Overtuned MSQ 4-mans and subpar story ends 12-year journey

[AlienDiplomat]

UPDATE: I switched to my WAR and ran this with Duty Support NPCs and was able to clear it without too much difficulty.

Maybe I was unluck in duty finder but everything seemed way easier running with NPCs. It could also be that WAR has so much self healing and group support that I felt more in control of the situation. Plus taking it slower helped. Bonus as well, I was able to read the lore journals everyone always rushes past. The story behind this place was actually kind of interesting. The whole thing gave me vibes from old school Final Fantasy.

Part of it was also running a couple of my alts through DT 7.0 quest recently. I think talking to Wuk Lamat so much actually caused me a sort of brain damage that soured me on every other aspect of the game.

I will keep pushing through the post patches and see if I can catch up to 7.3.

[Mana_Azir]

I don't think

The premise of your notion is wrong to begin with and youre hyperfixating on it.
Thats cos youre missing a lot of nuance and context between EW and DT and why the latter is performing poorly. EW had better retention rates because the story in the msq, the first variant dungeon, 8man and 24man were decent enough to hold people as it delved with characters folks have been wanting to interact with for ages.
People were also more hopeful that a lot of the problems pointed out during EW's runtime would get sorted in the expansion itself alas it did not. Then theres the group who decided to quit altogether cos they finished a major story arc and thats enough for them, they may or may not come back to see the next bit if it seems interesting enough. EW was where the decline started for the first time in a long while we started seeing a downwards trend that continued till 6.5 (many of the complaints had to do with things being too easy). Then it saw a resurgence in 7.0 only for it to drop cos how divisive the story ended up being...
Folks arent saying "X" is bad cos its hard, rather cos its designed poorly after having 10years of data from running the game

[Mana_Azir]

UPDATE: I switched to my WAR and ran this with Duty Support NPCs and was able to clear it without too much difficulty.

Maybe I was unluck in duty finder but everything seemed way easier running with NPCs. It could also be that WAR has so much self healing and group support that I felt more in control of the situation. Plus taking it slower helped. Bonus as well, I was able to read the lore journals everyone always rushes past. The story behind this place was actually kind of interesting. The whole thing gave me vibes from old school Final Fantasy.

Part of it was also running a couple of my alts through DT 7.0 quest recently. I think talking to Wuk Lamat so much actually caused me a sort of brain damage that soured me on every other aspect of the game.

I will keep pushing through the post patches and see if I can catch up to 7.3.

Congrats and Good on you for at least giving it a second shot. It is indeed a lot more easier on tanks due to how the HP is set for the tank and healer boss mobs as well as the mitigation tools at your disposal.
Fun Fact: if youre ever in a dungeon that has lore notes/terminals lying around but arent given the time to stop read'em, use Return to have be sent back to the entrance and then slowly make your way to the boss point reading up and all the bits and bobs (because explorer mode removes the lore notes at times).

[Volgia]

The premise of your notion is wrong to begin with and youre hyperfixating on it.
Thats cos youre missing a lot of nuance and context between EW and DT and why the latter is performing poorly. EW had better retention rates because the story in the msq, the first variant dungeon, 8man and 24man were decent enough to hold people as it delved with characters folks have been wanting to interact with for ages.
People were also more hopeful that a lot of the problems pointed out during EW's runtime would get sorted in the expansion itself alas it did not. Then theres the group who decided to quit altogether cos they finished a major story arc and thats enough for them, they may or may not come back to see the next bit if it seems interesting enough. EW was where the decline started for the first time in a long while we started seeing a downwards trend that continued till 6.5 (many of the complaints had to do with things being too easy). Then it saw a resurgence in 7.0 only for it to drop cos how divisive the story ended up being...
Folks arent saying "X" is bad cos its hard, rather cos its designed poorly after having 10years of data from running the game

I don't think EW retention was because of the story, I think it was because FF14 is just a massive game and a lot of new players (the so called WoW Exodus) hadn't even been in Stormblood when Endwalker was released. They caught up with the many content droughts up to 6.5 and just wondered "where did all the content go" once they finished 7.0.

A lot of people reduced their playtime because they thought Dawntrail would shake things up, and it ended up being the same thing all over again. We're talking retention here, the story is a poor choice for a reason people don't stay because once you finish the story most players don't touch it again, what keeps people in is always what content is there available and how fun they find doing it.

[Mana_Azir]

I don't think EW retention was because of the story, I think it was because FF14 is just a massive game and a lot of new players (the so called WoW Exodus) hadn't even been in Stormblood when Endwalker was released. They caught up with the many content droughts up to 6.5 and just wondered "where did all the content go" once they finished 7.0.

A lot of people reduced their playtime because they thought Dawntrail would shake things up, and it ended up being the same thing all over again. We're talking retention here, the story is a poor choice for a reason people don't stay because once you finish the story most players don't touch it again, what keeps people in is always what content is there available and how fun they find doing it.

