Going to the same route as WoW. The game is TOO easy

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Should they be less forgiving/harsher? I don't know, you alienate bad players if you make things unpassable for the average skill level- and honestly, I've played MMOs 15 years, I've played a dozen different ones seriously- the average player is unable or unwilling to learn, but they still have the right to play the game. If you up the challenge on everything though- well sure, that may make more hardcore players happy, but it's not like there aren't highly difficult content outside of basic dungeons/main story.

People also often equate having to group/spend time to find a group to challenge- like if you can do something solo, it's casual content but if you need 40 people it's hardcore and only hardcores should get it. This is something I've disagreed with since Vanilla WoW, and despite it taking months of 20 hour raid weeks to get through Vanilla raids, the content was actually very easy- it just required a lot of people spending a lot of time.

I do think, of course, that they should continue to include interesting mechanics in all content, it's one of the top things that is making me consider staying here rather than going back when Azshara drops, because I know in WoW that once I beat H-Azshara, everything else I can do for the next half year involves zero mechanics. Maybe that's just cuz I'm new, and admittedly haven't done any significant content yet- the hardest I've done is Extreme Ramuh. But just in ARR I've seen better 'easy' content mechanics than in 15 years of WoW outside raids, and just the ability to be interested in something other than raiding (and Legion's mage tower... gods that was fun) in a game makes the statement 'going the same route as WoW' in the title make no sense to me.

Like, think about your pre-level 30 rotation, before you get all the ninja or black mage skills added... that's still a more complex rotation than half the WoW classes. No really- I'm looking at the optimal summoner rotation guide and it's two minutes long. My BM hunter rotation is... use abilities with small CDs when they're off CD, try to sync your two big cooldowns, spam cobra shot if you have extra focus.

Just imagine that- being able to be optimal at your class with 3-5 abilities+ 1-3 CDs, where the rotation is 'use everything with a CD, then use the thing without a CD' because that is the pro guide for 90% of WoW dps specs in a nutshell. Ninjutsu alone is more complicated than entire specs in WoW, so no, no I don't think this game's at any risk of dropping to WoW's level.

[linay]

I genuinely don't get what is hard about the Burn. Is it the part where you Esuna? See, this is exactly what I meant. Everyone who queues up for the Burn has cleared Shinryu and other trials but because nothing has properly demanded their attention for almost two years afterwards they have apparently forgotten even the basics.

I think the hardest part for some (or many) people is keeping up with gear levels. Contents are much easier in this game when you keep up with at least (augmented) tomestone or normal/alliance raid gears. Otherwise, you get issues like people failing solo content more times than they would have.

[Mezzoforte]

I'm seeing pretty much what I thought I would. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but offer your own instead of 'wishing their was a dislike button'.

Also, community isn't the same as sub numbers. There might be more people playing than ever, but be honest, what community interaction do the MAJORITY of people have besides standing in their city of choice and waiting for their queue?

I understand the game is trying to cater to more people, which is exactly my point. WoW streamlined everything and in the end Classic is being released for all their efforts. A 15 year old product is more appealing to the playerbase than the current version. That's what I don't want for XIV.

It doesn't have to be DMC ball busting hard, but come on, dungeons and 24 man content is brain dead outside of the 1st week of release.

The game is hard in areas meant to be hard. I had a peek at your profile and it doesn't seem you have really jumped into anything that is intentionally made hard. Try knocking out the savage tiers and doing the ultimates. You could try soloing POTD or HOH. Get those sweet sweet flex titles. Among other things. There is plenty of difficult stuff out there IF you actually do it. The game doesn't "hand" you anything difficult to do because the standard part of the game without optional stuff is intentionally made to be easy for those who follow just the story/roleplay/prefer other stuff. The difficulty comes from injecting yourself intentionally into difficult content.

[Kewitt]

Your choice to make it easy.
You don't have to do content with 50 ilevels over geared.

