The general player base needs to improve

[RiyahArp]

Fractal Hard is not an increase in difficulty, good lord, its easier than many dungeons that preceded it. The bosses are easier than rhalgr's and even easier than leveling dungeons; the bit boss does all of three attacks that can be easily soaked, and the last boss you can just eat all his attacks if you don't know his tells. I've never wiped once in Fractal Hard; I have on the arboteum, just due to the honeycomb walls.

You're mistaking "slightly increase the damage numbers of slow attacks" as difficulty. Because if anything, you wipe even less on the new experts than in old ones; the only difficulty at all is in Hells Lid, and that's because two of the trash use tankbusters and are more dangerous than all three bosses. If you think they are any increase in difficulty that teach anyone anything you aren't even qualified to talk on that; the only casual content that even is difficult was shinryu and rab at launch, and that's the level of content expert will have to be to teach something. The gradual approach doesn't work.


You learn to overcome a hard dps check by just trying that check; nothing else works. The "enrage" at fractal's boss is just him stopping attacking otherwise; the real dps check is the whole fight in an ex or hard mode. Rab makes you learn to read a line aoe by murdering you every single time you fail it, and the bosses where they don't are easy because they can't kill you when you make a mistake. You cannot do this gradually, because every attack you survive can be cheesed.

[Stanelis]

Oh yes...I shan't be allowed to have expectations. Because heavens forbid anybody who has expectations of the player base is in the wrong.

Obviously every player has different skill levels. I'm not sure why you keep saying playing for my satisfaction when I haven't said anything of the like. Second time you've said that thus far. Even when I just literally said that isn't the case.

In your first post of the thread you ve been ranting about people failing in rabanastre though.

I’ve spoken on this before through Rabanastre, and even now, months after release, there are still a crazy amount of players who struggle to deal with Mateus, let alone Hashmal. Struggle as in, fail to understand mechanics, keep dying to the same stuff over and over again, things like that. Obviously, if this is a player’s first couple of times in content such as this, my comments don’t apply to them. But players who have been through endgame content multiple time, who have cleared, who know enough about a fight that they can't be considered new to a particular fight anymore...

…I really don’t know no other way to say it nicely. They need to stop wasting folks’ time.

[Dualgunner]

And yet it's okay to have expectations of your team to carry you through content?

[Stanelis]

And yet it's okay to have expectations of your team to carry you through content?

Matched parties through duty finder aren't "your team", they are 4, 8 or 24 players picked randomly and put together in a group. You can't have expectations related to their skill level. If you have expectations related to the skkill level of players you play with, by all mean, use other ways to build you group (just like how people have been faring since everquest).

[Dualgunner]

Matched parties in duty finder are "my team". We're grouped up with the same endgoal with the same enemies.
You haven't answered the question either: if I'm not allowed to have expectations of their skill, why should they expect me to carry them?

[Stanelis]

Matched parties in duty finder are "my team". We're grouped up with the same endgoal with the same enemies.
You haven't answered the question either: if I'm not allowed to have expectations of their skill, why should they expect me to carry them?

But what is telling you they expect you to carry them in the first place ? If you don't like the group you're matched with, the door is open.

[KaivaC]

Fractal Hard is not an increase in difficulty, good lord, its easier than many dungeons that preceded it. The bosses are easier than rhalgr's and even easier than leveling dungeons; the bit boss does all of three attacks that can be easily soaked, and the last boss you can just eat all his attacks if you don't know his tells. I've never wiped once in Fractal Hard; I have on the arboteum, just due to the honeycomb walls.

You're mistaking "slightly increase the damage numbers of slow attacks" as difficulty. Because if anything, you wipe even less on the new experts than in old ones; the only difficulty at all is in Hells Lid, and that's because two of the trash use tankbusters and are more dangerous than all three bosses.

Is that right? Because I'm willing to bet you didn't even know the final boss there has an enrage. And players have been, and still are, hitting enrage on it. So yes, there is a slight increase in difficulty. It's easier for many of us on the forums, but I'm willing to bet there are many others who aren't on the forums who struggle against that boss.

In your first post of the thread you ve been ranting about people failing in rabanastre though.

The funny thing about what you quoted is that it is immediately followed by me saying...

That’s what I want to say, but that doesn’t help improve the overall NA playerbase. So now I turn to the OF. Combat skills for most classes have been neutered enough that players should have a general idea of how to do their rotations. Other than SMN and possibly some other DPS which I have little to no experience with, what else can the devs do to get the playerbase on a much higher level?

Maybe quit cherry picking my posts for the sake of an argument, ya?

[Dualgunner]

But what is telling you they expect you to carry them in the first place ? If you don't like the group you're matched with, the door is open.

Their poor performance is what tells me that.

[Dzian]

These things are hard to get right, because having the playerbase improve means slowly cranking up the difficulty such that people will adjust and learn without hitting a wall of frustration and quitting in response. If wipes and failure are more frequent, is that a thing we want? Look at how often Rabanastre comes up as a problem, when the "problem" is that failure actually happens there? Do we want EVERYTHING to look like that, with the risk that the bottom 20% might quit the game entirely as a result (and the revenue implications that brings)?

The thing is. If they did increase the difficulty a bit and doing that did cause the bottom 20% of players to quit rather than rise to the challenge would that really be a bad thing?

On it's own perhaps. But at the other end how many players have quit playing the game because it's to easy and thus not rewarding or satisfying to play? There is no satisfaction beating something you can't possibly lose. And if games aren't satisfying or rewarding people don't play them.

One of the games biggest problems is player retention and that comes largely down to the lack of difficulty or sense of satisfaction from playing it.

The games had over 10 million players but something like 500k are active if the limestone sweeps are even remotely accurate. But even of we double it and say there's a million active players. If a difficulty increase caused the bottom 20% to quit would that be so bad.

How many of the 9 million that already quit would still be playing if the game felt more satisfying and rewarding as a result of that difficulty curve?

You might find that where you lose the bottom 200k you gain 500k in the middle or at the top.

The lack of satisfaction and difficulty is a big reason so many people quit. Because like I said earlier. There is no accomplishment or satisfaction in clearing something you simply can not fail.

So while it may be true increasing difficulty might push players away.
It's also true it might help retain or bring back just as many or even more players

[Sesera]

Matched parties through duty finder aren't "your team", they are 4, 8 or 24 players picked randomly and put together in a group. You can't have expectations related to their skill level. If you have expectations related to the skkill level of players you play with, by all mean, use other ways to build you group (just like how people have been faring since everquest).

And we aren't their team either. We are all fine with less skilled players but we aren't with the "I don't want to put effort to improve or to help the party" type of players.
And at a certain level I sure have some expectation regarding basic stuff that should be mastered (like dodging aoe, don't heal with medica for single target...)