Well, they actually did it, the absolute madmen

[Shurrikhan]

There are people that play solely for the story. I don't see the problem in making easy for them to do the MSQ SOLO duties, if they have issues with it. Remember that we do have people of all ages, people with disabilities, etc, playing FFXIV because they do love the storyline.

I mean, so long as they expand trusts to every MSQ dungeon in the game, I wouldn't have an issue with this, but in the meantime the consequences of such changes increasing leaves groups effectively missing, or mostly missing, one of their 4 members.

[Arazehl]

The change will be both good and bad. There are always those who will just suicide just so they get the three options of difficulty. This being the bad.

I do have a fc buddy though who is super casual, not because they had a say in being super casual. Being disabled and up in years, they can't play mmo's as they once did. They are stuck in one solo instance near the end of Stormblood unable to defeat it. They have tried at least two dozen times or more. In this case I do wish they had this option of selecting which difficulty. They didn't even get to get the Regalia mount even though they tried the instance until the event was ended. Think the "warp strike" was a little bit much to handle for them.

Anyway for those others who have this kind of issues, this isn't all a bad thing. For those too lazy to try, well if there is an easier way around something they'll take it.

[Chalbee]

If you're really so concerned about being forced into content with the miserable proles who use easy mode, there is a solution! It's called a pre-formed party. Start an FC, screen applicants like it's a static, and then you'll only have other philosopher kings to play with. Never again will you be forced to spend 6 extra minutes in a dungeon.

[KaleShibata]

Personally I'm in favor of a suggestion from a few pages ago: if people are failing due to a specific mechanic they aren't understanding you could just have a tutorial mode in which the game actively locks all but the required skill use (in class specific ones.) or makes one of the npcs comment to you with advice or something per failure. the difficulty thing I can't really see doing anything but help the rest through the content though. If people are going to be bad, then they'll get kicked and it won't be your problem anymore anyways. complaining about a feature meant to let people get through fights without being frustrated is a GOOD thing.

Also the 'but they'll ruin my df experience' arguement i keep seeing is also garbage. you have the option to walk away from any duty you don't want to do in the middle of it with no questions asked and always have. You stay and suffer by choice, no one's forcing you to stay with people you don't like. if you don't want to do a duty, then don't stay in it. how is that such a hard concept for people? 30 min wait? i have an ENTIRE youtube backlog measuring more than 18 hours still in total, the wait's letting me multi task. I can always use the 30 minutes to better nail down my rotation at the local punching dummy. but complaining its only going to make more 'bad players' is a lie. and from my experience bad players generally stop getting parties anyways.

Point is I actually like this option, even as someone who has never failed a duty/RP instance through the whole story beyond back when i first started and had to learn targeting priority, and the Zeno's fight before ShB launch where i had mistakenly left on tank stance. (And yes even both of ShB's major moments including Thancreds instance on the first try. its REALLY not that bad, but i can see why it would be.)

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Why is this a thing? This is for instanced battles that are solo (I'm pretty sure I read that right). I'm actually glad they did this because I don't always want to try and figure out the battle specs just to get to the next bit of story (because what you need to do is not always obvious; certain people can't die--etc).

As Black Mage a lot of these trials are a chore. Im glad I can choose to not scream and yell in FC chat because I lost the duty to some stupid reason because I'm tired and just want to unlock something. Thats not saying it still won't happen but I'll take the buffs. Everyone else can be heroes. To themselves. And to a bunch of NPCs that don't care.

I'm surprised that this posts exists when they FINALLY ASSIGNED ILVL REQS TO HW+ LEVELING CONTENT. But no. Let's get mad about things that only affect us personally. Sheesh.

[SamSmoot]

Would you care to elaborate more on why you're not able to clear these first time?.

Been some time since I've done one, but, I'd assume:

1. Not playing my class in the roleplays. Not sure if I played my own character in any of them though.
2. No action keybinds due to the roleplay. Trying to click the abilities and move around at the same time.
3. Gear? I only had what the MSQ gave me, no materia. (Not sure if gear matters in these.)
4. New to the game. (Started in January, played through all the MSQ in one run, no breaks, never played any other class.
5. No idea. They were just impossible for me at normal difficulty, and a blockage to MSQ progress.

I was getting so frustrated at these, I was about to quit the game and return to WoW, until I discovered how Echo worked in a google search, and used it as a difficulty bypass.

[Nepentha]

This is a great thing for people who have physical and mental handicaps. I know of at least two people in my FC who are physically handicapped. One of them has a degenerative disease that has robbed her of a lot of mobility. (She used to be a hardcore raider for crissakes until this hit her.) She has a special rig to play the game with. We, her FC, can help her with things that require more than one player. But duties for the MSQ are often solo. Some she can do no problem, others are very difficult and frustrate her. She walks away from those, unable to finish the MSQ sometimes for weeks or months until we figure out a way to get her through it.

Can we please not assume that something (that doesn't affect anyone personally) is automatically a 'lazy' option? kthnx

[Cincierta]

i have an ENTIRE youtube backlog measuring more than 18 hours still in total, the wait's letting me multi task.

Welp, that's me. I still have yet to get through the entire Arad Senki anime because pet hamster videos always take priority.

This is similar to the changes they made for 11's CoP and normal city scenario/leveling chain. It wasn't expected, but I'm guessing someone up top was doing analytics and saw people were not clearing it like they wanted to.

However my question is 'will this actually work or will it break the game again?'

[Lyvi]

I'm still missing the Game Journalist option below Very Easy there

[AngelCheese77]

Sooo.... I had to come here and reply to this.

Difficulties on instances have been around in other games for quite some time, EQ2 comes to mind for me. The best thing is, it doesn't affect you in the slightest!

I read people complaining that it will affect DFs. Trust me, if people stink in DFs, it don't matter what difficulty they put it on.

People will learn ONLY if they want to, and ONLY if they put effort into it. It doesn't matter how many Newbie quests are added or special class quests are made. Even if they are mandatory, there will be players who just follow what is said to get past those quests, then do whatever they feel like.

This update to the instances doesn't bother me one bit.