The general player base needs to improve

[fumofu]

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

[Tridus]

The question, to me, is just how big of a spread in player skill is acceptable to you, Kaiva? It's impossible to get everyone on an equal footing, so there will always be good players and comparatively bad players. The only question is how wide the gap is between them.

It's pretty wide right now. But the game is designed to tolerate that. I mean, expert and the 70 dungeons (with a couple of exceptions) don't punish failure at all. Being "bad" by the standard of the playerbase is plenty good to clear that content, and with a name like "expert", that must mean you're not that bad, right? Even if you eat absolutely every mechanic on every boss in Kugane castle, an awake healer will get you through it.

The game doesn't tell you what your DPS is or if you're doing your rotation correctly, and technically someone else telling you is against ToS. The message being sent there below Ex/Savage tier is that it doesn't matter a whole lot if you are using skills effectively or not.

Lots of content puts two healers in it but only really needs one. Then you get runs where both get killed and the tank can heal it long enough for someone else to bring them back up, so no real consequence there (except the tank getting to show off).

Tanking is extremely forgiving if you don't care about DPS, with enmity being easy to generate and more than enough defensive cooldowns to mitigate everything in the vast majority of content.

And I mean... that's deliberate. They don't want story content gated behind hard content (aside from Shinryu at release, although people outgear it so much now that it's kind of a joke since it oddly has no item level sync), and they want people to have something to do weekly to gear up. So none of that stuff is very hard, aiming at the wider demographic of people who don't care about the game enough to want to invest a lot of effort into learning how to do difficult content.

These things are hard to get right, because having the playerbase improve means slowly cranking up the difficulty such that people will adjust and learn without hitting a wall of frustration and quitting in response. If wipes and failure are more frequent, is that a thing we want? Look at how often Rabanastre comes up as a problem, when the "problem" is that failure actually happens there? Do we want EVERYTHING to look like that, with the risk that the bottom 20% might quit the game entirely as a result (and the revenue implications that brings)?

I don't know. I do know that right now the game is very forgiving to people who don't want to invest a lot of effort into learning how to play better, to the point that it doesn't even give you the tools to do that effectively (which is why everyone keen on self improvement is using third party tools/sites). How much harder should it be before it's hard enough and we're all content with the skill gap as being acceptable?

[Lilseph]

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

1-Players need to improve because they play with other people. It's not fun to play with people that don't play accordingly. That applies to every game ever.
2-Yes, you have options for difficulty: Dungeons, NM primals, NM raids, EX primals, Savage raids, Ultimate.
3-Adding a middle ground: Midcore content, will help with their learning curve. If everything is faceroll easy, these attitudes will carry over harder content.
4-The topic aims to find a way to educate "bad players" and find a way to teach them how to play accordingly, see point 1.

[Tridus]

I think we need more easier content. It's not fun wiping at ex primals and 24 raids. And wipes happens, because it's too hard.

But if it's so easy that failure is impossible, what's the point of doing it? There's no sense of accomplishment or progression in that.

I find expert so unsatisfying to run because it's so easy. Rabanastre, wipes and all, at least makes me pay attention and try.

Ex primals are also supposed to be hard content. So they should be hard.

[KaivaC]

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

Maybe if you'd read my initial post instead of throwing your microaggression at me, you'd see that a huge portion of my topic, and my replies, have been directed towards endgame content. As in Level 70. I have not touched on storyline dungeons, the overworld map, FATEs, PoTD, Guildhests, crafting, the Gold Saucer...I haven't spoken on those, but just answering your first sentence, those are amongst the many things that all types of players (casual, midcore, hardcore) can all enjoy. I imagine that Eureka will follow a similar trend with being casual accessible.

I did not once say that content in this game is too easy. I feel like a lot of content is easy, yeah, but I did not open a discussion about how easy some content can be as it relates to endgame fights. Do I want players to improve? Yes.

Do I want players to improve so that developers can make harder and harder content? No, not for the sole reason of making harder content. It's like you read just the title and just went off saying that I started complaining without even reading any of the original post. Not only that, but you have yet to even answer the question I posed to you a page back. So let's try again.

Here is the question I posed:

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

[Sesera]

And why players need to improve? It's not a single player game where you can choose desired difficulty, so there gotta be stuff to do for all types of players.

