Who Thought Adding Difficulty Levels To Instanced Quests Was A Good Idea?

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree with you, I don't feel any of this solo content makes me a better or worse player. I get better with multiplayer content by doing it with multiple players....all most of the solo instances do at normal levels is serve to frustrate me and honestly I don't think I'm the only one on that. I want to do the solo instance stuff and be done with it then move on, not practice it(I find the idea of practicing a solo instance you will never do again once you clear it silly). I play this game for multi player interactions not for the solo stuff.

Given that bold part, it all seems a bit moot to me.

I'd say there are at least some things we ought learn from solo instances, but, honestly... they're usually pretty distinct from anything you'd take a group to. The "challenges" they present are pretty well absent from group content, except perhaps stack markers still meaning "stack here" as much as they do anywhere else, and even at normal difficulty the challenges we face in group content are largely absent from solo instances if only because the latter is so leniently tuned. By the time it could actually teach anything of value, without being specifically reshaped to do so (which I'd be fine with, but is a fanciful notion at best for now), it'd feel out of place yet again -- just, in the other direction.

I guess all I can hope for is to see some revised guildhests that are worth doing despite continuing a difficulty curve upward, that leveling dungeons can be retuned or revised slightly to have at least some bite -- and increasingly so over time -- and... nope, that's pipedream material again already.

I'll just say this, then: there are opportunity costs on both sides. What people do in their solo time can matter to you when you later group with them, in the same sense that whether your classmates in a discussion-based class have done their homework matters to your learning; you can't force anything, and it's probably not worth doing anything about it specifically, but it is a factor when you'd like to see [A] and are therefore willing to do [B] while others are unwilling to do [B] and therefore will keep you from seeing [A]. And of course the reverse is true as well. If most people want more content that doesn't feel like a joke, what they want will slate you for having to improve a bit more. Those interests may conflict. The trick to design is then making them conflict as little as possible, not by splitting the two groups away from each other and giving them each their half, but reducing the irritations of reaching and playing among that average level while increasing the enjoyment that can be gleaned even when playing content made for that average and expanding the number of playstyles and difficulties the content can accommodate. Some things will still be split, of course, but that shouldn't be the first tool design reaches for.

[Frosthaven]

This reminds me of WoW: TBC (which I consider the golden age, so there is my bias).

To get into kharazan you had to do a crazy quest line and farm heroic dungeons. It was a serious hassle, but I loved it. When pug raids started forming you knew at minimum that every player in your raid was competent enough to obey mechanics up to that point. Maybe you wiped, but you knew everyone there was intent to give it their all because of how they got there. So, I definitely understand the viewpoint posited here.

I don't think FFXIV should be impeding story content for the more casual gamers, but I'd totally be ok with stricter gated raid requirements for higher difficulties. Gates that aren't story-blocking. I can live with it as it is, too.

[Tranquilmelody7]

I unequip all my gear and wipe myself just so I can curbstomp the instances on very easy.

Single player instances are the worst mandatory content in the game in my opinion, they're mostly boring and drawn out.

[DynnDiablos]

I appreciate the ability to choose a difficulty because I have had situations where I have wiped in a solo duty several times and not being able to progress is really frustrating.

[DumdogsWorld]

I'd personally like harder solo instances with more mechanics that punish you hard, but maybe that's just me.

I'd have no problem with Easy if Hard also existed.

Agreed. Currently we have this:



...but it really should be this:

[Illmaeran]

I'm one of those people who stopped playing due to not being able to complete a solo duty in Stormblood. I was going through intense chemotherapy and could not, for the life of me, react quickly enough to AoEs to get through it. Due to gating of solo content behind the solo instance I had no desire to continue playing.

I've really only played DRG at endgame and think I'm decent at it so my lack of ability to finish a solo instance doesn't reflect knowledge of my class or ability to function in a group. Because SE continues to gate MSQ progress behind story instances, it's only right that they give their players the option to choose how they approach them. Furthermore, equating how easy or hard a player does solo, story, content to their performance at endgame is dubious at best. In addition, while you may be going through a story instance or trial for the nth time, others may be encountering it for the first time.

Even though he/she may have read guides or watched videos, it still takes first hand experience to learn how the fight actually goes in real-time. Yes, AoEs and other mechanics are telegraphed; however, the pressure from the community to perform perfectly can, and does, cause players to focus on their rotation, at times to the detriment of noticing telegraphs or abilities being queued up by a boss.

We were all beginners once so it is incumbent upon us to have some understanding of those who may take a little more time to learn mechanics well enough to do a solid rotation while being aware of mechanics too.

[Wildsprite]

~snip~

naw man it should be this. that way those people that want the super hard levels can have them

[Alaeacus]

That has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever because it basically gives a free pass

So? There have been legions of terrible players at endgame before this type of system even came to the game. Nothing has changed.