(Spoilers) Ghimlyt difficulty was a step down from the Burn...and that needs to stop

[Sandpark]

The issue with this statement is that “fun” changes per individual—
You want the dungeons to be “easy and fun”—because otherwise, they are just tedious to you, to give an example.
But Johnny, on the other hand, finds them so easy that they are not fun—they’re snoozefests to him, which makes them boring and tedious—and wants them to be more challenging because he likes challenging things: they are more “fun” to him.

So, whose definition of “fun” gets prioritized? Which is “more valid”? Yours? Or Johnny’s?
Inb4 “THE MAJORITY’S DEFINITION” response...

Everyone has a different view on what is fun, scary, exciting, and various other feelings. The underlying truth that is not variable is that the highs or lows of any feelings are driven by the unknown and novelty. Once you do something many times regardless of how it makes you feel, the emotions, senses, and passion to do it over and over is lessened, changed, or dull. And the difficulty of what you do does not dictate your fun and enjoyment long term, it can for moments but that is fleeting.

As for what should be prioritized. When has any developer in the last 10 years prioritized one means of playing over another in an mmo?
Rare, today's market is all about giving options for players to consume content.
Go full hardcore like Wildstar? Hello cancellation.
Go extremely easy? It's a pickup and put down game.

I'll reiterate. It's not difficulty that has anyone playing a game over and over. It's either introducing novelty over and over or the carrot on the stick.

Sorry, but I won't bring "the majority" argument because it's stupid in this case (duh, I mean, that's what you bringing that up was all about).

However I will bring the "design" argument.

This game was made with the casual, low-skill player in mind. Simply speaking, it is an MMO that strives to bring a game with an enticing story that anyone can follow on their spare time without putting much effort. This is how it was from the beginning and changing that would be betraying their customers.

That means that, yes, the opinion of the players that want easy main story content IS more important than yours because THEY are the primary target audience. You are the secondary, the more hardcore people, for which there are the more hardcore/skilled optional things like extreme, savage and ultimate.


Now before someone says "I'm just bad and I want the content to be easy so I can snooze through it.". I'm good enough to have solo-healed Titan (Hard) when I was level 50 in Heavensward all the way from first landslide to the end, good enough to trio Ravana (Hard) on a Red Mage with a tank and another Red Mage that was constantly out of mana (probably didn't have Lucid Dreaming) from about 20% to zero, good enough to solo Chimera in Cutter's Cry from 80% to zero on slightly undergeared Bard and to heal and keep reviving healer and DPS while keeping the tank healed in Burn on the dragon throughout the fight while on Red Mage throughout second half of the fight.

I don't think I'm good enough for proper extreme content or savage so I don't do it (and my laptop and sometimes PING sucks, so there's that).

And I don't put the effort on the side to get better because in most Duty Finder parties I lose focus way too easily due to bad players and my inability to stay focused through people single-target attacking a pack of mobs, dying to simple AoE's time and again or similar. I can't get a static for various reasons either.


So no. I'd like it if the game WAS more challenging. I'd want it to have challenging solo content where I could get good with my class without having to roll the dice for the duty finder. But this game never was that and as such it should NOT become that. As much as I hate getting a person in the duty finder that still single-target-kills enemies in lvl70 dungeon, runs from a stack-up marker and such...too bad. I hope that the next Final Fantasy MMO will be geared towards the people that actually want to learn as they go. This one is lost cause in that.

In the first part of your post about design, you just described every Final Fantasy in existence.

I lose focus for three reasons in the battle content in this game.

1. The rotation system feels like I am playing a solo game even if I am in a group of 4-24 people because there is little synergy between me and another player and how our skills interact with each other on a moment by moment basis.
2. The enemy mechanics and environment are the novelty that drives my focus. Once the novelty runs out after doing said content multiple times, my focus goes bye bye.
3. AOE and mass pulling is one of the biggest culprits of me losing focus on the player end. To me this means the enemy mechanics are so trivial, that they can be ignored. The gameplay as a DPS feels like me mashing the same keys over and over like a hack and slash game which is the game type I abhor most. It gets even more boring the more and more enemies we fight at once.

If there ever came a point where an FF game is so difficult that I could not experience they story. I think I am done with FF at that point. Because the story, interesting open worlds, horizontal progression, and party synergy is what I enjoy most about this franchise. The latter three have already been stripped from the game. You take away my story and I am a sad panda.