People Enjoy hard Games

[redheadturk]

The only thing being spoken by the people in that case is that there's a lot of reasons to pick SMN. What people don't seem to realise is that not everyone who plays SMN enjoys it. Just like how not everyone who did Eureka enjoyed it.

I am someone who currently plays SMN on a few alts that *misses* the way it used to play. give me back my freaking dots, SE!

[Aldath]

Some people enjoy hard games. There's a difference between something challenging and something being hard.

I consider myself a midcore player, good enough to have succesfuly cleared some old extremes, but bad enough to stay away from Savage because of how badly I played tank against Alexander Prime (Normal) and Sephirot (Extreme). I think this game has more than enough midcore content, the problem is that nowadays the lack of an ilvl sync for most of it, on top of a long history of class changes, makes it a joke.

There's also the issue of how big of a leap in difficulty is going from Normal, to Extreme, to Savage. In my own experience, Normal does very little to prepare you for the extreme versions of Trials, and if what I've read holds true, Savage Raids are even worse. Normal introduces you to mechanics that either will completely change or become irrelevant on the Extreme version, giving you a false sense of mastery and security once you clear it, and confusion when you have no idea what the hell killed you. Also, the game does nothing to introduce players into harder content. The game teaches you that every instanced content you unlock can be queued for in DF, but no one has the will to go and do it for Extremes/Savage, so new players are faced with infinite queues, or with groups full of people who have no idea what they're getting into, usually led by a frustrated mentor because he does know how things will play out. Many people will say "you can do PF", but the game never actually bothers to teach you that alternative, and even then, very few people seem to be interested in doing old extremes without unsync, whcih might speak volumes of how "engaging" they find that content to be in the long run. I recall reading somewhere that Yoshi-P said they don't want people skipping old content because they worked hard on it, but I don't see SE making an effort to keep it relevant.

And speaking of encounter design, that's also a problem in FFXIV. The 2 Minute Meta has been so far what has really kept me on edge about trying Savages, and I consider it one of the biggest walls for new players to get involved in hard content and learn, as it's one of the most anti-PUG designs I've ever encountered in an MMO. The game doesn't takes into account personal mastery of the encounter and instead punishes good players for the mistakes of others.

Also keep in mind that usually, hardcore players in MMOs are a low percentage, and games that have tried to carter to said demographic usually fail. Sadly, it's the Limsa Catgirls and the Hrothgar Furries in Faerie that pay the bills for FFXIV Devs, and I am sure they'd rather lose 4 regular subs than that one player who will buy an entire catalog of outfits for alts and any new shiny cosmetic and mount. We in the forums of any game are usually the most passionate bunch, and also very vocal, but we aren't really a substantial part of the population.

[Ivtrix]

Nobody is lobbying for SE to make the game hostile to casual players yet you brought that up.

Yeah idk why so many players people who don’t engage with anything extreme and up take the is as a personal attack, I think everyone is in agreement that the msq and normal mode content should be accessible, but there needs to be better slope into endgame content.

The same issue with SMN. The number of people who get so huffy thinking the calls to make SMN more engaging is a personal attack. Here’s a reality check: every single job at its core is easy to play. What people are interested in and where the difficult comes in is the optimization of the job. SMN doesn’t really have any. And when you don’t engage in any content that has a hard enrage check (extreme and up), it’s just not something that is really considered or something you are required to think about. It’s optional for casual content, and it’s entirely for more advanced content. It’s why people gatekeep endgame conversations, it’s not personal but it requires a different mentality. That’s why you see a lot of pushback against two specific serial posters; one who continually demonstrated they don’t understand the game on a fundamental level and another one who has labeled all endgame players with a broad brush in a self crusade against “cheaters and elitists”. These players claim that they have provoked the “official forums bully mob”, but in reality the content of their posts just shows they lack the experience to what actually happens in high level group content, since they don’t actively participate in it.

The reality is that the difficulty in this game is 100% optional (extreme to ultimate is literally not required at all to enjoy the msq), and the MSQ encounters are always going to be balanced around high completion rates. It’s why certain players are scoffed at when they contribute to balance discussions. No one should be excluded on job feedback at a base level, but to not realize that balance in this game is based around 2 things; week 1 savage and ultimate is ignorant.

When people say they want harder games, what they want in a MMO is more optional difficulty, which comes from both encounter design, and higher level optimizations of the jobs which plays very heavily into a jobs theoretical maximum dps. No one should be coming for casual content.

[SophiaDL]

post too long to quote

That's the problem with casuals, at least in FFXIV, they want it their way and only their way, they cant accept that people want challenging content because then they feel like they "HAVE" to do it (yet it provides basically nothing to do so, aside from a small ilevel increase), they just have to get the same thing as everybody, else they will cry about it endlessly on the forums about how they are treated differently.

The difficulty of the content in itself is the reason why I refuse to do the content FFXIV has to offer and I would rather do content in WoW, and use FFXIV for the social aspect and housing, content in FFXIV is an absolute joke, a slow paced complete bore with 0 job uniqueness and no "cool" spells, a 2 minutes meta that reinforces even more the bore effect of it, and with a more than mediocre difficulty that is barely equal to HC in WoW, and I am sure I am not the only one to think that way, the casual side of this game is happy, but the side that actually wants a challenge and wants to play the game is not.

[Kisshu]

To me, the biggest problem is that we got very easy normal mode stuff (dungeons, trials, 8+24 man raid) and then if you want something more challenging you have to go to Extreme trials or Savage raids. That leaves a very wide gap in the middle for the more mid-core gamers that want a challenge, but not long progs like with Extremes and up.
And then we have something like Variant/Criterion which is basicly very easy, savage and savage plus.

