Escalating skill requirements & FFXIV future

[Ilan]

I'm glad there are people who find every element of the game enjoyable. I'm glad there are people who will find the pieces I'm going to talk about easy & fun.

This post is not for them.

I've been playing MMOs since 2000. At this point in FFXIV, I don't see a future for myself in this game. The level of gameplay skill required JUST to get through the MSQ is fast approaching the limits of my capabilities.

Bard main, i350 - & I can NOT get through The Will of the Moon (just the part where I still get to play my own class, never mind the part where I would be forced to play as another).

At what point does a dev team recognize that continually boosting 'challenge' in _required_ content will eventually drive away part of their player base? I've already quit GW2 for exactly this issue - I couldn't complete the main story quests.

Please, leave the extreme difficulty for, you know - EXTREMES (& savages). Tone down the MSQ battles & job quest battles (I'm looking at you, RDM 60 battle) that end if multiple solo deaths with no way to get help when you need it. At the very least, USE the tool YOU built into the game, the Echo, & allow us to have it in these instanced fights!

P.S. You should also add an 'Other' option to the account cancellation process where we could enter the actual reasons instead of the ones you've selected for us in the preset list - in my case, 'game difficulty too hard to be fun'.

Will of the moon is not even close to "hard". Heal yourself, put your NPC in focus target, kill his add first, don't place AOE's on the NPC's head and when the things spawn that you have to destroy, destroy the one where your NPC is standing in. The fight before is also pretty easy if you know what you have to focus: adds > boss!

[RiyahArp]

Umm...the thing is, the OP is talking about a story trial you do solo, not any group content. The story stuff is one and done, and doesn't really matter if it's easy for people or not. I'm guessing the issue with the OP is that the end of the sadu part involves a lot of dodging and for whatever reason they just aren't good at it. Plus it has like five different phases. But again, this is a single fight that is one and done, and not really anything important to the game since it doesn't affect anything else. Depending on what the OP does in the game, it may really be an issue; if all they do is play for the story and do solo content otherwise, it can be a gate for them which they don't need.

Also, the constant fetishization of difficulty in this game is getting old. I don't mean in story trials, but I'm getting tired of the same old people thinking the only way this game is meaningful is if its hard, or that players need to be forced to do harder content for undefined reasons. Do you know how you hate Pagos? That's how people can feel when forced to do hard content, because Pagos is just another kind of hard difficulty centered around long-term patience. The game actually works as it is now, with people able to do the level of difficult content they choose freely. It's pretty easy to wreck this, because hard content in this game can ramp up in difficulty exponentially due to the 8 man party mechanic structure. So cut people some slack; you definitely will lose a lot more than you gain by asking for harder content forced on everyone.

[Ilan]

Umm...the thing is, the OP is talking about a story trial you do solo, not any group content. The story stuff is one and done, and doesn't really matter if it's easy for people or not. I'm guessing the issue with the OP is that the end of the sadu part involves a lot of dodging and for whatever reason they just aren't good at it. Plus it has like five different phases. But again, this is a single fight that is one and done, and not really anything important to the game since it doesn't affect anything else. Depending on what the OP does in the game, it may really be an issue; if all they do is play for the story and do solo content otherwise, it can be a gate for them which they don't need.

Also, the constant fetishization of difficulty in this game is getting old. I don't mean in story trials, but I'm getting tired of the same old people thinking the only way this game is meaningful is if its hard, or that players need to be forced to do harder content for undefined reasons. Do you know how you hate Pagos? That's how people can feel when forced to do hard content, because Pagos is just another gind of hard difficulty centered around long-term patience.

There is still nothing hard.

[Rokke]

Umm...the thing is, the OP is talking about a story trial you do solo, not any group content. The story stuff is one and done, and doesn't really matter if it's easy for people or not. I'm guessing the issue with the OP is that the end of the sadu part involves a lot of dodging and for whatever reason they just aren't good at it. Plus it has like five different phases. But again, this is a single fight that is one and done, and not really anything important to the game since it doesn't affect anything else. Depending on what the OP does in the game, it may really be an issue; if all they do is play for the story and do solo content otherwise, it can be a gate for them which they don't need.

Also, the constant fetishization of difficulty in this game is getting old. I don't mean in story trials, but I'm getting tired of the same old people thinking the only way this game is meaningful is if its hard, or that players need to be forced to do harder content for undefined reasons. Do you know how you hate Pagos? That's how people can feel when forced to do hard content, because Pagos is just another gind of hard difficulty centered around long-term patience.

I know you have some weird vendetta with raids but a person should be able to perform basic (b a s i c) rotations and evasion by level 70. You do not need purple parses to clear this.

[MomomiMomi]

Umm...the thing is, the OP is talking about a story trial you do solo, not any group content. The story stuff is one and done, and doesn't really matter if it's easy for people or not. I'm guessing the issue with the OP is that the end of the sadu part involves a lot of dodging and for whatever reason they just aren't good at it. Plus it has like five different phases. But again, this is a single fight that is one and done, and not really anything important to the game since it doesn't affect anything else. Depending on what the OP does in the game, it may really be an issue; if all they do is play for the story and do solo content otherwise, it can be a gate for them which they don't need.

