The difficulty of Normal Content in this game needs to increase.

[Amarande]

Normal content should be easy! but would be nice to have a middel ground to harder content (there is a huge gap between them).
Many have a life outside the game and can not spend 8hrs on a game everyday!

This. COVID and WFH only made it even more glaring too since people with cushier jobs got hours and hours of extra play time, while essential workers who still had to go to work basically got pushed out of the community for being "inexperienced."

We're at this point where apparently even dedicating what time you have often isn't enough. No, you're expected to put in more "minning" in RL too, such as ditching other games and hobbies so that you can put your everything into raiding. Not good. I thought we'd gotten away from that after the Old Hardcore Era faded?

The middle ground exists. People just like to say it doesn't coz reasons.

The reasons are relevant, especially when one of them (both WoW and XIV being guilty) is that the default community approach ends up being "okay, it's middle ground content, best practice is to fill the group with high tier players and steamroll it like baby content" which means that actual middle ground players it's meant for still struggle for niche.

Normal content should be normal. What we have right now is baby mode until you reach current content. If anything SE should at least decrease the ilvl cap for every encounter. Rule of thumb, if you can stand in any AoE without needing a healer you need to lower the ilvl cap. Healers are allowed to have fun, too.

You'll need more than that. I'm not actually sure this is solvable within XIV's constraints.

Healers still won't be able to "have fun" outside of baby mode, because the punishment debuffs make the natural "welp, he zigged when he shoulda zagged let me patch that up" flow impossible (especially now that Damage Down has had to come into play in a game that relies HEAVILY on time limits to provide challenge).

Without the punishment debuffs, however, DPS would (again largely because of said time limits) likely just try to stand in fire as much as possible to optimize output, which is also not exactly fun for the healer ...

Criterion on the other hand is just absolutely worthless by default, and no one should even waste the time with it until they give it some kind of proper reward structure.

Sad cynical thought: I've been beginning to get the thought there is a very real possibility that cooperative multiplayer (outside of its competitive aspect) was an experiment with a finite lifespan. The goals of long term replayability (which you need in order to supply enough team mates for the newcomers) and a reasonable rewards system seem to increasingly pull at each other to the point of tearing the whole thing apart.

What constitutes midcore is determined by the quality of the players, not the sensibilities of those of us that can already do the content. And hoboy, does this player-base suck.

Eh. It doesn't suck as bad as people say, IMO. This one lies on SE's shoulders: when so much content is designed so that just 1 out of 8 people who doesn't get it means the whole endeavor is moot despite the efforts of the others, you're easily going to feel like more people are bad than actually are. (I ran the math at one point. Assuming 8 people selected randomly, it takes surprisingly little of the overall pool to fall into the "potato" category to make it odds on that at least one of the eight will be: less than 10%, in fact. So the vast majority of the players can actually be gud and it will still easily feel otherwise, especially with the limited filtering PF allows)

[RyuDragnier]

And yet the majority of players doing EX trials, regardless of where on the scale they fall, are still incapable of doing the mechanics. Therein lies the problem. What constitutes midcore is determined by the quality of the players, not the sensibilities of those of us that can already do the content. And hoboy, does this player-base suck.

I've encountered quite a lot of players who I wouldn't allow to get near Savages with a 10 foot pole, but do well enough in EXs to where they pass. But yeah, I know what you mean, there's always a few people who really shouldn't be there and it always shows, even in older EXs. Good luck clearing EX2 sometimes, because I've been in farm parties where half the team are so bad that we actually hit enrage, the PL included. I usually leave those after the 3rd failed attempt.

[Gemina]

What constitutes midcore is determined by the quality of the players, not the sensibilities of those of us that can already do the content. And hoboy, does this player-base suck.

Using Barb EX prior to her instance getting access to the Echo, which to date is the hardest content I've cleared; I failed to clear many, many times despite joining groups who "know the fight", or "have seen enrage". The first time I cleared it, it was a practice party with the comment, "lesgoooo!" It took five pulls, and we got closer each time: 6%, 3%, 2%, even wiped at <1%. But we knew we had it, and when we did clear it, she didn't even start casting Maelstrom. Totally owned the B**.

The point here is quality of players does not dictate where along the difficulty scale the content lies. What it does determine is their ability to coordinate and work together as a team to get the job done. A group comprised of skilled and high quality players will make difficult content look a lot easier than it actually is, and the reverse is also true. Guides also work in this manner. When I listen to a guide from mizztech, I'm thinking, "Damn, look rough." When I listen to guide of the same instance from Hecterson I'm thinking, "Totally doable. Let's do this!" Does this change the actual difficulty and the hands on learning process for the duty? Nope, not one lick.

The players that suck or going to continue sucking because of attitudes like what you're expressing. It expresses a complete inability to work with your team, and that might clue you in on why you experience so many players unable to do mechanics.

[Payadopa]

I've encountered quite a lot of players who I wouldn't allow to get near Savages with a 10 foot pole, but do well enough in EXs to where they pass. But yeah, I know what you mean, there's always a few people who really shouldn't be there and it always shows, even in older EXs. Good luck clearing EX2 sometimes, because I've been in farm parties where half the team are so bad that we actually hit enrage, the PL included. I usually leave those after the 3rd failed attempt.

