FF14 needs more difficulty levels

[RitsukoSonoda]

MSQ understandably gates the story so it needs to be beatable for even the most slow player, that isnt something that can ever be changed, even MSQ duties are designed to be beatable with only 1 good player in the group to give the illusion of difficulty, but extra content could be tuned to have high solo difficulty that increases gradually, extra things like deep dungeons or somekind of challenge that progresses and gives better rewards the higher you go and is of course viable for all classes since from what I understand, some classes are way worse in solo places like PotD/HoH and melee often have to rely on spinning which honestly doesnt feel like a great system but that is because the deep dungeons were created with groups in mind

Just about every game has a story. Requiring someone to learn how to play the game isn't gating them out of content. Claiming it does is nothing but an enabling phase to excuse laziness. If they don't want to actually play the game then why play it? To me it's essentially punishing everyone else because some people want a visual novel. If their goal is to just watch the main story and all the cutscenes they can do it for free watching online videos without paying retail for the game and a monthly subscription. The actual result that's come about from dumbing that content down and adding things like easy mode to solo duties is basically clearing the way for unprepared players jumping into DF for higher end duties and dragging everyone else down. This resulting in the decline of PUG's on that content and more people adopting the mindset that it can only be done with a static.

[IdowhatIwant]

MSQ understandably gates the story so it needs to be beatable for even the most slow player, that isnt something that can ever be changed, even MSQ duties are designed to be beatable with only 1 good player in the group to give the illusion of difficulty, but extra content could be tuned to have high solo difficulty that increases gradually, extra things like deep dungeons or somekind of challenge that progresses and gives better rewards the higher you go and is of course viable for all classes since from what I understand, some classes are way worse in solo places like PotD/HoH and melee often have to rely on spinning which honestly doesnt feel like a great system but that is because the deep dungeons were created with groups in mind

I don't know man, when I play a video game story, typically the further I get the more the difficulty tends to ramp up, as it puts the skills and things I have learned through played the game to a test. This game keeps a pretty stagnant difficulty, which can be as equal a problem. There is a reason both the players and the devs know what the MSQ doesn't teach players how to play the game, and it's simply because it never has a player test there skills. The MSQ in this game is more a theme park tour, or a visual novel / audio book, than it is a video game.

[JerryDidrik]

too many difficulties for the same fight dilutes any sense of achievement.

[Zer0]

The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

[Vahlnir]

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to request that doing MSQ content requires using 2 brain cells instead of one. It's not something I expect to happen, but it would be nice. That doesn't equate to asking for Extreme/Savage or Mythic raid levels of difficulty.

[Zer0]

I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to request that doing MSQ content requires using 2 brain cells instead of one. It's not something I expect to happen, but it would be nice. That doesn't equate to asking for Extreme/Savage or Mythic raid levels of difficulty.

sure it does, I know a lot of people that HATE the msq. It's not that it's hard, it's not. They just don't like it at all. Don't care about the story and just want to be done with it. So expecting it to sort of "teach" anything is expecting way way way too much. It's just a story. In fact it should be totally optional. But it's not. So many people just want it done and over with.

You know all those post expansion patches where you have to spend like 2.5 hours playing as random NPC's you couldn't give a toss about and hate how the fights are drawn out to take 15 mins a piece. They're not hard, just annoying. If you add in more mechanics that most players will literally never see again will just make an already annoying quest end up being a game quitting quest.

[Sebazy]

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!!

It's not even about specifically making the MSQ more challenging though. Look at the erratic difficulty of dungeons throughout the years. Some dungeons have some eye watering trash pull to the point where the bosses (not trash pulls sorry!) are often the breather. And then you hit the level cap, get a few bits of gear and the challenge all but evaporates.

A well designed and executed game will have a difficulty curve that is reasonably smooth and consistent overall. FFXIV's is akin to a drunk stumbling through wet concrete before promptly faceplanting into the lamppost that is Extremes.

[ASkellington]

It's not even about specifically making the MSQ more challenging though. Look at the erratic difficulty of dungeons throughout the years. Some dungeons have some eye watering trash pull to the point where the trash pulls are often the breather. And then you hit the level cap, get a few bits of gear and the challenge all but evaporates.

A well designed and executed game will have a difficulty curve that is reasonably smooth and consistent overall. FFXIV's is akin to a drunk stumbling through wet concrete before promptly faceplanting into the lamppost that is Extremes.

...That is painfully accurate about how I felt going from Mt. Gulg/Amarout and Dead Ends to the other 80/90 dungeons.

[IdowhatIwant]

The purpose of MSQ is to tell the story. It should NEVER be about teaching anyone anything about endgame content. If you increased the difficulty of the one part of the game that IS NOT OPTIONAL!!! All you'll do is lose playerbase. The game already has an obscenely long story that makes it literally impossible to convince anyone new to play the game. Why do you want to play a game where it'll take you months of playing obsolete content before you can finally get to where your friends are?

I have played every final fantasy game, and many games that have a so called "MSQ". All these games slowly amp up the difficulty of the game up until the end where everything I have learned is finally put to a test. Why can't the games MSQ do this? I feel that is a pretty normal things for a video game. FFXIV MSQ feels more like a 200 hour visual novel than a video game which is what scares new players off more than a challenge. I don't think there is anything wrong with the MSQ presenting a challenge every now and than, in fact it sounds like what a normal video game would do. I feel a lot of people have never played a video game outside of FFXIV.

Reality is, most of the entire player base doesn't not do Extreme or Savages. This entire thread is full of WoW try-hards who are the same people that go on the wow forums saying Mythic Raids are too easy we cleared it in a week. MAKE IT HARDER!!1!!one!! when the entire game isn't even done with Normal mode.

This thread is actually just full of FFXIV players. You know ARR required you to do hard mode trails and ex trails to unlock Coil, which only had a normal mode version which was on par with savage raids? I think many forget that this game started off very difficult and people did it back then.

[Warpstone]

The issue IMO is that they've dumbed down the MSQ too much. I still feel like it's purpose should include teaching people how to play the game competently so that there isn't such a noticeable gap going into extreme/savage. Single player games do this all the time. It's part of progressing the game. I don't see why an MMORPG should be any different.

I don't want to do extreme or savage, the Roulette duty finder is fine with me, if even that. I normally wait until the second raid come out before even trying the first. I'm happy with tomestone gear from the roulettes, I don't need anything better. And If they made the MSQ as hard as extreme or savage I would more than likely just quit playing. I want to enjoy playing not get frustrated because I can't do content, reflexes are not what they use to be, I'm getting old