The MSQ Endwalker Trial Bosses are WAY too hard for newer players to FFXIV

[Miiu]

I'm all for that... as long as the "skip fight" button blocked joining party content beyond it until everything was cleared.

Do you mean party content as in the extreme version of those trials? If so yeah I'd say so too. Though I doubt people who struggled with the basic version of the fight would willingly jump into the extreme version of it.

[Packetdancer]

I fully expect 6.0 will be the last content I do, I'm done with raid-level mechanics in STORY content that gates all further progress in the STORY.

I don't doubt people have trouble with the trials; I know friends who have had trouble with various dungeon bosses, and honestly I can remember how badly I struggled with some dungeon bosses back when I was far less experienced. And not everyone wants to spend a ton of time in game focused on improving those skills; the game is designed to be friendly to people who do the MSQ, then unsubscribe until the next MSQ chapter.

Not everyone is excited to do the same fight over and over multiple times per week, trying to get just a little bit further with each pull. And while normal trials obviously do not require that level of dedication, it's still a difference in approach to content which can be easy to forget for those of us who live to gleefully hurl ourselves into the industrial meat-grinder of high-end endgame content. ("Whee!" BzzzzrtkrnchSPLURT. "...rez please.")

Now, I do think these trials actually are a bit on the high side of perceived difficulty for normal-mode trials; I've played Dorito of Safety more than once for all three of the normal mode trials this expansion when they pop up in trial roulette, and I've definitely seen people struggling with them.

However, I don't think that's because the trials are actually difficult mechanically.

I'm going to repeat something which I've said before on here: this game is extremely good in higher-end content at making visually-flashy mechanics to hide a very simple solution to things.

It's the equivalent of a stage magician doing something with one hand to draw your attention so you don't notice how the trick actually works. And while the illusion holds, it can make the content feel very difficult. But if someone shows you how the trick works, the illusion is broken and you can see what's going on.

These aren't "raid-level" mechanics, I promise; they're much, much more forgiving. But they are similar inasmuch as they're extremely flashy, rather moreso than I think a lot of normal mode trials have been (with a few possible exceptions, like Hades in ShB). Sure, the mechanics differ very little from things we've seen before, but I feel like they are presented with a lot more ta-da! and theater to them than they often have been.

And while those of us who do extremes and savage are used to learning to look past the smoke and mirrors to find the meat of the mechanic—and so look at these fights and go "these really aren't that bad"—folks who generally do normal mode content frequently are not, and I suspect can easily get lost in the noise.

And I strongly suspect that difference may be at the root of the disagreement here.

[Nyarlha]

Do you mean party content as in the extreme version of those trials? If so yeah I'd say so too. Though I doubt people who struggled with the basic version of the fight would willingly jump into the extreme version of it.

More than that, don't let these people in any Roulette.

[hydralus]

I coulda sworn they make things with story content that doesn't involve gameplay.

[ForteNightshade]

Not in terms of healing output and needing to tank swap but in terms of awareness to know which attack is coming and the damage dealt to non tanks. She can kill non tanks very easy if you screw up. Shiva didn't even have a instant death wall. Just the freeze wall. Which was forgiving even if you screwed up the stand still part. If you get hit by any of her weapon attacks with 1 vul stack as a dps/healer, you're pretty much dead. If you stand in the wrong spot for her spear attack, she can kill you instantly even at 0 stacks.

Have you actually done Shiva EX? While far from a visual spectacle in terms of mechanics, she can actually kill DPS fairly easily. Far more so than Hydaelyn normal mode where you can collect quite a number of vuln stacks and still live. Bow phase alone routinely killed a lot of players. They even brought her back with Unreal and PF was an absolute mess. I should know, I farmed her nearly every week before they cycled in Titan. All that aside, you can't dismiss outgoing tank or healer damage than claim a normal mode is harder than EX. Part of the challenge is dealing with just how much damage Shiva EX does to tanks. Meanwhile, Hydaelyn barely tickles them. The only part of her entire fight that can catch players off hard is how quickly the Lightwaves drain your HP. They're also quite easy to dodge.

There is no normal mode in the game that comes anywhere near Extreme fights. Just because you believe a fight harder than others doesn't mean it's suddenly an EX or Savage level encounter.

[Ranaku]

Let me start off by saying the trials are easy for me, because I’m used to harder fights like those, but my friends who are new to the game, couldnt for the life of them understand what to do when doing the Zodiark trial. There’s honestly no need to make MSQ trial bosses that hard.

I just think it’s a bit extreme.

Good joke! Best i heard today!

[CaptainLagbeard]

The trial fights in Endwalker aren't even particularly harder compared to some things that have come before.
The main thing is that it's new and people didn't know the mechanics, but after people give them a few tries and see all the mechanics they can start to pre-emptively act to avoid them rather than trying to react as they go off.

For example, I remember Shinryu being a huge roadblock for people at Stormblood's launch but after some time, even without nerfs or people getting overgeared or anything, it just became a lot easier as more people knew what to do.

[Lauren]

Let me start off by saying the trials are easy for me, because I’m used to harder fights like those, but my friends who are new to the game, couldnt for the life of them understand what to do when doing the Zodiark trial. There’s honestly no need to make MSQ trial bosses that hard.

I just think it’s a bit extreme.

A friend of mine who is new really enjoyed the ramp up in difficulty and said the consistant slow increase made the game interesting.

None of the MSQ fights are hard (let's be honest). FFXIV works on a very core concept - "content repeats". The more you repeat a fight, the more you learn.

Not all content is supposed to be a one shot kill. You're supposed to struggle and die in game sometimes. It keeps things fresh.

Your brand new friends should not be expecting to just try a new game out and 1-shot everything all the time. Wiping is good. It forces you to learn.

If you don't want to figure things out, read a book or watch a movie?

[KageTokage]

Given the presence of certain individuals with way too many alt accounts that are used for questionable purposes, I make it a note to background check the TCs of topics like this on the Lodestone...and was not surprised by the result.

[Ransom]

Speaking as someone who sucks and knows it (Getting older, reflexes aren't what they were):

I found these trials much easier than the ones in Shadowbringers.

Dark Inside? Astral Eclipse sucks, nothing else hard.

Mothercrystal? Nothing hard at all.

Final Day? Some tricky spots but still nothing compared to Dying Breath.