People Enjoy hard Games

[RitsukoSonoda]

Don't know why lots of people hold souls games as golden standard of "hard" when, in fact, they're not hard at all.

Just....don't panic roll

Learn the game and as long as you don't play like a rump the game is mostly a breeze outside of a handful of outlier bosses.

Don't learn the game and you're going to have a really bad time... Unless your goal was to beat the game at lv 1 and naked...

[Renalt]

Don't know why lots of people hold souls games as golden standard of "hard" when, in fact, they're not hard at all.

Just....don't panic roll

The funny thing about the AI in Souls-like games is the fact they removed a lot of limitations that other AIs have. Souls-like have a very simple AI program that states "Once aggroed...do things." That's it. Any other game has "When engaged with one or two enemies, limit AI to idle. When enemy is not in the FOV of the PC, limit the AI or idle". That's why you don't get punched or shot in the head in most games because of the rules put on the AI. Souls-like is more simple therefore more engaging. Once aggroed...it's go time. If you take it slow you will take them out rather easily because they really do have a simple AI. They just don't have limitations.

Actually how programmers do things to cheat in favor of the PC is quite interesting. For example the last health pixel for the original AC games is double that of other health pixels? It makes those "Got out by the skin of my teeth" more common. In shooter games the first shot is always a miss. They will never shoot you in hiding a large majority of the time. Like 95% of 1st shots are just warning shots to draw your attention.

[RitsukoSonoda]

The funny thing about the AI in Souls-like games is the fact they removed a lot of limitations that other AIs have. Souls-like have a very simple AI program that states "Once aggroed...do things." That's it. Any other game has "When engaged with one or two enemies, limit AI to idle. When enemy is not in the FOV of the PC, limit the AI or idle". That's why you don't get punched or shot in the head in most games because of the rules put on the AI. Souls-like is more simple therefore more engaging. Once aggroed...it's go time. If you take it slow you will take them out rather easily because they really do have a simple AI. They just don't have limitations.

Actually how programmers do things to cheat in favor of the PC is quite interesting. For example the last health pixel for the original AC games is double that of other health pixels? It makes those "Got out by the skin of my teeth" more common. In shooter games the first shot is always a miss. They will never shoot you in hiding a large majority of the time. Like 95% of 1st shots are just warning shots to draw your attention.

There's also a stark difference in how souls-like games teach players and how FFXIV does it.

FFXIV is like that parent that rewards everything including failure and bad behavior.

Souls-like games are like that episode of family guy where Stewie is at a baseball game and catches a fly ball, then offers the kid next to him a trade for his souvenir baseball bat, then hits the kid upside the head with the bat taking his ball back and asking the kid "Now what did you learn?"

[Darnath]

Another thing to factor with Dark Souls (and I guess BG3) is they're primarily single player. Also they're both pay once and done (Except for DLC packs I guess. I'll be honest and only played DS1 on PC and got a bit frustrated at the keyboard input lag).

FF XIV is still is for a fair amount of content multiplayer. Trials, Normal and Alliance Raids. Ultimates. And some of us do have that anxiety when things get too hard and now we're under-performing and no matter how hard we try we just can't keep up in harder content. Heck, during Red Girl I still get panic attacks during her Generate Barrier into Shockwave attacks as people scatter around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to stay in range to keep DPSing the boss while not stacking on each other and finding a wall to blow up.

So especially for a game where I'm paying a monthly fee to keep playing the last thing I'd want is the baseline content to cause me to want to tear my hair out and feel like I'm griefing my teammates due to my inferior skill level. "But they're just randos, why do you care what they think of you?" Because even though odds are I'll never match up with them again, I'll still feel guilty of my sloppeh... sloppiness of causing them to die.

If I want harder gaming stuff I'll play solo games because if I mess up, it only affects ME and not 7 or 23 other people. And if I want to stress out, I'll do things that I get paid for (aka work extra hours), not where I pay somebody else to inflict stress on me.

[Supersnow845]

^on the other hand if you are having panic attacks on red girl you can’t realistically expect content to be tailored to your level of competency (I’m not saying that in a mean way just as a statement of fact)

But still regardless this is another problem that low skill floor high skill ceiling jobs would fix, take old SCH for example if you only left cleric stance to dump your DOT’s every 30 seconds or so and spent the majority of the time in healing stance you’d be doing 50-60% of the top healers with 1/10th of the stress

[Reap00]

I find it interesting that everyone criticizes forum posters asking for harder content and they dismiss us for being the vocal minority on these forums but to be honest we may be somewhat of the silent majority with a few outspoken people.

The game has repeatedly doubled down on making itself easier because it has been under the false impression that people calling for an easier game were in fact the majority.

If anything, market trends have telling data that a games difficulty is actually something gamers enjoy. If we take a look at Baldurs Gate and Elden ring both of them became main stream hits despite being more difficult titles to beat, and they both outperformed FFXVI which is a story game with incredibly easy gameplay.

We could argue that using the PS5 platform only hurt them however, it doesn't change the fact that making an engaging and difficult game DOES NOT mean you are reducing your playerbase and hurting the games bottom line.

In short, XIV is too easy, and recent commercial successes reveal there is no reason to dumb the game down to where it is today.

Yes some people enjoy hard games. Some people do not enjoy hard games. Imagine that. Is there a point to this thread?

[SophiaDL]

Yes some people enjoy hard games. Some people do not enjoy hard games. Imagine that. Is there a point to this thread?

There is a point yeah, there is only one that is being catered to in FFXIV, and not the other.

What gives ? Other games do it just fine for both casual and "hardcore" players, yet FFXIV only does one, why? Small indie company is too small to fund themselves ?

[Arrius]

There is a point yeah, there is only one that is being catered to in FFXIV, and not the other.

What gives ? Other games do it just fine for both casual and "hardcore" players, yet FFXIV only does one, why? Small indie company is too small to fund themselves ?

On which scale we talk about - On the level with WoW? Even their DF content is nearly not casual enough as XIV, and M+ is just a healer's nightmare right now.

[SophiaDL]

On which scale we talk about - On the level with WoW? Even their DF content is nearly not casual enough as XIV, and M+ is just a healer's nightmare right now.

M+0 is a thing though ? That's very much casual enough, doable by literally everyone, and low keys arent too bad as well, as for raiding LFR is a good candidate for casual play, and the usual outside activities, flintstone farm etc.

[Arrius]

M+0 is a thing though ? That's very much casual enough, doable by literally everyone, and low keys arent too bad as well, as for raiding LFR is a good candidate for casual play, and the usual outside activities, flintstone farm etc.

Outside M+ and raids, there isn't much else to do. Finished your weekly quests and the world quests that dotted the zones, and those areas are empty without any other content. Back then at the very least you had things like the Tillers and Archeology for side-activities, but ... yeaaaah.