the normal content is too easy

[HyoMinPark]

I disagree with you on this one point. Due to particular physical disabilities [vision mostly] I disagree that the game is too easy, I like story mode difficulty right where it is. I agree with those saying if you want harder content do the harder content that is right there at endgame for you to do. I do agree that some of the simplification of jobs can be rolled back though [except don't touch my Blood of the Dragon the way it is now, the timer wasn't added difficulty, just a pain in the ass.]

I would agree if the endgame content actually posed a challenge the way it used to. Instead, it is getting progressively easier.

The 24-mans aren’t nearly as difficult as the likes of Weeping City, Dun Scaith, and Orbonne on release. Extremes are so easy they can be done with one or no healers at release, which the latter was a completely new phenomenon. They’re definitely not the same difficulty as the HW ones. Or even some of the SB Extremes. And Savage itself is not as difficult as it used to be. And I don’t mean the overtuned mess that was Gordias, but Midas. Or even some of the Creator fights (Cruise Chaser). There are a handful of redeeming fights after HW (O3S, O4S door boss, O11S, E8S, E12S door boss), and some still that are fun enough to excuse their easier difficulty. But doing this tier Week 1 and feeling utterly not challenged by anything that wasn’t the terrible P3S arena (I have bad vision and photosensitivity) was a disappointment. Yoshida claims the second tier is harder, but he’s also said that about many other things (like the disappointment that was Endsinger EX). So I take it with a grain of salt. I’ve retired from raiding due to rapidly changing life circumstances, so I guess my friends will have to give me their opinions on it.

People who want a real challenge basically have to wait for Ultimate. And we’re lucky to get two of those an expansion. I don’t expect the Criterion dungeons to be nearly as difficult as some keep saying they will be. Not when everything else has become so watered down. I hope I’ll be proven wrong, but we shall see. The only thing I’m looking forward to in 6.2 (aside from seeing where they go with the MSQ) is Sephirot Unreal. Because so loved his EX in HW, and I can only hope the Unreal is as challenging as the original.

[redheadturk]

snip.

Some of the ease is likely them undertuning just a bit to compensate for the stat squish. From what I understand from some WoW players, it took a full expansion for them to get the tuning just right after their stat squish.

[HyoMinPark]

Some of the ease is likely them undertuning just a bit to compensate for the stat squish. From what I understand from some WoW players, it took a full expansion for them to get the tuning just right after their stat squish.

I doubt that the stat squish had a significant effect on difficulty outside of a handful of situations (e.g., Dun Scaith hits harder now than it did in ShB for certain bosses; they actually had to heavily adjust UCoB because simply applying the stat squish resulted in the raidwides flat out killing the party even with stacked mitigation). The content was still suffering from decreased difficulty before the squish happened. P1S is almost the same difficulty as O1S—the latter of which is notorious for being cleared in one pull. The only thing that sets P1S apart Alte Roite is Intemperance is a gotcha mechanic.

SB was easier than HW in a lot of aspects, but the fights were still engaging enough for it to be relatively excused, in my opinion. ShB really started the trend of the devs heavily leaning on “accessibility” and using it as an excuse to neuter both content difficulty and job complexity. At least in SB, the easier fights could be excused because jobs still had layers of complexity to them. Now, it’s like a double whammy: easier content and a lot of the jobs are heavily streamlined and without nuance/complexity. I know I have a heavy bias as a healer main—but I was a physical ranged main prior to ShB and I honestly cannot even enjoy the role anymore because of the insistence they should be Baby’s First DPS.

I don't expect much from normal content but any old content should be balanced to be as similar as possible to when they launched to at least retain the normal level of difficulty. People skip and ignore so much mechanics in old fights that the supposed normal difficulty is very easy instead.

The state of Orbonne is truly sad. The first tier 24-mans suffer the most since they never implement item level syncs for them—but usually the third one retains some semblance of original difficulty because of the minimum item level being closer to the max item level for that expansion. But Orbonne is a sad, sad shell of itself thanks to the double whammy of auto Echo and TGC being nerfed into the ground. I never agreed with either decision because I liked how there was a fight that actually punished for trying to cheese or ignore his mechanics.

[SieyaM]

I would agree if the endgame content actually posed a challenge the way it used to. Instead, it is getting progressively easier.

The 24-mans aren’t nearly as difficult as the likes of Weeping City, Dun Scaith, and Orbonne on release. Extremes are so easy they can be done with one or no healers at release, which the latter was a completely new phenomenon. They’re definitely not the same difficulty as the HW ones. Or even some of the SB Extremes. And Savage itself is not as difficult as it used to be. And I don’t mean the overtuned mess that was Gordias, but Midas. Or even some of the Creator fights (Cruise Chaser). There are a handful of redeeming fights after HW (O3S, O4S door boss, O11S, E8S, E12S door boss), and some still that are fun enough to excuse their easier difficulty. But doing this tier Week 1 and feeling utterly not challenged by anything that wasn’t the terrible P3S arena (I have bad vision and photosensitivity) was a disappointment. Yoshida claims the second tier is harder, but he’s also said that about many other things (like the disappointment that was Endsinger EX). So I take it with a grain of salt. I’ve retired from raiding due to rapidly changing life circumstances, so I guess my friends will have to give me their opinions on it.

