The difficulty of Normal Content in this game needs to increase.

[Ardeth]

Can you point me to the people saying Jueno was "too hard"? Legitimately confused where you are seeing that. The only issue with the raid is Giga Slash is sometimes difficult to read with the camera.

The first and only time I did it took all, but 5 minutes of the duty timer, and I never went back. I just think encounter design on that respect sucks. It's too flashy and too fast. It's designed to kill you to teach you to understand it, but for most people, that leads to frustration, and then that leads to unsubscribing and uninstalling. I've done unnerfed Orbonne Monastery and wasn't that bad, but they think they can go meat grinder mode on casuals and keep them coming back multiple times for multiple weeks is pie in the sky.

[Kaurhz]

It should be yes,

IMO, the game difficulty needs to increase a little more, and the amount of visual effects bloat needs to be toned down significantly. Like, from my perspective I found the game more difficult and engaging in ARR/HW/SB, than what I did in, say, ShB, and EW.. But I bizarrely had more struggles in those expansions just because of the visual bloat.

This is what SE doesn't understand about their game. They say time and time again that they don't want new players to struggle like that, but they would absolutely be fine if we had the earlier difficulties and design back, with the subtle visual effects. I would go on to say that some people would unironically struggle less as well if they put emphasis on having something engaging with something level of resistance and toned down visual effects than what they would if the difficulty and engagement factor were undertuned, whilst visual effects were significantly bloated.

[Connor]

I can agree that if they made the mechanics you mentioned more in line with others it could make things more easy to understand. My big issue so far is that there's been times, like in the latest MSQ dungeon that I've been having difficulty in finding the 'safe spots' with how things overlap and cause panic on what to do, even when doing my best to focus. I've seen in various discord servers of people saying "if they'd slow that down just a smidge, it would be better."

I can relate to having issues with resolving certain mechanics due to them having ‘harder to see’ (for lack of a better term lol) resolutions.

Like personally I constantly get clipped by the Giga Slash attack thing at the final boss of Jeuno. For whatever reason my brain struggles with keeping track of the swords’ curvature, so I sometimes end up mixing up the ‘safe spot’ and the ‘not safe spot’ lol.

I did think to myself, ‘if Giga Slash was just a normal telegraphed orange AoE, I’d (probably) never get hit by it again’ lol. But then as I said above I do also appreciate devs trying to ‘make things interesting’ through things like relying less on standard telegraphed AoEs, so it’s difficult to just say ‘put it back’ or whatever.

Maybe they could do like a ‘simplified’ telegraph effects option for if people are having trouble seeing certain aoes? Like, giving people the option of how they’d be presented based on preference? But then that’d be extremely hard to balance between the two (‘simplified AOEs’ could end up objectively easier than otherwise for example)

[SamuraiMiqo]

I can relate to having issues with resolving certain mechanics due to them having ‘harder to see’ (for lack of a better term lol) resolutions.

Like personally I constantly get clipped by the Giga Slash attack thing at the final boss of Jeuno. For whatever reason my brain struggles with keeping track of the swords’ curvature, so I sometimes end up mixing up the ‘safe spot’ and the ‘not safe spot’ lol.

I did think to myself, ‘if Giga Slash was just a normal telegraphed orange AoE, I’d (probably) never get hit by it again’ lol. But then as I said above I do also appreciate devs trying to ‘make things interesting’ through things like relying less on standard telegraphed AoEs, so it’s difficult to just say ‘put it back’ or whatever.

Maybe they could do like a ‘simplified’ telegraph effects option for if people are having trouble seeing certain aoes? Like, giving people the option of how they’d be presented based on preference? But then that’d be extremely hard to balance between the two (‘simplified AOEs’ could end up objectively easier than otherwise for example)

I love that idea to be honest, give everyone a chance to play to their strengths and have more fun

[BigCheez]

I can relate to having issues with resolving certain mechanics due to them having ‘harder to see’ (for lack of a better term lol) resolutions.

Like personally I constantly get clipped by the Giga Slash attack thing at the final boss of Jeuno. For whatever reason my brain struggles with keeping track of the swords’ curvature, so I sometimes end up mixing up the ‘safe spot’ and the ‘not safe spot’ lol.

I did think to myself, ‘if Giga Slash was just a normal telegraphed orange AoE, I’d (probably) never get hit by it again’ lol. But then as I said above I do also appreciate devs trying to ‘make things interesting’ through things like relying less on standard telegraphed AoEs, so it’s difficult to just say ‘put it back’ or whatever.

Maybe they could do like a ‘simplified’ telegraph effects option for if people are having trouble seeing certain aoes? Like, giving people the option of how they’d be presented based on preference? But then that’d be extremely hard to balance between the two (‘simplified AOEs’ could end up objectively easier than otherwise for example)

I don't think it's possible to implement something like this without it trivialising content.

When people are having issues reacting to cast bars or other non-standard telegraphed attacks, it's often a UI issue that can be solved by moving important UI elements to be closer to the centre of the screen. Then you're spending more time with the important information in your peripheral vision and less time with your eyes darting between the 4 corners of your monitor.

I see way too many people playing with their target bar all the way at the top of the screen, hotbars all the way at the bottom of the screen, party/enmity list way off to the side somewhere, and job gauge and buffs/debuffs God knows where, and then wondering why they're struggling to keep track of what's going on.

[Lilapop]

I don't think it's possible to implement something like this without it trivialising content.

When people are having issues reacting to cast bars or other non-standard telegraphed attacks, it's often a UI issue that can be solved by moving important UI elements to be closer to the centre of the screen. Then you're spending more time with the important information in your peripheral vision and less time with your eyes darting between the 4 corners of your monitor.

I see way too many people playing with their target bar all the way at the top of the screen, hotbars all the way at the bottom of the screen, party/enmity list way off to the side somewhere, and job gauge and buffs/debuffs God knows where, and then wondering why they're struggling to keep track of what's going on.

You forgot all the flashy glowy effects. My poor eyes.

[BigCheez]

You forgot all the flashy glowy effects. My poor eyes.

I did. Disabling effects helps a lot too.

I default to this:



but I even end up turning my own effects off sometimes. The damn PLD blades combo makes it so hard to see the hearts spawning in M2...

[Rueby]

I did. Disabling effects helps a lot too.

I default to this:



but I even end up turning my own effects off sometimes. The damn PLD blades combo makes it so hard to see the hearts spawning in M2...

Think they meant boss VFX...

[Gurgeh]

Or...
They made the casual game easier...
So now make savage easier so we can do it without guides or PF prog points.
(But no, you can F with the casual game but you can't upset your Savage players)

[ForteNightshade]

Or...
They made the casual game easier...
So now make savage easier so we can do it without guides or PF prog points.
(But no, you can F with the casual game but you can't upset your Savage players)

That would completely defeat the point of Savage. It's not intended for casual players, or to be cleared without progging. Nevertheless, they didn't "f with the casual game." Normal has always been incredibly easy because it's meant for everyone, be they casual or simply story players who don't want anything with actual bite. I don't like that philosophy, but it's been their approach for a long while now.