#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[HighlanderClone]

I joined about 4,5 years ago, during ShB, spent alot of time as a sprout, leveling every job to it's respective expansion cap and doing all the normal side content of said expansion. I only finished Endwalker content 2, maybe 3, months ago?

Regardless, as a newer player, I can tell you without a doubt, the jump in difficulty from HW to SB was large, ShB and EW even more so that SB. In SB, I can only recall Shinryu and Tenzen series having any really obscure mechanics I had to learn.

But in ShB, they were almost everywhere, and suddenly, the entire floors were being covered with no visible safe spots too.

Case in point, the Berserker. On the face of it, it looks like a stack mechanic, but it's not, failed on the rocks first time. Then, the holes in the ground, I stand in them when I see the boss is charging, get a debuff, I think, that's not it, get hit by the charge. Then I need to realise that I need to time when I stand in the holes to avoid the charge but not keep the debuff on me long.

Those are all really obscure mechanics. A new player can't avoid failing them, unless someone tells them in advance.

The game doesn't do mechanics that are easy to understand for first times, it's not like an action game, where you see a boss raise their fist and then you just know you need to be fast enough to get out of the way. Even when a boss does raise their fist, you don't know if it's going to hit the left side, or middle, or how big the slam is, until you see it.

So... you haven't done those content at their intended difficulty. The stuff you said were easy all got nerfed over the years, many of them directly nerfed.

[Erzaa]

So... you haven't done those content at their intended difficulty. The stuff you said were easy all got nerfed over the years, many of them directly nerfed.

I'm sure that's partially true, but it also comes down to experience.

People who are experienced in something, such as seasoned players in this game, have terrible memories on the difficulties they faced when starting out. They may remember some particularly bad things that happened vividly, but they won't remember the day to day struggles.

I see it with myself now. It's much easier to sort of see a new mechanic now and make an educated guess as to what's coming. I remember the first time I saw the hammers sprout in the Myth raid, I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen, but I had a feeling I shouldn't be on the platform. I still didn't know it was going to push the platforms though, it was just an educated guess.

Back then, the content may have felt harder because people were newer, jobs played different, people didn't have a handle on the game yet. Now, you've been playing so long, you've seen it all and can't be surprised by things in Normal content anymore.

That doesn't mean a new player won't feel that massive jump in difficulty, when the game trained them one way in ARR/HW and then suddenly flips the script on them.