[suggetion] SE please stop with the hand holding

[RemnantWolf]

I think what a lot of people are misunderstanding is that people asking for more difficulty are not asking for the game be so hard that casuals will leave (though as with most things there are likely exceptions) we just want the game to have enough difficulty for our accomplishments to mean something. Achievements mean less when everyone has done it (You were born but you don't conider that an acomplishment do you?). Hardcore gamers are not asking to shut out the casual gamers but make the work to get the reward a challenge so that it has meaning.

A way I look at the game's difficulty now is like easy on Guitar hero (medium at best) can you have fun with it? yes. Everyone that can pick up the controller enjoy it? pretty much. But eventually you are going to want to move on. Because no one cares that you beat Guitar hero on easy, only on hard and expert can you really feel like you have done something worth being proud of. Something that makes you stand out from someone else.

So asking for the game to be harder isn't about the grind, or closing out casuals, it is about making our victories mean something.

[Jinko]

What do you mean by hand holding, if you mean the ! icons all MMO's do this and players expect to have this "Ease of use" factor in their games these days, FF12 had ! above quest givers heads also.

The aggro icon can be turned off, so need for that to be removed just type /eicon off.

Guildleves are designed to be casual, I agree quests are kind of boring right now and there is more running around than actual fighting behind most of them which is kind of sad.

As has been said in numerous threads, games these days try to appeal to people who want fast easy play style, that doesn't mean that content should be easy more that it should be very accessible, nobody wants to wait round doing nothing like we used to in 11.

I really think its too early for any opinion as to how easy or hard this game is going to be, SE haven't even added proper rank 50 content yet, we have dungeons and raids coming in the next 2-3 months and a complete redo of the battle and stat system.

Hand holding should be there for those that need/want it and easily turned off for those that don't, and in most cases so far SE have given us those options, so I don't see the problem.

As someone said above these games should be more about fun & having great experiences with other players not hard laborious content that makes you wonder why the hell you are even playing.

As I have stated before Final Fantasy is not for everyone. The entire numbered franchise is meant to be hard and have high re-play ability. There are already games out there for the instant gratification crowd Final Fantasy should not be one of them

You couldn't be any more wrong, FF games aren't hard, if you think the FF series is hard well LOL.

Not even FF11 was hard it was just full of road blocks and waiting, time doesn't equal hard.

I suggest if you don't have the time to play this game the way all the other FF were made then maybe Final Fantasy is not for you.

YOU WHAT !

I suggest that if you don't like it you should go back to FF11, hows that ?

[OJtheLIONKing]

I'm so sick of these threads, and these claims that the game is "Easy-mode" and "too casual" etc. This is rooted in a false dichotomy between casual gamers and hardcore gamers. I am a gamer, I have played games as long as I can remember back to the NES, I play games whenever I have spare time and games are my number one hobby.

So I feel a bit insulted when someone claims that I'm an evil "casual" for not wanting to spend all of my time on grind. Similarly, it just reeks of elitism when someone says they want to take out bog-standard GUI elements because it's "hand-holding" and they don't need it. Never mind that SE took the unusual step of making aggro notifications and level displays totally optional, or the just plain bad decision to make them off by default. The fact that they exist at all is an insult to gamers everywhere and we should burn down their offices!

Get a grip. An intuitive UI does not make a game easy, it makes a game intuitive. This is like saying a game with crappy cameras is good because it makes you learn to work around them, rather than recognizing that it's just bad game design. The challenge in a game is in actually doing content: i.e. when you're killing enemies and working on a quest, not because the game made it impossible to find a quest objective after you start a quest without a third party site (like FFXI's legendarily inadequate quest log) or lets you know that there's an inexplicable aggressive ant that's 20 levels higher than everything else in the starter area.

The difficult content will (and should) be at the high end of the level spectrum. The problem is, that content doesn't exist yet. The end game content is what keeps players playing for years, because no matter how long you stretch a grind, eventually players will hit max level. There's no real endgame content yet, so be patient.

This game doesn't exist to sort out the 1337 hardcores from the weaksauce casuals, it exists to be fun and make money by having as large a player base as possible. If you want to play FFXI, go play FFXI and let this new game exist on its own merits. And by the way, FF is as mainstream as mainstream gets, the series has never been hard or "hardcore," so abandon that delusion now.

[mistressella]

Things that do need to be fixed in the game rather than make it easier. One win you Dc you still can do you leve, nothings more fun than waiting 35 hrs than have your pc crash or your server crash mid leve it pretty stupid. Second when your fitting you should get xp from the yellow mobs as well prety stupid 3 things can agro but if you aoe you only get x1 xp retarded. simple problem that need to be fixed moths ago, some time i wonder if any of the devs have ever played this game? class system is fine. i don't think your making the jobs more unique buy make them more structured, how is it going to make everyone have the same class with the same skills is unique. i think its vary unique the way it is pick and chose your char turn your gld into a dark night with a few spells you can customize any class the way you play thats unique. some how they think buy make more people the same that unique seams flawed to me.. i mis the old sytem of blu is easy and red hard let you know just as easy as this new way. it would automatically tell you if party could handle something i did not need to know the lv if i knew how hard it is. now all i know is what lv it is i guess i can tell wether or not it is easy but now i don't know till i try just because its same lv as you dosen't mean its easy same for things higher than you some things i can kill 10 lv higher than me some i cant now i just got to guess. the only think i know now for certain is i can tell you the lv of the thing that killed me .. it takes a real genius to figure out oh im lv 40 and that thing ht me for 2000 points of damage must be stronger than me hmmmmm? iwonder if it is ?

