the normal content is too easy

[KizuyaKatogami]

Then the solution would be to find a way to bring that engagement up without alienating people who just can't operate at a higher level. I will not ever agree with the idea that people with disabilities don't get to play the game. If you raise the difficulty without keeping those needs in mind then you risk making it unplayable for them. I also don't like the idea of majority or minority. Accessibility is my concern. Do I think the state of the game properly reflects that? No. Do I think it can be improved? Yes. But I want those improvements to be done without throwing others under the buss.

That’s exactly why i bring up trusts though. People can still have that engagement without difficulty by running trusts. No one, again, literally no one is saying they can’t play the game. You’re making up scenarios that no one is even stating. The people advocating for more engaging and slightly harder normal content aren’t going around saying f people with disabilities. But i will say it is incredibly difficult to balance a game around the minority with disabilities. But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed. It’s a win/win. If at some point they want to play with other players, there’s loads of casual content tailored to that. Deep dungeons,maps, i would say eureka/bozja but i haven’t a clue if that’s too hard with people with disabilities.

[WildTamarind]

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

No one here is saying that. We want the game to be harder yes but harder doesnt mean savage. Harder means engagement. ARR on release had a good difficulty. It was easy but you had to pay attention. Power creep ruined that. Trusts can fix the issue to give players who need a super easy mode an option and SE should increase difficulty of non trust normal. It sucks having people quit because its too easy and you know what people who find the game hard can improve woth a proper difficulty curve.

[KizuyaKatogami]

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

No one here is saying that. We want the game to be harder yes but harder doesnt mean savage. Harder means engagement. ARR on release had a good difficulty. It was easy but you had to pay attention. Power creep ruined that. Trusts can fix the issue to give players who need a super easy mode an option and SE should increase difficulty of non trust normal. It sucks having people quit because its too easy and you know what people who find the game hard can improve woth a proper difficulty curve.

^this so much. Wholeheartedly agree.

[Xirean]

That’s exactly why i bring up trusts though. People can still have that engagement without difficulty by running trusts. No one, again, literally no one is saying they can’t play the game. You’re making up scenarios that no one is even stating. The people advocating for more engaging and slightly harder normal content aren’t going around saying f people with disabilities. But i will say it is incredibly difficult to balance a game around the minority with disabilities. But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed. It’s a win/win. If at some point they want to play with other players, there’s loads of casual content tailored to that. Deep dungeons,maps, i would say eureka/bozja but i haven’t a clue if that’s too hard with people with disabilities.

You can't say that I'm making stuff up then in the same post advocate for going into trusts as a solution. Trusts are a separate avenue of play for single player. They are not easy mode. I'm also not against adding more challenge into normal content. As I said earlier, if more challenge is to be introduced then I want it to be done properly without alienating people.

[OdinelStarrei]

Count me as one of those players who played for the story above all else. And yeah, I found it hard. And that's difficult to admit in a thread full of forumites implying that bad players shouldn't be bad and don't deserve to play the game.
Partly due to my lacking performance at least, I have no intention of going anywhere near anything above 'Normal' level content.

Why are you so self-defeating? Why is there a need to denigrate people and put words in their mouth? There is no need to strawman and reduce down some fairly valid opinions to "wow basement dwellers trying to gatekeep lmao" No one is saying bad players don't deserve to play the game, many people are blaming SQUARE ENIX for not instating proper tutorials, for having completely lopsided difficulty curves, no incentive for improvement, an atrocious leveling experience in both content and the jobs themselves, the total dissolution of the midcore, and for design decisions that don't seem to benefit ANYONE. If you want to draw the ire of anyone around here or in XIV in general, you have to have a selfish, overinflated ego combined with irrelevant or incorrect information, not "I'm just not very good at pressing buttons." Or be a "toxic raider elitist forumite", I guess.

You know what I'm here for? FFXIV, in it's entirety. I will consume any amount of content this game has to offer, because I love it, and believe most of it has value, even if some of it isn't exactly perfect, because I think the point of a theme park MMO is to have multiple types of content for multiple types of people. There was no problem with having dungeon/MSQ content be tuned the way it is in Heavensward/Stormblood, because every job had a skill ceiling that was actually worth something that gave opportunity for player growth. Every expansion since, they keep removing actions, they remove designs and systems, they dumb down the things that brought identity and uniqueness to each and every job to the point of irrelevance, and now, instead of participating in unengaging content with a engaging job that gives me the opportunity to have fun in even the most casual of content, Square Enix has dropped the ceiling of the entire game on the heads of playerbase, regardless of where you stood on the spectrum. I used to play jobs with mid-40 casts per minute, with variable timers. Now I'm lucky to reach high 30s as I mash my head into the same builder spender, 2 min burst window with zero variations that comprises the entire combat suite. Won't even go into the total lobotomy that has happened to the support role.

I can only play a fleshed-out, long term story experience ONE time every two years, over the course of maybe two weeks. The experience of actually playing XIV long-term compromises of much more of the overall play experience, and that long-term runway of gameplay, with a suitable skill ceiling, should be accommodated for.

This is probably why I've lost almost all my XIV friends from Heavensward. The game is boring to play. I have never played XIV LESS than I do right now.

