Quote Originally Posted by Zuellni View Post
It's really surprising and rather disappointing to see so many people against the idea of being able to choose your difficulty for raids and primal fights. Games are a form of entertainment made for an audience of various lifestyles. This is especially true in an MMO like FFXIV where we literally collaborate with other players on an international scale. Why is it that there's a notion that MMO or "endgame" content must be for the "hardcore" players? We're not even talking about rewards here as Ren has stated in the original post that players choosing the easy modes would not be getting NM or raid gears.

What's so wrong about allowing players to experience content which they have worked to become eligible for? Would you tell someone they're not allowed to see a film because they don't understand the underlying themes of the movie despite the fact that they are able to enjoy the story on a surface level? Adding an easy mode with reduced reward to "endgame" content doesn't take away anything from the "hardcore" players. Players overcoming the regular and harder difficulties can still keep their inflated egos with their special gear while players choosing the easy route will get to experience the full battle with higher survivability rates while foregoing the superfluous rewards.

The point is, not every player is going to be a hardened video game veteran with over a decade of experience under their belts. Some players are just here to chat and experience the content because they love the world, or Final Fantasy or just enjoy doing things with friends. And if SE's goal is to reach out to as wide a player base as possible, this would be one idea that could be taken into consideration. For the time being, I hope your friends can overcome their challenges with the high level content currently available.
No, endgame is not just for the 'hardcore' players. The little endgame that FFXIV has now is challenging, as it has been designed to be. As I outlined in my previous post, the ideas behind the difficulty of events such as the Ifrit fight is that between each major patch the entire range of players ends up beating it. He said that the ideal progression is that the hardcore players beat it first and the casual players end up beating it later when the mechanics of the fight become well known and it becomes easier.

It doesn't take a hardcore gamer to be competent and complete difficult endgame content, a casual player can be just as good. FFXI is a very clear indicator of a system that worked, it had a large range of endgame events (that will be the case for FFXIV too later on) that catered to a range of players. When salvage came out it was hard as shit, a couple months later you had the right party setups down, the right strategies and paths to follow and it was easy, easy enough for pickup groups.

It devalues the victory of ALL players to allow a difficulty setting for endgame content. Where's the satisfaction of watching a cutscene for beating a mission fight when you do it on easy mode? When you watch a huge-ass monster die in front of you, how do you feel knowing that you made it easier for yourself? This isn't pre-school, you aren't having your hand held, either do it properly or don't even try.

I seriously think all of the people in this thread crying to have this implemented are a) jealous of more skilled players that have done things like beat ifrit, b) had their application to a good linkshell denied or c) are just plain lazy and want things handed to them like children. You aren't here to have things made easy for you, the point of the game is to have challenging events that you work towards, and the satisfaction of completing them AS THEY ARE is the feeling you strive to have.

Your analogy is garbage btw.