Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Recon1o6]

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?

It depends which ex trials and 24 mans really. Copied factory for example is far too easy whereas Sephirot ex would be hell.

With regards to actual dungeons, at the very least a general difficulty increase to similar to the original pharos sirius would be a good start. It wasn't hard by any means, but lots of dungeon players don't even bother to dodge aoes.

In terms of where they would be in the gearing. Well there's always a gap in the levelling process at least for armour and accessories. For example: there's no ilvl 465 armour or accessories nor ilvl 515. Accessories are also missing at ilvl 495. There are extremes at these levels that award weapons. 465- hades, 495-wol, 515-emerald

Normal story dungeons are always catch up in terms of gear level.

I would say the difficulty should be the likes of tower at paradigms breach at a minimum and Titan extreme as a maximum. There's duties easier and harder on both sides for both difficulties.
Certainly you don't want them as undertuned as the majority of shb's extremes have been. (17 deaths vs varis and we still cleared with time to spare? ridiculous)

[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 =/

[Shurrikhan]

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 =/

It's kind of funny to think how much more engaging the content itself of a game like this might be... if it just literally had no vertical progression (gear-wise, that is -- or, beyond having cleared increasingly difficult challenges).

But, then, where would the extrinsic carrot be?

[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.

[Kabooa]

It's kind of funny to think how much more engaging the content itself of a game like this might be... if it just literally had no vertical progression (gear-wise, that is -- or, beyond having cleared increasingly difficult challenges).

But, then, where would the extrinsic carrot be?

Petition a certain site to add a "M.I.N.E." ranking category.

[Gemina]

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 =/

I hear you. However, the game does not force you to heal braindead content in order to gear up for progression raiding. You are completely free to use another job to grind out roulettes and use those tomes to gear up your healers. Correct me if I am wrong here, but I think the only thing that forces you grind content as the job you're gearing for are the relic weapons, which is also optional. That's a little neither here or there though. I get that healers want to be engaged in ALL content they participate in, and shouldn't have to play another job to gear up the one they would rather be playing. I agree with that 100%, but I did need to point out that a player is not forced to endure the one-button smash dance.

W2W pulls in dungeons, Alliance raids, and NM raids with new players should be getting you to open up your healing kits a little more in casual content. It's probably not the push many healers are looking for, but these encounters are still going to push lesser experienced healers, and that's the elephant in the room. It can be tricky releasing content that is punishing enough wherein if the healer dies, the team fails; especially in 4-man. While I don't think the devs are deliberately punishing healers for playing their jobs correctly, I do think they do a fair bit of 'helicopter parenting' when it comes to healer design. I think that in order to give healers such as yourself what they're asking for, they are going to have to loosen their grip a bit.

[Mortex]

I hear you. However, the game does not force you to heal braindead content in order to gear up for progression raiding. You are completely free to use another job to grind out roulettes and use those tomes to gear up your healers. Correct me if I am wrong here, but I think the only thing that forces you grind content as the job you're gearing for are the relic weapons, which is also optional. That's a little neither here or there though. I get that healers want to be engaged in ALL content they participate in, and shouldn't have to play another job to gear up the one they would rather be playing. I agree with that 100%, but I did need to point out that a player is not forced to endure the one-button smash dance.

W2W pulls in dungeons, Alliance raids, and NM raids with new players should be getting you to open up your healing kits a little more in casual content. It's probably not the push many healers are looking for, but these encounters are still going to push lesser experienced healers, and that's the elephant in the room. It can be tricky releasing content that is punishing enough wherein if the healer dies, the team fails; especially in 4-man. While I don't think the devs are deliberately punishing healers for playing their jobs correctly, I do think they do a fair bit of 'helicopter parenting' when it comes to healer design. I think that in order to give healers such as yourself what they're asking for, they are going to have to loosen their grip a bit.

I’m pretty sure you can farm the new relics with any job you want as long as you have the quest for it. If this continues in endwalker you don’t even need to play healer too get a healer weapon

[Sebazy]

I hear you. However, the game does not force you to heal braindead content in order to gear up for progression raiding. You are completely free to use another job to grind out roulettes and use those tomes to gear up your healers. Correct me if I am wrong here, but I think the only thing that forces you grind content as the job you're gearing for are the relic weapons, which is also optional. That's a little neither here or there though. I get that healers want to be engaged in ALL content they participate in, and shouldn't have to play another job to gear up the one they would rather be playing. I agree with that 100%, but I did need to point out that a player is not forced to endure the one-button smash dance.

Agreed, it just pains me because my past history of MMOs was never a problem with being a 1 trick. In Everquest my Shaman was an absolute monster, if I could slow it and it didn't DT, I could solo it. If I couldn't slow it, I still had a chance if it didn't just rampage me into the floor within a few seconds. FFXI? It took me a long long time to kill anything but again, if I could sleep it, I could kill it, and one beauty of being one of maybe 2 active high end non JP BRD mains on my server was that people weren't too inclined to MPK me to steal whatever I was killing For WoW and Warhammer online, my Shaman and WP were both a pleasure to solo and grind PvE when needed.

Meanwhile in FFXIV, it's pretty much as you say. I'm hitting the point now where I'm clawing at the Dancer button the second I'm not in Extreme or Savage content for the sake of my will to continue playing.

It's a sad state of affairs IMHO.

[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.

[Gemina]

Agreed, it just pains me because my past history of MMOs was never a problem with being a 1 trick. In Everquest my Shaman was an absolute monster, if I could slow it and it didn't DT, I could solo it. If I couldn't slow it, I still had a chance if it didn't just rampage me into the floor within a few seconds. FFXI? It took me a long long time to kill anything but again, if I could sleep it, I could kill it, and one beauty of being one of maybe 2 active high end non JP BRD mains on my server was that people weren't too inclined to MPK me to steal whatever I was killing For WoW and Warhammer online, my Shaman and WP were both a pleasure to solo and grind PvE when needed.

Meanwhile in FFXIV, it's pretty much as you say. I'm hitting the point now where I'm clawing at the Dancer button the second I'm not in Extreme or Savage content for the sake of my will to continue playing.

It's a sad state of affairs IMHO.

Oh yeah, my nostalgia goes way back as well. I mained RDM in XI, and experienced it when it turned from a debuffing monster to a refresh/cure bot. The days where you were told to put your main weapon down because your damage was laughable, and took a knee to regain mana during combat. As uphill as times were back then, I miss them too. FFXIV is too aged now and well past those days. I wouldn't call it a sad state. Just a different one. When you've been playing the game for a really long time, you just have to go out there and find things you enjoy doing.

It is in the very nature of mmos to change. Certain things you once enjoyed will be lost, and other things will come around that you pick up. It's just how those virtual worlds spin, and players have to adapt if they are to continue finding enjoyment in the same mmo.