Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ dungeon difficulty

[Maalik]

I got attacked on another thread for suggesting such, but I had more of an issue with the solo instances in Dawntrail than any of the raids or dungeons.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I got attacked on another thread for suggesting such, but I had more of an issue with the solo instances in Dawntrail than any of the raids or dungeons.

But as you stated you cleared the solos on very easy albeit after a few tries. Very easy doesnt mean that you don't have to learn the fight. It just means you get a buff to your attack, def? and hp. Is it really a big deal if you dont complete a duty/instance first time? Part of the enjoyment of 14 is getting your ass kicked, learn what you did wrong and try again...

I can kind of understand 1 and 2 if you have a disability.
I can't even remember 3 because I think every time I hit the Orbonne Monastery in Roulettes, I shut my brain off and come out of it having cleared it.
4 though, I can try to offer a bit of advice; Stop trying to look for minute details with the poses. When they drop, every single one will be moving, the safe one stands completely still. Like, it doesn't even do an idle animation, it's literally I-posing. I don't know how your autism affects you, so this might not be possible for you, but once I see "Manusya Confuse" on the castbar, I usually zoom all the way out (I always am fully zoomed out in combat anyways) and then DON'T focus on any particular one. The one that isn't moving will usually catch my attention and stand out.

What I dont understand is where disability has suddenly entered the equation, I don't remember any posts on it when Coil or alexander normal was kicking peoples ass or when people was wiping to Progenitrix and Progenitor and lets not forget Demon Wall, Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold. As for end of story bosses/trials they have always been there at this current difficulty Titan/nidhogg/shinryu/hades and their corresponding story cap dungeon.

So now it's leaving me with the thought that we had become that easy during Endwalker that anyone's 80 year old gran can complete it with her crippling arthritis and lobster claws. Now we have those people complaining.

[VioletCatastrophe]

What I dont understand is where disability has suddenly entered the equation

People are using faux progressive language to use disabled people as a gotcha while ignoring the fact that most disabled people aren't having an issue with the content and in many cases love the feeling of overcoming adversity. The other case is when someone is using their own disability as an excuse, and rather than come up with strategies that work within their disability, they demand that any and all friction be removed from the content to accommodate them at the cost of all of the non-disabled people, which as a disabled person on this fine disability pride month is deeply distasteful for me.

Even factoring in disabled people, the content is not and never will be so hard that a disability will stop you. I genuinely think I could make it through any of the Arcadion normal fights with just a single finger, as an example. I wouldn't be doing much damage, but the content doesn't have an enrage anyway. Taking away a space for disabled people to overcome a challenge in a controlled way (which is a very cathartic experience) and making the experience worse for non-disabled people for the sake of either a personal issue or the theoretical concept of disabled people is just really entitled to me.

People just need to accept that clearing content first time isn't the norm when that content is at your appropriate challenge level. Challenging content should challenge you, and I do think that the MSQ being challenging for the most uninvested and low skilled (and these are not meant as pejoratives!) players is a good thing, because it lets them feel accomplished in the content that is aimed at them!

[Jaxtaro]

Try to be a little more fair and nuanced. It's become reallybeasy and fashionable for people to equate a single positiin to some form of universal coddling. I'm kind of the poster child on this as an elderly, disabled person with vision problems, and there are a couple of things that are very true.

1. I am one who loves Arcadion (although not entirely thrilled with a couple of mechanics, such as the timer on the multiple lariat phase in bomber).

2. I didn't have much of a problem doing trusts while doing the MSQ, any learning curve helped me create musvle memory for subsequent runs with a group without being carried.

3. None of this obviates the fact that I still find the dungeon content overtuned as a normal duty, which will absolutely lead to less people queuing for daily roulettes, and this kind of thing has a long, sordid history in MMO's.

Gates of Discord and Cataclysm were precursors to this, and offer important lessons in how to and how not to address content difficulty questions.

The best play for SE is to acknowledge and support the needs of their whole playerbase, not pitting one against the other with a "winner take all" design approach.

Fact is, any online game, in order to remain successful, requires an influx of new players, and in a linear progression game such as this, a healthy population of veterans who queue up in daily roulettes to always have group access available when someone hits an MSQ dungeon or trial. By having normal content be too stressful or uncomfortable, especially for off jobs, people just dont queue, which has an impact on the entire population of the game, not just DT instances.

I believe that a two tiered approach requires the least amount of coding, which is...simply make some adjustments for a normal queue, and change expert queue from 2 dungeons to just a more challenging version of current content.


The reason that disabilities entered the discussion is because there exist a portion of the playerbase who have some challenge or other, be it age, disability, discomfort with performance anxiety, or just plain not high skill, who deserve to have a venue to play the game. There isn't one "right" way to play this game, which is also generally ridiculed by the recent rush to remain fashionable by piling it on those they deem "unworthy" (I am not including you in this, you seem receptive to some discussion, however also a little paranoid that people really want to replace the content you feel is fun and engaging by invoking shady tactics).

