Thank you for increased difficulty

[TwistedTea]

It is just a game in the long run. People want to relax and have a good time. Most don't find pushing their limits too hard fun or relaxing, they find it stressful instead. It's effort they'd rather save for real life, where it actually matters.

Once they hit their personal wall, whether from ability or desire, they lose interest and quit. That's not good for the financial health of the game. The less money it makes, the less optional content like true hard modes a company can afford to create.

QFT

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.

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.

As a casual(in terms of skill), I support increasing the difficulty to raise the general skill level. I'd like having in-game DPS meters etc. However,I know, I won't be tackling Savage content anytime soon.

It seems a lot of the more skilled players, simply don't get it that if you increase the difficulty of MSQ content too much, it is quite possible, the people who just want to glam, craft/gather/socialise might cancel their subs.

Look at how much people spend on the Mog Station outfits. This game has an amazing world and awesome non-combat content which is often gated by MSQ.

[Darkplanet]

I think the dungeon difficulty is good, like hard but doable. and the normal mode things in general I think are upped in difficulty and its fun. But maybe cause i'm trying to pug savage or maybe cause I suck idk, but haven't been able to clear o9s cause someone everytime is a few degress the wrong way and gets knocked back the wrong way. in my personal opinion there is a difference between hard content and just making things badly designed to be hard. idk how the other 3 savage fights are so I can't comment, like having to get knocked back while facing a certain direction while position directly in a straight line is just silly controller-wise, like am I wrong? I just think there is an issue when everyone knows the mechanics are playing very well and still wipe due to knicking your analog stick/keyboard for a fraction of a second on accident. idk maybe I'm just the sort of person who likes monster-hunter esque/rhythm/reading the boss/reflex-esque difficulty.

like suzaku ex I like cause you gotta look around and use your brain and reflexs to dodge the incoming ground aoes, to me that's fun, and if I die its usually obviously my fault, and i'm like ah yea I can do that better, instead of whelp screw you game.

[van_arn]

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.

Then they can try harder. Mist dragon is nothing other than a reasonable level of difficulty for the story, and if people have terrible with it they need some remedial lessons to catch up on things they're expected to know at this point.

Like sometimes, you don't watch for orange markers. You look for things that cause orange markers, and adjust before it's too late.

[KaivaC]

Then they can try harder. Mist dragon is nothing other than a reasonable level of difficulty for the story, and if people have terrible with it they need some remedial lessons to catch up on things they're expected to know at this point.

Like sometimes, you don't watch for orange markers. You look for things that cause orange markers, and adjust before it's too late.

While I agree with your general opinion, overall with the posts you've made the last page or so, this is slightly discouraging because it's as if you're saying some of us aren't trying hard enough. Can only speak from personal experience at this point, but I myself am trying my damndest. While I know I am not one of those players with 3 casts per minute, sometimes I do have panic moments when something catches me off guard.

By your post, players like me should be kicked. While not exactly wrong, it's disheartening to say the least.

[van_arn]

While I agree with your general opinion, overall with the posts you've made the last page or so, this is slightly discouraging because it's as if you're saying some of us aren't trying hard enough. Can only speak from personal experience at this point, but I myself am trying my damndest. While I know I am not one of those players with 3 casts per minute, sometimes I do have panic moments when something catches me off guard.

By your post, players like me should be kicked. While not exactly wrong, it's disheartening to say the least.

My issue is with people wanting to nerf a fight that might occasionally cause a wipe because that's icky and mean to the people that just want to play a visual novel. You, personally, don't seem to have this issue-- and instead, you've tried to go out of your way to improve (or you appear to; forum posting doesn't go very far). As I mentioned to you before, find someone that can help guide you out of the mistakes you're making, or toss me a tell if you ever find yourself on the best server (it's Goblin obv).

As for kicking? In extreme cases, if a single person is holding the rest of the party back? Absolutely boot. Boot boot boot.

