MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[VelKallor]

#NerfTowerofZot pls

Zot is fun, a blast. Love it.

[LianaThorne]

Extreme elitists should stop expecting that everyone has a desire to play in the big leagues while extreme casuals should stop expecting that other players will be fine carrying them through content while they only press one button the entire time.

The clear is the point, let's not forget, however basic knowledge of how to play your class should be something everyone strives for to make said clears more efficient.

Rather than making MSQ harder (because difficulties already exist for a reason clearly), introduce walls that are similar to the Hall of the Novice at the end of each expansion. They'll test the player on their skills and knowledge on how the buttons work and then send them on their way afterwards to begin the next expac. I feel this would be a more productive solution than gatekeep MSQ trials/make them harder for whatever reason.

[Raoabolic]

Rather than making MSQ harder (because difficulties already exist for a reason clearly), introduce walls that are similar to the Hall of the Novice at the end of each expansion. They'll test the player on their skills and knowledge on how the buttons work and then send them on their way afterwards to begin the next expac. I feel this would be a more productive solution than gatekeep MSQ trials/make them harder for whatever reason.

*buys level/story skip potion*
*steps over walls*
Walls are for the bourgeoisie~ :^)

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I wouldn't mind the normal difficulty of instanced battles being harder and keeping the very easy... very easy. And dungeons could do a bit more too since you have 3 other ppl to pick up your slack and give tips to help you.

But given we have seen in another thread a person cant even get past the very easy instance. I doubt such things would ever happen. They could make the whole thing to press the one button and somehow some way someone will fail.

[Omedon]

I love the FFXIV community. Full stop. That's a complete sentiment. At 600 days subbed to FFXIV, I can now say wholeheartedly that you folks are a great breath of fresh air after well over a decade of my active subscription time in WoW. Seriously, I mean that.

What is true at the same time is that some of you folks really do have your own, less obvious brand of toxicity. In order to fit it on a bumper sticker in my head, I've often summed it up like this:

The WoW community is toxic because they are permitted the freedom of an expedited path to the endgame, where they then gatekeep each other directly to each other's faces.

The FFXIV community on the other hand are toxic because they often demand that the game do the gatekeeping for them, so they can (and depending on who you ask, must) be all smiles to each other's faces.


In both games, no one, absolutely no one is going to view anything before the level cap (or in FFXIV's case, the end credits of the MSQ, which literally unlocks the whole game) as worthy of stopping them from getting there... because it's not meant to be. Indeed, the longer the MSQ goes, the less it has a "right" to tell anyone "welp, guess you stop here, you're just not good enough." "Very easy" for solo duties and the echo for trials (whilst they are still mandatorily group endeavors) are... part of the deal of "I bought this." It's not the MSQ's job to filter people, no one is obligated to "get good" to see the end credits. In my opinion, and that's all this all is, FFXIV handles *most* of this admirably. Within another expansion or two, no one in community parties will get a say as to who gets to the level cap and finishes the core story. That's how it should be. And it can't easily turn into WoW with the extreme "face to face gatekeeping," not with anything "baseline," because it's still FFXIV, where actual community moderation still happens.

It's been well documented across the MMORPG development sphere that when faced with unreasonable "get good" moments in content clearly intended to be cleared and beaten by everyone, people don't "pull their socks up," they quit. Squeenix doesn't want that. The MSQ will remain the height of approachable and defeatable, and folks that don't want that... will just have to accept that. FFXIV's MSQ is too long and too mandatory to be too hard. It's an engaging, guided tour, not a skill testing obstacle course, and thank goodness for that.

[Semirhage]

It's an engaging, guided tour, not a skill testing obstacle course, and thank goodness for that.

Spotted the person who hasn't played through the MSQ on a healer.

FFXIV has become so easy that much of its content isn't engaging. That's the problem. Every. Single. Time. Someone says this. We get "toxic gatekeepers want everything to be super hard!"

FFXIV has a toxicity problem: its TOS babies and validates every lazy impulse a player might have. No meanie can -ever- dare suggest you improve at something. Yeah they DON'T pay your sub! If this were a live and let live situation then fine, but Square has been continuously, constantly dumbing the engagement out of everything, MSQ included, and a lot of us are sick of it.