People who want a real challenge basically have to wait for Ultimate. And we’re lucky to get two of those an expansion. I don’t expect the Criterion dungeons to be nearly as difficult as some keep saying they will be. Not when everything else has become so watered down. I hope I’ll be proven wrong, but we shall see. The only thing I’m looking forward to in 6.2 (aside from seeing where they go with the MSQ) is Sephirot Unreal. Because so loved his EX in HW, and I can only hope the Unreal is as challenging as the original.

And yet unless it's part of an event Orbonne is universally avoided still for being too difficult and too long. Content that is part of a roulette has to be incredibly easy because as the past has taught us if it is not, players will avoid it at all costs. Our own behavior has dictated the difficulty of the content given to us.

[HyoMinPark]

And yet unless it's part of an event Orbonne is universally avoided still for being too difficult and too long. Content that is part of a roulette has to be incredibly easy because as the past has taught us if it is not, players will avoid it at all costs. Our own behavior has dictated the difficulty of the content given to us.

Orbonne was not back-breakingly difficult. It was challenging, actually punished you for trying to ignore the mechanics, and you couldn’t just slam your face on the keyboard or completely AFK and win. And if I’ve learned anything, there’s a lot of people in this game that throws their hands in the air if something caused them the slightest bit of difficulty increase.

Personally, I’d rather do Orbonne than any of the CT raids. And I’ve met other players that feel similarly now that Orbonne is popping the Alliance Roulette. Orbonne would have likely been avoided less if LotA or ST wasn’t half the time for the same EXP. Scaling EXP with the level of the raids would have been a better way to go instead of completely destroying one of the best 24-mans this game has ever seen. Now I don’t even bother with Alliance Roulette because I am sick of CT/Void Ark.

[Avatre]

Orbonne was not back-breakingly difficult. It was challenging, actually punished you for trying to ignore the mechanics, and you couldn’t just slam your face on the keyboard or completely AFK and win. And if I’ve learned anything, there’s a lot of people in this game that throws their hands in the air if something caused them the slightest bit of difficulty increase.

Personally, I’d rather do Orbonne than any of the CT raids. And I’ve met other players that feel similarly now that Orbonne is popping the Alliance Roulette. Orbonne would have likely been avoided less if LotA or ST wasn’t half the time for the same EXP. Scaling EXP with the level of the raids would have been a better way to go instead of completely destroying one of the best 24-mans this game has ever seen. Now I don’t even bother with Alliance Roulette because I am sick of CT/Void Ark.

Wish they would bring back Orbonne from release week....that was fun times. Dropping the echo from the raid is the very least they NEED to do.

[HyoMinPark]

Wish they would bring back Orbonne from release week....that was fun times. Dropping the echo from the raid is the very least they NEED to do.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree. I used to run Orbonne in SB all the time just for fun because I enjoyed how it wasn’t faceroll. Same with Weeping City and Dun Scaith during their relative patches.

[SieyaM]

Orbonne was not back-breakingly difficult. It was challenging, actually punished you for trying to ignore the mechanics, and you couldn’t just slam your face on the keyboard or completely AFK and win. And if I’ve learned anything, there’s a lot of people in this game that throws their hands in the air if something caused them the slightest bit of difficulty increase.

Personally, I’d rather do Orbonne than any of the CT raids. And I’ve met other players that feel similarly now that Orbonne is popping the Alliance Roulette. Orbonne would have likely been avoided less if LotA or ST wasn’t half the time for the same EXP. Scaling EXP with the level of the raids would have been a better way to go instead of completely destroying one of the best 24-mans this game has ever seen. Now I don’t even bother with Alliance Roulette because I am sick of CT/Void Ark.

Orbonne is still my favorite piece of content to run, so I am very happy to be doing it for the moogle tomes, but I also know tying to to something like a relic grind will bring a fiery inferno the boards. Both from people that think it's still to hard, and from people that feel it's a waste of time because it isn't as easy as other 24 person content. When something like Orbonne comes along both ends of the spectrum complain.

[Supersnow845]

Orbonne is still my favorite piece of content to run, so I am very happy to be doing it for the moogle tomes, but I also know tying to to something like a relic grind will bring a fiery inferno the boards. Both from people that think it's still to hard, and from people that feel it's a waste of time because it isn't as easy as other 24 person content. When something like Orbonne comes along both ends of the spectrum complain.

The only people that ever complain about orbonne are the “I use the fact that crystal tower has 24 people in it to hide the fact that I semi afk hakaze spam my way through it daily”

[ForteNightshade]

The only people that ever complain about orbonne are the “I use the fact that crystal tower has 24 people in it to hide the fact that I semi afk hakaze spam my way through it daily”

This right here. Orbonne wasn't nerfed due to difficulty but the fact you weren't compensated for the time investment relevant to the AFK-fest that is Crystal Tower. We're seeing the exact same problem unfold with the Nier raids. None of them are remotely challenging nor were they on release. So why are people avoiding them? Because the bosses all have bloated HP pools which means a Tower run will take upwards of 30+ minutes for the exact same EXP as a ten minute LotA—the latter of which you can AFK in. In a what if scenario where OG Orbonne gave significantly higher rewards to compensate for your time, nobody would have said a peep about it. Alas, the devs overcorrect as per usual and now Orbonne is arguably the easiest 24 man we have that isn't LotA and Syrcus Tower. It can't even keep up with Ridorana or barely matches Rabanastre, two raids that not only released before it but have suffered huge power creep due to the poor ilvl scaling we have. It's an absolutely shell of itself now.

Imagine if every 24 man after Aglaia are noticeably easier. People would complain even at the casual level because it'd be boring. Welcome to what happened with Orbonne.