This game needs to be harder

[Jeeqbit]

I don't mind if people don't play well in dungeons. In fact I look forward to it. I love seeing them get killed by mechanics and learn from it and like that sometimes a tank challenges me with things like lack of tank stance or lack of mitigation. Skill level variety is about the only variety we get in dungeons, so I'll take it.

I wouldn't mind if dungeons were like this though:

• Lack of mitigation = death to tank busters or autos
• Lack of reprisal or other party mit means a party wipe to raid-wides

But right now you don't really need to care.

[Zeastria]

Everything become easy when you done the same content 100+ times, but that is not true for someone who is new ..
Normal difficulity is fine in this game, however the game lack a difficulty section between easy and hard.

People who dont play well ( those who refuse learn/improve).. Mostly do so because they choose not to invest or bother..
Making the content harder will not change their attitude..

[Neoyoshi]

I suppose there could be something built into the party finder that makes suggestions or gives helpful tips, but frankly, all of the tools a new fledgling player needs are right there, they just need a helping hand- which is what mentors were intended for and the sprout mission areas and the training npc's.


If anything, we need more experienced players willing to help point those in need in the right directions- but if players appear resistant to that help, there are likely reasons and explanations for that that may not be apparent right away. It's also worth pointing out that the game already has a fairly steep learning-curve.


I am sorry you ran into an experience like this, but try to be patient; if a new player is really just not allowing themselves to properly become acclimated to the design of this game and it's mechanics, then it's more likely that person is just trying to either rush through the content to see what end-game looks like (not a ideal approach) or they just don't care and are seeing if this game is for them or not. There are many other reasons why a sprout might behave this way, but it all still needs a bit of a patient hand on our part.

[SomeGuy22]

As an aside, does anyone miss the times when things were either less telegraphed or visual telegraphed at the last second? Cyclop moves come to mind.

Yep. The day Coincounter got AoE indicators is the day Aurum Vale lost half its teeth. That's where I learned to REALLY pay attention to castbars (and how useful holding my stun for a specific move could be), and it's a shame that the sprouts of today aren't getting that lesson at that point.

It'll be a shame when they nerf it for Trusts.

Goddamnit the dungeon reworks completely slipped my mind. RIP Mist Dragon, Yoshi-P's on his way to fell cleave your kneecaps as we speak

[Yhisa]

Actually im going to chime in on this one

The game difficulty is fine how it is, now which most players dont realise is

1 - playing with friends

Before people jump the gun, playing with friends is fun and should be a highlight for a mmo, however, when u have 8 highly skilled friends all doing savage/ultimate.... well of course the game is going to be easy and boring because your stuck in a routine for the past 10 years

Take 3 of those friends make a PF and boom you will notice a LARGE difference in difficulty, where coordination is limited due to lack of discord

Example
Imagine a sport team with the best players in the world all in 1 team....the whole sport will become boring that they would need to either split the team up....or change the entire sport , did u know they had to extend gold courses because tiger woods was too good of a player, sometimes its just the player not the game itself


2 - Ego problems

Many players just want harder content just to boast and enlarge their ego, for example se can make the most difficult job and this player will beam line straight for it, and consently complain why its difficult, which then they will start requesting the job to change to "their" idea....which btw result in being the same as every other job...



3 - Community

Overall the community dont really know what they want, and the dev team also have to allocate budget costs to keep the "community" happy, i think SE should bring out a vote system where the community decides the direction FFXIV takes

It be healthier overall to release a vote system like this

Dear WoL

We would like you to select one of the following direction in FFXIV here is your choices

1 - Gold saucer improvements (games etc)
2 - Frontlines improvements (map redesign)
3 - identy of jobs reworked
4 - rework island sactuary
5 - more light party content (duo or 4man)
6 - more emphasis toward relic story

You may only select one of the above , you will recieve xxxxxxx as a reward for participating in the vote

At the end of the month they will release the data to the community what players voted for which gives them "ideas" in which direction to take for the future of ffxiv


Like i really love this game alot, been around since ARR early access and DO NOT want ARR or HW era back ever again, it was a pain in the backside to raid due to job difficulty of the board....if the game was still like that era, this game wouldnt came this far at all

Like jesus...tp...mp...bard juggling foe requim for damage and then switching to mage ballad to help casters MP, and ninja was always needed because of goad due to TP problems of u died twice, because invigorate measly 400 tp back didnt cut it......and nothing worst then cleric stance...where u switched to dps stance as a healer and tank forget to use a cooldown and ur legit stuck in cleric stance until the CD is back

Ffxiv is a social game first, where u play with friends and have a good time...and make memories which is fun with those people

However as of late everyone is pushing for harder and harder content whilst blantantly using mods to clear content....im lucky been on console since 2013 and only play with other consoles players due to mods being used in raid settings always

I will give the consoles players more merit then pc players at the end of the day cause atleast consoles players are NOT reliant on mods


End of rant

[Cyanamists]

I'm really not sure how boosting jobs and skipping msq are at an equivalent ratio to not being able to press your buttons. The game is TERRIBLE at letting you know how to play the jobs. Skills are gained, traits are acquired and and there's almost no indication of what it does or how it benefits/flows with your current jobs skill sets.

Are the two correlated? Sure, is it the cause? No, because if someone doesn't care about their buttons anyway, all the boosting or effort spent in the msq isn't going to help their baseline skill level.

