The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Colt47]

Idk why you should care but just for example, why should other athletes care if the other competing athletes are on steroids and winning all the medals? I know that analogy doesn't work exactly since players here aren't competing directly against each other but it still devalues the achievement overall, for example when all players just buy their way through Ultimate it makes the status symbol of your weapon less worth it in the eyes of others. Yes for you that might not be a big problem cause you got your personal value out of the fight and the reward for yourself but others do want to show off what they achieved and furthermore this is what the devs envisioned. They didn't created Ultimate etc. so people can just cheat their way through it, it's just disrespectful. It's like someone building a fun maze for you and you just decide to go around it.

But i also think people have to differentiate between the different tools. I personally think damage meters are alright cause self improvement is important and lets be honest the training dummy doesn't deliver any data that is worth it. On the other hand tools that basically tell you what the boss is casting next or where you have to stand etc. is blatantly cheating. One tool is to prepare to play good and the other one is so you don't have to play the game basically.

The problem is the line drawn between accessible content and rewards vs trophy worthy events. FFXIV end game design is not at all built to properly deal with trophy / achievement style rewards in a professional way. The difficulty curve has no customization to it that is accessible from the players own end, which is one of the major reasons that people end up making ways to make the content easier.

And there is zero reason to not have tighter control over difficulty curve in end game content. The idea of having a slow gear ramp up until the next content patch to make content easier is dated and lazy design. If someone wants to down the savage content with 15% echo on from day one because they want to complete the content and go do other content they are releasing because they lack the time to deal with min-iLvL and pentameld, they should have the option to do so with a group. And if this makes savage overall easier to complete all the better because right now the savage experience deteriorates into the floor after the first month for progression. People clear content and then go on to do reclear groups with other people that clear content. And with the new class designs there are a lot more people trying to clear savage now than there was even in Shadowbringers.

There is not a single person on this forum who can say with a strait face that they have a "fun and enjoyable time" doing PF after the first wave of prog is over and everyone is now stuck on something like p3s because of fight design. Not to mention this applies for statics that can't get in more than two days in a week.

I mean, level sync the gear in savage and let people have a difficulty slider via echo. Problem solved. If people want to achieve clearing at the min-ilvl, they can go back and do it after learning how the fight works so the field is actually fair.

[Amarande]

And there is zero reason to not have tighter control over difficulty curve in end game content. The idea of having a slow gear ramp up until the next content patch to make content easier is dated and lazy design. If someone wants to down the savage content with 15% echo on from day one because they want to complete the content and go do other content they are releasing because they lack the time to deal with min-iLvL and pentameld, they should have the option to do so with a group. And if this makes savage overall easier to complete all the better because right now the savage experience deteriorates into the floor after the first month for progression. People clear content and then go on to do reclear groups with other people that clear content. And with the new class designs there are a lot more people trying to clear savage now than there was even in Shadowbringers.

There is not a single person on this forum who can say with a strait face that they have a "fun and enjoyable time" doing PF after the first wave of prog is over and everyone is now stuck on something like p3s because of fight design. Not to mention this applies for statics that can't get in more than two days in a week.

Yep, something on these lines is probably it, in spades.

A big reason people use things like mods and other means in order to expedite content clearing is not only a matter of skill, but because the pace the community expects of players these days is insane. I mean, ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Back in the day when I was caught up to current endgame and did not have Tuesdays off work I could swear I've seen EX trials where even by the time I got home from work on patch day, PF was dominated by Duty Complete Farm. (I should note at this juncture that XIV players are even more rigid about bending on experience demands in PUGs than WoW players are, despite all the complaints about WoW being "exclusive" ...)

Fall behind the vanguard and you might as well wait till next tier or even next XPAC (and then be basically forced to settle for unsynced).

So much this on statics too. For reasons I'm still trying to wrap around, XIV statics seem to depend on an inordinate amount of days per week to be considered viable, even though the tiers are ostensibly much shorter here ... WoW guilds routinely got away with a couple nights a week and would get to Ahead of the Curve or even Cutting Edge in a tier, meanwhile ...

On another point brought up, people feel they "need" do Savage because it can impact other content they might want to do. EX, especially (many people aren't really raiders but they'd love to do EX - which seems intended as casual-mid endgame? - for the mounts and pretty weapons) - while it's nowhere near as awful as the gear situation in WoW, I will often especially see odd patch launch days where you need (CAP - 5) ilvl to join a large percentage of the PFs for the new EX, meaning you HAVE to have Savage on farm to be that geared that soon ... and then that ties in with the "rush or dust" mentality the community seems to, again, adopt for anything at all difficult in this game (Baldesion Arsenal seems to have been the main exception honestly).

[Colt47]

Yep, something on these lines is probably it, in spades.

A big reason people use things like mods and other means in order to expedite content clearing is not only a matter of skill, but because the pace the community expects of players these days is insane. I mean, ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Back in the day when I was caught up to current endgame and did not have Tuesdays off work I could swear I've seen EX trials where even by the time I got home from work on patch day, PF was dominated by Duty Complete Farm. (I should note at this juncture that XIV players are even more rigid about bending on experience demands in PUGs than WoW players are, despite all the complaints about WoW being "exclusive" ...)

Fall behind the vanguard and you might as well wait till next tier or even next XPAC (and then be basically forced to settle for unsynced).

So much this on statics too. For reasons I'm still trying to wrap around, XIV statics seem to depend on an inordinate amount of days per week to be considered viable, even though the tiers are ostensibly much shorter here ... WoW guilds routinely got away with a couple nights a week and would get to Ahead of the Curve or even Cutting Edge in a tier, meanwhile ...

On another point brought up, people feel they "need" do Savage because it can impact other content they might want to do. EX, especially (many people aren't really raiders but they'd love to do EX - which seems intended as casual-mid endgame? - for the mounts and pretty weapons) - while it's nowhere near as awful as the gear situation in WoW, I will often especially see odd patch launch days where you need (CAP - 5) ilvl to join a large percentage of the PFs for the new EX, meaning you HAVE to have Savage on farm to be that geared that soon ... and then that ties in with the "rush or dust" mentality the community seems to, again, adopt for anything at all difficult in this game (Baldesion Arsenal seems to have been the main exception honestly).

Oh it's bad for people who lead statics as well. There is something to be said that people have to find the right pace and group for themselves to be happy, but there's also the factor of finding people who are available. After trying out the two days a week thing it became obvious that the longer someone has to spend clearing content, the more effort that is needed by the leader to keep the group running. It really does take a toll on folks and it's why so many people prefer blitzing content over steady progress.