MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Reinha]

The MSQ should not be designed to kill you; this game's focus is on it's story, whether or not you like a given line, and all content is set to "Easy Mode" by default.

Bosses and mobs shouldn't be able to kill you? Then why do we have a healer role at all? It's ridiculous that two party members out of four can lie dead in the corner start to finish and it will literally have no impact on success. We are players, we are supposed to play not do f all.

[Cilia]

Why shouldn't it? Every other mainline Final Fantasy game was designed to kill you. It constantly presented you with challenges to overcome if you wanted to experience more of the story.


I remember regularly getting my ass handed to me when I first played FFX until I sat down and properly learned to use it's systems like the Sphere Grid, different elements and status effects.

If you make it too difficult you're going to alienate and fail to draw in people who primarily (or only) care about the story. An MMO is different from single player games, in the sense that MMOs require other people to also be good at the game. If other people aren't good (and let's be honest, encountering somebody who's not paying attention or just not good at their job in game is inevitable) you're going to have a hard time clearing content. You have to depend on other people, rather than your own skill (or luck, or patience grinding).

MMOs are different beasts. Even XI, which was / is an old-school MMO with the more grind-heavy mindset that was common of it's time, requires other people to "git gud" for you to have fun. There's a reason that game design went the way of the dodo.

[DiaDeem]

Difficulty is subjective and there's way to many variables.

For example, here's subjective thought:
The Ivalice raids weren't ever hard, but the bosses were massive HP sponges that just took 10,000 years to die at the time. That's not a hard(er), that's just bloated.

[Gullis]

Seems like most problems comes from high ilvl. If they made the max item level synq closer to the minimum req, for lower level trials ans dungeons, it would help a bit I think. Right now you skip entire mechanics because bosses die too quick.

Also I feel vuln stacks could get upped a bit. Right now it feels like you need 3-5 before they start mattering. By that point the boss is dead.

Story is story okay, but this is also a game, not a interactive book/movie. Having some form of challenge should not be unthinkable

[Tehmon]

If you make it too difficult you're going to alienate and fail to draw in people who primarily (or only) care about the story. An MMO is different from single player games, in the sense that MMOs require other people to also be good at the game. If other people aren't good (and let's be honest, encountering somebody who's not paying attention or just not good at their job in game is inevitable) you're going to have a hard time clearing content. You have to depend on other people, rather than your own skill (or luck, or patience grinding).

MMOs are different beasts. Even XI, which was / is an old-school MMO with the more grind-heavy mindset that was common of it's time, requires other people to "git gud" for you to have fun. There's a reason that game design went the way of the dodo.

Some people argue that if the game increases in challenge (for the MSQ content that is), it will increase the skill of players and motivate them to do and play better, thus also promoting an increased challenge in future content as well. I have no idea how convincing of an argument that is, or how logical and true it is.

I do think there are just some dungeon bosses that miss the mark completely. Aitascope wall-to-wall pulls are more challenging and deadly than any of the dungeon bosses, sans maybe having a full team of newbies against Amon who don't know to hide behind Shiva's ice. And the second boss from Vanaspati is an absolutely joke and a half, as is the first boss from Ktisis. Tower of Babil is not even worth mentioning (outside of Anima's '' follow the target '' attack that always seems to kill a healer).

But then I think there are some great boss designs each expansions as well, EW included. Tower of Zot is quite excellent, and the last boss is lovely and engaging. Granted they don't hit like a truck so you are given the opportunity to fail while dodging their AoE spam, but still, it's fun and feels rewarding when you don't get hit at all. Ra'La on the other hand has pretty easy to dodge mechanics, but if you get even one vuln stack, you are almost as good as dead because Ra'La hits like a truck with everything, especially the team wide, so there is little room for error. The entire Dead Ends is just well executed imo.

So to me there are hits and misses, and there is varying amounts of difficulty, and where that difficulty stems from (hard-hitting attacks, new unclear mechanics or AoE spam).

[ForteNightshade]

If you make it too difficult you're going to alienate and fail to draw in people who primarily (or only) care about the story. An MMO is different from single player games, in the sense that MMOs require other people to also be good at the game. If other people aren't good (and let's be honest, encountering somebody who's not paying attention or just not good at their job in game is inevitable) you're going to have a hard time clearing content. You have to depend on other people, rather than your own skill (or luck, or patience grinding).

MMOs are different beasts. Even XI, which was / is an old-school MMO with the more grind-heavy mindset that was common of it's time, requires other people to "git gud" for you to have fun. There's a reason that game design went the way of the dodo.

Operative words here is "too difficult". We've reached a point where content is so easy entire roles can be rendered irrelevant and dodging mechanics is more a formality than a requirement. I shouldn't be able to stand in AoE markers and shrug off the damage as though it never happened yet in a good chunk of the MSQ dungeons, I can do precisely that. At the higher levels, healers aren't necessary whatsoever. Whether it be a Warrior, Gunbreaker or even a Dark Knight, all the tanks are capable of surviving pulls by themselves. Only Dark Knight will die to bosses due to it lacking any self-sustain. We have a new dungeon coming out in 6.2 and it'll be a complete faceroll on release. Bosses like Ozma, Diabolos or even pre-nerfed Cid were never supremely hard. They could simply kill people who weren't paying attention. Nowadays, Cid is so pathetic two whole alliances can fail both the stack mechanic and dropping the bleed puddles without wiping the raid. You literally have to actively try to fail otherwise it's downright impossible.

There's a balance between being too difficult for people who only care about story and being so comically easy a toddler could complete most of it.

