MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Omedon]

I love the FFXIV community. Full stop. That's a complete sentiment. At 600 days subbed to FFXIV, I can now say wholeheartedly that you folks are a great breath of fresh air after well over a decade of my active subscription time in WoW. Seriously, I mean that.

What is true at the same time is that some of you folks really do have your own, less obvious brand of toxicity. In order to fit it on a bumper sticker in my head, I've often summed it up like this:

The WoW community is toxic because they are permitted the freedom of an expedited path to the endgame, where they then gatekeep each other directly to each other's faces.

The FFXIV community on the other hand are toxic because they often demand that the game do the gatekeeping for them, so they can (and depending on who you ask, must) be all smiles to each other's faces.


In both games, no one, absolutely no one is going to view anything before the level cap (or in FFXIV's case, the end credits of the MSQ, which literally unlocks the whole game) as worthy of stopping them from getting there... because it's not meant to be. Indeed, the longer the MSQ goes, the less it has a "right" to tell anyone "welp, guess you stop here, you're just not good enough." "Very easy" for solo duties and the echo for trials (whilst they are still mandatorily group endeavors) are... part of the deal of "I bought this." It's not the MSQ's job to filter people, no one is obligated to "get good" to see the end credits. In my opinion, and that's all this all is, FFXIV handles *most* of this admirably. Within another expansion or two, no one in community parties will get a say as to who gets to the level cap and finishes the core story. That's how it should be. And it can't easily turn into WoW with the extreme "face to face gatekeeping," not with anything "baseline," because it's still FFXIV, where actual community moderation still happens.

It's been well documented across the MMORPG development sphere that when faced with unreasonable "get good" moments in content clearly intended to be cleared and beaten by everyone, people don't "pull their socks up," they quit. Squeenix doesn't want that. The MSQ will remain the height of approachable and defeatable, and folks that don't want that... will just have to accept that. FFXIV's MSQ is too long and too mandatory to be too hard. It's an engaging, guided tour, not a skill testing obstacle course, and thank goodness for that.

[Semirhage]

It's an engaging, guided tour, not a skill testing obstacle course, and thank goodness for that.

Spotted the person who hasn't played through the MSQ on a healer.

FFXIV has become so easy that much of its content isn't engaging. That's the problem. Every. Single. Time. Someone says this. We get "toxic gatekeepers want everything to be super hard!"

FFXIV has a toxicity problem: its TOS babies and validates every lazy impulse a player might have. No meanie can -ever- dare suggest you improve at something. Yeah they DON'T pay your sub! If this were a live and let live situation then fine, but Square has been continuously, constantly dumbing the engagement out of everything, MSQ included, and a lot of us are sick of it.

[Omedon]

Spotted the person who hasn't played through the MSQ on a healer.

FFXIV has become so easy that much of its content isn't engaging. That's the problem. Every. Single. Time. Someone says this. We get "toxic gatekeepers want everything to be super hard!"

FFXIV has a toxicity problem: its TOS babies and validates every lazy impulse a player might have. No meanie can -ever- dare suggest you improve at something. Yeah they DON'T pay your sub! If this were a live and let live situation then fine, but Square has been continuously, constantly dumbing the engagement out of everything, MSQ included, and a lot of us are sick of it.

I'm not going to get into a protracted discussion on a thread that isn't my own and thus isn't easily tracked, but I'll just say that the difficulty curve of the entire game, in a game like this, demands that a healer's damage dealing toolkit be as minimalist as possible. This is a necessary evil for the good of the rest of the game, I'm afraid. I am almost at omni 90, I know exactly the issue you're talking about, but my point still stands. The game cannot afford to overly "engage" the "healers that want a challenge" in the core mandatory MSQ lane, so long as this is a trinity game. Knowing this, if you continue to do the MSQ on a healer (and to be honest, on a "caster concept" character, healer is your best bet for survivability), you likely should continue to expect this. It's not ideal in the "I want a challenge regardless of job" vein, but it is, once again, a necessary evil for the good of this kind game.

If you want a challenge as a healer, might I suggest you group with a like-minded party of friends in difficult trinity party content? Criterion is coming!

And to be fair... I threw the word "engaging" in there to leave room for occasional challenge. Ideally the MSQ errs on the side of easy/inevitable for everyone.

PS: I love your name!

[Absurdity]

I'm not going to get into a protracted discussion on a thread that isn't my own and thus isn't easily tracked, but I'll just say that the difficulty curve of the entire game, in a game like this, demands that a healer's damage dealing toolkit be as minimalist as possible.

I'd argue the exact opposite if we look at just the story. The MSQ would only require you to have maybe 2 healing spells exactly because it is so easy and nothing hits hard enough to justify more, your dps kit consisting of 2 buttons however makes your solo experience an absolute chore because those 2 buttons are what you'll be pressing 99% of the story's combat encounters.

If you want a challenge as a healer, might I suggest you group with a like-minded party of friends in difficult trinity party content? Criterion is coming!

Not even the hardest content in this game challenges you in the healing department, it merely boils down to "does this aoe oneshot you or does it not?" which is solved by proper party mitigation, you can't outheal a oneshot.

Criterion might switch this up, though very unlikely, but that still leaves the question why healer engagement should be limited to a single activity.


The current healer issues aren't limited to the most hardcore players but any healer that even remotely knows what they're doing.

[Myrany]

I don't think anyone is asking for the kind of difficulty that players have to watch guides for. Solo duties can kill you and make you struggle but you just try again. Many dungeons are much easier, to the point of being too easy especially as jobs get more powerful at high levels. It's just weird to go from a level 50 solo duty full of AoE dodging and a soft enrage to dungeons where half the party isn't even needed, nothing can kill you and mechanics either don't exist or can be ignored. The game expects us to be able to clear solo duties without dying so why should dungeons be so forgiving that half the party can be afk or dead and still pass?

