Thank you for increased difficulty

[Ryaz]

This wouldn't be an issue if SE just took a page from WoWs book and offered tiered difficulty. You can have story mode (easy mode for story) and a harder mode for people who want more of a challenge.

[Jojoya]

Which I can agree and understand with towards some degree, but what do you do when you've had to explain to the same person five times in a row not to stand somewhere....and they end up standing there every time. At some point, something has to give because no one is having fun when the same person or more is being detrimental towards the rest of the players because of the gap in skill levels.

I can't tell you how many Tsukuyomi EX runs I've been in that we're to start off as fun for me and everyone, but ended up painful because people who claimed to be good couldn't even do basic things.

I want to relax and have fun too and not have my effort go to waste either, :<

I'm not talking about EX since EX isn't part of the MSQ. They can make EX and Savage as difficult as they want to satisfy the players who want that challenge, and I encourage them to keep doing it. There needs to be something that encourages the players who like to push their limits to keep doing so.

I'm talking about the content that's part of the MSQ. The MSQ gates all new content to the game if only by not allowing you access to the new zones where the new content is located without advancing far enough in the MSQ. You can't cut off a significant portion of the player base by creating mandatory content outside of the difficulty they can handle and retain their interest in the game.

WoW learned that in Cataclysm when the player base hit level cap at the start of the expansion then there was nothing for the average player to do because outside of a handful of dailies, they had turned up the difficulty dial on end game content from 5 to 10 and the majority of their player base had no interest in it. Within a few weeks of launch, they scrambled to seriously nerf Heroic dungeons and a few months later followed suit with Normal T11 raids (I think they had also made some adjustments to Heroic T11 at the same time though not nearly as drastic).

Wildstar learned that by also restricting end game content to hardcore players who wanted extreme difficulty from the start. If they thought their player base would rise to the challenge and learn to get better, they were sadly mistaken. People just quit and never looked back.

I don't want to see that happen to FFXIV. They either need to stop gating access to new zones and the more casual content located there via the MSQ or they need to reconsider how difficult they make the MSQ content. Leave the difficult content outside of the MSQ. A lot of players simply want the chance to experience the story and they'll continue to pay to support the game given that opportunity at level reasonable to the difficulty they can/are wiling to handle. Those players then end up funding the more difficult content that you find relaxing even if they aren't doing it themselves because at least they're getting access to other new content that does appeal to them.

[Hamada]

This wouldn't be an issue if SE just took a page from WoWs book and offered tiered difficulty. You can have story mode (easy mode for story) and a harder mode for people who want more of a challenge.

FFXIV as a whole (outside a few fights) is easy mode. The issue is people are too used to faceroll, so when something new comes out, and suddenly they are not outgearing it, the reaction is "OMG NOT FACEROLL NERF!"

[LauraAdalena]

I'm not talking about EX since EX isn't part of the MSQ. They can make EX and Savage as difficult as they want to satisfy the players who want that challenge, and I encourage them to keep doing it. There needs to be something that encourages the players who like to push their limits to keep doing so.

I'm not going to reply to every one of your comments, but I felt this needed to be said here:

You can't say "I want to encourage players to do better if they want to push themselves, but let players who don't have a place in the game too." That's a very backward shoot-yourself-into-the-foot standpoint. Letting these players have a say in content makes it harder for new players who want to push themselves either want to push themselves, because they won't see the game as hard at all, or to have the skill to do harder content and making it a mountainous climb just to have the skill to do Alphascape Savage V 1.0 or even Suzaku or Byakko. Making content too easy on the MSQ or the Expert dungeons means people who would be the kind to push themselves will not see the game as challenging or fun. Trust me, if I didn't join back when the Dzaemel Darkhold final boss was difficult or when Titan Normal's landslides were bs, I would never have gone into raiding because I never would have pushed myself to be better and learn how to do the fight proper and never learned the feeling of rising to the challenge.