[Hurlstone]

Hmm… on the one hand, I do sometimes think the MSQ could be a bit more challenging. Job quests seem rather harder (Looking at you SAM) though that may depend on if you over gear by the end of the questline. On the other, I can understand why they do not wish to make it too hard or much of a hindrance. Some people play simply for the story (Which there is ALOT off in this game!) and do not care as much for the challenge or endgame cycle, or wish to concentrate on crafting side and not so much combat. I do not thinka slight boost in difficulty would hurt much, but personally I think its better to have a game thats more on the easy side, then overly difficult. Less off-puting to the higher amount of players I would say.

Of course people will say that its better if a balance is achieved, but I think that may be impossible. As others have said, difficult is subjective. I do not think I have ever played a MMO that has not had complaints that its level/story is ‘Too easy!’ or ‘Too hard!’ over my lifetime. Plus, people have differing levels of skill and sometimes do not get the hang of things as quick as others. I often think its rather unfair how sometimes the game or its roles are declared to be too easy, even at endgame.

I have always thought it would be neat if a higher difficulty option would be added to New Game+. Perhaps with some cool cosmetics as regards to show off. Also have to say I really like the idea of Duty Support, not just because it allows more people to play solo. I hate having to watch or read up tactics in a battle before being force to do them with groups of others where messing up could effect everyone. It kinda spoils the experience sometimes. Now you can see the mechanics at your own pace as you experience the story blind, and learn them by actually playing the Dungeons rather then reading or watching someone else.

[Amenara]

Genuinely difficult content (Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate) is there for players who want it. The MSQ should not be designed to kill you; this game's focus is on it's story, whether or not you like a given line, and all content is set to "Easy Mode" by default. Besides which, you don't have a full toolbox below the level cap - and because of that ever growing toolbox, even simple 6.X bosses can be more complex than high difficulty 2.X ones.

Difficult story bosses can be incredibly rewarding (hello pre-nerf Shinryu!) but it's not the wisest course for drawing in and retaining non-hardcore players, and as an MMO there needs to be as wide an audience as possible.

The thing about it is that the story doesn't teach you how to play the game or how to play your job correctly. It doesn't encourage you to get better or even bother trying. Soon all of the MSQ outside of trials will be soloable, which I imagine those will follow shortly thereafter judging by the level 89 trial. If you teach players or encourage players to play their jobs better, you can naturally ramp up difficulty without really making it feel like the game is becoming so difficult it is unplayable for new players. You can make things a bit more punishing, make DPS checks a bit harder or more prevalent, make healing more engaging by slowly ramping up the difficulty and having a progression of it vs the upside down bell curve that we have in EW when it comes to the dungeon difficulty. Tower of Zot should be the norm, not the exception when it comes to dungeon design with bosses and even the last couple trash pulls that can be punishing if you don't understand how to play your job.

[Packetdancer]

The thing about it is that the story doesn't teach you how to play the game or how to play your job correctly.

While I tend not to think the MSQ needs the difficulty ramped up -- I think it's fine to leave the story accessible to people who play more casually, even if I would definitely like more content that had some bite to it -- on this point, I agree entirely.

Even leaving aside more complicated things, there are some fundamental bits of the game that, so far as I can recall, are not actually explained anywhere in the game itself. I still run into healers sometimes -- in Endwalker content, even! -- who were not aware that a debuff you can cleanse with Esuna will have a white bar at the top of the debuff icon. I have run into tanks who do not realize that Arm's Length is a viable mitigation in trash pulls (especially in conjunction with Reprisal) by slowing the attack speed of anything that hits you with a physical damage attack. Stuff like that.

So while I don't think the MSQ needs the difficulty dialed up on folks, I do think the MSQ -- or the game in general -- could definitely stand to do a better job of informing people about various aspects of the game's own systems.

[Kamatsu]

Some people argue that if the game increases in challenge (for the MSQ content that is), it will increase the skill of players and motivate them to do and play better, thus also promoting an increased challenge in future content as well. I have no idea how convincing of an argument that is, or how logical and true it is.

It's not true, as has been shown in the past in other games which have tried this. Other games have ramped up the difficulty, with that mindset that by doing so it'll motivate players to get better.... and all they ended up doing was chasing players away.

Classic recent example was Guild Wars to and the lead up to, and the launch of it's 1st expansion. It's Living World (MSQ) content leading up to the expansion got harder as it was introduced, and there were increasing complaints from players over this. However these complaints were drowned out by the small, but extreme vocal, minority of players who were urging ANet to go harder. Then the expansion hit... and it ramped up the difficulty even more than before.

The result? ANet suffered their greatest ever, or since, 6-month loss in revenue as the majority of their player base abandoned the game... the players did NOT get motivated to get better, to better use skills, etc and overcome the increased challenges. The players hit the brick wall of increased difficulty and left the game. It was so bad that for the 1st time there were threads on both the official forums and GW2 reddit asking where players were... ppl were trying to do content in the either the expansion or the base game and seeing nobody around. ANet had to do a hard 180&, nerf the hell out of the expansion... to stop the players leaving, and their whole studio being shut down by NCSoft (as NCSoft is known to do if/when studio's stop being profitable enough).

Fact is most of the players who would be effected negatively by making the MSQ harder won't 'try harder' or 'play better'... they will take their limited time and money elsewhere. Most of these ppl just want to log in, relax and do the story after a day/week at work... they don't want to be stressed out with a game, challenged or have to watch youtube video guides on how to beat a MSQ dungeon/trial... and if they can't just mash their way through a fight and thus get stuck, they will leave and go play somethign else that doesn't force them to struggle.