FFXIV too easy or too hard?

[Dragonblanco]

I've seen a lot of different opinions. So answer if you think each is too easy or too hard. And, if you feel like it, maybe explain what you'd change and why?

• Dungeon Content
• PVP
• Crafting
• Gathering
• Leveling
• Buying a house
• Raids
• Socializing (making friends)
• Special Events

[Skiros]

• Dungeon Content
  Easy. What should change is not to make it hard but to make it have more unique gameplay.
  
• PVP
  Hard. The problem though is the steep learning curve. An in-game tutorial is needed.
  
• Crafting
  Too easy. Expert crafting should be significantly harder and yield much more scrips. Incorporate old skills into expert crafting. Leveling is too easy but most people want that. Side effect is botting overwhelming the markets.
  
• Gathering
  Easy. Fishing is the hardest gatherer job now because you need to care about GP management.
  
• Leveling
  Fine.
  
• Buying a house
  Fine.
  
• Raids
  Easy. 24-mans are too easy this expansion. Normal raids are fine. Extreme raids are easy but excellent due to their very well-done design (except Memoria). Savage raids are a little easy. Final floor should be harder. TEA is appropriately difficult. UCOB and UWU are too easy due to bad skill and ilvl tuning. An unreal system needs to be implemented for all ultimates so that skill tuning does not retroactively make previous expansion Ultimates trivial.
  
• Socializing (making friends)
  Easy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
  
• Special Events
  What

[Dragonblanco]

• Buying a house
  Fine.
  
• Special Events
  What

In terms of housing, I find it difficult. It's a pain to stand there hours on end and clicking in hopes to get it. Often with bots being the ones who win. I tried for a week and then kind of put it on the backburner for now. Definitely not easy if trying to get your first one. At least not in my opinion. But interesting to see we have someone who says it's fine. Maybe just comes down to luck or the servers we're on.

Special events, I'm thinking of things like we just had one to gather tomestones or w/e. Now we just started the Make It Rain campaign. So it was referring to things like that. https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ign/b1nyoh167i

[zonderbunny]

Dungeon Content: mostly easy, a good or bad df group can adjust this accordingly.
PVP: don't care
Crafting: fine
Gathering: fine
Leveling: its pretty easy with a nice variety of options, imo.
Buying a house: difficult.
Raids: fine, again a good or bad group impacts this.
Socializing (making friends): depends on the individual I think. but 14 gives you plenty of tools to help make buddies.
Special Events: depends on the event i guess. make it rain isn't exactly taxing. XD

[Roda]

Generally, the difficulty in XIV comes from a lack of tutorials and constructive learning experiences in entry level content.
The lack of difficulty comes from there being only one kind of challenge in this game, pattern memorization and execution. Once you get practiced in that one skill, the game can't really ask anything more of you.

But specifically for your questions:

• Dungeon Content

  The problem with dungeons isn't that they're easy. It's that they're all uninteresting outside of their visuals and story context. The bosses can be interesting some times, but for the most part dungeons are one of the biggest gaps in quality this game has.

• PVP

  Depends on the opponents and your team I guess. For that reason I can't really say one way or the other. I'm excited to see something other than arenas and hold-the-point style games though.

• Crafting

  Actually.. Pretty alright. I think this one suffers a LOT from the lack of a tutorial, and overmelding being the only way of optimization leaves a lot to be desired since you don't really have control over that RNG. But for the most part, it's in a good place.

• Gathering

  Same answer as crafting. Though I currently have a burning hatred for fishing since I finished the Feast of Famine quest this weekend.

• Leveling

  NUANCE!! EXP gain: Perfectly paced, wouldn't change a thing.
  Content experienced while leveling: Too easy, which makes later things appear too hard. You can just coast by without needing to learn the important tools to not only see smooth higher-level runs, but also to just have an interesting time. Though I will admit some job story quests are a bit challenging (boat samurai for example), but I wouldn't say they're "too" hard, 'cause I enjoyed having to like actually get better gear than what I was handed and stock up on potions to survive the damage. That was an actual interesting RPG experience. But for the rest of it, its easiness creates a kind of difficulty debt to be paid near endgame, which is less than ideal.

