More Difficult Single Player Content Please

[Zojha]

Mobs got a bit more HP and Damage, wow such improvement, much stronger...
Improvement would be more mobs that have skills without orange circles like the 2 adds in The Aery.

Can't help but to think of the "unfair platformer" flash game here. If you haven't played it, it's a regular platformer game like super mario, except it's littered with completely invisible traps that you need to learn by heart via trial and error if you want to get through.

Though you could add a "Turn off warning indicators" box into the options for those who want a greater challenge. If you feel like obscuring or hiding information is a good way of creating a challenge at least. But then you could also put tape over parts of the screen. Another good option always is to hasten cast times of mobs to force the player to react faster, except this screws over people with higher latency. Other than that, you can simply give the mobs more abilities to consider - the only really feasible way to create interesting difficulty in the current setting IMO. Simply adding HP and damage is fairly boring and more importantly, very prone to become irrelevant once better gear has been acquired.

Making something positively difficult, as in: Engaging but not unfair, isn't easy, especially in an online environment. And then there is that other issue: Rewards. One of the reasons why the calls for higher difficulty are often frowned upon by the so called casual masses is because people do not just want a challenge, they also want bragging rights and exclusive rewards associated with it. Essentially, a medal that says:"I am better than you." And that's where the discussion tends to become messy and devolve into namecalling.

To pick up the class quest idea from earlier in the thread, a good implementation would be to have a difficulty promp whenever such a quest would spawn enemies or commence duty. You get a slider and then you can pick any option from "In your sleep" to "Unfair", with the spawned mobs adjusting accordingly. Rewards are identical, it purely comes down to preference.

Would that sort of thing satisfy people? I would wager the common response would be:"It's a start...".

[MasamuneBranford]

I agree - MMOs are not the genre if you want a difficult "solo" adventure. However, the way the game is currently designed - you need to go through 150 hours of solo quests. Everyone has to do it. Should these quests be impossible to die during if you have a healing chocobo pulled out?

I'm not asking for a challenge that is going to prevent "some" players from completing the main scenario. I'm literally just asking for a challenge that causes us to be attentive. A challenge on par with the single player Final Fantasy games (which everyone should be able to attest - are not challenging games). If Yoshi wants to give us a 50 hour main scenario each expansion pack that is similar to a core Final Fantasy series - that's fantastic. However - in my opinion - that experience is ruined if the player can completely and utterly zone out. I'm not asking for Dark Souls difficulty here - I'm asking for "a" challenge period.

[Felis]

I agree - MMOs are not the genre if you want a difficult "solo" adventure. However, the way the game is currently designed - you need to go through 150 hours of solo quests. Everyone has to do it. Should these quests be impossible to die during if you have a healing chocobo pulled out?

More challenging would be fine. But not too much that then a Heal Chocobo will be a requirement to do something in the open world solo.

I'm not asking for a challenge that is going to prevent "some" players from completing the main scenario. I'm literally just asking for a challenge that causes us to be attentive. A challenge on par with the single player Final Fantasy games (which everyone should be able to attest - are not challenging games). If Yoshi wants to give us a 50 hour main scenario each expansion pack that is similar to a core Final Fantasy series - that's fantastic. However - in my opinion - that experience is ruined if the player can completely and utterly zone out. I'm not asking for Dark Souls difficulty here - I'm asking for "a" challenge period.

Don't forget, in the single player games the hero is most time only at the beginning solo.
Even in the Heavensward solo storyline we are many time in a party of 3 (the player character and 2 NPC)

[Nutz]

I'm not really sure what it is that people are asking for here. Some of the MSQ is challenging, or at least a little bit. Anywhere that you can have a chocobo out is obviously just a speed bump at best, but the instanced areas are sometimes a challenge. I know I died probably 5 times throughout the HW MSQ and BLM class quests combined. Not a lot, but there were instances where I was attacking the 'wrong' target for example or didn't anticipate another wave, or early on the fact that all instanced mobs are immune to sleep now.