The people who disagree with you on this detail are not your enemy, nor are they looking to displace the content you like, but they want to be able to play without stress and feel comfortable doing what they have spent years doing...logging in, doing their dailies, maybe progress an off job or so and log off. At the end of it, it's not an unreasonable request, and it shouldn't come off as a threat or pernicious pandering.

[jdtuggey]

...

My understanding of the situation is "they've been bleeding players since that spike in SHB, even the devs started to think the game has become boring and they overdid simplifying the game". Yes, they need to include new players but they also need to be careful not to alienate their loyal playerbase, like, bleeding veterans is just as bad ?

I struggle with the idea of a two-tiered approach, cause that expert queue, if it's at the level of dawntrail content, will become the bar for "average player", and these players that are under this bar will still feel excluded, except now the game will be the one telling them they're "less capable".

How I interpret these posts: they play for the reward, feels like. They play to hear the game tell them "congratulations, you've cleared the content". The least effort they can put in to achieve that, the better. Then, they interpret we all play for this reason, so they don't understand when we tell them we want to be challenged in the content, and they say "well go do ultimates if you wanna challenged, that content is for you", which feels extremely unempathetic and really disconnected from the actual reality. Reality is most of us play to be challenged and overcome that challenge but we don't necessarily want to commit to ultimates or savage. I don't have time and I don't want to put the effort in that, am almost 40, am well beyond committing to a schedule or trying too hard on a video game.

Concerning disabilities, "Deserve to play the game" is such a strong word. It's a video game, not medical supplies.
No one "deserves" to play a particular video game, but if anyone here who has setbacks that prevents them from tackling certain types of content, there's other content in the game that are made for them that can also be pretty engaging, and then there's other video games at large. Yes, everyone deserves to be able to play video games, but no one is entitled to a particular video game. It's impossible to include everyone in a single video games anyways, from having seen so many games fail for trying to do just that.

And then, what about the people who still want to find fun in the content they've been doing for 10 years, watched the content made for them slowly degrade to accommodate more and more people, and see the changes in dawntrail as a vindication that this game is still for them and the developers care about them ? Are we going to take that away from them ? There's two sides to every medal.

Also, look at this from the perspective of Yoshi P, according to him, his life's work made him sleepy during endwalker. Would you wish that on anyone ? It's his and Square's game after all, not our game.

[elshogoso]

FF14 is a really formulaic game. It's a bit sad that they're a bit too conservative when it comes to trying new things and ideas for the game. I feel like that creates on some players a bit of shock when they find themselves being taken out of their comfort zone - be it by the usual difficulty spike of a new expansion (where you are more likely to party with players who are also new to the content and won't carry you, and where you have the bare minimum ilvl for the content), as they're used to the game being extremely predictable even when it comes to things like the layout of overworld maps (see how many maps we got in dawntrail where you get 4 aetherytes, 2 each half of the map, usually separated by some kind of thing splitting the map in half?), or even to the kinds of content we get with a new expansion (exactly the same as in 6.0). FF14 casual content is gearing players towards staying in the comfort zone.

WoW is on the other extreme of the spectrum, they try to maintain the game fresh and innovative and end up changing the game to the point they end up having to re-release old versions of the game because the current game is completely different and old players no longer feel it's the game they got invested into.

So I get it, it's hard to balance those things. Both the "the game is too easy" and "this difficulty spike is too much" feedback are expected to be seen. There will be people thinking their job is too complicated. There will be thinking SQenix dumbed down their jobs too much by removing or simplifying buttons. I really, really don't envy the job of the designers of this game.

[Absurdity]

What I dont understand is where disability has suddenly entered the equation, I don't remember any posts on it when Coil or alexander normal was kicking peoples ass or when people was wiping to Progenitrix and Progenitor and lets not forget Demon Wall, Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold. As for end of story bosses/trials they have always been there at this current difficulty Titan/nidhogg/shinryu/hades and their corresponding story cap dungeon.

So now it's leaving me with the thought that we had become that easy during Endwalker that anyone's 80 year old gran can complete it with her crippling arthritis and lobster claws. Now we have those people complaining.

