Thank you for increased difficulty

[Jojoya]

And sending people unprepared into other content where they'll hold back 3-7 other players is somehow better?
The MSQ being accessible is the reason why now when you load into O12 you'll have people who don't know how proximity markers work, people who don't know what their kits do, people who can't handle more than one mechanic at a time...
I had a DRK in O2 the other day who used GCDs so infrequently that you could actually see him auto attack 2 or 3 times in-between each one, and my only thoughts were "how the hell did he manage to get this far" and "him and his party are not going to have a good time by the time he reaches the higher Omega floors"

This is, first and foremost, a group game and if your performance isn't good enough to get through what the MSQ throws at you then you're most likely holding back anyone that plays with you, directly making the game more frustrating for them.

As was pointed out earlier, the MSQ isn't there to prepare someone for raids. It's there to prepare them for the next stage of the MSQ.

It doesn't matter how hard SE makes the MSQ, those players will never be prepared for the difficulty of the optional content. But making it difficult will discourage them from continuing to pay for the game and help fund that optional difficult content you do want.

If you end up with someone in the group that can't handle things, then remove them from the group. Be polite about instead of being a jerk but remove them.

This is a game where we have to play together to progress. If someone is going to get into Tsukuyomi story mode doing sub2k as a RDM (which I have seen more times than I care to count) then the game has utterly failed them and left them to exist as a burden on other players. That is not okay.

And yet it's SE that sets the difficulty level for the MSQ content. The question becomes if that difficulty level is reasonable when it is their game design funneling players of all skill through it together.

Getting players invested in a story then telling they they can't continue with the story because they've hit their personal skill cap or comfort level for difficulty is a pretty crappy way to design a game that survives on subscription retention. All you do is turn away people who were otherwise happy to support the game financially.

If only there was an objective indicator of how well they were playing...
Shame.

I guess people will just have to be ignorant of their level of performance.

Why I wish damage meters were a base part of a game UI. People need to have an objective measure so they'll know if they need to improve to enter into certain content. They can then choose to work to improve or accept that more difficult content is not right for them. Most people will understand they're holding a group back when presented with an objective measure of their performance.

It doesn't change that I don't feel that the MSQ is the appropriate place for skill tests to be implemented since it's mandatory for all character progression, even for players only interested in crafting and gathering.

The skill tests should come with the first encounter of the optional content. If you can't defeat the first, then you can't continue to the second and so on. Another option would be to expand Stone, Sky, Sea and The Circles of Answering into scored proving grounds. If the player fails to perform to a set standard there, they can't queue for the related duty. Groups created through Party Finder instead of Duty Finder are always free to remove a player at any time. You just can't be a jerk about doing it.

[Jellybums]

Why I wish damage meters were a base part of a game UI. People need to have an objective measure so they'll know if they need to improve to enter into certain content.

Totally agree. But probably just a visual personal gauge, no numbers, just to tell us how smashing or lacking our DPS is in an instance. There's no harm in seeing oh, the needle on the meter's always between red and yellow or it hardly goes to red when I'm in X instance. Noticing something like that makes one rethink play style without having to be told.

Personally the content isn't harder in nature, just busier, like nobody can get past the content by just standing still and every movement has to have purpose, kills the mindless grind honestly.

[Vaer]

As was pointed out earlier, the MSQ isn't there to prepare someone for raids. It's there to prepare them for the next stage of the MSQ.

It doesn't matter how hard SE makes the MSQ, those players will never be prepared for the difficulty of the optional content. But making it difficult will discourage them from continuing to pay for the game and help fund that optional difficult content you do want.

And yet it's SE that sets the difficulty level for the MSQ content. The question becomes if that difficulty level is reasonable when it is their game design funneling players of all skill through it together.

Getting players invested in a story then telling they they can't continue with the story because they've hit their personal skill cap or comfort level for difficulty is a pretty crappy way to design a game that survives on subscription retention. All you do is turn away people who were otherwise happy to support the game financially.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't echo applied if you fail too many times in MSQ? I think they have it for the job battles, too. So really if you can't do it with echo which already nerfs it by a large amount other than technical things like Return of the Bull but that's a one off so far, I'm not sure how they can accommodate people other than adding a "Skip battle?" button. So they already somewhat accommodate people that can't do it.

Honestly, considering the MSQ has trials and dungeons sometimes, it's more like they are preparing you for those so you have some idea what you are doing in actual group content since they are eventually part of the MSQ. The amount of times I've seen people run away with a stack marker and die in a corner by themselves has decreased since they started adding those to the solo battles.

[Voltyblast]

Seriously I'd like to thank the Dev team for upping the difficulty even in the basic dungeons. If you can't handle basic mechanics idk go play candy crush or something.

Huh? Dungeons and Alphascape (normal of course) are easy cakewalks, especially when almost everyone (keyword being ALMOST) is 370+ geared right now with bits of 380 on them, and while Suzaku EX is hard I see people already farming for it and it will only get easier within the weeks...