[RiyahArp]

If you make the content harder, there's no guarantee it will lead to more people going into raiding. Most MMOs have the same problem, where the game proper actually starts at endgame and you need to learn or relearn your class. Usually part of endgame guilds job is to teach them that. I don't think any MMO has this perfect difficulty curve to lead people into raids from the leveling experience.

The problem is savage raids themselves have a lot of issues that make them unappealing, list follows.

* It's 2+ hours a week practicing phases of a fifteen minute fight, one that will wipe everyone if one person makes a serious mistake or enough people make recoverable mistakes.
* There's no side raids or options to help you overcome them if you are stuck. No alternate raids to gear up, no specs you can change to, no way to bring more people in and pay for it by rewards taking longer to get, etc. All you can do is change your main, and even then that's not always possible since alt gear takes time, unless you can afford crafted gear.
* New players are a liability, not an asset. The common thing seems to be you PUG a tier in learning parties, over and over, then try clearing it, and then maybe someone will look at you for a static. You often have to solo the content more or less with randoms, which is not why people raid. If you try to do it with friends, you can, but the skill requirements can often doom you if you all aren't on the same level. Players have made their own vetting mechanisms via log rankings to deal with this.

I mean, there are issues being player skill levels that make savage underpopulated. Part of the reason why we had diadem and eureka is that the devs probably realize savage and ex stuff simply can't appeal to enough players inetrested in long term progression due to difficulty. If you make the game harder, that doesn't really make raiding attractive, it just might make people bow out a bit earlier.

[van_arn]

If you make the content harder, there's no guarantee it will lead to more people going into raiding. Most MMOs have the same problem, where the game proper actually starts at endgame and you need to learn or relearn your class. Usually part of endgame guilds job is to teach them that. I don't think any MMO has this perfect difficulty curve to lead people into raids from the leveling experience.

The problem is savage raids themselves have a lot of issues that make them unappealing, list follows.

This is content four patches into level 70. There is no "new player" excuse, there is no "learning" excuse. If people can't handle this boss, then they haven't been paying attention. This is not savage.

If people haven't been paying attention this long, then they're inconsiderate to the people they're grouping with. They shouldn't be encouraged to continue with any group activity, even story modes, with such a selfish mindset.

In fact, it's healthier for the community as a whole if they meet a roadblock until they learn to try to carry their own weight and play their class to what the mechanics of this fight expect.

And yes, that means it's healthier for the community as a whole if the (inconsiderate) dragoon that phones it in with autoattack quits.

[Sylvina]

You talking about suzaku ex? thats not difficulty its glitchy timing on the explosions which makes the fight frustrating and very poor. if it had the same mechanics but people werent getting hit while way off the exploding platform i'd welcome it.

[Thoosa]

In this patch it feels like they are punishing healers.

I’ve tried Alphascape 1 Savage and it just seems horrible to heal, not only is there massive incoming damage to handle, there’s quite a bit of mechanics as a healer to do (like trying to top up the tanks and myself in Earth phase, plus paying attention to long/lat, plus remembering swiftcast for being pushed back, etc).

Even the normal raids aren’t easy to heal, for example alphascape 2 normal wasn’t a fun experience as a healer, but for some reason I felt like 4 and 3 were easier.

Whereas if I tank or dps everything seems much less stressful.

[Sylvina]

You know if they got rid of some of the excessive button bloat it would be actually a good idea to make harder content. as is, no human being has the concentration required to do things perfectly under these conditions. if you're a machine good for you.

[RiyahArp]

This is content four patches into level 70.

No, No matter how good or bad this playerbase is, the issues with savage in itself will always make it a minority activity. If you make a roadblock, it doesn't change the fact that savage has innate flaws that make it unappealing to a lot of people. If you try and make casual endgame into a mini-savage, you will just succeed in pushing that mode's problems down, not lifting people up. The issue of savage needs a different solution than making everything harder to try and make people git gud and want to do it. That's my point.
It doesn;t mean nerfing it either, but they need to think about how to encourage people to do the mode given the structure it as and the informal structure that has arisen over it.