Well, they actually did it, the absolute madmen

[Callinon]

I hate to be the WoW refugee here but this is pretty concerning. In modern WoW there is a much-hated feature called LFR, which was intended to help people who struggled with the game experience the story of the raids and see the sights. It's a good idea on paper... but...

LFR's rewards were basically just as good as the rewards from other difficulties of raiding, and so people who didn't struggle with the game at all would end up playing LFR because you can get the best rewards for the least amount of effort. Instead of being something for accessibility LFR became the default raiding option and ended up making it harder for people who want to play at higher difficulties because everyone just did LFR for their instant rewards.

I'm aware that this is currently just a solo-only feature, but I'm concerned that Square might try to replicate it on the group level, which would have the same effects.

Y'know what's neat? Hardly any of what you just said is true. Cool huh?

LFR is a matchmaker-friendly form of raiding in WoW and it offers rewards at an item level lower than normal mode raiding. In Legion the loot tables were actually completely different from normal and above raiding. Actually, every endgame activity rewards better stuff than LFR. So best rewards for no effort? No. Some rewards for doing content? Yes.

And LFR isn't for people who "struggled with the game." It's for people who don't or can't raid with a regular group so they can at least see the inside of the zone and meet some of the bosses and finish the game's story. Helps for gearing up alts too.

tl;dr: get over yourself.

[Alenonimo]

Why is this such a contended topic? If the player doesn't learn the job during solo play, they'll learn during party play. Which is even better, since the other party members can actually help them. Or are you guys just expecting that everyone in the game already mastered every little thing? Have you even leveled an alt, where you blast through content and doesn't quite grasp the job yet? It happens to everyone, which means bad players are everywhere.

It's a multiplayer game. There will be people of all skills in the game. Some people will play really bad. No use getting angry anyways. Just try helping them a bit and it usually works fine for everybody. :/

[LalafellDown]

I would choose the very easy option because those battles are really boring and long. Just wasn’t to hurry it up so I can unlock the good end game stuff.

[Dirwen]

When I saw the title I know a bunch of elitists would complain and whine thinking the playerbase would get worse. Hate to tell you it won't. The fact that story skip and level boosts exist already made going through content moot involving skill as is.

The bad players will continue being bad regardless of this change. Personally, I found solo duties annoying especially when you play multiple characters and having to run them through MSQ. I for one welcome this change.

[E4EO]

I’m reading through this thread and see people talking about players who only play this game for the story, crafting, gathering, housing, RP, and other scenarios that aren’t very combat heavy and how this change would help those people out. But people saying this seem to be forgetting what the OP himself said, this lowers the overall skill of the community, and makes things harder for everyone in DF by worsening the experience due to lack of skill of your party members.

No matter what type of player you are, you will have to go through hardships in the MSQ, certain trials can be a pain if your party members are (let’s be honest) bad. Some that come to my mind are Lakshmi, Tsuyokomi, and the 3 in ShB, and these are just my experiences, I’m sure others have had bad experiences in other trials not mentioned. This change only compounds this issue by worsening the overall skill of the playerbase by allowing access to these hyper easy instanced battles that you don’t require you too think or devise strategies, and this makes players who choose those easy options complacent with their lack of skill. Now this wouldn’t be a issue in a single player game as only you choose how to play it, but in a multiplayer environment, that kind of complacency will, as the OP said, spill over into MP content and overall worsen the experience due to the parties lack of skill.

This is a terrible addition to FF14 for my reasons listed above, and potentially ruins the experience for other people who try and practice at thier job because they had to before this, and for those who desire a challenge, all because of a few selfish people who would rather be guided through the game on a leash than work hard to master a trial or dungeon, everyone must pull their weight in content or else everyone suffers. This game expects basic competence for most content, the game is easy as is, yet this change just makes everything worse in DF.

I’ll reiterate something I said before a bit differently as a closing statement. This is a multiplayer game that focuses heavily on teamwork, not a single player game, if a few people slack off during content than everyone suffers, as it is rude and inconsiderate your fellow player. I’m sorry if I myself came off as rude or inconsiderate, but this makes me frustrated how people forget that this is a multiplayer game where everyone must pull their weight for content to run smoothly, not a single player game where you have more free reign to play as you please.

[Joryan]

But people saying this seem to be forgetting what the OP himself said, this lowers the overall skill of the community, and makes things harder for everyone in DF by worsening the experience due to lack of skill of your party members.

This assumes that there is a substantial group of people who start as bad/less than mediocre players, but make significant improvement due to set difficulty of the solo duties (rather than overcoming them with "brute force" via repeated attempts and increased echo, or giving up on them/the game as a whole). I don't know this metric - and I doubt anyone besides SE does - but personally, I don't believe this group is big enough to justify the concerns presented in this thread. In other words, I don't think there are enough people who truly become notably better players by being forced such in the solo duties.

