Thoughts on changes made to the game

[Avoidy]

It does suck how if you enjoy casual content, the devs sort of treat you like a toddler without thumbs and make every mechanic irrelevant. And since the jobs have been pretty homogenized at this point, there's no sense of like... "sure, the content's a little dull, but actually playing the job is fun so I'm okay." It's just a boring 123 job in a boring encounter. Back when I played tera, I'd do the full range of difficulties because just playing the game was enjoyable for me. I'd tank and heal easy stuff. I'd tank and heal hard stuff. And because the classes and the gameplay were enjoyable, I never felt bored even though the content felt easy or frustrating. But in XIV, when I hop in the partyfinder and do some EX content with randos and we're wiping over and over again, the retries feel exhausting because the rotations are so boring and the encounter design is so scripted. It's literally just re-running the same scenario over and over again until we wipe because assigning clock spots and small groups and expecting people to just remember them is too much for some people. Idk, I'm in a weird spot. I like being able to just jump into the roulette and do stuff and clear it. But it's so insultingly simplistic; it's like they think anyone who does this stuff is playing the game without thumbs. Meanwhile, the more challenging stuff doesn't even feel particularly enjoyable. It just takes longer because you're all held hostage until That One Guy who doesn't know where to stand finally learns where to stand, and in the meantime you're just redoing the same dance over and over and over.

I want engaging supportive elements. I want to feel like I'm actually helping my team. I want normal mode dutyfinder content with mechanics that -- while simple -- might do more than barely tickle if you don't do them. I want fight scripts that are faster; it's nuts how in something like Aglaia, the bosses take so long to get to the stacking mechanics that in 2023 they're dead before they finish "teaching" the mechs. Maybe speed it up a little bit? Or in Thaleia, the first boss really takes the cake. He spends like 20 years winding up the most obvious tidal wave telegraph ever, and you don't even have to do it; you can just arms length it. Or the arrow guy, he literally has a mechanic that points to where the bad spot is going to be for a century. It just feels like the devs are afraid to do anything engaging for their casual content (which is a BIG chunk of the game's content) because every time they do there's this really loud minority that shows up to complain about it being too punishing like they did with cid or the EW solo duty, or too long like they did for the nier raids, etc. etc.