PAX EAST: I was the person that asked the "Challenging content" question at the end.

[RoninDarkchild]

When I asked about "More challenging content" I was NOT speaking of "difficulty". Meaning I was not asking for something "more challenging" than the hardest raid in the game. I personally was 100% fine with the difficulty of The Coils of Bahamut!!. I was not among the group of players that were asking for something more challenging than that.

My biggest gripe (as well as most raiders that I knew) was that there was only "1" endgame level raid event at any given time. High lvl endgame in a MMO should be more than just ONE thing. It is bound to get boring if that is the case.

My FC is called RAGE and we are on Excalibur. Back before heavensward our FC was large. And we had 7 different Raid groups clearing Coil. We also had many many casual players in our FC too. And even would help more casual players set up their own raid groups to help them along if they were interested. (ie: asign 8 compatible casual members into a static and try to guide them from the outside) By the time the 3 Coil came around, many members had begun expressing how the game had become stale. Most were on a day one clear of all turns. So after you went in, spent a few hours doing all 4 turns, you were done for the week. And anyone in the groups that wanted "more" content that was JUST as fun and challenging had nothing to do!!!! Slowly over time, one by one would quit the game, and go play a new MMO. Till eventually our 7 raid groups became 4, then 2, then 1, and then when Heavenwards came out, it was pretty much the same thing, and then our Raid groups completely stopped as many were just gone.

Each time SE added a new event, I would have hopes that there would be a mode in it that produced challenge and fun. Not face roll easy things you can do with no effort. They always add this new fun content for casual but the raiders are kinda left wanting.

I know Yoshi expressed that they would need to DOUBLE the staff to get more raid content out. But I'm not sure that is necessary. Content already exists, where a simple tweak would make it challenging to raiders.

_____________ suggestions on improvements using EXISTING content ____________

1) I think one of FFXIV's greatest problems is that sometimes the devs underestimate the players. For example Pre heavenswards the open world had NO danger what so ever. Yoshi said himself they felt comfortable trying to make Heavensward more openly dangerous. That danger did not last long. As we become overgeared the world has no more danger. So one of the biggest problem is that the Ilvl for content is too often set so low. That when content comes out, so many are already over geared for it. Everything doesn't need extremely low Ilvl. Can't "some" areas in the game have more dangerous enemy in it? Maybe there could be some high end quests that require you to go to this area? Where it's safer to go with a small party?

2) Even Expert Dungeons. All new dungeons don't have half the difficulty Amdapor Keep had when we first gained access to it. I don't think this is due to mob placement, or mechanics, I think it's due to gear. When ARR first came out, things were challenging and fun. We were not over geared and things like Odin, Chimera, Hydra, and even Demon wall were challenging and fun. Mostly due to gear. Most of us simply did not have the gear to faceroll the content. Can't "some" content that is not the top tier raid, be like that again?

3) Hunts - When Hunts were announced I was so excited. I had memories of FFXII and taking on some fun hunts that ranged from easy to very difficult. Between:

Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank B
Rank A
Rank S

I had envisioned something for EVERYONE here. Casual, Mid tier, and Hard tier content for all. But then Hunt came out and it was just a mindless Zerg fest. Even the hardest Monsters did not live long, you didn't have to do menchanics for most of them, and you just all jump on a hate generating job, and go to down, as it's HP melts in seconds.
This did not improve even when Heavensward came out and second set of Hunts were added.

Hunts would have been more enjoyable imo if there was also a tier of them that was simply single party only. Similar to Leve quests. You have a weekly allowance, that, just like Leve, you go get the Hunt request from a NPC. And up to 8 players can go hunt it down. Maybe examine a location while in possession of the quest and the hunt pops. And just like in a Leve, outside people cannot assist you. This could be content that is easily for EVERYONE no matter their style of play.

