@Casuals , do you think the message has gotten through?

[Uzephi]

Even if I agreed that FT is hardcore, it's still only 3 things: Chaotic, FT and Ultimate. You aren't talking about the rest of things they have released: ALL of Occult Crescent. All of Cosmic Exploration. All the hunt marks and fates on DT's overworld, the 3 alliance raids, the 7 expert MSQ dungeons, the Job Quests, Deep Dungeon, Manderville Quests, seasonal events and I can go on and on, the majority of what they release is casual.

DDs casual? Please, do tell me the many people who easily clear the higher floors of any DD out there. The higher floors are called challenge floors for a reason. They're even adding a higher difficulty boss after clearing it to try and entice you to actually try DDs because I can tell you haven't touched any of the orbs solo by your posts. Should be easy for you to do? Why not do it to prove it's casual?

[Erzaa]

In case you're literally an NPC who only does normal content

I give up. I'm going back to my peace and quiet. There's really no use talking to a wall.

[Valence]

DDs casual? Please, do tell me the many people who easily clear the higher floors of any DD out there. The higher floors are called challenge floors for a reason. They're even adding a higher difficulty boss after clearing it to try and entice you to actually try DDs because I can tell you haven't touched any of the orbs solo by your posts. Should be easy for you to do? Why not do it to prove it's casual?

Having done them all, I can confidently say that PotD and HoH floor 100 with a light party is definitely casual. It's very approachable, and we (casual friends for HoH back in SB and literally sprouts from NN for PotD more recently) cleared both in one go. The difference with a dungeon is that you can wipe to misfortune and requires you to think and adjust to random stuff, but it's very not hard.
Eureka Orthos on the other end? Yes, it's not casual. Savage? Probably not, but it's more demanding, and I've yet to clear it after a handful of failures due to all the OHKO mechanics to memorize, this was with actual friend raiders, and we need to get back to it.

I give up. I'm going back to my peace and quiet. There's really no use talking to a wall.

I mean, they see you as a "braindead NPC", that's a great way to engage into a discussion no?

[Aniise]

In case you're literally an NPC who only does normal content, you still get way more than midcore to hardcore players:

People like you are not doing much for the public image of the raiding scene. You talking down to anyone who doesn't do centain content adds a lot to the friction in the playerbase.
Luckily, I know many raiders from my own raiding days who don't think and talk like you do, but if I didn't, stumbled into the forum and read this...oof. I absolutely would get a bad image of raiders right away.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Chaotic is a beefed up Extreme with cheesable bodychecks and a DPS check that is nonexistent even when you're absolutely braindead. FTB requires sincere organisation and the will to actually pull your weight, but is - aside from boss 2 as well as boss 4 daggers - also just a beefed up Extreme. And Extremes are very much casual content because of how free they are (we don't talk about 4head breaking PF).

In case you're literally an NPC who only does normal content, you still get way more than midcore to hardcore players:

- 1 dungeon per patch
- TT
- farmable series rewards you can literally grab from sandbagging in Frontline
- 4 normal raids every second patch
- alliance raids every second patch
- base OC because you can farm a fuckton of glam plus a mount
- MSQ is inherently casual content
- treasure hunt
- cosmic exploration
- continuous gold saucer rewards
- ocean fishing exists
- housing is casual content. as a housing main i do get to say this

Like seriously, the only actual hardcore content in this game is Ultimate and some particularly nasty Savages. Savage is midcore, and again, all Savages become trivial in two patches' time. Casuals have enough. FTB isn't even hardcore unless you consider not being an antisocial leech hardcore.

2 Patches time is more time then most casual stuff has, and you shouldnt take old content in consideration

Ocean Fishing? No need to grind it, the moment you reach the necessary points to get the mounts/minion its done and btw this is not up2date content

Im a raider myself and i love challenging hard content, and im really the opinion endgame should be based around that kind of content, but even i see the lack of meaningful content for casuals which isnt one and done, which has a reason to grind over and over again

[Uzephi]

Having done them all, I can confidently say that PotD and HoH floor 100 with a light party is definitely casual. It's very approachable, and we (casual friends for HoH back in SB and literally sprouts from NN for PotD more recently) cleared both in one go. The difference with a dungeon is that you can wipe to misfortune, but it's very not hard.

Difficulty =/= casual. You need a premade party, scheduling, etc for the challenge floors. The bad side of the random traps is a run can go sideways to a wipe very quick 'wasting' a good chunk of time reclimbing. I've seen many not reattempt because they don't want that time lost again. The best way to imagine casuals: is it easily picked up and put down? No? Not casual.

With a light party and a clean run, sure it is casual friendly, now find 3 others to 'marry' until you clear the 8+ (hoh&EO starting at 21 being less time consuming to clear to 100 than starting at 51 going to 200 in potd) duties with no wipes in a row. Could be 15mins each duty could be up to an hour depending on the run, luck, skill etc. That equates to near 7 hours per attempt for hoh/EO double for potd. Now schedule that with 3 others. Sure, it can be picked up whenever, but I've personally had 7 saves reset because of scheduling issues and needing to use the save.

[FuturePastNow]

I thought it was funny when someone on the ffxivdiscussion subreddit told me I was killing this game when I said I don't do Savage, but now I think "literally an NPC" takes the cake

[Auro_Seldaris]

No, its a loud minority of players on the FFXIV forums who think they represent the population. Go around and ask people in game how they feel, I have. Shout chat, NN, etc. I haven't found a single person in game who actually feels DT is too hard.

