MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[aveyond-dreams]

I do think that nowadays the difficulty of the MSQ has been significantly reduced due to a number of factors, but this hasn’t always been to the benefit of the player experience. Fundamentally, video games should provide logical and increasing challenges as time goes on in the main campaign. In single player titles these challenges can be reduced via difficulty options, which in FFXIV’s case would be the use of Duty Support/Trusts whose AI behavior provides clues about how to handle certain boss mechanics, or the difficulty options that appear after one fails an instanced battle.

Lately however it feels that main story content just isn’t really at the level where it used to be, and there are very little ways in which the player’s combat skill is checked and assessed in ways not reliant on team gameplay. This has the effect of widening the gap between players who are ready for more difficult content like EX or Savages and those who are not. At the end of the day I think it would be more beneficial to increase the difficulty of MSQ battle content (dungeons, trials, instanced battles) in order to provide an experience that leans less toward the easy side and more of a well-rounded approach. While some players may feel left behind by such a decision, I do think it would be in the interest of the majority to try and find a better balance than what we’ve been seeing nowadays.


If I had to provide specific examples, I think the difficulty and mechanics of the following fights are good examples of what we should see in the main story:

• Titania
• All 3 NieR raids
• All 3 Ivalice raids
• Delubrum Reginae


And these are ones whose difficulty I do not feel was appropriate for the level at which the encounters take place:

• Tower of Babil
• The level 87 and 89 dungeons
• The level 83 Trial
• The level 90 Trial

[Atelier-Bagur]

Difficulty is sorta subjective here. I'll be honest the most fun I had in terms of balanced difficulty in EW msq was Tower of Zot and the last fight with the Magus Sisters where they all combine their big attacks to you. It wasn't necessarily difficult but you wound up moving around and dodging a lot which at least to me kept the pace of the fight very active.

I was a tad disappointed the further story fights weren't as engaging as that but still enjoyed most of the dungeons and bosses regardless anyway.

[HanWenqing]

better add all the dungeons, all the dungeons are very casual the only memory of failure that I have in mind is in the dungeon with the boss pampa who asked you to follow a strategy or wipe and since 99.99% of the players only know how to press the attack button...

It's like with the missions in GTA 5 when the objective is not to just kill everything that moves it becomes impossible for players to finish the mission

[Bsrking5]

It'll never grow over time and will always be a pushover since jump pots exist. You can't make sprouts first dungeons require any functioning brain cells.

[DPZ2]

I do think that nowadays the difficulty of the MSQ has been significantly reduced due to a number of factors, but this hasn’t always been to the benefit of the player experience. Fundamentally, video games should provide logical and increasing challenges as time goes on in the main campaign.

The primary problem I see with your argument, and the examples of what 'main story' combat should be like, is that, while single-player games can afford to be as difficult as possible from the start, working their way down in difficulty via 'cheats' or 'easy modes' for the player, MMORPGs cannot.

The primary goal of an MMORPG is player retention.

MMORPGs do provide increasing challenges to players over time, even in the main campaign. I certainly found that to be so while playing this game across nearly 8 years.

A problem rises, however, when players who are used to the so-called 'difficult' single-user video games are disappointed in the level of challenge in an MMORPG.

In this game, there is both Savage and Ultimate mode (and whatever level of challenge can be found in Criterion dungeon instances). If they are not "hard" enough to satisfy your tastes, it is far better to either accept the fact that this game will never be as hard as one of the single-player games you enjoy or look for an MMORPG (or single-player game) that will satisfy.

Unlike a number of single-player games, this main story is designed to be completed, not to thwart players attempts at success.

While some players may feel left behind by such a decision, I do think it would be in the interest of the majority to try and find a better balance than what we’ve been seeing nowadays.

You appear to be extremely confident that a majority of players would stick around if main story encounters reached Normal-mode 8-person Raid (or higher) levels of difficulty.

The bottom line for the company is to keep those players who "may feel left behind" subscribed. The difficulty of the main story line is geared to that retention. You may not like it, but companies depend on players with multiple levels of video game experience.

Since this seems to be the first MMO for a large number of those players, one would be foolish to ignore the possibility that "harder story line = fewer subscribers = lower income".

I can guarantee that "harder story line = more subscribers = higher income" is not a possibility in the video game MMORPG industry, or someone would have done exactly that at some point in the last two decades. [Rest in Peace, Wildstar].

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

I want you to realize something: think about how bad the average player you meet in the DF is, and then realize that half of them are somehow even worse than that by the law of averages.

It's a simple reality, but there is a substantial chunk of this playerbase that plays purely for the story, who's 'savage' equivalent for their personal difficulty perception is one of the easier 24man raids; a sizeable chunk that plays the game because they don't want to be challenged, to simply lay back and enjoy some relaxed, casual content for some tomes and have fun with friends. With a game that has content and future story locked behind MSQ content, it's an important goal in its design that anyone, regardless of their skill, can be brought to the finish line, whether through being carried by other players, or given 100% echo to trivialize instances. Otherwise, that player, who mind you, might be a massive whale on the mogstation and might pay 50x you ever will on your sub in mogstation items and thus has more intrinsic value to Square as a customer than you do, will find another game.

