the normal content is too easy

[vetch]

That is definitely part of the appeal of repeating content for many people, in many games! However, many dev teams will see a difference between "Look at how quickly I've got this down to run it after all my practice!" (e.g., speed-running, which you reference) and people trying to do things in the fastest way possible the first time through.

(Source: Used to work at a game company professionally.)

After all, even if you get the newbie message at the beginning of an ARR dungeon, I rarely ever see people interested/willing in going down those side pathways for the sake of the newbie.

You're ignoring half my argument. I specifically said side paths need to have rewards to encourage players to take them. A lore note can be important to a small subset of players, I do like reading them, but it's not a reward for 95% of us, not even the first time through. If you put quest objectives down them, or a chance at a cosmetic with no other source, or give extra daily rewards for clearing a mini-boss, more veterans will take an interest.

While I'm inclined to agree that it is not the majority of the community, demonstrably there is a subset of players who in fact would do precisely that; the fact that folks would not let first-timers watch the long story cutscenes in ARR dungeons is literally why the cutscenes in the Praetorium were made unskippable.

Four years ago. Yet, the extremely long cutscenes in Stone Vigil, Toto-Rak, Ifrit Normal, etc. were not made unskippable and yet I've gotten them in roulettes over and over for almost two years of playing and not seen people hassling the new players for watching them. Game moderation and community policing (informed by the moderation) have served for that, so let's not you and I pretend that there's no other way to handle jerks than to core out the game design.

[rxantos]

The game is a business with a subscription model. Make it harder and you will alienate a lot of people. Specially those who work and don't have time to practice for a week to clear a dungeon. As much as raiders want to they are a tiny minority.

Want harder content? Do savages and ultimate's. Then complain all you want if its not hard enough.

The game is more of a dancing game than a fighting game. Is all about memorization of a dance. If it was a fighting game, then bosses would have an adapting AI. Instead they do the same thing over. Thus a dancing game.

[Kosachi]

The game is a business with a subscription model. Make it harder and you will alienate a lot of people. Specially those who work and don't have time to practice for a week to clear a dungeon. As much as raiders want to they are a tiny minority.

Nobody's asking for dungeons that take a week to practice for. Maybe, you know, a step above being able to complete them while simultaneously asleep, drunk and heavily concussed. That's the way they were HW/Stormblood era and I personally believe that was a perfect balance.

And for the 3141593654th time, just because raiders are a smaller subset of the community, that doesn't mean they should have their thoughts and opinions just discarded. That's kinda messed up.

[Semirhage]

...

That's certainly an interpretation. One that, as a former healer main, is easily countered by both the dozens of "stop dumbing my job down" threads from people who do higher end content, and all the casual posts that I could sum up with "now that healers are boring 11111111111111111 jobs, they're the perfect level of engaging! Healing in this game is sooooooooo stressful! Thank you Square for neutering these jobs, they're so approachable now!"

Yoshi in Q and As doesn't talk about healers like an optimizer trying to clear the path for fellow optimizers. He talks like a Sylphie. He describes how healers are "supposed" to play like a Sylphie. One job that hasn't been beaten with the hammer of stupidification? BLM. Because he plays it. They keep saying over and over, the great march for the lobotomization of jobs is for "accessibility". To cater to people who don't give a crap about them, not to cater to people who actually know how they work.

The game is a business with a subscription model. Make it harder and you will alienate a lot of people. Specially those who work and don't have time to practice for a week to clear a dungeon. As much as raiders want to they are a tiny minority.

Want harder content? Do savages and ultimate's. Then complain all you want if its not hard enough.

The game is more of a dancing game than a fighting game. Is all about memorization of a dance. If it was a fighting game, then bosses would have an adapting AI. Instead they do the same thing over. Thus a dancing game.

We do. Savage and Ultimates are absolutely suffering from their dumbed down job and encounter design. Healers are barely necessary, and spend the vast majority of the hardest content in this game spamming one spell over and over and over and over and over again.

This game is e a s y. Healers are entirely unnecessary before Savage. Improving skill makes healing more boring. This is bad game design.

[Packetdancer]

That's certainly an interpretation. One that, as a former healer main, is easily countered by both the dozens of "stop dumbing my job down" threads from people who do higher end content, and all the casual posts that I could sum up with "now that healers are boring 11111111111111111 jobs, they're the perfect level of engaging! Healing in this game is sooooooooo stressful! Thank you Square for neutering these jobs, they're so approachable now!"

