The state of Thordan normal mode

[Vahlnir]

It wasn't even that hard when it was fresh and current, to be fair. But yeah, it could use some fine tuning at this point.

[CodeAvellus]

I mean its proven that they aren't loosing money from their newest earnings report and that even takes into account the dead time they stopped selling the game. Since ShB it's playerbase has been increasing each year so they aren't actually loosing money in this regard thats for sure. There are many hoops stopping people playing the game but people have to remember its not exactly a new title, I mean you can play Lost Ark and enjoy a terribly written and paced, badly voiced story or WoW not barely having any voiced lines besides lines. ESO granted yes is fully voiced but suffers samey syndrome where its like the same 10 people are doing all the work. I am not defending the sporadic use of voice work in 14 im fine with the text reading its just where they pick to voice and dont voice is my issue.

When I say that they are losing money, i say that because they could earn even more money. When I say that sporadic voice lines is a problem in this game, that's not based on my opinion, that's what people in 2022 thinks.
I play this game since 2013, i don't really mind about that, but if you see the feedback of almost everyone that didn't like the experience of playing FFXIV, almost everyone will say 2 things: Lack of challenges for new players and lack of voice acting.

Look, i don't disagree with you, but i think we can't just look to feedbacks of veteran players.
We are getting off topic here, but I will give you another example that repel new players and makes SE "lose money"
I don't speak spanish, but i know that half a billion of people speaks ONLY spanish, do you think that most of those players will keep playing the game if they can't understand the story?

I just want to see this game even more popular and more attractive to new players.

[CodeAvellus]

Wanna know the sad thing? It wasn't even that hard when it first came out. I should know. I've been playing the game since 2.1 and Thordan Normal was a breeze. Great music and visuals but cleared on the first try. I remember it was kinda of a buzz that they promised that the Extreme version of the fight would be much harder and boy it was. That would be the version that we would be seeing for an unreal.

Yeah, it was not that hard, you just needed to at least avoid AoEs. I think that they could just adjust the level sync and the fight would be fine, but should we wait years to see a change like this?

[Ath192]

That fight is an embarrassment. And you know what? People should dance inside of his AOEs and post videos about it. If being ridiculous is the only way to have SE pay attention to the issue and make game content more engaging then that’s what we must do.

[Lauront]

It is definitely one of those things where a lack of difficulty actually hurts the narrative punch. It feels like you are bullying an old man.

I think MSQ trials like Shinryu or Tsukuoyomi are sufficient for an MSQ trial. They are not hard in the grand scheme of the game but it's enough to make sure sprouts are awake when they get there in the story. Make it feel like you had to fight to get to the next plot point.

I agree - I think Tsukuyomi aged well. SoS is also pretty good. Those two are around the difficulty I'd consider good for a MSQ trial. My hope with the trust system eventually coming in for more trials, is that they can use that as an opportunity to limit any really dumbed down content to an optional form of the trust trial, and unshackle themselves when it comes to DF versions. Perhaps an idle hope, but as you say, this sort of thing actually hurts the narrative punch.

[Skyborne]

Funnily enough, I remember Ser Charibert's fight in The Vault causing more players to struggle than the actual Thordan trial. Not sure if this is the case still.

[Mapleine]

I, mean that's the whole game more or less. Legacy content is more or less smashed and the sync system doesn't protect much anymore.

There's like only a small handful of fights at a given time that even require a heal to be cast and Yoshi P is too busy gushing about wanting to charge us a sub for a single player game to lift a finger on the content we have to repeat for two years.

Funnily enough, I remember Ser Charibert's fight in The Vault causing more players to struggle than the actual Thordan trial. Not sure if this is the case still.

It is.

[Jeeqbit]

Content designed for 8 or 24 players gets synced to the maximum item level of the expansion, so the content released closer to the beginning or middle of the expansion ends up in this state where you skip all of the mechanics, nothing hurts and it's hard for veterans to see content that used to be fun no longer requiring you to be alert. The stat squish has helped this in some fights, such as a lot of the alexander fights, but it's still a problem in some of them.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I agree - I think Tsukuyomi aged well. SoS is also pretty good. Those two are around the difficulty I'd consider good for a MSQ trial.

To be fair, though, those are x.3 trials. Those would be closer to Nidhogg at the Final Steps of Faith, which can still trip up new players (mostly because it's the first appearance of the standard stack marker in required content). Shinryu and Hades haven't aged quite as well, although they're nowhere near the faceroll of Thordan.

[Jennah]

Thordan was *almost* this easy on release. All the guides at the time pointed out how to beat Lahabrea&Igeoyhm, and then just said "Sit back and enjoy the final fight."

SE went the opposite direction with Shinryu, and oh BOY, the howls of the playerbase were massive.