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

[Menriq]

"Let's play Variant dungeon!" Oh so that has random variations? Ah, no, that's "Deep Dungeon"?

It's variant because you can go in with various #'s (1-4), as well as go different paths (there are 12 total for each). Criterion and Criterion Savage are linear.

[kaynide]

It's variant because you can go in with various #'s (1-4), as well as go different paths (there are 12 total for each). Criterion and Criterion Savage are linear.

12 paths (and let's be real, it's only 3 main paths really with "did you kill the monsters on the circle or not" type choices and a final "ending") with a total of 4ish final bosses doesn't exactly sell the idea of a dungeon with "variety".

[BigCheez]

Just my very small two cents on the system; less the difficulty and more the stupid corner of a naming system the devs seem desperate to paint themselves into.

Like, "Let's play XX Hard" -> Is not actually Hard, it's just normal.

Ok, so Extreme is the hardest? No that's Savage? Why is "wild/brutal/uncontrolled" more difficult than "Very high or the highest; furthest from the center".

or "Let's play Variant dungeon!" Oh so that has random variations? Ah, no, that's "Deep Dungeon"?

What happens when they want some new difficulty? Savage Extreme? Ultimate Extreme? Ultimate Savage Extreme?

Why not just "Your Dungeon Here" plus Stars to designate. Or just a more generic category like "special raids" with things like TEA listed under, with what the actual content is in the content blurb instead of the story nonsense.

Weird names for the sake of weird names are just... meh.

The problem with quantifiable difficulty ratings like stars is that they just wouldn't be correct. Some extreme trials are harder than some of the savage raids and some of the ultimate raids are easier than some of the savage raids. Extreme/savage/ultimate tells you more about the format and design of the content than the difficulty.

[kaynide]

The problem with quantifiable difficulty ratings like stars is that they just wouldn't be correct. Some extreme trials are harder than some of the savage raids and some of the ultimate raids are easier than some of the savage raids. Extreme/savage/ultimate tells you more about the format and design of the content than the difficulty.

Isn't that a really sloppy system then?

Like imagine coming into this game 10ish years later and having to figure out what all the different gamemodes are (and assume they keep adding more like the faux hollows).

Someone asking "Hey guys, wanna do King Mog hyper gratification mode?" - what would that even mean? Compared to other game modes etc.

King Mog (Lv 120, ★★★★) makes a lot more sense. It also tells me there is a 3, 2 and 1 star version below it. And if someday they wanted to add a harder it would just have 5 stars and a higher level.

In the case of things like TEA, just leave them called as is, with explanation in the blurb. You could later release something like TEA (Lv 110 ★★) as an even harder version of TEA in the future.

I'm not saying unify all game modes, but to grade them within their own variants.

So, Ultimates can keep being ultimates because they are their own unique thing. But Savage raids are just the normal raids amped up. (So, Coil 1, Coil1 ★ for savage). For Trials, Story mode, Extreme (now ★) and Savage (now ★★)

Again, doesn't mean ★★Ifrit needs to be harder or easier than ★Coil or ★Shiva, only that ★★Ifrit needs to be harder than ★Ifrit. This also eliminates the need for new weird names like Faux Hallows, when really it could just have been like "Shiva (Lv 100 ★★★)"

[BigCheez]

Isn't that a really sloppy system then?

Like imagine coming into this game 10ish years later and having to figure out what all the different gamemodes are (and assume they keep adding more like the faux hollows).

Someone asking "Hey guys, wanna do King Mog hyper gratification mode?" - what would that even mean? Compared to other game modes etc.

King Mog (Lv 120, ★★★★) makes a lot more sense. It also tells me there is a 3, 2 and 1 star version below it. And if someday they wanted to add a harder it would just have 5 stars and a higher level.

In the case of things like TEA, just leave them called as is, with explanation in the blurb. You could later release something like TEA (Lv 110 ★★) as an even harder version of TEA in the future.

I'm not saying unify all game modes, but to grade them within their own variants.

So, Ultimates can keep being ultimates because they are their own unique thing. But Savage raids are just the normal raids amped up. (So, Coil 1, Coil1 ★ for savage). For Trials, Story mode, Extreme (now ★) and Savage (now ★★)

Again, doesn't mean ★★Ifrit needs to be harder or easier than ★Coil or ★Shiva, only that ★★Ifrit needs to be harder than ★Ifrit. This also eliminates the need for new weird names like Faux Hallows, when really it could just have been like "Shiva (Lv 100 ★★★)"

This sounds even more confusing, if not downright misleading, given that Shiva (Lv 100 ★★★) was the easiest piece of high-end content in the game and TEA (Lv 110 ★★) was the hardest piece of content in the game.

If the difficulty is only relative to other versions of the same fight then this isn't really any different from just using "Boss Name (Unreal/Extreme/Savage/Ultimate)" other than the quantifiable number of stuff giving the appearance of a wider relative difficulty rating.

[Rueby]

All these stars remind me of crafting recipes, all of which are confusing.