Please, Developers, Please! Put an end to Easy Mode thinking

[Davorok]

It's very difficult to find a Party (and manage your LS)...there's your Hardcore Content. ;>P

[Gramul]

Easy?
Hard?
Long as the game is engaging and fun I don't care.

[Galliano]

I would like to see more areas added to explore, large scale battles that take planning similar to dynamis and high end content that is hard but only hard if you don't plan things properly. Also leves should be left for the casuals that way they can still level up solo if they want but one major thing they should do is offer benefits for party play, I think the reason an MMO should work is because their is a comunity feel to the game and I think that's why XI worked well because it forced party play. now I'm not saying force party play but if their was some major insentive to party with strangers then you would meet new people and go out and have fun adventures. at the moment no one forms a party to go level with strangers because they can just do it solo hell I soloed (and duoed a little) to get MRD to 50 in just a few months and it really didn't take that much effort, if they reduced leve SP rewards and boosted party fighting SP I think that would get people out there adventuring with each other and not just doing solo grinding and solo leves because to me getting MRD to 50 on XIV was boring as hell because I hardly shared the experience with anyone, it was just me stood in an empty corner of a field map killing things. Also party play and skillful play go hand in hand, make the mobs a challenge so we NEED to use a tank along side a DD and a healer etc, and not just pick a class and solo it to 50, team work is fun and makes it feel more rewarding when you complete something.

I'm waiting on an expansion pack to hopefully bring new content in the form of areas to explore, oh remember that feeling when you'd just beaten the last promy boss and you appeared in a new area you'd never been to before? awesome! I want to feel that again...

[Chain]

Don't expect it to change, they either apparently lack the skill or the game engine simply can't handle any interesting mechanics.

Like someone else pointed out in another thread, in other games you'll get a quest to extinguish a fire. The quest will visually give you a water bucket and have you splash water on the fire etc. In this game you get a ??? on the ground, click it and QUEST COMPLETE! epic firefighting skills.

Whatever though, SE has seemed to marked this type of gameplay as their style and refuse to stray from it.

[EmeraldHill]

HAY GUYS I SOLO'D A R5 QUEST AT R25 THIS GAME IS TOO EASY!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chain]

HAY GUYS I SOLO'D A R5 QUEST AT R25 THIS GAME IS TOO EASY!!!!!!!!!!!

u mad bro?

Maybe he used a horrible example but doesn't mean he isn't correct.

Darkhold cleared in bikinis. Nuff said

[Rutelor]

I didn't speak about hard fights, I spoke about challenge, born from depth and complexity. I would also like sidequests (and everything else int he world) to seem organic and unified, not--like my example in the OP--a makeshift addition, all seams and clumsy design, if there was any design at all.

I don't have anything about a casual game, on the contrary. I just don't think we should slack the vigilance about laid-back design, rushed design and boring game structures, whichever they might be.

[TessaJalloh]

trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls trolling genuine players.

i find the game plenty challenging, i definately don't count myself as hardcore, and i personally believe that the chocobo/seals deal is fine. Got to do three grand company quests and then caravan defense for the rest of those seals. OR get to R45 and have a good group for darkhold to do into the dark for the 4k seals.

i'd say that's plenty enough challenge to warrent being rewarded.

Things will be no doubt easy for Rank 50 players right now, because at this moment they're the creme de la creme. And there is no true endgame content for them to strive at right now i'll admit. but you must understand that just because it's not there RIGHT NOW doesn't mean it won't come. There's so many things being worked on that take precidence, if you're not enjoying yourself, take a damn break.

It's not like you're paying anything right now anyway to justify your apparent anguish.

[Burn]

"Your quest is to kill 5 Stuffed Dodos...! Oh... Yes... BTW... Here's the exact spot where they will be waiting for you to slaughter them."

That should've been enough to ring alarm bells, but, optimistically, I ran to the indicated spot, thinking that perhaps, on the way there, I would be overcome by difficulty and strife... but no. It was just a stroll in the park to get to the spot. Actually, that day, I didn't even cross a r1 mob, NONE!

But nothing really prepared me to what was going to follow: On arrival to the loudly marked point on my map, I encountered 17 fat, non-agressive, low-rank Dodos impatiently fighting each other for the turn to meet my deadly wand. I killed 10 of them with one AoE and the completion message appeared. I was r25 at the time, and the sidequest might have been a r5 one, but still... really, SE? Not a brief search, or some environmental puzzle, not even a brief wait for re-spawn???

Still, my optimist self decided "Oh, it's too early for complaints, they cannot be this obvious! They'll fix the spawn rate later, or something.... They just introduced the sidequests, there's tweaking to come, no doubt...! Besides, it's only a r5 quest!"

Ha!

Let's jump over the myriad other disappointments concerning challenge in this game that have slowly but surely set on since then. Let's turn to today's announcemets:

And now, you are introducing one of the most sought-after features to the game, one of the most desired items ever, and without any sense of build-up you announce simultaneously that any player (ok, not "any" but almost) will be able to both rent AND own chocobos. And I say to myself "Ah, but no doubt the quest to acquire the right to own them will be formidable... it will be peppered with peril, sacrifice and death!!"

Well, not really. You might as well have planted 17 grazing chocobos right next to the dodos, and made us go to the spot, touch one and have it instantly develop feelings of affection for us. For crying out loud!!!! We can still rent them! Do you really have to give us a title of ownership for meager 3k seals????

Is this how this game is going to be? For real?? I've wasted myself and my reputation defending, you, SE. Now, please, please... Deliver!

We come to these games to feel like heroes, not to pay you so that you stroke our egos by calling us one at the turn of 3000 seals. Just getting the right to rent chocobos, one of the great stimulating engines of low-level FFXI players was ten times harder (and more fun) than that!

Depth, complexity, challenge... not easy, breezy, hello-kitty stuff. I already own a Free Realms account, thankyouverymuch!

Please go jump off a cliff

[weeble]

Please go jump off a cliff

please ..you first