[KaivaC]

My issue is with people wanting to nerf a fight that might occasionally cause a wipe because that's icky and mean to the people that just want to play a visual novel. You, personally, don't seem to have this issue-- and instead, you've tried to go out of your way to improve (or you appear to; forum posting doesn't go very far). As I mentioned to you before, find someone that can help guide you out of the mistakes you're making, or toss me a tell if you ever find yourself on the best server (it's Goblin obv).

As for kicking? In extreme cases, if a single person is holding the rest of the party back? Absolutely boot. Boot boot boot.

At one point, I would have shared the same sentiments. Now? I dunno. I appreciate the difficulty increase, nonetheless lately. I don't feel that anything in SB should be nerfed (save for a needed QoL improvement that is Starboard/Larboard...but is that really a nerf?).

[KisaiTenshi]

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.

The Mist Dragon is the closest the game has been to a 2.00 launch MSQ difficulty in a long time. Is it a bit unforgiving? Yes. Git gud? Maybe? The fact that it wasn't an immediate face roll unlike The Swallows Compass which healers could sleep through at release, probably gave players the impression that it was going to be another easy thing.

When everyone is overgeared again, it will again become a faceroll, like everything. Once the content isn't current, the echo takes care of it.

Honestly what I want for 5.0 is for the Echo switch from an automatic thing to a party toggle ("Activate The Echo Y/N?") and do not permit a vote abandon if the echo is used.

[MirielleLavandre]

I liked the difficulty, actually. I'm as casual as can be (mom with 4 boys) and just beat this last night. My first run in, the dragon didn't kill me, but killed the 2 dps since one was lagging a bit. I was the only first timer (PLD tank), but that lag and I guess a lil late responses made the dps die, then the healer somehow died, and I was left standing for the 2nd and 3rd tries. I also realized that I needed to save my high damage rotation in sword oath for the 4 dragon heads to help out killing them (I'm a noob and often don't think of killing adds as much as just getting enmity on them). Anyways, with a patient and kind healer and 2 lovely FC dps, we cleared it on the 5th boss try. I think people give up way too easily sometimes -- they need a more 'Dark Souls' like attitude where you learn from defeat and just push on

To me, this Burn dungeon and even the new Arboretum are pretty fun - and give people the chance to learn things about their jobs and maybe even new situational awareness they may have not needed in the past which, in the long run, makes them better players ^^ IMHO, Shinryu was a far greater hindrance to MSQ completion since you were locked out of upgraded tome gear and stuck with the quest level gear until you beat it or at least joined a party with people who had already done it and were a lil overgeared.

[Ryaz]

This wouldn't be an issue if SE just took a page from WoWs book and offered tiered difficulty. You can have story mode (easy mode for story) and a harder mode for people who want more of a challenge.

[RiyahArp]

If you make the content harder, there's no guarantee it will lead to more people going into raiding. Most MMOs have the same problem, where the game proper actually starts at endgame and you need to learn or relearn your class. Usually part of endgame guilds job is to teach them that. I don't think any MMO has this perfect difficulty curve to lead people into raids from the leveling experience.

The problem is savage raids themselves have a lot of issues that make them unappealing, list follows.

* It's 2+ hours a week practicing phases of a fifteen minute fight, one that will wipe everyone if one person makes a serious mistake or enough people make recoverable mistakes.
* There's no side raids or options to help you overcome them if you are stuck. No alternate raids to gear up, no specs you can change to, no way to bring more people in and pay for it by rewards taking longer to get, etc. All you can do is change your main, and even then that's not always possible since alt gear takes time, unless you can afford crafted gear.
* New players are a liability, not an asset. The common thing seems to be you PUG a tier in learning parties, over and over, then try clearing it, and then maybe someone will look at you for a static. You often have to solo the content more or less with randoms, which is not why people raid. If you try to do it with friends, you can, but the skill requirements can often doom you if you all aren't on the same level. Players have made their own vetting mechanisms via log rankings to deal with this.

I mean, there are issues being player skill levels that make savage underpopulated. Part of the reason why we had diadem and eureka is that the devs probably realize savage and ex stuff simply can't appeal to enough players inetrested in long term progression due to difficulty. If you make the game harder, that doesn't really make raiding attractive, it just might make people bow out a bit earlier.