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

[Mahoukenshi]

Their loss. Industries, products, companies, etc, all have audiences. Trying to reach outside of one's original audience has killed more companies than I can count.

If you want to make a software where you can log in and join everybody else without any potential of losing against a game, then make a social media site.

Some of us want people to actually play the game, not be carried through it.

The answer to your legitimate demand has existed since the beginning of group-or-die MMOs: statics and friends with the same mind and skills as you.

[linay]

But, to put this discussion back in the actual context: It truly doesn't matter much what players do with their solo instances for now because even if they were far harder they'd still be poor learning tools due to how different they are from group content. (They're not completely different, by any stretch, but different enough that it's just not worth worrying so much about at present.)

The specific mechanics may differ, but the basic principles behind the mechanics are the same: where to stand, when and on whom to focus attacks, when to defend someone, stack with allies, spread from allies, intercept damage, making sure allies remain alive, etc.

But everyone has a hair up their ass that this is going to change players and degrade the quality of players who pass on from that point, blah blah blah. They would already do that once the Echo kicked in. So this changes nothing except said player doesn't have to wipe as much so they might get to the same point sooner.

Plus it's kind of moot for some classes. How I handle a solo instance has jack to do with how I handle healing in a group, for example.

It's about the attitude you foster in players. Instead of people rising up to the challenge, you now have the expectation for the challenge going down to player preference. Something as easy as solo content really doesn't need it. Even in group content, not everything has an echo, and usually it only applies some time after the release of the content.

I'm not losing sleep over this or anything like that, and what's done is done, but I still have my opinion over it. And as long as things like this exist in the game, I will always disagree with people (for example) wanting dungeons to be harder/more complex (even if I'm ok with it), because that's not what this game is about (which is fine by me).

[Tatiana]

I don't really understand why this matters, this is for SOLO encounters. People still have to learn their classes for everything else and the content being made easier for solo encounters doesn't mean they aren't still learning their class while they play it as they still have to do the encounter and the difficulty the game provides by default may not be the pace a player needs to actually be able to learn and understand, people learn at different paces and in different ways. This whole one size fits all, every person must fit into a singular box for learning is part of what's wrong with how we teach people anything in life so if anything I think this could actually help more people learn how to play. Most people learn their class in group content such as dungeons anyway, which you still have to play through and queue for in order to progress. If anything, I see this as being useful and more accessible for new players and the people complaining about it are probably the same people who aren't very nice to new people or players trying to learn a new class because their learning is an "inconvenience".

[linay]

I don't really understand why this matters

Then why make the change in the first place?

[Tatiana]

Then why make the change in the first place?

Read the rest of my post because it answers that question. I don't understand why anyone cares that they are doing this, because it does not impact you.

[linay]

Read the rest of my post because it answers that question. I don't understand why anyone cares that they are doing this, because it does not impact you.

The rest of your post says the solo quests don't matter because you still have to learn to do combat for the rest of the encounters. So, again, then why make the change for this easiest of content if you're going to have to learn anyway to do the other contents?

[Tatiana]

The rest of your post says the solo quests don't matter because you still have to learn to do combat for the rest of the encounters. So, again, then why make the change for this easiest of content if you're going to have to learn anyway to do the other contents?

Because it doesn't matter in the sense that how someone plays solo content doesn't impact you since you have nothing to do with it, but it can still come with pacing options that provide a better opportunity to help them learn while solo. They do have to do the group encounters one way or another as that's how the game is designed, but this is an opportunity to improve the experience and the learning curve for certain players so there is no reason for them to NOT make this change.

[Lium]

Ya know, this whole thread makes me think about the Lakshmi solo duty in Stormblood. The one where you and Arenvald have to run around and get the bubbles before they reach these dumb NPCs who are all just standing there looking at her. I did this on an alt earlier this week. And after a coupled failed attempts where I had to start ALL THE WAY BACK AT THE BEGINNING, guess what I did?

Very easy moded it. Solo duties are not at all meant to test your skills unless it's a job quest. They are filler. Nothing more.

[linay]

Because it doesn't matter in the sense that how someone plays solo content doesn't impact you since you have nothing to do with it

That's not true as it impacts what one can and should expect from other players and from the game itself. If, at the easiest content, you can still make it even easier on demand, then that affects your expectation of the rest of the game.

Solo duties are not at all meant to test your skills unless it's a job quest. They are filler. Nothing more.

Everything is filler. It's a game. You don't have to do any of it.

[Lium]

Everything is filler. It's a game. You don't have to do any of it.

Well, I mean if you wanna get into semantics, sure. The point is, the duty I was talking about really is filler. As in, it serves no real purpose other then giving you busy work before the next MSQ dungeon or trial. And that's just it. You can't progress through the MSQ without completing this duty.

It also happens to be a super annoying duty, as well. Run around and pop bubbles before it reaches an NPC with increased difficulty per wave. And if just one bubble gets to an NPC, then the duty is failed. Yeah no. Just no. I'm not doing that.

Very Easy mode all the way.