The Enormous Gap Between Casual and Hardcore Content

[CrazyDude]

There's also an argument to be made that Endwalker's extreme trials are a little too hard for midcore. Take EX5 for example. That one is commonly considered an "easy" extreme. But do you really expect players taking their first steps into non-casual content to be able to handle the Flamespire Brand/Sweeping Immolation sequence? My experience with EX's this expansion have been that after the initial wave of Savage raiders have left the scene, they become very hard to clear in random PuGs.


Am I alone in believing these things a problem?

[Jeeqbit]

There's also an argument to be made that Endwalker's extreme trials are a little too hard for midcore.

I don't think they are too hard for midcore. But anxiety is a very common thing and a lot of people avoid extreme trials just because of that. But it also seems that more people do them than the higher up content.

One argument for something such as Bozja and all its raids and CEs is that because of the sheer amount of people there, you don't have to worry about anxiety or dying as much and you are not one of only two tanks or two healers there, so if you die it doesn't really matter. But it is punishing enough that you actually die if you make mistakes, so you feel a sense of accomplishment if you survive the entire fight.

That's why for midcore content, it seems to work well for there to just be a lot of people like an alliance raid where mechanics actually kill you, but for it to be easy to queue and not make 1 person's actions wipe the whole alliance too much.

I did like the idea introduced in CLL where most of the party get a fight where they can die as much as they want, but a more experienced team of 8 have the responsibility of succeeding or it's a wipe.

[Katish]

I don't think they are too hard for midcore. But anxiety is a very common thing and a lot of people avoid extreme trials just because of that. But it also seems that more people do them than the higher up content.

One argument for something such as Bozja and all its raids and CEs is that because of the sheer amount of people there, you don't have to worry about anxiety or dying as much and you are not one of only two tanks or two healers there, so if you die it doesn't really matter. But it is punishing enough that you actually die if you make mistakes, so you feel a sense of accomplishment if you survive the entire fight.

That's why for midcore content, it seems to work well for there to just be a lot of people like an alliance raid where mechanics actually kill you, but for it to be easy to queue and not make 1 person's actions wipe the whole alliance too much.

I did like the idea introduced in CLL where most of the party get a fight where they can die as much as they want, but a more experienced team of 8 have the responsibility of succeeding or it's a wipe.

I'd argue if there are bodychecks that are extremely hard to recover from, then that content is more hardcore (savage-like).
I would put Golbez in here for his meteor mechanic, but not the rest (have not tried to the new one). I'd say that most extremes are midcore though if and when they are recoverable, albeit, less optimized. When they aren't, then it's more hardcore just because there's a bodycheck which expect you execute the mechanic precise. Bodychecks are savages ways of creating that artificial difficulty. So that would make Golbez a savage lite (a savage with a few less steps).

[CrazyDude]

I'd argue if there are bodychecks that are extremely hard to recover from, then that content is more hardcore (savage-like).
I would put Golbez in here for his meteor mechanic, but not the rest (have not tried to the new one). I'd say that most extremes are midcore though if and when they are recoverable, albeit, less optimized. When they aren't, then it's more hardcore just because there's a bodycheck which expect you execute the mechanic precise. Bodychecks are savages ways of creating that artificial difficulty. So that would make Golbez would be like a savage-lite (a savage with a few less steps).

See, that was the problem I had with EX5. Despite the fight being very easy for an extreme, Sweeping Immolation can be either stack or spread. If you got the stack variant right after Flamespire Brand in a PuG group, it was usually a wipe because a lot of people died to Brand.

I think optimally EX's should have difficult mechanics but very lenient bodychecks (if any).

[Katish]

See, that was the problem I had with EX5. Despite the fight being very easy for an extreme, Sweeping Immolation can be either stack or spread. If you got the stack variant right after Flamespire Brand in a PuG group, it was usually a wipe because a lot of people died to Brand.

I think optimally EX's should have difficult mechanics but very lenient bodychecks (if any).

I agree 100%. Unless the goal is to educate the populace to get in the habit for even more difficult fights in the future. But with the design choices, it's the opposite I'd say (them making the more harder fights even more easier). Would not be surprised if the next Ultimate we get gets cleared healerless again. Or worse, healers become 1000% replaceable (I would welcome it, it would show the flaws of the class and it would be something to finally get them to do something about it.)

[CaedemSanguis]

Elite:
TOP
DSR

Hardcore:
Criterion Savage (both Rokkon & Sil'dih)
P12s
P8s
"Maybe P4s"

Midcore:

Every Pandaemonium Savage except P12s&P8s
Criterion
Ex's

Casual:
Everything else

I dont see the problem

[Amarande]

See the problem? There is significantly more hardcore content than midcore content in Endwalker, when it should be the opposite. This not only affects players looking to transition from casual content to harder stuff, but also players that want a challenge without carving out time for a static.

