A Challenge Reborn

[NonaLaggia]

Heyy,
since this is a discussion forum in general, I wanted to ask people all over Eorzea including the hosts, SE, what you think of the simplifications of some jobs and roles, the game itself and the recent changes over the years of playing.

Talking about myself, I am visiting Eorzea from time to time, beginning with the beta of ARR. I have seen so many changes, and people before the calamity have seen even more of them. There were changes we liked and loved, but were there changes we totally disliked?

Talking about my opinion, Eorzea became more accessible for new travellers and that is great! We have more Warriors than ever before and the world takes you to a place, were you can play and listen to more than thousands of stories. We have fought for so many years against villains we loved and hated.
But I sometimes miss so badly the challenge in some things. As I told you, I played 2.0 and I loved so many challenging things about it. I know the cross-class changes are a good thing, in terms of the accessibility and the changes to skills and roles are awesome too, but isn't it sometimes too easy? Don't you wish sometimes an incredible feeling besides leveling, a milestone, you reached for yourself, some kind of thing that makes you feel like the greatest Eorzean in the world? The Ishgardian Rebuilding Project, gives you that kind of feeling, the raid-content (including UwU etc.) maybe too, but is there something else that makes you feel the challenge? I know there is the possibility of doing PotD and HoH solo, but is there more?

I don't just want to talk about my opinion here, I want to ask and invite everyone to join me here. I am not disliking the game, I am just worried that the game could be "too simple" or "too easy" and the challenge that we starve for when we play a game, the milestone we want to see, could vanish someday. Many games and many worlds tried to change for the better, but looking at Guild Wars, where people complain about "too easy raids and underwhelming content" (what we by the way will never have, because the story is more than overwhelming), and looking at WoW where people numbers decrease because of lacks from so many sides, I just fear that this could happen to us someday.
That is the reason why I want to talk to you, ask you about what you think.

Thank you for reading and I hope you can teach me better.

[NessaWyvern]

Hmm.... Honestly, after 6 or 7 years of playing, the average dungeon and trial does feel easier than ARR and HW did, but how much is that due to the game getting simpler, or does it only feel that way after many years playing, I actually got a little gud?

I still find ex quite challenging, and I am still too nervous to do much savage, so personally I still think the game is hard enough. And when it’s not, maybe I’ll finally pluck up courage and give savage a shot.

As for classes getting simplified, maybe it’s a good thing, this is the first expansion that I am actually trying to get everything to max level. I will say that healers at least (since that is what I played) are more complex now than in ARR at least. Maybe not more than HW or SB, though. Oof, it’s been too long to remember what the classes were like, tbh.

[Liam_Harper]

I don't just want to talk about my opinion here, I want to ask and invite everyone to join me here. I am not disliking the game, I am just worried that the game could be "too simple" or "too easy" and the challenge that we starve for when we play a game, the milestone we want to see, could vanish someday.

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

[NanaWiloh]

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

Hit the nail on the head with your last statement. Everyone has different goals not everyone gets accomplishment out of completing challenging content. But that does not mean that challenging content should be removed. This is FF14 not a game like EQ p99 where simple leveling is a grind fest and most of the time requires a group. Stepping out side a city in P99 is like stepping out of the first major town in xenoblade 2, dont have to go far to find something that will one shot you.

[Kacho_Nacho]

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

Different players want different things sometimes they even change their minds.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't voice what you want. It just means you should look for players who share the same wants as you.

[Sabrenn]

I agree, I've gotten a lot better at some jobs that I was horrible at or avoided altogether and that feeling I had of admiration towards the players who mastered it before has gone because I don't see the difficulty in mastering those jobs anymore.
The jobs that I thought were insanely cool because they were hard to master are now easy to pick up.

I don't mind having some easier jobs in each role for people who aren't looking for a challenge but you can't just make everything easy because the people who aren't good at them aren't! I wanted to work on getting good at them!

For example: I used to think sch players were incredibly skilled and always looked up to them, but I've played scholar last tier as a main and it was.. easy? That was kinda disappointing.

And before people tell me astrologian has challenging gameplay, I used to main it in hw/sb and it certainly does not anymore. I also hate the removal of royal road and time spells.

I also used to love the cross class system, I know people had set ones you "had" to bring into raids and stuff but it made you have to go and try other jobs to get skill and see if other jobs are better suited to you. And it was fun to put random skills on classes to see what worked. It gave meaning to us being able to level every job.

[Niyuka]

The thing is, especially when listening to these forums, the most important player is the casual. He doesnt know the meta, often uses half or less of his skills, uses dungeon drops and a mixture of random white loot bought off the MB, doesnt talk or chat except in voicechat to his equally casual friends, and is generally unable to read patch notes, watch youtube videos or any guides, and doesnt like to die or fail at anything, otherwise they will quickly drop their subscription.
This playerbase, however, absolutes hates (and will drop sub) when there are parts of the game inaccessible to that playstyle, especially if they contain rewards like Mounts, skins or better statted items.
So, adding things like more challenging content with appropriate rewards supposedly leads to this mass exodus of silent casual players, who cannot be asked to learn or do anything, but are always perfectly up to date on what is NOT made for them.
I am a savage raider, play 2 times a week. This makes me insanely hardcore, supposedly. I dont mind 85% of the game catering to casuals, heck, I enjoy the storyline, some PvP, the gold saucer and the occasional dungeon myself.
But it seems that if the game would actually cater 15% of its content towards the 15-20% of the playerbase that completes more challenging content than normal mode raids, for some reason, that angers the casual players sooooooo much they will all run away, taking their money elsewhere.

