MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Lauront]

I kind of wish solo instances could have the opposite options of Very Easy—maybe add a “Hard” option to them so if people find they want a challenge, they can take it. And then leave the “Normal”, “Easy”, and “Very Easy” for those who don’t want it. More options would be good; and I don’t think it would hurt. Especially if you were given the option to choose without having to wipe first.

Agree with that. The other thing is, if they're rolling out trusts to all trials and dungeons, could they not in principle add such a feature to those too (in the sense of easy/very easy)? At present, they don't seem to have plans to, but it would get around this issue of having to make the MSQ normal content so braindead. I get that the MSQ isn't where the most challenging content is meant to be found, but considering how it's meant to include some very potent foes - and the extremes are mostly just made up versions - I'd like to see difficulty a bit closer to the .3 fights, or even a bit tougher, in the regular trust/DF stuff. It's becoming jarring to me, and tacking on easier modes to the trusts is one way to provide an easy completion option for those who just want to get through the story fast, since SE seems unwilling to demand more of them, to give some flexibility with the difficulty in regular modes.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Because even if they say they were going to increase healing requirements it would most likely end up a joke.

Since the healer rework with ShB they have claimed to have increased healing requirements for fights multiple times. Every. Single. Time. it changed exactly nothing, you still healed the encounter the same as always.

See the thing is, they have increased healing requirements steadily. The problem is that the fight design hasn't changed, so you tackle the increased healing requirements the same way - throw however many buttons needed to survive at it, then go back to dps.

The other problem is that it's extremely skewed towards the shield healers in general, something that a phase like P7 DSR extremely showcases when you take a look at what the shield healer is doing compared to a WHM. You can easily compare a fight like uwu, ucob or TEA to DSR and you'll see major differences. Outside of Golden phase & primal roulette, even back in the day most of the general raid wides in the fight only required a 10% + shields to survive, even if it was spooky. TEA is an even bigger problem in that once you get past BJ/CC, the healing is absolutely non-existent besides a small section of J-waves.

Then you look at DSR where basically every single raidwide aoe requires 3-5x 10%s + shields or you instantly drop dead. Or take P4s week 1 for example, where you compare to week 1 E12s where every maleficium could be technically survived with shields and nothing else, Bloodrake & Decollation would sometimes just obliterate from full HP + shields if there wasn't some kind of extra 10% rolling.

Agree with that. The other thing is, if they're rolling out trusts to all trials and dungeons, could they not in principle add such a feature to those too (in the sense of easy/very easy)?

No, because roulettes exist.

For a sizeable chunk of the playerbase, roulettes are their 'endgame'. The kinds of people that don't want a challenge, want to lie back and enjoy whacking some dungeons/trials for easy tomes while they have a laugh with their buds on VC. Or the people that have limited playtime and don't want to spend half of it wiping to one trial. Roulettes in general are the lifeblood of the game for the vast majority of the playerbase, and are meant to be daily chores to skinnerbox people. Because of this, if they ever added easy/very easy options to an instance, those would be the default for any roulette by vision of the dev's game design.

Which ultimately, would make the 'hard' equivalents a waste of dev time, since you'd only ever see them by manually queueing them - and who would manually queue say, Leviathan Hard mode when it offered no rewards and would pose no challenge for anyone even remotely skilled? It'd have been a waste of dev time that some people might queue up for once for funsies, then fall into obsoletion. Why even bother when they could spend that time working on literally anything else?

The devs have made their stance on MSQ clear; it'll always be easy, no if's and or buts. Asking for changes is literally a waste of anyone's energy since any feedback regarding it will likely go straight into the bin when they have petabytes of statistics clearly stating their current direction is correct due to the changing landscape of the video game industry. In a game industry that is growing ever more predominant base of users that play video games to relax, or play them not to be challenged, and an industry where whales have infinitely more intrinsic value as customers than a normal customer does, casting the widest net in hopes of snagging a whale that will spend 50x on the mogstation than you ever will in sub costs by making the game friendly to people of any skill level is the industry meta. It's why they're pushing the 'single player MMO' idea so much and going back to re-do parts of the game to make it friendlier towards that playstyle - because its working. There's a reason Square's mobile games division is the main money maker of the company, and it ain't because of making challenging games; quite the opposite.

Your energy is better directed at asking for more optional content with modular difficulty unrelated to the MSQ in any way, like the Criterion dungeons they're working on.

[HyoMinPark]

No, because roulettes exist.

I think Lauront was proposing these difficulty options be added to the Trust versions only, since he mentions Trust dungeons. So this would have zero effect on the roulettes.

I think there would be a way to add this without having to put too much time into it. Instances can already give you Super Echo, so perhaps just apply the reverse to mobs where now they have the buff. Obviously not as ridiculous as the 200% or 300% or whatever the Super Echo buff is, but kind of like how Gloom in deep dungeons give all mobs haste, vuln downs, and damage up.

