbase is really just awful. :/

To be fair, how intuitive is it that the boss pushes forward, and you wind up flying SIDEWAYS - just because your character happens to be turned sideways? If you don't know ahead of time that this mechanic is going to work in this weird way, there's absolutely no reason to expect it. And this is an old-content, nerfed-to-the-ground dungeon, so neither is it reasonable to expect players to study up on this one, any more than they would any other faceroll dungeon.

Yeah, dropping off for Demon Wall is forgivable, in my book, if it's your first time there.

[Fuma]

Oh wow, this is actually a pretty good idea, lol. Just give the new skill half way through that quest chain for that level and have it teach it to us to complete whatever the job quest objective is for that level.