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

[Marxam]

honestly all they need to do is just bring back TP for melees. A system where there is a direct consequence for your actions speaks louder than any difficulty curve. Spamming your aoes on just one or two mobs? Too bad now you have no TP. Spamming just your ranged attack? Too bad now you have no TP. Caster's get penalized for dying but not melees? The fact that you can go through the entire MSQ from ARR to EW, only spamming your aoes as a tank should worry the FFXIV devs. Though it would make for an awkward video compilation. "Can you clear FFXIV with only Overpower"?

However, they also need to introduce an incentive system with the TP. For example, let's say you do your 123 rotation, each costing 100 TP respectively. First action will cost the full amount (100 TP), the second will be 50% (50 TP), and the last will be free (0 TP). Players can actually visualize and see that if I do my combo rotation correctly I don't lose a lot of TP for playing correctly. It would also instinctively teach them to always complete your combo rotation.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I have only cleared a pair of savage fights before, when I feel up for it. I otherwise have more investment in the casual content. And yet I fully agree: most normal content, especially nowadays, is incredibly easy.

I rather enjoyed Shinryu's level of difficulty when it came out, because I hadn't seen anything mandatory demand so much attention. It was honestly refreshing for me... but other people certainly disagreed at the time, with many people asking the fight to be toned down.
I absolutely loved Orbonne because of the more demanding fight style with mechanics that required group coordination, know-how and realizing there were more details than just "lol stand on the place".
That's why I liked POTD back then, because doing deep dives with my friends was so fun. We had to coordinate, we had to be careful, we had to know mechanics, we had to figure ourselves out whenever stuff went wrong...
It's why I loved stuff like Dun Scaith or Ozma's fight.
And that's also why I like CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae. Because they were casual content, yes, but they didn't hold your hand all the time either like the majority of the dungeons do.

Sure, you can argue "well, everything in the game eventually gets easier through repetition". But I'm talking to things that, at least for me, posed a bit more of a challenge at base than the rest. Certainly nothing to the point of a Savage, but also requiring a bit more coordination than most other fights.

To me, the Crystal Tower raids are absolutely boring.
Euphrosyne is really, really bland apart from Halone that at least tries to be challenging.

I like to tryhard. But I know several people don't, and that happens to be the demographic SE pays attention to. Because those people are the ones that are subbed into the game, take their time with content and just want to chill and explore.

So... yeah. I'm not a raider under any stretch, I'm as casuul as it can get. And even then I think we're getting stuff that's honestly pretty easy.

Counter argument here as another filthy casual who has dabbled into EW's EXs and Savages. I think the normal difficulty for dungeons and trials is mostly fine honestly. Its subjective between people but since a lot of this content gets shuffled into roulettes, you dont necessarily want you and the party spend extra time struggling to clear fights when these get queued on a basis for daily rewards. Its supposed to be just to get your fill and get out. I dont think the content needs to be difficult to be enjoyable, just the encounter design itself to be enjoyable enough. This is why we have EXs and Savages and WHY we dont have something as an EX roulette or Savage roulette (although now that I say that, that could be an interesting idea. Too bad the most likely scenario is that this'll just backfire) for those striving for tougher challenges. Leave normal content as how it is now.

[Midareyukki]

Counter argument here as another filthy casual who has dabbled into EW's EXs and Savages. I think the normal difficulty for dungeons and trials is mostly fine honestly. Its subjective between people but since a lot of this content gets shuffled into roulettes, you dont necessarily want you and the party spend extra time struggling to clear fights when these get queued on a basis for daily rewards. Its supposed to be just to get your fill and get out. I dont think the content needs to be difficult to be enjoyable, just the encounter design itself to be enjoyable enough. This is why we have EXs and Savages and WHY we dont have something as an EX roulette or Savage roulette (although now that I say that, that could be an interesting idea. Too bad the most likely scenario is that this'll just backfire) for those striving for tougher challenges. Leave normal content as how it is now.

Well...
1 - That's not an argument. That's an opinion I'm not advocating for anything. To you, the game doesn't need to have difficulty to be enjoyable. Well, I don't like Savage but I'm comfortable with the examples I listed. Does it mean that just because I want something a bit more complex, I need to start getting into Savage and EXes? Advocating for something extra doesn't imply the deletion of whatever there is right now. If anything, I'd say I want there to be more of such content, rather than it being so one-sided on either end. There is no spectrum half the time. I often need to wait and be surprised that complex content exists rather than knowing it's coming.

