the normal content is too easy

[Rilifane]

I remember doing Shinryu EX about two weeks or so after SB launched to help a friend get their clear, and one of the tanks just bum-rushed and face pulled the boss after every wipe, despite people in chat asking for help with what was killing them. So yes, this is also a huge problem.

(That tank died 5 times to Tidal Wave, btw—and kept complaining about why they died, but wouldn’t pause for 10 seconds to let someone explain the mechanic.)

I occasionally encounter this behaviour in Ex and sometimes even Savage but DF is by far the worst. Ignoring any instructions and help is a huge problem there.

It's completely fine to not get a mechanic immediately after seeing it or to not spot it first try.
If someone hasn't played for some time or is prone to taking really long breaks between doing a few quests, they'll most likely have forgotten about some things or don't recognize the tells immediately. That's okay, normal content is fairly forgiving and that includes the likes of Titania. Plus a wipe isn't the end of the world and if someone died to it and noticed "whups, I probably shouldn't stand there next time" they will watch out for it next time.
It's also completely fine if someone goes in blind because guides are definitely not required in DF and I have never, in all my years of playing FFXIV, met anyone barging into a duty and proclaiming that everyone better watched a guide or vote kick or get salty when someone died to a mechanic because they didn't know what was coming. On the contrary, if someone says "first time, didn't watch a guide" the reactions were always "no worries, blind is more fun anyway" - including from all those filthy elitist hardcore raiders.
So much for the hardcore mentality.

But if someone keeps dying to something, for the love of god, just read the party chat.
If people keep dying to Hydaelyn's weapons and someone writes "red = IN, green = OUT, blue = INTERCARDINAL" there is no reason to ignore it while dying to it another 10 times.
If someone confidently runs to a certain spot and jumps there, chances are that this is the safe spot.
If everyone is standing in one spot and a healer rescues someone into the stack, chances are they should stack.
But I've encountered a lot of "I do what I want lol" attitude. People run out of the safe zone they've just been rescued into and die. People ignore the short instructions in party chat. People ignore the marked person jumping like a bouncy ball in the safe zone. People completely ignore the movement of the majority and run around randomly. Not just new players, some older players as well. The older players are usually guilty of shooting down any instructions with "lol it's just normal".

I've seen a lot of vote abandons on all EW trials as well.
After the experienced players gave brief instructions, after they've marked one and told everyone who is unsure to just follow this person.
It wasn't too long ago that I spent almost an hour on Hydaelyn because even on healer with two capable friends on dps it was a huge mess and impossible to salvage to drag everyone to the finishing line.
Another boss I've frequently seen chaos to the point of vote abandons is the Bird. After writing "pull the adds apart before killing them, try to move in a stack for Searing Breeze, bird has double autos later so please put on tank stance and voke if you lost aggro".
Since it's not part of MSQ you generally encounter fewer people running around absolutely clueless about everything but Bird is still good for some "What the hell is even happening?" moments.

[Amon-ster]

I love the argument "just do savage or ultimate" as if those fights come out frequently.

Someone already mentioned earlier that the MSQ is mandatory in this game, so for every 40ish hours of content that wakes you up, there is 500 of MSQ that puts you to sleep. There are 2 ultimates per expansion (1 last time, showing that if push comes to shove, they're shoving ultimate out). 12 savage bosses per expansion. 9 extremes. That is not a lot of content to engage with over a span of 2 years.

[Ronduwil]

I still don't know why they haven't adopted elements of Eureka and Bozja into the open-world zones, as opposed to just running the wheel again on gemstones and the occasional zone boss FATEs.

Which elements, specifically? Some of the elements are absolutely miserable, like the inability to fly and the loss of mettle when you die. The beauty of Bozja is that by being completely optional, it has the freedom to be as hard as they want to make it. You may think you want the open world to be like Bozja, but I guarantee that if it were to be introduced into the open world, it would eventually be nerfed until it bore almost no resemblance to the Bozja that you know and love.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The problem I always found with Titania was that it was the first trial for level boosters, who often hadn't bothered to set up their bars or learn how to play their jobs. Combined with getting carried through the first two dungeons by trusts, and it tended to end poorly.

Alternately, a tank not picking up the second add. Or trying to take both and getting squashed by multiple tankbusters.

Either way, it was always pure human error.

[Kaurhz]

Which elements, specifically? Some of the elements are absolutely miserable, like the inability to fly and the loss of mettle when you die. The beauty of Bozja is that by being completely optional, it has the freedom to be as hard as they want to make it. You may think you want the open world to be like Bozja, but I guarantee that if it were to be introduced into the open world, it would eventually be nerfed until it bore almost no resemblance to the Bozja that you know and love.