• Buying a house

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOTTERY IS GOING TO SOLVE NOTHING. It's not "hard" it's just BS. There is no agency in buying a house right now, nor after a lottery is implemented, so difficulty cannot be applied.

• Raids

  Kind of depends on the fight, but also raids are a victim of XIV's conservative approach to content and innovation, and they're starting to begin the path of growing stale like the dungeon designs are, at least for my group. Starting out raiding with no experience, it's going to be a challenge, which is great! But, since every fight in endgame is just one kind of challenging (every fight is a dance), once your team memorizes the fight, it's second nature and there's no more challenge to be had. You just kinda go on auto-pilot while you and your team are memeing in voice chat. Hell, I did an entirety living liquid phase in TEA nearly completely blind as I was having the weirdest lag where no mechanics were going off on my screen, but I could still move and attack and the game would register. Managed to dodge and bait everything I needed to just by going off of where I was in my rotation and just feeling the timing. That's a fine kind of challenge to have, but the more of it you have, the easier it's going to get the longer you play the game. A variety of mechanics checks could help a LOT here to provide a more level experience for newblood and veterans alike.

• Socializing (making friends)

  Ugh. As a social butterfly I find it just a drag to try to talk to new people in this game. I WANT to, but it's just not worth it since my only way to interface with people is through a tiny portion of the corner of my screen that people have to stop what they're doing to look at. I'm really not going to bother trying to get people's attention anymore without player speech bubbles. I'll stick to discord if this game wants me to exclusively use a scrolling chat box. That and there's like nothing I can DO for other people out in the open world outside of raising them if they went afk near a hostile monster. (rip stoneskin) There aren't really any mechanical icebreakers like popping my INT buff on people, or putting up a table as a mage in WoW, or portaling people through tough exploration content as a mesmer in GW2, which means there is really no reason to engage with people who are out doing their own business because, well, you're just interrupting their flow instead of enhancing their experience.

• Special Events

  Hit and miss. I prefer when there's some kind of minigame to play (or, more preferably, a variety) instead of a quest where you just talk to a bunch of people and then get handed a thing. Some events do it right, some events just kind of want to get themselves over with too fast. Feels less like an event and more like a limited time cutscene.

[Sebazy]

Dungeon Content - Generally far too easy now with a side order of strange inconsistency. It makes no sense that levelling dungeons are generally much harder than so called Expert level content. ARR used it's first wave of end game 4 man dungeons to ease players into hard mode primals with watered down versions of the same mechanics being seen throughout. Some bosses even had soft enrages if DPS wasn't up to snuff. That's almost comically unthinkable now. Leveling dungeons have occasional difficulty spikes primarily due to inconsistent trash gating with the occasional poorly thought out trash ability combination.

PVP - Easy and in honesty, I don't actually mind the way it is. XIV's net code and tick rate is far too slack to ever offer PvP on par with what WoW has offered in it's heyday. Not to mention that the job team is unable to keep up with the demands of existing roles in a purely PvE sense, trying to balance their full kits of PvP as well just isn't going to happen.

Crafting - Moderate, leaning towards easy. XIV's crafting is as deep as it gets, it's just gotten much easier to get into it now.

Gathering - Fine, most gathering is fairly straight forward with fishing being the true endgame.

Leveling - Pretty painless, even levelling a DPS job to cap solo really isn't that arduous anymore. Queuing for stuff whilst doing other content works well. If you really don't want to interact you've got other options too, squadrons, trusts etc even if they are a bit slow.

Buying a house - From what I hear, it's a pain. I'm glad I got mine when I did.