This is basically the situation: Adding anything not catering to casuals is seen as a dire insult, and attack, on the most wholesome of playstyles, and may not be done. Having 4 Savage fights every HALF YEAR is already pushing it.

[NanaWiloh]

The thing is, especially when listening to these forums, the most important player is the casual. He doesnt know the meta, often uses half or less of his skills, uses dungeon drops and a mixture of random white loot bought off the MB, doesnt talk or chat except in voicechat to his equally casual friends, and is generally unable to read patch notes, watch youtube videos or any guides, and doesnt like to die or fail at anything, otherwise they will quickly drop their subscription.
This playerbase, however, absolutes hates (and will drop sub) when there are parts of the game inaccessible to that playstyle, especially if they contain rewards like Mounts, skins or better statted items.
So, adding things like more challenging content with appropriate rewards supposedly leads to this mass exodus of silent casual players, who cannot be asked to learn or do anything, but are always perfectly up to date on what is NOT made for them.
I am a savage raider, play 2 times a week. This makes me insanely hardcore, supposedly. I dont mind 85% of the game catering to casuals, heck, I enjoy the storyline, some PvP, the gold saucer and the occasional dungeon myself.
But it seems that if the game would actually cater 15% of its content towards the 15-20% of the playerbase that completes more challenging content than normal mode raids, for some reason, that angers the casual players sooooooo much they will all run away, taking their money elsewhere.

This is basically the situation: Adding anything not catering to casuals is seen as a dire insult, and attack, on the most wholesome of playstyles, and may not be done. Having 4 Savage fights every HALF YEAR is already pushing it.

The idea of what is hardcore and causal varies from person to person and game to game. I started back into ARR and considered this game semi hardcore at best has it hit a middle ground between what I feel is causal and what is hardcore.

[Eldevern]

What I finally miss the most is the discovery feeling from the beginning.

...

We are both in the game in ARR since the Beta. I'm a bit surprised by your words. Coil raiding scene had rather a good reputation among players, even among casuals. The problem were not the casuals assumed as casual but a little bunch of pseudo-pgm who were even more entitled they were PLed by their raiders mates but still were despising non-raiders. There have been a lot of drama in statics because of that.

You probably remember that a lot of Coil raiders were trying hard at least three evening a week when it was not even more. You know what : I've seen a lot of them leaving the game already just after COIL13 down and before CT3 release. For a part, they were unable to stand the pseudo-pgms but, also, the real life does matter and they could not keep this raiding pace undefinitly (three hours, from 20/21h to 23/00h, three evenings a week, it is good for students, people who work realize fast they will hardly keep this pace if they want to do their IRL job properly, and if they have children, they have good reasons to be busy too).

There are still players who are starving for challenge but some people from Coil don't really enjoy to run this kind of pace again. Life changes and their pace of life too. Some of them will not just leave the game but will stop "hardcore" content.

Now, the question of the difficulty. The problem is the same in every MMO : old content lead to PL new players, we want it or not, because of overgear. They cannot really learn their job. Finally Trust and PVP are the best way to learn to play a job properly (and soloing old content, increasing difficulty step by step) but it is really time consuming, as the hardcore (or High-End) needs. Some players just don't have this kind of availability.

[Jkap_Goat]

thank you much everyone for saying how I feel about FFXIV, it has become too casual and too easy, which isn't bad for people who have busy jobs, family, ECT but there's notthing anything else FFXIV offers you that is a challenge except Savage content and extreme trials. the Dungons are so boring, uninspiring and it's a Dance dance revolution following by spamming the same buttons over and over again, boss fights are, as someone have said," Simon Says Dance Dance Shake Your Booty- scripted move here and move there." the jobs are a joke and feel very similar to each other, for example I love how different Astrologian was especially the card system where it gave you different buffs, and you had all these options to manage buffs, make them stronger, extend the time duration on the card effect, ect. it was the most fun I had in XIV and now it loss all it's flavor and feels very similar to the other healers now, even SCH isn't the same anymore and it was known for being a DPS healer, it was its "own thing" and people seem to love it's playstyle and now what it is? homogenize like the other healers now that functions the same, no uniqueness that makes it stand out.

I'm rambling but now I'm playing FFXI and I'm going to copy paste my response from a reddit thread

So I started playing XI for about a year on and off and now im playing full time and not subbing to XIV anytime soon. As someone who been playing XIV since 2.5 and who started in xiv, FFXI is a fresh of air. I'm loving the journey the game is taking me because you can really feel it even though you're mostly playing with Trust, the adventure is still there. roaming around the dangerous world of Vanadiel, exploring the vast open duegons that are actually duegon, jobs feel like Final fantasy jobs and not a carbon copy of each other like XIV, I'm loving it and having so much as an adventurer than my time in Ezorea. everyone been very helpful and I met sone wonderful people who are helping me with questions, getting into Abuscade ( ffxi endgame content), Domain Invasion which I did yesterday which reminded me of FFXIV S ranks...

the story, the feel , the status effects and I love how you have to plan what to do and what status effects you need to apply on bosses or certain enemies like Dia III, party buffs like Refresh, Shell II, Protecta, Haste Samba...it really feels like a final fantasy game unlike XIV

sorry I am rambling but I don't want people to think that FFXI is only for nostalgic, older vets who are just wearing sunglasses and talking about the good old days... and there is a community for people who like XI playstyle and not this WOW inspired MMO XIV, I just wish I could have played XI in it's prime but it's never to late to jump into an adventure like Vanadiel.

the game is challenging and it's not hold handing like XIV and I'm loving it, wish I played XI sooner

Jkap on the Asura server