Amen. The difficulty cliff is easily very stressful, and worse, it makes even starker the separation between people based on IRL situations being static-friendly enough or not, especially when you also add in the whole Duty Complete Farm separation to the mix.

XIV always felt like it should be friendlier to the person with a real life, that is its design, that is part of why we have less content in general than other MMOs: respecting your time by allowing you to take your time unlike other games that pressure you for "attendance."

Doesn't seem to work out that way though. The comparison between Mythic+ and EX (which for the most part objectively occupy a similar difficulty band) is starkest. If you start a M+ group, they will come, and you'll probably get somewhere even if you were way behind the curve starting out. EX? You get a painfully short time to get it cleared on release before almost all the competent enough players hide behind the Duty Complete fortress like Boccaccio's Decameron party (and on much the same mindset as that story, too, come to think of it, LOL). At that point you might as well just give up until next tier or even Unrestricted Party time ...

My experience with EX's this expansion have been that after the initial wave of Savage raiders have left the scene, they become very hard to clear in random PuGs.

Am I alone in believing these things a problem?

This has been a problem for a long, long time. Fight design in general leads to this issue for anything "challenging" - the onus is not on who you include but who you do NOT include in the group, in other words, you win not by having great players in your group but by carefully avoiding the folks with two left feet.

And in a randomly assembled group of 8, it takes surprisingly few "two left feet" players to make the majority of groups moot before you even enter the instance in that light. Statistical math actually puts the threshold for "most random groups are hopeless from the outset" at a point literally less than 10% of the PF pool not meeting the bar, so no wonder it seems like things flash out so rapidly.

Any attempt to make a cogent argument on this will be seized upon by the "YoU JuSt WanT a CaRRy!!!" cadre, though. I don't know what to say at this point. I'm myself not sure if I'm going to bother with PF for EX's anymore when they're current, to say nothing of Savage. It's not worth the stress, lol.

[Aldath]

I have two main concerns when it comes to casual and midcore content. It's something I often mention in the forums but the more the merrier I guess.

First, for casual content, there's a lack of longevity/repeatability. Normal trials give your absolutely no reward and dungeon gear isn't worth the grind except for glams. Casual content, the part of the game most people will likely interact with, is a once and done affair outside of roulettes.

Second, we have a meaty catalog of midcore content that only lives through an expansion and then fades away outside of very niche groups. Newer players need to go through about 200 hours of MSQ to engage in content that will be either through the mid of its life cycle or already dead when they finish current expansion MSQ. There have been attempts to make said content relevant, but they're sloppy at best. People do Wondrous Tails un synced and Unreals have a very slow content rotation that borderlines in insulting.

So, we're left with a big roster of casual content that rewards nothing, and a big roster of midcore that no one does because everyone got what they wanted already.

[Renathras]

Am I alone in believing these things a problem?

Not at all.

I agree with you that EW has made the Extremes more in the Hardcore category (body checks, body checks everywhere) other than ZodEx (RubEx wouldn't have been but for the massive whombo combo towards the end immediately followed by a body check advanced Limit Cut), and you aren't alone in believing the gap is a problem. Ex2 (Hyd) at level, Ex3, Ex4, Ex5 due to the 5-6 mechanics that all come at you at once towards the end, and Ex6 due to Gales 2 and 3 and multiple body checks were all closer to what 2nd boss Savage fights historically have been. ODDLY, P1S was easier than HydEx other than maybe Fourfold chains. Which was just weird. (Haven't done Ex7 yet to judge it, personally).

Even in the widely praised here Zepla video where she laid out her concerns for the game right now, one of her chief concerns was also this lack of stepping stone between the MSQ/normal difficulty stuff and Extremes, and that content is mostly either casual but with low replayability or hardcore/elite, with the midcore being kind of crowded out as the traditional midcore content has been made into hardcore content, too, and the more grindy/replayable midcore content of yore like Eureka/Bozja/Deep Dungeons are either missing (Eureka/Bozja) ore more hardcore (Orthos).

And it's a total missed opportunity that Criterion Dungeon - despite explicitly being designed to have multiple difficulties, comes in MSQ/Normal, Savage, and Ultimate. Somehow, they left out the Hard/Extreme setting.

.

But short answer: No, you are not alone in believing this is a problem. Even major content creators have been talking about it.

