please stop make the game easier.

[Camiie]

What difficulty do people actually want? Long, complex rotations that will invariably and constantly be interrupted by mechanics? What good is a rotation that one can never completed? Should each class have a similar button count to your average passenger jet? Perhaps they should be akin to playing 6 games of Simon simultaneously? I sure wouldn't play a game like that. Maybe that's the point? Not sure.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You may see 15-20k in damage and think "no one's threatened by that," but to someone who doesn't know the game as well there's a big chance they're going to either overcompensate (believing something even bigger is coming) or panic. Either one will affect the entire run. If people that have supposedly beaten what's available in this game are still making mistakes in ARR level dungeons, primals, and other content, then no it isn't braindead content that anyone and everyone can faceroll.

Yes, however if mechanics continuously do paltry damage, it will inevitably encourage bad habits. When you constantly get away with standing in aoes, you won't see them as inherent risks. Why do you think Black Mages and melee stand in so much? Many of them know it won't kill them, so why bother moving? These poor habits that have been cultivated are then taken into your Shinryus, Nidhoggs, Weeping City and Dun Scaiths.

And so begins the cries for nerfs because suddenly, everything they did previously, no longer works.

You know why Temple of Quan is a good dungeon? It made you respect the mechanics. Those bees were going to murder your tank if they weren't stunned or killed. Doom made you pay attention. You rarely see those nowadays hence why dungeons are widely perceived as boring.

As for people making mistakes. That has no bearing on whether the content isn't braindead easy or not. Half the time those mistakes occur because people don't care since dungeons just aren't threatening.

snip

I would also fancy a source. In the quick google search I did, all I found were complaints specifically towards forcing more group oriented content on a playerbase accustomed to solo play, far more linear progression paths and large tedious time sinks (hero points). Complaints of difficulty were certainly not hard to find, but this paints an entirely different paint than the one you have where difficulty was the sole contributing factor.

Admittedly, I do not play GW2. So I may have only scratched the surface here. So do correct me if I'm mistaken.

What difficulty do people actually want? Long, complex rotations that will invariably and constantly be interrupted by mechanics? What good is a rotation that one can never completed? Should each class have a similar button count to your average passenger jet? Perhaps they should be akin to playing 6 games of Simon simultaneously? I sure wouldn't play a game like that. Maybe that's the point? Not sure.

People advocating for more challenging content what some risk of failure. Examples of that would be Shinryu Normal or The Vault. Both have fairly reasonable challenges when initially released; never demanding too much for story based content but equally not allowing you to mindlessly zone out either. Palace of the Dead's higher floors offer a perfect example of a proper difficulty curve without being too overwhelming, Chimera notwithstanding. You have priority mobs, traps and more branching pathways that all serve to break up the monotony of linear dungeon progression. Mobs on floors 110+ actually hurt too. I can't chain pull them near as easily, if at all, and actually have to rotate CDs on just a single pack. Dungeons? If I'm not blindly pulling everything in sight, I may as well not have CDs because they're utterly useless.

In fact, a friend and I got Kugane Castle a while back. She was on Bard; I on White Mage. Our tank decided to troll at Yojimbo and attempted to get himself locked out. When we caught him, he immediately left. Not wanting to wait, said friend tanked Yojimbo on Bard and you know what, it was probably the most fun I've ever had in Kugane. Why? I actually had to pay attention to her HP. So instead of tossing Regen and forgetting the tank existed while I DPS, I had to weave in both heals and DPS; stopping the latter entirely at some points. Imagine if that were standard boss mechanics. Healers might actually have to heal without mostly Regen.

That's what I want. Not Savage level dungeons or some cutting edge super hard trial. Stuff like the aforementioned, EXs more in the vines of Sephirot and Nidhogg compared to Byakko and Lakshmi and dungeons similar to The Vault and Amdapor Keep.

[DreadRabbit]

As for people making mistakes. That has no bearing on whether the content isn't braindead easy or not. Half the time those mistakes occur because people don't care since dungeons just aren't threatening.

