FF14 needs more difficulty levels

[Gullis]

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.

maybe people would hate it less if it was actually fun to play

[Vahlnir]

sure it does

No, it really doesn't. lol

[Zer0]

maybe people would hate it less if it was actually fun to play

The thing is, most of the post patches are chock full of un-needed quests for the sake of padding out a patch.

What should have happened was any post x.0 patch should be completely side stories and optional. So if you only did 6.0 and quit until 7.0 you shouldn't need to do the boring side stuff.

I hate boring quests purely for exposition to keep people entertained.

[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.

[JerryDidrik]

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

[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.

[Ralphe2449]

The new deep dungeon should remain extremely tough for those who want to solo up to the max floor. However, there needs to be significant rewards every 10 levels beyond a certain "hard" floor so that players can actually feel good about soloing them without feeling like it's a drag.

I think the new deep dungeon needs to have 150 floors. It should start getting as hard as HoH floors 50-60 at floor 80. Then allow people to choose between three starting points: 1, 41, and 81.

IMO, for rewards:

Reaching floor 90: a title and an exclusive minion (one-time). Difficulty: HoH 61-70, PotD 151-170.

Reaching floor 100: 360 weekly tomes (weekly reset) Difficulty: Hoh 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 110: an exclusive mount and glamour (one-time) Difficulty: HoH 71-80, PotD 171-189.

Reaching floor 120: a title and a one-time significant boost to relic weapon completion of your choice (e.g. skip the Harrowing Memory step) Difficulty: HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 130: 20M gil (one-time) and 24 Savage books of your choice (one-time). One relic step completion of your choice (weekly reset). HoH 81-100, PotD 190-200.

Reaching floor 140: An exclusive mount and glamour (one-time). 3M gil (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/PotD.

Reaching floor 150: An exclusive title and two relic weapon step completions of your choice (one-time). One relic weapon step completion of your choice (weekly reset). Harder than HoH/Potad.

That is absolutely something I would love to see. Especially since that gradual design allows you to ramp up difficulty in a good manner.

I have honestly not bothered with potd/hoh much due to lack of rewards like those and the fact that I was told that getting to max floor as certain melee classes is not possible unless you use the "spinning" around mob circle to cancel their auto attack which honestly sounds like bad design, that is not kiting, it is not positioning, it is doing something incredibly specific to bug out a mob so it stops auto attacking.
Instead auto attack damage should be survivable(as long as you dont take too long) for dps assuming good use of your personal health/leech skills and obviously not getting hit by mechanics and dealing with adds appropriately.

Also the fact that Potd is stuck at lvl 50 is another issue since classes feel very boring and simple at that level

[Skiros]

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.

Hope you realize some people actually quit FF14 because they think the MSQ is so boring and unchallenging that the rest of the game is similarly braindead.

FF14's MSQ can only hook people who care about the story. Most other types of gamers are repelled.

[Absurdity]

Literally no one asked for Extreme or Savage difficulty tuning for dungeons. But it would be nice if people had to like... think while doing normal content while playing the game. I honestly don't know how people can have fun in a game where the ability to lose is nonexistent.

This is basically what made me completely lose interest in Endwalker's story, but I already knew it would happen. The MSQ and it's associated fights are sometimes so bafflingly easy, the possibility of failure so nonexistent, that it destroy any impact the story could've potentially had for me.

"Oh no this incredibly ancient and unbelievably powerful evil is threatening our entire world" and then you get to the boss and it's a 5 minute fight that you oneshot, where the ancient all-powerful menace... tickles you, throws out a few "dungeon boss"-level mechanics and then falls over.