The story isnt a poor choice cos many and MANY RP'ers have pointed out from time to time (especially the ones obsessed with npcs) that a good story helps people be more cemented in the world thats being given to them be it through creative writing and fan art involving them even if it is a one and done type of thing. We got lucky bancho's survey data as a good enough reference to show that a lot of folks didnt even engage with some of the content that was being put out in the last few patches.
You are right on the points of the Exodus and droughts we received, forgot to add those.

[Moggwa]

This has to be bait. I refuse to believe people are genuinely this awful at DUNGEONS. If the game is "too hard" go play something else, the dungeons haven't been hard at all

[CKNovel]

This has to be bait. I refuse to believe people are genuinely this awful at DUNGEONS. If the game is "too hard" go play something else, the dungeons haven't been hard at all

Right? We moved from Dungeons that had no stakes and healers being optional.
On top of someone who plays the game for 12 years? They had to experience dungeons waaaaay harder than 7.3's.

[TaleraRistain]

UPDATE: I switched to my WAR and ran this with Duty Support NPCs and was able to clear it without too much difficulty.

Maybe I was unluck in duty finder but everything seemed way easier running with NPCs. It could also be that WAR has so much self healing and group support that I felt more in control of the situation. Plus taking it slower helped. Bonus as well, I was able to read the lore journals everyone always rushes past. The story behind this place was actually kind of interesting. The whole thing gave me vibes from old school Final Fantasy.

Part of it was also running a couple of my alts through DT 7.0 quest recently. I think talking to Wuk Lamat so much actually caused me a sort of brain damage that soured me on every other aspect of the game.

I will keep pushing through the post patches and see if I can catch up to 7.3.

Glad you gave it another shot and pulled it off.

Lost Hope is kinda BS in that you have to be licking the wall or it's insta-death. Would be a bit nicer if it was more forgiving and did damage based on distance. So you might take a hefty hit if you aren't all the way to the wall but you wouldn't die.

[Stasya]

Apples and oranges. On one hand you are talking about raiders being bored because they can't have their daily roulette all be raids too. You HAVE raids. You HAVE savage/extremes. No one is stopping you from doing it.

Compare that to gating non-raiders out of even getting to play the base game story AT ALL because they are forced into raid mechanics in MSQ-required 4-mans.

Your problem is being inconvenienced because not ALL content is raid content. Their problem is being gated out of content they paid for for not being raiders.

Wrong take. FF14 is lacking a lot even in "raids, savages and extremes". There is 0 content loop besides afking 24/7 in limsa waiting for ultimate party to fill to get your 12356th totem.

My problem is that even people like you can't see that game is bad, not just your glorified till dawntrail story. The game was in bad state in endwalker too, sorry.

[Valence]

how i imagine people who like braindead dungeons like shisui of the violet tides and hells lid

This is very funny to read (SHB+ baby I bet?).

Those that played through the double pulls between boss 1 and 2 back in the day will know what I mean.

They do make the new ones faster paced and as I've said, I don't particularly care for or need it to be fast, personally.

I'm not comparing mechanics, but rather how "obvious" mechanics were or were not. My point was that in ARR/HW their design was to not really explain the mechanics, and much more value was placed on YouTube dungeon guides due to this, which became pointless in future expansions both due to how over-telegraphed it was and Duty Support showing you where to go.

One of the main things they have been trying to do in Dawntrail is to return to that. Regardless of how fast or slow it is, if you do it enough, it's a lot less stresful and hits you a lot less due to the increased amount of understanding and knowing the script.

This has been so very clear to me in Occult Crescent and some dungeon fights. At first I've just been baffled about what's going on, and got slapped around by things gathering vuln stacks, but as I've done it more I've figured the mechanics out and can do them flawlessly, because I'm familiar with the timing and I know to expect them. The first boss in Skydeep is so easy to tunnel and then every single bubble mechanic just hits and racks up vulns, until you learn to focus on its mechanics. The last boss of Vanguard catches a lot of people out, but once you learn to read cast names, moving appropriately to front or back is easy and then the entire fight is nothing. Oh, that last boss in the capstone 7.0 dungeon beat me up a number of times at first because I tunneled hard on Viper, but now I can do it flawlessly.

And when someone else can't do it yet, we've still cleared the dungeon. We just pull through it, rez them if we can, or clear anyways.

And what I'm telling you is that the mechanics aren't more obvious with that modern scripted crap than what we had before. I still have no clue of half of the mechanics seen in Meso during my only run, and I'll either have to figure them out by going back there, or watching... a video guide. Exactly like it's always been.

But it’s totally valid that certain things have been more or less difficult over time even when the content is essential to progress

If the point is that the mechanics are visually overwhelming then that’s a valid; but different argument. But the point being made is the content is too hard. But it’s no better or worse than old dungeons during their particular expansion

We're literally agreeing, they're shifting difficulty on different things and features, and as I said above, this is messing with a different segment of the playerbase that will find it a difficulty spike, including myself, because that's not the game I have played for so long anymore, it's turning into something else.