Why do people avoid getting better at the game?

[Midareyukki]

Well If there is something I'm not seeing in the game from where i am, I'm not that far yet so can't speak much. There doesn't seem much there that is hard enough to push you into getting better, so far each dungeon seems easier than the last one. (i've only done up to stone so far so this could change) Game seems to be missing a learning curve (could be wrong again) that may change as i get in later but as of now not so much.

That's mostly thanks to them realizing from ARR to HSW and from HSW to SB that some of their early design choices were not the most pleasant to go through. People may say what they want about dungeons like Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, Dzemael Darkhold or Aurum Vale, but overall while the dungeons were definitely unique and experimental, the way the game is designed and structured made them really uncomfortable to go through. Especially as class design got condensed and stripped of some early level features.

Right now what we have is the usual tank and spank, and that sticks, for the most part, throughout the game from then on. For better and for worse. Better, because it polished some of the "Early Instalment Weirdness" we had going on, and definitely removed some of the stink that came with irritating design choices. But worse in that the flipside to this is that things easily become predictable and boring.

So when your game is this hand-holdy, at some point you encounter a challenge you weren't prepared for and it's going to feel like the learning curve missed a step somewhere. Past that, it's up to how you react. Some people will feel like it's too much, while others will take the challenge and improve.

Not that feeling like it's too much is inherently bad, mind you. Not everyone is playing this game for the constant thrill of a challenge.
But at the same time, there's people that are. And the gap is seemingly becoming wider. And sometimes when you ask for content that's a bit tougher, or for content that's tough to remain tough, people will call foul.

[R041]

Well If there is something I'm not seeing in the game from where i am, I'm not that far yet so can't speak much. There doesn't seem much there that is hard enough to push you into getting better, so far each dungeon seems easier than the last one. (i've only done up to stone so far so this could change) Game seems to be missing a learning curve (could be wrong again) that may change as i get in later but as of now not so much.

If there isn't anything to push you to the next level, a learning curve so to speak I doubt people will do as you say get better op.

Im assuming extreme/ and all that is the basic of wows myth plus stuff and when you don't have a prebuilt reason to push to get better to dominate a said content, as you progress building your character and yourself up in process that type stuff will be like a shot out of no where of a jump.

Jokes on you, the dungeons get significantly easier over time. They practically play themselves.




I don't understand why they're so focused on making the dungeons so braindead - Do they genuinely expect a new wave of 70yo grandpas to suddenly start playing XIV AND make it all the way to Endwalker!?

At what point do they stop to think "Hey, are we just making everything so simple, that we're losing out on the whole 'Fun' part of the game?" - Are they so focused on minimalizing any abrasiveness in the ability to play and give SE money, that they just don't even attempt to make it an actually engaging game?

I'd think that if they were even concerned with reducing friction, they could start on all of the other frustrating bits the game suffers from as well, like the insane amount of button prompts, and individual clicks for so many things.

People make this weird assumption that 'Casual' means they don't want to play a game at all. Why do I have to do extremes to have fun? Why do I need to be told to go do Ultimates to feel engaging gameplay?

I feel like something's eventually going to give. Maybe it'll just be that we're going to finally be taken over by clubs and Yoshi will stop making dungeons altogether. Teleport you straight into the club, every trial rewards you with a new dance emote.

[Midareyukki]

Almost as if once you mastered both your class and the encounter the content that run over and over again becomes trivially easy. Just like with everything in real life.

People like to point of Ivalice or Dun Scaith for being good examples for mid-core content and while TRUE....As somebody whom ran those raids multiple times for glams, I'm going to straight up tell you, those raids are piss easy for me. Learning mechanics isnt hard when you repeat them over and over again when you memorize them. Even back when Dun Scaith gets circulated into Moogle Treasure Trove so people run those frequently, the fact that during that period where we have players freshen up on the mechs, the raid itself becomes trivial because everyone knows it.

I personally see the difficulty fine as it is. We have the Savages and EXs for people whom want that extra bit of challenge and we have the regular dungeon, trial content for the rest of the playerbase whom lets face it, is an MMO thats catered to the very casual audience. If people avoid wanting to be challenged or get better thats THEIR issue. No need to force it on to the entire playerbase.

You bring up a pretty good point. Ultimately, when people make threads like these, do they expect content to remain challenging after beating it over and over to the point where it becomes predictable?

Because I'm all up for content to be challenging on-launch, or even remain challenging past that. But even before the nerfs, Ivalice Raids were pretty much a coinflip only because of the group you were with. And even then!