So what was hard again?

[van_arn]

I'm genuinely impressed so many come out of the woodwork to defend such terrible players. This dungeon isn't end game, it isn't anything players haven't seen before, and somehow people want to encourage dead weight to make it through.

Sorry, no. This isn't a matter of git gud, this is a matter of don't even attempt anything this deep into the level cap while it's current if you're this unwilling to make yourself an asset to your party.

It's cancerous to make a hindrance of yourself to a party because you "just want to see the story."

YouTube it if you aren't willing to put in your share. You're owed nothing by other people.

[Lambdafish]

I'm genuinely impressed so many come out of the woodwork to defend such terrible players. This dungeon isn't end game, it isn't anything players haven't seen before, and somehow people want to encourage dead weight to make it through.

Sorry, no. This isn't a matter of git gud, this is a matter of don't even attempt anything this deep into the level cap while it's current if you're this unwilling to make yourself an asset to your party.

It's cancerous to make a hindrance of yourself to a party because you "just want to see the story."

YouTube it if you aren't willing to put in your share. You're owed nothing by other people.

As someone who agrees with the general area of your opinion, your comments have been rather toxic and hostile. There is a reason that people call raiders elitists and it is because of people who hold opinions like yours. You are theoretically correct that these players need to improve, and the devs need to implement harder content to make sure that players improve, but the way you talk about these people is like you are looking down on them as if they are dirt on your boot.

As a savage raider who loves difficult content, please get off your high horse, for our sake if nobody else.

[SaitoHikari]

As someone who agrees with the general area of your opinion, your comments have been rather toxic and hostile. There is a reason that people call raiders elitists and it is because of people who hold opinions like yours. You are theoretically correct that these players need to improve, and the devs need to implement harder content to make sure that players improve, but the way you talk about these people is like you are looking down on them as if they are dirt on your boot.

As a savage raider who loves difficult content, please get off your high horse, for our sake if nobody else.

As someone who is a savage raider as well, I have to say that there is a point where the developers have to actually push players to try to at least understand the game that they've designed for them. The current status quo is awful as hell. The balance of difficulty throughout the entire game is lopsided at best because a significant subset of the community keeps on insisting that the skill floor never be raised. Then you have DPS mains scratching their heads and wondering why more people don't main tank or healer classes for faster queues.

It'll only be worse as the DPS gap widens with the inevitable stat bloat, and the differences in player skill translate into occurrences that don't even require a parser to measure.

This game survived Steps of Faith, Wiping City, and has recently survived Ridorana. The community will adapt if it has to. To anyone that insists that the community cannot, that perhaps says a lot more about your complete lack of faith in your fellow players than anything else.

[Lambdafish]

As someone who is a savage raider as well, I have to say that there is a point where the developers have to actually push players to try to at least understand the game that they've designed for them. The current status quo is awful as hell. The balance of difficulty throughout the entire game is lopsided at best because a significant subset of the community keeps on insisting that the skill floor never be raised. Then you have DPS mains scratching their heads and wondering why more people don't main tank or healer classes for faster queues.

I absolutely 100% agree. That wasn't the point of my post. My post was in regards to Van's post, where it seemed like removing the players from the game was as good a solution to the devs forcing them to learn. Ultimately the players can only share part of the blame, it is the duty of the devs to make sure that players are conditioned to pay attention, and expect wipes. Instead what we get is a flip-flop of ideals. Having a hardcore game is fine, having a casual game is fine, but when you are subliminally being told by the dev team "You are expected to work hard" and also "This game is for casual players so we will nerf content so you can participate in anything too hard for you" at the same time, you can see why people are frustrated across the board. The devs just need to stick to their guns and actually keep content consistent.

[van_arn]

As someone who agrees with the general area of your opinion, your comments have been rather toxic and hostile. There is a reason that people call raiders elitists and it is because of people who hold opinions like yours. You are theoretically correct that these players need to improve, and the devs need to implement harder content to make sure that players improve, but the way you talk about these people is like you are looking down on them as if they are dirt on your boot.

As a savage raider who loves difficult content, please get off your high horse, for our sake if nobody else.

I haven't gone deep into Savage since Twintania was the bee's knees, not have I ever claimed to. Nor have I ever claimed to be a magnificent paragon of wisdom.

And I talk about these players because they are, as you said, dirt on my boots just because they are so inconsiderate of the rest of their party.

There is nothing controversial about this. A black mage with 3 actions in a minute deserves a kick, not a clear.

[Elamys]

There is nothing controversial about this. A black mage with 3 actions in a minute deserves a kick, not a clear.

Nobody in here is talking about "BLM with 3 actions in a minute" level of play, we're talking about people who are at least trying to put forth an effort to complete the content but for whatever reason, aren't doing well enough.