And here we have this topic, b1tching about how content in this game is too easy and players need to improve so that developers could make harder and harder conent.

Like you said it's not a single player game. When you are doing it wrong you affect 3-7-23 other players. Don't play a mmo if you're planning to be a burden and if it is not your goal then try to become better or stay away from group content.

[KaivaC]

snip

I'd say the gap is pretty big, though perhaps not as bad as it was back in HW (I glimpsed a little bit of it in 3.56). I do feel like the last two dungeons ramped up the difficulty a little bit. I think the highest that the bar should get for casual players should be Shinryu. Anything higher than that would be hitting Savage territory, and that would do more harm than good, I feel. Fractal and Hells Lid are a pretty good step-up I think, because while they are still not absolutely dangerous, they will still punish you if you mess up. Byakko felt like an appropriate difficulty from Lakshmi (the orbs and dealing with Leg Sweep can be nasty if one doesn't pay attention). I've said it before, but rather than having mobs consisting of 5-6 enemies, I'd like to see unique mobs with mechanics. Something that actually requires more than just the same old stuff.

Of course, it has to be balanced, and ideally if Fractal and Hells Lid were to be the dungeons that started the trend of scaling difficulty, then it should continue into 5.0. Maybe by the end of that expansion, optional dungeon content can start to be tuned towards Shinryu (with balance in mind...don't want the devs to overtune the enemies.)

[fumofu]

What's too hard? Define what you mean by this. I dunno why we need easier content, a vast portion of the dungeons are easy enough that you can pretty much netflix through them and the overworld maps are not threatening (save for S/A rank hunts).

To put shortly: you don't know why we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

[Tridus]

I'd say the gap is pretty big, though perhaps not as bad as it was back in HW (I glimpsed a little bit of it in 3.56). I do feel like the last two dungeons ramped up the difficulty a little bit. I think the highest that the bar should get for casual players should be Shinryu. Anything higher than that would be hitting Savage territory, and that would do more harm than good, I feel. Fractal and Hells Lid are a pretty good step-up I think, because while they are still not absolutely dangerous, they will still punish you if you mess up.

Seems reasonable. I find Hells Lid better than Fractal on that, though, probably because they use vuln up more liberally and the bosses have attacks that punch back harder. Fractal doesn't feel like much is a threat to kill me. But conceptually I do think expert is the place that needs the difficulty boost, so I'd go for that plan.

I've said it before, but rather than having mobs consisting of 5-6 enemies, I'd like to see unique mobs with mechanics. Something that actually requires more than just the same old stuff.

Remember the old days when trash required stuff like CC and was more than "round up 3 packs and AoE it?" Good itmes.

Of course, it has to be balanced, and ideally if Fractal and Hells Lid were to be the dungeons that started the trend of scaling difficulty, then it should continue into 5.0. Maybe by the end of that expansion, optional dungeon content can start to be tuned towards Shinryu (with balance in mind...don't want the devs to overtune the enemies.)

Sounds good. I think we're largely on the same page. I don't want to chase people out of the game, but expert really shouldn't be named that if it's sleepwalk content.

[KaivaC]

To put shortly: you don't know we we need easier content, cos you don't enjoy it. And i don't know why we need harder content, cos i don't do savage and I don't need more of content I'm not gonna do.

Why are you putting words in my mouth? I never said anything about not enjoying the easier content...quit trying to avoid the question and actually answer it. See, the issue is that you aren't providing any answers...you're just talking. This is twice now that you've said words that I haven't said. If you don't want to do Savage, hey, then don't do Savage. I haven't advocated against easy content. As a matter of fact, I've stated a few times that I'm not touching on the difficulty on storyline dungeons/content. I actually am satisfied with FFXIV as a whole, from my personal experience, from all I've personally done. And on top of that, my posting extends to Rabanastre...which to a lot of casual players...

Wait wait wait...

So my words are not taken out of context, I'm going to bold this next part. I will be completely dumbfounded if someone misses what I am about to say below:

...to a lot of casual players (as in, a decent amount of casual players; not most casual players, not all casual players, not even the general base...just a lot of casual players in this example)

...Rabanastre probably feels like Savage to them. So...what...you don't do it because it's hard? If that's the case, then don't do it.

(Side note: it seems I have hit my posting limit for the day, so guess I'll be replying when my limit resets.)