Feedback: Alexandria Dungeon needs adjustments

[Mlem]

So basically making the Echo available for MSQ Dungeons Duty Support after like X amount of wipes

I wouldn't even lock it behind some number of wipes. I wouldn't lock Easy Mode for solo duties behind a failure either. The MSQ's job is to tell a story and if someone doesn't want any stress while they follow a story, I don't see anything wrong with that.

I can generally clear a solo duty first try (unless Scions venn diagram me) because I am vaguely passable at video games but if I could slap on Easy Mode immediately, I still would every single time during an MSQ run because it just isn't ever going to be that interesting. I just do not care. Having to push buttons harder and faster is not enhancing my experience at that point. I don't do that for dungeons because they are rarely dull or terribly frustrating to me, but if I'm wiping lots in the first run, I don't enjoy it, I'm just putting up with it impatiently because I'm currently following a story and I just want to get on with things. As soon as the story's done, I can double back to expert roulette, Alexandria pops, my healers are employed and wiping is fun again. There is a reason gaming as a whole was allergic to difficulty for a time, because games had started trying to tell big cinematic stories but game overs directly work against that. That particular taboo's been broken but it's only well done in carefully thought out ways and leans on the target audience.

As a very extreme example, Elden Ring, which is a hard game, also has a story, but because of the way the story is told in drips and drops through the environment and flavour text, you're rarely at a point where you just need that next chapter told and dying 10 times to some random guy in a cave becomes more of a hassle than a gaming experience. An FF MSQ is basically at that point all the time. When was the last time you got an outright game over screen while doing the main storyline in a Final Fantasy game? Probably never. At least I never did, even as a very young child, and it was great because I could focus on the story, talk to people, read the things, do the things that need doing, more story, all the way to the end without interruption.

FFXIV is in a special position where the target audience is everyone who currently owns the game and has a sub, which is, evidently, the full breadth of almost everyone from hardcore to super clicking the default hotbar with a mouse I'm looking for another bookshelf to lift as a ceiling piece casual. So the stress tolerance to the MSQ, which many or all low stress activities are generally locked behind each patch, is especially demanding, and attempting to gatekeep that is extra detrimental. In time, there's going to have to be a discussion on how much dev resource is put into true casual combat content in the EW vein because the gap between Savage and Dungeons has been closed at the expense of opening the gap between regular mobs wandering around the map and dungeons.

But for now, just slap down the Easy Mode or the Super Echo, whatever you want to call it and unblock the expansion that people have paid for.