Casuals - Rank 1, Rank 2, Rank B
Midcore- Rank B, Rank A
Hardcore - Rank A Rank S

There are some really awesome Hunt mob models, and you don't get to ENJOY them. I guess you could go back to irrelevant content "now" that rarely anyone does now, but that was not my point. With a system like the tweak i suggested, it could stay relevant content forever. Just keep the loot pool relevant. Maybe more rare drops come form the higher tier difficulty.

4) Palace of the Dead- Deep Dungeon - I think this was a good start. Floor 1-100 casual friendly. Floors 100-200 Mid tier friendly. But You can still add maybe a "hard" mode. You have content here, that seemingly all you have to do is turn on a mode that had high lvl monsters. (Just require jobs roles for solo que.) This could be more endgame content. Even if everything was identical and only the monsters were set to have higher lvl, more def, more attack. The content is there. Just change some options require a higher i lvl to win, increase the ilvl of the rewards, and bam, hardcore content. Once again, everyone is happy.

5) Treasure Maps - Again.... there could be "some" map tiers that have extremely hard monsters. There are so many map tiers 1-8. Why can't there be content here for casual, midcore, and hardcore? Again, all you have to do is have a higher tier map that has a higher leveled monsters that require higher Ilvl to take on. Drops can be rare mats, or appropriate Ilvl gear.

6) Aquapolis - Again (you see the pattern here), The highest tier most difficult treasure map could open the path to "Aquapolis Extreme". Literally nothing in the mobs here has to change. You don't have to redesign the level layout. You don't have to spend a lot of time on extra development here. Release the same as normal Aquapolis, but set the monsters to be stronger. You don't have to tweak their attack patterns or moves. Same exact monster that is lvl 55 could be lvl 65 or 70 in Extreme mode. Needs 8 party members to take on. Whatever additions you add to regular Aquapolis would carry over to Extreme Aquapolis. Just harder enemies.

7)Extreme Dungeons - I know you spend a lot of time taking a normal dungeon, and changing the graphics, the layout, the monsters and such when you create the Hard mode. But you could ad an Extreme mode at the same time, and change "nothing" but the strength of the monsters and the DPS checks. Same layout, same graphics, same enemies, same patterns Just maybe increase the amount of Tomes you get. Hardcore players could cap their tomes a bit faster in the week. While getting a fun challenge. People could aim for this mode if they want to farm a relic faster or something. You could add rare mats to the chests for crafting endgame gear. So many possibilities. And once again, you have catered to more people at once.

8) Diadem Extreme - In the original Diadem. You had Normal mode, and Hard mode. Literally nothing was different between the two except the enemies were set to a higher rank in Hard mode. Same map. Same monsters. Just different rank. And hard mode has an increased drop rate for higher tier chest for the higher Ilvl gear. You could do the same exact thing again. Make Extreme mode "single party" battles. (Except for the Emergency mission where you team up)

Diadem Fury Normal
Diadem Fury Hard
Diadem Fury Extreme

The biggest difference being the Rank of the monsters within.

Casual players still get to have fun. Casual players still get a shot at the highest possible i lvl items at a lower drop rate. At the top at Extreme, you could have a much higher chance of getting the more powerful high Ilvl gear with the best stats. Make Emergency Missions pop more often.

Look at the new Diadem. You have 2 different modes available you. Fury and Matron. Everything in the both modes is the same!!! Surely this difference did not require you to double the staff? Fury is simply set to clear fates to increase progress. Matron is gather items to increase progress. So here you have the same content used for different things. Normal, Hard and Extreme could be the same.

I had a recent fun experience in Diadem Fury. We were the only party who cleared the zone, 3 members left after we were done. And the rest of us tried taking on the boss fate with the giant Mastodon with the AoE paralyze, and extreme knock back. It was a FUN fight. And was challenging for a lower man group who were unprepared for the monster. I thought to myself, WHAT IF, there was an extreme mode, and the objectives popped Boss monsters that were tough like that Matsadon we tried to low man? What if in this mode you could not have outside assistance for the battles? Another objective popped 3 Westeryly Sanwe on us. Who all 3 spammed a hard hitting AoE and then hit each party member with an individual water ball. That was a tough fun fight. More of that please.