I dunno, man. I just stay and try to be positive/help them improve. Maybe not 90 minutes but definitely more than 3 tries. That's barely a warm-up. lol I guess Miyazaki is to blame. These days, if I start a PF I always include 'expect wipes, no salt' and people are usually really nice and we discuss strategies. Of course it doesn't work all the time, though.

[RyuDragnier]

I dunno, man. I just stay and try to be positive/help them improve. Maybe not 90 minutes but definitely more than 3 tries. That's barely a warm-up. lol I guess Miyazaki is to blame. These days, if I start a PF I always include 'expect wipes, no salt' and people are usually really nice and we discuss strategies. Of course it doesn't work all the time, though.

I have issues when it says farm party, as that leads to certain expectations. If it says "clear for 1, then maybe farm", or "getting the rust off", my expectations are not that high. But do not post a farm party if you, the PL, do not know how to do the fight.

[Deveryn]

I have issues when it says farm party, as that leads to certain expectations. If it says "clear for 1, then maybe farm", or "getting the rust off", my expectations are not that high. But do not post a farm party if you, the PL, do not know how to do the fight.

Don't get me started on that!

[IkaraGreydancer]

In before the white knights come to tell a tale how they had a one wipe this year and for that reason the story should be easier

Instead I'll just point out that things HAVE gotten consistently more difficult as time goes on. Compare any ARR trial at ilvl to the ones we've gotten in EW like Barb and it's a night and day difference. It's a slow and steady increase that HAS brought out more better players over time. People just tend to remember many of the bad players they encounter but I'd bet my account all of them have met far more good than bad.

What OP is asking for at the end already happens. I say instead of complaining about something like this take the time to try and build your fellow WoLs up to be better. And I don't want to hear that BS excuse about getting in trouble. I've been a mentor for years and have yet to run into that issue. You want players to be better? Contribute to it yourself

[Absimiliard]

Lots of things

I feel it very important for you to realize just how important individual skill actually is. How skilled you are is an individual relates directly to your ability to contribute in a group setting. If you perform poorly, you could easily be the reason a group gets wiped by an enrage rather than managing the clear, even should the other members of that group be performing their roles adequately. You assert that any challenge in this game can be overcome solely through teamwork, and that as a result of this the perceived difficulty of content is in no way related to player skill. However, I submit to you that your skill as an individual is in fact integral to and reflective of your ability to work as a team. Lack of coordination in a team, even in random PF learning groups, can often be traced to players that are making no meaningful progress in their personal fight understanding or teamwork, as the two are indeed demonstrably linked.

The vast majority of players are unable to work effectively as a team. Even when taught how to do fights - even when provided with callouts and markers, most of them simply cannot or will not do it. There are also those that have the potential to improve to that degree but become demoralized and ultimately give up instead of continuing to push themselves. Additionally, it is important to consider that what is difficult for one person might not be difficult for another, which is why we use the majority as the basis for determining the actual difficulty of content relative to player-base. A minority being able to overcome a challenge does not mean everyone can, or that they would be willing to try to begin with.

Now, to your last point; the failings of others are not my responsibility. I'll gladly go out of my way to teach people that are willing to learn, but the ones that can't or won't, which does sadly appear to be the majority, are not problem. If being unwilling to tolerate those that won't better themselves means I'm "not a good team-player," that's fine. My opinion hasn't stopped me from clearing content, and it certainly won't magically start hindering me now.

I've encountered quite a lot of players who I wouldn't allow to get near Savages with a 10 foot pole, but do well enough in EXs to where they pass. But yeah, I know what you mean, there's always a few people who really shouldn't be there and it always shows, even in older EXs. Good luck clearing EX2 sometimes, because I've been in farm parties where half the team are so bad that we actually hit enrage, the PL included. I usually leave those after the 3rd failed attempt.

That one I can't figure out. Do people just use "farm party" to bait players in? 'Cause I'm really starting to think that might be the case.

[Raven2014]

...

You can certainly say teamwork is a ... ahem ... skill.

I have seen high-end team fail, just like I have seen low end team get through content through grit. But ... I also see the opposite. I agree with whoever said ealier that the game already have mid-level content, some just don't want to admit it 'cause it doesn't fit their narrative.

Even without putting label on thing, there are clearly different tier of content:

- MSQ and solo instance = face rolling.
- Expert dungeon = just know how to press button.
- Normal trial/raid = need to know mechanic.
- EX trial = please know the mechanic and decent with your class.
- Savage = know what to do and be damn good at doing it.
- Ultimate = so far up there most don't even think about trying.

So the game offer plenty of step in the scaffolding process, and the mid-core content certainly have a few places to fit into, regardless of someone think it does in their own definition.

[RyuDragnier]

That one I can't figure out. Do people just use "farm party" to bait players in? 'Cause I'm really starting to think that might be the case.

All I know is they wouldn't be doing that if people were still locked to parties only on their server. It's the sort of thing that can get you blacklisted quickly.