Increasing difficulty in casual content ≠ Savage

[KaivaC]

Somebody made a mention yesterday about having differing tiers of difficulty for dungeons in a way similar to how WoW does things. I wouldn't be opposed to it. I think it's better than having 24 mans being the default midcore difficulty. This ties a little bit into my thoughts about the game needing new direction.

Let's be honest, everything feels so stale right now. They took a chance on Eureka and it worked for the little bit of time that people wanted relics, so obviously the devs are willing to delve away from the common formula a little. But we need more.

[Rhus]

ID quite like dungeons with more to them. At the moment most of them just feel like (and are) big pull up to boss, kill boss. Repeat.

I'd like dungeons with more mechanics in them on the trash pulls. Something to make them interesting. Temple of the fist has something like this with the exploding goo and the blocks that push you off the ledge but the goo patches are so small you can easily avoid them and the aoe on the blocks are so narrow and take so long you're half way up the hill and fighting the bear before they even push out.

I do like the build up to the first boss in Hells Lid for this reason, as a caster I'm always having to move and manage enocian in this and it's more challenging than the usual "i'll pop myself here and let rip" tactic. However, after that section it goes back to plain old massive pull, find a spot, let rip, fight boss and move on.

Why can't we have something like needing to find a key to open a door but instead of it dropping from an enemy it moves around with each new instance. Would that be possible? Would prevent it dropping in trash pulls and prevent it being in the same spot every time. meaning we can't just steamroll from point A to B. Quicker AOE, more environmental interaction/AOE (like temple or hells lid mentioned)

[kikix12]

Let's be honest, everything feels so stale right now. They took a chance on Eureka and it worked for the little bit of time that people wanted relics, so obviously the devs are willing to delve away from the common formula a little. But we need more.

Everything would feel less stale if they actually gave some up on making everything perfectly in-line with their one true vision. They should add some random stats, like 5%-10% of the gears normal stats, as a bonus to every piece that drops. At that amount it's not significant enough to impact balancing in any serious manner while giving incentive and SOME excitement to every run of content. Secondary stats may also be chosen at random. Have a piece with Spell Speed and Piety but don't like piety?! Go ahead and try to get that same piece with critical hit and spell speed. Or maybe determination and critical hit. The amounts would be the same (aka. if the piece gives 150 to one secondary and 90 to other secondary it would always be 150 and 90) but it would give actual variety.

Leave totally fixed stats for special gears like the ones gotten from quests.


Additional difficulties would be nice as well, sure. It's a pain that only 4-man content available is just ridiculously easy and straightforward most of the time. And I say that despite knowing people that have issues remembering or even following basic mechanics. Too bad. People get better by trying, so if they'll have to, they'll get used to it.
But those would need actual point. Adding new set of gears in them would only increase the problem as there would be a need to spreading the ilevels even more apart to maintain the balancing methods that developers want. That's why THAT is what needs to change first and foremost. Increase variety, not decrease it as they try to do.

Why can't we have something like needing to find a key to open a door but instead of it dropping from an enemy it moves around with each new instance. Would that be possible?

We can't have that because "God forbid the players need to think and pay attention". I made a thread suggesting mechanics that would make dungeon runs a bit less "pull from wall to wall" and made different approaches to pulls valid. This one. Though there were posts that enjoyed the idea...just look how steadfast and doomsaying were the ones opposed to it. I believe someone directly even said that if they'd have to think in dungeons they wouldn't even run them...but that might have been in another thread.

[KaivaC]

ID quite like dungeons with more to them. At the moment most of them just feel like (and are) big pull up to boss, kill boss. Repeat.

I'd like dungeons with more mechanics in them on the trash pulls. Something to make them interesting. Temple of the fist has something like this with the exploding goo and the blocks that push you off the ledge but the goo patches are so small you can easily avoid them and the aoe on the blocks are so narrow and take so long you're half way up the hill and fighting the bear before they even push out.

I do like the build up to the first boss in Hells Lid for this reason, as a caster I'm always having to move and manage enocian in this and it's more challenging than the usual "i'll pop myself here and let rip" tactic. However, after that section it goes back to plain old massive pull, find a spot, let rip, fight boss and move on.

