because of duty support is slightly more difficult content even possible?

[Absurdity]

????
They can be programed to dodge everything, they don't need to be smart.

Yes, to dodge big orange nono zones. And that's basically where their capabilities end.

Activating things? Priority target switching? Mechanics that require different objectives from each "player"?

Trusts have basically shoehorned dungeon mechanics into "dodge the cleave, dodge the point-blank, dodge the line, dodge the donut AoE, don't stand in the bad"

[AmiableApkallu]

Given the (current) heavily-scripted nature of fights, SE could have trusts do whatever mechanic they can imagine. They need only program the trusts for all the possibilities and assume that the player will adapt to whatever pre-programmed plan the trusts execute (as they already do for, say, stack markers).

[Kuroka]

Let me give you some examples.

See my problem there is, youre neither new at 70, 80, 90 or soon 91-100... i just dont see why there shouldnt be a difficulty curve, if you are not good enough to progress, it cant be helped...

[TaleraRistain]

There are still the cases where there are fights are just a downgrade in comparison. Nidhogg from the Aery, Ser Grinnaux from the Vault and the second boss from Castrum Abania.

In what manner? I haven't done Aery in a bit but I do recall Sable Price is still there, and there's a large line AoE now and I think there are some personal AoEs to deal with that we didn't have before. There isn't the part with Estinien's eye but gathering around an NPC wasn't that challenging and there is still an add phase.

Grinnaux is almost unchanged. He still does the gravity ball, still does tears, still does knockback into those tears, and still does the circular floor bacon. I didn't find the Vault too much different at all.

The Castrum Abania boss lost the elemental mechanic but he gets a floor with the patchwork pattern where the safe spots alternate, towers (I can't recall if it had those), personal AoEs to resolve, and personal line AoEs that have to be spread out from each other. Plus I can't remember if he had a stack before but I believe he has one now. Given NPCs can do things like Zot's first boss I don't think they would have had difficulty coding the elemental mechanic. I think that changed that because it was obtuse and was something very often missed with real players.

[Jojoya]

MSQ is not the place to be looking for more difficult content regardless. MSQ is intended for all players and so needs to be suitable for a variety of skill levels.

Players who want more difficult content should be looking at Criterion, EX trials, Savage raids and Ultimates.

[Jeeqbit]

See my problem there is, youre neither new at 70, 80, 90 or soon 91-100... i just dont see why there shouldnt be a difficulty curve, if you are not good enough to progress, it cant be helped...

There is a difficulty curve. Just not one that many veteran players seem capable of noticing.

Obviously I went over my example of Aetherchemical Research Facility, but there are other examples going all the way to 90.

Level 90 dungeons don't telegraph everything with red circles and try to find unique animations instead or rely on brain training. They will kill you with Doom in many cases if you get hit by a mechanic. Some of them are even rather fast-paced and can catch you out for a while until you get used to them like the EW leveling dungeons. How about that sand spider in the latest dungeon? The second boss in Alzadaal's was a bit beyond some people's level of focus. I think last time I did it I was tanking the boss on a Ninja.

The point is it's a curve that just isn't going to be noticed by people who are only going to be satisfied if it's extreme, savage or ultimate level.

[Maltothoris]

In what manner? I haven't done Aery in a bit but I do recall Sable Price is still there, and there's a large line AoE now and I think there are some personal AoEs to deal with that we didn't have before. There isn't the part with Estinien's eye but gathering around an NPC wasn't that challenging and there is still an add phase.

Grinnaux is almost unchanged. He still does the gravity ball, still does tears, still does knockback into those tears, and still does the circular floor bacon. I didn't find the Vault too much different at all.

The Castrum Abania boss lost the elemental mechanic but he gets a floor with the patchwork pattern where the safe spots alternate, towers (I can't recall if it had those), personal AoEs to resolve, and personal line AoEs that have to be spread out from each other. Plus I can't remember if he had a stack before but I believe he has one now. Given NPCs can do things like Zot's first boss I don't think they would have had difficulty coding the elemental mechanic. I think that changed that because it was obtuse and was something very often missed with real players.

For the first part, it was you have to heal Estinien. Otherwise, the new stuff was all taken from Niddhog's trial.

For Grinnaux, his tears now disappear after he does his knockback. Before the update, his tears used to persist throughout the whole fight until you defeated him.

[Supersnow845]

MSQ is not the place to be looking for more difficult content regardless. MSQ is intended for all players and so needs to be suitable for a variety of skill levels.

Players who want more difficult content should be looking at Criterion, EX trials, Savage raids and Ultimates.

It would help if the MSQ actually did literally anything to encourage people to improve so there isn’t a gulf of difficulty wider than the Pacific Ocean between the weakest extreme and whatever the hell aetherfont is

The MSQ should be accessible but still have a somewhat sloping difficulty curve, right now outside of in from the cold (which is arguably more unintuitive than difficult) the hardest part of the MSQ is heavensward right around when the bosses stop pulling their punches with mechanics but you still lack alot of the high level tools, anything beyond amurot except maybe zot is easier than basically anything from sorhm al to mt gulg

You see this in the trials, the biggest fail point in SOS is the fact all 8 people have to pass the times event but otherwise it’s a relatively complex trial for a normal but people rarely fail it. Zodiark and haedalyn aren’t really any harder but people fail them all the time, simply because the MSQ stops expecting you to care once you pass gulg (and even my zot example is really only a mild stress test on the healer not the DPS)

The MSQ difficulty is all over the place and do ant slope very well to your expected skill at endgame

[Valence]

Hearing Yoshi-P mention that the game is too easy and wanting to bring a semblance of struggle back sorta amped me up but then i thought about trust/duty support.

I dont use trust, theyre slow and make things boring and running with people is way more fun because you never know what kinda players youll be paired up with and what that means for the run.

but alot of dungeons have been redone to make them work with the trust, so how will they handle that in the future, im guessing they cant go to far because the trust arent smart enough to handle certain mechanics.

will they have 2 versions of dungeons instead, a simple trust version and another one for live players?

Possibly a hot take but I do feel that roulettes that by definition don't use Duty Support, should amp up the damage and requirements of dungeons, if nothing else (and also please, please, introduce hard syncs for endgame instances, not just the expansion cap). That way you'd have the story friendly Duty Support which I actually appreciate for first time runs, which allows me to immerse better into the story, and roulette dungeons that would ask for a little more, and just doing this would essentially require nothing but a modifier behind mobs and boss stats.

Obviously I'd like more than that, but that would be a start. More could be optionally coded attacks and patterns that would only appear in the roulette versions (unlocked by the mode).

It is called variant and criterion.

Please no, variant and criterion have nothing to do with actual dungeons. Don't go mixing apples and oranges.

[Rudje]

in from the cold (which is arguably more unintuitive than difficult)

In From The Cold's difficulty arises from it testing skills that the game doesn't give a shit about outside of IFtC. Navigating without a map (especially in a place where everything looks the same), understanding enemy aggro types and radii, and doing both of the former while being nerfed to hell are not things you're forced to see unless you take a break from msq to do Eureka (which at least has a damn map), which is required for nothing in the story, and none of that is tested with a time limit. It's just badly designed, which only looks like difficulty if your only metric is player failure.