the normal content is too easy

[TheMightyMollusk]

I just want to chime in on the ilvl cheese for Alliance Raids.

I would actually love to do Orbonne. Yet when my friend asks me to queue with him for Alliance Roulette, I ask him to ilvl cheese. Why? Because while I find Orbonne easy, and I trust him and the rest of our FC to be able to beat TG Cid, I have negative levels of trust in the rest of the player base. As a result, we never see Orbonne.

I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

[Ath192]

I haven't had a wipe in Orbonne in months, despite it coming up several times.

Meanwhile, I've had multiple wipes in World of Darkness, including a group that vote abandoned on the first boss.

Anecdotes are fun.

They nerfed it big time. Before it was long and fun. Now its just long and boring. So its even less of a reason to do it.

[MiaShino]

I would LOVE to have SE's raw demographic information and a really dense survey of the population to dig into. That would be incredibly interesting to tease apart.

Same same, perhaps I am correct perhaps am most wrong but at the least it would settle the debate. Will not hold the breath, companies almost never share this data.

[Ronduwil]

You know it was the enthusiasts that kept this game going when it sucked in 2010

And yet they still destroyed the entire world and started over because they acknowledged that the game couldn't survive on enthusiasts alone. I'm not saying there's no place for enthusiasts, nor am I saying that they should completely ignore them. That's why they continue to put out Savage and Extreme content, and I think it's great. I just don't think that it's a good idea to go back and fill the rest of the game with Savage-level mechanics because a handful of Extreme raiders decided that the MSQ, Normal raids, and Normal dungeons are just too boring for them. Throwing them a bone is fine. That's what Savage and Extreme content is. The common suggestion of introducing more button bloat and the OP's suggestion of putting Normal raids on steroids, however, is not just "throwing them a bone." It's screwing up everyone else's experience just to make a handful of players happier.

[Ath192]

And yet they still destroyed the entire world and started over because they acknowledged that the game couldn't survive on enthusiasts alone.

Oh believe me the enthusiasts thought the game sucked too. They merely put up with it because Square promised changes were being made. So they had nothing to do with the decision to release a bad game.

I just don't think that it's a good idea to go back and fill the rest of the game with Savage-level mechanics because a handful of extreme raiders

And this right here is the logical failure point of everyone arguing against making the game challenging. They tend to take it to extremes and radicalize and distort the intentions of the OP every time this gets brought up. Noone is arguing this should be the case. In fact, I think you enjoy making up imaginary people making this argument so you can make it sound valid. No one is asking this, so you are answering to people who don't exist.

[Krotoan]

The current population is now lower than during that Pre-EW content drought, indicating EW has a lower player retention rate than previous expansions.

Curious what you're basing this off? SE publishes no active playercounts, all available player counts are usually based on tangential population numbers (like reddit pops).

[aveyond-dreams]

I've seen people cite steam of all places for player count, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of FFXIV players avoid using steam for this game specifically due to the way it works over there.

[Jojoya]

In just this expansion alone, I have done every dungeon, on every role, at min ilvl. I've solo'd Hermes in full i530 gear on both WAR and GNB.

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

[Eraden]

That is you. Can every player do it? No.

A lot of players can't manage to figure out how to avoid mechanics to the point I spend a significant amount of time during hunt trains rezzing the same players over and over (even when there's only 20-30 present so someone can't use the "I couldn't see anything because too many players are here" excuse). It's always not a lag issue - I can tell whether they're lagging based on how long they stay faded in my party frames after accepting a rez.

Not everyone comes equipped the same skill level, and years of experience do make a difference. You might have entered into Endwalker with 8 years of experience under your belt but others were entering with only 8 days.

Some of us also have physical disabilities (such as Parkinson's disease in my case) that prevent us from being able to master harder content. I do not know what specifically these proponents for "more challenging content" are calling for, but if it were to result in the level of difficulty being raised across the board, I might not be able to play this game anymore.

[Serious-Cat]

Looking at ffcollect, the desire for difficult/high end content isn't really that high. Even "easy" high end content like Alexander (Savage) right now only have 52% completion and lesser the closer it is to current expansion.

https://ffxivcollect.com/achievements/types/1

I think most ff14 players play for the story. 85% completed endwalker vs 11% completion of current raid tier

https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...=shadowbringer
https://ffxivcollect.com/titles?q%5B...t%5D=endwalker

Doubt there will be any real impact on game population health if MSQ/Normal level content difficulty is ramped up or not but the stats show that most ff14 players aren't that about playing a game because its difficult or easy but treating it as another rpg in the ff series.

For now I guess anyone can manipulate the difficulty setting and find like minded people via pf to enjoy the game this way tho