Why can't we have something like needing to find a key to open a door but instead of it dropping from an enemy it moves around with each new instance. Would that be possible? Would prevent it dropping in trash pulls and prevent it being in the same spot every time. meaning we can't just steamroll from point A to B. Quicker AOE, more environmental interaction/AOE (like temple or hells lid mentioned)

Agreed. Dungeons are just incredibly stale. Like, forget even talking about increasing difficulty for the moment, every dungeon follows the exact same formula of mobs, AOE, reset, boss, reset. Honestly, even if the devs increase diffculty, to them, it'll be be mobs one-shotting tanks, which is not true difficulty - it's fake difficulty. I'd love the devs to get away from that so that the opportunity for actual difficulty can be introduced. Admittedly, even ideas that I've shared in the past can't be implemented if the devs keep taking the exact same approach to dungeon designs. Damn being afraid of veering away from the standard formula - if they were that damn afraid, they wouldn't keep harping on about Diadem in a new form called 'Eureka' with a FFXI flavor. The game has gotten to the point where they can experiment with an extra dungeon in each patch cycle that fits the higher difficulty without introducing fake difficulty. I feel that if it were so taxing on development that we lose out on a dungeon every patch, we'd have seen something different with Hell's Lid and Fractal Continuum. Yes, there was Eureka, and now Heaven-On-High coming up. But the last two dungeons were literally a copy-paste with different art.

I don't buy it.

Everything would feel less stale if they actually gave some up on making everything perfectly in-line with their one true vision. They should add some random stats, like 5%-10% of the gears normal stats, as a bonus to every piece that drops. At that amount it's not significant enough to impact balancing in any serious manner while giving incentive and SOME excitement to every run of content. Secondary stats may also be chosen at random. Have a piece with Spell Speed and Piety but don't like piety?! Go ahead and try to get that same piece with critical hit and spell speed. Or maybe determination and critical hit. The amounts would be the same (aka. if the piece gives 150 to one secondary and 90 to other secondary it would always be 150 and 90) but it would give actual variety.

Leave totally fixed stats for special gears like the ones gotten from quests.


Additional difficulties would be nice as well, sure. It's a pain that only 4-man content available is just ridiculously easy and straightforward most of the time. And I say that despite knowing people that have issues remembering or even following basic mechanics. Too bad. People get better by trying, so if they'll have to, they'll get used to it.
But those would need actual point. Adding new set of gears in them would only increase the problem as there would be a need to spreading the ilevels even more apart to maintain the balancing methods that developers want. That's why THAT is what needs to change first and foremost. Increase variety, not decrease it as they try to do.

The gear idea has some potential...except for that staggering difference between 4.2's 325 gear, the 330 gear that outweighs it in Rabanastre (seriously...why is the 24man raid released back in October still outgearing the latest dungeon) and the 370 gear in Sigma Savage. Gear means absolutely nothing by the time of the next patch, because the gear levels just keep going up. The devs need to stop with the insane gear progression that occurs with every patch. I'm not saying that the savage gear should not outweigh 24man and dungeon drops, but good grief...right now, the dungeon gear is quite literally next to useless when, for most players, you should be geared enough that by the time you finish Shinryu and your 70 job quest, you can just hop into Rabanastre and be fine because so many other players will outgear it. Gear needs to mean something again. Right now, particular for those who want to be gear beyond 330, the only stuff that matters is relics, Byakko weapons, and the Diamond sets (some of which aren't even BiS).

[Remedi]

I don't really dispute that. but the point is that even though the number gets higher and higher the effect of that stat doesn't really change....

lets say 1500 skill speed right now gave a warrior a short enough gcd to get a 5th fell cleave out in inner release for example. (I dunno what the actual number is but its just an example)
when patch 4.4 lands and that warrior upgrades a couple of pieces of gear to maybe i380. his skill speed might go up to 1530.. but now he can't do that extra fell cleave because his gcd is to long the stat weights have changed.. now he might need to get 1650 skill speed to squeeze that extra fell cleave into inner release......

so essentially he needs 150 more skill speed just to stay where he was before. he actually gains nothing from those extra 150 points..

That's not how it works, stat conversion changes as your level increases, your sksp requirement won't change from 4.0 to 4.4 if you are capped, what might change is if pushing towards certain caps is worth or not.

in 4.0-4.1 melding direct hit was yielding a bigger dps increase over crit melding because of how strong direct hit was (though I remember some guides stating that if you had access to savage gear you could just aim for crit) in 4.2 crit is generally better, but not because the conversion rate changed, that's because with a higher stat caps melding pure crit is worth it (especially since crit as it works here essentially gets better and better as you stack it).

in 4.4 maybe it can be worth for a WAR to push for a 6 FC under IR over simply melding crit simply because of the increased stat caps, maybe DRK wants something like this too.

At the end of the day it's idd just a dmg increase but there are some questions that you should ask yourself, BLM for example wants spellspeed but your rotation going too fast might need you to readjust spell orders.

