because of duty support is slightly more difficult content even possible?

[Merrigan]

"Difficulty" and "challenge" comes from the combination of encounter design and job design. For example, as the healer, I shouldn't be able to mentally check out of a wall-to-wall pull, startle myself awake, and find the tank chugging along at 75% health. Whether you want to make the trash hit harder, or instead dial back tanks' self-healing, or some combination both, I say whatever. But something there needs to change.

That said, dungeons themselves have lost a certain sense of variety. Picking up keys in Haukke Manor. Getting chased by the tonberry in Wanderer's Palace while de-rusting the safety mechanisms. The tornados in Neverreap. Being able to choose to pull everything from the 1st boss to 2nd boss in Shisui. Interrupting the frogs in Dohn Mheg. The mini-bosses at the start of Qitana Ravel. Etc. Etc.

None of those are "challenging" or "difficult" when being done for the 100th time. But, they are the sorts of things that making running a dungeon for the first time interesting while injecting some variety into roulettes.

Hard agree about the need of variety - but that isn't what a lot of people are asking though. Otherwise they would have use the term "interesting" and I would definitly be alright with it. And that should be the priority, more than the difficulty in itself.

[Taliriah]

Hearing Yoshi-P mention that the game is too easy and wanting to bring a semblance of struggle back sorta amped me up but then i thought about trust/duty support.

I dont use trust, theyre slow and make things boring and running with people is way more fun because you never know what kinda players youll be paired up with and what that means for the run.

but alot of dungeons have been redone to make them work with the trust, so how will they handle that in the future, im guessing they cant go to far because the trust arent smart enough to handle certain mechanics.

On the contrary, there are no mechanic in this game that require to be smart. They only require rote memorization and the ability to multitask and juggle many trivial tasks, ie things that are easier to do for computers than for humans.

[Acelyn]

On the contrary, there are no mechanic in this game that require to be smart. They only require rote memorization and the ability to multitask and juggle many trivial tasks, ie things that are easier to do for computers than for humans.

We dont need to be rocket scientist but adding in a lil spice would help, i actually like those moments where the party gets a bit lost in hauke manor, or when a party knew there was a right way to handle one of the fights in braflox or the way the boss in darkhold had to be taken around to lit up areas to damage them,

I think every expansion needs a bardam mettle boss who just tosses out mechanics, that was actually fun.

running behind a nigh invincible tank with mobs who are glued to them while i dodge aoes that take an eternity to go off isnt always fun and imo the goal of the game should be fun, its why we got shafted and given those joke manderville relics, because people complained so much about having to play the parts of the game that arent ultimates and whatever(which is a small group really) that the devs hands got tied so they just said "screw it, go do whatever for your weapons."

I'll plant my flag and die on the hill that stormblood was where content was king, things felt pretty darn good and weve been on a downward slope gameplay wise since.

[AmiableApkallu]

Hard agree about the need of variety - but that isn't what a lot of people are asking though. Otherwise they would have use the term "interesting" and I would definitely be alright with it. And that should be the priority, more than the difficulty in itself.

What I call "interesting," the OP seems to call "spice"?

I think "difficulty" and "challenge" sometimes get used as catch-all words for "I'm bored." Or maybe also, "role responsibilities are being eroded." The latter would apply to

• Tank self-healing (erodes healer responsibility)
• Self-centering bosses and lack of untelegraphed mini-cleaves (erodes tank responsibility)
• No need to burst down trash (erodes DPS responsibility) [I have in mind here the "sleeping" mobs in Castrum Abania, Malikah's Well, and Anamnesis Anyder]

[Merrigan]

What I call "interesting," the OP seems to call "spice"?

I think "difficulty" and "challenge" sometimes get used as catch-all words for "I'm bored." Or maybe also, "role responsibilities are being eroded." The latter would apply to

• Tank self-healing (erodes healer responsibility)
• Self-centering bosses and lack of untelegraphed mini-cleaves (erodes tank responsibility)
• No need to burst down trash (erodes DPS responsibility) [I have in mind here the "sleeping" mobs in Castrum Abania, Malikah's Well, and Anamnesis Anyder]

Oh, indeed. Obviously I made the classic ‘I'm responding a bit quickly, before looking at the previous messages in more detail’ mistake. My bad. That said, be careful with the terms used, if I may say so (for the op!).

So yes, if difficulty = variety in this case it can never hurt. There are actually a lot of things that could appease the more hardcore/old-school community without terrorising new players. And without even needing to touch the classes that much, even though as a healer I'm an avid defender of a true dps cycle. Diversity in the size and shape of the arenas; interactive elements; no walls, which means you have to make a decision when the tank pulls; several paths that introduce diversity (illusory, but better than nothing); and even the possibility of not doing all the bosses, with the last one benefiting from the buffs of the previous bosses if they're not killed.

