Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ dungeon difficulty

[Miarchu]

After five expansions and 100 levels, you’d think we'd have a solid grasp on most mechanics, even if they overlap or are slightly different. Square has even streamlined a lot of visual markers for clarity, like stacking and personal AOE's.

In my group, we have players with varying skill levels, similar to playing with randoms. If you fail miserably in a dungeon or trial, there’s usually plenty of room for others to help you recover. And if you wipe because of a new mechanic, remember: don’t be scared of wiping—it happens, it's part of the fun and of overcoming adversity. (Please don't take that away..)

[Kalocin]

Seems like an easy way to solve this problem would be to simply make Trusts have a difficulty toggle like solo duties do (or echo etc), or have each boss similar to trials with a free revive or something. Personally, I actually find that trusts can be harder as they're a bit unpredictable in their pathing and often can get you killed which resets the fight. I'm guessing they have the "reset on death" mechanic so people wouldn't just afk and not resurrect but it makes running with people who can battle res you a lot less stressful. I imagine if they changed this up, the difficulty spike wouldn't be so bad for those struggling as it's a bit punishing if you die near the end of the boss fight.

Personally I don't mind some of the difficulty, I just think they need to improve their netcode if they want to make mechanics more twitchy that instagib.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I think a lot of these threads like this one could easily be solved if we had a poll system on the forums.

So if you disagree and think the MSQ dungeons are fine as they are hit a like on this post.

[remiff]

I am absolutely, absolutely not in agreement with you; the increased difficulty is just perfect.
It's not even that high, only the first boss of a level 100 dungeon, "the park," is maybe a bit difficult, but honestly, saying that the instances in Dawntrail are too hard is a huge exaggeration.
The dungeons in Endwalker simply had no flavor because they were too easy, and people asked for a slight increase in difficulty without making them unplayable.
They did that, and now people are complaining? Honestly, I will never understand those of you who cry for a nerf at every turn when the content remains totally casual-friendly...

The developers don't want people to get bored in the dungeons, and that's completely legitimate.
Wiping while discovering content is totally normal, and if you're not happy with the difficulty, feel free to look up guides on the internet.
That's what Yoshi-P advises players who are not comfortable with the instances to do.
The devs want to increase communication between players, which had completely disappeared because all the game content was simply bland.

I will never support those who want the game to be a kiddie pool.

[Deslyxic]

I think a lot of these threads like this one could easily be solved if we had a poll system on the forums..

Oh, it would be absolutely and overwhelmingly stacked against OP. But I firmly believe these forums don't represent the views of the community as a whole, no forum populace ever does.

[SueTheCake]

I have to disagree.

The instance design in Dawntrail has been some of the best this game has ever had, I feel. I've been playing since 2.0, not long after it was revived from 1.0, and I don't ever remember any encounter hitting me like some of these new fights, save for maybe the level 89 trial (if you know you know) though that was more for story reasons than design philosophy. Well, and I guess Orbonne Monastery simply because all the bosses are so quotable. The encounters are well designed (though I side-eye the first boss of the Streetwalk and his legion of mascot minions) and require me to use more mental bandwith than anything that came out in the last expansion. I physically found myself unable to do the mental calculations for the line swords in the 99 trial so I opted to rely on a friend and followed them to the safe spots. I was fine.

Endwalker's content was disappointingly easy. It was borderline boring. Whoever was in charge of the instance design team in Dawntrail seriously cooked, but by the nature of the content becoming more difficult it is expected that not every player is going to be able to adjust to it. It is unfortunate that some people have difficulty - it's part of being human. I wouldn't denigrate people who cannot do the content or have issue with it, but equally we have to understand that that fact alone is not deserving of pandering on a broader scale.

FFXIV cultivates a large playerbase of multiple people who all have different desires. Roleplayers, Casuals, Hardcore Raiders, Glamourers, whatever. The devs cannot make content that appeals to everyone, and though far from perfect as a sentiment, it calls to mind what the Helldivers developers said: a game for everyone is a game for no-one. In fact, I was so surprised by so many people criticizing Dawntrail's instanced content, much more so than those who criticized the story - I feel like these are the most fun and engaging fights CBU3 has cooked up in a long while.

Is there an easy answer to this? Perhaps permitting people to clear content with Trusts and no EXP/drops with the Echo ala Unsynced content is probably the best. Removing duties from roulettes is a non-starter because then the queue times for people who are getting through the game will be even longer. I've gotten the Nier raids recently after having not done them for a very long time and while I had to blow off the rust and did die once or twice it's not the end of the world.

But the reality is we cannot have the game's content suffer because not every person can clear it. It cannot appeal to the lowest common denominator. Giving them a way to complete dungeons that are necessary if they physically cannot on their own is one option, but it should not affect the overarching design philosophy of the game for the majority of the populace. Give them tools to succeed, but do not take those tools away from the rest of the playerbase.

[Laerune]

There is a reason why SE has given all roles more healing skills. They know that players will need to adjust, they will fail and die, fail and die, untill they learn and win. Asking for easier content in the first month of the game is to soon, in my opinion. I died many times, I learned and completed the dungeon/trail/raid. We become better, SE makes harder content and the cycle repeats.

[Mooserocka33]

Oh, it would be absolutely and overwhelmingly stacked against OP. But I firmly believe these forums don't represent the views of the community as a whole, no forum populace ever does.

maybe that should tell you something.

[Xapapetsu]

I personally don't believe the dungeons are all that much harder than endwalker or shadowbringers dungeons. They are designed differently with physical telegraphs where you need to look at the boss, but that's been a thing since ARR, you just had more time to react to them since it was teaching you the game. At level 100 I think you should be versed enough in the game to be able to learn the telegraphs and adjust to them. If you're struggling in content play with other players, they'll literally carry you through the content. I think adjusting the trust would be fine if the developers want to make the game easier for people but I don't think making the dungeons easier is beneficial to the majority of players. On the opposite end I think extreme dungeons would be more of a benefit for players to be able to understand extreme mechanics to move towards extreme and savage raiding. With that being said I think the changes to trust is a good idea because it doesn't affect the entire player base. As for the difficulty I wouldn't compare it to souls games, people won't take you seriously when you make that comparison because it's not even close.

[Bright-Flower]

Hard disagree from me. I've loved the dungeons, trials and raids so far this expansion. In fact, this is the first time since Stormblood I felt inspired to actualy pursue doing an EX trial and got my first Valigarmanda kills in last night and it was great.

While the msq was a mixed bag for me personally, one I overall enjoyed in the moment but have issues with looking back on it, the pve content has been really good. The dungeons are all fun and engaging. (Even if the first dungeon ends up feeling kind of pointless story wise, it's still a fun romp.) Really the only boss fight I take issue with in DT so far is the first boss of Deadwalk, and that's only because latency can make dodging the enemies on that one frustrating and wonky rather than having an issue with the fight in theory.

For the first boss of the msq 100 dungeon, just keep an eye on the shapes as they appear and don't worry about doing damage if you need to and priorize moving into position for each one. It's a tight check but doable unless you have a lot of lag, which will get you killed in just about any fight anyway.

Any comparison to Dark Souls/Elden Ring is overblown. This isn't anywhere near that level, even accounting for how Dark Souls and similar games tend to have a reputation for being harder than they actually are. Not everything mildly challenging is 'dark souls.'