Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Melichoir]

I am just thinking back to 2.x and 3.x (and to an extent 4.x) content and I am worried about this trend...not only about the design of the extreme/savage encounters but more-so the job player skill ceilings. It seems to me that the difference between a poor to average skilled player compared to a skilled player is minuscule performance wise. There is no real incentive to actually master your job, since you can be really bad and still do 99% of content. Is this the design style going forward? If so, is anyone else concerned? Higher end content should require near-mastery of your job, shouldn't it? Or am I crazy?

I always find this kinda strange to be a point. This never made sense because it assumes if youve been playing the game for a while that youll not increase in skill in any capacity, even if youve been trying out more challenging content.

You know, the plain and simple answer could easily be the player base has averagely gotten better over time while the skill ceiling hasnt been increasing as fast, and thus more people are able to get into more extreme content. Pair this with the fact that balance might not have been as good in previous xpacs as it is now. Alexander might be harder buck for buck, but it could be harder for all the wrong reasons. As a point, A3S became notorious for the dps checks. So much so it was almost required that tanks essentially strip off any stat that didtn contribute to DPS and socket for that. It ended up with tanks being slightly tankier DPS who unless they were very good with everyone else, would get killed by busters. It was a static breaker by how difficult those checks were, and it's not something fondly remembered or widely enjoyed at the time. It was plainly bad design.

DPS checks arent as bad now as then (short of enrage), but I think fights have gotten more mechanically intensive as the offset. So its a new management of doing a complex mechanic on top of keeping a decent uptime/dps, compared to earlier versions where the focus what seemed more DPS check orientated.

TLDR - Skill ceiling has gone up, but probably not at the same rate as the average player skill has increased. It makes it seem like things have gotten 'easier' when theyve actually gotten harder, but we've gotten better faster averagely.

[QooEr]

TLDR - Skill ceiling has gone up, but probably not at the same rate as the average player skill has increased. It makes it seem like things have gotten 'easier' when theyve actually gotten harder, but we've gotten better faster averagely.

i want to agree but its really not the case. Midas did the whole "harder mechanic dance with easier dps check" and yet the fights were still harder and more punishing than creator-onwards. even ex primals have gotten easier ever since sophia. thordan extreme on release was pretty challenging, sephirot and nidhogg were punishing even if the mechanics werent too hard (remember fang & claw?). fast forward to stormblood and lakshmi was absolutely brainless, byakko ex could be cleared blind on the first run, etc. over the years, mechanics HAVE been getting easier and less punishing, and dps checks more lenient.

[Melichoir]

i want to agree but its really not the case. Midas did the whole "harder mechanic dance with easier dps check" and yet the fights were still harder and more punishing than creator-onwards. even ex primals have gotten easier ever since sophia. thordan extreme on release was pretty challenging, sephirot and nidhogg were punishing even if the mechanics werent too hard (remember fang & claw?). fast forward to stormblood and lakshmi was absolutely brainless, byakko ex could be cleared blind on the first run, etc. over the years, mechanics HAVE been getting easier and less punishing, and dps checks more lenient.

I dont agree. I think true complexity has increased per xpac, and the difficulty back during midas was a mix of player inexperience and overly punishing design due to lack of dev team experience. I think it seems easier now because of a wider variety of factors - better encounter design, increased player base skills, more resources on hand to get through fights and game/class mechanics, and the skill ceiling not increasing as fast as the player base. Simply saying everything is easier now I think is a 'rose tinted glasses' effect, where people are remembering the highlights of a tier rather than the reality of it in context to the game at the time.

This all being said, If we wanted to increase the skill ceiling more to keep it at relative pace with the player base growth, we would have to address the skill floor first. Hyper disparity between the top and bottom tier players is just as bad as their being a skill ceiling to low that top and bottom players is almost indistinguishable. If we want to make Savage and EX harder, then I would propose that Regular Trials and Dungeons need to start being scaled up in difficulty. Dungeons are a joke because it is almost impossible to fail them. I love Nier but within a week itll most likely be easy mode afk farm status once people learn the single gimmick per boss fight. Hard mode dungeons are just the same dungeon at a higher level and just as easy. The issue isnt the skill ceiling IMO. It's teh skill floor. Raise the floor, youll have more room to raise the ceiling.