Quote Originally Posted by Airget View Post
Byakko's diffiulty is based purely on how well SE's able to increase the skill of players overtime.

Byakko is easy because much like a majority of content aka dungeons, we are slowly taught mechanics over a large period of time and then those mechanics are integrated into tougher encounters with unique twist added to them.

The game only gets easier because that's the natural progression of things, you know to dodge telegraphs, to understand how certain AoE works, to run away when necessary, to avoid swipe damage, to share AoE dmg etc etc.

Now if you were to imagine Byakko without being aware of even 90% of the mechanics, it would be a lot harder but that's not the case. People go into the trial ready to understand each concept of the mechanic.

On top of that you have Byakko story mode that pretty much shows you all of Byakko's moves so you can be ready to react as long as you know the name of each skill used. It's all a learning process and the end results just go to show SE does a good job at teaching players to be ready for certain mechanics.
I wholeheartedly disagree here.

Outside of Savage or Ultimate content, or certain EX fights, difficulty boils down to following the glowing icons that hint at what to do. Step out of the AoE indicator. Gather together on the ginormous arrow flashing over a party member's head. Don't position your tracking AoE to murder your tank. You may applaud SE for teaching players how to react to these mechanics - and I'll admit, they do a good job - but it isn't remotely the same thing as increasing the skill of players over time. There are two primary ways, in fact, that SE has caused player skill to drop, rather than rise, over time:
  1. Mechanics are more obvious, yet less punishing. I'll always recall Garuda EX for this purpose; I helped out a newer friend who was queueing for it about six months back. We got a good-natured PUG, experienced old-timers who were looking forward to revisiting the fight. And it proceeded to kick our asses, mechanically speaking, for roughly a half-dozen attempts before we cleared. Why? Because mechanics weren't so obviously indicated, and because they were absolutely devastating when failed. Screw up the Suparna / Chirada separation, and you're done, almost immediately. Screw up the Satin Plume, and you're done. Accidentally kill the Spiny Plume, you're done.

    Titan EX is another great example. While his Landslide is visually obvious, it's also devastating; when you go off, you STAY off. It turns the fight into a war of attrition. Sure, it's unforgiving, but such is how you improve player skill. And his mechanics are still challenging today - more so than most existing fights. It was never an issue of not dodging telegraphs, not understanding more common forms of AoE, not understanding when to run away, or not understanding how to avoid swipe damage - it was just a bloody difficult fight. Which is something we see less of these days.

    Moreover, making mechanics obvious has a downside. It means players are more likely to freeze and get frustrated when different mechanics are introduced. See my example at the end for more detail on this.
  2. Mechanics are the sole form of difficulty. This is probably the largest issue with FFXIV's difficulty, and why I believe SE has arguably caused player skill to deteriorate.

    Outside of Savage / Ultimate / certain EX content, there's little difficulty besides mechanics. There aren't any meaningful DPS checks anymore in regular content, a la Demon Wall back in the day. It's almost impossible to lose Enmity as a tank, a sad reality that has been true since the earliest days of ARR. It's almost impossible to fail at healing unless someone is going out of their way to be hit by more or less every AoE they can.

    This holds true in the "Expert" Roulette, overworld content, non-EX Primals (some EX ones too, for that matter), non-Savage Raids - everywhere except the hardest content aimed at players who, for the most part, tackle it with Static Parties.

    The net result of this is that players simply don't have a way to organically learn how to become better at their jobs. Sure, some people self-motivate anyway; they'll use third-party parsers and they'll jump into the theory-crafting to maximize their damage, optimize their rotations. But the general content of FFXIV provides nary an incentive -
    let alone a requirement - for all players to engage in this type of self-improvement.
I think an ideal example to wrap this together is The Royal Menagerie at the end of Stormblood. People shattered themselves upon the fight because the mechanics were relatively new, not as clearly telegraphed as others had been, and because there was a bit of a DPS check.

That fight was objectively easier than Titan EX, a fight that had been available to all players since before Stormblood was even in the planning stages. And yet, despite years of additional playtime, years of additional opportunity for skill growth, countless more fights to practice on, and 20 levels worth of new abilities giving us more tools than ever before, players struggled immensely with the fight.

To me, that's a sign SE has failed utterly at improving average player skill. Rather, they've simply accommodated poor performance into their difficulty balancing. It's important we not confuse the two.