2 - I'd like the game to have more content like the one I described, but I understand why they don't do it. Amarande says it best: MMOs don't respect working adults, who already have to spend their energy daily and don't want to come home to a tryhardy game. Just because I'm fine with that doesn't mean that it's the best approach. And the approach they have does seem to work, since it's one of the reasons the game is so popular.

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

Edit: Also, just to clarify. I mostly wrote that in response to VelKallor's post which was directed at raiders.
It's kind of why I prefaced it with "I don't raid, I'm in the casual crowd, but I prefer the harder content". Because it's not just a matter of raiders disliking casual content, it's that there are casual players who do prefer the harder type of content. But they are not the only ones, and I daresay I'm probably in a minority. People who prefer the easier type of content likely vastly outnumber me. And I have no problem with that.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Well...
1 - That's not an argument. That's an opinion I'm not advocating for anything. To you, the game doesn't need to have difficulty to be enjoyable. Well, I don't like Savage but I'm comfortable with the examples I listed. Does it mean that just because I want something a bit more complex, I need to start getting into Savage and EXes? Advocating for something extra doesn't imply the deletion of whatever there is right now. If anything, I'd say I want there to be more of such content, rather than it being so one-sided on either end. There is no spectrum half the time. I often need to wait and be surprised that complex content exists rather than knowing it's coming.

2 - I'd like the game to have more content like the one I described, but I understand why they don't do it. Amarande says it best: MMOs don't respect working adults, who already have to spend their energy daily and don't want to come home to a tryhardy game. Just because I'm fine with that doesn't mean that it's the best approach. And the approach they have does seem to work, since it's one of the reasons the game is so popular.

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

Edit: Also, just to clarify. I mostly wrote that in response to VelKallor's post which was directed at raiders.
It's kind of why I prefaced it with "I don't raid, I'm in the casual crowd, but I prefer the harder content". Because it's not just a matter of raiders disliking casual content, it's that there are casual players who do prefer the harder type of content. But they are not the only ones, and I daresay I'm probably in a minority. People who prefer the easier type of content likely vastly outnumber me. And I have no problem with that.

CLL and Orbonne arent hard at all and not as good examples as people like to make them out to be. The mechanics arent as punishing for new players. whats truly considered hard in this game is having a fight be an abundance of mechanics that each member must resolve themselves or else risk a wipe for the whole group and having tight dps check such as in Savage and EXs.

[Kes13a]

CLL and Orbonne arent hard at all and not as good examples as people like to make them out to be. The mechanics arent as punishing for new players. whats truly considered hard in this game is having a fight be an abundance of mechanics that each member must resolve themselves or else risk a wipe for the whole group and having tight dps check such as in Savage and EXs.

thats why I myself will not do Savage or Ex, I am a decent enough player, but ... my brain does not get some mechanics, and even worse, having to decide independently where to go if everyone has to go to a different spot. I forget which Eden one it is, but the one with the birds... it seems easy enough but my brain just does not process it. but thats a personal limitation and I am okay with missing those. I have a friend who does them so I live vicariously through her exploits lol

[Greyhawk]

So you want STORY dungeons tuned to an OPTIONAL 8 MAN raid level? Thats insane.

You either didn't read and had some epileptic knee jerk reaction or didn't understand what I said.

[Liam_Harper]

Y'know, to hark back to what I said earlier...if any of you that do savage or extremes are criticising normal content as "too easy" , yet have third party programs..lets see you do it with a normal UI..because I suspect that the moment those addons are taken away, it will be a very different story.

"Normal content is too easy"...in the same breath "I cant do savage or extreme content without addons , callouts and a dps meter".

As much as I'm pro-addon and meters, I've cleared multiple tiers without any at all, while being the one doing the callouts, on an old laptop with an office mouse and found I even parsed well. And yes, Normal mode content, particularly 8 mans and Experts are a complete utter joke. Mechanically they're fine, but they hit like wet noodles and have no dps requirement. So try again.

These posts just come across as pure salt. If you're behind all the raiders, it's not because they're cheating. If we had no addons, we'd actually be completely fine. The source is you. Endgame content is accessible to almost anyone who wants to try it.

[Midareyukki]

I feel like I should clarify?

