This game needs to be harder

[Payadopa]

Everything Yoshi P touches lately assumes you're an idiot unfortunately. That seems to be his recipe for attracting a wider audience...you know in the years Elden Ring and BG3 are dominating video game discourse.

I have to agree. It's the usual cop-out. I have 4 wives, 2.5 children and 28 jobs and I can only dedicate 33 minutes every Thursday so everything needs to be so easy I can sleep while playing.

Now, I think it's important to keep the MSQ accessable but not at everybody else's cost. A simple solution would be to make everything easy with trusts so solo players can eat around the MMO aspect but once you go MMO you have to at least stop watching Netflix. On top of that we really need difficulty sliders for instanced content (not just normal, easy and very easy). I think that's a fair compromise.

It would also help immensely if jobs would be fun again and had an identity. That way even easy content would feel engaging. All we have now is content that's pathetically easy along with jobs that don't feel good. Bonus points if you loose most of your kit due to ilvl synch.

[Turtledeluxe]

I have to agree. It's the usual cop-out. I have 4 wives, 2.5 children and 28 jobs and I can only dedicate 33 minutes every Thursday so everything needs to be so easy I can sleep while playing.

Now, I think it's important to keep the MSQ accessable but not at everybody else's cost. A simple solution would be to make everything easy with trusts so solo players can eat around the MMO aspect but once you go MMO you have to at least stop watching Netflix. On top of that we really need difficulty sliders for instanced content (not just normal, easy and very easy). I think that's a fair compromise.

It would also help immensely if jobs would be fun again and had an identity. That way even easy content would feel engaging. All we have now is content that's pathetically easy along with jobs that don't feel good. Bonus points if you loose most of your kit due to ilvl synch.

As I was saying in another thread all of this is true and totally clashes with SE's vision and marketing for the game. The game is being "modernized" as such but the marketing of it is a "wait and see" kind of thing that only appeals to the echo chamber and not potential wider audiences. As a result what do we get? SE is not attracting a wider audience and the game feels gutted. So we are suffering for nothing.

[Jojoya]

As I was saying in another thread all of this is true and totally clashes with SE's vision and marketing for the game. The game is being "modernized" as such but the marketing of it is a "wait and see" kind of thing that only appeals to the echo chamber and not potential wider audiences. As a result what do we get? SE is not attracting a wider audience and the game feels gutted. So we are suffering for nothing.

Did you stop to consider that FFXIV is not trying to appeal to potential wider audiences?

Wider audiences are generally not a good things for games because interests within the player base can start diverging even more. The more interests diverge, the more content that needs to be created to satisfy them all. The more content that needs to be created, the thinner the development team gets spread over increasing tasks and the more likely quality is going to take a big hit as content is rushed to release regardless of bugs and inconsistencies.

If you want to appeal to a wider audience as a company, you make a new product to appeal to those who aren't interested in your current products. You don't change your current products and alienate your already loyal customers.

This is where YoshiP is already taking a risk. Can they keep FFXIV close enough to what it has been while making small changes to attract franchise fans who don't want to play a MMO without causing existing players to feel alienated? Many players have been unhappy with changes to dungeons for the sake of NPC AIs so the game can be played mostly solo. How many players stopped at dungeons and didn't get into trials/raids? Will the adjusted dungeon designs bore them so they lose interest in the game? Can they get away with maybe likewise changing Normal trials for MSQ to be NPC AI compatible without further upsetting parts of the existing player base?

Trying to push things even farther for an even wider audience likely would not end well, especially if SE does not give FFXIV a bigger budget for more staff and facilities. Even if they did, it would take a couple of expansions before players would see any positive effects from those changes - but they could easily see negative effects during the interim.

A lot of posters (and probably lurking readers) here hate when WoW gets brought up but it is an extremely good example to learn from. It showed what can happen when a new game is released with more modern ideas about game play and also what can happen when you continue to make changes beyond what attracted those players to the game in the first place.

This game is no longer new. It's got a solid player base. Additional changes run that risk of driving satisfied players without attracting enough new ones to replace them.

[Turtledeluxe]

Did you stop to consider that FFXIV is not trying to appeal to potential wider audiences?

