the normal content is too easy

[TheMightyMollusk]

Normal mode fights could use enrage timers. Not just DPS checks, an actual "you took too long, here's an ultimate, better luck next time" fight-enders. A handful of fights have some kind of timer (whether a simple time limit or a "soft" enrage, like Shinryu breaking the platform), but in most fights you can just tickle the boss to death forever.

[SilverObi]

Normal mode fights could use enrage timers. Not just DPS checks, an actual "you took too long, here's an ultimate, better luck next time" fight-enders. A handful of fights have some kind of timer (whether a simple time limit or a "soft" enrage, like Shinryu breaking the platform), but in most fights you can just tickle the boss to death forever.

I endorse soft enrages in more content (PTSD of math-bot ensues)

You can literally clear anything with very little effort or practice.

True, you can clear anything with practice and effort. How little or how much depends on the individual and circumstances like getting carried by more skilled group members.

[Ath192]

If Elden Ring has proven anything is that you don’t need snooze fest difficulty levels to be a successful and popular game. People enjoy and will rise up to challenge.

For the people that dodge or cheese to get easier dungeons what is needed is more aggressive consequences to their actions not the dumbing down of content for everyone.

[Hanaya]

If Elden Ring has proven anything is that you don’t need snooze fest difficulty levels to be a successful and popular game. People enjoy and will rise up to challenge.

For the people that dodge or cheese to get easier dungeons what is needed is more aggressive consequences to their actions not the dumbing down of content for everyone.

I personally would like the game to be a little harder (or more complex) in regards to normal content, but I think this is kind of a weird comparison. The entire premise of fromsoft games is that they're really difficult. For most people who enjoy them, the enjoyable part of the game is dying over and over again to a boss while slowly getting better at fighting it until you finally beat it. As in, they're playing the game specifically because they want to play something that's challenging and requires a lot of effort to succeed at.

FFXIV is very different from that. While there's a small number of players who play the game because they want to experience difficult content (savage/ultimate raiders), the vast majority of players enjoy the game because of the story, or life skills/casual activities, or glams, or so on. I encounter far more players in the game that just want to play casually and have a relaxing experience then I do people who want to wipe to the same boss over and over again. like, if they suddenly made normal/story content in ffxiv way harder, I'm pretty sure a large number of people would just stop playing. High difficulty games are very popular and have a huge audience of people who love playing them, but the target market for fromsoft games and ffxiv is completely different.

Like I said, I would personally enjoy the game more if content was more difficult. Although my main gripe is with lower level content, because ilvl sync is busted and you can basically faceroll a ton of dungeons/trials without actually taking that much damage (which honestly just makes me avoid roulettes a lot, because I hate getting pre-stormblood content), I also find endwalker story content kind of boring because of how faceroll it feels. But the vast majority of the people I know who play this game refuse to go into savage content, or even extreme trials in most cases, because they think it's too difficult.

Admittedly though, I play on crystal, so maybe I'm super out of touch with other datacenters. The raiding community here is very very small compared to the number of more casual players. But I've levelled alts on aether/primal and honestly, the average level of gameplay I see in df there is very similar (as in, very low in most cases).

[Serious-Cat]

If Normal is too easy there's always Hard, Extreme, Savage and Ultimate tho?

[AnnRam]

If Normal is too easy there's always Hard, Extreme, Savage and Ultimate tho?

We are talking about Roulettes/MSQ I mean NORMAL/regular content.

Extreme/Savage/Ultimate requires statics/FCs not just your everyday roulette/ dungeon finder.

[nick124]

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

[Serious-Cat]

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

I'm not really concern about people quitting or not because today, most people play multiple games within their possible play time. A person playing an hour of ff14 for some roulettes or an ultimate player progging/erping 12 hours a day is still a player in ff14. Since its impossible to determine easy or difficult to the total amount of players participating in a co op matchmaking system, its just impossible to impose a blanket setting or change.

However as most players will know how they are feeling, needs and wants etc, challenges can be setup for a good time such as -1 player count, lower ilvl gear, unoptimized gearset, playing with a pizza controller etc. Default settings should always be welcoming and inclusive. Nobody is expected to learn calculus on the 1st grade and the school wouldn't know if this one kid already done with calculus before the first grade unless specifically notified to which a jump in grade can occur, thus normalizing or even increasing the difficulty for the kid that don't need basic arithmetic like other 1st graders.

[Roflcopter]

My counterargument to the above is this: making the game infantile to play will lead to more people quitting than those who would quit due to inability to clear a slightly more difficult dungeon or trial. People should not be babied for fear of losing playerbase. SE should cater to the vast majority on the game who do believe it is too easy to clear most content, not to the loud minority who are afraid of a challenge beyond "dodge that giant telegraph thats in place for 10 seconds." The extreme and savage content is too small and far between (~15 or so fights per expansion) to justify making 95% of content a complete cakewalk. For people who game passionately and seek the thrill , who make up more of the population than SE would like to admit, the current normal content just ain't cutting it.

Most every mmo has some form of telegraph for everything including WoW. Only in that game you need to install an add on to do the exact same easy to see circles that FFXIV has by default. Every single serious raider uses DBM in WoW and it puts up the same exact telegraph markers. It has done that for ages. People in FFXIV and WoW fail all the time at avoiding the insanely obvious markers too. I’d also argue normal mode content is accessible and trivial in all MMOs. It is pretty much standard in the genre these days. Even so called heroic content in WoW was trivial from Wrath onward. Normal mode raids were accessible and trivial as well. They are designed as stepping stones for freshly leveled players to practice and gear for harder content.

Back in the days of EQ, the telegraphs weren’t necessarily obvious so you needed a raid lead to set timers and call stuff out. Trakanon for example. So many people don’t know how to get out even with someone shouting it in your ear and spamming chat in red letters.