Here we go again

[Larkeicus767]

I don't know you can sit a 5-year-old and an 85-year-old in front of any Mario game and they pick it up pretty fast.

Yes, they can "Pick it up" real fast but won't get further than a couple worlds in, what you fail to realize and apparently a LOT of people in this thread as well is that single players games, even games like Mario have something called "Difficulty Curve" where games will progressively become more challenging to make the player engage further. ARR is very VERY easy to pick up, a 5 year old and an 85 year old can in fact play ARR, Dawntrail doesn't come until at least what....50 hours of playtime in? You're already lvl 100 and you're still expecting the game to play like when you were level 16.

[Absurdity]

The Trust dungeons were meant to be the easy mode you could use so you wouldn't bother anybody. Nobody disagreed with it. 2 years later and suddenly it's insane and impossible and awful????? I know you're not saying that in your post here but the implication is from a dozen other people on here. It's insanity. Not pragmatic.

Was it ever actually described as the easy mode by the developers?
Now, obviously that is what it ended up being, you can take all the time you need and the NPCs usually show you how the mechanic is done (on rare occasions one of them does fail it, no idea if that is intentional or not at this point).

But when I think back to the time they were introduced I think they were just future proofing for MSQ content, so people can still go through the story when nobody else queues for it. Which in itself is a good idea.
The side effect of them redesigning every dungeon to work with the Trust's limited AI is unfortunately something that has severely soured my opinion on them over the years.

[ASkellington]

Was it ever actually described as the easy mode by the developers?
Now, obviously that is what it ended up being, you can take all the time you need and the NPCs usually show you how the mechanic is done (on rare occasions one of them does fail it, no idea if that is intentional or not at this point).

But when I think back to the time they were introduced I think they were just future proofing for MSQ content, so people can still go through the story when nobody else queues for it. Which in itself is a good idea.
The side effect of them redesigning every dungeon to work with the Trust's limited AI is unfortunately something that has severely soured my opinion on them over the years.

No it wasn't and I explained what it was for many posts ago. I'll bring it up here:

This whole thing spiraled because people are underneath the assumption that Trusts are the easy mode.

They aren't. And have never been.

I would prefer Trusts to be the EZ mode to allow for normal dungeons to actually be difficult but that's another argument altogether.

Trusts were made for the single fact that Final Fantasy titles are single player games and most people who would play them are turned off by FFXI and FFXIV because they're MMOs. And rather than accept this the dev team in their infinite wisdom decided to make Trusts for those players who want to play alone.

What this boils down to:

• Trusts are the exact same difficulty as normal dungeons. As intended.
• Trusts have the exact same mechanics as normal dungeons.
• Trust AI are lacking in certain abilities (AOEs, Raises, Mitigations) to keep group content both relevant and the preferred choice.

It wasn't meant to be an easy mode or even a proper story mode. It was meant to draw in the audience of the other FF players because they avoided 11 and 14 due to being MMOs. It has the added bonuses that if you can't find people to que for a dungeon, you can run it to progress and also is a future proof measure.

[PharisHanasaki]

I don't know you can sit a 5-year-old and an 85-year-old in front of any Mario game and they pick it up pretty fast.

How about you have them play Final Fantasy I, maybe the 5 year old will put in some effort, your 85 y/o grandma would give up in less than 15 minutes.
You're comparing another game with a completely different genre and target audience.

[BlisteringFrost]

Was it ever actually described as the easy mode by the developers?
Now, obviously that is what it ended up being, you can take all the time you need and the NPCs usually show you how the mechanic is done (on rare occasions one of them does fail it, no idea if that is intentional or not at this point).

But when I think back to the time they were introduced I think they were just future proofing for MSQ content, so people can still go through the story when nobody else queues for it.

If they did I do not remember and I'm not going to pretend one or the other is true without evidence supporting otherwise.

NPC's failing a mechanic is deliberate though for story reasons. We have the echo, which is why we can see telegraphs. Everybody else, but Krile, does not have the Echo. So they will fail some mechanics on purpose in their script. Wuk Lamat just upfront ignores mechanics most of the time because she's canonically too stupid to figure it out until the Spleen fight where she says "Darn it....! I'm just going to go with FEELING!" and she starts dodging everything. Y'shtola uses the ambient aether around her to discern the nature of an attack which is why she consistently dodges most things everybody else fails. Krile will do almost every mechanic flawlessly because the echo shows her whats going to happen preemptively. Every other NPC will sometimes fail a mechanic once, realize how it works, and then dodge it the next time. There's other bits about them too. Alisae has absolute priority for Limit Break, she will even use it if the player is a DPS. Her LB2 is a single-target attack despite her being a Red Mage. Estinien and Wuk Lamat also have DPS limit breaks, but they won't use it if the player is a DPS. Everybody who can heal will prioritize the WOL above all else for healing with one exception. Alphinaud prioritizes Alisae over you, if she is injured. Even if she is less injured. She will be healed first.
Uriangr can cast Death but it's random, and its success rate depends on the enemies percent HP remaining. And Thancred can't use any Cartridges, so he's missing half of his ability kit unless Uriangr, Ryne, or Y'shtola are present in the party.

[AmiableApkallu]

I get the idea of wanting ever-increasing difficulty, but who or what is to say what that limit is?

Well, if it were me…

• In terms of speed and precision of execution, I'd aim for Shadowbringers.
• In terms of amount of logical reasoning required, I'd aim for Shadowbringers through Dawntrail (I dont think they're significantly different here).

But that first point hints at the core issue here: When SE has limited mechanics to essentially being "dodge the AoE" or "ride the knockback", that leaves them with very few levers for controlling how "engaging" content is. Comparing EW to DT, it is in fact just one lever: make things go fast. But that's not the same as making dungeons more interesting; it just means you're busier.

[Catwho]

Are we serious with this? are you people like 70 yo so you cannot do these simple mechs we have done since ARR? "the dodge mechanics are firing too fast" what are you talking about? the boss spawns the blades like 10 seconds before they actually go off, same with the hanging chain balls, they are there for like 8 seconds before they even go off, if your reaction time is that bad i don't think you should go outside ever or atleast please dont use car.

I'm 45. I've been gaming since the Atari 2600. I struggled and I fully admit it, but I was willing to practice and practice and practice with the Trusts.

Yesterday I got to lead a group of other elderly/disabled folks in and help them clear it. All that practice helped me know what to call out, and to give them a warning about the mechanics.

I'm going to agree with someone else's suggestion that the Trusts should come with at least 1 Raise freebie, rather than immediately booting you out to the start of the dungeon every time you fail. Duty Finder is actually easier than Trusts for this mechanic, because a healer can chuck you a raise in DF.

[wereotter]

When ARR and Heavensward were new, it wasn't unheard of to wipe to dungeon bosses. They've been making the game steadily easier (as well as players have been getting steadily better at the game) for the past 10-ish years. Yoshi-P stated outright that his goal this expansion was to slowly increase the game's challenge since it was his opinion that the game felt less rewarding to players when every dungeon can be cleared without much difficult the first time you see it.

The second boss is definitely tougher than a lot of the others we've seen for a while, so I can sympathize with OP on the learning curve for this boss. But I promise it's doable

[Volgia]

Yeah a bunch of messages got deleted, unsure what happened though, last time I checked we weren't being rude to each other or anything....

[ASkellington]

Yeah a bunch of messages got deleted, unsure what happened though, last time I checked we weren't being rude to each other or anything....

Perhaps its due to how unrelated to the topic it is which... honestly this thread should've been locked well before it got to page 7. OP came to the forums, got people to help clear.