[dev1001] The Ease of the Game

[Catapult]

My two cents:

I believe the main scenario quests have been specifically designed so that you can get through them either by fighting or finding another way, thus actually allowing people who have land or hand as their main job to partake in the mission. An example is the mission (trying to avoid spoilers here) where you can either fight the baddies or parley off with their leaders in the cave to avoid "all firey hell breaking loose".
It is the guild-based missions that can flesh out combat, gathering or crafting requirements.

I am of the opinion that the guild quests need to do more of this fleshing-out with more quests being played out through the guilds to greater contribute to the whole of the story and lore of Eorzea, which you can then only get in full detail if you explore all the guilds.

I also believe that main scenario quests should trigger at physical levels rather than one's lead class rank. If no prowess with any particular class is required for the main scenario, people shouldn't be held back from the main scenario quests that form the backbone of the story for diversifying into other classes.

[XiaoMaomi]

Completly agree with everything said. Yoshi-P even said the world was to peaceful, that peace needs to be removed.

Everything past rank 1 leves needs to be scaled up like 2-10xs in difficulty, the rank 1 and maby rank 10 should stay at that easy level since they are starting leves.

The game is just way way to easy.

Casual does not mean easy it mean able to play with a limited amount of time. We need FFXI difficulty in some aspects of the game but without the massive time sinks which are negative to casuals.

^^This. Without a challenge the game just feels stale to me. I want to feel like I have accomplished something after a behest/quest/NM... As of now I just do it because there is nothing else to do. If they had other more challenging content in the game, I would never visit the current content.

[Kiote]

Not taking the time to read this whole forum but I like the idea that casual players can level up as easily as hardcore players, however, that is no excuse for making all the story lines easy. Storyline quests should have a significant range in difficulty where in they can be accomplished by a solo player with significant skill and become easier with a party strategy. Considering most of the story quests are instanced it would not be hard at all to put a variable enemy level in and aloud people to team up.

[AlexiaKidd]

Casual players are not the reason the game is overly easy

A lot of the problems come from SE putting so much focus into DoH/DoL being actual classes. Originally DoH/DoL classes were able to fight alongside DoW/DoM classes. I remember reading Miner being a THF type class on the official website and a Blacksmith wielding his hammer in battle. SE pulled all of the DoL/DoH abilities to fight though at the last min and gave them stone throw. So they then had to dumb everything down so that those classes would still be able to complete those missions.

I mean seriously are we expected to believe a R50 Weaver can overthrow the Garlean Empire in it's current state. Either give DoL/DoH their abilities to fight back or stop trying to make them proper classes and reduce them back to side classes to do on the side of your DoW/DoM classes like they are now.

[RushRiviera]

I agree! Quests are much too easy and the story quests are so easy that they pass by like a flash! I also think we need much more story quests in the game like how it was at the lower ranks.

[Shiyo]

Casual players are not the reason the game is overly easy

A lot of the problems come from SE putting so much focus into DoH/DoL being actual classes. Originally DoH/DoL classes were able to fight alongside DoW/DoM classes. I remember reading Miner being a THF type class on the official website and a Blacksmith wielding his hammer in battle. SE pulled all of the DoL/DoH abilities to fight though at the last min and gave them stone throw. So they then had to dumb everything down so that those classes would still be able to complete those missions.

I mean seriously are we expected to believe a R50 Weaver can overthrow the Garlean Empire in it's current state. Either give DoL/DoH their abilities to fight back or stop trying to make them proper classes and reduce them back to side classes to do on the side of your DoW/DoM classes like they are now.

Why are class specific quests for DOW/DOM a joke too then? I 1 shot every mob on the 36 archer quest at level 36, and took 0 damage. The quest NPC even told me I should "bring other adventurers" lol?

[Rjain]

I find the quests are way too easy. In fact, I find the game in its entirety way too easy. I remember back in closed beta when I entered my first dungeon and I found out I had a map for it, then subsequently found out I had a map already for every area in the game. What happened to discovering stuff/unlocking stuff? I can't think of a whole lot in this game that you have to "unlock" at all, which completely takes away from me enjoying the game.

