Problem with toxic casual players on this forum

[CuteBucket]

This part of the playerbase doesn't understand that Stormblood was the best expansion content and job balance wise, and the constant complaining at the time that it was bad is what led to the jobs being the way they are now. Stormblood job design was on the whole pretty peak, but the large amount of players complaining about the skill gap meant we have the job gameplay we do now. They complained about fantastic content like eureka and bozja and that's what led to the relics becoming a shop purchase.

Lots of people just weren't playing during Stormblood. I hear about it, but I've never experienced SB's job design because I didn't start the game until 5.2. I like some jobs better from when I started, and I like other jobs better now. I can't speak on what I don't know. I do agree that the lack of a Eureka and Bozja zone did hurt Endwalker, though.

You don't see much dissenting opinion on here because you get shot down and dog piled by the toxic casual brigade who will not accept that the majority of the playerbase is currently having a blast playing DT."

No, you don't?? Are you thinking of Reddit or Twitter? People here on the forums HATE "toxic casuals," I have no idea where you're getting this.

Most of the people I know enjoyed the story and the ones that didn't enjoy it were able to give nuanced reasons why and not just "WUK LAMAT BAD LOL

Okay, I can play that game too. I can think of one person I know who enjoyed it. Every other member of my static + the various other friends I play this game with and talk about it with have been anywhere from "it was mid" to "it was bad." All of the praise they've had is exclusively for the battle content and some of the graphic upgrades, NOT the story, and for much more nuanced reasons than WUK LAMAT BAD, and if you read more of the threads here, you would see that there's much more to the critique than that. I for one hate Sphene way more than Wuk Lamat for being a poorly written sham of a character.

[AddictedToWitches]

If you want my honest opinion I think this mentality is just dumb.
It's been the very vocal minority of hardcore players who have driven a lot of changes to many aspects of this game. They always scream the loudest, are somehow always hurt the most.
"The game needs to be harder!" they scream as they cannot even raid without 10 different add-ons and vet people based on parsing logs in a third party program
"We need more ultimates!" they shout when only 1% of the playerbase does them and most of these people just pay real money for clears so they can flaunt their glow vomit weapons
"There is no content!" they froth at the mouth after finishing all of the game's PvE content within 3 days of the patch dropping because they played 16 hours a day.
"Why are the devs wasting time on meaningless content like island sanctuary?" when casual players make up the grand majority of the playerbase.

Anyway I have always felt that extreme trials have always struck the right balance between difficulty and fun. This game's community is legitimately terrible. It is a cesspit of toxicity and people unable to own up to their own mistakes. The devs says third party tools are a bannable offense but then they wink wink nudge nudge and say "uhhh just don't tell anybody you use them." Damage parsers are supposed to be banned so other players don't discriminate and yet this still happens. Because as long as you don't strictly mention you are parsing or doing parse runs the devs could care less.

[Isala]

It's been the very vocal minority of hardcore players who have driven a lot of changes to many aspects of this game. They always scream the loudest, are somehow always hurt the most.

If hardcore players actually drove the changes, then there is no way that the Job Design choice of catering to absolute bottom feeders would exist. Last I checked, a "hardcore" player can handle something as stupidly simple as positionals, and yet SE has to address the people complaining about them being "too hard" on Viper. Get out of here with that "hardcores are ruining the game" crap. It isn't, and hasn't ever been true.

[Dovaah]

"The game needs to be harder!" they scream as they cannot even raid without 10 different add-ons and vet people based on parsing logs in a third party program

The game needs to be harder though. I don't even do savages nor ex versions (I just wait to unsync them) and the MSQ content has been a snooze fest for a while. If you can just press a button to reach the next cutscene, you might as well just watch someone play through it and spare yourself the cash spending.

You can't expect an MMO to release 6 expansions and get the same mechanics in every single encounter. MSQ is the main appeal to the game yes but it's a game and gameplay comes with it. They have no choice but to change things around if they want to attract new blood.

Like it or not but new players are what keeps these games around for a long time.