I am glad you brought this up. I just did the new Ritalin fight through the lahabrea fight today for this first time since they redid it all. I was quite taken by surprise by how much dodging and mechanics were in those 2 fights. I got through them first shot but it was quite a change and actually was considerably harder than the old fights where both Ritalin and Lahabrea used to fall over in a light breeze.

I am not sure I would go so far as to say the early HW stuff is a easy as you say but it certainly feels easier than it was 3 years ago when I first did it. Not sure how much of that is power creep or just that I am a better player than I was back then. I think what makes the early parts of expansions a bit tough for new players is that in the 50-54ish range skills change enough to alter a rotation you have been doing for a very long time. I know for me I find myself looking up a guide and spending some time rearranging bars and practicing until I can hit the keys without looking. That is me though. I have been playing MMOs for nearly 20 years. I have a basic process developed over years to go from. Someone new to this sort of game doesn't have that.

[Omedon]

I'd argue the exact opposite. The MSQ would only require you to have maybe 2 healing spells

Oh there is absolutely a button bloat problem for healers, you won't get an argument from me there. There are so many niche buttons per healer job that none of those powers can really justify their existence, because of how niche they are. You can't have a "wrong healer" for 4-person content, after all. The answer isn't more damage buttons though. I don't know what the answer is, but I know that healers are kind of in the position here that both tanks and healers are in other games. They gate the queues, they are in demand to make the game work, thus it must be approachable and, by extension, easy. Ideally they heal more than they do damage, but that's never going to be the case in solo content. Again, I don't know what the answer is, but it's not complicating their secondary role as a damage dealer, because that creates big problems when they group up with other players again.

Now, if the MSQ becomes 100% non-interdependent, you do reach a point where everything beyond, everything with other players can be flagged as "at your own risk," and there are ways to facilitate that... but that is a point on the side of making the MSQ inevitably easy, which, well... healers: check!

[vetch]

I know that healers are kind of in the position here that both tanks and healers are in other games. They gate the queues, they are in demand to make the game work, thus it must be approachable and, by extension, easy.

A low barrier to entry but without any depth doesn't create a healthy population of active and dedicated healers, it creates churn as new healers realize there's nowhere to grow and no satisfaction thereof to be had.

[Omedon]

A low barrier to entry but without any depth doesn't create a healthy population of active and dedicated healers, it creates churn as new healers realize there's nowhere to grow and no satisfaction thereof to be had.

Ah, but you assume that everyone that takes up healing wants a challenge. I can say as a leader of MMORPG communities that this is not my experience. As a "career tank," I literally want the healers to have a free ride, and see it as my job to make it so, in thanks for them taking up the job that people rarely want to actually do, dating back to RPGs' tabletop roots.

[Supersnow845]

Ah, but you assume that everyone that takes up healing wants a challenge. I can say as a leader of MMORPG communities that this is not my experience. As a "career tank," I literally want the healers to have a free ride, and see it as my job to make it so, in thanks for them taking up the job that people rarely want to actually do, dating back to RPGs' tabletop roots.

Have you ever considered that people don’t want to heal as much because games far too often treat healers as fodder so the DPS can have more fun

My job right now is basically designed to help the DPS have more fun, if I didn’t hate myself as much as I do I wouldn’t be playing SCH I’d be playing a job square actually designs around being fun

[Jojoya]

Spotted the person who hasn't played through the MSQ on a healer.

FFXIV has become so easy that much of its content isn't engaging. That's the problem. Every. Single. Time. Someone says this. We get "toxic gatekeepers want everything to be super hard!"

FFXIV has a toxicity problem: its TOS babies and validates every lazy impulse a player might have. No meanie can -ever- dare suggest you improve at something. Yeah they DON'T pay your sub! If this were a live and let live situation then fine, but Square has been continuously, constantly dumbing the engagement out of everything, MSQ included, and a lot of us are sick of it.

MSQ is fine as a healer because the bulk of the MSQ isn't about group combat where a healer is needed or even combat in general. It's about the story.

It's weird that so many healers rail at YoshiP's comments when there is truth to them. The healer role exists basically to cover the butts of the players who like to stand in fire.

When am I most engaged as a healer? When I'm playing with a group of fair to bad players. I have to actually heal. When am I least engaged as a healer? When I'm playing with a group that knows what they're doing and can execute mechanics correctly. I end up nothing more than green DPS.

Make the mandatory content too difficult and the former group can't progress, which is bad for a MMO. It's the casual players of average or lesser skill that pay the bulk of the bills for game development. Without them, there wouldn't be high end content for those who want the greater challenge.

Perhaps the reason they're "dumbing" it down is they're seeing a large percentage of players hitting barriers with difficulty that are causing them to drop out of the game.

Whether or not you feel the same way, most people aren't playing for some sort of personal validation from their skill level. They're playing to relax. Some of fine with a small bit of challenge. Most simply want to just make their way through the game with a minimum of hassle. When they're in the mood for personal validation, they seek it in their real life pursuits outside of games such as career, education or family.

If you need a game that keeps upping the skill level each time a challenge is passed in the base content, MMOs are the wrong place to be looking. They can't afford to keep increasing the skill cap in the base content if that means players will start leaving the game. That's why those challenges are placed in the side content.

If the complaint there's insufficient difficult side content, then that's worthy of a separate discussion.

Have you ever considered that people don’t want to heal as much because games far too often treat healers as fodder so the DPS can have more fun

My job right now is basically designed to help the DPS have more fun, if I didn’t hate myself as much as I do I wouldn’t be playing SCH I’d be playing a job square actually designs around being fun

You always have the option of playing as DPS if that's what you feel like you are.