The MSQ Endwalker Trial Bosses are WAY too hard for newer players to FFXIV

[Ronduwil]

Mt Gulag at level 79 had the same mechanic as Zodiark, nice try though. If you can't make the comparison of reading stars in the sky as a location compared to a pancake maker, that's on you.

Yeah, but it was front and center there. I didn't have to strain my aging eyes to make out the configuration of the blurs in the background. The giant tic-tac-toe board with giant golden faces is much easier to read, especially when it's also the boss that you're beating on.

[TaleraRistain]

Yeah, but it was front and center there. I didn't have to strain my aging eyes to make out the configuration of the blurs in the background. The giant tic-tac-toe board with giant golden faces is much easier to read, especially when it's also the boss that you're beating on.

Not to mention we're conditioned to look at the floor for things happening. In my first few runs, people just said "Follow the pattern" and it wasn't until someone took a second to say "Point your camera up at the sky and you'll see" that I finally saw where to find the pattern. I make sure when I help anyone now I explain that tidbit.

[Ransu]

Not to mention we're conditioned to look at the floor for things happening. In my first few runs, people just said "Follow the pattern" and it wasn't until someone took a second to say "Point your camera up at the sky and you'll see" that I finally saw where to find the pattern. I make sure when I help anyone now I explain that tidbit.

To be fair, they did introduce the whole meteor mechanic thing the if I recall correctly level 87 dungeon.

[LukaRoselia]

Honestly the only answer I can give is deal with it. This is what 99% of the game being a faceroll causes. Players don't have to use their brains in almost all of the content because it's so easy and unchallenging so in the few instances that it is actually a challenge they want it made easier instead of just getting better. This what happens when you spoon feed and hand hold.

[Ronduwil]

This what happens when you spoon feed and hand hold.

It really irks me when players compare a video game with raising and/or educating children. The other popular comparison is a workplace. A video game is none of those things. The game has one and one purpose only: fun. If it's not fun for someone, then it has failed in its purpose. You could argue that it's fun for you, and I'll buy that. However, the argument that, "It's fun for me so it would have been fun for you if only you hadn't been treated like a baby all game long," just doesn't fly. If the player had fun all the way up to level 87, and suddenly they're faced with a mandatory roadblock that isn't fun for them, then the game has failed in its purpose. The beauty of this game is that instances like that are few and far between, which is why they're so jarring when you encounter them. 99% of the game is a faceroll to the hardcores who tend to post on these forums for a good reason: it's intended to be fun for the general public to play, and a faceroll is what most players prefer. I realize that's hard to believe if you only ever solicit feeback from your fellow forum dwellers, but it's the truth.

[Packetdancer]

Yeah, but it was front and center there. I didn't have to strain my aging eyes to make out the configuration of the blurs in the background. The giant tic-tac-toe board with giant golden faces is much easier to read, especially when it's also the boss that you're beating on.

Additionally, the Mt. Gulg patterns are all symmetrical; you don't have to decide whether it's a view of the arena seen from above (in which case, boss-relative 'north' would be the top of the pattern), or a waffle iron lid that closes down on the arena (in which case, the bottom of the pattern is the side of the arena the pattern is on, so for Mt. Gulg would make the boss-relative 'north' the bottom of the pattern). Two of the patterns on the level 83 trial are symmetrical -- no matter what side you think is what, you'll be safe in the same spots -- but one is not. And in my experience getting that fight in trial roulette, it's that non-symmetrical one that most often nukes first-timers.

But as I've said before, I think some of us -- myself included -- have a skewed idea of what "easy" is. Those of us who do savage raiding are very used to needing to read the environment for (slightly) more subtle cues as to where to go for a given mechanic, even in sometimes visually-cluttered or indistinct arenas. (P3S waves hello, and dumps a giant pile of yellow, red, and orange crayons on your head.) Moreover, we're used to the fact that most things have a relatively straightforward solution, even if that solution is obscured behind a lot of smoke-and-mirrors flashy visuals, as I've noted before.

Whereas the number of fights where you need to do anything like that in normal content -- versus having giant floor markers -- is fairly small. There's the aforementioned boss fight in Mt. Gulg (with attacks telegraphed on its face), as well as the miniboss after it who telegraphs attacks with giant raised fists (a method also used on the second boss of the Swallow's Compass among others), there's the final boss of the Drowned City of Skalla (where the attacks are telegraphed by raised hand, raised tail, etc.), and so on. Moreover, even when they are telegraphed by something other than giant danger floor markers in normal fights, it's often very large and hard to miss. Like the "raised fist" mechanic, or the time-lasers on the final boss of the Twinning; when a giant laser cannon is pointed at your face, generally you're going to move regardless of whether or not there are "this is bad" markers on the floor!

I still feel like objectively, the mechanics themselves in the trials are not that hard; once folks know how to read the patterns they're pretty easy for most folks I've encountered. However, watching non-raider friends do the trials and get frustrated, it has become clear to me that things some of us take for granted -- i.e., "be aware of the environment at all times for any cues to upcoming mechanics" -- is not reflexive for folks who don't raid. And I think that is where folks are feeling like the mechanics are difficult. Not because the mechanics themselves are difficult, but because unless folks tell them, it likely just seems like where is safe and where is not is kind of arbitrary.