Raids - Soso, leaning on too easy. Casual raids are just far too easy and forgiving, sorry. I can mash one button and eventually get an even shot at loot despite being dead weight. Not acceptable. Ex primals are a good step up, whilst I'm of the opinion that they aren't as good as they used to be, not everyone could stomach Thordan EX and I appreciate that. Savage is fine but it could be tuned a little better and I wonder if the job and battle teams should perhaps communicate a little more with each other.

Socializing (making friends) - Gonna go against the grain here, it's borderline awful. Why? Go back to early 2.x, content forced you go go out into the game world, travel and socialise in the process. Now you can do everything from outside your FC house's market board and bell. I miss the days of mingling with rival progression teams at Wineport. I used to know and be on first name terms with near enough every end game healer on the server back then. Now I barely know maybe 4 or 5 people in an previous FC I raided with for over 2 years. There are few times when you actually stop, mingle and interact with people outside of your circle now compared to how things were at release. Everything else is a rushed conveyer belt of duty speed runs largely in silence in part due to the report happy nature of some aspects of the community and erratic and often overly harsh GM responses.

Special Events - Eh? Have events ever been challenging outside of maybe the sheer grind with the Yokai crossover?

[Dragonblanco]

Generally, the difficulty in XIV comes from a lack of tutorials and constructive learning experiences in entry level content.
The lack of difficulty comes from there being only one kind of challenge in this game, pattern memorization and execution. Once you get practiced in that one skill, the game can't really ask anything more of you.

I agree. First encountering and learning mechanics often makes it the biggest struggle. I will say the number of mechanics they have and how they combine do often make it interesting and hard to get to, especially if you're a person who doesn't have a fast response time. Honestly, if I wanted one where it's how quick you can aim, dodge, and whatever else I'd probably be more into FPS and all. I get into MMORPG for the strategy and exploration. In that aspect though, I wish they could let bosses be played by AI or that they'd at least randomize mechanics, so you never know what's coming. Could you imagine a machine learning thing implemented and bosses learn player mechanics, then reacts? haha. Now that would be a true extreme mode and would let it be a living dungeon, never really giving you the same experience twice.

[*]Buying a house

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOTTERY IS GOING TO SOLVE NOTHING. It's not "hard" it's just BS. There is no agency in buying a house right now, nor after a lottery is implemented, so difficulty cannot be applied.

Agreed

[*]Socializing (making friends)

Ugh. As a social butterfly I find it just a drag to try to talk to new people in this game. I WANT to, but it's just not worth it since my only way to interface with people is through a tiny portion of the corner of my screen that people have to stop what they're doing to look at. I'm really not going to bother trying to get people's attention anymore without player speech bubbles. I'll stick to discord if this game wants me to exclusively use a scrolling chat box.

Haha, I'm kind of the opposite. My social skills suck and I'm usually introverted. That said, I do often talk to new players and help teach them the basics. I have found socialization in XIV to be lacking. It was awesome while I was in Novice Network, but then once you get booted from it for level and content progression, you're left with no real talk in channels except for maybe your own FC. Even then, so many people get focused on just finishing content that I don't see people actually talking and having fun. I rate this typically as too hard because they don't give a lot of ways to encourage interaction. Especially since there's no "General" or "World" chat.

[*]Special Events

Hit and miss. I prefer when there's some kind of minigame to play (or, more preferably, a variety) instead of a quest where you just talk to a bunch of people and then get handed a thing. Some events do it right, some events just kind of want to get themselves over with too fast. Feels less like an event and more like a limited time cutscene.

[/LIST]

Yeah, I've not really played long enough to see many. I started around like April I think. So I was here for Easter and it wasn't bad. But beyond that it's been kind of quiet. When I compare events here to what I remember back when I played FFXI like 15-17 years ago, events here are much more lackluster. They don't decorate much, have very few things to participate in, etc. Yet this is an area I can't really speak on.

