MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[novamare]

So what about the people who are actively turned away from the game because it is in their worlds excessively easy to the point of being unenjoyable, sure this is anecdotal but I have seen more than 5 people turned off the game because crucial lynchpin fights like endsinger, hades and thordran go down because you breathed too hard on them. Are there opinions not relevant to this situation at all. The MSQ just feels so hollow because all these enemies that you have been working towards for dozens of quests just get bowled over before they can even do a full mechanical loop

Again there is a difference between what we currently have and savage difficulty, raidwides hitting a bit harder, vuln stacks being tuned up a bit more, maybe a few more x come ruins or harder execution mechanics like starfall wouldn’t go astray

If these bosses can’t hurt us the entire design of the story comes crashing down

I definitely don't know your experiences, but every time roulettes have thrown me into Hades or Endsinger with more than two cutscene-watching sprouts, it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing (until one of us puts on the danger dorito, at least). I know my first time through Endsinger took what, three wipes, to clear. I can't say that felt like breathing on her took her down lol.

So if your point is about the story impact of these fights, the first time is the one that counts the most. Obviously once you've done the fight and know the mechanics, it'll be easier when you run it the next time. But how often are you running max-level story trials outside of roulettes? How often do you get a party without first-timers who bring the engagement because they're just learning new mechanics or just figuring out the nuances of what is probably their first max-level job?

A party full of good players can more or less trivialize most content in this game (even high end content!), so the argument to make MSQ harder in order to make players better seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. Supposing the idea works as planned, "bad" players either drop the game or improve enough to be "good." But then if everyone's good, even on their first runs, it doesn't matter how much more difficult you make the MSQ, because it'll still feel easy enough. But then it's easy and you've alienated the folks who couldn't or didn't want to "git gud" (because, after all, it's just a game; you don't have to be good, and that's okay).

And if anyone tries to say that there wouldn't still be people complaining that it's not engaging or whatever, I'll probably die laughing.