MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[Amenara]

And I believe a huge reason for this is because these fights aren’t literal pushovers like the rest of the MSQ content in this game. They aren’t ridiculously hard by any stretch like people enjoy saying they are; but they are more difficult than, say, Thordan at the end of HW. He was an absolute joke. At release you could stand in his AOEs and not die. Now, I could eat everything and barely walk away with a scratch. It was incredibly underwhelming as a new player who wasn’t even into anything in the high-end or hardcore scene. Shinryu, by comparison, actually felt like an expansion boss. Coming from someone who was still, more or less, a casual back then.

If the MSQ actually had a gradual curve in difficulty progressing through the levels (not anything insane or Dark Souls level, but mild and gradual), I don’t think the complaints would be nearly as high. These fights are “spikes” in terms of the level of challenge, and there are people who are perfectly abled that simply throw their hands up in the air if they wipe. All because this game has spent 60+ levels conditioning them that everything is super easy and you can basically smash your face on your keyboard and win. And it’s unfortunate that the response changed from “try harder” (Yoshida’s response to cries for Final Steps of Faith, Weeping City, and Dun Scaith nerfs) to things ending up nerfed because people complain (Thundergod Cid in Orbonne Monestary—you know, in the optional content people don’t have to do if they don’t want to).

I think that is what my complaint with the MSQ is. It is spikes in difficulty that are followed up by easy content with no encouragement to try a little harder. The difficulty curve is all over the place which is the underlying issue.