I think I would have more sympathy for healers if I wasn't seeing a large number who refuse to heal anyone for any reason and just DPS. Since moogle started it has been a positive rush of healers refusing to heal. Some even saying at the beginning "I am going to DPS so better not screw up none of you will get heals." Great fun when the tank is doing it for the first time and missing mechanics. In over 40 runs of Prae I have run into at least 9 healers like this.

My attitude is you want more to do? Show me you can do what you are expected to do now.

Are they actively refusing to heal, or are they utilizing oGCDs or HoTs to gradually get people up? I see people making comments like this, and I wonder how many times this is truly a case of a healer refusing to heal and a healer who simply does not spam their GCDs until everyone is at 100% HP and then maintain 100% Medica II uptime. There are players who are under the impression that this is how you heal in this game. I’ve met people who refuse to comm healers that don’t play like this because they’re “nervous” if they’re missing 15% of their HP when 85% is more than enough to survive in most content. It’s like the PLDs that Clemency if their HP drop below 90%. I just leave them to it, then; if they want to heal so bad.

It’s rare I run into a healer that will straight up refuse to heal and just press their nuke, and far more common to find one who does minimal damage while every other GCD is Medica II or E.Prog when literally no damage is happening and no one is in danger of dying.

I’ve been doing Orbonne Monastery since the event started and my cohealers are nearly always the type to heal when it isn’t necessary and stand around doing nothing or next to nothing. To the point I just let them solo heal since they are negating my HoTs and not letting them do their job. The irony is that, when left to do this, they aren’t even that good at it. When one was left to solo heal Cleansing Strike, they couldn’t do it. They did Ixochole > E.Prog > Physis and then just sat there as the party dropped like flies around them.
In my defense so I’m not accused of not healing/helping, I had died due to the tank running off with the tether that gives you a 20s physical vulnerability up, and subsequently bettering his relationship with the floor; and I took the tank buster because he didn’t take my raise fast enough. When I got up and Cleansing Strike was happening, I had about 2,000 mana and no Thin Air stacks. So it certainly wasn’t that I just let them die. I literally didn’t have the resources to save them since I had spent so much picking up the slack of this SGE (they didn’t want to Raise, either. I was raised by the SMN in our party).

[Myrany]

I think I would have more sympathy for healers if I wasn't seeing a large number who refuse to heal anyone for any reason and just DPS. Since moogle started it has been a positive rush of healers refusing to heal. Some even saying at the beginning "I am going to DPS so better not screw up none of you will get heals." Great fun when the tank is doing it for the first time and missing mechanics. In over 40 runs of Prae I have run into at least 9 healers like this.

My attitude is you want more to do? Show me you can do what you are expected to do now.

[Rilifane]

I think I would have more sympathy for healers if I wasn't seeing a large number who refuse to heal anyone for any reason and just DPS. Since moogle started it has been a positive rush of healers refusing to heal. Some even saying at the beginning "I am going to DPS so better not screw up none of you will get heals." Great fun when the tank is doing it for the first time and missing mechanics. In over 40 runs of Prae I have run into at least 9 healers like this.

My attitude is you want more to do? Show me you can do what you are expected to do now.

In that case you're surely fine with deleting the vast majority of dps buttons from dps and tanks because I've seen plenty of tanks not using mitigation at all, let alone somewhat decently and plenty of dps doing a really poor job at that one thing they're supposed to do. Yes, I think a 1-2 combo should do it for tanks and they'll get a 30s dot on a 60s cooldown and that's it. One aoe, no more. Same for dps.
Sorry guys, you're not worthy of being able to enjoy any form of engaging gameplay until you've proven Myrany that you can do more. Every healer, mind you. Because having 31 of 40 healers doing what they're supposed to do is not enough either.

What kind of bullshit argument is this?

Edit: Also, what HyoMin said.
Not seeing a GCD heal castbar doesn't mean they're not healing. I can count the number of times that I've met a healer that actively refuses to heal and says so on one hand. "I shouldn't have to heal here, heal yourself" was something I've seen only a handful of times over the course of several years of playing FFXIV.

[ForteNightshade]

I think I would have more sympathy for healers if I wasn't seeing a large number who refuse to heal anyone for any reason and just DPS. Since moogle started it has been a positive rush of healers refusing to heal. Some even saying at the beginning "I am going to DPS so better not screw up none of you will get heals." Great fun when the tank is doing it for the first time and missing mechanics. In over 40 runs of Prae I have run into at least 9 healers like this.

My attitude is you want more to do? Show me you can do what you are expected to do now.

Except this attitude largely derives from healing being so unrewarding nothing else matters but DPS. It's essentially a catch 24. By constantly dumbing down the healing requirements, people naturally gravitate towards the only metric they have left: DPS. Which, in turn, resulted from healing being the "pure healer" only for the role to repeatedly get less and less engaging.

What you have are bad players who don't care. Asking them to do more won't accomplish anything because they couldn't care less. Instead, you're holding down the role for the larger amount of players who do care but are simply bored because their role isn't a healer. It's a gimped DPS who occasionally heals.

