Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Deceptus]

It's correct that they manage to satisfy people that come for the story and music, or FF themes. But they like to deliberately excuse job and role design decisions around those players in mind. Holding back players because others cannot manage to accomplish the same results is a terrible idea.

This is what I don't understand about this. If someone wants to CureBot, that's fine, it's their sub. But they are NOT entitled to a group outside of the Duty Finder. Party finder is for like minded people trying to do content a certain way. Their Group, Their Rules (within the boundaries of the game). So fine, be a CureBot, but don't be surprised if you don't get many groups.

They should introduce optional difficulties. If most players are unable to play at an efficent pace, it makes sense to accommodate them this way. If they are bothered by pressing more than 1-2 buttons, I don't see what's hard by giving them the option to do that. I just don't want to be treated the same way honestly.

This already exists. It's called Normal Mode. EX, Unreal, Savage, and Ultimate exist for a reason on the broad spectrum of difficulty. Harder difficulties require more effort out of players to complete them.

[Shurrikhan]

This already exists. It's called Normal Mode. EX, Unreal, Savage, and Ultimate exist for a reason on the broad spectrum of difficulty. Harder difficulties require more effort out of players to complete them.

This is what I don't understand about this. This rationale is about as relevant as telling a village they needn't be starving because food exists... somewhere.

Yes, an actually compelling difficulty exists... somewhere within the game, but only if you happen to enjoy the means by which that difficulty is provided (e.g., ultra-scripted fights for "difficulty" in Ultimate or extremely long grinds for "difficulty" in solo PotD clears).

You enjoy 4-man content that's not merely a procedurally generated slog? No difficulty for you, I'm afraid. You'd like 8-man content that isn't painfully scripted or limited to perfectly rectangular or circular rooms? No can do, sorry.

At virtually no cost, though, compelling difficulty levels --as giving by having actual options within each different content types-- could exist for... any and all content. That is what your painful oversimplification ignores here.

[Liam_Harper]

Yes, an actually compelling difficulty exists... somewhere within the game, but only if you happen to enjoy the means by which that difficulty is provided (e.g., ultra-scripted fights for "difficulty" in Ultimate or extremely long grinds for "difficulty" in solo PotD clears).

You enjoy 4-man content that's not merely a procedurally generated slog? No difficulty for you, I'm afraid. You'd like 8-man content that isn't painfully scripted or limited to perfectly rectangular or circular rooms? No can do, sorry.

I agree. I like Savage and Ultimates so that itch is scratched somewhat, but there are a lot of things the game simply refuses to do because "a hard difficulty exists". I dislike that large scale raids are strictly limited to faceroll Duty Finder alliance or a niche tucked away somewhere like BA and DR. It's a shame there's no regular semi-casual flexible group sized large raids for FC's to progress in, guild raid night used to be the big thing to look forward to in other games.
4 man content is the other obvious one. It's either faceroll DF dungeons or "go solo PotD lol". I just don't like the format of PotD. It's not a dungeon. It's long, incredibly punishing in a bad way and locked to Save files. It's not something you can grab a few FC or friends and say "hey, anyone up for an EX dungeon or two" and just hop in for fun.

It's always either scripted 8 man, faceroll or full of weird mechanics and niches. But rarely ever just plain regular large raids or dungeons with a bit more bite.

[Gemina]

I agree. I like Savage and Ultimates so that itch is scratched somewhat, but there are a lot of things the game simply refuses to do because "a hard difficulty exists". I dislike that large scale raids are strictly limited to faceroll Duty Finder alliance or a niche tucked away somewhere like BA and DR. It's a shame there's no regular semi-casual flexible group sized large raids for FC's to progress in, guild raid night used to be the big thing to look forward to in other games.
4 man content is the other obvious one. It's either faceroll DF dungeons or "go solo PotD lol". I just don't like the format of PotD. It's not a dungeon. It's long, incredibly punishing in a bad way and locked to Save files. It's not something you can grab a few FC or friends and say "hey, anyone up for an EX dungeon or two" and just hop in for fun.

It's always either scripted 8 man, faceroll or full of weird mechanics and niches. But rarely ever just plain regular large raids or dungeons with a bit more bite.

This game tosses a plethora of content at players in both solo and group formats, and the difficulty range is quite fair for being an mmo wherein the majority of the playerbase has a nice comfort level of where they like to do content. I can't help but facepalm when I see gripes like this. If you are no longer finding anything engaging, I don't think it's the game's fault; I think you're just burned out. Don't take that offensively. It's not meant to be. It's meant to have you take a step back and look around. Imagine being a totally brand new player coming into FFXIV right now.

The majority of the playerbase don't do Ultimate, Savage, or even EX. I mention that not because it's difficult and intimidating to try, but because each of those can be considered their own content, and require their own time investment. The same can be said about content like big game fishing, expert level crafting, housing and gardening, Eureka and Bozja, PoTD and HoH, etc. It's a big 'ol amusement park, and most players don't have the time to try all the rides, or they establish a comfort zone with particular rides and don't want to try the others. You really should be able to find something engaging and fun. If you can't, then you might have to seek out that engagement and challenge elsewhere.