I don't think that I'm lacking in content at all. I can fully enjoy "easy casual content" just fine. That does not get invalidated at all by me saying "but I prefer the content that's on the harder/challenging side". And saying so in turn doesn't mean I instantly only want to see EX and Savage level of content. Because... let's be honest, that's asinine. What sort of masochist wants that? ^^;

I prefer fights that are like "Oh, okay, so you've come this far, you know these mechanics, let's shake it up a little bit". Nothing too fancy. Take Kefka Normal. The core of the fight is taking mechanics that you've already seen umpteen times by then, and then reverse them. Look markers? Don't look. Don't stand markers? Stand on it.
Argath does this. Truth mask, Liar mask. So too does Ultima with her wind, changing the AoEs and pushing them up a bit. A bit less obvious than Kefka for sure, but that's the same.

It's not like I want this sort of content all the time either. Not to mention how some casual content like normal trials can also get a bit annoying by fight design alone? I know Barbariccia phase 2 is meant to be hectic, but for me it's just chaotic and I don't like it. Especially not as a caster.

If anything, I'd say the game needs more midcore-type content. MORE. Not delete everything else.
On one hand, I don't want dungeons to be so challenging that it bothers newcomers and casual people. Stuff that would impede progression. Even if I did enjoy Shinryu at launch, because I know people have a life outside the game. Some of us do touch grass.
On the other hand... I also don't want Syrcus Tower-levels of boredom either. If that's your prerrogative, great, but mine isn't, and there are pieces of content where I'd prefer to have a more challenging thing.

And that should not mean that I want Savage-level of content. I know what's being said: "You want harder content, you have it". But we rarely do, not to this level. This nice, comfortable level where it's not too easy to the point of falling asleep and actually respects the fact that you've learned the game up to that far. But also not hard enough to the point of frustration and requiring to prog things.

And lastly because I love this point:

thats why I myself will not do Savage or Ex, I am a decent enough player, but ... my brain does not get some mechanics, and even worse, having to decide independently where to go if everyone has to go to a different spot. I forget which Eden one it is, but the one with the birds... it seems easy enough but my brain just does not process it. but thats a personal limitation and I am okay with missing those. I have a friend who does them so I live vicariously through her exploits lol

Yeah. I have colourblindness. I struggle with direction-based mechanics a lot. Zodiark's spins? Yeah no, my brain did not compute that on Extreme at all, I needed people to guide me. Yes, I make ridiculous efforts to deal with them sometimes (ask me how my clears of Tsukuyomi EX were, the method I have for knowing whether to go in/out left/right was so stupid that other people said that I made it harder than the fight actually was). It doesn't mean I expect people to do these efforts. I shouldn't and I don't. Because I'm not the one to go to people and say "You who are struggling should keep struggling because I find it amusing".


I do not want my sort of difficulty to replace the difficulty we currently have on casual content. And I never said so. But it's true that it's not something expected. It often comes bundled into something that's meant for casuals, but then turns out it ends up not being so. And what happens? People complain. People say it's too hard. People dislike it immensely. People say it's unfair. People go on forums and social media asking for it to be nerfed. And sometimes it does, often to the point of rendering the fight super piddly.
And there needs to be a better balance of that. Of side content that's more "midcore" than just Extremes. Of side content that isn't challenging but on content that's supposed to be for the average player. I don't find that fair.

And what I also don't find fair is that I prefer is being taken as what I feel the game should do. I happen to have a preference for these sorts of contents. I should not be told, however, to go play Savage just because of a preference for midcore content. Because yeah. I can enjoy and I do enjoy the easy content too. I like dungeons, I like Treasure Maps, I am amused by Euphrosyne. It's just not the sort of content that makes me go "Oh hell yeah!". And Savage isn't it either.

I'll just leave it at this bc I know it's going to leave people incensed either way, so... Just know that me being in support of normal content needing an increase in difficulty doesn't mean that there isn't a place for the easy content everyone loves.

[Absimiliard]

3 - Savage and EX's aren't the same as CLL or Orbonne Monastery. Like, at all.

Yeah, you're right. There's a significant difference. I would rather go back in time and resume slamming my head against pre-nerf Alexander Savage than I would set one foot in Orbonne Monastery again, especially with randoms.

[Sesera]

Yeah, you're right. There's a significant difference. I would rather go back in time and resume slamming my head against pre-nerf Alexander Savage than I would set one foot in Orbonne Monastery again, especially with randoms.

I liked Orbonne but too many times I had a wipe on Cid because someone misplaced the AOE and killed everybody followed by a vote abandon and completely wasted my time.