Even leaving the disability arguments out of it, I find it very odd that the game is suddenly in danger of "casuals" leaving in droves when it doesn't cater to the absolute lowest common denominator anymore that consistently digs a tunnel under the already low skill floor.
We had harder dungeons and harder job gameplay in Heavensward, Stormblood and arguably Shadowbringers, somehow the "casuals" managed to still complete content just fine.
(I put "casual" in quotation marks because being casual is not synonymous with being so bad at the game and unwilling that you haven't learned the basics after 90+ levels)

[jdtuggey]

What I dont understand is where disability has suddenly entered the equation

Especially when I have the same disability (I see as being different/a strength) and it feels like it makes me better at the game and video games in general.
I feel it makes me really good at analyzing data and resolving problems. However, yeah, I struggle a lot with social cues, but this isn't what Manusya confuse is.
I struggle when some random lala slaps my bottoms in gridania It happened yesterday, I first interpreted it as the lala having something against me, but they were just being a brat rofl.
Lala probably liked what I project, and being a brat to me is his way of saying that and getting my attention ?
Perhaps my experience of this differs from his though, in all honesty.

Like, I don't want to disparage anyone, but I don't think it's reasonable to use things like this to say "I can't do this because of X factor I can't do anything about, the game should accommodate me", especially when we're talking about leaving a lot of other players behind. (not saying the person has, but disability seems to be brought up often to like, try to strongarm change, not just in ffxiv, but in just about every game)
Sometimes, it's okay to acknowledge one's own limitations (disabled or not) and leave the areas where you are limited to the people who aren't, or find clever ways to adapt. The people around you will be happy for it, and they themselves will probably come forwards to accommodate you. Karma is pretty strong on the internet, empathizing with people and not imposing on them often leads to much more positive consequences than demanding they accommodate us.
I was pretty shocked lately, some guy I got paired with had recently lost a hand, he was super forthcoming when we got into the dungeon.
He didn't do as good as us 3 others, but he never imposed on us, just warned us of the situation and assured us he will try as hard as he can, and he really did, and we got through the dungeon without any problems.
Like, I'd help that guy again any day, though I will probably never see him again due to the nature of roulettes. :P

It's laudable when devs put efforts to accommodate people, as long as it doesn't affect other players significantly, imho, but then again, we probably all have different definitions of "affecting other players".
Lots of people in these discussions seem to assume that if a change someone is demanding doesn't affect them, it doesn't affect anyone else, especially when there's this added virtuous component of catering to a disabled person.

Also like, in that person who mentions a disability's post, he mentions that those of us that can clear this content quickly get rid of it to do extremes, savages and ultimates.
I struggle with that, first because I'm not very good with social and playing with strangers, and second, because I'm almost 40 years old and I really don't want to commit to wiping 360 times on an ultimate, I have better things to do, no shade to the people who do these things, y'all are really skilled and patient. I'm decent enough at the game for sure, I have tried raiding uwu in a static, and I was the best performing member. It isn't about being unable to do it, it's about being unable to commit and not wanting to commit. The content I do is leveling/experts/normal raids, even if I'd be able to do more, more doesn't appeal to me. Am I then to be left in the gap between experts and savages when there was content for me in that gap prior to EW ? I think my situation represents a majority of people who play this game too.
Notice that at no point I've been asking for savage and ultimates to be brought down to a level of commitment I can manage. I'm happy to leave this to the absolute chads who can commit and clear it, and am not even gonna touch on the fact that these people who do savages and ultimates still need and probably want to farm casual content.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Also like, in that person who mentions a disability's post, he mentions that those of us that can clear this content quickly get rid of it to do extremes, savages and ultimates.
I struggle with that, first because I'm not very good with social and playing with strangers, and second, because I'm almost 40 years old and I really don't want to commit to wiping 360 times on an ultimate, I have better things to do, no shade to the people who do these things, y'all are really skilled and patient. I'm decent enough at the game for sure, I have tried raiding uwu in a static, and I was the best performing member. It isn't about being unable to do it, it's about being unable to commit and not wanting to commit. The content I do is leveling/experts/normal raids, even if I'd be able to do more, more doesn't appeal to me. Am I then to be left in the gap between experts and savages when there was content for me in that gap prior to EW ? I think my situation represents a majority of people who play this game too.
Notice that at no point I've been asking for savage and ultimates to be brought down to a level of commitment I can manage. I'm happy to leave this to the absolute chads who can commit and clear it, and am not even gonna touch on the fact that these people who do savages and ultimates still need and probably want to farm casual content.

I havent got the time or energy to commit to savage/ultimate/extremes but doesnt mean that I wont dabble with a few friends and run them. But what I don't want is the game to turn into some retirement home where players are only just managing to do Island sanctuary. I'm also not a young gamer 43 here and yes i'm getting aches and pains with a few other issues thrown in.

[jdtuggey]

I havent got the time or energy to commit to savage/ultimate/extremes but doesnt mean that I wont dabble with a few friends and run them. But what I don't want is the game to turn into some retirement home where players are only just managing to do Island sanctuary. I'm also not a young gamer 43 here and yes i'm getting aches and pains with a few other issues thrown in.

I feel that profoundly lol, my eyes aren't what they used to be, minor aches everywhere all the time, responsibilities throwing monkey wrenches at my face.....