the normal content is too easy

[UkcsAlias]

Why do you want the normal content to be harder? Just yesterday I did a Vanaspati (level 85 dungeon) run in roulette and got matched with a RPR that didn't use Enshroud once, it took us around 35 minutes to clear.
People give zero F's about doing even the bare minimum, imagine what would happen if the content was harder.
I'm all for making the normal content as braindead as possible.

There are several reasons why that reaper didnt use that ability. And a very simple one is: he never had to before that. Which is a result generaly caused by things being too easy.

And in most cases its not the 80+ dungeons that suffer much here, its everything before that. Ancient content is simply just too easy compared to the newer content. And in most cases this is simply caused by having a far too high ilvl for the intended difficulty.

[Stanazolol]

Why do you want the normal content to be harder? Just yesterday I did a Vanaspati (level 85 dungeon) run in roulette and got matched with a RPR that didn't use Enshroud once, it took us around 35 minutes to clear.
People give zero F's about doing even the bare minimum, imagine what would happen if the content was harder.
I'm all for making the normal content as braindead as possible.

I don't want all content to be harder, I just want a tier above brainded and lower than savage. Savage is a time sink and you really kinda need to find a group of people to play with. I want some content-a considerable amount, not just one or two dungeons- that I can run with pugs that you can't afk clear. Normal content can be cleared with ridiculousness, like the healer doing 0% damage and one of the dps 7%. One person can carry the whole group and often does. I want some content where players have to carry their own weight. I would like better rewards for such content also, but I know that you have to be careful with that, because if braindeads complain too much they'll wind up giving the same rewards to braindead content also.

[Payadopa]

Why do you want the normal content to be harder? Just yesterday I did a Vanaspati (level 85 dungeon) run in roulette and got matched with a RPR that didn't use Enshroud once, it took us around 35 minutes to clear.
People give zero F's about doing even the bare minimum, imagine what would happen if the content was harder.
I'm all for making the normal content as braindead as possible.

If you lower the bar people will try to get away with it. Or it's simple ignorance. Just because it does happen doesn't mean you should cater to it exclusively.

[Nagandrea]

I don't want all content to be harder, I just want a tier above brainded and lower than savage. Savage is a time sink and you really kinda need to find a group of people to play with. I want some content-a considerable amount, not just one or two dungeons- that I can run with pugs that you can't afk clear. Normal content can be cleared with ridiculousness, like the healer doing 0% damage and one of the dps 7%. One person can carry the whole group and often does. I want some content where players have to carry their own weight. I would like better rewards for such content also, but I know that you have to be careful with that, because if braindeads complain too much they'll wind up giving the same rewards to braindead content also.

Why are you just talking about Extreme content? And the new criterion dungeons (that will get more support if popular)? Am I missing something, just skipped to final page.

[Packetdancer]

For all we sometimes seem to want to claim job design getting more streamlined and dungeon design turning linear is the result of the devs trying to make the game easier, I don't think that's true... or at least, it's not the only factor.

As I've pointed out before, how often does anyone take alternate paths in any ARR dungeon that has side areas? How often does anyone bother with the puzzles in Qarn? Even in 1.x, there were people who posted the "optimal" path through Toto-Rak to hit all three diremites. We've demonstrated that no matter what they give us as a dungeon, we will optimize it down to the shortest path possible to get rewards, and then run that path as fast as we can, pulling everything until the dungeon forces us to stop.

And that is not on the "casuals", that is on those of us who do higher-end content. Most "casual" players I encounter would be happy to do the puzzles in Qarn or wander into side hallways, because they're not the ones trying to speed-run the dungeons. You want the devs to cater to us? They did; I would lay solid odds that's a big part of why more recent dungeons are now pre-optimized into linear hallways for us.

Similarly, look at AST. We like to complain that the card system is bland now... but if you go back on these very forums to Stormblood era threads, you can see people complaining how only the Balance is worth playing, and discussing how to optimize with that in mind. If you want a reason the devs made all the cards variations on the Balance, I think that's the smoking gun... and again, that wasn't "casuals" that caused that; folks who play more casually probably didn't care about optimizing the cards.

You can argue that the normal content is too streamlined and easy, but I don't think you can lay the blame for that solely at the feet of "casual" players; regardless of what we claim we want, the optimization habits of the more "serious" players bear some share of the blame.

Making the dungeons more solo friendly with Trusts may make the MSQ more approachable, but it also means the "casual" players are free to engage with the content in a more relaxed manner; they can wander into the side passages in ARR dungeons, they can stop and read the horrifying notes in Toto-Rak, or the hilarious books in Gubal, or the research notes in Ktisis Hyperborea.

Which, let's be honest, many people are seemingly impatient with... and the impatient folks are not usually from the "casual" side of the playerbase.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.