Why is it so common to join extremes without watching a guide first?

[einschwartz]

Take Garuda, for instance. Was "The Howling Eye (Hard)" actually significantly harder than just "The Howling Eye"? You just basically can faceroll both these days, after all. Why would a sprout encountering the term "Extreme" for the first time think "The Howling Eye (Extreme)" would be any different a step up from "The Howling Eye (Hard)"?

Moreover, we like to tell sprouts "If you see blue quest markers, always accept those, because they unlock new stuff." So they see a blue quest marker, they click on the blue quest marker, and it tells them "Use the Duty Finder to complete The Howling Eye (Extreme)", just like it's told them "Use the Duty Finder to complete <whatever>" for every previous trial and dungeon.

Why on earth would we expect them to do anything other than try to use the Duty Finder to complete the extreme trial they've just unlocked?

Yeah. The game does a pretty poor job of preparing new players for higher end content. "Go there and do that thing like you have everything else" tends to blindside them more than anything if they try to queue up for Extreme and Savage fights. There's quite a learning curve that most aren't prepared for initially. That isn't the fault of the players. It's faulty game design. The game itself should be way more informative than it is sometimes.

With the recent changes and Duty Support addition to ARR dungeons, players will now get a mandatory pop up that explains what the system is the moment they unlock the first dungeon. Perhaps the same pop-up could be implemented for players first Extreme duty unlock. This would be a perfect slot to properly introduce Party Finder to sprouts.

[Vahlnir]

With the recent changes and Duty Support addition to ARR dungeons, players will now get a mandatory pop up that explains what the system is the moment they unlock the first dungeon. Perhaps the same pop-up could be implemented for players first Extreme duty unlock. This would be a perfect slot to properly introduce Party Finder to sprouts.

I think this would be an excellent QoL change.