In any case, and still using the park metaphor; you can't hop off the rollercoaster and head over to the Ferris wheel and expect the same kind of thrill, yeah? Don't hop into dungeon after doing savage/ultimate and be like, "You know what would be cool? Some kind of enrage timer to make things interesting!"

[ty_taurus]

This game tosses a plethora of content at players in both solo and group formats, and the difficulty range is quite fair for being an mmo wherein the majority of the playerbase has a nice comfort level of where they like to do content. I can't help but facepalm when I see gripes like this. If you are no longer finding anything engaging, I don't think it's the game's fault; I think you're just burned out. Don't take that offensively. It's not meant to be. It's meant to have you take a step back and look around. Imagine being a totally brand new player coming into FFXIV right now.

The majority of the playerbase don't do Ultimate, Savage, or even EX. I mention that not because it's difficult and intimidating to try, but because each of those can be considered their own content, and require their own time investment. The same can be said about content like big game fishing, expert level crafting, housing and gardening, Eureka and Bozja, PoTD and HoH, etc. It's a big 'ol amusement park, and most players don't have the time to try all the rides, or they establish a comfort zone with particular rides and don't want to try the others. You really should be able to find something engaging and fun. If you can't, then you might have to seek out that engagement and challenge elsewhere.

In any case, and still using the park metaphor; you can't hop off the rollercoaster and head over to the Ferris wheel and expect the same kind of thrill, yeah? Don't hop into dungeon after doing savage/ultimate and be like, "You know what would be cool? Some kind of enrage timer to make things interesting!"

The thing is, your comment is disregarding the entire issue. For healer players, many of whom have become experienced with how healing plays have discovered that healing is very poorly designed for casual content. DPS jobs are engaging at all levels of play. It doesn't matter if it's Ultimate or if it's your dungeon roulette. Sure, Ultimate is still more engaging for those that want to scratch that itch, but even when you're doing your dailies, if you enjoy your DPS job's playstyle, then it's still fun. Meanwhile, once you've understood how healing plays, casual content basically asks you to do nothing. Healing requirements are trivial to which healers don't neve need to stop DPSing to keep the party healthy. I don't really understand why there are some people who find the idea of asking for a job to always be fun for as many players as possible rather than only fun if the fight is pushing you to your limit or you're just not a very experienced healer is such an outrageous request.

This is not a theme park where the content exclusively dictates the experience you receive. The quality of the job you play is half the ride.

[Gemina]

The thing is, your comment is disregarding the entire issue. For healer players, many of whom have become experienced with how healing plays have discovered that healing is very poorly designed for casual content. DPS jobs are engaging at all levels of play. It doesn't matter if it's Ultimate or if it's your dungeon roulette. Sure, Ultimate is still more engaging for those that want to scratch that itch, but even when you're doing your dailies, if you enjoy your DPS job's playstyle, then it's still fun. Meanwhile, once you've understood how healing plays, casual content basically asks you to do nothing. Healing requirements are trivial to which healers don't neve need to stop DPSing to keep the party healthy. I don't really understand why there are some people who find the idea of asking for a job to always be fun for as many players as possible rather than only fun if the fight is pushing you to your limit or you're just not a very experienced healer is such an outrageous request.

This is not a theme park where the content exclusively dictates the experience you receive. The quality of the job you play is half the ride.

Am I disregarding the issue, or are the players I questioned disregarding casual players? One of those two cases fueled my last post, and it's definitely not the former. Having healed in this game for years, across all content except Ultimate, I am all too aware of the issues healers have in regards to their kits and the content. There is nothing wrong with asking for our jobs to be fun, and in the case of healers, we definitely should be receiving the same amount of attention that is paid to other jobs when it comes to making them fun and engaging to play. I will agree that is not happening. What I don't agree with is raising the difficulty level of casual content just because the more advanced players are not engaged. I will never get on board with that, and neither will this dev team. Dungeons like Grand Cosmos, Amaurot, and the Burn are about as tough as they will make 4-man. Players can and will fail mechs in dungeons like those, so healers will need to stay awake. There is Ratholos EX, but I don't count that one because of how healing is set up for that fight.

Healing however, is just a different role from the other two and this just needs to be accepted. Their kits are aimed at sustainability and erasing player mistakes. You're not going to get kits that have an intricate system of cogs that you need to understand in order to pump out respectable damage when those two responsibilities fall squarely on your shoulders. However, this doesn't mean healers can't have rewarding gameplay outside saving a raid from failure. I think that's what this team is still trying to figure out, and I don't think it's as simple as some people are trying to make it out to be.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Am I disregarding the issue, or are the players I questioned disregarding casual players? One of those two cases fueled my last post, and it's definitely not the former. Having healed in this game for years, across all content except Ultimate, I am all too aware of the issues healers have in regards to their kits and the content. There is nothing wrong with asking for our jobs to be fun, and in the case of healers, we definitely should be receiving the same amount of attention that is paid to other jobs when it comes to making them fun and engaging to play. I will agree that is not happening. What I don't agree with is raising the difficulty level of casual content just because the more advanced players are not engaged. I will never get on board with that, and neither will this dev team. Dungeons like Grand Cosmos, Amaurot, and the Burn are about as tough as they will make 4-man. Players can and will fail mechs in dungeons like those, so healers will need to stay awake. There is Ratholos EX, but I don't count that one because of how healing is set up for that fight.

