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

[VelKallor]

One still needs to play the game of finding BiS for their job and mix in tome gear, but even that isn't too bad and only takes a few weeks of farming.

Agreed. I am now fully pentamelded and am having a blast with expert crafting, God that was fun finding the right rotation........believe me when i say THAT gave me a dozen headaches and God knows how much material lost in trial and error....

( I had one of my first ALMOST HQ and the rotation failed......be glad you werent there, you dont want to see a grown kitty cry....)

[raelgun]

The normal content you refer to is story content and is not , never has been designed to be a brick wall.

You DO NOT tune content to be that hard that you cant finish the story, as this is a story driven MMO..all you will do is have people say yeah this is nuts and walk away.

You have savage, you have extreme, you have criterion which is midcore, you have ultimate which has turned out to be little else than a cheat fest. ( You heard me, If you cant win without cheating you dont deserve to win at all )

The game is not and should not be designed so "only the worthy" get to see content THEY PAID FOR.

WOW did that, the results of that dogs breakfast speak for themselves.

People pay for access, to which they have.

That's the only wall, bank balance

[raelgun]

Says content too easy.

Says players are bad.

Then wouldn’t making content for the general population harder push the average player out?

Most of your threads are full of elitism. Now while I do believe something needs to be done about the skill gap, pushing players away isn’t it.

I’d rather go back to when we could tell people they were bad. Stop dumbing down the duties that already exist.

But according to Dixiebell; players are bad. Content too easy. Mentors need to be current savage raiders with tier 1 pvp experience and every node under the sun gathered.

Pure elitism. Let the game be a game. Not a job where you need a resume stating you have a degree and X years experience

Players are bad because the content it too easy, up the content and then people will be forced to get better you do it.

It's treating the root cause

[Caitlinzulu]

Put thrice-come ruin on dungeon bosses with a 30s falloff, 3 strikes and you are out. Cant get healed out of doom.

The newest dungeon from MSQ kinda has that element with a straight up doom debuff, but I feel like 1 strike and out is a bit unfair (altough you can esuna it on the dungeon)

As for the rotation part, I assume adding minor DPS checks that reward the players could be a nice plus. Do great damage?, the boss says "I am impressed" as they die and drop an aditional chest with materia/more gear, or chance for another minion drop, or a buff that lasts untill the next boss, etc.

As long as you put a carrot on a stick, people will try to get it. And only the worst of the worst will go "i cant be bothered to try harder for the prize"

HELL NO. You'd see a sharp dropoff in people able to complete story and thus dropping the game.
Some story dungeons used to be harder and had to be nerfed a notch.
As for trials they where allways a lot harder, i'm guessing you werent here to the horror of the original crysalis or steps of faith. With steps it could be clear that you wouldnt be able to clear it before "enrage" yet there was no way to wipe or abort the run and start over.

[Amenara]

One still needs to play the game of finding BiS for their job and mix in tome gear, but even that isn't too bad and only takes a few weeks of farming.

Game of BiS:
Does it have crit?
Yes? It's probably BiS,
No? Does it have a worthless stat like SkS, SpS (past cap you care about), PIE, or TEN?
Yes? It is not BiS
No? It is probably BiS.

[raelgun]

HELL NO. You'd see a sharp dropoff in people able to complete story and thus dropping the game.
Some story dungeons used to be harder and had to be nerfed a notch.
As for trials they where allways a lot harder, i'm guessing you werent here to the horror of the original crysalis or steps of faith. With steps it could be clear that you wouldnt be able to clear it before "enrage" yet there was no way to wipe or abort the run and start over.

Why do people assume that people will quit the game after 1 try?
People have all the time in the world to complete it

[Kaurhz]

Players are bad because the content it too easy, up the content and then people will be forced to get better you do it.

It's treating the root cause

Most players that are bad, are bad because they choose to be bad of their own volition, and this is something that I would argue is largely independent of the content they're doing - In these cases the only thing you'll accomplish is making those in the group pick up the slack even more. You're better off just leaving the standard content as it is, and then having better middle-ground content which is mandatory to do extreme and savage.

[Kemeko]

Lately, there has been a lack of (Hard) difficulty dungeons, so that would contribute to this as well.

A Realm Reborn: 10 (Hard) Dungeons
Heavensward: 5 (Hard) Dungeons
Stormblood: 2 (Hard) Dungeons
Shadowbringers: 0 (Hard) Dungeons
Endwalker: 0 (Hard) Dungeons

[Seraphor]

Lately, there has been a lack of (Hard) difficulty dungeons, so that would contribute to this as well.

A Realm Reborn: 10 (Hard) Dungeons
Heavensward: 5 (Hard) Dungeons
Stormblood: 2 (Hard) Dungeons
Shadowbringers: 0 (Hard) Dungeons
Endwalker: 0 (Hard) Dungeons

That's not what (Hard) Dungeons are.
They're not an increase in difficulty, they're simply revisits to previous dungeons with a new theme.

[Solarra]

Players are bad because the content it too easy, up the content and then people will be forced to get better you do it.

Correlation does not equal causation

Nor is it a given that everyone would improve their play up to the standard you personally would like if the difficulty was increased. Have you considered what would happen if they did up the difficulty of the story content and the game started bleeding subs? That is much more likely than everyone suddenly getting 'gud'.