I want quests that are going to have me on the verge of pissing myself from their difficulty and the consequences if I fail. Not "walk to this area, kill a bug, turn in". In XI, you'd be a few hours into the game's main story and you'd already have to go up against a damn dragon and an ahriman, and you couldn't have friends beat it for you because there was a level cap. If you lost, not only do you lose a chunk of EXP but you have to walk alllllll the way back, which seemed to take about an hour.

I don't expect this game to be as extreme as XI in every regard, but I'd rather the challenge level to be pumped up significantly higher than it is now. This game in its current state makes a Franklin the Turtle game look like a challenge.

[Nilheim]

I believe quests in general (and by quests I mean sidequests) should be a lot easier than missions that advance the plot. But right now, they're way too easy and too simple. Too much hand holding.

Missions, on the other hand, should be tough. I know A LOT of people are going to disagree here, but I think FFXIV needs something as hard as CoP at some point.
Sure it was hard as hell sometimes, especially before they nerfed the fights (that was in 2007 or something iirc), but man I remember the feeling I had everytime I beat a mission. Pure joy and so much pride of taking that one step forward with your static. I built a static with 5 strangers and it took us about 3 months to do everything. By the time we were done, we were all good friends. RoZ, ToAU and WoTG can't bring you that.

But I also think CoP was badly designed in one way: it was the one path that lead you to Sea. That meant you couldn't do Limbus or fight Jailers. I believe a good way to implement missions that are as hard as CoP missions were in early FFXI would be to make them less important to the player. How? Reward the player with a very good item at the end of the final mission. Something he can wear and be proud of. But don't limit the player's access to events he might want to do with his friends/LS.

Now, just create other missions that, while not as hard, remain challenging. Missions that give you access to stuff like Sky and reward you well and give you a sense of accomplishment.

Then you have the third kind of missions: think about WoTG. WoTG was, truth be told, very easy. I did almost all of it with 2 or 3 friends and it was a breeze. But it was fun and interesting because the story was awesome. If you're gonna make easy missions and quests, at least make them entertaining.

I bet some people will feel cheated by the idea because they don't wanna go through the trouble of doing the super hard stuff just for that one item. Well I'm sorry, but who cares? If everything is handed to people on a silver platter, there's no joy to be had for actually getting shit done. If you don't wanna work hard for that one item, fine, just don't do it. Not having it won't kill you, will it?

Anyway I think this would be a good way of keeping every kind of player entertained. This is obviously just a draft.

[damican]

I am currently working on the rank 34 mission, Forever Taken. As I'm wandering around Mor Dhona (what should be an extremely dangerous zone), I realize that I'm going through the steps of this mission solo and with absurd ease. No monsters in my way of the ??? points I need, no challenge at all.

the dev tag in my title is about "Quests revolving around the Danger facing Eorzea".
SE, while you're adding these quests, please don't forget about the current world missions. I don't feel that the major world storyline missions should be this solo-able.

I on the contrary feel the entire game should be soloable up to endgame. I dont' like being forced to play with others if I don't want to. Just because you like partying and/or being forced to doesn't mean everyone else does. The moderate and correct way of thinking would be to simply make it harder the larger your party is and increase rewards. That way you can party if you want and reap adequate rewards, or if you're a general Richard like me and don't like partying most of the time because people are stupid in general, then you wouldn't have to.

[Shiyo]

I on the contrary feel the entire game should be soloable up to endgame. I dont' like being forced to play with others if I don't want to. Just because you like partying and/or being forced to doesn't mean everyone else does. The moderate and correct way of thinking would be to simply make it harder the larger your party is and increase rewards. That way you can party if you want and reap adequate rewards, or if you're a general Richard like me and don't like partying most of the time because people are stupid in general, then you wouldn't have to.

MMO doesn't sound like the video game genre you're looking for, perhaps you should try single player games? Why do people think like this and want to solo in MMOs? Please, go play a single player game, and leave MMO for people who actually want to play with other people.