Personally I would love for some content of similar difficulty to on-release Orbonne Monastery, it was difficult and fun without being pushed all the way into extreme.

[Aravell]

It’s why people gatekeep endgame conversations, it’s not personal but it requires a different mentality.

There would honestly be better conversation around this topic if people who don't have a deep understanding on the topic didn't dig in their heels and refuse to be corrected on anything. It's extremely frustrating when people go in with a misconception and refuse to accept that they're wrong, so they dig in their heels and keep repeating the wrong information everywhere as if there weren't 10 people trying to correct them.

[Ivtrix]

That's the problem with casuals, at least in FFXIV, they want it their way and only their way, they cant accept that people want challenging content because then they feel like they "HAVE" to do it (yet it provides basically nothing to do so, aside from a small ilevel increase), they just have to get the same thing as everybody, else they will cry about it endlessly on the forums about how they are treated differently.

The difficulty of the content in itself is the reason why I refuse to do the content FFXIV has to offer and I would rather do content in WoW, and use FFXIV for the social aspect and housing, content in FFXIV is an absolute joke, a slow paced complete bore with 0 job uniqueness and no "cool" spells, a 2 minutes meta that reinforces even more the bore effect of it, and with a more than mediocre difficulty that is barely equal to HC in WoW, and I am sure I am not the only one to think that way, the casual side of this game is happy, but the side that actually wants a challenge and wants to play the game is not.

I don’t raid mythic anymore and havnt since legion, so I can’t speak on current difficulty but still currently raid heroic and idk, I am not sure I agree 100% with your sentiment. I find different enjoyment in raiding on both but ultimate on content especially the new ones are far and above anything I did in wow during mop-legion when I was most active in mythic raiding.

But idk I find raiding in this game to still be a lot of fun despite the changes to the meta (it is a sour taste but not one to completely ruin my enjoyment). It’s out of passion that the game is solid fundamentally but could be improved upon that gets players like myself heated up and itching for improvement.

As for the first statement on the casual issue, idk it’s hard. Everyone obviously in it for their own personal enjoyment and experiences but people have convinced themselves that the status quo is going to change when in theory it shouldn’t and thing will be no different day to day for the casual player. Convincing people of it is the difficult issue.

[Ivtrix]

There would honestly be better conversation around this topic if people who don't have a deep understanding on the topic didn't dig in their heels and refuse to be corrected on anything. It's extremely frustrating when people go in with a misconception and refuse to accept that they're wrong, so they dig in their heels and keep repeating the wrong information everywhere as if there weren't 10 people trying to correct them.

The issue is instead of questioning their understanding of the game this person chooses to view themselves like the john wick meme with everyone pointing a gun at their head

[SophiaDL]

I don’t raid mythic anymore and havnt since legion, so I can’t speak on current difficulty but still currently raid heroic and idk, I am not sure I agree 100% with your sentiment. I find different enjoyment in raiding on both but ultimate on content especially the new ones are far and above anything I did in wow during mop-legion when I was most active in mythic raiding.

But idk I find raiding in this game to still be a lot of fun despite the changes to the meta (it is a sour taste but not one to completely ruin my enjoyment). It’s out of passion that the game is solid fundamentally but could be improved upon that gets players like myself heated up and itching for improvement.

As for the first statement on the casual issue, idk it’s hard. Everyone obviously in it for their own personal enjoyment and experiences but people have convinced themselves that the status quo is going to change when in theory it shouldn’t and thing will be no different day to day for the casual player. Convincing people of it is the difficult issue.

Ultimate content is extremely rare though as in the pacing in between one and the next, so even if you do compare it to WoW, it's very different by design, ultimates in FFXIV are an extremely "limited" ressource, while mythic raiding happens every raid tier, so even if it might be true that ultimate difficulty has a higher skill ceiling/difficulty in general, it's also.. very scarce, which makes it unfun, because in my opinion you can do one fight only so many times until eventually you get fed up by it, WoW refreshes it every raid tier, FFXIV does not.

Regarding the casual issue, the problem is that they dont want things to change, they dont want to understand, they just dont want the difficulty to exist, because lets be honest here, FFXIV players are entitled, they want everything, but also dont want to do any effort to get it, they know if something get added, they'll want it the second it comes out and will have to do the effort to get it, or just complain that they cant get it because its too hard. We both know which one they'll pick, or at least the majority will pick.

[RitsukoSonoda]

That's the problem with casuals, at least in FFXIV, they want it their way and only their way, they cant accept that people want challenging content because then they feel like they "HAVE" to do it (yet it provides basically nothing to do so, aside from a small ilevel increase), they just have to get the same thing as everybody, else they will cry about it endlessly on the forums about how they are treated differently.

The difficulty of the content in itself is the reason why I refuse to do the content FFXIV has to offer and I would rather do content in WoW, and use FFXIV for the social aspect and housing, content in FFXIV is an absolute joke, a slow paced complete bore with 0 job uniqueness and no "cool" spells, a 2 minutes meta that reinforces even more the bore effect of it, and with a more than mediocre difficulty that is barely equal to HC in WoW, and I am sure I am not the only one to think that way, the casual side of this game is happy, but the side that actually wants a challenge and wants to play the game is not.

The casuals are asking for these changes as well. The ones against it are simply either lazy players or clout chasers that keep getting labeled as "casual". The actual casual player base want to actually play the game. Not watch the game and have it play itself. However they keep getting grouped with these people demanding to be rewarded with cookies for kicking the cat after being told not to while tossing out every disease and condition they can find on web MD as an excuse for why the majority of the player base cannot have the content changes they want.