Quote Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume View Post
I appreciate your sincerity. I haven't been around long enough to doubt that the gameplay has been "dumbed down" but isn't savage still a thing and ultimates? If there is an argument by raiders/elite players or whatever they are called, that they would like MORE difficult content in the game for them, I think that is completely valid. I want this game to be large and healthy, even if a good chunk of that is folks doing content that I have zero interest in.

But those "depressed that others find joy chatting in Limssa and playing dressup" I just dont get that attitude. Do we think Yoshi P is going to stop developing hard content because they throw RPers a bone like dance floors, while most of the "RP stuff" is on the mog station? I just don't understand the need for animosity between the two communities. We should clamor for content that we can ALL enjoy.
No no no, their point is that the BASIC gameplay experience of the game is so watered down compared to what we were used to, that's it's become kind of a mess even when you're willing to engage in the top tier combat suite. And even once you ARE there, the difficulty does not come inherent to the gameplay, but rather the DESIGN of the encounter. Some people just don't have the time or schedule for 1K pulls in TOP.

For a surface level example, after a certain skill threshold, due to the common denominator approach to job design, everything has become stale, because the core components of every job are now builder-spender-dump into 2 mins. If EVERY job, regardless of role does this, it breaks the diversity of the jobs at a core level.

So if your counter is to "Go do Savage and Ultimate" it doesn't actually address the problem, at all. Compare the difficulty of something like A12S or O4S to P8S. The relationship between JOB engagement and ENCOUNTER engagement is lopsided HEAVILY in the encounter's favor. But for those people who cannot memorize 8 individual permutations (limit cuts this tier, i guess Idfk) or deal with the honestly INSANE design of things like DSR P6 where you feel like the game is actively punishing you for not inserting the exact non-euclidian shape into it's corresponding slot, they are screwed. There's ironically a basement tier skill ceiling for many jobs, and an absolutely sky-high ceiling for encounter complexity. I'm not sure if I'm making exact sense here, but gameplay is not just the encounters. How you engage with content through action is meaningful in and of it self.

There's no MIDCORE content, in jobs or in encounters. Either you, your encounter, and your job are meaningless fluff with minimal skill expression, or you better be willing to enjoy your suffering if you were stupid enough to not play the game when we had incremental difficulty in both jobs and design.

I would rather do one task infinitely with a wide variety of interesting and unique tools, than an infinite amount of tasks with a spoon.

RPers are lucky, because at least they can make their own content. Raiders are beholden to whatever SE designs for them. It's also just easier for developers to make stuff for RPers than to design engaging combat from the player TO the enemy, rather than the enemy to the player.