You also have to factor into what is actually killing people. I can't count the number of times I've had BLMs refuse to leave their Leylines only to promptly die then whine about it. Or as Rilifane cited above with tanks not pressing CDs. While I'll generally make accommodations for new players, I'm not going to baby someone whose "fun I'm ruining" because they expect me to heal bot them while they stand in everything under the sun. If I have a BRD or RDM out in Narnia when I press Ixo, they better hope I have another stack of Adders that I won't need for another mechanic otherwise they'll be hitting the floor because I'm not GCD shielding them. Move in to Ixo next time. It managed to heal seven other people.

[Myrany]

In that case you're surely fine with deleting the vast majority of dps buttons from dps and tanks because I've seen plenty of tanks not using mitigation at all, let alone somewhat decently and plenty of dps doing a really poor job at that one thing they're supposed to do. Yes, I think a 1-2 combo should do it for tanks and they'll get a 30s dot on a 60s cooldown and that's it. One aoe, no more. Same for dps.
Sorry guys, you're not worthy of being able to enjoy any form of engaging gameplay until you've proven Myrany that you can do more. Every healer, mind you. Because having 31 of 40 healers doing what they're supposed to do is not enough either.

What kind of bullshit argument is this?

The argument is EVERYONE should be doing the job they signed up for in the dungeon. In the case of a healer that is BOTH healing and DPS. A healer letting a party fail because they refuse to heal is not doing the job they signed up for. Don't ask for more to do when you are not doing what is already there.

If I listen to the forums pressing 1111111111 to DPS on healer is boring. Well obviously a fair few healers like it that way since they refuse to stop DPSing long enough to hit the occasional heal button when it is needed

[Rilifane]

The argument is EVERYONE should be doing the job they signed up for in the dungeon. In the case of a healer that is BOTH healing and DPS. A healer letting a party fail because they refuse to heal is not doing the job they signed up for. Don't ask for more to do when you are not doing what is already there.

If I listen to the forums pressing 1111111111 to DPS on healer is boring. Well obviously a fair few healers like it that way since they refuse to stop DPSing long enough to hit the occasional heal button when it is needed

Way to ignore the point.
Of course everyone should do their job. But you know how reality is? That you'll meet bad players - across ALL roles, mind you. Bad tanks that don't mitigate at all, bad dps that don't aoe or don't even get their basic single target rotation right. And these bad players won't improve just because of your "Then prove to ME that YOU are worthy of doing more" attitude because as Forte said: they don't care.
They will never care. No amount of playing the custodian will change that. Yet you actively advocate for healers staying in their completely gutted, sorry state devoid of engaging gameplay and identity because some people in DF hurt you.
All roles have bad players but gutting them beyond measure to drive away the only people that are interested in it and good at it solves nothing.
All this is is a pointless double standard that makes it worse instead of better.

[Myrany]

Except this attitude largely derives from healing being so unrewarding nothing else matters but DPS. It's essentially a catch 24. By constantly dumbing down the healing requirements, people naturally gravitate towards the only metric they have left: DPS. Which, in turn, resulted from healing being the "pure healer" only for the role to repeatedly get less and less engaging.

What you have are bad players who don't care. Asking them to do more won't accomplish anything because they couldn't care less. Instead, you're holding down the role for the larger amount of players who do care but are simply bored because their role isn't a healer. It's a gimped DPS who occasionally heals.

You also have to factor into what is actually killing people. I can't count the number of times I've had BLMs refuse to leave their Leylines only to promptly die then whine about it. Or as Rilifane cited above with tanks not pressing CDs. While I'll generally make accommodations for new players, I'm not going to baby someone whose "fun I'm ruining" because they expect me to heal bot them while they stand in everything under the sun. If I have a BRD or RDM out in Narnia when I press Ixo, they better hope I have another stack of Adders that I won't need for another mechanic otherwise they'll be hitting the floor because I'm not GCD shielding them. Move in to Ixo next time. It managed to heal seven other people.

The problem is they are NOT tossing out a needed heal now and then. IF they were I wouldn't have any problem with making things more complex. Heck it is rare I even see a Scholar have the fairy out.

I healed for years in other games. I have even done some healing in this one. I get how it works. I simply expect people to do what they signed up for.

[Seera1024]

The problem is they are NOT tossing out a needed heal now and then. IF they were I wouldn't have any problem with making things more complex. Heck it is rare I even see a Scholar have the fairy out.

I healed for years in other games. I have even done some healing in this one. I get how it works. I simply expect people to do what they signed up for.

So the 31 healers who were doing their job should suffer because the 9 you encountered that decided they wanted to grief the party? There may be more players playing healer reducing the chances of you running into said green DPS if the role wasn't oversimplied. If you simply them more, it may turn into a much higher percentage of green DPS. Because the players who actually want to heal have gone on to find games that are more fun for them.