Why do people avoid getting better at the game?

[Ransu]

Ok, let's try this again. As it currently stands, the opposition for keeping things the way it is would very likely be winning by miles for this debate. Perhaps some dungeons could stand to have an increase in difficulty, but we need a baseline for how much more difficult. Don't go overboard since we do need to warm players up for higher challenges rather than brick wall them. MMOs do need a flow of new players whether we like it or not to keep the support up for it.

I will try to re-summarize from the very first post. The OP Dixie said he / she feels that the game is not as hard as they would like it to be since the game does not push us to. They understand that Extreme / Savage difficulty is obviously overboard for story dungeons. They like the difficulty of the 6.0 trial boss as a way to introduce more challenge. They are also debating if there are reward incentives to entice players to give the slight bump in challenge a go.

The jump should be similar to the hard mode difficulty jump from the ARR/HW days and should be applied to the level cap dungeons. If they are gonna be call the roulette the expert roulette then they should be challenging, at least for the first few weeks they are out before people out gear them. As I said before, I'm mostly fine with the MSQ dungeons staying relatively easy, though I would like to see them have more difficulty and then have a story mode style difficulty applied to trust runs, but that would probably add more dev time that the devs don't want to do so I feel like a solid compromise is to make level cap dungeons actual hard mode difficulty, like a step below extremes.

I'm 100% with you on this. I miss the days of BC/WotLK days when World Defense would go off and you see one or two just messing around killing NPCs so a gank squad comes in and puts them down...and then they get some friends and now you're outnumbered and getting ganked, then you get more back up and so forth until a huge war is just going on outside the village and it goes on for like an hour until both sides eventually get tired of killing each other.

I would like it if 14 had it but it also makes total sense that it is not a thing in this game.

Yaaaaa.... no thanks.

I LOVE pvp, but when I'm doing pve stuff I want to be left alone and not have to be constantly looking over my shoulder to avoid being ganked. Modes like battlegrounds and frontlines exist for people who enjoy large scale pvp and arena pvp is more intense and enjoyable than the random small skirmishes in open world where its just mostly higher levels looking for low levels to one shot.

[Melorie]

Can someone explain how we ended up on the topic of world pvp and why anyone thinks that's a good idea?

I like having the option to do most of the content in the game without someone trying to grief me. I do play FPS though so if you want to play OW, Val or CSGO we always could do that instead. I mean I'm sure there's a reason you want to attack players that aren't fighting back in a game where that's not normal rather than you know, playing a game with combat in it.

I feel like treating World PvP as some sort of sin choice kinda... eh. It really limits creativity in general. Personally I had a lot of fun with World PvP in a lot of different games I played, although I don't feel like it fits in every type of game. Not every MMO should have it but some games are actually enjoyed because of this as well.

It is just a niche aspect. Much like people hardly enjoy a lot of the fluffy of FFXIV and feel like the way the story is told is dated, it does not truly appeal to everyone but that does not mean that it is the worst choice ever, there are plenty of people that enjoy it enough.

[Tigore]

Ok. Finally something to work with. I was beginning to lose hope with the actual main topic getting pushed off. I can agree with possibly making trusts the story mode difficulty since they don't have roulette rewards anyways. As for some expert adjustments, I do have some input to give for it.

The first Troia boss we technically can't call a boss. It is more of a glorified sequence of trash pulls. Maybe it tests if the healer and DPS brings stuff to the tank, but regular trash wall to wall pulls already should do that.

The second boss for the latest dungeon looks intimidating with the updated teleport strikes, but is made to look like a joke with the optimized strat. All the AoE slashes are X patterns, so the center is safe for about 70 - 90% of the time. The way to bump this up in challenge is to have the AoE sometimes alternate to a cross to force players out of the center. The circles used to denote the order of teleport can be altered to show X's and +'s to give enough visual clues.

[Jojoya]

Ok. Finally something to work with. I was beginning to lose hope with the actual main topic getting pushed off. I can agree with possibly making trusts the story mode difficulty since they don't have roulette rewards anyways. As for some expert adjustments, I do have some input to give for it.

The first Troia boss we technically can't call a boss. It is more of a glorified sequence of trash pulls. Maybe it tests if the healer and DPS brings stuff to the tank, but regular trash wall to wall pulls already should do that.

The second boss for the latest dungeon looks intimidating with the updated teleport strikes, but is made to look like a joke with the optimized strat. All the AoE slashes are X patterns, so the center is safe for about 70 - 90% of the time. The way to bump this up in challenge is to have the AoE sometimes alternate to a cross to force players out of the center. The circles used to denote the order of teleport can be altered to show X's and +'s to give enough visual clues.

The problem goes beyond what mechanics are used in a dungeon, though.

For players to get better, they need to:
1) want to get better (instead of just wanting rewards).
2) have the physical ability to get better.
3) have resources that assist them with getting better.

The big problem is #1. How do you get players to want to improve? They're here to have fun playing a game. Put a series of obstacles with ever increasing difficulty in their way and it stops being fun to them. They quit instead (or they find ways to cheat). That's not good for a MMO that has ongoing operating costs.

Considering so much discussion revolves around better skilled players basically stuck in the same content as less skilled players for leveling alt jobs, perhaps we're tackling the problem the wrong way.

Maybe what is really needed is a second leveling path with much harder difficulty for those who want the challenge for their alt jobs. Increased XP would be the compensation for the increased difficulty.

Players who use the normal leveling paths but later decide they're ready to improve could then use the harder path to improve their skill. The increased XP may or may not be useful to them but in the situations where it isn't some other form of compensation could be found.

[Tigore]

Yeah. Ransu from the last page was suggesting that we use the Trust and Duty Support system to keep the difficulty easy for players who don't want the difficulty.
The trusts may need some adjustments like its own roulette reward and a way for players to group up into it. The reward may have to be lower to encourage the higher one to be used.

As for the rewards... I haven't noticed discussion for it yet. Currently, the red tomes are most valuable and the green cap ones can actually be less valuable >.> Maybe just faster capping of both tomestones would be enough to encourage players to try? Course that also means some players will complain they have nothing to do afterwards capping faster >.>

[Eraden]

The problem goes beyond what mechanics are used in a dungeon, though.

For players to get better, they need to:
1) want to get better (instead of just wanting rewards).
2) have the physical ability to get better.
3) have resources that assist them with getting better.

The big problem is #1. How do you get players to want to improve? They're here to have fun playing a game. Put a series of obstacles with ever increasing difficulty in their way and it stops being fun to them. They quit instead (or they find ways to cheat). That's not good for a MMO that has ongoing operating costs.

Considering so much discussion revolves around better skilled players basically stuck in the same content as less skilled players for leveling alt jobs, perhaps we're tackling the problem the wrong way.

Maybe what is really needed is a second leveling path with much harder difficulty for those who want the challenge for their alt jobs. Increased XP would be the compensation for the increased difficulty.

Players who use the normal leveling paths but later decide they're ready to improve could then use the harder path to improve their skill. The increased XP may or may not be useful to them but in the situations where it isn't some other form of compensation could be found.

Mao falls under category 2. So much so that Mao scheduled to has appointsments with brain surgeon two months from now.