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

But also for everyone who says the trust/duty support is needed because it helps new players, does it? Really? the trust will always do the right thing, they will always stack in the best place, always run to the best spot, thats not preparing a new player for whats to come, because all of us have ran to the wrong spot or crossed our marker with someone and caused a few deaths, but its no big deal because you learn and try not to do it again.

if you mess up in a boss fight in trust, you die, and you have to do the whole fight all over again. playing with players is actually way more forgiving in this respect - the worst you get when dying is a snarky healer macro as you get raised. this is why the mothercrystal fight had to give you three extra lives because it evidently was hard enough that play testers had to keep running the whole fight over and over if She sneezed on them.

but also to answer your question, yes, it totally helps people, it helps people who might be too anxious to run new content for the first time with people who might yell at you for messing up because they just want to w2w this and get their exp and tomes and call it a day. And also proper trust (with the scions) later in the game is closer to the more traditional FF party stuff that people familiar with the series actually like. I like seeing what these characters think about a given event in the dungeon! It's nice! It makes them feel like people! They're literally chattier than most players!

The trash is identical. Nothing was changed there. And every single boss has much more engaging mechanics and display mechanics that would only appear in later dungeons so now sprouts are seeing this right in their first set of dungeons and will recognize those mechanics later on.

an easy example of stronger mechs added to teach sprouts what something is, is that they added a proper tankbuster - with the marker - in the third hauuke manor fight.

[tsuchii]

Thank you for this. Most of the people on the forums, or so it seems to me, are players who have been here a long time. I'm one of them. And as old players, we tend to forget what a dungeon represents for newcomers, and all those who in general are not regular players at all. There are those who have simply forgotten; those whose memory is a little selective (“bof, in one go I understood X dungeon” < a player who isn't necessarily lying... but forgets to mention that he had played three other mmorpg before)... and those who refuse to admit that their pace of play is the primary factor in the ease they blame on lambda content.

mmorpg players have always been more or less bulimic, but lately this has been taken to a rather remarkable extreme. Players who gobble up narrative content in a few days because they've taken days off for the release... Then complain that there's nothing left to do (?!). People who play almost daily, then complain that they find the lambda content easy (obviously, this is your umpteenth time in this dungeon! It would be surprising if you didn't find it easy, really). Even games like Darksouls and Sekiro are considered easy by some players, for the record.

So no, please don't touch normal content, at least when it comes to dungeons which are necessary for the narrative. That being said, we could imagine a system where the facultative instances, those who aren't necessary to progress in the story, would be more complicated. There are no barriers for those, since they don't block the player who just want to enjoy the story.

Yea. It's not really exclusively for the casual. I have realllly casual friends who struggled with EW normal content. And even duty finder can sometimes struggle with roulette duties.
I sound repetitive but what we really need are challenging, higher difficulty options with higher replayability. Eg. some duties with really punishing heal or dps requirements or high mitigation requirements. Things that pose great challenge but not necessarily too gimmicky like savage/extreme.

"Difficult" doesnt always have to be the ultra-complicated savage mechanics we keep on getting. I really dislike the bodycount mechanics this expansion. People should be able to "carry" or "salvage" a run if just 1 person is making the mistake.

edit: spelling

[Naple]

They honestly just need to hire better AI programmers because it shouldn't be this difficult to code NPCs that can avoid mechanics and follow basic role based battle logic based on heavily scripted encounters. The only major variable is the player and NPCs can ignore most of what the player is doing to reinforce some tough love so that the player can learn to do mechs correctly.

[Valence]

Yea. It's not really exclusively for the casual. I have realllly casual friends who struggled with EW normal content. And even duty finder can sometimes struggle with roulette duties.
I sound repetitive but what we really need are challenging, higher difficulty options with higher replayability. Eg. some duties with really punishing heal or dps requirements or high mitigation requirements. Things that pose great challenge but not necessarily too gimmicky like savage/extreme.

"Difficult" doesnt always have to be the ultra-complicated savage mechanics we keep on getting. I really dislike the bodycount mechanics this expansion. People should be able to "carry" or "salvage" a run if just 1 person is making the mistake.

edit: spelling

I'd love for this to happen. It's what drew me to the game originally. Even if it's just a type of encounter found only in midcore content and not also in harder difficulties, I'd still have a blast with it. More Harrowing Hell please.

[Moqi]

They honestly just need to hire better AI programmers because it shouldn't be this difficul t to code NPCs that can avoid mechanics and follow basic role based battle logic based on heavily scripted encounters. The only major variable is the player and NPCs can ignore most of what the player is doing to reinforce some tough love so that the player can learn to do mechs correctly.

I wish Urianger didn't ignore Living Dead.