Are we reneging on the commitment to have more difficult normal content already?

[Wasselin]

I liked the dungeon and trail content this patch so far. Difficulty is really hard to tune, but I don't see any reason normal content needed to be more difficult. I also think it's a stretch to say that they made a commitment for more difficult normal content -- where did they say this?

If you are talking about the much reported on Famitsu article it's important to note that Yoshi-P explicitly said he did not want to "simply increase the game's difficulty." He wanted to increase the variety of mechanics and the sense of accomplishment. It was never about an increase in difficult and they certainly didn't promise that.

It's about finding a balance, but I hope SE avoids the pitfall of tuning normal content for the loudest voices. Increasing the floor usually just serves as a tool for gatekeeping. A healthy MMO needs to stay accessible to everyone, not just those looking to filter out players they deem "bad."

[Hyperia]

I like the difficulty they have set for the story mode content; it's a good balance. I am hoping that this will represent quantum level 1 in their content design and then add levels up from there. If you want it harder in 8.0, you can dial it up, but they need a baseline, and I believe they have found a good start.

[Miradelle]

My guildhests are too easy as someone with 10 000+ hours in this game. They really should make them more difficult.

No, I will not do extreme.

[Astronis]

I got the impression they are trying something new with the combat. It did feel easier to me over all, but it also seemed like I had to spend a lot more time watching for boss tells and doing things that involved more personal responsibility. Seemed a bit more chaotic and free-form.

[DarkOmegaGod]

I never demanded more mechanically intensive fights. I was always perfectly happy to whack on glorified training dummies when jobs were engaging. Then when that was taken away we were told to wait a mere 1068 days until this alleged job rework and in the meantime the new fight design would make up for it. That was the compromise. Now in the same patch they've reduced both the encounter difficulty and took two more violent stabs at job identity. What are we supposed to make of this??? The people demand answers Yoshida!

[Fawkes]

The game has been hemorrhaging subs, maybe they have data that shows the people who complain about things not being hard enough aren't quitting as much as the people wiping multiple times to the MSQ content.

[Rithy255]

My guildhests are too easy as someone with 10 000+ hours in this game. They really should make them more difficult.

No, I will not do extreme.

Not everyone wants to strictly look at a guide to do content, they want some level of challenge without it being trial and error, Theirs a difference in having some challenge in level 100 content then very early guildhests as well.

The "go do ext, savage, ultimate" crowd really think it's a catch all for anyone complaining about anything for easier content, frankly even if your a ultimate raider your still going to put a lot of times into the newest dungeons for tome grinding, it's essential to you gearing

Though frankly I don't even think its a content problem more of a class design issue with Jobs generally being boring and the only fun that people expect you to have is in hardcore content these days, which lose replay value because of the poor job design system, that was caused by raiders who whined that "x job isn't as good in this raid" and people locking out jobs despite them being able to clear.

How about no we make dungeons not corridors that bar you at two mob packs? how about we make the jobs themselves actually fun and enjoyable so that playing dungeons and casual content can be good learning practice for the harder content and the simple fact it makes the holy grail of raider content savage and ultimate more replayable? how about we not say you have to play hardcore content to have fun, people are valid for saying they want more interesting dungeon design.

[Supersnow845]

The game has been hemorrhaging subs, maybe they have data that shows the people who complain about things not being hard enough aren't quitting as much as the people wiping multiple times to the MSQ content.

If that was the case there would be an extremely noticeable uptick in the proportion of the playerbase who does savage as the casual end would drop off leaving a more top heavy playerbase

But that hasn’t happened which seems to indicate that the loss of subs is fairly uniform across all competency levels

[Shistar]

I got the impression they are trying something new with the combat. It did feel easier to me over all, but it also seemed like I had to spend a lot more time watching for boss tells and doing things that involved more personal responsibility. Seemed a bit more chaotic and free-form.

Same. The mechanics themselves are not difficult, but they demand attention which is nice. I think it's not a terrible direction overall, but I also enjoy the more "puzzle"-like mechanics! A healthy mix between the two would be more my preference.

[Fawkes]

If that was the case there would be an extremely noticeable uptick in the proportion of the playerbase who does savage as the casual end would drop off leaving a more top heavy playerbase

But that hasn’t happened which seems to indicate that the loss of subs is fairly uniform across all competency levels

There would not be an uptick of anything. I don't know how you would gauge the proportion of the playerbase, are you surveying everyone who logs in? Not everyone AFKs in Limsa.