Player Drop Off and Accessibility/Diffculty

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

Harder content pretty much always have rather low clear rate because, well, they're harder and not everyone wants to bother with that. If you want content like savage/ultimate to have a high clear rate you would have to severely reduce the difficulty probably to normal raid level or, at the very most, extreme-level. But then you have to also reduce the actual normal-level difficulty otherwise it makes no sense. So you ends up with the high-end difficulty content to be easy and nothing in the game is remotely hard and challenging to do. You also alienate the majority of the players because all content are a snoozefest and nothing is remotely interesting to do. Overall, you end up with a dead game.

Hardcore raiders only gets 4 savages like every other patch and one ultimate once in a while, they've not remotely become the target audience. I would say that DT's target audience are the average casual people who don't necessarely want savage-level of difficulty but still don't want to fall asleep while doing every single piece of content.



And most MMORPGs have visual/audio cues for mechanics and not just a orange danger puddle on the ground for 30 seconds. And with most jobs now being braindead to play, you should be able to focus on something else than your rotation anyway.

Sorry but the 4 savage and 1 ultimate excuse dosn't fly anymore when hadcore raiders have been eating exceptionally good in dawntrail while everyone else had borderline 0 content until Occult Crescent.

They currently have 8 savage raid, 1 ultimate, 1 chaotic, 1 alliance raid (Forked Tower) and for some reason now we also have the Deep dungeon boss accessible by que with the difficulty cranked up to 11.
Meanwhile Casual players have: 8 normal raids, 2 alliance raids, Occult Crescent without an ending because of forked tower, ill be generous and say that the new deep dungeon is casual but its actually debateable due to requirement for entry aaaaaand thats it i guess.

I always laugh when YoshiP says in an interview that they want to make content for everyone from now on and thats why we have the new deep dungeon stuff shoehorned in, while forked tower and chaotic is still unplayable pieces of...content. Somehow the content for everyone means we also get a hard version of things, but for some reason i highly doubt the next ultimate will have a normal mode when you actually survive stuff and normal raids with the savage exclusive boss forms.

All in all lets just stop the copium, its obvious that square wants to cater to the hardcore raiders and it is objectively, actively reducing the playerbase in dawntrail and overall interest in the game.

[Shistar]

[...] ill be generous and say that the new deep dungeon is casual but its actually debateable due to requirement for entry [...]

You just have to finish the "tutorial floors" so to speak and beat one boss with a grand total of two mechanics which boil down to run away, come close, run away. You can literally get it done in one evening and do it fully blind. It truly doesn't get any easier than this...

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

You just have to finish the "tutorial floors" so to speak and beat one boss with a grand total of two mechanics which boil down to run away, come close, run away. You can literally get it done in one evening and do it fully blind. It truly doesn't get any easier than this...

Its not about the difficulty, its the accessibility.
Lets start here: You have to be at the npc to enter the que usually in some very remote location, this is a dumb decision plain and simple. If its a que anyway, just put it on duty finder. This is not a Deep dungeon specific issue, but also true for Bozja Raids and Variant dungeons, except Variant is only hidden inside multiple menus instead of just 1 obvious place.
As far as im aware you still need to do PotD to unlock the rest of the deep dungeons which is something barely anyone does nowadays.
Then comes the dumb "save file" system, when you have to save your progress in the dungeon with specific people you will likely never meet again.

You know how this deep dungeon should have been handled?
- Unlock with quest
- No PotD requirement
- new tab in duty finder for deep dungeons
- que up for specific floor range
- when floor range is completed forced exit
- que up next floor range (give a choice for players to pick a few pomanders or whatever they are called as if they had it from previous floors)
- Profit

No dumb requirements, no save file bs, rng is restricted between every 10 floor.

[Supersnow845]

Its not about the difficulty, its the accessibility.
Lets start here: You have to be at the npc to enter the que usually in some very remote location, this is a dumb decision plain and simple. If its a que anyway, just put it on duty finder. This is not a Deep dungeon specific issue, but also true for Bozja Raids and Variant dungeons, except Variant is only hidden inside multiple menus instead of just 1 obvious place.
As far as im aware you still need to do PotD to unlock the rest of the deep dungeons which is something barely anyone does nowadays.
Then comes the dumb "save file" system, when you have to save your progress in the dungeon with specific people you will likely never meet again.

