Thank you for increased difficulty

[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?).

[TwistedTea]

Which I can agree and understand with towards some degree, but what do you do when you've had to explain to the same person five times in a row not to stand somewhere....and they end up standing there every time. At some point, something has to give because no one is having fun when the same person or more is being detrimental towards the rest of the players because of the gap in skill levels.

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.

I can't tell you how many Tsukuyomi EX runs I've been in that we're to start off as fun for me and everyone, but ended up painful because people who claimed to be good couldn't even do basic things.

I want to relax and have fun too and not have my effort go to waste either, :<

Tsukuyomi Ex is optional content and players should already be aware that expectations are higher in stuff like Extreme Primals. So kicks for non-performance should also be the norm/expected/more frequent.

OP is talking about basic dungeons and some of us are talking about MSQ content. MSQ is not content that's meant to be repeated for those who just want to access the latest non-Expert/non-Extreme/non-Savage content/non-combat content.

MSQ does not prepare people for harder content.

Have advanced versions of the Hall of the Novice:

1. Hall for Extreme Primals
2. Hall of the Raider

And make these difficult enough so that if you can't clear them solo,you don't have access to Extreme Primals, Savage content.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No, it wouldn't, especially on trash. Isolating the one mob you need to stun is not fun. Maybe on bosses, but you can't really react fast enough if the stunner fails to do so. The more tactics you add, the more ways players can fail, and apparently you can't trust the players to do well with easy content now. Why on earth add more?

Because it had a layer of actual strategy to an otherwise standard fight? Leg Sweep may as well not exist with how utterly worthless stuns are in this game. One aspect I love about Deep Dungeon is needing Stuns and Silences at the ready because mobs on the higher floors will ruin your day. It's far more interesting than pulling everything to an arbitrary wall and spamming your aoe abilities until they all die. At least it is for me.

3 fights out of how many?

And a lot of ex primals are considered easy by forums, and some savage tiers. Thordan ex is a high bar to not be considered faceroll.

Do you have selective reading? I listed no less than eight fights. Even counting only the EX Primals, Dual covered only three of them are "faceroll." Nonetheless, a lot of the EX Primals in Stormblood are easy, relatively speaking. Lakshmi and Byakko are especially bad. The forums say it's all easy doesn't magically mean they aren't wrong. People saying such typically use older primals as a frame of reference.

Yeah, I have. The problem is they increased the speed of incoming damage, so when i try to slowball it, the dps can now die from an attack that they could survive if topped off. And the mechanics that affect us all are now faster and rely on greater raid positioning and awareness, so they take hits more often. The bosses feel slightly tuned a bit more, so they also take more damage with more spent in mp. I'm generally aware of overhealing and stuff, but when attacks now start doing 26k damage or more stacked, when it was 14k, you're gambling a lot more on raid members keeping themselves up. If i gamble wrong, and they die to damage they could survive, it doesn't matter if i did 500 more dps when they do 500 less due to raise penalty.

And honestly, the least appealing thing in the world are this game's ex trials. By the time I've cleared, I'm so sick of the thing that I don't even care about the mounts. The idea that casuals are just chomping at the bit to get into them is hilarious to me, how you feel about pagos is how some feel about them.

No offense, but it sounds like you need more practice experimenting with what you can get away with. Alphascape normal isn't not tuned that drastically higher than its predecessors. Nevertheless, there comes a point where people dying isn't your fault. If they keep getting hit by Larboard/Starboard in o11n, there is only so much a healer can do. If they die, well, it's on them. Holding back your DPS spells in case people mess up will only make you a complacent healer, which, ironically, makes adapting to a given situation much harder. Back in HW, I often find "pure healers" far worse at healing than DPS centric ones. Why? Because only the latter knew how to maximize their heals whereas the former burned through the MP panicking and couldn't adapt.

While you may feel that way. I grow increasingly disappointed with some of them. Shinryu feels incomplete, Lakshmi and Byakko are laughable, and while I enjoy Susano quite a bit, he's fairly easy. Tsukiyomi is probably the best designed, though I have yet to do Suzaku EX. That being said, I never said casuals were "chomping at the bit," I simply preferred when EXs weren't an afterthought that die within a lockout. This another reason I want the normal modes to be more challenging, that way people who aren't interested in harder content still have something to look forward to. And if they find EX too daunting a task, they're not bored with the easier alternative. Instead, we see people whining everything is too hard and have an expansion where all the optional raider content got nerfed save for arguably two Savage fights and Ultimate.

Keep in mind, you may find EXs a slog but plenty enjoy them. Comparing them to Pagos is laughably disingenuous. There's a stark difference between mindlessly grinding brain dead trash mobs and actually being asked to turn your brain on.

No, shin was just a jump up. I usually compare it to nid story, especially the add phases. I mean, 3 mobs with one wandering for Nid, 3 sets of adds with 3 meteor drops that can easily kill players with shin. But this is the faceroll thing again, you can't even say it was harder, because peopel jump on you over it.

And it doesn't matter if gradual, you still reach a point where you bow out. Its just better that its in ex content than in story, because the former doesn't gate content for people.

Because it wasn't hard. That doesn't mean it isn't a good difficulty for story mode. You seem to have this strange belief those things are mutually exclusive. Neither Shinryu nor Nidhogg are hard unless you're wholly inexperienced. They are, however, properly tuned for a story fight.