@Kaivac: more difficulty settings don't really fix the stale problem, it just shift the stale problem from the forumal to the content beign rashed, just how like wow has a vomit of difficulty setting that sometimes have no sense at all, they were added to simply sate a small % of population, but ultimately only worked to fragmentate the community further and further.

As said Imho SE should stop thinkering with what's possible and just work on making what they already have better, only after the foundations have been solified they should pursue something new, problem is we also need to understand this, following novelty just for novelty's sake it's not good, because content in an MMO is not something you do once and nevermore, as such it needs to be at least engaging in some way for a good chunk of time.
Novelty however like exploration it's gone after the first run, take Byakko's transition for example, I have no problems with it, but ppl seems to hate that even though some said it was fun the first few times

[KaivaC]

@Kaivac: more difficulty settings don't really fix the stale problem, it just shift the stale problem from the forumal to the content beign rashed, just how like wow has a vomit of difficulty setting that sometimes have no sense at all, they were added to simply sate a small % of population, but ultimately only worked to fragmentate the community further and further.

As said Imho SE should stop thinkering with what's possible and just work on making what they already have better, only after the foundations have been solified they should pursue something new, problem is we also need to understand this, following novelty just for novelty's sake it's not good, because content in an MMO is not something you do once and nevermore, as such it needs to be at least engaging in some way for a good chunk of time.
Novelty however like exploration it's gone after the first run, take Byakko's transition for example, I have no problems with it, but ppl seems to hate that even though some said it was fun the first few times

The main reason I address the stale problem in the manner that I did is because...well, it's obvious Yoshi and his team take pride in what they deliver. To them, they probably do feel like they are refining things. But they're really not, in my opinion. While it is nice that Yoshi does tells us that if we're feeling burnt out or bored, we should consider unsubbing for a little while so we can come back refreshed, I don't feel like this excuses the stale problem. Experiment with an extra dungeon - I am pretty sure they are not so understaffed or overworked to the point that they couldn't work on a single concept of some of the things suggested. Even attractions in a theme park have other features that don't follow the same stale pattern (this is not a reference to the things in the Gold Saucer or beast tribes). Dungeons need to not be the exact same thing every single time. I'm not suggesting they follow the pattern of PoTD, Aquapolis, or the Hidden Canals, but introducing content with the knowledge that you are going to burn out your players introducing a fresh palette swap over the same rails is not doing anybody favors.

[KisaiTenshi]

Somebody made a mention yesterday about having differing tiers of difficulty for dungeons in a way similar to how WoW does things. I wouldn't be opposed to it. I think it's better than having 24 mans being the default midcore difficulty. This ties a little bit into my thoughts about the game needing new direction.

That just makes the content stale faster. This is something that Mabinogi has had since inception and it predates WoW. That's what's known as "fake difficulty", because all it does is make the monsters bigger, maybe recolor it, but the dungeon is otherwise just tinted/textured differently. There's nothing fun about fighting the same thing, only now it has 10x the hp and takes 10 times longer with the same gear. FFXIV developers already know this isn't what people want.

The way FFXIV is designed, more or less, each dungeon is a self-contained thing, so they can't actually do this, it's not a levequest. Though the lever is actually already in the game, it's the "Minimum IL" option. If people aren't regularly using this feature, there's no point in asking for more levers, people don't use what's already there.

The best content in the game, are the 24-player alliances, because these maintain even difficulty for everyone, even when gear creep makes it easier over time, you're not gauranteed a faceroll. (People still Wipe LotA more often than Void Ark.) We need more content along this line of thought, where large alliance parties are dynamically matched.

The worst content in the game isn't the Savage content, because the Savage content can be overcome with practice. The worst content in the game is PotD's "to floor 200" due to the random aspects of the dungeon. Now I don't want to see it nerfed. Which is why I'm worried that the new one might result in nerfing to the old one, because it'a already showing abandonment.

[Tridus]

There's multiple issues and moving pieces here at once.

1. Expert is too easy. I'm fully on board with this. Expert is comical. None of them stand up to Auran Vale, The Vault, or Bardam's Mettle, let alone the pre-nerf versions of two of those. There's very little way to mess Fractal Hard up. You can pull wall to wall and it's fine. You can eat half of what the bosses dish out, and it's fine. Item level scaling is a factor in that, as we overpower these dungeons really easily. That's within their power to fix, but if they push ilvl sync down too far people stop feeling like they're progressing, and the game is built all around power progression.

I tend to think Hell's Lid was a step in the right direction on this. It's not hard, but it has a DPS check enrage. It has a couple of patrols in the trash that actually hit hard (a group unprepared for the wall to wall pull after the second boss will get flattened). It's a step up from the literally impossible to fail last boss of Kugane Castle.

