CBU3. Please respect your players.

[Theodric]

It's really not an unreasonable request. They're already bending over backwards to accommodate players who have disabilities or who are new to action combat altogether...so they could account for players who want a decent challenge right from the very start.

Accusing people of posting in bad faith just because they happen to be critical towards certain design decisions has always struck me as rather strange - especially when it's a fairly simply matter to agree to disagree over.

[DiaDeem]

I think the problem is the Normal Mode is basically the Easy Mode

Sure, that's fair. That's separate from complaining about a decades old tradition about locking other difficulties behind completing a game.
The complaint should be about re balancing the difficulty of Normal Mode to make it more of a proper challenge, regardless of what you unlock afterwards, and I can actually get behind that.

Saying "REE UNLOCKABLE DIFFICULTIES BAD" has nothing to do with it.

[TheDecay]

I don't think that's the problem actually. I think the problem is the Normal Mode is basically the Easy Mode, while they also gave us an Easier Mode AND play-the-game-for-you rings. So it's all pretty crazy easy at that point. Don't really need to have the Hard Mode unlocked, but it sure would be nice if I didn't 1-shot everything on Normal Mode.

Like when I was 20 hours in, I legitimately had to check my settings because I thought I accidentally switched it to Story Mode. The balance is that whack. lol

They mentioned games like Cuphead and Mass Effect as if that's a gotcha.

Cuphead is already a difficult game at its normal base difficulty. And Mass Effect has Veteran mode at the start which is its equivalent of Hard mode. Hardcore and Insanity are just Very Hard and above.

The problem isn't just that the hard mode is locked behind a playthrough. It's that the first playthrough is extremely easy, AND full of cutscenes and little gameplay, AND the hard mode is locked behind a playthrough, AND hard mode itself is piss easy still (40% in so far). It's the combined effect of these multiple decisions the game devs made that makes it horrible design.

[R041]

Sure, that's fair. That's separate from complaining about a decades old tradition about locking other difficulties behind completing a game.
The complaint should be about re balancing the difficulty of Normal Mode, regardless of what you unlock afterwards, and I can actually get behind that.

Saying "REE UNLOCKABLE DIFFICULTIES BAD" has nothing to do with it.

Yeah, the only reason I wanted to unlock the 'Final Fantasy Mode' because I thought it'd have better story pacing with the enemies actually not being instant-kill dummies.

Like check this out - This is basically every encounter that isn't a boss. They all die instantly for me, and it's not just Ignition. It's every AoE ability.
Spoilers at about the 50% game mark? Story mobs: https://old.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comme..._is_nutty_bro/

Like, the enemies always die before they even finish their dialog. I usually stand there for a few seconds and wait for them to finish so I can instant-wipe the room. Then bam, story event finished.

So, the only time that doesn't happen, is when an enemy has a stagger bar, or it's an actual boss. But that means all of the story fluff? It's an FF game.. Tons of story fluff. Instantly dead, basically just watching a movie unless I'm fighting an actual boss, or Hunt.

I can see that for Story Mode sure, who cares. But Normal Mode with no help rings or anything? No grinding? No upgraded weapons? lol.. That's commonplace. All dead, instantly. I do a whole questline and it takes me 10x as long to do the quest itself than to do the fight. So the pacing is really weird, especially when Clive himself is like "Yo, we should be careful, yada, yada." then he instantly 1-shots them? lool

If I'm asking for anything, it's that the pacing just be fixed. I have a few ideas for that - Most notably, don't give us free Eikon abilities at the very start of every fight. I should have to do some combos to build up a meter to do those things. But I just get everything powerful for free. Like I said before, it's like starting a fight in any FF game in the franchise with a free 1s instacast AoE Summon. It just breaks pacing and makes the flow of the whole story seem really strange. It basically makes everything but bosses nonexistent.

[DiaDeem]

They mentioned games like Cuphead and Mass Effect as if that's a gotcha

You're missing the point.

I argued in favor of unlockable difficulties, not the current state of XVI's Normal (Or Hard) Mode(s).

If you missed it, then... there, I spelled it out for you. Read my post again.
If you ignored the point intentionally in bad faith, then I've got nothing... I can't take a conversation with you involved seriously.

[Boblawblah]

You're missing the point.

I argued in favor of unlockable difficulties, not the current state of XVI's Normal (Or Hard) Mode(s).

If you missed it, then... there, I spelled it out for you. Read my post again.
If you ignored the point intentionally in bad faith, then I've got nothing... I can't take a conversation with you involved seriously.

I agree, unlockable difficulties aren't a bad thing, but I do think that have an initial difficulty option that isn't just 'the game plays itself' or 'easy' is a good option either.

Those are two separate issues I think that people are combining.

[DiaDeem]

I agree, unlockable difficulties aren't a bad thing, but I do think that have an initial difficulty option that isn't just 'the game plays itself' or 'easy' is a good option either.

I'll admit I jumped the gun calling the other person a troll. I just found it ridiculous to say unlocking difficulties in "all of gaming" was a bad thing.
But yes, even those whom are saying the best things about XVI agree that it's way too easy, and yeah: I agree that Normal mode is too soft.

It's also just a little hard for me to take some statements in the forums in good faith.

[R041]

I'm trying not to complain too much.. But it's hard not to when this is 90% of the combat, and most of the game is cutscenes with trash mob combat. I kinda expected DMC levels of trash enemy juggling, styling and stuff you know? :/

The systems are all there, they exist, they're GOOD. But the balance is weird. Whenever you see posts of people doing sick juggle combos, it's because they're in the training area where mobs have infinite HP, not actually playing the game.

[Myllah_Lyte]

FF16 shows
You know what game got GOTY while FF16 will assuredly not? God of War. Why? Because it respects the player and offers them a good challenge.

“Hey Kratos you’re on fire! Did you notice that you’re on fire? That’s bad”
“Kratos you’re low on health!”
“Hey Kratos I noticed that you’ve been looking at this puzzle for .5 seconds, let me go ahead and tell you the solution since you’re obviously hopelessly stuck with no chance of ever solving it on your own. Put the blue peg in the blue hole”
“Kratos try hitting the bad guy with your axe!”

[Nizzi]

Very well, answer the following questions:
Do you care about it in Pokemon Black 2 where Challenge mode requires you to beat the game once?

This literally required you to have a 2nd DS and another copy of Black 2 or White 2 to even use so yeah it's absolutely terrible lmao, it wasn't just an unlock for a new mode