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.

[TaleraRistain]

Wait, do people still not understand that the game already did this?

1) you have to wipe once to even trigger this
2) it just lets you apply the Echo you would already get for continuous wipes right away instead of waiting
3) you can choose *not* to get the Echo by keeping it on the normal setting

It was a misnomer to call this a difficulty setting. It's really just a "When to apply Echo" setting.

[Frosthaven]

Wait, do people still not understand that the game already did this?

1) you have to wipe once to even trigger this
2) it just lets you apply the Echo you would already get for continuous wipes right away instead of waiting
3) you can choose *not* to get the Echo by keeping it on the normal setting

It was a misnomer to call this a difficulty setting. It's really just a "When to apply Echo" setting.

This is an interesting take, and one I hadn't considered. I guess it goes to bolster the old adage that perspective is everything.

[Mahoukenshi]

I still agree with notion that solo instances on whatever difficulty I want to do has nothing -- or barely -- anything to do with my (lack of) group prowress. Maybe I have too much common sense, but whether or not I decide to do a job quest, or solo instance in Easy/Very Easy, doesn't mean that I a) want to play bad in group settings b) magically forgot to AoE when AoE's due or c) *insert other reasons*. I won't deny that there are dudes and dudettes who play "bad" for whatever reasons out there to the misgiving of the loud percentage on this thread, but I have better things to do in life than doing so.

Yes, I did some job quests on Very Easy out of laziness, and yes, I did actually wipe in one instanced solo battle at the end of post-SB but completed it on "Normal". No, I don't think it made me a better player as I simply switched to another job (I was probably equally bad at, or only minimally "better"). Yes, I will still try to dodge bad ground stuff and try remembering mechanics (successfully or not), AoEing stuff. And no, outside of Leveling roulette, MSQ roulette and MSQ-required trials, you won't probably notice my badness as I've no interest in anything harder than that.

[linay]

Wait, do people still not understand that the game already did this?

1) you have to wipe once to even trigger this
2) it just lets you apply the Echo you would already get for continuous wipes right away instead of waiting
3) you can choose *not* to get the Echo by keeping it on the normal setting

It was a misnomer to call this a difficulty setting. It's really just a "When to apply Echo" setting.

Having echo applied makes it easier to do the content, so it is still a difficulty setting because it changes the difficulty of the content.

[Kytrin]

People are still debating this? Why? It's not a big deal. It's for solo content, and had no bearing on anyone besides the person playing it. And some of that solo content can be a royal pain in the rear if you're not perfectly on your A game or the AI npcs do dumb things.

One of the samurai job quests is like that. You go through a whole long cutscene to fight a guy who acts like a tank in terms of durability and attack style, but does obscene amounts of damage. If you're not perfectly on your toes at all times then you're dead. I repeated that nightmare more than once on both my main and alt because of that.

And I have a friend of mine who had been trapped from progressing MSQ because she couldn't survive one of the solo instances. Not because she had bad gear, hadn't looked up guides on it, or hadn't perfected her rotation, but because in that particular instance Alphy heals about as well as Donald, and she is extremely squishy. That was the entire reason.

It's one thing to need to learn mechanics, but by the time you're getting your butt kicked repeatedly over a period of several different attempts because you didn't do everything with perfect timing and positioning, dropping that difficulty isn't a bad thing.

[linay]

People are still debating this? Why?

You ask that and then proceed to try to debate your side of the argument.

I didn't have a problem with the Samurai quests or with Alphinaud, so why do you assume it's the NPC's fault when players fail those quests?

[Angus-Beef]

Because this is a community that doesn't read tool tips, getsmad when you tell them they can improve and report you for *enforcing a playstyle* even though they keep dying to doing a boss mechanic wrong for 5 pulls.

SE is enabling and coddling bad players and this is just one of may feature that are for that reason. I'm hoping in the next patch the difficulty goes up like Yoshi P wants, I honestly want runs back that punished you for being a nugget.

[Lium]

You ask that and then proceed to try to debate your side of the argument.

I didn't have a problem with the Samurai quests or with Alphinaud, so why do you assume it's the NPC's fault when players fail those quests?

To be fair, that SAM quest is a royal pain in the arse. It's like a level 50ish quest. You fight the NPC on a boat with little room to maneuver. He's a sponge who barely loses any HP when you hit him, but he can legit two-shot you. And again, it's one of the first SAM quests. Not the final job quest in a series when you have all your abilities and know the job well. The fight against Musosai is significantly less difficult than this big Roegadyn. It's really stupid.

If I ever level another SAM, I'm 100% doing this on easy mode.

[Mahoukenshi]

Because this is a community that doesn't read tool tips, getsmad when you tell them they can improve and report you for *enforcing a playstyle* even though they keep dying to doing a boss mechanic wrong for 5 pulls.

SE is enabling and coddling bad players and this is just one of may feature that are for that reason. I'm hoping in the next patch the difficulty goes up like Yoshi P wants, I honestly want runs back that punished you for being a nugget.

My, my, my aren't you a cute little l33t player here, lolz. I'm sure you showed it all of them with your oh-so-harsh words.