Healing however, is just a different role from the other two and this just needs to be accepted. Their kits are aimed at sustainability and erasing player mistakes. You're not going to get kits that have an intricate system of cogs that you need to understand in order to pump out respectable damage when those two responsibilities fall squarely on your shoulders. However, this doesn't mean healers can't have rewarding gameplay outside saving a raid from failure. I think that's what this team is still trying to figure out, and I don't think it's as simple as some people are trying to make it out to be.

Excellent post and I agree with everything you stated mostly.

[ty_taurus]

Am I disregarding the issue, or are the players I questioned disregarding casual players? One of those two cases fueled my last post, and it's definitely not the former. Having healed in this game for years, across all content except Ultimate, I am all too aware of the issues healers have in regards to their kits and the content. There is nothing wrong with asking for our jobs to be fun, and in the case of healers, we definitely should be receiving the same amount of attention that is paid to other jobs when it comes to making them fun and engaging to play. I will agree that is not happening. What I don't agree with is raising the difficulty level of casual content just because the more advanced players are not engaged. I will never get on board with that, and neither will this dev team. Dungeons like Grand Cosmos, Amaurot, and the Burn are about as tough as they will make 4-man. Players can and will fail mechs in dungeons like those, so healers will need to stay awake. There is Ratholos EX, but I don't count that one because of how healing is set up for that fight.

Healing however, is just a different role from the other two and this just needs to be accepted. Their kits are aimed at sustainability and erasing player mistakes. You're not going to get kits that have an intricate system of cogs that you need to understand in order to pump out respectable damage when those two responsibilities fall squarely on your shoulders. However, this doesn't mean healers can't have rewarding gameplay outside saving a raid from failure. I think that's what this team is still trying to figure out, and I don't think it's as simple as some people are trying to make it out to be.

It makes it very difficult to have a conversation about topics like this when you refuse to read the posts that players make about this issue because many of us couldn't beat a dead horse more than we already are in that none of us are advocating against casual play. If I had a dollar for every time someone has brought up "raise the skill ceiling without touching the skill floor" I'd be playing this game for free every month and then some. If you don't care enough to read any of our posts, then fine, but don't think you can weigh in on the subject because you don't know what you're responding to.

I'll say it again, Let healing be accessible and forgiving but at the same time design healing to be fun for all levels of skill at all levels of difficulty from dungeons to Ultimate. These two sides are not mutually exclusive. You can have both, and it's really not that hard to do. The problem is that we are the vocal minority, and there are too many new players flooding the queues to make our dissatisfaction make an impact. That's not to say that it's the new players fault, but rather, that SE should want healing to be fun for all skill levels, but they don't have to. They can not do anything about it and suffer no negative consequences, so why waste the resources that you could otherwise spend in other areas of the game?

[Liam_Harper]

I can't help but facepalm when I see gripes like this. If you are no longer finding anything engaging, I don't think it's the game's fault; I think you're just burned out. Don't take that offensively. It's not meant to be.

Whenever I read nonsense like this I facepalm too. We can facepalm at each other c:

I'm entitled to have preferences. I've never really liked dungeons, alliance raids or PotD ever since I started the game, so I haven't burnt on them, I just think they're bland, boring, throwaway content and always have. I still enjoy plenty of other content, great story, hard content is great, crafting is good, customization is good. Overall I like FF14. I just don't have strong preferences on their casual content. I think it's wasted potential that 4 man dungeons and alliance raids are solely limited to faceroll duty finder.

[Sebazy]

This game tosses a plethora of content at players in both solo and group formats, and the difficulty range is quite fair for being an mmo wherein the majority of the playerbase has a nice comfort level of where they like to do content. I can't help but facepalm when I see gripes like this. If you are no longer finding anything engaging, I don't think it's the game's fault; I think you're just burned out. Don't take that offensively. It's not meant to be. It's meant to have you take a step back and look around. Imagine being a totally brand new player coming into FFXIV right now.

The issue with this argument is that the game forces me to participate in brain dead trivial content despite the fact that progression raiding is what I enjoy. I still need to farm up materia, gear, currencies etc.

And yeah it would be fair to say that I'm burned out. But let's be clear here, I'm burned out of sitting there in fights spending most of my time mashing glare to the same tempo regardless of what I'm doing. I'm not burned out on actually healing, it's just that I rarely ever actually get pressured to heal.

I genuinely cannot wait to get back into levelling dungeons and new primals whilst being under geared. But that's only going to last for so long before we're back to the same status quo =/