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.

[Recon1o6]

Was level 12 CNJ really that stressful in 2.0? I was there and found WHM at 50 boring. I can't imagine looking at 4 skills and saying "Enough is too much!"

12 conjurer had by this point had 6 buttons. Stone, cure, aero, medica and two cross class abilities. Since it wasnt much work, these would be thunder and one other of your choice because the first 10 levels were merely a couple of fates and level 5 leves. Pity leves didnt scale well.

I was there too. WHM wasnt as fun as sch that's true, but it was still more fun than today's one button spam. Couple dots to manage, holy that was actually powerful, healing more meaningful, mp management, crowd control and buffs. Mainly self buffing which worked well

[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.

[Saefinn]

Thankfully SE have cold hard experience that doing just this simply doesn't work.

I mained BRD in FFXI, was extremely hardcore into the end game pre CoP. I had pretty much every piece of gear I could want short of a relic (which was an impossibility at the time), yet for me to kill something that gave an amount of exp solo took in the region of about 10-15 minutes. Bards were precisely what these sort of people want healers to be. Pocket enablers to be dragged around and little else. And to the shock of absolutely no one, geared out bard mains were like unicorns. I had my pick of groups and content from the second I logged in to the moment I wanted to sleep because so few people had the mentality to stick with the job and find it enjoyable or rewarding.

That person's suggestion was borderline insulting in my eyes and if these forums weren't so strongly moderated, I'd have some very choice words to offer up in response.

Notice something missing from this job list? (Aside from Dragoon)



I think you are spot on about FFXI BRD and I think it is a fair comparison too... and I too very rarely saw Bard players. Though I know BRD's could be very beneficial to party.

Corsair was one of my mains and I feel like it's the counterpart to this, BRD never appealed to me...pretty much for the reasons you've stated and I think you make a fair comparison. So I never unlocked it.

COR on the other hand had more damage potential than BRD. Heck at a high level COR is capable of some crazy numbers.

But I guess at least now you can summon trusts in FFXI and almost anywhere so it can at least alleviate this problem.

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.

Pretty much this. And the great thing about PF is they can form their own group with their own rules too. We don't have to step on each other's toes after all.

The way I see it:

Duty Finder -> you can get everyone and anyone and it's just a roulette of who you get and you expect different levels of skill, approaches and attitudes.
Party Finder -> you can be more specific in the kind of set up you want and recruit people who fit. It's not infallible, but it's still a useful filter.

Duty Finder I think is great for people who are learning and for lower effort content. So you don't really go in with expectations. I mean, you can maybe expect a base level of competence as I think people obviously have a limit for their own patience.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Was level 12 CNJ really that stressful in 2.0? I was there and found WHM at 50 boring. I can't imagine looking at 4 skills and saying "Enough is too much!"

I find swapping stances and managing stuff like that tedious and annoying to deal with.

[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.

[Ayche]

4v4 PvP is pretty challenging light party content.
Well that aside, extreme dungeons are not an impossible concept, just merely something that does not fit into the production line of the game right now.
Their place in the progression would be weird. Would they be ... easier than ex trials but harder than ... 24s? Or easier than 24s?

[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.