Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ dungeon difficulty

[VanillaWafer]

Explaining this in writing wouldn't help, since you already proved you can't read.

To be honest, you did a pretty poor job in explaining, because that was vague.

Your reply just strikes me as that you have no idea, either.

[Arohk]

To be honest, you did a pretty poor job in explaining, because that was vague.

Your reply just strikes me as that you have no idea, either.

I just did a little test with the Trust system, i picked a DPS job and went into Malikahs Well, ( i have not leveled my scions, so it was the highest dungeon i could pick)

all i did was pulling a pack of mobs and wait what happened.

The three NPC's did just fine without me doing anything, Alphinaud, Graha Tia and Rhyne, just killed everything including the first boss all on their own.
Admitedly it took very long for them to kill the boss and trash mobs, but how could it get any easier than that.
You have already a mode where you have to do ABSOLUTLY NOTHING and still clear the dungeon with no problems.

[VioletArrows]

Only here through the free weekend for the costume and a few moogle tomes, so don't bother replying to be condescending/nasty, I'm just leaving my feedback since the exit poll can't tell them *exactly* why when you deactivate. Otherwise, I stopped playing back in July right after I finished the MSQ, I was so miserable and embarrassed. After timing out every dungeon in duty support attempts, I just gave up and deactivated my account. I tried practicing, but all the new mechanics rely on things my brain just *doesn't do* because of my mental/physical disabilities (can't memorize sequences, watching the boss means nothing to me so I can't dodge, those weird new popups were distracting because they're too ambiguous so I would get distracted and die trying to figure out what they meant, hands jerk so often times I can't move well and hit wrong buttons) and it came down to whether I got lucky on nearly all of them. Pretty much every trial since ...Mothercrystal? I spend 75% of them dead and just hope I don't get reported for 'trolling' (I'm trying, but turns out that's not worth anything nor do most people care to know the difference.) Hell, there's still several dungeons and trials I can't do in a reasonable amount of time synced because no matter how many times I watch them, my brain still refuses to cooperate. And I haven't even bothered to unlock any side/post content, that's not even worth thinking about.

All I wanted to do was see the story and do the content that's *not* combat, or at least collecting the outfits from the old content I could outlevel. Wish I'd never started playing if my brain was going to get this hyperfixated on it but can't actually do anything correctly. I've never cared about or wanted to play *any* game for challenge, and I thought I could suffer through it, but Dawntrail was too much. Sucks because I really miss my WoL and doing casual community events like partying and taking sightseeing screenshots.

[VanillaWafer]

Only here through the free weekend for the costume and a few moogle tomes, so don't bother replying to be condescending/nasty, I'm just leaving my feedback since the exit poll can't tell them *exactly* why when you deactivate. Otherwise, I stopped playing back in July right after I finished the MSQ, I was so miserable and embarrassed. After timing out every dungeon in duty support attempts, I just gave up and deactivated my account. I tried practicing, but all the new mechanics rely on things my brain just *doesn't do* because of my mental/physical disabilities (can't memorize sequences, watching the boss means nothing to me so I can't dodge, those weird new popups were distracting because they're too ambiguous so I would get distracted and die trying to figure out what they meant, hands jerk so often times I can't move well and hit wrong buttons) and it came down to whether I got lucky on nearly all of them. Pretty much every trial since ...Mothercrystal? I spend 75% of them dead and just hope I don't get reported for 'trolling' (I'm trying, but turns out that's not worth anything nor do most people care to know the difference.) Hell, there's still several dungeons and trials I can't do in a reasonable amount of time synced because no matter how many times I watch them, my brain still refuses to cooperate. And I haven't even bothered to unlock any side/post content, that's not even worth thinking about.

All I wanted to do was see the story and do the content that's *not* combat, or at least collecting the outfits from the old content I could outlevel. Wish I'd never started playing if my brain was going to get this hyperfixated on it but can't actually do anything correctly. I've never cared about or wanted to play *any* game for challenge, and I thought I could suffer through it, but Dawntrail was too much. Sucks because I really miss my WoL and doing casual community events like partying and taking sightseeing screenshots.

While unfortunate, it's okay to admit that the game is just not for you. You gave the game a very good try, but you eventually came to your own conclusion and decided to sit back for your own health and well-being. Please continue taking care of yourself and maybe visit a doctor, if you're not already.

[Arohk]

Only here through the free weekend for the costume and a few moogle tomes, so don't bother replying to be condescending/nasty, I'm just leaving my feedback since the exit poll can't tell them *exactly* why when you deactivate. Otherwise, I stopped playing back in July right after I finished the MSQ, I was so miserable and embarrassed. After timing out every dungeon in duty support attempts, I just gave up and deactivated my account. I tried practicing, but all the new mechanics rely on things my brain just *doesn't do* because of my mental/physical disabilities (can't memorize sequences, watching the boss means nothing to me so I can't dodge, those weird new popups were distracting because they're too ambiguous so I would get distracted and die trying to figure out what they meant, hands jerk so often times I can't move well and hit wrong buttons) and it came down to whether I got lucky on nearly all of them. Pretty much every trial since ...Mothercrystal? I spend 75% of them dead and just hope I don't get reported for 'trolling' (I'm trying, but turns out that's not worth anything nor do most people care to know the difference.) Hell, there's still several dungeons and trials I can't do in a reasonable amount of time synced because no matter how many times I watch them, my brain still refuses to cooperate. And I haven't even bothered to unlock any side/post content, that's not even worth thinking about.

