I think SE needs to focus on making players feel important again.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Heavensward wasn't perfect but it was the game's first expansion so players were understandably willing to give the development team more room for error. That isn't the case with Endwalker as by their own admission they had material for multiple expansions but decided to squeeze them together and focus heavily on 'slice of life' and 'relaxed pace' content at the expense of content with staying power.

By this point the development team should have realised what is needed and what isn't for an expansion to have longevity. That's why Endwalker is more harshly criticised than Heavensward.

The devs took a break after 3.0 released, so there ended up being a 6 month gap between 3.0 and 3.1. Players rioted. I remember claims that there was nothing to do, gordias killed the raid scene, and the game was going to die. Diadem with the weapons? People rioted. People HATED stuff in heavensward. I remember people complaining about the warriors of darkness thing.

[Supersnow845]

The problem with HW circles back to the devs extremely long pipeline and how they are so slow to respond to both criticism and the community when they get it in their head what went wrong

Let’s take the most famous example, HW PLD, PLD had 2.5 problems

1) it focused on physical mitigation in an expansion full of magical damage
2) it did 20% less damage than the other 2 for no real reason
2.5) hallowed’s long CD meant it struggled a bit in mitigation when there were fight timelines where high damage fell between the CD of hallowed and the other 2

This is the most commonly cited example by the devs as to why all must be sacrificed at the alter of balance, but so much of this was easily fixed in an emergency patch (redesigning a job is not something you can just shove into a dev timeline, but buffing potency by 20% and adding magic defence to Shelton is). So the devs respond so slowly to their own problems they make them worse in the eyes of the community and then use this as homogenisation justification

Would any of us really oppose an extra x.1.1 sort of balancing patch is very now and then to fix issues on balancing that crop up allowing them to stop being so afraid of remotely interesting job design.

[mallleable]

This might be a hot take, and I say this as someone who can heal, and tank some of the spicier pulls in like Bardam's Mettle or Mt. Gulg, but I feel like wall to wall pulls are not good gameplay. It is a hyper-efficient, but lazy strategy that has lead to stale dungeon design. And it's frustrating because CBU3 knows how to design engaging trash between bosses like in certain alliance raids, in large scale exploration zone raids, and in variant/criterion dungeons. I don't think dungeons should be incredibly difficult, they need to be approachable by everyone, but that is not an excuse for them to provide lazy gameplay. It really feels like dungeons are designed for players who only care about getting easy currency as opposed to those who want an adventure. The customer is always right, I guess...

I'm quoting myself, whatever... I stand by these feelings.

[Grizzlpaw]

I keep hearing this argument that the game is for casuals, and casuals require the game to be this easy or they'll quit.

I'm getting older, and real life responsibilities are eating into the time I have to game. If I want something mind-numbing and risk-free... I just curl up on the couch and watch Netflix.

We play games to have fun and get the feeling of overcoming some sort of challenge. The casual 30 year old something moms and dads who could've just watched a movie but chose to log onto 14 instead... You have to ask, why are they here? if zero risk entertainment was what we wanted, we wouldn't load up a video game in the first place.

I can tell you why I choose to spend my limited time playing games, sometimes very hard games. It's because I want my limited free time to be as enjoyable and as engaging as possible. There's a simple pleasure that comes with getting better at something. It takes your mind off of boring stressful life stuff and lets you focus on slowly hacking at away at something and enjoying the incremental improvements that come along with it.

Assuming casuals can't also enjoy difficulty is just... wrong. And more than a little insulting.

[mallleable]

Some other thoughts. I've basically stopped tanking ""expert"" dungeons because I found myself using pathfinding techniques that like play offline with bots use to find the fastest route though a space so that I could start the next wall2wall as fast as possible. Not because I was trying to speed run, but because I knew if I wasn't playing at maximum efficiency I would no longer be another player, but an obstacle for the other players in the instance. I truly hate how these kinds of attitudes have shaped dungeon design.

[Tehmon]

I keep hearing this argument that the game is for casuals, and casuals require the game to be this easy or they'll quit.

I'm getting older, and real life responsibilities are eating into the time I have to game. If I want something mind-numbing and risk-free... I just curl up on the couch and watch Netflix.

We play games to have fun and get the feeling of overcoming some sort of challenge. The casual 30 year old something moms and dads who could've just watched a movie but chose to log onto 14 instead... You have to ask, why are they here? if zero risk entertainment was what we wanted, we wouldn't load up a video game in the first place.

I can tell you why I choose to spend my limited time playing games, sometimes very hard games. It's because I want my limited free time to be as enjoyable and as engaging as possible. There's a simple pleasure that comes with getting better at something. It takes your mind off of boring stressful life stuff and lets you focus on slowly hacking at away at something and enjoying the incremental improvements that come along with it.

Assuming casuals can't also enjoy difficulty is just... wrong. And more than a little insulting.

These kinds of '' I feel this way so everyone must also feel the same '' posts are unproductive. I'm a casual player and I have zero interest in '' getting better '' or tackling harder content.