Yoshi P has made several statements in general that make it clear he's trying to get "younger players" into FF.

You say changes drive away players as though I didn't just quote a post describing changes that have driven away players.

You think Duty Support is just being made for fun? The devs have made all kinds of changes to make the game more accessible (and soloable) that are clearly aligned with drawing in new players. By necessity that requires a wider audience because there isn't some infinite pool of MMO players waiting for SE to torch the next job identity to play XIV. Obviously when that happens it's continuing with the theme of making the game more playable, and that isn't to retain people but rather to get people to try and stay in the game who otherwise wouldn't.

Yes the game is old, and yet SE is constantly updating it instead of making a new one because like all live service games now, they want to just retain and grow players on this game vs spending the money on a new one. Please note the game literally has a free trial so this idea SE is just coasting is silly.

I also like that you're talking about WoW as though FF isn't potentially doing exactly the same thing. Time will tell. How long will the established player base tolerating the increasingly single player, two minute meta, dumbed down job strategy of XIV? When I say modernizing in quotes it means I am being sarcastic. FFXIV is doing what it thinks is modernizing and that's what makes it all the more tragic.

[Payadopa]

Oh I also think min ilvl should be way more incentivised.Like give it double the exp and drop rate or something. And please give as a min ilvl roulette!! It's optional, so who cares. I'd actually do that one because it's fun.

[Rithy255]

I remember getting a level 90 gladiator in my EW dungeon while playing healer, I actually got to play as a healer

This game is pretty easy in the casual level, Support jobs (tanks/healers) will always be made easier and easier so people will have less conflict about doing something wrong, as the game wants everyone to be able to pick up and play a role type.

Sadly that means most likely we will never get more to do in terms of job Varity where healers actually heal, tanks have to position, aggro manage, defensive/sustain/utility management ect. obviously "hardcore" content exists but nothing really midcore where you don't have to look at a guide (or be really really good) just doesn't exist in this game when it should.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I feel like the game doesn't need to be harder, necessarily, but it could stand to be more engaging. Which is probably dipping into semantics, but hear me out. There should not be roadblocks and frustratingly difficult fights in casual content, but it shouldn't be so braindead either. There's a balance between having to use your full kit while still being able to clear with a group of random strangers, and the game struggles with finding it.

[Kosachi]

I feel like the game doesn't need to be harder, necessarily, but it could stand to be more engaging. Which is probably dipping into semantics, but hear me out. There should not be roadblocks and frustratingly difficult fights in casual content, but it shouldn't be so braindead either. There's a balance between having to use your full kit while still being able to clear with a group of random strangers, and the game struggles with finding it.

I agree with you but in a somewhat different way. Casual content should very much be on the easier side (Dungeons can maybe be a biiiiiit harder because they're kinda snore now but you get the idea), but I think rotations should be much more deep and nuanced. Casual content has no enrages so depth of rotation is irrelevant unless the player chooses to engage with it, meanwhile, job design gets to be much more engaging and interesting keeping less casual players happy.

[KitingGenbu]

I agree with you but in a somewhat different way. Casual content should very much be on the easier side (Dungeons can maybe be a biiiiiit harder because they're kinda snore now but you get the idea), but I think rotations should be much more deep and nuanced. Casual content has no enrages so depth of rotation is irrelevant unless the player chooses to engage with it, meanwhile, job design gets to be much more engaging and interesting keeping less casual players happy.

They could always bring back TP and lower potencies......fun times.

[Rithy255]

I feel like the game doesn't need to be harder, necessarily, but it could stand to be more engaging. Which is probably dipping into semantics, but hear me out. There should not be roadblocks and frustratingly difficult fights in casual content, but it shouldn't be so braindead either. There's a balance between having to use your full kit while still being able to clear with a group of random strangers, and the game struggles with finding it.

I wish they would add just a simple hard version of all new DT dungeons (and doing so would grant extra rewards).
Hard modes would easily just be the same mechs but more punishing, more out going dmg, ect.

I think the main issue is the lack of any basic progression system, you go from baby content to extremes with not much in-between
Not to say EXT is super hard, but it would be nice to have harder content that doesn't require a guide for the most part, Just more in-between normal/extreme.