All I wanted to do was see the story and do the content that's *not* combat, or at least collecting the outfits from the old content I could outlevel. Wish I'd never started playing if my brain was going to get this hyperfixated on it but can't actually do anything correctly. I've never cared about or wanted to play *any* game for challenge, and I thought I could suffer through it, but Dawntrail was too much. Sucks because I really miss my WoL and doing casual community events like partying and taking sightseeing screenshots.

I am sorry for your condition, but you are a fringe minority if you are actually physically unable to play the game.
However, you say you time out in duty support?
You should play with other people then, even if you keep dieiing constantly the other three players can still easily clear the dungeon without you.

[AnjouMaaka]

I'll have to split this into two posts for character limit, but bear with me as there is a lot to unpack here for my "full response" to this thread.

Rant:
I am genuinely confused. The players ask for SE to make the game easier so they can finish story. SE makes it so braindead easy for Endwalker that every dungeon could be completed on autopilot. Then I watched the players ask for the content to be harder, and guess what happened. In fact, p10s should be a perfect example of WHY you should never, EVER, ask for SE to make it harder, because savage raids should be midcore content, LIKE IT WAS DURING STORMBLOOD, and only the ultimate raids should be difficult enough for the ULTIMATE RAIDERS. Honestly, you will never satisfy ultimate raiders, because they play all content including ultimates on autopilot. They are the elite of the elite. This current raid tier feels like a return to Stormblood savage. Please keep it that way, and reserve the ultimates for those that are never satisfied with content difficulty no matter how hard you make it for them.

Now, let's get down to the topic at hand. I am a savage raider so my experience is going to be spoken about from the "midcore" perspective. For those that don't know, that's between casual and elite.

What I've noticed:
These dungeons are not that much of a step up from Endwalker. SE increased the auto attack damage of the trash mobs. Good, tanks should actually take damage, you know, the thing that the word "tank" suggests they are capable of doing in large quantities. So all you gotta do is properly cycle your mitigations. If you have been doing this anyways despite the autopilot difficulty of Endwalker dungeons, then you should have no trouble on trash pulls.

SE decreased the amount of safe area you have by overlapping more AoEs, and really brought some of that "bullet hell" gameplay from Barbariccia into it on some of the bosses. They also made you have to think a tad more for reading the mechanics. But you can still mess up a couple times and live, so it is far more forgiving than savage raids.

Overall, if you are not playing a tank, you can no longer clear the boss fights on autopilot. If you are playing a tank, the difficulty hasn't changed enough to prevent autopiloting.

[AnjouMaaka]

I cleared the dungeons in full 90 BiS from the Anabaseios raid tier. The only struggle I've experienced is watching other players fail, often resulting in a party wipe because dark knight has no self sustain. Most of these mechanics I actually nailed on the first try. The telegraphs are blatantly obvious and you have a lot more time to react than you would in savage raids.

What I think the problems are:
- I see too many players that are like 20k less max HP than what 90 BiS (Best in slot) provides you. That's a gearing problem. Stop relying on your end of expansion dungeon gear from the previous expansion. While the minimum ilvl is a joke in terms of a requirement for these dungeons, it is by no means what you SHOULD be going in at, and the difficulty really only punishes players that are heavily undergeared. Poetics gear exists. Poetics are excessively easy to farm and not weekly capped.

- Relying on the NPCs. The developers have mentioned multiple times that the players are better at the game than they are. And, you are relying on NPCs developed by the same people who say this about their game. You are not "required" to clear with the NPCs. I think it was a mistake to tie additional story elements to running the dungeons with the NPCs because of this, among other things.

- The devs not providing different levels of difficulty for the dungeons. Almost every other MMO does this with their leveling content. They either make the party stuff optional, and divert you to questing for better solo xp, or they do like Star Trek Online, where you can change the difficulty, but all the content can be done regardless of whether you are solo or in a party, and it scales accordingly.

- Being excessively lazy. This is the biggest problem I've seen. How many of you have seen this? An orange ground indicator for a large AoE pops up, and it doesn't resolve for 10-15 seconds, but you still see a player just be willingly ignorant and stand in it. Yeah, that's the level of lazy I'm talking about here. It was okay in ARR as a new player. You are not a new player anymore if you have reached Dawntrail from level 1 in ARR without buying story/level skips. Which brings me to my final point.