"Just read the tooltips!" Is the correct answer here but let's be real, how many players actually do that? Be it boosters or msq enjoyers?

The answer isn't to make the game hard, the answer is for the game to teach better. Teach that whm to stop fishing for cure 2 procs, teach the tanks to grab aggro, teach dps to use aoe combo on 3 or more mobs. They're already trying to make muscle memory stick earlier by homogenizing markers so that's good, they just need to step it up and help raise the skill floor of the players from terrarias underworld to the basement.

[Eastwall]

I'm really not sure how boosting jobs and skipping msq are at an equivalent ratio to not being able to press your buttons. The game is TERRIBLE at letting you know how to play the jobs. Skills are gained, traits are acquired and and there's almost no indication of what it does or how it benefits/flows with your current jobs skill sets.

Are the two correlated? Sure, is it the cause? No, because if someone doesn't care about their buttons anyway, all the boosting or effort spent in the msq isn't going to help their baseline skill level.

"Just read the tooltips!" Is the correct answer here but let's be real, how many players actually do that? Be it boosters or msq enjoyers?

The answer isn't to make the game hard, the answer is for the game to teach better. Teach that whm to stop fishing for cure 2 procs, teach the tanks to grab aggro, teach dps to use aoe combo on 3 or more mobs. They're already trying to make muscle memory stick earlier by homogenizing markers so that's good, they just need to step it up and help raise the skill floor of the players from terrarias underworld to the basement.

Lol, yeah, l don't know how many times l have to tell a sprout white mage that cure 3 is an aoe heal.

[remiff]

I would really like dungeons to be at the same level of difficulty as Holminster Switch was when it was first released or the 24-man raids with the same level of difficulty as the Ivalice raids before their nerfs.

They weren't difficult, they just required players to be a bit more attentive.

No basic content has ever been insurmountable for less skilled players in the game, of course, they might suffer some KOs, but is content really enjoyable if mistakes no longer penalize you at all?.

Most level 90 instances are so bland in terms of difficulty, and the old instances have been heavily nerfed due to the HP rebalance and ivl synchronization at the highest possible item level for the instance.

Finding the right balance of difficulty is crucial, and it seems that the game has become excessively too easy.

There should always be a balanced level of difficulty, and right now, the basic game has become way too easy,
you can practically put your brain on the desk, not dodge AoEs, and still get through it in a lot of situations.

[VerdeLuck]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, WoW, Wildstar, etc have all learned the hard way that cranking the difficulty up for casual content to make casual players "git gud" doesn't make them git gud, they quit when they hit a wall or when they get flamed in a dungeon for messing up.
It doesn't help either that MMORPG players jsut want to be lied to. What time and time again has been shown is for content to be pushed as "hard" and actually be rather easy, to inflate their egos. It needs to be "hard" but not actually ahrd enough to gate them from completing the content.

The current difficulty is fine and a step up from every other expansion if you look at the fights and mechanics. Zodiark Normal has more mechanics to learn than Garuda EX or even some of the lesser Coils Raids. Euphrosyne has a hard enrage at 7 minutes on one of the fights, which a hard enrage in casual content hasn't been seen in the game since Heavensward at least.
The difficulty has been steadily increasing as time goes on but people don't notice because, big surprise, they also get better at the game as the difficulty progresses and expects more. But just suddenly shifting and cranking the difficulty of everything in the game up at a sharp increase? No way, you're going to actually kill the game instead of the dozen "the game is dead" threads floating around here, it will actually be dead.

[remiff]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, WoW, Wildstar, etc have all learned the hard way that cranking the difficulty up for casual content to make casual players "git gud" doesn't make them git gud, they quit when they hit a wall or when they get flamed in a dungeon for messing up.
It doesn't help either that MMORPG players jsut want to be lied to. What time and time again has been shown is for content to be pushed as "hard" and actually be rather easy, to inflate their egos. It needs to be "hard" but not actually ahrd enough to gate them from completing the content.

The current difficulty is fine and a step up from every other expansion if you look at the fights and mechanics. Zodiark Normal has more mechanics to learn than Garuda EX or even some of the lesser Coils Raids.
The difficulty has been steadily increasing as time goes on but people don't notice because, bi8g surprise, they also get better at the game as the difficulty progresses and expects more. But just suddenly shifting and cranking the difficulty of everything in the game up at a sharp increase? No way, you're going to actually kill the game instead of the dozen "the game is dead" threads floating around here, it will actually be dead.

the current dungeons and 24-man raids are indeed much easy, and nobody has asked the developers to drastically increase the difficulty of standard content.
Just a slight adjustment to make them more engaging and not a wall for less skilled players would be appreciated.
This has never been the case in Final Fantasy XIV historically.

I apologize, but even though some instances were quite easy before, if you experienced certain older dungeons at their release at levels 50, 60, and 70 without the many nerfs they indirectly received through item level adjustments and the HP rebalance,
the game was better balanced in terms of difficulty back then.

While some boss fights have a reasonably challenging difficulty level, for instance, leveling dungeons are often more demanding than fixed-level instances like those at level 90,
where you can often ignore the vast majority of AoEs without major conséquences (KO penality).

Even if they slightly increase the difficulty of certain instances, it should never become an insurmountable obstacle.