There are ways to make a challenging or interesting solo experience. Running HM dungeons solo can be fun, challenging, and rewarding, though your mileage will vary a lot based on what you find rewarding (minions and glamour) and what class you play (I imagine healers do a lot better on bosses than DPS).

Dragonskin maps solo, I think, are currently impossible. I could be wrong as I'm certainly not the best player, but I tried one the other day mostly because I opened it with a group but then had to leave before actually doing it. It was going well enough. Mobs hit very hard and chocobo heals very reluctantly, but sleeping everything allowed me to get to the final wave. The last 2 mobs hit for 4k+ though, so there was really no helping it.

In any case, you can build your own challenge in a way, though it largely involves old content. As to the rewards, well, that can be tricky. If the rewards were really great then it could cause people to ignore group content and rage about how hard it is to get whatever desirable reward.

[Eekiki]

Speak for yourself. I had to fight Regula four times before I finally beat him. Alphinaud is a terrible healer.

[Kedo]

The tears that would ensue because "it's too hard" "why am I gated from this?" (skills apparently is a gate now) would be insane.

[MasamuneBranford]

If there would be tears from changing the difficulty from "you can't die if your healing chocobo is out" to "difficulty on par with other Final Fantasy" games - then maybe "Final Fantasy" isn't the best series for that player? Why must there be an exception because this is an online game? If you can't beat Mario, you can't beat Mario. If you can't beat Final Fantasy VII, you can't beat Final Fantasy VII." I can't imagine this being an issue for even a tenth of a single percent of the entire playerbase. Why must 99.9% of us endure 150 hours of yawn worthy gameplay (outside of dungeons / a couple of instances which are amazing) because a select few are really looking for a movie channel to fulfill his/her entertainment needs?

Like I said - the group content in this game is perfect. The world design is perfect. The music is perfect. I truly love this game. Where I feel I'm wasting my time is when I'm doing quests. Quests that could easily be made "fun" if the difficulty was upgraded a tad.

[kazeandi]

Rather than "difficult content" I'd like to see solo dungeons you can do with your chocobo out, also unsynched dungeons with only your chocobo would become "solo dungeons".
Would also be nice if this was an opportunity to obtain various chocobo related stuff like bardings or various food.

I don't think we need more difficult content, because we do have that in game currently. What we're lacking is stuff to do with the companion. Right now, it's more of a nuisance than a companion IMHO, as you have to store it to ride another mount or queue up for the dungeon finder. I sometimes find myself burning through 20 grysal greens a session because of that.
What's the deal with those grysals anyways? You throw cash out of the window to have your choco with you for a few minutes in most cases.

[MasamuneBranford]

The 150 hours of story missions to get to endgame is pretty much the biggest hurdle to get a new player into this game. The story "is" good. So that's a plus. However - I have tried to get a large chunk of my friends into this game - and they basically tap out around the 100 hour mark due to the fact that the difficulty is yawn-worthy all the way through.

Listen - people love Final Fantasy. Anyone would happily jump at the chance to play a 150 hour Final Fantasy game. All the pieces are in place to have such a game except for the difficulty factor. The "new" dungeon difficulty is fine - some of the "instance" battles are fine - it's the quests that make up 90% of the 150 hours where the difficulty simply does not exist. Let's make the main scenario a little bit more fun by actually requiring the player to be attentive. I'm not even proposing a difficulty that would cause the player to "die" more - rather I'm proposing a difficulty where the player has to be awake and make quick decisions.

[kazeandi]

I don't think the normal throwaway side-quests need a higher difficulty level. People only do them on the second, third or fourth alt class anyways while waiting for the DF to pop, while the reward is not that great for the time invested.
If you want to up the difficulty for quests, hand out better rewards, exp or loot.

The type of player who wants everything in hard-mode for ~reasons~ seems to forget that most of us fellow players come home after a hard day at work to play an hour or two, maybe do a dungeon and generally only want to relax. If I want to be challenged 100% of the time, there's solo games for that.

Sure, if I was a student, living off of my parents cash, no side job, not much to do during my free time, maybe I'd crave more difficult things, too, but then again, there's savage content and other stuff to do solo that's group oriented.