So we go from the playerbase is so bad that mistakes shouldn't even be made at this point because the content is so braindead easy, to "well people are good, they just don't care." Which one is it? And should the company be listening to players that straight up don't care?

This is the point where you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree. Because believe it or not I do believe that there should be challenging content for higher skill leveled players. But I don't believe the game is "brain dead" like you and others are trying to make it out to be. Because surprisingly people have different thresholds for what's difficult and what isn't. And in a game like this where there isn't a core targeted audience, but instead a wider net being cast, that's just a reality you and everyone else needs to come to terms with.

Stormblood managed to net SE around $84 million USD on launch. It's also mentioned how so far the expansion has been a success and improved on FFXIV's previous numbers in Square Enix's latest Consolidated Financial report: http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ne...q3earnings.pdf (which you can see all of them here: http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir...ial.html#y2018 )

Now we'll see if that changes in their next report, as the real test will be if Stormblood can keep people here with the game as it is after the "new-ness" of the expansion continues to wear off.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So we go from the playerbase is so bad that mistakes shouldn't even be made at this point because the content is so braindead easy, to "well people are good, they just don't care." Which one is it? And should the company be listening to players that straight up don't care?

Now you're just putting words in my mouth. Nowhere did I say nor insinuate mistakes shouldn't be made. What I said is a mistake or two doesn't make easy content suddenly harder. People stop caring because they are not given an incentive to. As a melee, I will eat mechanics I know won't kill me. Why? They aren't a threat. So why should I bother to avoid them if it requires I disengage? You want to know why mass pulling has more or less become standard? Because tank want to feel like actual tanks. A single pack does such negligible damage you don't even need a healer, let alone defensive CDs. Not all dungeons are this poorly tuned yet a good number are.

Sorry but when you can watch Netflix and complete a dungeon, it's braindead.

Citing launch sales doesn't absolve a game from criticism. With that in mind, looking at the unofficial census. Stormblood's population dipped by over 200k from January until March. While only estimations, thus not concrete. It's still something to consider. If I were to hazard a guess this likely stems from the "samey" feeling Stormblood has with Heavensward and A Realm Reborn.

[HoodRat]

It's amazing how many people only jump to extremes and just completely ignore all the middle ground.

[hynaku]

They need to quit making game harder till they fix there connection problems that's plagued them for long time now. Shouldn't lock upgrading of new tomes gear behind savage raids. Those should be a option for those that want do them. Eureka is one hardest things in the game. You take 3 steps 9k error then disconnect.

[loreleidiangelo]

Shouldn't lock upgrading of new tomes gear behind savage raids.

They don't, though. When the new 24-man raid comes out soon you'll be able to upgrade your Mendacity gear with the weekly item you get from that.

[BillyKaplan]

Shouldn't lock upgrading of new tomes gear behind savage raids.

Why? This is one of those cases where you need to have ran Savage to run Savage. Simply put, unless you run Savage, you don't really need that item level, tomestone gear from the last cycle is more than enough for most content you'll run into, especially if you upgraded it. It's why the Eureka gear is so alluring for me, personally, because it's 350 that's not locked behind any weekly limitation nor do I have to spend a fortune on. It's not 370? I'm not going to cry over that accumulated 5 minutes my daily roulettes took longer, and absolutely nothing I run, including Sigma normal, doesn't pose a challenge even at my measly 347 (now 351 with my new BLM weapon <3 unf those stats)

[RitsukoSonoda]

Shouldn't lock upgrading of new tomes gear behind savage raids.

Don't think of it as locking behind savage content. View doing savage as just getting early access to it because other methods of getting it will appear in later updates that do not require doing savage.

[Vahlnir]

. Shouldn't lock upgrading of new tomes gear behind savage raids. Those should be a option for those that want do them. Eureka is one hardest things in the game.

You appear to have been around long enough to realize that they DO give us those upgrade items. They will be rewarded at the end of the next 24 man raid if they keep to the formula, probably through hunting clan logs as well. So...patience.