The general player base needs to improve

[Nestama]

snip

It was only hard because the Poison ticked for around 20-30 damage per second (probably). Even having an antidote on hand wasn't enough to save you from death, since the boss would just do it again (and Antidote would then be on cool down). DPS pretty much needed to have Cure cross-classed so they wouldn't have to worry too much about the Poison.

Anyway, you haven't touched/cleared Extreme Primals since Ravana EX. SE have also been making the dungeon bosses in SB a little more interesting compared to ARR and HW bosses. They actually have (although easy to learn) mechanics! And ignoring them could get you KO'd! I think it might be safe to say that the dungeons we have now are tougher than what Pharos Sirius originally was in 2.1.

[Metalwrath]

One of the best patches to be released to this date in the game was when they released Weeping city and Nidhog EX together.
It was deffintly a jump in difficulty for the kind of content it was.
There are more parties that can beat Byako ex in PF than level 70 parties who can beat Nidhog EX unsynced and that says a lot.

[KaivaC]

One of the best patches to be released to this date in the game was when they released Weeping city and Nidhog EX together.
It was deffintly a jump in difficulty for the kind of content it was.
There are more parties that can beat Byako ex in PF than level 70 parties who can beat Nidhog EX unsynced and that says a lot.

Let's take this to another level - there are more parties capable of beating Byakko Ex than there are of beating Hashmal in Rabanastre.

[SannaR]

Novice hall teaches a few bad things and you only have to do one of the lessons before being able to go into the 1st dungeon. Like not aoeing, dps being taught to grab adds, and to always be healing. I swear when doing the healer stuff the game would yell at you for not toping the tank off just because they got hit twice. Also I swear Squadrons are part of the problem. If you've ever ran with a rog or a lancer squad mate they are known to randomly aoe even on single monsters and use their ranged attack 1st. Yes i've seen actual people employ these types of things in various things. Then there's the whole other mess when doing guildhests. I've had people kill the turtle, not understand killing all the void mobs near the same time even when you tell them to.

[HoodRat]

Let's take this to another level - there are more parties capable of beating Byakko Ex than there are of beating Hashmal in Rabanastre.

Which is sad considering my experiences with Byakko ex. The last time I ran it my co tank messed up his timing for one of the tank swaps and a sam ended up being grabbed and died. The sam just constantly started shit talking both my co tank and I after that saying we couldn't do our jobs and whatnot...the best part being that even when he didn't die to tank mistakes he still was doing less damage than either of us...as a sam. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Shurrikhan]

...or are simply unable to.

Or do you truly think that you can crank difficulty up perpetually, no matter how slow and gradual? At the top level of "worse than ultimate", it is obvious this doesn't work, but at any level below there will also be people getting cut off, either voluntarily because they can't be bothered and play a different game, or because they simply are unable to for whatever reason.

The end result really is what I said: You kick the lower end out of the game.

That aside, the thing about competitive games is: Yes, you do indeed only need to play marginally better than those around you. But when you do, your rating gets adjusted upward, the people around you get better and you yourself need to get better to get the same effect again. And then you need to do it again. And again.
If you are complacent with where you are, you will be stuck and lose just as much as you win, which isn't something people want or like.

just as the chance for reiteration, improvement, and nuance are nearly endless

I'm wholly aware. But if one is content with a neutral or even negative win ratio, enjoying the fights nonetheless, there is nothing to push them to improve.

I think there's eventually going to be a cap to it, but there are also continually new forms of difficulty. Adding mechanic n does not push mechanics a through m to an extent beyond player ability nor is it, in itself, likely only in combination with a handful of other previously given mechanics, likely to overwhelm the player despite adding more to what is possible for good play while expecting core competency based on the lessons already practiced.

Difficulty isn't just going to be reducing windows of lenience further and further until only the lowest ping players or absolute most optimal play can get by. It need only build on itself and stimulate thought at to what the player can do to improve, and require proof of that thought through its execution.

In many ways, that's what we have now, except that the most fundamental competencies were never assured, such as the most basic elements of uptime, multiplicity, or reading comprehension, so that everything thereafter stands, in a sense, on pillars of sand, precisely because the curve allowed them to fall through. Most will develop their own stronger foundations and understanding from community resources, parsers, and/or thinking these things through on their own time, but as the content itself doesn't provide ready motive or benchmarks for this, many others will slip or be sifted through the cracks until later content must be necessarily weakened or that stratum isolated -- which, to an extent, they'd be right to complain about. Wherever possible, the means to be competent in a game should be made fairly obvious by the game itself.

[silverlunarfox]

There will always be good players.

There will always be bad players.

There will always be people who fall in the middle.

There's nothing anyone can do to make that change. It's how all online gaming is. Youll always have those people who aren't good at the game but are playing it because they find it fun. And so be it! I think overall perhaps the community needs to develop more understanding and patience perhaps. *shrug*

[Metalwrath]

Which is sad considering my experiences with Byakko ex. The last time I ran it my co tank messed up his timing for one of the tank swaps and a sam ended up being grabbed and died. The sam just constantly started shit talking both my co tank and I after that saying we couldn't do our jobs and whatnot...the best part being that even when he didn't die to tank mistakes he still was doing less damage than either of us...as a sam. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So im just curious about this comment.Because how Byako works is he grabs whoever has main agro.So how if the Samurai was doing less dps than both tanks did he have priority agro?The story doesnt make any sense.

[ShanXiv]

It was only hard because the Poison ticked for around 20-30 damage per second (probably). Even having an antidote on hand wasn't enough to save you from death, since the boss would just do it again (and Antidote would then be on cool down). DPS pretty much needed to have Cure cross-classed so they wouldn't have to worry too much about the Poison.

Anyway, you haven't touched/cleared Extreme Primals since Ravana EX. SE have also been making the dungeon bosses in SB a little more interesting compared to ARR and HW bosses. They actually have (although easy to learn) mechanics! And ignoring them could get you KO'd! I think it might be safe to say that the dungeons we have now are tougher than what Pharos Sirius originally was in 2.1.

I've mentioned many times before: I am a casual or mid-core player now, I don't like the "jume rope" things, had played too much of these in WOW.

if I want to raid, if I want to play hardcore things again, I will play WOW.
but after I tried XIV1.1x-1.2x, I felt like I've finally found my true love MMO , really like the mid-core & party contents, and the community, they are more fun & memorable than WOW & ARR

After I bought the diablo3 ,I told myself I will not buy & play Blizzard games anymore, but now ARR is a WOW clone... the graphics, music & stories are good though

[Penthea]

Bad players exist everywhere in every game and honestly I don't think the player base is that bad. I find most players are at least average to good, more than enough to complete DF content. I rarely come across a player I genuinely think is terrible.

Savage is a different story of course but that content isn't designed to be done with random groups. It can be done but it's obvious you get a much more rewarding experience with a static team because the content often demands a lot of coordination.