Please stop making old content super easy

[Garlyle]

But I'm not gonna lie, I want those flies back for Demon Wall.

I both do and do not.

The thing about the flies was that they were basically just a soft enrage on the boss. Either you could DPS the boss fast enough, or you couldn't - and were probably about to lose. I was never with a group that managed to successfully last on a "If the flies spawn we kill them" strategy. Even if they did, the groups I was with that beat Demon Wall were the ones that just had the tank grab them and kept trying to DPS the boss as fast as possible.

I had some people ragequit AK because of the gear on people - because people weren't in full Darklight yet. Darklight, a set of items that was ten levels above the rewards from the dungeon itself. In 2.0 that was sort of okay, though, because AK was the highest level grind. These days, AK is an introductory dungeon to the postgame, with rewards that are almost immediately irrelevant. Leaving the speed check on the boss is just a punishment to groups of newcomers who might actually need to complete it.

AK is a unique example though, along with Pharos Sirius. I don't believe any other dungeon is as merciless as those two were to of-level players, and in addition, with the fact that the Duty Finder minimum levels for entry are "whatever" and 48 respectively, those values had to be taken into consideration for design.

[Surian]

No, youre wrong. The list Nekodar gave IS a list of nerfed dungeons, not Echo Buff. All of above got mechanics and monsters changed/removed, not only Amador Keep.

There's a massive diffirence between "Truly nerfed" and ruined beyond repair (such as AK now) and having it's difficulty reduced slightly combined with having the echo buff.

There's nothing left standing of AK, it's nerfed beyond repair or worth.

The other things on the list got nothing but a slight adjustment in comparison, along with how we're already greatly overgeared for the content already.

[Iriadysa]

Everything in the game is reduced to a pile of no challenge to the exception of top tier content. Even new content is born as zero challenge if it's not meant for top tiers (see: new dungeons in last patch. While some entertaining mechanics appeared -as found in the last boss of Stone Vigil HM-, they are so tuned down it posed no real challenge beyond being able to press keys).

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
Rambling incoming!

I know there's still people that think T5 is hard. That Titan is impossible. But here's the real problem; a problem that plagues MMOs and as the gaming industry grows and expands it starts plaguing even offline games.

Players have become costumers. Long gone are the days were being a player and buying a game meant you were accepting a challenge posed by its creators. It was an implicit contract: you gave them money to be entertained and challenged.

But players have different skill levels and all of them want to be entertained. Thus the concept of difficulty levels surfaced, different approaches of a game genre would be taken in an effort to allow as many people as possible to enjoy the game without losing on the challenge factor, etc. Fast forward to MMOs and now players are not just players but costumers that pay for a subscription for a service. It took some years for the new mentality to sink in, but with the explosion of MMOs after WoW, it has already become part of it: we are costumers and as costumers we demand to be entertained, pampered and pleased. Or we shall take our money elsewhere.

XIV is a game for the masses and as such, most of its content has to be made for them. It's a sad truth. The real shame here, however, is that all MMOs that have come out in the last years are trying to grab the WoW-carrot and all of them are aiming for a high amount of costumers.

Considering the ever increasing demand for multimedia quality from gamers (we don't accept anything but the best!) and the cost of fulfilling this, it may take years for the niche MMO to come back, if ever. But who knows; the recent indie game explosion gives a ray of hope to the gaming community.

[Akoree]

Please stop creating these threads for no reason.

If you're so cool that you think content should always remain difficult no matter the reward level, then you're way ahead of the content being nerfed and this doesn't affect you.

[Garlyle]

XIV is a game for the masses and as such, most of its content has to be made for them. It's a sad truth. The real shame here, however, is that all MMOs that have come out in the last years are trying to grab the WoW-carrot and all of them are aiming for a high amount of costumers.

First off, Customers. Not Costumers. Although many players are indeed interested in vanity.

And second, this is the reality of a large portion of gaming in general, simply due to the side effects of continuously improving technology. AAA studios are often mocked for an unwillingness to innovate, but the reality is that in order to pay the costs of the games they make, they need customers - and as technology has improved, the cost of keeping games looking relevant (and therefore being able to catch people's eyes) has improved massively.

MMORPGs have it worse - there's a constant, perpetual cost associated with the existance of an MMORPG just to maintain servers, nevermind continue to update, nevermind continue to update at the level of quality and fidelity that is expected of a modern day game. Just getting people to notice your existance in the face of the giant that is World of Warcraft is hard, nevermind convincing players it's worth making the switch. I'm sure someone could make a super hardcore MMORPG in this day and age - but you'd better be ready for it to look like the original Everquest did, and a lot of players would not be. Because if the gameplay turns away a huge portion of the customer base, that's what they'd be able to afford - which in turn would push away a lot of even potential customers, even many that the game is being designed for. Right now, MMORPGs are in a tight spot - they either need to succeed massively or be ready to crash and burn. And massive success means the game has to be able to played by massive numbers of players.

[Iriadysa]

stuff

I'm pretty sure I addressed that idea in the last paragraph. Server costs are, however, not as high as you seem to think they are.

[Garlyle]

I'm pretty sure I addressed that idea in the last paragraph. Server costs are, however, not as high as you seem to think they are.

No, but further development costs are.

I mean, I do know there are niche-oriented MMORPGs out there. They also update at the pace of "oh, maybe we'll get a new dungeon this year."

[HeroSamson]

idm echo buff nerf as long they dont nerf mechanics ( pretty sure huge mechanics nerf coming to T7 by 2.4)

look at T5 even with 20% echo its still a tough wall to many players

unlike T1-T4 they nerved some mechanics making them too easy

Echo buff is an illusion to make you think you got a buffed up.

Its to make you feel like you are gonna win, does not stop 1 shot kills does not reduce damage. people get hit the same amount SE just put it there to make people think well I got more HP we are gonna win.

[Mugiawara]

A lot of content in this game is easy lol.
Demon Wall and it's bee's pissed me off so bad in 2.0
I was so stressed...but hell at least it was fun being stressed...kinda...
as a healer, it was hell on earth. I wish I did Sirius pre-nerf...
sick of SE babying a lot of content. >_<;

[Odett]

The problem with increasingly making earlier content easier is that it keeps creating a bigger difficulty imbalance. People beat easier content to unlock harder content that (surprise) they cannot do, which further elevates the difficulty spike because it reduces the number of fights that are challenging, so the game doesn't properly train or prepare many players for these harder fights, and I think it's doing more harm to the overall community than good. You see it every day with players saying "I just need to put x amount of effort to beat this current fight/dungeon, why should I try harder if I can get the win playing like I currently am?". The problem with this is that they go on to unlock harder fights and it just creates a bigger pool of players to choose from who cannot complete said fight, lessening your group's odds of success.