[MilkieTea]

Dungeon Content: Way too easy. I’m a failure of a tank and even I manage to go through literally every dungeon I’m queued into with relative ease. I’d like to be challenged just that tiny bit - because the gap between dungeon content and midcore/hardcore content is WAY too big.

PVP: Apparently easy enough to allow people to queue in and facesmash their keyboard. But I can’t say anything for myself so…

Crafting: Levelling a single crafter can take 30 minutes if you do levequests with a levekit, or about 4 hrs if youre doing Ishgard. Does that answer your question?

Gathering : I’d say this is right where it needs to be. Considering you can’t macro and sit back most of the time, you’re actively participating.

Leveling: For the first class? Way too easy. You simply blink and you’ve jumped from level 2-4. I understand theres a need for balance between too much and too little, and I luckily came into the game when there wasn’t a need for me to grind levels, but they’ve yet to strike the balance. For secondary classes, though, I feel it’s fine.

Buying a house: Way too hard, simply because there isn’t enough SUPPLY. Like, think about the current graphics card shortages - you might luck out and buy one at MSRP, but most of the time youre battling against so many people fighting for the last one in stock that’s been overinflated in price. I’d liken the current housing crisis to that. They need to up the supply, either by hiring people dedicated to reworking how their space is used so it isn’t such a chore to add housing as needed (so it doesnt take away from other aspects of the game), or by buying more server space and doubling the wards we will have after Ishgard. I know it’s not as simple as that but that’s what I think should happen - wishful thinking and all that.

Raids: Never done a single Savage mode raid. I’m too wuss for that LMAO.

Socializing (making friends): Easy! There are many avenues for you to find a group of likeminded players. Not too easy though - it’s in a sweet spot right now.

Special Events: Theyve found the goldilocks with this. Special events are just that - special events. They shouldn’t be skill gated, y’know? I find they’r perfect as is.

[TTiscancer]

The game has content for all ability levels. Do what you find fun and challenging and stop crying.

[Dragonblanco]

Crafting - Moderate, leaning towards easy. XIV's crafting is as deep as it gets, it's just gotten much easier to get into it now.

I hear you. Crafting always was a long grind to most in the past. FFXIV kind of started off that way as well. I think what made the biggest shift and hurt everything was Ishgard Restoration. Now crafting overall is just a joke and everyone can easily max it out at pretty low prices.

Gathering - Fine, most gathering is fairly straight forward with fishing being the true endgame.

Yeah, I have just about gotten mining and botanist to 80, both sitting at like 76 because I had to unlock more Shadowbringers content. (and since then I've just been lazy and not using them, as no reason to have to). Fishing is something I've unlocked but haven't gotten into. I'll have to go Ocean Fishing and everything soon, get to see what you're talking about.

Socializing (making friends) - Gonna go against the grain here, it's borderline awful. Why? Go back to early 2.x, content forced you go go out into the game world, travel and socialise in the process. Now you can do everything from outside your FC house's market board and bell. I miss the days of mingling with rival progression teams at Wineport. I used to know and be on first name terms with near enough every end game healer on the server back then. Now I barely know maybe 4 or 5 people in an previous FC I raided with for over 2 years. There are few times when you actually stop, mingle and interact with people outside of your circle now compared to how things were at release. Everything else is a rushed conveyer belt of duty speed runs largely in silence in part due to the report happy nature of some aspects of the community and erratic and often overly harsh GM responses.

Yes! You kind of have hinted on the main thing I've been saying about MMO in general over the years. In order to help people who have a limited time or lack patience, they've essentially stripped all motivation to get to know each other. And you can see with their Trust system and all, they are trying hard to be able to give people the option to solo everything without even dealing with other players. Just give it time, you'll see it happen. I mean, as annoying as some old things might have been in games, like messaging and recruiting, then running to the dungeons, and having to enter manually in regards to time and all, it also was the motivation not to suck and to talk to each other. Out of convenience you'd be friends and you'd gear each other up. From there, static groups were made and often it was the base for forming guilds/FC.