Would you improve if the content required it?

[Zojha]

No - I'd just quit that content and, if too much content required it, I'd quit the game.

I don't improve just because content wants me to improve. I improve on my own simply because playing better tends to be more fun. It's why I can't really cope with BRD/MCH - I know how I could play them better, but doing so isn't fun, so I ditched the jobs entirely.

And from that base, I engage in content I can comfortably do with my current skill level and ditch the content outside of it. Plain and simple.

[RNageo]

It depends on many factors. If to be accepted into that hard content I would need to spend a lot of time earning money for food, potions and materia for gear, forget it, I won't even try.

If it means learning a fight with people that expect me to know everything beforehand and will not accept me or kick me at the first mistake, then again I'll leave that be.

If however it means trying to play better and learning with accepting people, sure count me in.

[MistakeNot]

I simply mean if you faced a challenge, would you get better or leave it alone?

I supposedly made it a straightforward question and i expect straightforward answers. Dont read too much into, just give your opinion on the question at hand.

Im honestly excited to see the results. Will post them in 48 hours.

That would very much depend on how hard the challenge was.
One that I could almost manage right off and where only minor improvements are needed: Yeah, sure - I'd try to get better so I can beat it.
One where I would need major improvements just to have a chance: Nah, sounds like too much work - I'd leave it alone and do something else instead.

So, not so straightforward question or answer.

[DarkB]

I have a fair feeling that while many would click 'yes,' very few would mean it. If main story dungeons and whatnot became something like The Weeping City of Mhach, especially during the first week, there'd be more of an outcry of rage than rising to meet the standards. Look at the Steps of Faith.

Nothing particular against what you said, im just gonna grab your lines to point out something.
The weeping city of Mhach was never ever hard. It is infact extremely easy with a really stupid mechanic splattered all over the fights. The problem with the community and modern casual gaming is that the people who complain about its difficulty (that again is unexistant) is just coming from the fact that 1) they didnt spend a single minute even tryin to figure out what is going on 2) they didnt bother to ask for clarification to someone who might know the fight better. But once you tell someone the 2 stupid mechanic Ozma has, voilà the fight becomes idiotically easy.

Now the problem is that the behaviour of people approaching 24 man content is "lets have other people carry me, we are in 24, im just gonna hide back here and get carried". This behaviour lasted the first weeks, and that is what brought people to complain about weeping city difficulty, but in reality the dungeon itself is extremely easy to a point where is completely dumb, like the whole game.

[Gokuhan]

The biggest issue with Steps was that it was a very long fight and even if things went badly and you knew there was NO WAY you were going to pull out a victory, you still had to wait for the dragon to waddle ALL THE WAY down to the other end and end the fight.

[Cenerae]

Depends on the kind of difficulty we're talking about.

Are we talking about real difficulty (mechanics are challenging), or are we talking about putting arbitrary timers on things to force you to be good enough with your job and have enough gear to pass?

The former I'm all for. The latter is something that really annoys me. Not that I hate the idea of 'gittin' gud, scrub' or anything, but being unable to beat something soley because I didn't go and grind enough gear ticks me off.

Not that I'm saying gear should never be a factor either - but for example, I don't have any motivation to challenge most of the superbosses in the Final Fantasy series. Because I'd have to spend hours grinding just to get strong enough to be able to fight it. For a payoff that's not worth it. In FF14, if I had to grind for hours to get strong enough to do basic stuff like MSQ scenarios, that wouldn't be worth it.

[Stanelis]

http://www.strawpoll.me/11714129

I wish to see the general consensus on improvement. Please do answer honestly.

That's a bad question. The right question would be to ask wether people would want to improve to beat a challenging fun and entertaining content.

The issue with the so called endgame community in MMORPG is that it give only feedback to the developpers regarding the difficulty of a content, but not on the entertaining factor of the encounter. Yet the only way will get out of their way and try to challenge hard content is if said content is entertaining. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty (as in the first floors of alexander savage) is not entertaining (hence the small number of players who actually attempted that content).

[The_NPC]

the most basic answer is "Challange vs Reward" to u'r question OP, if its stupid hard for something super lame (Mount/title) then only those who have masocistic tendencies will grind it (or those who just want the challange) now if the reward was a buff or slight stat boost (like u beat coil t5 & get the achievement u get 5 more of those selectable bonus stats) or gear that actually lasts more than next patch then u might make a masocist outa ppl who normally arn't (& the clear runner sellers would probably increase as well... but I'd exspect it by now)

Now put said "Stupid Hard" challange in MSQ with a "u can't reach end game stuff without it" like Steps of Faith was then u get something thats bad for buisness, especially in a game that even the creators treat like a "Theampark MMO". Prime example is the uber-nerf they gave Steps when they realized the player bace as a whole ant that good... or wanted to be (yes ppl did beat it pre-nerf, I was 1, it was hard for a person who hadn't touched Coil back then)

my personal answer to the y/n question is: Yes but as long as the challange was hard enouf to teach u something that u could learn & better u'rself from & not insta-death, unrecoverable, party-wipefest of salty rage tears... that just is asking for internal conflict & unsubbing.

[Talraen]

I have no interest in making the game harder. If I want challenge, I'll play a hard single-player game where I'm not going to feel bad for screwing up or get mad at someone else for screwing up.

It's also a question of how they made it harder. If they used the exact system they have now, but required better gear, that would be terrible because people at minimum item levels wouldn't be able to keep up. If they increase minimum item levels, the content becomes too hard to get to. If they decrease the gap between minimum item levels and maximum item levels, there's nothing to look forward to. If they synced every content to a specific item level to prevent it from getting easier over time, there's no reason to get more gear. On the other hand, if they made mechanics harder, it would turn off a lot of players and make PUG runs exponentially more frustrating. Keep the challenge in raids and not everywhere, please.

[Moomba33]

Depends on the content and how far off I was from being able to complete it.
Overall I'd say no though. I play XIV for relaxation not challenge.