Can we finally get real content / gameplay?

[ssunny2008]

snip

If i would dislike the game that much, i wouldn´t have played it that long. The issue is still about the ongoing road downhill to make the game easier and easier. Especially SHB brought a lot of bad and way to easy content, noob changes and class dumbdowns. With Endwalker the route even seems to move downhill again. Healer homogenization and even more casualized pvp is on the way.

I don´t thinks that fates are pointless as the given content. But it´s pointless that the devs want us to do them in any given way.
It´s nice to have them to level up especially as DPS while waiting for dungeon queues. The chain fates or overall fatebosses with some special loot are fine aswell and they bring a bit life to the overworld. But that they are parts of different questlines or hunts is a no go. They have become like 50% of all content, which is just a lazy and stupid design. They´re not even optional overworld stuff, you´ve to grind 1000s of them to unlock vendors in SHB, to finish a bunch of relic weapons quests and you don´t do anything else in bozja or eureka. Ok, in eureka you´ve the elemental design and bozja ones has some mechanics, but it´s nothing deep or challenging, it´s just fategrind over and over again.
That said, i don´t want them to be removed. The devs just need to stop the permanent re-use and spam of them in form of some quests or releveling in alternative content.

With exploration i don´t mean exploration as "exploring the dungeon to unlock the mapshadows". They should just make more use of different pathes or secret rooms, whatever.
As i´ve said for example:

- Different pathings or player decisions could cause different bosses with different loot.
- Sidequests in dungeons could give extra XP / Gil or even open a path to a harder bonus boss right before the dungeon boss. This boss could drop rare pets, special crafting recipes or maybe 1 / 3 token for a mount. The other 2 can be dropped by other bonus bosses from this tier.
- Crafter could be used to open abbrevations, to bring an droid or turret back to life which is following you. Gatherer on the other side might be able to collect raremats here and there.

Overall dungeons should get harder. The challenge is not existend. My latest example would be mentorroulette where i´ve killed 50% of the endboss in amaurot solo as tank. Like wtf?! The current learning curve is not really existent as much as the loot is completely irrelevant. In other MMO´s dungeons made you stronger, you did them for fun on one hand and for the better gear pieces on the other. In FF you run level 60 dungeons with level 50 gear and you get 1 item from the boss for sure. The chests are not really needed and dps / heal a joke. Just pull less adds, bosses are no fear. You won´t even have any issue, you just need more time.
This is a serious issue in their core design. Players don´t grow, don´t get stronger. You´re just getting carried by experienced players with downgraded high-end gear. And good players don´t want to run them again since it´s overall pointless. You´ll get your raidgear via duty finder marks instead of challenging content which prepares yourself in form of difficulty and loot for incoming raid tiers.
It´s ok if normal dungeons aren´t that big of a deal, but they should bring hardcore dungeons with the named difficulty increasing and better loot aswell.

Just take the coinfinder or chimera for example. Both came up pretty new with a text message or just a short castbar. Coinfinder got hard "nerfed" again cause ppl had troubles?! I don´t get it. That´s the point where SE fails completely and forgets that this is a MMORPG. It´s a teamgame, players should help each other and find out new mechanics and how to play around them. But no, they nerf everything into nowhere.
The endboss of Totorak is a good example too or even the overall dungeon. Imagine the endboss and the plants dot would hit harder, so Esuna or kite management is highly needed. Even the addspawns and the idea with the sting are great, but it´s still not a fear since the players are way too strong even with trashgear. Oh and Soft-enrages would be fine too if you can´t manage e.g. to destroy the sting within 20s?!
Other stuff are debuffs or interrupts via silence and cc, ressourcemanagement aswell. While the first stuff is rarely a thing and mostly not even usable on big adds or bosses, the ressoucemanagement is gone completely. It makes the overall class gameplay less challenging and dungeons / raids even worse.

Another example in kind of raiding could be the good old ramuh. Players had to work together and everyone had to had a look at the orbs, debuffs etc. The fight don´t have much mechanics, but a lot of randomness so everyone had to take care. Stuff like alexander with DPS checks on adds, the heal / tank / DPS cages are a good thing too.
We need way more content which forces the player and classes on theirself and not just stack spread aoes. Even playing as OT is more like "please invul this tankbuster" and not to be a tank. We need more double / triple bosses. Adds like Zurvan which needs to be focused down BUT with the boss on the map and not as an extra. Random aggro loss where the boss needs to be taunt back, so the next cast goes onto the tank and not into the group. Kiting mechanics even as DPS or heal. And and and...
What we´ve now are fights, which are perfect matched on class cooldowns who just spam aoes or knockbacks mostly. Even the current E12s with the debuffs is not challenging, just a pain for unlucky melee dps. And on top of that, if 1 guy fails, it´s mostly a wipe.

Sad to say, with all the class dumb downs, we´ve even lost a lot of possibilities in the making of good content. Tanks can´t really protect the group, but are undying by themself. DPS can´t protect themself and even the health / MR / PR balance design is a joke. It´s all about healers in any content. In kind of dungeons, you can solo pretty much everything as tank atleast.
So as i´ve said, while Esuna, silence and cc are still a thing, it´s not even used properly by the devs. Not to say that the most players don´t even know about esuna or silence skills. Why don´t have a boss who wipes the group with debuffs or if it´s not getting silenced? Just for the fact to LEARN something?

Imagine, any new dungeons are like "go in, do big pulls, kill the boss". I personally don´t care for anything there, because it´s wall to wall anyway. Wasted efford in class, content and art design. Meanwhile raids are made of an aoe every 60s together with stack spread / tb between them. Such design like the weapons where you´ve to move onto some obstacles or to avoid splash aoes isn´t that big deal too. It´s all standard and low budget design. It´s stuff you normally learn in the first 2h in any MMORPG.

Overall the classdesign would be an endless discussion too.


Sad to see SE´s route with the game. "Casualisation" isn´t even the correct word, it´s more like "Noobisation". Any casual can run and finish the current content, just the last fights of savage (E12s / E8s / etc.) might be hard without Relic and transendence DPS buffs. But mechanical - wise it´s definately not and reached with SHB the worst state of the gameplay ever.
It just needs to stop. I don´t know how poeple have fun while running braindead content. It´s just a timesink isn´t it? Wouldn´t you have more fun to beat a challenge together with friends?

I really don´t ask for serious elitism content as other games have nightmare options in their raids. I ask for content which is more than just a beautiful environment or a circle arena. Content with variation, which make use of the utility we have on our classes and which still forces us to grow or to find new and different strategies. Content with better and even rare loot instead of some tombstones from a level 15 dungeon. Or even content we can prepare ourself better with a little skilltree like "better shields, dots tick longer, lower gapcloser cooldowns, whatever".

Wall to wall, 123 combos, move to your marker, stack / spread, invul... this shouldn´t be the answer for everything.

Good luck getting an answer from them going by the absurd levels of reductionism and vagueness displayed here.

Imagine ppl would actually concentrate on the topic instead of "playing psychotherapist" or just hunting for some thumbsups.