A Challenge Reborn

[Silverquick]

Well honestly its the reason I don't play Red Mage much anymore.

Granted Red Mage procs do throw a of Chaos into the job that make it unpredictable...but the reality is, outside of Alliance Raids, Open World Content and Dungeons... you never get to use a lot of the abilities in content like 8 mans. (Healing, Raise, AoEs). I like being able to play the full job's abilities and fully utilize its capabilities. But SE wants to force everyone into 8 man raids where it becomes the most boring thing to play because you only use a tiny portion of the job.

Conversely, I do enjoy playing SMN because it is that intricate and complicated, and in reality "busy" even on Single Target rotations. I STILL prefer content where I am using ALL of the abilities of the job the same way with RDM because SMN has a LOT of AoEs as well... but no matter what the content, SMN's intricacy and wide range of abilities usually come into play at some point (like... 3 different Pets that have 3 different specialties, Single Target, AoE, Damage Mitigation)

Its why I prefer SMN to RDM in High Content. Its way more complicated with a LOT more Buttons and a LOT of multitasking and a Lot more micromanagemant, but it way better than just using 3 buttons every combat.

[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

[NanaWiloh]

Saying you Wish you could have played XI in its prime is a wish that you slowly over time want to come true more then you know. The game is only a shadow of what it was in its prime, enjoyable shadow but none the less a shadow.

[Jojoya]

I just remember the riddle quest from ARR, where you had to think where the next location could be, where the community teamed up to solve the mystery behind it, wasn't this kinda fun? Didn't you enjoy it? Of course people who just wanted it completed were almost giving up, looking up for the solution of every step, but isn't that kind of thing, that we enjoyed the most? The community solving a challenge, a common goal we can pursue? Like I mentioned before, that kind of goal, of milestone can be achieved right now with the Ishgardian Project, but is there more?

Challenge comes more from a lack of knowledge and the need to figure things out than from difficulty. That lack of knowledge is very high when a game is first released. No one knows what to do. No online guides and databases are available for people to use as a reference. The community has to work together to figure things out.

Once a player has experience with the game and has started gaining that knowledge, or can just look up what they need to know online, the challenge mostly disappears. Increasing difficulty can add some challenge back but it's still relatively light compared the challenge created by the need to figure out what to do. Look at Savage content. It's challenging when you first go in and you need to learn the mechanics. Once you know the mechanics and you clear it, it no longer feels as challenging even though the encounters haven't changed.

If you want continual challenge, you need to keep trying out new games so you have to overcome your lack of knowledge. It's not going to come from a game you've played for years because you know how it works.

[Shurrikhan]

The game used to be that attempting something during your after-work hours and not stressing too badly if you fail because, heck, it only takes some 4 completions atop whatever else you'd be doing to cap, wasn't mutually exclusive with 'casual' play. All 'casual' play took was to play casually, rather than needing to see set, consistent rewards, albeit of proportionately lesser value, for every X minutes spent on, say, an at-level roulette. That's not to say that the game was all that much more difficult before, nor that people didn't complain about Demon Wall or the like back then, but there did seem to be an overall sense of attempting something could be fun, even if you die, that's slightly declined since ARR, and that you didn't need such a strict guarantee of never wiping in a certain strain of content. There was content exclusively beyond the reach of 'casual' play, nor so wholly rooted in it. There was just... content.

I'm not sure how much of that I miss. Overall, I think even ARR failed to teach less curious or diligent players how to play the game nearly as well as it should, I think we're still reeling from the symptoms of that, and changes made to pander to those symptoms rather than address them, today. I don't know how quickly we can turn that trend around, but I hope we do.

[NessaWyvern]

I mean, if you want a real challenge in FF14, you’d do PotD or HoH solo. I still haven’t been able to clear that stuff. :P

[Brightamethyst]

Challenge comes more from a lack of knowledge and the need to figure things out than from difficulty. That lack of knowledge is very high when a game is first released. No one knows what to do. No online guides and databases are available for people to use as a reference. The community has to work together to figure things out.

Once a player has experience with the game and has started gaining that knowledge, or can just look up what they need to know online, the challenge mostly disappears. Increasing difficulty can add some challenge back but it's still relatively light compared the challenge created by the need to figure out what to do. Look at Savage content. It's challenging when you first go in and you need to learn the mechanics. Once you know the mechanics and you clear it, it no longer feels as challenging even though the encounters haven't changed.

If you want continual challenge, you need to keep trying out new games so you have to overcome your lack of knowledge. It's not going to come from a game you've played for years because you know how it works.

Pretty much this. The game isn't easier now. Many things are harder than they've ever been; you just know more now than you did then. What you actually want is to be a clueless, starstruck newbie again.

The game has spent years getting progressively harder and harder. Compare any current boss/dungeon/whatever today to one from 2.0. There's WAY more challenge and more complicated mechanics than there were back then, but we're also much more in tune with the game at this point. Mechanics that seemed insane 5 years ago are cake now that we've seen them a million times. The fact that years later you're bored and jaded isn't the game's fault.

[Jirah]

Pretty much this. The game isn't easier now. Many things are harder than they've ever been; you just know more now than you did then. What you actually want is to be a clueless, starstruck newbie again.

The game has spent years getting progressively harder and harder. Compare any current boss/dungeon/whatever today to one from 2.0. There's WAY more challenge and more complicated mechanics than there were back then, but we're also much more in tune with the game at this point. Mechanics that seemed insane 5 years ago are cake now that we've seen them a million times. The fact that years later you're bored and jaded isn't the game's fault.

What a logical outlook on things ....but it isn’t true. Trials and Raids are things that have gotten more complex but Dungeons have been getting more trivial and boring every expansion. Aurum Vale a pre level 50 dungeon for example demands more skill and focus than Anyder a 80 dungeon with its narrow corridors and bleek, bland trash. That’s just one example. The jobs themselves have been filed down to the point of monotony. Healers are boring DPS are simplified and Tanks are getting awfully close to the Homongization healers are currently suffering in. Complexity is what the game lacks but whenever you bring that word in people freak out and think you talking about making a game with several skill branches and what not...no just make the jobs more personal and dungeons more reason to be alert