You can keep your easy dungeons, and your easy MSQ, and your lack of consequences for any mistake or shortcoming or disability you may have, while also having significant developer resources allocated to the expansion of the Trust system. That's the correct way to develop, and I support that 100%. It doesn't affect me, we have different lanes. But I'd like my skill ceiling to return, because proper skill expression makes even the most braindead content fun, and prevents a spiraling dead end in your most dedicated players, the ones who champion the game the most. As long as the floor remains low for accessibility, it gives a solid middle ground for everyone, like it was on the path to becoming in Stormblood before Shadowbringers gutted the entire game. At this rate, every job is going to devolve into the same grey, tasteless mush.

If people being bad is accepted, people should also accept that people are allowed to be good and want more from their play experience even in mandatory content. We don't need to be in permanent conflict 24/7, those are not conflicting ideals, but SE seems determined to make the gameplay experience for one side totally miserable, just like they did in Heavensward.

[Ronduwil]

But that’s why trusts are a very good option for them. They can get the full msq experience without having to worry about difficulty and they can go at their own speed.

That's not how trusts work. It's not like you get to completely ignore mechanics once you're in trusts. In fact, you can argue that trusts are harder because you can't get carried through them. If you die in a trust, the run fails with no second chances. While it's true that 75% of the mechanics in trusts can be done by simply stacking on one of the more reliable NPCs, there are many mechanics that require you to be on the ball. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I like that there's some challenge even in trusts. I just don't think that trusts justify an increase in normal dungeon difficulty. Such an increase impacts trusts almost as much as it impacts roulette/PF runs.

[Ronduwil]

@Ronduwil

Th OP didnt say that. Your own quote doesnt say that. Read it again. He says why is extreme and savage are the only modes with a difficulty curve. Thats what he means by "easy to learn with no difficulty." Thats pretty clear. You extrapolated him wanting a difficulty curve into "OP wants savage and extreme for normal."

I advise you to read it again. I didn't extrapolate anything. He was very specific in saying that he wanted the telegraphs to be removed and the mechanics to be randomized:

People play games to enjoy mental stimulation, and when every single mechanic is telegraphed, repetitive, and predictable, the content becomes very linear and boring.

[Jojoya]

We have to deal with them yes, but it doesn’t mean content should be balanced around them. I understand there’s people with limitations, and that’s perfectly fine. Trusts exist now, they’re even making trials trust-runnable now too. So what’s the excuse at this point? People who don’t think their good at the game or people who have limitations have the options available to continue with the msq despite all that. So why can’t things be tuned up a bit more?

Unfortunately, Trusts are designed for those who are uncomfortable in social situations, not for those with physical limitations.

How do you know that where MSQ is tuned now is not at the limit of those with the limitations? How many others with limitations already had to quit the game because the tuning was too high for what they could handle?

How are you harmed by difficulty being at the level it is? The game is still accessible to you. Making the difficulty harder will remove accessibility for others.

You can play this game when you're in the mood for casual story mode, or for the harder content you can unlock once story mode is completed. If you aren't in the mood for story mode but don't have the other content unlocked yet, there are plenty of other games to choose from that will give you the difficult content you desire and you can return here when you're back in the mood for story mode.

[Rulakir]

Trusts aren't available for trials though (except one) and won't be for awhile. Trials are specifically what I think are demanding of the average player. As someone who plays for the story and doesn't like group content, they're probably the worst part of the game for me and annoyingly consistent roadblocks in the MSQ. You don't get 'carried' when half the team or more are also new and going in blind. Brings back miserable memories of progression raiding, I didn't enjoy it then and I don't now.

I can't help but be reminded of an old Ghostcrawler quote from around the time of Cata: "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite."

[KizuyaKatogami]

Unfortunately, Trusts are designed for those who are uncomfortable in social situations, not for those with physical limitations.

How do you know that where MSQ is tuned now is not at the limit of those with the limitations? How many others with limitations already had to quit the game because the tuning was too high for what they could handle?

How are you harmed by difficulty being at the level it is? The game is still accessible to you. Making the difficulty harder will remove accessibility for others.

You can play this game when you're in the mood for casual story mode, or for the harder content you can unlock once story mode is completed. If you aren't in the mood for story mode but don't have the other content unlocked yet, there are plenty of other games to choose from that will give you the difficult content you desire and you can return here when you're back in the mood for story mode.

Making the difficulty easier will remove the will to player for other people as well though. There needs to be a balance. I brought up trusts because while they can’t exactly carry you, they are imo an excellent way to be able to learn your job and role in peace.

People with disabilities is a whole other ball game though, and again, you can’t expect every game to balance or cater to that. It’s the unfortunate truth. Because then at that point a larger number of people are having to suffer because of it, whether it be in engagement or enjoyment. I think if SE really wanted to do something for players with disabilities there would be a whole separate difficulty and mode for them that they could choose. As far as multiplayer dungeons go….i mean it’s multiplayer. Harder content is severely limited compared to the more “casual” kind like dungeons. We get 4 fights every 6-8 months. Meanwhile there’s dungeons,alli raids, normal trials etc. Not to mention you have to get through the story to be able to even unlock endgame content.