9) All the Extreme mode I mentioned do not have to be more difficulty to End game raid. They could all be similar in difficulty. This would keep raiders busy for the week if they wanted. Take the extreme versions out of Duty Finder if you have to. Put them in Raid Finder.

10) All endgame gear doesn't have to come from a single content. You currently have:

All Weapons
All Equipment
All Accessories
All Tome Gear Upgrade items

all coming from the SAME content. It doesn't have to be this way! Equipment could come from one content like Omega. Weapons could come from something like Aquapolis Extreme. Accessories could come from Palace of the Dead Extreme. Time gear upgrades could come from Extreme Dungeon currency or something. I don't know... just throwing ideas out there. Endgame should not be a single event.

But my suggestion takes nothing away from casuals, nothing away from midcores, and adds to hardcore. And I currently don't see a logical objections to using existing content and adding Hard and extreme modes TO that same content that way All players are catered to.

[ananda]

_____________ suggestions on improvements using EXISTING content ____________
snip

Regarding treasure maps, aquapolis, and diadem, I disagree that creating a more difficult version is a good idea or that it will have no impact on the people who don't want to play it. At least for me, these are casual content that I do with fc mates and friends, just for fun. Splitting the difficulty would also split the player base, making it more difficult to get everyone to happily pick one difficulty. Some would want to do the higher difficulty, others would only do the easy one. In a very large fc or if all your friends are at the same level as you, this would not be such a problem, but in a small fc consisting of both casual and hardcore players, this would be. So, I believe for such casual content, it should not be touched.

For the open world, I don't know how they could have made it stay relevant for long, given the fast pace of gear progression. Even if the enemy is hard at launch, will it still be hard in 3 months, after getting fully geared from raid? Or do you make the area essentially invincible at first, and you can only get in there once you have geared up? What about the next raid tier? Do you want the enemy to scale automatically or something, because they can't remake the area every patch to keep up. And what exactly do you do there? Quests that you only do once? In any case, I doubt this will occupy anyone for long, I don't know anyone who simply enjoy fighting trash mobs. I would enjoy exploring such a dangerous area, but only exactly once, so it wouldn't be a long term content.

For extreme dungeons, the downside is again split player base. I would not want this before cross world df, because this would just kill dps queue even more. But now, I think the game can handle 2 different modes of the same dungeon. I do think it is boring if they just have the same layout and mechanics, just more damage, but I don't really mind them. However, if the only intent is for the challenge, you can already do these dungeons with minimum ilvl option ticked, so in that sense this is already in game (you do less damage and have less hp is equivalent to enemy having more hp and doing more damage).

I really hate hunts, and I any change that means it is not a zerg rush anymore is a good change. Don't really care if it involves challenge or not.

Now, in my opinion your point about expert dungeon is the crux of the issue. Firstly gear. Take the lastest expert roulette dungeons, they need i230 gears minimum, while most active players would have 260 if not 270 by that point. So of course it is going to feel easy for those players. But they cannot just tune it to a higher ilvl, because they also need to cater to, for example, returning players. They really would only have easy access to i230/i235 gears, and so would start their scripture farming at that ilvl.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is the current wide gap in player skill. Good player can do double the dps of mediocre player, while the top can do 50% more than the good and the bad half again of the mediocre. There is just no way to design a content that would hit the sweet spot of any large portion of the player base with such a wide disparity. Splitting the content into multiple levels of difficulty is just a stop gap measure. I think if SE managed to achieve their goal of closing this gap with the 4.0 changes they have promised, it would be a much better way to address the overall issue. They won't have to make faceroll contents anymore to cater to the vast majority, and so even the casual contents could be made moderately challenging and sufficiently fun.