- Story/level skips. I understand why these are an option. But, I think they hurt the leveling experience for those who actually work their way up from level 1. It's entirely possible to solo queue into a current expansion dungeon and see all 3 other players not know what half their kit does because they bought one of these to "catch up" to their friends, or whatever their reasoning is.

[Shuuchi]

It is a bad idea to fixate on the players at the top, just as it is a bad idea to fixate on the players at the bottom.
DT has decided to take one step up from the bottom, so it's not unreasonable that a few on the fringe will struggle.
Lvl 1-90 has affixed people with a certain mentality. As is in real life, complacency is the real killer.
Perhaps a spot of tutorial is needed, if I may be so shamelessly as to refer to my own thread...

That said, I think we need to make an important distinction.
The word "casual" is used willy-nilly in FF14. After all, there are plenty of casual raiders who may not be the best at the game or play every day but can still clear savage content given enough time/resources.
Casual to me implies a basic level of competency.
What we are seeing in DT is not a contest between casual and elite, but rather an unwillingness/inability to adapt.

You should play with other people then, even if you keep dieiing constantly the other three players can still easily clear the dungeon without you.

The only struggle I've experienced is watching other players fail, often resulting in a party wipe because dark knight has no self sustain.

To add to these comments, normal content has no enrage timer, nor have mechanics that require everyone to be alive. A half-decent non-DRK tank can solo every dungeon boss in DT. Heck, if its a WAR, a healer is not even necessary.
Asking in FC or the party finder for a carry is a simple solution. In fact, I've done just that for a few people this expansion.

What I've found most concerning is that there seems to be a lack of understanding when it comes to fight design.
In many instances, the game purposefully gives the healers level 3 LB by the end of a big attack. The big attack in the final trial of DT is supposed to kill a few people and get your adrenaline pumping.
Ultimately, the most important thing is: it's OK to wipe!
When you die to a mechanic, ask yourself whether or not you learned something from the death. If so, great. If not, pay closer attention. If you die to the same mechanic again, ask yourself what can be done differently.
Getting tilted will not help anyone. Look for a solution instead.

[Banggugyangu]

In fact, p10s should be a perfect example of WHY you should never, EVER, ask for SE to make it harder, because savage raids should be midcore content, LIKE IT WAS DURING STORMBLOOD, and only the ultimate raids should be difficult enough for the ULTIMATE RAIDERS..

I'm on the upper end of competency, though by no means at are near the top. That said, I...didn't find P10S particularly difficult... What part of P10S was hard? Omega was a raid series where SE was coming back from the dumpster fires that were gordias and midas. They went a bit too far in the casual direction with a lot of omega because of this. I personally thing Eden was the best raid series in terms of difficulty curve. It was certainly harder than omega while not being absurd like alexander. Pandaemonium, honestly, I would put in the lower end of things... I'd say pandaemonium was easier than omega, if I were just judging on fight difficulty.

That said... as I've stated several times in this thread... and to reiterate what you said here... Dawntrail dungeons are not any more difficult than EW, ShB, SB, and HW dungeons were. I'd argue that HW and Stormblood were substantially more difficult, in general, because tanks didn't have self-sustain back then like they do now. (Yes, I know raw intuition is self sustain and WAR gets it in HW... but that's not what it did when HW was relevant...) The only difference now is the fact that you can't just stare at the ground beneath your feet, and you have to be present and attentive to what's happening around you. If you pay attention to the boss and the surroundings, you have plenty of time to decipher and execute the mechanics. Heck... Alexandria final boss, one that many have claimed is too hard in this very thread... "Partition", the first mechanic, is a half room cleave. "Reconfigured Partition" is the other half of the room. You see the first one happen, it won't kill you outright, and when you see the sword switch sides, it should be obvious that it's gonna cleave the other half... You just have to pay attention to the boss itself, instead of relying on the ground marker.

[Banggugyangu]

Ultimately, the most important thing is: it's OK to wipe!

This... 1000000x this.... I've stressed this point several times in this thread. If you die to a mechanic, it's ok. Study the mechanic and try to figure out why you died. If you can't figure it out from your death, then when that mechanic comes back around, pay extra attention to it. I imagine that the vast majority of those who are struggling, including those who are disabled and struggling, are trying to play the game in a reactionary manner. This game is designed to be played with a "practice" approach. If you spend the whole game just reacting, you won't ever learn anything about it. Stop reacting and try studying instead. It's perfectly ok to just watch sometimes. Stop dealing damage, stop trying to dodge, and just watch watch is happening in the fight. Will that lead to a death? Probably. Will you learn way more about the mechanic by doing so? Almost certainly. Once you learn a mechanic properly, you can then execute that mechanic so much easier. I said this in one of my first replies of this thread, but that is the bread and butter of savage raiding, even. Learn through failure and get better.

*Edit* To everyone who has been struggling with Dawntrail dungeons, think on this statement for a bit: "No one fails at this game more often than Savage and Ultimate raiders. The only thing setting them apart is their ability and commitment to learn the mechanics they're failing."