the normal content is too easy

[Ronduwil]

Having the Hall of Novice updated or having secondary one later for common mechanics would be beneficial.

Honestly, this would be great. I wish they would expand Hall of the Novice every expansion to include training in all of the raid mechanics you're going to see at least in normal mode. The weird number puzzles, ladder puzzles, and random flashing lights with hidden meanings that you encounter in some of the later raids are really off-putting the first few times through.

[Ronduwil]

I think it's important that people remember that difficulty is completely subjective. I'm a double legend and cleared the current savage tier really early, so is the normal content hard for me? Of course not. But I regularly see groups hardcore struggle in normal level content when I do mentor roulette. I've seen groups wipe 5 times in a row to some of the new story trials. (new story trial 2 especially) I still see groups wipe to P2+P3 normal A LOT in mentor roulette.

Thank you! I don't think this can be repeated enough. Players who only ever interact with their raiding FC, the Balance Discord, and/or the players on this forum really lack the perspective to judge what is and isn't difficult.

Even when we do get normal content that's designed to be harder, people just avoid it anyways. Orbonne is my favorite 24 man this game has ever released and I never get to do it because everyone just ilevel cheeses alliance raids to get LOTA. And we're about to get to experience the glory and chaos of getting to do a new 24 man day 1, which is one of my favorite experiences to have in the game outside of savage/ultimate.

Exactly. To me, this is the biggest supporting evidence of my hotly contested assertion that players prefer easy content, and that's why SE keeps the content simple. If everyone were really craving the level of challenge that so many on this forum claim should be the baseline for all players, no one who be cheesing the roulette in this manner.

[Ronduwil]

Threads like this one are ultimately pointless because Square and the FF14 developers are treading the same water as the competition, in race to the bottom. Happens with every major game/franchise now. Offensive to all offensive to none.

I agree that they're pointless, but you're seeing this as a race or competition to breed champion gamers. SE is running a different race: make as much cash as possible. How do they do that? By attracting the most players. How do they do that? By providing content with mass appeal. By their measure, they're not "racing to the bottom." They're actually gaining ground quite rapidly by making a game that appeals to everyone, not just hardcore players.

[LittleImp]

Exactly. To me, this is the biggest supporting evidence of my hotly contested assertion that players prefer easy content, and that's why SE keeps the content simple. If everyone were really craving the level of challenge that so many on this forum claim should be the baseline for all players, no one who be cheesing the roulette in this manner.

Some people prefer CT series raids because it offers a more efficient reward/time ratio. It appears in roulettes constantly because it's 1. Required by the MSQ and 2. only takes 1 person to cheese their ilevel to force 23 people into it. if you actually ask most players what their favorite 24 man is, almost no one is going to actually answer with Crystal Tower. People constantly complain about this problem, and it's lead to many players simply no longer queuing for Alliance Raid Roulette.

[Dzian]

Exactly. To me, this is the biggest supporting evidence of my hotly contested assertion that players prefer easy content, and that's why SE keeps the content simple. If everyone were really craving the level of challenge that so many on this forum claim should be the baseline for all players, no one who be cheesing the roulette in this manner.

People cheese the roulette because they've ran the things a thousand times already and are bored af of them and ultimately just want to get in get tomes / exp and gtfo..

it'll be the exact same when 6.1 lands. new 24 man raid. be fun for a few days.. but by the time 6.2 or 6.3 lands players will be sick to death of it because they're ran it hundreds of times trying to get there weekly drops or whatever.

[MisterNublet]

I agree that they're pointless, but you're seeing this as a race or competition to breed champion gamers. SE is running a different race: make as much cash as possible. How do they do that? By attracting the most players. How do they do that? By providing content with mass appeal. By their measure, they're not "racing to the bottom." They're actually gaining ground quite rapidly by making a game that appeals to everyone, not just hardcore players.

What content with mass appeal? They hardly even appealed to the mid-core community, let alone the hardcore players. Them turning the game into a visual novel with baby's first MMO gameplay isn't going to keep people around for long.

Rapidly gaining ground? We're already back to pre-WoW failure/Twitch streamer induced player numbers. Vast majority of the streamers and the players they've brought have already moved on from FFXIV because of the lack of interesting, fun content.

[Adeacia]

Popularity on twitch has nothing to do with anything. This isn't a game that lends itself to being watched in the first place.

[ICountFrom0]

This was the expected result when we dropped to one dungeon per patch.

The MSQ has to stay at least kind of easy.

The other stuff, the more intersting stuff, the stuff where they returned to a dungeon a second time and made it (hard) or it was side content and never required so it could just be harder...

Yha, we don't get that anymore.

We seem to not be worth that anymore.

They are doing a lot of side stuff, a deep dungeon, maybe an entire forray area, and there's the crystal dungeons thing... I'm hoping one of those feels as good as dungeons used to.

[Rhysati]

I've seen groups wipe 5 times in a row to some of the new story trials.

Well sure, but that's not because it's difficult. It's because they haven't memorized the mechanics yet. When you get a party with people who know the fights they usually got pretty swimmingly. Heck, I just did one for the second time since I first did it when the xpac launched. We wiped. But was it hard? No. We got unlucky, a healer stood in the wrong place and the other healer had already burned their instant-cast on something else. So we wiped. We picked ourselves up and breezed through it on the second go. And this was a pug.

But even still, I wouldn't consider a few trials that you never have to do again(hence why I never did it again after the first time and had completely forgotten it) as really pushing the limits of difficulty. I, for one, appreciated that it was at least not so easy as to be a snorefest.

But the dungeons? They are some of the most dull, boring experiences that literally reward groups to pull 3-4 groups of enemies all at once to speed along without even breaking a sweat. That shouldn't be how a dungeon works. Especially not current tier content. That doesn't mean it has to crush casual players or anything. It should just be a little bit of a challenge so it feels like effort you are being rewarded for. As it stands it is a boring chore to do so you can get tomes and that's just bad design.

Even when we do get normal content that's designed to be harder, people just avoid it anyways. Orbonne is my favorite 24 man this game has ever released and I never get to do it because everyone just ilevel cheeses alliance raids to get LOTA.

I think you are missing the actual issue. The issue isn't that it's hard so people don't want to do it. It's because there's no POINT to doing it. You aren't rewarded for the increased effort so why bother? If you have a choice between shopping in an empty store vs shopping during black friday but with the exact same deals available? You'd choose to go on the empty day. Why? Because it isn't worth the headache, effort, or your time to go fuss about with massive crowds for the exact same rewards. People go to black friday sales and put up with the difficulties because the rewards are worth their time investment. As a roleplayer, even the outfits from that tier of raids are low quality and nothing I'd ever use on any of my characters. I don't know a single other roleplayer who wants them either. And what do you get for your time and effort? The exact same thing you get on a much easier and less time-invasive raid. So why do it?

If the goal is to make the entire game feel completely unrewarding then they are doing a great job of it right now.

[LittleImp]

Popularity on twitch has nothing to do with anything.

The game experienced extreme growth during what would normally be considered a drought period when a number of major streamers began playing it on stream.

Twitch is a platform which holds a lot of influence, whether people like it or not.