You know how this deep dungeon should have been handled?
- Unlock with quest
- No PotD requirement
- new tab in duty finder for deep dungeons
- que up for specific floor range
- when floor range is completed forced exit
- que up next floor range (give a choice for players to pick a few pomanders or whatever they are called as if they had it from previous floors)
- Profit

No dumb requirements, no save file bs, rng is restricted between every 10 floor.

There is an argument against that as well as a lot of people don’t always want to just load everything from limsa from menu’s

If it doing a deep dungeon in Ill mheg I’d like to actually be in ill mheg to get to it. This game already lacks way too much in the immersion department

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

There is an argument against that as well as a lot of people don’t always want to just load everything from limsa from menu’s

If it doing a deep dungeon in I’ll mheg I’d like to actually be in ill mheg to get to it. This game already lacks way too much in the immersion department

Let me put it this way, no need to protect immersion when there is none to begin with. Lets say i'll go to PoTD and it pops, what are the chances that someone in solution 9 glam, a bikini or a chocobo outfit will be in your team?

Aside from that, the vast majority of players who are eligible to do lets say Delubrum Reginae, will not go through multiple loading screens to talk to a random npc to que up for a dungeon and be jailed inside the camp.
But they would absolutely que up for it from Limsa and do whatever the hell they want while waiting. Its a huge QoL upgrade without any downsides, that is without a doubt would be the difference between a content being dead or not.
I would rather have a little immersion breaking, than having a delubrum where its becoming lore accurate in terms of "nobody has been here for years".

[Yeonhee]

Sorry but the 4 savage and 1 ultimate excuse dosn't fly anymore when hadcore raiders have been eating exceptionally good in dawntrail while everyone else had borderline 0 content until Occult Crescent.

They currently have 8 savage raid, 1 ultimate, 1 chaotic, 1 alliance raid (Forked Tower) and for some reason now we also have the Deep dungeon boss accessible by que with the difficulty cranked up to 11.
Meanwhile Casual players have: 8 normal raids, 2 alliance raids, Occult Crescent without an ending because of forked tower, ill be generous and say that the new deep dungeon is casual but its actually debateable due to requirement for entry aaaaaand thats it i guess.

I always laugh when YoshiP says in an interview that they want to make content for everyone from now on and thats why we have the new deep dungeon stuff shoehorned in, while forked tower and chaotic is still unplayable pieces of...content. Somehow the content for everyone means we also get a hard version of things, but for some reason i highly doubt the next ultimate will have a normal mode when you actually survive stuff and normal raids with the savage exclusive boss forms.

All in all lets just stop the copium, its obvious that square wants to cater to the hardcore raiders and it is objectively, actively reducing the playerbase in dawntrail and overall interest in the game.

I'm sorry but I disagree. While I agree about Forked Tower, Chaotic is imo unlikely to get any more of them since it's a nightmare to do, getting 24 people together that have the basic skill to run it and that aren't prog lying isn't an easy thing to do. Occult Cresent released in 7.25 and by that point there was already 8 normal raids and 1 alliance as well as Cosmic Exploration, so I'm not really sure how it has zero content until then.

And saying that the new Deep Dungeon is for hardcore raiders just because you have to do a bunch of easy PotD floors and one laughable boss to access it is just plain ridiculous. Being a casual doesn't mean you somehow are utterly unable to Google how to access new content.

Overall, hardcore raiders have been eating a tad bit better in Dawntrail but again they only have two more raid than usual to do. For a damn long time the devs were unable/unwilling to pump interesting content in good number, it has very little to do with the big evil hardcore raiders.

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

I'm sorry but I disagree. While I agree about Forked Tower, Chaotic is imo unlikely to get any more of them since it's a nightmare to do, getting 24 people together that have the basic skill to run it and that aren't prog lying isn't an easy thing to do. Occult Cresent released in 7.25 and by that point there was already 8 normal raids and 1 alliance as well as Cosmic Exploration, so I'm not really sure how it has zero content until then.

And saying that the new Deep Dungeon is for hardcore raiders just because you have to do a bunch of easy PotD floors and one laughable boss to access it is just plain ridiculous. Being a casual doesn't mean you somehow are utterly unable to Google how to access new content.

