Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ dungeon difficulty

[Mlem]

I have seen a lot of people lamenting about boring endwalker dungeons celebrating dungeons, trials and raids in dawntrail so far.

Okay but just means they were subbed during Endwalker, still liked the game enough to buy the expansion, and are still subbed now. So if DT's direction actively alienates people, then it makes sense to accommodate them instead.

[Saraide]

Okay but just means they were subbed during Endwalker, still liked the game enough to buy the expansion, and are still subbed now. So if DT's direction actively alienates people, then it makes sense to accommodate them instead.

How do you know they didnt unsub during endwalker or wouldnt have unsubbed if dawntrail was the same as endwalker in this regard?

[Mlem]

How do you know they didnt unsub during endwalker or wouldnt have unsubbed if dawntrail was the same as endwalker in this regard?

Because nobody has shown up here saying that. Nobody in the git gud crowd has talked about personally being frustrated to the point of Endwalker being unplayable. I also took a glance at threads current around Endwalker's launch (not a full read, but it's like 20 pages in?) and there was no exodus of players off the back of the quality of dungeon gameplay at the time. No wave of hardcore casuals throwing up their hands and quitting. Indeed, dungeons seemed relatively unremarked at the time compared to how divisive they've been in DT.

By contrast, for DT, I have seen people saying they're done either because of the quality of the story, scenes and voice acting and pointing out how well Genshin fills that niche, or because of accessibility issues in MSQ and combat content with GW2 being pointed as an alternative. I don't always understand why these people have those problems, but I do believe them when they say they have them.

In other words, I think that, frankly, if the MSQ dungeons were nerfed to EW levels, all the hardcore casuals will grumble and moan and still stay subbed whereas if no course change is applied, at least some people will leave and the community will be worse off for it. So the business case I think is really clear; having an accessible game with a reasonable amount of rewarding casual combat content makes FFXIV bigger and more profitable.


And again, I think having a Story Mode checkbox that trivializes a Duty Support pass of the problematic dungeons with a giant buff would be an extremely low cost way of at least providing accessibility.

[Saraide]

Because nobody has shown up here saying that. Nobody in the git gud crowd has talked about personally being frustrated to the point of Endwalker being unplayable. I also took a glance at threads current around Endwalker's launch (not a full read, but it's like 20 pages in?) and there was no exodus of players off the back of the quality of dungeon gameplay at the time. No wave of hardcore casuals throwing up their hands and quitting. Indeed, dungeons seemed relatively unremarked at the time compared to how divisive they've been in DT.

By contrast, for DT, I have seen people saying they're done either because of the quality of the story, scenes and voice acting and pointing out how well Genshin fills that niche, or because of accessibility issues in MSQ and combat content with GW2 being pointed as an alternative. I don't always understand why these people have those problems, but I do believe them when they say they have them.

In other words, I think that, frankly, if the MSQ dungeons were nerfed to EW levels, all the hardcore casuals will grumble and moan and still stay subbed whereas if no course change is applied, at least some people will leave and the community will be worse off for it. So the business case I think is really clear; having an accessible game with a reasonable amount of rewarding casual combat content makes FFXIV bigger and more profitable.


And again, I think having a Story Mode checkbox that trivializes a Duty Support pass of the problematic dungeons with a giant buff would be an extremely low cost way of at least providing accessibility.

Oh we got a business expert in the house. You know amount of hours played in endwalker was kinda low compared to how many players were subbed, right? That's by itself a worrying sign because those people are the closest to just stopping entirely, on top of more likely not engaging with the cashshop. I'm sure as business expert you know this though.
Also, how do you know people will actually quit over this supposedly insurmountable difficulty? People have complained about hades, shinryu, holminster, seat of sacrifice being far too hard. And yet they made it through.

[Mlem]

Oh we got a business expert in the house. You know amount of hours played in endwalker was kinda low compared to how many players were subbed, right? That's by itself a worrying sign because those people are the closest to just stopping entirely, on top of more likely not engaging with the cashshop. I'm sure as business expert you know this though.
Also, how do you know people will actually quit over this supposedly insurmountable difficulty? People have complained about hades, shinryu, holminster, seat of sacrifice being far too hard. And yet they made it through.

I'm not a business expert. Never said I was. I'm just pointing out the obvious. All of the folks here rejecting the experiences of players not able to do the same things they do were perfectly happy playing Endwalker.

Here's another thing I'm not though. I'm not a particularly long time player. I did not clear any of those difficulty gates you mentioned while they were on content and not outgeared. Why? Because like a huge number of other players, I joined during the pandemic, during a period when FFXIV's population grew rapidly. In that regard, low hours played compared to subs during EW, if that is indeed the case, makes sense because you have lots of casual players throwing money at Yoship on the regular without putting that many hours in. If that's the case, catering to that population is even more important.

[Saraide]

I'm not a business expert. Never said I was. I'm just pointing out the obvious. All of the folks here rejecting the experiences of players not able to do the same things they do were perfectly happy playing Endwalker.

Then you dont know what the best financial choice is in this situation and are not pointing out the obvious. Being subbed is not the same as being perfectly happy either.

[Saraide]

Here's another thing I'm not though. I'm not a particularly long time player. I did not clear any of those difficulty gates you mentioned while they were on content and not outgeared. Why? Because like a huge number of other players, I joined during the pandemic, during a period when FFXIV's population grew rapidly. In that regard, low hours played compared to subs during EW, if that is indeed the case, makes sense because you have lots of casual players throwing money at Yoship on the regular without putting that many hours in. If that's the case, catering to that population is even more important.

Catering to MSQ andies who will unsub one month in because they are done with MSQ?

[Mlem]

Catering to MSQ andies who will unsub one month in because they are done with MSQ?

After buying an entire expansion?

If all it takes is an option in the Duty Support, I'd say at that point, they've paid for your alpaca.

[Magikazam]

By contrast, for DT, I have seen people saying they're done either because of the quality of the story, scenes and voice acting and pointing out how well Genshin fills that niche, or because of accessibility issues in MSQ and combat content with GW2 being pointed as an alternative. I don't always understand why these people have those problems, but I do believe them when they say they have them.

All I'm gonna say is that if people thing GW2 will cater more to their turbo casual tier of difficulty they should reconsider their choice before they enter a single non solo instanced dungeon equivalent in that game.

[Aeterio]

that's a complete lie, we are ANCHORED to the game, there is a reason the Sunk Cost fallacy is a thing, generally if you are at the high end you are already extremely entrenched so you just, tolerate it, until you get to a break point, this new content is extremely refreshing and revitalizes the community.