[IvoryBadge]

These kinds of '' I feel this way so everyone must also feel the same '' posts are unproductive. I'm a casual player and I have zero interest in '' getting better '' or tackling harder content.

Good for you. You can do crafting and gathering, housing, RP, fashion, gold saucer, join community events and god forbid you may do a Fate. Don’t take this the wrong way, but, Casual doesn’t mean no challenge/ not having to be engaged in gameplay/combat. I get there are a lot of people who don’t want any sort of gameplay whatsoever other than walking around and chatting, but joining a party of 4/8 people for a dungeon/trial/alliance raid is on you and you only. If you don’t want to put the bare minimum because “I’m casual” then you don’t want to play the game to begin with.

Duty support is just right there to help you clear dungeons and trials without having to worry about other people. Despite it being a good system I personally think it will kill a huge aspect of the MMO part FF14 has which is socialising and communication within the said content.

Allow me to make myself clear here, we’re not talking about just increasing difficulty “haha we’re hardcore players yay”, it’s more about your efforts and contributions having some value within the kind of content you’re doing, may it be in dungeons, trials and alliance raids, Which doesn’t have any value currently btw.

[Grizzlpaw]

I don't think everyone shares my opinion. This thread alone is proof that people have many different takes on this topic. But I think casual players are one demographic that gets heavily misrepresented. Not all of us are allergic to challenge. The key takeaway is that even among casuals, many of us still enjoy difficulty. The amount we enjoy will vary, but I think this is a good reason why jobs should offer varying levels of difficulty. The ideal in my opinion is easy to play difficult to master.

Hard mode dungeons would also be a dream come true. Maybe one day.

[jdgev]

Endwalker's dungeons and alliance raids are some of the most boring content in the game imo. They are just way too easy and predictable. Endwalker as a whole was disappointing to me with regards to content I want to do in the long term, especially due to the lack of Field Operations.

Dungeons are pack of mobs -> wall pull -> boss -> repeat. Alliance raids are cleared without wipes day 1 of release and require 0 coordination, being also just trash mobs -> boss fight -> repeat. Where is the creativity? Old dungeons had hard modes and old alliance raids had way more interesting mechanics (look at Void Ark or Ivalice, even Nier...). Both of these contents have been very disappointing on a GAMEPLAY level, regardless of how much players enjoy the twelve theme and find it interesting.

IMO the occasional criterion dungeon feels a lot more like a dungeon I would want to replay, requirement coordination and skill to beat. The normal dungeons should have a HARD mode that should be at this level of difficulty. Don't come at me with "oh it's a lot of work"... no it's not, it's just pure lazyness that made them stop doing dungeon Hard Modes that were available in ARR and HW. Sure there is criterion now, but that is 1 dungeon per what... expansion almost? Way to little of a hard dungeon experience for players who want that, and with lackluster rewards. I want to prepare for a dungeon, look up strats, bring necessary items, and actually adventure into them... not just "oh here we go again time to wall to wall and kill the boss easily yawn". World of Warcraft has WAY better dungeons and that's just shameful.

Alliance raid also needs a huge doze of creativity. There should be Alliance (Hard, Extreme or Savage) with a raid experience similar to something like Baldesion Annex (Eureka) or the Bozja raids. Those are actual multi party raids, that are fun to do, creative and filled with interesting mechanics. Parties have to split to accomplish different objectives, and prepare accordingly.

I'm literally a nobody that can just come up with these ideas to make Dungeons and Raids more longterm and interesting projects for the player, WHY ON EARTH CAN'T PROFESSIONAL DEVS not even bother to think as little as this and make these things interesting? I really don't understand. Yes I'm glad they are adding Field Operations again in DT, but please also fix the monotony of dungeons and alliance raids, thank you.

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Duty support is just right there to help you clear dungeons and trials without having to worry about other people. Despite it being a good system I personally think it will kill a huge aspect of the MMO part FF14 has which is socialising and communication within the said content.

Ah, it's interesting that you mention that, because Duty Support as it is currently is having the opposite effect I think. Yes, it is meant for people to enjoy FFXIV as a solo experience, without the pressure of other people. But if you, the player, die because you didn't know how the mechanic worked or because you weren't paying attention, you automatically wipe the entire boss fight, whereas with a normal party someone could rez you. Not to mention how the NPCs don't use aoes, or can be very, very late with healing sometimes. This makes fights a little more punishing and I think frustrating for newer, casual players... And paradoxically, I'm enjoying the raised stakes! The Dead Ends' 2 first bosses were really fun for me because of Duty Support! That's also why I've been running and farming all variant dungeons solo lol

So I'm not sure it's really "filtering out" the people who might benefit the most from a solo, pressure-free experience. I've raised an eyebrow whenever my roulette put me into a Hydaelyn trial with only one new player, and I think this is the reason why people would still rather queue and wait and suffer the wrath of other players rather than get an instant access to the duty with NPCs.