[Omedon]

Spotted the person who hasn't played through the MSQ on a healer.

FFXIV has become so easy that much of its content isn't engaging. That's the problem. Every. Single. Time. Someone says this. We get "toxic gatekeepers want everything to be super hard!"

FFXIV has a toxicity problem: its TOS babies and validates every lazy impulse a player might have. No meanie can -ever- dare suggest you improve at something. Yeah they DON'T pay your sub! If this were a live and let live situation then fine, but Square has been continuously, constantly dumbing the engagement out of everything, MSQ included, and a lot of us are sick of it.

I'm not going to get into a protracted discussion on a thread that isn't my own and thus isn't easily tracked, but I'll just say that the difficulty curve of the entire game, in a game like this, demands that a healer's damage dealing toolkit be as minimalist as possible. This is a necessary evil for the good of the rest of the game, I'm afraid. I am almost at omni 90, I know exactly the issue you're talking about, but my point still stands. The game cannot afford to overly "engage" the "healers that want a challenge" in the core mandatory MSQ lane, so long as this is a trinity game. Knowing this, if you continue to do the MSQ on a healer (and to be honest, on a "caster concept" character, healer is your best bet for survivability), you likely should continue to expect this. It's not ideal in the "I want a challenge regardless of job" vein, but it is, once again, a necessary evil for the good of this kind game.

If you want a challenge as a healer, might I suggest you group with a like-minded party of friends in difficult trinity party content? Criterion is coming!

And to be fair... I threw the word "engaging" in there to leave room for occasional challenge. Ideally the MSQ errs on the side of easy/inevitable for everyone.

PS: I love your name!

[Absurdity]

I'm not going to get into a protracted discussion on a thread that isn't my own and thus isn't easily tracked, but I'll just say that the difficulty curve of the entire game, in a game like this, demands that a healer's damage dealing toolkit be as minimalist as possible.

I'd argue the exact opposite if we look at just the story. The MSQ would only require you to have maybe 2 healing spells exactly because it is so easy and nothing hits hard enough to justify more, your dps kit consisting of 2 buttons however makes your solo experience an absolute chore because those 2 buttons are what you'll be pressing 99% of the story's combat encounters.

If you want a challenge as a healer, might I suggest you group with a like-minded party of friends in difficult trinity party content? Criterion is coming!

Not even the hardest content in this game challenges you in the healing department, it merely boils down to "does this aoe oneshot you or does it not?" which is solved by proper party mitigation, you can't outheal a oneshot.

Criterion might switch this up, though very unlikely, but that still leaves the question why healer engagement should be limited to a single activity.


The current healer issues aren't limited to the most hardcore players but any healer that even remotely knows what they're doing.

[Omedon]

I'd argue the exact opposite. The MSQ would only require you to have maybe 2 healing spells

Oh there is absolutely a button bloat problem for healers, you won't get an argument from me there. There are so many niche buttons per healer job that none of those powers can really justify their existence, because of how niche they are. You can't have a "wrong healer" for 4-person content, after all. The answer isn't more damage buttons though. I don't know what the answer is, but I know that healers are kind of in the position here that both tanks and healers are in other games. They gate the queues, they are in demand to make the game work, thus it must be approachable and, by extension, easy. Ideally they heal more than they do damage, but that's never going to be the case in solo content. Again, I don't know what the answer is, but it's not complicating their secondary role as a damage dealer, because that creates big problems when they group up with other players again.

Now, if the MSQ becomes 100% non-interdependent, you do reach a point where everything beyond, everything with other players can be flagged as "at your own risk," and there are ways to facilitate that... but that is a point on the side of making the MSQ inevitably easy, which, well... healers: check!

[vetch]

I know that healers are kind of in the position here that both tanks and healers are in other games. They gate the queues, they are in demand to make the game work, thus it must be approachable and, by extension, easy.

A low barrier to entry but without any depth doesn't create a healthy population of active and dedicated healers, it creates churn as new healers realize there's nowhere to grow and no satisfaction thereof to be had.