[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.

[Sigma-Astra]

Tsukuyomi Ex is optional content and players should already be aware that expectations are higher in stuff like Extreme Primals. So kicks for non-performance should also be the norm/expected/more frequent.

OP is talking about basic dungeons and some of us are talking about MSQ content. MSQ is not content that's meant to be repeated for those who just want to access the latest non-Expert/non-Extreme/non-Savage content/non-combat content.

MSQ does not prepare people for harder content.

Have advanced versions of the Hall of the Novice:

1. Hall for Extreme Primals
2. Hall of the Raider

And make these difficult enough so that if you can't clear them solo,you don't have access to Extreme Primals, Savage content.

Well, the same can be said for basic dungeons as well. If I'm spending my own [X] amount of time inside said dungeon to relax and have fun, then I shouldn't have to deal with a tank/healer/or DPS who wants to watch Netflix instead. I expect anyone walking into Expert roulette to have A) the time to do it B) the patience to do it without multi-tasking and C) knowledge of your job at level 70 with the appropriate gear.

I'm not asking for them to jump through hoops of fire with this. Expert dungeons lose their fun factor when you have less skilled players not taking it or their jobs seriously like the rest of the party might be, and then proceed to waste your time so long as they get to have fun their way.

It's a two-way street, the entire party dictates how the time is spent, not just one person. If the person doesn't want to be judged for their own personal skills, I'd say run with FC members or friends who also agree with that sort of setting and overall mindset.

But, when I queue I expect a basic level of competency in order to have fun, not a "let's just chill and wipe three times because it's just a video game, man".

[LauraAdalena]

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.

Do you really want additional content lost for the sake of pushing a more difficult MSQ? Do you really want it ending up like Wildstar?

It is just a game, something a lot of people here haven't brought up. However, what I'd like to point out that the experience of other players is directly connected to the combination of their interactions with the content and the player base. Claiming that this is what will keep the game healthy is one thing, but saying that we should let this dumb idea of "if I can't get past it I quit and that's it," be heard more than asking for more difficulty (which, btw, is probably just as unhealthy an attitude for the health of this game as people who are toxic) is not healthy.

Let's be 100% perfectly honest here. Because there's no way to really gauge personal input, it's very likely that these people can and will leave at the first dungeon they wipe on several times, regardless of if it was their fault or someone who was just as bad if not worse than them, which, despite how easy some of the dungeons before these were, can happen. I know you said you support damage gauge's, but here that's more of an anti-casual opinion there because it's far more likely to scare away the story-only casuals.

I'd also like to point out supporting those attitudes negatively affects the non-casual experience because they have to deal with the people who don't want to improve, and we have to deal with the easy no-challenge content. And in a multiplayer-focused game there needs to be some challenge to keep the more skilled players (like mid-core) playing the content to help the newer and more casual players to help them get through it. If the casual players leave, they lose a lot of players right. But since you know that is harmful, you should know the opposite is just as harmful. They lose a lot of customers if the mid-core or hardcore players stop subscribing just as well.

Do you really want content pushed over difficulty? You can't win either way. So they have to pick their middle-grounds very wisely, and I feel like they have even if you don't.

Also, if they want to not be challenged and not push themselves to be better... they can play a single player game. They can play a visual novel if they really find challenge too much and prefer story. They can watch video playthroughs or streams if they want the story for this game but not the effort they'd have to put in. There's many different options out there.

[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.

[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.

[TwistedTea]

Well, the same can be said for basic dungeons as well. If I'm spending my own [X] amount of time inside said dungeon to relax and have fun, then I shouldn't have to deal with a tank/healer/or DPS who wants to watch Netflix instead...

...But, when I queue I expect a basic level of competency in order to have fun, not a "let's just chill and wipe three times because it's just a video game, man".

I consider Expert, optional content, as I've previously stated. I think 'Expert' should actually be "Expert" in terms of difficulty; not basic dungeon with higher iLvl requirements.

And just as with the proposed advanced Hall of Extreme Primal/Hall of the Raider, there should be some kind of similar gate before people are permitted to enter Expert content.

Lastly, as I quoted previously, this applies to basic/MSQ dungeons:

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.

There's is a system in place to deal with non-performers.

Is it perfect?

No.

But I don't see people using it often enough.

[Sigma-Astra]

I consider Expert, optional content, as I've previously stated. I think 'Expert' should actually be "Expert" in terms of difficulty; not basic dungeon with higher iLvl requirements.

And just as with the proposed advanced Hall of Extreme Primal/Hall of the Raider, there should be some kind of similar gate before people are permitted to enter Expert content.

Lastly, as I quoted previously, this applies to basic/MSQ dungeons:



There's is a system in place to deal with non-performers.

Is it perfect?

No.

But I don't see people using it often enough.

I agree with mostly everything you've said except Expert roulette being considered as optional content, mostly because there's no other way for casuals to grind and get their weekly tomestones if they want to upgrade their gear without going through Savage means.

I'd consider Savage the optional one to be honest since it's a means towards better gear, but you don't necessarily need that gear if you're not going to progress through the tiers themselves or anything harder than Expert Roulette.