the normal content is too easy

[nick124]

(reposted from feedback forums on suggestion from other posters, i dont know how to move the entire thread so i copy/pasted my post w/replies, original thread with some helpful input at https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...nt-is-too-easy )

Why is the game so easy a person who is half asleep could play it with no problem? You wonder why no one knows how to play well, yet make all of the content ridiculously easy. I'm no pro, but its kinda silly how all of the content save extremes and savage is so easy to learn and play with no difficulty whatsoever. People play games to enjoy mental stimulation, and when every single mechanic is telegraphed, repetitive, and predictable, the content becomes very linear and boring. What ever happened to the final fantasy of old, where people had to actually practice and grind fights to clear them? You wonder why there's level 90 white mages casting cure 1 and dragoons single target attacking on dungeon pulls, when the normal game content is so easy it allows players to coast through without actually learning how to play. Just food for thought. Don't forget players who actually play games to enjoy a challenge. Don't leave them out to dry because many other people cry when something isn't spoon-fed to them. Make final fantasy great again! Encourage people to learn and get better, not rot and wither away in normal dungeons which poses about as much difficulty as connect four for a toddler.

R1:There is a difference between being "casual friendly" and downright childs play. The game has become the latter. It's gotten to the point that you don't even need to follow mechanics to clear the material. The game becomes essentially effortless to play since every single "mechanic" is so heavily telegraphed and announced that it becomes a matter of just responding to the same visual cues over and over again, in different settings. I'm not arguing that everything should be savage difficulty. But the normal material (dungeons, trials, most normal raids) is simply boring by how little effort it requires to complete it. It feels like busywork more than an enjoyable interactive game. I don't think every single AOE needs to telegraphed. Not every tank buster and stack needs a huge marker with a 5 or more second warning. Let people enjoy the game by learning the fight, even if it takes a few or more tries. ff14 will never be a great game if it just stays a mindless exercise. People who actually enjoy video games want more, they want to be challenged, they want to be frustrated, they want the opportunity to figure out something which is difficult. The entire game minus the hard content doesnt need to, and shouldnt be, a politically correct easymode that anyone with even a low level of consciousness can breeze through.

[nick124]

R2:I'm glad people agree with me and are getting fed up. Naturally in a video game, things should get more difficult as the level and story progresses. Howover, like we've all seen here, the game gets easier and easier as you level up. Not an ounce of challenge. Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping. I just hope Square sees this and decides to acknowledge that they've gone a step too far and made a game so easy that it's literally impossible to die or lose on most content. Square will have to decide if they want to keep pandering to those who want to face no difficulty, have no challenge, and are just being content with everything being handed to them, or if they want to appeal to most of us who, when we log into a game, wish to be stimulated, wish to grow, wish to get better, wish to be challenged. If they keep chasing the "casual player money" by making everything braindead easy, they will surely lose money from those of us who will quit out of sheer boredom and like of drive to play. And something tells me, especially seeing these replies, there are more people who share my opinion and sentiments than those who are content with a godmode game that hands everything to them.
(again, dont accuse me of spamming or multiposting, i was told to move the thread here but dont know how to move it all. Per suggestion by higher ranking members, i reposted my material here)

[kpxmanifesto]

Yep. I'm pretty sure I can do every mechanic wrong in norm Thordan and not die.

[Arphene]

Yeah, you have to get all the way up to Shb/EW for normal content to be a little challenging. At lower levels, as other have said, you can eat all the mechs and still survive as long as you get healed by the healers aoes.

[Anana2]

That thought process is what got me started on doing Extremes and Savages. While I don't hate Normal content, just enjoying the zones and music and all that, I main a healer, and all I do is mostly top off the tank (if they mitigate) and spam dyskrasia. I've had moments where I can be almost 100% invested in watching something off YouTube and not miss a beat in a dungeon.

That said, not everyone shares that mindset. I've met people of various roles and levels who are trying their hardest and yet still get clipped by AoEs and such. Almost all of them ask for advice on what got them killed, and plenty are willing to learn how mechanics work. Sometimes they still get smacked by daddy vuln stack, but they pull through in the end.

And hell, the amount of times complacency and just plain not respecting mechanics gets me killed in Normal content is embarrassing.

So while I do agree with OP that mechanically speaking, Normal content is pretty simple and not at all difficult, it's easy to say that nowadays looking back from where I'm at now. The amount of times I looked at a mechanic with a tilted head and my lips mouthing 'how do I not die to that gdi' in Normal mode is pretty big, but I know a couple of players who do that so often they can't get through the MSQ. And I can't be the person who goes 'lol they need to git gud' when I got mashed into paste the same way a couple months/years ago.

Honestly after getting into EX and Savage in Endwalker, Normal mode stuff is almost therapeutic and relaxing. Especially since the music and stuff are all top notch.

But if I have to spend another ARR dungeon spamming dosis again I may have to toss someone through a window.

[localareanetwork]

Oh yeah? Play O11 and don't get a single vuln stack.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Sorry i don’t know how to move your other thread but at least you posted it here That said, i wholeheartedly agree. Honestly it also affects the story beats as well. When you go through an expansion hearing about this being or antagonist that is all powerful but then you get to the actual trial and it’s just braindead easy, it completely takes away the feeling for me. Not only that but with their oversimplification of jobs lately, it’s just getting worse and worse. At this point we’re all paying 15 dollars to play a visual novel.

They recently introduced trusts now to lower level dungeons and are trying to integrate them into trials, so in all honesty the excuse of casuals wanting to enjoy the game blah blah goes out the window. They have trusts as an option, there’s no reason to continue making the game so simple for them.

[Lauront]

Like I said in your other thread, they now have every opportunity to relegate their super easy mode stuff to an option for the trust modes, and leave the general DF content - trials in particular - at more decent levels of difficulty, and I hope they take advantage of this. It's all well and good having harder modes of content but that shouldn't become an excuse to dumb down stuff in normal mode to an extreme.

[Raoabolic]

Oh yeah? Play O11 and don't get a single vuln stack.

To be Fair O11 got hit hard with the localization stick and the boss's attack names. That makes reacting to said attack really awkward.

[Mesarthim]

Yep. I'm pretty sure I can do every mechanic wrong in norm Thordan and not die.

Challenge accepted. Last year I purposefully stood in all of those growing circular aoes (as many as I could) and as a dps I actually did die, for science.