[Nepentha]

This is a terrible addition to FF14 for my reasons listed above, and potentially ruins the experience for other people who try and practice at thier job because they had to before this, and for those who desire a challenge, all because of a few selfish people who would rather be guided through the game on a leash than work hard to master a trial or dungeon, everyone must pull their weight in content or else everyone suffers. This game expects basic competence for most content, the game is easy as is, yet this change just makes everything worse in DF.

I’ll reiterate something I said before a bit differently as a closing statement. This is a multiplayer game that focuses heavily on teamwork, not a single player game, if a few people slack off during content than everyone suffers, as it is rude and inconsiderate your fellow player. I’m sorry if I myself came off as rude or inconsiderate, but this makes me frustrated how people forget that this is a multiplayer game where everyone must pull their weight for content to run smoothly, not a single player game where you have more free reign to play as you please.

People with disabilities are not selfish. They just would like to play the game and enjoy it. Nor are people who play the game and prefer to be more solo. Or prefer crafting and gathering or RP and would like to see the storyline. I mean, FFXIV is actually renown for the story aspect of the game.

I'm not sure why you think this change is going to affect anything. The Echo was already a thing, IS already a thing right now, at this very moment. This just gives players an option after failing.

And they are doing it right now, and will in the future without so much as a 'by your leave'.

[Blokeymon]

OP here.

Does anyone else remember the 2.0 days?

Getting to Brayflox and it being a literal weeding-out duty, where you either improved or didn't progress.

Remember Titan and Garuda, where you were either competent or stuck?

Back then, you had no choice but to be at least competent. You had to read your tooltips and understand your job. If you're a UK/EU player like me, you'll remember the HORRIBLE latency we had too.

And yet, we did it.

And we continued to do it.

And then Steps Of Faith arrived.

And all of a sudden, people couldn't do mechanics, didn't know how to do their jobs, and cried that they couldn't clear it.

I managed to pug it on day 2, and I'm an absolutely terrible player, who more often than not healed using Cleric Stance AND played on PS3.

But enough people cried, and instead of saying "well, all these people have cleared it, maybe the issue isn't the duty?" they nerfed it.

And people STILL can't clear it today.

Same with Chrysalis, IIRC. I was in a party this week that had no first timers who STILL didn't make the DPS check, nor soaked meteors properly.

There has been an ever increasing number of bad players running alongside numerous nerfs to battles, which does nothing to increase the skill level, and everything to lower it.

And then we end up in Shinryu Normal, and people still can't clear it.

And then we end up in Hades, and people can't clear it.

There is an obvious problem here, and the solution is NOT making it easier/faster to get thru duties, whether solo or party.

The solution is to encourage players to be better.

Also, speaking of disabilities, here's a video of a kid playing with his feet, at a level most current players can only dream of. Don't use disabilities as an excuse.

https://youtu.be/ogCRNvghbiw

[Alestorm]

So long as it stays in solo content who really cares? A lot of the solo fights are just boring and not even comparable to group content; there have been a few instances where I wanted it to end not because it was hard (never was) but because it was boring.

I would love to see some difficult group content outside raiding; but it's unlikely to ever happen.

[Mahoukenshi]

No matter what type of player you are, you will have to go through hardships in the MSQ, certain trials can be a pain if your party members are (let’s be honest) bad. Some that come to my mind are Lakshmi, Tsuyokomi, and the 3 in ShB, and these are just my experiences, I’m sure others have had bad experiences in other trials not mentioned. This change only compounds this issue by worsening the overall skill of the playerbase by allowing access to these hyper easy instanced battles that you don’t require you too think or devise strategies, and this makes players who choose those easy options complacent with their lack of skill. Now this wouldn’t be a issue in a single player game as only you choose how to play it, but in a multiplayer environment, that kind of complacency will, as the OP said, spill over into MP content and overall worsen the experience due to the parties lack of skill.

As a low-skilled player myself, solo duties will certainly not make me a better or worse player; if I have been improving at all so far in group content, it would've been by doing said "easy-peasy roflolpewpew" dungeons/trials. Contrary to popular tryharding belief, some people aren't bad a dungeons just for the "lulz" or because they "want" or to laugh at the other party members for having to put up with them. Yes, rotten apples exist, but as you - dear godlike-skilled player - will probably know, exceptions do exist on BOTH sides. As a story player, I couldn't care less about higher difficulty duties for which you guys are breaking out in cold sweat out of fear that "we" suddenly invade your holy sanctuary. Outside of roulette RNG and party disbanding/duty failing, you will see pure story players in the dungeons once. If they end up liking this form of content, I'm sure that many will try and improve as hardly anyone enjoys being a "burden" (even in an MMO). And maybe not even in every dungeon available.