Also Looking at https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...acter/1709928/
You likely don't need to worry about content getting easier as it doesn't look like your challenging ultimate content or even very much savage.
I'm guessing this is an alt.

Unless 80% of the player base can pug a clear on current savage content it isn't to easy.

They need to clean up useless ability and streamline stuff or there would be just to many buttons to smash.

[ScorpioShirica]

Listening to forums on difficulty is how WoW turned their most successful expansion with WOTLK into their most disastrous with Cata (where they stopped publishing numbers). Unsurprisingly, a majority of people that don't have the time to spend ridiculous hours "getting good" love casual content and don't want a very difficult game.

[qqmoarploxify]

Anything outside of savage mode raiding is exactly the same difficulty as it was back in ARR. Infact I'd argue that there are some things MORE difficult now outside of endgame raiding then there were back in ARR. Two examples off the top of my head is shinryu, I don't recall either of the 2.0 MSQ dungeons being difficult back then yet when SB launch it took my a few tries to get a group that could do this STORY quest. Same with the zenos trial at the end of requiem... a lot of people seem to struggle with this and I cant think of a solo challenge that compares to it.

[Reinha]

Listening to forums on difficulty is how WoW turned their most successful expansion with WOTLK into their most disastrous with Cata (where they stopped publishing numbers). Unsurprisingly, a majority of people that don't have the time to spend ridiculous hours "getting good" love casual content and don't want a very difficult game.

They didn't stop publishing numbers in Cata and when they did stop it was because 5 million people had quit in a short time span, their biggest reason being lack of content.

[Shurrikhan]

Listening to forums on difficulty is how WoW turned their most successful expansion with WOTLK into their most disastrous with Cata (where they stopped publishing numbers). Unsurprisingly, a majority of people that don't have the time to spend ridiculous hours "getting good" love casual content and don't want a very difficult game.

Yeah, no. Cata's direction was tangential to community desires at best. In some cases, it stood in direct contrast to them.

And Cata's downfall wasn't its changes, although they may have helped push certain players off certain specs (while others only became more engrossed with their favorites). Its downfall was its content and clear lack of polish.

We can find far more numerous examples of Monkey's Paw changes right here on XIV, within recent times, than we can in the move from WotLK to Cataclysm, despite how incredibly well documented and scrutinized that period of WoW has become.

[Nedkel]

FFXIV is never going to follow same path as wow did.
Our game is much more diverse, we have much more interesting content in which devs spend considerable amount of time, distributed even between all activities. This brings diverse difficulties to play for all sorts of players.
Blizzard on the other hand is basically focusing their game around mythic content, making their game w blend of all flavours into a terrible tasting soup. FFxiv feeds ypu different stuff in separate containers.

[Knoahl]

FFXIV is never going to follow same path as wow did.

I think it is though from the years I have played both MMOs, the pruning to the simplification of mechanics just for new players. It is interesting to note that sales were the best they'd ever been for Battle for Azeroth, yet look at how awful that expansion is. Everyone just needs to look in the direction of the healer changes to see we are potentially hitting the same direction, the amount of identity and complexity lost since HW, which isn't really an excuse when Jobs lack any form of customisation to play them your own way.

It is important to note that the social aspect of FFXIV is among one of the best I've experienced outside of content and more just enjoying the game with friends, the overworld was one of the worst in any mmo but that seems to be getting looked at this expansion, even if it will still be easy at least the fates will be useful, as is its PvP also being one of the worst.

WoW does really well in its PvE content that's not the issue, it's the lack of stuff to do with how awful World Quests are after Legion ended, the new zone layouts, no side content to do which is any fun. FF could do with something like Mythic + dungeons which we'll never get since the team is so understaffed.

I don't think the FF team intend the mistakes they make, as they are far from lazy, but some changes come across that way and I think it's because they are understaffed tbh /shrug Ofc that's not me speaking gospel, it's just a guess, I'm not speaking facts either, just opinions.