Asking for MSQ to be harder is the literal antithesis to what Square wants. The MSQ has to be so easy anyone can get through it no matter what, so all the instances tied to it have to be easy. Otherwise, you get stuff like Final Steps of Faith/Royal Menagrie where those people are calling for nerfs because they're getting hardwalled and simply waiting until they can find a group that can carry them, or they just leave the game entirely. Not even old content is exempt from this either, even during the game's "glory days" as many like to remember, the original Steps of Faith was so unforgiving compared to any DF content before it the devs had to literally nerf the content so hard, because asking for people to have basic teamwork and know the bare rotation is too tall an order. Even Yoshi-P has said they prefer larger scale group content since it allows the skilled few of the party to more easily carry the many bads.

There's also the fact that due to jump potions existing, every expansion has to be a casual 'jump in' point that can ease these low-skilled players in. Making later content harder and saying 'screw the jumpers, let them trial by fire for purchasing it' is how you get a stale, aging playerbase with little lifeblood coming in, and Square knows that all too well.

Putting a mandatory, difficult challenge in front of these players will not make them get better. For many of them who play video games to relax and not have to deal with a challenge, it will make them give up and find something else. It's a blunt truth many people in favor of making stuff harder like to pretend otherwise. This has been a point discussed well over half a decade now, and the devs have ignored it or simply gave evidence to the contrary; your energy is better spent asking for optional difficult stuff to be added to the game, not trying to force mandatory content to become more difficult that will alienate a sizeable chunk of the playerbase.

Also I dunno what experience you had with the 83 trial; but that place is ridiculously wipeapalooza to the point I stopped queueing trial roulette when >= 83. it places so much difficulty on the healers due to how ruthless that stack marker is when <8 people from people dying to everything imaginable in that fight that if your group doesn't have good ones, you're basically guaranteed to have to wipe at least once or twice to get some echo.

[Kuroka]

Lately however it feels that main story content just isn’t really at the level where it used to be, and there are very little ways in which the player’s combat skill is checked and assessed in ways not reliant on team gameplay.

Idk if we just got too good, partially its surely the fact that you end up with an rdm on most 8 man content and jobs just got more toys to survive etc....

But overall yes, it become too easy unless you end up with ppl which literally have 0 idea of what they're doing...

Edit:

Lool hi once more my long lost sis :3

[Raikai]

I do think that nowadays the difficulty of the MSQ has been significantly reduced due to a number of factors, but this hasn’t always been to the benefit of the player experience. Fundamentally, video games should provide logical and increasing challenges as time goes on in the main campaign. In single player titles these challenges can be reduced via difficulty options, which in FFXIV’s case would be the use of Duty Support/Trusts whose AI behavior provides clues about how to handle certain boss mechanics, or the difficulty options that appear after one fails an instanced battle.

Lately however it feels that main story content just isn’t really at the level where it used to be, and there are very little ways in which the player’s combat skill is checked and assessed in ways not reliant on team gameplay. This has the effect of widening the gap between players who are ready for more difficult content like EX or Savages and those who are not. At the end of the day I think it would be more beneficial to increase the difficulty of MSQ battle content (dungeons, trials, instanced battles) in order to provide an experience that leans less toward the easy side and more of a well-rounded approach. While some players may feel left behind by such a decision, I do think it would be in the interest of the majority to try and find a better balance than what we’ve been seeing nowadays.


If I had to provide specific examples, I think the difficulty and mechanics of the following fights are good examples of what we should see in the main story:

• Titania
• All 3 NieR raids
• All 3 Ivalice raids
• Delubrum Reginae


And these are ones whose difficulty I do not feel was appropriate for the level at which the encounters take place:

• Tower of Babil
• The level 87 and 89 dungeons
• The level 83 Trial
• The level 90 Trial

By the difficulty progression logic, the level 81-90 content should be fine with the difficulty curve, unless we take in consideration that a new player boosts to get straight into the expansion.

That's the reason why I'm fine with more streamlined ARR dungeons, because that would reflect a more progressive difficult curve along the expansions. A good example is the redesign of the level 50 MSQ dungeons/trial... They are still easy, but all of them have interesting mechanics that won't require a lot of thinking but are pushishing if the player decides to ignore.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Also literally we're getting more midcore harder dungeon content in up coming patches.

[Eraden]

Wonderful. Another attempt by someone with an elitist mindset to make the game more difficult for everyone. I thought savage level content was good enough for those who wanted a greater challenge. You DO realize, I hope, that some of us might be elderly or disabled or both and would likely be excluded by your elitist vision of what the game should be like. As some have already mentioned here, it is most likely that you would cause significant reductions in the player base if you got your way and turned the game into an elitist sandbox. A sandbox that would start to dwindle away as the few remaining players would not be sufficient to support the game. Be careful what you wish for.