As a healer main, I am not in any way suggesting the current state of healing in this game is good. Believe me, I am painfully aware of how simplistic our jobs have gotten.

I am saying that if we want to complain about the state of the game, I do not think that you can put the blame for all of the current state entirely on the "casual" audience, as some folks often seem to want to.

Just because healers now aren't happy with the AST card system as it stands doesn't change the fact that folks—some of them the same folks complaining now—were also complaining that only the Balance was worth playing back in Stormblood, and those complaints about numerically optimal play with cards were not—so far as I can tell—from the "casual" side of the playerbase. The changes we've gotten may not be the ones we wanted, but I do think they're partly our own fault. I know if I were a game designer working on this game, the "well, they're going to turn every dungeon into a linear speed-run, no matter what we make" factor would absolutely begin to figure into my design considerations. After all, why bother spending time on puzzles and side-hallways and such if most of the playerbase will never do them? You could spend that time on other game elements instead.

That's not the only reason, of course; making the MSQ and game more approachable almost certainly is a factor. I just don't think making things more approachable is the only factor in play here.

[Semirhage]

As a healer main, I am not in any way suggesting the current state of healing in this game is good. Believe me, I am painfully aware of how simplistic our jobs have gotten.

I am saying that if we want to complain about the state of the game, I do not think that you can put the blame for all of the current state entirely on the "casual" audience, as some folks often seem to want to.

Just because healers now aren't happy with the AST card system as it stands doesn't change the fact that folks—some of them the same folks complaining now—were also complaining that only the Balance was worth playing back in Stormblood, and those complaints about numerically optimal play with cards were not—so far as I can tell—from the "casual" side of the playerbase. The changes we've gotten may not be the ones we wanted, but I do think they're partly our own fault. I know if I were a game designer working on this game, the "well, they're going to turn every dungeon into a linear speed-run, no matter what we make" factor would absolutely begin to figure into my design considerations. After all, why bother spending time on puzzles and side-hallways and such if most of the playerbase will never do them? You could spend that time on other game elements instead.

That's not the only reason, of course; making the MSQ and game more approachable almost certainly is a factor. I just don't think making things more approachable is the only factor in play here.

Well yes. The other fairly obvious major factor is Square. They have a manager, two job designers, and an intern working on the ever-increasing number of jobs we have available. Not a single one of them mains a healer. They have neither the time nor the expertise to take a critique about counterintuitive job design and work through it thoughtfully; if the community complains about something, just bash it with the easy hammer until it's unrecognizable but quick to design.

The casual community isn't exactly responsible for getting the jobs to where they are at the moment. They're just rejoicing that they got here; Square's incompetence steered us this way.

[Sunhwapark]

The changes we've gotten may not be the ones we wanted, but I do think they're partly our own fault.

Sorry, but I refuse to take any responsibility for WHM's early lily era in Stormblood.

[Packetdancer]

Sorry, but I refuse to take any responsibility for WHM's early lily era in Stormblood.

I mean... fair? I suspect the job designer or designers who came up with that—and anyone who approved it—would prefer not to take responsibility for that situation either.

[Sunhwapark]

I mean... fair? I suspect the job designer or designers who came up with that—and anyone who approved it—would prefer not to take responsibility for that situation either.

True, and I do agree with what you said in your other post that the low difficulty for content makes it more approachable to the general userbase.
I do like that we can run most dungeons without it being extremely difficult, as that's frustrating but also when dungeons are thrown into roulettes it's less problematic and reduces the amount of times you queue into content only to have people leave instantly upon entering because it's content they don't wanna run due to the fact that it can either be a very smooth and fast run, or take forever and be a slugfest (like Aurum Vale/Vault/Amdapor).

I think I'd just want the harder content to be difficult, not really worried about the storymode difficulty level content but I'm not opposed to it being made a bit more engaging... somehow.

[Hazama999]

I know this might just be me being nostalgic af but man, I miss Pharos Sirius as it launched in 2.1.
I remember timing out on it once or twice during the first few days. People really had to pay attention, and that's honestly what it's always felt like it was about: paying attention. Even nowadays, the last boss of Haukke HM still wipes groups here and there cause people have this level of automaticity ingrained in them which just... goes off with little regard to mechanics.

...All that said, I am pretty torn on this topic. On one hand, I absolutely see people's point when they say they don't want to be spending upwards of 30-40 minutes in a dungeon roulette, something which grants daily rewards. I wouldn't want that either. On the other hand, most dungeons are a walk in the park, and some level of engagement would be nice...

Idk. I'm torn.