The element of lost actions and logos actions adding an additional layer of complexity for many people, or in many cases slightly shifting, or adding an additional layer of enjoyment as to how they play the classes. Granted this is as much subjective, but aside from this, really just borrowing how alive it feels. I can't see why they couldn't adopt something similar to the bunny fates in the open world zones, in addition to the expansion with Bozja when they decided to add in critical engagements and the 1 versus 1 combat. I feel like this elements just add a nice level of activity that is missing in an otherwise very barren open world. I don't necessarily mean on the same scale of difficulty either, but just more encouraging people to actually go out in the open world.

I'm not talking about losing EXP, or anything so drastic. Though personally I would enjoy for flying to be outright removed and then slightly downscaling map size. For me personally it added a nice level of exploration, which is completely forgone when you can just fly your way through the world.

[TaleraRistain]

Another major problem with trials like Titania, Hydaelyn, and Tsukuyomi is that even if I take the time to type in the basic instructions for the fight, there are new players who just ignore chat and don't read it. How on earth am I supposed to help them then? All 3 of these fights have decently clear tells for their mechanics but the chunk of players who don't pay attention force the difficulty down.

There's also the problems with vets who don't want to wait

Had some new folks last night in Mhach. Bard who wasn't new (stuff in alliance chat made that clear) in another group from mine kept early pulling everything. We wiped twice on Ozma.

I finally had to say "Anyone need/want to go over mechs before the bard pulls?" and that got them to stop so we could go over what was wiping us. It was mostly confusion on placing the meteors and the triangle/square mechanics.

Though personally I would enjoy for flying to be outright removed and then slightly downscaling map size. For me personally it added a nice level of exploration, which is completely forgone when you can just fly your way through the world.

That sounds awful for gatherers.

[Xuto-cxb]

My two cents, as someone who likes the higher tier content and has thought about this a lot:

The disparity in difficulty between most normal and top end content is just too great. I understand numbers count, especially with an MMO (especially an MMO under EAnix as they are now), but I do not believe normal content should be designed around people who don't even want to improve meaningfully at all. And yes, I know when it comes to roulettes, especially alliance, you have people who will avoid anything harder than labyrinth at all costs. The fact that they CAN is the problem. Too many people wanting to avoid even remotely engaging content is a consequence of a game that has made it too easy to avoid remotely engaging content at the cost of everyone else. And for the whole "There is ex/savage/ultimate" etc, let's be real for a second. Unless you have second job time to dedicate to an FC or a static you're not seeing that stuff. PF exists and it works sometimes but your only two options shouldn't be the extreme ends of "are you alive and pushing buttons" and "Second job".

Few of us, relatively speaking, want the challenge of top end content. But I would be willing to bet quite a few of us want something better than content designed around people who want to play the game as white noise. The bell curve is wildly inverted, and I think a big chunk of people in the middle are getting completely left out.

[Ath192]

My two cents, as someone who likes the higher tier content and has thought about this a lot:

The disparity in difficulty between most normal and top end content is just too great. I understand numbers count, especially with an MMO (especially an MMO under EAnix as they are now), but I do not believe normal content should be designed around people who don't even want to improve meaningfully at all. And yes, I know when it comes to roulettes, especially alliance, you have people who will avoid anything harder than labyrinth at all costs. The fact that they CAN is the problem. Too many people wanting to avoid even remotely engaging content is a consequence of a game that has made it too easy to avoid remotely engaging content at the cost of everyone else. And for the whole "There is ex/savage/ultimate" etc, let's be real for a second. Unless you have second job time to dedicate to an FC or a static you're not seeing that stuff. PF exists and it works sometimes but your only two options shouldn't be the extreme ends of "are you alive and pushing buttons" and "Second job".

Few of us, relatively speaking, want the challenge of top end content. But I would be willing to bet quite a few of us want something better than content designed around people who want to play the game as white noise. The bell curve is wildly inverted, and I think a big chunk of people in the middle are getting completely left out.

Wisdom disguised in Hrothgar clothes. Yeah this game shouldnt be white noise.

[tolgish95]

I honestly decided to quit the game because of this today. I just feel like a really old or disabled person while playing it. And if I want to play dress up with my character, I play Sims 4 lol.
It's a good story but I just can't anymore, I had to get this out. Bye.

[LaylaTsarra]

I honestly decided to quit the game because of this today. I just feel like a really old or disabled person while playing it. Bye.

Hope you have something you enjoy more, good luck.