2. What difficulty should we be targeting? I tend to be a big fan of Rabanastre and really think they got it right there. Early on, Mateus and Hashmal broke groups. You couldn't just slack off and ignore stuff, because ability to carry people was limited by the difficulty. It's gotten easier now that we have a full tier of gear above what it was tuned for, yet you still see wipes occasionally. That's good, it's a sign that some part of the playerbase has trouble with it.

Fundamentally, the problem with this discussion on the forums is the people here skew away from the general playerbase. Savage raiders are grossly over represented. Thus, everything is easy except things at the very top end. The collective playerbase is poorly represented. Most of those people don't even do savage and found Rab to be hard, while Ex Primals are the top end of what they can do. Push everything harder past that and you'll just chase them out of the game entirely, which is why SE won't do that.

3. Participation matters. Ultimate is meant to generate fan interest and followings by being exclusive. That aside, they want more people doing content. They flat out said that they made savage easier so more people would do it, more people did it, and they're happy with that. The message there is clearly not "we want to make things harder so less people are doing it".

4. "Casual" and "hardcore" are loaded terms and don't really work well for this, because they don't mean anything. I know people who play 4 hours a day every day and don't do any kind of progression raid content at all. They're off fishing, decorating, doing Eureka, and such. They don't run anything harder than Rab and Sigma Normal. We could really use some better terminlogy, because by some of the definitions in this thread they're both casual and hardcore at the same time.

It's really not about time, it's about things like effort put into optimization, practicing rotations, and organization of groups.

5. Duty finder kinda hamstrings things, because you have no idea what kind of group you're going to get. That's why the running joke is that Rab is really about you vs the rest of the alliance. Sometimes you get people who just have no idea what they're doing or don't care enough to try, and if stuff is tuned to the max ,those people will murder everyone else. Thus, anything that's meant to be DF friendly has to have some leeway built in, which means if you start getting high end groups or forming premades, stuff feels easier. That's likely unfixable with how the game is structured.

[KaivaC]

That just makes the content stale faster. This is something that Mabinogi has had since inception and it predates WoW. That's what's known as "fake difficulty", because all it does is make the monsters bigger, maybe recolor it, but the dungeon is otherwise just tinted/textured differently. There's nothing fun about fighting the same thing, only now it has 10x the hp and takes 10 times longer with the same gear. FFXIV developers already know this isn't what people want.

Didn't I just say something similar to this a couple comments above yours?

[Tridus]

Somebody made a mention yesterday about having differing tiers of difficulty for dungeons in a way similar to how WoW does things. I wouldn't be opposed to it. I think it's better than having 24 mans being the default midcore difficulty. This ties a little bit into my thoughts about the game needing new direction.

Sometimes, yes. If the dungeon difficult at min ilvl is where you want it to be and scaling is simply what trivializes it, then adding multiple tiers of ilvl scaling would do it. We already have that to a degree with min-ilvl being an option. Rab for example has no ilvl sync at all right now, so if you could optionally add one at 330, it would be easier than min-ilvl (which is 305) but significantly harder than the current "half the group is at 360" situation. 330 is more or less where non-savage folks could get to when it launched.

But that doesn't always work. Kugane Castle's last boss as an example, can't really kill you no matter what ilvl you are. The same solution won't work there, you'd have to scale the dungeon itself instead to make things hit harder, detonate faster, and such. That's a much bigger job to make work when you want to add more difficulty levels. The difference is that this boss doesn't get harder when you scale down, it just gets longer. The difficulty is the same except you have to hit him more times. Rab actually gets harder with less gear because people doing rotations wrong or being dead will wipe you on sand spheres, you can't survive extreme edge long enough to get healed, etc

In both cases, more scaling options mean longer queues, especially for DPS, as if you're in one that tanks and healers don't feel like doing... good luck. Queue fragmentation and longer waits is a real danger of this, and I think they'd be leery of making that problem worse without doing something else to address it.

Let's be honest, everything feels so stale right now. They took a chance on Eureka and it worked for the little bit of time that people wanted relics, so obviously the devs are willing to delve away from the common formula a little. But we need more.

At the end of the day, any game gets stale if you play it long enough. YoshiP's advice to take a break is good advice. People get bored and burned out. There's tons of other games out there. I mean, I'm playing Civ VI tonight instead of XIV and I'm looking forward to it, and also Healer's Quest on the side.

Changing it enough so that nothing ever gets stale would start to get pretty drastic and risk alienating people who aren't in that same frame of mind. There's room for improvement, but on a fundamental level the game is what it is at this point and you won't see massive deviation.