I hate to burst your bubble, but there are a lot of people who play this game who are.... exceedingly bad at gaming. They're just here for the visual novel part and have literally zero skill in playing a video game. In SB, I gave up progging Susano EX after I spent 14 hours trying to clear it through PF and constantly having people drop cause it was "too hard." Worst part is, we would actually make progress, and get close and then people would just give up instead of pushing through.

These are the same players who whined about Thunder God Cid til he got nerfed. God forbid there be even a modicum of friction for someone in an alliance raid. At least I have the honor of being able to say I cleared him in his original difficulty.

I once had a friend who asked me to log in to their account for them and clear something. What, you ask? An EX trial? A Savage raid boss? DRS? No... The roleplay instance with Estinien in Garlemald. They could not beat the solo instance by themselves, even after adjusting the difficulty to Very Easy.

IMO one of the best pieces of content we ever got was Memoria Misera EX. Not only because it was a fun battle by itself, but because it forced players to run it to get their dyeable AF gear, meaning it forced casuals to get good if they want their treat. I met many people who whined about it, but I also met many people who were happy with themselves for clearing it and improving their skill at the game. I wish the game did more things like that, trying to raise the overall skill floor of the players, instead of just pushing the difficulty into the two extremes of "Snoozefest" and "Sweaty Tryhard".

I guess my point is.... Please do not underestimate FFXIV players and their ability to not be good at the game.

I agree with this though, thats a VERY different thing then what they were arguing about/saying. They were saying that story dungeons are too hard and that most players agree with that.

For many of the people I encounter in my friends groups in game, in FCs, and random parties... the answer is yes. Yes, they DO find Normal Mode dungeons/story content too difficult. That's my "lived experience" with regards to players and difficulty.

[Laphael]

Chaotic is a beefed up Extreme with cheesable bodychecks and a DPS check that is nonexistent even when you're absolutely braindead. FTB requires sincere organisation and the will to actually pull your weight, but is - aside from boss 2 as well as boss 4 daggers - also just a beefed up Extreme. And Extremes are very much casual content because of how free they are (we don't talk about 4head breaking PF).

In case you're literally an NPC who only does normal content, you still get way more than midcore to hardcore players:

- 1 dungeon per patch
- TT
- farmable series rewards you can literally grab from sandbagging in Frontline
- 4 normal raids every second patch
- alliance raids every second patch
- base OC because you can farm a fuckton of glam plus a mount
- MSQ is inherently casual content
- treasure hunt
- cosmic exploration
- continuous gold saucer rewards
- ocean fishing exists
- housing is casual content. as a housing main i do get to say this

Like seriously, the only actual hardcore content in this game is Ultimate and some particularly nasty Savages. Savage is midcore, and again, all Savages become trivial in two patches' time. Casuals have enough. FTB isn't even hardcore unless you consider not being an antisocial leech hardcore.

That list is dishonest about the topic.

First lets remove all the non-battle-content because that content is for everyone, not just casuals.

So lets take a closer look at the "normal difficulty" side and the "higher difficulty" side
- MSQ = onetime for everyone low difficulty because everyone needs to be able to do it
- 1 dungeon per patch with 0 reason to play it more than 1 time
- 4 normal raids (loot: gear + minion)
--- with 4 savage raids (loot: higher gear + mount)
- alliance raid (loot: gear on par with tomestone... + minion)
--- chaotic (loot: 2 mounts and more)
- base OC (loot: glam, worthless stuff, 1 mount)
--- FT (loot: TT card, field notes, mount, sanguinite for +2 OC gear)
- normal trails (no loot)
--- extreme trails (loot: mount)
- treasure hunt low difficulty good loot
--- ultimate high difficulty - glowing weapons, glamplate stuff
--- Unreal (lots of mounts)


Raiders complained about criterion rewards, but take a look at all that casual-battle-content with close to no rewards at all.

[Valence]

Difficulty =/= casual. You need a premade party, scheduling, etc for the challenge floors. The bad side of the random traps is a run can go sideways to a wipe very quick 'wasting' a good chunk of time reclimbing. I've seen many not reattempt because they don't want that time lost again. The best way to imagine casuals: is it easily picked up and put down? No? Not casual.

With a light party and a clean run, sure it is casual friendly, now find 3 others to 'marry' until you clear the 8+ (hoh&EO starting at 21 being less time consuming to clear to 100 than starting at 51 going to 200 in potd) duties with no wipes in a row. Could be 15mins each duty could be up to an hour depending on the run, luck, skill etc. That equates to near 7 hours per attempt for hoh/EO double for potd. Now schedule that with 3 others. Sure, it can be picked up whenever, but I've personally had 7 saves reset because of scheduling issues and needing to use the save.

Ok fair enough, but I mean, if you're further restricting casual to that it absolutely needs a duty finder to be played solo... In a MMO? I feel that's pushing it.

Honestly I fucking hate this casual/midcore/hardcore bullshit anyway. Nobody agrees on what it is, and those words are meaningless.
Do I agree that the optional floors of deep dungeons require more than a story dungeon to do? Yes I do, I consider them on par on difficulty with CLL/Dalriada or certain alliance raids at release (Ozma, Diabolos, Ivalice, Nier), but that's subjective. Does it mean that a lot of ARs aren't casual at release when it comes to difficulty? Maybe idk.
Do I agree that the optional floors of deep dungeons require more organization and commitment than anything "casual" the game has to offer? Yes, it definitely requires creating groups, and committing because like any roguelite, it requires progression and a full run cannot be done in bite sized content clearable in 15-30min and you're done with it. It definitely restricts the audience.

I don't know if it's casual or not. It's gonna feel casual to some, and not to others.

The other thing I know is that EO is definitely not casual by any means in comparison though and that's where they dropped the ball.