Or because when they are told, they're still not used to knowing a fight timeline and to look towards where the cues will be ahead of time; I do think the timing on some of those mechanics is not super forgiving if you're like "OH NO WAIT THIS PART" and spinning your camera wildly at the last moment to find where the thing that tells you what to do is.

(Whereas after farming for the mount from the extreme version of that fight, I reflexively know what the third meteor hit in that version of the fight will be just from the first two, because there's only like 4 patterns and they got ingrained in my brain.)

I suspect the other part of it is being self-conscious. With a dungeon, someone can run it with Trusts as many times as they want and not worry about annoying strangers. Trials -- with one exception -- cannot be run with trusts, and in my experience people who are having trouble with a mechanic worry that they're going to annoy everyone else or make them impatient or whatnot... and when you're flustered and self-conscious, that is not a recipe for something to 'click' for you.

To be fair, they did introduce the whole meteor mechanic thing the if I recall correctly level 87 dungeon.

While you're right (though it was level 85), those happen one row at a time (and where you're already looking towards the boss), whereas the waffle irons cover the entire arena and come from three different directions.

As noted, I suspect the latter is harder to read for those not used to it.

[Minarisweet]

Honestly to keep the game consistently boring they should nerf first two trials, the third one isn't that hard and it will keep getting easier with ilevel.

[Rilifane]

It really irks me when players compare a video game with raising and/or educating children. The other popular comparison is a workplace. A video game is none of those things. The game has one and one purpose only: fun. If it's not fun for someone, then it has failed in its purpose. You could argue that it's fun for you, and I'll buy that. However, the argument that, "It's fun for me so it would have been fun for you if only you hadn't been treated like a baby all game long," just doesn't fly. If the player had fun all the way up to level 87, and suddenly they're faced with a mandatory roadblock that isn't fun for them, then the game has failed in its purpose. The beauty of this game is that instances like that are few and far between, which is why they're so jarring when you encounter them. 99% of the game is a faceroll to the hardcores who tend to post on these forums for a good reason: it's intended to be fun for the general public to play, and a faceroll is what most players prefer. I realize that's hard to believe if you only ever solicit feeback from your fellow forum dwellers, but it's the truth.

"The truth" - because you said so?
The problem isn't the difficulty itself because believe it or not, most players are not as dumb as you may think and can adjust naturally to a slightly, gradually increasing difficulty without even noticing. The problem is that the absolute majority of the MSQ content is designed to be extremely easy with an option to make it even easier and then SE suddenly adds something with a noticeably increased difficulty. Titania was notorious, still is to some degree, because besides some mechanics that required some attention and watching the battlefield, like the star markers, she also had a dps check that was easy enough to fail for the average MSQ player.
And not because it was so tight -- it wasn't. But the MSQ doesn't usually have those and people got used to not having to do anything. You could auto most bosses to death. It would take extremely long but it was entirely possible.
The 2nd trial itself isn't overtuned or unfair but if the game teaches you for 87 levels, with a few outliers, that you don't have to pay attention or push buttons, it's all fine anyway and then suddenly requires you to just that, it will come across as much more difficult than it is. People are able to adapt to a certain degree but it needs to be something consistent. I'm not saying every trial, starting from story Ifrit, should be on mommy level but the back-and-forth difficulty isn't doing the players any favours either.

[Ronduwil]

"The truth" - because you said so?

Because YoshiP himself said so. He admitted that he doesn't make the game to suit his preferences because he's a "heavy player" who prefers harder content. Instead he tailors the game's difficulty to whatever the company's research indicates is suitable.

The problem isn't the difficulty itself because believe it or not, most players are not as dumb as you may think and can adjust naturally to a slightly, gradually increasing difficulty without even noticing.

Most of the late game difficulty isn't a matter of intelligence. The days when the difficulty lay in puzzling out mechanics and strategizing accordingly are long gone because now the solutions are crowdsourced and published to the internet in a matter of hours. Instead, it's a matter of reflexes, and many players just don't have them, especially the older crowd (of which I am a part). Sorry, but I can't anticipate and dodge as easily as I could 25 years ago. Maybe in your eyes that makes me stupid, but my mom always had a Spanish saying about that which translates to, "Someday you'll see yourself the way you see me."

The 2nd trial itself isn't overtuned or unfair but if the game teaches you for 87 levels, with a few outliers, that you don't have to pay attention or push buttons, it's all fine anyway and then suddenly requires you to just that, it will come across as much more difficult than it is. People are able to adapt to a certain degree but it needs to be something consistent. I'm not saying every trial, starting from story Ifrit, should be on mommy level but the back-and-forth difficulty isn't doing the players any favours either.

TBH, it doesn't even require anything of you. Most likely, if you can't hack it, you'll just get carried by the seven other players who can. Does it feel great to floor tank your way through a crucial part of your quest though? I would say not.

[MagicalChase]

Your friends need to take Cranky's Advice and acquire more skill