Basically, new players often contribute to the challenge of clearing stuff because someone messed up a mechanic, and thus stuff hits harder. Or it requires a lot more coordination than normal, and people aren't used to it. When you get used to it, those runs become so smooth they quickly turn boring.
And when I say "even then", it's because sometimes those new players make things more interesting because you get used to having to rescue people out of a bad situation. Meaning even that becomes predictable.

That isn't the devs' fault. It's not even our fault. It's just how it is. If you want something to be truly hard all the time, I think you want something that hits really hard, has a lot of health and is random all the time. Maybe not the enemy itself, but the situation. And I think I just described Deep Dungeon Deep Dives at that point :x

[Gemina]

Jokes on you, the dungeons get significantly easier over time. They practically play themselves.

No they don't. Are you going to seriously sit there and tell me tell me that Sastasha is harder than the Lapis Manalis, or that Ifrit on NM is harder than Cagnazzo?

The only thing about dungeons that gets easier are handling large trash pulls, and this happens as a result of getting additional abilities that help sustain the tank, and burn mobs to a crisp. That's it.

As far as dungeon bosses go, the difficulty just depends on the type of mechanics the devs decide to throw at the players, and how punishing they are for failing. A good example of a dungeon being less difficult than the dungeon before it would be The Aitiascope in comparison to Ktisis Hyperboreia. I've witnessed the last two bosses of the latter just wreck parties who are not prepared, thinking they'll just skate through these two goons. I'm not saying that the mechanics for these bosses are crazy difficult, but they do require you to pay attention to what is going onscreen instead of tunnel visioning in your rotation.

Difficulty is also relative. Just because something is easy for you, does not mean it is for everyone. Quit gaslighting.

[kevin_satron]

Jokes on you, the dungeons get significantly easier over time. They practically play themselves.




I don't understand why they're so focused on making the dungeons so braindead - Do they genuinely expect a new wave of 70yo grandpas to suddenly start playing XIV AND make it all the way to Endwalker!?

At what point do they stop to think "Hey, are we just making everything so simple, that we're losing out on the whole 'Fun' part of the game?" - Are they so focused on minimalizing any abrasiveness in the ability to play and give SE money, that they just don't even attempt to make it an actually engaging game?

I'd think that if they were even concerned with reducing friction, they could start on all of the other frustrating bits the game suffers from as well, like the insane amount of button prompts, and individual clicks for so many things.

People make this weird assumption that 'Casual' means they don't want to play a game at all. Why do I have to do extremes to have fun? Why do I need to be told to go do Ultimates to feel engaging gameplay?

I feel like something's eventually going to give. Maybe it'll just be that we're going to finally be taken over by clubs and Yoshi will stop making dungeons altogether. Teleport you straight into the club, every trial rewards you with a new dance emote.

The dungeons has been braindead since ShB (or should i say post SB). And i think the difficulty is good enough for casual players that only focus on main story. They did this since ShB because of trust system, no need complex mechanics like in extreme or savage, just very easy awareness mechanics (dodging AoE, stack marker, etc).

[Jamini]

No they don't. Are you going to seriously sit there and tell me tell me that Sastasha is harder than the Lapis Manalis, or that Ifrit on NM is harder than Cagnazzo?

Uh, from what I've heard Ifrit (Hard) when it was relevant actually *was* harder than modern Cognazzo. I wasn't around then, but I've heard it was actually fairly challenging when it was released (as was Titan(Hard)!)

Don't compare level early leveling dungeons to level cap dungeons. Compare it cap to cap.

[Theox]

Slightly off topic but do y'all remember that msq in endwalker when we had to play as a soldier and people literally created threads about it being too hard and the devs nerfed it? So yeah, what are we talking about again?

[AnnRam]

what's the problem with a lot of people not being good ?

Being mediocre despite playing for months/years isn't fun.
That's why every job got nerfed to oblivion in terms of "difficulty."
That's why after 4 expansions healers jobs are using 2 skills in order to don't fall to sleep while running regular content.

[kevin_satron]

Uh, from what I've heard Ifrit (Hard) when it was relevant actually *was* harder than modern Cognazzo. I wasn't around then, but I've heard it was actually fairly challenging when it was released (as was Titan(Hard)!)

Don't compare level early leveling dungeons to level cap dungeons. Compare it cap to cap.

it was a "little bit" harder because

1. The latency/tick rate was worse than today, so people keep getting hit by an AOE. Titan HM is another example. I mean look at this https://imgur.com/a8Ita2I
2. It almost impossible to beat it without caster LB3 to destroy the nails
3. People don't know wtf they were doing back then

[CaedemSanguis]

it creates a divide in the community between good players and bad players, giving good players a reason to be elitist, and therefore creating a toxic enviroment

Toxicity is banishable, so ... no ?

Ive never seen elitism in dutyfinder/casual partyfinder