Also, the constant fetishization of difficulty in this game is getting old. I don't mean in story trials, but I'm getting tired of the same old people thinking the only way this game is meaningful is if its hard, or that players need to be forced to do harder content for undefined reasons. Do you know how you hate Pagos? That's how people can feel when forced to do hard content, because Pagos is just another kind of hard difficulty centered around long-term patience. The game actually works as it is now, with people able to do the level of difficult content they choose freely. It's pretty easy to wreck this, because hard content in this game can ramp up in difficulty exponentially due to the 8 man party mechanic structure. So cut people some slack; you definitely will lose a lot more than you gain by asking for harder content forced on everyone.

If they can't get past this, then sorry, but they have no business being in any of the group content that comes after it. And group content is actually required for the story.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Also, the constant fetishization of difficulty in this game is getting old. I don't mean in story trials, but I'm getting tired of the same old people thinking the only way this game is meaningful is if its hard, or that players need to be forced to do harder content for undefined reasons. Do you know how you hate Pagos? That's how people can feel when forced to do hard content, because Pagos is just another kind of hard difficulty centered around long-term patience. The game actually works as it is now, with people able to do the level of difficult content they choose freely. It's pretty easy to wreck this, because hard content in this game can ramp up in difficulty exponentially due to the 8 man party mechanic structure. So cut people some slack; you definitely will lose a lot more than you gain by asking for harder content forced on everyone.

That comparison is incredibly disingenuous. Pagos is in no way challenging. It's utterly mindless, and essentially the equivalent of fighting a target dummy. People enjoying more difficult content isn't a fetish, it's wanting something which isn't a complete faceroll because, quite frankly, it is meaningless otherwise. Look at the sheer amount of complaints over Thordan Normal. The epic conclusion to Heavensward has been mocked and laughed at by even inexperienced players because it's so embarrassingly easy you can't actually fail. Behold the dissolution of tension. When nothing poses a challenge, it robs the story of any weight. Shinryu can't be some godlike entity if you can faceroll him in five minutes.

We have talked about this endlessly, thus I reiterate. The reason this game ramps up in difficulty is because it has a horrible curve. Until recently, we've had extremely easy content suddenly juxtaposed with sudden difficulty spikes. That builds a lot of complacency since people expect everything to be easy when almost everything is. 4.4 actually did a better job avoiding this, though growing pains are going to linger for a time.

Put simply, how about people learn to perform a basic rotation instead of whining? Good players didn't become good overnight nor did they spend hundreds of hours perfecting everything. You can be good and have spent only a handful of hours practicing. What it boils down to is some people want everything handed to them, even if it means indirectly demanding better players carry them because god forbid they have to put forth an effort and learn themselves.

[Selova]

snip.

In the same breath, wanting the continual dumbing down of content because a very specific type of player can't complete it is not healthy for the game as a whole. Also, no one does challenging content for undefined reasons, that's a pretty silly statement to make. If you are doing challenging content, you are making a conscious decision to pursue that content whether it's for the satisfaction of completing something challenging, gear upgrades or just the experience itself, No one willingly decides to partake in challenging content for no reason.

Using Pagos isn't a good example either, Pagos is not hard or challenging It is a tedious game of how long will your sanity last whacking against HP sponges for hours on end. No one is asking for "forced" harder content either, Nothing about that part of the MSQ is hard to begin with. There are even lore reasons that back up why a certain part of the MSQ might be a little more "challenging" (and i use that word lightly) than the others, asking them to dumb down a certain fight or scenario would literally impact and even in some cases break the game lore and honestly, I don't think that's something SE is willing to do. They at least give you the echo on these solo encounters and honestly that's probably the best you can expect from them.

[Mesarthim]

This is annoying me more than it should because this is not one but TWO threads of people complaining about a solo instance that isn't even hard. Come on people learn how to play the game already. You are given a healer type character with FOUR buttons. Would you like to know how many buttons a SCH, WHM, or AST use?

The Echo and whatnot exists for a reason. Patch story content is also usually completed easily in the span of a day so even if you do end up failing a solo story instance you can simply retry it, even if you're not practiced with the type of gameplay a healer has. Stop making a big deal over something that will only last for not even half an hour of your entire time in this game (or marginally longer).

[Cabalabob]

This is the second thread complaining about this instance, what’s the deal? I didn’t find it any harder than any other story instance, no special mechanics in the first half, and y’shtola only had 4 buttons one of them being a basically full cure in the second.

Maybe people who are ignoring their gear are struggling? If so, gear up, or fail a bunch and use the echo, you have options to make the fight easier. But comparing it to extreme content? Give me a break, I wouldn’t even compare that to hard mode primals.

Even if you do find it difficult, work on improving yourself and you’ll pass it eventually. This is a game, not a movie, if you can’t beat the fights you don’t get the story, that’s how games work.

[TouchandFeel]

Let threads like this always be a reminder that deep in Amdapor Keep a sad and lonely Demon Wall is wondering whatever happened to his beloved pet bees.

I just don't have the heart to tell him the truth ...