[mistressella]

so casual gamers don't like a challenge when they play, challenges are only for elitists ?

I'm so sick of these threads, and these claims that the game is "Easy-mode" and "too casual" etc. This is rooted in a false dichotomy between casual gamers and hardcore gamers. I am a gamer, I have played games as long as I can remember back to the NES, I play games whenever I have spare time and games are my number one hobby.

So I feel a bit insulted when someone claims that I'm an evil "casual" for not wanting to spend all of my time on grind. Similarly, it just reeks of elitism when someone says they want to take out bog-standard GUI elements because it's "hand-holding" and they don't need it. Never mind that SE took the unusual step of making aggro notifications and level displays totally optional, or the just plain bad decision to make them off by default. The fact that they exist at all is an insult to gamers everywhere and we should burn down their offices!

Get a grip. An intuitive UI does not make a game easy, it makes a game intuitive. This is like saying a game with crappy cameras is good because it makes you learn to work around them, rather than recognizing that it's just bad game design. The challenge in a game is in actually doing content: i.e. when you're killing enemies and working on a quest, not because the game made it impossible to find a quest objective after you start a quest without a third party site (like FFXI's legendarily inadequate quest log) or lets you know that there's an inexplicable aggressive ant that's 20 levels higher than everything else in the starter area.

The difficult content will (and should) be at the high end of the level spectrum. The problem is, that content doesn't exist yet. The end game content is what keeps players playing for years, because no matter how long you stretch a grind, eventually players will hit max level. There's no real endgame content yet, so be patient.

This game doesn't exist to sort out the 1337 hardcores from the weaksauce casuals, it exists to be fun and make money by having as large a player base as possible. If you want to play FFXI, go play FFXI and let this new game exist on its own merits. And by the way, FF is as mainstream as mainstream gets, the series has never been hard or "hardcore," so abandon that delusion now.

[Zenaku]

I'll leave this for you guys to enjoy

Everyone can rest assured that the raid dungeons and content that we're planning to implement in the future will feature not only tough battles, but also challenging and exhilarating bosses. The nitty-gritty details are tied into the future rollout of Grand Companies which we'll be announcing the juicy particulars of at a later date. I hope you're all looking forward to it with bated breath!

[Arterius]

I agree entirely. This game will never be for TRUE GAMERS until patches are released that make it pure frustration from rank 1 straight to rank 50. Sure, people will quit in waves due to all of the SP lost on death, but who cares about the casual community anyway?

Maybe you should care about the casual community seeing that most of them go to work to support an awful lot of idle hardcore gamers claiming to be poorly and getting welfare payments and housing paid for from the tax of the hard workers. You may want to be a bit more considerate with your attitude, if it wern't for casuals going out to work a whole lot of you hardcore folk wouldnt have your habits financed, so just remember that!

[Demacia]

Maybe you should care about the casual community seeing that most of them go to work to support an awful lot of idle hardcore gamers claiming to be poorly and getting welfare payments and housing paid for from the tax of the hard workers. You may want to be a bit more considerate with your attitude, if it wern't for casuals going out to work a whole lot of you hardcore folk wouldnt have your habits financed, so just remember that!

Generalizing much? The MOST "hardcore" players I ever met were in their 30s+ with full time jobs and some with children.

[darkstarpoet1]

Maybe you should care about the casual community seeing that most of them go to work to support an awful lot of idle hardcore gamers claiming to be poorly and getting welfare payments and housing paid for from the tax of the hard workers. You may want to be a bit more considerate with your attitude, if it wern't for casuals going out to work a whole lot of you hardcore folk wouldnt have your habits financed, so just remember that!

wow nice generalization. i'll turn it around. casual players are the mcdonalds rejects that cannot compete in the real world because they have to work for things and they feel it's unfair. therefore, they cook my double cheeseburger and ask if i want paper or plastic.

us hardcore gamers for the most part are very high level in our fields because we strive to be the best. i make a very good living, married, have kids.

now anyways i was saying this just to show how a generalization can be made both ways, but neither yours nor mine is correct. you would love for it to be true, but you know nothing about me so you have no reason to generalize everyone that games like me.

[DeadRiser]

Allanon, the other games in the FF series (not counting 11 because I haven't played it much) are pretty easy. I also don't think making this game an FF11 clone will make all that many people happy.


Also going back to your OP


I have a problem with this mentality: a typical MMO doesn't even really begin until you've hit max level. Furthermore, 50 is just an arbitrary number someone pulled out of his keister, it doesn't really mean anything. In a few expansions from now, 61 and then 69 will be the new 50. (That's a borderlands reference for those that don't get it.) I just don't find grind rewarding nor do I see much accomplishment in getting to some level in itself; it's something any noob can do given enough time.

Most games are composed of the starting area, the end game, and that grindy badness between the two. I say chop out that unwanted middle and focus on the real game.

The game shouldn't start when you hit max... You should feel the game in and between r1 and r50. When there was an actual population in this game, people from r10-r30 were actually grinding in what you call the 'grindy badness'. Until they changed a lot of stuff about this game, people just focus on leves and behests. That's pretty much it.