EDIT:

I'd argue if there are bodychecks that are extremely hard to recover from, then that content is more hardcore (savage-like).
I would put Golbez in here for his meteor mechanic, but not the rest (have not tried to the new one). I'd say that most extremes are midcore though if and when they are recoverable, albeit, less optimized. When they aren't, then it's more hardcore just because there's a bodycheck which expect you execute the mechanic precise. Bodychecks are savages ways of creating that artificial difficulty. So that would make Golbez a savage lite (a savage with a few less steps).

Basically this.

I think the only real exception to my above list might be Ex4, since I remember the enrage being REALLY lax. Like the mechanics were hard and fast, and there were a few "soft" body checks (like the two tank flares + party stack, but if one person who WASN'T a Tank was down, the rest of the party could survive with enough mitigation splitting the 6 person stack with just 5 people), and the two man circle BS that they seem to love this expansion is a body check, but as long as you don't lose all your resers, you can still recover since the later mechanic (the colored Mario Kart business) would adjusted down if you didn't have a full 8 people, giving your healers time to raise people during that period, and the lax enrage meant that you could do this and still get the clear.

Ex4 was more frantic than Ex5, but as long as your healers didn't die and/or you had at least one living SMN or RDM, it was far easier to drag a party to a clear than Ex5 where losing people during the three mechanic combinations (the stack/spread/expanding boxes, the death pizza stack/spread thing, and/or the advanced Limit Cut business) would lead to a wipe. And the worst part of that was it was late in the fight, meaning you'd get all that way before finding out how many people couldn't do it. My clear on that I just sucked it up, went RDM, and brute forced the body checks with mass resing.

Zodiark really didn't have any body checks that were unrecoverable. Hydaelyn KINDA did when it was current content, but not so much once people overleveled it (losing a healer at a bad time could cause problems with the Light Party stacks, though a lot more parties died due to Chackrams than anything else early on). Endsinger was just a pretty complex fight early on. Barb's main issue was that it did a lot of damage and required a lot of movement, but if you could survive the mechanics, the enrage was lax enough that the body checks were more "soft" than "hard" body checks as they didn't necessarily end in a wipe if you could get some raisers through them. Rubi had a mass of mechanics all backloaded with arguably three body checks (stack, pizza, Limit Cut), and Golbes has several two person circles, both meteor/flare/tower/knockbacks, Gales 2 and Gales 3, and I think probably the ice wall safe corner...which is a lot of body checks for an Extreme fight. Not necessarily in terms of damage output or enrage, but in terms of body checks, Golbez could easily be Savage level.

Exactly. Some are just too punishing. You do one mechanic wrong (like one out of 8 people) and everyone dies. Personally, that's just artificial difficulty for the sake of it. Keep that to ultimates. It's more fun to mess up but being able to *recover* from it. As a healer I just do my thing and then we wipe because that's how it's designed. In a real midcore fight you would be able to die, raise and heal a lot and still (maybe) make it. And a lot of ex fights just don't fulfill that criteria.

It's kinda weird, but the 8 man Normals at this point are closer to midcore content than most of the Extremes have become since the latter have shifted to being more hardcore content/Savage level at this point.

Should they add a new "Hard" tier in between?

Yes, and I've been saying this myself for a while now.

[Troxbark]

There's also an argument to be made that Endwalker's extreme trials are a little too hard for midcore. Take EX5 for example. That one is commonly considered an "easy" extreme. But do you really expect players taking their first steps into non-casual content to be able to handle the Flamespire Brand/Sweeping Immolation sequence? My experience with EX's this expansion have been that after the initial wave of Savage raiders have left the scene, they become very hard to clear in random PuGs.


Am I alone in believing these things a problem?

Um yeah you are alone, out of all of the EW extremes, EX5 is by far the easiest.

The ENTIRE fight and you only brought up 2 mechanics... That's why the fight is considered easy, you can use a dorito for pugation, a mechanic where the boss is literally doing nothing. The entire fight is low dmg, there's a ton of downtime, along with its generous DPS check. If this fight is too hard for midcore then this playerbase has no hope what so ever lol.

Also as far as PF is concerned, week 1 is where you get the serious raiders who want to clear. Week 2 those prog parties are now firmly farm parties. Week 3+ is where you're getting raiders who don't know their class, don't really understand mechanics, and don't particularly want to learn them either. They'll run headfirst in the same mechanic never asking any questions hoping that it will just "click" for them. I would consider this a failure on SE part for making casual content an absolute faceroll. Casual content is so easy that if there was a bar for casual, midcore, hardcare, I could place "casual" content well below the casual line.

Then there is 0 incentive to actually do any of the ex trials for regular players so the motivation for people doing them beyond an ass ugly mount is basically 0.