And tbh, the combat has kept this expansion from being a total disaster with just how mid the story has been in DT.

[NekoNova]

The game needs to be harder though. I don't even do savages nor ex versions (I just wait to unsync them) and the MSQ content has been a snooze fest for a while. If you can just press a button to reach the next cutscene, you might as well just watch someone play through it and spare yourself the cash spending.

You can't expect an MMO to release 6 expansions and get the same mechanics in every single encounter. MSQ is the main appeal to the game yes but it's a game and gameplay comes with it. They have no choice but to change things around if they want to attract new blood.

Like it or not but new players are what keeps these games around for a long time.

And tbh, the combat has kept this expansion from being a total disaster with just how mid the story has been in DT.

Absolutely not.
Raids/EX etc can be made harder on endgame. That I will agree with.
The main story should never reach a difficulty level that requires people to struggle through it.
It's a leveling experience and story telling mode.

[FudoMyoo]

Everyone is beating on the dead (wrong?) horse?

End game is collecting mounts/minions, housing, glam & editing in game portraits!!!

[Tabmow]

Nice gaslighting OP. so anyone who has a complaint about this sub par xpac is now a "toxic casual"? riiiiight

[Merrigan]

Absolutely not.
Raids/EX etc can be made harder on endgame. That I will agree with.
The main story should never reach a difficulty level that requires people to struggle through it.
It's a leveling experience and story telling mode.

Can we define "struggle" ? Because DT content doesn't make you struggle. In fact, those I saw complaining about it clearly had much more serious problems than you imagine (problems understanding how an MMO works, even before struggling with the mechanics: camera direction and others). All the others, except in special cases, potentially found that the content of DT was more complex but absolutely not infeasible.

Hence my question: when can we use this word “struggle”? When players can still wipe ?

[NekoNova]

Can we define "struggle" ? Because DT content doesn't make you struggle. In fact, those I saw complaining about it clearly had much more serious problems than you imagine (problems understanding how an MMO works, even before struggling with the mechanics: camera direction and others). All the others, except in special cases, potentially found that the content of DT was more complex but absolutely not infeasible.

Hence my question: when can we use this word “struggle”? When players can still wipe ?

Let me try to rephrase it...

There's 2 paths we need to consider:

* The solo-encounters people need to clear during the story
* The grouped instances people need to clear during the story.

The first point is roughly covered, since they introduced the story mode, or even the option to skip said encounter when a player cannot beat the encounter.
The reasons behind this I will leave aside, as we'd delve into player skills, disabilities and what not as to why this option exists.

The second point is where the rub lies.
While I enjoy a challenge myself in the game, it would be unfair for people to be stuck on completing the story because there's a grouped instance they cannot get passed.
I'm aware that we have various options here such as party, followers and what not.
So I'd entertain the idea of keeping the simplest difficulty on the followers instance, and add some complexity when doing the dungeon with a full part of players.

Hence my question: when can we use this word “struggle”? When players can still wipe ?

Absolutely!
There is nothing wrong with a group wiping in a dungeon/raid/encounter.
As long as they are wiping because of something they did wrong, can identify what they did wrong and improve, then by all means, YES!
The mistakes should be obvious and clear on what to improve on.

Wiping 2-3 times and then clearing the encounter a group : Perfectly fine!
Mindlessly running into a wall without a clear way on how to get past it : Something is wrong

[AvoSturmfaust]

I understand some points in this Thread and im the same Opionion, Right from the Start i am raider and i love to see the Difficulity Spike compared with EW, and it could be even harder in my Opinion but MSQ Dungeons should be piss easy without question, you have so many People here in this Game with a Disablility or anything which struggle to clear the MSQ Dungeons and that shouldnt happen, and if you honest so its fine to have them easy as fuck, but Expert/Raids/Allianzraids/ExTrials/Savage that is stuff which should be even harder so People who enjoy "Challenges" can have the Challenge while People which enjoy the MSQ can straight up have the MSQ.