the normal content is too easy

[ForteNightshade]

snip

First and foremost, why in the world are you correlating the hardest Savage fight in the game's history, which was horribly imbalanced, with ilvl cheesing Alliance Roulette? Those two things are on different planets. We're not talking about going into old Savage fights with hilariously better gear and rolf-stomping them, we're talking about Alliance raids and you citing that people cheese the ilvl out of fear Dun Scaith or Orbonne are too difficult. That simply isn't the case. And I've explained why. There is zero incentive to do those raids when they give the same rewards if your only goal is EXP. All in takes is one person taking off their gear to trap 23 players. They aren't doing it because Tower or Copy Factory are hard, they're doing it because both those raids take 30 minutes while LotA takes 15. Bringing up A4S, Shinryu or anything else is just one massive Strawman that comically misses the point being made.

Moving on from that, the onus on how to balance this is on the dev team to make reward structures better to at least equalize participation. A good chunk of people dislike Bozja or simply like Ivalice or Nier. If the EXP or tome rewards are disproportionally one-sided, then they should be adjusted. The problem is, they never do this. Hence why older content ends up rotting.

My main question for you really, is you mention it not being blisteringly difficult, which I think is a given. But what is your difficulty?

While my personal preference would see the Normal mode raids a step down from current Extremes; with both Zodiark and Hydaelyn being higher considering both are so undertuned you don't even need a healer, I'd settle for a proper level sync where we're roughly equivalent to the ilvl we were when the content was relevant. For example sake, at the time of Weeping City's release, the highest ilvl obtainable was 240. Therefore, it should sync us to 240. Perhaps even 230 if they don't want to adjust job balance at this level range. Admittedly, I'd prefer if the devs actually cared about some job balance when synced but either scenario works.

My overall take is current expansion content should have some modicum of challenge. Take the tank swap debuff in E4N I mentioned. While this shouldn't kill the tank outright, it should deal enough damage they'll take quite a beating if they don't swap. In this way, it's actually teaching players a mechanic instead of it being utterly pointless.

If you want the content to be more challenging, try running it at min ilvl. It's funny how people will complain about the ease of the game, yet they will always make sure they and everyone around them run the absolute best gear. Join the sprouts on their level for a bit and play around in sets of gear that don't let you go wall to wall.

Aside from that, the game is actually not "easy". If it truly were and people were able to play half asleep, we wouldn't have megathreads about PF and roulettes, going over all the silliness that happens.

In just this expansion alone, I have done every dungeon, on every role, at min ilvl. I've solo'd Hermes in full i530 gear on both WAR and GNB. I've done all the Normal modes at min ilvl. In fact, I did them with a hodgepodge of 560 gear. Needless to say, they're all a complete joke. So yes, the game is incredibly easy. We have those threads because people are inexperienced or downright lazy not due to the game being hard. Having no idea how to play Black Mage doesn't suddenly make P1N any more of a faceroll that Warrior can solo. That's simply making excuses for people who didn't bother to learn how to play Black Mage.

[Jojoya]

In just this expansion alone, I have done every dungeon, on every role, at min ilvl. I've solo'd Hermes in full i530 gear on both WAR and GNB.

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

[Eraden]

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

Some of us also have physical disabilities (such as Parkinson's disease in my case) that prevent us from being able to master harder content. I do not know what specifically these proponents for "more challenging content" are calling for, but if it were to result in the level of difficulty being raised across the board, I might not be able to play this game anymore.

[Serious-Cat]

Looking at ffcollect, the desire for difficult/high end content isn't really that high. Even "easy" high end content like Alexander (Savage) right now only have 52% completion and lesser the closer it is to current expansion.

https://ffxivcollect.com/achievements/types/1

I think most ff14 players play for the story. 85% completed endwalker vs 11% completion of current raid tier

https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...=shadowbringer
https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...t%5D=endwalker

Doubt there will be any real impact on game population health if MSQ/Normal level content difficulty is ramped up or not but the stats show that most ff14 players aren't that about playing a game because its difficult or easy but treating it as another rpg in the ff series.

For now I guess anyone can manipulate the difficulty setting and find like minded people via pf to enjoy the game this way tho