Overall, hardcore raiders have been eating a tad bit better in Dawntrail but again they only have two more raid than usual to do. For a damn long time the devs were unable/unwilling to pump interesting content in good number, it has very little to do with the big evil hardcore raiders.

I really do hope you are right about chaotic, because another of those should never,ever see the light of day, all that development time wasted for a week of content for so few people.
Fun fact, it barely has a higher clear rate than Cruiserweight Savage. A 24 man fight has barely higher clear rate than an 8 man savage raid, that is rough.

Forked Tower is a travesty, they should have worked on a normal mode all hands on deck after the backlash... its currently sitting at a 3.7% completion rate on lalachievements. Ultimates have higher clear rate than that...which is beyond embarassing.

Like i said, deep dungeon is debateable, its not hardcore by any means but its definitely not casual either and not because of the difficulty, but the accessibility.
PoTD should not be a requirement for this, plain and simple. Imagine if Occult crestent would require you to complete Eureka and Bozja because it has the same structure, makes 0 sense. Its not hard to create a 5 level tutorial in the unlock quest to teach them how it works, instead they are sent out to PotD...nice one.

Aside from that dumb unlock requirement, it should be in the duty finder, because while at the moment we dont have a population problem with it and parties fill fast, this will not be the case a few weeks from now on and you will be unable to complete it in a reasonable time with the que system and fixed party will be your only option and content that NEEDS you to organize people and keep them around for a relatively long time, is by no means a casual content.

[Yeonhee]

I really do hope you are right about chaotic, because another of those should never,ever see the light of day, all that development time wasted for a week of content for so few people.
Fun fact, it barely has a higher clear rate than Cruiserweight Savage. A 24 man fight has barely higher clear rate than an 8 man savage raid, that is rough.

Forked Tower is a travesty, they should have worked on a normal mode all hands on deck after the backlash... its currently sitting at a 3.7% completion rate on lalachievements. Ultimates have higher clear rate than that...which is beyond embarassing.

Like i said, deep dungeon is debateable, its not hardcore by any means but its definitely not casual either and not because of the difficulty, but the accessibility.
PoTD should not be a requirement for this, plain and simple. Imagine if Occult crestent would require you to complete Eureka and Bozja because it has the same structure, makes 0 sense. Its not hard to create a 5 level tutorial in the unlock quest to teach them how it works, instead they are sent out to PotD...nice one.

Aside from that dumb unlock requirement, it should be in the duty finder, because while at the moment we dont have a population problem with it and parties fill fast, this will not be the case a few weeks from now on and you will be unable to complete it in a reasonable time with the que system and fixed party will be your only option and content that NEEDS you to organize people and keep them around for a relatively long time, is by no means a casual content.

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

Forked Tower I agree completely. I just cannot understand how they could have thought that making the final raid of a content that is largely casual into savage-level was a good idea. And seeing that even the raiders aren't even interested in it, it makes the dev's decision even more ridiculous.

I honestly think the PotD requirement is fine. It doesn't require you to have completed it all, only the first 50 floors. That's something you can solo in about an evening without that much issues and would also teach you how deep dungeons work. Sure, they could have do it differently but let's be honest here, the requirement isn't so difficult and convoluted that no casual player could do it. Tho I do agree it would be better for everyone if they at least remove the fixed party.

But overall, I don't have much faith that any of these issues would be addressed at some point. People have complained for years now that healers aren't interesting to play in the vast majority of content and yet they still have a 2 buttons damage rotation.

[Kohashi]

Personally I think Chaotic alliance raid wasn't that much of a bad idea, but it should have been about the difficulty level of an extreme, making it about the difficulty of a savage raid is just stupid. It seems difficult enough to find reliable PF to clear/reclear savages sometimes, I can't imagine how nightmarish it must be for a 24-man raid.

And what exactly is savage worthee mechanic in that raid? The hands telegraph? The towers? Sitting with your alliance? The stored mechanics?

Take Rubicante as an example, that fight was vastly more complex than any mechanic Chaotic has. Let's not kid ourselves and shift the blame to the design. There should come a time when people actually take accountability and admit that what made it savage and miserable overall was the people.